She’d thought Sam was a boy. They all had. Caitlin never said she was gay. She hadn’t wanted us to know Sam was a girl!

Fucking Samantha. That bitch had been nothing but trouble in her life. If it wasn’t for her, Meredith thought frantically, she’d never have dropped out of school, broken her promise to look after Mum, abandoned Pete … and for what? To have this maniac stalk and kill everyone she loved?

Caitlin dropped her hand, and Meredith fell to the floor, gagging and clutching her throat, holding her palm tight over her eye because it felt as if it was about to pop out.

Caitlin crouched down next to her, her knees cracking like dry twigs. ‘But hey, you were worth waiting for. This has been worth waiting for. And the fun’s only just starting. All we need to do now is one more tiny bit of waiting. We’ll just wait till it starts getting dark. Anything good on the telly?’

When Meredith opened the one eye that still would, there was a gun pointing right at the end of her nose, and beyond it, Caitlin’s sickly smile.

Get back here, Gemma. I need you. Don’t leave me with this crazy person.

The only possible consolation was that if Crazy Caitlin was here with her, Meredith, then at least she couldn’t be anywhere torturing Pete…

Caitlin sat down on the sofa first, jerking the gun to indicate Meredith should join her. Meredith sat cautiously, terrified, but at the same time with a slow, dawning understanding. All the years of threats, memories of the slow swoosh of green paint, abusive letters, mean-spirited snipes and intimidation. The person responsible for all of this, for her near-death experience in the van that night, for her ruined hand. For Ralph’s death, and Andrea’s. That person was sitting right next to her on a sofa. If it wasn’t for Pete’s life being under threat, Meredith would have launched herself at her then and there.

In a tiny way, it was almost – almost – a relief, to put a face to the tormentor, to know that there was a reason; and there was someone to be held accountable for it.

But as she had that thought, another simultaneous one occurred: so it was her own fault that Ralph and Andrea had been killed.

She couldn’t let it happen to Pete as well. She wouldn’t let it.

49

Meredith

They sat on the sofa together in silence for more than two interminable hours, as dusk then gradual darkness pressed against the small square panes of the cottage windows. Where the hell was Gemma?