‘I’m glad you did,’ Sarah said, explaining the events which had led up to that point. Richie had saved her life. She stared out the window, waiting for the welcome sight of blue lights. Deep down she already knew that the fourteen-year-old girl trapped in the wardrobe for all these years had finally been freed.

‘I’m going to clear my father’s name.’

‘You are?’

Sarah nodded. Only now, through the eyes of an adult, was she able to see what really happened that night.

56

Monday, 11th December 2019

Sarah stared at the man before her as he struggled to take his last breaths. It was hardly surprising that nobody was by his hospital bed. All his life, this man had placed money before family, worshipped advancement over relationships. There was nothing wrong with having ambition, but when you became a shark you ate your friends. That’s how it had been with her uncle, John. He was part of a boys’ club which covered up his mistakes, portraying him as a generous businessman, someone to be admired. But nobody close to him was fooled. His wife had divorced him years ago and moved halfway across the world. They never had children because he had no room in his life for them. It was probably best.

Sarah had assumed it was grief that had made him this way. His brother was dead. So was his nephew, his sister-in-law and his parents. But now the test results were back. The blood found on the silencer recovered in Blackhall Manor was her father’s. A partial fingerprint was also found. It matched the man before her. Sarah’s family had died at his hands.

As Sarah dug into his affairs, she always met with a barrier. It was Richie who had helped her unearth evidence over the last four weeks and gained access to computer files which screamed the disturbing truth. He also accessed the phone number of a woman who knew the story first-hand. John’s ex-wife, Mandy. She may have moved halfway across the world, but she took Richie’s call with the steady acceptance of a woman who had been expecting it all along.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to do this at home?’ Richie said, handing Sarah Mandy’s phone number. But Sarah was ready. ‘I want him to hear it,’ Sarah said. She needed the words to reach the recesses of John’s mind. He’d had a long and successful life, but he could take what he had done into the next world. She wasn’t letting him off the hook now. Given what Richie had told her, Mandy was ready to confess all. Sarah dialled the number.

Mandy’s responses were hesitant, her voice thick with shame. But with a little encouragement from Sarah, she seemed grateful to get it off her chest. ‘I’d always had my suspicions,’ she said. ‘I knew John, and I knew what he was capable of.’