‘Please, miss, sit down.’
‘He told me stories too, things I could prove, from when he used to work in a children’s home,’ Helena went on, oblivious to the guard. ‘He thought I liked hearing about it, and I did things for him, on the webcam, a skinny body eager for him, but with the camera too low to see my face. I videoed him. Just a camera out of view but pointing at the screen. But I didn’t need to blackmail him into killing the teacher in the end. He thought with his cock, you see. So I promised him that if he killed Keith Welsby, he could be my first time. I made up some lies about Welsby so it sounded as though he deserved to die, a teacher who’d raped a friend but she wouldn’t come forward. That’s what I learned about people like him, that they don’t see it as abuse. They try to twist it as something the girl enjoys.’
‘And then you got me to kill Henry Mason,’ Proctor said, nodding.
The guard started to walk over, impatience showing in his stride.
‘Like the papers said, dominoes, that’s all it was,’ she said. ‘Mason kills Welsby, and you kill Mason when he turned up to claim me, and then someone kills you. Who’d suspect the grieving widow, a victim once before? And I get rid of everyone. You included.’
‘But why did you give the box back to me?’
‘Because you hadn’t been killed!’ Her hand slammed the desk again. ‘I wanted it back in your workshop, so I could interest people in it, hoping they’d do something with it, take it away and work everything out. I couldn’t know anything; that was the point.’
Proctor glowered, a deep pink hue to his cheeks. He’d been trumped. That hurt the most.
‘So you chanced upon Gerald King,’ he said.
‘I didn’t want him involved. I’d hunted around on the same site I used to trap Mason, because the trap was the same, someone eager and underage. I wanted secrets, enough to make someone act, but they were too hard to find. They were mostly cowards in the end, wanting an internet thrill, nothing more. So I gave the honour to someone who deserved it: Gerald, one of your victims. Because that’s what he was to you. It wasn’t really about his daughter. It was about the misery you could spread.’
‘But I didn’t die.’
‘No, and that’s something I’ve got to live with, but you made that happen.’
The guard put his arm across her. ‘Sit down or leave.’ All other conversations drifted into pauses as everyone turned to watch.
‘You weren’t that clever, choosing that spot,’ Proctor said. ‘Didn’t you think I’d suspect something?’
‘Gerald was insistent. It was symbolic.’
‘And what if he hadn’t gone through with it? I’d still be alive.’
‘There’d be someone else. I was prepared to wait. In the end, you trapped yourself. I got lucky. They linked it to you and even found a motive.’
‘Miss, please!’
Proctor’s fingernails tapped on the table surface before he slammed his hand down, unable to control his anger. ‘You’re a killer, just like me.’
Helena stepped round the guard and slapped Proctor hard across the face, the crack of her palm on his cheek turning everyone silent. ‘I’m nothing like you!’
The guard grabbed her around waist and tried to pull her away.
‘You come here to lecture me about morality,’ he said, standing up, his eyes wide with rage. ‘You’re no different.’
‘You’re the one in a cell, not me,’ she screamed, and kicked out at the table.
The sound of footsteps was loud. Firm hands grabbed her by the arms and pulled her away. Another guard grabbed Proctor and pushed his head down to the desk.
‘The police will find the others soon,’ she shouted, as she was led towards the door.
‘Others?’ he said, muffled.
‘Yes, the others. I know where they are.’
She hit the door hard as she was pushed through.
The last word she heard him shout as she was propelled towards the exit was ‘Helena!’ The word was filled with anger and confusion and the knowledge that she’d won. That would torment him. That was her prize.
‘Here she is,’ Joe said.
Helena was walking towards them, her finger under her nose as if sniffling, but when she climbed in there was no sign of tears.
‘You all right?’ Joe said.
She straightened her hair. Her cheeks were red. ‘I will be,’ she said.
‘Where do you want to be?’
‘Just take me home. I need to pack.’
Joe and Sam exchanged glances.
‘Where are you going?’ Sam said.
‘I’m selling up. I can’t live there any more, too many memories of my sister, and of Mark and all of his lies.’
‘Where will you go?’
She thought about that. ‘Somewhere hot. It’s time for a new start. I might even change my name, so that I can disappear. I need to put all of this behind me. There’s nothing for me here except bad memories. I want to go and never be found again.’
‘I can understand that,’ Sam said. ‘Well, good luck, I suppose. You’ll come back for the trial, though?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She frowned and leaned forward, put her hand on the back of Sam’s seat. ‘This sounds stupid,’ she said, ‘but my father’s workshop…’
Joe looked at Sam. He remembered the workshop. The candles, the damp feeling in the air.
‘I was thinking about it before I came up here,’ she said, ‘and about the girls they never found. Well, Mark spent all of his time in there and I never really understood why. The floor is really uneven, you see, as if someone has been digging in there and refilling it, but why would they do that? Then I think about the ones they’ve never found…’ And she shuddered.
Joe knew straight away what she meant. They were in the workshop, buried. He thought back to it. The candles, randomly spaced. He got it now. The candles weren’t there for light. They were markers, little flickering souvenirs of what lay beneath.
Sam pulled his mobile from his pocket. He dialled a number and whispered into it that he needed to meet at Helena’s house.
As Joe watched in her in the rear-view mirror, Helena looked out of the side window, her handbag on her knees. She looked composed, almost content.