“I am Chief Inspector Macintyre.”
I nod. “I’ve seen you around.”
“Well, yes.”
We sit in silence for a moment.
“Waiting for Waters to come back,” he says awkwardly, staring at me.
I eat another cookie and Georgie arrives a few minutes later, holding my tea.
“Thanks,” I say, and take it hungrily, dipping a Bourbon into it.
“Thera,” says Chief Inspector Macintyre. “I just want to let you know your parents are here.”
“They are?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the—in reception,” says Georgie.
Macintyre glares at her and then turns to me. “I want to interview you this afternoon…as a suspect for the murder of Eve Adamson. Detective Waters is present, as a suitable second party is required to be in the case of minors, but would you like one of your parents here while we talk?”
I think about this, and shake my head. “Probably not. They’d be annoyed at me.”
“Why do you think they would be annoyed at you?”
“They thought I was being good and not thinking about the murderer, but I wasn’t. I was just acting good. I’m a good actress. I was tricking them so they would unground me and then I could go out whenever I wanted and find the killer.”
Macintyre draws back, still eyeing me weirdly. He scratches his stubbly chin and flips open a notebook. “We’re going to record this interview, Thera. Do you understand?”
“Sure,” I say. “I’m really smart. I know how police interviews work.”
He nods to Georgie, who presses a button on a big machine on the desk.
“I have lots of questions for you,” Macintyre says.
“About what?”
He looks stern and I don’t know why, but I do know I am getting tired of people looking stern at me. What do they want from me? I’ve caught the killer. I handed her to them on a plate. They hadn’t done a fucking thing and I managed it all! “About what happened on the tape.”
I fold my arms, just like him, and look stern back. “What about the tape?”
TRANSCRIPT: AUDIO CASSETTE TAPE
Recorded Tuesday 17 August 1999
Recorded by: Thera Wilde
(age 11, D.O.B. 1 April 1988)
Two voices on tape:
Thera Wilde (age 11, D.O.B. 1 April 1988) [TW]
Eve Adamson (age 28, D.O.B. 23 January 1971) [EA]
Tape on, approximately 16.30 hours.
Sound: heavy breathing
Sound: zip
Sound: metallic clattering sound
TW: Wake up, Mrs. A! Wakey, wakey! I didn’t know you were called Eve.
EA: Oh my God, what? Oh, my head.
TW: Can you sit up, please? I need to talk to you about something.
EA: What’s happening? What the fuck is this?
TW: Don’t swear at me. I’m giving you a chance. To tell me your side of the story.
EA: Where’s Nick? [screaming] NICK! NICK!
TW: Stop shouting. No one is going to hear you, are they? You brought me to a deserted bunker.
EA: I didn’t bring you here! You dragged me here! Oh, my whole body is sore.
TW: [sighs] Urgh, stop moaning. We’re bored of you.
EA: We?
TW: Er, I. I’m bored of you.
Clanging of metal
EA: [panic] What are you doing? What’s that?
TW: I know you killed Billie. I want to know why.
EA: No, I didn’t! No, I didn’t! It was Nick. He’s sick. It’s not his fault. He goes crazy if he doesn’t do it!
TW: Do what?
EA: You know.
TW: Why don’t you tell me?
EA: You know already! Pretending to be innocent. Flirting with him. I knew your game, you little—
TW: Little what?
Beat of silence.
TW: Were you about to use bad language again?
EA: You led him on. Where is he?
TW: At your home.
EA: He’ll be after you! He’ll be coming to find me. I always go home right after. I always go straight back to him.
TW: Right after what?
EA: What?
TW: You said you always go home right after. Right after what?
EA: Nothing. After nothing. After he gets with the girls.
TW: [laughs] You mean after you kill them and clean up after him?
EA: No! No I didn’t say that. Don’t be silly, Thera.
TW: For a teacher, you’re really pretty stupid.
EA: It’s him! I have nothing to do with it!
TW: Well, if you’re not going to say what you did, I will. He went into the woods with Billie, and you waited in the car, like a getaway driver.
EA: I’m his [shouts] WIFE. I wouldn’t wait in the car while he—
TW: [interrupts] Nick raped Billie. He wasn’t meant to, just then—he was meant to wait, so she could become a regular girlfriend for him, but he couldn’t. You got curious—no, jealous—and so you walked into the woods. You were probably muttering to yourself, “What’s taking so long?” when really you knew anyway. Then she was screaming, and you ran in and said stop it, now we’ll have to kill her because otherwise she’ll tell on you. And your pervy husband said no, I want to keep going.
EA: Shut up, you little witch, shut [shouts] UP!
TW: I will if you tell me what really happened.
EA: Just shut your fucking mouth. [emphasis] Shut your fucking mouth!
TW: I bet Nick liked Billie way, way, way more than he liked you. And he likes me better too. If you weren’t around, he’d be with one of us. A girl. Not a woman.
EA: No! No, he wouldn’t, that’s a lie! You’re a liar!
TW: I’m eleven. Why do you care what I think? Oh yeah, because your husband’s a perv for eleven-year-old girls.
EA: [shouts] NO. Fuck you, you little slut! I’m going to fucking kill you, you stupid bitch, you horrible, disgusting piece of [squeals] AH!
TW: I said stop swearing.
EA: [unclear]
TW: So you’re going to kill me, are you? Like you killed Billie after you saw Nick loved her more than he loved you?
EA: No, no that’s not what happened. I saw that little boy run out of the woods, and I went in to tell him! I knew the boy would tell on him. I didn’t want the police to take him away. You understand, Thera. He’s my husband.
TW: That little boy is my friend Nathan, and he’s actually almost as tall as you. Nathan’s the one who told me your jeep was at the woods today. So you were right. He did tell on you. To me.
EA: Well, I probably should have done something about him, then, shouldn’t I? [mutters] I might when I get out of here.
TW: [murmurs] You’re not getting out of here.
EA: What?
TW: So you’re confessing? You killed Billie?
EA: Why would I confess about something like that to you?
TW: Why not? Get it off your chest.
EA: You’ll tell someone.
TW: I won’t let you go until you confess. And then I will.
EA: Why…why would you do that? Let me go?
TW: I only want to know why you did it. I’m so sad about it. But you have to promise you won’t hurt me when I let you go.
EA: Promise?
TW: Yes. You have to cross your heart and hope to die.
EA: Okay.
TW: Okay? You promise?
EA: Yes. I promise.
TW: So…you killed Billie.
EA: [whispers] Yes. I killed her. Is that what you wanted to know, Thera? [calm] I wrung her neck, and then I drove Nick home, and then I came straight back and dressed her, burnt her t
o get the DNA off her, cleared up his mess, his…condom. He didn’t even use them in the beginning. I made him start, so he wouldn’t leave DNA evidence. I do everything that needs to be done but that he won’t do. [cries] Do you know how hard that is for me?
TW: Did she say anything? A funny comeback or last words?
EA: No. She was out of it already. He gave her a pill, I think.
TW: That’s how Billie died? That seems so…so lame. Her whole life just gone. Just like that?
EA: Why do you care so much? [sniffing] She was your rival. You looked exactly the same, you did everything together, but she was prettier and more popular. Now you have no competition.
TW: Billie was my friend.
EA: Puh.
TW: She was my friend.
Beat of silence.
TW: You don’t have any friends at all, do you?
EA: I have Nick. He’s all I need. We have been in love since the moment we met.
Beat of silence.
TW: Why did you go back to the woods today? Are you sad about Billie? Or do you just feel sorry for yourself because your hubby likes kids?
EA: [sighs] He doesn’t like them more than me. He just has a compulsion. He has to have them occasionally. That’s not my fault, is it?
TW: Why do you kill them?
Beat of silence.
TW: Go on. It’s only me here. I just want to know.
EA: Because if I don’t, they’ll tell, and I’ll lose him.
Beat of silence.
EA: Is that it?
TW: Is there anything else?
Beat of silence.
EA: Yes, actually. You’re looking at me like I’m so terrible. You think I’m so different from you, that you couldn’t be me. But I’m going to tell you why it isn’t my fault. I’m going to tell you a story…about a little girl just like you.
Eve told me her story. But Macintyre fast forwards through this part.
EA: I folded her up into a large shopping bag and dropped her off a bridge late at night. I felt almost…that I’d got away with it…[whispers] powerful, and excited.
TW: Excited?
EA: No, no, that’s wrong. But it felt strangely empowering, to have such an effect on a life that you could end it, to know I was in control of something, when I felt under Nick’s control in so many ways. When we got back to England, we talked about the little girl, and we agreed no more small children. I knew about men. Full of sexual perversions. Nick wasn’t like the others, he really wasn’t. He didn’t force anyone. He liked to make them feel good, feel beautiful, understand their sexuality when it was just becoming real to them. They always wanted him. Always.
TW: What about Ellie?
EA: Who?
TW: The little girl.
EA: I didn’t tell you her name.
TW: Wasn’t it Ellie?
EA: I…I don’t know. I don’t know what it was. Stop interrupting me, I’m trying to explain something to you. Nick has always been strong and powerful and handsome. Why wouldn’t everyone want him? Want to drown in him? To do him every favor, sexual and otherwise; to do everything he asks? After I helped him out with the little girl, he worshipped me even more, bought me more beautiful things, I felt that he loved me completely and would never leave me. I felt secure for the first time in my life. We had a bond that couldn’t be broken. We would die without each other. He kept seeing girls, but not little girls. Only girls that wanted him and knew what they were doing. That had…gone through puberty. Become adults. We had conversations where we agreed on these rules. They were difficult at first but I saw he couldn’t help how he felt. He loved them too much. And he didn’t plan anything, he just got swept up in things. When he saw Billie in the village, he called me and said you need to come with the jeep, I think it’s going to happen again, and it needs to happen now. I’d been…preparing Billie. We thought if he just had one girl, if he could keep things reasonable…someone who had gone through puberty, who would touch him of her own free will, and if he didn’t go too far with her, didn’t hurt her, then we wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of…disposing of her. We went looking for her and saw her on the fields. He was going crazy just wanting to talk to her. I said that’s it, you just talk. No more. We need to take it slowly this time. You need to take it slowly. We had been discussing for a while about how to approach her, how to be intimate without risking too much. Possibly I would invite her over, or find her in the village and drive her home on the promise of…cake or…Well, ultimately, it didn’t work. When he saw her that day he had to have her. I knew I had to be there, in case…to clean up the mess. Believe me, Thera, he doesn’t want to be like this. He doesn’t plan it, he can’t control it, it just happens, quickly, before he’s realized what he’s doing. It’s a disease. You can’t blame someone who has a disease.
TW: It was like he couldn’t help himself.
EA: Exactly. Thera, you don’t know what it’s like to be so lonely and overlooked—you’re bright, you’re popular—and then to have someone come into your life and love you. Nick is a good man. He doesn’t deserve prison. It’s not his fault. If you had been there, if you could see him, you would understand. How distraught he was afterward. I couldn’t let him be taken away. After the little girl in Florida, I gave him permission to bring the next girl home while I was away visiting my parents. She liked him, so she was into the things he wanted to do. They stopped doing things when she started to get upset that he sometimes hurt her. I told him to be more careful; we didn’t want a repeat of the Florida episode. But then the next one was a girl from the school where he was working as a teaching assistant, on a temporary contract. He had to leave work and he had this compulsion to have her. At first, she came home with him because she liked him. They all did. But then he drugged her. I was away again; I wasn’t there to stop him. When I got back, I said what was he trying to do, the police were going to come. She was hurt, she was crying. Being in that much pain, it was a mercy to end her life, just like when I found the little girl, half-dead; like when I found Billie. I had him blindfold the girl from his school, and then I stopped her breathing. [tuts] Our whole room was…in disarray. Her clothes were everywhere…They looked like they had been having a party there.
TW: You didn’t like him being there with her.
EA: Well, she knew he was married! These girls know. He wears a ring on his finger. They know what they’re getting into. But they’ll go and tell on him afterward anyway, won’t they? As if they aren’t to blame at all. As if they didn’t want to fuck him.
TW: You wanted him to stay with you.
EA: Fucking a girl under sixteen is an automatic prison sentence. I couldn’t let that happen. He was so happy, so grateful again when the next girl died. It gave me a power I…
TW: And there were others?
EA: A few. A homeless girl and…a few.
TW: And then Billie.
EA: Yes. But Billie was meant to be different. He was meant to take his time, gain her trust. Except he couldn’t wait. Didn’t wait. She was near the end when I found her. I just made it quick. Nick has his flaws but he tries not to go through with it, he really does. I’m the only one who understands because I’ve been there with him through everything. I’ve always been completely dependent upon him, but when I cleared up his mess those times, I saw how he is dependent on me too. He needs me.
TW: To kill the girls.
EA: No, no. No, Thera. He needs me because he loves me. We’re in love. We can’t live without each other. Love sweeps you up into situations you can’t control, and you have to make the best choice you can at the time. It begs to survive, deep inside you. You know to keep it alive you’ll do anything. You’re like a slave to love. A slave to each other. So you see why I had to do it. It’s not my fault. I’m a victim too.
Beat of silence.
EA: Are you going to let me go
now, Thera?
TW: Why?
EA: Why what?
TW: Why would I do that?
EA: Because you see now why I did what I did. It’s not fair for any of us. I’m just like you. I’ve always thought we had a lot in common, Thera, always. And I’m going to tell Nick off this time, I really am. What he did to you was terrible.
TW: How do you know? You were downstairs.
EA: I just do. It’s very painful.
TW: Well, it wasn’t that terrible. Certainly it’s not best for me that I die after it.
EA: That’s not what I meant.
TW: Anyway, I’ve done it before.
EA: What?
TW: Yeah, with Nathan Nolan. So don’t act like a know-it-all.
EA: Goodness, I—
TW: What about Jenny Ann Welder?
EA: What?
TW: Didn’t Nick kill her?
EA: Erm…Why are you asking about her? She was in Scotland. We don’t live in Scotland.
TW: I got the impression he might have killed her.
EA: From who?
TW: Um. No one. Did he?
EA: Who have you been talking to?
TW: Did he kill her?
EA: I…don’t know, Thera, I don’t…follow him around everywhere.
TW: Have you been to Scotland recently?
Beat of silence.
EA: We went there on a short holiday in March. I suppose… Gosh, I suppose he could have killed her.
TW: It’s so weird that you never suspected anything.
EA: Well, that’s all finished now. Nick. The girls.
TW: Oh, really? How are you going to end it?
EA: I’m going to go to the police. And tell them about Nick. Then he’ll stop. It’s gone on too long.
TW: He’s already been stopped.
EA: Pardon?
TW: I said he’s already been stopped. He won’t ever hurt another little girl again. And, as a bonus, I think he will be a deterrent for pedos and pervs everywhere. Hopefully it’ll be in all the newspapers.
EA: What? Why would he be a deterrent?
TW: Because I killed him.
EA: No, you didn’t.
TW: Yes, I did. He’s dead.
Dead Girls Page 29
