Cruel Minds

by Malcolm Richards

  Harriet’s eyes shifted between the two of them.

  “Well, who knows, maybe I can use this newfound fame to get a decent acting gig for once.”

  Emily gave him a warning glance as she moved away from the window and towards the door. “Having your name in the papers isn’t necessarily a good thing, Jerome.”

  She said goodbye to Harriet and Andrew, then headed back to her apartment. Jerome followed soon after.

  “What is it?” he asked. “I mean apart from the mass murder and almost getting killed again?”

  Emily looked away, swinging her shoulders.

  “I just can’t stop thinking about how all of this could have been avoided. Why couldn’t Marcia have stood up to her mother? Why couldn’t she have just said no? And Melody—what the bloody hell was she thinking? Those people didn’t care about her. Not really. And now she’s going to prison for them.”

  Jerome scuffed his shoe against the carpet. “Like you said, she was lonely. Maybe a little unstable too. She had to have been feeling pretty awful about her life to have gone to such extremes, just to feel part of something. You can’t blame someone for feeling alone.”

  “No, but you can blame them for covering up someone’s death. What Franklyn did to Marcia was one of the worst things a person can do. And yes, Sam lost control of his feelings and yes, he made a terrible mistake, but it should have all ended that day. Four people are dead now. Pamela and Melody will go to prison. Meadow Pines will close. It was all for nothing.”

  She heaved her shoulders and for a moment, she felt so angry that curling her fist and driving it against a wall seemed like a good idea. Instead, she pinched her fingers together and took in a deep breath.

  “I’m sure there’s some sort of twisted loyalty in the middle of it all, but you’re right,” Jerome nodded. “It has all the tones of a Shakespearean tragedy.”

  Emily’s face softened. “How are you doing anyway?”

  “Oh, you know—traumatised, terrified. Nothing several months of therapy and a vat full of whiskey won’t cure. Hey, at least I got a date out of it, right? How about you?”

  Emily flinched. Her mind had flashed back to the lake. To disappearing into its murky depths.

  “I almost gave up,” she said, looking up at Jerome. “I was sinking deeper and deeper. The water was filling my lungs and everything began to turn a sort of yellow. For a moment, I gave up trying to get back to the surface. I could hear a voice saying, don’t bother. Just go with it. Close your eyes and sleep. And for a moment, I listened to it. I thought, exactly what is waiting for me on the surface? What is better than being underneath in the darkness? It was peaceful down there. Calm. I didn’t have to worry about the past or the future. I didn’t have to think about Phillip Gerard, or my mother, or what people believed or didn’t believe. I was nothing. I’d ceased to exist. And for a moment, it felt like pure joy.”

  “But you came back up,” Jerome said, his eyes glistening.

  Emily nodded. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “There must have been a reason for that.”

  Emily nodded. “In spite of all the mayhem, I decided I quite like my life after all.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Jerome said, a wicked smile on his lips. “Besides, drowning is never a good look—all that bloating...”

  “The past is in the past. There’s nothing you can do to change that. And who knows what’s waiting for us in the future. So let’s just live our lives as they come.” Emily paused, mulling over her thoughts. “Perhaps I did learn something from my time at Meadow Pines after all.”

  “Oh me too,” Jerome said, as they stared out the living room windows. The sun was sinking over the cityscape, burning through the pollution, casting the sky in an unnatural shade of neon tangerine.

  “Oh yes, what’s that?”

  “That I’m never leaving this magnificent city again.”

  Emily smiled, showing her teeth. “Idiot.”

  They watched the sunset for a while longer. Eventually, Jerome’s empty stomach lured him away to the nearest burger bar, a weekend of murder and mung beans having finally taken its toll.

  Emily remained in the window, staying in the present, trying not to think about the future. But it was proving difficult. A spark of excitement had ignited in her heart and it longed to know what her life would bring next.

  EMILY SWANSON WILL RETURN IN:

  COLD HEARTS

  (Sneak Peek coming up)

  SNEAK PEEK – COLD HEARTS (EMILY SWANSON #3)

  Emily Swanson rang the doorbell, then sucked in a nervous breath. What was she doing here? She looked up at the house. It was a large but not sprawling affair, with latticed windows and white walls. The drive, which was wide enough to hold several cars, was currently empty, while a towering, evergreen hedgerow smudged out much of the quiet, suburban street.

  Seconds passed. Shrugging off her backpack, Emily removed the letter that had arrived a few days ago, and checked the address: 112 Ford Road, Epsom, Surrey. She pressed the doorbell again.

  Above her, the Friday morning sun was bold and bright. After an overcast July and a rainy August, September was turning out to be uncharacteristically hot. Closing her eyes, Emily took a moment to enjoy the warmth on her skin.

  When she opened them again, she saw a woman smiling at her in the doorway.

  “Diane Edwards?”

  “You must be Emily.”

  Emily was led through a carpeted hall and towards a spacious kitchen at the back of the house.

  “Please sit down.” Diane Edwards gestured to the table and chairs in front of the large bay windows. “I’ll make some tea.”

  Emily smiled politely, then turned to view the rear garden. An expanse of vibrant lawn, which was bordered by colourful flowerbeds, stretched out into the distance. A copse of trees stood at the far end, watching over the house. Beneath the table, Emily’s knee began to jig up and down. She wondered if it was too late to make her excuses and leave.

  Diane Edwards returned with the tea tray. She was somewhat older than Emily’s twenty-seven years. Perhaps in her mid-forties. Where Emily’s hair was blonde and fell just above her shoulders, Diane’s was jet black and cropped. As she turned the cups over and reached for the teapot, she offered Emily a slight smile

  “You must forgive my quietness. It’s not often I invite strangers into my home, especially in such unusual circumstances.”

  Emily untangled her arms and placed her hands on her lap. “I’m a little nervous myself. And a little surprised.”

  Diane Edwards eyed her as she poured the tea. “At my proposal?”

  “Mrs Edwards, I—”

  “Please, call me Diane. Sugar?”

  Emily shook her head. “I should probably make it clear before we go any further that me being here isn’t an agreement. I admit I’m curious, but I may not be qualified for what you need.”

  Diane slid a cup of tea towards Emily. “That’s understandable. Perhaps if I elaborate on the details of my letter it will help you to form a decision.” She flashed a nervous glance across the table. “My husband, Max, worked as a sustainable development manager for a big chemicals company. You may have heard of them—Valence Industries. It was his job to find new ways for the company to be more environmentally friendly, or at least that’s my understanding of it. I don’t imagine the chemicals industry has the greatest reputation when it comes to the environment, which is why I expect Max accepted the position. He’d been actively involved in green issues for as long as I can remember. Even back when we first met, he was always off on one protest or another, occasionally getting himself arrested...” She smiled sadly. “Part of Max’s remit was to nurture partnerships with various environmental charities. He’d been working for months on a project to bring clean water to parts of the world where there was none. The project was to launch with a fundraising gala...”

  Diane gazed through the window at long ago memories. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet and contr
olled. “The official consensus is that Max attended the gala in London in May of last year, then spent the night in his hotel room. When he didn’t show for breakfast the next morning, his colleagues went to look for him. His room was empty. The bed hadn’t been slept in.” She paused again and clenched her jaw. “He was found by tourists early the next morning, washed up on the bank of the Thames.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs Edwards.” Emily’s tea cup was frozen in mid-air. She set it down on the saucer with an unintentional clatter. “Your husband drowned?”

  “My husband was an alcoholic.” The words were spoken matter-of-factly, as if Diane had described her husband as a keen golfer or as a lover of antiques. “Max’s drinking almost ripped our marriage apart more times than I can count. Each time, I packed his bags and left them on the doorstep. Each time, I brought them back in. That may sound very weak of me, but I understood that, like any addiction, alcoholism is a curable disease. Besides, in spite of everything, I loved him.” Her expression hardened. “The coroner’s report stated that the alcohol levels in Max’s bloodstream were so high that if he hadn’t drowned first there was every chance he would have died from toxic shock. But you see, before that night my husband had been in recovery for almost ten years. That’s why you’re here, Emily—to find out why, after ten years of sobriety, my husband saw it fit to suddenly drink himself to death.”

  Emily cleared her throat. “No offence, Mrs Edwards, but how can you be certain that Max hadn’t been drinking without your knowledge?”

  “When you’ve been married to an alcoholic for twenty-three years you get to learn all the tricks and the lies. You find all the hiding places in your home, the garden, the car. Oh, I’m sure if Max had been tempted to drink, he could have tried to hide it from me. But I say try, Emily. My husband wasn’t the kind of functioning alcoholic who could drink a litre of vodka then do a day’s work. He was the kind of alcoholic you stepped over in the street.”

  Emily felt a surge of pity for the woman. Alcoholism didn’t just destroy the person doing the drinking.

  “If he was back to his old ways prior to that night, he wouldn’t have been able to hide his guilt from me,” Diane continued. “He tore our marriage apart. I should have left him. But I stayed. And he knew that. He knew that. Which is why he found the strength inside him to stop drinking. He did it himself, you know. Oh, he tried AA but all that higher power business didn’t agree with him. Max did not believe in religion or spirituality. He believed in nature.”

  Emily leaned back in her chair and let out a steady breath. “Mrs Edwards–”

  “Diane.”

  “Wouldn’t you be better off pursuing a more professional route with someone more qualified? The police perhaps or a private investigator.”

  Emily tried to look away but found her gaze inexplicably drawn back to Diane. It was as if all of the woman’s anguish and desperation had created a magnetic pull.

  “The police saw my husband’s death as an open and shut case. An alcoholic gets drunk, falls into the River Thames and drowns. The ruling: death by misadventure.” Diane hesitated, terrible memories drawing shadows across her face. “I read about you in the newspapers, about what happened at that retreat. And then again last month, with the Doctor Chelmsford trial.”

  Emily’s shoulders stiffened. Instantly, she was back at the courthouse, standing in the witness box as she answered question after question, and desperately avoided Doctor Chelmsford’s snakelike gaze. He would now spend what remained of his twilight years behind bars. Good, Emily thought. It was a fitting end for a monster who had preyed upon the sick and the vulnerable.

  Unhappy about where the conversation was headed, she stared into the cooling contents of her cup.

  “I read about what happened to you in the past,” said Diane. “Losing your mother, then what happened with that boy. What was his name?”

  “Phillip.”

  “Yes, Phillip. And I thought, here is a woman who understands the pain of not only losing a loved one but also the humiliation of having her reputation destroyed. And yet, here is a woman who has risen above it all, who is good and kind, intelligent and resourceful, who is determined. I wrote to you because your story spoke to me. And I believe that you can help me, Emily. I believe you can help me to understand what happened to my husband.”

  Quiet draped itself over the table. Emily was suddenly elsewhere, her mind replaying the events of the last two years like scenes from a film.

  “I don’t think I can help you,” she said at last. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  Diane stared at her with pleading eyes. “I can help with that. And of course, as I mentioned in my letter, you’ll be paid for your time.”

  “I’m just an ordinary person who happened to get caught up in an extraordinary situation. Or two. I don’t have the skills or the resources.”

  “Please, Emily.” Diane was leaning forward now, her hands clamped together in a silent prayer. Most of her calm demeanour remained, but quiet desperation was oozing through the cracks. “You know what it’s like to wake up each morning and wonder why life can be so cruel. You know what it’s like to have all the happiness, all the joy snatched away from you. Something happened that night to take my husband away from me. I know our marriage was tumultuous at best, but I loved him. I need to know what happened. I need to understand why he did what he did.”

  Emily drew in a breath. The network of muscles in her shoulders tightened. She could feel anguish pouring from every one of Diane’s cells. This house is like a mausoleum, she thought. And Diane Edwards was trapped inside; a living ghost doomed to repeat each day in a never-ending cycle of grief.

  Emily wanted to help her. She did. And the money would certainly help now that her savings were almost gone. It was just that she didn’t know if she could help. She was not a private investigator. She was Emily Swanson, the shamed ex-teacher fated to spend the rest of her life atoning for her sins.

  “Last Friday would have been his fiftieth birthday,” Diane said. “I was going to throw him a party.”

  She locked eyes with Emily, transferring her grief. In that instant, Emily knew that she could not refuse.

  THANK YOU

  I hope you enjoyed reading Cruel Minds as much as I did writing it.

  As an indie author, reviews are so important to help new readers find my books. If you enjoyed Cruel Minds, I’d be so grateful if you could spare a few minutes to leave a short review on the page you bought it from. Even just a few words will go a long way!

  Thank you!

  Malcolm

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Great big thankyous and debts of gratitude to Kate Ellis for your stellar editorial work and advice—and for reminding me that people in their forties (myself included) aren’t always grey-haired; Amelia Hawkins for your advice on the differences between rural and urban police procedure; to my mystery gang of readers—I wouldn’t be doing this without you; and as ever, last but not least, to Mr Smith, for not eye-rolling too much while I try to come up with the ultimate plot twist. A thousand thankyous to you all.

  About the Author

  Cornish born Malcolm Richards writes psychological mysteries and thrillers focusing on everyday people placed in extraordinary circumstances.

  After studying for a Bachelor of Arts in Writing at Middlesex University, Malcolm worked as a reading recovery teacher, a nurture group leader teaching young children with complex behavioural and emotional needs, and as a teacher of creative writing.

  When not writing, Malcolm enjoys composing and producing music, spending more and more time in the countryside, and trying to catch up with too many series.

  Read more at Malcolm Richards’s site.