Page 65 of The Mercy Chair

Poe looked over her shoulder. He could see Linus sitting at the bar, sulking. He had his phone to his ear and every so often he glanced at Poe. ‘And yet you don’t think that’s what happened?’

‘If she had snapped, then yes, I could have believed it,’ Alice said. ‘It had happened before, both at home and at school, and it was never pretty. If she’d had an episode while she’d been holding her clasp knife, again, yes, she certainly hated them enough to do something horrible. But to come back five years after she’d left, to murder them in that cold, premeditated way, made no sense. Not to me. And it shouldn’t have to the police officers running the investigation either.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because as troubled as Bethany was, she was also the most honest person I’ve ever met. If she’d killed her parents she would have owned it. She wouldn’t have tried to hide the bodies; she would have called the police herself then waited for them to arrive. She’d have wanted to tell her story in court.’

‘Maybe,’ Poe said. ‘Or maybe she panicked after she killed Aaron. The senior investigating officer never thought his murder had been part of her plan.’

‘And that’s the other thing, Sergeant Poe,’ Alice said. ‘She wouldneverhave killed her brother. She loved Aaron. Ask her teachers. Ask anyone who knew her. The Bowmans were the religious freaks at school and that should have made them bully magnets. But while Aaron was quite timid, Bethany was fierce and fearless. She was a year younger than Aaron, so he had to fend for himself when he was in secondary school and she was still in primary school. But a year later, when Bethany started secondary school as well, the kids soon learned that if they bullied Aaron they might as well have bullied Bethany. Andno onebullied Bethany. She didn’t care about consequences and she didn’t care if she bled. She would fight until she dropped from exhaustion, then she’d get up and keep fighting. You can’t beat someone like that. Aaron survived school because of Bethany and if it had come down to a choice between killing him and getting away, or letting him live and getting caught, well, that wouldn’t have been a choice at all.’

‘You admit she hated her parents?’

‘She did,’ Alice said.

‘But?’

‘But only because they hated her first.’

Chapter 57

‘Noah and Grace Bowman were evil, evil people,’ Alice said. ‘And for reasons neither of us understood, they hated Bethany.’

Poe frowned. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he said. ‘There’s certainly nothing to suggest it in the file.’

‘When I’m not Mad Alice or Tourist Alice, I work for a domestic abuse charity, and one of the first things we’re taught is that perpetrators become extremely skilled at hiding their abuse. They don’t just control their victim; they also control the narrative.’

‘She was abused?’

Alice nodded.

‘Sexually?’ Poe asked.

‘No.’

‘She was beaten then?’

‘Nothing like that either.’

‘Then—’

‘Emotional abuse, Sergeant Poe,’ Alice said. ‘In the very purest sense, she was being emotionally tortured.’

‘Do you believe me, Sergeant Poe?’ Alice asked.

‘I don’tnotbelieve you.’

‘Even though me telling you this makes Bethany appear more guilty?’

‘I’m a detective, Alice, and that means I’m a cynic,’ Poe said. ‘You tell me you’re Bethany’s friend and that you don’t think she killed her brother and her parents. Yet you’re also painting a picture of someone who had every reason to do exactly what she stands accused of. Let’s just say you haven’t convinced me of your true motivation yet.’

Alice nodded in satisfaction.

‘What?’ Poe asked.

‘You’re following the evidence, not the story,’ she replied.

‘You’ve already said that.’

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