Page 37 of Good Bad Girl

Clio doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look at him. Her mind is swirling with unwelcome thoughts and memories. She keeps thinking about the ladybug ring on the girl’s finger and wondering what she will say to the police.

Patience

They have arrested me. I pretend things aren’t as bad as they seem, tell myself that someone calledPatience Liddellhas been arrested and since that is not my real name, the real me is still free. But I don’tfeelfree sitting in a square box of a room in a police station. Everything that has happened since I walked into Edith’s room for the last time feels like something that is happening to someone else.

I sent a text message while in the back of the police car, nobody told me that I couldn’t.

I received a text too, not long after:

If you keep quiet I will help you.

It was soon followed by another:

If you don’t keep quiet you are on your own.

And another:

Don’t say a word.

The driver pulled over when they heard my phone beeping. The officer in the passenger seat climbed out, opened my door, took my mobile, and then put a set of cuffs on my hands. The handcuffs were heavy and they hurt. I guess all the good cops were off duty today because I got two bad ones.

I do not like the police. Not just because of the cuffs or the way they have treated me, but because my mum didn’t like the police either. Though I never really understood why. She taught me not to trust them, but then Mum taught me not to trust anyone.People can’t be trusted, she would say with a little shake of her head and a tut. Perhaps I should have listened. I think I’m starting to understand why my mum spent her whole life running away, even if I still don’t know why or what from.

I’ve never been inside a police station before. Since we arrived here, they have scanned my fingers and taken photos of my face. Various people—some in uniform, some not—kept talking at me, not to me. And I didtryto answer their questions as best as I could. I told them the name I’ve been using for the last year and gave them my current address: “The Attic” in Covent Garden. They didn’t believe that I didn’t know the name of the street or the postcode. Having lived on a boat for most of my life, those aren’t details I’m overly obsessed with.

After that, they left me in this grubby white room. There are two chairs and a table and little else. I haven’t had anything to eat or drink today. I’m hungry and thirsty and I really need to go to the bathroom, but I am too afraid to ask. Too afraid to move. Too afraid to say or do anything. I’ve lost almost all of the money I spent the last year working so hard for, I can never go back to the attic now, which means I am homeless. I’ve lost my papercuts andall hope of going to art school. I’ve lost everything, and all because I tried to do therightthing.

When the door finally opens, it makes me jump, and I wonder if that makes me look guilty. It’s very clear that they think that I am.

“Hello again, I’m DCI Charlotte Chapman. Sorry to have kept you waiting,” says the woman I briefly saw before I was put in the police car. She closes the door behind her and sits down on the other side of the table. She’s young, late twenties maybe, and has shoulder-length blond hair with a single pink highlight on one side. She’s wearing a tweed trouser suit over a T-shirt, and has several silver rings on her fingers. She does not look like a detective.

“Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee, water?” she asks.

“No,” I say, even though I am thirsty.

“You’re sure? We’re going to be here for a while.”

I shake my head. “Thank you,” I add. I was raised always to be polite, even to people I don’t know or like.

“Suit yourself. For the record, you have stated that your name is Patience Liddell and that you are eighteen years of age. You reside at ‘The Attic’ above Kennedy’s Gallery in Covent Garden. Is that correct?” My thoughts get a little tangled, and I can’t seem to straighten them out fast enough to form a reply. So I nod instead. “Can you answer out loud please?” she asks, pointing at a little machine on the table. I notice that her fingernails are all painted different colors. My own are unpainted and bitten.

“Yes,” I reply, self-conscious about my voice now that I know I am being recorded. I do not sound like myself.

“You have been arrested because of multiple accusations of theft from elderly residents at the Windsor Care Home. The adult children of one resident also claim that you coerced her to change her will.” She raises her eyebrows at me then carries on reading. “That resident is named Mrs. Edith Elliot. Her bank card has been used at least once a week recently, even though by all accounts Mrs. Elliothasn’t left her room for several months. Someone matching your description has been captured on CCTV at the times when the card was used. The same bank card was found inside your purse earlier today, and Mrs. Elliot is missing.” The detective looks up as though expecting me to say something. When I don’t, she continues. “You were arrested in a flat above Mrs. Elliot’s son’s art gallery, where we later found a large amount of cash believed to have been taken from her account. And you were wearing the woman’s jewelry, which you claim was a gift. Officers discovered other stolen items, and then there’s the other matter to discuss... How would you describe your boss at the care home, Joy Bonetta?”

Rude, unreliable, incompetent, uncaring, untrustworthy, a bully, a liar, and a thief.

“She’s okay,” I say.

The detective stares at me hard. “I’m going to try to save us both some time and I’d appreciate it if you would do the same. Why did you kill her?”

It takes me a moment to process what she just said.

“I... didn’t. I don’t know anything about it. Is she really dead?”

DCI Chapman sighs. “I guess we’re going to do this the hard way. Yes, she is dead. Very much so. The last time anyone saw her alive was when she was on her way upstairs to confront you about stealing things belonging to a...” she checks her notes “Mr. Henderson, who has been extremely helpful and gave a very thorough statement about you. Mr. Henderson’s stolen war medals have since been found hidden under your bed in ‘The Attic,’ giving us no reason to doubt his version of events. Did Joy catch you in the act? Did she walk in and find you stealing the old man’s things? Is that why you killed her?”

“I didn’t—”

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