Page 63 of Good Bad Girl

“How so, when it is still ruining your life in the present? I was only eleven, but I remember when you ran away from home. And I remember why. I sometimes wish you’d never come back.”

“Thanks—”

“Because I think your life would have turned out very differently if she didn’t make you get rid of the baby when you were sixteen.”

Clio doesn’t want to talk about this. Can’t. Won’t. She’s hidden all memories of her second child in shoeboxes, but the memories of her first are locked away in a much bigger box inside her head. One she never opens. She’s always wondered if her second child was stolen from her that day in the supermarket because she got rid of her first. But she wassoyoung. Too young to get pregnant and far too young to keep it. At least that’s what her mother said, over and over again. Edith persuaded her that not keeping the baby was the right thing to do, but Clio has spent a lifetime regretting that decision.

Funny how her oh-so-religious mother was suddenly in favor of abortion.

There is a knock on the door and Clio is grateful to whoever has interrupted them.

Until she sees who it is.

“Knock, knock, sorry to intrude. It probably seems deeply inappropriate for me to turn up like this at the hospital, when you are trying to spend some quality time with your mother and say your goodbyes,” says the detective. She’s carrying a black-and-white cuddly bear.

“Who are you?” Jude asks, in the posh middle-class voice he reserves for strangers.

“DCI Charlotte Chapman.”

Jude raises an eyebrow. “Well, from what I hear you have killed our mother.”

“From what I hear that’s what you wanted,” the detective replies and everything stops.

He stands a little taller, trying to appear bigger than he is, like a puffer fish when it feels threatened. “What did you just say?”

“I think you heard me. You wanted your mother dead.”

“How dare you. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but when this is over I’ll be making a formal complaint.”

“I collect complaints, formal and informal, all welcome. And if I’ve made a mistake I’ll be the first to make an apology. Making mistakes is how we learn, don’t you think?”

Jude stares at the detective as though she might be crazy. “Our mother isdying. Could you show some respect and leave us alone?”

The detective ignores him and steps farther into the room. “I’m normally pretty nifty at my job,” she says, tucking a pink strand of hair behind her pierced ear. “I confess Ithoughtthis case was going to be relatively straightforward. There were three suspects, two murders, and one victim, and I was sure I knew who was who from the start.”

“Do you know what she’s talking about?” Jude asks Clio, but Clio is frozen to the spot and too afraid to speak. She knows she was a suspect. And she knows why.

“Let’s start at the end, because the end is so often the beginning,” the detective says. “The second murder victim was Joy Bonetta, manager at the Windsor Care Home, beloved by no one and found dead in an elevator with an out-of-order sign around her neck. Our three suspects were: a recently fired employee calling herself Patience; a woman named Frankie, who had no obvious reason to be there and who signed the visitor bookpretendingto be Clio; and...”—she turns to Clio—“the real Clio Kennedy. Allthreesuspects were seen or heard arguing with Joy Bonetta shortly before she died, and all three of them lied about it. I’m a big fan of logic and logically it had to be one of them. But sometimes, in order to make things right in the present, we have to look back at the past. Victim number one was May Chapman a few months earlier. She was also a resident at the Windsor Care Home and my grandmother.”

“Did you sayMay Chapman?” Clio asks. She thought the name was a coincidence until now.

Jude ignores her. “I don’t see what any of this has to do with—”

“You’ll learn more listening to others than you ever will listening to the sound of your own voice,” the detective says with a smile. “We’re all connected. That is true of life as well as this case. My grandmother, known fondly by all as Aunty May, was an incredibly kind and clever woman. None of us wanted to put her in a home, but she suffered from dementia and we had no choice toward the end. When May was younger she was a detective—”

“I hope she was a better one than you,” Jude says.

“Oh yes, much better. But there was one case she could not solve and it haunted her for the rest of her life. A case about a six-month-old baby kidnapped from a supermarket on Mother’s Day twenty years ago. Does that ring a bell?”

Jude is quiet for once. So is Clio. She thinks she is going to be sick.

“My grandmother was murdered in the care home. I was sure of it, they even found cotton fibers inside her mouth indicating that someone had held a pillow over her face. But I had no proof, no real evidence, and no motive. All of which tend to be a smidgen important in my line of work. But then there was a second murder—of Joy, the care home manager—and the pieces of the puzzle started to come together. Unfortunately they didn’t quite slot into place straightaway, and I confess the case had me miffed for a while. I was right about the three suspects, two murders, and one victim.”

“Why only one victim if there were two murders?” Jude asks.

“Because I think one of them deserved it. I wasn’t wrong about that, but I was wrong about what some mothers will do for their children.”

“I don’t understand,” Clio says.

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