Destroy Me by Karen Cole (red queen ebook .txt) 📕

fell under her spell. Everyone who ever met Charlie fell under her spell.

‘Whenever you were with her life was an adventure,’ I say.

‘Yes, that’s it exactly,’ he exclaims, surprised. His eyes light up and he looks at me – really looks at me for the first time. Then a cloud passes over, and for a second, I think he’s going to cry.

‘Well, it’s good to meet a friend of Charlie’s.’ He stands up again. It’s a cue for me to go, I realise. But I’m not ready yet. I need him to keep talking.

‘I still can’t believe she’s dead,’ I say, not shifting from the sofa. ‘I mean, why would anyone want to kill Charlie? She was such a lovely person.’ This is not entirely true. Charlie always tended to provoke strong emotions in people, both good and bad. There was that boy at school who was so obsessed with her he attempted suicide when she broke up with him; and she once had a full-on fist fight with Amelia Blake by the school gates.

Adam’s face blackens. ‘I don’t know,’ he says, looking at his feet.

I can tell he doesn’t really want to talk about this, but I press on regardless. ‘Was it a break-in? Was anything stolen?’

‘No. The police think it was someone she knew. There was no sign of forced entry. She must have let them in.’

‘It was somebody she knew?’ I say, my breath catching in my throat.

‘I suppose so.’ He sits back down looking winded. ‘I keep thinking who would she have let in at that time of night? Who did she trust that she shouldn’t have? Do I know them? Do you know what that feels like – to look at everyone you know and think, could you have done this horrible thing? Could you have killed my wife?’ He squeezes his eyes shut, as if there’s a piece of grit in them – a bid to ward off intense pain or an attempt at fake emotion? It’s hard to tell.

‘It must be horrible. I can’t imagine.’ I murmur. ‘What about the rest of the people who live in the building? There are three other flats, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know them well? Do you trust them?’

‘Do I think they murdered Charlie, you mean?’ He frowns and looks as if he’s considering the possibility. Then he shakes his head slowly. ‘In flat two there’s Meg Darley. She’s a lovely person and she’s disabled – severely dis­abled. Aside from having absolutely no reason to kill Charlie, she wouldn’t have been physically capable.’ He pauses and frowns. ‘Then there’s Ben Wiltshire in flat four. Charlie found him begging on the street and offered him a place to live free of charge.’

‘Completely free?’ I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Charlie was always generous with the little money she had. I remember her in the pub buying rounds for everyone when we finished our A levels.

Adam nods and presses his lips together. ‘I warned her against taking in people like that. He’s an addict. It wouldn’t surprise me if he killed her for drug money.’

‘Was any money stolen?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know how much she had lying around, but the medicine box was out on the table and all the contents had been tipped out. Charlie had strong painkillers in there. I think he could have been looking for medication, anything to get a fix.’

‘Or I suppose Charlie could’ve been looking for a bandage, something to stop the bleeding?’ I suggest tentatively.

‘Yes, only there was no blood on the box. There was blood everywhere else but none on that box.’

I shudder, trying to block an image of Charlie dying and bleeding, desperately trying to survive. Charlie would have fought to her very last breath, I think.

‘What about the other flat?’ I say, trying not to cry. If Adam can hold it together, then I can too.

Adam shrugs. ‘Flat three is empty. They moved out a couple of weeks before Charlie died. They went to Newcastle. I don’t think they could have had anything to do with Charlie’s death.’

Then casually, carefully, ‘Where were you on Friday night?’

Immediately I regret asking him because he gives me a sharp, angry look. Clearly, I’ve gone too far. I sound almost like I’m interrogating him – as if I suspect him of murdering Charlie. Which of course I do.

‘I’m not sure that’s any of your business,’ he says coldly. ‘But if you must know, I was on a stag weekend in Paris. Turns out it was the worst decision of my life.’

‘You couldn’t have known what would happen.’

Adam continues, shaking his head, almost as if he’s talking to himself. ‘I didn’t even like the guy. He’s just some idiot I used to know at uni. One of those people you never seem to shake off.’

‘So, who found her . . . I thought—’

‘Oh, I found her.’ He winces at the memory. ‘When I got back from the trip. She’d been dead for nearly a whole day.’ His voice comes out bitter and harsh and the eyes he fixes on me are dark with anger. ‘But it took her several hours to die.’

‘She didn’t die straight away?’ I feel deeply shocked. Poor Charlie. She must have been so frightened and in so much pain – I wonder how it’s even possible that she was still alive after being stabbed four times in the chest.

‘No, she was attacked in the kitchen,’ he says. ‘But she somehow manged to drag herself through to the living room. The police think she was trying to get to her phone.’

So, she died in this room, I think with a shudder. Where exactly was the body? I think about the dream. Charlie in those white pyjamas, blood on her chest. ‘What was she wearing?’

He gives me an odd look. ‘I don’t remember. Her nightshirt, I think,’ he says. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, no reason.’

I return to what Adam told me about the police thinking Charlie was killed by someone she knew. ‘Did she have any plans to meet anyone that night?’ I ask.

‘Not to my