Cages by David Mark (acx book reading TXT) 📕

sees she has his attention. He’s nodding, as if she’s telling the story the right way.

‘Where did you grow up?’

‘Little place near Cheltenham,’ she answers, automatically, and has to fight the urge to bite down on her lip. She hadn’t known until she spoke just how desperate she is to let the truth fly briefly free. She sees herself as a glass bottle: her truths smashing against their transparent jail, begging, manically, for release. She presses her lips together. Makes a show of looking at the clock. ‘We should get back.’

He cocks his head, as if waiting for something. ‘You haven’t told me why you’re called Annabeth,’ he says, kindly.

She laughs at herself; a practiced gesture: making fun of herself for being so scatterbrained. His expression doesn’t change. He’s not buying the performance. He really does want to know.

‘I was the third baby,’ she says, unable to make light of it. ‘Eldest was Elizabeth. Next down was Hannah. Nine and seven when they died. I was what the doctor recommended to help with their grief. The replacement baby. And just to ram it home, they slammed their names together. Made me.’ She shrugs, as if she has been through this so many times she doesn’t mind telling any more. ‘Sorry to depress you. You did ask.’

He holds her gaze. She sees something there, for the briefest moment: a flicker of something that was not there before; as if something scaly and colossal has briefly disturbed the surface of a still lily pond, then slunk back to the depths.

‘That’s …’ he begins, shaking his head.

She shrugs again, cutting him off. Stands up and heads to the counter so that she doesn’t have to look at him any more. She’s fought so hard for so long to keep her tears behind the bars of her eyes. She cannot let them fall now. Not when she needs her resolve the most.

She glances back, for a single heartbeat, as she orders coffees from the server. Glances over her shoulder, and sees him, hunched over his notebook, pen moving in a blur. She wonders how long it will be before she reads a book about a girl called Annabeth. A replacement girl. A smashing together of two dead sisters.

Knows, to her very core, that he will get it completely wrong.

She has never minded being Annabeth. Never objected to helping her parents get over their grief. It has never been that which caused her life to unspool the way it has.

No, it was Daddy’s friend. It was Sandy Powell. The man who told her he loved her for who she was, and not what she had been created to replace. Sandy Powell, who persuaded his pal’s twelve-year-old daughter that the things he did to her, the things he took from her, were things of beauty. Sandy Powell, who began raping her before she had started her periods, and who called her a lying little slag when she finally told her teachers. Sandy Powell, who got away with it. Who never served a day. Who got an apology from her father for the embarrassing fuss that Annabeth had made. Sandy Powell, who gave her a wad of notes, and told her to run. Sandy Powell, who threw her to the wolves. Abandoned her to a world of pimps and drugs and violent men. Men like Walter. Walter, with the jagged snow globe on his neck.

She blinks back tears. Swallows hard.

Walks back towards the library as if heading to the gallows.

THIRTEEN

GRIFFIN BOETHIUS COX

PART 1 OF RECORDED INTERVIEW

Date: 11.04.2021

Duration: 38 minutes

Location: HMP Holderness

Conducted by Detective Constables Ben Neilsen and Andrew Daniells

POLICE: This interview is being tape recorded. I am Detective Constable Benjamin Neilsen, here with my colleague Detective Constable Andrew Daniells. We are officers with Humberside Police Serious and Organized Crime Unit and part of the multi-agency task force investigating cold cases with the National Crime Agency. Could you please tell me your full name.

GC: Griffin Cox. Middle name Boethius, but I don’t use it.

POLICE: Is it OK if I call you Griffin?

GC: I’ve been called much worse. But if we’re getting familiar, I prefer Gary.

POLICE: Fine, Gary. In that case, I’m Ben, this is Andy. Can you confirm your date of birth for me?

GC: 19.02.68.

POLICE: And just to confirm, you’re happy for this interview to be conducted without legal representation? You are entitled to have your solicitor present, but you have declined …

GC: No need to trouble him. He’s expensive. Charges for ‘thinking time’ some months, if you can believe that.

POLICE: Free counsel can be provided if required, Gary.

GC: No, there’s nothing new to talk about, is there? I’ve said it all before.

POLICE: You might be wondering why we’re here …

GC: Not really. I watch the news. Read the papers. You’re looking for that poor girl.

POLICE: Which poor girl, Gary?

GC: Bronwen. Bronwen Roberts. You’re digging up the farm by the airport at Kirmington because somebody has told you that they were my accomplice in her abduction and murder, and that she’s in a sinkhole under the asparagus. Am I right?

POLICE: And what would you have to say to that contention, Gary.

GC: I’d say it’s very cruel on her family. They’ve clearly been through hell. I read an article in a magazine, years back, in which they spoke of their endless pain at not knowing if she is dead or alive. To give them these false hopes – if hopes could even be considered as the right word – seems an act of sadism. Or, if nothing else, the ramblings of a clearly degenerating mind.

POLICE: You’ve been questioned about Bronwen’s disappearance before.

GC: Yes, among others. I seem endlessly popular among earnest young detectives trying to find a monster on which to pin high-profile cases. Unfortunately, I am never able to assist. Hard as it may be to believe it, Ben, I’m not the man you all imagine me to be. I made one mistake. I fell for an exceptionally talented and beautiful young woman and I