Letting out the Worms: Guilty or not? If not then the alternative is terrifying (Kitty Thomas Book 1 by Sue Nicholls (primary phonics .txt) 📕

‘OK. Well, see you soon, I expect.’ Sam dropped each of them a quick kiss, and as he leaned in to Anwen he murmured, ‘Anwen, are you still going to Kitty’s flat to clean?’

She shook her head. ‘I did it once, but it’s clean now. There didn’t seem much point.’

‘That’s fine,’ Sam dipped his head. ‘But I wondered if you’d mind nipping in there every few days to collect the post for me. I don’t want Kitty worried, but there’s something we’ve been waiting for.’

From her bed, Kitty frowned. ‘Hey you two. It’s rude to whisper.’

Anwen nodded to Sam, and he patted her arm.

In the corridor the sisters lingered among the human traffic. A lady, leaning on the arm of a nurse, hobble up and down in slippers. When she passed them, she said to Cerys, ‘I feel silly going for a walk in my dressing gown.’

Cerys smiled. ‘We have to get our exercise while we can. I ought to join you.’

The lady laughed. ‘You’d be welcome.’ She nodded at the nurse, ‘Stella is very lovely, but we’ve talked about everything we can. You could tell me all about your baby, and why you’re here.’

Cerys declined with another smile. ‘Some other time perhaps.’

They queued for insipid coffee, and muffins wrapped in squeaking cellophane, and sat on low seats beside a small, unmanned flower kiosk. Inside, on its floor, buckets of perky carnations, and other flowers that Anwen could not name, stood rim to rim. Cerys bit into her cake and grimaced. ‘I’m not sure why I bought these. Horrible, aren’t they?’

‘Not as good as yours,’ said Anwen and demolished hers.

When they had finished, Anwen was dropping the remains of Cerys’s cake into a nearby bin when a hand touched her shoulder making her gasp. ‘Sam! You made me jump.’

Beside the flower kiosk, Cerys was now slumped on the seat, eyes closed and mouth slack. Even from here, her gentle snores were audible.

‘We were waiting for you,’ Anwen said. ‘We want to ask you about everything. Paul’s arrest, I mean, and your investigation?’

Sam nodded his understanding and checked the time on his phone. ‘I’ve got some things to do this afternoon, but I should be able to come over this evening if that’s OK.’ He made a note of Anwen’s number and promised to ring when he was on his way.

When Anwen returned to her seat, a pale man in his thirties dressed in a paisley shirt and claret-coloured chinos, was opening the little shack. Soon, he was swinging in and out with the buckets and arranging them on the floor outside. He gave Anwen a grin, revealing a set of very white, very crooked teeth, and jerked his head at Cerys. Putting a finger to his lips he gave her a wink and she winked back and studied her sister. Cerys’s eyes were underscored by purple-grey smudges, and deep lines dragged down the corners of her mouth. Suddenly, Cerys looked older than her years, and a jolt of fear hit Anwen. Nobody but Cerys had ever cared about her. Without her sister, life would be empty. Anwen’s eyes filled, and avoiding the sympathetic gaze of the florist, she blew her nose with an emphatic toot.

Cerys’s eyelids lifted, and she squinted at Anwen and croaked, ‘I think I dropped off.’

Anwen shoved the tissue up her sleeve and forced a bright look. ‘You must have needed it. I’ve seen Sam, and he’s coming over this evening.’

‘That’s good. We can get going then.’ She held up her hand and Anwen gave her a helping tug.

Back at home Anwen persuaded Cerys to lie down, partly because the shocked woman needed rest but mainly because it was cleaning day for Maurice.

57 PAUL

The paintwork was as he remembered, and Paul wondered whether the walls of the interview room had been refreshed at all in the intervening twenty or so years that had passed since he was last here. The metal chairs and scuffed Formica table were also reminiscent of that time. Alone in the room, Paul glared at the recording device beside him and then at a CCTV camera near the ceiling. He had seen enough police dramas to know that people might be watching him on a monitor somewhere. He sat up and stilled his fidgeting hands so that, although his stomach churned, his face and body gave the impression of confidence.

After an eternity - twenty-two minutes in fact – laughing voices approached outside, and the door opened on a plain clothed, white, male officer, followed by a black female, also out of uniform and bearing three plastic cups of water. As though sharing a joke, they still wore the echoes of smiles on their faces while closing in on the table. The woman set down the cups and slid one to Paul, then, without a word, they faffed around, setting up the recording device. When all was prepared to their satisfaction, the two took their seats and the bloke nodded to the woman. She pressed a button and announced the date to the machine, then revealed their identities. ‘DI John Poulton and DS Jennifer Mann interviewing Paul Thomas.’

Poulton took the lead. ‘Mr Thomas, do you understand why you are here?’

Paul maintained his passive exterior. ‘You said something about me murdering my ex-wife.’

‘Exactly, Sir, and do you understand that you have a right to a solicitor?’

‘Yeah. I hope one’s on his way, but I want you to tell me what’s going on before he gets here.’ Paul poked out his jaw then realising how belligerent it looked, pulled it back again.

‘That is your prerogative, Mr Thomas. Shall we get down to business then?’

Paul nodded, and DI Poulton took a sip of water before saying, ‘I’d like to talk about when Mrs Owen met her death. You said in your statement that you saw Mr