November 2008
Dear all of you.
I’m no longer the person I was yesterday. I have been reborn as a hollow image of my former self. Hope has gone. Love has gone. I have gone. I want to feel something but I can’t. Do you know how it feels to feel nothing? I haven’t even cried. Why can’t I cry?
What you took from me can never be returned. It is a part of me, a slice of who I am. I’m not going back to that school, ever. You will never do this to me again.
To my aggressor. Why me? What did I ever do to you? Your cruelty knows no bounds. I pity everyone in your life. My wounds are testament to how evil you are.
The bystander. You could have got help at any time but you stared at me throughout. Humiliation overload! You could have done the right thing, but you chose not to.
Finally, the instigator. You noticed me leaving the party and you couldn’t help but throw fuel on the fire. My so-called new friend! Following me out, taunting me, forcing me in a direction I wouldn’t choose to normally take. Pick on the school newbie, why don’t you? I wasn’t allowed to walk back through the woods – Mum and Dad would never have allowed that. That’s when I realised that you’d planned this all along. It was probably meant as a Halloween joke originally, but the joke took a sinister turn, didn’t it? How did you all get so carried away? I’ll tell you how, because of you, the instigator. A suggestion here, a remark there, which led to more than any of you had planned. You enjoyed every moment of it all.
The bystander shouted out that what you were doing wasn’t a part of the plan but you both carried on and the bystander continued to keep watch, alongside two others in masks. You all had a choice in this, you could have stopped at any time, but you didn’t and I paid the price.
That brings me back to my main question. What did I ever do to you? Nothing.
I will never be fixed and I will never be free of what you put me through, and I will never forget. Never!
One minute I think I should tell someone, the next I can’t. If I tell, everyone will know the details and that scares me more. I don’t want people to know what you all did to me. I want to go back to my old school. I want to go home. Today, I am going to ask Mum if I can stay with Nan. I’m going away for a while. I need to think, get my head together, decide how I live with this or what I do about it.
A large tear plopped onto the back of Gina’s hand. She flinched at the tap on her window. PC Smith smiled and Kapoor was just getting out of the car. ‘Alright, guv. We got here as quick as possible.’
Gina pulled an evidence bag from the glove compartment, turned it inside out and bagged the letter up. One last thing caught her attention through the plastic. On the back of the page was a triangle. The top point had a doodle of a tree next to it, the point on the left had a doodle of three tiny houses next to it, two of them without roofs. The last point had a question mark next to it and a picture of a little ghost. Her mind whirred: if the woods represented Alex’s body, what did the houses and the ghost represent?
‘There’s another body.’ Gina gulped. ‘I think it will be Penny Burton’s.’
‘What?’
Gina held the bagged letter up as an ambulance parked beside them.
Briggs’s car skidded to a stop behind hers and he ran out from his car. ‘Are you okay? What happened?’ Gina stared at him, unable to speak. ‘Gina, are you alright?’
She forced a smile and looked up at PC Smith. ‘Can you keep the letter safe? It needs to be booked into evidence ASAP.’ He nodded and left Briggs with her.
Gina knew she wouldn’t be going home or anywhere else for ages. Samples from her body would be taken, she’d have to make a full statement and that would take hours, her car would be impounded for further sampling. ‘I know why I was chosen, it’s in the killer’s letter. As soon as forensics get here, they need to cordon off that side of the