Letters To My Daughter's Killer - [3]

Edging past them, I run up the path to the door and Jack calls my name. There’s a whooping sound cut short as a police car pulls up near the ambulance. Blue lights flash around the cul-de-sac.

The door is half open. I push it wide and step inside. The lights are on in the kitchen-diner to my left and the living room area. All open-plan. An advertising jingle prattles from the TV. Lizzie is on the floor. I cannot see her face, it is hidden by her hair. Her blonde hair is drenched in blood. There is blood on her clothes, her camisole vest and cotton trousers, the sort of thing she wears to sleep in, more blood on the wooden floor. Firelight flickers on her arm, her hand.

I turn cold, wild panic sizzling through me. My heart contracts. Blood thrums in my ears. ‘Lizzie,’ I call to her, move forward, wanting to clear the hair from her face, help her up, help her breathe, but hands are pulling me back, people shouting, dragging me away, pushing me outside. I resist, try to fight them off, desperate to see my girl, but they hold me tighter, instruct me to do as I’m told, to let them do their job.

We are moved, Jack and Florence and I, taken further down the street. Various people ask questions. I feel like batting them away, my eyes locked on the doorway, waiting for them to bring Lizzie out and put her in the ambulance, get her to hospital. My frustration is so great that I round on the next person who comes to us. ‘Why aren’t they taking her to hospital?’

‘Mrs Sutton?’ he checks. ‘Lizzie’s mother?’

‘Yes,’ I snap.

His face softens with pity and my throat closes over.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Sutton, Lizzie is dead. We’re treating it as suspected murder. The Home Office pathologist is on his way and the area will be cordoned off for our forensic teams to start their work. Would you be able to take Florence home with you?’

My mouth clamped tightly shut, I nod my head.

‘Mr Tennyson – Jack – will be giving us a statement. And we’ll want to talk to you later. There will be a family liaison officer to help you. They’ve been alerted. I am very sorry,’ he says, ‘but I need to ask you a few questions now, in case there’s anything that might help us. You went in the house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you use a key?’

‘The door was open,’ I say.

‘Unlocked, you mean?’

‘No… erm… yes. It wasn’t pulled shut.’

He writes down what I tell him. ‘Where did you go?’ he says.

‘Just inside the living room.’

‘Did you touch the front door?’

I think back. ‘Yes, I pushed it.’

‘Did you touch Lizzie?’

‘No.’ I didn’t get the chance. I wish I had.

‘Did you touch anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Think, anything at all: to steady yourself, perhaps? Or did you pick anything up?’

‘I can’t remember. I don’t think so.’

He writes some more, then says, ‘Because you’ve entered the crime scene, we need to take your clothes and your shoes. How close do you live?’

I tell him.

‘We’ll send someone with you now; if you can change immediately and put everything you’re wearing in the bags you’re given.’

‘Broderick Litton,’ I say, ‘he stalked Lizzie. She reported it. You lot did nothing. You must find him.’ I’m shivering, my words broken up. My knees buckle. He reaches out an arm and steadies me.

‘Do you have an address, date of birth?’ he says.

‘No. Check your files – there must be something there.’

‘We will do.’ But he goes nowhere. ‘We’ll take further details when someone comes round to you – they won’t be long.’

Jack brings Florence to the car. She’s fallen asleep and barely stirs when he eases her into the booster seat I keep in the back.

‘What happened?’ I ask him before we part.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, shaking his head, fresh tears streaking down his face. ‘I’d been to the gym. She was fine when I left. I just saw her…’ He can’t go on, and I hold him close. One of the police officers gets in the passenger seat and I start the engine.

Florence has a little bed in my room for when she comes to stay, but I’m not going to sleep and I don’t want her to wake up alone after all this. Did she see Lizzie? Did Jack manage to get her downstairs and out of the house without her waking? He’d have had to walk through the living room with her. The house is small, modern, the only thing they could afford.

Oh God. Jack was at the gym, so Florence must have been in the house when…

I lay Florence on the sofa and cover her with a blanket.

I change out of my jumper and jeans and walking shoes and put them into separate bags, and the policeman takes them away.

The house is cold, so I go into the kitchen and put the heating on. Milky comes and weaves around my legs. I stare at the vegetables on the counter, the crumbs of soil drying on them, the wispy roots of the carrots, the vivid green of the runner bean pods. Out of the window is a black sky and a frail new moon, scimitar-bright.

My head aches, a thudding pain beating in my temples and behind my eyes, and the words Lizzie’s dead go round and round to the beat of that drum. But they are just words. I can’t believe them. Not when I look at the carrots and the slice of moon and the child at peace on my sofa.