Guilty Conscious by Oliver Davies (best ereader for students .txt) 📗

of September, this is Detective Inspector Thatcher and Detective Sergeant Mills interviewing Belinda ‘Billie’ Helman in the investigation of the murder of Edward Vinson. Thanks for coming, Billie.”

She shrugged, balling her hands in her sleeves. “Thanks for asking nicely.”

“Have a look at the table, Billie. Tell me what you see.”

“Photographs,” she answered, not looking.

“Of whom?”

“Edward Vinson. Me. Stella.” Her voice cracked on her sister’s name, her eyes falling to the picture of her in the garden, trembling slightly. Her green eyes were tearful, even as she glared at the photographs.

“We found these in a studio belonging to Edward Vinson. Do you know the studio?”

“Yes.”

“When were you last there?”

Billie looked up at me. “Two years ago. Sometime in the summer.”

“What was your relationship with Edward Vinson, Miss Helman?” I asked, crossing my arms. Billie looked away, toying with a ring on her finger, swallowing again.

“We went out for a few months. I broke it off in the summer.”

“Why?”

“Because he wasn’t very nice,” she answered simply.

“To you?” Mills asked, a slight crease of concern between his brows.

“To anyone, not that most people noticed. I didn’t want to be his girlfriend, but I stayed a friend, sort of.”

“You used to go to his studio,” I said, nodding to the photographs.

Billie nodded. “It was the only time he was himself. Not pretending.”

“Do you know how long he had the studio?”

“A few years. I showed it to him.”

I straightened up in my seat, and Mills leant forward beside me. “You did?” I asked.

“I did. I know the woman who was looking to rent it. She was a friend of my mum’s.”

“How often did you go?”

“Quite often. Not always with Edward.”

“You had a key?”

She nodded, and I grimaced.

“Billie. Do you still have a key?” I asked her gently.

She nodded again, scrubbing at the tears that fell from her ears, trailing down her cheeks. Bloody hell.

“Where is the key?” I asked.

“My dad’s house,” she answered. “With the other uni stuff I left behind.”

“You’re sure?”

“Why would I ever,” she snapped bitterly, looking up at me, “want to go back to that place?” Her eyes flickered across the photos, hands balling into fists as she looked at her sister’s face.

“This was after you broke up with him?” I asked, tapping the photos.

She nodded, her jaw tight, shoulders hunched in. “My fault,” she whispered in a broken voice, staring and staring at her sister’s face.

“No,” I assured her, “not your fault.”

She looked up, wiping her nose with her sleeve, and Mills wordlessly passed her a tissue.

“Run us through this, Billie,” I asked. “From the start.”

She took a few deep breaths, blew her nose and drank half the water, then cleared her throat.

“I met him in our first year. We had a few classes together,” she looked at their swapped notes. “We started hanging out, me and his friends. He asked me out a few months later, and I said yes. We were together for a few months. I helped him get the studio then, but when summer came, I needed to be home with Stella. He didn’t like that, and I wasn’t happy with him, seeing how he was with other people when we weren’t alone. I broke it off in the summer, the July, I think. We were okay, it was awkward at first, but we were all still friends. They still invited me to the party.” Her voice wavered. “And I took Stella.”

“Following which,” I said to the recording device on her behalf, “Edward Vinson was accused of sexually assaulting Stella Helman at the party of October the 31st. He was found innocent. From the evidence we have before us documenting that night, such a ruling is in contention.”

“You blamed yourself,” Mills took over from me now, his voice soothing as he spoke to Billie. “Thought that if you hadn’t broken it off with him, he wouldn’t have hurt her?”

Billie nodded.

“You must have been angry.”

“Anyone with a heart would be angry,” she spat, crying freely. “But Stella was more important. I had to make it up to her, not get back at him. Everything I told you about already. We moved out, I quit university, I punched him in the face that one time, and that was it. Stella killed herself. It was my fault, not his!” Billie’s voice broke, and she slumped down in her chair, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

I sat back, taking in what she had said. There was something guilty about Billie, but not for what she might have done to Edward, but for what she allowed to happen to Stella.

“Billie, do you know what this photograph is of?” I pushed a photo across the table.

She looked down at it, wiped her eyes, and frowned. “It’s Stella’s trophy. Her dance trophy.” She picked up the photo and sighed. “Edward wanted to do a drawing of someone in movement. I borrowed her trophy to copy the pose.” She traced the image of the dancer.

“Where was it?” she asked at last.

“In the studio. Covered in blood.”

“Blood?” she asked, her eyes widening.

“Do you understand how all of this looks, Billie?” I asked, folding my hands on the table. “A murder weapon belonging to your sister, found in the studio that you found for him, a studio that you have a key to.”

Billie closed her. “I did not kill him.”

“Billie…”

“How d'you even know about the studio?” she asked, her eyes flying open. “He never told anyone, not even Charlie. Didn’t want to get mocked for it.”

I frowned at that, adjusting in my seat. “Nobody else knew?”

“Not as far as I’m aware. How did you find it?”

“Someone told us about it,” I said, not wanting to throw Freya under the bus. Billie’s eyes shuttered, and she looked around to the wall, breathing in long, fractured breaths as she held back sobs. I turned to look at Mills, whose slightly confused expression mirrored my own.

“Why didn’t you tell us about your relationship with Edward Vinson when we first spoke to you, Billie?”

She didn’t look away from the wall. “I