Read Online Nothing but Trouble by Roberta Kray - Free Book Online Page A

eyes. ‘Did you talk to the neighbours, ask if they noticed anything?’
    ‘Only the woman upstairs, and she didn’t see anyone. But it would have been dark. And it’s a busy street; people are passingby all the time. I went to work at seven so it must have been delivered after that.’
    Harry leaned forward again, folded the note and laid it on the desk. ‘So who do
you
think is responsible?’
    ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, looking slightly startled. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
    ‘But what was your first instinctive thought?’
    Sam gave a shrug, frowning briefly before her brow cleared again. ‘I don’t know. Someone connected to Minnie, I guess. Her
     mother or some other member of the family?’
    ‘But why should they blame
you
for Minnie’s death?’
    Sam worried at her lower lip, gazing down at the floor for a moment before looking up again. Her voice had a slight tremor
     in it. ‘Because we
were
to blame, partly at least.’ She hesitated before continuing. ‘Do you know what happened that day?’
    Harry didn’t divulge that he was one of the officers who had found the body. He was careful to keep his voice neutral. ‘You
     were with Minnie Bright, yes? You and four other girls.’
    Her face twisted a little. ‘We should never have let her go inside that house. We should have stopped her.’
    Harry found himself wondering what it was like to carry that sense of guilt around. It was a burden, he suspected, that would
     never be lifted. ‘You were just kids. You couldn’t have known what was going to happen.’
    Sam gave a small, dismissive wave of her hand, as if that was an argument she’d heard before, and one that didn’t sit well
     with her conscience. ‘We were old enough to know that Minnie wasn’t … well, that she wasn’t like the rest of us. She was kind
     of young for her age, a bit odd, the kind who never really fitted in.’ She paused again. ‘In all honesty, we weren’t very
     nice to her.’
    ‘Kids are often cruel to each other.’
    ‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘But I was mean
and
cowardly. I knew itwas wrong, what she was being asked to do, but I didn’t have the guts to try and stop it. I was too scared of being picked
     on myself.’
    He could understand what she was saying. He still recalled his own daily panic at school, the constant fear of doing or saying
     the wrong thing. Although he already knew the answer to his next question, he asked it anyway. He wanted to see how she’d
     respond. ‘So one of the other girls dared her to go inside?’
    Sam’s face flushed red and her hands briefly wrestled in her lap. ‘Yeah, that was when me and Lynda legged it. We could have
     taken Minnie with us, but we didn’t. We left her there and …’
    She didn’t need to finish the sentence. Both of them were aware of what had happened next.
    Harry left a short silence and then tapped his fingers on the note. ‘So do you know if any of the other girls have received
     threats like these?’
    Sam shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen them for years. My mum moved us to Hackney after the court case. Lynda was the only one
     I kept in touch with, and she … she passed away last year.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I heard. I’m sorry.’
    Sam suddenly sat forward, putting her elbows on the desk. ‘I think Lynda had found out something, or remembered something.
     She called me on the night she died. I was working and had the phone turned off, so I didn’t get her message until after I
     arrived home. That was about two o’clock, and I didn’t want to ring at that time, but when I called her later that morning
     she didn’t pick up …’ She raked her fingers through her hair and rubbed at her face. ‘I was too late.’
    ‘What did she say in the message exactly?’
    Sam wrinkled her brow. ‘It wasn’t very clear. I think she’d been drinking and she sounded upset. She said she had to talk
     to me about
that day.
That’s what she always called it. Shethought about it a