Pretty Little Things: 2018’s most nail-biting serial killer thriller with an unbelievable twist

The old crumbling brickwork of an outbuilding lies off in the distance where there is a white incident tent erected. Figures – I can’t tell if they are male or female – are walking into the tent in identical white suits.

A reporter can be heard describing the scene before we see her, standing behind a police cordon, the tape vibrating against the wind sweeping in over the fields.

I hear the reporter’s words, but only snippets linger on in my head after she has spoken them.

Crude grave . . . pit . . . four bodies . . . female . . . decomposing . . . exposed to the elements . . .

My gaze drops to yesterday’s newspaper on the countertop, its edges curled. I stare at the headline.

Still Missing.

I touch the paper, turn it to face me. I look at their photographs, now filled with a deep sorrow.

I scan the headline again and the faces of each teen staring back at me, all smiles. So young.

My gaze lingers on the first girl who had gone missing, Caroline, aged just seventeen. She has been missing four weeks . . . and now, inside, my heart is aching. I know her mother, Ruth. I’d worked with her for years and we’d grown to be friends. When Caroline had first gone missing, we’d assumed she was fighting to be independent. Ruth and I had had many talks about how giving her space would lead her back to her mother when she was ready.

I think of all the words of comfort I’ve given her and feel like a fraud.

‘It’s going to take a while to ID them,’ Iain says. I look at him and his eyes meet mine. He shrugs. ‘Well, they say the soft parts are always the first to go.’

‘Eww,’ Elle says.

He must know what I’m thinking and immediately looks regretful.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Poor Ruth and Mike.’

I struggle to find any words. In this moment, all I can do is helplessly stare at the TV just as the reporter says unconfirmed reports suggest the police have every reason to believe these are the bodies of the missing girls.

Like we needed to hear that. I already knew. Things like this just don’t happen around here.

I think of Elle as a sharp twinge pulls at my insides. I feel the pain as if it were a personal loss to me. ‘God help their poor families,’ I say, snapping back into life.

Elle reaches for her drink. ‘This is yesterday’s news,’ she says between sips.

We both look at her. She shrugs.

‘Was on the internet late last night. It was a rumour going around Facebook.’

‘Elle,’ I say, ‘why didn’t you mention this?’

She shrugs again. ‘It was just a rumour then. And what’s that you’re always telling me? Don’t believe everything you see on social media?’

I look at her and remind myself that she’s soon to be seventeen, like Caroline. Three other girls will never see that birthday. I fight back tears as my mind takes me back to the day of the crash.

‘I should call Ruth.’

‘Is that such a good idea right now?’ Iain says.

‘She’s a friend and we know Caroline.’

Knew. Knew Caroline, I say to myself, and immediately feel wrong for thinking it.

‘Ruth and Mike are probably being inundated with calls and visits from the police and immediate family, Charlotte. They’ll be overwhelmed.’

‘All the more reason I should be there for her. For them both, her and Mike.’

Iain shakes his head. ‘I feel just as sad for them, as much as you do, but you’re not in their immediate circle of friends, Char.’ He looks at me with a degree of sympathy, but there’s something else there as well and I know he doesn’t want me to get too involved.

He’s right, I guess, but it feels wrong not to do anything.

I’ve helped Ruth on and off, just going out and driving around, searching. In the beginning, I helped stick up missing posters and went out walking with a group of Ruth and Mike’s friends, just to do something, to feel like there was still a chance Caroline would come back at any moment.

Then the second girl had gone missing. We didn’t know her or her family personally but we had seen them around the area.

It feels wrong not to try and salvage something positive out of this. Ruth couldn’t protect her daughter but I know I’ll do anything to protect mine.

I glance at Elle. Her eyes are glued to her iPad screen.

‘You’re not going to that party Friday,’ I say as I turn back to the sink.

Elle is naturally cross. ‘What?’ She looks at Iain. ‘Why?’ she bleats.

I turn, nod at the TV. ‘There’s someone out there killing girls your age, Elle.’ She rolls her eyes but I don’t care. ‘I need to know you’re safe and under my roof.’

‘Mum!’ Her brow is furrowed. ‘I’ll be, like, the only one not going.’

‘Kenzie isn’t going,’ I say.

Kenzie is Elle’s best friend and a bad influence on her – not that Iain agrees with me on that front.

Elle makes a face to silently ask me how I know that.

‘I saw her mother yesterday. She feels the same as me about these house parties.’

‘Her brother will be there.’

I scoff. ‘Oh, that’s a real comfort.’

Elle turns to her father then. ‘He’s eighteen, Dad, an adult.’

‘Barely,’ I say as Iain looks at me. If he doesn’t back me on this, I’ll bloody lose it. I’m tired of looking like the bad guy all the time. Lately I feel like this every day. It doesn’t help that Elle is now making puppy-dog eyes at me. She unfolds her arms and is now putting them around me.

‘I know you worry, Mum.’

Little bleeder. I love her to death, but she sure knows how to play me.

‘If I get a ride home with Jade’s mum, can I go?’