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

DC Charis Brathwaite looked as solemn as ever. Devoid of much emotion, she resembled Madeleine’s own mother – strong and silent, with an air about her that always gave the impression of being permanently pissed off with something or somebody.

Madeleine stopped beside Charis at the entrance to the incident tent, watching her pale face carefully, but she wasn’t giving much away.

‘What’s your gut telling you?’ she said.

She looked grim and pulled her face mask back over her chin. ‘It’s got to be them. Has to be.’

Madeleine swallowed hard.

She knew it to be true also, but part of her had still silently prayed she was wrong; that she wouldn’t be giving the news to heartbroken parents, their world now devoid of any hope of finding their child alive.

She took a deep breath and went inside.

There were four bodies in the grave in front of her. Four bodies in different stages of decomposition. Four bodies that were partially clothed; some feet missing shoes, socks . . . simple things that would have made them look more human.

One thing was for certain, though.

The four bodies were definitely female.

The missing girls had been found.

A formal ID would follow, but Madeleine knew it was them. Their names had been whittled down to just their first names in her head. That was all she needed to know. Names and ages. That was enough to make her determined to see justice done.

Caroline – 17.

Juliet – 16.

Melissa – 15.

Katie – 15.

Despite being used to crime scenes by now, some occasionally very brutal in nature, she still felt stirrings inside her that made her want to turn around, walk out of the incident tent and just keep on going, walking across the wasteland and never looking back.

‘It’s going to take a while to formally ID them,’ Charis said, swallowing hard.

Madeleine squatted down close to the pit. Seeing the bodies in situ was a necessity but it was a hard scene to take in and digest.

Casting her dark-brown eyes over the remains, she caught sight of wisps of copper-coloured hair, just poking out from beneath another body.

Madeleine’s thoughts were immediately drawn to the photograph of Juliet Edwards her parents had given to the police when she first went missing. It had been taken at her sixteenth birthday party. In the photograph, Madeleine had noted that, around a face that was still full, puppy-fat yet to be fully shed, Juliet had beautiful green eyes, complemented by a shade of hair that reminded Madeleine of the colour of autumn leaves.

Madeleine looked deeper into the crude grave and saw the willowy limbs and ash-blonde hair that she knew had to belong to Caroline White.

The side of Caroline’s face was only just visible but Madeleine could see one gold-star stud in her earlobe.

Madeleine knew those earrings had been given to Caroline by her mother the Christmas just gone. The enormity of what she was facing was starting to really hit home now she had the bodies of the young girls here in front of her.

‘Guv,’ Charis said, coughing, trying to clear the lump in her throat as she thought of her own daughter safe back at home with her mother-in-law. ‘We have some DCs doing rounds of house-to-house and specialist officers with the teens who found the . . . pit.’ She avoided using the word ‘grave’. This wasn’t worthy of being considered that.

Madeleine nodded a response but her attention was drawn to the forensic pathologist hovering in the corner of her peripheral vision.

Dennis Roach pulled his face mask down under his chin, although he was clearly reluctant to, given the scene around them.

‘It’s going to take time, as you might expect,’ he said, gesturing to the bodies. ‘There’s a lot of insect activity and there are various stages of decomposition . . . not to mention there’s been some dismemberment, likely from animal activity.’ He looked like he had a nasty taste in his mouth and Madeleine could more than relate.

This was a mess.

‘Understood,’ she said. ‘Too early to say, I suppose, but any indication on cause of death?’

Roach grimaced. ‘As you say, very hard to even gauge at this point but I can see signs of trauma to one of the victim’s necks, just here,’ he said, gesturing towards the nearest body.

Madeleine looked at the body lying on top of the rest, eyes open, face pointing skyward.

Katie Allen.

Madeleine knew it had to be her. She’d not long since pinned the girl’s photograph to the board in the incident room back at the station, maybe two weeks ago at most.

‘Her throat has been cut,’ Roach said.

Madeleine visibly jolted as if she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone. Her eyes were drawn to a savage cut right across the girl’s neck, almost from ear to ear.

It looked deep, although it was hard to tell under the dried blood and grime.

An overwhelming feeling of sadness threatened to swallow Madeleine whole, right there and then.

She quickly left the tent.

*

After her suit had been taken and bagged up, Madeleine sat in her car, legs hanging out the door. Her face frozen, rigid, staring ahead at the cars and news vans that had turned up far beyond the police cordon.

Cameras rolling, reporters gesturing to the cameras, photographers with zoom lenses, vying for that perfect shot to sell on.

‘Is this what four young girls’ lives are worth, what they’ve been reduced to? A sideshow?’ Charis said as she approached the car. She looked back over her shoulder, sweeping back her long brown hair from her eyes as the wind picked up, howling across the wasteland.

‘Just doing their job,’ Madeleine said, voice drenched in sarcasm.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. What kind of monster do you have to be to do something like this?’

‘Monster? No,’ Madeleine said, shaking her head. ‘This person isn’t a monster. Monsters aren’t real, and besides, whoever did this doesn’t see themselves as a monster, villain or bogeyman.’

She swung her legs into the car and her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, knuckles white. ‘This person is the hero in their own story.’

‘Hero,’ Charis scoffed.

‘In their eyes.’

‘They won’t like how the media will portray them.’