Trust No Bitch: Part 1

Alice Jenkins

"If we're sure about this, we should go to the police." Said Gemma, putting her beer down next to her. "I know it's nothing definite but it's a solid theory and it could help. The sooner we tell the police, the better. It gives them more of a chance of finding out who it is."

"Now? But it's, like, half 10? Will there be anyone there?" Asked Lilly. Alice noticed that she hadn't touched her drink.

"Someone will. 52% of violent crime occurs at night, Lilly." She responded manner-of-factly, frowning.

"52%? How do you know that?" Said Lilly, shaking her head in awe. "I can't even remember how old my own dad is."

"I read it somewhere." Said Alice shrugging dismissively. "Are we all going to go to the police station?"

"I think just one of us. It looks like some conspiracy that we all came up with to get them to forget about us if we go together." Said Gemma.

"I don't mind going." Alice offered. "I'll go now, if you want."

"You don't have to. Go in the morning if you'd rather. It's been a bloody long day."

"No, no. I'll be fine." Said Alice, getting to her feet and handing her beer to Gemma. "Have the rest of it, I'm not thirsty. Like you said, the sooner we tell them, the better. I'm thinking that since Detective March probably won't be there right now, maybe I should just write a note and leave it there for her?"

"Alice, wait!" Clara called after her but Alice was already bounding down the stairs back to her flat. Scrawling their thoughts down onto a piece of lined paper and tearing it from her notepad, she didn't wait a moment before darting back up to the roof and perching on the ledge again to read it out to the others. God, she thought to herself. You'd think you were about to make some toast to the love of your life on your wedding day. Calm the bloody hell down.

"So," She began, once she had everyone's attention. "I've written that we believe the prints on the drugs found at the fire could be the person that murdered Cleo." She looked up at the others to check they were listening, each word loud and clear as if she were a flight attendant explaining the safety procedures. "They supply drugs to dealers at St.Edmunds and Cleo set them up, by bringing those supplies to light when she, or somebody else on her behalf started the fire. She couldn't just tell the police about the stocks because then they'd want to know how she knew about them, which of course she couldn't tell them because she was dealing them herself. Whoever's stocks they were found out that Cleo set the fire, or thought that Cleo was going to reveal their identity and what they might have done, so that's possibly hurting Mia Jackson and Declan Johnson, and therefore got rid of Cleo in order to keep her quiet, or as revenge for the fire. Or both." She said tentatively.

"We're making a lot of assumptions here." Said Gemma.

"Assumptions that I'm almost certain are correct." Alice found herself snapping; they'd only come up with it moments before, but she already felt herself getting latched on to the idea of some shadowy figure going round and picking people off. It would be like a real life game of Cluedo. And she fucking loved to win. "Gemma, the worst thing that can happen here is that they get rid of this scrap of paper and discredit the theory completely. But if they do pay attention to it, and we're right, maybe they'll be able to find out who it is that did this to Cleo." She bid goodnight to Gemma, Clara and Lilly and made her way to the building's car park. It was a black Mercedes, her 20th birthday present from her mother. Probably to make up for the fact that neither of her parents had been able to see her at any point within a month either side of her actual birthday and also because together, her family had more money than they knew what to do with. She had been on the motorway for around 10 minutes when she had to pull into the lay-by to attend to her beeping phone. In an act of a pre-trauma naivety, she assumed it would be a text from Tim Robbins or Sasha Evans, asking why she had never showed up to their Game of Thrones night. She sighed, picking up her phone and feeling irritated at herself for forgetting to text either of them to let them know she was okay. She doubted that Cleo's body being found would've been a hindrance to Sasha's plans; "All the more reason for them to go ahead", Alice could imagine Sasha saying. She knew that Tim would do little in the way of objecting if Sasha demanded that they carried on as usual. But as she opened the text, irritation was negated by consternation like she had never felt before, which was saying a lot in her short but anxiety-filled life. At the top of the text was a photo. A photo she had seen before, waved above Cleo King's head as she'd taunted Alice with it less than a year ago to the day. She heard the words that had accompanied the visual.

"If you want it...you're going to have to come and get it." Cleo had drawled. Now Alice saw words with all the same vulpine tone and malevolent intent emblazoned across the screen, underneath the photo.

It was of the contents of her bedroom cabinet, her pill bottles, at least seven lined up side to side all with her name on them, a baggie of white powder tucked in on the end. She knew the photo well, like a billboard one has to walk past everyday to get to work. Her thoughts had passed it by many a time as they charged about inside her head. It was the one with which Cleo had threatened her after she accused Alice of sleeping with her boyfriend, Luca Stone.

The photo by itself? Enough to cause a considerable amount of terror. But the photo with the message underneath? Undiluted dread, lava-like in her chest.

Alice Jenkins: The pill-popping psychopath or the drug dealing whore that couldn't take competition?

Did Cleo King know too much or say too much?

Decide on your motive or I will.

And if you go to the police about me? That's a promise.

Because you as a suspect? I like my odds.

Her heart thrashing about inside her ribcage, she looked up to the top of the screen to see who the text was from. She didn't know who she had expected, but what she saw struck even more fear into her jerking heart.

It was a private number. Unknown. Anonymous.

How did they get it? And who was they?

She found the same ten words twisting and turning through her mind, coiling themselves round the tendrils of her brain like a 60 ft. snake so that every other thought, every other inkling of rationality within her was suffocated by them.

Ten words, thirteen syllables, forty letters and the tapping of the tongue on the teeth to make the T sound, evocative of a snare drum: Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

They were the words in her head as she got out of her car, head whipping from left to right, looking up and down the road, trying to spot any cars in the distance, see if there were any that she recognised, whose driver could have sent the text. No-one.

"Hello?" She called out tentatively into the bushes on the other side of the road.

But there was no reply.

The road was deserted, she accepted, as got into her car again and pressed her back against the seat. Running a hand through her hair, she looked down at the text again.

If she really was alone on that road, she certainly didn't feel it.