Bleed Like Me by Cath Staincliffe

uncertain as to which courses. She had spent hours looking at options with him and helping him redraft his personal statement and then suddenly he was gone.
    ‘Yeah.’ Monosyllables. It wasn’t really what she wanted to know, what she really wanted to ask was Are you happy? Do you miss me? Please come home, will you? Now that the case had broken she couldn’t even ask him out to eat because she’d be working sixteen-hour days for the duration.
    ‘Have you booked them?’ she said.
    ‘Not yet.’
    ‘Well, you need to get it sorted. How are you going to choose if you’ve not been to visit?’
    ‘I know,’ he said, suddenly irritable, and she felt herself losing the battle. Hearts and minds.
    It’s very quiet without you. I miss you so much , longing to say it but determined not to. Guilt-tripping not her style. Needy Mum neither. Her brain scrabbled around searching for something else, something to get him talking. It never used to be like this; time was she could barely shut him up. Her Sammy. ‘What you been up to?’
    ‘Dunno.’
    For Pete’s sake. ‘Been out anywhere?’
    ‘Alton Towers.’
    ‘Right.’ He loved the roller coasters. Last time the two of them had been he’d talked her into riding with him. Fantastic and utterly terrifying. ‘Good stuff! You keep your breakfast down?’
    ‘Course,’ just the edge of a laugh bubbling there.
    ‘Your dad go on with you?’
    ‘Nah.’
    ‘Pussycat,’ Gill scoffed.
    ‘Emma did. And we went straight back on,’ he said gleefully. Gill grew cold. Hating the thought of that bitch having fun with her son. Knowing she had to swallow her jealousy.
    ‘Wow,’ she managed.
    ‘Dad wants his phone,’ Sammy said.
    ‘Okay, look, keep in touch, will you? Just message me or whatever. Let me know you’re still alive. That you’re okay. I worry.’
    ‘Course I’m okay.’
    I don’t know that. You could be pining or lonely or bored senseless and I wouldn’t know . A year’s time and he’d likely be gone for good; she had expected to have him for these last few months, as he finished his schooling. It felt as if Dave had snatched it away to get back at her. ‘You take care,’ she said. ‘Love you, kid.’
    ‘Yeah,’ he grunted, ‘later.’ The phone went dead. She resisted the temptation to hurl it across the room, instead slapped the wall with her hand. Which hurt like hell, stinging her palm and bringing a burning pain to her eyes.
    Then she set about updating the policy book on the various actions of the inquiry and outlining her reasons for each decision she had made.
    The house was in darkness though the security lighting in the car park came on as Rachel drove in. Once inside her flat, sheheaded straight for the kitchen, poured a large glass of red wine and drank half of it before shaking off her coat. She felt hollow, cold even though the room was warm enough. And hungry. It took her three minutes to sort out a chicken noodle meal in the microwave and another three to demolish it.
    She refilled her glass and sat down to check her phone. No messages from work, which meant no significant progress. Cottam still out there. And the kids? Dead or alive?
    With the wine taking hold she felt her muscles loosen, her concentration blur. She drank more. Put on the twenty-four hour news to see what they were saying. Saw the scant details of the murders scrolling under the current item. When the wine bottle was empty she headed for bed.
    It reared up to meet her, a ghost, a blizzard of white. She screamed. Then saw it was feathers, just the feathers from her bloody pillow, a wraith brought to life by the sudden change in air pressure when she’d swung the door open. She sucked in a breath. Then another. Felt her heart pounding. Her face on fire. Thought briefly of the sofa and a sleeping bag but couldn’t face that. Got a cushion from the living room, undressed and climbed into bed. The knife under her pillow. Fingers clutched around it. Clenched tight,