Celia lowered her head into her hands and wept.
Kim exchanged a glance with Bryant, whose expression held the same level of sympathy as hers. Yes, she was a woman in pain, but how many people had suffered because of her ideology, her treatment methods? No. On the sympathy front Kim was all out.
And things were about to get worse. She’d already taken away two of her children and she was about to take away the third and, arguably, most important child of them all.
‘We’re closing you down, Celia.’
The woman’s head shot up. ‘What?’
‘We have the murders of three former patients carried out by two staff members who happen to be your children. Reopening will be for the courts to decide, but for now my priority is safeguarding the patients you have here now. We’ve drafted in—’ Kim stopped speaking as a knock sounded on the door.
‘Ah, speaking of which. Come in,’ Kim called out.
Megan Shaw stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.
‘Celia, I’d like you to meet…’ Kim’s words trailed away as she realised Celia knew who she was looking at.
Neither woman was looking at anyone else in the room.
Kim caught her breath at the emotion that travelled between them. Anger, hurt, love, desire, passion and regret.
The electricity in the room jolted Kim into understanding.
Kim realised that Megan had never actually answered the question about meeting Celia in her youth. She had lost the love of her life in her teens. Kim had assumed the woman had died, but that wasn’t the kind of loss she’d meant.
‘Oh my God, it was you two, wasn’t it?’ Kim asked. ‘You two killed Celia’s mother.’
Megan nodded without breaking her gaze away from Celia.
‘The jig is up Ceecee. We’ve had long enough.’
Celia swallowed and said nothing.
‘I missed the train, Ceecee, I missed the bloody train.’
Tears spilled out of Celia’s eyes and rolled over her cheeks.
Kim caught Bryant’s eye and nodded towards the door in the corner that led to a toilet and kitchen. The murder of Celia’s mother had been a West Mercia case and they needed to be informed.
‘Can you explain?’ Kim asked as Bryant broke the force field between them.
‘Ceecee’s mother caught us kissing when we were sixteen years old,’ Megan explained. ‘She ordered Ceecee to break up with me, and she pretended to.’
‘She said if she ever caught us again she’d send me away so that we’d never see each other again,’ Celia added.
Megan stepped back in. ‘We couldn’t let that happen. We loved each other so we made the plan. To us it was as simple as getting her out of the way so we could be together. We didn’t bargain on the blood, the sound, the realisation that we’d taken a life.’
Megan paled as the memory returned.
‘Despite what we’d done, we still loved each other. Ceecee was sent to live with her aunt. I managed to get her address and sent a note giving a date and time to meet. There were no mobile phones then and we now lived over forty miles apart. On the day we were to meet, I missed my train. I got the times mixed up and I missed it. There was no way to let her know.’
‘I thought she’d dumped me,’ Celia continued. ‘After all we’d been through, I could barely breathe at the thought of it. The pain was unbearable. I couldn’t function. My life was over and I just wanted the agony to stop. I was trying to come to terms with what we’d done and then I’d lost the person I’d done it for.’
‘Ceecee’s aunt found out about us and put her in this—’
‘I begged her to bring me here, Meg,’ Celia protested. ‘She told me about it and I pleaded with her to let me come.’
Megan tried to hide the disappointment that flitted across her face.