Sincerely, Red

Chapter Sixteen

Months later, when the snow had dried up and the ice had drifted away in steady streams; we had gotten somewhere, sort of.

After that conversation with Claire so many days ago, she'd put her entire being into finding out as much as she could about as much as there was. Along with working on her regular job and dealing with other cases, she was doing the job of my own lawyer and scavenging for every piece of information she came across.

Claire's fear hadn't come true so far.

The police hadn't found ground breaking evidence that would be enough to turn me into a criminal. I wasn't being questioned as much as she'd thought I would be. No one was putting me under scrutiny and pressure. I wasn't being forced to admit to something I didn't believe I'd done.

Even though she'd become obsessed with her work, Claire hadn't changed all that much. She was still a bundle of mixed emotions and a need to stay on top of life. She was still Claire.

I think, however, that other people had undergone changes.

David, for instance, had slowly lost his constant sense of humour. It had fizzled out and the remains of it had joined together to form something completely different. That something resembled a more sarcastic, darker attitude that rarely made people laugh.

He also smoked a lot now, saying that the reason for it was stress. He'd grown a beard, because everything was "just too much effort". He wore an old beanie over his head and a thermal jacket that barely zipped over his stomach.

In other words, he'd completely let himself go.

It was only with his occasional paintings that some of his feelings were shared. They were full of dark, gloomy skies, journalists, court rooms and a bloody border. Everything told a very clear story. There wasn't really a need to think about his art anymore.

The world had broken David Anderson.

Putting him aside, the community had changed as well.

Don't get me wrong. Their mindsets hadn't changed at all. Most people still thought that I was responsible for the murder of one of town's most influential young people. They thought of Laney Carter as someone they had known quite well, even if they hadn't really.

It was just the strength of that hatred that had changed. It had grown.

The people here had an image in their minds, though it could actually be described as a joint mind. Laney Carter had been their friend, their source of happiness, a person who would bring them good results in her GCSE's, someone who would bring pride through the great career that awaited her.

It didn't matter that her target grades were all low C's or that she'd always been a straight D student. They didn't care that she'd hated the way they'd thought and had never considered herself a part of them. In fact, she'd done her best to completely move away from belonging to this community.

Laney Carter had been my friend. Laney Carter had been a rebel. Laney Carter was the type of person who'd been involved with the police for shoplifting, assault and vandalism.

Half of this came from my own memory, which was very slowly showing signs of coming back. I couldn't picture full parts of the past, but small, mostly insignificant things were added to my memory bank.

The rest of what I'd learnt was all opinion based and came mainly from Claire, who was starting to blame Laney Carter for ruining my life.

"She always was a trouble maker," she said, over breakfast. "I had to bail the both of you out when she assaulted a girl in an alleyway. I faced so much humiliation because of that."