Chapter Twenty

That Night

Blair: Good evening Bloodlusters’ and welcome to the one hundredth episode of The Murder Sessions! To celebrate making it to one hundred episodes tonight, we have none other than model and social media influencer Dayna Khalid. I know a lot of you had requested I get her back on as a guest – and it took persuading – but here she is!

Dayna: Hey there Lusters, it’s good to be back. I have been busy but I will always have a keen interest in true crime and unsolved mysteries.

Blair: I am sure you all remember Dayna from earlier episodes “The Kindness of Strangler’s” and “Wicked Women”.  For our newer listeners out there, if you have not listened before then you should definitely check them out. So! Without further ado, Dayna would you like to introduce tonight’s topic and explain to our listeners why you chose this subject?

Dayna: Tonight we are going to be discussing and dissecting crimes of passion. I chose this subject because I think there is something so fascinating about what pushes people to kill – especially people that they love. You know, what makes someone snap like that, why are they driven to do these things?

Blair: That is a great topic of discussion. I have to say, I think particularly with crimes of passion, there is a thin line between love and hate and sometimes crossing that line can be lethal. I want to start the night with the discussion of local Kirkleithen woman, Margaret Mullins.

Dayna: Ohhh is that your Grandad’s dead girlfriend?

Blair: Presumed dead! Her body has never actually been found after disappearing sixty years ago. Margaret, or Maggie as she was more commonly known, was the object of every young man in Kirkleithens’ desire. She only had eyes for one man – my Granda. They were planning on running away to Gretna to elope, but the night before their planned get away, she vanished into thin air.

Dayna: I bet it was a jealous admirer, or her disapproving parents!

Blair: The rumour mill was afloat for months, with many people automatically pointing fingers at Granda. Children became scared to go to the beach at night and she soon became known as the White Lady of Kirkeithen Bay. I – Jamie do you mind? We’re trying to record here!

Jamie: Ah sorry, your mother wants you to take your washing down.

Blair: Oh for… I’ll be back in a minute!

Jamie: I’ve missed you, beautiful.

Dayna: Shhhh! Blair might hear. Or Emily!

Jamie: They’re both downstairs and the old mans out in his shed. Come here, let me kiss you…

Dayna: No. Not here. Wait until night. The cabin around eleven?

*

“Good evening everyone, tonight you are joining me live for my last coverage of the Dayna Khalid murder. I’m afraid I have a confession to make. I’ve been lying to myself, and to you all. This whole time I knew what happened that night, but my memory was being tampered with. If only I had refused the antidepressants that have been fucking up my memory, I would have remembered sooner. But I remember now, everything. I made many fucking stupid mistakes that night, and if I could change me actions then I would.

My first mistake of the night was luring Dayna away from the party via a fake account. I know it sounds creepy and wrong, but I wanted to prove that she was still meeting up with strangers on the internet. I was worried about her, yes, but I would be lying if I said a part of me wasn’t jealous either. We met at the park and I said things I will regret for the rest of my life and she pushed me. I thought had been in. I thought I had lain on the ground, covered in mud watching her walk away from me before staggering home in a drunken stupor. But what isn’t what I did at all.

You see, Dayna had forgotten that months ago we had linked our phones so we could track one another’s location and that’s exactly what I did. I followed her to the cabin, unaware that I was being followed too. We used to love that cabin as kids; a log cabin retreat in the middle of nowhere, with a hot tub under the stars; we spent our birthdays and many Summer nights there partying with our boyfriends. Some of my best memories happened in that cabin, but now… so have my worst.

I thought she was alone when I first approached. She was sitting in the hot tub with her back to me, a glass of champagne in her hand looking like some glamorous movie star. It took me a moment to realise she was talking to somebody. When he finally emerged from the cabin, it felt as if someone had pulled the world from under me. I sat, watching from the trees in disbelief, as my own stepfather Jamie Smith appeared and got into the tub with her.

I cannot describe the betrayal in my heart; how could Dayna do this to my mother? How could Jamie do this to her? I always hated him, and I thought it was just because he was trying to replace my father but I guess it was more than that; I think deep down, I knew he was a rat. As I watched them together in the hot tub, I was frozen; a part of me wanted to turn around and pretend I hadn’t seen anything, but I couldn’t. I wanted to confront them, but before I could pluck up the courage, a car had pulled up quietly by the edge of the lodge. They hadn’t heard it coming over the sound of the jets and the music they were playing. They didn’t hear the footsteps of their assailant coming around the decking as Jamie made his way into the lodge for more wine. The next thing he and I heard were the screams of Dayna as a screwdriver was plunged into her perfect body, over and over again, in a fit of rage. I tried to scream for her to stop, but instead I trembled in fear amongst the trees like the useless fucker I am. Jamie ran outside, towel wrapped around his waist, to the site of my own mother standing over the bloody, limp body of Dayna. My mother. The look of rage in her eyes faded, and instead of attacking him, she crumbled, wailing and sobbing like a pathetic little child.

            “Emily? What have you done? What have you done?”

             “How could you? How could you do this to me?”

How could he do this to you? How could you do this to Dayna? To me? How could the two of you live with yourselves? I watched as they fled the scene, leaving her floating face down in the water. As soon as the car was out of site, I ran. My legs shook like jelly and I struggled to mount the decking, but somehow I found the strength. I clambered into the hot tub, pulling her out of the water and into my arms.

She was still alive, but barely. I sobbed, begging her to hold on, promising I would get her help as the water around us turned red. The screwdriver bobbed up and down around us, as if it was mocking me. She was losing too much blood.  

She only spoke two words as she lay dying in my arms: I’m sorry.

I knew there was nothing I could do, so I sobbed, clutching her against me like a baby until her heart stopped. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go home, to the place where her killers lived. I know I should have phoned the police, but I wasn’t thinking straight. And then I heard it. A stick snapped from the surrounding trees and then he appeared: Sean.

I knew Sean hadn’t hurt her all along, but what I didn’t know was that he thought I had. He had followed me into the woods, and found me covered in blood clutching her body. He had shook me out of my shock and told me to go home; that he would handle everything. He took the murder weapon because he thought he was protecting me, not my fucking mother and her boyfriend. I couldn’t tell him the truth. I told him to go and I would make my own way home. I screamed at him to leave me alone and then I watched him disappear back into the woods. I’m not sure how long I sat on the decking for, sobbing and racking my brain for somewhere to go. But it was too long: I heard a car pull up and before I could make my getaway, heavy footsteps made their way around the decking and Jamie and my mother appeared. Armed to hide the evidence with bottles of bleach and mop buckets.

                  “Oh my god Blair… what are you doing here?”

She almost sounded embarrassed.

                   “I saw everything. I saw what you did. I saw you fucking her and I saw you killing her. You have to call the police! You have to! You murderers!”

I flailed my arms at them; landing feeble punches as the drink and drugs caught up to me and the adrenaline began to drain from my body. I remember Jamie restraining me and mum asking what they were going to do. I remember the panic and hysteria in her voice. Jamie said he would “take care of it” and that was when they started pumping me full of antidepressants and tranquilizers. That was when they cleaned away any evidence of our presence that night and squashed out my memories.

I bet you thought you were really smart, right?

So, there you have it listeners, the true story of what happened that night. My heart is breaking all over again; I battled with myself on the way here. I have lost my best friend and my father, do I really want to lose my mother too? But I had to do this, I owe it to Dayna and her family. They deserve justice, Sean deserves to be absolved and I… I deserve to die. I was there and I didn’t stop it, I crumbled like a coward and watched. I’m no better than them. I’m so sorry to everyone, but above all, to Dayna. I love you, Dayna. I’ll see you soon…”

Epilogue

Three Months Later

               Granda Campbell sat on the weathered wooden porch, a cigarette balanced on his lips. He watched as a news van tried to take sly pictures of him from the end of the street before doing a U-Turn and disappearing over the horizon. That would be the last of them. The sentencing of his only daughter and her “twisted, cheating paramour” as the press had labelled him, had taken place this morning. Life imprisonment had been the verdict; and rightly so, but Granda couldn’t help but feel sad at the prospect of never sitting around the dinner table with his daughter again. He would never forgive her for what she had done to his beloved Blair. Drugging her and hiding the truth, until she couldn’t take it anymore. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if Audrey Andrew’s and Detective Macdonald hadn’t found her in time. They had traced the radio signal back to the radio shack and found her just in time, hanging from the warped rafters. He cursed himself for letting it get that far; he could see she was hurting and confused that night. He should have made sure she was ok.

Kirkleithen would never be the same again. The Khalid’s had decided to leave town for good, a large “SOLD” sign was now swinging above the front doors of The Breakwater, that had been boarded shut weeks ago. People had always looked at him funny since Maggie’s disappearance, but now he couldn’t even go to Jeannie Laird’s store for a pint of milk without people cursing him under his breath or spitting at him. Nevertheless, this was his home, and he knew he would die here. He had higher hopes for his granddaughter.

As if she had heard him thinking about her, the sound of suitcase wheels scraped along the wooden floor that had lost its stench of bleach since Emily had been imprisoned. Blair emerged through the front door and lugged her suitcase over the threshold.

       “You all set, poppet?”

        She nodded and smiled for what felt like the first time in months. “I’ve never been more ready.”

He felt a knot in his gut at the thought of her living hundreds of miles away, but he knew it was exactly what she needed; a fresh start.

        “Promise you’ll come visit me in Edinburgh once I’m all settled in?”

        He laughed. “I’m not sure my old bones will cope with the journey down there on the train.”

        “Sean can drive you down when he comes to visit.”

        He arched his brow and crossed his hands across his chest. “I thought it was over between you two?”

        “Oh, it is. But it doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. He did try and cover up a murder he thought I committed, after all.”

He wasn’t sure what the correct response was; should he laugh? Shake his head in disapproval? Instead, he smiled and locked his beautiful granddaughter in a tight embrace. He walked her down to the bus stop, a tear stinging his eye when it finally pulled up.

              “Goodbye Granda, I’ll call when I arrive.”

              “Look after yourself poppet… I… I’m proud of you.”

Her face twisted into a strange smile as she looked out across the bay one last time.

                  “I’m proud of me too.” she whispered.