Guilty Innocence Read Online Free PDF

nods, extinguishing all hope within her. ‘Yes.’
    ‘You killed that little girl. Abby Morgan.’ The accusation bursts out of Natalie now he’s confirmed his guilt. She sees him flinch on hearing the child’s name. Her fists fly at him, rage and revulsion in every blow; the man before her becomes symbolic of all those who have ever hurt her. A list that includes him. The one who abused her, so many years ago. Oh, the horror of it. Don’t go there, she warns herself, as she continues to punch Mark, her resolve not to get angry now forgotten. He doesn’t stop her and she pounds away before dropping down on the sofa, her throat full of tears, despair choking her voice. ‘You bastard. You fucking bastard.’
    Mark stands in front of her, silent. She can’t look at him. ‘How the hell…’ She gasps in air. ‘How could you do something so awful? You and that other boy. You killed a child. A defenceless two-year-old.’
    ‘Nat.’ His voice reaches her, cutting through her misery. ‘I can explain.’
    ‘Like hell you can. You were convicted, you and that Adam Campbell.’
    Natalie stands up, thrusting the letter into his face, the force of her fingers crumpling the envelope. ‘Your own mother. She rejected you.’
    He turns his head away before she’s able to gauge his reaction. She presses on, driven by her overwhelming need to grasp whatever it is she’s dealing with here.
    ‘She didn’t even bother to tell you herself.’ He tilts his face back towards her then, and she sees him flinch again as her words whip against him. His reply is so quiet she has to ask him to repeat it.
    ‘I said, yes, she rejected me.’
    ‘You’re surprised?’
    ‘No. Are you going to do the same?’
    ‘Do you blame me?’
    He shakes his head sadly. This defeatist attitude isn’t what Natalie expected at all. Where is the anger at her snooping through his things, where are the passionate denials that he’s anyone other than Mark Slater, where is the explanation for having the letter? She can deal with shouting, blatant lies, anything other than this weary resignation at whatever she throws at him.
    ‘I’m sorry, Nat. I’m not what you need me to be.’
    ‘You can say that again.’ She spits the words out as though they’re poison.
    ‘I never have been.’
    ‘You fucking bastard.’
    ‘I can explain. If you’ll let me.’
    ‘How?’ Natalie is struggling to understand. She’s always yearned for kids of her own and can’t comprehend how anyone can hurt them. What explanation exists for how a child ends up murdered? Battered with a rake and then knifed to death? By two eleven-year-olds, for Christ’s sake. Mark has once had the capacity to harm and kill a child and Natalie’s not so naïve as to believe ten years of detention in a secure unit and then prison will have knocked that out of him.
    ‘I didn’t do it, Nat.’ His eyes plead with her to accept his words.
    ‘Of course you did.’ Fury pounds through her at his glib denial. ‘You were convicted, weren’t you?’
    ‘Yes, but listen - ’
    ‘You and the other boy. I don’t remember much about the crime, but I do recall there being substantial evidence, enough to incriminate the pair of you. Bastards. Vile, twisted killers. Sick and evil, even at the age of eleven.’ Anguish sweeps away the fury. ‘How could you do something so awful? That little girl…’
    ‘Nat.’ He prises the letter from her grasp and places it on the coffee table, before trying to take her hands.
    She wrenches them away. ‘Don’t touch me, you bastard.’
    ‘That’s not how it was, Nat. I didn’t kill Abby Morgan. I swear I didn’t. Like I say, I can explain. If you’ll let me.’
    She pushes past him, making for the door, but he stops her, not forcefully or in an intimidating way, simply an attempt at detaining her so he can deliver his explanation. His words bounce around in her skull. I didn’t do it, Nat. Her desperation for all this crap not to be the way it