Broken girls

Sinbad Publishing House represents the book of Simona Saint-James "Broken Girls" (translation by Maria Klennitskaya).

Aidloild Hall has always been a gloomy place. In the 1950s, it contained a boarding school for problematic girls-turmoil, illegitimate, with developmental disabilities. It was rumored that a ghost lived in it, and local residents preferred to bypass him. The boarding school was closed after the mysterious disappearance of the pupil, one of the four close friends.

After almost half a century near the abandoned building, they found the body of the girl. The guy with whom she met was condemned of her murder and subsequently convicted. Twenty years later, a terrible find during the reconstruction work of Aidloild Hall connects these two tragic cases and leads to terrible secrets of an even more distant past.

We offer to read a fragment of the book.

She did not read an article about the murder in Laivli Vermont and did not even know if the magazine published something on this topic. In the 1990s, Lylyuvy Vermont had not yet turned into a publication for housewives and tried to illuminate the news, although he adapted to fashion trends. Its format at that time was like Rolling Stone - wide pages, thin paper, piquant stories on the cover. “These were the last days of magazine publications,” thought Fiona, looking at the hem in a year. “Then they still brought money.”

She could not explain why she was digging in all this, as well as she could not say why she went to Old-Barrons-Road that night to look at the cars passing by. Perhaps the point was in the reflection of the past, which she saw in her father. Be that as it may, Fiona succumbed to the impulse. While she scroll through the magazines, her skin tinged, and her neck was stretched from behind, as during a night walk. “I can’t do anything about it. I can't. "

The murder report did not fall on the cover - this would be too cheap technique for Lylyiva Vermont. But after the arrest of Tim Christopher, a long article was published in the magazine, entitled "The End of Innocialness: the murder of the girl deprived the residents of Vermont." Reading the title, Fiona drew attention to the name of the author. The article was written by Patrick Saller, a former employee of the editorial office of Lylyu Vermont, who was fired during the next departure of the state. He still worked as a freelancer, and Fiona was familiar with him.

The article came out not bad; The saller worked as it should. Deb indicated the time of disappearance and murder correctly. He described the clothes in which the Deb was seen for the last time: a white blouse, dark green cotton trousers, a light gray cloak and a black knitted hat. He said that her room neighbor Carol Dibbz could not say exactly how much Deb left the house, since all the watches at home showed different times.

Photos are not an example better than those that were published in all news reports in those days. Here is a cold and gloomy look of the building of a student dormitory in which Deb and Caroll lived. And this is a portrait of Deb, made on her 20th anniversary two weeks before the murder-her hair flutters, her face is relaxed, she laughs. When the Deb disappeared, their parents handed it over several of her photographs to reporters, but everyone used a more formal picture in which Deb sat decorously with her hands on her knees. The photo that Saller chose was more blurry, but Fiona seemed to better convey the character of Deb. The largest picture shows the field of Aidloild Hall, as Fiona saw him when the body was removed from him-covered with garbage and wreaths.

This frame Saller seemed to have fished out of her own memory. Fiona peered at him for a long time, recalling how she stood there and did not understand what she expected to see; How her fingers in sneakers froze and flowed from her nose. The memory was followed by a wave of nausea that Fiona was seventeen again and it was in the middle of a dark tunnel, from which there was no way out, surrounded by strangers who are impressive for parents and teachers. In that year, she barely completed her studies and until the very holidays remained a girl who was killed by her sister. It was a year of campaigns to a psychotherapist, outbreaks of anger, empty, terrible grief and - thanks to the adolescence - acne, which she could not bring from her face. “It all ended,” Fiona reminded herself. “It's all over.”

Nevertheless, twenty years later, she sat in the empty editorial office of the magazine and read a report about that day.

Suddenly, her attention was attracted by what she had not noticed before.

I did not notice among evidence collected from various sources before the trial. She knew the existing facts by heart. In defense of Tim, it was said that eyewitnesses of the murder were never found, the Deb was not raped and did not find particles of someone else's skin and traces of bodily liquids on her body. Although Tim was not considered an excellent student, everyone called him a decent, pretty and completely non -aggressive guy. The accusation referred to the fact that in the back seat of his car they found Deb hair, that he was seen with her, that they often and loudly quarreled, including on her death day, and especially on the fact that a spot of her blood was discovered on his jeans. In the nostrils, Deb also found baked blood. Apparently, he hit her and, without hesitation, wiped his hand on his clothes.

The main question was whether Tim Alibi had. From the very beginning, this was a kind of white spot on the map of that evening. But Patrick Saller asked the owner of the frozen foil at Jermani Road, who is twenty minutes from a university campus. “He came that evening,” the Saller quoted the ice cream, a certain Richard Rush. - A little later than nine. He was alone. He ordered a portion and rode here with her until the closure, that is, up to ten hours. ” Rush claimed that most of the time in the kiosk there was no one but Tim, because no one saw him. Deb death occurred between 9 and 11 hours.

Fiona could not break away from this passage, re -reading it again and again. The words either burned in front of her eyes, then blurred again.

These testimonies were never mentioned either in court or in any other article about the murder of Deb. During the hearing, Tim could not provide Alibi during the murder. He stated that they had a fight and Deb, he dropped her out of the car and drove home. He also admitted that he hit her, and her nose went with her nose. Tim was condemned because he did not have Alibi. But in his testimony, the name of the kiosk "Pops Aiskym" has never sounded.

If Richard Rush knew where Tim was that evening, at least up to ten hours, why did he not speak in court? Alibi was incomplete, but it put the entire alleged procedure in doubt. What happened? Why did a person who threatened to prison the murder did not provide such evidence? Maybe Richard’s testimony was for some reason invalid?