69236538256563

‘I’ve changed my mind.’
I didn’t have the energy to go to my bed. I lay on my sofa, the window cracked open even though it
was freezing outside, and I smoked and tried to fight away the memories of Emma that could upset the
perfect balance I felt: the poised moment when a case is about to come together one way or another,
and when you’re right in it.
I checked my phone. Woodley and I had been texting and mailing, finalising directions and details
for the morning.
What I didn’t expect to find in my inbox was an email from Emma. Its title: ‘Sorry’.
Email
To: Jim Clemo
From: Emma Zhang
28 October 2012 at 23.39
SORRY
Dear Jim
I hope you read this because I owe you an explanation. If you are reading it: thank you.
I should never have done what I did. It was unforgivable. I should never have contributed to the blog and I should never have expected
you to help me. It was a terrible position to put you in.
When I walked past you in the incident room this morning it was the hardest moment of my life because all I wanted to do was rewind
the clock, and not do what I did, so we could still be together. When I was with you I felt happy, and protected, and I threw all that away
for the worst and most stupid of reasons.
I owe you an explanation for why I did it, and here it is. It’s not an excuse:
When I was six years old my dad went outside to mow the lawn and asked me to look after my little sister. She was two. Her name was
Celia. We were playing in my bedroom. I left her for just a few minutes to go to the loo. When I came back I couldn’t find her. I called
my dad. He found her wedged down the side of my bed. She’d got stuck, and suffocated. She died before we got her out.
My dad blamed me for her death, but I was just a child too. What he did wasn’t responsible because he was the adult in charge, he
shouldn’t have left her in my care. I didn’t know you could die like that.
But he was tough like that, always, you’ve no idea how tough he was. He never let me be a child. I miss Celia every day.
When I heard what Rachel Jenner did to Ben, how she let him run ahead, I wanted to punish her, because you shouldn’t leave kids
unsupervised. They can come to harm. I thought it meant that she was a person who didn’t deserve to have a child, that she didn’t love
him properly. I thought she was like my dad. I realised I was wrong when I saw the photographs she’d taken of him. They were so
beautiful, I felt as though they would break my heart there and then.
I didn’t mean to do what I did. The blog sucked me in. It was a kind of compulsion, so hard to resist.
I don’t know if that’s because the FLO role was too much for me. Perhaps I’m not good at bearing other people’s problems. It freaks
me out. I should have been stronger, more professional, and I should have pulled out of the investigation, but I didn’t, and then it got so
hard to fight the urge to contribute to the blog because I felt so angry. I try hard to quell it, but I carry a lot of rage with me about what
happened to Celia and to me, and I confused my history, and my anger at my dad, with Rachel’s present, and I wanted to punish her for
his sins.
I try not to let it show, because I’m usually very good at pleasing people, and making everything right, but I’m not always a well person,
and even when I work hard to keep it under control, my past messes with my mind sometimes.