5/7/2015 - 6pm
Amanda Bridges arrived at 56 Corner Close with a growing sense of weariness. The night was like any other (as cold as it was), and she was on babysitting duty. Again. This time, a friend of a friend of her mother's friend had recommended her and of course her parents had demanded she take the opportunity to earn $30. She was 16, heavens sake! Didn't she even have the right to spend her Saturday night doing whatever it was that she wanted to do?
The object of the babysitting was 9-year-old Charlie White.
"Give Charlie her dinner at 7 o'clock. She should be in bed by nine, and keep the volume down, she's a very light sleeper," her mother added with a touch of distaste, as if Amanda was going to invite all her friends round for some sort of massive party. She thought she just might if she ever had to babysit again.
Charlie was busy watching cartoons, seemingly oblivious to the stranger in her house. Amanda took out her books and began to study. The time seemed to drag and Amanda found herself paying more attention to her watch than her notes. She sighed. This was going to be a long night.
5/7/2015 - 7pm
Amanda didn't even have time to turn on the light in the kitchen before she saw the strange apparition staring right back at her. The window spanned from the floor to the ceiling, and looked out onto the garden, which was as dark as the very night itself. But the window wasn't scary thing, It was the girl in it.
Amanda thought her heart had actually skipped a beat. In the darkness, she couldn't tell exactly how old the girl was, but she seemed to be staring right into her. In a moment, Amanda assumed that the girl was simply a passer by, and she had stopped to look in the house. She whipped into action, flicking the light on and preparing Charlie's dinner of pasta. She didn't look back at the window.
5/7/2015 - 7:30pm
Babysitting came with the compulsory duty of washing up. Amanda dreaded going back into the kitchen, facing the window again, but there was no way out. This time, however, she didn't hesitate to turn the light on and head straight for the bench. She didn't spare so much as a glance to the window.
The water gushed into the sink as she rambled around for some washing up gloves. The thought of sticking her hands in there without protection from the remainders of food floating around disgusted Amanda.
Along with the plates from Charlie's dinner there was a few cups, a bowl and and some cutlery. Amanda was finished in no time. She tried to hurry past the window again and got so far as switching off the light, but she couldn't help herself. She looked back.
The girl was still there.
This time, though, she had a knife.
5/7/2015- 8pm
Inspector Davies arrived at 56 Corner Close with a growing sense of dread. He hated the chaos of a murder scene, the flashing lights, police everywhere, hysterical parents and family. It only made it worse that the victim was just a kid.
As he passed the front gate he saw a man and a woman. The man was staring out into space as he put his arm around the woman. Oh, the woman. She was screaming, howling at the top of her voice. Her mascara was dripping in wild lines across her face and her whole body shook like she was experiencing her own personal earthquake. Despite the urge to comfort the two figures who were obviously the parents, he moved on into the house.
The little body still lay on the carpet, a sizable pool of blood spilling about it. The inspector crouched down.
"Fingerprints?" he asked to crime squad. They made up a small semicircle behind him, baggy blue jumpsuits rustling slightly in the breeze from the open front door.
"No," answered one, " we haven't found any at all. We did find the murder weapon, though..." At this he held out a plastic bag to Inspector Davies. In it was a knife, blood that hadn't even had the time to dry yet glistening off its blade.
"So you're telling me that you found what is obviously the instrument with which the victim was murdered," He gestured to the knife,"But you've found no signs whatsoever of fingerprints or any other markings that may trace us to the culprit?"
"No sir."
"We'll have more advanced tests done at the station."
There was an uncomfortable silence. Inspector Davies sighed inwardly.
"Oh, but we do have a prime suspect. She's already been taken for questioning," spoke the gravelly voice of a woman.
"Well, that's a start," Davies muttered as he made his way out of the house. His thoughts had already turned to the suspect. What was her role? How old was she? And most importantly of all, had she killed Charlie White?
6/7/2015 - 7:15 am
It had been a long night. The "suspect", 16 year - old Amanda Bridges, didn't seem too capable of killing a fly, let alone committing murder. She'd come to the station shaking and obviously terrified. It had been hard to get any information out of here like that. Having been in the business for 20 years, the Inspector knew he had to investigate every possibility, even the ones that involved fragile - looking girls murdering young children for no reason whatsoever, but he could see in her eyes that she hadn't done it.
There was yet more questioning to be done at the station today. This time, though, the parents were going to be brought in. God, he dreaded the parents. He couldn't deal with the hysteria, the gloom. Although they weren't to blame. There was something especially strange about this one. He thought he'd long passed the point of getting scared by the gruesome cases he had to deal with every day, but here he was. Inexplicably, he shivered.
6/7/2015 - 2 pm
"So, Miss Bridges, tell us exactly what you saw prior to the...incident on the Fifth of July, 2016."
Inspector Davies was on his fourth cup of coffee, and it was running out fast. Amanda Bridges sat fidgeting nervously with her hair across the table.
"Well, I... the first time I saw it was when I was getting food from the kitchen. It was there... standing in the window. It was a girl... I think. She was just standing there, staring. I was scared but I thought she was just a passer-by. The next time I went in, to do the washing up...she...she was holding a kn-knife," She shuddered on the last word.
Inspector Davies glanced over at the parents of the victim, who where sitting next to him. Mrs White was ghostly - pale, and he noticed her pupils had dilated. Mr White was staring at the table, his look one of complete confusion.
"Is something wrong?" the inspector asked. What a stupid question, he thought immediately after it came out of his mouth. Their daughter had been murdered the night before and he expected everything to be alright?
But instead of answering, Mrs White directed her question to Amanda.
"What did you say about the window?"
"There was a window, leading outside, into the garden. The girl, she was in the window... in the garden, I guess."
Any remaining color had long since drained from Mrs White's face. She looked to Davies, then back to Amanda.
"Oh... that's not a window, that's a mirror."
