Sounds dulled. The room around her darkened, the chill invasive. She was aware of someone with her now. She tried to acknowledge them, but she couldn’t move. She was so tired, so very tired. She’d sort this mess out later. Now she needed to rest. Just a short rest. Tom would still love her wouldn’t he? Sally let go.
96
Blue and red lights sliced through the night as I sat on the step at the rear of the ambulance. My arm was outstretched as a paramedic stitched before wrapping a bandage around it. Words of advice were being spoken but I couldn’t hear them. The lights bounced around inside my head and only single words such as hospital and surgery broke through. A concerned look accompanied the words. I had no response.
I’d watched as the girl from the cage was brought out in a chair with a red blanket covering her small, frail frame. Her eyes flickered around, watching. Her body otherwise still. The street was a hive of activity. Police dogs were out, pulling on tight leashes, uniformed officers were knocking on doors and the street was cordoned off. CSIs had pulled up and were suiting up and preparing themselves to enter the home of Donovan and Evelyn Manders. A home where, at first glance, you would see a small family living daily life and going about their business and causing no concern to the neighbours. In fact, I doubted, the neighbours would even know who lived in that house. The ambulance carrying the child had taken off from the scene with its sirens wailing, a mournful sound. A sound that would carry an echo of the evening through the heart of everyone present.
Aaron approached, his tie undone and hanging from his trouser pocket. “The search team are reporting an office of well-filed transactions, names and photographs of children, email addresses, meeting places of offenders and payments to Jesse. It shouldn’t take us long to identify the girl now.” There was no preamble or emotion. “They ran a well-oiled machine and it looks like it has been going on for some time. Martin has gone with Caroline Manders to the hospital in another ambulance. Children’s services are aware and will meet them there. She was perched on her bed listening to all the noise. She’s not talking to us. It seems they’ve had her well-trained to keep quiet and not react to anything.” He spoke clearly, giving the facts and the facts alone. “There are a few photographs of Rosie in her school uniform. It looks like they were getting her ready to be moved on and prepared for what that entailed before she even went missing. It explains the troublesome behaviour that started just prior, that no one understood.”
I looked at him. He didn’t move. He waited.
“Thank you, Aaron.” He was what I needed to get through this right now. Here was not the place to break. The lights continued to flash and my head pulsed with them.
“Catherine is on her way.”
“I’d expect so.” The paramedic taped the bandage and walked away as we stumbled through the conversation. I rested my hand limply in my lap.
“Sally has been left where she is. Scenes of crime will want to process the scene with her there.” His tone was matter-of-fact.
Tears sprang to my eyes, unwanted, and I fought to keep them back. I clenched my teeth, locked my jaw tight and stared at the floor. I took a deep breath and looked back at Aaron. He said not a word. The phone in my pocket rang again. Tom.
“Do you want me to talk to him?” Aaron asked.
I took another deep breath. I had work to do. “No. Thanks, Aaron. Give me a few minutes to talk to people here, then I’ll go and see him.” I clicked answer on my phone as I walked towards the house.
If you enjoyed Shallow Waters you may like the next book in the series, Made to be Broken, where you can find out what happens next to Hannah and her team. View HERE.
You can of course, also get the prequel novella, Three Weeks Dead, which is told from the point of view of Sally. You can view that HERE. It is of course absolutely FREE for members of my readers club.
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the involvement of several people. With my deepest thanks, I am indebted to Denyse Kirkby, Kirsty Stanley and Lauren Turner for their expertise. Any errors, as always, are my own.
Without Simon I may not have made it as far as finishing the first draft and without Keshini I may not have revised it as I did, so thank you both.
There are so many people who have offered encouragement, they are too many to name for fear of leaving someone out and offending, but to you all, I am truly grateful. You are my support network.
Phil, I can’t believe you gave me something so precious!
To Jane Isaac and Mel Sherratt for reading more than one draft and providing me with such great encouragement and fabulous quotes. Thank you.
And to Sharon Sant, for the hours you have put in helping hone this into something I am able to put out there, for your patience with commas, thank you.
To Helen Baggott, I can't thank you enough.
Finally to my husband and children who have never once moaned about the time I have left them to sit in front of my laptop to make Shallow Waters come to life. This is for you.
Made to be Broken
Rebecca Bradley
Text copyright © 2016 Rebecca Bradley
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover art by Design for Writers
Do you want to claim your FREE copy of the prequel novella to Shallow Waters and Made to be Broken, Three Weeks Dead? I’d love it if you joined my readers’ club and joined the many others who have enjoyed the book that comes before the experience you are about to embark upon.
The great thing about Three Weeks Dead is that it can be read before or after Shallow Waters.
View it now.
Author’s Note
While all attempts have been made to keep this story as factually correct as possible, it has to be remembered that it is in fact, a work of fiction. So, in saying that, I have had to stretch the truth to fit in with how I needed events to work. I am fully aware that toxicology reports from post-mortems take two to four weeks to be returned depending on the level of work that needs to be completed, but that would have slowed down the narrative pace considerably, so in Made to be Broken, we have incredibly fast toxicology results from the post-mortems that are conducted. I hope this does not spoil your enjoyment of the book.
1
2 months earlier
It was a Tuesday when she died.
They say the weather reflects these events; rain coming down in droves, slamming into windows like hell unleashed. That’s what he thought when he looked out into the weak afternoon sun. Where was hell? Where was the fury? The relentless beating of nature’s wrath at one given back too soon?
Instead the sun leaked silently into their desolate world, bleaching the room in swathes of harsh light, lifting the howling sound that came from his wife as she cradled their daughter in her arms. The nurse closed the door behind her as she left them to their grief. A world they would soon become intimate with. There was a sharp but barely perceptible click as the handle lifted back into place, the only evidence the nurse had even been there.
The animal sounds that came from his wife hurt Isaac. It hurt him that their daughter, Em should be subjected, in death, to anything more than the peace she deserved. She’d suffered enough. She hadn’t been ready to die. She’d had a life to live. A life filled with promise. Promises of a future career, husband, even children.
Children.
Isaac felt the swell of pain inside him grow. A slow steady uprising from the pit of his stomach. The keening of Connie as she rocked with their baby, intensifying the momentum of his own grief. It rose up and stopped his heart.
He couldn’t breathe.
The sun-bleached room gathered its own storm that Tuesday as Isaac’s grief and anger overwhelmed him. He dropped to his knees and clutched himself, wracking out great heaving sobs for all he had just lost.
2
There was a heavy quietn
ess to the coroner’s court that you didn’t get at other courts. A beautiful stone building on the Old Market Square in Nottingham, it held a solemnity you could feel seep into your soul as you stepped through the doors. You were here to discuss the dead and the air was thick with multiple emotions.
My DS, Aaron Stone was waiting for me on a row of padded seats along the corridor. I walked over and he stood to greet me. ‘We’re in shortly.’
Today was the opening of the inquest into the death of Sally Poynter. She’d been a detective on my unit until last year when she’d been murdered on duty. The coroner would confirm her identity and go over the post-mortem then adjourn until a later date. This was a large inquest, covering a lot of information and would no doubt take some time to account for all the facts.
This was another fragment of a difficult process. We’d been through the trial and conviction of her killer, which would usually mean the inquest wasn’t needed, but because she’d been killed on duty, it was going ahead. Something many of us were feeling tense about.
‘I know. Thank you.’ I sat down next to Aaron. He followed suit and placed the palms of his hands neatly over his knees. I looked at the floor. Aaron’s shoes were so polished you could nearly see your face in them. I was grateful he was around, especially today. He was always the level head when I felt emotional.
The remainder of my team would also be here somewhere; my DCs Martin Thacker and Ross Leavy, as would my supervisors DCI Anthony Grey and Detective Superintendent Catherine Walker. Where I ran the investigations on our unit, Grey was my direct supervisor and made sure everything was running smoothly. He attended a lot of the meetings with partner agencies and Catherine oversaw it all. She was responsible for the entire department, for all of us and she worried about how our actions reflected on her.
My phone vibrated in my bag. Ethan.
Thinking of you today. X
I switched vibrate off without responding, left the phone in silent mode and dropped it back in my bag. I had nothing to say. He wouldn’t expect me to reply. He knew me better than that after all this time. I needed to get through this. Like I’d managed to get through the past six months. I’d gradually cut him off after Sally’s death. I had wanted to feel his arms around me, the familiar warmth and heat of him, to know I was held and safe, but I couldn’t allow myself to have that, our careers were too opposed. I’d pushed him away. Yet, he was still there for me. On the day the inquest opened, when he knew I’d feel it more than ever.
Ethan was the crime reporter for Nottingham’s main newspaper, the Nottingham Today and we’d been in a relationship until Sally was killed, at which point trust had become an issue. I didn’t know if I could trust him. I didn’t trust myself.
I looked back to Aaron’s brogues. I’m not sure how long I stared at the floor, but I picked up the minor twitch in Aaron’s body and looked up to find the cause. Tom Poynter. Sally’s husband. He stood at the bottom end of the corridor, looking at us. His face ashen and lined. I didn’t remember him being so lined, so old looking. I stood. Aaron stood at my side. Tom didn’t move. He stood there and he stared.
Not a word was spoken. I couldn’t breathe. I had words; I just didn’t know how to form them. Not long after Sally had been murdered in the house I had led her in to, as part of a raid on the ringleader of a massive paedophile operation last year, I had visited Tom. I touched his hand and tried so hard to say what needed to be said. The words I felt. Tom couldn’t hear anything back then, his grief so consuming. She’d kept a secret from me, I knew there was something bothering her at the time, but I was so absorbed with the task of finding the killers of the children and of finding a missing child, I had been less than a supervisor should be and let Sally’s explanations go, rather than pushing for more. I carried that blame with me when I visited Tom and told him of her death, and I felt the weight of blame as he crumbled in front of me while all I could do was stand and watch and feed him the facts as I knew them.
Since that first and only meeting with him, we hadn’t talked. Catherine had assigned the case of Sally’s murder to another SIO and had told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to have contact with him during the course of the investigation. The circumstances of her murder had also been referred to the IPCC and this investigation was still ongoing. Now Tom was in front of me and once again, words were failing me. Tom took a couple of steps forward. I didn’t move. He took another couple of steps; I moved forward away from the seat and went to put my hand out towards him. Just as I did, Tom looked me directly in the eye. My stomach twisted. He turned away and walked past before turning into the coroner’s courtroom. I dropped my hand, the thoughts in my head fogged. I felt Aaron’s hand on my elbow as he steered me towards the room that would be responsible for bringing light to the facts surrounding Sally’s death.
3
2003
Emma was like a beacon of light in his life.
An only child. Though not through choice. He and Connie had spent many years trying for a brother or a sister after Emma had arrived, to make her world more rounded and complete. When nature failed them they turned to the doctors. The doctors also failed to produce the much longed-for second child. The final piece to their jigsaw family. Trying, faith, money nor science would bring the circle round to a whole, so in the end they had to come to terms with what they were and had to make it up to Emma for failing her.
He had failed her. They said Isaac’s sperm wasn’t strong enough; they died before reaching their destination. It was surprising they managed it the first time.
Emma was a miracle.
So that was it, she was his miracle. He nurtured her. Loved and adored her. Nothing was too much for him.
When she was seven, Em fell off her bike. They lived on a quiet suburban street in Stapleford with little through traffic, mostly just that of the residents, and they drove carefully. Emma was playing with her friends and ended up trying to see if she could go faster than them, beat them to her house after Connie called them in for cupcakes she’d finished icing. Isaac had been at work. From what he’d been told, Emma was so eager to get to the house first, she took a quick look behind her just as she reached the kerb and the front tyre bounced, pushing her right off the saddle and onto the road. She broke her arm.
It took Connie two months to talk him into letting her ride on the bike again. He was so afraid she would do more damage to herself. The sight of her small fragile arm in the heavy plaster cast was nearly too much for him to bear. He wanted to get rid of the bike. To take it down to the dump site while she slept. They argued in hushed tones for days until he let it rest and mulled it over some more, watched Em lug her heavy arm about with pride, like a trophy, asking everyone she met if they wanted to sign it, even complete strangers. She carried a marker pen in her pocket for such occasions.
Isaac relented with unease.
4
The major incident room was just as I’d left it on Friday evening, just as it was every day. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever does. The world keeps turning and life keeps moving forward.
I walked around to the front of my desk. Piles of papers were stacked on each side of the computer monitor. I took off my jacket, wrapped it around the back of my chair and stood facing the single blue folder that lay in front of the keyboard. It held the photographs of Sally’s crime scene.
The coroner had adjourned the hearing as expected. It would be several weeks before we’d be back there again. I was drained. My neatly brushed hair felt undone and my barely there make-up was no longer there, rubbed away by the tedium of sitting, waiting, fretting and listening, in that room and in those corridors. In the heat, with the sun blazing through the large oval shape topped windows of the inquest room. We were having a particularly warm spring.
I picked up the folder, pulled open the top drawer of the desk and slid it under the file already in there and left my office.
Walking to the door of the incident room I looked across at Aaron who was rigidly work
ing at his computer, his fingers tapping away, eyes scanning the screen in front of him.
We’d been restructured not long after Sally’s murder and as part of the restructuring our base had moved and we were now working out of St Ann’s station on St Ann’s Well Road, Nottingham. A plain brick building that wasn’t open to the public but was simply a base for officers like our unit. I had an actual office in the corridor to the incident room rather than the makeshift goldfish bowl I had at Central police station. I felt a little detached from the team in there, so I often found myself sitting on someone’s desk monitoring things from inside the office; but sometimes it proved useful to have that distance.
Instead of having our own Major Crimes Unit, Nottinghamshire had merged our Major Crimes Unit with the major crime units of Leicestershire, Northants, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire to become the East Midlands Special Operations Unit – Major Crime, or EMSOU. The upshot of this new arrangement was that should one of the teams in the other areas be busy with a job, a murder or other serious incident, when another job came in on their area, then one of the other teams could pick it up, regardless of how far away they were. Most of the time it wasn’t an issue. There had been occasions however, when officers had been sent miles from home to work a homicide and once it was picked up by the team, it couldn’t be handed over at the earliest opportunity to the closest team; the original attending team worked it to the end. So it meant long distance travelling and poor home lives for those who fell foul. We were still Nottinghamshire officers, working from Nottinghamshire in the same team as before, with the same internal set up as before, but now we were part of a larger whole and our patch was potentially a whole lot bigger. We could be sent anywhere in the East Midlands.
The DI Hannah Robbins Series: Books 1 - 3 (Boxset) (Detective Hannah Robbins Crime Series) Page 23
