Convictions

by Julie Morrigan

  * * *

  CONVICTIONS

  A novel

  © Julie Lewthwaite (writing as Julie Morrigan) 2011

  Cover design and photography © Steven Miscandlon 2011

  Please note: The contents of and characters in this book are fictional. All rights are reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the author.

  * * *

  Author’s note

  I owe a massive debt of thanks to Steven Miscandlon for his invaluable assistance with this book. Not only did he provide thorough and timely research, insightful editing, and eagle-eyed proofreading, he also provided the photograph and carried out the graphic design work to create the cover. Thank you, Steven!

  This book is a work of fiction. The story is not based on actual events and some liberties have been taken with police and prison procedures.

  (This edition October 2011.)

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  The man stared through the windscreen of the car, one hand gripping the steering wheel, the other clutching the crucifix he wore on a chain around his neck. A private symbol of his faith, it normally sat unseen beneath collar and tie, but with tie removed and collar undone, he could hold on to the small gold cross, feel its power flood into him as he prayed.

  God had brought him to this place on this night. He had listened to his prayers and had guided him here, here where there would be someone who needed to be saved. Someone who needed to meet Him.

  The area of the car park he waited in was dark, the nearest lamp broken. There was no one nearby. Ahead, he could see the empty bus stops, a couple of taxis waiting for the last train to come in, the drivers chatting and smoking and hoping for fares that would tip well to round off the night. He watched and prayed.

  Finally he saw them, the reason God had drawn him to this place out of all those he could have gone to. He fired the engine and the car crept forward towards the two small figures.

  ***

  Penny awoke with a start. Something had disturbed her sleep, something out of place … there it was again, a tapping on the front door, the familiar sound threatening in the darkness.

  ‘Derek.’ She shook her husband awake. ‘Derek, there’s someone at the door.’

  ‘What time is it?’ Derek was groggy, full of ale and unhappy about being woken up.

  ‘Just gone two.’

  ‘Ignore it, Pen, it’s the middle of the bloody night.’

  Seconds later he was asleep again. Penny touched the base of the bedside lamp just once to keep the light dim, then swung her legs out of bed and shuffled her feet into her slippers. Her head felt woozy and she regretted that last glass of wine: she’d be hung over in the morning and she had a busy day ahead of her, starting with picking the kids up from Derek’s mum’s house. The tapping began again. She sighed, pulled the bedroom door shut behind her and flipped on the landing light, sending shadows scampering back into the crevices where they lived.

  ‘Who is it?’ she called when she got to the front door. Her voice sounded frail and afraid, the unknown on the other side of the door making her fearful. No good news arrived by night. ‘Who’s there?’

  She heard a strangled sob, then: ‘Mum.’

  Penny fumbled the lock, panic making her clumsy, then yanked the door open to see her eldest daughter, bedraggled and tearstained, on the front step. Penny gathered her child to her, felt the little girl sag against her, pulled her through the door and into the hall, then on into the sitting room, shushing her and snapping on lights as she went.

  Once they were seated, she brushed her daughter’s hair out of her eyes, fighting the swell of panic, trying to stay calm, trying not to frighten the girl even more than she was already frightened. ‘Tina, what’s happened, pet? Why are you not at your gran’s?’

  ‘Mum …’

  ‘Where’s Annie?’ asked Penny, suddenly very afraid. Her two girls were inseparable.

  Tina shuddered. ‘She’s …’ she began, hesitantly. Then she cried out, ‘Mum, he took her! The man, he put us in his car and he took Annie!’

  ***

  ‘It’s okay, Tina,’ the policewoman said, ‘I just want you to tell me what happened.’

  Tina shuddered, shot a sideways glance at her parents; her mum in the chair, her dad perched on the arm. The policewoman was sitting on the sofa next to her. She had a nice face, kind eyes. Not like her mum’s eyes just now: they were like ice, cold and hard; when they looked at Tina they stabbed and burned.

  ‘It’s okay, love, you’re not in any trouble,’ said the policewoman.

  Tina doubted the truth of that statement. Her mum had already shouted at her, she’d go ballistic just as soon as the police were out of there. ‘We missed the last Metro to Sunderland,’ she told the policewoman. ‘The concert finished late and we ran all the way to the station, but we missed it.’

  ‘This was at the Arena … MC Boyz?’

  Tina nodded. ‘They’re my favourite band.’

  ‘And you went there on your own, just you and your sister?’ The policewoman flicked a glance at the parents. ‘No adult?’

  ‘They weren’t supposed to be there at all,’ Penny said, her fingers gripping the edge of the seat cushion. She glowered at Tina. ‘You were told, “no”.’

  ‘I see,’ said the policewoman. She turned to Tina. ‘But you wanted to go, is that right?’

  Tina nodded, kept her eyes down. She had been desperate to go, but her parents had already accepted an invitation to a house-warming party that evening. Tina had argued that having had her twelfth birthday last month she was almost a teenager and she could be trusted to go on her own. Her mother had hit the roof and the ensuing row, as Tina described it to her best friend, Hilary, had been ‘epic’.

  ‘Normally, we’d have taken them,’ offered Derek. ‘But we had plans and the girls were staying with my mum. She couldn’t manage a do like that.’

  ‘She couldn’t manage to keep them in the house,’ said Penny. ‘She didn’t even know they were gone until you rang her and she checked the beds.’

  ‘That’s not fair, love,’ said Derek. ‘She does her best. She’s never had any trouble before.’

  Penny scowled at him, then turned her gaze on Tina, who wisely kept her eyes on her slippers.

  ‘So, Tina,’ the policewoman persisted. ‘What happened after you missed the Metro?’

  ‘There was one that went just to Heworth, so we got on that. It meant we were halfway home. We thought there might be a bus.’

  ‘And was there?’

  Tina shook her head. ‘There was a taxi, but I didn’t have enough money.’

  ‘Did you ask the driver to take you home?’

  She shook her head again. ‘I knew I couldn’t pay, I only had two pounds. That’s just enough for a tip.’ She flashed a look at her dad. ‘Dad says you should always tip taxi drivers at least two pounds.’

  ‘Tina, what happened next?’

  ‘There was this man, he drove up in his car and he asked if we needed help.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I asked if I could borrow some money for a taxi and I promised I would pay him back.’ Tina chewed nervously on a fingernail. ‘But he said he had children himself and he’d be worried if they were out this late, so he’d take us home for free.’

  ‘So you got in the car?’

  Tina nodded. ‘He sounded … posh and he seemed nice. I thought we’d be safe with him.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘He asked where our parents were and I said they were out at a party. He said they didn’t deserve two lovely little girls like us. Then I realised he was driving the wrong way so I told him. He sai
d he knew where he was going and not to worry.’ Tina risked a glance at her mother. ‘But I was worried, so I started shouting and hitting him and telling him to stop.’

  ‘Where did you hit him?’

  ‘On the head and the arm. I was sitting behind him. I made him swerve the car and he stopped on the side of the road. I opened the door and shouted at Annie to get out, but she couldn’t open the door on her side. She tried to get out of mine, but he caught her.’ Tina pictured Annie frantically scrabbling for the door handle and not finding it, then diving across the seat. She saw the man’s arm snaking into the back of the car, his hand grabbing at Annie, heard Annie cry out in pain and fear when he caught hold of her bright blonde ponytail, her bid for freedom abruptly ended.

  ‘So you ran away?’

  Tina nodded, saucer-eyed. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  Annie had shouted at her to run for help, to get Dad. Tina had been frozen to the spot, horrified at the sight of Annie trapped like a fly in a web. When she realised the man would never release his grip, she turned and ran, tripped and almost fell, dropped her favourite bag with her door key, purse and mobile phone as she flailed her arms to keep her balance, then sprinted into the bushes at the side of the road. The man had dragged Annie through the gap between the front seats and bound her wrists. He locked her in the car and searched through the bushes at the edge of the road. Tina stayed very still and held her breath, even when he was so close she didn’t know how he could miss her, his fingers a fraction of an inch from her face. She closed her eyes and prayed to be invisible. After a while he got back in his car and drove off.

  The image of Annie staring out of the window into the darkness, tears running down her face, would haunt Tina forever.

  ‘You left her.’ Penny said the words and they were a stark accusation. ‘Your little sister, who you’re supposed to look after, and you left her in that car with that man.’

  Tina was sobbing. ‘Mum, I couldn’t get her away from him, I tried—’

  ‘She shouldn’t have been there in the first place!’ Penny shouted. ‘You selfish, stupid little fool. Have you any idea what you’ve done?’

  ‘Mum, please! I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘Pen, love, it’s not the bairn’s fault. You can see she’s upset.’

  ‘Not half as upset as she’ll be when I’m finished with her.’ Tina wondered that she didn’t melt under her mother’s incendiary gaze, her hatred burned so bright. Penny stalked out of the room and they heard her slamming about in the kitchen, no doubt making more cups of tea that they would allow to stand while they cooled and a skin formed on the surface, after which she would pour them down the sink and wash out the mugs for the next time.

  Derek reached out to Tina and pulled her to him, gave her a hug. ‘She’s just upset, love. She doesn’t blame you, not really. Just give her a bit of time.’ He turned to the policewoman. ‘Do we have to do this tonight?’

  ‘Tina’s told us as much as she can for now about the car and the driver. We’ve got people out looking. We’ll be in touch first thing.’ She stood up, clutching an evidence bag containing the clothes Tina had been wearing earlier. They were destined for forensics, to see if they held any clues as to where Annie might be.

  Derek saw her out, then looked at the clock: four-thirty. It’s already first thing, he thought as he went back in to see how his wife and daughter were coping. Not that the hour mattered: they would be unlikely to get any sleep.

  ***

  ‘She’s been through a lot, you shouldn’t be so hard on her,’ Derek said.

  He and Penny were sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee. Tina was asleep on the couch, her face buried in the bunny toy she’d had since she was tiny. Derek’s heart had caught in his throat when he saw her like that: he hadn’t seen her cling to the toy so fiercely in five years or more.

  Penny sighed, ran her hand through her hair. ‘How could she have been so stupid?’ she asked Derek for the umpteenth time that morning. ‘First off, defying us, then dragging Annie into it, to share the blame, I suppose, then getting into a stranger’s car. How many times have we told them?’

  Derek covered his wife’s hand with his own. ‘She’s a kid. She made a mistake. She’s barely twelve years old, remember.’

  ‘Annie’s only eight.’ Penny’s voice caught when she spoke of her youngest daughter and she started crying again. Since she had opened the door to find Tina on the step, she seemed to have been either in a rage or in tears. ‘Where is she, Derek? Who has her?’

  ‘I don’t know, love, but the police will find her. They know what they’re doing. Tina told them everything she could, that’ll all help.’

  ‘I just want her home. She’s so little …’

  ‘I know, love, me too.’

  ‘She’ll be scared out of her wits.’

  ‘Mum? Dad? I’m sorry.’ Tina stood blinking in the kitchen doorway, fluffy bunny trailing behind her. Her father held his hand out to her and she ran to him. Penny hugged her, too, and the family huddled together, no one speaking, just holding on.

  Chapter 2

  By eight o’clock, the police were back in the house. There had been a car outside all night, but the officers in it had given the family privacy. A different policewoman, this one out of uniform, was explaining her role in the investigation.

  ‘I’m Ruth Crinson,’ she told them. ‘I’m your Family Liaison Officer.’ She smiled, aiming for reassurance. ‘Basically, I’m your link with the investigation and the outside world. I’ll keep you up to date with everything that goes on.’

  ‘Do you have any news for us now?’ asked Penny.

  Ruth shook her head. ‘We’ve got people searching for the car, the abductor and Annie, but no one has seen anything yet. We also want make sure the wider public are aware of the search for Annie. The Press Office are working on information for the media, they’ll help us get the story out there.’

  ‘We gave the bairn’s last school photograph to the policewoman last night,’ said Derek.

  ‘Yes, I saw that.’

  ‘Will we get it back?’

  ‘Just as soon as they’re finished with it, I promise.’

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ Penny went to put the kettle on without waiting for an answer, just to have something to do.

  The morning wore on. The doctor came to check Tina over and declared her none the worse, physically at least, for her experience. Ruth Crinson wanted to question Tina herself to see if she had remembered anything new, and so Ruth, Penny, Derek and Tina took their seats around the kitchen table. Penny had made yet more tea and Tina was nursing a glass of apple juice.

  ‘Tina, I want you to tell me everything you remember about last night, absolutely everything. Just talk me through it as it happened. Okay?’

  Tina nodded. ‘Okay.’ She started telling her story again, how she and Annie had pretended to their gran that they were really sleepy and wanted to go to bed early, then put pillows under the bedcovers so Gran would think they were in bed if she looked into the room. They sneaked out of the house, climbing out of the bedroom window onto the porch roof and then clambering down the drainpipe to the ground. They walked to the Metro station, excited and giggling, and caught a train to Newcastle, then were swept up in the stream of people heading for the concert venue. CCTV would confirm timings: there were spots where the girls would have been caught on camera.

  Tina told again about the concert finishing late, running to the Metro station to find that the last train to Sunderland had gone, catching the one to Heworth to get nearer home. ‘I didn’t have enough for a taxi,’ Tina told Ruth. ‘I bought T-shirts for me and Annie. Hers was pink and mine was blue. They were expensive.’

  ‘What happened to the T-shirts?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘They must be in the man’s car still.’

  ‘How did you get home after you escaped from the car?’

  ‘I recognised the road from driving along it with Mum and Dad. We go that
way to Asda sometimes, or to Newcastle. I followed the road back home.’ She sneaked a look up at her mum. ‘It took a long time, because whenever I heard a car, I hid in case it was the man looking for me.’

  ‘Do you have a mobile phone, Tina?’

  Tina nodded. ‘I lost it when I ran away. I dropped my bag.’

  ‘How come you didn’t ring for help when you were stranded? You could have called your parents or your gran. Why didn’t you do that?’

  Tina took her time before answering. ‘I was scared to,’ she said eventually. ‘I knew we’d be in dead trouble.’ She flicked another glance at her mum. ‘I knew there’d be hell to pay.’ Her arms were folded on the table; she rested her head on them and cried quietly. Derek stroked her hair.

  ‘That’s enough for now,’ Ruth said, recognising that the child had had enough. ‘We’ll talk more later.’

  ‘Will there be anything on CCTV from Heworth Metro, do you think?’ asked Penny.

  ‘It’s possible. We’re checking that now. With a bit of luck, we’ll get a look at our man, maybe even get the car registration plate. That would be a massive help.’

  ***

  Annie awoke to find the man leaning over her. She blinked and rubbed her eyes: she felt groggy and disorientated, didn’t recognise the room she was in, wondered where she was. The man had made her drink a mug of hot chocolate when they got back to the house the night before. It had made her go to sleep.

  ‘Good morning, Sarah. How are you today?’

  ‘I’m not Sarah,’ she told him. ‘I’m Annie. I want my mum.’

  The man smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘No, child,’ he said to her. ‘You’re Sarah. You have a new name and a new life.’ He stroked her hair. ‘You’re our little girl now, God’s precious gift, and we’re going to look after you properly. Not like those other people, letting you out on your own at night. Anything could have happened to you.’