Convictions

by Julie Morrigan

  ‘We very rarely watch television,’ Cotter explained. ‘I don’t like it very much. I think it’s a bad influence on people. The things they show …’

  Fitzgerald conceded the point. Half the stuff on the box these days was pure rubbish. ‘No computer?’

  ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Oh, no. I use one at work, of course, but I don’t use the Internet.’

  ‘What about the church accounts? You said you were treasurer.’

  ‘All on paper. Real books of account, kept the traditional way.’ He straightened up in his chair as he said this, held his head high.

  ‘And you haven’t seen a newspaper either?’

  ‘I would have done if I’d been to work. I buy the Daily Mail from the newsagent on Sea Road every morning. But I didn’t … I stayed home to … oh, Joyce! Can I see Joyce? I miss my wife, I want to see her.’

  ‘That won’t be possible, sir. You’ll be held here in custody while our investigation progresses.’

  Cotter visibly sagged in the chair when he was told that. ‘Held? Custody? Where?’

  ‘In a cell, sir.’

  ‘Like a criminal?’

  ‘Exactly like a criminal, sir.’

  ***

  ‘What’s this Ebenezer Tabernacle, then? Do you know?’

  Fitzgerald nodded. ‘It’s one of those happy-clappy places,’ she told Winter.

  ‘Born again,’ said Winter with distaste.

  ‘Yup. Bunch of hypocrites.’

  Winter snorted. ‘Aren’t they all? Scratch the surface and they’re all as bad as each other. The number of people who’ve died because of religion …’

  ‘And now we can add little Annie to the list.’

  ‘Have they found something?’

  ‘Fitzgerald shook her head. ‘Not yet. There’s no sign of her at the house and the wife doesn’t know anything about it. He must have her stashed somewhere. Might be part of a gang, for all we know.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem the type, though, does he,’ mused Winter. ‘He seems genuinely afraid. And no computer. No buddies on the Internet to egg him on.’

  ‘Well, that does seem odd these days, but don’t forget kids were being raped and murdered long before television or the Internet. It’s hardly something new.’

  ‘True. I’m still not sure about him, though.’

  ‘Rob, they found the T-shirt in his car. Ten to one there’s DNA evidence once forensics get through with it. Those kids were in that car. His car. I’d stake my bloody career on it.’

  ‘What about the little lass who got away? Is she going to have a look at him?’

  ‘We’ve got her coming in tomorrow to see if she can identify him. With a bit of luck, that’ll be another nail in his coffin. Fucking pervert.’

  ‘You seem pretty confident it’s him.’

  ‘I am. I just hope if that kiddie’s still alive, he tells us where to find her before she starves to death.’

  Chapter 4

  ‘It’s okay, Tina, there’s nothing to be scared of,’ said Ruth. She had driven Tina and her parents to the police station so that Tina could try to pick George Cotter out of a line-up. ‘We’ll all be in a room together with Karen. She’s the one who’s been asking Mr Cotter all the questions. Mr Cotter and some other men will be in the room next door.’

  ‘Will I have to go in and see them?’ Tina asked.

  ‘No. There’s a window between the two rooms. On their side, it looks like a mirror, so you can look at them, but they can’t see you.’

  ‘Like on the telly,’ said Tina.

  Karen Fitzgerald met them in reception and led them through to the viewing suite. ‘As soon as you feel ready,’ she said to Tina, ‘I’ll tell DC Winter to bring the men into the room.’

  Tina nodded, had a good look round to get the feel of the place. Then she turned to the window. ‘I’m ready,’ she said.

  Fitzgerald opened the door and signalled to Winter, and shortly afterwards the men trooped into the room on the other side of the glass. Penny moved a step nearer to her daughter. Tina slipped her hand into Ruth’s.

  ‘Do you recognise anyone?’ asked Fitzgerald.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tina. ‘They all look alike.’

  It was true that the men were all of similar height, build and age, but to Fitzgerald’s eyes they were all very different and Cotter might as well have had horns and a forked tail.

  ‘Look carefully. Take your time.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I mostly saw him from behind, in the car.’

  Fitzgerald leaned out of the door. ‘Winter? Get them to turn round.’

  Moments later, the men in the other room all turned their backs to the glass.

  ‘Better?’ asked Fitzgerald.

  Ruth felt Tina tense up beside her. ‘It’s okay, Tina, love. Take your time. There’s no pressure.’ She shot a warning glance at Fitzgerald, who rolled her eyes.

  ‘Do any of them have bruises?’ Tina asked Ruth.

  ‘Bruises? I don’t know, love.’

  ‘What sort of bruises?’ asked Fitzgerald.

  ‘On their arms,’ said Tina. ‘I hit him. On this side.’ She looked up at Ruth as she put her hand on the upper part of her left arm to indicate the area where she had beaten the driver of the car. ‘I hit him here, really, really hard.’

  Ruth turned to Fitzgerald. ‘Tina hit the driver of the car repeatedly on his head and his arm to get him to stop the car. The chances are the man concerned will be bruised.’

  ‘Winter?’ Fitzgerald was hanging out of the door again. ‘Get each of them to show us the top of their left arm.’

  There was clearly a bit of grumbling going on in the next room when Winter conveyed the next instruction, but they did as requested. To Karen Fitzgerald’s disappointment, none of the men had any visible marks or bruises. She was pacing the floor, desperate for a positive identification of George Cotter.

  Tina turned to Ruth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘Have another look, for heaven’s sake,’ said Fitzgerald, frustration making her short on patience.

  ‘Easy, Karen,’ Ruth counselled.

  Penny shot Fitzgerald a look and reached a hand out to her daughter, but the little girl was leaning in to Ruth Crinson. She let her arm drop back to her side and pursed her lips.

  Fitzgerald took a deep breath, counted to ten. ‘I’m sorry, folks. It’s just that I’m so sure it’s him.’

  ‘It probably is,’ said Ruth. ‘But Tina was terrified when she was in the car with him. It was dark and she saw him mostly from behind.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Tina told Fitzgerald.

  Karen Fitzgerald breathed out. ‘That’s okay, love, it can’t be helped. We’ll just have to get him another way.’

  ***

  When they got back to the house, the postman had been. Ruth picked the mail off the doormat. ‘I’ll sort through these and give you what’s yours,’ she told Penny and Derek. They didn’t argue. Neither of them was in any hurry for a repeat of the previous day’s experience.

  Ten minutes later they were seated in the lounge with cups of tea. Ruth had kept four envelopes and passed the rest over. ‘I’ll open these ones,’ she told them. ‘My apologies if they’re normal mail. If they are, I’ll pass them straight to you. If they aren’t, I’ll get them to the station.’

  ‘Do you really think there might be more hate mail?’ asked Derek.

  ‘You never know how people will react to things,’ Ruth told him. ‘Some people can be very judgemental. They don’t think straight when there’s a kiddie involved.’

  Penny shuddered. ‘I’m going outside for a cigarette,’ she said.

  ‘Why don’t you go and keep her company?’ Ruth suggested, and Derek got up and followed his wife.

  Left alone, Ruth slipped on latex gloves and slit open the envelopes. One was a card from Derek’s mum, apologising and begging forgiveness. Another was from Derek’s workmates, offering sympathy and pledging sup
port. The other two were in the same vein as the letter received the day before, although without the unpleasant extra ingredient. Ruth sealed them into evidence bags and put them in her handbag: she would take them to the station later in the day.

  Sipping her tea, she realised Tina was missing. The little girl had scampered up the stairs as soon as they got home. Ruth went up to find her.

  The Snowdon girls had the luxury of a bedroom each. Ruth found Tina in Annie’s room, curled up on the bed with her bunny. Ruth sat on the bed beside her, didn’t speak, just rested her hand on Tina’s arm. Rather than cherishing the child they still had, Derek, and especially Penny, seemed to be ignoring her. The kid had spent far too many hours on her own, guilt eating into her, loneliness biting hard, with no one taking the time to reassure her that she was still loved. After a time, Tina sat up, wriggled round and cuddled into Ruth. Ruth felt rather than heard her sobbing quietly, and comforted her.

  ‘There, there, pet,’ she said. ‘It’ll be all right, you’ll see.’ They both knew that was probably a lie, but for now it was the best Ruth could do.

  ***

  Tuesday dragged by. Nothing new was turned up by the investigative team, even though they took Cotter’s house apart. His wife had protested, then simply given up and made a phone call. Minutes later, the pastor’s wife had arrived and whisked her away. The team had been glad to see her go. They were sick of her getting underfoot, complaining about their search techniques and sneezing all over everyone. She would be questioned further, but it certainly seemed to be the case that she had no idea what had happened to the missing child or what her husband might have been up to while she was in her sick bed.

  There was one bit of surprising good news: at some point, MC Boyz had picked up on the story and had offered to film an appeal for information about Annie. Something so high profile could only help and Ruth felt it would buoy Tina up – and Annie, too, if she somehow got to hear about it. Ruth was trying desperately hard to think of Annie as a missing child, not a missing body, but with each day that passed, and especially with Cotter locked up, that was becoming harder and harder to do.

  That evening at the family’s house Ruth, Derek and Tina pretended to watch television. Penny had taken to her bed, sleepy after drinking a bottle and a half of wine.

  ‘How long can they keep Cotter in custody?’ Derek asked.

  ‘We can keep him for four days tops, although if we need more than thirty-six hours we’ll have to go to a magistrate for a warrant. After that, we have to either charge him or let him go.’

  ‘Why can’t you charge him now? We know he did it. Tina’s T-shirt was found in his car.’

  Ruth shook her head. ‘We have nothing concrete, Derek. Yes, a T-shirt was found in his car, but there’s nothing to prove it was one of the ones Tina bought. We should get hair and fibre analysis tomorrow and that will hopefully prove that the girls were in the car, but right now, without a confession, all we have are suspicions and some circumstantial evidence.’

  ‘So he might get away with it?’

  ‘You can’t think like that. There’s a team of people doing everything they can to gather the necessary evidence to put him away. Karen Fitzgerald and Rob Winter are doing their utmost to get a confession out of him, even just to trip him up so that he says something that puts him at the scene. They’re all good people, they know what they’re doing and, believe me, they’re highly motivated. They want to find Annie as much as you want her found.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ Derek rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s not that I don’t appreciate what everyone’s doing, it’s just … Christ, I wish I could question him. I’d fucking beat it out of him, the bastard.’ He slammed his fist into his hand and Tina jumped at the violence of the gesture.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all my fault.’

  Derek put his arm around Tina and hugged her. ‘Don’t be frightened, love.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘You didn’t mean for any of this to happen.’

  Ruth left to go to the police station shortly afterwards, wanting an update on the case. It was all well and good speaking to people on the phone, but you could learn a lot more face to face and the detention clock was ticking. Barring a breakthrough that meant they could charge Cotter, Hardcastle would be in the Magistrates’ Court in the morning asking for more time.

  Ruth waved to a uniformed officer as she climbed into her car. There was still a police presence outside the house; the threats against the family were being taken very seriously indeed.

  ***

  ‘He’s proving much tougher than we expected,’ Karen Fitzgerald told Ruth over a cup of tea in the canteen.

  ‘He doesn’t look up to much,’ Ruth mused.

  ‘Ah, but he’s not on his own.’ Ruth raised her eyebrows and Karen grimaced rather than smiled in response. ‘Our man has got God on his side.’

  ‘God abducts little girls, now, does he?’

  ‘Cotter reckons his faith is being tested. He still insists he’s innocent and has no idea where the T-shirt came from. He says it’s all a test from God and when he passes it, he’ll gain a deeper spiritual understanding and have a more important position in heaven to look forward to. It’s like this is his promotion board. Fucking freak.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘I had to physically restrain Rob Winter earlier today. I thought he was going to lamp him one.’ She yawned. ‘When he’s not being questioned, he sits in his cell, praying. Fucker can pray like my ma-in-law can nag. Non-fucking-stop.’

  Chapter 5

  Next morning, Ruth was back at the house. With no developments to speak of in the search for Annie, the tabloids were using stories about the family to fill up their columns. They had spoken to neighbours, workmates, friends, family, anyone they could think of to try to get some insight into the family and their lives. More than one had pictures of Penny smoking and drinking at the back door and at the little patio table. There was even a picture of Tina, her face obscured by the ever-present bunny, along with a psychologist’s insight into the burden of guilt the little girl must be carrying.

  The post brought no nasty surprises, which was a welcome change. Late morning, a florist’s van pulled up, but to Ruth’s relief it was a bouquet and a card from Penny’s workmates. She had been on full alert to intercept the delivery woman had it looked in the slightest like a wreath that was being delivered. People did some strange things when kids went missing. Blamed the parents, even if they’d done nothing wrong.

  Early afternoon, Fitzgerald turned up with bad news. The forensics results had provided no help whatsoever in the case against Cotter. There was no sign of anything in the house or in the car. No fingerprints on the T-shirt or the bag it had been in, nothing at all.

  ‘We had our gloves and hats on,’ Tina told Fitzgerald. ‘It was chilly coming home. That’s why I had to leave my T-shirt; it slipped out of my hand when I tried to pick it up because I had my gloves on.’

  ‘Was there nothing on Tina’s clothing?’ Ruth asked.

  Fitzgerald shook her head. ‘Nothing that tied her to that particular car. A couple of fibres were found that showed she had been in a Ford car, but it could have been any Ford car of that model or period. Unfortunately, the lack of evidence means that the magistrate has denied us a warrant to keep Cotter in custody any longer. We’ve had to let him go.’

  ‘You’re joking.’ Derek threw his hands up. ‘How can that be right? He’s guilty, got to be.’

  ‘At least he can look after Annie now.’ It was Tina who had spoken. ‘If he’s the only person who knows where she is, he needs to be free to look after her. She must be hungry, and lonely, and scared.’

  ‘Will he be watched?’ asked Penny. ‘Will they follow him when they let him go?’

  Fitzgerald nodded. ‘He’s on police bail and he remains a person of interest.’

  ‘He might lead them to Annie,’ said Tina. ‘It might be a good thing if they let him go.’ Her eyes glittered and she jumped up and down. ‘Annie mig
ht be home for tea.’ She hugged her bunny rabbit. ‘Mum? Mum? Can we have egg and chips?’ Tina turned to Ruth. ‘That’s Annie’s favourite, egg and chips and lots and lots of ketchup.’

  ‘I still want to punch him,’ glowered Derek.

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up, love,’ Ruth said to Tina. The kid was on the verge of hysterics. ‘These things can take time.’

  ‘But the longer it takes, the more chance there is that Annie will end up in his freezer! You’ve got to be quick, you’ve got to be!’

  ‘What’s all this about a freezer?’ asked Penny. ‘I remember you saying something about that the other night.’

  ‘Hilary’s brother said—’

  ‘Let’s all just calm down a minute while we decide what to do next,’ said Ruth. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Tina, why don’t you come and give me a hand?’ She wanted to get the little girl out of the room so she could talk to her one to one, explain things properly, calm her down a little. She resolved to talk to Penny and Derek about getting some counselling for Tina. At this rate, the kid was headed for a breakdown.

  ***

  ‘Is that the name you want?’

  Annie fidgeted in the uncomfortable clothing, then nodded. ‘Yes, that one.’

  ‘It’s a good choice. We’ll baptise you soon, my child.’

  ‘Can my family come to my baptism?’

  ‘Yes, we’ll all be there. In fact, I’ll be the one to baptise you.’

  ‘I mean my real family, Mum and Dad and Tina.’

  ‘We are your real family now. Now and always, God be praised.’

  ***

  Fitzgerald was deeply unhappy about the fact that George Cotter had been released, although in fairness she had to admit that the magistrate had acted quite correctly. On the face of it there hadn’t been sufficient evidence to warrant holding him any longer.

  ‘We had nothing on him, not really,’ she said to Ruth, having put a call in to her when she got home. Fitzgerald was exhausted. She’d kept going on pure adrenaline and now she was about to crash. She planned to sleep for twelve hours solid.