She went down the steps towards the darkened room below. As she moved beneath the upper floor level, she realised that there was some natural light leaking into the cellar from a small window high up on the back walls.
Lucy moved down, surveying the area beneath as the objects scattered about began to take form in the gloom. She realized that at one end of the space, under the window, stood a heavy wooden table. Above it, hanging from small hooks in the wall, hung a set of meat cleavers.
Gasping, Lucy moved quickly across. The knives were clean, one or two badged with spots of rust.
‘Jesus,’ she muttered.
Suddenly she heard a movement behind her and turned. At first she thought Doherty was running at her, but as she raised her gun to shoot, she saw him grab at the handrail of the steps as if to pull himself up the steps again, as if to escape from where he had been hiding in the cellar.
‘Stop,’ Lucy shouted. ‘I will shoot you.’
Doherty paused, his foot on the bottom step, then slowly raised his hands.
‘On the floor,’ Lucy shouted. ‘Now! Face down.’
‘You’ve got it wrong,’ Doherty began.
‘Shut up,’ Lucy snapped, pushing him onto the floor, kneeling on his back as she pulled two plastic cable ties from her coat pocket and tightened them around Doherty’s wrists.
Just then, something in the periphery of her vision moved and she saw a figure rush down the steps towards her. Sarah Finn.
She stood to embrace the girl she had rescued. Instead, Finn lashed out at her with her fists, battering at Lucy as she struggled to contain the child.
‘Leave him alone,’ the girl screamed. ‘Don’t hurt him.’
Chapter Forty-Two
A response team soon arrived from Dungiven station after Lucy had phoned through for support. They had brought with them a local doctor who examined Sarah Finn in the large bedroom in which she had been sleeping. The girl had wept uncontrollably as Doherty had been led away to be taken into Dungiven where he would be held for questioning. Sinead Finn had been called and was being brought to her daughter by Chief Superintendent Burns himself. A forensics team was on the way from Derry as was a social worker, after Lucy had called Robbie. Sarah would not be allowed back with her mother until she had been assessed by Social Services.
Lucy, meanwhile, sat in front of the fire, warming herself. The girl’s reaction was not unusual, she reasoned. Often, vulnerable children became attached to those who had exploited them, believing the abuse they had suffered to be a form of love. But Lucy found the use of the two bedrooms unusual. They clearly had been sleeping in different rooms. Doherty had told her she had got it wrong. Only when the doctor had finished, would Lucy be able to ask the girl herself directly.
The interview room into which they were led in Dungiven was old-fashioned, the ceilings high, the pipework of the heating system running along the base of the walls, the pipes painted the same puce shade as the walls. They could hear water gurgling through the pipes while they spoke, as the heating system shuddered into life.
Sarah Finn sat in the seat opposite Lucy. Ideally, Lucy would have preferred there to be no desk between them lest it create an adversarial atmosphere that she did not want.
Finn looked a little different from the school picture that Lucy had been using in the search for the girl. The brown hair of the image was actually sandy in reality. Perhaps as a result of the past few days, the puppy fat she had carried in the image had gone from her face, even if the top she wore seemed swollen a little around the softness of her stomach.
Robbie sat down, but not before pulling his chair around so that he was positioned midway between Lucy and the girl. Sarah wiped at the tears that had gathered around her eyes as she waited for Lucy to begin. She’d met her mother, Sinead, half an hour previous; their conversation had been little more than muffled cries from the girl and promises from the mother that she’d never let her go again.
Sinead Finn had protested when she was told that she could not be present when her daughter would be interviewed. Lucy explained to her that the girl was more likely to tell them the full truth without the mother’s presence distracting her. Especially when her statement might implicate Finn’s own partner.
The man himself, having been already taken to another interview room in the station, had not said a word following his protestation to Lucy that she had got it wrong.
‘It’s good to finally meet you, Sarah,’ Lucy began. ‘I’m DS Lucy Black. I work for the Public Protection Unit. I deal with cases involving vulnerable people and especially young people.’
Finn swallowed nervously and nodded, though Lucy had not asked a question.
‘This is Robbie. He’s a social worker who will be sitting in on the interview. Obviously, you can tell us anything at all that you want. Nothing you can tell us will shock us or make us think any less of you. I can’t promise that what you tell us will be confidential; we might need to use some of the things you say, if we decide to prosecute someone because of your abduction.’
The girl muttered something, her head lowered, her fingers playing with a strip of laminate peeling off the edge of the table.
‘Sorry?’ Lucy said. ‘We didn’t catch that, Sarah. You need to speak as clearly as you can, because this is being recorded so that we can be sure we don’t miss anything you tell us.’
The girl looked up through the loose strands of her fringe. ‘I weren’t abducted. I went with Seamus.’
Lucy nodded. ‘Maybe you’d tell us in your own words what happened over the past few days? Yeah?’
‘I knew Seamus was going away for a bit and decided to go with him.’
‘Why?’
The girl paused. She picked off the laminate strip, then muttered an apology and tried to reapply it to the table’s edge.
‘I wanted to get away. I thought Seamus was going to Manchester. That’s what he’d told Mum. But he weren’t. I didn’t know until I heard the van stop. I thought we were at the boat. When I got out, we were in the middle of the countryside. I’d nowhere else to go.’
‘Did Mr Doherty know you were in his van?’
She shook her head. ‘I took some money from the post office and packed my bag. I thought if I got to the boat, I’d hide out and get a lift somewhere else.’
‘Why?’ Lucy asked.
‘I wanted to get away.’
‘Did this have anything to do with “Simon Harris”, Sarah?’ Lucy asked.
The girl glanced up quickly, tears swelling in her eyes. Just as quickly she looked down at her lap again, sniffing. A tear dripped onto the floor from her bowed head. ‘I don’t know who that is.’
‘We found your phone, Sarah,’ Lucy said. ‘We know who “Harris” was.’
If Sarah realized the significance of the past tense she didn’t show it. Meanwhile, Lucy realized an incongruity in her story.
‘You said you didn’t get out of the van until Mr Doherty stopped at the house on the Glenshane?’
Finn nodded.
‘But we found your phone in a lay-by along the Glenshane Road.’
The girl nodded again. ‘Seamus took it off me the next day and dumped it somewhere. He didn’t tell me where.’
‘Why?
‘The messages.’
‘“Harris”’s messages?’
Finn nodded again, the tears coming more freely now.
‘Did you not want to get any more messages from him?’
Finn shook her head, sniffing loudly. She raised her head, her hair sticking to the dampness of her cheeks.
‘I told Seamus that he’d given me the phone in the first place. He’d “Find a Friend” set up on it.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a thing where you can see on a map on your phone where all your friends are. It meant he knew where I was if he wanted to find me. I told Seamus. We switched it off, but I didn’t think it was enough. So he took the phone away.’
‘You don’t have to be afraid of “S
imon Harris”, Sarah,’ Lucy said. ‘He’s dead.’
The girl momentarily brightened, then at once, her expression seemed to darken and she began twisting one hand around the other. ‘That wasn’t his real name,’ she said.
‘We know,’ Lucy said. ‘He’d loads of names he used on Facebook. We know he targeted other girls, too.’
The girl straightened a little. ‘You’re sure he’s dead?’
Lucy nodded. ‘I watched him drown myself.’ She managed a smile, which was reciprocated by Sarah Finn. ‘So you don’t need to be afraid any more,’ Lucy said. ‘You can tell us everything.’
‘Can I get a drink?’ Finn said. ‘And can you let Seamus out, too? He’s been looking after me.’
Lucy glanced quickly at Robbie who raised his eyebrows sceptically.
‘We’ll certainly manage a drink,’ Lucy said. ‘Let’s see what you have to say first before we worry about the other thing, eh?’
Chapter Forty-Three
‘It started out OK,’ Finn said, sipping from the can of Diet Coke she’d been brought from the Mace across the street from the station.
‘We’d meet in town sometimes. I knew the first time I met him that he was older than he’d said in his profile. He said he preferred the company of teenagers ’cause we always told the truth. We weren’t phonies, he said.’
She glanced up at Lucy, then quickly to Robbie. ‘I tried to stay away from him, but he seemed harmless. He’d talk about music and that. But he had some really cool bands I’d never heard of. He’d let me listen to some. And we always met in the town where there was people about, so it was never weird or anything.’
She paused, sipping again at the Coke. A little dribbled as she lowered the can and she lifted her hand and wiped at her mouth with the back of her wrist.
‘There was this one band I’d never even heard of. A singer. Jessica Hoop. He let me hear some of her songs. He said he thought I’d like it.’
She paused again, staring down at her hands. ‘I bet if you asked my mum what music I liked, she wouldn’t be able to tell you,’ she snapped. ‘She’d not have a notion. She’d not care.’
‘But he did,’ Lucy said softly. The girl needed to justify what had happened as a result of her trusting ‘Harris’. She needed to know that Lucy understood. And she did.
She nodded. ‘He told me he’d put it on a disc for me. Then, when we met the next time, he gave me a phone with a whole load of stuff on it. I didn’t want to take it, but he said it was an old one he didn’t need any more; he’d got a new one on contract and was just going to dump it anyway, he said. He’d put all this music on it for me. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t grateful. He’d gone to all that effort.’
She finished her Coke, pressing on the two sides of the can, pinching with her fingers until it bent double in her hands.
‘He phoned me and said he was going to a party. Did I want to come with him? They’d be loads of people – girls my own age and that, so I’d not to be worrying.
‘I told my mum I was going out with my friends. She didn’t give a shit anyway. Half the time I was there she didn’t know it anyhow. She’d not care. Her and Seamus were out all the time when he was here.’
She placed the can on the table, moved it slightly until it sat just in the position she wanted it, a small act of control to compensate for the fact that the events she was describing would soon involve those over which she had had none.
‘He picked me up at the bus depot. Me and another girl. I didn’t know her. He said he would drop us off then he had to collect a friend. The other girl seemed to know him really well. He handed her a bottle of cider. She took some and gave it to me. I wasn’t going to drink it, but she looked at me like I was just a kid, like I was too young to drink. I’d had some before, at parties and that. So I took it.’
She swallowed. ‘When we’d finished that bottle he handed us back another one.’
‘Where was the party?’ Lucy asked.
Sarah shook her head. ‘I don’t know. It was dark outside of the car. And the cider was making everything weird. It was in the country somewhere because I asked him to stop. I thought I was going to be sick and he pulled in along the road. There were no street lights or anything. I could see cows watching me from the field beside where we stopped. They were just staring at me. I thought I’d be sick, but I wasn’t. Not then anyway. Later.
‘We arrived at this old house. It smelt bad, like it wasn’t being used all the time. There were loads of men in the house, all older than us. And a few girls sitting in the living room. I knew one of them to see, from about town. They were all drinking cider and beers. We went in with them and starting drinking.’
She paused again, moved the can again.
‘I didn’t notice that they were being taken out of the room. One at a time. Then “Simon” appeared. He was smiling. Said he had something to give me. A present. He didn’t want the other girls to see, in case they were jealous. We went into one of the rooms by ourselves. He took out something in a packet. Said it would give my drink a kick. He put it in the drink, gave it a swish around and then took some, to show it was OK. Except ... except I don’t think he took any at all.
‘I drank it because I knew he wanted me to. Then he started kissing me. I felt like I had to – he’d been so kind to me.’
The girl lowered her head, her tears coming freely now.
‘I don’t remember what happened after that. Only what had happened when I woke up again.’
She glanced at Lucy, scouring her face to see if she was being judged. She ignored Robbie completely.
‘What he had done. What he done to me.’
She shuddered now and she spluttered into sobs. Lucy moved from her seat, round to where Sarah sat, put her arms around the girl and held her while she cried.
‘Ssh,’ she said finally. ‘He can’t do anything to you any more.’
She looked up at Robbie, who was sitting, his hands folded in his lap, his expression studiously neutral. ‘Let’s take a break, shall we?’
Chapter Forty-Four
As they sat again after a toilet break for Sarah, Lucy sensed that something had changed about the girl, that in the telling of what had happened, and perhaps in the knowledge that ‘Simon Harris’ – as she knew him – was dead, the girl had found some degree of comfort, a modicum of solace in knowing she had been heard and believed.
‘Will I start where I left off?’ the girl asked, sitting.
‘Please,’ Lucy said.
She brushed her hair from her face. Her cheeks were dry now, but the skin still flushed, the eyes red rimmed with crying, the whites of her eyes threaded with veins. She looked somehow younger than her fifteen years.
‘It happened a few times after that,’ the girl said. Lucy realized that far from Sarah feeling relieved at what had passed, she had instead simply been steeling herself for the rest of the story. ‘He’d invite me to a party. He’d pick me up with some other girls and we’d get drunk. Most of the time it was in the same house. A couple of times it was somewhere different. A bit nicer. Further away, though. Near the sea, I think. There was a room with an old pool table in it. We’d all hang around in there until he came back with more drink and ... whatever it was.’
‘Did he always rape you?’
The girl hesitated a moment before answering. ‘I didn’t know if it was rape or not. Because I’d had the cider and that. He said I’d agreed.’
‘You can’t agree, Sarah,’ Lucy said. ‘You’re too young. He knew that.’
The girl flushed, her eyes brimming again. She inhaled, held the breath a moment, then let it go. ‘Sometimes others did it. I woke one time and there was someone leaving the room that I didn’t know. It wasn’t “Simon”. But I knew what he’d done.’
Lucy pulled a handful of tissues from the box on the table. Sarah took them and rubbed at her nose. She raised her head a little, as if to stymie her tears.
‘How often did this happen?’ Lucy as
ked.
‘Every week,’ Sarah said. ‘We’d go every week.’
‘Always to the same house?’
She shook her head. ‘Two different places. It was like taking turns week about week; one week in the smelly house, the other in the place with the pool table.’
‘Were the men there always the same?’
She shook her head. ‘Some.’
‘And what about your mum? Did she not wonder where you were all night?’
Sarah shrugged. ‘She’d be out of it when I got home. She’d not even know I’d been out to start with.’
Lucy paused as she considered how best to word the next question without sounding accusatory. ‘I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Sarah, but I need to know. Why did you meet with him again, after the first time he raped you, Sarah?’
‘He said if I didn’t, he’d hurt my mum.’
‘Did you ever try telling your mother about what was happening?’
The girl shook her head. ‘He said if I told her, they’d kill her. He said he knew who she was. They’d ... he said he’d ... shoot her.’ Though the girl paused as she spoke as if to give the impression that she was too upset to speak freely, Lucy wasn’t wholly convinced.
‘What did he really say, Sarah?’
The girl stared at her, her mouth hanging a little open. ‘He said he knew who sold her stash to her. That they’d put something in it if I told. She’d just not wake up again, he said.’
‘But you told Seamus? Your mum said you didn’t get on.’
‘We didn’t,’ the girl conceded quietly. ‘I didn’t mean for him to find out. I just wanted to hide in the van. But I’d no choice. He wanted to take me back to my mum, but I knew Simon’d think I’d told her when I hadn’t answered his messages and that.’
Lucy considered what the girl had said. ‘Did Seamus ever try anything on with you?’
‘God, no,’ she replied. ‘He made me up my own room. I didn’t know he’d another house.’
‘Did he tell you why he lied about going to Manchester?’
Sarah shrugged. ‘He said Mum’s using got to him. She was fun to be about for a while, then she started all that shit and he needed to get a breather from her for a few days. I know how he felt.’
Someone You Know Page 18
