Authors: Lee Shepherd
Whilst Fiona began to tell her father all about what had been happening at school and about her friends, Rebecca got up out of bed and turned to face Charles.
‘Would you like a cup of coffee, darling?’
‘That would be lovely, thanks, dear.’
He turned back to Fiona, listening all about the weekly events in his youngest daughter’s life. Who was popular, who wasn’t, who’d been naughty and who was doing what this weekend. He sat and listened intently and thought to himself how lucky he was to have such a wonderful young daughter and loving family.
Rebecca, meanwhile, was in the kitchen making herself and Charles a nice big mug of freshly ground coffee. Still a little taken aback, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirrored fridge edging; she had several red finger marks around her throat still. Oh, what would people think if they are to turn into bruises? She wasn’t best pleased. Turning up the collar on her dressing gown so as to hide the marks from Fiona’s inquisitive young nature, she returned to the bedroom with their drinks.
‘Fifi, darling,’ she said, ‘why don’t you go and wake your sister? Get washed and dressed, both of you — we have a long day ahead of us today and we don’t want to be late.’
Charles, sensing a tone in her voice, reaffirmed this and told Fiona, ‘Do as your mother says dear, we’ll be up soon.’
They waited quietly until Fiona had left the room and closed the door firmly behind her.
‘Is something wrong, dear?’ Charles asked his wife, totally oblivious to the covered marks around her neck.
Rebecca faced an internal struggle: she was still not best pleased, but on the other hand she didn’t want to rock the boat and turn it into a big deal — she was happy
to have some intimacy back in their lives, and partly because she was slightly confused and baffled by how much it secretly turned her on.
She folded down her collar, pointed to her neck, and asked him in a half-joking, half-serious manner, ‘What do you call this, mister? Look at the state of my neck, I look as though I barely got away from the Boston strangler!’
‘Oh, bloody hell, love!’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry, I must have got carried away in the heat of the moment. I certainly didn’t mean to hurt you, or mark you for that matter.’
‘Well don’t let it happen again, or there will be big trouble! Or at least not so bloody hard next time anyway!’ She gave him a teasing little grin and wink, then proceeded to lay down on the bed next to him, glad that the elephant was now out of the room.
The couple then took turns to get showered and dressed before sitting down and having breakfast with their daughters.
Charles looked up at Molly sitting across the breakfast table and shook his head; she was totally absorbed in whatever app she had on her mobile phone that particular day. Her music was blasting from her headphones, and he struggled to hold any sort of conversation with the others.
‘Molly’, he said sternly. She didn’t hear him due to the loud music and still stared down at her phone. ‘MOLLY!’
This time she heard him, and looked up to catch his gaze. She could see that he clearly wasn’t happy.
Casually removing one of her headphones from her ears, she asked, ‘What?’
Her attitude angered her father. ‘DON’T YOU “WHAT” ME, YOUNG LADY! For once, would you take out them damn headphones, pay more attention, and actually make an effort to be involved in family conversations.’
‘Whatever,’ Molly muttered under her breath — a small show of defiance. However, she removed the other headphone and placed the phone in her pocket. She didn’t want to anger her father any further; if she tried to
stay in his good books, he would be more inclined to buy her the new outfit she’d secretly been hoping for.
‘Thank you.’
His voice seemed calmer and his blood pressure was slowly returning to normal. Drama over, the family then continued to finish their breakfasts and engage in casual chit-chat around the table. Once they’d all finished, Charles stood up.
‘Right, I’m taking Tess for her walk.’ Taking his coat from its stand, he put on his boots and left the girls to tidy up whilst he escaped the house, eager to clear his head with his trusted companion beside him.
Upon his return, Molly greeted him with a big hug and said, ‘I’m sorry, Daddy!’ before he could even get through the door and in out of the cold.
‘It’s ok, sweetheart, maybe I overreacted slightly. I just want you to engage more with us, I miss my little girl. Just don’t be in a rush to grow up so fast.’
‘I won’t, Daddy, I promise.’ It was too late though, as Charles knew that his once little princess and apple of his eye, was quickly growing into a young lady right before his eyes, and that worried him, as more and more recently her talk had been all about boys, as opposed to her usual school and equestrian talk. He was beginning to fear that she may go off the rails and end up down the same path as his biological mother: a terrifying thought.
As the family clambered into the car, ready to leave, Charles said, ‘Change of plans guys.’
They all turned and looked at him, slightly confused, wondering what was going on.
‘I’ve decided that instead of shopping in Carlisle today, how would you all like to go to the Metro Centre at Gateshead instead?’
The two girls instantly got excited by this.
‘Yeah, Dad, can we? Can we?’
He turned and smiled at Rebecca sat beside him.
‘Of course we can girls,’ he said, grinning still. ‘And you can pick anything you want, within reason of course.’
‘YAY!’
Off they drove for a day out as a whole family unit — a rare thing these days, since Charles had spent so much time building up the practice for the past eighteen months.
‘So why the change of plans?’ Rebecca asked her husband, as the journey got underway.
‘No reason, darling,’ he lied. ‘Just thought it would make for a nice day out for the girls, and a pleasant change for us.’
Again she just looked at him and smiled, happy in her blissful little bubble, totally unaware that the man she loved had a darker side.
Of course, he had only changed his plans as the route they now followed ran right past Kielder, and gave him a chance to double-check that there wasn’t any activity or police interest. Plus, more importantly, it gave him a chance to secretly gloat at his own magnificence, irrespective of his family in the car with him.
Over the next few days a sense of normality ensued. Charles returned to running the practice, Molly and Fiona went back to school and Rebecca continued to do what she did best: she kept the house in order, took care of her family and Tess and organised parish events.
Things were finally starting to look up for the family after months of uncertainty and stress due to the long hours Charles was putting into building up and establishing his own veterinary surgery. It had been worth it; the surgery was something he’d always dreamed of doing ever since he was a young boy, when his adoptive parents had got him a black springer spaniel puppy, Toby, for Christmas. He’d always felt an unconditional love and understanding towards animals which he’d never felt for people. However, he found himself becoming more and more dismayed by his profession; he had become a vet to try and help animals, yet seemed to spend the majority of his working week euthanizing sick cattle and domestic pets alike.
Marring this newfound happiness, however, was the continued hunt for the missing schoolgirl, Lucy Mitchell. Her disappearance was still very much prevalent in the local news, and every now and then Charles would see the same lead journalist Jennifer Metcalfe on his TV screen, reporting from Gretna. He wasn’t worried; with every day that passed, the likelihood of her being found decreased, and there didn’t appear to be any leads to her whereabouts. It was as if she’d just disappeared without a trace. This pleased Charles, as he could now concentrate solely on his work and family, his delusional hate-fuelled appetite sated for the time being. With Christmas only three weeks away, he would have plenty of things to occupy himself with.
***
Days soon turned into weeks and, as Christmas drew ever nearer, the hunt for Lucy seemed to have tapered off, as if the police, media, and authorities had given up hope of her ever turning up unscathed. Charles thought privately they must have resigned themselves to the fact that they had been outwitted and outsmarted by a far superior opponent, and had abandoned all hope of ever finding her. He revelled in the fact that he now appeared to be in the clear; and he could finally relax, take some time off work, and enjoy all the season’s festivities safe in the knowledge that nobody would ever become aware of his disturbing secret life.
Charles had mixed feelings about this time of year — not due to his Christian beliefs, but more to do with the fact that when everybody else was enjoying this joyous time, Charles knew that Mr Beattie liked to invite his friends from the lodge round over the Christmas period. This meant that large amounts of alcohol were consumed, which always went hand in hand with the abuse he sustained. He vividly remembered waiting, terrified, for the men to take it in turns to visit his bedroom and use him as if he was an extra present laid out for them as part of Mr Beattie’s hospitality.
Christmas also brought back fond memories of a distant part of his life, in particular, the first six years, when he’d celebrated Christmas in the McMullen household. Mr William McMullen, and Mrs Victoria McMullen were a working-class couple from Whitehaven in West Cumbria, who, after struggling to conceive for several years, were finally given the news that they would never be able to bear children together: William was infertile. Undeterred, this just brought the already solid couple even closer, and they decided to go down the adoption route. Eventually, they took in and named the five-week-old boy before them as Jonathon William McMullen. This had been the only true family he had ever known — the only time in his childhood he ever felt loved and safe.
It was on the evening of August 10
th
1972 that a young expectant mother by the name of Shelley Winter was admitted into Workington’s West Cumberland Infirmary. Escorted by her parents and a midwife, she was led straight into the maternity ward, as she was already in the first stages of labour. In agony, gasping through her tears, the girl spent the next eight hours surrounded by only her midwife, several doctors and the disapproving looks of her devout Jehovah’s Witness parents.
She finally gave birth — without any pain relief due to her parent’s beliefs — to a healthy baby boy at around half past four in the morning, weighing in at 7lb 2oz. The midwife immediately cut the umbilical cord, wrapped the boy in a blanket and passed him to his exhausted mother.
‘Have you decided what you are going to name him?’
Before Shelley could utter a word, her father piped in, ‘NO! SHE’S ALREADY BROUGHT ENOUGH SHAME ON THIS FAMILY WITHOUT NAMING THIS FATHERLESS BASTARD!’
The midwife, shocked by this reaction, could not even find any words to respond to the father. She just threw him a disgusted look, then turned to where Shelley lay with her new-born son.
‘I’ll leave you to bond with your son for a few minutes, Shelley,’ she said kindly, ‘then I will get him all cleaned up for you.’
Shelley could see the genuine sincerity in her eyes, and the pure disgust at her father’s words. ‘Thank you.’
She then turned her attention to the innocent child in her arms, fresh tears appearing down her cheek. She knew these precious few hours would be the only time she would ever get to be so close to him, and even through the exhaustion, she clung onto him as tight as she could without hurting him until the midwife returned.
The next few hours seemed to pass by like minutes for Shelley as she just sat there, staring at the now
sleeping boy wrapped in a fluffy woollen blanket in the glass crib next to her. Engrossed in her own thoughts, and totally dismissive of her parents close by, she was suddenly alerted to a portly middle-aged gentleman as he entered the room and made his introductions to the parents. What happened next all seemed surreal and like a blur to young Shelley.
‘Seeing as you are under the age of sixteen, the age of legal consent, your parents have signed the voluntary consent forms on your behalf. This in turn means that your baby will now be placed into the care of the Social Services until a suitable long-term alternative is discovered. Do you understand what this means, Shelley?’
She knew exactly what this meant. Her parents had informed her of this decision and had reaffirmed it over the last two months. They had only found out about her hidden pregnancy at six months, as she knew if they had known in the early stages, they would have made her abort the unborn child without anybody ever having to find out. Their only saving grace now was the fact that nobody apart from the people in that room had any inclination of her ever being pregnant. As soon as she had started to show, they’d kept her off school and put it down to an ongoing illness, and they’d kept her away from anybody in their small community; they couldn’t bear the stigma of their so-called respectable family name and prefect daughter being labelled a ‘Jezebel!’ That was the turn of phrase they used every time the subject came up in the family home when Shelley dared to raise the possibility of keeping the child.
Coming back to her senses, Shelley had to watch as the man proceeded to take her precious son out of his crib, awakening him in the process. He took the baby out of the room and out of her life forever, but not before she got one long last look at him, his baby-blue eyes burning an everlasting image into her memory.
All she could do was whisper, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and watch as her perfect little bundle was carried away, through
the door, and down the long corridor until she could no longer catch sight of him.
‘It’s for the best, dear, you’ll realise soon enough,’ her mother said.
Shelley had no reply.
‘Right, no point in hanging around here now,’ her father said coldly. ‘Get your things, we’re going home!’
***