Chasing Innocence

About the Book

'That poor little body, passed from pillar to post, all those things that will be asked of her. All those tears and years wondering why her father betrayed her.'

Sarah Sawacki’s past has made her a survivor. At the age of 28 her life is the best it has ever been. When she sees ten-year-old Andrea being kidnapped, her every instinct is to turn away. Sarah can only follow, journeying beyond reason for an innocence she little knew.

Andrea’s father is ex-forces and struggling in a civilian world he cares nothing for. Only now his daughter is missing, has he realised how precious she is. Teamed with Sarah's husband, they use the trail left by Sarah to hunt for Andrea.

Legendary detective Francis Boer is dying. He will call upon all his intuition and experience as he works to discover why Andrea was targeted in the first place. His hope is not to catch the guilty, but to save one last innocent.

Chasing Innocence is a thrilling debut that blends fast narrative and intense action with an enthralling story.

Contents

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Creative Crow

Copyright ©John Potter 2012

The moral right of John Potter to be identified as the Author of the work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available
from the British Library

Paperback ISBN 978-0-9570870-0-2

Epub ISBN 978-0-9570870-1-9

Creative Crow

www.creativecrow.co.uk

Cover Design by Richie Cumberlidge at Daniel Goldsmith Associates

Epub production by Creative Crow

Chasing Innocence

John Potter

For You

Some things are lost before we realise they are precious

Sometimes they are taken

Prologue

Sarah Sawacki checked her watch against the clock on the dash and returned to her vigil. Her eyes fixed on the bungalow, moving tirelessly from the door to each window. An ordinary bungalow in an ordinary street, a low brick wall topped by a low hedge.

Her car was silent save for the occasional shift of her body, her shallow breathing. Seconds ticked by and minutes passed. She checked her wrist and the dash again. She opened the door and climbed out, pulling her bag with her. A big open-topped bag, gripped so tight it made her knuckles white.

She walked the sixty-two steps along the pavement to the bungalow’s gate, a journey she had taken each hour between ten and five over the last two days, her hours of opportunity while Adam worked unaware. Her days here, this vigil, was for her.

A grainy picture in a newspaper had led her here, to this street outside this bungalow. The picture was of a nine-year-old boy, the boy would be a man now, probably about twenty-four, just like her. She had known the boy back then. They had stared across the playground at each other, their shared nightmare acknowledged without ever speaking a word. The newspaper said the nightmare was now released and free.

The picture had been three months ago. Since then she had sent endless emails and signed up for countless website subscriptions, waiting on letters, spending an eternity in records offices and looking hopeful across desks, using her curse, coercing detail. Men rarely refused and women sensed her burden, bonded, were seldom reproachful.

The nightmare had moved but not that far. Her pursuit narrowed to a partial postcode, to this once-village, now consumed by the sprawl of London. Her days then were of criss-crossing streets and the aisles of local stores. Three days ago she had seen him, loading shopping into a car. His profile correlated from memory in an instant. She followed him here, to this ordinary street, and then returned home to prepare.

Sarah pushed the bungalow gate open with her hip and walked the final six steps to the door. Using the edge of her fist, five sharp hard sounds followed by silence. Just like every other time, every hour of the last two days.

She counted down from ninety and repeated the five sharp knocks. Stood and waited, a statue on the doorstep, one hand in her coat pocket, the other clutching her bag tight to her side. Sometimes sensing sound within, a moving shadow through glass, the grey day now heavy as if rain were in the air.

She waited and counted and knocked again. Forcing herself to stay still and not run, ignoring her mind’s incessant gabbled warnings. The effort it required, of climbing from the car, the sixty-two steps, was wearing at her sanity.
Would it be this time?
Part of her hoped he would never open the door, imagined herself forever keeping vigil because she could not imagine anything else. The consequences of her actions, for what she intended doing, were unconsidered. Her other life was distant. Her determination to face him drove her. Her life now was this door. She heard a latch fall and a lock click and the door opened.

Three days ago she had known it was him without registering any particular detail. Now he was real and looking at her. Those thin lips set within that neat greyed beard, those piercing blue eyes, her five foot and inches dwarfed by his six foot and inches, more so now he stooped a little.

‘What is it you want, banging like that?’ His voice was tense, worn now, but it threw her back fourteen years. For a moment she was ten again.

‘I would like to talk,’ she said.

He replied, ‘Do I know you?’

For the first time she noticed him unsteady on his feet, saw beyond the beard and eyes of her memory. His weight was supported on a walking stick and his face had aged more than fourteen years. He should be in his sixties but looked closer to eighty.

‘Yes,’ Sarah answered. ‘You used to teach me gym, when I was at school. Private lessons, seventy-seven weeks.’ The detail that defined her.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t recall, I taught lots of children.’ He started to close the door.

She stepped forward, using her foot and free hand to stop its motion. She leaned in.

‘Please, it’s important to me. I need…I need closure, I just want to talk. You know why. Five minutes, please.’

She stared up at him, widened her eyes and let nature do the rest. Could see it working, that curse of hers. That fire in his eyes rekindled by the innocence on his doorstep. He would settle for five minutes in her company, his eyes roving, seeing past the clothes to her naked as a child. He nodded and moved his weight on the stick. And with her skin crawling, the voices screaming for her to run, she stepped into his house.