***
‘We got a match on the fingerprints. The letter we received was definitely handled by Annie Snowdon,’ said Ruth.
‘What do you think it means?’ Karen Fitzgerald was studying a photocopy. ‘“I am going to be in a better place, with God, and you will never see me again.”’
‘I hope it doesn’t mean what it sounds like,’ said Ruth.
‘Significant that we got this after we let Cotter go.’
Ruth nodded. ‘It certainly makes him look guilty. Did anyone following him see him do anything suspicious?’
Karen shook her head. ‘He never put a foot wrong, not so as anyone noticed, anyway.’
‘So how the hell did he get to Annie?’
She shrugged. ‘I honestly have no idea.’
‘Does the house have a basement? A garage? A shed? Outhouses? Anything at all, any place he might have that child concealed?’
‘The team went over it inch by inch, from top to bottom. They were in the loft, they had floorboards up, the works.’ She scratched her head. ‘You don’t suppose he could have a tunnel … or a pit dug under the garage … Jesus, there must be something. He’s been in contact with that girl. The letter was posted in the town, he works at the Civic Centre.’
‘Did anyone see him post anything?’
‘They say not. They can’t remember seeing him do anything like that, anyway.’
‘Could the wife have done it?’
‘She hasn’t been across the doors. She’s still not very well and she’s scared of facing the neighbours. The house was pelted with eggs last night. Made a right mess. She hasn’t even been out to clean that up.’
‘Christ, Karen, what the hell can we do? According to this, the kid’s saying goodbye before she goes to live with God. What the hell are we supposed to think?’
***
The television appeal by MC Boyz had given the enquiry a boost and the phones had been red hot with tips, suggestions and sightings. Once more, however, as each one was checked out it came to nothing. Annie Snowdon had simply vanished into thin air.
Ruth was at the Snowdon house when she got a call from a very excited DC Rob Winter. ‘You’re not going to believe this, Ruth,’ he said, tripping over his words in his haste to get them out. ‘It’s Cotter. He’s confessed.’
***
‘You’re kidding!’ PC Dave Cross was hearing the tale from Ian Atkinson.
‘Straight up. Rang Fitzie and said he had something to tell her, then came in and coughed to the whole thing.’
‘So where’s the bairn?’
‘He reckons he suffocated her by accident while he was trying to keep her quiet and he dumped her in the sea off Roker pier.’
‘Poor kid.’
‘Aye, well, after this much time had passed, there was really only going to be one outcome.’
‘Still can’t help feeling sorry for her.’
‘And her sister. Imagine having to live with that for the rest of your life.’
PART TWO
‘Hurry up! We haven’t got all day,’ snapped Penny.
‘Sorry, Mum. I’m ready now.’ Tina ran down the stairs and grabbed her jacket off a peg in the hall as she flew out of the front door, slamming it shut behind her.
Her mum was already in the car, reversing out of the drive almost before Tina had the door shut. Penny was always angry these days. She rarely smiled and Tina couldn’t remember the last time she had heard her laugh. She prayed, though. Not that praying seemed to bring her much comfort.
It was Sunday afternoon and they drove in silence. Tina had been obliged to go to church that morning. Her mum went almost every day, but Tina got away with going just once a week. She didn’t want to go at all. It was no longer that she hated the stupid God who had taken so much from her in her short life, but that she had realised there was no such thing as God. The whole thing was a delusion and her mother was mentally ill. She had already decided she would stop going just as soon as she had her own place and could organise her own life, but for now it was easier just to do what her mum asked.
So Sunday mornings were spent in church, after which they went home for lunch, then in the afternoon they drove to the cemetery. Penny parked in the usual place and Tina hopped out of the car and opened the hatchback. She lifted out an armful of flowers and a bag of tools. Penny closed the back of the car and zapped it to lock it: you could never be too careful, even if they would be within sight of the vehicle at all times. She trusted no one, not even in the cemetery grounds.
They trudged together over the grass to the plot. Tina felt her throat constrict when she read the headstone. It never got any easier.
In memory of Derek Snowdon, aged 44 years. A loving and much-loved husband and father.
Also Annabelle Snowdon, aged 8 years.
“God saw your goodness shining true and made a home in Heaven for you.”
Tina and Penny didn’t speak, didn’t need to: they had done this so many times that their moves had a strange, choreographed grace. Tina gathered up the previous week’s flowers and put them in a bin bag, then weeded the plot while Penny emptied out the stale water in the stone vase and replaced it with fresh, then arranged the new flowers. Penny took out a disposable wipe and cleaned the gravestone while Tina used a similar cloth to clean the marble edging. Then the cloths went into the bin bag with the faded flowers, the weeds and any rubbish that had been on or around the grave, and Tina took the bag to the bin while Penny gathered up the tools they had used and put them back in the bag. By the time she had placed that in the back of the car, climbed into the driver’s seat and fired the engine, Tina had returned from her errand and hopped into the passenger seat, and they drove home, again in silence.
When they got in, Tina went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and Penny went into the lounge and turned on the television. As Tina put the tray down and began transferring the teapot, mugs and a plate of biscuits to the coffee table,
Points of View
was just ending. By the time the tea had been poured and the women were seated, each with a mug of tea and a jaffa cake,
Songs of Praise
was just beginning. The timing was perfect for Penny, but Tina’s heart sank. Sundays were an exercise in endurance from beginning to end.
At sixteen, Tina had still been trying to please her mother, still believed that she could somehow make things right. Consequently, in accordance with Penny’s wishes, she had stayed on at school to do her A-levels with the intention of going on to university. In the time since then, however, Tina had grown up considerably. Now just turned eighteen and with only a few months left at school, she had a whole new set of plans. She had been working at ‘Cutting Edge’, a hairdressing salon in town, and had a job lined up there just as soon as she finished her exams. The owner had also promised her first refusal on the little flat above the salon, which she was currently renovating. It would be ready at about the right time and Tina was looking forward to moving in.
She hadn’t yet told her mother. When she did there’d be a row, guaranteed, and she was fed up with rowing.
As
Songs of Praise
moved into what, for it, was high gear, Tina picked up a magazine and did her best to tune out the television. As a defence mechanism, she started playing her current favourite album on her internal stereo.
When the programme finished and the news began, she still hadn’t tuned the television back in. Not until she heard her mother start to make a strange keening sound did she pay any attention to what was actually happening. She dropped the magazine and jumped out of the chair and onto the couch, next to Penny.
‘Mum! Mum, what’s wrong?’
Penny couldn’t speak, could only manage to point at the television set and make that awful noise, while tears coursed down her cheeks. Tina looked at the set: the face on the screen was that of George Cotter, and the newsreader was saying something about an appeal that was expected to lead to an overturned conviction. Tina went cold as she realised what it meant: George Cotter would be released from prison. She ran upstairs to the bathroom, only just made it before she brought up her tea and jaffa cakes.
***
Ruth Crinson pulled up outside of the Snowdon house next morning and was overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu. She had been back once or twice over the years since Annie Snowdon had disappeared and George Cotter had been convicted of her abduction and murder, on the strength of his confession and despite the lack of either evidence or a body, but today felt different. Today felt like they were back at the beginning, starting again, no idea who was responsible for the loss and misery the family had endured.
‘How could this happen?’ Penny asked her, almost as soon as she opened the door. ‘He admitted he’d done it. How can he change his mind now?’
‘It’s … complicated,’ said Ruth. She’d been dreading this, even though she’d insisted she should be the one to come. She’d helped the family through everything else that had happened to them, she felt she had to see the job through. ‘Can I come in?’
Tina was bringing through a tray of drinks as Ruth went into the lounge. ‘I’ve made you your usual,’ she told Ruth, flashing her a smile that vanished so quickly Ruth was hardly sure it had been there at all. ‘I stayed home from school today. I thought I should be here.’
‘Good idea,’ said Ruth. ‘You can help your mum with this.’
Tina smiled again, and this time it stayed in place for a little longer.
Once they were all seated, Ruth tried to explain the situation. It was something she herself found confusing, frustrating: she could hardly imagine what Penny and Tina made of it.
‘When Cotter confessed, he put himself behind bars,’ Ruth told them. ‘We couldn’t have put him there. We had no evidence. Okay, we had a few bits of circumstantial evidence, but nothing that could be considered “beyond reasonable doubt”. Not enough, to be honest, to have even persuaded the CPS we had a case. Then, even when he told us where to find Annie, we couldn’t find her. She just wasn’t there.’ Ruth took a sip of her coffee. ‘Now Cotter is saying that his confession was false. He was stressed and scared by the questioning and then by being followed, and he imagined he must have done what he had been accused of. He says he made his confession while the balance of his mind was disturbed.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ exclaimed Penny. ‘He’s as guilty as sin.’
Ruth nodded. ‘I know. There’s no doubt in my mind that the right man was locked up. However, he’s persuaded a psychiatrist that he’s telling the truth about fabricating his confession and with his professional support, and in the absence of any hard evidence, we simply can’t fight his claim effectively. We’ve got nothing.’
‘Will he get out?’ asked Tina.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Ruth. ‘He’s due in court tomorrow morning and the chances are he’ll be free to go after the hearing.’
Penny sagged back in her chair. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Please, God, no.’
‘Mum …’
‘He can’t be let out. We’ve got a life sentence and he can just change his mind and walk free? How is that fair?’
Ruth shook her head. ‘It isn’t fair, Penny. None of this is fair.’
‘I want to be there.’
‘I really don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘I don’t care. I want to look that man in the eye, that man who took my little girl from me, and I want to ask him.’
‘Ask him what?’
‘What he did with her.’ Penny’s voice broke and she sobbed quietly. ‘Every week we go and put flowers on a half-empty grave. But if Annie isn’t remembered on that gravestone, she might as well not have ever existed. Without that, she’s nowhere, nowhere we can honour her life, anyway.’
Tina looked stricken. ‘They can’t do this,’ she said. ‘They can’t let that man go free after what he’s done.’
‘I suggest you let your family know what’s happening,’ Ruth said. ‘And then take the phone off the hook. Screen any calls you get on your mobile. Only take calls from known numbers. Better still, get out of town, or at least out of the house. Go and stay in a hotel, I can organise that for you if you like. The tabloids are going to want to know how you react to this and it’s probably best that you let me handle that. We can work on a short response and put it out through official channels.’
‘Stop!’ cried Penny. ‘You’re going too fast, just stop! I need time to think.’
Ruth paused. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I’m rushing you.’ She took a deep breath, then continued. ‘I’ve been trying to work out how to handle this for a few days, now. You’ve just been landed with the situation. Of course you need some time.’ She stood up. ‘But we don’t have long to get a strategy together. I’m sorry about that, but we have to deal with the facts of the case.’
‘Can you give us even just a couple of hours?’ asked Tina.
‘Yes, of course.’ Ruth looked at her watch. ‘It’s nine o’clock now. I’ll come back around two this afternoon. We can put our heads together then and decide what we’re going to do. Okay?’
Tina nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘Penny?’
‘Yes, okay.’ She glared at Ruth. ‘Not that we really have any choice in the matter.’