Authors: Susan Lewis
Sitting down on the bed, she pushed her bare feet into the prison-issue flip-flops and reached for the toast. As crumbs dropped on to her tracksuit top she looked down to brush them away, then her head snapped up again as the door suddenly swung open and Nola came in.
Charlotte’s appetite instantly died. There was something about the way Nola was standing there, ogling her, that was deeply unsettling. To her relief, Penny, the warder who’d at least been civil to her when she’d arrived, came in behind her.
With a glance at Nola, Penny tossed an envelope on the bed and left. To Charlotte’s dismay Nola continued to stare at her. Neither of them moved. Charlotte had no idea what was happening, not knowing if she should say, or do something, or simply stay as she was.
In the end, without uttering a word, Nola turned and walked out. Charlotte stared at the open door feeling as though she’d been threatened, or maybe sized up in some way, and for the first time since she’d been there she knew the true sense of being completely, inescapably trapped.
‘Tommy, can I have a quick word?’ Tracy said, putting her head round the door.
‘Sure, how’s it going?’ he asked, beckoning her in as he turned from his computer screen. ‘I thought you were picking up Freddie Gale this afternoon.’
Tracy threw out her hands. ‘My whole day’s gone to pot,’ she told him, closing the door behind her. ‘I’m actually about to go and collect Chloe – please don’t let on to anyone I’m telling you this,’ she added quickly.
Looking concerned, he replied, ‘Of course I won’t. What’s happened?’
Sighing, she said, ‘Turns out the couple she’s with are having problems, so they can’t keep her any longer.’
‘Couldn’t they have decided that
before
you took her there?’
‘You’d have thought so, but apparently they’ve made a mistake, so she has to go.’
‘So have you got someone else lined up?’
‘I think so. I’ve just got their details from West Somerset.’
‘So why are you in here talking to me?’
Glancing at the door to make sure it was still closed, she told him, ‘Wendy’s talking adoption already.’
Though his eyes narrowed, he said, ‘I guess we have to accept that in the long term, adoption could be the best thing for the child.’
‘Of course it could, but I can’t help feeling Wendy’s rushing this. She wouldn’t let her feelings about Charlotte affect her judgement, would she?’
Sighing, Tommy shook his head. ‘No, she wouldn’t, but I’m afraid Charlotte will probably take it personally if she finds out.’
‘So what on earth happened between those two before Charlotte went off on her little jaunt Down Under?’
‘Nothing actually happened,’ he replied, ‘they just always managed to rub each other up the wrong way and love Charlotte as I do, she wasn’t always easy to manage. On the other hand, Wendy can be tricky too, as you know very well. Then along came all the bad publicity we got as a department when everyone thought Chloe was missing and probably murdered by her own father. Charlotte took most of the hits over that, while Wendy, as her manager, somehow avoided the flak, even though a child had disappeared on her watch, and the videos showed long-term, systematic abuse. Not that they were ever made public, but everyone knew of their existence and so, according to the press, social services had fallen down on the job again. Charlotte was the obvious scapegoat, and Wendy knows, in her heart, that she should have stood by her. That was before we knew Charlotte had Chloe, obviously.’
‘You didn’t have a problem standing by her.’
He didn’t comment on that, though he’d been hauled up in front of his bosses at the time and for a while his job had looked as though it was seriously on the line. ‘It wasn’t Charlotte’s fault she had to go through the official channels to help prove there was a problem at the Wades’ home,’ he said. ‘Everyone has to, you know that, unless the abuse is blindingly obvious and you can get an Emergency Order to hike the victims out of harm’s way. The normal procedure takes weeks, even months for all of us, and Alex – Charlotte – was dealing with a man who was too damned clever by half. Anyway, fast forward to now, and you could be right, Wendy’s still having issues over Charlotte, but that doesn’t mean adoption is the wrong way to go.’
‘But what if Charlotte gets off and the court says she can have Chloe back? OK, I know that’s not very likely, but stranger things and all that. And if it does happen, imagine how tough it’ll be for the couple that think they’re going to adopt her. To have come that far only to have their hopes dashed . . . Or if it’s already gone through, making it too late for Charlotte . . . I’m sorry, but it feels wrong to me, going this fast.’
Tommy didn’t disagree, but since he wasn’t in a position to discuss it with Wendy without breaking his promise to Tracy not to reveal what she’d told him, he said, ‘Leave it with me. I’ll make some calls and see what, if anything, can be done to slow it up.’
Chapter Seventeen
IF CHARLOTTE CLOSED
her eyes and her ears she could imagine herself anywhere in the world: swimming in the cove at Te Puna; flying a kite on the cliffs with Chloe; producing a show with the Mulgrove players . . . As soon as she opened them there was no mistaking where she was. In a cell, with no way out. However, this particular cell wasn’t in the prison; it was beneath Dean Valley Crown Court.
It was Wednesday morning, just before midday. She’d been brought here in the Reliance van over an hour ago, though her hearing wasn’t due to start until three. The van couldn’t make more than one journey into town, she’d been told, so she’d have to go at its convenience, not her own.
She didn’t mind, anything to get out of Walworth, even if it meant being locked up somewhere else. At least Nola wasn’t here. Although Nola hadn’t actually said or done anything yet, she was always hanging around, watching her, as though letting her know that anything could happen at any time.
‘You will get through this,’ Kim had written in the letter she’d sent to the prison on Sunday. ‘I know it must seem tough right now, and hard to see a way past all the crap life’s throwing at you, but I promise you things are happening out here. You have some good people on your side, lots of influence being brought to bear in ways I won’t go into now, but we can discuss them as soon as I see you. I’m hoping to have some news on Chloe by then, because I know she’s always uppermost in your mind. Yours, Kim.’
She was right, Chloe was always there, filling her mind and her heart in ways she could never break free from, but nor did she want to. In fact, it was only thinking about Chloe, and absorbing herself in memories of Te Puna, that allowed her to escape the brutality of where she was. Even though her heart flooded with pain and longing each time she came back to the present, but while she was imagining the sound of Chloe’s laughter, the joy of her swimming on Diesel with Danni, the sheer pleasure of sharing in some new triumph, it was as though she was with her. For fleeting moments she could almost feel her sweet breath on her cheek, or the clasp of her hand, or the satisfying bulk of her weight in her arms. She could hear her chattering, singing, or simply breathing; see her little shoes next to the door, and taste the sticky kisses after a fluffy. Everything about her was so pure, so cleansing, that not even the ghastliness of the coarse and violent women around her, or the menace of predatory guards could reach her when she was with Chloe in her mind.
Kim had also enclosed a printout from a foreign website.
Is this true?
Kim had asked.
If so, do you have any idea who might have posted it?
Though Charlotte had no proof she strongly suspected it had come from her old nemesis on the
Kesterly Gazette
, Heather Hancock. And the most obvious way Heather would have discovered the information was by wheedling it out of Jason, Charlotte’s ex, since there wasn’t anyone else Charlotte had ever trusted with the story of her early life. If she was right then she felt as baffled as she did hurt by his betrayal, since she’d never known him to be spiteful, or a gossip. However, he was a part of her past now, so maybe she had to accept that he didn’t owe her any loyalty.
As for Heather, whose journalistic inaccuracies Charlotte had had the temerity to point out in the past, publicly, she must be unspeakably thrilled at having such sweet revenge in her hands. Not that she could run it in the
Gazette
, but Charlotte wondered if so much righteous indignation had ever before been uploaded from this part of the world to a foreign website, with, it had to be said, yet more inaccuracies. Heather had obviously taken Jason at his word, since she was clearly in a fine lather about the fact that a mass murderer’s blood ran in Charlotte Nicholls’s veins.
How crushed, how incensed, she was going to be when she found out it wasn’t true.
Charlotte had no idea how public the story had become by now. Obviously the main broadcasters and newspapers weren’t going to risk contempt of court by running it, but there was nothing, no one, to stop it going viral on the Net. If it had, the chances were her mother had already seen it, and Bob would be doing his best to protect her, but it wouldn’t be easy for either of them having the past raked up like this, uncovering its horror, exposing such painful wounds. Since reading the piece Charlotte had spent many hours thinking of her mother and feeling for how terrible it must have been for her when, after everything she’d already lost, she’d been forced to give up her daughter too. How strange life was to now be presenting Charlotte with a similar heartbreak; maybe this was its way of getting her to understand how impossible it had been for her mother back then. Had she ever really not understood? She was certain she had, but she’d still found it hard to accept.
In the end her mother had summoned the courage to give her up for adoption, certain it was the only way of keeping her safe. For Charlotte and Chloe it wasn’t the same; no one wanted to harm them, apart from the state, the police, the lawyers who were going to try and make Charlotte pay for what she’d done. There were no other threats hanging over them; they were causing offence to no one, so why should she have to let Chloe go when Chloe was happy and loved by the family that already thought of her as their own?
‘Time to go up,’ a guard brusquely announced, coming to unlock the cell. ‘Brief said she’ll see you up there.’
Surprised, and unnerved by the fact that Kim hadn’t come down to the cells, Charlotte tucked her tissues into a sleeve and tried to appear collected as she walked past the guard into the main area. It was probably just that Kim was running late, leaving no time for a quick pre-hearing conference,
so don’t start reading something sinister into it now,
she told herself firmly.
Following the guard to the stairs, she distracted herself with the thought of how this underground chamber was hardly any different from the one beneath the town hall. The only real difference was that this was newer and painted a sludge pea-green instead of something that probably used to be white. The steps had tiles on them, and a banister to hold on to, but the stench of those who’d gone before her – sweat, vomit, old booze and the sickly residue of cheap perfume – still managed to curdle the air.
She felt momentarily uplifted by the fact that there would be no press at this hearing. Apparently they weren’t allowed into chambers and that was how this application had been scheduled, meaning it would still happen in a courtroom, but only those directly involved in the case would be present. The relief she’d felt when she’d read that in Kim’s letter was washing over her in waves again now, for the prospect of the press waiting up there like ravens would have been unnerving her badly. Especially now she was no longer simply Charlotte Nicholls, the child abductor; she was Charlotte Albescu,
daughter of the notorious human-trafficker who’d slain his wife’s family
.
As she neared the top of the stairs she heard someone laugh in the court and felt it hit her like a rock. She tried to remember when she’d last laughed, and decided it must have been out at Kauri Cliffs during the Owens Lifestyle shoot. How long ago and faraway that seemed now, part of another world, another life.
As she entered the court with its beechwood panelling and matching benches, windowless walls and three rain-spattered skylights, no one seemed to notice she was there. The muted chatter at the front simply continued as the lawyers discussed some sporting event and the court officials went about their affairs. Charlotte spotted Kim’s blonde hair right away, but her head was down as she made notes on a file in front of her, apparently not part of the male camaraderie. She recognised DS Karen Potter, and guessed the two men with her were also detectives. No sign of Terence Gould. What was he making of her new status as the daughter of a mass killer? Would he want that out there in the public domain, or was he even now taking steps to track down the story’s source in order to prosecute?
As she stepped up into the dock a fresh onslaught of fear assailed her. If this hearing wasn’t successful she’d be escorted back to the Reliance van, deposited into a steel cubicle and returned to Walworth. There would be no other opportunity to seek bail before the trial, and that could be months away.
Panic began clamouring for an escape, making her want to scream and run, but she forced herself to keep breathing, keep going, trying to seal herself off from the fear.
‘Charlotte, I’m here.’
The whisper only just reached her, but she recognised it instantly and felt a soaring in her heart as she turned to where Gabby was sitting alone in a side bench.
Loving her for coming, Charlotte attempted to smile back, but the guard was insisting she sit down. After he’d moved away she turned to Gabby again and mouthed a ‘thank you’.
‘Love you,’ Gabby mouthed back and Charlotte almost cried.
When she turned round again Kim was looking her way, her expression showing affection as well as concern.
Charlotte was too tense, too bound up in the dread of returning to that van, to Walworth, to give anything more than a brief nod.