Frankie (30 page)

‘What do you know about it?' Frankie muttered.

‘More than you think. I meant what I said on the phone – I know about your stepfather, and I believe you. But
I've spoken to your mother, and I really don't think she knew anything about it.'

Frankie couldn't find the words. She shook her head. ‘It's in the past,' she told Carter, her voice unfriendly. ‘I've moved on.'

Carter opened his mouth to argue, but clearly thought better of it. ‘It's your decision. I'll ask your mother to leave.' He stood up and walked to the door.

‘Wait.' Frankie stopped him before he left. ‘Let her come in. I want her to see what she's done.'

Carter narrowed his eyes. ‘OK,' he said finally. ‘If that's what you want.'

Frankie felt the uncomfortable sensation of apprehension rising in her stomach as she waited for her mother to arrive. When she did, it was like one of the many dreams she had dreamed since leaving home – unreal, but with a horrifying sense of inevitability. The two policemen walked in first – Carter and Taylor – and stood on either side of the door as Harriet entered. As the years had passed, Frankie had found it difficult to bring a vision of her mother's face into her head, but now that she was in front of her, the sight overwhelmed her with memories. She looked older than Frankie remembered, and there was a sadness in her eyes that she did not recall. Along the side of her face there were the remnants of a bruise.

‘Francesca,' she whispered.

Frankie didn't answer.

Harriet turned to look at the policemen on either side. ‘Would you excuse us?' she asked in a wavering voice. Carter threw an inquiring glance at Frankie, who nodded her head almost imperceptibly, then the two of
them walked out, closing the door softly behind them. Harriet stepped towards her daughter, her eyes flickering occasionally towards the baby asleep in the cot beside her. When she was barely a metre away, she stopped, then hurled herself forward and flung her arms around Francesca's neck. ‘My Francesca,' she wailed. ‘I thought you were dead.'

Frankie tried to pull away, but her mother was holding on to her too tightly for that. When she did let go, she finally allowed herself to take in the sight of Jasper. ‘Is this my grandson?' she asked in a small voice. She stretched out her hand to touch the sleeping child on his cheek, but just as she was about to do so, her daughter spoke.

‘Don't touch him.'

How often Frankie had imagined this moment. How often she had practised the lines in her head, rehearsed exactly what she wanted to say in minute detail, silently explaining to her mother just what had been brought about by her refusal to believe her daughter. But now that it came to it, she felt differently. More detached. Less inclined to share the truth of her life with this woman who had long since given up any right to be part of it.

Harriet looked at her with a confused expression.

‘What do you mean?'

‘He's not your grandson, because you're not my mother. Not any more. You haven't been part of my life for years, and I don't want you to be part of his.'

Harriet's eyes widened. ‘You don't mean that, Francesca. You're exhausted. You're in shock. It's understandable …'

‘Shut up!' Frankie hissed. ‘Don't you dare pretend you understand me. You've no idea.'

‘No,' Harriet snapped. ‘No, I don't. What's happened to you, Francesca? How could you do these things?'

‘If you'd listened to me about William, none of this would have happened.'

‘Francesca, you're not still blaming William? Maybe he can help you now. He has contacts …'

‘Oh Mum.' Frankie felt a curious mixture of contempt and pity. ‘How can you be so blind? Tell me, where did you get that bruise on your face?'

Harriet touched her hand lightly to her cheek. ‘It's nothing –' she started to say.

‘He did it,' Frankie interrupted. ‘Didn't he?'

‘No.' She said the word firmly, but she refused to look at her daughter as she did so.

‘I know what he's like, Mum. Believe me, I know better than anyone else. Get out of there while you can.'

Harriet turned her gaze back to her daughter; it was a scared, haunted look. ‘I can't,' she whispered.

Frankie appeared unmoved. ‘You have to. And you have to leave us alone. Jasper and me.'

‘But you're my daughter. My little girl.'

‘I
was
your daughter. But I'm a different person now – you said it yourself. Not the same little girl that ran scared all those years ago.'

Tears were streaming down Harriet's face now, but Frankie looked on severely. ‘I'm sorry, Francesca,' her mother begged. ‘Give me another chance. I can't bear losing you again.'

She made as if to hug her daughter again, but this time Frankie held up her good hand and warned her away. ‘No.'

Shocked, her mother remained perfectly still, clearly
unsure how serious Frankie was being. ‘You can always come home,' she whispered. ‘I mean, if they …' She looked almost involuntarily at the door that the police officers were guarding.

‘No,' Frankie said firmly. ‘I can't. I don't have a home any more.'

They stared at each other, mother and daughter, the silence between them saying more than any words. Slowly, Frankie felt along the wall by her bed until her hand came in contact with a small switch. She pressed it briefly, and a few seconds later the door was opened slightly by Sean Carter. He looked inquiringly at her. ‘Could you come in?' she asked him. ‘Both of you. You all need to hear what I have to say.'

Carter and Taylor entered. They stood with uncharacteristic solemnity by the door while Frankie composed herself. ‘Are you OK?' Carter asked.

‘No,' she replied. She looked back at her mother, her mouth half open as though she was deciding whether or not to speak. ‘What would happen if I gave you proof about my stepfather?' she asked finally.

‘Francesca –' Her mother started to speak, but Taylor interrupted her.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Proof that he was abusing me.'

There was a shocked pause before Taylor replied, ‘We'd arrest him. Immediately.'

‘And what would happen then?'

‘If he's found guilty he'd go to prison. And believe me, that's the last place a nonce wants to be.'

‘Francesca,' her mother insisted. ‘Think about what you're saying.'

‘I have thought about it, Mum,' she replied, her voice deadpan. ‘I've thought about it for a very long time.'

Her mother stood in silence as Frankie took a deep breath. And then she spoke. As she did so, her voice sounded monotone, emotionless, as if she was just reciting something that had been etched in her memory for years, revisited so often that the words now seemed devoid of meaning to her. She opened her eyes and turned to look at the two police officers. ‘When my stepfather was abusing me, he used to take pictures. He would let me see them, and said that if I ever told anybody, he would show them to my friends. He kept them in a box in the attic, along with other photographs of other children.' Frankie gestured towards her mother; the blood had drained from Harriet's face as she stood there horrified. ‘She knew nothing about it. If you search the attic, you'll find them there, unless he's destroyed them. But I doubt he has.'

Harriet's breathing became shaky and uncontrolled as she put her arm against the wall to support her suddenly frail-seeming body. ‘Nobody believed me,' Frankie continued. ‘Not even my own mother.' Her jaw was set, but as she looked directly at her mother once more, she could not avoid a tear from forming in her eyes. Slowly she wiped it away.

‘You never told me about this.' Harriet seemed to have difficulty forming the words.

‘I tried to!' Frankie snapped. ‘You just weren't prepared to listen. You were
never
prepared to listen.'

Harriet took a faltering step towards her. ‘I'm sorry, Francesca,' she whispered hoarsely. ‘I'm so sorry. Let me prove it to you.'

‘No. It's too late for that. You have to leave now.'

‘Please don't send me away, Francesca.' Harriet's voice dripped with desperation.

But Frankie was shaking her head. ‘Now, Mum,' she repeated firmly.

‘Will I ever see you again?'

‘I don't know.' Frankie spoke softly. ‘One day, perhaps. But not for a very long time.'

Taylor walked up to Harriet and took her gently by the arm. ‘We'll have to investigate this,' he said quietly. ‘Someone will take you to the police station – you'll need to wait there for a while to give us time to search the attic. You won't be able to call your husband, I'm afraid.' He started to escort her from the room.

As Harriet approached the door, she stopped and fished in her handbag, pulling out a big bunch of keys. She rifled through them before locating the smallest one there was and handing it to Taylor. ‘This is the key to the attic,' she told him. ‘Make sure you find what you're looking for.' She turned back to look at her daughter. ‘I want to help you, Francesca. Please let me.'

But Frankie was staring resolutely in the other direction. And then her mother was gone.

Taylor re-entered the room immediately. ‘I've called for someone to escort her back to the station,' he muttered to Carter, before turning back to Frankie and standing there in awkward silence. ‘Why did you never tell anyone?' he asked finally.

‘Because I was ashamed,' Frankie defended herself robustly. ‘I still am. I didn't know where he kept the photos until the night I ran away and stumbled across them when I got the old coat from the attic. But by then it was too late – no one believed me.' She glanced over at the
door. ‘I hate my mother for what she's done, but I don't want her going back to him. Not that it's anything to you.'

The two men looked uncomfortable, clearly unsure what to say.

‘In any case,' Frankie continued, ‘if I'm going to go to prison, I don't see any reason why he shouldn't do too.'

Taylor and Carter looked at each other. ‘Do you need any more convincing, Mark?' Sean asked him.

Taylor looked troubled as he replied, not to Carter but to Frankie. ‘Look, Francesca, I know you don't give a shit about the fact that I've just been doing my job, but here's the bottom line. I know you killed Bob Strut in self-defence, and frankly I'm glad he's dead – he was a scumbag and the world's a better place without him. The CPS will no doubt come to the same conclusion, but these things take time, and with your history there will be no chance of bail. Your son will be taken into care, and even after you're acquitted there's no guarantee that you'll get custody of him. I'm sorry.'

‘Spare it –' Frankie started to say, but she was interrupted by Carter.

‘Just a minute,' he said, more than a little irritably. ‘You're being discharged today, Francesca. Into custody. After that, you're likely to be put into a witness protection scheme. But it's not infallible. The people you've incriminated have already shown they have moles on the inside. It won't be hard for them to discover your location, and they may come after you. For revenge, if nothing else.'

Frankie was silent.

‘What if you were given a second chance?' Carter asked her.

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Do you think you could start from scratch, just you and Jasper? Like you did before?'

Frankie looked at each man in turn. ‘I don't understand.'

‘Just answer the question, Francesca. Do you think you can do it? Think carefully – it's important.'

But Frankie didn't need to think. She had lived on the streets and on the run. She had learned how to cope, how to depend on herself and nobody else. She knew she could do it. Mutely, but with a serious, wide-eyed expression, she nodded her head.

Carter opened the briefcase he was carrying and pulled out a brown padded envelope. He handed it to Frankie. ‘In here you'll find a passport, birth certificates and all the documents you need for you and Jasper to start a new life with new identities.'

Frankie looked at him in astonishment. ‘How?' she asked.

Carter shrugged. ‘Ways and means. But there's more. The fraud we uncovered with your help involved an arms company and a merchant bank. In circumstances like this, it's not unheard of for them to make a reward to our informants. They pass it on to us, so the informants can stay anonymous. In there you'll find a bank book with twenty thousand pounds deposited in your new name.'

Frankie was finding it difficult to believe what she was hearing. ‘That's all there is to it?'

‘Not quite,' Carter told her. ‘Permission for these documents comes from the highest authority; the same authority has ordered that all evidence of their issue be destroyed. The same goes for all your past records, even your fingerprints. Everything has been destroyed,
Francesca – anything that can lead people to you. To all intents and purposes, Francesca Mills doesn't exist any more, and apart from the three of us, only a handful of people – trustworthy people – know about it. It's the only way to keep you safe. But now you have to disappear.' He smiled. ‘But then, you're good at that, aren't you?'

Frankie looked at them both as it gradually became clear to her what they were saying. She nodded her head.

Carter took a deep breath. ‘OK, Francesca,' he said. ‘If you're prepared to take the risks, here's what we're going to do.'

Ten minutes later, Carter and Taylor were outside the room, talking to the police officer on guard. ‘She's being transferred,' Carter told him. ‘Holloway.'

The officer raised an inquiring eyebrow.

‘The commissioner wants her under high security.'

Carter waved a document under the policeman's nose, but he didn't examine it thoroughly – it was enough for him that he was receiving orders from a superior. ‘OK, sir,' he said respectfully.