Authors: Rebecca Bradley
66
She
didn't know why she hadn't told Hannah about the pregnancy. Something
was stopping her. Tom believed she had told Hannah. It happened when
Benn was charged. It had been what she promised and Tom had taken her
at her word and never thought to ask the question. She knew she was in
the wrong, but she never corrected him. She let him believe it.
She
didn't feel pregnant. There was no growth around her middle. And the
nausea was bearable. There hadn't been any great heaving, vomiting down
the toilet every morning. Neither had she craved strange combinations
such as gherkins and ice-cream, or anything else equally as odd. There
was nothing to stop her telling Hannah, but something held her back.
Something she couldn't put her finger on. What harm could there be in
doing the file for trial?
“Ross,
have you got a copy of all property seized please?” Sally looked up and
asked as she typed. His desk faced hers, his face was screwed up in a
mask of concentration as his fingers worked through more paper they'd
created, pen in hand, scribbling notes in his blue pad as he went.
Ross,
easily distracted, looked up and grinned as though she had just asked
him if he wanted to go out for a pint. He was frustrating. Reminded her
of her younger brother, Alan. “Electronically or do you want me to
stand at the printer for an hour?” He answered, reminding her even more
of Alan and their constant sibling spats which usually ended up with
Alan taking a punch in the arm and him buying her a drink down the pub.
She glared and Ross put his head down. “Email will be fine,” she said, knowing the problem was her mood and not Ross. “Thanks.”
Her
inbox beeped as the list arrived. She opened it. There were pages and
pages of items. She needed to list the ones to be used as evidence on
the MG9 exhibits form. The rest would be logged as unused material. She
began the onerous task.
“Tea?”
She
lifted her head. Caught up in bodily fluids, computers and components,
she didn't see him coming. Ross stood at the side of her, a sincere
look on his face.
“Fancy a cuppa?” he asked again.
She felt ashamed and cornered. “Thanks Ross. Tea would be great.”
67
I
picked up the handset and dialled. After several frustrating
re-directions, I was put through to the correct homicide unit at Bayard
Place, Broadway, Peterborough, and the DI in charge of the
investigation into the murder of Isabelle Thomas, Shaun Harris.
I needed information in relation to their investigation, to find out
what linked these girls and these very different locations. If we could
find the link, we had some chance of finding the girl photographed in
the cage.
Harris
was personable and helpful. Due to the intense press attention, he was
aware of the Rosie Green and Allison Kirk case, but he hadn't connected
it to his investigation. As soon as he was aware of what we had found
on Benn's computer he was more than happy to share what he knew. He
talked me through the sequence of events that led up to Isabelle’s
murder, the stuff we already knew from her missing persons report, then
went on to the murder investigation and where that had taken them. The
picture painted of Isabelle was a now familiar one. There had been
issues at home, a failure to attend school which had not been addressed
by her parents and when she did attend she was surly and uncooperative
with regular missing episodes. There was a rapid and now obvious
decline, and one that was not picked up by any agency: the police
service, children's services, education or health. All agencies failed
to engage with each other sufficiently to make a difference. There was
now a Serious Case Review running. These are conducted when a child
dies and a factor of that death is abuse or neglect, though reviews are
also conducted under various other scenarios but ones based on harm to
children. The review is not created to allocate blame, as culpability
is looked at by coroners or criminal investigations. It's a means to
identify shortfalls and to learn lessons and to see what could have
been done differently by the various organisations involved with that
child before and after death.
As
well as the behavioural similarities between Isabelle and Allison prior
to death, the MO drew us another parallel. During Isabelle's
post-mortem, ligature marks around her wrists and marks indicative of a
belt around her neck had been recorded. A vicious sexual assault and
weeks of recorded missing episodes prior to death also screamed out
this was more than a coincidence. The problem was, this case was
already detected and not attributed to Benn and because of the
detection, the further, more obscure links on Isabelle’s missing
persons record hadn't been fully investigated as viable lines of
enquiry.
The
differences and yet the similarities between the girls and the offences
gave me a bad feeling. I pulled at my fringe as I went through the
information with Harris, explaining the account Benn had given of a
group of organised offenders. I needed to go to Peterborough and look
into this further. If this was going the way I thought it was, then our
case just got a whole lot bigger and the offender charged with the rape
and murder of Isabelle Thomas could be the one lead we had on tracking
down other offenders to enable us to identify and locate the girl in
the photograph. I caught the team before they left for the day.
I'd already updated Catherine Walker and Grey, and both were on side
for our team to continue the investigation into the unidentified girl,
and to take the lead within a cooperative cross force investigation. I
updated Martin and asked him to check if there was any mention of
Isabelle Thomas within the Norwich investigation. Walker had spent the
day in conference calls to various heads of departments, along with the
relevant command teams on each force. Eventually agreement was reached.
Aaron and I were to travel to Cambridgeshire in an early morning start
and meet with the SIO, Shaun Harris. It was a messy affair by all
accounts. The command teams in the various force areas didn't like the
idea of an organised crime group involved in a case that was under such
scrutiny from the press crossing their borders. On top of that,
having another force come in and take the lead was hard to swallow, but
Walker had sold me as being most knowledgeable on this group and their
MO. It didn't say a lot about the state of the investigation in total
as I was just getting my head around it. Crossing county borders had
made connecting offences difficult, but a picture was being built.
Aaron’s
desk was uncluttered. I parked myself on the corner of it and talked
through what we knew with everyone. I briefed them on Isabelle Thomas
and the connections that had been made. I could see the same
consideration for the girl in the photo cross their minds as I watched
them look at each other.
“We
don't have anything positive, but it's a good lead. Aaron and I are
driving over tomorrow and will take a copy of the photograph with us.
I’d like you two to finish up the Benn file here and talk to the
Digital Investigation Unit to see where we are with it.”
Ross looked disappointed not to be going. He was always so eager to be involved.
Sally, on the other hand, touched her hand to her stomach. The whole case made my insides turn as well.
68
It
was getting close to that time of day when she knew she would be let
out of the cramped space. There was some structure to her days. Some
routine. Details about her past home life felt vague and distant as she
focussed on what was important here. When she was due to be fed was
important. A survival mechanism. She took the food from him. Sometimes
it was good and she shovelled it into her mouth. Other times the food
wasn't so good. Sometimes after eating, she felt weak and dizzy and
she'd lie down, her cheek warm on the cool plastic base. She couldn't
recognise the bad food until she'd already eaten it, but she'd learned
to take comfort in the release from the fear it gave her as her eyelids
dragged closed and the cage blurred and softened around her.
Another
thing she had learned was if she waited long enough, she didn't have to
sleep in her own urine. She worked out toilet break times. Some days
the routine was a little off, but when they remembered, they let her
out twice a day.
Some
days she was washed and if she behaved she got her hair brushed. Right
now it was knotty and wild. She always tried to be good for the
photographs, staying as still as it's possible to stay and taking her
thoughts down a different path to the one she's being physically taken
down. It was getting harder and harder to hold on to her memories as
they seeped out of her mind like water from a pot with the
smallest of cracks, invisible to the eye, but there nonetheless. She
tried to cling on to memories of her mum, craving the feeling of safety
they brought. It was getting harder but she tried.
She
holds on to routine. If she's good it may get better. Her body screams
in the cramped space and she sits and waits for the time she will be
let out.
69
Sally
heard the click of the kettle as she closed the front door behind her.
Tom was already home. She didn't remove her coat, she wanted to see
him. Be near him. He was the one person who could make this all right
for her. He always knew the right words to say, or the right spot to
massage to relax her. He was always her protector. She might be in a
strong role at work, but at home she needed her husband and she really
needed him tonight. She walked into the kitchen as he put two mugs down
on the worktop. He turned to look at her.
“What's wrong?”
“There's
been another child killed.” She sank on to one of the chairs around the
table, dropping her bag on the floor. Her phone slid out through the
open zipper and clattered as it hit the tiles but she ignored it. She
was done in.
“Where?”
Tom believed she was on restricted duties at the station now. He'd
understood her reluctance to talk about the conversation with Hannah.
He'd told her he was proud of her, that he knew it was hard for her to
do it and he would give her the space she needed to adjust. He trusted
her.
“Peterborough.”
“So you're not dealing with it?”
She
looked at him, a mixture of sadness and something else. “No. I'm not
dealing with it. Hannah and Aaron are travelling over tomorrow. Martin
is in Norwich still and Ross and I are dealing with what we can from
here.”
Worry
flashed across his face. He turned away, took a breath before looking
at her again, “But you're not going out to deal with anyone are you?”
Sally
stood, the chair legs scraping on the floor as she pushed back. She
couldn't stop herself. She was angry. “I'm safe. Safe as houses. Does
that make you happy? Someone's child is in the ground. Someone's baby.
But I'm safe. Okay.” She didn't have the energy to explain the child's
death had occurred several weeks ago and it was mostly a paper
exercise. She was so tired. The girl still had no life, no future. It
had still been violently stripped away from her.
She
walked out of the kitchen, her bag and contents lying where she had
dropped them, Tom rubbing his face with his hands. The kettle whistled
into the air.
70
He
was annoyed with me. I could tell. His silence spoke volumes. I handed
him a glass. “Wine?” He took it and knocked half of it down. He still
hadn't said a word. He was waiting for me. “I know I didn't call when I
said I would,” I paused. He waited. “It's been hectic.” He finished
what was in his glass. I followed suit. “Ethan?”
“Tell
me about it?” His face softened and he leaned back into the sofa. I was
so unsure of this relationship but something about it, about Ethan,
pulled me in. We sat together on the sofa, cradling our glasses as
though they were fragile. The press release had gone out and the
promised first call to Ethan to give him the heads up had not
happened. I wanted to explain. We'd met the day Benn was charged
but I presumed he had given me breathing space because my face still
showed such visible injuries, it had obviously been eating away at him
and it seemed he couldn't put it off any longer. I pulled my feet up
under me.
“There's been another death.”
A pause. “A child?”
“Yes.”
“How can they be connected if Colin Benn is locked up?”
“We just think they are at this point.”
Ethan
looked at me. Where to take this now? I didn't know how to handle the
uncertainty that came with a relationship with him. I'd called him in a
moment of weakness when what I wanted was to feel his arms around me,
his warmth, his masculinity to envelope me and to hold me in tight.
Instead I sat waiting, wondering. I sighed, frustrated with my
inability to say anything more. Ethan leaned in towards me. I felt his
closeness and my breathing deepened.
“Talk to me, Han.” So close. “Don't push me out.”
I
felt confused. I leaned past him and for want of anything else to say,
I picked up the bottle from the floor and topped up our glasses. “You
can't print this.”
“I don't want to print it. I want to talk. I want us to be able to talk.”
I
took another gulp. “The MO is very similar. I've got an early start
tomorrow. I'm heading out to talk to the team who have been dealing
with it to see what we have.” I couldn't tell him about the girl in the
cage. Something was stopping me. Not just my integrity, the knowledge I
shouldn't, but a feeling, an uneasiness. I was treading on dangerous
ground and it felt unsteady beneath my feet.
“Keep
in touch with me while you're there.” He leaned closer and kissed me, I
wound my arm, still holding the glass, around his neck.