Chasing Innocence

by Potter, John

  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

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigram

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-one

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Sixty-Nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-One

  Seventy-Two

  Seventy-Three

  Seventy-Four

  Seventy-Five

  Seventy-Six

  Seventy-Seven

  Seventy-Eight

  Seventy-Nine

  Eighty

  Eighty-One

  Eighty-Two

  Eighty-Three

  Eighty-Four

  Eighty-Five

  Eighty-Six

  Eighty-Seven

  Eighty-Eight

  Eighty-Nine

  Ninety

  Ninety-One

  Ninety-Two

  Ninety-Three

  Ninety-Four

  Ninety-Five

  Reuters

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Recommend Chasing Innocence

  Copyright

  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 ga
bbled 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.

  He led her into a living room, sparse and frayed, propped the stick against the wall and made his way carefully to the kitchen. Sarah examined the room without moving then sat on the edge of a sagging sofa, her bag on her lap, knees together, grateful for trousers although she always wore them.

  After a few minutes he returned and handed her a cup on a saucer, taking his own and easing himself down into a matching armchair.

  ‘Out with it then,’ he said, staring at her over his cup with those eyes. He drank from it and swilled noisily, as if testing a vintage.

  She watched the fall and rise of his throat, considered her own cup and what might be mixed with her milky drink. Did not want him seeing what she was thinking, needed him to see her innocent. So she drank a mouthful of the hot liquid and stared back at him.

  ‘Do you have guilt?’ she asked. Not the question she had rehearsed.

  He nodded without pause and they sat in silence. Eventually he spoke. ‘Every day it’s there as I wake. Then I shut it out. My needs are part of who I am, as is my guilt.’

  Sarah felt disorientated, light-headed, knocked sideways. Not from the drink but from her mind’s desperate attempts at rationalising this room, for her being here. The voices screamed at her, for what his body could do, had done to her. Those strong arms from which she never escaped.

  She sat still with her bag on her knees, hands resting on top holding the cup. In the bag was the knife she had stolen from her mother’s kitchen, fourteen years ago. A carving knife with a six-inch blade, once gleaming but now rusted and pitted. She had stolen it after sixteen of the seventy-seven weeks. She had survived his lessons by escaping to her imaginary world and because of the hope the knife gave her. For what it promised. Although she only ever hoped, could never bring herself to that promise. Until now, but now felt all wrong.

  ‘Would you say sorry to me, apologise for what you did?’ She placed her cup on its saucer on the floor.

  ‘Unreservedly,’ he said. ‘I wish…I wish…I am sorry.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘What else?’ He shrugged. ‘I cannot take it back. I have served my time.’

  She leaned in a little, frustrated at her inability to conjure vengeance, her wrists resting on her bag, her knees pressed together.

  ‘You said it was my fault, that I caused it.’

  ‘You did, in a way,’ he answered. ‘But you weren’t to know. You were too…too hard to resist. You still have it you know, that innocence that children lose.’ He licked his lips and drank more tea.

  ‘You haven’t paid your debt,’ she said. ‘You served time for what you did to someone else. What you did to me is unspoken. You changed what I was. Changed what I was meant to be and made me something else. My…life.’

  Her voice trailed away and she mentally crept back into herself. With every minute in this room her determination, so strong in getting her there, was seeping from her. She was still the child to his adult.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he repeated. ‘Is there anything else?’

  She shook her head and faded more. They sat in silence. She stared at the carpet around his feet, could picture those feet bare in the shower. It was all wrong. She had rehearsed this conversation a thousand times, a constant rerun in her mind as she watched from her car. Except now she was here there was no momentum for redemption. She felt defeated in the face of reality. There was no changing anything, making anything better. He was an arthritic old man with a walking stick. She had so wanted him to know her pain.

  She stood and self-consciously smoothed her coat, waiting as he slowly rose. She stepped aside as he passed her, following him to the hallway. He pulled open the front door.

  Sarah had thought this moment through with every other. She did what she had planned because the plan was all she could think to do. She stepped towards the door and turned, put one hand up on his shoulder and on tiptoe kissed that horrid stubbly cheek. She whispered, ‘Thank you for apologising.’ The tea churned in her stomach at the sudden memory of that beard, of being that close. Her hand inside her bag, her fingers tight around the leather-bound handle.

  He looked touched and surprised and for a moment she saw a glimmer of the monster behind his eyes. Her opportunity, but in that unguarded second her hand refused to move. With the evidence of her memories locked away her conscience would not pass sentence. No matter how much she willed her arm to motion, for all she had pent up inside, her hand stayed buried at the bottom of her bag.

  He held the door open wider and a breeze rolled through the doorway, brushed against her legs and swirled around them both, washing the smell of his body across her face. A hard smell that jarred like a violent impact, bubbling free the memories so carefully locked beneath a dark ocean. The sound of a child’s confused sobs, the pain, his ever ceaseless hands, fingers pushing inside her wherever they could. Thin lips that touched all of her skin, that scratchy, stubbly beard. Her struggle to breathe and her panic as he forced himself into her mouth, the searing pain inside her stomach as he thrust over and over.

  She heard the cry as if from a distance, a wail that turned to a scream and then a primal snarl. Aware she was moving, punching forward, so hard she stumbled as her fist bounced off his chest. The force of the blow knocked him backwards and unsteady, down on to one knee, then on to the floor. His face contorted, not from shock but horror at what he saw in her face. Unaware of the blade buried to the hilt in his chest, crimson spreading across his shirt as his head hit the floor.

  Sarah watched him gasping at the ceiling, for seconds, possibly minutes. Then she pulled her phone from her pocket and dialled with trembling fingers as she walked back to her car.

  ONE

  The Present

  Adam Sawacki did not need to open his eyes or reach out a hand to know he was alone in bed. That was a given. Just as the shower was always the first sound he heard each morning, his first thought to imagi
ne Sarah beneath the cascading water.

  A sudden heave of plumbing heralded silence. Opening his eyes he blinked at the light shining through yellow curtains. Gradually he focused and looked beyond the rise of duvet over his feet to Sarah’s dressing table. It was seven fifty, Saturday morning.

  The bathroom door opened, creating a draught that chased through the apartment, bossing the curtains. He heard the light pad of feet.

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Please,’ he answered, imagining the towel captive on her waist and hips, her bare skin goose-pimpled, the smell of talcum, listening to her clatter crockery.

  He shifted his focus to the three pictures on the wall beside her dressing table, holiday snaps printed to canvas. At the top a glittering translucent sea, at the bottom a close-up shot of flowers. His and hers. In the middle a concession by her for what she could not be for him. A picture of her topless on the beach, with a tentative smile and hopeful eyes, ponytailed hair bleached by the sun and tugged by the wind, her body adolescent save for a woman’s poise.

  He turned on his side and watched as she closed the door with her foot, placing his drink on the floor beside the bed. Then awkward seconds laced with expectation, usually broken when she stepped across to her dressing table.

  But today, as she very occasionally did, she simply took a step back. Just out of reach. Her cup held between both hands, her arms covering her chest, a tentative smile and her deep brown eyes, a quality beyond the physical. It was everything she was, fragile and lithe. A heavenly creature. Her curse she said, his irony.

  ‘What’re you gawping at?’

  ‘Some kind of beautiful,’ he answered. It was the truth, but what he usually said for fear of tipping the balance.

  ‘You always say that, I know what you want,’ she said, a little playful, shifting her weight from one hip to the other, a shy nipple making itself known as she moved her arm. She did not step away. He relaxed. Her need outweighed her fear.

  ‘Why don’t you come here Mrs Sawacki, maybe this man can make you happy.’ He gave her his biggest grin.

  She could not help snorting as she laughed. ‘You’re stupid.’