Chasing Innocence

by Potter, John

  ‘My… Adam. What about him?’

  ‘You’ve caused us problems, Sarah, but you’re not the threat we thought you were. Hakan will not waste time on your husband.’

  ‘Why’d he go?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘No, I thought…’

  A faint smile pulled his mouth wider and the focus of his eyes shifted to hers. ‘You thought you were going to die. So did I.’

  ‘I am…here.’

  ‘You are.’ He reached across to the sink and ran cold water onto the flannel, rinsing it and pressing it against the side of her face.

  ‘You…stopped him?’

  ‘Hakan?’ He shook his head.

  ‘I…imagined…’

  Simon did not answer, resuming his study of her face. He cupped her chin in his palm, carefully turning her head from side to side. ‘You have a small cut on your cheek. It’s going to bruise and swell a little, although most of the blood has come from cuts in your mouth and you have bitten your tongue. Considering the alternatives, not a bad return.’

  He reached around, picked up his T-shirt and stood, a physical motion complemented by a ballet of muscle that made the movement majestic. He turned on the tap and dropped the flannel and T-shirt into the sink, kneading them in the water, using a hand to steady Sarah as she toppled sideways. He gently pushed her against the wall, poured bleach into the sink and wiped his hands on a towel.

  ‘Guess that’s you about done, Sarah Sawacki. Need a hand?’

  She opened her eyes and stared at his offered hand, ignoring it. She shuffled to the edge of the toilet seat, her hair falling around her face as she moved her weight on to legs that immediately buckled. Simon caught her as she crumpled and effortlessly lifted her body into his arms.

  They swept along a white balconied landing, passing closed white doors and down stairs to the familiar. Through the living room past the chair and into the hallway, into the empty garage. He set her on the floor, propped against the wall. She watched as he retrieved a mat. Her eyes closed and then it was just dark.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  They both listened to the mother’s footsteps climb the stairs. ‘You go ahead,’ Boer said. ‘I’ll follow you up.’ Ferreira gave him a rough approximation of a scowl. ‘You had better not go stealing any pictures.’

  ‘Me?’

  She looked sternly at him then followed the mother up the stairs. Boer waited for her to reach the landing before pushing himself up. He took another look at the photos on the polished wood. There were none of the stepfather, at least not here.

  He walked along the hallway and into the living room, hearing the muffled voices above. This room was much the same as the first, the same sort of opulence except in a bigger space. Varying sized ornaments and sculptures were strategically placed. More photos by the window, this time several of a square-faced man with short dark hair, the stepfather. One picture placed centrally and bigger than the others, showed the man standing proudly atop a hill, a young girl dangling from each arm, the smallest around his neck. Boer looked around the room. Another rectangular canvas featured on one wall, this one entirely comprised of thick strokes in all shades of grey, save for a smooth white circle at the centre. A wide flatscreen television was placed centrally on the room’s largest wall.

  He walked in his socks through double doors into a large dining room. A long wooden table ran the length of the room, chairs for at least ten were set around the table, a manicured lawn visible beyond French doors. The only decoration here was a large wooden crucifix fixed high on the wall, a detailed metal Jesus hanging from it. It dominated the room.

  The kitchen was functional. Dark worktops contrasted with white cupboard doors and gleaming saucepans hanging over a spotless breakfast bar, a matching utility room with a stack of neatly folded washing. He walked back into the hallway and mounted the bottom step, hearing from above the sniffs of a recovering child and the mother soothing while investigating the semantics of tears.

  Boer reached the top step out of breath, his left hand pressed hard into his stomach. The mother, draped in the smallest girl, appeared in a doorway, concern and assessment drawn across her face as she watched him.

  ‘Andrea’s bedroom is down here, Detective.’

  He followed her to a room opposite a large bathroom. The older of the young girls fell in beside him, matching his faltering step, looking up at him with a happy smile on her face, a trace of Andrea in her features.

  ‘When I grow up I want to be a policeman like you.’

  ‘Do you?’ He managed a caricature of surprise that triggered a distant memory of laughing children. ‘But I am old and soon I’ll spend all my time gardening.’

  She did not seem put off. ‘But you look like a policeman who catches bad people.’

  ‘In here detective.’ The mother gestured to the bedroom, stopping the girl before she had a chance to follow. ‘Feel free to look around, if you have more questions we’ll be downstairs,’ which caused an outburst of high-pitched pleading that trailed away with the mother.

  Boer stepped into Andrea’s bedroom. The floor was covered in raspberry carpet and the walls were painted an off-white pink. The clutter of childhood neatly ordered with a place for everything and everything in its place. Covering a good part of the wall space were pictures and posters featuring fairies and angels, either drawn by the girl or bought for her. He wondered how long it would be before they gave way to spotty boy bands and celebrity faces he would never know.

  Ferreira thanked someone on her phone then flipped it closed. ‘Come and look at this.’

  He stepped around a shaggy white rug and joined her beside the bed. They both looked at a postcard-sized picture on the bedside cabinet. The picture was of a beaming child wrapped in the arms of green-jacketed man. ‘Seems you have some competition in the unruly moustache stakes.’

  ‘Funny. Brian Dunstan?’

  ‘Yes, confirmed by the mother.’

  He studied the photo, which showed a man in his early thirties with short brown hair, the moustache partly obscuring a youthful face. Boer tried without success to avoid seeing Sarah Sawacki in the girl’s eyes. ‘Your thoughts, Detective?’

  ‘I would say your average well educated, sentient, pre-pubescent girl child. Reads a great deal.’ She nodded at two low bookcases either side of a desk. ‘She is trusted to do her homework alone because doing homework is something she has always done. Very creative judging from the artwork.’

  ‘A diary?’

  ‘Takes it with her when she visits her father.’

  ‘What about an address book, or anything she might have written in?’

  ‘There are notepads in the bookcase she uses for homework and doodles from what I can see, and in those blue-backed folders are the stories she writes.’

  Boer stepped over to the bookcase and pulled one of Andrea’s stories at random, scanning through the pages. Each page was full of neatly written text, the occasional doodle in the margins, mostly of wings. He read a few lines. The doodles matched the content, a boy and an angel.

  ‘I think it’s time to pull in the father,’ he said. ‘The real one. Make sure we pick up the diary and anything else they can at his house.’

  Ferreira patted her pocket and the phone. ‘Being done.’

  He nodded agreement. ‘Could you have a word with the mother. We need a team to go over every inch of this room.’

  ‘She’s not going to be happy, she’s still convinced the girl’s going to magically show up.’

  ‘Despite my best efforts to force the reality home?’

  ‘Despite your clumsy efforts at forcing the point home.’

  He scratched the tip of his nose. ‘I guess that’s the nature of the mother’s faith summed up right there.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘In the face of all evidence she continues to believe the improbable.’

  ‘Is that faith, Fran, or hope?’

  ‘I think
the first feeds off the later. She should stop wasting our time messing about in church and bleating on about the girl’s father. Faith isn’t going to bring back Sarah Sawacki or the girl. That’s going to need a lot of hard work by a lot of people. And even then it probably won’t be enough. So if you could, let the mother know there will be a team here tomorrow morning to take apart the bedroom. If she resists let her know in no uncertain terms the paths we can follow if we want to.’

  ‘You’re the boss. I’ll get a picture of the girl, save you stealing one.’

  ‘That would be good. I’ll be down in ten.’

  He waited until her footsteps faded, letting his eyes move from one space to another around the room. When he heard distant voices he stepped over to the first of the bookcases and eased himself down onto his knees, then sat cross legged on the floor. He pulled the first book from the top shelf, flicking through the pages, holding each by the cover and shaking loose anything pushed inside before sliding it back and moving to the next. He worked along and down shelf by shelf, then shuffled across to the next bookcase, repeating the process before moving to the desk, checking the books stacked on top, then in and under the drawers.

  By the time he had shaken free the last book he had a collection of five bookmarks designed for child minds and a small pile of scrap paper covered with doodles. More wings – the girl was obsessed. He placed the paper and bookmarks on the top of the bookcase and moved to the white, wooden-framed bed. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but then he never was until he found it. He pushed his hands under the mattress, fingers bumping over the wooden slats. He shone a small torch from his key chain under the bed, from one end to the other, seeing only a few dustballs against the skirting, a lost sock and some tissues. Next he pulled out the drawers of the bedside cabinet, checking beneath both and under the cabinet with the light. There was nothing.

  His eyes moved to the white shelves of plastic storage boxes on the far wall, but he did not move towards them. Instead he sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the walls, the bookcases and back to the bedside cabinet. He picked up the photograph of Andrea and Brian and flipped it over. He pushed back the metal clips and eased out the wooden backing, a thin sheet of paper advertising the frame’s manufacturer, the photograph, the glass, and a small creased piece of notepaper hidden behind the picture.

  On the paper was a phone number with a Hambury area code, written in the same style he had seen through the rest of the room. He placed the paper on the bed and re-assembled the picture, placing it back on the bedside cabinet. He studied the paper for a long time, contemplating the possible reasons that brought the paper and picture together. Finally he pulled his phone from his pocket, dialled 141 and then the number. The call connected and was answered almost immediately by a deep voice that said two words. A first name he knew after a heartbeat of recollection, the second a surname he did not even comprehend. He disconnected and slid both the paper and mobile into his jacket pocket.

  He let his eyes wander from poster to picture around the room. He stopped at a drawing above the headboard, the drawing surrounded by framed images of fairies and nymphs. It was a child’s drawing of a man in army uniform, a big smile beneath a big moustache. Initially Boer puzzled over the odd shapes coloured yellow in the background, until he realised they were yet more wings, splayed outwards from her father’s back. Leaning forward he pulled the bottom edge away from the wall and peered up at the back. Get well soon Daddy was written in large letters with a lot of love and kisses. The paper was creased as if it had been folded and used as a card.

  Boer stood and smoothed down his trousers and then the bed, casting one last look around the room and then made his way downstairs. He suffered several minutes of glares from the mother while fending off questions from the older of the two girls. Ferreira finally brought their visit to a close, both of them silent for most of the return journey, busy ordering the detail and thoughts of the last hour in their minds.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The next time Sarah opened her eyes it was to the glow of artificial light and the sound of the concrete door coming to rest. She was immediately aware of not being alone. Her eyes finally focused and she felt a pulse of exhilaration. The girl was sitting in the corner of the room on the mattress, knees drawn up to her chin, wide eyes fierce.

  ‘Hello,’ Sarah said.

  The girl’s bottom lip trembled but her mouth remained firmly closed. Tears forced themselves onto cheeks already streaked white amid a torturous day’s grime. Sarah’s instincts pulled her towards the girl, but her attempt to crawl failed. Her head spun and she fell sideways onto the floor. With little ability to coordinate her limbs she managed to slowly shuffle around so she could lean against the wall. Exhausted from the effort she let her arm flop onto the foot of the mattress. She tried to think of words to say but nothing seemed to fit. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Stay away, I’m not talking to you.’ The girl’s small pink lips clamped closed. She drew her legs tighter into her body.

  The context of the words did not register at first as Sarah tried to centre her thoughts, the girl’s anger reminding her of a small animal cornered.

  ‘I saw you in the alley,’ Sarah said. ‘I came here to help you.’

  The girl chewed her lip and her mouth remained obstinately shut. When she eventually spoke the words came out in a rushed torrent. ‘I know who you are, you’re with them. I saw you in the street, they told me all about what you did to help them, I know you’re here to make sure I behave.’ She breathed deeply and looked defiantly back at Sarah.

  ‘I am here for you, they have been…pretty horrid to me.’

  Silence again as the girl’s need to speak fought her desire not to. ‘My dad wouldn’t do this, not to me.’

  ‘Do, this?’

  ‘They said he won’t pay the money he owes. So they took me instead. He wouldn’t, not my dad.’ The tears easily bubbled through the thin shield of anger, quickly giving way to sobs.

  Sarah watched, unable to act on the girl’s anguish, desperate to comfort her but physically incapable of moving an inch closer. In part it felt like looking back through time at a previous incarnation of herself. Seeing the cruel world of men emptied onto a child’s unaware sense of reality. She felt every heave of the girl’s chest and of those fragile shoulders and arms racked with a misplaced guilt. A young life ripped from all it holds precious. Unaware the worst was yet to come. The girl’s crying continued in Sarah’s mind long after her own eyes closed, through the hours of fitful sleep.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Adam pulled out his phone as he wandered down the sloping track and past the hire car Brian had bumped onto the verge. He dialled home as he stepped onto the quiet country road, full of trepidation and hope. There were no messages.

  He looked up and down the road and saw no sign of Brian. He had been gone for over an hour. This location had taken them hours to find, the frustration increasing with each hour of criss-crossing the countryside. Brian was sure Sarah had made her last call from here and that made the location important in Brian’s eyes.

  Adam’s phone started ringing and Boer’s name flashed on the screen. He had programmed both the Detective’s numbers from cards they handed him the night before. He had no desire to talk, certainly not to Boer. He needed more time to think how he would explain what he was doing, mostly because he was not really sure what that was. He waited for the call to end and switched the phone to silent.

  He walked back up the slope to the disused farmyard and a large plateau of uneven mud, flanked on the right by imposing oaks and sycamores, the trees overlooking the yard and open fields at his left. At the far end of the yard the shell of a farmhouse sagged grey and exhausted from inattention. He walked to the broken fence, his shadow long and descending in front of him, scanning the outlying fields now golden in the afternoon sunlight. His eyes skipped from ploughed mud and bordering hedges to brown and yellow trees, a distant church spire and dotted houses. Eventually
he spotted a small figure jogging in a rough parallel, growing in size as Brian came around and towards the old farm, finally labouring up the shallow embankment and climbing up over the fence. He blew hard as he made the yard, bending over with both hands on his knees.

  ‘Fuck me Sawacki! I used to be able to do that all day.’

  ‘Do what?’ Adam asked.

  Brian looked at him, taking several more gulps of air. ‘Reconnaissance.’

  ‘Reconnaissance for what precisely?’

  Brian gradually caught his breath, standing with his hands on hips, his chest rising and falling.

  ‘This has to be the right place, although nobody knows an old woman who matches what Sarah described, certainly not one that brings her dogs for walks through here.’ He gestured in the vague direction he had come from. ‘There’s a few young couples in converted cottages, a farm with barns full of vintage cars, a deserted pub and a rundown vicarage. I’ve done a complete circuit.’

  Adam was confused. ‘What use would talking to the woman do anyway, she’s hardly likely to know where the Rover was going?’

  Brian scowled back at him. ‘You’re a negative little shit. Anything we can take to narrow our choices from the west coast or east, I’m going to take.’

  ‘But…’ Adam opened his mouth and closed it. ‘So what next?’

  ‘Is that your phone?’ They both looked down at Adam’s phone flashing through his pocket.

  ‘It’s Detective Boer, he’s been ringing for the last ten minutes.’

  Brian looked thoughtfully at the phone and then at Adam. ‘Why don’t you answer, he could be calling about something interesting. What’s he like?’

  ‘Boer? He’s old, got a dodgy moustache like yours, thin as a rake and grouchy. You’d probably get on.’

  ‘I meant does he sound like he knows what he’s doing?’

  ‘Totally, he’s one of those old timers who knows what’s what. Hooked into everything. He knew there was something about Sar…’