Stolen Children

by Michael Wood

  There was a large hole in the floor where floorboards had been taken up beneath the window. Matilda stepped forward.

  ‘The board directly under the window was loose. As was the carpet in this area,’ Christian said. ‘Look what we found.’

  Matilda peered forward and into the blackness. Lying in the framework of the house among the dust and insulation was an iPhone 4S.

  Matilda closed her eyes and sighed with relief. ‘Get it bagged up and sent to that strange bloke in tech. I want it tested for prints and everything downloaded,’ she said calmly before turning and leaving the room.

  ***

  Visiting hours at the Northern General Hospital had ended more than two hours ago but Adele and Matilda, being familiar faces among the medical staff, were allowed a late-night visit.

  Sian was in a side room. Sitting by the bed, keeping an all-night vigil, was her husband. Stuart was unshaven, his hair unkempt, and his eyes were red from crying. He looked up when he heard the door opening.

  ‘How is she?’ Matilda asked quietly.

  ‘They managed to repair her stomach. She’s had a blood transfusion and she’s heavily sedated. The doctor said she should make a full recovery.’

  Matilda and Adele visibly relaxed.

  ‘Oh, that’s wonderful news. How are you?’ Matilda asked, placing an arm around his shoulders.

  He swallowed hard and it was several seconds before he was able to talk. ‘I thought I was going to lose her.’

  ‘Before her big party? No way,’ Matilda said with a hint of humour. ‘It’ll take more than a knife wound to stop her being the centre of attention.’

  ‘Are you bad mouthing me, Matilda?’ Sian said almost inaudibly from her bed. Her eyes were closed as she spoke. She turned her head slowly to face her visitors and carefully opened her eyes.

  ‘Bloody hell, I can’t even talk about you when you’re in a coma.’

  Stuart jumped up from the hard plastic seat and leaned over his wife, taking her hand in his and squeezing hard.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Numb,’ she replied. ‘Am I going to be all right?’

  Adele looked up from the chart at the bottom of the bed she was reading. ‘It says here you’re already showing signs of malingering and milking your injury to get attention,’ she said with a grin.

  Sian smiled painfully.

  ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ Stuart said through tears.

  ‘Not a chance,’ she whispered.

  ‘Look, we’ll get off,’ Matilda said. ‘Sian, I’ll come and see you tomorrow at some point.’

  ‘Jodie?’ she asked.

  ‘Just concentrate on getting better. I’ll fill you in when you’re more lucid. Stuart, ring me if you need anything,’ she said, placing a hand on his broad shoulder.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ***

  ‘They’re a lovely couple,’ Adele said as she and Matilda slowly walked down the quiet corridor.

  ‘I know. It’s almost sickening how happy they still are after twenty-five years of marriage.’

  ‘I wonder what their secret is.’

  ‘Sian said it was separate bathrooms.’

  Adele laughed. ‘Are there any more of your colleagues you’d like to see while you’re here?’

  ‘They’ll be sleeping now,’ Matilda said, looking at her watch. ‘Kesinka said Ranjeet should be allowed home tomorrow and they’re keeping an eye on Ellen. They want to run a few more scans on her head.’

  ‘I’m so glad I don’t work on your team,’ Adele said, putting her arm through Matilda’s. ‘There’s always at least one of you taking up a hospital bed.’

  ‘I’m not sure if we’re dedicated or stupid.’

  They both looked at each other. ‘Stupid,’ they said together, laughed, then headed for the exit.

  Matilda’s phone started to vibrate in her pocket.

  ‘DCI Darke? It’s Freddie Whishaw from forensics here.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m sorry to call you so late, but I was told the iPhone that was brought in was urgent. I’ve found something I thought you’d want to know about now rather than wait until morning to hear.’

  ‘I’ll be right there.’

  ‘Right where? It’s not twenty-four hours since you were in this hospital. You should be resting, too,’ Adele chastised.

  ‘I’ve had a called from forensics; something’s come up.’

  ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘Something tells me it can’t. Do you mind making your own way home?’

  ‘Story of my life,’ she muttered.

  Chapter 64

  Monday 17th September 2018

  There was a change in atmosphere at South Yorkshire Police HQ. Matilda felt it the moment she opened the door and walked in. People were subdued, walking along corridors with their heads down, talking in hushed tones, falling completely silent when anyone approached them. As Matilda approached the HMET suite and saw several members of her team hunched over newspapers at their desks, she realised why. Danny Hanson had written the story about Aaron Connolly. She immediately felt sorry for the detective sergeant she had known, respected, and admired for years. There was nothing she could have done about the story getting out. She pushed open the glass doors and walked in.

  ‘Is this true?’ Rory said, looking up.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. I always thought he and Katrina were so happy.’

  ‘Let me give you some advice about men, Rory, that perhaps your mum didn’t tell you when you were growing up. They have two brains. One inside their head, and the other in their pants. The one in their pants often talks louder than the one in their head. Unfortunately, listening to that one gets them into a whole lot of trouble.’ She patted him on the back as she headed for her office.

  ‘Is he off the team?’ Rory called after her.

  She stopped and looked back. Others were looking at her for the answer. She nodded. ‘Look, Aaron is a great guy and a brilliant detective. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t continue in his career. I hope this so-called news story blows over quickly. I also hope Aaron and Katrina are able to sort out their differences. In the meantime, Aaron is still our colleague. If I hear any jokes, snide remarks, or see any evidence of you ostracising Aaron, you’ll have me to answer to. Is that clear?’ she said, addressing the whole room. There were slight nods of ascent. ‘Good. Now, we all have work to do and we’re a few members down. So, put those in the bin where they belong and do what you’re paid to do. Christian, a word.’

  Christian closed his newspaper and slipped it into his drawer. He’d take it home for Jennifer to read later. She’d met Aaron and Katrina a few times and liked them. She’d be devastated.

  ‘I’d ask if you had a good weekend, but we didn’t really have one, did we?’ Christian said, entering her office and closing the door behind him.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘So much for cutting back on overtime.’

  ‘I know. Valerie’s going to kill me when she comes back.’

  ‘Any news on when that will be?’

  ‘No. I’ll give her a call later. Now, late last night, I had a call from forensics. They’ve been through the three phones and the one found under Jodie’s bedroom floorboards. I want you to interview her with me.’

  ‘Oh. Why?’

  ‘Because she’s a manipulator and I don’t want her getting her claws into an inexperienced DC. When she knows she’s up against a DCI and a DI, hopefully she’ll crumble.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought she was the type to crumble.’

  ‘She will be when she finds out what I know.’

  ***

  In interview room one, with Finn and Rory in the observation room, Jodie was sitting at the table with her solicitor next to her and an appropriate adult to one side, keeping an eye on proceedings and making sure Jodie wasn’t too distressed by the questioning.

 
Jodie was wearing a navy tracksuit. Her hair was neatly tied back. She looked like she’d lost weight overnight, despite the duty sergeant telling Matilda she’d wolfed down her breakfast. Her eyes were sunken and surrounded by black circles. Had she suffered a sleepless night in a cell due to the remorse she was feeling for her actions, or was she one of the greatest actors never to grace the London stage? She hadn’t been told about her father’s death, yet. Matilda wanted to break that news herself.

  Christian turned on the recording equipment and stated who was present while Matilda made herself comfortable and put the plastic box containing the evidence she was going to show Jodie on the floor beneath the table.

  ‘Jodie, before we begin, is there anything you would like to tell us about the deaths of your brother, sister, and mother?’ It pained Matilda to speak in a sympathetic tone. However, she wanted to surprise Jodie when the time was right.

  ‘No,’ Jodie said without looking up. Her head was down, her chin on her chest, acting the perfect victim.

  ‘Jodie, there is no easy way for me to say this: I’m afraid your father was found dead yesterday morning in Hillsborough Park. He hanged himself.’

  Jodie didn’t move. Her face was hidden. All eyes were on her as she sniffled a few times. The appropriate adult stepped forward and offered her a tissue which she took. She wiped her eyes, but the tissue came away dry.

  ‘Are you all right? Would you like to have a break for five minutes?’ Matilda asked. She was pretending to play into her hands.

  Jodie blew her nose loudly and looked up. She cleared her throat. ‘No. I’m fine.’

  ‘Ok. Any time you want to have a break, let me know,’ she smiled and gave the same mock-sympathetic smile to the solicitor whose face remained stoic.

  ‘Jodie, in searching your house yesterday, we found three mobile phones. All iPhone 4s which belonged to your father. Do you know why your dad had three mobiles?’

  ‘No,’ she replied with a catch in her throat.

  ‘For the benefit of the recording, I am showing Jodie the three phones.’ Matilda lifted all three phones from the box at her feet. They were in plastic evidence bags. She lined them up in front of the fourteen-year-old. ‘On one of them we found the numbers of your mum and other family members, and your father’s friends. The texts are as you’d expect, as are the photographs and internet history. The second phone is one he used for work-related purposes. This third one, however, only has one contact in the phone book and he seemed to use WhatsApp more than anything else. There’s one conversation that has been going on for a number of years in which your father appears to be having a very intimate relationship with someone who isn’t your mum. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the number assigned to anyone, so we don’t know who that person is. Can you shed any light on who it might be?’

  ‘No,’ she replied quickly.

  Matilda pulled a cardboard file from the box. ‘We’ve printed off the conversation. It’s incredibly detailed and sexually explicit. Your father describes sexual activities he and this other person have done together, what he’d like to do in the future, and he’s even sent photographs of parts of his body.’

  ‘I don’t think my client would like to hear what her father has been getting up to, DCI Darke,’ the solicitor interrupted.

  Matilda ignored her. ‘The receiver of these messages replied in a similar vein. At times, she’s even more explicit, and the photographs she sent of herself are, quite frankly, highly disturbing. There’s even a four-minute video of this person, though we can’t see her face.’

  Jodie bit her bottom lip hard. Her eyes darted around the room. She was unable to look at Matilda.

  ‘Is any of this relevant?’ the solicitor asked.

  ‘Jodie, are you the person your father is messaging?’

  ‘No,’ she replied quietly.

  Matilda brought out another phone from the box beneath the table. ‘I’m showing Jodie Armitage an iPhone 4S that was found in her bedroom under the floorboards by her bed. The carpet was loose there as if it had been pulled back many times. Do you recognise this phone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. It looks like any other iPhone 4. It’s not mine. I’ve got an iPhone 8.’

  ‘How can you account for this phone being in your room, underneath your bed?’

  ‘Well, I can’t,’ she shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen it before.’

  ‘We’ve analysed this phone. There are no contacts saved but in WhatsApp is the other half of the conversation with your father that we found on this phone which was hidden under the floor in the living room.’

  ‘Maybe someone planted it there?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s your job to find out.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ Matilda leaned forward and picked up the phone. ‘Do you know what I love about these iPhones? They’re so smooth and sleek and shiny. You only need to pick it up once and you leave behind a perfect fingerprint. These are a godsend to police. We find these, dust them for prints, and we always get a good set from them. We dusted this one too. Would you like me to tell you what we found?’

  Jodie sat back and folded her arms. She shrugged her reply.

  ‘We found your prints. Well, we only found one. It was a thumb print on the home button. As you know, we took your prints for elimination purposes. They’re a complete match to the one on this phone.’

  ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’ve never touched that phone.’

  ‘You have. Looking at the times and dates of the messages sent you’ll have been in bed, chatting on the phone to your father in the next room and when you’ve sent your final message with three kisses and told him how much you loved him, you turned the phone off and hid it beneath the floorboards.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your mum slept downstairs in the extension with Riley. Your father was in bed upstairs on his own. Many times you started your messages with ‘Would you like me to come in?’ You volunteered to go into your dad’s room and engage in sexual activity.’

  ‘You have no proof of that,’ the solicitor said. ‘Even if it’s true, she could have suffered years of abuse at the hands of her father, making her seem complicit to avoid other physical abuse or abuse enacted towards her brother or sister.’

  ‘I’ll let you have a copy of this conversation, including the pictures we downloaded, and the short video. Did I tell you what the video was of?’ Matilda asked, a smile on her face. ‘It’s of a young woman, a girl, using a vibrator on herself. The message that went with it said, ‘Happy birthday, Daddy’. Care to explain?’

  ‘That wasn’t me,’ Jodie said, firmly.

  ‘I’m going to put in a request to have a doctor examine you, Jodie. That doctor will be able to tell if you match the person in the video. They can tell by any veins that appear prominently on the leg, or by moles or skin defects.’

  ‘It’s not me,’ she said, a little less confidently.

  ‘Yes, your father may have instigated the abuse, but you enjoyed it. He made you believe what you were doing was perfectly normal. He forced you to fall in love with him. Then, when he turned his attentions to Keeley, you killed her because you thought she was going to replace you.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘You wanted him for yourself so you poisoned your mother so it could be just the two of you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you killed Riley so you could move away somewhere and start afresh. Father and daughter living as husband and wife.’

  ‘You’re seriously sick in the head.’

  ‘You’re the victim of abuse, but the perpetrator of three murders.’

  ‘Wrong. You’re so wrong it’s unbelievable.’

  ‘Then why is your thumb print on this phone?’

  ‘It isn’t because I always wiped—’ She fell silent.

  Matilda savoured the silence. ‘You always
wiped it before you put it back under the floorboards. Is that what you were going to say?’

  Jodie slumped in her seat as if the life had been torn out of her. She looked down. Her breathing was slow. Eventually, she looked back up at Matilda.

  ‘You tricked me.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’m not proud of that.’

  A silence descended. Matilda waited for Jodie to begin in her own time.

  Her bottom lip began to wobble. ‘I never thought what Dad was doing was abuse. He was always so gentle, so kind. He made me feel safe and wanted. When it started, it was just kissing and holding each other. The first time we had sex, I told him I wanted my first time to be special. We went for a meal, just the two of us. Keeley was staying over at a friend’s house and Mum was in the extension with Riley. She never came upstairs. We made love for hours. It was … amazing,’ she smiled as she recalled the memory. Her face was one of contentment, but tears began to run down her face.

  ‘You must have known it was wrong,’ Matilda said.

  ‘I did. I told Dad we shouldn’t be doing it, but he said you can’t help who you fall in love with. He’s right. We’re taught at school about being tolerant towards people from other lifestyles and religions. We watched a video and there was this man who hated being a man. He hated everything about being male and changed gender. Yet, when he was a woman, he still wanted to sleep with women, so he entered into a lesbian relationship. I remember some of the lads in my class laughing at that. And I thought, yes, it is a bit weird, but he looked so happy. I was sleeping with my dad, but I was happy, so, surely that’s all that matters … that I’m happy.’

  Matilda and Christian exchanged glances. Everyone in that room felt uncomfortable. Suddenly, they weren’t sitting opposite a cold-blooded killer, but a victim of prolonged sexual and mental abuse.