by Eva Hudson
Sensing Ingrid’s discomfort, McConnell asked another question. “You said there were a lot of people around. So any one of them could have taken Megan?” She knew that all she had to do was create reasonable doubt in the jury’s mind.
Ingrid shook her head. “When I went through the initial investigation reports, one of the things I was pleased about was that every name I had given to the deputies had been interviewed. They were other kids from school and their older brothers and sisters. Couples making out. None of them were the man who chased us and who took Megan.” Ingrid stopped, suddenly unable to continue.
“So you saw the man you claim abducted Megan?”
Ingrid exhaled hard, flaring her nostrils. She knew where McConnell was leading her. “Some of the boys from school, they started teasing us. Name calling. We got a lot of it. Just because we were used to it, it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. For the first few times, we ignored them as always, then they started to come after us.” Ingrid dug her fingernails into her palms and looked right into the camera. “Megan and me, we were the fat kids. The boys were teasing us, telling us that we couldn’t run.” Ingrid shuddered, the inside of her skull reverberating with the school yard taunts of Mega Megan and Ingrid Fatberg. “They started throwing things at us, food mostly. We were used to it, and as long as we were together, we could cope. I hope those boys feel bad about it now, but they were throwing hot dogs, thinking we would do anything for food. It was childish, but it was still cruel. Maybe some of the older boys had drunk a beer… anyway, the mood changed. Corey Peters was there, Shaun Trimmins, Pauley Shearwater. We started to feel scared, and they sensed our fear so the taunts escalated. Then they got nearer.” Again, Ingrid hit a roadblock. The words simply could not steer a path around the lump in her throat.
“Then… then this man appeared and asked us if everything was all right. We just wanted to get away from him, away from anyone, so we kind of ignored him and carried on down the Cut, though maybe a little faster than before. He shouted after us, telling us we were little bitches, but he must have said something to the boys too, because they left us alone after that. I think they turned back to the carnival because, suddenly, there was no one else around. Then I guess it was another hundred yards or so, I mean, we were almost back at Cooper’s Crossing by this point, practically back into town, when he shouted at us, this man. We turned back and saw him striding toward us, so we sort of stopped talking and started walking real quick. Then we heard his footsteps, so we started running. He shouted again, told us to stop, but we just knew we had to get away from him.” The familiar dread pulsed through her in time with the memory of his footsteps. That primal fear of being chased, knowing she was running for her life.
Beyond McConnell, the people in the court looked to one side where the monitor showing Ingrid was. They were still and silent, waiting for her to continue.
“So we ran, but like I said, we were fat kids. We couldn’t run far, or fast, and he caught up with us in about thirty seconds flat. One moment I looked behind and he was a hundred yards back, the next I felt him behind us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his arm reach out to us.” Ingrid stifled a sob. “Megan was only a stride behind me, but he grabbed her wrist and—” That was all she could manage. Ingrid still felt the pain of separation as she ran on and Megan was pulled backward. It was several more strides before she realized Megan wasn’t going to break free. She twisted her neck and saw the man’s other hand clamp over Megan’s mouth. Her eyes were wide with terror. Ingrid’s insides deflated as she remembered that she kept running, that she didn’t turn back to save her friend, she kept running until she reached Cooper’s Crossing where she waved at cars that didn’t stop as the carnival music and the scent of cotton candy skulked over the treetops from Baxter’s Fields.
Ingrid had relived that night so many times and interrogated her choices in so many therapy sessions. If she had stopped running. If she had turned back. If she had called out to Corey and Shaun. But she didn’t. She hadn’t. Instead, she had walked back into town because it was already past the curfew and she didn’t want to be any later. Ingrid felt weak at the memory of Kathleen’s face as she opened the door and saw that Ingrid was alone.
“Thank you,” McConnell said, a half-smile softening her face. “What can you tell us about the man you encountered in Simpson’s Cut?”
Ingrid wasn’t sure if what she was about to say was what she remembered from June seventeen, or what she recalled from the interview report Deputy Hanlon had written up. “He was white, taller than us, at the time we thought—sorry, I thought—he was old, but he might only have been twenty. Kids think all adults are old, don’t they?” It was one of the things she had learned working in the FBI’s VCAC unit that you could never rely on a kid’s guess at an adult’s age. “He was lean, dirty. I mean muddy. His jeans were filthy. He had a cowboy buckle on his belt, and a bandana.”
McConnell walked over to the defense’s desk and picked up a piece of paper. “Agent Skyberg, would you please look at this photograph.” The image in front of the camera was a mug shot, clearly of a younger James Jones. “Was this the man who abducted Megan?”
Ingrid studied the photo. “It could be, yes.”
McConnell smiled at the camera. “Could? Interesting.” She was going to leave that there. “Agent Skyberg, you have said you wanted to join the FBI to find the man who took Megan. When you graduated from Quantico, did you get the opportunity to investigate your theory about a carnival killer?”
Ingrid’s forehead furrowed at the unexpected question. “Yes, yes I did. I joined the Violent Crimes Against Children unit and I was able to investigate many crimes that took place in and around traveling carnivals.”
“I’m sure you can anticipate my next question.” McConnell squeezed a half smile onto her lips. “Did you find other abductions similar to the one you have just described.”
“Yes, yes I did, though in all cases the girls were found, or were abandoned soon after.”
“And did the suspect in any of these cases fit the description of the defendant?”
Ingrid wasn’t sure where McConnell was headed with this line of questioning. “It’s quite a generic description—white, lean, jeans, bandana—so yes, oftentimes.”
“Thank you, Agent Skyberg. No further questions.”
Ingrid hid the surprise at the sudden curtailment by looking down at her hands. Red crescents had formed in her palms from her fingernails. An unbidden tear dropped onto her fingers. She wiped it away before the next one could fall. The DoJ officials shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
“Agent Skyberg.” The DA’s voice came down the line from Minnesota. “Thank you so much for appearing today and for letting us know some more about Megan. She sounds like the most wonderful girl. It must hurt so hard that she is no longer at your side.”
Ingrid looked up at the screen showing Merritt Danver and smiled at him.
“I remember you when you were with the sheriff. I’m sorry we’re meeting again in these circumstances,” he said. Merritt was a youthful fifty and the extra pounds he had gained since Ingrid was last in a courtroom with him were filling out any wrinkles. “I just have one question for you.”
Ingrid blinked hard, unable to anticipate what he was going to ask.
“When you worked with the Violent Crimes Against Children unit, you must have encountered several monsters who preyed on teenage girls. In your experience, what is the average age of an offender when they commit their first offense?”
Ingrid’s eyes widened at Danver’s curveball. She nodded to herself as she prepared her answer. “It was very common for there to be a pattern of behavior in early childhood of bullying, petty cruelty and committing offenses like shoplifting and stealing cars. But there is actually a good deal of evidence that men who go on to be persistent sexual offenders against young women commit their first rape around the age of seventeen. Very often this won’t be reported because their victim was known to them and she fea
red friends and family finding out, but when a perpetrator’s history was investigated, we frequently found evidence of the first serious assault being committed as a late teenager.”
“So that would fit perfectly with James Jones’s age in 1995. Thank you for your time, Agent. I have no further questions.”
Judge Isaacs released her, and Ingrid unclipped the microphone. The younger of the DoJ officials turned off the camera and the screens while the other one handed her cell to her.
“Well done,” he said. “That can’t have been easy.”
Ingrid nodded. She looked at her phone. A message from Ralph. The Laussat had docked early.
26
Ingrid arrived at the Napier Yards complex a little after seven. It was less humid than the previous week, but the hot day nevertheless promised to stretch into a pleasantly warm evening. The stench of rotting fruit suggested the C&C wholesalers in the big warehouse had fought a losing battle against refrigeration.
On an evening like this, it was just possible, if Ingrid squinted, to visualize the haphazard Victorian buildings surrounding the courtyard as craft breweries and vegan cafes. Tilbury was probably too far out of the city ever to be gentrified in the same manner as similar industrial buildings in Hackney and Kings Cross had been, where former factories and coal stores were now duplex apartments and farm-to-table restaurants. If McKittrick was here she’d be telling me to flip my way to a fortune.
Ingrid tried to avoid eye contact with anyone. As Jayne Andrews, the security director of Shoreham Medical, she wouldn’t be on friendly terms with the occupants of the warehouses, several of whom were undercover Met officers waiting for one particular shipment of bananas from Costa Rica. Ingrid gathered the keys from her bag and walked past the parked cars on one side of the yard, most of which were probably unmarked Met vehicles, through the alleyway between the fruit importers and the shipping company, then down toward the yellow warehouse.
She had chosen her outfit carefully and gone for the blazer, jeans and sneaker combo that suggested a woman called into the office at the last moment. The blazer was to conceal a sidearm; the sneakers were in case she had to run. She heard the beep-beep of a forklift truck coming out of a side alley before she saw it and had to press herself into a wall to let it pass.
The shutter to the yellow warehouse was already up, but the door was locked. She found the key and let herself in. There was no sign of anyone in the ground floor storage area, so she slipped between the racks of blue metal shelving stacked with supplies and headed for the stairs. She clanked her way noisily up to the upper level.
“Hi,” she said, opening the office door, “sorry I’m late, I—”
“I know,” Ralph said, getting to his feet, “I was watching you. You okay?”
She gave him a kiss on the cheek, only considering if it was unprofessional afterwards. “Yes,” she said, dumping her bag on a desk. “Absolutely fine.”
Ralph tilted his head, McConnell style. “Really?”
Ingrid pressed her lips together. “I’m glad it’s over.” She went to stand next to him so she could see what he was looking at. On his laptop was a grid of CCTV images covering the dock where the Laussat was newly moored, the main gate to Tilbury, the entrance into the Napier complex and the yard where Ingrid had just been. Beside the laptop were two radios relaying the same coded messages from the team in their various surveillance positions. “Have I missed much?” she asked.
“Nah. You might actually have timed things perfectly.” He offered her a bottle of an orange-colored soda with a monster on the bottle. A holster pinned an olive-green tee against his pecs, making him look surprisingly muscular. All that home improvement activity had created unexpected definition.
“No, thanks.”
“You don’t need to turn your nose up,” he said. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Ralph pointed at the laptop. “The boat arrived a couple of hours early, but there’s been a slight delay in unloading. Don’t know why. Guess it happens sometimes.” Ralph leaned over the laptop and jabbed the screen. “The container we’re interested in is, I believe, that one.”
“How can you tell?”
“Aziz has eyes on. It’s the right serial number.”
“He’s at the dockside?”
“The guvnor is posing as a customs official. Anyway, if they carry on unloading in the same order, our container is next.” He turned to her. “You sure you’re up for this. You’ve already been through quite a lot today.”
Trust me, Ingrid thought, giving evidence was nothing compared to the phone call she’d endured with Svetlana on the cab ride over.
Ingrid pulled up a chair next to Ralph’s and sat down. “And everything else is going according to plan?”
“Seems so. We’re expecting that container to be transferred to a lorry, sorry, truck, in about twenty minutes and then it’ll be brought into the yard for unloading.”
“And is that when we move in?”
He shook his head, revealing a flash of white paint masquerading as gray hairs. “Plan A is still to wait and observe. See what they do with the pallets. This could just be surveillance instead of intercept.”
Ingrid scanned the office but didn’t see what she was she was looking for. She indicated the semi-automatic strapped to Ralph’s side. “I miss out on the toys?”
“Afraid so. I did ask if I could sign for one for you, but the quartermaster wouldn’t let me.” He pulled an apologetic face. “I doubt we’ll need them. We’ll probably just spend the next three hours watching a screen and then the lorry will trundle off to...” He trailed off. “Skegness.”
“Is that even a real place?”
“Oh, yes indeed. But trust me, there’s no reason for you ever to go there.”
Ingrid’s gaze lingered on the Glock 23. Or maybe Ralph’s chest. “After the mess we made of the dry run last week, you’d think they might have issued a weapon for me in my absence.”
Ralph swallowed a mouthful of his monstrous concoction. “As you well know, our gun laws are a little tighter than yours. Hungry?” he asked. “I brought snacks.” After the orange soda, Ingrid wasn’t hopeful as Ralph dug around in his bag before pulling out an assortment of small meat pies, chocolate bars and Peperami sausages. Ingrid was generally omnivorous, but Ralph’s choices weren’t getting her saliva flowing. He saw the disappointment on her face. “It was all they had at the Esso.”
“If we’re here for hours, I’ll be very grateful. Listen,” she stalled, considering if what she was about to say would be welcome or not. “Should I take the Glock?”
Ralph’s features narrowed. “I’ve had the training. I’ve got the certificate.”
She smiled at him. “I wasn’t impugning your credentials, macho man. I was just thinking about Shelbie. You’re going to be a dad in a few weeks—”
“Next week.”
“See. It’s not really the right time for you to be taking risks.”
He scrunched up his lips. “I appreciate the offer, but a) I signed for this, and b) perhaps that means I need it more? Gives me a chance to defend myself.”
Ingrid shrugged. “Just, you know, offering.”
“Thanks.”
They slumped into a slightly awkward silence and watched the screen until Ralph manufactured a topic of conversation. “Did you see Andy Scott when you arrived?”
“No. Is he out in the yard somewhere?”
“Yep. He’s with the team in the big blue warehouse. The one with all the machinery.”
“Please tell me he didn’t bring a photographer and a press officer.”
“Nah, I think he’s still too much of a copper to do that. But,” Ralph drained the bottle of its vivid contents, “you can bet that somewhere on the perimeter of Tilbury is a government photographer sitting in a car ready to get tomorrow’s front-page snap.” He waggled the empty bottle. “Apparently he was a total effing disaster at the Commonwealth shin
dig and he’s desperate for a good headline.” He ran a hand over his collar length hair, sweeping it out of his eyes. “Still, it’s a good sign you didn’t spot him. Hopefully he won’t screw this up as well as our international relations.”
Ralph got to his feet. He had never been very good at sitting still. It was as if his limbs were slightly too long for his body and he never quite knew how to fold his arms or cross his legs. “So.” His voice was suddenly serious. “I thought you were excellent today. On the stand.” He deliberately looked at some empty boxes on one of the abandoned desks to avoid the intimacy of eye contact. “Can’t have been easy.”
Ingrid didn’t know how to respond.
“I mean. I know it wasn’t easy. I know how much Megan meant to you.”
One of things Ingrid still loved about Ralph was his willingness to say the things he knew he ought to say, even if they made him uncomfortable. Most people would rather talk about any other subject. “Thanks,” she managed. “According to my mother, my testimony has not gone down well in Minnesota.”
He turned and looked at her. “According to your mother, you haven’t done anything right since you left home.”
Affection surged through Ingrid. His attempts to wander into areas of conversational discomfort were truly heroic. “A good point, well made,” she said. “It would have been so much easier if I had been called as a state’s witness.”