by Susan Lewis
‘And she’d better stay that way, or she’ll be facing charges herself. Do you believe her?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact. How’s Caroline Ash taking the CPS’s decision?’
‘Hard. The weasel wisely went to ground after breaking it to her by phone, and left the rest of us to catch the flak. She wants the boy for unlawful sex now.’
‘So does Mrs Paige. What’s your take on that?’
There was a drop-out on the line as he answered.
‘What was that?’ she said when he came back again.
As he repeated it, she felt herself wincing. ‘I’ll let you break that one to Mrs Paige,’ she told him, ‘but please wait until I’m safely back in Bristol before you do.’
‘Oh my God,’ Alicia said shakily as Jolyon told her the news. ‘Are you sure? There can’t be any mistake?’
His tone was full of fondness as he said, ‘Believe me, I wouldn’t be calling if I weren’t sure. The CPS has dropped the rape charge.’
As her knees buckled with relief Alicia sank heavily into the chair behind her. ‘I have to call Nat. He…’
‘Just wait on that for now,’ Jolyon advised. ‘They’re still discussing the unlawful sex charge, so let’s hang on until we have a full picture.’
‘Yes, of course. Oh God, they have to drop that too. Please…’
‘Leave it to Oliver. He sounded pretty confident when we spoke, so my guess is he’s not intending to leave the conference until he has a favourable outcome on that too.’
Detective Inspector Caroline Ash’s normally waxen complexion was mottled with fury as she scanned the contents of the letter she was holding. With her in the room was Tom Bradley, aka the weasel, or the CPS lawyer, and the eminent Oliver Mendenhall QC.
‘Of course, there will be no need to send this letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions,’ Oliver said smoothly, ‘if you decided to drop all charges against my client.’
‘This is blackmail,’ Ash growled furiously.
‘No, it’s justice,’ Mendenhall corrected. ‘You don’t have enough evidence to prove that an actual rape took place, so pursuing this case in any form is, at best, a waste of taxpayers’ money, at worst …’ He gestured to the letter. Since it detailed the ongoing vendetta Detective Inspector Ash was waging against Craig Carlyle QC, deceased, there was no mistaking his meaning. It went on to suggest she was now visiting her grudge on Carlyle’s son by attempting to make him pay for what could be termed the sins of his father. The letter concluded with a request for the DPP to instruct the CPS to assess, and ultimately dismiss the case, and was signed by no less than twenty of the most influential barristers in the land.
Ash tossed the letter back across the table. ‘I know you silks think you’re mightily clever when you band together like this,’ she said angrily, ‘but it’s you who’s making it personal, not me. Annabelle Preston is a fifteen-year-old girl. It’s time kids out there, like your client, learned that there are consequences to be paid for having underage sex – and it’s not just pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease. They are breaking the law…’
‘That may be so, Detective Inspector,’ Mendenhall interrupted, ‘and to a point we all agree with you, but I’m not going to let you use my client to front your crusade, any more than I will allow him to become the victim of your grudge. We now know that the girl herself has dropped the rape charge, which strongly suggests she was lying, and as Nathan Carlyle was uncertain of her age at the time the act took place…’
‘Oh pull the other one,’ Ash cut in scathingly. ‘He’s her cousin for God’s sake, and you don’t need me to tell you ignorance of the law is not a defence.’
‘And you don’t need me to tell you that hanging a teenage boy out to dry because his father once bested you in court is not the kind of impartial behaviour the public expects, and deserves, from someone in your position…’
‘Listen,’ she broke in forcefully, ‘I won’t deny I’d like to have seen Craig Carlyle fry at some point in his loathsome career, but I’ll tell you again, what happened back then has nothing to do with the situation we have here. Nathan Carlyle has broken the law. We have all the evidence we need to prove it, including a confession from the boy himself. He had sex with Annabelle Preston, and I have every intention of seeing he is prosecuted in accordance with the law, which will include his name being added to the Sex Offenders Register.’
Mendenhall sat back in his chair and folded his hands. ‘In which case,’ he said mildly, ‘we will be insisting that the other two boys whose semen was found are also prosecuted and added to the register.’
Ash’s face froze.
‘Why ruin one young man’s life when you can ruin three?’ Mendenhall asked, as though she were offering to hand out accolades. ‘Or, I’m forgetting, I believe you’ve never actually identified one of the boys, have you, so I hope you’re prepared to start using some of your valuable police resources to track him down. I also hope it’s going to sit easily with you to put the girl herself through the humiliation, and perhaps trauma, of having her promiscuity brandished about in a courtroom. Not to mention the anguish and shame you will cause the families of the other two boys when their beloved sons’ names are added to the Sex Offenders Register for the rest of their lives, thanks to a casual encounter with an overdeveloped fifteen-year-old at a rave during their formative years.’
Ash looked at the weasel, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but apparently the little creep had nothing to say.
Mendenhall knew he’d won, but he waited patiently for her reply.
In the end all he got was a glare of blazing hatred as she rose to her feet and stalked furiously from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Addressing the weasel, Mendenhall said, ‘I take it you won’t be pressing charges.’
‘Correct,’ the lawyer replied, and picking up his files he followed Ash from the room.
‘At last,’ Sabrina barked into the phone. ‘I’ve been waiting for your call, Mr Bevan.’
‘That would be Detective Sergeant,’ he informed her smoothly. ‘I’m sorry it’s taken a while to get back to you, but I’ve only just received confirmation from the CPS that we won’t be pursuing a charge of unlawful sex.’
Sabrina’s whole frame pumped with indignation. ‘May I ask why not?’ she said through her teeth.
‘Given the circumstances,’ he replied, ‘it was not considered the right course of action.’
‘Given the circumstances,’ she repeated scathingly, ‘I’d say it was exactly the right course. You know my daughter’s age, there’s no doubt the sexual act took place…’
‘Can I stop you there,’ Bevan came in. ‘Certainly the act took place, but I’m afraid if we charge Nathan Carlyle we’ll be forced to charge the other young men who had sex with your daughter that night, and that isn’t a course the CPS wants to take.’
Sabrina’s mouth sagged as she reeled. ‘What other young men?’ she demanded faintly.
There was the sound of pages turning before Bevan said, ‘One was a local lad called Theo McAllister. Unfortunately, your daughter wasn’t able to provide us with the full name of the other.’
Sabrina’s face twitched as she tried to reject what he was saying. ‘There must be some mistake,’ she told him.
‘I’m afraid not.’
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
‘As a parent myself,’ Bevan continued, ‘I can’t imagine you’d want to put your daughter through…’
‘Thank you, Detective Sergeant,’ she cut in suddenly, and without as much as a goodbye she banged down the phone, stormed out to the hall, and up the stairs into Annabelle’s room.
‘What the hell…?’ Annabelle cried.
‘I’ve just been speaking to the police,’ Sabrina told her, her eyes glittering with rage, ‘and do you know what they told me?’
A dart of fear shot through Annabelle as she drew back against the bed. ‘How would I?’ she retorted.
&n
bsp; ‘What’s going on?’ Robert demanded, appearing in the doorway.
‘I’ll tell you what’s going on,’ Sabrina shouted. ‘I have just been informed by the police that my daughter had sex with no less than three boys the night Nathan Carlyle raped her.’
Stunned, Robert looked at Annabelle, who had guilt written all over her.
‘One of them was Theo McAllister,’ Sabrina ranted on, ‘but apparently she doesn’t even know the name of the other one.’ Her anger turned almost feral as she began advancing on Annabelle. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she seethed. ‘You have everything any girl your age could want. You go to the right school, you come from a decent home, you have more pocket money than some people earn in a …’
‘Get away from me,’ Annabelle shouted, scooting round her and making for the door.
‘You are not running away from this,’ Sabrina cried. ‘You’ve lied, you’ve…’
‘I did not lie!’
‘… made me look a fool, you’ve wasted police time, but worse, far, far worse than that, you’ve turned into a slut.’
Annabelle’s eyes blazed. ‘Don’t you dare call me that,’ she screamed. ‘It’s you who’s…’
‘That’s enough!’ Robert barked, sensing it was about to turn physical, and scooping Annabelle round the waist he carried her out to the landing.
‘She is such a bitch,’ Annabelle sobbed. ‘She always blames me for everything and now she’s calling me names…’
‘What do you expect, when you behave the way you do?’ Sabrina yelled. ‘I can’t imagine what…’
‘Sabrina, go downstairs, or into your own bedroom,’ Robert said sharply.
‘She’s not getting away with this,’ Sabrina informed him. ‘She’s going to be punished…’
‘Will you please just go?’ Robert cut in angrily as Annabelle turned her face into his chest.
‘You are grounded until you’re eighteen,’ Sabrina shouted over her shoulder.
‘I’ll be gone before that,’ Annabelle spat back.
‘Good. Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll help you pack.’
Clutching Annabelle tightly in an effort to stop her saying more, Robert bundled her back into her room and closed the door.
‘I hate her,’ Annabelle sobbed, throwing herself on to the bed. ‘She’s always picking on me, and saying horrible things…’
‘Ssh,’ Robert tried to soothe, ‘she doesn’t mean them…’
‘Yes she does. She hates me and I couldn’t care less, because I’m leaving. I’ll find somewhere else to live where I’m wanted.’
‘You’re wanted here, but she’s angry at the moment, and you have to admit, she has reason to be.’
‘But she’s got no right to call me a slut, not when she behaves the way she does. She’s the one who has affairs and…’
‘She had one affair.’
‘How do you know? She could have slept with anyone …’
‘Annabelle, this isn’t getting us anywhere.’
She took a breath, but he put a hand over her mouth.
‘That’s enough,’ he told her. ‘I want you to lie here now and try to calm down, because we’ll never achieve anything while tempers are running out of control.’
‘Tell that to her. She’s the one who started it.’
Letting the childish belligerence pass, he said, ‘Would you like me to bring you a drink of something?’
She shook her head, then her face crumpled as she started to cry. ‘It’s not fair,’ she sobbed, ‘I’m trying to do the right thing so Nat doesn’t have to go to court any more, and Darcie doesn’t get called names, but no one ever cares about me.’
‘That isn’t true,’ he told her, wrapping her in his arms. ‘I care about you very much indeed, and in your heart you know your mother does too.’
‘Then she’s got a funny way of showing it, coming in here like some crazy freak like she was going to hit me or something.’
‘I agree, it’s not necessarily the right way of showing it,’ he said, ‘but try to think of it this way, if she didn’t get angry that would mean she really didn’t care.’
Swallowing hard, and still looking mutinous, Annabelle turned her face to the wall.
He went on sitting beside her, holding her hand and wondering how much of what had happened over the last six weeks had been rooted in the truth, and how much was a cry for attention, or rebellion, or a way of punishing her mother. There was no doubt at all she was a very troubled young lady, and something had to be done to try to put her back on the straight and narrow. He wished he knew how to do it, but he wasn’t going to flatter himself that he could find the answers alone, particularly when the person she really needed, though he knew she’d hotly deny it if he told her, was her mother. However, he had to accept, whether he wanted to or not, that Sabrina was in no fit state to deal with her right now, so he had to come up with some kind of solution.
‘Do you think …’ Annabelle said croakily. She turned round to look at him. ‘Do you think Nat would talk to me?’
Surprised, and completely thrown, and not at all sure Nat would, he said, ‘I guess we could always ask him.’
‘Would you do it? I mean, I can’t go round there, and he probably won’t take my call, so …’ She shrugged, apparently having run out of words.
Still feeling extremely doubtful, Robert said, ‘Tell you what, I promised Alicia I’d pop over this evening, so if the opportunity presents itself, I’ll put it to him.’
She nodded, and as her eyes slid sadly away he was reminded of how very young she really was. A child in a woman’s body, she was no more able to handle her early maturity and raging hormones than she was to change the events that had added such a difficult and damaging mix to the normal turmoil of teenage anguish and confusion.
‘I’m going to leave you to have a nap now,’ he said, giving her hand a squeeze as he noticed her eyes starting to droop. ‘I’ll be back up to check on you later.’
‘OK,’ she said faintly. ‘Don’t let her come in, will you?’
After closing the door quietly behind him, he crossed the landing to his and Sabrina’s room where he found her sitting on a window seat, wringing her hands as she stared out at the garden.
‘I feel so humiliated,’ she said, when she realised he was there. ‘How could she have behaved like that? What’s happened to her?’
Though he was able to answer her questions, he wasn’t going to now, so all he said was, ‘There are some phone calls I have to make, and then I’m going out for a while, but tomorrow, Sabrina, you and I will need to talk.’
* * *
Though in many ways Alicia wanted to crack open endless bottles of champagne and celebrate tonight, she knew the past six weeks, not to mention the last twenty-four hours since reading his father’s letter, had been far too traumatic for Nat to allow him to feel any real sense of elation yet. So, foreseeing how profoundly the good news was likely to affect him, she waited until they were back in the house after school before telling him that all the charges had been dropped.
For a moment he simply looked at her blankly, then, as Darcie began jumping for joy, the relief came over him so forcefully that he could barely catch his breath as he started to sob.
Taking him in her arms Alicia wept along with him, and as Darcie wrapped herself around them both they hugged and kissed and laughed as they continued to cry.
‘See, I told you it would be all right,’ Darcie said tearfully. ‘I knew it would be, and now all those horrid people at school are going to look really stupid. Plus,’ she went on gleefully, ‘the whole world will know that Annabelle’s a liar.’
Having guessed a lot more had gone on at school than they’d told her about, Alicia let the unguarded admission pass, saying, ‘Actually, there’s something else you should know. Apparently, this morning, before anyone knew the case was being dismissed, Annabelle withdrew the charge.’
Both Nat and Darcie looked at her in amazement.
She smiled, and stroked their faces.
‘Why did she do that?’ Nat wanted to know.
‘Who cares, as long as she did,’ Darcie answered.
‘Uncle Robert thinks she couldn’t face the trial,’ Alicia said, repeating what Robert had told her. ‘Actually, that might be him now,’ she added as the phone started to ring.
Being the closest, Darcie scooped it up. ‘Alicia Carlyle’s number two slave,’ she said into the receiver.
Laughing at the other end, Rachel said, ‘I’ve just picked up Mum’s message about Nat. That’s fantastic news.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Darcie beamed. ‘Rachel,’ she mouthed to her mother. ‘We all cried,’ she went on, ‘and now we’re trying to get over the shock of Annabelle withdrawing the charge anyway. So she should, she’s such a liar. Do you want to speak to Mum?’
‘Please.’
Taking the phone, Alicia said, ‘I take it you’ve been in surgery all day?’
‘Correct, and I’m exhausted, but we have to mark the occasion tonight. What are your plans?’
‘Actually, Cameron’s offered to take us to a place of Nat’s choosing, which I haven’t got round to telling Nat about yet, but wherever it is, why don’t you join us?’
‘We’d love to. Todd has football training, but he can always skip it, and whatever’s on anyone else’s agenda will be dropped the instant I tell them. Call me back when you know where we’re going.’
As she rang off Alicia said to Nat, ‘So what do you think? Would you like to go out somewhere?’
He shrugged, still seeming shell-shocked and not quite able to take everything in.
‘I know,’ Darcie cried, ‘let’s go to that place in Wells, next to the post office. Everyone says it’s really cool. I can’t remember what it’s called.’
Whatever it was called, if it was next to the post office, it was close to the town hall, and since Alicia didn’t think Nat needed a reminder of his first day in court, she said, ‘We could always just go across the road to the Traveller’s.’
Nat turned as someone knocked on the door.
‘It could be Uncle Robert,’ Alicia told him. ‘He said he was going to pop over after you got home from school.’