by Diana Finley
‘Take it easy, Lucy.’
‘Take it easy? Plenty of time to take it easy when we’re old!’
Callum laughed and kissed my neck as we danced. At some point in the evening he produced a couple of little pinkish pills – one for himself and one for me. We swallowed them and laughed. I felt great. The world was wonderful. Callum was wonderful. I wanted him. We went upstairs to his room and he locked the door. He kissed me some more. Then he took off his shirt.
‘Your turn now,’ he said, smiling at me and breathing heavily. The room seemed very small and dark all of a sudden. Music from downstairs was thumping through the floor and walls. The music was beautiful and very loud. It was so good to be there, with him. I was carried away by the feelings, the thrill of it all, by Callum. He was handsome; he was gorgeous. I wanted him so much. Yet my heart was pounding. He started to unbutton my dress. I gulped for air. I felt hot and cold at the same time. My heartbeat was a super-fast drill. My dress slid to the floor.
‘Now me,’ he said, unzipping his jeans, and pulling me close to him. I could feel his urgency, but the room was spinning. No oxygen seemed to reach my lungs, though I was panting and heaving for air. I was out of control. The room veered upside down. Suddenly I was on the floor, Callum standing over me half-naked.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’
‘I … I don’t know … I feel weird – strange. Maybe it was the pill … I think I’m going to be sick …’
‘Not on my fucking floor, for God’s sake – get up.’
Callum got hold of my arms and tried to yank me upright. My legs wouldn’t hold me. My whole body was shaking.
‘Jesus! You better get out of here.’
He grabbed my heap of clothes and threw them at me. Trembling, I tried to put them on, but my fingers were too shaky and didn’t work. I still couldn’t breathe. I was afraid I would pass out. Callum pulled on his jeans and shirt and unlocked the door. He headed downstairs, his feet pounding on the stairs. A moment later, Cassie appeared. She took one look at me, and turned to shout furiously down the stairs.
‘Arsehole!’
She put her arms round me.
‘Lucy, Lucy, it’s me. Don’t worry, you’re going to be all right …’
My whole body was shaking. I was wet with a cold sweat. She cupped her hands around my mouth and nose.
‘Breathe, Lucy,’ she said. ‘Try to breathe steadily.’
After a few minutes the world stopped spinning quite so wildly. A strange moaning sound emerged from somewhere inside me.
‘Come on, Lucy, it’s OK,’ she said softly. ‘We’re going home.’
Cassie took over. She wiped my face with some tissues, and helped me put on my clothes and fasten the buttons. I felt helpless as a child, frightened and ashamed. Cassie made me drink a cup of water – that seemed to soothe my aching head. We pushed through the indifferent crowd and out of the front door. Cassie helped me stagger back to her house.
The hall light was on, but Fiona and Simon were already in bed. They must have heard us. We heard the murmur of their voices. Fiona emerged from their bedroom in her dressing gown. She took one look at me and wrapped me in a big hug. I held on to her tightly and pressed my face into the soft comfort of her chest. I sobbed like a baby. I felt I wanted to stay there for ever.
‘Oh, you poor darling …’
Fiona and Cassie helped me upstairs and let me slump down on Cassie’s bed. Fiona made us both some hot chocolate. I didn’t want it, but she made me drink it. Then she tucked me into the bed. She bathed my face with a cool flannel and stroked my hair. Cassie pulled a mattress out from under the bed for herself.
I remember nothing more until Cassie brought me a cup of tea in the morning. Fiona had rung Mum the previous night to let her know I was there. She rang again in the morning to reassure her I was safe. I heard bits of what she said on the phone.
‘Yes, it was a party, Alison. I think things got a bit out of hand. No, really, no need to panic – she’s all right. They came home together late, a bit the worse for wear, I’m afraid. What? Well, I think you should ask Lucy about that – it’s not really for me to say. Yes, we’ll try to get her to eat some breakfast and bring her home after that.’
* * *
Simon pulled up outside our house. I could see Mummy waiting at the window. I dreaded having to talk to her. Simon patted my knee and gave me an encouraging nod. Reluctantly, I stepped out of the car and approached the house. She was hovering by the door as soon as I opened it.
‘Why, Lucy? Why did you do such things? Was it to get at me in some way?’
‘No, of course not. Why do you think everything is about you? Why do you think I have to do everything like you? Sometimes maybe I just want to do what I want!’
‘I thought I’d brought you up to know what’s right and wrong, how to behave … sensibly and decently. Not to take drugs! Surely you have more self-respect than that? I know men can be very persuasive – but you have to resist. You have to be very firm.’
‘Oh, you’d know all about men, I suppose.’
‘Lucy, there’s no need to become offensive. It’s unpleasant and wrong.’
‘Oh yes, and you’re very decent, and so honest. You wouldn’t do anything wrong, would you? Well maybe just bringing up a child doesn’t ensure she’ll be exactly like you! Maybe I’m more like someone else than you … have you considered that?’
Her face was white and rigid. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I … I don’t mean anything!’ I sobbed.
I ran up to my room.
Chapter Thirty-Four
2000
Alison
Where have I gone wrong? Where is that sweet innocent child who flourished in my care during those early years in Newcastle? I’m so very frightened. I don’t know what I can do to restore the former equilibrium. Everything seems out of my control. I live in a constant state of anxiety. How could Lucy have willingly – willingly – placed herself in just such a vulnerable, such a dangerous position as I desperately sought to escape all those years ago in Durham? I can scarcely believe such a thing. Sometimes I hardly recognise her.
How I hate the distance that seems to have grown between us. Other people may assert Lucy is simply demonstrating normal teenage behaviour. I’m not so sure. I feel Lucy is rebelling against me, against all of my values, against all I have tried to teach her. Coming from the family she did, with its total lack of values and principles, I always harboured a lurking fear – especially during the early years – that she might revert to type, and somehow become more like her genetic parents. I would try to reject these thoughts; they filled me with such horror. Indeed, over the years her personality developed in such a positive and delightful way, that my apprehensions faded. Until the last few years.
There can be little doubt that her friendship with Cassie has played a significant part in determining the direction of Lucy’s recent development. Worst of all, Cassie appears to encourage Lucy to question all aspects of her past as well as her relationship with me, and this fills me with absolute terror. Thankfully, at this point, I do not believe Lucy seriously suspects her actual history, but how much more of Cassie’s hints, suggestions and probing will she withstand?
I find myself struggling with these issues at all times of the day and night. I have frequently woken in the early hours, after a brief and shallow sleep, in a state of absolute panic about what the future may hold. How I wish those precious feelings of calm and “peace of mind” could be restored to me. Yet such a luxury appears totally beyond my grasp now.
With Lucy growing older, I had begun to have concerns about her documentation. Allowing Lucy to believe she was adopted by me helped to solve some of these anxieties. I have her birth certificate, which I was so proud to have arranged at the time of her becoming my daughter, but I had begun to worry about its possible imperfections. So far, it has never been put to the test. No one had required it when she started school, and as we have never ho
lidayed abroad, we haven’t had to apply for a passport.
But as she grows older, she may need to present her birth certificate to acquire a driving licence, say, or a passport? She may want to visit other countries at some point. I examined the certificate to check the details. Her name, of course, appears as Lucy Brown, the father’s name as Russell Brown and mother’s name as Audrey – rather than Alison – Brown. Her date of birth is listed as 20/9/1982, and we have always celebrated my Lucy’s birthday on that day.
I had lain awake at night thinking of the problems any inconsistencies might cause – as well as the possibility of officialdom, if contacted, being able to link the original details with Lucy Brown’s death. Now of course, Lucy being adopted provided a logical explanation for some of the apparent inconsistencies. If only I had thought of claiming adoption sooner, I could have saved myself many sleepless nights.
Chapter Thirty-Five
2001
Chief Superintendent Lawrence Dempster
I guess it’s natural to reflect on your working life as you approach retirement. Most people do it – wonder how effective they’ve been, whether they’ve left their mark, whether all that effort has been worthwhile. We all like to feel we’ve made a difference, however small. I’d had no ambitions to reach Chief Constable – I’d been more than happy with Detective Inspector, but others further up had urged me to look further afield and apply for promotions. Now here I am at fifty-seven, back in Riddlesfield for my last years of duty, as a Chief Superintendent.
Like almost everyone I knew, I’d grown up in a small Durham mining community, following a long line of mine workers. By local standards, I was regarded as having done exceptionally well.
Barbara and I built our lives in Riddlesfield, with a few brief moves to other cities to take up promotion positions. But Riddlesfield was where we put down roots and brought up our three children. They all went to university and into good jobs. I was immensely proud of each and every one of them.
I was well out of the home village, but that didn’t stop me feeling a huge sense of loss and heartbreak for those lost communities – yes, and a sackful of guilt on my back too. Dad had died of mesothelioma, like so many pitmen, just two years after he started drawing his pension. We’d go back to visit Mam regularly until she died, and each time the village looked a little more shabby, a little more down at heel.
So Riddlesfield had become my world – and there was no shortage of villains to chase. I rose quickly through the ranks and thoroughly enjoyed my work. Even if I say so myself, my record for solving complex crimes was exceptional. It wasn’t just my doing – I led a good team. Always had a knack for identifying the most promising young officers and ensuring they were considered for promotion. I was never one for pulling up the ladder behind me. I demanded a lot of the team, mind, but they knew they’d get my full support, as long as they pulled their weight. I taught them to be thorough, meticulous – no short cuts – and to use their intelligence.
But for all my solid reputation, my success, I knew I’d be remembered for my one greatest failure. Human nature. No, it wasn’t just public interest that drew me back to the Stacy Watts case time and time again. Stacy’s abduction was the one unsolved crime that preoccupied me for more than fifteen years. I was certain it had been an abduction, and not just that the kid had wandered off and maybe fallen into a drain and drowned or something – which was one of the many theories. It was a persistent mystery, and one that regularly woke me in the middle of the night, frantically seeking the clue that I knew I must have missed for all those years.
Nothing had been heard about Stacy, no new developments, in over fifteen years. Yet, even before the letter – long before – I was convinced Stacy was still alive. There’s no doubt that in most child abduction cases, if there’s no sign of the child after a week or two, chances of finding her alive are very slim, almost zero. But there was something about this abduction that didn’t feel like murder, didn’t feel like a paedo, didn’t even feel like the perpetrator was a man, in fact.
Not many people owned cars back then in the Rigby Street area – and a strange car would have been very conspicuous; it would have been noticed. But no one referred to a car – none had been seen. So I reckoned the abductor must have carried the child, walked with her, or, most likely, used a pushchair – must have had a pushchair ready.
Now, back then in the Eighties, how often did we see men on their own pushing a small child? None of your “new men” then – specially not in the Frainham neighbourhood. Men were macho, or liked to think they were. Someone would have noticed a man pushing a kid in a buggy. So, I told myself, the abductor was much more likely to have been a woman.
A dark-haired woman in a dark blue coat was seen in the area by several witnesses. A dowdy woman, neat, but not very smart, neither ugly nor very good-looking, not very old nor very young. A thoroughly unremarkable woman – unmemorable. But she was there, and some witnesses said they’d seen her with a pushchair. A few witnesses mentioned seeing another woman with a child in a buggy: a blonde woman in a red coat. But this woman definitely had a small boy with her, not a little girl.
Of course, we had considered whether these two women had been one and the same person, but could find no evidence of that, nothing to connect them. Still, whoever took Stacy, I was sure it was a woman, and a clever one at that.
Why do women steal babies or young children, assuming they’re not completely psychotic? Maybe they’ve lost a child of their own: a miscarriage or tragic death. Maybe they’re being pressured to produce a child by parents, or by a husband or partner. Perhaps the “biological clock” is ticking and no baby is appearing. Or maybe they know they’re infertile and can’t ever have a child.
Whatever the cause, they would be likely to have an overwhelming urge to have a baby of their own. If that was the case, it could have been good news and bad news for Stacy at the same time. Good news in that the woman would nurture and care for the child well. Unlike a male abductor, a woman would be unlikely to kill her. Bad news in that it might be many years before the woman and/or the child would resurface – if ever.
Gary and Shelley Watts had got some bad press, there’s no doubt about it. The newspapers had it in for them, all right. They were seen as the “undeserving poor”. If it had been a middle-class family – or even a good, solid “hard-working” working-class family, who’d lost a child in that way, they would have had a lot more sympathy. As it was, the tabloids had a field day, especially with Gary. Well, he was a waster, true enough, so who can blame them? The police and courts had known him intimately from the age of twelve. Never done an honest day’s work in his life. Supplemented his benefits with petty thieving – and a bit of dealing on the side. He did nothing for his kids – or for Shelley for that matter.
Shelley was different, however negatively the newspapers tried to present her. One of the papers referred to her being “in thrall” to Gary. That was close to the truth. He certainly had complete control over her earlier on in their relationship.
Over the years I found I had a lot of time for Shelley, whatever her shortcomings. She kept in touch with me, regularly. I think I was the nearest thing to a father figure for her. That’s what Barbara always said anyway. Somehow Shelley had got hold of our home phone number and called us up. I got a shock the first time, and was none too pleased. But as I got to know her, I began to feel some sympathy – and even respect for her.
Life hadn’t dealt Shelley a good hand. She was just sixteen when Gary first got her pregnant. He was twenty-eight, and had already fathered several children with other women. She’d had a rotten childhood – never knew what it was to be cared for, let alone loved. In fact, she’d been in and out of so-called “care” from the age of three, until Gary took over. She’d bunked off school regularly, although teachers reported she had some “potential”. Shelley wasn’t stupid – just never had a chance. She was looking for affection and security – desperate for it – and thought sh
e’d get it from Gary, poor misguided kid.
He introduced her to some lovely habits. She knew nothing about looking after children, and – on Gary’s instructions – barred the door to social workers when they tried to help her. Didn’t trust them.
Neither Gary nor Shelley had ever cooked a proper meal in their lives. Those kids lived on chips from the chip shop, and whatever they could scavenge from school, or nick from shops. They were wild as savages and tormented the neighbours. It took losing Stacy and having the rest of her children taken into care to make Shelley see where her life was heading.
Gary was soon in jail again following his latest misdemeanour. That was it for Gary as far as Shelley was concerned – and a good thing too. After Stacy disappeared, Shelley was even less popular with the neighbours. She persuaded the council to re-house her in a different area, and got herself a job as a cleaner. After that she wouldn’t let Gary near herself or the kids for long, except to give him the odd hot meal, and drop a few quid in his pocket.
Credit where it’s due, she worked really hard to get herself on the straight and narrow. Eventually she even became a supervisor at her cleaning firm. Over time, she managed to get all those kids back from care. She was no angel, and sure as hell she was no super-mam, but she did her best to look after them, and straighten them out. But Stacy was still missing.
Shelley would ring us a couple of times a year, sometimes more. Her opening line was always: ‘Any news, Inspector?’
Her plaintive voice nearly broke my heart. I couldn’t let her know that though.
‘News, Shelley?’ I’d say, ‘Yeah, the news is I’m getting older, like the rest of us. Fifty more grey hairs at last count.’