by Jaime Raven
His body pivoted backwards into the wall and I pressed my advantage by going at him like a wild woman, kicking and flailing and cursing until all he could do was try to defend himself.
I didn’t let up even as he slid down the wall onto the floor. I kicked him in the chest, punched the back of his head, stamped on his hands.
And I would have carried on until I’d killed the bastard if they hadn’t pulled me off him.
It took two police officers to pull me away from Carter. They were the first of a whole bunch of uniforms who came storming in through the opening I’d created in the patio door.
‘Calm down now, miss,’ one of them said. ‘We’ve got you.’
His voice snapped me out of my trance, but it was several seconds before I was able to control my rage and stop shaking.
‘We know who you are, Detective Mason,’ the other officer said. ‘You’re safe now and that man is no longer a threat.’
He edged me away from Carter who was cowering on the floor as a string of expletives flew out of his swollen mouth.
‘I think your daughter needs you,’ the same officer said.
Oh my God, Molly.
I heard her before I saw her. She was crying hysterically while being held by another officer. I rushed over to her and took her in my arms and then cried with her. Our bodies trembled in unison and our tears fell onto the blanket she was wrapped in.
‘It’s over, sweetheart,’ I sobbed and then kept repeating it because I just couldn’t believe it was true.
As we were ushered out of the living room, I saw Carter being hauled to his feet. Our eyes met and his were burning like mercury. There was blood on his face and he was saying something to me that I couldn’t hear.
I clung to my baby as we were led outside and I covered her head with the blanket to shield her from what was going on around us. She had already seen enough and I could only imagine how terrified she’d been as she watched me struggling with Carter.
‘I need to get my daughter to a hospital,’ I shouted out. ‘She’s been drugged and I want her to see a doctor.’
I was told that an ambulance had been summoned and would be here soon, and while I waited I sat in the back of a police car with Molly on my lap. I held her close, breathed her in, and I couldn’t believe it was happening. My prayers had been answered. My baby was back. And the nightmare was finally over.
She eventually stopped crying and her distress turned to curiosity as she stared out the window at all the uniforms milling about on the driveway.
‘Mummy’s friends got here just in time, my love,’ I whispered to her. ‘Those nice police officers saved us.’
She turned to look at me, a frown on her little face. And then she smiled and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
65
Sarah
A lot happened during the following hour. An officer made notes as I told him what had taken place in the house and what Carter had revealed to me. I also explained how I had come to be there. I then had to go through it all again, this time over the police radio to DCI Brennan at the incident room in Wandsworth.
He asked some questions, and as he spoke I could hear the relief in his voice.
‘So Carter admitted killing his brother?’ he said.
‘That’s right. And he buried the body in the woods so that suspicion would fall on Tony Kemp.’
Brennan told me that Kemp had been missing for much of the day, giving rise to speculation that he had panicked after Knight’s body was found.
‘But the old bugger just surfaced,’ he said. ‘Turns out he was shacked up in a hotel room with his Russian mistress and didn’t want anyone to know about it.’
Brennan said that I had Adam to thank for the fact that the cavalry had arrived in the nick of time.
‘He managed to get Lomax to reveal the address of the house and he phoned it through to me.’
He then said he would go out himself to arrest Knight’s mother based on what her son had disclosed.
His final words to me were: ‘I’m so pleased that you’ve got Molly back, Sarah. It’s really terrific.’
I borrowed a phone from one of the officers to call Adam. I gave him the good news and thanked him for getting Lomax to open up.
‘I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if those cars hadn’t arrived when they did,’ I said. ‘Carter had armed himself with a knife and was going to use it.’
‘Is our little girl OK?’ he said.
‘I think so. She’s obviously been distressed but she just smiled at me and now she keeps pointing at people and seems to like being the centre of attention.’
‘I’m on my way,’ he said. ‘If you leave before I get there then have someone let me know where they’ve taken you.’
I then watched as Noah Carter was brought out of the house in handcuffs. He was bundled into a car and carted off.
A single paramedic responder turned up on the scene before the ambulance and checked Molly over. He said she looked fine and didn’t believe the drugs she’d been given had caused her any harm.
A forensic team then turned up, along with several detectives I knew from Wandsworth. I asked one of them to go inside the house and bring me out some clothes and a nappy for Molly.
I’d just finished dressing her when an ambulance pulled up on the road at the bottom of the driveway.
I gave one of the detectives the key to my car and asked him to take care of it for me. Then before the ambulance doors closed behind us I looked up at the house one last time and said aloud to myself, ‘Please God let my baby forget what happened in there.’
66
DCI Brennan
Brennan left the incident room at nine o’clock to go to Dulwich. There was still a lot to be done but he decided it would have to wait. He wanted to see Sarah with Molly before the evening was over.
The last few hours had been hectic. He had briefly questioned both Noah Carter and his mother. Carter hadn’t bothered to deny any of the accusations that were put to him. He admitted everything and said he wasn’t sorry for what he’d done.
Brennan told him that he was going to be formally charged with child abduction, the attempted murder of Sarah Mason and the murder of his own brother Bobby. Brennan wasn’t sure whether a jury would believe that Bobby’s death had been an accident. But even if they did, the man would still be going inside for a very long time.
His mother had denied everything until Brennan told her that it was Noah who had killed Bobby. The revelation came as such a shock that she passed out on the floor of the interview room. After she came to and was seen by a doctor, she finally admitted that she did assist in the abduction of Molly Mason. And just like her son she was totally unrepentant.
‘I’m glad I did it,’ she’d said defiantly. ‘And whatever happens to me now it was worth seeing that fucking bitch suffer, if only for a few days.’
The news had got out, of course, and a large crowd of reporters, photographers and TV crews had gathered outside Sarah’s flat in Dulwich. Some had been there since she’d arrived back from the hospital with Adam and Molly, and the pictures taken of her going inside had already been sent around the world.
There’d been a brief statement from the Yard saying that Molly had been found and two people had been arrested in connection with her abduction.
Brennan was mobbed as he got out of his car and headed into Sarah’s block. He stopped and answered a few of their questions, and as he did so he found it hard to keep from smiling.
‘At this stage I can’t go into details about what actually happened today,’ he said. ‘But I can confirm that Molly was saved by her mother who managed to trace her daughter’s kidnapper to a house near Hayes. I can also tell you that Molly has been to hospital and doctors have said she’s in good health physically. We must now hope that the awful experience she’s been through won’t have caused any lasting psychological damage.’
Brennan dashed upstairs to Sarah’s
flat. It felt cramped inside because Sarah, Adam and Molly had been joined by Sarah’s parents and Sergeant Palmer.
The atmosphere was one of joyous relief, and when Brennan saw little Molly he couldn’t believe his eyes. She was running around excitedly like it was Christmas, relishing being the main attraction. Her grandfather couldn’t stop laughing and teasing her, while her gran sat on the sofa shedding tears of happiness. Adam stood next to Sarah with a drink in his hand, staring at his daughter with wide, grateful eyes. Brennan couldn’t begin to imagine what thoughts were going through his mind.
There was lots to talk about, and Brennan had a list of questions for both Sarah and Adam. But all that stuff could be dealt with in the days ahead. Tonight was for rejoicing in Molly’s return.
‘We’ll probably never know what he did and didn’t do to her,’ Sarah said to Brennan after he had given her a huge hug.
‘He’s told me that the worst he did was to smack her,’ Brennan said. ‘And for what it’s worth, I think he’s telling the truth.’
‘I really hope so. I just hate the thought that she might be scarred for life.’
Sarah’s face was a mixture of relief and anxiety and Brennan noticed creases around her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
‘She’s going to be fine,’ he said. ‘And so are you.’
She smiled at him and they both watched Molly jump up onto the sofa and give her grandfather a kiss. He pulled her onto his lap and tickled her, which started a giggling fit.
‘That’s the thing about young children, Sarah,’ Brennan said, ‘they live in the moment. Because of Molly’s age it’s likely she’ll soon forget about what happened.’
It wouldn’t be so easy for her parents to forget, though, Brennan thought. Their ordeal had almost certainly changed them forever – from their outlook on life to the way they would care for their daughter in the future.
He wondered if it would also change how they felt about one another.
When Brennan got home later that evening his wife was watching the news on the TV. Before he joined her on the sofa he went into the kitchen and opened the bottle of champagne that they’d been saving for a special occasion.
‘I feel we ought to celebrate,’ he said, handing her a half-filled glass.
She smiled and choked back a sob. ‘When I heard the news I cried,’ she said. ‘I’d been dreading a different outcome.’
The story was getting wall-to-wall coverage on the news. Sarah and Adam were being hailed as hero parents, while Noah Carter and his mother were being vilified. An MP who was interviewed described the pair as callous monsters, and one of Emily’s neighbours said the whole family should have been locked up years ago. There was footage of the house in Hayes, Sarah’s flat and sound bites from a number of other people, including the Met Commissioner who was full of praise for what Sarah had done.
‘Molly’s mother acted without thought for her own safety,’ he said. ‘Thanks to her, this ghastly episode is at last over. It truly is a happy ending. But I can’t claim credit for it. Molly’s parents are the real heroes of the hour.’
Grace turned to him and raised her glass. ‘But you’re my hero, detective,’ she said. ‘You always have been. And we both know that this is probably your last case and that you’re giving up the career you love to look after me.’
‘It’s no contest, Grace,’ he said. ‘I love you much more than I love the job.’
He clinked his glass against hers.
‘So here’s to the future, my darling. It’s up to us to squeeze a whole lifetime into however many years we have left. And the way to do that is for us to always live in the present from now on.’
She laughed. ‘I’ll drink to that.’
67
Sarah
I kept Molly up until everyone except Adam had gone home. I insisted that he stay overnight in the spare room because the stab wound to his side was still giving him grief and he looked pale and weak. But there was also a part of me that wanted him to be here for our daughter’s first night back.
I took Molly to bed with me and lay there stroking her hair and listening to her breathe. I still couldn’t believe that our ordeal was over. My prayers had been answered and my daughter was safely back where she belonged.
I tried not to think about Noah Carter and how close he had come to killing us. Instead I focused on the positives and on how lucky we were. Carter and his vile mother would soon be going to prison for a very long time. They were no longer a threat to us and I refused to believe that even when they were eventually released we would have any cause for concern.
I didn’t sleep, but I did dream about a future in which I saw my daughter going to school, getting married and having children of her own one day. It was a future that I’d feared had been taken away from me. But now, thank God, it gave me so much to look forward to.
EPILOGUE
Five weeks later
Sarah
We were in the park and Molly was feeding the ducks. It was just me, her and Adam and because it was quite early in the morning there were very few other people around.
To look at us you would never have guessed what we had been through. Molly was having the time of her life and behaving like any other sixteen-month-old child. In the weeks since I had brought her out of that house she’d been clingy and tearful, but not as traumatised as I’d expected her to be. It was as though for her it had been a bad dream that had come and gone.
But it wasn’t so easy for Adam and me to put it behind us. We’d had to contend with all the questions, the publicity, the soul-searching.
I’d been given time off while I tried to decide whether to return to work or become a full-time mother to Molly. I still couldn’t bring myself to leave her with anyone else yet, not even her grandparents.
Adam had told me that he had ended his relationship with Helen because ‘he didn’t think it was going anywhere’, and I had tried not to show that I was pleased about that.
He had also decided to put his own career on the line by confessing to Brennan that he had planted the evidence that got Bobby Knight convicted and sent down. He did it without telling me, but I’d seen it coming because the guilt had been eating away at him.
Brennan’s reaction had been one of outrage and disappointment. He even came to the flat to ask me if I’d known all along that Knight had been set up. I wasn’t sure he believed me when I told him that I hadn’t.
Brennan had referred the matter upstairs to the Met Commissioner, who had seemed more concerned with the political fallout than the crime itself.
Adam had been hauled into his office and subjected to a bad-tempered lecture. He’d been suspended from duty and told not to speak to anyone else about it. He had also been warned that his actions were going to have serious consequences. But it was obvious that the powers-that-be were keen to avoid a storm of negative publicity. This was something I’d exploited when I made a plea on his behalf, which I felt compelled to do having found it in my heart to forgive him for what he did four years ago.
I reminded the Commissioner that there was a lot of public sympathy for Adam and that since Knight was dead there was little to be gained by charging him with a serious offence. I also told him that if it wasn’t for Adam then our daughter might still be at the mercy of Knight’s brother.
The feedback since then was that serious consideration was being given to a compromise deal whereby Adam would get away with a caution so long as he resigned quietly from the force. It was the outcome we were both hoping for – the least-worst scenario.
Despite what Adam had done I did not believe he deserved to go to prison. It was time to put the nightmare behind us and get on with our lives. We now had a future to look forward to – a future in which both Adam and I could see our daughter grow up.
‘It’s like we’re a proper family again,’ Adam said, as we watched Molly throw the last of the breadcrumbs into the pond. ‘And it feels really good.’
I wasn’t sure
how to react so I didn’t, but there was no denying that the dreadful experience had brought us closer together again, and that I had come to see Adam in a new light. He’d regained my trust and the more I saw of him the more I wanted to see of him.
I sensed him looking at me and guessed he wanted me to respond to what he had just said. But I kept my eyes firmly fixed on Molly and felt a rush of heat to my cheeks.
He reached out and took my hand. And I surprised myself by not snatching it away.
‘Why don’t we go and treat our lovely daughter to an ice cream?’ he said. ‘I think she deserves it.’
Before I knew it all three of us were heading back to the path. Adam continued to hold my right hand while Molly gripped my left. And I suddenly realised that Adam was right – we were like a proper family again.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has been a team effort in many ways, starting with members of my family who took the time to read the early drafts and made so many helpful suggestions.
And I would like to thank the team at Avon, particularly Rachel Faulkner-Willcocks, Helena Sheffield, Louis Patel, Sabah Khan and Helen Huthwaite, who have been so terrific to work with. I’m deeply grateful for their support and encouragement, and their attention to detail.
And finally, a special thank you to my dear departed Mum and Dad, who bought me a typewriter for Christmas when I was fourteen. If it hadn’t been for them I might not have become an author.
Murder, loyalty and vengeance collide in a gritty read perfect for fans of Martina Cole and Kimberley Chambers.
Out now.
A perfect crime needs a perfect alibi …
Out now.
Also by Jaime Raven
The Madam
The Alibi
About the Publisher
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