Saving Sophie

by Sam Carrington

  ‘Others? Why? I don’t get it. Yes, he’s targeting you. But it’s personal. He wants to get to me.’ Karen rubbed at her eyes. ‘Jay’s been in contact.’

  ‘Really? What did he say?’ Sophie sat up sharp.

  ‘It transpires that a long time ago, I recalled his dad to prison.’

  ‘That’s it? So what? You’ve recalled loads to prison; it’s no big deal. And anyway, how did he know it was you? And isn’t it a bit coincidental you two were in … a relationship, or whatever … and you happened to put away his dad?’

  ‘Seems none of this is a coincidence, Sophie. I can’t begin …’ She squeezed her eyes shut, took a moment. ‘His emails seem full of anger. It’s all wrong. All lies.’ Her nose tingled, eyes filled. She was going to cry.

  ‘Woah, hang on.’ Sophie put her arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on, Mum. I think we need to start at the beginning, don’t we?’

  The two of them slid off the sofa and sat on the floor with their backs against it. Where was the beginning? Karen wasn’t even sure. She started with how she’d gone back to work, despite Sophie being a baby, how she hadn’t coped: stress, tiredness, guilt, all adding to the daily tensions her job already held.

  ‘Looking back, now, I was too harsh, Sophie. Too quick to make the judgement call to get Drew recalled. I could’ve helped him, given him another chance. He hadn’t broken any of the main conditions, more a minor one. It’d been my first ever recall, I got caught up in it once I’d made the decision.’ She looked down at her hands, then back up at Sophie, her lovely daughter who’d been an innocent baby when all this had happened. ‘Who’d have thought a single choice seventeen years ago would have such an effect on our lives now?’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. He knew the conditions, chose to break them. Only got himself to blame.’

  ‘Yeah, but was sending him back to prison really the right course of action? I could’ve kept a closer eye on him, increased the frequency of his supervision appointments. I knew his son had only just turned twenty and didn’t have a mother around. Why didn’t I think of the knock-on effects on him?’

  ‘You probably did. You had your reasons, and superiors who backed your decision. You can’t change it now. Anyway, it’s so long ago, why is Jay still hung up on it?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it seems that Jay has been holding a grudge ever since.’

  ‘He’s said this?’

  ‘The emails have pointed to that, yes. I can’t believe … the whole time … I’m so stupid.’

  ‘Look, I am hurt that you went online to meet some random bloke, I’m not going to lie. But I am sorry it’s turned out this way.’

  Karen shook her head. ‘Not so random, though. He searched for me, had been searching for years. Everything we talked about, all the amazing conversations I thought I was having, the bond, the closeness. We talked for hours about how we’d suffered when we lost our parents, and all along he knew everything he said was part of a bigger plan.’

  ‘Do you know what the plan is?’

  ‘To make me pay, Sophie. To get even.’

  Sophie put her head in her hands. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know. He said his aim is still to be with me, supposedly, which I don’t get, if he’s so angry with me. And his words are angry. In the email, he talked about “settling the score before our future can be perfect”. Or words to that effect. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘I have to tell you something.’ Sophie brought her head back up and looked into Karen’s eyes.

  More revelations? She couldn’t handle much more. My chest is tight. I can’t do this now.

  ‘I’ll get your bag.’ Sophie pushed up off the floor.

  Karen took deep breaths. What more is there? How much worse is it going to get?

  She took the bag, put it to her mouth.

  ‘The photos Jay sent. I don’t know where he had me …’ Sophie stalled.

  Karen nodded, widening her eyes, letting Sophie know it was okay to continue.

  ‘We were all in some dark room, possibly a basement, I can’t tell.’

  ‘All?’ Karen’s voice was muffled inside the bag. She breathed deeper, trying to slow her respirations.

  ‘Jay had me there. And Erin, too. The night she died. The night he killed her.’

  Karen dropped the bag. Every muscle sagged under the weight of the shock disclosure.

  ‘Jay? Jay killed Erin? Can’t have done. You’re mistaken, Sophie. You couldn’t remember anything from Saturday night, why are you saying this?’

  ‘Calm down, please, Mum.’ She pushed the bag back in front of Karen’s face. ‘Keep breathing. In … out. In … out.’ Karen did as instructed and watched as the tears flowed down Sophie’s cheeks, hitting her cream top, spreading outwards as the material sucked in the moisture.

  Karen removed the bag again. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘I’ve had bits of memory come back to me, fleeting images, smells. Feelings. I’m sure I was there. The photos, they were of me with my dress up, legs apart … some, you know, sexual stuff …’

  Karen’s breath caught. The paper bag crinkled as her fingers gripped it tighter. ‘And you can see Erin in the pictures?’

  ‘No. Just me. But the memories, they are of Erin. Tied to a chair, like the one I’m in. Gagged. And, I keep getting visions of him … cutting her, jabbing at her stomach with a knife.’ Sophie put her hand up to her mouth as if preventing sick from expelling.

  ‘Okay. I see how you may think you were there, with Erin, but your mind is an incredible place, can conjure up all sorts, not always actual memories. False memories. Heard of them?’

  ‘Yes. Did it in psychology at school, but I don’t think that’s the case, Mum. I was there. I went in the supposed taxi, he took both me and Erin. He killed her, let me go. Then the police found me wandering feet away from where Erin’s body was dumped. You knew all along something bad had happened …’

  ‘Yes. Not this, though.’

  It couldn’t be right. Sophie’s anxiety, her fear, had twisted the reality, made her remember things that hadn’t happened. She hoped. Prayed.

  Because if she was right, this had gone beyond anything she could possibly control.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  DI Wade

  ‘Come on then, Sergeant Mack. Let’s drop by on Ms Nickson, shall we?’

  DS Mack and DI Wade made their way from the college. It was interesting that Sophie had mentioned Maria Nickson just after they’d received an anonymous tip-off which stated that the girlfriend of Erin’s father, Adam, had information vital to the murder investigation. Of course, it could be nothing. It was possible the call was a hoax, even an act of revenge. It was a sad fact, one which Lindsay had seen before: a disgruntled ex-wife, outraged at a cheating husband, reports strange or illegal behaviour at the address in an attempt to get even. Rachel Malone immediately sprung to mind. The call could even have come from Sophie. She’d appeared keen to impart the same information that the caller had, and on top of her obvious reluctance to mention the emails she’d received, it meant she was fast moving to the top of Lindsay’s ‘persons of interest’ list.

  Anyway, a lead was a lead. And Lindsay prayed this was one.

  Mack parked the Volvo at the end of the road, the only space where they wouldn’t cause an obstruction, and they walked in the sunshine to the house’s entrance. Maria Nickson, slim, blonde, with a perfectly made-up face, answered after the fourth ring of the doorbell. Lindsay couldn’t help thinking she’d taken her time so that she could perfect her make-up first. She also couldn’t help but think that Mr Malone had traded his wife in for a younger model.

  ‘Detective Inspector Wade,’ Lindsay flashed Maria her warrant badge, ‘and Detective Sergeant Mack. Can we come in please?’

  Lindsay thought she saw a wave of panic cross her face, before she stood back to allow them both to enter. Maria showed them into a small lounge, and sat heavily in an armchair. She hadn�
�t spoken a word. Lindsay and Mack sat, squashed together uncomfortably, on the two-seater sofa.

  ‘We need to talk about Erin’s online activity, Ms Nickson.’

  Maria wrung her hands in her lap and looked, eyes wide at Lindsay. Was she going to speak?

  ‘It’s …’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s Maria.’

  Lindsay smiled at her. ‘Okay, Maria – when police came here and took some of Erin’s belongings you told them about Erin going on a dating site. Online. By all accounts you were the only person Erin confided in. Is that right?’

  ‘Well. I mean, yes. As far as I knew she only told me. But I can’t be sure of that.’

  ‘Mrs Malone, Erin’s mother, said you seemed very sure at the time.’ Lindsay flicked to a page in her notebook. ‘She said, I quote, “She was so smug, couldn’t wait to tell me that Erin confided in her not me”. Does that sound about right?’

  Maria’s skin flushed, she seemed to be finding it difficult to swallow. Why so edgy? Lindsay raised her eyebrows to Mack. He took the signal, and continued asking the questions. Lindsay got up from the sofa and paced the perimeter of the room. She stopped by the sideboard, picking up framed photos and replacing them. Out the corner of her eye she noted Maria’s uneasiness. It was one of Lindsay’s tactics, and Mack was used to it now.

  ‘We’ve checked both laptops used by Erin and found no evidence of any internet dating sites, chat rooms, anything of that sort. So, I wonder why you said that?’ Mack’s smooth, deep voice always gave an air of calm, whatever he was saying.

  ‘Well, she would’ve deleted any evidence of it, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Why? They were her personal laptops, nothing wrong in what she was doing, why delete it?’

  ‘You know teenagers, secretive creatures.’ Maria gave a nervous laugh.

  ‘Anyway, her recycle bin hadn’t been emptied for some time, and there was no evidence there either.’ Mack didn’t take his eyes from Maria’s.

  Lindsay retook her place next to Mack. ‘Where were you, again, on Saturday night?’

  ‘Here with Adam.’

  ‘And he will verify that?’

  ‘You know he will, you’ve asked us both already. What is this?’ Maria’s eyes darted from Lindsay to Mack, her pupils swallowing her green irises.

  ‘Did you give Erin a mobile number for a taxi firm?’ Lindsay dropped in the question which directly linked to the information left by the anonymous caller.

  Maria’s shoulders stiffened and her head moved backwards, giving her a double chin. Her mouth slackened in a look of surprise.

  ‘Er … No. I don’t think … no. I didn’t give her any number.’

  ‘Well, as you’re aware, we haven’t recovered Erin’s mobile phone, but the phone company has provided us with an itemised list of calls made from it. Erin didn’t make any calls on Saturday night, yet she was seen by a number of people using a mobile phone. Did you know she had another phone, Maria?’

  ‘Um …’ Maria’s mouth twisted to one side, ‘I think she did. Yes. A pay-as-you-go one. She used it when she was out around the town. She’d previously lost two contract phones. She mentioned getting a cheap one to take on nights out.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to mention this before?’

  ‘I’d forgotten. Sorry.’

  ‘Strange then, that we didn’t find her main mobile, if she left it behind in favour of the cheap one,’ Mack said.

  Lindsay jumped in with the question that she really wanted answered. ‘A few people have mentioned you had a strained relationship with Erin to begin with, when you first started dating her dad. What can you tell me about that?’

  ‘I’m young, Detective Inspector Wade, and her dad moved in with me in a matter of months of leaving her mother. Yes, there was a bit of animosity.’

  ‘I’m sure that couldn’t have made your life easy then, eh?’

  ‘It was something I had to work on, yes.’

  Lindsay let the silence engulf the room for a few minutes as she tried to think how you’d work on something like that. Where would you start? Being nice, friendly – probably overly friendly to start with, in an attempt to win Erin’s approval. Gifts? Possibly. And what if none of that worked and Erin began to make her life a misery? Two young women vying for a man’s attention. Could get ugly. And Erin had the advantage of using her blood tie, and Adam’s new status as an abandoning father, against Maria.

  Lindsay’s thoughts were interrupted by the front door flinging open. Adam burst in.

  ‘Has there been a development?’ His face was red, sweaty from exertion.

  Lindsay stood. ‘Morning, Mr Malone. Sorry, not as such, no. We’re here just to ask a few more questions following an anonymous call.’ It was the first time Lindsay had mentioned this fact. She watched for Maria’s reaction. She just frowned, and then looked down at the floor. Avoiding their eyes?

  ‘Oh. I see.’ There was a defeatist tone to Adam’s voice. Poor bloke, his world had collapsed in around him. ‘What can we help you with?’

  ‘As you know, we didn’t find Erin’s mobile phone, but we know she used one on Saturday night, a pay-as-you-go one.’ Although Lindsay was directing her eyes at Adam, she could see Maria in her peripheral vision. As she was speaking she saw Maria sit forward. Was she trying to get Adam’s attention? Lindsay turned in time to catch Maria open her eyes wide at him, her facial muscles tightening. Then Adam said what Lindsay imagined Maria had been trying to stop him mentioning at all.

  ‘Oh, yes. That’d be the phone Maria gave Erin,’ he gave a thin smile, ‘as a gift when she was trying to get Erin onside. She’d been, let’s say, a bit awkward when Maria and I first got together. Maria had been kind enough to program in all the numbers she’d need when she was out pubbing it, or whatever.’

  Lindsay and Mack both turned to face Maria, but it was Mack who got in first.

  ‘So, Maria. You gave Erin the phone and you program important numbers in. I’ll ask again. Did you program in a taxi firm’s number?’

  There was no colour to Maria’s skin now, she looked as though she might faint. ‘No. No, I didn’t. I put ours, her mum’s and her friend’s ones in, took them from her main mobile. I really didn’t put a taxi number in it.’

  But, if that were the case, why had she lied about giving Erin the phone in the first place? Perhaps the anonymous caller wasn’t a hoax after all. But Lindsay would need hard evidence – and without the phone and with Maria’s denial, there was none.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  Sophie

  Tuesday

  No sign of him.

  If only she could be at college every week. Jay clearly didn’t feel as confident in this environment as he did in her work one. Having left early to park in the spot closest to the college entrance again, she decided to sit in her car for a while, rather than go in to class. She scrolled through her text messages. Dan hadn’t replied to those she sent last night. Not like him. Was he sore at her? Their brief exchange at his yesterday – him accusing her of being highly strung, her accusing him of following her and losing the plot – wasn’t the nicest. She still couldn’t help but question his motives for getting them there: lying, saying it was Amy’s idea when it was his. What was he playing at?

  As she chucked the mobile into her bag, it pinged. Talk of the devil?

  She got it back out. No. Not Dan.

  Wondered how you doing? Worried about you. Pop in shop later, come see me.

  Irina. It’d been over a week since they’d last had contact. She ought to see her, let her know she was all right. Not that she was. Her head was a mess, so much had happened; too much to fully comprehend.

  She slammed the car door, scanning the perimeter of the grounds as she headed to the entrance. No lone figures, no shadows in corners. There was a car parked on the far side of the road adjacent to the college. It looked the same as the one yesterday: dark, possibly a Volvo. She squinted, trying to decipher the number plate, but could only see a W at the beginn
ing and the number 3. Was Jay watching from a safe distance, keeping an eye on her movements even if he couldn’t follow on foot? She made a mental note to check the road again when she broke between lessons.

  Sophie stared at the walls, the ceiling. Her portfolio lay open at the same page as it had an hour previous. Luckily, her assessor was busy working through someone else’s, not taking any notice of Sophie’s inaction. Nausea tugged at her stomach as she replayed the last week’s events: Saturday night, the revelations, the knowledge she and her mum were getting in deeper and deeper, drowning in the lies.

  The thought of Jay wanting some kind of revenge worried her most. If this was in relation to her mum recalling Jay’s dad, him blaming her, the fact remained that their family was now his target. Was his dad still in prison, or was he involved somehow too? And why had he killed Erin? A warm-up exercise? A warning of how far he was willing to go? Did he murder Erin with Sophie there so he could implicate her, ensure she was afraid of going to the police?

  That way he could manipulate her, her mum, the situation – and get exactly what he wanted. Whatever that was.

  ‘Sophie, are you feeling okay?’ Gill, the NVQ assessor, finally realised Sophie hadn’t done a thing.

  ‘Sorry, I’m not feeling the best. Headache. It’s difficult to focus on the work.’

  ‘If you’re not up to it, go on home. You’re almost finished now anyway, aren’t you?’

  ‘Only have one more piece to write up.’

  ‘Fine. Go get some rest, hope you feel better soon.’

  Sophie packed her folder into her bag. She might take this opportunity to pop in and see Irina.

  The car opposite had gone. Good. One less thing to concern herself with.

  As she pulled out on to the road, her mobile began pinging. The signal inside the college building wasn’t great, and now it seemed a succession of notifications were delivering all at once. She was popular this morning; she’d heard at least ten. Releasing one hand from the steering wheel, Sophie kept her eyes on the road while ferreting inside her bag to find her phone. Waiting at a traffic light gave her a moment to see who they were from.