The Girls Next Door

by Mel Sherratt

  Chapter Seven

  Claire Mornington was on her way to meet up with her friend Stacey before heading off to hang around the shops, down on the Mitchell Estate. She flicked long dark hair from out of her face as it battled with the wind.

  It was so blustery, she wondered if anyone would be out, or if the night would be wasted as everyone was indoors. They couldn’t even crash at their friend Jess’s and put up with her namby-pamby sister because she was going over to her boyfriend, Cayden’s, house.

  Even though Claire was hanging around with the same gang, she still missed Deanna Barker. Even now, six months later, it was hard to imagine that she was dead. Claire would often imagine that Deanna would come walking down the road, linking arms with Katie, and say that she’d played a silly joke on them all. It just didn’t seem real that she had been murdered by Nathan Lucas. Everyone knew that he carried a knife – he’d pulled it out lots of times. But no one had been certain he would use it. Claire had thought he was all mouth until that day.

  She still wondered what had provoked them to act like they did. Sure, they were all into having a laugh at other people’s expense, dishing out the odd slap and punch every now and then as a dare. But the brutality of it, along with it being people she had thought of as friends, had hit home hard. It had also rocked their community.

  She heard a car slow down and someone shout her name. She took a step towards the rear door as the window slowly went down.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  The door opened, and hands reached out and seized her. Before she had time to react, she was pulled into the back seat. The door slammed behind her and the car screeched off.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ She tried to sit upright, scrambling for the door handle.

  The person by her side wore a balaclava. She was pushed down on the back seat, straddled and her arms forced up above her head.

  ‘Get off me!’ she screamed, fear bursting out of her as she tried to free herself. A strip of duct tape was pressed roughly to her lips. She screamed but it came out muffled.

  She glanced around quickly. What were they going to do with her? Where would they take her? Who were they?

  Panic ripping through her, she began to buck, still screaming behind the tape. Tears poured down her face as she struggled with her fear.

  ‘Shut the fuck up.’

  She drew in a breath as he searched through her pockets, emptying them. His hands roamed over her breasts, his face stopping an inch from hers as their eyes connected. She bucked even more before he moved.

  Minutes later, the car took a sharp left and the handbrake was pulled up sharply. The car whizzed round to a halt. The door beside her opened, and she was pulled from the seat. She landed heavily on the floor.

  She scrambled to her feet, trying to get up, but she was pushed in the back. Crying openly now, she looked up at them. They wore dark shoes, jeans and black jackets. She wanted to rip the tape from her mouth and scream, but she didn’t dare. Instead she sat, frozen, until they came towards her.

  She curled up in a ball, but one reached for her legs and pulled them out straight, while the other held on to her arms again. Not a word was spoken between them as she groaned, her head flailing from side to side.

  The one who had pulled her into the car straddled her legs and began to open her jeans.

  No, please.

  She kicked out as her arms were held above her head. But she was no match for them. Her jeans were pulled off. Her shoes were removed too. With the wind howling around her, she began to shiver. Ohmigod – the lower half of her body was partially naked.

  ‘This is a warning to keep your mouth shut. You tell anyone what’s been going on and you’re dead. Do you understand?’

  It was the same voice as before. This time she recognised it.

  ‘Do you understand?’

  She nodded fervently.

  The two people moved away. With a sob, Claire scrambled across the grass away from them.

  They got back into the car; she heard doors slamming and the engine restarting. The car skidded away.

  Gasping for breath in the cold night air, she pulled at the tape and then sat for a moment. Everything looked so different in the dark.

  Where was she? Buildings loomed up around her as she concentrated on focusing, and she realised it might be a block of garages. There were no lights nearby, only in the distance, she guessed a couple of minutes’ walk away.

  Where were her jeans and shoes? She tried to make out any shapes. They would be in a pile near to each other, or strewn across the area, but she couldn’t see them. She searched around with her hands for a while, before getting up, treading into large puddles of water that had accumulated.

  They had taken everything from her pockets. She had no phone, no money, no way of getting home other than to walk barefoot and half naked. She had no idea where she was.

  Not caring what she was treading in, she pushed herself up and stumbled out of the lane, hoping to figure out where she was when she got to a main road. Then she began to run.

  Chapter Eight

  The office block where Laura worked was in the city centre. A few minutes before 6 p.m., she parked her car and dashed into the building. She had been at CrisisChat for five years now, after qualifying as a counsellor just after Neil was killed, in 2007. The helpline had found their own funding at first, then been given a government grant for the next nine years. There were two years left from this round of funding before the money ran out and the not-for-profit charity would have to start bidding for more.

  Laura had volunteered at Samaritans for several years before coming to CrisisChat, but the fact that she had to do a night shift once a month became too much when she had both girls. Neil didn’t like it either – said it wasn’t safe. And after one suicide attempt too many from the callers, she called it a day.

  After that had come regular hours working in the offices of Warren’s Electrical Supplies, doing the filing, accounting, invoicing. The work was okay and her colleagues fine to a point, but she missed the feeling that she was helping people, so she trained to be a counsellor in her spare time. Which was just as well, as she was made redundant not long after she qualified.

  When the job had come up at CrisisChat, she’d applied thinking she wouldn’t have enough experience. She’d been pleasantly surprised to find that they were willing to train her on the job, recognising that many of her skills were transferrable to their clientele.

  She knew the job had been meant for her as soon as she’d first stepped into the building. And not many people wanted to do the graveyard shift either. It was only because she needed the money. It was thirty hours a week, unsociable hours due to its nature, but even when the shifts had their low moments, Laura would always bounce back when she got home, closed the door on that world and switched off as she thanked her lucky stars it wasn’t a part of hers.

  CrisisChat was located on the third floor of a block of offices just off Stockleigh high street. Laura walked up the final flight of stairs with a puff and pushed the door to her office open. It was a tiny attic room, hardly big enough for the staff who manned it.

  At the nearest desk sat her colleague Nicola. She was a small woman in her mid-forties, with short spiky hair pushed down by her headphones. She waved as Laura came in, whilst continuing her conversation with the person on the other end of the line.

  Both women had probably heard most things on the phones at the helpline. Laura tried not to take it personally when someone shouted down the phone at her, cussed and roared at her to get rid of their anger. Teenagers would laugh as well as cry. Occasionally, she’d learned too much and had suffered for days when she’d heard horrific stories. She could never tell if the words were true or a pack of lies told to garner attention. But she would never judge. Nicola wouldn’t either, which is why they were both good at their jobs.

  There were three of them on the helpline. Marian, the third member of the team, worked early
afternoons. There were only ever one or two of them at a time on shift. It was all the charity could fund. Which was why they were a close team.

  Laura made the universal sign for a cuppa, and when Nicola nodded vehemently she went over to the far end of the room where there were tea and coffee facilities. She flicked on the kettle before removing her coat and going back to Nicola to collect her mug.

  Nicola put a finger over the mute button. ‘It’s Leah Burton again,’ she explained. ‘She seems okay, fed up of Mum and Dad, but just wants to talk. She’s been on for the past fifteen minutes.’

  Nicola removed her finger and began to speak to Leah. Laura shook her head as she listened to the broken conversation. Leah was a regular caller and always talked over them. But they were just there to listen for the most part.

  Ten minutes later, coffee had been made and Leah was still talking. Laura put on her headphones, ready for the next call, but the lines stayed quiet. She sent a quick message to Sarah asking her to remove a joint of meat from the freezer, which she had forgotten to do before leaving the house.

  Finally, Nicola took off her headphones. With a huge sigh, she laid her head on the desk.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to think I’d never see my bed this evening.’

  ‘You could have given the call to me,’ said Laura. ‘I would have chatted to Leah, save you staying late.’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine. What have I got to go home to except Sherlock?’ Sherlock was Nicola’s cat. ‘How are you, by the way? Is Jess still causing you grief?’

  Laura nodded. ‘She’s still being her usual teenage self. She thinks she can come and go as she pleases, and she treats the house like a hotel.’ She clasped a hand to her mouth. ‘I’m doing it again. I sound like my mother.’ She groaned and put her head on the desk too.

  ‘Been there, done that,’ said Nicola. ‘Three times, and one still to go.’ She quivered. ‘I’m dreading it already.’

  The women smiled at each other before sitting up again.

  ‘It’s never-ending – both here and at home. Has anyone mentioned the trial yet?’ Laura asked as she drew her hair into a ponytail and tied it back with the band around her wrist.

  Nicola shook her head. ‘I’m surprised though. It’s going to hit everyone next week, isn’t it?’

  Laura was already dreading it. She and Katie’s mum, Maxine, had been friends since the Trents had moved into The Cavendales and long after she and the girls had moved out. Jess and Katie had grown closer still at high school.

  It had been hard for Jess when Katie had been charged. Even their house seemed empty for a while, with no laughter as the girls shared an in-joke, no loud music and bangs as they practised dancing, no sounds of feet thundering up and down the stairs.

  Laura had missed Katie as much as Jess. It had been like losing a breath of fresh air. Jess had been lost without her friend, so much so that at one point Laura had thought she might be suffering from depression. But gradually over time Jess had accepted that Katie would be gone for a while and kept hoping that justice would be done and she would come home at the end of the trial.

  ‘I can’t even begin to imagine how Maxine will be feeling,’ she said.

  ‘I hope they do right by Katie,’ said Nicola. ‘She doesn’t deserve to get a sentence for something she didn’t do.’

  Laura shivered as she heard the wind howling through the single-glazed window by her side and pulled her long cardigan into her chest. She made a mental note to find time to ring Maxine in the morning. She needed as much support as she could get. It must be such an ordeal to think that your child was facing a charge of murder for something she hadn’t done.

  Chapter Nine

  Jess whimpered. The van was moving at speed. Panic had set in long before she had worked out that she wouldn’t be heard if she screamed. As she bumped around in the back, her eyes filled with tears as she remembered helping the man to look for a dog. And then she recalled him hitting her and then dragging her into a small white van. She hadn’t even had a chance to see the registration number.

  The tears fell then as her thoughts went into overdrive. Had he been trawling around looking for someone – anyone? Was he a paedophile, after a young girl? Maybe he’d seen her waiting for Cayden and had seized his opportunity.

  She tried to close her mind off to the dark thoughts. She wanted to bang her feet on the floor, alert him that she was awake, but something made her stay quiet. Maybe it was best to store up all her anger for when she needed it. For when the back door opened again.

  Someone would have noticed him dragging her into the van. Someone would find her before he harmed her, wouldn’t they? She tried to remember what he looked like, in case the police needed her to do a photofit. He had looked normal. There was nothing odd about him. He was average height, average weight. He wore a black bomber jacket and jeans, rolled up at the bottom. His head was covered by a woollen hat, but there was no hair showing around its edges. She couldn’t recall anything about his face except his eyes. And they had seemed friendly enough, at the time. He had seemed worried about finding his dog.

  There hadn’t been a dog, she knew now.

  Where would he take her?

  Slowly, her eyes grew accustomed to the dark. A few minutes later, the van slowed down and her heart began to beat a drum inside her chest. She tried to listen in case she could hear any familiar sounds as it drew to a complete halt. There were beeps, and she could see yellow flashes. They must have stopped at a crossing. But it was only seconds before the car was on the move again.

  The driver sped up and took a sharp left, and her head hit the side of the van as she struggled to steady herself. She groaned at the sudden pain. By the time the van stopped she’d be so travel sick he could do anything to her and she wouldn’t be able to put up a fight.

  Then her eyes widened. Cayden! He would be waiting for her. He would call her to see where she was. She manoeuvred her hands to reach her jacket pocket, but she could feel from the outside that it was empty. He must have taken her phone.

  She wondered if he’d got it with him now or if he’d left it in the car park. He could have thrown it out of the van. If he had, the police would find it and be alerted. They would watch the CCTV footage from the big camera she saw every day, see her being manhandled into the van. They would see the number plate, find the owner and then what? They would follow the CCTV footage and see where he took her. But there wasn’t coverage everywhere in the city.

  A sob escaped her. She couldn’t reach Cayden. She couldn’t call her mum. She couldn’t call her auntie Eden, who would know what to do. She couldn’t get in touch with anyone. She was at his mercy.

  She tried to reassure herself. The police would find her. Eden would find her. She wouldn’t let her down.

  But she could be dead by then.

  What if he wanted to rape her and then murder her afterwards? What happened if he was taking her to the docks ready to ship out of the country and sell as a sex slave? What happened if he was a warped bastard who wanted to carry out weird experiments on her? What if. . .

  Keep calm, she repeated inwardly over and over, hoping it would work to stop her hyperventilating. Instead, each time they passed a street light and a ray of light came through the tiny window, her eyes searched around the sides and the floor of the van, hoping to see something she could use to defend herself when the door was opened again, take the man by surprise.

  Seconds later she burst into tears again, shaking uncontrollably, but not through being cold. There was nothing in the back of the van except her. Nothing she could use as a weapon.

  All she could do now was wait until it stopped – and pray he wouldn’t kill her.

  Chapter Ten

  Maxine Trent got out of her car and locked it quickly before struggling to put up her umbrella as she walked across the car park. Thinking better of it when it blew inside out within seconds, she took it down again.

  By the entrance, sh
e craned her head as she drew level with an ambulance, its lights flashing, but she couldn’t see anything.

  Drenched as she entered Shop&Save, she shook her head, pulling strands of red hair away from her face where it had been lashed about.

  Her stomach lurched as she saw how many people were in the store. She felt eyes on her immediately, and she quickly lowered her gaze. Once Katie’s trial started on Monday, she and her family would be all over the media again – in the newspapers, on radio and television. They wouldn’t be able to go anywhere for the next few weeks and had all been dreading the thought for ages now.

  Ever since Katie had been charged, their family had been targeted. Maxine thought back on some of the nasty things that had happened to them. If she hadn’t been a part of it all, if she had been reading about it in the local newspaper, she wouldn’t have believed it could have been reality.

  Every night for several weeks, there had been something pushed through their letterbox. Handwritten notes saying they would die if they didn’t move away, which the police could do nothing about because they couldn’t find out who the culprit was. Dog crap had been shoved through on a regular basis. A firework in the middle of May caused a hole in the hall carpet – but luckily nothing else.

  At one time there had even been a toe tag delivered, pushed through in a small brown envelope with Katie’s name written on it. When her ten-year-old son, Matty, had come into the kitchen with it, Maxine had soon realised that it was a luggage label carefully made to look the part. And it had done its job – she had been scared to death at the sight of it.

  Things had calmed down a bit over the summer, but she knew it was bound to start again. Everywhere she went, Maxine could almost feel the anger simmering, ready to burst forward. Once the trial was over, what happened if Katie was found guilty? They’d have to move. They wouldn’t be safe in their homes.