Elsie nodded. ‘Yes, yes, I think that was her name. I didn’t even know why she was trying to run along the corridor when she passed me, but I do recall the names she was being called as she went. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she carried on until she got to the staff room. Her disability was more obvious the faster she moved.’
Kim couldn’t help the pang of regret that shot through her.
‘Can you tell us the names of the other girls involved?’ Bryant asked.
She looked surprised. ‘Oh goodness, now you’ve asked me something. I’m not sure I can recall their names now. It was so long ago.’
Kim didn’t want to spoon-feed the names in case the woman’s memory or lack of it prompted her to agree.
‘There was a girl with a name that reminded me of a doll,’ she said.
‘Jemima,’ Bryant offered.
‘Yes, that’s it,’ Elsie said, smiling.
‘Louise?’ he continued.
‘Yes, there was a Louise there, I think.’
Kim stepped in. ‘How about Joanna?’
She thought and then nodded. ‘Yes, there was a Joanna there also.’
Kim glanced at Bryant. She was guessing she could work her way through a baby girls’ name book and Elsie Hinton would agree that they’d all been there.
Bryant returned her glance with a look that said it was worth one last try.
He leaned forwards. ‘And can you tell us the name of the girl being held down?’
Elsie looked from one to the other. ‘Oh, Mr Jackson didn’t remember it very well, did he? The child being held on the floor was a little boy.’
Seventy
It was that day that changed my life for ever.
I looked over to where the gym mats were piled high but Louise wasn’t looking that way.
She was looking at me.
Her face was strange. There was a smile, but it didn’t make me feel happy inside. It made me feel scared.
Louise nodded and suddenly everyone started moving towards me. Louise was in front with that excited look on her face, and the others all looked the same.
I backed away.
My stomach turned, and I didn’t know why.
‘Get her, Jemima,’ Louise said.
I didn’t know who Jemima was.
A girl with short blonde hair emerged from the pack and moved to my left. I looked from her to Louise.
My back hit the cool metal wall bars.
Jemima grabbed at my left arm and pulled me towards her. Louise grabbed at my right. They pulled me in different directions. I didn’t know which way they wanted me to go.
I pushed my back against the bars.
‘You two get her legs,’ Louise said.
One of the girls limped forwards and reached down. I kicked out to make them stop, but the girl with the limp caught my left ankle and pulled.
I fell to the ground.
‘Stop it,’ I cried as a sea of faces began to gather above me, blocking out the light.
Louise’s face came closer – excited, curious, determined.
‘Please leave me alone,’ I begged.
‘Shut up,’ Jemima said, removing my shoe.
‘Get off me,’ I cried.
Jemima shoved my sock in my mouth. My cries were muffled by the cloth.
The faces above peered closer, a ceiling of excited expressions.
I felt my pretty yellow dress being pushed up my legs. Cool air found its way to my thighs.
‘Do it, do it, do it,’ a few voices began to chant.
Do what? I wanted to scream.
The chatter was almost deafening. The nervous giggles were fanning my fear.
I thrashed my head trying to see into their faces. I needed to know what I’d done, and I would never do it again.
I would promise.
The chanting got louder. ‘Do it, do it, do it.’
Clumsy little fingers pinched my skin as they grabbed for my knickers.
The faces got closer.
I tried to move, but there was nowhere to go. I was cocooned in a web of faces peering down at me.
The chanting was louder in my ear as the heads came closer and closer, suffocating me.
‘Do it, do it, do it.’
I wanted to cover my eyes and my ears.
The stubby fingers pulled at my panties. The elastic moved down my thigh. The fabric was gathered at my knees.
The chanting suddenly stopped. For a second I was relieved. They were going to let me up now. They were going to let me go.
‘Look, look, she has a willy!’ Louise screamed.
The first laugh was nervous, unsure and then another joined in, and then another.
‘I told you, didn’t I?’ Louise cried triumphantly.
The laughter grew louder. Even louder than the chants.
The faces swam before me as heat flooded my face.
I didn’t know what a willy was, but somehow it sounded wrong.
The laughter was booming into my head.
Louise’s face came closer to mine.
‘You’re a little girl with a willy,’ she said, and the laughter exploded.
My tummy began to swim, and I tried to cry out against the cloth.
I just wanted to make it stop.
‘Little girls don’t have willies,’ Jemima cried.
The laughter kept growing louder, but then a small voice sounded beside me.
‘Stop it,’ it said.
I wondered if my thoughts had made it out of my head.
‘Stop it, all of you.’
I realised that the voice hadn’t come from me. It had come from the girl with the limp.
I knew it would never end. I knew that I would be pinned to the ground for the rest of my life.
My vision began to blur, and the faces all melted together. I wanted to make it stop, block it out.
I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t close my ears.
The laughter and chanting went on, the faces continued to hover above me long after Mrs Shaw stood me up and led me away.
They never went away, Mummy. Every time I closed my eyes, they were there. Every time my ears held no other sound, they were there. Every time I lay down to sleep, they were there.
And it was THAT DAY I began to hate you, Mummy. For making me a fucking freak.
Seventy-One
Tracy tried to hide her repulsion at the figure that stood before her. She felt she might have walked onto the set of a horror film or a funhouse at the fair.
The thing wore a full-length brown pinafore dress. Two mock pockets adorned the shapeless garment.
Lurid, hairy legs protruded from the square-cut material.
But that wasn’t the part that frightened her.
The hair was short but two tiny pigtails stuck out from the head, held in place by tightly wound plastic bands. It reminded Tracy of bows put in babies’ hair when there was barely anything there to hold.
The make-up was heavy and striking as though applied by a child playing at dress up. All the colour without the skill.
The red slash of lipstick was untidy, giving the face a manic, terrifying expression.
The eyes were alight and bright with excitement.
‘Hello, Tracy, do you remember me?’
The voice was masculine but gentle. Not unkind. It frightened her even more. There was ease, relaxation.
‘Wh-what…?’ she said, shaking her head.
‘It’s me, Graham. You knew me as Maria. You must remember my first day at school all those years ago?’
Tracy swallowed down the fear. It was what she had been afraid of since hearing of Jemima’s murder.
‘I’m… I-I don’t… ’ she spluttered. She had no idea what to say to him, to her, to it.
‘I’ve waited a long time for this.’
The words alone were not what sent terror screaming through Tracy’s veins. It was the cool detachment with which they were delivered. There was a sense of calm, which meant there was no pressure, no rush.
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He turned to the side and she had a good look around.
The rows upon rows of shelves of dolls mocked her from their spectator positions on the wall. Some hung from the ceiling, dangling by a single limb, their dresses fallen over their heads.
An alcove to her left was furnished with glass shelves. The top one held a porcelain tea set. A design of tulips wound its way around cups, saucers, milk and sugar jugs.
Her eyes travelled to the next shelf down and her heart stopped.
Placed beneath the tea set were rocks. They were dark grey, almost black, and jagged as though they’d been torn like a piece of bread from a rock face. All of them were bloody. Two long blonde hairs dangled from the one on the right.
She fought down the nausea as she recalled that Jemima had been blonde.
She tore her gaze away before she threw up.
Looking down she could now see that she had been placed in a wooden contraption similar to the ones used for children. It was formed of mismatched pieces of wood and had been scaled up. Her feet dangled about ten inches from the ground. Beneath her thighs was a strip of unvarnished timber an inch wide that dug into her flesh. A serving tray was wedged against her stomach, forcing her in place. Nails that hadn’t been properly hammered in protruded from most of the joints. Grey masking tape was wrapped around the front right leg. It wasn’t a chair – it was a prison.
Amongst the dolls and the child-sized furniture Tracy felt like Alice in Wonderland.
The figure looked her up and down and smiled. ‘Hello, Tracy doll. We’re going to play a little game – but first I need to get you ready.’
Seventy-Two
‘Stace, start looking for anything to do with the name Graham Studwick,’ Kim said once they were outside the café.
Kim didn’t know just how reliable Elsie’s memory was on the little boy’s name – she had agreed with them that half the school had been involved – but it was all they had right now.
‘Okay, boss, and I have something for you. When Ivor Grogan was imprisoned eight years ago he was found guilty on two counts but not guilty on a third. I’ve got the addresses of all the families, but that third family never got any justice so…’
‘Send all the addresses to Bryant,’ Kim instructed. ‘And ring me the second you have anything on that name.’
She ended the call and looked to Bryant, who was shaking his head.
‘Looks like we were wrong and you were right, guv, about it being a man,’ he offered.
She snorted as she got into the car. ‘Don’t count my chickens too soon, Bryant, because at this stage who the hell knows anything?’
Seventy-Three
The house of Stuart Hawkins lay behind the Timbertree pub at the mouth of a council estate lodged between Cradley Heath and Belle Vale, Halesowen.
The house had net curtains that were mismatched but appeared clean. The cul-de-sac was small with a thin road separating two rows of properties. With no driveways, parking space was at a premium.
Bryant had parked the car in the turning circle at the closed end of the road.
Kim was about to knock on the door when it opened. The man exiting was tall and dressed in navy overalls, with a clear plastic sandwich box tucked under his arm and a set of car keys positioned in his hand. The initial surprise at the near collision was replaced with a frown.
‘Mr Hawkins?’ Bryant asked quickly.
He nodded, but the puzzled expression remained.
Bryant introduced them.
He made a point of looking at his watch. ‘I’m due to start my shift at—’
‘It’s about Ivor Grogan,’ Kim said.
She had his attention. He hesitated for a second before stepping back into the house and holding open the front door.
The hallway led past a lounge and into the kitchen. What had previously been two rooms had been knocked into one and dressed as a dining room.
Stuart Hawkins placed himself on the other side of the breakfast bar and let go of his sandwich box.
‘We understand your daughter had an incident with Ivor Grogan,’ Kim said.
His jaw tensed and his nostrils flared. ‘You mean she was sexually assaulted by the sick scumbag bastard?’
Yes, that as well, she thought, but her description of the event had been intentional. She had wanted to see his reaction.
‘He was found not guilty?’ Kim asked quietly.
‘Only because of the involvement of the hypnotherapist.’
Kim was confused for a second, but she quickly caught up.
‘How old is your daughter, Mr Hawkins?’
‘Thirty-four now,’ he responded. The fatigue in his voice spoke volumes.
‘Recovered memory?’ Kim asked.
Stuart Hawkins nodded. ‘His defence made all kinds of claims of false memory syndrome or some such shit.’ He paused. ‘I mean, if you were gonna give yourself a false memory, would it really be one like that?’
Kim had to agree that he had a point; however she knew that there were professionals out there who had been entrusted with the safety and well-being of members of the general public and somehow used that to their own advantage. She had almost been destroyed by one such person.
‘Trouble is, the memory is there now with no resolution. Ella can’t get justice for what was done to her. She wishes she’d never visited the hypnotherapist, and don’t even get me started on reporting it to the police.’
‘What prompted Ella to go to the therapist in the first place?’ Kim asked.
‘She couldn’t come to terms with the loss of her mother. She was fifteen when Trish died, and I could have probably handled it better. Ten years later she’s still sleeping around, shoplifting, drinking heavily and even she didn’t know why. After a few months with a psychologist he suggested she visit the hypnotherapist. About a year later she recalled the details of the assault.’
‘May I ask…?’
‘She was eleven years old, and it happened at the swimming baths,’ he stated matter-of-factly. Kim realised he still dealt with it as though it had happened to someone else. If he considered the detail of what he’d just said in relation to his child, she assumed he wouldn’t be quite as calm.
‘How is she now?’ she asked.
‘Still sleeping around and drinking heavily if you want the truth. Before she recalled the memory she was doing it and didn’t know why, and now she’s doing it to forget what she found out. A bit fucked up, don’t you think?’
‘Do you think it will make any difference to her that Ivor Grogan is dead?’ Bryant asked. His identity had been announced on the news the previous evening.
He shook his head. ‘Not to her, but it does to me and before you ask, no it wasn’t me that got him. If I had I’d admit it and do the time. Happily.’
‘Mr Hawkins, that’s—’
‘You got kids?’ he asked Bryant suddenly. ‘Girls?’
‘One,’ Bryant answered.
Stuart nodded. ‘Then don’t pretend to disagree with me because you’ve got your work clothes on.’
He turned back to Kim.
‘Inspector, if I’d done it I’d be able to look my child in the eye again. I’d shake the hand of the man who did. I’ll bet he’s a father too, and he showed more guts than me.’
Kim heard the bitterness. And the guilt. Had Stuart Hawkins exacted revenge for his daughter while also assuaging his guilt? He hadn’t been able to prevent the assault on his child and he had been less than perfect when he’d lost his wife.
The same person had killed both Ivor and Larry, of that she was sure… but the man in front of her had motive only for Ivor.
Kim felt the phone vibrating in her back pocket as Stuart Hawkins picked up his lunch box.
She nodded her thanks and headed back out the door.
‘What’ve you got, Stace?’ she answered.
‘The name of a social worker you might like to meet,’ Stacey answered.
‘Dealings with Graham Studwick?’ Kim cla
rified.
‘Yeah, boss, the one that took him away when his mum died.’
‘Good work, Stace. Send it to my phone, and keep digging on the name. We need all the information we can get.’
Bryant appeared beside the car as she ended the call.
‘Didn’t really give us a lot, eh?’ Bryant said
‘What it does tell us, Bryant, is that Ivor Grogan had been getting away with abusing kids for years.’
Seventy-Four
Tracy knew that she’d been drugged again. The thing had given her a drink. She had refused, and then his face had changed. The gentle eyes had been suffused with rage and his jaw had been set.
She had felt the danger as he had taken steps towards her, but still she had refused to drink.
He had moved behind her and yanked her head back so quickly that Tracy thought her neck would snap. Her mouth had fallen open with shock and that had been the only advantage he’d needed.
She could feel the drug travelling around her bloodstream, injecting its lethargy into her flesh. The muscles in her body felt as though they were dissolving away from her bones. Every ounce of her strength had been zapped, and she could barely lift her head.
Through the haze she heard the bang of the door above. Her heart hammered in her chest. She knew she couldn’t fight him with her muscles melting away.
She wondered if she could find the strength to talk to him, beg for her life. Had Jemima begged for hers?
Tracy wanted to scream out that she had tried to help, but knew he would answer, Not quickly enough.
And he would be right.
The tears were hot and salty as they fell onto her cheeks, and she knew she was crying for both of them. They’d been children, stupid little children who could never have imagined the repercussions of their actions. That their one act of mindless cruelty could impact him so heavily, that the jibes and laughter could shape the person he would become.
And yet they had done the same to her.
But she had been the one, the only one that had tried to help him. She had understood him even then, had known how it felt and had wanted to end his pain.