Saving Sophie Read online

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’ Her streaming nose mixed with the tears, both running into her mouth. Sophie swept a sleeved arm across it then ran from the room.

  Karen, shocked and not fully recovered, could only stare at the empty space where Sophie had stood. She shouldn’t have mentioned the picture. Not yet. Not until she had a firm idea of its significance. Added to her finding earlier, the two things were connected, she was sure of it. But how they were linked she had no idea. Now it would have to wait for another day.

  Mike’s expression remained fixed – his clenched teeth tightening his jaw muscles, creating hard lines. It would be a while now before he relaxed, and she needed him to be calm so that she could be. She’d give it ten minutes, then begin the process of softening over the edges to make the hours before bedtime bearable.

  Hands, rough, tight around her neck. A knee to her lower back, her body squashed hard against the driver’s seat – shards of white light detonating like fireworks in her head as her face smashed against the headrest. His breath in her ear, his voice deep, a whisper: I’m going to have fun fucking you.

  Karen bolted upright, clasped one hand to her throat. Can’t swallow, can’t breathe.

  ‘Hey. Shh … you’re dreaming.’ Mike’s hand touched her arm.

  ‘Get off, leave me alone!’

  ‘It’s okay, Karen, it’s me, it’s Mike. Shh.’

  The man continued to whisper hushed threats while holding her tight with one strong arm, chest pressed into her back. You better not go to the cops. It was your idea remember; you wanted this… His other hand was in her hair, twisting the curls around his fingers, pulling gently at first, then snapping her head back. Pain. The smell. Constricted. Enclosed. I can’t breathe.

  ‘Karen. Karen.’ There was an explosion of light.

  ‘What’s the matter, what’s happening?’ Karen blinked, the brightness of the main bedroom light stinging her tired eyes.

  ‘You were having a nightmare,’ Mike’s soothing voice. ‘You haven’t had one like that for ages. You okay?’ He sat on the edge of the bed, concerned eyes searching hers.

  ‘I was reliving it … It was awful.’ Karen relaxed her shoulders; tear-filled eyes met Mike’s. ‘Sorry. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Nothing to be sorry for.’ He touched her arm, gently circling his thumb on her bare skin.

  ‘There is.’ Karen pushed the duvet off her legs, scrunching it up towards Mike, swung out of bed and walked unsteadily to the en suite. She wouldn’t usually close the door, but now she did. She wanted to hide the tears from Mike. Her legs were shaky; she shut the toilet seat, sat on the cool lid. It had been a while since she’d dreamt of him. Of it. The remnants of the fear remained in her bloodstream, the adrenaline causing the shakes. In reality the attack had only lasted minutes; seemed a lot longer, though. At one point, she’d thought her life was over. The feeling of hope slipping away with each forced breath. But she’d fought back at the last moment, grabbing her fallen shoe and shoving its six-inch heel hard into his groin. She’d escaped from her car, her temporary prison, before he could finish whatever he’d intended. She hadn’t been seriously harmed. Not physically, like Erin had. How had Erin felt in those last moments of her life? Knowing it really was game over. Don’t think about it, clear your mind.

  It was inevitable the nightmares would start up again now. The counsellor had assured her that the dreams would eventually lessen, but might cluster in times of stress, or if she was bottling up her emotions. Tick. And tick. Great. She’d have to start her sleeping medication again. She thought she’d progressed from those.

  ‘You coming back to bed?’ Mike’s voice interrupted the one inside her head.

  ‘Yep, just coming.’ Karen tore off a piece of toilet roll, wiped her nose.

  ‘Turn the light off again, will you?’

  She flicked the switch.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Hey Gorgeous,

  Hope you’ve had a good day, and didn’t work too hard. I’ve missed you.

  I love that I can always talk to you, like, properly – in-depth, sharing my deepest thoughts. Weird that we have so much in common given the age gap. Apart from our music tastes – you’re on your own with some of those groups!

  I’ve had a tough day today, thinking about Dad. I’ve been re-reading his letters, you know how I get – it makes me angry, yet I still have to do it, still put myself through the torture.

  Having you helps, though. Thoughts of being with you keep me going, bring me through the darkness to a better place. You are my shining light, guiding me to my future. Our future.

  There’s only one barrier to get over, before we can be together, forever.

  But, you love me, so that’s not going to be a problem.

  Message back – I need you tonight.

  xxxxxx

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Sophie

  Wednesday

  She was there on her own. Her dad was at work, her mother incapable of making the journey. Francesca, her concession manager, hadn’t been impressed that she’d asked for time off. She’d explained the reason and all she got was, ‘Couldn’t you arrange it on one of your days off, or during your college week?’ The cheek. You couldn’t exactly say no to the police.

  Sitting in a plastic chair, like the ones in schools, she fidgeted, shifting her weight to relieve the discomfort of the hard edges sticking into the backs of her thighs. Sophie cracked her knuckles one by one, causing the decrepit-looking officer behind the desk to give her sideways glances of disapproval. Why were they making her wait? They were the ones who’d wanted her to come here. To make a statement; question her further. Her stomach flipped. At least last time when she’d been asked questions she was able to truthfully say she couldn’t remember anything. How was she going to play this now? She wasn’t ready to tell them what she thought she might’ve seen. Not yet.

  The officer turned to face her square on, peering over the top of his bifocals. Her face flushed; she lowered it quickly, in an attempt to escape his stare. The heat made her skin prickle. Great. I look guilty before they ask me a single question. In her peripheral vision, she saw him go around the desk. He was coming to get her.

  ‘If you could follow me please, Miss Finch.’ He motioned for her to get up. Her whole body pulsated; she could feel it moving, rocking gently forward and back. What if her legs gave way when she stood? ‘Okay?’ His tone, firm. He was staring again.

  ‘Yes. Sorry.’

  She followed him down a narrow corridor. Stopping abruptly, he rapped the knuckle of his forefinger on a closed door. Sophie noted the sign: a sliding one that read ‘Interview Room – Engaged’. Presumably, if you slid it across it would say ‘Vacant’. Definitely more apt in her case, although, not quite as vacant as she’d been when she’d previously met DS Mack. How was she going to cope inside this room? How could she avoid telling them about the pictures? A muffled voice indicated that they should enter.

  ‘Hello, Sophie isn’t it?’ The woman smiled as she stood and pulled a chair out for Sophie.

  ‘Yes.’ She sat, scanning the small room. It wasn’t like the interview rooms she’d seen in police shows on the telly, where there was a single table with two plastic chairs either side of it, no natural light and one of those two-way mirrors. This one had soft chairs, a small window and, thankfully, no mirror. Sophie’s shoulders relaxed.

  ‘Okay, Sophie, I’m Detective Inspector Wade, you’ve met Detective Sergeant Mack already.’ She directed a hand towards the man who’d taken her mobile phone. ‘We asked you here to make a formal statement regarding the night of Saturday March seventh, the night Erin Malone was murdered.’

  Sophie flinched.

  ‘I know you gave an initial statement to DS Mack; we want to now formalise it, plus, see if you’ve remembered anything further. We’ve interviewed other people who were with Erin that night.’ She offered what looked to be a reassuring smile. She didn’t add ‘so, no need to worry, then’,
which would’ve reassured her more. ‘And now I would like to hear from you. Can I make sure you’re happy to continue without a parent here?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine with that.’ No choice even if she wasn’t.

  DS Mack reached across the table to the recording device, which sat like an elephant in the room, while DI Wade went through the formalities.

  Sophie sucked in a breath and watched the recording light flash as it awaited her statement.

  The interview lasted less than thirty minutes. She had stuck rigidly to her story, that she couldn’t remember much past seven in the evening. The flashbacks, the horrifying awareness of being there, with Erin, the emailed pictures – all left undisclosed. The thought of verbalising it, of showing the humiliating pictures, was far too much to contemplate. She needed to bury it deep inside her mind so she didn’t have to deal with it, what the photos could mean.

  She’d be in so much trouble if she told the police and they realised she’d known about the pictures since Sunday. Withholding evidence. She had good reason though, didn’t she? He wouldn’t be stupid enough to send them from an email that could be traced to him. So there was no point in showing them, they wouldn’t be of much help. She rubbed her stomach in an attempt to relieve the sick feeling.

  So, why did she feel so guilty for not telling them?

  She’d been surprised at the direction the interview had taken. Once they hadn’t gleaned much from her, they’d moved on, talking about how unusual stranger attacks were, and saying the perpetrator was generally someone known to the victim. Then DI Wade rattled off the names of everyone from her group of friends and gave a short bio, like they were up for the same job at an interview. She and DS Mack asked her questions about who Erin may have been seeing, if she knew of her past boyfriends, if any of the guys out that night had ever been involved with her. Any arguments.

  Weird. They were obviously suggesting that one of her friends had something to do with Erin’s murder.

  Sophie’s mind strayed back to the time of her mum’s attack. The police had believed the attacker to be someone known to her too. Her mum had been adamant she’d never set eyes on him before, but Sophie distinctly remembered them pushing her, asking for a list of men she’d supervised, past and present – thinking someone with a criminal history was the most likely candidate. It was the start of her mum’s problems. The family’s problems. Things hadn’t been the same since.

  If they thought it was someone Erin knew, and the police had also said this to her friends when they’d been interviewed, who was going to be the first person they suspected?

  The last person who saw Erin.

  Which, in Sophie’s mind at least, was looking more and more likely to be her.

  As she walked towards her car, Sophie turned. The feeling of being watched set her skin crawling. She’d had the same feeling since Monday. A few police officers walked towards the station door, a woman and child crossed the path behind her. No one else was visible. Maybe they were concealing themselves, ducked behind a parked car, hidden behind one of the walls. I’m overreacting. She quickened her pace, the fight-or-flight adrenaline response kicking in. She reached the car, gave one more furtive glance around before jumping in. Her shaky hand dropped the keys as she tried to push it into the ignition. They fell into the footwell. She bent to retrieve them, then righted herself.

  A face pressed up against her window. Pale, wide-eyed and staring.

  An involuntary scream escaped.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  DI Wade

  ‘What did you make of that then, Mack?’ Lindsay handed him a coffee and sat on the edge of her desk with hers in both hands. She rarely sat in a chair, preferring the elevated position of the desk, or standing, so that she could see all around the incident room.

  Mack sat back in his chair, stretching his legs out. He looked up at Lindsay, his eyebrows drawn. ‘Well, she was fidgety, avoided eye contact, nervy. But, I don’t know whether I’d put that down to her being in a police station on her own, her friend having been murdered, you know – it’s a lot for a seventeen-year-old to cope with. Don’t you think?’

  ‘It is. But …’ Lindsay pulled her shoulders up towards her ears. ‘I don’t know, something was off, I could sense she wasn’t telling us something.’

  ‘Ah, well. If you can sense it, you must be right. You could sniff out a cod in a fish shop.’ Mack snorted, coffee spilling over the side of the cup as he laughed at his own joke.

  ‘I think that’s a compliment,’ Lindsay said, raising herself from the desk. ‘Right, come on, let’s go through the other interview transcripts from the Saturday night group, see if we can spot any inconsistencies now we have Sophie’s statement. I’m still thinking that Daniel Pearce was jumpy, too, and he was sticking so closely to the story that Amy Howard gave. Like they’d rehearsed it.’

  ‘Yes, Boss.’ Mack pulled his legs back and sat up straight. He grabbed the file.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Sophie

  ‘Shit!’ Sophie swung the car door open, smashing into Dan. ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Did I frighten you?’ Dan rubbed his hip.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Sorry, just wanted to catch you before you drove off.’

  ‘Well, now you have my attention.’ Sophie got out, shut the driver’s door, then leant back against it. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was going to ask you the same.’

  Sophie narrowed her eyes. His face was ashen; dark skin beneath his eyes gave the impression he’d been beaten up. Perhaps he had.

  ‘I was asked to give a statement. You?’

  ‘What did you tell them?’ He ignored her question.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Don’t screw around with me, Soph. Just tell me.’ His lips tightly closed, his eyebrows drawn so close they almost touched. He leaned in closer.

  Sophie put both hands up, palms facing him. ‘Hey, back off. Get out of my personal space.’ She gave a laugh, her attempt at being light-hearted. But she didn’t feel it. The laugh sounded nervous, even to her.

  He shook his head and turned away, but stood his ground. ‘I need to know what you told them. What they asked you.’ His tone, mellower now. Calmer. ‘They’re pointing the finger at me, aren’t they?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ A stupid question, given what they’d implied during her interview.

  ‘They questioned me like I was a criminal, Soph.’ He took a step back, pushing his hands into his jeans pockets. ‘Went on about it being likely that Erin’s killer was known to her—’

  ‘Yeah, they were saying the same to me, too,’ Sophie admitted.

  ‘They think it was one of us.’

  ‘Uh, I don’t know they were necessarily suggesting that. Maybe just that we could know who it was if Erin had?’

  ‘Did you tell them, you know … about me and Erin?’

  ‘No, Dan. That was ages ago, I think they were concerned about the more recent boyfriends Erin had, not some drunken one-night stand she had with you.’

  The deep creases in his forehead softened. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No need to thank me, it’s not like I was keeping it from them to protect you, only I didn’t think it was necessary, that’s all. You two have been – sorry, were – fine with each other. We often laughed about it, actually.’

  ‘Oh, cheers.’

  ‘Anyway, what you doing following me around?’

  ‘Not following.’ Indignation showed in his eyes. ‘I saw you drive this way, knew you were obviously headed for the station, so walked up to see if I could catch you.’

  ‘Grill me, you mean.’

  ‘Sorry. This whole thing’s making me all edgy.’ A shudder shook his body, confirming the truth of what he’d just said.

  ‘You should be careful. Makes you look like you’ve got something to hide.’ Sophie fixed her eyes on his. He kept the contact, not blinking. The moment stretched. It was like they were both
afraid to be the first to blink, or look away.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ Sophie broke his stare and, defeated in that round, turned to get back in her car.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Dan held the door, preventing her from shutting it.

  Sophie huffed. ‘About what, Dan?’ Her tone displayed her irritation.

  ‘About all of this shit! Are we going to all get together … talk it through?’

  ‘I don’t know, I guess so. I’ve only seen Amy. And you, obviously. Do a group message, see what you can arrange. Well, actually, you’ll have to Facebook me. They’ve still got my mobile.’ She indicated back towards the police station with a wave of her hand, then pulled on the inside of the door. Dan let go.

  In her rear-view mirror, she watched him, his figure silhouetted against the backdrop of darkening clouds. Even when she drove away, he remained there, standing still, arms at his side, staring after her car. At the traffic lights she turned left, and out of his field of vision. Only then did she relax. DI Wade had planted the seed of doubt. Had it been her intention? Turn them against each other? This was an awful situation. Not trusting her own friends.

  But, she realised, she didn’t even trust herself.

  Sophie pulled up outside the house, having to park on the road as her dad’s Land Rover was blocking the driveway. Oh, so he couldn’t go to the police station with her because he was working, but he’d managed to pay a visit back home. She really had angered him last night; clearly, he wanted nothing to do with her.

  She was on her own in this mess.

  Not wanting to go inside and find out why he was home, Sophie remained in the car. What was she going to do about all of this? Maybe Dan was right, they should all get together, the group from Saturday – thrash it out, see what they could come up with. But what if one of them was involved; did kill Erin, and was now sending her the pictures? She couldn’t imagine what they’d be trying to gain by doing that, though. No. It seemed impossible it could be one of them. She knew them, had known them for years, gone to school with them. Apart from Amy, who she’d later met at work, and Dan, who she’d met through Amy. But they were sound. Surely, none of them could be doing this.