Chapter 20

The safe house was in Durham, not too far from the police station they’d visited on Saturday. Diane drove past the house, which looked to be a flat above a closed shop unit, she suspected the empty shop may be filled with some kind of surveillance gear. The sat nav found a car park nearby, Diane parked in a bay at the back.

“Do you want me to come with you?” She asked Gabbie.

“I don’t want to go en masse, I think that would scare her half to death. If it’s ok I’ll just go with Lucy.”

“That’s sensible, there’s a café over the road, I’ll have a cup of tea, meet me there when you’ve finished, or phone me and I’ll come to you.”

“Thank you,” Gabbie said, then she stepped out of the car and joined Lucy on the pavement, she took her hand, “do you have plenty of tissue’s Lucy?”

“I have many tissues.”

“Good, I think I’ll need them, I don’t know how this is going to pan out at all, she had her daughter stolen away, forever, I don’t know how anyone could cope with something like that.”

They waited for the traffic to clear then crossed the road, DCI Morris had contacted the officer looking after Chelcey, and she opened the door before they had a chance to knock.

“Step right in, don’t wait,” she said as they approached.

Lucy followed Gabbie through the door, the officer closed it as soon as they were inside.

“DCI Morris said you were coming, my name’s Daisy, we’re trying to keep it as informal as possible with Chelcey.”

“I understand, I’m Gabbie, this is my partner Lucy. Chelcey doesn’t know Lucy, and might be wary, but I couldn’t come on my own.”

“Ok, Chelcey is quite cheerful today, all things considered.”

“I’m not here to upset her, I’m here to help her.”

“Great, let’s go upstairs and I’ll put the kettle on. We’ve only got instant coffee, and no milk at the moment, there’s some coming with the next shift change, if you can wait 3 hours.”

“Hahaha, I don’t think we can, we’ve got other people to see today. I’m fine with a glass of water, what about you Lucy?”

“A black coffee will be great, thanks.”

They went upstairs, Daisy entered the sitting room first, “We’ve got some visitors.”

“Oh great, I get so bored with just the same two police ladies all the time,” Chelcey saw Gabbie, “oh my god!!! Gabbie, oh wow, I thought I’d never see you again.”

“How’ve you been Chelcey, I’ve been so worried about you.”

“I’ve been ok, sad you know, I still can’t believe she’s gone, but so’s he, so it’s balanced out. I’m a bit bewildered, we can’t have a funeral, to say goodbye you know, because the police are still doing stuff, so I’m stuck here. The police ladies are lovely, you know, but it’s so quiet without Alexa running around.”

Chelcey finally noticed Lucy, “oh, who’s this?”

“This is Lucy, my girlfriend, and my rock, she’d kept me going these last few days.”

Lucy moved fully into the room and got her first look at Chelcey, then she got the full picture. Chelcey was their age, she must have been 12 when she fell pregnant with Alexa. This is why she’s here with a police guard, otherwise she’d be dumped in a children’s home. Oh god, does that mean, oh shit, Alexa, was she his daughter?

“Girlfriend? I thought you were into boys.”

“Not anymore, been kind of put off boys by a couple of bad experiences.”

“Aye, I know what you mean.”

Daisy came back in the room with the drinks, Lucy used the distraction to pull Gabbie to one side.

“You never said Chelcey was our age.”

“Didn’t I, sorry.”

“Was Alexa his kid?”

“We always assumed she was, Chelcey just appeared one day, mum found her living in an old caravan in the grounds, she wouldn’t talk about herself and went a bit mental when mum suggested we take her to the police, so she just left her in peace and let her work in the house for pocket money, then she got pregnant, so who else could it have been.”

“Shit, was he still abusing Chelcey?”

“Probably not, she looks older than me, so too mature for his tastes.”

Daisy gave Lucy a mug of coffee, it was as awful as she’d imagined it would be, but it was warm and wet, and gave her something to do as her mind was processing just how appallingly twisted Gabbie’s family life had been.

Chelcey talked to Gabbie about school and life with Lucy’s family, then Gabbie brought up the subject of money.

“Do you have a bank account Chelcey?”

“No, why? I’ve never needed one.”

“You will, because when you get a job you’ll have to be paid into a bank account. That’s how life works now.”

“Where will I work? I’ve got no skills, I’ve not been to school since I was little, I’ve been living on my own since mum disappeared.”

Daisy broke in, “when did your mum disappear Chelcey?”

“It was a bit before Alexa was born, maybe a year. I ran away and ended up in the woods behind the big house.”

“How old were you then?” Daisy asked, she turned to Gabbie, “thank you so much for coming, she’s refused point blank to talk about herself.”

“I was still at Primary school, St Bede’s, the one near the Tesco Express.”

Gabbie did some quick maths, “Alexa was three, wasn’t she?”

“Not quite, she’d be three next month.”

Good god, Chelcey wasn’t their age, she was 14 years old at the most.

“Sorry Chelcey, I need to make a couple of calls from downstairs with Gabbie and Lucy, will you be ok up here for a few minutes.”

“I’ll be fine.”

There was a rear exit to the flat with an external staircase.

“This way I can get into the ground floor without anyone seeing me on the street,” Daisy told them as she produced a set of keys for the trio of locks on the steel reinforced back door.

Downstairs clearly used to be a takeaway of some kind, all the equipment was still there, and it smelt of stale cooking fat and spices. The tiny back office now contained a police computer and radio, along with a CCTV recorder.

“I went to St Bedes,” Gabbie said, “I don’t remember Chelcey being in my year.”

“I’m going to do a couple of enquiries and phone the school, my guess is that poor girl is only 14,” Daisy said.

The girls watched as Daisy accessed the police database and typed in a couple of queries.

While the searches ran she phoned St Bedes and spoke to the school administrator, making notes in her notebook as she listened.

Eventually she sat back and sighed.

“Chelcey had been at the school for a few months at the end of Year 5, she attended two weeks in Year 6 then disappeared, they made enquiries but couldn’t contact mum, so she was reported to the education authority as missing, the education authority did nothing, because mum was a traveller, she’d moved up and down the country all her life, Chelcey’s listed address is a caravan park just outside the village. Chelcey disappeared from school 4 years ago, she’s just 14, she’d have been 11 when she had Alexa. Because her mum was a known itinerant nobody bothered to look for her or Chelcey, so she slipped through the cracks.”

“I’ll bet you the contents of my purse that my dad got Chelcey pregnant, and I’m almost as sure that you’ll find Chelcey’s mum, what’s her name by the way?”

“Rosa, Rosa Horton.”

“I’m sure you’ll find Rosa somewhere in the woods behind the house.”

“Goodness, you could be right. Just in case I want to match that bet, how much do you have in your purse.”

Gabbie took out a banker’s draft for £1,235,950.

“Ahhh, I don’t think I’ll take you up on the bet. Do you always carry that around with you?”

“I wish! No, this is for Chelcey, it’s my dad’s life insurance money, I don’t want it, so she can have it, she deserves it. I thought she was my age, but as she’s only 14, I think we need to put other plans in place, we need to find someone who can look after her, someone who’ll show her some kindness, and someone who won’t try to steal this money.”

“I’ll phone mum,” Lucy said, “she’ll know what to do.”

“Diane is such a hero.”

“Is she nearby?” Daisy asked, Lucy said she was, “great, tell her to go round the side of the bakers at the end of the road, you can go stand on the street and bring her in here.”

A minute later Diane squeezed herself into the little office.

“So,” Lucy started, “in an exciting turn of events, we’ve found out Chelcey, who everyone thought was 16, is only 14, she went missing from a local primary school 4 years ago and nobody seemed to be overly concerned about it. She said her mum disappeared, so she went to live in the woods and found the caravan behind Gabbie’s house. Gabbie is sure her dad fathered Alexa.”

“What’s the plan of action?”

“Well, I’m going to pass this to DCI Morris, they need to be looking for an adult’s body as well as children, and we need to find someone to care for Chelcey, because she’s extremely vulnerable.”

“Right,” Diane said, all business now, “as much as I love my growing family, I can’t take another daughter on, but I think I know who can, would it be ok for Chelcey to leave the county?”

“I think so, but that’s Children’s Services decision, then again, they’ve not been too concerned about her so far.”

“Right, I need to make a few calls, can I use this office?”

“Of course,” Daisy answered, “we’ll go see how Chelcey is, use the fire escape, the door on the first floor will be open.”

Back upstairs Chelcey had turned the TV on and was watching Neighbours, she turned it off as Gabbie came back in the room and sat in the armchair opposite.

“Chelcey, do you know who fathered Alexa?”

“Oh yes, it was your dad.”

‘Did he, you know, do it often?”

“He did it a lot for a while, then he stopped.”

“Did he ever ... hurt you?”

“Like hit me and stuff?”

“Yes, like that.”

“Sometimes, but only when I deserved it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like if I did stuff wrong, once I put too much butter on his sandwich, he whipped me a lot that time, but it was my fault.”

Gabbie felt sick, this poor girl was broken, he’d damaged her so much she didn’t realise what he did to her was so very wrong.

Lucy got a message on her phone, she checked it then spoke to Gabbie, “I need to speak to mum.”

Diane was tapping an email into her phone as Lucy entered the office, “oh brilliant, be with you in a sec.”

She pressed send and looked up, “ok Lucy, how bad is she, because I can’t see a girl as young as that coping well with losing a child.”

“Well, at first, she seemed ok, almost like nothing had happened, but what we’ve just heard makes me think she needs a lot of help, and I mean a lot.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ok, where to start, right, the baby, it’s his, she’s confirmed it, but it’s the other stuff, Gabbie asked her if he’d ever hurt her, Chelcey’s response, only when I deserved it, then she tells us he whipped her for putting too much butter on his bread, but it’s ok because she deserved it. That’s not something a normal, well person would say, surely.”

“Mmmm, that’s what I thought, ok, one more call and I’ll come up and see her”

Lucy touched her mum’s shoulder, “thank you mum, for everything, I feel like I’ve caused you so much hassle these last few days.”

“Well, this is the first hassle since you were born, or should I say since we took over your care, so I don’t feel put upon, and Gabbie is such a lovely girl, I actually enjoy helping her.”

“So do I, she gives me a warm feeling inside just looking at her, that’s love isn’t it, proper love.”

“Yes, that’s true love, it’s what I felt when I first saw you in Judy’s arms, I was so jealous you know, I had a son, Judy, the scatter-brained tearaway had a beautiful daughter, then we got to look after you each time she went on a bender, or to Amsterdam or Prague to shoot her pornos, then I got to keep you, apart from the horrendous loss of Judy, when I realised we could keep you, that was the happiest day of my life. Seeing the love you hold for Gabbie, that makes me just as happy. Now if I can help this Chelcey girl, that will make us all happy, I hope.”

When Lucy returned to the room Gabbie was sitting with Chelcey, Chelcey was crying, Daisy took Lucy to one side.

“I’ve just spoken to our counselling team, they’re sending someone over, Gabbie has made such a breakthrough with Chelcey, she’s talking, none of it is good, but she literally knows where the bodies are buried. A counsellor will come and talk to Chelcey and we’ll make some recordings.”

“Oh wow, so how does she know where the bodies are?”

“You’re not going to believe this, he made her dig the graves, she had no clue it was wrong, she’s actually made notes, we think she may have made a map.”

“Oh Jesus, that poor girl.”

Lucy’s phone pinged, she checked her message, “oh perfect, Diane’s sorted something, oh that’s my mum, she’s called Diane. She said she’d like a word with us both.”

Daisy looked over at Gabbie and motioned they were going out for a minute, Gabbie indicated she was fine.

Diane was making a few notes when they arrived, “sorry, we didn’t introduce ourselves before,” she said, “I’m Diane Temple.”