could be her last few hours before the shit hit the fan and she wanted to sink into the darkness of them as much as she could. What would the others say when they heard? Everything was about to change. No one would keep her secrets for her.
She should never have got into the car. She should never have gone there and she should never have had sex with him. So many things she shouldn’t have done in such a short space of time.
Amy opened her eyes and saw the dull brick outskirts of Edenbridge falling away.
“Where are we going? I need to get home.”
“Somewhere nice, you’ll like it.”
“I have to go home though—please, can you just turn the car around?”
“That would spoil the surprise.”
His voice was once the source of such dizzying excitement. That voice, her hanging up the phone with seconds to spare as Bob’s key clattered in the lock. Leaving her so flustered she had to skirmish to her room to hide.
Now the voice just sounded mean and patronizing.
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning to face him but unable to make eye contact. “I don’t want to spoil whatever the surprise is, but I really have to go home. You can just leave me here if you have to, I can walk.”
“I can’t do that, Amy,” he said, and turned to flash her the briefest of smiles.
A lex woke early, a surge of adrenaline forcing her to sit upright before she had a chance to slip back under. Her bed was dry for once and she checked her emails on the phone as she sat on the loo.
As soon as she opened the inbox she saw Matt’s name. The email had been sent at 5:32 a.m., presumably after he returned home from a nightshift. Where was home, Alex wondered, realizing she knew so little about Matt’s life. His name in her inbox seemed so right, barely exciting…just…normal.
From: Matthew Livingstone
To: Alex Dale
Subject: Amy
Hey, Alex,
Good to talk to you yesterday, forgot to ask what you’re up to, sorry about that.
Like I said, I have to be careful, but here are some bits and pieces I found to get you started. Please keep this confidential, I’m trusting you with this.
It seems like there were three main suspects:
1. The stepdad, who you know about. Robert Stevenson, known as Bob, born 22-01-1962. You know as well as I do that it’s almost always someone who knows the victim. It’s more often birth dads than stepdads, depending on who you listen to, but the stepdad is always going to be in the frame unless he has a cast-iron alibi. They would have bugged him, followed him, gone through every job he’d had, spoken to ex-girlfriends, all sorts. Looks like he was squeaky clean, because they made a big thing of publicly clearing him later, but I suspect the damage was done and most people thought “no smoke without fire.”
2. A neighbor in the road Amy lived in, John Rochester, known as Jack. Local nonce, Peeping Tom, long track record of low-level child abuse, taking pictures in parks, flashing, that kind of thing. He was eliminated as a suspect because he was physically too frail to have assaulted a healthy young girl. The Sex Offenders Register wasn’t around in 1995, but he’s on it now.
3. Amy used to go to a church youth club. Obviously with that group we hauled everyone in that was involved: a reverend and quite a few volunteers from the church. It came to nothing but the investigations turned up some unspent convictions for one of the old boys and he was booted out. There wasn’t anything to tie him to Amy, plus he couldn’t drive and it’s unlikely Amy was abducted on foot or more people would have seen her.
She had a boyfriend, but he was cleared early on. They’d not even slept together, all very innocent.
Doesn’t look like there was anything to find along Amy’s walk home. No witnesses once she left her friends in the road outside the school and nothing in her room that offered any clues (although the photos will exist somewhere, but I really can’t look for them).
There was a lot less CCTV
She should never have got into the car. She should never have gone there and she should never have had sex with him. So many things she shouldn’t have done in such a short space of time.
Amy opened her eyes and saw the dull brick outskirts of Edenbridge falling away.
“Where are we going? I need to get home.”
“Somewhere nice, you’ll like it.”
“I have to go home though—please, can you just turn the car around?”
“That would spoil the surprise.”
His voice was once the source of such dizzying excitement. That voice, her hanging up the phone with seconds to spare as Bob’s key clattered in the lock. Leaving her so flustered she had to skirmish to her room to hide.
Now the voice just sounded mean and patronizing.
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning to face him but unable to make eye contact. “I don’t want to spoil whatever the surprise is, but I really have to go home. You can just leave me here if you have to, I can walk.”
“I can’t do that, Amy,” he said, and turned to flash her the briefest of smiles.
A lex woke early, a surge of adrenaline forcing her to sit upright before she had a chance to slip back under. Her bed was dry for once and she checked her emails on the phone as she sat on the loo.
As soon as she opened the inbox she saw Matt’s name. The email had been sent at 5:32 a.m., presumably after he returned home from a nightshift. Where was home, Alex wondered, realizing she knew so little about Matt’s life. His name in her inbox seemed so right, barely exciting…just…normal.
From: Matthew Livingstone
To: Alex Dale
Subject: Amy
Hey, Alex,
Good to talk to you yesterday, forgot to ask what you’re up to, sorry about that.
Like I said, I have to be careful, but here are some bits and pieces I found to get you started. Please keep this confidential, I’m trusting you with this.
It seems like there were three main suspects:
1. The stepdad, who you know about. Robert Stevenson, known as Bob, born 22-01-1962. You know as well as I do that it’s almost always someone who knows the victim. It’s more often birth dads than stepdads, depending on who you listen to, but the stepdad is always going to be in the frame unless he has a cast-iron alibi. They would have bugged him, followed him, gone through every job he’d had, spoken to ex-girlfriends, all sorts. Looks like he was squeaky clean, because they made a big thing of publicly clearing him later, but I suspect the damage was done and most people thought “no smoke without fire.”
2. A neighbor in the road Amy lived in, John Rochester, known as Jack. Local nonce, Peeping Tom, long track record of low-level child abuse, taking pictures in parks, flashing, that kind of thing. He was eliminated as a suspect because he was physically too frail to have assaulted a healthy young girl. The Sex Offenders Register wasn’t around in 1995, but he’s on it now.
3. Amy used to go to a church youth club. Obviously with that group we hauled everyone in that was involved: a reverend and quite a few volunteers from the church. It came to nothing but the investigations turned up some unspent convictions for one of the old boys and he was booted out. There wasn’t anything to tie him to Amy, plus he couldn’t drive and it’s unlikely Amy was abducted on foot or more people would have seen her.
She had a boyfriend, but he was cleared early on. They’d not even slept together, all very innocent.
Doesn’t look like there was anything to find along Amy’s walk home. No witnesses once she left her friends in the road outside the school and nothing in her room that offered any clues (although the photos will exist somewhere, but I really can’t look for them).
There was a lot less CCTV
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