I shake my head and for a second, I can’t breathe. The thought of him taking my child and me never seeing her again – it’s like the air has been sucked out of me. I try to gasp but I feel as though I’m being gripped around the throat.
‘Oh calm down, for heaven’s sake.’
I manage to take in some air. It wasn’t my first panic attack, I’ve had a few since that night of the party but each time it happens, it still feels like I’m about to die. Slowly, my breaths begin to regulate but now I shake erratically. ‘You saw me that night, while he was raping me. He drugged me and you did nothing and now you sit there and blame me.’
He stares, unsure of what he saw. I can tell he’s thinking about that night as his brow scrunches and he looks beyond me. ‘You weren’t screaming.’
Tom Whittle raped me and my neighbour takes me and my child. Why would I expect him of all people to understand? I had been seeing Tom. I’d met him for a few dates and I’d even kissed him but after that night, school had become hard. I’d suddenly see him everywhere. After a particularly bad day, he cornered me by the gym block. I know I couldn’t prove that he raped me but I still wanted him to know that I knew what had happened. I stood up to him and said those words “you drugged me and you raped me,” but he denied it all, said it was me who lured him into the woods and that I assaulted him, taking advantage because he was drunk. All the time I had a witness and it sickens me to know that that witness was stalking me. I feel double violated. Tom left me shaking in that corridor, so sure that he’d got away with it, and he has. I still haven’t told but there was one person who knew. Omar. He asked me if I was okay and I made him swear not to tell a soul, which then led him to feel that we were closer than we were. Everything is such a mess. No child should have to hear that conversation.
I jolt back into the present and inhale sharply. ‘No, I wasn’t screaming.’ Comments like this is why I didn’t say a word, why I got home to Grant and told him that the evening had been fine even though I staggered up the path and fell through the door, and it’s why I went to school on the Monday and carried on as normal, even though I had the sickest hangover ever on the Sunday from whatever he’d given me.
‘I’m prepared to put all that behind us. Let’s start again.’ He walks to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of Prosecco. After popping the cork, he pours some into two tin mugs and comes back. He places one into my tied-up hands and I manage to loop a finger through the handle. ‘Let’s make a toast to family.’
He bangs his cup against mine and drinks. I sip the liquid, but only a little. The last thing I need is to be even remotely tipsy or worse, get drugged. I saw him pour it straight out of the bottle but I don’t know if he put anything in the cup earlier. Muffled murmuring comes from the bedroom and I feel adrenaline coursing through me. Omar is alive.
‘Before we start our new life, there’s something we have to do.’ He opens the door to the bedroom. ‘Wakey, wakey.’
He’s alive but I know Evan is going to kill him now.
SIXTY
Gina pulled up outside McDonald’s in Stratford-upon-Avon and she ran across the pavement, towards the boats where three officers stood next to a restaurant barge and another moored up boat. Every vessel looked far more luxurious thanFreedomwhich still stood in the boatyard, surrounded by police tape until it could be removed for evidence. A woman peered out of the door in a yellow nightshirt, watching the commotion unfold. Gina went over to one of the uniformed officers. ‘DI Harte from Cleevesford.’
‘PC Blake,’ the young man replied. ‘Raspberry Pi, the boat your colleague was looking for is registered here. It is owned by a Seth Braddock. As you can see, it is missing. I’ve taken the liberty of contacting the council and checking CCTV. This boat left on Monday morning. Although it’s not brilliant, I have a screenshot.’ The officer held his phone up to Gina.
‘That’s Evan Bryson, our suspect. Have you watched the footage?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was there anyone else on the boat?’
‘No. No, only your suspect got on that boat, here.’
‘Thank you, that’s really helpful. Did you see which way it went?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, we have it on camera two more times. It travelled on the Stratford Canal not on the Avon. It runs around twenty-five miles to Kings Norton. We don’t have it on camera after it left Stratford.’
‘Are there any other routes off this canal?’
‘Yes, the Kingswinford Junction leads to the Grand Union Canal. I think that’s about halfway.’
‘Sorry to ask so much so fast.’ Gina hated that her knowledge on boating was so poor but she’d barely had any downtime to research further and neither had her team. ‘How fast do these boats go?’
‘Around three miles an hour, I think. They’re not the fastest.’
‘Thank you.’ She left the officer and hurried to Wyre who had just turned up. ‘The boat has left.’
‘Damn.’ Wyre hurried beside her and they went back to the marina.
‘Hey, DI Harte.’
‘Yes.’ She turned back to the officer. ‘The woman in that boat has been in hers for the past week with her partner. They saw and spoke to your suspect.’
‘I know where he was heading,’ she called.
SIXTY-ONE
The woman who’d introduced herself as Deanna grabbed a coat and buttoned it up, covering her nightshirt. The middle of the night air pinched with a chill. Her partner, a more petite woman, came out of the boat joining Deanna and Gina on the pavement.
