Angel

PROLOGUE

She hurt so much. There was so much blood on the sheet and she reached a hand up to pull on the chain that shackled her to the bed every day. She had never felt anything like this before.

Daddy had been so rough with her and she instinctively knew that if he came to her again when he got home from work she would not be able to stand the pain. She didn’t know about death. She didn’t know about anything because Daddy had kept her locked up for all her life.

She felt she wanted to wee and looked at the bucket that was already full at the side of her bed. She fought against the feeling because she knew it would hurt even more if she let her wee go. Eventually, she could wait no longer and clinging on to the chain that allowed her to move as far as the two buckets she dragged herself off the bed.

She bent over the bucket and screamed as the red-hot urine burnt the cuts and scarring inside her. She clung on to the chain letting it bite into her hand, focussing on that pain instead of the burning one.

That was the point when she realised that for the only time since she had taken that first tiny step, she wasn’t connected to the chain. She stared at the handcuff on the end of the rusty links and began to tremble.

She had a vague recollection of Daddy coming to her and looking down at her before he went to work and saying something about no chains today then but she had been so spaced out with the painkillers he had doped her with, the horrific pain they didn’t touch, that his words hadn’t registered.

But now they did.

She managed to pull on three pairs of socks and some pants, pulled her thickest cardigan out of the suitcase that held the few clothes she had and carefully opened her bedroom door.

There was no sound and she went down the stairs one careful step at a time expecting to hear Daddy’s voice at any time. She didn’t know when he would be home from work but she did know fear.

In the small hallway she paused for a moment, listening. The pain washed over her and she knelt down, waiting for it to pass. She moved to the front door but it wouldn’t open. Slowly, she walked towards the kitchen door. It was open and she couldn’t see any movement inside.

The room was empty and she moved, trancelike, towards the back door. She tried to open it but it was locked just like the front door. She knew nothing of keys, of how to unlock doors and she stared wildly around the room unsure of how to get out of the house.

She pushed a chair towards the sink unit and climbed onto it to try and open the window but that too was locked. And then she saw the frying pan on the draining board. She picked it up and hit the window with it. She remembered how glass broke; Daddy had been very angry with her when she had dropped her drinking glass and it had shattered. She hadn’t been given another drink for three days.

Nothing happened with her first tentative strike and she knew she would have to hit it harder and cope with how much that would hurt her. The second hit caused the crack to appear and the third hit sent a large shard flying through and on to the garden outside the window. She smashed some more pieces out and then had to use her hands. She started to crawl through and felt her skin burst open in many places. As she tumbled outside and landed on her back, she lay still for a long time. Internally and externally, the pain was excruciating. She couldn’t move.

When the throbbing temporarily subsided, she placed a hand on the wall and rose to her feet. She didn’t see the bloodied imprint she left on the white painted wall. She knew she had to go, and quickly.

She set off across the fields at the back of the house and didn’t stop until she was too tired and in too much discomfort to go on. It was dark and she was on a small dirt track that ran along the back of some houses. She took advantage of the night sky and bent down for a wee, stifling the moan that involuntarily escaped her.

Most of the gardens had sheds. She tried the first two and couldn’t open the doors but the third one opened with a squeak. She slipped inside and opened the little curtains covering the window. The moonlight gave her vision and she saw a chair with a big cushion on it. She curled up on the chair and slept soundly until the cold woke her.

She then used the cushion to cover her tiny body and slept a little more but as dawn broke, she knew she had to leave her sanctuary. She placed the cushion back in the chair and ignored the blood that was clearly evident. She could do nothing about it.

No one saw her as she left the shed. Her socks were torn and barely covering her soles but she knew nothing of shoes. Daddy only got her socks because he said she couldn’t go out; she had an illness that stopped her being in fresh air.

As she walked along, she thought about the illness. She seemed to be okay. Daddy must have been wrong. Daddy just wanted her to stay in the house.

She walked a little further until she saw a small road with houses on it. At the same time, she was aware of something trickling down her leg and she looked down. There was blood, a lot of blood. She stumbled and cried out.

She moved as quickly as she could and saw a house with a red door.

She crept up to it and listened just in case Daddy knew where she was. She knocked on the door.

BOOK ONE

1995

ANGEL

CHAPTER 1

Lauren stood at the graveside without speaking. This annual pilgrimage on Christmas Eve was almost unbearable for her and she held tightly to Pilot’s hand as he gently squeezed his wife’s fingers, letting her know his understanding was complete.

But it wasn’t.  How could it be complete? She had lost both her parents within a very short of space of time, her mother in particularly horrific circumstances. And Lauren hadn’t known of Amy’s traumatic life until after her death, sheltered from all the details by the love of grandparents and a close-knit Cornish community. To be told that Amy had been raped as a child by the man her mother had eventually married had been hard to hear and had gone some way towards Lauren accepting that the coldness of Amy towards her had been caused by what she had suffered.

It was cold, very cold. There had been the promise of a white Christmas but it hadn’t snowed yet. He hoped it wouldn’t, they were too close to having the baby for complications like snow-blocked roads to enter the equation.

Pilot released her fingers and knelt to place the Christmas wreath on the grave. He stayed in that position for a moment praying quietly under his breath and then lifted his face to his wife. His short dark hair had fallen over his forehead and she leaned forward to stroke it back. His brown eyes showed his love. He stood up slowly and kissed her.

‘Okay?’

She nodded and rubbed the huge stomach that carried their soon- to-be-born first child.

‘I’m fine, just a few twinges from standing for so long. He’s not playing football so much today, but he’s feeling mighty heavy.’

‘He? You’re convinced, aren’t you?’ Pilot said with a smile. ‘It could be a girl, you know.’

She shook her head. ‘Order the blue wallpaper, Pilot, order the blue wallpaper.’

They both looked at the headstone for one last time, the black letters telling them that John and Amy Thornton resided therein and that this was their third Christmas without them. She guessed that in the beginning their love would have been strong, if indeed Amy had ever been capable of real love. But she knew that at the end of John’s life, his love had been for Dawn Lynch.

They visited one other grave at the far side of the cemetery. Lauren’s grandfather Jack had died before she was adopted and she had only ever known Brenda and Ken as her grandparents. But Jack had never been forgotten.

Pilot knelt and placed their second wreath on the grave then stood and pulled Lauren to him.

‘They would all have welcomed this baby, you know.’ He spoke quietly into her blonde hair as he leaned to kiss the top of her head.

She sighed. ‘I know. Such a waste, none of them lived long enough to have a full life. Amy, Dad – both dead at such a young age. And still nobody brought to account for her murder.’

He smiled.  ‘Have faith; one day they’ll get Treverick or whatever he’s calling himself now. He might even be dead. He’s got to be turned sixty, I would have thought. And your Dad managed to pack a lot into his life, whether it was a long one or not.’

She turned to him with a slight frown on her face. ‘He...’ and then she laughed.  ‘Oh, you’re right. Of course, you’re right. Two separate families, twelve books published, Josh and me.’

‘You miss Josh?’

She nodded. ‘I do, but he’s coming over with Dawn after the baby is born.  You know, it was so, so painful when your Mum and Dad and Nan and Granddad sat us down to tell us the full story of Amy and Dad but it answered so many questions and gave us Dawn and Josh. Without Josh, I would have been an only child but now I have a stepbrother who is so like my Dad, it almost breaks my heart. I thought it only happened to other people, this business of one man having two families and managing to keep them apart, but oh no, my Dad became an expert at it.’

He noticed her use of her mother’s Christian name rather than Mum but made no mention of it. Lauren wasn’t healed yet.

‘Your Dad only became expert at it because Dawn knew he had a family before her. She always made him put that first. But for all that, he had a good life.’

She rubbed her stomach again and he looked closely at her. ‘Ready to go?’

She nodded and he took her hand to help her between gravestones. At six feet, he was so much taller than her five and a bit and he helped her further by almost carrying her over the last few yards to the car. The temperature was dropping and both of them shivered, moving quickly.  The comforts of Hillside Cottage seemed infinitely preferable to their present location.

They headed for the iron gates that led to where they had parked the car, neither of them noticing the man in the workman’s overalls who leaned on a spade watching them.

Chapter 2

Occasionally staring out of the window at the view she knew her Dad had loved so much, Lauren moved around the room. Her father’s deliberate choice of this room for his office had been driven by the vista of the garden and even though the room was no longer used as an office, John’s presence was always there to comfort her. The view on this dark night had the added benefit of an outdoor Christmas tree with decorative lights. Mesmerised, she stared at the flashing, twinkling column of light.

Following the death of Amy, Hillside Cottage had passed to Lauren and six months later, shortly after their return from honeymoon, she and Pilot had moved in. They had set aside a small room upstairs for the new baby and the intermittent pains in her lower back told her they would be meeting the child pretty soon.

With a due date of 22 December, he or she was already two days late and she was almost at the point of telling Pilot that the pains were starting to become a little more serious.

‘Cup of tea?’

She heard him call and turned from the window to answer him. The gush of water caused her simply to say,

‘Oh!’

He popped his head around the door and waved a teapot at her. She stood looking down at the floor and he dropped the teapot with a crash.

They arrived at the hospital excited and scared at the same time with Pilot considerably more edgy than Lauren. They had rung his parents, Pat and David, before setting off and had in turn rung Lauren’s grandmother Brenda and her husband Ken who had rung Aunt Freda, so everybody who was important in their lives was at the hospital with them, supporting them by just being there.

By midnight, implacable Freda was attempting to calm down the men folk and Brenda and Pat were biting nails.

Freda sent David and Ken to get coffees and all three women began to talk at once.

‘It’s...’

‘When...’

‘Should…?’

They looked at each other and laughed.

‘This baby will be here when it arrives,’ Freda smiled.  ‘And I’m sure it can’t be much longer now. £1says it’s a girl,’ and she placed a coin on the coffee table.

‘Do you know something we don’t know?’ Brenda asked her sister-in-law, accusation in her voice. Freda had worked for the local doctor for many years of her working life and they had remained very close friends.

‘Certainly not,’ said Freda. ‘Just a feeling.’

‘Well, Lauren thinks it’s a boy.’

‘She’s wrong,’ said Freda firmly. ‘It’s a girl. Do you think they’ll call it Freda?’

The men returned with the coffees to see the women in shrieks of laughter.

‘Is it...?’ David asked. ‘And happy Christmas everybody! It’s Christmas Day!’ He raised a cardboard cup of coffee in salute.  His first grandchild was so very much wanted and to have the birth on Christmas Day itself was very much a plus in his eyes.

The door opened and a midwife came through.

‘Would you like to come and see your grandchild,’ she smiled.

‘What is it?’ Freda asked.

‘The parents will tell you. They’re through here.’

She pushed the door and Pilot was holding the baby. He held it out to his mother.

‘Meet Miss Grace Elizabeth Farmer, our Christmas Day gift. She’s absolutely perfect and weighs in at a stonking 8 lbs 11 ozs.’

Looking slightly dazed, Lauren managed a smile for the people surrounding her bed.

Freda leaned down to kiss her great-niece.

‘Are you sure you want to call her Grace and not Freda? It’s the same number of letters, you know.’

‘Sorry, Aunt Freda,’ Pilot said, ‘Freda Farmer sounded all wrong when we tried it, so we had to discount it and go with Grace.’

The silliness continued until four o’clock in the morning when Lauren was finally left alone with her new-born daughter.

She pulled the plastic crib as close to the bedside as she could get it and lay for a while stroking the tiny head before falling into an exhausted, deep sleep.

In the hospital, car park, a lone figure watched three cars depart.

The following day, Pilot was back at the hospital for three o’clock visiting. Lauren had had a good night’s sleep and looked much improved, her pallor had gone and her skin and eyes were glowing. She was clearly a very happy person.

Her blonde hair was pulled back in a pony-tail and Pilot tugged on it.

‘What’s this then? This isn’t like you!’

She laughed. ‘When it’s loose, Grace clutches on to it when she’s feeding. It’s better like this at the moment.’

‘So, how is our little sweetheart?’ he asked, bending over to kiss Lauren.

‘She’s absolutely fine,’ Lauren said drily, ‘but she hasn’t got stitches where no stitches should ever expect to be had. I have.’

‘You poor darling’ Pilot sympathised. ‘Can I hold her?’

Lauren laughed. ‘She’s ours. We basically can hold her whenever we want. That’s how it works. Just keep her blanket round her. She had a visit from Father Christmas this morning. He brought her that little pink teddy in her cot. Oh, and the good news is we can go home tomorrow morning.’

Pilot picked up his daughter and moved around the maternity ward, chatting quietly to her all the time. Lauren watched for a while, smiling, and then drifted off to sleep in the middle of hearing the words pink wallpaper. It had been a long night and she had had very little sleep for the two nights prior to the birth.

Pilot woke her gently at about four thirty pm to say he’d be back later with his Mum and Dad. Lauren sat up with a struggle.

‘I need to feed her,’ she muttered. She gave Pilot a kiss. ‘Just go, I’ll see you later.’

As he left, Pilot saw the nurse on her way to help Lauren with the breast-feeding. He blew a kiss but she didn’t see it.

Grace fed well, and by six o’clock both Mother and baby were dozing.  Then Lauren became aware of a doctor in a white coat touching her shoulder. 

‘Mrs Farmer? I have to take baby for her Guthrie test. You can come with me if you want but most parents don’t like to see their babies having blood taken from the heel.’ His Scottish accent penetrated Lauren’s sleepy brain and she smiled at him. 

‘No, you see to her. Just bring her back when it’s over.’ She closed her eyes once more.

At 6.30 pm Lauren felt another touch on the shoulder.

‘Is she back? Was she good?’

‘What?’ Pilot sounded puzzled. ‘Where’s Grace?’

‘Oh, sorry.’ Lauren tried to sit up without causing pain to herself; Pilot helped her, reorganising pillows behind her to make her more comfortable.  ‘A doctor came and took her for a Guthrie test.  It’s the test where they stab them in the foot. Remember them telling us about it at ante-natal class?’

Pilot nodded.

‘Yes, they have it at five days, don’t they? She’s not even one day old yet! Bit premature, aren’t they?’

He moved away towards the nurses’ station and asked where Grace was, explaining a doctor had taken her for a Guthrie test. There was instant pandemonium. The nurse hit the panic button, and the hospital was put into lock down.

Pat, David, Brenda, Ken and Freda, along with the new parents, sat around Lauren’s bed all night waiting but there was no news.

Grace had disappeared.

Chapter 3

2003

‘Olivia! Stop running! You’ll fall!’ Lauren shouted at the four-year-old in a vain attempt to stop the headlong flight down the grassy slope.

‘You’ll never get her to stop,’ Pilot said with a grin, cradling a very sleepy Noah in his arms. He felt Noah stir and whispered sssh to him.

‘Don’t worry,’ Lauren smiled. ‘He’s getting ready for a feed. Pass him to me and you go chase Olivia.’

He passed the tiny baby over to his wife and moved to follow Olivia down the slope.

‘Don’t let her out of your sight, Pilot,’ Lauren warned quietly as she knelt down on the grass.

He shook his head. ‘Never.’

The baby’s tiny head turned towards his mother’s breast and she unbuttoned her top.

‘Come on then, little man, feed time,’ she said softly and hugged him tightly before helping the tiny mouth on to her nipple. At two weeks old, Noah was still struggling with knowing exactly where his food came from. Lauren couldn’t remember Olivia ever being like that.

She heard Olivia giggling as her Daddy caught up with her and a smile that sometimes had to be forced came readily to Lauren’s lips. ‘Okay, Noah, time for lunch. And don’t hang about, the health visitor is coming to weigh you this afternoon and I want you to have put loads of weight on. So, drink up, big boy.’

She felt the familiar drag on her breast and then breathed a sigh of relief as Noah began to suck. No tantrums today, just a contented baby.

Olivia and Pilot came back up the hill towards her and Pilot said he’d go back to the house and bring down some drinks. Olivia flopped down on to the grass beside her Mummy, whom she looked so like. Her long blonde hair and deep blue eyes mirrored Lauren but the little girl was already showing signs of growth that would take her over Lauren’s adult height.

‘Tired,’ Olivia said.

‘Too much running around,’ Lauren responded. ‘Maybe we can have a nap later, do you think?’

The little girl gave a solemn nod and put her head on her mother’s lap. Within two minutes, she had drifted off into a light sleep.

Lauren wanted to wrap both of them in cotton wool and protect them for all of their lives. She wanted no part of the outside world to touch them and Lauren did not know how she would cope with the fact that Olivia was due to start nursery after the Easter holidays. How could she could handle the enormity of her child being away from her and outside her watchful protection?

The police had never had any idea where Treverick, her mother’s killer, was. Indeed, they had never had any concrete proof that he had been the one to snatch Grace. Back in 1952, when he had been eighteen-years-old, he had raped a small child called Amelia Andrews - more than rape her, he had destroyed her. He had destroyed her mind and he had destroyed her body.  His intention had been to rape her and, if he’d been caught, to kill himself. Caught very quickly, he hadn’t even managed to kill himself – the bullet he fired from a rifle had grazed him enough to knock him out but had done no damage beyond a scar. If it had been a shotgun and not a rifle, the end result would have been very different. Hearing the shot, the police had found the house where he was hiding and he had been virtually gift-wrapped. When he had recovered, he had confessed and sent to prison. But not for nearly long enough. And that’s where everything had begun.

Lauren had never doubted for a minute that he had taken the tiny baby. She did not know what he had taken her for.

Pilot returned with their drinks and sat down beside her.

‘Ok?’

She nodded. ‘He fed well. Let Olivia sleep, we need to be going back to the house in about quarter of an hour for the health visitor. Daren’t be late for her - it’s that look she gives you when she disapproves of something,’ she laughed.

He nodded his head. ‘Oh, I know. I clearly remember the look when I placed Olivia in her crib on her tummy! If she only knew that Noah seems to be following the same sleep pattern...’

‘Do not tell her!’

‘Well I won’t if you won’t...’

They finished their drink in the early spring sunshine until some clouds crossed the sky. Lauren shivered. 

‘The temperature’s dropping a bit. Let’s head back up to the house.’

Pilot gently woke his daughter and gathered everything up, placing it all in the pram basket. Noah was the one now fast asleep and Lauren carefully settled him in the pram before pushing it up the slight incline.

It was quiet as they entered the front door and Olivia went to the corner of the lounge that accommodated her dolls house.  She opened the front of the house and took out all the little people before replacing them in different rooms.

Lauren could hear her chatting to the tiny wooden dolls as she rummaged in a drawer to find the birth book and notes. She placed them ready on the coffee table. Noah was still asleep so she sat on the settee and let her mind temporarily slow down.

And Grace wandered into it. She had known her first child for less than a day but every day at some point and at several points in the Christmas season, she thought about her daughter.  They had no idea whether she was alive or dead, although there had been a scare within a couple of months of Grace’s abduction when a newborn’s body had been found. They had both had to give DNA samples because the police said the corpse was a couple of months old. That had been a really low point in their lives. But the DNA had proved it wasn’t Grace and they had breathed again.

Hope had faded now and she was starting to believe the unthinkable. Treverick had taken the baby and killed her. The police had nothing to go on, there had been no sighting of