Never Close Your Eyes (52 page)

Freya, scrunched in a little ball in the corner by the window, registered that the train was slowing down. Another station? There's no way that he'd let her out of his sight this time. She pulled the brim of the pink cap lower over her eyes, squeezed her legs tighter into her chest and peeped at the young man now sitting opposite them.

He was wearing a black bomber jacket, had a diamond stud in his ear and was reading
Nuts
. He was quite fit. He noticed that she was looking at him and smiled. She scowled.

‘Fuck,' Al whispered. He started jiggling his skinny leg up and down.

A man in another seat groaned loudly. ‘Not bloody signal failure again. Or leaves on the frigging line.'

‘There's always some excuse.' It was a shrill, woman's voice. ‘I'm sick to death of it.'

‘Ladies and gentlemen,' came the announcement. The carriage fell silent. ‘I apologise for the delay. There's been a bit of a hold-up but the train in front will shortly be leaving Coventry Station. Please remain seated; we should be moving soon.'

‘Thank God for that,' said the woman who'd spoken a moment earlier. ‘For a minute I thought they were going to make us all get off and walk.'

Al's leg stopped jiggling. Freya heard him take a deep breath. She shifted slightly in her seat. Her bum was stiff from being scrooched in the same position for so long. A carriage door behind them slammed. There was the sound of a radio crackling. Freya's ears pricked. Someone right behind them barked: ‘Alan Quinton?'

It all happened so quickly. Freya spun round to see Al half up out of his seat, his hands on the armrests on either side. His knuckles were white. The next thing she knew, he was holding his arms out in front of him and someone was putting handcuffs on.

Her eyes swivelled left and right frantically. There were several police officers, two men and a woman, but she could see others coming up the carriage from the opposite direction. Loads of them. ‘Please remain in your seats,' a woman in uniform was saying to the other passengers. ‘This won't take long.'

She saw the back of Al's thin neck, poking out of his shirt collar underneath the plum jumper. He turned and caught her eye. She thought she'd never forget that look, not as long as she lived. His eyes were dark brown, smooth as glass, unreadable. What was he trying to say? She could see her own face reflected in his lenses.

‘We're arresting you on suspicion of child abduction,' a male officer said. ‘You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not now mention something which you later rely on in court.'

‘No!' Freya shouted.

Al shook his head.

Tears were pouring down Freya's cheeks. She'd wanted to escape; now she was terrified of losing him. She lurched forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, clasped her hands together, tried to pull, to prise him away. It was her dream that they were tearing to pieces; she mustn't let go of the dream. What would be left, then?

‘Freya?' a woman police officer said. Her voice was kind. ‘We need to take him to the police station. You're safe now.' She put a hand on Freya's arm.

‘Get off!' Freya screamed. ‘You don't understand. He's my boyfriend. We love each other.'

‘You're confused,' the woman went on in her crooning voice. ‘It's understandable. Your mum's been so worried. She's going to be so relieved to hear you're OK.'

Freya felt frantic, caged. She wanted to lash out. ‘I hate Mum,' she yelled. Her grip loosened and Al stumbled forward. She spat at the woman police officer, but the spit didn't get anywhere near. ‘I hate you.' She backed up to the window behind, leaned her shoulders against the glass and clenched her fists. If she'd had a rock she'd have smashed the window and run.

The woman came towards her and tried to put her arm around her shoulders. Freya was crying so much that she couldn't make out her features, just her bulky, blue form.

‘Get off!' she hissed. She was beating her arms against the woman's chest, trying to shove her off.

‘It's all right,' the woman said. She was big, much stronger than Freya. Her voice was low and soothing. ‘Everything's going to be OK.'

Freya glimpsed one of the police officers talking into his radio. ‘We've got him. The girl's fine.' He had a big, fat grin on his face.

She blinked the tears away and gave the policewoman one last kick. ‘I'm not fucking fine,' she howled. ‘Why do you have to ruin everything?' Her shoulders slumped. She allowed the policewoman to take her by the hand and lead her out of the carriage, back into the real world. ‘I hate all of you, you're all losers. You don't understand. He's all I've got. I love him
.
We love each other. Just let me go.'

‘Thank God you're safe.' Evie flung both arms around her daughter. She was kissing her head, her hair, making it wet. She couldn't let go. ‘I've been so worried about you.'

Freya's body was rigid and unyielding. Evie had been warned that she was angry and bewildered, but the blast of cold air still came as a shock.

‘I love him,' Freya said defiantly, ‘and he loves me. We're soulmates. You've got no idea . . .' She tried to shake her mother off but Evie held on tight.

‘We'll talk about this later,' she said. ‘He'd been grooming you. That's what they do. He wanted to hurt you—'

‘No!' Freya cried, struggling. ‘He wanted to help me. He was my friend.' She started to weep uncontrollably.

The police liaison officer passed Freya a wodge of paper hankies, which she blew into. ‘Your mum's right, I'm afraid,' she said gently. ‘He's a bad man, Freya. The main thing is that you're safe now.'

‘He was helping me,' Freya sobbed. ‘He stopped the bullying at school, he got Gemma and Chantelle off my back. I could talk to him. I didn't know he was Nic's husband, he didn't tell me.' Her shoulders sagged. ‘I've got no one now.'

Evie groaned and shook her head. ‘I didn't realise . . .'

Freya had stopped struggling and her body slumped, exhausted. She rested her head against her mother's breast. Evie was careful not to move, so that it could stay there. They were quiet for a moment, just standing in the middle of the special interview room where Evie had spent so many hours. She felt as if she'd been there, hanging on, all her life.

She'd still been talking to the police liaison officer when they got the news: some woman had noticed Freya and Alan on the train. Then, when the woman got off at Watford, she'd heard a news flash on her car radio about a missing girl and an older man. She'd called the police immediately and given a detailed description. They'd swung into action and organised for the train driver to stop the train on a pretext.

It took a moment or two for the information to sink in, then Evie had broken down. While she was waiting for them to bring Freya back from Coventry she kept imagining that the car would smash. Now at last, with Freya in her arms, she could finally believe that the nightmare was over.

She heard a car honking its horn outside. How strange, she thought, that people were going about their normal, everyday lives while her whole world had turned upside down.

‘I'm sorry, Mum,' Freya said in a small voice, her head still resting on the same spot, her body limp.

‘No,' said Evie, more fiercely than she'd intended. She lowered her voice. ‘I'm the one who has to say sorry. I should have looked after you, been there for you. You're my precious daughter. You've no idea how precious you are. I've been so wrapped up in my own stupid, selfish problems that I didn't see what was under my nose. I didn't realise how much you needed me.'

Freya made a choking sound. ‘I know it's been so hard for you with Dad leaving.'

‘No,' Evie repeated. ‘Lots of people's marriages break up. I'm not the only woman in the world whose husband's left. I've been wallowing in self-pity and I wasn't there for you. I've totally failed.'

‘Don't . . .' Freya was still trying to protect her mum, Evie knew that. She'd allowed it to happen for far too long.

‘Yes,' Evie said firmly. ‘But things are going to change now, I promise. Whatever your problems are, we'll sort them out, one by one.' She took Freya's peaky little chin in her hand and pulled it gently up, forcing her to look her mother in the eye. ‘We're going to tackle this together, OK?'

Freya nodded, sniffing. She didn't appear convinced. ‘What about school?' she asked tentatively.

‘Bugger school,' Evie snorted. ‘You can leave; we'll find somewhere else. Whatever it takes to make you happy. I tell you, there's nothing we can't resolve.'

Freya looked brighter, but then frowned. ‘What about Al?' she asked. ‘What will happen to him?'

‘I hope he'll go to prison for a long time,' Evie hissed.

She realised immediately that she'd said the wrong thing. She cursed herself for her insensitivity.

Freya started crying again and buried her head in her mother's chest. ‘Will I ever see him again?'

‘Oh, my poor baby,' Evie said, ‘you'll get over him, truly you will.'

They sat down on one of the easy chairs, Freya on her mother's lap like a little girl. She was scrunching the paper hankies into a ball, picking at them with her fingers.

‘I really love him,' she whispered. There was a pause. ‘And I'm sure he loves me. He told me loads of times.'

‘I know, darling,' Evie replied. She thought she could feel her daughter's heart hurting. Her own was aching in sympathy.

‘He was going to take me to Euro Disney except the train was cancelled,' Freya said.

Evie flinched. She felt a pounding in her temples, but she managed to keep her voice soft and gentle: ‘Because he knew that was somewhere you'd like to visit. It was a way of luring you from home.'

Freya thought for a moment. ‘Will you tell Dad?'

‘I had to, sweetie. He needed to know.'

‘Is he mad at me?'

Evie kissed her daughter's wet cheek. ‘No, darling,' she said. ‘He was sick with worry. No one's mad at you. Not one little bit.'

‘What about the police?'

‘You're not in any trouble, I promise. Everyone's just so relieved you're OK.'

Freya was shivering. Evie grabbed her black duffel coat from the back of the chair and wrapped it round her daughter.

‘Nic must hate me,' Freya said suddenly.

Evie hadn't given Nic a thought, not since she'd rung that morning with news of the assignation. God, was it only this morning? She wondered, for a second, how Nic must be feeling. And poor Dominic. He didn't deserve this.

‘Of course she doesn't hate you,' Evie said. In truth, though, she had no idea what Nic's views were. In fact she didn't feel that she knew Nic any more at all. What had she said on the phone this morning? Something like: ‘I knew he liked young girls . . .' What did that mean? That she might have known that he was a paedophile and done nothing about it seemed incredible. Grotesque. Evie couldn't believe it. It was too much. She couldn't make any sense of it. Right now she must put Nic to the back of her mind. Freya was her only concern.

‘It's not your fault, none of this is,' Evie whispered. ‘You're only a child. You've been in a bad way, a dark place for a long time. I realise that now. I've neglected you and let you down big time. But we'll talk everything through and get as much help as we need. Things are going to get better.'

They sat in silence for a few moments. It was dark outside and Evie thought that she could see Alan's face reflected in the windows. She closed her eyes, but his image slowly transformed in her mind into obscene pictures of what he might have done to Freya.

She squeezed her daughter again, breathing in her familiar smell of soap and, she thought, the fresh, slightly lemony scent that she often wore. It helped Evie to block out the pictures – but she knew that they'd return to haunt her in her dreams.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Nic stepped out of the police car and blinked. She'd been warned that there were reporters outside her house but she hadn't expected this many. The cameras were flashing almost continuously, blinding her. She covered her face with her hands and stayed close by the police officers flanking her.

‘Have you spoken to your husband?' someone shouted. ‘Did you know about his email relationship with Freya?'

‘What does it feel like to be married to a paedophile?' a woman cried.

She hurried up the front drive and into the house, slammed the door shut and turned and collapsed back against it. She couldn't cry. She felt drained. She'd leaked emotion all day; now there was none left.