The Last Witness (39 page)

  One of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen.
If there were darker secrets behind Mikaya’s earlier pregnancy and she pointed the finger at Ryall, they’d have enough for a social services order to get Lorena away: a few months respite if not longer for more considered sessions to discover if the same thing was happening with Lorena, rather than this madness now of trying to cram in everything in only days in the hope of a breakthrough.

  ‘…What do you think would happen if you did speak out against your stepfather and say that these terrible things that you picture now only in your dreams, were in fact happening? That they were real?’

  ‘I’m not sure… in what way?’

  ‘Well, we’re only talking hypothetically – what if – for now. But what do you think would happen to you, Lorena? You obviously wouldn’t be able to stay in the same house with Mr Waldren any more, so where do you think you would go?’

  ‘I don’t know… I haven’t really thought about that.’

  ‘I see. I truly don’t think you have.’ Heavy pause, then a fresh breath from Lowndes. ‘But have you considered that perhaps part of your mind has, and that part might fear that you’d have to return to what you knew before – the horrors of the orphanages and your days and nights in the sewers.’

  ‘I… I don’t know.’

  ‘But apart from the dreams and your concerns about Mr Waldren – you’re happy there at the house? It’s comfortable and secure and you have everything else you need?’

  ‘Yes, I think so… it’s a very nice house.’

  Elena held her breath as with a series of questions Lowndes teased out of Lorena that in fact this was a level of comfort and security that she’d
never
experienced at any time in her life before: the tremendous gulf between her current life and the deprivation and horrors of her past existence.

  ‘…Something you’d probably wish to avoid going back to at any cost.’ A marked pause, as if Lowndes perhaps expected an answer or was intently studying Lorena for reaction. ‘Now that may or may not also be causing something of a block. But it’s never that easy just to say: “Now that I know there’s a block, I’ll just remove it.” So I’m going to ask you Lorena to relax and imagine that if you did have to leave Mr Waldren’s house – you’d go somewhere equally as nice and warm and secure. Somewhere with your mother, obviously the first choice, but if not perhaps some friends. Do you have some other friends perhaps you’d like to stay with?’

  ‘Yes… there’s my aid worker who first saw me in Romania. She doesn’t live far away.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Elen… er… Ei… Eileen.’

  Elena closed her eyes and swallowed hard. The warm rush at being Lorena’s first choice of alternate haven was swiftly quashed by guilt at what she was putting Lorena through: just when Lorena was meant to be opening up her mind to discover the truth about her own life, she was forced to hopscotch around lies as to who everybody else was.   

  ‘And is it a nice house?’

  ‘Yes. It overlooks a wooded ravine… and at the end is the sea.’

  ‘There. See. You’re spoilt for choice.’ Lowndes let out a relaxed, soothing sigh. ‘Now I want you to think about those nice places that you’d go to… just as comfortable and secure as where you are now. Because for sure your mother or your friend, Eileen, aren’t going to let you go anywhere that’s not nice or safe. And if you’re worried about you’re stepfather being angry and ranting and shouting at you – don’t. He won’t be allowed near you. You’ll have nothing to fear from him… and absolutely nothing to fear as to where you might go or what might happen to you. Is that perfectly clear now? You’re settled about that and understand that you have no worries at all in that regard?’

  ‘Yes… I understand.’

  ‘…And I want you now to draw on that, feel relaxed… feel calm. Feel the pressure gone of perhaps being afraid to speak out because of how your stepfather might react or what might happen to you. But at the same time I also want you to be cautious: if you still can’t remember anything happening with your father, even with all that pressure now gone – and I mean clearly remember – then that too is what we want to hear.’

  ‘I… I’m not sure. Like I said before, some of it seemed so real… as if it couldn’t possibly be a dream. But I just couldn’t remember any time when I was awake.’

  Elena’s palm sweated as she clutched unconsciously at the headphones’ wire: she could feel the clawing pressure on Lorena with each fall of her breath, swallow or faint cough. Lowndes had edged in so deftly, purposefully: it reminded her of the carefully layered brushstrokes of her painting. But then it was as if he’d suddenly remembered False Memory Syndrome and went back and wiped out a stroke, worried that he might have painted her too much into a corner. He needed to push hard to break any block, but then he didn’t want it possibly viewed that the memory had come about merely as a result of that pressure – because Lorena thought that that was what he wanted to hear. 

  ‘…And when you thought back, trying to recall if it was real or just a dream – this was already the morning, the first moments of waking.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lowndes confirmed with Lorena that her stepfather wasn’t usually there when she awoke. ‘But have there been times in the night when he was at your bedside when you awoke?’

  ‘Yes… some times when I had the bad dreams.’ 

  ‘…About Patrika and the sewers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But were any of those dreams with your stepfather touching you… and you’d awake to find him there at your bedside?’

  ‘Only one… I…I’ Faltering pause, Lorena’s breathing fractured, laboured.

  Gentle prompt from Lowndes, ‘It’s okay… go on.’

  ‘…I dreamt that he was stroking me, soothing me, telling me that it was okay. Then it became the waters of the sewer washing over me… but it was somehow warm, strange… and as it came up to my mouth, I was choking and spluttering for breath… but still he was stroking me, telling me everything was okay…
okay…’

  ‘…And when you awoke, was he touching you?’

  ‘Yes… yes. But only my forehead… and he was saying the same words, that everything was okay.’ Lorena swallowed hard, trying to regain her breath and her composure. ‘He said that I’d been screaming… had woken him up.’

  ‘Did you think he’d just run in from his room, or did you get the feeling he’d been standing there all along?’

  ‘I… I don’t know… I couldn’t tell. I’m sorry.’

  Lowndes paused and took a deep breath. Elena couldn’t help sensing that he’d reached a sort of crossroads – uncertain where to head next, or perhaps because with only a few minutes of the session remaining, he wouldn’t have time to fully explore where he wanted to go. Elena looked down to see her hands noticeably shaking: Lowndes’ questioning, or all the other panics she was frantically juggling at that moment?

  Crossroads.
In their call last night, Gordon had warned her that the time-scale in which they could have traced her flight to Canada was soon up, and she should be doubly wary the next morning. She’d squeezed in three more door-calls before the session with Lowndes, and heading down St Denis a squad car came out of a side turn and pulled up two cars behind her at the Avenue Monte Royal crossroads. She tried not to look too pointedly or repeatedly in her mirror – but it stayed behind her all the way to Sherbrooke before turning off, by which time her nerves were completely frazzled. She pulled over immediately afterwards: her stomach was still somersaulting and for a second she thought she was going vomit.

  ‘…You don’t need to be sorry, Lorena. As I said, if nothing is happening, then that’s fine too. And if this is still a question of your memory being blocked in some way, I wouldn’t expect it to suddenly be freed within minutes; it could take time. But what I do want you to do is continue thinking on what we covered earlier: there are absolutely no pressures or worries as to what might happen to you as a result of you speaking out –
if
you finally remember anything. And maybe with some time to let that thought settle, that might help us in your next session.’ Lowndes voice lowered, becoming soft, almost conspiratorial. ‘Would you do that for me, Lorena?’

  ‘Yes… I will.’

  With a perfunctory but equally soft-mannered ‘Good, see you tomorrow then,’ Lowndes closed the session. He let Lorena go ahead with the receptionist as he held back a moment in his office with Elena. He turned to her thoughtfully.

  ‘You realize that if there’s no breakthrough early on in the session tomorrow, it could all be over quickly. There might be nowhere else we can go with this?’

  ‘Yes, I realize,’ she agreed sombrely. As much as she wanted the nightmare ended quickly – the only acceptable way was
with
a solution. She didn’t think she could bring herself to send Lorena back to Ryall still with the knowledge that he might be molesting her.

  ‘Oh, one more thing. This Eileen… Lorena’s friend. The aid worker. Are they very close?’

  ‘Yes, fairly. She helped Lorena a lot in Romania.’ Suddenly realizing she should distance herself more, she added: ‘So I suppose so.’

  ‘And does she know about this new problem now with Lorena?’

  ‘I… I’m not sure,’ she stuttered, her heart suddenly in her mouth. But as her mind flashed frantically through all the possible pitfalls – she’d already mentioned social service visits to Lowndes – she decided to at least partly tell the truth. ‘Yes – she must know now. She came along with social services on their second visit. But probably she didn’t know at the beginning.’ 

  ‘Right. I see,’ Lowndes mumbled.

  She could see that he was still slightly lost in thought, and quickly added: ‘Any problem?’

  ‘No… no. Not at all.’ He looked at her directly, forcing a smile. ‘Just it’s always useful to have as much background as possible.’

  But fifteen minutes later grabbing a quick beef-burger lunch with Lorena, she couldn’t help dwelling on whether Lowndes had some deeper concerns about Lorena’s mention of Eileen the aid worker. As Lorena reached across for much ketchup and the hustle and bustle of the restaurant crashed back in, she pushed it from her mind. She had enough to worry about, and it was probably nothing: just her paranoia because she knew they were lying.

The telephone lines had burned red hot the last twenty-four hours between Cameron Ryall, Inspector Turton and DS Crowley, and in turn between Crowley, Interpol, and an ever-widening net of airports and customs posts halfway across Europe. And as the likelihood of a quick breakthrough diminished, Inspector Turton decided that rather than try and kid-glove the increasingly heated calls from Ryall, he’d pull himself out of the loop and suggest that in future Ryall should contact Crowley directly to be kept up to date on progress.

  ‘I’ve been told I should speak to you now about this. Apparently you’re doing all the
legwork
.’ Ryall made the emphasis as if it was the lowest form of activity. The message was patently clear: he was only talking to Crowley through sufferance, and his patience was already long gone. ‘Now what the hell’s going on?’

  Crowley clarified with Ryall what information Turton had already passed on, then picked up from there. ‘The cash-card trail seems to have petered out in the middle of France. We’ve had no other notification of its use there, or indeed anywhere else.’

  ‘And any sightings of her car in France?’

  ‘No. Nor again anywhere else for that matter. I don’t want us to get stuck on the fact that she might still be in France. So we’ve got alerts out not only with most airports in Northern France, but also border posts with Belgium, Switzerland, Holland and Germany – not to mention airports too that she could have by now reached in those countries. We’re also going through airline passenger records at those airports, plus we mustn’t rule out that she could still be in England. The Euro-Shuttle ticket and the cash-card might have all been just a diversion.’ He didn’t add that he’d soon have to widen the net to cover Italy and Spain as it became possible that she’d reached that far: it made the search sound all the more tenuous, underlined that they really had
no
idea where she’d gone. He tried to sound confident. ‘Believe me, we’re doing everything we can. Wherever she is, we’ll find her.’

  ‘What about Mr Waldren?’

  Turton had already told Ryall about them putting Mr Waldren on a tight time leash the first twelve hours with the promise of them possibly holding back on charges till then – so Crowley jumped to what had happened since. They’d piled on the pressure by extending the deadline by a few hours, but that now too was well past. They’d applied for a telephone tap on the Waldren’s line along with a record of all calls made the past thirty-six hours, and received both in late yesterday.

  ‘…But nothing interesting from the records or from the monitoring so far. Though that might be because Mr Waldren seems to make the habit of travelling out to call boxes, usually late at night. Which is the other thing we’re doing – following his movements. Two Chelborne boxes and one on the way to Wareham: he uses different boxes each time. And every time he appears to be receiving the calls rather than making them.’ The way it came across, Crowley couldn’t help thinking their efforts sounded quite impressive.  ‘As you can see, sir, we’re not sitting on our haunches on this. We’re covering every possible option.’