Lost Innocence (59 page)

Doing her best to rein in her fears, she quickly returned to her good intentions by emptying the coffee pot to start making fresh, and turning on the oven to … She tried to think what she needed to heat up, but couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter, she told herself, it would come back to her. Meanwhile, she must try looking at Robert and Annabelle’s relationship a different way, not as a conspiracy to try and shut her out. Whatever secrets they might have, or closeness they might be pursuing after their shared experience of yesterday, it could surely only be a good thing. The fonder Robert was of Annabelle, the less likely he was to do anything drastic like ending their marriage.

The very thought of that sent so many bolts of dread shooting through her that her hands flew to her mouth as a sob broke in a ragged gasp from her throat.

She had to calm down, she told herself urgently. Everything was going to be fine, she just had to stop letting this ridiculous paranoia get the better of her.

Having bought some of Robert’s favourite shortbreads yesterday, she laid a rosy paper napkin over a plate, shook three loose from the packet, arranged them decoratively, then put them on the table next to his mail.

‘Good morning,’ she said brightly as he came in through the door. ‘I was hoping you might come over for coffee. How are you feeling this morning?’ she asked Annabelle, looking at her with deep motherly concern.

‘I’m cool,’ Annabelle mumbled, seeming to half hide behind Robert.

Sabrina looked at her, then at Robert, and as more alarm bells began clanging in her head her smile faltered.

‘Annabelle’s decided she doesn’t want to go ahead with the charges,’ Robert told her, coming straight to the point.

Sabrina’s thoughts hit a brick wall as she registered the words.

‘We’ve talked it over,’ he continued, ‘and I think…’

‘Just a minute,’ Sabrina interrupted, her voice edged with a harshness that had swept straight past her misgivings: ‘What do you mean, you don’t want to go ahead?’ she said to Annabelle. ‘We agreed you were going to talk this over with Lisa.’

‘Yeah, but…’

‘No buts,’ Sabrina told her sharply. ‘You can’t just accuse someone of rape, and then suddenly say they didn’t do it.’

‘I’m not saying that,’ Annabelle cried.

‘Then what are you saying?’

‘That I don’t want to go on with it.’

Sabrina turned to Robert. ‘This is your doing, isn’t it?’ she accused. ‘You’ve talked her out of it to save your nephew. So once again your family comes first and mine doesn’t count.’

‘That’s utter rubbish,’ Robert informed her angrily. ‘Annabelle took the decision herself, my only involvement was to listen, and then to come and break it to you.’

Turning back to Annabelle, Sabrina struggled to find her
next words. ‘Tell me honestly,’ she finally managed, ‘did that boy rape you?’

‘Yes, but I don’t care. I don’t want it taking over my life the way it is. I just want it to stop.’

‘So you’re going to let him get away with it?’

Annabelle coloured and turned her face away. ‘And so are you,’ she said to Robert. ‘You’ve decided that a rapist should walk free…’

‘Stop overdramatising it,’ Robert cut in. ‘He’s a seventeen-year-old boy who might have misunderstood a situation, or overreacted in the heat of the moment …’

‘You’re putting words in her mouth,’ Sabrina shouted. ‘How do you know what happened when you weren’t even there?’

‘I’m just trying to help put some perspective on…’

‘No, you’re just trying to help your sister, and somehow you’ve talked my daughter into aiding and abetting you.’

‘He did not,’ Annabelle cried. ‘I made up my own mind.’

‘Really? Then I’d like to have a word with you alone, young lady, to find out exactly what
is
going on in your mind.’

‘No way,’ Annabelle retorted, shrinking behind Robert. ‘I’m not being bullied about by you…’

‘Sabrina, will you please try to calm down,’ Robert said. ‘There’s someone at the door, and it’s probably the SAIT officer turned up early.’

‘Good,’ Sabrina seethed, heading towards the hall, ‘let’s hope she can talk some sense into you, Annabelle, because someone obviously needs to.’

After all but pulling a startled Lisa Murray over the threshold, Sabrina took her straight to the kitchen, saying, ‘I’m afraid my daughter’s having something of a crisis, so I’d be grateful if you could talk to her and make her see sense.’

Lisa Murray looked from Annabelle to Robert and back again.

‘Annabelle wants to withdraw the charges,’ Robert informed her.

Lisa hid her surprise and returned her gaze to Annabelle. ‘OK,’ she said carefully.

‘OK?’
Sabrina repeated scathingly.

Ignoring her, Lisa said, ‘Can I ask why, Annabelle?’

‘Because she’s got bored with it,’ Sabrina raged. ‘She’s had to wait too long for centre stage…’

‘Mrs Paige,’ Lisa interrupted, ‘I think it would be a good idea if I spoke to Annabelle alone.’

‘You realise everyone’s going to call you a liar, don’t you?’ Sabrina ranted on. ‘She’s still saying he did it,’ she told Lisa, ‘but…’

‘Sabrina, that’s enough,’ Robert barked. ‘Either cool your temper, or leave the room.’

Sabrina’s outrage exploded. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ she yelled. ‘
I’m
not the fifteen-year-old, she is…’

‘Then stop behaving like one,’ he snapped, and, turning to Annabelle, ‘Do you want to speak to Lisa alone? No one’s going to force you to do anything you don’t want to, so it’s your decision.’

Annabelle looked uncertainly at Lisa.

Lisa smiled. ‘Your stepfather’s right,’ she said, ‘no one’s going to force you to do anything.’

Sensing another eruption from Sabrina, Robert took her by the arm and held on to it tightly.

‘All right,’ Annabelle said. ‘But I’m not changing my mind,’ she told her mother, ‘so don’t think I am.’

Once in the drawing room with Annabelle, Lisa waited until they were both seated on the sofas before saying, ‘Are you absolutely sure this is what you want?’

Annabelle nodded.

‘Your stepfather hasn’t influenced you in any way?’

‘No! I just want it all to go away so I can get on with my life.’

‘But you’re still saying Nathan raped you?’

‘Because he did.’

‘And you’re happy for him to go unpunished for this crime?’

‘Not happy, no, but it’s better than ruining the rest of his life, and knowing I’m to blame.’

‘As the victim, you can’t be to blame, especially given your age.’

‘You know what I mean.’

Lisa regarded her intently. ‘On the two previous occasions
we met, I stressed to you the importance of telling the truth, and what the consequences could be if you don’t. So if you’re lying about the fact Nathan raped you…’

‘I’m not
lying
,’ Annabelle shouted, starting to cry. ‘I just don’t want all this hassle any more.’

‘OK,’ Lisa said, getting to her feet. ‘If you really are sure, then we should go and talk to your parents again.’

Finding Robert and Sabrina still in the kitchen, Lisa kept her hand on Annabelle’s shoulder as she said, ‘I’m satisfied Annabelle’s sincere in her decision to drop the rape charge, so I’m going to contact DS Bevan to let him know. You understand there may be repercussions…’

‘What does that mean?’ Sabrina demanded, clearly still highly agitated.

‘I won’t know until I’ve spoken to DS Bevan.’

‘Well, when you do, you can tell him that I want that boy prosecuted for unlawful sex at the very least.’

‘I’ll call from the car on my way back to Bristol,’ Lisa told her. ‘I’ve no doubt you’ll hear from him by the end of the day.’

‘Well, there’s an interesting coincidence,’ Bevan remarked after hearing Lisa out. ‘Annabelle Preston gets cold feet on the very day the CPS gets them too.’

‘You mean he’s thrown it out anyway?’ Lisa said, more shocked than she’d expected to be, given that she’d sensed it coming.

‘I got the call about ten minutes ago. Your phone was switched off, so I couldn’t let you know.’

‘What happened?’

‘At a guess, the lawyers’ pressure finally paid off. It was always going to be a difficult sell to the jury, but personally I think his lie at the start would have got them on our side. I suppose we’ll never know now.’

‘She’s still adamant he raped her.’

‘And she’d better stay that way, or she’ll be facing charges herself. Do you believe her?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact. How’s Caroline Ash taking the CPS’s decision?’

‘Hard. The weasel wisely went to ground after breaking
it to her by phone, and left the rest of us to catch the flak. She wants the boy for unlawful sex now.’

‘So does Mrs Paige. What’s your take on that?’

There was a drop-out on the line as he answered.

‘What was that?’ she said when he came back again.

As he repeated it, she felt herself wincing. ‘I’ll let you break that one to Mrs Paige,’ she told him, ‘but please wait until I’m safely back in Bristol before you do.’

‘Oh my God,’ Alicia said shakily as Jolyon told her the news. ‘Are you sure? There can’t be any mistake?’

His tone was full of fondness as he said, ‘Believe me, I wouldn’t be calling if I weren’t sure. The CPS has dropped the rape charge.’

As her knees buckled with relief Alicia sank heavily into the chair behind her. ‘I have to call Nat. He…’

‘Just wait on that for now,’ Jolyon advised. ‘They’re still discussing the unlawful sex charge, so let’s hang on until we have a full picture.’

‘Yes, of course. Oh God, they have to drop that too. Please…’

‘Leave it to Oliver. He sounded pretty confident when we spoke, so my guess is he’s not intending to leave the conference until he has a favourable outcome on that too.’

Detective Inspector Caroline Ash’s normally waxen complexion was mottled with fury as she scanned the contents of the letter she was holding. With her in the room was Tom Bradley, aka the weasel, or the CPS lawyer, and the eminent Oliver Mendenhall QC.

‘Of course, there will be no need to send this letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions,’ Oliver said smoothly, ‘if you decided to drop
all
charges against my client.’

‘This is blackmail,’ Ash growled furiously.

‘No, it’s justice,’ Mendenhall corrected. ‘You don’t have enough evidence to prove that an actual rape took place, so pursuing this case in any form is, at best, a waste of taxpayers’ money, at worst …’ He gestured to the letter. Since it detailed the ongoing vendetta Detective Inspector Ash was waging against Craig Carlyle QC, deceased, there
was no mistaking his meaning. It went on to suggest she was now visiting her grudge on Carlyle’s son by attempting to make him pay for what could be termed the sins of his father. The letter concluded with a request for the DPP to instruct the CPS to assess, and ultimately dismiss the case, and was signed by no less than twenty of the most influential barristers in the land.

Ash tossed the letter back across the table. ‘I know you silks think you’re mightily clever when you band together like this,’ she said angrily, ‘but it’s you who’s making it personal, not me. Annabelle Preston is a fifteen-year-old girl. It’s time kids out there, like your client, learned that there are consequences to be paid for having underage sex – and it’s not just pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease. They are breaking the law…’

‘That may be so, Detective Inspector,’ Mendenhall interrupted, ‘and to a point we all agree with you, but I’m not going to let you use my client to front your crusade, any more than I will allow him to become the victim of your grudge. We now know that the girl herself has dropped the rape charge, which strongly suggests she was lying, and as Nathan Carlyle was uncertain of her age at the time the act took place…’

‘Oh pull the other one,’ Ash cut in scathingly. ‘He’s her cousin for God’s sake, and you don’t need me to tell you ignorance of the law is not a defence.’

‘And you don’t need me to tell you that hanging a teenage boy out to dry because his father once bested you in court is not the kind of impartial behaviour the public expects, and deserves, from someone in your position…’

‘Listen,’ she broke in forcefully, ‘I won’t deny I’d like to have seen Craig Carlyle fry at some point in his loathsome career, but I’ll tell you again, what happened back then has nothing to do with the situation we have here. Nathan Carlyle has broken the law. We have all the evidence we need to prove it, including a confession from the boy himself. He had sex with Annabelle Preston, and I have every intention of seeing he is prosecuted in accordance with the law, which will include his name being added to the Sex Offenders Register.’

Mendenhall sat back in his chair and folded his hands. ‘In which case,’ he said mildly, ‘we will be insisting that the other two boys whose semen was found are also prosecuted and added to the register.’

Ash’s face froze.

‘Why ruin one young man’s life when you can ruin three?’ Mendenhall asked, as though she were offering to hand out accolades. ‘Or, I’m forgetting, I believe you’ve never actually identified one of the boys, have you, so I hope you’re prepared to start using some of your valuable police resources to track him down. I also hope it’s going to sit easily with you to put the girl herself through the humiliation, and perhaps trauma, of having her promiscuity brandished about in a courtroom. Not to mention the anguish and shame you will cause the families of the other two boys when their beloved sons’ names are added to the Sex Offenders Register
for the rest of their lives
, thanks to a casual encounter with an overdeveloped fifteen-year-old at a rave during their formative years.’

Ash looked at the weasel, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but apparently the little creep had nothing to say.

Mendenhall knew he’d won, but he waited patiently for her reply.

In the end all he got was a glare of blazing hatred as she rose to her feet and stalked furiously from the room, slamming the door behind her.

Addressing the weasel, Mendenhall said, ‘I take it you won’t be pressing charges.’

‘Correct,’ the lawyer replied, and picking up his files he followed Ash from the room.