Sweetie (2 page)

I can not, and will not, try and justify the way I think and feel it’s just me and the way I am, but of one thing, I am sure. Whatever goes through a parents mind once they know the horror that their child suffered in their final moments, I don’t know. I don’t know how they cope, and to me, they are amazing! A life sentence is handed out to the victim and their families, not the criminal.

The argument will rage on for a long time and I don’t expect a lot of people to agree with me, or the way I think. A lot of the time the terrible things that happen can only instigate change when it affects you personally, then you may feel differently and want things to change. I’m not a politician, and I’m not looking to change the whole judicial system, but something needs to be done. A premeditated crime of sexual assault and murder ranks as one of the worst possible offences, its total devastation can not be measured in time, but for the families who need justice; this is all that is offered. One child’s loss of xii

life has unbearable consequences, and a loss that no time can measure, give back or make right and the suffering goes on through generations.

Surely all parents have the right to know if there is a known, registered sex offender living in the flats down the road, or even worse, working with children in the community. They gave up their right to anonymity when they first took away a child’s innocence, so why close ranks and protect them? A register is the only way to raise awareness, and it comes with the territory that if you have an unhealthy view of children, you should be named and shamed. The majority of parents are not out to break the law or take the law into their own hands, but surely they should be aware of possible danger. Its prevention, not cure that parents need and I personally believe that it’s the least we can offer as a way of protecting our children.

Children are our immortality and the future society in years to come. If we let them down, what kind of society are we? I champion all children’s charities in the tireless work they do, and their never ending fight for the rights of all children everywhere, but most of all, I champion those wonderful, courageous parents, who fight on for the justice and memory of their lost little ones. My heart aches for them all, but I have to believe that one day, they will win and real justice will be served. Let’s hope for a change in attitude and in the law: as parents, we may xiii

live to see a time when the talking stops and the action starts and all children can see a future where they are protected, loved and most of all – safe!

Chapter One

Grace Ballantyne stood at the sink and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand for the third time in as many minutes. She stretched her long, graceful neck and closed her eyes for a few moments, twisting her head from side to side in a bid to release the tension she felt throughout her whole aching body.

Nobody had managed to get a good night’s sleep in weeks and everyone was feeling tired and irritable as a result, but Grace had never been a good sleeper.

Her nights were always filled with nightmares from her childhood; she was always running and running, and when in her dreams her parents asked her where she had been, a strip of masking tape across her mouth prevented the words from coming out.

The heat in the small kitchen was stifling; even though the windows and doors were open no current of air swayed the net curtains. Grace had woken that morning and looked at the leaden skies with a sense of foreboding. There had been no rain for weeks, it had been the same all over the country, and now Bethnal Green, her small corner of the East End, was dusty and grimy, littered with fag ends and rotting rubbish in the gutters, which filled the stagnant air 1

with the stench of decay. Flies and maggots made their homes in the rubbish and everyone was being bitten and driven insane by buzzing black swarms.

The day before, Sunday, she had taken her four-year-old son Adam and his baby brother Luke for a walk down Columbia Road, hoping that the smells from the flower market would lift her spirits. Even before she had had money, Grace had been in the habit of spending what little she had on filling her home with fresh blooms, believing it lent an air of elegance to their modest surroundings; Grace by name, Grace by nature.

She and her husband John had recently moved into their own home from a flat on the Baroness Estate, where they had both grown up – the first in their close-knit circle of family and friends to buy their own home – and now Grace liked to choose great armfuls of flowers every Sunday to fill its freshly painted rooms. John liked to tease her about it, calling her the Duchess, but Grace took pride in every thing she did, from her own stylish sense of dress to the way her children were always kept immaculately turned out on each and every occasion, and her new home gleaming and dust-free.

But in recent weeks her energy had begun to seep away, the unshakable confidence that was her trademark fraying at the edges and her sense of her own invincibility quickly eroding. It wasn’t just Grace who felt this way. The Devil had come to the 2

part of the East End where she lived, had claimed a defenceless victim and set everybody on edge. People who had known each other for years were beginning to eye their friends and neighbours suspiciously, and mothers were snapping at their children if they went out of sight for more than a moment. The worst of it was that the rape and murder of Chantal Robinson was to be only the first in a series of sexual assaults and murders during the long hot summer of 1976, when the sun beat down relentlessly, the rain just would not come, and the brash untouchable confi -

dence of this tight-knit community gave way to a siege mentality.

No one had been prepared for the wave of misery and fear that the events of the last week had brought in their wake. Chantal Robinson had been a striking child. Of mixed-race origin, the twelve-year-old girl was tall and dark-skinned with long black curly hair.

As she had developed into a voluptuous baby-woman, she’d become aware that boys were attracted to her and would quickly remove her glasses when -

ever they were around. But glasses on or off, Chantal was a beauty. She liked to walk down Hackney Road with her head in the air and her pleated grey kilt skirt turned over at the waist to show off her long, slim, legs. She loved the whistles of the boys as she strutted her way to school. Chantal was very popular and always in the middle of a crowd, so no one could understand how she had become separated from her 3

usual group who went everywhere together, how she had become the victim of a sex killer. The first victim.

Her body had been found in the narrow alley at the back of the Bingo hall, near the rear gates of Haggerston School. She was naked from the waist down, laid on her stomach with her legs spread-eagled and bent at the knees out to the side of her body. Her throat was wrapped in wire which had been pulled back tight and looped under the strap of her very first bra. Her eyes, shorn of their lashes, were starting almost out of her sockets and her tongue swollen and blue. Semen was found in the back of her throat.

A pool of blood had soaked into the pavement around her, caused by the internal injuries she had endured when a piece of arrow-pointed railing had been inserted into her vagina. It had penetrated her anus, causing internal rupture and bleeding. Con -

sider able force had been exerted, and the autopsy revealed that the object had been used in a ghastly travesty of sexual intercourse.

The stench of urine and faeces from the body had swiftly attracted all manner of insects and vermin.

The once-beautiful child was reduced to a stinking corpse. Even more baffling, though, was the lollipop.

Stuck to her cheek was a fruit lolly known as a drumstick, a popular piece of confectionery that was notoriously hard to chew.

Chantal was discovered by a road sweeper. Before 4

the police even had the chance to inform her waiting parents that their worst nightmare had become reality, the gossip spread like wildfire. Darren Robinson, known as Robbo, Chantal’s father, raced to the scene. He was totally unprepared for the sight that greeted him. As he leaned heavily against the wall, Robbo felt his head jerk forward involuntarily.

Vomit oozed from his mouth and nose. He struggled to see through eyes clouded over with a thick bile of snot and tears. His first-born, his beautiful girl, was dead in the vilest way. Some fucking lunatic had raped and violated her.

A police constable came slowly towards him, his own face white with shock at what he had found. Dry thunder rolled in the skies and the sunlight was blocked by rainless clouds. In his hand the policeman carried a pair of glasses. He held them out to Robbo.

‘Sir, I . . . her glasses, sir.’

Robbo cradled them in his hand and stared at the policeman. ‘What am I gonna tell her mum? What can I . . .’ And then the sickness overcame him again.

The local toddlers’ group, or the One o’Clock Club as they called themselves, met every Monday in the main room of the Baroness Working Men’s Club.

Here, mothers who had known each other all their lives – had gone to school together and then to each other’s weddings – were now bringing up their own children together. They’d had their differences and 5

squabbles, but the shared history and sense of community was stronger than any minor fallings out.

There were petty jealousies and rivalries within the group, but when trouble hit they pulled together and worked for the common good.

Feeling out of sorts and unable to concentrate on the talk and speculation this morning, Grace had left the other mums in a conspiratorial huddle as they endlessly picked over the details of Chantal’s rape and murder, searching for clues to the attacker’s identity. She was sick of hearing about it, sick of thinking about it, and on the pretext of getting Adam a drink had escaped to the kitchen. Grace didn’t want this in her life again.

Memories of her own childhood flooded back unbidden, and the thought of what she had endured as a young girl made her feel physically sick. Her Uncle Gary had been the suave, smart dresser, the man with money, the person everyone looked up to.

A real East End guy done good who liked to put on a show whenever he turned up to visit. Uncle Gary who bought all the kids cream soda and crisps. Uncle Gary, the ladies’ man, who was loved by one and all.

Uncle Gary, the man who robbed Grace of her innocence and made her do things she didn’t under -

stand, terrorising her into silence and fear. Uncle Gary who had finally died at the wheel of his new sports car, and Grace hadn’t cared, she’d been glad!

She steeled herself not to keep checking on Adam 6

as he played in his little red and yellow bubble car in the small enclosed garden, telling herself not to be paranoid. While all the other mums and children were seeking the shade indoors, little Adam seemed unperturbed by the blazing sun and continued on his circuits of the garden.

‘Adam, come in and get a drink, love,’ called Grace from the doorway.

‘Brmm, brmm, Mummy!’

‘Yeah, I know, brmm, brmm, but come and get a drink.’

‘In a minute, Mummy.’

Grace stood in the doorway and watched him; looked at the wire-mesh fence which enclosed the garden, and the shut gate, and told herself to get a grip.

‘For crying out loud, Grace! Come and sit down and stop hovering over that kid, he’s all right,’ Sue Williams, self-appointed leader of the One o’Clock Club and ringleader of the women in the neigh bour -

hood, shouted over to her. ‘None of us would let him play outside if we thought there was any problem.

Besides, it’s the girls who need to watch out . . .’

Grace gave Adam one last glance over her shoulder and went back to the other women, still huddled in their group. She was well aware that she wasn’t universally popular with all the mums in the group – something to do with the Ballantynes’

success. Her John worked all the hours God sent in 7

his small building firm and they’d been able to buy their own house. John drove a Jag when he didn’t use the van for work, and Grace had that effortless sort of beauty that stood out in any crowd. But she didn’t care if they didn’t all like her; she smiled widely, revealing her beautiful white teeth, and held her head up. This was where she was born, where she belonged and where she would stay. Not even Uncle Gary had changed that.

Although Sue was the most verbal in her criticism, Grace knew that she could trust the other woman with her life. Sue was the solid core of this neigh -

bourhood, she knew everything and everyone, and although she could be domineering and opinionated, she had the best interests of the community at heart and respected Grace for not moving away to some nice leafy suburb, even though she could have afforded to. Now Sue was busy regaling the group with an account of what had happened to her the night before.

‘So my Terry comes in last night, knows he’s in the shit from the night before because he got drunk, and I’m just about to give him a proper tongue-lashing when he gives me this little box – he’s only gone and got me another belcher chain! Well, I’m stumped then, I don’t know whether to slap him or kiss him.’

Sue laughed and they all laughed with her, and then she proudly showed off the newest addition to 8

the mass of chunky gold chains which adorned her neck. Grace smiled weakly and gazed towards the doorway; not a gold chain girl herself, she wore only a pair of pearl drops in her ears and the diamond-encrusted eternity ring on her wedding finger. She didn’t need anything else. Grace turned away from the group and walked towards the doorway.

‘Where are you going now?’ bellowed Sue.

‘I’m hot,’ said Grace.

‘Well, you won’t cool down out there. It’s like a bloody oven in that garden.’

‘I know, I want Adam to have his drink.’ Her son meanwhile was still busily brmm-brmming around the garden when a second little boy went to join him, banging on the door of the bubble car for Adam to come out, ‘Me go, me go!’ Adam shook his cousin Benny Jr off roughly, slammed the door of the bubble car and moved away, leaving the other child to dissolve in a pool of tears.