rebeccasparkles
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Joined: 3/20/2011
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Prologue
Katie’s eyes burned, stung red, her tears irritating her overly rubbed eyelids. The sounds of bird-song faintly dancing through the air. Grey skies overhead, with rainclouds promising to deposit their hidden moisture over the ground shortly. She stood by her father, surrounded by her grandparents, aunt and uncles, cousins and family friends, but felt more alone than she ever had done before in her life. Soft words spoken by the vicar, washing over her. She couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the pain she felt. Her eyes flicking from left to right, unwilling to make eye-contact with anyone, but desperate to avoid looking at the terrible rectangular chasm in the ground before her. The chasm that would very shortly have to be the focus for her, and for everyone gathered. She held the single red rose in her left hand, every now and again pressing her fingertip over the thorns, which had initially been taped over with green garden tape, but which she had insisted was removed from hers. She wanted to feel the pricking sensation in her fingers, desperately hoping that the physical pain would overcome the mental anguish she was feeling. She stepped forward on command, and with her father, dropped the single red rose in to the chasm. Watching as it tumbled down, hitting the wood, causing a couple of the petals to break off from the flower. Staring in to the chasm now, at the broken rose, seeing the loose petals begin to swirl, caught in a breeze. Unable to say goodbye, unable to say anything, totally choked with the intense emotions of the day.
Chapter 1: No Parent of mine…
Katie ran as fast as she could, as fast as her legs and feet would carry her. Her high-heels long since discarded due to their impracticability for running in, the grass and mud soft beneath her feet, but small stones digging in to her soles as she sprinted through the woods. It was dark, but the crescent moon overhead threw out enough light to illuminate the woods slightly, just enough now that her vision had accustomed itself to the low light-level. Enough for her to see the darker shapes of the tree trunks as they approached her. Enough, just about, to see the potentially catastrophic exposed tree roots, which could trip her up and surely surely lead to her chasers catching up with her. She had to stay on her feet. Had to keep moving as fast as she possibly could. She could hear the faint sounds of traffic, she knew the wood would soon end, mercifully releasing her on to a main road in to the city. There would surely be some people about, even at this time at night. But she also heard the heavy sprinting footsteps behind her, heard the voices shouting at her to stop. Four of them, she thought, but everything was happening in such a blur, and with the whistling of the wind as it raced past her ears, and between the trees, she couldn’t be sure.
She made out a dark shape low on the ground, a fallen tree-trunk she assumed, but it was long, she could not see in to the dark far enough to see which was the quickest way around. There was no time to stop though, no time to think things through. She had to hurdle it, at full pace. Katie lifted her left foot, and placed it on the top of the log, to spring off with her stronger left foot. But she did not see the small broken branch jutting out of the log, just where she placed her foot. A sharp pain as the wooden branch dug in to her bare sole, made even worse when she instinctively pushed off hard with her foot, to spring forward. The rough wood bit even harder in to her sole. As she landed beyond the fallen tree log, she could feel the intense throbbing pain in her left foot. But it was no good, she had to go on.
She could not lose any time, with her would-be captors so close behind her now, she imagined they could almost reach out of the darkness behind her and grab her around the waist. She had to run. Despite the sharp, biting pain in her left sole. If ever she needed her guardian angel, it was now. God, it was now. She had to keep running, or hobbling at least, as fast as she could. The voices behind her were seeming to grow louder. Was it her imagination, was it her increased sense of fear and danger heightening her senses, or were they really as close as they sounded now? She didn’t know, and did not dare to look behind her, just keep running. And then she saw a light, a car headlight, followed by another, and another. The road. The main road, it wasn’t just close now, it was in sight, just a few more paces, surely, and she would break free from this dark, claustrophobic wood, and be in the part-lit street. With cars and people passing by her, surely she would be safe, if she could just make it this last few strides. In her mind ran images from films and television programmes, where the pursuant always, always was caught within seconds of freedom. That was just the way of the world, the way of giving as cruel and heart-breaking an outcome as possible. “Was that going to be her fate”, she wondered, as the voices and footsteps behind her now sounding louder than ever before. What the fuck had happened to her normal, quiet, innocent life ….?
Katie was a gentle, kind and caring young woman. A petite girl, and a natural blonde, but defied the cruel stereotype, as she had been a model student, she had worked so hard at school, never getting in to any trouble. A Teacher’s pet in some ways, and she had often been teased for this. But she was happy, happy at school, happy with her group of friends, and so happy with her family life at home. She was an only child, her mother had been told that sadly she couldn’t have children due to health issues. But a beautiful miracle had led to Katie being conceived, and the lives of her parents Anna and Bryan had become complete. She was the only child they needed, she was their perfect daughter. And the three of them lived happily ever after. Until that tragic, life-changing accident. Bryan and Katie left to cope, to grieve and to support one another. The accident had happened at Easter-time, just before Katie’s A-level exams. She was absolutely distraught, she could barely cope with living day by day, but she managed to set herself on to auto-pilot to get herself through her exams, somehow. In reality, she did better than auto-pilot, and she achieved her required grades to go to her first choice university, in Birmingham. “You must be so pleased with yourself”, and “your mother would be so proud of you” had been sentiments echoed to her time and time again. Except, she didn’t want to hear “…would be…”, as that was just another reminder of her loss. She was desperate to hear “…is so proud…”, she was desperate to have the celebratory moment with her mum, opening her results letter nervously, and reading out her results to her proud mum. But that was not able to happen now.
Katie had agonised over the decision to go to university, just 5 months after their family-grief. Could she leave her dad, and could she cope without him, at such a tender time ? But in the end, it was Bryan who convinced her to go, she needed to carry on with her life, with her education, and needed to carry on with her friends that she had arranged to go to University with. And the new friends, the new life, she would start for herself. He would be okay. He would phone her, and the Christmas holidays really weren’t that far away. So Katie went to her fist choice University, and started her course in classical literature, and made the new friends that her Dad knew she would, whilst keeping in close contact with her old friends from back at school too. Despite her tragic set-back, Katie was demonstrating how to cope with grief, how to move on with her life, and how to survive. Until the Christmas holidays….
Her regular phone calls with her dad had been almost too regular at the start of the term. Fresher’s week had seemed like one long phone call from her dad. He was missing her terribly, and she was him. But gradually, they became more accustomed to being apart. Phone calls seemed to reduce down to a couple of times a week. Katie had meant to go back home and visit her dad, and her grandparents, but there had always been something going on at weekends. Lit society parties, house parties, or, heaven forbid, coursework deadlines to submit to. And the Christmas holidays weren’t actually that far away. She could stay here, and enjoy the beginning of her new life as a student, and return to see her family, and complete the grieving process, over Christmas. In some of the phone calls with her dad toward the end of the 1st term, he had begun to talk about someone called Debbie. “Debbie this….” and “Debbie that…”, some new colleague that her dad was working with. She didn’t like it. Not one bit.
However, with her lectures now drawing to a close, and all coursework submitted in time for the Christmas break, Katie boarded the train back home, with her suitcase full and her heart leaping at seeing her dad and her grandparents again. Half expecting to see her dad’s car waiting for her in the station car park upon her train pulling in, she was slightly perplexed when it wasn’t there. Hailing a taxi, she hopped inside, and gave the driver her home address. Arriving shortly after in the taxi, she was perplexed again to see a car she didn’t recognise parked in the driveway. Her mind ticked over, wondering who’s car it was. She wouldn’t need wait long to find out. Katie opened her front door, expecting to see her dad come rushing to greet his perfect daughter home for the holidays. Instead, as the door swung open, she came face-to-face with a young boy, about five years old, still wearing his Nemo pyjamas. Confused, she stood there, looking at the boy. A bottle-blonde woman in her early forties walked in to the hallway. She looked at Katie, half-smirking. “Bry, Bry, visitor….” She called out. “Visitor…” thought Katie, “What kind of fucking visitor has a front door key….”
Bryan came down the stairs, and saw his daughter at the door. “Katie” he cried out, joyously, “I thought it was tomorrow you were coming back”. Slightly flushed, he had obviously planned a heart-to-heart with his daughter on a drive back from the train station. In truth, he had been planning a heart-to-heart with her for nearly a month, but couldn’t find the right words over the phone. Katie stood there, her world rapidly falling apart, as she soaked in the scene playing out in front of her eyes. “A five year old boy in his pyjamas, he’s obviously not arrived like this, he’s obviously been here for a while” she thought, her mind racing over the facts. Her eyes glanced around her, at the hallway, things were different. Ornaments were missing, her mum’s ornaments, not on the dresser table where they should be. Pictures missing from the walls, and in their place different ornaments, different pictures, which she’d never seen before. Which had no place her in her mum’s hallway. But the most alien object in the hallway was this half-smirking bottle-blonde woman who had referred to her as a “visitor”. This woman should not be there, not in the slightest.
Katie lay on her bed, in her old bedroom, in the family two-bedroom house. Except now the single bed in there had a Fireman Sam bedspread. “She couldn’t even leave my fucking bedroom alone” she muttered to herself. Debbie had made numerous changes to the house in the 3 weeks since she had moved in. it was now a symbiotic mix of Debbie’s possessions with Katie’s parents’ items. The lounge and the kitchen downstairs, and Debbie and Bryan’s bedroom, and little Danny’s bedroom, now converted from Katie’s old room. There was nowhere left in the house that was as Katie had remembered from August. Nowhere that she could remember her mum as she had been. Debbie had infused herself in to every corner and crevice of the house, as fast as she could. Katie sobbed and sobbed. She had only been away for 13 weeks. 13 weeks, in which time her life back here had been totally turned upside down, behind her back.
There was no way she could stay here, not in this horrible mixture of this woman with Katie’s family. It was a week before Christmas, and she had to get out of the house, she felt claustrophobic here now, she couldn’t breathe the air. Katie descended the stairs, collected her suitcase, and opened the door. Bryan ran in to the hallway, begging her to not walk out, begging her to stay, but she was so cross with him, she couldn’t even begin to express her feelings without breaking down in tears again. Bryan hugged his daughter, but realised that he had hurt her deeply. “Please, if you won’t stay here, let me take you to your Nanna’s house” he begged her. Through her tears, Katie agreed, and they got in to the car, and drove away. Debbie watched from the window, playing with Danny. She smiled. “A plan perfectly executed” she mused to herself. She couldn’t be expected to live with legacy items of the ex-wife scattered around her new home. Her predecessor was obviously someone of taste - there were a few items that Debbie most definitely liked a lot and wanted to keep for her own, including the hallway ornaments, very tasteful and chic. But a lot of the rest were just legacy items that simply got in the way. However, there was one legacy item that would need to be disposed of very carefully, very precisely. “Can’t have the daughter constantly reminding all and sundry of her mother” she had plotted. And so the carefully constructed plan, the removal of certain items and photographs, had been step one in her cleansing plan. And the silly little girl had took the bait. Hook, line and sinker.
Katie had spent the remainder of her Christmas holiday split between her grandparents on her mother’s side and her father’s side. Christmas day had been spent with her mum’s parents. She felt closest to her mum back here at her grandparent’s house now, now that Debbie had defiled her own family home. She saw her dad when he came round to both sets of grandparents, but she had vowed to not set foot back in that house whilst that woman was there. The Christmas holidays had also offered her a chance to catch up with her other school friends who had gone to different universities as Katie did. And, as with all Christmas and New Year parties, alcohol had been a key ingredient. Katie had liked drinking with her friends before, she was a vodka and OJ gal, a few sociable drinks with her friends had always been fun. But at these Christmas parties, the amount of OJ had gradually reduced, the amount of vodka gradually increased, to dull the senses, to ease the pain. Her successful, healthy grieving process had been entirely reversed, and she gradually used alcohol as a painkiller, rather than a device for fun.
Except, after a while, alcohol was no longer enough of a painkiller. Katie had met new people at the parties, who had suggested other methods of chemical painkillers. Methods that involved powders and tablets. And in her weakened, emotional state, Katie had accepted these offers, and found herself now using illegal substances as her comfort blanket and her emotional support. She hated herself each day following the parties, but the need to block out the hurt and the pain, and the gradual hold that an addictive substance takes upon a young mind, meant that she could only sink deeper, the chemicals like a mental quicksand, and the more she struggled, the deeper she seemed to sink. As she would lay in her mum’s old bedroom, on her childhood bed, back at her grandparent’s house, she began to notice that she felt watched. But, it wasn’t creepy, or scary, or in any way unwelcome. It was comforting. It was reassuring. She would notice it usually when she cried. She would almost feel like there was an energy there, silently, without contact, comforting her in her grief. She would sometimes notice the light flickering ever so slightly, was it her mind playing tricks on her? Was it electrical wiring problems? She didn’t want to think so. It was more comforting to think of it as her guardian angel, there to support her in her moments of need.
The last party of her Christmas holidays was at a club in town. She hadn’t really realised, but she had drifted slightly apart from her usual clique of old school-friends over the break. Not through anything malicious or nasty, on either side. They were still her best friends, and in turn they still cared dearly about Katie. But, they knew about Debbie moving in with Katie’s dad, and they felt they needed to give her space to process. Especially the way she had chosen to process. So, on her final weekend before heading back to University, Katie found herself in a nightclub, with her new friends, taking substances that she knew she shouldn’t. She felt light-headed, dizzy and sick. She needed to get some air. She went outside, where a group of four guys she didn’t know were drinking, laughing, snorting and swallowing. She joined them, they seemed fun. Her head was swimming now. They said that they were leaving soon, and did she want to come with them? “We’re in the car, we can give you a lift” said the one guy. Katie nodded. She didn’t know why, but she did. And so, they made their way to the guys’ car, in the car park.
The five got in the car and headed off. After several minutes, Katie told them the street she needed to go back to, her grandparents’ street. “You still owe us for the stuff darling”, came the answer from the driver. Katie was sitting in the back seat, by the door. Her heart pounded, the car left the main street and headed down towards the wooded area on the edge of the city, the opposite way from her wanted direction. The road they were on was completely deserted. She had no money on her, and was terrified about what the four would want. A traffic light ahead turned red, the car pulled to a stop by it. Katie closed her eyes, was her guardian angel with her here? Even this far away from the bedroom? She tried the door handle. It swung open. She ran. Throwing her heels behind her, she darted in to the woods just next to the deserted street.
With one final lung-bursting, sole throbbing effort, she cleared the tree-line, and broke out, on to the open grassy bank, sprinting down to the pavement, toward the road. Waving her arms frantically. She might be clear of the woods now, but not “out-of-the-woods” in the sense of the saying yet. She really, really needed someone in one of the passing cars to stop for her. And then her guardian angel struck again. As they always seemed to do, when she needed it the most. Katie saw a small silver Vauxhall slow down and indicate, just yards away from her. She hobbled toward it. The passenger door opened. “Are you okay there” called the girl from inside. Crying now, she hobbled to the car, grasping hold of the open door. “Please, I need a lift, I need to get away from here” she sobbed. The rear door opened, and she saw another girl shuffle across to make space for her in the back seat. “Get in, hun” she was told. She did so. As she closed the door, and the car began to pull away, she looked at the woods, from where she had emerged, just seconds before. She saw the four men she recognised from her pursuit emerge, puffing and panting. They saw the car begin to accelerate away, and realised that the girl had gotten away from them. Katie slumped back in to the seat. In tears, she thanked her saviours, the petite blonde woman and her taller, slightly older brunette companion. She knew she needed to sort herself out, she could not carry on in this self-destructive path any more.
Chapter 2: Innocence lost
The music beat loudly within Katie’s body, she was stood right by the speaker, and she could feel the vibrations all the way through her. Her hair was pulled back in to a tight ponytail, eyeliner was applied and red lipstick. She caught her reflection in one of the many mirrors around the room, and barely recognised herself, in painfully short silver hot-pants and a white bra. Still, that was the point, she really, really didn’t want to be recognised. She saw the neon strip-lights that swirled on the floor, and noticed them catching and glinting in the silver parts of the silver and leopard-print heels she wore. She took another sip of her drink for dutch courage, as the club DJ gave her a quick nod. “Please welcome to the stage, making her Diamond Lounge debut, the gorgeous Crystal”. Katie walked through the curtain, and on to the stage. She saw some guys milling around the bar area, and a few others sat in the leather seats facing the stage. She advanced toward the gleaming pole in the middle of the stage. Taking a deep breath, she ran through the routine she had been taught that afternoon, took hold of the pole with her right hand, and began. All the while wondering how she, Katie Kendall, had sunk to this….
They say that the road to hell was paved with good intentions. If that was the case, then Katie was doing 70 miles per hour on the Hell Expressway. She had reflected upon the scares she’d had in her life in the previous few weeks; the chase through the woods, the substances she’d been taking, the dramatic increase in alcohol, forgetting large swathes of every night out she was having recently, and the dubious people she now ended up spending her nights out with. She had become reckless, had become despondent with her own life.
Now back at University, her friends there, who had said goodbye to a sweet, delicate and grieving-but-coping young woman on the last day of term, were greeted upon her return with a hopelessly upset, tragic figure, interested only in taking enough chemical stimulants to forget her own unhappy existence. Katie had so wanted to kick the drugs, and the alcohol abuse. She wanted to return to the girl she remembered herself being. But she couldn’t remember how she had coped back then. Maybe she had been able to cope because she was blissfully unaware of the poisonous infiltration and infection of her home, the only family home she had ever known.
Katie struggled through the lectures and the assignments now they had got back in to the swing of the second term at University. Her budget, oh so carefully managed in her first term, had now been decimated by the extra expenditure to fund her newly developed and rapidly forming substance problem. In order to attempt to cut herself away from this vicious-cycle of substances, she decided to go back to see her grandparents, in her home town. Without any prior notice to her Nanna, she boarded the train on a Friday afternoon, after lectures were completed, and headed home. Back to see her loving grandparents. Back to see her mum’s childhood bedroom. Back to visit her guardian angel. Except, when she arrived, her gran noticed the marked change in Katie. She was thinner now, her skin dry and pale, her hair matted, frayed and splitting. Even an eighty year old woman with no knowledge of drugs or their side-effects could see that her beloved grand-daughter was suffering immensely.
And so her father, Bryan was summoned to the house, to see her, to talk to her, to try and build bridges between them. “Katie, you look gaunt, are you not eating?” she’d been asked, by her nanna, her grandad, and now lastly, her dad, when he entered. “I just need some more money”, she replied. “Things have been hectic, there’s been a lot of course books to buy” she lied. “How much more do you need, I’ll buy the books on-line for you” Bryan offered. “I just need the money” she snapped back. “It’s complicated”. Her father looked in to her eyes. They showed such sorrow, but also a hard, bitter look to them, one that he had never seen in her before. “I’ll need to check a few finances with Debbie….” he began, before censoring himself mid-sentence. But it was too late. Katie screamed back at him “what the fuck has my university fees got to do with her?”. Bryan tried to appease her, but she was livid that now, even in this house, her grandparents’ home, her mother’s childhood home, this bleach-blonde harpy was still trying to invade. The two argued, bitterly and furiously. “How can you do this to mum? How can you disrespect her memory like this?” Katie had screamed. Her father, angry at the accusations, upset at his daughter’s forthright disapproval, and broken by her changed appearance, angrily defended himself, but the argument got neither anywhere. He stormed out of the house, leaving her there, furious, but on the brink of tears. Hearing the door slam shut, Katie broke down in to floods of tears. And so, with the weekend spent sobbing and being comforted by her nanna, she wearily headed back to University on the Sunday evening.
Katie’s financial situation had become dire. She needed money, and not just now to continue her chemically controlled emotional painkilling. She had almost nothing left for food and university bills. Fortunately, the student accommodation was paid directly by her dad, so at least she wasn’t about to be made homeless. A small mercy, she had thought, as if that money had come in to her first to pay the accommodation bills, she would almost certainly have spent that on drugs too. But, she knew she had to earn money, make enough to at least cover the basic bills, whilst trying, desperately trying to wean herself off the substances that were ruining her life. She scoured the job boards at University, and signed up for every possible paying clinical study she could. Filling in questionnaires about travel, health, education, economy, everything that was advertised upon the jobs noticeboard she did, earning a few pounds here and there. But it wasn’t enough.
A job advertised upon the job boards was asking for shop assistants in the on-campus grocery store. She’d applied, but the available shifts had clashed with lectures. She couldn’t not attend classes, to go to work in the shop. It made no sense. She was here, at University, paying nine thousand pounds a year, to learn. It was nonsensical to not make every attempt to succeed in the primary reason for being at Uni. There had been other jobs advertised upon the boards, but these were so often manual, heavy-duty lifting and the like, in local warehouses and factories. She had always attended the open-days for these jobs, but being a petite five foot three, and now looking increasingly gaunt, she was hardly an obvious choice of worker.
And so, giving up on the university job boards, she turned to google to see what female students could do to earn money whilst at University. Amongst the various suggestions that had come up requiring skills that she didn’t possess, she saw an advert, “The Diamond Lounge is looking for females to add to our skilled and sexy workforce” it had read. A further search revealed that the Diamond Lounge was a pole-dancing and lap-dancing club in a close-by town. Her initial instinct was to hit the red cross in the top right corner of the page as fast as possible. But she noticed “Earn £££’s” toward the bottom of the page. She wondered… “could she do this, did she dare?”….
Katie sat in the manager’s office, wearing the skimpy denim shorts and white bra that she had been handed, in her size, by the receptionist. “Sure, we can start you this weekend, we’re short of a couple of girls” Steve smiled. Steve Roach was the manager, and liked the look of this girl. Not the usual pole-dancing and stripping type, but would certainly add to the variety in the club. “What experience do you have?”. Katie confessed that she didn’t have any. “We’ll need to give you a crash course on the pole beforehand then, but don’t worry, you’ll pick it up no problems” he had replied. “it’ll cost you a hundred though, that’s not a problem, is it?”. Katie replied that it might be, that she didn’t have that money at the moment. “Ahh, you’re misunderstanding babe, you don’t need to pay it upfront, we can deduct it, along with your attendance fee, on a monthly basis”. “Attendance fee?” she enquired. “You really haven’t got any experience, do you” Steve laughed. “You need to pay us a fee to work here, and then in return, you get a small wage for each pole-dance on the main stage, and you will get all the earnings from the private lap-dances you do”. Katie nodded, not really following, but not wanting to have to think too much about it.
As Saturday arrived, Katie found herself boarding a bus out of the city, and to the closest stop to her new place of work, her new “office”. The training had actually been quite fun, her and another 4 new girls, one of them working tonight alongside her, were taught the basics of pole-dancing by Kandy, an experienced dancer in her late twenties. It had been tiring and hard work but fun, to learn several routines for the pole, and for lap-dancing, and to pick up new skills. She had always wondered why groups of girls on Hen parties would go to pole-dancing classes, it had seemed so odd to her, but when throwing herself in to it in this friendly environment, with other newbies and a nice teacher, it was genuinely fun. “Would it be the same at 11pm tonight though”, she wondered. As the evening approached, and she sat in her student bedroom, she had contemplated not going. “I could phone in sick” she thought. But no, not on her first shift, it would be obvious that she had panicked, and she wouldn’t be given any more shifts. So, with the night settled in outside, and all of her housemates out for a Saturday night at the Students Union, she wrapped up warm in her coat and gloves, and headed to the bus station. Arriving in plenty of time, she knocked on the door. Steve opened it. He smiled. “I was half expecting to not see you again” he joked. They went inside, back to his office. “First things first, what will your dancing name be?” he quizzed her. Katie thought. She looked around the room for inspiration. Spotting the cut-glass tumbler part-full with whisky on the desk, she replied “Crystal, I think”. Steve smiled again. “A very classic dancing name” he said. “Crystal it is”.
And so Katie, charged with her new identity, watched the other girls do their routines on the pole, in front on the quiet audience on the Saturday night, before it was her turn. Taking a deep breath, she followed Kandy’s routine plan immaculately, and got a gentle round of applause when she was finished. “Crystal will be available for private lap-dances for the rest of the night”, the DJ announced, as she was walking off the stage, back through the curtains, to put her bra back on and prepare for the rest of the night. On entering the main section of the club again, now attired back in her white bra, along with her silver hotpants, she was approached by a guy, holding out a twenty pound note. “Crystal, I’d like a private lap-dance” he said, as he walked up to her.
Katie could smell the alcohol on his breath already. She smiled, she had been told the protocols, lead them through the club to the back area, where there were curtained off sections, each containing a sofa. There, you could take the money from the customer. She held his hand, and led him in to the first free cubicle.
She sat him down, took the cash, and began to work through one of the two lap-dance routines that Kandy had taught them that afternoon. She slipped her bra off, tossing it playfully on to the sofa next to the guy. She then began to step out of her hot-pants. Her heel had initially always got stuck in them, in rehearsal, but she very carefully stepped free from them, and too threw them playfully on to the sofa. She began to rhythmically sway her hips, listening to the beat of the music faintly pumping through from the main stage, a Katy Perry song she really liked. It was all going just like rehearsal, until he grabbed her, so high up on her thigh, squeezing it roughly. She panicked, and tried to push his hand away, except he was too strong. Katie tried to prise his horrid hand off her thigh, with all her strength, until all of a sudden it released in an instant. Why she had managed to loosen his grip, she didn’t know. Her guardian angel, maybe? Except, she hadn’t been expecting to force the man’s hand off her thigh. She fell crashing forward in to him, her elbow making sharp contact with the bridge of his nose. She felt a crack, and saw blood on him. He cried out in agony, screaming, and security rushed in pulling him away, and letting her re-dress, before dragging her out to Steve’s office.
“He fucking grabbed me, he’s not allowed to do that” she’d protested to Steve. Steve ran his fingers across his stubble. He sighed. “Your fucking first day, and this…”. “He’s talking about filing for assault, he says you deliberately elbowed him in the nose. We think it’s broken”. “He grabbed me, he fucking grabbed me first” Katie protested. “And it wasn’t deliberate, it was an accident, when I was trying to get him off me”. “Fucking filing for assault Katie, assault, do you understand?” Steve repeated. She did, and she sobbed. For the millionth time in the past few months, she sobbed and sobbed. Steve relented with his inquisition. “Look, he can talk about filing for assault all he likes, he’s blind-drunk, and if we threaten to counter file for sexual assault, then I am one-hundred percent sure he’ll drop everything” he said, trying to comfort her. She looked at him. “Really?” she asked. He nodded. There was a lengthy pause. “Look, I am sorry, but I really don’t think we can keep you on Katie”, Steve announced. “I don’t think you’re cut out for this, and I think you believe the same too”. She nodded weakly, he was right. This had been a mistake. “Do I still owe you for the lesson today, and the admission fee” she asked. Steve felt guilty. In theory, yes she did. But that would mean that this whole ordeal would end up costing her well over a hundred pounds. He rummaged in his draw for the bundle of paperwork that the new employees had handed him that afternoon. Looking through them, he found Katie’s. “We can only charge you for them if we have your details” he said, and handed her the form. “Take it”. She took the forms, and looked at him. “Quickly, before anyone finds out, get dressed and go” he said to her. Katie thanked him, stood up and wandered through to the changing rooms, to slip back on her jeans and hoodie, and her coat. Walking out in to the freezing night air, she realised how reckless she had been with her life, and her personal safety, over these past few weeks. She walked back to the bus-stop and waited, to return to her student flat, to her student life, and she hoped, to the old her.
Chapter 3: The long arm of the law
Katie sat on the bed, in this stranger’s bedroom, waiting for him to return. Her hands cuffed behind her back. Her holdall thrown in to the corner of the room. From outside of the room, she heard her phone beep, a text message coming through. The room was lit by a lamp on the bedside table, but the curtains were drawn, no natural moonlight able to enter the room. She scanned her eyes side to side, across the room. A very simple, basic bedroom. The bed was unmade, and she was uneasy about sitting on it, but this was where she had been told to wait. And she daren’t do anything wrong. “Fucking stupid girl…”, she chastised herself. “How the fuck have I got in to this”….
It hadn’t been easy for her, in fact it had been incredibly difficult, but Katie, with the help of her friends at university, had been able to rid herself of the illegal substances that she had become hooked upon, and distance herself from the friends that had led her to those substances. She had spent a lot of time in their student flat, with her housemates and her friends, deliberately not going out, not putting herself in the way of temptation. That had worked to some extent, and had let her re-assess the mistakes she had made, and slowly but surely turn her life back around, toward the place she had been before Christmas. Her friends saw the return of the girl they had gotten to know in that first term of university. She concentrated more upon her lectures, she turned in some of her best work in the essays and coursework given to the literature class, and she was now studying hard for the upcoming exams.
Katie had also found solace in music, pop songs by her musical heroines which had come to mean so much to her, and had helped her grow stronger again. But the rift with her father was still wide-open. She could now accept that it was a little different for him as it was for her. You don’t choose a mother, and you only ever have one, and she had lost hers. There would never be anyone to replace her mother, just as for anyone else in this world. A mother is truly irreplaceable. Marriage on the other hand was a decision, it was a choice made by two people, when in love. And it wasn’t exactly uncommon for people nowadays to get married more than once, to find someone they loved, more than once in their lives, for whatever reason. Even the timing that her dad had chosen to meet someone else, although awful, she could probably forgive, in time. But she could not forgive him for the person that he had chosen. Not this woman, who had made it very clear that she intended to decimate every aspect of the family unit that Katie’s mother had developed over the previous 18 years.
With the 2nd term at university now drawing to a close, she had to decide where to spend the three weeks of the break. And with it being the Easter break, it was also the anniversary of the accident, the day scarred on her mind forever. She had to be back with her grandparents for that, just had to. So, she had decided to spend the first week back with her grandparents, to be close to them, to support them and to be emotionally supported, before returning to Uni for the last two weeks of the Easter break, staying at the student flat on her own.
And so she found herself boarding the intercity train again, packed with her holdall containing clothes for the week, happy to be seeing her grandparents once again, happy to feel close to her mum by sleeping in her old bedroom. It had been a very emotional week, tiring and draining on everyone in the family. She had of course seen her father when he came round to see Katie at her grandparents, but she still maintained that she would not set foot in the family house with that woman there. But the two of them didn’t want to fight. Not at this time, with the height of emotions of the week. And because it was such a mentally draining week for everyone. She had enjoyed the quiet at night, when she could be alone in the bedroom. The feeling of the energy in the room, so difficult to describe, like an electricity pulsing through the air from time to time, a reassuring flicker of the lamp when she was reading one of her course texts, or scribbling down notes on A4 pads of paper about the character developments, the narrative styles and the vivid scenery depicted by the authors.
But that first week of the Easter holidays soon drew to a close, and she knew that she could get more revision crammed in back at the empty flat. She wanted to do her absolute best in the exams that followed shortly after Easter, and this time she could acknowledge that it was because she wanted her mum to have been proud – past tense. They say that time is the best healer, and although she would always miss her more than words could express, time had helped to partially heal even this wound in Katie’s psyche.
She boarded the train, with her holdall and a Tupperware box of cookies baked for her on her last day there by her Nan. Absent-mindedly staring out of the window at the buildings flashing past her window, before the concrete and brick gradually made way to greenery – trees and fields of the countryside. Even a Virgin Rail cup of tea was made bearable when accompanied by her nanna’s homemade cookies, taking her back to her childhood memories, such happy times. Finally, the train began entering more built-up areas, and soon pulled in at her destination. She got off with her holdall, and set-off walking back to the student flat. It had got dark, so she hurriedly walked along the city centre streets. Passing by a group of guys, on a night out. She became aware of some commotion behind her, and spun round to see the three guys, pointing at her, two of them holding back the third from approaching her. “It’s her, it’s the bitch who hit me” she could hear him say.
Her mind flicked back to that night, that one shift she had done at the Diamond Lounge. She looked at the guy, was it him? She couldn’t tell, but from his reaction, she assumed it was. She carried on walking, hurriedly now, hoping she could get around the corner, and then start to run. The guys shouted after her to stop. There was no way she was going to. She could hear heavy footsteps, and realised that they were now running toward her. She began to run, but weighed down by her holdall, could not manage to get any kind of pace up. She felt a hand reach out and clasp hold of her wrist. “You fucking broke my nose, you bitch” the guy began to shout at her.
All of a sudden she heard a siren, she saw the reflections of a flashing blue light in the house windows she was looking at, and became aware of a police car pulling up aside her. A single police officer got out. He looked at the guy, and then at Katie. “Everything alright here?” the policeman asked. “I don’t know this man, he just grabbed me” Katie replied quickly, beating her would-be attacker to a response. The man stammered, although no audible words were actually formed. “I see, I think you’d better let the girl go” the policeman said to the guy. He did so. “On your way now lads” he added. Katie watched the three guys turn and walk away, back toward the city centre.
“Thank you”, she said to him. He looked at her. “Can you blame then, coming after you, when you’re dressed like that” he barked at her. Katie felt the burn of unfairness build inside her. She looked at the officer, saw his embroidered name badge “Myers” on his jacket. What the fuck did her appearance have to do with this, she thought. This is my body, I can’t help what my body physically looks like. And I am wearing just regular clothes, just a dress and a jacket. How can it possibly be conceived as being my fault if my physical appearance, and my regular, normal, commonly-purchased clothes are deemed to have some kind of effect on a guy. Like he has no control over himself when he sees a girl looking like this. But clearly, she did not say this to Myers, she just stood, letting the frustration rise, and then fade inside her.
“I see plenty of girls like you, dressed like this. You’re your own worst enemies” Myers added. Again, she felt anger rise, but couldn’t show it. After all, he had just saved her from the other guy. “Right, I want to see what you’ve got in that bag” Myers said. Katie let the holdall fall down from her shoulder, in to her hand, and passed to him. He opened it, and took out the Tupperware. What’s this?” he asked, but without waiting for a reply, opened the box. On seeing just cookies, he tipped the contents on to the pavement. She nearly protested, but again held back, feeling scared now. What was the saying, she thought - “Out of the frying pan, in to the fire”. Myers rummaged deeper in to her bag. “Ah ha” he said, and pulled out a little plastic bag, filled with ten or fifteen little white powdery tablets. “Someone’s been a naughty little slut, haven’t they” he sneered. “What, wait, I don’t know what that is. I’ve never seen that before” Katie protested. The frustrations and anger that had bubbled beneath the surface before now rearing themselves. “That’s not mine, you’ve just put that there” she snapped. “You say anything like that again, and you’ll be looking at a custodial sentence” he shouted at her. “Get in the car”.
She sat in the back of the police car, as Myers drove along the streets. He hadn’t asked her where she lived, hadn’t said she was under arrest, in fact hadn’t said anything to her. Just drove in silence, ignoring her pleas of innocence. Could her guardian angel help her even now? Was she a match for this vile police officer? She carefully moved her hand, so slowly, on to the door handle, and softly, quietly pulled. But it was locked. She sighed, she was trapped.
Finally Myers pulled over, after 20 minutes of driving out in to a very quiet, deserted part of the city, which she did not know at all. He got out, walked to the rear door, and opened it. He climbed in alongside her. “You’re a very lucky girl, because I can make this problem all go away” Myers said, in a very low tone. “Please, I really, really have nothing to do with that” she replied. “It’s not mine”. He smiled, and tutted. “And who are my colleagues likely to believe, if we go down to the station” he questioned, pointing to the badge on his jacket. “Like I say, you’re very lucky, because I am feeling generous today, and I want to make this mess all disappear for you” he repeated, calmly. “Do you want it all to disappear?”. She nodded. “Good, I thought you might say that. We’re going back to my apartment then”.
Four hours later, Katie was standing on the street, outside Myers’ apartment block, hailing down a taxi. Holding the ten pound note he had thrust in to her hand for a cab. She’d been made to give him her phone number, because he had said that “making this all go away would require at least a few visits”. He had taken her phone and purse from her when she had entered so that she couldn’t flee in a hurry, or at least if she did, then he would have a way of tracking her down. But he had returned them to her when he had decided that she was allowed to leave.
Images of the previous few hours, inside his apartment, filled her thoughts. She wanted to cry, but now wasn’t the time. This wasn’t the time to feel sorry and upset, and worthless. She let the hate flow in to her, the hatred for Myers, made sure that she felt the absolute maximum loathing for that man that she possibly could. Because feeling this level of hatred would motivate her to seek revenge. She was not going to forgive him for this, and she knew that she would have to see him again. She would let the hatred build each time, because she would take her revenge on this man, if it were the last thing she did.
Chapter 4: It’s always darkest before the dawn
Katie sat in the interview room, the two police officers across the table from her, staring intently at her. “Were they for you, or were they intended to be sold on”, pressed the one officer. “They’re just mine” she replied weakly. She wanted to scream out, “of course they’re not mine, and of course I had no intention of selling them on”. She desperately wanted to say how they’d been pressed in to her hand, seconds before the police officers burst in to the room, by that bastard, but she knew it was no use. “Why were you at the members club?” the other officer asked. “Just was, just met someone outside and was asked in” Katie lied. The two officers swapped glances at one another. They knew she was lying, probably about everything. She was dressed in a very short mini-skirt and a low cut top, and looked the kind of girl who bounced from trouble to trouble. Probably some junkie, and probably paid to be at the club for entertainment.
Earlier that day, Katie had received another call from Myers. The third already this month. At least last month it had only been a couple of calls from him. It was getting more regular. Still, she had a plan this time. Time to get her revenge on this bastard. She had downloaded a voice recorder app on to her mobile. She planned to go back to his apartment as he instructed, leave the voice recorder on her phone running, and ask him through a series of leading questions why he was doing this to her. Get him to incriminate himself in his answers, and then take it to the police. Leave them with no option but to arrest him for everything he had done to her. Myers’ instructions had been simple. Get to his apartment in an hour’s time. It was a Saturday, and she had tried to tell him that she had plans, and that if she cancelled those plans, then it would arouse suspicion. She thought this was clever, she thought he’d bite and tell her to not bother then, as she thought he would want to avoid raising suspicions in her friends. But he had just sneered down the phone, he didn’t care about that crap, and that she would be at his in an hour, or would be facing the consequences.
Katie finished the bit of coursework that she had been writing that morning. A juxtaposition between the mundaneness of her university coursework, crashing in to the distress and abuse she felt from this horrid pig. She then mentally prepared herself, and walked out of the flat, and toward the bus-stop, taking her to the closest stop by his apartment block. She sat on the top-deck of the bus, hearing the inane chatter of her fellow passengers, discussing their Saturday plans, lunch with friends in town, shopping, plans for the evening – going out to nightclubs or to pubs, or to the cinema. She wished that these could be her Saturday plans. Wished that she could join one of the groups on the bus, having a fun day. But she had been summoned, and she had her plan to execute. Hopefully, this would be the last time she ever needed make this bus journey, feeling like this.
The bus wound its way through the city, finally turning in to the road which she would disembark on. She stood up, pressed the bell, and carefully began to walk down the stairs, the rocking motion of the bus making her stumble and sway slightly on the stairs. The bus drew to a stop, and she walked to the front, thanked the driver, and stepped down. On the remaining few minutes’ walk to the apartment block, she took her phone out, and tested the voice recording app. It was working fine. She looked at the battery, virtually fully-charged, she was prepared for him this time. Katie buzzed the intercom, pressing the button for apartment 13 (very apt, she had always thought), and Myers voice crackled though. “Hello?” he said. “It’s me” she answered. The door clicked open. As she knocked on his front door, she hit the START button on the recorder app.
“You took your time, are you trying to wind me up” Myers said, as he opened the door to her. “Sorry, the bus was running late” she replied. “In the bedroom, now” he said. She walked through, and began to ask her leading questions to him, hoping his answers would incriminate him. “I really don’t want to today” she said. Again, he just laughed at her. “Why are you doing this, what did I ever do?” Katie pushed again, trying to induce some kind of dialogue from him. He looked at her. What the fuck was she trying to achieve with these pointless questions. “Fucking stupid bitch” he snapped back. “Now get undressed”. She stepped out of her jeans, and placed them in the corner of the room. Myers looked at them. He could see a glow coming from the pocket. Her mobile phone screen was illuminated, for some reason.
Slowly but surely, the leading questions she had been asking him began to make more sense. Was she trying to get him to incriminate himself, somehow? Myers pushed her on to the bed, and strode over to the pile of clothes on the corner. He put his hand in to the jeans pocket, pulling out the phone. Looking at the screen, seeing an icon of a tape recorder whirring around on the screen. Filled with utter rage, this fucking bitch was trying to set him up. Trying to capture him admitting to things on this voice recorder, which seemed to be getting saved directly to her cloud account. He would not stand for this, not from this fucking little bitch. Myers ripped the battery out the back of the phone, the screen immediately dying. He dropped the phone on the floor, and stamped down hard on it with his heel. A spider-web crack spreading out across the fragile glass of the screen. He paced over to where Katie was, on the bed, and wrapped his left hand, in a pincer shape, around her neck. “You think you can out-smart me?” he shouted at her. “You think I’m going to take this from you. You’re a slut and you’re going to pay for this”.
Two hours later, Katie stood back outside the apartment block. Her phone just about still workable, but the screen barely able to show any information on it. He’d ruined it. He’s ruined her plans. And worst of all, he’d told her that she would be needed later on tonight too. To go to a private-club he was a member at. There was an adult party tonight, and as punishment for her earlier misdemeanour, she would be going with him, and he had promised her she would not enjoy it. She boarded the bus with a very heavy heart. Arriving back at her flat mid-afternoon, she couldn’t concentrate on doing anything for the rest of the day. She had coursework to do, over the summer, she had planned to look for a summer job, but that all seemed to fade in to insignificance.
The rest of the afternoon had passed by in horrible slow-motion. Dreading the evening to come. She dressed as instructed, a mini-skirt and low cut top, and high heels. Again, the bus ride across the city, back to Myers’ apartment. She wearily stepped off the bus, and made the dreaded walk to the apartment block. He was waiting for her outside, standing by his car. He beckoned her over. “You’re doing this deliberately now, you’re fucking late again”. She looked at his watch. It was 15 minutes after the time she’d been told to be there for. But she had grown so weary, so tired, she just wanted a way out. “Someone smashed my phone up, I had no way of knowing the time when I was on the bus” she petulantly replied. “Get in the car” he barked. They drove for 45 minutes, out in to the countryside, and then in to another town. Myers pulled up in a car-park outside a grotty looking building. This wasn’t what she’d imagined from a private club. They stepped out of the car, and Myers walked her to the door. Knocking on this metal-plated door, and a hatch was opened on the inside. She saw a set of eyes looking out. “Evening Frank” came the voice from behind the door. It swung open.
Inside the building, Myers led her to a bar area. “Two beers please” he ordered. She looked at him. Wanting to be as deliberately obdurate as possible. “I don’t like beer” she said. The sneer from Myers again. “Don’t worry, it’s not for you” he replied. Another guy entered the room. Myers handed him the spare beer. They looked at Katie. “As promised” Myers smiled to him. “Right, shall we head upstairs”. With the other guy in front of her, and Myers behind her, she was being shepherded through the building. Her heart was beating out of her chest. Wanting to run, to flee but with no way of getting away. As she was beginning to accept the next few hours, she heard a loud thumping on the metal front door. “Police, Open up” came a shout from outside.
There was pandemonium inside the private club building. People running back and forth, gathering their personal belongings, and desperately rushing to the various exits from the building. Katie stood, watching the carnage unfolding around her, and bathing in sheer relief at this surprise turn of events. Myers pulled his hand up in to his shirt sleeve, dipped his covered hand in to his pocket, pulling out a little plastic bag filled with white tablets, and pressed it firmly in to Katie’s hand, making sure to get her prints on the bag. Leaving it in her hand, he fled off toward the back of the building, presumably to a secret exit, she assumed. A moment later, she saw seven or eight uniformed officers bursting through the corridors inside the building, and rounding the club’s occupants up. After thirty minutes of organised chaos inside the club, Katie, along with a number of others, were bundled in to the backs of several police vans. Myers wasn’t one of those arrested. His car was gone from the car-park too. She had sat, in silence, on the journey back to Birmingham. Although she’d managed to avoid the evening’s activities with Myers, she was now in some serious trouble, with the drugs that the police had found on her, with her finger-prints on the bag. She silently thought, what was the best way to deal with this?
Sitting in the police interview room, she looked across at the legal aid representative that she had been assigned for the interview. A tall, dark haired woman, her hair pulled back in to a ponytail, wearing a skirt-suit. She had been next to no help so far. She’d simply batted away any questions Katie had tried to ask her. After a while, the two officers interviewing paused the tape, and went outside for a smoke and a coffee. The legal aid rep turned to Katie. She smiled at her. Katie could see that it was the most plastic, fake of smiles possible.
“They’ve not got enough to go on to press any great charges against you”, the legal aid rep had explained to Katie. “Just keep on saying that they were solely for you, and you’ll most probably get off with a caution”. She leafed through paperwork she’d been provided, on Katie. “You’ve no prior convictions?” she queried. Katie shook her head. “Okay, then I really can’t see anything more than a caution”. Once the interview was finally finished, the two officers led Katie through to the reception area, ready to release her. The legal aid representative gathered up the paperwork left in the interview room, to finish off the notes for the case in the coming few days. She sighed. Why did she always get the junkies? Katie sat, slumped on the seats in reception, as she was given last pieces of information by the officers who had taken her in. Their words washing over her. Why was no-one asking her the right questions? Why was no-one interested in her life?
Chapter 5: The good, the bad and the lawyer
Katie sat on her bed, in her room in the student flat. The bedspread was pulled tightly across, and Katie ironed smooth the remaining wrinkles and creases in it with her hand. She opened the bottle of paracetamol, and tipped the contents out on to the bedspread. A half-bottle of vodka lay by her side, unopened and full. Her eyes were red, she had been quietly crying for over an hour. She had lost the energy to fight any more. He had beaten her. Everything she had tried to do, to get away, to get revenge, had gone wrong. It was a Sunday lunch-time. She wondered what her dad would be doing now. She recalled earlier times in her life, spending Sundays with her parents, helping her mum make the lunch, peeling the potatoes and carrots, or making a fruit cake or a chocolate sponge with her, for dessert. Watching her dad outside, on the driveway, washing the car. She didn’t want to take the pills and alcohol that were laying on her bed. She didn’t want the consequences that it would mean, but she had no other way to try and make this stop. At least this would force people to take notice of her again. And, at least this was on her terms, not his. She heard the wind whistling as it whipped around outside her window. Saw the branches of the trees outside swaying in turn. She took a deep breath, and cracked the seal on the vodka bottle. Looking at the tablets, she cupped her hand, and began to scoop them up. But then she felt a vibrating in her pocket, and heard her familiar ringtone. She took the cracked phone out of her pocket….
Olivia Lewis had started out her career in legal aid representation with all the very best of intentions. Graduating from law-school aged 26, where she had excelled. But, she had wanted to use her knowledge to help the vulnerable and the less-fortunate in society. Help them by giving them the very best legal representation, whatever their circumstances. And she was excellent at her job, combining a keenly astute legal mind with real passion to help. She cared for her clients so much. She was a vital part of the UK legal system. Everyone had a right to legal representation, and if they couldn’t afford their own lawyer, the state would provide the services of a legal aid representative, such as herself, to ensure fair legal process.
However, after a few years of the job, her excellent intentions that she had possessed at the start of her career had begun to fade, as she became weary with the trials and tribulations associated with the job. Dealing with some of the most desperate people in society, and some of the most dangerous. Representing people who were muggers, drug dealers, thieves, and predators. It had taken its toll upon her, made her question her work, trying to help such horrible individuals. And the care that she used to have in her legal counsel and in her clients had faded, until it had disappeared completely. For several years now, the job had been a chore, a soul-crushing, dispiriting effort to represent these people. Aged 38 now, she felt almost at a natural end in this job.
Olivia sat in her office, with the stack of police files on the clients she had been assigned to represent by the office, the people she had had to visit in the police station over the past couple of days. She had been there to attend the initial police interviews, to advise her clients what to say (or what not to say as it had usually been), and plan for any further actions that the police may decide to take. She had worked through a couple of the cases already, and leant back in her leather office chair, taking a sip from the glass of spring water that sat on her desk. All of a sudden, a breeze ran through the office, causing the stack of papers on her desk to scatter on to the floor and around her office. She sighed, and turned round to the window to shut it. She had heard the wind whistling outside for the past 10 minutes, why hadn’t she shut it then, she thought. Except, when she did turn to look at the window, it was closed shut. She wrinkled her brow, turning up her nose a little in confusion. “Where did that gust come from then” she said out loud, to herself. Her eyes scanned around the room, looking for the phantom source of breeze. She couldn’t see anything obvious, so put it down to a freak draught that must have blown in from under the door. Olivia bent down to pick up the papers, and to re-order them. Had she looked up, she would have seen the lamp on her desk flicker and fade slightly, for a second. But she didn’t. She was too busy hunched over. She looked at the papers, scattered on the floor. All face down, except one. Katie Kendall’s case.
It had been a pretty open-and-shut case. A young student had been apprehended at a private members club, with a bag containing 12 ecstasy tablets. The police raid had been for believed paid sexual activities in the premises, but it wasn’t exactly a surprise to find drugs on some of the people there either. Katie hadn’t been the only one, but she had been the one found with the most. In reality, it probably wasn’t enough for the police to prosecute for attempting to sell to others, and it was her very first offence, so she would almost certainly get away with a caution, or at most a suspended sentence and community service. As well as a police record, of course. Except, as Olivia stood there, bent over, looking at the police picture that she had paper-clipped to the report, something didn’t make sense any more. Olivia had sat in the police interview, and the girl had been totally withdrawn through the whole process. Olivia had, during the interview, put it down to surliness, arrogance of youth, another of these desperate members of society that she had been instructed to represent, and had offered a strictly professional service, whilst quietly resenting the person sat next to her. Katie had been no different, just another criminal requiring legal aid, she had thought.
Except, now she played the interview back in her mind, as she stood looking at the police photo, it didn’t seem that way anymore. Had this girl simply been shell-shocked, scared out of her wits, or with a deep mistrust of the officers she was being interviewed by. The eyes in the photograph were exactly like the young girls eyes during the interview, glistening with fire, but also with moisture, she had clearly been so close to tears – it looked at least. This didn’t fit the identi-kit drug dealing teenager image that Olivia had initially assigned to Katie. She read more of the report. It seemed that this girl hadn’t known anyone else at the club, according to the interview with Katie, and with the others. This was a private-members club, so how had she got in?
Olivia wrinkled her forehead again, turned up her nose again. This just didn’t add up. She picked up the paperwork, and re-ordered everything, wanting to find the form with Katie’s personal details on. She found it, tucked behind the police report, and scanned down the page. No family in the area, she was a student at the University, only been in the city for 8 months. She scanned further, seeing that the girl had lost her mother, just over a year ago. She began to feel something growing inside her, something that she hadn’t felt for years. She was beginning to care again. She wanted to understand why Katie had been there, what she had been doing with these drugs, and she wanted to do her very best to represent the girl. Finally, she found the information she had been looking for. A contact number for her client.
Katie sat in the shared kitchen of her student flat. Her flat-mates were all out, having gone to the pub together for Sunday lunch. Katie had of course been invited, but given her original plans for the day, wanted to be alone in the house. The bottle of paracetamol, now hastily re-filled after the unexpected phone-call, was sitting back in the bathroom cabinet. The half-bottle of vodka poured down the sink. Listening to the welcoming roar of the kettle as it approached its boil, she stood up and fetched the teapot out of her cupboard. She popped a few teabags in, and poured the boiling water from the kettle in. She carefully carried the tea-tray, with the teapot, milk jug and two matching multi-coloured polka-dot patterned mugs, along with the last few chocolate digestive biscuits left in the pack – a weakness of hers. She placed it down on the table, and poured a mug of tea for her lawyer. “I think I still have several questions about yesterday’s interview”, Olivia pressed. “You don’t seem to have known anyone there. How did you get in – there is security there, and a members or member-plus-guest only policy”. Katie sighed. It was going to be a difficult conversation, but finally, finally someone was asking her. Someone was interested in her. She promised herself that she would let this woman in. She would tell her everything.
Olivia sat, and listened to her client’s tale of tragedy and woe. Katie had confessed everything to her, even the things she wasn’t proud of. Even the details about her actions of an hour previously, with the tablets and vodka. Her lawyer sat quietly, taking everything in, soaking up the misery and the pain of this girl. Staring in to Katie’s eyes, as she bravely revealed detail after detail about her still-short but tragic time spent with this monster, Myers. How he had abused his position of power, and had committed offence after offence to trap her in his wicked web. Although she maintained a calm exterior, inside her veins her blood boiled with rage. She began to formulate the case in her mind. The case to end this monster’s hold over Katie.
It wouldn’t be easy as they needed evidence, and he was obviously very experienced in keeping his hidden monster private from his colleagues. But she was determined to get this man. However, the here and now was the most important aspect to her. And she was deeply disturbed by Katie’s revelation that she was about to take an overdose, just as Olivia had phoned. She needed to take Katie away from here, somewhere that she could keep an eye on her. To keep her from trying anything stupid again. They left the flat together, and walked to Olivia’s Mercedes. “Let’s get a late lunch together”, Olivia had requested. “What do you fancy?” Katie thought for a moment, her mind for some reason drawn back to Myers’ emptying her Nanna’s cookies on to the pavement, that night. She smiled. “I fancy cookies” she replied.
As they sat together in the plush coffee-house that Olivia liked, Olivia smiled. She watched as Katie devoured a large bowl of cookies with vanilla ice-cream, whilst she treated herself to an almond croissant. Not exactly a conventional Sunday lunch, but certainly a memorable one. As they sat and talked, she had pushed Katie more on other aspects of her life. What she was studying at University, her friends she’d made since moving here, and, although an awkward situation to approach, how she was coping with the loss of her mum. “You and your dad must be very close after something like that”, she’d queried. An awkward silence ensued. Katie had promised herself that she would be totally truthful with this woman. So she confessed to her about the arguments they had been having since Christmas. And the reason for them. Olivia pressed for the name of this woman. Maybe she could run some checks at work, she thought. She had, in the space of just a couple of hours, become so involved with this young girl’s life. She had now rediscovered the joys of caring about her work. And she desperately wanted to help Katie.
After their late lunch together, Olivia could see that a visible weight had been lifted from Katie’s shoulders. “I’m going to help you” she’d told the young girl. “Leave this all with me”. “If he tries to call you again, answer it, but record the call. You can do that on your handset, yes?”. Katie nodded. “Call me afterwards, if he does phone you. And obviously, on no circumstances do you meet up with him”. Olivia dropped Katie back at her flat, before driving back to the office. It was going to be a long night, it was going to be an incredibly busy few days in fact, but she had rediscovered the passion for her work.
Chapter 6: Innocence found
July, 1995: Anna Kendall lay exhausted in the hospital bed, with her new-born swaddled infant cradled in her arms. The baby was gently crying, but she didn’t mind. The sounds filling the room were just further proof that she had managed it, her miracle baby had beaten the odds, and survived a fraught nine month gestation, up until this moment, when she had been born in to the world. Anna had been told at the age of 22 that she would almost certainly not be able to have children, as result of ovarian cysts she had suffered earlier in her life. It had been heart-breaking news, but she had learned to cope with it, learned to push it to one side and enjoy the other aspects of her life. Until that one day in late ’94, when, accompanied with her husband to their GP surgery for her bouts of uncontrollable sicknesses, they had been told that she was pregnant. It was a one-in-a-million chance, the doctors had said. Still, this one-in-a-million chance had held firm throughout the following 7 and a half months left of her pregnancy, until this day, when her child had proudly announced itself to the world with its gentle cries. A miracle-baby. A miracle-daughter. As Anna lay there, with the swaddled infant resting in her arms, and on her chest, she rocked it back and forth, humming softly to her daughter. Gradually the baby stopped crying, her eyes transfixed upon her mother’s face. Anna felt a wave of energy inside her body. Felt an electricity, emanating from her heart, pulsing out through her entire body. She had loved her husband so deeply, she had never felt that amount of love for anyone else in the world, until now, when that deep, passionate love she had for him almost paled in to insignificance compared to the bond she felt with her daughter. Her heart burned with an intensity greater than all the stars in the sky combined. And she knew then that there wasn’t a force in all of heaven and earth that could keep her from protecting her miracle-baby, her perfect little Katie.
Olivia had worked tirelessly in her office through the night, and through the following 3 days. Tapping away in her computer, searching through records, searching in the books upon her shelves behind her desk, searching for the information she needed to free Katie from the web. Based upon Katie’s testimony to her, she had realised that there was very, very little chance that this was a first-time offence on Myers’ part. He had been too cool and calculating for this to be a first-time. She was convinced that this must have been a plan that he had honed and perfected a number of times. And whilst that knowledge did fill her with the unease that there were others out there suffering like Katie at the hands of this monster, thee would also be evidence, and potentially other testimonies, to ensure that he only saw the inside of a prison cell for a long, long time. Except this had only been part of her research for her client. The second part had been in to the matter of Deborah Jenkins. The 42-year old woman currently residing in Katie’s rightful home.
This had been a long-shot, she knew that, but over her career in legal matters, she had developed a sixth-sense for prior involvements. A little like she was sure that Myers’ actions with Katie wasn’t his first time, she had strongly felt that this woman’s actions had displayed too calculated and meditated a nature to be a first-offence. First offences were often filled with mistakes, this had been too surgical, too perfect an infiltration, she had believed, for this to be Deborah’s first time. Whilst not strictly illegal, Debbie’s actions and the plans she had executed had been no less sick and twisted than that of Myers. And, with the correct research, looking in to various divorce settlements, the picture that had now opened out to Olivia had become very clear indeed.
It had taken a lot of detailed research, as the information from each example on its own hardly stood out as suspicious. But, Olivia had now been able to trace at least 3 previous incidences, of a Deborah Marston, or a Deborah St. Clare, or a Debbie Jenkins, whichever name you chose to use for her, marrying a relatively recently widowed husband, only to file for divorce the second the life-insurance payments for her new husband’s ex-wife had come through. Once before, and maybe you could put down to bad-luck, or a horrible case of deja-vu. But at least three times previously, and with Bryan her obvious fourth target, Olivia was convinced that she had everything she needed. And, whilst there wasn’t any law specifically being broken, there was nothing legally that she could do about this matter, she had every ounce of faith that by passing these documents on to Katie, this girl could put a stop to Debbie’s plans, this time at least.
Olivia called Katie. “I’ve got something I think you’ll want to see” she had explained on the phone. “Please come to my office, as soon as you can”. And so Katie found herself poring through legal paperwork, divorce paperwork and financial settlements, in Olivia’s office, with Olivia explaining all the terms to her. Katie looked up at Olivia and smiled. She hugged her lawyer tightly, and thanked her with all her heart. “I’ve got to go, today, back and show him this” she had said. Olivia nodded. “I’ve made copies of everything for you”.
Katie rushed to the train station, and hopped on the next intercity train back to her home. Her head was swimming with facts about this woman’s life before she had infected her dad’s life. He had to listen, had to see sense, when faced with all this evidence, she thought. The 90 minute train ride disappeared so fast, and she found herself hailing a taxi outside the station, back to her family home. She hadn’t been there in nearly 5 months. She was nervous about what she would find, how much of the interior would be changed now, but this was the end-game now, this was the final chapter, and she had the evidence now to prove to her dad. The taxi drew up to her house, and she paid the driver. She got out of the taxi, and walked to the front door. Placing the key in the lock, she turned it and opened the door. She looked around the hallway. It hadn’t changed too much from the last time she had been there. Not as she’d remembered from years back, but the family unit not too dismantled, nothing that she couldn’t put right again. Bryan heard a key turn in the lock, and heard the door open. Puzzled, as he was sure that Debbie was outside in the back garden, sunbathing, he got up out of the sofa, and walked in to the hallway. His daughter stood there, looking at him. “Katie, you’re here….” he said, unsure what to expect – a blazing row or a hug. “Dad, I’ve got something to tell you” she said. They went through to the lounge, and sat on the sofa, Katie handing over page after page of document to her father for inspection.
A week later, and Katie paced through the corridors of the literature department at University. Results for the first year had just been announced, and they were pinned on to the noticeboard outside the course administrator’s office. No high-tech emailed or text messaged results here, just plain old-fashioned pieces of paper, with student ID numbers on and the grades for the 12 modules they had taken through the first year. Nervously, Katie had waited in the gaggle of people gathered round, waiting to make her way to the front, to be able to read off her result. She peered at the page, located her ID number, and read across the line. An average of 71%, a first, albeit only in the 1st year of the course, but he heart swelled with pride at her achievements. Life was beginning to feel very good again. Last week, she had stood in her own home, in her own hallway for the first time in 5 months, whilst her father told his partner to leave, and to never come back.
It had taken one and a half hours to gather up all Debbie and Danny’s belongings from the house, load it in to her car, and slam the door shut. She felt a little bad for the small boy, who was unaware of why they were being thrown out of their home, but this couldn’t be helped. His mother had brought this on entirely herself, and now Katie was able to watch as the last remnants of this woman who had invaded her family home was being exorcised. Her dad was finally free of the horrible emotional hold that Debbie had held on him. As the car pulled out of the driveway, and left them forever, Katie had hugged her dad. She had finally taken this part of her life back. And now the joyous news of her grades from her first year exams had come through. She pulled out her mobile, and called her dad to tell him the news. The two of them chatted on the phone at length, like the conversations they had had back when Katie had first moved to University 9 months ago. After a while, her phone buzzed in her hand, she had another call coming through, Olivia. “Dad, I need to go, I’ll be back and see you soon, okay” she had said, and wishing each other all their love, Katie ended the call, and accepted Olivia’s call. “Katie, I have news” Olivia had said, clearly, down the phone. “Officer Frank Myers was arrested for possession of controlled substances, and for sexual offences, an hour ago”.
As Katie had left Olivia’s office with the copies of the paperwork she had found on Debbie last week, Olivia had carried on working. This had been the easy part. There was no need to build a case for a criminal court in this instance, it was simply a matter of giving the evidence of Debbie’s previous history for marrying and then divorcing recently widowed men, to Katie, who would in turn give it to her father. One person’s opinion was all that mattered in this case. Whereas, the difficult job would be building a portfolio of evidence against Myers. She was convinced that this couldn’t have been Myers’ first time doing this. He was too neat and precise in his deceit.
Then she had a brainwave. Maybe Myers hadn’t just done this before, but maybe he was doing it now to several girls, not just Katie. She located his address from data records, and began a stake-out, outside his apartment-block. And sure enough, over the following four days she had seen him enter the building with 3 girls, all in their early to mid-twenties. All with a look of resignation upon their faces. And each time, she had waited til the girl re-appeared, several hours later, and approached them, when well out-of-sight of the apartment block.
She had built an absolutely concrete case, rock-solid, with testimonies from each girl, the girls so happy that someone was there to listen to them, to believe them, and to end this. And now, she just needed to present it to someone in the force, someone that she trusted completely to take all the documented evidence that she had gathered, and use it to end this monster’s rule over these girls. Her judgements had been clouded for quite a while. She had gone so long now no longer caring about her clients that she realised she didn’t really know who she could or couldn’t trust. But casting her mind back a little further, to when she had been doing her job with the best of intentions, a name came to mind of an officer that she could run this all by. Olivia picked up her phone, and dialled the number. “Hi, Tim, it’s Olivia Lewis here. I need a favour from you. I have a case, but it is very, umm, delicate…”.
Katie sat in the passenger seat of the Mercedes, Olivia driving. She had picked up Katie from outside the University department, and the two of them were driving back north to Katie’s home. To meet Bryan, and tell him everything about Katie’s ordeals over the past few months. “If you want me to wait in the car, or to disappear in to town and collect you later on then this is fine” she’d said. But Katie had wanted Olivia to come inside with her, and to help her explain things. They finally arrived at the little terraced house that Katie had grown up in, and Katie had let them in. Then had begun the difficult conversation with Bryan about the ordeals Katie had gone through, but had now come through the other side of. Katie had disappeared in to the kitchen to boil the kettle and to make a pot of tea for the three of them. As she was fetching the mugs from the mug-tree that stood on top of the kitchen counter, she noticed the kitchen light flicker slightly. She felt the warm caress of the energy that she had come to depend upon, this time welcoming her home. She was finally safe again.
The End.
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