By Death Divided (8 page)

‘I’m sure you will,’ Thackeray said grimly.

Laura Ackroyd reluctantly drove Julie Holden up the long hill to Southfield when she finished work at four that afternoon. The trip was against her better judgment, but Julie had insisted that she would tackle her husband alone if she had to and eventually Laura had caved in to her frantic entreaties. She had picked Julie up from outside the women’s refuge, where she had been standing on the pavement, a forlorn figure in jeans and a bedraggled red fleece, trying to shelter from the drizzling rain that had been gusting across the town from the Pennines all afternoon.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ Laura had said as she pushed open the passenger door to let Julie in. ‘I couldn’t get away quite as soon as I hoped.’

Julie nodded as she fastened her seatbelt.

‘I’m glad you could help. I thought of Vicky but she can’t leave Naomi easily, and anyway, I reckoned a reporter might give Bruce pause for thought.’

‘Maybe,’ Laura said non-committally, uncomfortable with the idea that her profession might be used as a bargaining chip in this marital war. ‘But there’s one thing I have to say. I’m not going to get involved in snatching Anna by force. If she’s gone to see her father and wants to stay you’ll have to use legal means to get her back.’

‘I don’t know that she went there voluntarily, do I?’ Julie said, her expression mutinous.

‘From what you say about her packing her favourite things
it looks pretty obvious to me,’ Laura said bluntly. ‘She wasn’t happy at the refuge, was she?’

Julie shook her head, looking so desolate that Laura felt for a moment that she was being unnecessarily unfeeling. But then she hardened her heart again, knowing from her research how easy it was for family disputes like this to tip over into appalling violence against spouses and children alike. She had seen Michael Thackeray devastated by scenes of family violence too recently to want to risk that – for him or anyone else – again.

She drove soberly through the thickening traffic, to the modest detached house on the edge of Southfield, that she had last visited with Vicky. They sat for a moment gazing at Julie’s home, where blank widows showed no sign of life.

‘Perhaps they’re not there,’ Laura said, almost hoping she was right. The nearer she got to this proposed confrontation, the more unhappy she felt about it.

‘Where else would they be?’ Julie snapped. ‘Anna wouldn’t have gone anywhere else.’

‘Bruce could have taken her somewhere else,’ Laura said. ‘To keep her out of your way. Which is his car?’ There was no car on the short drive leading to the Holden’s garage and only a few parked on the quiet suburban street outside.

Julie shook her head.

‘It must be in the garage,’ Julie said. ‘He won’t have gone anywhere. One of our problems was that he wouldn’t make decisions. He says he needs thinking time, but in fact he just broods on things and works himself into a fury if he doesn’t like the answers he comes up with. Then I get the blame.’

And the bruises, Laura thought, wondering again why Julie had not left her husband years ago.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘We’ll only find out where they are if we knock on the door.’ Julie nodded, looking wan and uncertain now the moment had come, but she followed Laura to the front door and waited as the bell sounded inside the house. For a long time there was no response to Laura’s repeated rings, but finally they heard sounds inside, a child’s voice and then a man’s, and then a looming presence visible through the frosted-glass panel in the door.

Eventually it opened a crack and a face appeared, no longer boyish but haggard and unshaven, with disheveled hair and bleary eyes. Bruce Holden looked as if he had just got out of bed, and Laura wondered if he had been drinking.

‘Is Anna here?’ Julie asked, her voice shrill with suppressed tension. ‘Have you got Anna?’

‘She came to see her dad,’ Holden said. ‘What’s wrong with that?’ his gaze fixed on Laura.

‘Who’s this? Your sodding friend again? Can’t you do anything without someone to hold your hand?’

Irritated, Laura gave Bruce her full name this time, but that was not enough for Julie.

‘She’s a reporter from the
Gazette
,’ she said. ‘She’s writing about domestic violence.’

‘Well, she can sod off, then,’ Bruce said, his scowl darkening. ‘There’s nothing for her here. I wouldn’t have let her in with Vicky bloody Mendelson if I’d known.’

‘Where’s Anna?’ Julie cried, putting her foot in the door as Bruce made an attempt to close it. ‘I want to see her.’

‘Well, you can’t, you bloody can’t,’ Bruce shouted, not concealing a fury that Laura guessed would have ended in physical violence if she had not been there. ‘So now you know what it feels like.’ And he pulled the door back a foot and then
slammed it, making Julie pull her foot away sharply to avoid serious injury. She staggered backwards, grabbing Laura for support, her face ashen and her eyes filling with tears again.

‘You can’t deal with this on your own,’ Laura said. ‘I did warn you. You have to get help.’

‘Who from?’ Julie almost screamed.

‘The police, social services, a solicitor – all three if you like,’ Laura said, urging her back down the short drive to the pavement. But as they moved towards the car she glanced back at the house and looked up to a bedroom window where a slight movement had caught her eye. There she saw a small pale face staring at them. Anna, Laura thought, did not seem to want to attract her mother’s attention, either to welcome or reject her. Whatever she was thinking, she certainly was not waving for help or crying out to be rescued, but there was little doubt that she was scared. Julie was leaning against the car with her back to her daughter and Laura quickly helped her into the passenger seat, without mentioning the child above.

‘Where now?’ Laura asked, knowing that she could not leave Julie on her own in her distraught state. The other woman shrugged and glanced at her watch.

‘I’ll have to get a solicitor, I suppose, though it’s a bit late now for that.’

‘If you were prepared to complain to the police about your husband’s violent behaviour you might have a better chance of getting Anna back in the short-term,’ Laura said as she pulled away from the kerb and began to weave her way back from the tree-lined streets to the bustling centre of Bradfield. Julie said nothing until, as they approached the town centre through the thickening rush-hour traffic, she grabbed Laura’s
arm convulsively, almost causing her to swerve into the kerb.

‘Take me to the police station, then,’ she said. ‘You’re right. I’ve got to stop him. I can’t leave Anna with that maniac, even for a single night. I’ll get him arrested for assault.’

DS Janet Richardson had reluctantly allowed Laura Ackroyd to remain with Julie Holden while she interviewed her.

‘You’re here strictly as a friend, not a reporter,’ Janet had said to Laura when Julie begged to keep Laura at her side. Laura knew she was being used by Julie as a life-line and agreed to Janet’s terms readily enough. What she heard in the police station would not add greatly to what Julie had already told her outside and she wanted to see the case against Bruce Holden progress just as much as Julie herself evidently did now a crisis had been provoked over Anna’s safety. Whatever Anna had decided to do for herself, Laura knew that the wan face she had seen at the bedroom window was the face of a desperately unhappy child.

‘So you’re quite sure you want to make a complaint of assault against your husband, Mrs Holden?’ Janet asked. And when Julie nodded, she persisted.

‘You know the implications of that? It could lead to a prosecution and you would be expected to give evidence against your husband. You would have to describe in detail what injuries you sustained and how they were inflicted. We might also need to talk to your daughter, and other witnesses, in seeking corroboration of what you are saying. You would be cross-examined on it, not necessarily believed. It’s not a pleasant business, Mrs Holden, and I want to be sure that you know exactly what it entails before I take your statement.’

‘I want to go ahead,’ Julie said, her voice no more than a whisper. ‘I have to go ahead. He’s taken my daughter and I’m afraid for her safety.’

Laura listened impassively as Julie went through the same details that she had recounted to her the first time they had talked at the women’s refuge. Julie was willing now, impelled by her fear for Anna, to go into more graphic detail: a catalogue of intimidation and physical violence dating back many months before she had finally cracked and decided to leave.

‘Have you had medical treatment for any of your injuries?’ Janet asked eventually, but Julie shook her head.

‘I didn’t dare go to the doctor.’

‘So is there anyone who can provide evidence of what you went through? A friend you confided in, perhaps. Someone who has seen your injuries soon after they were inflicted?’

‘I tried to keep my bruises covered when I went out,’ Julie whispered, and Laura wondered angrily how anyone could be so ashamed of being a victim that she had refused to seek help for so long.

‘You told Vicky,’ she said gently. ‘That’s Vicky Mendelson,’ she added for Janet Richardson’s benefit.

‘Yes, I told her some of it,’ Julie admitted. ‘Bruce had trodden on my hand during one of our rows. It was bruised. I thought maybe he’d broken it but it seemed to settle down…Anyway, Vicky noticed it when we were chatting outside the school one day and I was feeling so distraught that I told her some of it. Not everything.’

‘So we could talk to Vicky Mendelson,’ Janet said, making a note.

‘I suppose,’ Julie said.

‘Vicky is David Mendelson’s wife, the CPS lawyer,’ Laura offered. Then a thought struck her.

‘I wonder…’ She hesitated, but Janet Richardson was not going to leave it at that.

‘You wonder?’

‘Well, there was an intruder at Vicky’s house the other night. They called the police. It just struck me it could have been Bruce looking for Julie and Anna. He might have thought they were staying there. But I expect CID have thought of that.’

‘I expect they have,’ Janet said. ‘But I’ll pass it on, just in case. It might be useful if we’re looking for a reason to bring Bruce in.’

She glanced back at Julie who seemed astonished by the implications of what she had set in train.

‘You’ll arrest Bruce? Then that would mean I could take charge of Anna again?’

‘It could do, but I need to talk to some people first. Do you have any family in Bradfield? Anyone else who might have guessed what was going on even if you didn’t tell them?’

‘Not my own family,’ Julie said. ‘They’re all in Blackpool. There’s my mother-in-law but I’m never sure whose side she’s on. Bruce is an only child.’

‘D’you think she suspects what’s been going on?’ Janet persisted.

‘She adores Anna. It’s possible Anna’s let something slip…I never told her anything myself, not about the violence anyway.’

‘And she hasn’t mentioned it to you?’

Julie shook her head.

‘Never,’ she said.

‘She does know,’ Laura broke in. ‘She’s known for some time. I interviewed her for the article I’m writing on domestic violence and she said that she knew Bruce was being violent at home. And then when he moved in with her, he behaved the same way there. But like everyone else, she seemed to want to protect him…’ She broke off, guessing that this was not helping Julie, who was looking distraught.

‘But now you don’t want to protect him any more, Mrs Holden. Right?’ Janet said.

Julie nodded faintly.

‘So I’d like you to make a formal statement detailing your complaint against your husband. Then I’ll initiate some inquiries and hopefully, if I can get some corroboration from your friend Vicky, and your mother-in-law, and we’ll have something to tackle him with by the end of the day. Is that OK with you?’

‘Can Julie get Anna back immediately, then?’ Laura asked.

‘I’ll let you know when I intend to go and visit him and if I invite him down to the station for questioning,’ Janet said. ‘At that stage I need to be sure Anna is in safe hands, and where could be safer than with her mother?’ She gave Julie a warm smile.

‘Come on, cheer up,’ she said. ‘If you’re tough enough, and I’m sure you are, we can deal with men like this. You just have to be strong.’

‘Fine,’ Julie said, but as they left the police station after she had signed her statement, Laura still wondered if she would turn out to be strong enough to carry this through to the witness box.

Thackeray was late home that evening and when he finally came in, to find Laura sitting in front of the television news with a vodka and tonic in her hand, he hesitated at first to tell her the news that he knew she would not welcome.

‘Good day?’ he asked as he hung up his rain-soaked mac.

‘So-so,’ Laura said, zapping the TV news off and ready to fill him in on the latest details of Julie Holden’s problems. But noticing his sombre expression, she hesitated.

‘Can I get you a drink? You look as if you’ve had a bad day.’ He shook his head, and to her surprise pre-empted the very subject that was at the forefront of her mind.

‘I hear you came in with Mrs Holden,’ he said. ‘Janet Richardson filled me in.’

‘She finally agreed to make a complaint,’ Laura said enthusiastically. ‘Have they tackled her husband yet?’

‘Well, they would have done if they’d been able to find him,’ Thackeray said. ‘Janet had it all set up. But when she finally went up there to ask him to come to the station for questioning she found he’d gone. The house was empty and the garage door wide open. A neighbour said she’d seen him drive off with the child at about five and they hadn’t been back since to her knowledge. I’m very afraid the bird’s flown.’

‘Oh, no,’ Laura said. ‘I knew it wasn’t a good idea to go up there. I should have stopped her but she was so insistent.’

‘Not the best idea in the circumstances,’ Thackeray said dryly. ‘If you want someone arrested, don’t forewarn them you’re coming if you can help it. I’d have told you that if you’d bothered to ask.’

‘She wouldn’t be persuaded,’ Laura said. ‘She needed to know where Anna was, that she was safe, that she hadn’t been abducted by a stranger.
You
know. She was desperate.’