bag.
‘This is Jessica,’ she said. ‘I brought these with me in case Abbie came round and couldn’t remember anything. I wasn’t sure about including pictures of Jess, but she still talks about her to us so I thought it might help. It’s the only photo of her that exists, as far as we know.’
Ellie looked at the old photo of two little girls, and was shocked. The girls were pencil thin with downturned mouths and grubby clothes. She guessed that the older one would be Abbie, but as she had never seen Abbie without bruises all over one side of her face, she couldn’t see any likeness. The younger one was wearing a patterned summer dress that was far too big and had a rip down one side. It hung from her tiny frame, revealing one bony shoulder. The older girl was wearing shorts and a T-shirt that looked a bit better, although not much. But it was clear to Ellie that one of her arms wasn’t hanging properly and she could see bruising around both girls’ wrists.
Kath was watching Ellie’s reaction.
‘These were taken by a neighbour. She was concerned about the girls, but by the time she got the pictures printed to show to the authorities, it was too late. Jessica was dead and Abbie had been taken into care.’
‘Poor little mites,’ Ellie said, her voice cracking as she looked at the damaged children. ‘What happened?’
‘Their mother was a prostitute. They lived in a one roomed bedsit, and I suppose the children were bad for business. So when she had clients, the girls were locked in a cupboard, bound and gagged.’
Ellie’s eyes were stinging as she looked back at the photo. Those poor, poor babies.
‘Jessica died,’ Kath said. ‘A neighbour - the same one who took the photo - managed to get to Abbie just in time. She dragged her out of the flat and held onto her while she phoned the police. Abbie’s mum got away, but they caught her soon enough. She was sent to prison for manslaughter and child cruelty, but they don’t get long, you know. Kill a child and get eight to ten years. And she’d have been out under licence in half of that. She could be married again with a couple more kids by now. I would have strangled her with my own hands if I’d got hold of her. She referred to the girls as ‘her little mistakes’ in the dock.’
Ellie had no words, but then none were expected. Anything she said would seem trivial in the face of this cruelty. She thought that her upbringing had been difficult, not to mention Leo’s. Even Fiona had endured her fair share of indifferent parenting. But their problems seemed insignificant in the light of these revelations. And after an early childhood like that, Abbie was now suffering these terrible injuries.
Ellie sat and looked at the picture of two waifs. She glanced at Abbie again, but could see no resemblance to either child in the photo. Strangely, it was Jessica’s face that kept drawing her back. Perhaps because she was the one who died, but there was something in that expression that rang a distant bell. Or maybe not. She couldn’t place it anyway, so she was probably being fanciful.
37
Gary Bateman didn’t know whether he wished they’d gone on holiday or not. He supposed it would have been fairer on the kids, but Penny was driving him insane with her whining. And the kids were turning out to be a bit too much like their mother for his taste. He was sure a house full of boys would have been better.
He was still waiting for Sean Summers to show his hand, and he was impatient to find out who the big investor was. Might be a bit of an earner there, if he played his cards right. He’d been promised the money today, but it was getting late and Sean hadn’t called to say where they could meet.
There was one thing he could do while he was waiting.
He opened the sliding patio door and made his way out into the garden. He had bought a bench for the back corner, where he could talk on the phone to his heart’s content and watch the house to make sure nobody sneaked up on him. Not that he gave a flying fuck what Penny thought. Maybe if she realised he was playing away she would make some effort to be nice to him. But even she