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  Contents

  Natasha Cooper

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Epilogue

  Natasha Cooper

  Fault Lines

  Natasha Cooper

  Natasha Cooper lives in London and writes for a variety of newspapers and journals. She was Chairman of the Crime Writer’s Association in 2000/01 and regularly speaks at crime-writing conferences on both sides of the Atlantic. N. J. is the author of the Trish Maguire series and has also written psychological suspense novels as Clare Layton.

  Dedication

  For Joanna Cruddas

  Author’s Note Kingsford does not exist; nor do its council, police officers, social workers, second-hand-car dealers or anyone else who figures in this novel. They are all imaginary and if their names bear the slightest resemblance to those of any real people, living or dead, that will be because, despite my best efforts, even the unlikely names I have invented have not been quite unlikely enough.

  Natasha Cooper

  Prologue

  Kara woke in a rage. The noise that had disturbed her had stopped before she was fully conscious, but she knew what had made it. She slid her legs from under the duvet and got up stealthily, reaching for the heavy iron she kept beside her crumpled laundry.

  She paused for a moment to listen. There was silence, thick and menacing, but she knew they were there. Ever since she’d moved into the cottage they had been eating her food and biting neat round holes in her clothes. They left their hard black droppings to show where they’d been, and little puddles of urine too.

  Kara had never thought of herself as a violent woman, but the mice had really got to her. As soon as she’d understood what the puddles were, she had been determined to exterminate them, whatever it took.

  With the iron clutched in her fist, her ears straining for any sound that would betray their current feeding ground, she crept downstairs, only to stop five steps from the bottom, transfixed by the sight of her room as she had never seen it.

  All the brightness had been leached out of the colours by the full moon. In its uncanny blue-grey light the place looked drenched in peace. Kara’s fury died as she saw that she had achieved what she had wanted for so long: a haven from all the angst and anguish of the past.

  A board creaked and she remembered why she was skulking on the stairs. She tightened her fingers around the iron, gathered the skirt of her long white nightdress in her free hand so that she wouldn’t trip, and moved down another stair. Her bare feet were so cold that the carpetless treads felt painfully rough against her skin.

  A man’s shadow slid along the far white wall. She stopped dead, blood battering at the inside of her skull and thudding in her ears.

  The shape grew bigger, spreading like a stain up the wall to brush the low ceiling. Kara’s hands began to sweat, even though the cold had reached right through to her bones. She pressed her body against the wall. Her breathing was too loud, rasping through the stillness of the air. She knew it had betrayed her already.

  The shadow reached out towards her across the ceiling. She gasped. But she couldn’t move. There was a panic button by her bed; it could have been a hundred miles away.

  And then she saw him: thick-set, powerful and dressed in army camouflage with a black woollen mask over his head. His eyes glittered in the almond-shaped holes that had been roughly cut in the wool.

  She started to back up the stairs, almost falling as her knees buckled and her left foot caught in the deep flounce of her nightdress. Pain shot from her wrist to her shoulder as she grabbed the handrail to save herself from pitching down towards him.

  He came up after her. She saw his tongue move behind the black wool, pressing it out towards her. His breathing shortened and grew ragged. Excited.

  Her heart was flinging itself against her ribcage and each breath she took was painful. There was a bitter taste at the back of her tongue. The sight of metal glittering in his right hand shocked her into remembering her own weapon, and she swung the iron at him.

  He dodged with ease, catching the long flex and tugging until the plug burst out of her slippery fist. Then he laughed. He sounded very young, which made it worse.

  Kara turned and fled towards the panic button. His gloved hand closed around her ankle. She kicked backwards to free herself, but she couldn’t shift him. He began to pull. As her feet went from under her, her face hit the stairs. She could feel one of her teeth cutting into her lip as it was mashed against the rough wood.

  He yanked her body round, pulling it down as her head bumped, stair by stair, to the bottom. A sticky wetness under her thick hair told her that one of the repeating blows had broken the skin.

  As soon as she felt his grip lessen, she scrambled to her feet. Whatever he was going to do to her, she wanted to be standing, facing him when it happened. She opened her mouth to ask what he wanted – as if she didn’t know – and felt the thick, horrible taste of wool against her tongue as he thrust a gag into her mouth.

  His breath smelt of beer and vinegar, and his hand was tight as a wrench around the back of her neck as he stuffed the woollen mass deeper into her mouth. As she retched and tried to fight, he shoved once more and then grabbed her wrists to hold them high above her head.

  At last her mind started to work. Driving her knee upwards, she tried to force it between his legs. But he dodged again, using one of his booted feet to scoop her other leg from under her.

  He plumped down on top of her, winding her with one heavy knee in her stomach and forcing the back of her tongue up against the gag. She couldn’t breathe. He dropped the knife and she began to hope. But his right hand closed round her throat.

  Fighting for air, bucking and rolling between his legs, she tried to get him off her.

  As his hand squeezed tighter and tighter, her terror was shot through with the memory of an obligation she couldn’t ignore.

  Oh, Darlie, she thought. Darlie, I’m so sorry.

  Chapter One

  Fifteen-year-old Darlie Walker looked li
ke every bully’s victim as she stood, white-faced and trembling, in the corridor outside court number six.

  Her solicitor and the latest of her many social workers stood like buttresses on either side of her. Her barrister, Trish Maguire, still breathless from an ungainly run between chambers and the robing room, saw how hard they were working to keep her upright.

  Trish could have done with a few more minutes to get herself under control, but Darlie had recognised her instantly and was already waving. When Trish didn’t respond, Darlie beckoned repeatedly with increasingly feverish gestures.

  After a moment or two more to ensure that her breathing was as steady as she could make it, Trish moved across the lobby with a magisterial slowness that had nothing to do with her own harassed state of mind. It had been a bad morning and it looked as though it was going to get worse. She had slept through her alarm and emerged from an unusually clinging sleep an hour and half late, only to discover that she had her period a whole week early. Clumsy as ever on the first day, she put her thumb through her last pair of decent black tights, feeling sharp threads snagging her skin as the ladder shot up her leg.

  Giving up all thought of breakfast, she dressed as fast as she could and burst out of the flat at a run. For once there were plenty of free taxis in Blackfriars Bridge Road, but she ignored them because the traffic was stuck in a resentful, heavily panting snake that reached well back beyond the Stamford Street turn. Even walking, she could have outstripped the lot. As it was, she ran most of the way across the bridge and up New Bridge Street to the nearest branch of Boots.

  Rushing out of chambers fifteen minutes later with her files, wig and gown, she was caught by Dave, the senior clerk. Maddeningly he tried to talk her into accepting a piffling little brief for some man who was claiming unfair dismissal against his local-authority employers. As Trish snapped out a reminder that she never took employment cases, Dave’s cadaverous face took on the familiar smirk that meant he’d guessed why she was so dishevelled and bad tempered.

  Seeing Darlie’s white face and shaking arms, Trish got a grip on her temper. It wasn’t the client’s fault that Dave had got up her nose – or that she herself felt thick-headed and in dire need of caffeine. With luck Darlie wouldn’t notice and would see only a barrister: robed, wigged, calm and competent.

  Thin and dark as she was, Trish was well aware that legal dress suited her, and that even the absurdity of the yellowing-grey horsehair wig perched on her own dark-brown spikes could not make her look as silly as some of the English roses of both sexes. She smiled. ‘Good morning, Darlie. I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier.’ The girl’s snatched shallow breaths began to slow as soon as Trish spoke in her steadiest, friendliest voice. ‘The traffic was terrible and I had to run. But I’m here now. How are you feeling this morning?’ Given Darlie’s appearance, the question was pretty much redundant, but it was the one Trish always used to greet her younger clients.

  ‘Where’s Kara?’ Darlie asked urgently. ‘She promised she’d be here early to be with me. But she’s not. I can’t see her anywhere. I’d never of said I’d come if she wasn’t going to be here.’

  ‘She’ll come.’ Trish patted Darlie’s thin shoulder, feeling a lot older than thirty-two. She could only just have been Darlie’s mother, but she felt like her great-grandmother. ‘She’d never let you down, and she knows how important the case is. As I say, the traffic’s terrible. I expect she’s just round the corner, sitting in the jam. She won’t be long now.’

  ‘She was coming on the train. Into Waterloo. That’s what she said. It’s the quickest way from Kingsford. She promised.’ Darlie’s full lips wobbled and her pale-green eyes filled. She sniffed as a large drop appeared at the end of her nose, wiped it on her hand and then rubbed that on her short skirt.

  ‘She’ll be here, Darlie. She cares about you very much, and she knows how important the case is. She’s been working really hard on it for weeks and weeks now. You don’t need to worry. Honestly.’

  Trish was still smiling steadily, looking right into Darlie’s damp, restless eyes, trying to will confidence into her. She was never going to be the ideal witness, but if she lost what little bottle she had left she would either start stammering as she presented her carefully practised evidence, which would make her look shifty, or else resort to outrageous – and obvious – lies.

  Her eyes focused on something behind Trish’s left shoulder and widened. She started hyperventilating again. Her freckled skin turned an ugly red under the makeup and the tears overflowed. A trail of diluted mascara melted the thin layer of foundation on her face.

  Trish glanced over her shoulder and saw a squat, black-browed man dressed in a pale-grey suit. As she caught his eye, he looked up at the ceiling, his coarse skin flushing vividly. ‘He can’t do anything to you here,’ Trish said, putting a comforting hand on Darlie’s brittle wrist. ‘Now, soon we’re going to have to go into court. Can you remember everything I said about the procedure and how I’m going to deal with the case?’

  ‘Yes. At least I think so. But what if Kara doesn’t come? I won’t be able –’

  ‘She’ll come. I know she will. And you’ll be fine.’

  Trish hoped she was right. It would be an ordeal for any girl of Darlie’s age to stand in the witness box and accuse a man of forty-five, a man who had once been the most powerful person in her entire world, of physically and emotionally abusing her. For a girl who had been in care, fostered and then moved from one home to another, for as long as she could remember, it was going to be almost unbearable. And the defence were pretty certain to give her a tough time.

  Like so many of the children Trish encountered in her work, Darlie had a terrible record. Her temper was legendary in the social services department, and she had had several police cautions. She was also well known for the fantastic stories she invented to explain away the evidence of her various misdemeanours, and for her habit of flinging herself against walls and floors at the slightest hint of opposition. The defence would undoubtedly claim, as John Bract himself had always said, that the bruises seen by independent witnesses on Darlie’s body had been self-inflicted.

  Trish was going to need Kara, who was was one of the few people who had always believed in Darlie. In fact it was largely Kara’s evidence that had made it possible to bring the case in the first place. Where the hell was she?

  Eventually an usher appeared to summon them all into court. By then there was nothing for it but to admit that one of her chief witnesses had not arrived and ask for an adjournment. Trish walked into court with as much flamboyant confidence as she could muster. The Nurofen she had taken was softening her various aches, and adrenaline was beginning to sharpen her wits as it nearly always did when the time came to get to her feet and address the court.

  ‘M’lord,’ she began slowly, her mind racing to work out the best way of persuading the judge to postpone the case until Kara could be found to give her crucial corroborative and character evidence.

  Why hasn’t she come? Trish asked herself, as she spoke so carefully to the judge. Has something happened? Or is it the sodding trains again? But why hasn’t she phoned?

  Trish showed no anxiety as she finished her speech, hoping she had kept the tricky line between arrogance and creeping humility. She sat back to listen to her opponent explaining just why the whole case should be dismissed.

  There had never been any satisfactory evidence, he claimed, and now that one of the principal witnesses had thought better of coming to court at all, there was very little point in his lordship wasting any more time. The proceedings should be dismissed forthwith and without any further waste of costs. He sounded righteously indignant.

  To Trish’s relief, and considerable surprise, the judge came down in her favour and granted an adjournment. The court rose, he departed, and she forced herself to wait long enough for one more attempt to reassure Darlie.

  Her eyes looked bruised and she seemed unable to hear anything Trish said to her. It was as th
ough, having been betrayed by yet another adult she had trusted, she wasn’t prepared to believe anyone ever again, or even listen to them.

  Trish could hardly blame her. She knew what Darlie’s life had been and how much Kara’s faith in her had meant. She also knew that Kara would never have stayed away from court voluntarily, but Darlie was much too wound up to accept that.

  Later, as Trish hurried back to the Temple, she was frowning so ferociously that various acquaintances crossed the road to avoid her. She didn’t notice.

  Dave called out something as she swished past the open door to the clerks’ room on her way to listen to her voice-mail. The words did not register, but his presence did. She looked over her shoulder to say; ‘Has Kara Huggate left any message for me?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘Not now,’ said Trish, her coat hissing against the walls as she ran down the long corridor to her small, dusty, book-lined room. There she stopped, staring at the two people sitting beside her desk, warming their feet at her tiny electric fire.

  They were about her own age, or perhaps a little younger. Their clothes were too scruffy for them to be barristers, or even solicitors, and yet they didn’t look quite like clients either, or their social workers. They got to their feet.

  ‘Ms Patricia Maguire?’ said the woman, who had tousled, mouse-coloured hair and an unmemorable, very English kind of face. Her intonation alone was enough to tell Trish she was a police officer.

  ‘Yes.’ Wariness made Trish’s lively voice colder than usual.

  ‘I’m DC Sally Evans. This is DC David Watkins. We’re from Kingsford CID. We’d like to ask you some questions about your case this morning.’

  ‘Yes?’ Trish could feel the frown increasing her headache. She deliberately relaxed her eyebrows. Taking her gown out of the red brocade bag, she shook it and hung up both on the back of the door.

  ‘You were expecting a witness, Ms Kara Huggate. Isn’t that right?’

  Trish turned back to watch them. The mixture of tension and sympathy in their expressions made her feel queasy. ‘What’s happened to her?’ she said, when she could speak.