It angered me that he didn’t seem to believe me, presumably thinking I was making it up to avoid the embarrassment of going to court. I didn’t go into all the detail, though I did name Daddy and I did say he’d forced me to sleep with other people as well. I thought that would be enough to convince them.
Moments later, the officer stood to usher out the father of the strange, wild teenager in front of him so he could speak to him in private. Dad, whose gaze had shifted towards the ceiling, looked suddenly old as he pushed back his chair and went with him.
I could hear only muffled voices as they talked about me in the corridor outside. When they returned, the officer said he would pass on my allegations of rape and trafficking – it was the first time I’d heard that word – to a different team of officers so they could investigate. But he still charged me.
I learned later that the officer had told Dad he believed me, saying he’d heard of similar complaints from other girls in the past. All of them connected to Tasty Bites and the Balti House.
What neither Dad nor I knew then was that the latest of these complaints had been made no more than twenty-four hours earlier.
We were a few paces away from the station when Dad turned to me and said: ‘You do know that what you’re saying is incredibly serious?’
‘Yes, Dad, I know,’ I mumbled.
And then, as much to himself as to me, he continued, ‘Why didn’t you tell us, if it’s true?’
It was an uncomfortable journey home. I was tired and hung over. Dad was in a space somewhere between disbelief and a kind of mourning for the innocent daughter he’d once known. Through the fog, I was trying to think about what would happen with the police, my parents and, most of all, with Daddy and Emma. I was glad that I’d spoken up, but beneath that was the thought I dreaded most: what if nothing comes of it? And what will Daddy do to me, or worse, to my family, then?
Mum was in tears, utterly distraught, as I went to bed in the half-light of dawn.
I should have felt safe back in my own room, with my brothers and sisters around me, but actually I didn’t. I spent most of the rest of that night wondering whether any of the gang – Daddy, Immy, Chef, Mulla and others – would turn up at my home.
At the same time, Mum and Dad were coming to terms with the knowledge that I’d been raped, but they still had no idea how often and how violently. Nor did they know of Emma’s role in the abuse. In their minds, it was just Daddy who had done those things to me.
The next day, the police came around lunchtime, asking what evidence I had to back up my account. I looked blankly at them for a moment, but then thought about the knickers I had stuffed under my bed at Harry’s house.
I’d not been back home with my washing, so I realised that some of them must still have had Daddy’s DNA on, and maybe even Immy’s. I said I thought there were three pairs there. The police said they’d go round and collect them, but I went instead, because I didn’t want the embarrassment – or the possible conflict with Emma their presence would create.
That afternoon, I went back to Harry’s, frightened, wondering whether anyone had latched on to me being a ‘grass’. Upstairs, I scrabbled under the bed and found three pairs of knickers: a pink thong, a blue pair and a green and pink pair.
Emma was in the hallway as I came downstairs, but she didn’t guess what I’d been doing. Fortunately, I’d stuffed the knickers into my jacket pocket. She insisted on coming home with me, but she had no idea about the evidence I was carrying in my pocket.
When we arrived, I gave Mum the rest of my washing in the kitchen and, upstairs, mortified, I handed her the knickers, scrunched up in my hands so she wouldn’t see the stains.
Later, she put them into Tesco bags and put them on top of a kitchen unit for safe keeping. They’d be there for a week before the police finally called at Harry’s house for them – only to discover they were with Mum.
The day after I’d gone to the police they arrested Daddy. He admitted having sex with Emma but said he’d thought she was sixteen. He completely denied having sex with me. What did the police do? They let him go, saying they’d be in touch. I didn’t know it then, but it would be another two months before they arrested Immy.
Once I had got home with the knickers, I had wanted to stay, I really did. But I was terrified in case any of Daddy’s mates tried to come after me in revenge for having told on him. I also had Emma digging her nails into me as we sat on the sofa, talking to my parents.
She rang for a taxi, all casual, and told me to get my things. I was frightened to go, and frightened not to in case something happened to my family. In the end, like a zombie, I packed a few things and we set off back to Harry’s house – the last place in the world I should be.
Mum and Dad made no move to stop me, resigned to this latest departure because they thought I’d only been raped by Daddy and Immy and would now be safe.
This didn’t stop me being angry with them, however, because even though they didn’t know the full story, and obviously it wasn’t their fault, I wanted them to say, ‘You’re not going anywhere, you’re staying here.’
They never did. To be fair to them, though, they didn’t know the full picture, and they couldn’t guess that Daddy may not even have been needed for what was going to happen to me next: Emma.
To my parents, Emma was a supportive friend who was on my side. They even thought she was going to be giving evidence against the men who’d raped me.
It was an ordinary taxi that called for us that afternoon; not one of the ones Emma would so often use when she was off with the gang.
As the cab pulled away, the pair of us in the back, I kept hold of the thought that it would be all right because I’d spoken to the police and they knew what I’d been through. I’d be rescued. They wouldn’t let anything happen. And nor would Emma. With the police involved, she wouldn’t dare, would she? But we’d barely negotiated the first speed bump away from the estate when the mask dropped and she reverted to the monster they’d made her.
‘You bitch,’ she snarled. ‘Why did you grass on Daddy? It’ll do you no good, you know. If you take him to court, I’ll give evidence for him. Not you: him. And then how will it look?’
I wanted to scream at the taxi driver to turn around, but he just kept going, lurching over the bumps, out onto the main road, and on, towards the house that had become my dungeon.
I should have stayed at home, of course, and perhaps someone should have made sure I did: my parents, the police, myself. But I didn’t.
At that stage, all the people who could have rescued me still thought it was just Daddy and Immy who’d attacked me. They had no idea how deep I’d been taken in by the gang; how they’d infiltrated my mind, body and soul. Mum and Dad thought Emma could be a help to me after being raped. She was a mate, after all. Or, so they thought.
That’s why they did nothing to stop me when I said I had to go back to Harry’s house – the last place on earth I should have been going to – and why they even waved me off in the taxi Emma had rung for.
I didn’t want to go, but Emma still had a hold over me. Looking back, she must have been relieved to have me back. She’d have realised by then that she couldn’t use Daddy as the link to the men she liked to ‘chill’ with. So, while she looked around for someone else to act as her link, she wanted to make sure she kept her talons in me.
Which is why, within twenty-four hours of first saying I’d been raped, and the same day I’d gone to retrieve the knickers that proved it, I was walking into Heywood with two other girls, one younger, one older, the latter of the trio for all the world looking like a honey monster.