Gow reaches over and picks up his cup. ‘Perfect.’
I go out to find Everett and ask her to contact Vine Lodge, and when I return to the room Gow is leafing through the pages of the journal.
‘It’s the child that puzzles me,’ he says. ‘Or rather, the girl’s relationship with the child. I gather they tried to put them together at the hospital but it wasn’t a success?’
‘She screamed so much they had to take the boy away. They said it would only make things worse, forcing the issue.’
‘And since then? What contact have they had?’
‘None.’
He frowns. ‘You’re sure? I mean, you wouldn’t necessarily know –’
I bite the bullet. ‘I would, actually. He’s at my house.’ I can feel the blood flooding my face. ‘Just for a few days. While they find him a more permanent place.’
Shut up, Fawley. Just shut up.
Gow is staring at me. ‘Well, that’s not exactly standard protocol –’
‘Harrison OK’d it. Before you ask.’
There’s a long pause and then he nods. ‘I see. And has the girl asked for him, as far as you’re aware?’
‘No. All I know is that she reacted badly to seeing TV footage of a baby.’
Gow sits back and puts his fingertips together. ‘Anything else?’
‘The trick cyclist at the John Rad said it could be PTSD. That she’s blocking out what happened to her, and the child is part of that.’
Gow nods slowly. ‘If the boy is the product of rape he will be a physical and ever-present reminder of that rape. If she’s failed to bond with him, it may be no more complex than that.’
One thing I do know about Bryan Gow is that he chooses his words very carefully. ‘If?’
He turns to the journal again and flicks through the sheets. ‘What we have here is a very clear psychological trajectory, in relation to the child. We move from her horror at Harper’s sexual assaults, to rejection of the baby once it’s born, towards a gradual acceptance of the child as her own. Here, for instance: “I’m trying to think of him as mine. As just mine and nothing to do with that horrible old pervert.”’
‘So?’
‘The point is, this is entirely at variance with how the girl is behaving now. The violent rejection of the child – the blanking him out. It’s totally at odds with what we have in the journal.’
‘OK, fair enough. But the bit you just read was before the food and water started to run out – perhaps her feelings changed because of the trauma she went through?’
But Gow is shaking his head. ‘From what I’ve been told, she was giving what supplies they had to the child. That argues she was feeling a stronger connection to him by then. Not the opposite.’
‘So how do you explain it?’
‘I think it’s possible there was some sort of collusion going on. Psychological collusion, I mean. A version of Stockholm Syndrome. That’s why I want to see her for myself.’ He sits back. ‘When you interview her, talk to her about the child,’ he says. ‘But start neutrally – “birth” not “baby”, for example. Keep the emotion out of it. Then gradually up the pressure. Let’s see how she reacts.’
***
‘How are you feeling, Vicky?’
‘I’m fine.’
And she actually looks much closer to fine than I’ve yet seen. Though there are still dark circles under her eyes. The manager of Vine Lodge has come in with her, and she glances at him now and he gives her an encouraging smile.
‘I also want to thank you for agreeing to come in, Vicky – it’s going to be an enormous help.’
Everett and I sit down and I put my papers on the table. ‘Bringing a case against the man who abducted you is a very complicated process, and we need to assemble a lot of detailed evidence. We’ll probably need to talk to you several times over the next few weeks, and if it’s OK with you we’ll ask you to do that here – so we can tape the interviews and use them in court if we need to.’ And so Bryan Gow can watch from the room next door. Though this, of course, I don’t say. ‘I know it isn’t very nice in here, but it makes it easier for us. Is that OK with you?’
She looks at me steadily. ‘Yes, that’s fine.’
‘And Mr Wilcox here has agreed to be what we call an “appropriate adult”. That means he’ll keep an eye on things from your point of view.’
She glances at Wilcox again and smiles.
‘And you just tell me if you feel you need to take a break or if it’s getting too much.’
I open my file. ‘So can you start with your name, for the tape?’
‘Vicky. Vicky Neale.’
‘And your address?’
‘I don’t have one. Not any more.’
‘Where were you living last?’
‘A bedsit in East Oxford. I didn’t like it much.’
‘Which road?’
‘Clifton Street. Number fifty-two.’
‘What was the landlord’s name?’
She shrugs. ‘Dunno. He was Asian. Rajid or something. I was only there a few weeks.’
‘And before that?’ asks Everett, looking up from her notebook. ‘Where’s home?’
‘Harlow. But it’s not my home.’
‘It would really help if we had an address.’
She glances at Wilcox, hesitant now.
‘Don’t you want your mum and dad to know where you are? You’ve been missing a long time –’
‘My dad died. And my mum wouldn’t care. Says I’m old enough to stand on my own two feet and she’s got a new family to think about. She’s probably moved by now anyway – she said they were thinking of going up north. Her and her new bloke.’
I know I bang on about Fawley’s law, but in my experience three answers to one question is never a good sign. Still, the pain in her eyes is real enough.
‘I think we should be able to track her down, all the same,’ says Everett. ‘I assume you don’t mind us giving her a call if we do?’
Vicky opens her mouth, then closes it again. ‘Suit yourself. But like I said, she won’t want to know.’
‘Even after she finds out what’s happened to you – the ordeal you’ve been through – surely any mother – ?’
‘Not mine. She’ll probably say it was all my own fault. That I shouldn’t have been so stupid.’
She’s blinking away the tears, refusing to cry. I have a sudden image of how she must have looked as a little girl.
‘So can you tell us how that happened?’ I say gently. ‘How Dr Harper kidnapped you? I’m sorry, I know it’s upsetting, but we do need you to go through everything.’
She wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. ‘I was on my way to look at another bedsit, only I broke my shoe. I was sitting on his wall when he came out and said he could mend it for me. He didn’t look weird or anything. He reminded me of Dad. So I went in.’
Everett looks up. ‘When was this, exactly?’
‘July 2014. The 5th. I remember because there’d been fireworks the night before and someone said it must be Americans.’
‘And how old were you then?’
‘Sixteen. I was sixteen.’
Everett passes across a photograph of Harper. ‘Can you confirm that this is the man you’re talking about, Vicky?’
She looks and looks away. Then nods.
‘And he gave you tea,’ I say. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. It was a really hot day and he didn’t have anything cold. He must have put something in it though, because one minute I was sitting there in his horrible smelly kitchen and the next I was waking up in that cellar.’
‘And he kept you down there – kept you and raped you?’
‘Yes,’ she whispers.
‘I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been.’
Her lip trembles and she nods.
I turn a page in my notes.