Chapter 104
Sadie’s long black hair had sprouted streaks of grey since Lottie had seen her.
It was lank and greasy, and her brown eyes were like dimming embers in a dying fire.
Her skin seemed to hang off her bones. Her entire demeanour presented as if an old torment had resurfaced in the last week, shrinking her to near nothing.
Lottie wondered if it had in fact been guilt.
One thing was certain: she was relieved when Sadie had turned up to announce that both she and Lily were safe.
As the interview commenced, she was sceptical that she’d hear the whole truth. At their first meeting, she’d sensed that Sadie wasn’t being totally honest with her, and she’d found nothing to change that view since. Still, she listened intently to the woman’s mournful tone.
‘It’s hard to believe that this day last week was the last time I saw Caroline and Freya alive.’
‘True,’ Lottie said. ‘I can’t understand how your tears were so believable when Lily supposedly went missing.’
‘I was crying for my dead friend.’
‘Tell me about Caroline.’
‘She was a bit younger than me, but we became close. You need to understand that Caroline didn’t love Cameron.
She loved what she thought he stood for.
Money – though he never made as much as she’d hoped for – prestige, respect.
She craved respect above all else. That was what she yearned for growing up.
Her mother, Alice, only loved herself and hated everyone else.
She manipulated and used those she came in contact with – from my own pathetic mother to greedy Cameron and stupid Liam.
Most of all she used and abused her own daughter.
I believe Caroline was controlled by her until…
’ Sadie fumbled the jug to pour a glass of water, but she didn’t appear to notice the spillage across the table.
‘Until what?’ Lottie prompted.
Sadie swallowed the water and clutched the glass, her knuckles turning white.
‘The thing that tipped Caroline over in the end was when she discovered Alice had started in on Freya.’ Sadie swept her hair back from her eyes.
‘I don’t think Caroline understood what true love was until she gave birth to Freya.
She was determined to protect her daughter at all costs. ’
‘Was that what you did with Poppy? Protected her?’
‘What?’ Her eyes came alive, flashing aggressively. ‘My sister has nothing to do with this. Poppy was in the past; this is about now.’
‘Fine,’ Lottie conceded for the time being.
Sadie chewed the inside of her cheek before speaking again.
‘When she was growing up, Caroline was abused by Alice. Photographed and videoed. Child sexual exploitation, isn’t it called?
They were poor and so were we. When Alice became friends with my mother, she controlled her too.
I suppose because Denise drank so much she was easy to influence.
Alice dominated her and they emerged as a unit.
Two nefarious women feeding off each other’s badness. ’
‘Did you know Caroline before Oak House?’
‘I don’t remember, but I did meet her there. Once Alice had my mother in her clutches, she hardly ever brought Caroline round to ours. Don’t know why.’ She lowered her head as if she was wondering about it.
‘Tell me more about Caroline in recent times.’
Sadie nodded and her hair fell over her face again. Lottie quelled the urge to find a bobbin and tie it up.
‘Originally Caroline thought Cameron would help her escape from her cycle of trauma. Turned out he was a bastard too. And over the last few months, Alice resumed being physically abusive to her.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Caroline was doing her best to be vigilant with Freya, but when Freya started to burst into tears for no reason, her suspicions were roused. The child wouldn’t say what was wrong.
Caroline could find no evidence of abuse, but still she tried to keep her apart from her grandmother.
’ Sadie paused to take another sip of water.
‘It was difficult, because Alice is the type of woman to bulldoze her way into your life. Makes you think you can’t live without her, and then you wonder how you survived before she arrived.
I think that’s how she initially got her claws into my mother. Do you know what I mean, Inspector?’
‘Explain it for me,’ Lottie said, even though she’d come across many people like that in her career.
‘Denise was weak-willed, a drinker and a doormat, but she presented a hard front. She did that by yelling at our dad, beating us children. Dad took to drinking more and staying out longer. When Alice got into her ear, my mother would do anything to impress her. First by getting rid of Dad to show Alice that she wasn’t spineless, even when all she was doing was cementing herself under Alice’s control.
Then came the grooming and sexual exploitation. ’
‘The problem was solved when your mother was murdered. Who killed her?’
‘Alice, the bitch. She killed my defenceless little sister too. And got away with it.’ Sadie paused as if figuring out where she was going with her story.
‘Poor deluded Caroline assumed that as an adult she could handle her mother. Then she found the images on Cam’s laptop.
She realised Alice had her claws into him too, and that’s when she confided in me.
The events of twenty years ago were happening again, that’s if Alice had ever stopped. ’
‘I find it difficult to comprehend how Alice and Denise abused you, Poppy and Caroline as children. Explain it to me.’
The nod was swift. ‘You have to understand one thing. When Denise and Alice got together, they fed off each other. They saw a way of making money, a step out of the destitution we were in. I think they’d realised it was no longer safe to have their daughters out dropping off bags of weed for a small-time gang, and they somehow found there was money to be made in selling explicit photographs of innocent children.
Turns my stomach even thinking about it now.
They worked together like a fucking factory line.
I was lucky in that I was a bit older, but poor Poppy suffered.
Probably Caroline too. Things got worse from there on. ’
‘So you think Alice killed Denise and Poppy?’
‘I know she did.’
‘Why didn’t you tell anyone at the time?’
‘Who was going to believe a wayward delinquent girl? Would you?’
Lottie wasn’t sure she believed Sadie even now. ‘I would investigate everything without bias.’
‘Good.’
‘But why would Alice kill your family if she and Denise were making money?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe Denise wanted a bigger cut and Alice flipped.’
‘Flipped? From the file I’ve read, the crime was planned. The investigation at the time was convinced it was murder-suicide, despite the 999 call. No evidence of anyone flipping, as you put it. Similar to the murders of Caroline and her family.’
‘I’m convinced it was Alice. Then and now.’
‘Tell me what makes you think she annihilated her own family.’
‘Caroline was planning to run. She was shell-shocked when she found the images on Cam’s laptop, and she came to me because Lily was in some of the photos.
I was incensed. I’d been super-vigilant with Lily, maybe even overprotective because of my own childhood, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. ’
‘Why didn’t you or Caroline report it straight away?’
‘That’s my fault. She wanted to, but I said we needed time to get organised.
We were convinced Cam had to be working with Alice, and I couldn’t let her get away with her perversion like she did before.
And believe me, Cam could talk his way out of it, or else they would blame each other.
Anyhow, Caroline agreed to wait. We couldn’t risk doing anything without a proper plan.
Big mistake, in hindsight. I’ll never forgive myself. But I had to think of Lily too.’
Lottie thought there’d be tears, but if anything Sadie was more resolute.
‘How did Caroline find out about the money?’
‘If it was history repeating itself, then Alice had to be making a buck from the images. She’s old-style, so there would be no cryptocurrency for her.
Caroline went through the accounts. Found an odd one, and when she inspected it, she knew it belonged to Alice.
She could tell by Liam’s shiftiness that he was involved in the financial side of Alice’s depravity.
I don’t know how she did it, but she cleaned out the account.
She asked me to hide the cash for her, along with the images she’d printed from Cam’s laptop. ’
‘Why print off the images?’
‘For evidence, if needed. Laptops can be wiped clean, and she needed insurance if that happened. She didn’t even trust keeping them on a USB.’
It was plausible, but Lottie couldn’t understand why they hadn’t gone to the guards. ‘How did you feel when you saw Lily in some of the images?’
‘Devastated. Sick. All the horror one can imagine swamped me. I had failed my daughter like I’d failed my little sister.’ Sadie lowered her head and chewed at the edge of a nail.
Lottie bridged the hush. ‘Caroline took the money, but when did she discover that Alice had found out about it?’
‘She didn’t really, but when Liam arrived at the party in a flutter, she suspected something was up and she freaked. We had already devised an escape plan, so we pretended to argue and went upstairs to discuss it. She was afraid Alice was ready to explode, to cover her tracks.’
‘What did you decide to do?’
‘Caroline called Christy and Dermot to check the bouncy castle and the balloons. She had to warn Christy to be ready at a minute’s notice, and she called Dermot too to make it seem she had a genuine fear for the party kids. But Alice acted sooner than either Caroline or I figured.’
‘How were things originally supposed to pan out?’