Chapter 38
The blue sofa cushions seemed to swallow Sophie as she sat beside her mother.
Her hands moved restlessly, twisting and untwisting the frayed strings of her oversized pink hoodie.
She pulled them taut, then let them go slack, over and over again.
The suite was there for vulnerable victims, the cameras discreetly tucked away in each corner of the generously sized room.
Toys lay invitingly about the floor, and a vase of artificial flowers added a splash of colour to the space.
“Hello, Sophie.” Elea lowered herself to speak to the girl. “It’s really nice to see you again.”
“Hi,” Sophie whispered, her wide blue eyes never leaving Elea’s face.
The sound of the girl’s voice was the most beautiful thing she’d heard all year.
Everything was ready. Ness was monitoring the interview and making notes from a separate room.
A social worker was present and had agreed to sit in the monitoring room, so as not to overwhelm Sophie.
It was important to have her there, to limit the need for Sophie to be asked the same questions time and time again.
The small earpiece in Elea’s ear granted communication with Ness, in case she had any questions to raise.
Elea settled into a chair across from Sophie, waiting until the girl was at ease.
The first part of an ABE interview was about establishing a rapport.
It was in everyone’s interest to achieve the best evidence and get it right the first time round.
Elea talked about Sophie’s iPad and the games she played.
She mentioned her own daughter, forever twelve in her mind, then talked about Liisa’s love of ponies, and Sophie spoke of her own riding lessons.
Finally, when Sophie’s shoulders relaxed, Elea leaned towards her.
“I’m going to ask you some questions, OK?
You’re safe. There’s nothing to worry about anymore. ”
Sophie glanced at her mother, who nodded encouragingly. She had come a long way since their first meeting.
“What happened the day you disappeared, Sophie?” Elea asked gently.
She followed up with the time and date, more for the benefit of the recording than anything else.
This was the section of the interview in which Sophie would be encouraged to give a free recall of events.
The finer details would come later. When interviewing a child, interruptions were kept to a minimum.
Sophie continued to work the ends of her hoodie strings between her fingers. “I was walking home from school. There was this man. I . . . I knew him—from before.”
Sophie’s young mother, Fiona, frowned. She was about to speak when Elea delivered a small shake of the head. She’d been briefed before the interview. She was there to provide comfort only.
“I . . . I don’t know his name,” Sophie continued, “but he had a dog. Just like the one I wanted.” Sophie glanced up at Fiona.
“A Yorkie.” She told Elea about the furry Yorkie keyring that her friend had bought her, and how she’d attached it to her school bag.
Elea’s breath quickened. This was a premeditated kidnapping, exactly as Liisa’s had been, when her mother’s car tyres had been slashed.
But was the kidnapper a human trafficker or working alone?
“His dog was nice,” Sophie continued. “Her name was Trixie. She had a pink collar. He said it belonged to his daughter. He used to let me stroke her.” Sophie glanced at Elea, who gave her an encouraging smile.
Elea thought of Ness, who was probably multitasking, quickly sending an email to the team as well as monitoring each word that was said.
“That day,” Sophie carried on, “he said Trixie had run away. He asked if I’d help him look. We walked down the road. He said he needed to get her lead from his van.” She swallowed, her fingers wrapping tightly around the strings.
“It’s OK,” Elea reminded her. “You’re safe now.”
“He . . . he grabbed me. Then—he put something over my mouth. It smelled weird. Everything went dark.”
A wave of anger surged through Elea, but she kept her expression composed, focusing on extracting the crucial details from the young girl, who was struggling to give a free account.
“Can you tell me what he looked like? Start from the top of his head and work your way down to his feet. Can you do that for me?”
Slowly, and without faltering, Sophie spoke of an ordinary-looking white man with a beard and shoulder-length brown hair.
Such simplified descriptions often came from children.
Elea drilled into the detail, comparing his height with her father, as well as asking about his skin colour, gait, smell, accent, and more.
“He smelled of liquorice. He spoke like you.”
Elea faltered, her heart seeming to stop mid-beat. She wanted to go into details about every word he spoke, but this was about getting Sophie’s first account. She blinked as her body seemed to right itself.
“He had a scar on his face.” Sophie’s voice turned quiet.
Each response was a gift landing in Elea’s outstretched hands.
Her chest tightening with emotion, she eyed the glass of water on the table.
Swann would surely be watching. If he detected a shake in her hand, then he’d have her out of there.
She was too invested, too emotionally involved, but she was making progress.
She coughed to clear her throat and left the water where it was.
“You OK?” Ness’s voice filtered through her earpiece. Elea delivered a tiny nod.
With each question, Sophie’s mother grew more tense. Elea sensed her need to intervene. “Where was the scar exactly?” she quickly asked, her thoughts half in the room and half with Liisa: dare she dream that, after all this time, she’d finally got a substantial lead?
Sophie nodded, touching the right side of her mouth. “Here. Behind the beard.”
Elea wanted to hug the young girl, to tell her that she was doing great. But she kept her features even. Sophie had paled and she hadn’t got to the worse bit yet. “And when you say he spoke like me—in what way? Do you mean he was serious, or was it his tone or his—”
“His accent. He sounded like you.”
Oh my God, Elea thought. It’s him. We’re so close.
“What happened next?” she ventured, after exhausting the list of descriptives. But Sophie was turning inwards, tightly interlocking her fingers. “You had a doll when we found you: where did that come from?” Changing the subject sometimes helped to move things along.
“He gave it to me.” Sophie’s voice was barely above a whisper. She looked to her mother. “I want to go home.”
“And you will, sweetheart,” Elea said, giving her mum a pleading look.
“Soon.” She would have to quicken her questioning, get to the guts of the matter while looking after the little girl in her care.
Deeper probing could come later on. “But we really need to know what happened next, if you can.” Elea hadn’t forgotten about the social worker in the other room.
Sophie scratched her head and pushed her fringe off her face.
“He was carrying me into the house when I came to . . . My room was cold, always dark. He took my shoes. Sometimes,” she whispered, her eyes brimming with unshed tears, “he would shout at me to be good; and once, when I tried to run away, he slapped me across the face.”
Fiona’s lips formed into a thin white line as her daughter shared the details of her ordeal.
“Thank you for being so brave, Sophie.” A small smile of encouragement rested on Elea’s face.
“Every detail is so important. Is there anything else you can remember about the house? Any sounds? Were you in the city or the country, do you think? Could you hear sounds outside?” Given that she’d been found at the cathedral doors, they’d presumed Sophie had been kept nearby, but that might have not been the case.
“He . . . he said if I shouted, he’d know. Sometimes I could hear the bells.” She stared down at her hands and unlocked her fingers. “There was a woman,” she said finally, her eyes meeting Elea’s. “I heard her voice.”
Elea’s heart jolted, as if someone had clamped down with a defibrillator and suddenly brought it to life.
The part that died the day she lost Liisa.
She took a breath to speak and nodded slightly as Ness checked in over her earpiece.
“Can you tell me anything about the woman? What you saw or heard?”
But Sophie shook her head. “I didn’t see her. They were in another room.” She stared into the middle distance, caught in the past. “Once, I heard crying. That’s when he’d turn up the TV.”
Elea’s mind was racing. He turned up the TV to drown out the sounds of another person crying. Surely that meant that they were captive, too?
“Did you hear any names? Was she a grown-up like me and your mum? Or younger, like you?”
Sophie shrugged, retreating into silence. The strain of recounting her ordeal was beginning to take its toll.
“Listen, Sophie, you’ve been incredibly brave today. Let’s move on to something else, OK?” Elea suggested, trying to ease the tension in the room.
“OK,” Sophie agreed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Can you tell me how you escaped?”
“I was in a van,” Sophie began, her voice steadier now. “It was white. Small. Smelly. He was moving me somewhere else. But he left to get something.”
“Is that when you escaped?”
Sophie nodded. “Yeah. He didn’t close the door properly.
I pushed it open and ran away. I was in my bare feet, but I just kept running.
Down past the school. Through the car park.
To the cathedral. Mummy said that if I was lost, to go to a public place.
But everywhere was closed, so I hid in the doorway. ”
“Clever girl.” Elea was grateful that she’d had somewhere to run to. If only Liisa had been able to do the same thing.
“I want to go home now. I’m tired.”
“OK,” Elea said. She couldn’t make Sophie stay. More would come, piece-by-piece, when she was well enough to give it. A thought occurred. “The shoes. I was wondering why you gave them to me.”
“He wore Velcro shoes. It was weird, cos he was a man.”
“I think she’s had enough,” Fiona said.
“Please. One more question,” she pleaded with Fiona, who responded with a sigh. At least it wasn’t a no.
Elea returned her attention to Sophie, who covered her mouth as she yawned.
“We’re going to look for that man, and the place where you were kept.
” She paused. Just one more small push. She weighed up her words.
“Do you remember where it is? You said he carried you into the house. If we take you in the police car, can you show us where that is?”
Sophie looked from her mother to Elea. “He won’t see me, right? Because he said . . .” She bit her bottom lip. “He said he’d come get me if I told.”
“Nobody’s coming to get you,” Elea reassured the girl.
“The police: It’s like a gang. The biggest gang in England.
And everyone in this gang is there to keep you safe.
He’s just one person. We,” she circled a finger around the room, “all of us, we outnumber him. We’ll use a car with tinted windows.
You can see out, but nobody can see in. Is that OK with you? ”
The silence was agonising, but Elea allowed it to lay claim.