CHAPTER 73
Kim was at my shoulder as I caught up with Charlie, and all the younger girl said was that she needed to get out of the building. I helped her down the steps, spotting Paul and Paula standing with the blonde copper under one of the trees to the left of the entrance. Charlie saw where I was looking and nodded, and we got to the next tree just as she broke down completely. Kim and I wrapping her up as she sobbed. All I could do was hold her, soaking up her tears in my jacket, as Paula puffed away on a cigarette as if her life depended on it. A few minutes after our exit, Diane and Blake arrived, and as I looked over Charlie’s shoulder the woman’s face started to twist. Blake took her hand, then her waist, whispering something that brought a couple of sharp nods of agreement from her, and then they started towards us. A few seconds later, they were followed by the two other victims, the Nell Paul had spoken of, together with a woman called Jasmine. That second Nell held out a hand to Diane, clasping her other over the shake.

“Thank you, DC Owens. We know who you are, isn’t it? Jasmine?”

“Yeah. You are one brave woman”

I felt Charlie stirring, finally looking up from her collapse against my chest.

“Sisters, yeah? That’s what we are, all of us, that’s what Nana here says. All of us sisters, and that woman over there with Candice”

Nell smiled, with genuine warmth, the slight difference in colour of her false teeth obvious now that I knew they were there. Warmth in the smile, but pain behind her eyes

“I stayed on, Charlie. I wanted to…”

She paused, looking around, spending a few seconds staring at Paula, before continuing.

“I wanted to forget it all, yeah? Ever since that day, it’s all I wanted. Got a family now, two little kids of my own, but every time I look in the mirror I see where my teeth were, and I think of my babies… And then you come along, DC Owens”

The copper looked deeply embarrassed, as Charlie turned in my arms to slip an arm around my waist, muttering a soft “I love you” into my ear. Di was waving a hand at the other two women.

“Diane, please”

Nell nodded her gratitude.

“Thank you, Diane. I saw the papers, and I heard they were looking for others who’d met the bastard, but without you there’d be none of this. Thank you. As I started to say, I was going to do my bit and then sod off. Only so much I thought I could take, and then I heard Jazz here, and then Paula over there, and I thought Nell, you’ve got to see this to the end, got to bloody well know, isn’t it? And then this wonderful woman stands up and hits that piece of shit right where it hurts most. Well done, Charlie. Thank you. Sisters, yeah? Could I hug my little sis?”

I had thought Charlie’s tears were over, but I was wrong. Diane went to check on Paula, as ‘Jazz’ took her own turn to bond with the youngest victim. She found her voice eventually, though, looking each of the newcomers in the eyes in turn.

“You don’t see me as, you know, weird?”

Jazz just pulled her into a hug, no more needing saying. Diane walked back to us, indicating her man as she came closer.

“I don’t know what you are all planning, but I intend to pop off with Paula there for some coffee and most probably, knowing that one, a bacon sarnie. Anyone with us?”

Nell simply smiled, pulling out a key fob.

“Another sister, yeah? I have my car, if people need a lift. Where to?”

Charlie found her voice again.

“Could we go down by the Bay? Ain’t been there in ages, not felt safe”

We managed to find enough seats in various vehicles, and just before I set off, I made a quick call.

“Gemma about? It’s Deb”

Frank’s voice was a little shaky.

“I know what’s gone on today, Deb. She’s really out of sorts. Can you tell me how it’s gone, cheer her up? Her sister okay?”

“Sister?”

“Absolutely. That’s what she is calling her”

I had a little flash of resentment at that, a quick flash of Charlie Cooper. If only…

“Tell her Charlie is fine, but needs a favour from her”

Suddenly, he was laughing.

“I am reading your mind! Where are you going to be?”

“Probably down by the lock gates, Norwegian church?”

“See you there, then”

“I haven’t told you---”

“No need. How many of you?”

“Nine or so”

“In a few then. You be on this number?”

I rattled it off for him, and a little while after we had parked up, I went over to the road and collected a cardboard box from a grinning baker. He got a hug of thanks, and the arrival of the box at our group brought some genuine smiles, Diane’s probably the broadest.

“Anyone in possession of a bladed article in a public place?”

We sat in the surprisingly warm sunshine, a mug of coffee warm in my hands, and people chatting as if they had known each other for years, and Di teasing Charlie about her middle name. Diane was leaning back against her beloved, as Pula clasped the hand of what was so, so obviously her own, and the afternoon washed away so much shame and pain. The next morning, all of us were back in court. The jury was ready for the final moves in that particular game, and Charlie’s head was high, even though she had slept with me that night.

And then the jury didn’t return till after lunch, which meant we got the chance to meet Nell’s husband Warren, along with Jasmone’s parents, and the hugs were plentiful enough to ease our nerves. We found our seats, in the end, in a different court room, and as we rose for the judge’s entrance, I realised that the dock wasn’t the open-sided affair that the first one had been. This one had screens of solid-looking glass. Someone was clearly worried about the health of the defendant, but in a different way to my own concerns, which were hardly positive ones.

Blake muttered something as I stared at Evans, whose expression was now totally different to how it had been in the trial. He was terrified. Something else was going on, and I suspected Diane was behind it.

I took a mental cap off to that woman just then, for she was outdoing me in her ability to hate, hate well, and do it with skill and in detail, and I thanked fuck she was on my side, mine and my girl’s. The legal drama played itself out as I thought, and I heard one word repeated by the jury foreman, over and over again.

“Guilty”

Each time, the check from the little man in the robe.

“And is that the verdict of you all?”

“Yes”

Paula started to sob, Jazz cuddling her, and I saw the judge look over to us. Each victim could have done this in camera, have hidden behind anonymity, but they had stepped out into the spotlight’s glare and nailed the bastard, nailed him thoroughly and in public. I caught a slight rise and fall of His Honour’s shoulders as he sighed.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are discharged. This court thanks you, each and every one, for your service. I would ask, however, that you remain in place while this matter is completed”

He turned his gaze on Evans.

“Stand, Evans”

He commenced skinning Ashley Fucking Bastard Evans alive, and he spent a considerable time doing it, before drawing to a close.

“I will not continue to list your crimes, Evans, nor recapitulate the horrors that these brave women have been forced by you to recount in this court. They have endured enough. I note that those who gave evidence so bravely in this matter have been joined by another of your victims, Detective Constable Owens. Without her courage, her example, her dedication to true public service, it is unlikely that justice would ever have been served in the way it has been this afternoon. DC Owens, this court thanks you, as well as the brave women who sit alongside you, all of whom have endured awful events and injury inflicted by an evil man. Does learned counsel have any mitigation to offer?”

“No, Your Honour”

“Thank you. Evans, I have already been given reports resulting from your previous trial. Accordingly, I am able to complete proceedings today. The charges laid before me, and of which you have now been convicted, fall into two groups, being the primary offences of rape, and what I do not consider to be in any way secondary in anything but listing. For the sake of completeness, which will be academic on this occasion, I sentence you to two years for each of the offences of abduction, bodily harm and threats to kill.

“For the offence of the rape of Eleanor Mair Askew, you are sentenced to life imprisonment, minimum term twenty years. For the same offence, in re Jasmine Skye Lenihan, Paula Amanda Cairns and Charlotte Diane Surtees, in each case the same sentence. Those sentences to commence on the completion of the term you are currently serving for the rape of Diane Owens. Take the prisoner down”

As they took the shit away, Blake murmured “Trial starts next week for perverting the course, and week after for the fraud stuff. He was told last night”

The next thing astonished me, as all five of Evans’ victims were called to the judge’s office or whatever it was called. I looked Charlie in the eyes, no questions being necessary, and she simply smiled.

“Got four sisters with me, Nana. What can hurt me now?”

Over the next weeks, Di kept us all up to speed with results, as they added more sentences to Evans and the others, and a big man with a problem keeping his flies zipped was reduced to poverty. Just another prisoner; just one more nonce.

It was a former policeman who caused the disagreements at home, and Tiff was the one involved. Diane had offered her a way out, as the pig had bitten the bullet and pleaded guilty, but the sentences would be in Court. Tiff wasn’t needed.

“Di, I got to do it. Got to let him see? Got to see, as well. See myself”

Diane came with me, Charlie and Tiff, of course, and I found myself smiling. I had been worried at warming to one copper, a certain PC Welby, but this was even more worrying: I realised I was coming to love the younger woman. Not in that way, for I would always be a straight girl, but it was a deep and solid feeling.

So we went into the courtroom, and the charges of rape were read out, and yet again there was the immense but simple courtesy of using the name ‘Tiffany’, and as the accused, about to become convicted, looked up at the public gallery, Diane smiled sweetly and gave him a little wave. I looked across at her, and realised she was about to shatter.

The sentences were ‘life, minimum fifteen years’, and as gently as I could I drew my breaking woman from the sudden claustrophobia of the room to the cafeteria, where they did hot chocolate. As her trembling hands almost made her spill the drink, I turned to the younger women.

“I think your sister here is feeling it a little bit, girls. Time for you to be strong, aye? Ice cream?”

She left half her drink, but I managed to get her into Ruth’s car, borrowed for the day, and we drove down to the lock gates again. Ice creams, sitting on the blocks, Tiff comforting Di and smiling as she spoke.

“He looked smaller, Di. Not as scary”

Diane shook her head ruefully, looking ashamed.

“Sorry, love. Not being very good today, am I?”

Tiff was making me burst with pride.

“Yeah, we know, but we’ve done it, now. You’ve done it, sister of mine. Without you, nothing, yeah? Nana was saying how easy it gets, just being the victim, hiding in your little hole, in the house like we been doing? Not being you, just being …. Look. She said we are all people in a book, a film, and we can either let ourselves be the victims, the extras, yeah? Someone else’s story? Or we can be the main feature, the one the story’s about. You did that, Di”

Charlie added her own part, but she was shaking as she spoke, and tears began to fall.

“Yeah, and you nailed it, woman, and you did the showdown, and you got the fella, and…”

Di was stirring, her own strength returning as someone else’s need showed itself.

“What is it, love?”

“Promise us you ain’t just going to fuck off, yeah? Ride off into the bloody sunset like in some stupid film?”

All three of them were holding each other by then.

“Shit, girls, look at me, yeah? Just getting myself on my feet again after, yeah… My strength, comes from you. How could I give that up? How could I cope without it?”

Diane grinned suddenly.

“We are planning a celebration, me and my team, been on the cards ages. Just needed to get the trials out of the way, get it all finished. You want to come? I know you aren’t eighteen yet, not all of you, but it won’t just be a piss-up. You up for a family night out?”

Both girls nodded, and after a few days of worrying about what to wear, and being out among so many people, Maisie and Nicky simply sorted their outfits for them, Rachel found some shoes to fit, and Gemma of all people agreed to come out with us to support Kim. We started in a restaurant, all of Diane and Blake’s team present, including Inspector Patel, who gave both younger girls a firm hug and a kiss on the cheek.

I was really taken with the camaraderie among Diane’s mates, so I was a little surprised when, not long after we had arrived at the eatery, a twink turned up, making his way straight to Diane.

“Darlings! Lovies! Bitch!”

Di raised her eyebrows.

“Beg pardon, Chris?”

“Di, dearest sweet, I had such PLANS for that big boy of yours, but you appear to have ruined EVERYTHING!”

Tiff was goggling so hard I thought she was going to choke, which was when the very, very camp man turned his attention onto her. His whole manner changed, and he was absolutely gentle when he asked his next questions.

“Are you Tiffany?”

“Er, yeah”

“I met the same man you did, brave girl. Have a hug?”

She reached out for him, to my surprise, and a little later, as we took a cab home from Mill Lane, she explained.

“When they first nicked them, Nana, they had someone acting as bait”

“Oh! I see! And that was him?”

Tiff nodded, as Kim started chuckling.

“Yeah, and you know where they are all going to later? Marlene’s! What’s so funny, Debbie?”

I forced my chuckles back down long enough to reply.

“Kim, it’s just what I was thinking about Paul, yeah, and then Diane?”

“What? Getting to like coppers?”

“Yes indeed. Two were bad enough, but there’s a whole bloody team of the sods I have to include now!”

The next morning, Tiff and Charlie left the House together, just the two of them, and when I saw them that evening, they were still smiling.