Page 38 of Cross Her Heart

‘The boy says he was pushed.’ She’s picking at her skin again, making it bleed afresh, and there’s an electric energy coming off her as she gets more agitated. ‘At the river.’ She looks at me as if this is important.

‘Maybe he was.’ I am so out of my depth here and I can’t bear feeling the weight of Bray’s eyes on me so I get closer and take the other chair, although it’s tired and musty and there are stains on the cushions. It’s a relief to be sitting down. The painkillers I took this morning are wearing off and my whole chest throbs.

‘That’s what I said,’ she leans forward, as if I’m now her confidante. ‘Hewaspushed. Because there was the bunny too. I found it in the street. Just like Peter Rabbit.’ Her eyes are wide but bloodshot and her words come fast. I don’t know what drugs they’re giving her but she looks like she’s not sleeping. This energy coming from her isn’t good. I know it. I’ve felt it before when things have been bad with Richard. It’ssurvivalenergy.

‘What bunny? Did Jon buy it for Ava?’ It’s the first time I’ve mentioned him, but I need to get her on subject. I want to get out of here. Back to the hotel. To turn her into a ghost again.

‘Peter Rabbit,’ she says again. ‘Before I found the photograph of Ava missing and the one of me and her smashed.’

I can’t concentrate with the music playing, Rick Astley declaring he’s never going to give us up, and I reach across to the volume button.

‘Don’t!’ She snaps so loudly my hand freezes. ‘There’ll be a message in the music. Our song was on this show. There may be more. I can’t miss them.’

‘I won’t turn it off,’ I say gently. But I still turn it down so I can think and Bray has half a chance of hearing anything Lisa is saying.

‘Was it your and Jon’s song they played? Are you waiting for a message from Jon?’

Her fingers move more frantically on her skin and she frowns, her eyes darting away. ‘I’ve been so stupid,’ she says. ‘I should have known this would happen. And now Ava’s gone.’

‘And we have to find her,’ I say, floundering.

‘Yes, we have to find her.’ She looks up at me. ‘There was a deal, you see. Cross my heart and hope to die. You can’t break a deal like that. You can’t. I should have known.’

I frown and lean forward, despite the pain. ‘You and Jon had a deal? What kind of deal? Is this why he’s taken Ava?’

She stares at me, and tilts her head. ‘Why are you asking about Jon? Jon never knew about Peter Rabbit.’

‘Jon’s taken Ava, Lisa.’ I’m talking to her like she’s a child. I don’t know who she is but this broken creature isn’t what I was expecting. ‘And we need to find him.’

‘Jon?’ she sits back, looking at me as if I’m stupid. ‘Jon didn’t take Ava.’ She pauses and when her eyes meet mine, for the first time they look clear.

‘Katie did.’

I look back to the doorway, and see Alison’s despair and Bray’s frustration. ‘Who’s Katie?’ I ask.

39

AFTER

1990

The Express, 18 March 1990 Evil incarcerated – psycho sister jailed

Twelve-year-old Charlotte Nevill, pictured left, was convicted yesterday of the brutal murder of her half-brother, two-year-old Daniel Grove, in October of last year. Nevill, who was only eleven at the time of the crime, has been sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Daniel’s body was found in a house marked for demolition in the problematic Elmsley Estate. He had been beaten with a brick and strangled.

At the end of a trial which has shocked and gripped a horrified nation, the jury of five women and seven men took just over six and a half hours to reach their verdicts for both defendants. Charlotte Nevill remained impassive throughout the summing up and sentencing, as she had throughout the entire proceedings, Mr Justice Parkway telling her, ‘You will be securely detained for very very many years until the Home Secretary is satisfied that you have matured and are fully rehabilitated and no longer a danger to others.’

The second accused, also a girl of twelve years old, known only as Child B, was acquitted of all charges.

Witnesses testified that Charlotte Nevill had gained a reputation, from as young as eight or nine, of being a troublemaker and terroriser of the elderly and vulnerable on the beleaguered Elmsley Estate who was running wild and whose mother was no longer able to control her. As Mr Justice Parkway stated in his summing up, Charlotte ‘was clearly influential over the actions of Child B, an easily led, emotional girl from a stable and perhaps over-protective family’.

Charlotte’s jealousy of her innocent younger brother, perhaps because of her abandonment by her own father, was well known to the family, but no one could have predicted the terrible outcome of this cold-hearted killer’s rage, one who has shown no remorse throughout the proceedings.

Full story inside, pages 2, 3, 4 and 6.

Feature article ‘Nature vs Nurture: The making of a monster’.

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