Fiona Barton - The Widow

It was Sanderson’s turn. “Miss Elliott. Did Bella often go outside to play? Out at the front, where you couldn’t see her?”

“Sometimes, but only for a few minutes.”

“Minutes pass very quickly, don’t you find? So many things to do as a mum?”

The mother smiled at this bit of sympathy. “It can get busy, but I know she was only out of my sight for minutes.”

“How do you know?”

“I was just cooking some pasta, like I said before. That doesn’t take long.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, I did the washing up as I went along. And I folded some of Bella’s clothes from the tumble dryer so I wouldn’t have to iron them.”

“Sounds like a busy afternoon for you. And there were a couple of calls to your mobile as well. Easy to forget that Bella was outside.”

Dawn began sobbing again, but Sanderson did not falter. “I know this is hard for you, Miss Elliott, but I just want to establish the time frame when Bella disappeared. You understand how important this is, don’t you?”

She nodded and blew her nose.

“And we’re relying on you to pinpoint this because the last time anyone else saw Bella was at the newspaper shop at eleven thirty-five. Wasn’t it, Miss Elliott?”

“We bought some sweets.”

“Yes, Smarties, according to the till receipt. But that means the window for Bella’s disappearance is actually from eleven thirty-five to three thirty. That’s almost four hours. Because no one else laid eyes on her during that time.”

Voice dropping, Dawn gripped the rail of the witness box. “No, we didn’t go out again. But my mum heard Bella when she rang in the afternoon. She told me to give her a kiss.”

“Miss Elliott, please could you keep your voice up so the learned judge and jury can hear your evidence?”

Dawn cleared her throat and mouthed, Sorry, to the judge.

“Your mother heard a child’s voice in the background, but that could’ve been on the television, Miss Elliott, couldn’t it? Your mother told the police she didn’t speak to Bella, didn’t she?”

“Bella wouldn’t come to the phone; she ran off to get something.”

“I see. And then she went outside a couple hours later.”

“She was only out of my sight for a few minutes.”

“Yes, thank you, Miss Elliott.”

Dawn made to step down from the box, but Sanderson halted her. “Not quite finished, Miss Elliott. I see you are wearing a ‘Find Bella’ badge.”

Dawn touched the badge instinctively.

“You believe that Bella is still alive, don’t you?” the barrister asked.

Dawn Elliott nodded, uncertain where the question was going. “Indeed, you have sold interviews to newspapers and magazines saying exactly that.”

The accusation that she was making money out of her missing child made the press benches vibrate, and pens paused for the response. Dawn was defensive and suddenly loud: “Yes, I do hope she’s alive. But she’s been taken, and that man took her.”

She pointed at Taylor, who looked down and began writing on his legal pad.

“And the money is for the Find Bella fund,” she added quietly.

“I see,” the barrister said, and sat down.

He had to wait through another week of neighbors, police experts, sick jurors, and legal argument before DC Dan Fry entered the witness box to give his evidence.

It was Fry’s big moment, and he stood with trembling legs, despite the frequent rehearsals with his bosses.

The prosecutor painted the picture of a young, dedicated officer, backed by his superiors and the legal process and determined to prevent another child from being taken. She lingered over the words used by Glen Taylor, glancing over to the jurors to underline the importance of the evidence, and they began to glance over at the accused. It was going well.

When Sanderson rose to take his turn, there were no hands in pockets, no lazy vowels. This was his moment. The young officer was taken through the conversations he’d had as Goldilocks line by ghastly line. He’d been prepared by the prosecution for the pressure he’d be put under, but it was much worse than anyone could have foreseen.

He was asked to read out his replies to Bigbear’s obscene banter, and in the cold light of the courtroom, they took on a surreal, sniggerish air.

“What’re you wearing tonight?” the barrister, his face drink-mottled and his shoulders dusted with dandruff, asked.

Straight-faced, six-foot-three Fry read: “Baby-doll pajamas. My blue ones with the lace.” There was a suppressed bark of laughter from the press box, but Fry kept his nerve and read on: “I’m a bit hot. I might have to take them off.”

“Yes, take them off,” the barrister intoned in a bored voice. “Then touch yourself.

“It’s all a bit adolescent, isn’t it?” he added. “I assume you were not wearing blue baby-doll pajamas, Detective Constable Fry?”

The laughter from the public gallery bruised him, but Fry took a deep breath and said, “No.”

Order was quickly restored, but the damage was done. Fry’s crucial evidence was in danger of being reduced to a dirty joke.

The barrister basked in the moment before entering the most dangerous area of the cross-examination: the last e-mail conversation with Glen Taylor. He addressed it head-on.

“Detective Constable Fry, did Glen Taylor, aka Bigbear , say he’d kidnapped Bella Elliott?”

“He said he’d had a real baby girl before.”

“That’s not what I asked you. And was this after you, as Goldilocks, asked him to tell you that?”

“No, sir . . .”

“He asked you, ‘Would you like that, Goldie?’ and you told him you’d like that very much. You said it was a turn-on.”

“He could’ve said no at any stage,” Fry said. “But he didn’t. He said he’d found a baby girl once and her name began with B.”

“Did he use the name ‘Bella’ ever in your conversations?”

“No.”

“This was a fantasy conversation between two consenting adults, DC Fry. This was not a confession.”

“He said he’d found a baby girl. Her name began with B,” Fry insisted, the emotion beginning to break through. “How many baby girls with names beginning with B have been taken recently?”

The barrister ignored the question and scanned his notes.

Bob Sparkes looked at Jean Taylor perched on the edge of a bench, below her fantasizing, consenting-adult husband, and saw the numbness. It must be the first time she’s heard the whole story, he thought.

He wondered who felt worse—him with the case falling apart in front of him or her with the case piling up in front of her.

Fry was beginning to stutter now, and Sparkes silently willed him to pull himself together.

But Sanderson continued his attack: “You coerced Glen Taylor into making these remarks, didn’t you, Constable Fry? You acted as an agent provocateur by pretending to be a woman who wanted to have sex with him. You were determined to get him to make damning statements. You would do anything, even have Internet sex with him. Is this really police work? Where was the caution or the right to a lawyer?”

Sanderson, who was well into his stride, looked almost regretful when his victim finally stepped down from the witness box, diminished and exhausted.

The defense immediately called for an adjournment and, with the jurors safely tucked away in the jury room, made the case that the trial should be halted.

“This whole case rests on circumstantial evidence and an entrapment. It cannot continue,” Sanderson said. “The Goldilocks evidence must be ruled as inadmissible.”

The judge tapped her pencil impatiently as she listened to the prosecution’s response.

“The police acted entirely properly in every respect. They followed procedures to the letter. They believed they had proper cause, that this was the only way to get the final piece of evidence,” the prosecutor said, and sat down.