Jaime Raven - The Mother - A shocking thriller about every mother’s worst fear…

Things had gone from bad to worse two days ago when the prosecution’s key witness – one of Rosetti’s own drug couriers – slipped out of the safe house he was staying in. All attempts to trace him had failed, and Adam thought it likely that Rosetti’s people had ‘encouraged’ him to vanish by threatening his family.

The jury foreman was now being asked if a verdict had been reached. The foreman said it had and passed a slip of paper to the clerk.

Adam stared with ill-disguised contempt at the man who was known as ‘Rosetti the Cutter’ because of his fondness for slicing up his enemies with a knife.

He was a short, heavyset man with a round face and shaved head. He’d been on the NCA’s radar for a couple of years, but this was the closest they’d come to bringing him down and Adam wasn’t sure they would get an opportunity like this again.

As the judge prepared to ask the jury foreman to announce the verdict, Adam felt his mobile phone vibrate with an incoming message. He ignored it, deciding that whatever it was it could wait. Right at this moment the only thing that mattered was seeing if this Romanian scumbag got what he deserved.

Adam felt his insides contract as he switched his gaze from Rosetti to the jury foreman, a thin-faced man with a scruffy beard.

‘So do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?’ the judge asked him.

Adam bit his bottom lip and held his breath. The courtroom fell silent. The jury foreman spoke without hesitation.

‘Not guilty, your honour,’ he said.

Rosetti’s reaction to the verdict was to grin broadly and punch the air with his fist.

It made Adam want to throw up. Although he’d seen this coming it was still a sickening blow.

He had to resist the urge to leap to his feet and berate the jury for being so stupid and to ask who among them had been nobbled. Instead he just sat there, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached.

Shouts of support came from the public gallery as Rosetti was led out of the dock.

‘What a bloody disaster,’ Adam said to himself, loud enough for those around him to hear.

He didn’t move for several minutes, waiting for the courtroom to empty. He felt wrung out, the emotions thick in his throat.

At length, he threw out a long sigh and got to his feet. He needed some fresh air and a cigarette. And after that a stiff drink, or two, at the nearest boozer.

Outside, a few newspaper reporters and a TV camera crew had gathered on the street. But it could hardly have been described as a media frenzy. The case hadn’t been as high-profile as some of the others that had been taking place at the same time. Victor Rosetti wasn’t exactly a household name, and drugs trials had become so commonplace that they failed to attract much attention these days.

The Romanian stood on the pavement, flanked by two burly minders, as he answered the reporters’ questions.

Adam’s boss, DCI Mike Dunlop, stood to one side preparing to make a statement on behalf of the NCA, in which he would no doubt express profound disappointment.

Adam slipped away from Dunlop and the rest of the police team and crossed the road where he sparked up a fag and tried to suppress the rage that was bubbling up inside him.

He regarded what had just happened as a travesty of justice, and it was going to take him a while to get over it. The thought that Rosetti would now go away and continue to ply his illicit trade made his blood boil.

He watched as the bastard finished answering questions. Then a black Mercedes pulled up to the kerb and he climbed in with his minders. The reporters immediately turned their attention to Dunlop. The Mercedes then pulled away, but instead of driving straight off, it shot across the road and parked next to where Adam was standing.

The rear window was lowered and Rosetti’s face appeared.

‘Cheer up, Boyd,’ he said. ‘You win some, you lose some.’

Adam felt the bile rise in his throat. ‘We may have lost the battle, scumbag,’ he said. ‘But not the war. It won’t be long before I collar you for something you won’t be able to wriggle out of.’

‘Don’t waste taxpayers’ money,’ Rosetti said. ‘It will never happen. Besides, I should be the least of your worries.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Rosetti grinned, showing a set of yellow teeth. ‘You’ll find out soon enough – word is, you’re in for a nasty surprise.’

Adam took a step forward, but Rosetti tapped the driver’s shoulder and the Mercedes drove off, tyres squealing.

Adam stared after it, cursing under his breath. It wasn’t the veiled threat that infuriated him – he’d received so many over the years that he no longer took them seriously. No, it was the fact that he knew that getting Rosetti into the dock again was going to be hellishly difficult, if not impossible.

He dropped what remained of his cigarette and ground it into the pavement with the heel of his shoe. Then just as he was about to cross back over the road he felt his phone vibrate again with another message.

This time he whipped it out of his pocket and saw that both messages had come from DCI Dave Brennan, who was asking him to call as a matter of urgency. Brennan was his ex-wife’s boss and it was a long time since he’d heard from the guy.

Adam arched his brow and called the number. He had no idea, of course, that the bad day he was having was about to turn into his worst nightmare.

I was in Mrs Loyd’s back garden puffing on a cigarette while praying that my daughter hadn’t been lost to me forever. But it was impossible to keep the negative thoughts at bay. They taunted me, each one a loud, desperate scream inside my head.

Two hours had passed since Brennan and I had arrived at my parents’ house and a lot had happened in that time. My mother had been taken to hospital to be checked over, a police car had been dispatched to pick my father up from his allotment and take him there too, and I’d been sick twice – once on the kitchen floor and once in her downstairs toilet. Luckily I’d known my mother’s neighbour Mrs Loyd for years and she told me not to worry, that she would clean it up.

I was still in a state of raw shock, only half aware of what was going on around me.

A PC was with me in the garden. Her name was Penny and we knew each other fairly well. She kept telling me that everything would be all right and I would soon be reunited with Molly. But, of course, she couldn’t possibly know that and was just saying it to make me feel better.

But words alone were not going to relieve the emotional turmoil that was raging inside me. I needed to find my baby, to see her smile, hear her laugh, hold her in my arms.

I was clutching my mobile phone in my free hand, willing it to ring, for the kidnapper to make contact. If he called to demand a ransom then I’d willingly pay it, no matter how much it was. I’d move heaven and earth to get Molly back, sell my flat if need be, borrow the rest. That wouldn’t be a problem. And I was sure to get all the help I needed from Adam and my parents.

The sun was beating down as I paced up and down the garden, Penny watching from the patio with her arms folded across her chest.

For some reason that made me angry. Why didn’t she appear upset? Why was her face so expressionless? Didn’t she realise how bad this was and how hard it was for me to keep from screaming?

But then it hit me. She was just being professional, doing her job. In the same way I’d done mine for years. Only this time the tables had turned on me and I was the victim, along with Molly and my mother. It was a new and terrifying experience.

Next door in my parents’ garden several uniformed officers were carrying out a search. They were checking to see if there was any evidence to suggest that the kidnapper had taken Molly out the back way.