The Runaway Schoolgirl by Davina Williams

Author:Davina Williams [Davina Williams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784183486
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2015-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

GEMMA’S PLEA

I had promised that I would report back to Gemma as soon as I had any news, but I knew that this kind of information couldn’t be relayed to her over the phone, so I waited to get home before I told her what had happened.

She burst into tears the moment she heard the word ‘trial’. Upset, angry and confused, she was adamant that she wouldn’t go to court: ‘You can tell them now, I won’t be doing anything.’

‘But, sweetheart,’ I said, ‘you have to …’ She ran upstairs to my room and slammed the door.

I knew that she needed space and time to get her head around what was happening so I left her alone. I didn’t know what I was meant to do. I rang the police and asked for advice about how I should handle the situation, and they said that I should try not to panic because the trial was still a long way off. For all we knew, Forrest could yet change his plea and the trial might not happen anyway.

After an hour or so, I checked in with Gemma to see if she wanted anything to eat or drink. She was still in a real state and begged me to change what I’d said to the police. If I said I had actually given Forrest permission to take her away, she said, then he wouldn’t have a case to answer to.

But that wasn’t true. I would never have given Forrest permission to take Gemma out of the country.

She continued to plead with me to change my statement. I have to admit that I did consider it briefly, as I just couldn’t face the heartache that the trial would bring. But it would have been a lie and I could have ended up in prison myself. Besides, I wanted justice. We just had to accept the inevitable: there would be a trial and the nightmare would continue.

Lee was concerned that he would be called as a witness, as he had seen Gemma from a distance walking to Louise’s house with another friend on the night she had said goodbye to me. None of us knew yet who the Crown Prosecution Service would want to appear at the trial, and I tried to explain the situation as best I could to Lee and Maddie. I was determined to be as open with them as I could, and assured them that I would try to get answers for anything that was worrying them.

My poor mum was devastated when I told her that the case was going to go to trial. At sixty-seven, she was battling with various conditions, including arthritis, sciatica and an irregular heartbeat, and during this time her health really went downhill. Prior to Gemma going missing, the two of them had always had the most wonderful relationship, but it had all fallen apart.

Up until this point, I had spared Mum a lot of the details of the case as I knew she wouldn’t have been able to handle it; it wouldn’t have been fair to burden her with it.

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