The Mother: A shocking thriller about every mother’s worst fear…

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t see his face. He knocked me out and when I woke up I was tied to this chair.’

I reached out and put an arm around her shoulders.

‘I’m so sorry, Sarah,’ she sobbed. ‘I really couldn’t …’

‘It’s not your fault, Mum,’ I said, choking back tears. ‘We’ll get her back. I promise.’

I heard a siren and the sound of it caused my heart to flip.

‘Your father needs to be told, Sarah,’ my mother said. ‘He’s still at the allotment. He thinks we’ll be meeting him at the pub.’

‘I’ll see to it, Mum,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’

I straightened up and looked at Brennan who told me that he had raised the alarm and that teams of officers were about to descend on the area.

‘I’ve also summoned an ambulance,’ he said. ‘The paramedics will take care of your mother.’

His words registered, but only just, and they failed to provide any comfort. How could they? My precious daughter had been kidnapped. My mind was still reeling and I felt weighted down by a crushing despair.

I was on the verge of losing control so I lowered myself onto one of chairs around the kitchen table. There I sat, my head spinning, my stomach churning, as Brennan gently prised more information out of my mother.

She revealed that the man had rung the bell at just before nine – an hour or so after I had dropped Molly off. My father had just left the house to go to his allotment and she was giving Molly her breakfast before taking her to the park.

She remembered very little about her attacker. His face had been covered and he’d been wearing what she thought was a dark T-shirt and jeans.

‘He was average height but strong,’ she said. ‘I tried to struggle free when he attacked me but I couldn’t.’

She started crying again and this time it set me off. I broke down in a flood of tears and heard myself calling Molly’s name.

I was only vaguely aware of the commotion that suddenly ensued, and of being led out of the kitchen and along the hallway.

Raised voices, more people entering the house, some of them in uniform. Molly’s face loomed large in my mind’s eye, obscuring much of what was going on around me. I wondered if I would ever hold her in my arms again. It was a sickening, painful thought and one that I never thought I would have to experience.

I’d witnessed the suffering of parents who had lost children, seen the agony in their eyes. But as a copper I had always been one step removed, professionally detached and oblivious to the real extent of their plight.

Now I had a different perspective. I was in that horrendous position myself. The grieving, desperate mother wondering why fate had delivered such a crushing blow.

‘We’re taking you next door,’ Brennan was saying as we stepped outside, to be greeted by the flashing blue light on top of a police patrol car. ‘This house is now a crime scene and the forensics team needs to get to work. Mrs Lloyd, the neighbour to the right, has kindly agreed to make some tea for you and your mother.’

‘I don’t want tea,’ I wailed. ‘I want Molly.’

‘I’ll do whatever it takes to find her, Sarah,’ Brennan said. ‘We all will. But look, I really think it’s time that Molly’s father was informed about what’s happened. Do you want to call him or shall I?’

The prospect of breaking the news to Adam that his daughter had been abducted filled me with dread. I knew I couldn’t do it, that as soon as I heard his voice I would fall apart.

‘You ring him,’ I said. ‘Tell him to get here as soon as he can.’

4 (#ube3b4835-3d38-5c49-8208-97f6498d50ac)

Adam

The man in the dock at the Old Bailey looked as though he hadn’t got a care in the world. Even when the judge instructed him to stand up and turn to the jury he didn’t appear to be in the least bit anxious. He was facing the prospect of a long stretch behind bars, but from his expression you would never have guessed it.

‘The bastard is cocksure that he’s about to be acquitted,’ Detective Inspector Adam Boyd whispered to his colleague who was sitting beside him in the courtroom. ‘And I have a horrible feeling he could be right.’

The case against Victor Rosetti – a Romanian national – had been undermined during the past couple of days. One of the prosecution witnesses had disappeared before taking the stand, and the defence had managed to refute some of the forensic evidence, claiming it had been contaminated.

For the National Crime Agency, which was set up to fight organised crime in the UK, it would be a bitter blow if Rosetti did walk. As one of London’s nastiest villains and drugs traffickers, the man deserved to be locked behind bars. But securing a conviction was always going to be a challenge for Adam and his team.

Rosetti had an army of foot soldiers working for him, along with some powerful contacts. Several senior police officers were also believed to be on his payroll.

Adam had managed to build a strong case against him before bringing a charge that related to the importation and distribution of cocaine. But Rosetti’s defence had dismissed much of the evidence as circumstantial and had accused the police of ‘fitting up’ their client.

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.