Finding Katie

Chapter 33

Katie

"Good luck, Miss Abingdon."

Rising from the uncomfortable plastic chair on one side of the long conference table somewhere in the middle of the National Crime Agency headquarters, I shook hands with the two officers on the other side.

"And thank you," the chief investigator added. "We've been waiting a long time to close this case."

I winced. "I'm sorry it took me so long."

The officer chuckled, and her colleague smiled. "Better late than never."

I couldn't help but smile back. It was Friday, we'd been at this for five days, and my shoulders were only slowly settling back down where they ought to sit, the tension in them dissipating little by little. Everything had gone so much easier than I'd feared when I'd presented myself at the gate of the NCA in the middle of London and announced my name. My real name.

It had, of course, helped that I'd had my lawyer, Ruth, by my side throughout.

A simple Google search on my newly purchased phone on the train back to the city from Heathrow had provided me with the name and address of the foremost lawyer in London on high-profile criminal cases, and in the reception of Ruth Faber's firm early Monday morning it had also taken but the announcement of my name before I'd been invited into the fierce woman's office to tell my story.

Ruth had barely left my side since, and she too shook hands with the two officers and thanked them before they left the conference room.

When the door had closed behind them, she sat back down with a contended sigh. The fine lines around her eyes and mouth deepened when a smug smile curved her lips as she looked at me. "Well, my dear girl."

The words and the smile and the warmth in Ruth's eyes made my throat tighten. I was feeling lighter than I had in years, but it would still take very little to tip me over into tears. Of relief and joy, of heartache and regret.

Swallowing hard, I caught the hands of the petite woman beside me and squeezed them. "Thank you. For everything."

"You don't need to thank me," Ruth said, shaking her head. "I should be thanking you. Your case has been a first for me. It's been quite educational. I haven't had this much fun in years."

The statement made me laugh, and the blurriness in my eyes receded. Ruth was about my mother's age, with pointed features and a sharply cut, ginger bob, and though the top of her head only just reached my shoulders, both the officers and all the lawyers from the NCA as well as from the Crown Prosecutor's office had treated her with a respect bordering awe.

Ruth had fought tooth and nail for me, but there was no doubt that she'd enjoyed her role. There had been a glint in her eyes and a note in her voice when she'd argued with the lawyers over what the consequences of my role in all this should be that gave her away.

"I'm so very grateful that you could make a deal with them," I told her.

The lawyer waved a dismissive hand. "I never for a second believed they'd charge you with anything. You didn't commit any of the atrocities in all of this. On the contrary, you've tried to help all those affected by what your father did. And, as I told you, I knew they'd be much more interested in getting Feltham convicted. Which they need your help to achieve."

"I know," I said on a slight grimace. Ruth her assured me of this at our first meeting, after I'd disclosed the entire story to her, from my mother's and my escape from Britain sixteen years ago to the moment I'd turned up at Ruth's firm.