Page 165 of The Guilty Girl

Sarah sat. ‘He called in the favour. I couldn’t … there was no way I could refuse.’ She jiggled her knees, irritating the hell out of Lottie.

‘A simple no would have sufficed,’ she said. She kept her face as bland as she could and twisted her hands together in an effort to mask her anger. Sarah Robson had ultimately handed over innocent girls on a plate. For what? To be groomed and abused? ‘Name of the guy in the flashy car. Now.’

‘Terry … erm … Terry …’

‘Starr,’ Lottie said, and flopped back on the couch. The cat grunted and moved over to the window again.

‘Yes.’

This confirmed what she suspected, but she couldn’t see how it had led to Lucy’s death. Jake and Sharon’s deaths had to be related to the drugs. But what about the photo of Terry with Sharon on his knee? God, no, she thought, and wished she had a clear head to work through everything she’d learned.

‘You do realise what you’ve done, don’t you?’

‘It was just a few photographs.’

‘Are you for real?’ Lottie couldn’t help repeating her kids’ favourite saying. ‘He was grooming and then abusing girls. Young girls, whose photos you supplied him with.’

‘I never … I can’t have … You have it wrong.’

‘I have it right. You knew exactly what you were doing.’

‘No, I—’

‘I want the copies of the photographs you handed over to Terry Starr.’

‘I destroyed the images.’

The cat hissed. Lottie glanced at it, then stood and leaned over the cowering woman. ‘I know your type. There is no way you would bring yourself to destroy them. I want them. Now!’

‘Okay, okay. Get away from me.’ Sarah shrank behind her raised hands. ‘This is … it’s harassment.’

‘Harassment? Wait until you’re incarcerated in the general prison population. Do you know what they do to child abusers?’

‘I never in my life abused any child.’

‘What you did, aiding and abetting, is child abuse.’ Lottie wanted to arrest her there and then, but first she wanted possession of the images, because once arrested, Sarah would get a solicitor and ask for a plea deal in exchange for them. No way was she letting the leech get away with her disgusting crimes.

‘Give me a minute.’ Sarah fetched a slim laptop from a shelf on the bookcase behind her. ‘What’s your email address?’

Lottie handed over her card with the details and waited impatiently, watching over Sarah to make sure she didn’t hit the delete key.

‘They’re in folders. Sending them to you now. I’m so sorry. I—’

‘You can tell that to the judge.’

Lottie opened the email app on her phone and checked. A spread of folders appeared. She clicked on one and gasped. Images of girls in various stages of undress lit up the small screen. Such was her revulsion and rage, she wanted to lash out and punch Sarah Robson. She needed to rein in her fury for another few minutes at least.

‘Is there an image of Lucy in here?’

‘Erm, possibly.’

‘The money incentive came later, so I still can’t understand your motive for endangering the lives of these young girls by taking illicit photos. This is voyeurism. Did you desire them sexually? Were you jealous of their youth?’

‘No!’

‘You live alone and now you have to clean houses for a living. It might have culminated in greed, but I think it started out with jealousy.’

‘Ivy Jones is the jealous one,’ Sarah muttered. ‘Never met a girl so twisted in all my life.’