Page 63

SIXTY-TWO

A short break later, the recorder began rolling again. Gina started. ‘So, you’re Elissa Pritchard?’

She nodded as she blew her nose. ‘Yes. I use the name Ellie for short.’ She started blubbing. ‘Eric said if I ever spoke to anyone my children would hate me forever; that we’d both lose them and I would be sent to some sort of asylum.’ She paused. ‘Now he’s dead, I can talk. I can finally talk.’ She slammed her hand on the table. ‘He said you’d never understand. You’re all closed-minded and… I grew to love him. I don’t know how I did but I did. He had become my world and I had to work out how I could live in it, for the sake of being with my children.’ She doubled over in the plastic chair and held a hand to her heart as she cried out loudly. ‘He was going through so much when he took me. His wife had left him with Albie… but it’s not true, none of it was true.’

‘Ellie, can you start from the beginning, going back to when you met Eric?’

She placed a hand over her mouth and made a couple of hiccup sounds. ‘I worked at a café called The Singing Kettle back in the nineties. The couple were horrible. The man was a perv and kept looking up my skirt. Eric used to loiter around in his car, and he whistled at me one day so I told him where to go. A couple of weeks later, I saw him again, outside, and he said he was sorry and offered me a lift home. I was wearing heels at the time and I’d been on my feet for the lunch rush, so I accepted his apology and got in the car.’

‘When was this?’

‘In ’94.’ She shook her head and paused. ‘He took me to where he worked, saying he’d drop me back, but he just needed to grab something and it was on the way. The staff had gone home. It was just him at the unit, then he dragged me into the bunker and left me there for about a month before coming back… he’d come every night and talk to me from the other side of the metal door while I ate the dried food that he’d left on the racks. He told me how he’d noticed me at chess club at the old village hall in Cleevesford, when I’d gone with my dad. I didn’t even remember him from chess club. That’s when he said he’d only been in the audience when there had been matches going on. Albie was keen to learn, so he took him as a young boy to watch. Eric didn’t know my dad.’ Ellie went silent.

Gina felt sadness sweeping through her. How had the spirited young girl with her life ahead of her turned into the woman before her? From kidnap victim to mother and grandmother of her kidnapper’s children, living in Eric Hathaway’s house, pretending to be his wife. ‘How long were you in the bunker?’

‘Four years. I came out when my youngest was one. I had two children in that underground hellhole. My son in ’96 and daughter in ’97.’ Her mouth downturned. ‘I don’t want them to know that I didn’t want them.’ She started to weep again. ‘I didn’t want them, I tried my best to lose them. I didn’t eat. I threw myself into things to try to lose them, but they were strong, and when I held my babies in my arms, I loved them so much and I felt like the most horrible person in the whole world. Eric never let me forget that I tried to kill them.’ She stared into her hands. ‘They were so innocent.’

Gina felt for Elissa. She, too, was a victim in all this.

‘Eric had to put me right. He told it as it was: I was a bad person, I could have killed my unborn children and they were his children, too, and he loved them. He said that’s why I needed him. That’s why he chose me. He was the one who was going to teach me how to be a better person, to be a mother and a wife, and I loathed myself so much for the way I’d been before I met him. He said it as he saw it and I was so ashamed.’ She paused. ‘I missed my mum and dad, even though Dad and I always argued and he was always so angry, volatile even, but I know it was for the best that I didn’t go back home. Eric reminded me what an embarrassment I was to them. My dad made that clear and Mum just sat in the background saying nothing while he punished me all the time. Things got heated and Dad slapped me once.’

‘Ellie, you weren’t a bad person. You were held against your will for years and your only way of surviving was to please your captor.’

‘But I was alone for so long with my thoughts, then, at times, Eric was there. He became gentler and nicer. He wasn’t the monster you think he was. It was complicated. Once I became the person he needed me to be, he was so kind and loving towards me and I guess I needed something, someone, so I begged him to keep staying with me and our babies in the bunker. He said no one would ever understand our relationship, and I believe he was right.’

Gina understood. She knew how Stockholm Syndrome worked.

‘During my darkest times, he’d bring me nice meals and little gifts. He could be sweet and a part of me wondered, if I tried to escape Eric and go home, would my dad just have another go at me? Would he blame me?’ She linked her fingers in her hair and pulled. ‘I moved into his house eventually, and he kept me confined there for years. I concentrated on bringing the children up, but Eric was a good father.’ She exhaled. ‘Actually, he wasn’t always. It upset me that he was stricter with our daughter. She barely had any freedom compared to my son. I did my best to make her feel loved. I had to.’ She raised her brows and continued. ‘It wasn’t all bad, though. He’d take them to work with him sometimes and let them play at working in the office. I remember when they came back and started babbling about their made-up friend who talked to them on a funny phone… there was someone in the bunker, wasn’t there?’

Gina nodded. ‘It would have been Felicity.’

‘I don’t know who I am anymore.’ She blew out a loud breath. ‘And now he’s gone… and he killed my dad. Why did he kill my dad?’

Gina pulled out the printout that Garth had given her, showing everything from Gary Pritchard’s computer and phone. They had got Gary completely wrong. ‘It looks like your dad was close to finding you. He’d tried to infiltrate the type of people who fantasise about kidnapping young women, and he’d come across Eric. Eric was on these sites telling other men how to kidnap and keep a person against their will.’

She shook her head and grimaced. ‘Eric wouldn’t do that. It was just me and only me, because he loved me.’ She went to speak again, but changed her mind. ‘Wait, who was in the bunker?’

‘We believe it was a girl called Felicity Vaynor, and that she was being held by Albie Hathaway.’

‘You mentioned her. Albie’s girlfriend.’ She looked into her lap for a moment. ‘Albie took her, didn’t he? He was just like his father and I didn’t see it and my children were talking to her.’

‘And Joanie never left,’ Gina said, reminding Ellie that it was never just her. She waited while everything clicked into place for Ellie before continuing. ‘We have the computers from his office and your house, and we can show that your dad was pretending to plan a kidnapping, and Eric was advising him how to do it. Your dad got too close and we think that’s what led Eric to kill him.’

It gave Gina no pleasure at all to say that again to Ellie. She pictured Eric manipulating the whole situation. She imagined he was responsible for the white queen being found in Ruth’s kitchen, probably to frame Gary. ‘We found a phone in Eric Hathaway’s locked home office while searching your house, one with pictures of you and your family on the front screen.’

‘You found my phone? Eric never personalised anything.’

Gina thought it was Ellie’s phone but was glad of the confirmation. ‘You were communicating with your dad, weren’t you?’

Ellie swallowed. ‘I searched for years to find Dad on a chess club app and, as predicted, Dad eventually turned up, calling himself Gary Pritchard. I called myself the Bishop. We’d play online and all I’d type is “your move” when it was his turn. It made me feel like I was still in his life, even though it was from afar.’ She pressed her lips together for a moment and looked away. ‘Then Eric found out and he started messaging Dad. I don’t know what he typed back because he took it off me. He said it was corrupting me and that he wanted his sweet Ellie back again.’

Gina knew what Eric had then said to Gary. He told him he could trust White Knight. That’s when he’d convinced Gary that he could take him to Elissa, but instead Eric had brought him to the bunker and killed him.

‘Eric stopped being good to me.’

‘In what way?’

‘He started going out for long periods and staying out all night, so I followed him. There was this woman, Moira. He’d been sleeping with her. I managed to get hold of her phone number, then I messaged her from an old burner phone I found at the office, pretending to be Eric. I made out that he had changed his number. I sent her a message saying I’d booked a hotel for the night. At this point, I had no idea what to do, so I left her alone in the hotel room. She kept calling and messaging all night. I know she’d told her husband she was in Scotland working, but she wasn’t. It was a lie. By morning, she was threatening to leave the hotel and come to our house.’

Gina knew that Moira had been run off the road. ‘What happened after that?’

‘Eric was preoccupied, so I sneaked out in the work van and went to the hotel to talk to her. I wanted her to leave my family alone. I’d been through so much with Eric and it hurt that he’d done what he did. Then she said something that upset me more than anything.’

‘What?’

‘She said she’d only come to the hotel to finish it, and that she’d met him and Albie when their company did some work to her house a couple of years before. She knew that Eric was also seeing someone else because she knew where the woman lived. Apparently, Eric had slipped up, leaving his phone out. She read the message chain between Eric and the other woman and found her address in his contacts. Moira went to the house. She was so angry with Eric; she slashed his tyre. She was upset by this time and was saying how she hung around watching Eric at her house. She also knew where the woman worked because she’d left her work ID badge in his car. Eric didn’t even try to hide what he was doing from her. Moira told me she went to the leisure centre to see what the other woman looked like when she was looking after one of her grandsons. I don’t really know the details. She said the woman’s name was Ruth Pritchard. My mother.’

‘What happened then?’

Ellie clenched her fists and scrunched her brow. ‘I told her she was lying and making it up. I was so confused. How could Eric have been sleeping with my mum? Moira got into her car and told me never to contact her again. Then I panicked. I thought if she told Eric about me meeting up with her, he’d be livid. I’d spent years earning his trust to have the life I know, and I could be back at square one. I didn’t want to lose the life I’d built for my children. He said I was his queen and that I always would be. He said he saved me from my old life.’ She stared ahead as she processed what she was saying. ‘I’m so confused. He confused me all the time.’

‘So, what did you do?’

‘I drove after her. I was trying to get her to pull over so that I could beg her not to say anything to him, but she wouldn’t stop the car. I kept beeping my horn.’ She paused in thought. ‘I drove too close and accidentally bumped into her car and then her car swerved off into a verge. I didn’t know what to do so I drove past, clueless. I didn’t mean to hurt her and I hope she’s okay. I know you’ll have to arrest me for dangerous driving or leaving the scene of an accident. It’s okay. I did it, but I didn’t want to hurt Moira, I just wanted to talk.’ She paused. ‘I actually pulled over so that I could go back, but someone had already stopped to help her so I decided it would be best if I left. I knew Eric would go ballistic at me for interfering in his life. I thought… I thought…’ She began to hyperventilate again. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

‘It’s okay. Eric isn’t here anymore.’

‘I thought he’d lock me back in the bunker again, and I didn’t want to go back in the bunker.’ She slammed her hands on the table and lay face down on them as she sobbed, letting it all out. ‘I want my mum. I want to speak to my mum. Please, you have to take me to see her.’