They were both sitting in Ridpath’s car. He hadn’t turned over the engine.
‘Are we going to meet this woman or not?’
Ridpath paused, tapping the steering wheel, before deciding to ask the question that had been troubling him. ‘Did you mean what you said in the briefing?’
Emily Parkinson frowned. ‘What?’
‘About Eliot Sandberg deserving to die in prison.’
‘Yeah, every word of it.’
Ridpath stayed silent, waiting for an explanation.
‘Don’t give me the silent treatment.’
‘Our job is to catch criminals, not hope they die, Emily.’
‘But they assaulted young children in their care. For God’s sake, these people were supposed to look after those kids.’ Her eyes began to moisten. She looked down at her hands and began to interweave her fingers as they lay on her lap. Finally, she sighed loudly and spoke in a quiet, restrained voice. ‘Remember when we first started working together? I told you my dad was a draughtsmen at BAE in Preston and my mum was a nursery nurse.’
‘I remember. You also studied English Lit at Manchester.’
She laughed. ‘What a waste of time.’ She looked down at her hands again. ‘I didn’t tell you the complete truth. I always thought of Ted and Irene as my mum and dad, but they weren’t my biological parents. I was adopted when I was eight from a council children’s home.’
‘I’m so sorry, Emily, I didn’t know.’
‘It’s not so bad. I had a great childhood, and they were wonderful parents, Ted and Irene, I couldn’t have asked for better.’
‘When did you go into care?’
‘I think I was two, or so they tell me. I don’t know. I have vague memories of being pulled away from my birth mum and crying myself to sleep in an empty bed surrounded by all these other kids.’
‘Do you still remember your time at the home?’
She nodded. ‘It wasn’t great. Please understand, I wasn’t abused or anything. The home I lived in was actually pretty nice. There weren’t many kids and I got on with all of them. The place itself had a big garden, swings, an orchard where we picked fruit and the people tried their best.’
‘But…?’
‘But it wasn’t a home.’ She paused again. ‘You know, until I went to live with Ted and Irene, I’d never been hugged. The first time Irene wrapped her arms around me I didn’t know what to do, I froze and stood there. And school was the worst. All the other kids and the teachers knew we came from the children’s home.’
‘So you were picked on?’
‘I swore I was never going to be bullied again.’ She laughed. ‘Perhaps that’s why Turnbull hates me. I look at him and don’t see another copper but one of the bullies at school.’
‘What happened to your birth mum?’
Emily Parkinson swallowed. ‘I found out much later, she died not long after I was taken away from her. She was an alcoholic, had been for a long time apparently.’
‘Em.’ Ridpath put his hand on her arm.
She wiped her face. ‘I feel so silly telling you all this. It’s all in the past, happened a long, long time ago. And now we have a case to work and not a lot of time to do it.’
‘Do you still want to be on the team? I can ask for someone else, if it’s too much for you.’
‘No, no, I want to work this.’
‘Are you sure? Can you handle this? We need people to be distanced, not emotionally involved, Em. To work the case, collecting evidence, and understand what actually happened.’
She stared at him. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you. When have you ever been distanced from any case you ever worked?’
He smiled. ‘Touché. But I never allow my feelings to influence the way I work the case or the results I expect.’ His voice changed tone. ‘If you can’t remove your feelings about children’s homes from the case, DS Parkinson, you need to remove yourself. Do I make myself clear? Right now, the case is all that matters; finding the truth about who placed those hands in the backpack.’
‘Understood, Ridpath. But we’re never going to find the truth in a car park outside Stretford nick. I suggest we go and see our witness.’
He turned the engine over. ‘Let’s go back to work.’