Guilty Innocence by Maggie James

action, before the memory of her earlier vomiting stops her. For once, she doesn’t seek refuge in comfort eating, her stomach sending a silent message of protest against food. The urge to dig deeper into the enigma of Mark Slater claws at her. She’s gone from hopeful girlfriend to destroyed ex in the space of an evening, so she needs answers. Now. Mark’s so-called explanation is inadequate, insultingly thin, and as she’ll never see him again, she’s unable to unearth the truth of this – whatever this is – through him.
    Something else is required to sort the mess in her head.
    Natalie digs deep into her memory, trying to force out facts about the murder of Abby Morgan, but few emerge. The killing that shocked the whole of Britain took place too long ago, when Natalie was the same age as Mark, or Joshua, or whatever his name is. Eleven years old. Holy shit. The reality of it rushes over her. Whilst she’s struggling to cope with the breakdown of her parents’ marriage, he’s battering a child to death. At the same time as menstruation becomes an unwelcome factor in her life, a toddler’s blood is soaking into the ground somewhere close by. Where, exactly? Dartmoor, Dorset, Devon; she can’t remember, and the proximity of the murder site to Bristol adds fuel to the revulsion gathering force in her brain.
    Despite not being able to recall many details about the crime, Natalie’s familiar with the basics. Hell, everyone in Britain knows about the murder of Abby Morgan. It’s one of those legendary crimes, like the Moors Murders, never forgotten. Two eleven-year-old boys deliberately luring a toddler from her garden with the intent of killing her? Following through by forcing her into an abandoned farm building? Battering her with a rake handle and then stabbing her to death? No, thinks Natalie, crimes like that don’t fade from the collective consciousness. They remain and fester, torturing the conscience of Mr and Mrs Joe and Joanna Public with the obvious question. How the hell can something so terrible happen in a so-called civilised society?
    She vaguely remembers hearing her mother discussing the case at the time with their next-door neighbour, who’s come round for coffee.
    ‘I blame the parenting,’ Callie says, nodding with satisfaction at having been astute enough to pinpoint the raison d'être behind the killing. ‘You can’t tell me those two grew up being taught right from wrong. More than likely you’ll find neglect, or abuse, or worse, has been going on behind closed doors.’
    ‘Not just with those boys, either.’ Natalie recalls the grim line of the neighbour’s mouth. ‘How come they were able to take the child so easily? Why wasn’t someone keeping an eye on her?’
    ‘Well, you can’t be watching them all the time, I suppose…’
    Natalie’s memories swing forward to a television broadcast, four years ago or thereabouts. She’s twenty-one, still living at home at the time. Callie Richards and her daughter have just finished a fish and chip supper and are watching the early evening news. Joshua Barker and Adam Campbell are again hitting the headlines, this time because they’re being released under special licence. Complete with new identities, different names and faked backgrounds. A move necessary to prevent them from vigilante action from a public that’s never forgiven or forgotten the murder of two-year-old Abby Morgan.
    ‘Should have locked them up and thrown away the key,’ Callie Richards remarks.
    More or less what Abby’s mother says when she’s interviewed for the broadcast. Michelle Morgan speaks movingly about how Joshua Barker and Adam Campbell have been let off far too lightly for her daughter’s murder. How they’ve received a comfortable life, including an education, at the taxpayer’s expense, and now they’ve been released after serving a mere ten years. She dismisses suggestions that they were only children themselves at the time of the murder, too