The Accusation Read online

  DEDICATION

  To my sister Rebecca, who understands –

  and shares – the madness.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Part One

  Suzannah: January 2019

  Suzannah: August 2018

  Suzannah: August 2018

  Suzannah: August 2018

  Suzannah: April 2018

  Honor: April 2018

  Suzannah: April 2018

  Honor: May 2018

  Suzannah: May 2018

  Honor: August 2018

  Suzannah: August 2018

  Honor: August 2018

  Suzannah: August 2018

  Suzannah: August 2018

  Part Two

  Suzannah: August 2018

  Honor: August 2018

  Suzannah: August 2018

  Suzannah: September 2018

  Honor: September 2018

  Suzannah: October 2018

  Suzannah: October 2018

  Suzannah: October 2018

  Suzannah: October 2018

  Honor: October 2018

  Suzannah: October 2018

  Suzannah: December 2018

  Honor: July 2018

  Suzannah: December 2018

  Honor: December 2018

  Suzannah: December 2018

  Part Three

  Suzannah: January 2019

  Honor: January 2019

  Honor: July 2018

  Ellie: July 2018

  Honor: July 2018

  Honor: July 2018

  Suzannah: January 2019

  Honor: October 1986

  Suzannah: January 2019

  Honor: 2006

  Honor: January 2019

  Suzannah: January 2019

  Honor: January 2019

  Suzannah: January 2019

  Author Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise

  Copyright

  PART ONE

  Either I am a psychopath in sheep’s clothing, or I am you.

  AMANDA KNOX

  SUZANNAH: JANUARY 2019

  SHE’S EVERYWHERE.

  Google her name and you’ll get over twelve million hits. The first thing you’ll see is her Wikipedia entry, detailing her life before, during and after her abduction. You can follow her on Instagram, ‘like’ her favourite places to eat, her latest outfits or whatever #Brand she’s currently promoting. You can read her tweets, share her favourite articles, her random thoughts, the occasional video of cute kittens. You can scroll through the numerous images – that first, now almost iconic picture: the desolate little figure, dressed in too-big borrowed clothes, photographed just days after her escape; the pictures taken later, from magazine shoots, interviews, red carpet appearances; the occasional candid shot taken while she’s shopping, heading to the gym, dining out with her hot new boyfriend. You can see her in action on YouTube, talking on morning shows, afternoon shows, highbrow current affairs shows, trash TV. Of course, they’re all careful to adhere to the letter of the law, only discussing her ordeal tangentially, and never mentioning me by name. I’m guessing there’ll be a role for her on Mountain Climbing with the Stars or Celebrity Fondue, and eventually, I imagine, she’ll end up hosting her very own TV show – Great Escapes with Ellie Canning. No doubt there’s a Netflix original documentary in production, ready to air the moment the case is settled.

  As well as the sites devoted to her case, she’s made countless ‘guest appearances’ on blogs and in magazines. You can discover her favourite designers in Chic; her favourite recipes in Women’s Week; her top ten books (Jane Eyre, Lemony Snicket, Great Expectations, Harry Potter – all underdogs, naturally) in The Chronicle, her favourite films in the Global Times. She seems to have been asked to give her opinion on everything from domestic abuse to Pink, who she met during her last tour (front row seats, backstage passes, invites to the after-party).

  She’s on her way to becoming the go-to girl of her generation, a kind of downmarket, blonde Malala – her ordeal not as politically interesting, but perhaps more relatable, and of course, far more satisfying for those who like their trauma served up with less politics and more dirt, less high-minded ideals and more sensation.

  And naturally, she’s the latest feminist pin-up. I watch a talk on YouTube she did a few weeks ago. She’s speaking at a luncheon in the city, hosted by some big law firm who specialise in taking on high-profile cases for women, pro bono, defending them against workplace harassment, internet bullying, unfair dismissal.

  It’s a great gig, and I have to hand it to Honor – celebrity agent par excellence – she knows just which buttons to press, where this particular client will shine the brightest. She’s the perfect victim and the perfect survivor; she’s just what the cultural moment ordered.

  ‘I’m here to talk,’ the girl tells her enraptured audience, ‘not just about my ordeal, but the way my trauma has empowered me.’ She has her hair scraped back into a severe ponytail, emphasising her long neck, the small beauty spot just below her pretty ear. If she’s wearing any makeup it’s invisible. She doesn’t need it anyway – her skin is pale, clear, perfect, with just the faintest sprinkling of freckles across a pert little nose. Her eyebrows are fashionably dark, heavy, her eyelashes are thick and spiky – a fringe around those clear green eyes that gaze so bravely and honestly (windows to the soul!) out into the world. She’s a long way from the gaunt waif – dark shadows under her eyes, pale chapped lips, sharpened cheekbones – of her early post-release days.

  The way she speaks has changed since those first appearances, too. The shrill of anxiety has gone, her voice is low and melodious and has an appealing breathiness. She looks up frequently from her notes – frowning a little, or perhaps giving a surreptitious bite of the lip to let the audience know that she’s appropriately nervous, that she’s not taking this attention as her due, even if she’s taking it in her stride.

  Her words hit the spot. She’s not aggressive or dogmatic; if anything she’s disarmingly tentative. ‘I’m not here to make you feel bad for me,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to be seen as a victim.’ She says a few times – indeed this is her theme – that she has been fortunate. Bad things have happened, but mostly she has been lucky: lucky she was bright and hardworking, lucky she had such great teachers, good mentors, champions . . . She counts herself lucky even when it comes to her more recent history – that terrible time she can’t say too much about for legal reasons – when she was taken by someone who didn’t appear to want to hurt her, at least in the beginning. And of course, she was lucky that she was able – fit, determined, resourceful – to make her escape.

  Her lesson is simple, and it’s one we can all share, whatever our circumstances: that empowerment can come by looking for opportunities and taking them when we can. ‘Sometimes,’ she says, looking down and up simultaneously, a la Princess Diana, ‘sometimes you just have to wait for that opportunity to arrive. That’s what I learned. You have to be prepared, always aware that there will be a moment, even if it looks like nothing can get better, nothing can change, when you can get to somewhere better – whether it’s away from parents who aren’t there for you, or a school, or a job, or even in the sort of extreme circumstances I was in, you just have to have faith and seize any opportunities you can . . .’

  I watch her speech again and again, although not for the sisterhood feels. Even the second time round, the third, and knowing what I know, it’s compelling viewing. She’s so young, so lovely, so earnest. And so fucking believable.

  There should be something that I can see, some sign, a flicker in those beautiful green eyes, some moment where she falls out of character, where I can say, Gotcha. I’m trained, after all, to spot these moments: the ra
ndom out-of-character licking of lips, idle hair-twirling, random blinking, an unscripted step backward or forward, a tone that’s not quite authentic. But there’s nothing. Her performance is pitch-perfect.

  Butter wouldn’t melt in this girl’s mouth, and I find myself wanting to believe every word that comes out of it.

  I feel a vague lick of envy, too. If she’s not telling the truth she’s missed her calling, because Ellie Canning is a much finer actress than I’ll ever be.

  ABDUCTED: THE ELLIE CANNING STORY

  A documentary by HeldHostage Productions © 2019

  EXTERIOR

  Camera pans across the valley town of Enfield Wash, Mount Waltham looming in the distance.

  VOICEOVER

  In the early hours of the morning of August 1st, 2018, John O’Brien, a dairy farmer from the New South Wales town of Enfield Wash, discovered an unconscious teenage girl in a disused shepherd’s hut on his property.

  O’Brien immediately contacted the authorities, and the girl, who would subsequently identify herself as Ellie Canning, was taken to the local hospital where she was treated for shock and hypothermia. On regaining consciousness, Canning told police she had sought shelter in the hut after wandering the countryside for a number of hours after escaping from a nearby farmhouse. Canning claimed she had been abducted by a middle-aged woman she’d met at a central Sydney cafe and that she had been held captive in a basement room for almost a month.

  As the details of her bizarre and sinister experiences were made public, the Canning Affair, as it’s known, quickly became a media sensation . . .

  SUZANNAH: AUGUST 2018

  ‘IT’S THE PIGS.’

  Mary twitched the kitchen curtains across to peer out into the morning. I was too busy trying to find a pair of tights without a run, or a pair of trousers that didn’t need ironing, to respond. Not that there was any reasonable way to respond to this latest off-the-wall pronouncement from my mother. We didn’t have any pigs.

  I was running late, hair unbrushed, still wearing pyjama bottoms and ugg boots, and loath to take off more than I had to until the last minute in the hideous cold. It was a Tuesday, not one of Sally’s days, so I had to get everything ready for Mary before I left for work. I’d made sandwiches, cut fruit, poured some lukewarm coffee into a flask, filled a small Tupperware container with Froot Loops, turned the kitchen gas off and the convection heater on. I’d spent precious minutes of the morning forcing myself to eat dry toast and black tea between bouts of retching, and now had precisely two minutes to pull it all together and get out the door, or my Year Eight drama class would be teacher-less for ten minutes – a catastrophe beyond contemplation.

  ‘The pigs, Suzie.’ Mary gave a couple of reasonably convincing snorts. ‘I wonder what they’re saying I’ve done this time.’

  She pulled the curtain across and turned back to look at me, her eyes bright with mischief. ‘Maybe it’s you they’re after. What do you reckon? I always knew they’d catch up with you eventually, Miss Dudley Do-right. Excuse me – Ms.’ Her cackling laughter turned into a cough.

  ‘There’s no one—’ I began, but then I heard the distinct sound of feet crunching over the frosty lawn and creaking across the verandah, the quiet murmur of conversation. Three sharp knocks.

  ‘You were saying, dear daughter?’ Mary gave me a triumphant glare and tripped down the hallway, arriving a moment before me and pulling the door open.

  It was the police. A woman, uniformed, in her thirties, and a man, older, suited, clearly in charge. They both had their wallets out, ID displayed.

  ‘Miss Wells? Suzannah Wells?’ The man’s words were accompanied by puffs of white cloud. The world outside was crisp and clear and covered in ice.

  ‘It’s Miz Wells, not Miss. What century are you from, Mr Pig?’

  The officer blinked. ‘Excuse me?’

  I pushed past my mother. ‘I’m Suzannah Wells. Is there something wrong?’ The sight of the police at my front door had made my nausea return. I was suddenly unbearably cold, and it wasn’t just the weather.

  ‘Ah, no.’ He glanced at his companion. ‘There’s nothing wrong, not exactly. But we would like to talk to you.’

  His companion stamped her feet. Her nose and cheeks were pink. ‘It’s a bit on the chilly side out here, ma’am. Do you think we might come in? It won’t take long. Just some routine inquiries.’

  ‘Routine inquiries, my arse. The last time a pig told me—’

  ‘Of course. Please come through.’

  The officers paused in the entrance as Mary flounced off down the dark hallway, muttering. From behind, her silvery hair caught up in a loose topknot, long dressing gown trailing elegantly along the carpet, she looked like a Grande Dame in some Edwardian costume drama.

  ‘Alzheimer’s?’ the female officer whispered, her eyes all empathy, understanding.

  ‘Actually, it’s—’ I began to explain, then changed my mind, shrugged. ‘Yes. It’s something like that.’

  In the kitchen the two officers introduced themselves as Detective Inspector Stratford and Senior Constable Moorhouse, then stood awkwardly until I offered them a seat and a cup of tea. They declined the tea, but sat down. Constable Moorhouse took off her hat and eased out of her leather jacket. Her shirt gaped where a button was missing, and lacy white nylon underwear peeked through. Mary perched up on the kitchen bench, and although the true condition of her ancient polar-fleece dressing gown was now revealed in all its stained and threadbare glory, she still maintained an air of haughty disdain. The officers watched her warily.

  ‘Will this take long?’ I hovered, uncertain. ‘I should probably ring work first. I’m already running late.’

  ‘You’re the drama teacher, aren’t you?’ Constable Moorhouse asked. ‘At the high school?’

  ‘I am. And I have a Year Eight class first up – they’ll need to arrange a replacement.’

  ‘Year Eight, eh? That’d be my daughter’s year. I don’t envy you working with that lot.’ She grinned, began to say something, but was interrupted by her boss.

  ‘Probably best if you let them know – we’ll be as quick as we can, but you’re definitely going to be late.’

  I made the call quickly from the next room and arrived back in time to hear Mary regaling them, in her special-occasion American twang, with the story about the time she was arrested in New York after a weekend of debauchery at the Chelsea Hotel in the company of Lou Reed, among others.

  ‘You’re probably too young to know who I’m talking about, aren’t you?’ She sighed at their failure to look impressed. ‘And too square. I guess you listen to—’

  ‘Mary, that’s enough.’

  She pursed her lips primly. ‘Well, no one ever accused me of talking when I shouldn’t. Not to the pigs, anyway. And I know you’re not going to take any notice of anything I have to say, Ms Goody Two-shoes, but if I were you, I’d be getting a lawyer.’

  ‘I’m sure a lawyer won’t be necessary, Mrs . . .’

  ‘Oh, I’m a Miss. Mary Squires. You may have heard of me.’

  ‘I – er, no, I’m afraid I haven’t, ma’am. But you won’t need a solicitor, Ms Wells. This really is just routine.’

  ‘Of course I don’t need a lawyer.’ I gave the officer a conciliatory smile, glared at Mary, pulled out a chair and sat down at the table with them. Senior Constable Moorhouse looked as if she was trying hard not to laugh; her boss frowned at her.

  ‘So how can I help?’

  Stratford cleared his throat. ‘I assume you’ve heard about the Ellie Canning case?’

  My mother let out an excited squawk, and I answered quickly, hoping to forestall any further response.

  ‘The girl who was abducted? Of course.’

  ‘So you’ll know that she was found not far from here?’

  I nodded.

  ‘We’re currently following up some leads, trying to work out where exactly she was held. We’re taking a look at some of the properties around here that fit wi
th some of her, ah . . . some of her recollections.’

  ‘I thought she couldn’t remember much? Wasn’t it dark when she escaped?’

  ‘Actually,’ his face relaxed into a not-quite smile, ‘it seems she’s remembered a few details now. They’re coming back, slowly but surely.’

  ‘And what is it she’s remembered?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to tell you that, I’m afraid. But I can say that from our initial view of the exterior of your property, it does appear to have some surface similarities to what Miss Canning recalls about the property where she was held.’

  ‘Oh.’ That was not what I expected. ‘What sort of similarities?’

  ‘Again, I’m not at liberty to give you that information. Let’s just say . . . the exterior has certain features consistent with Ellie’s evidence.’

  ‘You mean you think she may have been held here? In this house? But that’s absurd.’ I could control the pitch of my voice, but not the sudden roiling of my stomach.

  ‘No, we’re not saying anything like that at this stage, Ms Wells.’ His voice was gentle. ‘We’re just trying to gauge her movements on the night she escaped – seeing if we can work backwards to find out where she was held. It may be that she walked past or through your property at some point. We were wondering whether you’d mind us having a bit of a look around your place.’

  This time Mary’s squawk was triumphant. ‘You wanna do a search? You’re going to need a – what’s the word? A . . . a . . .’ She went blank for a moment, then, increasingly agitated, ‘You know what I mean, Mr Detective – a whatchamacallit.’

  ‘We don’t need a warrant, ma’am. As I said, this is just an—’

  Mary interrupted. ‘I think maybe you should give ol’ Chips Rafferty a call, Suzannah. Isn’t that fat brother of his a lawyer?’

  ‘Mary.’

  She rolled her eyes theatrically, clamped her lips together.

  The detective sighed. ‘You’re welcome to get a solicitor, of course. But in my opinion it’ll just be an unnecessary expense. And it’ll certainly slow things down. As I’ve said, this really isn’t an official search.’