Broken Silence (Silence, #2)(49)

You can do this, for every girl he would go on to hurt if you didn’t speak up.

Strangely, I felt more afraid of him now than I did as a little girl. Back then, I still had hope that he would change, that he would be a proper dad again. That hope was lost the day he took me back to Frank when I was sixteen. I saw him for what he was now – a sick, evil monster.

No matter how afraid I was, I would not give up. No matter how hard things got, I would stand up and tell everyone what he did. He had to pay for what he’d done, and I was determined to make that happen. Linda stood up and walked towards me. She stopped a meter away and smiled discretely.

“Could you please state your full name?”

My heart crashed in my chest. “Oakley Ruby Farrell.”

“And how old are you?”

“Twenty.”

I was asked a few more straight, everyday factual questions like that. Where did I live? Who did I live with? Where did I go to school? And then things turned more serious. Linda straightened her back and glanced at the judge and jury. No turning back now.

Taking a deep breath, I focused on the end goal – to make sure my father never got the opportunity to cause damage to anyone else, and to get justice for those girls he had hurt, including me, and for my family.

“Miss Farrell, do you understand why we are here?” Linda asked. Her voice projected authority and confidence. The way she looked and moved was almost as if we had already won.

“Yes,” I replied. My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was like when you hear your voice in a recording. I wanted to elaborate and tell her, tell them all exactly why we were here, but I couldn’t. I had to keep it simple, not go into detail: one word answers whenever possible.

Linda nodded once. “Did you grow up here?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you live when you were here?”

“Eighteen Turner Road.”

“Who did you live with at that address?”

“My mum, dad and brother.”

“And how long did you live there?”

Those questions were still easy. I thought it was getting harder? “Sixteen years,” I said.

My parents moved when Mum was four months pregnant with me. It was the only house I had ever lived in before we moved to Australia.

“You just mentioned your father. Do you see him in the court room today? Can you point and verbally acknowledge that he is in the court room so our stenographer can enter your response in to the court records?”

I took a deep breath. “Yes. He’s there,” I said and pointed to him. I was careful not to look directly into his eyes though. I could feel him watching me, burning a hole in the side of my head. It made me feel weak.

Linda half smiled and briskly moved on. “Now, Miss Farrell, we are obviously here today because your father, Mr Farrell sold you and other children for the purpose of sex—”

“Objection,” my father’s defence lawyer, John Bee, cut in. He stood up and faced the judge.

The judge, a short plump woman, leant forwards a fraction. “Sustained.”

Linda was told not to lead the jury to a conclusion when the charges were alleged. Alleged. It made it sound like I was lying. Did the judge think I was lying?

It didn’t seem to faze Linda at all. She turned back to me and continued. She read out a list of the charges and asked if I understood them.

The charges were: administering a substance with intent to commit sexual offences; trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation; controlling a child prostitute or a child involved in pornography; causing or inciting child prostitution or pornography; Production of indecent photographs of children; Possession of indecent photographs of children; abuse of position of trust; causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity; sexual assault on a child.

The last one in particular turned my stomach. While in University, where he met Frank, he had abused a little girl for the first time.

Gulping back the urge to sob, I stood tall. I couldn’t believe this man was my dad. “Yes. I understand the charges.”

“Miss Farrell,” she started again. I wished she would just call me by my first name. I now regretted not changing my surname, but no one had ever called me by my father’s name until now. “On or about the twentieth of August 2008, did you make contact with the Clearview police department?”

“Yes.”

“What was your reason for contacting them?”

“To report my father for offering me to his friend—”

“Objection,” John roared. “The witness is being led.”

“Overruled,” the judge responded, and I wanted to stick my tongue out at him as he shrank back to his seat. “Please continue,” she instructed Linda.

Linda carried on, but not before a small smile had flickered across her face at the judge’s intervention.

“Miss Farrell, can you recall the first time this happened?”

“When I was five.”

“How do remember that you were five, since it was so long ago?”

“Because it was shortly after my teddy-bear picnic party, which was for my fifth birthday.”

The side of Linda’s mouth tugged so quickly I almost missed it. Always make sure you link the time with an event, so the jury know you’re sure of your dates.