As Darkness Falls

6

Sara had seen Zoe’s real name on the letter from the department of corrections, and she had access to police databases. It wasn’t difficult for her to find out as much as she wanted to know about Zoe’s father. Zoe had grown up in Melbourne, and the letter was from the Victorian department of corrections. That also meant it was an out-of-state police file, from the Victorian police, but that didn’t especially matter. Everyone’s computers were linked up, now.

Sara sat at a desk, and searched, and found the file easily, a digitally scanned copy of the original papers. She began to read.

Zoe’s father was a church pastor. Because they usually were, Sara thought. Pastors or school teachers or sports coaches, people in positions of a little authority. It wasn’t just Zoe who had been abused, either, because it was never just one victim, and it never only happened once. The investigating officers suspected longer-term abuse of Zoe’s two sisters, almost certainly her older sister, but the family wouldn’t help, wouldn’t even talk to the investigators, and Zoe and her sisters couldn’t remember clearly enough to give a compelling testimony in court.

The best evidence the police had were the videos, the same ones Zoe had shown Sara, and those videos were more than enough. One of the court preparation emails included in the file said it was fortunate the videos were there, and that the case would have been a great deal more difficult without them. Sara looked at that email, thinking. She understood how cynical police work made people, but saying that was too much. She remembered that name. If she ever met that detective, she was going to smack him in the face and fuck the consequences.

The videos were odd, though. The police psychologist didn’t entirely understand why the videos existed. They had been widely distributed, all over the internet, but sharing videos didn’t fit the profile of parental abuse in a religious family. The police file Sara was reading suggested the videos had been made for personal use first, and then traded with other paedophiles later on, for reasons which weren’t entirely clear. Perhaps something had triggered a behaviour change in the abuser, the file said, because the offender had other such material in his possession.

Sara sat there, horrified. She didn’t think she would see the words personal use in the same way ever again. She felt sick. Zoe had been raped and filmed and those films swapped for others around the world.

The films were probably still around. Paedophiles were hoarders and traders.

Sara kept reading. Her hands were shaking so much she was having trouble pressing the right key to move the pages forwards.

Zoe had been sixteen when she first went to the police, and eighteen by the time the trial was over. There was a note in the file saying she was using a different name now, but not what it was. She was estranged from her family, the file said. Her sisters had resisted giving evidence, and had explicitly denied any wrongdoing by their father despite the police psychologists being certain they had also been abused. They had been talked out of it by the family, the police assumed. The church had stood behind their pastor too, and had said some fairly nasty things about Zoe in court.

Sara wanted to kill someone again, by the time she finished reading. Actually kill someone, not just saying the words to make herself feel better. She was surprised at herself, at how angry she was. She didn’t understand how people could act like this. Not just Zoe’s father, but her family as well. She didn’t understand how people could believe a predator’s lies over the pleas of his victim.

Sara had read as much of the file as she could manage. She had skimmed quite a lot. She didn’t want to go through the medical details, or the psychologists reports on Zoe. She couldn’t stand to read those, and she didn’t want to, either. It was too intrusive, prying too much, unfair to Zoe to take those secrets from her without her knowing.

Sara was only trying to find out broadly what had happened, and to make sure, for herself, that Zoe’s father deserved whatever Zoe decided to do.

He deserved it, Sara thought. Whatever Zoe did, he deserved it. He was a planner, a predator, not just someone who had made a single mistake. He had groomed his own children, and spent years denying wrongdoing and covering his actions up, and then had even let his lawyers attack and discredit his own daughter in court. He was the worst kind of monster, and deserved whatever Zoe had planned.

He deserved it, Sara decided, and she would do whatever needed doing, if Zoe asked her to help.

Sara closed the police file, and opened another window on the computer, and found the current list of prison releases of offenders with supervision orders. The list went into the police system a month or so ahead of time, so local police stations knew who would be moving to their area. She checked the Victorian police list first, assuming it would be there. It was. She found Zoe’s father’s name, and read the release conditions. He was to have no unsupervised contact with unrelated minors, and no contract with Zoe at all. It was weak, but about what she expected.

Sara switched off the computer, and finished her shift, and went home, and hugged Zoe and didn’t let her go for an hour. Zoe seemed to understand, or at least suspect something was wrong, because she just sat there and let Sara hug her, and hugged Sara back.