THE LOST BOY an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists

by MARGARET MURPHY

  ‘Do sit down, Sergeant,’ Jones said.

  Mike walked to an armchair by the window. The sound of the mower was clearer here, and through the latticework of the lead lights he could see a tractor trundling up and down the sunny field at the back of the school.

  ‘Now, what can I do for you?’ Mr Jones asked.

  ‘When did Alain Fournier last stay over?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Ah.’ He looked momentarily troubled.

  Mike narrowed his eyes. ‘Mr Jones?’

  ‘Alain . . . Alain? My memory! Well, it can’t have been during the summer term because — well, because it’s only just gone and I’m sure I should have remembered.’ He laughed nervously, and Mike, immediately suspicious, asked if he kept a register of the boys.

  ‘Yes,’ Jones said, flustered. ‘Yes, of course.’ He shuffled his bulk to the edge of the sofa and boosted himself up. ‘I, um . . .’ He rooted around in a dark, roughly carved sideboard, shuffling papers and thumping books one on top of another until he found what he was looking for. ‘Here we are!’ The register was an A4 hard-bound book, labelled Short-Stay Boarders. Jones flipped through. ‘There. He last stayed with us from March the tenth to the thirteenth.’

  Mike put his hand out, and for a moment the old man seemed reluctant to give up the book, then he handed it over, with a quick glance at his headmaster.

  The entries started in 1996 and continued through to the summer of 1999. Each new day was ruled off in black ink and the boys’ names were entered by hand.

  ‘Rising oblique for presence at evening roll call, falling oblique for morning,’ Jones said, plucking at the edges of the book, but Mike wasn’t ready to surrender it yet. ‘We wouldn’t want to lose any of the blighters during the night!’

  ‘It’s a lot of work, filling in the names like that every day.’ Cannon Jones was jumpy, and Mike wanted to know why.

  ‘We found it worked best for the Irregulars — our name for short-stay boarders. One doesn’t know day to day who will be here and who not. To avoid confusion, we enter those present at evening roll call.’

  ‘A list is provided by my secretary for the duty master, so he knows what to expect,’ Radleigh interrupted. ‘We can’t have boys just turning up unexpectedly.’

  ‘Right,’ Mike said, then tapped the entry for the twelfth of March. ‘There he is.’ He continued thumbing through the pages. He could feel Mr Jones’s increasing agitation, and this made him study them even more closely. ‘So, there’s a separate register for the regular boarders?’ he asked.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Jones. ‘The same as a day register.’ Then, as if suddenly realizing that this might be his deliverance, with a little bound, he returned to the sideboard and withdrew a standard school register. ‘Here it is! All the Regulars are listed, as you see . . .’

  But Mike did not see. He was looking at the entry for the thirtieth of June. Alain Fournier’s name had been added to the end of the list. A rising oblique in the first column noted the boy’s presence at evening roll call, and a neat, oval nought in the second column recorded his absence in the morning. A red capital L had been entered over the nought.

  Mr Jones had fallen silent.

  ‘I thought you said Alain hadn’t stayed over during the summer term, Mr Jones.’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear . . .’ The man was positively quivering with nervous energy. ‘What will you think of me, Sergeant?’

  ‘And why is he in the regular boarders’ register, if he’s — what did you call them — an Irregular?’

  ‘Cannon,’ said Radleigh carefully, ‘please explain.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mike said, ‘I’d be interested to hear this.’

  Cannon Jones look deeply distressed. ‘I assure you, it has absolutely no relevance.’

  Mike almost laughed outright. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’m getting really hacked off with people here telling me what’s relevant and what isn’t.’

  Mr Jones looked near to tears. ‘Alain did stay with us for one night on the thirtieth of June. His listing in the Regulars’ register was a simple error — the duty master is a new member of staff, and he mistakenly entered Alain in the wrong book.’

  ‘I’ll want a word with him,’ Mike said, and Mr Radleigh nodded. ‘But I’m more interested in why Alain was initially marked absent for morning roll call on the first of July.’

  Cannon Jones had turned brick red. ‘I’m afraid . . .’ he said, addressing his headmaster, rather than Mike, ‘that Alain was missing at morning registration. We looked for him all over the building — you can imagine, we were frantic — but he wasn’t to be found. Eventually one of the boys suggested we try the pavilion.’ He smoothed his moustache, his hand atremble. ‘We found him asleep on one of the benches. A sleepwalking incident — they happen from time to time, when boys are in strange surroundings. Simply that. There was nothing sinister in it.’ He turned away from Mike, appealing directly to Radleigh. ‘It wasn’t worth mentioning. A minor incident, no harm done.’

  ‘When a boy goes missing, it is always worth mentioning,’ Radleigh said, stiffly. Then, ‘We’ll discuss this further.’

  Mr Jones mumbled a meek, ‘Yes, Headmaster.’

  Mike leafed through the remaining pages of the register. Alain had not stayed overnight at the school after the thirtieth of June.

  ‘Right,’ Mike said, embarrassed on Jones’s behalf. ‘I think I’ve got all I need.’

  ‘Let me show you out, Sergeant,’ Radleigh said, but he did not take his eyes from Jones. Mike began to demur, but he wasn’t sure he could find the way back without a guide, so he didn’t argue when the headmaster said, ‘I insist. This will wait until later.’

  At the bottom of the stairs, Radleigh turned to him. ‘Mr Delaney, I can only apologize. I assure you—’

  ‘Mr Radleigh, maybe it’s significant that Alain’s prone to sleepwalking, maybe it isn’t — it could have some bearing on what happened to him, or how he came to be wandering the streets, but since he wasn’t in your care at the time . . .’

  The headmaster inclined his head, graciously. ‘If you’ve time, I can ask my secretary to telephone the duty master who checked Alain in on the thirtieth.’

  Mike checked his watch. ‘I’ve got a meeting at ten thirty — I’ll barely make it in time, through the rush hour traffic.’

  ‘Of course — I’m sorry to keep you. I’ll ask her to find his number and pass it on to you.’ He frowned, all surface gloss and pretence gone. ‘I can assure you this lapse of care will be dealt with.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Mike said.

  Radleigh nodded, coughed. ‘Will you call at Alain’s home address before you go to your meeting?’

  ‘I wish I could.’ Mike had come so far with this side of the investigation. He would like to have carried it through at least to questioning the mother — if she was fit for questioning. DI Crank would have called the hospital with the news and despatched a team to the Fournier residence as soon as he’d ended the call. ‘I can’t miss this meeting,’ he said, in half-admonishment to himself.

  Chapter 15

  As it turned out, Mike Delaney made it to the case review meeting at the hospital with minutes to spare, after spending fifteen minutes snarled in traffic behind a minor shunt. But ten minutes into the meeting, DC Sallis had interrupted, and Mike knew before Sallis had said a word — knew from the look on his face — that a body had been found.

  ‘She’s been positively identified?’

  Sallis nodded. ‘By the cleaning lady — it’s Mrs Fournier, all right. She got to the house at half past nine and found the body in the kitchen.’

  The men were talking in a small office adjacent to the conference room and sweltering in the soaring heat — there were too many compelling reasons for keeping the door shut to ignore them.

  ‘Looks like the motive was robbery,’ Sallis said. ‘Money scattered about, and her purse was missing from her handbag. Possibly credit cards an’ all.’

  ‘Cause of death?’
/>
  ‘We’re waiting on the pathologist, but there was a hell of a lot of blood, Mike. Cuts to her arms, too. It looks like she’s been there a while.’

  ‘Maybe since last weekend?’

  Sallis shrugged. ‘This hot weather, it’s hard to say. Scene-of-Crime team are picking over the house as we speak. The pathologist asked for them to leave the body in situ.’

  Mike nodded. ‘Well, we’ll just have to wait for him to get there,’ he said.

  * * *

  DC Sallis watched DS Delaney leave, keeping his back straight until the door closed. Then he slumped against a table and wiped his brow.

  The place had been teaming with uniformed police when he’d arrived. A WPC stood guard at the door. The facade bowed outward at the centre of the building, drawing a smooth white curve to form the portico, which was supported by two pillars of gleaming white stone. She might almost have been a token bobby standing outside an embassy building. He showed his warrant card and stepped into the hallway. Only it wasn’t a hallway, it was an entrance hall like he had only ever seen in films: black and white tiles in a geometric design and the concave sweep of the outer wall painted in an abstract fresco of yellow and black. A staircase curved left from the centre of the entrance, mirroring the line of the portico, but reddish-brown stains marred the pristine beauty of the marble balustrade. He could smell it already. Death permeated the entire house, declaring its presence, staking its claim.

  The cleaning woman sat in a chair just inside the front door. She looked grey, in shock, and kept wiping her hand with a tissue and muttering over and over: ‘I thought I saw her move. I touched her . . . Under the skin, there was—God help me!’ She shuddered violently.

  He got her details and a brief statement of how she’d found the body, then touched her lightly on the shoulder before heading inside.

  A second constable stood at the door of a room to the right of the staircase.

  ‘In there?’ Sallis asked, unnecessarily. He really didn’t want to go into that room, although he knew he had to, because DI Crank would be expecting a detailed report and such things cannot be had second hand. All that stopped him from turning around and walking out were self-respect and self-interest. By speaking to the PC, even those two words, he had established contact, which would make it more difficult for him to do the cowardly thing and leave. Sallis did not have a strong stomach and did not find death any easier for having seen it before and in a number of guises.

  He tried a trick that sometimes worked: he studied the PC. Looking for signs of distress in others was apt to make him forget his own. The officer was pale. He had removed his jacket, and damp patches of sweat showed under the arms of his short-sleeved shirt. He seemed to be having trouble with his breathing.

  No bloody wonder, his inner voice intruded. The corpse is ripe. Very ripe.

  As he drew closer, he, too, modified his breathing, taking shallower breaths, exhaling through his nose in snuffling little snorts. ‘Has anyone contacted the Home Office pathologist?’ Sallis asked, knowing the answer, but needing the distraction of words to prevent him thinking.

  ‘He’s out on a call. Be here as soon as he can. A police surgeon’s on his way to confirm death.’ The young officer was staring past him, towards the staircase. He sounded strained, strangulated almost, trying to swallow down as he spoke.

  ‘SOCOs?’ Sallis asked. This was not working.

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Look,’ Sallis said, taking pity on the lad, ‘why don’t you get a breath of air? I’ll keep an eye on things till you feel a bit brighter. It’s okay, I’m not gonna trample all over the evidence. I’ll just take a look from the doorway, all right?’ He waited for the constable to flee, then, taking a clean, pressed handkerchief from his pocket and holding it to his mouth and nose, he opened the door.

  The woman lay face down in a dried and cracked oasis of blood. She had dark, curly hair, at about shoulder length, and she was wearing a sleeveless dress. She was barefoot. Sallis didn’t need a pathologist to tell him that those marks on her arms were defence cuts, any more than he needed a police surgeon to confirm that she was dead.

  Across an expanse of Italian floor tiles, a few brownish footprints led to the outer door. It stood ajar. He did a sweep of the kitchen, trying to concentrate but finding it difficult with the distracting buzz of flies busily zipping in and out through the open door. Sallis swallowed, thinking about the cleaner’s horrified exclamation: I touched her . . . Under the skin, there was—

  No. He didn’t want to think about that — leave the grisly details for the SOCOs and the pathologists who get paid to look at that sort of thing.

  The kitchen was the size of an average family restaurant. Streaks of green in the tiles echoed the carefully distressed effect of the rustic green units. The wall tiles were a patchwork of cream, darker green and terracotta. The oven and hob looked like it belonged in a restaurant, too: it dominated the centre of the room in a square island of steel technology, industrial quality. Serious housekeeping, this.

  He tried to prevent his eye being drawn to the body, but it was constantly dragged back to that one focal point in the room. She lay to the right of the central island, her right arm curved over her head, her left leg slightly bent. He forced himself to try again. This time, he noticed something else, something partly hidden by the oven housing: the leather strap of a shoulder bag and a few coins scattered across the floor. He’d asked the SOCOs to check the bag, knowing the forensics team would have his guts if he messed with the scene. No purse. Robbery, then. And had the little boy seen it happen? He’d found it hard enough to look at this — how much harder for a child of seven or eight years old?

  * * *

  ‘D’you want to wait for Mike to get back or shall we carry on?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Let’s get on with it,’ Fraser said. He had been ill-tempered and impatient all morning.

  Max leaned back in his chair and peered through the open door into the corridor. ‘No sign of him,’ he said. ‘I’m with Fraser on this.’

  ‘But if he has some news of Alain’s parents—’

  ‘We’ll backtrack,’ Fraser insisted.

  Jenny gave him a long, cool stare, then started distributing copies of her notes, and after a few minutes silence, in which the conference members read through them, she and Fraser began giving details of their observations over the past week.

  ‘He — Alain—’ She had to remind herself that he had a name now. ‘Alain is vocalizing more now, but he won’t speak directly to us.’

  ‘I’ve heard nursery rhymes — something like that,’ Fraser said. ‘I couldn’t make it out. Could’ve been French, now that I think of it.’

  ‘The nightmares are getting worse,’ Jenny went on. ‘He’s terrified, but it’s difficult to make sense of what he says.’

  ‘Now we have a name, perhaps Social Services can trawl the records for any history of abuse?’

  ‘If he isn’t registered “at risk” he could be difficult to trace, even with a name,’ Gina said.

  Max spread his hands. ‘We may be able to find the hospital that treated the injuries to his hands. But it’ll take time.’

  ‘What about the interim care order?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Granted. I was in court yesterday. But we need more on the kid.’ Gina laughed. ‘Correction — we need something on him!’

  ‘We’ve a name, at least,’ Max said.

  ‘We’ve a lot more than that.’

  They all looked toward the doorway, where Mike Delaney stood. He crossed the room and stood by the open window.

  ‘Bad news?’ Jenny asked.

  Mike took a gulp of air, then sat down. ‘The worst. A body’s been found at the Fournier house. We’ve had a positive ID . . . It’s his mother.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Fraser reached for Jenny’s hand. ‘Murder?’ he asked.

  ‘Looks like. We’ll have to wait for the pathologist’s report—’ He shrugged. ‘What the hell — yea
h, it looks very much like murder.’

  Jenny threw Max a look which said, So much for the gypsy child theory.

  Max’s eyebrows quirked in silent apology, then, turning again to Mike, he asked, ‘What next?’

  ‘We try and trace next of kin,’ Mike said. ‘His school gave me a contact number in France for Maurice and Dominique Fournier — her parents — we’ll speak to them first, and we’ll see if we can track down the father at the same time.’ In the silence that followed, Mike looked at each person around the conference table. ‘We can’t rule out the father as a suspect, of course, but it looks more like a random attack. They’re divorced and probably weren’t even in contact. She may have disturbed a burglar, got into a fight with him, ended up dead.’

  ‘And Alain may have witnessed it,’ Max said.

  Part II

  Chapter 16

  ‘Getting a good eyeful, Olly?’

  DC Weston looked up, startled from his leisurely appreciation of Lisa Calcot’s legs. ‘What?’ She had her bloody back to him. ‘How the hell—?’

  ‘Eyes in the back of my head.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She smiled, turning to him. ‘All is forgiven — if you make the coffee — I know it’s not your turn,’ she added before he could complain. ‘That’s the point.’ She waited for him to brew up, while she doodled on the notebook next to the phone. They had been discussing Mike Delaney’s suggestion that Connor Harvey may have been abducted, talking in circles for half an hour.

  The phone rang and Calcot answered it. ‘Mike, we were just talking about you.’ There was a pause. Calcot stopped doodling and started writing with a purpose. ‘When? . . . Rough guess, Mike — we’ve got a MisPer this end as well, don’t forget.’

  Weston heard the urgency on her tone and signalled her, wanting to know what was being said. She waved for him to be quiet.

  ‘Oh, shit!’ A pause, then, ‘Yeah, I know, but if there is a connection and we’ve been sitting on our hands for a week—’ Mike interrupted and she listened for a moment or two, then said, ‘Thanks for the info. If your lad does say anything . . . You will? Cheers.’ She hung up and stared at the phone.