The Forgotten Child

by D. E. White

  ‘You mean he had a fake ID or something?’ Holly asked.

  ‘Possibly. We sent officers to his address and it’s a rental flat in Marshford. Landlord says the bloke paid cash for a six-month rental but he’s hardly ever there. The name on the visitor’s book, and on the ID was Arron Carter. Don’t suppose that rings any bells with you?’ She looked hopefully at Holly.

  ‘No. Sorry, I’ve never heard the name mentioned.’

  The adults lapsed into silence and Milo, apparently unaffected by one-sided conversation, chattered on, his leg propped awkwardly out to the side as he leant over the child in the bed.

  ‘What’s your dad’s name?’ Milo asked suddenly. ‘My dad’s name is Tom, but he doesn’t live with us anymore.’

  ‘Did you dad ever talk about his family?’ Holly asked the boy, gently, but he drew back, frowning. ‘We think that I’m your dad’s sister.’ His eyes widened, but he controlled himself again, and went back to staring at Milo.

  ‘That would mean your dad is my uncle. We’re cousins!’ Milo told the boy, his eyes lighting on the pile of books next to the bed.

  ‘You understand we are very concerned about you,’ Karen told the silent child. ‘You won’t get anyone into trouble by answering our questions. We’re worried about your dad, too. He might have been hurt in the car accident.’

  The boy shrugged again, as if to say, ‘whatever’, and looked back over at Milo.

  Holly searched for something that might establish a connection, anything that might prompt the boy to start talking, but she could think of nothing, and gradually Milo ran out of chatter too. They had failed.

  The boy was eerily calm, registering no emotion in his pale face. Again, she thought how unnatural it was for a kid that age to be so cool and closed off. He must have been terrified to wake up in hospital, and he must be wondering what the hell happened to Jayden. Perhaps he was simply too terrified to talk. His eyes were shiny black pools, and he sat tense and still now, one thin hand holding the sheet around him.

  She laid a gentle hand on the bed and squeezed his hand. There was something else in his gaze. Holly thought that maybe he wanted to speak but somehow he couldn’t. Perhaps he was scared of getting Jayden into trouble. She wanted to ask him so many things, to persuade him to communicate with her, but that hard exterior was shielding him from her emotions. Or was it fear of Jayden?

  A nurse came in and gave him some medication, which he took obediently, gulping the water, his eyes fixed now on a place just below the ceiling, straight in front of the bed. Holly forced herself not to let her frustration show, and she took a deep breath, trying desperately to think of words that might pierce that shell. But nothing came, so she simply told him again about the night of the accident, reassuring him he wasn’t going to get into trouble, and she was just worried that Jayden might need help.

  Before she left, Holly again bent and kissed his cool forehead. The skin was soft and his hair brushed her cheek, and his face showed that flicker of something.

  Once again, in the shape of his face and the stubborn tilt of his chin, she saw her brother, but the lips remained firmly closed.

  ‘Maybe you’ll feel like talking next time we visit?’ Milo suggested, before hopping towards the door. He paused. ‘Or I know … If you can’t talk you can write me a message, can’t you?’ He balanced on one leg, delved into his pocket and produced a grubby pencil and a bit of paper, which he placed carefully on the end of the bed.

  The boy made no move to take the paper, and just stared at Milo, face impassive and controlled.

  Outside the room Karen outlined her plans. ‘Thanks for trying anyway. He will have to stay in for a couple more days, but the tests are reassuring. He was incredibly lucky. If he still doesn’t tell us anything, and there are no further developments, we’ll have no option but to place him with an emergency foster care until we can locate his father.’

  ‘Why don’t you send him home with us?’ Milo asked artlessly. ‘I bet he’d have to talk when we get home. Like … He might hate peas but get given them, or he might need to know where the loo was, and he’d have to ask or he’d wet himself, wouldn’t he?’

  Holly grinned, and even Karen half smiled. ‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea. You have enough to cope with at the moment and he might need specialist care. We have someone coming in later who specialises in trauma cases, so he may well open up to her.’

  ‘He could stay with Lydia?’ Holly suggested. ‘When she finds out she’ll want to look after Jayden’s son.’

  ‘Holly, we need to proceed with caution. We don’t know that your brother isn’t behind the recent events, and we have no idea of his state of mind, so his son needs to be kept safe. Legally, at this stage all we can offer is foster care. Long term, depending on whether Jayden does come back, we can discuss further possibilities.’

  ‘Where’s DI Harper? I thought you were both on this case …’ Holly was trying to stop the churning in her stomach, the urge to take the child out of the hospital bed, into her car and take him home. The first instinct had been a protective one, when she discovered him injured in her car, but now he was family she felt a tidal wave of emotion. She would look after him if Jayden wouldn’t.

  ‘He’s … He’s taken a back seat on this one. We both know your history, and we all felt, the DCI included, that it was better if DI Harper was less involved.’ Her face was blank, and Holly frowned.

  ‘He told me Jayden was dead, and he worked Larissa’s murder case. You’d think he’d be bursting at the seams to talk to Jayden’s son. To Larissa’s son. This boy must be terrified, and we don’t know what Jayden has told him about his past.’ Holly took a calming breath, glancing at Milo, who was watching a kid on the ward playing with his laptop.

  ‘It seems strange that your brother would risk coming back with his son after what happened. Why would he put his son in danger?’

  Holly bit her lip, her mind whirring over possibilities, considering, discarding theories. She should really come clean about Donnie, but she couldn’t. It was years since she’d had the conflict between family loyalty and the law, but here she was again, walking the dark side, shutting the police out, when they just might be able to help.

  But what could she do? Grass on her own dad, when he’d just got sober? Eventually she shook her head. ‘I would guess that Jayden is desperate to make sure his boy is safe and looked after, but after that, who knows … Have you got kids?’

  Karen shook her head.

  ‘Well, if Jayden does still care I reckon he’ll be in touch,’ Holly finished lamely.

  ‘Point taken. Ring me when he calls, won’t you?’ There was a glimmer of amusement in the other woman’s eyes.

  Holly made sure Milo was inching nearer to the laptop, his attention fixed on the screen, before she told DC Marriot about the phone call she had made the night of Larissa’s murder. This was information she could share.

  ‘Right. Can I just clarify, on the night of Larissa’s murder, you told Devril Mancini where Jayden was?’

  ‘Yes. He was at Niko’s place. Dev said Niko left his house about 9 p.m., and he didn’t see him again.’

  ‘So if we assume that someone did phone Jayden and tip him off, Devril also knew where to find Jayden at this point?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You never mentioned this initially. Were you afraid Devril would tell the police when he was interviewed? Why didn’t you just tell us?’

  Holly sighed. ‘It was a terrible thing to do. I was terrified that I was the reason Larissa and her baby were dead, and most likely, my brother too. When I kept quiet, I thought I’d wait until they found out. But they didn’t and nobody ever asked me. I didn’t know why, because Niko wouldn’t protect me.’

  ‘But Devril would?’

  ‘Yeah, I thought so.’ Holly picked up her bag. ‘I’m not sure we were much help in there.’

  ‘Thanks for trying. I’ll keep you posted,’ Karen said wearily, and Steph, who was tapping o
ut notes on her iPad, raised a hand and waved.

  When they walked out, back though the crowded reception area, Milo said, conversationally, ‘If the boy does start talking, he might tell us more about the man in the car.’

  Holly stopped suddenly, blocking the way and causing the people behind to swear at her. She drew her son to one side and bent down to his level. ‘Milo, do you mean the man who was in the car after we crashed? The one who stroked your face? Have you remembered something else?’ For a moment his freckled face twisted, lips pursed.

  ‘No. I don’t know anything else. I was just saying… Let’s go to Devil’s house. He did ask us, didn’t he?’ Milo said, shoving the push pad for the automatic door.

  Holly sighed, plunging back into the stream of people, dodging wheelchairs and small children.

  The icy wind hit them as they stepped outside, and Holly leant over to pull Milo’s hood up. Annoyed, he shook it off again, hopping proficiently along next to her. If Jayden had found Larissa and his baby daughter murdered, gathered up his son, taken the money he already had, and just driven away, where the hell had they gone?

  Perhaps he had hidden out until that small-time dealer, Luke Hastings, told the police he was dead, and then gone abroad … The fifteen grand would have probably nabbed him a pair of fake passports. She thought about the man visiting Alexi before he died. It wasn’t hard to get fake IDs, she knew from experience, but good ones were pricey. Donnie had previously made a fair bit from that line of trade. The passports, she remembered suddenly, were usually real, and stolen from the deceased. It was easier to steal identities if the victim wasn’t alive to kick up a fuss.

  But Arron Carter could not be Jayden Hughes, because he would have been recognised on the CCTV. Not to mention Alexi would surely have gone mental if Jay had turned up to visit …

  ‘Milo, the man in the car wasn’t the person who asked you to keep a secret was he?’ Holly looked down at her son. They were walking down the footpath to the end of the car park now, where Devril was still standing under the bike shelter, absorbed in his phone.

  ‘Nope. Devil’s still here, Mum.’

  ‘I can see that, and I guess he’s waiting to see if we have anything exciting to tell him,’ Holly said with a sigh.

  A crowd of people pushed past them, a mum with a baby, and a few men arguing. Away from the bright lights and stuffy warmth of the hospital, the darkness was pierced only by a couple of streetlights, which lit the rain-glossed concrete with a feeble yellow glow. A couple of people were standing, hoods up, smoking near Devril. As Holly and Milo approached one of them turned quickly, shoulders hunched against the rain and the cold.

  Milo gasped. ‘Mum, that’s the man in the car.’

  ‘What?’ Holly forced herself to keep walking towards Dev, although her eyes were darting, trying to see where Milo was looking. ‘Where? That man in the blue Nike jacket or the one leaning on the bike?’

  ‘No, the younger one with the black hoodie. He was just behind Devil. Mum, he’s looking right at us now.’ Milo’s voice rose a little, but she grabbed his hand and tried to see through the rain. The man’s face was almost obscured by his hood, but she thought she caught a glimpse of blonde hair.

  ‘Jayden?’ The name tasted unfamiliar, and she called again, louder. Was it hope or fear that made her spine prickle with ice?

  She saw Devril spin round, puzzled. Too late, the man had moved, shoving into the crowd, walking swiftly across the rain-sodden plants behind the shelter and into the road.

  ‘Devril!’ Holly had reached him, grabbed his arm, her heart pounding. ‘Quick, that man crossing the road, black hoodie, blue jeans and Converse. Milo says he’s the man from the car crash. Fuck, is it Jayden? I can’t leave Milo but can you follow him?’

  ‘Okay, I’m on it.’ Devril pulled his own hood up and jogged after the man.

  Holly wavered for a split second, phone in her hand, and then followed, slow enough for Milo to keep up on his crutches.

  ‘Are we going to chase him?’ Her son’s voice was a squeak of excitement, and he was hopping as fast as he could.

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we call the police? Steph might still be at the hospital.’ He was breathless now, and she slowed down.

  ‘No, not yet. Milo, are you completely sure that was the man who was in our car after the crash?’ Holly could just see Dev running further down the road, and then he made a sharp left, disappearing into the shadows.

  ‘Of course. I’m not stupid, Mum.’

  ‘I know, but you had just been in a car crash and you were hit on the head. And we were just talking about him, so you must have been thinking about him.’ She was breathless too now, but not from exertion. What if Jayden was right in front of them?

  ‘It was him!’ Milo insisted.

  They paused at the point in road where Devril had vanished. It was a pitch-black, overgrown path and Holly hesitated, but Milo plunged onwards.

  ‘Come on, Mum!’

  She half recognised where they were as they stumbled along the narrow footpath. The darkness and the rain seemed to have driven everyone indoors, but the trees dripped spookily and Dev and his quarry seemed long gone.

  They rounded a corner and saw the playground where the drug dealers did their thing. The slide and swings gleamed in the light of the houses behind the line of trees. At the same time Holly could hear the distant roar of a train and remembered the railway line ran along the back of Denne Road, crossing by an overhead bridge on its way down to the coast.

  ‘Holly!’ Devril was breathing hard. His clothes were muddy, and he had a streak of dirt on one cheekbone.

  ‘What happened? Where is he?’

  ‘He went off over the railway line. Straight in front of the train. Don’t worry he made it, but I couldn’t exactly follow and now he’s long gone.’

  ‘Do you think it was Jayden?’

  ‘It could be. Same height and build. His face, what I saw of it, was similar, and he would have changed a bit in eleven years, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Frustrated, Holly finally made the call to the police.

  Karen practically blasted her eardrums. ‘You just saw him?’

  ‘At the hospital. Milo says he was the man in the car. He’s just gone across the railway line at Standen Point – you know behind Denne Road. Devril was with us and he chased him.’

  ‘He chased him?’ Holly could hear muffled voices in the background and running footsteps. ‘Are you sure it was Jayden?’

  ‘No! It could have been though.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’ Her voice was sharp, angry, and Holly couldn’t blame her. If she had called when they first spotted the man the police would already be here. As it was, she had been so desperate to see him, any thoughts of calling in the law, who he definitely wouldn’t want to see, had been firmly banished. Wrong call.

  ‘She pissed off with you?’ Devril was staring out across the railway line, as though his gaze could pierce the darkness. ‘So if that was Jayden I think we can assume he has been checking up on his son. Funny, he was right behind me and I never noticed. That freaks me out.’

  ‘You think it was him, don’t you?’ Holly asked, aware of Milo, breathless with excitement behind her, wobbling on his crutches.

  Dev shook his head, moving closer to her, his hands gentle on her arms. ‘Holly, I don’t know. I’m sorry but I really couldn’t tell. He was about five nine, blonde and the same build as Jay always was, on the skinny side, but that doesn’t mean it was him.’

  She could smell his sweat, his aftershave, and feel his body against hers, his chest still heaving after the run. Emotion bubbled treacherously in her chest and she turned to look at her son, who was watching with interest.

  ‘Milo says he was the man in the car after my crash, even if he isn’t Jayden.’

  The police arrived ten minutes later, and Karen told them she had another team searching across the other side of the railway. Milo answered h
er questions unwillingly. He was getting tired now the excitement was over and Holly wiped the wet bench with her coat and sat him down. Dev added his hoodie and wrapped it round the boy’s shoulders.

  A couple of uniformed officers were questioning Devril now, and Holly was torn between waiting for them to finish and getting Milo home and warm. Finally Dev broke away from the group, and walked back towards them, shaking his head.

  ‘What’s up?’

  He grinned. ‘I got a bollocking for chasing him. I feel like that naughty kid at school again.’ His light grey eyes held hers briefly, invisible messages passing between them like an electric current. ‘You get Milo back and I’ll stick around for a bit. DC Marriot wants to talk to me apparently. Is she a bitch?’

  Holly thought for a moment, one eye on Milo. ‘No, she’s all right.’

  ‘Never thought I’d hear you say that about the police.’

  ‘Well, I’m all grown up now and I don’t belong to the Seaview anymore. I’ll call you tomorrow,’ she told Devril. ‘Sorry you had to get caught up in that.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s fine. If I’ve pulled a hamstring I’ll make sure you know about it.’ He grinned again. ‘I’m kidding. Seriously, we need to chat some more, so make sure you do ring tomorrow, okay?’

  She nodded, dragging Milo back down the footpath, past the dog unit, which had just arrived, to the hospital car park. Whatever had just happened, she imagined Dev could turn it into a great story.

  Chapter 21

  After a night of broken sleep Holly called Dev first thing the next morning.

  ‘They didn’t find anything. Even the dog team couldn’t get far and it was pissing down with rain. DC Marriot gave me a bollocking and some PC told me to go home so I did. Sorry, I can’t believe we were so fucking close!’

  The thought made her ball her fists with frustration. She was tempted to ring Karen or Steph and ask if they had any news. But she knew Karen was pissed off with her for not calling the police as soon as they saw the man, so she forced herself to calm down, shoving Jayden to the back of her mind. ‘Not your fault, and I don’t think DC Marriot, Karen, is even speaking to me now.’ The disappointment was still biting hard, but it was surprisingly easy to talk to Dev now. She bit her lip. ‘Are you around this weekend?’