Hold My Hand

by M. J. Ford

  She placed the phone in her pocket, her mind a jumble.

  So if the skull in that digger’s claw didn’t belong to Dylan Jones, if the boy dressed in the Liverpool shirt wasn’t the one who’d been taken in Yarnton, who was he? Either Stephen Carruthers was a serial killer, with a thing for kids in football shirts, or they were dealing with something else entirely.

  Jo looked at Sally through the viewing panel, hunched over in a daze, the tea untouched.

  And then she began to see it more clearly. The arthritis. It runs in the family, Sally had said. And the note. The connection with Stephen …

  ‘You okay?’ asked Carrick.

  ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘Can you have a dig around in the file for Stephen Carruthers? See if there’s anything about a son?’

  ‘Er … sure,’ said Carrick. ‘Did she mention one?’

  ‘No,’ said Jo. ‘But I think I know why. Where’s Ben?’

  ‘No idea. He took a call and headed outside. Want me to go and look?’

  ‘If you don’t mind. Send him in if you find him.’

  Jo opened the door to the IR.

  ‘Am I going home now?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Not just yet,’ said Jo. ‘I have a few more questions.’ She started the tape again, and recorded their presence.

  ‘I’ve told you everything,’ said Sally. She was wringing her hands. ‘Stephen’s not here to answer questions. I really don’t see—’

  ‘You said you regretted not having children,’ said Jo.

  The fidgeting stopped, and Sally froze, almost as if Jo had cast a spell. Then a single blink.

  ‘Sally?’

  ‘Why are you asking that?’ she replied.

  Jo lowered herself into the chair opposite.

  ‘I just learned that the body we unearthed isn’t Dylan Jones,’ she said. ‘Which begs the obvious question …’ She left it hanging. Sally glanced at the door longingly, as if considering a getaway. ‘The little boy we found – he had a deformed backbone,’ she continued. ‘Arthritis, just like you.’

  Ben opened the door. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘I just got a message from Salisbury—’

  ‘Come in and take a seat,’ said Jo. ‘For the record, Detective Inspector Benjamin Coombs has entered the room.’

  ‘Can we talk outside?’ he said.

  ‘It’s all right – I know it’s not Dylan. Mrs Carruthers knows too. She knew all along, didn’t you Sally?’

  Ben entered, obviously confused. For a few seconds it was quiet, then Sally took a deep breath.

  ‘His name was Martin,’ she said quietly. Jo noticed she wore the beginnings of a small, strange smile.

  ‘Your son?’

  Sally nodded. ‘My son.’ She shot a direct stare Jo’s way. ‘He wasn’t an easy child, right from the start. Bad sleeper, bad eater, always crying. We didn’t know until he was four that it was because he was probably in pain. They found it in an X-ray – ankylosing spondylitis. Funny name, isn’t it? It doesn’t normally affect children so young, but I remember my grandfather suffering with something similar.’ She laid her hands flat on the table, showing the odd bulging joints straining under paper-thin skin. ‘Stephen didn’t want to accept it. He thought the best thing was fresh air and exercise. Toughen him up, I suppose. He thought he could fix him, you know?’ She laughed weakly. ‘He always said he wanted a normal child, whatever that’s supposed to mean. He pushed Martin hard. But he did it because he loved him.’

  ‘What happened to Martin?’ asked Jo.

  Sally let a breath out with a visible shudder.

  ‘I was never really sure. I got home one day and Stephen had been crying. I could tell from his eyes. He told me there’d been an accident. I called for Martin straight away, but I think I already knew. Stephen never cried, you see.’ She was gazing at her hands still. ‘He said that Martin had fallen down the stairs. I wanted him to show me, but he said it would upset me too much. Well, that just upset me even more. I wanted to see my little boy. But Stephen, he was stubborn. He wouldn’t let me. I told him he was a liar, that he’d hurt Martin, but he swore blind it was an accident. He said he could take care of everything.’

  ‘You didn’t phone the police? An ambulance?’

  ‘I wanted to,’ said Sally. ‘But Stephen had been in trouble with the police before, you see. He said they’d never believe it was an accident. Later, I wondered, but by then it was too late. Stephen took charge. He said we had to move away. Martin had done a year at school, but it was the holidays.’

  ‘Where were you living at the time?’ asked Jo.

  ‘Wiltshire,’ said Sally. ‘We didn’t have a lot of friends. Not real friends anyway. Stephen said we wouldn’t have to go far. It seems silly now, but I just went along with it.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem silly,’ said Jo. She looked across at Ben, who sat impassively listening. He understood that his input wasn’t needed for the moment.

  ‘So you moved straight away?’

  ‘Within a month or so,’ said Sally. ‘I don’t remember exactly – it was a confusing time.’

  ‘I imagine,’ said Jo.

  ‘Stephen found the cottage in Horton. He took care of everything.’

  ‘Including Martin’s body?’

  Sally nodded. ‘He said he knew a place. A beautiful place overlooking fields, in the garden of a house where children played. I made him bury Martin in his favourite shirt.’

  A DNA sample from Sally would settle it conclusively, of course, but Jo had no reason to doubt what the old woman was saying. If anything, it seemed like she was relieved to get it off her chest. A grief she’d carried for thirty years.

  ‘And you sent the note, didn’t you?’ Jo asked. ‘Bury him properly.’

  Sally smiled. ‘I had to. I knew the spot where Martin was buried. The exact spot. I made Stephen tell me that. When I could, I’d drive past, and sometimes leave flowers in front of the house. It broke my heart when I saw what happened to the place. I thought of my little boy, alone, with no one around. Stephen was ill by then. Bed-bound mostly. We never spoke about Martin. Sometimes I wondered if he even remembered him at all.’

  Ben leant forward. ‘You do know that not registering a death is a crime, Mrs Carruthers?’

  Sally drew back her hands to her chest. ‘But I couldn’t! Don’t you understand? Stephen said they’d put him in jail.’

  Jo gave Ben a jerk of the head that said, outside.

  ‘Please wait a moment,’ she said to Sally.

  They left the room.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Jo.

  Ben shook his head. ‘Not sure there’s much point arresting her at this stage. Any half-decent lawyer would say she was coerced into silence. We’ll need to get a formal statement.’

  ‘So you believe her?’

  Ben looked deflated. ‘Don’t you? If the prints on the note come back as hers, that only corroborates her story and mitigates. She was too scared to tell the police until Stephen was practically in the ground himself.’

  Jo shrugged. ‘I don’t understand why she didn’t mention it before. She let us accuse her husband of murdering Dylan Jones when she knew the body in Bradford-on-Avon wasn’t him.’

  ‘What does it matter? In all likelihood, Stephen Carruthers probably was involved with Dylan too. We’ll need to bring her in again. And maybe get a warrant to search the house.’

  Jo baulked. ‘Don’t you reckon her life’s been turned upside enough without doing it literally?’

  Ben wasn’t the sentimental sort though. ‘Not sure we have a choice. Christ, what do we tell the parents? They had a fucking funeral!’

  At that moment, the air changed, and Jo twisted around to see DCI Stratton stalled in the doorway. Beside him there was another woman, in senior uniform, with cropped grey hair. They were both looking her way, plainly hostile, as Stratton muttered something close to the woman’s ear. She nodded, and made her way to his office. Stratton beckoned to Jo with a finger, and followed h
er in.

  ‘What’s that all about?’ asked Ben.

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Jo.

  She made her way between the desks and into the office.

  ‘Shut the door behind you, please,’ said Stratton.

  Jo obeyed. She saw from the other woman’s insignia that she was chief constable rank.

  ‘Ma’am. Sir,’ she said.

  ‘Take a seat, detective,’ said Stratton. He was tapping at his keyboard, eyes on the screen.

  She felt like she was in the headmaster’s office. Stratton faced her, steepling his fingers for a moment.

  ‘We recognise that you probably haven’t had time to file a report yet,’ he said, ‘but we’d like to get your version of events that occurred yesterday.’

  ‘Specifically, sir?’ asked Jo. It was McDonagh. Had to be. He’d made a complaint.

  Stratton smiled for a split second, then it was gone. ‘Let’s start after I last saw you and gave you a direct order to keep a low profile.’

  Jo swallowed. ‘I went to deliver a message to Harry Ferman – an invitation to the memorial service I’ve just attended for Dylan Jones. Following that, I visited the John Radcliffe hospital, where I spoke with Niall McDonagh …’

  Stratton raised his hand, frowning. ‘On whose authorisation?’

  ‘I wasn’t aware I needed authorisation, sir.’

  She shot an innocent glance at the chief constable. If there was any chance of sisterly support here, she needed it.

  ‘And what did you learn there?’ asked Stratton.

  ‘He said he believed that he’d met a second kidnapper. An accomplice.’ She kept talking, trying to ride it out. ‘From there I discovered through another source that Alan Trent had been attending a support group for victims of sexual abuse that met regularly in South Oxford. I followed that lead, hoping to gain intelligence on the possible accomplice. Things went … awry. The group wasn’t quite what I expected, and the surveillance was compromised by a member of the press. Subsequent to that …’

  Stratton reached across and spun around his flat-screen monitor.

  The headline was clear enough – WHAT ARE THEY HIDING? – but it took Jo a moment or two to realise that she was looking at a picture of herself outside the Quaker Meeting Hall. She looked wild, sliding across the bonnet of Saunders’ car, while Lee Burgess’ face was staring from the door, and an angry-looking man in a leather jacket was launching himself towards the lens.

  ‘When you say, “awry”, what you actually mean is an almighty fuck-up?’

  The word ‘semantics’ rose rebelliously to the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t say it. She took in the subhead: Paedophile ring in the heart of historic city. And further down, Can we trust our police?

  Stratton turned the monitor back around. ‘I’ll save you reading,’ he said. ‘This piece has been sent to us for comment by lawyers at the paper in question. The only reason they have done so is because they’re afraid of jeopardising an ongoing investigation. Our lawyers have gagged it, for now.’

  ‘Quite right, sir,’ said Jo.

  Stratton leant back in his chair, eyes flaring. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself?’

  ‘Sir,’ said Jo. ‘I think there might be something in it. When I spoke to Niall …’

  ‘You can go,’ said Stratton.

  ‘Sir, his father was okay with it. I believe what Niall said. There’s someone else out there.’

  ‘If I may say, detective, you seem rather hard of hearing,’ said the chief constable, speaking for the first time. ‘DCI Stratton has filled me in regarding your links to this journalist and it’s almost uncanny how your opinions coincide with her own.’

  Not this again …

  ‘Ma’am, I—’

  ‘That’s all, Detective Masters,’ said Stratton. ‘I’ll expect that report first thing in the morning.’

  * * *

  She left Ben and Andy Carrick to share the information about the Dylan Jones conclusions, and took Sally home in her own car. Hopefully, some of the shine of actually solving a case might reflect her way, even if it was hardly a happy ending.

  All the way, the old woman stared out of the window. A light rain had begun to mist the air, muting everything. And for all the self-pity and anger Jo felt – at the injustice of her treatment, at DCI Stratton, at Ben for somehow getting through this mess unscathed – the reflection of Sally’s shattered countenance in the rear-view mirror put it all in a kind of perspective. She’d get through her difficulties, though maybe the promotion would have to wait. Sally’s life, or what remained of it, was ruined.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as she pulled up outside Cherry Tree Cottage. ‘Today must have been very difficult for you.’

  ‘I know how it looks,’ said Sally. She was sitting stiffly. ‘But Stephen didn’t kill Dylan. I know he didn’t.’

  She sounded so sure, almost defiant, and Jo climbed out to avoid answering. There’d be harder conversations to come, and Jo was simultaneously relieved to be spared them and sorry that she wouldn’t be around to protect her former piano teacher from the bruising experiences heading her way. Ben had told Sally at the station that they’d need to speak with her further, under caution. He hadn’t mentioned the possibility of a house search though. The thought of a forensics team ripping up old carpets and taking apart the pine furniture almost brought tears to Jo’s eyes. Perhaps it wouldn’t be necessary. In the parlance of DCI Stratton, the optics would be terrible. An old woman’s life ransacked by an overzealous police force reeling from humiliation. She could only imagine what Rebekah Saunders would make of it.

  Jo opened the rear door and hoisted an umbrella.

  ‘Would you like me to come in for a while?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Sally. ‘I think I’d rather be alone.’

  ‘Well, I’m just up the hill,’ said Jo. ‘I’m only babysitting my nephew, so if you want some company, ring the bell.’

  Sally began to walk up the path. She didn’t seem bothered by the rain at all.

  Chapter 22

  At her brother’s, Will was doing cartwheels in the hallway, his hands smeared with something brown. Amelia was putting in a set of earrings in the mirror by the front door, and wearing a long blue dress that accentuated her slender physique. She’d always been out of Paul’s league – even their mother had said so.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed at his appearance,’ Amelia said. ‘We’re not sure if it’s the worms he was digging in the garden, or the entire chocolate muffin he discovered in my handbag, but a seven o’clock bedtime might be a tad optimistic.’

  ‘Don’t worry – we’ll just slide up and down the bannister until he gives up the ghost,’ said Jo.

  ‘I never give up!’ roared Will. He almost collided with a pot plant as he skidded across the floor in his socks.

  ‘Em’s gone already,’ said Amelia. ‘She’s at a house party in Jericho and we’ll swing by after and grab her in a cab.’ She called up the stairs, ‘Paul! It can’t take this long for you to get ready? You haven’t even got any hair to think about!’

  Jo’s brother descended the stairs in a dinner jacket, thumbs hooked into the waist.

  ‘I can’t find a belt,’ he said, halfway down. ‘Bloody things are falling down.’

  ‘Did you look on the tie rack?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you look properly, or like a bloke?’

  Paul chewed his lip, then turned on his heel and trotted back up. ‘I’ll have another peek.’

  Amelia rolled her eyes and smiled fondly. ‘And how am I looking?’ she asked.

  ‘Too good for my brother,’ Jo replied.

  ‘Exactly what I was aiming for,’ said Amelia. ‘Listen, thanks again for this, Jo. The details of the restaurant are written on the telephone pad. New French place in the High Street.’

  ‘It’s no problem. It’ll be fun.’

  A crash came from the living room, followed by an ‘Uh-oh!’ from William.

&nbs
p; ‘Fun is one word,’ said Amelia. ‘But seriously, don’t disappear for ages again. It’s been great having you over, and you’re welcome any time.’

  ‘Sorry I’ve been keeping funny hours,’ said Jo.

  ‘You must come and visit properly, when you’re on leave. You know, Paul and I have rented a place in Spain for the October half-term. It’s got an extra bedroom …’

  ‘You just want a babysitter!’ she said.

  Amelia winked. ‘That as well – but think about it, won’t you?’

  Jo was preparing a polite deferral when Paul emerged again, looping his belt.

  ‘Your prince charming is here!’ he said.

  Jo wished them both a good night, and closed the door. She realised neither of them had asked her about her day, and for that she was grateful.

  ‘Right, Billy-O,’ she said. ‘We need to burn some calories.’

  * * *

  At close to half eight, after several dozen more cartwheels, a cartoon about a family of pigs, a bath-time game of submarines with plenty of nail-scrubbing, and two and a half bedtime stories, Will fell asleep propped up in the crook of her arm. Jo waited for a few minutes, staring at the glow of his night light, before prising herself out of position, and pulling his Spiderman duvet up to his chin. She kissed his strawberry-scented hair, and left the bedroom.

  She checked her phone, but there were no missed calls.

  On the way downstairs, she passed the staggered portraits of her brother’s family. All of them artfully posed, black and white, blissfully happy. Jo felt utterly dejected. Wretched. She couldn’t help thinking it had gone wrong for her somehow – that she’d taken a wrong turning.

  She made herself a stir-fry, then ate it in front of the TV, only half following the twists of a soapy drama. It came across as even more fake and contrived than normal. As far as she could tell, someone who was supposed to be dead had reappeared at the eleventh hour to prevent a marriage, and a fight outside a church ensued. The police were called, and at that stage Jo switched off. Even fake police work was too much of a drain tonight. And she still had the bloody report to write.

  She opened her laptop, and while it took an age to boot up, she selected a magazine off the table – something about home renovations – and flicked idly through it. Every house looked like her brother’s, with some arrangement of artisan lighting, soft furnishings and neat storage solutions. The thought of returning to the flat in Bath was beyond depressing.