Cry Baby

by Billingham, Mark

  It had all been so different a dozen years before.

  Thorne’s old man had salted away a reasonable amount which he’d been happy to donate and, together with the money Jan’s mum and dad had thrown into the pot, there’d been enough to put down a decent deposit. The house was handy for the area Thorne’s team was working and the school Jan was teaching at. It was rather too close to the Arsenal ground for Thorne’s comfort, but there was a nice park and Highbury tube station was on the doorstep. Married less than a month, the pair of them could not have been more excited to move into a place which seemed so perfect; to settle down for a year or two, stick a bit of money away, then try for the baby they both wanted.

  Try for a while, fail for a while.

  Pretend to forget they’d ever actually been trying.

  Carry on like it didn’t really matter.

  Thorne hit fast-forward, smiling in spite of himself at the comic spectacle of players chasing the ball around like lunatics, before he stopped to watch the late Swiss penalty. He didn’t take a great deal in after that, just sat feeling restless and, strangely, not nearly as tired as he was sure he should be. He was sure that one can of weak lager was never going to cut it, so he got up and went through to the kitchen to fetch another.

  He wondered if Catrin Coyne had come to the same conclusion that he and his colleagues had reached several hours earlier. It had been unspoken, and would probably remain so until tomorrow at least, but the team was already working on the assumption that Kieron Coyne was not simply going to turn up any time soon.

  That he was not lost and he was not hiding.

  That they were now looking for a missing child and the person or persons who had taken him.

  It was Catrin’s assumption, too, Thorne guessed that. He thought he’d seen it back at her flat, in that moment when he’d mentioned DNA and the fight had gone out of her. Felt it, as she’d pressed her face against his jacket and clutched at the cushions on her sofa.

  Thorne walked back to the living room and stopped in the doorway. He leaned against the frame, opened the can and stared across at the TV. Happy to watch from where he was.

  He’d stood in the same spot a few months earlier and watched the unbelievable scenes on the news after Take That had announced they were splitting up. The wailing and the hysterics, the calls to suicide helplines. He shook his head now, remembering it. If that was the worst pain any of those young people were ever going to feel, they could count themselves seriously lucky.

  In the studio, Des Lynam and the besuited pundits were busy jabbering, while behind them in the stadium, the crowd, clearly not downhearted by the result, had begun to sing that bloody song again.

  It was all just noise.

  Thorne stood for a while, and drank, and thought about Catrin Coyne; the agony settling in and making itself almost comfortable, until it just became something she lived with. How that life, such as it was, would pan out if they did not catch the person who had taken her son. If she never saw Kieron again.

  Thirty years of hurt.

  EIGHT

  The incident room had been established on the second floor of Islington station. Narrow and windowless, the space was serviceable enough under normal circumstances, but now it was home to a team of thirty detectives and had, overnight, become decidedly cramped.

  ‘Barely room to swing a bloody cat.’

  The moaning DC – who had arrived for the Sunday morning briefing with moments to spare and brown sauce on his tie – was about to elaborate, before glancing across at the large whiteboard at one end of the room and thinking better of it. At the photograph of the missing child’s mother, her name and its diminutive scrawled underneath in felt-tip pen.

  He sat down with everyone else and took his notebook out.

  A dozen or so workstations had been pushed closely together, a handful of the desktops dominated by bulky computer terminals and a couple more home to fax machines. One corner of the room was dedicated to the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System that would serve as the administrative hub of the investigation. It was into the HOLMES computers that every statement would be logged, each report and piece of intelligence filed and from which actions would be raised, indexed and subsequently cross-referenced. The system ensured that, at all times, the investigation’s left hand knew what its right was doing, providing the capacity to link other forces into the inquiry when necessary and to give any and all information the appropriate significance. Most importantly, the system had been designed specifically to eliminate the kind of headless-chicken incompetence that had come to light fifteen years before, at the end of the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry.

  HOLMES would be each detective’s bible.

  Their prayer book.

  At nine o’clock on the dot, Ajay Roth shouted, ‘OK, everyone,’ and DCI Andy Frankham stood up to preach.

  ‘I’m hoping this is the one and only time I have to do this,’ he said. ‘That none of us has to be here very long. I’d be over the bloody moon if we could pack this room up tomorrow and get back to other cases, but however long this case goes on, we never forget what it’s about. Not for one second, all right? Who it’s about.’

  Frankham turned and pointed to the biggest photograph on the whiteboard. A blown-up version of the picture Catrin Coyne had given Roth the evening before.

  The DCI waited a good few seconds, let them look.

  It had been mentioned by Catrin or Maria or perhaps both the day before, but Thorne was struck again, as he had been when he’d first seen the photograph, how very much alike Josh Ashton and Kieron Coyne were. It was no wonder they were friends, he thought.

  They might have been brothers.

  Frankham spoke for another minute or two about the urgency and dedication which they needed to demonstrate on a crime-in-action case such as this one. He told them how confident he was that they wouldn’t let Kieron Coyne and his mother down. Then he called Gordon Boyle up and told him to crack on.

  The Scotsman had jobs to dole out. He quickly allocated various roles to those working full-time with HOLMES. Receiver, action allocator, analyst, statement reader. One detective was assigned to intelligence and two more were tasked with assisting the forensic teams who were now working in a targeted area of the wood between the playground exit and the Archway gate. After announcing that both mothers would need be re-interviewed, he told a couple of DCs to drive up to Milton Keynes and pay a visit to Catrin Coyne’s partner in HMP Whitehill.

  ‘For those of you who don’t know, that place was specifically designed to take some very dangerous men,’ he said. ‘Men with issues. So it can’t hurt to check Billy out. Check out the people he’s in there with while you’re at it. Let’s see if he’s upset anyone who might want to take revenge by targeting his family.’

  ‘What about the bloke he almost battered to death? Poor sod might fancy a spot of revenge himself.’

  ‘Right, I was getting to that.’ Boyle pointed at the officer who’d asked the question. ‘Dig him up and find out what he was up to yesterday afternoon.’ He glanced down at his page of scribbled notes. ‘Now, goes without saying that we’re already putting together a list of known sex offenders, so we need to start working through that and we need to prioritise. Top of the list is anyone who’s ever snatched a child. Anyone who’s so much as looked at a child, all right? So, start knocking on doors and getting movements accounted for, and don’t worry about being too polite about it.’

  There was no shortage of volunteers.

  Boyle had yet to talk about what was likely to be the most significant line of enquiry, but he’d obviously been saving it. Now he looked keen to pass on the news he’d already shared with Thorne half an hour before.

  ‘So, a witness rang through first thing in response to one of our appeal boards, to say that yesterday afternoon, just about the time that Kieron Coyne went missing, he saw a man and a boy around Kieron’s age getting into a car on the Archway Road.’ He watched Ajay Roth as the DC moved through th
e room handing out pieces of paper. ‘As you can see, we’ve got no number plate, nothing much as yet in the way of detail, but even so, this is obviously massive for us. Most importantly, as far as this witness could tell, the child was getting willingly into the car.’ He let that sink in for a few seconds. ‘We obviously need to ask ourselves if this man was someone known to the missing boy.’

  A detective near the back said, ‘One more good reason to talk to the father.’

  ‘Bang on,’ Boyle said. ‘Could this man have been a friend or associate of the father? Someone the boy might have met before? So, obviously, this car is what we’re going to be focusing most of our effort on.’

  A hand was raised at the front of the room and Thorne became aware that more heads than might otherwise have done so had turned to look. DS Paula Kimmel was the only female detective on the team – one more than on the last major case Thorne had worked. Like many others, he had thought that TV series a few years earlier with Helen Mirren would herald a marked increase in the number of women rising through the ranks. Maybe it was happening in uniform, but Thorne had yet to notice any significant change in CID.

  ‘Are there any CCTV cameras on Archway Road?’ Kimmel asked.

  It was a question Thorne was hearing asked by colleagues a lot more often these days, though he had yet to hear an answer that meant any kind of positive development. Cameras had now been installed in many city centres nationwide but were still there largely to target minor offences such as burglary and illegal parking. Those in favour of the scheme claimed it was useful in stamping down on drug use and other antisocial behaviour, while many believed that those intent on committing serious crimes would simply up sticks and commit them somewhere else.

  ‘Sadly not,’ Boyle said.

  The officer sitting next to Thorne shook his head and said, ‘Never one of those things where it can do any good, is there?’

  Thorne knew there were plans afoot to change that. John Major’s government had just announced that three-quarters of its entire crime prevention budget for the year would be spent on installing more cameras, but Thorne remained sceptical. The people producing the equipment were clearly going to make a killing, but he couldn’t see the day coming any time soon when CCTV would replace old-fashioned nous or shoe leather when it came to solving any major investigation.

  ‘We need way more on this car,’ Boyle said. ‘We know it was red, we know it was small, a hatchback possibly, might be a Fiesta or a Golf . . . so, those of you with a high boredom threshold can enjoy the next few hours on the phone to the DVLC getting us a list of all possible vehicles.’ He nodded, seeing the looks exchanged. ‘Aye, I know it’s going to be one hell of long list, but boo-hoo, there you go. The rest of you get up there and re-canvass that stretch of road. We do the house-to-house all over again and make sure we speak to everyone who wasn’t at home yesterday. Mention of this car might jog a few memories. Oh, and if you need something to anchor the time in people’s heads, you can always mention that football match yesterday.’ He could not resist a smile. ‘Anyone remember the score?’

  He nodded through a few seconds of predictably sweary heckles then raised a hand to silence the cat-calls.

  ‘Same thing when you go back to all the people who gave statements yesterday in the wood. The description of the bloke’s every bit as vague as the car, but again, it might shake something loose . . . and as of now, that’s what we’re about.’ Boyle pointed out the officer who had been given the role of action allocator. ‘Right, Terry’s got all the specifics.’ He glanced across, looking for the nod from Andy Frankham who was leaning against the wall, then turned back to the team, many of whom were already shifting in their seats, keen to get on it.

  ‘Now, get fucking shaking.’

  Thorne walked out into the corridor and along to the small office he would be sharing with a fellow DS seconded from a local team. Russell Brigstocke was a broad six-footer, with thick black hair and thicker black glasses that made him look like Buddy Holly on steroids.

  ‘Chances?’ Brigstocke asked.

  ‘What, of this having anything at all to do with Catrin Coyne’s old man?’ Thorne shook his head. ‘I can’t see it.’

  ‘Me neither, but I suppose we need to cover all the bases.’ Brigstocke looked at him. ‘Not what I meant, though.’

  Thorne looked at him, well aware he hadn’t answered the question Brigstocke had actually been asking. By now, on a relatively straightforward murder case, someone would have almost certainly opened a book on the sly; adjusting odds according to the team’s progress and taking bets on the chances of a good result. Same again if anyone was ever brought to trial, tens and twenties piling up in a biscuit tin, a little extra ‘mustard’.

  But not when kids were involved.

  Not since the James Bulger case three years earlier and certainly not since the murders of sixteen children in Dunblane only a few months before.

  Superstition or sentimentality? Coppers were prone to both, but Thorne didn’t think it mattered much either way. As far as he was concerned, when it came to the way things might turn out, it didn’t do anyone any good to think about their odds for very long. Least of all those to whom the result would matter the most.

  ‘God knows,’ he said.

  Brigstocke nodded, and they both turned when Gordon Boyle appeared in the doorway. ‘What’s this, then? Mothers’ meeting?’

  Thorne tried to look as if he’d found the DI’s comment funny, to plaster on the appropriate expression, but he wasn’t sure he’d managed it.

  It was mothers he was thinking of.

  NINE

  As she had done several times already that morning, Cat took a deep breath and said a silent prayer to a God in whom she had not one iota of faith. She felt every muscle in her body tense in those few, breathless moments before she walked across the room and snatched up the phone.

  ‘Cat? It’s me . . . ’

  Maria. Fucking Maria.

  Cat felt a surge of relief that this was not the call she had spent a sleepless night dreading, then another – stronger still – of despondency, because it was not the one for which she had desperately been hoping. Both gave way quickly to anger, that Maria was wasting her time, distracting her; that she was using a phone line that Cat needed to keep clear.

  That the woman was calling at all.

  Cat said, ‘This isn’t really a good time.’

  ‘Oh, OK.’

  Like that was a shame, like she was . . . disappointed. Put out. Yes, perhaps it might be best to leave it for the time being and Cat could suggest a time that was a little more convenient.

  ‘I need to keep the line free.’

  ‘I just wanted to see how you were holding up.’

  Seriously? Take a wild stab in the dark. ‘How I’m holding up?’

  ‘Sorry. Stupid thing to say.’

  ‘It’s . . . ’ Cat swallowed, searching for words and suddenly feeling a twinge of something like sympathy for the woman, despite herself. Nothing that was going to make much difference in the long run, but just enough to be irritating.

  ‘Do you want some company?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I can be there in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Like I said—’

  ‘Maybe I could bring some food over or something. My mother can watch Josh—’

  A silence then, which to Cat’s mind did her friend some small degree of credit, at least. The woman stopping dead, all too aware of the hideous weight her own son’s name now carried. The son who was still there, who’d got up and had his breakfast with her, who was probably playing just a few feet away.

  Cat could not stop the terrible thought squeezing its way in.

  The one who should be missing.

  She said, ‘I don’t think it’s such a great idea.’

  ‘Of course. I wanted you to know, that’s all . . . anything you need. Just pick up the phone, OK?’

  Cat thanked her automatically and in
stantly regretted it. She was not going to rant and rave like a madwoman but, by the same token, there was no way she was going to let Maria off the hook. She was not going to console her or say everything was all right and she was certainly not going to reassure her that she was not to blame for what had happened.

  Why should she? How the hell could she?

  ‘I take it you’ve not heard anything?’

  Cat bit her tongue, resisting the urge to apologise for not giving Maria an update every half an hour. She said, ‘No,’ but all she could think of was Maria’s expression the day before, when she’d come back from the toilets. Sneaky and sly, then shamefaced because she’d been caught out. Far more concerned with hiding the fact that she was smoking than with keeping an eye on the boys, on her boy.

  No, not sneaky. Guilty . . .

  For a few seconds there was nothing but a crackle on the line and the noise of an argument in the flat upstairs. Then Maria said, ‘I’m sorry, Cat. I can’t tell you . . . I’m so sorry.’

  The woman sounded on the verge of tears.

  ‘I know,’ Cat said. She listened to the sniffles and wondered if now was a good time to ask exactly what Maria was sorry for. Sorry for what had happened, or sorry for the fact that she was responsible? Was it actually an apology or just a declaration of sadness at how perfectly terrible everything was?

  For both of them.

  There was not much point, Cat decided, because however the situation panned out, things between them could never be the same. Even if a copper came bowling through her door right that minute with Kieron loping in after him, hungry and covered in mud, confused as to what all the fuss had been about, she could not see herself trotting off to the park with Maria again any time soon. Meeting for lunch, trips to the pictures together, all that.