Northlands is built on a giant twelve-by-twelve grid, with a simple numbering system for the street names. Both those concepts are borrowed from much more successful places; Abu Dhabi is built on a grid and New York employs numbered avenues for location. I’ve been to both those places and nothing could be more different than Northlands.
The building is split into units around a big hall. Around fifty women sit around smoking and drinking coffee. Like feminism, the smoking ban hadn’t made it this far. I feel enormously healthy next to the sea of sallow skin.
There’s a notice board at the far end. I dodge a group of toddlers and navigate the baby weighing station to see if I can find Pat Haywood. Henna tattoos. Ear piercing. Vajazzle. For God’s sake. Pilates. Better. Right at the bottom is Mothers for the Missing.
There’s a little area of the notice board cordoned off, and pinned to it is a wreath of photographs, each with a golden pin through the corner. There must a hundred pictures, presumably of boys who have gone missing. I’m taking a risk here, I know. By placing myself in this group, I’m opening myself up to Connelly and if he has got Aiden it will look like I’m on his trail.
On the other hand, it might take a while until the news filters through and by then I’ll have the information I need. I’m lifting picture after picture, changing years, changing hairstyles, mostly young boys. Just like the archives say. I feel a movement behind me. I glance round, and there’s a woman standing very close to me.
‘What do you want?’
I stand my ground.
‘I’m Janet Margiotta. My son is missing.’
I’m figuring that the women on Northlands get most of their information about the world from Granada reports, so they won’t have heard anything about Aiden apart from my appeal.
‘On the telly, yeah. With your husband. Big. Bald. How old was your lad then?’
‘Is. He’s sixteen now. Fifteen when he went missing. That’s the thing. I want to join Mothers for the Missing. I need some help.’
She nods and her harsh face bends into a smile.
‘Right. Just sign here.’ She points to a slip of paper. ‘You sign for you and you sign for him. ’Ave you got a photo?’
I shake my head.
‘No. I can bring it next time.’
I sign the paper and she pins it to the side of the board, adding what, at first sight, looks like a lavish frill. But it’s not decorative; it’s a dense collection of gross sorrow and heartbreak. It’s proof of life, proof that the missing boys are alive in their mother’s hearts.
‘Come on then.’
She marches out of the hall and along a corridor. First, second, third door on the left. It opens up into a large common room, with a table tennis table in the middle. There are two TVs, both on and showing news channels.
The Mothers of the Missing are sitting around drinking coffee and chatting. All the women in the room look pale and dour, chins resting on elbows and hair scraped back. The Northlands uniform of synthetic tracksuits and trainers prevails. Pat sits down at the top table, which is four school desks dragged together.
‘OK. You can have the induction.’
She pulls out some sheets of paper and thrusts them in front of me. I look around the room, which is plastered with newspaper clippings, all in chronological order.
‘Are these all the boys who’ve gone missing?’
She sparks up a cigarette and nods.
‘Yeah. Going back to the sixties. This place has been going since then. The former Mr Connelly set it up with his money; it’s ours forever. We’ve got a trust fund to help families who’ve had someone go missing.’ She looks me over, acknowledging my expensive trainers and the teardrop diamond I always wear around my neck, my only jewellery. ‘But I don’t suppose you’ll be needing that, will you? You don’t live on Northlands, do you?’
I shake my head.
‘No. I live in Woodhouses. But Aiden. That’s my son. He had friends on Northlands.’
Pat nods. The whole audience focuses on me. It’s as if I have just sworn extremely inappropriately.
‘Has friends. Has. We never give up here. What do we have, ladies?’
I expect them to shout something, stand up, and be enthusiastic. But there’s a few strained voices, quietly repeating what they must have repeated hundreds of times since their children disappeared.
‘Hope.’
Empty hope. She rolls a ballpoint pen over to me and I fill in my name and address. I wonder how much Connelly has to do with this venture and how long it will be before the penny drops as to who I am. Pat’s staring at the form with a hungry look on her face as I complete it. When I’m done she snatches it. And stands up.
‘Aiden Margiotta. Aged fifteen at the time of his disappearance. Just before his sixteenth birthday.’ A murmur of sadness ripples around the room and I feel the tears sting. ‘Sixteen now, then. Went missing from his dad’s house, Mum last seen him the day before. Police informed. Case closed after an appeal and a resulting sighting in London.’
One of the women stands up.
‘Always the same. Case closed after a sighting.’
I wonder whether I should mention the CCTV and the boy, but then I would have to explain how I found all that out, and I don’t want to get caught in a lie. Pat continues.
‘OK, ladies. Oh and by the way, we’re not just ladies, we have some fathers here as well, not today, but sometimes we get a father. And it’s not just sons. Mainly, but there are a few missing daughters as well. So, Janet, what we do mainly is organise marches and the like to raise awareness of our sons and daughters and make sure that the police don’t give up on us. If we hear something, no matter how small, we report it. Even if the case is closed.’
I think back to the files. None of the closed cases had any notes added. None of these peoples’ reports had been filed.
‘From time to time, we see a report about a body found on the news. We keep the telly on all the time to check for it, ’cause they’re often hidden in regional news reports. And we keep track of all the papers. So all you need to do now is bring in a picture of your boy and we’ll add it to our list. Copy it and that, and send it round the estate. Have you been in touch with Missing People?’
I nod.
‘Yeah. I reported it to them and he’s on their website.’
Pat nods again.
‘‘Bout all you can do then. ’Cept keep coming here and praying.’
I feel a pain in my chest, the stress of loss, and in a way I know all these women are feeling exactly the same thing. I’m starting to feel uncomfortable about being here now under false pretences, here in what is obviously an honest spot in Connelly’s hotbed of corruption. Pat sits down now, which signals the end of the induction. She places her hand over mine.
‘Have a look round. Come here as often as you want, I’m here nine to five every day.’ She presses a business card into my hand. ‘You can call me any time.’
I smile.
‘Thanks. Is all this voluntary, then?’
She shrugs.
‘Nah. Mr Connelly pays me a wage to keep this place going. It’s very important to him.’
‘Right. Will I get to meet him, then? I’ve heard a lot about him.’
She laughs now.
‘Huh. No. He leaves it to me. Not seen him round here for a few years. She comes in the centre now and again. His wife. Morbid cow. She hardly ever speaks, looks like she’s got a poker shoved up her arse.’
I smile.
‘Thanks. It’s good to know there are other people like me. Not that I’d wish that . . .’
‘I know what you mean, love. You’re a bit posh, but in the end we all love our kids just the same. Don’t we? If you need anything, yeah?’
I stand up and wander over to the news clippings. Hundreds and hundreds of browned scraps, pasted onto hardboard, detailing all the missing boys over the years, interspaced with old advertisements for kitchens. Every so often there would be a black card with a s
ilver calligraphy date pinned over the cutting. Pat appears behind me.
‘That’s the date their bodies were found.’
I pull up each piece of paper and see beneath it there’s a copy of the newspaper cutting from the local newspapers. Pat voices my thoughts.
‘Not got much publicity, any of them. All somewhere in the back of the papers, always something else more important.’
‘Like what, Pat?’
‘Well, usually Mr Connelly’s good causes. He’s always on the front page raising them. Protesting about something or other. He does it for us as well.’
I nod and make my way around the board, like stepping back through time four decades. Right at the beginning of the wall, every cutting has a picture of a large man with a pork pie hat, accompanying the mother in question. I look at Pat for guidance.
‘Old Mr Connelly. Dead now. He set up this place and helped the mothers in the old days.’
I look at all the young women, strained smiles and puffy eyes, all wearing the same desperate expression as everyone here today. Regular rallies for missing children. Then something catches my eye. A tiny woman, half the size of old Mr Connelly, clutching her handbag. Her beady, dark eyes stared out at me accusingly. I read the caption underneath the picture.
‘Bessy Swain, mother of missing boy Tommy Swain, attends a rally against the Moors Murders with John Connelly on Bonfire night.’
I stagger backward and Pat catches me.
‘Sorry, Sorry. It’s just all too much for me.’
I rush out of the room, through the community centre, and stand outside against the wall, breathless. I walk back through Northlands, trying to make the connection between Bessy and Connelly, and take the tram back to the station. I need to get back and read more of her story. I put up my hoodie and hurry across the grass at the back of the building, where the window is still slightly open. I climb back in and look up at the camera. The phone rings and I jump.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi. Jan?’
It’s Mike. I sigh.
‘Yep. It is. Whadaya want?’
He laughs.
‘Ah, Jim Stewart said you were in the archive room, I tried before, but couldn’t get you.’
‘I might have been in the loo. Or had my headphones in. It’s so boring, Mike, and I’m getting fucking nowhere. There aren’t any links. Nothing at all.’
I can hear him tut.
‘Me neither. Bloody hell, I thought I was in there. I honestly thought that those blokes would be bringing in something illegal. But there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Just fucking kitchens.’
‘So why does he use private contractors then?’
Mike laughs.
‘Cheaper. Just cheaper. And he can just change them when he likes. He uses private contractors for everything. But honest, there just nothing dodgy about it.’
‘So what next?’
‘Well, Stewart said I should just finish this week to make it convincing and then I’m back on obs with you. But I’m not archiving. We’ll take another bit of the operation. I’m not sitting in the fucking archive room all day. No way.’
I laugh again.
‘OK. Calm down. I’m not finding anything so I expect I’ll be moved on anyway. So see you Monday. Good luck.’
I put the receiver down. Like Mike says. Nothing at all. But there must be something, somewhere. The threads are coming together a little tighter and I need time to think. About Bessy and Thomas. What was Connelly doing with Bessy? What did he have to do with the Moors Murders?
CHAPTER NINE
It’s creeping me out now. I have to find out about this for once and for all. I go upstairs into the archiving lockers with the number of Thomas Swain’s case file. The uniformed PC on the door waves me through and I check which way the cameras are pointing as I walk through the huge hall full of records.
We only come here if we really have to now that everything’s computerised. I’m just old enough to remember when all the files were still paper; only current stuff was written down, then transferred to some kind of storage.
Microfiche, magnetic tape, we’ve tried them all. No doubt the information I want is stored somewhere on magnetic media, but from past experience I anticipate the flaws this carried. The archivists drafted in to transfer the paper to tape or microfiche were told to scan the police records.
That’s exactly what they did. They scanned pages and pages of documents with the police logo at the top of them. Interviews, reports, all sorts of official documents, carefully signed and witnessed on every page.
What they didn’t do is scan the other stuff. Every case has a central core of witnessed documents and is surrounded by scribbled phone numbers, notes, photographs that are not admissible as evidence, scraps of material, references to objects that were stored in evidence bags.
All kinds of seeming superfluous items that would never get past the Public Prosecution Service but form a vital part in understanding exactly what has gone on. They’re the pieces of the jigsaw that pull the threads together ever tighter.
They didn’t scan it because they didn’t think it was important. They were just carrying out instructions to the letter. Scan the police documents. So that’s all they did. But these items remain in the original case files, all stored here in a temperature-controlled area.
I find Thomas’s file easily and flick through it. I see some handwritten pages; those won’t have been scanned. Also, I see some photographs of three people. I stare at them, I feel like I know them so well. Bessy, Thomas, and Colin, the bastard, who ran off with someone else.
Bessy looks so happy in the black-and-white photograph, nothing like the hunched-over older woman in the photograph in the community centre. And there could only be maybe five years in between. Then I remember about the babies, about Pauline. Which makes me remember about the money I stole from her house. I left the woman in this picture downstairs while I stole her life savings.
My God. What am I turning into?
I press Thomas’s file close to my body out of sight and move along the row to current files. They are all in bright yellow folders, and the old files are in bright red folders with ‘DO NOT REMOVE’ printed on the side.
Even though I know it’s gross misconduct, I slide the contents of the red file into the back of the yellow one I take from the drawer. It’s the file about Mike’s current exploits, so I have a reason to have it if I’m asked.
I go back and push the red folder into the space I took it from and make for the doorway. The PC on reception eyes the yellow file.
‘Partner’s file. Wanted me to take a look. OK?’
I let the front cover flap down so that he can see Mike’s name and number. He taps it into the database.
‘And you are? Can I see your card, please?’
I show him my warrant card and he nods.
‘Thanks. We have to check.’
I smile.
‘No, no. I completely understand. I’m glad you did.’
It’s true. I’m glad he did. Because now no one will ever suspect what I’ve done. I’ve been careful, but you can never be too careful. Always backtrack. I don’t even know if I was missed today, how many people tried to find me in the archive room.
Usually people ring my mobile if they can’t get me. Mike wouldn’t have been able to as we don’t ring each other’s mobiles for undercover, but anyone else who saw me logged down there would have tried the landline first. Also, there’s a remote possibility that someone might look for Thomas’s file. Then I remember about the forensics in Bessy’s house. I hadn’t checked if that was in yet.
I hurry my pace to get to my car and get out of the station car park. I’m driving along, reading the sky messages. They’re coming closer now, with a black scarf hung close to the telegraph pole outside the station. A lone crow sits beside it, taking an occasional peck, as I drive directly underneath.
I need time alone to think, time to just try to understand what all this means, not l
east my own strange behaviour. I retrace my steps in Bessy’s house. Why did I take that money? Why?
Obviously, at the time, I had it in my mind that it would be for a ransom, for Aiden, and that I was convinced that I would receive a note any moment demanding a huge sum of money. They say you will do anything when your child is in danger, and it’s true. I stole from a dead woman. Now it doesn’t make sense.
There is no ransom note, and there is no proof he’s been kidnapped or murdered. He’s rapidly turning into another statistic, another piece of blue paper on the community centre notice board flapping in the breeze. I won’t let him. I know that the answer is somewhere. I just know it.
I rush home and park up in the drive. I can see Sharon and Annie in the house, eating toast and nodding their heads along to what appears to be MTV. I turn my key in the door and Sharon is in the hallway before I even get in.
‘I’d park your car in the garage if I were you. You’ve had a visitor.’
I do as she says, opening the pullover door and moving Aiden’s bike and my motorbike further back. I look around. Aiden’s cycling gear. Aiden’s football boots, still muddy from weeks ago. Aiden’s wax jacket. It’s no good. I have to find him. I back the car in and lock the door. Back inside, Annie’s muted the TV.
‘Good job we’re here. That bloody woman’s a nightmare.’
I flop onto the sofa.
‘Woman? What woman?’
‘Blonde. A bit brassy. Maybe forty-five. Could be a bit older. Blue shell suit. Holding a hammer.’
Pat. It has to be.
‘What did she say?’
‘Well, she was in a car driven by a male, midforties. He stayed in the car while she got out and came running toward the house. Luckily we just caught her in time. She was just about to put your front window through. She kept shouting: ‘where is she?’ over and over again.’
I nod.
‘It’s Pat Haywood. I saw her today.’
Sharon snorts.
‘Bloody hell. You didn’t go up there, did you? You’ve more balls than we thought.’
I smile.
‘Yeah. I went up there. Very interesting. Found out some stuff about lots of people going missing on Northlands over the years. Boys.’
Random Acts of Unkindness Page 14
