Make Believe

by Cath Staincliffe

  Second on his list were the Staffords number 18, the property adjoining the house. It was mid-afternoon and Butchers knocked several times before the door was opened by a middle aged man with a monk’s tonsure and a sour look on his face. The householder was in pyjamas.

  ‘What?’ he demanded.

  ‘Mr Ken Stafford? DS Butchers, you’re aware of the incident nextdoor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re interviewing everyone in the vicinity,’ Butchers said.

  ‘Can’t help you. I didn’t see anything.’ Ken Stafford shut the door.

  Butchers felt a flare of impatience. Mardy-arse. They’d a little kiddie dead in the house next-door and this idiot was being awkward about talking to the police.

  Butchers hammered a tattoo on the door again, twice. He wasn’t going anywhere until he’d got what he came for.

  With a show of irritation, Ken Stafford let him in.

  Inside, the living room was cluttered and dusty. The video game cases littering the carpet in front of the TV and console and a pair of battered skater-boy shoes in the middle of the room suggested a teenager lived there too.

  Butchers took in the photos, also dusty, on the wall. Mum, dad and child, a boy.

  ‘Can I talk to your wife, as well?’ Butchers said.

  Ken Stafford took his time replying, ‘She died.’

  Butchers cleared his throat, ‘Sorry.’ He indicated the photos. ‘And the boy?’

  ‘Luke, at school.’

  ‘You say you’ve not seen anything suspicious.’ Butchers opened his notebook. ‘What about regular comings and goings?’

  The man shrugged, no.

  ‘Neighbours, builders?’

  ‘Builders, that’s a joke,’ Ken Stafford said caustically. ‘Permanent go-slow. Don’t see them for days then they turn up at the crack of dawn. I work nights. But they don’t give a toss.’

  ‘Can you remember when you last saw them?’ Butchers said.

  ‘A week ago. The Monday, McEvoy was around. Is that it?’

  There was a noise from the hall and someone came in, shutting the door so hard the whole house rattled.

  The lad stood in the doorway, slight, skinny, dark hair, he’d piercings on his face among the angry-looking acne. ‘Luke?’ said Butchers.

  ‘The police,’ Ken Stafford said, ‘want to know if we saw anything.’

  Luke Stafford shrugged. ‘No,’ he said, ‘just the coppers and that this morning.’

  Butchers spent another ten minutes with the Staffords but made no further progress, nothing he could take back to the inquiry. They were both miserable buggers, the lad you could understand, embarrassed at that age to be asked anything, but the father Ken, curt and short-tempered, just seemed bitter. ‘If you do remember anything,’ Butchers said, as he was leaving, ‘seeing anything, hearing anything in the last ten days, please let us know.’

  ‘Is it Sammy Wray?’ the kid said, his face flaming red, when Butchers moved to the hallway.

  ‘Waiting to confirm identity,’ Butchers said. The standard reply.

  Work at Kendal Avenue was being carried out by a local builder Donny McEvoy and his mate Joe Breeley. Donny McEvoy had come out to the site when the flood was reported and had been there when the body was recovered. He’d left details where he could be contacted with the police.

  The site was in Gorton, a tract of land that had been cleared of old warehousing and was now being re-developed for small, industrial units. Janine and Richard made their way to the office and Richard asked the site manager for Donny McEvoy. The manager pointed to the far side of the yard where a man was operating a cement mixer.

  As they reached him, he pulled off his gloves. A fine coating of cement dust had settled in the lines on his face, his eyebrows and glasses giving him an almost comical appearance. He pulled off his specs, rubbed at them with his fingers.

  ‘Donny McEvoy,’ said Richard.

  ‘Yeah. This about the murder?’ His eyes lit up.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Richard.

  ‘I was there – when they found him,’ McEvoy said. ‘Huge shock. Have you got any leads? They reckon most cases like this, it’s the family.’

  ‘When were you last working there?’ Janine said.

  ‘Last Monday, the twenty-first,’ said McEvoy. ‘Mate called in sick so I’ve been filling in here since.’ He leaned in closer to them. ‘The child, he’d been there a while, hadn’t he?’

  ‘How come you were there this morning?’ Janine said ignoring the man’s question.

  ‘Called out when the neighbours saw the flooding. Was me got the water company in.’

  ‘Did you notice anything that might help us?’ Richard said, ‘Either today or at anytime in the past nine days.’

  ‘Nine days,’ McEvoy nodded his head as if wise to some great secret. ‘That’s ‘cos you think it’s Sammy Wray, isn’t it? Nine days since he was snatched.’

  The avid gleam in his eyes, the spit that glistened at the corners of his mouth revolted Janine. He was a ghoul, one of those amateur sleuths who liked to think they could compete with the police, who got a prurient kick from being close to sudden violent death. Was it any more than that? McEvoy had access to the drains. Had he any previous form? Her mind was running ahead, something she cautioned in her officers. Gather the details, steadily, precisely, then analyse.

  ‘Did you notice anything?’ Janine said, coldly.

  McEvoy shook his head. ‘I’ve been wracking my brains. And it was a fractured skull,’ he said swiftly, ‘do you know if he was killed somewhere else and moved? There was this case in Florida—’

  Janine held up her hands to stop him. ‘Thank you Mr McEvoy. If you do think of anything that may be significant please get in touch with the inquiry. Where can we find Mr Breeley?’

  Joe Breeley was outside his council house working on a maroon Vauxhall Astra with the bonnet raised. Janine took in the neglected front garden, grass and long weeds, a pallet and some bags of sand, a white van parked alongside the car.

  ‘Not too sick to play mechanic,’ Richard said as they went to greet him.

  ‘Joe Breeley? DCI Lewis.’ Janine introduced herself as the man raised his head from over the engine.

  ‘DI Mayne.’ Richard showed his warrant card.

  ‘You may have heard the body of a child was recovered from the site where you are working on Kendal Avenue,’ Janine said.

  Joe nodded. ‘Saw the news,’ he said. He closed the car bonnet. ‘Terrible.’

  ‘Could we have a word inside?’ she said.

  He wiped his hands on the front of his jeans and took them into the house.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Breeley said leading the way into the living room. ‘Mandy, it’s the police. They’ve come about that little kiddie. Here, sit down,’ he said, clearing a pile of children’s clothes off the settee.

  ‘It’s horrible,’ Mandy said. She was winding a baby, rubbing at its back, the empty bottle of feed on the side table. Janine guessed she was in her early twenties, a little dishevelled. Probably too busy with the baby to get time for herself.

  The room was scattered with toys, more baby clothes draped over the large fireguard in front of the gas fire. Daytime TV was on but Joe Breeley muted it with the remote. On the walls Janine saw the family photos, Joe and Mandy and two children. A good looking family, the children fair like their mother. Mandy was attractive, slim with huge eyes and long, fine hair.

  ‘How long have you been at the site?’ Richard said.

  ‘Six weeks, it’s a big job. Place needed gutting,’ said Breeley.

  ‘And when were you last there?’

  ‘Week last Saturday. Till lunchtime,’ he said.

  Janine heard the rising wail of a child from upstairs.

  Mandy got to her feet. ‘You take him,’ she said to Breeley and handed the baby over to him. ‘Our John,’ she explained, ‘miserable with chickenpox.’

  Janine groaned in sympathy, Charlotte had it only la
st month, it had gone round the neighbourhood like wildfire, left her little girl with three pockmarks on her face despite Janine’s best attempts to stop her scratching.

  Mandy left them.

  ‘And who’s this?’ Janine nodded at the baby.

  Joe Breeley smiled, ‘Aidan.’

  ‘Did you see anyone acting suspiciously, or anyone close to the main drainage?’ Richard said.

  ‘Is that where they found him?’ Joe Breeley frowned. ‘Christ! When you’ve kids of your own, you …’ He shook his head. ‘No. No-one,’ he answered.

  ‘You’re not at work today?’ Janine said.

  ‘Bad back,’ he grimaced.

  He’d looked fine bent over the car Janine thought. She glanced at Richard, sharing her scepticism and they waited it out.

  Joe Breeley sighed, looked slightly shamefaced as he added, ‘Well, weather like we’ve been having. The rain – takes twice as long to do a job. And with John being ill … We’ll finish on time. Get paid by results.’ Then it seemed to dawn on him that no work would be happening at Kendal Avenue for some time to come, in the light of events. ‘Course … now …’ he faltered.

  Mandy came back in and took Aidan from Breeley. The baby had drifted off and didn’t wake as she lifted him up and cuddled him.

  ‘Last Saturday,’ said Janine, ‘what time did you start work?’

  ‘Just after nine.’

  ‘And lunchtime was when?’ she said.

  ‘One-ish. Came back here,’ Breeley said.

  ‘And that afternoon?’ Janine said.

  Joe Breeley gave a shrug. ‘We just did stuff in the house.’

  Mandy gave a small laugh. ‘He’s that busy fixing other people’s houses, I’m always on at him to sort this place out.’

  ‘Was there ever any sign of intruders in the property, anything odd like that?’ Richard said.

  ‘No, nothing,’ Breeley said.

  ‘If you do think of anything that might help please get in touch,’ Richard said, ‘anything at all.’

  Breeley nodded.

  ‘It’s awful,’ Mandy said again and hugged Aidan tighter as if she was anxious to keep him safe.

  Chapter 5

  Claire Wray felt numb, crushed by the dreadful news. It was as though she had been pulled frozen from the cold sea, no sensation anywhere beyond a gnawing dark ache in every muscle, deep in her bones.

  Her mind stumbled around knocking into memories of Sammy: his birth over-shadowed by the theatrical antics of Clive’s ex Felicity who had claimed the spotlight with a cruelly timed suicide bid; their worries when they first realised Sammy couldn’t see properly and all the worst scenarios of blindness or worse plagued them until the tests had all come back and it was known to be simply short-sightedness; Sammy’s passion for tractors and diggers and steam-rollers; the slight lisp he had; the feel of his hand in hers.

  Then her thoughts would trip over the grim facts, the drainage tunnel, a sewer, her baby in a sewer. Preposterous. Life wasn’t meant to go like this. Sammy was supposed to grow and thrive, become a schoolboy, a teenager, a man. All those futures.

  She shuffled on the sofa, pressed Sammy’s fleece to her cheek. Who would do such a thing?

  At the back of her skull she felt the tingle of unease, the mistrust that had been growing there ever since Sammy had gone. And Clive had come home.

  Something about Clive’s manner, almost imperceptible but a taint of distance, of awkwardness, she could sense even in her distress and anguish. He was holding back. He was guarded.

  At first she took it to be Clive’s way of masking his criticism of her, of hiding how he blamed her. She had lost sight of Sammy and Sammy had been taken. Her watch. Her fault.

  Clive was a good man, she believed that, a kind man. He rarely raised his voice, she had never seen him lash out, couldn’t imagine him being violent. But perhaps he was a little too kind. Weak. Like the way he fell for Felicity’s stunts time and again, instead of accepting that he couldn’t be held responsible for her actions.

  But as the days had gone on, interminable and tense, as they had waited for sightings, for leads, for fresh appeals, as Sammy’s disappearance fell from the news bulletins and front pages, Claire began to wonder whether Clive was— too hard to put into words, something so foul, so unnatural. He loved Sammy. He was walking that day, wasn’t he? If only he’d gone with a friend then she wouldn’t even be thinking like this. But he’d been alone, unaccounted for, if you like. And that reserve in him had not eased; if anything it had grown stronger. While Claire blabbed about everything she could, dredging up memories from the park, keen to colour in every last detail, Clive’s responses to the police and investigators was always vague, muted, minimal.

  She didn’t like the way her mind was working. Perhaps it was a distraction, a defensive thing, if she was fretting over Clive it diverted her from facing the probable truth about Sammy. That he was dead. That he was never coming back. He would never need new shoes again. She would never hold him in her arms again.

  Clive came in then. ‘I’m going up,’ he said quietly. ‘You want anything?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Sue said she’d sort out some shopping tomorrow, should be back here mid-morning.’

  Like I care, Claire thought. Then felt uncharitable as tears burnt her eyes. Sue was only trying to support them and Clive was just passing on the message. ‘ OK,’ she said.

  He made no move to touch her, to give her a goodnight kiss but turned and went. Just as well, really, she would only have rebuffed him. Her body language communicated what she’d not been able to articulate, that she mistrusted him.

  She listened as Clive made his way upstairs. She heard the creak of the floor in their bedroom above.

  I can check, she thought, put an end to all these stupid fantasies and then concentrate on Sammy, on what really matters. Probably find out I’m wrong, that Clive was doing exactly what he said he was and this is just him knocked sideways by the abduction. Easy enough to look. It had been wet for weeks before that Saturday. One reason why the park had been so busy, the fine weather was a relief. It had rained again since, the good spell only lasted a couple of days. People were talking about the wettest spring on record. Where had Sammy been then? When the rain came back? All those days since? Wet and cold, somewhere? Hungry? Or by then had he—

  She wrenched her train of thought back to Clive. The ground would have been waterlogged, wouldn’t it? He’d put dubbing on his boots the day before, she knew because Sammy had been asking a stream of questions: what was it, why, could he have some on his shoes?

  Claire listened again for any movement upstairs and then, satisfied, got to her feet. She felt hollow and shaky, as though she had flu. She went through to the utility room at the back of the house and switched on the light, pausing again and listening. No sound from above.

  His boots were on the bottom of the rack. She lifted them, they were heavier than she expected. She turned them over. No mud in the cleats, nothing. She examined the uppers, a uniform dull sheen on the brown leather from the dubbing. No new cuts or scrapes, no smears of dirt.

  Her stomach dropped and a clammy sweat erupted all over her skin. It doesn’t prove anything, she tried to tell herself. But a voice was clamouring in her head: he’s lying, you know he’s lying.

  Was he? Perhaps he’d taken a route that was paved, avoided the boggy parts and the rough tracks that criss-crossed the great peak. But she knew herself from walking there with him how few sections were paved. Any halfway decent walk meant navigating peat bogs and gullies, fording streams and tramping through heather and bracken.

  She put the boots back. His Barbour jacket was hanging on the pegs. Her hands trembling she felt in the pockets. A tissue in the left, a piece of paper in the right. Folded. She opened it out. A flyer, and a parking ticket tucked inside. The leaflet read, Sports Bonanza. Sport City. All welcome. She was about to dismiss it as the sort of thing left on the car under the windscreen wiper, u
ntil she noticed the date. Saturday April 19th.

  The same date on the parking ticket.

  She felt her heart kick and skip a beat.

  April 19th. Sport City.

  She couldn’t bear to think what this meant beyond knowing that Clive had lied. Oh God. She perched on the buffet in the corner, shivering, her pulse galloping. She stared at Clive’s jacket, at her own hanging beside it, at the lower row of pegs for Sammy’s things. Her eyes blurred with tears.

  Why would he lie?

  She would tell the police. She had to. For Sammy.

  Chapter 6

  Michael, her eldest son, had agreed to feed the kids and for that Janine was so grateful. She would clear up, couldn’t expect him to do that as well. Vicky, the nanny had gone out, didn’t work evenings, except by prior arrangement and with lots of notice, but she would have put Charlotte to bed before leaving.

  After Janine had taken off her coat and slipped off her shoes she went into the kitchen, catching the tail end of conversation.

  ‘Charlotte will be two and you’ll be ten,’ Eleanor was telling her little brother, and I’ll be thirteen.’

  ‘It’s still warm,’ Michael told Janine, nodding at the remnants of a lasagne.

  ‘It’s bound to have dark hair,’ Eleanor went on.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Janine thanked Michael and sat down next to Tom. ‘Shove up,’ she said, ‘make room for a little one.’

  Michael passed her a plate of food.

  ‘Why?’ Tom said to Eleanor. ‘Why would it?’

  Janine took a mouthful and tried to catch up with the conversation. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Tina’s baby,’ Tom said.

  Baby! Janine felt the thump in her chest as her heart jumped. She choked on the food, coughing and spitting it out. Eleanor stared at her and Michael turned round to see what was going on but Tom, oblivious, carried on, ‘Eleanor thinks it’s well good just ‘cos Dad said she can babysit. I’m not having it in my room. All babies do is cry.’