‘As you know we have a team searching your house. Are we going to find anything there?’ Richard said.
‘No, nothing, nothing at all.’ He wasn’t smiling anymore.
‘Do you know who the child is?’ Janine asked.
‘No! Look, you’ve got it all wrong,’ he said, ‘the papers, and that, I was just trying to help. That’s all.’
He stuck unwaveringly to his account of arriving at work on that day at nine and no earlier. As the interview went on he pleaded with them to believe him. ‘Honest, on my mother’s grave,’ he said more than once.
They let him go with a warning that they might well want to speak to him again.
‘What do you think?’ she said to Richard.
He shrugged, shook his head. ‘Don’t know.’
No, she thought, neither do I.
The Breeleys were both home when Janine and Richard called on them.
‘Hello Joe, Mandy. Can we come in?’ Janine said.
A friendly smile from Joe Breeley but Janine saw his throat ripple as he swallowed. Who really wants the police in the house – unless you’re a victim needing assistance?
‘We wanted to talk to you again about Saturday the nineteenth of April. You got to Kendal Avenue just after nine, how long after?’
‘Maybe quarter past,’ he said.
‘And Donny McEvoy was already there?’ said Janine.
‘That’s right,’ he said.
‘And how did Mr McEvoy seem?’
‘Same as usual,’ Joe Breeley said, ‘why?’ He looked concerned.
You were here at home till then?’ Janine asked.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘You can confirm that?’ she turned to Mandy.
‘Yes, he was.’ She tried to smile but it was a weak attempt.
‘Are you certain about that?’ Janine said.
‘Yes,’ Mandy replied, ‘it was me had to tell him to get up, he went back to sleep after the alarm.’
‘And you didn’t go to work on the Monday,’ Richard said, ‘why was that?’
‘The rain—’ he began but Mandy cut him off.
‘It’s OK, Joe, we just tell them the truth.’
Janine felt a tightening in her chest. Joe Breeley had been hiding something.
‘It was me,’ Mandy said, ‘I was struggling with the kids, not coping and then the car had broken down and …’ Her mouth trembled as she spoke. ‘I asked him to stay off, help me,’ she sounded close to tears.
Janine could remember those early days, broken nights, the never-ending demands of small children, how hard it was to keep on top of even the basics – feeding, changing, cleaning, shopping. The exhaustion.
‘I didn’t want to tell Donny,’ Joe Breeley looked embarrassed, ‘said my back had gone.’
Janine could well imagine the ribbing the single man would have given Breeley had he known the facts: she got you under her thumb? Not letting you out?
‘Sorry,’ Breeley added.
‘ OK,’ Janine said. She glanced at the clock it was time to go, get herself to Withington Park for the reconstruction.
‘The manhole cover over the sewer, how easy would it be for someone to remove it?’ she said.
‘Easy enough, just jemmy it up,’ Joe Breeley said.
‘Had you or Mr McEvoy any reason to open the cover in the course of the work you were doing?’
‘No, that’d be a plumber’s job. We’re making good the fabric of the place, roof, walls, getting ready for the windows.’
Janine stood up. ‘If anything else occurs to you, please let us know. Doesn’t matter how small, how insignificant it might seem.’
‘Donny,’ Joe Breeley said, frowning, ‘you don’t think, you can’t—’
‘Routine inquiries,’ Richard said,’ we have to pin all the detail down. That’s all.’
‘Right,’ Breeley said, ‘course.’ He smiled again but worry lingered in his eyes.
Chapter 24
The day was grey and blustery as the actors took their places getting ready to re-enact Sammy’s abduction. A throng of press and media waited at a designated spot on the edge of the playground. A police officer was playing the part of Claire and Millie had found the son of a friend of a friend to play Sammy. They were dressed like Claire and Sammy had been on that sunny Saturday, right down to Sammy’s glasses and distinctive red shoes. Janine shivered, the boy would be cold once they took his fleece off, but only for a few minutes. She stood with Claire and Clive and Millie. The couple huddled close together, Clive had his arm around Claire and she was clutching Sammy’s fleece.
‘We’ve a good turn out,’ Janine said to Claire. The woman’s face was wretched, hollowed and grey. There was a glassy, remote look in her eyes. Had she given up? Given up daring to hope?
The guilt must be crippling, thought Janine. To know that Sammy had disappeared while she was supposed to be looking after him. Janine wondered if the abduction had been premeditated or opportunistic. Had someone been watching Claire and Sammy, set their sights on the young boy, trailed them to the shops, to playgroup, to the park. Noting their routines and behaviour. Planned when to strike, a vehicle at the ready for a quick getaway, somewhere lined up to take the child, the whole thing done with intent and deliberation.
Or had there been a terrible collision of circumstances. A predator passing through the park, keen not to attract interest, window shopping if you like, just turned out to be in the right place at the right time, within feet of Sammy as his mother was distracted. A matter of seconds to pick up the child and walk steadily away.
Millie spoke to one of her colleagues who was co-ordinating the re-enactment. The actor playing Claire took the fleece from the child and led him round to the steps.
‘He took his fleece off,’ Claire said. ‘Sammy always gets hot running about. But it was warm, it was really warm. He’s only got his t-shirt now. What if he’s cold?’ Anxiety danced in her eyes. ‘I should have gone to the front as soon as he got to the top of the slide.’
‘Claire, I can’t tell you what you want to hear,’ Janine said. ‘I’m so sorry. I wish I could. That’s why today matters. If we can jog someone’s memory—’
‘What if it doesn’t work?’ Clive Wray said. ‘How much longer—’ he broke off, unable to continue.
Janine couldn’t answer that question, either. Some children were never found. That was the reality. ‘We’re doing everything we can,’ she said, ‘I promise.’
The little boy pulled at the spectacles, unused to them. The woman playing Claire, took his hand and led him round again. The cameras drank it up, ready for broadcast on the news bulletins, for Crimewatch, for stills in the next editions of the papers, for the police website.
Janine looked at the T-shirt, the green dinosaur, just the sort of thing she’d have bought Tom when he was younger and obsessed with the creatures. She thought of the victim, the paltry evidence they had from the scene, everything compromised by the water and the actions of scavenging animals. The t-shirt, underpants, bed sheet, the human hairs and the screw. A glasses screw.
The boy slid down the slide and was caught at the bottom.
Janine’s pulse jumped. She turned to Millie, and stepped closer, away from the Wrays so they wouldn’t hear. ‘The glasses screw in the sheet – we thought it was Sammy’s,’ Janine said, ‘switch it round. What if that’s the killer’s?’
Millie understood straight away and nodded quickly.
Janine pulled out her phone and called Richard. ‘Richard, the glasses screw, not that many three-year-olds wear glasses. It’s more likely to be the killer’s, isn’t it? Get someone onto McEvoy, check the prescription of his glasses against the glass on the drive. He had his glasses on earlier but maybe he has a spare pair.’
‘Or got them fixed,’ Richard said.
‘What about Joe Breeley, he wasn’t wearing glasses, was he?’
‘No,’ said Richard. ‘But if he’d broken them …’
‘ OK. Keep in
touch, I shouldn’t be much longer here and then we’ll decide what we do next.’
‘No match to McEvoy’s prescription,’ Richard told her as she arrived back at the office. ‘And nothing out of order at his house.’
‘Back to Breeley then,’ she said.
‘How do you want to play it?’
‘Cautiously,’ Janine didn’t want to make any more mistakes.
Janine looked at the photographs, Joe and Mandy and their two sons. John and Aidan as newborns and older. In several photographs Joe Breeley was wearing glasses, rectangular, dark frames. Janine looked at Richard, signalled with her eyes. He saw what she meant, gave a brief nod.
Mandy was holding Aidan, she looked nervous, full of fleeting smiles.
‘You’ve not got your glasses, Mr Breeley?’ Richard said.
‘I lost them,’ Breeley said, ‘I can manage without, don’t need them really.’
‘When was that, then, that you lost them?’ said Richard.
‘I can’t remember.’ He scratched at the edge of his jaw line.
‘You didn’t have them when we first called round. So, before then?’ Richard said.
‘He only needs them for reading. He’s always losing them,’ Mandy said. Aidan wriggled in her arms and squealed and she hushed him.
If he only needed the glasses for reading, Janine thought, then why was he wearing them in the photographs?
Breeley’s leg was dancing, the man was wound up tight.
‘We found optical glass on the pavement at Kendal Avenue. And a glasses screw inside the sheet the child was wrapped in. Your glasses – are they lost, or broken?’ said Janine.
‘Lost. I told you.’
‘Maybe they’re in the van,’ said Richard, ‘it’s just out there. We can have a look.’
‘No.’ He got to his feet quickly. ‘They’re not there.’
‘Won’t take a minute,’ Richard said, ‘and we can clear this up.’ Richard set off with Joe rushing after him, Janine and Mandy close behind.
‘No!’ Breeley was shouting, ‘You don’t go near my van.’ Breeley tried to grab Richard, pull him back but Richard, the bigger man shrugged him off.
‘No. Leave it!’
Richard reached the van and glanced in, turned back. ‘Here all along, one lens broken.’
‘It’s nothing!’ Breeley shouted, ‘Just a pair of specs.’
Richard pulled handcuffs out and moved quickly to Breeley. Began the caution, ‘Joseph Breeley, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything …’
Mandy, her mouth open, was shaking her head. Then she began to shout, ‘Leave him alone, get off him, he hasn’t done anything. Leave him.’ The baby was crying and Janine steered them back towards the house. ‘Leave him alone,’ Mandy shouted, ‘where are you taking him?’
‘He’ll be at City Central Police Station while he helps us with our inquiries,’ Janine said. ‘We may wish to speak to you in due course.’
‘I can’t,’ Mandy said, ‘the kids … what about the kids?’
‘If necessary we can provide temporary child care while we speak to you if you can’t find anyone yourself.’
‘He didn’t … he couldn’t …’ she broke down.
Denying everything. Had she suspected her husband of such a crime? She had given him the alibi for the Saturday morning. Maybe that was genuine. The child could have been placed there another day, though that didn’t account for the noise of the van heard so early in the day.
Or maybe Mandy Breeley suspected her husband but wouldn’t admit it to herself. Shut down the whispers in her head, made light of the worry gnawing away inside. Wanted to believe him innocent. To believe he was a good man, a decent man. Not think that the father of her children murdered another child.
Chapter 25
While Joe Breeley was booked in and a solicitor was arranged, Janine and Richard prepared the interview, going over all the facts, the evidence they had and the contradictions in what Breeley had told them so far.
Janine had sent CSIs to recover the van. In the lab, Joe Breeley’s glasses prescription was being compared to the broken lens found close to the manhole, and an examination was underway to see if the glasses screw fit the frames. In the custody suite, Breeley was being processed, having his fingerprints taken, giving a DNA sample and a hair from his head. The lab would look at the hair to see if it resembled the one recovered from inside the sheet. A DNA profile would establish if they came from the same person.
Once word came back positive on the screw and the lens prescription, Janine felt a wash of relief and the kick of excitement. Finally, finally they were getting closer, things were adding up. Still a lot of blanks to fill in but if they could just get Joe Breeley talking.
His solicitor was a whey faced woman with greasy hair. Thankfully she had not advised her client to offer no comment, perhaps because of the seriousness of the crime. She sat next to Breeley and opposite Richard and Janine in the interview room.
‘What can you tell me about the body of a child recovered from Kendal Avenue on the twenty-eighth of April?’ Janine said to Breeley.
‘Nothing. I don’t know anything about it, I swear,’ he said.
‘How do you account for the fact that a screw of the same type to that missing from your glasses was found in the sheet wrapped around the child’s body?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You told us before that the manhole cover had been closed and that you had no need to access the drainage tunnel. So how come your glasses screw ends up in the drain, inside the sheet covering the child.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking away.
Janine could see a pulse ticking fast at the side of his neck.
‘We have a witness who heard your vehicle arriving at the address at six-fifteen on the morning of the nineteenth of April,’ Richard said.
The solicitor interrupted, ‘Is this witness able to distinguish individual vehicles by the sound of their engines?’
Janine knew it was a fair point.
‘A diesel engine, a sound the neighbours had become familiar with over the course of the weeks you were working there,’ Richard said.
‘I was at home then,’ Breeley said.
‘I don’t think that’s the case. When did you break your glasses?’ Richard said.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Where did it happen?’ Richard said.
‘Not at work,’ he replied.
‘The screw must have worked loose, dropped onto the sheet. Later, as you were moving the body, your lens fell out and broke,’ said Richard.
‘It’s not mine,’ Joe Breeley said. He rubbed his jaw.
‘We can identify the prescription from the fragments. It matches yours,’ Richard said.
‘You’re bound to find traces of me all over the shop. I worked there,’ Joe Breeley said.
‘But you have just told us that you didn’t break your glasses at work. I’m confused,’ Janine said.
‘You went to work early, in the van,’ Richard said, ‘you put the little boy there, left. Came back at nine. What happened, Joe?’
He refused to answer.
‘How did particles of glass that match your missing lens come to be on the driveway at Kendal Avenue?’ Richard said.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’ Temper or desperation edged his reply.
‘We’ve taken a DNA sample from you along with hair from your head. Will we find that matches material recovered from the victim?’
Breeley stilled though Janine was not sure why but then he recovered. Had he remembered something incriminating? She decided to push this topic a bit further.
‘Anything like that could have come from the house,’ he said, ‘we use the basin, the toilet.’
‘And how might that have got inside the sheet? Or onto the child’s body?’ she said.
He swallowed, closed his eyes momentarily. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Let’s back up a li
ttle. Friday afternoon, the eighteenth of April. You left early?’ Janine said.
‘Yeah, Mandy was going shopping. I had the kids.’
‘She didn’t take them?’ Janine said.
‘No – John’s got the chickenpox,’ he said.
‘So Mandy went shopping, she came back when?’
‘She was late – the car broke down. Be going on five when she got back.’
‘And that evening where were you?’ Janine said.
‘Just in the house,’ Breeley said.
‘Neither of you went out?’ Janine said.
‘No, honestly. Ask Mandy. She’ll tell you,’ he said.
‘Oh, we will,’ Janine said, ‘I promise you that. Saturday morning what time did you leave home?’
‘Nine o’clock, like I said.’
Joe Breeley maintained his story, refusing to be drawn, then there was a knock at the door. Richard suspended the interview, paused the tape and went to answer it.
He came back into the room and nodded to Janine. It must be something important.
‘We’ll take a break now, half an hour,’ she said to the solicitor.
‘You’re keeping me here?’ Joe Breeley said.
‘For as long as it takes,’ Janine replied.
‘Millie’s found something in Breeley’s background,’ Richard said in the corridor once Breeley had been escorted to a cell.
‘Where is she?’
‘Incident room.’
Millie held a sheaf of printouts. She handed Janine the top one. Janine scanned the headline. Tot’s Death Inquest. She checked the date, 12th February 1991. Janine started to read, The county coroner opened an inquest yesterday into the death of Gary Breeley (3) who died at the family home in October 1990.
‘Fractured skull,’ said Millie. ‘Joe Breeley had a little brother, Gary. Joe was looking after him when Gary died. He fell down some steps, fractured his skull. They ruled accidental death, though there were rumours.’
‘Did he fall, or was he pushed?’ said Janine.
‘Exactly,’ said Millie, ‘Joe was ten at the time.’
The same cause of death. What were the chances? Was family man Breeley repeating an earlier crime?
Make Believe Page 11
