In the intervening years, Donovan, a one-time investigative journalist, had pulled himself together and started a company. Albion, an information brokerage, consisted of himself, ex-policewoman Peta Knight, security and surveillance specialist Amar Miah and Jamal Jackson, a young mixed-race boy that Donovan had rescued from a life on the streets. They took a lot of referrals from a lawyer, Francis Sharkey, who also kept his ear to the ground for any leads on Donovan’s missing son.
There had been false dawns and dead ends. But one lead had seemed promising enough. A boy answering David’s description had been seen with a young couple at a house in Hertfordshire. The couple, Matt and Celia Milsom, a TV producer and his wife, had been thoroughly investigated and nothing suspicious discovered. Donovan, not wanting to jump to conclusions even though the resemblance – aged through computer enhancement – was startling. He had put an ex-policeman friend and part-time Albion operative, Paul Turnbull, on surveillance and to try, if at all possible, to get a DNA sample they could use. Turnbull reported back that the boy was an HIV-positive Romanian orphan that they had adopted after meeting him while working on a documentary over there.
So that was it. Just another dead end. Another one for the file. Then Turnbull turned up dead and the Milsoms disappeared. And Donovan began to doubt.
That night in David’s room just increased his doubts. He had been alone in the house. Donovan had stood in David’s room, looking again at the photos, waiting to hear a voice that could guide him, tell him where to look next when he heard a sound. Someone entering the house downstairs, making their way up. And Donovan had opened the door to Matt Milsom.
He hadn’t had time to think let alone react before Milsom hit him with something very large and heavy and he went down. The next thing he knew he was in pain and being pulled roughly over the ground. He had opened his eyes: Jamal and Amar, his friend and co-worker, were there looking down at him, concern and terror in their faces. He had closed his eyes again and the next thing he knew he had woken up in hospital.
Milsom had torched his house, leaving Donovan inside. Nothing was left. If Amar and Jamal hadn’t turned up with booze, DVDs and takeaway food, Donovan would be dead.
So he was alive. But every memento of David was gone.
Donovan threw himself into his work. He hadn’t involved the police because if he did they wouldn’t let him near Milsom. He had learned that previously when he tried to approach him in Hertfordshire. So it was down to Albion. But despite their best efforts, Milsom had disappeared without trace. And that just added to the pain and confusion Donovan carried around with him.
And then, nearly a month later, a breakthrough. Milsom was spotted in Brighton. An old friend of Peta’s from the police force had tipped her off. Pure luck, she stressed. The meeting that followed the discovery was predictably intense.
‘So what are the police doing about it?’ said Donovan.
She sighed. ‘Nothing.’
Donovan bristled. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s out of their hands, he said. Apparently the spooks have told them to lay off. They want him for something bigger.’
‘Fuck them,’ said Donovan, getting to his feet. ‘I want him now.’
Peta stopped him. ‘Whoa there, hold your horses. We agree. And I’m on it Amar’s ready and we’re off in the morning.’
‘Good.’
‘But not you, Joe. I think you should stay here.’
He felt anger build up inside him. ‘Why?’
‘Look at you,’ said Peta. ‘You’re wound up. You’re not thinking straight.’
He started to argue, she held up a hand.
‘I know that’s to be expected, I’m not saying anything other than that. But think about it. You’re too emotionally involved. And OK, fine, but you can’t go to work in that frame of mind. And Milsom, if he is there, will be expecting you. And also, it might be a trap.’
Donovan looked at her. As always, her voice carried more authority and strength than her slim frame indicated.
‘Let Amar and me handle it.’
The tall, well-dressed Asian man sitting on a sofa opposite Donovan nodded.
‘An’ me,’ said a voice from the corner of the room. Jamal had been sitting there, trying to get his new iMac to work. Or at least play GTA on it. ‘I want in on this too.’
Donovan looked between the three of them. Pain was tearing apart his insides. But he knew they were with him, that they wanted the best for him. He couldn’t want a better trio of friends.
Peta touched his arm. ‘Sit this one out, Joe. Control it from here. You’ve got a job on at the moment, remember?’
Donovan nodded. He remembered.
‘You keep bringing the money in,’ said Amar. ‘These new offices don’t pay for themselves.’
Peta looked him straight in the eye. ‘Don’t worry. If he’s there, we’ll find him.’
More than friends, he thought.
Family.
So he sat staring again at the blue door, willing it to open, praying for something to happen. Even something bad because any action was better than none at all. But nothing happened. And the next move, no matter how much it hurt Donovan to realize the fact, was down to Milsom.
The doorbell sounded. He got up from the desk, reluctantly tearing himself away, and went to answer the door. He knew who it would be. Anne Marie Smeaton.
‘Come in,’ he said, stepping aside.
She entered. As she walked past him, he could tell something was troubling her. Even more than usual. Then he spotted the bandages.
‘What have you done to your hands?’
Anne Marie flinched, instinctively pulling her hands in front of her so he couldn’t see. As if she could make them disappear. ‘Nothing,’ she said, looking at them. ‘Just, just … a pane of glass come loose last night. Blew in. In the kitchen.’ She looked at him, hoped the explanation was enough. ‘I got cut gettin’ it cleared up.’
They moved upstairs into the meeting room, took their positions on sofas opposite each other, the coffee table in between. They had tried talking at various locations – her flat, a couple of cafes and restaurants Donovan knew – but nowhere made Anne Marie feel as relaxed as this room. It was comfortable and warm, she had said, more like a living room than a meeting room.
He had to agree. That had been done deliberately. Books on the shelves, pictures on the white walls. Movie posters, they were, all old ones. Crime, horror, Sixties British, Woody Allen. Sofas so welcoming you didn’t want to get out of them again. Most of the people who came to see them, Donovan had told her, were troubled. The last thing they needed to feel was uncomfortable too. There was even the smell of real coffee wafting through. It was like Starbucks, Donovan had said, but without the world domination overtones.
Anne Marie clumsily put her cigarettes on the table, the bandages inhibiting her, kept her eyes away from him.
‘Shouldn’t you get it seen to by a doctor? You might need stitches.’
Anne Marie tried to smile. ‘No it’s OK. It’s OK.’
‘OK.’
He checked his notes, fiddled with his iPod-attached recorder. ‘Fine. Let’s get cracking then. You all right to start?’
Anne Marie nodded. He always asked her. And she always said yes. Not because she wanted to, he knew, but because the sooner she started, the sooner it would be finished.
‘I thought we’d pick up from yesterday,’ said Donovan, trying not to look at her bandaged hands. She tried not to look at them too, instead taking in what he was wearing, checking out what T-shirt it was today. He never wore suits. Instead he had adopted his own uniform of jeans, boots, hoodie and T-shirt, this one bearing the slogan: ‘Harlem Heroes – Cut the jive, let’s play AEROBALL!’ alongside a cartoon image of a helmeted black sportsman from 2000 AD comic in the Seventies. He caught her smiling at it.
‘Right,’ he said, switching on the recorder. ‘Childhood. Your mother.’
‘Oh God.’ A shiver ran through Anne Marie.
Donovan tried to forget about the blue door, concentrate on the present. The job in hand, the person in front of him.
He waited for her to speak. The counter on the recorder moved on.
‘Right. My mother.’ She cleared her throat, shook her head, kept her hands still. ‘My mother wasn’t an easy person to get on with.’ She cleared her throat again. Anne Marie kept her eyes on her hands as they twitched in the bandages. ‘There wasn’t much … she wasn’t what you’d call maternal. Not really.’
Donovan watched her, waited, focused, his eyes resting on her face. Just the thing to take his mind off his own problems, he thought, listening to a child killer. Then castigated himself for being unfair. Slightly. He was being paid to do a job and he would execute that job as professionally as possible. Then mentally censored himself for using the word execute.
‘She was … a bitch.’ Anne Marie stopped clearing her throat. Her cheeks flushed. ‘Yeah, a bitch.’
‘Tell me about her.’
‘What d’you want to know?’
Donovan shrugged, his voice low, unthreatening. ‘What she was like. The kind of person she was. What it was like living with her.’
‘What it was like living with her?’ Her hands twitched all the more. ‘She … I don’t blame anyone in my life. For what I did.’ She put her hand to her throat, as if to ease the passage of the words. ‘It was me …’ Her hands shook. She couldn’t take her eyes off them.
She was stressed, thought Donovan. Even more than usual.
‘D’you want to take a break? Get a coffee?’
Anne Marie looked up at him like she was drowning and he had thrown a lifeline. ‘Yeah,’ she said, her voice croaking. Yeah, that would be nice, thanks.’
‘And then we keep going, yeah?’ Donovan reached across and turned the recorder off. He stood up, gave her a smile and went to make coffee.
Checking the screen in the office as he went past.
No change.
‘So you’ve got a son?’
She nods. Jack. Nearly sixteen.’
‘And is he Rob’s son?’
She shakes her head. ‘No. Jack was born long before Rob was on the scene. But he’s been good, you know. Good to Jack. Been a dad for him, as much as he can.’ She nods to herself. ‘Yeah.’
‘As much as he can?’
She shrugs. ‘You know. Boy’s not his. These things are never easy. Rob doesn’t always seem like a good bloke. But he is. He’s got a good heart.’
‘How long’s Rob been on the scene?’
‘Since Hull. Four years, almost.’
‘And Jack was born …’
‘In London.’
He looks at her. ‘How long had you been out of prison?’
She tries to smile. It doesn’t quite work. ‘Long enough to get pregnant. Why you askin’ these questions?’
‘Background. I have to know these things.’
She nods.
‘Right. So Jack’s dad …’
‘Isn’t around. Has nothin’ to do with him.’ Said with finality, like a huge, old book slamming shut. ‘Jack’s dad was … no. I won’t say it. He might read this. I don’t want him back into Jack’s life. Or Jack might read this. I don’t want him findin’ out any thin’ about his dad.’
‘He might want to one day.’
‘Well, that’s his choice. I won’t be able to stop him then. But I will warn him.’
He tries to get her to say more. She won’t. He changes his questioning.
‘So Jack. He named after anyone?’
Her face changes. Cracks into a rare smile. ‘Yeah. Man I never met. But a man I came to love.’
He’s intrigued. He waits for her to tell more.
‘My life was saved in Fenton House. In Hertfordshire. It was a special unit for teenage boys. Well, teenage boys and one girl. Me.’
‘Really?’
‘They didn’t know what to do with me. The authorities. They found me guilty of murder and knew that I had to be punished. But they were also curious. Why had I done it? What had made me? So they sent me for therapy.’
He goes to say something.
‘Yeah, yeah I know. Therapy. I hate therapists, I hate psychiatrists. And I do. Mainly because of the prison ones, but that came later. But yeah, Fenton. Mr and Mrs Everett. They ran it. Wasn’t like prison, not a bit. It was like home. Not a home, home. We were all supposed to have emotional problems that made us do what we did. But they didn’t look on us as criminals. They looked on us as children.’
Tears are back in her eyes. She stares into the distance, into the past.
He waits.
‘We all lived in the same big house with Mr and Mrs Everett. We all ate sittin’ round the big, old, pine kitchen table. We all got help. And it was in Fenton that I met Joanne. Joanne Smeaton.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yeah. The name. I asked her, she said she didn’t mind. Was quite flattered, really. She was an art therapist. Got me paintin’ and drawin’. She’d had a husband. A good man, she said. But he was dead. Jack. That was his name. And she helped me so much, she …’
She stops talking, unable to hold back the tears.
He waits.
She dries her eyes. Continues. ‘Anyway. When Jack was born I called him after her husband.’
‘And do you still see her? Are you still in contact?’
She shakes her head. ‘No.’
There’s a real sense of loss when she says that word. It’s the saddest thing he’s heard her say. So far.
4
Jack Smeaton had thought things were improving. But he had misread the signs. His mother had been building up to something – another breakdown, another attack – and he had missed it. Her crying, sitting up all night and now finding her covered in blood. Improving. He should have known better than to dare and hope.
No breakfast again and he probably had the wrong books. And because of the new trainers his mother had bought him, the new expensive, air-cushioned trainers, he should have been bouncing in to school. But he was so caught up with the tearing, conflicting emotions his mother always unleashed within him that, he barely realized he was being herded into the school’s main hall along with all the other kids in year ten. Not just his year but the others too. The atmosphere was electric; whispered rumours and attendant gasps zinging through the air like current through cable. Something was up and he had been the last one to spot it.
Trying to ignore the guilty, bindweed tendrils that always pulled at him when he tried to think of something other than his mother’s problems, he pulled his focus on to the present.
The hall was its usual rotting self, paint blistered and bubbled where persistent leaks had been patched so often and ineffectually they had eventually been abandoned and left. The familiar smells of damp and mould, anxious sweat and uncontrollable hormones. An undercurrent of whooshing wind, like ghosts trapped behind the crumbling concrete walls, swirled all around them.
He looked at the faces of the other children. They knew as little about what was going on as he did. He absently scanned the crowd, made eye contact with a boy who looked younger than him. The boy, burly with a cropped head, stopped talking to the smaller boy he was with, returned Jack’s gaze. His eyes held threat, challenge. He glanced down at Jack’s trainers. Jack looked away.
Jack was used to that kind of thing. Every new school he had gone to, there had been someone like that. Sometimes more than one. He looked odd. He was tall, thin and his hair, unlike most of the kids was quite long. He looked like a budding poet in a world of trainee builders. Girls found him interesting – some girls anyway – but he was always too shy to take things beyond the friendship stage.
The doors closed, the head teacher made his way on the stage. Behind him the other staff sat in a semicircle, their faces grave. A woman walked on to the stage, stood in the shadows at the end of the row of teachers, looking out at the children. Jack made her straight away, along with most of the kids in the hall: cop. P
lainclothes. That meant something serious. And the way she was looking meant she suspected one of them. He felt the hall tense in anticipation. These weren’t kids who welcomed visits by the police.
The murmuring petered out, attention shifted to the front. Mr Heptonstall the head teacher waited for silence. With an approximation of it, he began to speak.
‘As some of you may know,’ he said, scoping the hall, making eye contact with anyone who wasn’t giving him their full attention, ‘one of our pupils …’ He paused. ‘… died last night.’
Gasps. Sighs. Movement, agitation. Heads turned, conversations started. Voices raised. Jack was no different. He turned to the boy at his side, expecting answers, only to see that the boy was doing the same to him. Jack looked at the woman on the side of the stage. She was still staring at the children, blank-faced, trying not to look like she was scrutinizing their reaction.
Heptonstall waited for the statement to embed itself. ‘The boy …’
Their voices dropped in anticipation. They waited.
‘The boy’s name was Calvin Bell.’
Another murmur. Heptonstall rode it, continued. ‘Calvin Bell. Many of you knew him.’ The murmuring rose. Heptonstall talked over it. The hall fell silent, guessing what he was about to say next. ‘He was thirteen. Year eight. And his death was no accident. He was stabbed. Murdered.’
He stood back, giving the children their chance to take it in. More gasps, shouts, some sobbing.
He’s really milking this, thought Jack. Even in the short time he had been at the school he had grown to dislike Heptonstall. His performance now was doing him no favours. Jack looked round again. He didn’t know whether any of the other kids shared his feelings. Most were too busy looking shocked.
‘Now,’ Heptonstall went on, ‘I want to introduce you to someone who’s here to help us.’ He gestured to the woman standing at the side of the stage. ‘This is Detective Inspector Nattrass. She’s here to help. She’s got something to say to you all and I’d like you to listen.’
Speak No Evil Page 3
