Proof of Life

by Steven Suttie

  “Anything else?” asked Rudovsky.

  “I suppose he’s pretty good at sport, he’s a fast runner. I’ve chased him up that street a few times and he goes like shit off a shovel.”

  “One of the staff at the school described Darren as behaviourally challenged.” Said Miller.

  “Yes, that’s it. Nice one. Little shit, described in posh words!” Jenkins laughed and clicked his middle-fingers three-times in appreciation of his wise-crack.

  Miller and Rudovsky shared an uneasy glance at one another. It was brief, but they both knew from that milli-second of eye-contact that they were on the same page, they were picking up the same scent from this.

  Miller continued with his relaxed, gentle questioning technique, which was working brilliantly. In just a few minutes, they had the dad talking with contempt about his missing boy on numerous occasions.

  “The lady at school also said that Darren is extremely funny, very kind-hearted, and charming. She also said that he can be very thoughtful.” Miller let his statement hang while Jenkins mulled it over. After a few seconds, he grinned.

  “Well, I wish he’d try some of that in here!”

  Rudovsky had an urge to ask if Darren was that bad, but she sensed it could wait. It would only renew the tension from a little earlier.

  “Tell us about the day before Darren went missing.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, I’m just trying to establish if there was an argument or anything?”

  “There’s always a fucking argument. Let me think, when was it, last Wednesday. Oh yeah, I remember now, he was acting proper weird. He sneaked in the house after school, went straight upstairs. I shouted him down and told him to make me a brew. He did, and just went upstairs. I didn’t see him apart from when he came down for his tea.”

  “And what did he have for his tea?” asked Rudovsky.

  “I can’t remember now… what is this, Mastermind?”

  “Try and think, please.”

  “I think it was a pizza. Yes, I did him a frozen pizza. He took it up to his room. The plate will still be there.”

  “So from finishing school, Darren stayed in his room all night?”

  “Yeah. Which is good because it means he isn’t outside causing any shit.”

  “And the following morning. Did you see Darren before school?”

  “No, I was still in bed.”

  “Do you not work at the moment Mr Jenkins?” asked Rudovsky.

  “Yeah, yeah, course I work. But… I’m off at the minute.”

  “Off? On leave?”

  “Leave? You mean holiday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, yeah, I suppose so.”

  “And Darren is used to sorting himself out in the mornings is he?”

  “Yes, he has his paper-round. I’ll give him that, he gets up and goes with no hassle.”

  “Thanks. Now as you probably know, he went to school but ran out just before school was due to start. Do you have any idea what that was about?”

  “No. Why would I? He’s in trouble there at least once a day. I’ve lost interest to be honest. The more you say don’t do summat, the more he’ll do it. It would be easier if the school told him to piss about all day. He doesn’t do what he’s told. Never has.”

  “So, from Darren coming downstairs on the Wednesday night, to collect his pizza, you haven’t seen or heard from him?”

  “No. Nothing. And my blood-pressure has never been healthier.”

  “Are you aware that Darren has missed hospital appointments? They’d been set up by the school and the education authority to test him for ADHD?”

  “Oh, for… listen, there’s no such thing as ADH fucking D, yeah? I’m not taking time off work, losing pay to dick about with shrinks and do-gooders. They take the piss with all this bullshit about ADHD and all that, it’s just an excuse for bad-parenting! Trust me, he’s just a wrong ‘un. There’s no tests for that. End of.”

  Miller and Rudovsky let his statement hang. It was an extremely defensive and elaborate explanation for ignoring several hospital letters. He could have shared his received wisdom and expertise on the matter during a quick phone call to the staff at the hospital, but he hadn’t. Both of the detectives were thinking the same thing as the silence hung like the smell of fresh cat shit.

  Miller decided to go down a different route. “What do you know about Mr Pollard at the school?”

  “I know that he’s always on my back about Darren. Letters, phone-calls, you name it. Always mithering me to go up and have a word.”

  “And what does he say to you when you go?” asked Rudovsky.

  Jenkins shrugged. “I don’t know. Haven’t been. It’s not my fucking job to control Darren at school. I’ve got to do it all the rest of the time.”

  “Has Darren ever spoken about his relationship with Mr Pollard?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Do you talk about things like this with Darren?”

  “No. Like I say, we don’t get on. We stay out of each others way as much as we can.”

  “What are your thoughts to the suggestion that Darren and Mr Pollard might be together?”

  “Together how? Like poofters you mean?”

  This casually dismissive comment angered Rudovsky, herself a proud, badge-wearing member of the gay community. But she handled her dissatisfaction professionally, and just sat quietly.

  “Well, no, it’s just that Mr Pollard has also been reported missing. He’s not been seen by his family or colleagues since about an hour after Darren ran out of the school.”

  This comment stirred up a reaction from Jenkins.

  “You what?” He leaned forward, the slouching was replaced by a stiffness. It was quite apparent that Miller’s revelation had touched a nerve. But Miller was wondering how Michael Jenkins had not heard this already. It was all over the news, and after all, it was about his child.

  Miller remembered that Jenkins had appeared to have been asleep when they’d arrived. He put the lack of up-to-date knowledge down to the missing boy’s father having a long lie-in. But then again, he’d said that he knew that Miller was on the case when he arrived because he’d seen it on Facebook. The information wasn’t stacking up.

  “So we’ve got to look at a number of possibilities. At this moment in time, we are following a line of enquiry that they might be together.”

  Jenkins’ attitude had changed dramatically, and his carefree, happy-go-lucky expression had turned stale. He began nibbling at a finger-nail as the gravity of Miller’s announcement hit-home. He took a deep breath before speaking in a very solemn voice.

  “Look, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Chapter Eight

  The news story was one of significant interest, as would be expected. The sensational headlines were grabbing people’s attention, and the public were letting their imaginations run away with them as they shared their thoughts on the pages of Facebook and Twitter.

  The hashtag #AstleyHigh had started trending, but from the start, there were conflicting points of view about what was happening with the missing teacher and pupil. As had now become normal practise, the men and women of Britain aired their views on their own social media pages, or in the comments boxes underneath newspaper reports.

  The story had gone national already. London resident Paul Moore wrote: “Lots of wild speculation about the events up in Manchester. But not too much from the police yet. I think we should all calm down and let the full facts emerge before we try to explain the situation.”

  Indeed, the public were often too fast to jump to conclusions. The majority had invented the missing blanks in their heads, and had gone live with their analysis, regardless.

  “This happens all the time, time to put an age restriction on young men becoming teachers!” snarled one angry commentator on BBC News’ Facebook report.

  “Young girls are always throwing themselves at male teachers. Time something was done.” Said one membe
r of the Sky News online community.

  “The press shouldn’t be reporting on this. As soon as the teacher realises that he’s been sussed out, he’ll kill her.”

  And so it went on. The actual story, the journalists account at the top of the news-feed was too vague, too short on information. So, the public were having a good go at putting plenty of meat on the bones. For many people, particularly those in Stalybridge, the mums and dads who had children at the school, were desperate to learn more. They literally couldn’t wait to learn something of substance, to receive some solid information about this extraordinary situation.

  Sky News were leading on the story, and were criss-crossing their reporting between retired Met detectives in the studio, to their local reporter outside the school, Paul Mitchell, the news channel’s north of England correspondent.

  “The information is extremely sketchy at the present time, to say the very least. But one thing that we do know is that this situation is being treated in the most serious manner by Manchester police, a fact confirmed just over an hour ago with the arrival of DCI Miller here at the school. Many viewers will be familiar with this detective, he has worked on a number of high-profile cases in recent years, from the paedophile killings, to the hunt for Sergeant Knight, as well as investigating the disappearance of the outspoken TV celebrity Kathy Hopkirk. Most recently, DCI Miller was heading up the enquiry into the DWP attacks across Greater Manchester, so he is no stranger to high-profile cases. The one thing that we can gather from DCI Miller’s appearance here today is that this must be considered as a very serious matter in the eyes of the police chiefs.”

  BBC News channel knew that it was going to be some time before the full story was revealed by police, so came up with a nice package to fill the meantime. The hastily prepared news report focussed on historical cases of teachers and their pupils running away together. One recent case, from just six years earlier was recounted using library footage of the hunt for the pair, and the teacher’s eventual imprisonment. The married male teacher, and his fifth-year pupil had sparked an international man-hunt when they eloped to France when their love-affair had been discovered and was about to be exposed by the school. This had been a fascinating story, and on the surface of it, the 27 year-old teacher and his 15 year-old girlfriend just looked like any other young, care-free couple on the CCTV images which had recorded them on the ferry across the channel. They had managed to stay on the run for eight days before French police caught up with them. The teacher had handed his CV in at a bar, in a bid to get work. He had his photograph on the CV, and the bar-worker had recognised him as the teacher from England who had abducted one of his pupils.

  The package made interesting viewing, and served as a five-minute break from regurgitating the very basic headline of the breaking news story in Manchester.

  For the press, the next part of the story couldn’t come quickly enough, and calls were being made non-stop to the police’s press office, trying to gather new details, and crucially, to find out if DCI Miller had announced the time of his press conference yet.

  The answer to both questions was no and no.

  Chapter Nine

  Mike Jenkins lit a cigarette and stared down at his bare feet. Miller and Rudovsky waited for him to speak. It seemed to take an age, but it proved to be worth the wait.

  “Alright, I’ve not been a hundred per cent with yous, right?”

  The detectives nodded as he looked up at them.

  “That Mr Pollard, he came round here last Thursday morning. Banging on the fucking door, waking me up.”

  “What time was this?” asked Rudovsky.

  “About half-ten. I was fuming mate, I’m not gonna lie. So I went down, and I never realised it before, but this Mr Pollard who’s always sending me letters and text messages about our Darren… he used to be my teacher! Can you believe that?”

  “Did you go to Astley?” asked Miller.

  “Yeah, yeah, course I did.”

  “Well he’s worked there for over thirty years, so it makes sense.”

  “So, it’s like, I didn’t know that this prick was the one who was giving our Darren a hard time. He made my life a fucking misery at school. And then here he is, stood at my door, bold as brass, getting in my face.”

  “When you say getting in your face Mr Jenkins, what exactly do you mean by that?”

  “You know, he’s right up in my grill, he’s saying ‘where’s Darren, has he come back here’ and all this shit.”

  Jenkins took a long, hard draw on his cigarette and exhaled a huge plume of smoke into the middle of the room.

  “Anyway, I said to him, ‘you don’t remember me, do you?’ and he goes all weird on me. So, I said ‘Michael Jenkins, Sir’ to him, and his face was a fucking picture.”

  “What happened?” asked Miller.

  “He went all confused like, like he couldn’t believe that it was me. Like I say, he was a bastard to me when I was a kid. And here he was, face to face with me, now I’m a grown man.”

  “Have you never seen him at parents evening or anything?” asked Rudovsky, stunned that this man had no idea who his son’s teacher was, and similarly, that the teacher had no idea who’s son he was teaching.

  “Nah, you’re joking me aren’t you? I ain’t going to no school, listening to teachers telling me what a dick our Darren is. I know full well, I live with the bastard!”

  “Don’t they complain that you don’t go?”

  Jenkins shrugged. “Darren’s mam used to go. But it’s not my cup of tea at all.”

  “What happened with Mr Pollard?” Miller wanted to get back to the point.

  “Well basically, I told him to fuck off, or I would be putting him to sleep.”

  “And did he?”

  “Well yeah, obviously. Or I’d have punched his teeth so far down his throat he’d need to stick a toothbrush up his arse to brush them.” Jenkins grinned at his hard-man talk, but Miller and Rudovsky weren’t interested in his bullshit. The questions continued.

  “So, he just went?”

  “Yeah, that was it, end of chat.”

  “But, he was here for the sole purpose of looking for Darren? Your child?” Rudovsky wasn’t keeping up with this man’s sense of reason.

  “Yeah, and Darren wasn’t here, so I fucked him off.”

  “Is it possible that Darren had been here? I mean, you were asleep. You might not have heard him come back from the school?” suggested Miller.

  “Possible I suppose, but I didn’t see him after Pollard had gone.”

  “Did Mr Pollard have any nicknames when you were at school?”

  “Yes, what was it they called him, Bollard, no, Well’ard, that was it. But he wasn’t very well hard when I sent him on his merry way. Fucking nasty old cunt.”

  “Sorry, I’m getting a bit lost here Mr Jenkins. Were you off work last week as well?”

  “Yeah, like I said, I’m off.”

  “How long for, may I ask?”

  “What for?”

  “I’m just curious. If you’d been at work, you wouldn’t have known if Darren had been back. But as you were at home, there’s a good chance that Darren would have known that, and avoided coming back here.”

  “Nah, he couldn’t have known. I was only susp… I only started taking the time off the day before. And I didn’t tell him.”

  “What have you been suspended for?” asked Rudovsky, as sharp as a razorblade, picking up on Jenkin’s slip-of-the-tongue.

  “What… I…”

  “Come on Mr Jenkins, it’s not a big deal…” said Miller.

  “It’s a load of bollocks. Someone blocked the loo up at work with paper towels or summat, and I’ve been blamed, same as always. Not complaining though, full pay, no work, and they can’t prove nothing. Happy days.”

  Rudovsky was staring at this man, wondering if he was a full shilling. She wasn’t happy with the shit that was coming out of his mouth, and there was no way she could explain that to Miller while he w
as sat there. Nothing that Jenkins was saying stacked up. None of it.

  “So, sorry to go over this again, but I’m trying to make it clear in my head. Mr Pollard went, and you didn’t hear from him again?” asked Miller.

  “Nah mate, he’s not that brave. He’s alright picking on little kids in the playground, but he’s a shit-house in the main arena, got no back-bone when he’s faced with a true competitor.”

  Rudovsky looked down at her lap. This guy was a joke, and he really made her cringe.

  Miller blew out a gust of air. He was becoming increasingly confused by this peculiar man’s view of the world.

  “Excuse me, is it alright if I use your bathroom?” asked Rudovsky, nice-as-pie.

  “Yeah, yeah, leave 10p on the cistern though…” said Jenkins with a wide smile which exposed his pearly-yellows. What a twat, thought Rudovsky.

  “Thanks a lot. Won’t be a minute.”

  “Upstairs, middle door.”

  As Rudovsky walked up the stairs, she had her phone out of her pocket and was scrolling through to her text messages. As she closed the toilet door, she began typing furiously into her device.

  “Sir, this guy needs to come in. Reason after reason to suspect that he’s responsible for Pollard’s and Darren’s disappearance. Thoughts?” She pressed send and had a look around the bathroom. There was evidence of a male-only household all around the tiny, musty space. The cardboard tubes of a dozen used toilet rolls littered the filthy floor. The tiny bin was over-flowing with empty shampoo and shower-gel bottles. The toilet hadn’t seen a skid-brush in years and there was no soap to wash one’s hands.

  “Glad I don’t really need to go…” said Rudovsky under her breath, desperately fighting the overwhelming urge to scrub the tide mark off the bath and throw some bleach down the loo.

  Downstairs, Miller took his phone out of his pocket very discreetly. He’d felt the vibration of a text-message, and knew it was from Rudovsky. She never used other people’s toilets, so he’d been expecting it from the moment she’d asked to use the facilities. He quickly typed his reply after asking Jenkins how long he’d lived here.