Detective Mike Croft Series Box Set

by Jane Adams

  To Eric it was inconceivable that justice — his total, absolutist, unswervable view of justice — would not in the end prevail.

  And if God needed a little help along the way? If there were those who chose to ignore what was right? Then Eric had shown himself more than ready to be the one acting as intermediary.

  Eric didn’t hear the voice of God in his head. If someone had suggested such a thing he would have been outraged. The hearing of voices was something endured by the mad, the insane. By those poor misguided souls who needed help and comfort. Needed locking away somewhere safe and peaceful, out of sight and sound of the rest of humanity.

  No, Eric didn’t need to hear the word of God. He knew His wishes. Knew them; felt them deep within himself.

  Eric knew that his actions had brought pain to his family. Lost him friends, his home, even the work as a teacher that he had truly loved. But it didn’t matter.

  All of that would soon be over. It just needed one more push. One more try. And when Eric Pearson’s story had been told, when the corruption amongst the powerful had been revealed, and when it was publicly known what Eric and his family had been through to get their story told, then everything would all be right. Then Johanna and the children would be happy and they could go home once more. The Children of Solomon would be proud to welcome them back once again. There would be no more nightmares. No having to comfort the little ones when they woke with bad dreams. No blame from Johanna.

  They would have the old days back again.

  Eric went through the swing doors of the public library. His bag was almost empty now. He’d lost count of the number of places he had gone to that afternoon, leaving little stacks of paper; extracts from Blake’s journal and copies of his own Deposition at the town hall, two of the branch libraries, book shops, cafes, anywhere he could think of where people might gather.

  He glanced swiftly about him in the library. The counter staff were busy, customers lining up to have their books checked in or out. A couple more people pushed heavy trolleys stacked with books between the shelves.

  Where would be the best place?

  Looking around again he saw a table, close to the check-out desk and covered in leaflets.

  He walked over to it, diving his hand into his bag and pulling out a thick sheaf of paper.

  Briefly, he scanned the leaflets on the table. Night school courses, ‘know your rights’ advice for the unemployed. Adverts for local concerts and events.

  With a sweep of his hand, Eric cleared himself a space right in the centre of the table. He placed his own sheaf of papers between a stack of roughly photocopied sheets advertising a Scouts’ ‘summer fayre’ and neatly folded orange sheets issued by the local tourist information office.

  He laughed softly to himself as he carefully placed a smaller stack of paper next to the first. His ‘Deposition’.

  It was a good choice, he thought, sitting his words next to adverts for local tourist attractions. Very soon it would be Portland Close that would draw the visitors. A tourist site. A centre of interest for anyone concerned with truth and justice.

  Eric allowed himself the pleasure of visualizing the journalists, the newsmen, the civil rights agitators who would soon be beating a path to his door. He smiled broadly, nodding happily to himself. ‘That’ll show them,’ he said aloud. Yes, that will show them all.

  As he left the building, still unobserved by the counter staff, busy dealing with the line of customers trying to beat early closing time, Eric’s only regret was that it was Saturday. That even though his letters would have caught the post, already be in the system, already unstoppable, no one would read them until the Monday morning.

  He sighed, a little let down by the thought. That almost certainly meant an evening and an entire day of waiting before the action really began. Unless, of course, someone picked up one of his hand-delivered messages and acted on it sooner.

  That thought had him smiling again. Eric felt light of heart and satisfied with a day’s work well done.

  He set off for home, stopping on the way only to buy a reel of tape from a stationer’s. He still had about a half-dozen copies of his Deposition left. He could go out, late tonight, tape them up at the local shops and at the bus stops along the main road. Maybe even to the door of the local police station. The thought amused him so much that Eric Pearson laughed out loud. They would listen to him this time. Eric would take pleasure in making certain of that.

  * * *

  It was around dusk before the body at the farm house was removed, lifted carefully along with the adhering mud on to a white sheet then wrapped in a body bag and carried away.

  Digging had begun in the second area, slow and precise under the harsh false daylight of the dragon lamps.

  Chapter Thirty

  Saturday evening

  Jaques had decided that he didn’t want to go home. Home was a comfortable place where his wife, a pretty woman to whom he had been married fifteen years, would be waiting for him. A place that held all the things that mattered but which, right now, was the last place he felt able to go.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want, desperately, to be there. Rather that he couldn’t face his wife’s questions. Her concern if she realized something was wrong. Her desire to help him.

  He tidied his desk carefully, placing papers in neat, orderly stacks. Pens and pencils in the side drawer. Telephone, calculator and plastic stationery trays placed just so, parallel to the edge of the desk. He slipped a long brown envelope into his pocket and switched off his office light for what he knew would be the last time. Then he left the police station, pausing for a moment in the front office as though to check the day book.

  Outside it was raining. Just a light drizzle, enough to mist the windows of his car and make the roads feel greasy and insecure. Jaques drove, heading without thought from the centre of town to the rundown streets and derelict warehouses that backed on to the canal. Almost before he noticed where he was he had stopped in front of the terraced house where Ryan had died. Jaques got out and stood motionless, facing the boarded windows and the blank front door.

  Further down the street, lights glowed from behind drawn curtains and faint sounds reached him of overloud music. This end of the street, though — this end was scheduled for demolition. The row was boarded and deserted and the bend in the road made it hard for anyone further down to see who went into the house and who never came back out. It had been perfect, Jaques thought. So close to ordinary people and their boring, ordinary little lives and yet set apart just enough to be almost invisible.

  He turned abruptly and walked back down the street towards the canal. He stood on the bridge, staring down at the dark water below. At water clogged with weed and the random supply of rubbish people dumped there and which sank into the thick, cloying depth of mud and clay at the bottom.

  Rather like that damned well, he thought. Vaguely, he wondered what it would be like to drown.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Saturday evening

  ‘And will she get over it?’ Mike asked. ‘Really get over it, I mean. Or will there always be things bringing the memory back to her?’ He paused thoughtfully. He had told Maria about Ellie’s visit and about what had spurred her into telling him about her father.

  ‘We can’t wipe out our own memories,’ Maria told him softly. ‘We can bury them, think the pain of them is gone for ever. Even shove them into a mental hole so deep we’re not even aware that they were there in the first place, at least not on a conscious level. But, no. I don’t believe we can ever really get rid of them.’

  Mike looked doubtful. He felt very tired now, and, welcome as Maria’s company was, he knew that what he really wanted was to go to sleep.

  It was as though the events of the last couple of days since his accident had finally caught up with him. He knew that he’d been trying very hard to make a good showing. Not to let on that not only was he physically very uncomfortable, but mentally he was deeply shaken.
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br />   Here he was, lying in a hospital bed with broken bones and a headache that still wouldn’t completely say goodbye, growing more and more aware that he had been profoundly lucky.

  Images of his own mortality kept impinging on his consciousness and he felt, at times, absurdly close to tears. Angry with himself, he tried to drive all the negative and frightening thoughts from his mind and to concentrate on Maria.

  ‘I think she’s doing a remarkably good job of getting her life together,’ Maria told him. ‘She isn’t blocking her feelings or trying to hide them away somewhere. She’s actually trying to do something with them.’

  ‘And that’s good?’ Mike asked. Then, ‘Yes, I suppose it is, isn’t it?’

  ‘You look very tired,’ she said.

  ‘I am.’ He swallowed spasmodically, feeling the tears threatening again. He looked for distraction. ‘And you,’ he asked, ‘have you had to deal with many cases like Ellie’s?’

  Maria continued to look thoughtfully at him. ‘A few,’ she said. ‘Not quite like Ellie Masouk. I’ve had women referred to me by rape crisis centres and social services. A few men too.’ She laughed at Mike’s look of surprise. ‘But I’ve only ever dealt with adult survivors, not with kids. That’s just not my field.’

  She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the side of the bed and speaking quietly. ‘You’ve got to remember, Mike. You can’t see this as a sex thing. It’s about power, just the same way as most rapes and sexual assaults are about power. And it’s often not the sex part that does the damage.’

  He frowned at that, his look sharp. ‘You can’t condone that kind of thing, surely. I mean, having sex with kids is wrong. No one can argue with that.’

  Maria laughed softly again, refusing to be intimidated by his tone. ‘Taking something by force is wrong. Dominating and demeaning the rights of another human being is wrong. Mike, I’ve had a woman come to me severely traumatized because her father locked her in a dark cupboard whenever she was naughty. Can you imagine that? A two year old, shut away in a dark place she couldn’t get out of. Knowing that however much she cried or screamed or hammered on the door she wouldn’t be let out until her father thought she’d been punished enough. Someone who was supposed to love her and protect her, betraying every ounce of trust she put in him.’

  She sighed and shook her head, slowly. ‘However you look at it, Mike, it’s the power game that’s wrong; not just how it’s expressed. Not just the fact that it’s sex or violence or any other permutation.’

  ‘But,’ Mike said stubbornly, ‘you can’t think that sex with under-age kids can ever be right.’

  ‘Under what age?’ Maria challenged. ‘Under sixteen, under fourteen? Under twenty-one? Mike, I’m not trying to play devil’s advocate here, but the idea of what age is right for sex is largely a cultural thing.’

  She glanced across at him, noting his stony expression. ‘In other parts of the world girls are married at fourteen or even younger.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think that’s right either,’ he declared irritably.

  Maria shrugged. ‘Maybe not,’ she said, ‘and I’ll go as far as saying that the thought of an adult having a sexual relationship with a young child appals me.’ She grinned. ‘Very unprofessional, I know.’

  Mike allowed himself a half-smile.

  ‘But there are so many borderline cases, where it’s hard to know what’s right. You can’t deny that kids have sexual feelings. That they explore what makes them feel good maybe long before they even know what to call it.’ She grinned. ‘I’ll bet when you were six or seven, you got told off for playing with yourself!’

  ‘I did not!’ he declared, his anger so out of proportion to the statement that Maria laughed affectionately.

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Of course not.’ Then, ‘Mike, I’m not suggesting you had any notion that what you were doing — OK, what little boys that age tend to do is consciously sexual. But the beginnings of awareness are there and by the time kids reach adolescence . . .’

  Mike was glaring again, clearly very uncomfortable with the whole track of the conversation.

  * * *

  Chief Superintendent Charles dumped the bundle of papers on the desk and glanced up as Price walked through the door carrying yet more. Fragments of Blake’s journal, so carefully assembled and photocopied by Eric Pearson were spread across the desk and spilled on to the floor.

  ‘These were in the Central Library, sir,’ Price said, putting his bundle on top of the rest. ‘The librarian dropped them off at her local nick on her way home.’

  Charles sighed. ‘So that’s five locations so far,’ he said. ‘Busy little boy our Mr Pearson’s been.’

  He pulled out a copy of Eric’s Deposition from the middle of the stack and read it through again.

  ‘You think we should have men stationed on Portland?’ Price asked.

  Charles frowned and shook his head. ‘Can’t spare the men,’ he said shortly, ‘but you’d better increase the patrols and I want any calls from there graded one.’ He sat down at the desk and motioned Price to do the same. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if we can put this thing together, find out what all the fuss is about.’

  Price sighed deeply and sat down. Even as a kid he’d hated jigsaw puzzles.

  * * *

  ‘Did I ever tell you about Sophie?’ Maria asked him.

  ‘No, who’s she?’

  Maria sat back and crossed her legs, allowing Mike a tantalizing view of smooth thigh. ‘Sophie was a woman we inherited at Oaklands, when it became part of the community programme. She’d been there for years. Oaklands was one of the old-fashioned asylums and by the time our lot took over she just didn’t know how to survive anywhere else.’

  ‘Is she still there?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Oh yes. We sorted out her benefits for her and managed to fiddle things so she does little jobs in the kitchen and the garden.’ She shook her head, sadly. ‘She’s not stupid, Mike. One time, she might even have been a bright kid, but sixty years of being an inmate in the old Oaklands probably didn’t do a lot for stimulating her mind. But she’s all there when it comes to remembering why she ended up in the nut house.’

  Mike laughed and Maria smiled back at him. ‘Why was she there?’ he asked.

  ‘Sophie was shut away because society, in its infinite wisdom, saw her as a moral defective.’

  ‘A moral what? I mean, why?’

  ‘She got pregnant,’ Maria told him. ‘At fifteen years old and by a man almost twice her age.’

  Mike frowned at her. ‘I’m not sure I—’

  ‘Sophie was in love with him. Whatever we might think about the morals of the man, who was married, it turns out, and didn’t want to know when she found herself in trouble, Sophie loved him. She’d been having sex with him for the best part of a year before she was caught out and, from what she tells me, enjoyed every minute of it. She wasn’t coerced of threatened, Mike, she was in love.’

  ‘With a man twice her age who probably knew every trick in the book. What chance would a kid like that have to say no? What could she possibly understand about it?’

  ‘She didn’t want to say no, Mike. I asked her that. I tried to put pressure on her to admit that this man had persuaded her in some way, that she was in denial. But I don’t think she was. Would you have been so shocked if the lover had been a kid her own age?’

  Mike glared at her. ‘It isn’t right,’ he said. ‘It isn’t decent.’

  ‘Says who?’ Maria challenged him. ‘You can’t condemn kids for having feelings they might not be mature enough to understand or deal with. You can only blame the people who take advantage.’

  ‘I’m not easy with any of it,’ Mike confessed. All this talk of children, of sexual feelings in those he thought of as too young to even have a right to know about such things made him deeply uncomfortable, though Maria was right. If this Sophie had a relationship with another teen, he’d probably have felt very differently and he could have nothing but sy
mpathy, anyway, for the girl, shut away as Sophie had been.

  He thought of Stevie, his own son. Of the crush Stevie had had on the teenage girl who lived next door. Stevie had been only ten years old at the time, the girl a pretty blonde of seventeen. She only had to look at the boy and smile to have him blushing and stammering, hardly able to say a word to her.

  They had laughed about it at the time, he and Maggie, but what was going on in Stevie’s head? Were they sexual feelings he’d had? Mike sighed. Innocent as Stevie’s feelings had been, well, yes, he supposed they were. But that didn’t mean Mike had to be comfortable with it.

  He scowled angrily at Maria again, his thoughts still with Stevie.

  Stevie had died in a hit and run accident. It would have been kind of ironic, wouldn’t it, if he, Mike, had been killed the same way.

  He could feel the tears threatening again. Tears for Stevie and all the lost promise that his death represented, and for himself. Tears of pure fear and shock. Mike swallowed hard, determined not to show what he could not help but see as weakness.

  He was uncomfortably aware that Maria was watching him closely, noticing every passing emotion, every fear and every part of his relief. He cleared his throat, making a show of coughing and changing his position in the bed. His ribs hurt him abominably and he felt so desperately tired.

  ‘Price brought in the results of the ESDA test,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’ Maria accepted his change of subject without a blink. ‘Does it tell you anything?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a list of names and dates. MISPAS — you know, missing persons.’

  Maria nodded. She’d got used to the jargon.

  ‘It could mean anything or nothing,’ Mike went on. ‘Fletcher could have compiled the list from what he knew or he could have got the names from news reports, I suppose.’

  He was too tired to think straight. The fact was, he thought nothing of the sort. Fletcher had compiled that list from knowledge.