by Jane Adams
* * *
Charlie Morrow had come back from the morning’s physio and logged on again. He’d spent several hours so far sitting on the side and monitoring various of the user groups that Macey had directed him to. The thing that had struck him most was the banality of it all. The ‘public rooms’, to which he had easiest access, were places to exchange gossip; to shock the unwary and enjoy the mild frisson of discussing sexual practices, both regular and somewhat dubious, with the illusion of complete freedom.
Talk had turned to Jake from time to time. The filmmaker was something of a legend, even though, on closer inquiry, it turned out that no one in the public rooms could honestly say they had seen one of his films. They were, in the main, collectors’ items, expensive and exclusive.
Jake Bowen had started out in soft porn and his early work was being re-released now that he’d hit the headlines. ‘He’s an artist,’ someone said, implying that artists were allowed to cross the line between good and bad taste; explore the difference between life and death and the full range of sexual experience.
Charlie doubted any of them really knew what they were talking about. Jake was not some esoteric filmmaker; exploring the links between a good fuck and a fear of dying. He realized quickly that of all those he encountered in the user groups, he was likely to be the only one who had actually seen one of Jake Bowen’s special editions.
The beautifully shot and cruelly erotic images still lived in his mind and haunted his dreams.
He wondered if Jake would contact him; if Jake would be as curious about Charlie Morrow as Charlie was about Jake and, if he was, how he would choose to make contact. He decided to make another opening for Jake, just in case.
He picked at random a half-dozen of the sites and left a message on each, varying the suggested meeting time by five minutes.
The message read: ‘Meet me at eleven p.m. Regards, Charlie.’
* * *
Maria phoned Mike just after two o’clock. She was using a public phone and he called her back.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
‘Pleased to be out. Someone had to shop.’
‘You’ve seen the papers today?’
‘I’ve seen the journalists. Most of them are camped outside Jo’s front door. I went out over the wall and through a neighbour’s garden. I think Jo’s about to cave in and agree to move out for a few days.’
‘Where will she go? Will you go with her?’
‘We’ve relatives in Kent, that seems favourite at the moment, but no, I don’t think I’ll be going. I have to get back to Oaklands.’
‘Not to work, surely?’
‘Not with patients, no. I’ve off-loaded my urgent cases as best I can but there’s always something to do. I’ve a backlog of paperwork like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘At least I’ll be able to talk to you there.’
‘There is that.’ She paused. She’d been giving things a lot of thought, particularly Alastair Bowen. ‘How are you getting along with the father?’
Alastair was across the other side of the room, talking to another officer. ‘Slowly,’ Mike said. ‘He’s got a lot to tell, but it’s hard work.’
Maria took a deep breath. ‘You think he’ll talk to me?’
‘To you? I don’t know. I don’t know if Peterson would even agree.’
‘Suppose he did, would Alastair?’
‘He hates shrinks, won’t have anything to do with ours. We were hoping he’d work with the forensic psychologists, but he won’t even entertain the idea.’
‘Can’t you force him?’
‘How? Torture went out with the Inquisition.’
‘Very funny. Look, can’t you at least ask him? Not as a shrink but because of Essie. You say he came forward because he heard about Essie?’
‘So he claims. Look, frankly I take everything he says with a large pinch of salt.’
He thought about it for a moment, watching Alastair from across the room. Maria might be able to get through in a way that he could not.
‘I’ll talk to him,’ he said. ‘That’s all I can promise.’
* * *
Alastair Bowen was not at first amenable to Mike’s request.
‘She’s not asking as a psychiatrist,’ Mike said, ‘but simply because of Essie.’
‘I didn’t think personal involvement was allowed.’
Mike sighed. ‘You’re involved,’ he pointed out.
‘Hardly the same thing though, is it?’
He fell silent then and Mike decided to wait him out. He went to fetch coffee for them both from the machine in the front office. On his return Alastair began to speak.
‘I took Jake to see a counsellor,’ he said. ‘We paid for it. I thought I should at least give him a chance.’
‘What made you think he needed help?’ he asked.
Alastair frowned. ‘His mother thought there was something wrong,’ he said. He sipped his coffee slowly, pausing to stare into the polystyrene cup as though it might give him inspiration. ‘Jake was always a bit of a loner, I suppose. Didn’t play with other kids unless you forced him to. He was always different. I knew it would only be a matter of time before his mother realized something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t tell her what it was. Not what it really was.’
Mike made no comment, not certain he wanted to provoke another of Alastair’s statements that Jake had been born the way he was.
Alastair was not to be put off by a little silence.
‘I know you don’t believe me, Inspector Croft,’ he said, ‘but you had to be there to understand. See what Jake did to people, to . . . animals. To his toys even. You had to be there to understand, and in the end it was obvious to me. I hadn’t been imagining things. That look was there right from the time that Jake was born. That look of pure evil, wrapped up in charm.’
‘Perhaps,’ Mike ventured, ‘hearing you say it so often . . .’
‘Made him that way? No, I’ve told you before. I did my best for the boy, tried all I knew to save him, but none of it would work. Then he kept getting into fights at school and the teachers started poking around about how he was at home — was he happy? Was he having problems? — and his mother decided maybe they were right. The loving little boy she’d always convinced herself he was, was showing his true colours and she didn’t know what to do.’
‘How old was Jake?’ Mike asked.
‘Just turned thirteen,’ Alastair said.
Mike waited, to see if Alastair was about to find significance in the age, but he made no comment on it. Instead, he went on, ‘You can imagine, we kept it pretty quiet. I mean, the background we came from, no one “went into therapy” or whatever the jargon is today. They’d have laughed themselves stupid, those neighbours of ours. But I did it for my wife and she did it for Jake. It was this young woman, the therapist. Fresh out of college from the look of her. Green as grass. She was no match for Jake. He refused to cooperate for weeks, and I was all set to give up, but his mother reckoned he was getting in less trouble at school and it must be working. So we carried on. He didn’t talk to her, not for all that time, then, suddenly, he poured out his soul to the stupid woman. Talking about all the abuse and cruelty he’d suffered. Blamed me for everything.’
‘You admitted to having beaten him,’ Mike said quietly.
Alastair’s eyes flashed with a sudden anger. ‘And I make no apology for it,’ he said.
‘She called in the social worker. Got the police involved. We managed to keep it quiet, but it almost got to the courts. Then two days before we were due to appear, he laughed in her face and told her it was all lies. Told her how much of a fool she was.’
‘And she believed him?’ Mike asked.
Alastair shrugged. ‘The police carried on poking around for a while, but then the case was dropped. It was only his word and he’d gone back on that.’
‘But there was some truth in what he’d said,’ Mike persisted. ‘Did you make him retract his statement?’ Alastair Bow
en refused to reply, fixing Mike with an icy stare.
Mike leaned across the table towards him. ‘Talk to Maria,’ he said, hating the desperation he could not keep out of his voice. ‘Talk to her about Jake. How it all began. Anything you might know that will help us to save Essie.’ Memories of the time he’d spent with them, at Lyme and on other family occasions, flooded back. Mike pushed himself away from the table, got up and walked over to the window, staring blindly at the bright, sunlit world outside.
‘She’s probably already dead,’ Alastair said softly, ‘you know that, don’t you?’
Mike turned angrily and crossed back to where Alastair was still seated, all pretence at professional calm gone.
‘And that’s what I’m supposed to tell the family?’ he said. ‘Is that all you have to say? I’m not going to give up, none of us are. You want us to write this off and wait around till there are other Essies? Other Julia Normans? Other children? I know what it is to lose a child, Alastair.’
‘So do I, Inspector Croft,’ Alastair said heavily. He sat forward with his head in his hands. ‘So do I.’
* * *
Jake had decided that the focus of his attention from now on should be Mike Croft, as he was the one most in contact with Alastair. He needed to find a way of getting Alastair alone and Inspector Croft looked most likely to be the one to show him how.
He went down to the basement, gave Essie milk and washed her, changing the wet towels she was lying on. He sat for a while watching the child. She moved restlessly in her sleep, her flickering eyes telling him that she dreamed.
Jake pulled the child to him and held her in his arms, cradling her gently. Her skin was so very, very soft and he had washed her with perfumed soap, the scent clinging to her as he brought his head close.
‘Does your mummy love you, little girl? Does she play with you and cuddle you and tell you how special you are?’ He smiled suddenly. ‘I know your auntie does,’ he told her. ‘And your Uncle Mike.’
Chapter Eighteen
29 June
Saturday arrived with unexpected rain. It was just over a week since Julia’s body had been found and a week exactly since Mike had met with Maria and Essie at Lyme. He’d returned to the woods above Colwell Barton, the murder site still cordoned off and the entrance to that part of the woods barred.
The trees grew thickly enough to shelter him from the worst of the rain and the rhythmic beating of it falling on the canopy of leaves was soothing.
He’d gone into the office early to catch up with some of the reports he’d not had time to read and would not have time to look at later. Most of his day about to be taken up with the return match between Max Harriman and Alastair Bowen.
They’d had a more complete set of toxicology results on Julia Norman’s body. They confirmed the high level of amphetamine that early results had suggested and also a residual amount of barbiturates. The guess was that Julia had been kept sedated for quite some time, then pumped full of uppers, enough to compensate for the weakness brought on by blood loss. She’d have been high enough to fly when Jake brought her to the woods, then at some point she’d been hit from behind, just beside the left ear, hard enough to put her down. Then Jake had finished the killing of Julia Norman.
The blood loss had been a difficult thing to account for. Had she lost too much at once, the experts said, the body would have gone into shock and she might well have died sooner. Jake must have taken things slowly, Mike thought; watched Julia dying over many days before bringing her here. It was that element of calculation that he found so sickening.
He stood just outside the inner cordon surrounding the small altar on which Julia had lain. The flowers were completely withered and many had gone. Despite the officer on guard on the main path, souvenir hunters had been here, finding their way into the woods from across the fields, taking the flowers.
Yet other people had come into the woods to lay wreathes or light candles, as Jake himself had done.
There was no stopping them, short of increasing the guard, and with manpower stretched to breaking point on the rest of the inquiry that was impossible.
Mike glanced at his watch. He would have to collect Alastair soon. It was so still and silent here in this part of the woods: only the sound of falling rain and the occasional fizz as heavier drops forced their way through and hit the dust on the forest floor. It was not a comfortable place to be.
Mike glanced around. The creeping feeling between his shoulder blades, as though someone was watching him from the shadows, refused to go away. Jake had observed Macey in the woods that day; watched him and captured his reaction on film. Mike wondered how many times he himself had been the subject of similar Jake Bowen attention.
He turned away and scrambled over the fallen trees, climbing back towards the path.
After his talk with Alastair the day before, he’d sent for whatever records had been kept from when Jake had been thirteen and ready to accuse his father. Mike was not sure what to make of all that. Alastair was clearly convinced that his son was evil incarnate, but what had come first? Had Jake given Alastair cause for doubt right from babyhood — something Mike, remembering the adoration he had felt for his own baby son, found hard to believe. Or was it that Jake’s actions had so impressed themselves upon his father’s memories that Alastair could simply not remember the time before.
He must speak to Charlie Morrow later, he reminded himself. The Crimewatch special on the Jake Bowen case was scheduled for Tuesday and, following the recent media publicity, Charlie had agreed to participate.
Mike tried to visualize the manpower tied up with this investigation all over the country: hundreds of officers expending thousands of hours chasing one man whose imagination and sheer audacity had so far left everyone standing.
Reaching the path, Mike looked back down into the gully where Julia Norman had died.
Mike remembered Essie, her small body in his arms and plump little arms around his neck. He stood on the path, staring back at nothing, and wept.
* * *
This time Alastair Bowen had made a big effort to get through to Max. He’d sat opposite the other man, his hands idly playing with the cuttings books that lay on the table, and he’d begun to talk.
At first, Max had made a big show of not listening, but slowly Mike had seen him drawn into Alastair’s tale. It seemed to Mike that Jake’s father had gone to great lengths to dredge from his memory one of the few stories he could remember about Jake that had pleasure in it. And there had been a part for Max.
‘I can remember,’ Alastair said, ‘the winter fair when you and Jake were both about seven years old. Jake was just coming up for eight in the New Year, but you were that little bit younger; weren’t you, Max? A spring baby, where Jake was a winter child. I always thought that the winter fair marked the start of Christmas. Still almost a month to go, but there would be the smell of chestnuts in the air and the chill of that cold northerly that always seemed to blow across the valley. You both loved the fair, you and Jake. The noise and lights and all the fuss of unloading. You’d be out there, the pair of you, from the moment the first lorries arrived, getting in the way and hoping for a free ride when the men were setting up. You always reckoned you were going to run away one time when the fair came. One day, you’d say, the winter fair would leave town and take you with it.’
‘I did one time,’ Max said.
Alastair switched his gaze, focusing on Max. ‘I remember;’ he said. ‘Your mam was going frantic, blaming me, blaming Jake. It was three days till the police fetched you back.’
‘Should have let me be,’ Max said. ‘I’d have been all right.’
Slowly Alastair nodded. ‘I guess you would,’ he said. ‘You’d have been away from Jake.’
A look of anger crossed Max’s face and for a moment it seemed as though the rapport slowly being built up would fall apart, but Alastair pressed on.
‘We didn’t have a lot to spend. You’d both saved what bit of pocke
t money you’d got, saved for weeks, and I’d given you both a bit extra, I remember, but it was the deciding what to spend it on that took the time. Round that fair we went a dozen times, just taking it all in, till you and Jake decided which rides and which sideshows you’d go on.’ He shook his head, a smile curving the comers of his mouth and a softness in his eyes. ‘I don’t know why you took so long, though. It would always be the same thing, year after year, from the first time I took you and you were old enough for anything other than the baby rides.’
Max returned the smile, both men now locked into the memory. ‘The waltzers first,’ Max said. ‘Then the big wheel and the shooting gallery.’ He grinned at Alastair, ‘That was because you were good at it and Jake always wanted to go one better.’
‘It took him another five years even to come close,’ Alastair said, and there was pride in his voice, ‘but he never gave it up, even though I always told him it was fixed. That you had to compensate for bad setup and sights that weren’t aligned and all you stood to win anyway was some stupid soft toy.’
‘Jake never gave up on anything he started,’ Max said. ‘He always won in the end.’
‘The funny thing, though,’ Alastair said slowly, ‘whatever else happened, you always finished up with the same ride. Even when I’d have thought you’d grown too big.’
‘The carousel.’ Max laughed aloud. ‘It was magic, that thing. When we were little kids we’d sit up there on those painted horses and pretend that we could ride away for ever. I don’t think Jake ever stopped thinking like that. We always wanted to ride real horses, but you never had the money for lessons and neither did my mam.’ He laughed briefly. ‘Closest we got were the seaside ponies. Old nags that never did anything but walk up and down between the breakwaters. The carousel was better all round.’
From his corner of the visitors’ room Mike watched these two men, engrossed in their shared memories, with a kind of fascination. He didn’t know how much of this was truth or how much a deliberately rose-coloured fabrication, but it was encouraging to see the developing rapport. Was this the breakthrough they had hoped for? He was unprepared for Alastair’s sudden change of tack.
