Catch the Fallen Sparrow

by Priscilla Masters

  Those few words seemed to penetrate the entire room deeper than all the forensic evidence that had been spread in front of them – all the photographs ... The officers sat motionless, stopped writing, stopped whispering, stopped looking at one another. They stared at the floor. This brought Dean to the level of their own children – birthdays, Christmas Eve ... Santa Claus ... presents. Someone cleared his throat noisily. A pall hung over the room.

  ‘The burns were done by a boy in the home. Surprise, surprise, when he left the home he joined the army as a boy soldier. Three guesses as to his name.’

  She turned to the board, pointed out Gary Swinton. ‘Coincidence?’ she said. ‘One hell of a coincidence. And we still don’t know who put the little bunch of flowers beside the body. Someone put them there. Murderers don’t usually make little bouquets of flowers to put by their victims, do they? So who was it?’

  There was a short silence. Then someone spoke. ‘What about the shoes, ma’am?’

  Joanna nodded. ‘Thanks to PC Farthing we think we have a lead on the shoes. The owner of the sports shop has denied knowing Dean, but from his books it seems probable that a pair of Reeboks answering the description and sizing are missing from his stock. Two things here. Dean might have stolen them. Mark Riversdale, warden at the – home, has admitted Dean was not above some shoplifting. He could have stolen them.

  They were in a wire basket outside the shop. Alternatively, Dean could have been given them by someone else. Certainly someone was in the habit of looking after this young lad on frequent occasions. Please remember the sports shop sells its shoes laced parallel. Dean’s were laced criss-crossed. They were newish shoes. Someone – possibly Dean – threaded the laces again. Also – and I don’t want you to start reading too much into this – Keith Latos, the man who owns the sports shop, has a record for soliciting young boys. He is a known paedophile.’

  ‘Why don’t you bloody arrest the pervert now?’ The voice came from the back, from a young DC – Greg Stanway.

  ‘Prove it, can you?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘but you might search his premises before he gets rid of anything.’

  ‘We haven’t got the evidence to get a warrant,’ Joanna said, appalled. ‘God,’ she appealed to the room, ‘is this how far the force has gone – genetic coding, 1995 ... For God’s sake, this isn’t good enough. We don’t nab the nearest gay and bung him in the cells for murder ... The CPS expect a case.’

  ‘And if we can’t get one?’ The voice from the back was persistent. ‘He gets off scot and does another kid in?’

  ‘He gets off “scot” if we don’t have enough to convict him,’ Joanna said.

  ‘So he’s your top suspect?’

  ‘Not yet, no.’ She gave a quick, helpless glance at Mike.

  ‘Forensic evidence,’ he prompted.

  ‘Forensic evidence shows that Dean was murdered elsewhere. His body was moved after death. The pattern of lividity proves that his body lay on its side for a number of hours then he was laid on his back on the moor before being set alight. By the way, the propellant used was petrol. Unfortunately, not much of a clue but remember it. Gallon containers, I know, are common but one was certainly used to pour petrol over Dean’s clothes ...’ She glanced at the picture of the small white body lying motionless on the mortuary slab. ‘The shoes were clean. Luckily no petrol splashed on the shoes – otherwise they would certainly have been destroyed, and with them a valuable piece of evidence. It was quite windy early on that morning. We think the murderer stood to the side of the body, to the west, the wind behind him – which is why most of the petrol was blown on to the surrounding grass. Forensics did uncover a few fibres of a dark red wool from his sweatshirt. They could be carpet fibres. Possibly from a car boot. He had to be transported to the moors somehow. But the fibres could be from clothing or even upholstery or a rug.’

  She blinked. ‘Incidentally, the shoes were the wrong size. Dean’s feet were fives. The Reeboks size sevens. If he did steal them he stole the wrong size. We think the jeans weren’t his either. They were Jason’s.’

  ‘Please bear in mind,’ she said quietly, ‘this boy was the victim of repeated abuse. In all our enquiries I want you to remember this. Someone – probably someone close to the boy – was molesting him. I want you to be aware of this fact. Unfortunately, it might not even have always been the same person. Different people might have been the perpetrators at different periods in the boy’s life. Also it would be an erroneous assumption to make the killer and the molester one and the same person. According to forensics, Dean had not been touched for a long period – a number of months, possibly up to a year. For some reason the abuse had stopped. Now whether Dean was getting older, objected, and this led to his killing – or whether we are talking about two different people remains to be seen. In other words don’t rule out anyone because they aren’t a known homosexual with a tendency to young boys. It could lose us the killer.’ She glanced at Greg Stanway. ‘And don’t just home in on all the people who have a record for sexual crime. Keep your minds as well as your eyes open.’

  A few of the uniformed boys at the rear of the room moved uncomfortably. Joanna stopped talking for a moment. Something was pricking the back of her mind. Keithy Latos ... It was a phrase he had used. He had a regular friend now. Perhaps he hadn’t needed a small boy any more. Perhaps the boy had become an embarrassment. She glanced at Mike and decided she would talk to him later. For now she should continue with the briefing.

  ‘Have we got a lead on a car yet?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘There were no tyre tracks at the nearest point to where Dean’s body was found. The road behind the Winking Man, however, is much quieter. The car would not necessarily have had to pull off the road to dump the body. I rather think this was the route the killer took. But as yet the inch-by-inch boys have not found anything to support this theory.’ She made a face. ‘It’s a very wide moor. We’re also a bit disappointed that there were no recent footprints by the body. The ground is soft but rather springy and we haven’t got much there.’

  ‘Now tell us about the ring, Phil.’

  Phil Scott stood up, faced the front. ‘It’s been difficult,’ he said. ‘The ring was reported stolen last December by the then MP Ashford Leech. He claimed, at the time, that the ring had been stolen after a house break-in. Between ourselves ...’ He looked round at the ring of faces. ‘Between ourselves,’ he repeated, ‘there wasn’t any sign of a break-in. It was all very fishy. There were a couple of things wrong. He claimed they’d got in through the bedroom window. But the window had been smashed while it was open. Fragments of glass were both inside the house and on the glass roof they would have had to have climbed to get in this way – while the back door was open.’ The atmosphere in the room was still.

  Scottie carried on. ‘The things that were taken in this rather strange burglary were very odd. A photograph album and this ring.’ He hesitated. ‘When there was a telly, a video – even money. Also there was a car parked right outside. You know how they hate company. So why go when there’s obviously someone in?’ Again he paused – for effect. ‘And lastly the alarm never went off. Funny, says my sarge to me. We did wonder if it was an insurance job – or something. But old Leech – he wasn’t that stupid. We all know burglars just grab the first thing that their greasy little fists close on. They don’t climb glass roofs, pass silver photo frames, leave the telly, the video, tiny antique miniatures that any old snark knows are worth a fortune and damned easy to turn into cash.

  ‘Lastly – and to my mind most suspicious – he rang up a couple of days later and said he didn’t want us to continue with the investigation.’

  Someone at the back cleared their throat. ‘And now his ring has been found on a dead boy. Perhaps we’d better speak to the Right Honourable Ashford Leech.’

  Phil Scott shook his head. ‘No can do,’ he said. ‘He’s dead.’

  The words had their effect. Each one of the ring of faces l
ooked puzzled now. But Phil Scott had one more card up his sleeve. ‘He died six months ago,’ he said. ‘Bronchopneumonia was on the death certificate. I’ve spoken to the coroner. He seemed young to die of pneumonia. The coroner told me confidentially that whatever appeared on the death certificate Ashford Leech died of Aids, or, to quote him, he died of an Aids-related disease.’

  The ripple that went round the room now was tangible as well as audible. In the force they had a hetero horror of HIV. Phil Scott sat down, his dramatic effect complete. Joanna sighed and knew this promised to be another murky case.

  When the briefing had broken up she spoke to Mike. ‘Did I handle this prejudice thing a bit roughly, Mike?’

  ‘Jo,’ he said, ‘give the lads a break. You know as well as I do it’s the way their minds are bound to work.’

  ‘It doesn’t solve crime though,’ she said.

  He looked at her quizzically. ‘Doesn’t it?’

  Maree O’Rourke, Dean’s social worker, was tiny with spiky hair, dressed in a very short skirt which revealed an expanse of plump, pale thigh as she crossed her legs. Her face was caked in thick, pale make-up, eyes black-lined in a Cleopatra look and hair unnaturally black. Her lips were carefully outlined in dark pencil and filled in with a deep coral lipstick.

  She linked her hands around her knee and looked mournfully at Joanna. ‘I’m heartbroken about Dean,’ she said sniffing. ‘What do you want to know? I don’t think I can tell you much but it’ll be more than you’ll get from anyone else. The other kids won’t say nothin’ in case they get someone into trouble. And I don’t think any other adults really spent much time with him.’ She stroked her chin. ‘But I certainly haven’t a clue who “got him”. He could be very secretive, you know. Vulnerable – like they all are. They’re dying to be like other kids – really privileged – but at the same time they’re all terrified of rejection. That’s why they build such high walls around themselves. Dean was not a bad boy. Used, manipulated – sometimes very gullible, at other times he could really be quite clever, like his disappearances.’ Her heavily made-up eyes stared straight at Joanna. ‘I never got to the bottom of those. I don’t think anyone ever did – unless Jason or Kirsty knew. He was very thick with both of those two.’

  Maree scratched her head. ‘How official is this?’ she asked.

  ‘Totally off the record,’ Joanna said. ‘It won’t be used in court. I have to find his killer. These sorts of crimes tend to become more frequent if the killer gets away with it’

  ‘I’ll do all I can.’ Maree was swift to reassure her.

  ‘How well did you know Dean?’

  ‘I’ve known him practically from birth,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘Do you know, he was such a pretty child – like an angel. On the “at risk” register right from birth – not violence but extreme neglect, left alone while Ma went out on the town.’

  ‘Very young, was she?’

  Maree shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘she wasn’t. She was in her twenties but she wanted a good time. He was two months old when I first saw him – very skinny.’ For a second she looked too upset to continue. She dabbed her eyes, sniffed and regained her self-control. ‘We kept taking him into care and then trying him back with her. In the end she just dumped him outside the social services in his little push-chair with a note pinned to his anorak.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘We’d even bought him the bloody anorak,’ she said. ‘He was a lovely baby. He had lovely pale hair – almost silver – and enormous blue eyes.’ She looked at Joanna. ‘Detective Inspector Piercy, he was the most neglected child I’d ever seen. His bottom was sore from never having his nappy changed. He had scabies. He was dirty and terribly undernourished. She’d never been cruel to him – never beat him or anything. He was just totally ignored for the first two years of his life — apart from when he was in local authority care.’

  Joanna shook her head.

  ‘At first she wouldn’t let Dean be put up for adoption. She kept saying as soon as she had a proper home she’d have him back.’ Maree looked at her earnestly. ‘The law was different then. She had absolute right. So little Dean was fostered by a succession of unsuitable people. Every time they rejected him for various reasons – usually that he didn’t measure up to their image of a perfect child – he was sent straight back here for a few months while we searched for another “suitable” family. By the time he’d reached ten years old the law changed. Dean wanted to stay here – in The Nest. And for the first time in his short life we listened to him. He was happy here.’

  ‘But he absconded.’

  ‘I believe,’ Maree said slowly, ‘that he was encouraged.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘I don’t know. Someone was stringing him along. Each time he returned he’d have that horrible, secretive look. I learned to recognize it.’

  Maree looked past her at the window which faced a brick wall. Joanna often thought it highly symbolic when on a particularly frustrating case.

  ‘I don’t know what Dean looked like when you saw him,’ Maree said, ‘but he was a very beautiful child.’

  Joanna nodded. ‘We could see that.’

  ‘I had suspicions,’ Maree continued. ‘I was afraid ...’

  ‘That he was being molested?’

  Two large tears appeared in Maree’s dark eyes and the black lines that drew them seemed to blur. ‘He denied it. We moved him,’ she said. ‘But I think it happened again.’

  Joanna stared at her. ‘Did you ask him?’

  Maree shook her head. ‘It’s hopeless,’ she said. ‘He always denied it. Sometimes it’s other boys at the home – sometimes the wardens. Sometimes they frequent public toilets ... Somehow these children ...’ Her voice trailed away. ‘They’re the lost boys. We couldn’t force an examination on him.’ She swallowed. ‘I know some of the older boys were quite cruel to him. One of them burned him – another tattooed his knuckles.’ She stopped. ‘I asked him but he wouldn’t say a thing. So I could never prove anything. But I just had the feeling he was being abused. It was the ... how can I put it... the knowing way he would look at me. But it made him very confident.’

  Joanna frowned. ‘Confident?’

  Maree looked confused. ‘I can’t put it any other way,’ she said. ‘At eight years old he knew things he shouldn’t have done.’ She stopped. ‘They’re all like that, these lost children.’ She sighed. ‘All I can do is to be around – be available. After that my hands are tied.’

  It had been a long, hard day so when Mike offered to buy her a drink at the pub Joanna accepted, knowing she would value his thoughts on the case.

  I had an idea,’ she said when they were sitting down. ‘It’s about the abuse stopping. What if it was Latos who was touching him up?’

  He looked at her. ‘Why stop?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s got a friend now,’ she said. ‘The one he went to the opera with. He didn’t need Dean any more.’

  Mike took a long, slow drink from his beer glass. ‘I’ve thought of something else,’ he said. ‘What if Leech was the one abusing little Dean? Then Dean might be HIV positive. The killer had been at him too ...’

  ‘And stopped because he was worried he might get it as well?’

  Mike nodded. ‘And you see what that means, Jo?’

  ‘Killer and abuser were the same person. Bloody hell.’ She made a quick decision. ‘We should get Dean Aids tested,’ she said, then looked at Mike. ‘And what about Riversdale?’

  He shook his head, offered to buy another drink, but she stood up.

  ‘My turn,’ she said.

  Chapter Eight

  Tom called round unexpectedly on Thursday morning, just as she was swallowing her breakfast.

  ‘I felt I ought to warn you,’ he said. ‘Caro’s on your tail. She’s sniffing around for what she calls an “angle” on the case. She was just on the telephone.’

  Joanna offered him a coffee and they sat down together.

  ‘What did she say?’

 
; ‘Just that in London the image of a young boy’s body alight on the moors is ... to quote her, “wonderfully atmospheric”. She particularly likes the image of the rock man, winking at passers-by and guarding the corpse.’

  ‘She would,’ Joanna said gloomily.

  ‘So expect her any day.’ He looked at her with sympathy. ‘How is the investigation progressing?’

  ‘Slowly,’ she said. ‘I have to interview a horde of kids tomorrow. And I still haven’t got hold of the chief people I want to interview – Mrs Leech and her son. They’re away, so the answerphone keeps telling me.’

  ‘Be careful, Jo,’ he said. ‘Caro will soon be here. And you know how predatory she can be.’

  ‘I do,’ Joanna said with feeling. ‘And that’s all I need. The Press’s chief bulldog.’

  ‘Well, the burning boy would be enough,’ he said grimly, ‘even without the MP connection.’ He paused. ‘I’m not trying to pry, but it seems a nasty, sordid little business. And the more I read in the papers the less I like the sound of the story – and the implications on our society.’

  ‘I know, I know. The whole case does seem an indictment on the way we treat children if the parenting system fails them.’

  Tom nodded, and finished his coffee. ‘Well,’ he said, standing up, ‘I mustn’t delay you.’

  ‘Thanks for warning me,’ she said, and he faced her.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m doing – warning you. I’m sure you can look after yourself.’

  She grinned. He bent and kissed her cheek, then left.

  Mike was sitting at her desk when she walked in the next morning.

  ‘Trying it for size, Mike?’ she asked coolly.

  He flushed and stood up too quickly, knocking over the waste-paper basket. ‘Just waiting for your instructions for the day.’

  ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me,’ she said, ‘I have to get changed.’

  He beat a hasty retreat.

  At nine o’clock exactly the telephone rang. Gilly Leech had come home. And in a crisp, sharp voice she informed: ‘Inspector Piercy, if you would like to call this morning it would be convenient. About eleven?’ Her tone sounded as though she was summoning the dustbin men to empty her bins.