No Bodies

by Robert Crouch

  Connie shakes her head. “Just the usual bugs and colds. I’ll check with her form teacher to be on the safe side.” She picks up the phone. “Lisa, can you interrupt Kirk? Ask him to bring Liam Burke to my office. What? Oh, I see. Well, keep trying.”

  She replaces the receiver and sighs. “Surprise, surprise. Liam didn’t show this morning and no one’s answering the phone.”

  “His mother’s at the Evelina Hospital in London with Charlotte. Liam’s with his grandfather, so we can visit him there.”

  “His grandfather? She never told us she’d moved.” She sighs and rises. “Let me know when you’ve spoken to him, will you?”

  “Sure. And don’t worry about the E. coli. We’re onto it.”

  “You might want to keep it to yourself,” Gemma says. “If parents find out, who knows what they’ll think.”

  Connie smiles and nods, but I suspect she’s one step ahead of us already. “There’s no room in here, so let’s go and talk to Kirk. He’ll know if anyone else has been ill.”

  We follow Connie along a brightly painted corridor, lined with photographs, pictures and montages that detail projects in Africa to provide drinking water, health care and vital supplies like mosquito nets. Gemma’s diamante sandals slap on the polished vinyl floor, drawing more than a couple of looks from Connie. As we approach the main hall, she stops at the last door, knocks and enters.

  Gemma peers through the viewing panel. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  It’s Baxendale, the man who left his cocker spaniel to cook inside his car. He’s dressed much smarter now, though his shirt and combat trousers look like they’re about to fall off his skinny frame.

  “I hope he doesn’t bear grudges,” I say, watching him limp across the classroom.

  “Well, well, well,” he says, closing the door behind him. “I didn’t know you saved teachers from suffocating in hot, stuffy classrooms, Mr Fisher.”

  He leads us into the main hall and opens the door next to the serving hatch. His limp becomes more pronounced when he enters the kitchen, drawing sympathetic remarks from the women working there. They fall silent as Gemma and I follow through the clean, modern kitchen, the dry goods store and out into an enclosed yard. Here, among the bins and cardboard boxes, he pulls out his cigarettes.

  “We’re not allowed to smoke on school premises,” he says. “But the contract caterers are responsible for the kitchen and yard. The children can’t see us here.”

  “They can smell you,” I say.

  He cups his hand around the flame and lights up, taking a long draw. “So, Mr Kent Fisher, what’s it like being Mr Righteous?”

  “Healthier,” I reply, backing away. “Did the Head tell you why we’re here?”

  “You want to know if Liam’s been ill. No, he hasn’t. I don’t know about Charlotte because she’s been absent for two weeks.”

  “Has anyone in the class been ill with sickness or diarrhoea?”

  “Like Salmonella?”

  “E. coli. It’s –”

  “I know what it is.” He exhales smoke through his nostrils. “To my knowledge, no one’s had food poisoning in the last week.”

  “How about the last three weeks? The bug can strike, die down and then flare up again.”

  “Three weeks?” He laughs, almost coughing as smoke pours out of his mouth. “I can’t remember what I did yesterday. Look, Liam has attendance issues. We’re never sure whether he’ll turn up from one day to the next. Sometimes, he’s gone for days.”

  “I thought you cracked down on truancy,” Gemma says.

  “He’s absent. That doesn’t mean he’s truant.” Baxendale takes an angry drag on the cigarette, which seems to calm him. “He’s a bright kid in a troubled family. I’m no social worker - not that they’re much use – but most marriages are a mess in my experience. You should come to parents’ evening. You’re lucky to get both parents with some kids.”

  Gemma’s phone rings and she walks out of earshot.

  “Wouldn’t say no to that,” he says, watching her exit through the large gate. Then he looks at me and laughs. “Treading on your toes, am I? Well, take it from me; you don’t want to get mixed up with someone at work, especially someone half your age.”

  I sense the bitterness of personal experience in his words.

  “I can see from your expression you think I took advantage of a pupil,” he says, his eyes flashing with anger. “Well, I married her – not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Then don’t tell me about it.”

  “It was her dog in the car,” he says, grinding the cigarette beneath a heel. “That’s all I have left. She left me for some kid who likes gangster rap and getting pissed every Friday night. Evenings in with a curry and a film didn’t do it for her.”

  The gate opens and Gemma rejoins us. “Danni wants us to ask about farm visits.”

  “We don’t take the children to farms,” Baxendale says, glancing at his watch. “But we visited your animal sanctuary the week before last. Does that count?”

  Seventeen

  “You should suspend school visits,” Gemma says.

  We’re weaving our way through the streets to the nearby Poets Estate, filled with smart 1930s semidetached houses with bay windows and hipped roofs. Somewhere in the midst of Wordsworth, Keats and Byron is Stephen Burke, Liam’s grandfather.

  “The children are supervised and they’re not allowed to touch the animals,” I say. “And no one’s been ill. Besides, Charlotte Burke didn’t get E. coli last week.”

  “What if Liam picked up the bug and infected his sister?”

  “Then why wasn’t he ill?”

  “We don’t know he wasn’t. You heard Baxendale. Liam’s in and out of school. Wouldn’t it be great if he could blame Liam’s absence on your sanctuary?”

  I’d rather not think about what Baxendale might do.

  “If I suspend school visits, people will assume the sanctuary’s the source of the infection,” I say, turning into Byron Avenue. “Frances is so strict with the children.”

  “She’ll want to suspend visits,” Gemma says, checking the numbers of the houses. “You should get your animals tested too. If they’re negative, you’ve nothing to worry about.”

  And if they’re positive, I’m loading the gun that’s pointed at me.

  “If there was a problem, other children would be affected. We’d have other cases. At the moment, this is an isolated case.”

  “Remind me who says every outbreak starts with a first case?”

  I pull up outside Stephen Burke’s house, taking in the neat garden and the gleaming Audi Quattro. It stands in a driveway where weeds daren’t spread, unless they want to face the wrath of a pressure washer. He’s even jetted the pavement outside his house. We walk up a crazy paved path that strolls between flower beds of petunias, begonias and geraniums, evenly spaced in neat rows as nature intended. Sweet peas, still flowering profusely, cling to netting on either side of the bay window. In the porch, we can’t stand side by side, thanks to the pots of lobelia and fuchsias, dripping with red and purple flowers.

  I ring the bell and step back, ID card in hand. A few moments later, a man in his late 40s or early 50s, with thick brown hair, Harry Potter glasses and a pleasant, smiling face, opens the door. Dressed casually in a pink shirt beneath a blue jumper and jeans, he looks like an executive on a day off.

  “Stephen Burke?”

  “Environmental health?” he responds in a cultured voice “The hospital said you’d be calling. Do you want to talk to Liam? Only he’s in the back garden. I was told to keep him out of school until you’d tested him.”

  “Could we have a chat with you first?”

  ***

  Inside, the house looks as pristine as the exterior with simple but tasteful wallpaper and furniture, made from ‘real’ wood, as the manufacturers like to say. I’ve yet to find unreal wood, but I live in hope.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” he asks, pausin
g by the kitchen door.

  “White, no sugar, please.”

  Through the arch that leads into the dining room, I can see a child, dribbling a football and dispatching it into a small goal at the end of a long, narrow garden. Liam looks fit and healthy to me.

  I stroll over to the bookcase beside an Art Deco fireplace, complete with diamond motif in the centre. I notice several fantasy novels, written by SL Burke. “Are you an author?” I ask when he returns.

  He nods, placing a tray with mugs of tea on a coffee table between two sofas. “I was made redundant and decided to take the plunge. Do you like fantasy, Mr Fisher?”

  I wait for a smart remark from Gemma, but she only smirks.

  “I prefer crime fiction,” I say, distracted by Liam, who’s now waving a cane around like a sword, threatening a buddleia.

  “Would you like a homemade cookie?” Burke asks.

  “Yes please,” I reply, noticing the family photos on the dresser in the corner.

  Once Burke is back in the kitchen, I head over to the dresser. It only takes a glance to realise why Liam looks familiar. It’s Sam, the child I hauled out of the goat paddock a couple of Saturdays ago. And Charlotte is Charlie, the girl who kicked my shins. Chloe is the mouthy mother, who looks nervous and self-conscious as a teenager. Someone turned her into a rebel with a yearning for tattoos. And nine days ago, she let her children run wild in my sanctuary.

  When she finds out I’m investigating her daughter’s illness …

  I take a deep breath, surprised by how unsettled I feel. But it’s no time to feel sorry for myself. I need to deal with this. Nigel has to take over, but I can’t leave Gemma to carry on alone.

  “Can I borrow your phone?” I ask. “I need to talk to Nigel.”

  “He’s at the Food Standards Agency in London,” she replies. “Imported Food training, I think. I can text him to ring you at lunchtime.”

  I glance out at the garden, my thoughts in overdrive. If the boy stays there, waging war on the bushes, we could interview his grandfather, leave the specimen pots and go without Liam recognising me. If he heads towards the house, I could make an excuse, duck out the front and leave Gemma to finish. Tomorrow morning, I’ll hand over to Nigel and manage the investigation the way Danni wants me to.

  “No, don’t disturb him,” I say, sitting on the sofa beside her. “Let’s work quickly and get back to the office.”

  Burke returns with a plate of cookies. Unlike Gemma, I’ve lost my appetite.

  “How’s Charlotte?” I ask.

  “Stable, whatever that means. Christina, my wife, went up yesterday and she’s staying there until … She was quite distressed when she saw Charlotte and all those tubes… It reminded her of Chloe, our daughter. She had an accident when she was 16.”

  He pauses to compose himself, nibbling at a biscuit. “She became pregnant, thanks to a character called Snake. His real name was Michael Addison. He took drugs, rode a motorbike with a gang and had tattoos across his chest, back and arms. Chloe refused to have a termination and moved in with him. We didn’t hear from her for months, but we knew she’d taken her exams. Then, one day, we got a call out of the blue. She’d been injured in an accident. They saved the baby, but he was born a heroin addict.”

  Burke lets out a long sigh, as if he’s wanted to talk about this for a long time.

  “We brought her home and tried to help her kick the habit, but she moved to London with Snake. We got photos from time to time, including her wedding, shots of Liam, and then Charlotte. She never told us she was expecting again.”

  The remains of the cookie crumble in his fingers and dribble onto the carpet. “We tried to find them, but we couldn’t. We had to settle for the few crumbs she gave us. Then, in June this year, she arrived on the doorstep with the children. She left Snake almost a year earlier, but he tracked her down. Now he’s demanding custody of the children.”

  Burke stares at the crumbs on the floor. “She’s clean, though her moods aren’t easy to deal with. And the children have settled. We don’t need this.”

  “Do you know how Charlotte could have been infected?” I ask, aware that Liam’s getting closer to the house.

  “No idea. We take them out and eat in all the usual places. We go walking on the Downs, but we always carry antibacterial wipes. Christina insists on it. You can’t be too careful with animals and their faeces, can you?”

  “No,” Gemma replies, casting me a glance.

  “There was a fair in Eastbourne a couple of weeks ago. We had burgers from a stall. The kids loved them, but they were a bit pink inside. I swapped Charlotte’s for mine, but I’ve not been ill,” he adds. “She only had a couple of bites. Would that be enough?”

  “Possibly. Bugs don’t spread themselves evenly in food.”

  “Can you remember the name of the stall?” Gemma asks.

  He shakes his head “Liam might remember. Do you want me to call him in?”

  “Let him play,” I reply. “Our colleagues in Eastbourne are dealing with it.”

  “So, if it wasn’t the burger, what made Charlotte ill?” Burke asks.

  “It could be anything,” Gemma replies, reading off her questionnaire. “Undercooked food, contact with animals at a farm or zoo, camping or playing in a field where cattle or sheep graze. Manure could be infected,” she says, almost as an afterthought. “I notice you grow vegetables.”

  His back stiffens. “Are you suggesting I made Charlotte ill?”

  “We’re not suggesting anything,” I reply, wondering if his defensive response owes more to guilt than the stress of his granddaughter’s illness. “We need faecal samples from you and Liam. Gemma will go through the process with you and answer any further questions. I need to ring the relevant authorities and update them.”

  Gemma passes me her phone and I escape through the front door, relieved to be out of Liam’s line of sight. I sit on the garden wall and ring Frances.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” I say, fending off her questions. “No one else is ill, but we’ll cancel the school visits until we establish the source of the bug.”

  “But the children are supervised,” she says, clearly anxious. “You know I don’t let them pet the animals. They wash their hands with antibacterial soap. It can’t be us, can it? I mean, you can never guarantee that every surface is sterile… I’ll disinfect everything, Kent.”

  “Slow down,” I say. “If anything was wrong, I’d know, wouldn’t I?”

  “Sorry,” she says. “I remember what happened to that attraction in Surrey.”

  Me too. “Ring the schools and postpone the visits.”

  “What do I tell them? I can’t say we have infectious animals.”

  “Frances, there’s no evidence our animals are infected. Tell them we need to do some urgent repairs.”

  Next I ring Noreen McIntyre at Eastbourne. She mutters something derogatory about the Leisure Team. “We keep asking them to demand food registrations from anyone who holds an event but they never do. I checked the fair’s website and they’re in Scotland now. So there’s not much we can do, is there?”

  “No,” I say, certain Danni will blame the burger and pass the buck to Eastbourne. Feeling better than I did 20 minutes ago, I get to my feet. “Sorted.”

  “What’s sorted?” a voice asks.

  Turning, I look straight at Liam Samuel Burke and the cane he’s holding like a light sabre.

  ***

  He may not have recognised me. As soon as I walk away, he runs into the house. Five minutes later, Gemma joins me in the car.

  “Did you meet, Liam?” I ask.

  She nods. “Bright kid. He seems to be fine.”

  “But?”

  She frowns at me. “Since I teamed up with you, I’m suspicious of everything. Anything that doesn’t sound right or doesn’t fit and I’m off looking for reasons. I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

  “I close my eyes and drift off.” I start the car and pull away. “So,
what doesn’t fit?”

  “Every time I asked Liam a question, he looked at his grandfather like he needed permission to answer.” She pulls on her seat belt and sighs. “It’s probably nothing.”

  “You should trust your instincts, Gemma.”

  “I trusted you and look what happened. Sorry,” she says, her cheeks reddening. “I’m on edge at the moment. Maybe it’s a delayed reaction to the shooting.”

  I’m not so sure. “What really bothered you about Liam?”

  “His grandfather said almost nothing, letting Liam answer. Then I asked if he’d been unwell in the last few weeks and he said he’d been sick. His grandfather was straight in, saying it was one of those 24 hour bugs, blaming it on a Chinese meal. He said it was probably four weeks ago. Then it was five. Then it became a couple of months.”

  “You think it’s more recent, right?”

  “Or he’s trying to deflect the blame. If Liam had sickness or diarrhoea, it wasn’t reported, was it?”

  “If he wasn’t taken to his GP then no, it wouldn’t be.”

  Gemma drifts into a thoughtful silence that lasts until we reach the office car park. Then she becomes animated.

  “Remember what grandfather said about the husband wanting custody of the kids,” she says. “What if Chloe’s not clean? What if she was out of it on drugs and didn’t take Liam to the doctor when he was ill?”

  “Burke could have taken him.”

  “But he didn’t, did he? We’d have a lab report if he had.”

  “Only if Liam tested positive,” I say. “If he was negative, Burke would have told you.”

  “Which means they kept Liam at home until he recovered,” she says, looking pleased. “Mother makes up some story for the school and swears Liam to secrecy. Only he infects Charlotte and mum has to pull her out of school and keep her at home so no one knows, especially the husband.”

  It’s an interesting hypothesis. “Then Charlotte goes down with renal failure, poor kid.”

  “Can we prove it?” Gemma asks.

  “Not unless Chloe owns up.”

  I recall the antagonist mother at the sanctuary that Saturday afternoon. If she believes she could lose her children, she’ll blame my goats and there’s nothing I can do to stop her.