Endangering Innocents

by Priscilla Masters

  How could he be so interested?

  Someone was standing at her side. Not making any attempt to speak. Just watching her. She could feel eyes appraise her and turned around.

  She was a well, if not expensively, dressed woman in a black suit over a bright pink acetate blouse. The skirt was creased and the woman’s face pale and uncertain. She didn’t know her.

  “Excuse me.”

  The woman’s eyes were pale blue with a touch of brown mascara and a clumsy smear of heather-coloured eye shadow. Her hair was faded brown with greying roots and her skin of a papery dry, menopausal texture. She looked about forty-five - and worried.

  “Hello.” Joanna held out her hand. The woman responded with a limp handshake and an abstracted smile. “I’m Joanna. Sarah’s sister.” She gave a self-conscious smile. “Daniel’s godmother.” The phrase sounded alien on her lips. Yet she didn’t dislike it as much as she had thought she would.

  “Gloria,” the woman said. “My husband, Rick. He works with Jeremy. At the office.”

  “Oh.” For the life of her Joanna could not remember Jeremy ever mentioning a “Rick”.

  For a split second it seemed the conversation was at an end. The woman smiled again. “I think. I … Did someone mention you’re in the police force?”

  Joanna nodded. “A detective,” she said. “In Leek.”

  The woman’s shoulder bag was slipping off her right shoulder. She hitched it back up. “Do you mind if I ask your advice?”

  Joanna shot a swift glance at Matthew. Her aunt Jane was pulling up her skirt to display some varicose veins. One of the penalties of being a doctor. Matthew was looking suitably impressed. They would be here for minutes more. She turned back to Gloria. “Not at all. If I can help …”

  “The trouble is I don’t know anything. I just wonder if something could be checked out. If it’s possible, that is.”

  Joanna felt bored. People were always asking her about this point of law - or that. Usually mundane complaints about insurance companies, minor motoring offences, neighbour disputes. Tall trees, wide hedges, noisy dogs. But she smiled to conceal her lack of interest.

  “Go on.”

  “I just wondered - what is the form if you suspect a child is being badly treated?”

  It was like removing the lid from a can of worms. These days a light smack constituted ill-treatment. Tales born by concerned neighbours, being touched “inappropriately” by a teacher, being comforted by a playground assistant. Anything. The real skill lay in sorting out the abused child from the merely disciplined - or cared for. Weeding out the sexual from the innocent.

  “There are channels to pursue. Sensitive experts. The police can appear heavy-handed. Unless there is real concern for the child we prefer Social Services to investigate. A family doctor. Teachers.” She smiled. “Ring me at Leek Police Station if you’re really worried.”

  The woman looked slightly disappointed. “Oh,” she said. “Well - thank you.”

  Matthew spoke in her ear. “Time we went, my darling.”

  He waited until they were out of the town and back on the country road before questioning her about the woman. “So what did our lady in the black suit want?”

  Joanna leaned back in her seat. “Oh - the old nest of serpents. A child she suspects of being ill-treated. I rather think I let her down.” She nestled up to him. “I hope you didn’t do the same to my aunt Jane and her infamous varicose veins.”

  Matthew burst out laughing and Joanna straightened up, suddenly dizzy. “Oh my goodness. How much champagne have I downed?”

  She was very hungry now. And she wanted a drink. And to go to the toilet. The television was on downstairs. Loudly. If she crept across the landing, quiet, like a mouse, she could go to the toilet. And have a drink of water from the tap. It would be better than nothing. She put one foot to the floor - and waited. Another foot. And waited. Then slid across the bedroom, trying to be quiet. Very quiet. She opened the door. The smell of chips wafted up the stairs. She cried for them, peering over the top of the stairs. The sitting room door was almost closed. Darren’s dog was chained outside. She could hear him straining on the chain and barking. Maybe they’d left their chip papers on the kitchen table. Maybe they’d left some for her. Madeline was torn. Should she tiptoe to the bathroom? Or risk going downstairs?

  She wished she was invisible so she could creep down to the kitchen and eat the chips without any chance of being seen. Or that the magician could wave his magic wand and make the chips float upstairs, to her.

  At last they were home. Matthew put his key in the door. “Coffee, Jo?”

  She kicked her shoes off. “I don’t think so. Truth is I feel a bit queasy. I reckon those prawn vol-au-vents were off.”

  He appeared in the doorway. “You’re just trying to prove even idols have feet of clay.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Even the great, wonderful and perfect Sarah can do something wrong.”

  “Like poisoning her sister.”

  “Fool.” He stretched out beside her on the sofa. “How queasy?”

  “Not too bad.” She watched him through her eyelashes. “Thanks.”

  “What for?”

  She held her arms up. “Just thanks.”

  They had left quite a lot of chips. When she got to the next to bottom step she could see them on the kitchen table, sticking to the greasy white paper. She sneaked in, trying not to breathe. Darren could hear anything. He would hear if she breathed. She stuffed some chips into her mouth, trying not to make the paper crackle. They were cold but tasted wonderful. Then the door slammed open and he was standing there.

  “You little …”

  She screamed.

  Joanna wriggled her toes and ran her fingers through Matthew’s thick hair. “So went the day well, Mat?”

  He nodded. “It went well. So far.”

  “Then I am content,” she said. “I executed my duty. My family will be pleased with me - for once.” She laughed. “I’m quite proud of myself.”

  Matthew was laughing too.

  Madeline was crying.

  Chapter Two

  Monday April 9th 8.30 am

  Joanna pushed her legs against the pedals, fighting the wind to climb the hill into Leek. The air was bitingly cold. After the cool but promising sunshine of the weekend it seemed winter threatened to return. A few daffodils were bravely struggling to stay upright. But the wind was ruthless. It would blow them over - in the end. Yet they would try, year after year. She scanned the fields either side of the road. Empty. Sheep and cattle were confined to the barns to await their fate. Straw mats guarded the entrance to the farms and visitors were excluded. Everywhere the signs were up. Foot and Mouth Infected Area. The public footpaths were closed to ramblers. As Joanna glanced to her left and right the country felt tainted. Diseased. Closed. The Prime Minister was busily delivering pre-election speeches assuring his voters that the countryside was open for business. Business - yes - Joanna thought sourly. Alton Towers would open at Easter - after it had culled their animals. But the countryside, to all intents and purposes, was closed for pleasure, its freedom denied to ramblers, hikers, bikers. When the grass started to grow, then what? Would England become a land of desolate fields strangled by weeds allowed to grow freely? Would animals grazing be consigned to the fiction of children’s picture books? Would we all say, remember when?

  She pedalled faster.

  It must not happen.

  She bent her head lower over the handlebars, flattening her back and feeling her hamstrings and quads ache as she wondered how the moorlands farmers would brave this latest catastrophe. Already there had been one suicide; one local farmer, wandering at dawn to the farthest corner of his most isolated, deserted top field, had blown his brains out with despair. There would be more. After the BSE abandonment of meat, foot and mouth seemed like the second plague.

  The town was eerily quiet; even the early morning traffic subdued. The farmers were staying on their fa
rms, imposing voluntary isolation in the hope that self-inflicted quarantine would protect them from the insidious air, dust and rain in which the virus spread. She free-wheeled the last half a mile through the streets, passing the cottage hospital and the big mill on her right before veering off to the police station where she padlocked her bike to the railings. The desk sergeant greeted her with a brief nod. A quick change in the ladies’ locker room and she was ready for work in a black A-line skirt and pale blue sweater, sleeves pushed up to her elbows, exposing slim, tanned arms, one decorated with a gold wrist chain, the other displaying a watch.

  Mike was already behind his desk, leafing through some papers. “Morning, Jo. Good weekend?”

  “Well no. Not really.”

  He looked up from his reading matter. “Oh - I forgot. Weren’t you being the Fairy Godmother yesterday?”

  “More like the Black Fairy. And not content with forcing me to do something that went completely against the grain.” She sat on the corner of his desk and crossed her legs. “My bloody sister tried to poison me with some prawn vol-au-vents. I’ve been throwing up half the night.”

  “They do say avoid shellfish.” He gave her a swift, sneaky glance. “And champagne.”

  “I didn’t have that much,” she said defensively. “I’m not fond of champagne. Overrated stuff, if you ask me. Give me a good Spanish rioja any day.”

  “So you weren’t the sober driver, Inspector?”

  “OK, smartarse.” She leaned across. “What are you reading anyway?”

  Mike smiled at her. Square-faced, blunt featured, broad shouldered, his black hair and dark eyes proclaiming his semi-Polish origins. “Something and nothing.” He pushed the papers towards her. “Just a run of complaints from a primary school.”

  “Which one?”

  “Horton.”

  “What are they complaining about?”

  “Someone sitting in a car watching the children.”

  “Not a parent?”

  “No one seems to recognise him.”

  “Got the number of the vehicle?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So?”

  “No one with a record. Just a 37-year-old jobbing plumber, guy who lives in Leek. Name of Joshua Baldwin.”

  “Married? Children? Does he live alone?”

  “The electoral roll places him in Haig Road, in a council flat. And he’s the only one registered at that address.”

  “Do we know anything about him?”

  Mike glanced down at his sheets. “A couple of complaints about neighbour noise. Seems he likes a quiet life.”

  “Anyone been round there?”

  “Hang on a minute. The guy hasn’t done anything. He’s just been seen outside a school.”

  “On more than one occasion?”

  “Yeah - but.”

  “But what, Mike. You know what the climate is like for anyone who just might display improper behaviour towards a child. You’re a parent yourself. How would you feel about a guy simply hanging around outside a school?”

  “I’m not trying to protect him.”

  Joanna leaned in closer. “And what would it look like if Mrs Whoever-it-was-who made the complaint said we’d been informed and then a child was approached - or went missing? You think your job - or my job-would survive that?”

  “I think you’re being a bit over the top.” He gave her a sly glance. “Not like you to be so overly protective towards kids.”

  She drained her coffee cup and chucked the polystyrene beaker accurately into the bin. “So we have a man who lives alone. And we know nothing about this man apart from the fact that for some reason he hangs around a small village primary school. It doesn’t look as though Mr Baldwin has children there, so why choose that particular venue? If I remember rightly it’s an isolated little school on a straight bit of road. There’s no view apart from of the school. So why sit there other than to watch the children?”

  Mike regarded her without saying anything.

  “Right then. I suggest we pay Mr Baldwin a visit and see if we can find an answer to my question. OK?”

  Mike stood up reluctantly. “You’re the boss, Jo.”

  Haig Road was one of the streets of council houses towards the Northern end of the town, looping behind the Buxton Road which led out to the moors, the Winking Man and beyond. It was an area lined with post war council houses well tended by the town council. The roundabouts were freshly mown with small, flowering cherry trees in the centre and random clumps of miniature daffodils. Mike manoeuvred the car around a couple more mini roundabouts and pulled up. Number fourteen had been divided into two small maisonettes, 14 and 14A, garages at the back. Joshua Baldwin lived on the ground floor of one of the neater homes, clean and well kept with white UPVC windows fitted to the front which matched the front door. The drive was empty. Korpanski knocked and they stood back. There was no response.

  Luckily Baldwin was one of the few who hadn’t shrouded his front room with net curtains. Joanna peered in through the window, to a small, square room, a grey TV screen eyeing them blindly from the corner sitting on a dark red shag-pile carpet. A beige three-piece suite almost filled the room and a stereo tidily stacked filled the spare corner.

  “I don’t see a computer.”

  “Could be in one of the other rooms. A bedroom, maybe.” She turned around. “You’ve got a nasty mind, Korpanski.”

  He grunted. “Not just me.”

  “Well there’s nothing to be done here.”

  Mike was looking up and down the street. “We could knock up one of the neighbours.”

  Joanna shook her head. “Now that would be a bit premature. Don’t want to start a riot, do we?”

  As they walked back to the squad car Korpanski looked uncertain. “Why would anyone hang around a school unless either they had children there or were a …?”

  “A pervert? He might like children.”

  Mike’s dark look could only have been given by a parent.

  They climbed back into the car. “We’d better get to the school then.”

  “In time for the kids to come out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He hasn’t actually approached any of the kids, has he?”

  “Nope.”

  “Or the teachers?”

  “It didn’t say in the report.”

  It was her first job, Horton Primary. She’d been lucky to land it. Class one. Little kids, years before they became impossible to teach. Vicky Salisbury scanned the classroom. Not that the reception class wasn’t without its own problems. In September half the children had cried solidly for the first few days. One had set off the entire class to a great howling boo hoo. She had almost given up then, they’d all been so miserable. Except one. She had stared straight ahead of her, registering nothing. No involvement in the collective grief, no emotion either way. Vicky couldn’t say whether Madeline enjoyed school or hated it. She was, as she seemed to most events, indifferent. On another plane.

  And that could be harder to deal with than the naughtiest or most trying infant. By the second term most of the children had settled in and enjoyed their colouring, their stories, their playtimes. Most of the children.

  She watched Madeline Wiltshaw colouring in her Easter picture and felt, as she invariably did, that the child needed more encouragement than the others. Victoria had achieved a First in her degree and had been highly commended in her teaching practice. They had said she had a natural talent with young children. She could be the one to gently draw the child out of her shell. She had tried to speak to the child’s mother - and met with a brittle, hostile response. She knew nothing about Madeline’s father.

  She slipped behind her. “That is a lovely picture, Madeline,” she said with all the enthusiasm she could muster over yet another bunny and a duck. “Lovely. Your mummy is going to be so pleased. The red over the purple is so pretty. Like a dress.”

  The child turned and stared at her with a frozen look. Vicky stepped back as though she�
��d been slapped. It would not do to cuddle this cold, silent little girl with the straight bobbed hair who always looked as though she was in another world. “Maddy,” she said softly.

  The child selected another felt tipped pen from the pack and bent back over her picture. Vicky felt an air of desperation. She watched Madeline fumble to slot the pen back into the plastic sleeve. “Here,” she said. “Let me help.” She touched the little girl’s arm and felt her jerk away. “Maddy,” she said again, desperate for some response. “It’s OK.”

  She put her hand on the little girl’s arm and felt her flinch. She felt she must build a bridge between herself and this child. “Maddy,” she said, “who are you going to give your beautiful picture to?”

  The child fixed her with another hard stare. But deep behind the cold black eyes was the tiniest spark of light.

  “To the magic man,” she whispered.

  And with all her teacher training Victoria could find no response.

  3 pm

  They were sitting outside the single-storey red brick building, still in the squad car. Joanna was trying to persuade Korpanski to do the talking. “Go on. You’re more at home in these places than I am, Mike.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well - you’ve got kids. I haven’t been inside a Primary School since …” A long ago memory of the alphabet spread around the walls, A a is for Apple. B b is for Bear…

  Joanna closed her eyes and laughed. “I don’t think I’ve been inside a primary school since I was eleven years old and I moved up to big school.”

  “I bet you were a right little devil at eleven too.”

  “I was not.” She laughed. “I was the serious one. The worker, always wanting to be the best. The fastest, the quickest, the cleverest. And look where it landed me.”