Behind Dead Eyes

by Howard Linskey

  ‘You want to help us find Diane, don’t you? I thought she was your friend.’

  ‘She is my friend,’ answered Callie firmly.

  ‘Then help us to find her,’ said Helen, ‘please.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ snarled Callie and she began to walk purposefully away from Helen.

  ‘Callie, please don’t do this.’ Helen had no idea how to stop the girl from going to the cab rank but she was determined to try, so she went after her. ‘We both want the same thing. We both want to find your friend.’

  ‘That why you ain’t been back since?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Helen told her, ‘we’ve been looking for her.’ She didn’t want to reveal the reason they had not been back sooner. Annie’s death was too recent, too raw.

  Helen drew alongside Callie then and the younger girl stopped. She turned towards the reporter and shouted, ‘Fuck … off!’ then started walking again. She’d barely gone three yards before the car moved off and pulled in next to her.

  Tom leaned out of the window and in a loud and aggressive tone called, ‘Callie!’ She spun round to face him. ‘Get in the car!’ And when she hesitated for a second, ‘Do you want to earn this money, or what?’

  Without another word Callie went to the car, opened the back door and climbed in. Helen followed and Tom drove them away.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ Callie asked them. ‘I told her before I don’t do …’

  ‘Shut up, Callie,’ Tom ordered her, ‘just shut up,’ and she fell silent. He was angry and tired and was gambling that poor Callie was used to being told what to do by men. He felt bad about that and knew Helen, the voice of his conscience, would probably give him a hard time afterwards, but she had tried to reason with Callie and it simply hadn’t worked. ‘We told you, we just want you to look at some photos then pick out the man you told us about,’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, looking nervous now, ‘him.’

  ‘No one will ever know it was you. We won’t need you to do anything except point at a picture and say, “That’s him.” It’ll be the easiest money you ever earned.’

  They took Callie into the front room of Tom’s house and sat her down. Helen took the file from her bag and drew out the photographs she had brought with her. She now understood why Tom had wanted to bring the girl back here to his home, away from the taxi rank and Meadowlands; places filled with threatening figures who would view what she was about to do as treachery. Now that Callie was in his home, she felt safer. Helen could sense it.

  She knew there was a strong chance that Callie would identify Jimmy McCree, Joe Lynch or even Alan Camfield. If she really opened up about the abuse going on at Meadowlands they had agreed to phone Ian Bradshaw, who could immediately take Callie into protective custody.

  Helen spoke to Callie before letting her see the photographs: ‘I want you to take a look at these men, Callie. I want you to tell me if any of them have ever …’ she hesitated for a moment while she chose the right words ‘… been with you or hurt you in any way? I want you to tell me if the man who hurt your friend Diane is here. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Callie, who did at least appear to be taking this seriously.

  Helen realised she was holding her breath as she removed the first photograph from the file and placed it face up on Callie’s lap. The first image was Alan Camfield.

  Callie leaned forward, took her time examining the photograph then said, ‘No,’ and she shook her head, ‘not him.’

  Both Helen and Tom were watching her, searching for any sign she might be lying or was simply too scared to implicate anyone, but neither of them detected any hint of evasion from Callie.

  Helen placed the second photograph face up on Callie’s knee. This time it was a stranger Helen had fished from the newspaper’s photographic archive, a head-and-shoulders shot of someone who had been awarded the MBE for services to charity. Callie shook her head, so Helen withdrew the photograph and produced another.

  The hard face of Jimmy McCree stared up at young Callie but the girl didn’t flinch. She just shook her head. ‘No, I never seen him.’

  Helen and Tom exchanged glances before Helen showed Callie a fourth photograph. It showed the smiling face of a local fireman in civilian clothes and Callie immediately said, ‘Never seen him before either.’

  Helen reached for the last photograph and placed it in Callie’s lap. The sly face of Councillor Joe Lynch looked out at them from the picture. Callie leaned even further forward now and stared at the face intently. Both Helen and Tom held their breaths.

  ‘No,’ she said simply, ‘it ain’t him neither.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ asked Helen disbelievingly.

  ‘Don’t you know who that is?’ demanded Tom with a stern enough tone to ensure that Callie took a second look. Perhaps she thought he was about to deny her the money.

  She took a long hard look and confirmed the worst of their fears: ‘No, it’s not him. Definitely not. I’d know the guy who hurts us anywhere.’ And when neither Helen nor Tom could think of anything to say at that she protested loudly, ‘I would!’

  ‘Alright, Callie,’ Tom held up a weary hand, ‘we believe you.’ And he looked at Helen in disbelief. He did believe the girl, but all of their theories involving McCree, Camfield and Lynch were wrong. He knew Helen was thinking the same thing. Where the hell could they go from here?

  ‘What now?’ asked Helen helplessly.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Tom sounded desolate. He slumped back into his chair and closed his eyes. ‘Get her home, I suppose.’ If you could call it home, he thought.

  ‘It’s late,’ Helen said to Callie, ‘we’d better get you back.’

  ‘Dean won’t care,’ said Callie, ‘as long as I’m earning,’ and she looked at Tom significantly. He reached for his wallet and handed her the money she’d been promised.

  ‘You can tell Dean it’s from your usual contacts,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll tell him what I like,’ she said firmly. She stuffed it in a pocket then got to her feet and stood there impatiently.

  Helen and Tom took longer to rise, for they were both devastated. Tom had been convinced that Diane’s flight from Meadowlands was linked to the disappearance of Sandra Jarvis and that, in turn, Joe Lynch’s connection to Meadowlands and his friendship with McCree and Camfield must have played a part here. He’d been convinced they had somehow used Frank Jarvis’s daughter to get what they needed.

  Tom fumbled in the wrong pocket for his car keys then found them in the next pocket. He fished them out, just as Callie spoke.

  ‘That’s him!’ she said firmly. ‘That is definitely him.’ She was staring down at the coffee table where Helen had placed the photographs.

  Tom immediately felt a surge of anger towards Callie, for she was obviously messing them around now. She’d already had a long look at the photographs then denied any of the men were responsible. Now, moments later, she claimed it was one of them.

  ‘Come off it, Callie, we’re not bloody stupid,’ he told her.

  ‘It’s him!’ She was animated now.

  ‘You just said it wasn’t any of them,’ Helen answered sharply. She was even beginning to think there might be some truth in what Dean had said about not being able to trust a word these vulnerable girls said.

  ‘I’m telling you, that’s him!’ She pointed down at the table and was so angry now that Tom paused.

  ‘Who,’ he demanded, ‘which one of them?’

  His aggressive tone seemed to aggravate her. ‘It’s none of them!’ she shouted. ‘It’s him!’

  Tom and Helen followed the direction of Callie’s finger and both of them realised the truth at exactly the same time. Callie was not pointing at any of the photographs but at something else close by, the folded copy of the local paper Tom had left there that morning. Looking up at them from a half section of the front page was the picture of Councillor Frank Jarvis appealing for information on his missing daughter. ‘He’s the one!’ shrieked Ca
llie.

  She grabbed the paper, turned it towards them, jabbed a finger into Frank Jarvis’s face and said, ‘That’s him!’

  Chapter Fifty

  ‘Callie,’ asked Tom, ‘are you absolutely sure about this?’ but he could tell by the look in her eyes she was certain. ‘Do you know who that man is?’

  ‘He’s one of the bosses I’ve been telling you about. He gives Freak Boy money to let him in,’ she explained. ‘He’s been doing it for years, since before I was there.’

  Tom and Helen looked at one another in disbelief then they glanced back at Callie.

  ‘You’re certain it’s this man?’ demanded Tom.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he makes you do things?’ asked Helen.

  ‘Yeah,’ Callie said quietly, ‘s’pose.’

  ‘You suppose?’ questioned Tom, gently. ‘He either makes you do things or he doesn’t, Callie?’

  ‘He makes us do stuff! If we do what he wants he says we’re good little girls but it ain’t like we’ve got a choice. We can’t say no.’

  Tom sat back down heavily then, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Helen took the newspaper from Callie’s hand and stared at the image of Frank Jarvis on its front page. She sat down on the sofa, leaving Callie as the only one still standing. She looked at the two reporters with confusion now.

  ‘I did what you said,’ she reminded them. ‘I told you what you wanted to know!’ Callie couldn’t understand why they were reacting this way. ‘This is what you wanted to hear,’ she protested, but she did not how wrong she was about that.

  ‘What the hell are we going to do now?’ asked Helen when the enormity of Callie’s accusation had finally sunk in.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Tom was reeling from the realisation that, if Callie was telling the truth, he’d been working for a child rapist.

  He tried to tell himself the possibility still remained that Callie was wrong or maybe she’d been got at. Was this all a plot by Joe Lynch and Jimmy McCree to discredit their former nemesis? But even as he was thinking this he had to ask himself, why they would even bother? Frank Jarvis had already stepped down and given up his opposition to the Riverside tender. The clincher for Tom was Callie herself, who was entirely believable. No way could she have faked this.

  Then Tom remembered how Sandra Jarvis had spent the whole night locked away with Diane Turner, emerging the next morning looking upset and emotional. Tom had always had an instinct that this was the reason for Sandra’s disappearance. He believed Diane must have confided a big and damaging secret to Sandra. Only now did he finally realise what that secret was. Diane had told Sandra about the powerful man who’d been abusing her, not realising that all the while she was doing this, she was describing Sandra’s own father to her.

  If Sandra believed Diane Turner, this would surely be enough to drive a once-happy, high-achieving young girl into despair and send her off the rails. Small wonder there were missed lectures, erratic behaviour and whispers of drug abuse – but there were no drugs, only the truth about her father.

  It must have been too much to take on board at first, and she did nothing. Then, when she had taken some time to decide what to do about Diane’s allegations she must have finally confronted her father, which led to the row between them at the allotment.

  Diane Turner could have not have realised she was telling Sandra about her own father because Sandra used her mother’s maiden name at Meadowlands, so nobody realised she was the politician’s daughter. Tom froze then and looked closely at Callie.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘You said you didn’t know his name. The guy in the newspaper, the one who abused you.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Callie said. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Did Diane know his name?’

  ‘No. I said. He never used it.’

  ‘Then how could she have told Sandra who he was?’

  ‘Eh?’

  Helen cut in then: ‘Do you know who that man is, Callie?’

  ‘I told you,’ she snarled, ‘no.’

  ‘He’s a politician, who’s well known in the city government.’

  ‘I said he was one of the bosses.’

  Helen looked at Tom to see if he had any objections to her revealing the whole truth to Callie. He nodded.

  ‘He’s also Sandra’s father,’ Helen told the young girl.

  ‘No fucking way!’ Callie protested as if she couldn’t believe what they were telling her. ‘He can’t be!’

  ‘He is,’ said Tom, ‘and we think Diane must have told Sandra when they stayed up all night together – but she couldn’t have done that if she didn’t know his name.’

  ‘Well she must have shown Sandra …’ And she stopped herself.

  ‘What?’

  Callie shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What did Diane show Sandra?’ Helen asked her.

  ‘I don’t know.’ But it was obvious Callie was lying.

  ‘A girl like Sandra wouldn’t believe her father was guilty of something like this,’ Tom said, ‘not unless she had proof. So what was the proof, Callie? What did Diane have on Frank Jarvis when she couldn’t even tell Sandra his name?’

  ‘Come on, Callie,’ Helen urged her. ‘If you tell us we can protect you but we need to know the whole story or we can’t do anything to help you. How did Diane make Sandra believe?’

  ‘The photograph,’ she blurted suddenly, ‘she’s got a photo of him. She must have shown her that.’

  ‘You’ve got a photo of Frank Jarvis?’ asked Helen.

  ‘We’re not stupid,’ Callie told them. ‘We know no one’s going to believe us against one of the bosses. That’s why they pick girls like us in the first place. They can do what they like to us. Me and Diane both knew if we told anyone we’d be in even bigger shit, but Diane wanted to run away. She said they’d come after us but not if we had something on them, so I took a picture of him and Diane together.’ Callie said that as if it was such a simple thing, like a holiday snap. Helen tried to comprehend a way in which Callie could have taken an incriminating photograph of Frank Jarvis without his knowledge. ‘He didn’t know about it but she did,’ confirmed Callie. ‘She asked me to take it. We figured if he ever tried to do anything to us we could tell him about it and he’d back off.’

  ‘You took a photo of Frank Jarvis,’ Tom asked in disbelief, ‘with your friend?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘while he did it with her.’

  ‘How?’ he demanded.

  ‘There’s a vent between our rooms.’

  He hardly dared to ask the next question. ‘Where is this picture? Have you got it, Callie, or did Diane take it with her when she ran away?’

  ‘I haven’t got it,’ Tom’s heart sank, ‘but I don’t think she could have taken it either. She went in a hurry and left most of her stuff behind.’

  ‘Where is it?’ Tom asked her. ‘Where’s the photograph now, Callie?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she told him, ‘but I think I can get it.’

  Chapter Fifty-One

  ‘Detective Sergeant Ian Bradshaw,’ he said, holding up his warrant card for the briefest of moments before pocketing it again. ‘I’m here to speak to a Miss Callie McQuire.’

  ‘Er.’ It wasn’t just hesitation Bradshaw saw in Dean’s face that morning but alarm. ‘I’m not sure if …’ he mumbled and he looked behind him into the corridor, as if he expected to see Callie standing there. Bradshaw had been well briefed by Helen and Tom and he found himself enjoying the man’s panic.

  ‘I know she’s here,’ Bradshaw told him, ‘so please let me in,’ then he added a respectful but firm, ‘sir.’

  ‘We don’t let people in,’ Dean said unsurely, ‘not without an appointment.’

  ‘I’m not people though, am I? I’m a police officer and your refusal to let me in could lead to a charge of obstruction.’

  ‘Of course, sorry, officer.’ Dean stepped to one side to admit the detective. ‘Please come in. I have to follow
procedures. They get very sensitive, what with all the rules these days on child welfare.’

  ‘I’ll bet they do,’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘But like you said, you’re police so … I’ll go and get her.’

  ‘I’d rather see her in her room, if that’s alright with you?’ Bradshaw’s tone indicated he would do this whether it was alright with Dean or not.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, looking flustered, ‘may I ask what this is all about, officer?’

  Bradshaw was already marching off down the corridor while Dean trailed in his wake. ‘Down here, is it?’ he asked, though he already knew it was because Tom had described the home’s layout to him. ‘What’s your name again, sir?’

  ‘Er … Dean.’ It came reluctantly. ‘Dean Anderton.’

  Bradshaw slowed his pace halfway down the corridor then stopped and turned towards his host. ‘Dean Anderton?’ he said, like he was recollecting something. Dean watched the detective with his mouth open, looking worried, and Bradshaw wondered what he might find if he delved a little deeper into Dean Anderton’s past. ‘Well, Mr Anderton, I’m assuming these young ladies are all in your care?’

  ‘Yes, they are.’

  ‘In that case, I don’t mind telling you that there have been some very serious allegations involving young Callie.’

  ‘Really?’ Dean’s voice went up several octaves. He’s shitting it, thought Bradshaw. ‘What kind of allegations?’

  Bradshaw wanted to say, ‘Soliciting, sexual abuse, rape, kidnap, possibly even murder,’ but instead he leant in confidingly. ‘Theft.’

  ‘Theft?’

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Bradshaw, ‘multiple counts from several retailers.’

  ‘Shoplifting?’ Dean’s relief was tangible.

  ‘You don’t sound too concerned.’

  ‘No, of course I’m concerned, it’s just, I’m glad it’s nothing too bad, you know.’

  ‘What were you expecting? Theft is serious.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Dean, ‘but when you work with vulnerable kids like these you do tend to fear the worst.’