by Clare Curzon
‘Right,’ DI Salmon snarled, facing the crowded room and identifying himself.
‘As you should all know by now, we are concerned with the violent death of a thirteen-year old boy, Michael Kane from Wimbledon. It’s to be a full scale murder hunt and there’s plenty of hard graft for every one of you. Our victim’s on the books as a runaway and a drug OD who discharged himself from the General Hospital Saturday, stealing another patient’s clothes. He was still wearing them when his body was recovered from the river by the boathouse yesterday morning, less the shoes. But the lad didn’t drown. Somebody clocked him from behind and split the skull. The blunt instrument hasn’t yet been found.
‘All the stolen clothes were several sizes too large. The shoes would have been almost impossible to walk in naturally for any distance. They haven’t turned up among Micky’s own clothes at the house of the present suspect, so we can’t prove he ever went back there.
‘I want those shoes found.
‘It’s likely that between leaving hospital on Saturday afternoon and being pulled out of the river on Sunday morning he returned to the house where he had been in hiding for an unknown period during the week he was missing from home. And where – ’ he glared round the room -‘it appears he was sexually abused.
‘A warrant has been obtained overnight to search that house and all property belonging to one Stanley Allbright. That includes his car and motor cycle which scientific officers are already examining. We shall also be tooth combing the stationery warehouse where he’s employed as night stock-controller, its precinct and all vehicles used by that company. The place will be sealed until the examination is completed and all the workers questioned.
‘We also need to speak to hospital staff and any patients who may have seen the boy leaving the hospital; likewise shopkeepers and anyone about at the time he would have been crossing town at dusk. So oddly dressed, he’d stick out like a nun at a Wembley Cup Final. Copies of his photograph in school uniform will be available at the end of the briefing. Everyone is to take one.’
He glowered round the assembled uniform and plain clothes officers. ‘We want no slip-ups on this, no half-done jobs. Every smallest scrap of information is to be passed in, irrespective of your private opinion of its worth. No matter what grotty rubbish you have to turn over, it is to be done thoroughly. This kid comes from the Met’s patch, so their eyes are going to be glued on every move you make or clue you fail to suck up.
‘Allocations are the responsibility of Sergeant Wimpole; and Sergeant O’Neill is Office Manager of the Incident Room. I shall be leading the active investigation, under Superintendent Yeadings as SIO. Any questions?’
The abundance of information must have floored them. Or maybe the DI’s aggressive manner put off anyone willing to put up a hand and volunteer as bright boy of the class.
‘What d’you think?’ Beaumont asked Z as they filed out.
‘Comprehensive,’ she allowed. Privately she considered Salmon had missed a chance to appeal to family men with kids of their own, and present a more sympathetic image of the dead boy. But then, sympathy was a word that never got within a mile of the man.
Next it was Beaumont’s turn to sit in with Allbright who had dismissed his brief as useless, relying on his own ability to repeat, ‘No comment’ until decision time on charging him. Z, familiar with the DI’s stated dislike of women trailing around getting in the way, had no difficulty persuading Salmon to let her follow up a line of her own. She began by calling again on Micky’s parents at their hotel to make sure they understood the outcome of the post-mortem examination. She knew Yeadings himself had already visited them with a woman constable to break the findings gently.
Z found them still at late breakfast, dazed by events but holding themselves together. They were pathetically grateful to see her again. ‘There’s no useful purpose to be served by staying here longer,’ Hilda Kane said, ‘so we’ve decided to get back – back home, and try to take up our lives where we left off. Thank God for work. Maybe we can bury ourselves in that.’
‘I’ll be in touch with your local police,’ Z told her. ‘I know they’ll keep you in the picture, and I’ll phone you myself on any developments.’
‘We want this fiend put away for a very – long – time, ’ the man said grimly. ‘I’m only sorry they’ve not brought back hanging.’
Z nodded sympathetically. ‘There shouldn’t be any further disturbance for you at home. I suppose the local police searched thoroughly through Micky’s things there once he’d been placed on the Missing Juveniles list?’
‘Took his bedroom nearly to bits.’ Today Micky’s father was asserting himself.
‘I remember you said Micky spent a lot of time up there. Did he use a computer for his school work?’
‘All the time. Hid his head in it like an ostrich. Surfing the net and all that, as kids do nowadays. Don’t know why I ever bought him all those useless encyclopedias.’
‘Did the Met – the police – take the computer away for examination?’
There was an awkward silence. ‘They did suggest it. Well, demand it, really.’ Now he sounded embarrassed.
‘But I couldn’t let them have it. Micky had entered a lot of information for me on it. Private stuff, to do with the business. So I took the whole workstation downstairs and told them it was our family computer which Micky just used for school essays. So it’s still with us, only I put it back in his room, because it’s of no use to me, unless I learn how to work it. Of course Mother’s a dab hand, uses one all the time at school for preparing lessons and keeping records. But she wouldn’t have time to take on my affairs as well.’
And perhaps for that the boy was dead. Z took a deep breath. There was no call to hammer the point home.
‘I’m sure you’d master it in no time,’ she consoled him. ‘And you could speed the process by joining an adults’ IT evening class.’
‘Do you think so? Yes, I might try that. Something to – to fill the time, you know.’
‘I’m wondering,’ Z said. ‘Since he was surfing the net, we could use it to discover his pet interests. And perhaps he joined a chat line, as many students do, for an exchange of ideas. There may be friends he’s made that way who knew what was in his mind at the time he decided to go away. It could provide a clue to what he went looking for.’
‘But not what happened to him! He didn’t deserve that. No child ever does!’ His mother’s anger broke through at last, but her husband was still groping for information.
‘You mean it’s all still in the computer? Everything he was working on?’
‘Yes, for anyone who knows how to get it out.’
‘Do you?’
‘I think so. Unless he’s used some very obscure password to secure his private zone. And in that case, we do have experts who can get through to it. Of course there’s still all your business stuff in there …’
‘Oh that doesn’t matter. Not now. But, at the time, handing the computer over seemed an invasion of privacy. We didn’t know how serious it would all become.’ His voice broke. ‘I’ve been foolish withholding it. After I’d moved it to my own room I couldn’t admit I’d lied to the police.’
‘Suppose I drive back after you and take a look? Or bring it back here for our computer experts?’
They looked at each other. Hilda’s mind was already made up. She nodded at her husband.
‘Right,’ Zyczynski said. ‘What time were you thinking of leaving?’
Oliver Markham hadn’t been enjoying his start in the new job as much as he’d expected. So far it had consisted of hanging about to keep observation on what appeared to be an empty house. He craved action and, if possible, opposition. He sat slumped in the passenger seat of Tam Godfrey’s Ford Mondeo, glowering through the frosted mist while the other man, dour and uncommunicative, sucked at boiled sweets and read a magazine on antiques.
‘You get a lot of valuable old stuff to deal with, then?’ Markham demanded finally to break th
e silence.
Godfrey grunted. ‘There’s no harm in hoping.’
That seemed all he was prepared to offer. Except that, reminded of the other man’s presence, he held out the limp bag of sticky sweets, appeared unaffected by Markham’s scornful rebuffing of the gesture, and resumed his reading.
This was one godawful waste of time and ability, Markham fumed. He was eager to wade in, challenge the wretched defaulter with a list of accumulated debts, lean on him a little as a matter of principle and set about distraint of his goods to an appropriate value.
Today no amount of knocking on the paint-blistered front door had raised any reaction from within the Victorian terraced house, but Godfrey was adamant that the man was at home, declaring that he ‘felt it in his water’. Markham, having overindulged on strong coffee at breakfast was rather differently afflicted, and the need to correct this was from minute to minute more pressing. Eventually he eased himself out of the car. ‘Taking a turn around,’ he told the other, and set off down the alley at the side of the house. Turning left, he found a pathway between the two rows of back-to-back houses and duly relieved himself.
Zipping up, his body temperature having plummeted witheringly, he peered through the dilapidated fence of the house he took to be that of his quarry. At that moment a dark-clad figure climbed through a first-floor window and let himself down over an extension roof into the yard. There he pulled a pedal cycle out from under a tarpaulin sheet and set about trundling it in Markham’s direction.
The necessary paperwork was, of course, in the car. Boiling with frustration, he had to retreat, noting in which direction the cyclist set off at speed once he reached the outer alley.
Markham hurried back to inform Godfrey. Their pursuit was balked by the one-way road system the town council had in their wisdom imposed, and which the cyclist was able to flout by using pedestrian paths. It took several circuits of the town centre before they again sighted the escapee, coming on him face to face and swerving to cause him to wobble off into the gutter. His expletives, as he picked himself up and brushed off his knees, were repetitive and obscene.
‘Oh Lordy,’ Godfrey said, mildly exasperated, ‘we’ve got the wrong bugger. This is our man’s brother.’
The fiasco didn’t improve Markham’s enjoyment of the hunt. They waited a further three-quarters of an hour with himself posted in the cold to keep an eye on the rear of the premises.
‘Right,’ Godfrey finally decided, ‘he’s holed up for the day, with little brother sent out for the shopping. But with his known nocturnal habits, we’ll get our chance later.’
In offering the job, Baldrey had made no mention of hours of work. Glumly Markham now faced the prospect that they were possibly unlimited and mainly of the unsocial kind.
Godfrey broke for lunch at 1.15 after a visit across town to a housewife in a more upmarket road. Her original fine of £30 for illegal parking, plus a late payment charge on the court fee, plus the company’s fee for debt collection, plus Godfrey’s personal commission on fruitless visits to date had run the debt into what she saw as astronomical figures.
‘Plus Value Added Tax at 17.5% on the lot,’ Markham joined in, taking grim pleasure in dealing the final blow. ‘In all, that comes to £468.88.’
Appalled, she wailed like a banshee. No way could she screw this amount out of her monthly housekeeping. And she dared not tell her husband. He’d scalp her.
‘Sorry, love,’ Godfrey commiserated. ‘It don’t just go away if you ignore it. Next time best tell your hubby right at the start before it mounts up.’
Staring as she twisted her hands together trying not to blubber, Markham decided he remembered her from his usher’s days. Her or a dozen other stuck-up, over-painted tarts exactly like her. At last he could draw some satisfaction from what he was doing. No longer impotent to implement the decisions of the court, he now wielded real power. Momentarily at least it seemed worth sacrificing the robes of officialdom.
Again Tam’s decision was to return in the evening, by which time the stupid cow should have warned the husband that settlement was overdue and the final amount still climbing. Which obligation lessened the heart-warming sense of achievement; but Markham decided the encounter deserved some reward. He suggested a liquid lunch in the nearest bar.
‘Half an hour, then, if that’s what you’re after,’ Tam Godfrey granted. ‘Only don’t come back with a boozy breath. Myself, I dig in here with a sandwich and a flask. I’ve too much respect for money to go pouring it down a pub drain.’
Not that he restricted himself to tea or coffee. Markham didn’ t miss the label on the single malt that accompanied the foil-wrapped package. It seemed Godfrey was a snob in his drinking as well as his taste for antiques.
The Barley Mow Inn was only round the next corner. Anything was better than the Crown, where Markham was too well-known in his earlier profession, and the place was awash with images of the Lump.
It wasn’t his fault that the thing with her had gone sour on him. She shouldn’t have led him on, then repulsed him. Still, it’d done her no good in the end. He’d shown her, like any red-blooded male would, just how futile it was to resist, teasing him with shouting ‘no’ when she was clearly mad to get more of the same. It had really got his rag.
All the same, he’d never gone out of his head like that before, and in a weird way the red-blurred images of Saturday night evoked unease along with a defiant sort of warrior pride. He hadn‘t full recall of how he’d left her. Which was as well. He wouldn’ t dwell on any of it. She was history, wiped out of his life, and he knew to avoid her kind like the pox in future. All women were a disaster. He’d recognized that even as a child and needed none of them.
He followed the lager with a whisky chaser, then repeated the dose as weather-proofing and to underline his growing contempt for Tam Godfrey with his penny-pinching, petty interests. Working in tandem with him was restrictive. If Bradley wanted results he’d best switch his new man to cases on his own.
Deliberately Markham watched the clock hands mark up fifty minutes before he downed a final scotch and took his time returning to the car, where Godfrey, poor sap, was quietly dozing.
Ramón was feeding some kind of fruity pap to Emily and conscious of something new in her eyes as she observed him between mouthfuls.
‘You do this yourself now,’ he suggested, reversing the spoon. She fitted her stiff little claws around it and wobbled the next load into her rounded mouth. That was better. It took some of her attention off him.
He couldn’t stand the staring. There was no way of knowing what, if anything, was going on behind those unblinking, washed-out blue eyes. Because she was different from others, so old and with some faculties missing, he felt an almost supernatural perception in her silent gaze. As compensation. In the way that those who were blind had their other senses sharpened.
Could she discern things about him that he hid from others? He knew he must be more careful with her, not to let secrets out. Yet there was safety in her not talking. If she began to guess, perhaps he could even tell her things, explain himself.
She pushed the spoon towards him and he guided it into the slosh of fruit and custard. It seemed she was hungry. He steadied her hand on its way to her mouth.
‘A little walk?’ he suggested when finally she pushed the bowl away. He gently wiped her mouth and guided her wheelchair towards the kitchen, where he removed the tray fixture and unloaded the crockery and spoons into the dishwasher. Her eyes followed every movement.
Then they began a solemn promenade through all the rooms, pausing where she pointed or made some gurgling comment on pieces of furniture or the strange pictures that covered her walls. One smallish oil painting in particular, like a confusion of barbed wire and amputated limbs, she laughed at, and he unhooked it to place it in her hands where she cuddled it to her and stroked the rough, impasto surface.
He let her keep it on her knees as he parked the chair by the glass wall. She gazed out. How m
uch did her flawed sight allow her? Was she aware, across the town’s rooftops, of distant, white-frosted fields and above them the blur of charcoal streaks that were winter-bare woodland?
Whatever she saw, she seemed contented. He watched her eyelids grow heavy as she succumbed to sleep. He pulled the tartan rug up over her knees and hands, gently removed the picture, rehung it and went to look again at the room Nurse Orme had offered him.
It was perfect. Painted in apricot and white, with a wide bed that gave gently under his weight as he sat on the covers. No shrieking springs. Pale wood furniture, and in one corner a glass-walled shower with a seat in it. Everything looked unused. A real beginning.
All this he could have if he accepted to work here full-time. She had offered ten pounds more each week than he received at the Crown. And all meals would be free.
He was superstitiously afraid to accept. So much promised could invite misfortune.
He remade Emily’s bed, bagged the linen and cleaned out the room. When he went back to the glass wall she was awake and smiled at him. She looked so wise.
He knelt beside her. ‘Do you know about me?’ he asked.
Her face said nothing. She was waiting.
‘I am bad man,’ he confessed. ‘I did bad things.’
Her eyes engaged his own. He saw a new depth in them. ‘Bad,’ she said aloud, and struggled to get out something more. He watched her, nodding encouragement.
‘Bad.’ She nodded. ‘Wicked. Wicked …woman.’ She laid a small, cold hand on his.
He believed her. He knew then he would be accepting the job on offer. He would stay and look after Emily. They were two of a kind.
Nothing must threaten his claim on being here. The woman Sheena would not return, but at any time her body could be discovered. From the flat’s huge window he had kept watch on activity in the yard below on Sunday night. Three cars had parked close to the blank warehouse wall, switched off their lights and waited. When a fourth turned in from the road the occupants all got out and gathered until the last arrival joined them. Then together they grouped at the small door let into the loading bay. They would be night staff setting the place up for Monday opening, and this last man would be the one entrusted with the keys.
