Cry of the Children

by J M Gregson

  It was Mrs Allen who had encouraged Raymond Barrington to join the cub scouts. She wanted him to have friends outside the home and activities away from it, though she didn’t tell him that. She’d seen how the cubs, and later the scouts, could add another dimension to the lives of boys who were in care. Raymond was a shy boy. He’d been reluctant to go to the meetings at first, but after a few times he’d begun to enjoy it.

  He’d been going for three months now and he raced off eagerly after his tea on this gloomy October evening. Mrs Allen’s parting injunction to be sure to come straight back afterwards rang in his ears as he went, waving a hand in the air in acknowledgement but not turning his head to look towards her. She almost always said that, but she’d been especially emphatic tonight. He knew why. It was because of that girl who’d been taken and killed at the weekend. Some perve had taken her, the older boys said, and Raymond thought they were probably right.

  You grew up quickly when you were in council care.

  There weren’t as many as usual at cubs. Parents were worried about letting their children out alone after what had happened to Lucy Gibson, though neither Akela nor anyone else voiced that thought. Raymond Barrington swiftly forgot all about Lucy when the noisy activities got going inside the big hut. They spent some time working on the activities for their badges. Raymond had found knots difficult at first, but he was pretty good at them now. He was looking forward to getting his badges, just as he enjoyed looking up at his bright green cap when he was in his bed at the home.

  Because there were only a few of them tonight, at the end of the session they played table tennis, which some of the poorer players still called ‘ping pong’. Raymond was the best in the group at table tennis; they had a table in the home and he sometimes played there, when the older ones were doing other things. He was getting quite deadly now with his forehand drive, though Akela told him he must wait for his opportunity and try not to hit it too hard. He won each of the three games he was allowed to play, and he was excited and sorry to finish when the session ended and it was time to go home.

  He put his anorak on but didn’t bother to zip it up, because he was so warm after the games he’d played and won. He put his green cub cap carefully on his head and set off home with David, the new friend with curly yellow hair whom he’d met at cubs. David went to a private school and lived in a big house near the common, but he and Raymond got on very well at cubs. David said he was going to invite Raymond round to his house for tea and to play one weekend. Raymond rather thought this one might happen; a couple of boys from school had said they were going to invite him, but the parents had put a stop to it when they’d found he lived in the council home.

  He said goodbye to the others and went out into the night with David. It was cold after the warmth of the hut. The sky seemed very dark after the brightness of the lights over the table tennis table. He was glad that he had David with him, though he would never have dreamed of saying that. They kept very close to each other as they moved through the night.

  ‘See you next week!’ Nervousness made David’s voice unnaturally loud. He touched Raymond on the shoulder, then broke into a run and disappeared through the gate to his house and into the darkness.

  It was beginning to rain, but it wasn’t far back to the big house and Mrs Allen now. Not much more than a hundred yards, Raymond told himself, though he wasn’t quite sure how far that was. He broke into a run, but found that rhythm had deserted him just when he most wanted it. His legs wouldn’t work together; he almost fell when one of his feet slipped into the gutter. It was silly to get so excited. He was used to the dark, wasn’t he? He made himself slow down into a swift walk.

  He wasn’t sure where the figure came from. It was suddenly towering above him in the darkness. Both his arms were seized, then held together so tightly behind his back that he feared one of them might break. Then his wrists were held in one strong, gloved hand, whilst the other one was placed over his mouth. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him. This was the kind of horror he used to scare the others in their beds at night with his stories. It shouldn’t happen in real life.

  But now something was slipped over his mouth, sealing his lips, closing his panting mouth, so that he feared he might choke. The face seemed far above him, much too high for him to see it properly. Was it a man or a woman, or something much worse, something not even human? He was carried past a streetlamp and the light fell briefly upon them. His assailant was muffled in a coat right up to the cheekbones. Whoever or whatever it was had a mask over its eyes, like the highwayman in the book he’d read last week.

  ‘You’re going for a ride, boy!’ The voice was scarcely human, growling at him through the material over the mouth. His hand was clutched hard in that huge paw and he was ordered harshly not to speak. There was no chance of that, with the tape that had been spread across his mouth. He looked desperately for anyone coming towards them along the road, but there was no one. He clutched his cub cap with his free hand and flung it away. This awful thing wasn’t going to have that.

  Raymond thought his assailant was huge. He had dismissed the idea that this was some ogre that wasn’t human now, but he couldn’t tell from the few words that had been shouted hoarsely into his ear whether it was male or female. It seemed vital not to upset whoever gripped his hand. He must concentrate on breathing though his nose. They were moving quickly now, almost running, but he sensed that it would be foolish to resist.

  Raymond Barrington saw the high gables of the home pass swiftly away into the starless night.

  TWELVE

  There was no delay in reporting the abduction this time. Before half past eight on that damp Wednesday night, the tremulous voice of Amy Allen was reporting to Oldford police station that eight-year-old Raymond Barrington had not returned to the care home. She had rung the cub leader and Akela had confirmed that the boy had left the scout centre at five to eight, accompanied by his friend David Harper. David had reached home five minutes later. Raymond had not been seen since then.

  By nine fifteen, in the darkness and drizzle of the late October night, John Lambert, Bert Hook, Chris Rushton and the nucleus of the Lucy Gibson investigation team were assembled in the CID section at Oldford. There were grim faces everywhere. Lambert could still hear in his ears the warning of the forensic psychologist that morning that their killer might strike again. But what could they have done to prevent this? That question merely underlined how helpless they were in the face of irrational and motiveless crimes like this one. Even in a small town, you couldn’t cover every street for every hour of night and day.

  Raymond Barrington had disappeared on a short stretch of quiet, innocent-looking road near the town centre. Thin, steady rain was now falling from the low clouds as the hastily assembled scene of crime team began their search of the area. They knew pretty well exactly where someone had seized Raymond on that short journey in the dark of early evening. His cherished green cub cap had been found amongst the dying brown leaves of a beech hedge, less than seventy yards from the care home and safety.

  They were close enough to the time of the disappearance to corner the offender before he or she had hidden his prey. Or disposed of it. Neither Lambert nor Hook voiced that thought, but each was filled with a desperate haste.

  He or she. They went first to Big Julie Foster’s flat. Geographically, she was nearest to the scene of this latest outrage. Both men thought that a good enough reason to go there first. Neither of them voiced the thought that perhaps Julie was the likeliest candidate to have perpetrated this second snatching of a child.

  Julie wasn’t there. The two men glanced at each other in alarm. Neither of them wanted to force an entry, as they would undoubtedly have done if this had been the home of Rory Burns, that fairground thug who had leered up the skirt of Lucy Gibson and not troubled to disguise his interest in small children. Hook moved quickly up the passage at the side of the house; it was but a moment before he was back to report that there were no li
ghts on in the bedsit where Julie spent most of her leisure time. She was presumably out somewhere, rather than merely refusing to answer their ringing of her bell.

  Her car was also missing.

  Lambert radioed that information back to the murder room at the station. He also directed that members of the team be allocated to visit their three other main suspects immediately, to determine what they knew. The remaining one could be left to them. They were now on their way to the home of seventy-year-old Dennis Robson, known to have studied the playing-field movements of Lucy Gibson and presumably also those of Raymond Barrington, who had attended the same primary school.

  It was some time before Robson came to the door. He was wearing grey trousers, an open-necked shirt, soft leather slippers, a comfortable cardigan. The garb of an elderly man who lived alone and had settled down for a quiet evening. Or the carefully assumed disguise of an active paedophile to whom deceit came naturally: a man who had laboured hard to deceive the police over forty years. The CID men didn’t feel guilty about such thoughts; policemen were paid to be suspicious.

  There were the false flames of a modern electric fire flickering convincingly in the fireplace – just for decorative effect, Robson explained, as the central heating that switched on automatically was quite warm enough at this time of the year. A CD of Kiri te Kanawa was playing softly through the speakers, with the stereo sound directed at the big armchair where Robson sat. The Bang and Olufsen equipment emphasized the purity of the voice and the excellence of the recording.

  It all spoke eloquently of a quiet evening at home, with the owner settling happily into quiet and innocent enjoyment which had now been coarsely disrupted. Too eloquently, perhaps? Was this an elegantly staged charade to disguise the darker actions of a man well used to leading a double life? Dennis Robson took them wordlessly into the comfortable room, gestured with a wide arm movement towards the leather sofa opposite his chair, waited wordlessly for them to state their business.

  ‘There’s no one better than Kiri at Mozart,’ said Lambert. Even with urgency pressing upon his every limb, he instinctively built up Robson’s tension by opening with a polite irrelevance.

  ‘A cultured policeman,’ said Robson with a relaxed smile. ‘I always counsel against the danger of stereotyping.’

  Lambert didn’t tell him that he had the same recording in his own home. He said, ‘Unfortunately, we’re not here to discuss the merits of divas.’

  ‘I feared that might be the case. I don’t envy you your jobs.’ He looked from one to the other of the serious, urgent faces, wondered whether to offer them a drink, decided that might be going a little too far.

  ‘We’re investigating a second very serious crime against a child. A second abduction.’

  ‘I feared you might be. I’m afraid it’s not altogether a surprise to me.’

  ‘Where were you at eight o’clock this evening, Mr Robson?’

  A bland smile, a pause to let them know that he was indulging them by even allowing them to voice their ridiculous suspicions to him. ‘I was in this room. It was probably at about that time that I was indulging in a glass of after-dinner port. One is entitled to be a little hedonistic when one reaches seventy, I’ve decided. There have to be some compensations in the lonely life of a widower.’

  ‘Except that you’re not a widower, are you, Mr Robson? Your former wife is alive and well and living in the house you used to occupy with her in Bristol, before she divorced you.’

  For the first time, Robson looked shaken. His voice no longer carried its suave ring as he said, ‘A harmless deception, I felt. I have found that one receives a little more sympathy in a new environment if people think one’s wife is dead.’

  ‘And someone with your habits needs sympathy.’

  ‘I resent that. You have proved nothing against me and to imply that you have is not acceptable.’

  ‘You have been divorced for four years. Why did it happen?’

  He gave an elaborate shrug, as if the physical movement could restore his equanimity. ‘Why does any relationship fail? It was a mutual decision. Things weren’t working and we decided to go our separate ways.’

  ‘That isn’t your wife’s view. That isn’t what she stated in court. According to the court records, she said that you had agreed to her ultimatum that you must abandon your unsavoury interest in children if you were to remain a couple under the same roof. But you broke that agreement repeatedly, both in materials you brought into the house and in your activities outside it. She’d had enough and she wanted you out.’

  ‘How very well informed you are, Mr Lambert! I suppose that is part of your expertise as a policeman. Edith was a bitter and unbalanced woman. Having agreed to a divorce, I thought it better to let her have her way. I did not trouble to contest even her grosser accusations.’

  ‘So you left her in full possession of the family house and made also a generous financial settlement. Very generous – unless, of course, it was part of an agreement to prevent her making further revelations about your activities.’

  He was plainly anxious to get them off this ground. ‘Edith was vindictive. I was glad to be rid of her. I didn’t count the cost.’

  ‘And you retain an unhealthy interest in children.’

  Lambert had expected him to deny this, but he made what they now saw as a characteristic attempt at philosophic diversion. ‘I find young people fascinating. They retain an innocence that is not possible for adults, who are inevitably affected by the views and actions of the people around them. In some other societies, my love of children would be seen as laudable. Perhaps it will be here, in another couple of generations. We used to send people to prison for sodomy; now it seems to be positively applauded.’

  Bert Hook rose abruptly to his feet. It looked for a moment as if he was outraged by Dennis Robson’s sentiments, but he spoke calmly enough. He didn’t ask for the man’s permission to move out of the room and into the rest of his single-storey home. He merely said, ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ and slipped through the door and into the hall.

  Robson looked as if he would like to rise and follow him. Then, with an effort to remain seated that was palpable, he said sarcastically, ‘With an agility surprising in one of his bulk, Bulldog Drummond left the room. Bulldog Drummond was very popular, when I was a lad, Chief Superintendent. I’m afraid it wasn’t long before I found all that blood and thunder rather boring.’ He glanced at the door. Hook’s absence was plainly worrying him, but he would lose face if he tried to find what he was up to.

  Lambert, noting his quarry’s unease, repeated his earlier query. ‘Where were you at eight o’clock this evening, Mr Robson?’

  ‘I was here. Probably washing up my dinner dishes at that point. I don’t rate a dishwasher; I have too few items to warrant that. But I prefer to complete the menial tasks before I relax with my glass of port; I find I enjoy my hedonism better that way.’ He was back into his stride now, enjoying taunting his visitors, showing them how little he was worried by their presence here.

  ‘Is there anyone who can confirm that for us?’

  Robson lifted his hands a little from his thighs to show how ridiculous that question was. ‘I live alone. It would be quite odd if anyone could attest to my presence here at that time, don’t you think?’

  ‘I shall ask you formally: were you in Church Lane at that time?’

  ‘Ah! I now divine that you are investigating an incident that took place in Church Lane, Oldford, at around eight o’clock tonight. That is the limit of my knowledge, as I have been in here listening to our New Zealand diva for most of my evening. Thoroughly enjoyable, but I fear of no use to you and your worthy sergeant.’

  It was as if Bert Hook was responding to a cue. There was but the slightest of noises before he stood in the doorway, almost filling it, staring accusingly at the man who was settled so comfortably into his favourite armchair. Like many burly men, Bert moved almost silently. He had entered every room in the bungalow and its garage d
uring his brief absence, searching for any sign of a boy who had been captured and imprisoned. He had found none.

  He had discovered something else, however. Something that demanded an explanation. He said simply, ‘You’ve been out this evening, Mr Robson,’ but he invested the simple words with an enormous weight. ‘You’ve been lying to us about that.’

  Dennis Robson was plainly shaken. He began to rise from his chair, then settled himself determinedly back into it. He would face this out, if that was even faintly possible. ‘And so the worthy detective sergeant returns from his spying mission in my home. What makes you think I’ve been out, DS Hook?’

  Hook looked at him with steady distaste for a few seconds. Then he produced a pair of suede shoes and held them in front of him. ‘These are damp. They have traces of moss and mud in the soles. I’d say they’ve been worn outside earlier this evening.’

  ‘And that makes me guilty of some yet undisclosed crime, does it?’

  ‘It makes you a liar. And I don’t believe you lie just for the pleasure of it. You’ve got a reason.’

  ‘A perfectly innocent reason, which I don’t have to reveal to you.’

  He was still looking up at Hook, trying hard to remain insouciant. It was Lambert who now cut hard across their exchange. ‘A reason that you would be well advised to reveal to us, if it’s innocent. The alternative would be arrest on suspicion and more formal questioning at the station. You’d be entitled to a brief, of course.’

  Robson looked at him evenly, trying desperately to disguise the fear in his heart. ‘Let me make it plain that I disapprove of this type of tactic in our police service. Against my inclination, I shall reveal to you that I went out to walk a dog. I miss having my own dog, but my solitary lifestyle makes it impracticable. I am away too often to keep a dog of my own.’