Cry of the Children

by J M Gregson

  ‘It’s our job to dig such things up, Mr Clancey. Especially when we’re investigating a child murder. It’s just under six years since you received a custodial sentence for indecent assault upon a junior. That isn’t very long ago, in our book.’

  ‘It is when you’re going straight and trying to make an honest living.’

  ‘You were accused of touching an eleven-year-old girl’s thighs, looking up her skirt and propositioning her only last Saturday. Doesn’t sound very honest to me. Later on that same day, a younger girl, Lucy Gibson, was abducted and subsequently murdered. You’re in trouble, Mr Clancey. Deep trouble, with separate convictions for both child abuse and serious assault. Perhaps you should be considering getting yourself some legal representation.’

  ‘I don’t need no brief, Lambert. I’ve committed no bloody offence.’

  ‘You’ve taken no legal steps to change your name, Mr Clancey. You’re a convicted criminal operating under an alias, which implies to us that you have much to hide. We’re not pursuing that this morning, because we are concerned with much greater crimes.’

  His face set into the sullen, uncooperative mask they had seen a hundred times before in men who settled differences with their fists. ‘I didn’t kill Lucy Gibson. And I know nothing about this boy that’s gone missing.’

  It was a mistake and they wanted to be sure that he recognized it as one. Lambert let ten long seconds pass before he said quietly, ‘And how do you know that a boy’s disappeared, Mr Clancey?’

  That old name, the one he thought he’d discarded, was ringing like a knell in his ears. He said dully, ‘I heard people talking about it this morning. Someone came into the pub last night and said the pigs were stopping everyone.’

  ‘Which story do you prefer us to record, Mr Clancey? I won’t use the word “believe”.’

  ‘I don’t care whether you sods believe me or not, do I?’ When they didn’t respond to that, he said more quietly, ‘I heard about it in the pub, I think. I’d had a few.’

  The thug’s usual accompaniment to villainy. I’d had a few. I was quite drunk. I don’t remember things accurately and you shouldn’t expect me to do that. And I’m not guilty of anything, because I was drunk and not responsible for my actions.

  It was Bert Hook who now asked quietly, ‘You went to the pub for a drink after you’d finished with Raymond Barrington, did you, Michael?’

  This was good cop/bad cop, wasn’t it? The stupid ox was using his first name, hoping to prise things from him that the bugger with the furrowed face couldn’t get to. Well, it wouldn’t bloody work. It mustn’t bloody work, thought Michael Clancey, as panic surged suddenly through his powerful frame. He stared at the table, concentrating hard. ‘I don’t know that name. I’ve never met any boy. I had nothing to do with whatever happened last night.’

  ‘What car do you have, Michael?’

  ‘Peugeot 350. I’m going to change it. The engine’s knackered.’ He sounded apologetic about the vehicle, as if he was talking to one of his mates and needed to explain away its deficiencies. There was no need to tell the filth about it, he realized. It felt like a sign of weakness that he’d done so.

  ‘We’ll need to let our forensic boys have a look at your car. See whether you had a passenger in there last night. See if an eight-year-old boy has left anything of himself behind.’

  ‘You can look all you like. You’ll find bugger all.’ But even as he spoke, he wondered exactly what they would discover among the old newspapers and the crisp papers and the fag packets. He should have cleaned the thing out and left them nothing to bite on. It was too late now.

  ‘Were you in Church Lane in Oldford last night?’

  ‘Very likely I was. It’s within a couple of hundred yards of my digs.’

  ‘Were you or weren’t you in Church Lane last night?’ Hook never lost his temper, but he was finding it more difficult than usual to keep it this time.

  ‘Yeah. I drove along it. There’s no law against that.’

  ‘Time?’

  ‘I don’t know. Early evening. I wasn’t looking at my watch. The clock in the Peugeot’s buggered.’

  ‘Before or after eight o’clock?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Before, I should think.’ He’d been tempted to lie, but for all he knew, they already had a sighting of the Peugeot.

  ‘Where did you take the boy when you picked him up?’

  ‘I didn’t take him anywhere. I never saw any boy.’ But they wouldn’t believe him, would they? They’d nabbed him for changing his name and they’d got his criminal record to hit him with. They wanted someone for this, someone to get the public off their backs, and anyone would do. Preferably someone with previous, like him. He said, ‘I went into Gloucester. Went to a pub there.’

  ‘So you’d be able to provide witnesses. Someone who could confirm you were there and tell us how long you spent there.’

  ‘No. It was casual, like. I don’t have friends. I’m always on the move, see, with the fair. We don’t get the chance to make friends.’

  Hook smiled a little, registering Clancey’s unease, letting it build. ‘And no one in a Gloucester pub would be talking about what the police were doing fourteen miles away in Oldford. Not so quickly. So where were you really last night, Michael? You’ll find it’s much better to talk to us now. We might even be able to say you cooperated with us, if you can take us to the boy and we find him unharmed.’

  ‘I never touched any boy. You’ve got the wrong bloke here. It’s time you realized that and let me out of here.’

  But they didn’t do that. And as he fretted in a cell, he was more and more certain that they’d find things when they went over the Peugeot.

  FIFTEEN

  Dean Gibson was five minutes late for work. You didn’t want to be late when the job wasn’t permanent. You wanted to convince your employer that you were reliable as well as skilful.

  The death of his daughter had brought him sympathy from the people who worked alongside him in the houses, but it hadn’t pleased his employer. Frank Lewis wasn’t interested in being popular. He was a man interested in keeping a business going in a recession, not in looking after a man who had suddenly become both a grieving father and a murder suspect.

  The four men were working on an extension to a large house in a village just south of Hereford. Dean had his story about traffic hold-ups ready when he drove into the quiet road, but he was relieved to see that the boss hadn’t yet arrived. He parked the battered white van near the gates, moved hurriedly within the house and began assembling the materials he needed for his morning work.

  His fellow workers were glad to see Dean because they needed his skills. The extension was nearing completion. The brickwork of the new walls was completed and Dean was scheduled to begin the plasterwork this morning. He was the only one with the skills to provide a smooth and even finish over large surfaces; that was his specialism. The householder was paying well for this, but he expected high standards. They couldn’t afford any blemishes in the plastering, or they’d end up stripping the wall down to the bricks and beginning again. Any such disaster would mean a severe blow to Frank Lewis’s profit on this job and possible reductions in his workforce. Frank played things close to his chest, so that none of his workers was sure as they moved towards winter how much work he had in the pipeline for them.

  Dean was nervous; perhaps he realized how much his work this morning meant to all of them. His hands even shook a little, but that didn’t prevent him doing an excellent job. He worked steadily throughout the morning, not even stopping for the normal tea break with the joiner and the bricklayer who were working on other parts of the extension. He said continuity was important with plastering: when the material was at a certain delicate stage, you had to use it immediately. Pausing even for quarter of an hour would leave it less workable than if you carried on without a break. This was a big surface to cover and he didn’t want to risk the possibility of a join showing when his work was finished.
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br />   The others raised their eyebrows at each other behind him, wondering if he was trying to impress the boss with his industry. You couldn’t blame Gibson, really. He needed the work and he was the most recent addition to the team, so he had to show what he could do and how he could be trusted. It was only later that it occurred to them that he might want to work rather than talk, that the loss and subsequent murder of his little girl might be preying on his mind and making him wish to avoid the normal bawdy, brainless banter that carried them along.

  Frank Lewis was impressed. The boss inspected Dean’s work closely when he had finished and congratulated him on a good job. Dean nodded and gave him the briefest of thanks, as if praise was no more than he had expected – or as if his mind was preoccupied with other things.

  It was at the end of the morning that the lady of the house came uncertainly into the room. Her policy was to avoid contact with the men, apart from the ritual of supplying them with mugs of tea at appropriate intervals. She was happy to let her husband handle their payment and any queries about the quality of their work. She inspected the workers’ progress with her husband each night, when they had gone home, but she had only minimal contact with them during the day.

  This time she had no alternative. She looked around the men, who had bent automatically to their tasks as they registered her presence. ‘Is there a Dean Gibson here?’ she said. Plainly the name had not registered with her as having any connection with that of the girl who had died at the weekend.

  The plasterer put down the trowel he had been cleaning. ‘I’m Dean Gibson.’

  ‘There’s a phone call for you. It’s the police.’ She couldn’t keep disapproval out of her voice. Her carriage and her air suggested that anyone whom the police needed to contact should not be working in her elegant house. ‘You’d better come through and take the call.’

  The cool female voice said calmly, ‘Oldford police station here. You’re very elusive, Mr Gibson. We’ve been trying to contact you all morning.’

  ‘I left home early because I had a fair way to travel. We’re working near Hereford. Sorry, you already know that.’

  ‘I do now, Mr Gibson. It’s taken me hours to track you down. Chief Superintendent Lambert wishes to speak to you as soon as possible.’

  ‘Has he found who killed Lucy? Has there been an arrest?’

  ‘I don’t know and I’m not at liberty to discuss cases, Mr Gibson. I know you’re Lucy’s father and I’m sorry I can’t tell you any more. Please call in at Oldford police station as quickly as possible. Unless you wish Chief Superintendent Lambert to contact you there.’ It sounded almost a threat,

  ‘No. I’m almost finished here for today. I’ll call in before I go back to my lodgings in Ledbury.’ He was surprised how calm he felt at the prospect.

  The man who had stepped into Dean Gibson’s home and then into his wife’s bed was nervous. Matthew Boyd had opted to go to the police station at Oldford rather than be interviewed in his rather seedy digs. Now he was wondering if that was the right decision.

  A youngish man in plain clothes who said he was Detective Inspector Rushton installed him in an interview room and told him he would have to wait for a while because Chief Superintendent Lambert wished to speak to him in person. Rushton managed to imply that this made Matt a very interesting specimen indeed, who might well be banged up in a cell before the day was out. Then he studied his reactions to this as though he was a fish on a slab, awaiting dissection by an expert filleter. DI Rushton said he would arrange for a mug of tea to be sent into him whilst he waited, much in the manner of an American jailer offering a man on death row a final hearty breakfast.

  Matt Boyd was glad when he was left alone. Perhaps they intended to increase his tension by leaving him in here. Well, he could counteract that by using this interval to calm himself and plan his own tactics for the ordeal to come. He tried hard to do that, but his mind raced ahead and ranged over all sorts of things – things that weren’t going to be helpful to him when he was eventually interviewed.

  Lambert brought Hook with him, the stolid detective sergeant whom Matt remembered from their meeting four days earlier about Lucy. Lambert apologized for keeping him waiting. Then both men studied him for a few seconds, as if assessing his state of mind before they moved in on him. It was one of the things about police interrogation: coppers didn’t feel any need to observe the normal social conventions. They didn’t try to put you at ease and they didn’t see any reason why they shouldn’t stare directly at you to discover your thoughts and emotions. If you were used to people feeling their way in, it could be very disconcerting. He told himself it wasn’t any worse than when he met some truculent nobody who didn’t want to buy, but he knew immediately that the stakes here were much higher.

  It was Matt who eventually felt an overwhelming need to break the silence. He said, ‘What’s happened? Your uniformed man said there’d been new developments.’

  Lambert was studiously low-key. ‘Do you know a boy called Raymond Barrington?’

  ‘No. I don’t know any children in Oldford. I only knew Lucy Gibson because she was Anthea’s daughter.’

  ‘Raymond attends the same school as Lucy did. He’s one year older than her. He’s disappeared. He appears to have been abducted last night, in much the same manner as Lucy was on Saturday.’

  Matt was intensely conscious of their scrutiny. They were almost accusing him of the crime by the way they were studying him. And being looked at like that made you self-conscious, so that you behaved as if you were guilty anyway. ‘It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill Lucy and I didn’t even know of the existence of this boy.’

  ‘I see. We think this might have been an opportunistic action. The person who seized Raymond last night might never have seen him before.’

  ‘And why would he take the boy?’

  Lambert shrugged. ‘Because he – or she – is unbalanced? Because this person has been excited by the abduction and subsequent murder of Lucy and is now looking for another minor to attack? Motive is not easy to establish in cases of child murder. Sometimes it is not even a very useful concept for us to pursue.’

  ‘And so you think that I took this boy that I’ve never even seen.’

  ‘Did you, Mr Boyd?’

  He was shaken by the calmness of the question. He had anticipated nothing so direct, had expected something much more apologetic. Shouldn’t they be talking about the need to eliminate people like him from their enquiries? Shouldn’t they be assuring him that this was merely a routine that had to be observed? He said as vigorously as he could, ‘No, I didn’t take him! The first I’ve heard about this wretched boy is your mention of him a moment ago.’

  ‘Wretched boy indeed, Mr Boyd. Poor Raymond is in a wretched situation, if indeed he is still alive. Do you think he is still alive, Mr Boyd?’

  ‘I don’t know. I told you, I don’t even know the boy.’

  They both stared at him without comment, making him wish he’d been able to state what he had just said even more vehemently and convincingly. It was Hook who now said to him, much less aggressively, ‘What have you been doing since we spoke with you on Sunday, Mr Boyd?’

  Matt couldn’t believe it was only four days ago. It seemed to him much longer than that. He tried to be conciliatory, in response to Hook’s quieter approach. ‘I’ve been working. Trying to earn an honest penny and keep the car industry going.’ His nervous giggle fell oddly into the echoing cube of the interview room. ‘I’ve now taken a couple of days’ leave; that is why I am available to speak to you now.’

  ‘Getting on well, are you, in this second choice of career?’

  Matt tried to ignore the last phrase, but his mind reeled in the face of what might be coming next. ‘I’m doing well enough. People always need parts and accessories for vehicles, even in a recession. If people are forced to hang on to their cars for longer, they need batteries, exhausts, tyres. Headlights and side-lights get broken. Cars are more reliable and they rust less tha
n they did thirty years ago. But if people use them for longer, that makes good business for people like me.’

  It was a spiel he had delivered many times before and it fell a little too readily from his lips. It echoed in his ears like a rehearsed speech. To Hook, it sounded exactly what it was: a rather desperate attempt to divert attention away from the mention of a second career that had been thrown at him. ‘We’ve spoken to your ex-wife. That’s how we heard about your earlier career.’

  ‘There was no need for you to contact Hannah. That’s the action of someone operating in a police state.’

  ‘It’s routine procedure in a case as serious as that of Lucy Gibson. When the last person seen with a girl who is later found dead has no alibi, we investigate his background thoroughly. We do the same thing with other people who might be suspects.’

  ‘And how many of those have you followed up in this kind of detail?’

  ‘You wouldn’t expect me to answer that, Matthew. Tell us about your previous experience with children.’

  ‘Why should I? You seem to know all about it.’

  ‘We know a little. Perhaps, indeed, we know quite a lot. But we’d like to have your version of events. That would surely be much fairer.’

  ‘It’s a long time ago. Ten years and more. I was training for teaching. I decided it wasn’t for me. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be fairer to say that others decided that it was not for you? That you were given little choice in the matter and were relieved to extricate yourself without the matter going to court?’

  ‘No! The matter was blown out of all proportion by a hysterical parent. I offered comfort to over-excited seven-year-olds; that was all I did. And the thanks I got for it was to be hounded out of my training by a head teacher and governors who weren’t prepared to listen to my arguments!’ He had been over this so often, both in his own mind and with that sour-faced ex-wife of his, that he had almost convinced himself of the righteousness of his case.