Harry had gone from hugging, sniffling gratitude at the sight of his aunt, to pissed-off and sulky after being lectured for an hour on how worried she had been. Now he was sitting on the floor of his bedroom with his ear pressed against its door, listening for her lifting her coat to go out. It would only be to the supermarket to buy their dinner, but it would be a long enough absence for him to slide down the banister and escape, stopping on the way to filch a fiver from her bingo money tin. As he pried off the lid the teenager felt a pang of guilt from his newly activated conscience, which he just knew was going to be a nuisance in the future. He answered it aloud.
“It’s to save Joey. An’ anyway, I’ll pay it back.”
How, he hadn’t a clue, but he actually meant it this time.
He raced to the front door and craned his neck, looking up and down the street, waiting for a good few minutes just in case his aunt had wised up to him and was hiding around the corner to pounce. The waiting time proved pounceless, so Harry legged it, arriving at the main road just as the number fifty-seven bus into Belfast City Centre appeared.
It seemed like an omen.
He’d been wondering whether to go to the local copshop or one closer to where he’d been snatched in town. It wasn’t so much the bus that made the final choice for him as the fact that he’d been taken to the local cops every time he’d been nicked, and his credibility with them was nil. Believing that he’d been abducted and taken to the sticks in a van would have been met with nothing but a snort.
The decision made, he journeyed to the city centre and had just made it to the bottom of Donegall Place when he spotted the very person that he’d come to find. The teenager composed his face into the angelic expression that his aunt said he wore when he was asleep, and approached the young uniformed policeman with, “Excuse me, sir.”
They were words that warmed the cockles of Constable James Horgan’s heart. There was nothing he liked better than a polite child, probably because of their rarity value nowadays. He gazed down at the youth, swiftly taking in everything about him. Relatively clean and well nourished, although his combination of breaking voice and small frame said that probably hadn’t always been the case. But what the boy didn’t look was dangerous, so the P.C. took a step closer to Harry and nodded a brisk hello.
“What can I do for you, young man?”
Harry was as surprised by the man’s civility as Horgan had been with his. He wasn’t used to a copper addressing him like he was an ordinary citizen, but then to be fair he’d only ever spoken to one of them after he’d been nicked. The teenager gathered himself and answered.
“Cud you tell me where the nearest police station is, please?”
Horgan creased his tanned forehead quizzically. Why would the boy want to know that? He didn’t look distressed or injured in any way, but then again, his frown relaxed slightly at the thought, he might just be searching for a lost dog. He decided to ask rather than speculate further.
“Why would you need one of those?”
Harry didn’t like being questioned, so his cheeky side toyed with the idea of saying that he was a terrorist giving himself up, but after a cursory internal struggle his common sense won out.
“My friend’s been kidnapped, sir, an’ I need someone to help.”
A second later he found himself being propelled at speed down High Street and then ushered through a heavy police station door, where behind the high custody desk Sergeant Jack Harris was employing his down time gainfully, by rearranging all the leaflets in the station display.
He gave the intruders the hostile look that he normally reserved for his motor mechanic, in the moment before he gouged him on a bill.
“What’s this, Horgan? Finished patrolling the town already?”
Harry was surprised to see his saviour blush and realised that he was being told off by his boss. The peeler was embarrassed! His second revelation was even more shocking than his first. That meant cops were human! He had to park the information for consideration later as Horgan started to reply.
“He approached me in town, Sarge. He said his friend’s been kidnapped!”
Jack adjusted his glasses, scrabbling for a few seconds thinking time, and then looked over them and down at the boy.
“Kidnapped, is it now… When did that happen then, son?”
Why did people keep calling kids son? Only his mum had been allowed to call him that and she was gone.
It threatened to upset him, but he pushed past it. Joey needed his help.
“Monday. We was both taken, but I got away.” He pointed towards the door and by proxy the centre of town. “I was lifted outside Castle Court by some lads nat much older than me. They drugged me an’ I woke up in a van on Tuesday, an’ Joey was there too. He said he’d been taken from some home. It was called Oaks, ar Trees, I think.”
He gasped for breath and then continued, not seeming to notice the two men’s eyebrows creeping up.
“We was an the motorway, an’ I saw a sign an’ Joey said it was fer some place called Omagh. Anyway, then we went down a hick road an’ the van stopped an’ I ran aff, to get help like we’d agreed. But then some dumb aul farmer took me to the cops an’ then some social worker, so I had to stay there last night an’ I only got back to my aunt’s house today!”
He stopped abruptly, panting from the effort, then looked at the men in turn for some sign of urgency.
“Don’t you understand? Joey’s still there an’ we’ve gat to find him!” His voice rose to a shout. “They could be paedos doing sex stuff to him and all!”
It was a punt, but in his experience one mention of paedos to a grown up and they all ran around doing their nuts. James Horgan was just about to start when Jack raised a weathered hand.
“Thank you, P.C. Horgan, good work. I’ll take it from here. Off you go now and patrol the town.”
The words were accompanied by a wave towards the door.
Harry felt for the cop; his face as he left looked like his when Josie told him off. As the station door opened and thudded closed again, Jack unlocked the barrier beside his desk and beckoned Harry through.
“Turn left there, into the staff-room.” Then he shouted towards the cells. “Sandi, come and watch the desk for me, please. I’ve something I need to do.”
Harry was pleasantly surprised when Sandi turned out to be a young woman, and he allowed himself a cheeky up and down scan that wasn’t missed by Jack.
“That’s enough of that, now. Show the constable some respect.”
But the teenager was already thinking about his future career. “What’d you need to be a cop then?”
“Good manners, and better grammar than you.”
The boy ignored the dig, getting to specifics. “Like, what exams do you need?”
Jack thought for a moment and then decided to ask someone younger.
“Sandi, what’re the entrance requirements now?”
“Five good GCSEs, including Maths and English Language. But a lot of people have a degree.”
“There you go, son. You have your answer. Why? Are you thinking of applying when you’re eighteen?”
Harry considered. He might just make the grades if he got his head down. He wasn’t stupid, all his teachers said so.
“Are there lats of girls in the cops then?”
As a recruitment policy it definitely wasn’t PC, but the sergeant had to stifle a smile.
“There are female officers, yes.”
“OK, then. I might just give it a go.”
Jack had a sudden thought. “How old are you?”
The truth came grudgingly.
“Fourteen.”
“Right then. You’d better give me your full name and address. We’ll need an adult here before you can be formally interviewed.”
After the teenager had muttered his details Jack went out to ask his substitute to make the call, returning to the staff-room to hear a wail of,
“Does that mean you can’t talk to me till
Josie’s here?”
The sergeant thought for a moment and then shook his head. “We’ll be OK if we’re just talking. Just consider it two men chatting over a drink.”
He handed Harry a can of Coke that someone had left in the fridge, then he made himself a coffee and followed him over to the seats.
“Right then, Harry…That was some story you told us earlier. Was it true?”
He watched the boy’s face closely as he answered.
“It’s gospel. I was taken from outside Castle Court an Monday.”
“What time?”
“’Bout two.”
It could be easily checked from the street and shopping centre CCTV, and Jack knew that any modern child would be aware of that. He decided it might be time to start taking the boy seriously and began making notes.
“What happened then?”
Harry gulped down a mouthful of foam and sat back, feeling more relaxed now that he seemed to be being believed.
“Then I woke up in a van with a shackin’ head an me, like I’d been drugged.”
Jack didn’t waste his breath asking how he knew what being drugged felt like.
“Do you know what time it was when you woke?”
The boy nodded and held up his wrist, where a giant blue sports watch perched. “It was near two o’clack, lunchtime.”
Good. It might help them trace the van. Harry went on.
“There was another wee lad there, younger than me. Thirteen. He said his name was Joey Parfitt an’ he’d been asleep in his bed in some care home on Monday night when he was took. Oaks, or somethin’ like that.”
“So, it was Tuesday and you were in a moving van?”
“Aye, there was a steel shutter at one end, so we lay down an’ looked through the wee gap under it. That’s how we saw the road sign fer some place called Omagh. We was an the motorway, but I don’t know geography.”
“You’d better learn some if you want to pass your exams.”
Harry gulped at the brutal truth. He hated studying, but maybe he could manage it for a while. Just enough to get his exams and join the cops.
Jack smiled, reading the boy’s thoughts.
“OK, so then what happened?”
“Joey knew geography an’ he said the sign meant we was headin’ west. Anyway, then we pulled aff onto an aul track full of holes an’ drove fer a while till we stopped. There wus lats of mud. I saw it when I run.”
“When someone opened the shutter?”
“Aye. Just after we stapped. Six lads, bigger than us.”
He sat forward eagerly, as if reliving the moment.
“Joey an’ I agreed that at least one af us should escape an’ run fer help.” He shook his head, remembering. “Joey threw himself at them to give me time, so I kicked two in the head an’ ran like hell into the fields.”
He took another gulp of Coke, as if recalling the effort was creating a thirst.
“I ended up at this house with an old patch af mud where some girl was plantin’ stuff. I asked her to call the cops, but when they came they just thought I’d been trespassin’. Her aul man told them so. An’ they gave me to social services fer the night an’ then shipped me back here.”
Suddenly Jack noticed a tear stain on the boy’s cheek, and it was echoed by the sob in his next words.
“They just wouldn’t listen. Dumb cops. An’ now Joey’s still there.”
Jack didn’t chastise him for the insult, genuinely feeling for the boy. Unlikely as the story sounded, his obvious emotional turmoil made the sergeant certain that Harry was telling the truth.
He sat forward slightly, looking into the teenager’s face.
“Which police station were you taken to?”
Harry’s face brightened up. “You believe me! You really believe me?”
“Let’s just say that it’s more yes than no, but I’ll need some more facts before I can get anyone else involved. So, give me the station’s name and tell me about the girl. What was her name?”
Harry answered eagerly. “It was called Drumy ar Drum somethin’ anyway, and her name was Mary Dwyer. Her da was called Bart, like the Simpsons. He owns a big farm down there. It was his fields I ran through.”
Jack scribbled a few more notes and then stood up. “I’m going to ask Sandi to check out this Joey Parfitt and the list of names you’ve given me, meanwhile…”
He crossed to some wall shelves and ran his finger along a row of hard-backed books until he’d found the one he wanted, then he opened it to a page near the back and set it down in front of the boy.
“OK, this is a map of part of County Tyrone.” He tapped on the words ‘Pol Sta’. “And that’s the police station you were taken to; Drumquin. See if anything else there rings a bell while I sort out this list.”
Thirty minutes later he had the name of the officer who’d dealt with Harry in Tyrone, found the location of Dwyer’s farm, and confirmed that a thirteen-year-old boy called Joey Parfitt had gone missing from The Oaks Care Home two nights before.
As Jack stared at the open map again he suddenly noticed something, and he raced back out to the front desk to follow his hunch, rifling through the daily bulletins from that week. When he found the one that he’d been looking for he scanned it quickly, just as a plump blonde in a puffa jacket appeared at the custody desk. The sergeant knew who she was instantly.
“Josie McCullough? Aunt Josie?”
There were tears in the woman’s eyes and he couldn’t tell whether they were from worry or anger. Her tone of voice when she spoke didn’t enlighten him much.
“Is Harry here?”
Harry had heard his aunt’s voice from the staff-room, so he appeared, tentatively entering Jack’s domain behind the desk and giving her a nervous nod. Josie’s face crumpled.
“Oh, God, Harry! Don’t do that to me. I thought someone had taken you again!”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Jo-”
Jack interrupted the reunion. “Sorry. Again?”
She glanced at him, puzzled. “What?”
“You said again, that means you believed the boy when he said he’d been taken before?”
Harry was rooted to the spot as he awaited her answer. Had she believed him after all? He got his reward a second later when his aunt nodded.
“I suppose I did. Harry’s never disappeared overnight before, well, only to his mate’s next door, and…and I suppose his story just sounded true.”
Jack glared at her. “Then why didn’t you bring him straight to see us?”
She shook her head helplessly. “I was just trying to keep him out of trouble. It’s… it’s hard to know what to do for the best when you’re alone.”
The sergeant parked his annoyance. In his experience there were plenty of Josies in the world; hardworking, struggling, but basically good people who were just knackered from living and confused about what to do for the best.
He opened the barrier and ushered her through to the staff-room, bringing her up to date with where they were, before announcing,
“I’m calling in the Murder Squad.”
Both Harry’s and his aunt’s eyes almost popped out.
When the boy squeaked, “Murder? You think Joey’s dead?”, Jack realised what he’d just said.
He shook his head energetically. “No, no, that’s not what I believe at all. But I do think there could be a connection between what happened to you and a murder case that they’re already working on.”
He tapped the open map. “That’s Killeter Forest. Yesterday’s update bulletin says they’re investigating a murder case there.” He glanced at Josie. “It happened only a few miles from where your nephew was found.”
He omitted the fact that the murder victim had also been a young boy.
****
The Labs. 2 p.m.
John and Mike stared down at the boy who’d been asleep in their mortuary for eight years, waiting for his story to be told. The lead pathologist stood completely immobile, but his deputy shook his h
ead in disgust.
“Doesn’t it make you want to kill whoever did this?”
The pathology director roused himself from his thoughts to answer.
“That would make us as bad as them.”
Mike grunted. “I could live with that. I’m sick of always having to take the moral high ground and being seen to do it as well. Maybe I could never pull the trigger on them, but I’m damned if I’m going to pretend that I wouldn’t want to.”
He gestured at the boy’s frail body. “I mean, look at him. He couldn’t have harmed a fly.” He gave a grunt of disgust. “The criminals are bloody lucky it’s someone cool like Marc who has the gun, because if it was me I would mow the bastards down.”
John Winter’s eyes widened in surprise. He’s always thought of Mike as calm and eminently reasonable in everything, a man who, if opinions had a colour and he’d had to choose one his would have been white with a hint of beige, so it was revelation to hear his true thoughts. To his surprise he quite liked it; it made him wonder what other strong opinions lurked beneath the baby-faced exterior of his second in command, and by extension how passionate his colleague might be in other things. John shook his head briskly, pushing the mental invasion of privacy quickly away. Now wasn’t the time for such thoughts, if there ever was one, but neither was it the time or place for a debate about revenge.
The head pathologist held some traditional beliefs, the main one being respect for the dead, and that meant no shrugging or swearing in his dissection room, and definitely no disturbing the peace of the deceased with strong debate. They’d probably experienced quite enough grief in life, so all such rhetoric could all wait until they were back in his office having a cup of tea. He didn’t need to say the words, his mildly chastising look enough to make Mike blush.
The deputy nodded in apology and switched on the overhead microphone, preparing for their unenviable task.
“John Doe, aged between thirteen and sixteen years, to be determined. Found expired in Erb’s Clearing in Killeter Forest, County Tyrone on the seventeenth of February two thousand and ten.”
It was the beginning of two hours of repeated dissection, swabs, blood tests and X-Rays, the results of which they would give to Craig and his team at their next briefing, whenever that occurred. It was also the beginning of months when the boy’s pale face would haunt the pathologists’ dreams.
The Running of the Deer Page 26
