Preacher Boy

by Gwyn GB

  Noel shrugged. ‘He was quiet.’ Then he realised he'd talked about his brother in the present tense, and his eyes dropped to the floor.

  ‘Quiet? More quiet than other boys his age?’

  ‘Yeah, shy, you know.’

  Harrison heard Louise winding up her phone call.

  ‘Noel, is there anything Darren, or you, didn't want your mum to find out?’

  Noel shook his head, but his eyes stayed firmly fixed on his feet.

  ‘You won't get into trouble. Whatever it is, wouldn't be your fault. If you tell me, it’ll help your brother.’ Harrison almost whispered this, giving Noel the chance to say something his mother wouldn't pick up on. He studied Noel's face, looking for any telltale twitches or tension. He saw only sadness.

  ‘No, seriously, nothing,’ was all Noel said, and he finally looked up.

  ‘Okay. No problem, thank you. I'm going to leave my card, so if you think of anything, or hear anything, please call me.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And Noel, don't think you're being strong by holding this in. The toughest thing is to let it out. That's what real men do,’ Harrison said. ‘You and your mum need each other, and that means taking care of yourselves.’

  Noel nodded and looked at his mother as she returned to their conversation before leaving the room.

  ‘Thanks,’ Louise said to Harrison; she'd caught what he'd been saying.

  ‘The victim support team will offer some specialist counselling for Noel. Make sure he goes. Even if it's just for a couple of sessions, they'll be able to keep an eye on him and check he's handling everything okay.’

  Louise nodded. Harrison watched Noel slump up the stairs. He didn't think he was hiding anything. He knew the research would say teens were the best and most prolific of liars, and it was often hard to tell, but under this huge emotional stress and with such big stakes, he believed him. He'd have expected to see some cracks in the deceit, if there were any. Instead, what Harrison saw was a young lad rocked to the core by his brother’s murder. He also saw that he was trying to be strong, almost certainly felt like he should be the big man of the family and look after his mother. Noel might even feel guilty that he hadn't been able to help Darren. While the police tried to catch Darren's killer, it was important that the living were taken care of too. Harrison made a mental note to double check the victim support team had him on their radar.

  Louise looked exhausted, and Harrison didn't think he'd learn much more from her. What he needed to do next was get to know Darren a little better through his own things.

  ‘Would you mind if I looked in Darren's room?’ he asked.

  ‘The police have already searched in there, but if it helps catch...’ She ground to a halt, unable to say the words.

  ‘Thank you. I won't be long,’ Harrison replied, saving her the agony of continuing.

  He left her collapsed in a heap on the sofa. She didn't even look up as he left the room.

  It wasn't difficult to find Darren's bedroom. A sign on the first door on the right said, DARREN’S ROOM—KEEP OUT, with a collection of LEGO movie character stickers dancing around it. Before he went in, Harrison took a few moments. He needed to clear the emotion from his head, to focus. Louise Phillips's grief was overwhelming, and he wasn't going to help her unless he did his job properly. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing, the rhythm, the feel of the air going in and out of his lungs. Slowly, he regained his focus. Tuned in all his senses. Only then did he allow himself to open the door and go inside.

  It was everything he'd expected from a young boy's bedroom, a Toy Story duvet cover and Superman curtains. There were posters from comics on the wall and a small desk in the corner with an opened school exercise book on it. Harrison looked at the imagery. It was all harmless stuff, no theme, no threat or anxiety thread. He flicked through the exercise book on the desk. Nothing but spelling practice and sentence constructions. No doodles that could give away an internal fear. No cries for help.

  Harrison knew the importance of seeing and not just looking. He also knew young boys hid things from their parents. If anyone inappropriate had been trying to befriend him, they would have told Darren to keep it a secret.

  After looking through the rest of the ephemera and clutter of the room, Harrison started to hunt.

  Under the bed was the first obvious place, but there were many others: under the mattress and the bottom side of the desk, inside his pillowcase and tucked behind the bed headboard. He checked every drawer and cupboard, inside books and boxes, even in the lining of the curtains and under the carpet. He checked each toy for secret compartments and pockets and even looked behind the posters. The only thing he found was a tracing of Superman, half coloured in, folded, and tucked inside his dressing gown pocket. The irony wasn't lost on Harrison.

  In some ways it was a disappointment—no easy answers. In others, it was reassuring. Darren had just been leading the life he was meant to lead. Perhaps it really had been just “wrong place and time”. The problem was, it threw no light on who might have taken him or why.

  He needed to get back to the station and see if anything new had come in from the teams that were out collecting statements and evidence. As Harrison reached the bottom of the stairs, he glanced into the kitchen. The family liaison was just handing a cup of tea to the uniformed officer who'd been standing outside. The kitchen worktops were piled with bouquets of flowers, and he saw that several vases had already been filled. Louise Phillips would hate the smell of cut flowers for the rest of her life.

  She was still in the sitting room and got up when she saw him.

  ‘Thank you, and once again I'm sorry for your loss,’ Harrison said.

  She gave a weak smile and went to open the door for him to leave. As he was about to pass through it, she grabbed his hand.

  ‘Catch him, won't you?’ she said, the raw emotion in her words.

  There was a whirring clicking, and the flash of a camera hit her face at its most vulnerable. She recoiled as though slapped. A photographer had broken ranks and was on the doorstep, taking advantage of the absent police officer. Harrison pounced. His calm face erupted in anger as he got between Louise and the photographer, squaring up to him like an angry bear. The skinny, stubble-faced young man in front of him clearly hadn't been expecting a six-foot-two rock of muscle—or the expression on Harrison's face. He stepped back in shock, twisted his foot, fell, and dropped his camera onto the pavement. There was a satisfying cracking sound as the giant lens hit the concrete and snapped off.

  Harrison closed the front door behind him, protecting Louise from any further intrusion and upset. He stood over the photographer, who was scrambling to get up and out of his way.

  ‘You're trespassing,’ he told him, before kicking the broken lens towards the squirming white-faced rat on the ground.

  Behind Harrison, the uniformed officer had flung open the front door to find out what was happening. He stood on the front doorstep, unsure what to do and whom he should be protecting.

  ‘Do you have a mother?’ Harrison asked the photographer who by now had risen to his feet and was backing away towards the rest of his pack. He nodded.

  ‘Then imagine how she might be feeling if something happened to you.’ With one final stare, he walked past him. The pack of reporters and photographers parted like the Red Sea as he headed through their midst to his bike and rode away.

  9

  The incident room seemed to have switched into fast-forward despite it being the time when most 'normal' offices emptied out for the day. The place was packed with officers on the phone, meeting in huddles, tapping away at computer screens, or watching CCTV replays. In the middle of it all, DCI Barker and DS Salter stood looking at the incident board.

  Harrison walked in and headed towards them. It didn't take him long before he realised what the commotion was about. There was another young boy's face on the board next to Darren’s.

  ‘Another boy's been snatched,’ DCI B
arker said the second he reached them. He saw the flicker of fear in her eyes, almost tasted her desperation. She was a mother too, and it was her responsibility to save another family’s child. They’d already failed one mother; they couldn't fail another.

  ‘When?’ he asked.

  ‘Just over four hours ago, a mile from where Darren went missing. The officers who attended contacted us as soon as the similarities became apparent.’ DS Salter filled in the information. He didn't like the feeling, but he couldn't help the sense of satisfaction that he was at last telling Harrison something he didn't know.

  Someone had already plotted the map on the board, and the new name alongside Darren's read, ‘Alex Fuller.’

  ‘Are the boys connected?’ Harrison asked.

  ‘Not that we can tell at this stage. We're not even sure it's the same offender, but the MO looks the same,’ Barker replied, ‘One minute he was there in the street, and the next he was gone. Parents searched everywhere. They were on their way to the swimming pool and there was no reason for him to run away. His swimming bag was found abandoned on the pavement. We're going through every CCTV camera we can find in the area. One of them must have caught something.’

  Harrison nodded.

  ‘They look similar. Both around the same age, slightly built and brown hair,’ he added.

  ‘Exactly,’ DCI Barker replied.

  ‘Any breakthroughs with Darren?’ Harrison asked.

  ‘We've had a witness come forward, said he saw two men in a Land Rover going into Felton Woods last night about ten thirty,’ said DS Salter.

  Harrison looked at Salter then at Barker. ‘It wasn't two men—it was one—and he drove a van. He didn't take Darren there until the early hours.’

  ‘You can't know that for sure,’ Jack replied forcefully.

  ‘I can and I do,’ Harrison said. He'd only just calmed himself down after the photographer episode and wouldn’t allow DS Salter to question what he knew to be a fact.

  ‘We have to follow up on every potential lead,’ Jack said.

  ‘You'll be wasting time.’

  Tired of their sparring, DCI Barker decided to interrupt. ‘Both of you stay focused. We've a little boy out there. We need to work together and find him before his body ends up on our post-mortem table with Darren’s.’

  ‘Talk to him. I'm going to find those two men,’ DS Salter replied, nodding at Harrison and not attempting to keep the venom from his voice.

  Harrison gritted his teeth as Jack walked off. DCI Barker waited until he was out of earshot.

  ‘You went to the Phillips's house alone, and without telling the rest of the team you were going, or getting official clearance. You find anything, or do something, and you don't have a police officer with you, it could jeopardise a conviction. You make sure Jack knows where you are at all times if it has anything to do with this case.’

  ‘I just…’ Harrison tried to come back.

  ‘Okay?’ is all DCI Barker said. Her raised eyebrow was enough.

  Harrison nodded. Quite apart from the fact she didn’t look like a woman who would be challenged, he knew she was right.

  ‘Did you get anything?’ she asked.

  He shook his head.

  ‘What do we know about Alex Fuller?’ he came back, changing the subject.

  ‘Nothing much yet, but obviously early days. What we know so far is he and Darren went to different schools and the families are unrelated.’

  ‘The only connection is the killer himself,’ said Harrison.

  DCI Barker turned away from the board to look at him. ‘What do you mean? Apart from the obvious.’

  ‘I think he’s taking boys who resemble him when he was their age.’

  ‘Okay, go on.’

  ‘He definitely lives locally, and he'll have been cruising around, looking for the right boy.’

  ‘Why now?’

  ‘A life-changing event such as divorce or bereavement. It could be one of the parents, or maybe both have died. He's trying to relive or put right something from his childhood.’

  ‘So we could look at recent deaths in the area?’

  Harrison nodded.

  ‘If you're sure, I'll put Mark, our analyst, onto it. He likes nothing better than hunting for clues in data. In the meantime, I want you and Jack to speak to the parents. Do you think you can manage that without killing each other?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good. And Harrison? I heard about the photographer.’

  ‘I didn't touch him and he was out of order.’

  ‘I know you didn't touch him, but you certainly looked threatening. Right now the media don't tie you in with us, but that’ll change the more high-profile cases you work on. I don't get it. I've seen you keep as cool as ice when you've been goaded by some of the nastiest scumbags out there, yet now and then, you flip. You let emotion get the better of you.’

  ‘I was in control. I didn't touch him,’ Harrison looked at her, ‘but I get how it could have looked.’

  ‘Especially in front of a bunch of headline-hungry journalists and cameras! Look, if I got aggressive with every piece of shit I came across in this job, I'd have been locked up years ago. Come on, Harrison, you know the score. I want you to keep a low profile. I don't want your maverick status impacting my investigations, and I certainly don't want to lose your expertise, but if you overstep, it’ll be taken out of my hands. You understand?’

  Harrison nodded.

  ‘He's apologised to the family. Apparently, a rookie freelancer trying to make his mark. The papers won't publish the shots of Louise, and if it's any consolation, it cost him an arm and a leg with that lens breaking.’

  Harrison felt a small internal victory whoop at that news but didn't show it.

  Feeling like a chaste schoolboy, he started to head out of the incident room. He was only halfway out when the TV news came on and footage from outside the Phillips's house appeared on-screen. The reporter was the woman Harrison had interrupted earlier.

  ‘Emotions ran high today as friends came to pay their respects to Darren Phillips's family...’ The footage showed Harrison just after he had stepped out of the house and as the photographer fell to the ground. Murmurs of support rippled around the MIT officers watching the TV, as they saw Harrison squaring up and the photographer scrambling backwards.

  DS Salter, working at his desk, looked up disdainfully and shook his head.

  ‘That sorted the parasitic dick wipe,’ Harrison heard one detective mutter as he left the room. He'd just gone up in the team's estimation.

  DCI Barker was listening and watching. ‘Bloody good job he doesn't wear a uniform and the press are too thick to ID him, so don't go getting any ideas,’ she shot back at them. The last thing she needed was a problem with discipline. Harrison was a valuable asset, but he was also a civilian advisor, and if the brass decided he was a liability, they'd cut him loose. She didn't need that either.

  10

  Across London in a dingy flat that had seen better days, an old flat-screen TV was broadcasting the news report from outside Darren Phillip's house. Someone had frozen the picture. It was rewound before being stopped on an image of Dr Harrison Lane as he walked towards the camera, jaw set.

  In the gloom, a woman in her mid-seventies, with skin that had lived a life of too much sun and drugs, sat on a dirty old sofa staring at the screen. Her eyes weren't kind. There was a steely hardness to her thin bony face, framed by long white hair.

  ‘Well, well, after all these years,’ she said to the TV, ‘the prodigal son has returned.’

  11

  DS Salter walked along the basement corridor of the New Scotland Yard Metropolitan Police headquarters. He always got a heavy feeling when he ventured this far into the bowels of HQ. Down here was the evidence from decades of unsolved cases, stored in boxes and files in the hope that one day the victims would get restitution. The weight of responsibility in each of those files far outweighed their physical state. Salter used to think work
ing on cold cases would be boring. None of the live pressure you get from fresh crimes like their current one. But he’d changed his mind over the years. He knew a detective must have got a great deal of satisfaction when they solved one and could move it into the completed storage areas. Trouble was, there were always fresh boxes and files to take their place, no matter how hard they all tried.

  Updates in science and technology certainly helped, and he loved the idea of someone who’d been living their life happily thinking they’d got away with a crime opening their front door to find the police on their doorstep. The thought that someone could masquerade as a pillar of society while hiding a dirty secret of rape or murder wound him up. Every single success was a victory—and one more victim avenged.

  Of course, there were some cases where new DNA techniques couldn’t help because they were too far down the annals of history and evidence contaminated beyond use, or lost, and all witnesses long since died. One of the most famous cases of them all was Jack the Ripper. Down here in the basement was a letter he had allegedly written. It wasn’t in the ‘unsolved’ case room, but part of the Black Museum, the Met’s collection of criminal memorabilia, gathered from prisoners and investigations since the 1800s, and used as a teaching collection for police recruits. It was a private museum, only open to police officers, and if Jack was honest, it gave him the creeps.

  He’d found himself down there alone one evening as a young officer. There’d been a talk in the museum for new recruits and afterwards, he’d been too engrossed in looking at the exhibits to realise that everyone else had left for the pub. For a moment he’d thought they’d locked him in. Suddenly all the death masks and morbid exhibits like Dennis Nilsen’s stove where he had cooked his victims, or the hangman’s nooses and plethora of evil weaponry, had started to suffocate him. He’d nearly hugged the curator when he’d walked back into the room after being in the toilet.