He squared his shoulders as if preparing to go before a firing squad. He even nodded to let her know he was ready. She opened the door and stepped inside.
Angeline Fournier was stunningly pretty. She wore her hair in a loose knot, held in place with a mother of pearl comb, tendrils of rich, dark brown curls caressing her cheeks. She held herself erect, her chin slightly lifted, her eyes, big and dark like Alain’s, were bright, despite her long journey. Alain’s grandmother was small, dainty, grey haired, her make-up subtle, her style understated and elegant. By comparison, her husband looked like a rustic: big, round faced and rather rumpled in appearance.
Mrs Fournier made a movement, as if to stand up, but Jenny gave her a warning glance and she settled back into her chair. Alain huddled closer to Jenny.
‘Maman?’ He seemed uncertain of her.
Jenny did as Mike had instructed her. ‘Alain,’ she said, ‘can you tell me who these people are?’
For a few moments he said nothing, gazing at the trio with a solemn, sad expression. ‘Maman,’ he said, with a sigh, ‘Grandmère et Grandpère.’
‘Come to Mummy,’ Mrs Fournier said.
Alain turned a bewildered face up to Jenny. She slackened her grip to allow him to go to his mother, if he chose. He held her hand tightly and shrank back, almost hiding behind her. Mrs Fournier’s face was closed, unreadable.
Alain’s grandmother opened her arms to him, then, with a little sob, she let them fall. Alain looked away, fixing his eyes resolutely on the floor. ‘I want to go now,’ he said. It was barely audible, no more than a whisper, but Jenny heard it. She had promised him, if he asked to leave, they would go — no argument, no delay.
She turned, still holding Alain’s hand, and heard a gasp behind her. ‘No!’ Mrs Fournier screamed. ‘You can’t take him!’
Alain broke free of Jenny and ran blindly out of the clinic, into the corridor, back the way they had come, running, running, until he could no longer hear her screams. He burst out into the sunshine, past parked cars, dodging a man who tried to stop him, stopping only when he got to the main gates and was unsure which way to turn. Jenny caught up with him, and Alain struggled and then clung to her, sobbing miserably. ‘I want to go home!’ he begged.
‘All right,’ Jenny soothed, hugging him tightly, stroking his head. ‘All right. We’ll go home. We’ll go now.’
* * *
Max had arranged for Mike Delaney to interview Alain’s mother in his office at the Child Development Centre. It was a long, narrow room, with filing cabinets cluttered at one end. The expanse of wall on one side of the room held a giant pinboard, dominated by a year planner. Nearly every weekday was already blocked in, with clinics, talks, seminars and conferences. Max’s desk, with its phone and PC, was jammed up against the window, which overlooked slate rooftops and the steam vents of the hospital laundry. Max had cheerily informed him that on a fine day, when the wind wasn’t blowing eastward, the window could be opened to allow a little ventilation.
Mike took advantage of that facility now, grateful for a respite, no matter how small, from the roiling heat of the afternoon. He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, wondering where the hell Angeline Fournier had been all this time. Simultaneously there was a loud, confident rap at the door, and then she was in, shouting.
‘What have you people done to my son?’
‘Done to him?’
‘He wouldn’t even come to me. His own mother!’
‘Talk to the doctors about that,’ Mike said. ‘It’s not my field.’ He stared over her shoulder, to a framed cartoon sketch which hung next to the wall chart. A caricature of Max: large head, small body, the great expanse of his forehead puckered slightly. He was seated at a cabaret table with his back to the stage, making notes on the audience, while behind him, a curvy stripper peeled off her stockings. The caption read: An observer of human nature.
‘I’m told he’s under an interim care order,’ Mrs Fournier said, coldly. ‘My understanding is that you have a responsibility.’
Mike sighed. ‘Look, as I understand it, he’s in shock. He’s not behaving normally.’
‘I want him home with me.’
‘Not yet.’
‘You don’t understand — how could you? He needs me.’
‘Like you said, we have a duty of care to the lad. We’ll keep him in care until we’re sure he’s safe to go home.’
She looked ready to kill him. ‘Are you saying that you don’t trust me with him? How dare you! He’s my son! I’ve a right—’
‘Yeah? Well he’s got rights too. And he’s requested returning to the foster parents he was placed with when he was found.’ Mike was getting sick of people screaming at him. He was tired and he had a headache.
Mrs Fournier crumpled. Sobbing, she fished in her handbag for a tissue. Mike began to suspect that Mr Radleigh’s explanation for Alain’s persistent absenteeism from school was right: that it was a symptom of his mother’s neurosis rather than the boy’s anxiety. ‘I love my son,’ she said, when she had regained some control. ‘I only want what’s best for him.’
‘Look,’ he said, relenting a little. ‘We’re all trying to do what’s best for Alan.’
‘Alain.’
‘What?’
‘My son’s name is Alain. It’s a French name.’
Mike rubbed his eye with one finger and told himself that the woman was distraught after the death of her sister. He should be patient.
‘I need to ask you about your ex-husband,’ he said, trying to keep his voice even.
‘What do you want to know?’ Her eyes became hooded, wary.
‘Tell me why you left him.’
She caught her breath, shook her head.
‘Mrs Fournier?’ He saw a fleeting look of pain.
‘I can’t . . .’ She swallowed, seemed to collect herself, raised her head and said with some dignity, ‘My reasons were — are — private.’
Mike shook his head. ‘I can’t have that, given the circumstances.’
She flushed angrily but said nothing.
‘What’s your married name?’
‘I am no longer married, Sergeant.’
‘Your ex-husband’s name, then.’
‘No . . . I’m sorry, but no.’
‘Mrs Fournier, this is a murder inquiry!’
She flinched, clamping her lips together, avoiding his eye, and Mike said more calmly, ‘Tell me why you left him.’
‘Because he’s a vicious, sadistic bastard who made our lives hell.’ She glared at him, breathing hard, daring him to disbelieve her.
‘D’you have any proof of this?’
‘Have the doctors examine Alain’s hands. That will give you proof enough.’
‘They have — examined him, that is.’
Her eyes widened a little, then she tossed her head. ‘Well then.’
‘Do you have an address where we can contact your ex-husband?’
‘Why would you want to contact him?’
‘When did you last speak to him?’
She looked away, and a petulant furrow appeared between her carefully plucked eyebrows. ‘He’s not interested in Alain,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t been in touch for over two years. I doubt if he’d even recognize his own son in the street.’
‘The natural father has rights of access—’
‘Rights!’ she exclaimed. ‘What about responsibilities? I took Alain away from him before he did my son permanent harm.’
‘Try to see it from my point of view,’ Mike said. ‘You’re asking me to believe that your son’s injuries were inflicted by his father, but—’
‘But it’s my word against his, is that it?’
‘We haven’t even got a name, let alone made contact with him. How could it be your word against his?’
She gave an irritated shrug and turned away from him.
‘Either you give us the name of your ex-husband or I will charge you with obstruction.’ He waited, but she refused to look
at him. ‘Do you understand what I mean by obstruction, Mrs Fournier?’
He heard a gasp of exasperation. ‘I have a degree in English,’ she said, turning slowly to face him. Her expression held a mixture of disdain and amusement. ‘I have read your English classics: the Brontës, Austen, Thackeray, Dickens. My final thesis was an analysis of the tragedies of Shakespeare.’ She sat up straight and met him eye to eye with a look that all but demanded to know what his bedtime reading was.
Mike smiled. ‘Me, all I got was a grade C in O-level English. Cider with Rosie, I think the set text was.’ He held her gaze. ‘Give me a name, Mrs Fournier. If you’re telling the truth, you’ve got nothing to worry about.’
She snorted.
‘Okay, we’ll do it the hard way. If your husband assaulted your son, there’s bound to be a record of it somewhere. Time frame about two years ago. Maybe he’s even in prison.’
He caught a fleeting look of dismay, then she said, ‘I — I didn’t report it.’
Mike fought a rising tide of anger. If there was one thing he hated, it was being taken for a mug. ‘Every finger of both hands were broken, and you didn’t report it?’
‘Of course, I got him treated. I said he’d trapped his fingers playing.’
Mike winced. He saw a sharp, electric-blue image of his eldest, Mary, trapping her fingers in a car door on her ninth birthday. She had been playing in the garage. It was November, he remembered it quite vividly, the strip light was switched on because of the gathering darkness, giving everything that unreal, bluish tinge.
‘I can’t make up my mind. Are you arrogant or just uncaring, Mrs Fournier?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you really expect me to believe this crap?’
‘I’m telling the truth!’
‘That your little boy was brutally attacked, and his fingers broken, and you lied about it. What did you tell the medics? A car boot — a door? Maybe a window? And you coolly “get him treated” and then let the culprit off scot-free?’
Her lip quivered a little as she answered. ‘We got out — away from his father — after that. I reverted to my maiden name, we moved north. I made sure he couldn’t find us.’
Mike nodded and she seemed to relax fractionally.
He leaned forward, as if about to impart a confidence. ‘Who’s to say you didn’t do it?’
She stared at him, open mouthed. ‘What?’ She was angry, offended at being challenged so directly.
‘Put yourself in my place. A little boy is found wandering the streets in his pyjamas. Middle of the night. He’s so deeply shocked by what’s happened to him he can’t speak. No one seems to even notice he’s gone. We wait four, nearly five days. Not a squeak. We put out a TV appeal. Still nothing, until his headmaster contacts the hotline.’ He raised his voice. ‘Not his mum or dad, his headmaster.’
She began crying, sobbing self-pityingly. ‘He was with his aunt,’ she wailed. ‘I tried to telephone . . .’
‘We got you on the answering machine. Once. We had it translated from the French. “Arrived safely. I’ll be in touch.” Now, if I was away from home, I’d at least leave a contact number.’
‘I’m entitled to some time on my own,’ she said. She sounded truculent, hurt by the suggestion. He stared at her for a little longer and she blushed.
‘Business, was it?’
She wiped her nose before answering, dabbing carefully, to minimize the damage to her make-up. ‘Business, yes.’
‘So you’ll be able to give us a list of people, places, meetings.’
‘It wasn’t that kind of business.’
‘What other kind is there?’
‘Don’t be disgusting!’
Mike stared hard at her, and she relented. ‘I’m an artist,’ she said, with stiff dignity. ‘I was in search of inspiration. I go places, make sketches, watercolours — and I visit the local potteries. It was informal. Unscheduled.’
‘A holiday,’ Mike said.
Her blush deepened. Temper or guilt?
‘Business,’ she replied, flatly.
* * *
‘She said they’d moved north after the alleged attack on her son.’ Mike sipped from a cup of tea and typed one-fingered at his computer.
‘What — from London?’
Mike glanced sideways at DC Sallis. ‘She isn’t exactly giving us her autobiography, Ron. But her kind of business does best where there’s plenty of dosh.’
‘We’ve got someone checking the marriage records in the National Index.’
‘Let’s hope he’s not French an’ all, or we’ll have to set up a search through Interpol.’
‘What about her parents?’
‘They’re refusing to say anything.’ Mike sighed. ‘I don’t know. The kid’s mum is accusing his dad of brutalizing them both, but she’s making damn sure we don’t get his side of the story. She says she didn’t report the attack, but she went a funny colour when I said we’d check the files for him. Let’s give it a whirl, see what we come up with.’
Chapter 30
Lee-Anne seemed torn between admiration and exasperation. ‘Lobo’s a bleedin’ headcase,’ she began, minding her language, at least until she was more sure of who she was dealing with.
Mike Delaney leaned in a little. ‘Is he?’
Lee-Anne settled back in her chair with a smirk. Apparently, she wasn’t so easily drawn out.
‘Mr Merembe’s car is in pretty bad shape, and we had to send Mr Khan back to the hospital this morning.’
‘Wha’?’ Lee-Anne snapped to, the smirk wiped off her face and a perhaps a hint of anxiety in the gathering of her brows.
‘I think you might know Mr Khan under his nickname Randy,’ Mike explained, enjoying the foggy confusion on her face. Her intense concentration finally resolved itself in a look of animal aggression.
‘I know Randy. What’s up with him?’
‘He goes out for a few jars with his old school mate, Derek Spencer — your Lobo — and he ends up with cracked ribs and a broken nose.’ Mike winced.
‘And you’re trying to say Lobo done it? Do me a favour. They were in the same gang at school. They’re mates.’
‘Not anymore,’ Mike said, hoping that she was sharp enough to hear the implied threat, the hint that Khan might have said something incriminating.
She kept her head down but shot him a look of mingled venom and fear from under her eyebrows. ‘Fuckin’ Paki!’ She looked down again, breathing hard. ‘Whatever he said, he’s lying.’
‘You said yourself, Lobo’s a headcase.’
‘Yeah, but not like that. More, like — off the wall. He wouldn’t do that to a mate . . .’ She screwed up her face, as if struggling for a way of making him see what it was she was driving at.
‘One time,’ she said, ‘there was this feller Lobo really hated. Maths teacher. Thought he was hard. Dickinson, his name was — Dickhead, for short. “Derek,” he says. Lobo hates being called Derek — does his head in. “Derek, nobody thinks you’re funny disrupting the lesson like this. Nobody thinks you’re clever.” Which was soft, because everyone thought Lobo was funny and it was pretty friggin’ clever an’ all, getting us out of maths homework. Two minutes to the bell and Lobo kicks off, what else was he trying to do?’
She chuckled, remembering.
‘So Dickhead goes over to Lobo and he like, leans over him and puts his two big hairy hands either side of him and he thinks because he’s bigger than Lobo he can scare him. But Lobo’s not scared of nothing. He just gives dickhead the mad eye. He starts talking to Lobo in a sort of growly whisper and we’re all watching, even the creeps up the front of the class have turned around.
‘“In fact,” Dickhead says, “If brains were dynamite, you wouldn’t have enough to blow your hat off!”
‘There’s a sort of nervous titter goes round the class, like a Mexican wave. Lobo lifts one finger, and he’s got that smile on him, like his gob’s too big for his face. He lifts his finger and he show
s it to us and then he shows it to Dickhead. There’s blood under the nail. Everyone stops laughing.
‘“See that?” Lobo says, quiet like, but we can all hear him. “That’s a bit of razor blade, that is. So, when someone goes for you—” He makes a quick, slashing flick, like Freddie Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street. Dickhead jumps back.
‘“They go—” Lobo puts his hand to his face. “What the fuck, man? It’s blood! You cut me, man!” And just to show the damage that teeny broke off piece of razor blade can do, Lobo draws a line down the middle of his forearm and watches the blood squeeze out.
‘“You bloody mad bastard,” the teacher says, and for a minute there, we all think he’s going to faint. Lobo laughs and laughs, wild, like a maniac or something.’ Lee-Anne faltered, her eyes searching Mike’s face for understanding.
At last, she dragged her fingers down her face. ‘Ugh! It’s coming out all wrong.’
Mike kept his stance relaxed and widened his eyes. ‘Is that how it ended?’
She shook her head. ‘Nah. For some reason we all start chanting “Loco Lobo! Loco Lobo!” and the lads are kicking the desks and stamping on the floor, so it sounds like a train, or the Kop on a Saturday. And Lobo laughs and laughs and shakes his head till you think it’s gonna come off and he’s cracking up ’cos he thinks the teacher’s funny, ’cos he made him swear and ’cos we’re not gonna do no homework today. And he thinks we’re funny, an’ all — chanting and bouncing the dust out the cracks in the floor with our stamping. And the blood’s funny and . . .’ She paused, searching for the words to express how funny it all was. ‘And he just bleeds.’
She stopped entirely for a good thirty seconds, then seemingly frustrated by her inability to articulate what she wanted to say, she spoke again. ‘Everyone looked up to Lobo, not just me — all the lads in his gang — and his lot was the hardest in the school. Everyone wanted to be in Lobo’s gang.’ She exhaled in a great rush. ‘I’m trying to say Lobo’s a headcase, but he isn’t a nutter.’
Mike let that thought reverberate for a few seconds before he said, ‘You think he’s putting it on.’
She gave a half-nod.
THE LOST BOY an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists Page 22