Deadland

by William Shaw

  Ferriter was piecing it together too. ‘His mother didn’t want to say it was him, because she knew that if you were showing her CCTV stills, he was in trouble for something.’

  Moon nodded. ‘Trying to protect him. I never thought.’

  Cupidi said, ‘Do you have her address?’

  He opened the car door and pulled out a notebook. Cupidi looked over his shoulder as he leafed through the pages. His handwriting was tiny, but extremely neat. He held out his pad towards Cupidi, called out the address and Ferriter looked the place up on her phone. It was not far.

  ‘See you there in fifteen minutes.’

  He hesitated. ‘I can do it on my own, you know.’ Cupidi knew what he was thinking. He wasn’t sure he wanted to work with a copper he was probably going to make an official complaint about in the morning.

  ‘Yes. You can. Completely your call.’

  He got into his car and looked at them both warily before starting the engine.

  ‘Why not let him get on with it? It’s his case,’ said Ferriter. ‘We’ve done our good deed for the day.’

  Cupidi hesitated.

  ‘You still think it’s connected, don’t you? Just because of what Clough said.’

  ‘He’s a teenage boy. We think somebody tried to kill him. May still be trying. It’s our job.’

  ‘Yeah. But you still think it’s connected, don’t you?’

  ‘No,’ said Cupidi, defensively. ‘Not necessarily.’

  *

  Felicia Watt stood on her doorstep and said, ‘My son Joseph is not here.’

  ‘This is his picture, though, isn’t it?’ Moon was showing her something, holding it close to her face.

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Could you please answer the question, Mrs Watt? Do you think this could be your son in the picture?’

  Cupidi could hear the woman repeating, ‘I would prefer not to answer anything at all,’ as she walked from the car.

  On Cupidi’s approach, Felicia Watt said, ‘Oh my God. Now there are more of you. How come there weren’t this many when I first said my son was missing?’ She wore a silver charm bracelet around her fat wrist; Cupidi watched a letter ‘J’ glint in the sunshine.

  ‘Alex Cupidi. I’m Detective Sergeant Moon’s colleague, and this is Constable Jill Ferriter. What if we talked inside for a moment?’

  ‘I really don’t think so. Today is my day off. I was resting.’

  A next-door neighbour – a bulky man with a cut under one eye and grease on his T-shirt – looked up from under the bonnet of a Peugeot. ‘They bothering you, Mrs W?’

  ‘We just need five minutes, Mrs Watt,’ said Moon. ‘Your son may be in some danger.’

  Mrs Watt sighed.

  *

  Her house was spotlessly clean. The three officers stood around a shining wooden coffee table in a small living room lined with silver-patterned wallpaper.

  ‘We believe that your son and another boy may be witnesses to a serious assault, Mrs Watt,’ said Moon. Felicia Watt’s face had been expressionless up to now, but Cupidi could see fear there now.

  ‘Whatever trouble you think they’re in, that’s not important. But we do need to find him for his own safety,’ said Cupidi.

  ‘How long is it since you saw your son, Mrs Watt?’ Moon asked.

  She sat heavily in an armchair, took out an asthma inhaler, and pumped twice into her mouth.

  ‘Last night. He was here.’

  Cupidi exchanged a glance with Moon.

  ‘About ten or eleven. His new trainers, the ones he begged me for. They cost me over eighty pounds and they are totally ruined. I think he has been living on the streets. I screamed at him so loud. I told him to tell me what kind of mischief he’d been up to but he wouldn’t say.’

  She pressed her lips tight together, as if holding back the emotion, looked down at the shine of the coffee table, a woman too proud to cry in front of three coppers.

  ‘I was thinking he was on drugs or something. He smokes marijuana in his room sometimes. I tell him I’ll skin him alive if I catch him at it, but he’s stronger than me now.’

  She looked sideways, out of the window. Through the thick nylon nets, Cupidi could see the silhouette of Mrs Watt’s neighbour, backlit by the morning sunshine, standing on the concrete in front of the house, trying to see what was going on inside.

  ‘He had a shower. I gave him some chicken. He ate it like he had eaten nothing for the whole week. Then I sent him to his room. When I got up this morning, he was gone. No note. Nothing.’

  She looked back at Cupidi, again her lips pressed tight. Moon opened his mouth to ask a question, but before he could, she spoke again. ‘I swear to God, I don’t know where he’s gone. On Jesus Christ’s name.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Ferriter leaned down towards her and asked, ‘This is important, Mrs Watt. Did he say anything about what he’s been doing in the last few days?’

  At first Mrs Watt didn’t answer. ‘He didn’t talk. I asked him. He was angry about something. I could tell. You know how boys are. They store it all inside them. I asked him but he wouldn’t tell me anything at all. He just went upstairs and closed his bedroom door tight. I knocked but he asked me to leave him alone.’

  Cupidi glanced upwards at the ceiling.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Mrs Watt. ‘I’ve invited you into my house, but I wouldn’t let you in there. Not without his permission.’

  ‘What about his friend. In this photo?’ Moon held it up again. However grainy the image, it was clearly two boys, one about a foot taller than the other.

  She frowned. ‘Benjamin? He’s no good. If something bad has happened, it will be Benjamin’s fault. I’m single. My husband is gone. I do what I can, but it is not easy with a boy.’

  ‘Did Joseph pack a bag or anything?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  The strong desire to protect her own child; Cupidi understood that.

  Cupidi squatted down in front of her and said, ‘We think he may be in serious danger, Mrs Watt. We’re trying to help him, I promise. Cross my heart. If you don’t want us to look in his room, will you do it? Any clue. Anything that’s missing. Anything that he left behind that might tell us where he is.’

  Felicia Watt chewed on the inside of her lip for a while, looking Cupidi straight in the eye.

  ‘You’re not just saying that to make me . . .’

  ‘No. I’m not saying that. I don’t know what kind of danger he is in, but I do think the threat is very real. I think he’s been running away for good reason. Trying to hide.’

  ‘I am not giving up on my boy, Sergeant. I’m not turning him in.’

  ‘I know. You’re trying to help him. We are, too. I promise. I have a girl the same age.’

  ‘Wait here,’ she said, pushing herself out of the chair. At the door, she hesitated. ‘Don’t touch a single thing. OK?’

  *

  Nobody spoke until she had left the room and they could hear her moving around upstairs.

  ‘You really think he’s in that kind of danger?’ asked Moon after a minute.

  The stairs creaked. They listened in silence.

  Mrs Watt appeared at the door again, pausing this time to scrutinise each of them in turn, as if she suspected them of rifling through her drawers.

  ‘He left this,’ she said eventually, producing a small black phone from behind her back and holding it up. The make was Alcatel; one of those you could buy anywhere for ten pounds. They only did voice and text; which is why the kind of people who used them liked them.

  The expression on the mother’s face was one of resignation; as if she knew as well as the police did that a phone like that was probably not a good sign.

  ‘Is that his?’

  ‘He has this place. In his cupboard, behind his shoes. He thinks I don’t know about it. But.’

  Cupidi was already digging into her shoulder bag for something to put it in.

  �
��I’ve not seen it before,’ Mrs Watt said. ‘It wasn’t there before. I looked when he was gone the first time. If it is his, I didn’t buy it for him.’

  Cupidi held out the clear plastic evidence bag for her to drop it in. The woman looked pained, as if she believed she had somehow betrayed her own child. ‘What about his friend? Benjamin. Where does he live?’

  While Ferriter was writing down the address, Cupidi examined the phone. There was dirt in the keys that looked like earth. She pressed the ON button through the polythene of the bag. The screen stayed dead. The battery was flat. She was about to put it in her bag when she noticed something scratched into the plastic casing. She held it up to the light.

  Clearly visible, scored into the plastic: 2767*52.

  FORTY-NINE

  Five minutes later, the man returned to the bathroom and lifted Tap out of the cold water.

  He stood him on his feet, water cascading off him, into his shoes and out onto the bathroom floor, hands still tied behind his back.

  The man nudged him forward.

  Stupid idea, stealing phones, Tap thought. It had just been the thrill of it; him and Sloth against the world, daring each other, getting in deeper and deeper. And now Sloth hated him and everything had gone to shit. He had not snitched on him. But now his mother’s life was in danger and he was going to have to choose between them.

  They crossed the landing and entered his mother’s bedroom. It was dark, curtains drawn.

  ‘Benji?’ His mother was lying in bed in a mess of pink sheets, eyes bleary.

  The man called Al gave him a push, shoving him towards his mother.

  ‘What are you doing here, Benj?’ Her voice was slurry. She was having trouble forming words.

  ‘I came back for you, Mum.’

  ‘I’m so bloody stupid, Benj. What a mess I’m in.’ There was exhaustion in her voice.

  His hands were tied. How could he take Al on with no hands?

  ‘Time for your medicine,’ Al told his mother.

  He had pushed Tap to the foot of her bed and was standing between him and the door.

  ‘What medicine?’

  ‘I brought you some pills.’

  ‘Don’t want any pills,’ she said, like a small child.

  In his gloved hand, he held something up. Even in the dim light Tap could see it, small, round, light blue. Poison, thought Tap. Before Al could leave the doorway to approach his mother’s bed, Tap knew he would have to take his chance. He was exhausted, worn out from the near drownings, but he had to try.

  With a roar, he lowered his head and ran towards the doorway. Holding the pill, Al only had one hand to fend him off with, and no time to prepare himself for the force of the teenager hitting him. And Tap had got his trajectory right. Al collapsed backwards, slamming into the wall at the top of the stairs.

  As he tried to steady himself, Tap jerked his head up, hitting Al under the chin with such force he heard his teeth smash together. He heard him groan, sliding down to the floor.

  Tap kicked him straight in the mouth then turned to go down the stairs. His right foot hit the first step, but something snagged his left leg. Arms still bound, he had no way to catch himself.

  And then he was falling, twisting for long enough to see Al’s hand extended. He had put out his hand and simply tripped him. Nothing would ever go right.

  Head first, he sailed downwards, crashing into the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

  *

  The man gathered him up, tossed him onto the bed near his mother. She was sound asleep already, as if she was dead drunk.

  ‘Do you love your mum?’ asked Al.

  ‘Yeah.’ Automatic answer and automatically true, despite everything.

  ‘Well, she’s going to die, probably very soon. Know what Fentanyl is? Doesn’t matter if you don’t. It’s a drug. I’ve given her it now. It’ll stop her breathing soon. The only way you can save her is tell me where the phone is. You’ve got minutes.’

  He looked at his mother. She was on her back, eyes closed, the breath already coming very slowly.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He tried to answer as urgently as he could.

  ‘Your friend then. The one who drove the scooter.’ The man looked desperate now. There was blood on his chin, and his mouth looked swollen, from when Tap’s head had hit him, or maybe his foot.

  Tap shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know where it is. I don’t frickin’ know where it is.’ His mother or Sloth? How could he choose? But he couldn’t betray one to save the other either. He was useless.

  The man dug into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag with two more blue pills in it.

  ‘You little shitters have ruined my life,’ the man said. He took out one pill. ‘You’re next,’ he said.

  The man took his phone out again, texted a message. Put it back in his pocket, then jumped as the house phone rang loudly. It felt good to see fear on the man’s face at the unexpected noise. He was desperate too, it seemed.

  Tap watched his mother’s chest, looking for signs of it rising and falling. He should have saved her, but he had messed everything up again.

  The phone stopped ringing. The voicemail kicked in. ‘Hi. I’m on my luxury yacht in Barbados, darling. I can’t pick up right now.’

  His mother’s voice, but she wasn’t speaking.

  FIFTY

  ‘We can charge it up, though, can’t we?’ Ferriter was looking at the small black device that looked more like a children’s toy than a real phone.

  ‘Oughtn’t we to leave it for the tech people?’ Moon said.

  They stood in the street outside Felicia Watt’s house. The neighbour who had been outside fixing his car stood with a dirty cloth in his hand, his eye still on them.

  ‘Risk to life,’ said Ferriter, fingering the device through the polythene. ‘What if it has numbers on it that we could use now? That’s our priority.’

  ‘You’re right. Go on then,’ said Cupidi.

  ‘Only, I haven’t got a USB. Only got an iPhone charger.’ Ferriter looked at Moon.

  ‘My car then.’ His Skoda was parked a few doors down. Sitting in the driver’s seat, he took the bag from Ferriter, held it in one hand, the lead in the other.

  ‘Just poke a hole in the plastic,’ urged Ferriter.

  He stuck the USB cable into the bottom of the phone. The screen remained blank. ‘It’s probably been flat for a while. It can take up to half an hour.’

  ‘Obviously,’ muttered Ferriter.

  They lapsed into awkward silence. Minutes passed. Occasionally Moon raised a hand to his nose, touched it gingerly.

  When Ferriter prodded the phone again, Moon chided, ‘Leave it alone.’

  And then, as it lay between the two front seats, the screen lit.

  ‘Two, seven, six, seven. That’s got to be the lock code,’ said Ferriter.

  ‘OK.’ He thumbed the full code in; she was right.

  ‘Last numbers dialled,’ Ferriter urged him. ‘Here. Give me it.’

  ‘I know,’ protested Moon. ‘I’m doing it.’ They sat in the car park while he prodded at the keys. ‘Got it.’ Then: ‘Write them down. One incoming call . . .’

  ‘What about text messages?’

  ‘Give me a chance. Jesus. Take down this number. It’s local.’

  He read out the number. Cupidi called it straight away on her own phone. It went to voicemail: ‘Hi. I’m on my luxury yacht in Barbados, darling. I can’t pick up right now.’ Cupid rang off after the beep. ‘Not in.’

  ‘One message too. Jesus.’ Moon held it up for them to see: U win I will pay u half ££ if you promise to leave me alone.

  All three looked at each other. ‘What the hell’s that?’

  ‘What number is it from?’

  He read the digits aloud. Cupidi was already dialling the number into her own phone.

  ‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ she shouted.

  ‘What?’

  Sometimes everything about an investigation
changes in a second.

  Even before she tried to call it, her iPhone had recognised it. It was one she had called before.

  ‘Whose number is that?’

  She looked up, startled. ‘It’s . . . Astrid Miller’s.’ She held up her phone so the others could see. ‘I had the number off Evert Miller. I know it’s hers. The one I texted her on.’

  ‘Must be a mistake . . .’ said Ferriter. ‘That’s impossible. I mean.’ She checked one phone, then the other. Identical. ‘Bloody hell.’

  All three looked at each other. ‘What is Astrid Miller texting that lad for? What is she saying about paying him?’

  ‘Definitely that number,’ said Moon, still examining the screen on the phone in the plastic bag.

  All three of them, dumbfounded, trying to work out what this meant.

  ‘When was it sent?’

  ‘A week ago Friday. What’s a rent boy like him talking to Astrid Miller for?’

  ‘Who says he’s a rent boy?’ protested Ferriter.

  Cupidi pressed the CALL button on her own phone. It was unfathomable. Two separate cases – the dismembered arm, the stabbing of a paedophile – had just been joined by an unlikely thread. The fog of the last week seemed to have blown away, but despite that, there was still no shape to what Cupidi could see.

  Astrid Miller didn’t answer. Her call went to voicemail too. ‘I’m not available. If it’s important, leave me a message.’ Her voice, though, unmistakably. The millionaire Astrid Miller’s details on the shoplifter Joseph Watt’s phone. But why? It made no sense at all.

  Cupidi had seen the boys as victims, but the phone made out they were blackmailers who had some hold over her. She dialled home.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Ferriter.

  ‘We need to find Astrid Miller right now. I think she’s in some kind of trouble.’

  No answer from her home, so she tried Zoë’s mobile. ‘Where are you?’ she asked when she answered.

  There was the whip of wind in the background. ‘Burrowes Pit,’ Zoë said. ‘When are you home?’

  Burrowes Pit. One of the huge gravel scrapes that had filled with water at the centre of the shingle banks. ‘You’re birdwatching?’

  ‘Birding.’ She never liked it when her mother called it ‘birdwatching’. In spite of the drama of the moment, she found herself smiling.