by Jane Adams
Mike switched off then and leaned back in the only armchair his tiny flat contained.
‘The cause of death has not yet been established,’ he repeated softly to himself, then laughed grimly.
It wasn’t policy, he knew, to put out over the air that the boy had almost bled to death from a ruptured artery after repeated rape. Or that someone had finished him off by pressing something with soft blue fibres over his face when he was far too weak to even try to struggle.
No, Mike thought, he didn’t suppose they could really put that out over the air on the teatime news.
Chapter Fifteen
Sunday morning
Eric Pearson skimmed through the Sunday papers. Johanna brought him three of them every Sunday when she took the children out for their weekly visit to the park.
Eric didn’t like the family going out en masse like that. Didn’t like knowing they would be gone for two or three hours, perhaps, but it was something Johanna insisted upon doing and, these days, he didn’t seem to have the energy to argue with her. Arguments required too much sustained concentration.
Eric skimmed the papers, trying to catch up on the week’s news. He could hear the children and Johanna chattering away in the kitchen below and the sound of the radio coming from his eldest son’s bedroom.
Eric could almost believe the world to be sane and normal once more.
Almost, but not quite.
For several minutes Eric stared at the twin images on the page in front of him before beginning on the text. The first was taken with a long lens. The slight edge distortion and the unguarded pose of the man in the centre of the shot told him that.
It was the DI who had come to his house. Nosing about, looking at his photographs.
‘Detective Inspector Mike Croft,’ the caption read, ‘directing operations yesterday.’
Eric skimmed through the text. The finding of a boy’s body out Colton way. And this man was heading the investigation.
Eric almost spat in disgust. It was the other picture that really got to him. Superintendent Jaques holding forth at a press conference the night before.
‘A despicable crime.’ Eric almost laughed. ‘Promise they will bring the guilty to justice! Ha!’ What did Jaques know about justice?
And this other man, this Croft, he was working with him.
Eric put the paper aside and stared upwards at the ceiling. He had almost liked Croft. Almost believed that he might be different. But he would be just like all the rest if Jaques was working with him.
‘Corrupt as hell,’ Eric said softly to himself. ‘The whole damned lot of them, corrupt as hell.’
He leaned right back in his chair, his eyes still fixed to the ceiling as though trying to peer through to his bedroom overhead. At the old bed with its shot springs and its sagging mattress and at the box file that held the journal.
Jaques’ name was in there. Eric knew it. If he thought hard enough he could even recall the words.
‘Corrupt as hell, the whole damned lot of them. Corrupt as hell,’ Eric repeated to himself.
* * *
Mike stood on the cordoned walkway and gazed at the empty space where the body had lain.
In the two adjoining fields volunteers and police could be seen walking in close formation, continuing their intensive search. At the edge of the wood, undergrowth had been cut back and carefully lifted aside, then sifted by hand for any random fragment that didn’t belong. The wood had been subjected to the same meticulous attention.
The boy had died elsewhere. That much was certain. Had been killed and left for some time half turned onto his side and with something pressing against his right shoulder.
Later, long enough to develop marks of hypostasis but not long enough for rigor to have set in, the body had been moved, wrapped in a plastic bag with the knees curled close against the chest.
Later still, he’d been brought here.
There were two layers of plastic. The first bag had split and the whole untidy bundle that had been a teenage boy pushed unceremoniously into a second bag and tied tight.
It was hard to say more than that. Black plastic was black plastic. Mike had become something of an expert on the subject over the last few hours.
These particular black liners were of a bigger than normal size, designed for the large wheeled bins now in use in some parts of the county. For a brief time this had seemed like a lead but a dozen calls just to the local shops that opened on a Sunday had told him that it meant little.
There was not much else. Fragments of skin and hair under two of the boy’s fingernails. A single dark hair clinging to the sweatshirt, and then the sweatshirt itself. The label cut out and the inexpert repair made with green thread to the shoulder seam.
Mike turned and walked back towards the car parked by the farm gate on the other side of the field. Tyre tracks had been found close to where his own car stood. Casts had been taken. Casts taken too of footprints, deeply indented in a patch of softer ground under the trees. Footprints that from their depth had been made by either a heavy man or one carrying something that weighed him down.
Mike sighed, wondering just what kind of hole this death would be leaving in someone’s life.
Chapter Sixteen
Sunday evening
It began with the evening edition of the Chronicle carrying an update on the ‘Bright’s Wood Body’, and confirmation that the murder had been sexual in motive.
People talked about it. Of course they did. A body found not five miles from where they lived. A child, abused and murdered. Memories for such things are long, and the scandal of the Fletcher business came clearly to mind.
The last council-run home Fletcher had been in charge of was only three miles from Portland Close, in the opposite direction to Bright’s Wood.
Connections were made, as connections are. Parents cast a closer eye over their children. Teenagers were told to stay together and not to walk home alone. Adults tried to whisper, to hide that which was common knowledge in the papers, on the radio, shown in colour pictures on the TV news.
But it was Dora, all intent on avoiding scandal but unable to resist, who dropped the bombshell.
‘ ’Course I’m sure,’ she said. ‘We talked about it at the lunch club the other day. Pearson used to live on Malpass Street, that’s where the Williams still are. And she remembers . . .’
Soon she wasn’t the only one to remember. Pearson’s misdemeanour had not, perhaps, been on the scale of Fletcher’s, but it was bad enough.
‘He was a teacher, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, some private place.’
‘Little kids, they were. No older than Lizzie’s two.’
‘Who knows what else?’
‘He was never actually charged with anything, was he, Dora?’
Dora looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, no,’ she said, ‘but that doesn’t mean . . .’
‘And the wife. Staying with him when she’s got kids of her own . . .’
Watching from his window, Eric knew that something was wrong. ‘The natives are restless,’ he whispered to himself, his voice mocking and contemptuous. He watched people moving from house to house. Neighbours visiting neighbours, grouping themselves together, glancing up at him as he stood to one side of the window, all-seeing but out of sight. Something was going on.
By six o’clock the rain had begun, driving people inside. Lightning flashed, illuminating Eric Pearson still in the window gazing out at the shocks of brightness that lit the sky and waiting for the storm to break around him. Behind him the television screen flickered. The only light in the large room, shining garishly on his children’s faces.
There would be trouble tonight. Eric knew it with a certainty born of experience. But he’d be ready for them.
By nine thirty the rain had stopped. The clouds were breaking and scattering in the light wind. For a little while Eric thought that he had been mistaken. That maybe the rain would be enough to cool things for another night. But then ther
e were voices. Two figures broke from the shadows near the kissing gate and stopped, opposite the house. Two youths that Eric dimly recognized as being local stared up at him.
‘Yah, you bastard. Get your arse down here.’
‘Nah, fuck it! He won’t do that. Too fucking scared.’
Eric glanced further down the street. As if their shouts had been the cue they needed, doors to the houses were opening. Neighbours came out, calling to the youths either in approbation or question.
Eric moved from the window and crossed to the phone. His oldest son looked up, eyes questioning.
Eric’s hand hesitated over the nine. Then, abruptly, he changed his mind and dialled another number.
‘Is that the Chronicle? Good. If he’s still in his office, I want to talk to Tom Andrews?’
* * *
Rezah’s key turning in the lock didn’t wake Ellie. It was only the sound of his voice, calling to her to take off the chain and let him in, that drew her out of her deep, exhausted sleep.
‘Oh! Sorry! I’m so sorry!’ The suddenness of her awakening startled her into too much of an apology.
He hugged her to him as soon as she’d let him through the door. ‘Are you all right, Ellie? You’re shaking.’
She laughed, nervously. ‘No. I’m fine. I’d just fallen asleep. The storm . . .’ She stopped, looked over his shoulder at the scene outside. ‘Rezah?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I only just arrived.’
Ellie looked at him with frightened eyes. ‘I thought, tonight. The rain.’
‘The rain stopped half an hour ago,’ Rezah told her. ‘No, come inside. You want no part of this.’
Ellie glanced at him. He was right, she did want no part of it, but the sight of everyone gathered in the street — neighbours, kids, people she recognized as being local, others she had never seen before — all standing silent and immobile, drew her out onto the step.
Rezah left her side and went to the telephone standing on the little table at the foot of the stairs.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Phoning the police. Then I’ll get hold of my dad, tell him I’m bringing you over first thing in the morning.’
She gave him a startled look, then turned back to survey the crowd gathered in the street.
Dora stood on the footpath, hands on her hips, scowling at everyone but looking vaguely guilty. ‘Bloody fools,’ she muttered as Ellie came to her side. ‘We should all complain to the council, get a petition or something, get them out that way. This isn’t going to do anyone a bit of good.’
Ellie was baffled. She glanced up the road at the sound of a car engine approaching. The car stopped. Two men got out, the younger one with a professional looking camera gripped in his hand.
There were shouts from the windows of the Pearson house. The sound of a water hose spurting suddenly into life. Other voices, raised angrily in response. Ellie looked away from the two men and stared at the big house.
Then someone threw a stone and the smash of window glass shattered the night.
‘There are children in that house,’ Ellie whispered. ‘Little kids like Farouzi. Like Lizzie’s kids.’
A second window smashed and Ellie wheeled around once more to stare at the Pearsons’ house.
It wasn’t the adults who were throwing the stones. Children, young kids of eight and nine and ten, hurling stones and half-bricks, bottles, clods of mud, anything that could be used to smash glass, or to threaten those inside. Kids’ voices, cheering as they made a hit, and the elders, parents, neighbours, the two men from the car, watching in near silence. Watching, Ellie thought, and approving.
‘There are children in that house,’ she said again.
‘Come back inside.’ Rezah took her arm. ‘Ellie, come back inside.’
He made as though to draw her away, but Ellie still stared at the partly shattered windows of the Pearson house, at the figure of Eric Pearson standing behind broken glass, hurling bottles and insults out at the crowd below.
‘Ellie, come inside!’
Ellie stared up at the topmost window. A small child had climbed on to the sill and peered down from its perch. A moment later the glass in front of it smashed into fragments. The child fell back. Ellie could hear it screaming. She could take no more of this. Breaking free of Rezah’s hand she raced across the road, screaming at the attackers.
‘What are you doing? What the hell do you think you’re doing? There are kids in there. You’re just a bunch of bloody cowards, attacking a house with kids in it.’
Rezah had grabbed her arm once more, was pulling her away. There were voices all around her, angry voices. Threatening.
‘Get her out of here.’
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Back off, Ellie. Or do you want to bring this down on your own head?’
‘You know what that bastard did, woman? Interfered with little kids, that’s what he did. And you want to defend the bastard!’
‘What?’ Ellie stared. ‘What?’
‘Still feel the same, do you? Knowing what that bastard did. Little kids, like yours and mine. He’s a pervert, just like the one who killed that boy. You really want filth like that living round here?’
Ellie continued to stare, disbelief and shock etched on her features. Anger, less directed now, threatening to bring tears as the memories flooded her mind.
Rezah slipped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. An act of uncharacteristic public affection, but she barely noticed it.
Dimly, she heard Dora’s voice. ‘She’s pregnant, Matt. She didn’t know, and look at her, how upset she is.’
‘We’ve got no quarrel with Ellie, or with you, mate.’ This last to Rezah. ‘But little kids. We can’t put up with that.’
‘The child in the house,’ Ellie whispered. ‘The glass broke right in front of him.’
‘No one meant the kids to be hurt, love, but what about our own kids? What about them, eh?’
Ellie stared around her. The two men who’d arrived in the car stood near the house. Dora appeared in front of her, mouthing words of comfort that she couldn’t understand. Rezah was there holding her tightly, supporting her as though afraid she might faint. And there was shouting. Yells from the street and others, coming from the house. A child screaming and a woman shouting out for help.
Ellie half turned back towards the Pearson house. Johanna Pearson stood just outside the door, her youngest in her arms, blood on her hands and face and, from an upstairs window, seemingly oblivious to the risk to his wife and child, Eric Pearson threw a bottle, lit at the neck with a rag fuse. It hit the ground in the middle of the crowd and exploded, sending a sheet of flame right across the path.
Ellie screamed, her hands lifting instinctively to cover her face, pushing backwards against Rezah, trying to escape the flames.
Rezah pulled her aside, dragged her back towards their house, forced her inside and closed the door.
Outside, Ellie could hear the police sirens begin to wail.
Chapter Seventeen
Monday, early hours
‘Is it true, what they were saying about him? Is it true? And the little kid in the window, what’s happened to him? There was glass all over. Smashed straight in front of him. He was standing there and then the window shattered and I saw him fall over backwards and I just couldn’t take it any more. What they said about him — Eric Pearson. It’s true, isn’t it? What they said about him.’
Mike said nothing for a moment. Ellie Masouk had worked herself into such a state he wondered if she would even hear him.
Rezah sat beside her, holding her hands in both of his own, trying to calm her. The look of shock on his face and the way his hands trembled told Mike that the young man was suffering no less than his wife.
Mike decided to take the easier question first. He said, ‘The Pearson boy — Daniel, I think it is. He’s not badly hurt, Mrs Masouk. It seems his elder brother pulled him down just before the window shattered. He’s got a
few cuts and bruises, but nothing major.’ He paused. Ellie Masouk was staring at him now, wet eyes fixed on his face as though looking for lies.
‘Truly?’
‘Truth,’ he said. ‘Really, Mrs Masouk, he’s all right.’
She continued to stare for a moment, then dropped her gaze. ‘And the other things?’ she asked. ‘What they said about him. Is that true?’
Mike sighed. It was the question everyone had asked him, even those declaring it to be the truth. There’d been bewilderment, undirected anger and not a little shame from everyone he’d talked to tonight. And a stubborn resolve not to point the finger at any of their neighbours as having started this whole thing.
‘Where did you hear this, Mrs Masouk? These accusations about Eric Pearson?’
Ellie looked puzzled for a moment. ‘Tonight,’ she said. ‘I mean, in the street. People shouting at me, telling me about him. About. . . about what they said he did.’ She broke down again, crying softly, leaning against Rezah.
‘Mr Croft,’ Rezah Masouk asked, ‘do you really need to talk to her tonight? My wife and I have already made statements.’
Mike looked at them both. They were shocked and tired and clearly as much in need of sleep as he was. Yes, they’d made statements, Ellie’s coaxed from her almost word by word by the young WPC. Their statements had been corroborated by the other people Mike had spoken to in Portland Close. Neighbours who’d told him of Ellie’s run to the defence of the Pearson child; her accusations of cowardice; her hysteria, her distress when they’d ‘put her right’ about Eric Pearson.
He’d been astonished at how little malice towards Ellie there had been from those who’d witnessed it all.
How little ill feeling her accusations had drawn, of the sympathy and affection that had been expressed for the Masouks, and for Ellie, upset so badly this late in pregnancy.
Frankly, such expressions of concern had bewildered Mike. Had confused the other officers on the scene too, coming as they did after such scenes of violence and intolerance. He had looked for falsity, but, as far as he could discern, had found none. The young couple and their little daughter seemed to be regarded as part of the Portland Close community, to be protected even when misguided.