The Secrets

by Jane Adams

  Not like the Pearsons.

  Mike sighed, returned to Rezah Masouk’s question.

  ‘No, Mr Masouk. If you’ve nothing to add, then I don’t see why I should bother you any more tonight.’

  He pushed himself out of the easy chair, aware of how comfortable he had become and how reluctant he was to move.

  ‘And what they said?’ Rezah asked him. ‘About Eric Pearson. Is there any truth in that, Inspector?’

  Mike sighed and weighed his words carefully before replying. No doubt they’d have some ‘full’ version of events soon enough. But it wouldn’t be from him.

  ‘Eric Pearson has never been convicted of any crime, Mr Masouk,’ he said and turned to leave.

  Price was waiting for him outside, leaning against the car.

  ‘I was just about to come and get you,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. Superintendent Jaques wants you back at the office.’

  Mike looked surprised, glanced at his watch. Four thirty-five. ‘Who dragged him out of bed?’

  Price grinned, mirthlessly. ‘Don’t know, sir, but I hope they got their bloody heads bitten off.’

  * * *

  ‘Half the street were claiming to have been told by some third party,’ Mike explained. ‘And the other half now miraculously remember the fuss in the papers.’

  Jaques grunted discontentedly. ‘And Pearson’s still shouting conspiracy?’ He looked up sharply, fixing Mike with an unhappy glare. ‘Anything new on that side, Croft?’

  Mike shook his head. ‘A lot of paperwork, sir, and not a lot said. The only thing new, as you know, is this journal Pearson claims to be in possession of.’

  ‘You definitely think he has it?’

  Mike shrugged. ‘Not at the house, I wouldn’t think. Not after what happened to the original.’

  ‘What is alleged to have happened to the original,’ Jaques corrected him.

  ‘Quite, sir. But even if we make the assumption that the journal did exist and that Pearson has a copy, it’s unlikely the CPS will accept it as new evidence. The copy can hardly be proved contemporaneous. If it was handwritten, of course, forensics might be able to give us something, but,’ he shook his head, ‘quite frankly, sir, it’s all very circumstantial.’

  ‘But your feelings about it,’ Jaques persisted.

  ‘My “feelings” hardly matter.’

  ‘I’d like them anyway, Croft.’

  Mike gave him a quizzical look. ‘My feelings, sir, tell me that there was something more. That, in this case, Pearson may well be telling the truth.’

  ‘You suspect a cover-up?’ Jaques’ voice was sharp.

  Mike shook his head. ‘No. Nothing as definite as that, just too many things that don’t fit neatly into the pattern. We knew — the detectives involved in the original investigation knew — that Fletcher wasn’t in it on his own. That he was as guilty of procurement for others as he was of abuse, but Fletcher’s testimony was flawed. He lied consistently throughout his interrogations, was proved to have been lying on oath in court. He undermined his own evidence time and time again.’

  ‘I’ve never understood, sir,’ Price said, ‘just how Pearson claimed to have got hold of this journal.’

  Jaques looked surprised. ‘I thought that was common currency,’ he said.

  Mike explained for him. ‘Fletcher was on the board of governors, you know, at Pearson’s school. Pearson maintains that Fletcher stole the journal. Saw it as some kind of insurance, I would guess.’

  ‘And Fletcher gave the journal to Pearson?’ Price was clearly amused.

  ‘Pearson claims that Fletcher was afraid of the evidence being destroyed — which it was. Gave it to Pearson for safekeeping.’

  ‘And Pearson gave it to his solicitor.’

  ‘And the solicitor’s office was broken into and gutted by fire a week or so later,’ Mike finished.

  Jaques frowned and shook his head. ‘Frankly, Mike, the whole thing stinks. Though what can be done about it . . .’ He gathered up the papers on his table, knocking them into a neat pile. The brief descent into informality had ended as abruptly as it had begun.

  A knock at the door broke the moment of awkward silence that followed and a PC entered, clutching a large brown envelope.

  ‘Just arrived by courier, sir.’

  ‘Ah,’ Jaques said. ‘Good.’

  He emptied the contents on to his desk and began to glance through the black and white prints.

  ‘More photographs?’

  Jaques smiled, wryly. ‘Yes, Sergeant, but these are, I hope, of somewhat more use than Eric Pearson’s efforts.’

  Price leaned forward, curious. The events of the early hours of the morning on Portland Close were laid out before him. Mike looked too and saw Ellie Masouk, disbelief and anger contorting her pale face; Rezah Masouk reaching for her; the crowd parting, one child, arm raised to throw the half-brick that was shown poised gently in mid-flight in the next shot; Eric Pearson standing in the window, his face twisted with rage; and, in the upper window, the child’s figure, arms thrown back as he was pulled clear of the window shattering around him.

  ‘You’re going to let them print these, sir?’ Price sounded outraged.

  Jaques actually looked amused. ‘Suggesting we try to gag the press, are you, Sergeant?’ Then he sobered. ‘It won’t look good,’ he said. ‘Make us out to be a bunch of bloody fools.’ He stood, impatiently gathering the photographs together and thrusting them back into their envelope. ‘Look them over, Price. I want names to faces. I want to know who lives there and who doesn’t. I want arrests, Mike. Want to know who’s been stirring up this hornets’ nest and why.’

  He tapped the envelope again and handed it to Price.

  ‘I want arrests,’ he repeated. ‘I want this lot sorted and I want it done quickly. I know you’ve got your hands full with this killing, but we can’t be seen to be letting violence like this get out of hand.’

  Mike nodded, mumbled some acknowledgement and headed for the door.

  As they left he turned to Price. ‘The reporter — not the photographer — the older man with him?’

  ‘Andrews,’ Price supplied.

  ‘Ah,’ Mike said. ‘I thought I knew the face. And we know that Pearson called Andrews.’

  ‘Yes, sir. He wasn’t in the office, but they got him on his mobile and sent a photographer to pick him up. Seems Pearson made it sound like a real drama.’

  ‘And made sure it turned into one when Andrews got there.’ Mike shook his head in disgust. ‘I mean, bloody petrol bombs. What are we charging him with?’

  ‘Public order offences. Got the duty solicitor in and he’ll be bailed, I expect, later this morning. You want to interview him?’

  ‘Not if you’ve already had the pleasure. I’ll talk to him later.’ Mike frowned. ‘Who spoke to Andrews?’

  ‘PC Nelson, but he’s gone off shift. He was on overtime from ten last night.’

  Mike laughed. ‘That’s going to please accounts. Thought we were on restrictions this month. Why did Pearson choose Andrews?’

  ‘He’s dealt with him before. He covered Pearson’s arrest.’ They had wandered into the briefing room now and Price automatically filled the kettle for tea. ‘Andrews did a series of lengthy pieces on the Fletcher trial too. Pretty vociferous, from what I remember, asked a lot of uncomfortable questions.’

  He paused, dumped tea bags into mugs and perched on the edge of the counter waiting for the kettle to boil. ‘Andrews seemed to think we should be digging deeper. Taking another look at all the allegations about witness harassment and the like.’

  He glanced at Mike. ‘ ’Course, you won’t remember, you moved here after it was all over. Right messy business.’

  ‘And there was harassment of witnesses?’

  ‘Do pigs fly?’ Price grinned. ‘Bloody right there was, but prove it. . . Most weren’t what you call reliable. Scared kids. Adults who didn’t want their past dragged up in court. Business associa
tes of Fletcher’s who’d do anything not to put their precious careers on the line. Easy to intimidate any of them.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Well, guv, if there’s nothing else I’m going to grab a couple of hours’ sleep.’

  Mike nodded, then frowned, furrowing his brow. Just what was going on here and how deep was he going to have to dig to find out? More to the point, were the residents of Portland Close right, in one degree at least? Was the body found in Bright’s Wood part of this whole shabby deal?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tuesday morning

  A fresh, rain-drenched breeze was blowing, taking the edge of heat off the day as DI Croft drove towards Portland Close.

  Monday’s action had slowed after mid-morning. Mike had tidied up the paperwork, filed his reports and dealt with the new day’s routine, then gone back to his flat and caught up on some sleep, leaving others to collate and cross-reference the flood of calls that had come in about the dead boy.

  There had been no real developments. The case had, so far, generated nothing but a mass of statements, an increasingly large pile of random debris picked up by the search teams, all of which had to be labelled, examined and shipped off to forensics. And a mass of taped phone messages. Parents with missing kids. People who thought they’d seen something; a boy matching the description. A girl with a sweatshirt just like the one found. Two men, walking the fields near Bright’s Wood on the previous Thursday night.

  Apart from a possible lead on the chain of sports shops as far afield as Edinburgh and Birmingham stocking the sweatshirt, there had been little of consequence. It was not even certain which night the body had been dumped, though the pathologist reckoned on the boy being dead for about a week by the time he had been found. Certainly not less than four days. Blowflies had settled on the body, getting into the bag through the holes torn by the foxes. They had laid their eggs but the maggots had not yet hatched.

  It was the best timeframe Mike could hope for. Four to seven days. A big gap of lost time.

  The evening had been spent back at the office, reading and rereading the records of the Fletcher case and of the events of the last few weeks on Portland Close as well as being brought up to date on the murder.

  His mind teemed with facts and names and events . . . and missing pieces.

  Fletcher was guilty. Mike couldn’t doubt that; but the others he had named?

  Fletcher had spoken, repeatedly, of widespread and networked pornography. Of children abducted, abused, even killed. Fletcher had claimed to be only the tip of a massive iceberg and a relatively innocent tip at that. If you could call the repeated and long-term physical and sexual abuse of children supposedly in his care anything of the sort.

  Was this boy a victim of a paedophile ring? Or was it a random opportunist killing?

  Was Fletcher lying? Mike didn’t know. Instinct told him, as it had told others involved in the investigation before him, that there was a horrifying amount of truth in what Fletcher had said.

  Mike glanced sideways at the copy of yesterday’s paper on the passenger seat. At Andrews’ report of events on Portland Close, together with three of the images he had seen spread out on the superintendent’s desk:- Ellie Masouk, caught in mid-flight; the child, white faced, in the Pearsons’ window; Johanna Pearson, her youngest child in her arms, standing at the front door, her face shocked and startled, the flare from the blast of the petrol bomb burning out almost a half of the rest of the image.

  Andrews’ account of events had been interesting. He’d described what had happened, reviewed the Fletcher case, asked all the questions Mike had spent the last few days asking himself and left his verdict open. The last paragraph, a denouncement of modern society and a demand that the police take further action, was standard and expected.

  The story shared space on the front page with an update on the boy found in Bright’s Wood.

  Mike sighed. Something Fletcher had said in the taped interviews he had listened to stuck in his mind. He reached across and pushed the tape into the cassette player. Fletcher’s voice, educated, its local accent carefully expunged, spoke to him.

  ‘You seem to think it’s impossible, don’t you? That kids just don’t disappear. That no one could get away with it for as long as I’ve said it’s gone on. But I ask you — how many kids go missing every year and never turn up again? What we’ve taken is just a fraction. Just scraping the top, and a body’s not such a hard thing to get rid of. Not so hard at all.’

  He’d refused to say more, though they’d pushed him for details. For names, places and the ways and means of disposal Fletcher seemed so certain of. But he’d clammed up. Refused to say anything after that, and his words had been buried in the mass of documentation the case had generated.

  They troubled Mike, though, those words. Reminded him of something Tynan had said to him a year ago, about how many children disappear without trace.

  He’d not known then, not wanted to play the numbers game. But he knew now and the facts, coupled with Fletcher’s words, had shocked him more deeply than he had thought possible.

  Digging around, he’d found figures from the Children’s Society for 1987. ‘We keep better figures for lost dogs than we do lost children,’ Tynan had once told him.

  In 1987 alone some 98,000 minors had gone missing. Of those, thousands had never been accounted for again.

  Mike saw, in his mind’s eye, the families behind the statistics. The pain and the tears. The fear generated by imaginations that could only give shape to the worst of thoughts. Families who couldn’t even grieve for a death — and, Mike knew, that was tough enough.

  What would it have been like if Stevie hadn’t died? If, one day, he’d just not been there. Not dead, not alive, but in some limbo land that Mike could never reach.

  Angrily, he shook the thoughts from his head.

  He wasn’t in the business of staging a one-man campaign against the world’s lost causes.

  But Pearson knew something and so did Fletcher and they, Mike decided, most definitely fell within the confines of his pitch.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tuesday morning

  John Tynan turned his car into the long drive. He could see the house up ahead, a big Victorian place set within a circle of flowerbeds and green lawns.

  ‘Nice,’ he commented.

  Beside him Sam nodded. ‘It’s a good place,’ he said.

  John glanced sharply at him. ‘Do you regret leaving here, Sam?’

  The younger man shook his head. ‘It’s not something to regret,’ he said. ‘I just don’t have a place here any more, Mr Tynan. You don’t live a lie just ’cause it’s a comfortable life.’

  John smiled. It was a nice rule. He didn’t know many who would keep to it.

  He parked the car in front of the house. Double bay windows arched outward. Large windows with the curtains pulled well back allowed the sun to flood into the two large front rooms.

  The two men walked slowly up to the front door. It stood open, exposing a large tiled hall. A pokerwork plaque hung above the door.

  ‘ “Suffer the little children”,’ Tynan read.

  Sam nodded. ‘That’s what the Lord said, to let the little ones go to him and be saved.’ He glanced at Tynan, his face betraying his awkwardness, as though he found it hard to explain his old home. ‘It’s a kind of motto, I guess.’

  ‘You must be John Tynan.’

  John and Sam both turned. A man climbed the steps behind them, hand extended towards John.

  ‘David Laughton,’ he introduced himself, then nodded at Sam. ‘Please, come in. Come in.’

  It was cool inside, cool and dim, as Laughton led them out of the sunlit hall and towards the back of the house.

  John, looking around him, caught glimpses of large, simply furnished rooms, polished woodwork and neatness. The house had a freshly cleaned air to it.

  Behind them, two small children thundered down the stairs into the hall and ran outside giggling. Laughton smiled
. ‘Lessons over for the day,’ he said. ‘We don’t keep them inside too long on days like this.’

  ‘Do you have many children here?’ Tynan asked him.

  ‘There are twelve in all under sixteen and three more not yet reached their majority.’

  Tynan raised an eyebrow. It was such an old-fashioned thing to say. ‘Under eighteen?’ he asked.

  Laughton smiled. ‘Oh no, Mr Tynan. Here our children remain our children until they are twenty-one. After that they make some choices for themselves. Don’t they, Sam?’

  He looked sideways at the younger man, who flushed and looked down at his feet.

  ‘And they accept that?’ Tynan questioned.

  Laughton emitted a brief burst of laughter. ‘Those are our rules, Mr Tynan. I don’t imagine it does them any great harm, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tynan said, frowning. ‘It must be tough to be treated like a child when the rest of the world would see you as an adult long since.’

  Laughton smiled again. ‘Those on the outside expect their children to grow up too fast, Mr Tynan. We protect our own here.’

  John said no more. He glanced sideways at Sam, who refused to meet his eyes but continued to stare at the floor, shoulders hunched miserably.

  Laughton had led them through to the kitchen. ‘Can I offer you anything?’ he asked.

  ‘Thank you, no,’ Tynan said. Sam’s discomfort was growing by the minute. He had no wish to prolong his agony.

  Laughton turned to the younger man. ‘Your stuff is out there, in the storeroom, Sam. It’s all boxed up, just the way you left it.’

  Sam Pearson murmured some kind of thanks, then disappeared rapidly through the back door.

  Laughton paused for a moment, then said, ‘How’s he getting along, Mr Tynan?’

  John gave him a surprised look. There was genuine concern in the man’s voice and a somewhat anxious look in his eyes.