by Ruth Sutton
Detective Sergeant Morrison came into the CID room. ‘How was the funeral? Anyone break down and confess all?’
‘Hardly anyone there,’ said Sam. ‘Not even the lads from the home. Edwards didn’t say much but there must have been something going on.’
‘Lazy bastards most of ’em,’ said the sergeant, standing in the doorway now, his head so close to the top of the frame that he ducked involuntarily every time he came and went. ‘Probably couldn’t be bothered getting up.’
‘It’s not like that, though, is it?’ said Sam. ‘Looks like a well-run place to me. The matron was there today, weeping into her hankie.’
‘She’s a good soul,’ agreed the sergeant. ‘Been there since it opened. Edwards too, come to that. One or two of the others are more recent. Have you checked them all out?’
‘On to it, sarge,’ said Sam. ‘Things are going too slowly.’
‘Kids like them, there’s no sanity in their lives,’ Morrison went on. ‘Families all over the place, flitting around. You found the mother to tell her about the kid and then they were off again, right?’
‘House was boarded up when I got there. Neighbours probably knew what was going on but as soon as the warrant card appears they go blind and deaf.’
‘Any other family?’ Morrison asked.
Sam hesitated. ‘Some hints about an older sister and possibly a brother too. I’m looking into it.’
‘Carry on, constable,’ said Sergeant Morrison, pushing away from the doorframe and out of the room.
‘Sir,’ Sam called after him. ‘Any sign of that PM report? Doc Hayward is too sick to talk, and I haven’t seen it. PM must be done or the body couldn’t be released.’
‘Might be on my desk,’ Sergeant Morrison called back down the long corridor. ‘Have a rummage.’
Sam crossed the corridor and looked through the open door at the sergeant’s desk, piled high with papers, yellow message slips, files, cigarette packets. What a mess. He’d told himself not to say anything but the whole place was unbearably sloppy. He’d given up counting the number of times he’d heard someone else say, ‘That’s the way it works round ’ere.’ It didn’t work, but no one was ever prepared to admit that. Scene-of-crime stuff was a nightmare, people trampling about, evidence in paper bags that could have been in someone’s pocket for days, scrawled notes on them that nobody could read. Sam had done the training and read the books, twice over probably, and knew how things ought to be done. What could he say when procedures weren’t followed? He’d tried suggesting changes at the beginning but the rest of the blokes just laughed and called him Nelly and told him to calm down. And now this missing PM report. If the doc had confided in him like he seemed to have done in Judith bloody Pharaoh, Ace Reporter, he might have something to go on, but it was too vague. Maybe he could persuade her to tell him more. He was sure she was holding something back. But why? What if he promised her first sight of any firm information? He’d met reporters like her, usually young men, always on the make. All they wanted was to get something out before their rivals on another paper beat them to it. Have to get a scoop! What a ridiculous word.
His expectations weren’t high, but Sam started sifting methodically through the chaos on the sergeant’s desk, putting all the yellow telephone messages in one pile, all handwritten notes in another, all typed up stuff in a third. While he was at it he filed assorted documents back into the folders they had come from and stood them up neatly on the shelf. Someone whistled. ‘Great job, Nelly. Want to do mine as well?’ Bloody Harry Grayson. They’d been at training college together, but since then Harry seemed to abandoned most of what they were supposed to have learned. Line of least resistance, that was Harry all over. If everyone else called Sam ‘Nelly’ then Harry would do the same, just to fit in. He’d gone again by the time Sam turned round.
When he’d sorted almost everything, there were a few items left that didn’t seem to fit anywhere. One was a scrap of lined paper, not the neat yellow slip off the message pad. Call me – AT, was all it said, handwritten, as if someone had written it at the desk, not a phone message written up like so many of the other messages that had littered the desk. Another was the unused part of a train ticket to Manchester, from months before. Sam looked for the bin, but then thought better of it and put these two back on the cleared desk under a mug with mould in the bottom of it.
He leafed through the telephone messages, looking for something about the report. The post-mortem had probably been on Monday, after the body was found on the Friday. October 27th – here was something. Hayward, it said, in the box labelled: From. Call about Stringer PM. There were two messages in fact, one at 10.42 a.m. and another at 5.23 p.m. Sam wondered if they’d been followed up. Maybe Hayward was saying the report would be delayed. He walked through to the front desk for a word with the omniscient Sergeant Clark.
‘Heard anything about Doc Hayward?’ Sam asked. ‘I need to talk to him.’
‘Went into hospital late Wednesday, I heard. Blue lights, sirens, the lot, apparently. Took him to North Lonsdale. Something to do with his breathing. You might be able to talk to him if you go there and ask.’ Sam stared, his mind racing.
‘Thanks, sarge,’ was all he could think of to say.
Back in Morrison’s office, Sam took a deep breath and looked again at the piles of papers on the desk. First things first, he reminded himself. Finish one job before you start another. Systematic, patient. The rest of those so-called coppers could take the piss as much as they wanted but he would do this job right or not at all. He looked at every document in the various piles but found no further sign of or reference to a PM report on Steven Clifford Stringer. Next job, call the hospital. The sister on the men’s medical ward told him that Dr Hayward was as well as could be expected, and yes it might be possible to talk to him if the patient’s doctor allowed it at the time.
Sam’s second call was more of a long shot. He asked Records to check on anyone called Stringer, male, born between 1940 and 1950, last known address in Morecambe. ‘Not much to go on,’ he said, ‘but see what you can find.’ Sam paused for a while, then made another call, to Directory Enquiries and thence to Morecambe Social Services, but the phone rang for a while with no reponse and he finally left a message with the switchboard. What else could he try? Judith had said that this elder brother had disappeared and then reappeared. Given the family history the first disappearance could have been into care. But that would have been years before. If the man was hanging around in Barrow now, where had he been? If he’d been in jail, Records would probably find it.
Sam sat back in his chair, hands behind his head, and tried to think it through. If the boy didn’t drown, how did he die? Could have been hypothermia, but it hadn’t been that cold. But then the kid was tiny, underweight according to Mrs Robinson, although he was doing better with proper nourishment at the home. ‘He was a changed boy,’ she’d told him proudly. ‘That’s all it takes for so many of them. Decent food, enough sleep, regular wash or bath, clean clothes, regular checks by Dr Graham, and we have a dentist too.’ Sam couldn’t believe that Iris Robinson would have let anything preventable happen to the boy.
One of the boys – which one, Sam wondered? – had said that Steven thought someone would come and fetch him, but if it was true that must have been unofficial. Maybe he ran off that night to meet someone, who killed him, or let him die. And if the lad was heading off across the sands to Morecambe, did he start from that spot? Or had he been somewhere else and the tide had caught up with him? Too many questions. Sam went back to thinking about the older brother. Could he have been hanging around at the funeral to say goodbye, or to soften his guilt? And when Sam pushed his way into those trees, where had the man gone? People don’t just disappear. Sam turned back to the piles of papers and checked them through again, just in case. No point in wasting time at the hospital if there was no need.
The phone rang. ‘DC Tog…Tog.’
‘Tognarelli, yes,’ Sam snapped at t
he phone. It was a perfectly straightforward name, why did people make such a meal of it?
‘Morecambe Social Services, Mrs Craven here. You rang earlier about someone from here who might have been in care with us ten or fifteen years ago. Nothing on an Anthony Stringer, but we have a record here that an Anthony James Lennon from Morecambe was placed in a Barnardo’s home near Lancaster in 1953. The notes mention a younger sister named Donna, who stayed with the mother. Does that sound about right? It says here the boy was eight years old at the time.’
Sam scribbled in his notebook. ‘Does it say where he went after that?’
‘Nothing more than that I’m afraid. The home doesn’t actually exist anymore. Barnardo’s like to keep children closer to home these days and support them there. Not sure it works, but there we are. Is that all?’
Sam made sure he had the woman’s name and phone number before she rang off. At last, something clear-cut. Could be someone else of course, but the chances were high that this was the man Steven’s sister Donna had mentioned. The man had been somewhere else in the meantime, and he came back for some reason, but at least Sam had something specific to do and he worked faster than most of the other blokes in the squad. He couldn’t bear the idea of stretching out the work to fill the maximum possible time like some of them did.
It was gone four already, and he’d promised Elspeth he’d be back in time to have supper with them and play with Tommy before bedtime, but it was far too early to stop yet. He picked up the phone and dialled the familiar number. Paying for the phone at Elspeth’s had been one of his better ideas.
Elspeth and Tommy had just got home. ‘I won’t be late, promise,’ said Sam. ‘Someone I’ve got to see.’
❖ ❖ ❖
The hospital was the same Victorian building that had been there for years. There were rumours of a new hospital being built out towards Furness Abbey, but there were rumours about everything and most of them came to nothing. The bridge over to Millom for example: they’d been talking about that for fifty years and still nothing. It took Sam less time to walk from the police station to the hospital than to find the ward he wanted in the maze of wings and extensions. The men’s medical ward was large, and he wasn’t sure he would recognise the elderly doctor in these very different surroundings. It was quiet and he took a few minutes to find someone in a nurse’s uniform.
‘Nurse,’ he began, pulling out his warrant card.
‘Staff nurse,’ she interrupted, and he felt the blush starting on his neck.
‘DC Tognarelli, Barrow CID. I believe Dr Hayward is on the ward here?’
‘And if he is?’
‘If possible, I would like a quick word with him. Won’t take long.’
The nurse checked the small-face watch hanging on her apron. ‘Could it not wait till tomorrow? We’ve just got everyone nicely settled.’
‘I’m afraid it can’t wait, Staff Nurse Fleming,’ he said reading the name on her badge. ‘Part of an enquiry into a child’s death.’
‘Go on then. He’s not well, mind, so don’t tire him. Take it slow, and give him time to speak. Seventh bed down, on the right.’
Dr Hayward was lying quite still, propped up on several pillows, his eyes closed. Sam was shocked by how frail he looked. The old man stirred and opened his eyes just a little and then wider as he focused on the young face so close to his. Sam leaned back quickly.
‘Dr Hayward?’ he said. ‘You awake?’
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘DC Sam Tognarelli, from Barrow. We have met before. I work with Sergeant Morrison.’
‘Lucky you,’ said the doctor.
‘It’s about a post-mortem report you did earlier this week on a eleven-year-old boy, Steven Stringer.’
Dr Hayward tried to sit up higher, and started to cough. ‘Yes,’ he said, after a few deep breaths that rattled in his chest. ‘What about it?’
‘Couple of things, sir,’ said Sam. ‘I believe you told someone that the boy didn’t drown as we first thought, so he must have died from some other cause.’
‘I did? Who did I say that to?’
‘Judith Pharaoh, from the Furness News.’
Hayward took a breath deep enough for Sam to hear the rattle in his chest.
‘Ah, Judith,’ he said. ‘She found me in the pub and I probably talked when I shouldn’t. What did I say to her?’
‘That the boy didn’t drown. There was no water in his lungs, you said.’
‘Did I? Well that was stupid of me. I must have been confused. I get confused you know and that was a bad week.’ He paused, thinking. ‘I should have walked across here and admitted myself there and then, silly old fool.’ He said nothing for a few minutes, lying on his back. Then he turned towards Sam and looked at him.
‘Judith told you about this, did she? About what she thought I’d said? Why you, I wonder?’
Sam was wondering too, about what she’d told him, and why. Surely she would have asked more questions, or realised that the old man was confused. Or was she just trying to wind him up?
Hayward looked hard at Sam. ‘How long have you been in Barrow?’ he asked.
‘Only a few months, after the reorganisation, when Barrow joined up with Lancashire.’
‘Oh, that. Waste of money. And how old are you? Look about sixteen to me, but that’s because I’m old.’
‘I’m twenty-eight actually,’ said Sam, wondering what this had to do with anything.
‘Good God. Just a child. And what do you think of our noble police force here in Barrow?’
‘To be honest, I think we’re a bit of a shower. I like to do things by the book, but I don’t think most people do.’
‘Bet they love you,’ said Hayward. In the next bed, another old man was coughing and heaving, his fingers gripping the sheets. Sam wanted to get away, from the ward and from Doc Hayward who was beginning to irritate him.
‘So,’ he said, ‘about the PM report.’
‘Did I send it in?’
‘That’s what I came to ask you. It’s Friday now and I haven’t seen it.’
‘Friday?’ There was another long pause. Sam looked down at his notes.
‘I’ll be honest with you, young man,’ said Dr Hayward, lowering his voice. ‘I wasn’t at all well earlier in the week, and well, some bits of it I just can’t remember. Might have to dig up the wee lad and start again, eh?’
‘Too late for that now,’ said Sam. ‘He was cremated this morning.’
Dr Hayward looked at Sam but said nothing. Staff Nurse Fleming walked past, pointing at her watch. It was probably time to go.
‘What about the report?’ Sam persisted.
‘I sent it to Morrison, I must have done.’ After a moment he continued. ‘It could have been an accident. What do the boy’s mates say?’
‘Nothing to me, but I believe some of them talked to Judith.’
‘Bet that pissed you off, eh? And what did they tell the fair Judith?’
‘Not a lot. I think we’ll need to interview them properly.’
‘And if they decide to clam up there’ll be nothing you can do. They’re all too young to be bullied, even by your sergeant who has a good line in bullying, so I hear.’ He breathed heavily again. ‘So, is that all you want?’
Sam looked down at his notes. ‘Yes, I think so. Thanks, you’ve been very helpful. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’
Hayward pulled himself up a little and leaned towards Sam. ‘Listen to me, lad. Keep all this to yourself.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean, just be careful. Don’t trust people, lad. And stick to your guns. It’s too late for me, but you’re young. That’s all, now push off and leave me alone.’
Sam walked out of the hospital and took the road towards Roose and Elspeth’s house. He was worried. Was Hayward just tired and ill, or so confused that anything he said was suspect? Why did he lie to Judith about the boy not drowning? And what was all that about sticking to your guns?
Supper was on the table by the time he opened the front door and he could smell it. Living with Elspeth and Tommy may have meant a loss of privacy, but it had its compensations. Elspeth could make a good meal out of anything, and Tommy was a tonic after a long day with crims and perverts and people whose lives were collapsing around them. Tommy ran to him and Sam caught him just in time to whisk him into the air.
‘My, you’re heavy,’ he said. ‘How much does he weigh, Elspeth?’
‘Too much for me to do that. Wash your hands both of you, it’s all ready.’
Later Sam and Tommy read a book together while Elspeth washed up. Even with her back to them she could hear them and smiled at Tommy’s questions. ‘Yes, but why?’ seemed to be the continual response, and Sam was surprisingly patient. This was going to work out, Elspeth thought to herself. Drying her hands she said, ‘Have you met my friend Judith yet?’
Sam looked up at her. ‘Not Judith Pharaoh?’
‘Yes, Judith Pharaoh. She works for the Furness News. I mentioned you to her last time she was here but she didn’t say anything so I assumed you hadn’t come across each other.’
‘Oh, we have,’ said Sam.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Elspeth.