Cry Baby

by Billingham, Mark

  ‘Jesus . . . ’

  ‘At least this way there might be a chance of finding out.’

  The truth was that, ever since Jeff had raised the possibility on the phone a week before, Maria had thought of little else. Imagining, struggling to sleep, and coming close in her darkest moments to understanding what Cat must surely be going through. Dwelling upon.

  Worst-case scenarios.

  Jeff let out a long breath. ‘OK, I’ll make a couple of calls.’

  Maria nodded, hauled herself up and walked back to where the coffee was starting to dribble. ‘So, what have you got lined up for the weekend?’

  Jeff turned again and suddenly he was smiling, full of enthusiasm. ‘Well, I’ve got all his favourite food in, obviously, and a few videos he said he wanted to watch. I’d really like to get out and about a bit, though. Into the countryside. Nature, animals . . . there’s a farm you can visit. He doesn’t get enough of that.’

  ‘Sounds like fun.’ Maria poured her coffee. ‘Not sure I get enough of it, either.’

  ‘So, move out.’ He stood up and stepped towards her. ‘Wouldn’t everything be a lot easier if we were closer together?’

  ‘Yes, probably, but . . . ’

  ‘But what? A new place, a new school for Josh—’

  ‘Not now. Not with . . . Cat, you know?’

  ‘Nobody’s talking about leaving the country.’

  ‘It’s just—’

  ‘She’s got a phone, right?’

  ‘Feels like I need to stay close, that’s all.’

  ‘So you’re going to stay here for ever because you feel guilty about your friend’s son going missing.’

  ‘I don’t feel guilty.’

  ‘Good. Because you shouldn’t, because it wasn’t your fault.’

  They stared at each other. She sipped her coffee and he leaned against the worktop, wincing as he raised a hand to rub at his neck. When Jeff saw Maria’s eyes dart away suddenly, he spun around to see Josh watching them from the doorway. There was no way of knowing how long he’d been there.

  ‘Hey, best boy.’ Jeff walked quickly across and Maria followed. ‘All set?’

  Josh nodded. One hand was wrapped around the strap of a small, blue rucksack and the other clutched his white teddy bear. ‘Why is it Mummy’s fault that Kieron disappeared?’

  ‘It’s not,’ Maria said. ‘We were just—’

  Jeff raised a hand to stop her, then squatted down to fasten the buttons on his son’s jacket. ‘How would you like to see some animals this weekend?’

  Josh shrugged, expressionless. ‘What sort?’

  ‘Pigs? Sheep, maybe, and goats.’

  Josh lifted the teddy up. ‘Can Snowball come?’

  ‘Maybe you should leave him here.’

  The boy frowned and shook his head. It was non-negotiable.

  ‘Right then.’ Jeff glanced at Maria, said, ‘Let’s get going, shall we?’

  Josh turned and walked away down the hall. They stood together in the doorway and watched him as he stopped at the front door and spoke without turning round, his back to them. ‘A man took Kieron, didn’t he?’

  ‘Well, we don’t really know what happened, chicken,’ Maria said.

  ‘Yes, we think so,’ Jeff said.

  ‘So, if it’s Mummy’s fault, does that mean she knows the man?’

  Without taking her eyes off her son, Maria reached out towards her ex-husband, scrabbled for his hand. He did not move, did not blink, but he let her take it.

  FIFTY-NINE

  There were still appeals boards mounted at every entrance, but what had happened in the woods a fortnight before did not appear to be putting anybody off. It would be light for a few hours yet and, in the short time since Thorne had parked the car, he’d sat and watched a good many people ambling happily in and out. Couples, dog walkers, ramblers.

  Parents and children.

  He could only assume that those who used these woods regularly barely even noticed the signs any more. That despite the flaking notices and the sun-bleached photographs of a child in a football shirt, the disappearance of Kieron Coyne was fading from the consciousness of the general public at around the same rate it was ceasing to be of interest to newspaper editors. The stories were still to be found, of course, every day or two, tucked away on the inside pages. The print that bit smaller than it had been before, and the focus less on the shock and horror at the event itself than on the inability of the police to make any headway in the investigation.

  The Hunt Continues For . . .

  Clueless Police Still Searching . . .

  Thorne sat and wondered whether the public’s voracious appetite for fresh tragedy and scandal made things more or less terrible for Catrin Coyne. The daily reminder – as if one was needed – of what had happened to her son must surely have been unbearable, but was this slow and steady forgetting not far worse?

  Thorne and the rest of the team had not forgotten, would never forget, but until such time as there was an outcome of some sort, that in itself would be of precious little comfort to the missing boy’s mother. Much as he loathed the word itself, he understood the need for closure and the wound left by its absence in those aching for it. Thorne decided that, if there were no significant developments over the next couple of days, he would make time to go and visit Catrin Coyne.

  To provide some reassurance, if such a thing was possible.

  Some company at the very worst.

  On the six o’clock news, they announced that the Greenwich Peninsula had been chosen as the site for the Millennium Dome – whatever the hell that was supposed to be – and Thorne watched a blue Audi A3 cruise past him, slow down, then turn into a driveway a few houses ahead.

  A significant development? It was highly unlikely, as Thorne was there based on nothing more than a vague unease, but at least he felt like he was doing something. Working the case. Anything was better than sitting around like a lemon, waiting for—

  He jumped at the noise of someone tapping on the window and turned to see Felix Barratt smiling in at him. Thorne did his best to mask the grimace as he wound the window down.

  ‘Why don’t you come in, Detective Sergeant?’ Barratt leaned down and gave the interior of Thorne’s car a disapproving once-over. ‘I’ve just bought a lovely bottle of Meursault and it’ll be so much more comfortable if we talk inside, don’t you think?’

  *

  Thorne was on his way home anyway, so was happy enough to accept Barratt’s offer of a drink. He didn’t know what Meursault was, but seeing as his host did not keep a ready supply of lager, or beer of any sort, he had little choice but to take the glass that was offered him.

  They sat in Barratt’s overheated front room. The place stank of wax polish. The carpet bore Hoover tracks and the ornamental birds, perching tidily in their glass case, had clearly been recently dusted.

  ‘I can’t say I’m awfully surprised to see you,’ Barratt said. ‘But why sit there skulking in your car on a balmy Friday evening?’

  ‘I wasn’t skulking, I was waiting.’ Thorne took a sip of wine. ‘This is nice.’

  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ Barratt said.

  ‘So, why weren’t you surprised?’

  ‘Well, because I watched the reconstruction, of course.’ Barratt watched Thorne looking in vain for the television. ‘I have a small black-and-white set in my bedroom.’ He smiled at the look of disbelief on Thorne’s face. ‘I hardly ever watch it and the black-and-white licence is a lot cheaper.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I guessed that one or two of my more civic-minded neighbours would call in to give you my name. I mean, I was in the reconstruction. I was playing myself, so that was hardly going to come as a shock, was it?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Not particularly helpful in itself, of course. They knew I was there, because I’d actually spoken to one or two of them on the street that morning. Just in passing, no more.’

  ‘Yes
, they told us that.’

  Barratt sipped his wine, hummed with pleasure and grinned. ‘And what else did they tell you?’

  ‘Well . . . ’

  ‘I mean, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Skulking.’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You see, that’s why I’m not surprised to see you, because I know that one or two of the people around here have plenty to say about me and I bet they couldn’t wait to share it. I don’t know precisely what they told you, of course, though I can take a decent stab at it.’ He leaned forward. ‘Have a few interesting theories, did they?’

  ‘One or two callers said you were a bit strange,’ Thorne said. ‘That’s all.’

  Barratt nodded. He set his wine glass down on a low table, pressed his wrists together and proffered them. ‘Well, of course, you must arrest me immediately.’

  Thorne said nothing. He was starting to wish he’d driven straight home.

  ‘I am happy to confess that I am most definitely strange.’ Barratt widened his eyes and stared at Thorne through his wine glass. ‘To those who define it in a particular way, at any rate. I choose not to spend my life with another person, and get all the companionship I need from my cat. I watch a silly little black-and-white television. I choose to dress in a way most people do not, and, among a great many other things, including, but not limited to, antique maps and vintage tableware, I collect ornamental birds. I’m different to most people, I accept that. To you, almost certainly.

  ‘It’s otherness that people really can’t stand, Detective Sergeant. Or perhaps it simply frightens them, who knows? A hatred of people with different-coloured skin, a hatred of women . . . it’s all about a hatred of the other, isn’t it? That’s always at the root of it. Homophobia is a very good example – and, of course, a sexuality that some people struggle to accept is what probably defined the otherness of that poor man you arrested. The one who took his own life after he was released.’ He studied Thorne for a few seconds. ‘I do hope he wasn’t arrested simply because he was . . . strange. I can only presume you had a little more evidence than that.’

  ‘Yes, we had evidence,’ Thorne said. They had the car, of course, one that broadly matched the description of the suspect vehicle. There was a previous arrest for sexual offences and the fact that he knew the missing boy. But still . . .

  Thorne could not deny that his initial suspicion had been aroused by little more than the fact that Grantleigh Figgis had been . . . unusual. That Thorne had considered him to be unusual. Was he sitting sipping this man’s wine for no other reason than that was how he considered Felix Barratt, too?

  An oddball. A queer fish. A funny strip of piss.

  ‘Well, that’s reassuring, at least,’ Barratt said.

  Thorne was relieved to hear it, though he was struggling to reassure himself. Barratt was wrong, he decided, in the end. Yes, the attitudes of some were almost certainly based on fear manifesting itself as hatred, but when it came to a suspicion of those who people like him found strange, Thorne could not help but think it was simply because they reminded the suspicious of what hopeless and humdrum lives they led themselves.

  Reaching for something concrete to justify his presence, to himself as much as Barratt, he said, ‘Nobody who rang in saw the man and the boy getting into that car. Not a single caller.’

  ‘Oh,’ Barratt said. ‘That’s unfortunate.’

  Thorne nodded. ‘It’s . . . strange, wouldn’t you say?’

  Barratt smiled. ‘If you’re suggesting that I didn’t see what I thought I saw, wouldn’t it be equally strange that you didn’t get a call from the presumably innocent party whose car it was? Even if the owner themself didn’t see the programme, then surely some friend or relative . . . ’

  ‘You would have thought so,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Unless you think I took the boy, of course. That, even though I drive a very different car, I keep a little red one tucked away somewhere, for when it’s time to play the child-catcher.’ Barratt’s glass was empty. He reached down for the bottle. ‘That I only came forward in the first place because, even though I’m the one you’re after, I’m one of those weirdos who craves attention, who likes to be in the thick of it, deliberately feeding you false information to put you off the scent.’ He sighed and began to pour himself a top-up. ‘Is that what you think?’

  Some version of that scenario had certainly crossed Thorne’s mind at one point, had seemed almost feasible after questioning Barratt the first time, but he could hear how ridiculous it sounded, now. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘I saw that man lead the boy along the road and I saw the two of them get into that red car and drive away. Even if I’m the only one who saw it, that’s what happened. As I told you, the boy didn’t seem to be distressed or upset in any way and I had the distinct impression that he and this man knew one another. That must be important, surely?’

  Thorne had not forgotten, and was more convinced than ever that it was.

  Barratt noticed that Thorne, too, had finished his wine. He held up the glass, but Thorne shook his head.

  They sat for a while saying nothing. Barratt stood to snatch up a tiny scrap of something that should not have been there from the carpet. When he sat down again, he saw Thorne staring across at the glass case. His ornamental birds. ‘Different is good,’ he said. ‘Different is liberating. Who the hell would want to be the same as everyone else?’

  Thorne could not argue with the man’s philosophy, but he also saw its flaw. He said, ‘The man who took Kieron Coyne thinks he’s different.’

  SIXTY

  Angie had stayed over the night before. As per a fair few Friday nights in the past, they’d gone out to pick up a Chinese takeaway and eaten on their laps in front of Top of the Pops – ‘Not the same,’ Angie said. ‘Should be on a Thursday’ – and Big Break, then watched some new American soap on ITV, which Angie loved, but which Cat thought was just a poor man’s Dallas. They’d shared a bottle, sung along tunelessly with Shaggy and Mariah Carey and laughed at things that weren’t particularly funny.

  It was a very different atmosphere this morning.

  They crept around one another as Cat made tea and fried egg sandwiches which they ate in near-silence, smiling a little nervously or nodding when eye contact was made. They took turns to stare out of the window at the grim, grey ribbon of the Holloway Road below.

  Just before eleven, Angie looked at her watch and said, ‘Five minutes.’

  Cat said, ‘Right.’ Like she hadn’t been thinking about it from the moment she’d woken up. Or hadn’t been desperately trying to decide what she was going to say the night before, while she was necking the Liebfraumilch and stuffing herself full of sweet and sour pork.

  Angie picked up her jacket and walked to the door. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. I’ll just poke around the shops for half an hour.’ She smiled and stuck two thumbs up. ‘It’ll be fine, babe.’

  It had been four days since Angie had spoken to her brother, a few more than that since he’d have found out exactly what Cat had been up to with Dean Meade while he was inside. When Billy had agreed to call her, Cat had been thrilled, but that had quickly given way to something else. Something that crawled around in her belly as she lay in bed unable to sleep or dragged itself up to suck at her chest as she drifted aimlessly around the flat.

  He went very quiet, Angie had said—

  Cat jumped when the phone rang. Billy was ten minutes late, but that little bit of extra time had not done her any favours.

  She said his name, hung a question mark on the end of it, then waited.

  ‘So, go on, then.’

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Ange said you wanted to talk to me.’ Billy’s voice was low, expressionless. ‘That you wanted to explain. I’m all ears, Kit-Cat.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Billy.’

  ‘Course you are . . . course you are.’

  ‘Wh
at else do you want me to say?’

  ‘Oh, I know what you’re going to say.’ He left a beat, enjoying it. ‘You were lonely, you were desperate, you were pissed. It didn’t mean anything and, besides, you were thinking of me when you were doing it. I just want to hear you say it, fair enough, love? Then I can decide if I believe you.’

  Cat swallowed and took a deep breath. ‘All that,’ she said. ‘All of it. It was stupid.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Billy said, just a whisper. ‘It was.’

  There was a crackle on the line, a shout in the background.

  ‘I was missing you, all right?’

  ‘Oh, bless. Poor baby.’

  ‘I miss you all the time, and back then, he was just . . . there. Dean.’

  ‘He’s not there any more though, is he? Randy little bastard’s not fucking anywhere.’

  ‘And did you have anything to do with that?’ Cat laughed, stuttering and hollow, like she was at a funeral. Like she was walking through a graveyard in the darkness and trying to pretend she wasn’t shitting herself.

  After a few seconds, Billy said, ‘You know they sometimes record these calls, right? They’re probably listening in.’

  ‘Are they allowed to do that?’

  ‘Does it make any difference?’

  ‘OK . . . ’

  Billy sniffed. ‘I had nothing whatsoever to do with the unfortunate death of Mr Dean Meade. That good enough for you?’

  Cat listened to Billy breathing, sucking his teeth. ‘So, where are we, Billy? After all this.’

  It was Billy’s turn to laugh. ‘Well, I know where I am and I’m not going anywhere any time soon, am I?’

  ‘You know what I mean—’

  ‘Where the fuck are you, though, that’s the question, and who are you with?’

  ‘I’m here,’ Cat said. ‘I’m always here . . . and I’m not doing very well. I’m struggling, you know?’

  ‘You’re not doing well . . . Jesus.’

  ‘Course I’m not.’

  ‘And how the hell do you think I’m doing? All I had to keep me going in here was knowing you and my son were out there and would still be there when I got out. You knew that. You knew it. All the times we talked about it on the phone, all the stuff in the letters. Then, I wake up one morning to find out that my son isn’t actually my son at all, that you’ve been playing me for a mug for years. For fucking . . . years. Letting me think he was mine. Letting me love him.’ His low chuckle sounded like a growl. ‘And what’s the only reason I find out?’