The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case

by David James Smith

  It was not something he could ever get used to, the scene of a killing. It was always different, by way of the age and gender of the victim and the circumstances of their death, and it was always hard.

  He had learned that the emotional impact always came later. It had to be suppressed at the time because it would only interfere with the work. He was duty-bound to be professional. It was his duty to find out how, and why, somebody had died, and who was responsible for that death. There was no room for emotion. He had to put himself on automatic pilot.

  This was true for Jim Fitzsimmons, too. There was no conscious process of repressing feelings. It was simply about doing the job. Looking at what evidence could be gathered at the scene, making sure everything was done properly. It was odd, like seeing the scene from a distance, but that was the way it was.

  The light would fade fast, and they had to work quickly. Jim was up and down the embankment, between the police station and the scene, clambering over the kennels, briefing people and leading them on to the line. He tore the jacket of his suit on some bushes.

  SOCO officers came in to oversee the searches and the recovery of forensic evidence. They photographed and made a video record of the scene. A search log was opened, and OSD teams formed cordons to make line searches along the track. The upper half of the body was covered with a forensic tent, and the fire brigade used salvage sheets, stakes and rope to create a cover for the area around the lower half of the body.

  A press photographer got up on to the line and was spotted trying to take pictures of the body before the covers had been erected. He was the target of some anger from the officers.

  It appeared that the body had been lying at a right angle across the track nearest to the police station, the upper half inside the track. It appeared to have been covered in bricks, and had probably been dislodged when a train had severed the body at the waist, dragging the lower half, which was naked, some fifteen feet, seven sleepers, down the line.

  The clothing which had been removed was scattered around the upper half of the body. Grey track suit bottoms, lightly stained with blood and paint, a pair of white training shoes with the left shoelace undone, and the right shoelace still tied, and a pair of white socks with blue stripes and light bloodstaining. A pair of underpants, heavily stained with blood, was found, placed under one of the bricks. There was a heavy strip of steel lying against the bricks. It was a fishplate, which is some two feet long, and is used to attach railway track to sleepers. It weighed over 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and was stained with blood.

  The white scarf, also bloodstained, was lying on the side furthest from the police station, between the track and embankment. One bobble had been separated from the scarf, and this was found in the middle of the other track, back towards the bridge.

  Three Tandy Evergreen AA-sized 1.5v batteries were scattered near the scarf, two of them stained with blood, and a fourth was still in the cellophane packet which was also lying there. The sleepers and the ballast around the scarf were bloodstained, and there was blood spattering on the neighbouring wall of the old station platform. A trail of blood led across the tracks to the upper half of the body. There were two bricks stained with blood near the scarf, and others around the body. There was an S-shaped Pandrol securing clip with blood staining, and some blond hairs adhering to it. The clip would normally be used with the fishplate in the construction of track. British Rail kept emergency supplies of fishplates and clips at intervals along its railways.

  A tin of Humbrol Azure Blue paint was found on the track, on the other side of the bridge, and there were stains of blue paint in the area by the tin. A box of Quality Street was found further down the line, together with some sweets.

  The doctor, arriving in advance of the pathologist to complete the formality of certifying death, could not touch the body and, not seeing the head inside the clothing, thought the head was missing from the body.

  With the arrival of the Home Office pathologist, Alan Williams, at five o’clock, the clothing could be moved, and it became evident that the body had sustained multiple head injuries. There was a great deal of blood, and blue paint had stained the left side of James’s face, ear and neck, and his anorak.

  Later, in the evening, two men from the Co-op Funeral Service came in a van to collect James’s body and deliver it to the mortuary for identification and the post mortem. They drove into the car park at Cherry Lane and reversed the van up to the fence at the bottom of the embankment. They picked up the child’s body bag, which Alan Williams had placed by the fence, and lifted it into the back of the van.

  They took the body to the mortuary at Broadgreen Hospital, where it was identified by Ralph’s brother, Ray Bulger, at nine o’clock. Geoff MacDonald and Jim Green both attended the post mortem, which Alan Williams began at 10.45 and completed at 1.30 the following morning. It was the first post mortem Jim Green had ever attended as a police officer.

  There was a lull now, for the senior officers, awaiting the pm report in the morning. The search for James, for a body, was over, and they would now be looking for the perpetrators of a violent death, surely a murder. All efforts would now be focused on those two teenagers in the video.

  Back at Marsh Lane the atmosphere was as solemn and as quiet as it had been up there on the railway line. Everyone had hoped James would be found alive, but expected to find a body. No one had expected such violence. Details were still scarce, but word was getting round.

  Jim Fitzsimmons answered the phone to Geoff MacDonald’s wife. She hadn’t spoken to him, but she’d heard the body had been found. She had been going to go to bed, but thought now she would stay up, because she knew her husband got upset. Jim Fitzsimmons said it would be better if she waited up for him. He’d had a difficult task to perform. Officers did not tend to go around asking each other how they felt, but Jim knew how Geoff MacDonald would be feeling.

  So did Albert Kirkby. First there had been the breaking of the news to the family, and then the post mortem. Albert could think of no one who found post mortems easy. It was the smell as much as anything, the antiseptic, the chemicals, the stink that seeped into your suit and clung to you afterwards. Albert always tried to keep a discreet distance, hanging back, talking to the pathologist.

  This time he had been spared the post mortem, but he would go home now and be unlikely to sleep soundly. It was always the same in the difficult stages of an investigation. You worked late, your mind running at hill pitch, then you’d go home, unable to switch off. Albert would lie in bed in the dark, knowing at least that he was resting, trying to steer his thoughts in sweeter directions, like hitting a golf ball squarely down a fairway.

  He would not talk to his wife about the day’s events. He rarely did. If he had to bring his troubles home, he would try hard not to shed them there. Susan, his wife, had told him off for this over the years, but it made no difference. When Susan sensed he was preoccupied and quiet she would tactfully suggest he went for a run, though it was a little late to go running tonight.

  For Jim Fitzsimmons Sunday night was the welcome opportunity of an early finish. Or relatively early, it already being eleven o’clock. He left the office and went down to his Cavalier in the car park Sitting in the car, alone suddenly, and no longer busy, he felt upset. It just came over him and he began crying. He drove home, distressed and puzzled, unable to understand his reaction. What’s it to do with me?

  He had been fine at the railway, not bothered at all by what he had seen there. Yet, over the last couple of days, it was as if he had come to know James, and feel for him. Now, on the first and last night of the inquiry when he was home before midnight, he walked in getting more and more upset. His wife, Fran, had waited up, and Jim sat and talked to her while he downed a can or two of beer. He sat up until gone two in the end, but it seemed to help. In the morning he felt better.

  ■

  A reporter from ITN took Osty, Pitts and Stee to the park, to film an interview with them, about their discovery o
f the body. Osty and Pitts were wearing big weatherproofed jackets, one green, the other purple, with hoods and high collars that almost covered their mouths. Stee, who was taller and wearing a black bomber jacket, stood between them.

  As the tape rolled, Pitts said, we’ll be TV stars. They called to the other children gathering around them. Go away.

  Reporter. OK, so do you want to tell me how you came to find the body?

  Stee. ’Cos we were walking along the railway and, erm …

  Pitts, (smiling) We was having a ciggie on the railway.

  Reporter. You was having what?

  Pitts. We was having a ciggie on the railway.

  Off camera, children are gathering around, laughing. Osty says, pack it in, laughing, all youse go away.

  Stee. He dropped his money, him, at the, erm, bridge, right, didn’t you, and like he couldn’t find it, like that, and then we all went back ’cos we were in front of him. He says, I’ve lost me money, so we all walked and had a look for his money and, erm, what happened then? And then, like, I found it, didn’t I.

  Pitts, (laughing) He says, I find everything, me.

  Reporter. Yeah, when, er, what, er, when did you first see the body?

  Stee. About, like, and then we ’eard dogs barking away the compounds…

  Pitts. In the police station.

  Stee. … so we went down, and we walked past it and never noticed it in the beginning, right, then we went down to have a look at the dogs, came back up, like that, and I jus’ seen it there, just in a like a coat, like an ’orse, with the organs all coming out.

  Osty. All the organs coming out, like big fat worms.

  Stee. So like and then I said, ’ere, look at that, doesn’t that look like a baby.

  They all laugh, except the reporter, and Stee falls away, cracking up.

  Stee. Can we start it again?

  Reporter. Yeah, we’ll start it again. Just tell me how you came to discover the body.

  Stee. Right, we were walking along the railway and, er, like, we, erm (laughing), and he dropped something, and he said, oiyo, come back ’ere, I’ve lost me money. This was by the bridge, so we walked back, I said, and he was throwing all the bricks and all of that off the railway, like that, and someone went, you’re never gonna find this, and I went, here are, there it is, like that, and then, er…

  Pitts. He says, I find everything, me, and then he walked up and then he found the baby.

  Stee. Like we had a look at the dogs and then found the baby.

  Pitts. Yeah, we walked past him, right past him we walked. They were about there, and we walked round past him.

  Reporter. So you walked past the child at first?

  Pitts. Yeah, we would’ve walked past it, only he says come and have a look at the dogs in the compound, there might be big dogs and that.

  Reporter. What did the body look like?

  Stee. Terrible. We couldn’t see the face. We couldn’t see the face.

  Pitts. Wrapped up in a little, like a coat.

  Reporter. OK, start again, tell me what the body was like when you found it.

  Pitts. Wrapped up in a coat, with all housebricks all round it and bars on it.

  Stee. And all organs hanging out from the waist.

  Pitts. Like just there, not pouring out, just all in a big, big like hill.

  Stee. And then he turned round, no, and then he went, it’s a cat. It’s a cat wrapped up. Then we seen its legs.

  Pitts. No, we said, no, it was you that said, well I said, it’s a dead cat, and you went no it’s not it’s sausages.

  Reporter. Tell me, sensibly now, tell me what did you think it was when you first saw it.

  Stee. A baby. I did. Honestly. Didn’t I say…

  Osty. Socks and shoes.

  Stee. Shoes, yeah. ’Cos I said, it’s a baby, ’cos I seen the legs.

  Pitts. Then you see doll’s legs, and they all ran, and I said no, it’s not, and I walked back over and it had no pants on or nuttin, and all dirt round its feet, so then I jus’ went, it’s a baby.

  Stee. And then we all ran towards the bridge, got down and went to Walton Lane.

  Reporter. What did you do once you’d found it? Who did you tell?

  Stee. The police. The police. Walton Lane, ’cos it was only the back.

  Osty. Next to it.

  Reporter. So tell me sensibly, were you surprised that you found something like this on the railway line?

  Stee. Yeah, very, like, ’cos you don’t really find dead bodies on the railway, do you. When we seen it we jus’ ran to the police station.

  The reporter pauses for a moment or two. Children begin to gather round, encircling the boys, in front of the camera. They creep into the view of the camera in twos and threes. Eventually there are nearly 20 of them, all gathered around Osty, Pitts and Stee, jostling, pushing and laughing. One girl, in a red sweatshirt, has her headphones on, attached to a Walkman. In the fields beyond, a man is walking a dog.

  Reporter. So what did, er, what did you think when you found it?

  (Pitts looks around him.)

  Reporter. Don’t worry about the people behind you. Be sensible. It’s not funny.

  Stee. He thought it was a dead cat wrapped up.

  Pitts. Doll’s legs.

  Reporter. Tell me, this one on the right here, tell me, what did you think when you first saw the body?

  Osty. Don’t know. All of us jus’ seen it and ran away.

  Reporter. Were you surprised that you found it?

  Osty. No.

  Reporter. So tell me, just once again, and as sensibly as you can, forgetting everyone around you, tell right from the beginning what happened, tell me really from the beginning what happened.

  Stee. We were walking along the railway… from the beginning?

  The reporter nods.

  Stee. We were walking along the railway from our mates, then he dropped his money, and I found it. Then I said, erm, come on, let’s have a look for it, ’cos he was on the floor already, throwing the bricks and that up, and I said there it is, like that, picked it up, and I says, I find everything. Walked a bit further on and we ’eard dogs barking, didn’t we?

  Osty. So we went in and had a look.

  Stee. Went in and had a look at the dogs and that.

  Pitts. Just as we came out, as we went in we must have run through the middle of the body and the legs and everything, ’cos we all ran in to see the dogs, and as we came out, walkin’, you could jus’ see it there on the floor, right there as you looked. (To the children around him) Go away.

  Reporter. Sensibly as you can, when did you first see the body?

  Stee. When I jus’ came out from the dogs. Looking at the dogs, that, I just seen it then.

  Pitts. Like, you jus’, as you’re walking like that, there’s a drop off a little wall. We looked down it, and jus’ there.

  Reporter. OK, thanks very much lads. Cheers. Can we just get a shot of you looking at your friend there? Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh, it’s serious. Look as if he’s talking. Don’t laugh. Fine. Good lads. And the same with you looking up at your mate there. Good lad.

  The interview lasted for eight minutes, but only a couple of lines were broadcast.

  ■

  Monday morning, eight o’clock, and all the officers who are taking a senior role in the Bulger inquiry are gathered in the officers’ dining room, upstairs at Marsh Lane, for a management briefing. The room has several tables pushed together to create a square, central table, around which the bosses are seated. It is not unlike a military Mess.

  There will be two such briefings every day from now on, the second at eight o’clock each evening, followed by briefings for the whole inquiry team, at nine o’clock in the bar along the corridor.

  Albert Kirby is now formally installed as the senior investigating officer, with Geoff MacDonald as his deputy. Albert will take sole responsibility for everything that happens. He carries the formatted Management Policy Book, in which he document
s every decision that is made, maintaining a complete record of the inquiry.

  Geoff MacDonald has talked Albert Kirby and Jim Fitzsimmons through the post mortem, and Albert has decided to withhold the description of the injuries that James Bulger suffered from the Bulger family, from the press, the public, and the entire inquiry team, including most of the managers. The only detail that is officially released is that the body had been severed by a train.

  Albert knows the family will have to be told eventually, but to do it now, he reasons, will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for them. Also, public feeling is already inflamed, and the disclosure of such horrendous information will only further incite emotion. The inquiry team has enough to handle already.

  But the decision cannot prevent, and perhaps encourages, the rapid spread of rumour, which extrapolates from the known facts into lurid fantasy. The stories are always different, but none of them are true. Denise Bulger was out shoplifting when James was taken, and had to delay reporting James missing because she was getting rid of goods she had stolen. James was kept in a house and tortured before being left at the railway. He was abducted by boys for a paedophile ring. He was tied to a tree and beaten. He was strangled and set on fire. The genitals, the fingers, the head had been removed.

  These tales will often begin, ‘Someone who knows a police officer told me ’

  The post mortem had shown that James had died from severe head injuries. There were multiple fractures of the skull, caused by a series of blows with heavy blunt objects. Death had occurred some time after the injuries were inflicted, but before the train had severed the body.