No Way Home

by Jack Slater

  ‘He was kicking the shit out of my shins,’ the first one told her.

  ‘Yeah, but we’re not meant to be…’

  ‘He ran,’ Qadir interrupted. ‘He must have a reason. So, he’s under arrest until we find out what it is.’

  ‘You chased me,’ the kid said loudly. ‘What was I supposed to do? I didn’t know what you were up to. Could have been anything. Civil liberties, mate. You’re bloody taking one.’

  ‘You’ve got the right to remain silent,’ said Qadir. ‘How about you use it?’

  The kid felt himself pushed from behind, couldn’t step forward, so bent at the waist. Then the other one’s arm went under his middle and he was lifted bodily off the ground.

  ‘Hey! Put me down, you fucker!’

  ‘If he does, you won’t like it. Now, shut up and hold still.’

  *

  ‘The hunt for missing ten-year-old Molly Bowers ended today, when her body was found by police with a cadaver dog in woodland outside Stoke-on-Trent,’ the reporter said solemnly into the camera. ‘She’d been buried in a shallow grave, her clothes seemingly tossed in after her like so much rubbish. Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Taft was interviewed at the scene.’

  Pete caught his wife’s expression and switched channels quickly.

  Louise looked at him, her eyes wide and tearful at the tragedy of the case: a young life snuffed out, the body discarded with no more respect than you’d have for an empty milk carton.

  It was eleven months, all but two days, since their son had gone missing. At least they knew he was still alive – or had been a few weeks before Christmas, when he’d broken into the home they sat in now with the evening news bringing back memories neither of them needed reminding of. It wasn’t as if they ever stopped thinking about him. Pete had taken five months off until a big drugs case had pulled him back to the station and circumstances had conspired to keep him there. Louise had gone back to work as a nurse in the Devon and Exeter Hospital only two and a half weeks ago, having been unable to face it until then.

  Pete could guess what she was thinking. Their eleven-year-old daughter was asleep in the room above them as they sat there.

  ‘Annie’s as safe as any young girl can be,’ he said.

  ‘I expect Molly Bowers’ family thought the same, though, didn’t they?’

  He tilted his head. She had a point. ‘You’ve checked Facebook and so on?’

  They had taken on the task of searching for their son after Pete’s colleagues had no success. Posters had been put up all around Exeter, in spite of the bylaw against them. Newspaper articles had been published. The local TV stations had done interviews. Missing persons charities had got involved. Social media pages had been set up. They’d done, and were doing, everything they could think of to track down their son.

  ‘I did all that when I came in,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand. I mean, where the hell can a fourteen-year-old boy be, all this time? It’s not as if he’s big for his age, could be mistaken for an adult, is it? So, how’s he still out there?’

  They had long accepted that he was missing of his own free will. The evidence was irrefutable. But Louise refused to even acknowledge the possibility that any harm had come to him.

  Pete sighed and reached for her hand. ‘It does make you wonder, doesn’t it?’

  The phone chirped on the coffee table in front of him and he reached for it quickly, not wanting to let it wake Annie. ‘Gayle.’

  With no open cases that demanded overnight action and the dog-fighting case all wrapped up – Jim had walked back into the barn moments after Pete noticed he was gone, leading three other coppers and two handcuffed detainees – Pete was on call for the night. Any case that arose requiring CID involvement would come to him.

  ‘Pete, it’s Bob.’ The duty sergeant at Heavitree Road police station. ‘I’ve just had a call from Plymouth. They’ve got Tommy.’

  Pete felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. ‘What?’

  ‘Your lad. He’s at Crownhill. He was spotted working on the fair, down on the Hoe.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. Thanks, Bob. I’ll give them a call.’

  He put the phone down in a daze.

  ‘What is it?’ Louise’s voice sounded like it was coming through a long tunnel. ‘What’s wrong? Pete!’

  ‘Huh?’ He blinked, staring at her dumbly. ‘They’ve…’ His eyes closed for a moment as his brain tried to process the information. Then he opened them, looked at his wife again. ‘They’ve found Tommy. He’s…’

  He stopped as a wail erupted from her throat. He took her hands, stared into her tear-filled eyes. ‘He’s alive, Lou. He’s OK. They’ve got him in Crownhill station in Plymouth.’

  ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He’s OK? Where’s he been? What’s he doing in Plymouth, for God’s sake? He’s in…? What’s he doing there? Have they arrested him? What’s he done?’ She clung to him, pleading for answers that he couldn’t give.

  ‘I don’t know, Lou. Give me a chance, I’ll find out.’

  ‘Dad? Mum?’

  Pete hadn’t heard Annie’s feet on the stairs, but now she stood in the doorway, dressed in her favourite Winnie-the-Pooh nightie. He glanced down and saw that her feet were bare.

  ‘What’s all the ruckus about? Have they…?’ She swallowed, unable to go on.

  ‘Yes, love. They have.’ Pete held a hand out to her. ‘They’ve found Tommy. Alive and OK.’

  ‘Oh, God, that’s brilliant!’ She ran to him, clasping him into a desperate hug. ‘Where is he? When’s he coming home?’

  ‘I haven’t got any details yet, Button. All I know is, he’s at the police station in Plymouth. He was working on a fairground.’

  ‘But…’ She stopped, too confused to even form a question.

  ‘I need to give them a call and find out what’s going on.’

  She blinked owlishly. Pete took a step back, directing his wife and daughter into each other’s arms while he made the call. They clung to each other, both watching him intently.

  Pete found that his hands were shaking as he tried to dial the number from memory. Then he couldn’t remember the correct order of the last three digits. ‘Shit. What’s the bloody number? Hang on.’ He went out to the hall, found their personal phone listing and flipped it open at the letter P.

  Quickly, he finished dialling and held the phone to his ear. It rang once, twice, a third time, a fourth. ‘Come on,’ he muttered.

  There was a click. ‘Devon and Cornwall Police, Plymouth. How can I help?’

  ‘Hello. This is DS Gayle, Exeter CID. I’m told you’ve got my son there: Thomas James Gayle.’

  ‘One moment, sir.’ More clicks, half a ring. A different voice.

  ‘Custody suite.’

  Custody? They’ve got him in the cells? What the hell has he done? ‘He…’ His voice clogged up and he coughed to clear it. ‘Sorry. DS Gayle here, Exeter CID. I’ve been put through to you from your front desk. I understand my son’s there, in the station.’

  ‘Gayle? Thomas James?’

  ‘That’s right. What’s the deal?’

  ‘He was brought in a couple of hours ago. A patrol officer recognised him from the misper notice, but he didn’t come willingly. Hence he’s in the cells here. Assaulting a police officer; resisting arrest; possession of an illegal weapon, specifically a knife. We thought that would do for now.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Pete shook his head, bewildered. What the hell was going on? What had Tommy got tied up in? ‘I was told he was found at a fairground. What’s the story there?’

  ‘Seems like he’s been with them since Easter. Just mucked in when they needed it, helped out and became part of the setup by default. Saw the chance of a new life, I suppose. It never ceases to amaze me, the number of kids who run away to join the circus or the fair. I don’t know what it is about that kind of lifestyle that’s so attractive. Seems like a lot of hard work and rough living to me.’

  ‘And the charges.
Is there anything we can do there? I’m not trying to get him off because I’m in the job. We need him as a witness in a child-sex case.’

  ‘I knew the name was familiar. You’re the one that cracked that big paedophile ring, right?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s me.’

  In the course of his first case after returning to work, Pete and his team had uncovered a ring of paedophiles that extended from Cornwall north to the West Midlands and east to the Home Counties. Thirty-seven arrests had been made by seven different forces just the previous month, some of them of prominent men in local government and even the police itself.

  ‘Well done, mate. I know it reflects badly on the force, but we were glad to get rid of Markham. The bloke was a self-aggrandising arsehole. No more use as a copper than I’d be as a brain surgeon.’

  Pete knew he was talking about Chief Superintendent Markham, who’d been in charge of the Plymouth station until his arrest last month in a coordinated series of operations that had closed down the whole ring in one morning’s work, organised by his own station chief, DCI Adam Silverstone.

  ‘Well, that’s what you get for letting politics into policing, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, along with empire-building, jobs-for-the-boys… Still, what can we do, eh?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Come on, Pete thought. Answer the bloody question.

  ‘Anyway. As far as the knife, facts are facts. He was carrying. But, the rest of it can go away if it needs to. If he’s a witness in a case like that... Happens all the time, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t want him let off just because he’s my son,’ Pete said firmly. ‘If he’s got things to answer for, he’ll answer for them. But yes, we do need him as a witness.’

  ‘Firm but fair, eh? Only way to be, I reckon. Bit of discipline never hurt anyone. Well, it might have stung a bit at the time, but you know what I mean.’ He laughed.

  ‘Yes, so…’

  ‘Get your boss to send the paperwork through and we’ll transfer him to Exeter custody. Might be worth letting him stay put until morning. Just my opinion.’ Pete could almost see the custody sergeant shrug. ‘Teach him a bit of a lesson.’

  ‘Right. I’ll get onto my chief. Thanks, mate.’

  ‘No worries.’

  Pete ended the call, looked up and saw both Annie and Louise standing in the doorway of the lounge, watching him, their expressions, one above the other, identical. He couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘So…?’ They said together.

  Pete’s smile became a chuckle.

  Although Annie’s temperament was much more like his than her mother’s, she got more like Louise every day, in all the good ways.

  He shook his head. ‘God, I love the pair of you.’

  ‘But what about Tommy?’ Annie demanded.

  ‘Well, I love him too, of course.’

  ‘Answer the damn question, would you?’ Louise joined in. ‘What’s happening with Tommy?’

  The smile stayed on Pete’s face. ‘He’s in Plymouth nick. I need to get hold of Colin, get him to arrange a transfer to Heavitree Road and we can go from there.’

  ‘So, he’ll be home soon?’ Annie demanded.

  ‘Well, it depends on your definition of soon, but potentially, yes.’

  She squealed and ran to him, wrapping her slender arms around him and squeezing with all her might.

  *

  Louise was less easily pleased.

  Looking over Annie’s head as she clung to him, Pete saw the doubt in her eyes.

  ‘Why do you need to arrange for a transfer? Has he been arrested or something?’

  He tilted his head. ‘Yes. When he was spotted he did a runner, and when they caught him, he was carrying a knife.’

  ‘A knife?’

  Annie picked up on this and stood back, staring up at him, big-eyed.

  ‘He was working on a fair. I expect he needed it. Tool of the trade, like a farmer or gardener. But when he fought them off, they cuffed him and found it.’

  ‘He fought them off? This gets worse by the second.’

  ‘He was in Plymouth, remember. We don’t know how long he’s been there. It could be he doesn’t know we’re not planning to charge him in the Rosie Whitlock case.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She seemed to relax at least a little. ‘So, you’ve got to get Colin to arrange things, to get him transferred?’

  He shrugged. ‘I can’t do it, can I? I’m his dad. How would that look to anyone that didn’t know the history?’

  ‘OK. So, what are you waiting for?’ She nodded at the phone, which was still in his hand. ‘Get onto him.’

  ‘It’s nearly eleven. He’ll be in bed, I’d have thought.’

  ‘So? He’ll understand. He’s Tommy’s godfather, for Christ’s sake. Come on. Either ring him or give me the phone and I will.’

  ‘Give me a chance, woman.’ He lifted the phone, thumbed in the number from memory and held it to his ear.

  It rang twice, then was picked up. ‘Hello?’ Colin sounded groggy. He had been asleep.

  ‘Colin, it’s Pete. Sorry to wake you, but I need a favour.’

  *

  Five minutes passed. Then ten. The phone was still silent. None of them was going to sleep until they heard.

  ‘Who wants a cup of tea?’ Pete suggested.

  ‘Yes, please,’ said a red-eyed Annie.

  Louise nodded.

  ‘OK.’ Pete headed for the kitchen, put the kettle on and fetched out the mugs. He was pouring boiling water over the sugar and teabags when the phone finally rang. He put down the kettle and headed for the living room.

  ‘Colin?’ he heard Louise ask.

  Silence. He stepped into the room and she held the phone out to him, her expression blank.

  He took it from her. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Pete? Bob again. I’m afraid we need you, mate.’

  Shit! Now, of all times?

  ‘A body’s been found, corner of Pennsylvania Road and Argyll Road.’

  ‘Eh?’ Pete frowned. ‘I was only up there an hour ago with Jim and the team. What happened?’

  ‘Dunno. Doesn’t look like it’s linked, though.’

  Pete shook his head. He couldn’t believe it was merely coincidence. He stared at Louise. The expression on her face said more than a thousand words. How could he leave her here, now, with things as they were? OK, Annie would be with her, but… He felt as desperate as she was to hear back from Colin, to know what was happening with Tommy. She was fully aware that they wouldn’t be allowed to see him tonight, but they both – all, he thought, thinking of Annie – needed to know how he was faring, at least. And her emotional state was still delicate. It was barely any time at all since she’d got her head straight after Tommy’s disappearance. How would she cope on her own, now he’d been found?

  ‘Pete?’ Bob’s voice came over the phone. ‘You still there?’

  Bob knew the score. If anyone else could have taken the call, he’d have gone to them first. And Pete was duty SIO tonight. He sighed. ‘Yes. OK, I’m on the way.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Pete saw the flashing blue lights through the trees from a couple of hundred yards away. When he reached the junction, he could see the cluster of police cars, an ambulance and a couple of other vehicles, tape stretched across the end of the side road and a small cluster of onlookers standing around idly.

  Hadn’t they got better places to be, at this time of night? He stopped the car and climbed out, making sure to lock it as he stepped forward, raising his warrant card to one of the uniformed officers guarding the tape.

  The blue and white plastic ribbon was raised for him to step under. He headed for the lamps and the white protective windbreak across the grass to his left. He could see the shape of a car and more uniformed police. A generator rumbled close by. Pete passed the ambulance crew as they were leaving the scene. He nodded, drawing a response from one of them. Closer to the windbreak, which had been erected to mask the view from the public rather than for its
nominal purpose, he could see a white-overalled figure working over a body which had been laid out on a tarp.

  Having recognised the car back on Pennsylvania Road, he didn’t need to see the man’s face to know who it was.

  ‘Evening, Doc. How’s it going?’

  Tony Chambers looked up from what he was doing. ‘Peter. You’ve drawn the short straw again?’

  ‘Apparently. What can you tell me so far?’

  ‘We have a quite vicious attack, clearly aimed at being fatal. The victim was killed with a short, sharp blade – possibly a scalpel or utility knife – and some considerable force. The carotid and the jugular were severed as well as the windpipe. There are traces of inflammation around the eyes and nose which suggest the use of pepper spray prior to the knife attack. You can still smell it when you get close enough. The victim’s ID is in the car.’

  Pete grimaced. ‘Sounds messy.’ He looked up at the vehicle. No need to ask if the victim was the driver or the passenger. The blood sprayed across the inside of the glass made it obvious.

  ‘Any idea when?’

  ‘Rigor hasn’t set in yet, so less than four hours. Body temperature suggests closer to one or two.’

  ‘OK.’ He looked up and around. ‘Who found him?’

  *

  ‘Where is he?’

  It was past one in the morning. Pete had been out more than two hours. His eyes were sore, his head fuzzy. He was exhausted. How did Louise not look as knackered as he felt?

  But she didn’t. She’d met him at the door, blocking his way with her body as if unwilling to let him in until he gave her the answers she wanted.

  At least now they were in the hall, the front door closed behind him. Pete kept his voice low, not wanting to disturb Annie, who he hoped was asleep.

  ‘For now, he’s still in Plymouth. Colin’s arranging his transfer but they won’t do it until morning and, even then, he won’t be coming home for a while. He’ll have to go for assessment, be interviewed and so on. And the knife charge won’t just go away. He’d be bailed if he wasn’t a flight risk, but given his recent history…’ He shrugged, hands spreading.