by Jack Slater
*
‘Dad! There’s no need to check up on me at lunchtime too.’
She came round the corner with her arms full of books from her last lesson of the morning – one of dozens of kids flowing out of the main block, past the reception desk where he was waiting.
Pete grinned. ‘Hello, love. I’m not here to check up on you. I’m here to spoil your lunchtime. Sorry.’
‘What’s up?’
‘I went to the school where those lads came from and got the photo yearbooks.’
‘But how did you know where they came from?’
He ruffled her hair. ‘I’m a detective, remember?’
‘Dad!’
‘So, are you up to looking through some pictures, see if you can pick any of them out? They’re just standard school photos.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘That’s up to you, love. I’m here now to save you missing classes and, at the same time, get things in motion as soon as I can, but at the end of the day, you’re the most important one here.’
She blinked. ‘OK.’
He felt a swell of pride, but still didn’t want to push her. ‘Sure?’
She nodded.
‘Come on then. They’re in the car.’ He reached for her hand, but she avoided his grip. Then he realised: they were in school. Among her friends. Disappointment vanished and he couldn’t help a quiet smile. Much as he hated the idea in some ways, she was growing up.
He gave the teaching assistant who had fetched her a nod of thanks and led the way outside, holding the door so she could slip through under his arm. They crossed the crowded and noisy tarmac to the tall metal gates and slipped through them. He had parked a few yards up to the right. She saw the car and led the way. Pete unlocked it with the remote so she could dump her books on the back seat and climb into the front, where he’d left the yearbooks standing upright at the side of the footwell. He slid into the driver’s seat and picked up the big books, laying them on his lap to pick out the first one for her to look at. The middle one. He passed it across.
‘Take your time, love. You either see them or you don’t. If you recognise any, just point them out and I’ll make a note, OK?’
‘Mm-hm.’ She nodded and looked down at the leather-bound album in her lap. ‘Risingbrook? That’s where Rosie Whitlock went, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And that’s where they were from?’
‘According to a man who saw them before you got there.’
‘That doesn’t make sense. What could they have against you?’
He shook his head. He didn’t want to go into that with her if he didn’t have to. She was his baby girl. She didn’t need to know about stuff like that.
She looked up at him for a moment, then shrugged and opened the album. Began to flip through. ‘There’s nothing like this here,’ she said, glancing over at the school gates.
‘I bet. It’s an expensive school these have come from.’
‘Doesn’t make the kids any better,’ she said.
Pete laughed. She wasn’t just incredibly brave, but perceptive beyond her years too.
She continued to flip slowly through the pages, examining every face for some time before stopping suddenly. Staring. Pete saw her lips tighten, her brow furrow, little lines appearing between her eyebrows, just like her mother’s. Love swelled in his chest. Then she looked up and met his gaze, her eyes large and serious.
Her little finger pointed to one of the images on the page. ‘He was there.’
‘Sure?’
She nodded.
‘OK.’ He made a note of the subject’s name. Annie studied the remainder of the pictures and turned the page.
It hadn’t even fallen flat onto the previous ones when she froze. ‘The leader. The one who did all the talking.’
‘Which one?’
She jabbed a finger at the photo in the top-right corner of the new page.
Pete made another quick note. ‘Are you OK, love?’
She nodded decisively. And pointed again. ‘He was there too. And him.’
Pete wrote down the names.
Annie turned the page. Looked carefully and turned it again. It was several pages later that she stopped again. ‘That’s the one I poked in the eye.’
Pete grinned. ‘That’s my girl. I’ll soon spot him then, eh?’ And she’d said last night that she did what Tommy taught her. He’d shown her how to defend herself. That wasn’t the action of a psychopath.
She looked up at him again. ‘What’s going to happen to them?’
Pete’s throat clogged. She cared about what would happen to a gang of boys she’d never met until they attacked and threatened her. This girl was incredible. ‘They’ll get what they deserve,’ he said.
‘But…’
‘Don’t worry about it, love. You’ve done really well.’
‘Will they get expelled?’
He laughed. ‘I should certainly hope so.’
‘Then…’
‘They won’t be coming here. They’re too old. And before they go anywhere else, they’ll be in bigger trouble than that.’
She stared solemnly up at him. He reached over and kissed the top of her head. ‘God, I love you! Do you want to pack it in now, go and have your lunch?’
‘I haven’t found them all yet.’
‘You’ve done plenty, love. I can take it from here.’ He took the big book from her lap, easing it closed. ‘Go and have a bit of time with your mates. I’ll see you later.’
‘OK.’
He gave her a hug. She hopped out of the car and fetched her books from the back seat. ‘See you later,’ she called as she ran back through the school gates and into the playground.
Pete didn’t start the car until she was gone from sight.
*
‘The outfit’s with forensics,’ Dave said when he returned to the squad room a short time later. ‘The whole lot was there. Jacket, blouse and trousers.’
‘How did she manage to go in there in a blouse and trousers and come out in a dress without it looking all crumpled?’ Ben asked.
‘Simple,’ Jane told him. ‘You wear the dress under the blouse, use elastic or something to tie the skirt up over your stomach and let it hang from there.’
Dave shook his head. ‘Poor lad’s got no idea.’
‘What, and you have?’
‘I’m in touch with my feminine side.’ He gave Ben a wink. ‘I touch her every chance I get.’
‘Have you ever heard the term misogynist?’ Jill asked.
‘Is she one of those Romanian gymnasts?’
‘You’ll never win with him,’ Jane told her.
‘But it’s fun watching her try,’ Dave said.
Jill shook her head. ‘While the ladies’ man here was out and about, we had another suspected victim of Ranjeet Singh’s phone in, boss. This one was molested two and a half years ago as he helped her get her luggage out of his boot. He claimed it was an accident, but it seems pretty suspect. He touched her bottom as she bent to pick up a case he’d dropped.’
‘And then, a few months later, he raped someone,’ Pete said. ‘It speaks of progression. An intensifying of his behaviour. A gradual buildup of courage, perhaps?’
‘Yeah. If courage is what you’d call it.’
‘You know what I mean. Anyway, we could do with finding some more recent victims. What about the girl’s identity? Have we got anywhere on that?’
‘No matches on the PNC,’ Ben said. ‘Nor the Missing Persons database. Not that I expected one on there. DVLA and Passport Control don’t keep photo records in a searchable form, unfortunately. I did check with the university, though. They do. But no luck.’
‘So, we’ve got a picture of her, but we can’t get an ID.’
‘Not legally, boss.’
‘And although we’ve got her face and the CCTV can give us her height and so on, we don’t even know her hair colour for sure,’ Dick pointed out.
Dick shrugged. ‘Facts is facts, like ‘em or not.’
‘Well, I don’t, so I suggest you do something about it,’ Pete said. ‘Jane, you can come with me. The rest of you: I want to know who that woman is and, more importantly, where she is.’
Jane switched off her computer screen and stood up. ‘Where are we going, boss?’
‘Back to school. See if we can learn a few things.’
*
‘Thomas. Take a seat. How are you today?’
The psychiatrist waved a limp hand to the chair opposite him. Tommy didn’t bother to reply as he sat down. The look on his face would say enough, he imagined.
‘I was sorry to hear about what happened to your sister yesterday.’
Tommy’s sneer curled into a snarl.
‘I can’t imagine how angry you must have felt when you were told about it.’
Tommy clamped his jaw closed, his mouth pressed into a thin line as he stared at the man with his thinning grey-blond hair and AC/DC T-shirt, which he must have thought made him look cool, but didn’t suit him at all.
‘Perhaps we should start by talking about that. I know you’ve suffered some bullying at school, but when it’s your sister on the receiving end and there’s nothing you can do about it, that must be extremely frustrating. I have to say, I’m quite amazed you’ve managed to maintain control today, in the circumstances. Well done for that.’ He leaned forward, smiling. ‘Very impressive, after the other day. Have you spoken to Sam yet?’
He’d been ordered, on coming out of solitary, to talk to the kid who’d attacked him and settle their differences.
‘No.’
‘It needs doing by the end of today, Tommy. Otherwise the manager will have to get involved.’
‘Has Sam been told that? Because he started it. I was just defending myself.’
‘I think you went a bit beyond that, Tommy. And rules are there to be adhered to. Which, in this case, means you need to make the effort to speak to Sam.’
‘And if I’d let him beat the crap out of me, like he wanted to, then he’d be coming to apologise to me?’
‘You realise Sam’s going to be scarred for life, don’t you?’
‘It’ll remind him not to be a bully then, won’t it?’
Brian sighed. ‘I’ve been reading a report on you this morning, Tommy. It was compiled by one of your dad’s colleagues, DS Phillips, when you went missing last year. There’d been incidents of violence before that, it seems. Some of the kids in school tended to steer clear of you – were afraid of you.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s better than the other way round.’
‘But why the need to be feared? What do you gain from it?’
‘It gets me left alone, doesn’t it? Stops them picking on me.’
‘You were bullied?’
‘What do you think?’ Tommy spread his hands. ‘I’m not exactly big for my age, am I? I’m fourteen. What do I look? Twelve?’
‘There’s a difference between standing up for yourself and seriously injuring someone, though, Thomas.’
‘Yeah. Stand up for yourself, they try again. Hurt them enough, they stay away from you.’
‘That’s a harsh conclusion for someone so young.’
‘It’s reality.’
‘How long have you felt this way?’
‘I don’t. It’s a way to avoid feeling. That’s the point.’
‘But we all feel, Tommy. That’s what life is about. The pleasure and the pain.’
‘Yeah, well, I prefer to do without the pain, thanks very much.’
Brian’s gaze wandered off into the distance. ‘I seem to remember a song that said you can’t enjoy the sunshine without a little rain. Can’t remember who it was by.’
‘There’s a lot of songs out there that are full of crap. Written by people on drugs or not in the real world for some other reason. Truth is, if you don’t give a shit, you can’t get hurt, can you?’
It’s a rather sad way to live, though, surely? To miss out on life’s pleasures, just to avoid the pain.’
‘You don’t miss what you’ve never had.’
‘Oh, come on, Thomas. You must have had some good times in your life. You have a loving family, unlike many of the young people I see in here.’
Tommy snorted. ‘Yeah, right. My dad’s too busy with work to notice me, my mum’s not much different – in and out at all hours on shifts. And they’ve always preferred my sister anyway, ever since I can remember. Then I go to school and most of the kids are bigger than me, so who are they going to choose to pick on, do you reckon? So, no, I don’t recall much in the way of good times.’
‘And yet, you showed empathy for Rosie Whitlock when you helped her escape. You had nothing to gain from doing that.’
Tommy grinned. ‘Didn’t I?’
Brian paused, looking at him carefully. ‘Did you? You put your own safety at risk in order to allow her to escape. You talk about dealing with young people who are bigger than you. Malcolm Burton’s an adult. Much bigger and stronger. You couldn’t hope to win in a fight with him. So, what could you hope to gain?’
‘She got away, didn’t she? So she’s going to testify. Against him and for me. Even if I get charged, I’ve got that on my side. Plus, with her free and clear, I had a better chance of getting him not to hurt me.’
Brian nodded. ‘You’re a clever young man, I’ll give you that. But did you really think that through in the heat of the moment? Or is it a conclusion you’ve reached since?’
‘Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? If I was a psycho, I’d have thought about it afterwards. But if not, I might have come up with it at the time. Depends how fast I think in stress situations, right? And to be fair, I’m pretty used to stress situations. With the amount of times I’ve been in them with the other kids at school. Until I decided to fight back.’
‘You decided?’
Tommy smiled again. This was fun. He was getting the guy more confused every time he spoke. ‘Or it could be I just saw red one day and flipped out. Scared the kid into not coming near me again.’ He shrugged. ‘If that was the case, I’d have seen the effect it had and used it again next time. And the next. I mean, if they were going to hurt me anyway, I’d have had nothing to lose, would I?’
‘So, which way did it happen, Thomas? Did you make a decision? Or did you “flip out”?’
‘Which would you prefer? Which one would suit your purpose best, Brian?’
‘This isn’t about me, Tommy. It’s about you. All I’m trying to do is get to the truth, so we can hopefully improve your life, going forward.’
‘“Going forward?” Do you mean “from now on”, Brian?’ Tommy shook his head like a disappointed teacher. ‘All this pointless jargon – it’s pathetic. Why can’t you just say what you mean in plain English?’
‘You prefer plain speaking, Tommy?’
Yes! Got him! ‘Better to say what you mean than wander all around it, talking crap that nobody understands anyway.’
Brian tilted his head. ‘Except when being blunt could be hurtful.’
Tommy grimaced. ‘Best to know where you stand, good or bad, I reckon. I never saw the point in fannying about.’
‘Say what you mean, do what you want, and to hell with the consequences?’
‘Something like that, yeah.’
‘And when what you want doesn’t suit someone else’s needs?’
Tommy shrugged. ‘They have to lump it, don’t they?’
‘By that standard, the same applies in the other direction, though, doesn’t it? If someone bigger or stronger or faster or louder than you wants to do something that doesn’t suit you, then you have to lump it.’
‘Fair’s fair.’
‘Except, in that direction lies anarchy and war.’
‘Well, there you go.’ Tommy spread his hands. ‘I’m being green. All these environmentalists keep saying there’s too man
y of us on the planet.’
He saw Brian’s eyes close and knew he’d won. A few more sessions and Brian wouldn’t know which way was up.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘Thanks for these.’ Pete laid the three big books on the counter in front of the receptionist. ‘They were very useful.’
She looked horrified. ‘You’ve identified the boys from them?’
‘Some of them, yes. I’m hoping that someone here will be able to help with the rest. Who associates with who – that kind of thing.’
‘Yes, uh, I’m not… That is… I know most of the students by sight, of course, but not necessarily by name.’
‘Fair enough. I’ve got a list of names and which year they’re in. You just point me towards the head and we’ll take it from there.’
‘Of course. This is awful. Our students involved in something like this. I wouldn’t have believed it possible.’ Her eyes closed behind the dark-rimmed glasses and she gave a shudder. Then, picking up the phone, she dialled an internal number.
‘Mr Grayson, it’s Cynthia. Detective Sergeant Gayle is here again with a colleague. They need to speak to you.’ She paused. ‘Yes, that’s right… Very well.’
She put the phone down and looked up at Pete and Jane. ‘He’ll be out in a moment.’
‘Thank you.’ Pete turned sideways on to the counter, leaning an elbow on it while he watched the comings and goings around him, students moving this way and that, in groups and singly. He was surprised at how serene and civilised it all was, in comparison to other schools he’d been in – including the one he’d attended as a child.
True to his word, Richard Grayson came around the corner to Pete’s left just moments later. Pete straightened, recognising the man from their previous meetings over the Rosie Whitlock case.
‘Sergeant Gayle. Good afternoon. What can I do for you?’ He extended a hand which Pete shook.
‘This is my colleague, Detective Constable Bennett. I’ve got a list of names of some of your students, Mr Grayson. Part of a gang. To start with, I need you to help me identify the other members of that gang, if you can. Or at least, the most likely other members.’
‘We don’t have gangs here, Detective Sergeant. We don’t tolerate such things.’