Close to Home

by Peter Robinson

  “He’s not a sports fan?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” said Martin. “I’ve tried to get him interested, but…” He shrugged.

  “What about the other boys at school? Even if he is, as you say, a bit of a loner, he must have some contact with his classmates?”

  “I suppose so, but I’ve never seen any evidence of it.”

  “He’s never brought friends to the house?”

  “Never.”

  “Or asked permission to visit their houses?”

  “No.”

  “Does he go out a lot?”

  “No more than any other boy his age,” said Martin. “Maybe even less.”

  “We want Luke to have a normal life,” said Robin. “It’s hard knowing what to allow and what not to. It’s hard to know how much discipline to apply. If you don’t give enough, then the child runs wild, and the parents get the blame. If you keep too strict control, he doesn’t develop naturally, and he blames you for screwing him up. We do our best to be good parents and strike a fair balance.”

  Annie, an outsider herself at school because she was brought up in an artists’ commune, the “hippie chick” to the other kids, understood just how alienated Luke might feel, not through any fault of his parents. For a start, they lived in an out-of-the-way place like Swainsdale Hall, a grand place at that; secondly, they were minor celebrities; and thirdly, he sounded like an introverted personality anyway.

  “I’m sure you do,” she said. “What did he do yesterday?” she asked.

  “He went into the town center.”

  “How did he get there?”

  “Bus. There’s a good service, at least until after teatime.”

  “Did he have any particular reason to go to Eastvale yesterday?”

  “Nothing in particular,” Robin answered. “He just loves hunting for secondhand books, and he wanted to look at some new computer stuff.”

  “That’s all?”

  “As far as I know. It was nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Has he ever stopped out all night before?”

  “No,” said Robin, putting her hand to her throat. “Never. That’s why we’re so worried. He wouldn’t put us through this unless something…something awful’s happened.”

  She started to cry, and her husband held her, smoothing her silky spun-gold hair. “There, there, darling. Don’t worry. They’ll find him.” All the time his intense eyes were looking right at Annie, as if daring her to disagree. Not that she wanted to. A man used to having his own way. A man of action, too, Annie had no doubt, used to running ahead with the ball and slamming it into the back of the net.

  “What about the rest of the family—uncles, aunts, grandparents?” she asked. “Was he close to anybody in particular?”

  “Robin’s family’s down in Devon,” said Martin. “My parents are dead, but I’ve got a married sister living in Dorset and a brother in Cardiff. Of course, we rang everyone we could think of, but nobody’s seen him.”

  “Did he have any money with him?”

  “Not much. A few pounds. Look, Inspector,” he said, “I do appreciate your questions, but you’re on the wrong track. Luke has his mobile. If he wanted to go somewhere or do something that meant he wouldn’t be coming home, or that he’d be late, then why wouldn’t he give us a buzz?”

  “Unless it was something he didn’t want you to know about.”

  “But he’s only fifteen,” said Martin. “What on earth could he be up to that’s so secret he wouldn’t want his parents to know about it?”

  Do you know where your children are? Do you know what your children are doing? It was Annie’s experience, both through her own memories and as a policewoman, that there was no one more secretive than an adolescent, especially a sensitive, lonely adolescent, but Luke’s parents just didn’t seem to get this. Hadn’t they been through it themselves? Or had so much else happened since their own childhoods that they had forgotten what it was like?

  There were any number of reasons why Luke might have thought it necessary to go off for a while without telling his parents—children are often selfish and inconsiderate—but they couldn’t seem to think of one. Still, it wasn’t the first time Annie had come across such an astonishing gap between parental perception and reality. More often than she would have expected, she had found herself facing the parents of missing children who said they had simply no idea where young Sally could have gone or why she would want to go off anywhere and cause them such pain.

  “Have there ever been any threats against you?” she asked.

  “No,” said Martin. “Why do you ask?”

  “Celebrities often attract the wrong sort of attention.”

  Martin snorted. “We’re hardly Beckham and Posh Spice. We’re not much in the public eye these days. Not for the past five years or so, since we moved here. We both keep a very low profile.”

  “Did it cross your mind that someone might have thought Luke was worth kidnapping?” she asked.

  “Despite what you think,” Martin said, “we’re actually not all that wealthy.” He gestured around. “The house, for a start…it just eats up money. We’d be very poor marks for a kidnapper, believe me.”

  “The kidnapper might not know that.”

  Robin and Martin looked at each other. Finally, Robin spoke. “No, I don’t think so. As I said, we always wanted Luke to have a normal life, not like mine. We didn’t want him surrounded by bodyguards and security. Maybe it was foolish of us, unrealistic, but it’s worked until now. Nothing bad ever happened to him.”

  “And I’m sure nothing has now,” said Annie. “Look, I realize it’s probably second nature to you, but if anyone from the press comes around asking questions—”

  “Don’t worry,” said Martin Armitage. “They’ll have me to deal with.”

  “Very good, sir. And just to be on the safe side, do you think we could arrange to have any phone calls intercepted?”

  “But why?” asked Robin.

  “In case of ransom demands.”

  She put her hand to her cheek. “But surely you don’t think…?”

  “It’s just a precaution.”

  “It’s an unlisted number,” Martin said.

  “Even so.”

  He held Annie’s gaze for a few beats before nodding. “Very well. If you must.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll arrange for the technician to drop by later this morning. Do you have a business office?”

  “No,” said Martin. “Not at the moment.”

  “You don’t have a business number?”

  “No.” He paused, then went on as if he’d sensed an implied slight in Annie’s tone or manner. “Look, I might have been just a football player, but that doesn’t mean I’m thick, you know.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “I got my A-Levels, went to Leeds Polytechnic, as it was back then, and got a business diploma.”

  So what did that make him? Annie wondered, unimpressed: the “thinking woman’s crumpet”? “I didn’t mean to imply anything,” she went on. “I’m simply trying to make sure we’ve got every eventuality covered.”

  “I’m sorry,” Martin said. “It’s been a stressful night. It’s just, well, being who we are, Robin and I get that sort of thing a lot. People tend to patronize us.”

  “I understand,” said Annie, standing up to leave. “I won’t keep you any longer.” She passed her card over to Robin, who was closest. “My mobile number’s on there, too.” She smiled and added, “When you can reach it.” Cell-phone coverage was spotty in the Dales, to say the least. “If you do hear anything at all, you won’t hesitate to call me, will you?”

  “No,” said Robin. “Of course not. And if…”

  “You’ll be the first to hear. Don’t worry, we’ll be looking for him, I can assure you. We’re really very good at this sort of thing.”

  “If there’s anything I can do…” said Martin.

  “Of course.” Annie gave them her best, most confident smil
e and left, not feeling confident at all.

  Chapter 3

  DI Michelle Hart locked up her dark gray Peugeot outside 58 Hazel Crescent and took the measure of the neighborhood. She’d been there twice before—once investigating a string of burglaries and another time because of vandalism. As council estates went these days, the Hazels, as the locals called it, wasn’t particularly bad. Built in the early sixties, before the “new town” expansion, its terraces of serviceable brick houses behind low walls and privet hedges were now home to a mixed crowd of unemployed people, teenage mothers, pensioners who couldn’t afford to move, and a growing Asian population, mostly from Pakistan or Bangladesh. There were even a few asylum seekers. Like every other estate, the Hazels also had its share of shiftless hooligans who took their greatest pleasure in vandalizing other people’s property, stealing cars and spraying graffiti over the walls.

  It was still raining, and there was no sign of any gaps in the gray cloud cover. The drab street that curved through the heart of the estate was empty, all the kids indoors playing computer games or surfing the Web and their mothers wishing the sun would come out and bring a few moments’ peace and quiet.

  Michelle knocked on the dark green door. Mrs. Marshall, a frail-looking woman, stooped and gray-haired, face lined with care, answered and led her into a small living room and bade her sit on a plum velour armchair. Michelle had met the Marshalls before, during the identification process, but hadn’t yet visited them at home. Everything in the room was so tidy and spotless that she felt a momentary twinge of guilt over her own unwashed breakfast dishes, unmade bed and the dust balls in the corner. Still, who was there to see them but her?

  Bill Marshall, incapacitated by a stroke, looked at Michelle, blanket over his knees, walking stick by his side, slack-jawed, a little drool collecting at the corner of his mouth, one half of his face drooping lower than the other, as if it had melted like a Dali clock. He had been a big man, that much was obvious, but now his body had withered with disease. His eyes were alive, though, the whites a little cloudy, but the gray irises intense and watchful. Michelle said hello to him and thought she saw his head move just a fraction in greeting. Though he couldn’t speak, Mrs. Marshall had assured Michelle that he could understand everything they said.

  Among the framed photographs on the mantelpiece above the electric fire, one was of a young boy, aged about thirteen or fourteen, hair in a “Beatle” cut popular in the early sixties, wearing a black polo neck, standing on a promenade with the sea in the background and a long pier off to one side. He was a good-looking kid, Michelle noticed, perhaps a little feminine, soft and delicate in his features, but he’d probably have grown up to be a real heartbreaker nonetheless.

  Mrs. Marshall noticed her looking. “Yes, that’s our Graham. It was taken on the last holiday he had. We couldn’t go away that year—Bill had a big job to finish—so the Bankses took him to Blackpool with them. Their lad Alan was a good mate of his. Mr. Banks took that photo and gave it to us when they came back.” She paused. “No more than a week or so later, and Graham was gone forever.”

  “He looks like a fine boy,” Michelle said.

  Mrs. Marshall nodded and sniffed.

  “I don’t want to bother you for long,” Michelle began, “but as you can imagine, finding your son after all this time has come as a bit of a shock to us, too. I need to ask a few more questions, if that’s all right?”

  “You’ve got your job to do, love. Don’t worry about us. We did our mourning years ago. Most of it, anyhow.” She fingered the collar of her dress. “Funny, though, how it all just seems like it happened only yesterday, now you’ve found him.”

  “I haven’t seen the reports yet, but I understand there was a full investigation in 1965, when Graham first disappeared?”

  “Oh, yes. And I can’t fault them. They did their best. Searched high and low. Jet Harris himself was in charge, you know. At his wits’ end he was when all their efforts turned up nothing. He even came to search our house for clues himself.”

  Detective Superintendent John Harris—nicknamed Jet after both his speed and his resemblance to The Shadows’ bass guitarist—was still a legend around divisional headquarters. Even Michelle had read the small biographical pamphlet published by one of the local bobbies with a literary bent, and she had been impressed by it, from his lowly birth in the Glasgow slums in 1920 to his Distinguished Conduct Medal with the Royal Naval Commandos in the Second World War, his rise through the ranks to detective chief superintendent, and his legendary retirement party in 1985. His framed photograph hung on the wall near the front entrance, and his hallowed name was mentioned only with suitably hushed awe. Michelle could imagine how his failure to solve the Graham Marshall case must have galled him. Harris had a reputation not only for closing cases quickly, but for hanging on and not letting go until he got a conviction. Since his death from cancer eight years ago, he had become even more revered. “It’ll have been done properly, then,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. Sometimes one just slips through the cracks.”

  “Don’t apologize, love. I’ve got no complaints. They turned over every stone they could find, but who’d think to dig there, eight miles away? I mean, they could hardly dig up the whole county, could they?”

  “I suppose not,” Michelle agreed.

  “And there were those missing kids out Manchester way,” Mrs. Marshall went on. “What they later called the Moors Murders. It wasn’t until a couple of months after our Graham disappeared, though, that Brady and Hindley got caught, and then it was all over the news, of course.”

  Michelle knew about Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the Moors Murderers, even though she had been only a child at the time. As with Jack the Ripper, Reginald Christie and the Yorkshire Ripper, the horror of their acts was etched into the consciousness of future generations. She hadn’t realized, though, just how closely their crimes were linked chronologically with Graham Marshall’s disappearance. It might have been natural for Detective Superintendent Harris at least to assume that Graham’s disappearance could somehow be linked with the victims of Brady and Hindley. On the other hand, Peterborough was over a hundred and thirty miles from Manchester, and Brady and Hindley tended to stick to their own neck of the woods.

  Before Michelle could formulate her next question, another woman walked into the room. She bore a strong facial resemblance to the boy in the photograph—the same small, straight nose, oval chin and well-defined cheekbones—only the feminine aspects were even more enhanced in her. She wore her gray-streaked hair long, tied in a ponytail, and was casually dressed in a dark blue T-shirt and jeans. She was a little too thin for comfort, or perhaps Michelle was jealous, always feeling herself to be five or ten pounds overweight, and the stress of recent events showed in her features, as it did in Mrs. Marshall’s.

  “This is Joan, my daughter,” Mrs. Marshall said.

  Michelle stood and shook Joan’s limp hand.

  “She lives in Folkestone, teaches at a comprehensive school there,” Mrs. Marshall added with obvious pride. “She was going on her holidays, but when she heard…well, she wanted to be with us.”

  “I understand,” said Michelle. “Were you and Graham close, Joan?”

  “As close as any brother and sister with two years between them can be in their teens,” said Joan with a rueful smile. She sat on the floor in front of the television and crossed her legs. “Actually, I’m not being fair. Graham wasn’t like most other boys his age. He even bought me presents. He didn’t tease me or torment me. If anything, he was very protective.”

  “From what?”

  “Sorry?”

  “What did he have to protect you from?”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean anything in particular. You know, just in general. If anyone tried to bully me or anything like that.”

  “Boys?”

  “Well, I was only twelve when he disappeared, but yes, there were a couple of over-amorous local lads he sent packing.”

  �
��Was Graham a tough lad?”

  “Not really,” said Mrs. Marshall. “Mind you, he never backed away from a fight. When we moved and he first went to school here, there was a bit of bullying—you know, the way they always like to test the new kid—but in his first week our Graham took on the school bully. He didn’t win, but he put up a good fight, blacked an eye and bloodied a nose, so nobody bothered him after that.”

  Michelle was wondering how difficult it would be for someone to abduct and murder Graham Marshall if he could put up a good fight. Might it have taken two people? Might he have been drugged or knocked unconscious first? Or was it someone he knew and went with willingly? “You said you moved up here?” Michelle went on. “Would that be from the East End?”

  “It still shows, does it, after all these years? Once a Cockney, always a Cockney, I suppose. Not that I’m ashamed of it. Yes, we came from Bethnal Green. We moved around a fair bit because of Bill’s work. He’s a bricklayer. Or he was. We’d only been here a year or so when it happened. Graham had just finished third form at the local grammar school.”

  “But you stayed on after.”

  “Yes. There was plenty of work, what with the new town business. Plenty of building. And we like it here. It suits us.”

  “Mrs. Marshall,” said Michelle, “I know it’s a long time ago, but can you tell me what sort of things Graham was interested in?”

  “Interested in? Oh, the usual boys’ stuff. Football. Cricket. And pop music. He was pop-music crazy. We’ve still got his old guitar upstairs. Practiced chords for hours, he did. Mind you, he read a lot, too. Graham was the sort of lad who could amuse himself. He didn’t always need someone to entertain him. Loved to read about space. You know, science fiction, rockets to Mars, green-eyed monsters. Space-mad, he was.” She looked at the photograph and a faraway expression came over her features. “Just the day before he…well, there was some sort of rocket launch in America, and he was so excited, watching it on telly.”