Little Boy Lost

by J. P. Carter

  ‘Let’s hope that DC Niven can steer clear of the worst of it,’ she said. ‘Now what about Neville Quinlan’s house? Are forensics there yet?’

  Walker nodded. ‘They arrived twenty minutes ago. DS Prescott was there before them and got Quinlan out of bed to serve him with the search warrant. Prescott will call if and when they find something.’

  Walker then said that the forensic evidence from the pub, including Jacob’s bag and clothes, were waiting to be examined at the lab.

  ‘The forensics guys have finished up there now and will be moving on to another crime scene. They’re going to board up the entrance before they leave.’

  Anna asked Walker for an update on Michelle Gerrard.

  ‘We’ve finally got some details, including an address,’ he said. ‘She’s a single lady in her late fifties and it turns out she lives in Beckenham, which is only a couple of miles from the Rossi home. I’ve asked the locals to send someone round. Meanwhile, a techie is going through her social media posts. The last time she wrote anything offensive about Rossi was two weeks ago. She remarked on Twitter that he was getting too much media exposure and that she was fed up with him going on about how lucky he was to have such a great family.’

  ‘Do we know if Rossi is acquainted with her?’

  ‘I got the FLO to ask him and he says he’s never met her. But he has seen the posts and they do piss him off.’

  ‘Then we need to bring her in for a serious chat as quickly as possible.’ Anna then summed up where they were with the investigation, and pointed out that although they had four potential suspects, there could be more who had yet to be identified.

  ‘I don’t anticipate we’ll make much headway until the night is over,’ she said. ‘So we should make use of this time to view as much CCTV footage as possible and to prepare profiles on all the main characters so far involved in this sorry saga. I would urge you all to read through the missing person’s case notes supplied by DI Benning. Meanwhile, I’ll liaise with DCS Nash about getting a press release sorted and I’ll talk to the pathologist to arrange for the family to formally ID Jacob’s body before the post-mortem. I’ll also circulate a list of action points for Saturday.’

  Anna invited questions, and when none were forthcoming, she ended the briefing.

  Before going back into her office, she asked DI Benning if he was still prepared to work on through the night.

  ‘You couldn’t drag me away from here, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I need to stay with this to the bitter end. That boy died on my watch so I feel the least I should do is help track down the bastard who put him in that cellar.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  It was almost two o’clock in the morning and at Wesley’s suggestion Chloe had moved from the kitchen to the front room. He’d told her that he wouldn’t be leaving the flat until it was light outside so she might as well make herself comfortable.

  She was sitting on the sofa and he was slouched on the armchair opposite. They both had a view of the television, and Wesley kept switching between the news channels. He was no longer reacting to the pictures by shouting and swearing at the screen. Chloe thought that was probably because he had drunk too much alcohol. There were four empty beer bottles on the floor next to his chair and he was now drinking large amounts of vodka while smoking one cigarette after another.

  He’d told Chloe to help herself to the cans of Coke in the fridge and she was on her second one. She was tired and uncomfortable, and even though Wesley had made her take a couple of painkillers, her head was still hurting. But she wasn’t complaining because what she saw on the telly made her realise how lucky she was not to be on the streets still.

  More buildings were being set on fire and the lady reading the news was saying that four people had so far died in the riots. Chloe wondered if the figure included Ryan.

  On screen a man in uniform, described as the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, stood in front of a Scotland Yard sign and said a decision had been taken to deploy the army in parts of London. Chloe assumed that he was the big boss of all the police and she wondered if her mum knew him.

  The man also said that hundreds of people had been arrested and would face the full force of the law. Chloe took that to mean that they would be sent to prison, but Wesley didn’t appear to take it seriously.

  ‘That motherfucker is a prick,’ he said, slurring his words. ‘Most of them will be back on the streets by this time tomorrow.’

  It worried Chloe that Wesley was getting so drunk. She was old enough to know that drink caused people to do silly things. And sometimes it made them violent.

  ‘This has got to be the biggest fucking wake-up call ever,’ he said. ‘From now on things will be different in this city, and that means Ryan won’t have died for nothing.’

  Chloe wanted to tell him that he was wrong, but she didn’t dare because she feared it would provoke a nasty reaction.

  If he hadn’t been drinking, she might have been brave enough. She would have told him that it wasn’t right that people had been killed, that buildings had been destroyed, and that her mum’s boyfriend had been treated like an animal.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about Tom and what had happened to him. She was desperate to know if he was still alive. If not, then her mum was going to be heartbroken. If he was then she just hoped that he wasn’t lying seriously injured somewhere with nobody taking care of him.

  It was one of the many tortured thoughts tearing through her mind, along with so many distressing images. It felt like she was trapped in a never-ending nightmare.

  For the past month she’d been struggling with Sophie’s tragic death and the revelation that her real mum was still alive. Now she was struggling just to survive. And if she did, she had no idea what her life would be like in the future.

  Her mind flashed on a long-forgotten memory from the years she spent growing up in Spain with Sophie and her dad.

  The three of them were playing ball in the sea. The sun was shining and the white sandy beach was deserted. She recalled how much fun life was back then. Everything was so simple. And safe. But since moving to England it had been anything but. First her dad was murdered. Then Sophie sacrificed her own life to save her. And now she was sitting in the flat of a violent hooligan, knowing that he could turn on her at any minute.

  ‘… and it’s now been confirmed that a boy of ten died in the fire that swept through a derelict pub in Camberwell, South London, this afternoon. The blaze was started by a rioter who threw a petrol bomb.’

  The words of the newsreader jolted Chloe out of her thoughts suddenly. There was an urgency in the woman’s voice that grabbed her attention.

  ‘The boy hasn’t been formally identified, but a police source has told us that the body found in the building is that of Jacob Rossi who’s been missing since Monday when it’s believed he was abducted.’ The newsreader continued speaking over a photo of the boy. ‘Jacob is the son of TV entertainer Mark Rossi. We understand that the Major Investigation Team has launched an inquiry led by Detective Chief Inspector Anna Tate.

  ‘Detective Tate is one of London’s most prominent police officers following several high-profile cases, including the kidnapping of nine children from a nursery school last month. She’s also been in the news because she was recently reunited with her own daughter who was missing for ten years after being taken away by her father.’

  Chloe gasped as the photo of Jacob was replaced by one of her mother. She sat bolt upright and thrust a rigid finger at the screen.

  ‘There she is,’ she blurted out. ‘There’s my mum.’

  But Wesley wasn’t listening or watching the TV. He was slumped back in the chair, his eyes closed and his mouth wide open.

  The glass he’d been drinking from was resting on his stomach, and the vodka had spilled onto his jeans, making it look as though he had wet himself.

  Chloe looked back at the screen. Her mum’s photo had gone, but it was still there in her mind, instilling h
er with renewed confidence. Knowing that she was OK and doing her job came as such a relief. But suddenly a thought made her wince: She obviously still doesn’t know what’s happened to Tom.

  Chloe felt an unfamiliar sensation stir inside her and she realised, perhaps for the first time, just how much her mother meant to her. Since the truth about her real identity came out a month ago, Chloe had struggled with her feelings. It had been hard to accept that Anna had taken Sophie’s place. After all, Chloe was only two when her dad whisked her off to Spain and she couldn’t remember anything before then. Even the photos her father had kept of Anna hadn’t brought back any memories.

  But now Chloe couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. And she didn’t want to see her suffer in any way. But if Tom was no longer alive, she was going to be devastated. And the thought of that made Chloe feel sick and brought on a flood of tears.

  And she didn’t stop crying until she fell asleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Anna was busy typing up the list of action points when the BBC ran the story about the boy found dead inside the derelict pub in Camberwell.

  Surprise quickly turned to anger when they identified him as Jacob Rossi.

  Quoting an unnamed source was their way of saying that there had been a leak. Anna was pretty sure it hadn’t come from a member of her own team. She trusted them all implicitly. More likely someone at the Yard or within the fire brigade had let it out either accidentally or on purpose.

  The press office would now have to release a statement pointing out that the body hadn’t been formally identified. But they would also be obliged to say that it was believed to be that of the missing boy.

  DI Walker came rushing into her office to tell her what she already knew.

  ‘I’d stake my life on it not being one of our lot who leaked it,’ he said.

  Anna nodded. ‘I agree with you, Max. So make it known that I’m not about to cast aspersions. It’s bloody annoying, but not entirely unexpected. I’ll talk to Nash about a response.’

  The DCS had just emerged from a meeting of senior Met officers when Anna reached him on the phone. He’d been told about the BBC story but hadn’t seen it for himself. And he didn’t sound too fazed by it, probably because he had so many other things on his plate.

  ‘I’ll talk to media liaison right away and get them to issue a press release,’ he said. ‘To be honest I’m a little surprised it’s taken this long for the hacks to get wind of it. You know yourself that the Met is like a sieve these days. Leaks are all too common.’

  ‘Do you think we should make it known that Jacob was chained to a wall in the cellar, sir?’ Anna asked him.

  ‘I don’t see why not. The more impact it has the more chance we’ve got of it generating some useful leads.’

  He asked her how the case was progressing, but she sensed that he was only half-listening to what she told him.

  ‘I won’t be coming back to Wandsworth for a while,’ he said. ‘There’s too much going on here and everyone is in a right panic. Have you heard about the army being deployed in some areas?’

  ‘Yes, I have … I just hope that it doesn’t make a bad situation even worse,’ Anna said.

  ‘I agree, but the truth is we’re not coping. This is now a crisis of epic proportions.’

  They agreed to talk again in a few hours, and Anna hung up. She then put in a call to Phillipa Moore, the family liaison officer with Jacob’s parents. Unsurprisingly, Moore was awake because the couple had already received several calls from reporters following up the BBC story.

  ‘On my advice, Mr Rossi has declined to speak to them,’ Moore said. ‘But he and his wife are really struggling. They still can’t accept that it was Jacob who was found in the cellar.’

  ‘I’d like one or both of them to carry out a formal identification as soon as possible,’ Anna said. ‘I’ll talk to the pathologist and get back to you with a time.’

  Gayle Western was also working through the night. When she answered the phone to Anna she was on her way back to the mortuary from Brixton where a man had died from a knife wound outside a superstore.

  ‘We really need to get back control of the streets,’ Gayle said, her voice shrill with anxiety. ‘If this carries on we’ll soon run out of body bags.’

  Gayle said she would arrange for Jacob to be identified by his parents at ten a.m., and after that she would aim to proceed with the post-mortem.

  Anna passed this information on to Phillipa Moore, then went back to typing up the list of action points. She printed off hard copies and attached it to a group email she sent to every member of the team, plus Nash.

  The night passed quickly after that, and Anna spent it flitting between her office and the ops room. The questions continued to tumble through her mind at a rate of knots.

  But the answers didn’t start coming through until after five a.m.

  *

  The first update of any significance came from DC Niven who was in Rotherhithe. He had eventually arrived at Roy Slater’s home only to find that he wasn’t in.

  ‘He’s living in a terraced house that’s a bit run-down,’ Niven said. ‘There was a light on next door so I rang the bell and spoke to the neighbour. She said he’s a single guy, and keeps very much to himself. He works as a packer in a warehouse off the Old Kent Road. The neighbour saw him go out in his car yesterday afternoon, but he hasn’t returned and his car isn’t parked in its usual place out front.

  ‘I went to the warehouse and it has a night shift. The supervisor told me Slater has been on leave for over a week and isn’t due back until next Thursday. I was given his mobile phone number and I’ve tried ringing it, but it’s switched off.’

  ‘Did the supervisor tell you anything about the guy?’ Anna asked.

  ‘He’s worked for the company for about five months,’ Niven said. ‘He’s moody and quiet apparently, and not very popular with his colleagues who don’t appear to know much about his personal life. He doesn’t socialise with any of them. But it’s no secret that he likes a bet. He’s always moaning about losing money on the horses and fruit machines. And he confided in one workmate that he’s been struggling to pay off a bunch of payday loans.’

  ‘OK, if you haven’t already got his car registration then go and get it so we can run it through the system,’ Anna said. ‘With luck it will turn up on an ANPR camera, which will hopefully give us a clue as to where he is. I’ll see if I can get a warrant to search his house so go back there and wait for me to call. If by chance he turns up then let me know. It could be he’s just gone away for a couple of days.’

  DI Walker had already established that Slater, who was fifty-four, was on the police database. He’d been convicted and fined two years ago on three counts of shoplifting. Walker took it upon himself to pursue the search warrant and work up Slater’s profile.

  Meanwhile, the question of whether the forensics team would find anything significant in Neville Quinlan’s flat was answered by DS Prescott.

  ‘It looks clean,’ he said. ‘They’ve taken a few things away to be checked for Jacob’s DNA and clothes fibres. But there was nothing to link him to the boy.’

  ‘And how was Quinlan?’ Anna asked.

  ‘He was cooperative even though he wasn’t happy about being hauled out of bed. I got the impression that he was expecting us to turn up at some point and was resigned to it.’

  ‘Well I’m tasking you with staying on his case. Bring him in for further questioning if you think it’s necessary. As I’ve already made clear, I just don’t buy his story about parking outside Jacob’s school because he felt too unwell to drive. The guy’s a convicted paedophile, for heaven’s sake. I’m convinced there’s more to it than that.’

  ‘I hear you, guv,’ Prescott said. ‘There’s no point bringing him in yet, though. I need to carry out more checks and round up some more CCTV footage.’

  ‘I’ll leave it to you then,’ Anna told him. ‘Meanwhile, I’ve circulated a list of action
points. It’ll keep you abreast of what else is happening.’

  Anna then called forensics to see if any of the exhibits taken from the pub had been processed yet. She spoke to a crime scene investigator named Kenny Fallon, who she knew quite well. He said they were under huge pressure so were making slow progress.

  ‘What I can tell you is that we’ve carried out an initial assessment of the boy’s clothes, the mattress he was on, the quilt and the holdall that was next to the bed,’ he said. ‘No bloodstains are visible to the naked eye, but there are various hairs and fibres that will need to be examined under the scope. The problem we face is that most of the stuff has been contaminated by water, soot and dust. And as you know the cellar itself offered up very little in the way of potential evidence.’

  Fallon said he would send over a preliminary report as soon as he was able to.

  Walker then provided a further update on Michelle Gerrard, the woman who had been hounding Mark Rossi on social media platforms.

  ‘She wasn’t at home when an officer called round,’ he said. ‘But neighbours told him they don’t see much of her and they don’t know where she is. Apparently she often disappears for days at a time.’

  ‘Well let’s keep trying to find her, if only to eliminate her.’

  During the next half hour Anna discussed the updates with the rest of the team while they all monitored the TV news channels. Stories relating to the riots were the only ones being covered, and included the boy who had died while chained to the wall in the pub cellar.

  The press release from the Yard was enough to convince the media that it was indeed Jacob Rossi, even though a spokesperson stressed that the body hadn’t been formally identified. The story was expanded to include information about Jacob’s father, his school, and the search that had been underway for him since Monday.

  At six a.m. Detective Khan returned from Camberwell, leaving detectives Sweeny and Mortimer behind to keep an eye on the crime scene and be on hand if a likely suspect turned up.