Little Boy Lost

by J. P. Carter

  ‘No he isn’t,’ Walker replied. ‘He rushed out of here just after you left saying he had to go somewhere. I thought it was odd because it looked like he was in a panic. I left it a few minutes and went looking for him but the front desk told me he’d driven off in his car. He still isn’t back.’

  ‘Then we need to move quickly,’ Anna said. ‘I want you and the others to drop everything else and find out as much as you can about the guy. Get his home address and come straight back to me with it. Then get a team together and head there yourself. Also, Benning has been telling us that he’s been liaising with the Australian embassy in respect of Joseph Walsh. Contact them and find out if it’s true.’

  ‘This all sounds pretty weird, guv,’ Walker said. ‘What in hell’s name is going on?’

  ‘It’s more than weird, Max. Two people have just told us that Hilary Metcalfe’s real married name was Benning, and not Walsh. And that DI Benning is her son and therefore Mark Rossi’s estranged stepbrother. And one of them – George Rigby, the homeless guy – says Benning paid for him to stay in some cheap hotel for a fortnight to keep him away from The Falconer’s Arms.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. Where are you now?’

  ‘Not far from the pub. We’ve been told that Benning lives close by in Devlin Street. Sweeny and I will go there now, but I want you to confirm that is where he lives and get me the house number.’

  ‘Have you phoned him?’

  ‘I’ll do that next. But ask the techies to trace his mobile signal because I don’t expect him to answer.’

  ‘Do you think he’s doing a runner?’

  ‘That’s highly likely. When I told the team that the homeless guy had turned up, and that I was coming to see him, he must have realised that the game was up.’

  ‘But this is crazy, guv. One of our own detectives is now our chief suspect. Do you really believe he could be the one who abducted Jacob and shut him in the cellar?’

  ‘All I can say is that I don’t think these guys are lying. And Benning was really keen to work with us after the body was found. That could be because he wanted to be on hand to muddy the waters and try to steer us in all kinds of directions and away from himself. Just think about it. Benning was the one who found Jacob’s phone and wallet when he and Prescott went to Slater’s house. So who’s to say he didn’t put them in that drawer as soon as he arrived? He might have been carrying them around with him while waiting for just such an opportunity. Or they could have been hidden in his car.’

  ‘That didn’t occur to me.’

  ‘Or to any of us.’

  ‘Well you need to be careful, guv. It could be he’s heading home.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. So get some back-up down here as quickly as you can.’

  Anna hung up and called Benning’s number. She wasn’t at all surprised when it failed to go through.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  Sweeny knew the way to Devlin Street so they got in the car and headed there. By the time they reached it three minutes later, Walker had already sent her a text confirming that Benning lived there and giving her the house number.

  Twelve.

  ‘That’s Benning’s Audi parked outside,’ she said as they drove up behind it. ‘I saw it in Bromley this morning. So he must have arrived back here while we were in the café.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait for back-up?’ Sweeny said.

  Anna nodded. ‘We probably should, but we don’t have time.’

  It was a Victorian terraced house with bay windows and a small front garden. Anna led the way along the path to the front door, her heart pumping like a turbine.

  ‘Joe’s not in,’ someone shouted. ‘You’ve just missed him.’

  It was an elderly woman and she was in the garden next door. They hadn’t spotted her because she was kneeling on the paving slabs behind the hedge while picking weeds out of a plant pot.

  Anna asked her how she knew.

  ‘He came home about ten minutes ago and then rushed straight out again,’ the woman said. ‘I tried to speak to him, but he was in such a hurry that he ignored me and walked off along the street.’

  ‘Was he carrying a case or bag?’ Anna said.

  ‘No, but he was holding a bottle of what I think was whisky.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where he was going?’

  ‘None at all, but he didn’t take his car so it’s probably not far.’

  Anna was now convinced that Benning was their man and it rattled her to the core.

  ‘So what do we do, guv?’ Sweeny asked her.

  Anna made a quick decision and showed her warrant card to the neighbour.

  ‘We need to get inside Mr Benning’s house,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you have a key.’

  The woman shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

  Anna turned back to Sweeny. ‘In that case we’ll force our way in.’

  But in the event, they didn’t have to. The door had been left ajar so all Anna had to do was push it open.

  There was a large hallway with stairs and two rooms leading off it, one the lounge, the other the kitchen. And it was in the kitchen that Anna saw the note that Benning had left for her to find. It had been hastily scrawled on a sheet of white A4 paper.

  Detective Tate

  I’ve been preparing for this day since my diagnosis, but it’s come sooner than I thought it would because of what’s happened. I want you to know that Jacob wasn’t meant to die. So please tell his parents that I’m so very sorry that he did. I just wanted to see his father suffer like I have all these years. No one else was involved so you can stop wasting precious police resources on the case. I know that you’ll be coming for me after you talk to old George, so it’s time for me to go.

  DI Benning

  Anna’s mind seized again on that memory of when Benning entered the cellar and was told that the dead boy on the mattress was Jacob. She remembered him blurting out: ‘Oh my God this wasn’t supposed to happen.’

  He had then gone on to say that he had promised to bring the boy home to his parents, which was why Anna hadn’t considered it to be a strange reaction.

  Threads were now beginning to weave together in her mind and hopefully there would soon be answers to the questions that had been plaguing her. But at the same time she was confronted now by two new questions. Where had Benning gone? And was he planning to run away or top himself?

  ‘Sounds to me like he’s planning to take the easy way out,’ Sweeny said after reading the note. ‘Or in his case the only way out.’

  They carried on looking around the house, and in the room that Benning used as a study they came across a file folder full of newspaper cuttings featuring Mark Rossi and going back years. They also found the rucksack that Jacob had been carrying when he was taken.

  ‘Well that’s another mystery solved,’ Sweeny said.

  Anna called Walker and got him to put out an alert for Benning. However, she knew that with the riots kicking off again not much effort would be put in to trying to find him.

  ‘I’ve spoken personally to the Australian embassy, guv,’ he said. ‘They’re adamant that nobody there has been in contact with Benning or anyone else from the team. Seems he made it all up to make us think he was looking in to that angle.’

  Anna told him about Benning’s note.

  ‘Well if he is planning to kill himself then he could have stayed at home and slit his wrists or taken an overdose,’ Walker said. ‘So maybe he wants to make more of a drama of it and is heading for a tall building or a bridge over a railway line.’

  But Walker’s words prompted another thought to pop into Anna’s head.

  ‘I actually think I know where he might be going,’ she said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Anna told Sweeny to follow her as she broke into a run.

  ‘Forget about the car,’ she called out. ‘It’ll be just as quick on foot.’

  ‘Where are we going, guv?’

  ‘The Falconer’s Arms
,’ Anna said.

  The blood pulsed and hammered inside Anna’s head as she raced along the street towards the pub. It was in the direction that the neighbour had said Benning had walked off in, and it was only a few minutes away from the café.

  Anna’s gut was telling her that Benning had gone there because the building obviously held a special place in his heart and mind. So if he intended to end his own life then it might well be where he’d decide to do it. If she was wrong then no doubt he’d be long dead before they found him.

  Her breath was constricting every time she inhaled, and when she saw the pub up ahead she felt a hot flush in her veins.

  A sign had been hung on a chain across the entrance warning people that the building was unsafe and not to trespass. Anna stepped over it and jogged across the forecourt to the double doors that had been put back in place with boards across them.

  She hurried around to the back of the building with Sweeny close behind her. Straight away she saw that since the fire nothing much had been done to make the place more secure. The lock on one of the back doors was still broken, and the glass that had been missing from two of the ground-floor windows still hadn’t been replaced. Anna and Sweeny gained access to the badly damaged interior within seconds.

  It still stank of smoke and damp, and they had to take great care as they made their way across the debris-strewn floor.

  There was no sign of life in the ravaged bar area, so Anna headed for the stairs that led down into the cellar.

  Shafts of light seeped through gaps in the ceiling created by Friday’s fire. So even before she reached the bottom of the stairs, Anna was able to see that once again she’d been right to follow her instincts.

  Joe Benning was sitting on the floor, in the exact same position where Jacob Rossi had been lying on the inflatable mattress while chained to the wall by his wrists.

  The detective watched Anna and Sweeny descend the stairs. In one hand he held a bottle of whisky, and in the other what looked like a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  ‘Well I reckon that what people say about you is spot on, DCI Tate,’ he said as the two detectives reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped cautiously towards him.

  ‘And what is it they say?’ Anna asked him.

  ‘That you’re as sharp as a fucking razor blade. I imagined I’d be half way to hell before anyone thought to come looking for me here.’

  ‘So I was right to jump to the conclusion that you’re intending to top yourself?’

  He held up the gun. ‘What do you think this is for? And don’t look so worried. I’m not going to use it on the pair of you. But if you’ve got questions for me then I suggest you don’t do anything to make me blow my own brains out before I’ve answered them.’

  He was sitting with his back against the wall, still in the suit he’d been wearing earlier. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead, and there was a dull, lacklustre expression in his eyes.

  He looked calm rather than anxious, and Anna reckoned that was partly because he was resigned to his fate and partly because he’d downed a fair amount of whisky. The bottle was half empty, and the smell of it wafted across the cellar on his breath.

  ‘The first thing I’d like you to tell me is where you got the revolver,’ she said.

  He gave a small shrug. ‘As you know most hardcore perps in London carry around a knife or a gun these days. So as a copper such things are easy to acquire. I nabbed it off a drug dealer months ago when I started to seriously contemplate suicide. I knew it would come in handy when I decided the time had come.’

  ‘And that time is now?’ Anna asked him.

  He nodded. ‘Well I’ve got fuck all to live for. No way am I going to spend the rest of my days in a prison cell as the dementia eats away at my mind and my dignity.’

  ‘So why haven’t you already pulled the trigger?’

  He swigged back some more whisky before responding.

  ‘I came here for a reason. I wanted to speak to Jacob, and since this is where he died it seemed like the obvious place. I wanted to let him know how sorry I am for what happened to him. And I wanted to tell him what a shit his grandfather was for leaving me and my mum. He wasn’t supposed to die. I was only going to hold him for a few days so that I could watch his old man suffer. Then I intended to drop him off somewhere with all his stuff. I told him that when I brought him here, and I like to think he believed me. I took steps to make him reasonably comfortable and he didn’t go without food and drink. I was shocked and devastated when I heard that some bastard had set fire to the building.’

  ‘I’m surprised you actually thought you’d get away with it,’ Anna said. She wanted to keep him talking as long as possible while she tried to think of a way to make him pull back from the abyss.

  ‘I would have if it hadn’t been for the frigging riots,’ he said. ‘You see, after I grabbed the boy, I brought him straight here. Then I went to the office to wait for the alarm to be raised so I’d be the detective who’d be put in charge. That was important to me because I wanted to be on hand to watch his dad suffer, especially when he read the note I sent, which unfortunately got delayed, again by the riots.’

  ‘But what I don’t understand is why you hate Mark Rossi so much,’ Anna said. ‘It wasn’t his fault that your father left you and married his mum.’

  ‘That’s true, and in the beginning I just resented him for taking my place. But as time went on, my own life became one long nightmare. My stepdad died of a stroke way before his time, which left my mother heartbroken. Then my daughter was killed by a reckless driver who took his bloody eyes off the road, and soon after that my wife ran off with another bloke. But at the same time Mark Rossi was living the dream. My father helped his TV career prosper and he had the perfect family. He didn’t stop boasting about his great life on social media, which pissed me off big time. Like it did lots of other people, including Michelle Gerrard.

  ‘The day of my daughter’s funeral he posted photos on Facebook of himself, his wife and son enjoying a holiday in the Maldives. Then a week after my wife left me he decided to renew his marriage vows in a lavish ceremony in the South of France. And it was my dad who made a speech describing Rossi as a terrific stepson.

  ‘Then a few years later a lot of publicity was given to Isaac’s funeral and sure enough it was Rossi who took centre stage, saying what a wonderful stepdad he’d been blessed with. When Rossi then decided to set up home in Bromley it felt like he was deliberately trying to wind me up. And that was when I started to fantasise about ways to sink his boat. But it was only when I was diagnosed with dementia that my hatred for him soared to a new level. After all I’d been through it was just so fucking unfair. All the bad stuff was happening to me and never to him. I suddenly realised that I wouldn’t be satisfied unless I did something that would shatter his perfect fucking life. And something that would make me feel good for the first time in years.’

  He paused there and his eyes shifted from Anna to the gun he was holding. It was now resting against his chest, the muzzle pointing at his face.

  Anna took a tentative step forward, telling herself that if she could get just a little closer she might be able to rush at him and grab the gun. But as a copper himself he obviously knew what was going through her mind.

  He raised the gun, pressed it into the flesh below his chin, said, ‘One more step and I’ll pull the trigger. So get on with it. Anything else you want to know before I depart this world?’

  The breath hissed out of Anna’s throat as she asked the first two questions that sprang into her mind.

  ‘How did you know where Jacob would be last Monday afternoon? And how did you go about snatching him?’

  He raised his brow and left the gun where it was. ‘After I’d decided that the best way to get at his dad was through his son, I monitored the lad’s movements. To my mind Jacob was too young to be walking home by himself, but that made it easy for me. He strolled past my car on t
wo occasions before that day, but I didn’t make a move because there were either other people around or other vehicles passing. But on that Monday the street was clear so it required little effort to grab hold of him and bundle him into the boot. I was wearing a false beard and a hoody so he’d never be able to recognise me, and I’d set this place up well in advance so it was ready for him to move straight in.’

  ‘And you weren’t planning to kill him?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m not a killer or a pervert. My objective was to take his father to hell and back. Then after a few days I was going to leave Jacob in a safe place and go on sick leave so I wouldn’t be the one to interview him when he was safely back home.’

  ‘But then he was killed.’

  ‘And that was tragic. Afterwards I knew there was a chance that it would lead back to me so I had to stay close to the investigation to try to ensure that it didn’t. I thought I’d be in the clear after Slater turned up dead and I was able to plant Jacob’s phone and wallet in his house. As for George, I just assumed I’d done enough to keep him away from the pub. When he turned up again I knew he’d tell you who I was and what I’d done. So that was when I rushed home, picked up the gun, and came here.’

  ‘Why did you bring Jacob here of all places? It’s more or less on your doorstep.’ This from Sweeny.

  Another shrug. ‘It was for that very reason. I knew about the cellar and that the building was easy to get into. I also wanted to be close enough so that I could come over to check on him at night and bring him what he needed.’

  ‘But weren’t you worried that he’d scream the place down and attract attention?’ Sweeny asked.

  ‘I warned him that if he did, I’d kill him. And the chances are he wouldn’t have been heard anyway.’

  Anna stood there without moving, her body drenched now in a cold sweat. She knew that if she made the wrong move then Benning might not be the only one to end up dead.