The toast popped up. The beans began to bubble. Matthew was hungry. Miserably she poured beans over his toast. There should have been two plates.
‘Time for bed!’
Matthew glared up at her sullenly. ‘What about Ed?’
‘Yes, well, Ed will be back with us tomorrow. Now, off you go. You’ve got to be up early for school tomorrow.’
‘But…’
‘No more talking. You’ve got school tomorrow.’
‘Will Ed be there? How will your friend know where he needs to go?’
She nearly broke down in tears, but she had to remain in control of her emotions, at least until Matthew was asleep.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You’re always worrying.’
As she spoke she remembered that Ed was the worrier, not Matthew.
Once Matthew was in bed she set to work cleaning the kitchen. She had to keep busy. If she allowed herself to stop and think, she would go mad. No one could help her. Dave would have known what to do. Now she was facing the most terrifying ordeal of her life on her own. Perched on a stool in her kitchen, gazing into a pan of mushy beans, she shivered. She had never been so frightened before, or felt so helpless. Somewhere out in the darkness, Ed was waiting for her to rescue him. He might already be dead. And there was nothing she could do.
27
There was no sound from the spare room when Brian got up the next morning. He pulled the door open slowly, wincing when it creaked on its hinges. Peering round, he saw the low mound of a body and the back of a small blond head on the pillow. He stood for a few moments, watching and wondering what to do. Lulled by the sound of rhythmic snoring, he was startled when the boy turned over without warning, so that he was facing his unseen watcher. Only the boy’s head was visible above the covers, his eyes still shut. Sleep had smoothed away his worried scowl. He looked angelic, spreadeagled in the bed, a faint smile lifting the corners of his lips.
Brian hesitated in the doorway. It was a shame to wake him. Softly he stepped into the room and approached the bed. The boy’s long fringe had flopped forward over his eyes. With the tips of the fingers of one hand Brian reached down and brushed it back off his face. He stirred then and opened his eyes. Watching him wake up, Brian felt a curious pang of loneliness. It was a long time since he had shared such an intimate moment with another human being.
‘It’s time to get up,’ he said, stepping away from the bed.
He was afraid the boy was going to demand to be taken straight home, but instead he grinned up at Brian.
‘Your clothes are all clean,’ Brian went on.
He had washed and dried the boy’s clothes before he had gone to bed the previous evening. They now lay folded in a neat pile on a chair beside the bed.
‘Do you want a shower?’
The boy screwed up his nose. ‘Do I pong?’
‘No,’ Brian laughed. ‘You don’t pong. And you don’t have to shower here unless you want to.’
‘That’s never!’ the boy crowed joyfully, sitting up, and they both laughed.
‘My mum makes us wash all the time,’ he added as he reached for his clothes. ‘She’s obsessed with it.’
‘Well in this house you do exactly as you like,’ Brian said, and was rewarded with another smile.
‘I never get to do whatever I like at home.’
At the door Brian turned and announced he was going downstairs to make breakfast.
‘Is there sausages?’ the boy asked, his face alight with expectation.
Brian hesitated. ‘There can be if you don’t mind waiting. Tell you what, why don’t you let me know what you’d like and then you can stay in bed for a bit while I nip out to the corner shop? There’s no need for you to get up yet if you don’t want to.’
The boy flopped back on his pillow, grinning broadly and Brian relaxed slightly. As long as the boy stayed in bed, he couldn’t get up to any mischief.
‘Sausages, waffles, and chocolate milk!’ he announced with an air of cautious triumph, as though he was afraid Brian might balk at his temerity.
‘Sausages, waffles and chocolate milk it is,’ Brian replied promptly. ‘I’ll give you a shout as soon as I get back and then you can be getting dressed while I make the breakfast.’
A light drizzle was falling as he hurried along the deserted street to the little grocery store. The goods in there weren’t always fresh, but he couldn’t waste time going to the supermarket. Predictably, the shop was empty. A small Asian man sat hunched behind the counter, gazing at a newspaper with a bored expression on his face. It wasn’t a very stimulating way to pass the day, sitting and waiting for someone to enter the shop and buy a paper, or a sliced loaf. Quickly Brian walked along the first cramped aisle, scanning the shelves. The shopkeeper rang up his purchases without a word, barely glancing at him when he paid.
There was no reason why anyone would look at him. He was just an unremarkable bloke out buying some ordinary items of food. He knew people would look askance at him if they thought he had brought the boy home with him without his mother’s permission, but she knew all about it. He had made sure of that. There wouldn’t have been much point in bringing the boy home with him if she hadn’t. It was up to her now, how long the boy stayed with him. It was hardly his fault if she didn’t do what was necessary to get her son back. He was sure she would see sense before too long. Any mother would do what he had asked. He smiled. It was a shame only he and Caroline would ever know just how clever he was.
It was raining more heavily when he left the shop. Clutching his carrier bags, he dashed back home, eyes down, avoiding puddles on the uneven pavement. Dumping the wet shopping bags in the kitchen, he shuffled into his slippers and called up from the bottom of the stairs.
‘I’m home. You can get dressed now.’
There was no answer.
He half turned back to the kitchen to start getting the breakfast ready. Thinking better of it, he clumped up the stairs, calling out as he went. ‘Are you awake? It’s time to get up!’
The door to the spare room was open. As he reached the landing he had a clear view of the bed. It was empty. He started forward and ran into the room. There was no sign of the boy. Brian spun round in a panic and saw that the neatly folded clothes had gone from the chair.
He wasn’t sure what to do. He had to find the boy, but he had no idea where to look. He must have gone out to try and find his way home. Brian had only been out of the house for about fifteen minutes, getting the breakfast the boy had asked for. He couldn’t have gone far on foot. Panicking, Brian ran downstairs and out to the car. Driving around the streets seemed to be his best chance of finding him but, if the boy returned while he was out searching, he wouldn’t be able to get in. Brian cursed himself for leaving the boy unattended. When he found him, he was going to be far more careful.
28
Reg marched along the corridor ahead of Geraldine, his arms hanging stiffly at his sides. His large square shoulders didn’t seem to shift beneath his jacket as he moved, rigid from the waist up. He wasn’t overweight, but even from behind he looked solid. Reaching the interview room, he flung the door open and strode in without pausing to hold the door for her. With his air of self-importance, he dominated the room. Geraldine found him intimidating. She could only imagine the effect he would have on a suspect.
Greg’s face was grey and drawn from lack of sleep. Scruffy ginger hair skimmed hunched shoulders which were dusted with dandruff. He looked unwashed, and his eyes seemed to exude misery. Geraldine almost felt sorry for him as he seemed to shrink into his chair on the far side of the table, his head lowered so that his large forehead hid his eyes. He flinched as Reg launched into the formalities.
‘It wasn’t me,’ Greg growled hoarsely, without looking up. ‘I never laid a finger on him. Never touched him.’
Ignoring the interruption, Reg continued his impassive recital. ‘Also present, Detective Inspector Geraldine Steel.’
Greg raised tormented eyes to Gera
ldine as though pleading with her to intercede on his behalf. His left eye was still slightly swollen, the bruising stark against his pale face.
‘It wasn’t me,’ he insisted.
Reg reached the end of the obligatory preamble. ‘Just answer the questions,’ he said heavily.
The duty solicitor leaned forward and muttered to Greg who slumped back in his chair again, mumbling under his breath about being wrongly accused.
‘Let the process take its course,’ the lawyer said quietly.
‘Not much else I can do, is there?’ Greg complained.
‘Just answer the questions,’ Geraldine echoed the chief inspector.
She found Greg’s response to the situation worrying; cowed but not angry. The more aggressive Reg grew in his questioning, the more Greg seemed to retreat into himself. He didn’t strike her as sharp enough to be putting on an act. Withdrawal seemed to be his natural reaction to hostility. When they took a break Geraldine tried to discuss her impression with Reg, but he dismissed her reservations with a wave of his hand.
‘It’s only a matter of time now until he slips up. We’ll nail him sooner or later. Let’s hope he doesn’t string it out too long.’
Reg was in a hurry to wind up the case, but Greg remained quietly intransigent.
‘You’re not helping your case, you know,’ Reg said at last, heaving an exaggerated sigh. ‘Let’s go through it all over again. I suggest you give your answers some careful thought, and listen to your lawyer when he tells you it will be better for you if you stop wasting our time and tell us the truth.’
‘Please don’t put words into my mouth,’ the solicitor said.
He sounded thoroughly bored with the situation. His blasé attitude infuriated Geraldine. Both he and the detective chief inspector seemed to have made up their minds that Greg was guilty of murder. Maybe they were right, but their cavalier attitude flouted the principle that a man was innocent until proven guilty.
Reg grilled Greg about his whereabouts on the day Dave was killed. Greg stuck to his story that he had been at home all day with Stacey’s small children while she had been out at work. Stacey had returned home late, he said, but he couldn’t give them a precise time. Heaving another of his exaggerated sighs, Reg changed tack and asked about the suspect’s relationship with the deceased.
‘Dave? He was all right.’
‘All right?’
‘Yeah, he was all right. I mean, we weren’t mates or anything. I hardly knew the guy.’
Reg pounced, with the clear intention of catching the other man off guard. ‘What were the two of you fighting about?’
Greg glanced at the solicitor who didn’t appear to be following the interview.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s a perfectly simple question. What were you and David Robinson fighting about before he was killed?’
‘We were never fighting.’
‘We have an eye witness. You were seen fighting.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Reg spoke slowly. ‘Someone saw you fighting with David Robinson the day before he was killed.’
Greg’s eyes widened in terror as he registered the implication. ‘That’s a lie. I never touched the guy. We had a few words, that’s all. You couldn’t call it a fight.’ He became animated. ‘This is a set up. Who said we were fighting? What’s been said about me? Who was it? Someone’s telling you lies about me. Why do you believe them and not me?’
Reg leaned forward. He spoke very softly.
‘Would you mind telling us where you got that black eye?’
Involuntarily, Greg’s hand fluttered to his eye.
‘That’s a nasty shiner. It must be about a week old. And you’ve got a split lip where someone must have punched you in the face.’
Greg mumbled incoherently.
‘What was that? I didn’t catch what you said. You’ll have to speak up for the tape.’
‘I said I walked into a wall.’
Reg gave a bark of genuine laughter. ‘No, you had a fight with Dave Robinson. He got the better of you, didn’t he? You threatened to come back and kill him, and that’s exactly what you did, creeping up on him from behind when he wasn’t looking. We know what happened, so you might as well come clean. You’re going down anyway, so you might as well co-operate. You’ll only make things worse for yourself if you insist on denying it.’
When Geraldine repeated her reservations to Reg after the interview, he refused to take her concerns seriously.
‘With respect, sir, a man’s freedom is at stake.’
‘He’ll have the full force of the law on his side if he’s innocent.’
In the hands of a skilled prosecuting barrister, juries could be swayed by the balance of probabilities. ‘Reasonable doubt’ was a tricky judgement call. History showed that miscarriages of justice weren’t impossible. As things stood, Greg appeared to be in the frame and guilty as charged. But that wasn’t the same as a certainty. The longer he remained in custody, an accused man, the more likely it was he would be condemned. Already he looked more desperate than he had when she had first seen him in the pub, as though a stain of villainy had rubbed off on him from previous inmates of his cell. She couldn’t have pinpointed the difference in his demeanour, but he had developed a furtive air which made him look guilty. Meanwhile, he had stopped protesting his innocence and sat in his cell in sullen silence.
According to Reg, Greg had stopped complaining because he recognised the game was up.
‘Probably true,’ Geraldine conceded, ‘but we need to be sure.’
‘That’s for a jury to decide.’
Reg spoke firmly, in a tone of voice that ended the discussion. Seeing Geraldine’s vexed expression, he added, ‘Why don’t you go and talk to the witness who reported seeing Greg and Dave fighting? We’ve got his statement, but we have to make sure he’s prepared to give evidence in person, and you can set your mind at rest at the same time.’
She nodded and set off at once, relieved to escape the police station for a couple of hours. Wherever she went in the building she bumped into either Reg or Nick, both demanding her attention in different ways. She was beginning to feel hemmed in. She missed her usual sergeant. Max was pleasant enough, but she couldn’t have a laugh with him like she could with Sam.
29
Before going to see Will Henry, Geraldine telephoned the mortuary to check a few details. She was hoping to speak to Miles. Fortunately he was at work that morning and the technician was able to put her through to him straight away.
‘Hello, Inspector. How can I help you?’ his familiar voice asked breezily.
‘I have a question about the body.’
‘And I thought you were calling to invite me out for dinner as a reward for working on a Sunday. Oh well, life’s full of disappointments.’
‘I need to speak to you about Dave Robinson.’
‘Fire away, I’m all ears.’
His lighthearted tone didn’t faze her. She knew he took his work seriously.
‘What I want to know is whether there were any injuries that could have been inflicted a little over twenty-four hours before he was killed? Specifically around eleven on the Friday morning.’
‘What sort of injuries are you talking about?’
‘Injuries consistent with being in a fight.’
Miles spoke slowly. ‘Nothing I can recall offhand, nothing that I noticed, but I was focussing on evidence of the attack that killed him. I wasn’t looking for anything else.’ He hesitated. ‘Let me check and get back to you on this. Give me an hour.’
Miles was as good as his word. Before the hour was up, he called her back. He was quite clear that he had seen nothing to indicate the victim had been involved in a fight the day before he was killed.
‘Of course it could have been a scrap with no physical injuries inflicted, leaving no trace of the attacker. What I’m telling you isn’t conclusive.’
‘Absence of evidence
rarely is. But how likely is it that someone could come away from a fight without any physical signs at all? Not so much as a bruise or a scratch?’
Never normally slow to express an opinion, on this occasion Miles refused to commit himself. ‘I’d like to give you an answer but I’ve really no idea. It’s quite possible that many of the victims I see were involved in fights shortly before they died, without being injured. I couldn’t tell that from examining them, not unless they sustained injuries while they were fighting. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.’
Nick hadn’t arrived at work by the time Geraldine set off. She was tempted to wait until she had seen him before she left the office, but there was no sensible reason to postpone speaking to a potential witness just in order to see Nick. She saw him every day. He would be at his desk by the time she returned. In the meantime, she had to focus on her investigation.
Will Henry stared morosely at Geraldine. He was younger than she had expected. If anything, he appeared even more anxious than Max’s description had suggested. He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, while his eyes slid past her without once looking at her directly.
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