by Clare Curzon
Everything was normal, secure in a very wonderful world.
Chapter Fourteen
On Monday 4th February the Major Crimes team met early to discuss the death of Micky Kane. Computer printouts were already available covering the paperwork. A note from uniform branch on finding him slumped unconscious led to Zyczynski’s report on his stay in hospital and was joined by versions of the body’s riverbank retrieval from DI Salmon and DS Beaumont. The hospital had not, as yet, issued an official analysis of drugs the boy had originally ingested nor anything regarding his treatment there and state of health at the time he discharged himself. Superintendent Yeadings understood that an internal inquiry was being held to decide responsibility for his escape, also theft of clothing from an aggrieved patient undergoing X-ray treatment.
‘Bloody careless. They’ve a lot to answer for,’ DI Salmon declared sourly. ‘Patients have a right to expect due care and vigilance once they’re taken in.’
Yeadings wasn’t going to let him get away with that. ‘You’ll find the hospital’s responsibility ends when a patient discharges himself, with or without signing the disclaimer. Anything before that remains at present an internal matter and will not affect the conduct of our investigation. It’s much to be regretted that the boy’s decision resulted in his death.
‘Uniform branch are calling house-to-house between the hospital and where the body was found. River Conservancy experts are to report on the most likely point the body would have been dropped in, but we shan’t get far with their results until we have some idea of the time scan. Micky was reported missing from the hospital at 5.15 p.m. on Saturday, but that wasn’t until corridors and nearby wards had already been searched. Their Security notified us at 5.40, by which time it was dark and the streets were filling with Saturday shoppers going home. From then until those scullers spotted him in the river yesterday morning, we have no witnesses, and so far no official time of death or estimated duration of being in the water. Merely the assumption that he was killed between dusk and dawn.
‘There’s a backlog of cases at the mortuary, due to the severe weather and a traffic pile-up on the M40 near Holtspur, but Professor Littlejohn will come in for this one himself. The first slot he can make is this afternoon at 3 p.m. Meanwhile DS Zyczynski, with a WPC, will be speaking to the boy’s parents.’
‘I’ll go with her myself,’ Salmon overrode abruptly.
There was a short embarrassed silence. Discretion and gentleness were not among the DI’s notable talents. Yeadings intervened. ‘I have another enquiry that’s more pressing,’ he said firmly. ‘This debit card connection with the man Allbright. He needs to be kept uneasy. Take Beaumont and go over all the points of his story. He implies he knows nothing of the boy, so drop in the name Micky when he’s least expecting it.’
‘Do a Colombo,’ said Beaumont brightly. ‘Flasher’s raincoat and all.’
‘I’ve been to see him,’ Z admitted. ‘I’d come across his name from Uniform. As reported, his debit card was found in Micky’s clothing when he was picked up unconscious. Apart from the card the boy had only a ten pound note and some silver on him. But the note was freshly issued. It could have been straight from a cash machine. When the card was returned to Allbright he checked his balance and claimed fifty pounds were missing. He took it very calmly.’ She gave them the man’s explanation of where and how he thought it had been lost.
‘Your Micky Kane was a little thief,’ Salmon said with a curl of the lip that implied the world wasn’t worse off without him.
‘What DS Zyczynski is questioning,’ said Yeadings, already informed on the matter, ‘is whether and how the boy acquired access to the bank’s cashpoint. Either Micky had Allbright with him to key in the number – in which case the man would surely have retained the card; or Allbright had lent him the card and told him the number. In either case the man had a part in the boy’s recent actions. He must come into the frame, if we find this is a murder case. We have to query every statement he makes.’
‘There’s something else,’ Z went on . ‘When I saw Allbright it was ostensibly to check he was satisfied with police handling of his loss. I did mention it was curious the boy had happened on the right access number, and he flashed the excuse he’d written it down, and the paper could have been along with the card in his jacket.’
‘So the boy had picked his pocket for both?’
‘If indeed Micky was a thief. Allbright had previously claimed he’d dropped the card, but the idea of theft seemed a quite acceptable alternative to him. Yet he still didn’t want Micky charged.’
The DI appeared to be digesting this. ‘Where’s your report on that interview?’ he demanded, scowling.
‘Gone to computer. You should be getting it any time now.’
Salmon looked to Yeadings for a lead.
‘There’s the matter of the key,’ the superintendent reminded Z.
‘Which is still with his unclaimed possessions at the hospital, under the lining of his trainer. As we know, he escaped in clothes belonging to a male outpatient undergoing abdominal X-ray, because he couldn’t get to his own in a locker at ITU. It’s an unusual-looking key with a number on it, and could belong to a safety deposit box.’
‘Also Allbright’s?’ the DI almost shouted.
‘I wouldn’t know. I thought better not to mention it to him, in case valuables were involved.’
‘So, for all we know, this boy could have been running a Fagin’s kitchen business all over the town in the time he’s been with us. Why haven’t Uniform picked up on this? And where has he been hiding up?’
Z fell silent, treating the questions as purely hypothetical. Salmon glared challengingly round the circle of faces for inspiration.
‘Look, I’d better go and meet the boy’s parents,’ Zyczynski said, rising. ‘I hope to make it for the post mortem afterwards.’
Mr and Mrs Stephen Kane had checked in at the Pheasant on North Hill where the houses began to thin out, and open fields were still covered by snow of pristine whiteness. He was the branch manager of a jeweller in Wimbledon and she a General Science teacher at the secondary school there. As Z had expected, they appeared respectable and comfortably off. Their car, one of only three in the hotel car park, and not having a local registration, was a dark blue BMW
Hilda Kane, matronly, with grey-streaked hair flopping from a loose French pleat, faced the two policewomen tight-lipped, as she might a pair of year-nine miscreants. Her husband was more clearly in shock and Z was glad she’d decided to visit their hotel rather than face them in a police station.
‘What can you tell us?’ the man demanded nervously as soon as they were seated. The hotel had provided them with a small sitting room and now a waitress was bringing in a tray for coffee. Mrs Kane moved across to take over, while Z seated herself opposite and the WPC faded into the background.
‘We just can’t believe it,’ the man said wretchedly, walking up and down behind them. ‘Micky has never given us any trouble before.’
‘Not more than you’d expect from a young teenager,’ his mother granted. ‘The usual sulks and fits of non-cooperation. He wasn’t wild. Maybe a bit too quiet. All he wanted outside school was to take his dog for walks and to get into the tennis for the championships. He wasn’t much of a one for football, although he had to play it, of course. He didn’t belong to any gang or go out with other boys. He’d rather sit in his room and read or play with his computer.’
‘Never mind that, Mother,’ said the husband. ‘Get her to tell us what happened.’
So Z explained how she had come across him in hospital after Uniform had found him collapsed in the street. ‘We won’t know until later exactly what he’d taken, but they’d sorted him out and he was making good progress. I had a word or two with him myself, took in something for him to read, discovered he wasn’t interested in football but more keen on model aircraft.’
Hilda Kane stared at her fiercely. ‘Did you say anything to upset him? He�
�d never had anything to do with the police before. He must have been petrified.’
‘I didn’t tell him I was police. And he wasn’t at all upset. Quite quiet and polite. With hindsight I think he was already planning how to make his escape.’
‘Wasn’t that irregular? I mean, aren’t you supposed to warn people who you are before you question them?’ The boy’s father had stopped his padding up and down and turned to face her.
‘I wasn’t questioning. I’d gone there as a friend to enquire after someone else who’d been brought in the same night. A nurse in ITU mentioned Micky and I went along to say hello. Perhaps you would like to meet her. She’s warm and understanding. I think she felt sorry for him, so young and on his own. She could probably tell you more about him than I can.’
‘But he decided to run away? Again? And he was still unwell?’
‘His treatment had barely begun, as I understood it. He just bolted. We’ve yet to discover why.’
‘Nor why he left home in the first place,’ his mother said tightly.
‘I was wondering,’ Zyczynski said after a little pause. ‘When you run, it’s either from something or to something. If everything seemed normal at home, maybe there was a compelling reason to go elsewhere. What had he taken with him? Did he expect to be away for some time or to get back before his absence was noticed? It was early morning when he was last seen, I believe.’
‘It was an ordinary school day. I left in my car just after eight,’ Hilda Kane said. ‘I had some experiments to set up before assembly. Micky always walks, so I assume he left some half-hour later. It only takes twelve minutes.’
‘The police asked me,’ her husband put in. ‘We left at the same time, at eight twenty-eight exactly.’
Of course, Z noted: a jeweller, he’d have a top-range watch and be a stickler for precison.
‘And was Micky carrying anything?’
‘His school bag. It seemed quite heavy, but then it almost always was. An open-topped duffel bag with a leather drawstring. I remember he swung it over his shoulder as he went past my car and I heard a buckle or something scratch against the bodywork. I called out for him to be careful. He stopped and turned round, and gave me such a – a funny look.’
The man’s voice broke. He could hardly get the next words out. ‘That was the last I …’
‘Whatever else he had in his bag, he didn’t take his clean gym gear. Which he would have needed.’ Hilda spoke sharply, as if to demonstrate she was made of sterner stuff.
‘So can we suppose he had already made up his mind to skip school, at least for that day?’
Micky’s parents turned to look at each other, he wretched, she fiercely aggressive, almost accusing. Hilda nodded. Z assumed that their answer was ‘yes’.
‘One more question,’ she said. ‘Was he wearing school uniform?’
‘Of course. Grey trousers and shirt; navy blazer with the school crest on its breast pocket; school tie with navy, turquoise and gold stripes; black lace-up shoes.’
Z recalled the clothes she had looked through in ITU: purple roll-neck sweater, jeans and slightly scuffed trainers. Clearly his own leisure clothes. So he had packed alternative gear and disposed of the uniform which could help identify him. Since he didn’t have them or his bag when he was picked up unconscious, had they been taken off him or were they stashed away somewhere waiting for him to pick them up? Even having taken a change of clothes, it didn’t mean he’d intended staying away. Getting rid of the uniform could have been simply the initial, normal gesture of freedom.
‘Can we take him home?’ Stephen Kane had been steeling himself for this moment. His voice came out like a rush of air escaping a balloon.
‘I’m sorry. There are formalities …’
‘She means the post-mortem. And then I suppose there’ll be an inquest. When will that be, Sergeant? Because we must decide whether to stay on or come again.’ Hilda was forcing herself into organizing mode.
Z explained that a date had yet to be fixed for the inquest, also that they would be asked to attend the police station and sign a statement. But first someone would be needed for the formal identification.
There was a silence. The man said, ‘Oh God,’ into his cupped hands.
‘That had better be me,’ Hilda said, her voice softening. She reached out and patted her husband’s shoulder. ‘I’ll do it, Dad. It’ll be all right.’
Z sat in the rear with Mrs Kane, with the WPC at the wheel although it was Zyczynski’s unmarked car. They left the man standing at the hotel window staring at them as they drove off. Hilda wore her buttoned-up look again. ‘Did Micky have any special interests?’ Z asked. ‘Hobbies or career ambitions?’
There was no answer. She doubted Hilda had heard her. At last, ‘He never showed it,’ the woman said almost absently, ‘but inside he must have been really upset. Rags getting run over. His dog. I should have talked to him, comforted him; but boys can be so prickly. I was afraid of …being repulsed.’
In the penthouse Alyson rang Sheena after breakfast for a report on Carlton Merritt’s visit, but there was no answer. Mrs Judd, hearing the phone ring as she was letting herself in hampered by her shopping bags, struggled to release the key from the door’s lock. She clucked with annoyance, hearing the phone cut off as she reached it. She dumped her plastic carriers by the kitchen table, eased her aching back and dropped into a chair. When she had kicked her shoes off, she called aloud for Sheena. The girl was idle, still lying abed like that and letting the phone ring on and on.
It was after the kettle had boiled and she was dropping tea bags in two pottery mugs that she realized the girl’s sleep must be unnaturally deep or she’d gone out unusually early. She stomped along to the bedroom next to her own and looked in. The bed was made up exactly as she’d left it the previous day. Sheena hadn’ t merely been late home, she’d been out on the tiles all night.
Little madam, not saying a word or phoning in! Mrs Judd fumed. So much for the boyfriend being such a gentleman! If she went on this way, throwing herself at him, she’d lose him for sure. No good could come of it. He’d take her for a flighty bit, and that wasn’t the sort they married, unless they got cornered. But at least Sheena knew better than to go and get herself pregnant.
Not that marriage was quite what it was once reckoned. Youngsters weren’t all that keen these days to get wed, even quite respectable ones. All the same, there was nothing like having a ring on your finger and people calling you Mrs. Keep a bit of distance between and you’re more likely to get a lad who’d stick with something legally binding.
Besides, it’d be nice to have all the fuss of a proper wedding. Sheena had missed out on that last time, going off and doing that hole-in-a-corner business at a registry office with witnesses off the street. It’d be expensive, of course, but the girl must have something put by. She needn’t expect it to come out of her Mum’s pension, though she’d buckle to and help provide some of the goodies for the reception back here.
The uncles would expect to be invited, and a few neighbours. One in the eye for that snooty Mrs Parker whose slutty daughter had an illegitimate baby and nobody to father it. And maybe this time Sheena would settle down, have a baby of her own. It would be nice having a little one in the house again. The future looked crammed with possibilities.
Still no message from the girl, not even to say she’d not want a meal before going on duty. If she didn’t buck up she was going to be late for work, and she’d need to drop by to pick up a clean overall.
Mrs Judd went back to the phone and pressed in 1471. The number she was given sounded vaguely familiar. She had herself connected. It was Nurse Orme who answered. So the previous call had come from her. Sal Judd was at a loss for words.
‘Hello,’ Alyson repeated into the silence, sounding short of patience.
‘Oh, you rang me earlier,’ Mrs Judd managed to get out.
‘I was ringing Sheena. Is this her mother?’
‘Yes. Well, she’s not her
e at the moment. I’m expecting her back any time now.’
‘I’m sorry to bother you. I thought she might have rung to say how she got on with the man from the insurance. But never mind, perhaps she’ll get here a few minutes early. She can tell me all about it then.’
Mrs Judd’s face screwed into a scowl. There was no way Sheena was even going to be on time.
‘Sorry I can’t help you, Nurse.’ And that was a lie if ever there was one.
She firmly replaced the phone. There was a big row coming up and she’d no intention of being anywhere near it. If Sheena didn’ t look out she could lose her job. That’s what came of letting a man get to your head. She’d really gone overboard this time.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Look,’ the man said, wrapping the towelling bathrobe more closely round him as sleet drove straight into his doorway, ‘I’ve had all this from your lot already. For God’s sake can’t you get it into your heads that I’m satisfied little harm’s done and I’ll be more careful in future. So you can clear off. It’s not easy being a night-worker, and this is my sleep time.’
It would be hard to decide, Beaumont considered, taking in Allbright’s disagreeable face, squat body and mottled bare legs coated in long black hairs, to decide which of the two combatants was the uglier, though DI Salmon’s purposeful expression might just give him the edge on the other.
‘We’re letting the weather in,’ the DS observed mildly. ‘How about us going inside, sitting down together and settling it for good. Then you can go back to bed.’
‘Five minutes,’ Allbright allowed eventually, scowling and winning outright on the non-beauty points. He stood back to allow the two detectives to go past. A rush of warm air met them from the hall radiator and sent shivers wriggling down the sergeant’s back. He eased off his wet parka and dropped it on the quality carpet. The rest of the house looked quality too, he decided, as they were ushered through into a stainless steel and smoked-glass kitchen. Floor and wall tiles were pale lavender. A bit girly, to his mind.