Make Believe

by Cath Staincliffe

  ‘We can use this,’ she said to Richard, ‘we should put this to him.’

  While they waited for the half hour to elapse, Janine checked on responses to the Sammy Wray reconstruction. ‘The phones are red hot,’ Shap told her, which could mean anything or nothing. Perhaps Sammy had been snatched and taken abroad, at best for an illegal adoption and at worst as a victim for the men who get pleasure from abusing children.

  ‘Joe,’ Janine said once they had resumed the interview, ‘we really need to sort this out. You need to start telling us the truth. We have good reason to believe that you were involved in the death of the child found at Kendal Avenue. You’ve not been in to work since. Bad back you said, then excuses about the weather, then you claimed you stayed at home to help Mandy. Not like you to blob work according to Donny McEvoy. This is why, isn’t it, Joe? You couldn’t do it. Go back and carry on knowing that child was down there in the dirt. Alone. You couldn’t stomach it.’

  He looked down at the desk, closed eyes. When he raised his head and stared at Janine, he looked tired, cynical, his cheeks hollowed.

  ‘We know about your brother. About Gary,’ she said.

  Joe Breeley jerked as if she had slapped him then sat back his eyes blinking rapidly, his face tight and Janine could see how close he was to breaking point.

  ‘Oh you do, do you? You know all about that,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘He had a fractured skull, too. Same age. What happened this time, Joe? Another accident?’

  Joe Breeley’s mouth was rigid, his face pale. His upper body was shaking and Janine realised his leg was bouncing up and down as it had at the house. A nervous tic. He didn’t answer.

  ‘Who is he?’ Janine said.

  He looked down, put his head in his hands.

  Janine spoke quietly. ‘Someone out there is worried sick because their little boy is missing. You’re a father. Imagine that? That little boy needs a name. We need to find out what happened to him and return him to the people who love him so they can lay him to rest.’

  She kept pushing but keeping her tone soft, full of concern. ‘Where he is, he’s no name, no identity, like a bit of rubbish that no-one cares about. He has a mother, he has a father, they deserve the truth. That’s all they can have now. That little soul needs peace. I think you do too.’

  He raised his head, tears leaking from the sides of his eyes, anguish stretched across his face.

  ‘Where did you find him? Who is he, Joe?’

  He shook his head, raised his hands to his face, pressed his fingers against his lips as though he’d stop the words. Gave a sob.

  ‘Joe, please, who is he?’

  ‘He’s my son.’ His arms fell, he cried to the heavens. ‘My boy. He’s dead and he’s my son.’

  Chapter 26

  ‘Is he losing it, or what? Has he got another kid?’ Richard said as soon as they were alone, after the solicitor had insisted on a break and Janine agreed without argument. ‘Is there a previous relationship?’

  ‘Not that we know of,’ Janine said. ‘They’ve the baby – and John,’ Janine recalled the photos, the child crying from upstairs. Miserable with chickenpox. ‘And no-one’s reported a child missing, anyway. Apart from Sammy. If he was from a previous relationship surely the mother would have … John Breeley’s been sick,’ she was thinking aloud, ‘we didn’t see him. We heard him though.’

  She looked at Richard. Her stomach turned over and her bowels turned to water. ‘We heard a child. We were told it was John.’

  Richard narrowed his eyes, listening intently to her.

  ‘There is a connection,’ she said, her mouth dry and heart thumping. ‘This is John, our victim. The child we heard upstairs – I think it’s Sammy.’

  The way Breeley had hesitated when Janine mentioned DNA. He must have thought then that they’d soon identify the relationship between father and son, that the game was up. That no matter how vehemently he denied all knowledge of the crime, the science would blow it all wide open.

  ‘He killed his son and took Sammy?’ Richard said.

  ‘The timing would fit. He puts John there early Saturday morning, goes away and comes back just after nine. He works the morning…’

  ‘Goes to the park,’ Richard said.

  ‘That’s why we’ve had no reports of another missing child.’ She could feel her pulse racing, a buzzing in her head.

  ‘We arrest Mandy as an accomplice and remove the children,’ she said.

  ‘You sure?’ Richard said.

  ‘That it’s Sammy? Hell, yes. This time I’m sure.’ She was trembling with adrenalin but she needed to focus, to use the energy to concentrate on the task in hand – recovering Sammy from Mandy Breeley.

  There was no reply at the house. Janine peered through the letter box, no sign of life, no sounds from upstairs. Shap checked around the back and found the same. They began knocking on doors along the street.

  A neighbour opposite reported seeing Mandy leave with the children in the car only a few minutes earlier. She knew the family well and was able to tell them where Mandy’s mother lived.

  ‘Richard and I will go round there now,’ Janine told the team who stood, poised to act, outside the Breeley’s house with all the neighbours watching. ‘Shap, flag up the car registration so we can try and catch her with ANPR if she’s done a runner,’ referring to the automatic number plate recognition technology they could use. ‘Butchers, get onto telecoms, we want to pinpoint her location if she uses her phone – Joe Breeley will have her number in his. Be prepared to instigate a child rescue.’

  Janine rang Lisa and brought her up to speed. ‘Map out radius, probable distance travelled and time projections. Set up a child abduction alert. Shap will give you the details.’

  Shap got out his phone. As Janine hurried to her car Shap began to speak to Lisa, ‘Maroon Vauxhall Astra registration mother 635 x-ray, lima, hotel. Full alert all ports and airports. Occupants twenty-five-year old white female, long blonde hair, believed to be travelling with infant boy and three-year-old boy …’

  Mandy’s mother lived about a mile away and looked disconcerted when she opened the door to police officers.

  ‘Have you seen Mandy today?’ Janine asked her, once she’d identified herself.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you heard from her?’

  ‘No. Why? What’s going on?’ she said.

  Janine didn’t have time to go into a full blown explanation so said instead, ‘She’s missing from home and we’re anxious to speak to her.’

  ‘About what? What on earth’s the matter?’ the woman’s voice rose.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t discuss that with you now but please if you do hear from her will you let us know immediately?’ Janine passed her a card. The woman opened and closed her mouth, her forehead creased, eyes bewildered.

  Knowing what she did, Janine felt a moment’s pity for Mandy’s mother. Whatever happened in the hours to come, her life was about to be torn apart as she learnt about the death of her grandson and the abduction carried out by her son-in-law. ‘I’m sorry,’ Janine said, ‘I have to go.’

  They drove away, the woman still standing in her doorway, as if frozen by dread.

  Janine requested that Joe Breeley be returned to the interview room.

  He came in walking slowly, face drained of colour. He sat beside his solicitor and rubbed at his face with his palms, like he was trying to wake himself up.

  ‘Joe, Mandy’s missing,’ Janine said.

  ‘What about Aidan?’ He looked alarmed.

  ‘She’s taken him, and Sammy.’

  He froze and looked at her, he obviously hadn’t realised they had made the connection. Did he think he could hide the abduction from them?

  ‘I don’t know anything about Sammy.’

  Lying.

  ‘Are you telling us you didn’t abduct Sammy Wray?’ Richard said.

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said.

  ‘We heard him at the house,’ Janine
said, ‘remember?’

  His face crumpled. He sniffed. ‘I can’t—’

  The lone woman in the park. Janine’s stomach fell. Mandy! Mandy, deranged with grief, had substituted someone else’s child for her own. And Joe was trying to shield her.

  ‘Mandy,’ she said. He flinched, wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘We’re very concerned for their safety. Where would she go?’

  ‘You’ll take him off her, Aidan.’ He shook his head. ‘You’ll charge her. I can’t do that to them.’

  ‘And if it all goes wrong?’ Janine said.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘If you help us, Joe, that will be taken into account,’ Richard said.

  ‘I don’t care about that,’ he exploded. ‘Christ, do you think that matters?’ He put his hands on his head, pulled at the hair there, his knuckles white.

  ‘We need to contact her friends. Perhaps she’s left the children with someone or asked somebody for help,’ Janine said.

  There was a long pause. He seemed torn. ‘I can’t,’ he said eventually.

  They examined his phone anyway and Shap began ringing round all the contacts in his list.

  ‘Mandy went out shopping on Friday afternoon,’ Janine said. The car broke down. You were on your own with the boys, tell me what happened.’

  ‘It was an accident,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘I just wanted him to stop messing about.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Joe?’ she prompted, ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘He was having a tantrum, chucking his food all over the place, kicking me. He’s screaming his head off. I pick him up and—’

  He stopped short, lips crimped together, his fists clenched, miming how he held the child by the shoulders.

  ‘You shook him?’ Richard said.

  ‘Yeah, and he’s yelling and I just …I—’

  ‘Go on,’ Janine said.

  He took a rapid breath in. ‘I just put him down, too rough and he goes backwards, hard against the wall. Then he’s quiet.’ Breeley began to sob, his shoulders heaving, saliva at the corners of his mouth. ‘She wouldn’t let him go,’ his distress was palpable, Janine felt her throat tighten.

  ‘Why didn’t you get help? Tell someone, if it was an accident?’

  ‘They’d dredge it all up again – what’s the chance of it happening twice? They’d never believe me. The truth. I told the truth back then and it all fell apart. Gary opened the cellar door, he’d not done that before. The light was broke but he didn’t mind the dark. He must have tripped. It had gone quiet and I went to see what he was up to and the door was open.’ He shivered. ‘I didn’t want to go down there. I got my bike lamp.’

  Joe Breeley paused. Janine waited. Eventually he spoke again, his voice so low she had to lean in to catch it. ‘He was still. He never kept still.’ He rubbed at his face. ‘My mam’s eyes, her face – she never spoke to me again. I was ten years old. Fifteen years of wishing … Blame and hate – that’s what the truth got me. And it never brought Gary back.’ He looked at her, eyes lanced with pain. ‘I loved my boy … I loved him … We sat with him all night. But I had to …’

  ‘What did you do, Joe?’ Janine said gently.

  ‘I put him in the sheet, put him in the van. On the seat,’ he added, ‘not in the back, like.’ The sad detail, as if he’d protect the child he had killed. Janine recalled Lisa’s observation about the sheet being like a shroud. Perceptive.

  ‘Then what?’ she said.

  ‘I drove to the house.’

  ‘To 16 Kendal Avenue?’ She had to have it all on tape, facts, figures, details.

  ‘Yes. I got out of the van, opened the—’ He stopped, overcome.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘Opened the manhole, I went for John. That’s when my glasses broke.’

  ‘You fetched John,’ Janine prompted.

  ‘I put him in the drain.’ He was crying as he spoke, wiping at his face with his hands. ‘I went home, came back just after nine.’

  ‘And then after lunch, when you’d finished work, Mandy came home with Sammy?’

  Joe Breeley shook his head sadly. ‘I wanted John back,’ he said, ‘but it was too late.’ His mouth worked.

  He refused to tell them where Mandy might be. ‘I can’t,’ he said, ‘I can’t do that to her.’

  Eventually Janine and Richard withdrew but asked that Joe Breeley wait where he was, as they would certainly want to resume questioning him.

  The incident room was alive with a sense of urgency. Phones were ringing and people taking calls in the background. A large map of the country, centred on Manchester, was projected onto an electronic whiteboard and Lisa had outlined circles with estimated time of travel.

  ‘Butchers,’ Janine said, ‘speak to the bank, they’re to notify us immediately if Mandy uses her cards.’

  ‘The mobile network,’ he said, ‘say she’s not calling anyone so far, phone’s switched off.’

  ‘If she’s on the move, how far has she gone?’ Janine said.

  Lisa indicated on the map. ‘Almost forty minutes, boss. She’s somewhere in this area. No ANPR hits yet.’

  ‘More than likely, she’s on a motorway,’ Janine said, ‘cameras should be able to pick her up. Richard, we want a negotiator standing by. And talk to the National Crime Faculty – see if there’s a psychologist can advise us on how to play it.’ She turned back to Lisa. ‘Are customs on board?’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ the young DC said.

  ‘What about social services?’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘We could go public, breaking news, I can get us a ‘be on the lookout for,’ said Millie.

  ‘Could freak her.’ There was a moment’s tension as Janine tried to weigh up whether this was the right tactic. ‘ OK,’ she said, ‘do it. But give me time to call the Wrays first.’

  Millie left for the press office to set things in motion.

  Shap called out, ‘Breeley’s contacts – no-one has heard from her in the last few days. No-one had any suggestion as to where we might find her.’

  ‘Boss,’ Lisa said, ‘tea, coffee?’

  ‘Yes, anything.’ Janine was too bound up in the hunt to be able to make trivial decisions.

  Janine rang Claire Wray, determined to warn her of unfolding events before she heard anything on the news. ‘Claire, I wanted to let you know we have just received a strong lead as to Sammy’s whereabouts and we’re hoping to recover Sammy but I can’t make any promises. As soon as I have any more information at all you will be the first to know.’

  ‘You’ve found him?’

  ‘We think we know where he’s been held, I can’t say more than that.’

  ‘It’s definitely Sammy?’

  ‘We believe so,’ Janine said. She couldn’t be one hundred percent sure until she saw the child with her own eyes. She could hear Claire breathing but nothing else.

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘Is he alive?’ Claire said.

  ‘I believe so,’ Janine said.

  ‘But you don’t know?’

  ‘I can’t be sure,’ Janine said.

  ‘But what—’ Claire began.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t answer any more questions now. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I can. Is Sue there?’

  Janine briefed Sue, the family liaison officer, as quickly as she could. Then she let Lisa know the family had been informed of the breakthrough.

  Lisa nodded, passed Janine a cup of tea. She took a sip, scalding her mouth, then Butchers called out, ‘She’s using her phone, she’s on the phone.’

  A mobile was chiming in among the office phones.

  ‘Who’s she calling?’ Janine said.

  Shap stood up, waving Breeley’s handset. ‘Joe. She’s calling Joe.’

  Janine snatched the phone and ran to the interview room. Janine handed Breeley the phone, ‘Mandy calling’ was on the display. She nodded for him to answer.

  ‘Mandy?’

  ‘Joe, I wanted to say goodbye. I had to go
. I’m sorry.’ Janine could hear her voice, distant, tinny, distraught.

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ Joe Breeley said. ‘It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. Come back, come home, please Mandy.’

  ‘I love you, Joe. Remember that, I love you,’ Mandy said.

  ‘We can sort it out,’ he answered, ‘just come home. We can work something out.’

  ‘It’s too late. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Mandy, no, don’t!’ Joe Breeley cried out.

  But Mandy had ended the call.

  ‘Oh, God,’ he was agitated. ‘Oh, Christ!’

  ‘What does that mean,’ Janine said, ‘too late?’

  He just sat there shaking his head.

  ‘Joe,’ said Janine, a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach, ‘did Mandy make any threats?’

  He pressed his knuckles against the edge of the table. ‘When she brought him home, I said we’d have to take him back, there’d be trouble. How long till people realised they’d not seen John, family, people in the avenue? She was all for a fresh start. Wait till the fuss died down and then move. I tried to make her see sense but she said if I took him away she’d … kill herself. She said life wouldn’t be worth living anymore.’

  Chapter 27

  The first newsflash came over the television in the incident room. ‘Police appeal for help in finding missing toddler Sammy Wray. Believed to be travelling with a woman and baby in a maroon Vauxhall Astra M635 XLH. Please ring this number if you see the vehicle or the occupants.’

  ‘Got an ANPR hit,’ Shap said.

  ‘Where?’ Lisa asked him.

  ‘M62 West. Just past Warrington.’

  Lisa typed in the details and pulled up a new projection on the whiteboard.

  ‘She could be heading for Liverpool,’ Shap said. He sent word to the boss who was still in with Breeley.

  ‘Mandy’s travelling towards Liverpool,’ Janine said. ‘We believe she may be trying to reach the airport or the port. Where’s she going? Have you got family abroad. A place that’s special?’

  ‘What’ll happen to Aidan?’ Joe Breeley said.