Suffer the Children

by Adam Creed

  ‘They’re good people, Helena Montefiore and the Watkins,’ says Pulford. ‘And that poor sod Nico Kashell, wasting his life up in Wakefield jail.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘And all because we can’t do our job properly. Not allowed to by the fucking CPS. They had that Stensson woman and they dropped the charges against Montefiore. They didn’t even get that far with Karl Colquhoun because the social services never pressed criminal proceedings. And how many, how fucking many all around the country are there that no one gets to hear of? They’d think twice, maybe, if a couple of them have their dicks chopped off.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that we catch these people and impale them on splintered lengths of wood? Or break every bone in their body? Maybe we could televise it.’

  ‘Or a webcast? Do you know there’s more than a million hits every day on child porn sites?’

  Staffe can’t help reconjure the awful images he saw on Guy Montefiore’s computer. ‘How d’you fancy a little road trip?’ says Staffe. ‘To see Nico Kashell. And then on to Middlesbrough. We need to have a word with Linda Watkins.’

  Pulford looks at the E-Type’s bonnet, steam beginning to rise. ‘We’re not going up there in this shit tip are we?’

  ‘It’s a classic,’ says Staffe. In the distance, through the traffic, the horizon warps above the shimmering tarmac.

  ‘It’s a fucked classic,’ says Pulford, and they laugh.

  But Staffe feels the clock counting down. In less than a week he will be pulled off the Montefiore case. He calls the AA, chastising himself for not using the Peugeot, and Pulford phones in to Leadengate. The AA tell Staffe they’ll be an hour and twenty minutes and he bites his lip, sees Pulford is agitated – angry and excited at the same time as he clicks his phone off.

  ‘The Met have been on. A young girl, Tanya Ford, has just gone into Fulham nick, filed a complaint that she was sexually assaulted by a middle-aged man. A well-spoken, middle-aged man. It happened last night and less than a mile from Montefiore’s house.’

  ‘Is somebody interviewing the girl?’

  ‘Josie says she’ll call you when it’s set up. The parents aren’t keen.’

  They wait in silence and Staffe thinks about Jessop, driven halfway to madness by the job. It’s time to make a call on the past.

  A squad car collects them and all the way in, bare-chested men and skimpily clad women sit outside pubs, drinking their way through the long hot summer. It will be the weekend soon and Staffe will allow himself a drink. The way it’s been for three years.

  Three years keeps cropping up: three years since Linda and Tyrone Watkins still had a life together, when young Sally was drug free and not on the game. Nico Kashell free as a bird. Three years since Sylvie went.

  The squad car drops Staffe by the gates of the park where Tanya Ford alleges she was assaulted and he leans up against the trunk of a yew tree, grateful for shade. It’s not long before Josie arrives, wearing a cap-sleeved polo shirt and mid-thigh shorts.

  ‘Don’t you just love the summer,’ she says. They walk towards the copse of trees and she tugs at his suede jacket. ‘Don’t you ever take this off?’

  ‘I’ve moved into a place not far from here. You could come round for a bite.’

  ‘I think this is where it happened.’ She points to the copse of rowan trees.

  ‘How is the girl?’

  ‘Tanya Ford? In pieces, of course.’

  ‘You reckon she’s telling the truth, then?’

  Josie nods and stops, lays down a bag and they each take out plastic mitts for their feet and don gloves. She bends down, hands Staffe a handful of bags, tags and some tweezers. ‘Janine wasn’t happy, you know, you having first pop. She says we’ve got twenty minutes.’

  ‘It happened right in the trees?’

  ‘And get this …’ She ducks under the outlying, low canopy of trees, makes her way into the cooler, dark centre of the small wood where you can smell soil, ‘… Tanya Ford says there were two men. She thinks they both wore balaclavas. Then they knocked her out with chloroform.’

  They look down at the patched grass and soil and compacted twigs.

  ‘You go that way,’ says Josie.

  In the distance, Staffe can hear children play, young adults, too, having a game of softball. Beneath the canopy, he can see Josie’s tanned calves. Looking back down at his own feet and inching forward, he sees a rag at the foot of a tree. He bends down, reaches with his tweezers. He calls Josie and gently lifts the evidence. He sniffs it and holds it out to her. ‘That’s chloroform.’

  Josie holds open a brown-paper evidence bag and he drops the rag into it. He clears his throat, looks around the copse. ‘Montefiore sees Tanya here, all alone. He’s either been following her or it’s a lucky find. Either way, he’s ready, so he grabs her, hits her with the chloroform. Then he gets disturbed?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘What’s the medical evidence on Tanya?’

  ‘There was no penetration, according to the girl. She’s a virgin.’

  ‘But what did the medical say?’

  ‘There was no medical. Her mother came with her. They wouldn’t allow it. Like I said, they don’t want to press charges. The father came in halfway through the interview, says they want to draw a veil over it.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘He’s going to get away with it again, Staffe.’

  ‘We’ve got the rag. His prints might be on it. We can do him for assault, even if we can’t get him for a sexual.’

  ‘Is he conscious yet?’

  ‘In and out,’ says Staffe. ‘It’ll be another twenty-four hours before we can interview him.’

  ‘It’s a funny state of affairs, hey? Waiting for a child molester to recover so we can interview him to find the person who attacked him.’

  ‘How did you get on with Sally Watkins?’ asks Staffe.

  ‘She couldn’t vouch for where she was the other night. I asked Johnson to go round, put some pressure on her.’ Josie sounds sad. ‘Montefiore used chloroform on her too. He knocked her out first… waited for her to come round before he did what he did.’ She looks away, scratches her leg, says, ‘Bloody flies.’

  *******

  The man watches Staffe and Josie walk away across the park. He saw them find the chloroform rag but he knows he didn’t touch it. He would love to be a fly on the wall when Montefiore tells them. He’d like to see Montefiore’s face when he realises – by looking into their eyes – that they might not be able to do enough to protect him from the next reprisal. Except this time there will be sufficient rope.

  He lets them go, knows he can catch up with them later, and he wonders how long it will take Staffe to make the leap backwards. When they are completely gone from sight he takes a seat on a park bench, watches the children play. He takes out the photograph of Guy Montefiore, strung up on his ropes and on his second jolt down, and begins to compose the caption that will accompany it. He watches a young mother with three daughters trying to cross the road.

  Under her guidance, the children look first one way then the other and she lets them on to the road on their own, following at a safe distance.

  An idea comes and he jots down a line. He looks at it twice, thinks of the permutations, the double meanings and he smiles to himself, thinks ‘that will do nicely’.

  *******

  Staffe is crying.

  ‘Just how many houses have you got, Staffe?’ says Josie.

  It’s something he always does when he peels onions. ‘This isn’t a house. I’ve only got this floor.’

  ‘The whole of my place would fit into your lounge.’

  ‘I’d rather I didn’t have it – the price it came at.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘I got it with an inheritance.’

  ‘Somebody close?’

  ‘Would you open the wine?’ says Staffe.

  ‘It’s not the weekend yet.’

  ‘It’s for the sauce. And
a glass for you, of course.’

  Josie pops the cork. ‘You didn’t answer me.’

  ‘Most of them belong to the building society. They’re not mine.’

  ‘I bet you’ve had them long enough to have made a bit of coin.’ She comes up to Staffe with her head tilted to one side. She leans on the counter next to him. ‘I bet you’re loaded, hey, Staffe?’

  ‘I don’t worry about money.’

  ‘You worry about plenty, though.’

  ‘Isn’t it supposed to be good to care?’ He smiles at her, lobs a lemon up for her to catch and says, ‘Squeeze that and stop doing my head in.’

  ‘You’d better watch out, Staffe. You might attract the wrong type of girl. You know, a gold-digger.’ She reaches across him for the wine, pours herself a glass and says, ‘Who died?’

  ‘How did you get on with Maureen Colquhoun? Remind me what she said about her poor son?’

  ‘If you ask me, he was abused as a child. And the main thing is, his father was a drunk. Colquhoun hated drink.’

  ‘They force-fed him till he was paralytic.’

  ‘And you know what that means?’ says Josie. She takes a sip of wine.

  ‘Whoever killed him knew all about his ghosts.’

  ‘And what about your ghosts?’

  Staffe turns to face her front on, pointing the tip of the chef’s knife towards her. He says in a mock German accent, ‘Vot exactly do you want to know, Chancellor?’

  ‘Who was Sylvie?’

  ‘I need the lemon juice. Can’t you squeeze?’

  ‘I’ll try. It’s got to be easier than getting blood out of a stone, that’s for sure.’

  The lounge is cluttered with tea chests and Josie and Staffe are sitting cross-legged on the floor, eating cheesecake with their fingers and drinking coffee.

  ‘What did you make of Sally Watkins?’ says Staffe.

  ‘She’s a strong enough girl – I suppose you’d have to call her a woman after what she’s been through.’

  ‘And what she does for a living. Do you think we should do something about that?’

  ‘Prosecute her, after what she’s been through? I can’t see what good would come of giving her a criminal record.’

  ‘It might discourage her,’ says Staffe.

  ‘Compare her lot to what that bastard Montefiore’s got. And to think, he’s the cause.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want his life, though. Would you?’ Staffe stands up, goes to the window and looks out. There’s a car opposite with a man in the driver’s seat. Staffe thinks he’s seen it before and he wonders whether the woman opposite is having an affair. ‘Can you imagine, having it all and still feeling hollow? Being so unable to control your desires that you lose your daughter – the person you love most in life.’

  ‘To have everything and it not be enough,’ says Josie.

  ‘Do you think Sally could have done it?’

  ‘It makes sense, to leave him half dead, having to carry on,’ says Josie. ‘That’s what she’s had to do.’

  ‘And the same would apply to the mother.’

  ‘And Debra Bowker or the Kashells.’

  Staffe looks across at Josie, sitting amongst his half unpacked belongings with her hair loose and her legs tucked under her bottom. ‘Don’t mention Lotte Stensson or Nico Kashell to Pennington.’ The car outside starts up its engine.

  She shakes her head, slow. The wine bottle is almost empty and there’s a smile painted on her face. Her eyes look soft. ‘How come they phoned you here?’ says Josie. ‘How would they know you were here?’

  The case is spinning and he knows it won’t stop until he gets up to Wakefield and Middlesbrough.

  Josie says, ‘You know I looked at the Sally Watkins file. There’s holes all over it. Missing interviews, evidence not logged.’

  ‘Those bastards at the Met,’ says Staffe. ‘They’ve no right to obstruct our investigation.’

  ‘I’m not saying they are, sir.’

  ‘This case is beginning to drive me insane.’

  ‘Why am I here, if we’re not going to talk about the case?’

  ‘We can have dinner, for crying out loud.’

  ‘Without anything going on.’

  ‘Is something going on?’ He chances a smile.

  ‘Would that be a good idea?’

  ‘Good ideas aren’t always a good idea.’

  Josie stands, goes across to the mantelpiece and picks up a photograph of Sylvie. ‘I don’t think you’re ready.’ She puts the photograph back on the mantelpiece, kneels down next to him. He can smell wine on her and wonders whether he should draw the curtains, which makes him think of Sylvie.

  The curtains. The goldfish bowl.

  The car opposite. He leaps up and rushes out of the room, unlocks the front door and runs into the street in his stocking feet, taking the steps two at a time and vaulting over the gate but he’s too late. The car has screeched away and his eyes can’t adjust to the evening gloom. He curses and all along the street, lights go on, here and there. Curtains twitch.

  Josie comes down the steps.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he says.

  ‘Thanks for the meal.’ She reaches up on tiptoes and, with a hand on his chest, kisses the corner of his mouth. ‘Sometimes, you’re a bit too weird for me.’ She closes the gate behind her and wiggles her fingers without turning round. He watches her go round the corner.

  Sometimes? he thinks.

  He goes inside to his new home, to his past. He is angry with himself for letting the car get away but happy they are prepared to come so close. Then he shivers, but it’s not cold. He can feel the last of the adrenalin seep away and all he’s left with is the certain knowledge that they are coming to him just as fast as he is getting to them. Except they know what they’re looking for.

  Thursday Morning

  The jail gives off bad pheromones as you walk up to its towering gate.

  Staffe and Pulford make their way past HMP Wakefield’s visitor centre and its raggedy queue of young girls dressed to their kind of nines in low-slung hipster tracksuit bottoms that show what they’re wearing underneath. Some of them carry babies on their hips like wise African women. Older women are pulled down by the life their husbands and lovers have chosen. Strange, to be in a men’s jail surrounded by women.

  An old-school officer shows them to the room for private visits. He says nothing and Staffe is reminded that he does only half the job. Once the police track a criminal down, it’s over to the business of incarceration, rehabilitation. Every man in this jail will, one day, be released, to perhaps live next door to us or our mothers or our sisters. Staffe ponders what kind of beast we want to be moulded by these beefed-up pale faced prison officers, these textbook psychologists.

  The room reeks of stale cigarettes and ingrained sweat. There is one window, way above head height and slightly open. Flies bash themselves against the reinforced glass. The tubular light hums.

  A middle-aged man in grey sweats is brought in. This is Nico Kashell and he isn’t cuffed. He looks down at the table, the way people sit in church. The PO sits by the door, lights up a cigarette even though there’s a sign that says ‘No Smoking’, and he reads the Daily Mirror.

  Kashell is five-seven and ghostly white even though there’s Mediterranean blood running through him. He is spindly under his baggy prison cloth and doesn’t respond when Staffe says, ‘Hello.’

  ‘The man says hello, shithead,’ says the PO. Without looking up.

  ‘Hello,’ says Kashell, without looking up.

  It’s official: most murderers do it just the once, responding to extraordinary circumstances. They don’t steal to feed drug habits or habitually abuse to feed sex habits or beat people up for kicks.

  ‘Tell me how it happened, Nico. Tell me about that night.’

  ‘There’s plenty paper tells you that.’

  ‘How did you get into her flat?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘How did you keep her quiet, or know whi
ch bones to break first? Did you know which one would kill her?’

  He looks up, briefly, and his big sad, brown eyes are unable to sustain malice. He says, ‘What you here for? I got time to do.’

  ‘There’s been another, Nico. When you did what you did to Lotte Stensson, was someone else there to help? If there was …’ Staffe looks at the PO, immersed in tabloid revelations. He leans towards Kashell. ‘… it could help you. You know what I’m saying?’

  ‘I don’t see no one else doing my time here.’

  ‘You confessed. That was the only evidence against you, Nico.’ He wills Kashell to engage in some way but nothing happens, so he nods to Pulford and leans back.

  ‘It would suit you, I suppose?’ says Pulford. He stands up, goes round the back of Kashell, lets the silence stretch.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You doing time in here on your own, taking the punishment to protect your accomplice. And they carry on the good work.’

  Kashell weighs Staffe up. He makes a thin smile but his eyes look dead. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree. Nowhere near understanding.’

  ‘Understanding what?’ says Pulford.

  Kashell says, to Staffe, ‘What a father had to do.’

  ‘But to kill like that?’

  ‘It’s what keeps you going, man. Can’t you see that?’ But Kashell looks towards Staffe, straight through him. It is as if he can’t focus, has nothing behind the eyes. For all the world, it seems Nico has lost his own soul.

  Staffe nods to Pulford who sits back down. ‘I don’t see that you’ve made your life much better. And your girl has lost you when she needs you most.’

  ‘I’m punished,’ says Kashell. His eyes are glazed and he sniffs, hard, looks up again. Staffe sees his Adam’s apple move up and down. ‘And you know what? That woman, even the way she got it, it’s nowhere near enough.’

  ‘You’re not avenged, are you, Nico?’

  Kashell’s lip quivers but he doesn’t cry. Feeling sorry for yourself is no way to do your time. He shakes his head. ‘Not nearly, man. Not nearly.’

  ‘We’ll come back, Nico. Next time, you can tell us exactly what you did that night, hey? Is there anything we can do for you, in the meantime?’