by Jane Casey
I couldn’t bring myself to feel the pity that Vickers obviously expected. I was sure it had been traumatic for Danny. He’d had a horrendous childhood. Fair enough. He had still let my parents live in agonising ignorance of what had happened to their son. He had kept his father’s secret, well into adulthood. He had told the truth only when he was backed into a corner. If I hadn’t seen Charlie’s necklace, Vickers wouldn’t have known there was anything to ask him and Mum could have gone on hoping against hope, dying a little bit more every day. And then there was Jenny. He had absorbed the lessons his father taught him. The abused boy turned into an abuser. The murderer’s son turned into a murderer. I couldn’t feel anything for him but loathing.
Mum stirred in her chair. ‘How did Charlie die? You didn’t say – how did he kill my boy?’
Vickers looked uneasy. ‘We don’t know, I’m afraid. We won’t know until we find the body and do a post-mortem, and even then, after all this time, we will only find skeletonised remains. Bones,’ he clarified, misinterpreting the look of horror on my face. I understood the term, all right; I just couldn’t understand why he would say it in front of my mother.
But instead of disintegrating as I had expected she would, Mum was nodding. At that sight, I had, if not exactly a light-bulb moment, a slowly dawning suspicion. It was just the faintest inkling that the woman I had thought I knew wasn’t what I had believed her to be. There was strength there, strength and steadfastness, even if I hadn’t seen or recognised it before.
Vickers was continuing to speak, drawing back a curtain that had fallen sixteen years before. ‘It took a long time to dig the grave. Danny guesses that it was over two hours before his father was finished. The ground would have been hard and full of roots; it wouldn’t have been easy to get down to any sort of depth. But he must have been determined, because he did a good job. Most graves of that sort stand out a mile. Animals get into them. They smell the decomposition, dig up the bodies – or parts of them – and give us a clue that there’s something to investigate. Or you can see the excavated earth piled up on top of the body and you can tell something’s been stuck in the ground there; a burial mound is pretty much unmistakable. I’ll say this for Derek Keane: he found a good spot where not many people went and he dug a deep enough hole, and that’s probably why we never found Charlie.
‘There was also the fact that his wife and child were too frightened of him to think of telling anyone that he had been involved. There again he was clever, because he’d involved Danny in disposing of the body. Ada wouldn’t have wanted her son to get in trouble, however convenient it might have been to find a way of locking her husband up for ever. He did keep her out of the house while he was dealing with Charlie’s body, so she might not have been sure. Even if she had her suspicions, she didn’t take it any further. And Derek had Danny frightened of his own shadow. The boy never said a word to anyone. He was convinced he’d be slung in jail too. His father made out to him that what he’d done would actually be seen as worse, because while Derek had acted on the spur of the moment, Danny had helped him to bury the body in cold blood.’
‘Poor child,’ Mum said and I looked at her, surprised and not a little shocked, before realising that she didn’t know about what he had done to Jenny. I thought Danny was evil, pure evil, and I wasn’t really interested in why he had turned out that way.
‘Why did he tell you all this now?’
Vickers shifted a little on the edge of the sofa. I gazed at him imploringly. I didn’t want Mum to know I had been involved. The thought of explaining it all to her made me feel faint.
‘Ah … we got some new information that led us to make enquiries with Mr Keane. I think he’d been waiting to be asked, to be honest with you, Mrs Barnes. Pretty much as soon as our interrogators mentioned Charlie’s name, he told us everything. We were talking to him about another matter as well, and I think it’s fair to say he wasn’t as forthcoming there.’ He shot a meaningful look in my direction and I suppressed a sigh. Of course Danny wouldn’t own up to Jenny’s murder – not when there was no one else to blame.
‘How can you be sure he isn’t making it all up?’ Mum’s voice was steady, but her eyes looked strained.
‘We believe that he’s telling us the truth, Mrs Barnes, or I wouldn’t be here,’ Vickers said gently. ‘He doesn’t have any reason to lie to us about Charlie.’
I cleared my throat and the three of them turned to look at me. The policewoman started, as if she’d forgotten I was even in the room. ‘What happened to Danny’s mother? Derek killed her too, didn’t he, a few years after Charlie?’
Vickers sighed. ‘There was a lot of local gossip about the younger boy, Paul. People were saying that he wasn’t Derek’s son at all, that he had been conceived while Derek was in prison in 1995. The dates didn’t match up, and there’s no way Ada would have dared to be unfaithful to her husband, even if he was tucked away in Pentonville. But the rumours were enough to send Derek off the deep end. Ada ended up at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck and there was a ton of evidence she’d been roughed up. They should have charged him with murder, but they reckoned they’d get a conviction for manslaughter.’ Vickers shook his head. ‘Juries can be funny about domestic murders. You never know which way they’ll jump. It only takes one loudmouth with suspicions about his own wife to start sticking up for the defendant and you can lose the lot. They’re like sheep – where one leads, the others follow, even if it’s against all common sense. He got five years; he was out in three. And not long after that, his luck ran out.’ There was a definite note of satisfaction in Vickers’ voice. ‘He wasn’t back more than a couple of months before he met his maker. He fell down the stairs in his house late one night, after coming back from the pub, and cracked his skull. Never woke up.’
Vickers couldn’t have missed the coincidence. That was how Ada had died. I wondered, unease prickling up and down my spine, if that had been Danny’s first murder. But from what I had heard that evening, Derek had deserved it, and more. No one would have mourned Derek Keane’s passing.
‘So there’s just the two boys left. Danny was eighteen when his mother died, and he pretty much brought up Paul on his own. They looked at taking Paul into care, but Danny managed to convince them to leave him where he was. For better or for worse, there was a trend at the time to keep families together.’ Vickers shrugged. ‘You might think he would have done better in a foster family, or if he’d been adopted. With a heritage like that, he’s never really had much of a chance.’
We sat for a moment in silence, contemplating the fate of the Keane family. Then Mum stirred. ‘What happens now?’
I glanced at her, then looked again, really stared. Her face had smoothed, somehow – lost that clenched look I hated so much. Just for a moment, I could see the woman I only knew from photographs taken before Charlie disappeared, and she was beautiful.
‘Now we find Charlie,’ Vickers said levelly. ‘We’ve arranged to search the area Danny described to us, starting tomorrow morning at seven. We’re bringing him along so he can show us where he remembers his father digging. The pair of them walked some way from the access gate. I’m hoping that he’ll recognise the place when he sees it, so he can help us to narrow the search area. Otherwise we’ll be there for weeks.’
‘Don’t you have high-tech searching equipment, like on TV?’ I asked.
‘That stuff never works. In my experience, you either get inside information or trip over the body. But we’ve got Danny, and he’s cooperating. We’ll find Charlie. Don’t you worry.’
He stood up, joints protesting with a volley of cracks that sounded like small-arms fire, and extended a hand to my mother. ‘I know this must be a terrible shock for you, Mrs Barnes. Can I suggest that you let my colleague here make you a cup of tea?’
‘I don’t—’ Mum began, but he cut her off smoothly.
‘I want to have a word with Sarah, if that’s all right, before we go.’
The policew
oman was standing at Mum’s elbow, and helped her to her feet at Vickers’ nod. I was braced for Mum to argue with them, and it was a surprise when she meekly followed the woman to the door. When she got there, however, she stopped, one hand on the door frame for support, or effect, or both.
‘I must thank you, Chief Inspector Vickers.’
‘No need. No need at all.’ Vickers shoved his hands in his pockets and ducked his head. ‘If you have any questions or want any reassurance, do call me. Sarah has my number. And we’ll let you know as soon as we find anything.’
Once Mum was safely installed in the kitchen behind a closed door, Vickers headed out to the front of the house and I followed.
‘He didn’t confess to Jenny’s murder, in case you didn’t guess.’
‘Why am I not surprised?’ I folded my arms tightly, hugging myself against the cold. It was starting to rain again, coin-sized drops of water falling like hammer blows around us.
‘The sex was all her idea. He went along with it because he wanted to make some money – his job doesn’t pay enough.’ Vickers’ tone was cutting. ‘He recruited abusers from his dad’s old mates. That was something they had in common, apparently – an interest in kids.’
‘I don’t think I want to hear any more,’ I said, and my teeth were starting to chatter.
‘What he told us confirmed what Paul said – he did it all for you.’
‘God …’
‘He never thought he was worthy of you, apparently. He’s got you up on quite a pedestal. So he went on living out his fantasies with young Jenny, who didn’t know any better. He’s immature. Inadequate. Afraid of women. Kids are easier to handle.’
‘I understand,’ I managed. ‘Thank you for explaining.’
Vickers nodded. ‘I know you’d have preferred it if I hadn’t told you, but it’s for the best. Get it out in the open. It’ll be reported, when it comes to court – you need to prepare yourself for the publicity.’
‘Will I be a witness?’ I couldn’t think of anything worse than standing in court, accusing Danny, looking him in the eye …
‘Up to the CPS and the barristers, but I can’t think why. You don’t actually have anything relevant to say, do you? Not now Danny’s confessed. It’s not as if you witnessed anything strange going on over there.’ Vickers jerked his head in the direction of number 7 as he spoke.
‘No,’ I said numbly. ‘I didn’t notice anything.’ I’d been lost in my own tragedy, blind to the new one that was unfolding across the street. I’d kept my head down, my face turned away. I’d missed all the clues.
Vickers leaned past me and called, ‘Anna!’
The kitchen door opened and his PC hurried out, looking relieved. Vickers turned and went down the path towards his car. I followed him again, drawing the cuffs of my jumper down over my hands.
‘Inspector, I just wanted to say – thank you for not saying anything about Danny and me in front of Mum.’
‘She’s a real lady, isn’t she? Dignified.’
‘She can be,’ I said, thinking of the many occasions when she had been quite the opposite. It was true, though, she hadn’t let me down in front of the police.
Vickers had turned away from me and was folding himself into his car. I went over to stand by the door.
‘Inspector … tomorrow, could I come along?’
He stopped dead. ‘To the dig, you mean? Why?’
I gave a one-shouldered shrug. ‘I just feel that someone from the family should be there.’
‘You do know that Daniel Keane is going to be there too.’
I nodded. ‘I’ll stay well away from him, I promise. I really don’t want to talk to him.’
Vickers lifted his right leg into the car and reached past me to grab the door handle. I hopped out of the way. ‘You can be very persuasive when you choose to be. But I don’t want any scenes. This is not your opportunity to get your revenge.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I just – I’d like to come along. To be there for Charlie.’
He sighed. ‘We do try to respect the wishes of the family on these occasions. Against my better judgement, I’ll send Blake around to collect you tomorrow morning. Be ready at 6.30.’
I beamed. ‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t thank me. And wear wellingtons, if you’ve got them. Have you heard the forecast? We’ll be needing an ark if it doesn’t let up soon.’ Shaking his head, Vickers slammed the car door. I watched him drive away, strangely glad that he had been the one to tell us about Charlie. I couldn’t tell how Mum would react once the news had sunk in, but at least she had heard it with composure, and believed it.
The rain was beginning to be more organised, gathering strength. Even so, before I went inside, I forced myself to look across the street, at number 7. The windows were dark, the curtains drawn. The house had an abandoned look, and all of the little defects I had noticed before looked worse, as if it was starting to corrupt and decay before my eyes. ‘I hope you fall down,’ I said aloud, hating it, hating what it represented. All those years of waiting. All that pain.
I still saw Danny Keane as a monster, not a victim. He’d chosen to follow in his father’s footsteps, even though he knew better than anyone else how much damage that could do. It was hard to accept that across the road, not fifty yards from my front door, there had been such a catastrophic failure of imagination, of self-awareness, of simple humanity. Knowing it had happened didn’t make it any easier to understand.
Mum was holding a glass when I got back to the sitting room, which didn’t surprise me. But the difference I had marked in her appearance was still there. She looked up when I came in.
‘Have they gone?’
I nodded.
‘Were you surprised by what he had to say?’
I didn’t really know how to answer her. Did she mean about Danny? Or that Charlie was dead? ‘I didn’t know that Derek Keane was so evil,’ I said in the end, lamely.
‘I never liked him,’ Mum said and took a long swallow from her glass. Whisky, by the looks of it. ‘I never liked Charlie playing with Danny. Your father –’ I stiffened, ready to leap to his defence ‘–always thought I was a snob, because the Keanes weren’t well off and Danny always looked – well, dirty. But I didn’t like Derek. He came over here, just after we moved in, and asked if I needed any jobs done around the place – you know, DIY. There were lots of things to do, actually – the house was very rundown. About as bad as it is now,’ she said with a little laugh, looking around in some surprise as if she hadn’t actually seen it for a decade or so. ‘But there was something about him. His eyes. They were … greedy. And I was on my own in the house, just with you. You were only a baby. I said no, we were fine, and I shut the door straight after that; I didn’t even say goodbye. It was rude, really. I wouldn’t have done it ordinarily. But there was something about him that frightened me.’ She sighed. ‘I’m glad to know, you know. About Charlie.’
‘It’s better to know.’ It was the first thing we’d agreed on in years.
She drained the glass and set it down. ‘I’m going to bed.’
‘I might be gone in the morning, when you get up. I’m going out – early.’
‘To where they’re going to dig?’
I spun twelve different lies around in my head, then gave up. ‘Yes.’
‘I’d do the same if I were you.’
I gaped. I was poised to give her all the reasons why I should go, all the arguments that would persuade her it was the right thing to do. Not needing them was distinctly weird.
She stood up and came over to me. With just a second’s hesitation, she put her arms around me and squeezed. ‘You’re a good daughter, Sarah,’ she whispered, then went past me and up the stairs before I could muster a response. And the good daughter sat down on the sofa and cried her heart out, for her mother, for her father, for Charlie and Jenny and all of them, all the victims, for longer than I care to admit.
2002
Ten years missing
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The bedroom is small, overheated and full of people I don’t know, and I sit on the floor, my knees pulled up to my chest. The stereo is pumping out a bass-heavy dance track. It’s so loud that the beat vibrates in my chest. Two girls are kissing uninhibitedly in the corner, while a group of boys heckle them from the bed, half entertained, half awed. I am holding a coffee cup filled with blackcurrant vodka, as sticky as cough syrup and about as inviting.
The room is dim, lit only by a desk lamp that has been twisted to shine up the wall. I don’t know whose room this is, or how they managed to decorate it in the space of two days with cushions and posters and a rug for the floor, so that it doesn’t have the bland, institutional austerity of my own room down the corridor. People are dancing, shouting conversations, making friends. I try to decide what to do with my face, settling on a frozen half-smile. I am petrified. I am never going to fit in. I have made a mistake by choosing this university, this course, this hall of residence.
A tall, athletic guy pushes through the crowd and sees me. He’s a second-year student who I met earlier in the day at an induction session. To me, he seems terrifyingly grown-up and accomplished. He reaches out and grabs my hand, hauling me to my feet.
‘Come with me,’ he bawls in my ear.
‘Where to?’ I ask, but he doesn’t hear. He draws me out of the room and down the corridor to the stairwell, where there’s a little group of people. I don’t recognise most of them, but one or two are on my course. The stairwell is cool and quiet. A girl with a nose piercing and a distant expression has opened the window, and is smoking, against all regulations. She tries half-heartedly to waft the smoke out through the window with her hand, but most of it blows back, swirling around us. I would like a cigarette, I think. I would like to have something to do.