by Tony Parsons
‘Seeing little black stars?’
She nodded.
‘You shouldn’t be walking about alone,’ I said. ‘It’s concussion, Edie.’
She cursed me in the darkness and I saw that her eyes were wet with tears.
‘You shouldn’t be going home alone,’ I insisted. ‘We can get you a ride …’
‘I’ve got a ride,’ she said, and I now saw the man beyond the doorway, waiting for her.
He was a good-looking man in a suit and tie, like a politician on the campaign trail, but a lot older than I had expected, maybe the far side of forty. With his shock of black hair, neatly trimmed, and the fitness of the college athlete who stayed in shape for the next twenty years, he was undoubtedly a handsome man, and he knew it. He’s no stranger to a jumbo-sized bottle of male moisturiser, I thought. When he looked at his watch, I saw his wedding ring glint in the strip lighting of the hospital corridor and I wondered what lies he had told to his wife back at home tonight.
Edie Wren’s married man.
She was staring at me defiantly.
‘How’s the boss?’ I said.
‘Lucky. If you can call getting battery acid on the back of your neck lucky. DCI Whitestone is tough. She’ll have a scar for life, of course. But the collar of her coat took most of it. She’s going to need a new coat.’
I swallowed hard.
‘And Gane’s dead, isn’t he?’
‘No. Fat Roy was DOA – but not Curtis.’
‘But … I saw him fall.’
‘He’s alive.’
We were silent in the darkness. The hospital made no sound but not far away I could hear the heavy traffic around Archway.
‘Gane broke his spinal cord,’ Wren said. ‘But he’s not dead.’
I could hear her trying to sort out her breathing.
‘It’s a bit worse than that,’ she said.
Daylight.
The prettiest girl I had ever seen was standing by my bed. Not a girl – a woman. But a woman who had all of her life ahead of her. A blonde in a red coat. For the rest of my life I knew I would always look twice whenever I saw a blonde in a red coat.
‘Who was he?’ Charlotte Gatling asked quietly, her right hand nervously twisting over her left wrist, that strange gesture, as if she was holding hands with herself.
The fog was still in my head but I knew who she was talking about. I closed my eyes and I could see him. I knew that I would always see him now.
‘His name was Michael McCarthy,’ I said. ‘He was four years old. He lived with his mum in South London. Brixton.’ I opened my eyes and looked at her. ‘He was a little boy who never stood a chance.’
She sat on the bed.
‘You thought they had my nephew,’ she said. ‘You were looking for Bradley.’
I nodded. I felt like I had failed everyone. Especially Michael McCarthy and Bradley Wood.
‘The man on the news,’ she said. ‘The man they are hunting – Peter Nawkins. Is he the one who killed my sister?’
‘We found evidence that connected him to her.’
‘What evidence?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
A flash of impatience in the blue eyes.
‘Believe me, Detective Wolfe – I want to know.’
‘Peter Nawkins was obsessed with your sister. We discovered pictures of her – I don’t know, hundreds of images, maybe thousands – above his bed. And then he ran. He’s running still. The innocent don’t run.’
‘Will you catch him?’
‘Catching him is an absolute certainty.’
‘Anything – any sign – my nephew …’
Her eyes were pleading with me and I knew she wanted me to tell her something reassuring.
‘We’ll keep searching for Bradley,’ I said. ‘And we will never stop until it’s over.’
She nodded, satisfied. And then something inside her seemed to collapse and she covered her face with her hands. I watched her sobbing with her face hidden.
‘That poor child,’ she said. ‘Poor little Michael. What he must have suffered …’
She wasn’t crying for her nephew. She was crying for a child she had never known and that stirred some feeling inside me that I thought had gone forever.
I touched her arm lightly.
She composed herself.
‘The nurse said you had a knife wound,’ she said. ‘Are you in pain?’
‘The pain’s getting better,’ I said.
‘Have you been stabbed before?’
‘This is a first. And also a last, I hope.’
‘The men you found – the ones that did this to you – they’re nothing to do with what happened to my sister and her family?’
I shook my head.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You were looking for Bradley. You were risking your life to find him. You were putting your life on the line when I know you have a family of your own. And I can tell you – he’s not dead. Bradley’s not dead. Do you believe me?’
‘Sure.’
She squeezed my hand.
In her perfect Grace Kelly face I could see the ghost of her sister and I could understand how Peter Nawkins would look up from his labours and fall in love with that face.
Just one look. That is sometimes all it takes.
I could imagine Nawkins looking up outside her home and being poleaxed by all that smiling blue-eyed perfection. I could see it so easily, and understand how that lonely, simple-minded man could look at Mary Wood’s face in the dying light of the summer and believe that she was the best thing he had ever seen in his life. What I could not understand was why he would want to destroy something he loved so much.
I placed my free hand on top of Charlotte’s hand.
I realised I had stopped breathing.
‘Let me hold you for a moment,’ she said, and looked at me for some response, but I could not come up with anything, I was completely out of responses.
So she wrapped her arms around me and held me in an awkward embrace. I could smell her perfume and, beyond that, the beautiful fact of her existence. Her head was close to mine and when I turned to look at her she pulled away.
I watched her smooth her red coat and do up a button that had somehow come undone.
‘My brother’s waiting for me,’ she said.
18
I saw her again when I went back to work. I looked up from my workstation in MIR-1 and there she was on the big flat-screen TV, her face pale and impassive, and one hundred cameras clicking like crazy every time she raised her head.
It was late afternoon and they were having for a press conference down on the second floor of West End Central. Charlotte Gatling settled herself at a long table next to her brother Nils with Detective Chief Superintendent Swire next to him, the Chief Super’s hand covering the microphone in front of her as a Media Liaison Officer leaned in for a few last words.
‘Thank you for coming, everyone,’ the MLO said. ‘DCS Swire will be making a statement about recent events. We will not be taking any questions. Thank you.’
Charlotte turned to look at the MLO as she stepped away and the battery of cameras clicked in a furious attempt to capture the moment.
‘Grief and beauty,’ Wren said to herself. ‘They love it, don’t they?’
The door of MIR-1 opened and Dr Joe Stephen walked in, and when I saw how the forensic psychologist looked at us – a mixture of shock and pity – I knew our MIT had taken a real beating.
Wren was still muttering to herself, displaying all the classic symptoms of concussion, and the million nerve cells in her brain that were never coming back. I looked all right but the bandages that covered my stab wound were wet with the slow warm ooze of fresh blood, leaving a growing stain on my shirt. And on one side of her neck, Whitestone had a livid pink acid burn.
I suddenly wondered if she had had the same kind of conversation with her son that I had with Scout. Did the boy dream of protecting his mother? Did he want her to quit her job? Was he afraid of wha
t would become of him if his mother were gone? And was she? I wanted to talk to Whitestone about all of these things, but I did not know where to start.
Dr Joe touched the back of the empty chair at DI Gane’s workstation.
‘Did we pick up Nawkins?’ he said.
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Where will he run to, Dr Joe?’
He thought about it.
‘Where is he loved?’
Wren laughed bitterly.
‘Nowhere,’ I said.
‘Then he’ll just run,’ said Dr Joe.
‘They’re starting,’ Whitestone said.
‘First of all, our condolences to the family of Michael McCarthy,’ DCS Swire began. ‘I can confirm that last night’s operation on The Bishops Avenue was not – as we first believed – related to the investigation into the murder of the Wood family and the abduction of Bradley Wood.’ She paused, making eye contact with the room. She was a fine public speaker, moving at exactly her own pace. ‘Arrests have been made. Charges will follow.’ A glance down at her notes. ‘Fifteen children, ranging in age from nine to fifteen, have been taken into the care and custody of social services.’ Another pause. ‘We remain totally committed to finding those responsible for the murders of Brad Wood – Mary Wood – Marlon Wood – Piper Wood – and the abduction of Bradley Wood.’ Her mouth set in hard lines. ‘We are confident that Peter Nawkins can assist us with our enquiries and would ask anyone with knowledge of his current whereabouts to contact the number behind me. Do not approach this man. He is a convicted killer and quite capable of killing again. Thank you.’
They got up to leave. Scarlet Bush, the chief crime reporter of the Daily Post, was on her feet.
‘Charlotte! Charlotte!’
She instinctively turned to the sound of her name. The cameras clicked with excitement.
The MLO was holding up her hands.
‘We’re not taking questions!’
Scarlet Bush ignored her.
‘Charlotte, what would you say to the people who have taken Bradley?’
There was silence in the room. Even the cameras were still as Charlotte stared at the reporter and then beyond her, to something only she could see.
‘Please,’ Charlotte said. ‘I would say – please.’
Her brother had her by the arm. He appeared to be trying to get her to move away. But she did not move and for the first time I saw the steel in her.
‘I would say – please don’t hurt him,’ she said. ‘I would say – whoever you are – whatever you have done – please see that Bradley is just a little boy who never hurt anyone and who does not deserve to be hurt …’
She lowered her head. Nil Gatling’s face was a mask. He was no longer trying to pull her away.
‘I would say – please let Bradley come home.’
Then the press conference was over and DCS Swire came up to MIR-1 to explain to us why that was never going to happen.
‘You’ve been in the wars,’ DCS Swire said, coming into MIR-1. ‘Let me have a look at you, Pat.’
DCS Swire inspected the burn on Whitestone’s neck. A layer of skin about the size of a saucer had been scorched away behind her left ear, and the raw angry pink mark would be there for the rest of her life. Swire hugged her and Whitestone winced with what looked like a combination of embarrassment and physical pain.
Wren and I exchanged a look. We had never seen DCS Swire hug anyone before. Wren grinned nervously, as if she might be next in line for a hug.
Whitestone’s arms hung awkwardly by her side but after a while she gently patted Swire’s back, as if at once thanking her and telling her – enough.
Swire stepped back.
‘How’s DI Gane?’ she said, staring hard.
‘It’s not great,’ Whitestone said.
Swire nodded grimly. She was a cold, controlled woman, not easy to like. But I thought I saw for the first time how much she cared about every one of us.
‘And how are you doing, Pat?’ she said.
Whitestone pulled a face, and I saw her fight to control her emotions. She did not say that she should have waited – for more backup, for the hats and bats, for the guns. But DCS Swire knew that’s exactly what she was thinking.
‘You made the right call, Pat,’ she said quietly.
Whitestone swallowed hard, and tried for a smile that would not come.
‘Did I?’ she said, a glint of tears behind her glasses, which she removed, angrily wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, looking half-blind and easy to hurt until she had jammed her spectacles back on. She sniffed once and blinked at DCS Swire, waiting for the rest of it, her face expressionless.
‘There could have been greater loss of life if you had waited,’ Swire told her. ‘There could have been more than one dead child. You did the right thing. But maybe if you had waited you wouldn’t have got so knocked about.’
‘Knocked about,’ Whitestone said flatly.
We were all masters of understatement. But knocked about didn’t quite say it this time. Not with Gane in the hospital.
DCS Swire nodded. She wasn’t giving Whitestone a line to comfort her. This was what she believed. Whitestone had made the right call and we had done our job.
‘We’ll take good care of DI Gane,’ Swire said. ‘That’s what we do. We take care of our own. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Swire turned to look at the rest of us.
‘You smashed one of biggest paedophile rings in northern Europe. A lot of evil men are going away for a very long time. And a lot of children have been saved.’
I thought of Michael McCarthy. I knew I would always think of Michael McCarthy.
‘You all understand our priority now?’ Swire said.
‘Find the boy,’ Whitestone said. ‘Find Bradley Wood.’
Swire shook her head.
‘The boy is dead,’ she said quietly.
We let it sink in.
‘What?’ Wren said.
‘Bradley Wood must be dead by now,’ DCS Swire said. ‘He’s gone and he’s never coming back. Maybe he’s within a mile of his home in Highgate. Maybe he’s in a river or a skip or a sewer out in the wilds of Essex. But how can he possibly be alive? What conceivable scenario encourages us to believe that child is still alive?’
We were silent.
Because it was true.
It was impossible to see how Bradley Wood’s life could have been spared.
Charlotte and her brother might want to believe that Bradley was being taken care of by someone kind. Perhaps they had to believe it because it was the only way they could stay sane. Perhaps holding onto that belief was the only way that they could snatch a couple of hours of sleep every night.
But it didn’t happen in the real world.
In the real world children were taken for sex and then they were disposed of.
Or children were taken to shut them up and then they were disposed of.
They were never stolen to be given a happy, loving home. The people who are desperate to love a child do not steal somebody else’s’ child. That is a straw that desperate families cling to. And I understood why.
I would have clung to that straw myself.
‘Bradley is never coming home,’ DCS Swire said. ‘Bradley Wood is gone. If he was lucky, it was over quickly. And if we’re lucky, we’ll find a body to give to the family. But let’s not kid ourselves. There are no happy endings for children that are lost for this long. So just nail the perp. Just get Peter Nawkins. Dead or alive, it makes no odds to me. Just get the bastard so we can shut this circus down.’
So we drove out to Oak Hill Farm.
And we tore that place apart.
19
The thousand faces of Mary Wood smiled down on the single bed of Peter Nawkins.
A SOCO on a stepladder photographed the shrine on the caravan’s ceiling while another SOCO filmed it. As they finished their work, the photographs started to slowly come down, and were carefull
y placed in evidence bags. All those smiling faces captured forever behind cellophane and a file number.
Sean Nawkins stared up at the shrine with a sick look on his face.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he muttered to himself, in the tone of a man who believes the truth at last.
‘And you’re telling me that you didn’t know this was here?’ I said.
He kept looking at the pictures of Mary.
‘How would I know?’ he said.
‘You never came in this room?’
‘He was my brother, not my wife.’
‘But you’ve lied about everything else,’ I said. ‘You didn’t tell us you’d done work for the Woods. You didn’t tell us that your brother was at The Garden. You didn’t tell us that your brother had met Mary Wood. Look at me.’
He tore his eyes from the shrine. And for the first time I saw something like resignation in his eyes.
All around us a Specialist Search Team were removing the panels from the caravan walls, pulling up the floorboards, removing light fixtures. Whitestone and Wren crouched in a corner of the crowded caravan, watching the SST unscrew an electrical socket.
‘I was trying to protect him, that’s all.’ Nawkins said quietly.
‘You were perverting the course of justice,’ I said.
He snorted, the old defiance coming back. ‘At worst I’m a reluctant witness.’
‘Reluctant witness? What are you – a lawyer now? Your firm did work for the family!’
‘Months ago! Six months before … it happened.’
I took half a step closer to him. With the SOCOs and the Specialist Search Team and what was left of our MIT, Peter Nawkins’ little bedroom was fast resembling the Black Hole of Calcutta.
‘You – and your brother – met the Wood family and withheld that information from our murder investigation,’ I said.
‘We met her once!’ he protested. ‘And only her. Not the father. Not the children. Just the mother. Mrs Wood. Mary. On a very hot day in August. She brought us lemonade. And most of them don’t. These rich London types.’ His eyes clouded with resentment that was old and deep. ‘They would give a dog a drink before they’d give it to a gang of men.’
In my mind I saw them on the drive, the crew of men, sweaty and shirtless over the boiling black tarmac, and Mary Wood coming out with a tray of lemonade, and Peter Nawkins looking up and staring at her as if she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life.