Twenty minutes later, the three officers left, deciding to postpone questioning the boy until the following day. Joaquin had already fallen asleep in his father’s arms.
“We’ll be here at nine o’clock in the morning,” said Jo. “But I think it’s only fair to tell you this, Mary, Joaquin will have to be taken from you for a while, to undergo psychiatric assessment; to see what can be done to help him. I hope it won’t be for long.”
Tearfully, Mary saw them out.
As they drove away, Jo sighed and shook her head. “That’s just about the cutest cold-blooded killer I’ve ever seen,” she said.
Stopping in a lay-by ten minutes from home, Tom sent Mags a text to let her know of his imminent arrival. For a full five days now, in the wake of the revelation about Jad, the subject of their discord had not been mentioned. Perhaps, he thought, they had put that behind them. Perhaps Mags was prepared to moderate her opposition to his work for the benefit of their personal relationship; and the leak to the press would have no effect one way or the other.
The previous two evenings that same text message had prompted her appearance on the steps in front of the house as he pulled in through the gates. Today she was conspicuously absent. He put his car away in the garage – something he rarely did these days – to give her a bit more time to emerge, just in case she had simply mistimed her coming out of the house. He went in, making more than sufficient noise to announce his arrival.
“Mags!” he shouted. “Daddy’s home! Mags are you okay; where are you?”
“In here.” The flat statement came from just a few yards away in the front room – their front room. Tom went in. Mags was sitting at one of the chairs in the window with her back to him; she didn’t turn round.
Tom kept trying.
“Hide and seek, eh? How exciting.”
“Have you read this?” Mags said, without changing her position, but raising the folded paper above her head for him to see.
“Well, no… ”
“But of course, you don’t need to, do you, because you wrote it.”
“No I didn’t actually; Harriet Bradley wrote it,” said Tom, referring to the name of the reporter.
“But it’s yours, isn’t it?”
“It’s a rather tabloid-ish attempt to trivialise a great deal of very serious work with which I have been involved, if that’s what you mean,” he replied.
“Did you leak it?” asked Mags
“Of course I didn’t,” he said, but with no indignation, which Mags was quick to pick up on.
“But you knew it was going to be leaked.” Mags’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper, and all the more threatening for it, like a stealth attack which carries insufficient impetus to meet it decisively head-on. He sat down in the chair next to hers and tried to look into her face. She turned away, avoiding any chance of eye contact.
“Mags… darling,” he said. “You knew I was working on this. You’ve known for weeks, months. I thought we’d reached a sort of truce; accepting our differences. Don’t tell me you haven’t enjoyed the past few days as much as I have. Why has that got to change?”
She sprang to her feet, taking a few steps away from him and then spinning round to face him from the centre of the room.
“Because this is obscene!” she said, hurling the paper at him. “I can’t believe you’re planning to put kids away for ever, when they haven’t even committed a crime. Or perhaps I’ve read that wrong – five or six times! You want to turn this country into a police state, for God’s sake! Well, I’m not voting for you and I’ll never vote for you again. And I’ll make sure that everyone knows your wife is not voting for you! I can’t believe it! Inserting bombs into people that you can activate by remote control – that’s right isn’t it?”
Mags was going red with rage, shouting almost hysterically at him.
“That’s absolutely wrong, in fact!” he yelled back. “And I’d really like to know where you got that from. You’ve had access to all this stuff all the time I’ve been working on it. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was you who leaked this!”
Mags was shocked at the accusation; it seemed to stabilise her for a moment.
“Oh don’t be ridiculous! Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “Maybe because you think everyone out there thinks like you do. To try and disgrace me, or something.”
“Thanks very much,” sneered Mags. “That’s what you think of me, is it?”
“Jesus Christ! You just said you’re going to tell everyone on the fucking planet that you’re never going to vote for me again. Is that supposed to be a public demonstration of marital solidarity?”
Mags didn’t speak. Tom went on.
“You didn’t say what a bastard Jad was when he said all this stuff. He’s a bloody hero; George is a bloody hero; I’m a bloody barbarian! How does that work? Andrew thinks… ”
“Oh, let’s not talk about Andrew! If it was eighty years ago in another country, he’d be dressed from head to foot in black leather and goose-stepping to work in jackboots! I thought you were a notch or two better than that! I just can’t see what you can possibly achieve with these… well, you said it – barbaric tactics; other than alienating a whole generation of innocents!”
“Innocents! There’s that fucking word again! Bloody hell, Mags, you only ever read or hear the bits that add to your case, don’t you? We’re talking about the really, really, bad few that contaminate the vast, vast, good majority who are, at the moment, too scared not to follow them. We’re trying to save a generation, if you’d only open your eyes and ears. And seeing as you’ve asked the question, what we – and I mean me, John Alexander Deverall, the recently widowed George Holland – whose wife was brutally murdered by a group of your innocents – and similar heathens – what we want to achieve is a world where the bad guys are scared of the police and not the other way round. And if that’s a police state, then bring it on!”
Mags turned away from him, making to leave the room.
“Listen, Mags,” said Tom his voice softer now, “if the reaction to this is adverse, then I’ll drop it. If the public throw their arms up in horror, like you, then I’ll resign – do something else, help you with the business, whatever. I only want to do this because I honestly believe it’s what people want. If I’m wrong then that’s an end to it. That’s a promise. You and I are more important than anything.”
Mags had stopped. She turned back to face him.
“And what if the reaction isn’t adverse, as you put it? What if everyone – or the vast majority – go for it? What then?”
Tom hesitated.
“Then I’d have to go ahead with it,” he said.
“I see,” said Mags, quietly again. “So just let me get this right. We – you and I – are more important than anything. But that’s only if people don’t support your proposals. If they do, then you’ll put the feelings of the electorate before those of your wife, and, presumably, in such a case, you and I are not more important than anything.”
Tom sighed; that was exactly the message he had just delivered.
“So basically,” she went on, “whether or not our relationship survives will be decided by the voting public. I suppose I should feel privileged that our future is important enough to be the subject of a national referendum. But, for some reason, I don’t feel that way at all.”
He watched her leave the room, not knowing what to say.
David Gerrard was raging around his office at Parkside like a wild bull. It was 9.05 am and he had just taken a call from Jo, who had informed him that the Enderbys were not at home, and their car, a blue Renault Clio, was missing from the close outside.
“Bloody brilliant!” he had yelled down the phone. “We told them they were about to lose their little boy, and then buggered off home and went to bed! Why in Christ’s name didn’t we leave someone watching the bloody house?”
Jo pulled the car into Long Beach, with Geoff calling out directions
from the map of the site to get them to Mary’s sister’s caravan. Judy Standitch was in the back. There was no sign of the blue Clio outside and no-one was inside the caravan itself. The people next door said they’d arrived very late last night but had left again by the time they had got up.
Jo phoned David.
“Suggest you check Shoeton Point,” he said. He was calmer now. “Mary said Winston had a job there and did some fishing. Get out there.”
Five minutes later, they were speaking again.
“They’re not at the Point,” said Jo, “and no-one’s seen them here this morning. Where was that place she said they went walking?”
There was a pause while David checked the transcript of the interview on his screen.
“She said ‘the island’. Does that help?” he said.
“There are a few islands here – some are sort of pseudo-islands, but they still call them islands. Didn’t she say something about managing to get passes?”
There was a few moments’ silence, as David checked again.
“Yes, that’s it, must be Skoalness! The island’s owned by QuanTechnick, government research agency. They’d have to have passes to get on there. Listen, I’ll get the chopper boys out to search the area for their car. I suggest you head out there anyway. I’ve got a feeling that’s where they’ll be.”
Jo set off again, finding the single lane onto Skoalness Island. They showed their IDs at the visitors’ lodge where the attendant confirmed the blue Clio had been through the check point, and set off along the six mile track towards its furthest-most point. The island was predominantly farmland and mostly below the level of the highest tides. As a consequence it was protected by a sea wall, and was a popular area for birdwatchers who mainly strayed beyond the wall onto the sandbanks and mudflats which built up against it.
They had only been going about five minutes when a helicopter raced past them towards Skoal Head, the north-east tip of the island.
“Christ that was quick,” said Jo. “Very impressive.”
Geoff and Judy craned their necks to watch it go by.
“That’s S-and-R,” he said, “not one of ours.”
“Oh, please God, no,” said Jo, speaking for all three of them.
By the time they got there, all three bodies had been set down just inside the wall. Shocked birdwatchers and walkers, observing the scene from a distance, were speaking in hushed, distressed tones as the plastic body bags were unrolled ready to receive their tragic cargo.
An elderly couple were talking to the coxswain of the inshore lifeboat. Jo slumped forward in the driver’s seat, hands on wheel, head on hands, and sobbed uncontrollably. Geoff got out from the car and went across to the couple and the lifeboat man. Judy leant over from the back seat and placed a comforting arm around Jo’s convulsing shoulders.
Geoff showed his ID.
“I think I know who these people are,” he said. “We came here looking for them. Can you tell me what happened?”
The coxswain turned to the couple who were clearly very shaken and distressed.
“Would you like to tell the detective what you just told me?”
The man nodded.
“And you are?” asked Geoff.
“Peter Grantham and this is my wife, Elizabeth. We’re birdwatchers. We were just panning round over there, watching some Whimbrel flying across that spit of sand” – he pointed – “and we noticed these three people. They were up to their waists already – the child nearly to his shoulders. It’s a lovely spot but really dangerous if you don’t know it. The tide pours in behind it making it into an island, then… ”
He choked momentarily at the recent memory.
“That’s what we thought must have happened today at first,” he went on. “We shouted to them but they just didn’t respond. Just stood there with their arms around each other.” His wife had started to cry quietly. “We called 999 and within a few minutes the lifeboat and the helicopter arrived. But too late. They’d disappeared into the water by then. They did a fantastic job – the helicopter winch-man got all three out in no time, but… ”
“The really strange thing,” said Elizabeth Grantham, “was that it looked like they wanted it to happen; like they wanted to drown.”
Tom was in Jackie’s office, just after midday, when Jenny phoned him on his mobile.
“Mr Brown, I have Detective Superintendent Allan Pickford from Parkside on the office line. Would it be convenient to speak to him right now?”
“Do you know what it’s about, Jenny?”
“Yes, it’s to do with the missing child who was involved in the Meadow Village shootings.”
Tom looked across at Jackie, pointing to his phone. Jackie nodded.
“Yes, Jenny. Ask him to phone my mobile, please.”
In less than a minute his phone sounded again.
“Mr Brown?”
“Speaking, Allan – and I think it was ‘Tom’ last time we met.”
“You’re right, Tom, it was. I’m afraid we’ve had a rather tragic development in the search for Joaquin Enderby. You know we found the parents… ”
“Yes, Monday, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right, in a caravan at Southend. Well Joaquin turned up last night. Just walked into the house, apparently, as if he’d never been away. Anyway, it was a bit late to speak to him then – he was just about asleep by the time we got a couple of officers round there. Cut a long story short, by the time we got round this morning, they’d gone – back to the caravan, it turned out. And this morning – well, all three drowned off Skoal Head; apparently cut off by the tide.”
“Christ, that’s awful… ”
“But that’s not even the worst of it, Tom. It seems it was deliberate. Eyewitnesses said they just stood there together and let the sea take them.”
“God, those poor people. What could have been going through their minds?”
“I thought you should know because of… well they’re your constituents, of course, and it’s part of this whole sickening Meadow Village thing. Right now the official line is ‘tragic accident’, but I don’t know how long we can keep it to that. It seems the people who saw it happen don’t really believe that and we can’t stop them talking to the press. They’ll almost certainly be asked about it.”
“Okay, thanks, Allan. Appreciate the call.”
Jackie had been listening wide-eyed to Tom’s half of the conversation.
“And then there were eight,” he said, half to himself, as he ended the call.
“They’re sure it’s directly related?” asked Jackie, when he explained what had happened.
“I don’t know what the psychologists will make of it, but I do know for certain in my own mind that if the incident hadn’t happened last Saturday, eight more people would be alive today.”
“Should we tell Andrew?” Jackie asked.
“No, let him find out from someone else. I can’t face the prospect of his spinning this off the cuff into something positive. I’m afraid I might hit him.”
“Oh, come on, then,” said Jackie. “Let’s go tell him!”
Tom allowed himself a brief smile. Then he checked his watch.
“I’m heading over there for the surgery in a few minutes. Do you think I should go to the estate again?”
Jackie shook her head.
“To see who? There are no Enderbys there to sympathise with.”
Just after 1.00 pm, in Parkside MIT operations room, Geoff Drury brought the team up to date with the events of the morning. Missing from the meeting was DS Jo Cottrell. She had been inconsolable since their sighting of the bodies and David had sent her home accompanied by DC Baxter, who had since returned. Also present was Judy Standitch, whom Geoff had invited along with the DCI’s permission.
David listened to the account of the events from their visit to the Enderbys the previous evening up to Geoff ’s conversation with the couple who had reported the tragedy. His expression left no-one in doubt about his displea
sure, but he was on his best behaviour in front of Judy.
“I believe it was the right decision not to interview the child last night,” she said. “He was almost asleep when… ”
“I’m not claiming to be a professor of hindsight, Judy,” interrupted David. “God knows there are enough of those around. But that’s not the point at all.”
“I just think it was important not to appear to harass the family when they had just been reunited,” she went on. “In my opinion, Detective Sergeant Cottrell… ”
“And we are interested in your opinion, believe me. But putting a police car at the end of Dewsbury Close, out of sight of the house even, does not constitute harassment, but it would have been a good example of common sense. That was not your responsibility, Judy; that was most definitely ours. You have nothing to reproach yourself about.
“But what we had was an eight-year-old kid who was potentially very unstable – or whatever the PC term is for a child who’s been homeless for two months and who has just shot someone dead. His parents, who were so far past the end of their tether that they actually ran away, had just been joyfully re-united with him. They were then told they’d better expect to lose him again. Now if that’s not a recipe for a fucking calamity, then I don’t know what is!”
Judy’s face reddened.
“What will happen now, sir?” asked Omar.
“We get back to rounding up as many gang members as possible,” David replied. “What Detective Superintendent Pickford has decided to do, if anything, I am not party to as yet. I assume you did mean what happens next about the cock-up, Omar?”
“About anything, sir,” said Omar. “I was just worried about the sarge, that’s all.”
“Well, you’d hardly expect me to discuss DS Cottrell with you, Omar, or with anyone else for that matter.”
He looked round the room, feeling the team’s collective anxiety like a material presence.
“Look, hands up anyone here who, at some time or other, has made an error of judgement,” he said, raising his hand.
Everyone in the room followed David’s example.
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