It was all so similar to when Lucy’s son had gone missing that Matt had a horrifying sense of déjà vu. Although he had dealt with the murders of children since Jack, they had all started with the crime scene, rather than a search. The case was so similar, the boy so near in age, and even in appearance judging by the picture the parents had passed to the Response officers, that he felt that earlier case hanging over this one like a bad omen. His first impulse had been to send a team to search the spot Jack had been found, before he had taken a deep breath and tried to focus on the matter in hand. There would come a time for that.
Because, although no one would voice it out loud just yet, only an hour in, the fact was that when children this young went missing, if they weren’t found merely lost or playing outside their boundaries fairly quickly, the chances were high that either a fatal accident or something far more sinister had occurred. Young children, particularly pre-schoolers, didn’t just run away as a teenager might. Already an Incident Room was on standby and a Manager assigned; waiting, as if it were already a known fact, for the body to be found. That was the reason the first five hours were so crucial – any longer and the likelihood of the boy being found alive began to fall dramatically.
The question that had been on Lucy’s lips remained unspoken by the officers working under him, even Scott, but it was whirling around Matt’s head. Lucy had asked him for Prince’s whereabouts and he had been unable to help her; now that might be one question he could find the answer to, for himself at least.
Dailey had just put down the phone when Matt knocked and then walked straight in. He spoke before Matt had the chance to.
‘Prince is in the Midlands. East, rather than West, but it’s still close enough – less than fifty miles – that it could have been him. A senior officer is on their way to question him now. Meanwhile,’ he pushed a piece of paper over his desk towards the younger inspector, ‘there’s a printout from the PNC of every known child abuser and sex offender in the area. Should we need to ask questions later.’
Matt frowned. In truth he was surprised that Dailey would think to track down Prince so swiftly, before there was even any indication of what had happened to the child. After all, the first finger of suspicion was usually pointed at the parents. Harsh, but not without reason. Again Matt flashed back to Jack, remembering how he had questioned Ethan until it had been proved Dr Randall had been in theatre at the time, with his scalpel buried in a patient’s left ventricle. Funny, but he had never suspected Lucy.
‘Quick work, sir,’ he said now. ‘Have East Midlands sent one of their own to question Prince?’
Dailey eyed him, and Matt knew his superior knew exactly what he was thinking, and that he had no chance of getting a positive reaction to that thought.
‘Yes, naturally. But if he should turn out to be a suspect then I’ll be honest, Matt; I will have to consider taking you off this.’
Matt went to protest, but Dailey raised a hand and shook his head, a tiny yet final movement, and Matt swallowed his frustration.
‘You were lucky not to get a suspension last time, if not worse. I’m not putting you into an interview room with that boy again; if he complains it could jeopardise anything we may have on him, you know that.’
‘Sir.’ His tone was deliberately neutral. The undoubted common sense of Dailey’s words and his own commitment to his role didn’t stop him from wishing that he could have just a few minutes alone in an interview room with Terry Prince. What if he had been released, only to do it again? Matt felt almost impotent with rage.
‘Besides,’ Dailey went on, ‘we don’t know that anything adverse has happened to the boy yet. Let’s hope he’s just wandered off and got lost, shall we?’
‘You tracked down Prince quick enough,’ Matt pointed out. He would have thought that even in these circumstances it would have taken a few hours at least to discover the recently released killer’s so-called top secret identity and location. His earlier assessment of his superior had been correct – Dailey had no doubt known more than he had let on all along.
‘As soon as the media pick up on this, Prince’s name is going to be in the frame. We need to be seen to be acting on it. However, I don’t need to warn you to be careful with giving information if this goes to a press conference later?’
‘No, sir.’
Matt hated press conferences, but in cases like this they were a necessity in both drawing out witnesses and getting the media on board. As much as he had been pilloried by the local press recently, a child going missing meant an automatic rallying round of all parties involved, and the media had a crucial role to play in that. Social media too; now that was one aspect that had changed since Jack. Both a Facebook page and a Twitter feed would be set up to encourage people to share information and report sightings. Matt had little patience for it all; he was glad it was someone else’s responsibility.
His knew his responsibility; to find the boy.
‘You’re going to question the parents now?’
Matt nodded.
‘I’ll take DS Mullen. The FLO is on her way to speak to the grandparents; get a picture of the family.’
Dailey nodded his approval and Matt left his office, fetched Scott and made ready to interview the parents. He prayed there would be no suspicion of abuse. That by the time he got there the missing boy would have returned safe and sound.
Failing that, he just prayed he would find him alive.
The anguish on the woman’s face as she opened the door made Matt step back as he reached for his badge.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Winston, Mrs Armstrong, and this is Detective Sergeant Mullen. May we come in?’
‘Have you found him?’ The horror on the mother’s face made it clear that she thought the worst had happened. It was Scott who reassured her, flashing his charming smile and speaking in a soothing voice Matt had never managed to master. When it came to playing ‘good cop, bad cop’ he always found himself reluctantly cast into the role of ‘bad cop’ when he was working with Scott.
They went into a well decorated, tastefully furnished house with pictures on the wall of a young blond boy with blue eyes that stared innocently out of the frames. Again the similarities to that long-ago morning when he had gone round – a DS like Scott himself then – to question Lucy and Ethan were striking. Too striking, his intuition nagged at him, to be a coincidence.
A man who was obviously the father, from his resemblance to the boy in the picture, stood up and shook their hands, his own trembling. Matt’s first instinct was that they were genuine, but even so he kept an open mind. Statistics were too overwhelming to ignore.
As he went through the events of the morning with Mrs Armstrong, ascertaining the time her son Benjamin had gone missing, exactly where she had been standing and what their usual routines were, her husband tutted loudly, his face darkening with obvious impatience.
‘She told all this to the officers that first came out. Why aren’t you out looking for him?’
Again, Scott did the calming of ruffled feathers.
‘I know it’s frustrating sir, but we do need to be clear on details. We’re doing everything we can to find your son. Uniform are searching the area and making enquiries as we speak. Rest assured; this is our top priority right now.’
But Mr Armstrong had stopped listening, instead looking at Matt with comprehension dawning on his face.
‘You’re the one in the paper the other day aren’t you? With the mother of the other little boy who got killed?’
Matt gave him a tight smile. ‘I really don’t see what that has to do with…’ he began, only to be interrupted again as Mr Armstrong raised his voice, his hands now shaking violently.‘You were the one that found him, aren’t you? And his killer?’
The man looked at Matt with horror, as though he was a bad luck charm and the outcome of his earlier investigation might rub off on this one.
‘I was part of the investigation team,’ Matt said. It had always annoyed
him how popular perception always saw just the one hero, not the whole team who worked round the clock on murder and child abduction cases. Scott cut in, trying to reassure the parents and, for once, failing.
‘DI Winston was a pivotal part of that investigation, sir, and many since. The matter of your son’s disappearance is in the best hands.’
‘The other boy was killed!’ Mr Armstrong said, a touch of hysteria in his voice, causing his wife to burst into wrenching sobs that were painful to hear. Matt’s insides twisted.
He sat, feeling useless, as Scott calmed the pair and Matt was able to resume his questioning. The fight left Benjamin’s father as quickly as it had come, leaving only a desolate grief etched into the sagging lines of his face. His wife sat with her arms tight around herself, rocking backwards and forwards a little, her crushing despair tangible in the room.
When they left the couple Matt wanted to take her hands, look into her eyes and swear to her he would bring her son home, but of course he couldn’t and so he took his leave with his face and manner carefully neutral. When he mentioned the possibility of a televised appeal, she started sobbing again. Mr Armstrong nodded as he put an arm round his wife’s shoulders.
‘I can do it. At least I’ll be doing something, not waiting here for news.’
‘The minute any new information comes to light, you’ll know. In the meantime, if you think of anything, call me directly.’ Matt passed the man his direct line and then breathed a sigh of relief as he walked down the path, the fresh air welcome after the heavy atmosphere.
‘Think they’re on the level?’ Scott asked as soon as they drove away.
‘They’re certainly distraught. The mother in particular.’
‘Could be guilt?’ For all his social skills, Scott was the one who tended to suspect everyone of everything. Still, his words made Matt think.
‘She was almost too distraught. As if she knows the kid is already dead. As soon as she opened the door she seemed to be expecting us to say we had found a body.’ In contrast to that day eight years ago, when he had to watch the hope fade out of Lucy’s eyes, to be replaced by an anguish that was quieter than Mrs Armstrong’s, yet no less powerful.
Scott looked thoughtful as Matt pulled out into the main road.
‘What about Prince?’
Matt didn’t answer him at first.. He had been asking himself the same thing all morning, and kept coming up with the same answer.
‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘It can’t be coincidence,’ Scott echoed his own reaction, ‘the kid even looks like the Randall boy.’
An image of Jack Randall, of his broken and battered body, invaded Matt’s memories. He shook his head to clear it, but the image lingered.
‘Similar situation too – the disappearing from the garden. It’s possible it could be him, but why return to Coventry, nearly fifty miles away from where he lives now, to do it?’
Scott raised an eyebrow.
‘You know where Prince is?’
Matt shook his head impatiently.
‘Only that he’s in the East Midlands. So fifty, sixty miles away at most. Not far enough, if you ask me, but still too far away to put him in the frame for this.’
Scott thought for a moment.
‘But a lot of killers go back to the scene of the crime, and he’s probably had nothing else to think about in prison. Maybe he came back for kicks, or to relive it, or out of remorse, saw the Armstrong kid and the resemblance, and took him on a whim?’
‘Or someone wants us to think it’s Prince,’ Matt said.
‘Like who? And why?’
That was always the question. Why? Figure out the motive and you’ve got the perpetrator, that was how it went in movies and crime novels. People needed a reason, an answer to that ‘why’? But Matt knew from experience that in real life there rarely was a reason that made any sense to anyone but the perp, and quite often not even to them. Things could happen, and a life be shattered, in the blinking of an eye.
‘Maybe the parents,’ Scott mused on his own question, ‘maybe they’re going to use the Prince angle as a way to get rid of Ben. Could have been abusing him for ages.’
‘Too far-fetched. What, Prince gets released a week ago and they think “hey, now we can finally bury little Benny in the backyard?” Besides, the neighbours would have said if there was any sign of serious abuse. It can’t be hidden forever, especially in a neighbourhood like this.’
Scott shrugged. ‘A copycat killer then?’
‘Implies a serial killer. Jack Randall was a one-off killing.’
As they paused at a traffic light Scott looked at Matt, raising an eyebrow.
‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly, ‘or perhaps you just caught him in time.’
Neither of them spoke after that; not until Matt suddenly took a detour and Scott looked at him, puzzled.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’ll be two minutes. I need to talk to someone.’
Matt pulled the car up outside Lucy’s, got out and as good as jogged to her front door, leaving Scott shaking his head in confusion and wondering if Matt wasn’t finally losing it.
Lucy opened the door looking nervous, then saw Matt and ushered him in. She looked frantic, and he had to remind himself that just as he had seen the parallels to Jack’s murder, the similarities would be just as obvious and a great deal more painful for her. He had come to see her more for his own comfort than hers, on the pretext of apologising for having rushed out so quickly this morning, but by the look on her face it was clear it was she who needed comfort. He put his arms around her without speaking, drawing her head into his chest. Although she leaned into him, resting her head on his torso as if for respite, she kept her arms crossed over her chest, creating a barrier between them.
When he released her, her eyes were wet.
‘You haven’t found him then.’ Her voice was flat; a statement, not an enquiry. Matt shook his head.
‘The mother, how is she?’ Her voice trembled, and she was obviously making a concentrated effort not to cry. She tightened her arms around herself, and he thought she was using the stance perhaps not so much as a barrier but in an effort to hold herself together.
‘Distraught. As you would expect, really.’
Lucy nodded, staring through him rather than at him; no doubt seeing a past that had suddenly come crashing into the present. Then she seemed to straighten suddenly as if a whip had cracked its way up her spine, her eyes now chips of ice, looking almost too big for her face in their intensity.
‘Have you arrested him yet?’
‘We don’t know what’s happened yet. Or if it even has anything to do with Terry Prince. It’s important not to jump to conclusions.’
Lucy raised an eyebrow.
‘You’re telling me you haven’t thought that too?’
Matt rubbed his chin then went to reach for her, but Lucy stepped neatly out of his reach as though she hadn’t noticed the movement, although he knew that she had.
‘It was my first thought,’ he admitted, and though Lucy looked mollified she didn’t close the gap between them, ‘but there’s no evidence, and we don’t even know the boy was taken. Yet.’
‘Yet,’ she echoed his last word. Mocking him. Her arms were still folded, but her stance seemed cockier now, and for a moment he pictured Ricky in the car, using his attitude as a defence. Swallowing down his annoyance at her, Matt spoke carefully, measuring his words.
‘It’s the obvious assumption, given that his release has been all over the news, and the resemblance to Jack.’ He saw her flinch at his words and felt bad, but continued. ‘But I can’t afford to let personal opinion cloud the facts, especially when right now we have so little to go on.’
Lucy shook her head.
‘It’s him. I just know it is. You have to find out where he is, find out where he was when the boy went missing. I saw the alert on the local news; I’ve been watching it all morning. It’s exactly the same, Matt, s
urely you can see that?’ She was almost pleading with him now.
‘He’s being questioned, okay? But that has to be kept confidential.’ As soon as he said it, he regretted it. He had hoped the knowledge that Prince was indeed being checked out might soothe her, but instead her mouth fell open and she glared at him accusingly.
‘You know where he is? I asked you, and you said you didn’t know where he was. You lied to me?’ There was a hysterical note in her voice and he stepped forward and put his hands on her upper arms, forcing her to look at him.
‘No. It’s been arranged through my superior. Lucy, he’s not even in the area. It’s not him.’ He stated the last with a lot more conviction than he felt.
‘Then why question him?’ she retorted. Matt dropped his hands, unable to answer her.
‘I didn’t come to fight; I just needed to see you,’ he said honestly. He could barely reconcile the image of a tender and passionate Lucy writhing in his arms last night to this obviously on-the-edge woman in front of him. He felt her pain; understood it even, but the fact remained that this time it wasn’t her son, and he had a missing child to find.
‘I shouldn’t even be here,’ he said and turned away towards the door, wishing he hadn’t come. Then he turned back, so he was poised halfway between Lucy and between leaving, and saw a look of sheer agony on her face that ripped at his heart.
‘You shouldn’t stay here on your own thinking about all this,’ he said quietly. ‘Why don’t you go to your mother’s? See Ricky?’
Lucy shook her head.
‘I can’t,’ she said, without offering an explanation. Then she walked away to the far side of the kitchen, dismissing him.
As Matt was walking out of the door he heard her say his name, almost in a whisper so that he thought he imagined it until she said, without looking at him, ‘I’m sorry. It’s just so awful. I see that little boy’s face on the news and it’s as if it’s happening all over again.’
‘I know.’
It was exactly like that, he thought as he slid behind the wheel of his car, ignoring Scott’s quizzical look. He took a deep breath and a moment’s pause before starting the engine, then drove off quickly. Too quickly.
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