Cry of the Children

by J M Gregson

  Gerry Clancey, alias Rory Burns, knew exactly what he was going to do on that Thursday night.

  He came into his digs in Oldford at seven forty, leaving his car outside. The bathroom at the end of the corridor was empty – they didn’t run to en suites in the lodgings Clancey used. He had a quick shower, washing away the rest of his day and the places he had been, and then lay on the bed for a while, staring at the ceiling. Not many people would have taken him for a man given to introspection, he thought with a grim smile. Well, he’d put it across those English pigs, even when they thought they had him taped.

  He put on his oldest pair of jeans, the ones he was planning to discard after they’d erected the fair for the weekend in Stroud on the morrow. His shirt was clean but worn, almost invisible when he put on the navy anorak and the navy cap he used for these occasions. He snatched a quick look at himself in the mirror of his wardrobe door. It was like the old days of the troubles in Ireland, which he scarcely remembered. He felt as if he’d donned an unofficial uniform and must check the details before going on parade. He nodded at himself, then crammed the wad of banknotes into the front pocket of his jeans, beneath the anorak. He’d need to think about a money-belt if things continued to go well.

  The Peugeot started first time: the engine was still warm from when he had parked it three-quarters of an hour earlier. He kept his eye on the road behind him as he drove along the winding B road towards Gloucester. He wasn’t being followed; there was no sign of any police tail. Perhaps he wasn’t the number-one suspect, as he’d decided he was after they’d talked to him.

  He’d been watching out for surveillance all day, but he’d seen no sign of it. Perhaps the overtime budget didn’t run to it in rural areas like this. Or perhaps they’d got someone else in the frame. The pigs never told you about other suspects when they questioned you. They always wanted you to think that you were the only one and they had you banged to rights. Well, sod the lot of them!

  He was running into Gloucester now. It was time to concentrate on this evening’s events. The people he was dealing with tonight were far more dangerous than pigs, if you got on the wrong side of them.

  He turned away from the centre of Gloucester and drove towards the industrial estate in the north-east of the city. Some of the newer and bigger buildings here were still lit and busy, even at this time of night. But Gerry Clancey turned away from these, driving through narrower streets until he was in an older, run-down industrial area, where there were no houses and almost every building was in darkness. He stopped close to the door of the tallest of them, paused for a moment to gather his resources and then slipped out of the old Peugeot and locked it.

  The front of the building rose like a black cliff above him, so close and so sheer that he could barely see the top of it against the night sky. He went not to the huge door at the front, which was wide enough to allow heavy lorries to pass through, but to a small door in the side of the building which he would not have found in the darkness had he not been here before. He had a torch, but he took pride in proceeding without its use. When concealment was necessary, you used as little light as possible.

  It was a minute before nine o’clock. He was right on time. The man he was here to meet must surely appreciate that. The door opened readily to his touch and he went forward to a small room within the disused warehouse, with a light that was invisible from the outside of the building. The naked bulb seemed quite dazzling after the darkness through which he had passed. There was an old one-bar electric fire at the side of the small room, which seemed unpleasantly hot after the coolness outside.

  Gerry Clancey thought that the folded forearms of the man behind the table were the most powerful he had ever seen. There was very little neck beneath the broad head. The dark glasses seemed to Clancey an affectation, but no one was ever going to tell this man that. And the glasses had a disconcerting effect: Gerry was certain that the man was studying him closely now, but he could see nothing of the eyes behind the glasses and divine nothing of what the man was thinking about him.

  This was his supplier, the man who provided him with the drugs he sold on to others. This was the man on the next rung up the chain, the first of the links with the drug barons who made millions and, in some cases, did not even live in Britain. You made good money in this vile trade, especially if you were not a user, as Clancey wasn’t. Most of the pushers were users themselves, selling to feed their own addictions. Most of these men and women were condemned to a short and dangerous life, which would end when they were either arrested by the police or eliminated by the ruthless practitioners of this trade because they were considered no longer safe.

  Clancey was making good money at present, but he was aware of the dangers. If he tried to find out too much about the suppliers in the ranks above him, or revealed anything to the police drug squad, he would disappear without trace, his body buried under tons of concrete or weighted at the bottom of the sea. Or simply shot through the head and left where he had fallen in some city backstreet, if his death wasn’t considered important enough to be concealed. The rewards of dealing were high, the risks even higher. Gerry Clancey planned to make a decent killing and get out whilst he remained intact.

  Many others before him had planned to do this and failed.

  The man gave him no kind of greeting, sounded no note of recognition. Eventually, he snarled out a hostile ‘Well?’

  Gerry had to clear his throat. He was surprised how nervous he felt. He was furious with himself when he found it affecting his voice. ‘I want skunk. I can shift plenty of it.’

  ‘So can lots of others. Pot’s small-time stuff nowadays.’ The man reached down to the suitcase beside his feet and set two blocks of dark-brown resin on the table.

  Clancey wondered why the man should be so anxious to humiliate him, then whether this fellow in turn was treated in like vein by those ranked above him. ‘I can take some E. Not as much as last time – there isn’t the demand there was. Ten tablets, perhaps.’

  The man looked at him as if it was a derisory order, but banged the ecstasy tablets on the table beside the cannabis. Gerry said as firmly as he could, ‘Charlie. Ten grams.’

  His supplier placed the cocaine alongside the rest on the table. ‘Fifty quid a gram. It’s good stuff. You’ll get seventy, easy.’ His last phrase was the nearest he would come to a concession. The price of cocaine to Clancey had been increased by five pounds a gram. ‘We’ve got crack, too, if you want it. But it’ll cost.’

  Clancey knew he hadn’t the money for the cocaine in rock form. It was both terrifyingly addictive and terrifyingly expensive. He had clients for it, but he couldn’t afford the outlay, not with what the rest of his order was going to cost him. He shook his head. ‘Speed. Three grams.’

  The amphetamines were added to his order on the table. The man with the suitcase couldn’t resist a gibe. ‘Pity you can’t afford the rocks.’

  Gerry ignored him. He wanted to be out of here fast and away. ‘Four grams of horse. And rohypnol, unless the price has changed.’

  His supplier banged the heroin on the table. He hesitated for a moment. The Irishman was small-time, making his way. Not a priority customer yet, and the date-rape drug was in short supply. ‘I can’t do you the rohypnol. Randy buggers have cleared me out.’

  Claney knew the reality of this. Everyone wanted rohypnol; he could move it on faster than anything else on the table in front of him. But the amount that was there made him small-time, not in a position to call the shots. Perhaps if he pocketed his profits and came back with an increased order, he might be in a position to demand his quota of the date-rape drug. He didn’t consider suggesting that he could go elsewhere and get a better deal; you didn’t threaten men like this. ‘That’s the lot.’

  Gerry peeled off the best part of a thousand pounds and passed it across the table to the man in the dark glasses, who made a great play of counting it carefully. It seemed to Clancey, more and more impatient to be away now that the trans
action was completed, to take a distressingly long time. The bull-necked man finally reached down and threw the money into the suitcase beneath him. ‘Pleasure to do business with you, Danny Boy. You’re the last tonight.’

  Gerry Clancey wondered how much money was in that suitcase now. He stood up and turned towards the door.

  As if the movement had triggered some device, there was suddenly noise outside the room, in the main body of the huge, echoing warehouse. A voice boomed, ‘Don’t move, either of you. This is the police and there is an armed response unit covering all exits. Expert marksmen will shoot to kill if there is any attempt to use a firearm.’

  Neither of them was so foolish. Police seemed to be everywhere. The words of arrest were yelled fiercely into their unresponsive ears as they were handcuffed. There were yet more police outside, a row of vans and cars where there had previously been bare tarmac. They saw men from the armed response unit, rigid upon one knee with weapons trained on their hearts.

  The man in dark glasses yelled final bullying words at Gerry as he was led to a separate car. ‘If you brought this lot here, Clancey, you’re a dead man!’

  TWENTY

  John Lambert was indeed very tired. Too tired to eat properly, Christine noted with wifely disapproval. She cleared away the remains of his meal and told him sternly to get to bed and make sure he had a good night’s sleep.

  John nodded absently. He gave her an exhausted smile when she announced that she was going to bed, promising that he would join her shortly. He stared into space for a good hour after she was gone, revolving the possibilities of each of his suspects, wondering what he had missed, puzzling about the whereabouts and the state of mind of a terrified eight-year-old boy. He refused to contemplate the fact that Raymond Barrington might be a corpse, that his killer might even now be thinking about a third victim. He had convinced himself that Raymond was still alive. Now, left alone in his own home, he wondered whether he had been hopeful rather than objective.

  He was in bed by midnight, envying, almost resenting, the quiet, regular breathing of Christine as she slept beside him. Over the years, he had trained himself to sleep, even when the pressures of work lay heavily upon him. Deep breathing was the secret. If you could concentrate on that and continue to do it, you eventually fell asleep. Tonight the theory didn’t work. You had to close your mind to other thoughts, let the rhythm of your breathing take over your body and mind, but tonight those other thoughts stubbornly refused to go away.

  At some time between one and two, he fell into an uneasy doze. He woke with a start from a ridiculous dream of Raymond Barrington riding a bike through open country, whistling the music of Elgar. The illuminated clock on the bedside radio told him that it was four twenty. He turned on to his back and lay very still, knowing that he was not going to sleep again, trying to ensure that his fevered thoughts would become more rational, organized and useful.

  At five forty, he rose, washed and dressed. At five past six, he rang Bert Hook.

  The DS didn’t sound annoyed. His voice wasn’t even sleepy. Lambert suspected that he’d had as disturbed a night as his chief superintendent. Bert was normally very relaxed at home; one of his strengths was that he was able to leave the job behind him, as John Lambert had never been able to do. But child murders were different. They got to the most equable of men, even to those who had developed the carapace of experience which protected them against most crimes.

  Lambert spoke quickly and quietly into the phone. As he outlined his thinking, his conviction grew. Bert asked three terse questions as Lambert developed his thesis, but was otherwise silent and attentive. He said at the end of it, ‘I’ll ring Chris Rushton at home. He needs to know what we’re doing.’

  ‘Tell him to hold back on the surveillance, for the moment. And get him to organize a car to follow us at a decent distance, with at least one female officer in it. If the boy’s still alive, we’ll need separate transport for him.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Then I’ll pick you up. Say half an hour from now.’

  ‘Thanks, Bert. I’ll be ready.’

  Bert moved quickly and softly around the sleeping house, imagining Lambert doing the same thing five miles away. He scribbled a quick note for Eleanor, then started and reversed the car as quietly as he could. Lambert was waiting for him at the gate of his bungalow, raising a gaunt smile as he ducked his head to get into the Mondeo. It was still completely dark.

  The police car fell in behind them at the station in Oldford, as arranged. Bert had never been a tearaway behind the wheel, but he drove with expert and surprising swiftness now to the point where they would await their quarry. He said nothing to Lambert beyond a clipped, ‘Chris says Gerry Clancey was picked up last night in Gloucester. Dealing in drugs. That seems to have been what he was doing on Wednesday night, when Raymond Barrington was snatched.’

  Lambert nodded. One of their five eliminated. It increased his conviction that he was right about this. It took him a moment to realize that that was why Hook had been anxious to give him the facts about Clancey. Bert was good on human nature, though he always affected to be merely delivering the obvious. Lambert, crouching a little lower in his seat, was suddenly moved by his old friend’s treatment of him. He felt near to tears: this case had really got to him.

  It was still quite dark. That was a good thing, since the police vehicle parked a hundred yards behind them would remain invisible. The minutes dragged as they sat tense in the car, gnawed by the thought that Lambert’s theory was an elaborate tissue of conjecture, which would not survive examination in the clear light of day.

  It was twenty past seven when the dark figure came out of the house and moved swiftly towards the vehicle. Hook had his lights off, but the driver did not look at the crouching duo. Bert waited until the tail lights were fifty yards away, then eased the car quietly in pursuit, relying for the moment on his side lights and the first hint of grey dawn from the east. Once they were on the A438, he switched on his headlights. There was a little more traffic here, even at this early hour. The vehicle they were following wasn’t moving very quickly, so that a couple of cars overtook both them and it, making it less obvious that they were in pursuit.

  The driver indicated a left turn well in advance, confirming their impression that their presence was still undetected. Bert switched on to side lights again in the lanes, relying on the slowly increasing daylight to help him. The tail lights were intermittently visible as their quarry twisted and turned ahead of them, never more than a hundred yards away. Both detectives were silent and tense, aware that they mustn’t lose those tail lights now, when the case was surely moving towards its climax.

  Bert prayed silently that Raymond Barrington would still be alive and unharmed.

  The van in front of them turned abruptly right into the grounds of a cottage, where there were no lights. John Lambert’s hoarse ‘Give him room! We can’t afford to alarm him!’ showed how tight the moment was stretching him. Hook took his foot off the accelerator and let the Mondeo coast almost silently down the slight incline of the last hundred yards to the cottage entrance.

  The driver of the van didn’t look round. He plainly had no idea that he was being followed; his thoughts were on what he would find within this apparently deserted residence. He collected his bag of groceries, glanced up at the sky and moved to unlock the door. His last action before opening it was to pull his hat down over his forehead and lift his scarf over his mouth, so that his nose and eyes were all that was visible of his face.

  The noise of the gravel beneath their wheels seemed agonizingly loud as they turned into the cottage drive. Hook rolled his car tight up behind the battered van, so that there was no chance of it escaping them. The police car closed up behind them and parked between the gateposts of the entrance. Hook glimpsed pale young faces behind its windscreen, one male and one female.

  The door wasn’t locked. In thirty seconds, Lambert and Hook were standing in the hall, listening to muffled voices and words the
y could not unscramble from behind the door that was furthest from them. They looked at each other: one of those voices was surely a child’s. Then they moved softly past the open door of a kitchen, hearing the voices a little more clearly as they moved towards them. Hook glanced at Lambert, received a nod, took in a huge breath and threw open the door.

  Two startled white faces turned towards them, rigid with shock. Hook thought he would retain the scene for ever in his memory: the man and the boy seemed to be frozen, as if they were part of a Dutch interior painting. He heard Lambert’s voice say calmly, ‘It’s over, Dean. Please don’t do anything silly.’

  Hook tried to be equally calm, even matter-of-fact, as he said to the boy, ‘You’re quite safe now, Raymond. We’re policemen, you see. I think you should come over here.’

  The boy hesitated, looked up at the monster, received from him a quick nod and walked a little unsteadily to Hook, who took both his small, uncertain hands into his large and certain ones. Bert looked down at the yellow hair, caught the lad’s air of bewilderment and said again. ‘You’ll soon be home now. Mrs Allen will be waiting. She’s been very worried about you.’

  He kept the boy’s left hand firmly in his as he went to the door of the room and called softly down the hall to the entrance door they had left open. The uniformed officers came into the house and joined them, moving as cautiously as they had been warned to do when they were detailed to this task. Like Hook, they tried not to show their enormous relief at finding a boy safe and well, where they had feared a corpse. The woman officer was only twenty-four, but she had two children of her own. She transferred Raymond Barrington’s hand from Hook’s to hers and said, ‘Let’s go now, shall we?’

  The boy turned obediently, looking up at her with a nervous smile. But he stopped unexpectedly at the door, as if it was necessary to him to record in his mind the room and the creature that had been his whole world for the last thirty-six hours. He looked up at the lined, solemn face of Lambert, which seemed to him impossibly high above him. ‘You won’t hurt the monster, will you? I was frightened at first, but he’s been good to me.’