by Sarah Hilary
‘You’ve got a younger brother,’ she remembered.
‘Sol.’ Noah nodded. ‘He’s more typical than me, I guess.’
‘Typical is overrated … So you asked Clancy if he was okay.’
‘I tried to. He wasn’t exactly communicative. I’d say he’s not a fan of the police.’
‘You think he’s been in trouble with us?’
‘Possibly. Could just be an authority thing. You said he was off school.’
‘Beth says he’s sick, but I wonder if he’s been excluded.’
Marnie put the wellingtons into a forensic bag in the boot of the car. ‘There’s something going on with him, something they didn’t want to talk to me about.’
‘I’ll check,’ Noah said again. ‘Clancy Brand, right?’
‘Yes.’ Marnie worked a crick from her neck with the heel of her hand, smelling the bunker in her clothes. ‘I met Carmen, their three-year-old. She looks like hard work. Tommy’s a toddler, and Beth’s pregnant again. We’ll need to be careful.’
They got into the car.
‘Four kids … That’s not a family,’ Noah objected as he fastened his seat belt, ‘it’s a recruitment drive.’
‘You don’t believe in too much love?’
‘Not without a lot of alcohol involved. But what do I know?’
‘The Doyles must be doing something right for the system to let them foster.’ Marnie pulled out into the traffic headed back into town. ‘I like them, him especially. He was kind about the kids, didn’t want to leave them alone down there …’
‘Someone did,’ Noah said. ‘Otherwise how did it happen?’ He looked grim.
Marnie knew he was trying hard to treat this case like any other. Knew, too, how impossible that was. Dead children changed everything.
‘Do you think they’re brothers?’ Noah asked.
‘Perhaps …’
Hard to detect any physical resemblance between the children. Nearly impossible to detect any resemblance to anyone who’d once lived or laughed, or kicked a ball around a yard, or called for his mum when he fell and scraped a knee, fought with his brother at bedtime. Only the way they’d looked when they died, so tightly curled together, hinted at how they might have been, alive. The older child protecting the smaller one, or simply sharing body heat, trying to keep warm.
‘Ron wants to look at child sex offenders in the area,’ Noah said. ‘I told him to go ahead.’
‘Make sure he understands we’re talking at least four years ago.’
Noah nodded. After a moment, he said, ‘Who is gutless Douglas?’
‘He’s an accountant, a friend of the Finchers.’
‘Commander Welland likes him for this …’
‘We’d all like a short cut to finding whoever put those children down there.’ Marnie didn’t want to raise Noah’s hopes. ‘Mr Cole rubbed Welland up the wrong way, it’s true. But you and I know how easily that’s done.’
‘You don’t fancy Cole for this?’
‘Not remotely.’ She paused. ‘But I’ve been known to get things wrong. I’ve got his number. We’ll talk with him as soon as he’s home. And we’ll talk with the Finchers.’
‘The family with the missing child … But that ended happily, you said.’
‘People have long memories, and it was messy for a while. I’ll brief the team about it. We should lean on Missing Persons. The sooner we have names, the better.’
‘Ron’s on it,’ Noah said.
Someone was missing the dead children, whether or not they were siblings. Perhaps Marnie should hope for brothers; only one set of parents to be broken by the news. Assuming they didn’t already know what had happened. Assuming they weren’t responsible for making, or letting, it happen. Sooner or later, they were going to have to entertain that possibility.
‘They looked like brothers,’ Noah said. ‘The way they were sleeping …’ Sadness thinned his face. ‘I think they were brothers.’
• • •
As they reached the station, Marnie’s phone played Fran Lennox’s tune.
She swung into the car park and picked up. ‘Fran, you’ve got something for me?’ Her eyes went to Noah. ‘For us?’
‘You’re not going to like it,’ Fran said, ‘but yes. Not much, not yet, but something.’
‘I’ll be right over.’ Marnie ended the call.
‘News?’ Noah asked. An edge in his voice; on his guard against this case.
Marnie wondered in what way Sol, Noah’s brother, had been a more typical teenage boy. Less sensitive, perhaps, or more content with easy answers to life’s worst questions.
‘Stay here. Organise the house-to-house at the flats, and keep an eye on the team.’ She could sense their frustration already, like too much static. ‘I’ll get back as soon as I can.’
‘What about the press briefing?’ Noah asked.
‘Stall it. Tell them we’re doing real police work and remind them it takes time. If we’re lucky, some of them might even appreciate that.’
8
Fran said, ‘They’re boys. Neither is older than eight. It’s not infallible, but going by the length of the molars and the chin span, I’d say we have two boys, one about eight years old, the other between four and five. I’ll know more when I’ve done the proper tests.’
Marnie pulled out a chair and sat the other side of Fran’s desk. The office was tiny, barely enough room for one person, let alone two. ‘What else?’
Fran had a plate of toast, and two big mugs of tea. Marnie had never seen her eat proper food. It explained how ravenous she always looked, a starving pixie with a spiky blond crop. ‘I think they’re brothers. I can’t confirm it without tests, but you saw the shape of their skulls. Too similar for it to be a coincidence. And the short shin bones, narrow shoulders …’ She folded a slice of toast and took a bite. ‘Of course some of it’s due to malnutrition, and light deprivation. I’d say they were down there a good few weeks before they died.’
‘And how long afterwards, how long since they died?’
‘At least four years, maybe as many as five.’ Fran folded a second slice of toast, still eating the first. ‘No wounds on their bodies, nothing obvious in the airways and no evidence they were constrained. No sign of a struggle, all bones intact.’
Marnie processed this in silence. ‘So … how did they die?’
‘I’ll know more after the autopsy, but if you’re pressing me for a gut feeling, I’d say they slowly starved.’
Marnie’s throat griped in protest. ‘There was food in the bunker. Tins …’
‘Maybe they’d got too weak to open them. Maybe it was the cold, exposure. Lack of light, rotten air … They were down there a good while. It’s possible they just … got sleepy, cuddled together for warmth and didn’t wake up.’ From the way she said it, it was clear Fran meant this to sound peaceful, a gentle death.
To Marnie, it sounded monstrous. ‘Who would do that, leave them down there to die?’
Fran dusted crumbs from her shirt. ‘That’s your territory. The only way it would be mine is if I find the bastard’s DNA on their bodies, or in their bodies, which I sincerely hope I don’t. Sorry not to be more optimistic.’
‘We’ve swabbed everything we could down there. One thing … do you think the bunker stayed shut the whole time after they died?’
‘I’d be guessing, but yes. If it was airtight, that would be different.’ Fran chewed for a minute, thinking it over. ‘They were pretty well preserved. If the manhole was disturbed, I’d have expected more evidence of decay. And bugs, rodents. You name it. Forensic fauna, as we’re encouraged to call it. There was nothing like that.’
Forensic fauna … Rats, she meant. And flies, like the one that had gone down into the dark with Marnie. ‘So the chances are, whoever put them down there left them and didn’t come back? Not even to check whether they were dead.’
‘You wouldn’t need to check. Whoever left our boys down there knew exactly what they were doing.’
Our boys.
‘Except that they left food and water, blankets … Maybe they meant to come back.’
‘And what – got distracted?’ Fran shook her head. ‘We’re not talking about a dog in a hot car. These were little boys, buried underground without daylight, getting weak and sick.’
‘Maybe they couldn’t go back for them,’ Marnie said, ‘because something happened.’
‘You think the murderer’s dead?’
‘Not dead, necessarily. But he or she could’ve been arrested. If our boys weren’t the first children they’d taken …’
‘Or our boys were the first, but he or she went after more?’ Fran wiped her mouth on a piece of paper towel. ‘It’s possible. But if we’re talking about an arrest, why didn’t they tell the police about the bunker? These boys didn’t die quickly. There might’ve been time to save them, which might have meant leniency.’
‘True.’ Marnie had only half believed in the idea of an arrest or an accident. It was too neat, and much too convenient. ‘You say they didn’t die quickly … Is there any way of knowing how long they were alone down there? We’re assuming they had company to begin with.’
‘The food, and the bucket.’ Fran nodded. ‘Traces of bleach in the bucket suggests it was cleaned not long before it was last used. If they’d been down there a long time, unsupervised, I’d have expected more waste, and more mess. Two small children in an enclosed space … I’d say days, rather than weeks. Not long, in the scheme of things.’
She reached for her mug. ‘Of course, we don’t know for sure that they died alone. Whoever did it might’ve stayed down there to watch.’ She sipped at the tea. ‘Perhaps they only left when it was obvious the boys were dead, or dying.’
‘Stayed to watch?’ Marnie shivered. ‘Jesus. That’s cold.’
‘A whole new level of nasty, but I wouldn’t discount it, at least not quickly. Whoever did this, however it was done, it was wicked. You can’t always slice that into degrees.’
A photo cube on Fran’s desk was filled with Polaroids of her and her brothers. She came from a big family: seven brothers; Fran was the only girl. The boys doted on their little sister, the police pathologist.
‘You’re ruling out poison?’ Marnie said. ‘And smothering?’
‘Smothering, yes, unless the post-mortem throws up any surprises, but plenty of poisons are hard to trace after even a day or two. We’re talking four or five years, maybe a bit longer than that. I can’t rule it out. In any case,’ Fran picked crumbs from the desk, one by one, dropping each crumb into the plastic bin at her side, ‘our boys wouldn’t have needed a serious dose of anything dangerous. Too much Night Nurse would’ve done the trick, sent them to sleep with no chance of waking up, given how weak and malnourished they were.’
She cleaned the ends of her fingers with a tissue. ‘I can’t be sure, but I think … I hope … it would have been a quiet death.’
A quiet death.
Marnie didn’t believe that. She could see and taste and hear the noise of their dying, alone and scared. Her ears rang with outrage at the noise. ‘So I’m looking for brothers who went missing up to five years ago. Any other clues to where they might’ve come from?’
‘Not yet. The clothes and the torch batteries were from Asda; hundreds of those all over the country. The books were UK editions, in English. The jigsaw was printed in China. The tins of food are odd …’ Fran pulled a notepad towards her. ‘Peaches and sweetcorn, but not a brand I’ve seen on sale in any supermarket where I shop. There might be something in that.’
Marnie made a note. ‘British?’
‘The boys? Not necessarily. We might need bone chemistry to narrow it down.’
‘I’ll look at the labels from the tins, see what we can turn up.’
Fran held a mug of tea between her hands. Long hands, their bony fingers delicately strung. Gentle hands. She’d be careful with the boys.
‘I’m guessing there’s nothing from Missing Persons yet,’ she said.
‘Not yet. Soon, I hope, especially now you’ve given us something to work with.’
Someone had been missing two small boys for four years, maybe longer.
It was time to take them home.
9
Noah was queuing in the local café for the team’s coffee order. He’d wanted the fresh air; his clothes smelt of the Doyles’ garden. The team was twitchy because they had a cold case on their hands. Decent coffee would help.
‘No. No, that’s enough. Put that down.’ At a table by the window, a man was struggling to placate a shrieking child, without conspicuous success.
‘Can I help you?’ It was Noah’s turn at the counter.
‘Thanks. Two lattes, one with an extra shot, one skinny, three Americanos and two flat whites.’
The father–son tableau reminded Noah of his brother’s childhood tantrums. Sol was in his twenties now, had long since worked out how to get what he wanted in more devious if sometimes still noisy ways. Back when Noah was ten and his little brother was four, Sol had thrown tantrums on a daily basis, making the whole house spin around him.
In the café, the boy’s mother reappeared, quelling the child with a look and a handful of words that Noah didn’t catch. Her husband sat with his shoulders curled in defeat. Every so often he risked a glance at his son, as if trying to work out where the fury had come from, or distrusting the quiet, waiting for the next outburst. Noah’s father, Dylan, hadn’t put up with tantrums from either of his sons, but he had worked long hours, and late. Whenever he was out, Sol would start on their mother, Rosa, who responded by taking his temperature, feeding him pink medicine, baby stuff, unlikely to do any harm but unnecessary all the same. The fact that Sol never had a tantrum in front of their father told Noah, at the age of ten, that his brother was fine, and smart, and manipulative. He’d been wary of Sol ever since.
• • •
Back at the station, he handed round the coffees, earning a ‘Cheers, mate’ from Ron Carling.
Carling was unhappy about the case they’d brought back from Snaresbrook. ‘If we can’t catch this bastard, it’s going to be months of work and nightmares …’
Ron had two young boys, Noah remembered. ‘Let’s hope we catch him, then.’
‘Have you even looked at the statistics for solving a case this cold? You saw the bodies, you know what I’m talking about. No sleep and effing nightmares, for months.’
‘How’s it going with Missing Persons?’ Debbie asked.
‘How do you think? We don’t even know if the poor little sods were boys or girls …’
‘They’re boys.’ Marnie was in the doorway. ‘Probably brothers. The elder was about eight. The little one was four or five. We don’t know their nationality yet, but the clothes and books were bought in the UK, so let’s start here, in London. Fran says they died four, maybe five years ago. She’s sending over her initial findings. DC Tanner will make copies. Make sure you read them.’
She nodded at Noah. ‘DS Jake will be in charge of exhibits. We need to look at the labels from the food tins. Fran hasn’t seen the brand before. It’s the best clue we have right now.’
Ron said, ‘So we’re on this, then. Even though it’s so cold it’s going to give us frostbite.’
Marnie turned her steady gaze on him. ‘A cold case is something we’ve investigated and failed to solve. We haven’t investigated anything to do with these boys’ deaths yet.’
‘You know what I mean. Five years, for fuck’s sake …’
Marnie glanced at the family photos on Carling’s desk. ‘Someone’s been looking for these boys – missing these boys – for at least that long. Let’s see if we can’t bring them some peace.’ She nodded at the flat whites. ‘Is one of those for me?’
‘Yes.’ Noah carried the cup to where she was standing. ‘I’ll get on to the labels, see if I can find a match online.’
‘Good.’ Marnie nodded at Ron. ‘Try Missing Persons again now that we’ve got an a
pproximate time frame and an idea of their ages. If Fran’s right, it could give us a match quite quickly. There can’t be many young brothers who’ve gone missing together in the last five years.’
She paused, looking at the team. ‘They’re our boys, but I want names. DS Jake?’
10
Noah closed the door to the office and waited for Marnie to sit behind her desk. She didn’t, standing with her back to him, her eyes on the brick-wall view from the window.
What was she thinking?
He’d always liked her silences, trusting her need to not always be talking, but now he wondered what she thought about when she went quiet like this. Debbie Tanner had told him about the day five years ago when Marnie’s foster brother had taken a kitchen knife to her parents before sitting on their stairs, waiting for the police to come and wash blood and tissue from his fingers so they could take prints at the station.
Noah couldn’t start to imagine what madness like that did to a person. Ever since Debbie had shared the story out around the station like so many home-baked biscuits, he’d wanted to say something to Marnie, to express his sadness and the pain he felt on her behalf. He couldn’t say anything, of course. For one thing, it would expose Debbie to more trouble than she deserved. Not that Noah liked the easy way she’d shared the tragedy, but she didn’t mean harm; she cared for Marnie in her way. Noah doubted she was capable of deliberate malice. Of course that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of what Tim Welland called ‘malicious ignorance’, hiding behind the refusal to acquire facts, or tact, or both.
Marnie sat at her desk, nodding for Noah to sit too.
‘What else did Fran say?’ he asked. It would be in the report Debbie was copying, but he wanted to hear it from Marnie.
‘No wounds, nothing in the airways. No evidence they were constrained. No sign of a struggle. No broken bones.’ She dropped her hands into her lap. ‘Fran thinks they starved, slowly. She called it … a quiet death.’
‘A quiet death.’ He wanted to throw something. ‘But there were tins of food down there.’
‘Fran thinks they got too weak to open them.’ Marnie’s voice hardened; her way of focusing, keeping emotion in its useful place. ‘I don’t remember any searches five years ago, for brothers. I’d have seen a picture if they went missing in London, but I don’t remember any search for missing boys.’ Her eyes went to somewhere Noah couldn’t see but which he could imagine, thanks to Debbie’s lack of discretion. Five years ago, there was enough horror in Marnie’s life without looking for missing children.