by Alex Walters
'What did he say?'
Wallace smiled, though no warmth reached her eyes. 'He admitted it was his fault. Well, largely his fault, I think were his exact words.'
Sue bridled. 'Largely? There was nothing I could have done to—'
Another raised hand. 'Yes, I know. We pressed him on it. At first, he claimed there’d been some misunderstanding, that you'd said it was all right to drop Luke off. So we asked him to explain just how that misunderstanding had arisen. Eventually, he acknowledged you were expecting him to bring Luke tonight.'
'So why the hell did he bring him yesterday?'
'Reckoned he was annoyed with you. That you’d been pressing him to increase your time with Luke. And then he got an opportunity to go out with his—'
'Mistress,' Sue said. 'Well, not now, I suppose. But she was.'
Wallace blinked, for the first time appearing momentarily disconcerted. 'Well, yes, quite. He’d got hold of a couple of tickets to some band at the Arena, so thought he’d call your bluff—as he put it—and let you have Luke anyway.'
'So why didn’t he phone me?'
Wallace smiled again, this time with something approaching sincerity. 'If you’d like my considered opinion on that one, Mrs Myers, I’d say it’s because he’s an idiot. He told us he didn’t phone you because he knew you’d be difficult. That you’d decide you couldn’t take Luke after all, just to spite him.'
'Well, I’ve no intention of jumping to his whims. Yes, I’d have made it difficult. But I’d have taken Luke in the end, because I want to spend time with Luke. He knows that.'
'I’m sure he does. So that was why he decided to cut to the chase and just leave Luke with you. He says he’s normally just dropped Luke at the end of the road anyway.'
'He does,' Sue said. 'So he doesn’t have to face me. But normally he knows I’m going to be here. Last night he hadn’t even bothered to check.'
'He’d just assumed the shop would be open and you’d be there.' Wallace paused, checking her notebook. 'He said he assumed you’d be professional enough to keep to your advertised opening hours—'
'Christ. The arrogant, pompous little—' Sue stopped, struggling to find a noun appropriate to Tony’s character.
'Like I say, Mrs Myers.' By now, the smile seemed actually to have permeated Wallace's whole face. 'We made it clear to Mr Myers that, if there was any repetition of this kind of incident, we could be looking at a charge of child neglect. And that if you were considering an application to change the custody arrangements, we’d be happy to provide a statement. I hope that puts your mind at rest.'
Sue nodded. 'Thank you.'
'To go back to my original question, Mrs Myers, what time do you think your son arrived here yesterday? I mean, what time do you think he was dropped off?'
'I thought you’d spoken to Tony.'
'We have. But, as we’ve agreed, Mrs Myers, he’s not necessarily the most reliable of witnesses. I just wanted to be sure of the timing.'
'But I don’t—' Sue stopped. Wallace’s smile hadn’t altered in any obvious way, but her expression somehow conveyed that her patience was wearing thin. 'Well, I normally close at five on a Saturday. It’s not usually worth staying open much later at the weekend. In the week, I open a bit later to catch the rail commuters coming back through the village. Anyway, I’d made an appointment to get my hair done after work and she could only fit me in at four, so I shut just before that. Five to, I guess. It’s a five minute walk over there.'
'What time did you get back?'
'I don’t know exactly. Around five, maybe? It was about quarter to six when Tony phoned to tell me that Luke had left his coat in the car. I was watching the local news on TV.'
'So Mr Myers must have dropped Luke off sometime between four and five, or thereabouts?'
'I suppose so.'
'That ties in with what Mr Myers thought. He reckoned it was probably just after four, so he must have just missed you. He wasn’t keeping an eye on the time, but he’d left home at about three-fifteen and had a slow drive out of Manchester. Traffic was heavier than usual because of the rain, I imagine.' Wallace sounded as if she was thinking aloud. 'Can you remember what you told us when you called last night, Mrs Myers? About what Luke said to you about what happened when your husband—sorry, your ex-husband—dropped him off.'
Wickham leaned forward and spoke for the first time since the interview had begun. 'I’m sorry, I don’t see where these questions are going. Is there something you’re concerned about?'
Wallace turned to him, and for a second looked as if she were about to give him a tongue-lashing. The painted smile was back now. 'I just want to check the timings, Mr Wickham. I’ve no concerns about what Mrs Myers is saying.' Her tone of voice, more clearly than her words, told him to mind his own business. 'I just want to make sure we’ve got the sequence clear,' she said to Sue. 'You left at around four. It sounds as if your ex dropped Luke off just a few minutes later. Mr Brody—'
'You’ve spoken to Finlan?'
'Just briefly, this morning. To complete the picture. He reckons he spotted Luke probably around quarter to five. He’d been in Manchester and got the train out just after four. So by the time he’d got here and walked down from the station, that sounds about right.'
'So you’re saying Luke was on his own in the rain for forty-five minutes?' Sue said. 'I hadn’t realised it was that long. Finlan said he’d given him a dressing-gown and dried his clothes. The poor kid must have been absolutely soaked.' Wallace could see that she was already beginning to plan her retribution against Tony.
'What did he say to you about what happened after he was dropped off?' Wallace said.
'He said he came along to the shop. Luke thought I must be in the back, even though the door was locked. He banged on the door a few times but obviously there was no answer. After a while he realised I couldn’t be there. So he made his way up here and rang the doorbell. But of course I wasn’t here either.'
'He doesn’t have a mobile?' Wallace said. 'I thought every kid had one these days.'
'It was in the coat he’d left in Tony’s car. Sod’s law.'
'So what did he say happened after that?'
'He’s a sensible kid,' Sue said. 'He didn’t worry too much at first. It hadn’t started raining yet. He saw that the lights were on in the house so he guessed I wasn’t far away.'
Sparrow leaned forward and spoke for the first time. 'What about Mr Wickham? Does he live locally? Wouldn’t Luke have thought you might be there?'
'It’s—well, quite a new thing, me and Kevin—Mr Wickham,' Sue said, after an awkward pause. She glanced at Wickham who gave no response. 'Luke doesn’t really know him yet.'
Wallace nodded, as if this had confirmed something in her mind. 'What about neighbours? Doesn’t Luke know any of your neighbours?'
'Not really. Not as people he could turn to in that situation. Most of the people here work in Manchester or Stockport, so we don’t see much of them except at weekends.'
'So his plan was just to wait for you to turn up?'
'It was the only option, really,' Sue said. 'My front door’s tucked away off the main street so he was OK at first. Even the rain wasn’t a major problem as the doorway’s quite sheltered.'
'But that wasn’t where Mr Brody found him?'
'He got spooked, apparently. Reckoned there was someone watching.'
'That’s what Mr Brody told me. But he didn’t want to go into it with Luke last night. Did Luke say any more to you?'
'Not much. He’s not the most forthcoming boy. He’s at that age.'
'Did he mention a van?'
Sue looked up. 'A van?'
'That’s what he told Mr Brody. That he’d been waiting in your doorway, and a van had pulled up. Parked on the road opposite, by the river.'
'He just said he thought someone was watching him. He didn’t mention a van.' Sue paused. 'I didn’t think much about it. I was just glad he was OK.'
'He told Mr Brody the van p
ulled up and stopped there. He thought there was just one person inside it. They turned down the window and were watching him. That’s what he thought. He didn’t say any of this to you?'
'I didn’t press him on it,' Sue said. 'I thought he’d been through enough. I'm sorry, like Kevin said, I don’t really see where this is going. Luke’s fine. Nothing happened to him. Even if there was a van out there, it was probably nothing. People stop along here all the time.'
'Just making sure we’ve tied up all the loose ends, that’s all.' Wallace flicked back a few pages in her notebook. 'We’ve had a few other reports. Since the murder.'
'Reports?'
'At least one other attempted child snatching. Driver of a van. And a couple of other reports of cars and vans parked by schools, drivers behaving suspiciously. You know the kind of thing.' Her tone was off-hand.
Wickham leaned forward and exchanged a glance with Sue. 'You really think this might have been the same person? The person who snatched the boy up the road, I mean.'
'I don't want to sound alarmist. We get a lot of this stuff, as you can imagine. Kids get spooked easily, like you said about Luke. A lot of it’s urban myth stuff. Children have seen the news reports. Then they see a van pull up and convince themselves it’s something threatening. Word gets around and they all think they’ve seen it. We had a spate of reports a couple of years back with no real cause. A black van supposedly trawling the backstreets of Stockport snatching kids off the street. Even had a couple of parents reckoning they’d seen it.'
'But there was nothing in it?'
'As far as we could tell. None of the incidents amounted to anything. But of course this is different. We're dealing with a murder. We have to be sure.' Wallace snapped shut her notebook, as if she’d just acquired the final clinching piece of evidence. 'All’s well that ends well, anyway,' she said to Sue. 'I’m sure you and your ex will make sure nothing like this happens again.' Sue blinked, clearly registering that, whatever Wallace might have said earlier, she was now implicitly implicating both parents in what had happened to Luke.
Wallace turned her attention back to Wickham. 'Good to meet you, Mr Wickham. I hope you’re settling in round here. I understand from Mr Brody that you're a newcomer to the area.'
Wickham shifted awkwardly in his seat at the unexpected attention. 'Well, I’ve been here a couple of months now,' he said. 'Beginning to find my feet.'
'I’ve been here twenty years,' Sue said. 'And some of them still treat me like a new arrival.'
'That’s the countryside for you,' Wallace said. 'Still, I’m sure everyone’s been very welcoming.' She turned to Sue. 'I’d wondered whether I ought to interview Luke. See whether he remembered any more about last night. Anything about that van.'
Sue looked across at Wickham for support. 'Well, I can get him if you think it's necessary. He's upstairs playing some computer game.'
Wallace paused as if considering this offer, then smiled. 'I don’t think we need to bother him for the moment. Must have been traumatic enough for the poor little chap. I don't imagine he'll be able to tell us anything we haven't already heard. But if he says anything else significant, you’ll let us know, won’t you?'
'Yes, of course.'
'And if you think of anything else, you’ll do the same?'
'Anything else?'
Wallace shrugged, as if she had no idea of what she might have had in mind. 'When you were returning to the house, you didn’t see any other vehicles? Anything that looked suspicious?'
'No. There were probably a few cars went by as I was walking down the main road, but nothing that struck me.'
'What about you, Mr Wickham? You didn’t see anything last night?'
'I wasn’t here,' he said. 'Not till Sue called. I’d been working at home all afternoon.'
'No, of course. I wasn’t thinking. By the time you got down here, it was too late, obviously.' The smile hadn’t changed. 'Oh, well, if anything does occur to either of you—' She left the sentence hanging. 'Thanks for your help, both of you. We’ll try not to bother you again.'
Wallace glanced back as she and Sparrow made their way back to the car they’d left parked further down the street. Sue Myers and Kevin Wickham were still watching from the open doorway. 'That felt a bit odd,' Wallace said. 'What did you make of that guy Wickham?'
Sparrow shrugged. 'Not sure,' he said. 'He looked uncomfortable enough, but then so did she. Maybe not surprising in the circumstances. Didn't exactly get the sense that it was a well established relationship.'
'No, me neither,' Wallace said. 'Almost like they hardly knew each other. And there was something about Wickham—' She stopped as they reached the car.
'You don't think he could be our man?'
'I don't know. He just struck me as a bit—well, odd, I suppose. As if he's not used to being with other people. The type who seems like a natural loner.' She waited while Sparrow fumbled with the car keys, then added: 'Which makes me wonder quite what he's doing with Mrs Myers.'
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Murrain had sat in silence after she'd finished speaking, and it occurred to Wallace, just for a moment, that he might think she was taking the piss.' Well, not instinct, exactly,' she'd added, after a moment. 'But, you know, intuition.' Oh Christ, she thought, I need to stop digging.
But Murrain's smile was genuine enough. 'Whatever it is, Bert, I'm happy to go with it. If you think there's something worth looking at.' He didn't often bring himself to call her Bert. Wallace usually saw it as a mark of his approval.
She glanced at Will Sparrow. He was looking as if he might rather be anywhere else just at that moment. 'I don't think I was imagining it. Will felt it too. Didn't you, Will?'
Will shuffled awkwardly. Murrain had come to the conclusion that Sparrow was a capable enough young officer, but that he lacked the spark of intelligence and fresh thinking that distinguished Bert Wallace. On the other hand, he displayed a caution and, from time to time, a political nous that suggested he'd probably go far. Murrain knew from his own experiences that those qualities were generally more highly valued than any signs of uniqueness. 'I think Bert's right,' Sparrow said after a pause than suggested he'd been weighing up his response. 'Something felt a bit off. The whole relationship felt strange. And Wickham seemed—I don't know—on edge.'
'A lot of people are on edge when they're being interviewed by the police,' Murrain observed, thinking back to his own interview with Mrs Morrison.
'Maybe,' Wallace said. 'But it felt more than that. My impression was that he was wary. Nervous about what we had to say.'
'You think he had something to hide?'
Murrain had articulated the question more bluntly than she'd expressed it to herself. 'If you put it like that,' she said, 'then, yes. That was my impression.'
'Have you checked him out?'
'I looked him up on the PNC. He was on there, as it turns out. But nothing significant. He received a caution for a public order offence at the Iraq war demos in 2003. Some fracas in Trafalgar Square.' She sounded as if she were describing a prehistoric event.
'I remember it well,' Murrain said. 'Of course, that might explain why he's so wary around the police. We may not have treated him as gently as he might have liked.'
Wallace had thought at first that that comment was intended as a dismissal. But an hour later she found herself standing on Kevin Wickham's doorstep, this time with Murrain hovering silently behind her. They'd tracked down Wickham's address easily enough. There was no record of him in any of the on-line directories but his name had been recently added to the electoral roll.
At first, there was no response to the bell. Wallace pressed again, this time holding it down. A moment later, they heard the rattling of the lock as the door opened. Wickham stood in front of them, with another male figure standing just behind him. 'Oh my Gawd, it's the rozzers. I'd better scarper pronto,' the second figure said in a thick mock Cockney accent.
It took Murrain, peering past Wallace, a moment to re
cognise the man who had spoken. 'Mr Brody,' he said. 'Good to see you again.'
Finlan Brody edged his way past Wickham out on to the doorstep. 'I'll leave Kevin to your tender mercies,' he said. 'Just been putting a bit of business his way, so hope you've not got him bang to rights.'
'Just routine enquiries, like my discussion with you,' Murrain said, pointedly. He didn't want Brody spreading any rumours about the reasons why they might be visiting Kevin Wickham, 'By the way, thank you for taking care of Luke Myers. I'm sure his mother was relieved he was in safe hands.'
Brody shrugged. 'Anyone would have done the same. I only wish I'd been able to call her earlier. All I can say is she's well rid of that idiotic ex of hers.' He glanced meaningfully at Wickham. 'Hope she makes a better choice next time. Well, I'll leave you to continue your enquiries with young Kevin here. And if I can be of any further assistance, please do call in anytime.' He smiled and, waving a theatrical farewell, headed off down towards the village.
Murrain turned to Wickham. 'Friend of yours?'
'Not really.' Wickham was watching them warily. 'I met him through the local business forum. He was asking me about supporting them at the home with recruiting some care assistants. Doing some psychometric tests. Couple of days' work for me, I hope.'
Murrain held out his hand. 'I'm sorry to trouble you. DCI Murrain. I think you already know my colleague DC Wallace. Would you mind if we came in for a minute? There are a couple more questions we'd like to ask.' He could see that Wickham had registered his rank.
Wickham nodded and ushered them into the house. After a moment’s thought, he led them down the hallway to the kitchen. Murrain had the sense, somehow, that he didn’t want them entering the more personal areas of the house.
Wickham was looking a little more confident now than when he'd first opened the door. He gestured for them to take a seat at the kitchen table, and sat himself down opposite. 'How can I help you?'