by Gwyn GB
As they drew closer, they saw a ball of paper sheets in the tray. Some had been partially unrolled and were covered in small writing crammed across their surface. Dr Jones stepped back so Harrison and the DCI could get a closer look, but not before her hand had accidentally brushed against his. She wondered if he too felt the tingle of electric energy that transferred between them. It was possible. She'd seen his eyes look to her at their touch, but maybe he'd simply been about to apologise. The pathologist brought her back to business.
‘His mouth was full of them. There's more,’ said Dr Aspey. ‘Looks like biblical texts.’ He handed a pair of tweezers to Harrison, who, after putting on gloves, took them and carefully looked at the most accessible sheets. After a few moments, he looked up at DCI Barker and nodded.
‘Before or after death?’ she asked the pathologist.
‘I'm not sure. I need to find out the cause of death first—that's still not apparent—and open him up. Those you're looking at now, I'd say after, but I'll confirm that for you in the next hour or so.’
Harrison crossed to the examination table, where he contemplated Darren’s body before bending down towards the boy’s head.
‘There's a faint smell, like acetone, perhaps paint. I caught it in the woods. Hair soaks up odours,’ he said.
‘We'll be taking samples. I'll see what I can find,’ Dr Aspey replied.
‘So does this confirm your theory?’ DCI Barker asked, watching Harrison closely.
‘I need to see which passages he's written. That might give us some more clues as to the state of his captor's mind, but from what I can see already, yes. Why he felt Darren was possessed or needed to be protected from the Devil, I don't know. Did he know Darren? Or was it just “wrong place at the wrong time”? Something has definitely triggered this behaviour, pushed him over the edge. Someone out there must have noticed something.’
‘We'll get the sheets processed asap,’ Tanya said. ‘If they're not too damaged, we should have at least some of them across to you by the morning.’
‘Okay, good.’ Harrison nodded and walked out of the room.
‘Sociable, isn't he?’ She raised her eyebrows and turned to DCI Barker.
‘He's what you call the strong, silent type. You'll get used to him. When he's concentrating on a case, he's not one for chit-chat, and it takes him a bit of time to trust someone. It’ll come.’ She turned to Dr Aspey, ‘Thanks for coming in on a weekend at such short notice, Nicholas.’
‘Not a problem. You know me—I'd far rather spend my time helping this young man than get dragged around Selfridges or Waitrose. Jackie said we need new cushions for the living room. We've got people over tonight, and she's stressing. Some old school friend she hasn't seen in ages, although why Jackie thinks she'd be coming to judge our cushions I don't know.’
Sandra and Tanya both smiled knowingly.
Dr Aspey moved over to where Darren lay and gingerly sniffed the air. ‘I didn't smell anything chemically or like acetone,’ he said, and moved closer to the boy's head, ‘although now that he mentioned it…’
5
When Harrison needed to think, he did one of two things. He either disappeared out of the city and headed for the wide-open countryside and nature, or he sought the silence and safety of his own space where he could control the environment and allow his mind to think and digest. As he was working a case in London, that meant the only option right now was his office deep in the basement of the Metropolitan Police headquarters, New Scotland Yard on Victoria Embankment.
In one sense, being shoved below ground level with no natural light was an anathema for Harrison. He was a man who'd spent years in the fresh air and sunshine, but given the option of a spare desk in a busy incident room, he found solace in the gloom of his underground bolthole. The office was mostly used as a repository for his files, research, and the various spoils of cases—as well as his technical assistant, Ryan.
Ryan wasn't in residence when Harrison arrived. The door was locked, and it was a relief to open it and know he could spend some precious time alone. The image of Darren's pale white body was etched into his retinas. He had to clear his head and assess what he already knew and what he needed to find out in the hunt for his killer. Darren had to be put to rest.
As the door opened into the dark office, light from the hallway shafted inside. To the left was a neat desk surrounded by bookshelves and filing cabinets; but it was what covered the walls and sat among the books that would make the unsuspecting jump. Grimacing death masks and painted skulls leered from the shadows, while roughly sewn voodoo dolls, red-painted devils, Ouija boards, and bone runes huddled on the shelves, cluttering every space. Copies of The Journal of Haitian Studies and The African Studies Review sat alongside The Satanic Rituals, Pagan and Christian Creeds, the Old Testament, and Demonology and Devil Lore. In the half-light and at first glance, it looked like the cave of a sorcerer, but as Harrison flicked on the light switch, the room showed its modern face. Computer screens and a small tea-making station broke up the foreboding menace of the occult and all it whispered.
He crossed straight to the kettle and filled it up at the sink, relieved to see his mug washed, ready for a fresh tea bag. There'd been some issues with cleaners in the past, the odd one not caring for his choice of decor and refusing to go into the room. Harrison had tried to talk to them, but it was blind fear and that meant potluck on some days as to whether the place had been cleaned. Harrison knew that until everyone saw through the hocus-pocus of it all, he’d still have a job mopping up the results of crimes conducted in the name of so-called magic and spiritual beliefs—as well as washing his own mug.
While he waited for the kettle to boil, he took off his leather jacket and stretched. It had been a long morning, and riding the bike and focussing for extended periods meant he needed to release the tension in his neck and shoulders. His back was broad and muscular, like the rest of him. For a few minutes he stretched the muscles, rippling his back and shoulders, pulling the tension from them and rubbing his neck. As it was Saturday, and he hadn't planned on being in today, it was going to turn into a long week. He had to ensure he was in top form. Somewhere out there was a man who'd taken and murdered Darren Phillips. Harrison wanted him caught and put away so he could never touch a child again.
As he sat down at his computer to read through the material gathered by the team, the decidedly pleasant face of Dr Tanya Jones interrupted his thoughts. A brief sliver of time had come into his mind, their hands touching in the post-mortem suite. It had thrown him off his concentration then and did so again now.
She was attractive: blue eyes with a heavy curtain of lashes and a sculptured face that contained full lips and a perfectly formed nose. She was also intelligent, a fellow scientist who relied only on facts and evidence. Harrison’s kind of woman. But he couldn't let himself get distracted, couldn't risk the loss of focus. He had to put her out of his mind and concentrate on what mattered: finding Darren’s killer and continuing the hunt for the man who had murdered his mother.
6
The incident room was quieter than earlier. Those who weren't out interviewing and searching were tapping away on computers. Some were on the phone taking calls, following the appeal for information, or setting up interviews. The atmosphere was also more subdued. The morbid black humour that, for most of them, was a necessary mental-protection mechanism, was turned off when a child was involved. There were few things off limits for emergency services in-house humour, but the murder of a child was one of them.
DCI Barker stood in front of the incident board, one arm across her body, holding the elbow of her other arm as she rubbed her cheek in thought. DS Salter walked across and stood next to her.
‘Good chance it could be someone he knows from school, church, or a club—or even a neighbour or family friend,’ she told him.
‘We've found some partial fingerprints on the torch, but so far nothing's coming up on Ident1. The torch is with forensics still. See if
they can get anything more. They're checking for DNA too.’
‘Something tells me we won’t have him in our systems. Harrison said this guy has flipped for some reason, but why?’
‘Could the suspect be a woman? It wasn’t a violent killing.’
‘Definitely not the mother—you can't fake that reaction—and anyway Harrison's convinced it's a man.’
Salter didn't reply, which prompted DCI Barker to look at him. He was clenching his teeth, the muscles in his cheeks taut with the effort of not voicing what he was busting to say.
‘How are you getting on with the interviews? You know the stats. It's most likely to be a family member.’ She changed the subject.
‘Double-checked the family's alibis and they're sound. Working on friends now.’
Salter's mobile rang; it was on silent, but there was no mistaking the buzz from his inside pocket. He took it out and looked at the screen. It read, “Home.”
‘Go on. And make sure you buy her some flowers later.’ DCI Barker was getting seriously concerned about Jack's home situation and his ability to focus on the job. She’d hate to do it, but maybe she should tell him he needed to take some time, step away from this case, and let another DS take over. They sure didn’t need to lose the manpower right now, and he was her most senior DS, but his family was more important, as was his sanity. Besides, it might not be a bad thing if he continued to rub Harrison up the wrong way.
Jack looked relieved and went to take the phone call, just as Sergeant Evans walked up to them.
‘Ma’am, reception's just called. A convicted paedophile, out on parole and living in the same street as Darren's family, just walked in. He walked straight up to the desk and said he wanted to confess.’
‘Really? This easy?’ Delight lit up DCI Barker's face.
‘I'll get on it now, Taff,’ DS Salter replied, cancelling his call.
‘I'll go with you, Jack, and bring DC Johnson with us. I'll get Harrison too. Taff, can you let the desk know we're heading down now?’
‘Sure, boss,’ he replied.
‘And Taff, don't advertise this to the whole team, all right? I don't want them to ease up. This investigation needs to keep going full throttle.’
An hour later, Harrison Lane walked into the small observation room next door to one of the interview rooms at Lewisham Police Station. DCI Barker was already in there, and she gave him a nod in greeting as he entered.
‘He's refused representation,’ she told him, indicating the man on the video screen in front of her. ‘Handed in his laptop as well. They've swabbed him and taken his clothes. Just waiting on the shoe results. He didn't complain.’
A balding man in police-custody issue trousers and top sat expectantly staring at the two police detectives in front of him. He looked calm.
Harrison took his place, standing next to the DCI. Both of them had their arms folded. She was a fit fifty-four-year-old but not skinny, probably the result of her chocolate habit. She wasn't short either at five nine, but the large muscular bulk of Harrison beside her made her look almost petite. He dominated the room, but she didn't feel uncomfortable. He wasn't like some big men, who, aware of their size, used it to their best advantage against everyone they encountered, including women. Harrison was always mindful of another's personal space, and she'd seen him somehow make himself appear smaller if the situation required it. She guessed that went with the territory of being a psychologist. He knew how to approach people to get the best out of them and when to make himself less intimidating. She'd also seen him take the opposite strategy. He might have a doctorate, but he was a man few people would pick a fight with, and even fewer would come out all right if they did.
Both of them stood eagerly watching the screen, waiting to hear what the man in front of DS Salter and DC Johnson would say.
‘So do you want to tell us what happened?’ DS Salter asked the man. This was standard interview technique. Let the suspect tell their story—if they wanted to. Sometimes they didn't; it would just be met with “no comment”. Usually they would tell their own version of a "story" even if it was just to say, "Weren't me, Guv". If they were guilty and didn't want to admit it, it would be an elaborate fabrication that the interviewer would then pick apart and find inconsistencies in. In this case, the man wanted them to know he was guilty, so he sang like a canary.
‘I'd been watching him, playing in the street with his friends. There's a few of them that ride bikes or play football. He kept going back and forth past my house on that bike of his. I wanted him. I wanted to invite him in and talk to him. I wanted to get to know him.’
DCI Barker's stomach bile reacted to his words. At this stage in her career, most crimes were just part of the day job and the criminals were clients you had to endure. However, there were always some cases and some individuals who could still break through the professional wall she had built around herself. The officers they lost most frequently were those who worked the child abuse shifts. Despite the artificial-intelligence software built to grade images on a computer so people didn't have to trawl through every single sickening one, there was still the need to review material. Safeguards were in place. Officers had time-outs scheduled to ensure it wasn't continuous exposure, but it was often just a question of time before the depravity ate through to their soul and twisted their view of the world. You couldn't un-see some things, no matter how hard you tried.
The man continued with his story, uninterrupted. His face was calm, and he almost smiled in parts, as though he was forgetting where he was and recounting a holiday memory.
‘I knew it was a matter of time before I got pulled with my record, so I did him in and took him to the woods. I laid him out, made it look like it had been some satanist who done it. You know, put a cross upside down, candles, stuff like that.’
‘We've not released that information,’ DCI Barker told Harrison. He didn't reply, but she knew he'd heard because his eyes narrowed as he listened.
The man finished telling his story then looked up at DS Salter and DC Johnson expectantly. Next, Jack would start to nail him down to a timeline, get the facts in order, and see how that stacked up and if there were any inconsistencies. He started in reverse order, with leaving Darren’s body in Felton Woods.
The change was imperceptible, but Harrison noticed it. Within a couple of questions, the man was fidgeting.
‘What time did you arrive at Felton Woods?’ DS Salter asked.
The man scratched his neck and rubbed his chin.
‘Not sure. I wasn't exactly looking at the clock. I had other things on my mind.’ He might have sounded cocky and sure of himself, but his body language told a different story. He had shrunk slightly in his chair, and his eyes flicked from Salter to Johnson.
‘He's lying. We're wasting our time,’ Harrison exclaimed and turned away from the screen to look at DCI Barker.
‘He knows how Darren was found,’ Barker said quizzically.
‘He's too tall, too heavy, and too vague in his story. There're no details to substantiate. The initial phase of the interview was pure fantasy. He was retelling a dream. He probably had thought about doing it, but he didn't. Now he's been pulled out of that fantasy mode. He's got to think about what he's saying, make sure he gets things right. Now he's nervous. Whenever Jack asks a direct question about the murder, he’s evasive. If he really came in here because he wanted to confess, he would have maintained that calmness, been more controlled with his answers, even under questioning.’
Barker nodded. She had her reservations too, but it didn't add up. ‘How does he know about the satanic stuff?’
‘No idea, but he's scared of something. Look how he sits curled up, and it's not the fear of being arrested and charged that’s doing that.’
DCI Barker thought for a moment then picked up her mobile and typed a message in text. In the interview room, DS Salter's mobile buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the message.
‘Tell him you don't bel
ieve him and you’re going to send him home.’
DS Salter was a little surprised by the command, but he was a professional. Nothing showed on his face. He placed his mobile facedown on the table and did as told.
‘I don't believe you, I don't think you had anything to do with Darren’s death.’ He stared hard at the man in front of him. Tiny pinheads of sweat were erupting all over his face, and his eyes widened at Jack's words. With a quick glance at his colleague, DC Johnson, to encourage him to follow his lead, Jack picked up his notes and phone, ‘We're letting you go.’
The man visibly paled. He looked like he might be about to vomit. White-knuckled hands clutched at the table as though he would refuse to leave, and his legs shook and jiggled.
‘No, please, no. They're going to lynch me. They know about my record…’
DS Salter stood.
‘Okay, okay. I didn't touch him, but I wanted to. I've got pictures on my computer. Check it out. You need to arrest me. I've broken my licence conditions.’
DS Salter terminated the interview recording and walked out of the room to the sound of the man’s begging shouts.
When he came out of the interview room, DCI Barker and Harrison were already in the corridor. Jack's face, as he walked out, reflected their own thoughts.
‘Little scrote, wasting our time. Just worried about his own skin,’ he fumed at them.
‘But how did he know about the way the boy was laid out?’ DCI Barker questioned, as much to the air as to the three men in front of her. ‘Hand him over to the Child Protection team, will you? He’s not going to help us with our enquiry, but if he's been breaking his parole and is re-offending, they'll want him off the streets as much as I do.’
‘I can do that, ma'am,’ DC Johnson replied. ‘I'll take him down now.’ He turned around to reenter the interview room.
‘Well, we did think it was too good to be bloody true.’ DCI Barker sighed. She started back towards the incident room, annoyed that they'd wasted time away from the investigation. ‘Perhaps we need to make it public that Darren wasn't sexually abused before we get every paedo in the area, nervous of being lynched, filling up holding cells.’