Catch the Fallen Sparrow (12 page)

Maree O'Rourke, Dean's social worker, was tiny with spiky hair, dressed in a very short skirt which revealed an expanse of plump, pale thigh as she crossed her legs. Her face was caked in thick, pale make-up, eyes black-lined in a Cleopatra look and hair unnaturally black. Her lips were carefully outlined in dark pencil and filled in with a deep coral lipstick.

She linked her hands around her knee and looked mournfully at Joanna. ‘I'm heartbroken about Dean,' she said sniffing. ‘What do you want to know? I don't think I can tell you much but it'll be more than you'll get from anyone else. The other kids won't say nothin' in case they get someone into trouble. And I don't think any other adults really spent much time with him.' She stroked her chin. ‘But I certainly haven't a clue who “got him”. He could be very secretive, you know. Vulnerable – like they all are. They're dying to be like other kids – really privileged – but at the same time they're all terrified of rejection. That's why they build such high walls around themselves. Dean was not a bad boy. Used, manipulated – sometimes very gullible, at other times he could really be quite clever, like his disappearances.' Her heavily made-up eyes stared straight at Joanna. ‘I never got to the bottom of those. I don't think anyone ever did – unless Jason or Kirsty knew. He was very thick with both of those two.'

Maree scratched her head. ‘How official is this?' she asked.

‘Totally off the record,' Joanna said. ‘It won't be used in court. I have to find his killer. These sorts of crimes tend to become more frequent if the killer gets away with it'

‘I'll do all I can.' Maree was swift to reassure her.

‘How well did you know Dean?'

‘I've known him practically from birth,' she said, biting her lip. ‘Do you know, he was such a pretty child – like an angel. On the “at risk” register right from birth – not violence but extreme neglect, left alone while Ma went out on the town.'

‘Very young, was she?'

Maree shook her head. ‘No,' she said, ‘she wasn't. She was in her twenties but she wanted a good time. He was two months old when I first saw him – very skinny.' For a second she looked too upset to continue. She dabbed her eyes, sniffed and regained her self-control. ‘We kept taking him into care and then trying him back with her. In the end she just dumped him outside the social services in his little push-chair with a note pinned to his anorak.' She gave a wry smile. ‘We'd even bought him the bloody anorak,' she said. ‘He was a lovely baby. He had lovely pale hair – almost silver – and enormous blue eyes.' She looked at Joanna. ‘Detective Inspector Piercy, he was the most neglected child I'd ever seen. His bottom was sore from never having his nappy changed. He had scabies. He was dirty and terribly undernourished. She'd never been cruel to him – never beat him or anything. He was just totally ignored for the first two years of his life — apart from when he was in local authority care.'

Joanna shook her head.

‘At first she wouldn't let Dean be put up for adoption. She kept saying as soon as she had a proper home she'd have him back.' Maree looked at her earnestly. ‘The law was different then. She had absolute right. So little Dean was fostered by a succession of unsuitable people. Every time they rejected him for various reasons – usually that he didn't measure up to their image of a perfect child – he was sent straight back here for a few months while we searched for another “suitable” family. By the time he'd reached ten years old the law changed. Dean wanted to stay here – in The Nest. And for the first time in his short life we listened to him. He was happy here.'

‘But he absconded.'

‘I believe,' Maree said slowly, ‘that he was encouraged.'

‘By whom?'

‘I don't know. Someone was stringing him along. Each time he returned he'd have that horrible, secretive look. I learned to recognize it.'

Maree looked past her at the window which faced a brick wall. Joanna often thought it highly symbolic when on a particularly frustrating case.

‘I don't know what Dean looked like when you saw him,' Maree said, ‘but he was a very beautiful child.'

Joanna nodded. ‘We could see that.'

‘I had suspicions,' Maree continued. ‘I was afraid ...'

‘That he was being molested?'

Two large tears appeared in Maree's dark eyes and the black lines that drew them seemed to blur. ‘He denied it. We moved him,' she said. ‘But I think it happened again.'

Joanna stared at her. ‘Did you ask him?'

Maree shook her head. ‘It's hopeless,' she said. ‘He always denied it. Sometimes it's other boys at the home – sometimes the wardens. Sometimes they frequent public toilets ... Somehow these children ...' Her voice trailed away. ‘They're the lost boys. We couldn't force an examination on him.' She swallowed. ‘I know some of the older boys were quite cruel to him. One of them burned him – another tattooed his knuckles.' She stopped. ‘I asked him but he wouldn't say a thing. So I could never prove anything. But I just had the feeling he was being abused. It was the ... how can I put it... the knowing way he would look at me. But it made him very confident.'

Joanna frowned. ‘Confident?'

Maree looked confused. ‘I can't put it any other way,' she said. ‘At eight years old he knew things he shouldn't have done.' She stopped. ‘They're all like that, these lost children.' She sighed. ‘All I can do is to be around – be available. After that my hands are tied.'

It had been a long, hard day so when Mike offered to buy her a drink at the pub Joanna accepted, knowing she would value his thoughts on the case.

I had an idea,' she said when they were sitting down. ‘It's about the abuse stopping. What if it was Latos who was touching him up?'

He looked at her. ‘Why stop?' he asked.

‘He's got a friend now,' she said. ‘The one he went to the opera with. He didn't need Dean any more.'

Mike took a long, slow drink from his beer glass. ‘I've thought of something else,' he said. ‘What if Leech was the one abusing little Dean? Then Dean might be HIV positive. The killer had been at him too ...'

‘And stopped because he was worried he might get it as well?'

Mike nodded. ‘And you see what that means, Jo?'

‘Killer and abuser were the same person. Bloody hell.' She made a quick decision. ‘We should get Dean Aids tested,' she said, then looked at Mike. ‘And what about Riversdale?'

He shook his head, offered to buy another drink, but she stood up.

‘My turn,' she said.

Tom called round unexpectedly on Thursday morning, just as she was swallowing her breakfast.

‘I felt I ought to warn you,' he said. ‘Caro's on your tail. She's sniffing around for what she calls an “angle” on the case. She was just on the telephone.'

Joanna offered him a coffee and they sat down together.

‘What did she say?'

‘Just that in London the image of a young boy's body alight on the moors is ... to quote her, “wonderfully atmospheric”. She particularly likes the image of the rock man, winking at passers-by and guarding the corpse.'

‘She would,' Joanna said gloomily.

‘So expect her any day.' He looked at her with sympathy. ‘How is the investigation progressing?'

‘Slowly,' she said. ‘I have to interview a horde of kids tomorrow. And I still haven't got hold of the chief people I want to interview – Mrs Leech and her son. They're away, so the answerphone keeps telling me.'

‘Be careful, Jo,' he said. ‘Caro will soon be here. And you know how predatory she can be.'

‘I do,' Joanna said with feeling. ‘And that's all I need. The Press's chief bulldog.'

‘Well, the burning boy would be enough,' he said grimly, ‘even without the MP connection.' He paused. ‘I'm not trying to pry, but it seems a nasty, sordid little business. And the more I read in the papers the less I like the sound of the story – and the implications on our society.'

‘I know, I know. The whole case does seem an indictment on the way we treat children if the parenting system fails them.'

Tom nodded, and finished his coffee. ‘Well,' he said, standing up, ‘I mustn't delay you.'

‘Thanks for warning me,' she said, and he faced her.

‘I don't know what I'm doing – warning you. I'm sure you can look after yourself.'

She grinned. He bent and kissed her cheek, then left.

Mike was sitting at her desk when she walked in the next morning.

‘Trying it for size, Mike?' she asked coolly.

He flushed and stood up too quickly, knocking over the waste-paper basket. ‘Just waiting for your instructions for the day.'

‘Well, if you'll excuse me,' she said, ‘I have to get changed.'

He beat a hasty retreat.

At nine o'clock exactly the telephone rang. Gilly Leech had come home. And in a crisp, sharp voice she informed: ‘Inspector Piercy, if you would like to call this morning it would be convenient. About eleven?' Her tone sounded as though she was summoning the dustbin men to empty her bins.

In the car Mike glanced at her. ‘You know – you could do with a holiday too, Jo.'

She kept her eyes on the road. ‘When this is over,' she said. ‘When we've got the person who killed that poor boy, I'll have myself a holiday.'

‘On your own?'

She was silent.

Rock House was an enormous Victorian mansion with its back to craggy rocks and fine, huge bowed windows that opened out to long green lawns sweeping straight down to the canal.

Joanna glanced at Mike. ‘Money,' she said. ‘Lots of it. He could afford to be a benefactor.'

‘And die of Aids?' There was a scornful note in his voice.

She steered the car around a sharp bend.

She had not slept at all the night before but had spread out on the sitting-room floor Matthew's letters and cards – birthday, Christmas – and the photographs of snatched minutes and the few whole nights they had managed to spend together when she had not slept either – for fear of wasting precious moments. She had recalled all the sayings she connected with him, the books and pieces of music they had shared. There could never be anyone to touch her heart as he had done – or her body either. So she had sighed, opened the curtains and watched the dawn climb over the hills and spill into the small valley with its black snake of a canal flowing along its bottom until it reached the motionless lock gate.

But the deepest, most lasting picture which had stuck in her mind was the haunting image of Jane, Matthew, Eloise ... one happy family. Under blue skies, in sparkling water, on golden beaches – together.

They reached a sharp bend in the road bordered by a high stone wall. ‘I think we're here,' Mike said, and swung the car through tall wrought-iron gates, standing open.

‘We don't know yet how he got it,' she said.

‘Don't we?'

‘Don't jump to conclusions, Mike. Assume nothing. Wait for the truth.'

‘You're a real Mrs Plod sometimes.' He grinned. ‘I'm crossing a bridge over a very narrow stream – not leaping to conclusions. And you know as well as I do we're going to find it very difficult to get to the bottom of how Ashford Leech contracted HIV.'

‘Well, let's start here, shall we?'

She knocked on the door. It was opened immediately by a hatchet-faced woman with fading golden hair scraped into a wispy pony-tail and secured by an elastic band. She was, Joanna noticed, extremely thin and the stretch trousers and baggy sweater she wore only emphasized her boniness.

She held her ID card up in front of the woman's eyes. ‘Mrs Leech?' she asked. ‘I'm Detective Inspector Piercy. I rang to say we were coming.'

Gilly Leech tightened her thin lips until she looked even more severe. ‘I really don't see how I can help you,' she said. ‘The child's death has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with me.'

Joanna nodded. ‘I'm sure you're right,' she said soothingly before she produced the ring. ‘But this is your husband's?'

‘
Was,
Inspector.' Gilly Leech's eyes were so pale a light seemed to come from them. Her face was crumpled and unhappy. Embarrassingly her eyes began to water.

‘Look, wouldn't it be better if we came in,' Joanna said, ‘instead of standing on the doorstep?'

Gilly Leech's eyes hardened. She gave a quick expression of extreme distaste. ‘If you must,' she said ungraciously. Joanna and Mike followed her across a large, square hall, polished dark parquet with a central red circular Chinese rug and a tall grandfather clock in the corner. To the left a large staircase swept upwards to the first floor.

‘You live here alone, Mrs Leech?'

‘No, I do not,' she snapped. ‘At least – not exactly. Look, Inspector.' She turned and faced Joanna. ‘Is this all part of your investigation? It looks like my late husband's ring. It probably is ... was,' she corrected quickly, ‘his. But obviously it can't possibly have anything whatsoever to do with myself or my son. You're wasting your time. You ought to be out there – hunting for the real murderer of the poor child.'

Joanna felt a sudden flame of anger at this grim-faced woman. ‘Plenty of people are,' she said. ‘We will follow up every single connection – however tenuous. One never knows in this work quite where clues may take you but we can't afford to ignore anything. A young boy was found murdered, his body ablaze on the moors. He was ten years old, a young, blond child. On his finger, Mrs Leech, was found your husband's ring, supposedly burgled from this house.'

Her lips tightened. ‘ “Supposedly” Inspector,' she said sharply. ‘Exactly what do you mean by that?' Her pale eyes shone with disdain and dislike.