Catch the Fallen Sparrow (17 page)

Swinton felt his anger rise as quickly as he felt Tom boy shrink beside him. ‘Fuck off,' he said.

Holt and Withers were either side of him now. ‘Some poor bastard from a home,' Withers said. ‘A local home for bastards whose mothers can't be bothered to care for them.'

‘What was the name of the place again?'

‘Tweet Tweet Tweet Tweet.'

Holt was inane but the jibe was enough to tip Swinton into pure fury. He lashed out a punch aimed at him but Holt ducked and Swinton lost his balance and fell into the table.

Withers grinned. ‘Careful ... careful.'

‘Why don't you leave off?' Surprisingly it was Tom boy – sensitive to his comrade's lack of a family home. Rare courage found from somewhere. But as quickly as it had erupted it subsided again and Tom boy flushed and fell silent.

As usual, Swinton failed to appreciate the risk Tom boy had taken. ‘Piss off, blubber-face,' he said, then turned back to Withers. ‘So the dead kid came from a home,' he snarled. ‘So bloody what?'

‘He came from the same place as you did, Swinton.' Another voice had joined the pack of jackals.

‘And you were the one what found the body.'

‘Don't tell me it was all a big coincidence.'

‘Sure it was a body when you got there?'

Tom boy blinked and moved forward. ‘It was nothin' to do with Gary. The kid was dead. I saw he was dead. Gary had nothin' to do with it.'

Swinton turned on him again. ‘I said piss off. I don't need Tom soft boy to fight my battles.' He faced Holt squarely. ‘If you want to say something, soldier, come right out with it.' He leered and clenched his fist. The others sensed his great wish was to use those fists. ‘Come on,' he said, beckoning with his hand. ‘Come on ... don't be scared.'

The soldiers backed off. They were no match for Swinton. He didn't feel pain and when the wild look was in his eyes he positively welcomed it ... almost needed it. Swinton looked from one face to the other, grinning, the gap in his teeth giving him a crooked, evil expression.

Tom boy saw the knife and gulped, uncertain whether to warn the others, but they had half expected it. This gave their planned beating a legality. Swinton had been armed. They pummelled him then, trying to make him scream, but they didn't understand him.

When he stood up, his face was already beginning to swell and the pain in his back told him one or two ribs had cracked. Stiffly he walked to the door, turning round when he reached it. ‘I didn't kill the bloody kid, you morons,' he said. ‘If you had any sense at all you'd know that. He was dead when we were all asleep here in our beds.'

‘Gary ...' Tom boy appealed to him and Gary resigned himself. Tottering through the door Tom boy held him up. The soldiers carried on filling up their tin dishes.

‘We can have extra,' Holt said cheerfully. ‘Two missing.'

As Joanna and Mike reached the black police van they sensed an atmosphere of excitement. More had been found. There was a buzz in the air, quick activity, and instead of the unbroken line of uniform a clump of police were busy stringing off a round area, connected with a long corridor of red and white plastic ribbon.

Joanna nodded towards the spot. ‘The first burning,' she said, and they walked until they reached the group of police officers.

‘It wasn't in the original search area, Inspector.' The SOC officer, Sergeant Barraclough, greeted them with a note of apology.

Joanna waved it aside.

‘That's all right,' she said. ‘What have you got?'

Triumphantly the sergeant held up a scorched black glove safely in its plastic bag.

Joanna grinned. ‘Well done. Forensics could make a whole case out of that one glove. Tell me, Barra,' she said, feeling, at last, pleased, ‘I've read they can get fingerprints from the inside of gloves. Any chance here, do you think?'

He shook his head dubiously. ‘I doubt it,' he said. ‘Wool's a terrible material for fingerprints. And it's been out here for three days now – damp and cold. Still if I remember rightly at PM I cut off some of Dean's clothing. I've got the feeling forensics said there were strands of black wool.' He looked at her. ‘I didn't have a clue then where they'd come from.' He paused. ‘Funny, isn't it, how all the little bits and pieces make up one big picture?'

‘Over here, Sarge.' Joanna could never rid herself of the excitement the phrase evoked in her.

Armed with plastic bags the SOC officer moved to the spot. The constable pointed down. Caught on a sharp bramble was a tiny fragment of material. Tiny, but not too tiny to see, was a piece of coat lining in the bright red Royal Stuart tartan.

Barraclough picked it up with a pair of tweezers. ‘Well done, my lad,' he said. ‘Sharp eyes.' He grinned. ‘This is better. This is much better.'

Joanna thought for a minute. ‘We want maps of the area,' she said, ‘and plot the finds. I want to know the exact route.' She looked at Barraclough. ‘Well done, we're getting somewhere now. Keep at it, Barra. Remind the men not to miss anything. A fragment such as this might be the piece we need to nail our killer. I don't want him getting away. He could kill again.'

It was the one horror that haunted any police officer in charge of a murder investigation. Fail to find the killer – as they had done with the Yorkshire Ripper – and you pay with another innocent life. If someone had to die, let it not be through the failure to pick up a strand of thread or read a sign. On the other hand, an arrest made with insufficient evidence would mean an acquittal and a killer still on the loose.

Joanna's mobile phone crackled and the voice informed her Private Gary Swinton was sitting in the station, ready to talk to her.

DC King met her as she walked into the station. He shook his head. ‘I can't see how he did it,' he said. ‘He was at the disco till two then came back with all the other blokes. He was seen back in by the soldier on duty.' He looked at Joanna. ‘He definitely saw him. There's no way he could have got out and killed the boy. It's impossible.'

She nodded. ‘I know,' she said. ‘The firing was at about four. At that time we know Gary Swinton was in the bunkhouse with about thirty other soldiers. Thank you.' She smiled. ‘He can be excluded from the inquiry. But I still have some questions I want to put to him.'

Swinton was sitting alone, looking ill-at-ease, still dressed in heavy black army boots and green camouflage. But his beret was tucked in an epaulette and he looked less menacing without the camouflage paint on his face. And his neck looked bony and thin sticking out from the thick collar. His bright hair was cut so short Joanna could see pink scalp beneath. He was younger than she had thought – barely seventeen – and he looked frightened. The ugly swelling on his eye, the cut lip and the undisguised wincing as he moved did not escape her either. Summary justice? One thing she knew without doubt, life would never be easy for Gary Swinton. She felt it was important they put him at his ease.

‘Thank you for coming in, Gary,' she said.

He mumbled his reply.

‘Detective Sergeant Korpanski,' Gary shot an apprehensive look at the DS, ‘and I really asked you to come in to go over a few details about the morning you found Dean's body.'

His shoulders stiffened at the sound of the boy's name but she would ask him simple questions first. The difficult ones could come later. She looked at one of the uniformed police officers. ‘Is there an interview room free?'

He nodded towards a green door on the left of the corridor and the three of them moved into it. Joanna switched on the tape recorder while Gary gave her a look like a frightened rabbit.

‘Am I under arrest?' he asked.

Joanna shook her head. ‘No, Gary,' she said, ‘but I want you to clear up a few things.'

The look of apprehension remained on his face.

‘Why didn't you tell us you knew Dean?' she asked.

His face paled. He licked his lips, fumbled in his pocket. ‘Mind if I smoke?'

‘Go ahead.' Mike slid an ashtray across the table.

‘You and Dean were together at The Nest, weren't you? Both in care. You knew Dean very well, didn't you?'

He dragged deeply on his cigarette and nodded.

‘Did it not occur to you that the first thing we needed to do to help us catch Dean's killer was find out his name?'

‘I knew you'd pin it on me.'

Joanna leaned forward. ‘Don't be so bloody silly, Gary,' she said. ‘You didn't do it. There isn't a force in the country would try and pretend you did.'

He took another deep drag from his cigarette and blew it straight in her face.

‘But I believe you can help us over another matter.'

‘What's that then?' He scowled.

‘Who was being cruel to Dean?' She picked up his packet of cigarettes. ‘Someone was burning him, with cigarettes, just like these.' She looked the soldier straight in the face. ‘Was it you?'

‘It were a laugh,' he said. ‘There weren't no harm in it. They did it to me when I was a kid. It never hurt me.'

‘And were you fucking him as well?'

Gary Swinton looked insulted. ‘Don't be daft,' he said. ‘I don't fancy little boys.' He drew an exaggerated female shape in the air. ‘Curvy. That's how I like 'em.' He shot Joanna a cocky look. ‘Like you.'

Mike stepped forward. ‘Watch yourself,' he said.

Joanna waited before speaking again. ‘So, Gary, if you weren't molesting Dean – who was?'

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘How should I know?'

‘And where did he go when he absconded?'

‘To his family I always thought.'

Joanna stared at him. ‘But he didn't have a family.'

‘Well, that's where I thought he went. I never bloody well asked him.'

The surly attitude finally began to irritate her. ‘Well, I wish you had,' she said. ‘We might have some idea who it was murdered your little friend.'

Gary Swinton blinked and Joanna spoke again to him, quietly. ‘Just go over that morning, will you?'

Carefully he repeated what he had said before ... A platoon, B platoon ... the slow creep on his belly up the bank ...

She stopped him.

‘How is it you didn't notice the fire?'

‘We wasn't looking that way.'

‘You didn't smell anything?'

‘Wind must 'ave bin in the wrong direction.' He paused. ‘It weren't until we got to nearly the top that me and Tom boy smelt it.'

Mike moved behind him. ‘You knew that smell, didn't you? Flesh burning.'

Gary Swinton half turned. ‘It weren't like you're saying,' he said. ‘It weren't cruel. It were more of an endurance test. See?'

Mike gave a loud expression of disgust.

Gary was sweating now – fear – shaking as though he was an alcoholic.

Mike moved closer to the table. ‘What did you do to that poor kid?' he asked. When the soldier didn't answer he spoke again in a soft, dangerous voice. ‘Who did the tattoos for you?'

‘It were Jason. Bugger. He said he'd do 'em neat.'

‘And he did Dean's as well?'

Gary seemed to crumple. Slowly he nodded and went silent.

Joanna looked at Mike. ‘May I have a word?' she asked. Outside she said, ‘We have to let him go now. We both know we aren't going to charge him with anything.'

‘I'd like to wring his bloody neck,' Mike said viciously.

She smiled at him. ‘Really, Detective Sergeant?'

He gave a wry look and together they entered the interview room again. ‘All right, Gary,' she said. ‘Thank you. You're free to leave.'

For a moment he sat, quite frozen, as though he did not trust what he'd heard. Then without another word he stood up and bolted through the door.

The time when she missed Matthew most was when she was away from work – at home, alone and in the middle of the night when all was quiet and deeper thoughts intruded. What were his true feelings towards her? Had their love been based on warm ice? On deceit, excitement and furtive meetings that had blessed her, the ‘other woman', with an illusion of glamour.

And if she was brutally honest with herself there were other thoughts too. Matthew had been the world's most exciting and intelligent lover – now and then. Their meetings had been infrequent and treasured, each second lived twice over. The sick thought that pervaded her now was did she honestly want a full-time lover? A husband? Someone always there. Demanding? Or had one of the magic reasons she had been so magnetized by Matthew Levin been his intermittence?

And now the worry had woken her. She climbed out of bed and stepped under the shower. It was time to face Monday and her mood was not improved by knowing she had set most of this day aside to speak to the children from The Nest. Maree's presence had been arranged and it was thought better that she, Mike and a policewoman (she had chosen PC Cheryl Smith for her acuteness) should interview the children one at a time in familiar surroundings – in the living room of the children's home. However, as she was sitting at her breakfast bar, drinking the first coffee of the day, the telephone rang. It was the Chief Superintendent and he sounded irritable.

‘Good morning, sir.'

‘I hope you haven't bitten off more than you can chew, Piercy,' he said sharply, ‘because I've got Ashford Leech's son here breathing fire. Says you've been harassing his aged mother. And', he said ominously, ‘for some reason you've decided to make public the ring connection.'

She thought how Wagnerian the phrase sounded ... ‘She isn't aged, sir,' Joanna protested, but the Chief was definitely not interested in discussing the relationship of Anno Domini to Gilly Leech.

‘You'd better come down here, Piercy,' he said. ‘He wants to speak to the officer in charge. And he's brought his solicitor.'