Catch the Fallen Sparrow (20 page)

‘Thank you ... Mr Riversdale ...' She paused. ‘Let me just get this right. Are you saying that although Dean had been badly treated – on PM it was noted he had been physically and sexually abused – you can shed no light on this?'

‘Not since I've been here,' he said, glancing angrily at Maree. ‘You've looked after him longer than I have. Why aren't they asking you all the questions?'

‘Calm down, Mark,' she said quietly. “They've already asked me all this. I couldn't help them any more than you could. But you lived with him.'

He looked ashamed. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘I lived with him.'

Joanna was suddenly angry. She looked at Riversdale and then at the social worker. ‘You two were in charge of this boy,' she said. ‘He was a child in your care. I want to know. What was going on?' Her eyes, Mike noted, had changed colour to a steely grey-blue. At the station this was the sign they all dreaded, this cold grey anger. The angry gypsy. ‘I warn you both,' she said. ‘A police enquiry will be intrusive and merciless. It would be better if one of you told me the full truth. Who was sexually abusing Dean?'

They looked at one another.

Joanna spoke again. ‘All right.' She stared at Mark. ‘Was it you?'

He began to bluster then – to deny it hotly. He had been in charge of the boy ... in loco parentis ... definitely not.

And all the time Joanna watched him and wondered.

‘Let me put it another way ... did you suspect he was being abused?'

They both nodded.

‘Right,' she said. ‘Who did you think it was?'

It was Maree who spoke. ‘We thought it was Leech,' she said. ‘But we didn't dare do anything about it. He was a powerful man, and a vocal one too. Besides, Dean was really fond of him.'

‘And to your knowledge,' she asked, ‘did he know Keith Latos?'

They looked at one another again.

‘He has the sports shop on the high street,' Joanna explained, but both shook their heads.

‘Not as far as we know.'

‘And where do you think Dean disappeared to when he absconded?'

‘We just didn't know,' Riversdale said. ‘We couldn't get to the bottom of it. We noticed he seemed ill once or twice when he came home. We were going to do something about it. Then it stopped. He had been much better. He even stayed here for two months at a time.' He looked at her. ‘That's why I didn't think he'd gone this time.'

‘Well, he had,' she said brutally. ‘But you can stop worrying about Dean. He's out of your hands now. Just start worrying about the two we spoke to this morning. Now – let's start again. Where did he go?'

They were both silent.

Maree spoke first. ‘We honestly don't know, Inspector.'

She turned to Mark. ‘All right then, Mr Riversdale, where did you think he went?'

‘I don't know.' His voice was shaking, his hands were too.

Joanna knew she could have continued further, broken him. But time and the law had taught her other ways. She stood up and stared for a moment at him. ‘We will want to question you further,' she said, ‘at the station.'

‘When?' The panic in his voice made him squeak the word.

‘I don't know.'

‘Will you be pressing charges?' he asked timidly.

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘But if I were you I would be prepared to face an internal inquiry at the very least – if not criminal charges.'

As she walked to the police car Joanna glanced back into the room. Mark Riversdale was sitting on the sofa, his face in his hands. Maree was standing over him, shouting. As her eyes travelled up to the bedroom window she saw Kirsty and Jason staring down at her. As soon as they realized they had been seen they disappeared from view.

‘Honestly,' she said to Mike as they turned out into the main road, ‘I thought the days of the workhouse and Oliver Twist were over and done with. Christ,' she exploded, ‘he's worse than the bloody beadle.'

‘Yes, but what else?' Mike asked. ‘How much of that poor kid's troubles came from Riversdale himself?'

‘What do you think?'

Mike considered for a moment before he spoke. ‘Not sure,' he said.

It was quiet in the cottage as she let herself in through the front door, and after the bustle of the station working to capacity over the murder hunt she felt enveloped by loneliness. She sat in the dark for a long while, trying to ponder the case. She forced herself to picture the child – alive ... analyse his life and relationships. And the more she thought the stronger became the conviction that Jason and Kirsty held the answers to many questions she would like to put to them. She chewed her lip and decided she would pay another visit to The Nest in the morning.

And then slowly would follow the exposures ... uncomfortable ones. Unpleasant and dirty secrets would be dug up. Questions would be asked. And the whisperings would start. She was only now beginning to understand the basics of this case. She closed her eyes and dreamed.

The telephone woke her much later. She picked it up and yawned into the receiver. ‘Hello?'

‘Joanna.'

She didn't know whether to be glad or sad it was Caro. But she did feel a snag of apprehension.

‘I said I'd help you find Dean's mother,' she said. ‘Get the paper tomorrow. If it doesn't bring results I'll munch my way through a morning copy. I promise. You can watch.'

Joanna laughed, lifted by the tone of mischief in her friend's voice. ‘Thanks,' she said.

‘Scratch my back,' Caro said gaily, ‘and I'll scratch yours.'

‘Your headline on the ring brought results.'

‘Really?'

‘Brought Robin Leech down on me like a ton of bricks.'

‘Power of the pen,' Caro said lightly, then added, ‘When's Matthew back?'

‘I don't know – a couple of days.'

‘Mmm,' she said. ‘And I wonder what will happen then.'

‘I don't know,' Joanna said shortly.

‘I'll be in touch.' And the line went dead.

Joanna rose early to read the newspaper over breakfast, and propped it up against a carton of fresh orange juice. It was wonderful. A huge headline splashed over Tuesday's front page: ‘Mother – where are you?' Dean's mother could not fail to see it. She scanned the first column. ‘We are anxious to contact you ... Would be willing to pay for your story ...'

Joanna grimaced into her bowl of muesli. It would bring her out of the woodwork – if she was alive. Not for the first time she pondered the value of the Press – not often acknowledged. Usually the law and the media clashed. But surely they could sometimes work to each other's advantage?

She decided, as she parked her bicycle against the post and padlocked it, that she might as well speak to the Super before he asked to speak to her. He tended to view the media with a less enlightened attitude. She took a deep breath, knocked on his door and walked in. He was holding the paper flat on the desk.

‘Tell me, Piercy,' he said. ‘Do you think this sort of thing is a good idea?'

In the few years she had worked as a DI in this force she had come to respect Arthur Colclough. A man in his fifties, she knew he had been instrumental in her appointment; and for that she owed him gratitude, acknowledgement and loyalty. There were not many senior officers who would have stuck their necks out and appointed a woman as a detective inspector when there were excellent male candidates. But the knowledge that he had favoured her made her even more responsible towards him. She could not let him down. She sat opposite him, took another glance at the photo of Dean's smiling face that they knew now had hidden fear and loneliness. This was the worst aspect of the case. What hell had this child been through – with no one to help him? Maree and Mark Riversdale should have but they, like this mother and society, had failed him.

She looked up to meet the Super's tiny, intelligent eyes, set in the plump face. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘We've tried hard to find Dean's mother. Two policemen have worked solidly to find her ever since we knew who he was. They've got nowhere. She wasn't ever going to come to us. We need help, sir. And if it takes this to find her then yes, sir, I do think it's a good idea.'

He nodded gravely, frowning and scratching his bald patch. ‘OK Piercy,' he said. ‘Just be careful. Cleverer people than you have had the illusion they can use the Press to advantage. Some of them were wrong.'

‘I'll be careful, sir.'

There was an uneasy silence and she was glad when the telephone rang. He answered it and handed it to her. It was Mike.

‘Joanna,' he said, his voice tight, ‘we've just had a phone call from The Nest. Jason Fogg and Kirsty. They've both left — gone missing. Nobody's seen them since we were there. Their beds weren't slept in.'

It was rare during a case to feel the cold clamp of panic. She looked up at Arthur Colclough. ‘Two children missing, sir, from the home.'

His face sagged. ‘God, Piercy,' he said, ‘God.'

Professional pride seemed irrelevant now. ‘Do you want to call in help, sir?' she asked.

He shook his head, gave her a brief, preoccupied smile. ‘No,' he said. ‘Extra men but you remain in charge. You will get results.'

She wished she felt as confident. As she stood up to leave he walked with her to the door and touched her shoulder. ‘I trust you, Piercy,' he said.

Mike drove her to The Nest. Already the driveway was blocked with police cars. She and Mike threaded their way through them and walked up the steps to the front door. A uniformed officer was standing at the top. He said good morning and gave her a quick glance of sympathy. She knew that look. It said, ‘I wouldn't be in your shoes for status, for salary, for stripes.' Once or twice she had given a senior officer exactly the same look.

Maree and Mark were talking to Scottie.

‘I think it's my fault,' Maree said. She had been crying. Her face was streaked with tears. She looked like an unhappy little elf in her black leggings, scarlet, baggy jumper and flat ankle boots. She sniffed.

‘I was pretty harsh with them yesterday ... told them they must tell me what was going on – who Dean had been with when he'd run away.' She sniffed again and wiped her nose inelegantly on her sleeve. ‘I know they knew,' she said, ‘all the time. And they wouldn't tell me anything.' She dropped on to the sofa. ‘I thought those kids trusted me.'

‘It wasn't their secret,' Joanna said. ‘It was Dean's. Perhaps misguided loyalty.'

‘And perhaps they were shit scared,' Mike said harshly. ‘They knew what had happened to Dean.'

‘What time did you speak to them?'

‘As soon as you'd left,' Maree said. ‘I was with them until seven – maybe eight – trying to gain their confidence.'

‘That's the way you lot bloody well work,' Mike exploded. ‘Don't you ever realize? It's no good with these sorts of kids. They just laugh at you.'

Maree looked angry. ‘I think I know Jason and Kirsty a damned sight better than you do.'

‘Did they tell you anything?'

‘A cock-and-bull story ... They were making it up as they went along. A fairy story.'

‘What fairy story?' Joanna felt cold.

Maree looked at her. ‘The usual rubbish,' she said angrily. ‘If you must know it was the same old story that's trotted out to most of these kids. And they want to believe it so much that however pathetic we might find it they swallow it whole. Dean believed – because it was fed to him – that part of his family had turned up. Whoever it was was obviously abusing him. But he was given money and things, expensive things. To him this was love – the love of a family – something he had never known. But it gave him confidence and that certain swagger.'

‘Leech?' Joanna's voice was low. The disgust she felt for the cruel trick made her feel sick.

Joanna turned to Mark Riversdale who was standing, staring out of the window, a dreamy, vague expression on his face.

‘When did you last see Kirsty and Jason?' Joanna asked.

He came to abruptly, shuddered. Joanna noticed his hands were shaking, he swayed slightly as though blown by an invisible breeze.

‘Tennish,' he said. ‘They were watching TV together, sitting on the sofa. They went upstairs around ten.'

‘That was the last you saw of them?'

He nodded.

‘When did you notice they were missing, Mr Riversdale?'

He blinked. ‘This morning,' he said. They were late down for breakfast. I went up to their rooms.' He paused, wriggled his glasses up his nose. ‘Their beds were neat. They must have gone last night.' He gave a quiet hiccup and it was then that Joanna realized he was drunk.

As they watched he slowly sank down on to the floor, his plump face bemused, a crumpled heap, clutching at the curtains.

Joanna turned her attention back to Maree O'Rourke. ‘Did they say anything else – anything at all?'

She frowned and her face moved forwards a little as though propelled by the concentration, then she looked up. ‘They said the person claimed to be his grandfather,' she said. ‘He said he was his real mother's father. That the woman who claimed to be his mother was a foster parent – that his real mother was unable to look after him because she had to travel a lot with her job. That Ms Tunstall had been asked to look after him but was no good. So it was decided he should go into council care and that this so-called grandfather should visit him.' She looked apologetic. ‘I'm sorry. It's all lies. It's a measure of how gullible Dean was and how very much he wanted to believe he had a family who loved him.'

‘What if it's true?' Joanna said softly. ‘What if it's all true?'

The four people in the room were silent. It was Joanna who broke the silence. She crossed the room and found DC Alan King who was leading the SOC team.