Catch the Fallen Sparrow (3 page)

She looked further down. Charred black baggy jeans too big for this small, thin boy. And where the jeans had been burned away white stick legs, thankfully not badly burned. The scent of charred human flesh mixed with the peculiar dead smell made Joanna feel sick. It was so strong she could almost see it in the air, a yellowish tinge.

She glanced at the shoes. They, too, were big for the boy's thin feet. Also partly destroyed by the splashed petrol but quite new. And expensive. Underneath, the soles were surprisingly clean considering the black mud that clung to her own shoes.

She replaced the sheet and spoke to the two scene-of-crime officers. ‘You'd better get to work,' she said. ‘Bag him up. Leave the ring on. We'll remove it at the mortuary.' She hesitated. ‘Make sure you bag the shoes too,' she added, wondering whether both they and the ring had been stolen. Or was there in the background a doting mother, an indulgent father? She looked back at the waxen face and shook her head. For this child there had been neither. If her initial instinct was correct there was no one in this boy's life who was either doting or indulgent. And he had not been reported missing. She glanced down and knew this was a type of child the police were becoming far too familiar with – the drifters ... the shirtless ones ... street children ... the untouchables. All over the world there were children like this one – problems. In God's name, she thought, where were their parents?

She turned back to Mike. ‘We need the uniformed men to scour the area all around here,' she said, ‘especially between here and the road. You know the procedure. I'll brief them back at the nick in half an hour. Who found the body?'

Detective Sergeant Mike Korpanski glanced at the two soldiers sitting on the back of the army lorry, still with their camouflaged faces. ‘Couple of soldier boys,' he said, ‘from the army camp.' He gave a wry smile. ‘They look young, not much more than kids themselves. It gave them a bit of a shock. At first they thought it was a barbecue.'

Joanna nodded. ‘I'll speak to them back at the nick,' she said. ‘Have the photography boys finished yet?'

One of them held up his camera and shouted back, ‘Yes.'

‘I'll want a good picture of the hands,' she told him. ‘I want the tattoos – and the ring, too. Perhaps you'll get a better picture of that when it's removed by the SOCOs at PM.'

The cameraman nodded. ‘Fine,' he said. ‘Better light there too. I'll come along.'

She turned to Cathy Parker. ‘Have you finished here?'

Cathy gave another of her strange smiles. ‘Yes. I'll ring the coroner when I get back then do the PM. Two o'clock suit you, Inspector?'

Joanna thought quickly. She nodded. ‘Fine. Seal the area off.'

Mike was speaking to one of the uniformed officers.

He called over to her. ‘Inspector, they found this near the boy's body.' He handed her a tiny bunch of heather, neatly knotted with the strong grasses that grew on the moors.

Joanna studied it. It was expertly done, intricately knotted. Who on earth would have taken the time to plait a wreath for the dead child?

‘Who did it, Mike?' she asked. ‘Who put it there? A remorseful murderer?' She answered her own question. ‘I don't think so,' she said, but all the same she felt as much of a cold, uneasy feeling at the sight of this tiny bunch of heather and grasses as she had at the sight of the body. She handed it to the SOC officer. ‘Bag it up too,' she said.

She met Mike's eyes and voiced an outlandish thought. ‘Witchcraft...? You could believe anything up here,' she said quietly, gazing around the bleak panorama.

‘I can't think of any logical explanation.'

‘Well, it
isn't
witchcraft. We know that. This is the nineteen nineties.'

‘So what do you think?'

He simply shook his head.

The SOC officer dropped the heather into his plastic bag as Joanna returned her attention to the boy and watched as they slid the body into the body bag and placed it in the van. A phrase pushed into her mind. Was it from
The History of Mr Polly
? ‘Once someone had kissed his toenails.' Had anyone ever adored his little pink toes? Or had the neglect started from birth? A feeling of utter hopelessness washed over her. A child should have had a better bite of life than this.

From her eyrie in the mouth of the cave Alice watched the slim figure hesitate, look around her, then follow the procession down the mountain to the waiting navy van. She watched as the policewoman and the policeman climbed into the small red car and wound their way from the valley, back towards the town. She turned to Jonathan. ‘They've gone.'

He was at the back of the cave, huddled in a pile of rags. ‘All of them?'

She shook her head. ‘They left some 'ere. They'll be back – more of them. That woman with the dark hair. She will bring them back. 'Er's the one bossin' them around.' She paused for a moment then commented, ‘They 'ave took ‘im now, the child.'

‘Better 'e go.'

‘We can't have a fire, Jonathan. Not till they've gone.'

He nodded.

Jason had again noticed the empty bed the minute he'd woke up. God, Dean would cop it if he'd damned well absconded again. It was only a week since the last time and they'd been bloody furious then – threatened him with all sorts of things. The boy frowned and sat up in bed, thinking. They couldn't do anything – not really. They had no real powers. There was nothing to worry about. It was just that he hadn't thought Dean would take off again so soon. He was usually back for at least a week. And how long would he be gone for this time? A day – a week – a month? For a kid who looked like a goody-goody choirboy he was bloody clever at keeping out of the noseys' sight.

Where the hell did he get to? Jason's lip curled. Dean was a quiet one – good at keeping secrets. Perhaps his ‘family' were looking after him. And then maybe this time he wouldn't come back at all. And who would want to to this dump? The Nest, he thought disgustedly. What a stupid name for a children's home. If there was anywhere else in the bloody wide world he'd go there. Even the streets had to be better than this ... But at the thought Jason's heart began to race. The streets ... that was what he feared more than anything – that underworld of penniless vagrants who would all claw at him. Here was not heaven but at least he was safe. Out there – who knew who might get him. So here he was – stuck.

He frowned. Was Dean on the streets? No, he thought, Dean was off having adventures, like last time.

The shadow across the doorway put a stop to his daydreaming.

‘Right, Jason, time to get up now. We have school today, don't we?'

It was said in a pleasant enough voice. Patronizing but pleasant. The trouble was Jason couldn't stand him.

‘We haven't got school,' he said sarcastically. ‘Just I have.'

‘I think you forgot the sir.' Mr Riversdale's plump face was unfriendly. As much as Jason Fogg didn't like him; he, Mark Riversdale, hated Jason. ‘You have got school today, and what's more I expect you to break the habit of a lifetime and actually go – unlike last week. You weren't at school last Friday, were you? Mack phoned me.'

Jason stared at the ceiling ‘What's the bloody point?' he asked. ‘I'm going to get no bloody exams and even if I did there's no job at the end of it. There's people been to university out there on the dole,' he jeered. ‘What chance is there for me?'

Mark Riversdale pushed his heavy glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘Unfortunately, part of my job, Jason, is that I'm expected to send you to school. Part of your job is to go.
I
get black marks if you don't.
You
get black marks if you don't. Understand?'

Jason rolled over on to his stomach. ‘I don't have to go to school to follow me chosen career,' he said.

‘And what is your chosen career?' Riversdale snorted. ‘Burglary, shoplifting, car theft, beating up the over-seventies for five quid?'

‘No – a drugs pusher. More money.' Jason grinned. He loved to push Mr Reasonable right to the point where he snapped.

Riversdale felt his patience begin to fray. ‘Oh – just get up for once without this stupid performance,' he said, and glanced at the hump in the other bed. ‘And get Dumbo up over there.'

Now Jason thought quickly. He shot out of bed. ‘Yes, sir,' he said, standing smartly to attention.

The warden flushed. ‘Get some clothes on. Haven't you ever heard of pyjamas, Jason?'

Jason grinned and Mark Riversdale walked out. Jason crossed to the bed and patted the pillow. ‘I've just bought you one day, little Dean, by flashing myself to old Rivers. No more. One day – that's all you got. Then they'll find out and you'll have to fend for yourself. Friends can only go so far.' He knew Kirsty would agree. He'd tell her later – give her a laugh.

There were five people in the mortuary – the two SOC officers ready to receive the clothes, the ring, the swabs to be sent to forensics; Cathy Parker, the pathologist, and the mortician to assist, as well as Joanna. She stood back and listened to Cathy's clear voice dictating ...

‘Length one hundred and forty centimetres. Weight ... Head circumference ... Bruising around the cricoid cartilage, signs of manual strangulation. Measurements of distances between thumbprints.' She looked up at Joanna. ‘Here, look.' Joanna peered at the opened neck and Cathy pointed at a tiny bone. ‘The hyoid,' she explained. ‘It's broken. It was definitely manual strangulation. A medium-sized hand.' She frowned. ‘Doesn't exactly narrow the field.'

‘Nails?' Joanna asked, and Cathy Parker looked at her with respect.

‘I see Matthew has taught you something. They were not long talons but definitely not bitten.' She spoke into the dictaphone. ‘Some nail marks. Right...' she turned to the SOC officer, ‘we'll cut the clothes off.'

There was something infinitely pathetic about the removal of clothing from the thin body ... clothes the boy had probably scrabbled into hastily – as boys do. The threadbare sweat-shirt advertising a can of coke, the baggy jeans that hid such thin legs holes in grubby, white sports socks, underwear and a huge T-shirt, all dropped into plastic bags, labelled and piled up ready for forensics. The only odd note was the new Reeboks. Joanna picked them up, safely encased in their plastic bags. They were cross-laced. Joanna looked at one of the SOC officers.

‘How much?' she asked, holding out the shoe. ‘Eighty, ninety quid,' he said. ‘They don't come cheap.'

She nodded. ‘I thought as much.'

Cathy was still dictating. ‘White Caucasian male ... age about ten ...'

An hour later she spoke to Joanna. ‘I'll have the report typed up by tomorrow but, off the cuff, manual strangulation – as you know,' she said in a voice purposely matter-of-fact. For all of them the post-mortem of a murdered child was a distressing event. ‘He was physically small – not terribly well nourished but not emaciated.' She looked at Joanna. ‘His disappearance hasn't been reported?'

Joanna shook her head. ‘No.'

‘Then we have to consider the possibility that he is an absconder, perhaps from a children's home or from a family where he was not missed. Don't people sometimes wait a while with a kid who's done a “runner” before ...?'

She paused, then picked up one of the child's hands. ‘The tattoos ...' She ran one of her fingers along the knuckles of the right hand. ‘Love,' she read. ‘These are quite interesting, Inspector, aren't they? Amateurishly done a few years ago. I've only ever seen them on a child so young who was in care ... Still,' she smiled, ‘I expect you've noticed them too. There are a few other unsavoury aspects to this boy. He'd tried a noxious mix a few times of intravenous drugs.' She pointed to the ugly, pitted scars that spotted both arms. ‘Usually Harpic, talcum powder, sodium bicarbonate or even flour. It ekes out the drug and causes the ulcers. He'd had a go a time or two but I don't really think he was a habitual user – at least I can see no evidence of regular use, one or two scars, that's all. He was rather undernourished and had slightly prominent ears. Left ear pierced – by an amateur. The holes aren't straight. Teeth not too decayed – one or two properly done fillings which I've recorded. Teeth nicotine-stained, as were his fingers.'

She looked at Joanna. ‘If it's any consolation there's no trace of carbon monoxide or soot in the lungs. I am perfectly satisfied that he was dead before being set on fire. He put up no fight.' She touched Joanna's shoulder. ‘He died a quick and humane death – lost consciousness swiftly. He did not struggle. He probably never knew what happened. But as there is one side – here is another. He had been sexually abused over a long period – possibly a number of years. I think it started when he was quite young. There's intense scarring around the anus. He might have been five or six when first abused, possibly even younger.'

‘The motive was sexual?'

Cathy Parker shook her head. ‘No,' she said. ‘Not this time. I'll have to wait for the results of the swabs, of course, but I don't think there was a sexual motive for this boy's death. He had not been abused recently – possibly not for a year or more. There was no new scarring. The old scars had healed up. However ...' she showed Joanna tiny round marks on the thin, bony chest with its prominent ribs and stick-like upper arms. ‘You know what these are?' she asked, and Joanna nodded. ‘Someone burned him on numerous occasions with a cigarette. Again ...' she touched the marks, ‘not recently. I think the last one was done not less than six months ago.

Joanna blinked. ‘Was there no one to act as advocate for this poor sod?' she asked. ‘And the thousands like him? No one he could turn to? Damn it,' she said angrily, ‘where is this caring society we're all supposed to be part of?'