Think of the Children (29 page)

Jessica felt her jaw stiffen as he spoke. It was the third time he had apologised and she wasn’t going to give him any satisfaction of acknowledging it. ‘You’ve not answered my
question.’

Nathan held his head in his hands, ruffling his fingers through his hair. ‘You’re thinking I had something to do with the kid going missing, or being … killed.’

‘Did you?’

He spoke quietly. ‘No.’

‘So what were your cosy little phone chats about?’

‘Nothing … I mean it was all theory. Well, I thought it was.’

Jessica continued to stare at Nathan, although he wasn’t looking up from the table. ‘What was?’

The man didn’t say anything at first but took a deep breath before croaking out an answer. ‘You won’t believe me.’

Jessica sucked air through her teeth, keeping her mouth narrow and closed so she didn’t have to feel the ache in her jaw. She didn’t want to say anything that could sound sympathetic
but, before she could answer, Nathan spoke again. ‘Ask me something else.’

‘I don’t think you’re in a position to make a demand like that.’

Nathan looked up and Jessica could see liquid running from his nose, dribbling over the top of his chin. In the couple of minutes he had been staring at the table, he seemed to have aged at
least ten years. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. ‘I know, I don’t mean it like that, I just … Look, I’ll answer. I’ll tell you what we talked about
but, please, just ask me the other stuff first.’

Jessica looked at Nathan’s solicitor, who seemed slightly bemused, while Reynolds placed a hand briefly on her shoulder before removing it. Letting a suspect dictate what should and
shouldn’t be asked wasn’t anything she would have comprehended doing but something felt right about the demand. After a pause, she began to speak again. ‘What type of relationship
do you have with Ian Sturgess?’

‘None really. He contacted me through the Internet maybe a year or so ago. That was it.’

‘Do you know someone called Daisy Peters?’

Nathan shook his head, slowly at first, then more vigorously. ‘No.’

‘Have you ever been to the allotments near to the reservoir at Gorton?’

‘No, I don’t even know where that is.’

Jessica asked him about the woods where they had found Toby Whittaker’s clothes but he said he didn’t know about that site either. ‘Did you know who Isaac Hutchings was before
you saw his name in the news?’ she added.

‘No.’ Nathan was speaking even quieter.

One by one Jessica read him the other eight children’s names they had found on the list in Benjamin’s shed but he denied knowing any of them. They already knew none of them went to
the school he currently taught at. After the final name, he seemed close to tears and again wiped his nose on his sleeve before apologising for doing so.

‘Why did you run, Nathan?’ Jessica asked.

Nathan closed his eyes and leant back in the chair. ‘I don’t really know, I just panicked. As soon as you came to the door and asked for me, I knew why you were there. I knew you
would never believe what I said. I didn’t really think. Have you ever done something really stupid when it seems like you’re watching yourself? It’s like you’re in the sky
screaming to yourself to stop doing the crazy thing you know you’re doing but, by then, it’s already too late. By the time I had started running and I knew you were following, I
didn’t know what to do. If I stopped, it would look bad, if I kept running, maybe I could have got away? I have no idea what I thought I’d do if I did get away. I left my wallet, phone
and keys at the house.’

Jessica knew exactly what he was talking about. She’d had a moment similar to it while interviewing someone in this very room. There had been a few seconds where she had lost control and,
by the time she knew what was going on, it was too late. She remembered an almost out-of-body experience of watching herself from the corner of the room, wondering what on earth she was doing.
‘I accept your apology,’ she said, almost without thinking. ‘I believe you didn’t mean to kick me.’

It was as if her acceptance turned a tap. Nathan began crying loudly but was trying to speak through the howls. Tears and snot ran down his face as he banged his bound fists on the table in what
seemed to be an involuntary way. The words fell out of his mouth, a mixture of screams, sobs and coughs. ‘Will you tell his mother that I’m sorry? Mrs Hutchings. Please tell her
I’m sorry for killing her son.’

Jessica said nothing but it was as if a chill had descended on the room. Bairstow’s solicitor remained completely still while his client bawled. Jessica took some tissues
from the back of the room and handed them to Nathan but he was inconsolable. She looked to Reynolds, eyebrows raised. ‘Shall we?’ she asked.

The inspector started speaking into the tape recorder, saying the interview was concluded but Nathan began to shout over the top of them. ‘No, no, I’m fine. Please, I’ll tell
you now. Don’t leave it here, I’m not finished.’

The man’s solicitor leant forward. ‘Perhaps you could give us a few minutes in another room?’ Jessica nodded and stood, banging on the door to get the waiting officer’s
attention. The constable and solicitor led Nathan out of the room but Jessica could still hear him crying in the hallway, even after the door was shut.

As the noise began to fade into the distance, Jessica turned to Reynolds. ‘Wow.’

‘Did he just confess?’ the inspector asked, not seeming sure.

‘I don’t know. It sounded like it but it didn’t seem quite right. Even if he did I doubt the tape got it properly.’

‘I’ve never seen anything quite like that happen in an interview before.’

Jessica shrugged. ‘I have that effect on men.’

Neither of them laughed, before Reynolds broke the short silence. ‘We haven’t discovered that much.’

‘Only because I let him skip that question. We know that both he and Benjamin were teaching at the same school Toby Whittaker attended roughly at the time he went missing. We’ve got
plenty with the phone call and confession. Well, sort of confession.’

‘Does it feel right to you though?’

Jessica knew it didn’t. There was something about Nathan’s choice of words and the way he exploded with tears that wasn’t what she might have expected. Lots of people cried in
interviews but, for something as serious as this, suspects would usually be crying for themselves, not their victims. Remorse was something she rarely saw in the worst criminals, their only regret
that they were caught. She didn’t reply because she knew Reynolds could see the answer in her face.

Twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door and a constable asked if they were ready to resume the interview. Shortly after, Nathan was sitting in the same seat as
before. His face was red, the skin around his eyes was puffed out and looking sore.

‘Are you okay, Nathan?’ Jessica asked. The man nodded. ‘I want you to clarify what you said to us before you left the room.’ She spoke with a softer tone than she had in
the first part of the interview. From the way the man’s solicitor was holding himself, she could see something had changed.

Nathan took a deep breath and looked up to meet Jessica’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been holding onto this since I saw about Ian on the news. I
am
sorry about
Isaac. It wasn’t me who killed him but … I think it might be my fault.’

Nathan stumbled over his words slightly but, unlike earlier, the things he was saying seemed far more deliberate. Jessica wondered what the man’s solicitor had said to him out of the
room.

Nathan picked up a tissue from the table and blew his nose before continuing. ‘Everything you know is correct. I knew him as Ian from school but you called him Benjamin and so did the
news. He contacted me through the Internet about a year ago. It was one of these sites where teachers can register and get in contact with old colleagues. There are these forums where we all join
and share war stories about bad students and the like. I’ll give you my log-on if you like. Apart from a bit of swearing, there’s nothing bad on there. Before then, I’d not had
any contact with Ian since the time we taught together.’

‘Were you friends back then?’ Jessica asked.

The man shook his head. ‘Not really, he was ten years older than me at least. I’m sure you have colleagues you’re on decent terms with but, away from work, you’d never
say a word to them.’ Jessica felt uncomfortable, knowing Reynolds was one of those people.

Nathan took a deep breath and a sip from a plastic cup of water that was on the table. ‘I knew him and he knew me but we were never friends.’

‘So why did he contact you?’

‘He said he was writing a book. I looked him up and he had a few things published. He reckoned he was doing okay and said he’d never looked back since giving up teaching. He said he
was doing research for his new book and wanted some advice. When we’d worked together, I’d been the IT teacher, so he knew I’d know about computers and technology. It all seemed
normal.’

‘What did he ask you about?’

Nathan sighed and looked at his solicitor before turning back towards Jessica. ‘He said he was feeling a bit old and out of the loop. At first it was just simple computer things. He said
he was writing about someone who stalked a victim via the Internet, then kidnapped them. I thought it was a pretty odd thing to be writing about if the author didn’t know himself but I just
thought I was helping. He would ask things like how to delete the history on an Internet browser. It was stupid and I think I wanted to show off, so I started telling him about proxies and how to
hide your identity online and so on.’

‘You gave him that information without him asking?’

‘Yeah … I mean, as I said, I thought I was helping. To be honest, he didn’t seem that interested.’

‘I thought he contacted you for that information?’ Jessica was feeling slightly confused by the conflicting details.

Nathan nodded quickly. ‘Oh, he did, we would email back and forth. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw what he did on the news. I’m not sure he was ever curious about
computers, I think that was just the start. He only really became interested when he began to ask about mobile phones.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Nothing, I don’t really know that much. I think he thought that, because I’m good with computers, I would also be good with phones. I don’t think he realised they are
completely different things. He asked me about deleting browsing history on the Internet and so on – but then a few weeks later moved on to talking about clearing a call history or message
history on a phone, so no one could trace you.’

‘Did you tell him how?’

‘I don’t know how. I just said I’d read something about using those pay-as-you-go SIM cards because they can be registered in someone else’s name. I told him basic
things, like clearing your messages folder and so on. I thought it was just for his book.’

Jessica believed him and felt sure Reynolds would too. ‘If he was more or less a stranger, why did you go out of your way to help him?’

Nathan leant back in his seat and looked at the ceiling, blinking quickly. ‘Look at me,’ he said, opening his palms. ‘I’m in my forties, I’m single, I live on my
own and I teach in a primary school. Being a twenty-something bloke and teaching young children would make people look at you strangely. Imagine how bad it is when you’re forty-something. I
thought I was helping him write a book. He said he’d give me a credit somewhere and I felt useful. I know it sounds pathetic but …’ The man tailed off without finishing the
sentence.

Jessica let him compose himself before asking the next question. ‘What else did you tell him?’

Nathan shook his head and seemed close to tears and Jessica knew the worst was yet to come. ‘He started to talk about the plot. He asked the best way to keep information securely. I think
he thought things were safer on a computer. I told him the safest way to keep information was to not store it anywhere except your head, that you should only talk about things in person. I told him
that any file saved on a computer can never really be deleted without physically destroying the hard drive. I don’t think he really understood so I made it clearer. I said that, if you
absolutely had to keep details of something, the best thing to do was pretend the last fifty years haven’t happened. Write it down manually, keep it somewhere safe and, when you were done
with it, burn it.’

Jessica felt a tingle at the base of her spine. She thought of the list of children’s names she had found. It had been handwritten, kept somewhere unconnected to Benjamin himself and, from
what Nathan was saying, would have been burned.

‘Did you ever pass on the details of any students?’ she asked, thinking of the names.

Nathan blinked and shook his head. ‘What? No. Why would I do that?’

‘He never asked you for names and addresses of children?’

‘No, never. I don’t really have access to that anyway and, even if I did, I’d never pass it on.’

Jessica nodded. She believed him again but, if her instincts were right and he was telling the truth, they still had no idea where Benjamin had got the information from.

‘Did you keep the emails?’ she asked.

Nathan rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands before stopping to stare at the table. His solicitor had been silent since re-entering the room but he leant forward and spoke. ‘My
client tells me he deleted everything but is happy to do everything he possibly can to retrieve them.’

‘When did you delete them?’ Jessica asked, staring at Nathan and ignoring his solicitor. Neither of them answered, so she repeated her question, harsher the second time.

Jessica could sense a nervousness from the solicitor and there were tears in Nathan’s eyes when he looked up from the table. ‘Christmas Day,’ he said quietly.

Jessica struggled to control the anger in her voice. ‘After you’d seen on the news that we were looking for information?’

Nathan didn’t look up from the table. ‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because … I knew how it would look. I knew that if he hadn’t deleted everything at his end, you might find your way back to me. I wasn’t really thinking. I saw him on the
news and panicked.’