Innocent Blood (32 page)

He nodded, not yet trusting his voice. The pain in his left side was agonising every time he tried to breathe.

‘You’d better come with us. We can call an ambulance from the station if you need one. Will you be pressing charges?’

‘No,’ he whispered, shaking his head for emphasis, ‘and no need for an ambulance, I shall be fine.’

‘Even so, we need to get a doctor to look at you.’ Geoff encouraged him along gently while his assailant was dragged, still screaming abuse, ahead of him and around to the main entrance to Harlden Police Station.

He waited patiently while a police doctor completed a none too gentle check of his cuts and bruises, inspected his pupils and tested his blood pressure.

‘As far as I can make out you’re lucky; minor contusions only. No blow to the head? Good. Well unless you start passing blood I should say you’re fine. Take painkillers for any discomfort and you’ll do.’

Of all the events that had beset him since he’d left the relative safety of prison, the contempt in the doctor’s voice wounded him most.

From being early for his police interview he was now late. He was escorted to a room and given a cup of machine tea while somebody went in search of the inspector. While he was waiting, he closed his eyes and experimented with his breathing. As long as he took shallow breaths the pain was bearable. His spirits, already bludgeoned by his journey home, sank lower when Nightingale walked in followed by a young man he didn’t know. She dispensed with the formalities quickly, confirming for the benefit of the tapes that he’d waived his right to have a solicitor present. Then she said nothing. After the business of the introductions he found the silence unnerving.

He didn’t try to meet her eyes, knowing that he’d be likely to look away first and give her the advantage. Even so her gaze was disconcerting and eventually he glanced up without meaning to. As soon as their eyes met she shook her head. The look of pity on her face had an extraordinary effect on him. He felt his throat harden and his eyes grow moist. His gaze flicked away.

‘Would you like another cup of tea? That one’s gone cold.’

‘Thank you.’ Her concern confused him.

‘Robin, could you arrange for the major to have a cuppa with milk and sugar, and I’ll have a black coffee, please.’

When the door closed they were left alone, with only a uniformed officer standing like a statue out of sight behind him. A sense of intimacy grew in the continuing silence, adding to his feeling of displacement. He was annoyed with himself for letting her have this effect on him and spoke despite his resolve not to.

‘I’m sure you’re a busy woman, Miss Nightingale, and I too am anxious to return home. How may I assist you?’

‘That’s just it, Major, I don’t know.’ He stared at her in amazement. ‘You see, I
know
that you’re not guilty of harming Paul Hill.’

‘I’m glad you’ve finally recognised my innocence.’

‘I didn’t say that now, did I?’ She smiled, and although it was gentle he sensed that he’d allowed her to turn the conversation in the direction she wanted.

‘Now look, Inspector, let’s not descend to the level of semantics. You said that I didn’t harm Paul Hill and in that you’re quite right.’

‘But that doesn’t make you innocent. You disposed of his bloody clothes, you’ve wasted police time by impeding our inquiries and,’ she paused to make sure that he was listening, ‘you know the identity of Paul’s killer yet refuse to tell us. That makes you an accessory to murder. That alone is enough to earn you a prison sentence.’

‘I was
not
an accessory to Paul’s death; I could never behave in such a manner!’

‘There is such a thing as being an accessory
after
the fact, Major, and that is exactly what you are. The guilt is the same.’

‘Rubbish! There’s no way I would have assisted in that boy’s death.’ His uncontrolled indignation cost him a hot rush of pain as he forgot to control his breathing.

‘And yet you have. By your silence at the time and your refusal to cooperate now, you’re assisting the murderer.’

‘Nothing I could have done would have saved Paul,’ he said, furious that she’d goaded him into defending himself.

‘Oh, I’m quite sure of that,’ she said with that small, sad smile on her face again, ‘but how do you know that the people you covered up for haven’t harmed other boys?’

‘People?’

‘Didn’t you know? We have evidence now that confirms that Paul was raped by four men before he was killed.’

‘Raped?’

‘Without question. You’re protecting the identity of a child abuser as well as a murderer. I’ve met one of the victims, one who survived. There will be others.’

He was appalled but then realised they had another witness; he felt a wash of relief.

‘So you don’t need my testimony after all,’ he whispered, trying to draw air into his lungs despite the pain in his chest.

‘How dare you!’ All trace of understanding vanished. ‘You’d rather we put a damaged man through the trauma of recalling his childhood abuse than give up the sick bastard you’re protecting?’

Maidment could hardly hear her. Blood drummed in his ears and the pain in his lungs was like fire. He could barely see as black flecks crowded his vision. She was shouting at him again but he couldn’t hear her, let alone answer. His mouth opened and closed like a landed fish as his body screamed for oxygen and his arms and legs turned to jelly.

‘I…’ He tried to ask for help.

‘Yes, go on, spit it out.’ She was leaning over him, her breath warm on the chill of his face.

‘I…’ The words died in a groan as the band of pain about his chest tightened and choked him into silence. He slid off the chair and onto the cold of the floor, his legs unable to save him, his arms useless.

‘Major? Major, are you all right?’

Her words were insubstantial as she loosened his tie. Somewhere an alarm was ringing faintly, then it faded to silence and all he was aware of was her face floating above him before that too vanished into the greyness that swallowed him up.

‘Good grief, Nightingale, you didn’t need to give the man a heart attack!’

Fenwick tried and failed to stop laughing. He’d left a message for her to join him in his Harlden office as soon as she came in on Sunday morning.

‘It wasn’t a heart attack. I thought it was as the time but the hospital says his ECG is fine. He’s got fractured ribs and a collapsed lung. That, plus the anxiety of the interview, made him black out. He’ll be in hospital for up to a week and then allowed home.’

‘Assuming he wants to go. He was daft to refuse our protection. Have you been to his house?’

‘Yes.’ Nightingale shook her head. ‘I don’t like him but even I think it’s gross what people will do just on suspicion. I thought a man was supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in this country.’

‘But we both know that he’s not innocent.’

‘That doesn’t matter. The people who desecrated his home should be locked up.’

‘I agree, assuming he files a complaint but he may not. He’s going to let the girls who attacked him get away with it.’

‘I know.’

‘It was looking like a good interrogation, by the way.’

‘Thanks. I was pleased with it and I thought I was going to break him until he blacked out.’

‘What do you propose to do now?’

‘Visit him in hospital, continue the same line. I’m hoping that he sees the collapse as a close brush with death… I might even take a Bible with me.’ She laughed but then grew serious. ‘Can I ask you a question, off the record?’

‘Go on.’

‘Do you think we have any chance of finding Malcolm Eagleton’s killer?’

‘I wish you’d asked me another one. It’s ironic; we have his body but no suspect or leads, yet with Paul we have no body and an abundance of evidence. If I’m honest I’m pinning my hopes on finding Paul’s killer and then being able to link him to Malcolm’s death.’

‘It’s a long shot. The Well-Wisher hasn’t mentioned him at all.’

‘I know but what else can we do? Maybe if we find the Well-Wisher he’ll be able to tell us more. But why do you ask?’

Nightingale hesitated, opened her mouth, then shook her head imperceptibly; all signs Fenwick recognised so that he knew, when she spoke, he was only going to get a version of the truth.

‘The last letter – “There was great evil in Harlden” – that phrase gives me the creeps.’

 It was a lame explanation but he didn’t press her.

‘I know; I keep telling myself that we’re much more sensitive to child crime these days but then you read the stories that keep emerging of long-term abuse and it’s enough to test your faith in the system. We might have improved our techniques but the paedophiles have just become smarter. Look at us here in Sussex; if it hadn’t been for the FBI tip-off we still wouldn’t be aware of what was happening.’

‘At least we’re not dealing with a serial child killer. That we would have noticed!’

‘You’re right. In some ways the deaths don’t fit at all. My theory is that they might have been accidental or part of a cover up, not sexually motivated.’

Nightingale just looked at him, scepticism etched on her face.

‘You hope. Not that it makes things any easier for the parents.’

She glanced down at his desk and saw the missing persons’ photographs stacked to one side. He’d said nothing to the team about following up on any of the current cases but she could tell they preyed on his mind. Every time they talked about Paul or Malcolm his eyes would stray to the pictures as if they pained him. But the police could only become involved if there was suspicion of a crime.

‘Have you heard anything from the Met on the house Ball visited in London?’

‘They called yesterday; it’s looking promising. The case has been passed over to their specialist child protection squad and they’re keeping up surveillance. So far, all they have to go on is a suspicious pattern of visits by single males but it’s enough to keep them interested.’

Fenwick picked up the school photograph of Paul and then another that lay on top of the pile of what he thought of as his lost boys.

‘Who’s that?’ Nightingale asked gently.

‘Sam Bowyer; don’t you remember him? He ran away from home earlier in the summer; hasn’t been seen since.’

‘He’s very like Paul.’

‘That’s what struck me, but apart from his parents’ conviction that he’s been abducted there’s nothing for Brighton to go on. And it may even be that he’s simply run away. He packed a rucksack, took all the money from his mum’s purse and deliberately played truant from school.’

‘But?’ He looked up at her quizzically. ‘There’s a but in your face.’

Fenwick raised his eyebrows in rueful acceptance.

‘But boys like Sam have to end up somewhere. They don’t just vanish. Here’s another one, another Sussex lad who ran off to London.’ He passed her the picture. ‘Jack, his name was. He killed himself in June; jumped into the Thames. They look so young, so innocent. But when the picture of Paul was taken he’d been a child prostitute for two years.’

Fenwick took the pictures back and studied Paul’s eyes for a sign of what had been happening to him but found only a trace of mockery, as if Paul were enjoying a secret joke. Perhaps that’s how he’d coped with the bitter reality of his life. If so, his self-esteem must have been rock bottom to allow him to treat his exploitation so lightly.

‘Penny for them.’

‘I was thinking about Paul, why his life ended up as it did, what he would have done had he lived.’

Nightingale had never told Fenwick that she’d been a runaway at one stage in her life; it was a secret of which she remained ashamed. But it had shaped her view of the world; toughened her skin and wiped out any tendency towards sentimentality.

‘Paul would eventually have run away for good is my guess, and died young like Jack, an anonymous statistic in some urban nightmare. Which is probably where our abuser satisfies himself now. I don’t think I could work Vice.’ Nightingale shuddered.

‘It wouldn’t be my first choice either, particularly now that my children are getting older. I find it very hard not to think of them when I look at these files.’

Fenwick stopped himself. They’d drifted into the sort of half-personal conversation that had once been normal between them. He fussed with the papers on his desk, unaware that it was a certain sign of discomfort and that the smarter members of his team recognised it.

‘Look, Nightingale, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say for a while.’ He kept his eyes on a memo on recycling rubbish that happened to be on the top of the paperwork he was suddenly so interested in.

‘Go on.’

‘It’s, ah, well, you see, it’s about…’

‘Your erratic behaviour towards me?’

He looked up with something approaching relief.

‘Yes, exactly.’

‘Forget about it.’

‘But I need to…that is, I’m sorry if I behaved…ah, badly at all.’

‘Apology accepted.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes, why not? Andrew, let’s just move on.’

Fenwick re-sorted his papers without seeing them. Eventually he said, ‘That’s it?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’

‘Well, you haven’t commented on our… friendship…outside work.’

‘And I don’t intend to. If you’ve taught me one lesson in the past few months it’s not to mix business and pleasure. You can rest assured your message has been received and understood.’

Her words were all business, keeping him in his place. He reflected that she wasn’t the only one who’d been taught a lesson the hard way.

Nightingale and Fenwick stood up at the same time and almost collided at the side of his desk. Their mutual embarrassment was interrupted by a brief knock on the door a fraction of a second before Cooper walked in.

‘Oh, excuse me.’

‘It’s OK, we’re just finishing. What is it?’

‘Thought you’d better see this sharpish.’ Cooper handed him a copy of the
Sunday Enquirer.

Under an ‘E
XCLUSIVE
’ banner the headline read T
HE DAY MY
P
AUL DIED
.
The sub-head continued:
‘An exclusive interview with Sarah, Paul Hill’s grieving mother, the day after the police release his alleged killer from custody, continues pages 5, 7 and 8. Suspect in hospital after police interrogation, page 3.
’

‘Oh great! Just what we need and they’re suggesting the major had a heart attack during his interrogation in police custody. I need to brief Harper-Brown at once. Can you call the press officer at HQ, Nightingale; this will best be handled from there. Bloody Jason MacDonald.’

‘You have to admit he’s good though,’ Nightingale said ruefully, memories of her own treatment at his hands still painful. ‘I would’ve laid odds against Sarah Hill ever giving an interview about Paul, particularly one that accepts he’s dead.’

‘I’m not exactly in the mood to be impressed by that weasel’s journalistic prowess when he’s just wrecked the way I want to handle my case. This will be a massive distraction.’

Nightingale and Cooper backed out of his office and closed the door on a stream of muttered expletives.

‘Shit’s hit the fan now,’ said Cooper, ‘excuse my French.’

‘No problem, I believe that’s technically the accurate expression. We’re going to be knee deep in the stuff before the day’s over.’

They were. Everywhere the team went the people they tried to interview had an opinion about the police handling of Paul’s disappearance and the subsequent arrest and release of Maidment. Fenwick called a meeting for five-thirty, more in an attempt to boost morale than in the expectation of any progress. It was a grim affair.

By six-thirty the whole team was in the Dog and Duck and he was buying. Over pints of best bitter he and Cooper commiserated with each other over their day. Aspects of the
Enquirer
’s article were on the midday and six o’clock news and the ACC had been forced to hold a brief press conference in an attempt to deflect criticism by explaining that his SIO had made significant progress. As a result, Fenwick had been overwhelmed with calls, most of which he passed straight back to the press office. He’d decided to deal with only one directly, an interview with a BBC reporter for Radio Four, which baffled Cooper.

‘Why did you go on air, guv? You said you were going to leave it to the PO.’

‘I’ve been thinking about Maidment and Taylor.’

‘Haven’t we all.’

‘Maidment’s covering up for someone and we know it simply couldn’t be a man like Taylor. So I went on the radio to say that we were pursuing additional promising lines of inquiry in the hope that it might rattle the murderer(s) badly enough to make them do something stupid.’

‘Bit of a long shot, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘I know, but you and the team are redoing all the interviews at the same time. That’s why I said in the meeting just now,
don’t
make it feel routine, make it feel special, as if there might be a reason we’re interested in them.’

He could tell by Cooper’s expression that he still wasn’t convinced.

‘It’s all we’ve got, Bob, unless you can think of anything else?’

There was a long pause, which Fenwick interpreted as a struggle to find the words to disagree with him. He waited patiently, enjoying his beer, trying not to be amused.

‘Thing is,’ Cooper said at last, ‘I’ve been wondering about the boy’s family. They were barely considered suspects whereas these days we’d be all over them until we were sure.’

It was a good point and Fenwick was annoyed that he’d failed to consider it.

‘That’s fair.’

‘And with Nightingale going to visit Malcolm’s parents yesterday,’ Cooper continued, missing Fenwick’s expression of surprise, ‘well, it put the thought into my mind, that’s all.’

‘And does she suspect the Eagletons of Malcolm’s death?’

‘Nope – she’s convinced they’re innocent. I think she just went along to reassure them that we were still treating his death seriously, that with all the hype over Paul we hadn’t forgotten their son.’

‘That was good of her,’ Fenwick murmured, reassured that perhaps she hadn’t become as hard as he’d feared.

‘Well, she had to really – they were threatening to complain.’ Cooper chuckled and Fenwick sighed.

‘But about Paul’s family, Bob,’ he said, changing the subject, ‘perhaps it’s my turn to pay them a visit. I should meet Mr and Mrs Hill myself.’

It was well into Monday morning when Fenwick pressed the button to the right of the wooden front door for a second time. It looked as if Paul’s father had done all right for himself, at least compared with the run-down semi where his ex-wife lived. He’d just come from there, and from one of the most disturbing interviews he’d ever conducted in his career.

He thought Mrs Hill was extremely unstable; that she might even need sectioning for her own good. The woman could hardly string a sentence together one minute and the next she was quoting Shakespeare or lines from obscure plays by Brecht. Fenwick knew they were from Brecht because Mrs Hill had told him so. He’d been worried enough to call social services immediately afterwards. They said that they would look into it when they could and he’d had to be satisfied with that. But he had left her house with his skin crawling and was trying to reach an itch between his shoulder blades when the front door swung open, apparently of its own accord.

‘Can I help you?’

His eyes tracked down to the source of the voice. From one witch to another, he thought, but this one was as wide as she was tall, with a face that resembled an old leather glove left too long in the sun, surrounded by soft white curls that didn’t quite cover the pink scalp.

‘I’m looking for Mr Gordon Hill. I’m DCI Fenwick, I’m with the—’

‘Police, it’s written all over you. I’m his mother, Hannah Hill. You’d best come in.’

The old woman led Fenwick into a sitting room that was tastefully furnished in tan and burgundy leather, except for a faded paisley chair next to the fireplace.

‘That isn’t real, that fire. One of those gas things. More convenient, I grant you, but hasn’t got the soul of a real fire if you know what I mean.’

‘I do.’ Fenwick liked Hannah Hill immediately despite his customary desire to remain neutral. ‘Is your son at home?’