Sorcerer (6 page)

‘Okay’ said Jeff. ‘I take it we haven’t been able to contact George Griffin himself?’

‘No, sir’ Rebecca answered. ‘Our Spanish colleagues in Alicante went round to the Griffin’s house but neighbours told them they’d gone away for a little holiday. They investigated further and found that flight records show that George and Mary Griffin caught an Iberia flight to Madrid with a connection to Brussels last Tuesday afternoon’.

‘The day after it hit the media that the skeletons had been found at Pembroke House’ said Jeff. ‘Interesting. What did they do when they got to Brussels?’

‘They hired a car at Brussels airport and I’ve contacted the Belgian police to see if they can find out where they went. They may have crossed the border into the Netherlands, Germany, or France. It might take some time to track them down but they both have mobile phones so we’re tracking those’.

‘Why would they go to Brussels, I wonder?’ said Jeff.

‘They may have friends there, boss?’ said Wright.

‘Yes and those friends could also be involved in their hideous trade in some way. If Ronnie Wiseman is right, and I think we both agree he is, then the Griffin’s may have had contacts all over Europe with regard to selling their so-called films’.

‘I’ll get someone to look into the trade in underage porn going back over the last twenty years’ said Rebecca. ‘It won’t be a great job but it needs to be done’.

‘Now to the human remains’ said Jeff. ‘According to June Hawkins the male adult was almost certainly hanged and the male child suffered a trauma to his skull which would’ve meant he died of a blow to the head, probably administered by something like an iron bar. Now why would anyone want to kill a child like that? June has also now confirmed her earlier estimation that the remains all date back about twenty years which coincides with the end of the period when Griffin was the manager and just before the home closed down’.

‘So we could be after him for murder as well as sadistic child abuse, sir?’ said Rebecca.

‘Yes’ Jeff confirmed. ‘Just the sort of bloke you’d love to get friendly with down the pub. Now I know we’ve been looking into the cases of boys between the ages of five and nine who went missing in the Greater Manchester area around that time and who’ve never been traced?’

‘Yes and there’s nothing in the local records that would fit’ said Rebecca. ‘So I’m going nationwide with it and it’s the same story for the adult male’.

‘Who are you getting from the squad to lead up these lines of enquiry by the way?’

‘DS Wright and DS Masters, sir’.

Jeff raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re brave. I thought they couldn’t stand each other?’

‘I like mixing cocktails, sir’ said Rebecca. ‘Besides, they’re grown men and they’re part of a team that’s investigating stuff that’s much bigger than whatever sulks they have with each other. I’m not going to separate them. They have to work together effectively and with professionalism. End of’

‘I like your style, Becky’ said Jeff. ‘Keep me posted on how it all works out’.

‘Do you think the victims might be father and son, sir?’ asked Rebecca.

‘I think it’s a credible possibility, yes’ said Jeff. ‘Then there’s the photograph of the toddler. Somebody knows who he is and why his picture was there. Again, we need to look at all cases of missing toddlers about the age of two from that period. Can you add that to your list for the pair of warring detectives?’

Rebecca laughed. ‘Yes’.

‘Good. But if those skeletons were father and son, how did they come to find themselves in that situation? Could it be that the father found out what had been happening to his son whilst he’d been in care and went to sort it out but instead he ended up having the tables turned on him by Griffin?’

‘Well we now have the full staff and resident lists for the Griffin years’ said Jeff. ‘I’m going to tell the rest of the squad that I want everyone on those lists contacted and in terms of the former residents they will need to tread very carefully. They’re not going to want to talk to us if they feel pressured in any way. And in the meantime we now have the sworn statement from Ronnie Wiseman detailing his allegations against George Griffin and the staff at Pembroke. I think that gives us enough to bring him in so that should be our main focus. Now, bring me up to date on the property developers who were planning to make some cash out of the converting of Pembroke House into apartments?’   

‘Sir’ Rebecca began. ‘I interviewed the man who bought Pembroke House from Manchester city council. He’s clean. Just your average high tax bracket property developer but who may have lost a bundle in Pembroke’.

‘The poor baby’.

‘I know, sir, my heart bled too when he started whining about it. But we can count him out of any involvement here. He was only two when Pembroke was closed down’.

‘All that money at such a young age’ said Jeff, shaking her head.

‘His parents have been in business for years, sir, and they gave him his initial start up cash’.

‘So he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and the poor bastards who got sent to Pembroke weren’t. Why are some people born with everything and make even more whilst others are born with nothing and end up with even less? That’s why I’m not religious because none of them have been able to explain that to me’.

‘I agree’ said Rebecca who’d never had much time for organized religion. ‘But with regard to the investigation … Griffin is the key to everything here, isn’t he?’

‘I’m more than certain that he is, yes, Becky’ said Jeff. ‘That’s why we need to build up a solid case against him. He needs to be put away for good’.

SORCERER FIVE

Jeff had just completed leading a press conference which he’d called with the intention of using the media to flush out George and Mary Griffin. The press pack, a little surprisingly, had been reasonably supportive of Jeff and his squad. Everybody wants to catch a potential child killer and abuser and nobody likes to risk such an investigation until any gaping holes are too good for the press to ignore. Jeff was determined to keep things as tight as he could. This was potentially a massive case and normally he avoided giving the press any help with their side of keeping the public informed. But this time they could not only be useful in getting to George and Mary Griffin but they were already proving to be useful in attracting alleged victims of abuse at Pembroke House to come forward. They now had two more sworn statements from boys who were now men but who’d never got over the horror they’d been through when they were too young for them to ever get over it.

He was about to call Rebecca for them to go out and try and talk to Ed Lake when he received a message from Chief Superintendent Hayward to meet him at his car in fifteen minutes. When he got there Hayward had changed out of his uniform and into a pair of chinos and a sweater.

‘Would you get in, please, Detective Superintendent Barton?’ asked Hayward politely but in that way that suggested he wasn’t expecting a negative response. ‘There are things I need to tell you but I don’t want to do it round here’.

‘Very well’ said Jeff as he got in the car with him. ‘It must be serious’.

‘It’s about as serious as you can get. By the end of this afternoon I shall have resigned’.

‘What?’

‘You can’t really say you’re surprised, Jeff?’

‘Well I got the impression that you weren’t telling me the truth the other day’.

‘And you were right’ said Hayward. ‘And perhaps you thought you’d find more dirt on me that I’d deny until the pressure forced me out?’

‘That kind of scenario did cross my mind, yes’.

‘Well I’m afraid I’m going to deny you and everybody else their fun’ said Hayward. ‘But here me out before you prepare the gallows for me Jeff because I think you’ll be more than a little surprised by what I’ve got to tell you’.

Hayward drove them down Chester Road heading away from the city. ‘There’s a pub just before we get to Altrincham called the Mallard and Fox’ he said after they’d gone about two miles. ‘Do you mind if we go in there?’

‘No, of course not’ Jeff answered. Now he knew why Hayward had changed his clothes.

‘This will be a whole lot easier over a drink’.

‘Just as you like sir’

‘And it’s Ian for this meeting, Jeff. I don’t want to arouse people’s curiosity by hearing you call me sir’.

‘I’m not going to like this, am I?’

‘Maybe I should’ve sorted it out a long time ago’.

Jeff thought the Mallard and Fox was quite an acceptable little place. It wasn’t a big pub but it benefitted from the warmth it conveyed. The landlady semi recognized the superintendent as she pulled him his pint of best bitter and Jeff had the same.

They sat down at a small round table just inside the door and close to the side of the bar where all the food was being served from. Hayward had made no mention of lunch and Jeff was hungry. Maybe he’d have to go without.

‘So where do you want to start, Ian?’ Jeff asked as a means of breaking the silence that had fallen on them since they’d sat down.

‘The boy in the picture you found?’

‘Yes?’

‘He’s my son’.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I was involved romantically with the secretary who worked at Pembroke House’.

‘You were seeing her?’

‘No’ said Hayward. ‘I was having an affair with her. I was engaged to Jackie who became my wife but I was seeing the secretary on the side’.

‘What was her name?’

‘Cheryl Eaton. She was a very attractive girl with an astonishing figure and half the men who met her wanted to sleep with her and the other half must’ve been gay. I was more than flattered when she reserved her attentions for me but I was considered as being quite a good looking young chap and I never had any difficulty finding women. We used to sneak away for dirty weekends, dirty afternoons, dirty times in the back of my car, whenever we could we did. I was in my early twenties and it was so bloody exciting. She taught me a lot about being a good lover too. She’d been around’.

‘But you were engaged to Jackie and presumably making wedding plans?’

‘Don’t say it in that moral tone, Jeff’.

‘I wasn’t, Ian. You’re being paranoid. I was keeping my voice level but you may have interpreted it differently for your own reasons’.

Hayward blushed. ‘My God, I almost feel sorry for all those criminals who end up on the other side of the table from you in an interview room. No wonder you’re so good at your job. I take your point. I do have some residual guilt about Cheryl considering what happened next’.

‘And what was that?’

‘I was in lust with Cheryl but I was in love with Jackie. I never had any doubt that Jackie was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with from the moment I first saw her. Something went off inside me that I’d never felt before and never have since. Jackie will always be the only woman with the power to hurt me. If she ever left me I really don’t know what I’d do. I’ve got an eye for the ladies, yes, I don’t deny that and I’ve broken a few hearts by refusing to leave Jackie for whoever I was involved with at the time. I’m not proud of that but I do always make it clear right from the start that I’m married to Jackie and that will never change’.

‘So more fool them if they end up falling for you, is that what you’re saying?’

‘Something along those lines, yes. I know it makes me sound rather conceited but that’s the way it is. I love Jackie with all of my life but physically I need something more and deep down she knows that but she also knows that I’ll never leave her. And I’ve never done anything in front of her or with any of her friends, although she should question whether one or two of them are her actual friends when her back is turned but that’s another matter. I’ve always been discreet and always will be’.

‘Okay, but can we get back to Cheryl Eaton and the child?’ Jeff asked. 

Hayward drank some more of his pint. He was only halfway down which was slow compared to his usual standards.       

‘Cheryl told me she was pregnant. I asked her if it was mine and she slapped my face. I accepted that it was mine and you can see from the photograph that he was a little mini-me. There could be no doubt about who his father was’.

Jeff remembered when June Hawkins saw the photograph and said there was something familiar about the little boy. Now Jeff knew what that was. 

‘But before you got that far other things must’ve happened?’

‘I’d already become friendly with George Griffin and the other people who worked at Pembroke’.

‘Did you know what was going on there?’

‘I had an idea that the duty of care was administered rather severely but Jeff, I knew absolutely nothing of the extent of what was happening until Ronnie Wiseman made his allegation. That’s when the game changed’.

‘How?’

‘Cheryl had the baby, a boy, and he was adopted by her sister and brother-in-law who couldn’t have any children and were desperate to have them as much as Cheryl was desperate not to become a single Mum. I said that I would pay maintenance and she and the baby would never go without but it wasn’t enough. She said she didn’t want to bring up a child who couldn’t see his Daddy on Christmas Day because he was second best to Daddy’s other family’.