The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case (7 page)

1731
by
3642
BO2V
–
TB12
widening
search
–
Strand
Rd/TA
Centre
–
Irlam
Road
–
Marsh
Ln
–
Merton
Rd.

1731
by
6796 BO4V
–
Service
road
checked
no
trace
from
720B.
Negative
at
the
cafe.

1732
by
6796
BO4V
–
6847
checking
the
Merseybus
Cafe/canteen.

1735
by
9173
HO4
–
From
Insp
Owen
infd
TS33
is
making
with
loud
speaker.

1736
by
3642
BO2V
–
Canal
bank
Carolina
St
side
checked
by
3991
–
no
trace.

1738
by
6796 BO4V
–
Building
site
searched
no
trace.

1739
by
3642
BO2V
–
From
BS13
–
TJ
Hughes
has
been
checked
by
staff/no
trace-now
locking
up.…

*

A police motor bike collected a public address system and took it to the Strand so that appeals could be broadcast to passers-by. Specialist search teams from the Operational Support Division were turned out. High-powered Dragon lamps were brought in from neighbouring stations. The Force helicopter, Mike One, went up to illuminate the search on the ground.

There was further news of the pony-tail man, though he had still not been found. His presence at the Strand was confirmed and when he had been seen, the log recorded, he had appeared SIM. Strange in manner.

The police were also continuing to try and track down Ralph Bulger, who was somewhere between relatives in Kirkby. Mandy Waller took Denise back to Marsh Lane police station for a cup of tea while they waited for news.

9

When Jon and Bobby came down from the reservoir they turned back on to Breeze Hill and began walking towards the flyover, towards Walton. A woman in a house a few doors away from the reservoir heard a noise on the road outside, a moan that sounded like a child’s moan. She looked out and saw the trio on the pavement directly in front of her house. Jon and Bobby were walking past with James between them, each holding one of his hands.

They were seen again as they passed the newsagents on the corner of Imrie Street. A woman heard one of the boys call James. ‘Come on.’ She thought James, whose hood was up, looked a little bewildered. She went into the shop, and when she came out they had disappeared.

Under the flyover, along the walkways, and out onto County Road, heading for the shops, James is still being held between Jon and Bobby. It’s getting dark quickly, now.

There was another woman with another dog, and she was curious. They told her they had found James at the Strand, and she asked why they hadn’t taken him to the nearest police station. They told her they were going to Walton Lane Police Station.

‘Walton Lane Police Station?’

A younger woman, just outside Gayflowers the florist, overheard this and intervened. She had just been shopping with her daughter, who was tired and nagging her mum to go home so she could watch children’s television.

She looked down at James and saw that he was tired, too, and perhaps distressed, but not showing any signs of struggle. He looked up at Bobby.

‘What’s the matter?’ said the younger woman. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘They’ve just asked me the way to Walton Lane Police Station,’ said the woman with the dog.

‘Why do you want a police station?’

‘We’ve found him by the Strand,’ said Jon.

‘If you found him by the Strand, why didn’t you go to the police station by the Strand?’

‘That’s what I asked,’ said the woman with the dog.

‘I don’t know where it is,’ said Jon.

‘Well, you’ve walked a long way from the Strand to Walton Lane Police Station.’

‘A man told us to come this way.’

The younger woman thought all this was unusual. She turned to Bobby.

‘Why go to Walton Lane Police Station?’

‘That’s where the man directed us,’ Jon replied.

‘Where d’you live?’

Bobby opened his mouth to answer, but Jon cut across him.

‘The police station’s on our way home.’

Bobby let go of James’s hand and looked away. The younger woman thought he looked uneasy and nervous.

‘Get hold of his hand,’ said Jon calmly. Bobby did.

‘Walton Lane’s in that direction,’ said the younger woman, pointing. James looked up, to the woman, and to Jon.

‘Are you all right, son?’ the woman asked, but James did not respond.

‘Which is the way?’ said Jon, looking over the road to St Mary’s Church. ‘Did you say it was over this way?’

The other woman had been talking away to her dog. ‘Don’t go near him,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t like children.’

‘The best way,’ said the younger woman, ‘is to go across, behind Walton Church.’ That was Walton Village.

‘No, it’s too dark that way,’ said the woman with the dog. She told them to go down County Road and left along Church Road West.

The three boys turned to go back down the walkways under the flyover. The younger woman called them to stop, because she didn’t think it was safe, young boys down there in the dark. She asked the other woman to watch her daughter and her shopping while she saw the boys across the road. The woman said she couldn’t, because her dog didn’t like children.

‘Which way again, missus?’ said Jon.

‘The Village,’ said the younger woman, pointing to the church.

‘Church Road, it’s lighter,’ said the woman with the dog.

The boys crossed to the central reservation.

‘Are you sure you know the way?’ shouted the younger woman.

Jon turned round, and pointed down County Road. ‘I’ll go that way, missus.’

‘Our Ken will know,’ said Bobby, who did not have a brother called Ken, loudly to Jon.

When they had reached the far side of the road the younger woman was reassured. She turned to walk under the flyover, while the woman with the dog stood watching the boys. ‘They’re by the bus stop,’ she called after the younger woman, who had lost sight of the boys.

It was just after five when Jon and Bobby walked into the County DIY shop on County Road. They had passed Church Road West and gone
further down, before crossing back to the other side of County Road. The shop was small and cluttered, like a traditional ironmongers. The sign outside offered ‘Glass, Glazing, Patio Doors’ and ‘Window Frames Fitted’. Jon was still holding James’s hand as they went in. The owner was behind the counter, immediately alert. He’d been losing stock to boys this age over recent weeks, so he was keeping an eye on these two.

His attention was caught by James, who seemed slightly distressed. The owner attributed this to the graze on the side of his forehead, which was obviously fresh because it was still moist, and the red mark on his right cheek. Bobby stepped forward and asked if the shop sold some particular item. It might have been something daft like, ‘Do you sell fishy knickers?’ which was one of Bobby’s lines when he was skitting. The shop didn’t sell whatever it was he asked for.

‘D’you know where there’s a sweet shop? We want to buy some sweets for our brother.’

‘There’s one round the corner, and one over the road.’

*

They left the DIY shop, and continued back along County Road to the pet shop, ‘Animate – Pet and Aquatic Centre’, which displays exotic fish in stacks of rectangular tanks, heated and illuminated by brilliant fluorescent tubes. Jon and Bobby were holding James’s hands as they entered the shop, and the assistant soon noticed the graze on James’s forehead.

They walked over to the fish tanks and Bobby let go of James’s hand. They stood looking at the Weather Loach, a sedentary fish which spends most of its time lying motionless at the bottom of the tank.

‘It’s dead,’ said Bobby.

‘It’s not dead, it’s just lying there,’ said the assistant.

But Bobby insisted and finally, thinking he was very cheeky, the assistant prodded the Weather Loach to life, to prove her point.

Her colleague came out from the storeroom, and thought it strange that Jon kept hold of James’s hand. Small children who came into the shop usually ran around looking at all the animals. The other assistant, who had had enough of Bobby’s cheek, told them all to leave.

There was a commotion outside, a few doors down on County Road. The building over the bookies, William Hill’s, had caught fire, and passers-by had gathered to watch the flurry of activity. Fire engines, police cars, ambulances. Jon and Bobby stood watching with James for a while, before walking back up towards the flyover, to cross County Road again.

Jon recognised a woman, a friend of his parents, who was standing chatting with a couple of other women outside the bank. The woman knew
Jon, too, but she didn’t recognise him. She watched as the three boys crossed the road, fearing for their safety. They looked so little against the heavy traffic, two small boys and a toddler. She grabbed her friend’s hand, cutting through the conversation. ‘Oh, look at them kids with that toddler crossing that road.’ It made her so nervous she had to turn away and not look back as the boys ran to the far side.

Her friend thought the boys seemed in a hurry and that it looked out of place, a child entrusted to the care of boys who were themselves so small.

Jon and Bobby turned right by the SOGAT building and into Church Road West. As they walked down they were accosted by two older lads, Stephen, who was 11, and Ibrahim, 12, who were standing outside the newsagents on the other side of the road.

Ibrahim knew Bobby by name and by sight, and had seen him that morning, with Ryan, apparently on their way to school. He knew Jon from the area, though not his name. Stephen, who had left Jon and Bobby’s school last July, recognised them both, but did not know Jon by name.

Ibrahim was playing with a pair of handcuffs, which he had bought from the Army & Navy Stores. He and Stephen thought it would be a lark to put the handcuffs on the boys over the road, and give them a fright.

When they approached them they saw that James was upset. Ibrahim saw the bump over his eye, and thought he looked sad. Bobby and Jon held on to James’s hands, and did not let go.

‘What happened to the lad?’

‘He fell over at the top,’ said Bobby.

‘Where?’

‘The top.’

Ibrahim took this to be the top of County Road.

‘Look in his hair as well,’ said Bobby.

‘You all right?’ Ibrahim said to James. He turned away and began crying. Ibrahim could see red dots and lines under James’s hair.

‘Who is he?’

‘His brother,’ said Bobby, nodding at Jon.

‘Where you taking him?’

‘Home.’

‘If you don’t take him home I’ll batter you.’

The boys walked on then, having escaped a handcuffing, and turned right into City Road, heading towards the Everton ground, over the broo that bridged the railway line.

As they reached the bridge they were level with a young woman pushing her baby daughter in a pram. She was late on her way to her mum’s but noticed the boys, how they were holding James’s hands, and thought they were young to be in charge of such a small child. She pointed James out to her daughter.

‘Look, Lori, there’s a little boy.’

The daughter turned to look, but there was no reaction from Jon or Bobby. The boys crossed the road, and turned down the entry along the side of the railway.

They were only a few yards into the entry when Jon snatched the hood from James’s anorak, and threw it into the tree. They walked on, heading for the road at the far end, Walton Lane, with its police station directly opposite.

As they reached the bottom of the entry a motor bike turned into the alleyway immediately in front of them, from one of the side roads. The boys started at the apparition, a red Yamaha XS250 ridden by a man disguised beneath a black one-piece suit and a gleaming white crash helmet. He manoeuvred the bike into the back yard of his home, thinking that the boys had seemed very jumpy.