What She Knew (16 page)
FM: Presumably those cases are easier to solve.
JC: Absolutely. The nonfamily perpetrator is much more challenging for us. If a child is snatched right out of the family’s lives, without trace, the pool of potential suspects can become vast. Obviously we look at everyone they know, but once you’ve ruled them out, it could be anyone. And time is always against you.
FM: It must leave the parents in a living hell.
JC: You wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
FM: No, you wouldn’t. There’s a term we use for it: “ambiguous grief.” It can be a life sentence. It’s a kind of unresolved grief. You might feel it if you have a child or another family member who is mentally impaired. You might mourn the person you think they could have been if things had turned out differently. That person is physically present but psychologically absent. Conversely, and this is what happens in cases of abduction, or more commonly in divorce, the child or the person is psychologically present but physically absent. And in the case of abduction the parents have the added uncertainty over whether the child is alive or dead.
JC: It’s what we wanted to avoid. We wanted to get that kid back safe and well. We were waiting to get written profiles from the psychologist, but he’d told Fraser he was veering toward a nonfamily abduction, because of the circumstances of the abduction.
FM: Why?
JC: Based on Ben’s age and gender it was likely to be a lone male abductor with a sexual motive, probably acting opportunistically.
FM: And how did he come to this conclusion?
JC: Past cases, the circumstances of Ben’s life and his disappearance. He advised us to look out for someone odd when we were interviewing and looking through statements.
FM: Odd? You surely didn’t need a profiler to tell you to look out for somebody odd?
JC: I don’t mean overtly odd. There are signs to look for. Often they are craving control, in sexual relationships perhaps, or just in their lives.
FM: Which presumably might have been a fit for your fantasy role-play suspect?
JC: That’s right.
Describing his work has given him an energy I haven’t seen before. I change the subject, hoping he’ll carry this momentum into talking about his personal life.
FM: And Emma?
JC: What about her?
FM: What were her thoughts?
JC: To be honest, we hadn’t really had a chance to talk properly. She was getting on with the job though. Fraser was pleased with her.
FM: I’m very surprised you hadn’t talked. I understood that you were living together.
JC: It was hard once the case started. You don’t keep sociable hours. When you get home you’re so tired you just want to sleep. It was easier for us both to sleep at our own places some nights. And Emma could be hard to read sometimes, you know?
FM: What do you mean?
JC: I don’t know. You know how people sometimes get very quiet, go into themselves a bit when they’re focused on the job?
FM: Yes.
JC: She’s like that. So when she wanted to keep herself to herself I respected that. And, to be honest, we didn’t really have time for our relationship once the case started because it consumed us both. It’s the nature of it.
FM: Do you think Emma was prepared for that?
JC: Absolutely.
FM: You put a lot of responsibility on her, recommending her for the post.
JC: I’ve already told you, I had faith in her.
FM: Did you talk about that?
JC: I wasn’t going to patronize her. That would have been out of order. And she didn’t need me to.
His foot begins to tap a swift staccato on the floor, signaling that he knows it’s only minutes until the end of our session.
FM: Just one last thing before you go.
He raises an eyebrow inquiringly.
FM: Did you feel that you were able to keep your distance from the case? Personally?
JC: What do you mean?
FM: The age of Benedict Finch, the visit to his school. Occasionally when I read your report I get the feeling that he might have got under your skin a bit.
JC: I was professional.
FM: I’m not suggesting for a moment that you weren’t.
He stares at me.
JC: It’s not wrong to care.
FM: Was this the first case you worked on where a child was involved, or in danger?
JC: Yes.
FM: Was that hard?
JC: It was hard in that we had to find him. It was our responsibility to him. He’d done nothing wrong. He was just a kid. But that didn’t make any difference to anything I did.
FM: Do you think your response to the case could have been affected by the relatively recent death of your father?
JC: What?
FM: Sometimes when we lose a parent it makes us reflect on our childhoods. It’s not an uncommon response to parental bereavement. That might have made you more vulnerable to identifying with Benedict Finch, and what could be happening to him?
He doesn’t reply. He looks incredulous.
FM: DI Clemo?
JC: No. It didn’t. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I was doing my job. Isn’t this session supposed to be over by now?
Although there’s a clock in plain view on my desk, he glances at his watch. It’s obvious that he’s not going to engage with this today.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2012
Crimes against children, particularly cases involving abduction and homicide, continue to be problematic as both a social phenomenon and judicial responsibility. Such cases routinely receive intense community, media, and law enforcement attention, and can rapidly overwhelm local investigative resources.
—M. C. Boudreaux, W. D. Lord, and R. L. Dutra, “Child Abduction: Aged-Based Analyses of Offender, Victim, and Offense Characteristics in 550 Cases of Alleged Child Disappearance,”
Journal of Forensic Sciences
44(3), 1999
Stay united in your fight to find your child. Don’t allow the stress of the investigation to drive a wedge into your family life. When emotions run wild, be careful that you do not lash out at or cast blame on others… Remember that everyone deals with crises and grief differently, so don’t judge others because they do not respond to the disappearance in the same way you do.
—“When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide,”
Missing Kids USA Parental Guide
, US Department of Justice, OJJDP Report
Email
To: Corinne Fraser
Cc: James Clemo
From: Janie Green
October 24, 2012 at 06:58
OPERATION HUCKLEBERRY—PRESS REVIEW 10/24/12
Morning, Corinne
Roundup of this morning’s press coverage relating to Operation Huckleberry below. This is just the nationals and locals. Due to the vast quantity of material, we’ve yet to go through everything that’s online, so I’ll forward that later. As usual, “highlights” below with link to scanned copies.
I’m copying this in to DS Martyn at his request. The material is concerning him and he’d like us all to get together later this morning to discuss tactics. He and I can do 10 or 11?
Janie Green
Press Officer, Avon and Somerset Constabulary
THE SUN
“ANGRY”
Blood: On her hands
Rage: In her eyes
Gashed: Across her forehead
THE DAILY MIRROR
“BLOOD ON HER HANDS”
Loner photographer mum says on her website she “likes to work alone”
Neighbor says she “never saw Benedict”
THE DAILY MAIL
“DO WE NEED TO LOOK ANY FURTHER?”
Could the answer to Benedict Finch’s disappearance lie close to home? . . .
RACHEL
I slept only fitfully after looking online. The phrases I’d read repeated in my head over and over again. When I woke up for what felt like the hundredth time, the Stormtrooper clock beside the bed read 4:47 a.m. Ben’s bedding was twisted around me and I felt exhausted and cold. Nicky was sleeping in my room, with the door open. I didn’t want to wake her. I crept downstairs quietly and didn’t turn any lights on.
On the kitchen table I found her laptop. I opened it and the glow from the screen lit up my fingers, poised over the keyboard. It asked me for a password. I watched the cursor blinking as I tried to think what it might be. I knew it wouldn’t be the name of any of her daughters. She’d lectured me once on password security and the foolishness of using your children’s or pet’s names. I tried “Rosedown,” which was the name of the cottage we grew up in. “Incorrect password” was the computer’s response. I tried “rhubarbcustard”—a reference to Nicky’s blog. It didn’t work. I had one more shot at it, and no clue what to try. On a whim, because it was my password in spite of her advice, and because my exhausted brain couldn’t come up with anything else, I tried “Benedict.”
It worked. I leaned back in my chair in surprise, but then I felt a rush of affection toward Nicky: my bossy sister, a proud-enough aunty to use Ben’s name as her password.
Now that I was in, I searched “Benedict Finch Missing.” News items from all different sources appeared on the screen. The story had exploded. Images of me from the press conference appeared alongside Ben’s photo: my bleeding head, my white pallor, my body language, and my angry eyes. Many of the news headlines were blatantly aggressive toward me.
But I still couldn’t help myself.
Like a moth to a flame I clicked on the Facebook site.
There were hundreds of posts. The top one was from somebody called Cathy Franklin.
Cathy Franklin
The mother has done something to him thats obvious
2 hours ago · Like
Stuart Weston
Police wouldn’t have let her tlk at press conf if they suspected her
2 hours ago · Like
Cathy Franklin
Stuart that’s not true has been seen before that people crying in press confs have been convicted.
1 hour ago · Like
Rich Jameson
Some people hang themselves like that perhaps they’re trying to catch her out. U wouldn’t believe how many people have done this go to
www.whereisbenedictfinch.wordpress.com
u wd be amazed.
