Catch the Fallen Sparrow (5 page)

She hesitated before continuing. ‘The boy had been the subject of repeated physical and sexual abuse in the past but – again quoting the pathologist – not in the last year or more. It does not look as though there was a sexual motive to the crime we are investigating, although I hardly need impress on you, it may well have a bearing.

‘So – we are looking at a child who had contact with the underclasses. It is unlikely that he came from a privileged background. However hard the voices scream, this is fact. As police we know it.' She watched the blond rookie at the back of the room scribbling furiously and recalled her first ever murder briefing – an old woman, clubbed to death in her own sitting room, blood everywhere ... Murders were all different and yet all basically the same – ugly.

‘Any comments so far?'

There weren't and she frowned. ‘I want to draw your attention to two things. Firstly his shoes.' She pinned up the picture of the new Reeboks. ‘They are, as you can see, practically new. The soles are clean and show no sign of wear. These are expensive shoes. Possibly they were shoplifted. I hardly need to point out that if they were bought someone must have been either very fond of him or was bribing him. Also if they were bought the person didn't know his size.

‘The shoes may prove a vital lead and I'd like a couple of you to try the shoe shops, please. Find out which they were – bought or stolen. Please try here first. If not we'll have to take the rest of the Potteries. More sinisterly they might have been given to him by someone. If they were bought we should know by whom – payment cash or cheque. You know the routine.'

The young rookie was still scribbling furiously. Joanna felt almost annoyed – would he ever look up?

‘The other thing is this ring ...'

Again the picture on the board – a drawing this time. ‘It was found on the dead boy's finger. It's distinctive and expensive ... initials, I think “AL” although we may be wrong.' She smiled. ‘They are rather entwined. Also the watching eye. Please find out anything you can about this ring. It seems as though it too could be stolen. But if it was given, then by whom ... to whom, when and why?

‘This boy,' she continued, looking at the mortuary picture of the now peaceful face, ‘was manually strangled. Bear in mind it was a swift death. There is a possibility that it happened accidentally. The abuser is possibly not the killer. The killer is not absolutely necessarily the person or persons who tried to fire the body. I impress on you: make no assumptions. I don't need to tell you we must apprehend the person responsible for the death of this child and he or she must be brought to justice without prejudice.' Her voice became steely. ‘Is this clear?'

They all nodded and she was satisfied and glad she had made this point at the beginning of the investigation. She turned to Mike. ‘Detective Sergeant Korpanski?'

‘Children's homes,' he said. ‘I think they are our best bet.' He cleared his throat. ‘We also need to speak to anyone who might have seen a car drive across the moors early this morning – before five. I'll draw up a team for the fingertip search. And don't forget soil samples. The soil up there is distinctive – dark and peaty. It holds tyre marks and footprints reasonably well. Get some of it to the lab for filing. Smith, King, Farthing, Scott...' He proceeded to draw up lists and allocations – some to the moors, some to the children's homes. A few to cover sports-shoe shops, others to cover jewellers.

Joanna left the room abruptly and the officers stood up dividing themselves into their groups under Mike Korpanski's supervision. Only then did the young, blond rookie, PC Phil Scott, finish his scribbling and trail past the board. He stopped in front of the picture of the ring and frowned. Then he caught up with the others.

‘Hey,' he said. ‘The ring. You know the ring ... The one on the boy ...'

The others looked uninterested. ‘I think you're on the moors for the afternoon, Phil.'

‘But –'

‘No buts.' DC Alan King gave him a playful punch. ‘And it's bloody pouring so take your mac.'

Matthew Levin scuffed along the beach, holding his daughter's hand. He felt irritated at the whole pace of this holiday, the child, the wife. He felt overwhelmed with frustrated energy and annoyed with himself for coming on this doomed holiday. He'd known he would be stifled by them both but he had never guessed to such an extent. His powerful shoulders dropped with guilt and unhappiness. He felt swamped by fripperies, constant dress changes and the endless shopping expeditions to which he had submitted. He ran his fingers through his short, blond hair. He had tried. God, he really had tried. But it was no use. With his family he had absolutely nothing in common. The feminine in them was too strong. Perhaps the masculine in him was also too dominant.

Even the sailing had had to be toned down for Jane who was a nervous sailor, a poor swimmer and hated boats. She feared them – felt insecure on the heaving deck. So the only possible exhilaration – an afternoon's sailing in stormy weather - would have to be forfeited. Instead they would have to wait for another calm day when the sea would reflect like a millpond and they would sit and bake underneath the hot, Greek sun.

Matthew Levin stared out across the swaying sea. God, what he would give to be out there, battling against the wind – reining it in to take him where he would go. And it would have been heaven to have had Joanna there with him, at his side, both of them working together. A swift vision of strong brown legs, smooth and firm, and that quick laugh she would give, triumphantly, at the challenge of pitting their skills together against the elements.

But here he was ... on a golden beach, standing on hot sand, beneath a cloudless blue sky, watching the waves slap against the boat. And he knew. He could not possibly feel more miserable. And now Eloise had lost her bracelet somewhere on this beach and Jane expected him to spend all afternoon searching for it.

‘I know it's here somewhere.' Eloise pouted a little and watched her father through her eyelashes. She tugged his arm. ‘Please look for it, Daddy. Please.

Matthew was exasperated. ‘No,' he said. ‘No. We'll never find it.' He glanced along the expanse of sand. ‘It'll be buried by now. You'll never find it. We'll just have to claim off the insurance.'

Eloise began to howl, flicked one pale plait back over her shoulder and stuck her thumb in her mouth, noisily sucking it.

Jane intervened. ‘Don't be hard on her, Matthew,' she said. ‘Don't be angry. It was carelessness - that's all. Nothing more.' She looked at her daughter. ‘Wasn't it, darling? Don't suck your thumb.'

Eloise ignored the censure but took the proffered excuse and seized it eagerly. ‘That's right, Mummy,' she said. ‘Carelessness.' She slipped her arm through her father's. ‘Just carelessness. I wasn't being purposely bad, Daddy. I didn't mean to. I wasn't being quite careful enough.' She frowned, looking anxiously from her father to her mother and back to her father again. ‘And Granny would be so upset if I had lost it. Daddy ...' she said firmly, ‘we must find it.' She screwed her face up. ‘Come on,' she said, dropping to her knees on the hot sand. ‘Help me look.'

Matthew gave her a glance of exasperation. ‘No,' he said. ‘It's a waste of time.'

The child attacked his Achilles' heel and began to howl again.

‘Someone else will find it.' Tears splashed down her cheeks. ‘What'll Granny say when she knows I've lost it? She'll be furious and horrible,' she wailed. ‘She'll say I've been careless.' She sniffed loudly, ignoring the blob of mucus that bubbled from her nose.

Matthew stood by helplessly.

‘I'll never see it again and it's worth ever such a lot of money.' Her tears were accompanied by spasmodic sobs.

‘Darling, don't cry,' Matthew pleaded uncomfortably. ‘Please don't cry.'

The child sobbed louder.

Matthew glanced at her anxiously. Her tears had always moved him to a feeling of helpless frustration. It made him feel sick and responsible. He simply wanted her to stop crying. ‘Darling ...' he said, ‘darling

Eloise only howled louder. ‘Granny will hate me.'

‘No she won't.' Jane put her arm around the girl's shoulders and drew her towards her, kissing the top of her head as though calming a baby. ‘She's inconsolable,' she said accusingly. Then she clutched Matthew's arm. ‘Help us look,' she hissed. Her face was hard and unforgiving and still pale. ‘Or do you mean you can simply sit here on the beach and watch your own daughter break her heart. But yes,' she added softly, ‘I can believe that.'

Eloise looked out from beneath her mother's shoulder and glimpsed her father's face, pink with anger, flushed and sweating – for all the cool breeze that was blowing hard in from the sea.

Her mother's voice was shrill. ‘Is that how little you really care about us?'

Matthew struggled to gain control, to explain, but he was now so furious he had lost his powers of reasoned argument. The other couples sitting on the beach heard only him shouting, saw him furiously arguing with his wife and daughter. They nudged one another.

Matthew was breathing hard now. Temper and reason tussled.

Jane squeezed his arm. ‘Look at me,' she said. ‘Look at me.'

He could barely prevent his lip from curling with dislike.

Her eyes were hard as ice as she spoke. ‘Don't think I'll
ever
let you go to her.'

Police Constable Phil Scott was allocated to the search of the moors, combing the area in a straight line between the lay-by on the main road and the spot where the child's body had been found. A preliminary search had been made of a narrow ‘corridor' which was clear of forensic evidence and taped off. But the person who had dropped the boy's body into the small hollow might not have taken the direct route. So the police were combing the area directly to the right and left of the forensic corridor. However, by lunch-time nothing had been found – at least nothing of importance -just an eclectic assortment of chewing-gum wrappers and crisp packets, some old, used toilet paper, a couple of deflated Durexes. All were put in a black plastic bin liner. But none of the police officers religiously picking up everything that was not the strong, coarse, moorlands grass believed this garbage of the human race would lead to a murderer.

Farthing looked at Scottie gloomily. ‘Sometimes,' he said, ‘this whole thing's a bleedin' waste of time. There's bugger all up here.' He scanned the wide sweep of moorland, topped with fierce-looking storm clouds. ‘And it's going to soddin' well rain.'

Someone had had the consideration to fetch fish and chips from the local shop and they sat on the ridge, near the police van. After a hearty meal, washed down with flasks of tea, they were ready to begin the afternoon. But Scottie held back. He found Mike Korpanski sitting in the front of the van and rapped on the window.

‘Excuse me, sir. Can I have a word?'

Mike wound the window down, still chewing chips.

‘I think I've seen that ring before. The one that was on the boy. I've been thinking about it, sir.'

‘Where?' Mike was excited – this was how investigations began, one tiny droplet of knowledge, then a succession, dripping quickly. And then a trickle which eventually gushed with information that led to a conviction. But it all started like this – one person saying they ‘thought' ... they ‘might' ...

‘I'm not absolutely certain,' Scottie said, ‘but I think it was one of the pieces reported stolen from a house break-in a year or two ago.'

‘In Leek?'

PC Phil Scott nodded.

Mike grinned. ‘Jump in, Scottie,' he said. ‘And if you're right there's a pint for you later at the local.'

Joanna was spending the morning on the telephone and writing reports. At lunch-time she rang the lab and asked to speak to Cathy Parker.

After a pause, Cathy came on the line. She read out the results of the other forensic tests carried out on the body. ‘The boy had eaten about two hours before he died. Some chips and a meat pie.'

Joanna nodded. ‘The chip shops are open till midnight. He could have got them from there. I suppose it's another avenue to explore. What about the results of the semen tests?'

‘Negative. As I thought,' Cathy said. ‘The motive was not sexual – or if it was, the boy's sudden death killed the urge. Of course the lack of semen proves no penetration but it might be present on the clothes.' She paused for a minute. ‘How long before you get the tests on the clothing?'

‘A day or two. Shouldn't be longer. The Press interest in a child murder means that we get priority at the lab. The outcry is always deafening.'

Joanna put a few of the uniformed men on to cover the fish and chip shops which were just opening to serve lunch. Mike arrived as she was wondering about her own lunch, toying with the idea of some sandwiches and a yoghurt, but she could tell from the excitement in his eyes that something had surfaced and suddenly lunch didn't seem quite so important. Behind him trailed the young, blond rookie she had noticed scribbling furiously throughout the briefing.

‘Come in.' She smiled. ‘PC Scott, isn't it?'

‘I hope I'm not wasting your time,' he said awkwardly.

‘Don't worry,' she reassured him. ‘Much better to waste a few minutes now than perhaps days while you decide whether to speak or not.'

He felt heartened. ‘May I have another look at the ring?'

She stared at him for a moment and he opened his notebook and tilted the page towards her to show her a drawing he had made. He noticed she studied it for a very long time without saying a word, frowned, held the notebook herself. She scrutinized the crude pencil drawing then looked up.

‘It does look the same,' she agreed. ‘What was it made of?'