Catch the Fallen Sparrow (8 page)

‘At what time have we scheduled our briefing?'

‘Ten.'

She stopped for a minute then sighed. ‘That poor child. I hate to think what he must have gone through – for all of his short, sordid, horrible little life.' She looked at Mike. ‘Don't you get a feeling in the pit of your stomach when you see these kids on the streets?'

Mike grinned. ‘Yeah,' he said. ‘I feel I want to lock them up now – before they start on their life of crime.'

‘We're failing them,' she said, ‘these kids. They don't set off from the same starting line. Some of them never get across the line. They don't even run the same bloody race. Life is different for them right from the word Go.' She leaned back in her chair, sighed, closed her eyes. ‘They never discover the meaning of words like love and trust, truth, honesty, kindness ...'

Mike cleared his throat noisily. ‘Don't take this the wrong way, Joanna, but I don't think it's a good idea for us to be too idealistic.'

‘Perhaps we'd be better coppers if we were a bit more idealistic,' she said.

Mike crossed the room. ‘We start off being idealistic. A couple of years later we get cynical. Guess who makes us that way?'

‘But we don't do anything to help them.'

‘Because it isn't our job, Joanna – that's why.'

‘But there isn't really anyone.'

‘There's plenty of people,' Mike said. ‘They just ignore their chances.'

She looked quizzically at him. ‘You really think so?'

‘Parents,' he said.

‘But if they had parents surely all this wouldn't happen to them.'

‘Sometimes,' he said darkly, ‘it's the parents who are doing it to them.'

She nodded. ‘Yes,' she replied, ‘sometimes, and sometimes it isn't.'

Eloise scuffed through hot, dry sand along the steep path that led to the sea while her parents watched.

Jane spoke first. ‘You can't do it, Matthew,' she said. ‘You can't leave.'

He frowned at her. ‘Jane,' he said. ‘Please. Don't make it hard.'

Jane Levin's face tightened as she watched her daughter wade into the sea, up to her waist. ‘I won't make it easy, Matthew,' she said softly. ‘There is nothing – absolutely
nothing
– I won't do to keep you.' She drew in a long, deep breath. ‘I will rake up every single speck of dirt that I can think of.' She stopped and looked at him. ‘I will embarrass you in any way I can.' She turned and glared at him. ‘I will make any life you might try to build together miserable. I am warning you now, Matthew. You – are – my – husband and you will
stay
my husband.' She stared out over the sparkling sea. ‘I like the life I lead Matthew. I'm comfortable at the farmhouse and I intend staying there.'

‘It's all right,' Matthew said. ‘I've arranged a flat.'

Matthew shifted uncomfortably and Jane smiled.

‘And Eloise?'

Matthew looked at her taut face, at the thin, mean lips, and wondered. Had he ever kissed them and found them soft and yielding? No – at least not that he remembered. He buried his face in his hands and groaned.

Jane watched Eloise in her scarlet bikini, snorkel mask and rubber fins slip her breathing tube in her mouth. Then with a splash she was gone and she followed the pipe and the chain of bubbles as the child inspected the rock bottom to the bay.

They both watched the flippers kicking with a loud splash and the little pipe move along the ripples like the periscope of a diminutive submarine. Eloise's blond hair floated like beautiful, pale seaweed. And Matthew wondered when would be the best time to speak to the child.

Jason Fogg was lying on his bed.

‘I heard it on the radio ...' He frowned at Kirsty. ‘What if it's Dean?'

She gave a snort. ‘Don't be bloody daft,' she said. ‘Why should it be? There's thousands of kids his age out there ...' She paused. ‘What exactly did they say on Radio Stoke?'

Jason stared at the carpet, concentrating. ‘A boy, about ten, blond hair ... Oh yeah, they said he was wearing black jeans.' He glanced at Kirsty. ‘My jeans are gone. He was always takin' them. They was too big for him,' he complained.

Kirsty tugged at a piece of her dark, tangled hair. ‘That don't mean much. Loads of kids wear black jeans. Oh come on, Jason,' she said, ‘he'll turn up.' She looked confident. ‘I know he will.'

At thirteen and a half Kirsty always resorted to a blind, determined optimism, doggedly convincing herself nothing was wrong – all would turn out all right in the end. The truth was for her it never had turned out all right in the end, but she would have tagged the phrase, ‘so far' on to any statement about her future life.

It was different for Jason. He had had one stroke of luck but failed to recognize it until the last year, three years too late. At eleven he had been fostered with a possibility of adoption. However, the huge dose of smother love, together with a cheerful and determined father – two parents who had felt they had a right to delve into all four corners of his life – had been too much for him. The extreme claustrophobia of the relationship had ended with a screaming, shouting, throwing episode at three o'clock in the morning after his foster mother had found him with his hand down his pyjama trousers and woken him from sleep. The on-call social worker had been called there and then. And, amid allegations of not being nice, Jason had been returned, confused, to the small children's home, the social worker telling him all the way back that he had done nothing wrong. His child's mind had formed the question: ‘So why are they kicking me out?'

‘Back to The Nest,' he had said with a large slice of bravado. But inside he had been crying and deeply puzzled. ‘If that's parents,' he had said to Dean that night, ‘you can stick 'em.'

And Dean had agreed. He understood. He knew about ‘Happy Families' ... a couple of religious fanatics who had had the idea of saving a child. Pretty little Dean, with his choirboy looks and innocent eyes, had seemed ideal. But in the first twenty-four hours he had used dirty words so many times they had stuck their fingers in their ears to block it out. Jason gave a lopsided grin. And when Dean had used the ‘F' word to the vicar after church on Sunday morning they had felt they'd bitten off more than they could chew and marched him back to the children's home with marks on his bottom from where they had tried to beat some ‘decency' into him.

Dean's second home experience had been, for him, easier to understand. The woman had been a hatchet-faced tyrant who worked in a local slaughter house. All the affection the boy had received had been from her husband who kissed the child, gave him sweets, shared his bed.

His next experience had been the one that remained to haunt him. Because he had been happy, fostered by the dirty, fat creature, blessed with thirteen other foster children. The dirt didn't matter. The poverty and food didn't matter either. The fact that he shared the bedroom with five other boys never mattered. But the social worker believed that all these things did matter and Dean was returned to the children's home. After that he simply refused to go with anyone else and ran away every single time they suggested it. As he told Jason and Kirsty, ‘If I can't stop with Mrs Swires they can stick it.' And when they finally suggested the humiliation of putting his photograph in the newspaper together with an appeal for a ‘family', he knew that something drastic would have to be done.

‘But,' Jason muttered to himself very softly, ‘Dean had been all right in the end.'

The sports shop had a sale on of expensive trainers. Half-price, the vivid pink signs said, and PC Roger Farthing looked at the prices and wondered who the hell could afford these sorts of shoes – even at ‘half-price'. Outside in a basket, were some odd pairs, tied together by the laces. With a policeman's awareness of crime he thought it was a bloody silly place to leave expensive shoes.

He picked up a pair, white with purple and gold flashes on the sides, huge tongues lolling out, and marched straight into the shop. It was fluorescent bright and sparkling white everywhere with a lime green carpet on the floor. There were racks of T-shirts and baggy jogging pants, tennis rackets, golf balls.

The thin man in a short-sleeved white T-shirt looked up.

‘Are you the owner of this shop?' the PG asked.

The man nodded.

PG Farthing took out his pencil. ‘Your name?'

‘Keithy,' he said. ‘Keithy Latos.'

Farthing wrote it down. ‘We're making some enquiries about a pair of shoes,' he said, and dropped the trainers on the counter ‘Like these.'

The man's eyes flickered, dropped quickly to the shoes then looked up. ‘Where did you get them from?'

‘The basket outside.'

The man picked them up. ‘Like these, you say?' PG Farthing nodded, watching the man carefully. He had a slight tremor and the laces tapped against the shoes. They were parallel-laced – unlike the child's.

‘Have you sold a pair of these, size sevens, in the last couple of days?'

The man had small eyes, like a pig's. He avoided Farthing's gaze as though desperate to conceal something. ‘Why do you want to know?' he asked carelessly.

‘In connection with a serious crime.' Farthing had learned this phrase at police training college.

Latos licked his lips. ‘Serious crime?'

His eyes were darting all over the place. And Farthing knew instinctively he had both bought and read the morning's newspaper.

Keithy gulped for air. ‘Sold – no.' He gave a short laugh. ‘In fact, nobody's bought any like this for a couple of weeks.' He eyed the policeman anxiously as though it was important he was believed. ‘Gone out of fashion,' he said. ‘Why do you think I've stuck them out the front half-price? No one wants those sort any more – old hat. They all have to have Nikes now. Even half-price no one wants them.'

Roger Farthing thought quickly. ‘You haven't had a pair nicked, have you?'

‘Don't know,' Keithy said carelessly. ‘How many's in the basket?'

They both went outside the shop and PC Farthing waited while Keithy picked out the shoes, heaping them up into his arms.

‘Yeah,' he said uncertainly. ‘There could be a pair missing.' He looked at Roger Farthing. ‘What size did you say?'

‘Sevens.'

‘Could be,' he said.

‘Don't you know for sure?'

‘Not till I stocktake.'

Roger Farthing could have cheerfully strangled the man. He drew out the photograph then of the dead boy and watched Keithy's face blanch.

‘My God,' he said, looking shocked at the policeman. ‘This kid's dead, isn't he?' He looked again at the picture.

‘Isn't this the kid they found up on the Roaches?'

‘Yes,' Roger Farthing replied, ‘wearing a pair of trainers exactly like these.' He indicated the shoes on the counter.

Keithy stared at them, his Adam's apple suddenly bobbing up and down.

‘I'd be grateful if you'd do a stocktake immediately. It's important we know where the boy got the shoes from.'

Keithy swallowed noisily. ‘Course,' he said.

Roger stuck the picture of the dead boy in front of his face. ‘Know him, do you?'

Keithy looked at the picture, quickly at the policeman, then back to the picture again. ‘I don't think so,' he said.

‘You're sure?'

‘I might do ...' He was flustered now. ‘They all look the same ... same jeans and anoraks, hairdos ...'

‘Sports shoes.' Roger put in gently.

Keithy's eyes flickered. ‘Those too,' he muttered.

Roger Farthing handed him one of the posters they had had printed. The usual thing – ‘Do You Know This Boy?' And the artist's impression below. ‘Would you mind putting one of these up in your shop?'

He looked irritated. ‘Yes I would,' he said shortly. ‘I don't want a picture of a dead kid up in here. This is a sports shop – not
Crimewatch
.'

‘Even if it helped find his killer?'

Keithy bit his lip. ‘All right then,' he said reluctantly, cornered into acquiescence. He grabbed the poster, tearing the corner.

‘And by the way,' Farthing said, ‘if I was you I wouldn't leave them outside. It's inviting theft.'

Keithy too readily agreed with him, and PC Farthing found himself disliking him with his slicked hair, tight T-shirt over a bony chest, the affected bounce in his step as though he was wearing some of his own ‘Air step' shoes.

‘You know, you ought to keep a record of what's gone missing.' Farthing suggested. ‘If people don't report crime it cocks up our figures. We think Leek's more law-abiding than it really is.'

‘Quite,' said Keithy, and Farthing got the distinct impression he was dying to get rid of him. ‘So you'll stocktake?'

‘Right away, officer.'

‘And you'll let us know at the nick?'

‘Yeah ... yeah.'

‘You'll ring us up – ask for me?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Well, thank you.' Roger Farthing turned to go. By the way, Mr Latos, where were you on Sunday night?'

Keithy looked confident. ‘I went to the Buxton opera house,' he said. ‘To see the D'Oyly Carte singers.'

‘And what were they singing?'

‘
The Mikado.
' He grinned.

‘And did anyone see you?'

‘Lots of people. I've got lots of friends in Buxton. People who like the opera.'

Farthing found himself shrinking from the man's tone. ‘Who did you go with?'

‘With a – friend.'

‘I see,' Roger Farthing said. ‘Of course we'll need his name.'

Keithy giggled. ‘It might have been a lady.'

‘His – or her name then.'

‘Martin,' Keithy said coyly, ‘Martin Shane. He lives in Cheddleton, in a little cottage in the High Street. He'll vouch for me. We were together all evening.'