The neatness obsession creeps up on him gradually, an antidote to the aggression fuelling the fights. Joshua has to channel his churned-up emotions somehow and so the fixation with regularity, symmetry and order kicks in. It works, too. Tidiness imposes a sense of consistency on his world and the sessions with the psychiatrist get shorter and fewer until they stop. By the time he’s transferred to adult prison, aged eighteen, Joshua is a model detainee, the fist fights long gone, replaced by the rigidity of his obsessions.
Oh, yes. Obsessions in the plural, not singular. Whilst at Vinney Green, another compulsion besides tidiness tugs at his brain, refusing to let go. Abruzzo. A surname, one he remembers because it’s Italian and therefore unusual in his limited experience. ‘Abruzzo,’ he often says aloud, letting his tongue rasp against the cheese-grater quality of the -zo. He first encounters the name during a lazy afternoon spent messing around in Adam Campbell’s bedroom. It’s written in a diary, along with the owner’s address. Copthorne Close; its alliterative sound pleases him and like Abruzzo, it’s filed away in the eleven-year-old Joshua’s brain. Later, when he’s in bed after another day at the detention centre, unable to sleep, the name and address worry away at him. He can’t get the thought, dark and hideous as it is, out of his mind; that Adam Campbell has hurt another child besides Abby Morgan.
Back in the present moment, his seven laps of the running track completed, Mark thrusts Joshua Barker out of his head. He jogs back through the drizzle to his flat. Once home, he throws his damp, sweaty clothes into the washing machine, changing into fresh ones. A faint hint of Natalie’s perfume lingers in the air and he breathes in the musky scent, the pain of her rejection stabbing him again. Really, though, he’s not surprised she’s dumped him. It’s as she said; Abby Morgan’s death has branded him unlovable. Some crimes simply aren’t forgivable.
He switches his laptop on. A quick flick through the Internet before bed, mainly to check the football fixtures for the weekend. He clicks on the BBC’s news website, skimming down the sports section. Bristol Rovers will be playing away; he lacks the cash to attend every fixture, though, and given their current form it’s probably not worth the effort. Shame; a diversion from the pain consuming him over Natalie’s rejection would have been welcome.
He clicks over to the news. As usual, doom and gloom dominate. More problems in the Middle East, the usual wrangling in the House of Commons, concerns over terrorism threats in London. A prostitute found murdered in Southampton. Stabbed, bloodily and brutally, to death. He vaguely remembers something similar a few months ago, a different city, he can’t recall where. Somewhere on the South Coast. Of course, street girls being killed by rogue punters is nothing new. In Mark’s current frame of mind, though, reading about the savage murder of a female hits too close to home. For fuck’s sake, he thinks. Does everything in his life have to lead back to Abby Morgan’s death?
5
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
As she drives home after the break-up with Mark, Natalie’s consumed, almost destroyed, by the revelation he’s a child killer. It’s as though her brain’s been hijacked by the need to understand, fit the pieces together in her head, get to grips with the fact she’s been so badly wrong about him. Will she ever comprehend the sonar in her head, the tracking device that leads her, unerringly, to life’s bad boys? This is way beyond the realms of petty theft and screwing around, though. Child murder tops a different league and Natalie’s at a loss to fathom how her internal radar has betrayed her yet again.
The strident blast of a car horn cuts through her thoughts. Oh God. Whilst she’s been whipping herself for her innate ability to pick losers, her car’s drifted into the path of the oncoming traffic. Time to pull over; Natalie’s barely able to see for the tears of self-recrimination burning the backs of her eyeballs. She parks up and switches off the engine, allowing the persistent March drizzle to obscure the windscreen.
Crushed, she crosses her arms on the steering wheel, pillowing her forehead on top. Her tears take with them her hopes for something solid and lasting with Mark Slater. She remembers, with a shiver of revulsion, the last time they made love, the memory of his body now repugnant. Hands have caressed her that are responsible for the brutal murder of a tiny child; Natalie’s been soiled by their touch and she’s not sure she’ll ever feel clean again.
Eventually she restarts the engine. This time she’s more careful, more aware, as she drives. Back in her flat, she makes straight for the biscuit tin, a pure reflex action, before the memory of her earlier vomiting stops her. For once, she doesn’t seek refuge in comfort eating, her stomach sending a silent message of protest against food. The urge to dig deeper into the enigma of Mark Slater claws at her. She’s gone from hopeful girlfriend to destroyed ex in the space of an evening, so she needs answers. Now. Mark’s so-called explanation is inadequate, insultingly thin, and as she’ll never see him again, she’s unable to unearth the truth of this – whatever this is – through him.
Something else is required to sort the mess in her head.
Natalie digs deep into her memory, trying to force out facts about the murder of Abby Morgan, but few emerge. The killing that shocked the whole of Britain took place too long ago, when Natalie was the same age as Mark, or Joshua, or whatever his name is. Eleven years old. Holy shit. The reality of it rushes over her. Whilst she’s struggling to cope with the breakdown of her parents’ marriage, he’s battering a child to death. At the same time as menstruation becomes an unwelcome factor in her life, a toddler’s blood is soaking into the ground somewhere close by. Where, exactly? Dartmoor, Dorset, Devon; she can’t remember, and the proximity of the murder site to Bristol adds fuel to the revulsion gathering force in her brain.
Despite not being able to recall many details about the crime, Natalie’s familiar with the basics. Hell, everyone in Britain knows about the murder of Abby Morgan. It’s one of those legendary crimes, like the Moors Murders, never forgotten. Two eleven-year-old boys deliberately luring a toddler from her garden with the intent of killing her? Following through by forcing her into an abandoned farm building? Battering her with a rake handle and then stabbing her to death? No, thinks Natalie, crimes like that don’t fade from the collective consciousness. They remain and fester, torturing the conscience of Mr and Mrs Joe and Joanna Public with the obvious question. How the hell can something so terrible happen in a so-called civilised society?
She vaguely remembers hearing her mother discussing the case at the time with their next-door neighbour, who’s come round for coffee.
‘I blame the parenting,’ Callie says, nodding with satisfaction at having been astute enough to pinpoint the raison d'être behind the killing. ‘You can’t tell me those two grew up being taught right from wrong. More than likely you’ll find neglect, or abuse, or worse, has been going on behind closed doors.’
‘Not just with those boys, either.’ Natalie recalls the grim line of the neighbour’s mouth. ‘How come they were able to take the child so easily? Why wasn’t someone keeping an eye on her?’
‘Well, you can’t be watching them all the time, I suppose…’
Natalie’s memories swing forward to a television broadcast, four years ago or thereabouts. She’s twenty-one, still living at home at the time. Callie Richards and her daughter have just finished a fish and chip supper and are watching the early evening news. Joshua Barker and Adam Campbell are again hitting the headlines, this time because they’re being released under special licence. Complete with new identities, different names and faked backgrounds. A move necessary to prevent them from vigilante action from a public that’s never forgiven or forgotten the murder of two-year-old Abby Morgan.
‘Should have locked them up and thrown away the key,’ Callie Richards remarks.
More or less what Abby’s mother says when she’s interviewed for the broadcast. Michelle Morgan speaks movingly about how Joshua Barker and Adam Campbell have been let off far too lightly for her daughter’s murder. How they’ve received a comfortable life, including an education, at the taxpayer’s expense, and now they’ve been released after serving a mere ten years. She dismisses suggestions that they were only children themselves at the time of the murder, too young to realise what they were doing. ‘They knew all right,’ she says, venom flicking from her voice as she spits the words out. ‘They planned it. Came prepared, with a knife. They killed my child because they’re sick and twisted, both of them, right the way through, and they should pay in full for her death. She lost her right to life through them and it’s only fair they should spend the rest of their lives in prison in return.’ The broadcast cuts back to the newscaster.
‘What gets me is the waste of public money,’ Callie Richards says. ‘You can’t tell me it’ll come cheap, giving those two new names, and who’ll foot the bill? The taxpayer, that’s who.’
Natalie’s inability to remember more than the barest of details frustrates her. She’s battling the flicker of hope in her gut, the one repeating his words to her.
I didn’t kill Abby Morgan, Nat.
She’s desperate to believe him on one level and yet, on another, it’s easier to brand him a child killer. Safety lies in spurning Mark Slater, in retreating to lick her wounds via singleton status. If she’s alone, she reasons, no man can hurt her the way her father did her mother with his frequent infidelities.
Knowledge is power, so she’s heard, and right now, she’s lacking in power. Time to set that straight. She switches on her computer and does a search on ‘Abby Morgan murder.’ Over three hundred and fifty thousand hits come up. Wikipedia’s top of the list, but she doesn’t click the link. Too dull, the articles always too long, too annotated, to suit Natalie’s tastes. A YouTube link beneath it entitled ‘Yearly Vigil’ catches her attention, and, intrigued, she clicks on it. Seems Michelle Morgan holds a vigil each year at the site of the murder, at the time when her daughter died. This is news to Natalie; she doesn’t remember seeing or hearing anything of this. The blurb gives her the bare facts, with the video link connecting to the latest vigil, the one held last year. Natalie skims through the comments. Most are of the ‘lock them up and throw away the key’ variety.
Her fingers shaking, she clicks on the video link.
Natalie can’t tear her eyes from the screen. Michelle Morgan stands in front of a microphone. The setting’s a field, the weather damp and drizzly. Abby’s mother appears older than her age, more mid-fifties rather than the late forties she must be. She’s of average height, carrying at least ten kilos of excess fat strapped to her belly and thighs. Reddish-hued hair, pulled back in an unkempt ponytail, wisps of which escape around her neck. No make-up. Unlike her face, her clothes are younger than her years, a little too tight, a tad too bright. Green trousers a size too small, a shiny butter-coloured top that strains across her breasts. She’s flanked on her left by a young woman who looks barely out of her teens as well as a man who’s possibly in his late twenties. After having read the blurb accompanying the video, Natalie realises who they are. Rachel and Shaun Morgan, Abby’s older sister and brother. Rachel’s stance is awkward, her shoulders hunched, her hands thrust deep into her jacket pockets. She’s clearly unnerved by the television camera pointed her way. Low self-esteem lurks in her poor posture and frequent glances at her brother, who seems altogether more stoical. He stands tall, immobile, with no discernible expression on his face.
‘It angers me that the two individuals responsible for depriving my family of a cherished daughter are now at liberty, protected by new identities, living their lives in freedom, when my child has been deprived of her own life. Robbed of it in a most brutal and callous fashion.’ Michelle Morgan’s voice is forged from steel, her posture straight and strong, unlike Rachel’s. ‘Where is the justice for the victim? Why did the two boys who murdered my child get food, clothing and education, all at the taxpayer’s expense, when my daughter was denied her right to these things? A culture has emerged in this country of prioritising the criminal over the victim and it has to stop.’
‘You think they were released too early?’
Michelle Morgan snorts her contempt into the reporter’s microphone.
‘Of course they were. Ten years for the murder of a defenceless toddler? The sentence was an insult to my dead daughter.’ The camera pans away from Michelle, showing the trees, the field behind her, with the explanation that the wooden farm building where Abby Morgan died has long since been destroyed. A few more platitudes from the reporter and then the link ends.
Natalie wonders about Rachel’s father, conspicuous by his absence in the video. She braves the Wikipedia link, but it yields no explanation as to why Matthew Morgan – his name is now added to her scant knowledge about the family – doesn’t appear with his wife and children. No mention of his death or emigration.
Unable to help herself even though she’s aware she’s indulging in a form of self-flagellation, Natalie clicks on the links to footage from earlier years. Michelle Morgan is always there, along with Rachel and Shaun; Matthew Morgan never is. Little difference exists between the links; Michelle says much the same things, her anger unabated, and Rachel looks downtrodden and unhappy, her arms folded to ward off the television cameras. Shaun always stands alongside his mother, Natalie notes, with Rachel on the other side of her brother. Never beside Michelle Morgan. Natalie watches, fascinated, as Abby’s sister morphs from awkward adolescence through to womanhood, her copper hair long at first, then migrating up around her ears in an unflattering pixie cut before settling into the long straight style of recent years.
She switches her focus to Shaun Morgan, Michelle’s oldest child. He’s a looker, the gangly teenager of the earlier video links changing into a solid, easy on the eye man. Each year, he stands, rock-like, beside his mother and sister. Like Rachel, he never speaks, allowing Michelle her starring role in her own personal tragic play.