When I Wasn't Watching (27 page)

With the child handed over to WPC Kaur, who had arrived before anyone else and was arranging a social worker for Ricky as well as awaiting the Armstrongs – the family reunion made rather complicated by the fact that the mother was now pressing assault charges on the father – Matt all but collapsed into the seat opposite his Chief. Dailey was still shaking his head slowly to himself, clearly having trouble processing the night's events.

‘You should have called it in as soon as you saw them coming out of that building,' Dailey accused, though he looked more tired than angry. Matt knew he was right, and was struggling for an answer that wouldn't get him accused of trying to protect Ricky due to his involvement with his mother.

‘I know, sir. But I made a professional judgement call and it seemed the best course of action.'

‘Explain.' His superior clearly wasn't going to let him off the hook that easy.

‘The boy was clearly unharmed and Ricky Wyatt showed no signs of refusing to hand him over. In fact he said he was taking him home. I felt that calling in a team of officers for a frightened teenager would only alarm him and the boy.'

Dailey nodded, although he looked a great deal less than entirely satisfied.

‘The press are going to have a field day with this. Although they will have something else to sink their teeth into if we release news of the attack on Murray. Local CID are now convinced, after interviewing those who would have other reasons to attack him, that it was indeed connected to the information leak.'

In the aftermath of finding both Ricky and Benjamin, Matt had forgotten all about Murray.

‘So that case will pass to us?' Matt asked, meaning,
to me
? After this, he needed a holiday. Dailey just shrugged. With the boy found he was a lot less interested in who had killed Murray or why.

‘Did we find out just how his address got leaked?' Matt asked the older man, who nodded.‘His Resettlement Officer admitted bragging to her friends about her job, hinting she had a new and important charge but without revealing exactly who. Mentioned that the location was near her friend's house, who then told her husband, who saw the mysterious new neighbour, saw the coverage about Prince's release, and put it all together in entirely the wrong way.'

‘Bad luck for Murray.'

‘Indeed.'

The two men were silent, Dailey looking at Matt from under his heavy-lidded eyes.

‘You did a good job. How did you know?'

Was there a hint of suspicion there? That perhaps he had been covering for Ricky all along?

‘I didn't,' Matt snapped back at his superior, ‘it was just a hunch. I realised Ricky might have passed the Armstrong house on a number of occasions…and of course, the baseball cap.'

Matt shook his head, annoyed at himself now rather than Dailey. With hindsight, it seemed so bloody obvious he couldn't believe he hadn't thought to question Ricky in the first place. Dailey, who hadn't got to his position by not being astute enough to pick up on other people's moods, leaned over the desk towards him, the edges of his belly pressing against the wood.

‘You did a good job,' he repeated. ‘You found him.'

‘Ricky was taking him home anyway.'

‘So he says. Don't let your personal relationship with the boy cloud your judgement.'

Matt winced at that, rubbing at his chin as he thought about his ‘personal relationship' with Ricky. He didn't really have one, other than the knowledge that the kid resented his involvement with his mother. He couldn't help wondering if Ricky had taken the kid partly to spite Matt himself, but then dismissed the thought. He still had to interview the teenager, and the last thing he should be doing was making it about himself. What was it Dailey had said?
Don't make this personal.
Yet it had been, hadn't it? At least in the sense that the perpetrator had turned out to be known to him. Lucy's son, no less.

‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave,' Dailey said, echoing his thoughts. Matt gave him a sharp look, detecting a touch of sarcasm in the superintendent's tone, but Dailey only looked at him amiably.

‘How are things with Mrs Randall?'

‘Wyatt,' Matt corrected automatically, much as Lucy herself would have done. ‘And I have no idea. It's complicated.' Now that was an understatement. Dailey surprised him with his next comment.

‘Love often is Matt. It often is.' Matt stared at him for a minute, taking in the implication of Dailey's words and noticing that that small word, which generally when used in the context of himself and a woman made him feel hemmed in, as if there wasn't enough air, now sat inside him, quietly accepted.

Dailey saved him from any sudden on-the-spot revelations regarding his feelings for Lucy by asking about Carla.

‘Not taken it well has she, judging from the press conference this afternoon? Your little dark-haired reporter?'

A thought fizzed in Matt's mind. The only thing Carla wasn't taking well was the idea of being left out in the cold professionally.

‘Maybe I could mollify her by giving her an exclusive about Murray?'

Dailey raised an eyebrow.

‘Yes. That could be a good idea. Keep some of the heat off the Wyatt boy perhaps.'

Dailey leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, generally a sign that the conversation was over, and Matt excused himself and left. He couldn't interview Ricky until a social worker had arrived, and he needed to let Lucy know what was going on also. How the hell was he going to sugar coat this? But then, it was Lucy. She wouldn't thank him for tiptoeing around her. Still, the knowledge that he had arrested her son was hardly going to win him brownie points.

Right on cue, Lucy walked into the station. Seeing her on the small screens that showed the main reception Matt went out to her and steered her to his office without speaking. She looked exhausted, all but collapsing into the chair he held out for her and tucking her legs up underneath her. She didn't speak, but just looked at Matt with impatience. As if he was to blame, he thought with a sigh.

He wanted to hold her, tell her it was all okay, but not here, not like this, with Dailey just across the corridor, currently making angry late-night phone calls to senior members of the Parole Board. After all if Prince hadn't violated his parole conditions, he wouldn't have been in the frame and sent Matt and his team off on wild-goose chases all day.

So he just gave her the facts, quietly and calmly, then held his breath and waited for her to either shout at him or worse, to crumple and fold before his eyes.

As usual he had underestimated her, because she sat and regarded him with a calm expression, though he could see the wariness in her eyes.

‘But he won't be charged with anything surely? He didn't harm the boy.' The last was a statement of fact, something she had known without being told.

Matt splayed his hands out on the desk between them.

‘He could well be, Lucy. Worst-case scenario, child abduction.' He saw her flinch as if he had struck her, then physically pull herself together, drawing her spine up and pressing her lips together.

‘Most likely, child endangerment. Or the best-case scenario, he gets charged with nothing. It's the length of time he kept him for that's the real problem. If he had just taken him down the park or something and then took him home, it might not be so bad.'

Lucy shook her head.

‘What the hell was he thinking?'

Now was the time to tell her that Ricky had ‘seen' Jack. That whatever problems the boy had before seemed to be resurfacing. Yet somehow, he just couldn't.

‘He said that Ben looked like Jack,' he said instead, and saw the tears appear in Lucy's eyes as if that one name had conjured them there. Fighting an almost primal urge to go to her, he went on. ‘That might be the best way to play it, not that I'm in the best position to advise you; I'm not a lawyer. The stress of the last few weeks, him missing his brother; he's obviously very troubled. You need to get him some support in place, Lucy, that's going to be crucial if he comes before a judge.'

She looked down at her hands. There was a tear trembling on the edge of her eyelashes, although other than that she remained calm. Matt felt a surge of admiration for her.

‘I've let him down. I should have known he needed help,' she stated in a matter of fact way that belied the raw hurt in her voice.

‘That's not true,' he cut in, reaching for her now only to have her ignore his hand. ‘No one could have foreseen any of this. Ten days ago, everything was normal.' Whatever that meant.

Lucy wiped her eyes.

‘Can I see him?'

‘Yes, of course. Given his age, we'll need you to be present while he's being interviewed. Children's Services are sorting out legal representation for him now, unless you have a lawyer of your own?'

Lucy shook her head and stood up, waiting for Matt to take her to her son. She stepped away as he rose, warning him against any physical contact, so Matt held the door open for her and led her to the room where her son was being held, along with a frizzy-haired social worker who looked less than happy at being called out so late. Still, the only other option was to leave a frightened fourteen-year-old boy in a cell overnight.

He shut the door behind him, feeling as if he were invading their privacy as he saw Lucy immediately throw her arms around her son and heard Ricky's choked sob. Then he turned and walked into a young PC.

‘Sorry. Get an interview room ready would you? Where's WPC Kaur?'

‘With the parents and the Armstrong boy. I think she's letting them go home now.'

‘They're leaving together?'

The constable shrugged and walked off, and Matt went to find Kaur and the Armstrongs. Given that Lydia Armstrong had accused her husband of domestic abuse, they couldn't go home together unless the charges were dropped. But then, it was hardly a typical situation. In fact this whole case was making his head hurt. The Armstrong family weren't his concern now that he had done his job and found the boy alive and well. Uniform could deal with the rest.

Even so, the twisted irony of finding the boy unharmed to send him back into the bosom of a potentially violent environment didn't escape him.

As he approached the Armstrongs, with Ben now fast asleep in his mother's arms, the father grabbed his hand and pumped it vigorously. There were genuine tears in his eyes, and Matt felt bad for judging both him and his wife. Like his own upbringing had been so fantastic. Nevertheless he narrowed his eyes as he saw the man place an arm around his wife's shoulders. As they left the room he turned to Kaur, letting the question show in his eyes. The WPC gave him a wry smile.

‘Wants to drop the charges; says she was overemotional worrying about Ben.'

‘You believe her?'

‘No.'

Matt looked down the corridor at the Armstrongs. The very picture of a recently reunited, happy family.

‘We'll follow it up?' he asked, looking to reassure himself.

‘Of course. But if she doesn't want to press charges, and given the situation with Ben, there's not much we can do. The referral will be passed to Children's Social Care, but there's no reason to think Ben's in any danger.'

‘Zero tolerance,' Matt murmured, echoing the slogan that led the new police crackdown on domestic abuse – one that, in Kaur's very vocal opinion, had yet to be properly implemented.

‘It's the Wyatt boy I'd be worrying about. As if the mother hasn't been through enough.'

Matt shot her a look, but Kaur's expression was sadly thoughtful. Still, she must know about Matt's involvement with Lucy. Everyone else did.

There was shouting from the corridor and Matt came out of the room to see a furious Mr Armstrong shouting at the young PC he had sent to ready the interview room. He frowned, then noticed Ricky cowering behind him. Shaking his head at the young officer's blatant stupidity, Matt was down the other end of the corridor and placing himself in front of Mr Armstrong, who looked ready to commit murder himself.

‘That's the boy who took him!' The man's face was purple, his eyes bulging.

‘I understand you're angry, sir, you have every right to be, but I suggest you calm down and get your son home.'

‘What did you do to him?' the man snarled, twisting around to see Ricky, who had his back to the wall. ‘What did you do to my son? Some kind of paedo are you?' He looked like he was about to lunge at the terrified boy, and Matt grabbed his arm, putting his face in the larger man's.

‘I said, calm down.' His voice was low, but even he could hear the steel in it.

‘How dare you?' A female voice floated down the corridor towards them. Lucy, looking like the vengeful Amazon the media had portrayed her as last week. Kaur stepped in then, attempting to soothe her, and Ricky spoke up, emerging from behind the young officer and looking Mr Armstrong squarely in the eye although he was visibly trembling.

‘I didn't do anything to him. And I'm truly sorry I took him.'

The man fell quiet, but looked no less angry as Lucy reached her son and slid an arm through his. Ricky half leaned against her.

It was Ben who diffused the situation, the shouting finally waking him up as opened his eyes and looked ready to wail as he took in the scene around him, before stopping and beaming a toothy smile.

‘Ricky,' he said clearly, and stretched his arms out to the boy, only to look puzzled when his father pulled him into his arms and marched away, his wife scurrying after him. Matt turned to the small gathering behind him with a look of relief, only to see Ricky ashen-faced.

‘Is that what everyone's going to think?' he said, looking as though he was about to be sick. ‘That I took him for
that
?'

‘Of course not,' Lucy cut in, indignant.

‘Let's get you interviewed and you can tell us your side of the story, Ricky. Okay?' He nodded at Kaur, who led them towards an interview room, glaring at the PC.