Hard Time (16 page)

Did Maxwell know them already? He’d despatched a squad car to bring the crime boss in for questioning. The pretext was flimsy but Byford didn’t care. He wanted Maxwell under
pressure.

The detective’s voice was sharp when he answered the phone. Regretted it instantly: Robbie Crawford’s widow didn’t deserve that.

“Sorry, Josie.” He injected a warm smile. “Caught me at a bad time. What can I do for you?”

He listened carefully; it was difficult to catch every word, her voice was breaking. She’d been bagging Robbie’s clothes for Oxfam when she found letters in a jacket pocket. Death
threats.

“They’re vile, Bill,” Josie sobbed. “Poisonous.” He pictured the pain twisting her pretty features. Josie was a petite blonde with a sharp mind, quick tongue.
Robbie had worshipped the ground she walked on.

“How many?”

“Twelve.”

“Anonymous?”

“They’re not signed,” she said. “But I can guess who they’re from.” They’d been sent on the same date each year: the anniversary of James
Maxwell’s death. Ditto the threats sent to Byford, though they’d dried up six years ago.

“I’ll get someone over, Josie.” The letters would have to go to forensics. Though if Maxwell’s prints were on them, he’d eat the fedora.

“Why didn’t he tell me, Bill?”

Why didn’t he tell me?
“He wouldn’t want you worrying, Josie.”

And Doug? What might he have hidden from his wife?

Byford rang off, reached for his hat and keys, decided to make a quick call to control before leaving. Patrols were still searching, he was told. It looked as if Maxwell was in hiding too.

Bev put her head into the kidnap room. “Anyone know where the guv is?”

Twenty other heads popped up or round, seemingly glad of a distraction, however brief, from pushing paper and bashing phones. Powell, who’d been leaning over DC Sumitra Gosh’s
shoulder, lifted his gaze from her screen. “He’s in town. Auditioning for the Grant Young show.”

Bev tapped the toe of a kitten heel shoe. “Meaning?”

“He had a meeting with Young. Something to do with a TV programme. We all reckoned you’d gone with him.” The sly grin said more than the DI’s words. Mind, it must be the
royal we. Every face in the room was as blank as Bev’s.

He was clearly waiting for her to take the bait. Should she give him the satisfaction?

“Hey! Where you off to?” he yelled. “There’s a stack of stuff needs checking here.”

Like she’d been painting her toenails? She popped her head back. Powell was standing now, hands in pockets, dead casual.

He looked her up and down. “So when’s the interview?”

Bev sighed. The DI clearly had some snide gem he wanted off his chest. “Go on. Spit it out.” She could live without enlightenment but the squad was clearly dying to know.

“The suit.” He smirked. “Either you’ve got an interview or there’s a royal visit.”

She shook her head: how many cracks like that had she heard today? Actually, most of them were a good bit sharper. “Nah. I’m wearing it for a bet.” Her smile was sweet, too
sweet.

Powell’s turn to look blank. Least he had the nous not to ask what the bet was.

“Hey, sarge?” Mac Tyler, the newbie, had slipped in behind. The subtle wink meant he’d cottoned on fast. “What’s the bet?”

“Which loser’d be the first with a shit-for-brains cheap shot. And guess what?”

The new DC turned his mouth down. “You just won?”

“Got it in one.”

Byford wasn’t in town. He’d cancelled the meeting with Grant Young. As a sop, the detective had agreed to take a look at the media man’s programme treatment
and get back with an early answer. Apparently Mansfield and one of the Birmingham Six had already signed contracts. Young had been full of it; Byford thought he’d never get off the phone.

And the big man needed to get away...

He sat now in the chintzy front room of a large Victorian villa in Harborne. The florals and frills, heavy furniture and low light added to his discomfort. Opposite, arms hugging waist, a
painfully thin woman rocked herself slowly to and fro. Grey roots showed through faded auburn hair. Sylvie Edensor was in her late forties, looked a decade older. An agoraphobic, she hadn’t
set foot outside the house in seven years; a bundle of neuroses. Doug would never have added to her worries.

Since speaking to Josie Crawford, Byford had tried calling Sylvie, but knew Doug’s widow rarely answered the phone. She looked a wreck, much worse than he remembered. Not that he’d
seen a lot of her in the seven years since Doug left the force. Her welcome had been frosty and a thaw hadn’t set in.

She was aware that Doug’s death was being treated as murder. Byford told her he was following a line of inquiry. Given her fragility, he was working out how best to broach it.

“I knew it wasn’t suicide all along. Doug would never have killed himself.” She twisted a strand of hair, the movement compulsive, probably unwitting.

“Sylvie, did Doug ever mention... enemies?”

“No.”

“Threats?”

“No.”

“Letters?”

“No. No. No. How many more times...?”

“Sylvie.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I know this is difficult, but have you gone through his things?”

She rarely made eye contact. He noticed, for the first time, flecks of yellow in the hazel pupils. Until tears welled and she turned her head.

“Sylvie, I need to take a look.” He took her silence as assent.

Upstairs, he checked obvious hiding places first: pockets, drawers, wardrobe, floor-boards, suitcases, bookcases, CD racks. But Doug hadn’t hidden it. The old tobacco tin was part of a
collection on display in a glass cabinet on the landing. Inside were twelve cards, the kind found on funeral wreaths. All were black-edged, all bore the same message.

I’ll be pissing on your grave, cop.

Jenny Page’s overnight hospital stay had been extended for at least twenty-four hours. Bev and Mac were on the way to the Nuffield. Mac was honoured: he was in the
Vauxhall’s driving seat. It normally took weeks before Bev would relinquish the wheel to a partner. And never her MG’s. Maybe it was because he’d stuck up for her in the exchange
with Powell. Mac could obviously think on his feet and the impromptu stand-up had put him in her good books, unless he overstepped the mark.

“Does he always try and wind you up, sarge?”

She considered the question carefully. Before the attack, she’d have had no hesitation saying that Powell saw it as part of his job spec. But she’d seen another side since. In the
immediate aftermath, he’d been painfully polite. Not so much skirting the issue as erecting wardrobes round it.

But who was she to talk? Or not. She’d not discussed the rape in detail with a living soul, including her therapist. “You’re in denial, Ms Morriss, yadda yadda. Not dealing
with it, Ms Morriss, blah-de-blah.” True, though. And if it was difficult for her to cope with, it couldn’t be easy for the people around her, especially an emotionally stunted guy like
Powell.

Initially he’d gone for the kid-glove treatment. Like that would work. It was the last thing she needed and she’d hit back hard. In the last month or so, she’d detected his
attitude gradually toughening. She smiled and shook her head. Ironic or what? The DI goes in for a few gratuitous piss-takes and she welcomes the change.

“I give as good as I get, Mac.”

“I’d heard that.”

“Next left.” She looked away, smile on her face. It froze as she spotted a familiar figure. Was that Stephen Cross? And who was the blonde? Had Bev seen her before? She swung in the
seat but Mac was a member of the Morriss school of driving, fast and furious: the couple were almost out of sight. “Turn round, mate.”

He pointed at a road sign. “One way.”

“Sod it.” At least they knew Cross was back in town. Edgbaston, no less. The Nuffield was only a few blocks from his home. They’d pay a house call after the hospital visit.

Being private, the place looked more like a rest home or a health farm. A nurse showed them to the room and left them to it. Bev hoped Jenny Page didn’t feel anywhere near as bad as she
looked. Slumped listlessly on top of a single bed, her sallow skin co-ordinated with the sepia décor, the blonde hair was matted to her scalp. A silver-framed photograph of Daniel stood on
the bedside table. Perhaps she’d drifted off staring at the smiling image of her son.

“Sedation’s kicked in, then?” Mac stood at Bev’s shoulder.

She glared but the guy was right. Jenny Page didn’t even know they were there.

“What’d she want to see you for, sarge?”

Bev shrugged. The message, buried under all the others on her desk, hadn’t specified. “I’ll leave a note so she’ll know I dropped by.”

She was still scrabbling at the bottom of her bag for a pen when Mac’s phone shrilled. He turned, head hunched, voice so low she only caught the odd word. There were a zillion notices
telling people to switch off mobiles and she was about to give him a bollocking, until he turned back and she saw his face. The eyes rendered the words almost superfluous.

“They’ve found a kid’s body.” He jammed the phone in a pocket. “Wasteland in Selly Oak.”

The wasteland was close to a council playground, primary colours bathed in golden sunlight. Bev registered the bright tableau as Mac drove past, carried the pictures in her
head. Little kids playing happily on a slide, beaming toddlers on the swings, a roundabout standing empty. Paradise Row, it was called.

The children were out of sight now but the soundtrack of excited laughter mixed with high-pitched squeals carried across the crime scene. A scene as bleak as any Bev had attended. The wasteland
abutted a row of pebble-dashed council houses, twitching net curtains and trailing trellis. Similar properties had stood here not that long ago; building rubble littered the site, rusting
bedsprings poked through a stained mattress, two supermarket trolleys locked handles as if in weird sexual foreplay. Here and there nature staked claims with colonies of nettles and dandelions,
daisies and dock. It was eerily quiet: voices were hushed, movement slow, even the streamers of police tape hung motionless in the still air. Foul smells lingered: dog mess, cat pee – and
something sweet, sickly sweet.

Bev stood a few metres from a shallow grave that partially covered the body of a little boy. White-suited SOCOs were standing by and uniforms who’d fingertip every inch of the land were
waiting for a green. Everyone was hanging fire for the pathologist, except the police photographers who’d already shot stills and videos. They’d take more once the body was turned.

“Poor little man.” The words were trite but Mac appeared genuinely moved. He was kicking grit, head down, hands deep in pockets. She’d watched him brush a tear from his eye.
Some officers never showed emotion. Wasn’t macho, was it? Maybe later they did. Over a sixth pint or second bottle. Bev sighed, gave a sad nod. Poor little man was probably as good an epitaph
as any. Words didn’t exist that could cover a child’s death. It was the ripple effect across an ocean.

“Is it Daniel?” Mac asked softly. No one had the answer.

A tarpaulin sheet lay to one side where, according to the jogger who stumbled across it, a dog or fox may have dragged it. The little boy lay face down, blond hair cropped close to the skull.
The body was fully clothed apart from shoes; skinny little legs were crossed at the ankle. One Dennis the Menace sock was higher than the other. Bev bit her lip; recalled Jenny Page burying her
face into her lost boy’s t-shirt.

It had to be Daniel, didn’t it? Who else could it be? Since day one, she’d tried to ignore the stats but they were compelling. If abducted kids are murdered, seventy-six per cent die
within six hours of being taken; within twenty-four hours that shoots to ninety-six per cent. After three days, none survive.

She raised a hand in greeting as a grim-faced Byford picked his way across the site. She knew he’d blame himself if Daniel were dead. They all would, to a certain degree, but the guv would
take the lion’s share. It wasn’t just professional can-carrying, it was in the big man’s nature.

“Where’s Overdale?” He scowled. Bev shrugged. The pathologist had got a call same as everyone, but wasn’t best known for her time-keeping. “Get the bloody woman
here now, I’m not having...”

“Guv.” Bev tilted her head. Dr Overdale’s Range Rover was looming into view.

“About bloody time.” Unlike Byford, this. The guv didn’t often swear and was Mr Cool in a crisis. Who or what was rattling his cage?

“Superintendent.” Gillian Overdale’s tight smile wasn’t returned.

“Let’s get on with it.”

Apart from pursing permanently puckered lips, Overdale ignored the rebuke. Kneeling close to the little boy, she snapped open the locks on a steel case and peeled on surgical gloves. The first
examination was visual, external. Her expert gaze swept the body, searching for signs of injury. As everyone knew, the real work came later in the morgue.

How did they do it? Bev wondered. She hated being close to dead bodies. Best advice she’d ever had was
don’t look
. The brain’s a camera. Once seen, an image is imprinted
forever, so don’t take the pics in the first place. Easier said than done. Her head was full of the bloody things.

“Get those ghouls out of my sight!” Byford’s sudden verbal explosion startled a colony of crows in nearby tree-tops. Branches cracked as wings beat and the huge black birds
took off, circling and screeching overhead. Both the birds and Byford’s outburst had shattered Bev’s thoughts, jerked her back from the distance she’d deliberately created. She
looked in the direction of the guv’s accusing finger.

A gaggle of thirty or so locals lined the police tape at the edge of the site. Teenage mums with babes in arms, kids in school uniform, middle-aged women with fags in their mouth. Better than
daytime telly, this was. Two uniforms were already on the way to disperse the audience.

“I take it your people have done their thing?” Overdale asked without looking round.

“Finished half an hour ago,” Byford said.

Gently the pathologist turned the little boy’s body, her own shielding it from Bev. Not that she complained. An occasional burst of radio static and a dog’s almost nonstop barking
disturbed the silence as Overdale continued her examination. Still kneeling, she delivered her initial observations.