Innocent Blood (8 page)

The following morning Fenwick pushed yet more reports to one side and went to find himself a cup of coffee. Somewhere between the broken vending machine and the staff restaurant he became lost in thought and found himself at the main entrance. He had his pass and a fiver in his pocket so decided to go out to buy a decent espresso. As he left the building he wondered whether it was what he’d intended all along.

It was still raining but there was a local Italian café close by and he ran there in less than two minutes. Inside, the atmosphere was warm and steamy, the coffee as excellent as always and he bought a second after the downing the first in one gulp.

Although the owner said his name was Giuseppe, Fenwick knew he was Polish and that his brother, who now called himself Leonardo and was an expert with the coffee machine, had done time for stealing cars. He didn’t care though, as the man had served his sentence and now served the best coffee in Burgess Hill.

‘Another, Chief Inspector?’ Giuseppe insisted on using his rank and he’d given up asking him not to.

‘I should be getting back.’

‘On the house.’ A small white cup and saucer appeared in front of him. ‘And biscotti too; you look a little thin today.’

‘
Grazie
, Giuseppe.’ Fenwick laughed inwardly at himself for playing his part in their façade.

He was running out of time. The investigation into Malcolm’s death was making little progress. His team had compiled a list of members of the golf club in 1981 and were steadily interviewing those that were still alive, so far without any success. It was looking inevitable that he would have to cede the case to Harlden and concentrate again on the crumbs of evidence he’d been able to gather in following up the Choir Boy ring. He dunked the biscuit and forced his thoughts into a semblance of order.

Joseph Watkins hadn’t appeared to put a foot wrong in all the time he’d been under surveillance. His acquaintance, Alec Ball, had now been watched for ten weeks, going about his life without a hint of suspicion. Fenwick pulled out his notebook and turned to a fresh page, forcing himself to recall the few details that had emerged from recent surveillance.

Alec Ball was sixty; a short square man who ran a market stall that sold old books, LPs and other bric-a-brac. He looked a bruiser, with his bald head and tattoos, but hadn’t been in any trouble according to police records since he’d been a bouncer at a Brighton club where he was once arrested for GBH. The prosecution had collapsed when the key witness and victim withdrew their statement. It smelt nasty but had nothing to do with pimping or using young boys.

Joseph Watkins was a retired sports coach who still did occasional supply work. He lived well, in a house way beyond his salary, with his wife and a grown-up son who showed no sign of wanting to leave home. His only daughter had just made him a grandfather. So far, so innocent, but he and Ball had an unlikely friendship, even travelling abroad for weekends together despite their very different backgrounds. Joseph was a member of the club in Harlden, although his golf wasn’t great and he played rarely.

The cost of watching these two men was horrendous. Finding the manpower to keep up the surveillance was also putting a strain on the MCS team, which was under strength because Fenwick had encouraged three officers to seek transfers when they didn’t live up to his exacting standards. Yet he didn’t want to give up. If there were a paedophile ring here in West Sussex – and the FBI was convinced that they had evidence one existed – he was determined to find it. Ball and Watkins would become his only leads once he was forced to pass over Malcolm Eagleton’s file. Fuelled by the coffee he decided that he would keep the Choir Boy team live for another week and then he’d be forced to decide whether to suspend further work.

The doorbell jangled and there was a rush of cold air as a boy about Chris’s age ran in. In looks he was the opposite of Fenwick’s son: tall, maybe as much as a stone heavier and very dark, with beautiful eyes that would devastate the girls in a few years. Billy, Guiseppe’s son, was in Chris’s class at school and a bit of a tearaway by all accounts. Fenwick stared at the boy’s retreating back as he ducked under his uncle’s outstretched arm and grabbed biscotti from the jar by the till.

‘Hey!’ his father called, then shrugged indulgently, including his customers in his conspiratorial smile. But Fenwick didn’t notice.

Sight of the boy had triggered something in his memory and he felt an urgent need to return to his office and look again at the missing persons’ files he kept as a constant reminder that there were real victims as a result of the Choir Boy ring, perhaps growing with each fruitless month that passed.

‘Arrivederci,
Chief Inspector,’ Leonardo called out as he opened the door and turned up his jacket collar against the rain.

‘Domani,
Leonardo,’ he replied and dashed outside.

He didn’t spot the stationary green Peugeot until it was too late to avoid it. Blake Bowyer leapt out of the car and intercepted Fenwick before he could reach the station entrance. Oblivious to the rain that was soaking them both he put a restraining hand on Fenwick’s arm, removing it quickly as he realised he had caused offence.

‘Chief Inspector, please…’ Bowyer stared at him, his eyes beseeching him for news, words of comfort, anything. It had been two weeks now since Sam’s disappearance.

Fenwick noticed that the car was parked on a double yellow line.

‘Let’s get out of the rain,’ he said and went towards it. At least this way if a traffic warden did brave the weather in search of a ticket Fenwick would be able to prevent a fine. Out of the rain he turned to the distraught father.

‘Mr Bowyer, I’m not the senior investigating officer on your son’s case, you know that. It’s being handled with every effort and care by a colleague of mine in Brighton. I came to see you in case there was a connection to another investigation, that’s all.’

‘And is there?’ Bowyer stared at him with eyes so red they looked as if they would bleed if he blinked.

Before he’d had his coffee Fenwick would have said no but the realisation that had come to him as Guiseppe’s son ran into the café made him pause. Bowyer noticed.

‘There is, isn’t there! You’re keeping something from me.’ He grabbed Fenwick’s arm, creasing his jacket where it was already a mess from the rain. Fenwick loosened the man’s fingers gently.

‘I’m not, Mr Bowyer, really. My case is complex, years old and there is absolutely no proven link to your son’s disappearance.’ He wondered if his qualification would be spotted but Bowyer was too devastated to notice.

‘It’s killing Jenny,’ he said. ‘She barely eats, won’t leave the house in case Sam comes home and…oh God!’ He buried his exhausted face in his hands. ‘I can’t talk to her but that’s all she does, talks and talks and talks about it all the time. What if she’d taken him to school; what if she’d given him an extra hug that morning; what if I hadn’t shouted at him not to tease the cat…it goes on and on. She’s reliving the last hour we had with him over and over again looking for a way we might have changed the future; blaming us for letting him leave the house, blaming me for just watching him go.’

‘Are you receiving any help – from the church or friends or family? I can recommend a very good victim support group—’

‘WE’RE NOT FUCKING VICTIMS!’ Bowyer wiped his face; his nails were bitten down to raw skin. ‘We’re
not
victims.’ His anger subsided as suddenly as it had arrived and he added, in a voice that made Fenwick look away, ‘not yet.’

He spent another half hour with the man, just listening. When a patrol car cruised by and stopped to order them on he waved his warrant card at them and, when they looked inclined to argue, told them to bugger off. They did. Bowyer didn’t notice, barely interrupting his monologue. When he finished, Fenwick wanted to give him a lift home, worried that he was driving in his distressed state, but the man refused and he had no choice but to watch him drive off into the indifferent traffic, his own heart heavy with an echo of the man’s sadness and guilty that he was unable to help him.

Back in his office, in no mood for small talk, in fact in no mood for company at all, Fenwick pulled out the photograph of Malcolm Eagleton and tacked it carefully to the cork board that covered half the wall opposite his desk, old-fashioned but effective. Then he picked up a copy of the
Brighton Argus
that he’d been keeping and cut out the picture of Sam Bowyer from the front page, pinning it next to Malcolm’s. The resemblance was marked despite the difference in hairstyles caused by the passing of more than twenty-five years.

As he was backing away to take in the similarities Angela Marsh ambled into his room to collect his filing. A member of the civilian support staff on the team, she’d been nicknamed Jell-O as soon as she’d arrived, much to Fenwick’s annoyance. He thought, given her complexion and build, it was too cruel but she seemed to like it so he’d kept quiet.

‘Sorry, sir, thought you were still out. I’ll come back later.’

‘No, go ahead, you’re not disturbing me.’

She gathered the papers from the casual bundle he’d left in the usual place and was about to leave when she noticed the new material on the board and stopped. Fenwick looked up, frowned and nodded her away but she didn’t move.

‘Strange,’ she said, staring at the two boys. ‘Very odd.’

‘Thank you, Angela, that will be all for now.’

‘Right.’ She nodded but stayed where she was.

‘Angela!’ He was growing impatient.

‘What? Oh, sorry, it’s just that, seeing them there, I wondered why you hadn’t put the other one up.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Fenwick asked, irritated by her intrusion into his thoughts.

‘The other lad, the one who disappeared after Malcolm. I was only filing him away last night when they’d finished with the box.’

A chill spread over Fenwick’s arms, raising the small hairs and it had nothing to do with his damp clothes.

‘Get the file, would you, Angela,’ he said softly, and waited.

She was back in less than a minute.

‘You’re lucky, I was about to send it down to archive. I know I shouldn’t have been nosing in it,’ she glanced at him anxiously but seeing his abstraction carried on, reassured, ‘but I remembered the case, see. I was in the year above him at school. Didn’t know him of course, didn’t even notice him until he disappeared, but he was friends with a friend of mine, Wendy.’

Fenwick wasn’t listening. He thanked her without noticing the words he used and she left. In the new silence of his office he noted the name on the cover of the file, leafed through it and pulled out a school photograph. Carefully, he pinned the picture of missing schoolboy Paul Hill squarely between that of Malcolm and Sam. It was as if he had found a missing link. Even in the garish technicolor of the old film, even when compared with the attractiveness of the other two boys, Paul Hill stood out with film-star beauty.

He combined the best of both boys: Malcolm’s pale complexion; Sam’s girlish neck; his own extraordinary eyes that seemed to invite the observer to share in a secret joke.

Fenwick sat down. There was a link, had to be. Someone somewhere had a predilection for pretty, pre-adolescent boys of a certain look and when he found them, they had a way of disappearing. He was suddenly very afraid for Sam Bowyer.

‘I’ll take the files over myself, sir; it’s on my way home. That way I’ll be able to brief Superintendent Quinlan personally.’

‘Who do you think he’ll assign as SIO, Fenwick? It will be Inspector Blite, I imagine, but I’d like to be sure. Can you suggest it?’

There was an infinitesimal pause.

‘That might be tricky. I understand that he has two important cases coming to trial in the next three weeks plus four current investigations including a fatal stabbing last Saturday night.’

‘You’re well informed for someone who left more than six months ago. No, this case is perfect for Blite.’

‘How about Inspector Nightingale, sir?’ Fenwick suggested.

‘Far too green.’ Harper-Brown shook his head dismissively. ‘This is murder after all, albeit an old one.’

Fenwick opened his mouth to argue but the ACC picked up a set of papers, a sure sign that he was dismissed. Then abruptly, he put them down again and removed the half-moon reading glasses he wore perched on the end of his nose.

‘Fenwick, a word. I’ve been quite impressed by how you’ve handled your new role so far.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘But, and I mean this in a helpful way, you should pay attention to the way you offer preferment to certain officers.’

‘Sir?’

‘Do I have to spell it out for you?’

‘I’m afraid so as I have no idea what you mean.’

Harper-Brown looked at him with exasperation.

‘Very well, let me give you an example. Louise Nightingale. There is a suggestion that you showed her favouritism when you were in Harlden and that part of the reason she made such rapid progress to Inspector is because of this.’

‘That’s nonsense! I don’t single people out for special treatment, never have done. If they get praise or opportunities it’s because they’ve done a good job and I trust them. And besides—’

‘Spare me the lecture, Andrew. I have no opinion of the veracity of what has been said, I am merely repeating it for your own good.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind, sir.’

‘Make sure you do and be particularly careful whom you favour in your new role. It wouldn’t do to get a reputation for…shall we call it, reverse sexual discrimination. That will be all.’

Fenwick managed to hold his tongue until he’d reached his office and shut the door. Then he delivered a stream of profanity that would have earned him a clip round the ear from his mother whatever his age, before counting to twenty and deciding it would take more than that for him to calm down. Two coffees later he stalked into the detectives’ room, his bad mood obvious to anyone who knew him. There were three of the team at their desks and three heads suddenly dropped as if the files in front of them had become fascinating reading.

‘Where’s Alison?’

Sergeant Alison Reynolds was the head of the Choir Boy investigating team. A twenty-year veteran of the force who had worked in Vice and CID before transferring to Major Crimes, she was rumoured to live with three cats, was nobody’s fool and disparaging enough of male advances to be called a lesbian behind her back. Fenwick had good reason to suspect that she wasn’t, as he knew she had up until recently been married and had a son of twelve. He had found out by accident on a rare occasion when he’d gone to pick up Bess from school. Alison had seen him and introduced him to James and a wheelchair-bound man she said was her father. They’d neither of them mentioned the incident since, nor expressed any interest in the other’s family life but Fenwick had asked around and discovered she was the sole wage-earner, her husband having left her the year before.

‘Here.’ The voice came from behind a filing cabinet.

‘Got a minute?’

She followed him back to his office in silence, not being someone who employed small talk. Fenwick had found in Reynolds a good substitute for Cooper’s diligent common sense and he had every confidence that she was the right officer to oversee the surveillance of Ball and Watkins, whatever the ACC might say about women.

‘Push the door to and take a seat.’

‘I hear we’ve lost the Eagleton case to Harlden.’

‘Afraid so; we gave it our best shot but there’s no obvious link to Choir Boy. But I’ve found another missing boy with the same looks as Malcolm Eagleton: Paul Hill, he’s on the board behind you. Unfortunately, I can’t connect him to Malcolm or any of our suspects, so it means nothing. Has there been anything interesting from surveillance in the last couple of days?’

‘Ball went up to London yesterday but we lost him on the tube. He took the Victoria line north and jumped on the train at the last minute; we were left behind on the platform.’

‘Who was tailing him?’

Reynolds squirmed in her chair. ‘It was Clive but it wasn’t his fault.’

‘Hmm.’ Fenwick still hadn’t decided whether Clive was up to scratch and this was a black mark against him, whatever Alison said. ‘Was the trip relevant?’

‘It’s his first break with routine for two months so it might be.’

‘Or maybe he was visiting the latest exhibition at the Tate!’ A trace of Fenwick’s exasperation slipped into his tone and he saw her wince. ‘Look, I’m not getting at you; I’m just bloody frustrated.’

‘You and me both. So’s the team. We’ve all tried our hardest to make something stick against Ball or Watkins but it’s just no good.’

‘Do you think we should stop watching them? It must be demoralising for you all.’

‘It’s as dull as any work I’ve ever done to tell you the truth and I know the others feel the same but,’ she gave him a rare lopsided grin, ‘and they’ll kill me if they know I’ve said this, I think we should give it a week. If Ball makes another trip out of the ordinary we’ll be ready for him and, who knows, he might just get careless.’

Fenwick looked down at his hands and exhaled slowly. The cost of the surveillance was becoming an embarrassment, impossible to hide from the ACC much longer, but she might be right and he hated the idea of simply giving up.

‘Very well. Let’s give it one more week and then we’ll have to call it a day. Meanwhile, can you get a room set up with boards of all the photographs you’ve taken of Ball and Watkins? I want one last look at them to see if we’ve missed anything.’

‘We’ve been through them again and again, sir. There are hundreds of them!’

‘I know but maybe we’re not seeing the wood for the trees.’

‘Perhaps,’ she sighed. ‘We’re all too close to this. I’ll get it set up over the weekend for Monday morning.’

‘Aren’t you taking any time off?’ Fenwick stopped short of making the obvious comment that her son would be home from school.

‘I need the overtime and I’ll make sure I’m home for Sunday but thanks for asking.’

Nightingale was trying to concentrate on catching up with the paperwork she’d let drift while preparing evidence for Maidment’s remand hearing but her heart wasn’t in it. Less than an hour before, the major had walked out of custody thanks to some excellent work from his lawyer who had convinced the magistrate that there was no chance he would break the conditions of his bail. It was an outcome she should have expected but it hurt anyway. She was thinking of leaving early when her phone rang.

‘Nightingale.’

‘It’s me, Andrew. I’m in Harlden to see Quinlan. Thought I’d let you know.’ He was in a bad mood, she could tell, and probably wanted cheering up. Tough; he’d picked the wrong day and the wrong person.

‘Good for you.’

‘I heard about Maidment.’

‘Who hasn’t?’

‘What I heard is that CPS was completely satisfied with the job you did. They never really expected to have him remanded.’

‘Oh?’ Despite herself she perked up at his words, then suspicion bit her. ‘You’re not just saying that?’

‘Hardly. Not my style.’

‘True. Look, thanks; I appreciate the call.’

‘Do you want a quick drink? I’m going home early so I could be ready in half an hour.’

‘Twice in as many days, Andrew. What’s got into you?’

‘No, idea, but I need to unwind before I see the kids and you’re as good as anybody.’

‘That’s better; indifference I can cope with. Sure, give me a call when you’re ready.’

Cooper stopped by her office while she was reading the
Police Revie
w having given up any pretence of constructive work. He still looked drawn from the internal investigation. Dave McPherson, the Police Federation rep, was with him, a surprising combination as she thought that the two of them disliked each other.

‘I’ve just been telling Bob not to worry,’ McPherson said, wandering into her office uninvited behind Cooper.

‘Quite right,’ she agreed, mildly irritated by their hovering. ‘What Bob needs are a couple of decent cases to get his teeth into, that’s all.’

‘Nah, what he needs is a pint!’ Dave slapped Cooper on the shoulder. ‘We were just off. Want to join us?’

‘Thanks, guys, but I’m busy tonight.’ Her phone rang as if on cue. ‘In fact…hello? Yes, I’ll meet you downstairs. Don’t forget your umbrella.’ She picked up her bag and coat and encouraged them out of the door. ‘Gotta go.’

Dave and Bob Cooper hovered by the plate-glass window that looked out onto the car park. They watched as Nightingale pulled on a hat and raised an umbrella with a distinctive matching check – well, distinctive to anyone other then the two fashion dinosaurs watching. Moments later, Fenwick emerged at a run from the side entrance, his collar up against the rain. She saw him and went over to share her brolly. After a moment they split up and dashed to their respective cars.

‘Whatdya reckon?’ Dave tapped the glass as the cars left the station in convoy. ‘They at it or not?’

Cooper bristled, not just at his choice of words but also because he had been thinking the same thing and didn’t like to find himself on the same level as McPherson. He shrugged.

‘Odds are 2 to 1 on if you’re interested.’

‘In what?’

‘Placing a bet. I’m keeping the book. It was 7 to 1 but then George saw them in town together a couple of weeks back. Had the kiddies with ’em and all. So, you know them both, yes or no?’

‘I’ve no idea, Dave and I’m not that interested.’

McPherson gave him a knowing look and chuckled.

‘Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind about the bet.’

‘I think I’m going to pass on that drink tonight after all. I’ve just remembered that Doris wants me home pronto.’

‘Suit yourself, Bob, the offer’s always open. We’ll be in the Dog and Duck if you change your mind.’

Cooper watched him go with relief. He’d almost gone for a second drink with Dave McPherson, the lowest of the low. What had he been thinking of?

At the Dog and Duck they were forced into a corner because the pub was busy with commuters fortifying themselves before completing the journey home.

‘I’m fed up with this rain.’ Nightingale looked at the pale skin of her arms and felt miserable.

‘It’s not like you to let the weather get you down.’

‘Oh I know. It’s this damned case.’ She paused. It was too crowded to talk openly.

‘Why does it bug you so much that he’s…’ he leant forward and whispered the words, ‘…out on bail?’

‘I don’t like him, Andrew. He’s a sugar-coated phoney.’

They were talking in murmurs, heads close together.

‘Hardly phoney to give most of his wealth away to his son and charity.’

‘But he shot and almost killed a man,’ she argued. ‘I tell you, he’s proud of what he’s done and I think it excites him somehow.’

‘He saved Bob’s life and helped you arrest a vicious bastard who some would say deserved what he got.’

‘Yes, but Maidment’s not a decent old codger. Trust me!’

‘OK, OK, calm down. I was just trying to make you feel better.’

‘I realise that but I don’t want to.’ Nightingale sounded like a spoilt brat and he was about to tell her so when the same thought must have occurred to her because she looked embarrassed and then tried a laugh. ‘Ignore me. I’m being a pain. So what brought you to Harlden?’

He told her, keeping his voice low so that it wouldn’t carry over the loud buzz of chatter in the pub. They were standing so close together that neither of them noticed the arrival of Messrs Blite, McPherson and Wicklow on the other side of the bar, to be joined shortly afterwards by three other veterans of Harlden CID.

‘So, do you reckon I’ll get a look in as SIO on the Eagleton case?’

‘You need to ask Quinlan, he’s the one who’s going to decide.’

‘Yes, but you might’ve put a word in for me.’

Fenwick took a long, slow sip of beer and concluded that, on balance, it would be better not to tell her about the exchange with Harper-Brown that morning.

‘Well?’

‘The most obvious course of action isn’t always the best,’ he said cryptically. ‘Come on, drink up, it’s my round.’

‘No thanks. I should be going.’

‘Going out this evening?’

‘No, staying in,’ she replied but her cheeks coloured. ‘I’ve a lot to do.’

It was still pouring with rain as they made a dash for their respective cars. There was nothing in their parting to suggest a relationship between them but that was irrelevant to the men at the bar. Dave McPherson had just shortened his odds and was limiting the size of individual bets. The only question still exercising his mind was how to gather substantive proof of their affair. If only he chose to apply the same diligence to his police work he would have been, in Quinlan’s customary phrase, ‘a damn fine officer’.