Think of the Children (28 page)

Jessica was once again looking through her old text messages when she heard the sound of a car coming from behind them. She turned to see a small black vehicle passing them before it swung
sideways across the road and the reverse lights came on as it eased back onto the driveway they were watching. Jessica touched the handle of the door but Reynolds spoke quickly to prevent her from
opening it. ‘Wait, let’s just watch.’

She removed her hand and focused on the man getting out of the car a few metres ahead. He was wearing a pair of heavy boots with jeans and a puffy dark blue jacket which Jessica thought looked
particularly warm and inviting. He was wearing a pair of gloves and a woollen hat which he pushed away from the top of his eyes as he reached into the back seat and removed two large carrier bags.
‘Wait until his hands are full,’ the inspector said, although Jessica had already thought the same thing. She sat waiting with one hand on the handle as the man put the bags on the
floor and locked the vehicle before picking them up again and walking towards his front door. ‘Now,’ Reynolds said forcefully.

The two officers opened their doors in unison and Jessica again carefully stepped over the mound of slush. She walked quickly but steadily towards the man along the path, while Reynolds rounded
his vehicle and slotted onto the pavement behind her. Their target got to his front door just a few moments before Jessica reached him. He spun around, surprised, as they scrunched their way up his
pathway.

‘Nathan Bairstow?’ Jessica asked. He looked sideways, before focusing back on the officers. From the small wrinkles around his eyes, Jessica would have guessed he was somewhere in
his forties.

‘Who?’ the man said.

‘Are you Nathan Bairstow?’ Jessica repeated.

He put the shopping bags on the floor next to the front door and pointed to the house on the other side of his. ‘Wrong house.’

Jessica looked at Reynolds who had a puzzled look on his face. ‘Nathan Bairstow lives next door?’ the inspector asked.

‘Yeah, sorry.’ The man reached into his pocket and unlocked the front door, placing the two bags of shopping inside as the two officers looked awkwardly at each other.

‘Who checked it?’ Jessica asked.

‘I don’t know, one of the constables.’ Reynolds began edging away from the door, clearly not wanting to be heard by the homeowner.

Jessica followed his lead. ‘We should phone in,’ she said. The two detectives backed away to the pavement while the front door closed with a bang. The inspector took his phone out
and started to press buttons as Jessica watched the house. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the downstairs curtains twitch. She took a few steps to the side and looked along the gap that
led to the back garden. A waist-high metal gate separated the front from the rear and Jessica walked towards it, slowly at first, still watching the front window where she had seen the curtain
twitch.

Her slow walk turned into a run as she heard the sound of a door banging. Reynolds’s shouting behind her only confirmed what she already knew as she leapt the gate and ran into the back
garden just in time to see a man disappearing over the top of a fence panel.

Jessica ran as fast as she could across the crusty half-frozen lawn towards the wooden panel she had seen the man climb over. She jumped and grabbed the top, heaving herself up
with a grunt that reminded her quite how unfit she was feeling after a week of turkey and alcohol. Reynolds dashed into the garden and shouted ‘He’s Bairstow’, as if straddling a
six-foot fence panel in a stranger’s garden was something Jessica did every day.

If she hadn’t have been struggling for breath and trying to look below her to see which way Nathan had gone, Jessica would have replied with something withering and sarcastic. Instead she
just about managed to exhale loudly before dropping down onto the other side, landing in an alleyway. She looked from one side to the other and saw a flash of dark blue running into another
passageway far to her right. Cursing, Jessica turned and ran. The alley was covered in frost, overgrown branches flapping around her as she tried to dodge them. She skidded around the corner where
Nathan had turned and saw the man running across a grassy area not too far ahead. Despite his head-start, Jessica could see he was struggling because of the size of his coat.

She tried to up her pace but her lungs were screaming out for air as Nathan glanced over his shoulder before veering off to his left. She kept moving as best she could but could feel a stitch
developing in her abdomen. Despite the pain, she was slowly gaining on the man. Nathan’s change of direction took him towards a children’s play park where he stopped and stepped over a
low red metal fence. He picked up pace as he ran across the soft black matting but Jessica hurdled the fence to gain a few more metres. From somewhere behind her, she could hear Reynolds’s
voice shouting but she drove forward, jumping the fence on the other side of the play park, taking her within ten metres of Nathan.

He had another look over his shoulder and Jessica could see the anguish on his face. The stitch was burning through her body as she dashed across the solid grass, before launching herself
forward and crashing into the back of the man. She tried to wrap her arms around him but she bounced off the man’s coat, falling painfully onto the back of his boots. She heard the crunch of
her jaw before she felt the pain but Nathan’s feet clipped together and he tumbled forward as she clung on to the bottom of his jeans and together they fell and rolled into a shallow
ditch.

Jessica felt a thin layer of ice shatter as the pair fell the yard or so into the gap. She could feel mud and water sloshing around her as Nathan tried to get to his feet but she clung hard to
his ankles, heaving herself up his body. She was seeing stars from the dual pain of the stitch and the ache from her jaw but held on, shoving the man into the dirt and reaching under his coat,
pushing the base of her palm hard into the bottom of his spine. He screamed in agony as Jessica crawled on top of him, pushing her forearm across the back of his neck. She was careful not to apply
too much pressure but he stopped wriggling. Jessica tried to keep her cool but found herself shouting at him, the adrenaline of the chase flowing through her.

Moments later, Reynolds arrived, out of breath and unable to speak, then three more officers raced into view just behind him. The inspector pointed them towards Jessica and she released her grip
on Nathan, leaning backwards and sitting with a plop in what she knew was a shallow muddy stream. The officers shouted instructions at Nathan, who held up his hands open-palmed into the air,
allowing two of the other officers to pull him out. He was lying face down on the floor having his hands cuffed when one of them reached towards Jessica and helped pull her back onto the grassed
area. She could feel wet hair plastered to her face and a shiver went through her from the suit trousers stuck to the back of her thighs.

‘Christ, you look a mess,’ Reynolds said none too helpfully.

Scraping her hair behind her ears, Jessica tried cupping her chin, wincing as a sharp pain ran through her. ‘Where were you?’

‘Calling for help then trying to catch you. You’re quicker than you look.’

‘Thanks, you’re slower than you look.’ Jessica tried to smile but her jaw was hurting.

‘I’ll get one of these guys to drop you home,’ Reynolds said.

‘I want to do the interview,’ Jessica protested, trying not to show how much pain she was in.

‘I’ll have to—’ the inspector began to say but Jessica cut him off.

‘I was the one who got kicked in the face. Just give me some time to go home and get changed.’

Two of the officers escorted Nathan, who wasn’t struggling, to their car while Jessica went with another.

As they were walking, Nathan called across to her. ‘I’m sorry about your face.’

Jessica wasn’t used to fleeing suspects talking to her, let alone apologising. ‘What?’

‘About your chin, I didn’t mean to kick you,’ he added. Jessica glanced sideways at the man. His coat and jeans were covered in mud, his bobble hat skewed to one side,
revealing short dark hair with touches of silver.

Noticing Jessica looking at him, Nathan tried to catch her eye but she turned away. It didn’t stop him speaking loud enough for them all to hear. ‘It’s not what you
think.’

A constable drove Jessica back to Adam’s house. Her phone had been in her pocket as she landed in the ditch and wasn’t responding when she tried to call him, so he
was surprised as she walked through the door.

She squelched into the hallway and heard him call out, ‘Hey, you’re home’. Adam walked into the hallway, his arms wide to greet her before quickly withdrawing them.
‘Whoa, what happened to you?’

‘I fell in a ditch.’

Adam smiled but Jessica wasn’t feeling in the mood to respond and she saw him straightening his face before saying, ‘Why?’

‘I didn’t do it on purpose.’ She felt herself wince as she spoke.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I got kicked in the face.’

‘Ouch. So you’ve not had a good day then?’

‘I’m not finished yet, I’m getting changed then going back.’

Adam smiled gently at her. ‘Want a hug?’

‘I’m all wet.’

‘Never mind, I’ll live.’ Adam opened his arms again and pulled Jessica in close. She could feel her clammy clothes sticking to her and felt bad about getting Adam wet too, so
released herself.

‘This is weird,’ Jessica said.

‘What is?’

‘I don’t know … someone being nice to me. I don’t like it.’

Adam laughed. ‘Would you prefer if I kicked you in the face too?’

Jessica giggled but quickly stopped because of the pain in her jaw. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later.’

Even though she had taken time to change before heading back across the city from Adam’s house in Salford to the Longsight station, Jessica was still stuck waiting for
Nathan Bairstow to be brought up from the cells to be interviewed. Reynolds told her the suspect had been given clean clothes from a store that was kept on site. The replacement garments were
effectively jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt and were usually handed out to the weekend drunks who were left in the cells to sleep off the alcohol but ended up losing control of their bladders or
vomiting over themselves. It wasn’t nice but it did leave some officers with cracking stories to tell at the Christmas party which, for whatever reason, had become a New Year’s Eve
celebration this year. When he was cleaned up, Nathan had been allowed to meet his solicitor, which was also taking some time.

Most of the rest of the CID team were either on leave or had left for the day. Jessica knew Cole was in his office upstairs but she hadn’t gone to see him, leaving it to Reynolds to be the
middle man. She was aware of not being the most patient person at the best of times but with her jaw stiffening up as the afternoon turned into evening – and a phone that wasn’t working
– she spent around an hour balling up pieces of paper and trying to throw them into the bin on the other side of her office.

Eventually, Reynolds knocked and entered. ‘We’re ready,’ he said before noticing the large pile of paper next to the door. ‘How old are you?’ he added with a
grin.

‘All right, old man, calm down,’ Jessica replied with a smile of her own. ‘Just because you were outrun by a girl.’

They walked through the nearly deserted hallways towards the interview room where the inspector checked the recording equipment. Shortly afterwards there was a knock at the door and Nathan was
led into the room by a man in a grey suit. Everyone sat as Reynolds ran through the formalities. As he spoke, Jessica took in Nathan’s appearance. The wisps of grey hair she had seen as he
was being escorted earlier were far more prominent under the white fluorescent light above them. He’d appeared youthful when she first saw him wearing a hat but his silver hair made him look
his actual age. Before she had wasted an hour throwing paper balls into her bin, Jessica read the small amount of information they had on Nathan Bairstow and, among other things, she knew he was
forty-six years old.

He refused to meet Jessica’s gaze, instead staring at a spot on the table between them. When the inspector finished talking, Jessica went to start but Nathan interrupted. ‘I just
want to say I’m sorry for kicking you. It was an accident.’

Jessica didn’t want to give him any kind of upper hand, so ignored him. ‘How do you know Benjamin Sturgess?’ she asked.

‘
Ian
Sturgess?’

Jessica kept as straight a face as she could manage. ‘Yes, Ian.’

‘We taught together years ago.’

‘
How
long ago?’

‘I don’t know, maybe thirteen or fourteen years?’

‘Which? Thirteen or fourteen?’

Nathan seemed slightly distressed. He lifted his cuffed hands to scratch at his face. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been at St Jude’s for six years, I was temping for two before
that, then I did two years with Our Lady’s. We were at the same school before that so some time between ten and fourteen years. I don’t really know because he left.’

‘Do you remember Toby Whittaker?’

‘Toby? I … I know the name. Was he the boy who went missing?’ Jessica stared at Nathan, waiting for him to meet her eyes. She didn’t answer with her words, instead letting
him see it in her face. ‘I’m not sure what you think that has to do with me,’ he added.

Jessica checked the sheet of paper in front of her and read out the phone number. ‘Is that yours?’ she asked.

Nathan nodded slightly. ‘I think so. I don’t really know it properly.’

‘Let’s make it easy then. Have you ever had a phone conversation with Ian Sturgess?’

‘Yes, once or twice.’

Jessica read him the date and time of the call they had traced. ‘Does that sound about right?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you’re admitting you spoke to him?’

‘Yes but it’s not what you think.’ Nathan’s voice had a pleading tone.

‘What am I thinking?’ Jessica asked.

The man’s solicitor motioned to step in but Nathan lifted his arms up. ‘No, it’s fine. I know what you’re thinking because I saw on the news that Ian had been arrested
but you were calling him Benjamin. I know it was something to do with that other kid going missing, Isaac. I saw it all and I knew I should have called you then …’ He tailed off and
sighed before continuing. ‘I think I knew you would be coming for me at some point. I … I don’t know why I ran. I’m sorry I kicked you.’