Jones pulled a sceptical smile. ‘They can’t do anything else. Their daughter refuses to make a statement. She has a romantic notion that a frayed photograph and some semi-literate letters will keep an absent lover faithful.’ He turned his scepticism on Ben. ‘What’s wrong with girls of your own age? Are they too intelligent to do what you tell them? Less easy to mould?’
‘You wish.’
‘How will Hannah react when she finds out you’ve been hanging around with prostitutes? Will she take it well, do you think?’
Ben flashed him a look of dislike. ‘None of your fucking business.’
Pearson cleared his throat. ‘My client said he’s never been with a prostitute, Superintendent.’
‘That’s right,’ said the youngster. ‘I don’t even know any girls in London.’
‘You prefer boys?’
Ben lined up his pistol hand and pointed it at Jones. ‘Fuck off.’
‘So in all your time on the streets here, the only friend you’ve made is Chalky? Is that what you’re telling me?’
‘Yeah . . . and if it’s Chalky you’ve been talking to, he doesn’t know his arse from his elbow most of the time. He probably meant shirt-lifters . . . calls them “girls” and “ladies” and spits on the ground behind their backs. He showed me the alleyway to get me away from them. He hates gays.’
Jones nodded. ‘So you said the first time we interviewed you. You seem very keen for us to see this only friend of yours as a died-in-the-wool homophobe.’
‘If that’s a gay hater, then that’s what Chalky is.’ He swivelled the pistol hand towards the window and performed a mock recoil. ‘He said if he still had his gun, he’d shoot the buggers.’
‘Are those your views, too?’
‘Sure. Shirt-lifting’s unnatural, innit?’
‘But sleeping with twelve-year-olds isn’t?’
The boy looked immediately to his solicitor to rescue him.
‘We’ve covered this area already, Superintendent.’
‘I don’t think we have, Mr Pearson. It’s the under-age girls your client’s been bedding in London that I’m interested in.’ He leaned forward. ‘We didn’t get our information from Chalky, Ben, and there was no confusion about the kind of girls that were being talked about. Young prostitutes with drug habits.’ He watched the youngster’s face for a reaction and thought he saw one. ‘What’s your role in the operation? Pimp?’
‘Like hell!’ Ben shifted his attention back to the solicitor. ‘He’s talking crap. I don’t know any prozzies.’
‘Where’s this leading, Superintendent?’
‘To Walter Tutting,’ answered Jones, keeping his eyes on the boy, ‘the elderly man who was beaten half to death last Friday . . . lives at 3 Welling Lane in Bermondsey. He regained consciousness a few hours ago.’
The speed of Ben’s response suggested he’d rehearsed his answer. ‘Nothing to do with me. I was puking like a dog on Friday . . . wouldn’t have ended up in here otherwise.’
‘Mr Tutting was attacked at lunchtime,’ Jones said, ‘and you were functioning well enough to climb over some railings twelve hours later. Would you like to tell me where you were and what you were doing between eleven and one on Friday?’
‘Can’t remember.’
The solicitor weighed in again. ‘Ben told you during his first interview that he has no clear recollection of details from Friday, Superintendent – nor, indeed, from a couple of weeks before his admission – other than that he was regularly sick and may have passed out a couple of times. His consultant confirmed these symptoms as typical of type one diabetes and the further complication of ketoacidosis.’
‘I’m aware of that, Mr Pearson. I also recall that the consultant mentioned mental stupor as a precursor to coma, and I’m wondering how a boy in a dazed state –’ he introduced sarcasm into his tone – ‘which appears to prevent him remembering anything – managed to find his way around Covent Garden in the dark.’
‘I was probably on auto-pilot,’ said Ben, observing Jones through half-closed lids. ‘If you go to a place often enough, you can find it in your sleep. Don’t remember doing it, though.’
‘Do you remember being in the Bermondsey area at lunchtime?’ Jones asked.
‘Don’t reckon I was. Never been there in my life as far as I can tell . . . don’t even know where it is.’ He scowled at his solicitor. ‘Is he allowed to do this? The doctor’s told him how sick I was, and it sure as hell ain’t got nothing to do with the stuff in my rucksack.’
‘Do you have any evidence connecting Ben with the attack on Mr Tutting, Superintendent?’
‘Not directly, but we believe he knows who was involved. His position will be a lot stronger if he confirms that for us now.’
‘Is this a fishing trip, Superintendent?’
Jones shook his head. ‘Far from it. At this stage, the only thing that’s preventing Ben from being interviewed under caution as a suspect in the assault on Mr Tutting are the constraints his illness puts on me under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.’ He glanced at Ben’s mother, who was sitting with her habitually bowed head. ‘Whoever attacked Mr Tutting has a deep contempt for the elderly. First the poor old fellow was fleeced of his savings, then he was tossed aside as of no further value. It’s a miracle he’s still alive.’
Mrs Sykes stirred. ‘My Ben wouldn’t do a thing like that. Would you, love?’
‘Course not. I like old people. Chalky’s old. My stepdad’s old. May have had the odd row with ’em, but I’d never hit ’em.’
‘Is that where you draw the line?’ asked Jones.
‘What line?’
‘It’s OK to steal off an old person, but not to hit him.’
‘I ain’t never stolen off an old person.’
‘According to your stepfather, you have. You used his Switch card to take three hundred quid out of an ATM the day before you ran away. He also found other withdrawals of lesser amounts when he went back through his bank statements. He blames himself for recording his PIN in his diary and giving you the impression that stealing was easy.’
‘That’s different.’
‘How?’
‘Stealing off family’s different from stealing off strangers.’
‘Meaning what? That it’s a lesser crime or it’s easier to get away with?’
‘Mum and Barry know why I did it.’
‘And that makes it acceptable?’ Jones asked drily, eyeing the woman.
She raised her head. ‘It was a difficult time for him. He did some things he regrets. Barry and I understand that.’
Jones studied her face with interest. ‘Does your understanding extend to the cell phones Ben has admitted stealing in the last four months? He uses interesting terminology when he refers to his victims . . . he calls female victims “bitches” and male victims “mother fuckers”. Both suggest disdain for the people he robs.’
‘None of them was old, though,’ said Ben with a gleam of satisfaction in his pale eyes, as if he’d scored a point. ‘I wouldn’t call an old bloke a mother fucker . . . I’d call him a geezer. In any case, you don’t see that many of ’em flashing their mobiles around in the street, so they ain’t that easy to rob.’
‘It’s not a moral issue, then, it’s a practical one. If a frail eighty-two-year-old made it easy for you, you’d treat him the same way you treat a teenager.’
‘Think what you like,’ the boy said dismissively. ‘It don’t make no difference to me if you twist what I say.’
‘An elderly black lady was punched and kicked not so long ago for her mobile phone. She was so badly injured, she had to be hospitalized.’
‘Nothing to do with me.’
‘For the record,’ the solicitor interjected, consulting his watch, ‘my client, Ben Russell, said he doesn’t steal from old people, nor does he refer to them in derogatory terms. I am also drawing Superintendent Jones’s attention to an earlier interview where the phrases “bitch” and “mother fucker” were discussed at length. These are recognized street slang for young females and males respectively, and in no way suggest contempt on the part of my client.’ He tapped his watch. ‘We agreed ten minutes. I shall have to insist that we end the interview now.’