‘We’ve got to accept we were wrong, boss,’ said Peter Mellor. ‘Maybe we should have pushed for those children to be taken away from their parents. Certainly it looks like we shouldn’t have closed the investigation.’
‘Do you think I’m not aware of that, Peter,’ I snapped. I shouldn’t have spoken to him like that, but my nerves were shot to pieces on this one. I feared the worst and I really didn’t want the death of a nine-year-old handicapped boy on my conscience.
Mellor flinched. I kicked myself.
‘Sorry Peter,’ I muttered.
He nodded imperceptibly, and then, professional as ever, merely continued with what he had been going to say in the first place.
‘It’s not cut and dried, though, boss,’ he said. ‘Claudia Smith was almost certainly right that something was going on concerning Stephen Jeffries. But even assuming the likelihood of persistent sexual abuse, there is still no evidence yet that Richard Jeffries was involved.’
I sighed involuntarily. I was unconvinced. ‘But as the boy’s father he would have had more access than anyone else,’ I said. ‘Particularly in the case of a Down’s Syndrome child, who is physically and mentally less able to move around and to mix than other children.’
‘Well, yes, boss,’ Mellor replied, thorough in his thinking as in everything else. ‘I’m just saying that even now we shouldn’t rush to prejudge Jeffries, that’s all. He may still be innocent.’
‘I wish I could believe that,’ I said.
It was early in the morning of the day after Stephen Jeffries had been reported missing. Mellor and I were sitting in the incident room at the new Kingswood Major Crime Investigation Centre, which had finally taken the place of the old portacabin complex at Staple Hill. We were waiting for Richard Jeffries to be brought in. Somewhat to my surprise, in view of my present poor relationship with Titmuss, I had been asked to head the missing-child investigation. Apparently the general feeling was that I had learned too much about the Jeffries case not to make my services invaluable as Senior Investigating Officer.
I at once appointed my old friend Inspector Phyllis Jordan, the best organiser in the business, as my office manager and got to work. A missing-child investigation is mounted on the same scale as a murder enquiry. And although it was not the kind of investigation anyone would relish, and I had more cause than most to be disturbed by it, I was also aware of a buzz of adrenaline. After all, this was what I did. This was what I was good at, given half a chance. And I set to work with gusto, organising and guiding my troops.
I had all the facilities of Kingswood at my disposal, including state-of-the-art computer equipment, most notably HOLMES TWO, the latest version of the Home Office Large Major Enquiry Systems, an advanced computer network on line to other police forces throughout the country, and was expecting to have a total of fifty or sixty officers working for me. A team of two sergeants and two detective constables had the previous day already thoroughly grilled both Dr and Mrs Jeffries at their home.
I decided the time had come to bring the pair of them in again for formal recorded interviews. I planned to conduct the interview with Richard Jeffries myself along with a detective constable, while at the same time Mellor and a woman detective constable would interview Elizabeth Jeffries. We could later check for any way, however apparently minor, in which their stories contradicted each other. And I hoped that the knowledge both Mellor and I already had of Richard Jeffries in particular might help us pin him down.
It was only just after 5.00 a.m., and Mellor and I were hitting the black coffee in a big way, trying to sharpen the last vestiges of our wits. We had sent a uniformed team in a squad car to pick up Jeffries and his wife. The choice of such an ungodly hour was quite deliberate. Shock tactics sometimes bring results.
Elizabeth Jeffries certainly appeared to be shocked when she arrived at the station. She had lost the somewhat arrogant aggression I had earlier been aware of. Her eyes were puffy and swollen, but her hair was combed, she was neatly dressed in a sweater and slacks of nicely blending shades of pale beige and, although her distress was quite apparent, she seemed in control. I watched her retreating back as Mellor led her along the corridor to an interview room. She walked with a straight spine, her head held high. I considered, not for the first time that she was undoubtedly stronger than her husband.
Indeed Dr Jeffries looked like a broken man. He was gaunt, unshaven and dishevelled. His grey sweater was grubby and his trousers were crumpled. He sat opposite me in a second interview room, slumped in his chair, the expression on his face one of listless incomprehension.
The uniformed police constables who had collected him had told me that he had been fully clothed when he answered his front door.
‘Would you go to bed if your son had disappeared?’ he asked.
I studied him closely as we talked. His eyes were red-rimmed, his skin pale and blotchy. He had obviously been crying. Everything about him indicated a man driven to distraction by the loss of his child, nothing indicated guilt.
Again and again we made him go over the logistics of his son’s disappearance. The story never varied in the smallest detail. It was devastatingly simple.
‘When Liz went in to his bedroom to wake him for school Stevie was not there. It looked as if he had just jumped out of bed and gone somewhere. There were clothes missing too. His favourite Thomas The Tank Engine sweat shirt, a pair of jeans, his best trainers.
‘I was making tea in the kitchen. Liz came rushing in. She was trying not to panic, but she was terribly anxious, of course. Together we searched the house and garden. I said I would go off and look for him, and that she should stay at home in case he came back. Then I called the surgery and told them I wouldn’t be in.’
‘But you didn’t call the police?’
‘Not straight away. No. It wasn’t the first time Stephen had wandered off. We tried to stop him doing it, of course, but we didn’t ever seem able to convince him that he might be in any danger wandering around on his own. He is quite well-known locally and often neighbours and nearby shopkeepers have brought him home. He enjoys attention, sees these solo outings as little adventures, I think.’
Jeffries paused for several seconds, and his voice was trembling noticeably when he continued. There were tears in his eyes.
‘He has a very trusting nature, you see. Down’s Syndrome children do.’
‘Had you ever got up in the morning and found Stephen missing before?’ I asked.
‘No. Previously he has just gone off on his own during the day when our backs have been turned.’
‘So if this was so different, why weren’t you worried?’
‘I told you, Inspector, we were worried. Of course we were worried. Just not frantic, that’s all, not at first...’ His voice trailed off.
‘And then? At what stage did you call the police?’
‘It was just after midday. I’d been all over the neighbourhood. Nobody had seen or heard of him. By then we were getting frantic...’
‘But you still thought Stephen had wandered off on his own.’
‘I didn’t know what to think any more. But there was no reason to suspect anything else.’
‘How did you think he would have got out of your house in the night or early morning on his own?’
‘It’s just a normal house, not a jail. There’s a Yale lock and a bolt on the front door. Stephen is quite capable of dealing with those. He has an extra chromosome. He’s not an idiot.’