They parked the car and set off on a tour of the Bullring and the Waterloo underpass. This area, south of the river, between the Royal Festival Hall and the National Theatre, was notorious for the hundreds if not thousands of people who inhabited its concrete walkways, its brick viaducts near Waterloo Station, dossing down in cardboard boxes, huddling near the heating vents, constructing little shelters out of bits of timber and plastic sheeting. Dossers, winos, junkies, bag ladies, the physically sick and the mentally ill, kids on the run from home and institutionalized care, and on the game: the hopeless and dispossessed and forgotten, the new London poor of 1993.
It wasn’t Otley’s patch, though he knew the area and its floating population of misfits well. Trouble was, a lot of them knew him, so it was difficult to wander about incognito. And in broad daylight, two o’clock in the afternoon, there weren’t any shadows to skulk around in, creep up on them unawares.
They walked through the Bullring, a huge concrete bowel wrapped around by a network of roads heading north across Waterloo Bridge and south to the Elephant and Castle. The noise was horrendous, the continuous streams of traffic shattering past overhead. Dalton spied a group of kids in a concrete cubbyhole behind one of the massive arching supports. They were crouched in a circle on the filthy, rubbish-covered ground, empty spray cans, squeezed-out tubes of glue, and broken syringes and needles everywhere.
“We’re looking for a kid nicknamed Disco Driscoll-” Dalton made a grab as they scattered, and collared one. “Hey-I’m talking to you!” The boy was squirming. Dalton wrenched the aerosol can from his grimy hand. “What’s this?”
“Makin’ a model airplane, mate!”
Dalton tried to swipe him as he ran off, and missed. Otley looked away, hiding a grin.
The squalid brick viaducts of the Waterloo underpass housed a community of down-and-outs, living in patched-up shelters tacked to the walls. Groups of them sat around campfires on the pavements, passing the bottle, and mingled with the smoke was the sharp reek of meths and cleaning fluid. It was gloomier here, under the arches, and the two detectives were able to approach without being observed. Otley touched Dalton’s arm, making him slow down, and said in a low voice, “Kid with the lager cans, that’s Kenny Lloyd. What I suggest we do…”
He was about to suggest they split up and circle in, one head on and one behind, blocking the kids’ retreat, but he never got the chance. Dalton was off and away. He ran fast, charging along the greasy pavement, but the group Kenny was in, their instinct for self-preservation honed on the streets, saw him coming and were off in a flash, just dark blurs disappearing into the gloom.
Otley sighed and shook his head. Where had they dug up this dickhead from?
Ten minutes later they were sitting in the outdoor cafeteria of the National Film Theatre, overlooking the river. There was a cool breeze and some ragged cloud overhead, but Otley was enjoying a cup of coffee and a sticky iced bun in the fitful sunshine. He broke off a piece and tossed it to a seagull. At once more seagulls started to swoop down.
Dalton didn’t approve. “You shouldn’t encourage them-shit all over you.” Otley tossed another chunk. Dalton turned away in disgust. There was a poster in the Film Theatre window for Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Iron. “Good movie that, have you seen it?” Dalton asked.
Otley’s eyes were elsewhere. He was watching three ragged kids picking up leftover scraps from the tables. One boy in particular, hustling cigarettes from the patrons, looked familiar. Otley watched him for several minutes, a skinny, pathetic-looking specimen in a torn T-shirt, filthy jeans, and cheap sneakers, bare ankles caked with dirt. His thin, ravaged face was marked and bruised, his mouth erupting in open cold sores.
“Just going for a leak, okay?”
Dalton paid no attention as Otley rose and casually threaded his way through the tables. He came up by the boy’s shoulder as he was rummaging inside a trash bin and said softly, “Hello, son…”
The boy looked up, pale puffy eyelids and a pair of dark purple bags. “It’s twenty quid, down the toilets.”
Otley placed his hand on the boy’s bony shoulder. “You just blew more than you bargained for-I’m a police officer.”
“Okay, so I’ll make it ten.”
“Hey! Watch it!” Otley was smiling. “I just want to ask you a few questions…”
Warily, the boy took a step backward. His eyes flicked past Otley to where Dalton was heading toward them through the tables.
“It’s about that fire,” Otley said, taking out a fiver. “Heard about it? You know Colin Jenkins? Connie?”
Dalton came up and the boy took off. He barged through the tables, turning chairs over behind him, and leapt the wooden barrier surrounding the eating area, skinny elbows pumping as he hared off along the concrete embankment. Dalton was after him like a shot. Kicking the chairs aside and leaping the barrier, his long legs gained on the boy with every stride.
Otley took his time, going out through the swingbar gate and following after them at his own pace. He saw Dalton reach out and grab the boy by the nape of the neck, they both skidded and went down, the boy punching and kicking wildly. Dalton gripped him by the hair, his other hand under the boy’s chin, and the boy sank his teeth into Dalton’s hand. Dalton cursed and belted him hard, hauled him to his feet and belted him again.
“That’s enough,” Otley said, walking up. “Back off him…”
Dalton gave him another crack before stepping back, sucking his hand. “Little bastard bit me!”
The boy wiped his bloody nose on his arm, eyes rolling in his pinched face, frightened to death. “I dunno nuffink, I swear to God, I dunno anyfink…”
Joe Public strolling by and taking an interest in all of this made Otley jumpy. He moved close to the boy, keeping his voice low.
“I haven’t asked you anything yet. Let’s start with your name.”
“Billy,” the boy said, his chin quivering. “Billy Matthews.”
The three new members of the squad were in Tennison’s office, jackets draped over the backs of their chairs, bringing themselves up to speed on the investigation. Neither Haskons nor Lillie was too enthusiastic about the case; why they were here at all was something of a mystery.
“I dunno why we’re going to all this bleedin’ trouble-nasty little queen,” Lillie complained. “We got an address for him, for Colin?”
“He’s not got a permanent one,” Haskons replied.
“He must have lived somewhere! What about a recent photograph?”
“These are from a children’s home,” Ray Hebdon said, spreading them out. “Few years old, black and white.” He glanced down the report. “Not much else.”
Haskons picked up a photograph of Connie, aged about nine, in school uniform, unsmiling. He stared at it and blew out a disgruntled sigh, his broad face with its fleshy nose and heavy jaw set in a lugubrious scowl. “Was he claiming the dole? Any benefits?”
“No, nothing from the DSS,” Lillie said.
Haskons folded his arms and stared through the window at the brick wall. The phone rang and Hebdon answered it. “No, she’s not. Can I take a message?” He found a pencil and a memo pad. “Jessica Smithy. What? Yes, I’ll tell her.”
Haskons yawned. “Any vice charges? I mean, he was on the game, wasn’t he?”
“Too young to bring charges,” Lillie said. “In 1988 he was picked up, shipped back.” He studied the school photograph. “I don’t understand, you know… what makes a poofter want to screw this scrawny, sickly-lookin’ kid?”
“Make our job a damned sight easier if we had a recent photo,” Haskon said with a long-suffering tone.
Lillie tossed over the morgue photograph of Connie’s head, a knob of blackened bone, the face burnt off. “Here you go!” he said, laughing.