‘Did someone threaten you?’
No answer.
‘Did the people who did this to you threaten to hurt you if you told?’ the teacher coaxed.
Amy looked at Reed, mesmerised by the tableau unfolding before her.
‘Did your mum or dad do this?’ Reed asked, his voice even.
‘They said they’d kill them’ O’Brian blurted, his body shaking uncontrollably.
‘Who? Your parents? Someone threatened to kill your parents if you told what happened? Is that it?’ Reed asked, swallowing hard.
Take it easy. Be patient.
He held out a hand to the boy, beckoning gently.
‘Just take your time, Paul’ Reed said, softly, his hand still extended. ‘We just want to help you.’
Reed got to his feet and took a step forward.
O’Brian pushed himself more tightly to the wall, tears now streaming freely down his cheeks. ‘Please don’t tell anyone’ he pleaded, his voice cracking.
‘I’m not going to’ Reed assured him. ‘I just want you to tell me who did this to you. Did someone hit you?’
O’Brian looked at the extended hand. ‘They said they’d kill my mum and dad’ he repeated.
‘So it wasn’t your parents who did this to you?’ Reed asked.
No answer.
He could almost touch the boy now.
Another step.
‘I can’t remember’ the boy said, weakly.
Reed reached out and clasped his hand gently. It felt so frail. So cold.
O’Brian suddenly ran to him, wrapped his arms around Reed’s waist, and the teacher felt the boy sobbing hysterically into his midriff. He closed his arms around the thin form and held on.
‘It’s OK’ he whispered. ‘No one’s going to hurt you now.’
‘They’ll kill my mum and dad and my sisters’ O’Brian blurted. He suddenly looked up into Reed’s face, his eyes wide and bulging.
‘Please help us’ he wailed, then buried his head in Reed’s comforting arms once again, his body shaking madly.
Reed looked at Amy.
‘Fetch Hardy’ he said, softly. ‘I want him to see this.’
Forty-six
‘Fucking garbage’ snorted Talbot, dropping his copy of the Express onto the table.
Rafferty looked up from his own paper and glanced first at his superior, then at the newspaper which was folded open at the centre pages.
Talbot took a sip of his coffee and ran both hands over his face.
He felt the perspiration on his skin, and when he looked at Rafferty it was through eyes rimmed vividly red, the whites criss-crossed by dozens of blood vessels.
Sleep had eluded him for most of the previous night. Two or three hours of oblivion at most had come to him. He’d been up since five, standing beneath the shower trying to reactivate his mind as well as his body. Now, five hours later, he felt as if someone had spent the night systematically beating him about the head with a plank of wood.
Too much whiskey usually had that effect.
The cafe in Charing Cross Road was empty but for himself and Rafferty, both men sitting at a corner table, Talbot periodically gazing out into the street at the passers-by.
So many faces.
‘Read that shit’ the DI said disdainfully, pushing the folded up paper towards his colleague.
Rafferty scanned the words, glancing too at the photos which accompanied the piece.
Talbot took another swig of coffee as he sat watching Rafferty who finally looked across at him.
‘What’s the problem, Jim?’ he asked.
‘See who wrote it?’ Talbot said, irritably. He jabbed a finger at the name.
‘That stupid cow I spoke to at Euston the day Hyde topped himself. Remember?’
Rafferty nodded.
‘She says it’s been going on for a while’ the DS offered. ‘Those pictures seem to back her up.’
‘Do you believe it, Bill?’ Talbot wanted to know.
Rafferty shrugged.
‘She’s just shit-stirring again’ Talbot said before his colleague had time to answer. ‘Catherine fucking Reed.’ He pushed the paper away from him.
The headline blared from the centre spread, photos of the desecrated graves and crypt at Croydon Cemetery adding silent weight to the large black letters which screamed across the two pages: VANDALISM OR SATANISM?
‘Do you think they’ll talk?’ asked Terry Nicholls, scratching his head with the end of a pencil.
‘I don’t know’ Cath told him, shifting position in her seat. ‘My brother didn’t say what they were like.’
‘Your brother knows them?’
‘Their son attends the school where he teaches.’
‘You’re going to have to be careful, Cath’ the editor told her. ‘Now this story’s broken, every paper in the country is going to be crawling over it. I don’t want anyone else getting info we don’t have. This is your story, you make sure you follow it up. We should be able to run features on this for the next week or so. Find out what the other families think, too. Speak to the O’Brians, by all means, find out how they feel about their daughter’s grave being desecrated, but speak to the other families it happened to as well. If they won’t talk to you, then speak to their neighbours, their relatives, anyone who might be able to tell you more.’
Cath nodded slowly.
Nicholls tapped the paper on his desk.
‘This is good stuff,’ he said, smiling. ‘Get some more.’
Cath grinned and got to her feet.
When the pigeons took off it sounded like the applause of a thousand invisible hands.
Shanine Connor sat on the bench in Trafalgar Square and watched the birds rise into the clear blue sky.
However, for every one that had left there seemed to be two more in its place.
The entire pavement seemed to be alive with them. She sat watching them as they strutted back and forth in front of her, heads bobbing back and forth, bright eyes occasionally looking up at her as if to ask for food.
Christ, she barely had enough to feed herself.
The man seated on the bench next to her was flicking through his copy of the Express, impressed neither by Shanine’s close proximity nor by the mass of pigeons all around.
He was dressed in trousers and a shirt and tie, and Shanine thought how hot he looked.
She watched as a bead of perspiration popped onto his forehead, then ran down his nose.
She suppressed a chuckle and glanced at his paper.
The word struck her like a hammer.
He had the paper open at the centre pages.
Shanine edged closer to him, trying to read over his shoulder.
She could see the photos from where she sat. She could make out the headline, but the rest of the piece was a blur to her.
The man scanned the story quickly and turned the page.
Shanine felt like grabbing the paper from him, telling him she wanted to read the story that covered the middle pages. Instead, she just sat looking at him, turning away quickly when he glanced in her direction.
She gripped the holdall closer to her, eyes fixed on two pigeons close by pecking at discarded fruit where someone had missed the nearby wastebin.
Wasps buzzed frenziedly around the bin, the sound of their wings a constant accompaniment to the noise of the pigeons and the more powerful sound of traffic passing by.
The man glanced at his watch and got to his feet.
Shanine watched as he rolled the paper into a funnel, then stuck it into the wastebin, heading off across the square, scattering birds in his wake.
She pulled the paper from the bin and tore it open at the centre pages.
Despite the warmth of the day, as she read, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise.
Forty-seven
‘You saw that boy’ snapped Frank Reed. ‘You saw what had been done to him. You must call the police.’