The Secrets Read online

  ‘Aahh, poor thing,’ said Maria, her voice lightly mocking. ‘A policeman’s lot.’

  Mike grimaced. ‘This particular policeman could do without the lot that’s been dumped in his lap just now.’

  ‘I don’t envy you this one, I have to admit.’ John nodded thoughtfully. ‘Sounds like a real can of worms.’

  ‘You mean that Fletcher business? Do you think the appeal will get anywhere?’

  Mike frowned. The last thing he wanted, he told himself, was to talk about this tonight. The Fletcher case had been a messy business the first time around. Mike had not been on the investigating team that had got the first conviction, and now it was coming up for appeal and there was all this mire of new evidence to sift through.

  When the dossier had landed on his desk last thing on Friday he had spared it only the briefest of glances, but he had seen enough to know that he didn’t like the feel. And then there were all the departmental toes he would have to tread on. Mike didn’t even want to think about the consequences should he turn up something — anything — that made the original case suspect.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, returning to the question Maria had asked him. ‘I don’t doubt that Fletcher was guilty — there were enough testimonies against him. Adults abused as kids; kids still under his care in the last home he’d been in charge of who’d been too scared to make complaints before. They all came out of the woodwork.’ He tipped himself forward once more and deposited his glass back on the table with a slightly exaggerated thump.

  ‘Twenty years of it. And at least two suicides to his credit. God alone knows what else.’

  ‘So, what’s new? Surely the appeal won’t get Fletcher off the hook?’

  Mike smiled grimly and shook his head. ‘No. Fletcher’s stuck inside for the term he was sentenced to. What’s being called into question is the extent of his guilt. We always knew he wasn’t operating alone but there was never enough evidence to convict the others he accused.’

  ‘And now there is? From what I remember about the original case, Fletcher named some real class acts.’

  Mike shrugged. ‘So I understand.’ He grinned broadly. ‘I haven’t read the full report yet.’

  ‘First job for tomorrow morning, eh?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘So that fat set of folders squeezed into the plastic carrier bag isn’t work after all?’ Maria asked him, a wry smile playing at the corners of her mouth, the lamplight warm on her black skin.

  Mike took a moment, just to admire the effect, before acknowledging sheepishly. ‘I don’t have to look at it tonight. It’s just, well, I thought, if I got a spare moment or two. If you were working . . .’

  Maria laughed out loud. ‘Well, as it happens I do have work to do. So you’ve just got no excuse, Detective Inspector Croft, not to be fully briefed by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I don’t have to spend long on it,’ he protested. ‘Just half an hour or so to get an overview.’ He sighed, ruefully. ‘There’s practically a cabinet full of the stuff back at Divisional. What’s in the bag’s just a CPS briefing.’

  ‘So it’ll spend one hell of a time saying one hell of a nothing.’ John snorted contemptuously.’

  Mike grinned at him.

  ‘Well,’ John went on. ‘I’ll give you a hand with the dishes, my dear, and then I’ll be on my way. Let you two professionals get yourselves ready for your working week.’

  He rose a little stiffly, easing the crunches from his back, and regarded the two of them fondly. ‘Retired from the problems of the CPS I may be, but I won’t have either of you thinking that I’ve been put out to grass. This ex-DI has a heavy week ahead of him.’

  * * *

  It was well past midnight. Maria had taken herself off to bed almost an hour before, but Mike had found himself drawn into the complexities and ramifications of a case he very much did not want to make his own.

  It made disturbing reading. Nothing in the report shook his original belief in Fletcher’s guilt. The man had been abusing the children in his care for the best part of two decades. His own admission and the overwhelming evidence of almost two dozen testimonies left no room for doubt on that score.

  It was the rest of it. The harassment of both defence and prosecution witnesses; the mysterious fires in the offices of the lawyer preparing Fletcher’s defence. The dead ends that seemed to have plagued the more controversial elements of the investigation. That was what bothered Mike.

  It was hard to say what it was that didn’t add up, but there was definitely something. Then, this latest piece in the puzzle. The alleged journal of a local JP, a man by the name Simon Blake, placed, if its contents could have been proved genuine, not just the JP himself but at least three other local high-ups in the frame along with Fletcher.

  The original journal had been destroyed in the fire that had devastated the offices of the defence lawyer. Blake himself, Mike remembered, had died of a heart attack quite some time ago. There’d been a front-page obit in one of the local papers, harping on about his charity work and his military career. Quite a local celebrity, Blake had been.

  Mike liked this less and less. Fletcher, who had seemed determined to take someone — anyone — else down with him, had pulled one local MP and at least two members of the legal profession into the mud after him.

  Some of the mud had stuck; the concrete evidence hadn’t. Fletcher had gone to court and from there to prison, alone. His alleged connections to a high-level, high-powered ring of child pornographers and paedophiles remained unproven. Those who had finally found the courage to speak out against Fletcher were either unwilling or unable to expand their statements to catch others in the testimonial net.

  Fletcher was guilty; there was no real doubt about that. So what more was there to know?

  Mike rubbed his eyes and stretched, then set the half read report aside. Maria’s living room was dimly lit, he’d left only the two little table lamps on. They glowed softly under red shades, casting odd, malignant shadows across the heavy bookshelves and the soft, rich fabric of the curtains.

  This man who’d produced the possibly damning journal, who’d claimed, also, that much of the evidence against Fletcher had been fabricated. What should Mike make of him? What credence could he give to a man who had himself been accused of indecency?

  Mike sighed, suddenly very weary. Well, it would wait until morning.

  ‘Aren’t you ever coming to bed?’

  He smiled and looked towards the doorway. Maria stood, leaning against the door jamb, an old towelling robe thrown loosely around her shoulders. Head held slightly to one side, she regarded him with sleepy interest.

  ‘I’m coming now,’ he told her.

  Drowsily, she nodded approval, turned and went back into the bedroom. ‘And make sure you leave that bloody carrier bag behind.’ Then, as though the thought had just occurred to her, ‘Why the hell don’t you get yourself a nice respectable briefcase or something?’

  Mike reached out to switch off the lamps and grinned into the darkness. Sod the lot of it tonight, he thought. He’d think about it afresh when he’d had some sleep. The thoughts of settling into bed beside Maria and of black skinned hands tipped by red painted nails were enough to drive just about everything from his mind.

  Even lost evidence and possibly explosive journals consigned to the arsonist’s flames. Even men like a certain Eric Pearson who claimed he had made a copy.

  * * *

  Ryan awoke to the sound of voices and footsteps on the stairs.

  Outside, it was dark. In the room, too. Shadows gathered in the corners, thick as pitch, but it was the sudden light, forcing its way into his eyes as someone flicked the switch, that brought the real terror.

  Ryan screamed, recoiling in horror from the men who entered the room. He skittered back from them, his feet kicking out and propelling him across the bed, becoming tangled in the blanket he had wrapped about himself.

  He shouted again, calling in vain for help.
There were four of them now and their faces were masked and hidden but he knew that two were the men who had brought him here.

  They were going to kill him.

  He was going to die.

  ‘Helpmesomeonehelpme!’ The words scrambled over themselves in panic.

  One of the men laughed. There was no malevolence in his laughter. It was as though he didn’t register the terror in the boy’s voice. As though it was all a part of some outrageous game.

  Ryan looked from face to face. Micky Mouse and Goofy, Snow White and the Wicked Witch stared back at him. Ducking and bobbing in front of his terrified eyes as though in some macabre carnival parade.

  Then Snow White grabbed him by the ankle. A large ring on the man’s hand scratched at Ryan’s skin. Someone else had his arm. Fingers digging hard enough to bruise. They were pulling at his clothes. Tugging his red sweatshirt over his head and ripping his shirt.

  He kicked and squirmed beneath their grip, but their hands seemed everywhere, until, suddenly, they released him. Backing off and looking down at him as though a break had been called in the game play.

  Ryan lay naked and whimpering on the mattress. He curled on his side and looked up at the four men, blinking in the light, wondering, against all hope, if the sudden lack of action meant they would let him go now.

  Then they laid hold of him again.

  Chapter Three

  Monday morning

  Ellie went out the back way. The street was quiet, but in the last few days she had become scared of going out the front way into the close, and, even more, of coming back that way and never being sure what she’d find going on in the street.

  Awkwardly, she steered the buggy out of the back gate and through the narrow gap in the fence that let her onto the footpath leading to the shops. A slight movement at one of the big house windows caught her eye. She looked up, sharply, as the sudden brightness of a camera flash lit the window.

  Ellie stared. Mr Pearson, complete with camera, stared back at her.

  ‘Doing a lot of that, they are, love.’

  Ellie jumped again, then felt a friendly hand on her arm.

  ‘Sorry, dear! I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘Oh! Dora!’ Ellie’s heart was pounding. She lifted a hand as though to quiet it and laughed, embarrassed.

  ‘There, love. You off to the shops? Sure you’re up to it? I could get a few bits for you if you like.’

  Ellie smiled at her middle-aged neighbour. ‘No, I’m fine, really I am. Thanks ever so much but I want the walk.’

  Dora fell into step beside her. ‘Here, let me push that. Hello, my darling. You got that beautiful dolly with you?’ She laughed as Farouzi first offered the doll and then snatched her back again.

  Ellie smiled, glad of something to lessen the tension.

  ‘Rezah was late home last night.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ellie nodded. They’ve a lot of overtime.’

  ‘If he’s late tonight, come and sit with us for a while. No sense being lonely.’

  Ellie smiled gratefully. ‘Thanks, we might just do that.’

  They made their slow way up the hill and it wasn’t until the shops were in sight that either woman spoke again. ‘What did you mean?’ Ellie questioned. ‘About the Pearsons taking pictures?’

  Dora laughed a little breathlessly and relinquished her dominance of the pushchair now they were on the flat.

  ‘Strange thing to do, if you ask me. That’s what started it all, yesterday’s lot, I mean.’ She clucked her tongue as though describing some minor misdemeanour.

  ‘Pearson senior was nosing out of the window yesterday, watching Lizzie’s kids playing in the paddling pool. Well, you know how hot it was and you know Lizzie’s kids, only little things, they are. She’d got them stripped off and running round on the lawn and that Pearson, he stood there in his window taking pictures of them. Started yelling at Lizzie like there was something wrong with a couple of little ones running about in their birthday suits.’

  Ellie frowned. It seemed absurd. ‘But why take photographs of them?’

  ‘Evidence, Pearson said. Or so Lizzie told me.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, you know Liz. She’s not about to stand for that sort of thing, so she goes round and hammers on Pearsons’ door. I wonder you didn’t hear her.’

  ‘Well I did, Farouzi had just woken up and I didn’t take a lot of notice.’

  ‘Yes. Well, Liz went out there, ranting and raving and carrying on about how dare he take snapshots of her kids and how dare he criticize the way she looks after them. I mean to say, love, look at the Pearson kids. Day after day and they never set foot out of that house. You ask me, that’s what half the problem’s about. They should have let their kids out to play with the rest of them. Then there’d have been a lot less bad feeling round here.’

  Ellie nodded, was about to comment, but Dora was in full flow now. ‘Anyhow, the way they went about things, the Pearsons I mean, treating us like our kids aren’t good enough to play with their kids. Well, that sort of attitude doesn’t do anyone any good.’ She frowned, seeming to have lost her thread.

  ‘You were telling me about the photographs.’

  ‘Oh, yes. You going in here, love?’ They had reached the automatic doors of the main supermarket. Ellie nodded. ‘Let’s share a trolley, then, save you struggling. Well, Lizzie’s shouting got a lot of us outside, wanting to know what all the fuss was about. There was Pearson yelling from the window and Lizzie pounding on his door, shouting at him that she wanted the camera film, and then Mary from across the way, she pipes up that it’s not the first time. It seems Pearson was taking pictures of her girls. Just walking by, they were. And she wasn’t the only one. Regular habit he’s making of it.’

  ‘But why, Dora, and, I mean, when has all this been happening? I haven’t heard about anything.’

  Dora gave her a sympathetic but slightly pitying glance. ‘No, love, but you’ve not been here very much, what with being in hospital that week or two and then having to rest up so much. But it’s been happening, all the same,’ she asserted, as though Ellie had expressed some doubt. ‘Been photographing everyone that went past, he has. God alone knows what it must be costing him in film. Says it’s for identification purposes. Identification! I ask you. Everyone knows who everyone is round our way.’

  Ellie reached for a pack of tea bags and gave them to Farouzi, who shook them happily. ‘And that’s when the trouble started?’

  Dora nodded. ‘Nothing but trouble, they’ve been, ever since they came here. Don’t know what the council was thinking of, sending them here.’

  ‘Well, I guess they had to house them somewhere. Mrs Pearson said they had trouble in the last place they lived.’

  ‘Yes, love, she told a lot of people that. You’ve got to give everyone their due. When they first moved here we all tried to be friendly. But they’re a weird lot.’ She wandered across the aisle and came back with tins of baked beans and tomatoes. ‘I mean,’ she said, as though it confirmed everything, ‘they don’t even send their kids to school. Can’t be good, can it, keeping them cooped up like that?’

  ‘Well,’ Ellie said doubtfully, ‘I guess quite a few people do teach their kids at home.’

  ‘Maybe they do. But I’ll bet they’re not all like the Pearsons.’

  Dora had a full head of steam going now and, Ellie knew, would need little stimulus to keep her going. She nodded again and made a noncommittal remark, allowing her mind to wander. She was feeling tired again and the heat, dissipated only a little by the shop’s air conditioning, made her feel queasy.

  She took the box of tea bags from Farouzi. The child had been chewing the corner and little bits of the plastic wrapper were beginning to come away. Absentmindedly, she checked Farouzi’s mouth for fragments of the wrap.

  Mr Pearson’s behaviour had certainly been odd. But was it odd enough to justify people stoning his house? Breaking his windows?

  She thought back to when the Pearsons had first moved in, only a
few months before. Man, wife, half a dozen children. Not particularly well dressed — but then, who could easily afford to clothe six kids? — and the furniture they had brought with them, what there was of it, looked old and mismatched.

  Ellie smiled slightly at the thought. You couldn’t get much more patchwork than the bits and pieces she and Rezah had moved in with; donations, mostly, from Rezah’s family and stuff they’d bought second hand.

  There had been nothing particularly strange in the Pearsons’ lack of possessions. And they had seemed, at first sight, to be a lively lot. Kids running here, there and everywhere. Helping their parents to move the boxes. Getting in the way when they shifted the furniture.

  There had been no hint of the trouble to follow. Even when the rumours started to spread that the Pearsons had been moved five times in the last three years, Ellie had still thought they could fit in at Portland Close.

  And then, everything had started to go wrong.

  Ellie just couldn’t figure it out.

  Dora noticed her slowing pace and took her arm. ‘Come on, love,’ she said. ‘You got everything you need?’

  ‘I think so.’ She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t really sure she cared either.

  Chapter Four

  Monday morning

  Eric Pearson crumpled the sheet of paper in his hand, then changed his mind and unfolded it carefully, smoothing out the creases and laying it as flat as he could on the table top.

  He peered at the handwriting — blue ink, a neat, carefully joined and rounded hand. Then he sat back in his chair and gazed upwards towards the ceiling, rereading the contents of the letter as though the words were set against the dulled white paint.

  ‘My Dear Frank,’ the letter began. My dear Frank. It was rare that Eric Pearson thought about his brother, but the discovery of this note, unsent and all but forgotten in the inside pocket of a coat he rarely wore, had brought the few memories he still allowed himself back with considerable force.

  The letter was dated some three days after Eric and Johanna had left the only place they had ever called home.