Silent Playgrounds (19 page)

So he was right. She had had some bruising experiences with the police, and when she was quite young. He looked at the dates and frowned. She seemed to have had sole responsibility for the lad, and she must have been only, what, nineteen, twenty, when he first came to police attention. He could understand why she might blame the police at the time – shoot the messenger – but why the hostility he thought he saw now? Or was it just him she didn’t like?

What had happened to Adam Milner? On past form, he was probably banged up somewhere. He didn’t feel like trawling through the whole file. He looked for the
names of the officers who had dealt with him. It was possible … Yes! One he knew. Alicia Hamilton, in fact. He checked his watch. What were the chances of catching Hamilton? He picked up the phone.

He was in luck. She was on her way out for lunch, and, with the awareness of the tight schedules that they all worked to these days, was perhaps not happy, but prepared to spend a few minutes filling in some details for him. ‘Is there some kind of link with the lady in the lake?’ she said, when he explained what he wanted.

‘Unlikely,’ McCarthy said, and went on to explain the connection with Suzanne Milner that he’d just pulled up.

‘I knew that name rang a bell. Of course, Suzanne Milner. Adam’s sister.’ She paused, as though she was gathering the facts in her mind, then went on, ‘Ok, the Milners. Dad and two kids – the mother had MS, died a couple of years after the boy was born. The father seems to have pretty much abdicated his responsibility for the lad as far as I could tell. The social worker – I can’t remember who it was, but I’ll find out if you like—’

‘I’ll get back to you if I need that. I just need the basics at the moment.’

‘OK. Well, the social worker said that the father left his daughter – that would be Suzanne, right – to bring up the boy. It wasn’t a good situation, but they didn’t think there was much to do about it. Reading between the lines, I got the impression they didn’t rate the father, but you know how these things go.’ McCarthy didn’t, as such, but he assumed the comment was rhetorical.
‘Anyway, the lad starts getting into trouble – well, you’ve seen all of that, and young Suzanne is there trying to pick up the pieces …’ McCarthy listened as she ran through the story. The lad had clearly been immature, disturbed, very dependent on his sister.

‘He’d play tough,’ Hamilton said, ‘but he wasn’t. I think we were getting somewhere with him, but then – it was one of those stupid things – he and his mates did a break-in at a warehouse. Sweets, would you believe? And the watchman got hit, had a fall, fractured his skull. No,’ she said in response to McCarthy’s swift inquiry, ‘it wasn’t Adam Milner who hit him. And the man recovered fine. But it meant they were up on a serious charge. Milner ran away from home, went into hiding. But of course his sister knew where he was. I talked her into telling us. It was the only thing she could do. Well, he got a custodial sentence. He went to pieces in the court, calling for his sister, fighting, the whole works. She was married by then, expecting her first baby. Anyway, he was sent to …’ McCarthy recognized the institution, a ramshackle sprawl that had started out as a good and effective establishment with an enlightened programme for dealing with the vulnerable youths who came into its care, but that, like so many, had collapsed into a containment facility as the pressure of numbers built up and up.

‘You know how it happens,’ Hamilton continued. ‘He left home that morning, was sentenced in the afternoon, the escorts didn’t do anything about getting him any food, gets to the place at about eight that evening, through reception and locked up in the living unit with
the others – they didn’t know him and he didn’t know them. You can imagine it, kind of. He’s frightened, hungry, miles from home – and bullying is endemic in those places, don’t let anyone tell you different.’

After six days of incarceration, just before his fifteenth birthday, Adam Milner had knotted his torn sheet into a rope and hanged himself by slow strangulation in the shower. There had been an internal inquiry, the results of which were confidential. Someone had had his knuckles rapped for a minor infringement, and new procedures were recommended. ‘That’s it,’ Hamilton said. ‘The life and short times of Adam Milner.’ Her tone was brisk. ‘How is Suzanne? I tried to follow up there, but she didn’t want to know me. You could understand it. The father died of a heart attack shortly afterwards. Attracted quite a lot of sympathy. Not from me, I might add. I mean, why start being there for your children when you’ve made such a good job of not being there in the past. I heard Suzanne had a boy. I hope that worked out OK for her.’

McCarthy made a non-committal sound. From what he had seen, it hadn’t worked out OK at all. His mind set into the impassive mode he used to carry him through crime scenes, through interviews, through post-mortems.
I touch nothing, and nothing touches me.
He thanked Hamilton and put the phone down, promising to return a favour some time. He looked at the photograph of Adam Milner. One of those fresh-faced youths who hadn’t even started shaving. Curly hair. A look of Suzanne around the eyes and mouth. Rather an appealing smile. He pressed his fingers against his closed eyes.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Or something like that.

OK, that explained a lot.

Lucy sat on her own in the playground and unpacked her school bag. She took out her lunch box and her drink bottle. She looked at the sandwiches her mum had made for her. The bread looked fresh and crumbly, and there were bright green bits of parsley mixed up with the egg. They were her favourite sandwiches, and she’d asked for them specially, but she wasn’t hungry now.

She wasn’t talking to Kirsten. She wasn’t talking to anyone. Kirsten had shouted after her, shouted something horrible about Sophie. ‘My mum says that Lucy Fielding’s babysitter …’ Kirsten wouldn’t say anything about Sophie again, not anywhere where Lucy could hear her. Lucy had waited quietly until Kirsten got brave, until Kirsten came and pushed her face right into Lucy’s, until Kirsten thought that she had won. Then Lucy had punched her clenched fist right into Kirsten’s tummy, as hard as she could, and Kirsten had gone
whoof
and fallen over. Miss Boyden had been cross, but she’d been cross with Kirsten as well as Lucy, so that was all right.

But she still had the funny ache in her middle. Mum said that Sophie was dead – just like Emma was dead. Lucy had thought that Mum was wrong. Mum often got things wrong. She did her drawing and she didn’t really
listen.
But Lucy knew, now, that Mum was right.

The monster had been in the library, in the secret shelves. She thought she knew the places where the
monsters went. Sophie had told her. But Sophie couldn’t tell her now. And Emma couldn’t tell her. And now the monster had come out of the park. She would have to be careful, Tamby would have to be careful.
Be careful
she whispered.

Very, very careful,
he reassured her.

Suzanne checked in her diary. She felt a bit nervous, felt the clench of apprehension in her stomach at the thought of what she was planning to do. She had the map for Richard, she could make him feel in her debt, but she wasn’t convinced that it would be enough to make him talk to her and tell her what she wanted to know. There was a better way. She knew which days he worked at the university, the days when he wouldn’t be at the Alpha Centre. And today was one of those days. She went to her bookshelves to find the copy of
Offending Behaviour,
the bible of the youth probation workers, that he had lent her a couple of weeks before. She couldn’t find it at first, and then realized it was with the books she hadn’t got round to putting back on the shelves, the books that were stacked rather intrusively on her desk. She slipped the book into her bag, remembering as she did so that she now had Ashley’s tape in there. She spent ten minutes tidying away the papers and tapes that had somehow got disordered across her desk again. OK, her visit to the Alpha was to see Richard and to return his book – also, if she’d got it wrong and he happened to be there, to give him the map of old Beighton. And move on to Plan B. Plan A required ten minutes on her own in Richard’s office.

The road was so parked up she had trouble easing the car out of its space, and she was tense and jangled before she actually set off. By the time she got to the Alpha Centre, her throat felt tight and her back was damp with sweat. The building that housed the centre was in a leafy suburb; it was big, stone, standing back from the road. The road was a wide, tree-lined sweep, almost Edwardian in its elegance, but the first impression of middle-class affluence was dispelled by the signs of deterioration and neglect. There was litter on the pavement. The gardens were overgrown and uncared for. The windows of the houses were dark and empty, or hung with torn and dirty curtains. The front doors had several bells. There was no sign outside the Alpha. The centre wanted anonymity. There were still enough private houses for the residents to object to a centre for young offenders being opened in their area, particularly young offenders with histories of violence and drug abuse.

She parked the car and walked towards the building, which had started to feel familiar, like home. She saw that graffiti still disfigured the front door: Lee’s tag, LB, in strident blues and reds, rather ornate, rather elaborately done. It was overlaid by cruder tags, white paint swirls and blotches, barely distinguishable one from the other. She felt an unsettling mix of emotions as she stood there: anger, guilt, anxiety. She mustn’t let herself get distracted by what had happened. She was here to find out about Ashley, to find a way to Ashley. That was the important thing. She rang the bell and, after a minute, Hannah, one of the centre workers, opened
the door. She looked surprised when she saw Suzanne, and a bit wary. Suzanne smiled, feeling as though she’d forgotten how, as though the muscles of her face could no longer perform the action naturally. ‘Hello, Suzanne?’ Hannah said.

So she wasn’t going to let Suzanne in without good cause. ‘I’ve come to see Richard.’ It was humiliating as well. She was like an employee who’d been sacked in disgrace, making a friendly call on her old workplace.

‘Is he expecting you?’ Suzanne’s heart sank. It sounded as though Richard was there after all.

‘No,’ Suzanne said. ‘I just had some stuff to leave for him.’

‘You can give it to me. I’ll see he gets it.’

Hannah sounded quite friendly and Suzanne suppressed her anger. ‘I need to see him. Is he here?’ She needed to know. And if he wasn’t, she needed to get through that door and into his office.

‘No. This is his university day.’ Despite her friendly tone, Hannah stayed uncompromisingly in the doorway.
As though I’ll try to break in.

‘That’s a nuisance. He’s got a book of mine I need to collect as well. Maybe I could just …’

‘I’ll tell him,’ Hannah said. ‘If you let me know which one it is.’

Fuck this.
She wasn’t going to stand on the doorstep arguing with Hannah. ‘Who else is here? I need to see someone,’ she said, and pushed past Hannah, who stood back reluctantly to let her in. Neil appeared in the doorway of the downstairs office. ‘Hi, Neil,’ she said, trying to sound everyday, friendly. ‘I need the book back,
the one I lent to Richard. And I’ve brought him some stuff.’

‘He isn’t here.’ Neil wasn’t trying to be pleasant.

‘Yes, Hannah said, but I need the book today. I’ve brought this as well.’ She waved the folder she was carrying, then tucked it securely under her arm again. ‘I think Richard’s got the book on his shelves.’ That was a good move, because the shelves in Richard’s room were packed with books. It would take a major search to find out that it wasn’t there.

Neil seemed to be weighing his choices. She wanted to say, What are you so worried about? You’ve won. Except he hadn’t. Not yet. ‘OK,’ Neil said, ‘I’ll take you up there.’ Suzanne had hoped to be on her own, but she smiled pleasantly at him.

‘Thanks. Sorry to take up your time, but I’ve got a tutorial …’ That was a mistake. Teaching was over. There were no tutorials. He didn’t notice, but led the way up the stairs and through the convoluted passageways of the Alpha building. Suzanne noticed he was taking her a roundabout route that would avoid the coffee bar and snooker room. Obviously he didn’t want her talking to the lads. She felt angry again, and this helped her to focus on what she planned to do. She didn’t need to feel guilty when she was being treated like this.

Neil unlocked the door to Richard’s office and waited as she put the file on his desk. She picked up some scrap paper and scribbled a note. She was aware of Neil studying the room. No papers on the desk, filing cabinets locked up, nothing out that she shouldn’t see. She
started looking along the shelves, frowning. ‘He’s got so many books …’ she said.

Neil was starting to show signs of impatience. She went on looking, keeping her head back to show she was still only on the top shelf, moving along slowly. ‘I’ll get Hannah,’ Neil said. ‘I’m supposed to be in with a group now.’

‘OK.’ Suzanne let her voice sound abstracted, but her heart was starting to thump. Neil turned, began to go, turned back, then said, ‘Hannah will be up in a minute.’

‘OK,’ Suzanne said again, and then he was gone. She listened as his footsteps hurried along the corridor. She needed to be quick. Richard kept the keys to his filing cabinet in the pull-out tray in his desk. She looked. There were five of the little silver keys that opened filing cabinets. He obviously kept old keys. There was only one cabinet. She picked up the keys, dropped one in her nervousness, picked it up, tried it in the lock. Not that one. She tried the next one. Her hands were trembling and it was difficult to get the key into the lock.
Calm down!
Not that one. The next one. And the one after that. None of them worked. She looked back at the desk. There, at the back of the tray, on a small key ring, another set of keys, a pair this time. She dropped the useless keys back into the drawer, and tried these new keys. She listened. Silence. No sound of anyone coming along the corridor.