Sins of the Fathers (11 page)

‘Of course people are worried,’ Janine Foster said. ‘The mothers won’t let their kids out of their sight. They’re standing outside the school in all weathers to take them home themselves instead of letting them walk. But it’s all just a nonsense panic, that, isn’t it? If he’s made a run for it he’ll be miles away by now. And it was his own family he obviously decided to knock off, not just anybody’s children. It wasn’t – what’s the word? – random. I reckon some folk just like scaring themselves silly. It gives ’em summat to get excited about.’

Laura drained her glass and glanced at her watch. It was just coming up to midday.

‘Do the primary school children go home for lunch?’ she asked.

‘Aye, some of ’em do.’

‘So I might catch a few parents outside the school about now?’

‘You might,’ Janine Foster said grudgingly. ‘But don’t say I sent you.’

Feeling far more depressed than when she had arrived, Laura walked down the village street, feeling as if the blank windows of the cottages were watching her progress with a malevolence she had not fully anticipated. The school, a low Victorian building which still had ‘Boys’ and ‘Girls’ set in stone above two separate entrances, huddled against the side of its neighbouring church as if sheltering its inmates from the fierce Pennine gales, which Laura knew would lash it from the west. And on the other side of the tarmac playground a small group of mothers were huddled under umbrellas, talking to a tall man in a suit who seemed inadequately protected from the drifting, misty rain. Half a dozen pairs of eyes turned implacably in her direction as she approached and there was no response to her tentative smile.

‘Can I help you?’ the man asked, obviously used to taking charge of a situation in which the group of women seemed uncertain. Laura explained who she was and what she was doing in Staveley and felt the whole group stiffen and become even more defensive.

‘I’m Frank Garside, the headteacher here,’ the man said. ‘You’d better come in out of the rain and we can have a chat. But I don’t really know what I can tell you apart from the fact that the whole village is devastated, and I’m sure
none of the families here will want you going around asking questions, and quite possibly upsetting people, even more than they’re upset already.’

One or two of the mothers nodded at that.

‘People were really shocked by the photograph in the
Globe
this morning,’ Garside went on, steering Laura across the playground towards the school door. ‘If I come across that reporter, I won’t be slow to tell him so, either. But I suppose the
Gazette
is something else, being local. I certainly hope so.’

Laura waited impatiently for Thackeray to come home that evening. The time she had spent in Staveley that morning, and the longer hours she had spent at her computer trying to organise her impressions for the next day’s paper, had distressed her in way which she had not anticipated. Frank Garside had been kindly and levelheaded, but did not disguise the fact that the loss of two of his pupils and their baby sister in such horrific circumstances had destabilised his school. The children were disturbed, he had said, and the staff who had known the Christie family were deeply saddened by what had happened. If Emma were to die too, he had said, it would be a blow he wondered whether his little community could cope with. Counsellors and therapists and the full bureaucracy of the caring professions had been mobilised already, he said, but he had sounded sceptical about how far any of that would help children traumatised by the loss of their friends.

‘What I can’t get to grips with is why now?’ he had said helplessly as he plied Laura with tea in his tiny office overlooking the playground where some children were splashing through the puddles to meet their parents by the gates.

‘What do you mean, why now?’ Laura asked.

‘Well, according to some of the children, Emma and Scott had told them that they were moving. I wasn’t too happy about it when I heard, though Mrs Christie hadn’t told me anything officially. You never want to lose pupils in this game. Our future depends on keeping numbers up.’

‘Moving?’ Laura had said. ‘You mean moving away?’

‘Apparently. Emma had told one of her friends that they were going to live by the sea. She was happy about that, because they’d lived by the sea before, when they were abroad, I think. She was quite excited at the idea.’

‘Do you think they were going abroad again?’ Laura asked.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Frank Garside said. ‘It’s just a bit of children’s gossip really, and there’s no way of checking if it’s true now, is there? Not that I thought it was out of keeping with that family. Linda was a pleasant enough woman, but Gordon I didn’t like. He was an edgy, moody character, quite unpredictable. There was a suggestion once that he’d been hitting Scott. I couldn’t tell social services that we’d noticed any evidence of abuse, but quite honestly it wouldn’t have surprised me very much. I’m quite sure he could lash out if he was provoked. But Scott obviously adored his dad, whether he deserved it or not.’

Garside sighed and glanced out of his window again to watch some of the boys who had braved the weather to kick a ball around.

‘There’s only seventy children here,’ he said. ‘We’re like a big family. Most of the parents know each other, there’s cousins as well as brothers and sisters from the more
long-established
families in the village. This thing has hit us all like a thunderbolt.’ And that, Laura knew as soon as the words were out of Garside’s mouth, was her headline.

She had spent another hour or so in the village, chatting to some of the mothers bringing their children back to school after lunch, and trudging up to Moor Edge cottage to look at the rain-bedraggled bunches of flowers that had been left in the lane where the blue and white police tape still flapped forlornly in the wind. She had driven back to the office depressed by what she had seen and realising all too well just why Thackeray had seemed so deeply affected by this case. It was, she thought, a sort of violation not just of the family who had died but of all the families in the village; a denial of all that being a family was supposed to mean. In some ways, she had ended her article, it must be easier to come to terms with the violation of children by a stranger than to see a father or mother turn so violently against those they were expected to cherish and protect. And that thought, she
knew
, must be tearing Michael Thackeray apart.

She would have liked to talk to Thackeray about the emotions her day’s work had aroused, but she knew she would be treading on ground that was far to sensitive to venture near. And when he finally came in, late and drained, she offered no more than a brief description of how she had found the pictures of the school fête in the files and her subsequent researches, in response to his perfunctory inquiry.

‘It’s difficult to get away from the feeling that a peaceful village like that should be immune from violence,’ she said. ‘It seems like an intrusion.’

‘There’s no such thing as a peaceful village any more, Laura,’ Thackeray said. ‘With modern transport and communications, the whole of the North of England’s one big village now. Criminals and crime touches everyone.’

‘I suppose so,’ Laura said as they ate and watched the
TV news. ‘The headteacher did say one odd thing, though. Apparently Emma told her friends she was going to move away. To the seaside, she said. And Scott had mentioned it, too. Did you know about that?’

Thackeray looked at Laura for a moment without speaking. Then he shrugged wearily.

‘Nothing about this case surprises me any more,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we know anything about that particular bit of information, no. But Gordon Christie was obviously very keen to keep his life private when he was alive, and I found out this afternoon that he’s got friends – or maybe enemies – who want to keep it just as private now he’s apparently dead.’

‘What do you mean?’ Laura asked, surprised herself now.

‘Nothing I can tell you about,’ Thackeray said quietly. ‘Forget it, Laura. You just concentrate on the state of Staveley and leave the elusive Gordon Christie to me. But if you want an opinion, off the record, of course, I don’t reckon we’ll ever discover what really went on at Moor Edge cottage. There’s too many filthy fingers in this particular pie.’

DCI Michael Thackeray was knocking impatiently on Superintendent Jack Longley’s office door the next morning, almost before his boss had taken his coat off and settled his substantial frame behind his desk.

‘Come in, Michael,’ Longley said mildly, although it was obvious that Thackeray’s mood was very far from contented. And Longley himself seemed paler than usual, lines of tiredness etched into the corners of his mouth and fleshy bags under his eyes looking like crumpled purple tissue paper in the harsh morning light.

‘What can I do for you?’ Longley asked, in a tone which suggested that he knew and would not welcome the answer.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday afternoon, sir,’ Thackeray said. ‘And I’ve concluded that what’s being suggested will seriously hamper my investigation.’

‘How’s that?’ Longley prevaricated. ‘As far as I can see the investigation’s pretty well closed.’

‘No, sir, it’s not,’ Thackeray said flatly. ‘It’s nowhere near closed. We’ve two murder victims already, a third child shot at and left in the snow to die, which is tantamount to murder, in my book, and possibly a fourth if you count the body in the burnt out Land Rover. And there’s another
child still on the critical list. Are these so-called friends of ours seriously suggesting we offer the coroner no more information than we could have offered on day one – murder followed by suicide? End of story? Because on the evidence available I don’t believe that’s all there is to it, and the very fact that our friends are trying to interfere makes me even less willing to believe it.’

‘Calm down, Michael,’ Longley said. ‘You’re jumping the gun. All they’ve asked is that we don’t publish pictures of Gordon Christie just now. And as there’s a strong possibility that the charred remains of Gordon Christie are lying in a morgue in Manchester, we’ve no particular reason to release his photograph anyway. So where’s the problem?’

‘Well, for one thing I think there are other pictures of Christie floating around. It’s only a matter of time before the Press get hold of something. And for another, the spooks obviously know about Christie and it doesn’t look as if they’re proposing to tell me what they know,’ Thackeray said. ‘Was he one of theirs?’

‘If this is domestic murder, you don’t need to know that,’ Longley said.

‘The coroner might not take the same view,’ Thackeray said. ‘We’ve not found a suicide note and he’ll want some questions answered. We’ve no idea what provoked Christie into this massacre, if in fact it was him who fired the shots. It might have everything to do with something in his past history. And so far we’ve uncovered absolutely nothing about that: not who he is, where he’s from, what he did in his previous life. It’s a blank sheet, which, by the sound of it, someone in London could do something to fill in if they chose to.’

‘Let’s wait to see whether Christie’s dead or not, shall we?’ Longley said.

‘And if he’s not? If it’s not his body in the Land Rover, then what? If he’s still out there somewhere with a weapon and someone else is shot? Who carries the can then? You can be damn sure it won’t be the spooks. They’ll jump straight back into their holes and leave us up to our necks in the mess.’

‘You’re exaggerating, Michael,’ Longley said.

‘No, sir, I don’t think I am. I don’t like this. In fact, I think it stinks. What are they trying to cover up? It makes no sense. Was Christie on their payroll? Why was he using what’s obviously an assumed identity? He was not who he claimed he was and we’ve got absolutely nowhere trying to find out who he really was. Was he a criminal lying low for some reason? Was he on some sort of witness protection scheme that went wrong? They don’t usually try to give an entire family a new identity, do they, but this lot have been expunged from the records as far as we can see. How did they do that? It’s not easy to achieve without official help.’

‘You know no one will fill in that sort of detail, even if they could,’ Longley said.

‘All we know is that the family have lived abroad, the kids said so, the mother said so, though we can’t find so much as a single passport in the house. Incidentally, we now know the children were talking about moving on again. So what’s that all about? Was he sent abroad for his own safety? And if so, why the hell did he come back? If they don’t want his picture published, what are they still trying to hide?’

‘You’ll get no answers, Michael, you know that. If Christie was “disappeared” officially, he’ll stay that way, and we’ll have to make the best we can of that.’ Longley looked as if his conclusion was as unpalatable to him as it was to his DCI. But he shrugged resignedly, while Michael
Thackeray clenched his fists in frustration.

‘Does county approve of that?’ Thackeray asked.

‘Do you think I’d be taking this line without their
say-so
?’ Longley said. But Thackeray still looked mutinous.

‘Even if Christie really is dead, we still need to make some effort to make sense of this,’ he insisted. ‘There will still have to be inquests and our esteemed coroner is not a fool. Whoever Gordon Christie is – was, maybe – his family didn’t deserve what happened to them. And there are rumours flying around which may come out at the inquest, whatever anyone tries to hide. One or two people have suggested he was ex-army, but the Ministry of Defence say there’s no record of him. But what about the SAS? What about Special Branch? What about Five? There’s more than one organisation out there that probably know who Christie really is. I need some support here. I need some backup from you or the chief constable. At least we have a photograph now so there’s some chance of finding out his real identity. But not if some bastard in London thinks he can put a lid on the inquiry like this.’

‘Wait until you’ve got the bloody DNA results,’ Longley said, more impatient now. ‘Until we identify the body in Manchester we don’t know where we are. When we’ve got those results we’ll review where we’re at.’

‘If our friends don’t subvert the DNA tests as well. I don’t suppose that would be too difficult to do. A little mix up in the lab, maybe?’

‘Now you’re beginning to sound completely paranoid, Michael,’ Longley said, his colour rising. ‘Never mind our friends.
I’m
telling you to wait. Wait for the forensics. Wait for the child in hospital to wake up. Follow up any other leads, by all means, but leave Christie himself on the back burner until we know if he’s alive or dead. Sorry –
unfortunate turn of phrase – but there’s absolutely no point in alerting the media with Press conferences and photographs and all that ballyhoo if there’s a chance we have to announce a day later that the object of our inquiries has been dead for almost a week. We’ll look like right idiots.’

‘And we’ll look like an efficient police force if it turns out he’s a supergrass some London crime syndicate has caught up with?’ Thackeray’s scepticism was a fierce as he dared make it. ‘Or he’s an IRA informer that the security services were supposed to be protecting? Whatever our friends say or do, you can be sure the truth will come out in the end. The Press are already digging around. I happen to know that the
Gazette
’s pulled a picture of Christie out of their archives. There are probably others knocking about that the
Globe
, for one, will do their damnedest to get their hands on now they’ve picked up on Emma Christie’s situation. It’ll be our faces the thing blows up in if they get a hint of a cover-up.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Longley said. ‘But we still wait for Manchester and the forensics. That’s final.’

‘Sir,’ Thackeray said. He eventually shrugged in resignation. ‘There’s some evidence that someone took pot shots at a man called Weldon who lives in the old manor house at Staveley,’ he said. ‘We could see where that takes us if the rest of the inquiry’s on hold.’

‘Has Weldon made a complaint?’ Longley asked.

‘No, that’s the odd thing about it. He seems to have done his best to make sure no one knew it had ever happened. But just for once a uniform had his wits about him and noticed the damage.’

‘Check Weldon out,’ Longley suggested. ‘And Michael…’

‘Sir?’

‘Try to keep this case in perspective,’ Longley said. ‘I know it’s difficult when children are involved.’ Thackeray did not reply and when he had left the room Longley sighed, knowing he had wasted his breath. Then he picked up his phone.

‘Get me Ted Grant at the
Gazette
,’ he said.

DC Val Ridley opened the door of the intensive care ward quietly and glanced across at Emma Christie’s bed. What she saw there sent her heart jerking wildly and her knees threaten to collapse under her. She took a deep breath to steady herself, cursing her own vulnerability to this pale, silent child, and made herself put one foot after another in the general direction of the bed. The head of the bed, which had been horizontal for the whole time she had been stealing time from her duties to visit Emma, was now slightly raised and with it, Emma’s bandaged head. Even across the breadth of the room Val could see that Emma’s eyes were open. She hurried to the side of the bed where a nursing assistant appeared to be re-arranging Emma’s position.

‘She’s awake,’ Val said, her breath catching
embarrassingly
in her throat and making her voice husky. But the sound was enough to make the young black woman in blue hospital uniform start in surprise, and something she had been holding dropped to the floor with a clatter.

‘You made me jump, you came up so quiet,’ the nurse said, looking flustered.

‘Sorry,’ Val said. ‘I was just so pleased to see her sitting up.’ She looked at the child more closely and realised that although her eyes were open her expression was dazed.

‘Hello, Emma,’ she said, but Emma’s eyes simply
flickered for a moment in her direction and there was no other response.

‘Has she said anything?’ Val asked. The nurse shook her head and Val wondered why she appeared so anxious.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I was just checking.’ She ducked down quickly on the other side of the bed from the police officer and picked up whatever it was she had dropped, before turning away. But Val was too quick for her, and she hurried round the bed and took hold of the woman’s arm so that she could see clearly what she was holding in her hand.

‘You’re hurting me,’ the nurse said in a fierce whisper, obviously not wanting to attract the attention of any of her colleagues who were working further down the ward.

‘And you’re not hurting Emma, taking photographs of her?’ Val asked, taking the small camera from the woman’s hand. ‘How much did the
Globe
pay you for this then?’

The nurse did not reply, turning her head away as Val opened the camera and exposed the film to the light.

‘Would you like a child of yours all over the front page of that rag?’ Val asked, furious now. ‘And what will the hospital say when they discover you’ve got a lucrative little sideline like this?’

‘It’s not illegal,’ the nurse said.

‘It may not be illegal but it’ll lose you your job,’ Val said, her voice harsh.

‘You don’t need to do that, you don’t need to tell anyone. There’s no harm done. I hadn’t even taken anything this morning.’

‘And you won’t be taking anything any other morning, either. I’ll make sure of that,’ Val said.

There were tears in the woman’s eyes now.

‘You don’t know what it’s like bringing children up on
your own these days. The things they want. He offered me £100, just for taking one little snap. Would you say no to that? It did her no harm. No harm at all.’

Val glanced at the child in the bed, who appeared to be watching their whispered altercation with something like fierce concentration, and suddenly her anger evaporated and she felt drained of emotion.

‘It meant my boy could go on the school trip to the Lake District,’ the nurse said, sensing her advantage.

‘If he contacts you again, ignore him,’ Val said wearily. She knew that now Emma was awake she should be able to arrange for her to be watched day and night. ‘If I report you, you’ll be in deep trouble, you know that, don’t you?’ The nurse nodded and glanced up the ward where a colleague was looking curiously in their direction.

‘I’ll do that then,’ she said. ‘He won’t contact me again I don’t suppose now he’s got what he wanted. He looked like that sort of bastard.’

When the nurse had hurried out of the ward, Val took the chair alongside Emma, who was still following every move with those unnervingly blank blue eyes.

‘Can you hear me, sweetheart?’ Val asked. ‘Are you really awake?’ Emma did not respond and Val picked up her limp hand and hunched over the bed as if in pain herself.

‘Come on, sweetie. We want you to get better,’ she said. It was, she thought, the only thing worth achieving in this messy, heart-breaking case, although that sentiment was not one which she would ever share with any of her own colleagues. Outside the ward, the nurse Val Ridley had confronted watched through the glass pane in the ward doors and was quite sure she saw Emma Christie’s lips move. She edged away into a side room, closing the door
behind her as she pulled out her mobile phone. When Vince Newsom responded she asked him a single question.

‘She’s awake. How much if I tell you everything she’s said?’

Laura flicked through the first edition of the
Gazette
to the centrefold where, as expected, her feature about Staveley’s reaction to the tragedy in its midst was spread across two pages. She skipped through the text and was pleased to see that it had not been much mangled by the sub-editors, and then glanced at the colour photographs which accompanied the article. To her astonishment, the photograph she had located in the electronic archive showing Gordon Christie at his children’s school fête was not amongst them. It seemed to have been replaced by another picture of the same event which included all the rest of the family, but not the father, whose whereabouts, as far as she knew, were still the subject of urgent police inquiries.

Angrily, she picked up the paper and marched, pink cheeked with hair flying, through the newsroom to Ted Grant’s office, watched by one or two startled faces amongst the reporters who were not completely glued to their computer screens. Grant’s door was open and he waved her into his sanctum without much enthusiasm.