Someone Else's Son (39 page)

‘Hey, Maxie baby,’ the boy yelled out in a high voice, obviously pretending to be Dayna. She froze. The falsetto jibe continued. ‘Can I suck your itty-bitty cock, Maxie baby?’

Horrified, Dayna waited for something to happen. She daren’t breathe. Max’s shoulders stiffened but he didn’t turn. A few kids nearby sniggered.

‘Oi, fathead, I’m talking to you.’ The boy lobbed a bread roll at Max’s head and it hit him cleanly. Max spun round.

‘What the—’

‘I’m talking to you, man.’ The boy snarled and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘You not got that bint woman of yours under control yet, man? Dint ya hear what they’re all saying?’

Max didn’t move. Neither did Dayna. The canteen noise went on around them and it was as if they were freeze-frame characters caught up in a ghastly time slip.

What was he on about?

Suddenly, Max exploded into life. He picked up his tray of food and hurled it in the air. It spun round, food and cutlery and a can of Coke flying off and hitting the other kids. The pie landed next to Dayna and Max kicked it at her as he stormed off.

Somehow, Carrie managed to make two cups of tea. Charlbury seemed deserted without the staff but unnervingly more like home with Brody trailing her through the grand rooms. ‘Mind the step,’ she warned as they left the kitchen. They left the dogs slumped on the floor by the Aga. Their muddy paws overlapped and their snouts breathed wet halos on the tiles following a dash round the garden while the kettle boiled. ‘The fire’s still going,’ she commented as if it was the only thing that mattered.

It had been four days since Max died.

They sat down again. This time Carrie was right beside Brody. She passed him his tea.

‘Last autumn, Max left his mobile phone at my flat,’ Brody said without prompting.

Carrie thought of the ghastly place where Brody lived. She didn’t understand why he lived there but hadn’t found it in her to ask. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford anything better. The foul smell that pervaded the whole estate was still thick in her mind – a fitting backdrop for everything else troubling her.

‘He was forgetful,’ she said. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d sent her driver back to Denningham with items of sports kit or books he’d not remembered to take at the start of term. She hadn’t a clue if he’d forgotten to take things to Milton Park. If she was honest – which she couldn’t entirely bring herself to be – she’d shown no interest in Max’s school life from the day he quit Denningham last summer. ‘Well, he used to be. I don’t know what he was like at . . . at the new school.’

‘Didn’t
want
to know, you mean.’

Carrie swallowed. ‘It’s not like that,’ was all she could manage. She wasn’t going to confess to being a lousy mother to Brody after all these years apart.

‘It was Max’s choice to go there, Carrie. I told you, he was unhappy boarding.’

‘And he’s happy now? What did his new school do for him?’ She felt justified finally.

Brody didn’t retaliate. ‘When Max left his phone at my flat, it started bleeping in the night. It was driving me mad. There was a message.’

Carrie mustered her full attention, which was hard. Concentration had been impossible the last few days.

‘His phone’s a different model to mine so I didn’t know what I was doing exactly. I was tired and just wanted it to shut up.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I admit, though, that when I heard the voice message start, I listened to it. Or messages, should I say. I just wanted a night’s sleep. I had an early start the next day.’

‘And?’

‘They weren’t pleasant.’

‘What did they say? Who were they from?’

Brody took a deep breath and let it go. ‘From some sick kids. You know the kind of thing. Insults. Put-downs. Threats.’

Carrie was virtually speechless. Was he trying to protect her from the truth? ‘No, I don’t know. What threats? Why didn’t you say something to Dennis?’

As she expected, Brody was suddenly defensive. ‘I did. I gave him a description. And the phone number of the last boy to call. There was an option to redial, so I did. When the kid answered, I made out I had the wrong number. I’d woken him up and he was too stupid and groggy to be wary about repeating his number to me when I asked for it. I wrote it down.’

‘How did you get a description? For God’s sake, Brody, it could be Max’s killer.’ Carrie felt it welling up inside, despite the medication. The doctor had said the pills would only take the edge off, not wipe out the pain completely.

Brody drank some of his tea. Stalling, Carrie thought. It all came flooding back, how it used to be – the look on his face, the way his brow rose and the grooves formed. They were deeper now, years on, but his jaw still ticked nervously just as it had when he’d finally bothered to tell her he was going blind. ‘You can’t just ignore stuff like
that
, Brody.’

‘I’ll tell you. The school phoned me several times about his truanting. Max had given both our details. They’d not been able to contact you, apparently, so they ended up dealing with me about it. Anyway, I approached Max. We also talked about the messages I’d heard on his phone. You can’t accuse me of not handling things.’

Carrie held her breath. This was her son. ‘Well, what did he say?’

‘He played it all down. Made out there was nothing wrong. That the kids who left the messages were mates just mucking about.’ Brody stood up and manoeuvred his way to the fire, following the heat source. ‘He went totally mad that I’d listened to his voicemail, even when I explained what I was trying to do. He said the truanting was no big deal. That everyone did it.’

‘But who were—’

‘He mentioned a couple of names. I calmed him down and we got talking, had a beer or two. Eventually, he told me about the café they hung out in. Max hadn’t convinced me it was nothing so I took a taxi there several times. It was obviously impossible to figure out anything much by myself. That’s when I got Fiona to help me, to see what they were like. I was going to fix everything, you know. Do the good parent thing. I bought a book on how to handle bullying. I thought I could work it out for him.’

Carrie didn’t,
couldn’t
, say a word. She stared up at her ex-husband. Should she pull him into her arms and allow the warmth to soak back between them or hurl the poker at him? She did neither. She let her mouth drop open. Then she saw that Brody was crying. Just a line of moisture at first, sitting atop his lower lids – it happened to her almost every minute - but then proper tears collected and rolled free. Brody made no attempt to hide them.

Carrie frowned. Her fingers tingled. Her heart raced.

‘You bought a book?’ She wanted it to sound incredulous but it didn’t.

‘Fiona read some of it to me. A lot of it made sense.’

‘And you went spying on kids? Kids that were threatening Max?’ Again, she was flat and factual when she hadn’t meant to be. It was building up inside. She wanted to scream.

Brody simply nodded in agreement.

Carrie stood. She saw him flinch as she stamped her way to the fireplace. She began in a whisper. ‘Why didn’t you do more? Why didn’t you call the headmaster? Why didn’t you call
me
?’ She managed to yell the last word.

‘Because,’ Brody said coldly, ‘you were always too busy. I had no reason to believe things had changed there. Besides, things seemed to settle with Max. He got a girlfriend. I thought he was happy.’

Carrie halted. She felt a pain in her stomach. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘There’s nothing to say. It’s too late to do anything now.’

She allowed herself to drop to the floor at Brody’s feet. The rug was warm beneath her. Sensing her movements, Brody did the same.

They sat, silent, Carrie staring at the orange flames curling round the logs. Brody felt the heat flicker against his face. Both of them were freezing and it took a phone call from DCI Masters to temporarily set them free from the current wave of grief.

 

Dennis called Carrie at her London home first. The housekeeper answered and told him that she’d gone away. He rolled his eyes. When he called her mobile, it went straight to voicemail and, of course, he left a message telling her they’d made an arrest. He couldn’t help the grin or the way his hand messed through his hair a thousand times with relief or even help the shot of whisky from the emergency supply as he waited for Max’s father to answer. He’d rather tell Carrie directly, of course, but he didn’t have the landline at her country house.

‘Country bloody house,’ he said incredulously. He considered himself lucky to have a box of a town house after what Kaye did to him in the divorce. ‘Come on, come on . . .’

 

The boy had been hauled in earlier that day. ‘Ah, bless him,’ Jess had said grimly, peering through the viewing glass, watching him sitting there in his stained dressing gown and a pair of work boots.

‘Doubt he’s ever done a day’s work in his life,’ Dennis remarked as they went back to his office to discuss the interview.

‘If I were his mother I’d . . .’ Jess couldn’t finish.

‘What? Ruffle his hair? I doubt even
you
would produce offspring like that, DI Britton.’ Dennis turned away but swung round quickly again. ‘Aha,’ he said. ‘Gotcha.’

Jess wiggled her upright middle finger and pulled a face. ‘So. What have we got?’ She smiled and pulled down the hem of her skirt as she sat on the edge of the table. She’d caught Dennis looking at her legs. ‘In good spirits, are we, sir?’

‘You could say that. If we charge him, I’ll die a happy man, Jess.’ He glanced at her knees. The skirt refused to sit below them, however hard Jess tugged. ‘They found a second set of prints on the knife. It took a while. There was a mix-up or something, but the results finally came in.’

‘I know that. I can read emails too, you know.’

Dennis paused. ‘We’ve got our man. If you can call him that.’

Jess frowned. She stood up and walked about, smoothing down her skirt.

Dennis continued. He sensed her doubt but refused to acknowledge it. ‘Warren Lane’s been brought in because of the print match.’ No use wishing he’d hauled him in for questioning three days ago.

‘I know that too,’ she said slowly, still thinking. ‘The database virtually overheated when we ran these new prints through. Is there anything our boy hasn’t done?’

That was more like it, Dennis thought. ‘His hand was on that knife. There must have been a struggle. An argument.’ Whatever happened, he had to charge. Whatever happened, he needed a confession.

 

‘. . . Come on, come on, answer . . .’

‘Professor Quinell speaking.’

‘Professor, it’s DCI Masters calling. I have news for you. We’ve charged a fifteen-year-old youth with the murder of your son.’

It was late. Dennis translated the pause on the line to mean that he’d woken Max’s father. That or the man was pissed. He wouldn’t blame him if he was.

‘Charged?’

‘Yes, as in we have enough evidence to present to the Crown Prosecution Service. All being well, he should be in court in the morning. It’s good news, Professor, in light of all the bad.’

‘It is positive news. Hopeful.’

Dennis wanted to stand on the roof and shout out that they’d got the bastard. ‘More than hopeful, I’d say, Professor. You can come to the station if you’d like a full brief. I assume you’ll want to be in court tomorrow.’

More hesitation. ‘I can’t. I’m with Max’s mother. In the country.’

Ah, Dennis thought. His mind fast-tracked. Marriages were usually blown apart by tragedy, not the reverse. He didn’t like the feeling he got when he imagined Quinell and Carrie reconciling in the country. He’d not had a fair chance with her. But still, that was all outweighed by the arrest.

‘She didn’t want to be alone,’ Quinell added.

‘I quite understand. When will you be back?’

‘Soon,’ was all he said before hanging up.

 

Earlier, before they charged him, Dennis couldn’t help thinking that Warren Lane’s face looked as if it had been carved from wood with a blunt knife. That he came across as such a hopeless loser with a long criminal record given his age only served to help Dennis’s purpose. He’d been arrested and charged twelve times in his pathetic life so far – Dennis was sure he recognised him – and had been in and out of juvenile detention centres since the age of ten. He was also currently on probation, most magistrates now wise to the fact that he just wanted a roof over his head and free food for as long as possible.

‘Perfect,’ Dennis said as he gathered the files and a cup of coffee. Jess took in some water.

The duty solicitor was fat, dressed like a man, and sat glum-faced next to the youth. She nodded at both Dennis and Jess when they entered. Warren sat pushed back from the table with his legs apart and his fingers picking at the tatty belt of his dressing gown. Slowly, he stared up at the detectives and then looked down again as if it was all perfectly normal. For him, Dennis thought, it probably was. He started the tape and recorded the relevant details about the case.

‘Do you understand why you’ve been arrested, Warren?’ Dennis waited, but the boy said nothing.

‘It’s been explained,’ the solicitor said. Amber or Saffron, Dennis thought she was called. Something yellow, anyway. Something stupid and inappropriate for the way she looked.

‘Let’s get started. Where were you on the morning of the twenty-fourth of April two thousand and nine?’ He would keep it really simple to start. Then a few hours back in the cell.

Nothing.

‘My client wishes to exercise his right to silence.’

Not unexpected, Dennis thought. This was murder, after all, an awfully long hotel stay courtesy of Her Majesty.

‘Were you at Milton Park Comprehensive School on that same morning between the hours of ten and eleven in the morning?’