Innocent Blood (36 page)

Until that point he’d had exclusive use of him as he always did with his favourites, unable to bear the thought of anyone else soiling their bodies. And Paul had been perfect, combining an older boy’s lasciviousness within a childlike body. And what a body. Ever since, he’d been looking for another Paul in the faces of the boys he procured. Sam was the closest he’d found in many years and it was irksome to have to leave him so soon. On the other hand, the similarity had its drawbacks. Normally he could control his occasional outbursts but with Sam…well, it was very difficult and that made the boy dangerous.

He had a fantasy of taking him home, keeping him there in secret where they could enjoy all its facilities, even the pool. Some of his best memories involved boys in the pool – and some of his worst. Since Taylor’s absence he’d had the discipline never to indulge himself at home.

He should have learnt his lesson when the Eagleton boy drowned. It had been an accident. Malcolm was like a fish in water and it had been easy to tempt him from the public baths with stories of his private pool. He’d brought him back one hot August afternoon while his wife was away on one of her interminable visits, plied him with ice cream, chocolate, and fizzy drinks laced with plenty of vodka.

Later, when they were in the pool together, he’d expected the boy to be drunk and compliant. He’d reasoned that if an oaf like Taylor could seduce kids there was no reason why he, with his refinement, could not. But it hadn’t been like that. The child had started to cry, really loudly, and he’d had to make him stop. He’d held his face under the water as a threat, that was all, to make him shut up, but he wouldn’t so he’d done so again, and again. When the noise finally ceased he’d let the boy go and turned to leave the pool, worried about how to keep him from talking. Killing him hadn’t entered his head but when he turned around and saw him lying on the mosaic tiles at the bottom of the pool he hadn’t rushed to revive him.

Instead he’d poured himself a large Scotch. Later that night he had taken the body to the North Downs. The drive was the worst experience of his life, worse even than realising the boy was dead. He was convinced that he was going to be stopped and the car searched, as if guilt somehow radiated from him. But once again luck was on his side. He’d managed to bury the body, not as deep as he would have liked because of the chalk but deep enough and had then piled scree and rocks on top of the earth before turning for home with an easier heart.

He’d followed the news of Malcolm’s disappearance closely. After an uneventful but intensely stressful week he’d gone away on holiday to Brazil, leaving a short note of explanation for his wife. On his return he resorted to using Bryan again but on condition that he could become involved in the financial side of the business. Bryan, full of ideas but without the money to support them, had accepted him as a backer and the enterprise had grown steadily. They had revolutionised Taylor’s business quickly, extending supply, finding new markets, expanding into towns across Sussex at a remarkable rate.

It was all going very well; then Bryan introduced him to Paul Hill and for months nothing else mattered. His eyes misted. Paul had got under his skin like no boy before or since and his hunger to relieve that particular itch had driven his search for new boys for the past twenty-five years, culminating with Sam.

Would it be possible to have Sam flown out of the country to join him? He wondered whether he could persuade William to organise it for him, though it would mean revealing his destination and link him directly back to the house in London. But how else would he ensure Sam’s exclusivity and his silence? He couldn’t be left behind as a loose end. The only alternative was to pay William to sort it out; the man was a slug and would do anything for money – but could he really contemplate destroying the boy?

A knock at the door brought his whisky and fresh ice. For the rest of the long night, Smith worked his way down the bottle sipping steadily until, sometime before dawn, he made his decision and finally crawled into bed.

The mood in the incident room was upbeat on Wednesday morning despite the early start. The whole MCS Choir Boy team, apart from Alison and her group who had more than enough to do, had travelled over to Harlden, eager to win their share of the fresh leads from the
CrimeNight
programme the evening before.

Most of the work would involve reviewing and following up the lower-priority phone calls but they didn’t care – it was fresh evidence after weeks of working a dead case. There were three critical interviews with potential abuse victims. Fenwick would sit in on one with a man who lived in London and claimed to have been abused by Taylor. Specially trained interviewers from the Sex Crimes Unit would lead the questioning. He’d already been reminded in no uncertain terms that even if he found himself sitting opposite a six-foot-tall, sixteen-stone bricklayer with a BNP tattoo on his chest, the person they would need to reach and talk to was the damaged child inside.

Afterwards, he planned to visit the child protection squad who were watching the house Ball had visited and then drop in on the team from Camden who were trying to trace people who might have seen the Well-Wisher, as the phone box he’d used was in the middle of their patch.

Another of the men who had called
CrimeNight
lived in Edinburgh and would be interviewed locally. He asked Clive to fly up there if it looked promising. And the third caller was in Brighton. Nightingale planned to meet him that afternoon, after she attempted to see Oliver Anchor without his mother present.

Before they split up, Fenwick asked Nightingale and Cooper for an update on their progress. Nightingale told him about her interrupted interview with Maidment and her suspicion that he would try and contact the man he was covering for as soon as he could.

‘Bob’s organised twenty-four-hour surveillance on him, which will continue when he leaves hospital, and I’d like a tap on his home phone.’

‘We should be able to have that approved with what we’ve got on him.’ Fenwick made a note to himself to authorise the request.

‘How about one for the hospital too?’ Nightingale asked hopefully. ‘If he’s really wound up he may not wait until he’s home.’

‘I’ll do my best but it’s difficult in a public place, you know that. Will you see him again today?’

‘If I can once I’ve been out to the Anchor place. Oliver left me a message last night. I think the television coverage got to him.’

‘Good. If you need to, you can mention that others have come forward; it might help him to know he isn’t alone.’ Conscious of the advice he’d been given he added. ‘Should you handle the interview yourself or do you need expert help?’

‘I’ll be fine. I had special training when I was on attachment to Brighton. Besides, I think I’ve built up a rapport with him.’

It was Cooper’s turn to run through his interviews from the day before.

‘Six down, three to go,’ he said. ‘One’s on holiday, two haven’t returned my calls. I’ve rung them back and will chase up today. Of the six I met with only Adrian Bush – or Bushy as he insisted I call him – knew the major. He was glad we’d dropped the murder charge; said he couldn’t see the major murdering anyone, especially not a child. When I asked him if Maidment would cover up for a friend, he went a bit quiet but said he still couldn’t see it, not for murder.’

‘And you didn’t have the sense that Bush was that friend?’

‘No, definitely not. Moving on?’ Fenwick nodded. ‘Alex Cotton never served with Maidment. He lost an eye in the Falklands and the use of his left arm. He’s pretty bitter but I didn’t pick up any sense of unease from him and judging by his taste in calendars I’d say he’s a hot-blooded hetero.’

‘Vernon Jones, or Jonesy to his mates…’

‘Hang on, you’ve had Bushy, now Jonesy, don’t they believe in using given names in the army?’ Fenwick asked.

‘Oh, it gets better, believe me. Ernest Knight is known as…’

‘Ernie?’ ventured Nightingale.

‘No, Milky, after the Benny Hill character, you know:
“Ernie, drove the fastest milk cart in the West
” – remember him?’ Cooper grinned but both she and Fenwick looked blank. ‘Never mind. Then there’s Patrick Murray, known as,’ he paused theatrically, waiting for a comment.

‘Paddy,’ someone ventured.

‘Nope, Minty to his mates. I tell you, only Alex Cotton has kept to his given name.’

Fenwick glanced anxiously at his watch.

‘Time’s passing. Were there any revelations at all, Bob?’

‘Not really. Cotton is a member of the golf club; Jones knew Taylor and didn’t like him; Murray is a bachelor and a bit prim, if you know what I mean, but that’s hardly grounds for arresting him, not in this day and age.’

‘So who’s left?’

‘Richard Edwards, Ben Thompson and Zach Smart.’

‘Well let me know if there’s anything out of the ordinary. I’m going to see about the phone taps before I go up to London. I’ll be tied up most of the morning but I want you to let me know the moment anything so much as mildly interesting comes up. My mobile will be on.’

Raised eyebrows greeted his remark; Fenwick was notorious for forgetting to keep his phone charged and then blaming others for not being able to reach him.

‘Before you go, sir.’ Nightingale raised a hand to stop him. ‘Your phone conversation with the Well-Wisher. We’re all dying to hear about it. Where did the trace take us to?’

‘A public phone box in Bloomsbury, London. The Met sent out a team straight away but it was empty and the handset clean, so was the surround. They’re following up locally but so far there’s nothing new. It’s a popular area with the homeless so there’s a chance one of them saw something despite the time of the call.’

As he left he heard laughter break out behind him as someone threw something, and another said pointedly, at Cooper, ‘“A bit prim.” What the bloody hell does that mean? Prim! You’ve gone soft you have. It’s all your Doris’s fault.’

‘I’ve not gone bloody soft, you…’

Fenwick walked away briskly with a smile on his face, glad that the spirits of his team had lifted.

When work was assigned after Fenwick left, Nightingale needed a volunteer to cover a couple of hours’ surveillance on Maidment because Stock had an emergency dentist appointment. Cooper, thinking that it would be as good a place as any to eat his lunch and read the paper, volunteered as long as he was relieved by three, because he needed to finish off the last of his interviews. Nightingale agreed at once, relieved that there’d be someone sensible in place until Stock returned. Cooper stopped by the canteen intending to buy a meat pie to top up the low-fat sandwich Doris had insisted on giving him for lunch but was tempted instead by a jumbo sausage roll and a slice of Dundee cake; he reasoned that the latter would be good for him because it contained fruit and nuts and they were healthy. He’d eaten the roll while driving out of Harlden and took the rest of his food with him to a seating area at the end of Maidment’s ward.

After lunch the major was moved back into the main ward and chose to sit in a vinyl-covered armchair to read. Cooper was tempted to read himself and tapped the newspaper in his pocket, but he knew that he’d be asleep within minutes if he did. Instead he drank some water, made himself wait five minutes and then ate his cake. He counted to three hundred in an attempt to stay awake but then had to start pacing the corridor, studying the paintings in an effort to fill his last hour before Stock took over. After less than twenty minutes his back started to ache and he was forced to sit down. At two o’clock the first of the afternoon visitors began to arrive, just as Cooper was losing the battle with his eyelids.

Sarah Hill looked at herself in the mirror and failed to connect in any way with the stranger she saw there. Another woman stared back at her: tall, middle-aged, scrawny-necked, with a lined face and empty eyes. The most you could say about her was that she was smart and wore new shoes. Had Sarah Hill cared about such things she would have noticed that the hair colour she’d chosen the week before was too dark for her now that she was older; that the trouser suit, whilst tailored, emphasised her lack of figure and that the blouse sat askew under the jacket. But she had no mind for such details. In fact she had little mind left at all. What remained was focused entirely on the deed in front of her. Inside the large black leather handbag she had her purse, house keys, folding umbrella and a five-inch kitchen knife.

Cooper just had to find fresh air. If he didn’t he would nod off. The major didn’t look as if he was going anywhere as he was still attached to a drip, happily reading his book, so it was as good a time as any for a stretch. He made a dash for the lift and then walked sharpish outside and round to the right where he’d noticed a wooden bench.

The sunshine and air perked him up immediately and he took a copy of the
Enquirer
from his coat pocket. They were still milking the Hill story. Their ‘exclusive’ with the kid’s poor mum had given them page after page for days and when news was light they’d rehash it to fill a few inside columns. Today’s piece was about Sarah Hill herself: ‘a tragic story of love and loss’. Stock glanced at the headline and started to read the article despite himself.

Her life might have been blighted as the paper said but looking at the ‘then and now’ photos of her he thought she’d probably brought a lot of it on herself. All right, she’d been a bit of a looker when she was young but he reckoned there was a shrew hiding behind that smile. And her eyes gave him the creeps. Although they were startling they were too intense. He closed the paper with a shudder and looked around him. He’d had his five minutes and it was time to get back.

As he reached the hospital entrance a smartly dressed woman, with no taste, crossed in front of him. He angled his body away to avoid being hit by her large handbag and followed her inside. She paused to study the signs and he passed her heading towards the lift but by the time it arrived she’d caught up with him. He leant forward and pressed the button for the third floor. She did the same even though it was already lit up.

The woman was one of those people who stood too close, no respecter of personal space. She made Cooper uncomfortable. He glanced quickly at her profile but there was no need to rush his observations as her eyes were focused in the middle distance. Her lips twitched as if she were muttering silently to herself. It was enough to give you the heebie-jeebies and he took an unconscious step away from her. His movement attracted her attention and she turned to look him full in the face. The shock of recognition took him by surprise. What was Sarah Hill doing here when he’d just read that she had few living relatives or friends?

When the lift doors opened he stood back and allowed her to go first. Something, call it a policeman’s instinct if you like, kept him a discreet distance behind her as she shuffled to the reception desk.

‘Major Maidment, please?’ she said in a voice that was normal enough.

‘Melton Ward over there, love. He’s on the left-hand side about halfway down. He’s a lot better tod…’ The nurse’s voice tailed off as Sarah Hill turned and walked away.

Cooper was concerned now. The
Enquirer
quoted her as saying she blamed the major for her son’s death. Whatever had drawn her to the hospital she wasn’t here to wish him well.

He kept close, cursing the fact that it was just his luck to be on duty when a nutter came in to shout abuse at his suspect. He’d never minded breaking up disturbances but when a woman was involved he found it embarrassing, particularly if they turned out to be stronger than he was.

Mrs Hill was rummaging in her bag as she entered the ward. Cooper put it down to nerves. At the foot of the major’s bed she paused and he looked up.

‘Mrs Hill.’ His voice was calm but Cooper was close enough to see the dread in his eyes. ‘Good afternoon. Do sit d—’

‘Don’t talk to me, you despicable old man.’ Her voice was low but visitors on either side glanced over just the same. ‘You killed my boy but they let you walk free! There’s no justice in this world.’

The words were louder now and a nurse at the far end of the ward started walking towards them.

‘I didn’t kill him, Sarah. You have my word on that.’

‘Liar! My boy’s dead because of you, yet here
you
sit getting the best of care, breathing God’s fresh air. It’s not right!’

‘Sarah.’ The major rose stiffly from his chair, a hand outstretched in entreaty.

‘My Paul’s dead and it’s your fault!’ she screamed. ‘You’re a wicked old man, a pervert and you deserve to die!’

Cooper knew that he had to say something but he hung back, afraid to make matters worse. Instead, he stood on the other side of the bed and said, with what he hoped was authority, ‘Mrs Hill, let’s just calm down, shall we.’

She ignored him, sobbing, trying to catch her breath and speak at the same time. When she looked down into her bag Cooper thought she was searching for a handkerchief. The unexpected sight of five inches of sharpened steel stunned him.

Mrs Hill swung wildly at Maidment, blinded by tears and fury. The blade missed but failure merely drove her forward and the major had nowhere to hide. He was trapped against the chair, a wall behind him, a mad woman in front. He threw himself backwards as far as he could. The knife glanced past his cheek and cut the saline IV drip leading into his arm. He pulled the stand in front of him to deflect the next blow and raised it to push her away. But she swayed to one side, almost onto the bed, and stabbed at his unprotected side. The tip of the knife nicked his arm and slid upwards, catching him again as it sliced towards his shoulder. She pulled back, ready to stab, her whole attention focused on his unprotected neck. Cooper came to life and lunged across the bed, catching her around the waist as she raised her arm to strike. He grabbed her in a bear hug with one arm and tried to reach the knife with his other hand. The major was there at once and prised it from Sarah’s fingers.

‘Call 999,’ Cooper shouted as he managed to cling on to the struggling woman. ‘I’m going to need some help.’