Slow Burning Lies (26 page)

Patrick heard the Sandman leave the room, then a drawer opening and closing. He returned a few minutes later with a folder and a pair of glasses.

‘This is a small amount of the case history,’ he said. ‘Of course very little has been produced on hardcopy. But if you don’t believe me after what I’m about to show you, I don’t think you ever will.’

Patrick watched with a dry mouth as the Sandman balanced the glasses on the end of his nose and opened the folder. He sifted through the few pieces of paper of various sizes and shapes before settling on a photo cut out of a newspaper.

‘Here,’ the Sandman said. ‘This would be the best place to start.’ He held it up to Patrick.

Patrick saw a small, frightened boy being escorted by two uniformed officers, each towering above him. ‘What the…? It’s Declan.’

‘Correct. It is. Now please read out the caption below the photo.’

Patrick scanned the faded text instantly. ‘Declan O’Halloran, the Manchester boy charged with four counts of… murder? Oh, Jesus!’ Patrick gulped and looked to the Sandman.

‘Under the circumstances I’ll allow you that curse.’

‘Never mind that,’ Patrick said. ‘Just fucking tell me!’

The Sandman let out a sigh, then tutted. ‘Oh, dear. You want me to tell you but you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head.’ He looked around the room. ‘Now where did I put that duct tape?’

He left, then reappeared with a look of glee. And holding up Patrick’s coat. ‘Yours, I take it?’

Patrick’s eyes grew wild and energized as the Sandman started searching the pockets.

He found the bottle.

Oh, Jesus, no. The bottle.

The Sandman held it up in front of Patrick’s face and gave it a shake. A froth formed inside and instantly subsided.

‘Lookie what Mister Sandman’s found.’

Patrick took a painful gulp.

48

The Sandman shook the bottle once more. ‘Are you a Sprite or a Seven-up man?’

‘Am I
what
?’

The Sandman tapped a finger on the bottle. ‘What’s your poison of preference? I prefer a well-rounded Chablis, personally.’

Patrick’s pulse came down a little.

‘Whatever it is,’ the Sandman said, grasping the lid, ‘you must be a thirsty boy by now.’

‘No!’ Patrick shouted, before recovering some composure. ‘No. I’m… I’m not thirsty.’

The Sandman shrugged. ‘Your choice. Just trying to offer you a final request.’ He placed Patrick’s coat and the bottle on the floor. Then he picked up the newspaper cuttings, thought for a moment, and placed them back into the folder. ‘If you don’t mind I’ll just tell it as I know it. If there’s anything you have doubts about we can refer back to the newspaper cuttings and psychological reports and so on.’ He put his glasses away and cleared his throat.

‘Declan O’Halloran was a perfectly ordinary boy. As far as interviews with those concerned and psychological profiling tests can ascertain he was born to loving, caring parents in a lower middle class suburb of Manchester, England in 1984. He attended playschool and subsequently a conventional state school and was a singularly average young boy – and I don’t mean that in any derogatory sense, you understand.’

‘I know all that,’ Patrick said. ‘I was there.’

‘Yes, of course you were. Anyway, he meandered through those early school years in a similar fashion, was bright without being outstanding, and enjoyed the benefits of a stable family environment. His father was a senior technician at an Engineering company and his mother was a secretary for a stationery firm – part-time so she could take Declan to and from school. Most of their time and efforts revolved around what was best for Declan, giving him love and… and…’

There the Sandman’s voice wavered.

‘And what?’ Patrick said. ‘What is it?’

The Sandman exhaled sharply, glanced down to the floor and coughed to regain composure, then continued.

‘You know, so many children simply never appreciate the sacrifices their parents make for them – how much thought and care goes into ensuring they develop into happy and successful adults that thrive in the big bad world.’ He looked up and gave his head a little shake. ‘Please pardon my digression. I’ll continue. When Declan was ten, a small boy in the neighbourhood went missing. His name was Gary and he was four years old. The case made the national newspapers and triggered a veritable army of volunteers to search for the missing boy. It seemed that half of Manchester – including Declan’s father – combed the streets of that part of the city, including parks, gardens and house-to-house searches of those with a criminal history.’

‘Almost two weeks later, when the search had started to wind down and it was no longer front page news, Gary’s pathetic naked body floated to the surface of a nearby stretch of canal. The close-knit community was devastated and children were in effect confined to their homes until the perpetrator was found. The tension heightened even more when details of Gary’s body started to emerge. Although the cause of his death was drowning, the poor boy’s head was badly charred; it had been set alight while he was still alive. What with the body being underwater for all that time it was difficult for forensics to be certain, but the most likely accelerant was thought to be cigarette lighter fuel.

Patrick twisted and tugged his head to one side. ‘Oh, no’, he said. ‘You’re not pinning that on Declan. He was a good lad. I’m not going to sit here and—’

‘If I can continue,’ the Sandman said with a raised voice. ‘By the next summer no killer had been found – not even a strong suspect in fact – and the members of the community slowly returned to their routines. Declan was once again allowed to play with his friends out on the local green around the corner from his house – but only on the understanding that he went nowhere else and was home before five o’clock.

‘Then one day he was late – only thirty minutes, but enough to concern his mother so much that she went out looking for him. She looked around the green, found nobody, and was about to phone the police when Declan returned. He was dishevelled, but in one piece. Mother and Father scolded him for breaking the rules, and grounded him.

‘As it turned out, the decision was academic; the very next day a chill descended on the neighbourhood again with the news that another child – a five-year-old girl called Amy, visiting relatives for the day – had gone missing.’

‘No!’ Patrick shouted, nostrils twitching. ‘I know what this is leading up to and it’s not true!’

The Sandman leaned in close to Patrick’s face. ‘Declan’s mother was distraught, and hardly spoke for two days. Her husband initially assumed her behaviour was simply due to shock at Amy’s disappearance, but at the end of those two nights he confronted her. She told him she’d been finding the charred remains of animals while gardening – mainly hedgehogs but also the occasional mouse or pigeon and a stray cat. Declan’s father was incensed, and couldn’t bring himself to believe it until he saw the sickening evidence himself, and even then they both said nothing, neither wanting to suggest what they both suspected.

‘Three days later Amy’s body turned up – found by some ramblers under bushes on a nearby footpath. Her hair, which had been long and blonde and the pride and joy of her parents – now resembled the aftermath of a bushfire, having been burned to a black wiry mess of stubble. Most of her facial features had also been burned off. She was identified by her clothing and dental records. The cause of death was strangulation – meaning the burning had happened while she was still alive.

‘Declan’s mother and father argued over what to do. If they acted on their suspicions and they subsequently turned out to be unfounded… well, the effect on young Declan didn’t bear thinking about. Then Father had an idea. He would take his son out to play football while Mother could search his bedroom. Declan refused to go but was frogmarched out. The only thing Mother found was a gassy smell towards one corner of the room, but nothing incriminating under the bed or in any cupboards. That night Declan’s parents argued some more – into the early hours – of what the evidence was and what any investigation would mean for Declan. Finally, reluctantly, they agreed that the next day they would go to the police and tell them everything they knew, and leave it up to the police to assess the weight of evidence.

‘Unfortunately, Declan was no fool. He’d heard the earlier arguments and made a point of slipping out of the bedroom and was calmly sitting at the top of the stairs listening in on the to-ing and fro-ing of the discussion – including its conclusion. He went back to bed – but stayed awake.’

‘You’re talking shit!’ Patrick said. ‘Declan wasn’t like that.’

The Sandman placed a hand on Patrick’s shoulder. ‘Please. One more outburst and I’ll have to get that duct tape.’

Patrick flinched, the straps causing weals on his flesh. ‘Get your hands off me.’

‘As I said, Declan wasn’t asleep, and in the early hours of that morning he crept out onto the landing. He stole into his parents’ bedroom as they slept, then took the key to the door and locked the door from the outside. Then he went back into his bedroom and took the five tins of lighter fluid from under the loose floorboard in the corner of the room. He squirted the liquid liberally around the house and tossed a match onto the floor. He stayed inside the house for as long as he dared, almost enjoying the sensation of his skin getting close to searing point – certainly enjoying the screams and shouts of his parents as they tried to smash the door down and threw a chair through the window in a futile attempt to let some air in.

‘Burned, blistered and sooty, Declan escaped from the house, and for a while was the darling of the media – the poor orphan boy who struggled to get out of the burning building and succeeded in that task where his parents had failed.

‘And it would have stayed that way had his mother – who had been rescued from the blaze – not regained consciousness a few days later after an induced coma. At first the medics assumed her unsavoury version of events was the result of delirium of some sort, but very soon afterwards the fire authorities completed their investigations on the remains of the property and concluded that the fire had been started deliberately using lighter fluid, and also that the parents’ bedroom door had been locked from the outside.’

Patrick launched his head forward, almost touching the old man’s sombre face. ‘Crap! I don’t believe you.’

The Sandman drew back, giving his head a disconsolate shake, then left the room again.

He reappeared with a roll of thick industrial sticky tape.

Patrick threw his head back and shook it from side to side, but the Sandman calmly ripped a section of tape off and slapped it over Patrick’s mouth with little effort.

‘So. Now. Do you want to listen?

Patrick closed his eyes and nodded. He kept his eyes closed for a few moments, and took himself to another place where he and Declan and their mum and dad had a pretty ordinary but idyllic upbringing, and played football together in the park, played cricket on the beach during the summer, watched TV huddled up together on the sofa, and had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings on a Sunday in spite of eating pizzas and burgers and fries during the week.

‘Now I’ll continue,’ the Sandman said. ‘The police also took a keen interest in Declan’s mother’s suspicions regarding the murders of the two children, and took Declan in for questioning. The ten-year-old boy pretty quickly confessed – even down to explaining where he’d gotten the lighter fluid from. Jean-Paul was an elderly man who lived across the road, a retired plumber who had two pleasures left in life. One was tobacco and the other was Meg, his faithful Jack Russell. Declan befriended the man but very soon started demanding lighter fluid. When old Jean-Paul declined, saying it was too dangerous, Declan threatened to set Meg alight, and the old man relented, supplying as many tins as Declan requested.

‘Declan freely admitted all of this, and old Jean-Paul – after initially denying the allegation – confirmed it and broke down, begging for forgiveness. When the story of Jean-Paul’s part in the child murders – albeit a reluctant part – came out six months later, it wasn’t long before some local vigilantes caught and killed Meg in revenge. Jean-Paul took an overdose some time later. When Declan was told all of this all he could say was that Jean-Paul was a stupid man.

‘In fact, Declan admitted pretty much every allegation thrown at him, including the torture and killing of Amy and Gary, the burning of animals in his garden, storing the tins of lighter fluid, locking his parents door and starting the fire. He was so cooperative that the social care people drafted in to act as his legal guardians insisted on some false allegations being planted into the story as a kind of “control”. He calmly denied the false allegations, thus confirming his own guilt.’

Patrick was now squirming constantly, and behind the tape his mouth tugged to open, but the tape held firm.

‘Three weeks later,’ the Sandman continued, ‘Declan’s mother died due to the damage to her lungs, without Declan ever seeing her again. His father had been dragged from the fire but never regained consciousness. And so, after the investigations into the deaths of little Gary and Amy, Declan was charged with four counts of murder. The local community – together with your wonderful tabloid newspapers – were screaming out for the return of the death penalty. Of course, in a country as liberal and soft-hearted as yours it was a futile demand. But long-term imprisonment was inevitable – at least until the boy could be proven to be no longer a danger to society, and also until the story had been well forgotten by the newspaper headline writers.

‘It provoked strong opinions within the government of the day – behind closed doors naturally – but ultimately the decision on what to do with the boy rested with your Home Secretary. In the short term all they did was wait until a battery of psychological tests had been carried out to determine Declan’s state of mind and allow the professionals to advise on the most appropriate method of treatment.

‘Those tests, together with interviews with those he had been closest to for those ten years, provided some interesting facts. He was a perfectly well-balanced and loving child for the first nine of those years. Then something happened. They looked for a trigger of some kind – not necessarily a single event, possibly a repeated reinforcement of some or other morally reprehensible thoughts. They didn’t have to look far. It transpired that Declan had gotten hold of certain adult video games –
Certificate Eighteen
I think is the British term. The games contained many horrific images that the player would be placed in the middle of – sometimes fighting against the perpetrator – and sometimes in his shoes.

‘The medical professionals gave no opinion on whether the video games had been causative or merely coincidental with pre-existing tendencies, and the argument divided the Home Office authorities. They were split into two camps. The doves thought Declan was essentially a good boy that had been perverted by exposure to these images and could – in time – be rehabilitated with love and care. The hawks believed he was singularly evil and should be imprisoned for life. The latter group could also sense votes in the harsh treatment, it being as close as they could get to the death penalty. However, top level government wasn’t having any of this squabbling, and decreed there was no way Declan would be kept incarcerated for his entire life, that he should undergo therapy for the next eight years then be reassessed.