Guilty One Page 4

‘If you can, point out to me where you were climbing,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sebastian whimpered. ‘I want my mum …’

  Daniel exhaled and placed the palm of his hand gently on to the table. ‘It’s clear my client wants his mother to be asked back.’

  ‘She agreed to step out to let us talk to him without her.’

  ‘He’s entitled to have his mum here if he wants her to be. Unless she comes back in, he won’t be answering any more questions.’

  The interview was paused while an officer went to fetch Sebastian’s mother. Daniel stepped out to use the bathroom, and the sergeant joined him in the corridor. ‘Look, son, I know you have a job to do, but we both know what the score is here. I won’t tell you your job. I know you want to show him in the best light – get the best angle on whatever he did – but the kid wants to tell the truth. He’s a little boy and he wants to tell the truth about what he did – you have to let him. He did it; he just has to say he did it. You didn’t see that little battered body in the flesh, I did. You didn’t have to console the …’

  ‘Can I stop you right there? Bring his mum in and then we can continue questioning. If it means all this takes longer then it’s just going to have to take longer.’

  ‘The super has just agreed to another twelve hours.’

  Daniel nodded and put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘That’ll take us to four a.m. on Tuesday, but we’re also applying to the magistrates’ court for more time. We have all the time in the world, you mark my words on that.’

  Daniel entered the interview room and turned another leaf in his pad. The eye of the camera stared at them from the corner of the room.

  ‘They’re sendin’ your mum in.’

  ‘Did you tell them off? You’re a good lawyer, I think.’

  ‘You’ve got a right to see your mum if you want to. My job is to make sure you know your rights.’

  Charlotte’s perfume assumed the room before she did. She sat on the other side of Sergeant Turner. Daniel felt sure she had been asked to sit apart from her son and to keep quiet.

  As the sergeant continued to question Sebastian she said nothing, seldom even looking at him. She fixed her attention on her bracelet and then her skirt and then her cuticles and then Daniel. He felt her watching as he noted down the sergeant’s questions and Sebastian’s taciturn replies.

  Sergeant Turner crossed out something on his own notepad and underlined something else. ‘Right. Let’s get back to where we were. Let’s go back to the adventure playground. Tell me again about the argument you were having with Ben.’

  ‘I told you already,’ said Sebastian, his lower teeth showing again. ‘It wasn’t an argument; it was a discussion. I said I wanted to go home, but he didn’t want me to.’

  ‘Tell me again about your discussion.’

  Daniel nodded at Sebastian, to urge him to answer the questions. He wanted the boy to calm down. Losing his temper made him seem guilty, and Daniel didn’t want him to incriminate himself. Like the police, he too wondered about the boy’s sudden temper, yet he wanted Sebastian to remain consistent in his story. Daniel decided to ask for a break if the boy became more upset.

  ‘We climbed up the tyres right to the very top of the wooden climbing frame,’ Sebastian continued. ‘It’s really high up there. I was getting tired and I was thinking about my mum and her headache. I said I wanted to go home, but Ben didn’t want me to. He tried to make me stay out. Then he got annoyed and he was shoving me and I told him to stop it.’

  ‘He was shoving you?’

  ‘Yes, he wanted me to stay out and play.’

  ‘Did that annoy you when he pushed you? Did you push him back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you maybe push him off the climbing frame?’

  ‘You had your answer, Sergeant,’ said Daniel, his voice sounding loud in the small interview room.

  ‘I didn’t push him off, but Ben said he was going to jump. He wanted to impress me, you see. I was going home and he wanted me to stay and watch him jump.’

  ‘Ben was a little boy, not a big boy like you. You were really high up. You sure he decided to jump?’

  ‘Where are we going with this, Sergeant?’ said Daniel.

  The sergeant cleared his throat and put down his pen.

  ‘Is that what really happened, Sebastian?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ He was petulant now, slumped in the chair.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t push him off? Did you push him off and then maybe start fighting with him?’

  ‘No!’ Again rage seemed to flash in the boy’s lips and cheeks.

  ‘Are you getting angry, Seb?’

  Sebastian folded his arms and narrowed his eyes.

  ‘Are you angry at me because I figured it out? Did you push Ben down?’

  ‘I never.’

  ‘Sometimes, when people get angry, it’s because they’re trying to cover something up. Do you understand?’

  Sebastian slid off his chair and dropped to the ground suddenly. He lay on his back on the interview-room floor and started to scream. It made Daniel jump. Sebastian cried and wailed and when he turned his face towards Daniel, it was contorted and streaked with tears.

  ‘I didn’t push him. I didn’t push him.’

  ‘How do you think he got down there then?’

  ‘I don’t know, I didn’t hurt him. I … I didn’t … ’ Sebastian’s screams were so sharp that Turner put a hand to his ear.

  It was a few moments before Daniel realised that his mouth was open, staring at the boy. He felt suddenly very cold in the airless room – out of his depth, despite his experience.

  Turner paused the interview so that Sebastian could compose himself. Charlotte approached her son gingerly, her elbows sticking out. The boy’s face was red with rage and streaked with tears.

  ‘Darling, please,’ said Charlotte, her nails hovering above her son. Her hands were red, the capillaries showing, and her fingers trembled. ‘Darling, what on earth? Please can you calm down? Mummy doesn’t like to see you so upset. Please don’t let yourself get so upset.’

  Daniel wanted to run, to lengthen his muscles and dispel the taut screams of the boy and the cramped solemnity of the interrogation room. He went to the gents again and splashed cold water on to his face and studied himself in the small mirror, leaning on the sink.

  He wanted to give the case up, not because of what it was but because of what it promised to be. He guessed from the way the police were hounding Sebastian that they had some positive results from the lab. If the boy was charged, the media would be all over it. Daniel didn’t feel ready. A year ago he had taken on a juvenile case – a boy accused of shooting another gang member. It had gone to the Old Bailey and the boy had been sent down. He had been a vulnerable client, softly spoken with bitten-down nails. Even now Daniel hated to think of him being inside. And now here was another child about to enter the system, only he was even younger.

  Daniel was standing at the front desk when the detective superintendent came up and took him by the elbow. He was a tall man, heavy set, with grey cropped hair and despairing hazel eyes.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, slapping Daniel on the shoulder. ‘We all feel it.’

  ‘M’all right,’ he said. His breaths were there in his throat, like butterflies. He coughed as they escaped him.

  ‘Are you a Geordie?’

  Daniel nodded. ‘You?’

  ‘Hull. Can’t tell with you sometimes, yer accent’s got London through it, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Been here a while.’

  Sergeant Turner said that Superintendent McCrum wanted to see Daniel. He was shown into the office, which was cramped and dark, the light of the day splashing down from a small window above.

  ‘Bit tense in there,’ said the Superintendent as he came into the room.

  Daniel didn’t mean to sigh, but when McCrum heard it, he laughed quietly in acknowledgement.

  ‘All we go t
hrough, but still we’re not used to this.’

  Daniel coughed and nodded. For the first time he felt an affinity with the man.

  ‘The hardest thing I ever had to do. Watch that poor woman when she saw that little ’un – murdered in that way. Hard … Do you have children, Daniel?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I have two. Doesn’t bloody bear thinkin’ about, does it?’

  ‘The situation …’

  ‘The situation has changed. We’re probably going to charge him with little Ben’s murder.’

  ‘On what grounds? From what I have—’

  ‘He was witnessed fighting Ben, and we found him dead the next morning. We now have an oral report from forensics confirming little Ben’s blood on Sebastian’s shoes and clothes that were taken from the house. We’ll be asking him about this over the next few hours. We’ll be applying to a magistrate for more time if we don’t get a confession by two. We got the warrant for the family home this morning and the forensics team are still there … Who knows what else they’ll throw up?’

  ‘What about the CCTV footage?’

  ‘We’re still going through it.’

  4

  Daniel got up in the morning, dressed and went downstairs. Minnie was not there and he hung around in the kitchen for a few moments wondering what to do. He had not really slept. He had not returned the china butterfly when he brushed his teeth. He had hidden it in the room. He had decided that he was never going to give it back. He wanted to keep it only because she wanted him to return it. He didn’t even know why he had picked it up, but now it had value to him.

  ‘There you are, pet. You hungry?’

  She was dragging a pail of animal feed into the hall.

  ‘I’ll make us some porridge and then I’ll show you round. Show you your jobs. We all have jobs to do around here.’

  Daniel frowned at her. She talked as if she had a large family, but it was only her and the animals.

  Minnie made porridge and cleared a space on the table so they could eat. She made a strange sound when she was eating, as if she was breathing it in. After she swallowed, she would make a tutting sound in appreciation of the taste. The noise distracted Daniel and so she finished first.

  ‘There’s more if you want it, pet.’

  Again, he said that he was full.

  ‘Fine then. Let’s go to it. You don’t have wellies, do you?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It’s all right, I have pretty much all sizes. Come on.’

  Outside, she opened the shed and he stepped inside. It smelled of damp earth. Along one wall was a row of rubber boots, large and small, just as she had said. There were ten or twelve pairs in all. Some were baby-sized and then there was a pair of giant, man-sized, green wellington boots.

  ‘Are these all the kids you’ve taken in?’ he asked, as he tried a pair on.

  ‘And then some,’ she said, bending over to tidy up one or two that had fallen on their sides. When she bent over, her skirt rode up at the back to expose her white calves.

  ‘How long have you been fostering then?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, love. Must be more than ten years now.’

  ‘D’you get sad when the kids leave?’

  ‘Not if they’re going to happy places. One or two’ve got adopted by nice families.’

  ‘Sometimes you get to go back to yer mam, though …’

  ‘That’s right. Sometimes, if it’s for the best.’

  His boots were a little too big, but they would do. He followed Minnie as she entered the chicken run and then the shed at the top. The inside smelled of pee. Birds clucked at his feet and he thought of kicking them away, as he did with pigeons in the park, but he stopped himself.

  ‘I look after Hector,’ she said. ‘He’s old and he can be a bit bad-tempered. I do him as soon as I get up. Your job is to feed the chickens and to look for eggs. It’s the most important job here.

  Hector’s there just ’cause I love ’im, but I make money from the chickens. I’ll show you how to feed them and then we can look for eggs. It’s easy, you’ll catch on and then you can do that every morning before school. That’ll be your job.’

  The run stretched back for fifty yards. Some of it was covered, but then the rest was open. Daniel watched her as she took handfuls of feed and sprinkled it along the run. She told him to try and so he copied her, scattering the feed.

  ‘That’s corn,’ she said. ‘The farmer two over gives it to me for a box of eggs. Not too much of it, mind. One or two handfuls is enough. They get the kitchen scraps and then there’s the grass and weeds that they like too. How many do we have here, do you think?’

  ‘ ’Bout forty,’ he said.

  She turned and looked at Daniel in a strange way, her mouth open a little.

  ‘Well done, smarty-pants. We have thirty-nine. How could you tell that?’

  ‘Looks to be that many.’

  ‘All right, now while they’re busy eating, we go and look for the eggs. Take this …’ She handed Daniel a cardboard tray. ‘You can see where they’ve been sitting,’ she said. ‘See? Look, I got one here. Lovely big one that is.’

  Daniel didn’t like the farm and her house, but he found that he liked this task. He felt a brisk thump of joy as he searched for and found the eggs. They were dirty, splattered with hen shit and stuck with feathers, but he liked the eggs. He didn’t want to break them, as he wanted to break the porcelain butterfly and kick the chickens. He kept one, secreting it inside his pocket. It was a small brown one, and he felt it still warm.

  When they were finished, they counted the eggs. There were twenty-six. Minnie started to move about the yard, preparing Hector’s feed and talking to the chickens that clucked around her ankles. There was a fork against the wall and Daniel picked it up. It was almost too heavy for him, but he lifted it above his head like a weightlifter. It fell to the side.

  ‘Careful, love,’ she said.

  Daniel bent and picked it up again. She was bent over, her massive skirted bottom in the air. Holding the fork near his head, he stepped forward and pricked her on the backside with it.

  ‘Here,’ she said, standing up suddenly. ‘Put-that-down.’ Her accent was funny, especially when she said words like ‘down’.

  Daniel grinned back at her and wielded the fork, taking one step towards her and then another, the tip of the fork raised towards her face. Again, she didn’t back away from him.

  Daniel felt a sudden jolt as his pelvis was smacked into his spinal column. He dropped the fork and then it came again. The goat rammed him a second time in the lower back and he went forward, falling on top of the fork, face into the mud. He got up right away and spun around, fists tight and ready for a fight. The goat lowered his head, so that Daniel could see the fine brown horns.

  ‘No, Danny,’ she said, taking him by the elbow and pulling him back. ‘Don’t! He’ll go through you like you wouldn’t believe. The old goat’s got a soft spot for me. He wouldn’t have liked what you did there. Just leave him, now. You get gored with one of those horns and that’ll be the end of you.’

  Daniel allowed himself to be pulled away. He walked towards the house, moving sideways so that he was facing the goat. As he reached the doorstep, he stuck his tongue out at Hector. The goat charged again and Daniel ran into the house.

  Minnie told Daniel to get washed and get ready to go out. He did as she asked, while she stood in the kitchen, washing the eggs and repacking them.

  He washed his face in the bathroom and brushed his teeth, then crept to his bedroom. The egg was still whole in his pocket and he put it in the drawer by his bedside. He sat it on a glove and placed three socks around it, like a nest, to warm it, closed the drawer and was about to start downstairs, when, as an afterthought, he went back into the room and took his mother’s necklace from under his pillow and placed that in the nest too, right beside the egg. He checked his back and buttocks for scratches from the goat’s horns. He had grazes on both pa
lms from when he fell.

  Minnie was winding a pink woollen scarf around her neck. She was still wearing the same grey skirt and boots that she had worn the day before. On top of her long cardigan, she put on a green coat. It was too tight for her to button up, and so she went out like that, with it open and the pink scarf swinging.

  Minnie said they were going to register Daniel at the local school and then they would buy him some new school clothes.

  ‘We’ll walk,’ she said, as they passed her car. It was a dark red Renault with spiders’ webs strung across the right-hand wing mirror. ‘Need to show you the way to school anyway, don’t I?’

  Daniel shrugged and followed her.

  ‘I hate school,’ he told her. ‘I’ll only get kicked out. I always get kicked out.’

  ‘Well, if you have that attitude, I’m not surprised.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Think positively. If you do, you might just be surprised.’

  ‘Like think about me mam getting better and then she will?’

  Minnie didn’t say anything. He was a pace behind her.

  ‘I wished that for years anyway and it never ’appened.’

  ‘Being positive’s different to wishing. What you’re talking about is just wishing.’

  It was fifty feet from her house before they reached a proper path. Minnie told him it was a twenty-minute walk to school.

  First they walked through estates, then a park, then a field with cows in it. As they walked, Minnie told Daniel about Brampton, although he told her he didn’t care. He wouldn’t be staying long.

  Brampton was just two miles south of Hadrian’s Wall, she told him. When he said he had never heard of the wall, she said she would take him one day. It was ten miles to Carlisle and fifty-five miles to Newcastle.

  Fifty-five miles, Daniel thought as he walked behind her.

  ‘You all right there, pet?’ she asked. ‘You’re looking right down in the mouth today.’

  ‘M’all right.’

  ‘What is it you like to do? Not used to boys, so I’m not. You’ll need to keep me up to date. What is it you like, eh? Football?’

  ‘I dunno,’ he said.

  They passed the park and Daniel turned to look at the swings. There was a heavy-set man alone on one of them, letting his foot gently rock him.