The Sleeping and the Dead (4 page)

‘Do you know what happened to Carl’s parents? I tried to phone the farm last night. The number’s the same but it seems to be some sort of office now. Computers.’

‘Alf, the father, died. We didn’t think he was involved in any way with Carl’s disappearance. He was a grafter but not the sharpest tool in the box. Last time I heard, Sarah
was in one of those old folks’ council bungalows near the river. I presume she’s still alive. She’s one of those women you imagine would go on for ever. She’ll be a good age
now.’

‘And Reeves?’

‘Funnily enough he left the town soon after the investigation was wrapped up.’ His voice, which was heavy with sarcasm, turned to a quiet desperation. ‘To work as a care
assistant in a children’s home. I should have told someone. Said something. But he hadn’t been charged and he had a lot of powerful friends. I really didn’t think anyone would
take any notice.’

‘Do you remember where he went?’

‘I don’t think I ever knew. Look, I can’t tell you if that body in the lake was Carl’s, but if it was, I can tell you who killed him and I’m glad I’ll be
there to see him go down.’

‘There’s nothing we can do until we’ve checked the dental records. That’s happening this morning.’

‘I’d like to talk to Sarah. Now. While we’ve got an element of surprise.’

Porteous had never seen Eddie Stout like this. He was usually the one in the team to caution detachment: ‘We don’t get paid to act as judges,’ he’d say.
‘That’s for God and the chaps with the hairy wigs.’

‘She’ll surely have heard about the body in the lake.’

‘But no details. Not that we’re calling it murder.’

Porteous wanted to say no. If he didn’t feel he owed Eddie, he’d have refused immediately.

Eddie sensed the hesitation. ‘If it is Carl it would give us a head start. Let me see what she’s got to say for herself. You’re right. Of course she’ll have heard about
the body in the lake. She might give something away. And I want to find out what happened to Alec Reeves. If he’s still working with children I want to know about it. Things are different
these days.’

God, thought Porteous, suddenly feeling very tired, I haven’t been that passionate about anything in years. He sensed that Stout wouldn’t let it go and couldn’t face a
confrontation. He shrugged.

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘But I’m coming with you.’

Stout drove. There was no air-conditioning in the car and even with the windows down Porteous felt sticky, slightly light-headed in the heat. The bungalows were grouped around a square of grass
which was brown through lack of water. Two old men in white hats stood chatting and broke off their conversation when Stout knocked on the door.

Porteous had worked out that Sarah Jackson must be at least eighty, but she opened the door to them herself, and she recognized Stout immediately.

‘Oh, it’s you.’ She had an underbite and a way of thrusting her jaw forwards to emphasize it. She was skinny and short and the mannerism gave her the air of an aggressive
child. A cotton floral dress added to the impression. ‘You might as well come in.’

She led them into a small room packed with shabby furniture which must have come from the farm.

‘I heard you sold up after Alf died,’ Stout said.

‘I could hardly work the place on my own.’

‘Good timing, just before the bottom fell out of hill farming. You were lucky.’

She glared at him. ‘You make your own luck in this world.’

Porteous had the impression that this was a continuation of the sparring which had gone on twenty years before. He sat on a fireside chair that had been covered in pink stretch nylon, and
watched.

‘I hear there’s a computer business in the old house now,’ Stout said. He was still standing, looking out of the window.

‘Is that what it was about?’ She hardly seemed interested. ‘I suppose there would be plenty of space.’

‘You don’t miss the place?’ Stout persisted.

‘It was never the same after Carl went.’

‘No,’ Porteous interrupted. He could feel Stout’s anger across the room. ‘It can’t have been.’

She sniffed, slightly mollified, and perched on the edge of an overstuffed chesterfield.

‘What do you want?’

‘You’ll have heard we found a body in Cranford Water?’

‘That’s nothing to do with me.’

‘Why are you so certain it’s not Carl in the lake?’

‘Because he just wandered off. It was the sort of thing he did. I told the social workers he couldn’t take in what you said to him. And it wasn’t because he couldn’t
hear. Even with his deaf aid he had his head in the clouds. And he couldn’t have walked that far without anyone seeing him. Where did you find the body? Near the Adventure Centre.
That’s the opposite side of the lake from the farm. A twenty-mile walk. At least. You lot were out searching before he could have made it. And, before you ask, he couldn’t swim. Or row
a boat.’

She spoke with confidence. It was a well-rehearsed speech.

‘Someone could always have driven him in a car,’ Stout said softly.

‘Which someone are we talking about now?’

‘Alec had a car, didn’t he? A Morris 1100. Navy blue. It was his pride and joy as I remember.’

‘I wondered how long it would be before you got round to Alec.’ She was contemptuous, turning her back on Stout and directing the rest of the conversation at Porteous. ‘My
little brother was hounded out of the town by your man, just when I needed his support the most. It was rumours at first. Gossip. Snide, like a lassie. Don’t trust Alec Reeves with your
children. Then he went to his boss and accused Alec of taking our Carl. As if he would. He was good to the boy, more patient than me or Alf could ever be. He took him for treats, things we never
had the time or the money to give him. The pictures on Saturday afternoons, picnics in the hills . . .’

She wiped the corner of her eye with an embroidered handkerchief. Porteous, who was looking closely, could see no tears.

‘Please don’t distress yourself,’ he said. ‘We thought you’d rather we came ourselves to tell you what was happening. My people are checking the dental records now
– we know that Carl saw a dentist while he was at the day centre. The records are still available. You shouldn’t have long to wait. We’ll have a positive identification by this
afternoon.’

Sarah Jackson was so angry that she seemed not to care. ‘That’s all very well,’ she cried. ‘But you shouldn’t have brought that man here. It wasn’t tactful.
It wasn’t right.’

She stood up as if she expected them to leave but Porteous stayed where he was.

‘What happened to Alec when he left Cranford, Mrs Jackson?’

‘He did well for himself. Better than if he’d stayed here.’

‘Oh?’

‘He got a job in a home for kiddies. They sent him away to college.’ She was as proud as if she’d been talking about her own son.

‘Is he still there?’

‘He retired. I thought he might come home then. We’d been so close, him and me. Our parents died when he was still at school. I brought him up. But he couldn’t face it after
what happened before. All those lies. He bought a bungalow in the Pennines not far from the school. I visit when I can. I’ll go again when it’s not so hot.’

‘Whereabouts in the Pennines?’

‘What’s it to you? I’ll not have him harassed.’ She walked towards the door and threw it open. ‘I’m an old woman. I need my peace. I’ve nothing more to
say to you.’

They walked out into the glare of the sunshine. ‘I’ll be in touch this afternoon,’ Porteous said, ‘when we’ve heard back from the dentist.’ But she had
already shut the door on them.

They were in the station, walking up the stairs towards Porteous’s office, when they heard footsteps running up behind them. It was Claire Wright, a young DC, flushed, excited, out of
breath so she could hardly speak.

‘We’ve got a match.’ She bent double, gasping.

‘You look as if you’ve just won the Great North Run.’ Porteous forced himself to stay calm, to keep his voice light.

‘Who?’ demanded Stout. When she did not reply immediately he added, almost in a whisper, ‘Is it Carl Jackson?’

By then she had caught her breath. ‘Nah, nothing like. It’s the lad called Michael Grey.’

‘Ah.’ Porteous continued up the stairs, unlocked his door and flicked the kettle on. He waited for Stout to follow.

Stout stood in the doorway of Porteous’s office.

‘You don’t seem surprised.’

‘Not too surprised, no,’ Porteous said. ‘You were right about Sarah Jackson. She does know what happened to her son. But when we talked about the body in the lake she
wasn’t bothered, hardly interested. She knew it wasn’t him.’

He made a mug of tea for Eddie, strong, as he knew he liked it, and waved it at him to invite him in. ‘We’ll have to save Carl for another day.’ The words sounded unbelievably
trite. ‘I’m sorry, Eddie, I mean it. Now we have to concentrate on Michael Grey, find out everything there is to know about him.’

Porteous could tell the man’s mind and heart weren’t really in it. He was still thinking about the deaf boy everyone had labelled as dumb. When this investigation was over he’d
give Eddie his head for a few weeks, let him dig around for a bit. Even if nothing came of it he deserved that much.

Soon it became clear they would find out very little about Michael Grey. Not immediately at least. At first Porteous had thought it would be easy. A piece of piss, he said to himself, though not
to Eddie who disapproved of such language. Michael Grey had been fostered to a couple called Brice. Fostering meant Social Services and that meant records as long as your arm – reports for
the court, case conferences, personal records kept to cover the back of whichever poor social worker had been in charge of him. There would be details of the natural family at least and of any
contact between them and the boy. Michael hadn’t been adopted, so he would still have been officially in care when he disappeared. Some attempt would have been made to trace him.

He sent Eddie to talk to the solicitor who’d triggered the first missing-person report after the foster parents’ death. ‘Find out who benefited from the will in the absence of
the boy. Did anyone? Is the cash still being held in trust for him? What happens to it now?’

Stout slunk away like a sulky teenager. As soon as he had gone Porteous made an appointment with the senior social worker on duty at the town hall. The man was prepared to see him at once. The
town hall was in the same street and of the same design as the police station – redbrick Victorian Gothic – though it had a depressing concrete and glass extension at the back, where
the Social Services department was housed. A small middle-aged man named Jones met Porteous at reception and led him upstairs. They left behind them the screams of an elderly woman, demanding to
see her social worker, and the increasingly irate reply of the receptionist who said she would have to wait.

They sat in a cubby-hole looking out on a busy open-plan office where one of the phones always seemed to be ringing. Jones was tidy, with a few wisps of hair combed over a balding pate. He was
apologetic. ‘After you phoned I checked our records. I like to think we’re efficient in that department. But we’ve no details of a couple called Brice being registered as foster
parents. Nothing at all. No application form, no record of training.’

‘Would you still have the file after all this time?’

‘Oh yes. We go back thirty years. Longer. Child protection, you see. It’s important to know who’s been looking after our children.’

‘Could the Brices have been working for someone else? A charity, perhaps? Another authority?’

‘That’s what I thought!’ He seemed impressed that Porteous had been thinking along the same lines. ‘But I’ve phoned around and I can’t find anyone else in the
field who’s heard of them. I’m not saying it’s impossible that they were registered with another agency, but – if it doesn’t sound too big-headed – my contacts
are second to none. I’d certainly say it’s unlikely.’

‘You’ll have a record, though, of Michael Grey?’

‘No.’ The man closed his mouth firmly, allowing no question. He sat back in his chair and clasped his hands round his small paunch. He seemed to be delighted by the mystery, and by
Porteous’s discomfort.

‘But I gave you his date of birth. We found it in the dental records.’ Porteous could tell he was sounding desperate. That’ll teach me, he thought. A piece of piss.

‘It doesn’t help, I’m afraid. I’ve phoned the court. They keep their own records. No care or supervision order was placed on anyone called Michael Grey in the seventies
anywhere in the county.’ He paused, savouring the moment. ‘Social Services were never involved with him either.’

‘But they must have been.’

‘Not necessarily.’ Jones leaned forward, but didn’t elaborate.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘How old was he?’ The tone was patronizing. An infant teacher talking to a particularly thick six-year-old. Just what I deserve, Porteous thought.

‘When we think he went missing? Eighteen.’

‘There you are then.’ Jones leaned back in the chair once more and smirked. ‘Over sixteen and we wouldn’t get involved. He could have been younger than that when he
started living with the foster parents, if it was an informal arrangement.’

‘Perhaps you would explain.’ Porteous had never minded eating humble pie. It was surprising how people liked you to grovel. The social worker was loving it.

‘Let’s take a hypothetical situation. Something we come across all the time. Say there’s a single mum with a teenage lad. He starts to run a bit wild. Perhaps it’s
nothing that would get him in trouble with the police, but he’s staying out late, skipping school. She begins to feel she’s losing control. Now, it could be that the boy has a good
relationship with her parents and they offer to have him to live with them for a while. To take the heat off her until things calm down. That would be fostering of a sort, wouldn’t it?
Nothing official. No need for Social Services to be involved even if the lad were under sixteen. In fact that’s usually the last thing a family under stress wants. A nosy cow from the Welfare
knocking on the door.’