Lulu checked the HOLMES files on one of their original suspects, Jack Butler, but there were no details of his parents. There was an address of a flat in Wandsworth. She remembered seeing Butler there, early on in the investigation. She was a consultant at the time, but the DNA evidence had been a major breakthrough and she wanted to do the initial interview herself. DNA had been found under the fingernail of the third victim – William Eccles – and it was an exact match with Butler’s. Lulu had gone with Phil, arriving at Butler’s doorstep at seven o’clock in the morning to get Butler out of bed.
Butler had shared the flat with two other young men, both of whom had been able to provide alibis for the time that William Eccles had been killed. Butler had refused to cooperate and they had taken him in for questioning. As part of the interview process he had been asked to supply details of his next of kin and he had refused. In fact he had refused to cooperate in any way, and other than to ask for a lawyer he would say only ‘No comment’.
Lulu had assumed that the DNA would be conclusive, but the Crown Prosecution Service was reluctant to take the case to trial with just that. They wanted more – at the very least a motive and evidence that Butler had been in the vicinity of the dumped bodies. The interview had been fruitless, and not long after that Butler had been killed in his cab.
There was a copy of Butler’s driving licence on HOLMES, using the Wandsworth address. It was a simple matter for Lulu to get Butler’s birth certificate. Born in Croydon Hospital. A healthy eight and a half pounds. Father Reginald Butler, mother Anne. Maiden name Butterworth.
She checked the electoral roll but while there were plenty of Butlers there were none called Reginald or Anne. She used her mobile phone to access Google and did a search for Reginald and Anne Butler. Nothing came up.
She put down her mobile and looked over at Phil, who was talking earnestly into his phone, his head down and his left hand pressed against his forehead. It looked as if she had drawn a blank with Jack Butler and she was out of options. She decided to have a go at Gordon Wallace. She tapped his name into HOLMES and flicked through the files. She and Phil had interviewed him twice after ANPR cameras had spotted his van in the vicinity of two of the disposal sites on the days that the bodies were dumped. Like Butler, he had refused to say anything other than ‘No comment’. But he had been more forthcoming with his personal details and his next of kin were listed as Eric and Beverley Reeves. Lulu frowned as she read the names. Why the different surname? An uncle and aunt, maybe. There was an address in Ealing but no phone number. She called directory enquiries and they had a listing for the address. Lulu smiled. Finally things were going her way. She rang the number and a woman answered, but Lulu could tell from her voice that she was far too young to be Wallace’s mother.
‘I’m trying to contact Mrs Beverley Reeves,’ said Lulu.
‘Who’s calling?’ asked the woman.
‘My name is Lulu Lewis. You’re not Mrs Reeves, are you?’
‘I’m afraid Mrs Reeves died several years ago.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Is Mr Reeves there?’
‘Can you tell me what it’s about, please?’
‘Mr and Mrs Reeves are shown as the next of kin of a Mr Gordon Wallace and I’m just trying to ascertain the nature of their relationship, their surnames being different and all.’
‘Mrs Lewis, I’m afraid that Mr Reeves isn’t really up to answering questions. I’m one of his care workers – we pop in three times a day to make sure he’s okay. He has dementia and is very forgetful. It’s got worse since his wife passed away and he’ll probably be in a home fairly soon.’
‘Oh, that’s a pity,’ said Lulu. ‘But could you ask him if he remembers Gordon Wallace?’
‘I’ll try, but really, he barely remembers if he’s been to the toilet.’ The woman put the phone down. Lulu smiled at Conrad as the seconds ticked by. He was sitting on the chair next to her and had been reading the HOLMES data with her.
Eventually the woman came back on the line. ‘I’m really sorry, but Mr Reeves doesn’t even know who I am today.’
‘Could I try again tomorrow, maybe?’
‘You can, of course, but I can’t promise that he’ll be any more coherent. He’s definitely getting worse. You say it’s a next-of-kin thing?’
‘Yes, Mr and Mrs Reeves are down on a form as being Mr Wallace’s next of kin, but obviously as the family names are different, we needed to check.’ Lulu didn’t want to explain that the information had been fed into HOLMES as part of a murder investigation.
‘You know that they fostered, for years?’
‘I didn’t know that, no. Ah, that explains it.’
‘Hang on, the couple have a filing system here. Mr Reeves used to show it to me all the time and talk about the children they fostered. There were more than a hundred and fifty in all, over the years. What was the person’s name again?’
‘Gordon. Gordon Wallace.’
‘And when might he have been with them?’
Lulu frowned as she did the calculation in her head. If Wallace had been fostered, he would have been under sixteen. ‘Fifteen years ago or more.’
‘Let me check. They always kept very neat files.’
The woman put the phone down. Lulu looked over at Phil, who was now off the phone and tapping on his keyboard. ‘Phil, I’ve drawn a blank with Jack Butler so I’m looking at Wallace now.’
Phil nodded. ‘I’m waiting for someone from social services to get back to me,’ he said. ‘Edward Parker was adopted. Parker wasn’t his birth name. He was born Edward Lawson, but his parents died when he was eight and he was in the care system for a few years. I’m trying to find out where he was before the Parkers adopted him.’ His phone rang and he picked it up. ‘Fingers crossed.’
The care worker came back on the line. ‘Gordon Wallace, you say? Yes, he was fostered here from the ages of thirteen to sixteen. That’s quite a long time; they mainly did short-term fostering, which is why so many kids stayed with them over the years.’
‘How much information is in the file?’
‘It’s mainly made up of the monthly reports they submitted to social services. Basically saying how he was getting on.’
‘Does it say where he was before he came to the Reeves house?’
‘Let me see. Yes, he was at the Horizon Residential Home for Boys. In Islington.’
‘Is there a phone number?’
‘Yes, there is.’
Lulu picked up a pen and scribbled down the details of the home, then checked the phone number with the woman before thanking her and hanging up. She dialled the number and wrinkled her nose in annoyance when she heard the unobtainable tone. As she replaced the receiver, she looked over at Phil, who was scribbling in his notebook. Her heart began to pound when she realized what he had just written – Horizon Residential Home for Boys.
Lulu stood up and waited impatiently for Phil to finish his call. As soon as he put the receiver down, she showed him what she had written on her notepad and his eyes widened.
‘Well, that can’t be a coincidence, can it?’ Lulu said.
‘So Wallace and Parker were in the same children’s home? That’s the connection we never had. This is big, boss.’
‘I’ll get on to Islington Council,’ said Lulu. ‘Can you have another go at Jack Butler? You might see something I missed.’
‘Sure.’
It took Lulu almost an hour on the phone with Islington Council to get the information she wanted. She was passed from one department to another and spoke to half a dozen people before she reached a young man in the Children and Young People Directorate. He introduced himself as Martin and he had a soft Irish accent that made her think of rolling green hills and slow-flowing rivers. He looked through a list of council and private children’s homes and initially couldn’t find one called Horizon, but he found it eventually and told her that it was a privately run boys’ home that had shut down years ago.
‘Does it say why it closed?’ Lulu asked.
‘It wasn’t up to the council’s standards, that’s all it says. Let me have a look at the file.’ He hummed quietly to himself and Lulu heard the occasional tapping sound. ‘Ah, dear me. They had a number of suicides there. Four that I can see. The council ended its contract after the fourth death.’
‘Was there an inquiry? Or a criminal case?’
‘No, nothing like that, no. It’s not unusual for a home’s standards to fall. Sometimes the home will up its game, sometimes they’ll decide it’s not worth it, especially with budget cuts and the like.’
‘Does it say what happened to the children who were there?’
‘Not specifically, but they would have been dispersed through the system.’
‘Within Islington?’
‘Not necessarily, no. Initially within the Greater London area, but they could in theory have been sent anywhere in the country.’
‘How many children would that have been?’
‘Let me see.’ He hummed again for half a minute. ‘Twenty-six boys were resident when the home closed.’
‘How would I go about finding out where the boys went?’
‘That would be harder. I could probably locate the individual files of any boys you were interested in, but it would take time.’
‘Can I run a few names by you? See if they were at the home at the time of its closure?’
‘Sure, go ahead.’
‘Gordon Wallace?’
There was silence for a few seconds. ‘Yes,’ said Martin eventually.
‘Jack Butler?’
‘Again, yes.’
Lulu’s breath caught in her throat. ‘Edward Parker?’
There was a delay of almost a minute. ‘I don’t see an Eddie or Edward Parker, no.’
‘Oh, wait, try Edward Lawson.’
‘That we have,’ said Martin. ‘Edward Charles Lawson.’
Lulu’s heart was beating faster now. ‘What about Derek Sawyer?’
There was silence for almost a minute. ‘No.’
‘Fraser Robinson?’
Another minute-long silence. ‘No.’
‘Okay, that’s very helpful indeed, Martin. Thank you so much. Just one more thing – who was running the Horizon home at the time it was closed?’
‘That should be easy enough to find,’ he said. ‘Just give me a few seconds. Yes, here we are, it was an Ian Pettigrew. He was the manager. And chief executive. So an owner-manager, I guess.’
Lulu’s heart pounded. ‘Bear with me for a minute, Martin,’ she said into the phone, then she waved at Phil, who was on a call. ‘I need you now,’ she mouthed.
Phil nodded and ended his call. ‘What’s up?’ he asked as he stood up and walked over to her.
She held up a hand to silence him. ‘Martin, I’m going to hand you over to Detective Inspector Philip Jackson of the Metropolitan Police. We’d like names of all the boys who were at the home and a list of the staff, and as there might be data protection issues it might be better handled through him.’ She put her hand over the receiver. ‘Ian Pettigrew ran the Horizon home, and Butler, Parker and Wallace all lived there. I think we’ve cracked it, Phil.’
‘Awesome, boss,’ said Phil, taking the receiver.
‘The guy’s name is Martin, he’s been very helpful,’ said Lulu. She reached down and stroked the back of Conrad’s neck. ‘We’re almost there,’ she said.
‘Almost where?’ asked a voice behind her, and Lulu jumped. It was DI Friar.
‘I think we might have found our motive,’ said Lulu. ‘At least for our murders. The Three Piggies were all in the same boys’ home at the same time, and the home was owned and managed by our first victim, Ian Pettigrew.’
‘What about our victims, Sergeant Sawyer and Fraser Robinson?’
‘No connection yet, but they’re going to send over a full list of boys and staff.’
‘So you’re thinking revenge for something that happened in the home?’
‘It would make sense, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would. But we still need to know why they then came to Manchester to kill our two victims.’
Lulu nodded. ‘We’re working on it.’