Blue and white police tape had been hastily slung round the wasteland’s entire perimeter. The plot had housed five Edwardian villas until a few months back when they reached their dwell-by date and were demolished to make way for starter homes. Developers had second thoughts or faltering cash flow. Either way, the site was now an urban eyesore: weed-infested, fly-tipped, dog-shat. Among dust-coated nettles, crumbling house bricks, rusting bike wheels and stinking rubbish, clumps of poppies provided incongruous splashes of colour.
As did the white forensic tent erected over a little boy’s body.
Though the entire Marston Road site was now ring-taped, an inner cordon marked out a forensically safe corridor to the main action. Or temporary lack of. A subdued five-strong Forensic Science Investigation team stood anything but at ease within the circle, waiting on the gaffer’s nod. Elsewhere on the streets of the estate Operation Swift was in full swing; the inquiry’s tactics had already been thrashed out and its tasks assigned at the brief.
Difference now? The squad was hunting a killer not looking for a missing minor.
DCI Knight was under the sterile canvas talking to police pathologist Gillian Overdale. Bev had heard enough and emerged head down, struggling to hold back the tears. When she’d prayed to see Josh in the flesh, she should have specified live. Thanks, God. Irony – and heartbreak – was that the little lad with mussed hair looked as if he was just asleep. Apart from what Overdale thought could be chocolate round his mouth there wasn’t a mark on him. Not to the naked eye. Probing further was the pathologist’s baby. She’d readily agreed with Knight’s request to prioritise the post mortem.
Shielding her eyes from the sun, Bev strode down the pathway and headed for the Astra, metaphorically holding the shortest straw in straw land. Far as she was concerned, the DCI had passed the buck. Big time.
Tight-lipped, staring ahead, she ignored shouted questions from half a dozen reporters and five times as many onlookers keen to get in on the act. Great entertainment, wasn’t it? Nearly as good as the telly: FSI Balsall Heath. What the...? Eyes screwed, she thought for a second she was seeing things. But, no. Pitched up at the end of a slew of badly parked police vehicles was a Mr Whippy van. For fuck’s sake. Anyone’d think it was a fairground.
At the motor she stripped off the white suit and overshoes, chucked them in the boot. Glowering, she sank into the passenger seat, slammed the door. Mac had the nous to keep shtum. He’d been holding the phone-call fort in the car, plus the forensic guys were antsy about cross-contamination; the fewer people on site the less chance of evidence being compromised. He took one look at her rigid profile, fumbled in his pocket for a crumpled tissue. “Here y’go.”
Out of the corner of her eye she caught his stubby fingers flicking through a dog-eared notebook, knew it was his version of a diplomatic silence. As her DC he’d suffered enough ear-bashings to know she hated sympathy and soft words. Josh’s death had hit her hard; she needed a bit of space to get her head round it. Crimes against kids were always emotionally difficult to handle. Was the death two years ago of her unborn twins at the hand of a crazy making it even harder?
Making the job impossible? She closed her eyes, took a deep breath.
Mac opened the window, started the motor. Summer in the city and the temperature was rising. “Where to, boss?”
She raised a palm. “Give us a min, mate.” The ice cream van’s jingle blared, a tinny Teddy Bears’ Picnic. Tasteful. Not. She shook her head. “Ever wish for a nine to five easy number? No shit-sticks. No psychos.”
“No. And neither do you.” He switched off the engine, half-turned to face her. “Come on, boss. We’re the good guys. We’ll get the bastard. Do we know how the lad was killed yet?”
“Should have it later today.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Christ, Mac, what sort of scum kills a little kid and dumps his body like it’s a pile of trash?” The vision of Josh in his makeshift shroud wasn’t going any time soon.
The question was rhetorical. Mac’s knuckles tightened round the wheel as she relayed how the lifeless body had been left a stone’s throw from a busy pavement. Inside a filthy sleeping bag, fingers clutching a one-armed Power Ranger. Her hands shook with rage and frustration. Partly shock. She couldn’t remember the last time a crime scene had come so close to making her throw up.
“Time of death?” Mac asked.
“Overdale reckons four, five hours maybe.” The pathologist had hedged her bets: a warm night, insulation from the sleeping bag and Josh’s tender years were all factors that could muddy what was by no means a precise science. But it was coming up to nine-thirty now, and with partial lividity and early rigor, the signs pointed to Josh dying between four and five a m.
Mac voiced a thought she’d already wrestled with. “So he could have been lying there some time?”
“Yep.” She tapped a beat on her thigh. How many people had passed by? Dismissed the bag along with the other crap? Imagined a wino in there catching his zeds? “Pensioner who lives round the corner found him.” Showing a bit of community spirit, the old dear thought she’d do the decent thing and get rid of the sleeping bag in a skip up the road. That’s what she’d told the attending officers. Course, she may have intended it as an extra blanket. Who knew round here? Skid marks showed she’d dragged it a few feet before the pitiful contents spilled out. A passing milkman had found the old woman in a quivering heap on the ground. When she was up to it, they’d question her again.
Bev fastened her seat belt, slipped on a pair of Raybans. And froze. Josh’s specs? He’d not been wearing them. Had they fallen off, had the killer taken them? Were they missing or on site? Knight needed to know. She reached for her mobile, punched in a number.
“Cool sunglasses, boss.” Winking, Mac turned the engine, checked the mirror. “Dead posh.”
“Just hit the road, eh?” Quips she could do without right now.
“Where we going?”
“Where d’you think?” she said. “His mum doesn’t know yet.”
“Try and eat something, Stacey.” The family liaison officer Cathy Reynolds pushed a plate of toast across a rickety kitchen table.
“Ain’t hungry just now.” Stacey lit another Embassy, traced her finger round an old burn mark on the bright red Formica top; cracked tacky lino was dotted with similar scars. Her face looked grey, the frizzy hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she’d swapped the sun dress for black trackie bottoms and a hoodie. It wasn’t just the gear that was more sober. Gentle, non-judgemental Cathy had sat up talking with the woman for much of the night. Stacey had become more reflective, more reasonable. There’d been no sudden transition into Mother Theresa, but she’d gradually dropped at least some of her defences. The FLO had gained glimpses of, perhaps, the real Stacey. Under the brash exterior, she’d sensed a woman who was bright, vulnerable and in despair.
“Switch the radio on, shall I?” Cathy smiled. Hoped the pop channel would drown the sound of truanting kids whooping it up on skateboards in the street.
Flicking ash and missing, Stacey shrugged a suit yourself. Michael Jackson’s Thriller did the trick. “Any tea in the pot, Cath?”
She lifted the lid, peered in. Stewed and tepid. “I’ll make another.” Grabbing a piece of toast, she sorted the fixings while Stacey stared at the wall, smoking incessantly. Sunlight barely made it through the grime on the windows. When the bell rang Stacey bolted upright, cut Cathy a frightened glance.
“I’ll get it.” She was on the case already. Answering doors was part of a FLO’s remit: two short rings meant Bev was likely out there – and the news could go either way. As it happened, Stacey heard it first. The story led Heart FM’s ten o’clock bulletin.
A body’s been found on wasteland in Balsall Heath. It’s believed to be that of missing child...
Stacey gagged, staggered to the sink. Didn’t make it.