Close to Home (DI Adam Fawley #1)(74)

‘She’d been saying mean things about me. The girls were laughing.’

‘So – did that happen again the day of the party? She said mean things again, and you got angry again, and you hit her? Did she fall over perhaps and hit her head? I’d understand if that’s what happened. So would DC Everett. So would Derek.’

He shakes his head.

‘And if something like that did happen to your sister,’ I continue, ‘I’m sure you’d be really sorry. Sorry and sad. And the natural thing to do would be for you to go to your mum and tell her. I’m sure she’d want to help you fix things. Is that how it was, Leo?’

I can only imagine what’s going on right now in the room next door. But I don’t care.

Leo shakes his head again. ‘She’s not my mum. Daisy’s not my sister.’

‘But did she help you – did your mum help you fix things after your argument with Daisy?’

‘I told you. I didn’t see Daisy. She was in her room.’

Everett and I exchange a glance.

‘So it was like you said to start with,’ I say. ‘You got home and Daisy’s music was on, and you never saw her again.’

He nods.

‘You were in your own room, with your own music on.’

He nods again.

‘So you were wearing your headphones.’

He hesitates.

‘I had my music too.’

‘Your music and your headphones?’

‘Whatever. I hate them. I hate all of them.’

And he probably just wanted to drown it all out. And who can blame him. He’s crying hard now. Really hard.

I reach forward and gently, very gently, take his hands and push back his oversized sleeves. The oversized sleeves he always wears, even in this heat. He doesn’t try to stop me.

I look down at the lines across his flesh. I’m guessing it started soon after he found out he had no family. The doctor knew and I think the school suspected too. But neither of the people who were supposed to love and care for him noticed anything was wrong. Poor little Leo. Poor bloody Jamie. Poor abandoned lonely boys.

‘I know what these are, Leo,’ I say softly. ‘I had a little boy once, who did this.’

I sense Everett stiffen beside me. She didn’t know. No one knew. We didn’t tell anybody.

‘It made me very sad and it took me a long time to understand because I loved him so much, and I thought he knew that. But I do understand now and I think I know why he did it. Doing this hurts less than all the rest of the hurt, doesn’t it? It makes it feel a bit better. Even if only for a little while.’

Derek Ross reaches across and puts an arm round the sobbing little boy. ‘It’s OK, Leo. It’s OK. We’ll sort it out. We’ll sort it all out.’



* * *



—

In the corridor, Sharon is already waiting. Waiting and blazing.

‘How dare you,’ she says, coming up far too close and pointing a long red nail. Those are new too. ‘How bloody dare you try to drag me into all this – if that stupid kid did something to Daisy, I knew nothing about it. Right from the start you’ve been insinuating I’m a bad mother, and now you’re actually suggesting that kid killed my daughter and I helped him fix it? I helped him cover it up? What gives you the right – what gives you the bloody right – ’

‘Mrs Mason,’ begins the lawyer, alarmed, ‘I really don’t think – ’

‘And if I were you,’ she hisses, ignoring him and bringing her face even closer to mine, ‘I would think twice before I started throwing accusations at other people about how they bring up their kids. After all, my daughter’s just missing. Your kid is dead.’

*

4 April 2016, 10.09 p.m.





106 days before the disappearance


5 Barge Close, sitting room

Barry is watching an American cop show on TV. He has a can of lager on the table beside him. Suddenly the door flings open and Sharon storms into the room. She’s holding his leather jacket in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.

‘What the bloody hell is this?’

Barry glances up, sees what she has and reaches for his can. ‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes. That.’

Barry shrugs. The nonchalance is perhaps a little forced. ‘She’s just a little kid cutting out pictures from magazines. They all do it at that age. She doesn’t know what it means.’

‘She’s not that little any more – she’s eight.’

‘Like I said, it’s nothing.’

Sharon’s face is red with fury. ‘It’s disgusting, that’s what it is. You think I’m thick, but I’ve got eyes in my head. I see the way you pick her up – the way you have her in your lap – and now this – ’

Barry puts down his can. ‘Are you seriously telling me I can’t pick up my own daughter?’

‘Not the way you do it.’

‘And what the fuck do you mean by that?’

‘You know exactly what I mean. I see the looks she gives you – ’

‘She looks at me like I’m her bloody father.’

‘ – and all that whispering behind your hands and looking down your noses at me.’