Cath Staincliffe - Make Believe

‘What about Aidan?’ He looked alarmed.

‘She’s taken him, and Sammy.’

He froze and looked at her, he obviously hadn’t realised they had made the connection. Did he think he could hide the abduction from them?

‘I don’t know anything about Sammy.’

Lying.

‘Are you telling us you didn’t abduct Sammy Wray?’ Richard said.

‘I didn’t,’ he said.

‘We heard him at the house,’ Janine said, ‘remember?’

His face crumpled. He sniffed. ‘I can’t-’

The lone woman in the park. Janine’s stomach fell. Mandy! Mandy, deranged with grief, had substituted someone else’s child for her own. And Joe was trying to shield her.

‘Mandy,’ she said. He flinched, wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘We’re very concerned for their safety. Where would she go?’

‘You’ll take him off her, Aidan.’ He shook his head. ‘You’ll charge her. I can’t do that to them.’

‘And if it all goes wrong?’ Janine said.

‘No,’ he said.

‘If you help us, Joe, that will be taken into account,’ Richard said.

‘I don’t care about that,’ he exploded. ‘Christ, do you think that matters?’ He put his hands on his head, pulled at the hair there, his knuckles white.

‘We need to contact her friends. Perhaps she’s left the children with someone or asked somebody for help,’ Janine said.

There was a long pause. He seemed torn. ‘I can’t,’ he said eventually.

They examined his phone anyway and Shap began ringing round all the contacts in his list.

‘Mandy went out shopping on Friday afternoon,’ Janine said. The car broke down. You were on your own with the boys, tell me what happened.’

‘It was an accident,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘I just wanted him to stop messing about.’ He shook his head.

‘Joe?’ she prompted, ‘What was he doing?’

‘He was having a tantrum, chucking his food all over the place, kicking me. He’s screaming his head off. I pick him up and-’

He stopped short, lips crimped together, his fists clenched, miming how he held the child by the shoulders.

‘You shook him?’ Richard said.

‘Yeah, and he’s yelling and I just…I-’

‘Go on,’ Janine said.

He took a rapid breath in. ‘I just put him down, too rough and he goes backwards, hard against the wall. Then he’s quiet.’ Breeley began to sob, his shoulders heaving, saliva at the corners of his mouth. ‘She wouldn’t let him go,’ his distress was palpable, Janine felt her throat tighten.

‘Why didn’t you get help? Tell someone, if it was an accident?’

‘They’d dredge it all up again – what’s the chance of it happening twice? They’d never believe me. The truth. I told the truth back then and it all fell apart. Gary opened the cellar door, he’d not done that before. The light was broke but he didn’t mind the dark. He must have tripped. It had gone quiet and I went to see what he was up to and the door was open.’ He shivered. ‘I didn’t want to go down there. I got my bike lamp.’

Joe Breeley paused. Janine waited. Eventually he spoke again, his voice so low she had to lean in to catch it. ‘He was still. He never kept still.’ He rubbed at his face. ‘My mam’s eyes, her face – she never spoke to me again. I was ten years old. Fifteen years of wishing… Blame and hate – that’s what the truth got me. And it never brought Gary back.’ He looked at her, eyes lanced with pain. ‘I loved my boy… I loved him… We sat with him all night. But I had to…’

‘What did you do, Joe?’ Janine said gently.

‘I put him in the sheet, put him in the van. On the seat,’ he added, ‘not in the back, like.’ The sad detail, as if he’d protect the child he had killed. Janine recalled Lisa’s observation about the sheet being like a shroud. Perceptive.

‘Then what?’ she said.

‘I drove to the house.’

‘To 16 Kendal Avenue?’ She had to have it all on tape, facts, figures, details.

‘Yes. I got out of the van, opened the-’ He stopped, overcome.

‘Go on,’ she said.

‘Opened the manhole, I went for John. That’s when my glasses broke.’

‘You fetched John,’ Janine prompted.

‘I put him in the drain.’ He was crying as he spoke, wiping at his face with his hands. ‘I went home, came back just after nine.’

‘And then after lunch, when you’d finished work, Mandy came home with Sammy?’

Joe Breeley shook his head sadly. ‘I wanted John back,’ he said, ‘but it was too late.’ His mouth worked.

He refused to tell them where Mandy might be. ‘I can’t,’ he said, ‘I can’t do that to her.’

Eventually Janine and Richard withdrew but asked that Joe Breeley wait where he was, as they would certainly want to resume questioning him.

The incident room was alive with a sense of urgency. Phones were ringing and people taking calls in the background. A large map of the country, centred on Manchester, was projected onto an electronic whiteboard and Lisa had outlined circles with estimated time of travel.

‘Butchers,’ Janine said, ‘speak to the bank, they’re to notify us immediately if Mandy uses her cards.’

‘The mobile network,’ he said, ‘say she’s not calling anyone so far, phone’s switched off.’

‘If she’s on the move, how far has she gone?’ Janine said.

Lisa indicated on the map. ‘Almost forty minutes, boss. She’s somewhere in this area. No ANPR hits yet.’

‘More than likely, she’s on a motorway,’ Janine said, ‘cameras should be able to pick her up. Richard, we want a negotiator standing by. And talk to the National Crime Faculty – see if there’s a psychologist can advise us on how to play it.’ She turned back to Lisa. ‘Are customs on board?’

‘Yes, boss,’ the young DC said.

‘What about social services?’

‘Will do.’

‘We could go public, breaking news, I can get us a ‘be on the lookout for,’ said Millie.

‘Could freak her.’ There was a moment’s tension as Janine tried to weigh up whether this was the right tactic. ‘ OK,’ she said, ‘do it. But give me time to call the Wrays first.’

Millie left for the press office to set things in motion.

Shap called out, ‘Breeley’s contacts – no-one has heard from her in the last few days. No-one had any suggestion as to where we might find her.’

‘Boss,’ Lisa said, ‘tea, coffee?’

‘Yes, anything.’ Janine was too bound up in the hunt to be able to make trivial decisions.

Janine rang Claire Wray, determined to warn her of unfolding events before she heard anything on the news. ‘Claire, I wanted to let you know we have just received a strong lead as to Sammy’s whereabouts and we’re hoping to recover Sammy but I can’t make any promises. As soon as I have any more information at all you will be the first to know.’

‘You’ve found him?’

‘We think we know where he’s been held, I can’t say more than that.’

‘It’s definitely Sammy?’

‘We believe so,’ Janine said. She couldn’t be one hundred percent sure until she saw the child with her own eyes. She could hear Claire breathing but nothing else.

‘Claire?’

‘Is he alive?’ Claire said.

‘I believe so,’ Janine said.

‘But you don’t know?’

‘I can’t be sure,’ Janine said.

‘But what-’ Claire began.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t answer any more questions now. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I can. Is Sue there?’

Janine briefed Sue, the family liaison officer, as quickly as she could. Then she let Lisa know the family had been informed of the breakthrough.

Lisa nodded, passed Janine a cup of tea. She took a sip, scalding her mouth, then Butchers called out, ‘She’s using her phone, she’s on the phone.’