Barry Maitiland - Spider Trap

‘Maybe you could ponder on it and let us know if anything comes to mind.Would you have a photograph of Joseph?’

‘Well now, that is possible. I used to make a habit of taking a picture of the boys when they arrived, to send back to Father Guzowski. Let’s see, let’s see.We’ve been making an effort to get my papers in order.’

He bustled across to a couple of old wooden filing cabinets in a corner of the room and began searching through the drawers. ‘Here we are. It would be with these, if it’s anywhere.’

He laid a sheaf of photos on his desk and turned them over until one caught his eye.‘This would be them, I think.Yes.’ He showed a picture of two young men grinning at the camera, one tall and skinny and bow-legged with his arm around the shoulders of the other, more guarded and boyishly handsome.

‘Thank you, Father.’ Brock took the picture. ‘You’ve been a great help.’

‘I’d like it back, if that’s all right. I’ve had it in my mind for some time to write a little memoir of Father Guzowski’s boys. Somebody should.’

The path from the front door of the presbytery to the street wound around an ancient black yew tree,and as they emerged from its shelter they noticed a blue Peugeot convertible parked at the opposite kerb, emitting the usual heavy thumping bass. The side windows were tinted dark so they couldn’t see who was inside. Just then, with perfect timing, a police patrol car swung around the corner and pulled in behind the Peugeot. Two young uniformed cops got out, a man and a woman, and approached it. The woman tapped on the driver’s window and the door swung open,filling the quiet street with booming hip hop, and Mr Teddy Vexx heaved himself out. The policewoman said something to him and he reached back inside the car and turned the music off, then straightened again.She stood close in front of him,a good foot shorter,and delivered a short lecture, pointing to the no-parking sign, the double yellow line and the distance to the corner. All the time he stood there impassively, huge arms folded across the gold chains draped over his chest, staring across the road at Kathy and Brock. He was wearing a black bandana around his head and dark glasses. The constable asked for something and he reached to his hip pocket and produced a wallet, handing her his driver’s licence.While she walked away,talking into her radio,her partner was peering into the car. The rules prevented him from searching it without due cause, something suspicious he could actually see or smell, and he looked slightly comic bent to the opening, nose twitching, straining for an excuse. Vexx said something and the cop straightened sharply and said,‘What’s that,sir? Speak English,please.’

Kathy and Brock walked away.

‘Iowe you a fiver.’

He chuckled.‘You’ve established a date?’

‘April 1981.’

‘Interesting. How about buying me a pizza tonight? You can tell me all about it.’

‘Suits me.’

‘Can I pick you up at seven?’ he asked.

‘Fine.’

‘And I may have something interesting for you.’

‘Great, as long as it’s not rum punch.’

‘Aw, I thought you liked my rum punch.’

‘I did, but it refuses to let go.’

‘I know what you mean. I’ve got this strange limp today.’

‘Strange limp what?’

‘Now, now.’

That afternoon Bren had returned to Queen Anne’s Gate to set up the case room for a new phase of the investigation, while Kathy got to work on Joseph Kidd.She established that he had entered the country on the eighteenth of September 1980, but there were no further records of him either leaving or returning. He had been allocated a National Insurance number the following month, but there were no records of any social security, national health or income tax transactions on that number. He had had no driver’s licence,bank accounts,police record or traffic offences.As far as the record was concerned, sometime during 1981 Joseph Kidd had simply ceased to exist, although no one had ever reported him missing. Kathy looked at the copy of Father Maguire’s photo of the two boys pinned to the wall, feeling the poignancy of that brief moment of elation at the arrivals gate at Gatwick. One boy had gone on to success in his new country, the other had disappeared into the void.She began to assemble the material that would be sent to the JCF in Kingston and to Interpol.

Brock, meanwhile, had got through to Michael Grant in his office at the Houses of Parliament. The MP had already heard from Father Maguire, and said he’d been intending to contact Brock. He said he’d come over immediately, Queen Anne’s Gate being only a short walk away, and ten minutes later Brock met him at the front door. Seeing him again he recognised the handsome boy of the photograph, but the caution in his look had been replaced, or masked, by that air of open energy and confidence.

‘I’ve been wanting to get in touch again ever since the rumours started about finding bodies on the railway land.Is this where you’re running that investigation from? No chance of seeing the operations centre, I suppose?’

‘Of course. This way.’ Brock led him along the corridor to the main case room, once a merchant’s drawing room with tall sash windows to both the street and the small courtyard at the rear.

There he introduced him to Bren and Kathy, whom he remembered, and gave him a tour of the material on the walls- the gridded site map, the photographs of retrieved items and, most recently, the enlarged photograph of Joseph and himself.

‘Oh my goodness.’ Grant stared for a long moment at the picture.‘Father Maguire said he’d found a photo. I never knew it existed. Is there any chance, do you think, of getting a copy?’

‘Certainly.’ Brock had a word to Kathy, who nodded and went to her computer.‘Let’s sit down and see what you can tell us,shall we? Tea or coffee?’

‘Tea would be good.’

‘Yes, always the safer bet.’ Brock led the way to a conference table by the window overlooking the rear courtyard.

‘So you think Joseph is one of your victims?’

‘It looks very likely, Mr Grant. We’re trying to contact his family in Jamaica to make a DNA match, but we’re having trouble tracing them. Can you help us with that?’

‘I don’t think I can.You see, I didn’t know Joseph before we came out together. Father Guzowski introduced us for the first time at Kingston airport.’

‘Didn’t Joseph talk about his background? Mrs Wellington thinks he was from Tivoli Gardens.’

‘Actually, that does ring a bell. I’m sure we must have chatted about things like that on the flight over, but I don’t remember. He was a few years older than me, and I can recall feeling a bit intimidated. To tell the truth, I was pretty overwhelmed by the whole experience. It was my first trip out of Kingston, my first flight. And I didn’t come from Tivoli Gardens.’ He gave a wry smile.‘The Gardens was a rough district, but we used to think of it as a step up from where we lived. I came from Riverton City, on the edge of town. Riverton City was the Soweto of Kingston, grown up around the Dungle, the Kingston City rubbish dump, which was pretty much the only resource the people there had to live off. It’s all been cleared away now, transformed into what they call Riverton Meadows.’

Kathy arrived with his copy of the photograph and mugs of tea.

‘You would have kept in touch with Joseph when you arrived here, I take it?’ Brock asked.

‘No. Oh, I saw him around, but I wasn’t in his circle. The whole point of Father Guzowski sending me here,as he drummed into me again and again, was to get an education. He believed in me, said I could do it and mustn’t let him down. I worshipped the man.With the help of Father Maguire and Abigail Lavender I just buried myself in schoolwork-I was so far behind the English kids, you see. I don’t know what Joseph was up to,but it certainly wasn’t studying.’