Michael Robotham - Suspect

Bobby Morgan-I'll call him by his real name now-had many of the hallmarks of sexual abuse. Even so, I don't want it to be true. I have grown to like Lenny Morgan. He did a lot of things right when he raised Bobby. People warmed to him. Bobby adored him.

Perhaps Lenny had two sides to his personality. There is nothing to stop an abuser being a safe, loving figure. It would certainly explain his suicide. It could also be the reason why Bobby needed two personalities to survive.

Social Services keeps files on children who have been sexually abused. I once had full access to them, but I'm no longer part of the system. The privacy laws are compelling.

I need help from someone I haven't seen in more than a decade. Her name is Melinda Cossimo and I'm worried I might not recognize her. We arrange to meet in a coffee shop opposite the Magistrates Court.

When I first arrived in Liverpool Mel was a duty social worker. Now she's an area manager (they call it a "child protection specialist"). Not many people last this long in social services. They either burn out or blow up.

Mel was your original punk, with spiky hair and a wardrobe of distressed leather jackets and torn denim. She was always challenging everyone's opinions because she liked to see people stand up for their beliefs, whether she agreed with them or not.

Growing up in Cornwall, she had listened to her father, a local fisherman, pontificate on the distinction between "men's work" and "women's work." Almost predictably, she became an ardent feminist and author of "When Women Wear the Pants"-her doctoral thesis. Her father must be turning in his grave.

Mel's husband, Boyd, a Lancashire lad, wore khaki pants, turtleneck sweaters and rolled his own cigarettes. Tall and thin, he went gray at nineteen but kept his hair long and tied back in a ponytail. I only ever saw it loose once, in the showers after we had played badminton.

They were great hosts. We'd get together most weekends for dinner parties on Boyd's run-down terrace, with its "wind chime" garden and cannabis plants growing in an old fishpond. We were all overworked, underappreciated and yet still idealistic. Julianne played the guitar and Mel had a voice like Joni Mitchell. We ate vegetarian feasts, drank too much wine, smoked a little dope and righted the wrongs of the world. The hangovers lasted until Monday and the flatulence until midweek.

Mel makes a face at me through the window. Her hair is straight and pinned back from her face. She's wearing dark trousers and a tailored beige jacket. A white ribbon is pinned to her lapel. I can't remember what charity it represents.

"Is this the management look?"

"No, it's middle age." She laughs, grateful to sit down. "These shoes are killing me." She kicks them off and rubs her ankles.

"Shopping?"

"An appointment in the children's court-an emergency care order."

"Good result?"

"It could have been worse."

I get the coffees while she minds the table. I know she's checking me out-trying to establish how much has changed. Do we still have things in common? Why have I suddenly surfaced? The caring profession is a suspicious one.

"So what happened to your ear?"

"Got bitten by a dog."

"You should never work with animals."

"So I've heard."

Mel watches as my left hand tries to stir my coffee. "Are you still with Julianne?"

"Uh-huh. We have Charlie now. She's eight. I think Julianne might be pregnant again."

"Aren't you sure?" She laughs.

I laugh with her, but feel a pang of guilt.

I ask about Boyd. I picture him as an aging hippie, still wearing linen shirts and Punjabi pants. Mel turns her face away, but not before I see the pain drift across her eyes like a cloud.

"Boyd is dead."

Sitting very still, she lets the silence grow accustomed to the news.

"When?"

"More than a year ago. One of those big four-wheel drives, with a bulbar, went through a stop sign and cleaned him up."

I tell her that I'm sorry. She smiles sadly and licks milk froth from her spoon.

"They say the first year is the hardest. I tell you it's like being fucked over by fifty cops with batons and riot shields. I still can't get my head around the fact that he's gone. I even blamed him for a while. I thought he'd abandoned me. It sounds silly, but out of spite I sold his record collection. It cost me twice as much to buy it back again." She laughs at herself and stirs her coffee.

"You should have got in touch. We didn't know."

"Boyd lost your address. He was hopeless. I know I could have found you." She smiles apologetically. "I just didn't want to see anyone for a while. It would just remind me of the good old days."

"Where is he now?"

"At home in a little silver pot on my filing cabinet." She makes it sound as though he's pottering around in the garden shed. "I can't put him in the ground here. It's too cold. What if it snows? He hated the cold." She looks at me mournfully. "I know that's stupid."

"Not to me."

"I thought I might save up and take his ashes to Nepal. I could throw them off a mountain."

"He was scared of heights."

"Yeah. Maybe I should just tip them in the Mersey."

"Can you do that?"

"Don't see how anyone could stop me." She laughs sadly. "So what brings you back to Liverpool? You couldn't get away from here fast enough."

"I wish I could have taken you guys with me."

"Down south! Not likely! You know what Boyd thought of London. He said it was full of people searching for something that they couldn't find elsewhere, having not bothered to look."

I can hear Boyd saying exactly that.

"I need to get hold of a child protection file."

"A red edge!"

"Yes."

I haven't heard that term for years. It's the nickname given by social workers in Liverpool to child protection referrals because the initiating form has a dark crimson border.

"What child?"

"Bobby Morgan."

Mel makes the connection instantly. I see it in her eyes. "I dragged a magistrate out of bed at two in the morning to sign the interim care order. The father committed suicide. You must remember?"

"No."

Her brow furrows. "Maybe it was one of Erskine's." Rupert Erskine was the senior psychologist in the department. I was the junior half of the team-a fact he pointed out at every opportunity.

Mel had been the duty social worker on Bobby's case.

"The referral came from a schoolteacher," she explains. "The mother didn't want to say anything at first. When she saw the medical evidence she broke down and told us she suspected her husband."

"Can you get me the file?"

I can see she wants to ask me why. At the same time she realizes it is probably safer to remain ignorant. Closed child-care files are stored at Hatton Gardens, the head office of the Liverpool Department of Social Services. Files are held for eighty years and can only be viewed by an appropriate member of staff, an authorized agency or a court officer. All access becomes part of the record.

Mel stares at her reflection in her teaspoon. She has to make a decision. Does she help me or say no? She glances at her watch. "I'll make a few phone calls. Come to my office at one thirty."

She kisses me on the cheek as she leaves. Another coffee is ordered for the wait. Down times are the worst. They give me too much time to think. That's when random thoughts bounce through my head like a ping-pong ball in a jar. Julianne is pregnant. We'll need a child gate at the bottom of the stairs. Charlie wants to go camping this summer. What's the connection between Bobby and Catherine?

Another van-but it's not white. The driver tosses a bundle of papers onto the pavement in front of the cafe. The front-page headline reads: REWARD OFFERED IN McBRIDE MURDER HUNT.