Elizabeth George - This Body of Death

One might harbour romantic images invoked by the word canal or by canal life, but there is little romantic about the length of the Midlands Trans-Country Canal that flows just north of the Gallows. It’s a greasy strip of water uninhabited by ducks, swans, or any other sort of aquatic life, and there are no reeds, willow trees, wildflowers, or grasses growing along the towpath. What bobs at the canal’s edges is usually rubbish, and its water carries a putrid odour suggestive of faulty sewer pipes.

The canal has long been used by residents of the Gallows as a dumping ground for items too bulky to be taken away by the rubbish collectors. When Michael Spargo, Reggie Arnold, and Ian Barker arrived there at roughly nine-thirty A.M., they found a shopping trolley in the water, and they commenced using it as a target at which they threw rocks, bottles, and bricks found along the towpath. Going to the canal appears to have been Reggie’s idea, one initially rejected by Ian, who accused the other two boys of wanting to go there “to wank each other or do it like doggies,” which can be seen as an apparent reference to what he himself had witnessed in the bedroom he was forced to share with his mother. He also seems to have harassed Michael about his right eye, as reported by Reggie. (The nerves of his cheek having been damaged during a forceps delivery at his birth, Michael’s right eye drooped and did not blink in concert with his left eye.) But Reggie indicates he himself “sorted Ian proper,” and the boys went on to other things.

As the back gardens of the houses along the towpath are separated from it only by wooden fences, the boys had easy access to properties where the wooden fences were in disrepair. Once they exhausted the possibilities presented by throwing things at and into the shopping trolley, they wandered along the towpath and found mischief where they were able: They removed fresh washing from a line behind one house and dumped this in the canal; at another they found a lawn mower (“But it were rusty,” Michael explains) and did the same with it.

Perhaps the perambulator gave them the ultimate idea. They found this object sitting next to the back door of yet another of the houses. Unlike the lawn mower, the perambulator was not only new, but it also had a metallic blue helium balloon attached to it. On this balloon was printed “It’s a Boy!” and the boys knew the words referred to a brand-new baby.

The perambulator was more difficult to get their hands on because the fence here was not in bad condition. Thus it is suggestive of a sort of escalation of intent that two of the boys (Ian and Reggie, according to Michael; Ian and Michael, according to Reggie; Reggie and Michael, according to Ian) climbed over the fence, stole the perambulator, and hoisted it over and onto the towpath. There the boys pushed each other for perhaps one hundred yards before tiring of this game and shoving the perambulator into the canal.

Michael Spargo’s interview indicates that, at this point, Ian Barker said, “Too bad it weren’t a baby inside. That’d make a lovely splash, eh?” Ian Barker denies this, and when questioned, Reggie Arnold becomes hysterical, shrieking, “There weren’t no baby, ever! Mum, there weren’t no baby!”

According to Michael, Ian went on to talk about “how wicked it’d be to get a baby from somewheres.” They could, he suggested, take it to “that bridge over West Town Road and we could drop it on its head and see it splat. Blood and brains’d come out. That’s what he said,” Michael reports. Michael goes on to insist that he spoke hotly against this idea, as if he knows where his interview with the police is heading when they get to this topic. Ultimately the boys grew tired of playing in the environs of the canal, Michael reports. Ian Barker, he tells the police, was the one to suggest they “clear out of here” and go to the Barriers.

It should be noted that not one of the boys denies being in the Barriers that day, although all of them repeatedly change their stories when it comes to what they did when they got there.

West Town Road Arcade has been known as the Barriers for such a length of time that most people have no idea that the shopping arcade actually has another name. Early in its commercial lifetime, it developed this appellation because it sprawls neatly between the bleak world of the Gallows and an orderly grid of semidetached and detached houses occupied by middle-class working families. These buildings comprise the Windsor, Mountbatten, and Lyon Housing Estates.

While there are four distinct entrances to the Barriers, the two most commonly used are those giving access to residents of the Gallows and to residents of the Windsor Estate. The shops at these entrances are rather depressingly indicative of the expected clientele. For example, at the Gallows entrance, one finds a William Hill betting lounge, two off-licences, a tobacconist, an Items-for-a-Pound shop, and several take-away food enterprises featuring fish and chips, jacket potatoes, and pizza. At the Windsor Estate entrance, on the other hand, one can shop in Marks & Spencer, Boots, Russell & Bromley, Accessorize, Ryman’s, and independent shops offering lingerie, chocolates, tea, and clothing. While it’s true that nothing stops someone from entering at the Gallows and traversing the arcade to shop where she pleases, the implication is clear: If you are poor, on benefits, or working class, you’re likely to be interested in spending your money on cholesterol-laden food, tobacco, alcohol, or gambling.

All three of the boys agree that when they entered the Barriers, they went into the video arcade at the centre of the place. They had no money, but this did not stop them from “driving” the Jeep in the Let’s Go Jungle video game, or “piloting” the Ocean Hunter on a search for sharks. It’s an interesting fact that the participatory video games allowed for only two players at one time. Although, as previously noted, they had no money, when they pretended to play it was Michael and Reggie who manned the controls, leaving Ian the odd man out. He claims he was not bothered by this exclusion, and all the boys declare themselves unbothered by the fact that they had no money to spend in the video arcade, but one cannot help speculating if the day would have turned out differently had the boys been able to sublimate pathological tendencies through engaging in some of the bellicose activities provided by the video games they encountered but were not able to use. (I don’t mean to imply here that video games can or should take the place of parenting, but as an outlet for young boys with limited resources and even less insight into their individual dysfunction, they might have been helpful.)

Unfortunately, their time in the video arcade came to a precipitate end when a security guard noticed them and shooed them on their way. It was still school hours (the CCTV film has it at half-past ten), and he told them he would phone the police, the schools, or the truant officer if he saw them again on the premises. His interview with the police has him claiming that he “never saw the little yobs again,” but this seems more like an effort to relieve himself of guilt and responsibility than the truth. The boys did nothing to hide from him once they left the video arcade, and had he only made good on his threat, the boys would never have encountered little John Dresser.

John Dresser-or Johnny, as he was termed by the tabloid press-was twenty-nine months old. He was the only child of Alan and Donna Dresser, and on a working day he was normally minded by his fifty-eight-year-old grandmother. He walked perfectly well, but like many toddler boys, he was slow to develop language. His vocabulary at twenty-nine months consisted of Mummy, Da, and Lolly (this last referring to the family dog). He could not say his name.