Alex Barclay - The Drowning Child

You are so fucking lucky. But why would Seth cover for Wiley? Is he afraid of him, like Clyde is?

‘And where’s Wiley now?’ said Ren.

‘Well, he’s taken a short leave of absence,’ said Ruddock. ‘But, he’s extremely contrite, nothing like this has ever happened before. He’s under... personal stresses. I don’t want his standing in the community to be impacted on, either – it’s a very visible post – so once he’s cooled off, I will have him back on different duties. You won’t have to deal with him any further on the investigation.’

Damn fucking right we won’t.

‘Well,’ said Ren, ‘I’m sorry to hear all that. You look like you’ve had a long night.’

Ruddock nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

I want to hug you.

Gary was waiting for her outside the CARD team’s office.

‘How did Denver go?’

‘They’re circling around me,’ said Ren.

He held up a hand to stop her walking on through the door.

She ‘This meeting was about me, Gary. This was person—’

‘What? No, it wasn’t,’ said Gary. ‘It was standard going-back-over-the-facts—’

‘It wasn’t,’ said Ren. ‘They know something, I’m telling you. Why else would they have told you two inspectors were going to be there who weren’t.’

‘What? Who was there?’

‘Neubig and Brinks. Do you know them?’

‘No, I do not.’

‘Well, that’s reassuring,’ said Ren. ‘They switched them at the last minute to fuck with us.’

‘Ren, that sounds a little paranoid.’

‘It’s not paranoia,’ said Ren. ‘They’re questioning me, wondering if I should be working at all. They’re—’

‘You’ve been cleared to work,’ said Gary. ‘You’ve passed your psych eval—’

‘But—’

‘Ren!’ said Gary. ‘Pause for one second. Do you think there is any evidence anywhere that that meeting was an intervention? Think about it: none of this was in writing. The only people who knew were me, Ben and Matt. It was only spoken about on my landline. And you know that neither Ben nor Matt would have betrayed either mine or your confidence. Janine didn’t know, but would have been no less trustworthy if she did. Everett didn’t know. Joe Lucchesi didn’t know. OK? So relax.’

‘Why are they asking those questions, then?’ said Ren.

‘Standard procedure,’ said Gary. ‘It was a major incident.’ He looked at her. ‘It’s over. You’re back here. You still have your job.’

‘For now,’ said Ren. ‘They want me to come in again.’

‘They know nothing. Relax.’

Why do people ever tell people to relax? Who reacts well to “relax”? Who actually relaxes?

‘Yikes about Wiley,’ said Ren.

Gary nodded.

‘It was only a matter of time,’ said Ren. ‘I thought if he was going to assault anyone, it would be me.’

When they went into the office, Paul Louderback waved them over. His laptop was open on a screen-grab from a traffic cam. Ruddock walked in to join them.

‘So,’ said Paul. ‘It turns out Seth Fuller was not at The Crow Bar the night Aaron drowned. Not for the entire night, anyway. He was parked for a lot of it on Richmond Road – a residential street. He doesn’t get out of his truck. It looks like he was the only one in it.’

‘Any recent burglaries in the area?’ said Ren to Ruddock. ‘Could he have been up to no good? Why else wouldn’t he have told us?’

‘No burglaries reported,’ said Ruddock.

‘He could have been waiting for a woman,’ said Ren. ‘One who didn’t show. A married woman? Stalking someone? How long was he there?’

‘Three hours,’ said Paul.

Ren opened up a street view of the area on her laptop.

‘Can we get a list of the addresses on this street?’ she said. ‘Who owns them, who’s living there?’

She zoomed out. ‘Hold on – this is the Middle School right here? And there was a dance on there that night? He was parked here for three hours during that time?’

‘Yes,’ said Ruddock.

Everyone looked at each other.

No, Seth. No. You need to be innocent for me to have faith in humanity... and trust in my gut.

‘And now for my next trick,’ said Paul. He handed Ren a printout. ‘Nice call on the PlayStation.’

She read the results. ‘So, Caleb Veir has played it,’ she said. ‘I fucking give up.’ She read the results again. ‘Hold on – he was the first person to play it?’

Paul nodded.

‘That’s very weird,’ said Ren. ‘No kid is going to let another kid play it before they do.’

‘No,’ said Paul.

‘I think I may need to pay another visit to The Crow Bar,’ said Ren.

Ren winced when she saw Seth Fuller. ‘Ouch...’

He looked up from the sofa where he was watching television.

‘I’m just here to clear a few things up,’ said Ren.

Seth paused, then turned off the television. He struggled to sit up straighter.

‘Seth, we know that Caleb Veir was the first person to use your PlayStation. That’s what the lab came back with when they analyzed the hard drive. Did he play that with you?’

‘No!’ said Seth. ‘No way. And remember – it was Aaron’s PlayStation. As far as I know, he wasn’t even friends with Caleb.’

There was a noise behind them, and they both turned around. Shannon was standing in the doorway, looking at Ren.

‘I can explain about the PlayStation,’ she said. ‘If you’d like to talk privately?’

‘Sure,’ said Ren. She followed her into the kitchen.

‘Seth doesn’t know anything about this,’ said Shannon. ‘It was John who bought the PlayStation – for Caleb. He paid cash, so it wouldn’t have shown on his credit-card receipt. John and I bumped into each other at Target in the middle of December – we were both looking for it for our boys, but there was only one left and John got to it first. He was planning to give it to Caleb for Christmas, but because of Caleb not behaving the way he said he would, John changed his mind and gave it to me for Aaron. He didn’t know that Caleb had already found it in the garage, and had already sneaked it out to play with it. He dropped it, which is why it has a dent in the corner.’

Ren stared at her. ‘How do you know that Caleb had found it?’

‘It’s not a pleasant story. Caleb cycled out here one day. He had climbed a tree, and was just sitting there—’

‘What do you mean “just sitting there”?’

Shannon flushed. ‘I didn’t say anything to John, but that tree overlooks my bedroom window. Whether that was a coincidence or not, I don’t know.’

‘Do you think he might have suspected the affair?’ said Ren.

She shrugged. ‘I don’t think so, because he fell from the tree – I think it was the shock of seeing John arrive, pull up outside the house, and... well, I came out to greet John. It was a fairly passionate encounter. Caleb fell, banged his head. We rushed over to him, brought him inside, lay him down on the sofa, made sure he was OK. While he was there, he saw the PlayStation – he recognized the dent, so he knew it was the one he had found in the garage. He went nuts. We had to calm him down. He wanted to take it home – he said he’d tell Teddy about us. We... asked him not to. John promised to buy him one with his next pay check, and Caleb promised not to tell Teddy.’

Poor Caleb. So that was how he got the bump on his head. ‘Thanks for letting me know,’ said Ren. ‘But why didn’t you say it before?’

‘More lies for Teddy Veir to hear,’ said Shannon. ‘Not a lot for any of us to be proud of.’

‘I’m going to go back in to Seth,’ said Ren. ‘And I’d like to talk to him in private.’