Luke Delaney - The Rule of Fear

‘We won’t let it go too far,’ he assured her, ‘just enough so we can bury him.’

‘How far is too far with children?’ she asked, her voice thick with concern.

‘So what do you want to do?’

‘All we can do,’ she explained in her hoarse whisper. ‘Warn him off – let him know we’re watching him. Maybe let the kids’ parents know.’

‘So he walks away again?’ he complained. Renita just shrugged resignedly. ‘Fine,’ he gave in. ‘Have it your way.’

Without warning they burst from their hiding place and strode into the open ground, not worrying about the two or three more experienced children who took advantage of the others’ hesitation to jump to their feet and flee into the surrounding mess of rubble and trees. ‘Everyone stay where you are,’ he ordered, closing the distance quickly until he was in the middle of the group. ‘What you doing here?’ he asked the children, ignoring Swinton who sat wide-eyed and resigned on a stack of old cushions salvaged from God knows where, looking even more innocent and bewildered than the children around him.

The children shrugged, pulled faces and muttered a collective ‘Nothing’.

‘You know who these kids belong to?’ he asked Renita.

‘Yeah,’ she confirmed, scanning the frightened faces. ‘Most of them.’

‘OK,’ he nodded. ‘All right, you lot – disappear.’ The children looked at each other disbelievingly until King barked at them again, causing a small stampede of little feet. ‘I said, disappear.’

Swinton tried to join the exodus until King’s hand fell heavily on his shoulder. ‘Not you,’ he whispered menacingly before turning and shouting after the fleeing juveniles, ‘and stay away from this man,’ he warned them. ‘He shouldn’t be around children.’

‘Why, why, why did you say that,’ Swinton stuttered. ‘I, I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘Haven’t done anything wrong?’ King mimicked him. ‘How old are you?’

‘Thirty-two,’ Swinton replied, his eyes flicking from King to Renita.

‘So what’s a thirty-two-year-old man doing hanging around with a bunch of kids?’ King asked calmly, leaning closer to the still sitting Swinton who just shrugged. King kicked him slightly in the foot to get his full attention. ‘I asked you a question.’

‘Take it easy, Sarge,’ Renita intervened. ‘He’s not worth it.’

‘No, he’s not,’ he agreed, ‘but I still want him to answer the question.’

‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ the scared-looking Swinton replied. ‘We were just talking.’

‘If you want to talk to someone, why don’t you talk to someone your own age?’ King questioned.

‘I don’t know,’ Swinton shrugged again. ‘I don’t like listening to the things they talk about.’

‘What things?’ King pushed.

‘You know,’ he looked at the floor. ‘ Ugly things.’

‘You ever talk to any children about these ugly things?’ King asked softly.

‘No,’ Swinton insisted, his face a picture of indignation and embarrassment. ‘I’m not interested in that stuff . That’s all other people talk about, but I don’t care. The children don’t talk about it.’

‘So what do they talk about?’ King demanded, his voice full of suspicion and distrust.

‘Interesting things,’ Swinton answered, sounding more upbeat, as if the memory of childish conversations had lifted his spirits. ‘You know, like school and toys and computer games.’

‘And you like stuff like that, do you?’

‘Yeah,’ Swinton smiled nervously back.

‘School?’ King picked on one of the things Swinton had mentioned.

‘Sometimes, I suppose,’ he tried to backpedal somewhat, as if he sensed a trap.

‘And why the fuck are you talking to children about their schools?’ King turned on him.

‘I, I just like to hear about the things they learn,’ Swinton tried to explain.

‘Fucking bullshit,’ King almost shouted into his face, making Renita take a step closer.

‘Sarge,’ she tried to leash him.

‘You’re trying to find out about their friends, aren’t you?’ King accused him. ‘So you can find out who the vulnerable ones are, right? So you can, what – follow them and pick them off? Just like you did the others?’

‘No. No,’ Swinton denied it all, twisting uncomfortably on his makeshift seat, his face contorted in confusion and fear. ‘I, I don’t do that. I wouldn’t do that. The children are my friends.’

‘This is getting us nowhere,’ Renita intervened, trying to calm King, even resting a hand on his forearm.

‘OK,’ he nodded slowly, looking down on the fearful Swinton. ‘Get the fuck out of here.’ Swinton looked to Renita for confirmation he was free to go. She motioned with her chin and he scrambled to his feet. ‘And if I ever see you hanging around children again, I’ll kick your door in and take your computer – give it to our experts and see what they can find on it. Would you like that?’

‘No,’ Swinton argued naïvely. ‘I need my computer – to play my games on. It’s, it’s all I have.’

‘Get out of my sight,’ King told him as if he was nothing. Swinton stood in front of him, straightening his spectacles and wiping his sweaty palms on the stomach of his shirt before tentatively walking away, only stopping once he was a safer distance away, turning back towards them to speak.

‘I know what you think of me,’ he called. ‘But I didn’t do anything wrong. You, you shouldn’t talk to me like that.’

‘Walk away,’ Renita warned him before King could react. ‘Just walk away.’ He looked at them with a mix of disappointment and fear before disappearing into the long, straw-like grass, the reeds closing behind him in the breeze as if he’d never been there.

‘Fucking paedophile,’ King accused him once he was gone. ‘We should have waited till he did something. Could have nicked him and turned his flat over. There’s probably enough shit on his computer to send him down for years.’

‘We couldn’t wait until he touched one of them,’ she reminded him. ‘We would have been slaughtered once people found out.’

‘Maybe we were a little too honest in our approach,’ King tested her.

‘Easy,’ she warned him. ‘You can’t gild the lily when it comes to kids. They have a nasty habit of contradicting you.’

‘I guess,’ he nodded.

Renita looked for a long time in the direction Swinton had walked. ‘If you’re that sure we’ll find evidence in his flat maybe we should nick him and search it. Or we could always try and get a search warrant.’

‘No,’ King shook his head slowly. ‘Too risky. We’d never get a search warrant and if we do a Section 18 and find nothing we’ll look like idiots. I’m not having someone like Swinton make a fool of me. No forensics, remember? And the victims can’t identify him.’

‘OK, Sarge,’ Renita said. ‘Then how do we stop him?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Maybe for this once, we’ll have to bend a few rules. For the sake of the children, if nothing else. And stop calling me Sarge all the time. Driving me bloody mad.’

‘I thought you wanted us to,’ she reminded him.

‘The others maybe,’ he told her, ‘but not you. Doesn’t sound right coming from you for some reason. Just call me Jack, will you?’

‘OK,’ she nodded once, a little unsure, following his eyes as they continued to stare at the space where Swinton had disappeared into the long grass. ‘Let it go,’ she encouraged him. ‘Swinton will come again.’

‘Creepy little bastard, wasn’t he,’ King answered, his eyes still not moving.

‘Maybe,’ she only partly agreed. ‘But looks can sometimes be deceiving. Maybe he’s just a little simple or maybe he’d just rather hang out with the kids than the adults on the estate. At least they have some semblance of innocence. He probably couldn’t handle the adults. They’d rip him up for arse paper.’