Make Believe - [6]

‘The Wrays kill him then they report him missing as a cover up,’ Shap said. ‘Kendal Avenue, that’s only a few streets away from the Wrays’ house.’ Everyone knew the statistics, inside out and upside down. Eighty-eight percent of victims knew their killers. For kids it was even higher.

‘But Claire was seen at the park with Sammy,’ Janine said.

‘Clive’s got a dodgy alibi though: no-one to verify where he was,’ Richard said.

‘Claire didn’t see anyone making off with the child,’ Janine said.

‘She was distracted and whoever did it moved quickly and had the advantage of the slide obscuring them from view,’ Richard pointed out.

‘Unless she’s covering for him,’ said Shap.

People did sometimes, Janine knew only too well, they were persuaded into deceit because they were too fearful to tell the truth, or because they were complicit in the behaviour that led to a death, or because they believed the murderer, who said it was an accident, or a mistake, or a moment’s folly. But a child, an only child, she found it hard to credit that Claire Wray would do such a thing. The woman was heartbroken, it didn’t seem plausible that she’d be able to maintain any fiction about events.

And Clive? Clive felt harder to read. Janine sensed something off-key, small but resonant when they talked to him, as though there was some other business claiming part of his attention.

‘Then why draw attention like that?’ Janine said. ‘Why not hide the whole thing instead of crying abduction? If she was colluding, she wouldn’t have raised the alarm.’

‘Perhaps Claire only discovered later that Clive was involved. Yet chose to stand by him,’ said Butchers.

Janine shook her head. It didn’t mesh with what she’d seen of Claire so far.

‘So Clive does it on his own. Grab the kid, turn and walk away. Pretends it’s a game: let’s hide from mummy,’ Shap said.

‘Suppose he was involved – why bury Sammy so close to home?’ Janine indicated the locations on the map.

‘Opportunistic?’ said Lisa.

‘Perhaps,’ Janine said. ‘Can we examine that lack of an alibi? Shap, get onto the wardens, park rangers whatever. See if they can help. CCTV between here and Hayfield, speed cameras. Anything that’ll flag up Clive Wray.’

Shap gave a groan and Janine saw Butchers gloat at the mention of CCTV, it was a tedious task at the best of times.

Janine saw Louise Hogg nod approval and gave herself a mental pat on the back. She didn’t usually have the boss in on her briefings and it always unsettled her, though of course, Hogg was a far better prospect than her former boss Keith Hackett who had taken great delight at undermining her at every turn.

Janine gestured to the whiteboards. ‘Moving on – the crime scene. The Kendal Avenue property is being refurbished. We’ll be talking to the contractors. Butchers, you lead door-to-door with the neighbours. Why this place? We know the child was already dead when he was put in the drain. Was it simply handy? People panic when they kill. Most murders aren’t meticulously planned and executed, people have to improvise. Perhaps the manhole on Kendal Avenue is simply the first hiding place the killer found for the body.’

Richard held up a report. ‘From CSIs, a screw from a pair of glasses fell from the sheet as the body was recovered. We also have fragments of optical glass on the pavement near the manhole cover.’

‘Sammy had his glasses on at the park,’ Janine said.

There was a moment’s quiet as everyone absorbed that – the evidence reinforcing the possibility that this child was the missing boy.

Janine looked at the boards, the photograph of the child, the round glasses.

‘The sheet,’ Lisa said, ‘well, it’s like a shroud, isn’t it?’

Janine considered this, nodded at Lisa to elaborate.

‘Not just dumped in a bin bag.’

‘A mark of respect?’ said Janine.

‘Or he just grabbed what was at hand,’ Richard said.

‘Yes. OK, now the park,’ said Janine, one eye on the clock. She had a press conference to front. She gestured to the section on the whiteboards that detailed information on the abduction. ‘Sammy Wray was abducted, on Saturday the nineteenth of April shortly after one pm. Plenty of reports of Sammy and Claire, of him playing on the slide. Claire stops to help a child who’s tripped up and that’s when Sammy disappears. All this is confirmed by independent witnesses. Butchers?’

‘We’re reviewing eyewitness statements but to date no-one saw the actual abduction.’

Richard checked the board. ‘Three sightings were cross-referenced but not yet traced?’ he said.

‘Yep,’ said Shap, ‘we still need to trace a woman on her own, an elderly couple with a dog and a bearded man seen acting strangely by the swings.’

Somebody groaned and Louise Hogg spoke up, ‘I know there’s always a bearded weirdo acting strangely but don’t dismiss it completely.’

‘You all clear what you’re working on?’ Janine asked. Nods and agreement. People were eager to get cracking, to get the investigation up to full steam. ‘As always details remain confidential and we’ll be keeping to the basic known facts for this morning’s press conference. Lots to do,’ she said, ‘let’s get on with it.’