‘We’ve a good turn out,’ Janine said to Claire. The woman’s face was wretched, hollowed and grey. There was a glassy, remote look in her eyes. Had she given up? Given up daring to hope?
The guilt must be crippling, thought Janine. To know that Sammy had disappeared while she was supposed to be looking after him. Janine wondered if the abduction had been premeditated or opportunistic. Had someone been watching Claire and Sammy, set their sights on the young boy, trailed them to the shops, to playgroup, to the park. Noting their routines and behaviour. Planned when to strike, a vehicle at the ready for a quick getaway, somewhere lined up to take the child, the whole thing done with intent and deliberation.
Or had there been a terrible collision of circumstances. A predator passing through the park, keen not to attract interest, window shopping if you like, just turned out to be in the right place at the right time, within feet of Sammy as his mother was distracted. A matter of seconds to pick up the child and walk steadily away.
Millie spoke to one of her colleagues who was co-ordinating the re-enactment. The actor playing Claire took the fleece from the child and led him round to the steps.
‘He took his fleece off,’ Claire said. ‘Sammy always gets hot running about. But it was warm, it was really warm. He’s only got his t-shirt now. What if he’s cold?’ Anxiety danced in her eyes. ‘I should have gone to the front as soon as he got to the top of the slide.’
‘Claire, I can’t tell you what you want to hear,’ Janine said. ‘I’m so sorry. I wish I could. That’s why today matters. If we can jog someone’s memory-’
‘What if it doesn’t work?’ Clive Wray said. ‘How much longer-’ he broke off, unable to continue.
Janine couldn’t answer that question, either. Some children were never found. That was the reality. ‘We’re doing everything we can,’ she said, ‘I promise.’
The little boy pulled at the spectacles, unused to them. The woman playing Claire, took his hand and led him round again. The cameras drank it up, ready for broadcast on the news bulletins, for Crimewatch, for stills in the next editions of the papers, for the police website.
Janine looked at the T-shirt, the green dinosaur, just the sort of thing she’d have bought Tom when he was younger and obsessed with the creatures. She thought of the victim, the paltry evidence they had from the scene, everything compromised by the water and the actions of scavenging animals. The t-shirt, underpants, bed sheet, the human hairs and the screw. A glasses screw.
The boy slid down the slide and was caught at the bottom.
Janine’s pulse jumped. She turned to Millie, and stepped closer, away from the Wrays so they wouldn’t hear. ‘The glasses screw in the sheet – we thought it was Sammy’s,’ Janine said, ‘switch it round. What if that’s the killer’s?’
Millie understood straight away and nodded quickly.
Janine pulled out her phone and called Richard. ‘Richard, the glasses screw, not that many three-year-olds wear glasses. It’s more likely to be the killer’s, isn’t it? Get someone onto McEvoy, check the prescription of his glasses against the glass on the drive. He had his glasses on earlier but maybe he has a spare pair.’
‘Or got them fixed,’ Richard said.
‘What about Joe Breeley, he wasn’t wearing glasses, was he?’
‘No,’ said Richard. ‘But if he’d broken them…’
‘ OK. Keep in touch, I shouldn’t be much longer here and then we’ll decide what we do next.’
‘No match to McEvoy’s prescription,’ Richard told her as she arrived back at the office. ‘And nothing out of order at his house.’
‘Back to Breeley then,’ she said.
‘How do you want to play it?’
‘Cautiously,’ Janine didn’t want to make any more mistakes.
Janine looked at the photographs, Joe and Mandy and their two sons. John and Aidan as newborns and older. In several photographs Joe Breeley was wearing glasses, rectangular, dark frames. Janine looked at Richard, signalled with her eyes. He saw what she meant, gave a brief nod.
Mandy was holding Aidan, she looked nervous, full of fleeting smiles.
‘You’ve not got your glasses, Mr Breeley?’ Richard said.
‘I lost them,’ Breeley said, ‘I can manage without, don’t need them really.’
‘When was that, then, that you lost them?’ said Richard.
‘I can’t remember.’ He scratched at the edge of his jaw line.
‘You didn’t have them when we first called round. So, before then?’ Richard said.
‘He only needs them for reading. He’s always losing them,’ Mandy said. Aidan wriggled in her arms and squealed and she hushed him.
If he only needed the glasses for reading, Janine thought, then why was he wearing them in the photographs?
Breeley’s leg was dancing, the man was wound up tight.
‘We found optical glass on the pavement at Kendal Avenue. And a glasses screw inside the sheet the child was wrapped in. Your glasses – are they lost, or broken?’ said Janine.
‘Lost. I told you.’
‘Maybe they’re in the van,’ said Richard, ‘it’s just out there. We can have a look.’
‘No.’ He got to his feet quickly. ‘They’re not there.’
‘Won’t take a minute,’ Richard said, ‘and we can clear this up.’ Richard set off with Joe rushing after him, Janine and Mandy close behind.
‘No!’ Breeley was shouting, ‘You don’t go near my van.’ Breeley tried to grab Richard, pull him back but Richard, the bigger man shrugged him off.
‘No. Leave it!’
Richard reached the van and glanced in, turned back. ‘Here all along, one lens broken.’
‘It’s nothing!’ Breeley shouted, ‘Just a pair of specs.’
Richard pulled handcuffs out and moved quickly to Breeley. Began the caution, ‘Joseph Breeley, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything…’
Mandy, her mouth open, was shaking her head. Then she began to shout, ‘Leave him alone, get off him, he hasn’t done anything. Leave him.’ The baby was crying and Janine steered them back towards the house. ‘Leave him alone,’ Mandy shouted, ‘where are you taking him?’
‘He’ll be at City Central Police Station while he helps us with our inquiries,’ Janine said. ‘We may wish to speak to you in due course.’
‘I can’t,’ Mandy said, ‘the kids… what about the kids?’
‘If necessary we can provide temporary child care while we speak to you if you can’t find anyone yourself.’
‘He didn’t… he couldn’t…’ she broke down.
Denying everything. Had she suspected her husband of such a crime? She had given him the alibi for the Saturday morning. Maybe that was genuine. The child could have been placed there another day, though that didn’t account for the noise of the van heard so early in the day.
Or maybe Mandy Breeley suspected her husband but wouldn’t admit it to herself. Shut down the whispers in her head, made light of the worry gnawing away inside. Wanted to believe him innocent. To believe he was a good man, a decent man. Not think that the father of her children murdered another child.
Chapter 25
While Joe Breeley was booked in and a solicitor was arranged, Janine and Richard prepared the interview, going over all the facts, the evidence they had and the contradictions in what Breeley had told them so far.
Janine had sent CSIs to recover the van. In the lab, Joe Breeley’s glasses prescription was being compared to the broken lens found close to the manhole, and an examination was underway to see if the glasses screw fit the frames. In the custody suite, Breeley was being processed, having his fingerprints taken, giving a DNA sample and a hair from his head. The lab would look at the hair to see if it resembled the one recovered from inside the sheet. A DNA profile would establish if they came from the same person.