Page 52

The incident room is empty now, it’s just me and Quinn. And I meant what I said. He’d put some decent thought into that plan, especially as he had to rewrite a lot of it on the hoof.
‘So what about Sharon?’ he says. ‘You want me to contact Heathside?’
I nod. ‘We need to do that ASAP. And her lawyer will need to be there too.’
‘I’ll give them a call,’ says Quinn. ‘See if we can get in there today.’ He pulls his jacket off the chair, then turns to me for a moment. ‘Let’s go round again, huh?’
He doesn’t need to elaborate. The last time the two of us were at HMP Heathside was six years ago, interviewing another woman who’d been convicted of killing her child. Another child who’d come back from the dead years later, though by the time anyone had worked that out he’d been shot in the face at point-blank range.
As precedents go, it’s not encouraging.
***
DC Morris takes a deep breath and sits back. Some of his initial enthusiasm for the task has evaporated; two hours hunting for paedophiles will do that to you. He looks at the list of names he’s jotted down but it’s fairly meagre pickings. The Cowley Road grooming gang are an obvious candidate – they were all over the news back then, but as the records make clear, most of them were behind bars by July 2016. And in any case, he can’t believe the original investigation didn’t look into such obvious suspects. Worth checking, though, you never know. And then there’s a man from Oldham who wasn’t arrested until early 2020 but there’s a note saying he could have been active for some time before that. The nine-year-old girl he’d abducted was blonde and blue-eyed, taken from a playground near her school in November 2019 and found in the River Medlock three days later. But even if the victim profile is a match, the MO isn’t, and the connection to Oxford is all but non-existent,just a cousin who once lived in Blackbird Leys. And in any case, the man’s been in prison since December 2020, so his alibi for Hescombe ranks as pretty solid.
He gets up and stretches his back.
Coffee, he thinks. Coffee.
***
‘So, I’ve managed to track down Leo Mason,’ says Sargent, sliding her chair over to Ev’s. ‘He’s still with the people who initially fostered him.’ She holds out a print-out. ‘Jean and Philip Mann. The last social worker’s report is more than three years ago – but that’s not down to a failure in the system: he was doing so well they decided he didn’t need regular monitoring any more.’
Ev takes the sheet of paper and scans down it, words and phrases catching her eye: ‘clearly adjusted well to his new school’, ‘stable home life’, ‘health problems significantly improved’.
‘What were the health issues?’ says Sargent, watching Ev as she reads.
Ev looks up. ‘He was born with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. His biological mother was an alcoholic.’
Sargent frowns. ‘I’ve never come across that – is it rare?’
Ev sighs. ‘Not as rare as you’d want it to be. And the symptoms are hard to diagnose because it can look like autism or ADHD. There are a whole load of physical issues with it too – from memory, it’s liver and kidneys mostly, but there can be stomach problems too.’ She makes a face. ‘I only know that because poor old Leo was called “Nuka the Puker” by the kids at his school. Nuka is the manky one inThe Lion King.’
Sargent makes a face. ‘Nowt so cruel as kids, eh.’
‘Right. And there’s this other thing Leo had.’ She puts her hand to her face. ‘This groove here, between your mouth and your nose? I’ve forgotten what it’s called but FAS kids oftendon’t have one. It’s one of those things you can’t put your finger on until it’s pointed out, and after that it’s unmistakeable.’
‘Thankfully most kids won’t be up to noticing that.’
Ev hands her the paper back. ‘And it sounds like he’s still doing well, which, believe me, is the only good thing to have come out of that whole bloody mess.’
Sargent raises an eyebrow. ‘Why “still”? Did you keep in touch?’
Ev smiles. ‘Not me. Fawley. He used to pop in to see the foster family for a couple of years after the court case. Just to see how Leo was. He does that a lot. When there’s kids involved and it’s a bad one.’
‘I’m surprised he has the time.’
‘He makes the time.’
***
Adam Fawley
25 July 2024
18.25
We hit the usual traffic round Heathrow, so it took a lot longer than I wanted. Another bedtime story I’m never going to get back, but I’m trying not to get ratty about it. Like I said, the last time I went to Heathside was to see Camilla Rowan – who, incidentally, was only finally released last year. Though Google tells me there’s a new governor now. An ex-nun, apparently, which sounds odd at first, but when you think about it, there won’t be much about closed communities she doesn’t know.