‘We don’t judge, Mrs Michaels. It’s not our job.’ Pete felt sympathy with her defensiveness. He was still the same way with Tommy, despite all he’d learned about the boy in the last couple of weeks. All parents would be, he guessed.
After a long pause, she sighed and seemed to slump in her chair. ‘No, he wasn’t diabetic. Why?’
‘One of the pathologist’s findings suggested the possibility. You say you’re not, either. Is anyone in the family, or one of his friends, perhaps?’
She shook her head, unruly strands of hair wafting. ‘Why should it matter?’
‘Talking of friends, did you know most of Andrew’s?’
‘He didn’t have many,’ his father said. ‘Quiet lad, kept himself to himself.’
‘He was bullied at school,’ Kathy said, reminding Pete again of his own son, who was small for his age. ‘Never really got over it. We tried to encourage him to get out more, join a club or something, but . . .’ Her hands fluttered briefly then went back to her lap, where the fingers resumed their random pattern of twining together.
Evidence suggested that Tommy had reacted differently to the Michaels boy. According to both his peers and his teachers, he’d turned things around to the extent that many of the other kids were frightened of him. Too small to fight, he’d become devious, cruel and bitter. Instead of the brawn that he lacked, he’d used his brains to get back at the kids who’d previously targeted him. Not that Pete had ever noticed any of this, he had to admit regretfully. He’d always been too busy working.
‘Did he have a computer?’ Jane asked.
‘Up in his room,’ Kathy said.
‘Could I take a look? It helps to build up a picture of him – his associates, his interests and so on.’
‘He wasn’t into anything mucky,’ Kathy said quickly. ‘You won’t find none of that porn stuff on there.’
‘As I said, Mrs Michaels, I’m just interested in who he was connecting with, what his interests were, what he was like as a person. We didn’t know him, you understand.’
She grunted. ‘I suppose. Come on, then.’ She got up and shuffled towards the door.
Pete waited until the door closed behind them, then turned to Brian.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s possible your son was killed, Mr Michaels,’ he said. ‘We need to know as much as we can about him, to find out who might have done it. If anyone in his life might have had the opportunity or the inclination. Do you have any other family?’
‘I’ve got a brother and a sister, live here in the city. His mother’s an only child. Dave’s got no kids, Beck’s got a son, five years younger than our Andrew, but they don’t see each other except birthdays and Christmas. Her husband don’t come round here, either. He works down the industrial estate. Car mechanic.’
‘And your brother? David?’
‘Retired last year. Done his back in. Been troubling him for years but it finally got too much last spring.’
‘And do you see him much?’
‘Nah. He got himself one of those disabled cars, but he don’t drive it much and we don’t drive, me and Kath. Never did. Like she said – keep ourselves to ourselves.’
‘I understand Andrew was in town when it happened. Sitting on a bench up by the Princesshay.’ Pete’s mind conjured an image of the wide, pedestrianised High Street with the glass and concrete entrance to the covered shopping centre off its east side. ‘Did he do that much?’
‘Every fortnight, when he had to go and sign on, he’d spend a few hours round the centre. Got him out of the house, change of scenery, bit of fresh air, you know?’
Pete nodded. An isolated, lonely life, broken by sitting alone among the crowds on the High Street once a fortnight. Christ, talk about sad.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out, checked the screen and saw the ID flashing up: Doc. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Michaels. ‘I need to take this.’ He hit the button and raised the phone to his ear. ‘Hello, Doc. What’s up?’
‘I’ve just heard back from the lab,’ Chambers said. ‘We have the toxicology from Jeremy Tyler. I was right, unfortunately. He had been dosed. With succinylcholine, so he was paralysed but fully aware as the fire took hold around him.’
‘So, what did she have to say while you were on your own with her?’ Pete asked as he pulled away from the kerb outside the Michaels’ house.
The sun was low in the sky, hidden behind a mass of heavy black cloud, leaving it near-dark although it was still mid-afternoon. Pete switched his lights on. The beams swept across other parked cars, pavements fronted by stretches of mown grass and low, neat walls protecting tidy gardens in front of suburban houses where situations like this were not meant to arise.
‘She loved her son, boss. Wouldn’t have a word said against him, even hypothetically. My guess – she was the reason he was so withdrawn. Overprotective, you know? Smothering. But essentially, he kept himself to himself. Had interests that most guys grow out of at about twelve. Trains, planes – stuff like that. The only vaguely social thing he seemed to be involved in was the annual model train exhibition at the local school. Has quite a big following, apparently. Draws people in from all over. As far as the West Midlands. And she was right. There was no porn on his computer, or any sign of it in the history log.’
He drove past the school she had just mentioned – the school his own daughter, Annie, attended. The one Tommy had gone to as well until just over a year ago when he switched to the local senior school. Cars lined both sides of the road outside, parents sitting patiently waiting for their offspring to emerge. The bright railings and heavy metal gates made it look like some kind of junior prison. His mind conjured an image of ten-year-old Annie, sitting at her desk, sucking on the end of her pen as she avidly watched the teacher at the front of the class, absorbing every speck of information they could provide.
In a few minutes, the scene would change completely, the ring of a bell releasing a dark tide of noisy humanity onto the quiet streets like a swarm of angry bees.
‘How’s she doing, boss? Annie? She all right?’
Pete blinked. ‘Yes, she’s great. Don’t know what I’d have done without her, the past few months, to be honest.’
‘And Louise?’
Pete glanced across. Saw the genuine concern in her expression. Jane was more than a junior officer. She was a friend. They had been partners for three years before he got the sergeant’s exam. He trusted her like no one else on the force – even their DI, Colin Underhill, who had been both a boss and a mentor through their early years in CID. ‘She’s . . . She seems to have turned a corner. The fact that Tommy was there with Rosie, that he’s still alive . . . It’s given her something to focus on. Some sort of hope. I wouldn’t want to be Simon Phillips if she ran into him, but…’
Jane laughed. ‘Not impressed, eh?’
‘Not really. It’s been almost seven months and the only real evidence he’s got is what we gave him last week, from the Rosie Whitlock case. She’s bad enough with me. Why could I bring Rosie back and not Tommy? Where is he? Why won’t he come home? What are we doing to find him? Not that I can blame her. I just wish I had the answers for her. But, if she got hold of Simon, she’d have his balls for earrings.’ He glanced in the mirror, but the school was gone from sight around a bend in the road.
*
Dave stared up at the castle-like gatehouse of the dark-brick Victorian prison with its huge