“And then what?” Grace scoffed. “It’s not like we’ve got fixed times or fixed drop points, Dennis. Well, we do in here. Outside, we rotate – and our schedule depends on who’s going out when. Even if Treacher knew how we were working it, he couldn’t block us. Not unless he sends his people to squat in the courthouse, Leeds General and the bloody probation office.”
Which was true as far as it went. But Devlin really missed the good old days when everything was contained in G block. In G block, he was like God, and Grace was like the archangel Grabriel.
He could see trouble coming and he knew he couldn’t stop it. There was nothing to duck or dodge, just a sense of a big shitstorm impending. An argument could be made for battening down the hatches and waiting until it had passed, but Grace wouldn’t entertain that idea for a moment. “We’re still setting up,” she said. “Still building the architecture. If we close the shop now, we’ll never get it open again.”
So much for the voice of reason. Devlin wondered if he should put his foot down, tell her that this was just how it was going to be, but he couldn’t make himself commit to such a reckless course of action. A part of him knew that he would only have the whip hand over Grace as long as he never, ever made any sudden movements in the direction of the whip.
So he did nothing, and tried not to think about what might be building under the horizon.
58
Paul Levine played detective with no success at all.
He started by re-reading the files on Jess Moulson’s original trial from cover to cover. They included a fairly detailed set of background notes on Alex Beech which explicitly stated a complete absence of siblings, half-siblings and cousins of any degree of consanguinity.
Then he went through all the witness statements that had been assembled by the defence but not used in Moulson’s trial – two boxes full of them. He was just duplicating Moulson’s own efforts there, but it was a place to start. There was no mention in any of those documents or in Brian Pritchard’s notes of any female friend or relative who had a particularly intense relationship with Alex Beech, either positive or negative.
It was a waste of half a day – although admittedly not all of that time was spent reading the statements. Somewhere along the way, Paul turned up the folder containing the photographic evidence, much of which concerned Moulson’s and Street’s burn injuries. He wasn’t being prurient, or he told himself he wasn’t, but he found his mind drawn to those images. He couldn’t help himself. The photographs of Moulson’s face before and then during its surgical reconstruction fascinated and moved him. The photos of Street not only left him cold but actually repulsed him. He wasn’t sure why. Because Street wasn’t Moulson, probably.
But there was something else in his mind besides those purely personal responses. Something about the images was affecting him, touching his perceptions on a different level. He kept on looking, turning the entire stack over at least three or four times. When he glanced at his watch, he saw with shock and dismay that an hour had passed. He put the photos away and got back to work. Whatever was in the pictures, it had nothing to do with what Jess Moulson had asked of him. Or if it did, his subconscious would work on it and at some point the toast would pop up of its own accord.
The next thing he did was to tackle the media eulogies on Alex Beech, which were daunting. There were more than a thousand. Most of them rehashed the same few facts, the same handful of juicy quotes, so Paul’s read-throughs got quicker as he went along, but it was still a mountain of windy prose, and after he’d scaled it, he was left nauseous and numbed.
There was nothing in there. The dead boy was described in relation to his parents, whose marriage had since broken up, or else in terms of his hobbies and interests: his favourite book or movie franchise (How to Train Your Dragon), his first pet (goldfish), a brief flirtation with Shotokan karate that left him with an orange belt, the lowest after white.
Paul could read between the lines, at least a little. Where were the tearful encomiums from Alex’s school friends? The accolades from his teachers? One or two of the articles had photos of crying kids at a school memorial service, but there were no pull quotes. There ought to be dozens.
He called the school that Alex had attended, Planter’s Lane, and managed to get through to Alice Munroe, his last teacher there. He told her he was trying to build up a profile of Alex to get a better understanding of him. He was upfront about the context, which was Jessica Moulson’s appeal, and even over the phone he could feel the frost settling in.
“I don’t see where getting a fuller picture of Alex helps her at all,” Ms Munroe said. “Unless you’re going to try to blacken his character in some way.”
“He was just a child,” Paul pointed out.
“My point exactly.”
“We would never dream of attacking a child in court.”
“No? Not even if it would help your client?”
“Well, I’m not saying it hasn’t been done. But please believe we’re not thinking of taking that approach. We’re just trying to establish beyond a doubt what happened on the night of the fire.”
“So you think it hasn’t been established?”
“I’m wondering if it’s possible that someone else was there that night who hasn’t given evidence yet. A friend of Alex, or…”
“Or what?”
Paul decided to go for broke. It wasn’t like he had to worry about forfeiting Ms Munroe’s good opinion. “Possibly not a friend. Possibly something else. Somebody who didn’t like him much at all.”
“I don’t think I get your meaning.”
“Well, was Alex ever bullied at all? Perhaps when he first came to the school? Some kids find it hard to settle in, and then… well, you know. Other kids might target them.”
“Alex settled in just fine, Mr Levine. And we don’t have a problem with bullying here.” The teacher’s tone had become even harder and more brittle, from a hard and brittle baseline.
“No, I wasn’t suggesting that you do. I’m just…”
“Building a picture.”
“Trying to, yes.”
He heard the white noise of a sigh, and waited. People don’t usually sigh before hanging up.
“He didn’t have any friends or any enemies.” She said it flatly, with resignation – confessing her own sins, at least in part. “The truth is Alex kept himself to himself. I tried to coax him out, but he barely ever spoke in class. To me or to anyone else.”
“He was a loner?”
“Yes. Wonderful. Why not? If you want to sum up a dead human being in one word, he was a loner.”
“I’m sorry,” Paul said. “And I don’t. I don’t want to do that. I’d really like to get a sense of what made Alex tick. I just… it doesn’t seem to be there, in any of the testimony.”
“No. Well, I’m not surprised. I taught him for most of a year and I never felt like I knew him. I’m sorry.”
“Not at all,” Paul said. “I appreciate you agreeing to talk to me. And I assure you, nothing you’ve said is going to make it into any report or statement or submission. If there’s anything else you could give me, or anyone else you could point me towards…”
“Well, there are his school reports.” Ms Munroe sounded doubtful. “I could send you those. It’s just…”
“Yes?”
“Well, they’re written in a sort of tick-boxy way these days. There are a set of sentences in each skill area, and you choose the one that’s closest to a given student’s performance. They’re not likely to yield any startling insights.”
“But you could copy them for me?”
“They’re all stored as files on the system. I could send them to you. For what they’re worth. It will take me a while to dig them out though.”
“That would be great,” Paul said. “Thank you.”
“I really doubt they’ll be much use.”