They were going to get no description from her.
Marie looked to her mother for reassurance.
Bryant knew he was looking at a good kid who had never been any trouble. She would have wanted to do nothing that would make her mother’s life any harder.
‘What did you do next?’ he asked.
Dawson shot him a look that said they had everything they were going to get from this witness. And they had. Almost.
‘I called out. He groaned quietly, and I ran over. I knew they were gone so I knelt down and… I told him it would be okay, and then I called the ambulance.’
The hesitation between actions was what he’d been waiting for.
Bryant leaned forward and spoke gently. ‘Marie, do you have his phone?’
Her face coloured instantly ‘His phone?’ she repeated.
Bryant nodded. ‘You’ve not done anything wrong. I’ve seen police officers instinctively pick something up without considering the evidential repercussions. But it could help our investigation.’
She hesitated.
‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ he emphasised.
Her lip quivered but she nodded and pushed herself to her feet. She left the room and her mother’s concerned eyes followed her.
Bryant turned to her mother. ‘Has she cried yet?’
Christie shook her head. ‘She rarely cries. She’s a very brave girl.’
‘She’s holding it in,’ Bryant said, kindly. ‘Get her to keep talking about it.’
‘How do I get her to let go?’ she asked.
‘Ask about his injuries,’ Dawson piped up from the sofa. ‘And get her to talk about the noises she heard. Those are the things that will keep her awake.’
Bryant nodded his agreement as Marie re-entered the room.
The old cream Nokia had been wrapped in cling film.
‘I thought…’
‘It’s okay,’ Bryant said, taking the phone from her.
From a useable evidence perspective this was as good as a confession written in pencil. But they could look at it for clues.
‘Thank you for your help, Marie. If we need…’
‘There was something I heard that seemed strange,’ Marie said, ‘but I don’t know if I heard it right.’
‘Anything at all,’ Dawson offered.
She scrunched up her face as though listening to the words in her mind once more.
‘The attacker… I’m sure he was telling the man on the ground to close his eyes.’
‘Close his eyes?’ Bryant queried. Seemed like a strange request to him.
She shrugged and shook her head. ‘I think I must have heard wrong,’ she said.
They said their goodbyes and got into the car.
‘So, what do you think of that?’ Bryant asked.
Dawson shook his head dismissively. ‘She must have heard wrong. Why would the attacker tell him to close his eyes when he had every intention of killing him? Makes no sense,’ Dawson said, taking out his phone.
Bryant agreed with his colleague; Marie must have been mistaken.
But a very small part of him wasn’t so sure.
FOURTEEN
Stacey replaced the receiver and sat back. For a moment there had been some animation. Some activity to cut through the silence of the squad room. It hadn’t lasted long and the air had once again fallen silent around her.
The phone from the incident was on its way to her and that was about it. Her whole job list from Dawson and Bryant had taken approximately seven and a half minutes.
Stacey couldn’t help but feel her skills were not being fully utilised. If her fingers were still, she was underworked.
Normally, the peace and quiet of the office was filled by the activity in her brain. She didn’t notice it as her thoughts whirred from one task to the next and her tapping keyboard tried to keep pace.
And although she spent many hours working alone while the rest of the team was out in the field, the days rushed by; the end of shift normally taking her by surprise. Already she was missing the constant calls from the boss; check this, research that, analyse this, dig into that. She knew this was not the boss’s choice but she resented the fact those calls were going somewhere else.
She sighed heavily and checked her emails again. Nothing new. She drummed her fingers on the desk and looked around the office.
Her eyes rested on an eerily empty whiteboard. She had already wiped away the ‘unidentified skull’ title daubed by Bryant.
With little else to do, she stood and stepped around to Dawson’s desk. How he found anything in this mess just astounded her. Bryant’s desk was not clinically organised and tidy, like her own, but there was an order that matched his methodical mind. Dawson’s desk was Armageddon, and she couldn’t stand it a minute longer.
Stacey pushed away his chair and began separating the papers, matching them to the relevant case file. She rolled her eyes as a few stray baguette crumbs fell from a stack of leaflets.
Within ten minutes the piles were orderly except for his bottom tray. She knew it was where he filed ‘don’t know what to do with it so I’ll leave it until later’ stuff.
She pulled out the pile and began to sort it. Perversely, he wouldn’t even notice what she’d done. For an astute detective, Dawson missed a lot.
She moved a half completed expense form to reveal a handwritten page. The toner mark along the top told her it was a photocopy.
The two words at the top of the page caught her attention.
Dear Mum
Her stomach turned when she realised it was the suicide note of Justin Reynolds. Dawson had removed it from the scene, copied it to attach to his statement, and returned the original to the family.
The simplicity of those two words being written as though leaving a note about football or a reminder to pick something up for tea. Especially when it was the last thing he would ever write, the last thoughts he would ever communicate. The vision of his youthful face and teenage existence at odds with the blood spattered wall had not yet left her mind.
Stacey felt she should do him the honour of listening.
She slid down into Dawson’s chair and began to read.
Dear Mum,
I am sorry for everything. I’m sorry I couldn’t explain it to you. Whatever happens, whatever you find out it’s not your fault. It’s mine and it’s who I’ve become. I just can’t live with myself and what I’ve done. I’m not the person you think I am. Not any more. I’m sorry, mum, so sorry for everything
Stacey ignored the slight tremble in her hand as she placed the letter back in the bottom tray on the desk.
It was no longer their case, as there were no suspicious circumstances.
The boy was dead and it was not their problem. A family was broken, stunned and bewildered but it wasn’t their concern.
Oh, but she recognised elements of the letter.
The first few words were written strongly, neatly, with conviction; smaller letters, more focussed concentration. As the letter progressed the words got bigger, more untidy as emotion controlled the pen. The last few words, scrawled, messy, at the heart of the pain and then nothing. A half page of white nothingness. Acceptance and death.