Make Believe by Cath Staincliffe Page B

mother had lost her son.
    Why hope, she thought, so there can be yet another fall?  Another blow to the skull, another attack on her heart.
    Where was he?  Was he frightened?  He had a way of freezing, shrinking when he was scared.  He wouldn’t scream and run, sometimes he didn’t even cry, just stilled, frozen like a wary animal.
    There were people on the television, voices, news headlines, the police detective – DCI Lewis.  Clive turned up the sound.
    Claire looked at it stupidly for a second then felt her gorge rise.  Sickening.  That’s what it was.  Sickening and brutal and pitiless and she wanted it to stop.  All of it.  Forever.

Chapter 15
     
    Janine was in her office trying to work.  Richard and Millie were just outside, Richard looking over the new press release to accompany the reconstruction of Sammy Wray’s abduction.
    ‘Great,’ Richard said.
    ‘ Needs sensitive handling,’ Millie said.
    ‘ You’re good at that,’ Richard said with a throaty chuckle.
    Oh, please, Janine prayed, enough.  It was hard to concentrate without this going on.  She got up to close her door and saw Butchers and Lisa arriving back.  ‘Boss,’ Butchers called.  Janine went to see what he was so excited about.
    ‘ Luke Stafford and Phoebe Wray are mates,’ he said.  ‘He’s a history of violent behaviour and he lives next door to the murder scene.  She’s got reason to want rid of Sammy Wray.’
    ‘ What are you saying?’ Richard asked before Janine had chance.
    ‘ It’s a pact,’ Butchers answered, ‘she does Sammy – he does another child.’
    ‘ Oh, come on,’ Janine said.
    ‘Or maybe he was going after Sammy, to prove himself to her, like, but he got the wrong child,’ said Butchers.
    ‘ They’re kids,’ Janine said incredulously.  Murders of children by children were relatively rare.  Janine had never worked one in all her years as a detective.  When it did happen it sent shock waves through the nation; was held up as evidence of the collapse of society.  The names of child murderers lived on for decades in popular imagination: Mary Bell, Jon Venables, Robert Thompson.  And as for a pact between a teenage girl and boy, to abduct her half-brother and also to kill another child, it was ridiculous.  Butchers was living in some fantasy land.
    ‘You should see her room.’ Butchers wasn’t giving up, ‘Chiller DVDs, stuff about death and pain.  Sick stuff.  Look,’ he waved a book at her, ‘ Children Who Kill .’
    ‘ I can read,’ Janine told him.
    ‘In her room, but it belongs to Luke Stafford.  And the stuff all over the walls—’
    ‘ She’s fourteen,’ Janine slapped him down. ‘Leonard Cohen, purple ink, crap poetry.  I know you sprang fully formed Butchers but the rest of us have been there, got the T-shirts.’
    He wasn ’t deflected.  ‘The Staffords wouldn’t let us look round.  They’re acting guilty.’
    Janine looked to the others for reactions.  Were they buying this?  Richard shook his head. 
    But Shap played devil’s advocate.  ‘They’re being obstructive.  And they are right on the doorstep, plenty of chance to nip out and dump the body.’
    ‘ We should interview both Phoebe and Luke,’ Butchers said.
    Janine considered it for a moment, she didn ’t agree.  ‘I know I’m desperate but I’m not that desperate.  I’m not pulling juveniles in on the basis of a freaky DVD collection and the fact that they’re in spitting distance.  Can you put Luke at the park, or Phoebe?’ she asked him.
    Lisa ’s phone rang and she answered it.
    ‘ Not yet, but I can try,’ Butchers glanced at his watch.
    ‘ Thought you were otherwise engaged this evening,’ Janine said.
    Butchers shrug ged.  Didn’t seem particularly buoyant about it.
    ‘ Giving her a preview,’ Janine said, ‘life with a cop?’
    Butchers d idn’t respond, just got a sick look on his face, embarrassed.
    ‘You need a whole lot more than what you’re giving me