this?’ said an older, silver-haired man whose grey pallor suggested he was at least one heart attack down. His suit looked thick, maybe woollen, and completely wrong for July. Jo frowned; there was something familiar about him.
‘Detective Jo Masters, meet Harry Ferman,’ said Bridges. ‘There’s a DS from Thames Valley round the back already.’
The older man held out a massive, paw-like hand, and Jo shook it.
‘Follow me,’ he said. His teeth seemed a little too big for his mouth, and she guessed they were dentures.
As he led her under the secondary perimeter police tape and around a bend between overgrown hedges, Jo wondered who he was. He had police written all over him, but he had to be at least sixty.
A substantial Georgian house came into view at the end of the drive. Though the stone was still pale in places, a lot of it was stained by sooty streaks, darker above the paneless window arches. The roof was a mess of exposed joists, many collapsed already. A uniformed officer took their details at a second line of tape by the side of the house and gestured them through.
‘Who found the remains?’ said Jo.
Ferman was wheezing a little. ‘Skull came up in the claw of the digger when they were excavating round the pool. Must have been a hell of shock.’
It is a shame it’s been disturbed, thought Jo.
At the side of the house, what had been a set of French doors opened onto a wide terrace with stone balustrades and steps leading down to the old pool. On the left-hand side, a two-person forensics team was already at work, erecting a white awning over the site. Jo greeted them, and they nodded back from behind their masks. A slight man, just a few years older than her, with dark, sharp features, was crouching nearby.
‘You must be Masters,’ he said, standing up.
‘Call me Jo,’ she replied.
The man straightened. ‘Detective Sergeant Andy Carrick, Thames Valley. Pleased to meet you.’
Jo looked behind him. The bones were dark, clotted with mud, but still recognisably in the shape of a body. She could see a small skull. They lay there, half-wrapped in a piece of semi-transparent plastic, which, she thought, was probably what had preserved the clothing too – a scrap of dirty red material. The forensics team had an open case and Jo fished for a glove and booties from the dispensers. She donned the gear, then edged closer to the body to check the yellow lettering on the front of the shirt: ‘Crown Paints’ – and a Liverpool FC crest.
‘You really think it’s Dylan Jones?’ she asked, peering at the bones. It was impossible to say much at all, but pathology wasn’t her field. When it was all cleaned up, they’d get more answers.
‘Looks about right,’ said Ferman. ‘You’re familiar with the case then?’
Jo glanced at him, wondering what he was doing here. He didn’t look at all well, and she’d guess he was way past retirement. But she was sure their paths had crossed before.
‘Sort of,’ she said.
‘You look too young,’ said Ferman. ‘It was over thirty years ago.’
‘Flattery will get you nowhere,’ said Jo. ‘I was a witness to the kidnapping. I was eight.’
‘You serious?’ said Carrick. Jo nodded, and he whistled. ‘I’m not normally suspicious, but that’s a coincidence and a half.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Ferman. ‘I remember you!’
His face had lifted, and the years fell off. And then Jo realised where she’d seen him.
‘You were there, that day,’ she said.
Ferman nodded. ‘I was still training for CID. Came with my gaffer.’
Jo edged back as one of the forensics team approached with a camera. ‘My brother made the call,’ she said. ‘Someone had cut the temporary line from the circus. He had to run to the nearest farmhouse. You came to my house and took a statement.’
‘You couldn’t stop crying.’
‘I thought it was my fault.’
It was my fault.
Ferman came closer, moving with difficulty down the steps, until he was standing beside Jo and Carrick, looking at the remains.
‘You were the only witness,’ he said. ‘And pretty reliable for a young girl. Still, it wasn’t much to go on.’ Though he was staring in the direction of the skeleton, he had a faraway look in his eyes. ‘We interviewed over forty people,’ he said. ‘Didn’t get a damn thing.’
Jo heard the scuffle of footsteps and looked up to see DCI Bridges.
‘We’ve got an address for the parents, Jo,’ he said.
‘Still the place off the Banbury Road?’ asked Ferman.
Bridges looked impressed. ‘That’s right. I think we owe them a visit.’
‘Bit premature, guv?’ said Jo. ‘Shouldn’t we wait for a positive ID?’ She glanced at the child’s skull. ‘Dental comparison?’
‘Dylan was seven,’ said Ferman. ‘I doubt there were any records. At least, I don’t remember any at the time.’
‘Ben’s got Carter looking into when the pool was built,’ said Bridges. ‘We’ll need some swabs from the parents.’
‘And you want me to do it?’ asked Jo.
‘Given your connection with the case, I think there’s a sort of poetry to it, don’t you?’ said Carrick. He sounded pleased to be rid of the cold case.
‘What connection’s that?’ said Bridges.
Jo explained, briefly, staring at the remains. Nothing poetic there. It was a dead kid.
‘Gosh – isn’t that uncanny?’ he said.
‘Want a lift back to Oxford?’ Carrick asked Ferman.
‘I’ll accompany Detective Masters to the parents’ house,’ said Ferman. ‘If she doesn’t mind, that is.’
‘No problem,’ said Jo. The thought of such a steady presence was comforting.
As Ferman and the others went to sign themselves out of the crime scene, Jo remained for a few moments. One of the forensics team was photographing the site from every possible angle, and Jo knew they wouldn’t be done here until it was dark, would spend hours scouring the earth for any extra material. The body might get moved tomorrow, and they’d likely have it bagged and driven to Salisbury for the coroner to take samples and try to discern the cause of death. Jo stared at the skeleton, trying to imagine it as the little boy from the circus that day.
In truth, she could barely remember Dylan Jones, other than his red hair and the look of pure gratitude he’d given her when she’d let him take her final kick on the football game. In the weeks following
