Chapter Text
9th January 2018 – 141 days before Joshua disappeared – Arcade in Huddersfield
They were back again, he could hear their raucous laughter even over the music and various sound effects the machines around him spat out. Instinctively, the boy rounded his shoulders and huddled before the machine he had chosen, fiddling with one of the joysticks to appear busy, though the screen never changed from the starting menu, flashing ‘press play to start’ in an annoyingly obvious way.
Why couldn’t they just leave him alone? He threw a careful glance over his shoulder, pulling the hood on his jacket up over his head to make himself invisible to them, but it did not take long until shouts of recognition drifted towards him.
“Oh he’s over there! Gippo Josh! Got no money to play again? Didn’t Mummy give you any? What are you doing here then, eh?” A rough shove to the shoulder nearly made him smash his nose against the controls. Joshua turned around and scrambled from the seat. The three boys laughed, advancing again and howling with laughter when he flinched.
“Go home, Gippo Josh with no money to play!” “They’ll kick you out anyway if you’ve no money!” they taunted.
Josh moved back. He did not want to go home. His Mum would only ask him how he was, if he had made friends yet, how school had been – poking and prodding with her endless questions. He hated it. His Mum did not even want the truth, she just wanted for him to tell her that it was fine to feel better herself; that the new school was not so bad and he had made friends with the boys there. Well, he had not. He did not want to. He wanted to go back to living in their house, with his Dad around, not that tiny flat with the tiny room where he could not even fit all his things in. He did not want to go back and forth between his Mum and Dad places every other weekend. Why could they not just make up and get back together?
“Hey, got nothing to say, Joshie, what’s up?” One of the boys made a grab for his backpack, but Joshua held on tight and pulled it back. He bit his lip, looking around the room in a panic. There was no one around. The arcade was half empty that early in the day and most of the other kids were over at the other side, playing air hockey or racing each other on one of the motorbikes screwed to the floor. Not that any of them would help him. He was the newbie in that part of town, no one knew him.
“Aww, you’re crying now Gippo Joshie?”
“Hey!” An older voice, the voice of an adult rang out and the boys shrank back, suddenly looking skittish like a bunch of squirrels. Josh looked up and saw a security guard heading their way. The bald one with the ginger beard and pale eyes. He moved back until his back hit the machine behind him.
“You lot, what’s going on here?” the man asked, addressing the three boys who had just come at Joshua. He shrunk further into the shadows, hoping to be overlooked by the guard.
“We were just…” “We know him…” they all muttered at once, trying to find an excuse, but the man shook his head.
“I’ve seen you lot ‘round here before, causing trouble. Go on, get lost. No games for you today.” He jerked his head in the direction of the exit and when none of the three moved, took another step towards them. Finally, they scattered, leaving Joshua standing next to the guard with his breath held in fear.
“Hey, you alright?” the guard asked in a much softer voice, waiting patiently until Joshua nodded. He did not look up and kept staring at his trainers. The ones with a hole in the side, another thing the boys had laughed at before.
“It’s ok. You’re not in any trouble,” the guard continued and Joshua raised his head in surprise. The man was looking at him with a small encouraging smile. “You’re here a lot, aren’t you? I’ve seen you around, but you’re not playing.”
“Got no money,” Joshua mumbled.
“That’s why they’re picking on you?” the guard asked.
“Dunno.” Joshua looked down again, still expecting to be sent home. Now the guard knew he had no money to play, he would not be allowed in the arcade, he thought. He could hear the man pulling something out of his pocket and curious, he looked up again. The guard pulled a ten-pound note from his wallet and handed it to Joshua.
“Here,” he said gently. “Go and have some fun, yeah?”
Joshua hesitated. He could not accept money from a stranger.
“Go on, take it. I’ve seen you in here a couple of times, you’ve never played a thing. Have some fun today, or I’ll have to send you on your way, too. They won’t bother you today and they won’t hog any games,” the guard went on, pushing the tenner into Joshua’s hand.
“For real?” Joshua asked, feeling the crumply paper of the note between his fingers.
“Yeah, sure. Off you go.” The guard reached out as if he wanted to ruffle Joshua’s hair, then thought better of it, brushed his palm against his trousers and went back to watch the other kids who were loudly cheering two of their group on, battling each other in one of those martial art fighting games.
Joshua grinned, still holding onto the note in his hands. Ten pounds. It was a lot. He could play whatever he liked with that kind of money.
12th June 2018 – 15 days after Joshua’s death – Huddersfield CID
DI Laura Andrews took a sip of her coffee, then grimaced at the bitter taste. She usually got herself a latte from the coffee shop down the road, but this morning she had been at the station well before the shop was open and resigned herself to whatever brew the ancient coffee maker produced. For a moment she debated adding milk, but she could not be sure if it would make the beverage better or worse, so she left it as it was. Hopefully the caffeine would kick in quickly.
Joshua Dawley’s case was hanging like Damocles’ sword over CID. It had been ten days since his body had been found and the investigation was moving at a snail’s pace. The press, the public, her own bosses, everyone waited for the Eureka revelation that would crack the case, but Laura felt like she was wading through a swamp with the amount of evidence she and her team had to go through. It was not an easy case and nothing seemed straightforward.
Joshua’s body had been meticulously cleaned, his finger nails scrubbed with a nail brush to remove any DNA, his skin cleansed with a basic cleaning product that could be found in millions of households across the country. His body had been dumped in the water, which further meddled with the evidence and left SOCO cursing trying to find any link to his killer. The site at the edge of the reservoir had thrown up less than they hoped as well. It had not rained in weeks and they had been unable to retrieve foot prints or tyre marks.
Patrols were still out there, combing through the undergrowth around the lake, hoping to get lucky and find the spot where Joshua’s body had been burned. At the station, a bunch of dedicated DCs were sifting through the mass of calls and tip-offs they had received, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. The crime itself baffled Laura. Everything about the way Joshua had been murdered suggested it had been done in the heat of the moment, a loss of control after a fight maybe, but the way the body had been cleaned and disposed of did not tally with that. The latter looked like meticulous planning, as if the killer knew what they were doing.
It looked like two pieces belonging to different puzzles that still fit together.
Laura took her mug with her and went over to stand by the evidence board. Everything they had so far was compiled there. A picture of Joshua together with some key information stared at her from the top left-hand corner. It was the same that had been used for the press appeal – a happy child, showing a wide toothy grin, wearing a red Liverpool football jersey that was slightly too big on him.
Below were photographs of the reservoir with overgrown shrubs and dull reeds sticking up from the water. A map was pinned haphazardly to the bottom of the board and brightly coloured lines and arrows highlighted Joshua’s home, the place he was found and his movements on the day of his disappearance.
He had not been abducted but left of his own accord, heading for a bus station where an elderly lady reported seeing a boy matching his description just before noon. After that, nothing. A dead end. The bus stop had no CCTV and Joshua did not appear on any CCTV of the bus lines going past.
Laura strongly suspected there was not one working CCTV camera left in Kirklees. Even if there should be one, they found all too often only hanging wires and no camera. It was no use replacing them just to have them ripped down again, so the council had given up. It left the DI feeling blindfolded. Even the sniffer dogs had lost track at the stop, leaving only the conclusion that Joshua had boarded some kind of vehicle. Had he been picked up by someone who later turned out to become his murderer? A stranger? Or someone he knew?
She could not tell. 14 days and they had nothing.
DI Andrews’ gaze fell onto photographs taken at Joshua’s home. Brand new console games, still in their cellophane wrapping. They had been hidden under the bed along with a carton that belonged to the trainers he had been wearing on the day of his death.
Shoplifting? A gang, maybe? Drugs?
Boys his age had been used as couriers before. The promise of easy cash easily turned the heads of boys his age – especially when money was so tight at home.
“What happened to you, hmm?” Laura whispered as she cradled the mug of bad coffee against her chest.
12th June 2018 – 15 days after Joshua’s death – Cliffside House, Broadchurch
A cup of tea appeared next to the thick folder lying on the small desk in Alec’s box room before he sat heavily in the uncomfortable old chair. He never used the room, except for storage, but it had a desk inside and Alec had felt unable to look at the file out in the open at his kitchen table. Away from the station, it was where he and Ellie usually worked, volleyed theories back and forth, shared a cuppa or some wine while they argued about a case. They had dinner there. Him, Ellie, Daisy, sometimes the boys. It was a space that belonged to them, to the life he had built in this remote coastal town where he had a family and friends, a partner.
For a long time, Alec did not touch the folder and only stared at its unremarkable outside. A USB-stick lay on top, Jenkinson’s second gift to him, containing everything the investigation of Joshua Dawley had thrown up so far. Alec’s body prickled with a restless anxiety that had held him captive the whole evening and had eventually led to him banishing the file to his box room, hoping in vain it might help calm his mind if it was out of sight. It had not. The whispers of it had followed him everywhere he went, luring him back to stare at the brown carton. Still, he was reluctant to open it. It felt like Pandora’s box.
Joe Miller.
A dark shadow from Alec’s, and more importantly Ellie’s, past. The one that got away with murdering a child because he, Alec, had made mistakes. He had misjudged Joe, first of all.
Now the man might have killed again – another boy of just twelve years old. A boy that bore a stark resemblance to Daniel Latimer.
He had had parents who had loved him. Grandparents. Friends.
Alec had felt sick to his stomach ever since Jenkinson had shown him the file. After speaking to her, he had actually vomited in the men’s room, bringing up his meagre breakfast of toast and tea. At lunch he had not finished his sandwich, despite Ellie’s nagging and he had foregone dinner when he got home, too. The reason for his nausea was not food or lack of it, it was hidden inside the file, between the lines and in the photographs. It was the blood Alec imagined he could feel on his hands.
His fingers turned the cover and he carefully took the photos out of the folder and placed them next to each other on the old desk, moving his fingertips over the glossy paper. Even the golden light of the reading lamp, dimmed to less of a glare, could not hide the waxy pallor on Joshua’s skin or the marks around his neck. Joshua would have known his killer. He would have looked him in the eye until the very last moment of his too short life.
“I’m sorry,” Alec whispered into the darkness, his voice hollow. A single tear slid down his cheek and he hastily wiped it away before it could drop onto the papers in front of him.
Tearing his gaze away from the pictures and pushing his glasses up on his nose, Alec picked up the coroner’s report. The words immediately painted a picture in his mind.
Broken Hyoid bone. Large hands, probably an adult, probably male judging by the size and strength applied. No other injuries.
Charring to the torso and thighs, presumably to destroy evidence.
His killer had tried to burn the body, not taking into account how much heat was needed to achieve that – or how much attention it would draw. It was a question Alec jotted down for later. A fire might have been noticed by someone. There might be evidence still at the site. Where was it? Did the place link to the killer? Were there tyre tracks? Footprints? Short bullet pointed notes filled the empty page of the new notebook Alec had acquired to solve this puzzle.
DNA results had confirmed the identity of Joshua Dawley. His parents had felt unable to identify him at the mortuary and while as a parent himself, Alec could not fault them for it, it meant the investigation had been delayed by precious hours.
There were not many pages in the file. Neither the coroner, nor SOCO had much else to offer. Fibres, prints, DNA – anything that could have been of use was mostly destroyed through either fire or water. Joshua’s hands bore marks consistent with a nail brush as if they had been scrubbed to remove any trace of his attacker.
Alec moved on to the copy of a map with handwritten notes on the margins and a red arrow pointing at a spot on the shore. The site of discovery lay at the edge of a reservoir that was frequented by hikers – tourists and locals alike. It was easily accessible by car and because the place was a popular spot for hiking and fishing would not draw much attention, but it certainly increased the risk of being seen. Alec wrote ‘Why there?’ on his notepad, circling the words. He had wanted to keep Joshua and Danny separate, look at the crimes individually, but his thoughts drifted back to Danny’s body and the way it had been arranged beneath the cliffs.
Joe had not tried to hide Danny’s body, he had picked the spot on purpose, wanting him to be found sooner rather than later – could the same be true for Joshua? Was the place he was found significant in any way? Was there a link to be found there?
Alec added more thoughts and questions as he went through the reports, quickly filling page after page while his tea remained untouched at the edge of the table. He would need to speak to the SIO on the case, get updates on the findings and any results coming in if he wanted to spot any clue in relation to Joe Miller.
Outside the crescent of the moon moved along the clear starry sky, crossing from east to west while Alec moved from the file to the contents of the memory stick. Statements from his parents, teachers, classmates and neighbours flickered across the screen of his laptop and slowly shaped who Joshua had been in Alec’s mind. Everything that seemed the least bit significant he added to various post it notes. Except for the similarity in looks and age, Joshua had not much in common with Danny Latimer.
His parents had separated roughly six months back and sold the family home because neither parent could afford to pay the mortgage on their own. Joshua and his mother had had to move into a two-bedroom flat in Huddersfield. Not a part of Huddersfield anyone wanted to be living in if they could help it, certainly no parent. It was a rough patch with rising crime rates and dwindling police presence. A place that had been neglected by the council when problems and costs exploded.
After the separation it was the only place Joshua’s mother had been able to turn to. Flats were cheap in the area. She had taken to working in a local supermarket, but only managed to get the odd shift in the evenings or late afternoons. Joshua would have been on his own, an easy target to all kinds of thugs out there.
At first, there seemed to have been regular contact between Joshua and his Dad but it had dwindled over time, making visits sporadic at best. He lived in another part of town and had found a post as a warehouse clerk – often working nights or weekends. It was not hard to imagine how a child might have felt in a situation like that – uprooted from his home, friends, school and moved to a part of town where everything was vastly different from the life he had known. Alec skimmed the statements given by Joshua’s teachers with tired eyes, but none of them told him anything substantial.
‘A nice boy.’ ‘Quiet.’ ‘No troublemaker.’
He had read countless of these empty phrases over the years. People did not want to speak ill of a missing child, reluctant to add to the anguish the parents already felt. Problems at school, bullying or disturbances rarely made the statements early on. In Joshua’s case the teachers had hardly known the boy. He had only been at the school for a couple of months and in a place like that, where teachers and staff were busy putting out fires in all corners, Joshua would have faded into the background and become invisible. A child forgotten, vulnerable and alone.
He could have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, seen something he should not have or been targeted simply because he was younger or weaker than his attacker. There was no definite link to Danny Latimer. Realistically even the clothes could have been a coincidence. Black jeans, a grey t-shirt – it was not distinctive. Blue trainers with yellow stripes? Alec might find hundreds of these at any skate park, football pitch or playground around the country. Yet, there were just too many coincidences for his liking. He reached for the coroner’s report again and let his eyes peruse the pages. No trace of abuse had been found. Small mercies, though it also told him nothing. The same had been true for Danny and yet Joe Miller had claimed to have been ‘in love’ with the boy and there were many forms of abuse no coroner would ever find on a body.
Grooming. Coercion. Psychological abuse.
Joshua might have been subject to the stuff of nightmares even without bodily marks.
Alec sighed and threw his glasses on the table to rub a hand across his tired face. He turned away from the reports and notes spread out across the desk to stare at the wall. Across town, up at St. Bede’s Church a bell chimed twice in the darkness, but the sound did not drift far enough for Alec to hear.
Papers rustled as Alec stood up from the chair, wincing at the stiffness in his back. His body ached with exhaustion, his eyes were dry with irritation from staring at a screen for far too long and a painful hammering against the insides of his skull told him that he should have gone to sleep hours ago, but his bed, which had not held much of an appeal lately, did so even less on that night. Nightly horrors lurked in the shadows like monsters, ready to grab and choke him at the slightest sign of weakness.
When the news of a boy’s disappearance up north had first made national news, Alec’s nightmares had made a startling return. The sound of rushing water, amplified by the sounds of the tides had made him wake up drenched in cold sweat, his voice hoarse from screams no one had heard in the empty house.
After looking at the actual case file, Alec did not dare to close his eyes.
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