Free Black Flowers by Steve Mosby Page B

fifteenth of March last year from Brookland. She was last seen playing outside her house.’
    He leans forward.
    ‘Now, there are conflicting witness reports, but two people saw a similar rusty red van to the one described in the file. And she was twelve years old, which is about the same age as the “Jane” our child describes playing with underneath her house.’
    Our child
.
    Even as he says the words, he regrets them but it doesn’t matter. Gray is not really listening; he is simply following formal procedure and waiting for his chance to speak. At which point he intends to add a full stop to the conversation, whether Sullivan likes it or not.
    ‘What I’d like to do, sir,’ he says, ‘is present her with a photograph of Jane Taylor for verification. I have it in the file.’
    Gray makes no move to check; of course, he has already seen it. Instead, he takes a drag on the cigarette. A second later, the air between them fills with derisory smoke.
    ‘Do you believe her story, Sullivan?’
    Yes, he thinks.
I do
.
    ‘It’s possible, sir. I think it would be—’
    Gray holds a hand up.
    ‘
Possible
.’
    He says it as though musing, but Sullivan knows exactly what he is thinking. Everybody in the department believes that what they are dealing with here is a runaway child, scared to tell the truth and face the repercussions.
    Everybody, that is, apart from Sullivan. But again, he knows what people think of him. After the death of Anna Hanson, he is too biased, too haunted, too primed to believe whatever comes his way. Of course, they all sympathise. A child’s death is supposed to affect you; there would be something wrong if it did not. At the same time, the unspoken rule is that you’re not supposed to dwell. A balance must be struck between empathy and strength; it must only affect you
so much
. A year on, Sullivan is now in breach of that unspoken rule. He has been since Clark Poole lodged his first complaint.
    ‘Lots of things are
possible
, aren’t they?’ Gray says. ‘To me, this has the feeling of a child’s invention. Something she’s made up after watching an unfortunate movie.’
    Sullivan does not reply. Gray certainly has a point: the child’s story is the most horrific thing he has ever heard. But that does not, to his mind, mean she must have invented it.
    Gray taps away some ash.
    ‘Have you found this farm?’
    ‘No, sir. There was no obvious way forward there.’
    During the interview, the little girl told them that she had grown up at an isolated farmhouse. To her, of course, it was not isolated, because it was all she had ever known. She had a younger brother, a mother – and the father. The only time she ever encountered the outside world was on days like yesterday, when her father drove the family in his rusted old van to different places. Sometimes the journeys would take hours. And on many of those occasions, they returned with a new friend. Sometimes a child; sometimes an adult. Sometimes more than one.
    But that, as awful as it sounded, was not as terrible as what happened to the victims once they arrived back.
    ‘It must be easy to find a farm,’ Gray insists.
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘If you look hard enough, I mean.’
    Sullivan shakes his head, confused.
    Gray spreads his hands. ‘If you look for a farm, you’ll find one. The same way that if you look for missing children called Jane, you will likely find several.’
    ‘I’m not following you, sir.’
    ‘What I’m saying, DS Sullivan, is that
our child
could have invented any name at all, and away you would have gone and found a missing child to match. They all have names, you know. Unfortunately, there are enough of them to cover all the names under the sun.’
    ‘You think she invented it? Why would she?’
    ‘I don’t know. Why would I? The workings of young girls’ minds are a mystery to me – probably as much as they are to you. What about the handbag?’
    ‘We’ve identified the manufacturer. It’s a common