Ripples #2
“Show it to your mum. She’s on God knows how many school boards and knows governors and heads and whatnot. People listen to her, so she’s the best person to help us separate Barrington Manville from his favourite temptation.”
Gareth chuckled. Not a cheerful sound, just one that acknowledged Jack’s ability to see past his rage, and to act past it, too.
“Don’t make that face,” Jack admonished. “Restricting his ability to work in schools is a start. I’ll check with Clive, too, to see if he’s on their radar.”
“Wouldn’t he have failed a CPS check if he were?”
“Only if there’s an official report in the system. But there are layers to misconduct, and some don’t trigger flags. If Clive has anything, I have somewhere to start. If he doesn’t, then Manville goes on my list, anyway.”
Jack’s tone suggested he had something else on his mind.
Gareth made haste to get through his evening ablutions so he could join Jack in bed.
Jack was more likely to discuss problems when the darkness and quiet of their bedroom wrapped around them.
And despite the dark circles under his eyes demanding sleep, he seemed to need Gareth as a sounding board.
Jack had closed his tablet and laptop by the time Gareth came back and they settled, as they did most nights, with Jack draped over Gareth.
The tension in his shoulders was unmistakable and Gareth, ready for sleep himself, tried to speed matters along.
“My mum is in court Monday afternoon,” he said.
“You’ll catch her at home if you head over before work. ”
“I’ll also miss the rush-hour traffic,” Jack agreed. “I’ll run the two to school, then, pop over to see your mum after, come back to switch wheels and come to work.”
“You could bring the car.” That wasn’t the way they usually did things. Riding the bikes to and from the Strand was faster than getting the Range Rover stuck in the daily nose-to-tail. The deviation from the routine pulled Jack from his abstraction.
“Do we need anything?”
“Depends. You are building escape routes this weekend, aren’t you?”
“That’s the plan. Though I don’t think we’ll finish.”
“Then keep a list of anything we’re missing, and I’ll pick it up on Monday.”
“If I’m driving in, I can do the shopping on the way.” Jack settled back down, but the tension in his frame hadn’t vanished.
“Did anything else happen?”
Jack’s silence was answer enough. Gareth waited, and, eventually, Jack took a deep breath.
“Nico asked if he could help me hunt. Online.”
The words dropped into the darkness, each like a gut punch. Even the qualifier Jack had added didn’t improve matters by much. “Because he thought we didn’t believe him?”
“He says not.”
“Then why?”
“The dance class made him feel as he did at Goran’s—helpless and only able to cling to Daniel for support. He said he didn’t want to feel like that ever again.”
“Holy hell. Nico and rage. Not a healthy combination.” Gareth wondered how to defuse that brewing shit storm when Jack pushed himself upright and turned on his bedside light.
“Just so we don’t cross our wires,” he said.
“Because it’s not that bad. Nico admitted Manville made him angry, and I told him that letting rage guide him wasn’t the way to go.
But then he told me that asking me to teach him to hunt wasn’t a new idea.
He’s wanted to do this ever since he went to Scotland Yard to help identify those bastards from Goran’s place. ”
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you? Teach him how to hunt?”
“Yeah, I am. I made a deal with him. No acting on rage, and he promised me he’ll step away if the past gets on top of him.”
“You’ll watch for that?”
“You bet. He’s so like you, you know? Protecting our family is important to him.”
Gareth almost laughed. To him, Nico was like Jack, someone who needed a crusade. But then, he and Jack were more alike than he’d supposed. “I feel we’re having the same conversation time and again. We want to protect them and instead we made Nico feel like a victim.”
“I don’t think we did. Couldn’t have done if he realised what was happening.
But at the same time… they’re ours. Something comes up, we stand in front of them.
And Nico, if I understood the matter correctly, got his strength from standing in front of Daniel.
He was Daniel’s protector, and then suddenly he wasn’t and that was hard for him. ”
“Okay, I get that. So, letting him help you might help him.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking.”
“And you’ve already put guardrails in place.” Gareth pulled Jack forward and dropped a teasing kiss on his nose. “Clever of you. Now turn out that light and come here.”
“Jack!” Roz Flynn pulled the door wide and beckoned him inside. “That’s an unusual time for you. Did anything happen?”
Jack shook his head and kicked out of his shoes. “All serene,” he reported. “But I have something I’d like to discuss. Over the phone wasn’t the place to do it.”
“Then come in and have coffee. Are you back to work later?”
“I’m on the way. I’ve just dropped Nico and Daniel off at school. Thought I’d stop by and avoid the worst of the traffic.”
“How’s the house coming along?”
“We’re loving it,” Jack said, not hiding his enthusiasm. “I wanted to rip up the kitchen floor and install underfloor heating now it’s getting warm outside, but Gareth is too much in love with his kitchen to let me interrupt him. So be prepared for another winter of complaints about cold feet.”
“I’ll remind him it’s his own fault and buy him new slippers. But if that’s all that ails you…”
“Exactly my thought.” Jack accepted a mug of coffee and nodded when Roz offered a dish of shortbread.
The day Jack turned down shortbread was the day they nailed him into his coffin.
He savoured the first of the thick, buttery shortbread fingers, mixing the taste with a sip of coffee, before he reached for the second.
“Did the boys ever mention their dance lessons to you?”
Roz stirred milk into her coffee. “I know they have them. And Daniel said something about salsa being confusing?”
“They didn’t mention their dance teacher?”
“Not that I recall. Is there an issue?”
“You could say that.” Jack explained what he’d learned, what he’d observed, and then reached for his tablet.
“Nico thought we didn’t believe him because Manville behaved himself while I was watching.
So he secretly recorded a class when no parents were present.
” He flipped the slate open and pulled up the video.
“We can’t publicise this, obviously, but I want you to see it.
I’m also hoping you might have a word with any of the schools you support.
On the quiet, so he doesn’t go to ground. I want to nail him to the wall.”
He reached for another shortbread finger as Roz started the video. She watched, enlarging sections, stopping and rewinding, and her expression grew grimmer by the minute. “He’s not at all furtive about it,” she said at the end of her perusal.
“Exactly. It’s why I think there’s something for me to find. This isn’t new. Nico’s dance partner told me the girls were warned by the year above them. The way the story goes, a girl in a previous year tried to report Manville, and he bullied her into keeping silent.”
“Gets off on power, too.”
“Seems like it.”
“Then how did you ever get onto him?”
“He’s an equal opportunity pervert. Put his hands all over Daniel during one of the dance lessons.
Daniel kept stepping away, and Manville was having none of it.
Nico intervened, and Manville excluded them both from the class.
And when their dance partners left with them, Nico got labelled a ringleader. ”
Roz’s grin matched Jack’s. “Not entirely wrong, that picture, is it?”
“Can’t tell you how grateful I am for it,” Jack admitted.
“Most of the parents are blind to the rumours. When I went to watch the dance lessons, another mum turned up to do the same. She knew about Manville and apologised because she hadn’t considered that boys could be vulnerable, too. That was an interesting conversation.”
“Yes, I can see that.” Roz watched the video one more time. “You’ve blurred out all the faces.”
“I’d do that even if the video was legal. None of the kids deserve to be tarred with the victim brush.”
Roz touched his arm, a brief caress, and nodded. “Leave it with me, Jack. I’ll drop words into the right ears.”
Jack drained his mug and stood. “I appreciate it.”
“You have that video safe, right?”
“More than. I’m headed for the Yard next. I want to wave it past Baxter. See if he has the guy on his radar.”
“Good man.”
“Is there anything you need?” Jack asked as he put on his shoes. “I’m on first name terms with the local builder’s merchants and DIY stores.” He saw her hesitate and raised a hand. “Think about it. If anything needs doing, text me.”
“Thanks, Jack.” She held the door for him and Jack had headed out to the Land Rover. Coming to see her had been the right thing. He knew it, but he felt her searching gaze on him long after he’d settled into the driver’s seat.
The most unobtrusive way to have a chat with Detective Inspector Clive Baxter was to meet him for a coffee. Jack sent a text before he left Roz’s driveway, and half an hour of crawling traffic later, he walked into a coffee shop on Piccadilly.
As usual at this time in the morning, the place was heaving.
Jack craned his neck until he found Baxter at a small corner table, writing in a notebook.
Jack ordered his caffeine and joined him.
“Sorry to drag you out of your warm office,” he quipped as he sat down.
“Must be such a chore doing paperwork amongst the hoi polloi.”
“It would be, if that’s what I was doing,” Clive replied. “I’ve just come off shift. I’m headed home to bed as soon as you’ve told me what you need.”
“Honestly sorry then,” Jack said. “I won’t keep you long.
Just something I wanted to run past you.
” He set his slate on the table between them and pulled up the video.
“Here, watch that while I fire up my brain.” He sipped his coffee and watched Baxter’s face.
The detective could be as informative as a blank slate when he needed to be.
Sitting opposite Jack in the coffee shop, he wasn’t.
But while Jack read disgust and the beginnings of anger, he didn’t spot anything that resembled recognition.
It had been a long shot, Jack reminded himself.
Baxter watched the video twice, then shut it down and handed the tablet back. “Where did you find that one?”
“Nico took it at school.”
“What?” With a speed that belied his tired expression, Baxter extracted pen and notebook again. “Details,” he requested.
Jack shook his head. “We can’t use the video. Nico snuck into the sports hall and hid his phone. He and Daniel told us about this guy—name’s Barrington Manville—and wanted to make sure we believed them. I was wondering if he’s already on your horizon somewhere.”
“Well, he is now. Who is he?”
“Dance coach, hired by the local schools to give formal dance lessons. I doubt Barrington Manville is his real name, but it’s what he goes by on all his social media and his website.”
“Is the school booting him out?”
“Unlikely. I’m told that, last year, a girl tried to complain about him.
He bullied her into keeping silent. This year, he excluded Nico and Daniel from class after he groped Daniel and Nico intervened.
Gareth talked to the Head and got the two readmitted, but Fenton won’t take any other action.
Considers the exclusion an overreaction on all sides. ”
“I’m surprised you let that go.”
“I don’t. But I’m not shouting about it, either, even though I probably should.”
“I’m sure the school wouldn’t appreciate being sued.”
“Not my problem. I don’t want Manville getting shredded by a posse of furious mums and claim he’s the victim. I want to know how far beyond groping he takes this shit and who else is involved.”
“Let me poke around at my end and see what I can find. You want to make this an official complaint?”
“If you need me to. I’d rather keep it quiet for the moment if you can do that. I don’t want him to go to ground, and he strikes me as the kind of guy who would.”
“Interesting. That video suggests he’s more of a bully.”
“He’s oily,” Jack said, remembering the false friendliness. “But then, I’m biased. I met him after Nico and Daniel complained. Not sure what I’d have said if I’d met him before.”
“Exactly the same thing, I imagine.” Clive’s grin lacked any cheer. “You have radar for perverts, and it would have been screaming. I should put you on a leash and take you around with me like a highly trained sniffer dog. Would save us so much work.”
“Right. I think it’s past your bedtime.”
“Probably.” They drained their coffee cups and made their way out of the cafe.
“Sorry for keeping you up,” Jack said as they stood on the pavement with traffic washing around them. “We need to catch up one of these days. Properly, I mean.”
“I know what you meant. I’ll give you a shout when I stop working for three minutes in a row.”
“You do that. And if you need a hand.”
“Thanks, Jack.” Baxter clapped him on the shoulder.
A moment later, Jack watched him walk down the street with only a hint of exhaustion in his stride.
His first meeting with the detective—over Jericho’s battered corpse—could have gone a dozen different ways.
A professional relationship that kept him out of trouble while they both worked to sweep the streets hadn’t even made it onto his mental list. Being in the place he was now, with a different life and a family to protect, he was grateful they’d given each other a chance.