No Help For The Dying

Chapter 27

Nikki referred again to her notepad. ‘It set me going through the files for details of some of the other cases of dead street kids. These are the easy ones, in reverse date order, starting with two weeks ago. Peter Casey, 17; father an industrialist, manufacturing electronics, primarily for use in radar systems. Paulette Devington, 16; father a scientist and director of a research facility, at the time working on a big project for the Royal Navy. James Van de Meuve, 16; parents on the board of a Dutch-owned engineering firm, specialising in submersibles for deep-sea salvage but building what is thought to be a drone tractor for the navy. And then I looked up the one you mentioned, which goes back even further: Nicholas Friedman, 17…’

‘…father a lawyer with the MOD,’ Riley finished off.

Nikki nodded. ‘There were quite a few more, though; the survivors. Most of them didn’t make the news — they simply went back home and got on with their lives.’

‘How many?’ Riley was beginning to feel the heat of excitement under her skin, pulsing away like a drum. ‘Dead ones and survivors?’

‘Roughly? I haven’t covered all of them. Once I got the idea I just went for the obvious ones.’

‘As many as you have.’

‘Twenty, approximately. Covering both groups.’

They sat and stared at each other for a while, and Riley found herself wondering where Nikki bought her jewellery. It was an idle thought prompted by the fact that a part of her didn’t want to speculate on what had been happening. All those kids. The parents. The loss. The pain.

‘There’s a clincher,’ Nikki said finally.

‘What?’

‘With only two exceptions, who turned out to be groupies, all of the survivors were tracked down and sent home by the Church of Flowing Light. I must be blind — I just never saw the significance.’

Riley decided to play devil’s advocate, although she felt reluctant. But objectivity at this stage was necessary if she didn’t want to make mistakes. ‘Fair enough. But don’t forget it’s what they do: they track down missing kids.’

‘Sure. But what are the odds of all those parents knowing that? The Church of Flowing Light is hardly Ghostbusters. I’ve been reporting on this stuff for a while, but I only heard of them through colleagues. Not once have I ever picked up on the grapevine that the place to call when your kid goes missing is The Church of Flowing Light. In fact, I’d be surprised if more than a couple of the parents involved had stepped inside any kind of church in decades. They’d more likely go to the Salvation Army.’

‘So the Church must have approached the parents.’

‘I would think so. What I don’t know is how the Church would know about them.’

Riley said nothing. A good question. There were the inevitable posters people put up, and even enquiries on the street were apt to spread quickly among its inhabitants, which is probably where the Church picked up most of its information about potential targets.

Nikki flapped the notes with her fingertips. ‘And looking at this list, we’re talking about one hell of a success rate. Do you know how few missing kids get traced and returned even by experts? It’s so small it doesn’t even show up. Most is down to coincidence, the kids’ desire to get back home to mummy or a chance sighting by someone who calls in and gets the parents or the police to make a pick-up. But there’s something else.’ She sounded excited and Riley let her continue. ‘Most of these kids came from wealthy homes. Nearly all of them, in fact. I’m not a statistician, but the likelihood of this number of runaways coming from good backgrounds, all showing up on the radar in connection with the same organisation is pretty low. In fact, it wouldn’t happen, not unless Debretts started running a tracing organisation for runaway Guys, Sarahs and Deborahs.’

Riley had a pretty good idea. It was where the soup vans came in.

‘What about money changing hands when the runaways were returned?’

Nikki blinked. ‘You mean a bounty?’

‘You’ve got a charity group relying on donations who track down missing kids and return them to the fold. Most of the parents are frantic with grief and fearing the worst. Nearly all of them have money and position. With maybe one or two exceptions, they’d do almost anything to get their kids back in one piece. And most of them would hope to do it as quietly as possible, to avoid any scandal. I doubt the Church does this for fun.’

As the implications of what Riley was suggesting sank home, Nikki looked stunned. ‘Christ, am I glad to be getting out from this side of the business. Isn’t that a form of extortion?’

‘Why? They perform a service. If the grateful parents wish to make a donation to show their appreciation, where’s the harm?’

‘But these parents are all rich. It’s a bit obvious, isn’t it?’

‘Not really. They know their market and target it, like any other service provider.’

‘Are you defending them?’

‘I’m simply saying how it would look to an investigation. I bet they can hold up their hands and prove beyond doubt that they’ve never asked for anything of the parents or the children.’ Riley recalled the way the Boothe-Davisons described their encounter with the Church, and the function she’d walked in on at Broadcote Hall. How many among that crowd were other parents whose wayward kids had gone walkabout and who, magically, had been contacted by the Church of Flowing Light with good news? And if they showed their gratitude then, it probably continued being carefully drawn on for a long time afterwards, like an emotional bank account. Generosity born of gratitude doesn’t always have a time limit.

Nikki looked at her notes. ‘But look at the jobs these parents have: MOD, army, navy, defence contractors, industrialists… are you saying they’re using blackmail, too?’

Riley shrugged and decided she needed another talk with Friedman. He could fill in some of the gaps — especially about the potential for extortion. Personally, after hearing about the kind of parents involved, and their closeness to authority, she had doubts. ‘I’m not sure they need to go that far. Why risk it? All they need is to target runaways from good homes. And these particular good homes are probably easy to read; high-flying parents, good jobs, newsworthy, they move around a lot and leave lots of footprints. The kids become disaffected through all the upset, being placed in boarding schools, lack of care, time, etc. Chuck in military or public school backgrounds and you get parents who are tough on their kids and have high expectations which can’t always be met. Add pressured jobs and positions open to scrutiny and the press, and the same parents have a hell of a lot to lose if their kids run off and end up begging for handouts or exchanging money for sex in some grotty underpass. If it is blackmail, it’s very subtle.’

As Riley left Nikki Bruce in the pub and hailed a taxi, Quine was watching from the passenger seat of the white van along the street. He was toying with a spray can of black paint, a tinny rattle indicating it was empty. The atmosphere inside the vehicle was pungent with the smell of cellulose, and he sniffed appreciatively.

‘We should see who she was with,’ said Meaker, and made to open the door. But Quine put out a hand and stopped him.

‘Forget it. We know who it isn’t, that’s the important thing. Let’s see where she’s going.’