Lost

“No, not blood. Soil from the hanging baskets—I spilled some.”

“Soil?”

He nodded enthusiastically.

“You said you never took Mickey on an excursion. We found fibers from her clothes in your van.”

“No. No.”

I let the silence stretch out. Howard's eyes were filled with a mixture of fear and regret. Suddenly, he surprised me by speaking first. “You remember Mrs. Castle . . . from school? She used to take us for ballroom dancing lessons.”

I remembered her. She looked like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (after she left the convent) and featured in every fifth-form boy's wet dreams except perhaps for Nigel Bryant and Richard Coyle who batted for the other side.

“What about her?”

“I once saw her in the shower.”

“Getaway!”

“No, it's true. She was using the dean's shower and old Archie” (the sports master) “sent me to pick up a starter pistol from the staff quarters. She came out of the shower drying her hair and didn't see me until it was too late. She let me look. She stood there and let me watch her drying her breasts and pulling on her tights. Afterward she made me promise not to tell anyone. I would have been the most famous kid at school. All I had to do was tell that story. I could have saved myself a dozen beatings and all those taunts and jibes. I could have been a legend.”

“So why didn't you?”

He looked at me sadly. “I was in love with her. And it didn't matter that she wasn't in love with me. I loved her. It was my love story. I don't expect you to understand that but it's true. You don't have to be loved back. You can love anyway.”

“What does this have to do with Mickey?”

“I loved Mickey, too. I would never have hurt her . . . not on purpose.”

His pale green eyes were filled with tears. When he couldn't blink them away he wiped them with his hands. I felt sorry for him. I always did.

“It's important that you listen to me right now, Howard. I'll let you talk later.” I pulled my chair closer so that we were sitting knee to knee. “You're a middle-aged guy, never married, living alone, spending all his spare time with children, taking pictures of them, giving them ice-cream cones, taking them on outings . . .”

His cheeks darkened but his lips stayed white and narrow. “I have nieces and nephews. I take pictures of them, too. There's nothing wrong with that.”

“And you collect kiddie clothing catalogs and magazines?”

“It's not against the law. They're not pornographic. I want to be a photographer, a children's photographer . . .”

Getting to my feet I moved behind him. “Here's the thing I can't understand, Howard. What do you see in little girls? No hips, no breasts, no experience. They're straight up and down. I can understand the sugar and spice and all things nice stuff—girls smell nicer than boys, but Mickey had no curves. The adolescent good fairy hadn't sprinkled that magic dust in her eyes that made her eyelids flutter and her body develop. What do you see in little girls?”

“They're innocent.”

“And you want to take that away from them?”

“No. Never.”

“You want to hold them . . . to touch them.”

“Not like that. Not in a dirty way.”

“Mickey must have laughed at you. The creepy old guy across the hall.”

Louder this time: “I never touched her!”

“Do you remember To Kill a Mockingbird?”

He paused, looking at me curiously.

“Boo Radley was the scary guy who lived in the basement across the road. All the kids were frightened of him. They threw stones on his roof and dared each other to go into his yard. But in the end it's Boo Radley who saves Scout and Jem from the real villain. He becomes the hero. Is that what you were waiting for, Howard—to rescue Mickey?”

“You don't know me. You don't know anything about me.”

“Oh, yes I do. I know exactly what you are. There's a name for people like you: grooming pedophiles. You pick out your victims. You isolate them. You befriend their parents. You slowly work your way into their lives until they trust you—”

“No.”

“What did you do with Mickey?”

“Nothing. I didn't touch her.”

“But you wanted to.”

“I just took pictures. I would never hurt her.”

He was about to say something else but I raised my hand and stopped him.

“I know you're not the sort of guy who would have planned to hurt her. You're not like that. But sometimes accidents happen. They aren't planned. They get out of hand . . . you saw her that day.”

“No. I didn't touch her.”

“We found her fingerprints and fibers from her clothes.”

He kept shaking his head.

“They were in your van, Howard. They were in your bedroom.”

Reaching over his shoulder, I jabbed my finger at each of the different girls in his photographs.

“We're going to find your ‘models,' Howard, this one and this one and this one. And we're going to ask these girls what you did to them. We're going to find out if you touched them and if you took any other sorts of photographs.”

My voice had grown low and harsh. I leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder, forcing him sideways off his chair. “I'm not leaving you alone, Howard. We're in this together—like Siamese twins, joined at the hip, but not up here.” I tapped my head. “Help me understand.”

He turned slowly toward me, searching my eyes for sympathy. Then suddenly, he toppled backward, scurrying to the corner of the room where he crouched, covering his head with his arms.

“DON'T HIT ME! DON'T HIT ME!” he screamed. “I'll tell you what you want—”

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“NOT MY FACE, DON'T HURT MY FACE.”

“Stand up! Cut this out!”

“PLEASE . . . NOT AGAIN . . . AAAARGH!”

I opened the door and called for two uniforms. They were already coming down the corridor.

“Pick him up. Make him sit in his chair.”

Howard went limp. It was like trying to pick up spilled jelly. Each time they tried to lift him onto a chair he slid to the floor, quivering and moaning. The uniforms looked at each other and back to me. I knew what they were thinking.

Finally we left him there, lying beneath the table. I turned back in the doorway. I wanted to say something. I wanted to tell him that it was just the beginning.

“You can't bully me,” he said softly. “I'm an expert. I've been bullied all my life.”

Sitting in the same interview room, three years on, it's still not over. My cell phone is ringing.

The Professor sounds relieved. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah, but I need you to come and get me. They want to send me back to the hospital.”

“Maybe it's a good idea.”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

Shifts are changing at the station. The evening crews are coming on watch. Campbell is somewhere upstairs,