Shaun felt sick. As he reached Nigel, he could see the older boy prone on the floor. His once-green T-shirt was covered in dust and ripped by the arm, his jeans bent out at an unnatural angle covering a leg which must surely have made the sickening crunching noise. The boy looked dazed and was crying. ‘Please . . .’

Scott crouched down next to the boy and punched him hard across the face. ‘Shut. Up,’ he ordered. ‘Stop crying.’

Nigel had his eyes shut, head to one side reeling from the blow. He was trying to catch his breath, trying to stop the tears. ‘Do you know why we chased you, Nigel?’

The boy shook his head and whimpered. ‘No.’

‘You shouldn’t have looked at my girlfriend like that, should you?’

Nigel was shaking his head, desperately holding back the tears. ‘I . . . I . . . wasn’t.’

Scott punched him in the face a second time, the sound echoing. Jamo gave a ‘yeah’. Shaun continued staring at the angle of Nigel’s leg.

‘Don’t lie to me, freak.’

Jon spoke. ‘Scott . . .’

Scott turned around sharply, standing rigidly to his full height. He was shorter than Jon but stepped up to within an inch or two of him. ‘What?’

The light from the doorway left them each half in shadow, the only noise a faint whimper coming from Nigel. This was the moment for Shaun to say something too. If he and Jon stuck together, they could stop this now. He just had to open his mouth and say something . . .

28

Shaun Hogan was crying, not just small sobs but loud wails. The prison guards didn’t seem to want anything to do with what was unfolding in front of them. They couldn’t have heard anything specific given the distance from them to Shaun, Jessica and Cole but they had stopped talking among themselves and all four were watching the prisoner, presumably in case his sorrow became violent. His cries echoed around the empty visiting room. Jessica slid a packet of tissues from her bag across the table. ‘Shaun . . . ?’

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t say anything.’

The case of Nigel Collins had been massive news at the time and a total embarrassment for the force. A dog-walker had found a teenage boy’s battered body on the site of an old factory. He was in a coma with one of his legs was broken. He had a fractured jaw and broken ribs. His face was so badly beaten that the walker wasn’t even sure the victim was alive, let alone whether they were male or female.

Jessica had been in uniform at the time and most of the GMP’s resources had been assigned to the case given its severity. The boy’s face had been on the front of every national newspaper and at the top of every news bulletin. At first they had to find out who the victim was, which had taken a couple of days in itself.

Nigel Collins was an orphan who had lived in a children’s home on the outskirts of the city since his parents had died in a car accident when he was eleven. They had left behind nothing but debts and Nigel. He had no relatives, no security and no future and was too old to realistically be adopted. Finding a foster family was always hard for a child on the cusp of being a teenager and the home had offered him somewhere to stay, even though he had never fitted in either there or at school.

After he had been identified as the victim, the police had followed all sorts of leads, from former school pupils to ex-housemates at the home. No one knew anything. Nigel was a quiet child and didn’t talk much at the best of times. He lived in his own world with no friends and little contact with anyone other than the staff at the home. He had finished school at sixteen but was barely ready for the outside world. Staff had helped set him up with somewhere to stay through a housing association but, given his personality, he hadn’t achieved much else.

In the days after the media campaign, there had been plenty of reports of Nigel being harassed by other kids, younger and older. Some saw him on the streets and targeted the vulnerable, gawky loner. With his poor social skills, even adults would tell their children to avoid people like him. No one could give any specific details though and the police had to assume he had been attacked given the nature of the injuries and the place his body was found.

When Nigel regained consciousness, he either didn’t want to or couldn’t remember any details about how he had ended up there. He couldn’t say whether he was attacked, let alone if he knew the people involved. A couple of the staff members from the home he had lived in as a child were brought in to speak to him but they couldn’t get him to open up. As they pointed out, Nigel didn’t talk an awful lot before the incident. Some officers believed he simply didn’t want to say anything but no one could know for sure.

Five months after the attack he had been forgotten. He was released from hospital and, as he either couldn’t or wouldn’t cooperate with the police, any case against the people who had attacked him was dropped. It was another unsolved file in a large stack of them but with a victim who couldn’t even point them in the right direction. The media had long since moved on to other stories too.

Jessica knew all of that off the top of her head. It had been ingrained into them as officers during the morning briefings before things had slowly been dropped. One by one they were moved onto other cases but those pictures of Nigel Collins’ brutally beaten face were something that had stayed with her. He didn’t even look human in the images, a mass of purple, black, blue and red all merging into one.

Jessica took a deep breath. ‘Are you admitting to being part of a group who tortured Nigel Collins, Shaun?’

‘Yes,’ he sniffed.

Jessica didn’t know how to phrase the next question so just asked it in the simplest way possible. ‘Why have you told us all this now?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose I’ve been waiting to tell someone for ages.’

‘You do know everything you just told us could be used if the case is reopened?’

‘It’s fine. I deserve it,’ he said quietly. ‘But that’s why it’s my fault with my mum.’

‘I’m sorry, Shaun, I still don’t understand,’ Jessica said.

Shaun was still sniffing but his sobs had died down. He spoke slowly and quietly. ‘After it all happened, when Nigel had been found and was on the TV and everything, I couldn’t keep it in. The four of us never really hung around together after that again but Scott told us all to keep our mouths shut. We were scared. I was scared but I told my mum . . .’

Things began to click into place for Jessica to explain the reason why Shaun believed the family falling apart was down to him. She didn’t say anything and allowed Shaun to continue speaking. ‘Mum didn’t go to the police but it was never right. She never looked at me the same way; you could see it in her eyes. She had already started drinking after Dad left but everything was under control. After I told her though . . .’

Jessica let him tail off. He composed himself again and used another tissue to blow his nose. ‘I’d just left school and was about to do my exams but I couldn’t get the images out of my head. Scott made us all join in. That way, if any of us ever said anything, we would all be in it together. Jon – Jonny – he cried the whole time. Even Jamo didn’t want to get involved when it got serious. As soon as my exams were done that’s when Mum said we were moving. We all knew the flat she took us to was too small but I think it was just her way of saying she didn’t want me there any longer.’

Jessica nodded. ‘Is that what she said to you when you went to visit her on the day you ended up assaulting that man?’

‘Pretty much. She had been drinking and was in the flat on her own. It was horrible. I had heard from Em that Mum had started working and I had shouted at her about it. I said it wasn’t right what she was doing to Kim. She wasn’t listening and just shouted back, “What about what you did?” It was the first time she’d ever said anything properly about it. She said it was my fault and that she couldn’t even look at me because of what she saw every time she did.’