Read The Sleeping and the Dead for Free Online

keep their own records. No care or supervision order was placed on anyone called Michael Grey in the seventies
anywhere in the county.’ He paused, savouring the moment. ‘Social Services were never involved with him either.’
    ‘But they must have been.’
    ‘Not necessarily.’ Jones leaned forward, but didn’t elaborate.
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘How old was he?’ The tone was patronizing. An infant teacher talking to a particularly thick six-year-old. Just what I deserve, Porteous thought.
    ‘When we think he went missing? Eighteen.’
    ‘There you are then.’ Jones leaned back in the chair once more and smirked. ‘Over sixteen and we wouldn’t get involved. He could have been younger than that when he
started living with the foster parents, if it was an informal arrangement.’
    ‘Perhaps you would explain.’ Porteous had never minded eating humble pie. It was surprising how people liked you to grovel. The social worker was loving it.
    ‘Let’s take a hypothetical situation. Something we come across all the time. Say there’s a single mum with a teenage lad. He starts to run a bit wild. Perhaps it’s
nothing that would get him in trouble with the police, but he’s staying out late, skipping school. She begins to feel she’s losing control. Now, it could be that the boy has a good
relationship with her parents and they offer to have him to live with them for a while. To take the heat off her until things calm down. That would be fostering of a sort, wouldn’t it?
Nothing official. No need for Social Services to be involved even if the lad were under sixteen. In fact that’s usually the last thing a family under stress wants. A nosy cow from the Welfare
knocking on the door.’
    Porteous smiled.
    ‘So you’re saying these Brices were probably relatives?’
    ‘They might have been. Or friends. They might even have been doing it for money. All I can tell you is I don’t think they were official.’
    ‘Where do you suggest I go from here?’
    ‘Have you got the name of the school?’
    ‘Cranford Grammar.’ That too had been in the dental records.
    ‘Try there then. If it was an informal fostering they’d still have wanted the names of the natural parent. It’s possible that he moved away from home after he started the
school. Most problems of that sort start in adolescence. You might even find a couple of teachers who remember him. My kids go there and some of the staff must be close to retirement.’
    He led Porteous down the concrete stairs. In the waiting-room the old lady had begun to sob.
    Cranford Grammar had since become Cranford High, and when Porteous phoned the school from his office he was told that it was the last day of the summer term. The secretary
sounded on the verge of hysteria. In the background he heard the high-pitched yelps of children, an impatient teacher calling for mislaid reports, a yell for silence.
    ‘It really isn’t a good time.’
    Then he explained that he was running a murder inquiry and suddenly her attitude changed. Porteous had noticed it before. It wasn’t a desire to be a good citizen and help the police.
Murder had the same effect as the mention of celebrity, of a pop idol or football star. She was excited. Later she would boast to her friends that she had been involved.
    He told her again what he wanted.
    ‘I can only think of one member of staff who would have been around then,’ she said. ‘Mr Westcott. He’s head of history. I know he has a free period first thing after
lunch but that’s probably not the best time to talk to him.’
    ‘Why not?’ he asked politely.
    ‘Oh well. I suppose it’ll be all right. I’ll tell him you’re calling. And I’ll check our records. If you come to the office first I’ll have everything ready
for you.’
    The electric bell sounding the end of lunch was ringing as he got out of his car. By the time he got to the school office the children were contained in their classrooms. No