"Look, if we're being perfectly honest with you, we haven't had that much contact with my family for years."
Mr. Abney had only asked if they were aware of the allegations against their niece and some of her friends. Harold Reed greatly resembled his brother – same long nose, same brown eyes, same cheekbones; the main difference was the fact that he was dressed much better, as opposed to his brother's more ill-fitting clothes, and he'd had a recent haircut. He appeared fit, with a slightly squarer jaw, but his dark brown hair had far less grey than his brother's. And while Archie had been more restless, and had a kind of nervous energy, Harold had none of that vigor and while not quite at ease, appeared far more composed and collected. So far, Mr. Abney had to admit that he was overall quite a pleasant man.
"Archie told me you were all quite close." Mr. Abney topped up Mrs. Reed's tea. She smiled gratefully, though slightly uncomfortable. She was as pleasant as her husband, though Mr. Abney could tell she was holding back – she kept glancing apologetically at her husband before she spoke, but he largely seemed resigned to the things she was saying about his family. Mr. Abney had already explained that he was going to be asking some tough questions, and that he would understand if it became too difficult to discuss. Mr. Reed just told him to get on with it.
"Oh, we talk every week, to be sure," Mr. Reed said. "And I would say that I'm very close with Stuart. But I don't really let our girls around my parents if I can help it."
"Gordon can be quite strict," Mrs. Reed said. She was in her forties, her blond hair tied up in a neat twist. "He can be a bit too harsh sometimes; but during the summer is the only time the girls can see Stuart or Mary, and they should have some relationship with their grandparents as well, so we do make the effort to get together."
"And do you spend the entire summer together?"
"Harold is ashore June to August," Mrs. Reed informed him. "Same as Stuart; and Archie before he retired."
"A handy break, when the children are off school," Mr. Abney commented. "I would assume those months would be in demand."
A funny look came across Mr. Reed's face, but it was gone in a flash. "Yes, the three of us are very lucky. We've always gotten them off since Nell, Meredith, and Finlay were born."
"I'm certainly not complaining," Mrs. Reed volunteered, smiling.
"And do you spend much of the summer months with your in-laws?"
"Yes, we used to spend a good chunk of the summer in Leicester," she replied. "But we like to travel as well – we were with Mary and Stuart for the first two weeks in August, and we had a nice little family holiday, just ourselves, in July."
"Oh, how, uh, how lovely," Mr. Abney said, a slight upturn at the corners of his mouth. "Where did you go?"
"We spent ten days in Morocco; Marrakesh."
"A nice city break?"
"It was, it was; though it was hard to keep Harriet entertained," Mr. Reed offered fondly. "Not too impressed with the architecture, but she did love the quad biking."
"Quad biking?"
"Oh, you can do it out in the desert," Mrs. Reed said helpfully. "All the girls loved it."
"Tessa had a go as well," Mr. Reed said, placing a hand on his wife's knee. "Not for me though, I don't like the bikes."
"Sea vehicles more your style?"
"Rightly so."
"Marrakesh is land locked, am I right in saying that?"
"It is, but we went on a charming little boat ride up to this waterfall – oh, what was called Harold?"
"Ooh… Ouzoud, I think it was," Mr. Reed replied, his brow furrowed. "Harriet kept running around, the tour guide was getting worried she was going to fall in."
"Your nephew told me that you were all raised on the water," Mr. Abney said.
"She can handle herself on a boat, to be sure," Mr. Reed said, a hint of pride in his voice. "All of our girls can; they could all handle a dinghy before they could ride a bicycle."
"And do any of the girls want to, want to follow you into the Navy? You're a lieutenant yourself, am I right?"
Mr. Reed nodded. "I am; Nell and Edith do have their hearts set on it."
"I'm sure you're pleased with that."
Mr. and Mrs. Reed exchanged a glance. "Not as pleased as you'd think," Mr. Reed admitted after a moment.
"It's a bit of a boys' club," Mrs. Reed told him. "We're not sure we like some – a lot – of the attitudes prevalent in the Navy."
"We're gently pushing them towards the Coast Guard, if we're being totally honest," Mr. Reed added, making a gentle shoving motion with his hands.
"What, uh, what would put you off having them join the Navy?"
"I've seen a lot of sexism," Mr. Reed said. "Some of the language would shock you, it really would; quite homophobic as well." He made a displeased face. "I try to stay out of it, there's not much to do if you hear it. It really is everywhere."
Mr. Abney read over some of his notes. It was for show; he'd memorised them. "I'm told that Malcolm is bullied quite a lot in school for being gay."
They exchanged another glance.
"We have heard that from the girls." Mrs. Reed bit her lip. "It's the main reason that Nell and Meredith don't get along."
"So, Nell would be protective over her younger sisters and cousins?"
"Rightly so," Mr. Reed insisted. "That girl knows responsibility, we made sure of that. All of our girls do; if they see Meredith, or that boyfriend of hers, having a go at Malcolm, they know to put a stop to it."
"May I ask, um, what you're aware of? Just to come back to my earlier question?"
"We do know about making Malcolm drink that milk," Mr. Reed said. "And the girls have complained to us about Meredith being a bully, but we've not been given the specifics."
"Could you possibly tell me what you have been told? Anything the girls have said, anything you've noticed about how the two interact, anything at all."
"When they were younger, everyone always complained that Meredith was pushing them, or breaking their things," Mrs. Reed offered. "And they always tried to avoid her – I normally told the girls to stop being so mean, I just felt so bad for her; she always looked so lonely. Malcolm was the only one she could ever get to play with her, not even Madeleine would."
"I think she told Madeleine to sod off, half the time," Mr. Reed interjected. "No, I'm almost sure of it – she wanted to play with Malcolm on her own."
"Actually, I think you might be right," Mrs. Reed agreed, her brow furrowed. "When we all got together it was normally Nell, Mae, and Finlay; Cora, Edith, Callum, and Madeleine; Harriet and Rory, he's nearly ten; and then Malcolm and Meredith would be off together."
"Did they enjoy playing together?"
"Malcolm normally came running over to Mary and Stuart, crying," Mrs. Reed said. "Meredith tended to be a bit rough when she was playing with him; she was a bit rough with all of them, to be honest."
"Rough how?" Nobody had yet to satisfactorily explain to him what they meant by 'rough'.
"When they were playing chase, she would end up accidentally pushing them when she caught them," Mr. Reed said. "I remember once, they were playing rounders, and after she hit the ball, she threw the bat behind her, and hit Finlay in the nose."
"Was that on purpose?"
"Oh, no, no," Mr. Reed said shaking his head, aghast. "We were watching, she just got a little bit excited."
"Your father though," Mrs. Reed said, so quietly that Mr. Abney doubted he was meant to hear her, pursing her lips. She glanced at her husband out of the corner of her eye.
"What about him?" Mr. Abney asked.
Mrs. Reed seemed reluctant to continue. "He insisted that Finlay should have ducked, and he was more to blame than Meredith."
"Kept blathering on about needing 'quicker reflexes', and that he ought to toughen up if he wanted to join the service." Mr. Reed shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Which, to be honest, is why I don't really let my children around my father alone anymore."
"I'd like to get back to that later, if, if I may," Mr. Abney said, flicking through his notes. "Would you mind if we, if we were to, to speak a little more about Meredith and Malcolm?"
Mr. and Mrs. Reed nodded; turns out that Meredith was actually quite possessive of her brother – she didn't often let Callum play with him when they were smaller, and the only one who could really distract her from him was Madeleine. But even then, she could never distract her for very long. Mrs. Reed often forced Nell and Mae to play with her when they were younger, feeling so sorry for her when all of her cousins and younger sister were avoiding her and Malcolm couldn't play because he was sick. Though that normally ended in an argument, because Meredith was being too bossy, or took someone else's toy and wouldn't give it back, or God forbid, went running to their grandfather and told him what they were doing. When she was with Malcolm, he would just go along with whatever Meredith wanted to do, though they were concerned that she used to hit him far too hard if she wasn't getting her way or was cross with him for some reason.
"Malcolm's had a lot of hospital visits and injuries over the years, hasn't he?"
"He has, yes," Mr. Reed replied warily. "And I know you like Meredith for a lot of them."
"Do you disagree?"
"We've been speaking to the girls, Nell and Mae in particular," Mrs. Reed cut off her husband with a hand on his knee. "They claim that Meredith has one all sorts of things: pushed him down stairs, steal his food, spread rumours – that sort of thing."
"And did the girls tell you this only recently?" Mr. Abney asked.
"They used to tell on her when she hurt them when they were smaller, but not as much anymore," Mr. Reed said, taking his wife's hand on his knee. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "They haven't really said anything about Meredith in a while, to be honest with you. They honestly said nothing to us about any of this."
"May I ask if you heard about what happened in September?" They shook their heads. "Meredith and a few of her, of her, um, of her friends removed his clothes and tied Malcolm to the goalposts overnight."
Mr. Reed turned stony faced, while Mrs. Reed gaped at Mr. Abney in horror. "We heard no such thing!"
"It was confirmed by several different sources," Mr. Abney confirmed; after Finlay told him about it, Mr. Abney had DCI Green confront Dora – one of Meredith's friends – and she'd cracked in about twenty minutes; she ended up telling him all about how they'd cornered Malcolm after dinner one Sunday because Meredith was irritated over the large package Malcolm got from their parents for his birthday; they dragged him out to the east playing pitch, forced him to take off his clothes, and tied him up. Mr. Abney had seen the video recording – she'd started crying loud, ugly sobs, and seemed absolutely terrified. Mr. Abney had an interview with her scheduled for the following week, and was planning on questioning her on the long list Finlay had given him – not to mention whatever Nell and Mae was going to tell him in another hour. DCI Green had already spoken to Tim and William as well, and gotten much the same story, once they'd been told that Dora had confessed. Tim had also told DCI Green that he'd seen Meredith and Jasper heading to Malcolm's room that morning, carrying what looked like two litres of milk, bleach, and a bucket. Both Meredith and Jasper, however, had refused to speak to him without their parents present, and it didn't look like that was going to happen for another month – Lt. Reed was still at sea, and Commodore Bardsley-Kemp seemed to be taking his sweet time.
"The girls said nothing to us," Mr. Reed said evenly. "We heard nothing about it."
Mr. Abney went over some more of what Finlay and Callum had told him about what Meredith and her friends had done to Malcolm in school: holding him down in the fountain, not letting him eat, hiding his books and uniform, pushing him down the stairs, dislocating his shoulder, ripping up his drawings and paintings, and lastly, about the scar on his arm. They were appalled.
"We had no idea it was that bad," Mr. Reed insisted, still as calm as anything. "The girls don't get along, but that's about all we knew."
"Did Corinne ever mention anything to you?"
"Absolutely not!" Mrs. Reed said. "She never said a word."
"Were you aware that she was collecting evidence of the abuse Meredith was inflicting on Malcolm?"
"She said nothing." Mrs. Reed replied. "And we spoke every Monday, she had the girls over on the weekends."
"Can you think of why that would be?"
Mr. and Mrs. Reed glanced at each other. "She may have been concerned," Mr. Reed began slowly. "That I would have told Archie, or our father. If she really was, as you say, collecting evidence."
"And would you have?"
"I would not!" Mr. Reed displayed more emotion than he'd shown so far. "If I knew that Meredith was harming her brother to that extent, I would have said something about it; I would have confronted Stuart."
"Can I ask if you believe that it would be better if this was settled without my interference?"
"Do I think we should be keeping this in the family, and not be airing our dirty laundry about?" Mr. Reed was getting clearly irritated now, leaning forward in his seat. "Have you been speaking with my mother?"
He'd struck a nerve. "Not yet; I have an interview, with, with, with your parents next week." They'd been difficult to pin down, only agreeing to meet with their lawyer, a Mr. Thornton, present. "It was Callum that told me that."
"They've been helping Archie with the boys a lot more, since Corinne passed," Mr. Reed said, calming slightly, and leaning back in his chair. "I doubt the boys are too thrilled."
"You said a few moments ago that you, that you don't allow your parents around your children too often?"
"No, we don't." Mr. Reed busied himself by making some more tea for his wife; even though her cup was largely untouched.
"May I ask why that is?"
Mr. Reed huffed, and Mrs. Reed placed a hand gently on his shoulder. It was as though he was reminded to take a breath when he met her eye. "My father can be a rather demanding man."
Mr. Abney waited for him to elaborate. He didn't. "Can you give me an example?"
"He doesn't abide mistakes; he can be intolerant, impatient, demeaning –" Mr. Reed cut himself off, exhaling forcibly through his nose. "He and I don't really get along," he said simply, folding his arms in his lap.
Mr. Abney crossed his legs and clasped his hands over his knee. "I understand that this might be hard for you, Mr. Reed."
"Yes, you said that already."
Mr. Abney paused before speaking again. "What Finlay and Callum told me was rather concerning; to be honest, I'm, I'm inclined to believe that it's not new behaviour."
"Are you." Mr. Reed was wound tighter than a drum, and shook his wife's hand from his shoulder.
"Finlay told me your father often prevents them from eating if he'd displeased about the marks they get on their homework," Mr. Abney said softly. "And he's also incredibly strict on chores."
"Yes, he's quite fond of sending children to bed without any supper." He looked at Mrs. Reed out of the corner of his eye, allowing her to take his hand this time. He sighed, before looking back at Mr. Abney. "To be honest, I only speak to my parents every couple of months. Archie calls me every week, but it's only Stuart that I'm actually close to."
"You're not close to Archie? Is he close to your father?"
"They argue something fierce, but I know my father respects him a damn sight more than he does Stuart or myself. They're very alike – everything has to be 'ship-shape and Bristol fashion'."
"Can you describe him a little bit more for me?"
"He can be cruel sometimes," Mrs. Reed interjected. "Whenever the children were making noise – being children, in essence – he could never abide by it, he would demand that they be quiet and behave themselves."
"Nothing is ever good enough for him," Mr. Reed said. "And he's not afraid to let you know he's displeased."
"He's far too harsh with the children, in my opinion," Mrs. Reed told him. "Caroline is the same way."
"It's the main reason we don't allow the girls alone with them." Mr. Reed sighed. "They're… they're cruel, to be completely frank." He looked over at his wife for support, and she squeezed his hand and smiled encouragingly. "I remember… I remember him locking us in our rooms for a few days if we annoyed him; keeping us on bread and water for weeks was his favourite punishment."
He bent his head, and rubbed his forehead.
"I know how hard it can be to be bringing all of this up –"
"But it needs to be said." Mr. Reed looked up sharply. "Let me assure you Mr. Abney – my father is an emotional distant, verbally abusive man, who has a penchant for half starving children."
"Finlay told me he treats them as if they're in basic training?"
"Can you imagine being screamed at by a drill sergeant at the age of six?" Mr. Reed asked rhetorically. Mr. Abney shook his head. "I don't have to; and neither do my daughters."
"I can imagine that's very tough," Mr. Abney said, sympathetically. "You said that you avoid your parents if possible?" Mr. Reed nodded. "Would you mind if I ask, can I ask what prompted that decision?"
Mr. Reed shrugged. "It was everything, really. About five or six years ago, I saw him treating my daughters the way he treated myself and my brothers, and I just…" he sighed. "I just realised that I couldn't put them through what I went through – the control, the fear – I just couldn't expose them to it." He turned his head to look at his wife, and they smiled sweetly at each other. "We had a chat, and we made the decision."
Mr. Abney gave them a minute; Mr. Reed seemed to be getting pretty agitated over where the conversation had headed. Mr. Abney felt for him, and hated putting him through it, but he knew that this was a necessary evil. Once it seemed like Mr. Reed was ready to speak again, Mr. Abney turned the conversation to Stuart and Mary.
"Stuart does whatever our father tells him to," Mr. Reed said. "If he wants him to have a go at Malcolm, he'll have a go at Malcolm, but he's a completely different person when Dad's not around."
"In what way does your father 'have a go' at Malcolm?"
"He tells him he's wasting his time with his art; Stuart told both Archie and Dad that he wasn't letting Malcolm do it for GCSEs, but he only said that to shut them up. He loves Malcolm's paintings – he has them pinned up all over the house and his quarters on ship."
"And Stuart tells you this?" Mr. Abney asked, making a note.
"He tells me most things," Mr. Reed informed him. "He's too concerned about making our father happy – he goes along with whatever he says, he's terrified of him."
"Does Stuart ever disagree with your father?"
"No, never."
"Well, there was that one time," Mrs. Reed said. "It was years ago – Gordon kept giving Malcolm things he's allergic to, and Stuart lost the plot."
"Oh, yes, I remember that, but that was the only time I can think of. And that's another thing," Mr. Reed added. "He doesn't believe that Malcolm is as allergic as Stuart claims, thinks Mary's overreacting."
A knock at the door cut off Mr. Abney's next question. "Come in," he called.
Chris stuck his blond head through the crack in the door. "Sorry to interrupt, but Helen and Margaret Reed are waiting out here for their parents."
Mr. Abney thanked him and turned back to Mr. and Mrs. Reed. "Could I ask you to think of some more examples of your father's behaviour that, that, you considered when making the decision to limit his contact with your daughters? I will need to conduct several interview with your family, if that's alright with you."
They told him that they would, and he asked them to set up an appointment with Chris for just before Christmas. Mr. Abney got up, and gestured to the door. Mr. and Mrs. Reed followed suit, and Mr. Abney called Helen and Margaret in.
