On his first day in Murder, while Quigley is away having lunch, Rob steals down to the basement where cold cases are kept. He's spent most of the morning listening to jokes about the English, which suits him fine. The more English they think he is, the less likely they are to make the connection to little Irish Adam. He finds the box he's looking for, labelled Knocknaree 1985, and opens it with his heart thudding.
Inside he finds a stack of witness statements, some of them with his own name on. He doesn't remember the names of the detectives who interviewed him, but he's pretty sure they were both old enough to be long retired by now. There are photographs too, one of the three bikes where they were abandoned and one of the tree where Adam was found, not that he remembers. There are Peter and Jamie's school photos, the ones that were splashed everywhere on missing posters for weeks, before it became a murder enquiry. There's also Adam's own smiling photograph, that was meant to be shown discreetly to potential witnesses but somehow found its way to the press.
Then there are the evidence bags, the clothes Adam was wearing that day, including the tiny yellow T-shirt. He can't bring himself to take it out of the bag and look at the slashes on the back, even if he had time. Then he sees the bag containing his old socks and trainers, covered in dark blood. He stills. DNA testing has moved on since the eighties. He could send them to a lab, have them tested again. He knows he won't.
There's no flood of memories, and he doesn't know whether to feel disappointed or relieved about that. He picks up another evidence bag, this one containing his old cherished tape recorder — he'd taken it everywhere that year — and a cassette with his own childish writing, "Top 20!" He almost smiles.
The lights flicker above him and he glances up to see the wolf from his nightmares standing in the nearest aisle, glaring at him. Its eyes are bright yellow and menacing. Rob stares back.
The door to the basement opens and Quigley looks in. "Did you get lost on the way to the jacks?" he demands.
"I was just doing some research," Rob says, quickly replacing the lid on the box and pushing it aside with a gloved hand.
"Yeah, well I need you in interview when you've finished." Quigley strides back upstairs, leaving Rob alone with the flickering lights.
