The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case by David James Smith Page A

Fitzsimmons, Geoff MacDonald and the other inquiry officers it only added to the uncertainties. Could a body have been carried elsewhere by the current? If so, in which direction? If he wasn’t in the canal, then where was he? Was the sighting on Berry Street good? Was James nearby, or was he one of the rising number of far-flung sightings? There had to be a chance that he was still alive, and the officers clung to this possibility, though rationally it was a remote hope.
    Amid the speculation and the brainstorming lay the more methodical process of examining all the incoming information, selecting priorities, and initiating inquiries. Names of potential suspects were coming in; detectives were being dispatched to check them out.
    On the Saturday evening, officers finally visited the elderly woman who had been walking her dog on the reservoir. Her description of the two boys was limited – she could only say that they were ten or eleven years old and spoke with local accents. She remembered James as two or three years old, with blonde hair and a round face. She remembered a dark anorak with orange coloured lining, light coloured trousers and white shoes. She was shown a photograph of James and thought it similar to the toddler she had seen. She said she had been on the reservoir just after quarter past four, less than an hour after James had been abducted.
    It was by no means conclusive, but when the statement was read, back at Marsh Lane, it was decided that this was a sighting of James, even if the woman had apparently underestimated the ages of the two boys with him.
    This suggested a fresh direction for the search, away from Bootle and into Walton, and opened up a whole new area for speculation. There were cemeteries, more stretches of canal, hospital grounds, old railway lines, open spaces, city farms …
    Jim Fitzsimmons found Saturday a difficult and frustrating day, plagued by slow progress and uncertainty. They needed something, anything, to move forward. A direct line to the Pope.
    Before clocking off at one o’clock in the morning he and Geoff MacDonald again spoke to Denise and Ralph, again persuading them that it was time to go home, again trying to sound reassuring. If James had been in the canal we would have found him by now. He must be in the custody of someone, things are positive. Denise said, ‘Do you think we’ve got a chance?’ Jim could see and feel her desperation. Holding on to the slightest hope. Yes, they could still find him, he could still be alive.
    *
    Albert Kirby was off that weekend, at home, and had been following the events that were unfolding in Bootle from news reports and the occasional phone call from officers of his team who had become involved in the inquiry.
    He had been at work on Friday, at his desk in Canning Place, where he was the Detective Superintendent in charge of the Serious Crime Squad. He had heard of James’s disappearance that afternoon, and hoped the boy would be found. As time went on he began to wonder whether it might warrant his involvement. He had run through the options in his head – a relative, perhaps, had taken James; he was hiding somewhere; or being held against his will – but in his heart, as time went on, he knew those options were evaporating.
    He had decided on Saturday that if James was not found by tea time he would go in on Sunday, either to help or to take over the inquiry.
    Like a doctor on call, Albert always kept his black leather briefcase at home, packed and ready to go to work. It contained pens, writing pads, a pager, a mobile phone, and the latest in the series of red, A4 sized, spiralbound notebooks in which Albert chronicled his work. He often took a prepared lunch in with him as well, in a small Tupperware container.
    Albert was a meticulous and controlled man. He had never smoked and had been teetotal for the past ten years, since giving up the occasional pint while in training to run the London marathon. People had once been