A Bird in the Bush

Thursday June 2nd, 1994
18:34 hrs

Today has been a bloody scorcher and fairly uneventful. I was on duty with Deeks. We got called to a pub in Harpurhey but it was nothing, just drunks in the sun. Everyone at the station was in good spirits and Deeks was flirting with me all afternoon in the patrol car. Men are like dogs when it gets hot. He wanted to go for a drink after our shift but I declined. I’ve got bad period pains.

Friday June 3rd, 1994
08:07 hrs

Detective Sergeant Vickers has assigned me to my first missing persons case. I will be working with Deeks, Harvey and Ostafijczuk. We have just received the brief.

Listed as missing on Police National Computer at 22.18 on 02/06/94
Name: Raven Kershaw (Caucasian female)
Date of Birth: 29.10.79 (aged 14)
Place of Birth: Unknown
Eyes: Green
Hair: Brown
Height: 160cm
Weight: 40kg
Distinguishing features: Severe scarring on both arms and legs. Slight limp.

Extract from Initial Investigating Officer’s Report: 03/06/94 03.00hrs
Raven Kershaw was reported missing by her foster parents, Sandra and Alan Garner, at 21:00 on Thursday June 2nd. She was last seen at 15:30 when, having returned from school, she left the house to run an errand for Mrs Garner. She was wearing her school uniform (Hope High School, Salford).
Raven Kershaw has serious mental health issues and is currently undergoing psychiatric treatment.
Please see Social Services file and psychiatrist’s report dated 27th March 1994 (both attached).

An enlarged photograph of Raven Kershaw has been pinned to the corkboard along with her name, handwritten in black marker. She is standing, hand on hip, at the gate of a small semi-detached house. Her expression is like those on old Victorian photographs, serious, as if she doesn’t know how to smile. She is painfully thin and her hair is short and mousey - it looks like it has been cut with nail scissors. She is wearing a navy blue Sweater Shop jumper, white leggings and a pair of trainers.

Several teams of officers are searching the area and will start making door-to-door enquiries in the next two hours. Harvey and Ostafijczuk are going to Hope High School to interview staff and students. Deeks and I are to search the house and speak to Mr and Mrs Garner. We will reconvene at 12.00.

14:29 hrs

I am sat at my desk smoking my fifth cigarette of the day. Deeks plonked an egg custard next to my files a few minutes ago. It has already started to crack and sag in the heat. It is almost twenty-four hours since Raven left the house.

I took statements from the foster parents this morning. Mr and Mrs Garner are both in their fifties and have years of experience fostering ‘difficult’ teenagers. He took early retirement from the council and she still works part-time as a cleaner. Raven came to them in January having been removed from several children’s homes in West Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Mr Garner described Raven as ‘a very sad and disturbed little girl.’ She didn’t speak for the first two weeks of her stay at their house and would barely eat. Mrs Garner said it was ‘nigh on impossible’ to get Raven to take a bath or wash. She was ‘smelly’ and ‘didn’t seem to care’ about her physical appearance. ‘If anything, she wanted to make herself ugly,’ said Mrs Garner. She hacked most of her hair off about a month ago with the kitchen scissors.

Despite this, both foster parents said they had felt that they were on their way to gaining Raven’s trust. Mrs Garner involved her in household tasks such as washing up and running small errands. Yesterday, Mrs Garner asked Raven to ‘pop to the shop for a bottle of milk’, a short trip which would only take ten minutes or so. Three hours later they were giving initial statements to the police.

Raven had no friends and distanced herself from the other children in the neighbourhood, of which there are many. Is it worth collaring some of them later?

Whilst I interviewed Mr and Mrs Garner, Deeks was poking around the house, which was small and well kept. Mr Garner keeps Bonsai trees on the kitchen windowsill. I joined Deeks in Raven’s bedroom when I was done with the statements. It was small and spartan. On the bed was a peach and grey striped duvet and a Forever Friends teddy bear, bought, I suspect by Mrs Garner. There were no pictures or posters on the walls and the only furniture was a small bedside cabinet (empty) and a white chest of drawers. We went through these together. There was nothing except neatly folded clothes, underwear and balled up socks.

Pulling the bed out we found nothing. We took the mattress off and checked the bedclothes. Behind the furniture it was the same, nothing. I wanted to yank up the carpet but Deeks said to leave it for now.

I have yet to read the Social Services file and mental health report in full. They are very bulky. I’ve just been scan-reading bits so far and highlighting them…

R was removed from her birth parents’ by West Yorkshire Social Services two years ago when she was 12. Both parents are serving lengthy custodial sentences for the systematic and ritualistic abuse of R. She was raised in a pagan-style sect and forced to have sex with other children as well as adults and animals from a very early age. It is thought she may have been conceived purely to act as an accessory in depraved and sadistic ‘ceremonies.’

Vickers has contacted West Yorkshire Police regarding the other ‘sect’ members. He thinks it may give us some leads. I have a lot of respect for DS Vickers but I think he’s wrong on this one.

He’s got huge sweat patches on his shirt and is clasping a can of lemonade as opposed to his usual tea with two sugars,
‘McEvilly, Deeks, I want you two out on the estate,’ he says, ‘speak to the kids. I want sightings. Harvey and Ostafijczuk, get back to that bloody Happy Shopper at the precinct. I want to know who else was in the shop. Get the CCTV videos, put some pressure on matey boy. Did she buy owt else besides the bloody milk?’
‘Right-O Sarge,’ Harvey replies, ‘come on ‘Czuky egg’ he coos at Ostafijczuk who rolls his eyes at me and Deeks.

I need to read these reports. Vickers sees me bite my lip, ‘What’s up McEvilly?’
‘It’s nowt Sarge, I just feel like I should’ve read these by now. Surely it’ll help? There must be clues.’
‘Take them down with you.’
‘Right.’

The patrol car is hotter than the sun. We get in and roll down all the windows.

There is no news from the search teams. We are to reconvene at 18:00.

18:32hrs

Raven Kershaw’s socks and school shoes were found at 15:20 near a skip on Cambridge Industrial Estate, about half a mile from her house. There are still no reports of sightings but when Harvey and Ostafijczuk pressured the shop assistant he admitted selling her a pack of Bic razors. She never bought the milk.

I’m still scanning the psychiatrist’s report:

R is volatile, paranoid and appears to experience flashbacks. She hears voices and therefore could attract a mis-diagnosis of schizophrenia in the future. My diagnosis would be of borderline personality disorder.

A full-scale search has now been mounted by Greater Manchester Police and DS Vickers has spoken to the media with an appeal for information. West Yorkshire Police have taken several people in for questioning. There is still suspicion that Raven may have been in contact with one of them prior to her disappearance. I don’t think this is the case.

R carries razorblades in order to feel safe.

Deeks and I spoke to some of the kids on the housing estate, a lot of them were still soaking wet due to a large-scale water fight. They were reluctant to talk to us and all we got were small descriptions of Raven’s character: ‘a bit weird’, ‘dead quiet’ and ‘creepy’ were mostly what they said.

An ice-cream van has just pulled up. It’s playing the tune ‘Boys and Girls Come Out to Play’. The kids are running indoors to get money off their Mums.
‘Do you want a Mr Freeze?’ asks Deeks.
‘Yeah, go on then. I’ll have a blue one, thanks.’

We are now to join the teams of officers searching the industrial estate.

20:16hrs

Deeks and I are stood outside a disused spring factory. Raven was found in there an hour ago. Neither of us has said much. We just keep smoking and giving each other looks, as if to check we’re still here. I can still hear blasts of that ice-cream van tune in the distance.

She is still alive, just. I don’t know if she’ll make it through the night. She’s lost a lot of blood.

Ostafijczuk found her laid in a big cardboard box at the back of what was the work shop floor. She was naked and unconscious. It seems she had performed some kind of ritualistic ‘ceremony’ or operation on herself. She had taken the blades out of the plastic casings and cut her arms and legs considerably. Her hands and genitals were mutilated and she appears to have inserted a dead bird into her vagina. Harvey said it was a sparrow. Both him and Ostafijczuk are very shaken.


Saturday 4th June 1994
00:07hrs

Raven Kershaw died an hour ago.

I am back at my desk. I don’t want to go home. Vickers is still here too, writing up his report on the case. He keeps absent-mindedly humming snippets of that bloody nursery rhyme. We’re knackered. I sit back in my chair and watch him chewing his bottom lip. I finished reading the psychiatrist’s report a few minutes ago…

It is likely R will continue attempts to recreate the rituals she encountered growing up, as these were the only consistencies in her otherwise troubled childhood. Although completely depraved, she knew what was going to happen and may seek comfort from the fact that these were the times she received most recognition for simply being her. It is a common strategy for self-soothing.

The egg custard that Deeks bought me at lunchtime has dried up. I pick it up carefully and bin it.