his age and rake thin, Reggie was squat and had carried baby fat well beyond babyhood. His head was regularly shaved to the skull, which made him the subject of considerable teasing at school (he was generally referred to as "that slap-head wanker") but, unlike Michael's, his clothing was usually neat and clean. His teachers report that Reggie was a "good boy but with a short fuse"
and when pressed they tend to identify the cause of this short fuse as "Dad and Mum's troubles and then there's the trouble with his sis and brother." From this, it is probably safe to assume that the unusual nature of the Arnold marriage, in addition to the disability of an older brother and the mental incapacity of a younger sister, put Reggie in a position of getting lost in the shuffle of daily life.
Rudy and Laura Arnold, it must be said, had been dealt a difficult hand of cards. Their older son was permanently wheelchair bound from severe cerebral palsy and their daughter had been deemed unfit for a normal classroom education. These two elements of the Arnolds' life had the effect of simultaneously focusing nearly all parental attention on the two problematic children and burdening what was already a rather fragile marriage in which Rudy and Laura Arnold had separated time and again, putting Laura in the position of coping on her own.
Caught up in the middle of trying familial circumstances, Reggie was unlikely to receive much attention. Laura readily confesses that she "didn't do right by the boy," but his father claims that he "had him over the flat five or six times," in apparent reference to meeting his paternal obligations during those periods when he and his wife were living apart. As can be imagined, Reggie's unmet need for nurturing metamorphosed into common attempts at gaining adult attention. In the streets, he evidenced this through petty thievery and the occasional bullying of younger children; in the classroom, he acted up. This acting up was seen by his teachers, unfortunately, as the aforementioned "short fuse" and not as the cry for help it actually was. When thwarted, he was given to throwing his desk, beating his head upon it and upon the walls, and falling to the floor in a tantrum.
On the day of the crime, accounts have it - and CCTV films confirm - that Michael Spargo and Reggie Arnold encountered each other at the corner shop nearest the Arnold home and on Michael's route to school. The boys were acquainted and had evidently played together in the past but were as yet unknown to each other's parents. Laura Arnold reports that she'd sent Reggie to the shops for milk, and the shopkeeper confirms that Reggie purchased a half liter of semi-skimmed. He also apparently stole two Mars bars "for a bit of a laugh," according to Michael.
Michael attached himself to Reggie. Along the route back to the Arnold house, the boys extended their enjoyment of Reggie's errand by opening the milk and dumping its contents into the petrol tank of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, an act of mischief witnessed by the motorcycle's owner, who chased them unsuccessfully afterwards. He was later to remember the mustard-coloured anorak that Michael Spargo was wearing, and although he was not able to identify either boy by name, he recognised a photo of Reggie Arnold when the police presented it to him, along with other faces.
Reaching home without the milk he'd been sent out to fetch, Reggie reported to his mother - with Michael Spargo as putative witness - that he'd been bullied by two boys who took the money intended for the milk. "He cried and was getting himself into one of his states," Laura Arnold reports. "And I believed him. What else was there to do?" This is indeed a relevant question, for without her husband in the home and considering that she was attempting alone to care for two disabled children, a missing carton of milk, no matter how needed it might have been that morning, would have seemed a very small matter to her. She did, however, want to know who Michael Spargo was, and she asked her son that question. Reggie identified him as a "mate from school," and he took Michael along to do his mother's next bidding, which was evidently to get his sister out of bed. By now, it was in the vicinity of eight forty-five and, if the boys planned to go to school that day,