The Innocent Ones

by The Innocent Ones (retail) (epub)

  Porter turned away as the cell door closed again. Worrying about defence lawyers did not come high on the list of priorities for the local police budget.

  Half an hour later, Ken sounded the buzzer. Two short bursts. No long urgent blast. He was let out and his client followed as Porter led them to the interview room.

  The silence continued.

  Porter wouldn’t normally conduct a suspect interview. His role was to supervise and direct, but he couldn’t do that cocooned in an interview room. He wanted to hear his first account though.

  He didn’t get to hear anything. He sat with a junior detective on one side of a small wooden table, Ken Goodman and Rodney on the other, a black tape deck with two slots between them. Rodney gave his name and nodded when asked if he understood the police caution, then gave a loud, ‘Yes,’ when told that the microphones wouldn’t pick up a nod. He stared at the tapes as they whirred, and then down at the table as Porter struggled to control his temper.

  Rodney didn’t answer any questions, each one met with a monotone, ‘No comment.’

  Porter let someone else take over from him, but Rodney kept it up through another five interviews. Each piece of evidence was put to him, to give him the chance to respond, but he maintained his two-word mantra. No comment.

  When Rodney was charged, Porter watched him, exhausted from a mixture of frustration and spent adrenaline, waiting for a flicker of something, anything, to explain why he’d done it.

  Before he was taken back to his cell to await his first court appearance, the only words he said were, ‘What will happen to my children?’

  Porter snarled, ‘They’ll stay alive, which doesn’t seem like a bad deal when I think of William and Ruby.’

  Rodney didn’t respond. Instead, he trudged back to his cell and, once the cell door clanged shut again, fell into silence once more.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Present Day

  The sound of her phone ringing filtered into Jayne’s consciousness.

  She was lying on her back on her bed, still fully dressed. She tried to lift her head, but the room swam, as sharp jabs of pain flashed across her brain. She closed her eyes and groaned.

  After a few seconds, the room seemed to stabilise, so she opened her eyes again. She reached out with her hand in the general direction of the ringing sound until her fingers closed around her phone. She squinted as she looked at the screen. It was Dan.

  She answered. ‘Yes?’ Her voice came out muffled. Her lips were sticky.

  ‘Jayne, are you all right? You tried to call me, but when I picked up you weren’t saying anything. Just groaning.’

  She swung her legs out of the bed, swallowing back the pain as she took a breath. Her ribs felt like they were on fire. She caught her reflection in the mirror on the wall.

  Jayne couldn’t remember getting back to her room. She recalled pulling herself up and stumbling towards the hotel entrance, the whole place moving, her feet not finding steady ground, but everything else was a blur. As she looked at the mirror, she could see why. One eye was swollen and bloodied, her lip was fat and red, and a bruise was developing across her cheek. Blood caked her nose, and as she peered closer, she was sure it was less straight than before. Her clothes were torn and blood-soaked.

  She hung her head. For a moment, she felt despair, stuck in some small-town hotel after a beating, alone, no friends nearby.

  She couldn’t think like that. Don’t weaken.

  She forced herself to sit upright and blink back the tears.

  There was a clock on the wall. Just after seven.

  ‘Sorry, Dan. I must have pocket-dialled you.’

  ‘You don’t sound all right. You didn’t earlier.’

  ‘Just tired.’ She knew her words were slurred, but she hoped Dan would put it down to too much to drink.

  Dan was silent for a few moments before he said, ‘It’s more than that. You sound muffled. I need to know you’re okay.’

  She looked at the mirror again. She wasn’t going to tell him, but she couldn’t stop the need to confide, for someone to care about her. ‘I was jumped. A bit of a kicking, but I’ll survive.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line before he said, ‘How bad?’

  ‘I’m fine, Dan.’

  ‘How fine?’

  She sighed. ‘Sore ribs. Some bruising. A black eye and some hurt pride.’

  ‘Shit. Come back today.’

  ‘Am I done here?’

  ‘Yes, if you’re in danger.’

  ‘That’s not a good enough reason.’

  ‘But, Jayne, I can’t be responsible for this.’

  ‘I’m not the little woman who needs protecting.’

  ‘It’s not just you. I was threatened with a knife last night, told to stop pursuing this.’

  ‘A knife? Are you sure it was about this case?’

  ‘He made it very clear.’

  ‘I was beaten up for the same reason, because whoever it was told me to leave town. This wasn’t random.’

  Dan fell silent for a moment.

  ‘Dan, we shouldn’t back down, and the last time I checked, I was my own boss, which means I look after myself. I’m no coward, and if some bastard has blacked my eye, I want to know why. I’m staying. No debate.’

  Another pause and then, ‘Okay, if you’re sure.’

  ‘What ideas do you have for me today?’

  ‘Just follow the trail and see where it leads you.’

  She gave a bitter laugh. ‘So far, I’ve upset the retired detective who locked up Rodney Walker and made a violent enemy.’

  ‘But did you find anything out?’

  ‘Yes. The right man is locked up but Mark Roberts thought differently. The town has its villain, and some people didn’t like the idea that they’d had it wrong all these years. Then I come along and upset them all over again.’

  ‘And a kicking for your trouble. It gives us something though. Two more suspects.’

  ‘Two?’ She winced as she straightened herself, her ribs aching again. She wasn’t sharing Dan’s celebration.

  ‘Like I said last night, if Rodney is innocent, there’s a real killer who won’t want to be found. Or what about a retired detective who might have bent the rules too much?’

  ‘Come on, Dan. A retired detective isn’t going to kill a man because he’s been accused of getting it wrong when the killer is still locked up.’

  ‘That all depends on what Mark uncovered. Back then, policing was different. The rules had changed, but a lot of the old coppers were still around, and they hankered for the good old days.’

  ‘Good old days?’

  ‘When dangling people out of windows could obtain confessions, or by getting rough in some dark alley. The eighties changed the rules, but it didn’t change the people. Porter might have been more old-school than he lets on. If we can find out what Mark found out, we might see what excited him so much, and whether it would give Porter any reason to worry. Find out what you can about him? And what about William’s father? How was he? Do you think he’s capable of violence?’

  Jayne stared at her face in the full-length mirror opposite the bed.

  ‘I think he was the one who jumped me. I’d arranged to meet him. but he didn’t turn up. I should have been more careful. He wanted to meet me in a dark part of the seafront. I can’t believe I was so naive.’

  ‘If you’ve been attacked, it’s not your fault.’

  ‘Someone was watching me, because I got the beating when I got near the hotel. No one else knew I was meeting him.’

  Dan went silent.

  After a few moments of nothing, she said, ‘Dan, are you still there?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have sent you there. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m a big girl now, and it wasn’t your fault either.’

  ‘Mark Roberts was murdered after spending some time there. You turn up and ask the same questions. I can’t believe I didn’t spot the danger.’
<
br />   ‘That isn’t important, and there is work here I need to finish. I’ve been in Brampton for less than twenty‑four hours and I’ve upset people. There are secrets here, and I want to find them.’

  ‘Nick Connor isn’t worth risking your life for.’

  ‘I’m not doing it for Nick Connor anymore. I’m doing it for me, because if this little place is full of dark secrets, however quaint and pretty it looks, I’m going to find them. Nick Connor just gets the benefit of it.’

  Dan fell silent again, and Jayne knew exactly what was on his mind. He was scared for her, but she knew how single-minded he could get about a case. In the end, his need to win the case would win out.

  ‘Okay, but be careful.’

  She smiled to herself, despite the pain. She could read him. ‘Have you got any new information?’

  ‘I checked up on Rodney Walker after your call, and I found out who his lawyer was from old press reports. I want to visit Rodney today, but I’ll need the permission of his lawyer. I called the firm’s emergency number, but he didn’t want to talk about the case.’

  ‘You called him this early?’

  ‘Defence lawyers always answer the phone. It’s how the cases start. It was more than just tiredness though. He ended the conversation as soon as I mentioned Rodney’s name.’

  ‘Child murders must be hard to get over, even for the hard-bitten lawyers.’

  ‘Oh, they are, but too many like the stories, the anecdotes, and it must have been his biggest case of all.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Speak to the lawyer, Ken Goodman. He knows you’re in town, because I mentioned you. I need a letter of introduction to get into the prison.’

  ‘And you think Rodney might have the answers?’

  ‘You’re at the seaside, right?’

  ‘You know I am.’

  ‘I went to the east coast a few times when I was a kid. There are a few coves that have rock pools instead of smooth sand, and I used to love lifting rocks there, or kicking limpets. You’ve got to be quick though. You’ve got to give the limpets a swift jab with your foot, because if they don’t fly off the first time, they’ll clamp themselves to the rocks and you’ve no chance of shifting them. Same with the crabs. You’ve got to lift the rock quickly, surprise them. If you don’t, they know what you’re doing and scuttle off somewhere else, lost in the sand they churn up from the pool.’

  ‘I get your metaphor. I’ve got to keep lifting rocks, but in a way that doesn’t let them know I’m coming, to stop them from clamming up.’

  ‘Something like that. I didn’t plan the metaphor. But if we’re stretching it as far as it will go, be careful, because the problem with finding crabs was that the big ones reared up the most, nasty and angry.’ He paused before he added, ‘Look after yourself.’

  She almost laughed. ‘Will do.’ She clicked off.

  As she caught her reflection again, however, she wondered how stretched the metaphor actually was, because dark secrets were only meant to stay in the shadows. She had no idea what would happen if she shone some light on to them. Mark Roberts had tried to do the same thing. And now he was dead.

  Her fingers traced the bruises on her face. Perhaps that was the very mistake she’d made. But then she remembered she’d taken a photograph the night before.

  She went to her phone and found the picture.

  The flash had distorted the colours but brightened the seafront shelters. They were as empty as they had seemed at the time, although the bright burst of light on the photograph took away some of the spookiness. They were transformed from dark chasms to dirty concrete shelters, with cast-iron benches covered in flaking white paint against grey walls covered in graffiti scrawls.

  Then she saw something. It was a dark shape by a wall, just at the edge of the picture.

  She zoomed in on it and clenched her jaw.

  There was the dark shape of a sleeve, black with a silver band around the cuff, fingers flat against a wall, ready to peer round. She remembered the silver band from when she was attacked, like a flash before her eyes as he swung at her.

  He’d done this to her. He’d followed her, and somehow knew where she was staying so he could get ahead and wait for her.

  She stood, her hand going to her ribs, crying out in pain as she slipped off her top and then her bra. As she lifted her arm, there was a large purple bruise across her torso.

  He’d done her well. It wasn’t the first time she’d been beaten up, always smothered by promises that it would be the last time, broken every time.

  She’d had the last word on that, but that road had led to here, her life disrupted and feeling sorry for herself in Brampton, beaten and bloodied once more.

  Her life was different now though. She didn’t shrink back anymore. Didn’t forgive anymore.

  She stepped out of her jeans and knickers and headed for the shower, to wash away some of the damage he’d done.

  No matter what he’d done to her, he’d made himself an enemy, and she knew where her next call would be.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Dan went to his window, his phone in his hand, preoccupied.

  Most mornings, the view along the canal gave him a glow, happy with his small spot in the world, in the town he grew up in. The sunlight reflected from the water as starbursts, reflected in the windows of the old stone mill further along the bank, refurbished as offices. A narrowboat puttered along, smoke trailing from it, and swallows swooped towards the water as grass trailed on the surface.

  It didn’t lift him. He was too worried about Jayne. If she was in danger, he’d put her there. He’d tried to tell himself that he was thinking like a lawyer, wondering whether she could sue him, but it was more than that.

  He tried to shake away his doubts, because Jayne was right, she wasn’t the little woman he had to protect. He’d asked her to do a job, and she wanted to do it, but that didn’t make him feel any better about it. He should have thought of the risks. Mark Roberts had been killed, and it must be connected to whatever he was doing in Brampton.

  That wasn’t the only thing troubling him though.

  His own encounter had interrupted his sleep, but it wasn’t the presence of the knife or the threat, or even how Barbara had been. No, it had been something different, simpler, except he couldn’t quite work it out. Like a scratch at the back of his head, there was a distant memory, long buried.

  He clicked on the kettle and leaned back against the counter, his kitchen a steel and granite section of his living room. There were clothes over his sofa, put there as part of the route from the dryer to his bedroom but not quite making it. Shirts and T-shirts and jeans and jogging pants, all in plain colours. No labels, no outlandish designs.

  Then it struck him.

  The trousers worn by the threat with the knife. Joggers, black and baggy and with white lettering down the side, some kind of brand. OGGY. He’d seen them before somewhere.

  He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind, hoping that it would come back to him somehow.

  It took a few minutes, and the memory wasn’t clear, but he pictured a late-night brawl, figures moving in and out, just another Saturday-night scene. It wasn’t a personal memory though. It played out like it was being shown on television.

  CCTV. One of the many discs sent to him by the prosecution on one of his cases. Highford town centre covered by cameras.

  He rushed towards his bedroom. He had to get to his office. He had a court sitting later, as always, but he might have time to look through his files and work out who it was.

  * * *

  Jayne waited, checking her watch, pacing.

  It was nearly nine and she was outside a row of houses on a road that ran away from the harbour, all three-storey buildings with bay windows. Some were guest houses, with wooden signs creaking outside, paint flaking, but most looked like they had succumbed to the decline of the tourist trade and taken on bedsit tenants instead. The windows were grubbier, wit
h ragged curtains and stickers on windows, the tiny front gardens overgrown. It was within sight of the sea but was all in decay.

  Whenever someone passed her, they gave her strange looks, noticing the bruises on her face and the agitated way she was patrolling the pavement. She ignored them. She could say that the injuries looked worse than they felt, but she’d be lying. Her ribs ached and made her wince and her face felt numb.

  Mel, William’s mother, had given her the address, aghast at seeing what had happened to her. She had pleaded with Jayne not to tell the police, that Sean had been in enough trouble already, so Jayne had agreed in exchange for his address and a promise that Mel wouldn’t warn him first.

  She had to wait for more than an hour before he emerged.

  He was wearing the same coat as she’d seen in the hazy memory of the attack, the black anorak with silver cuffs.

  Jayne ducked behind a lamp post, just to see where he went, even though it didn’t hide her that well. He set off in the opposite direction, his hands thrust into his pockets, his shoulders hunched. Jayne peered round, and once sure he hadn’t seen her, she followed.

  He was heading towards a row of shops. There were people ahead, a group of old ladies talking outside a newsagent. This was her moment, when there were witnesses.

  She sped up. ‘Hey?’

  He turned. His eyes widened. He looked towards the shop, then back at Jayne.

  ‘You did this,’ and she pointed to her black eye.

  He glanced towards the women, who’d stopped talking and were watching them.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  Jayne got close to him, trying to contain her anger. She ignored the pain in her side as she shouted, ‘You did. I remember you. Your face. Your cuffs. You were waiting for me. Threw me against the wall, but I’d taken a picture of you.’ She pulled out her phone. ‘You remember that, the flash?’

  He paled and leaned in closer. ‘Stop shouting, right. I can’t talk here.’