Down Down Down

by L M Krier

  The officer went back to his work and Ted turned to his DI.

  ‘Jo, have we made any progress on checking possible sources of dodgy cigarettes? The imported type which would carry on smouldering without being smoked?’

  ‘I hope you’re not implying that I, as a secret smoker, might somehow know the route for buying dodgy knock-off fags from Eastern Europe?’

  ‘And I hope you’re not telling me that a DI might be buying such things in a pub to avoid paying import duty,’ Ted countered with a smile.

  ‘Perish the thought. I’ve been talking to Kev about that one. Some of his officers know better than I do where that sort of thing goes on. He’s putting a list together for us to work through. Meanwhile Jezza’s having a wander about here looking for any possible eyewitnesses or any signs of anything. Although there weren’t many folk around early on when the fire started. You’re off to see the arsonist now?’

  ‘I am. I’m not sure how long I’ll be, or whether it will achieve anything, but it’s worth a try. I’ll see you later.’

  He started to walk away, then stopped and turned back.

  ‘Vicars and tarts.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘It was something Brian said just now. Someone with their collar on back to front. Martha found a karaoke in costume which took place near the first site, and the eyewitness said something about someone he thought was in fancy dress but couldn’t say why. Could it have been someone dressed as a vicar? After all, the only thing different about them would be a dog collar. Can you give Martha a call and ask her to check on that, please?’

  ‘It’s nice to meet you, Ted. To put a face to the voice on the phone. But you’re going to have to excuse me if I leave you in the more than capable hands of Katie, who is one of our liaison officers. I suspect my day is a bit like many of yours. Meetings, paperwork and yet more meetings.’

  The Security Governor had dropped by to introduce himself to Ted before hurrying away. They were in Katie Pilling’s office. She invited Ted to sit down and made him the cup of tea he’d asked for when she offered him something.

  ‘If it suits your needs, I thought we could go over the details you requested in here first, before you meet with Warren. Then I understand you want to see Wellman? Your email about your plans for him has been passed to me, with approval. It’s not entirely regular but it doesn’t go against any rules so it’s something we could accommodate.

  ‘Warren is a Listener, and one who is well regarded in that role. Wellman is a troubled prisoner and has been since his arrival. It’s not his first stay with us and his behaviour is consistent with his last time here. So it wouldn’t stretch credibility too far for him to have contact with Warren.’

  ‘What can you tell me about Mr Warren?’

  ‘He’s vehemently denied his guilt ever since he arrived. That’s not at all unusual. Practically every man in here is innocent, according to them. Wellman is one of the exceptions. Quite happy to admit his guilt and never misses any opportunity to behave in a way which risks prolonging his stay. It’s almost as if he enjoys it here too much to leave willingly.

  ‘Warren was a self-confessed atheist when he joined us, but then started attending chapel and is now a dedicated practising Catholic. He seems to have become much more religious since the former chaplain retired and Father Archer joined us about two years ago. Warren carries out cleaning duties and is our chapel Red Band, which gives him additional responsibilities and a certain level of trust, which he has never breached.’

  ‘I imagine all of this has made for quite a long list of people who’ve had contact with him since he’s been with you?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’ve been through all the records and pulled up everything I can for you. Cell-mates, people he’s had contact with through the Listener scheme, plus any visitors. He has few of those. His father only visits occasionally. About twice a year on average.

  ‘Warren does still have contact with a former prisoner, someone he got to know quite well. A younger man he helped a lot. He was virtually illiterate when he arrived and Warren took time to teach him to read and write. They became reasonably close through that. The nearest he’s had to a friend, I think you could say.’

  ‘I have to ask this, as a police officer. With no hidden agenda. I’m married to a man myself. Was there any more to their relationship than friendship, do you know?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware. Although, of course, it is possible. Warren appears always to have been rather a solitary person. He doesn’t seem to have formed any close relationships either in here or before his time with us.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed the lack of character witnesses at his trial. I think the headteacher of the school where he worked said a few guarded good words about his time there but that was all. And he seems to have said it more in a way to exonerate himself and the school of any blame in the incident which killed two of their pupils.’

  ‘That pattern of behaviour seems to have continued in here. He certainly doesn’t go out of his way to make friends. I can’t, of course, go into confidential details about any prisoner’s medical records. That would be a breach of their Human Rights and believe me, Warren knows his rights inside and out and would be the first to complain. But I have been authorised to tell you that if for any reason Warren’s – comportment, shall we say – gives you any cause for concern, there will be an officer outside the door of the room you’ll be using who can come to your assistance.

  ‘This next thing I’m going to say isn’t on my brief, and I doubt you can do much about it anyway, but I’ll mention it, for your information. Excuse me for being personal. I love your aftershave. But sometimes, strong scents can be a trigger for certain medical conditions.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, is it as strong as that? I had a not very pleasant death to deal with before I came out. I couldn’t tell whether the smell was clinging to me or not. Should I try to wash some of it off?’

  She smiled at him. ‘I think it’s rather nice, but I just needed to make you aware. Now, I’ll take you to a private room where you can speak to Warren. I know you mentioned wanting to try to keep your connection and meeting with Wellman as much of a secret as anything can be in here, so I’ve arranged for you to see him on another wing altogether afterwards, which is the best I can do.’

  She led the way along several corridors to where a prison officer was standing outside a door, waiting patiently. Then she opened the door and invited Ted to follow her in.

  The man sitting behind a table rose to his feet as they entered. Ted ran his eyes over him appraisingly. Medium height, medium build. Unremarkable, apart from strange, light grey eyes. Ted was finely tuned to body language. What he picked up from Warren was an almost excited anticipation, which surprised him. Not the usual reaction he got to an unexpected visit from a police officer.

  ‘Warren, this is Detective Chief Inspector Darling, from Stockport Police, who has asked to speak to you.’

  She turned to Ted as she left and said, ‘Don’t forget, there’s an officer outside the door if you need anything at all.’

  ‘Please sit down, Mr Warren.’

  ‘Chief Inspector. This is indeed a privilege.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Mr Warren? Detective Sergeant O’Connell, Stockport Police. I wondered if I could have a word with you, please. It’s about your son, William.’

  The man holding the door ajar was unshaven, his shirt none too clean. His eyes were bloodshot, his look suspicious.

  ‘What’s he done now? Has something happened to him?’

  ‘No, he’s absolutely fine. I just wanted to ask you a few questions, if that would be all right?’

  ‘You’d better come in, then. House is a bit of a tip, mind.’

  He wasn’t exaggerating. He opened the door slightly wider and led the way to the kitchen. The hallway was cluttered. Bin bags which didn’t smell too good. Piles of newspaper. Empty bottles. Rob already knew this wasn’t the house William Warren had been living in w
hen he’d been arrested and charged. The family had had to move away from the neighbourhood when they became the target of hate crimes because of the fatal fire. Warren Senior had moved again since his son had been in prison, but Rob had tracked down his address.

  As if reading his thoughts, the man said, ‘Aye, I know it’s not much. We moved away from where the fire happened. It got nasty, with the neighbours. Then I had to sell the next place too and get this shit-hole when the wife had to go into the nursing home. I couldn’t cope with her at home any more.’

  He tipped more newspapers onto the floor and pulled a chair up, inviting Rob to sit down and offering to put the kettle on. Rob didn’t fancy anything which came from that filthy kitchen. Not even a boiled drink. He declined politely.

  Warren sat down at the table, pushing dirty plates and cutlery out of his way.

  ‘What’s this about, then? Is Will trying for an appeal again? I’ve not seen him for a while.’

  ‘I just wanted to go over a few details of the original case, Mr Warren. Anything you might remember. Perhaps something you’d forgotten at the time which came back to you over the years.’

  ‘D’you not think I’d have give him an alibi if I could? He’s my son, after all, even if we never really got along all that well. I just couldn’t remember anything. And I didn’t want to start lying, not even to try to help him. I know how clever you police types are. You’d have soon caught the lie and then I’d have made things worse.’

  ‘Is there a particular reason why you and your son don’t get along?’

  ‘It’s just like that sometimes. Our Will was always a cocky little sod. Thought he was better than everyone else, including me. He was always bright, always studying. He looked down his nose at me because I worked for the Royal Mail. In the sorting office. He used to tell his university friends I were middle management, but I weren’t. That’s just how he was. A bit of a snob. I weren’t good enough for him.’

  ‘Did he have many friends?’

  ‘Well, I call them friends but they weren’t really. Just other students he hung about with.’

  ‘Girlfriends?’

  The man shook his head. ‘There were some lasses in the group but he didn’t seem particularly interested. He weren’t queer, though,’ he went on hurriedly. ‘Weren’t interested in any of the lads in that way, either. Not from what I could see. Never did take up wi’anyone, even when he got older.’

  ‘Do you remember anything about the night of the fire, Mr Warren? Anything at all?’

  ‘I didn’t then and I still don’t. You probably already know, but the wife, Edith, has Alzheimer's. Got it early too. I managed with her at home for a while, just about. But I admit it. It were bloody hard. Especially trying to hold a job down at the same time. Our Will stayed living at home, to help out a bit. It still weren’t easy, seeing her like that. So I drank. To deal with it.’

  ‘Can I ask you a candid question, Mr Warren?’

  The man narrowed his eyes and squinted at him in suspicion.

  ‘Aye, go on then,’ he said guardedly, then went on, ‘but I can guess what it is. You want to know if I think our Will were capable of starting a fire which killed four people, two of them only young lads. Do you know how much I wish I could say no, I don’t believe it for a moment? The honest truth is, I don’t know.

  ‘Will were always very controlling, even as a little lad. He always got very angry when anyone crossed him. Especially if anyone touched anything of his. I suppose part of that were being an only child. He never had to share owt and he never learned how to. And there’d been a big row at school when he accused them two lads of keying his car. He didn’t have any proof but he told them that when he got it he’d make them sorry they’d done it. It seems a lot of people heard him say that and it got took the wrong way.’

  ‘Were you at the trial, Mr Warren?’

  He shook his head. ‘Couldn’t leave our Edith. Having the Old Bill come round here and drag her only son away in handcuffs seemed to tip her right over the edge. She never really got over it. Kept asking and asking for him. Still does. Every time I visit her. And of course, she never saw him again. I had to give up work and look after her full-time until I could get her into a home. I read about it in the papers, like, but that’s all.’

  ‘So you perhaps know that the fire was started by pouring a circle of fuel and setting light to it. Would a circle have any particular significance to William, that you know of?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know the half of what went on in his head most of the time. Summat to do with chemistry, perhaps? A symbol for something?’

  ‘What about music? What was he interested in?’

  ‘Music? I’ve no idea. He played stuff in his room but it were just like noise to me. Some whiny classical stuff with violins, I remember. But loud rock too, with lots of thumping. I used to shout up the stairs at him to turn it down.’

  ‘What about country music?’ Rob was thinking about something Jezza had said during a briefing.

  ‘Bloody ’ell, no. I never heard him play any of that shite. Not his scene at all. Thank the lord.’

  ‘And was he a smoker?’

  ‘Fags, you mean, or illegal stuff? Neither, as far as I know. I never saw him with any and his clothes and his room never smelled of it. Why are you asking all these questions, all of a sudden? Are you reopening the case? Is our Will innocent after all?’

  ‘It’s just routine, Mr Warren. Thank you for your time. I’ll leave you my card. If you do happen to think of anything at all, please don’t hesitate to contact me.’

  ‘Like buggery it’s routine. If someone has cocked up and sent the wrong man to prison, you should know that our Will makes a very bad enemy. Always has done, probably always will do. He won’t rest until he’s made whoever it were pay for their mistakes.’

  ‘Mr Warren, I’m here to ask you a few questions about the crime of which you were convicted,’ Ted began.

  ‘Wrongly convicted, Chief Inspector,’ Warren corrected him, his tone on the patronising side of patient, as he might have spoken to a pupil he thought was being unnecessarily obtuse.

  ‘But you were convicted, Mr Warren, and you’ve so far not been successful in your attempts to launch an appeal against that conviction.’

  Warren leaned back in his seat and studied Ted. He was unimpressed so far. Thoughts running through his head.

  ‘Is this it? This insignificant little man who reeks of too much aftershave? This is what I’ve been building my hopes on to get the case reopened? I hope I haven’t been wasting my time.’

  ‘Please, Chief Inspector. You’re clearly an intelligent man. I imagine you must be to hold your rank at what would appear to be a young age, if you forgive a personal comment. I presume you’re graduate entry. So surely you’re not going to insult my intelligence by pretending British justice has an unblemished record when it comes to wrongful convictions. Which case should I cite first? Timothy Evans? Stephen Downing? The Birmingham Six?

  ‘I was in the unenviable and ethically questionable position of having to prove my innocence, rather than relying on the prosecution to prove my guilt. I was at home with my parents when the unfortunate fire took place. But I couldn’t prove it. My mother was completely unfit to testify and my father … well, he dealt with my mother’s condition by being drunk most of the time, except when he was at work.’

  ‘You were heard to threaten the two boys who died, Mr Warren.’

  ‘Oh, really, Chief Inspector,’ Warren sounded disappointed now. The school teacher who’d thought a pupil capable of brilliance and had instead been handed a piece of sub-standard homework. ‘On that basis I should have murdered several boys I taught. I’ve never tolerated what is now put under the umbrella of anti-social behaviour instead of calling it what it is – criminal damage. Those two boys keyed my car, which was quite new. I knew it was them and they knew I knew. I told them, forcefully, that when I had the evidence, they could look forward to spending rather a
lot of time in detention. To go from that to making it into some threat to kill was such a tangential leap that neither I nor my defence team could begin to find a way to counter it.’

  ‘Are you a smoker, Mr Warren?’

  Warren was studying him, his light-coloured eyes analytical. The science teacher, watching the results of his latest experiment and being less than impressed.

  ‘Let me see. This is either you trying to establish whether I had the means and the opportunity to procure what was used to start the fire. Because of course, I read in detail all the so-called evidence against me, including the type of ignition device used. Or this is you remembering a course on interview techniques. Ask a seemingly banal question to catch the interviewee off balance and to observe the body language to establish the norm for when they are telling the truth or not.’

  Ted wasn’t a chess player. But he imagined this was what it must feel like as a novice playing against someone highly skilled. He felt Warren was testing him the whole time, weighing him up to see whether or not he was a worthy adversary.

  Ted’s tone was mild as he responded, ‘It’s just a simple question, Mr Warren. With no hidden agenda.’

  ‘If you say so.’ He didn’t sound convinced. ‘In which case I shall answer it as such. No, I’m not, and never have been, a smoker.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Warren. What can you tell me about the circle of fuel which was used to start the fire? With the cardinal points marked.’

  ‘How can I tell you anything about that? As I’ve said, repeatedly, it wasn’t me who started the blaze. So I can’t begin to speculate on the meaning behind any of it.’

  ‘You must have some sort of an idea about it though, Mr Warren. You and your defence team would surely have discussed it, in preparing rebuttal to any evidence the prosecution brought forward in connection with that circle.’

  ‘Or ring, possibly, rather than circle,’ Warren corrected him. ‘I’m sure you probably know that the Ring of Fire is a volcanic area of the Pacific Ocean. It means absolutely nothing to me. I did say at the time that it seemed more like the signature of a geography teacher, what with the ring and the cardinal points, than one which could be attributed to a man of science, such as myself.’