‘He may have thought I did, but he was jumping to conclusions. Like you are.’
There seems no way to convince her. She’s not listening – or doesn’t want to. She gives a long sigh.
‘If you knew your father killed Matthews, if you knew he’d planted the gear on the Lithuanians, if you knew all that, why not pass all this information on to your superior? DCI Gardner reports that you simply told him there might possibly be a corrupt officer somewhere, but you insisted you didn’t have any details. He also recommended you came to us, at the DPS, as it’s our job to investigate corruption in the force. Why didn’t you do either of those things?’
I take a moment before I answer. ‘I was suffering from amnesia. If you’ve talked to DCI Gardner, you’ll know that.’
‘Was?’ Franks asks.
‘I’ve got my memory back now. Most of it.’
He frowns. ‘You didn’t report in sick at the time.’
‘No. When I was attacked in the hospital, I believed I was set up by a corrupt policeman. Or, as it turned out, ex-policeman. I needed to stay on the case. And I was afraid he might try to have me killed before I got my memory back. Of course I didn’t then know who it was.’
‘But now you can remember everything.’
‘Mostly. I couldn’t remember for about twenty-six hours and now I can.’
‘Convenient,’ Franks says again.
Convenient. A convenient word and, as it happens, the word used by Isobel Gardner in our kitchen. Is that a coincidence? ‘Okay, what the fuck’s going on here?’ I ask. ‘What’s Gerry Gardner been saying to you? He’s got every reason not to want to believe his best friend did all this.’
‘We’re not at liberty to share what DCI Gardner has told us. But you’re in bigger trouble than worrying about being bad-mouthed by your boss.’
We’ve been going on like this for some ninety minutes when Wasunna suggests a break, but I don’t see the point. I want to end the nightmare as fast as I can. I ask for a coffee, though, and get it, which gives a small boost to my morale. Then in the middle of the morning, a junior detective interrupts with a note for Jagger. She goes off with Franks and returns furious.
And now the shit properly hits the fan. Jagger pushes a photo of Becks’ body across the desk. I stare at it, try to breathe and know that for the time being I must push away any feelings of remorse.
‘What’s this?’ she says. Of course, it was always going to happen at some point. An hour ago, it appears, a Serbian builder went for a piss in the disused land at the back of my old home and found Becks’ body in the melting snow. There’s no way I can tell them that it was self-defence. They’ve already decided I’m a mass murderer.
‘DC Behzad Parvin was your protégé, wasn’t he?’ She’s watching my face. I must make sure I look shocked, but I mustn’t overdo it. She’ll spot any fakery immediately. The sense of loss and grief, of course, are only too real. I don’t have to fake that.
Gupta begins to say something about proper procedure but I wave him aside and push the photo back at Jagger and Franks. The only choice I have is to go on the attack. ‘Thank you very much. Lovely. That’s a really nice way to break the news that one of my team is dead. Screw you. Is that what they teach you now in DPS? Becks… Yes, he’s… was my protégé. He was a good man. One of the best For fuck’s sake… When did this happen? How did he die?’
It works. Jagger hesitates, briefly wrong-footed. ‘We’re waiting for the full post-mortem report but it seems he died from a traumatic brain injury.’
‘Shit.’
Franks sighs and asks when I last saw DC Parvin.
I shake my head and give myself a moment to collect my thoughts. ‘We went to a pub in Kilburn to discuss the case. That would have been around eight o’clock last night. Becks – DC Parvin – had already worked over twelve hours overtime and was dog-tired. We both were. He phoned his partner, Aisha, and learned that his son was unwell. I spoke to her too and told her I was sending him home; she can confirm it.’
‘And what did you do after that?’
‘I drove into town and sat trying to work out what to do next. You see a pattern, don’t you? My father beats Crystal over the head and then he beats poor Becks, here.’
Franks ignores me. ‘And your phone records will show where you were at the time, will they?’
‘My phone was turned off so I couldn’t be tracked. I still didn’t know who I could trust. But you don’t think this is me that did this?’
Franks raises an eyebrow. I recognise the look of a man who’s sure he’s winning. ‘Why do you think DC Parvin went to your old house instead of going home?’
I breathe out. ‘My old house?’
‘Yes.’
‘You tell me. This is the first I’ve known about it. Maybe he had a tip-off.’
He pulls out yet another document. ‘Last night, traffic police found DC Parvin’s Vauxhall Astra abandoned in King’s Cross. We’ve located CCTV footage timed 22.08 of the driver leaving it on foot. Would you like to see the footage?’
I shake my head. ‘Becks lent me his car, because mine had been impounded after I lost my memory. You’ll find my Audi in the police station car park.’
The eyebrow rises once more.
We break at midday. When we restart, they’ve found out that Becks requisitioned a thousand pounds in cash before he died. This confuses them. It was, of course, the money I gave to Nathan to pay for the injection, but I don’t tell them this, or they’ll find something else to hold against me.
Jagger looks tired and angry and when I insist I know nothing about it, she slaps the table with the flat of her hand.
Franks chews the inside of his cheek and for the rest of the day they make me go over my story again and again in the hope that something will slip.
52
The trial date is set for February 2011. As I’m seen to be a dangerous criminal, bail is never an option, so I spend the year on remand. They try to keep police officers separate from slags, but there’s never enough space so I pass much of the time mixing with the kind of criminals I’ve put away throughout my career. This is not exactly pleasant, but R is tough, and when I need him he takes control. Now we’re talking to each other, I realise we both have skills the other needs. For example, when the prosecution sends a psychiatrist to examine me, I get R to answer all the questions and I stay quiet. The shrink, a stout middle-aged Scot, never realises. We do the same for the psychiatrist arranged by my own defence team, an earnest young Portuguese woman who looks like she graduated last week.
I still can’t entirely handle the idea of having two people inside my head but it seems R has been there since I was three years old, watching, listening, protecting me from danger. He’s sharper, won’t put up with any nonsense. I suppose I balance his impetuousness by making him think of the consequences of his actions. He’s quick to make enemies, while like an older brother, with my extra three years of experience, I help him soften a little, and now I’m aware of what’s happening, I can step in before he does something we’ll both regret. Such as the week when all the remand prisoners are kept in their cells because of a shortage of staff, and R almost punches out an officer who tells me I’m just getting what I deserve.
This is not to pretend that things always go smoothly between R and me. In our private moments, we disagree violently. We are even able to conduct an argument while we’re talking to someone else, without betraying what’s going on inside.
Some nights, lying on the bunk in my cell in the dark, I think of the deaths I did cause and the people I failed and I am filled with grief and remorse. What is the point of going on? But R refuses to let me give in. I’m a good policeman, he tells me. Why throw away a glittering career? Who would gain if I wasn’t able to do my job? Only villains. But the faces of the dead come to me and refuse to go away.
We now have a barrister on our side, Joseph Stone, paid for by the Police Federation. Wasunna and Gupta bring him along to a succession of
meetings, where we run through the evidence again and again. Often, as with the shrinks, I leave R to deal with their questions, as he has a good forensic brain.
Trying her hardest to be a good Federation rep, Wasunna continually pats me on the arm, reassuring me it’ll all go okay. Gupta nods and shakes his head continually and says little. Stone is the most realistic, doing his best to temper our hopes.
‘Juries are unpredictable beasts,’ he says darkly, running a hand through his thick hair and drawing on his full stock of clichés. ‘I’ve never seen one that I could judge with certainty which way they would go. We just have to grit our teeth and lay out our best stall.’
Wasunna insists Stone is ‘one of the best in the country’. I have to say, he doesn’t seem it. In my positive moments, I tell myself that it’s his style to manage expectations, to use his own phrase; in truth I think he doesn’t believe he has any ammunition to fight with. This is the way the world works, R says to me. You wanted the bitter truth. Drink it all – to the very dregs.
Laura visits me. She’s obviously taken the trouble to dress down – simple denim jacket and jeans – but still the men can’t keep from watching her as she crosses the grey square visiting room and sits opposite me, hands flat on the plastic-topped table. She says she’s spoken to lawyers about our divorce. Her tone is even and professional, but her eyes betray something different. I realise I’ve hurt her more than she can say.
‘I’ve decided to postpone the divorce till after the trial,’ she says. ‘One thing at a time.’
‘You know I’m innocent, don’t you? Like I told you in the motel room that afternoon. You have to believe that. Even if nobody else does.’
‘I want to believe you, Ross. I really do.’
‘I’ve not been a good husband,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s too late now, but I am truly sorry.’
She waves my words aside, angrily. ‘Maybe a year ago…’
‘I meant everything. I’m still the man you married. Back in the days when we helped each other and talked about having children. This is still me.’
She stares at the floor. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I wanted to give you support, but…’
‘I’m glad you did.’
We talk about smaller things and she seems to relax for a few minutes, but when it’s time to go, she says, ‘I’m not going to visit you again.’
She leaves without looking back and I feel more alone than I can ever remember.
That night I lie on my bunk, anxiously trying to sleep. R sleeps but I can’t. A few cells along a man begs for help. Another voice tells him to shut the fuck up. I could do with rest more than I ever have, but it doesn’t come.
53
As it happens, the case finally comes to court on a cold morning, very like that snowbound day almost a year ago. The prosecution barrister stands to make his opening statement, lays a plump self-assured hand on the thick file of papers in front of him and destroys me. A short well-spoken man in his forties called Moreno, he is precise and convincing as he turns to the jury and tells them what a ruthless killer they have in front of them.
‘Be in no doubt,’ he says. ‘You will hear about the defendant’s unblemished record. About his rapid promotions, impressive for a man still in his early thirties. About his many successful arrests. About his good friends and happy marriage. You will certainly be told that the prosecution is making a mistake. But rest assured – this man is violent, vicious and entirely unrepentant.’
Every weekday since then I’ve been woken at six thirty by the nightshift officers, handcuffed and driven here in a prison van. I’ve listened to the prosecution witnesses, in the hope of finding any weaknesses in its case. The hotel night porter who heard the shots. PC Ryan Turnbull, who watched me stumble awkwardly around the crime scene. Nathan, who vividly describes my semi-coherent appearance in A&E but conveniently forgets to mention that he was paid later that day to inject me with sodium amytal.
One by one, they pass before us, the detectives, the Scene of Crime Officers, forensics officers and lab technicians, pictures and diagrams, gunshot residue, blood spatter and DNA. We hear how Crystal is still in a coma after almost twelve months. I feel the net of evidence tightening around me, terrifying and inescapable. But throughout all this R has fallen silent, which unsettles me as much.
DI Winstanley stands triumphantly in the witness box, making the most of her time in the media spotlight. She describes in full detail how I spent the day avoiding her. My boss, Gerry Gardner, by contrast, can hardly bear to look me in the eye as he tells how Laura phoned him to say I was going to be in the hotel on the Sunday night, and how he then phoned Paul, in concern. Gerry looks thinner and more stooped than I’ve ever seen him and speaks slowly, as if each reply has to be wrenched out of him. The death of his best friend and mentor has hit him hard. Loyalty was always the most important thing in life for him, and to be torn between believing I’m a murderer or that Paul was must be intolerable. Pushed by Moreno, he reluctantly agrees that I have grown increasingly aggressive and generally disliked.
At this, R reappears, enraged by his words, and has me pass a note to Joseph Stone, who has been slumping listlessly throughout most of this. Stone has said he feels there’s little point in challenging the forensics – not wanting the evidence against me to stick too much in the jury’s mind. So far, he’s cross-examined only to ask if the scientific findings could incriminate my father just as much as myself. However, now he reads R’s note and, once Moreno finishes, asks Gerry if he hadn’t brought me in specifically ‘to be hated, to flush out the rotten ones’.
‘Is it not true,’ he continues in his usual leisurely manner, ‘that you used these very words to the defendant. That you wanted him to look like a bastard. In short, that when he acted aggressively to officers who weren’t up to scratch, he was simply doing what you, his superior officer, had told him to do.’
Gerry takes a moment. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t DI Blackleigh’s job to be liked.’
The prosecution calls on the police psychiatrist, who gives a fairly accurate account of me from the examinations he conducted, but has failed to notice R.
Stone spends longer cross-examining the psychiatrist than he has any other expert so far and succeeds in getting him to agree that amnesia may be caused by psychological trauma – such as seeing a murder committed by a person I was emotionally close to.
‘True,’ the psychiatrist says, but adds quickly, ‘however, in my experience, most if not all cases of DID stem from a major traumatic event in the much deeper past, usually of a sexually abusive nature, and I detected no signs of such an event with Mr Blackleigh.’
‘By “deeper past” do you mean in childhood?’
‘Usually… Almost invariably.’
‘Of course,’ Stone leans on the file box in front of him, disingenuously tapping his hand on the papers spread out on it, ‘is it not quite possible that Mr Blackleigh had repressed that deep childhood memory too? I mean, excuse me, I’m not an expert, unlike you, but am I in the right ballpark? Could we not run that one up the flagpole to see how it flies?’
The judge looks rather puzzled at this onslaught of clichés and asks if the question could be rephrased. Stone apologises and explains he’s merely asking if I could have unconsciously blanked out an incident, or incidents, of abuse from when I was a child. The psychiatrist looks unhappy but admits it’s possible. ‘Without a long-term commitment to analysis it would be impossible to say for sure.’
Stone glances at the jury and sits down, looking slightly happier. He’s managed to introduce both a doubt and a hypothetical slur against my father at the same time.
Despite this tiny success, the mood of my team grows darker as we meet in a basement interview room at the end of each day.
‘Flimsy stuff,’ says Gupta, enthusiastically demolishing the latest plank of the prosecution case, but to my dismay he sounds less convinced, and he nods less and shakes more as the week goes on.
> I share my fears. Moreno has done a good job of tying me to the murders, forensic detail by forensic detail.
‘The case against you always sounds bad until you hear the defence,’ says Wasunna, trying her best.
‘It’s a game of two halves,’ Stone adds, spot on with the cliché, as ever.
I say nothing.
Then one Friday, near the end of the prosecution case, we’re having a mid-afternoon break. I’m sitting with Stone and Gupta, going over the forensics again, looking at the photographs of the soles of Paul’s shoes.
‘They can’t dispute that he broke the fucking mobile.’ R is suddenly speaking for me, out loud. ‘They’ve found fragments from the phone and SIM card on his shoes.’
‘They’re going to say he destroyed the evidence to cover up for you,’ Stone says, not realising he’s talking to R, not me. ‘Because you were his son. Because he loved you, despite his harsh, bullying manner. He loved you in his own idiosyncratic way. And also because nothing must be allowed to besmirch the honour of the Blackleigh name.’
‘That’s the shape of it. The honour of the Blackleigh name.’
But there’s something more to see here, if only I can focus properly. I stare again at the shoes. Suede, cheap, and surprisingly new. ‘Brothel creepers,’ I say. ‘He hated shoes like these.’ I’m asking R as much as I’m asking them. There’s something I can’t pin down. ‘His shoe size? I’ve not seen it anywhere in the prosecution paperwork.’
‘Why would it be?’
‘Ask for his shoe size.’
‘Why?’
‘Humour me. What have we got to lose?’ I write out a short note, fold it and give it to him. ‘For after he answers.’
Stone glances briefly at the note, then slips it into his file and, when we go back into court, he asks to recall the forensics officer who attended the hotel room after Paul’s death.
Room 15: a gripping psychological mystery thriller Page 28
