by John Fairfax
‘Does anyone fancy anything to eat?’ he said, taking a strange emotional risk; because in prison Benson had learned never to come forward; to move around the wing as if he wasn’t there, to never attract attention.
‘I’m in,’ said Archie.
Tess hugged herself. It was chilly and a wind came whistling along Fleet Street. ‘Sorry, boys,’ she said. ‘I’m already taken.’
She left them standing at a set of traffic lights on Farringdon Street. Benson watched her go. There were hundreds of people on the pavement, all dark figures, jostling in the fading light, but he never lost sight of her once. She got smaller and smaller, until all he could make out was a speck of emerald green, a velvet hat afloat on a sea of strangers.
PART THREE
‘Have a quiet weekend.’
(Mr Justice Kenneth Oakshott, R v. Collingstone)
Benson had expected to be moved closer to home, but his application was never processed. His enquiries got nowhere. In the end, he stopped waiting. What was time, anyway? It was a question that had perplexed every philosopher and physicist, and yet Needles knew the answer:
‘Time is something you do, son. Do your time and don’t think about it.’
Benson had never imagined that he might consider someone like Needles to be a friend, but that is what he became. A sort of friend, anyway. A prison friend, who broke all his own rules – the rules he’d given Benson after he’d wanted to scream his way to freedom. Or at least, he broke them with Benson. Out of the blue, he’d told him about a woman he knew, Carol. They’d had a child. A boy. Larry. There was another child out there, too, Sharon, though Needles hadn’t mentioned the mother. He hadn’t seen any of them in years. Didn’t even know where they were.
‘I’ve been in and out of prison all my life, Rizla,’ he said, sitting on the toilet, knitting. ‘You lose touch.’
It was a Saturday. Association had been cancelled. They’d been banged-up for twenty-two hours. Benson was reading an abstract on bullet damage to human brain tissue – how the wound was incredibly complex, forensically, containing vast amounts of information about the weapon, the bullet, the calibre, the distance at which it was fired, the angle and more – but this last remark by Needles caught Benson’s attention. Needles had said the same thing several times over the past few weeks, ‘You lose touch’, but each time he’d said the phrase, it sounded like a fresh disclosure.
‘But you don’t repeat that, Rizla,’ he said, turning to look at Benson. ‘You don’t mention my kids to anyone, okay?’
‘Okay.’
He’d said that, too. Several times. And Benson was now fairly sure. Needles had a form of mental illness . . . maybe Alzheimer’s or something. Whatever it might be, it hadn’t been diagnosed and he wasn’t being treated. Somehow or other the ins and outs of prison life – from the routine, through to the structure of the building, where to eat and where to wash – had all remained within his mental grasp, but the rest, his real life out there in the real world, had become floating fragments in his mind, things he recognised, without remembering where they came from. He spoke about them as if they were first sightings after a marine disaster, forgetting that the ship had gone down years ago.
‘I’ve got a boy called Larry. He must be a man now.’
35
The brick came straight through the front room downstairs window. Shards of glass showered a handwoven carpet from Inishmore on the west coast of Ireland. Sally screamed. Tess ducked. Suddenly enraged, she ran outside, just in time to see two men heading at speed towards Kensington Gore. A black car was waiting for them, the rear passenger door open. They jumped in and the car pulled away. Back home, Tess surveyed the mess. And she sighed: if the glass hadn’t been tough, the brick would have hit the facing wall or the wedding portrait of her parents. Relieved, she called a glazier and fetched a dustpan and brush.
‘Aren’t you going to call the police?’ asked Sally, standing with her back against the wall.
‘No point.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘They’re gone.’
‘But they might come back.’
‘Yes, they might.’ Tess, on her knees, looked up. ‘This is what I’ve got myself into. If you’re involved with me, digging into Benson’s past, and Harbeton’s, they might do the same to you. Do you want out?’
Sally flinched as if she’d been slapped. ‘Out? You must be joking. I haven’t had this much fun since we were arrested in Vienna.’
They’d divided the labour. Sally had researched the Harbeton family. Tess had gone over Benson’s trial brief from 1998. Sitting at a table in the upstairs drawing room, Sally laid out a number of photos printed off the net, explaining who was who.
Maureen, mother and matriarch, had been through the mill. She was nineteen when Paul was born. The father, Kenny Harbeton, worked for the council. Two other sons followed in quick succession, Stephen and Brian. That made three children between 1965 and 1968. And then, when the kids were six, five, and three, Kenny just vanished. He next appeared on the scene twenty-seven years later, after Paul Harbeton’s murder . . . but a lot had happened before then.
Maureen went to work in 1975, when the kids were all at school. Paul did well, but he was left to fend for himself. Maureen had a hard enough time doing night shifts in a clothing factory without having to worry about school exams and the like. So Paul probably didn’t fulfil his potential. He left school at sixteen to work on different building sites. The brothers were another story altogether. In and out of trouble with the police. Both Stephen and Brian did stints in young offender institutions. They probably had the sort of friends who chucked bricks through windows.
Then things seemed to look up for Maureen. She met a bus driver. Ron Chilton. Aged forty, she gave birth to Gary. The Harbeton brothers were all adults by then. So young Gary was a sort of only child. Five years later, Ron dies of cancer, and Maureen finds herself – yet again – on her own. She’s forty-five, for God’s sake. She must have had enough.
‘And it’s Paul who comes home every weekend,’ said Sally, sliding his photograph forward. ‘And as you’d imagine, he’s very important to young Gary.’
All this was on the internet. Private lives spilled out in detail to the Sun, the Star, the Independent . . . tabloids and broadsheets. Radio interviews, too. And television. Facebook. But it’s not Maureen who does the talking, it’s Gary. The brothers chip in when they can. And then there’s Kenny Harbeton, the father . . . but he’s another story.
‘So this is the situation in 1998. Paul’s twenty-seven, working as a hospital porter. He helps out at various charities.’
‘Which ones?’
Sally checked a notepad. ‘Leadgate House in Lambeth, Barnardo’s . . . don’t know where that was . . . and a trauma clinic in Finsbury. He’s Maureen’s success story. A good guy.’
‘Who headbutted Benson when he crossed him.’
‘Be fair, Tess. These charities thought the world of him. He volunteered to help and he needn’t have done. And yes, he knew how to look after himself.’
Though that didn’t help on the 7th of November 1998, when he walked into Soho after the fight with Benson. She didn’t voice the thought, but said, ‘I’ll check out his employment history.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s interesting he stayed at the bottom of the work ladder. If he had drive – and he did – why not become a nurse? Why stay on the edges?’
‘What will a work history tell you?’
‘Everything he ever did. Maybe there’s a pattern. Maybe the pattern will tell us something.’ Tess had had a hunch; and, as with all hunches, she didn’t know why it had nudged itself into her mind. ‘Anyway, Harbeton was thirty-three at the time of his death which means that Gary Chilton was only—’
‘You anticipate me.’ Sally slid another picture forward. ‘This tough nut lost his father at five and his big brother at twelve. That’s two kicks to the goolies before he’s even hit his teens. And when he does hit his teens, h
e hit lots of other things as well, mainly people, but property as well.’
He was in an awful lot of trouble. Looking back, he says it’s all because William Benson killed his brother. Which is convenient, of course, but it might well be true. His childhood was pretty well trashed.
‘Tell me about Kenny Harbeton,’ said Tess. She moved away from the angry faces and sat at the piano, an old Steinway recovered from a damp garage in Alnwick.
‘I imagine he blames somebody as well. After dumping Maureen he pops up twenty-seven years later out of nowhere. In fairness, his son had been killed. He comes to Benson’s trial. He’s the spokesman . . . and then he clears off all over again. Fifteen years later, last week, he’s back in front of the cameras. He’s there standing behind Gary Chilton. You’d think he’d never been away.’
Tess pressed a few random keys. ‘And Maureen says nothing.’
‘Nothing at all. She’s the unforgettable presence in every photograph. The silent force in every interview. You wouldn’t want to ask her a question.’ Sally had an intuition; and it came like another brick through the window. ‘Oh my God . . . you aren’t going to speak to her, are you?’
‘I think it’s inevitable,’ said Tess. ‘Not today, not tomorrow. But if we find out that someone else killed Paul Harbeton, she will want to speak to us. And who knows, maybe along the road, we’re going to need her help.’
Sally tried to imagine the meeting . . . with Stephen and Brian and Gary; not forgetting Kenny. ‘I need a drink,’ she said, making a pile of the photographs. She went to a cabinet with various bottles clustered on a lace cloth. She was pensive. Finally, she said, ‘Can I have the brick?’
Tess was bemused. ‘What for?’
‘Well, there’s a good argument that it’s art – urban contemporary, with a certain retro nostalgia – but if someone is going to chuck something at me, I intend to chuck something back.’
36
Benson went to sea with his dad. To avoid the press, they got up at five in the morning, setting out in Dalston’s Girl, a small boat always moored by the jetty at the end of the garden. They went twenty-seven kilometres north of Blakeney Point and twenty-eight kilometres east of Chapel St Leonards. Roughly. There, in the middle of the Wash, they bobbed around in the water. This was Race Bank where Jim Benson used to put his crab pots. Until a High Court injunction stopped him last year. There were plans for an offshore wind farm. Dong Energy, the developers, had been compelled to seek legal redress.
‘As soon as those wind turbines get going – ninety-one of them – the sand will disappear,’ said Jim, frying rashers of bacon on a Primus. ‘And once the sand’s gone, the crabs’ll go too.’
Overall it was a dilemma. The need for green energy versus an ancient industry, which itself had damaged the marine environment. Naturally enough, Benson had sided with the fishermen, but he couldn’t do anything. No one could. The world had changed. The need to save the planet came first.
‘I’ve been worried about you, son,’ said Jim. ‘All that stuff on the television. The petition. Digging up your trial again . . . everything that happened. I wish I could do something.’
Benson told him not to worry. There’d be no injunction. They couldn’t stop him going out to sea. It was a storm in a teacup.
‘It upsets me because you’ve paid the price,’ said Jim, angling the pan. He wore a dark blue gansey, knitted by Benson’s mother. The thing wouldn’t wear out. ‘And I know you’re innocent, so you’ve paid a price you shouldn’t have paid . . . so I wish they’d just leave you alone. Let you get on with your life’ – the bacon sizzled and spat – ‘I don’t know why people want you to pay for ever.’
‘Because Paul Harbeton will pay for ever,’ said Benson.
That was the argument. Another hard one. And naturally enough, Jim had sided with his son.
‘I know you’re innocent, Will. I know. You don’t have to persuade me.’
He kept saying it. Every time Benson came home he said it. But he always sounded so unsure. Like he just knew where the lobster had gone . . . into deeper water. Wherever that might be. Benson took a bacon sandwich and looked out to sea. There was a faint mist struggling with the morning light. Soon it would be sharp and clear. A light wind was rising.
‘Eddie’s doing well,’ said Jim, inviting some reply. When he didn’t get one, he said, ‘You’ve got to understand, Will, he’s not like you and me. He’s not like he was. His brain got damaged. He changed. He’s someone else. That’s why he won’t believe you. It’s just something here’ – he stroked a temple, gently, as if he were by Eddie’s bedside during one of the endless night vigils – ‘he knows you got convicted, so that’s it for him, you’re guilty. It’s like maths, one plus one equals two. If there’d been no accident, he’d have believed you . . . like me . . . I’m sure of it.’
Benson nearly laughed. His dad wanted to believe that only someone with a brain injury would have accepted the jury’s verdict. But it wasn’t funny. Jim said, ‘He’s beginning to remember the week of the accident, you know.’
‘Is he?’ Benson made it sound bright.
‘Yes. Little bits, here and there . . . he remembers the day before . . . and getting his bike out of the shed. Hopefully he’ll get everything back, one day, I’ll ask him what the hell went through his mind.’
A couple of miles inland from the family home in Brancaster Staithe stood Lushmead’s, a hotel that had once been a stately home. Wooded grounds sloped to an ornamental lake. Benson and his brother used to faff around the winding lanes on their bikes. Out of sight. Smoking. Talking about girls. On the 9th of July 1988, a sunny Saturday – the date, time and weather were burned into his memory – Benson (aged ten), Eddie (nine) and Neil Reydon (eleven) had been playing daredevil. Cycling down a grassy slope as fast as hell and braking before the lake. Getting as close as possible without ending up in the water. Benson had been standing on the edge, waiting and watching. He’d given the signal to Eddie. And then, all of a sudden, his brother had set off in a different direction, head down, pedalling like a maniac, along a path that led to the main road, a path screened from the road by a bank of trees. Benson had already seen a car take the bend, further away. A red people carrier. Citroën. C8. It was out of sight now, but it had to be coming down that road. It had been shifting, too. And Eddie couldn’t see it and he couldn’t know it was there.
Benson gazed over the Wash. It would soon be a kind of cemetery.
‘How’s he getting on?’ he asked.
‘As well as can be expected.’
That was the phrase. The family had been using it for years. They’d never find another one. It shut the subject down and it told the truth; and to Benson, it said nothing had changed. Eddie lived at home in the converted downstairs back room. Neil Reydon came round every day. He took him out every week. They were still the best of friends. Better, ironically, because of what bound them together.
‘They’re at Neil’s door, too,’ said Jim. ‘The press. They won’t leave any of us alone, friend or family. But you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ll keep on telling them you’re innocent, even if you went and admitted everything. And Eddie won’t say anything. Not that he has anything to say, but you know what I mean.’
Benson did.
‘Maybe one day, we’ll be a family again,’ said Jim, brusquely, shaking the pan. ‘Maybe we’ll come out here together, the three of us, and bring in the crab. If only for your mum’s sake.’
Benson looked at those old, rapidly blinking eyes. ‘I love you, Dad,’ he said.
37
Tess hadn’t noticed it before. But after rereading Benson’s trial brief it was obvious. There were a number of striking parallels between his case and Sarah Collingstone’s. And their personal circumstances. It was eerie.
Benson accepted he’d had an argument with the murdered victim earlier in the evening, insisting that they’d parted ways before the killing.
That was Sarah Collingstone’s case.
/>
The Crown had said the argument was far from over. That Benson, in a rage, killed his victim shortly afterwards.
Which was the Crown’s case against Sarah Collingstone.
Benson denied having any particular relationship with the deceased.
So did Sarah Collingstone.
Benson was seen near the crime scene by a credible witness at the time of the murder.
So was Sarah Collingstone (but for that clever point about sodium lighting).
Benson was said to have followed his victim and hit him from behind, probably lingering while the victim died.
So was Sarah Collingstone.
No one had believed Benson. The circumstantial evidence had been overwhelming.
No one had believed Sarah Collingstone.
Except Benson.
He had refused to accept that she was a liar, even though – to quote her former solicitor – she looked as guilty as sin. Benson had wanted to believe in her innocence. He’d seen something in her that had nothing to do with the case, and this was where their personal histories were also strangely similar. They’d both lived with the impact of disability on someone they’d loved. The impact of disability on a family. They’d exchanged a kind of Masonic handshake. Collingstone’s son Daniel had suffered a brain injury. So had Benson’s brother Eddie. It was all there in the pre-sentence report, prepared for Benson’s case. Like Collingstone, he had spent hours in hospitals and clinics. He understood her secret world.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Tess, not understanding why.
Sally was dusting scallops in flour. ‘Don’t like what?’
‘The coincidence. The parallels. It can’t be accidental.’
‘Well, it could hardly be planned.’
‘No, but it could be a reason for why Collingstone instructed Benson. His history was all over the Guardian and the Sun. Four days prior to trial she sacks her solicitor and barrister. She goes to see Benson the same day, a Friday, with the trial starting the following Wednesday. He doesn’t get the brief until Monday morning. He’s no experience. Why pick him?’
