Guilty

by Conrad Jones

  ‘Have you interviewed her yourself, superintendent?’

  ‘She has been interviewed, yes.’

  ‘That wasn’t my question.’ Emmerson sat forward and folded his hands. ‘Have you interviewed Nicola Hadley?’

  ‘She’s not fit to be interviewed at the moment.’

  ‘So, she made the complaint under pressure from her father and the police?’

  ‘She made the complaint when she realised that what happened to her, aged thirteen, was rape. Nicola has had to experience an abortion before her fourteenth birthday.’

  ‘It is a tragic story, only too common in our society I’m afraid, but you have absolutely no proof to back up her story.’ Emmerson sat back and shrugged. ‘Let’s be frank, superintendent,’ he said, steepling his fingers. ‘Nicola Hadley may have been thirteen, but what was she doing there? She should never have been in that nightclub. She approached a man, much older than herself, and declared herself as eighteen.’ He shook his head and pointed to one of the photographs. ‘I am sure she will admit she lied about her age. If she had been truthful, my client would never have behaved in this way, in fact, I’m sure he would have pointed her out to the management for her own safety.’ He looked at Richard. Richard nodded. It was the truth. ‘No one in their right mind would have entertained going anywhere near a thirteen-year-old girl. She lied then, and she is lying now.’

  ‘Ignorance is no defence.’

  ‘Oh, come on, superintendent,’ Emmerson countered, pointing at the photographs. ‘She looks like an angel here, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She looks like she has just come out of school, a young girl, not a day over thirteen.’ He pointed at the other photographs. ‘In contrast, these show a young woman. Her clothes and make-up put years on her. Who would have expected to meet a thirteen-year-old girl in a nightclub?’ He shrugged again. ‘Add a large amount of alcohol into the mix, and my client is guilty of nothing more than being naive.’ He paused. ‘Have you verified her story about being at the club with her boyfriend?’

  ‘We’re looking into that.’ There was a twitch in the corner of the superintendent’s eye. Richard saw it. She was off balance. Only for a moment, but he saw it.

  ‘I don’t believe there was a boyfriend. We know she lied about her age, and we know she was lying about being there with her boyfriend too,’ Emmerson said. ‘I think she was there looking for one.’

  ‘Whatever her motives, she was a thirteen-year-old child. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.’

  ‘I didn’t have sex with her. I was looking after her,’ Richard interrupted. ‘Honestly, I didn’t have sex with her.’

  ‘Someone did. Unless it was the immaculate conception?’

  ‘I didn’t have sex with her.’

  ‘She says you did.’

  ‘The fact of the matter is, even if he did have sex with her, you can’t prove underage sex with what you have.’ Emmerson sighed. ‘It’s his word against hers. We can’t test the DNA if she aborted the child, so you have nothing.’

  ‘Maybe not on that particular night, I agree.’

  ‘Then what are we doing here, superintendent?’

  ‘The first night, it’s clear he had a drunken fumble and he thought he’d got away with it.’ Richard was about to protest, but Emmerson put a hand on his arm and shook his head. He wanted to hear what the detectives had. ‘She told him that she was underage, but he said it didn’t matter and he wanted to see her again.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Richard snapped.

  ‘He continued to have a relationship with a minor after he knew her real age.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Richard asked again, losing his grip. The blood drained from his face. He was a drowning man being thrown bricks. The situation was going from dire to diabolical. ‘What relationship?’

  ‘We’ve got emails and text messages going back to the day after your first encounter,’ the superintendent said. She placed a file containing phone records, and printed emails from Outlook on the table. ‘Every time you messaged, rang, arranged to meet up, it’s all here. You continued to see her for two years when you knew she was thirteen.’

  Richard looked at the phone records. He shook his head. The room began to spin. The numbers didn’t make sense; they meant nothing to him. The walls were closing in around him, crushing the life from him. He closed his eyes and looked again. There were hundreds of text messages.

  ‘This isn’t my number,’ he said, shocked. ‘And this isn’t my email account.’ He looked at Emmerson. ‘Look at my profile picture. That’s a photograph from ten years ago. This is a fake profile.’

  ‘We wouldn’t expect you to use your own phone or email address to set up an account, Mr Vigne. We would expect you to use a burner phone and a Hotmail address to create a profile. I don’t think you’re a stupid man, Mr Vigne. Not that stupid, anyway.’ She opened the file. ‘Jvigne at Hotmail dot com, not very imaginative, granted, but it’s you. That’s the email address that was used to set up this profile.’

  ‘That is not me.’

  ‘Coincidence, perhaps?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You can see the email address is a variation of your name?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And the messages are all to Nicola, from someone called Richard Vigne?’

  ‘It isn’t me,’ Richard muttered. He was losing the will to live. One lie after another were burying him deeper into a hole he would never be able to get out of. ‘That is a fake profile.’

  ‘Where did they get the photograph?’

  ‘Online. That’s from ten years ago. Someone has copied it from the Internet and set up that profile.’

  ‘This evidence has come from a laptop and a mobile phone belonging to Nicola Hadley,’ the superintendent said, tapping the photograph of them kissing. ‘The girl that you are kissing on this photograph, and the girl you invited back to your room.’ Richard was being crushed by the massive weight of evidence. ‘The girl who gives a detailed account of having sex with you, and claims she went on to have a relationship with you.’ She paused for the information to sink in. Richard couldn’t think straight, let alone explain. ‘Two years of communication are right here.’ She waited for a response but Richard couldn’t think straight. ‘Can you explain all this evidence?’

  ‘No. I didn’t have sex with her, nor did I see or hear from that girl ever again.’ Richard muttered. Tears filled his eyes again. They spilled down his face.

  ‘I assume you have traced the IP addresses?’ Emmerson asked. ‘That should be easy enough to verify?’

  ‘Mr Vigne has been very smart about hiding his IP address, but we’re narrowing it down,’ the superintendent said.

  ‘What?’ Richard gasped. ‘I don’t know where to find my IP address, let alone hide it.’

  ‘Like I said, we’re narrowing it down.’

  ‘Narrowing it down?’ Emmerson repeated.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The truth is, you don’t know who or where they were sent from, do you?’ Emmerson pushed. The superintendent didn’t reply; she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘This is a fishing expedition. You want my client to crack, and admit everything, because you have nothing but the word of a mentally ill woman scorned, a distraught father, and a fake Facebook account. You need a confession.’ The superintendent looked frustrated, her eyes darkened. ‘You’re not getting a confession from my client today, superintendent.’

  ‘I don’t understand this,’ Richard said. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’ll explain outside,’ Emmerson said, standing. ‘Charge him, or let him go.’

  The detectives looked at each other. The superintendent sighed and shook her head. She looked defeated. An angry glance at the sergeant confirmed it. The evidence was full of holes. She placed her hand on the file of messages. Richard held his breath as her eyes stared through him. He was flummoxed. Who had sent all those emails and texts? Someone had, but he knew it
wasn’t him.

  ‘We’ll find out where you sent these from and, when we do, I’ll come for you, Mr Vigne.’

  ‘I didn’t send them, superintendent,’ Richard said, shaking his head.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything else, Richard. We’ll be going. Kindly order the custody sergeant to discharge my client,’ Emmerson said, opening the door. He held it open for Richard but he didn’t want to go; he felt there was unfinished business. His need to make the detectives believe him was crushing. ‘Richard, let’s go.’

  ‘I don’t know what is going on here, superintendent,’ Richard said, standing, ‘but I know I didn’t see Nicola Hadley ever again after I went to bed that night.’ She looked at him. She didn’t believe him, that was clear. ‘I can tell you one thing, though.’

  ‘Go on. I’m all ears.’

  ‘I shared the apartment with another man; I’d never met him before and I’ve never seen him since. We were paired up for the competition, and everyone had to share an apartment with their golf partners.’

  The superintendent flicked through her file. She pulled out a sheet of paper that had the Celtic Manor hotel logo on it.

  ‘Ralph Pickford,’ she said, reading from the list on the paper.

  ‘That’s him,’ Richard said. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I’m a detective, Mr Vigne, we tracked him down. He died in an accident six months ago.’ The custody sergeant approached the door. ‘Release Mr Vigne, please. No charges for now.’

  The detectives walked past him and headed for a stairwell. The sound of their heels echoed off the walls. He could hear the superintendent talking sternly to the sergeant. She wasn’t happy at all. Richard was in a daze as he was discharged, Emmerson made small talk but Richard wasn’t really listening. The custody sergeant was abrupt but polite as he handed him his belongings, and they were shown out of the rear of the building by a uniformed constable.

  ‘My car is at the front of the building,’ Emmerson said. They walked through the back gates and followed the pavement to the main road. Richard was still in a state of shock. He wasn’t sure what had just happened. One minute, he was drowning under the weight of the accusations that were being thrown at him, the next, he was being dragged up to the surface for breath. Emmerson had timed his challenge perfectly. He had waited until the detectives had put all their cards on the table, then, when he was sure they were stretched and had no hard evidence to back up their case, he called their bluff. Richard’s mind was chaotic. Being outside, breathing fresh air, felt like being born again; it was such a massive relief he was crying again. His emotions were all over the place.

  ‘Richard Vigne?’ a voice said from behind them. He turned around and found himself staring into a digital camera. The man had taken a raft of pictures before Richard realised what was going on. ‘Kevin Hill, Liverpool Echo. Have you been charged, Richard?’ he asked.

  ‘No comment,’ Emmerson said, grabbing Richard by the arm. He guided him away from the journalist, but Kevin was persistent and he followed them, clicking away on his camera. ‘Do not say a single word, Richard.’

  Richard was baffled. He allowed Emmerson to lead him, almost tripping over his own feet. The Liverpool Echo? What did they know? Had the predator hunting group tipped them off, or was it the police? Either way, the last thing he wanted was them writing an article about the accusations against him. His friends and family would be ridiculed; everyone would know what he had been arrested for and they would make up their own minds. Guilty until proven innocent. It seemed no one believed him. Wait until they see the evidence against you, his mind taunted. Nicola Hadley says you had sex with her, explain that, Richard.

  ‘It’s better to give us your side of the story, Richard, or we can only print her side. I’m trying to do you a favour,’ Kevin Hill said. He was jogging to catch up. ‘Have you been charged, Richard?’ he shouted. Onlookers were beginning to stare. ‘Did you know she was thirteen?’ Richard blushed red. He wanted to crawl into a hole. ‘How do you feel about her having an abortion?’

  ‘What?’ Richard said, panicking. He stopped in his tracks. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Richard!’ Emmerson shook him. ‘Say absolutely nothing to him. I’ve encountered him before and he’s a nasty piece of work. A sewer rat looking for shit to print. Don’t give him the satisfaction of twisting your words.’ Emmerson spoke loud enough for the journalist to hear him. ‘Go away, Mr Hill, or I’ll have you arrested for harassment.’

  ‘You call me a sewer rat?’ Kevin snorted. ‘You spend your life sitting next to drug dealers and murdering gangsters, and now we can add paedophiles to the list. Yet, I’m a sewer rat?’

  ‘I’m not a paedophile,’ Richard muttered.

  ‘Go away,’ Emmerson repeated. He pulled Richard towards a black BMW. The doors clicked open and the indicators flashed. He opened the passenger door and bundled Richard into it. ‘No matter what he asks you, you say nothing.’

  ‘Last chance, Richard,’ the journalist called to him. Emmerson closed the car door, muffling his voice. ‘Did they charge you?’

  Richard looked at him through the window, his mind frozen with fear. The thought of an article about him was the icing on the massive, shitty cake his life had become. If they mentioned the abortion, no one would believe a word he said; Celia and the kids would disown him. The journalist knocked on the window and leaned in, close to the glass.

  ‘Tell us your side, Richard, or it won’t look good. People need to read both sides or they’ll make their minds up anyway.’ Emmerson got in the car and started the engine. ‘You can find me online, if you change your mind,’ Kevin Hill called, as the BMW pulled away. ‘Better to tell me your side of the story, otherwise someone might make it up.’ His last words sent a shiver down Richard’s spine. It was all made up anyway, could he possibly make things worse? Probably. Definitely.

  ‘How does he know about the abortion?’ Richard asked. He was on an escalator to hell. Every second took him further down, deeper into the terrifying darkness where there was no hope left. There was no way of getting off and no emergency stop button. The desperation was seeping into his bones, crippling him.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how he knows, what matters is that he does know.’ Emmerson glanced at Richard and shook his head. He pulled the BMW into the traffic and headed into the city. ‘There is no way to dress this up, Richard. You have had a bad day, but it is about to get a thousand times worse.’ Richard slid down in the seat and closed his eyes. He didn’t think he could take any more accusations, yet the evidence was there for all to see. ‘You have some very harsh choices to make,’ Emmerson said. ‘Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Richard said, opening his eyes.

  ‘You need to decide what to tell your wife and children,’ Emmerson explained. ‘What was said in your interview is confidential, for now, and I’m not at liberty to tell Celia anything that was said.’ He stopped at some traffic lights. ‘What you do have to consider, is that it may become public information at a later date, and, if she thinks you’ve lied, it could make things worse further down the line.’

  ‘I don’t think things could be any worse,’ Richard said. He stared out of the passenger window, his mind stunned.

  ‘Don’t be under any illusion that things can’t be worse, because they most certainly will be,’ Emmerson said. ‘The press will have a ball with this story – the teacher and the child and the baby. You need to prepare yourself for what’s coming, Richard.’ Richard was shaking. He couldn’t see any way to go. His options were all shit. ‘My advice would be to lie low, turn off the phone, and speak to no one except your family.’

  ‘All this for giving someone the settee for the night,’ Richard said, biting his nails.

  ‘Unfortunately, Nicola Hadley is saying it was more than that, and there is an abortion to back up her testimony.’

  ‘It’s all bullshit.’

  ‘The evidence says otherwise, Richard.’

  ‘W
hy didn’t they charge me if they’re so certain I’m guilty?’

  ‘Jo Jones wasn’t comfortable interviewing you with what they had, I could see that, but she thought she had enough to make you panic, fold and admit everything. She wanted a confession. You didn’t fold and that reassures me you’re telling the truth. If you were guilty, under that pressure, you would have confessed.’

  ‘I am telling the truth.’

  ‘I believe you, but we need to discredit their evidence.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘What shall I do in the meantime?’

  ‘You need to come clean with Celia,’ Emmerson said. ‘Tell her the truth, straight away, and then there can be no nasty surprises later. If you are charged, it will all come out in court and in the press.’

  ‘I can’t tell her everything,’ Richard said. ‘If I tell her Nicola Hadley had an abortion, she’ll leave me before I’ve had the chance to deny it.’

  ‘From where I’m sitting, the alternative is worse.’

  ‘What’s the alternative?’

  ‘Kevin Hill will tell her in the Liverpool Echo.’

  8

  He was sitting at his desk, staring at his laptop. The predator hunters were in deep conversation on their page. They were talking about Dave Rutland. Apparently, he’d jumped in front of a train at Hough Green Station, shortly after one of their stings had flopped. He laughed. What a fucking shame. If only they knew Darren Parks was being eaten by crabs, while they chatted shit about each other. He wanted to join the conversation, and tell them that he had thrown Dave Rutland on the tracks, and that he had watched him piss himself before the locomotive smashed into his head, bursting it open like a balloon full of rice pudding. Telling them they were all being stalked would be fun too, but not as much fun as watching them from the shadows. That was more fun. He often watched them talking, and viewed their individual profiles for hours – looking, lurking, learning more and more about each individual and their families every time. He trawled through their photographs and became familiar with what they and their families looked like. He especially liked looking at their kids. It was ironic that these intrepid predator hunters were happy to post pictures of their children online, for anyone to look at, copy, download or share. Facebook was paradise for predators. None of the group had their security settings high enough to protect their kids. Idiots. Some of them were family men, playing at being vigilantes, others, loners clinging to the group for company and conversation. He hated them all equally. In a short space of time, he could find out where someone lives, works, and socialises; where they go on holiday, what type of car they drive, what their political views are, and what hobbies they have. It was time-consuming, but simple. Identifying targets who wouldn’t be missed was easy. Men with large families and lots of friends were too much trouble. The loners were easier. Easier still were the members who had left the group. They were his favourite. He could kill them with no concern about anyone spotting a pattern. He enjoyed the selection process as much as the execution.