Guilty

by Conrad Jones

  23

  Danny Goodwin listened as the phone connected again. It was the fourth time in the last two hours he had tried to reach John Glynn. The voicemail clicked in again and he swore under his breath. He was monitoring the predator hunter Facebook page and had read the raft of threatening messages again. He replied to just one, informing the sender, Richard Vigne, that he was passing them over to the police. It happened all the time, nonces getting angry about being outed. Serves the little scumbags right, he thought. Don’t threaten me because you’re a twisted pervert, it’s your problem. Vigne had been caught with his pants down and his cock in his hand. His victim had told a sad story. A vulnerable teenager taken advantage of by a predator; groomed, abused, and dumped once the novelty had worn off. At least she had a decent relationship with her father. He had watched her spiral into mental illness and decided to do something about it. Good for him. Vigne was a scumbag. Any father would have done the same. Some would have gone a lot further, fair play to him. It was Mr Hadley who had brought the information to light. He’d had hard evidence, too. Photographs, emails, text messages and medical reports; Vigne was nailed-on fucked, and if he had an issue with what they had done with the evidence, he needed to look in the mirror, fucking nonce. They made Danny sick. He would shoot the fuckers if he could. He would be doing society a favour. There were some in the group who took things into their own hands, but he didn’t advocate that. Lock them up, that’s fine; setting fire to their homes while their kids are asleep upstairs, not acceptable. He knew it happened, and no one had complained – what would the predators say to the police? ‘They set fire to my BMW because I was trying to groom a child online.’ Not a chance. It happened, and Danny knew it did, but he didn’t condone it. The perpetrators of vigilante violence were on the periphery of the group. They were too stupid to have the patience to trap paedophiles with usable evidence. He tolerated them to a degree, but if they began ranting on their page, he deleted them. He needed to protect the credibility of the group. People took them seriously and he needed to maintain their brand.

  Danny listened to John’s voicemail again and left a message.

  ‘John, it’s Danny Goodwin again. Are you still in bed? You lazy git. Give me a ring when you wake up and let me know you are alright, mate.’

  Danny was concerned. He had spoken to John Glynn the previous day and had a serious conversation about what he thought was going on. The group had always been about the six of them, they had started it and they kept it going when others came and went on a whim. For some it was a novelty, short-lived, and fun to say you have done it: ‘I was involved in trapping a paedo; the fucker went down because of us’. One to impress people with, a tick in the box and move on to the next thrill, but it was much more than that for Danny and the others. It was their creation and, despite their reservations, it had worked. Fifteen nonces had been banged up for a total of over one hundred years on their evidence. He was immensely proud of that. Danny had always been the linchpin, and he looked out for the others – if he could – although they were oddballs. When he had told John his concerns about what had happened, John didn’t get it at first. He had laughed, but eventually listened to Danny’s reasoning, and he’d promised to take precautions. Danny had warned him about walking home alone after work, especially when there were so many dark alleyways between the Victorian terraces. If anyone was planning to hit him, it would be there. John had thought Danny was being paranoid at first, but he had explained his theory calmly and it began to make sense. Phillip Coombes’ death was the catalyst, although he had been hearing whispers of caution in his mind for eighteen months or so. Coombes’ death had cemented his misgivings into something more. Bad things were happening to members of the group, bad things like dying. It could have been a series of unfortunate mishaps, coincidences maybe, but he didn’t want to trust to fate. When they had found Coombes in the canal, tangled in his own line, pissed and drowned, he knew it wasn’t a coincidence. Coombes liked a beer when he wasn’t working, but would he have drunk enough to fall into a canal and not be able to get out? Unlikely. Someone was making their deaths look like accidents. He was convinced, but not enough to share his thoughts with anyone but John. Now John wasn’t answering his phone. He had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling. John always answered his phone, no matter what he was doing. It was a bad sign. He thought things over again in his mind.

  Gary Roberts had gone missing eighteen months earlier, his car was found, abandoned, near Otterspool promenade, with the engine running. The coroner couldn’t rule suicide, as they had no body, but everyone assumed he had topped himself by walking into the river. It happened a lot on that stretch because it was secluded, accessible by car, literally a few miles from the city centre, and the water was deep. Not long after that, Thomas Green simply vanished without a trace. Thomas wasn’t the adventurous type. He worked for the council, did the doors at weekends for a bit of extra cash, and never went anywhere. There was no way he had jumped on a plane with a pocketful of cash and some sun cream, never to be seen again. Someone had made him disappear. And then Dave Rutland had thrown himself under a train. Dave was a loner and not well-liked by most of the group, but he was alright. Some of the group suspected he was gay, but so what? He didn’t do anyone any harm. Dave could be insular, but throwing himself under a train wasn’t the way he would go. If Dave Rutland had decided he was going to check out, it would be painless. Dave was squeamish. He had half a tattoo on his left arm because he couldn’t stand the pain long enough to have it finished. The artist did the outline, and gave him an appointment to go back and have the shading and colour put in, but he never went. He couldn’t take the pain. Danny didn’t believe that Dave had chosen that way to die; he would have chosen pills, or booze, or disposable barbeques in his car; it would have been clean, no blood. Anything except being mangled beneath a train. It didn’t sit right. He knew Dave Rutland and he knew he hadn’t thrown himself under an express train. It was as unlikely as Phil Coombes falling into the canal and drowning. At first glance it wouldn’t seem odd – if you didn’t know the people, it would be acceptable to believe the coroner’s reports, but Danny did know them, and something wasn’t right. He could feel it in every bone in his body. They were being stalked and executed, simple as that.

  John Glynn still wasn’t answering his mobile, which left Danny the remaining founder member. All the others were dead; coincidence? Not a chance, he thought. He grabbed the edition of the Liverpool Echo that had covered the Vigne arrest, and opened the first page. Inside were the contact details for all the journalists. He dialled one of the numbers.

  ‘Liverpool Echo, Kevin Hill speaking.’

  ‘Hello, Kevin. My name is Danny Goodwin. I started up the predator hunting group that bubbled Richard Vigne.’

  ‘Yes. We’ve spoken. What can I do for you, Danny?’

  ‘It’s more what I can do for you…’

  24

  Jo Jones walked into the private treatment room and was surprised by how skinny Nicola Hadley was; her eyes were deep, her cheeks sunken. She was barely recognisable. A plastic tube ran up her left nostril, feeding her nutrients to keep her organs from failing. Her vital signs were being monitored by a machine next to her. Faint marks criss-crossed her forearms, some old, some more recent. She was beyond anorexia. Jo felt a swathe of sadness wash over her. The human mind can be incredibly strong but it can also be incredibly fragile. This young girl was broken, physically and mentally. The doctors said she could be interviewed, they also said she had perked up when they had asked her if she would speak to them about Richard Vigne. Social services were consulted and they agreed to send a member of staff from the child protection unit to supervise the interview. Her father had been uncertain, but was persuaded by Nicola to let it progress.

  ‘Hello, Nicola, I’m Jo. I’m a detective with child protection. I want to talk to you and ask you some questions about your relationship with Richard Vigne. Is that okay with you?’

&n
bsp; ‘Yes. How is he?’ Her eyes sparkled momentarily.

  ‘He’s in a lot of trouble,’ Jo said. ‘That’s why I am here.’

  ‘My dad hates him. He didn’t want me to talk to you about him.’

  ‘I know. Your dad is just looking after you.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on him. I realise now that what he did was wrong, but he was always nice to me.’ She smiled, revealing teeth blackened by stomach acid. ‘We were in love. He used to tell me all the time.’ She twirled her hair with her fingers. Jo couldn’t help but see the child in her. After everything she had been through, she hadn’t grown any stronger. Her vulnerability was blindingly obvious. Maybe that was what her adult lover had seen.

  ‘You said, “we were in love”, past tense. Why do you say that?’

  ‘One day he stopped returning my calls and replying to emails.’

  ‘Did they stop suddenly, or did he string you along a little?’

  ‘Suddenly. We were planning to meet, then nothing.’ She shrugged. ‘I guessed he’d had enough of me and didn’t want to see me any more. My dad says it’s because I’m older now, and he only wants young girls, but I don’t believe that.’

  ‘When he stopped contacting you, is that when you became ill?’

  ‘Yes. I was very sad. When I’m sad, I don’t cope very well.’ She was intelligent enough to know that she was sick, and what was causing it, but was unable to change anything. ‘I stopped eating. I can’t help it. When I did eat, I was sick afterwards. The doctors say I have to learn to eat all over again, like a baby.’

  ‘You’re in the right place to get better. Take your time and you’ll be fine. You have all your life to look forward to,’ Jo said. Nicola looked away. She didn’t seem convinced. ‘Nicola, I need to ask you some difficult questions. Are you okay to answer them?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘I need to be blunt. There is no point in beating around the bush, okay?’

  ‘That’s fine. Go ahead.’

  ‘Is this the man you had sex with when you first met?’ Jo asked, showing Nicola a picture on her Samsung.

  ‘Yes, that’s Richard. He’s so handsome, isn’t he?’

  ‘And this is the same man you were seeing, up until six months ago?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re absolutely sure?’

  ‘Positive,’ Nicola said. She looked confused.

  ‘Do you remember this man?’ Jo asked, showing her another photograph. Nicola looked at the image. The wheels inside her head were turning but nothing was happening.

  ‘Vaguely. I think he was in the club that night.’

  ‘Do you remember his name?’

  ‘No. I was drunk that night.’

  ‘But this is the man you had sex with?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you, Nicola,’ Jo said, standing. She gestured to the social worker that she was done. ‘You’ve been a great help.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Nicola asked.

  ‘Yes. For now.’

  ‘But what about Richard?’

  ‘I can’t say anything about the investigation I’m afraid.’

  ‘Will you at least tell him that I asked about him, please?’

  ‘Yes. Bye for now,’ Jo said. She walked out of the room, into the corridor. The social worker and a nurse followed her. ‘Can we have a word with her doctor, please?’ Jo asked the nurse.

  ‘She’s waiting to see you,’ the nurse said, smiling. She led them to an office a few metres away, knocked on the door, and opened it without waiting for an answer. ‘Go in. Take a seat,’ she said.

  ‘Superintendent,’ the doctor said. ‘I’m Susan Chalmers, Nicola’s doctor.’ They shook hands. ‘How did the interview go?’

  ‘It was informative for me, but not so good for Nicola, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh dear. That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘Nicola thinks Richard Vigne stopped seeing her six months ago because he had dumped her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He hadn’t dumped her.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The man she thought was Richard Vigne, was in fact Ralph Pickford,’ Jo explained. The doctor frowned. ‘Pickford was sharing the apartment with Richard Vigne. My guess is, Vigne put her to bed, drunk, and Pickford came back and found Nicola asleep on the settee and took advantage of her. She was drunk and confused, and had been talking to Vigne earlier that night, and probably thought that was his name. Pickford let her continue to think that because she was underage.’

  ‘I see.’ The doctor looked disturbed. ‘Will he be prosecuted?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He died in a car crash six months ago.’

  ‘Oh dear. Nicola doesn’t know, does she?’ the doctor asked, concerned.

  ‘No, and I can see she’s in no state to find out that the love of her life was lying to her all along and is now dead.’

  ‘Thank you,’ the doctor said. ‘We’ll have to choose when to tell her he’s dead very carefully.’

  ‘Thank you for letting me speak to her,’ Jo said. ‘If you’ll excuse me, there’s an innocent man out there being accused of something he didn’t do. I need to break the good news to him and his family.’

  25

  Alec finished off his rib-eye and put his knife and fork together. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and smiled at Margaret Boyd. She returned his smile and raised her glass.

  ‘Cheers, Alec, it’s been lovely to see you,’ she said. ‘Here’s to Gail. I do miss her so.’

  ‘To Gail,’ Alec said, clinking his glass. He sipped the merlot and refilled Margaret’s glass. It was always bittersweet talking about Gail. She had been very popular with all his friends and family and they missed her; he missed her more than words could say. The fact she was found dead in another man’s arms sometimes escaped them. He felt very bitter in the early days, but the bitterness had faded into sadness: sadness that he had pushed her into another man’s arms. It was his obsession with work that had driven her away.

  ‘I was thinking about her the other day, and how I wish I had taken her to Thailand. She always wanted to go there, you know.’

  ‘Gosh, what on earth made you think about that?’

  ‘Just some research on an old case I worked on.’ He smiled. ‘But it made me think about her.’

  ‘I’m sure many things make you think about her, Alec.’

  ‘They do.’

  ‘I remember her talking about wanting to go there,’ Margaret said. Her mind wandered; she had made the connection Alec had wanted her to. ‘My nephew, Frankie, was killed over there. You remember, don’t you?’

  ‘I remember hearing something about it, but can’t remember the details,’ Alec lied. ‘Wasn’t it a motorcycle accident?’

  ‘That’s what the family were told, three months after they had cremated him.’

  ‘What?’ Alec said, astounded. ‘Three months?’

  ‘We wouldn’t have known at all, but his mother contacted the embassy in Bangkok when she hadn’t heard from him for a while,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘It took them a month to reply to her initial contact.’ She leaned closer. ‘Between you and me, I think he had got himself into trouble again.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Well, between us and the gatepost, he was sacked from his job in forensics, that’s why he went away. We never heard the truth from them, of course, but Clive was told at work.’

  ‘Of course, he would be. That’s where I heard about it,’ Alec agreed. ‘There are no secrets in a police station.’

  ‘Clive always says that,’ she said, smiling. ‘Anyway, as I was telling you, his mother would never give me a straight answer and she couldn’t look me in the eye when she talked about it. I knew he had been up to his old tricks again.’

  ‘Oh, interesting. What made you think that?’ Alec asked, letting her talk.

  ‘Her face, whenever I asked if she had hear
d from him: she would blush and look a little sad. He never kept in touch and I think she was embarrassed. You would be, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course you would.’

  ‘When she was told about the accident she was heartbroken, poor woman,’ Margaret said, sipping her wine. ‘You don’t expect to outlive your children, do you?’