Rain Dogs

by Adrian McKinty

  ‘What bloke?’

  ‘It’s not? Oh … Uhm … Forget I said that. Please. What can I do for you gents?’

  ‘We’re here to see Mr Savile. We believe he’s staying here?’

  ‘Yes he is! Not as a customer mind you! I should stress that. Ha, ha. Nah, he’s here in an advisory capacity, so to speak.’

  ‘Where we would we find him?’

  ‘He’s probably in his caravan if he’s not on the wards. Easy to spot. The little white van hooked behind the Roller.’

  ‘Behind a Rolls Royce?’

  ‘Yellow one. Yeah. Can’t miss it. Sign out when you leave, gents. Easy to get in, trickier to get out, although some days you wouldn’t think that.’

  We found Savile’s caravan in the sodden and partially flooded car park. The grim hospital building was behind us, shrouded in fog, giving it a sinister aspect.

  We parked the Ford Sierra, got out, knocked on the caravan door.

  ‘Who is it?’ Savile said from inside in his distinctive, weird, DJ voice that had only a few traces of his original Yorkshire accent.

  ‘Detective Inspector Sean Duffy, Carrickfergus police.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Carrickfergus police.’

  The caravan door opened. Savile looked very much like himself. He was wearing a red Adidas tracksuit, Adidas trainers and – although it had been raining all day – sunglasses. His famous dyed locks looked more grey now than platinum and underneath his tan there was significant weathering. He was holding a cigar in one hand and a Leeds United mug in the other.

  ‘Carrickfergus? Where the fuck is that?’ he said.

  ‘Northern Ireland. Can we ask you a few questions about the Kinkaid Young Offenders’ Institution in Belfast?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Are you on the board there by any chance?’

  ‘Probably. I’m a director or on the board of a dozen homes and institutions around the country. So many I can’t remember them all.’

  ‘Look, do you mind if we come in for a minute and talk? We’re getting soaked out here.’

  ‘All of you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s not room. And you’re all wet.’

  ‘Sir, I must insist, we’re conducting a murder inquiry.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘Please. It’s only a few questions and we’ve come a long way.’

  Savile shook his head. ‘All right, come in then. Wipe your feet on the mat, though, and don’t sit on the sofa till I put some towels down.’

  We entered the dinky little caravan and waited while Savile put tea-towels on the sofa before we sat on it.

  ‘What are you doing here, Mr Savile?’ I asked. ‘In Broadmoor?’

  ‘Officially, I’m here to cheer up the patients and the staff. Unofficially …’

  ‘Unofficially?’

  ‘Just between you, me and the gatepost, Edwina Currie sent for me. Special investigation.’

  ‘What?’ I said, incredulously. Edwina Currie was one of the Thatcher government’s health ministers, the only prominent woman in the Cabinet apart from Maggie herself.

  ‘I’m already on the advisory board, but sometimes I do the government a favour. Bit of a hush-hush thing, this, as it happens. Financial irregularities. I’m looking into it. I suppose you’ll be wanting some tea. All right then. I’ve no milk.’

  ‘No that’s not necessary, I –’

  ‘I’m already bloody making it!’ he snapped. ‘Can’t you hear the kettle boiling?’

  He began making three cups of black tea with one tea bag. It gave me the opportunity to scope out the caravan. Filthy curtains, a fold-out bed, a muck-encrusted range, and a series of signed photographs hung up all over the metal walls: Savile with the Beatles, Savile with the Stones, Savile with the Kinks, Savile with Gary Glitter. And, to show how connected he was, photographs of Savile with political and religious figures: Savile with Cardinal Basil Hume, Prince Charles, Margaret Thatcher, Charlie Haughey and Pope John Paul II. He’d seemingly met everybody. Savile wasn’t yet a knight of the realm or a papal knight but with all his good works for hospitals and kids both ennoblings were on the cards …

  He gave me the Leeds United mug without washing it out first.

  ‘Thanks. I had a feeling you were a Leeds fan,’ I said, smiling and taking the mug.

  ‘Who gives a fucking toss about football?’ Savile said. ‘And don’t be asking for any biscuits. I’m down to me last packet of creams and if you lot take two each, they’ll be all gone.’

  ‘No, this is fine,’ I said.

  Savile handed mugs to Lawson and McCrabban. ‘Look at the gurning face on him. All right, I’ll give you a biscuit or something. Look as if you could do with something to eat,’ he said to Lawson.

  ‘You there, turn on the radio, it’s like a dwarf’s funeral in here,’ he said to me.

  I turned on a transistor radio while Savile started rummaging in a cupboard. Joe Cocker’s ‘You Are So Beautiful’ was playing and Savile immediately dashed across the caravan and turned it off.

  ‘You like that, do you?’ he said, accusingly.

  ‘It’s all right, I suppose,’ I said.

  ‘Fucking shit song. “You are so beautiful to me”? If I’d said that to some bird, she would have belted me.’

  ‘Written by Billy Preston though. John Lennon called him the fifth Beat–’

  ‘Fifth Beatle he says, fifth Beatle,’ Savile muttered. ‘They bloody called Jimmy Tarbuck the fifth Beatle. And they called George Best the fifth Beatle and he played for United! I knew the bloody Beatles in the Stu Sutcliffe days.’

  ‘Oh! Who was your favourite?’ Lawson asked.

  ‘“Who was my favourite,” he says. He could throw a punch, could John. Of course they shot him in the back. If they’d tried to shoot him in the front he’d of nutted that bloke.’

  ‘Did you get to meet Elvis?’ Lawson asked.

  ‘You and your bloody questions. How old are you, son? Twelve? How did you get to be a policeman? No I didn’t bloody meet bloody Elvis! Do you know anything? Elvis never came to Britain. Well once, but that was only Prestwick bloody Airport!’

  Savile gave Lawson a nasty-looking piece of Swiss roll on a paper plate. ‘There, there’s some food. Now what’s this all about? I’m a very busy man, you know.’

  ‘It’s about the Kinkaid Young Offenders’ Institution, Mr Savile. You are one of its patrons aren’t you?’

  His memory seemed to come roaring back to him. ‘That place? Yeah. Brand new. New ideas. Treat kids with a bit of respect. I raised a million pounds for it and they put me on the board,’ Savile said and lit himself a cigar.

  ‘Have you ever heard about any allegations of abuse there?’

  ‘What kind of abuse?’

  ‘Primarily sexual abuse. But anything? Violence?’

  ‘No. Why, what have you heard?’

  ‘It’s probably nothing. It was an anonymous tip to a newspaper that –’

  Savile fake-laughed so hard he almost coughed out his cigar.

  ‘An anonymous tip to a newspaper about a home or a hospital I’m involved with? Are you joking? Hundreds of those flood in every bloody week. I’m a crook, I’m stealing all the money I raise, I’m a kiddie fiddler, I’m molesting them on Jim’ll Fix It, I’m doing it all for me own good so Mrs Thatcher will cut me taxes. “Anonymous tip,” he says. Load of rubbish. They always say stuff like that about me. About anybody trying to do any good in this country.’

  ‘Geoffrey Dickens MP said –’

  ‘Geoffrey Dickens! You should hear what Maggie says about him. Daft as a brush, he is. Dear, oh dear. Is that all you’ve got? An anonymous tip?’

  ‘The journalist who was investigating this anonymous tip was possibly murdered and that’s why we’re following up on this,’ I said.

  Savile conceded the seriousness of the point with a grunt. ‘Well, I don’t know anything about that. I raise the money. They spen
d it. God knows what goes on after that.’

  The phone rang in the corner.

  ‘Better take this,’ Savile said.

  He picked up the receiver and listened for a second while a woman said something down the line. He hung up.

  ‘Listen, gents. I always like to cooperate with the police, I’ve raised a king’s ransom for the Police Benevolent Fund. I’m an honorary police sergeant in the Met. And as for Northern Ireland … I was the one who brought the Radio 1 Roadshow over there. Everybody else was too bloody scared to go, but I insisted. The kids of Belfast need a bit of light and hope too, don’t they? Me, as it happens. They’ll always go after you if you do something good. They’ll always be looking for ulterior motives. They’ll always try and knock you down. Especially the fucking tabloids, ’scuse my fucking French. They love building you up and knocking you down.’

  ‘So, just to be clear, you’ve never heard of any allegations of abuse at the Kinkaid YOI?’

  ‘Absolutely not! And if I did, I’d go straight to the police. Have you got a card?’

  ‘I have,’ I said, giving him a card with my name and office number on it.

  ‘I’ll go straight to you … Now I really have to go, the patients are in need of a bit of cheering-up and I’m the man for the job.’

  Savile went to a small safe he had sitting on top of a mini fridge, opened it and removed several gold chains and gold rings. He put them on.

  ‘Come on! Out! Outen zee!’ he said, and he began herding us towards the door.

  We went outside into the rain, but I wasn’t going to let him get away quite that easily.

  ‘We will be investigating Kinkaid YOI and at some point we may want you to make a formal statement, Mr Savile, so if you wouldn’t mind giving us your phone number and permanent add–’ I began, but he cut me off.

  ‘Don’t take that tone with me, young man. You know where I spent Christmas?’

  ‘The North Pole?’

  ‘The North … Chequers! All right? Carol, Denis, Mark, Maggie and me. Right? I don’t expect to be troubled again, about this or anything else, or you’ll be getting a bloody call,’ he said. He shut the caravan door, locked it and jogged across the car park towards the hospital.

  We stood looking at him until he disappeared into the fog.

  ‘Thoughts, gentlemen?’ I said.

  ‘He’s a bit different with the cameras off, isn’t he?’ Lawson said. ‘He’s a bit of a …’

  ‘Fuckface?’ I suggested.

  ‘Or words to that effect.’

  ‘He didn’t seem particularly worried about the allegations,’ McCrabban said.

  ‘No. He didn’t.’

  I looked at my watch. It was four o’clock now. ‘We’re not too far from Heathrow, it’s just back along the M4. Home, gentlemen?’

  Home, they agreed.

  14: KINKAID

  Heathrow to Belfast Harbour Airport. A landing vector straight down the lough and over the shipyards. As we were on the final approach we could see a riot kicking off along the Falls Road. ‘Look at that,’ Lawson said, as we watched Molotov cocktails arc through the air and crash into riot shields. One of the joys of landing at Belfast.

  We got our bags and grabbed a very disorientated and spooked cat from the ‘Oversized and Special’ luggage area.

  I picked up the Beemer from the short-term car park and drove the lads home, Lawson to Downshire in a fairly nice but boring part of Carrickfergus and Crabbie way up into the country on a scrabble sheep farm beyond Ballyclare.

  ‘Do you want to come in for a cup of tea? The boys miss their Uncle Sean,’ Crabbie said.

  ‘Another time, mate. I’m shattered, gotta get to my bed. My best to Helen, of course. Oh, and give them this, if Helen doesn’t mind,’ I said, fishing three giant Toblerones out of a WH Smith bag.

  ‘Oh no! I forgot to bring them anything from London! They’ll be furious!’ Crabbie said, genuinely upset.

  ‘Say the Toblerones are from you, I won’t mind.’

  Crabbie wrestled with the possibility of telling a white lie for a moment and shook his head. ‘No, I’ll make it up to them. They’ll be delighted to have this from you.’

  ‘All right, you big weirdo, see you tomorrow. Hey, do you want to keep the cat? Could always do with a cat on a farm, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Uh no, Fluffy would kill him. He’s very territorial.’

  ‘All right then.’

  ‘Thanks for the lift, Sean. Get some sleep.’

  ‘I will.’

  But I didn’t go home. I went to the station, gave Jet some milk and plugged in Lily’s Mac, to check that it was still running after the flight. It worked fine. I printed out her memo from the tip line and looked through the other files to see if there was anything the FT had missed. Nothing jumped out at me. Boring finance and business stories – second-string stuff. This tip must have come right out of the blue from God knows who.

  I logged into my computer and went through the server to the England and Wales crime database headquartered at the Met in London. In theory, this database was a godsend for anyone wanting to check on someone’s previous criminal history, but in practice it almost never worked. Anytime Lawson or I had ever tried to access anything the system had crashed or been so slow we had given up.

  But, as I had suspected, at two in the morning it was a different story. I might be the only copper in the United Kingdom looking up someone’s criminal history at this time.

  The someone was Jimmy Savile, but, if the computer was to be believed, he was as clean as a whistle. No arrests, no pending investigations anywhere in England and Wales. He looked and acted creepy as hell, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was guilty of anything …

  I shut off the computer and yawned.

  No point going home now. ‘If you’re going to take a shit somewhere, try and do it over at Personnel or Traffic. Everybody hates those bastards,’ I explained to Jet.

  I took my sleeping bag from the filing cabinet, laid it down on my office floor and went to sleep.

  A gentle hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Wha–’

  Sunlight flooding into the room. The smell of coffee. Lawson and McCrabban staring at me as if I were the baby Jesus.

  ‘Sean, we made you some coffee and there’s a Mr Kipling’s French Fancy for breakfast,’ Crabbie said.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  I looked across the office to the Personnel and Pay department where someone was raising hell.

  ‘What’s going on over there?’

  ‘Someone did a shit on Sergeant Dalziel’s desk,’ Lawson said.

  ‘Where’s Jet?’ I asked.

  ‘Curled up over there, on your leather jacket, sleeping,’ Crabbie said.

  ‘That’s a very smart cat that.’

  I told them about Jimmy Savile having a clean criminal record and they weren’t surprised. It was as Phipps said: if he really was spending Christmas with the Thatchers, he’d have been vetted to the moon and back. When you stopped to think about it, it was an absurd allegation.

  I looked out of the window at the castle.

  ‘If Lily was murdered by someone other than Mr Underhill, it was a crime of opportunity,’ I said. ‘If she was murdered because of the investigation she was working on, a smart murderer would want to do three things. One: kill her, to shut her up. Two: burn her notebook. Three: wipe the files from her computer. This hypothetical killer was able to do the first two of those things, but not the third. The murderer saw an opportunity to kill Lily and he took it, but he’s not the Security Services or the Special Branch because he couldn’t get into the Financial Times and get access to her desk.’

  ‘So he’s a private individual,’ Lawson said.

  ‘Or maybe silencing Lily was the important part of it. The allegations themselves don’t mean anything, but a mouthy crusading journalist can wreak a lot of havoc,’ I mused. ‘Lawson, do me a favour, find out who else is on the Board of Trustees of Kinkaid YOI and see
if there’s been any complaints about the institution of any kind in the last five years or so.’

  ‘There won’t have been any complaints in the last five years. I had a wee look in the files this morning. The place is brand new. Only been open since August,’ Lawson said.

  ‘Well, check the complaint logs with the Sex Crimes Unit in Newtownabbey. Oh, and send out a constable to buy a litter box and some Whiskas. Do cats eat Whiskas, or is that just the advertising?’

  ‘They’ll eat Whiskas,’ Crabbie said.

  ‘Good. Get cracking, lads. We’ve a lot of work to do.’

  I shaved with the electric and looked halfway respectable when we arrived at Kinkaid Young Offenders’ Institution, up near the zoo on the Antrim Road, in a nice bit of parkland. A very modern institution indeed. No fences, extensive grounds, a large rectangular building in the Danish style. Lots of ruddy-looking teenagers outside playing football, others chasing each other through a massive climbing frame.

  ‘It’s not quite what I was expecting,’ Crabbie said.

  ‘Easy enough for them to escape if they wanted. There’s no fences,’ Lawson said.

  ‘That’s probably the idea. No fences means anyone can walk off at any time, which encourages a kind of collective responsibility. It’s a very northern European penal approach,’ I said.

  ‘It’s optimistic,’ Crabbie said – a word he only ever used pejoratively.

  We parked the Land Rover and got out. Our presence had excited no interest from the young offenders and we went inside. A sign pointed us to Reception, where we encountered a secretary called Louise.

  ‘We’re here to see Betty Anderson,’ I said. ‘We did call.’

  ‘Oh yes, are you Inspector Duffy?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘She’s waiting for you. I’ll show you right in.’

  She showed us in to Mrs Anderson’s office, which was sleek, minimalist and modern. A computer on a large hardwood table, hardwood floors, swivel chair, CD player, throw rugs, a sofa, a metal bookcase with about a couple of dozen titles (mostly psychology and penology books, by the look of it) and a view down the Antrim Road to Belfast and the lough. It was an office to be coveted.

  Betty Anderson was thirtyish, blonde, with big brown eyes. She was dressed all in pink and consequently bore an uncanny resemblance to Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds.