Clear My Name

by Paula Daly

  Clear My Name

  Paula Daly

  Contents

  Now

  Now

  Four Years Ago

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Four Years Ago

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Five Years Ago

  Now

  Four Years Ago

  Now

  Four Years Ago

  Four Years Ago

  Now

  Four Years Ago

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Four Years Ago

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Four Years Ago

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Four Years Ago

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Now

  Five Months Later

  Four Years Ago

  Now

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Paula Daly is the critically acclaimed author of six novels. She has been shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Crime Novel of the Year award, and her books have been developed for the new ITV television series Deep Water, starring Anna Friel. She was born in Lancashire and lives in the Lake District with her husband, three children and whippet, Skippy.

  Also by Paula Daly

  Just What Kind of Mother Are You?

  Keep Your Friends Close

  No Remorse (digital short)

  The Mistake I Made

  The Trophy Child

  Open Your Eyes

  For my family, with love

  Now

  TESS GILROY CRADLES her coffee cup in her hands and watches the small television on the kitchen counter. This morning, the screen is filled with a familiar face. It’s a young face. A young man. And he is speaking directly to camera. He has tears in his eyes and his hands are shaking as he reads from a sheet of paper – it’s a prepared statement.

  The camera pans out and now the court is visible in the background. Surrounding the man is his family. His mother is at his side, weeping silently, and she looks as if she’s had something pulled from her. This whole process has been hardest on her, Tess thinks. It’s as if she’s lost something along the way, something essential and life-giving.

  ‘It has been a living nightmare, not just for me, but my entire family. If it wasn’t for their support—’ The young man breaks off, overcome, unable to read for a moment. ‘If it wasn’t for their support,’ he continues, ‘and the tireless work of Tess Gilroy, as well as the people at Innocence UK, I would not be standing here now.’

  Tess takes a swallow of her coffee. She glances at the clock and realizes she should already have her coat on by now, but she continues to watch. The camera pans left and it’s now that Tess sees herself on screen: head down, avoiding, camera-shy as ever, as his voice continues to be heard over the image. ‘I’d like to put this behind me and would ask that my family and I are afforded some privacy as we try to move forward with our lives.’

  Then we’re back to the newsreader in the studio. ‘Warren Douglas,’ the newsreader says, ‘who was freed from prison yesterday, after his sentence for rape was overturned.’

  Tess takes this as her cue to leave.

  She pulls on her coat, picks up her briefcase as well as the stack of envelopes ready for posting, and she’s on her way.

  Tess likes this little town. She lived here before – way, way back – when she was straight out of college. She shared a one-bedroom flat above the betting shop with a Bangladeshi girl. The girl has since moved to New Zealand – according to Facebook anyway – and the betting shop is long gone too. Tess likes it when she knows her way around a town; she likes it when she knows how the one-way system works, the filter lane at the traffic lights. This time, Tess managed to move house in four trips, her car stuffed to bursting with heavy-duty black bags, which has to be some kind of record. Perhaps she’s been losing belongings along the way? she muses. Tess imagines her clothes, dotted in ditches, strewn along the highways and byways of England’s northwest. She imagines her underwear caught in hedgerows, her scarves fluttering at the tops of trees.

  Tess has spent most of her adult life moving from small northern town to small northern town, where she finds, despite the borderline poverty, the people to be unwaveringly friendly, the old men comedic, and the rents reasonable. She also never tires of being addressed as ‘love’ by complete strangers.

  She has only been at her current address for a few days but already her clothes hang neatly in the wardrobe, the freezer is fully stocked with food, and her home office is organized just the way she likes it. She has even managed to rig up the bird-feeding station in the back yard to see the local wild birds through the late-autumn lean stretch, and she gets a small thrill from knowing she is providing them with a new feed source. This is simultaneously counterbalanced, however, by a feeling of remorse and regret, as removing the feed source from her previous address means those poor birds are now going without.

  She heads down the hill now towards town. She takes it steady, keeping in second gear, as a heavy snowfall two days ago means the West Pennine Moors are flooding the roads with their meltwaters. She checks her watch again and chides herself for remaining at home for the extra five minutes watching Warren give his statement. How did it feel to sleep in his own bed last night? she wonders. Good, she hopes. It can be strange, but people do miss different things. For most, it’s their family they miss, rather than freedom, and it can come as quite a shock when the people they’ve spent their lives bickering with turn out to be the ones they find themselves aching to see.

  There’s a parking space a little further along from the post office and Tess grabs it while she can. The pavements are empty of pedestrians, the weather putting people off from venturing out, she presumes, so Tess is optimistic of getting back on the road fast and reckons an hour is probably enough time in which to make it to Manchester city centre for the meeting. But when she pushes open the post office doors, she whispers an emphatic ‘Fuck’ under her breath, because the place is filled to the brim with pensioners: all chatting amiably, all with surely not much on in the way of work today.

  Tess tries to swallow down her frustration. Tells herself to be patient and a little more generous as she, too, will be old eventually. And she can understand how leaving the house early, heading out, can give a person’s day purpose and structure … perhaps even stave off the loneliness and isolation the elderly can be so susceptible to.

  When it’s her turn to be served, when the room has completely emptied of bodies, Tess approaches the glass wall which separates the postmaster from the communal space and places a Jiffy bag on the weighing scales.

  ‘I’d like to send this first class, please, it doesn’t need to be signed for … and can I collect the forwarded mail from my last address you’ve been holding for me? It’s in the name of Tess Gilroy.’

  Tess looks up at the postmaster expectantly.

  No response.

  She waits. But there is nothing. No response from him at all.

  Tess feels mildly uncomfortable as she examines the postmaster’s blank face. He’s not young, nearer to seventy than sixty, and now that she looks more closely, his skin does have a clammy pallor to it. ‘Are you OK?’ she asks.

  Again, there is no reply, and Tess glances behind to see if anyone else has entered the post office in the time she’s been engaged.

&
nbsp; She’s alone.

  ‘Do you want me to call someone for you? Get you some help?’ she asks.

  And it’s only when she’s surveying the contours of his face again, for signs of palsy, a stroke, that he raises his right hand slightly and gestures to a sign, high on the wall, over to Tess’s left.

  The sign reads: ‘Wait behind white line until called’.

  Tess looks behind her and sees the white line painted on the floor.

  She looks back to the postmaster and his face is still without expression, and so, dutifully, she picks up her Jiffy bag and returns to the queuing area, making sure the rounded toes of her boots are positioned neatly behind the white line.

  Once there, the postmaster calls out, ‘Good morning!’ and beckons for Tess to approach the glass. She does this and suddenly he’s all smiles. He says, brightly, ‘And what can I do for you today?’

  Tess just looks at him.

  Outside, Tess is holding an envelope in her hand. It has her name on it; it’s part of the batch forwarded on from her previous address. She recognizes the sender instantly and toys with the idea of putting it straight into the nearest bin, but she can’t quite bring herself to do it this time, for a reason she doesn’t comprehend. Instead, she takes a pen from her handbag and scores through the lettering, before writing ‘NOT KNOWN AT THIS ADDRESS’ across the front. Then she drops it into the post box with the rest of her outgoing mail.

  Now

  WHEN SHE JOINS the motorway, Tess heads south, not encountering any heavy traffic until the M60, where each branch of the network converges. From then on, she drives at a stop start, stop start, until finally she reaches the car park on Bridge Street in the city centre. There is no snow here. Manchester rarely gets snow because of the urban warming effect and Tess can perform a kind of half-run, half-walk, whilst laden with her briefcase, case files and handbag, without risking serious injury.

  She clatters into the conference room at exactly 10.04 a.m. and is quietly pleased with herself as Clive hasn’t yet got his coat off.

  Tom Robinson has his laptop fired up and is chomping at the bit, so Tess clears her throat. ‘Before you get started,’ she says quickly, addressing the room, ‘can I just congratulate everyone on a job well done? I spoke to Warren last night, when he’d got himself settled at home, and he’s doing well. Thank you, thank you again … Over to you, Tom …?’ she prompts.

  Tom stands. He is early thirties, slim and geeky-cool. Tess has a soft spot for him, not least because he’s confided in her over the years when his relationships have begun to sour. Once, he told Tess he thought of her as a mother figure, and Tess didn’t know whether to be flattered or not. She is only forty-five after all, eleven years older than Tom, but she reminded herself that a lot of men remain in adolescence until well into their thirties now, or at least that’s what she’s been told.

  Tom pushes his glasses into place and smiles at his audience. They are all professionals, all – with the exception of Tess – volunteering their time and expertise for free. Together they make up the advisory panel of Innocence UK. It’s a charitable organization which relies solely on private donations. Its purpose? To overturn wrongful convictions.

  The panel comes together for a few hours once or twice a month, or as the case necessitates. Tess is the only full-time employee, and the only person in the room who is paid by the charity. The rest provide advice and guidance, and serve as a kind of back-up for Tess, which allows her to get on with the nuts-and-bolts work of investigating – and, with any luck, overturning – alleged miscarriages of justice, unhindered.

  Before working at Innocence UK, Tess was a probation officer. It was a job she enjoyed; something she could do that made a difference, she liked to think. For the most part, Tess forged good relationships with her clients and their reoffending rates were substantially lower than the national average. But it was the ones who Tess knew were never guilty in the first place that kept her awake at night. The ones who’d been let down by the system. And it was because of those clients that Tess ended up here.

  ‘Good morning, everyone,’ Tom says. He’s a solicitor and has volunteered at Innocence UK for around six years. It’s his job to sift through the many enquiries that come their way, decide which cases have merit, and present them. The team will then take a vote, agreeing which they will investigate next, and this case will be passed on to Tess. It’s Tess’s job to coordinate the investigation and examine the crucial points of the prosecution’s case, retesting their theories and so forth, to see if they still hold up.

  As well as Tom and Tess, the rest of team is comprised of:

  Vanessa Waring – Home Office pathologist

  Chris Pownall – forensic scientist (special interest in fibre analysis)

  Dr Fran Adler – Professor of Forensic Science at Manchester University (special interest in blood)

  Clive Earle – ex-Detective Inspector with West Yorkshire Police. Pensioned off after fracturing two vertebrae on a job, and now advises Innocence UK on all matters relating to the police.

  ‘If I can start by introducing you all to Avril Hughes,’ Tom says, and Tess’s eyes flick to the young woman to Tom’s immediate right, who she assumes is here to take the minutes. Tom brings in a temp sometimes at the beginning of a difficult case to document the initial stages. ‘Avril will be joining us as another full-time member of the team and will start by shadowing Tess. At least for the first couple of months anyway, or until she’s learned the ropes.’

  Tess frowns.

  She looks directly at Tom and frowns again.

  Tom won’t meet her eye, however, and so she looks at Clive. Clive is now smiling at her broadly, raising his eyebrows, as if finding Tom’s disclosure the funniest thing he’s heard all week.

  Frantically, Tess begins scrolling through the emails on her phone. Has Tom informed her of this and she failed to see his message? Surely he wouldn’t dump someone on her without asking first? Tom wouldn’t do that. Not out of nowhere. Tom knows Tess works alone. Has always worked alone.

  ‘I’m new to this,’ Avril is saying to the group. Her voice is soft and breathy-sounding and Tess looks up from her phone to examine her briefly. Avril appears to be around twenty-four, twenty-five at the most, but her plump frame has rendered her features childlike. She has round, rosy cheeks and big, trusting eyes. Apart from the high colour of her cheeks, though, the rest of her skin is beyond pale. And her bobbed hair is nearly black. Tess thinks Avril is like a lovely, plus-sized Snow White, but she’s not at all right for this job, she decides instantly. She has no sharp edges.

  ‘I don’t have any special skills as such pertaining to this type of employment,’ Avril continues, ‘so I’m just going to have to try and learn from Tess, and hopefully I’ll—’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Tom cuts her off. ‘Avril’ – he turns to the group – ‘comes to us highly recommended. She has spent her time as a legal secretary, where she assisted some of the area’s leading figures in family law. So she is not completely unfamiliar with our world … Avril, welcome,’ he says, warmly. ‘Now, shall we get to it?’

  Tess opens her mouth to say something and then closes it again.

  She can find no message from Tom on her phone.

  ‘Right,’ Tom says, still avoiding Tess’s glare, ‘as ever, we’re indebted to you all for giving up your time and services, et cetera … We have three new cases to consider today. The first is another from the balls-up that was Operation Swallowtail. Like many of the others, Terry Carmichael’s credit card was used to purchase indecent images of children online. There were never any images found on his own computer, but he’s been serving a three-year sentence for possession of child pornography, and it’s the usual scenario: his family have disowned him, his kids won’t see him, he’s lost everything … He’s eager to clear his name before his release, try and build bridges and so forth.’

  ‘How many of these Swallowtail cases have we covered now?’ asks Tess.

  Tom chec
ks his notes. ‘This would be the fourth.’

  ‘And how many suicides, to date, as a result of Operation Swallowtail?’

  ‘Seven,’ he replies.

  ‘Is Terry Carmichael a suicide risk?’ she asks.

  ‘Hard to say. If I had to call it, I’d say no. But you know how it is. Often it’s when they get out that the wheels really fall off.’

  Tess considers this.

  ‘Next up is Ryan Green,’ says Tom. ‘He was convicted of rape but claims he wasn’t in the right county at the time. He was four hundred miles away in Aberdeen. There’s a good case for lab cross-contamination with this one. Especially with all the lab blunders we’ve heard about of late. Might be good timing, what with the press jumping all over the forensic screw-ups?’

  ‘Who did he rape?’ asks Clive.

  ‘Allegedly, a young woman. A twenty-two-year-old on a night out. She was grabbed from behind as she walked home.’

  Tess glances around the table. Everyone is taking notes. She’ll be surprised if they vote for Ryan, as the last case – Warren Douglas – was a rape case too, and Tom likes to mix things up a bit. He has to answer to the charity’s board members, and they don’t like it if the team are seen to be favouring one type of miscarriage of justice case over another.

  ‘The last,’ Tom says, ‘is Carrie Kamara. She was imprisoned for murdering her husband’s lover. She’s served three years of a fifteen-year sentence. This one was brought to my attention by her barrister.’

  ‘Her own barrister?’ asks Clive, sceptical.

  And Tom replies, ‘I know, right? Like, when does that ever happen? He wrote to me quite adamant she’s innocent. He really wants us to take a look. She’s not doing too well inside apparently. Her daughter’s very supportive; I’ve spoken to her on the phone – Mia – she’s articulate, cooperative, very sincere. She’s not typical of the usual family members we find ourselves dealing with. She’s in … hang on—’ Tom clicks his trackpad a couple of times. ‘She lives in Morecambe … Isn’t that where you’re from originally, Tess?’