‘We had the police round day an’ night. Robbin’, dealin’, burglary, possession. Gets to the point where my dad kicks him out for good.’
As a character reference it was pretty damning. ‘How long ago?’
She watched the lighter, took a breath and calculated. ‘Six years. He was fifteen, I was twelve.’ Which made her eighteen now – and the mother of two.
‘Damien was getting well out of order. And there was the little ones: I’ve twin sisters. And me mam – she’s had enough of him.’
There was a clunking sound, a hiss of static; the light went off and the sound of the telly cut out. The toddler began to cry.
‘All right, babes,’ Chloe yelled out, ‘just the lecky. We’ll go to the shop in a bit, yeah?’ She turned to me, her face flat and drained of emotion. ‘Fiver doesn’t last five minutes in this thing.’
‘They reckon it’s the most expensive way to pay,’ I said.
‘They’re right there, innit.’
‘So Damien was already well known to the police?’ I said. ‘And did he get into more trouble?’
‘All the time, ’cos of the drugs. But low level, you know? Least till last year but by then he was using a lot of coke and it wasn’t doing him any good. If he could only have kicked that . . .’ She left the sentence unfinished.
‘And when he confessed to the murder?’ I asked her.
She shook her head. ‘I din’t believe it. He’s not a hard man. He’s never been done for assault, let alone aggravated.’ I knew the jargon – ‘aggravated’ meant a weapon was involved. ‘Damien never got into fights. Too busy fighting himself.’
‘How d’you mean?’
She picked up the lighter and tapped it against her palm. ‘He’s his own worst enemy. He lives in some fairy land half the time, innit. Living it large, showing off, giving it the gab, kidding himself that he’s the man and things are fine. People buy into it, then they find out it’s make-believe and they get mad. Next thing he’s a headcase, crying like a baby and it’s the end of the world. He’s got mental problems.’ She glanced across at me. ‘He reckons the drugs help, but they just make it worse.’
I was impressed at the sketch she conjured up. She’d obviously thought about her brother, considered his behaviour and her analysis was unflinching.
‘Why would he confess if he hadn’t done it?’
She rolled the wheel on the lighter; the flint sparked but no flame caught.
‘I don’t . . .’ She broke off, considering how to explain it to me. ‘It’s just the sort of thing he’d do.’
‘But it must have been plausible for the police, for the judge, to accept his plea.’
She locked eyes with me, an edge of resentment hardening hers. ‘He’s a good liar,’ she said baldly. ‘That’s what I’m sayin’, innit. He mixes it up: what’s true, what’s not.’
‘So you never believed it, not even when he was sentenced?’
‘No way.’ Her mouth flattened a firm line.
‘And since?’
‘I’m the only one who visits,’ she said. ‘The rest, they’ve no time for him. Mostly we talk about other stuff but then one day, he’s been in about a month, he’s all quiet and he says he didn’t kill Mr Carter and it’s a mistake and he only confessed because he was scared and he was rattling . . .’
‘Rattling?’ What did she mean?
‘Withdrawal. So he said yeah he done it and then it was hard to go back.’
I must have seemed sceptical because she sat back and looked away in a gesture of thinly veiled frustration. ‘Don’t take my word,’ she said, ‘go see him.’
‘I will. Chloe, you wrote to Libby Hill – what about the Carter family?’
‘Yeah, them an’ all. I went to the lawyer but she was no use. Just said I was wasting my time and there was no new evidence.’
‘Did the Carters get in touch?’
‘Nah.’ She shook her head, resignation on her face. ‘Guess they don’t wanna know.’
We swapped details so she could arrange to get me on the list for a prison visit and the toddler wandered into the kitchen and climbed on to Chloe’s lap. The child’s face was flushed, her eyes large and drowsy. She laid her head against her mother’s chest. Chloe picked a soother out of the raffia tray on the table, sucked it clean and slipped it in the little girl’s mouth. ‘There y’are.’
‘Nap time.’ I smiled.
‘Thank God,’ said Chloe. ‘She’s been up since four – teething.’
‘I can see myself out.’ I got to my feet.
She nodded. ‘When you see him, don’t let him muck you about. He’s a bit ADHD, you know.’ Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: unable to concentrate, unable to sit still, disruptive; an increasing diagnosis among both kids and adults, many of whom were tranquilized to settle their behaviour. It was common knowledge that food additives played a part; I wondered what they fed people like Damien in prison.
‘Just don’t let him arse you about,’ she said.
I smiled. ‘OK, I’ll do my best.’
I wondered if Damien Beswick had any idea what Chloe was trying to do for him. Against all the odds, knowing his flaws, she was sticking up for him, believing in him. It seemed she was the only person in the world who did. Whether that belief was justified was a completely different matter. And it was my job to start snooping around and find out.
FIVE
Strangeways is just north of the city centre, a couple of minutes’ drive from Victoria train station. The tall watchtower is Italianate in style, a landmark I could see as I drove closer. It’s a familiar feature of the city skyline. The building is Victorian Gothic – red and cream brick, and the main entrance boasts two rounded towers and steeply pitched roofs. The prison was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, the same man who had done Manchester’s town hall. Strangeways is a panopticon design: the wings run off from the central vantage point – like spokes from a wheel.
They don’t actually call it Strangeways any more; it was renamed HMP Manchester in the wake of the riots that destroyed most of the original buildings. The worst riots in the history of the penal system. On April Fool’s Day, 1990 it all kicked off. A group of prisoners had decided to accelerate their protest against inhuman conditions: the rotten food, men held three to a cell (cells twelve foot by eight and built for one), the degrading business of slopping out, the lack of visits, of free association, the racism and brutality of many guards. The ringleader, Paul Taylor, spoke after Sunday morning’s chapel service and when guards intervened, the prisoners got hold of some keys. Taylor escorted the chaplain to safety and then declared it was time for some free association. It lasted for twenty-five days. The leaders of the riot spent much of the time up on the high rooftops, communicating with the press and waving clenched fists for the photographers on board the helicopters swooping above them. Iconic images.
I remember the sense of dread and panic as the early reports came in: stories of prisoners being torn apart, of twenty dead, of people burnt alive, of hundreds of inmates breaking into the segregation unit where the paedophiles and informers were held, hauling them into kangaroo courts where summary justice was doled out, victims castrated and dismembered in orgies of operatic violence. The men on the roof had hung out a home-made banner: a sheet with the words No Dead daubed on it. Among the clamour of moral outrage and lurid speculation one or two more measured accounts were heard; the local journalists built up a rapport with the protesters and made every effort to give an accurate account of events. There was great sympathy for the prisoners’ cause in the city and beyond. And the eventual truth was that two men had died. Both in hospital, not in the prison: a prison warder who had suffered a heart attack and a man on remand for sex offences who had been beaten. No one ever stood trial in either case. The prison was effectively destroyed and when it was rebuilt along with the new name there was a change in conditions.
The visitors’ centre is a new building close to the car park up the hill near the old Bodd
ington’s brewery. At the gate I signed in, showing my passport as proof of identity. I left my bag and phone in a locker, put my paper and pen in a tray for examination and went through the metal detectors. A prison officer escorted me through two sets of locked gates and into the centre.
No matter how many times I visit prison, I never get used to the particular atmosphere. It’s a combination of oppressive loneliness and boredom tinged with hopelessness and the threat of violence, all covered in a thin veneer of normality. A third of men inside have serious mental health problems, a quarter are drug dependent, a third alcoholics, illiteracy is rife and most of them come from broken homes. Lock a load of people like that up and the vibe is never going to be great.
As mine was an official rather than a social visit I could meet Damien Beswick in one of the small rooms set aside for such encounters. The prison officer left me there while he went to fetch Damien. When he brought him in, I caught the tail end of a lecture. The guard sounded weary, as if he’d been repeating something incessantly.
‘Any fun and games and you lose your privileges. Governor’s report.’
‘I know,’ Damien replied.
‘I’ll be right outside,’ the prison officer told me.
Damien Beswick shared the same pale skin as his sister and the freckles too, but his were darker and he had collar-length black hair, thick sideburns and bushy eyebrows. These combined to give him a simian look, an impression strengthened by his physical restlessness. Even as he took his seat, he was shuffling about, fingers tapping on the table, eyes glancing this way and that. I went to shake hands and he gripped mine then quickly let go.
‘Chloe told you I was coming?’
‘She said Mr Carter’s girlfriend asked you to come,’ he replied. ‘You bring anything with you?’ His face was hungry. ‘It’s tight in here,’ he went on, ‘people steal your baccy—’
‘Sorry, no.’ I cut him off. ‘But I’ll ask Chloe for you.’ Tobacco remained the most popular currency inside.
There was a flash of disappointment on his face. He drummed his feet on the floor, then twisted in the chair. ‘I didn’t do it,’ he said rapidly. ‘I never killed him.’
‘But you confessed.’
‘Yeah, but I was . . . Look, they caught me with his cards. I’d been there, at the house, couldn’t say I hadn’t, but that was after. He was already . . . you know.’ He looked about, cast his eyes up to the ceiling. Why so coy?
‘How do you know?’ I asked him.
‘What?’ Mouth slack, startled by the question.
‘How do you know he was dead?’ I said.
He sighed and shook his head. ‘It’s not easy, talking about it.’ Then his mood shifted; he was suddenly lively. ‘You ever seen a dead person?’ Like an excited schoolboy, eyes alight.
‘Yes. But we’re not talking about me.’
‘You don’t believe me,’ he protested. He pushed back in his chair as if hitting out at it.
‘I haven’t exactly got a lot to go on yet.’
‘This guy on D wing,’ he said, ‘he’s the same – got fitted up. Was his auntie that died and he was gonna get the house and everything so the police, they—’
I remembered Chloe’s warning: Don’t let him arse you about. ‘Let’s stick to your story, Damien. Tell me what happened, everything you can remember, from the beginning. How did you get to Thornsby? Why were you there?’
‘You see that?’ He held his hand out. It was shaking. ‘Takes for ever to see the doctor. I need something to calm me down. You can’t just cut off a supply like that; it’s not right.’ It was exasperating: he was avoiding my questions, wanted to talk about his drug problem. We were wasting time.
‘Did you get the bus?’
‘They chucked me off at Thornsby. It was dark already. It was freezing. I’d been over in Sheffield. I just needed to get some readies, swear on my mother’s grave.’
‘Dead, is she?’
He grinned, caught out. His face lit up, his teeth were white and even, his smile broad. It transformed him. Then his expression clouded. ‘Might as well be,’ he muttered.
‘The cottage . . .’ I prompted him.
‘There’s a car outside but no lights on in the house, nothing. That’s asking for it. When I try the door, it’s not even locked. Inside, I can’t see a thing. I use my lighter.’ Damien looked down. ‘He’s there, just lying there, blood on the floor.’
‘Did you touch him?’ I could hear doors clanging in the prison somewhere and sporadic shouts.
‘Yeah, his pockets. Nothing. Then I saw his wallet on the counter. I took it, legged it. That’s all.’
‘Then what?’
‘Waited for the bus. They’re every half hour.’
He seemed callous, indifferent.
‘And you didn’t tell anyone? Didn’t think to report it?’
‘Wouldn’t have helped him,’ he said sullenly.
How did he know? I resisted the urge to pursue this, intent on keeping him on track.
‘Two weeks later, the police picked you up.’
‘Yeah. I went “no comment” for long enough, but they’re talking about me being at the scene and how much easier it’ll go if I give them something. They know I’m a user and they’ve filled in the medical sheet. I need something. If I say yes, they’ll fix me up.’
It beggared belief. Preventing this sort of coercion had been at the heart of changes to police procedure. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act laid out clear guidelines for every aspect of criminal investigation. The police deal with drug users a great deal and under PACE rules would be well aware of the danger of obtaining a confession from an addict who was suffering withdrawal symptoms, not least because it would be regarded as unsafe by the Crown Prosecution Service. And that’s not what you want in a murder case.
‘Did the officers interviewing you actually say that?’
He scowled. ‘I don’t remember. But they didn’t need to: I knew the score.’ A whine of defensiveness. So perhaps things hadn’t gone down as he was claiming.
‘Had you seen a doctor?’ I said.
‘Custody nurse.’ He nodded. So they had followed procedure – he had been given a medical assessment. ‘I was using coke and she wouldn’t give me anything. I had to see the doctor first and they weren’t there till later.’
‘But you knew you would see a doctor?’ I was still trying to untangle what he was saying – whether he had been coerced or not.
‘And you know what he said?’ Damien was fired up, sitting up straighter in his chair, chin thrust towards me. ‘That they didn’t prescribe for cocaine withdrawal. If I’d been a junkie I’d have got a methadone script. But ’cos it’s coke they just let you suffer. That is well bad, man.’
There was little to be gained from letting him pick over his outrage at the force’s agreed drug abuse policies. So I asked him about later events. ‘Your confession – you didn’t retract it until after you were imprisoned. You stuck by it at court, when you entered your plea and for sentencing. Why?’
‘I didn’t think anyone would believe me,’ he said quickly. Then he rubbed at his face with his hands and cleared his throat. He averted his gaze. ‘I can’t do time,’ he spoke quietly, ‘it’s doing my head in.’ I suddenly saw a different side to the man: sombre, honest, vulnerable. I wondered whether that was the reason for his volte-face. Not that he was innocent but that it was the only way he could see to get out of jail.
Just as quickly his demeanour switched again: edgy, salacious, a glitter in his eyes. ‘There’s a ghost, you know, on my wing, B wing, where the condemned cell was. I’ve seen him. Just before dawn. A man in a dark suit and he’s carrying a briefcase. The air goes cold. They say it’s John Ellis; he was the hangman, but it drove him mad and he killed himself – slit his own throat.’ He gloried in the details.
I took a breath. ‘Damien—’
‘I’ve done the short rehab course,’ he said, ‘but in here.’ He shrugged. ‘You could come again,
bring us something.’
Asking me for drugs! Shock must have registered on my face because he grinned. ‘Joke.’ That angel smile. ‘Some chocolate.’
‘Is there anything else you remember? Any other details?’
He shrugged. ‘What like?’
Did he expect me to supply them? ‘What you’ve told me is all a bit general, a bit vague,’ I said.
‘You saying I’m lying?’
‘You just don’t seem to remember very much.’
‘I was in a mess,’ he protested, ‘and something like that, it shakes you up. I remember the smell.’ He shuddered. ‘Made me sick, you know. I threw up by the gate.’
‘Anything else?’
He shook his head.
‘Did you see anyone? Anyone see you?’
Another shake of the head, then he stopped and his eyes brightened. ‘There was this guy, coming down the hill when I was going up from the bus. Maybe he done it?’
‘Can you describe him?’
A shrug. ‘It was dark.’
‘Young, old, fat, thin?’
‘Dunno,’ he said lamely. ‘It was freezing, I wasn’t hanging about, you know.’ He shuffled in his chair. ‘You seen that Most Haunted on the telly? They want to come in here. Hah! No way they’ll get through the night.’ He was off again, talking trivia instead of pleading his case.
I gathered together my papers.
‘You coming again?’
‘I don’t know.’ I made eye contact.
He looked away, his jaw working, rocking back in his chair. ‘You going to talk to my lawyer?’
I looked across; he slid his eyes to meet mine. ‘And say what?’ I asked him.
I came away feeling even more bemused about Damien Beswick than before I’d met him. His account of events was patchy and paltry. His explanation as to why he’d admitted to the crime was half-baked. I’d no idea what I was going to tell Libby.
SIX
The wind had got up, gusts shaking the trees and pushing banks of slate-grey clouds across the sky. I could smell the peaty aroma of leaf mould amid the petrol fumes and a trace of spice and onion, which made my mouth water, from one of the takeaways on the main road below the prison.
Crying Out Loud Page 4
