Risk of Harm

by Lucie Whitehouse

  She’d moved on to Brother Philip – Philip Hatton ‘in real life’, as Jude had put it. Google coughed up seven hits on ‘Philip Hatton Whitley Bay’, but there were only two original posts, the rest just the same newspaper articles on different sites. Both dated from the time of Miriam’s disappearance and quoted him appealing for her to come home or, if someone was holding her, for them to let her go unharmed.

  She’d read the notes she’d scribbled down for him: crisis of faith after M disappeared, felt like a fraud, went abroad to run charity.

  Abroad.

  Google returned more than two million hits for ‘Philip Hatton charity’. She scrolled through several pages’ worth, a lot of them relating to the same good soul who used his passion for marathon bike rides to raise money for cancer charities. The pictures showed an incredibly fit-looking man in skin-tight Lycra but he was forty, absolute tops, likely mid-thirties: surely too young to have been running a church twenty years ago.

  LinkedIn had eighty-plus Philip Hattons and Facebook even more, over half of them abroad – Australia, New Zealand, the US, French Polynesia, for heavens’ sake. She looked at twenty-odd profiles before admitting that it was a needle-and-haystack situation: she had no idea what he looked like, how old he was, where in the world he’d gone. She’d texted Jude: Can I call you? Jude rang her less than a minute later.

  ‘How old was Brother Philip when you knew him?’ she’d asked. If the CCTV did show the killer, could that man – who’d lowered his body so neatly off a roof – really have been a priest twenty years ago?

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jude said. ‘He was an adult-adult, not early twenties, and when you’re a teenager, anyone over twenty-five might as well be forty.’

  ‘But he was between twenty-five and forty, you’re saying, not fifty or sixty?’

  ‘If I had to guess now, I’d probably say early thirties.’

  Well, there was her own prejudice speaking, Robin thought: in her mind, all priest figures were fifty-five and looked like Father Christmas at best, Nigel Farage (ugh) otherwise.

  ‘Is that young, to be a priest?’ she’d asked.

  ‘Not wildly. And it was a church group, like I said, not a church-church.’

  ‘What was it like, then? What was the set-up?’

  ‘It was simple,’ Jude had said after a moment. ‘We didn’t have a church – it was more like … Well, probably the closest thing would be a Quaker Meeting House, in terms of what it looked like. It had been an old community centre, I think, something like that, but he’d renovated it himself, stripped it all back and painted it white. There was a table with a white cloth, a pair of wooden candlesticks. We sat on old wooden school chairs, in a circle. Thinking about it,’ she laughed slightly, ‘it was quite chic. Minimalist.’

  Was that normal? Robin wondered. Did priests usually renovate their own meeting places?

  ‘Your parents can’t always have gone there,’ she said, ‘if he was only in his early thirties?’

  ‘No, none of us did. We used to go to the Catholic church but my parents got frustrated with it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. The priest was old and a bit doddery, I think. I remember his sermons going on and on – Mirry and I used to joke about getting numb bums.’ She’d paused again. ‘I was only ten or eleven at the time, most stuff went on out of my earshot, but I think it really boiled down to him not giving them what they wanted. They wanted a bit of strictness, even fire-and-brimstone. I don’t remember Father O’Brien doing much of that.’

  ‘Do you know how they found Brother Philip?’

  ‘Though the Jessops – they were friends of ours. They had a son, Gavin, who was “troubled”, and Brother Philip was really supportive. He’d met Gavin at this youth group they made him go to, and he’d tried to help him, talking to him, acting as a mediator, you know. It didn’t work, eventually he was arrested for something no one would talk about, probably drug-dealing I reckon now. Brother Philip told the Jessops it wasn’t their fault and Gavin would find his way back to God. They joined his group then recommended it to us.’

  ‘What were the meetings like?’

  ‘Again, simple. We didn’t take the sacrament. Brother Philip gave a long sermon and then there were prayers.’

  ‘The sermons were quite … hard-line, though? Based on what you said about Sodom and Gomorrah, the portrayal of women?’

  ‘It’s funny, I don’t remember it at the beginning – maybe I was too young – but yeah, by the end, definitely. A couple of years ago, Lindsay Harris got in touch again online and we talked about it. The women thing in particular.’

  ‘Did it all come from him?’

  She hesitated, as if weighing something up. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t want to be disloyal but I think it was kind of a consensus among the men that it was a message they didn’t mind.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It was the Nineties,’ she said. ‘Lindsay’s dad was unemployed – they moved to Chester because he got a job – and one of the others was, too, Mr Burdon. There was a lot of unemployment – the old industries had gone, the shipbuilding on Tyneside, all the stuff associated with that, the old order. They probably felt like they needed a bit of bolstering, being told they were still the alpha dog, at least in their own homes.’

  ‘But your dad wasn’t like that, was he?’

  ‘This is what I meant about being disloyal,’ she said. ‘He was a gentle man, community-minded – he’d do anything to help someone out – but impressionable, if that doesn’t sound like a strange thing to say about your own father. Easily led. He wasn’t one of the vociferous ones in the group but he allowed himself – and us – to be part of it; he didn’t stand up and say, hold on, this is a bit harsh.’

  ‘And none of the women did?’

  ‘No. Not that I know of. I don’t think they felt it was their place to.’

  ‘The group broke up three months after Miriam disappeared,’ Robin told Samir, perched on the edge of her chair. She’d been halfway through the story when he’d pointed a finger first at her, then at it: Sit.

  ‘Where did he go, for this charity work?’

  ‘Jude didn’t know. But she rang this other girl from the group, Lindsay, and she asked her mother. She couldn’t remember exactly, but she said he’d gone to work with street children in South America. He’d visited them in Chester before he left, fundraising, and she’d been horrified because he told her the city he was going to had had a huge problem with children living on the street and some people there – including some rumoured to have links to the police – had seen fit to address it by shooting them.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘I know. Which is true, by the way, because with that and “Philip” and “British”, I managed to find a Facebook post from a guy on a gap year who’d volunteered with a charity working with street children in Salvador, Brazil, in 2003, and I think the guy he’s talking about might be Philip Hatton.’

  Samir blew out a long breath then narrowed his eyes. ‘Why do you only think? And even if it is him, why do you think he was responsible for what happened to this girl Miriam?’

  ‘Because,’ Robin said, ‘this charity was founded in the spring of 2000 – May, to be precise – by a British man called John Philips and his seventeen-year-old adopted daughter.’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Salvador was four hours behind the UK so it was still only eight a.m. there when Robin phoned. Her first call went to a machine, the only part of whose high-speed message she caught – just about – was the name of the place where the man she wanted now worked.

  She waited a few minutes then called again, and this time a woman answered. Robin had looked up how to say good morning, as well as ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak Portuguese but I’d like to speak to Luis Abreda,’ but her rendering of it was excruciating. Malia was with her, the call on speakerphone; she caught her eye and grimaced.

  ‘Momento,’ t
he woman said, however, and they heard a tap as the handset went down.

  Thirty seconds later, a man said in accented but excellent English, ‘Good morning, this is Luis Abreda. How can I help?’

  His voice matched the picture she’d seen of him online, full of energy and good humour. A handsome man of about forty-five, he’d been dressed in a leaf-green T-shirt, big smile showing a lot of teeth.

  Robin introduced herself. ‘I’m hoping to talk to you about John Philips.’

  ‘Has something happened to him?’ The man was instantly concerned.

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘I’d like to speak to him about a case I’m working on. You do know John, then?’

  ‘I did some years ago, yes. He was the director of one of the first places I worked here in Salvador. In fact, I helped him set it up.’

  ‘Lugar Seguro?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He sounded surprised.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve done a lot of research to find someone who might be able to help me. I found your name on an old Facebook post, and you’re the only person I’ve traced who worked there at all.’

  ‘Yes, it was only small. Apart from me and our head cook, the rest of the staff were volunteers.’

  ‘You say “was” – it’s not running any more?’ She’d found very little trace of it online but thought perhaps that wasn’t unusual. Though the shelter Abreda currently ran had an impressive multi-page website.

  Luis Abreda laughed a little, as if she’d said something faintly silly. ‘No, it’s not running any more. It closed in 2004.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘He’d done his work there, things were running smoothly. That was his gift, he said, getting things started. He was ready for a new challenge.’

  Robin detected a hint of bitterness underneath the bonhomie. ‘Right. Do you know what the new challenge was?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

  ‘Or where? Did he come back to the UK?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know that, either. His gift wasn’t staying in touch.’

  ‘Do you remember his daughter?’

  ‘Margaret? Yes, of course.’

  ‘She must have been – what, fifteen or sixteen when they arrived in Salvador?’

  ‘A little older – seventeen, I think.’

  ‘If I email you a photograph of her from that time, could you just confirm that we’re talking about the same person?’ She’d cut-and-paste the one from the Newcastle Chronicle’s website.

  ‘Of course,’ he said again.

  ‘Thank you, that would be a big help.’ Robin met Malia’s eye. ‘Mr Abreda, did Margaret have a baby?’

  ‘Baby Hannah,’ he said. ‘Yes, she was born just a few months after they arrived here. My mother could probably tell you exactly when because she was born right there, in the building – my mother was volunteering in the kitchen that day and she helped John deliver her. It all happened very fast, she said,’ he laughed, ‘no time to get to the hospital.’

  I bet, Robin thought. ‘Who was the baby’s father, do you know?’

  He sighed. ‘That’s a sad story.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know it.’

  ‘It wasn’t talked about, of course, but John told me Margaret had been assaulted back in the UK, and Baby Hannah was the result. She was the reason they moved to Brazil: a new start for Margaret, a place where she could feel safe. Un Lugar Seguro not just for the street children here but for her. A safe place.’

  Varan looked up in mock-outrage as Malia pulled a handful of tissues from the box on his desk. ‘Do you really need all those?’

  ‘Good cause,’ she said, taking them to the whiteboard. Standing on tiptoe, she scrubbed out ‘The Gisborne Girl’. Then, marker squeaking, she wrote ‘Hannah’ in letters twice the size, and underlined it.

  Shortly before the afternoon briefing, Robin closed her office door and called Kev. It rang several times before he picked up. ‘Sorry about that, I was just talking to one of the guys on the compactor, had to move.’ He was still moving, his feet crunching across the lot. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Elated, exhausted, baffled, frustrated. You?’

  ‘I’m all right, actually.’

  She laughed. ‘Good. Kev, look, I’m sorry about the weekend.’

  ‘It’s okay, I got your texts yesterday – well, as you know: you replied to my replies.’

  ‘I know, but dinner …’

  ‘It’s okay, Rob.’ There was a finality to the way he said it – end of subject.

  In the background now, she heard the crack of glass then the whine of the engine as one of the huge claws grabbed the next car and lifted it to its fate. She’d asked Kev once how he dealt with the noise day in and day out. ‘I don’t hear it,’ he’d said cheerfully. ‘Unless I listen for it, which I do from time to time. It’s my soundtrack – I’ve been hearing it my whole life.’

  ‘We’ve got a name for the girl at Gisborne’s,’ she said. ‘Well, a first name.’

  ‘That’s great.’ He sounded like he really meant it. ‘You know who she is, then?’

  ‘After a fashion.’

  ‘And how’s your mum doing?’

  She exhaled. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t manage to see her yesterday?’

  ‘No, I did, I just don’t know how she’s doing. I mean, you know my mum: under normal circumstances she never stops moving. Now she’s stuck in that bed surrounded by people on their last legs and they’re still not saying when they’ll let her go.’

  ‘Decided they like her in there, have they?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  From outside in the incident room, she heard a whoop and then clapping. Through the window, she saw Varan make a very uncharacteristic fist and punch the air. ‘Hold on a sec, Kev,’ she said, ‘something’s going on here.’

  She opened her door. ‘Malia?’

  Malia grinned. ‘DI Webster’s got an arrest for Gupta, guv.’

  Webster’s CCTV crew had traced their man on foot all the way to a muscle gym in Ladywood, where they’d shown photographs to the staff, and learned that his name was Lee Donnelly. When they cut the padlock on his locker, they’d discovered a gym bag with a black T-shirt and jeans in, both stiff with blood. From there, it was an easy hop from his membership file to his home address, and from there to his employers in Great Barr. He was a van driver for a company that delivered top-quality meats direct to home consumers. They’d arrested him as he returned to the depot after his rounds.

  ‘Is he one of Ben Tyrell’s mob?’ she’d asked Webster.

  ‘To be confirmed. We’re on that now, scouring the Net and his electronics. The evidence threshold for incitement to murder is so high, though. Even if Donnelly saw the page and got his inspiration from it, it’d be hard to charge Tyrell without corroborating evidence he’d given actual detailed instructions, which, on the basis of what we’ve found on his phone and computer so far, we’re not going to get.’

  ‘So, for Tyrell, it’ll only be Inciting Racial Hatred and Malicious Communications?’

  ‘Still the potential for a nice long sentence,’ he smiled. ‘And Lee Donnelly will get murder, of course, pretty much open and shut.’

  ‘Nice work.’

  ‘Thanks. What you asked, by the way, about Varan and Gupta’s dad – it’s late there, with the time difference, so the guy at the consulate said he’ll wait till the morning, but he’ll ask Mr Gupta if he’d like to speak to him. I’m sure he will – I would, if it was my son.’

  ‘Thank you, Simon.’

  ‘Any time.’

  ‘So now we need to catch our killers,’ she told her team. ‘Both of them. Tark, do you want to start?’

  ‘Sure. As of about an hour ago,’ he said, ‘we’ve got tape that shows Roof Man going down Warwick Street to Moseley Road, where he hangs a right. He crosses Bradford and Cheapside and reaches Highgate Park where,’ he pause
d for dramatic effect, ‘unfortunately, he hops the fence and disappears into the trees.’

  A collective grunt.

  ‘So, next-level challenge,’ said Tark, ‘but we’re up for it.’

  ‘How about the other end?’ Robin asked. ‘Any sign of him or Hannah going in yet?’

  He shook his head. ‘We’re back to the same problem: the CCTV blind spot outside Gisborne’s itself. We’re working on tape from the surrounding streets but going earlier than before, in hour-long tranches. We’re back to six p.m. on the Saturday now.’

  Subtext, left unspoken so as not to be completely depressing: and still nothing. ‘Right. How about Lara Meikle?’

  ‘Tape of that guy turning on to Leopold Street but that’s it. Most of us are on Roof Man.’

  ‘Okay. Malia?’

  ‘Northumbria are sending the old case files,’ she said, ‘and I’ve also spoken to DI MacDonald there about our man “Brother” Philip aka Philip Hatton aka John Philips. Obviously we’re all wondering why he wasn’t scrutinized back then, and the answer is, he was: they interviewed him several times. DI MacDonald told me there was strong suspicion around the whole of the church group – all the men were interviewed more than once. But “Brother Philip” had a solid alibi for the day of Miriam’s disappearance and no one had ever suspected anything odd about his relationship with her.’

  ‘Did no one think the priest thing was weird?’ said Niall. ‘I mean, this God-squad he’d set up in a community centre?’

  ‘They did think it was weird,’ said Malia, ‘hence the scrutiny. But no one who was actually involved with it said it was weird, and there was no reason to think “Brother Philip” was anything other than a slightly unorthodox God-squadder who liked the sound of his own voice.’

  ‘Plenty of those about, God knows. Ha.’

  Robin gave him a watch-it look. ‘He had no police record, no one had ever raised any red flags about him. To all appearances, he was a good guy.’

  She made it home to Mary Street in time to watch the end of the ten o’clock news with Lennie, and the Midlands Today bulletin afterwards. She’d expected Webster to do the interview about Lee Donnelly’s arrest but instead, full dress uniform glinting off the camera like a bureaucratic disco ball, Kilmartin appeared.