Behind Dead Eyes

by Howard Linskey

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ the man whined, ‘but I didn’t do anything with the stuff.’

  ‘The “stuff”?’ queried Bradshaw. ‘Oh, you mean the highly incriminating items you assembled that could only be used for a robbery or a rape?’ Bradshaw bent low so that his face was opposite the man’s and their eyes were level. ‘I’m assuming the latter. And you say you didn’t do anything?’

  ‘I never …’ the man began but he soon broke down into snivelling tears.

  ‘You never what? Used them? Doesn’t matter. The fact that you have them in your possession is enough to prove intent, as is the way you tried to assault a woman …’

  ‘I didn’t assault her,’ he protested weakly.

  ‘Only because she gave you the kicking of your sad and lonely life.’ Bradshaw laughed grimly. ‘I have to say, Colin, you can’t half pick them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have hurt her.’

  ‘No, course not, you just wanted to play with that pathetic thing of yours right in front of her. Normally I might have believed that was all you were capable of, but the items in your car tell me otherwise. I reckon you had something bigger in mind and it involved taking a woman. I think you’ve been fantasising about this for a while, building up to it for a long time. I think you lost control out there and deviated from your original plan, which was to find the right woman and kidnap her. That’s ten years too, by the way,’ the man looked even more alarmed, ‘at least.’

  ‘I can’t go to prison. I can’t. I’ll die in there.’

  ‘Possibly,’ he told the terrified man, ‘or maybe someone will protect you, make you their boy.’ Avery was so scared by that suggestion he had to swiftly bring his own legs together.

  ‘Don’t you dare piss on this floor,’ Bradshaw ordered. ‘Now, you might not have used the items in your bag before but I’ll bet you’ve done lots of other stuff. It’s not your first time down Sha— down Lonely Lane, is it,’ he corrected himself just in time, ‘so if you cop for everything you have done I will tell the judge personally that you cooperated with us and made a full confession. If you don’t, we’ll make this all formal and we’ll charge with you with every rape or attempted rape committed down there in the past five years.’

  Now the man was almost hysterical and he began to weep. ‘I’m not a rapist.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ admitted Bradshaw, ‘but you want to be. That much is obvious.’

  ‘It’s like you said,’ he wailed, ‘it’s all just a fantasy.’ Snot was dripping from his nose now. ‘I’d never have done anything, honest I wouldn’t,’ and Bradshaw had never seen a man look so weak and broken all at once. This pathetic, podgy guy was probably not capable of anything more than publicly playing with himself but Bradshaw wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. He had to be sure.

  ‘How many women have you groped down there, Colin?’

  ‘None,’ and he shook his head violently, ‘honest.’

  ‘How many have you tried to rape?’

  ‘I haven’t tried to rape anybody.’ The words were distorted by his sobbing.

  ‘How many have you actually raped then?’

  ‘None. You have to believe me.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Bradshaw told him, ‘I don’t have to believe you at all and no one else will.’

  ‘I never raped anybody.’ His body was heaving now with the sobs, so every few words he had to take a huge breath to keep going. ‘I’ve never … raped a woman … I’ve never had a woman.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m … a … virgin.’ Colin Avery broke down then and sobbed uncontrollably.

  As Bradshaw watched the man he began to wonder if he had ever seen such a pathetic specimen, but they’d search his home anyway just to be sure. They’d take his photograph and show it to every woman who’d been groped or chased within a five-mile radius of Lonely Lane to see if anybody recognised him, but Bradshaw guessed they would not. He probably lived in a complete fantasy world and there would likely be no physical evidence linking him to any earlier crimes. The most they were going to get here would be possession of a deadly weapon and gross indecency, and the massive beating he took would probably lessen his sentence. The pervert would probably walk free. He might even be awarded compensation. Bradshaw decided Colin Avery deserved to suffer a little more first.

  ‘I reckon I can put you in the frame for at least three rapes,’ and then almost as an afterthought he said, ‘and one murder.’

  The man suddenly stopped sobbing then and looked up into Bradshaw’s eyes. ‘That wasn’t me.’

  ‘What wasn’t?’ Bradshaw was immediately attentive now.

  ‘The woman who was killed,’ said Avery firmly. ‘I was there, but it wasn’t me.’

  ‘You were there?’ Bradshaw was incredulous now. ‘What do you mean you were there? What have you done, Colin? Tell me now.’

  Avery nodded his head firmly. ‘I was watching her from behind the bushes. I saw it but it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Who were you watching?’

  ‘That woman who was killed; I saw her sitting in her car. She had the window wound down and she was smoking a cigarette. She looked lovely, so I watched her.’

  ‘What did she look like?’ Avery described Rebecca Holt but he could have got that from any tabloid newspaper. Then Avery accurately described the clothes she was wearing that day and the way she’d tied back her hair, which meant he was telling the truth.

  ‘What happened then, Colin,’ urged Bradshaw. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing! I was just looking that’s all.’

  ‘Then what did you see?’

  ‘If I tell you, will you promise I won’t go to prison?’ He begged, ‘You’ve got to promise!’

  Bradshaw leaned closer to the weeping man. ‘If you don’t tell me everything you know right now, I’ll make sure the judge gives you another three years for perverting the course of justice.’ Avery looked terrified, so Bradshaw softened his tone. ‘If you tell me the truth it will help you, Colin. I’ll tell everyone you were a good little boy who cooperated but if you are bullshitting me or I find out you were responsible for this—’

  ‘No, no, it wasn’t me. I didn’t have the power then but she did.’

  ‘What do you mean, you didn’t have the power?’ asked Bradshaw. ‘You mean the victim did?’

  ‘No, not her,’ Avery assured him, ‘the woman … the other woman … the one with the hammer … she had the power … and she used it … I saw her.’

  Chapter Forty-Three

  ‘Is he a credible witness?’ asked Tom when Bradshaw had recounted the story of Colin Avery’s confession. They were at Tom’s house again but this time it was fish and chips that sustained them after a long day and the smell of vinegar filled the room as they hungrily ate the food off their laps.

  ‘Well … if I’m entirely honest … no.’ He ate a chip. ‘I’m not sure how credible a man like that could possibly be in front of a judge or jury, assuming this ever went to any kind of trial, which is highly unlikely. We arrested Colin Avery down Lonely Lane. At best, he’s a perverted fantasist, at worst a clear danger to women. A lawyer would say the whole thing is a hallucination or he is making it up, in return for some kind of deal. I have to say I haven’t entirely ruled out that possibility myself, though he’s so pathetic I doubt he would have the balls to try and con us.’

  ‘So he is never going to get anywhere near a witness box,’ agreed Helen, ‘but do you believe him?’

  ‘I’m not convinced I do,’ said Bradshaw, ‘but I’m far from sure that I don’t. Who knows what he actually saw, but when he described the woman who attacked Rebecca Holt it could easily have been Annie Bell.’

  ‘Her photo was in the papers a lot back then,’ observed Tom. ‘He could have seen her and he would remember the case.’

  ‘I don’t think he even reads the newspapers. He looks to be in his own little world,’ said Bradshaw, ‘and he knew what Rebecca was wearing that day, which was something we ne
ver reported.’

  ‘Even if we believe his account of what happened, it isn’t going to be enough to overturn a conviction against Richard Bell or to charge Annie,’ observed Helen, ‘so how can we use this?’

  ‘The problem is the credibility of the witness,’ said Tom, ‘or lack of it, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Bradshaw.

  ‘But Annie Bell doesn’t know that,’ he glanced at Helen, ‘which is where you come in.’

  Before Helen could ask Tom what he meant, Bradshaw interrupted. ‘There’s something else,’ he told them. ‘I looked into that demo car for you. I reckoned Annie might have parked it by the cinema the night before because she wouldn’t have time to get two cars down there in the morning,’ he reasoned. ‘I then figured if she had to drop the kids at school first she probably couldn’t get back to it till half nine at the earliest.’

  Bradshaw handed Tom a yellow envelope containing some official-looking documentation, which Tom scrutinised. ‘Ian, you clever bugger.’

  ‘What has he done?’ asked Helen.

  Tom grinned. ‘Only gone and cracked it,’ he told her.

  When Tom Carney approached Annie’s favourite bench in the park at lunch time the next day, she did not seem happy to see him. ‘I hope this is urgent,’ she told him as she put her sandwiches to one side.

  ‘It is,’ he said and he sat down beside her, waiting until a harassed-looking young mother wheeling a sleeping infant in a buggy had passed them before telling her, simply, ‘You were seen, Annie.’

  ‘Seen?’

  ‘That day.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The police have a new witness, someone credible. He has told the police he saw a woman walking away from Rebecca Holt’s car after she was beaten to death.’ He handed her the latest edition of Helen’s newspaper. ‘The paper doesn’t have it all yet but they soon will.’

  Annie Bell took the newspaper and read the headline, ‘New witness in Lonely Lane murder’. She fell silent and Tom waited while she read the article. Down by the lake an old man shuffled along, one hand gripping his walking stick, his other wrapped tightly round a brown paper bag filled with bread for the ducks.

  Helen had done a good job, fashioning an intriguing, if slightly exaggerated news story out of very little. Without naming names, she wrote that a police source (Tom) had revealed to her that police (Bradshaw) were treating a confidential new witness testimony (Colin Avery) as credible. This had shone new light on the case and cast a shadow of doubt over the guilt of Richard Bell. There was even the possibility the case could be reopened, she claimed optimistically. A woman had been seen near the scene of the crime and police were about to appeal for her to come forward to help them with their new enquiries.

  Tom realised that all of this would be news to Durham Constabulary, who might not be too pleased with Helen Norton, but it was the only way to frighten the truth out of Annie Bell. He had to get her to admit it somehow.

  Annie Bell showed no emotion as she read the story, but Tom knew her mind had to have been in turmoil. He needed to take advantage of that before she could regain her composure. Annie was devouring the words in front of her, which had been deliberately written in a manner that would cause her maximum alarm. Helen had played her part brilliantly. In a just a few hundred words she spelled out Annie Bell’s worst nightmare.

  ‘What witness?’ she said without conviction. ‘What woman? This sounds like rubbish to me. It’s someone trying to get attention.’

  ‘He even described the clothes you were wearing, Annie: dark jogging bottoms and a tracksuit top with a baseball cap. I’m pretty sure he was close enough to pick you out at an ID parade.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ She looked worried. ‘Who is this witness and why has he not come forward before?’

  ‘I don’t have his name but my source in the police tells me he’s married and was meeting someone he shouldn’t have been down there. He was terrified if he came forward he would have to appear in court and it would cost him his marriage.’

  ‘Then why would he …’ Annie’s face was a picture of confusion.

  ‘Come forward now? Divorced see, unluckily for you. Him and his missus have gone their separate ways so he doesn’t have anything to lose any more, except for one thing?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s been eating away at him for more than two years, knowing that an innocent man is rotting in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He never thought Richard would go down for the killing but when he did our man figured he’d get into even more trouble because he didn’t come forward sooner. But he rang the police anonymously and they told him it’s never too late to do the right thing. They’ve promised not to take action against him if he tells the truth and that’s exactly what he has done.’

  ‘I don’t know why he would claim all of this, but it is rubbish. If he saw a woman down there it most certainly wasn’t me. I have an alibi,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Not any more, I’m afraid,’ Tom said calmly. ‘You see, I looked into that and I found the exit from the cinema and the car park where the demo car was waiting for you. That’s why it wasn’t listed in your ledger.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And something happened today that changed everything,’ he told her. ‘I think, with my help, the police will soon be able to reopen the investigation into Rebecca’s Holt’s murder.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She was trying to sound casual, but failing. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I found out about the parking ticket.’ Tom watched her closely for he could tell she was terrified.

  ‘What parking ticket?’ Annie was screwing up her face, trying hard to look baffled.

  ‘You’re overdoing it, Annie,’ he said, ‘the acting. You’re not very good at it. You know exactly what I mean: the parking ticket on the demo. You see, at first I assumed you got up early that day and went for your morning jog then collected the demo from some location close by and drove it into town. I figured you parked it up behind the cinema and bought a ticket for the car park before returning home, probably on a bus. Then you took the kids to school in your own car, parked it in the car park at the other end of town – but then I thought otherwise.’

  ‘I’m lost.’ And she shook her head as if all of this was fantasy. ‘You’ve completely lost me.’

  Tom ignored this and continued. He was taking the credit for Ian’s detective work for a reason. ‘I figured that might be tricky first thing in the morning so maybe you dropped the demo at the car park the night before. You couldn’t buy a ticket until the next morning after you dropped the kids at school but you didn’t care about that. No one knew you had the car anyway. You could gamble without any consequences. The attendant came to the car park early that day and issued a ticket for your demo but that didn’t matter.

  ‘When I checked your demo log there was one car signed out every day that week apart from the days around Rebecca Holt’s murder. I memorised the reg number then went to the department responsible for the collection of fines. Lo and behold, I discovered a VW with the exact same registration number had been parked in the car park behind the cinema without a ticket that very morning. Technically the car belonged to the manufacturer so that’s who they eventually contacted for payment but, as much as they want to sell cars to you, Annie, they are not going to pay your parking fines, so they got in touch with you and the fine was promptly paid. Strangely enough however, it wasn’t paid by your company or even one of your company car drivers.’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ Annie asked in a dead voice.

  Tom shook his head. ‘No. There’s a neat black and white photocopy in the file. It shows a cheque hastily written by a Mrs Annie Bell.’ She looked as if someone had punched her then. ‘I guess you thought no one would ever find out about that, eh? You figured it would be buried in a file somewhere for years. Well, it was,’ he told her, ‘for two years, to be exact, until I found it. That’s all the proof I need, Annie.’

/>   ‘It proves nothing!’ But her voice was wavering.

  ‘It proves my theory that you slipped out of the cinema through the fire exit then headed for the car park and the second car. I’m assuming you went straight to it before you did anything else that morning, so you could buy a ticket for the vehicle you’d already left there, but you didn’t realise the council had privatised the enforcement. A man had already taken a note of your registration number and started the process of sending you a fixed penalty.’

  ‘I’m not even going to answer you,’ she said, ‘this is such rubbish. I don’t even …’ She shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘You don’t have to answer me, Annie. You could just tell it all to the police. They’re the ones who will demand answers and you won’t be able to explain why you had a second car in town that day. If I give it to them, they’ll reopen the case for sure,’ he said, ‘because they’ll know the only reason you would need two cars is so you could use one of them to create an alibi and the other to drive out to meet Rebecca Holt and murder her.’

  ‘If?’ she asked him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said if you give it to them – not when.’

  ‘Did I?’ he asked innocently.

  ‘What do you want, Mr Carney?’ Annie’s eyes narrowed and she asked, ‘Are you recording this conversation, Tom?’

  ‘No.’

  She insisted on checking him anyway. He unzipped his jacket, raised his arms and stood there compliantly while she patted his torso and checked his pockets.

  ‘Happy?’ Her answer was to sit back down and he joined her.

  ‘So what are you selling, Tom?’ she asked. ‘You’re obviously selling something.’

  ‘Maybe I’m buying,’ he told her. ‘I’d like to buy your story but I don’t know enough of it yet.’

  ‘I don’t have a story,’ she told him.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ he said. ‘I guess I’ll never know why you did it then.’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘Killed Rebecca Holt. I mean, it’s obvious on one level. She was screwing your husband. I wouldn’t say that was reason enough to murder her myself but you aren’t the first person to lose your mind over an extramarital affair and you certainly won’t be the last; but I was hoping you’d have a bit more to you than that.’