by Frank Lean
‘OK, but we’ve only got Sameem’s word for all this. Is there documentary proof?’
‘In spades, guv! . . . Sorry!’
‘No, it’s all right, Peter. Call me what the hell you like. I should have done this months ago.’
‘You’ve had other things to do.’
‘Maybe. So what’s this documentary evidence?’
‘Sameem has a copy of the original report he sent to the Salford police. He kept a copy of the suppressed report to cover himself, and there’s another copy in the police case files. He made sure of that. Those files are in the basement of the old Salford police HQ.’
‘So why the change of heart?’
‘He’s been diagnosed with cancer – inoperable. He’ll be going into a hospice soon. He wants to check out with a clean sheet.’
‘Right!’ I said. ‘We get an affidavit from him at once.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Peter said hopefully.
‘No, now – this evening. If there are two other characters nosing around we don’t know what might happen. Who are these guys anyway?’
‘I dunno. The sister didn’t keep the card they gave her. They definitely weren’t Mancunians. The sister says they were quite refined, by which I think she was trying to tell me something.’
‘So that proves it?’
‘You know what I mean. She said she thought they were lawyers, a couple of fancy white dudes in nice suits.’
‘And what does Sameem say?
‘He claims he can’t remember. Highly selective memory, he’s got.’
‘Right! It’s hardly a coincidence that they turned up just after I wrote to the Home Secretary. You get yourself back down there with Celeste’s cousin and you get Sameem to say all this on tape and video in nice legal fashion and you get some of the pointy-headed Cheshire natives to act as witnesses if you can stand to be in the same room with them.’
‘That was only a joke, guv . . . nothing racial, you know.’
‘Don’t worry, I don’t think being a Cheshire native counts as an ethnic group. I shouldn’t think they can do you for it.’
Peter looked at me for a moment, unsure of whether I was serious, and then he laughed but not very loudly.
‘All right, Peter, you’ve done a great job. Phone your wife and tell her you’ll be late. You can have overtime or time off in lieu, whatever suits.’ He smiled and hurried to his office.
‘Celeste!’ I shouted. ‘Get your cousin Marvin lined up. I’ve got a job for him. I want him to get an affidavit from a witness.’
‘Are you going?’ she said.
‘No, just Peter and Marvin. You heard what Peter said – this old guy doesn’t trust us white folks.’
She gave me an odd look but phoned Marvin.
Waiting for my two emissaries to return from deepest Cheshire was the hardest thing I’d done for weeks. All I could do was trust them. I’ve given up smoking but I regretted it now as I found myself chewing my fingernails.
I phoned Janine’s mobile again to see if I could appease her but she still wasn’t answering. I felt frustrated. Surely she would see that I’d done what had to be done?
I walked down Deansgate to get a pile of sandwiches to sustain my troops when they returned. I paced the office. I began to think that I wasn’t suited to the managerial role.
The waiting at least gave me time to think of what I was going to do next.
‘Got it!’ Peter said when he and Marvin arrived back well after midnight. ‘It’s all on tape and video and witnessed by two of the staff and another patient. He’s made a written statement for Marvin and he’s given us the copy of the report he sent to Jones which was countersigned by a junior forensic scientist who now lives at Mitchell, South Dakota, USA.’
He put the tapes and papers down on the table. I snatched them up as if they might evaporate and hurriedly sealed them in a large envelope. I sent Peter off to bung them into the night-safe of the Midland Bank on King Street on his way home.
‘Marvin, I’d like you to write a letter to the Right Honourable James McMahon humbly requesting that he refer the case to the Criminal Review Board in the light of new evidence that renders the conviction unsafe.’
‘Are you sure he’ll act, with him being personally involved and the Home Secretary and everything?’ Marvin asked.
‘Why, do you think he’ll try to cover it up?’
‘It puts him in a bad light.’
‘No, not unless you or Peter leak any of this to the press first. There’s nothing to say that McMahon’s done anything other than defend a man who had overwhelming evidence against him, evidence that we can now show was rigged. If we give McMahon the opportunity to act without trying to blacken his name or make political points he’s bound to do the right thing. This is England, not Upper Volta.’
‘Even so . . .’
‘The fact that he was directly involved in the original trial will make him act quickly to avoid any suggestion of a cover-up. You’ll see! King will be out in no time. All it needed was the evidence.’
‘Right, man!’ Marvin said. ‘But do you want this done tonight?’
‘I do, and we’re both going to see King tomorrow. I’ll phone Armley Jail first thing and ask them to leave us two visiting orders at the gate.’
Marvin, who was small, chubby, and sported a curiously unsolicitor-like haircut of short back and sides with bleached mini-dreads on top, now looked very serious, with an owlish expression on his face. He was in his late twenties, dressed in trainers, loose baggy blue jeans and a red zip-up fleece. He was wearing glasses and now he took them off and twisted them nervously in his fingers.
‘Er, Mr Cunane,’ he said, ‘there’s a snag.’ My heart sank.
‘It’s just that Celeste, you know, sometimes she exaggerates. She told you I’m a fully qualified solicitor, but I’m not. I’ve passed my exams for legal executive at night school but I’m not even a fee-earner in a legal firm yet. I’m a paralegal and I could become a solicitor, but I haven’t got a job.’
‘You’ve got a job now, you bugger!’ I said recklessly. ‘Consider yourself employed. We’ll work out your salary with you tomorrow.’
‘Thanks,’ he gasped. The nervous expression disappeared.
‘And all that about you being on the Community Forum and the police being scared of their own shadows when you walk past, is that exaggeration too?’
‘I’m trying to get on the Forum,’ he said stiffly.
‘Right,’ I said.
‘There may be a problem on the legal side,’ Marvin said, all learned and legalistic now. ‘We’ve got one witness to withdraw part of the evidence with which the Crown convicted King. It could be that the Appeal Court will regard the other evidence as being strong enough to override this doubt. From what I’ve heard, the Police Federation would kick up the mother and father of all rows if McMahon lets King out.’
‘You’re forgetting that McMahon is personally involved. He’ll bend over backwards to avoid the impression that he’s sweeping the case under the carpet to hide his own incompetence. The letter I had from him was signed by the top civil servant in the Home Office. Believe me, they’ll have to act.’
‘But shouldn’t we wait until Michael Coe gets back from Spain?’
‘Would you like to wait if it was you in Armley Jail?’
Marvin gave a little nod and turned to Celeste’s word processor. It took us three hours to come up with a draft that I was satisfied with – barbed, yet polite.
‘Do you want me to post this?’ Marvin asked.
I thought for a moment.
‘No, we’ll speak to King before it goes in the post,’ I said cautiously.
49
ON MY WAY home to Chorlton in the small hours to snatch a few hours’ sleep I felt elated but suspicious of my success. Somehow it all seemed too easy. Then I told myself that Sameem’s evidence had been there all these years, just waiting for the right person to come along.
As I turned into the car park
of Thornleigh Court I got a shock. The place was full of lights and cars and vans and men and women moving about – uniformed men and women; the police were out in strength. I parked my car in the usual slot and as I got out strong hands were placed on my shoulders.
‘David Cunane?’ the uniformed sergeant said.
I nodded.
‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of the abduction of Jennifer Elizabeth Talbot and Lloyd Henry Talbot. You need not say anything . . .’
I listened in a daze as the sergeant droned through the standard caution. Lights were being shone in my face and I found it hard to grasp what was happening. It was as if I’d fallen into a play where all the actors except me knew their lines. All that penetrated my brain were the confused noises off. I heard my name being shouted from person to person. ‘He’s here!’ There seemed to be a sort of ripple effect as news of my presence passed among the milling mob of law enforcers. My name circulated among them as in a game of Chinese Whispers, and as a backdrop to all this every light of every window in the flats was lit. I could see row upon row of faces peering down at me. I thought, ‘This is how it felt when the Romans threw a victim to the lions.’
‘Is he cuffed?’ someone asked, and immediately my wrists were jerked up and a pair of those unpleasant newfangled rigid cuffs clamped on as tightly as possible.
‘Get him up here,’ someone else barked and then two strong arms jerked me forward to the entrance of the flats and up the stairs. There seemed to be coppers everywhere. I hadn’t seen so many police in one place since the Lord Mayor’s Procession. I was passed, or rather shoved from hand to hand, until I arrived outside my own door. Two sweating officers in shirtsleeves were vainly struggling to break it down with sledgehammers. They lowered their hammers and looked at me with expressions that can only be described as hate-filled. A hush descended on the whole group. The air of sweat and expectation was so strong that you could have sliced it with a knife and sold it in aid of the Police Benevolent Fund.
‘Have you got them in there?’ a uniformed inspector demanded peremptorily. ‘It’ll go better for you if you tell us now.’
‘Got who in there?’ I asked stupidly.
Then a figure emerged from among a knot of policewomen. It was Janine.
‘Dave, how could you?’ she shouted, pressing forward with her fists raised.
‘Do what?’ I shouted back as the policewomen enveloped her in their arms.
‘Take my children, you monster!’
I hung my head and turned away. I didn’t want to look at Janine’s face. It was contorted with malice and rage and fear.
Unfortunately my gesture was observed by those who had me in custody and an interpretation placed on it. It seemed as if every copper in the narrow hallway started talking at once and then a half silence fell and in that partial hush I heard a male voice say, ‘They must be dead, we’ve made enough noise to rouse them.’
Janine heard it too. She threw her head back and howled. The men holding me involuntarily tightened their grip and the pair with the sledgehammers raised them for action.
‘You’re doing no good with that,’ an authoritative voice commented from the rear.
‘We need a drill.’
‘Explosives, more like,’ one of the sledgehammer wielders said.
‘We could get the Brigade up to the outside windows,’ another suggested.
To me it was lunacy. The astonishment was so great, it deadened my nerves like a powerful narcotic. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was like being in your coffin and listening to the undertaker and a mortician discuss what shade of embalming fluid to use on your corpse. I struggled to find words but they didn’t come easily.
‘I’ve got the key!’ I shouted at last. I couldn’t reach my trouser pocket because of the cuffs and the restraining arms.
‘Let him go!’ Janine said. ‘He must have the keys.’
I extracted the key only to have it snatched out of my hand. The hammering, whilst insufficient to do more than dent my armoured door, had distorted the lock. A brawny constable managed to insert the key but they had to produce a metal bar to give it some turning movement before he could undo the lock. Then the door sprang open. I was held when I tried to go forward.
A male and a female constable entered with batons raised. I don’t know what they were expecting but they went in there in great dread. It looked absurd to me.
‘I’ve not done anything to Jenny and Lloyd,’ I said. ‘Would I, or could I? Janine, tell me what’s happened.’
She buried her face in her hands and wept. The two officers emerged shaking their heads. The inspector behind me propelled me forward with his hand on the small of my back. I’d had enough of that. I turned and shoved him as hard as I could. This led to a Keystone Cops-type collective stumble among the crowded masses in the hallway. No sooner had they begun to lurch than the lights went out, plunging us into near total darkness. I winced in agony as a police boot came into contact with my ankle and as my head went forward I heard the whistle of disturbed air as a baton was flicked near my face. The next thing I can remember is the sharp pain as a baton came into contact with my head.
The poor old fuzz had an awful time with me after that. The blow had split my scalp and blood flowed freely. It ran down over my eyes and into my mouth and for some reason it wouldn’t stop. I didn’t lose consciousness at all, but for some time I lost interest in any events apart from the efforts to stem the blood flow. It wasn’t just trickling, it was spurting.
‘Christ! What’s the matter with you?’ the policewoman trying to administer first aid asked crankily as she crammed yet another wound dressing onto the top of my head. ‘You haven’t got haemophilia, have you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I mumbled.
‘Aids?’
‘No!’
I was frightened. My blood has flowed often enough, but never this profusely. It was a Niagara of gore. There was an odd, pulsing, throbbing ache in my head. I nervously recalled the crash on the motorway. Was there something seriously wrong that had been overlooked?
‘We’ll have to get him to hospital,’ she said.
‘It’s only a drop of claret,’ a senior voice said. ‘It’ll stop in a minute and then he can tell us where he’s hidden the children. The ME can see to him at Bootle Street.’
But the bleeding didn’t stop. The pile of soaked wound dressings increased. I began to feel faint.
‘I can’t take responsibility if this prisoner isn’t hospitalised at once,’ the female officer said. Her tone was panicky, heightening my own fears.
‘Shit! The bastard’s doing it on purpose,’ I heard someone whisper fiercely, but they hauled me downstairs and soon I was listening to the wail of a siren from the inside of an ambulance. The cuffs stayed on but the paramedics had plugged me into plasma as soon as they rolled up.
It was six a.m. before the blood stopped flowing, by which time the staff at Wythenshawe Hospital had transfused more than five units into me. The baton blow had severed an artery in my temple and it required a surgeon to repair the damage. He likened the wound to a cut from a sword. I felt too feeble to get seriously annoyed but I promised myself that I would. Marvin’s number was on my mobile and I got a nurse to phone him. Poor bloke! I thought. He starts work at Pimpernel Investigations and he ends up taking a dying deposition, writing to the Home Secretary and then having to turn out to rescue his employer all in the same night.
Marvin arrived at the same time as DCI Brendan Cullen. They had me in a side ward with a burly sergeant to keep me company. More officers were clustered outside, getting in the way of the staff.
As soon as Marvin arrived I felt tongue-tied. I didn’t even know his surname. I needn’t have worried. Fronting up to the police was a skill Marvin shared with his cousin.
‘This is an outrage!’ he yelped in a penetrating voice. ‘I demand that Mr Cunane be released from custody at once.’ The bevy of uniformed officers answered with a collective honk of dismissa
l, like sea-lions seeing off a newcomer on some Arctic beach. ‘It’s an offence to hold a seriously injured man in handcuffs. I’ll see that the officers responsible are called to account.’
‘Honk, honk, honk!’ they chorused, at least that’s what it sounded like.
Somehow Brendan Cullen insinuated himself to my bedside in the midst of this drama.
‘Get rid of this clown, will you, Dave,’ he suggested quietly, ‘and then I can sort this lot out. It’s all down to a simple misunderstanding.’
‘Marvin’s not a clown. He’s the chief legal officer of Pimpernel Investigations,’ I said.
‘I don’t care if he’s the fucking Pope of Rome, get him out of here!’
‘I’ll get rid of my clown when you get rid of your clowns,’ I snapped, ‘but he isn’t.’ The effort of saying this made me feel dizzy. I lay back on the pillow.
‘Listen to him. He’s just getting people’s backs up.’
The honking was reaching pandemonium levels.
‘Marvin,’ I muttered weakly.
My adviser appeared at the opposite side of the bed to Bren. His teeth were bared and he was ready for action against any odds. I felt proud of him. He bent over to receive instructions. ‘Mr Cullen’s going to sort things out,’ I whispered. ‘You don’t need to make a fuss.’
Marvin, however, was made of tough metal. He stayed, willing to outface any number of coppers. The uniformed branch took the cuffs off me and retreated. Cullen chatted while Marvin watched him like a hawk from his side of my bed.
‘Some geezer snatched the kids from outside their fancy school in Didsbury at about three-forty yesterday,’ Bren said. ‘Right on the main road, it is, couldn’t be handier for a snatch. The child minder who normally rounds them up wasn’t there. The kids must have been standing at the gates looking for her when they were snatched, but nobody saw a struggle or anything. That’s why we thought he must be someone who knows them – the abductor, that is.’
‘Mr Cunane was in his office with my cousin and several other witnesses at the relevant time,’ Marvin chipped in.
