by Vicky Jones
“Here you go. Careful, it’s hot,” Rachel said, putting the beaker of coffee in front of him. Robbie stared at it but left it untouched. “Robbie, can you tell me what happened the day Mollie died?”
Robbie took a deep breath. “Me and Katie were mates growing up. Her older sister, Jenny was a bit of a cow, but I liked Katie. Not as stuck up as Jenny. Katie was dead nice to me when my parents were kicking me around. She got me food when they didn’t feed me, that kind of thing. She was so kind. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Go on,” Rachel said, seeing Robbie drift off into his memories. He refocused his eyes and came right out with it.
“Katie didn’t kill Mollie. Bill Thompson did.”
“Where is DI Morrison, Sharp?” Jenkins asked.
Chloe turned around from her computer and thought carefully about lying to a superior officer. “Not sure, sir. She received a call a while ago and disappeared, but I haven’t seen her since,” she replied, her answer just on the right side of truthful. Jenkins scowled and slunk away back to his office.
“What’s crawled up his arse today?” Mags said, plonking herself down in the seat opposite.
“Oh, he’s just on the warpath. The boss has been digging into the Spencer case on company time and he’s not happy about it.”
Mags made a face. “Well, to be honest, he has got a point. I mean, here we are slaving away on cases she’s supposed to be boxing off. I dread to think the money they’ve shelled out to drag her up here from Cornwall.”
“I think she just wants some closure for Katie Spencer. In a way that’s another case boxed off, even if it’s not one of ours.”
“She’s really won you over, hasn’t she, Chloe? See yourself like her in a few years’ time, I’ll bet?”
Chloe looked back at her computer, ignoring Mags’ jibe. Realising she wasn’t getting a reaction, Mags got up and walked away. “I can think of worse people in this office to aspire to,” Chloe whispered to herself.
Rachel stared at Robbie, her mind fizzing with what she’d just heard. She swallowed and leaned forward, interlacing her fingers. “What happened, Robbie? Take me back to that day.”
Robbie squirmed in his chair, as if the memory of it were eating into his brain like a pack of carnivorous ants.
“Back when I was a boy, I did work for Bill Thompson and Peter Spencer. They paid my parents direct, cash in hand. Never to me. They probably thought I would spend it on sweets and shit. Which, to be fair, I probably would. So, my parents started getting used to the income. They were never what you would call ‘honest workers’. There was always some kind of benefit fraud going on with them. They knew how to play the system. People like that always do.”
“So, they kept forcing me to go over to Peter’s house. Bill was pretty much there all the time anyway. He wasn’t married and didn’t have any children of his own, so he had nothing better to do. They hung around mostly in the cabin shed at the bottom of Peter’s garden, watching footie and drinking cans. It’s right out of the way of the house. And out of earshot.”
He paused and licked his lips. Taking a thirsty sip from the coffee, he composed his thoughts and began again.
“When I was about ten years old, Bill asked me one day to help him to do some repairs on the cabin shed. Nothing major. Just picking up nails that fell through the slats and onto the ground below. I’d be quicker than if he had to stop all the time and pick them up. He didn’t want his dog treading on them or eating them or whatever shit reason it was that he gave me at the time. But it was really hot one day and I was getting fidgety, running around in my jumper and jeans, so Bill…” Robbie broke off as his eyes became glassy. “Bill suggested I take off my jumper and jeans and work in my boxer shorts. Said I might even get a tan, so I wouldn’t look so pasty white.”
Rachel pressed her lips together and fought the urge to close her eyes and shake her head.
“Bill and Peter used to stand over me while I bent down to pick the nails up from underneath the decking. One time I looked back up to see them both leering at me like…” He paused again, unable to say the word. “As I got more tanned from being outside all the time, they used to say that all the girls would like me at school because of it. I was only ten, for fuck’s sake. What the hell did I know about girls? But I know now they were flattering me so I would like them more. And with my own dad beating me every time he felt like it, I did. Their place was my safe place, or so I thought. I actually did start to like Bill and Peter.”
“Day by day, little things started to happen. They would say things like, ‘let us show you what boys and girls do together to help you get prepped’, and ‘when girls do this to you, it feels really nice’. That was the first day Bill gave me oral sex.”
Robbie pulled his cuffs over his wrists and wrapped his arms around himself. He shook his head as if to try and erase the memory, which he was clearly replaying.
“Then Peter did the same thing the following day. I told them I didn’t want them to do it. But they laughed and called me a wimp. Said they’d stop giving my parents money for all the work I was doing. They said if I told anyone what they were doing, then they’d call the police and tell them I’d been stealing from them. I’d already been in a bit of trouble by then, so I was terrified. So there I was, twice a week, packed off down the road to Bill and Peter, for them to do what they liked to me, just so I could take money home to my useless fucking parents, who were too lazy to get a job themselves. Then it got worse for me. They asked me how it felt when they gave me oral sex, and that it was time for me to do it on them. Said it was only fair they get some back, for all the money they were paying. I didn’t have a clue what to do, but they forced me to do it anyway. They said if I did it really well, then I’d get a ‘bonus’. They would just tell Mum and Dad I’d worked extra hard around the garden that day.”
Bastards, Rachel thought. “How long did this carry on for, Robbie?” she said softly.
“For the rest of that summer, the cabin shed got a bit more built up the more work they did on it. They’d had it insulated and set up a TV and all that. Then they started to film what I was doing to them. And what they were doing to me. They started bending me over the table and taking turns to…” Robbie couldn’t say the word. He closed his eyes and shuddered. “One would do it, the other would film it. They told me I was making a lot of people happy with what I was doing. I didn’t know what they meant at the time. But obviously people must have been watching it somehow. But I felt nothing but disgust.”
“Was there no one you could tell, Robbie? Other than your parents, was there no one? A teacher?”
“No. I had a reputation of telling stories when I was a little kid. I was an only child. No one to talk to at school so I used to make things up all the time to get attention. I wanted people to like me because life was so shit at home. But people used to roll their eyes at me. So they would have just thought I was attention seeking, as usual. I didn’t dare say anything because I was ashamed. How do you come out and say you regularly get molested by some old ugly smelly bastards?”
The tears were let loose from Robbie’s eyes. He covered his face with his hands and sobbed. Rachel reached over the table and held his arm.
“What happened the day Mollie died?”
Robbie lifted his face and wiped it with his hand. He sniffed and attempted to compose himself.
“Bill and Peter told my parents to send me over to finish a job for them. Said there was fifty quid in it for them if they could have me for the whole day. Of course, they said yes. I never told them what was really going on. I didn’t dare. What would have been the point? I was keeping them in booze and weed, so I doubt they’d even have given a shit. I wanted to run away, and by then I think I’d just become numb to it all. But this one time, it was just disgusting. The cabin had been cleaned and I wasn’t allowed to wear my trainers in there, so I took them off before I went inside. I left them outside the door. When I got in the cabin shed, Bill and Peter had
set the camera up on a tripod so neither of them had to operate it. There was some cable thing with a button on it they could press so it would start recording. They wanted to…to…”
Robbie stopped and leaned over the table as if he were about to vomit. He retched a few times, before sitting back upright.
“They wanted to try and have me at the same time. One behind me and one in front. I remember thinking, ‘how is that even possible?’ But they grabbed me and threw me over the table. It was the first time they’d been proper rough with me and I fought back. But they were so strong. Bill ripped my trousers down and before I knew what was happening he was…you know. I screamed in pain. I knew no one would hear. Then my screams stopped. Peter made sure of that when he filled my mouth with his dick. I gagged. I couldn’t breathe. And then Bill heard a noise outside the cabin shed window.”
Supt. Jenkins sat at his desk, drumming his fingers on the surface. In front of him was his monthly report of the solved case ratio and it didn’t make for comfortable reading. Mags and Bradley had made a dent in the massive pile of folders in Rachel’s office, but Rachel and Chloe had been caught up in the Spencer case for far too many weeks now. With ACC Clifford awaiting his run-down of how well the budget had been spent that month on resources, and Rachel nowhere to be seen to explain her poor performance, Jenkins’ anger was spilling over. As he looked up at the clock on the wall, the feeling of dread for the meeting that was about to commence was building by the second. He could almost hear Clifford’s heavy footsteps making their way over to him from his office.
“She was told, they were all told, forbidden even, from going anywhere near the cabin shed at any time. They should have listened. Why didn’t they listen?” Robbie’s eyes were like saucers, his hands spread in disbelief.
“You mean the girls? Mollie, Katie and Jenny?” Rachel asked.
“Yes. Bill looked up after he heard the noise and saw Mollie’s face staring in the window looking straight at him while he was doing what he was doing to me. She must have been so confused. Peter turned around and saw her too. She’d seen everything. Her little eyes. I shouted to her to help me, to get help. But she was five years old, for fuck’s sake! She didn’t understand what was happening to me, other than I was being hurt. She kept shouting through the net curtains in the window, ‘You’re hurting Robbie, Daddy. You’re hurting Robbie, Uncle Bill’.”
“Bill threw me forward and I fell from the table onto the floor. All I heard next was Peter shouting to get Mollie. I looked out the window and they ran out to the decking and the next I saw was Bill grab Mollie really rough while Peter was doing his trousers up. Mollie screamed for help and Bill shook her so hard that it alone would have broken her neck. He pushed her as she tried to run from him. I saw him do it. She fell off the decking, cracking her neck on the way down from a corner of the steps. Then the thud. I’ll never forget that cracking sound. I hear it in my nightmares. Mollie’s skull smashing against that rock underneath the cabin shed.”
Robbie’s face creased and he retched again. Rachel pushed the coffee towards him and he took a gulp.
“I peeked around from the opened door of the cabin. I saw Katie coming over and looking at where Mollie had fallen and then screaming. God, what a sight that must have been. Peter and Bill were now looking down from the decking at Mollie in horror. Then, I’ll never forget the moment when they looked at each other and then down at Katie. Bill said, ‘You did this, Katie. You pushed your sister. She’s dead. She’s dead, Katie. Somebody help!’ He shouted it so the neighbours could hear. I saw Jenny come rushing over, looking at Katie and screaming. What was she supposed to think? Then the neighbours arrived, after hearing the screams.”
“What did you do, Robbie?” Rachel asked.
“I grabbed my trainers and jumped down off the decking at the back, around the other side to where Mollie had fallen, and ran. I just wanted to get out of there. I ran as fast as I could. Like I said before, I had a reputation of telling tales. I couldn’t tell the police what had happened and what I’d seen. I was scared they would kill me like they killed Mollie. I was trapped. I didn’t know what to do. I thought, hoped, the police would do their fucking job and interview all of the witnesses, other than me, and piece together what had happened. Like you see on the telly. But all that happened was Katie got the blame and Bill and Peter got to carry on as before. I felt so guilty, but there was no one else I could think of to tell.”
“But you told someone, didn’t you? When I first met you, up in Scotland, you said you’d told someone. It was Reverend Carlisle, wasn’t it?”
Robbie fixed Rachel with a hard stare. “You know when you’re told as a kid to tell an adult you can trust if there is something that is bothering you? Well, I didn’t have many adults like that. So I ran to the church across the road from our street, and found the vicar.”
“I used to do some work for him. Proper work. He treated me well, gave me food when I was hungry. Reverend Carlisle saw me running through the lichgate and grabbed me. Told me to calm down and tell him what was troubling me. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I told him what Bill and Peter were doing to me. And what they’d done to Mollie. Somehow he convinced me that because Bill and Peter had done so much for the church, helping replace the roof and contributing to the church fundraisers every year, that I must be mistaken.”
Lying bastard, Rachel thought, thinking back to her conversation with Reverend Carlisle.
“I realised then that I couldn’t trust him. So, after I’d thought about it a bit more, I went to the last place I could think of for help, where even if they didn’t believe me, they would have to investigate. I went to the police station and spoke to a copper there. I told them everything I could. They said they appreciated me coming down and they’d get back to me as soon as they’d investigated. I should have known they wouldn’t. They didn’t even take any notes.”
“When I went home, I got the beating of my life. Reverend Carlisle had rung my parents and told them what I’d told him. I was up in my bedroom afterwards, listening to my mum and dad argue about what they were going to do to me to shut me up, and the next minute a stone came flying through my window. I looked out and there was a lad I knew from Hancock Street standing outside. Mikey Miller, his name was. He was a bit older, seventeen, I think. He had a rucksack with him. I’d seen him before, around the cabin shed and it dawned on me that he might be able to corroborate what I’d said. But he didn’t want to stay around and take the chance that someone would believe him. Bill and Peter had been abusing him for years. He shouted up to me to pack a bag and showed me a big wad of money he’d stolen from his dad’s wallet. So I did.”
“I packed a bag and got on the first train out of Liverpool. Mikey only went as far as Lime Street with me. He got on a train there to the airport, planning to go to Spain where his uncle lived, and I set off on one up to Preston, and then on to Scotland. Ten-year-old me, on a train all alone. But I managed to avoid the train staff. I knew from the address book I nicked from Mum that my nan lived up in Crailach so I headed there. The taxi that took me up to her farmhouse from the village station liked the colour of my money so didn’t ask too many questions. I had Nan’s photo and recognised her immediately when she came to the door.”
“Nan rang Mum and Dad to let them know I was safe, even though I asked her not to. It was a compromise, I think.” He lifted his eyes to Rachel and broke from his recollection. “And then all these years later, you show up and start asking questions. Telling me you were looking into Mollie Spencer’s death. It all came flooding back to me. I was sick after you left. My nan was well worried. Then I read online that the case might be reopened, and I couldn’t let what Bill and Peter did haunt me any longer. I knew I had to tell the truth finally. About what happened to me, to Mikey, and all of those other boys.”
Rachel sat up straight. “There’s more?”
“Of course. Who do you think Bill and Peter were sending the videos to? There’s a m
assive group of paedos involved in this. Mikey told me of at least thirty names of boys he knew of being abused. He saw the shelves in the cabin shed full of videotapes with name labels on. Said that Bill had loads at his house too. He must have over twenty years’ worth of footage now, the dirty bastard.”
Rachel remembered the barrel fire she’d seen at Bill’s house when she found his body. He must have panicked when he knew I was coming over to talk to him about the case and burned any evidence he had, she thought.
“Me and Mikey? We’re just the tip of the iceberg. The men watching these videos, they are all over the country, doing to other boys what Bill and Peter were doing to Mikey and me. Some boys that Bill and Peter abused were from around the town. Some were just other waifs and strays that the older boys that were being abused used to bring along to the cabin shed with them.”
“Robbie, do you remember Bill or Peter mentioning any of these other men by name? Or where they were located?” Rachel took out her notebook for the first time and sat with her pen poised. Robbie shook his head.
“No. I can’t speak for nowadays, but back then they were just referred to by code names. But I don’t remember any. I was only ten, remember, so a lot of it is hazy. It comes back to me sometimes in my nightmares, but as soon as I wake up it’s gone. Mikey might know, because he was older, but I don’t have an address for him in Spain. The last time I saw him was at Lime Street station when we parted ways all those years ago.”
A thought suddenly popped into Rachel’s head. “This is a long shot, Robbie. But does the name Callum Davies mean anything to you?”
Robbie nodded. “Mikey said Callum got it pretty bad. He tried to escape a couple of times. Callum’s dad was making money from sending Callum to the cabin. What animal does that to his own kid? No idea where Callum is now, though. He’d be a year or two older than me now.”