The Innocent Ones

by The Innocent Ones (retail) (epub)

  ‘Did you know he was dead?’

  ‘Rodney? Good. Keeping him alive served nothing.’

  ‘No, the reporter. He was called Mark Roberts.’

  The old man unfolded his arms and looked surprised. ‘Dead, how?’

  ‘Murdered.’

  He shook his head, his anger melting, before stepping aside. ‘Come on in. Sorry for my rudeness.’

  Jayne went past him and into a house that was too warm, ushered into a living room where the television was loud. A woman sat in a chair opposite, old and heavily built, a cardigan straining across her midriff. Her ankles were thick over her slippers and an empty mug rested against the chair arm.

  ‘Irene, this is,’ and he frowned, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘I’m Jayne.’ She sat down without waiting for the offer.

  ‘Are you a reporter too?’

  ‘No. I work for the law firm representing the man accused of Mark Roberts’s murder, so we’re trying to find out more about Mark. What he was doing here. What he’d found out.’

  Irene looked away from the television. ‘Did you say murder?’

  ‘I’m Peter,’ the man said, and to Irene, ‘That reporter is dead. Murdered. You know, the one who came here a few months ago to ask about Rodney.’

  As Irene gasped, Jayne asked, ‘How much did he tell you?’

  It was Peter who spoke. ‘I didn’t give him chance. There was too much press back then, after those poor little kiddies were found, but at least people were reporting the right things.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘That Rodney was a murdering bastard.’ He held up his hand. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t swear in front of ladies, but it gets me angry. Now, there’s people like that reporter, God rest his soul, coming along and saying that Rodney didn’t do it, but it’s only to put their own name in lights. No one cares about the ones left behind. We see her, you know, the dead boy’s mother.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Just out and about. She hasn’t amounted to much, but how could she, with her little boy taken away like that?’

  ‘Do you know where she lives?’

  ‘On the South Meadow estate somewhere.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What about Rodney? What does he say? Is he campaigning for his release, because if he is, he’d better stay away from Brampton. This is a quiet town. A good town. Somewhere safe for people to bring up their children or come here to retire. They don’t need reminders, and they want to keep their children safe.’

  ‘I don’t know what Rodney is saying,’ Jayne said. ‘We’re just trying to find out why Mark Roberts was killed, because we don’t think our client had anything to do with it. And if he didn’t, someone else did.’

  ‘Come with me, young lady.’

  Peter left the front room and walked down the hallway.

  Irene rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t set him off. He’ll be up and down all night now. But you better follow him.’

  Jayne went to the hallway. Peter was waiting in the kitchen, his hands on his hips. Jayne went towards him, dropping down a step into a long kitchen filled with white cupboards that had yellowed with age.

  He pointed to a window that overlooked the driveway. ‘It’s gone now, the garage, but can you imagine what it was like to see it for all those years, knowing what Rodney did in there, before the new buyers had the sense to pull it down. I felt guilty too, that perhaps if I’d been more vigilant I could have stopped him.’ He stepped closer, his teeth bared. ‘How many more? That’s what the reporter should have looked for. Discover that number. That’s the real story.’

  ‘Are there more missing children from Brampton from around that time?’

  ‘Ask the police, but people like him don’t do it just twice.’

  ‘What sort of man was he?’

  ‘Does it matter? He seemed a quiet family man from the outside, but he killed two children. With men like that, I reckon you never truly know what drives them.’

  As Jayne looked out of the window, at the solar lights twinkling where there had been once a structure, she wondered what the hell she was getting into.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Porter slammed his front door as he went into the house, a four-bedroomed detached box, part of an estate that was built on what was once a farmer’s field, lines of barley that swayed in summer breezes replaced by the curves and crescents of modern houses. His life had been good there, his home filled with noise and laughter, but his three children had grown up and moved away. Two to university and then on to careers elsewhere, and the eldest to a job as a tour rep in Ibiza. Everyone either leaves Brampton or wonders why they stay.

  His dog scampered into the kitchen away from him. The television was blaring in the living room, Linda no doubt getting ready for another night in front of whatever shows she enjoyed watching.

  He thought about going in, faking nonchalance, making as if it had been just another walk with the dog.

  He closed his eyes. He couldn’t do that. Linda was intuitive. She’d spot his distraction straight away.

  He went upstairs instead, to his study.

  It used to be his eldest son’s bedroom, but the posters and dirty clothes and everyday grubbiness of a teenager had been replaced by a desk and a computer, surrounded by framed snapshots of his career. Newspaper clippings or posing with dignitaries, glory walls that reminded him of how he once saw himself. It was the room where he came to reflect.

  He sat in his chair, a green leather cushion on a beechwood frame. He closed his eyes as it creaked and leaned back. The view through the window was over his garden and towards the houses that looked over his own. It was suburban, respectable.

  If only they knew.

  He’d retired from the police, but the images never left him. The two small children on the autopsy table, their bodies sliced open, their faces so vulnerable. The images choked him. The inhumanity of it all.

  That’s what Linda could never understand, because she thought that when the job ended, so would his nightmares. It was partly his own fault, because he’d never told her about the things he’d seen. They’d keep her awake too, but that didn’t make it easier to deal with.

  He opened his eyes when he heard the soft creak of the floorboards outside his room, and Linda stepped inside. She looked at his clothes and said, ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He reached across to turn on the computer. ‘I was going to have a look at some online newspapers. I could hear you were watching something.’

  ‘You’re still wearing your coat.’

  He looked down. ‘Not warmed up enough yet.’

  She folded her arms. ‘Something’s going on.’

  ‘It isn’t. Everything is just fine.’

  Linda considered him for a few seconds more. ‘If you say so.’ And then she left the room.

  There’d be questions now. She knew how he was tormented, from the way he lay awake at night or went quiet whenever they walked on the clifftops. But she’d never known why.

  That was the easy part for him, because whenever he was alone, the faces came back to him. The children. Smiling, laughing, innocent. Dead.

  He tried to blot them out, but he couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried. They came to him when he was asleep and as soon as he woke. He wanted to tell Linda, but he couldn’t. No, he had to stay silent. That was his penance. He would suffer it for Linda, to make sure she kept her own peace of mind.

  He would keep the storm to himself. As always.

  * * *

  Jayne was nervous as she waited for someone to answer the door.

  She was outside a house clad in grey pebble-dash and hidden behind an out-of-control privet hedge. Cars made the crescent streets hard to get around, the whole estate a slalom course, camper vans blocking some parts, the driveways overgrown.

  It hadn’t taken long to find where William’s mother lived. She was the woman people whispered about, everyone knowing her pain but not wanting to get close to it. A group
of youths loitering around a bench had given Jayne the address.

  There was a click and the door opened. Jayne recognised William’s mother from the pictures she’d found online. Mel Templeton, in her forties now, the photographs from twenty years earlier and some simple mathematics told Jayne that much, but time hadn’t been kind to her. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, dyed too black, and her cheeks were hollow. When she spoke, her teeth looked browned by decay.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Hi, I’m Jayne. I work for a law firm in Lancashire.’

  Mel furrowed her brow. ‘What do you want me for?’

  ‘Mark Roberts. He was a reporter who was here a few months ago, writing a piece about your son. Did he speak to you?’

  She thought about her answer before saying, ‘There’s always someone calling me. Not as much as a few years back, but it’s like some people just can’t leave us alone.’ She frowned. ‘Tall, skinny bloke?’

  Jayne didn’t know enough about Mark Roberts’s appearance, but she gambled on agreeing. ‘That’s him.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember him. Bit of a pain in the arse, to be honest, getting himself excited about the case. What about him?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Murdered, and we think it might be somehow connected to your son’s death.’

  Her eyes clouded. ‘Hang on there, what are you saying? You saying I had something to do with his murder?’

  Jayne stayed calm. She’d been hoping for a reaction, because she’d worked out that she might have to shake some trees to see what fell to the ground. She felt a pang of guilt though, a mother’s grief being used just to help with a case. ‘I just want to know what he was talking to you about.’

  Mel clenched her jaw. ‘Will I have to go to court?’

  ‘No.’ It was a lie, because Jayne didn’t know enough to make any promises, but she could deal with that later.

  ‘Come in then.’ Mel turned to go into the house.

  Jayne followed her along a hall that had no carpet, just bare glossy tiles, and into a kitchen at the back.

  Mel sat on a chair in front of a scarred pine table and reached into her pocket for a cigarette. She held one out. ‘You want a ciggie?’

  Jayne shook her head.

  ‘Wise words.’ She coughed as she lit it, shrouding her face in smoke. ‘Yeah, that reporter. I thought he was okay at first. I’d got sick of the press back when Willie was killed, because it was all about how Sean could let him go on his own to get a hot dog, that we were bad parents. Kids wander off though, because they’re curious, or…’ She took another long pull on her cigarette. ‘Or because a grown-up tells them to go with them. I’d told him to be careful of strangers, but children don’t always listen. I was a good mum back then, but that never came out in the papers.’

  ‘And what about Sean? How was he as a father?’

  ‘He was a dickhead, right, but I knew that when I slept with him, because that was how it was back then. There’s nothing to do in this town except drink and fuck, because we’re too far from everywhere for any factory to be interested, and the tourist stuff has died out. Having Willie gave me something, but it did for Sean as well. Willie took his name and gave him a purpose. Yes, he’s an arsehole, but he loved little Willie, I knew that.’

  ‘It must have been hard for you both. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What about this reporter then?’

  ‘He was found dead in a park in Lancashire, bludgeoned and his stuff stolen.’

  ‘Mugged, by the sound of it.’

  ‘That’s what the police think, but his mother isn’t convinced. Mark was here in Brampton just before he died, and there’s no trace of what he was writing about, because his laptop was stolen.’

  ‘And you think it means it’s somehow connected?’

  ‘Just looking at a theory.’

  ‘Why is a law firm involved?’

  ‘We represent the man accused of murdering him.’

  Mel stabbed her cigarette out in the ashtray and jabbed her finger towards Jayne. ‘I knew it. I bloody knew it. You’re just like all the rest, wanting to use what happened to my son for your own ends. I’m just a pawn in your game. You don’t care what happened to him, but he doesn’t half make a convenient excuse.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not like that. It was the reporter’s mother who approached us. It’s her theory, not ours, but we’ve got to check it out.’

  ‘And what if it’s just guesswork, some wild idea?’

  ‘We’ll ignore it without proof, because it will make us look desperate, and that isn’t good.’

  Mel thought about that, before she said, ‘The reporter thought Rodney Walker didn’t kill Willie, or the other girl, Ruby. He didn’t say why, but he wanted to know how we’d react if he was right.’

  Jayne feigned surprise, remembering what Rodney’s neighbour had said. ‘That’s quite a claim.’

  ‘Yeah, isn’t it just.’

  ‘What evidence did he have?’

  ‘He didn’t say. He wanted a couple of quotes, that’s all, was trying to wind me up.’

  ‘Did it?’

  ‘’Course it did, because I know how these campaigns work. Someone decides to make a name for themselves by latching on to a famous murderer and trying to prove they didn’t do it, but it’s almost like no murderer is guilty, that the police get it wrong every time. That’s bullshit, and I told him that. He didn’t care about Willie or Ruby or Rodney Walker. He cared about himself and making a name for himself, no one else, and maybe someone got sick of him. I know I did.’

  ‘What about Sean?’

  ‘Yeah, him too.’

  ‘Angry?’

  ‘Come on, I’m not stupid. You’re not blaming him. He’s a snapper, but he’s no killer, and he wouldn’t travel miles and miles to do it.’

  Jayne sat back. ‘Okay, fair enough. I want to speak to him though.’

  ‘You don’t want that. He doesn’t like being bothered. Do you know what it’s like for him, everyone blaming him on the quiet? Even I did too, at first, until Rodney killed that girl, because that was another child he took. From then, it was about Rodney, not Sean. But people look at him and whisper things, say how they would never have let their children out of their sight, and it drags him down.’

  ‘I understand, but I still need to speak to him. The reporter might have said something important.’

  Mel shook her head before reaching for her phone. She scrolled through her contacts before she found his number, reading it out.

  Once Jayne had put it into her own phone, she thanked her and went to leave.

  As she got to the door, Mel gripped her arm. ‘Just be careful, right. I can tell you’re not a bad person, but emotions run high. And think about us too. About Willie’s memory.’

  ‘I will. I understand.’

  As the door closed, Jayne wondered how much of that was true.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Barbara was drinking alone in the bar when Dan walked in.

  He’d driven to her hotel when he’d left his father, his advice still ringing in his head, that it is better to fight and lose than not fight at all. And he reckoned the answers lay with Barbara. She had been in Highford for just a couple of days and already Nick’s defence was being disrupted and Dan had been threatened. That made him suspicious.

  She seemed surprised as he marched over towards her. The bar was quiet, not much demand for an executive hotel in Highford, the only other person there being a bored-looking barman replacing some spirits bottles and tidying up the shelves. There was a grand old fireplace, a painting of a winter scene over it, snow-covered hills, but it was an affectation. The heat was created by metal radiators that were throwing out too much heat.

  ‘Mr Grant?’

  Dan sat down opposite. The barman looked over and raised his eyebrows and a glass, but Dan shook his head. He wasn’t there to socialise. He turned to Barbara. ‘I want to know what’s going on, whether
there is another agenda.’

  She frowned. ‘Why do you have an attitude?’

  ‘Because I’ve a right to be suspicious. You’ve shaken things up and I can’t work out how, because all I get is the wide-eyed Barbara, the quiet stranger in town. I wondered at first whether your real intention was purely to be disruptive, to distract us so that Nick is convicted, his defence a mess, chasing false leads. That changed today though.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I was threatened. Some young goon with a knife ordered me to stop looking into whatever Mark was looking into. Run Nick’s case as it always has been, that was the message.’

  Barbara leaned forward, her eyes showing her excitement. ‘That’s good, isn’t it? It means that we’re right, that there is more to it. What are people scared of?’

  ‘That’s the wrong question,’ Dan said, bringing a scowl from Barbara. ‘The real question is how do they know? Who else you have spoken to?’

  ‘In Highford? Just you. You may have noticed that I don’t have any ties here. I’m just here to see that justice is done. I need to know who killed my son, Mr Grant, and why, so for God’s sake have a heart.’

  ‘Your son died three months ago. Whatever he was investigating, it’s long forgotten, the secrets buried. Whoever was holding that knife knew we were looking into it, but how? I haven’t spoken to anyone, and I’ve had Nick’s case for three months without any problems. That leaves you, Barbara.’

  She clenched her jaw and her eyes glassed over. For a moment, Dan felt bad for upsetting her, for making it sound like her son didn’t matter.

  ‘Or was he a put-up job today?’ Dan continued. ‘You don’t think I’m taking you seriously, so you get someone to make it look even more suspicious. Who wouldn’t be persuaded by that?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t believe you’d think that.’

  ‘Who else have you spoken to then? I don’t believe you’ve spent all your time here, watching the television in your room.’

  Barbara swirled the drink in her glass for a few seconds before she answered. ‘Please go now, Mr Grant.’