‘The Brampton Murders, yes. They’re somewhat infamous.’
‘If I told you that Mark Roberts was in Brampton investigating that case, would you be surprised?’
‘He was a journalist and writer. I can understand that.’
‘And that he was investigating a notion that Rodney Walker was innocent?’
The judge intervened. ‘Do you have evidence of this, Mr Grant? You’re starting to give evidence yourself.’
‘I do, My Lady.’
‘You better make sure you produce it.’ She gestured to Hogg, ‘Continue.’
Dan made a silent prayer that Porter or Rodney would come forward to tell the story, because he dreaded telling Jayne she might have to tell the whole thing herself from the witness box.
Hogg had straightened himself during the brief interruption, trying to regain his composure. ‘I don’t know what the deceased was doing in Brampton.’
‘No, you wouldn’t, Chief Inspector, because you didn’t ask, did you?’
His voice was quieter when he replied, ‘No, we didn’t.’
‘Did you know that my investigator went to Brampton last week to look at what Mark Roberts was investigating?’
He looked confused for a moment, before answering, ‘How would I know what a defence investigator is doing?’
‘It’s agreed evidence that she was assaulted less than twenty-four hours after she began investigating there. Had you heard about that?’
Hogg looked over towards Frank, who was staring at his papers, his focus away from the witness box. ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Did you hear about what happened to me last week?’
‘I heard that you were assaulted. Is that what you mean?’
‘A night in hospital for me, Chief Inspector. And my office?’
‘Burnt down, I heard. I was sorry to hear that.’
‘If I can summarise it, therefore: Mark Roberts visited Brampton to investigate the Rodney Walker case and was then battered to death in Highford. My investigator visited Brampton to see what Mark Roberts was investigating and she was assaulted, and then in Highford I was assaulted and my office was destroyed by fire. Does that strike you as suspicious?’
‘I’m not a fire investigator.’
‘Knowing a bit more about the Brampton connection, do you wish you’d looked further into it?’
‘Well, obviously it sounds suspicious.’
‘Yes or no, Chief Inspector?’
Hogg gripped the edge of the witness box, and Dan saw in his eyes that he knew that whatever answer he gave, the damage would be done. If he admitted that he wouldn’t have investigated it, his investigation was too blinkered. Admit that he would have done, Nick looked a little less guilty.
Dan could feel the tension of the courtroom as everyone waited for the answer, those jurors making notes pausing with their pens, ready to make sure they didn’t miss it.
Eventually, he said, ‘Yes, with hindsight.’
Dan thanked him for his evidence and sat down. He took a deep breath. He had done what he could. Now, it was down to Rodney and Porter.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Dan rushed into the pub, looking round, until he saw Jayne.
The pub was in the town centre, all glass front and wine bar feel, one of those places that reinvents itself to the latest fashion every few years, a bad copy of the fancier places in the big city. It sold gin from coloured bottles; the man behind the bar all sleeve tattoos and perfect beard.
Dan hadn’t chosen it for the bright lights. He knew it would be rigged up with CCTV cameras, just in case things got nasty. She was sitting with a man much older than her, his grey hair thinning, but the way he held himself screamed police to him. Upright, stern, confident, his casual clothes too smart.
Jayne saw him and came over, pulling him to one side. ‘How’s the trial?’
‘Going all right. The prosecution case has finished. Is he the Brampton detective?’
‘One and the same.’
‘Are we treating him as a suspect for Mark’s murder?’
Jayne looked over her shoulder. ‘Do we have a choice? For a case that he regards as long since closed, he’s come a long way. And look at him. He’s a man ill at ease with himself.’
‘Has he told you much?’
‘He said he was waiting for you, because he hadn’t decided how much he wanted to say. And he’s drowning his sorrows, too, because he knows this could ruin him.’
‘How much he talks isn’t down to him,’ Dan said, and went past her and up to Porter, who stayed in his seat.
Dan sat opposite. ‘I’m hoping for some frank talk now, Mr Porter, because Jayne went to see Rodney yesterday, at his request, and he didn’t talk kindly about you.’
Porter glowered. ‘I put him away. I don’t expect gratitude.’
‘No, that’s not right. You didn’t put him away. Rodney did that all by himself by staying silent. You just made sure he stayed there. And let Leoni stay free.’
Porter looked to Jayne, whose face remained impassive, and then back to Dan. He took a deep breath and sat back. He drained his glass and slammed it back on the table.
‘That’s right,’ Dan said. ‘Rodney told Jayne everything.’
Porter had seemed tense before, hostile even, but as he looked at them both, he slumped and appeared tired. ‘I’ve always known this day was coming.’
‘You start then.’
‘If I do, I lose everything.’
‘If it helps Nick Connor, I’ll force you into court and make you talk.’
‘You defence lawyers just don’t care whose life you ruin.’
‘If it’s the truth, it’s not down to me.’ Dan held out his hands. ‘Now’s the time.’
‘What if I refuse to go into court, even if you witness summons me?’
‘Why would you do that? You’ve come all this way to talk to us.’
‘Mr Grant, I was a police officer, and I’m not helping a murderer throw up a smokescreen. What if he’s guilty and it really was just a robbery gone wrong? It’d be the second error, that’s what.’
‘What was the point of you coming then?’
‘To tell you. That’s all I need to do.’
Dan thought about that for a few seconds before he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his Dictaphone. He put it on the table. ‘If nothing else, we can tell Mark Roberts’s story for him. His mother might like that.’
Porter held out his empty pint glass. ‘I’ll need another one for this.’
Jayne took it from him and went towards the bar, pausing by Dan long enough for him to get out his wallet to pass her a twenty.
As Jayne was at the bar, Dan switched on the dictation machine and said, ‘You’ve come a long way.’
Porter eyed the red light on the machine and ground his jaw. Eventually, he said, ‘I had to do something. Knowing about the reporter changed everything.’
‘You hadn’t realised you’d locked up the wrong person for the murder of two children until he came along?’
‘No, that isn’t how it was, but it was more complicated than just knowing.’
Jayne returned with the drinks, a bottle of beer for Dan, who took a gulp from the bottle and held out his hands. ‘Okay, the floor is yours.’
‘Locking up Rodney was the right decision, and I was convinced I had the right man. He was in the area where Ruby was found on the day she went missing. Her belt was in his garage, some blood too.’
‘And William?’
‘His blood on the rear seat belt. And we found one of his small toys in Rodney’s garage, a toy car he’d been carrying around. Once we had that, it seemed straightforward. He was staying silent, so what else could a jury do but convict him?’
‘What changed?’
‘His solicitor. Ken Goodman.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Porter took a drink and shook his head. ‘You’ve no idea how much this will cost me. My reputation will be shot, and Brampton i
s a small town with long memories.’
‘But whatever you know, it’s been troubling you.’
‘It has, and I should have said more back then, but I couldn’t.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Back in the nineties, it was a different world. Lawyers and court staff and police officers, we all socialised together. We accepted gifts and freebies. Lawyers invited coppers and court staff for meals and drinks, all on the firm. There was no bribery, cases weren’t dropped, nothing like that, but it helped to oil the wheels. Ken Goodman was the same. Legal aid was granted more easily, and he got the nudge from the custody sergeants when there was something interesting coming in. That’s how he got the Rodney Walker case, because how else would Rodney know who to use? It worked for us though. He defended our relatives for free and passed up his clients’ secrets. In return, he got to play at being the big man in the town, staggering around the town-centre pubs, grabbing and pawing at any woman he saw, convinced his status would get him into their beds. Sometimes it did, but most times it didn’t, but we wrote off any complaints as clumsy passes. We made sure he didn’t get stopped when driving home from the golf club, too much whisky inside him. It doesn’t sound good, when I look back, but it worked.’
‘My old boss used to tell me how different it was,’ Dan said. ‘Not sure it was a good thing.’
‘It got the job done. Anyhow, it was my turn for Ken Goodman’s hospitality, so he took me and a couple of other detectives out for a meal at one of the local hotels. He said it was a thank you for Rodney’s case. Sharing the profits, was his way of putting it, although it was Ken being the showman, the small-town success story.’ He held up his hands. ‘I know, it doesn’t seem right to celebrate the case, children died, but it was free booze and food. Not many detectives back then would have refused, and the booze was flowing all right. Ken knew how to entertain, and the two other detectives had their fill and had to leave, but me, I’ve always had a good engine, so it was just Ken and me at the bar, our heads almost on the bar towels, talking about Rodney. And what Ken said changed everything.’
Porter paused as he took another drink.
‘It was my fault really, for goading him, because I was doing the usual police routine for defence lawyers. How can you sleep at night? All that kind of stuff.’
Dan gave a small laugh. ‘I’ve had that quite a few times. It’s usually because there’s a weak case and they know it, because there’s never any concern about my sleeping habits when it’s a strong case.’
‘So, you know how it works. I was ripping into Ken a bit, but he’s a good old sport, until he came out with, “You know you got the wrong person?” I waved him away at first, but he became insistent. I asked him what he knew.’
‘And he told you it was Leoni, not Rodney, who was the killer?’
Porter nodded.
‘For the benefit of the tape, Andrew Porter is nodding,’ Dan said. ‘How did you react to that?’
‘I laughed him off. I didn’t believe him, of course. It was just a defence lawyer ranting about an innocent client, but lawyers have different opinions on innocence to coppers. For you lot, it’s about whether it can be proved. For me, it’s about whether they did it. But Ken wouldn’t shut up. He got really serious, in a way I’d never seen before, as if he wanted me to do something about it.’
‘Did he tell you the full story?’
‘Not then. Just kept saying that it was Leoni, not Rodney. It was the drink talking, I told myself, and it was all getting a bit hazy, but I wanted to know more. I went to his office the next day. He was worried at first, because he’d breached a client confidence. That happened all the time, war stories, but this was different. It was a murder case involving two children, and the case was a big deal in town.’
‘He told you though?’
‘Yes, he did, because it was weighing on him.’ Porter took a long gulp of his beer. ‘You know that thing they say about a problem shared is a problem halved? It’s rubbish. A problem shared is a problem doubled, because it made it my problem too.’
‘Make it my problem too then. What’s the story?’
‘Rodney was serving his sentence, a couple of months after his trial, and he’d broken down and called Ken, asked Ken to visit him. When he went, Rodney told him the real story, because he couldn’t stand the idea of people hating him for something he hadn’t done. William had been the first victim, the boy by the cliffs. Leoni had gone missing, so Rodney went looking for her, worried that she was in a dangerous place and there were a lot of people drinking.’ He shook his head. ‘He found her all right though, because he was just starting to become frantic when she appeared through the crowd. At first, he felt relief, because William’s disappearance had got everyone panicking, and Leoni made it two missing children, but she just came up to him and held his hand. As simple as that.’
‘Where were you at this point?’
‘On the cliffs, looking for William, and it was something Rodney told Ken that made it seem believable. It was when William was found, and everyone there remembers the scream. But it was what Leoni said to Rodney that chilled him. She said, “I told the policeman where the boy was.” As simple as that.’
‘Did you find out who that policeman was?’
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Yeah, me. I remembered when Ken told me, because I remember thinking how I should have listened to her, but she was just a child getting in the way.’
‘But that one comment doesn’t make her a killer?’
‘No, but we’d assumed that the blood smeared all over the rear seat belt clasp was from Rodney buckling his daughter in, but it might have come directly from Leoni, who buckled herself in.’
‘Rodney knew then that his daughter was a murderer?’
‘I don’t think he processed the thoughts. Who could imagine such a thing of your own child? He should have brought her in, but he loved her. His wife had abandoned them, so his children were all he had left. Perhaps he figured it was a one-off, and that somehow he’d work out what to do.’
‘Ruby got in the way of that, I’m guessing.’
‘Yes, she did. Where Leoni lived was right next to the rugby pitch and she was an older girl, knew Ruby’s brother, so she must have talked her into going with her.’
Dan swirled the beer around, his fingers around the neck of the bottle. ‘What happened to her?’
‘She was tortured. Her belt was wrapped round her neck and tightened too tight, but her hands had been tied behind her back, so she couldn’t get to the belt to loosen it. Leoni must have watched her struggle until she died.’
Dan sat back and looked out of the window. Even though he saw human depravity so often in his job, the depths of it never ceased to amaze him. ‘And Rodney?’
‘That’s how he found them. Ruby dead. Leoni staring down at her, although the belt had gone from her neck. She must have kept it as a souvenir because that’s what we found when we were at the house. Rodney panicked. He was faced with the choice of either seeing his daughter being locked away and being the angel-faced murderer they’d talk about in the papers, or he’d help her, provided she promised never to do it again.’
Dan glanced towards Jayne, who was transfixed, horrified, even though she’d been proved right.
‘She promised,’ Porter continued, ‘but what does a promise from a ten-year-old mean? He believed it though, because he buried Ruby, thought it was better than seeing his daughter locked away. I don’t know how I’d deal with it if I were given the same choices.’
‘But why didn’t he tell the truth when he was arrested?’
‘Would we have believed him? Casting the blame on to his sweet little daughter, who’d already been through enough? How low can a person go? No, he knew he’d be locked up, so he accepted it, saw it as the price for giving his daughter her life.’
Dan sat back and took another drink. ‘Once Ken told you all this, what did you do?’
‘I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t believe Ken at first, but he seemed so c
ertain about it. I decided I wanted to hear it from Rodney himself, so I visited him. He agreed to talk, provided that it was off the record.’
‘I didn’t know there was such a thing with the police.’
‘There isn’t, but I can decide what I remember and what I choose to forget. No tape machines. No notebooks. No pens. Just two men having a frank conversation. He told me the same story Ken had told me, and I believed him.’
‘Why hasn’t there been an appeal, if you knew you had an innocent man?’
‘Come on, Mr Grant, you’re not that naive. Truly, what could I do? Persuade the CPS to reopen the case because a convicted murderer told me that his young daughter was the real killer? Don’t be ridiculous. And anyway, Rodney was right. It was for the best. For the town. For the families. They had their monster. We’d have little chance of bringing a case against Leoni, because it all came from Rodney, who had his own vested interests in saying what he did. And for a long time, I was glad I kept it that way, because what would the town think of me if I secured Rodney’s release but couldn’t bring a case against Leoni? It’s cowardly, but, truly, it was the best thing all round.’
‘Is that why you’re here?’ Dan said, anger in his voice. ‘To make sure it stays that way? Why I have this?’ He pointed to his eye. ‘Why my office lies in ruins, because everyone has to be sacrificed just to keep Brampton out of the spotlight?’
Porter looked confused, and then shook his head furiously, distress in his eyes. ‘No, no, no. I’m here because I’ve got to do the right thing. Ruby was supposed to be the last one. That’s what Rodney was doing, giving Leoni a chance, but we both got it wrong. Mark showed me that when he told me about the others, and I was too cowardly then to do anything about it. I don’t even know what I could have done.’
‘Why didn’t you keep track of her?’
‘I did, at first, but a few years passed and nothing happened, so I moved on – we all did.’
‘You got it wrong again.’
He took a deep breath before nodding in agreement. ‘I was a policeman, there to fight crime, to catch killers and thieves. Leoni is the one I let slip through, whether I thought I was doing the right thing or not. I got on with my life. I retired. But then the reporter showed up, and everything changed.’
The Innocent Ones Page 29