The Innocent Ones

by The Innocent Ones (retail) (epub)

  ‘Sorry, I’m not understanding you.’

  ‘You lied, Chris. You told me you hadn’t heard of Highford, but you were there a month ago.’ He started to protest, but she raised her hand to stop him. ‘Just button it. I saw your bank statement. Why were you in Highford?’

  His shoulders sagged. ‘I wanted to know how much of it was true.’

  ‘You knew about Leoni?’

  ‘Not as such. Mark told me he’d worked out who did it but didn’t tell me who.’ He shrugged. ‘None of it matters now.’

  ‘Of course it matters. What about last week? It mattered enough for you to sleep with me so you could get information from me.’

  ‘They won’t lock up Leoni on Rodney’s say-so. Ruby will stay dead. There’s no change. And us? That wasn’t just about the case. We happened because it felt right.’

  She stepped closer and wagged her finger in his face. ‘No, because I know what right feels like now. I was feeling sorry for myself and you were there. Self-pity is never a good reason for anything other than drowning your sorrows.’

  ‘All right, I’m sorry for having a great night with you, but I’m not hanging around for this.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Abuse from you. Or listening to how that bastard buried my sister. I’ve got my answers, so I’m leaving.’

  Jayne softened. He was right. Knowing about his sister was one thing. Hearing how it happened must have felt like he was reliving it. ‘Okay, I’m sorry, but just be straight with people. I felt let down and lied to.’

  His smile flickered. ‘Thanks for the advice. Goodbye, Jayne. If it helps, I enjoyed our night. I wish it could have been under different circumstances.’

  ‘Yeah, well, me too.’

  She watched him go, his attention on a device in his hands. A phone, perhaps? As he became lost in the crowd, heading in the same direction Leoni had, she turned back to the courthouse.

  She wanted to know how the rest of the story turned out.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Dan let the whispers in the courtroom die down before he moved on to the next question.

  ‘We’ll come back to Leoni later, but when Mark Roberts came to see you for the second time, did he tell you why he’d changed his mind about you?’

  ‘Not just changed his mind. He was enthused. Yeah, that’s the right word. He was thorough, because I thought he’d just stick to the case, rehash what happened, want to know my evil mind, all the clichés, but he went further. On the first visit, he just wanted to talk, like he was doing one of those talking with killers type of books, where he sets out some great insight, because he turned up for a thirty-minute chat, as if he could work out more about someone than all the years of prison psychologists. But he carried on researching, followed the trail, spoke to witnesses, because he said he wanted to write about the impact on Brampton, where it happened. It was Chris, the brother of the little girl, Ruby, who changed his mind.’

  ‘Did Mark tell you why?’

  ‘Because he thought he was going to get a tale of how much he loathed me, but he got a different story instead. Chris believes in my innocence, and just think about that. If the brother of one of my supposed victims doesn’t think I’m guilty, there must be a story there, which made Mark speak to other people. Like my lawyer, and the senior detective. Then he tried to track down my children, and that’s what really changed his story. At first, I think it was because he was after some angle on Leoni, to see how the case had affected her. Collateral damage, or whatever. By the time of the second visit, when he’d looked more into Leoni, he was completely different. Excitable, as if he’d discovered there was more to my story.’

  ‘Did he tell you what it was about Leoni that made him change his mind?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. Perhaps he saw the same thing that I did, that she was cold, dead inside.’

  The judge interrupted him, ‘Mr Walker, let’s not speculate. The answer is no, he didn’t.’

  ‘That’s how she was though, even as a small child,’ Rodney persisted. ‘But I never imagined that it would end up like it did. I blamed myself at first, thought I had made her like that, but I know now that it was just how she was.’

  Dan tried to bring the focus back to his questioning and away from the judge. ‘What happened when the children died, Mr Walker?’

  He took a few seconds to compose himself, before saying, ‘It was Easter. I lived in a small seaside town and there was always this festival. A bonfire on the cliffs, fairground rides, some sort of Viking thing. All the kids were there, and I’d taken mine too, because my wife had left me and I always seemed to be working, and, well, it just seemed like I had the chance to give them some fun. Then that boy went missing. William.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Six. He’d got separated from his father, or his father had stopped paying attention to him, but when he went missing, everyone on the clifftop was looking for him. Brampton was like that, very close-knit, and those cliffs are dangerous. A hundred feet high and with a sheer drop. There were safety people there, keeping people away from the edges, and temporary barriers, but children are curious. Leoni had gone for a walk around the fairground, but when William went missing, I was worried about her, wondered if there was a predator around, so I was looking for her. I found her on the steps that lead down to the beach.’

  ‘How was she?’

  ‘Calm. Too calm for what she said next.’ He let out a breath to compose himself. ‘She said: “I told the policeman where the boy was.”’

  ‘And where was he?’

  ‘Behind a pillbox. It’s an old concrete thing, built during the war, so the Home Guard or whoever could sit and watch for an approaching invasion. There’s a few around Brampton, but they’re all crumbled away now. This one had been built right into the cliff face, but the cliffs had eroded, so that it stood on its own. Leoni pointed down to the space behind the pillbox, between the concrete and the foot of the cliffs. As I looked down, I thought I saw something. A flash of red, cloth or whatever, or maybe blood on pale skin. I asked her how she knew and why hadn’t she told anyone else. She said she’d told a policeman but he’d ignored her, and that’s when I noticed the tear on her dress, and the blood on her hands, mixed in with dirt, as if she’d been clambering.’

  The atmosphere in the courtroom had become tense, everyone straining to hear every word.

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘I didn’t know what to think. What does a parent think in those situations? You don’t start believing that your daughter has murdered someone, but I knew straight away something wasn’t right. I grabbed Leoni and her brother and rushed back them to the car. We had to get out of there, that was all I could focus on.’

  ‘What happened when you got home?’

  ‘I was a wreck, because deep down I knew, but I couldn’t confront it.’

  ‘How was Leoni?’

  ‘Different, but the wrong different, because she seemed happier somehow. I was sitting downstairs, watching the news all the time, or expecting the police to arrive, and all I could hear was Leoni singing upstairs, or talking to her dolls, the ones I’d bought but she never played with. For the first time, she was a normal little girl.’

  ‘Didn’t you think of calling the police, because if you weren’t sure she was the murderer, she might have seen something that could have helped them?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure enough she’d done it, but I wasn’t sure enough she hadn’t either. I stayed quiet to protect my little girl and hoped that whatever had happened was a one-off.’

  ‘But it wasn’t.’

  Rodney closed his eyes and swallowed. When he opened them, there were tears on his cheeks, but his voice held firm. ‘There was a fair at the rugby club behind our house not long after, and all the kids were there, and families, and Leoni wanted to go. I let her, and she took Robbie, her little brother. I went too, to watch, to make sure nothing happened, except I lost her. They went skipping off into the crowd,
her and her brother, so I searched all afternoon, just wanting to see what she was doing, and then I heard the panic.’

  ‘Panic?’

  ‘Ruby’s mother scouring the fair, her daughter lost, and after William the town was really twitchy, because there was a child killer still on the loose. I joined the hunt, just in case it was a mistake, but the longer it went on, I knew.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I went home. As I got to my drive, I could hear them in the garage, and I thought thank God I made it back before anything bad happened.’ Rodney paused to compose himself. His voice broke when he said, ‘I was wrong. Ruby was dead. The chatter was Leoni talking to her brother, who was in shock, just staring, his body rigid. Leoni had throttled Ruby and then bashed her head on the ground. The poor little girl was just mashed up, dead, all red around her neck; and I grabbed Leoni and was shaking her, desperate, asking her what she’d done. She started to cry and looked at the body as if she’d never seen it before, and she got really frantic, punching my chest. I thought there must be something wrong with her, but I could make her better, so it would never happen again. I loved her, she was my little girl, and didn’t want to see her locked away. And if it didn’t happen again, was I being so bad? I couldn’t bring back poor Ruby, but I could save my girl.’

  There was absolute silence in the courtroom. Even the judge had stopped making notes.

  ‘Mr Walker,’ Dan said. ‘You buried Ruby’s body.’

  Tears ran down his cheeks as he said, ‘I shouldn’t have done, because I made her family’s torment worse, but I was panicking; I wish I could take that back, make it different.’

  ‘You were convicted after a trial. Did you say all of this then?’

  ‘No. I said nothing. I wasn’t going to betray my daughter.’

  ‘Did you tell Mark Roberts all this?’

  ‘No. Leoni made me a promise that she’d never harm anyone again. That promise kept me sane, that despite what she’d done, I’d saved her, so she could lead a good life, put all that childhood horror behind her. People can change, I thought.’

  ‘You were prepared to sacrifice everything for Leoni, a girl who murdered two children?’

  He slammed his hand on the witness box. ‘She was my girl. I’d do anything for her.’

  ‘Why are you here then, betraying that promise?’

  Rodney’s fingers grew tighter on the witness box. ‘Because she broke that promise, Mr Grant. She didn’t change, I know that now, and Mark Roberts is dead.’

  Dan paused to let that sink in, for people to realise that a connection was coming.

  ‘Mr Walker, Mark Roberts was found murdered in Highford. Do you know that town?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘How do you know it?’

  Rodney looked to the judge and then to the jurors opposite. ‘It’s where Leoni lives now.’

  Dan let that hang in the air, joined Rodney in looking over to the jurors, who seemed either shocked or more curious, their certainty about Nick’s guilt no longer there.

  Dan nodded and said, ‘No more questions?’

  As he sat down, he let out a long breath. Rodney hadn’t let him down.

  He looked back to the dock. Nick was looking down, his head in his hands.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Dan rose to his feet.

  The judge had taken a break after all the evidence had been given, just to allow the jurors to refresh themselves before the closing speeches.

  This was it, the crucial part. Cases are never won on the questioning. They’re just the groundwork for the closing speech. No one has ever collapsed under the strength of cross‑examination. For the prosecution, no defendant has ever crumbled and wailed a confession, unable to escape the trap set by the prosecutor. For the defence, no police officer has ever pointed to the dock and urged the judge to release a man they now think is innocent.

  No, cross-examinations are about the cold sweat, where gaps are left, inconsistencies found, lies exposed, but they are never admitted. The closing speech is where those moments are stitched together and made into a new whole. Minds are changed, perceptions altered, a new truth emerges.

  The prosecutor had given his speech, a short repeat of the opener, pointing out that the only person with any connection to the dead body was Nick Connor. He had Mark’s blood on his trainers, his stolen wallet burnt to a charred mess in his garden, along with the clothes he must have been wearing. Two plus two equals four, nice and neat. There wasn’t much else he could say.

  Dan had to make it look different.

  He looked back to Nick Connor, who wore the stress of the trial in the tight purse of his lips and the sheen of perspiration visible under the courtroom lights. Beyond that, there was Barbara, who gave Dan a smile. He knew what it meant: make this count.

  He turned back to the jury and frowned.

  ‘A man died,’ he began, his voice soft and solemn. ‘Mark Roberts was the victim of a vicious assault, beaten by a blunt instrument and left to die in a pool of his own blood. No regard for his body or his memory or whatever his life had meant to those closest to him. An awful crime, clearly committed by an extremely violent person, because the violence was so extreme. Hit with a blunt instrument, again and again, numerous head injuries until his face was no longer recognisable. I don’t need to remind you too much of that, as the images presented to you will stay with you for the rest of your life. You must separate those emotions of horror and anger, and perhaps even a desire for revenge, and ask yourself this question: is Nick Connor the man who did that?’

  He twisted his body so he could point towards the dock, making the jurors look with him, towards Nick.

  ‘Nick Connor is what some might call a career criminal. A petty thief. A headache for the local police.’ He raised an eyebrow and gave them a faint smile. ‘I would not recommend him as a neighbour. But is he a murderer? We’ve heard about his character, but nothing that suggests he is violent.’

  He turned back to the front and spoke with more authority. ‘What actual evidence is there? Some of Mark Roberts’s property was found at Nick Connor’s home. Some of the victim’s blood was on his clothes. The wallet was burnt to a charred lump. He sold the victim’s debit cards. How do you think all that happened? A robbery gone wrong? That’s the prosecution theory. Or just a lowlife petty criminal stealing property belonging to a dead man? If you think the second option, that he stole from a murder victim, either discarded by a killer with no interest in the contents of a wallet, or even by Nick Connor picking the dead man’s blood-soaked pocket, you’d be entitled to despise him. Can you imagine anything more callous or heartless? Probably not. But, members of the jury, Nick Connor isn’t on trial for stealing a dead man’s property. He is on trial for murder: the prosecution has asked you to conclude that he must be the murderer because he is a thief. But is that right?’

  The jurors were watching him carefully. Some with their heads cocked, interested, intrigued, while others made notes.

  Dan held out his hands. ‘Have you heard any evidence of blood spatter on the clothes the police recovered? The answer is no. Have you heard anything about Nick Connor hanging around Queensgate Park, waiting for a mugging victim? The answer is no. Have you heard of any connection between Nick Connor and Mark Roberts? Once again, no. Where’s the murder weapon? The answer? Not at Nick Connor’s home.’

  He leaned on the desk by putting out one hand, in an effort to look relaxed. Every one of his stances was designed to present a mood, to let the jurors see what he was seeing.

  ‘Think about it, members of the jury. Can you imagine a scenario where a thief, when presented with the chance to make a quick few quid, won’t take the wallet? Do you think that a thief who has been the subject of many police investigations would immediately call the police? Would he trust them to believe him when he said it was nothing to do with him? No, a thief would not. It would be wholly out of character for someone always on the wrong end of the law to involve the law
, because the law and Nick Connor have been unsuitable bedfellows.’

  He lowered his tone and spoke more softly. It drew the jurors closer.

  ‘Nick Connor and murder do not go together in the same sentence, which leaves you with one question, and one that will trouble you: if it is not Nick Connor, then who? It’s a natural reaction for you to make leaps of faith and hope you’ve got it right if you find him guilty, because that is what the prosecution is asking you to do, make a leap of faith. Things have changed though, since the case started, and at the heart of it all is Mark Roberts, the innocent victim in this case, because this is where the prosecution case shakes on its foundations. There are questions.’

  He slammed his hand on the desk. ‘First question. What was Mark Roberts investigating? The prosecution hasn’t supplied you with that information. I have, through the evidence of Rodney Walker. Mark Roberts was investigating the murder of two children more than twenty years ago, and he believed the killer was still free.’

  He slammed his hand again. ‘What was Mark Roberts doing in Highford, the place where he met his death? All we’ve heard from the prosecution is that it was the town where he died. But today, you heard something new, from Rodney Walker. His daughter lives in Highford. And not just his daughter, but the person he names as the killer of those two precious children who were brutally murdered. Was she about to be exposed? We’ve heard of no other reason why Mark Roberts was in Highford. It is too much of a coincidence that Mark Roberts should die in the same small town where the person he was about to accuse of murder lived.’

  He didn’t slam his hand this time. He had their attention. ‘And the third question is what was Mark Roberts doing in that park, dark and quiet? To meet someone? To confront someone?’

  He looked at each of them in the eyes, one by one, so that he was their focus, no one else. ‘Can you really rule out the possibility that the murder of Mark Roberts was connected to his investigation, an investigation that has at its heart two callous and brutal murders of young children? Can you rule out the possibility that a common thief merely acted like a common thief? That is all it takes, members of the jury, that you think of it as a real possibility. If you think that, whatever views you hold on the character of Nick Connor, you must find him not guilty of murder.’