‘Listen,’ said Jim Fitzsimmons, ‘will you deal with this job tomorrow morning?’
‘Yeah, okay.’
‘Good. Just hold it there, while we make some more arrangements.’ Jim asked all the detectives in the bar to wait.
Another arrest. Another boy. Phil Roberts wondered if Jimmy Fitz had it in for him. He had been off the fags for a couple of weeks. It was costing him a fortune in nicotine patches. How much longer could he hold out?
There were no local intelligence records for the two boys, but Thompson had an elder brother with some minor offences. There was a photograph of the brother, and it was possible to see a likeness with the video image of the boy in the dark clothing.
When the statement from the woman came back she had given the name of Bedford Road School. The headmistress was called at home, and added one or two details, confirming that the two boys were ten years old. Venables had two addresses, his mothers in Norris Green, and his fathers in Walton. Jim found the duty night detective and asked him to get some search warrants sworn out. There would be plenty of time tomorrow for more extensive background inquiries.
Shortly before one o’clock, Jim called the detectives from the bar and, having gathered all the available officers together, led the way into the canteen, which had shut down for the night. They turned the lights on and sat around one of the canteens circular tables, about a dozen men, all somewhat jaded at this late hour. There was no excitement. It was no big break. Just two more boys to be pulled in.
Two teams were appointed, and two team leaders: Phil Roberts for the Thompson arrest, and Mark Dale for Venables. Dale was a detective constable, but he’d been acting up to sergeant and was about to be promoted. With the memory of Snowdrop Street all too vivid, and the anxiety that it was about to be repeated, Jim thought it would be wiser if the officers came on in the morning at stations away from Marsh Lane — the Thompson team at Walton Lane and the Venables team at Lower Lane. The boys would be held and interviewed at those stations. That and the early start, he hoped, would keep the arrests secret from the press.
Jim decided not to go out on the arrests himself. He would need to brief the management team in the morning. He wanted to hear immediately afterwards, though, how the arrests had gone, and whether or not the officers thought Thompson and Venables were likely candidates.
17
At seven thirty on Thursday morning, Ann Thompson was woken by her son Bobby. ‘Mum, there’s four men on the doorstep, you’d better get up.’ Ann answered the front door to find Phil Roberts and three other detectives on the steps. Two more were round the back of the house, down an entry. Phil Roberts produced the search warrant, and explained why they were there. Ann Thompson was flustered and anxious, but she invited them in, and they followed her down the hall into the front room, past baby Ben, Bobby’s 18–month-old brother, in his pram.
Ryan was in the front room, and went to fetch Bobby, who came in and sat down on the edge of the settee. Phil Roberts, who was over six feet tall, got down on his knees in front of Bobby and told him he was being arrested on suspicion of being involved in the murder of James Bulger. They had reason to believe he was responsible. Bobby started to cry. ‘I didn’t kill him,’ he said. His mum began crying too. She was very distressed.
While Bobby went off to get changed, Phil Roberts spoke to Ryan, who told him that Bobby had said he’d seen James Bulger with two boys at the Strand. Phil Roberts thought this was probably fanciful. A figment of Ryan’s, or Bobby’s, imagination.
Ann Thompson’s friend, Lesley Henderson, was called in from across the road to mind the house and look after Ben and Ryan, because Ann was going to Walton Lane police station with Bobby.
An OSD search team would be going into the house later, but the detectives were particularly keen to find Bobby’s shoes and his school uniform. They collected a pair of shoes, a pair of trainers, some black trousers, a white shirt, a grey jumper and Bobby’s black jacket. There was another bag of shoes upstairs, with Bobby’s brogies inside. The bag was forgotten in the rush, and someone had to go back for it, later. When the brogues were examined, it appeared, even to the naked eye, that they were spattered with blood.
■
When they arrived at Jon’s father’s maisonette, at ten to eight, Mark Dale and his five colleagues had no idea if Jon would be there or over at his mother’s in Norris Green.
Neil Venables invited them in. He had Michelle and Mark staying with him, but Jon was with his mum. Two detectives stayed to meet the OSD team and supervise the search, and the other four drove to Susan’s house, the old family home in Scarsdale Road on the Norris Green estate.
Mark Dale produced his second search warrant and Susan Venables ushered them into the hallway. ‘I knew you’d be here,’ she said. ‘I told him you’d want to see him for sagging school on Friday.’
See whom? Mark Dale enquired. ‘Our Jon.’
Jon Venables came down the stairs then, and they all went into the living room. Susan turned to Jon.
‘There you are, sagging, I told you they’d be here.’
She turned back to Mark Dale.
‘He came home on Friday, coat full of paint.’
Back to Jon.
‘Paint, sagging, I told you they’d be here.’
Mark Dale asked Susan to show him the coat. They all went back into the hall, to the well under the stairs. Jon took his mustard anorak from one of the coat pegs, and threw it down at the officers’ feet. George Scott, one of Dale’s colleagues, picked it up. He and Mark Dale could see the blue paint on the sleeve. Susan said it was Jon’s.
They went back into the living room, and Mark Dale told Jon he was being arrested on suspicion of the abduction and murder of James Bulger. Jon grabbed hold of his mother, crying and yelling.
‘I don’t want to go to prison, mum. I didn’t kill the baby.’
‘Don’t be silly, Jon, you won’t go to prison. They’re just doing their job.’
It seemed as if Susan Venables could not or would not grasp the seriousness of Jon’s arrest. Mark Dale and George Scott took her into the kitchen, to speak to her and explain the meaning of the caution that Jon had been given.
Jon was still crying. The other officers tried to calm him down with chat about school. ‘It’s that Robert Thompson,’ said Jon. ‘He always gets me into trouble.’
As Mark Dale and George Scott returned, Jon asked, ‘Are you going to speak to Robert Thompson?’
‘Why, do you think we should?’
‘Yes.’ Jon went upstairs to get washed and dressed, still very upset.
When Jon left, Mark Dale and George Scott stayed behind with Susan Venables, to oversee the OSD search. They asked Susan what Jon had been wearing on Friday, and she produced a pair of black trousers from the pile of clean washing in the corner of the living room. The wash had not removed a blue paint stain from the trouser leg.
Jon was driven to Lower Lane police station. The officers in the car told Jon he could have breakfast at the station, and asked him what he’d like. He wanted Rice Krispies. ‘Is someone with Robert Thompson now?’ Jon wanted to know. ‘Which police station will he be going to?’
When they arrived at Lower Lane, Jon was signed in at the bridewell, the cell area, and installed in the juvenile detention room with a mug of tea and a plate of toast from the canteen. The detention room was small and bare, not unlike a cell, with plain painted walls bearing the graffiti of previous occupants. There was a high window with reinforced glass, and one piece of furniture — a long, wooden bench, firmly embedded into the wall. Jon sat on the bench and ate his breakfast.
■
Jim Fitzsimmons phoned round at the first opportunity, keen to know how the arrests had gone, even keener to canvass opinion on the two boys. It was not overly encouraging.
‘What d’you think?’ Jim asked Phil Roberts.
‘I haven’t got a clue,’ said Phil Roberts, who knew how excitable the bosses could be, and wasn’t about to c
ommit himself. A ten-year-old boy, responsible for that killing? Phil Roberts found it hard to believe, though he wouldn’t dismiss the possibility.
Reaching Dave Tanner, one of the officers who had delivered Jon to Lower Lane, Jim found no greater enthusiasm. They had a coat, which resembled the coat in the video. It had blue paint on the sleeve. But they could see little if any resemblance between Jon and the boy in the video.
When he arrived at Marsh Lane for the morning briefing, to bring the management team up to date with overnight developments, Jim was not exactly jumping up and down. Two more boys in, and nothing more than a few fragments of circumstantial evidence to link them to James Bulger’s killing. They would simply have to wait to see what came out of the interviews. Meanwhile, a great deal of preparatory work had to be completed and a dilemma was building for Albert Kirby. To go, or not to go, to Crimewatch.
Earlier in the week, a policewoman on duty at the Strand had been approached by a counter hand from the Bradford & Bingley Building Society. He had seen all the publicity surrounding the abduction, and thought the two boys had been in the Society’s branch, across Stanley Road from the Strand, that Friday afternoon. He handed over two video tapes from the branch’s own surveillance system. The boys ought to be on the tapes.
The tapes had been delivered to Marsh Lane, and stored on the shelves of room G/46, the Inspectors’ Locker Room, along with all the other case exhibits. On Wednesday, late afternoon, a detective constable retrieved the tapes and played them through. He could see two boys, fooling around and touching, as they did so, the walls, the fittings, the windows.
The detective called in a couple of forensic officers from SOCO, and showed them the videos. Then they all went round to the Building Society, where the forensic officers dusted with their white powder and, using tape, lifted nine good finger and palm prints from the inside and the outside of the front display window. The prints were taken to the Fingerprint Bureau at headquarters, where they were given serial numbers before being stored. 1048/93E was an impression of a small, left thumb, and 1048/93F was an impression of a small, left middle finger.
■
It was late morning on Thursday by the time the arresting officers got around to fingerprinting Bobby and Jon. The police surgeon was on her way to the two stations, to take the intimate samples, but the surgeon was not required for fingerprints.
While his hands were being inked with the roller, Jon asked, ‘Do you leave these on whatever you touch? Will Robert Thompson be getting his done too?’
The completed prints were driven down to the Bureau at headquarters, and there compared with the prints from the Bradford & Bingley Building Society. There was no similarity for Bobby’s, but the Senior Fingerprint Officer had no doubt that Jon’s left thumb and left middle finger were an identical match with 1048/93E and 1048/93F. This, at least, put Jon in Stanley Road by the Strand, last Friday afternoon.
When the police surgeon arrived at Walton Lane, just after midday, Bobby gave up his intimate samples: blood, a nail clipping from each hand, a plucked hair from the head, and a combed hair. The surgeon also had to examine the two boys and make sure they were in a fit state to be detained and interviewed. Bobby, she noted, was well nourished, with no visible injuries. She found mud on his hands, and on his left ear.
Throughout the examination Bobby’s mum was sitting just outside, weeping quietly.
Bobby was returned to Walton Lane’s detention room which, though possibly decorated with more graffiti, was otherwise indistinguishable from its counterpart at Lower Lane. After a while, Bobby began crying and banging on the door. The custody sergeant went to see what was up.
Why am I here? I wanna go home.’
‘Come on lad, you know why you’re here.’
‘I didn’t kill him. I saw him once with his mum.’
The custody sergeant told Bobby he was under caution and would be wise not to say anything more. He did his best to placate him, and locked the door.
At Lower Lane, the police surgeon found a slim, healthy boy with a graze on his right knee. She took Jons intimate samples and, as she did so, Jon asked, ‘If you touch someone’s skin does it leave a fingerprint? If you drag someone really hard do you leave your nails in his skin?’
18
The news filtered back to Marsh Lane. Blue paint stains on clothes, possible blood stains on shoes, bizarre comments from the boys Jim Fitzsimmons began to think it looked good. He had to caution himself. Snowdrop Street had looked good, too.
Here at the heart of the inquiry, the mood was becoming electric. Tired people, depleted of energy, with little more than adrenalin to keep them going, wondered if this was the last stretch. They were anxious to get the interviews started, but didn’t want to trip up in the rush. There were so many things to consider.
The station was awash with senior officers. The Chief Constable, Jim Sharpies, had come down from headquarters with Pauline Clare, the Assistant Chief Constable in charge of Crime, and George Bundred, the chair of the Merseyside Police Authority. They weren’t there to take over, they just wanted to offer some encouragement, and to see for themselves what was happening.
The interview teams had to be selected. They had to be briefed. The interviews could be video recorded, but the only video suites were at outlying stations. Was it better to move the boys and risk unsettling them, or forget the video, and go with conventional sound recording?
There was also the new Downstream Monitoring equipment. A twin cassette recorder, not unlike those fixed in the interview rooms, but portable, and with an additional unit which could be placed in an adjoining room with a speaker or headphones, to enable other officers to eavesdrop on the interviews. It also meant a Pallen typist could transcribe the interviews as they went along. Merseyside had Downstream Monitoring, but it only had one set. It could only be used if the interviews were staggered, one after the other, running the machine back and forth between the two stations where the boys were being held. Also, the machine was already in use elsewhere, and they would have to wait until it became available.
Albert Kirby was keeping an eye and an ear on these discussions, and preparing his own brief for Crimewatch. He still wasn’t sure whether to go. He was due on the four thirty flight from Manchester. He didn’t want to be away overnight. George Bundred stepped in and said the police authority would pick up the bill for the helicopter Mike One to meet Albert outside London after the programme and fly him home. This helped, but it didn’t remove the central dilemma.
It was Jim Sharpies who finally resolved the issue.
‘Are you happy’, he said to Albert Kirby, ‘that these are the right two boys?’
The answer had to be, and was, ‘No sir, I can’t say I’m happy it’s them.’
‘Well, go for it then.’
And Albert went, blazing down the outside lane of the M62 in a marked police car, round the M56 to the airport, where he just made the flight.
At Heathrow, he was met by the Crimewatch researcher, who sat with him in the back of the car, going over notes as they drove through West London to Television Centre. Albert was impressed by the meticulous attention to detail. But the travel and the tension were taking their toll. He was beginning to feel decidedly manky.
Throughout the day, OSD search teams had been back and forth from the three addresses, rummaging for anything that might be significant. They bagged and labelled numerous extra pieces of clothing, and various pairs of shoes and trainers.
At Bobby’s home they found a bamboo cane, a copper cylinder with protruding prongs, two studded leather bracelets, a belt, a Sainsbury’s carrier bag full of cassettes, and a Manchester United tracksuit top. At Jon’s father’s maisonette an officer found a child’s drawing lying in the bottom of a wardrobe. It depicted a scene in the film Halloween. From his mother’s home they took Jon’s Thunderbirds computer game and his sketch pad.
As the OSD searches were finishing, the arresting officers gathered at Marsh Lane for a last b
riefing before the start of the interviews. Video recording was out, and they could wait no longer for the Downstream Monitoring. In any case, it would be too cumbersome, staggering the interviews for the benefit of the extra equipment.
Jim Fitzsimmons would dearly have liked to have been one of the interviewers. All detectives think they are good at interviewing and Jim was no exception, but he knew it wasn’t his job this time. He would stay at Marsh Lane to act as the coordinator. It would take the pressure off the two teams, and he could feed information from one to the other.
Phil Roberts remained team leader for Bobby’s interviews. He would be accompanied by Bob Jacobs, and there would be two back-up officers in the station for support. Mark Dale would go in with George Scott, and they too would have a back-up team.
There was no question of telling them how to conduct the interviews. They were all trained and experienced, and they knew what was required. But the ages of the boys could not be ignored, and neither could the fact that it seemed as if the whole world was watching. To fuck up now would be catastrophic.
Interviews were about getting to the truth. Sometimes this meant putting people under pressure, pushing them that bit further. You might provoke anger or tears, if that would get an honest response. It was about judgement, and instinctively suiting the approach to the moment.
There could be none of that now. No pushing, no pressure, no ploughing on through a child’s distress. That would be wrong. It could be disastrous. The boys’ lawyers would be there; let them decide. Watch for tiredness, hunger, and keep checking with the lawyers: are they happy to carry on?
Okay, good luck, keep me informed, let’s go.
19
#f#Roberts. This interview is being tape recorded. I am Detective Sergeant Roberts…
The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case Page 11