by Lisa Cutts
At the end of the meeting, Sally followed her along the corridor and asked her if everything was OK.
It had led to much reassurance on Barbara’s part that everything was excellent and apologies if she hadn’t contributed all that she should have to the weekly meeting, but her daughter was getting married and only minutes before the start of the wedding-planning get-together, she had called her with a crisis.
Nothing of the sort had happened; it was all she could think of after receiving a text from her daughter asking if she was still free to run into town at lunchtime to check out the price of bouquets. Barbara Venice was a thoroughly professional woman who wouldn’t normally have dreamt of such base behaviour. Never in all of her years of police work had she ever used her family as an excuse for not committing herself to the task in hand when on duty.
She held back from kicking herself in the shins before hurrying towards the sanctury of Harry Powell’s office.
‘All right, Babs,’ he said as he looked up and saw her in the doorway.
‘I’ve been better. Any update?’
Harry pushed himself back from the desk, blue striped shirt beginning to strain at the middle-aged spread. He sighed and put his hands behind his head.
‘Have a seat and I’ll tell you a very sorry tale,’ he began, eyes on the overhead fluorescent lights. ‘Pierre called me about twenty minutes ago. He and Hazel got to Sussex, went to see the Lewis family and as they were speaking to Mum, Monica walked into the room and said that she’d made up the entire rape allegation against Dean Stillbrook.’
‘Oh good grief.’
‘That’s putting it much milder than I did. If there was a swear box in here, I’d need to set up a direct debit. They’re taking Monica to the nearest nick for a voluntary interview. Her mum’s going too, but for crying out loud, if he never touched her and he was murdered because of what he did – or didn’t do in this case – we’ve not only got a vigilante, but a vigilante who’s been led up the garden path and so far, has got away with murder.’
Even though he had an idea of the impact of his words on her, Harry couldn’t begin to know how worried and fragile the entire situation was making her feel.
She shut her eyes, only for a moment. When she opened them again, Detective Inspector Harry Powell had pitched forward in his seat, heavily lined forehead wrinkled to such an extent it made Barbara laugh.
‘What?’ he said.
‘You look like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. I understand that you’re the senior investigating officer but I’ve come to you and told you of my concerns about all this. You know my feelings on the original investigation. Do you have any good news?’
‘Woodville seems to have complied with the terms of his Sex Offender Prevention Orders as far as not having a computer goes.’
‘Thanks, Harry. Any update regarding not buggering children?’
She saw him grimace. Harry Powell had actually pulled an uncomfortable face in front of her. This was the point where she knew it was time for her to take a break and step back.
Everyone had that one job, that murder, that investigation that should have been when they drew the line.
Perhaps this was her swansong.
It happened.
Barbara wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last. She had known CSIs who had attended one mutilated body too many, officers who had taken dead babies to the nearest hospital because of an ambulance strike, off-duty colleagues who had been attacked by disgruntled criminals whilst they were out with their families. So many of those people had reached the point where giving up their own lives no longer held an allure, and they had decided to take back a life for themselves.
It was probably time to make crime someone else’s problem again.
‘I’ve had enough,’ she said. ‘I don’t only mean about this, but generally with this job. I’m thinking of putting my ticket in. You know what I mean. I could do something else while I’ve got the chance.’
She stared at a blank-faced Harry.
‘I’ve never seen you so quiet,’ she said. ‘Please say something.’
‘We’ve all had the dream of giving this up,’ he said. ‘Everyone thinks that the life of a detective is a calling and why would anyone with such a job do anything different. I can bloody well tell you why. It’s fucking hard work to hang on to your sanity. Don’t do it, Barbara. Don’t leave.’
She smiled and said, ‘Just for calling me Barbara and not Babs, I’ll see this one out before I make any decision.’
Barbara got up to go.
‘One more thing before I leave you to it,’ she said. ‘At some point, can you let me have an update on the death threats Albert Woodville got? And don’t look at me like that. All the time I’m still here, I’ll do the best job I possibly can.’
She walked out, leaving Harry with the thought that any chance of Barbara letting the fight go out of her was inconceivable.
Chapter 49
The weather always had a huge impact on Leon and Toby’s working day. Rain meant that they lost money, and often overspent in cafés and pubs if it was set in for the day. Toby would happily have gone home on those occasions but never let on that he stayed with Leon to keep his friend company.
Today, as they made their way back to the van from their breakfast, Toby knew that, if the heavens were to open, he would rather be indoors on his own than trying to drag out a conversation with Leon. He had never known his friend to be so quiet. A dry day meant that he would at least have to make the effort with him.
‘You know where we’re off to first?’ said Toby as Leon started the engine.
He watched Leon’s profile as his enormous head gave a tiny nod and possibly heard ‘Mmm’ come from his pursed lips.
‘It’s that young woman with the two kids. She always offers us a cup of tea. She gave us cake last month. This’ll be a good start to the week.’
‘I can’t do it.’
Leon sat with his hands on the steering wheel, breaths long and slow, chest rising and falling beneath his fleece jacket.
‘Can’t do what? I get the impression you’re not talking about eating chocolate cake?’
‘I’m thinking of going to the police—’
‘The police?’ said Toby. ‘What the fuck for? Are you crazy?’
‘Isn’t it better that I go and tell them what I’ve done, what we’ve done, than they find out and nick us? It’ll look better for us.’
Toby slumped back against the van door, partly to distance himself from his friend and his ludicrous suggestion, and partly to observe him. He felt his heart racing and he suddenly felt hot and cold at the same time. If he hadn’t known better, Toby would have said it was the start of a panic attack.
The two of them remained where they were for some time before Leon turned his head so slowly to the passenger seat it was as if he was scared of what he might see there.
‘You know that I’m not very good at coping with serious stuff,’ Leon said at last. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Mate, you’ve got to leave it behind you, like we left what happened to us at the children’s home behind us. We left it years before we felt strong enough to do anything about it, and now, we do the same. We walk away and carry on as before. We talked about this.’
‘How do you cope? I don’t mean about Woodville’s death. I mean how do you deal with what he did to you?’
The words hung in the air between them, suspended in the stifling hot blasts spilling from the dashboard’s heaters.
It was the first time that Leon had ever asked Toby outright; it was an unwritten rule they had that they never spoke of their sexual abuse. Toby loved that their invisible bond was there, even though it came from something so hideous. It was the worst kind of burning shame that they never discussed, merely lived with it every day.
When seven-year-old Toby had walked into the bedroom he shared with Leon in the home, and seen the expression on his roommate’s face, he knew w
hat had happened to him. There was no mistaking that look of hurt and humiliation.
The same bedraggled, lost look was once again back. It had taken hold of every part of his features and Toby knew that he was watching someone who was within touching distance of despair. Everything torturous up to that point, they had gone through together, and he wasn’t about to change it now.
Toby spoke before he could change his mind.
‘If you really want to go to the police, I’ll come with you.’
Even as he said the words, he wasn’t entirely sure that he would see it through. The police would never believe their story and time in prison wasn’t something he was cut out for. Leon even less so. No one knew better than Toby that his friend was a huge, gentle man who under any other circumstances wouldn’t have hurt anyone. He had only become embroiled in the planning of Albert Woodville’s murder because he was a loyal individual who couldn’t bring himself to walk away from someone in their hour of need, even if that meant going to prison.
All Toby could do was guess at what Leon might actually say if he went to the police, but what he did know was that he regretted drawing him into the whole sorry escapade. If he hadn’t shared with Leon that, whilst out shopping with his wife and kids, he had seen Albie Woodville as he strolled along East Rise High Street, head held high, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, and the old familiar feelings of humiliation and degradation had returned in an instant, Leon would not be reacting this way now. Those feelings were back so fast, it was as if the last twenty years of building a life, family, home and business had never happened. He was instantly in his bedroom in the children’s home, hiding under the bed covers and praying to a God he didn’t believe in that tonight would be someone else’s turn.
No, he should never have told Leon about that chance sighting of their tormentor. He should have done it alone.
Except he knew that he needed Leon to be by his side.
That was the most selfish act he had ever carried out and, ever since, throughout every minute of their plotting, not a day went past when he didn’t regret that he had involved Leon.
The contempt he had for himself was overwhelming: all those years ago, he had had the chance to take a pair of scissors or knife from the kitchen and ram the blade into Woodville’s jugular on any of the nights when he had sat beside his bed, hands creeping under the covers, gasping as his fingers stroked Toby’s flesh. Why hadn’t he killed him then? Surely the other children in the home would have backed him up. None of this would now be happening.
He despised himself for failing to act all those years ago and save himself, Leon and the others he knew were being harmed; and he despised himself for not being strong enough to face this alone.
If Leon felt that he should go to the police and tell them what they had done, he would go with him. Needless to say, they still needed a plan.
‘Do you really mean it?’ said Leon. ‘We’ll go together?’
‘I really mean it. The only thing is, what we tell them. We have to decide and then stick to it. They’ve already been to see me, so I don’t think it’ll be long before they pay you a visit.’
‘Bloody hell. What have you told them about me?’
‘Don’t panic, Dilly. They asked me where I was on Friday night. I was with you. We already worked that bit out a long time ago.’
‘Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry. It’s the nerves setting in. So what do we do?’
Leon released his grip on the steering wheel and ran his hands across his head before dropping them down to his sides.
‘You know that I need your help,’ said Leon. ‘You’ve always been the brains of this outfit.’ He waved away the beginning of a protest from the person he trusted most in the world before he continued with what he wanted to say. ‘I’ve not been completely honest with you. Remember that day you came back to our room at the children’s home? Woodville had walked out as you were coming up the stairs?’
He looked across and saw his friend nod.
‘Christ. I’ve practised telling you this for what seems like a thousand years. I knew I’d struggle. I didn’t realize how much until now.’
Leon took a deep breath and let out the secret he had kept for as long as Toby had felt the need to take to his skin with a wire brush to scour away the imagined dirt.
‘The thing is that Woodville didn’t touch me. Not in the way he touched you anyway.’
The silence was louder than the noise of the air rushing towards them through the vents.
‘I wanted to tell you, Toby, really I did. You watched out for me in the home and I idolized you. You’d got it wrong about him sexually abusing me but he still made my life a misery. He made me eat food from the floor, stand naked in the freezing corridor if I didn’t clean the floor properly afterwards, he kidney-punched me more times than I can remember. You know why he didn’t interfere with me, do the stuff to me that he did to the rest of you?’
A miserable shake of the head from Toby.
‘Because he told me that I was too fat. He didn’t fancy fat kids. It was such a relief to know that he wasn’t going to mess about with me, but do you know the fucking ridiculous thing? It made me feel left out. What the sodding hell is wrong with me?’
‘We were children,’ said Toby quietly. ‘We were only kids. I think that we’d better go to work now, and let me think about what we do next.’
‘I didn’t want to tell you this. I’m so sorry.’
‘Sorry for what? Sorry that you weren’t sexually abused? Let me think. We’ll talk about it later.’
‘I can’t leave things like this all day between us,’ said Leon. He rubbed at his eyes, possibly so that he didn’t have to look at Toby as he spoke. Toby couldn’t tell. In fact, he felt that he couldn’t tell the truth of any situation any more.
Toby had got everything so wrong: he felt as though he had perhaps failed to grasp any aspect of his life properly. He had misinterpreted an expression so many years ago, and now it was shaping his whole life. He needed time to think. Time away from Leon.
‘I need to tell you, Tobe, of the total humiliation that man put me through. It wasn’t only what he said to me about being fat, it was worse than that.’
At this point Leon stopped rubbing his eyes and turned in the driver’s seat to look at Toby face to face.
He saw now why Leon had spent the last several seconds with his fingers over his eyes. It was an attempt to stop the tears, and it hadn’t worked.
‘Woodville came up to the bedroom after he sent you to the shops. He obviously knew you’d be a while and I was on my own. He kicked the door shut and I remember as clear as if it was yesterday, I thought to myself: This is it. Today it’s my turn. The most stupid thing was I didn’t want to let him see me cry. Reducing me to a sobbing eight-year-old seemed like the most terrible thing that could happen.
‘He, he … pushed me up against the wall, grabbed my privates. I was a fucking kid, for God’s sake. What could a grown man get from touching an eight-year-old’s dick? I told him to leave me alone, that I’d tell. I was petrified but like with all bullies, I thought if I stood up to him, he’d back down.’
Leon paused to wipe the tears from his cheeks. His enormous hands merely pushed the wetness down to his chin.
‘Little chance of him backing down,’ continued Leon. ‘He put one hand around my throat and squeezed it. With the other hand, he undid my trousers and pulled them down. I thought he was going to touch me again. Instead, he let go, stood back, looked me up and down and said, ‘What would I ever see in a fat little bastard like you? You’re disgusting.’ It was probably the most mentally cruel thing he could have done to me.’
Both men sat still. Neither spoke. Eventually Leon was aware that Toby was trying to say something. He put his hand out and turned the heater off to stop the noise of the blower from carrying away his friend’s words.
Leon leaned forward until his ear was almost level with Toby’s mouth.
‘You might ha
ve put off telling me for years, Leon. It’s important that you understand that, even if he didn’t rape you, touching you is still sexual abuse.’
For the first time in their lives, the two men sat and cried together.
Chapter 50
‘Hi, everyone,’ said Harry to a crowded incident room. There was an immediate drop in the noise level, although one or two people were making phone calls so the detective inspector raised his voice to be heard over the sound of a murder team’s buzz. ‘I’ve got an update from Hazel and Pierre although I’d rather keep it for the briefing. Let’s make it at midday. I realize that’s a lot later than normal but I want to speak to them again and catch up on a couple of things. In the meantime, can someone work out if any of the former witnesses in the 1990s investigation are currently living in Sussex so Hazel and Pierre can double up their enquiries, and then can someone tell me where Gabrielle is?’
Several heads made as though they were scanning the room, most were going through the motions. The detective inspector was asking the question so his staff seemed to make the effort to care but they all had their own tasks to get on with. Looking for a wayward member of staff wasn’t a murder-investigation line of enquiry, so it didn’t feature on most of their radars. Besides, he had little doubt that judging by the general apathy towards Gabrielle, most of them didn’t have much time for her.
He hadn’t failed to notice that things in his briefing room were a little strained. He paid attention and was a man who cared about both the investigation and his staff. One wasn’t possible without the other, and the pressure was on, especially as it wasn’t long ago he was a detective sergeant and was keener than ever to show his capability as a DI.
As he was about to return to his office, the main door opened and Gabrielle walked towards him, takeaway coffee in hand.
‘Just the person,’ he said to her. If he wasn’t very much mistaken, her cheeks instantly dotted pink. To Harry’s mind, she was giving the appearance of having been caught doing something she shouldn’t.