Cover Up

by Patricia Hall

  ‘I have to drive back to London tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’m due back at work on Monday morning. Are you coming with me?’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, pushing the unfinished remains of her meal round the plate to avoid Barnard’s eye. ‘I haven’t finished everything I want to do for Ken, and anyway I want to make sure my da has surfaced again on Monday morning. I need to know he’s OK before I come back.’ Barnard nodded.

  ‘I suppose that all makes sense,’ he said, ‘though I miss you, Katie. I took a room in a pub in somewhere called Toxteth if you’d like to come back with me.’

  Kate’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘Does that mean not any night?’ he asked, his face gaunt and his eyes full of anxiety.

  ‘I don’t know, Harry,’ Kate said. ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t know. Come round in the morning before you set off. Don’t go without saying goodbye.’

  ‘Would I?’ he said in mock outrage. But Kate was not sure she believed him.

  ELEVEN

  Kate was wakened by the sound of hammering on her bedroom door. She had slept only fitfully and pulled the eiderdown around her shoulders as she slid back the bolt and opened the door. She was astonished to see her sister Annie outside, looking red-eyed and tearful.

  ‘What is it, la?’ Kate asked, suddenly terrified. ‘Is it da? Or our mam? Are they all right?’

  Annie pushed past Kate and sat down on the edge of the bed, tears running down her face. Annie, her first sister, with her copper hair and pale complexion, the baby she had adored from the moment she saw her cradled in her mother’s arms, looked as if she had been almost destroyed by something no less devastating than a death.

  ‘It’s our Tom,’ she said. ‘His friend Kevin came to our house very early this morning and told us the police came for Tom before first light. They took him away to the Bridewell in handcuffs, but wouldn’t say what he’s supposed to have done.’

  ‘Was da at home?’ Kate asked, dropping the eiderdown on the floor and beginning to get dressed quickly.

  ‘No, thank God and all the saints,’ Annie said. ‘Mam said to fetch you and your boyfriend. If he’s a bizzy he might be able to find out what’s going on, mightn’t he? He should be able to help. That’s if he’s not another one who hates what Tom is. Is he as bad as the rest of them? Don’t say he is, Katie. Please don’t say that.’ Annie was on the verge of hysteria, and after pulling on her coat Kate put her arms around her and sat beside her on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Calm down, calm down,’ she said. ‘Harry’s not as bad as the rest of them, I promise. He has his own reasons not to be. He said he was staying at a pub in Toxteth called the Legs of Man. Come on. We’ll find the phone number and see if we can get hold of him. He’s got a car, and anyway he’ll tell us what to do. Or maybe what he can do. They should listen to him at any rate.’

  Annie wiped her eyes and blew her nose hard, her face chalk white beneath the freckles.

  ‘All mam could think of doing was getting hold of Father Reilly, but I don’t think he would be much help at all.’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone Tom would less like to see, except possibly the Pope,’ Kate said angrily, ignoring Annie’s expression of shock. ‘Come on, let’s go down and get a phone book. I can’t think of anyone else in this bigoted city who’s likely to want to help Tom except Harry.’

  To the two sisters’ relief, Barnard arrived at the Lancaster Hotel much more quickly than Kate expected.

  ‘I was checking out anyway and planning to take you out to breakfast,’ he said with a ghost of the smile that had unfailingly bewitched Kate not so long ago. ‘And this must be Annie,’ he said, taking in the auburn-haired young woman who was clinging to her older sister as if to a life raft. He glanced around the hotel foyer and spotted the dining room, littered with dirty dishes but thankfully empty.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I need some coffee at the very least, so you can tell me all about what happened and we’ll decide what we can do about it. Though you do realize that if the police decide to take against what boys like your brother get up to, they can pretty well buy in the evidence they want to make it stick? No one wants to be tarred with that brush anywhere, and I should think especially not in this town.’

  Barnard was persuasive enough to tempt the pretty waitress into providing not only coffee but toast as well, though when he sampled the coffee he soon pushed it away in disgust.

  ‘You’d think a sea port would know what coffee was supposed to taste like!’ he complained. ‘Anyway, Annie, for a start can we talk to Tom’s friend Kevin to find out exactly what happened and what the arresting officers said? They must have had some pretty good excuse to drag him out of bed in the small hours.’

  ‘Kevin said he was going down to the Bridewell to see if he could find out what was going on, but it would be better if we go too.’

  ‘They won’t need much of an excuse to arrest Kevin as well if the mood takes them,’ Barnard said, making no attempt to soften the message. ‘If they’re anything like the Met, there are always a few people on duty who like nothing better than to round up a few queers to provide a bit of entertainment on a dull shift. And you can be sure that some of them’ll claim to be doing God’s work as well as upholding the law.’

  They finished their breakfast in silence, then Barnard ushered them out and into his car. Sitting beside him, Kate guided him through the quiet Sunday morning streets, past the shuttered shops and the debris of the night before’s partying. Though the Beatles euphoria seemed to have subsided, there were broken bottles in the gutter outside several pubs and a few groups of young people weaving unsteadily through the detritus.

  ‘That’s the police station,’ Annie said and Barnard slowed down, reluctant to park his bright-red car too close.

  ‘And that’s Kevin,’ she said pointing to a thin young man in a duffel coat with the hood pulled over his head obscuring his face. He was standing uncertainly on the pavement opposite the police station, watched closely by two uniformed constables from the top of the entrance steps.

  ‘You’d better bring him over, Kate,’ Barnard said quietly. ‘Make it look as if you’re his girlfriend or something. You can’t be too careful.’ Kate got out of the car and crossed the road, aware of the watchful eyes of the police officers. She put a hand on the man’s arm hoping fervently that they were right and that this really was Tom’s boyfriend.

  ‘Kevin,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m Tom’s sister. We heard about what’s happened. Give me a quick hug as if we’re old friends, and we’ll take you somewhere where we can talk.’ His eyes, half-hidden beneath his hood, gave Kate a haunted stare.

  ‘You’re Kate?’ he whispered. ‘He told me he’d seen you the other night. But isn’t your boyfriend a bizzy?’

  ‘Not here,’ Kate said. ‘In London. Things are different there. He helped Tom when he came to London to work and found himself in a bit of trouble. Come on, quick, before those beggars on the steps come over. You don’t want to end up inside with Tom. Give me a kiss and look as if you mean it.’ She put her arms round his neck and he gave her a half-hearted peck on the cheek.

  ‘What the hell did we do to deserve this?’ he asked as he got into the back seat of Barnard’s car alongside Annie.

  Barnard accelerated away without answering directly.

  ‘Where can we get decent coffee at this hour on a Sunday morning?’ he asked as he scanned almost empty pavements and shops and cafés and pubs with ‘Closed’ signs firmly in place. It was a city very definitely not open for business, with the only people out and about heading for church or chapel with determined looks on their faces. Having been taken over by hysterical music fans of the Merseybeat generation only two nights ago, the city had now turned its face against frivolity in favour of prayer.

  ‘We could go back to our house, but if our da turns up he’ll go doolally,’ Annie said gloomily.

  ‘And our pl
ace is right out beyond Bootle …’ Kevin said even more tentatively.

  ‘Try Lime Street station,’ Kate said. ‘The buffet in there should be open. And even if it’s not, there are places to sit. We need to make some urgent decisions about Tom. Like how do we get him a solicitor?’

  The station was quiet and they found an empty table in the buffet. The two men went to the counter to order drinks, leaving the sisters staring disconsolately at each other across the tea-ringed Formica.

  ‘Could he really go to prison?’ Annie whispered.

  ‘I think so,’ Kate said. ‘Harry will know the worst that can happen.’ Though he would not, she was sure, tell Annie what he knew from personal experience – that there were outcomes worse than those the law could impose on Tom, worse than sending him to gaol.

  ‘I thought tea might be safer than coffee,’ Barnard said, handing four cups around. Kevin took his with shaking hands. Kate tried to gauge from Harry’s expression what he was really thinking, but Annie was even more adept than she was at picking up unspoken signals.

  ‘What’s the worst that can happen to him?’ she asked Barnard. ‘Don’t mess us about. Tell us the truth. We need to know what we’re up against.’

  ‘It depends whether they charge him and what they charge him with,’ Barnard said carefully. ‘Kevin, when they picked Tom up did they give you any idea what they thought he’d done?’

  Kevin shook his head.

  ‘They broke the front door down, shouting and screaming about poofs and perverts, and had him out of the place in handcuffs almost before I could get out of bed and put some clothes on.’

  ‘They didn’t want to take you with them?’ Barnard asked. Again, Kevin shook his head.

  ‘One of them asked me how old I was, and when I said I was twenty-two they seemed to lose interest.’

  ‘That sounds as if they would have liked to charge him with seducing kids, which could put him behind bars for a very long time. But they can’t stop you giving evidence for the defence, and if you’ve been together for a while such a charge might be hard to prove. Tell me, how long have you been together?’

  ‘About eighteen months,’ Kevin said quietly. ‘We moved out of town to get away from the queer scene. We just wanted to be on our own, live a normal life. And now this. Why can’t they just leave us alone?’

  ‘What you do is still illegal though it’s years since the report that recommended changing the law, and we still don’t seem to be getting any closer to changing it,’ Barnard said. ‘And you all know where the opposition’s coming from – the Churches of every shape, size and persuasion.’

  ‘It’s not just the priests, though,’ Annie said, glancing at Kate. ‘Our parents will be mortified if Tom ends up in court. My mother will die of shame. No amount of Hail Marys will make her feel better. She’ll think it’s her fault. She thinks everything’s her fault.’

  ‘I’ll go down there and see what I can find out,’ Barnard said. ‘I’m more likely to get in than family are. If they’re serious about charging him, they won’t let any of you near him.’ Kate shuddered. This was not the first time Tom had run into difficulties with the police and she feared that this time it would end less happily.

  ‘Stay here,’ Barnard said. ‘Have a slap-up breakfast, and I’ll be back as soon as I’ve found out what’s going on.’

  Harry Barnard walked into the nick with more apparent confidence than he felt. There were suddenly too many questions around Kate’s family for it all to be just coincidence. Her father’s disappearance could have been down to a drunken binge, but someone had ransacked Kate’s hotel room and now Tom, the most vulnerable of all, was in deep trouble. He could think of no reason why Kate’s assignment could have provoked this sort of reaction. It was more likely that the roots of the problem went way back and started here in Liverpool, not with Kate’s visit.

  There was a different sergeant on the front desk this morning, so Barnard showed his warrant card once more and asked if it was true that Tom O’Donnell had been brought in for questioning.

  ‘The poofter? What’s it to you, whack?’ the sergeant asked, his expression deeply unfriendly.

  ‘I know his sister and she’s anxious about him,’ Barnard said. ‘Has he been charged? And if so, with what?’

  ‘He’ll be in court Monday morning,’ the sergeant said reluctantly. ‘That’s all I can tell you, whack. You know the score.’

  ‘Can I see him? Just for a couple of minutes?’ Barnard persisted.

  ‘Not on your life. It’s more than my job’s worth just talking to you.’ But before Barnard could make any further attempt to persuade him, he was aware of the main doors being flung open with a crash and he turned to face DCI Dave Strachan bustling in with a senior uniformed officer close behind him. At the same moment, another uniformed sergeant appeared from inside the building, looking very anxious indeed.

  ‘I’ve sent for an ambulance, guv,’ he said. Strachan, red-faced and furious, glanced at Barnard and then at the newcomer before turning back to Barnard.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked, grabbing hold of Barnard’s arm and almost pushing him through the door in the direction of the main offices.

  ‘This is a detective sergeant from the Met,’ he said to his colleague. But further explanation was prevented by the arrival of an ambulance, its bell clanging, and the appearance of two ambulance men in a hurry, carrying a stretcher.

  ‘Where’s the casualty?’ one asked. In the mêlée that followed, Barnard found himself ignored for a moment while all the local officers hurried into the bowels of the building, downstairs to the cells. He followed as unobtrusively as he could, and watched as the ambulance staff hurried through the open door of a cell and attended to a figure sprawled on the floor. He could not see a lot but enough to recognize Tom O’Donnell, who did not seem to be moving and was, he thought with horror, quite possibly not breathing.

  ‘Jesus wept!’ he muttered under his breath, pressing himself against the corridor wall and hoping that everyone’s attention was directed into the cell, leaving no one to notice his presence. But that could not last. He watched as Tom was lifted on to the stretcher, and as he was carried past him towards the stairs he could see that his head and face were bleeding and his eyes were closed.

  Inevitably Strachan saw him as he followed the stretcher out of the cell, and his face distorted with fury.

  ‘How did you get down here?’ he snapped. He turned to the sergeant who must have been in charge of the cells. ‘Arrest this man for interfering in police business,’ he said. ‘Put him in a cell and I’ll talk to him later.’

  ‘Sir,’ the sergeant said, turning a deeply unfriendly eye in Barnard’s direction, and Barnard knew that offering any resistance might mean he would be the next person carried out of the custody area. With a groan he sat down on the hard bunk towards which he’d been pushed, and shrugged resignedly as he listened to the door being locked. He had, he realized, walked into a nest of vipers and would be lucky to come out of it with either himself or his career intact.

  After an hour Strachan reappeared, with the custody sergeant in tow. Barnard made to stand up but Strachan pushed him back on to the bunk and hit him hard across the face, so hard that his head snapped back and made contact with the brick wall. Half-stunned, he put up his hands to protect himself, but the sergeant grabbed his arms and pushed him against the wall, allowing Strachan to aim more blows at his head and body.

  ‘For Christ sake!’ he yelled in an interval the DCI seemed to need to get his breath back. ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘It’s for poking your nose in where it’s not wanted,’ Strachan said. ‘And now I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. I’m going to get hold of your boss in London, and make an official complaint about your behaviour and ask them to come and fetch you. And you’ll go back to the Met in handcuffs, facing a charge of being involved in an attempt to pervert the course of justice by trying to aid the escape of a prisoner. It’s t
hat or I keep you here and charge you with being Tom O’Donnell’s lover. Your choice. Either way you’ll end up behind bars.’

  ‘You’re joking!’ Barnard exclaimed, and immediately regretted his lack of caution as Strachan hit him again and again until the custody sergeant put a restraining hand on his arm.

  ‘Maybe not a good idea to send two to hospital in one morning. We’re not in Belfast now, sir.’ Strachan nodded reluctantly.

  ‘You’re probably right, Sergeant,’ he said. He turned back to Barnard. ‘So let’s get rid of you. You’ll stay here until I can arrange to get you back to your home turf, Sergeant bloody Barnard. And don’t let me catch you within a hundred miles of the Pier Head ever again.’

  By eleven, Kate had lost patience. The three of them had picked at breakfast and drunk more tea, and as Barnard had not yet returned she decided it was time to try to find him.

  ‘I’m not going near the Bridewell,’ Kevin had said fiercely. ‘If I show my face there, they’ll have me inside too.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Annie said. ‘Then I need to get home and tell our mam what’s going on.’

  The three of them walked down the hill towards the city centre. Before they got as far as the police station, Kevin stopped.

  ‘I’ll get the bus home,’ he said. ‘I daren’t go near the bizzies. But we’ve got a phone. I’ll give you the number, and can you let me know what’s going on?’ He looked so defeated that Kate gave him a hug, before putting the slip of paper with his number on into her bag.

  ‘I’m really glad you’re with Tom,’ she said. ‘As soon as I know anything at all I’ll ring you. I promise.’