by Steve Mosby
‘All right,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t know everything. So how about you take me through the details? Because you never know, do you? If we pool resources, maybe we can help each other out.’
He looked back at me for a moment, still considering.
‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘Let’s see how we go.’
My second impression of Robertson had been correct. Despite his dishevelled outward appearance, he proved sharp and incisive, succinctly summarising the case and giving me a far clearer picture of what had happened than the file ever could, even if I’d studied it for hours. It was obvious from the moment we started talking that not only did the case mean a lot to him, but he knew it inside out.
More to the point, he began relaxing with me. As the conversation progressed, it felt more and more as though we were on the same side. Perhaps we were – although I still wasn’t sure. Whatever Robertson’s own personal doubts, the evidence against David Groves remained compelling, to say the least.
Groves hadn’t started out as a killer, that much was certain. He’d started out as a hero, when eight-year-old Laila Buckingham had been found – badly hurt but alive – chained to a bed in a back room.
‘He saved her life,’ I said.
‘Yes.’ Robertson nodded once. ‘And nearly died doing it. He would have done the same thing again too. Without hesitation. He was a hell of a guy.’
‘I can see that.’
‘And that’s why he felt so guilty about what happened to Jamie. Not that he ever regretted saving Laila Buckingham; David wasn’t like that. Even with what happened to Jamie, I don’t think he’d have gone back and changed a single thing about what he did.’
‘He thought the same people took his son?’
‘Yes. To take revenge on him. I think that too.’
At the time, it must have seemed a somewhat far-fetched idea – few gangs would be so bold – but in hindsight there was something to it. The flat had belonged to a man named Simon Chadwick, and the information he had given upon arrest had indicated that a paedophile group was operating locally. They were never caught, and David Groves, the man who had thwarted them, had been paraded through the newspapers as a hero. You could see why he might come to the conclusion that his son had been targeted. More to the point, the photographs in the collection retrieved from Paul Carlisle’s house today contained images of both Laila Buckingham and Jamie Groves.
‘Have you got kids, Detective Nelson?’
I shook my head.
‘Well,’ Robertson said, ‘let me tell you. A lot of people would probably sympathise with what David’s supposed to have done. A lot of people would say he was right to have done it.’
‘I’m sure that’s true.’
‘And that would be my position as well. If he had done it, I’d understand. But that’s the thing. He wouldn’t have done it. He wasn’t that kind of person.’
‘What was he, then?’
‘He was a good man.’ Robertson leaned back. ‘Despite everything that happened to him, he still believed in God. Can you imagine that?’
I thought about what Rebecca Lawrence’s father, Harold, had said to me. How could I be religious now? I wouldn’t want to meet the God that took my daughter away from me.
‘Not really,’ I said.
‘But David had real faith. He believed in justice, sure, but not that kind of justice. He was a cop through and through. Following the law meant everything to him, and after Jamie died, it was all he had left. If he’d found the people responsible, he’d never have killed them. It just wasn’t in his nature.’
We talked through the crimes Groves was supposed to have committed. The first murder he’d been convicted of was that of Edward Leland, who was killed on 30 July 2013, just over two years ago. Leland had been tortured and murdered; Groves had tried to cover up his actions by setting fire to the victim and the house around him. As the investigation progressed, there had been a suggestion that Leland was implicated in child pornography, although no direct evidence was ever found to confirm it.
Leland’s laptop was found later in Groves’ home. The working theory was that from either the computer, or Leland himself, Groves had managed to extract information that led him to a young homeless man named Carl Thompson. Thompson’s remains were discovered in the tunnels under the railway arches; he too had been tortured before being killed. A man matching Groves’ description was witnessed leaving the scene shortly before the discovery of the body. Groves later confessed to phoning the report in anonymously, and Thompson’s phone was discovered in his house.
‘Okay. What about the third victim? The woman in the fire station.’
‘Laura Harrison.’ Robertson nodded. ‘She was a nursery worker.’
‘A nursery worker?’
That made me think about Rebecca Lawrence again. She’d worked in a nursery too.
‘Yes,’ Robertson said. ‘Years before, Harrison worked at the nursery that Jamie Groves used to go to, before he was abducted.’
‘You think Harrison targeted him?’
‘Yes, I think so. She was vetted at the time, obviously, and came back clean. It’s impossible to prove it either way, though, now that she’s dead.’
‘And what about the birthday card?’
‘David got them every year, always on what would have been Jamie’s birthday. You know what sick fucks some people are. He got that one on the thirtieth.’
‘The same day Leland was killed?’
‘That’s what he told me. But it had been added to since then. He said that when he opened the card, the only thing there was the first line. Like a taunt: I know who did it. But when I found it, someone had turned it into a confession, naming the victims.’
I opened the file I’d brought with me, turning to the page close to the end that contained a photograph of the birthday card. The message inside had been written very carefully, and while the handwriting was never conclusively matched to Groves’, the implication was obvious. Groves had written the birthday card to his son, apologising for what he was about to do, and then started delivering the boy a special birthday present by killing the people responsible for his murder.
‘The thing is,’ Robertson said, ‘why would David have lied to me about that? Why would he bother at that point? He didn’t even need to mention the card. No – I think someone got into the house and set the scene.’
‘Playing devil’s advocate,’ I said, aware of how appropriate the phrase was right now, ‘that someone could have set a better scene.’
‘Yeah, but it was good enough. And without David around to defend himself ... ’
Robertson leaned back, the look of frustration on his face allowing me to finish the thought for him. Without David around, it was left to me. And I wasn’t good enough, was I?
Not when he’d come up against Mercer, anyway.
I turned to the last few pages of the report, which dealt with the disappearance of David Groves. His vehicle was discovered, apparently abandoned, on the ring road to the north of the city, with empty bottles of vodka in the passenger footwell. The woods were combed without success, and nobody had seen anything of David Groves since that day. Suicide was the presumption, and certainly the woods contained a multitude of places where a body might lie undiscovered.
The evidence had been compelling back then. On the surface, it remained so now.
‘You think Groves was framed?’ I said.
Robertson didn’t even hesitate. ‘Yes. He thought so too. He thought it was maybe another parent – someone else who’d lost a child to the same people – but I don’t know if I ever bought that idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. It all felt too organised for that.’
Organised. I nodded to myself. Yes, it did. And everything about the recent case spoke to that too. The planning and execution had spanned years. We were dealing with patient, resourceful individuals, and right now, I was sure we were only seeing a small fraction of their activiti
es. Based on what we knew so far, I imagined they’d be more than capable of framing David Groves. And of course, suicide was only a presumption. His body had never been found.
‘I believed him, though.’ Robertson turned his head to look out of the window. From where I was sitting, all I could see was the sky, full of dark grey cloud. ‘But I can’t work out why anyone would do that to him. Because it’s true what I told you earlier, you know. I realise you never met him, but it’s true.’
‘What is?’
‘That David Groves was a good man. A decent man.’ Robertson turned away from the sky and looked at me again. ‘Maybe the best man I’ve ever known.’
And thinking again about the lack of a body, and the way the people behind this could orchestrate disappearances and fake deaths, I began wondering.
David Groves was a good man.
I began wondering about that use of the past tense.
Groves
Now
There was little past any more.
There was certainly no future. Groves had given up attempting to keep track of time; it had ceased to have any meaning down here. There was just the darkness, the dripping noises, the blaring bursts of television that seemed to come at random. Only the now.
You got used to everything eventually, and the now no longer caused him the pain it had done back at the beginning, immediately after his death. His grave was just large enough for him to stand in, but not long enough to lie down, so he’d become used to half sleeping in a bent and awkward curl on the hard ground, or else leaning in the corner, trusting the exhaustion to keep him under for a time. The aches in his body remained, but he’d become accustomed to them, so that what had once been extreme discomfort – agony, even – was now only a background hum of pain. The boredom had become normal and everyday. He no longer thought much. Even his dreams, which had been as bright and shocking as the television to start with, had dulled and flattened. However hard the path it has to tread, your life finds a way to continue.
Not life, of course.
Just as there had once been pain, Groves knew there had also been a time when he had questioned the fact of his suicide – railed and fought against it, even as the Devil had patiently explained it to him, time and time again. Again, that was so distant now as to feel meaningless and alien. How could he ever have doubted it? It was ridiculous. He had killed himself, and now here he was. In Hell. When he tried, he could even remember what had happened, and the memories were as vivid as any from before his death.
I saved a little girl, and so my son was murdered.
I failed to catch his killers, and so someone else did it for me.
They took everything I had left from me.
And there was nothing left to live for.
The words came easily; he had repeated them often enough. Thinking back now, Groves was sure he could remember parking his car by the path that led to the clearing where Jamie’s body had been found. In the afternoon light, the rain pattering down, he had retraced the steps that had taken him there on that dark night two years before, and had stood for a while looking down at what had once been a grave and was now simply an anonymous patch of land. There was no sign his boy had ever been buried there.
After a short time, he had moved on, deeper into the woods, ever deeper, until he had found a ravine that was high and isolated enough. He had been completely calm when he jumped. He remembered thinking that. It would surprise anyone who could see me, he’d thought, looking up, the individual drops of rain visible against the sky as they fell. It would seem strange to them, how calm I am.
He had jumped. And then he had been here.
In Hell.
This was his reward. All through life, despite everything that had happened to him, he had kept his faith and tried to be a good man – always trusting that God had a plan, and that the terrible things that happened to him were taking place for a reason. Always attempting to do the right thing. And look how it had turned out for him. The realisation brought a surge of bitterness. One by one, all the things that had ever mattered to him had been taken away, and now he was here, being punished still. His behaviour and his faith – it had all apparently counted for nothing in God’s eyes. If he felt anything at all in the darkness now, it was hate.
As if on cue, the television came to life, filling the cell with sharp blue light. Once, Groves would have winced from the contrast, but his eyes barely registered the sudden burst of pain. Now, rather than turning away from it, as he had sometimes done, he sat down cross-legged before it.
It was a recording of a news report. There were a handful of different ones played to him, but this was the most familiar. The red banner at the bottom read: REVENGE MURDERS: COP SUSPECT STILL MISSING. The main screen was taken up by a head-and-shoulders shot of another policeman, standing outside the department building. He was old, his hair receding, and he looked very tired and serious. Groves recognised him, of course. John Mercer was a legend in the force.
‘Detective David Groves is currently the main suspect in the murder of three individuals,’ Mercer told the off-camera reporter.
The screen split to include three photographs on the right-hand side. Edward Leland, Carl Thompson and Laura Harrison.
Mercer said, ‘We are investigating links these individuals may have had to the abduction and murder of Detective Groves’ son, Jamie, along with a number of other children. We are currently requesting that anyone who may have information come forward. We are also appealing to David Groves.’ He turned to face the camera directly. ‘David. Your colleagues and family are extremely concerned for your safety. We urge you to get in contact with us.’
Groves stared at Mercer’s face. There wasn’t an ounce of compassion or concern in it. The man had already made up his mind, just as they all had. There would have been no chance of fair treatment. If he hadn’t been dead already by the time this broadcast aired, there was no way he would have come forward.
The reporter said, ‘Can you comment on rumours that Detective Groves’ car has been found in the northern area of the city?’
Mercer turned back to the reporter. He was nodding along to the question, but said, ‘No, I’m afraid I can’t comment on that. All I can repeat is that we remain concerned for Detective Groves’ safety and well-being, and ask for him to get in touch with us at the earliest opportunity.’
‘And are you looking for anyone else in connection to these deaths?’
Onscreen, Mercer hesitated slightly, and the action gave him away. Cut and dried, Groves thought. Already. Despite everything he’d done, and tried to do, they had all immediately decided that he’d done it. Judged him. His deeds, his character – none of that had mattered at all.
‘I can’t comment on that either, I’m afraid.’
The camera remained on him for a moment, and then the television flicked off, plunging Groves back into darkness again. A ghostly pale blue after-image of Mercer’s face hung in the air for a moment, gradually fading.
Groves stood up slowly, his atrophied muscles finding the movement hard. He wondered what he looked like. He hadn’t seen himself in ... well, what did time matter down here in Hell? But he knew his hair was long and matted, his beard overgrown, his body thin and filthy. There was no sunlight here. His skin was probably the colour of teeth.
Not that it mattered.
He became aware that someone was outside his cell door. He could hear them breathing. When he looked towards the slot there, he saw what looked like a pair of eyes peering in at him. That didn’t matter either. He was too exhausted to care.
He backed into the corner of the cell and leaned there.
It counted for nothing.
And with that thought echoing through his empty mind, he closed his eyes and slept.
Mark
The long game
Fifteen minutes until the briefing.
Back on our corridor, Pete’s door was open, and I could hear him talking quietly to Mercer. I ignored them for no
w, heading instead into my own office and closing the door. I cleared piles of paperwork from my desk, then checked an update from the hospital.
Paul Carlisle’s partner, Jenny Cantrell, remained distressed, and was being cared for under guard. She had managed to give a brief account of events at the house. She had been in the front room with Carlisle when three individuals had appeared in the living room; she had no idea how they’d got in. They were dressed in black, including face masks, and she described them as feeling like soldiers, but she hadn’t had much of a chance to see before a panicked Carlisle told her to get upstairs.
Cantrell had hidden in the bedroom, where she could hear the sounds of the disturbance below and her partner screaming, and then two of the men had entered the bedroom. One began arranging the material on the bed, while the other worked on the wall. She had sat still throughout, closing her eyes and holding her hands over her ears. When the men left, she had seen what was on the bed and collapsed again in shock.
I put the report down, then spread my various files on the desk and opened up a blank document on my main computer, keeping a tablet to one side of me as well. I wanted all the information at my fingertips, because I needed to make sense of it – to place it into some kind of order and context, even if the ultimate meaning remained unclear. I hit the option for the tablet to feed through to the plasma screen I had mounted on the opposite wall, because I also wanted the details writ large.
I typed in the additional dates from the Groves case.
Provisional timeline
15 March 2008 David Groves rescues Laila Buckingham
14 June 2010 Jamie Groves abducted
19 June 2010 Rebecca Lawrence reported missing (14th?)
8 September 2012 Body of Jamie Groves discovered
30 July 2013 Edward Leland found murdered (home)