by Cara Hunter
‘Bloke of fifty-nine, but I reckon he’s a non-starter.’
‘Why – did he have a good reason for being there?’
‘No, because one) he’s about eighteen stone and needed a winch to get him out of the sodding chair, and two) he’s effing pond life. Sorry but the bloke’s dead from the neck up. Jesus, I ended up wanting to eat my own hands –’
‘Doesn’t mean he’s not guilty, Quinn – you know as well as I do –’
‘Seriously, boss, he’d have to be Benedict sodding Cumberbatch to fake it that well.’
I take a deep breath; Quinn’s a lazy sod but he has good instincts. Despite himself, sometimes. ‘OK, but don’t lose sight of him. Stupidity isn’t a defence. Nor is being tedious.’
Alex glances across and I smile at her. It’s just routine. Nothing for her to worry about. But isn’t that what she keeps telling me?
I return to Quinn. ‘Anything – you know – online?’
Quinn realizes suddenly that I have someone with me. That I can’t spell it out.
‘Oh, right. No. Baxter’s been trawling some of those forums that target trans people but nothing doing yet. Though you wouldn’t believe the poison those shits spew out – I only had a quick look but Jesus Christ. Baxter says he’s never wanted a hot shower so much in his entire life.’
I did a training day once, with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command. Hats off to the people who do that sort of work but I felt contaminated for days. I couldn’t even look at photos of my own son without seeing other children’s faces, other children’s bodies superimposed on his.
But I don’t want that thought. Especially not now. Even allowing it into my mind feels like a betrayal, a dark jinx over the coming child.
I put the phone down and turn to Alex, who sits back in her seat and reaches for my hand.
‘Everything’s fine,’ I say gently. ‘Let’s just get you home.’
* * *
Phone call with Julia Davidson, head teacher, Wellington College, Carlisle Road, Basingstoke
3 April 2018, 2.05 p.m.
On the call, DC V. Everett
VE: I just wanted to have a quick chat with you about one of your former pupils, Mrs Davidson. Just for some background. The surname is Appleford?
JD: Oh yes? Has there been some sort of problem?
VE: Not exactly –
JD: Because I’d be surprised if either Daniel or Nadine had got themselves into trouble with the police.
VE: [pause]
It’s nothing like that, Mrs Davidson. And it’s not about Nadine. It’s about Daniel. Both were at your school, I believe?
JD: That’s right. Mrs Appleford was keen to move to Oxford, but it made sense to wait until Daniel sat his GCSEs.
VE: What was your impression of him?
JD: I wish we had more like him, if you really want to know. Hard-working, polite, well-mannered. A credit to the school.
VE: How did he get on with his peers? Was there anyone he had trouble with?
JD: Oh, nothing like that, he was very popular. Much more so than Nadine, who, between ourselves, can be rather touchy. Though she’s the brighter of the two, if only she’d buckle down and apply herself. But you know what kids that age are like – any sort of academic aptitude is some sort of curse. Sport is different, of course –
VE: Was Daniel good at sport?
JD: No. In fact, as far as I could tell he did everything he could to avoid PE in all its forms. But he wasn’t particularly unusual in that. Changing rooms, showers, puberty – it can be a nerve–racking combination for any teenager. No, sport definitely wasn’t his thing, but he was hugely talented in other ways.
VE: You mean the design stuff?
JD: Yes. He was exceptionally good at art from Year Seven on. My colleague in the art department said Danny was the most gifted student she’d seen in over ten years.
VE: So studying fashion was a natural progression?
JD: [laughs]
Absolutely – he had his heart set on that long before he chose his GCSEs. You may laugh, but I genuinely thought we might have the next Alexander McQueen on our hands.
* * *
Adam Fawley
3 April 2018
14.55
I promised Challow I’d talk to Harrison. And I will. Just not yet. There’s someone else I need to see first.
I pull up outside a solid brick and flint house a few miles outside Abingdon. Open fields, a high hedgerow and a line of distant trees that marks the river. For as long as I worked for him it was Alastair Osbourne’s dream to retire to the country, and last time I came here Project Picket Fence was well underway. Climbing roses, herbaceous borders, the lot. The place looks a lot less loved now, but then again, it’s hard to make anything look that wonderful on a grey April afternoon, even if you do have a lot of time on your hands.
I rang ahead so he knew I was coming but he still looks frazzled when he opens the door. He has a mug of tea in one hand and a tea towel over his shoulder.
‘Adam,’ he says distractedly, as if he expected me and yet was still taken on the hop. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘You’re sure it’s not a bad time?’
There’s a flicker across his face at that, which I don’t immediately understand.
‘No, no, not at all,’ he says. ‘It’s just, well, one of those days.’ He steps aside to let me in. ‘Viv’s in the conservatory. She likes to be able to look at the garden.’
That phrase alone should have told me something, but I’m too wound up about what I’m about to say to hear it. Which is why I’m so entirely unprepared for what I see, when I follow him through to the back. Vivian Osbourne, avid fell walker, former bank manager and no-nonsense Girl Guide leader, is by the window. She has a rug over her knees and a large black cat curled asleep on her lap, but she’s sitting in a wheelchair. I falter a moment then try desperately to pretend I haven’t.
‘MS,’ she says, her voice a little halting but still the Viv I remember. ‘The bastard.’
‘I’m sorry – I didn’t know.’
She makes a face. ‘Well, we haven’t exactly been putting announcements in the Oxford Mail. It’s been pretty shitty, to be honest, but we’re getting there. Finding a way forward.’
Osbourne puts the mug he’s holding on the table next to her. ‘Will you be OK in here for a bit if I take Adam into the kitchen?’
She flaps her hand at him with a dry smile. ‘You two go and talk shop. I’m not completely incapable. Not yet, anyway.’
When we get to the kitchen Osbourne flicks on the kettle and turns to face me.
‘How long’s it been?’
‘Since the diagnosis? We knew about that before I retired. It’s why I went six months early.’
I did wonder; we all did. Everyone noticed a change in him, towards the end – a weariness, a sense that he really didn’t care much any more. But we just thought it was the job. That it had finally ground him down.
‘We weren’t doing badly until she started needing the chair. That was last autumn. Since then, it’s not been so easy.’
I remember the state of the garden, and I try not to make it obvious that I can now see the kitchen could do with a proper clean and there’s an over-full bin reeking by the back door.
‘I’m sorry – if I’d known, I wouldn’t have bothered you.’
He shakes his head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Life may be tougher but it still goes on. And Viv’s the last person who’d want treating like an invalid. You should know that.’
He turns and reaches into a cupboard for teabags.
‘So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?’
And here we are. No-way-back time.
‘Gavin Parrie.’
He pours the boiling water, stirs both mugs, puts the kettle back down and then, and only then, turns to face me.
* * *
Daily Mail
21st December 1999
‘ROADSIDE RAPIST’ GET
S LIFE
Judge calls Gavin Parrie ‘evil, unrepentant and depraved’
By John Smithson
The predator dubbed the ‘Roadside Rapist’ was given a life sentence yesterday, after a nine-week trial at the Old Bailey. Judge Peter Healey condemned Parrie as ‘evil, unrepentant and depraved’ and recommended he serve a minimum of 15 years. There was uproar in the court after the sentence was announced, with abuse directed at both judge and jury from members of Parrie’s family in the public gallery.
Parrie has always insisted that he is innocent of the rape and attempted rape of seven young women in the Oxford area between January and December 1998. One of his victims, 19-year-old Emma Goddard, committed suicide some months after her ordeal. Parrie contends he was framed by Thames Valley Police and, as he was led away, he was heard issuing death threats against the officer who had been instrumental in his apprehension, saying he would ‘get him’ and he and his family would ‘spend the rest of their lives watching their backs’. The officer in question, Detective Sergeant Adam Fawley, has received a commendation from the Chief Constable for his work on the case.
Speaking after the verdict, Chief Superintendent Michael Oswald of Thames Valley Police said he was confident that the right man had been convicted and confirmed that no other credible suspect had ever been identified in the course of what became a county-wide investigation. ‘I am proud of the work done by my team. They went to enormous lengths to find the perpetrator of these appalling crimes and bring him to justice, and it is absolutely unacceptable that they should be subject to either threats or intimidation. Police officers put their lives on the line on a regular basis to protect the public, and you may rest assured that we take all necessary steps to ensure the continued safety of our officers and their families.’
Emma Goddard’s mother, Jennifer, spoke to reporters outside the court after the verdict, saying that nothing was ever going to bring her daughter back, but she hoped she could now rest in peace, knowing the man who destroyed her life was going to pay the price for what he had done.
* * *
‘Alan Challow found it. It was on the girl’s shoes.’
Osbourne smiles. ‘How is the recalcitrant old bugger?’
‘OK. Bit heavier, bit balder, but otherwise much the same.’
He laughs briefly at the memory. But only briefly. ‘And those test results – there’s no doubt?’
I shake my head.
He digs the teabags out and hands one of the mugs to me. There are bits floating on the surface, as if the milk is on the turn.
‘But that’s not such a huge deal, is it?’ he says.
I feel my jaw tightening. ‘It could be. You know the plaster dust thing was always controversial. We never found any of it in that van of his. Or the lock-up.’
‘But the brother was a builder, wasn’t he? Parrie could easily have borrowed his van if his own was off the road.’
Which is precisely what we told the court, and what the jury must have decided to believe, even though the brother vehemently denied it. Parrie always said the plaster dust proved he wasn’t guilty, and now there’s someone else out there, attacking young women, leaving the exact same thing on his victims –
I take a deep breath. ‘It’s not just that. Faith said he pulled out her hair. Though it’s not clear if that was by accident or intent.’
Osbourne’s face hardens. ‘Look, Adam, you can’t seriously be suggesting that the real rapist is still at large somewhere? Someone who – let’s not forget – stopped what he was doing the minute we arrested Parrie, only to start up again now, out of the blue, after all these years?’
‘Perhaps he’s been in prison. Perhaps he’s been abroad. Perhaps he’s been doing it somewhere else all this time and we just didn’t know.’
‘I don’t believe that for a minute. Someone, somewhere, would have made the connection by now.’
‘Not necessarily –’
‘It isn’t him,’ he says steadily. ‘You know it isn’t.’
‘Do I?’
He holds my gaze. ‘We caught Parrie, Adam. You caught Parrie. He’s in Wandsworth. The same place he’s been for the last eighteen years.’
He puts the mug down and takes a step towards me. ‘We got the right man. I believed that then, and I believe it now.’
And I know why. Because there was one thing the jury never heard; one thing the law back then wouldn’t let us use. After we arrested Parrie, we discovered he’d been questioned about a similar attack on a sixteen-year-old girl in Manchester two years before, but when they finally got him into an identity parade the poor kid was half out of her mind with terror and refused to identify him. By the time he started on our patch he’d got a lot more savvy. And a lot more brutal.
I look away, out of the window, down the garden. On the horizon, I can just make out Wittenham Clumps.
‘We thought we had the right man for Hannah Gardiner too.’
Hannah Gardiner who went missing on the Clumps in 2015. Hannah Gardiner who Osbourne thought – we all thought – had been abducted by a man called Reginald Shore. But we were wrong.
There’s a silence, and when I turn back to look at him his cheeks are red.
‘You know how much I regret that, Adam. Especially now.’
I take a deep breath. ‘All I meant was that sometimes we don’t get it right. Despite our instincts and our training and all the rest of the crap – even if we’re a hundred per cent convinced we have the right man we can still be completely wrong.’
Silence again. I can hear Viv talking to the cat in the next room, and the rattle as the wind lifts the corrugated plastic on the lean-to outside.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I begin, but he waves it away.
‘No need for the apology. Or the “sir”. If I sounded defensive, then I’m afraid there was a reason.’
He goes over to the pile of post by the bread bin and pulls out an envelope from halfway down. Locates it so quickly, in fact, that I know he must have put it there deliberately so it was out of sight. Because whatever it is, he doesn’t want Viv to see it.
He hands it to me. A plain brown envelope addressed as ‘Confidential’ to Detective Superintendent A. G. Osbourne, Thames Valley Police (Retired), with a postmark dated two weeks before and a government crest. Her Majesty’s Prison Service.
I look up with a question and he nods. ‘It’s a psych report on Gavin Parrie. He’s up for parole.’
CONFIDENTIAL
PSYCHIATRIC REPORT
Name: Gavin Francis Parrie
Date of birth: 28th May 1962
Current location: HMP Wandsworth
Date of report: 12th March 2018
Executive summary
This report has been prepared as part of the process of assessing Mr Parrie for possible parole. I have spent a total of six hours with him, on three separate occasions at HMP Wandsworth. I have had access to police and prison records, and have consulted Dr Adrian Bigelow, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist to HMP Wandsworth, who has been responsible for overseeing Mr Parrie since he took up the post in 2014. In addition, I have considerable personal experience in the assessment of offenders convicted of sexual offences (a full curriculum vitae is attached).
The prison staff I spoke to confirmed that Mr Parrie has been in every respect a model prisoner. He has taken on a variety of work within the prison environment, and has always carried it out diligently and conscientiously. He has not been involved in any disciplinary or violent incidents, and has successfully completed various training courses which would assist him in obtaining employment, were he to be released. The attached Occupational Therapy report indicates that he is fully capable of carrying out ordinary daily activities and managing his daily routine in a productive manner. He is deemed to be a positive influence on other inmates, especially younger offenders. He has worked hard to maintain contact with his children by letter, and they visit once or twice a year (they currently reside with Mr Parrie’s former wife in Aberd
een so more frequent visits are not practicable). In all the above respects, therefore, I consider him an appropriate candidate for consideration by the Board.
However, there remains one significant issue, i.e. his contention that he is not guilty of the crimes for which he was imprisoned. Such a failure to assume responsibility for offending behaviour and express appropriate remorse (especially with offences of this gravity) is usually deemed to be a significant bar to early release. However, while Parrie continues to maintain his innocence, it appears his attitude has ameliorated considerably in this respect in recent months. Previous to this, he had always insisted that the police ‘fitted him up’; he now appears willing to concede that while there may have been mistakes in the Thames Valley Police investigation, there was no deliberate attempt to frame him for a crime he did not commit. The abatement of this paranoia is clearly a very positive sign. It must also be borne in mind that he has now served eighteen years, and had he originally entered a guilty plea, he might well have been released before this date.
The Parole Board has a duty to assess whether a specific offender continues to present a risk to the public, and individuals will not be eligible for parole unless the Board is satisfied on this point. However, it is – as is well known – especially difficult for someone in Mr Parrie’s particular position to demonstrate reduced risk of harm, as sex offenders who refuse to admit guilt are not eligible for the Sexual Offenders Treatment Programme (SOTP) and the Structured Assessment of Risk and Need (SARN) which follows completion of that programme, which the Parole Board look to when assessing these offenders.
At the same time, it is crucial that those who do maintain their innocence – regardless of the nature of their crime(s) – should not be discriminated against, especially where there are other factors that can be brought into play, to assist in the assessment of risk. I would point to Mr Parrie’s proven good conduct, over a very long period, in support of this. In my own conversations with him, he also expressed considerable sympathy with the victims of the crimes (albeit whilst maintaining that he himself was not culpable), which I also consider to be a positive sign.