How the Dead Speak

by Val McDermid

  ‘There’s got to be something that nails this bastard,’ Alvin growled.

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But it doesn’t always work out that way.’

  39

  The art of profiling depends on our ability to see beyond the obvious to the overlooked.

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  Even in the relatively short time that Carol had been out of the police force, the regulations about what was permissible for anyone visiting prison in an official capacity had become yet more draconian. When they’d met for Carol to pick up her letter of accreditation, Bronwen had explained. ‘Every prison is a bit of a law unto itself, but Strangeways is the worst of the lot. They change the rules from week to week, just to get under our skin.’

  ‘You can still take a bag in?’

  ‘You can, but it’s not worth it. The only things allowed in it are a pen, papers and glasses, if you need them. If there are any paperclips on your files, they have to be removed. Last time I went to Strangeways, they even made me take the elastic bands and the barrister’s ribbon off the brief because they were potential weapons.’

  ‘Death by elastic band?’ Carol was incredulous.

  ‘Could be a thing, apparently.’ Bronwen looked scornful. ‘But really, it’s all about power and control. So, the basics are: no train tickets or timetables, no food or drink, no smart watches or anything with the capability of accessing the big bad internet. Absolutely no phones. Strangeways won’t let you wear a watch or any kind of fitness tracker, which is a shame because sometimes you end up walking a long way to the interview room.’ She grinned. ‘Just take the minimum with you and leave everything in the locker except for your files, your legal pad and your pen. Make sure it’s a nice new pen because they’ll probably only let you take one in and if it runs out, tough.’ She handed over a letter identifying Carol as a paralegal investigator for her firm.

  ‘Go with the flow, Carol,’ she added. ‘I know it’ll kill you but be meek and accommodating. It’s tempting, but don’t pick a fight. The most important person in this is the client. Getting yourself kicked out before you’ve had your sit-down with him defeats the object.’

  Carol raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m not a novice.’

  Bronwen shrugged. ‘You are on this side of the fence. You’re used to being in the driving seat. The defence team don’t even get to sit in the car.’

  So Carol had played the game, swallowing the contempt of the swaggering officers who had painstakingly inspected her passport and the letter from Bronwen, then reluctantly pointed her to the locker where she’d deposited everything except the essentials. She’d been patient and pleasant in the face of their arrogance and her reward was now to walk through the metal detector at HMP Manchester.

  The prison had been renamed in an attempt to scrub it of its notoriety, but everyone on both sides of the law continued to refer to it by its old name – Strangeways, notorious for its tough regime and even tougher inmates. Carol followed a wide-hipped male officer down a hallway that smelled of aggressive cleaning chemicals, through a sally port and a series of locked gates. Eventually, she was led into a tiny interview room with barely enough space for two chairs and a table that was wide enough to make any hand contact difficult. The officer left her alone to stare at the wall for more than ten minutes before Saul Neilson was led in through a door in the wall opposite the one Carol had entered by.

  Prison did nobody any favours and Saul was no exception. He’d lost weight and there was a dullness in his eyes that she suspected was recent. When Carol introduced herself, he barely stirred. ‘I’m here because we think your conviction is unsafe,’ she said.

  He snorted. ‘Of course it’s “unsafe”. I was found guilty of something I didn’t do. It doesn’t get more unsafe than that. I’ve never been in trouble with the law. Not even stopped and searched which, you know, is kind of unusual for a black lad who drives a nice car. But the jury? They thought a gay black man had to be guilty of something and it might as well be murder.’

  Carol nodded. ‘You’re probably right that racist attitudes played a part in your conviction. But there’s no way to prove it, and proof is what we need to change this story.’

  ‘How are you going to do that, then?’ His chin came up in a challenge.

  ‘I’m going to start with the genuine presumption that you’re innocent. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I was a cop for the best part of twenty years. For most of that time, I was a detective. I ended up running a Major Incident Team.’

  He scowled. ‘Like that’s going to make me trust you. Who do you think put me in here?’

  ‘You can trust that I know what I’m doing. And that I know how cops put cases together. For example, there’s usually a period of time between someone being arrested and actually being interviewed on tape. Sometimes police officers claim a suspect said things on the way to the police station and then refused to repeat them in the interview.’

  He sighed. ‘Being verballed is what they call it in here. But that didn’t happen with me. No fabricated evidence claiming I’d said things I hadn’t.’

  ‘It cuts both ways,’ Carol said. ‘Sometimes a suspect says something in that unrecorded window that’s totally unhelpful to the prosecution case. The officers conveniently forget about it when it comes to the sit-down interview and don’t allude to it. So it doesn’t appear on the record. In the shock and panic of being arrested and questioned and charged, it’s easy to forget about it. If people remember it at all, it’s sometimes not until they get to court, when it’s too late for the defence to do anything about it. In English courtrooms, it doesn’t happen like an American crime drama, where a crucial piece of evidence lands at the last minute and turns everything on its head. Can you remember anything like that?’

  He frowned, concentration knitting his brows and drawing down the corners of his mouth. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said at last, shaking his head. ‘Like you said, it was all shock and panic. Not just because of the kind of crime they were talking about, but because . . . well, because I was such a sad fucking closet case and I realised that the life I’d had was over. Whatever happened about Lyle, I was going to lose my family.’

  ‘Because of your sexuality.’

  His eyes glistened with emotion. ‘Yes. And I was right.

  My father hasn’t spoken to me since the day I was arrested. Neither of my parents visited me when I was on remand or since I was convicted. My sister writes to me, but she doesn’t visit either. I lost everything, and all over something I didn’t do.’

  His pain was obvious. She knew that feeling, loss and anger and nowhere to put it. Carol knew better than to rush to judgement, but what she thought she recognised in Saul Neilson was an innocent man. ‘Maybe we can fix at least some of that.’

  ‘I don’t see how. Unless some new evidence fell out of the sky.’

  ‘Not yet.’ She opened the file of papers she’d brought in with her. ‘I’ve been reading the files relating to your case. And I’ve been reading them in a particular way. What we call “walking back the cat”.’

  ‘I don’t know what that even means.’

  ‘It means tracing something back to its dubious origins and figuring out the steps along the way. In this instance, it’s about looking for what’s not there.’

  He scratched his jaw. ‘How do you look for what’s not there? And if it’s not there, how do you know you’ve found it?’

  It was a good question. What was that poem Tony always quoted at them? ‘Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. Oh, how I wish he’d go away.’ But the only way to make him disappear was to shine a light on him. ‘Experience. You’re a landscape architect, right?’

  ‘You know that, why ask?’

  She gave a rueful smile. ‘Force of habit. Always check. I imagine when you look at a project, you know instinctively what would complete it? It’s the same for me. I read a court file and I think, Wha
t would I have asked that these detectives didn’t ask? I was lucky – I used to work with a detective who had an extraordinary talent for interviewing and I learned a lot from watching her. So I bring a lot of experience to the table.’

  He was alert now, head cocked, assessing her. ‘And what did your experience show you was missing in my file?’

  ‘I’ve not dug deep into all of it yet,’ she admitted. ‘But there’s one thing I would have asked in that first interview that isn’t there. And I can’t see the answer to it anywhere in the case papers.’

  ‘So what’s this big question the Bradfield cops didn’t manage to ask me?’ There was a challenge in his expression now, an engagement that hadn’t been there earlier.

  ‘It’s not a big question. But it might have a big answer. Did Lyle Tate say anything about where he was going after he left you?’

  40

  A profile only has investigative value. Not probative. It’s guidance, not evidence. But for detectives attempting to accumulate evidence, it can often point them in directions they hadn’t fully considered.

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  Steve Nisbet was dangerously close to too close to Paula. ‘Why’s Karim doing the interview with you?’ he demanded. ‘It was our interview that put Keenan in the frame, not his. I’ve seen his report. He didn’t even ask the priest about the other bodies.’

  Paula gave him her hardest stare, refusing to speak till he backed away a half-step. ‘When it comes to the conduct of interviews, you do not question my decisions, Sergeant.’ She placed the emphasis on his rank.

  He glared back at her, breathing heavily through his nose. ‘Fine.’ He turned on his heel and stalked off.

  From over her shoulder, Karim spoke quietly. ‘I don’t mind if you’d rather use Steve.’

  ‘Don’t you start questioning me, Karim. Shouting or whispering, it comes down to the same thing. Come on, Keenan’s had long enough with his lawyer. It’s time to get this show on the road.’ Paula headed out of the squad room towards the interview room.

  ‘How do we play this?’ he asked, hot on her heels.

  ‘I’ll take the lead. You make a show of writing down some of the things he says. It doesn’t much matter which things, it’s all about unsettling him. Making him think we know more than we do.’

  At the door to the interview room, Paula paused, fingertips on the door handle. She took a deep breath, allowed herself to consider what she knew and what she believed about Father Michael Keenan, then walked in, barely sparing him a glance. She didn’t recognise the lawyer, a worn-looking woman in her forties in a jacket that was too tight in the shoulders and upper arms. Paula had a sneaking suspicion she didn’t give a flying fuck about it.

  Karim pressed the buttons and everyone recited their name for the tape. Before Paula could ask the first question, Keenan was right in there. ‘I want to make an official protest about the way I’ve been treated. I am an ordained priest of the Catholic Church. If you had asked me to come here to be interviewed, I would have done so. To drag me out of my home at the break of day is offensive to me.’

  Paula adopted an air of boredom as he spoke. ‘Are you finished?’

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ His cheeks were flushed with annoyance.

  ‘It’s on the tape. I’d like to remind you that you are under arrest on suspicion of murder and this is an interview under caution.’

  ‘Precisely whom is my client supposed to have murdered?’ The lawyer’s accent was about three levels further up the social scale than Paula’s. She sounded like the lady of the manor meeting the peasants at the annual opening of the garden to the public. It was completely at odds with her appearance.

  ‘Person or persons unknown, at various points over the past ten years. Approximately.’

  The woman’s eyebrows rose. ‘Could you be any more vague, Inspector?’

  ‘The bodies we have recovered are not readily identifiable, but we are confident that forensics will yield some positive IDs as we move on. We do have the remains of eight bodies so far—’

  ‘He said forty yesterday,’ Keenan interrupted, pointing dramatically at Karim. ‘Which is it? Forty or eight? There’s a bit of a difference.’

  ‘That does seem extraordinary,’ the lawyer chipped in before Paula had a chance to reply.

  ‘Bizarre though it may sound, we’re looking at two separate groups of human remains. My colleague interviewed your client yesterday about the discovery of approximately forty skeletons of girls discovered in the convent grounds. At this point, we’re not considering charging your client in respect of those remains. The focus of this interview is a second set of partially skeletonised bodies found in a different part of the grounds. They came to light as the result of a search using a cadaver dog. So far, we’ve found eight bodies. Initial forensic examination indicates they are homicide victims.’ Paula delivered the information in her calmest tones.

  ‘It certainly does sound bizarre,’ the lawyer said. ‘And why do you think this is anything to do with my client?’

  ‘We have a witness statement that implicates your client.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ Keenan protested. ‘It’s madness to suggest I have anything to do with this. I couldn’t kill someone if my life depended on it. They must be more girls from the convent, you need to be asking the nuns these questions, not me.’

  ‘These are not girls from the convent,’ Paula said. ‘They’re young men.’

  Keenan reared back in his seat, apparently thunderstruck. ‘That’s impossible,’ he gasped.

  ‘I have some questions I’d like to put to your client,’ Paula said.

  ‘I have advised him not to answer anything—’

  ‘I have nothing to hide,’ Keenan shouted over his lawyer. ‘I know nothing about this. This is an outrage. You’re going to be very, very sorry for what you’ve done today.’

  ‘Your pastoral care when you were at the Bradesden house of the Order of the Blessed Pearl – did that extend beyond the convent at all?’

  Clearly, it wasn’t what he expected. ‘No, my ministry was to the nuns and the girls in their charge.’ Then he turned on Karim. ‘What are you writing down? You’ve got this on tape, why do you keep writing stuff down?’

  Paula answered for him. ‘The tape doesn’t always indicate demeanour, Father Keenan. We like our record to be as complete as possible. Did you do any work with the homeless in Bradfield?’

  ‘The homeless?’ He couldn’t have sounded more surprised if she’d asked about his ministry to the royal family. Doubt stirred in Paula’s mind for the first time. She’d encountered premier league liars over the years, however. A priest was someone accustomed to presenting a façade to the world. She wanted to see his reaction to more pressure than this before she seriously considered whether his protestations might be for real. ‘Why would you think that?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’d have thought they’re a group who need all the support they can muster. I’m no expert, but I’m sure you’ve heard the line before – if Jesus came back among us, he wouldn’t be hanging out with the priests and bishops, he’d be down among the drunks and the junkies and the homeless.’

  Keenan looked as if he wanted to hit her. He clenched his fists then, realising what he’d done, he swiftly moved his hands under the table. He leaned forward. ‘Of course the church has an active ministry among the weakest members of our society. But I am not part of that team.’

  ‘That’s odd. We’ve been told that you took a very active role within that community.’

  He flushed. ‘Oh, is that what this is? Dead young men and a priest in the vicinity. Nothing like a sitting duck, is there? Not all priests are abusive. Not all of us are hiding terrible secrets. I am not homosexual. I am not a paedophile. I am no kind of predator, I am a dedicated priest. Whoever these poor souls buried in the convent grounds are, they are nothing to do with me.’ His rage ran out of steam and he hung his head, breathing heavily. ‘Nothing. To do. With
me.’

  Paula waited a few seconds then continued. ‘Our witness says you brought these bodies to the convent for burial. That you said they were young men who had been living on the streets when they died. Young men who had nobody to give them a Christian burial.’

  Keenan gave his lawyer a desperate look. ‘This is madness,’ he protested. ‘How am I supposed to have brought these dead bodies to the convent? On the number forty-seven bus?’

  ‘In your car,’ Paula said.

  ‘I don’t have a car,’ he said, enunciating every word distinctly. ‘I don’t even have a driving licence. You can check with the authorities here and back in Ireland. I have never had so much as a driving lesson. So how exactly am I supposed to be driving around Bradfield with a boot full of bodies?’

  It was, thought Paula, something of a killer punch. ‘According to our witness, you turned up with another man. It must have been his car.’

  ‘And who is this mystery man?’ The lawyer finally interrupted the flow. ‘Do we have a name? A description? A make and model of the car? A registration number? If I saw a pair of men regularly dumping bodies, I’m pretty sure I would have jotted down a few details.’ She paused. ‘No? Nothing?’

  Paula ignored the lawyer and said, ‘How did you get around when you were based at the convent, without a car?’

  ‘It’s not like I went running around all over the place,’ he said. ‘Mostly, I stayed put. The convent had a couple of cars and if I needed to go somewhere, one of the nuns would run me up to the main road to catch the bus. Or they’d give me a lift.’

  ‘So you had access to a car?’

  ‘Theoretically, I suppose. But I can’t drive. So what use would it be to me?’ Keenan ran a hand through his hair. ‘This so-called witness of yours? Is it Jezza Martinu?’

  Paula said nothing, staring him out.

  ‘It is, isn’t it? He’s the only one who could possibly have witnessed anything like what you’ve accused me of. Why are you believing him, not me? He’s the one who dug all the graves for the nuns. If anybody was burying bodies at the Blessed Pearl, it must have been him. Him or somebody he owed a favour to. And I’ll tell you one thing for nothing. I’m the last man walking that Jezza Martinu would do a favour for.’