Unsafe Convictions (6 page)

‘
And was
that
a sexual relationship?’ When Dugdale nodded, McKenna said: ‘How long did it continue?’

‘
Off and on until I left school, I suppose.’

‘
Were you seriously involved?’

‘
I don’t
know
!’ His face was almost haggard. ‘She was the first girl I’d ever been with.’

‘
So, you made your own contribution to pushing her “off the rails”?’ McKenna persisted. ‘Your own phrase, if I recall correctly.’

‘
Oh, really, Superintendent!’ Hinchcliffe was becoming energised by the conflict. ‘It’s quite apparent this Broadbent girl made no secret of her inclinations, and my client can’t have been the first, and obviously wasn’t the last, to take advantage of what was on offer. If your case against him is reduced to chastising him over an adolescent sexual fling with a very willing girl who was also over the age of consent, I suggest you terminate these proceedings as of now.’

‘
As your client failed to disclose this relationship during the murder investigation, I do not accept that his professionalism was intact.’

‘
What difference would it have made if I
had
said?’ A steely challenge gleamed in Dugdale’s eyes as he confronted McKenna. ‘Apart from making Julie’s life harder than it already is? She had to haul herself through acres of shit to get where she is, and she’s a right to be respected for it. Wendy Lewis, for one, had plenty of bitchy things to say about her, without my handing out even more ammunition.’

‘
Does Broadbent know Linda?’ asked McKenna.

‘
Probably,’ Dugdale replied. ‘Julie knows a lot of people. She’s local born and bred.’

Noting
the way Dugdale stressed her name, McKenna began to replace the documents in his briefcase. ‘For today, the interview is suspended. It is my duty to warn you that you must make no attempt to contact or communicate with any of the principals in this matter, and must avoid any chance or opportune meeting or discussion. Should you ignore my order, you will be arrested and held in custody pending the outcome of my investigation. Do you understand?’ he added, looking at Dugdale.

‘
Yes.’

‘
And do you agree to comply?’

‘
My client is well aware of his vulnerable position, and will do whatever is necessary to expedite this most unfortunate and, I must say, most stressful business.’ Before Dugdale could take the initiative, Hinchcliffe shepherded the visitors from the room, saying, as they reached the front door: ‘Tell me, Superintendent, how long will this charade go on?’

‘
Charade?’

‘
While some of my client’s actions might be open to mild criticism, you’ll find the answers to the questions you
should
be asking lie well outside the knowledge of any police officer.’

‘
Please don’t attempt to suborn me,’ McKenna advised. ‘Your motives can hardly be described as impartial, whereas my duties must be carried out without malice or favour, as you know.’

Hinchcliffe
bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. ‘Well, Superintendent, if such a noble ethic succeeds in informing your conduct, it’ll be a first in the history of policing, won’t it?’

*

‘You’re not here to be a silent witness to the proceedings, Jack.’ Waiting at the kerb while Ellen, out of earshot, stowed the machinery on the back seat, McKenna began to nag his deputy. ‘You left me to do all the work in there.’

‘
You didn’t leave me much to say.’

‘
You’re supposed to provide a balance. I go on the attack, you offer the listening ear.’

‘
I thought the “nasty copper, nice copper” routine was frowned upon these days?’

‘
It may well be, but it’s still effective.’

‘
You were effective enough on your own with Dugdale,’ Jack commented. ‘Granted, he looks awful, but he’s got plenty of fight in him, and he’s not in the least apologetic.’ Walking over to the car, he added: ‘And my guess is that he’s got nothing to apologise for.’

‘
You think?’ McKenna demanded, striding after him. ‘The case he put together against Smith was like a house of cards. No wonder it collapsed!’

Part Three

Monday, 1st February

Evening

Chapter One

Rene
had gone for the day, leaving the Church Street house spick and span. Dinner over, they sat around the table, drinking freshly brewed coffee.

‘
Wendy Lewis is next on the list,’ McKenna said. ‘Janet’s doing her interview.’

‘
She outranks me, sir,’ Janet pointed out.

‘
Neither she nor her brief objected when that was put to them.’ Lighting a cigarette, McKenna turned to Ellen. ‘Because of the potential conflict of interest between Dugdale, Lewis and Bowden, the Police Federation made sure they have independent representation, but you’ll need to check that Linda Newton’s solicitor isn’t hand in glove with Hinchcliffe or the Miss Pawsley who’s representing Lewis.’ He frowned. ‘Who’s Bowden’s brief?’

‘
Anna Singh,’ Janet said, toying with a cup of unsweetened black coffee.

‘
I also intend to interview Julie Broadbent under caution,’ McKenna added, ‘so whoever she instructs must be cleared of pre-existing interest in anyone else involved with the case.’

‘
We’re seeing Lewis this evening,’ Ellen said. ‘Bowden’s down for tomorrow morning, and Newton’s on Wednesday. We could fit in Broadbent afterwards.’

Chapter Two

‘You know he can’t talk to you! He
daren’t
!’ Susan Dugdale hissed into the telephone. ‘Oh, Linda, what have you done?’

‘
I haven’t done anything!’ Linda snapped. ‘I want to know why the police are after me. They’re coming to see me on Wednesday, and I’ve got to have a solicitor.’

‘
They know you and Barry used to go out together.’

‘
Is that all? It was
years
ago!’ Linda was astounded.

‘
They think you put Barry up to arresting Smith.’

‘
You’re kidding!’ She laughed.

‘
It’s not funny!’

‘
No, it’s bloody ridiculous. Wait till I tell Craig.’

‘
They asked him about Julie Broadbent, too,’ Susan added.

‘
Why? What’s Julie got to do with it?’

‘
Oh, I’m sure you know!’ Susan’s voice stung. ‘He went out with her as well. Had a ride on the local bike, you might say.’

‘
Don’t be so nasty, Susan. She wasn’t really like that.’

‘
Wasn’t she? The only difference between her and her mother is that she never charged for it. People called their house a slag-heap.’

‘
I know they did,’ Linda agreed, ‘but you shouldn’t always believe what people say. Rene Minshull went on about them till she was blue in the face, saying Trisha and me would end up like Julie if we didn’t keep ourselves to ourselves.’

‘
You must’ve heeded her, then, because Craig wouldn’t have looked at you twice if he thought you couldn’t keep your legs together.’

‘
Some people just don’t stand a fair chance,’ Linda said. ‘That’s the bottom line.’ Then she put down the telephone.

‘
Who was that?’ Dugdale asked, as his wife returned to the sitting-room.

‘
Linda. I told her you can’t speak to her.’

‘
What did she want?’

‘
She’s going to be interviewed under caution.’

‘
Hardly surprising. Everyone I’ve ever spoken to will probably get the same treatment.’ He sighed. ‘At least McKenna’s being thorough.’

‘
And what’s his thoroughness likely to unearth?’ Susan asked.

‘
The truth, I hope.’

‘B
ut what
is
the truth?’ she demanded. ‘After what’s been dragged up today, I don’t know if I can believe a word you say!’

Chapter Three

Wendy Lewis now lived alone in a pre-war bungalow with angular bay windows on each side of the front door, and a chimney poking from the centre of a pyramid-shaped roof, which topped the eaves like a lid. With others of its kind, the bungalow occupied a quiet, pleasant patch behind the playing fields of Haughton’s comprehensive school. Until a month before Smith’s arrest she had lived with her mother, but on a bitter March day, when wind and rain were thrashing the newly emerged daffodils and irises in the front garden, the old woman looked through the sitting-room window from her chair near the fire, smiled to herself, and died instantly from a massive heart attack, the smile still on her lips as the death rattle grew in her throat. Wendy found the stiffening corpse at midnight when she returned from a tedious tour of duty and, since that night, had not dared to alter, let alone destroy, a single element of the bungalow’s fussy, over-decorated interior. The Sunday morning, four weeks before Smith’s appeal hearing, when four purposeful, stony-faced officers from her force’s Complaints and Discipline section breached her front door and tore the house apart looking for Father Barclay’s letter stayed in her memory as if gouged there. She ran after them from room to room, her innards churning from gut to gullet, and when they had gone away, empty-handed and without a word, she sat on the floor in the middle of chaos, and wept.

She
spent weeks rebuilding Mother’s house, but even now she would find the odd thing out of place, and was compelled to abandon whatever she was engaged with to make the tiny reparations, as if Mother’s shade watched her every move, and judged her every lapse. To some extent she resented her job for coming between her and her mother at the most poignant time in anyone’s life, but she deeply resented the way she was orphaned without the least warning. Whether she ever knew and appreciated her mother as an individual was quite outside the range of her emotional literature.

Seated
in the same room, and possibly in the same chair in which the old woman died, with her legs at an angle to escape the heat of the fire, Janet considered the possibility that Wendy Lewis had wandered through the investigation into Trisha’s death in a state of shock, pushed and pulled in whichever directions others dictated or wanted. She looked her part, Janet thought. Approaching middle age was threading grey through her mousy hair, her lined face was rather sullen, and in her pale-lashed eyes there was the bitter gleam of perpetual disappointment. She blinked a great deal, and her eyes looked rather sore, making Janet wonder if she were taking sedatives or tranquillisers.

The
other woman, by the table in the window bay where Ellen had her machinery primed, was, Janet suspected, playing the part written for the occasion. At least fifteen years older than her client, Frances Pawsley wore a thick tweed suit with the jacket buttoned tight over a well-corseted torso, thick stockings, heavy brown brogues, and the uncomfortable, overheated appearance of post-menopausal womanhood. The greying hair above her florid face was clipped almost as short as a man’s. Her over-stuffed fingers meddled with the shiny red apples and freckled bananas in a green glass fruit bowl, pushed it aside, then began to nudge an inquisitive spider towards the open jaws of a Venus flytrap, in various stages of banqueting, rearing from a terracotta pot. Fleetingly, Janet wondered if Miss Pawsley and her client had other than a professional relationship, but could not decipher the many tantalisingly surreptitious looks that passed between them.

Tape-recorder
buzzing and Ellen’s fingers poised over the keyboard of her laptop, Janet completed the formalities of interview, then said: ‘Now you’ve had the opportunity to reread your statements, Sergeant Lewis, is there anything you wish to amend or alter?’

‘
No.’

‘
Is there anything in the report which Inspector Dugdale submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service with which you disagree?’

‘
No.’

‘
Anything you feel was omitted?’

‘
No.’

‘
Do you have any reservations whatsoever about the investigation?’

‘
No.’

‘
Or about Smith’s arrest?’

‘No.’

‘
Are you then stating that you were, and are, perfectly happy with the conduct of the investigation, the conduct and motivations of the officers concerned, and the outcome?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
Prior to the appeal, did you have any knowledge of the letter that Father Fauvel apparently received from Father Barclay and allegedly handed to Inspector Dugdale?’

‘
No. I’d never even
heard
about it before the appeal papers were disclosed.’

‘
Do you know Father Fauvel?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
In what capacity?’

‘
As the Roman Catholic parish priest.’

‘
Have you ever spoken to him?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
How often?’

‘
I don’t know.’ Wendy reached for the cigarette packet lying on the kerb of the hearth, and fumbled inside. ‘Lots of times. We’re RC, and Mother went to Mass regularly.’ Cigarette extracted, she pushed it between her lips, and struck a match, the flame wavering in the draught. ‘I couldn’t go as often as I should because of work, but he was a great comfort to me when Mother died so suddenly.’

Watching
tears swell in the bloodshot eyes, Janet asked: ‘On the basis of your own knowledge of the investigation, have you reached a conclusion, tentative or otherwise, about what might have happened to Father Barclay’s letter?’

Before
she could respond, Frances intervened. ‘Superintendent McKenna’s whole investigation really depends on a hypothesis, doesn’t it? After all, no one’s ever seen this famous letter.’

‘
But we do have Father Barclay’s sworn testimony for the appeal, which satisfied three highly experienced judges,’ Janet reminded her. ‘We must assume he sent the letter.’

Frances
smiled. ‘As long as you don’t forget that assumptions are always dangerous.’ To Wendy, she said: ‘You may answer, dear. We’ve already discussed what you’ll say.’

Her
agonised features betraying the conflict between faith and professional loyalty, Wendy drew a deep breath. ‘I can’t believe Father Brett would lie. I believe he handed over the letter, like he said. Why would he lie about it? He had nothing to gain. He wasn’t even involved.’

‘
And you still maintain you don’t wish to amend your statements?’ asked Janet.

Frances
stepped in once more. ‘DC Evans wants to know why didn’t you voice your doubts before the appeal, or when you were interviewed prior to suspension.’

‘
I couldn’t think straight! I struggled with my conscience for weeks!’ Wendy’s voice shook. ‘If I believed Mr Dugdale, I was as good as blaspheming, and if I believed Father Brett, I’d be ruining a man I’ve trusted for years.’

‘
How did you reach a decision?’ Janet asked. ‘What guidance did you take?’

‘
I took Wendy to my parish priest,’ Frances replied. ‘He’s a stranger, but she could have confidence in him.’

‘
And do you believe you reached the right decision?’ Janet added.

‘
Oh, please! Don’t make me go over it again. I thought I’d go mad.’

‘
I think you can accept Wendy’s decision, dear,’ the solicitor told Janet. ‘She suffered long enough and hard enough in the making of it.’

‘
Very well,’ Janet conceded. ‘Could you tell me how long you’ve known Father Fauvel?’

‘
Since Mother and I moved to Haughton, about ten years ago. After Daddy died, Mother wanted a clean break. She hated living in Manchester.’

‘
How long has Father Fauvel been here?’

‘
Oh, years,’ Wendy said. ‘At least twenty.’

‘
What made you join the police? You trained as a social worker, I understand.’

‘
Wendy
worked
in social work,’ Frances said. ‘But she wasn’t qualified, and had little prospect of getting qualifications unless she financed her own training. Her parents couldn’t afford to keep her while she studied, so rather than remain in a dead-end job, she applied to the police, where she’s done very well, in my opinion. She’s developed several specialisms, most notably in the management and investigation of crimes against women and children.’

‘
And I’m responsible for area child protection,’ Wendy added to her solicitor’s eulogy. ‘It was because of my background that I interviewed the residents at the Willows. I’d worked with the mentally handicapped at one time.’

‘
What’s their level of incapacity?’ Janet asked. ‘As they’re not hospitalised, some at least must be capable of semi-independent living.’

‘
I wouldn’t like to put it to the test,’ Wendy replied forcefully. ‘Most of them have multiple incapacity, including epilepsy, and I’d say seven are profoundly handicapped.’ She tossed her cigarette stub into the fire. ‘Today’s polite term for them is “people with learning difficulties”, which implies they’re capable of being taught, but they’re not. The Willows is a twenty-bed unit, and it’s nearly always full. They’ve got three or four high grades who
could
exist in the community with proper support, but the last time residents were sent on the community care programme, they ended up dossing on the street.’ Reaching for another cigarette, she added: ‘Father Brett’s disgusted about it, but unfortunately he doesn’t make the decisions.’

‘
I thought the Area Health Trust ran the Willows,’ Janet said.

‘
It’s owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese, and run as a joint initiative with the Trust.’

‘
Who’s responsible for staffing and general management?’

‘
A committee,’ Wendy said. ‘Father Brett’s on it.’

‘
Those details aren’t in Inspector Dugdale’s report to the CPS,’ Janet pointed out.

‘
Were they relevant?’ Frances asked.

‘
Probably not,’ Janet admitted. ‘To return to the residents, did you think any of them might have pertinent information, whether they realised it or not?’

Wendy
shook her head. ‘I spent a lot of time with them, but there was nothing, which didn’t surprise me.’

‘
Julie Broadbent was rather a different case, wasn’t she? You felt she was being evasive.’

‘
And hostile,’ Wendy added.

‘
But you’re now aware of her background and teenage excursions into delinquency?’

‘
I wasn’t at the time. Mr Dugdale said he didn’t want to create prejudice.’

‘
Did he ever interview her?’

‘
Not as far as I know.’

‘
Do you accept that Broadbent’s evasiveness is satisfactorily explained by her historical associations with the police?’

Drawing
on her cigarette, Wendy gazed into the fire. ‘No. Not really, and for several reasons, including my intuition.’ She lodged the cigarette on the kerb of the hearth, held up the fingers of her left hand, and began to count off with her right. ‘First, she sat in on most of the residents’ interviews, and couldn’t have been more helpful. Second, she’d have been checked out for a criminal record before she got the job there, so that secret was already out. Third,’ she said, pushing down her middle finger, ‘I got to know her quite well, because interviewing the mentally handicapped takes time and patience. She must have known I didn’t pose a threat. And fourth, her teenage delinquencies didn’t amount to much.’

‘
She might still be ashamed of them,’ Janet suggested.

‘
She might,’ Wendy conceded. ‘She might have thought I’d sit in judgement on her, like a lot of women would and, for all I know, she could still be promiscuous. But none of that explains why she clammed up so fast.’

‘
At what point did that occur?’

‘
I can’t say, because it wasn’t until later I realised she had. I’ve racked my brains, but I can’t pin-point the trigger.’

‘
Was Colin Bowden actively involved in the interviews?’

‘
He came along on occasion, but he was quite happy to leave things to me. To be honest, I think he felt completely out of his depth, which I accepted.’

Frances
struggled to her feet, breath wheezing in her corseted chest. ‘Don’t know about you gels,’ she said, disarmingly conspiratorial, ‘hut I need a drink, preferably alcoholic. I’ll perc coffee for the rest of you.’ She plodded to the door, adding: ‘Interview suspended 19.34.’

The
choice made for her, Ellen switched off the tape-recorder.