Unsafe Convictions Page 3

  ‘And looking to grind her own axes, given the chance.’

  ‘Which could be the same as ours.’ Picking up a file of documents, McKenna rose. ‘I’m going to explore the lie of this very strange land.’ He glanced outside. ‘Janet and Ellen should be here soon, as it’s not snowing yet.’

  ‘We’re due to see Dugdale at two.’

  ‘I’ll be back long before then.’

  Chapter Three

  The documents on the seat beside him, McKenna pulled away from the kerb outside the house, inched along Church Street past a row of parked cars, and made as if to follow Rene’s instructions to reach Smith’s place, but instead of going left at the Junction Inn, as soon as there was a break in the stream of morning traffic he went right.

  Haughton had neither the slightly romantic edge of Gaynor Holbrook’s description, nor the air of dereliction she cast upon it. Although the surrounding moorlands, visible at every turn, were near overwhelming, the interminable terraces of stone houses were smart with fresh paint, double-glazed windows, bright front doors, and doorsteps pumiced to a creamy white. The mills were far from idle, or empty of all but vermin life. King Cotton had given way to rubber mouldings, plastic extrusion, food canning, an industrial museum and, close to the town centre, women’s lingerie, its wispy, ethereal products in a display case attached to one of the gate pillars.

  The town centre, its grand Victorian buildings sand-blasted of industrial grime, was, to use a word he loathed for no discernible reason, bustling, and the shops, windows bright on this grey morning, packed with customers. Cars and trucks and buses stretched ahead as far as he could see, moving forward when the traffic lights changed, then coming to a halt while more traffic flowed across the intersection. Once clear of the lights, he followed an orange and brown double-decker bus down the road, past the new supermarket where Kay’s drapery once stood, past more terraces, more shops, and more mills, different moorlands now on the horizon. The town was much larger than he had imagined, more prosperous, better served and, in this patch, clearly under regeneration, with new commercial investment and enclaves of modern chimneyless dwellings spreading like rashes over the lower reaches of the moors.

  Dent Viaduct came into view, an enormous six-arched brick structure carrying the Manchester railway line, so lofty that the flimsy tracery of electricity wires and gantries along its top was wreathed in cloud. The road passed under one arch, beside a narrow, dirt-spumed river, then came to another fork, between an old-fashioned public house and a small riverside mill. The glass in its windows was smashed to bits, its roof a caved-in wreckage of slate and wood, and its walls sprouted withered weeds from a myriad cracks in the brickwork. A defunct wood-and-iron paddlewheel, green with moss and red with rust, rotted in the brown water. Car indicator blinking, McKenna turned right, drove by the mill’s windowless frontage, and turned right again, along a narrow lane fringed on both sides by scrubby hedges, from which a few dead leaves still hung. Drawing to a halt beside a dusty holly bush bedecked with strips of plastic carrier bag, he picked up the documents, locked the car, and pulled on a sheepskin jacket.

  Days of unthawed frost rimed the dead grass under the hedge and the lower branches of the holly bush, as if it were assailed by fungus. He could smell the chill off the river, and hear the trickling water. His breath plumed, and he felt the cold biting his ears and face, and creeping through the soles of his shoes. One hand thrust in the jacket pocket, the other holding the documents, he read as he walked, the words jerking out of focus with each step. Called to the burned-out house on that early April day, the pathologist who later dissected Trisha’s remains had left a record of the scene as it unfolded before him, neatly printed on paper which bore the logo of the district hospital trust and his own impressive qualifications.

  The time is 16.17, the weather is windless and fine, although the sky to the north is beginning to cloud over. Ambient temperature away from the house is 11.5 degrees Celsius and cooling.

  The two-storey house lies at the end of an unmade lane, with only its pitched and slabbed roof visible from the road, as it is located in a depression some fifty yards from the river. Several police cars and official vehicles are parked along the verges of the lane, which is still muddy in places although there has been no rain for six days. The gardens are untended and mostly overgrown, with unclipped privet hedges, broken-down brick walls, and some saplings to the rear, on which newly emerged leaves hang in blackened shreds. There is a general air of neglect, which existed before fire debris worsened the view. A large crowd of people gathered prior to my arrival, doubtless attracted by flames and excitement, and they are now being kept back by police officers. Two fire tenders and an ambulance are outside the property, all hoses have been deployed, and a doctor and four paramedics are waiting at the front door, which is placed centrally with windows to each side. The fire, which was reported by anonymous telephone call at 15.07, has been extinguished, although much smoke is still about the ruined walls and roof. There is an overwhelming smell of petrol in the air, and the water running from the house and forming puddles in places shows traces of iridescence. The first fire tender arrived from Haughton Station, some three miles distant, at 15.17, by which time the whole building was well alight, with flames shooting from windows and doors back and front, and through holes already burned in the roof.

  Provided with a protective jacket and hard hat, I have been escorted into the house by the chief fire officer — I am told it is not safe to examine the rest of the building — and led into the ground-floor room to the right of the front door. This would appear to have been used as a sitting-room. There is a modern tiled fireplace on the exterior wall, and a door in the reveal wall leading to a lean-to kitchen, which runs the length of the rear wall. Such must have been the intensity of the blaze here that it is no longer possible to determine the state of the furnishings or decorations: everything is charred beyond recognition, with plaster stripped from the walls. The ceiling has collapsed, bringing with it the few contents of the room above, and daylight is visible through the many large holes in the roof.

  The anonymous caller, a woman, said that a person was possibly in the burning house. The police have already traced the call to a nearby public telephone kiosk, and inform me that attempts are being made to isolate fingerprints from the apparatus: there is little hope of success, as the kiosk is well used and on a main thoroughfare. The tape-recording of the call will be examined later, and house-to-house enquiries made locally in an attempt to identify the caller. The fire crews from both tenders searched the building as soon as the flames had been brought under control, and found one body in the room where I now stand, underneath debris fallen from the ceiling and upstairs room. This debris has been moved sufficiently for me to carry out initial examination, but the whole area is saturated with water, and fouled with fire residues.

  The body lies on its left side facing towards the fireplace, and has suffered severe heat contraction. From the nature of the burns to the visible parts of the body it is my immediate impression that the person made no attempt to escape the fire, and did not move voluntarily at any point, although there would have been a sufficiently fierce draught from the flames to disturb the body somewhat in situ. I therefore make an initial conclusion that the person was deeply unconscious, or deceased, before fire took hold. The right arm is bent sharply, and all flesh and muscle have been burned away, exposing the bone, which is charred. Similarly, flesh, muscle and hair are missing from the visible area of the head, exposing the skull, and the right eye socket is empty. I note that facial bones are shattered, although the body does not appear to have fallen against any hard surface or object, and was not felled by collapse of the ceiling. It is not possible to say at this stage whether the damage is due to heat fracture. The visible lower extremities of the body are similarly incinerated, bone exposed in the pelvic girdle, thigh, knee and shin. One buttock is completely consumed, the other partially so, and both feet charred inside the remains of w
hat appear to be female leather shoes with a heel some 5cms in height. Filaments of melted synthetic fibres remain on the legs, suggesting the person wore stockings or tights, and there are further molten substances adhering to the torso and thighs.

  I confirm that life is extinct. Still photographs of the body and surroundings have been taken by forensic and fire officers, and fire officers continue to take video film of the scene. Forensic scientists are waiting to begin their own examinations. In view of the fragility of the remains, I do not propose to disturb the body to make a further examination at this stage, and have ordered the remains to be taken to the mortuary, where I shall conduct a full autopsy later today. Removal of the body will be executed under my supervision and recorded on video film. The forensic scientists are under instruction to sample the residues of liquefied body fat and tissues under and around the remains, and the remnants of clothing. My own experience and that of the fire crews suggest that accelerants of some type, probably petrol, were laid at various sites to facilitate the fire, and from the nature of the burn injuries to the deceased, that at least one site was very close to the body. It is my view that identification of the deceased should be pursued via fingerprinting, if sufficient flesh remains on the left hand, and by dental and any other medical records. The condition of the body is such that not only would visual identification be uncertain, but the experience of viewing the body would prove too distressing for any relative.

  Wilfred Ernest Spenser

  Home Office Pathologist

  McKenna leaned against the cold brick of the garden wall, looking at the shell of the house, which nature had partially reclaimed in the intervening months. Rain, driven by winds off the moors, had scoured the worst of the smoke stains from walls inside and out, and the saplings of which Dr Spenser wrote reared behind the building, bare branches clacking against the eaves. In the front garden, still littered with charred odds and ends, grass and brambles grew in a thick tangle, which was already creeping towards the walls.

  He made his way up the path, slipping on icy, mossy flagstones, and went through the hole where the front door had hung. In rendering safe the building after the fire, the upper floor had been brought down completely, and only the ends of the rafters, below which he stood as if inside the rib-cage of a massive skeleton, still told of a roof. A huge, weathered mound of wood, stone, tile and rubble obscured the patch where Trisha’s body had lain. Hands in pockets, he leaned against the wall, and noticed a broken Cornish-ware jug, then some patches of patterned carpet, their edges singed, and lengths of wood fashioned into a zigzag, which he realised must be part of the staircase, rammed side on into the mound. Wondering what else he might discern if he lingered, he turned away, to walk gingerly around the back, where a great sheet of corrugated iron hung off the lean-to kitchen roof like a guillotine waiting to fall. Here, where the saplings were obviously new recruits to an older thicket, which cut off air and light from the back of the house, he was sure he could still smell the fire. Mingled with it was the rancid odour of damp, curling off the slimy flagstoned path and around the base of the wall that was also green with moss. The corrugated iron squealed like a live thing as the wind caught one of its corners, and he stepped back, suddenly cowed by the misery of the place. Its horizons were overhung by the moors and the massive viaduct, and came to an utter dead stop as soon as he lifted his eyes. Walking slowly back to the car, looking over his shoulder now and then, he wondered too if Smith ever revisited the place he had once called home, but thought not.

  Reversing the car, he twice rammed the scrawny hedge, ice-brittle twigs crackling under the wheels, then drove slowly to the end of the lane, to find his way barred by a supermarket trolley half filled with firewood, being pushed slowly to and fro by a rotund body dressed in padded jacket, scarves, a skirt, trousers, thick striped knee socks, and short black wellingtons. Dull eyes stared at him from under a knitted Fair Isle cap and, as he pulled on the handbrake, another body hove into view like a crow fluttering to earth, dressed in flapping garments. Bare head jerking, exposed shins blue with cold, arms gesticulating to the sky, the man uttered an unintelligible stream of words, snapped his mouth like a trap, stared at the car, then repeated both gestures and streaming words. At a total loss, McKenna waited, still under the woman’s vapid scrutiny. Then a thin woman, clad in jeans and pale-coloured duffel coat with a fur-trimmed hood, appeared as if from the wings of a stage. She glanced at the car, and began to harry the others out of his way. As he turned into the road, he saw the little group trundling away to the right, the thin woman’s hands on the shoulders of the others.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Back at last!’ Rene trilled, as McKenna came in through the rear door ‘I’ll get the teacakes under the grill now. Mr Tuttle’s had to wait for his elevenses, but I gave the two young ladies a hot drink as soon as they got here.’

  ‘I went to have a look round the town.’

  ‘And Trisha’s place as well, I expect. Not that it was ever hers. Or his. They rented.’

  ‘So I understand,’ McKenna said.

  ‘And she’d’ve had to go on renting, married to him. I reckon every penny she earned went on keeping him dressed up and idle, and when she lost her job I dare say most of their social security still went on him.’

  ‘I saw two rather odd-looking people as I was driving away. And there was a woman with them.’

  ‘Did she look normal?’

  ‘Normal? Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘She must be one of the workers, then.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the Willows. It was a nice house before they put the mental defectives there. If you ask me, they should be back in hospital, instead of wandering the streets on this community care thing everybody talks about.’ Frowning, she looked up at him, her hair under the kitchen light peppery with grey. ‘They weren’t at Trisha’s place, were they?’

  ‘No. I saw them on the road.’

  ‘Only I shouldn’t think even mental defectives would be daft enough to go there. I can’t think how you could stomach it on your own.’

  *

  After booking into their reserved rooms at the Bull Inn, Ellen and Janet returned to the Church Street house for lunch. Rene hovered over the table in the back parlour, serving lunch to her four charges, and tutting quietly as Janet picked here and there at her food but ate nothing of substance. She nodded with pleasure when small-boned, skinny Ellen consumed all that was put before her, and reached for more.

  To McKenna, Janet looked ill. Shorn of all her old voluptuousness, her once luxuriant dark hair was fiercely cropped into an almost architectural shape, she had blue smudges under her eyes, and not an ounce of spare flesh on a body she now clothed in dark, austere garments that mimicked the garb of her chapel-minister father.

  Rene broke into his thoughts. ‘One of the young ladies can heat up the dinner when you’re ready. I finish at five, but I could stay later some nights if you need me.’

  ‘Where d’you live?’ Ellen asked her, wiping cake crumbs from her lips.

  ‘If you go past the Bull, then the corner shop and the Wheatsheaf, you’ll come to a row of cottages. Mine’s the second one.’

  ‘Have you been there long?’

  ‘Since I got wed. My husband worked out of the police station in town. The village policeman lived here, but that was in the days when we had local men who knew who to keep an eye on. Nowadays, they’re just strangers in uniform.’

  Ellen nodded. ‘It’s the same in our force. We need Welsh-speaking officers in some areas, but all this shunting around doesn’t take that sort of thing into consideration.’

  ‘Really?’ Rene’s eyes widened. ‘I didn’t know people still spoke Welsh. I thought it’d died out years ago.’

  ‘It’s actually on the increase, thanks mainly to a bunch of political activists who cause us no end of bother.’

  ‘I had heard about fire bombs in holiday cottages,’ Rene said, passing Ellen another slice of cake. ‘There�
�d be bits on the news now and then, but I didn’t understand why they were doing it. Seems like cutting off your own nose to spite your face, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Quite.’ Ellen smiled at her. ‘But you can’t reason with people like that, can you?’

  ‘Not usually,’ Rene agreed. Chewing her mouth, she looked down at McKenna. ‘D’you speak Welsh?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And what about you, Mr Tuttle?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Jack admitted. ‘But Janet does, of course.’

  Looking again at McKenna, she added: ‘And d’you actually speak Welsh to people?’

  ‘If necessary. If they want to.’

  ‘Can you write your reports in Welsh, as well?’

  ‘We can, but all official documents must be bilingual.’

  ‘How strange.’ Rene seemed taken aback. ‘You don’t think of Wales as a real foreign country. I mean, you go there for holidays, but it’s not like Spain or France, is it? And you don’t look foreign. You look quite like anybody else.’

  Part Two

  Monday, 1st February

  Afternoon

  Chapter One

  Waiting again for the town centre traffic lights to change, McKenna said: ‘We might not look foreign to Rene, but the locals look decidedly alien to me.’

  ‘Different racial types, sir,’ Ellen offered from the back seat. ‘Rene and her ilk come mostly from Saxon stock, with bits of Roman and Viking thrown into the pot, which could’, she added thoughtfully, ‘be relevant to us, because priorities, frames of reference, loves, hates, needs, wants and bugbears are different in different places, and those things govern behaviour.’

  ‘If Dugdale deliberately withheld crucial alibi evidence, the outcome would be exactly the same wherever it happened,’ Jack asserted.