Scarred for Life (12 page)

‘Exactly – but he was the one person who never flinched. I know you might not believe me but I never went in for any of that; it was only ever a few of the guys. That’s why student president is an odd position – it’s more social and organisational. The best athletes just want to row. It’s more of a tradition but certain people take it more seriously than others.’

‘Like Holden?’

‘Yes. I didn’t know he was student president until I read it but I’m not surprised. He wasn’t the best of athletes but he wanted to be a part of everything. If you get to student president, you’ve got to really want it – but also have to do some crazy things to get there.’

‘What sort of things?’

Liam glanced between the two officers and then turned away. ‘For a start you need the kind of mind to come up with things for hell week.’

‘Didn’t anyone ever say anything?’ Jessica asked.

A shrug: ‘I know it sounds bad . . . it was bad . . . but it was also part of this weird bonding thing. Especially if you weren’t popular, it gave you a chance to get in with the cool kids. When you first signed up, you’d start to hear the whispers, then you’d be told to get ready for hell week. If you chose to walk away, that was that – but no one would ever have told the lecturers or faculty. It would have been denied and there would have been a long line of people to call you a liar. Then you’d have all the pressure from the people who
were
into it. Ultimately you’re there to study, so it’s not worth it.’

That pretty much tallied with everyone they’d interviewed who might have seen Damon on the night he died. Some admitted they had spotted him but that he’d left the party early, others said they hadn’t seen him at all. The one thing they had in common was that nobody said anything to criticise Holden’s version.

‘Did things like hell week ever happen after Halloween?’ Jessica asked.

Liam shook his head. ‘Not that I ever saw. The party signalled the end of all that – if you got that far, then you’d earned everyone’s respect and you got on with it.’

Jessica had nothing left to ask, and from the look on Archie’s face neither did he. They’d have to speak to Holden again, perhaps even charge him with assault if they could make someone speak – but if any hazing Damon had had to go through was over by Halloween, then what had happened to him on the November night he died?

14

Jessica called the station when they got back to the car. The media appeal for information about Cassie’s death had barely got off the ground because of the lack of interest. They were following up a few lines of inquiry but nothing that had anyone excited. As for the list of seventy locals with a previous history of violence, all but nine had been eliminated as definitely being somewhere else, being in prison or, in one case, having died the year before.

That’s what you called an alibi.

She told the officers to arrange for all nine to be brought in for interview later that afternoon. Even if it was nothing to do with them, there was a chance they mixed in the circles where someone might know something. It was desperation tactics already.

With that sorted, it was time to talk to Holden again: this time with a tape recorder and video camera running. Considering it was his day off, Archie seemed particularly in the mood for round two with ‘posh boy’. After first trying his flat, a swanky studio apartment overlooking Salford Quays, they found him at the rowing clubhouse. Jessica knew something was different the moment they walked in. Instead of the athletic gear from before, Holden was wearing a smart suit with a tie and recently shined shoes. He was chatting to someone on his phone but hung up when he saw them, acknowledging Jessica with a clipped nod and ‘Inspector’.

‘What’s with the get-up?’ Jessica asked, as Holden led them across to the bar area where there was a circular table that had three chairs placed around it.

He took a seat, leaving them standing as he replied. ‘I thought it was time for a change.’

‘To the untrained eye, it could seem as if you were waiting for us.’

‘What exactly do you want?’

‘We’ve been speaking to a few of your members – current and former. We’ve heard some very interesting stories about things that go on here.’

‘Like what?’

‘Hell week, for one.’

Holden shrugged dismissively.

‘Don’t you have anything to say?’ Jessica added.

‘I think I’ll call my lawyer.’

On arriving at Longsight Police Station, Holden had gone downstairs to meet with his solicitor. Jessica hung around upstairs asking where her nine ‘people of interest’ for Cassie’s murder were as officers hurried around making excuses. When it was clear she was going to have to wait regardless, she ushered Archie into her office and closed the door.

‘Enjoying your day off?’ she asked.

‘I was hoping posh boy was going to be a little unhappier about coming in for interview.’

‘Hmm, I wouldn’t say “hoping” but I wasn’t expecting him to cooperate either. Somewhere along the line, news of your phone calls to current and former club members has got back to him.’

After Holden had had an hour with his solicitor, Jessica finally got into interview room one, with her and Archie on one side of the table, Holden and the legal representative on the other. The student’s suit was marginally sharper than his solicitor’s but there wasn’t much in it as the pair sat impassively opposite them, looking somehow resigned and defiant at the same time.

Jessica told them she had first-hand witness testimony that the rowing club hazed new members, leaving it slightly woolly that she had no proof about what had happened to that year’s intake, specifically Damon.

As it was, Jessica didn’t even have to let Archie loose before Holden started telling them what they wanted to know.

‘It’s not what you think,’ he said, not looking up as his solicitor watched on silently.

‘What do I think?’

‘Damon’s death was nothing to do with me.’

‘Let’s go backwards. Tell me about hell week.’

Holden glanced at his solicitor and then up at the camera high in the corner recording everything he said. ‘It’s a silly tradition.’

‘Something you’re in charge of as student president?’

He looked at Jessica properly for the first time but there was no focus to his gaze. ‘To a degree.’

‘Did Damon Potter take part in hell week?’

There was a pause punctuated by a sideways glance towards his solicitor. ‘Yes.’

Holden gave the names of the other half-dozen first-year students involved but refused to implicate any of the other senior members in whatever had gone on. Jessica didn’t know if the loyalty should go in his favour considering he was apparently the ring-leader, or if he was trying to cover up for others. For now, it didn’t matter.

‘What did you force the new members to do?’ Jessica asked.

‘It was their decision – nobody coerced anyone to do anything.’

‘But they wouldn’t have been allowed to join your club if they didn’t undertake your challenges – so the pressure to take part came from you, didn’t it?’

Another glance at his solicitor: ‘I suppose. Everyone wants to be wanted, don’t they? It’s about feeling a part of something.’

Jessica paused for a moment: he couldn’t have said a truer thing. ‘What did you do to them?’

‘Immature things: drinking, exercising, eating things.’

‘Did you beat them?’

‘Yes.’

‘I need to know specifics.’

And so he gave them, talking for half an hour about the tasks he had set for the new members. Detail after detail of activities meant to degrade and humiliate. It wasn’t so much the individual aspects that Jessica found disturbing, more the fact that someone could speak so matter-of-factly about thinking them up. She had interviewed serial murderers and psychos in the past who would hurt and kill for their own gratification but Jessica didn’t get the sense that Holden had enjoyed any of it – more that he saw hell week as a custom it was his duty to maintain.

The one thing she did get the sense of was that, if Damon was looking happier in the few days before he died, it was likely because he had got to the end of hell week unscathed.

Holden’s solicitor was silent throughout, listening and making the odd note but never interrupting. By the time his client had finished, Jessica knew they could definitely charge the student with actual bodily harm and sexual assault at the minimum. Depending on how the Crown Prosecution Service read things, it could even be revised up to grievous bodily harm if any of the victims made statements. Even without that, his own confessions would condemn him – and in any normal situation, his solicitor would have stopped him from implicating himself.

Something was definitely going on but she still had a couple of key questions.

‘How much does James Jefferies know?’ Jessica asked.

The question surprised Holden, who reeled back in his seat. ‘James?’

‘He’s your life president, isn’t he?’

‘Yes . . . but that’s more of a figurehead position. He might come to the odd practice and big race day but that’s about it. The guy’s in a wheelchair.’

That was something Jessica didn’t know. Why hadn’t anyone told her?

‘What about the night Damon died?’ she added.

This time, Holden looked at her directly, holding his arms out to the side. ‘I really don’t know anything about that. After hell week, that’s it – we get on with the rest of the year. We hold elections for the new student president in March or April and I would have been graduating. I don’t know anything about his death. Everything I told you is true – I didn’t see him after around an hour of the party. I think he left.’

‘There were drink and drugs in his system. What if we’ve been speaking to someone who’s told us they came from you?’

Finally, Holden’s solicitor cut in: ‘You don’t have to answer that.’

His client responded anyway: ‘They’d be lying because I didn’t. I don’t know what happened to him. It was just a party and I had things to organise on the night.’

‘I want the names of the other people involved in the assaults.’

Holden shook his head in a show of baffling loyalty.

Jessica waited for a moment, wondering what to say. It wasn’t often she was lost for words but eventually they came: ‘Why have you told us all of this?’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘Okay, say it is. We’ve heard these sorts of allegations from at least one other club member and I’m pretty sure we’d have got evidence soon enough about everything that went on behind closed doors at your club. Chances are, we’d have ended up in this room anyway and I would’ve been putting all these allegations to you. But it wouldn’t have happened today, perhaps not even tomorrow. So why admit to everything now?’

Holden’s eyes flickered to his solicitor and Jessica knew that this was a question the legal representative had asked himself. When Holden peered back, he held Jessica’s gaze. ‘Because I know how it looks but it wasn’t me who killed him, dumped him, or did anything else. James Jefferies called me, asking if I knew anything about Damon. He said that if I did, then I should step forward.’

‘Why did he tell you that?’

‘He’s probably seen things on the news and wants to protect the club. I might’ve done a few silly things but I didn’t do that.’

‘Do you know who did?’

‘No.’

‘Could it have been any of the other members who didn’t realise the hazing was over?’

‘No.’

With that, there was little else to say. Jessica called for one of the officers to take him back to the cells downstairs while they decided what to do with him.

Jessica led Archie back to her office while she tried to clarify her thoughts. By the time they sat down, he beat her to it: ‘What do you think?’

It was the kind of thing she would have asked a supervising officer when she was a gobby young pup. ‘How about you tell me what you think?’ she responded.

‘He might be a snooty, toffee-nosed tosser but I think he’s telling the truth. The job would be a lot easier if everyone took responsibility for the things they did. It sort of makes sense – I spoke to a few people, so someone would’ve told him. Plus he looks up to that Jefferies Olympic guy. There’s no way he would have been able to keep everyone quiet, and the minute one breaks, they all would. We’d have had him strung up by the bollocks sooner or later.’

Quite.

‘What else?’ Jessica asked.

‘He’s not an idiot. If he killed Damon, even accidentally, why would he have dumped the body in the bin outside the place where he’d get asked about it? He could’ve lumped it in the river and it would have floated down stream. Or buried it somewhere else in the park. Or taken it anywhere.’

‘Perhaps because he knew the bins were supposed to be emptied the next day? The only reason they weren’t was because of the strike.’

‘Pfft. He also knew the cleaners would come the next day. He might have done all those other things but I don’t think he knew anything about our lad ending up in that bin.’

Archie raised an eyebrow, wondering what Jessica thought, but her tight smile said it all: she agreed with him completely.

15

Before they decided whether to charge Holden with anything now, or bail him to return to the station in a few days, Jessica knew she needed to get some advice. She also had nine local scroats apparently on their way in to the station to deal with too, plus a colleague who’d been with her all afternoon who wasn’t actually on duty.

Out in reception, the desk sergeant, Patrick – or Fat Pat to everyone who knew him – was two-thirds of the way through a family-sized packet of steak-flavoured crisps, barely concealed under the counter.

‘Let’s have one then,’ Jessica said.

Frowning, Pat reluctantly pulled the bag out and offered it to her, gripping the bottom half tightly so she couldn’t go delving. As soon as her hand was withdrawn with a broken crisp, he snatched the bag away again, returning it to the hiding place.

‘What are you doing in?’ he asked, nodding at Archie. ‘He’s helping me,’ Jessica interrupted with her mouth full. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort the overtime. Now there should be nine scumbags hanging around here somewhere. Where are they?’