Read Unsafe Convictions Online
Authors: Alison Taylor
Ryman was still on his feet, swaying as he held his hand to his wounded forehead. Estelle’s hysteria at first gave way to fear, but now the anger was returning, assaulting her in equal measure. Surprised to find the blackened pan still in her hand, she put in on the counter, picked up a cloth and began methodically cleaning her sooty fingers.
‘
You fool!’ Ryman snarled. ‘How am I going to explain
this
?’
‘
Like you covered up whatever that woman was on about! You did a bloody good job there, if what I heard is anything to go by. And don’t call me a fool!
You’re
the fool!’ she shouted, pushing him in the chest. ‘Who is she?’ she demanded. ‘What did you do?’ She stared at him assessingly. ‘Or is it more a case of what you
didn’t
do?’
‘
It’s none of your damned business!’
‘
I’m making it my business.’ Her voice was flinty. ‘Either you tell me now, and we’ll try to sort it out, or I’ll tell the chief constable about tonight’s mysterious tape-recorded conversation, and let
him
sort it out.’
Almost
vacantly, he stared at her, his mouth slightly agape. ‘The tapes are monitored.’
‘
You mean people listen in on every call?’
‘
No. They’re checked daily.’
‘
I see.’ She pursed her mouth. ‘That’s a bit of a bugger, isn’t it?’
When the telephone rang well after eleven, Jack was sound asleep, and McKenna was engrossed in a highly erotic thriller on television. Cursing, he searched for the video remote control.
The
caller was an Inspector Venables of Manchester police. ‘We’ve got your Mr Piers Stanton Smith in custody, sir,’ he said. ‘I hesitated about phoning so late, but I thought you’d want to know.’
‘
Not to worry,’ replied McKenna. ‘Smith is a thorn in the side of many.’
Venables
laughed. ‘You know, we’ve been following his recent career more avidly than any TV soap, although that’s not why he’s in the cells. We picked him up with a cart-load of the like-minded in one of the gay clubs, flirting with a bunch of very young boys, who’ll be interviewed as soon as social services arrive. Mind you,’ he went on, ‘I expect most of them will be in care. We’ve got two fourteen-year-olds from a local children’s home coming up on attempted murder charges next month, would you believe. One of them decoyed a well-known headmaster out of this same club on the promise of a fumble in a nearby alleyway, where the other boy ambushed him with a baseball bat.’
‘
D’you keep the place under surveillance?’
‘
Off and on. Tonight’s raid was planned some time ago.’
‘
Are you sure you had grounds to arrest Smith?’ asked McKenna. ‘You can do without accusations of police harassment.’
‘
Oh, we’re certain to be accused of
that
,’ Venables said. ‘We always are. His solicitor’s here already, spitting feathers.’
‘
But Smith
could
have gone to the club in all innocence,’ McKenna persisted. ‘Did he seem out of place? Was it unfamiliar territory for him?’
‘
When we got there, the barman was calling him over for his drinks,’ Venables said. ‘By name. Then again, I dare say every queer this side of the Pennines knows Smith. How a faggot like him cons women into marrying him is beyond me.’ He paused. ‘I shan’t say unless my arm gets twisted, but we’ve got him on video as well. He spent the early part of the evening cruising nearby public lavatories, then went arm in arm into the club with a very butch piece in head-to-foot black leather.’
‘
Sounds good enough.’ Peering at the video-recorder to make sure it was working, McKenna added: ‘Have you rung his wife yet? She reported him missing to the local police.’
‘
His solicitor called her,’ Venables said. ‘She rang us, and she was in a right state, but all she said was: “Tell him I’m on my way, and I love him.” She didn’t even bother to ask why he’d been arrested.’
‘
Don’t be surprised if she doesn’t arrive. The roads out of Haughton are probably blocked by now.’
*
Like Beryl, Smith’s solicitor had happily rushed out into the snow on his client’s behalf. At twenty past midnight, heedless of the hour, he called McKenna.
‘
My name is Andrew Lyons. I am Mr Stanton Smith’s solicitor.’ The voice was sharp. ‘You should be here, Superintendent. My client is waiting to speak to you.’
‘
About what?’
‘
My client has some crucial information about the death of his first wife, and needs to speak to you as a matter of urgency.’
‘
Was Inspector Venables informed of this?’
‘
After he called you, we assumed you were on your way. My client has no intention of discussing such confidential matters with anyone except yourself.’
‘
In other words,’ McKenna commented, ‘nothing was said to Venables.’ Without waiting for a response, he asked: ‘Why haven’t you or your client approached me already with this information?’
‘
My client expected the courtesy of a visit from you at the outset of your investigation. But you chose, most studiously, and for reasons of your own, to ignore him.’
‘
If he
has
significant information, you had an obligation to inform me.’
‘
The way Inspector Dugdale and his officers wilfully framed my client is
very
significant.’
‘
Please don’t prejudge the outcome of my investigation.’
‘
To my mind, the “outcome” is staring you in the face,’ Lyons said smugly.
‘
And to my mind, Mr Lyons, you’re trying to create a diversion,’ McKenna told him. ‘If your client has
genuine
information about his first wife’s death or Dugdale’s investigation, you must approach me through the proper channels. I have no intention of interfering with the activities of Manchester police, as you seem to wish.’
Lyons
finally set out his own agenda. ‘This is nothing short of police persecution. My client has not committed any offence, and they have no right to detain him.’
‘
In the circumstances, they had every right. He isn’t the only one in custody.’
‘
They had him under surveillance,’ Lyons snapped. ‘In my view, the raid on the club was a mere ploy, part of a deliberate stratagem conceived to neutralise an innocent man who is, unfortunately for him, in a position to bring down a number of corrupt officers. I fully intend to raise a formal complaint,’ he went on, gathering momentum, ‘and that will include a complaint about
your
attitude, Superintendent. Harassment like this could drive my client to suicide, not to mention what the media will make of his detention.’
‘
As your client deliberately put himself in the media spotlight, he’ll have to take the rough with the smooth,’ McKenna told him. ‘He should have kept his head down, instead of causing people a great deal of bother. His wife reported him missing, you know, and by all accounts, she was worried sick. She didn’t know he was cavorting around Manchester.’
‘
You fail to appreciate my client’s fragility!’ Lyons was clearly seething. ‘He left the house in considerable distress because he was being terrorised by a reporter.’
‘
The reporter tells a different version,’ McKenna pointed out. ‘She claims she challenged your client about being wilfully misled, and found herself on the receiving end of a violent tantrum. However,’ he added, ‘I see no point in further prolonging this conversation. I can offer no assistance.’
‘
You could insist on my client’s being treated like a human being! The police have confiscated all his personal possessions.’
‘
You know full well that’s normal procedure.’
‘
But how often do such possessions include a solid gold Asprey lighter, a lizard-skin wallet, hundreds of pounds in cash, platinum credit cards, and a Rolex watch?’
‘
As you know what was confiscated, you know what should be returned. I have nothing more to say, Mr Lyons.’
With
gleefully salacious detail, every tabloid in the country reported on Smith’s arrest ‘when police raided a sleazy gay club in Manchester’s red light district’, and even the broadsheets thought it worthy of mention. It was only Gaynor’s paper that could not offer its readers more titillation: marooned in the snow-bound depths of Dark Moor, and let down by her scouts on the ground, she had been inactivated.
Janet awoke to an eerie silence, the creaking inn sign stilled by a great swatch of snow draped across the bull’s face. Twinkling icicles hung from the eaves above her window, and every stark branch and twig of the churchyard trees was defined with a white flourish, while the white blanket about the steeple gleamed almost blue. Massed snow obliterated the contours of every object and building, creating an alternative architecture and topography, and she thought the smoke of newly lit fires rising from the cottage chimneys resembled the strokes of an artist’s pencil on colour-washed paper. Watching the verminous rooks fluttering about the roofs, slipping and sliding as they clawed for a toehold on the treacherous slopes, she suddenly pitied them.
‘
I hope we won’t be stuck here all weekend,’ Ellen said over breakfast. ‘My kids are complaining about being abandoned.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘As usual!’
‘
The Manchester road’s “passable with care”, according to the radio,’ Janet told her. ‘I was listening while I got dressed.’ She poured hot milk on her Readybrek. ‘The Sheffield and Buxton roads are blocked solid, though. If Mr McKenna wants to get to Ravensdale, he’ll have to go via Stockport, providing the roads in the south of the county aren’t impassable.’
‘
I’m not sure he should go, anyway,’ Ellen commented. ‘He only wants to rattle Ryman’s cage again, and we’re not here to rattle cages.’
‘
Ryman’s being extremely hostile,’ Janet pointed out. ‘There must be a reason. You think he was negligent, don’t you?’
Ellen
nodded. ‘But not necessarily deliberately. His track record here as inspector leaves a lot to be desired, and he might simply have been promoted beyond his capabilities. It happens a lot.’
Grumbling and yawning, Jack staggered from the house at eight fifteen to collect Rene, and the tremor as he slammed the front door behind him loosened a huge raft of snow above the eaves. Huddled by the gas fire in the office, chilled to the marrow, McKenna heard the roar as it crashed to the pavement and tumbled into the road.
Venables
telephoned a few minutes later. ‘We’ve had trouble with Smith,’ he reported.
‘
Who hasn’t?’ McKenna asked sourly.
‘
We had to call out a doctor in the early hours. Lyons insisted.’
‘
Lyons insisted I rush to Manchester to intervene over Smith’s arrest, but I declined.’
‘
Yes, well that’s what caused the trouble,’ Venables said. ‘Smith went up the wall when he heard you wouldn’t be coming.’ He paused for some time. ‘Look sir, I’m not trying to elbow into your own investigation, but it does look as if what’s transpired between you and Smith might be important. We’ve been barred from questioning him until he’s talked to you.’
‘
Nothing
has transpired between Smith and myself,’ McKenna told him. ‘I’ve kept well away from him, much to his annoyance.’ He searched for his cigarettes and lighter. ‘Lyons tried to persuade me last night that Smith has crucial information, firstly about Trisha Smith’s murder, then about my current investigation. I said if that was the case, he must approach me through the proper channels, but I doubt if he will. Lyons seems to be the perfect foil for his client’s duplicity.’ Lighting his cigarette, he asked: ‘Who stopped you from questioning Smith?’
‘
My superintendent, on the assumption we’d be trespassing into your territory. We’re not entirely sure where your remit begins and ends, and by the time Lyons was done with relating the reasons for Smith’s outburst, it seemed best to put things on hold until we knew the score. My superintendent was planning to call you as soon as he comes on duty.’
‘
My remit is to find out if Haughton police deliberately suppressed evidence.’ McKenna coughed. ‘In that context, Smith is irrelevant to my activities.’
‘
Well, sir, you’re clearly not irrelevant to
him
. I’ll read you what Lyons had to say.’ Papers rustled, then Venables added: ‘I’m quoting from the document he gave my superintendent last night. “Only Superintendent McKenna can put a stop to this widespread police conspiracy designed to persecute and neutralise my client. My client’s wife is waiting to see him, but my client is too distraught to face her. She will not understand why my client was in Manchester unless Superintendent McKenna explains it to her. She will have no choice but to believe the distortions presented by the police, and will therefore spurn my client. In such circumstances, he would undoubtedly kill himself. My client came close to suicide on innumerable occasions while in prison: it was only his wife’s loyalty which kept him alive. My client has recently disclosed that he was the victim of repeated gang-rapes during that time. He was then singled out by one prisoner who offered protection in return for sex. Like many others in such horrific circumstances, my client found himself tricked into feeling secure by permitting what he abhorred. My client regards these unnatural feelings as an incurable illness, and thus yesterday yielded to the compulsion to seek security after being terrorised by a reporter named Gaynor Holbrook. Mrs Stanton Smith was unable to protect him: she is both sexually and emotionally inadequate. In view of his own marital difficulties, Superintendent McKenna will have every sympathy with the misery my client endured at the hands of his first wife, and is under an obligation to safeguard my client’s present marriage and emotional welfare. Superintendent McKenna also has an explicit responsibility to ensure that no further harm comes to my client as a result of this current investigation, and to ensure that my client does not give in to his negative desires to seek revenge for the many betrayals he has suffered.” And that’s it, sir, but you’ll appreciate how it presents Smith as an active element of your investigation. I’ll fax you a copy right away.’
When
Jack inched his car along Church Street, with Rene in the passenger seat, he was amazed to see McKenna out on the pavement, ferociously shovelling away the snow which had avalanched off the roof. A tight-lipped McKenna merely told him to stay indoors, and read the fax from Manchester police that was on his desk. To a background of thudding and scraping, Jack obeyed.
When
McKenna eventually came inside, his face pink with exertion, Jack said: ‘We could probably get Lyons for attempting to pervert the course of justice, you know. I’ve never come across such twaddle. You’re not Smith’s social worker, you’re not his counsellor, and you’re not the “saviour” he talked about to Holbrook, and the only reason he wants you to sort Beryl is because you’ve got so much clout she’ll believe anything you say. I know Smith knows the world is full of gullible fools who are bound, by the law of averages, to fall in his path sooner or later, but he can’t be daft enough to think you’re one of them.’ He glanced again at the fax, then looked up at McKenna, who was standing by the fire, rubbing hands that were blue with cold. ‘And why is Lyons bringing
your
marriage into it? How is that relevant?’
‘
It isn’t,’ McKenna said curtly. ‘It’s simply none-too-subtle emotional blackmail.’ He took his cigarettes from the mantelshelf. ‘Anyway, I’ve had more than enough of Smith for one day.’ As soon as he lit the cigarette, he had a coughing fit.
‘
Your lungs don’t seem to like this climate,’ Jack commented. ‘The tar inside them probably froze solid while you were outside.’
‘
Oh, be quiet! If you hadn’t slammed the door and brought down the snow I wouldn’t have needed to clear it up!’