Peter Robinson - Sleeping in the Ground

‘And Frank?’

‘Right. I was getting to that. He was supposed to drop by that afternoon.’

‘Why?’

‘As a guest, like. You know. Billy had asked him.’

‘Again, why? Did he have something to say, something to tell you, or show you?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Are you saying that?’

‘Well, er, yes, I suppose I am.’

‘Go on, then. I’m listening.’

‘You’re not making this easy.’

Banks leaned forwards. ‘Then let me simplify things, Mr Charlton. If you don’t tell me what it is you have to say, we’ll go up to Eastvale HQ, find an empty interview room and talk there until I’m satisfied. Is that easy enough for you?’

‘You don’t have to be like that.’

‘What do I have to be like to get you to tell me what it is you have to say? I’m being as patient as I can.’

‘All right, all right. Billy told us his brother was going to drop by the garage during our meeting that afternoon, like, to show us something he’d got off a darkie in Marseilles.’

‘What was this something?’

Charlton swallowed. ‘A knife. A flick-knife. But don’t go taking it the wrong way. He was just going to show it to us, that’s all. We were kids, superintendent, fascinated by exotic things like that. A hint of danger, the forbidden.’

‘And what was it like, this knife? Did it live up to your expectations?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why not?’

‘Frank didn’t turn up.’

‘What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.’

‘I said he didn’t turn up. Frank Dowson.’

‘But he was in the area?’

Charlton seem to panic a little at that. ‘I don’t know, I tell you. How would I know? I didn’t see him. I hadn’t seen him for ages. I assumed he probably got leave from the merchant navy, like, and hadn’t been able to come to the meeting for some reason. Maybe he’d been called back to his ship? Maybe his leave got cancelled.’

‘So let me get this straight. Frank Dowson was supposed to drop by the garage and show you this exotic knife he’d picked up in Marseilles, but he didn’t turn up, and around the same time Wendy Vincent gets raped and stabbed in the nearby woods. Stabbed, mind you, with a flick-knife, perhaps, and none of you thinks it’s worth telling the police about it. You don’t even think he was in the area. Am I right?’

‘You didn’t know Billy’s dad. He was a holy terror was Mr Dowson. Like one of them Krays, he was, or that crazy mafia bloke in Goodfellas . You didn’t want to get on his bad side. And Frank was family, after all.’

‘Are you telling me that Billy Dowson’s father told the gang members not to mention that Frank Dowson was supposed to show up with a knife that afternoon but didn’t? That you were all protecting him? Protecting a possible killer?’

‘No, it wasn’t like that. He told Billy that Frank couldn’t get leave. Simple as that. He didn’t talk to us. He didn’t even know about our gang. Billy was scared shitless, and he just asked us, like, not to say anything, or his dad would kill him. After all, Frank hadn’t turned up with the knife. Nobody had seen him. For all we knew, he might have been having us on, or he could have been still at sea. There might not have been any knife at all.’

‘Did Billy believe his father?’

‘I don’t know. He was just scared. He told us what he’d said.’

‘Did you ever think the father could have done it, raped and killed Wendy, not Frank?’

‘I was only eleven. I didn’t think about things like that at all.’

‘But there must have been conversations. At school, perhaps. I know what kids that age are like. I was one myself, too, don’t forget.’

‘It honestly never crossed my mind.’

‘And did you believe Billy?’

‘I don’t know. I hadn’t seen Frank, had I? He could have been anywhere, for all I knew.’

‘Like in the woods?’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘But Frank must have been at the house with the knife some time recently, mustn’t he, if Billy knew about it, had persuaded him to come and show it to the gang, and if their father was worried about the police finding out? He must have known something. Frank must have been in the neighbourhood the day Wendy Vincent was murdered.’

‘I don’t know. I never saw him. Honest I didn’t.’

Christ, give me strength, Banks thought, gritting his teeth. ‘So tell me, how did you feel when they finally convicted Frank Dowson of Wendy Vincent’s murder fifty years after the fact, along with several violent rapes he committed after he killed her?’

Charlton swallowed. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Come on, Mr Charlton. It’s not that tough a question.’

‘Well, I suppose I thought about that flick-knife and that it really might have been him. But I didn’t know at the time. How could I? I hadn’t seen him anywhere around. We didn’t even know what had happened to Wendy Vincent until well after the meeting. The next day. Later, even. And even then you lot didn’t tell us all the details, like exactly when or how it had happened, or what weapon was used.’

‘But Billy Dowson had warned you not to mention Frank and the knife?’

‘Yes. Because of his dad.’

‘So why didn’t you manage to put two and two together? Or suspect the dad?’

‘We were only kids, eleven years old, for Christ’s sake, and Frank was always getting into trouble with the police. He was the kind of person you lot pick on, on account of he wasn’t too bright, and he’d probably confess to things he didn’t do, you know, clear unsolved crimes off your books, thinking he was being clever, like.’

‘So you didn’t think that Frank Dowson might have actually murdered Wendy Vincent?’

‘I’m not saying it never crossed my mind. But no. Not seriously. I mean, it’s not as black and white as you’re making out.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, just shut the fuck up and let me think. Will you do that for me?’

Charlton’s jaw hung open, but he did shut up. Drinking some Guinness helped him with that.

‘You should have told the police at the time,’ said Banks after a brief pause. ‘But you know that, don’t you? Because of you, more innocent girls had to suffer at Frank Dowson’s hands. None of them were stabbed, the way Wendy was, but that’s probably because they couldn’t identify him. Some of them might have wished since that they had been killed. Either way, you’ve got blood on your hands, Mick.’

‘That’s not down to me! You can’t blame me for you lot not doing your jobs properly.’

Banks took several deep breaths. He was beginning to wish he’d ordered a real drink, driving or not. ‘Just a couple more points before I go,’ he said, as calmly as he could.

‘Anything.’

‘Where’s Billy Dowson these days?’

‘He’s dead,’ said Charlton. ‘Ten years or more. Drug overdose.’

So Billy Dowson could hardly be involved in the wedding shootings, Banks thought, mentally scratching his name off the list. But could one of them — Ricky, Mark, Tommy, even Charlton himself — for some reason he didn’t yet know? ‘And his sister, Cilla?’

‘Who knows. Probably dead, too, the state she was in back then. Went off to London, didn’t she? And before you ask, Billy’s father’s dead, too.’

‘Shot? Stabbed?’

‘Natural causes. He had a massive stroke.’

‘Hallelujah. So there is divine justice, after all. How about Wendy’s brother, Mark Vincent?’

‘I’ve bumped into him one or twice over the years. He joined the army. Paras, I think.’

‘When did you last see him?’

Charlton broke eye contact.

‘You’d better tell me the truth, Mick.’