Хилари Боннер - A Kind Of Wild Justice

‘The jury convicted him on a majority verdict but it was never cut and dried. Hence the judge only gave him a fraction of the time he could have done. The girl was a right slag, too, and that influenced the judge as well, no doubt.’

No doubt, thought Joanna wryly. It drove her mad when judges pointed out that the victim of a sex crime had been dressed in a provocative way, or worse still, that she wasn’t a virgin. The inference being that once a woman had surrendered her virginity that gave the rest of the male sex the right to do as they wished with her. The very idea made Joanna angry.

‘The conviction alone was enough to get him drummed out of the Territorials,’ Manners went on.

Joanna started involuntarily. ‘Say again!’

‘Thought you’d pick up on that. Yep, he was in the Territorials and yep, he did annual training up at Okehampton camp several times. Jimbo’s always been a military freak. Crazy about the army. Wanted to join the regulars, apparently, only the old man wouldn’t have it. From when he was a kid James Martin was the apple of Sam’s eye. And he never accepted that the boy had done a rape, of course. Never. You know Sam the Man. Like some fucking Mafia godfather. Built everything on respect, has Sam. Has his own strict moral code. Doesn’t prevent him fitting the old concrete boots on his so-called chums every so often, but that’s just business in his book.’

Joanna was silent for a few seconds, thinking. ‘So it really looks like Jimbo’s going to be charged, then, does it?’ she asked.

‘I reckon so. But what do I know? You’re the one with the special police contacts now, aren’t you?’ Frank’s voice turned into a sneer and he put heavily sarcastic emphasis on ‘special’, making his inference abundantly clear.

It had to come, of course. Manners could never behave like a reasonable human being towards her for more than five minutes or so on the trot. ‘Fuck off, Frank,’ she remarked conversationally, turned her back on him and headed for her office where she slammed the door behind her.

Soon after she had arrived in Fleet Street, young, eager, and terrified, Joanna had been introduced to the Daily Mirror’s legendary agony aunt Marje Proops, not a woman to be trifled with, who had given her advice on dealing with the chauvinists of Fleet Street, which she had never forgotten. ‘Smile at them sweetly, dear, and if that fails just use the “F” word.’

Jo found she was smiling at the memory as she tried to put a call in to Fielding. Predictably, he was not contactable. She spoke to a constable at the incident room who assured her he would pass on her message for the detective to call her as soon as possible. She did not, however, have high expectations. And she was genuinely surprised when he called back little more than half an hour later. ‘Can you tell me how sure you are?’ she asked.

‘We don’t make a habit of arresting people without good reason, Joanna,’ he replied rather prissily. He sounded cocksure again, more the way he had been when she first met him.

She knew all too well that getting a result did that to policemen. Even when they had a dead body on their hands. ‘For God’s sake, Mike...’ she began irritably.

‘Fucking sure,’ he interrupted her suddenly. ‘Look, it fits like a glove. O’Donnell likes playing soldiers, always has done. Likes knives, too — we found a nice collection at his house. Also we know he’s been a regular visitor up on the moor. Oh, and he was seen on the Phillipses’ land the day Angela disappeared.’

‘You’ve got more than that though, surely?’

‘Fucking right.’

‘Well?’

‘Can’t tell you.’

‘OK, can you tell me what led you to him?’

‘Seems the shock tactics paid off. We had a call from a minor Dartmoor villain. He’d seen Jimbo hanging around Five Tors Farm on the day Angela was taken and recognised him at once. Apparently he’s done a bit of wheeling and dealing with the O’Donnells in the past, although he doesn’t like admitting it. Jimbo was tucked in behind a hedge and looked as if he was watching the farmhouse through binoculars. It all made sense because, unless he was a local, whoever abducted Angela had definitely learned a bit about her and her family, almost certainly been watching them. Our man was up to no good himself, as usual — sheep rustling is one of his favourite tricks and there’s been quite an operation going on around Dartmoor lately — that’s why he didn’t speak out before. And he certainly didn’t want to interfere with Jimbo O’Donnell. Said he backed off smartish when he spotted the bastard. Scared shitless of the O’Donnells, of course. All rogues are and with good reason. You don’t shop an O’Donnell lightly and in any case when Angela disappeared he couldn’t really see it as the kind of thing the O’Donnells would be involved in. Anyway, he was in two minds when the girl’s body was found and the kidnapping angle broke. Then, when you printed the story about how her breasts had been mutilated, he finally came forward. Got a kid that age himself. Said he couldn’t stomach it. Seems he told his missus then and she pushed him to speak out.

‘So there you are. As I said. Fits like a glove.’

‘It’s an unusual profile, though, isn’t it?’ queried Joanna. ‘An organised premeditated kidnapper who is also a vicious sex offender.’

Fielding grunted. ‘O’Donnell’s always been a sicko,’ he said. ‘Abuse is what turns him on. And young girls are his weakness. The Met say he’s damned lucky to have only the one conviction for a sex offence. There was a particularly nasty rape of a teenage girl in his manor just last year, which they were sure was down to him. But neither the kid nor her family would point the finger, too damned scared of the O’Donnell mythology, they reckon.

‘The kidnap of Angela Phillips was planned and premeditated all right. O’Donnell may even have convinced himself that it was no different from the kind of job the rest of his family might take on. Sam rules with a rod of iron, you know, and keeps a tight hold on the purse strings. Jimbo would have loved to have proved to his old man that he was a major league operator in his own right — and make a few bob, too. But no doubt the bastard always planned to have his fun with Angela as well. And once he’d got hold of her, his true nature ran away with itself.’

‘Were you on the arrest team?’

‘Yup. Bowled up to the Smoke at dawn this morning. In and out. No need to get the Met involved, the boss said. I enjoyed that. Enjoyed the swoop on Jimbo too. Thought he was on his heels, didn’t he? He’s always been a piece of work, Jo. You know that, I’m sure.’

‘I do now, yeah,’ said Joanna. ‘You’ll be charging him, then?’

‘Fucking right.’

‘When?’ That was the million-dollar question. If O’Donnell was going to be charged that night the paper’s whole coverage would become sub judice and be severely limited. If not, they could run at least some of Manners’s juicy background. Although they would be unable to spell out the criminality of Jimbo’s family, because that would be highly prejudicial, a little innuendo can go a long way in a well-written tabloid splash and most readers would in any case know at least something of the O’Donnells’ dubious reputation, and be able to put two and two together. Even the Comet ’s readers, thought Jo wryly. The paper would also be able to carry much of the additional information she had gleaned from Fielding.

Fielding knew all that. He was a media man. Jo was already beginning to think he knew as much about media coverage of crime as he did about catching criminals. ‘You’re all right, it’ll be tomorrow morning,’ he said.