The Lost Victim, page 7
‘You heard about my letters being auctioned off,’ he said, pride in his voice.
‘The pervy ones you sent to that dried-up old cow on the South Coast?’
‘Fuck you, Conway.’
‘Sorry. Only her cunt was dried up; the rest of her was perfectly acceptable.’
‘That’s it. You’ve had your chance,’ he said, trying to attract the attention of the orderly through the glass.
‘Wait, wait. I’m just playing . . . I’m sorry. I know she was . . .’
‘She was,’ said Thomas, pursing his lips.
‘What about the letters?’
Thomas slowly scratched his nose and then put his shades back on. ‘I mentioned something in one of them about you and an unsolved murder case in your old stomping ground.’
‘Our old stomping ground,’ said Peter.
‘It seems some company, a literary agency or something in London, have been sniffing around. They’ve contacted my solicitor about the copyright on my letters. And your boy’s mother is apparently involved.’
‘Kate?’
Thomas nodded.
‘They’ll want to talk to us. They might pay. Money . . . or even better, we can exert some leverage. And as we both know, we can only spend a few quid inside in the tuck shop. Leverage is where the gold is.’
‘Who?’
‘Who what?’
Peter looked up at the orderly, but he was still absorbed elsewhere.
‘Who is the unsolved murder?’
‘Young girl.’
‘How young?’
‘Fourteen. Janey Macklin, she was called.’
‘Never heard of her,’ said Peter, quickly, but he thought, Had he?
Thomas put up his hands and smirked. ‘Me neither, me neither. We both know how it works. Someone on the outside wants to know stuff. We know the stuff.’
‘Spoken like a true poet,’ said Peter. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other and leaned on his stick. Thomas waggled his withered finger again.
‘You’re scared to lose your dignity, Peter. I can see it. You don’t have much left to bargain in your old age. This could be bargaining material. You could get a transfer. Better facilities, a private shower and toilet. A place to slide into old age gracefully and not this hell-hole.’
‘And what’s in it for you?’
‘I want to have my chemo in a hospital. A proper hospital for ordinary people. I can’t die in this hell-hole, in one room with nurses and doctors who hate me.’
Peter looked at him. He understood.
‘What do you know about this Janey Macklin?’
‘Same as you. Never heard of her,’ he said, tapping his nose and flashing that gruesome smile again.
‘Okay. What do we do?’
‘My solicitor said it should be soon, someone will want to talk to us.’
13
The Golden Lane Estate sat near the Barbican Centre. Kate remembered visiting the Barbican a few times when she lived in London. It was a complex with apartments, cinemas, concert halls, and a hub of restaurants, which had been expensive, even back in the early nineties. The Golden Lane Estate sat across the road from the Barbican and was sandwiched between high-rise office buildings. It was a brutalist structure, like Victoria House, and seemed a bit plonked, even though it was older than most of the buildings it sat amongst.
The main entrance had a wall of glass panels with an entry phone system similar to the one at Victoria House. Robert Driscoll’s home phone number was listed on 192.com. He’d answered their call, and seemed happy to talk.
‘All right. It’s the second floor,’ answered a gruff voice through the intercom when they rang his bell. There was a crackle as the phone hung up, and then the entrance door buzzed and popped open. Kate looked up and saw a security camera above the door.
It was another smelly lift ride, much like at Victoria House, but the block of flats was only three stories high with a long concrete courtyard.
Robert Driscoll was waiting for them with the door open. He looked much like his Facebook profile photo. His greying hair was longer, and he was a short, large man. His torso seemed to blend into his chin with little in the way of a neck. His eyes were beady and brown, and he wore plain grey tracksuit bottoms with a plain blue T-shirt.
‘Hi, I’m Kate Marshall, and this is my colleague, Tristan Harper,’ said Kate.
He squinted at them keenly. ‘Kate Marshall? The bird who caught the Nine Elms Cannibal?’
‘Yes, I’m the bird,’ said Kate, her heart sinking slightly, both at the fact he knew who she was, and that he called her a bird.
‘Sorry. Woman,’ he said with a chuckle. He put out his hand, and they all shook. ‘Come on in.’
They followed him into a small living room with a bland set of grey furniture and black shelving units which were filled with DVDs, and hundreds of VHS cassettes, labelled with neat blue writing. A huge window at the end of the living room looked out onto a landscaped piece of grass and more tower blocks.
A flatscreen TV was on the wall, and underneath was a low table with so much tech: two DVD players, a video recorder, and other boxes for pay TV. A small coffee table in between the grey sofas was piled neatly with scores of magazines.
Robert indicated they should sit down. He took a grey, high-backed recliner in the corner, which Kate got the impression was his chair, and they sat opposite on the overstuffed sofa.
‘What’s going on with Janey Macklin after all these years?’ he asked. He seemed genuinely interested.
‘We’ve been hired by a creative agency who want to make a potential true crime project about the case,’ said Tristan.
He looked between them. ‘Project? Like a TV show?’
‘We’re just doing background research for them,’ Kate added. ‘It could be a book or a podcast. It’s not up to us.’
‘Well, as you know, I didn’t do it. And the last time I heard, a court acquitted me of any wrongdoing.’ He shrugged. ‘End of.’
‘But no other arrests have been made since your acquittal?’ said Tristan.
‘Not that I’ve heard.’
‘The mystery has never been solved.’
‘When you put it like that, I suppose . . .’ His voice trailed off. He shrugged. ‘I just want to live my life.’
Kate looked around the small living room which seemed to focus on watching TV. There were no photos or plants. She wondered what kind of a life he was leading.
‘Thank you for meeting us. We really appreciate your time,’ said Kate. ‘Our investigation was sparked by an article in Real Crime magazine. Which contains a theory, or potential evidence, that Peter Conway, or another serial killer called Thomas Black, was responsible for Janey Macklin going missing.’
Robert put his hands on his knees and looked between them.
‘Okay,’ he said.
Kate opened her bag and removed a photocopied page from one of the Thomas Black letters.
‘This is a letter from Thomas Black to a woman called Judith Leary dated Friday, October 29, 2010,’ she said. She handed it over with a section highlighted:
I later heard on the grapevine – grapevine is a much more pleasant word for it, I won’t subject you to that, my dear – that Peter Conway was the one who kidnapped Janey Macklin. He’d got to know her in the pub weeks before she vanished, so she was happy to get into a car with him. He also might have been wearing his police uniform when she got into his car.
Robert scanned it, and then looked up at them. ‘This is the theory of a serial killer?’
‘You’ve never heard this theory?’ asked Kate, watching him. ‘The magazine article was published in Real Crime magazine.’ She took out a copy of the magazine and handed it to him.
‘Judith Leary died a few months ago, and she was friends with a man called Forrest Parker . . . As well as writing the article there, he brokered a deal to sell the correspondence between Judith and Thomas after she died.’
Kate observed Robert at the mention of Forrest. His face remained impassive.
‘None of this means anything to you?’
Robert put the magazine article and the photocopy of the letter down on the table. ‘You know it does. I don’t see Fred – Forrest – anymore,’ he said.
‘So, you admit you were friends?’ asked Tristan.
Robert looked annoyed. ‘Admit? I haven’t denied anything. We were friends. ’Course we were.’
‘Do you know why Fred changed his name to Forrest? He’s been quite evasive about the connection between the two of you.’
‘He probably wanted to escape being associated with me for the rest of his life.’
‘Can you tell us about your relationship?’ asked Kate.
‘Relationship? It weren’t nothing like that.’
‘Sorry. Friendship.’
‘We grew up here. Forrest . . . Fred used to live here on the estate, on the top floor, with his mum.’
‘Does his mum still live here?’
‘No, she died when I was inside. I put in a request to go to the funeral, but it was denied.’
‘Do you mind if I take notes?’ asked Tristan.
‘Go ahead. I’ve got nothing to hide.’
Tristan took out his notebook and pen and turned to a blank page. Robert eyed it, and there was a long pause.
‘This is just for our reference.’
Robert hesitated and nodded. The sky was darkening outside, and thick fog had descended, but Robert didn’t switch on a light. A row of lamps flicked on in the courtyard.
‘You and Forrest were friends with another lad, Roland Hacker. Are you still in contact with Roland?’
‘No.’
‘Where did Roland live?’
‘Over in Stanley Cohen House, across the courtyard.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘No idea. Roland disappeared. Cut himself off from everyone when I was inside. His mum and dad both died not knowing where he was; he didn’t have any other family.’
‘And you’ve checked he’s still alive?’ asked Kate.
Robert shrugged. ‘When I was acquitted in ’97, I tried to find him. Nothing. There’s nothing online. Nothing on social media.’
‘Do you think he changed his name, like Forrest?’ asked Tristan.
‘If he did, he didn’t tell anyone.’
‘The three of you were close, yes?’
‘We was good mates.’
Kate took out a copy of the Big Issue article, with Robert, Forrest, and Roland standing in front of the big spray-painted mural. He took it from her.
‘This is a blast from the past.’ He sighed and rubbed his face. ‘Jeez. Little did I know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This was taken a few months before Janey Macklin went missing, and it all fell apart.’
14
‘Can you tell us what happened on the night Janey Macklin went missing?’
Robert put the photo down on the little pile of photocopies on the table, sat back, made a steeple with his fingers, and rested them on his chin.
‘I was seventeen at the time. I used to see Janey around. Mostly on Friday nights when her old ma, Doreen, used to send her down to Reynolds to buy fags. Janey had dropped her scarf in Reynolds a couple of weeks before, and I found it under the counter. I knew I would see her, so I took it to my van, and forgot about it. The next week, when she came to get fags, I gave her a lift back to The Jug, ’cos it was blizzarding. I had to brake on the ice on the road and she was thrown forward and banged her head. . . I gave her the scarf back, and she used it to dab the blood off her head. It was a small cut. I drove her up to the fish-and-chip shop near here. Carlucci’s. It’s still there. She was starving and cold. I bought her a cone of chips, and then I dropped her back outside The Jug. We can’t have been gone for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. Seriously. She was frozen and starving, and she forgot her scarf again. That’s how I still had it.’
‘Do you remember what time you dropped her back at The Jug?’ asked Kate.
‘It was thirty years ago. Reynolds used to shut at six pm on weeknights, Janey came just before closing, so I suppose I dropped her off outside The Jug after we had chips at around six twenty-five pm.’
‘And you saw her go inside the pub?’
‘I dropped her at the entrance. I remember looking back in the rearview mirror and seeing her at the pub door.’
‘It says in the magazine article that the police found her scarf in your bedroom, two weeks after she went missing,’ said Tristan.
‘Yeah, like I said. When we got chips, she left it in the van, and then when I dropped her off, she forgot it again. I put it in my backpack intending to give it back to her,’ said Robert.
Kate wished they had more details from the police reports from that evening.
‘And that was the last you saw of Janey?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I bought her some chips and made sure she got warmed up in my van. That’s all. I dropped Janey off. I didn’t touch her.’
‘Do you think Janey went missing on the road outside the pub?’ asked Tristan.
‘It was a Friday night. The Jug used to get crowds from around the King’s Cross area who would go there for a swift half before getting their trains from the station. The road was busy that evening – lots of cars behind me, I remember. Isn’t your new theory that Peter Conway picked her up in or close to the pub?’
Kate looked at Tristan.
‘Peter Conway was seen drinking in The Jug with a couple of underage girls in the weeks leading up to Janey going missing,’ said Tristan.
‘And wasn’t that his signature way of doing things, the Nine Elms Cannibal? He abducted young girls. Then dumped their bodies,’ said Robert, opening his hands as if to say, That’s your answer.
‘What did you do after you dropped off Janey?’ Kate asked.
‘I was doing some work for the youth club,’ he said, indicating the photo with the mural. ‘There were some art projects that I had to collect and put into, er, storage.’
‘All this in the evening of 23 December?’
‘Yeah. That’s why I had use of the van. I used to do stuff for the youth club, maintenance, moving furniture, pool tables, and the art projects. The youth club was art focused.’
‘Did anyone help you that evening?’
‘No. I was on my own. I wanted to get it done before Christmas so I could have the holidays free. I stayed until just after midnight, and then I went back home. My mum was only able to give me an alibi from midnight.’
‘What were Forrest and Roland doing that night?’
‘Roland was home with his parents. Forrest was out in London at some club.’
‘Do you live alone?’ asked Tristan.
‘Yeah. Mum died three years ago. I was her carer for the last few years of her life.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kate.
‘I recently did the place up. She left it to me in her will, God bless her.’
‘Why did the police arrest you?’ Tristan asked.
‘A woman was at the Golden Fry, the chip shop, a few doors down. She saw Janey getting into my van.’
‘Why did you take Janey all the way to the fish shop near your house if the Golden Fry was only a couple of doors down from Reynolds newsagent?’ asked Tristan.
Robert hesitated for a moment.
‘I had a bit of form with the owner of the Golden Fry. We’d got into an altercation a few months before. The police didn’t arrest me until after Christmas. I talked to them voluntarily before that, ’cos I was one of the last people to see Janey. They also talked to Fred – Forrest – and Roland. They both backed me up, about moving the stuff from the youth club in the van.’
‘When did the police arrest you?’
He blew out his cheeks and sat back, as if he hadn’t had to think about this for some time.
‘First week of January, I think. I know the newspapers didn’t pick up on Janey’s disappearance in the new year. The Lockerbie air crash happened on December 21, and it dominated the news over Christmas. It was only after Janey made the national news that the police brought in a sniffer dog. They searched all along the road up to Reynolds newsagent. The dog traced Janey’s scent inside Reynolds and into the backyard to an old pipe. I still don’t know, hand on my heart, how Janey’s scent ended up in the backyard. She’d dropped her scarf in the shop. I don’t know if her scent was transferred onto Jack, maybe his shoes or something. Then a few days later, there was crime reconstruction on TV. That’s when the girl from the Golden Fry came forward and called the hotline and named me. The police were under pressure. They came up with the theory I killed Janey, stashed her body in the water pipe behind Reynolds for a few days, and then moved it and dumped it or buried it. They had no proof, no body, but this coupled with the fact I already had a criminal record . . .’
‘What did you have a criminal record for?’ asked Kate. He waved this away as if it were a silly detail.
‘It was the aggro in the Golden Fry. I was with a girl who had also been with Vince, who owned the Fry. I went for him and she was in the way, and I ended up punching her. Hand on my heart, I meant to punch him, but the police were called . . . The girl backed Vince . . . I ended up with domestic violence on my record. Three months, suspended sentence. First offence. That was a few months before. My brief, my solicitor, told me not to worry and that nothing would stand up in court. I got legal aid, but my brief was crap. He was unprepared, and I think my attitude stunk. I was angry when they put me on the stand. The jury found me guilty.’
‘And you served eight years?’ asked Kate, watching him carefully.
‘Yeah. Pretty soon after the verdict was handed down, my mum, God bless her soul, went to work on an appeal. I got a new brief, and she was excellent. She said that there was a chance of getting the verdict overturned ’cos the police never found a body. It took a fucking, sorry, a bloody age, but there was a retrial in late 1996, and I was acquitted in March 1997. And there’s still no body.’
There was a long silence. It was cold in the living room. Kate shivered and wanted to put her coat back on.
