AFTERWORD

A Walton Gaol Tale

1946–47

Rowland’s fate lay in the hands of the detective…

n 1947, Walter Rowland was hanged for the murder of Olive Balchin in Manchester. Rowland had had an alibi and also a man who could back that up. He had been to see his mother on the night of the murder, in New Mills. He had been picked up as he was on the list of Balchin’s client: she was a prostitute. It seemed as though, in the first stage of the investigation, that Rowland had been in bed in Ardwick when the murder took place. But then a man in a Liverpool cell began to play a part in the story.