4.50pm Monday 24th December
‘Interview commencing at 4.50pm on Monday the twenty-fourth of December. Officers present, DCI Barrett and DI Palmer,’ Barrett said for the tape and for the record.
‘Mr Steven Fisher, otherwise known as Mr Robert Mirren, has refused legal representation.’
‘No one calls me Robert.’ He smirked.
‘What should we call you then?’ Palmer asked.
‘Robbie is fine.’
‘Okay, Robbie it is then. So, Robbie, do you understand that you are under arrest for the murders of Dennis Wade, Wendy Matlock and Eddie Kilpatrick?’
‘Sure.’ He shrugged.
‘This is your opportunity to tell us in your own words what happened,’ Barrett said calmly. He could feel he was in the presence of someone damaged and dangerous and it was his job to try and get a confession.
‘You think you know.’ Robbie’s eyes danced around the room. ‘But you don’t have the first clue.’
‘So, tell us,’ Palmer urged. ‘Tell us about Jack Hucknell.’
Both inspectors watched as the suspect twitched when hearing the name.
‘Jack.’ He looked from one officer to another. ‘Jack was my best friend. We did everything together. We were like brothers. I even joined the scouts so that we could spend time together.’ Robbie shifted in his seat.
‘Go on,’ Barrett said evenly.
‘We were kids. We just wanted to ride our bikes and muck about.’ He started to look uncomfortable in his own skin. ‘We just wanted to have fun like boys do. We told each other everything. The girls we fancied and stuff. We were really close. I didn’t have any siblings. He was it.’
‘Tell us about this,’ Barrett said, sliding a photograph in a clear plastic evidence bag across the table to the suspect.
Robbie picked it up and held it close to his face, losing himself in the image.
‘We were happy then. Look, Jack’s smiling. You see?’ He turned the photo around for the inspectors to see. ‘I didn’t know what was going to happen. It was meant to be an adventure.’ Robbie’s pitch grew more frantic. ‘We were going camping. It was exciting. Jack and I had been looking forward to it for weeks. We’d snuck some sweets into our backpacks and I’d even stolen a couple of cigarettes from my mum. We were going to smoke them that night to see what it was like.’
Palmer remembered the first time he’d tried a cigarette. It had been enough to put him off smoking for life.
‘We all met outside the social club that Saturday afternoon. It was surprisingly warm for October. Mum had taken me shopping to buy waterproofs especially for the trip.’
Barrett noticed the sad expression that crossed Robbie’s face when he mentioned his mother.
‘I had my bag packed and I was all ready to go. I’d only joined the scouts in September because Jack had done it for a while and kept telling me how great it was.’ He stopped to consider something. ‘Eddie shouldn’t have been there. It wasn’t meant to be him. The other scout leader was ill or something so Eddie was standing it. Mr Wade told us he didn’t want to cancel the trip, but they needed another grown-up to come along. He introduced us to Eddie. We didn’t pay much attention to him at first.’ He bit his fingernails.
‘What about Wendy?’ Palmer asked.
‘She was there,’ Robbie hissed. ‘She’d joined as a young scout leader. She often helped out.’ The venom in his voice took Palmer by surprise.
‘What happened?’ Barrett wanted answers.
‘We all got in the minibus and they took us to Burwell Lakes. There must have been fourteen boys in the group.
‘When we got to the lakes we went fishing for a few hours. I remember thinking it was actually quite boring, but it beat being stuck at home doing nothing while Mum was at work.
‘Later we walked across some fields to the edge of these woods. Dennis told us that we’d reached the spot and we needed to erect our tents. Dennis, Eddie and Wendy all had a tent each but us boys were split into pairs. I shared with Jack.
‘After we’d all put our tents up, we had to cook our own dinner. We’d brought little stoves in our bags. We were going to get badges if we managed it. Jack and I had decided we were going to have baked beans and bacon and we cooked it by ourselves. We felt proud and grown-up.
‘By then it was dark, and Dennis and Wendy had built a campfire. We were all told to come and sit round it in a circle. They made us sing songs. Stupid baby songs like Row Row The Boat and Once I Caught A Fish Alive.’ There was a glint in his eye. Barrett and Palmer looked at each other.
‘Then what happened?’
‘Gradually the other boys got tired and went into their tents to sleep. But Jack and I were determined to stay up as late as possible. We were sat on one side of the fire and Eddie and Dennis were on the other side. I remember they had a hip flask they kept handing back and forth and topping up with a glass bottle of something.
‘Jack and I were hoping we’d have a chance to sneak off and try the cigarette, but the grown-ups just wouldn’t go to sleep. Eventually Wendy said goodnight and crawled into her tent but not Dennis or Eddie. Oh no, they were happy to stay up drinking.
‘It must have been at about one in the morning. Jack and I were tired, but we had made this promise that we’d stay up later than anyone else and I suppose neither of us wanted to lose face by giving in first.
‘I remember the fire was beginning to burn out. The flames had died down and all that remained were some glowing embers. Dennis and Eddie both got up at the same time. They were a bit shaky on their feet.
‘Anyway, they said we should go with them into the woods to collect more fuel for the fire. Jack and I thought it was exciting. They had their torches and they led the way. We followed. I was actually a bit frightened. I could hardly see where I was going but I kept following the light. We both did.
‘When we got into the woods Dennis said he’d take Jack and they’d search one area and I was told to go with Eddie and search the other way.’ He stopped talking, not wanting to remember. ‘You know what happened next,’ Robbie said finally.
Barrett cleared his throat and put his hands on the table. ‘I can hazard a guess, but we need to hear it on the record.’
‘That night we went into those woods two innocent boys. When we came out again we were not the same.’ His eyes fell to the floor. ‘They did horrible, unspeakable things to us.’
‘We need you to say it.’ Palmer wished he didn’t have to press the matter.
‘They raped us,’ Robbie said and looked up with a dead expression. ‘They took us into the woods and they raped us.’
Barrett nodded slowly. There it was. The motive.
‘Jack and I both knew what happened to one another, but we tried not to speak about it again. He never recovered.
‘We kept going to scouts, and most of the time it was difficult for Dennis to get Jack on his own, but he managed it. I never saw Eddie again. It only ever happened to me once. But Jack, for him it carried on. After a while my mum let me leave the scouts. I never told her what had happened to Jack or me.
‘Jack was so broken he even lost the ability to fight it. He went to scouts week-in and week-out without saying a word. Then, one day two years after it began, when he couldn’t take it any more, he killed himself.’ Robbie put his hands up around his own neck. ‘He hung himself until his last breath left his body and he was finally free from that monster.’
The inspectors sat in silence. What was there to say? The law said an eye for an eye was wrong, but for a moment both men imagined themselves as young boys. They pictured the fear and pain Robbie and Jack had been subjected too and, for a split second, they could identify with the killer.
‘Why Wendy?’ Palmer asked suddenly, wanting to understand what she’d been punished for. ‘Why did you have to kill her?’
‘She saw us,’ Robbie said. ‘That night when they walked us back to the tents, she was awake. She saw us. I looked at her. She could see we’d been crying, and she watched through a gap in her tent as our abusers tucked us into our sleeping bags. She knew, and she never said a word.’ A long silence prevailed.
‘Why now? Why wait until now?’ Barrett asked finally.
‘I’d left. I’d got away from it all. It was in the past, but then my mum died and I had to come home. It was all here waiting for me when I got back, and I knew the only way to lay Jack’s ghost to rest was to do this. He’s been with me. He’s always been with me, following me from country to country. He speaks to me and haunts my dreams.’ Robbie looked distant, unhinged. ‘I had to put it right. They had to pay for what they did to us.
‘I knew Dennis wouldn’t remember me. Jack was his special boy. I came up with fake name and got a part-time job in the shop. The rest was simple.’ He looked down at the palms of his hands. ‘Jack can rest now, can’t you Jack.’ He turned, smiling, and spoke into the thin air.