DI Friar and Lulu walked down the corridor towards the interview room. ‘You’ve spoken to him before, so maybe you should do the introduction,’ said DI Friar. She was holding a black leather briefcase.
‘I worry that if he sees me he’ll go straight back into his “no comment” routine,’ said Lulu.
‘Perhaps,’ said the detective. ‘But he knows you’ll want to talk about what happened in London, and that was five years ago. My cases are much more recent, so he’s more likely to be defensive about them.’
‘I understand.’
They reached the door to the interview room. DI Friar opened it and stepped to the side to let Lulu go in first. There was a uniformed female constable wearing a high-vis jacket standing with her back to the wall. She nodded at DI Friar. ‘You can stay, Sally,’ said the detective, and the constable nodded again.
Wallace was sitting at the table with a plastic bottle of water in front of him. They had taken his shoes and clothes away and given him a white forensic suit to wear, and blue shoe covers for his feet. He snarled at Lulu, ‘What is it with you and that bloody cat?’
‘I’m former superintendent Lulu Lewis,’ she said. ‘Do you remember we spoke in London? Five years ago, give or take.’
‘I remember,’ he said. ‘But you didn’t have a cat then.’
‘We’ve only recently become acquainted,’ she said, sitting on the chair opposite him. Conrad jumped off her shoulders and landed on the floor. Lulu looked at DI Friar. ‘This is Detective Inspector Julie Friar,’ she said.
‘No comment,’ said Wallace, and he folded his arms.
DI Friar sat down and placed the briefcase on the floor next to her chair. She took two cassettes from her pocket and slotted them into the recorder on the wall. She pressed ‘play’ and settled back in her chair.
‘So, as I said, Gordon, I am former superintendent Lulu Lewis and with me is . . .’ She looked across at DI Friar.
‘Detective Inspector Julie Friar,’ she said.
‘Could you say your name, please, Gordon.’
‘No comment.’
‘We are here to interview Mr Gordon Wallace,’ said Lulu. ‘He is refusing to comment.’
‘No comment.’
‘You do have the right to a solicitor, Gordon,’ said Lulu.
‘I don’t need a solicitor because I’m not saying anything.’
‘Gordon, we know what happened in the boys’ home,’ said Lulu. ‘The Horizon Residential Home for Boys.’
Wallace’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t say anything.
‘We know it was bad, but obviously we weren’t there so we can’t comprehend the full horror of it. But we know that four boys committed suicide there.’
‘And the rest,’ sneered Wallace.
‘More boys killed themselves?’
‘One or two a year when I was there. And I was there for five years.’
‘And they were all suicides?’
Wallace nodded. ‘Pettigrew covered it up.’
‘Ian Pettigrew, the boys’ home manager?’
Wallace frowned, then his face went blank. ‘No comment.’
‘Gordon, now is your time to tell us your side of the story,’ said Lulu.
‘No comment.’
‘We’re here to listen to you, Gordon. We want to hear what you have to say.’
‘No comment.’
Lulu looked over at DI Friar. Friar flashed her a tight smile and picked up her briefcase. She flicked open the two locks. ‘I understand that you were interviewed at length about what happened in London five years ago,’ she said.
‘No comment.’
‘And I know that you refused to comment at the time. But back then, the police had no real evidence against you. That is no longer the case.’ She took out four SOCO photographs. ‘This time we have evidence. Hard evidence.’ She placed one of the photographs on the table. ‘This is the body of Sergeant Derek Sawyer, whose body was found on Heaton Park golf course. She placed a second photograph next to it. ‘And this is Fraser Robinson, whose body was found at Stretford Meadows last week. Automatic Number Plate Recognition shows that your vehicle was in the vicinity of both bodies shortly before they were found.’
Wallace shrugged. ‘No comment.’
‘We are checking the data from the phone we found in your motorhome. Now, it’s probably a burner phone that you were planning to ditch at some point, but if your fingerprints are on it and there are incriminating messages between yourself and Eddie Parker, then it’s game over for you. We’ll also be looking at the phone’s GPS. If you left that on and you took it with you when you dumped the bodies, then we will know.’
‘No comment.’
DI Friar put a third photograph on the table. It was of the coil of rope they had found, in an evidence bag. ‘This coil of rope was found in your motorhome, under the table. It is an exact match to the rope that was found on Sergeant Sawyer and Fraser Robinson. Three-strand nylon rope, Kingfisher brand. We are examining it for DNA, so if you ever touched that rope, we will know.’
‘No comment.’
She pushed a fourth photograph towards him. ‘And this is a photograph of the carpet on the floor of your motorhome. Those marks you see are from bodily fluids, and we are testing them for DNA as we speak. If that DNA matches to Sergeant Sawyer or Fraser Robinson, or both, then your goose is well and truly cooked.’
Wallace gritted his teeth and snarled at her, but continued to say nothing.
‘It’s over, Gordon,’ said Lulu quietly. ‘This isn’t like the last time we spoke. This time the evidence will convict you.’
Wallace shook his head.
‘You can stay silent, you can refuse to speak, that’s your right. But you will still go to prison.’ Lulu tapped the photograph of the carpet. ‘If either of those two men were in your motorhome, the DNA will prove it. You killed them there and you drove the bodies to dispose of them. But if you have anything to say, anything that might justify what you did, now is the time to tell us. We are here to listen, Gordon. And maybe we can help.’
‘It’s too late to help,’ whispered Wallace. ‘That ship sailed years ago.’
‘This is all about what happened at the home, isn’t it? It’s about what Ian Pettigrew did to you.’
Wallace nodded slowly. ‘And his team. They were all in on it.’
‘What I don’t understand is why the local authority didn’t take action against them,’ said Lulu. ‘All they did was close the home and move the boys. No charges were ever laid, were they?’
‘Nobody cared,’ said Wallace. ‘All they wanted to do was sweep it under the carpet. They were scared shitless of it getting in the papers. Pettigrew told me that if I ever said anything about what had happened at Horizon he’d track me down and kill me.’ He chuckled. ‘That didn’t work out too well for him, obviously.’
‘And you and Eddie Parker and Jack Butler were all abused?’
‘Most of the kids were. The Horizon didn’t take older kids. Thirteen was the oldest. We were too young to fight back. And anyone who tried, they were beaten to a pulp. We soon learned not to resist.’
‘And you didn’t tell anyone?’
Wallace scowled at her. ‘You’ve no idea what it was like. Pettigrew had complete control over what went on there.’
‘Didn’t you have social workers?’ asked DI Friar.
‘They didn’t care. They just wanted us homed and out of the way.’
‘What about the police?’ asked Lulu.
‘The police?’ sneered Wallace. He shook his head. ‘They were as bad as the home staff.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked DI Friar.
‘One of the boys wrote a letter to the police and a cop came round to the home. He grabbed the boy and beat him black and blue. We were all made to watch. Pettigrew said that was what happened to anyone who went to the police.’
‘This policeman, was it Sergeant Sawyer?’ asked Lulu.
Wallace gritted his teeth. ‘Constable Sawyer he was back then. He started coming to the home regularly after that. The boy killed himself a few weeks later. And another two boys topped themselves the following year. That was when they closed the home. The council knew there was a problem so we were split up and put in foster homes. Mine was actually okay.’
‘But you never told anyone what had been done to you? After you left the home?’
‘What would have been the point? Sawyer was a cop. How many other cops were doing the same thing? We had no way of knowing.’
‘Someone would have helped.’
‘Or we might have been killed. No, we kept our mouths shut.’
‘Gordon, I need to ask you about Fraser Robinson,’ said Lulu.
‘Robbo? He was a few years older than us and he was Pettigrew’s enforcer. He used to keep the kids in line when Pettigrew was away.’
‘He wasn’t a care worker though, was he?’
Wallace shook his head. ‘He came to cut our hair. After a few visits, Pettigrew gave him a room and he lived in.’
‘And Fraser Robinson took part in the abuse?’
Wallace nodded. ‘He loved it. I’m not sure if it was the power he loved or the sex, but he loved it.’
‘And of the managers and care workers in the home, how many were abusers?’
‘All of them,’ said Wallace. ‘And if they didn’t actually take part, they damn well knew what was going on.’
‘But there was no investigation, was there?’ asked Lulu.
Wallace shook his head. ‘It was all covered up. If there had been an investigation, it would have been our word against theirs. We were all packed off to different foster homes around London. Some of the lads were sent to different cities. I expected the cops or the council to come along and interview us but no one ever did. No one cared about us or what had been done to us, it was all damage control, keeping it out of the papers.’
‘So you lost touch with the other boys at the home?’
Wallace grinned. ‘They figured, if they split us up, that would be the end of it. But we made a pact, six of us. Me and Parker and Butler, the Henderson brothers and little Alex Watson. A blood pact. The night before they shipped us out, we cut our fingers and shared our blood and promised to meet again, exactly ten years later. No matter what.’
‘And you did?’
‘I turned up. So did Butler and Parker. The home had been turned into flats but we met outside. Just the three of us. One of the Henderson brothers had topped himself and the other had joined the army and got blown up in Afghanistan. We never found out what happened to little Alex Watson.’
‘What sort of reunion was it, when the three of you got together?’
Wallace smiled thinly. ‘We were all still angry. Angry like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘So you decided to get your revenge?’
‘Wouldn’t you?’ Wallace snapped. ‘If you had been systematically abused over years? Wouldn’t you want revenge?’
Lulu didn’t reply. It wasn’t a question she wanted to answer, not on tape anyway.
‘So, yeah, the three of us decided to get our own back. To give them a taste of their own medicine.’
‘And the rope and knot that you used, that was what they did to you?’
‘It was Pettigrew’s party trick. Sometimes he’d tie up a few of us and then leave us on the floor while he and his mates sat around drinking and smoking dope.’
‘It’s quite a complicated knot.’
Wallace nodded. ‘Sometimes he made us tie each other up. He got a kick out of that.’
‘And when you decided on revenge, how did you find them all? The home had been long closed, hadn’t it?’
‘Pettigrew was easy enough. His name isn’t common and he was on social media. It didn’t take us long to find him; we followed him for a while. There was no way he could work with children again, not after the home had been shut down, but he managed to get an office job with an insurance company. He still had a taste for young flesh, though. We trailed him to various bars in Soho and we saw him picking up underage rent boys around Piccadilly Circus. Then one night we grabbed him and did it to him.’ Wallace grinned. ‘I can’t tell you how good it felt, seeing him naked and trussed up like an oven-ready chicken. He was so scared and he babbled away. Told us where the other guys had gone, said he was sorry, swore he was a changed man. We just sat there and drank beer and watched him choke himself to death.’
‘What about the way you disposed of the body?’ asked DI Friar. ‘Whose idea was it to leave them naked?’
‘Mutual decision,’ said Wallace. ‘We’d watched enough crime shows on television to know about DNA and hair and stuff. So we stripped them and washed them before we dumped them.’
‘And the rope? Why did you leave the rope around their necks?’
Wallace chuckled. ‘To put the fear of God into the others. So that they would know that we were coming for them.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘But the cops never mentioned the rope back then. They kept it to themselves.’
‘What about the second victim? Nick Hurst?’
‘Pettigrew had told us where to find him. After the home was shut down he started working as a schoolteacher, of all things. Turns out he had a degree and a teaching certificate and everything. I guess they didn’t ask for references, because he shouldn’t have been allowed within a mile of young boys. He was a sleazebag, you could tell by just looking at him.’
‘And how did it work?’ asked DI Friar. ‘Were you all involved?’
‘For Pettigrew, yes. All for one and one for all, like the three musketeers. But then we decided we’d better be careful. If the cops started looking at us, we’d need alibis. I mean, we were using burner phones and only spoke face to face or on WhatsApp. But we needed more security, so we decided that, with the second one, Jackie and I would do it and Eddie would make sure he got himself a speeding ticket at the time we were killing Hurst. It paid dividends when the cops did start looking at Eddie. They had CCTV of Eddie in a couple of the same Soho bars as Hurst and Dunne. But once they found the speeding ticket and the picture that came with it, they lost interest.’
‘And what about William Eccles and John Dunne?’ asked DI Friar.
‘What about them?’ said Wallace.
‘Who killed them?’
‘Jackie and I did Eccles. Eddie had to take care of Dunne alone. Pettigrew told us where to find Eccles and Hurst knew where Dunne was.’
‘And by the time that Eddie killed Dunne, you were in prison and Jack Butler was dead?’ said Lulu.
Wallace looked down at the table. ‘Yeah.’
‘Mr Butler’s death wasn’t a mugging gone wrong, was it?’ she said quietly.
Wallace looked up, his eyes narrowed. ‘Why do you say that?’
Lulu smiled. ‘A copper’s hunch.’
‘Are copper’s hunches accepted as evidence in trials?’
‘Generally not,’ said Lulu. ‘But Mr Butler’s DNA had been found under the fingernail of Mr Eccles, hadn’t it? That put you all at risk.’
Wallace grimaced. ‘Jackie didn’t care. He said we shouldn’t even bother trying to hide what we were doing. It’s like he had some sort of a death wish. Eddie said we had to do something or we’d all end up behind bars. We tried talking to Jackie but he wouldn’t listen. He was smoking weed big-time and it was making him crazy. He started smoking in the home, when he was ten. We all did. It helped dull the pain of what was happening. But it took over his life and he was smoking every day.’
‘Even when he was working?’ asked DI Friar. ‘He was high when he was driving his taxi?’
Wallace nodded. ‘Most of the time.’
‘Were you smoking, too?’ asked DI Friar.
‘I stopped when I left the home. My foster parents were strict.’ He smiled. ‘Firm but fair. They were good people. Hell, compared with what I had before, they were saints. Mr and Mrs Reeves. I had three good years with them. They saved my life.’
‘Mrs Reeves died some time ago, didn’t she?’
Wallace nodded. ‘Cancer.’
‘And Mr Reeves isn’t well.’
‘Dementia. He’s only in his seventies. Life sucks sometimes.’
‘Yes, it does,’ said Lulu. ‘So what happened to Jackie?’
‘You know what happened. He died.’
‘Stabbed in his taxi,’ said Lulu.
Wallace raised his palms. ‘He was unlucky.’
‘Gordon, we know that you killed Ian Pettigrew, Nick Hurst and William Eccles in London five years ago. And we know you killed Sergeant Sawyer and Fraser Robinson in Manchester. Why are you being so coy about Jackie Butler? Is it because he was a friend? Because, like you, he was abused?’
Wallace sighed and sat back in his chair. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said. ‘Do you think I could have some food?’
‘What would you like?’ asked DI Friar.
Wallace smiled. ‘I’d really like a burger,’ he said. ‘And chips.’
‘I’m sure we could get that for you,’ said DI Friar.
‘And a Coke.’
‘With ice?’
‘Why not?’