Dan had been sitting in the visiting room at the prison for twenty minutes, jolted all the time by the distant bangs of large doors slamming, guards shouting, laughter between themselves. They reverberated through the prison, the soundtrack for the inmates.
Rodney was in Doncaster prison, his two decades of good behaviour getting him downgraded to Category B.
The prison was modern from the outside, behind high concrete walls and a modern gateway, and yet it had the highest suicide rate in the country. Perhaps it was something to do with the large electrical substation right opposite the entrance, so that the air seemed to crackle as he waited for entry. Or because it was surrounded by water, sitting where the River Don separates. It wasn’t Alcatraz, but it’s hard to predict what happens when hope is snuffed out.
The prison had allowed him a special slot. They demanded twenty-four hours’ notice normally, but Rodney was a celebrity prisoner, and his gold-star rating sometimes got him privileges, even if it wasn’t said outright. For all of their disdain, Dan knew that the guards boasted of their inmates when they went home. Those in the outside world wanted to hear about the monsters, the names that filled the tabloids and made pints spill in heated pub discussions.
The guards told of how there was something not quite right about them, from the evil in their eyes to the potency of their threat, their impulses barely held in check by the doors and walls, told like a fireside tale.
The truth was less dramatic. The monsters were to be feared because they were just like everyone else, the dark side of humanity unleashed, but human nonetheless. They talked and laughed and slept and complained of boredom, just like all prisoners. A demand for a better cell life generated Burn In Hell newspaper pieces, but they were borne out of boredom, in the same way that other prisoners will fight over a pinched cigarette.
For Dan, the real fear was in their ability to move unnoticed. Murderers were that one bad day, when impulses or a snap of anger couldn’t be kept in check, or that unusual something they were unable to control. Every murderer he’d defended seemed as ordinary as everyone else. Impossible to differentiate, out there somewhere, waiting to explode.
There were more pragmatic reasons for the special visit too.
Rodney was a special category of prisoner: Rule 43, isolated from the rest of the population for his own safety. He’d murdered two children, and that made him notorious. He was a target for the prison headhunters, and seeing Dan alone kept him apart.
Dan didn’t know what to expect. He’d looked him up on the Internet overnight and realised that he’d heard of his crimes before, but his memory was patchy, gleaned only from occasional press reports rushed out on an anniversary of the murders. Despite his knowledge that most killers are conspicuous by their mundanity, he couldn’t help but feel some trepidation. There were always some that tried to play up to their images. When you’ve lost your liberty but acquired notoriety, your reputation is all you have left. Rodney Walker was a tabloid monster and some people become what people expect them to be. Would Dan feel the threat from across the table?
Or would it be worse than that? Would he beguile him into believing that he was innocent, the very same guile that persuaded two young children to wander off with him? He didn’t want to be manipulated. He was there for Nick Connor, not for Rodney Walker.
He sat upright at the familiar rumble of keys, always oversized, almost as if they were symbolic, the jailer’s fantasy. The door opened and into the room walked Rodney.
He was smaller and greyer than Dan had imagined. He’d acquired a paunch, sitting around all day must do that, and his hair had thinned and turned silver. His movements were slow, dressed in jeans and a grey sweatshirt, a bright yellow bib on top, his hands in his pockets.
When he sat down, he smiled and said, ‘Hello. Nice to meet you.’
That surprised Dan. He’d expected hostility, a glimpse of his evil, but he seemed calm and quiet, serene almost.
‘You know why I’m here?’
He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. ‘Ken Goodman called the governor. I was allowed to call him back. About Mark Roberts.’
‘You know him then?’
‘He came to see me. He was writing a book and I was going to feature.’
‘How did you feel about that?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m a celebrity prisoner, I understand that, and I’ll sell copies.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Ken said he’d been killed. You’re representing his killer, right?’
‘I am, and we’re looking at whether it had anything to do with your case.’
‘Why should it? My story on its own isn’t enough for a book, so he must have been looking at more than just my case. Like a greatest hits of child killers.’
Dan ignored the arrogance, almost as if Rodney was determined to make Dan dislike him. ‘We’re following the only leads we have.’
‘Have you found anything?’
‘Nothing yet, and we haven’t got much time to do it. What did you tell him?’
‘That I wasn’t interested in taking part.’
‘Why did you speak to him then?’
‘To see what he had to say, whether he had a different angle.’
‘He did though, didn’t he? He believed you might be innocent.’
‘It’s not the first time I’ve heard that, and it wasn’t for my benefit. Just another true crime writer trying to live off me. I get contacted all the time, all wanting that interview with the sicko child killer. I don’t feed it. How will any of that help me?’ He held up his hand. ‘I don’t mean to be self-pitying. I’ve chosen this, no one else, and I don’t expect you to understand. What’s in it for me though? That’s what I always ask myself. And what about the families of those children? Why should I help them?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘They like to keep it in the media because they feed off it. They’ve become addicted to grief and the publicity. They should move on. I have.’
‘Perhaps it’s about making you hard to release if people are reminded of what you did?’
‘Bad people get parole all the time.’
‘Which brings me to why I’m here, because I expected you to be full of denials, truthful or not, because that’s what murderers do. They manipulate, make it all about them, which is just how they lived their lives, selfishly. You haven’t done that.’
‘You’re saying I’m different. Does that make me more or less likely to be a killer then?’
‘Likelihood isn’t important. It’s whether you are a killer.’
‘Twelve members of a jury said so.’
‘And you didn’t persuade them otherwise?’
Rodney sat back and folded his arms. ‘What do you want, Mr Grant?’
‘Just for some light on this. There had to be a reason why Mark Roberts died, and your case seems connected somehow. My investigator was in Brampton for just a few hours before she was assaulted, and she was only asking questions.’
He gave a small laugh. ‘Brampton doesn’t welcome outsiders. They’ll take their money in summer, but they never really like them.’
‘This was more than that. At least, that’s how she sees it, and there are two reasons.’ Dan held out his hand, to count the reasons on his fingers. ‘Firstly, she’s raking up bad memories and people are offended. That’s what Mark Roberts did, and he’s dead now. And I don’t accept that it’s because people want to move on. If the families are grief-junkies, like you said, why wouldn’t they relish the spotlight once more?’
‘And the other reason?’
‘If you’re not the murderer, someone else is, and it’s not much of a step to kill again when there is a secret to keep from twenty years ago. Whoever that person is, he will be desperate or angry. If I can work out who that might be, I’ve got another suspect in my client’s case.’
‘How far have you got?’
‘Not far at all. Tell me, who do you think might have done it?’
Rodney unfolded his arms and leaned across the table again. ‘I’m not going to start guessing. The country has got its bogeyman. Why should I deprive them of that?’
‘That sounds to me like the jury had it right all along, but you just can’t bring yourself to admit it.’
‘I didn’t kill those children.’
‘Who did then?’
‘I don’t care. It won’t change my life in any way. And it’s not good for my mental health.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘It’s better to accept my lot and live with it. Everyone else should do the same.’
‘You didn’t give evidence.’
‘No.’
‘The world has never heard your side of things. Start with me.’
‘You want me to tell you what happened?’
‘Why not? I’m not going to write a book or newspaper article. I’m here for my client. Now? I’m just intrigued.’
Rodney watched Dan, his gaze piercing, and Dan felt like he was in a spotlight.
It was Rodney who broke the silence. ‘Okay, I’ll talk, but this is off the record.’