Jayne shuffled in her chair, in front of a small table in the middle of the room, as she waited for Rodney. She sat forward, then back, tugged on her jacket, uncomfortable in the suit she’d retrieved from her flat in Manchester, a letter of instruction in her pocket. She might have been there in an official capacity, as Dan’s legal representative, but she felt like a fraud.
She took a deep breath at the sound of the lock and smoothed down her suit. She let out her breath, long and slow, and closed her eyes for a moment. Stay calm, she told herself.
Rodney appeared through a door, the guard peeling off to the side of the room but always watching.
Jayne didn’t stand, even though she knew it was the polite thing to do, but she was nervous, back in a prison but on her own this time. Instead, she pressed her knees together and tried to mask her nerves with a broad smile.
‘Mr Walker?’ She gestured to the chair opposite, as if she were the host.
As Rodney sat down, the defiance in his eyes told her who was the guest. It was a look she recognised, the desire to keep some fight as life slowly gets crushed by the routine. He looked dishevelled, with dark rings under his eyes, his skin that light grey prison pallor, from bad food, no sunlight and constant roll-up cigarettes.
She’d only seen him in photographs that were more than twenty years old. He was smaller than she expected. There were shades of the younger man she’d seen in the pictures, but only shades.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.
That surprised her. ‘No, thank you for speaking to us. Dan would be here, but he’s in court.’
‘Yeah, he said, and I know this is urgent.’
‘Urgent, after twenty years?’ She failed to keep the sarcasm from her voice, and silently rebuked herself. She couldn’t afford for him to decide the meeting was over.
Instead, he hung his head and said, ‘Things have changed.’
‘Have they?’
He frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘If you’re going to tell me what I think you’re about to, then nothing has changed, except your willingness to talk.’
He pursed his lips as he thought about that. ‘I needed to hear more from you, to find out how certain you are about Leoni.’
Jayne cocked her head. ‘What’s changed your mind? Dan came to see you last week and told you all we know. You told him you weren’t interested.’
‘You’ve got to understand how hard this is for me,’ and he slapped his chest. ‘I’ve been locked up for more than twenty years. I’m hated, reviled. The press talk about me, the monster who killed children. How convenient is this now, me coming forward? It looks like I’ve got sick of prison and I’m looking for a way out.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘What do you think, because what kind of life can I lead, really? Even if I get out, and there’d be no point in me doing this if I didn’t, what chance have I got of living a life like you do? Uncomplicated, simple. And what about Leoni? I don’t want to wish this on her.’
Jayne pushed aside the thought of explaining her life. It wasn’t important, because the case wasn’t about her. It was about Leoni, and all the lives she’d taken or ruined as she’d grown up.
‘Wouldn’t a complicated life but free be better than, well, this?’ She looked around the room.
‘I don’t know. I’ve been here a long time. I’m institutionalised. That’s the word, isn’t it? I can’t change peoples’ minds, and if they knew the truth, they’d hate me just the same.’
‘That’s not why you’ve asked me to come though, to tell me that.’
‘How do you know? We’ve only just met. You don’t know anything about me.’
‘I know about Leoni. Probably more than you, because you’ve been in here.’
Rodney sat back, his hands on the table. ‘I called her after your boss came to see me.’
Jayne flinched. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘I had to know if he was telling the truth.’
Jayne hadn’t considered the thought that he might tell Leoni. ‘How close are you?’
‘I haven’t spoken to my daughter in twenty years. I let her grow up without me. That was my sacrifice, to give her that chance. She writes to me all the time though. She tells me what she’s doing, how she misses me, her brother too. She sends me her phone number and asks me to call her, but I never have before.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’d want to be with her, of course. She’s my flesh, my blood. Whatever sort of person she is, I made her like that. She had the chance to make something of her life, to put whatever happened behind her. Tell me, have you seen her?’
Jayne was cautious now, wondering if Rodney wanted her there for a different reason. Was it just so that he could tell Leoni all they knew?
But she couldn’t clam up. Dan wanted him for the trial. She had to trust her instincts.
‘No, I haven’t,’ Jayne said. ‘Without you, there’s nothing in this defence. But now you’ve told her, she might disappear. Or even worse. She’s a killer. We’re all in danger now.’
‘I mentioned David Green, that’s all.’
‘The trial starts today. She’s no fool.’ She leaned forward. ‘We need you, Rodney. Do the right thing.’
Rodney put his head back and stared at the ceiling. Eventually, he looked back and said, ‘This is such a big step.’
‘It has to be you that does it. You know the truth. Even Leoni’s mother thinks you’re guilty.’
‘What, you met Sarah?’
‘I was following Mark Roberts’s investigation, so it took me on the same path Mark had taken.’
‘How’s Sarah?’
‘A mess, if I’m honest. Too much vodka, too many fags. She looked old and didn’t look well.’
Rodney shook his head. ‘She brought all that on herself. And on us. She was partly to blame for this mess.’
‘How do you make that out?’
‘She left us. Not just me. Us. I’m not saying we were perfect, but we were a family, except she treated the children like they were a burden. All she was interested in was being the party girl. When she married me, she was settling for routine, thinking that it would somehow stop her from ruining her life, cure her excesses, but you can’t hold in that kind of thing in the end. If it’s in you to ruin yourself, you’ll do it, and whatever Sarah tried to suppress was always bursting to get out.’
‘But why does that make it partly her fault?’
‘Because children need love. They need stability. Everyone knows that.’
‘Lots of single parents cope. Why couldn’t you?’
‘I was working hard, trying to keep everything together. Looking back, work didn’t matter. I should have been there for the children, and perhaps…’ A deep breath. ‘Perhaps things would have been different.’
Jayne wanted to reach out and hold his hand, because Rodney looked like a man who had spent twenty years wondering if he’d tried harder, he could have made it turn out better, but she remembered enough of the prison rules to know that the guard would end the meeting if he saw it.
Instead, she said, ‘Why do you think it would have made Leoni different?’
‘Love does that.’ Rodney sat forward. ‘Did she do these other things? I’ve got to trust you.’
‘We think so, but we can never truly know.’
‘Have you spoken to Chief Inspector Porter?’
‘Of course. Wherever Mark went, I followed.’
Rodney folded his arms. ‘He knows everything.’
Jayne was surprised at that. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I bet he filled you with bluster, told you to leave well alone, the beast is behind bars.’ He shook his head. ‘Be careful with him. If he’s making it out like it’s a big surprise, don’t believe him.’
‘Tell me then.’
‘Here’s my deal. Take it or leave it. Porter has got to tell the story too. It doesn’t have to be in court, but he’s got to talk and make it public. I’ll tell you my part in this, but I won’t help your client out if Porter refuses. I’m not facing this alone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Porter knows it all. It’s time for him to pay.’