Dan let the whispers in the courtroom die down before he moved on to the next question.
‘We’ll come back to Leoni later, but when Mark Roberts came to see you for the second time, did he tell you why he’d changed his mind about you?’
‘Not just changed his mind. He was enthused. Yeah, that’s the right word. He was thorough, because I thought he’d just stick to the case, rehash what happened, want to know my evil mind, all the clichés, but he went further. On the first visit, he just wanted to talk, like he was doing one of those talking with killers type of books, where he sets out some great insight, because he turned up for a thirty-minute chat, as if he could work out more about someone than all the years of prison psychologists. But he carried on researching, followed the trail, spoke to witnesses, because he said he wanted to write about the impact on Brampton, where it happened. It was Chris, the brother of the little girl, Ruby, who changed his mind.’
‘Did Mark tell you why?’
‘Because he thought he was going to get a tale of how much he loathed me, but he got a different story instead. Chris believes in my innocence, and just think about that. If the brother of one of my supposed victims doesn’t think I’m guilty, there must be a story there, which made Mark speak to other people. Like my lawyer, and the senior detective. Then he tried to track down my children, and that’s what really changed his story. At first, I think it was because he was after some angle on Leoni, to see how the case had affected her. Collateral damage, or whatever. By the time of the second visit, when he’d looked more into Leoni, he was completely different. Excitable, as if he’d discovered there was more to my story.’
‘Did he tell you what it was about Leoni that made him change his mind?’
‘No, he didn’t. Perhaps he saw the same thing that I did, that she was cold, dead inside.’
The judge interrupted him, ‘Mr Walker, let’s not speculate. The answer is no, he didn’t.’
‘That’s how she was though, even as a small child,’ Rodney persisted. ‘But I never imagined that it would end up like it did. I blamed myself at first, thought I had made her like that, but I know now that it was just how she was.’
Dan tried to bring the focus back to his questioning and away from the judge. ‘What happened when the children died, Mr Walker?’
He took a few seconds to compose himself, before saying, ‘It was Easter. I lived in a small seaside town and there was always this festival. A bonfire on the cliffs, fairground rides, some sort of Viking thing. All the kids were there, and I’d taken mine too, because my wife had left me and I always seemed to be working, and, well, it just seemed like I had the chance to give them some fun. Then that boy went missing. William.’
‘How old was he?’
‘Six. He’d got separated from his father, or his father had stopped paying attention to him, but when he went missing, everyone on the clifftop was looking for him. Brampton was like that, very close-knit, and those cliffs are dangerous. A hundred feet high and with a sheer drop. There were safety people there, keeping people away from the edges, and temporary barriers, but children are curious. Leoni had gone for a walk around the fairground, but when William went missing, I was worried about her, wondered if there was a predator around, so I was looking for her. I found her on the steps that lead down to the beach.’
‘How was she?’
‘Calm. Too calm for what she said next.’ He let out a breath to compose himself. ‘She said: “I told the policeman where the boy was.”’
‘And where was he?’
‘Behind a pillbox. It’s an old concrete thing, built during the war, so the Home Guard or whoever could sit and watch for an approaching invasion. There’s a few around Brampton, but they’re all crumbled away now. This one had been built right into the cliff face, but the cliffs had eroded, so that it stood on its own. Leoni pointed down to the space behind the pillbox, between the concrete and the foot of the cliffs. As I looked down, I thought I saw something. A flash of red, cloth or whatever, or maybe blood on pale skin. I asked her how she knew and why hadn’t she told anyone else. She said she’d told a policeman but he’d ignored her, and that’s when I noticed the tear on her dress, and the blood on her hands, mixed in with dirt, as if she’d been clambering.’
The atmosphere in the courtroom had become tense, everyone straining to hear every word.
‘What did you think?’
‘I didn’t know what to think. What does a parent think in those situations? You don’t start believing that your daughter has murdered someone, but I knew straight away something wasn’t right. I grabbed Leoni and her brother and rushed back them to the car. We had to get out of there, that was all I could focus on.’
‘What happened when you got home?’
‘I was a wreck, because deep down I knew, but I couldn’t confront it.’
‘How was Leoni?’
‘Different, but the wrong different, because she seemed happier somehow. I was sitting downstairs, watching the news all the time, or expecting the police to arrive, and all I could hear was Leoni singing upstairs, or talking to her dolls, the ones I’d bought but she never played with. For the first time, she was a normal little girl.’
‘Didn’t you think of calling the police, because if you weren’t sure she was the murderer, she might have seen something that could have helped them?’
‘I wasn’t sure enough she’d done it, but I wasn’t sure enough she hadn’t either. I stayed quiet to protect my little girl and hoped that whatever had happened was a one-off.’
‘But it wasn’t.’
Rodney closed his eyes and swallowed. When he opened them, there were tears on his cheeks, but his voice held firm. ‘There was a fair at the rugby club behind our house not long after, and all the kids were there, and families, and Leoni wanted to go. I let her, and she took Robbie, her little brother. I went too, to watch, to make sure nothing happened, except I lost her. They went skipping off into the crowd, her and her brother, so I searched all afternoon, just wanting to see what she was doing, and then I heard the panic.’
‘Panic?’
‘Ruby’s mother scouring the fair, her daughter lost, and after William the town was really twitchy, because there was a child killer still on the loose. I joined the hunt, just in case it was a mistake, but the longer it went on, I knew.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I went home. As I got to my drive, I could hear them in the garage, and I thought thank God I made it back before anything bad happened.’ Rodney paused to compose himself. His voice broke when he said, ‘I was wrong. Ruby was dead. The chatter was Leoni talking to her brother, who was in shock, just staring, his body rigid. Leoni had throttled Ruby and then bashed her head on the ground. The poor little girl was just mashed up, dead, all red around her neck; and I grabbed Leoni and was shaking her, desperate, asking her what she’d done. She started to cry and looked at the body as if she’d never seen it before, and she got really frantic, punching my chest. I thought there must be something wrong with her, but I could make her better, so it would never happen again. I loved her, she was my little girl, and didn’t want to see her locked away. And if it didn’t happen again, was I being so bad? I couldn’t bring back poor Ruby, but I could save my girl.’
There was absolute silence in the courtroom. Even the judge had stopped making notes.
‘Mr Walker,’ Dan said. ‘You buried Ruby’s body.’
Tears ran down his cheeks as he said, ‘I shouldn’t have done, because I made her family’s torment worse, but I was panicking; I wish I could take that back, make it different.’
‘You were convicted after a trial. Did you say all of this then?’
‘No. I said nothing. I wasn’t going to betray my daughter.’
‘Did you tell Mark Roberts all this?’
‘No. Leoni made me a promise that she’d never harm anyone again. That promise kept me sane, that despite what she’d done, I’d saved her, so she could lead a good life, put all that childhood horror behind her. People can change, I thought.’
‘You were prepared to sacrifice everything for Leoni, a girl who murdered two children?’
He slammed his hand on the witness box. ‘She was my girl. I’d do anything for her.’
‘Why are you here then, betraying that promise?’
Rodney’s fingers grew tighter on the witness box. ‘Because she broke that promise, Mr Grant. She didn’t change, I know that now, and Mark Roberts is dead.’
Dan paused to let that sink in, for people to realise that a connection was coming.
‘Mr Walker, Mark Roberts was found murdered in Highford. Do you know that town?’
‘I do.’
‘How do you know it?’
Rodney looked to the judge and then to the jurors opposite. ‘It’s where Leoni lives now.’
Dan let that hang in the air, joined Rodney in looking over to the jurors, who seemed either shocked or more curious, their certainty about Nick’s guilt no longer there.
Dan nodded and said, ‘No more questions?’
As he sat down, he let out a long breath. Rodney hadn’t let him down.
He looked back to the dock. Nick was looking down, his head in his hands.