Five days earlier
Connor makes tea, and we sit either side of his small kitchen table. I was right about the place having been cleaned up. Gone is the broken furniture, the scuffed linoleum, the rusty old cooker with only one working hob, and the pellets of mouse shit that gathered in the corners of the worktops. Now, there are new kitchen units, worktops, appliances – new for here, at least – and the whole place is so clean that it echoes. It’s hard to believe it’s the same room I spent hours in while making Born Killer, interviewing Connor’s grandmother while she chain-smoked and answered questions between endless coughing fits.
‘Place looks different,’ I say.
Connor looks around, as if he isn’t sitting in his own kitchen. ‘Yeah, I made some changes. Nan’s not so keen, but she doesn’t come downstairs much now anyway.’ He casts his eyes up towards the ceiling.
‘How is she?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. ‘Good days and bad. She can’t walk too well anymore. Her balance …’ He puts one of his giant hands out and rocks it from side to side. ‘You could go up and say hello, but she’s just had her meds. She’ll be dead to the world until dinner time.’
‘Another day, then,’ I say.
Connor gives a sad sort of smile, then brushes his dark fringe out of his eyes, a gesture I haven’t seen from him since before he entered his first Young Offenders Institution and was given the close-cropped haircut he would keep for the next twelve years.
When we used to speak over the phone, when he was still inside, I’d try to lift his spirits by asking what he wanted to do when he got out. He’d talk of travelling the world, list the countries he’d like to visit, the sights he’d like to see. When I told him he had fans in America, he got excited, said maybe he’d move to New York or LA, maybe meet someone and make a fresh start. The possibilities of freedom seemed endless. And yet, here he is, back in the same old two-up two-down council house he grew up in, because he refuses to spend any more time away from his beloved grandmother, and she is too old and infirm to move anywhere else.
‘Sorry about them.’ Connor jerks his head towards the front of the house, to the low murmur of the protestors.
‘It’s not your fault this town is full of idiots,’ I say, and he laughs.
‘It’s good to see you,’ he says. ‘It’s been a while.’
‘Yeah.’ I glance down at my tea. I suddenly can’t look him in the eye.
When Born Killer finished, it didn’t just leave behind an open wound here in Westhaven, it left one inside me. Because while I helped to secure Connor’s release, I failed my best friend. No matter how hard I tried – and God, did I try – I couldn’t finish Amy’s story, and every day spent in Westhaven only served to remind me of that.
Not only did I discover that a considerable, and very vocal, part of the community believed I’d done the wrong thing in helping to secure Connor’s release, but Amy’s parents went from treating me like a member of the family, to refusing to speak to me. They did hold a press conference during which they told the assembled reporters that seeing Connor walk free was not only a miscarriage of justice, but a betrayal of their trust and an insult to their daughter’s memory. I know they’re wrong about that. I know Amy wouldn’t have wanted to see Connor rot in a cell for something he hadn’t done. But the hurt that Born Killer caused them was too much for me to bear. Staying away – putting distance between myself and everything related to Born Killer, including Connor – not only seemed like the easier option, but the right thing to do. For everybody.
I want to tell Connor this, so he knows he did nothing wrong, that I still care for him and have missed him, but I don’t know where to start.
Instead, I clear my throat, stand up and carry my tea over to the back door and peer out into the garden, at the flowerbeds and the bird feeder, the stepping stones pressed into the lawn at regular intervals.
‘You did this all by yourself?’ I say.
Connor comes and joins me, and we stand shoulder to shoulder, admiring his handiwork.
‘Funny thing,’ he says. ‘I always thought gardening was for boring old blokes, so I guess I must be one of those now. It helps keep my head straight. There’s all sorts of little animals out there – not just insects, but hedgehogs, foxes. I even saw a badger once. When I’m in the garden it feels … good, y’know?’
Words never were his strong point.
‘Yeah,’ I say, and we stand and drink the rest of our tea, and in the pockets of silence between mouthfuls, the sound of the protestors finds its way to us.
… fucking murderer …
Connor gives a wry laugh, shakes his head. ‘D’you know, I actually thought people would be pleased to see me when I got out, that they’d want to, I don’t know, make up for what happened?’ He catches himself, touches me on the arm. ‘I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, ’cos I’m not. I just thought if I kept my head down, kept myself to myself, people would leave me alone and let me get on with my life. Instead, they’re standing outside my front door, calling me a murderer.’
‘Come on, Con,’ I say. ‘Nobody cares what they think.’
He lets out a barking laugh. ‘Remember last time? All those people coming out of the woodwork? Teachers, neighbours, the bloody vicar. Every bad thing I ever did since I was a little kid used against me. I didn’t stand a chance.’
He didn’t. Even as a fifteen-year-old, his reputation – and that of his father’s – had preceded him. His card was marked long before he was arrested for Amy’s murder. It was marked from birth. And the teachers he’d sworn at, the neighbours whose windows he’d broken, and the vicar who’d caught him stealing flowers from graves – they were for his grandmother, of course – were all too keen to speak out against him when the time came, to tell anyone who would listen that he was a bad kid, that they’d always thought something wasn’t quite right with him. Never mind that there’s a world of difference between petty vandalism and murder.
‘Things are different now,’ I tell him. ‘Do you really think the police are going to make the same mistake twice?’
Connor doesn’t look convinced. ‘Why did it have to be him?’ he says. ‘I know that sounds horrible, because he was just a kid, and no kid deserves that. But it looks bad, doesn’t it, Dalton’s nephew being murdered? It looks bad for me.’
It does. Because if anybody is searching for a motive as to why Connor would want to hurt, or even kill, a member of John Dalton’s family, they won’t have to look very far.
Thirteen years of his life, up in smoke. There’s your motive right there.
‘Con?’ He looks up, meets my eye. ‘You know I have to ask …’
He does, but that doesn’t stop his shoulders slumping with disappointment.
‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ I say. ‘But I have to know.’ How bad things might get for him, and to a lesser extent, for me. ‘You told Bill you were home all night?’
‘Because I was,’ Connor says. ‘I spent the day working in the garden, had a shower, made dinner for me and Nan. She has to eat with her pills, so that would have been around eight. After that, we watched TV in her room. She likes all these old quiz shows on Challenge, you know, the really old ones, from when we were kids. Bullseye, Wheel of Fortune, that sort of thing. I fell asleep about midnight, at a guess, woke up about one, then went to bed. And that’s it. That’s where I was the night it happened.’
An alibi from his grandmother is hardly ideal, but it’s better than nothing.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘If they speak to you again, just keep telling them the truth. Everything’s going to be fine, Con. You’ve got nothing to worry about.’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know about that.’
Connor sets his empty mug down on the counter, then leaves the kitchen and I hear him fussing around in another room, opening and closing a drawer. He returns a moment later with a blue ring binder under one arm, drops it onto the table and motions with his eyebrows for me to look inside. I take a seat, turn the folder the right way round and open it.
Inside, there are see-through plastic pockets, the sort I used to use for my college work. Each one has a typed letter inside it, along with the envelope it came in. I look at the first one, read the first few lines: They should never have let u out u murdering bastard. U will rt in hell …
Another: It dont matter wht some stupid documentary says we all know that ur a murdering cnt …
The next: It’s all lies u child killing bstrd …
‘I used to get hate mail every now and then, when I first got out,’ Connor says. ‘I’d just throw them straight in the bin, before Nan saw them. But these are new.’
‘Oh, Con. I’m so sorry.’
‘Why are you sorry?’ he says. ‘You didn’t write them.’
‘Of course not. But they’re all so … horrible.’
I’ve received my fair share of abuse online, and a couple of nasty letters sent to my agent for my attention, but this is something else. Hate drips off the pages. They look like they were written in a fit of rage.
‘It’s Dalton, I’m sure of it,’ says Connor. ‘I’ve seen him a few times, parked up across the street. I recognise his car. Big Land Rover, it is. He just sits there, watching, hating. He blames me for everything; all the bad stuff that’s happened to him, and now he’s going to blame me for what’s happened to his nephew. And I know he’s not police anymore, but you know what they’re like. They stick together, look after their own. If he does do something, they’ll still protect him, they’ll cover for him.’
I look down at the first letter again. U will rt in hell …
The language used is not dissimilar to the kind of abuse I used to get over social media.
‘I’m not sure this is his style,’ I say. ‘Almost looks like it’s been written by a kid. Plus, Dalton’s not exactly shy about telling people how he feels about you, so why would he bother sending you anonymous hate mail?’
‘Because he hates me, more than anything, that’s why,’ says Connor, through gritted teeth, as if I’m missing the point.
‘Con, even if it is him, so what? They’re just letters. Ignore them, and he’ll go away.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Connor says. ‘I think he’s planning something. Something bad.’
He turns to the cupboard under the kitchen sink, opens it and retrieves a plastic bag. After carrying it to the table, he sets it down and takes a small cardboard box from inside it.
‘Someone left this on the doorstep the other day. I was going to throw it out, but I don’t want those nutters outside going through my bins and finding it, thinking it was me that did it. I reckon I’ll bury it in the garden.’
‘Bury what, Con?’ I ask, and he reaches down and opens the box.