59

Wednesday 3 October

JACQUI GROVES WAS THIN AND PALE WITH CHESTNUT HAIR IN A chin-length bob. She wore nice clothes, good jewellery and a little more make-up than the average woman in her late forties. I watched the internal TV screen as first Tulloch and then Anderson joined her in the interview room. Around me, the team crowded close.

‘Two kids,’ said someone directly behind me. ‘Twins. Boy and a girl. Toby and Joanna. Both went to St Joseph’s. Twenty-six years old now.’

On the screen we watched Groves reach into her bag and pull out a narrow white envelope. She handed it across the desk to Tulloch. ‘This arrived this morning,’ she said. ‘In the post.’

Tulloch made no move to take it. ‘Can you tell me what it is?’ she asked.

‘Cuttings from a newspaper,’ Groves replied. ‘Two of them. One about the murder of Geraldine, the other about Mandy.’

‘Do you know who sent them to you?’ asked Tulloch.

Groves shook her head. ‘There’s also a note,’ she said.

Tulloch inclined her head. ‘Please go on,’ she said.

‘It says, “TIME FOR NUMBER FOUR”,’ said Groves. ‘Meaning me, I suppose. I’m number four.’

Tulloch nodded at Anderson, who got up and found gloves from a drawer in a nearby desk. He put them on and then pulled the contents out of the envelope. The camera was too far away for us to see them clearly, but they appeared to be exactly what Groves had described. Almost. The press reports weren’t cuttings, they’d been lifted off the internet and printed out on standard office A4 paper.

‘Postmarked late Monday night,’ said Tulloch. ‘In central London. Do you have any idea why someone might want to send you this?’

Groves shook her head.

‘She’s lying,’ muttered someone behind me.

‘Not sure,’ said Joesbury, who’d moved closer to my chair. ‘She looks scared to me.’

Then the door of the interview room opened and someone we couldn’t see stuck their head inside. Tulloch suspended the interview and then she and Anderson left the room.

We waited for Tulloch and Anderson to go back into the room, for something else to happen. Nothing did. People began to drift away from the TV screen. Someone offered to get coffee. No one seemed able to get on with any work. Just when we were ready to give up, the door opened.

Tulloch had no need to call for silence. I could hear people around me breathing.

‘Jacqui Groves’s husband, Philip, is downstairs volunteering to make a statement,’ she said. ‘So are Geraldine Jones’s husband, David; Jonathan Briggs, Amanda Weston’s first husband; and Nick Benn, who found his wife’s body on Monday. And three heavy-duty solicitors.’

Silence around the room. I wondered if anyone could hear my heart beating.

‘The detective superintendent wants to be present,’ Tulloch went on. ‘We’re starting in five minutes. I guess this is it, everyone.’

‘Talk to them individually,’ said Joesbury. ‘It’s too easy for them to stick to their story if they’re together.’

Tulloch and he held eye contact for a second. ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But they’re here voluntarily in the presence of some very aggressive legal help. For now, I think we just have to listen to what they’ve got to say.’

As soon as she left, the rest of us turned back to the TV and flicked it to the main interview room on the top floor. As the screen flickered into life, we saw Anderson checking the recording equipment. Then the door opened and the room started to fill with tall men in expensive suits. I saw a resemblance to Felix Benn in one man. Another looked a little like Joshua Jones. The two lawyers were easy to spot. They didn’t look scared. The superintendent came in with the third lawyer and they all took seats around the large glass table. Through the windows behind them we could see the rooftops of Lewisham and a cloudless autumn sky.

Anderson took a seat. They were all waiting for Tulloch. Minutes passed and still she didn’t appear.

‘She’s making them wait,’ muttered Mizon, who was just behind me. I wasn’t so sure. I rather thought she’d gone via the ladies’ room. At my side, Joesbury looked at his watch and his frown got more pronounced.

Another minute and one of the solicitors turned round to look at the clock on the wall. The detective superintendent breathed out heavily just as the door opened.

‘Good morning,’ said Tulloch as she closed the door softly behind her. The men got to their feet, including, after a second or two, Anderson and the DS. All of them towered over Tulloch. She moved to the nearest vacant seat and pulled it away from the table.

As the men sat, the youngest of the three solicitors started scribbling notes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Joesbury biting his thumbnail. We all waited for Tulloch to begin. She was sitting with her back to the camera and we couldn’t see her face. We could see her hands though, on the table in front of her, pale and very still.

‘I understand you have a statement—’ she began.

‘One moment, please,’ interrupted one of the lawyers, a tall man with ginger hair. ‘Can we establish some ground rules, first of all?’

Tulloch inclined her head.

‘These gentlemen are here voluntarily, in the spirit of being as helpful as possible. What they have to say is almost certainly not relevant to the investigation, but in the interests of full and frank disclosure. As such—’

‘I understand that perfectly,’ interrupted Tulloch. ‘But my team has a great deal to do today. Who’s going to start?’

‘Miss Tulloch,’ began the ginger-haired solicitor.

‘Detective Inspector Tulloch, and no disrespect, sir, but I think we’ve heard quite enough from you for the time being.’

A short flurry of appreciative noises from people around me.

Without giving the solicitor a chance to speak further, Tulloch turned to the husband of the latest victim. ‘Mr Benn, why don’t you begin?’

Benn looked down at the glass table. ‘It’s probably nothing,’ he said. ‘It was a long time ago and no reason why—’ He stopped and ran a hand over his face. ‘Somebody else is going to have to do it,’ he said.

Three husbands and one ex were exchanging glances around the table. The young solicitor was still scribbling away.

‘There was an incident,’ said David Jones, Geraldine’s husband, after a moment. ‘Years ago. We don’t see how it can be relevant, but—’

‘Whenever your people have talked to us, Miss Tulloch,’ said another man – ‘Jonathan Briggs,’ I heard someone mutter at my side, ‘Amanda Weston’s first husband’ – ‘they’ve been trying to establish a connection of some sort between the families. At first, with Geraldine and Amanda, we just thought it was the school. Then when Charlotte was killed too, I started thinking. I phoned Dave and then we got in touch with Nick. We agreed we should come and talk to you.’

‘With three lawyers,’ murmured Joesbury. ‘Sounds like more than a cosy chat to me.’

‘You mentioned an incident,’ said Tulloch. ‘Can you tell me what that was?’

Silence again.

‘It was in Cardiff,’ said Jones after a moment. ‘Eleven years ago this summer just gone. It involved the boys.’

‘Your sons?’ asked Tulloch.

Jones nodded. ‘They were in a rowing team – coxed fours. They’d gone to take part in a regatta in—’

‘I’m sorry, can you explain that term for me? Coxed fours?’

‘Four oarsmen in the boat, one oar each,’ said Jones. ‘When they have two oars it’s called sculling, not rowing. Our boys rowed. And there was a fifth team member, little lad, he was the cox.’

‘I understand,’ said Tulloch. ‘Please, carry on.’

‘The boys had gone to compete in the South Wales regatta. Starts up at Llandaff and finishes in Cardiff, in Bute Park. They did well, they won one of their races, were placed in another.’

‘Get on with it,’ someone near me muttered. Someone else shushed him.

‘They were allowed to go out on Saturday night,’ said Philip Groves. ‘Bloody stupid idea, if you ask me, kids that young, but they were allowed to go to the centre of Cardiff. I got a phone call at one a.m. to say they’d all five of them been arrested.’

‘We were phoned at home,’ said David Jones. ‘I drove up. Got to Cardiff about six. Nick was there already, then Jon arrived. And the other lad’s dad.’

‘Who was he?’ asked Tulloch.

‘Chap called Robert Curtis,’ said Groves. ‘Lives abroad now. We couldn’t get hold of him.’

‘What had they been arrested for?’ asked Tulloch.

‘There’d been an accusation,’ said Jones. ‘Completely fabricated, of course, but the police claimed they had no choice but to investigate.’

‘What sort of—’

‘They’d been drinking in one of the town-centre bars,’ said Benn. ‘Makes me bloody livid even now. None of them were older than fifteen. They should never have been served.’

‘They were big lads,’ said Groves. ‘Oarsmen have to be.’

‘They were arrested for underage drinking?’ asked Tulloch, as puzzled glances were being exchanged around me.

‘No,’ said Jones. ‘If only. They met up with two girls, you see, local girls. Both well known to the police in Cardiff. The eldest in particular a known trouble-maker.’

Over Tulloch’s shoulder I could see her fingertips were starting to tap gently on the glass table. ‘Go on,’ she said.

‘They left the bar shortly after eleven,’ said Jones. ‘The girls went with them. They went into the park. The big one in the middle of Cardiff.’

‘Bute Park,’ said Benn.

‘They were young, they’d been drinking, they had two pretty girls with them,’ said Briggs. ‘You can imagine the rest.’

‘Actually I can’t,’ said Tulloch, her voice like ice. ‘Please fill me in.’

‘They had a good time,’ said Jones. ‘They gave the girls some money to get a taxi home and they said goodnight. That should have been the end of it.’

‘And it wasn’t?’ Tulloch’s hands were so still now they could have been made of glass like the tabletop.

‘Next thing they know, the girls are at Cardiff Central police station, claiming they’ve been raped. The police have no choice but to go through the motions, get the girls examined, go down to the scene, bring the boys in. Because they were all underage, the parents were contacted.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ said Tulloch. ‘Your sons, and one other boy, were arrested and charged with the gang rape of two girls.’

Jones slapped his hand down on the table. ‘No, Miss Tulloch. They were never charged.’

Joesbury moved away from my side and walked to a desk at the far side of the room. He started moving the computer mouse around.

‘There was no evidence against them,’ Jones was saying. ‘Neither of the girls had a mark on them. There wasn’t even evidence that sex had taken place. All the boys used condoms, thank God. And the girls supplied them.’

Joesbury had picked up the phone. He turned his back on the room.

‘None of the boys tried to deny that they’d had sex,’ said Benn. ‘But they were all very clear that it had been the girls’ idea, that they’d suggested going to the park in the first place. God knows we’re all vulnerable to hysterical females crying rape.’

‘How old were these girls?’ asked Tulloch.

‘The eldest was nearly seventeen,’ said Briggs. ‘Well known to the local force. She was in with a joy-riding gang. Used to steal cars and drive them around the docks and then torch them.’

Joesbury was talking to someone. I forced myself to concentrate on the screen. At the other side of the room, another phone began ringing. Barrett picked it up.

‘And the youngest?’ asked Tulloch.

No one answered her.

‘How old was the younger girl?’ repeated Tulloch.

Still no response.

‘All the boys were under the legal age of consent,’ said the ginger-haired lawyer. ‘These were kids. A situation got out of hand. The police at the time did everything by the book, but no charges were brought.’

Barrett finished talking, put the phone down and looked at me.

‘It came down to the word of two working-class girls with reputations against those of five public schoolboys with influential fathers,’ said Tulloch.

‘Not exactly,’ said Ginger Hair. ‘The police found the condom packets. The girls’ fingerprints were on them. Why would they be if they hadn’t bought them in the first place? Those girls went into Bute Park expecting to have sex and then, possibly because the boys didn’t give them as much money as they were hoping for, they got nasty. Now, I think my clients have been as cooperative as you could expect, given the very considerable distress they’ve been subjected to and—’

Tulloch was on her feet. ‘What were their names? The girls?’ she asked.

Glances exchanged around the room. More than one man shrugged. Either the names of the victims hadn’t been important enough to be remembered, or they’d been as helpful as they were prepared to be.

‘Thank you for your time, gentlemen,’ said Tulloch. She left the room, followed by Anderson. The detective superintendent got up and switched off the recording equipment. In the incident room, someone reached up and turned off the screen.

‘Hey, Flint,’ called Barrett, from across the room. ‘Your mate Emma Boston’s turned up. Want to talk to her?’

I did. Anything to get out of that room.