One Dead Witness (41 page)

Jackie’s head fell into her hands. A huge sob thudded through
her body and Danny touched her shoulder. Then Jackie sat upright
and wiped her face which was streaming with tears. ‘Snot rag, I
need a snot rag.’ She patted her pockets desperately and stopped
when Danny handed her a tissue. She blew her nose with a loud
trumpeting sound and looked at Danny with a forlorn expression. ‘Oh
God - Jackie, Joe and Julie, the three J’s ... a perfect family by
all accounts,’ she spat bitterly. ‘Money, businesses, big house,
big bloody Jag and a father who couldn’t keep his filthy rotten
hands off his only daughter. She was ten years old when he did it
to her and then denied it. That’s what really split us up. I don’t
even need to start explaining why, do I?’

Danny shook her head.

‘
No bloody wonder Julie’s own marriage is on the rocks. She’s
completely dysfunctional where sex is concerned, even though she’s
had two kids.’

‘
Did you have any proof about Joe?’

‘
Julie’s word. A doctor’s examination.’

‘
Why didn’t you go to the police?’

Jackie stared contemptuously at Danny. ‘Because I didn’t trust
you to do anything other than put Julie through hell - and she’d
gone through enough already.’

Jackie’s hands fumbled with her cigarette packet in an attempt
to get one out. Danny laid her hands over Jackie’s and took the
packet from her, tapping one out and handing it to her. Jackie lit
it from the one she was already smoking.

‘
Thanks, Jackie. I’m sorry to have brought up such painful
memories.’

‘
You haven’t.’ Jackie uttered a short laugh, a sardonic curl on
her lips. ‘It’s with me every single day, every hour of every day
and I can’t shake it off. It will never leave me and I’m not sure I
want it to, perverse as it may seem.’

Danny nodded, rose to leave.

Jackie reached out and grabbed her arm. ‘There is one
thing?’

‘
What’s that?’

‘
Please don’t approach Julie and ask her anything. She has to
forget.’

‘
I won’t,’ Danny promised.

It was only a very short appearance at Blackpool Magistrates
Court for Louis Vernon Trent. He was flanked by two large
policemen, one of whom was handcuffed to him, the other standing
slightly behind him in the dock, his hand rubbing the knob of his
baton almost sensually, willing Trent to behave badly so he could
whack him. As it was, Trent remained meek, mild and
compliant.

There was no application for bail and Trent was remanded in
custody to reappear before magistrates on the following
Thursday.

Twenty minutes later he was in the back of a prison bus which
turned out of the rear yard of Blackpool police station, only to be
met by a crowd of jeering onlookers who pelted the vehicle with
eggs and rotten tomatoes.

Henry Christie yawned and stretched. He had been chatting to
the CPS solicitor who had handled the short hearing, but had now
gone, leaving Henry alone in the court, which was now
deserted.

Henry was pleased Trent had been boxed off. It took a lot of
pressure off him, particularly from FB who seemed to relish giving
Henry grief. Now, other than the paperwork side of things, Henry
could concentrate on Claire Lilton’s murder, which in a lot of
respects was even more worrying than Trent’s escapades.

At least they knew they had been after Trent.

Now they had another murderer on the loose who they did not
have a clue about. It was going to be a tough one to solve and he
had to get a squad up and running from nothing again and motivate
them to success.

As he walked towards the court door, it swung open and a
breathless DS Furness stood there.

‘
I’ve got something.’

‘
What? From this dream nonsense?’ Henry laughed.

‘
Yes, from this dream nonsense.’

‘
Sit. Tell.’ Henry waved to a seat at the back of the court.
She did both.

When she’d concluded, she said, ‘Well?’

Henry nodded slowly. ‘Let’s give it a run. Let’s pull him
in.’

They walked out of the court, across the mezzanine and into
the door of the police station.

‘
Danny!’

She turned to the enquiry desk where the Public Enquiry
Assistant was tapping on the toughened glass screen, beckoning
Danny towards her. The woman pointed across the foyer to the
waiting area. ‘He wants to see you.’

Danny looked. It was Joe Lilton.

Chapter Seventeen

It was with a great deal of pleasure that Danny ‘laid hands’
on Joe Lilton and arrested him on suspicion of murdering his
stepdaughter. She cautioned him to the letter and he replied, ‘I
don’t blame you for arresting me, but I didn’t kill her; that’s
what I’ve come in here to clear up.’

Danny led him down to the custody office.

Henry came along for the ride, switching off his pager which
was irritating the hell out of him by vibrating in his pocket.
Downstairs he phoned comms and they passed a message to him to ring
Karl Donaldson at the FBI office in London.

A call that would have to wait.

Danny presented Joe Lilton to the custody officer who went
through the computerised booking-in system which automatically
checked all incoming prisoners on the PNC. No previous convictions
were thrown up for Lilton, but reference was made to his firearms
certificate. He still held one. The custody officer pointed this
out to Danny, who said, ‘I know.’

They went through the full kit and caboodle with
Lilton.

His clothing was seized and bagged up for forensic; swabs and
hair were taken for DNA sampling. He was given a paper suit and
slippers, then Danny booked out a set of tapes and she and Henry
took him to an interview room.

He had indicated he did not wish to have a solicitor
present.

As they left the custody office, there was the sound of an
incredible ruckus from outside in the yard. Three police officers
were fighting a young girl who was going berserk, scratching,
spitting, kicking, screaming.

Henry caught sight of the rumpus as it tumbled through the
custody office door. He gave a short laugh before following Danny
down to the interview room.

‘
What’s going on, Karl?’ Myrna demanded to know.

‘
I’ve done what I can - left a message for the guy I know in
Lancashire to contact me. I can only wait for his call,
Myrna.’

‘
Yeah, sure, you’re right. Ring me as soon as you hear
something, okay?’

‘
I will, Myrna, promise.’

‘
Promise?’

‘
Promise.’

She hung up and looked across the room at Tracey, still
sleeping and twitching. Myrna folded her arms on the desk, laid her
head on them, closed her eyes.

‘
I want to get this straight from the word go: I did
not
kill her. No way are
you going to pin that on me.’

‘
Why are you here, then?’ Danny’s tongue flicked her bottom lip
as she regarded the man sat opposite her in the paper suit. She
hoped she was keeping a sneer off her face; probably it was a
forlorn hope. Danny detested everything about Joe Lilton from the
colour of his eyes to the fact he breathed the same air as she
did.

‘
Because of what you said the other day, and that I know you
lot will get round to me sooner or later.’ He shrugged. ‘I mean,
you always pick on the father or stepfather, don’t you? First port
of call, usually.’

‘
That’s because they’ve usually done it, Joe,’ Henry
observed.

Lilton raised his face towards Henry in a challenging manner.
‘Not in this case.’ His voice was hoarse.

‘
What did I say the other day, Joe - to make you come in?’
Danny asked.

‘
It was when you were talking about how the investigation was
going and you mentioned DNA.’

‘
Go on,’ Danny encouraged him.

‘
Is it right that if you get DNA samples you can match them up
to offenders?’

‘
It’s very true.’

‘
How, like, accurate is it?’

‘
Foolproof,’ Henry said.

Joe’s head dropped. He studied his thumbs as they circled each
other.

‘
For example, Joe,’ Henry began, ‘in the case of Claire, she
had semen inside her that is estimated to be four days old. It’s a
piece of piss to match that up with a suspect. It’s also piss-easy
to prove that someone ISN’T involved.’

Joe’s cranium remained pointing towards the
detectives.

‘
So, Joe,’ Danny sighed, ‘why
have
you come here?’

Joe looked at her. ‘You fucking know, don’t you? You fucking
know you bitch, don’t you?’ He jabbed a finger at her. ‘You fucking
know why I’m here.’

Danny remained impassive as the end of his finger hovered near
the tip of her nose; she willed him to hit her. Instead he sat
slowly back, dropped his head into his hands and sobbed.

‘
I didn’t kill her. You’ve got to believe me,’ he slavered
through his fingers.

‘
What did you do?’

Joe looked up again. ‘Made love to her.’

Danny seethed. It was the second time a child-molester had
referred to making love to his victims. ‘You made love to her?’ she
demanded with a snarl.

‘
Yeah, she was willing.’

‘
She was eleven years old,’ Henry pointed out. He too was
holding himself back from pitching over the table to strangle the
bastard.

‘
You put your penis into her vagina and you ejaculated. Is that
what you’re trying to say, Joe?’ Danny persisted.

‘
God, you make it sound so clinical,’ he snapped. ‘It was
nothing like that.’

‘
What exactly was it like, Joe? Eh? Screwing your
eleven-year-old stepdaughter? Go on, did the earth move? Was it all
passion? Do you expect us to believe this shite?’ Danny’s voice was
rising uncontrollably, particularly as she remembered Claire’s face
when she drove her back home that day of the storm, back to a home
where she was suffering abuse of the worst kind. That look on her
face. . . ‘You screwed your daughter, for God’s sake! A
forty-four-year-old man, screwing his eleven-year-old daughter.
That is not making love, as you so eloquently put it. It’s a
serious criminal and moral matter, not a moment of passion between
consenting adults.’ Danny stood up, pushed herself away from the
table and walked to the corner of the room.

‘
DS Furness has stood up and walked across the interview room,
away from the suspect, Lilton,’ Henry said for the benefit of the
tape.

‘
But I didn’t kill her. That’s the bottom line.’

Henry spoke into the microphone in a steady tone. ‘I suggest,
Mr Lilton, you take on the services of a solicitor. I feel it is
inappropriate for this interview to proceed without one being
present.’ Henry concluded the interview as per the Codes of
Practice, sealed one of the tapes and got Joe to sign across the
seal.

Danny remained tucked away in one corner, arms folded, head
down, silently scuffing a shoe across the carpet.

Without warning, Henry’s hand shot out and grabbed Joe
Lilton’s throat. He heaved the man to his feet, sending the chair
underneath him spinning across the room with a clatter. He shoved
Lilton into the wall, on which his head smacked hollowly. Lilton
had fear flittering in his eyes. Henry’s face was only inches away
from Lilton’s.

‘
You are a fucking pervert,’ he growled at the man. ‘In the
past you would’ve been bounced around the cells and sometimes, just
sometimes, I hanker for the good old days, Joe, because more than
anything, I want to beat you to an inch of your life - and then
kick you some more - whether or not you killed Claire.’

He released Joe with an exaggerated flick of the fingers, like
he was dropping something horrible. Then, grabbing Joe’s arm, he
said, ‘Come on, let’s go and see the Custody Officer.’

‘
There was no need to do that, Henry.’ Danny’s voice was
strained. She was sitting on the examination couch in the police
surgeon’s room in the custody complex, her feet swinging. Lilton
was in a cell, awaiting his brief.

‘
Yeah,’ he conceded, slightly embarrassed. ‘I suffer from the
“red mist” syndrome occasionally. It gets me into trouble now and
then.’

‘
He’s not worth it.’

‘
Hey, okay, nuff said.’ Henry held up his hands in
surrender.

Danny looked down at the floor and suddenly it came out. ‘I
saw her face, Claire’s face, the expression on it,’ she choked,
‘and it’s only now I realise what it meant, and I made her go back
home and it was obvious to anyone with half a brain she had good
reason not to want to go back.’ A torrent of tears welled up and
flooded over the edge. Her face rose pleadingly to Henry. He
crossed to her. She slid off the couch and her arms went round him.
‘Her dad was sexually assaulting her. No wonder she went off the
rails ... and I didn’t spot it. Someone with my experience - I must
be thick as a brick. And she even came in twice to see me, but
didn’t have the courage to stay and speak. And what did I do?
Nothing. I deserve to lose my job for this.’