Border Crossing (8 page)

NINE

It was nonsense what Danny had said about the trial, and Tom knew it was nonsense. He had an adult memory of the proceedings and Danny did not. Simple as that. But Danny’s words niggled away at him, nevertheless. Along with other problems. Lauren was proving difficult to contact, and that had to be deliberate. Often when he phoned, she was out, and she didn’t reply to messages left on the answering machine. When he did succeed in getting through to her, she was remote and monosyllabic. The book too had reached a sticky patch, when he simply had to stop and do some more research before he could move on again. Nothing much was going right, but he just had to put his head down and get on with it.

He spent the morning after his interview with Danny in the medical library, looking up papers on the microfiche. He hated the machines, which produced, if he persisted in using them long enough, visual disturbances that resembled a migraine, though without pain. By the time he left the library, feeling physically and mentally sick, he knew he was in for one of them. The sunlight flashing on windscreens and bumpers hurt his eyes. By the time he got to his car, there was a dark spot at the centre of his field of vision in his right eye, surrounded by a halo of tarnished silver light. He moved his head, as he always did, trying to get rid of it, though he knew it was pointless. The black circle moved with his head. A patch of temporary ischaemia on the surface of his retina. As a boy he’d been fascinated by it, because he was looking at the absence of sight, and the paradox pleased him. Now it was merely a nuisance.

Since it wasn’t safe to drive he had to sit in the hot car till it was over. It lasted about ten minutes. After the last flashing light had faded, he sat with his head in his hands, feeling totally washed up. For some reason, despite the absence of pain and vomiting, and all the more distressing aspects of a migraine, these episodes exhausted him. Yet he felt the world was a new place. He looked round the car park, and his unimpeded vision made every object he saw miraculous.

On the spur of the moment he decided to phone Nigel Lewis, who had been Danny’s solicitor at the time of the trial. Phone pressed to his ear, he leant against the side of the car, fully expecting to be told that Mr Lewis was in court and unavailable for the rest of the day. Instead he came on the line at once.

After exchanging greetings, Tom said, ‘You remember Daniel Miller?’

‘Miller? I don’t think –’.

Tom could hear a conversation going on in the background. ‘Yes, you do,’ he insisted, trying not to sound impatient, as Nigel put a hand over the mouthpiece and made some apologetic remark to the other people in the room. ‘The murder of Lizzie Parks. He was ten, remember?’

‘Miller?
Oh God, yes. Of course I remember.’

‘Well, he’s out. He came to see me the other day.’

Another aside to the people in the room.

‘Look, can we talk?’ Tom asked. ‘I mean, can we meet somewhere?’

‘Cooperage? One o’clock?’

‘Fine.’ It was almost that now.

The Quayside never failed to lift Tom’s spirits, no matter how low his mood when he arrived. He leant on the railings for a few minutes, listening to gulls cry and grizzle, watching the tough, brown, sinewy river flow under the bridge and on towards the sea. You could smell the sea on windy days like this, imagine cliffs crumbling, the coast nibbled away, big concrete tank traps, eroded by spring and neap tides, blown as specks of grit into the eye.

Nigel, a great believer in liquid lunches, had arrived first and was already standing at the bar, holding his usual pint of lager. ‘I nearly ordered for you,’ he said, as Tom went up to him.

‘Thanks, I will have one.’

‘So. What’s the matter?’ Nigel said, as they set their pints down on a table at the far end of the bar.

‘Nothing’s the matter, he –’

‘So did he just show up? How long’s he been out?’

‘Nearly a year.’

Nigel lifted the glass to his mouth. ‘Oh well, I suppose they couldn’t keep him in for ever.’

‘You’re not his solicitor any more?’

‘No, thank God. So anyway what happened?’

‘We bumped into each other. And then he decided it might be helpful if he talked to somebody.’

‘Helpful to him, of course. Figures.’

‘I’ve said I’ll see him.’

‘Why?’

‘Curiosity, I suppose. Partly. It’s not often you get the chance to follow up a case like that.’ He smiled. ‘It’s not often you get a case like that.’

‘But he’s not a p0061tient? I mean, you’re –’

‘Oh no, no. He’s made it perfectly plain he doesn’t want treatment. He just wants to talk.’

Nigel smiled his well –oiled smile. ‘I suppose it’d be quite a feather in your cap to write that one up, wouldn’t it?’

No point trying to explain to Nigel the effect of Danny’s hot face against his stomach all those years ago. Nigel focused on the lowest common denominator of human behaviour, and over the years had become totally, devastatingly cynical. Which left him, Tomthought, not merely blind to the more-than-occasional goodness of human beings, but to the evil as well. His was a world where people looked after number one, and kept an eye on the main chance. He seemed unable to grasp that some people act out of a disinterested love of destruction. Evil, be thou my good… That had been left out of his repertoire. He was lucky.

‘No, I don’t think I’ll be doing that. It was something he said, it’s been bothering me a bit. I mean –. briefly, he said it was my evidence that convicted him – and of course I reminded him about the forensic evidence, and all that, but… he didn’t bat an eyelid. He simply said, “No. It was you.”‘

‘Hmm. Sounds as if he’s read a transcript.’

This was not the response Tom had expected. Nigel put down his lager, wiped his mouth discreetly on the back of his hand and sat back on the bench seat, looking grave. Tom ought, perhaps, to have welcomed this evidence that he was being taken seriously, that his anxiety had not automatically been dismissed as groundless, but he didn’t. He wanted his concern taken seriously, and the grounds for it dismissed. Nigel’s response was just exasperating.

‘You sure you bumped into him?’ Nigel asked. ‘He didn’t come looking for you?’

Tom was not going to mention the attempted suicide, the coincidence of their meeting again like that. He knew, anyway, what Nigel would have said. Instead, he reverted to Danny’s remark about Tom’s

evidence having convicted him, recalling details of the case, reminding Nigel of the vast quantity of forensic evidence that had linked Danny to the crime, the fact that he’d been missing from school that day, the eyewitnesses who’d seen him running away from Lizzie Parks’s house. He was beginning to gabble, to make sarcastic remarks, anything to get Nigel to say of course it was ridiculous. He desperately needed Nigel to say that his evidence had merely confirmed what the jury knew already, but Nigel remained ominously silent. ‘You know, I almost get the feeling he thinks he wouldn’t have been convicted if it hadn’t been for me.’

‘Oh, that’s putting it a bit strong.’

‘A bit strong?’

‘I don’t like the sound of this, Tom. You don’t have to see him, surely?’

‘No, it’s –’

‘And if he starts pestering you, all you have to do is to tell the Home Office. He’ll be back inside in no time. That’s one thing you can say about the system. They’re on a very short leash.’ He raised his glass to his lips, pausing to add: ‘Thank God.’

‘I suppose what I want from you is some sort of reassurance that it’s not true. I mean, I’ve always assumed my contribution was… trivial, really, and what actually convicted him was the forensic evidence.’

Nigel didn’t actually squirm on the bench, because he was too bulky for his movements to be interpreted in that way.’ Ye –es, but you know the forensic evidence really only connected him to the scene, and he didn’t deny being there. He didn’t deny touching her, he didn’t deny lifting the cushion off her face. There was nothing really conclusive. It’s not as if she had claw marks all over her face and he had her skin under his fingernails.’

‘But his fingerprints were all over the bedroom.’

‘The kittens were in the bedroom. He’d been to see the kittens twice – or so he said. Lizzie wasn’t around to deny it. The point is, Tom, the jury believed him. You know how long I hesitated about putting him in the box. I wasn’t frightened he was going to crack under the pressure and tell a pack of stupid lies – I knew he wouldn’t. I thought he’d come across as an arrogant little bastard – which he was. But in the event it paid off. He stood up straight, he looked them in the eye, he was well turned out, admitted that, yes, he’d been a naughty boy, he’d nicked off school, yes, he’d gone to the house, but only to see the kittens, and he was utterly devastated when he found the body. And when he saw the naughty man at the top of the stairs, he was frightened, he thought the naughty man was going to kill him, and so he didn’t tell anybody. Mad piece of behaviour in an adult, totally normal in a ten-year-old. I was looking at them all the way through. They believed him, Tom. They looked at that kid, and they didn’t believe he’d done it. I didn’t believe it, and I knew he had.’

‘And I convinced them he had?’

‘You convinced them he was capable of it. By the time Smithers was through with you, you’d told them that Danny was capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality…’ Nigel was counting points off on his fingers. ‘Fully understood that killing somebody was seriously wrong, not just naughty. Fully understood that death was a permanent, irreversible state. Now I’m not saying you were wrong, but none of that helped Danny. By the time you’d finished what they had in their minds was not a nice little boy, but a precocious little killer.’

‘You didn’t say anything at the time.’

‘What was the point? You did the best you could for the kid, under very nasty hostile cross-examination. Smithers went right over the top that day. A lot of people more experienced than you would’ve been wilting by the end. I thought it was disgraceful. You’re not supposed to treat an expert witness as hostile, and he came very, very close. I remember Duncan sitting back in his chair at one point, and saying, “Well, that’s it, then. We can all go home.” And he threw his pencil down on the pad.’

Duncan had been the defence counsel. ‘As bad as that?’

‘I don’t know about bad. The fact is the little bugger ended up inside. Which was the right outcome.’

‘I didn’t see it like that. I didn’t think my evidence had any particular impact.’

‘Oh, it did. But there’s always a moment in a long trial when the thing swings. Juries aren’t rational, the seats are too hard, the room’s too hot, it goes on for days and days and bloody days. Weeks. Do you know the average person’s attention span is
twenty minutes?
And they’d listened to Danny for hours. I think they rather admired him in a funny sort of way. I know I did. But you could see them thinking, I don’t know, he seems all right… And then you came along, and you supplied them with another perspective.’

‘I didn’t change a single fact.’

‘No, but you changed the way they saw him. You scuppered him. And I can tell you the exact moment it happened. Smithers was asking you whether Danny understood that death was a permanent state. Do you remember? And you quoted Danny’s exact words. “If you wring a chicken’s neck, you don’t expect to see it running round the yard next morning.”‘

‘But he was talking about chickens. He lived on a chicken farm, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Doesn’t matter. And everybody went…’ He mimicked the intake of breath, exactly as Danny had done.

‘Danny remembers that.’

‘Does he?’ Nigel said. ‘That’s interesting.’

Tom was thinking. ‘I suppose I’ve never been easy about it, because Smithers got me on the ropes. I know he did. There was no hope of qualifying anything – he just swept it aside.’

Nigel grunted. ‘I wouldn’t blame yourself too much. All you did was quote his own words.’

‘He wasn’t referring to Lizzie.’

‘It was the attitude. All that about it didn’t really matter because she was old, she’d had her life. You ripped the mask off, and okay, you lost me the case.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m glad somebody did, because if he hadn’t been caught he’d have done it again.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘Of course. He was on to a good thing, wasn’t he? Befriending old ladies, robbing them, and if they got in the way – splat! I think you should pat yourself on the back. And if you have any bother at all with him, tell the police.’

Tom sat lost; in thought, until a discreet movement from Nigel drew his attention to their empty glasses. He roused himself to go to the bar, where he ordered another pint for Nigel and a half for himself.

He got back to the table to find Nigel chatting to two barristers, and the conversation necessarily changed to other topics.

Half an hour later, as they were leaving the pub, Nigel fell deliberately behind and drew Tom aside. ‘Look, don’t let him get to you. You told the truth. And as far as I’m concerned the only mistake’s the Home Office letting the little bugger out.’

He nodded, and hurried to catch up with his colleagues, a shoal of dark fish weaving in amongst the brightly dressed crowd.

TEN

Danny replaced the burnt matchstick carefully in the box.

Tom said, I’ve been thinking about that English teacher of yours. What was his name again?’

Danny looked wary. ‘Angus MacDonald.’

‘You were close?’

‘Yes, I suppose. Ish.’ He tapped ash offhis cigarette. ‘It was a long time ago.’

Silence, except for the pop-pop of the gas fire, and the wind slamming against the windows.

‘You know,’ Danny said suddenly, ‘all day I’ve been thinking I can’t go through with this, and now I think I can.’ He glanced at the red-shaded lamp on Tom’s desk. ‘I don’t know where to start.’

‘You said with Angus you started with little things. About the farm.’

‘Yes…’

‘Worked, then.’

‘Yeah, all right. The first thing I ever wrote for him started with me in bed on a winter’s night watching reflections on the wall, hearing people outside in the yard, shouting, calling. Feeling, you know, exiled – the way kids do when they’re in bed and everything’s still going on downstairs.’

‘Whose voices are they?’

‘My mother’s. Fiona’s – that’s the girl who used to work for us. Sometimes my father’s – not often. He was generally in the pub by then.’

‘And what are they doing?’

‘Putting the hens away for the night. We had some free-range hens. It
wasn’t free,
exactly, but it was better than the batteries. I used to go into the batteries with my mother, and there were all these heads poking out, bright eyes, these jerky little movements, coxcombs jiggling. I’d be walking along the aisle like this.’ He hunched his arms together across his chest. ‘I was afraid of being pecked. I don’t know why, because I’d been pecked dozens of times. They didn’t live long. When they got past the point of no return, Dad used to wring their necks. Sometimes he’d swing them so they hit me in the face.’

‘Why do you think he did that?’

‘Oh, I’d be pulling faces. I didn’t like it. We used to have pullets in runs in one of the fields, and there was this little skinny white pullet and the others started pecking it. All the feathers had come out, its skin was red raw, and Dad said he’d have to kill it. I didn’t want him to. I said, “Can’t we put it in another run by itself until it gets bigger?”‘ A deep breath. ‘So he made me do it.’

‘How?’

‘How did he make me? I don’t know. I knew I had to. You know, you just pull and twist and Small, foetal movements of the hands. ‘The eyes cloud over.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Six.’ He caught Tom’s expression. ‘Yeah, well, he was on this great toughen-up-the~lad campaign. Perhaps he was right, perhaps I needed it.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Until I was five, there was Mum and me and her parents. Dad was in the army.’

‘Why didn’t you live on the base?’

‘We did, to begin with. I was born in Germany, but Mum got depressed after the birth. Apparently he used to come home, and I’d be screaming in one room and she’d be slumped in a chair. More or less in the same position she’d been in when he left. I think she just about fed me and kept me clean, but that was it. And then he had to go to Northern Ireland, and of course the families can’t go with them there. So she came home to her parents. I think it was meant to be temporary, but once she got away from the base there was no way she was going back.’

‘So you didn’t see very much of him?’

‘He used to come home on leave. I was always glad when he went back. Then he was in the Falklands,then Northern Ireland again, and then suddenly he was home.’

Tor good?’

Danny laughed. ‘Or evil. Permanently, anyway.’

‘What was that like?’

‘A cataclysm. For me. I’ve got two photographs of me round about four, five. One’s of me sitting on Mum’s knee in a Paddington Bear t-shirt. And the other – this is only two months later – I’m wearing a flak jacket and carrying a gun.’

‘Toy gun?’

‘No, his. He let me hold it.’

‘And you liked that?’

‘Yeah, I thought it was great.’

‘So there was a change of allegiance?’

‘Hmm. Yes, that’s exactly the right word.’

Tom thought for a moment. ‘What were some of the changes?’

‘Well – I’m trying to be fair here – there was a lot of rough and tumble, a lot of* charging about and shouting, and… I’d never had that, you see. Because although we lived with my grandparents at the time, Granddad was .… he was almost more of an old woman than Gran.’

‘And you liked the games?’

‘Most of the time, yes. But he had a very short fuse. We were playing French cricket once and I got hit on the leg and started bawling and he threw the bat at me. And, you know…
at
me. I was taken to casualty. And… I don’t know why things got worse, but they did.’ He was massaging his forehead as he spoke. ‘I wasn’t the kid he wanted, I think I have to accept that, but I think there was an element of… I don’t think he was in a terrific state when he got back from the Falklands, and within a month, literally within a month, he was in Northern Ireland.’

‘And drinking heavily.’

‘Yes. How did you know that?’

‘Something you said before. Go on. You said things got worse. How?’

‘I started getting the shit beat out of me. He had this big thick black belt. He used to keep it on the table by the television, and… If you hadn’t done anything too bad, you got the leather end.’

‘But not always.’

‘No, not always.’

A long silence. Somewhere outside, in a different world, footsteps hurried past.

‘I’ve thought about this a lot. I honestly do believe he thought he was doing the right thing. But he had a temper, and you’ve got to remember in his mind he was very hard done by. Loved the army, stupid bitch can’t cope, sends her home, still can’t cope. He comes out of the army – and she still can’t cope.’

‘So your mother was still depressed?’

‘Not while we were living with her parents, I don’t think. Later, on the farm, she was. But that would’ve depressed anybody.’

‘And he blamed your mother?’

‘For him having to leave the army? Yes.’

‘Who did she blame?’

‘Herself. I think. That was… That was the myth, I suppose. He was doing well in the army, he had to come out because of her, and that was the end of a brilliant career. She believed it, I’m sure she did – I don’t think she ever doubted it was all her fault.’

‘Was it true?’

A flicker of impatience. ‘God knows. I think when it comes to your parents you might as well stick with the myths, because you’re never going to get at the truth. It’s just not possible. And anyway, it’s the myths that form you.’

‘I’d still like to hear what you think now.’

A deep sigh. ‘Well, before he went into the army he couldn’t settle to anything.’

‘Sorry. Can I stop you there? Who’s this coming from?’

‘My grandmother. Who didn’t like him, so the source is prejudiced.’

‘Your mother?’

‘Never said a word against him – ever.’

‘Okay, go on.’

‘What I think – and this is only suspicion, I don’t know – I think he came back from the Falklands in a far worse state than he let on. And perhaps it wasn’t altogether unwelcome to have an honourable way of getting out of it. Or perhaps I’m just making excuses and he was a violent bastard who’d have beaten the shit out of me anyway.’

‘Did he ever talk about the army?’

‘Oh, all the time.’

‘With regret?’

‘I don’t think so. I think the first year on the farm he was quite happy. There was a lot of building, draining fields, that kind of thing, and he liked all that. There was a cowshed, and he turned it into a workshop. Mum never went in there, so it was a sort of den.’

‘Did you go?’

‘Yes. They were some of the best times. There was one window, so grimed up hardly any light got through, and I’d sit on a bale of straw – it was scratchy on the backs of my legs, still remember it – and watch him hammering away, smoking, always smoking. And his hair was curly, and there’d be a sort of fuzz of sunlight and cigarette smoke round him, and he’d talk about the army. This guy he killed in Belfast. They were clearing houses, and he shot him, and he sort of slid down the wall, very slowly, leaving this broad band of red all the way down the wallpaper. And there was another story from the Falklands – chasing somebody, and when the guy turned round it was a child. Early teens, I suppose, but he didn’t look it. He looked about twelve.’

Tom was startled. Danny had slipped into being his father. ‘What happened?’

‘Killed him. Nothing else to do.’

‘Do you remember how he said that?’

‘No. I know what you mean.I don’t remember. I’ve asked myself that many a time. You know, was he traumatized? Was he talking to me like he’d have talked to a –’ He stopped and shook his head.

‘A tape recorder?’

‘Dog, I was going to say. But we had a dog, so perhaps you’re right.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think it’s too easy for sensitive types’ – Danny’s voice oozed contempt – ‘to assume that everybody who kills is traumatized by it. I think there’s a lot of evidence that the majority of people get used to it quite quickly. And… yes, I do think it bothered him that he’d killed a child. But not very much. The kid was in uniform, he had a gun, and the responsibility for his death belongs with the people who put him there. I’m pretty certain that’s the way Dad saw it.’

‘And what do you think about that?’

‘I think he was right.’

‘So why did he tell you these stories?’

‘Reliving good times? He always… you know, although a lot of things happened in the Falklands that disturbed him, he never stopped seeing it as an enormous stroke of luck. In the army, you’re mainly rehearsing for something you never do. And he did it. He was grateful for that.’

A pause. Tom said, ‘Why did you get beaten? I mean, what sort of things did you do?’

‘Breathe.’

‘As bad as that?’

‘Yes. In the end I couldn’t do anything right. I mean, he used to take me rabbiting. I did like it, I liked the occasion, going off with him and Duke. But I didn’t like the dead rabbits. “But you’ll eat it, won’t you?” he used to say, and then he’d shove it in my face. I remember walking back with him once, trailing along behind. Cold, frosty day and these rabbits dangling from his bag. Glazed eyes, blood in their mouths. Feet swinging.’

‘What are you feeling?’

‘Feeble. No use.’ A pause. ‘I’m afraid I’ve lost the thread a bit. I can’t remember why I was telling you that. Oh, I know, I couldn’t eat the stew, so I got belted for that.’

‘What were the best times?’

‘Watching videos. He’d have his fags and his cans of beer, and I’d creep closer to him on the sofa. I was always watching him out of the corner of my eye and whatever expression was on his face, I’d try to imitate it.’

‘What sort of things did you watch?’

‘War movies.’ He laughed. ‘Of course.’

‘Which one do you remember best?’

‘Apocalypse Now,
Saw that three or four times.’

‘Isn’t that an anti-war movie?’

‘Didn’t bother him. He just screened out the anti. And he liked some horror films. Good ones. We watched
An American Werewolf and
I was so fidghtened I hid behind the sofa, and afterwards, days afterwards, I was writing these little notes. You know, block capitals,
NOT A REAL WOLF.’

‘What do you remember about it? The film.’

‘The transformation scene. And… oh, it’s ages since I’ve seen it. Umm… There’s a scene where he’s in a cinema, and all along the row there’re decomposing corpses. People he’s killed, or perhaps other werewolves, I don’t know. ‘He paused. ‘I used to have the poster of
Apocalypse Now
in my room at Long Garth. The huge red sun and the choppers. In fact, I’m not sure he didn’t buy it for me.’

‘Any other good times?’

‘Being in the shed watching him make things. Mainly fences, that sort of thing. He used to go out in all weathers, My mother used to say, “You’re never going out in that, are you?” And he’d be standing in the kitchen door, and he’d say,” When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”‘ Danny laughed. ‘When the going got tough, the tough pissed off.’

Tom let a silence open up, before slipping in, casually, ‘Were you an abused child?’

Danny looked startled. ‘No. Well, the beatings, I suppose

‘Were they frequent?’

‘Yes.’

‘Severe?’

‘Depends what you mean by severe.’

‘Did they leave marks?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bruises?’

‘Yes.’

‘Weals?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘So. Were you abused?’

‘I don’t know. Do you think I was?’

Tom smiled. ‘It doesn’t work like that, Danny.’

‘Was I abused?’ He was massaging his forehead again, this time with his hand hiding most of his face. ‘Oh God. I suppose by modern standards, in comparison with most kids, yes. Slightly.’

‘That’s an incredibly qualified answer.’

‘Yes, well, I think it has to be. If it’d been the 1880s – you know, be a man, my son, send forth the best ye breed, and all that – everybody would’ve thought he was doing a splendid job.’

‘But it wasn’t.’

‘I know, that’s what I’ve just said. By modern standards, probably, yes.’

Tom waited.

‘Slightly.’

‘Slightly?’

‘Yes,
slightly.
I wasn’t neglected, sexually abused, starved, tortured, left on my own morning, noon and night, scalded, burnt… All of which happens.’

‘I know.’

‘He was misguided, but he did honestly think he was doing the right thing.’

‘What was the worst thing?’

‘The worst beating?’

‘No, the worst thing. The worst time.’

‘Being hung up on a peg. Hung up. Not hanged.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘I don’t know. I was being obstreperous, I suppose. He lifted me on to the peg, put my jacket over the pegs and left me there to scream.’

‘How long for?’

‘Not long.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’m determined I’m not going to say, “I was abused, therefore…” Because it’s not as easy as that.’

‘No.’

‘The fact is he was trying to be a good father, and… I hero-worshipped him. He was tall, he was strong, he had a tattoo that wiggled when he clenched his fist, he had a gun, he’d killed people… I thought he was fucking brilliant.’