The Silent Pool (36 page)

Again, something didn't fit but Erasmus kept his own counsel.

‘But I think we can get the evidence we need,’ continued Theo.

‘We?’

‘I think you want to help. I'll pay you, of course, but I have read your file, Erasmus, you are one of the good guys.’

‘Jesus Christ, are you for real? What evidence? Everybody who knew what happened is dead or missing!’

Theo got up and walked across the room and opened the door. Rachel hurried in.

‘Don't be upset, I'm fine,’ said Erasmus.

‘Oh, I'm not. You will be right as rain,’ Rachel said.

Erasmus couldn't but help feel a little deflated.

‘Rachel has come up with a rather interesting fact, haven't you?’ said Theo.

Rachel's expression switched to excitement. ‘Yes, while you've been resting here, I reviewed Tomas Radzinski's CPS file again. I wanted to read the psychiatric sentencing reports on Burns.’

‘Did you find anything in there?’ asked Erasmus.

‘Absolutely nothing. Don't you see?’

Erasmus had no idea what she was talking about. He shook his head.

‘The reports weren't in there. Nothing excites me more as a journalist then finding out something isn't where it should be.’

‘And that's it?’

Rachel looked a little crestfallen. ‘Someone had removed it on purpose.’

‘It could have fallen out, got lost over the years,’ said Erasmus.

‘Yes, it could, but it wasn't. There is a record sheet and date stamp on the front of the file, it shows who signed it out. Here, take a look.’ She passed the file to Erasmus.

It was an ordinary blue cardboard folder. On the front was a large white sticker divided into columns and rows. It was in date order and there were about ten names of people who had signed the folder out of CPS custody. The last name on the list, who had signed the folder out two days before, was one Melvin Turnbull.

‘Melvin Turnbull?’ said Erasmus.

‘He's my contact in the CPS. I had to agree to a dinner date to get this file. Look at the name above his.’

And there above Turnbull's scrawled signature was a name he recognised.

‘Officer Cooper. Father Michael's pet cop. Jesus.’

Erasmus looked at the date. Cooper had taken the file out four weeks previously. Stephen had disappeared four weeks ago.

‘Why do you think the Third Wave would take out the psychiatric report on Frank Burns?’ said Rachel.

‘It's Bovind's doing, that's for sure,’ said Theo.

‘Someone needs to speak to Burns,’ said Erasmus.

Rachel smiled. ‘That's exactly what we thought too.’

Theo was looking intently at Erasmus. ‘Frank Burns is Strangeways but I have taken the liberty of speaking to his lawyer and arranging an interview for you later this evening if you agree to help and if you feel up to it?’

‘And if I don't?’

‘Then nothing. You are free to leave and forget about this whole thing.’

‘Where is Jenna?’ asked Erasmus.

‘She is waiting outside with the doctor. She wants to apologise to you.’

Erasmus took a deep breath, it felt warming and there were no crackles from his lungs. He searched for feelings of panic, there were none. For some reason, he didn't feel afraid any more. He knew what he had to do and it felt right.

‘Just send in the doctor. I don't want to see her. And Theo?’

‘Yes?’

‘If you lie to me again I'll kill you.’

CHAPTER 46

The day was beginning to die when Erasmus arrived at Strangeways. Crisp late November sunshine was giving way to a murky purple sky that hung heavy over the black brick of the jail's tower.

Theo had made some calls and Erasmus proceeded smoothly through the security checks and parked the car lent to him by Theo in an assigned visitor's bay. He had never been in an old Victorian prison before and had half hoped to enter through the mighty blue steel doors at the front of the prison. Instead he was led by a bored looking prison guard through a door into a portakabin®. There, in an antechamber, he was searched by another bored looking guard who confiscated a blue ballpoint pen and his mobile phone.

The guard held up the pen between his forefinger and thumb as though it were a weapon of mass destruction. ‘We can't be too careful, not with this one.’

‘I thought he was a reformed character?’ said Erasmus.

The guard chuckled. ‘They all say that, don't they, especially when it's time for the parole board to sit.’

Theo had provided Erasmus with a dossier on Frank Burns. It hadn't made for pleasant reading but it filled in some of the gaps.

Frank Burns had been a Maths teacher and a good one at that. He had a young wife and a baby boy. He seemed to have the perfect life but then one night after going for a drink after work he had accepted a lift from a friend and been involved in a car accident. Seemingly he had walked away with only a mild concussion. But something, so at least his defence team at the trial tried to argue, had changed.

What was inescapably true was that from having no history of violence or abuse from that day onwards Frank Burns became a violent, destructive child abuser.

It started with his own son, two years old and previously the apple of his father's eye. His wife returned home one afternoon a couple of weeks after the crash and she found Frank watching a DVD and eating a takeaway while their son, Robert, screamed in agony from the kitchen floor where he lay with two broken arms and a broken leg.

Frank had been arrested and various neurological tests run on him. There were clearly psychological issues and strong indicators that he had a psychopathic personality disorder that had never been indicated at any time before the car accident.

Burns gave no explanation nor showed any remorse.

He was sentenced to three years for that first crime. When he came out he was thirty and within a week of release he had murdered the first boy, David Whitmore, a thirteen-year-old paperboy whom he kidnapped, took back to his flat, killed and then dismembered. The real kicker, the piece that the tabloids seized upon with relish, was the fact that Burns had removed the child's eyes and these were never found. Burns never admitted to it, but the strong suggestion was that Burns had eaten the eyes.

Two further killings, both young boys, followed in quick succession before he was arrested. The killings were remarkably similar. In both cases boys in their early teens and in both cases they were cut up and their eyes removed. Again, the eyes were never found.

Burns’ capture had been inevitable given the complete lack of care and thought that went into covering up his crimes. He had taken the bodies to a local landfill site one at a time. On the last occasion a site worker had noticed that Burns was depositing green waste into the container marked for household and vegetable waste and had told him to take the bag to the correct container. Burns had refused to move and the council worker had grabbed hold of the bag. A tug of war had ensued resulting in pieces of Colin McAteer, a twelve-year-old boy scout, had ended up scattered across the gangway.

Burns had fled but the worker had taken a note of his license plate and the police smashed down his front door less than two hours later, discovering Burns sitting in an armchair watching the TV with the sound turned down.

Burns had told them nothing about his crimes: no explanation, no reason. He said nothing for three months, and then, while on remand one afternoon, he asked to see the governor and handed him a written statement explaining that he had killed a young boy in Formby Woods and then thrown his body into the sea. Tomas had been missing for six weeks at that point. The murder investigation unit were informed and Tomas’ case closed.

‘So you don't believe him?’

‘You can get your pen back when you come back out and, no, I don't believe him. I think he's pure evil. I've seen a lot who have done terrible things that I thought weren't, but Burns, well, you'll see.’

Erasmus had read the updated information and press clippings that Rachel had given him. Burns was currently being evaluated by a groundbreaking American neuro-psychologist who specialised in studying the effect of low impact trauma and brain injuries. She had identified that despite only causing a mild trauma to the brain such everyday concussions could cause serious damage to the pre-frontal cortex and, using the latest brain imaging software and MRIs, she had shown the development of microscopic lesions in the personality forming areas of the brain. Her initial studies had focused on American football players and she had shown good evidence for a high percentage of soft concussion victims suffering mild to serious personality changes, both temporary and permanent, in a significant number of cases. Significantly, she had worked with a neuro-surgeon to remove, where possible, with keyhole surgery, these nano-lesions from an initial volunteer group.

Two years previously Burns had volunteered and been accepted for this group. There had been legal and regulatory hurdles to overcome, but the fact that a classified psychopath had volunteered was so rare and unusual that solutions had been found. The surgery had been carried out and in evaluation after evaluation since, Burns had been classified as normal on every scale used to measure personality disorders.

It was beyond the wildest dreams of the medical teams. They had identified and removed the lesion that had developed as a consequence of the car accident all those years ago. Now, for the first time, Burns was remorseful and his lawyers claimed he was cured. At the last parole hearing they had argued, unsuccessfully, that his crimes should be looked at in the context of his undiagnosed injury and that there was a good case, objected to strenuously by the families of his victims, that Burns should be released.

Erasmus followed the guard down a windowless, fluorescently lit corridor. It led into the main prison, woodchip walls giving way to brick.

The guard seemed to read his mind. ‘If you were expecting iron grilles and gangways you are going to be disappointed. We had to move Burns away from the main prison when the
Sun
ran a campaign against his release. Some of our guests wanted to make a name for themselves. You know he lost an eye a few years back?’

Erasmus nodded. It had been in the file. Burns had been queuing for lunch when a young inmate had attacked him with a sharpened spoon and managed to take out his left eye before the guards pulled him off.

‘He deserved it but it does make him look, well, odd, so be prepared. He refuses to wear a patch, you see. Here we are.’ The guard had paused outside a white door marked 73. ‘Just sign here.’ He handed a clipboard to Erasmus. ‘Your mark where the cross is, please. Means you can't sue us if he slits your throat and eats your eyes!’ He let out a belly laugh and slapped Erasmus on the back.

He took the clipboard back from him.

‘Enjoy.’ He pressed a button at the side of the door and a buzzer sounded. There was a soft click and then he pushed the door open.

Erasmus tried to keep any expression of shock from his face. Frank Burns was sitting on a plastic chair on the other side of a metal desk that was bolted to the floor. A small man wearing a bright blue prison uniform. Small and unintimidating save for the fact that he had shaved the left hand side of his head where a red scar four inches long angrily stood out and the right side of his head was covered in long shoulder length brown hair.

All this, strange though it was, paled into normality with the sight of the dark red and black socket where his left eye should have been.

‘Good evening, you must be Erasmus Jones.’

‘Yes, thank you for meeting me at such short notice.’

A look of puzzlement passed across Burns’ face to be replaced by a wry smile. ‘Well, I didn't have any other engagements planned for this evening.’

‘Sure, but I read your file. You haven't accepted any interview requests from the newspapers and your case is, well…interesting.’

Burns shifted his head to the right. Disconcertingly, the socket was facing directly at Erasmus, giving the impression that the empty eye was looking straight at him. Erasmus wanted to look away from that dark void but he didn't. He had a feeling that he was being tested.

‘The newspapers can't offer me money for my story. It's unlawful. But a private individual can. I agreed to see you because Theo Francis called my lawyers today and offered to fund my appeal costs on the condition I spoke to you. Now, why would he do that, Mr Jones?’

Burns folded his fingers together on the desk in front of him. Erasmus turned to the guard standing behind him.

‘Could you give us a minute?’ he asked the guard.

‘Sure, he's cuffed to the chair but there is a panic button on the wall if he tries anything.’

The guard left the room.

‘I'm not guilty, you know,’ said Burns, once the door closed behind the guard. His voice was level, almost a monotone.

‘I'm not here to make any judgements on your guilt.’

Burns turned his head, this time his right eye was focused on Erasmus. ‘That's your first lie. Everyone makes judgements, especially about child killers. I'm not guilty, thought it's important for me to tell you that. It was this body that committed those ghastly crimes and this body has suffered for those crimes.’ His right hand jerked towards his left eye socket. ‘But it wasn't me inside. It was a malfunction of the software.’

Erasmus didn't care for the murders of children being described as a software malfunction and this must have showed on his face.

Burns turned again, so the socket faced Erasmus.

‘I can't bring those children back to life, Mr Jones. I was in a car accident and my personality was changed as a result. Some people put their spectacles in the fridge, forget names. With me it took a much more unfortunate turn. But you must believe me if I am to help you, you must know that it wasn't the man sitting before you who committed those crimes.’ Burns was leaning forward, his right eye staring intently at Erasmus.

Erasmus had read the file, seen the medical evidence. There had been a personality change as a result of the car accident, he was sure of that, but it was still the man sitting in front of him who had committed those horrific crimes. If he had been cured, if the software fault had been fixed, did that make that man less guilty, less deserving of punishment? But how did anyone know? They had removed the lesion and then Burns had aced the psychiatric tests but Erasmus knew that an intelligent person could study the testing mechanisms and train themselves to appear normal on those tests.