No Questions Asked (15 page)

‘And you will be’.

‘Too right I will be’.

‘Do you think you’ll ever reconcile with your Mum and Dad?’

‘I don’t know to be honest’ said Jeff. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over the fact that they weren’t there for me and Toby when Lillie Mae died. So I’m going to have to say that the answer to your question is no. I don’t believe in automatically forgiving someone who’s done wrong by you just because they’re family’.

‘Yes I get that’ said Annabel. ‘And I agree. Sometimes the scars go too deep’.

‘And we both know that being in a supposedly normal family set-up isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be’ said Jeff. ‘I mean, look at Stuart and Fiona next door. Earlier on it sounded like they were having a right go at each other’.

‘I know’ said Annabel. ‘When I came back from seeing Lucy I heard them’.

‘How is Lucy?’

‘Holding on by the skin of her teeth, poor girl’.

‘I’ll go and see her tomorrow’.

‘She’d like that’ said Annabel who could see that Jeff had something else on his mind. He clearly wasn’t watching Jimmy Nesbitt looking for his missing son in France and so she picked up the remote control and switched it off.

‘What’s wrong, Jeff?’ she asked.

Jeff did his best to make his protest believable. ‘I was watching that if you don’t mind’.

‘No you weren’t’ said Annabel who then sat down beside him on the sofa. Her son Kyle was upstairs doing his first lot of homework from his new school into which he seemed to have settled in very well. Annabel had never realised just how much he’d hated his old school back in Blackpool. ‘And you’re not getting the remote control back until you tell me why you’ve had a face on you tonight like a wet weekend in Blackpool. And I’ve seen plenty of them to know what it looks like’.

Jeff couldn’t help but smile. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Annabel’.

‘So come on and tell your sister what it’s all about?’

‘However hard I try, and believe me I have tried, I’ve really tried, I just can’t seem to cross that line between friendship and something more when it comes to Rebecca’.

‘And she’s starting to feel insecure about what you promised her?’

‘Yes and I can’t blame her’.

‘Well I feel bad because I pushed you into it’.

‘No you didn’t’ said Jeff. ‘You encouraged me to take a chance on making myself happy again and I went along with it. But maybe I was deluding myself. Maybe I’m not ready yet like I thought I was’.

‘Or maybe Rebecca just isn’t the right girl?’

‘There is that possibility’.

‘I mean just because she’s into you doesn’t mean that you should automatically be into her’.

‘No it doesn’t’.

‘But what you do need to remember, brother, is that she’ll be better off knowing where she stands’.

‘But that’s the whole point, Annabel’ said Jeff. ‘I don’t know where she stands as far as I’m concerned and I don’t know what I want either. I thought I did know but I haven’t got a bloody clue’.

‘You told her at the barbecue that you did though, Jeff’.

‘I know and I think I meant it at the time’ said Jeff. ‘Or was I just taking the easy option and agreeing with her to avoid a scene? That’s the biggest question that I don’t have an answer for, Annabel’.

Jeff was prevented from further reflection by someone hammering at the front door. He stood up to go and answer it when he also heard the screeching of car tyres coming from next door’s driveway.

‘What the hell is going on?’ asked a startled Annabel.

‘Christ knows’ said Jeff.

The hammering on the front door was accompanied by a woman’s pleading voice ‘Jeff! Jeff! ‘He recognized it immediately as being Fiona and when he opened the door she was in a right state and fell into his arms crying hysterically. He saw Stuart speeding away in his car.

‘Fiona, what’s the matter? Where’s Stuart going? What’s happened?’

‘Oh Jeff!’ she wailed through the tears. ‘Jeff, the worst thing possible has happened. I walked in on Stuart looking at child pornography. Jeff, there was a picture of Bradley right there on his computer and Stuart was … well do I need to spell it out?’

‘Christ’ said Jeff. ‘Is that what you’ve been arguing about?’

Fiona nodded her head. ‘He says he knows who it was who murdered Bradley. But he can’t tell anyone or they’ll kill him’.

‘Who will?’

‘I don’t know, Jeff. He wouldn’t say’.

David Harrison shouldn’t have opened his front door that night. It was too dark as it was. The street lighting had failed again and perhaps because the council knew that a former paedophile had been housed there they didn’t give a stuff about actually fixing the lights so that people could see who was knocking on their door.

‘Ready for a little chat, Davey boy?’

David didn’t know where he was but he was stood upright and blindfolded. He’d been stripped down to his underpants. His ankles were tied together and he could feel something attached to them but didn’t know what. His hands were tied behind his back and he could feel a series of chains attached to that particular restraint that went all the way up his back and was clearly fixed above him. Who the hell were these people? What were they going to do to him? He was absolutely terrified. If his fate was to be measured against what happened to Terry Latham then he was a dead man standing.

‘I don’t know what you want to talk about’ he spluttered. He could feel himself shaking. It was cold wherever he was and it felt like there was a huge space around him.  

‘Oh come on now Davey boy’ said Bernie who was patiently waiting for the plan he’d worked out to provide some answers. ‘Don’t mess me about. You’re hardly in the position to do that, my friend. So tell me Davey boy, and let’s treat this as some kind of interview if you like, if it makes it easier for you to tell the truth that is because I’m a fair man, tell me how you got involved in all this perverted shit?’

‘I haven’t touched a child for years’.

‘Yeah, yeah I keep hearing all these proclamations of innocence’ said Bernie, dismissively. ‘Surprised to hear me say the word proclamations? I read all the right papers, Davey boy, and if truth be told I started an Open University course in the English language. Now there’s a thing, eh? Nobody would expect that of someone like me. I ran out of time in the end but the intention had always been there’.

‘What do you want from me?’

‘I want answers, Davey Boy’.

‘I don’t know what the question is?’

Bernie gave the wink and John Squires tightened the pull on David’s wrist restraints making his hands rise behind him and the strain begin on his shoulders. He could hear chains clanking behind him. They were getting ready to really hurt him. 

‘Don’t mess me about, Davey boy’ said Bernie.

‘It was my father who did it’.

‘What did you say, Davey boy?’

‘My life as a child was hell’ he pleaded. ‘My father would come into my room every night from when I was really little and have his way. There were some days when I couldn’t even sit down. I didn’t know what to do. There was no childline back then. There was nobody who I could turn to’.

‘It must’ve been hard, Davey boy, I really do get that’ said Bernie who didn’t have the slightest symphathy with this piece of perverted scum. ‘But you see, the thing that I and many other people wonder about is why, when you understood that what your Dad did to you was wrong, why did you then inflict all that misery and pain on others when you became an adult? Why didn’t you break the cycle?’

‘I don’t know’.

‘Why didn’t you stop when you knew it went wholly against every decent value?’

‘I don’t know’.   

‘Well you can’t go on blaming your poor old Dad. Put a roof over your head, did he?’

‘Yes’

‘Put food on your table?’

‘Yes but … ‘

‘ … yes but he fiddled with you when he shouldn’t. And you knew that was wrong so I don’t allow that to be used as an excuse I’m afraid’.

‘How could I get away from him I was just a kid!’

‘Oh well we’re getting a little passionate are we? I’ve obviously touched a nerve. Or is that the sound of fear I can hear in your voice?’

‘What are you going to do to me?’

‘Patience, Davey boy, patience’ said Bernie, loving every second of the terror he was causing to his prey. ‘All in good time’.

‘I don’t know what you want me to tell you!’ he wailed.

‘Who murdered Bradley Thompson?’ Bernie demanded angrily.    

David hesitated. ‘I don’t know’.

‘You hesitated’.

‘The question surprised me, that’s all’.

‘Do you think this is how your victims felt, Davey boy? Just before you took their very souls away from them with your evil, filthy hands? Do you think they were as terrified as I can see you are now?’

‘Please’ David pleaded, tearfully. ‘Please don’t do this to me’.

‘Is that what your victims said too? Did you show them any mercy, Davey boy? No, you didn’t, did you. You put your hands everywhere they shouldn’t go and you ripped the childhood out of all your victims. They’ve never got it back, Davey boy. I can tell you that. I’ve done my research into these things’.

‘But that’s all past me now’ he whimpered. He could feel his tears flowing from inside the blindfold and down his face. ‘That isn’t who I am anymore’.

‘Did you even think about stopping what you were doing to those kids when they begged for their mother? You haven’t expressed one word of remorse, Davey boy. Not one single utterance of the word sorry’.

‘But I am sorry, I’ve always been sorry!’

‘You say that now’ scoffed Bernie. ‘When you’re up against it’.

‘Please let me go’.

‘Is that what your victims pleaded too?’

‘I won’t tell anyone’.

‘They probably said that too. Did it make any difference to your intentions?’

‘I won’t go to the police’.

Bernie laughed. ‘Do you really think I’m scared of them? They’ve been trying to get me for years and they haven’t succeeded yet and never will. You’ll have to do a lot better than that to put the frighteners on me, Davey boy’.

‘I’m not trying to frighten you’.

‘I’m running out of bloody patience here, Davey boy!’ Bernie raged. ‘You know don’t you? You know who murdered Bradley? It was one of your paedophile mates. Terry Latham wouldn’t tell me and you’ll pay the same price as him if you don’t tell me the truth!’

Bernie then signalled to John Squires and David let out a loud yell as he was hoisted into the air by his wrists that were tied together behind his back. His head and torso were forced forward as he went higher and not only was the pain in his shoulders excruciating but he could barely breathe because of the pressure on his windpipe. But then it became even worse as the heavy weight that had been attached to his ankles became free of the floor and was therefore pulling on his feet and legs. He could never have imagined the pain that was running through his contorted body. He was forced to look at the floor and could hardly raise his head when Bernie spoke to him.

‘Now then Davey boy’ said Bernie. ‘Either you tell me who murdered Bradley or I will keep you like this until you die. Your choice my friend’

It was the day of the reconstruction into Bradley Thompson’s movements on the day he was murdered. The national and regional media were all waiting and a team from BBC Northwest tonight was also there but before they got started Jeff gathered his team together round the conference table at the station to review where they were in terms of the investigation considering the discovery of more potential leads. He paused and rubbed his eyes. It had been gone two in the morning by the time he got to bed after organising a search of Stuart and Fiona’s house and he was knackered.     

‘We’ve put out a national alert for Stuart Braithwaite’s apprehension’ said DS Ollie Wright.  ‘We’ve had several sightings reported in from as far away as Derby and as reasonably close as Liverpool. They’ve all been followed up but only one looks like it could be useful’. Ollie then passed round a printed image from a CCTV camera at a petrol station on the northbound carriageway of the M61 close to Bolton. ‘It’s only a brief clip due to the camera not working properly but from the registration it’s certainly Braithwaite’s car and the picture was taken about half an hour after he sped away from his house which fits as a timeframe’.

‘So he was heading north’ said Jeff. ‘Do we know if he had any associations with anywhere that route could take him?’

‘We don’t as yet sir, no’ said Ollie. ‘As you probably know already he’s from Buxton in Derbyshire which is totally in the other direction. His parents and the rest of his family are all still living there and he doesn’t seem to have any roots anywhere else’.

It was hard for Jeff to hear his erstwhile friend and neighbour Stuart Braithwaite being described as a perverted criminal. And yet that’s exactly what he was. He was someone who’d lived next door to Jeff for years and yet it seems like Jeff never really knew him at all despite all the times they’d spent together. The first reports had come in from the team analyzing his computer and it made for pretty sick reading. Not only had Stuart downloaded child pornography but it was the type that involved children being tortured and restrained and begging for mercy. This was the same man who’d looked after Jeff’s son Toby on occasions, albeit for very short periods, and Jeff hadn’t known what a sick character he was when it came to children. But now Jeff understood. He understood loud and clear that he couldn’t trust those who he lived amongst and who he’d once called friends.