Somebody Told Me (3 page)

The supergrass deals had a bad reputation. It meant dishonest, disreputable men giving evidence against equally dishonest, disreputable men where the motives of everyone were dubious. Prosecutors hoped for minimal publicity whenever there were trials that relied on such evidence because the whole process stank. I was getting a very bad feeling the more I listened to Ackroyd.

‘Who knew about the agreement?’

Ackroyd sighed. ‘It was my team that led the process.’ He pointed to the file. ‘The names of everyone involved are in the papers. All the officers have been with my unit for years and all fully cleared.’

I had never worked in professional standards, the department that policed the police officers, and I had no interest in doing so but now I’d have no choice.

Ackroyd continued. ‘The whole purpose of a dedicated source unit is to make certain that we have a
sterile corridor
to all of our informants.’ He paused and drew a hand in the air. ‘But you know that of course.’

‘There must have been prosecutors involved.’ Until her intervention, Lydia had sat silently staring at Ackroyd.

He started to nod. ‘Of course. Everyone linked to the supergrass deal is mentioned in the file.

‘We’ll need—’

Ackroyd finished my sentence in a neutral tone. ‘Full financial checks on everyone associated with the case and full background checks. I can tell you now, John. It wasn’t anybody in my team. They are
one hundred per cent
safe. Nobody would sell Bevard out. Nobody.’

I drew a hand over the buff folder on the table. But somebody
had
sold him out. As well as investigating fellow officers there would be lawyers too.

‘I’ll need the original file from the investigation into Oakley’s murder.’

‘Why?’

Ackroyd’s reply annoyed me. He had promised complete cooperation and yet in the same conversation challenged me.

‘I’ll run this investigation the way I please. We’ll collect the file this afternoon.’

‘You know full well I can’t tell you where the DSU is based.’

I leant forward on the desk. ‘Your unit is compromised from top to bottom. So you can forget the petty protocols about keeping your address secret from the rest of us ordinary plain clothes officers.’

Ackroyd glared at me and paused. ‘I’ll deliver the papers personally.’

‘I need to explain this to my team and you’re staying.’ I stood up and paced out into the Incident Room.

‘I really don’t think …’ Ackroyd protested.

A photograph of Bevard was already pinned to the middle of the board. I turned to face Wyn and Jane, unease creasing their faces. Lydia stood behind them alongside Ackroyd who had his arms folded. I could see the incredulity on the faces of Wyn and Jane when I explained that we’d have to investigate the DSU. And Crown Prosecution lawyers. ‘Detective Inspector Ackroyd here has given us his assurance that there will be full cooperation from his team.’

Ackroyd mumbled his agreement.

‘Where do we start, boss?’ Wyn said.

‘At the beginning. All the usual checks, bank accounts, family etc… Any links to Walsh or anyone who may have worked other cases involved with him and his family.’

Ackroyd made to leave. I turned to him. ‘Malcolm. One more thing. Who was the sergeant on the Oakley case?’

He stopped by the door and turned to face me. ‘Dave Hobbs.’

A single red horizontal barrier guarded the main entrance to HMP Grange Hall. Adapted as an open prison after the end of the Second World War from an RAF base, it had no fences or guards patrolling the perimeter. Occasionally a prisoner found the temptation to abscond too great and publicity would follow. After identifying ourselves to a guard engrossed in the morning’s newspaper we walked over to the administration block. I pressed the intercom and stood waiting. It reminded me of the black-and-white war films featuring men with clipped accents flying off into the sunset in Spitfires and Hurricanes.

The intercom crackled and I introduced Lydia and myself. There was a bleeping sound and I pushed open the door. A woman with an intense stare and clothes that my mother would have thought fashionable led us through corridors covered with lino that sparkled from recent cleaning.

Outside a door with
Governor
printed on a large metal plaque, she stopped and knocked. After a shout from inside she pushed open the door and led us inside. Governor James stood in front of her desk, and reached out a hand. ‘Amanda James, governor.’ We shook hands and she waved us to a round table in one corner of the room. I had expected the woman who’d met us to leave but she sat down and dragged a folder on the table towards her.

‘You’ve already met Sandra,’ James said.

‘I don’t believe we were properly introduced,’ I said.

Sandra didn’t raise her eyes from the sheets of paper open in front of her. ‘Sandra Green. Jimmy Walsh’s probation officer.’ She managed an indifferent tone that matched her colourless complexion.

‘I’m not certain how we can help,’ James said once she had sat down.

I leant over the table. ‘Walsh is a prime suspect in relation to the murder of Felix Bevard.’

James nodded; Green cast me an intense frown.

‘You’re not seriously suggesting that Walsh was personally responsible?’ James didn’t give me an opportunity to reply. ‘Because I’ve been through our roll call for the past three days and Jimmy Walsh was present and accounted for on each occasion.’

‘Don’t some of your prisoners work outside in the community?’

‘Yes, but not Walsh. And before you ask, he could not have
slipped out
on the evening in question.’

‘How many times are the prisoners checked each day?’

James let out a brief sigh. ‘The first roll call is at midday before they have lunch. The second is in the afternoon. And the final roll call is in the evening. An officer will go around the billet and check on each prisoner – there are spy holes in the door, the sort you get in hotels.’

‘Have you spoken to the officers who conducted the roll call check?’

James gave me a puzzled look. ‘Whatever for? If a prisoner is absent from the roll call then we have a system for instigating a search. Inspector, Jimmy Walsh was here on the night Bevard was killed.’

‘Of course, but he might be responsible for directing the murder.’ I paused. ‘Presumably you keep a record of Walsh’s visitors?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll need to see a complete list.’

James pushed over a folder.

‘Do you have details of the telephone calls he made?’

‘We can do better than that. All the calls are recorded digitally. I’ll send you the voice file of all his recent conversations.’

Lydia made her first contribution. ‘How long has Walsh been in Grange Hall?’

James played with a ballpoint, failing to hide her irritation. ‘He was transferred here six months ago for the last part of his sentence. He was allocated work in one of the greenhouses supervised by the gardening staff. We grow vegetables for the prison estate. So he spends his days cutting tomatoes, weeding, general gardening chores. Sandra can tell you more about him.’

We turned to look at Sandra Green. She had thin colourless lips and untidy hair. She squinted, first at me then Lydia, before putting both hands on top of the papers in front of her as though she were preparing to make an announcement.

‘Walsh has always been civil to me and my staff.’

‘We were hoping you could give us more background into his family,’ Lydia said.

‘He was brought up by a single mother, and she had a string of failed relationships often with violent men. All of which contributed to his behaviour and personality. And she was an older mother – late thirties.’

‘Were there siblings?’

‘I believe there was mention of a twin having died at birth. Multiple births are more common in older mothers.’

James butted in. ‘He had a difficult upbringing. That doesn’t excuse his criminality.’

I doubted that the family of Mr Oakley would take such a sympathetic view of Jimmy Walsh.

‘Do you check his mail?’

‘All the mail is opened and given a cursory check. But letters aren’t read. We don’t have the resources to undertake that sort of task.’

‘Did Walsh share a cell?’

James shook her head. ‘He had his own cell on a billet with sixteen other men of his own age. All very quiet, no trouble.’

‘We’ll need a list of all the other prisoners on the same billet as Walsh.’

James made an exaggerated motion of reading the time. ‘I
hope
this will not be a waste of your time, Inspector.’

I hoped so too. Walsh was our only suspect. He might not have killed Bevard, but he had directed the murder. All I had to do was find out who had pulled the trigger. ‘If Walsh conspired with somebody else to kill Bevard, then that somebody could have been on the same billet as Walsh. So I’ll need a list of all the prisoners released in the last month.’

‘But there are other billets, and prisoners are released every day,’ James sounded sceptical. ‘Where are you going to stop?’

‘When I’ve secured a conviction.’

It earned me a dull glare. And when I asked to see Walsh’s cell James’s forehead creased with incredulity. I wanted to see his personal space and grudgingly James agreed to accompany us.

‘How many prisoners have you got?’ Lydia asked as we skirted round a collection of single-storey buildings set out on each side of a quadrangle.

‘It varies but usually just over six hundred.’

James led us to the far end of the prison. Eventually we stopped by the gable end of a billet. A uniformed prison officer that James introduced as Prison Officer Yelland joined us. I caught the smell of stale alcohol on his breath as we exchanged a few words. Then he paced over to the entrance and moments later a prisoner emerged looking puzzled.

We followed James into the billet and Yelland locked the door.

‘He was the billet cleaner,’ Yelland announced. ‘All the other prisoners will be at work.’

The floors looked clean, more sparkling lino and smooth plastered walls. In front of us was a small makeshift kitchen, two microwaves and a sink. I walked down the corridor, each door numbered. Tucked into one corner of the ceiling was a CCTV camera.

‘How long do you keep the CCTV tapes?’ I said.

James sounded hesitant. ‘I’m not certain. One of the staff—’

‘Send us all the coverage for two weeks before the murder of Bevard.’

‘I can’t see how that will help.’

‘Everything we know about Walsh will help.’

At the end was a toilet and shower block and two telephones screwed to a wall. I stared at them, conjuring up images of Walsh speaking to his family: exchanging small talk, asking about the weather.

Lydia was behind me. She pushed open the door to the bathroom. A half-empty bucket of water with a mop stood in the middle of the floor. The adjacent shower block smelt of disinfectant.

I turned back and joined James and Yelland outside a door marked sixteen.

Yelland found the master key and a second later the door was open.

I stood for a moment staring at the small cell that Walsh occupied. He had planned Bevard’s murder here. I stepped in, Lydia following behind me. A small television sat on a shelf above a table. A duvet lay in untidy lumps over the bed. Walsh had few personal possessions; a biography of a well-known footballer sat alongside a book that accompanied a TV series about tracing your family. At the end of the narrow shelf were six CDs: Michael Bublé, a Rod Stewart Christmas special and four different compilations.

‘I’ve never been inside a prison cell before,’ Lydia said.

I walked over to the window. It opened a few inches only, dispelling any notion that Walsh could have slipped out in the middle of the night, killed Bevard and then returned unnoticed.

‘Have you seen enough, Inspector?’ James said.

I stared around the cell. I had moved nothing. Walsh would be none the wiser. I turned and left, letting Yelland pull the door closed. The billet cleaner sat on a wooden bench drawing heavily on a roll-up cigarette when we walked past him.

Twenty minutes later we were heading back for Cardiff and our second appointment with Mrs Bevard.

Gloria Bevard had her mobile telephone pinned to her ear, obviously deeply engrossed in some conversation as I parked next to her Ford Focus in the car park of the Lemon Grove pub. She gave us an intense stare. Earlier that morning I had spoken with the family liaison officer who had stayed with Gloria the previous day. Her parents had arrived, then her sister and gradually Gloria’s extended family were providing the sort of support that only a closely knit family could do. I had suggested that the family liaison officer keep regular contact with Gloria; after all, widows could appear resilient in the first few days after a bereavement only to find their world collapsing when they truly realised what had happened.

Looking over at Gloria sitting in her car, talking calmly on the telephone, make-up seemingly perfect, not a hair out of place, I wondered what sort of relationship she really had with Felix Bevard.

‘What did you make of Mrs Bevard?’ I said.

‘She was genuine enough.’ Lydia gave me a sharp glance. ‘Why?’

‘She must have known all about her husband.’

‘That doesn’t mean she’s involved.’ Lydia opened the door and I did the same. Gloria Bevard was still talking animatedly to someone as we stood self-consciously waiting for her to finish.

‘Sorry about that,’ Gloria said, emerging from the car. Seeing her outside didn’t change the impression she had created in my mind earlier. She wore a black trouser suit and modest heels. She sounded businesslike when she looked over at the main entrance. ‘Shall we go in?’

Since I had stopped drinking, entering a public house created a certain apprehension, revisiting part of my life that I had wanted to close off. I shrugged off my uneasiness; nobody was forcing me to have a drink – this visit was all part of work. The Lemon Grove was rediscovering itself as a bistro pub. Gloria led the way past a collection of leather sofas and healthy-looking indoor plants. A board with the daily specials menu written up in white chalk had a prominent place above the bar area.