CHAPTER 60
I spent quite a while thinking about that one, and especially tactics. I held no great hopes of producing a wave of new suspects, but what I did want was to see if I could close off past nightmares for other victims.

That was what had happened with me, in the end. I had spent so many years fixated on Ashley Evans and his corrupt running mates that it had poisoned everything I did. Walk down a street? Look over my shoulder. See a big BMW? Look to see who was behind the wheel. Think about entering a loving relationship with a decent and similarly loving human being?

No. Forget that one. Impossible. Shop-spoiled. Damaged goods.

No, that last wasn’t swept away by Blake, but his honesty and patience had let me open up from the primed hand grenade I had been, the snake coiled and ready to strike. More than that, though, was the closure, as the American psycho babble goes. All three were inside, and unlikely ever to come out again, and as they were enclosed, I was able to unfold from my coiled defensiveness.

That, in essence, was what I was hoping to be able to deliver to a few other broken toys.

Jon had the first possibilities identified a week later, and I let him do the driving across towards Evesham and the grim hole that is Long Lartin prison. I was more than a little worried about him, because while I saw myself as a well-matured hard case, he was still squeaky new.

“You be OK in there, mate?”

He tried to shrug while driving, which was silly.

“Going to have to be, isn’t it? Why did you pick Bowles for the first chat, anyway?”

“Well, if he goes well, everything else will be a piece of cake”

“And if it goes completely to shit?”

“Then the others will seem even easier, won’t they?”

He laughed, but nerves were still there.

“You and Blake are bloody well suited, Di!”

I laughed in my turn.

“Oh, I think I know that bit better than you, mate! Ah—there’s the turn off”

I thought it was an odd place to hide a prison, in an area of what passed for rural tranquillity and not that far from Worcester and, of all places, Stratford. Bloody Shakespeare country, but barred rather than Bard.

I tried that joke out on Jon, and he told me I was perverse. Ah well, his loss.

Entry to the prison was the usual palaver, with a tsunami of warnings about grooming and contraband. We found ourselves in a private room rather than the open space I was used to from my vast experience of seeing prison visits in TV dramas, and there were two Prison Officers present when a third brought in Arthur Henry Bowles.

He was a big man, tattoos spilling out from under the cuffs of his prison uniform jacket, and he took a look around the room before stepping in. I saw his gaze linger on Jon, just for a couple of seconds, then move on with obvious dismissal.

Not important. Not a threat.

He held me in his flat stare for a bit longer before speaking.

“And what the fuck do you want?”

One of the POs muttered his name, and received the same non-verbal treatment a flat, emotionless stare that seemed to measure the man’s future and find it lacking happiness. Bowles turned back to me.

“Well?”

I found my professionalism.

“Mersey View, Arthur”

His eyes flickered, and he looked at the seat in the back of the room before raising an eyebrow to one of his escorts, who nodded.

“Go ahead, Bowles”

Once the prisoner was sitting, Jon and I took our seats, and then Bowles simply asked, very, very politely, for a favour from the guards.

“Could I please have Mr Withers here, Mr Conway?”

Conway turned to his mate, who nodded once, and then vanished for about five minutes, Bowles simply staring at the little table all the time, unspeaking. Mr Withers turned out to be an older PO, and at the door he gave Jon and me another careful once-over with his eyes before turning to the two others.

“Harry will be fine, boys. I’ll give a call when we’re done, yeah?”

Conway shrugged. “Your funeral, mate”

The door was shut, and Withers sat down next to Bowles.

“You OK, Harry?”

“Not sure yet, Mr Withers. These two have some shit for me, I think”

Withers turned back to us, and once again his focus was on me rather than Jon. I was a little worried how the poor boy’s ego was doing, but I was busy being as Police, Pro as I could manage. Bowles broke the spell.

“They mentioned a place, Mr Withers”

“Ah. That place?”

“Yes”

Eyes back on us.

“What on Earth do you two want with my prisoner?”

Jon started to speak, and Bowles just held up a hand.

“No. Organ grinder, not monkey”

I gave my boy a quick ‘not now’ glance, and opened the file I had. Not ‘Arthur’. Don’t risk ‘Harry’.

“DC Diane Owens and DC Jon Philips. Mersey View, Mr Bowles. We have some questions we hope you can help us with”

His jaw clenched.

“They are both dead. Both of them. I did their stones”

“Beg pardon?”

He looked at Withers.

“Not been charged for that, have I?”

“Not hearing you, Harry. Not for now”

Bowles turned back to us.

“John and Marie Parsons. You obviously know what they were. Did some masonry work on their stones. Corrected their epitaphs”

Jon looked up, and had to open his mouth.

“What about the staff?”

“At the graveyard? Did get charged for that one, didn’t I, Mr Withers?”

“Yes, Harry. GBH and false imprisonment, if I remember correctly”

Once more, the older man turned to look directly at me.

“Cut to the chase, Detective Constable. What. Do. You. Want?”

Keep it steady, girl.

“Nothing that will harm Mr Bowles, that is for sure. We are from the Serious Crime Review unit with South Wales”

Bowles looked up at that.

“I’ve never been to South bloody Wales!”

“Not what we are hoping you can help us with, Mr Bowles. Our job is looking into older cases of serious crime, what are sometimes called cold cases. For a number of reasons, we are now looking into two children’s homes, one of which is Mersey View. We are identifying victims”

Withers actually lost some of his cool at that, but Bowles seemed to lose it all.

“They are all fucking dead! Those two bastards are gone!”

“Charles Cooper, Mr Bowles”

He went white, something I had read many times but rarely actually seen, and to my horror he started to cry.

“Oh fuck… Not Charlie…”

I kept it level.

“Don Hamilton”

“Oh fuck!”

Withers reached across to him and took his hand.

“Harry, mate. You’re safe here, and we won’t let them in, OK?”

Back to me once more.

“This better be bloody well worth it!”

I waited a few seconds as Bowles brought his breathing back from the verge of sobs.

“John and Marie Parsons are dead, Mr Bowles, but in the course of our investigations we have come across another victim of that place. They have changed their name, but you may remember them. I can’t tell you more just now, but what we are hoping to do is shine some light on what happened. We have two aims here, and one of them is to give some victims a little peace”

Withers was almost snarling now.

“Bit late for that now, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t actually think so. The victim we are working with is already saying they are feeling better. Our other aim is simpler, and that is to bring this sort of crime into the open, so that it is less likely to happen to other children. You were a child then, Mr Bowles”

The big man looked back at me.

“Charlie and Don?”

I could actually hear the apprehension in his voice, so I made myself smile.

“Don and Charlie moved on after the Parsons went, Mr Bowles”

Let the smile sour.

“Unfortunately, they moved on to another children’s home, and I gather that what happened to kids there was rather worse than what happened at Runcorn. A senior officer I am working with had the job of digging for bodies there”

Let that sink in, just for a second.

“Don is dead, but Charlie is in Carlisle prison. I would like to make sure he never leaves it upright”

Bowles turned to Withers, and nodded at him.

“Would you mind staying for this, sir?”

They still held hands, almost father and son, grown man and terrified boy. Withers brought his other hand across to pat Bowles’ as he held it.

“No problem, Harry. Just remember: this is voluntary. Isn’t it, DC Owens?”

“Absolutely. Any time he wants, this is over. I just hope we can give him a little bit of peace”

Withers sighed, his defences dropping a little.

“Harry bloody well needs some, Detective Constable”

“Di, please, and that’s Jon”

Withers grinned.

“He’s Harry, and I’m Colin, just in here, OK? First nasty one for you, Jon?”

My boy nodded, clearly not trusting his voice, and Withers, Colin, grinned again.

“Thought so. You up for this, Harry? Seriously?”

“Yes. Kids, Mr Withers”

“OK. Just go easy on the fresh meat”

I forced as genuine a laugh as I could and started.

“Our first complainant told us a lot about what went on there, Harry, wheat happened to her specifically. We hope to speak to several others to get their own accounts, and then build up a case against Cooper”

Bowles looked puzzled for a second, then smiled, and there was real warmth there for the first time.

“Billy got away, then. All the way away”

He turned his smile on Colin.

“Billy, Mr Withers. Can’t remember his surname. Her surname. She gone all the way now, Di? Proper woman?”

“I think we might just be talking about the same person, Harry, but obviously I can’t give details”

“No worries, Di. Just so good to hear one of us made it. Call her she now; I’ll try and remember that. She was… she was popular with Don. Do me a favour?”

I smiled back at him.

“Pass on your regards?”

“No. Couldn’t do that to her, could I? Let her know her old friend is… Well, rather you didn’t

I nodded, and he continued.

“This is what it’s about, isn’t it? Letting people like Billy have some peace at last?”

“And people like yourself, Harry. Don’t lose sight of that. What we would like, if you don’t mind, is for you to give us an interview, not a caution thing. This sis about gathering stuff to drop on Charlie’s head, and the more we can get, the worse it will be for him”

He looked at me, and once more it was clear that he had a seriously sharp mind.

“You’ve been there to, haven’t you?”

I nodded. “Yup. All banged away now, just like Charlie, and my colleagues have found other victims that have seen them locked up for what will most likely be the rest of their natural etc. They got peace, and same with me. Thank you for understanding”

“OK, Di. Where do we start?”

“Shall I get the fresh meat to unseal some tapes?”

We left there several hours later, as Colin made a point of shaking our hands, and w
Hen we got back to the car I took one look at Jon’s colour and drove us both up the A46 to the Premier Inn, where, after a quick call to work, I booked us into a couple of rooms before taking the young man into the pub next door.

Not once di either of us raise the subject of the life sentence Bowles was serving for the abductions, rapes and murders of three young men. Some things were best left to lie.