CHAPTER 77
As Di and Jon were about to go off for the interview, Stevie Elliott called after them

“Make that bastard shit himself”

The young man looked shocked, but Stevie held his gaze with a real glare of hatred.

“That bastard had me for years. This? This is what they did to me. They didn’t even have the decency to let me kill myself, the fuckers! Sorry. Sorry, kids, but, well”

I saw him pulling back his anger, shaking his head sadly, then he turned to me.

“One day, pet, one day, we need to sit down and put all this to bed. Today? For today, please sit with me, and you, Ben, please. Let’s just watch the fucker squirm”

We settled down into the rows of seats in front of the large screen as Di and Jon disappeared with the junior local copper, Liam, and the other one, a Mr Sedgewick, returned from the door to our room with an actual tea trolley, a huge pot on it plus cups, sugar and so on. He smiled at us all, but with that same fear behind his bonhomie.

“I sort of… liberated, yes, that’s a safe word. I liberated these from the canteen. If people prefer coffee, I can arrange them, but police stations are traditionally fuelled by tea”

I tried a joke, adding “And bacon sandwiches”, but it fell flat. Stevie Elliott turned to me, the SMS aggression fading, and asked a simple but telling question.

“How old were you, Pet?”

“Eight, when it all started”

“Ah, shite. I am so, so sorry”

I looked hard at him, but kept my tone soft.

“Sorry for what, Mr Elliott?”

“Stevie, pet. Just Stevie, please. Sorry… It’s an odd thing, being a survivor. Realising other people didn’t survive, aye? This man here, this Mr Sedgewick, he knows all about that, I think. If I had only got out earlier, how many people would have been spared? Mr Sedgewick, you do know what I mean, don’t you?”

“Andrew, please”

“Stevie, here. Kaz, Em, the kids can introduce themselves. So answer my question, please”

‘Andrew’ sighed, doing the usual game with his cup to avoid an immediate answer, then shrugged.

“I was there, Stevie. Not the way you were, I hasten to add, but…”

He turned to me, head tilted slightly.

“Ms Wells”

“Debbie. I think we’re all past the formalities by now, isn’t it?”

“Debbie, then. There were… Children…”

He stopped for five or six seconds, shaking his head.

“Elsie and Raynor Cunningham ran that place. The level of damage they did to their inmates was on an industrial scale, and rather than let that emerge into the open, they had a habit of disposing of boys as they reached maturity”

Stevie was staring down at his hands.

“I called it ‘graduating’. Raynor liked using a hammer”

Oh fuck, yet again. I knew this already, of course, but hearing it first-hand was still a shock. Andrew’s voice was almost devoid of emotion, as he added his own details.

“I was very new to the job back then, Debbie. I went in with the forced entry teams. I saw… I saw the cellar”

Stevie interrupted him with the word “Thirlmere”, and Andrew nodded.

“Yes. Such an incongruous name for… I spent a lot of time in little tents in the garden, and at other properties, digging. That is my lasting memory, Debbie, the smell of freshly-turned earth. May I leave it there? They are about to begin the interview”

The screen was awake now, and there were two cameras working, each showing people on one side of a little table, with a smaller wide-angle image in one corner. Di and Jon were just sitting down in one image, while…

He just looked old. So, so old. That was my first thought; an old man sitting next to a younger one in a suit, and as the interview began, I found my attention jumping from Cooper’s face to Jon’s, as Di’s boy was doing all the talking, at least at the start. There was some stuff that was obviously routine, and then I managed to lipread a few of the words.

First from Jon, as I caught the words ‘Mister Cooper’, which was immediately followed by something from Charlie himself, as his face fell into a soppy grin, and I clearly saw his lips form the word ‘Charlie’.

Stevie muttered “Did that cunt just try and make friends?”

I had watched Jon’s face just then, and he had sat up just a little straighter, one eyebrow raised, and whatever his reply had been, Cooper looked as if he had just been slapped. I couldn’t make out many more words, because Cooper kept dropping his head, but Jon’s expression was stony in the extreme. No emotion that I could detect, but absolutely no sign of any warmth at all.

‘I am here to ask you questions’, his face seemed to say, ‘And your opinion on that is irrelevant’. Cooper, on the other hand, went through a range of different reactions, at one point shouting, at another looking as if he was close to tears, but Jon kept that calm iciness in place throughout. Benny was crying gently as it continued, and towards the end he asked me one question.

“Debbie, my love: is THAT what has fuelled our nightmares for all these years? That wreckage?”

Stevie looked across at him with that nasty grin in place once more.

“Icing on the cake, Benny boy. State of him, health must be shitty. Just another treat for us to enjoy. Hope every part of him hurts”

There was one moment in the interview where I felt physically sick, as Jon said something that caused Charlie to break into an incredibly happy smile, while Jon’s composure almost left him, his eyes widening in what looked like badly-hidden shock, He recovered, though, and whatever he said reduced Cooper, now shouting, almost to what could have been tears. Whatever had been said by the filthy bastard seemed to hit Diane hard, and I think she very nearly lost control at that point, her face drifting into that odd blankness I had so often seen, at times when she seemed to have a need to find a calm spot within herself.

The interview wasn’t that long, but it felt like an eternity. I needed to know what he had said, but I understood far too well why I wasn’t being allowed to. Was this whole trip a bloody mistake?

I cast a sidelong glance at benny, and that thought died quickly, as I watched what was surely my oldest friend crying gently as his husband held him close. I had found him at last, and that a gift that I was never going to throw away. So many lives soiled, just by one vile bastard now being flayed by a young, expressionless copper.

Once again, the words were clear in my head: I hope this bloody hurts.

It was over, at last, and Di and Jon rose from their seats to leave. As the door to the interview room opened, the camera caught Di’s face as she turned back to Cooper with a last comment, her teeth showing in that expression I had heard her call a ‘feral grin’. The other camera caught Cooper’s lawyer as his shoulders sagged, just a little.

A civilian worker had pulled out the tea trolley as we waited for our two people to return, and as I that particular phrase went through my mind, I remembered being so, so confused about ‘warming to coppers’. Diane and Jon were most definitely ‘our’ people, and that opinion was confirmed when they entered our room again, as Jon looked an absolute wreck. He had clearly been crying, and I found myself launching from my seat to cuddle the poor, shattered boy. The younger local copper, Liam, was back in, and he came over to me as I held Jon and did my best to stop him trembling. Liam’s voice was hesitant, but as he put a hand to Jon’s shoulder, there was real warmth in it.

“So, so sorry, Jon, but it had to be done, and you were so good in there. Going to get some more drinks. Get a cuppa in you, settle yourself”

Peter and Ben joined me in supporting the boy, and then Roger, as Jon started to sob. I looked quickly at Diane, and once again she was away in her own world, staring into a corner of the room for a long time before shaking her head and coming back to us.

What had that fucker said to them, to knock both so brutally off their feet? The Elliotts were in their own family cuddle, all apart from Stevie, who was just holding his wife’s hand and staring at what was now a blank screen. Di must have made some gesture or other to him, for he turned to her, shrugging.

“I know, Diane. Looks callous, like, but it was one of the things I lost back then. I don’t really cry any more”

He pulled Em’s hand to him and kissed it.

“It’s OK. Love. Over now. Done. Peace, aye? That copper’s off for some more teas and stuff; we’ll get off home in a bit”

He looked at us as we stopped Jon’s collapse only by main strength, then turned back to Di.

“Your lad’s new to this, isn’t he?”

“Yes”

“He was very good in there. He did what I wanted him to do, and I will say my thanks when he is ready”

Peter whispered to Jon, “Gents, my dear? Get yourself a little less broken?”

I felt Jon’s nod, and released him as the older man walked him away, an arm over his shoulder, and as they went, I asked the most obvious of questions.

“What did he say, Di?”

Her face tightened, and I could see her need to share, but the professional copper was back in control.

“Can’t tell you that, Deb. Let’s just say, well, look at what it did to Jon”

I reached out to take her hand, my heart breaking at the damage so evidently inflicted on what seemed to be a decent and honest young man.

“One of the good guys, aye? Honest copper?”

“Very much so, mate. Very much so. Just got to make sure he doesn’t get broken”

I knew the answer, just as I knew one more man would be getting permission to enter the House.

“Girls will be there for him, love. Any time, we’ll have his back, Here’s that local officer back”

Liam was back just then, the tea trolley fully reloaded, followed almost immediately by Peter and Jon, whose face had clearly been washed, but still leaving his eyes red. Stevie looked up and gave him a twisted smile.

“Well done in there, son. And thank you”

His wife whispered into his ear, and he nodded sharply, looking back down at her hand as he held it in his lap. Emily’s voice was soft.

“Stevie’s always had nightmares about that man, ever since he was rescued. Kids, those nightmares have never gone away. Your Dad and me, well, we are hoping now. So many years… Diane, Jon, thank you for this. He’s broken now. Properly broken. Might make our nights better”

Our young man looked embarrassed at their praise.

“Thank you all for your understanding—No! Just take a thank you. Charlie Cooper, aye, well. Not broken yet, not completely. But he will be. Inspector Weir? Can we get to a phone somewhere private, please? The bastard has given us another address. I’d like to set the ball rolling”

Inspector Patel, Diane as she left the interview room, and now Steven Elliott. The same smile, the same baring of teeth. The same level of hate. Whatever Cooper had said had sliced any sympathy away from them.

‘Another address’, Jon had said.

My stomach turned.

How many more lives had Cooper destroyed?