Mr Rawson paused again, leant forward, his hands clasped together and resting on the table. A shudder ran through him and the faintest sound of a muffled cry slipped from his mouth.
Jenny reached out, placing a hand onto his. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘In your own time.’
Harry stared at this little action. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d ever seen happen in a police interview before and wasn’t really sure it should be encouraged. But there was something in it which demonstrated to him the kind of police officer Jenny was, and it wasn’t just down to being professional. No. She was more than that. She actually damn well cared, Harry saw. And what more could you ask for?
‘I’m sorry,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘It’s years ago now, I know, but it may as well be yesterday.’
The room fell silent for a moment until Mr Rawson spoke again.
‘They showed this film,’ he explained. ‘At school. To the whole school, would you believe? Some new initiative by the then government to warn children of the dangers of being on a farm.’
At this, Harry snapped a look around to Jenny whose eyes were wide.
‘This wouldn’t happen to be Apache now, would it?’ Harry asked.
‘I’ve no idea what it was called,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘All I know is that they had everyone in that hall together to watch what amounted to little more than a horror film, with children being killed off one by one. It was horrific! And to think that just a few years later there was all that stuff going on about banning films because of their violence!’
‘So it was you, then,’ Harry said, remembering the school logbooks.
‘What was?’
‘In the school records,’ Harry explained. ‘I found mention of the film. That some parents hadn’t been too happy about it, one in particular because of concerns for his daughter. And that was you.’
‘Yes, it was me,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘Bugger all good it did!’
‘But why were you so worried?’ Jenny asked. ‘Couldn’t you just have kept Sally at home?’
‘Yes, we could,’ Mr Rawson said, ‘but we didn’t want her to be singled out. Can you imagine it? Being the only kid kept home because your parents didn’t want you to see a film that everyone else was watching? No, we couldn’t do that. It wasn’t fair. We were there to give Sally the best chance, and part of that had to be about making her life as normal as possible.’
‘But something went wrong, then,’ Harry said. ‘At least I’m assuming it did.’
‘Sally didn’t react well to it,’ Mr Rawson explained, and again Harry could hear the sadness in his voice. ‘In fact, at some point she ran out of the hall screaming, or so I was told. It was too much for her, what was being shown on the screen. She was sensitive to things, so much more so than anyone else. There was an innocence to her, and that film? Well, you may as well have just given her a puppy and then shot it in front of her, that’s how badly affected she was. Nightmares for weeks! It was horrendous! Horrendous!’
‘What happened afterwards?’ Jenny asked. ‘Did the school apologise?’
Mr Rawson shook his head. ‘It wasn’t the school’s fault really,’ he said. ‘They were told to show it by the powers that be, so that’s what they did. I demanded to see it for myself and I was shocked. I’m not a prude, you understand, but really, at what point is a film like that ever appropriate to show to kids?’
Harry absolutely didn’t want the conversation to drift off into the realms of censorship, but he could see that from Mr Rawson’s perspective, there was certainly an argument to be made. ‘So, afterwards, then, what happened with Sally?’ he asked. ‘I’m assuming she got over it eventually.’
Mr Rawson turned his head slowly and the face which came to bare on Harry sent a shudder down his spine. There was a heat behind it, a fierce burning of years-old rage, and he had a sense that he was about to get a taste of what that was actually like.
‘Oh, she would have, I’m sure,’ Mr Rawson said, his voice a quiet, rumbling threat. ‘Yes, she would have, if it hadn’t been for those bastard kids . . .’
Chapter Thirty-One
Harry had an idea as to exactly who Mr Rawson was referring, but he wasn’t about to put words into the old man’s mouth. ‘Which kids?’ he asked. ‘What happened?’
‘You know which kids!’ Mr Rawson growled. ‘I don’t need to give you the names, I’m sure.’
‘Actually, you do,’ Jenny said. ‘We’re here to record what you’re saying, to ask questions. We’re not here to provide information.’
Her reply was harder than Harry had expected it to be, but he was pleased by that. Whatever had happened to Mr Rawson’s daughter, they still had to maintain distance, to be objective, and to not be pulled in to being a part of whatever it was that was spooling out before them.
‘Capstick,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘John Bastard Capstick, and his little gang of Apaches! Yes, that was it, I remember now! They called themselves that after that godawful film, didn’t they?’
‘Go on,’ Harry said, encouraging the old man to keep talking, because even if Mr Rawson’s confession was a wonderful piece of fiction, he was pretty sure that the background to it wasn’t, and he had already learned a few things, so perhaps more was to come, which would help.
‘He was a bully,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘Sally was never on his radar because she was so looked after by the staff, by everyone at the school. And he obviously had other people he preferred to pick on. But when it happened, when she ran out of that hall? He must have seen her as an easy target.’
‘So he bullied her?’ Jenny asked.
‘Bullied is such a tame word to describe the abject torment that boy and his friends put our daughter though,’ Mr Rawson snarled, the words
