was my little girl. And you've murdered her. You may as well do the same to me. It's all over now.'
'Not quite, it isn't. I've got some questions for you. If you answer them, I'll make it quick. If you don't, it'll be slow and it'll be painful.'
'Fuck you, Milne,' he spat, sending flecks of thick white saliva onto my jeans. 'I'm not going to make your life any easier. Our secrets will die with us and there's nothing you or any other bastard can do about it. Because you've got nothing left to threaten me with. The only thing you can do is end my life, and I'm ready for that now. Today's as good a day to die as any.' He spread his arms out, welcoming my final shot. 'So go on, do your worst.'
So I did.
I did things to him that I'm ashamed of, because those things debased me and dragged me far too close to his dank, black level. I ignored his cries for mercy, I ignored the blood that splattered my clothes, I ignored the stomach-churning disgust that grew as I applied the pressure. I ignored everything except the task of making him talk, knowing full well that both the ghosts of my past and the ghosts of his would never forgive me if he didn't.
And talk he did. In the end, he told me everything, and when he'd finished, I bent down and used the pistol that Nicholas Tyndall had provided me with to shoot him once in the head, an act which put us both out of our misery. I think at that moment he was pleased to go. Not because he really was in pain, although doubtless there was an element of that, but for other less obvious reasons. I genuinely believe that somewhere in his dark heart there was a part that was weighed down heavily with guilt, particularly where Emma was concerned. I believe that he loved her, and I believe too that she loved him. It was a corrupt, twisted love but it was there nevertheless, and by his actions when she was a child, he'd betrayed that love, and knew it.
It didn't make me feel any more sorry for him. Eric Thadeus had ended the life of Heidi Robes, and in doing so had sentenced her father to a life behind bars for a crime of which he was not only innocent, but also a victim. Only the cruellest of minds would have countenanced that. Thadeus was scum. He deserved everything he got. But Emma? I tried not to think about her.
Instead, I turned away and left them there together.
44
Eric Thadeus told me that Jason Khan died — and Asif Malik died with him — because of a television programme.
This, effectively, was what started everything off. Jason had known for some time about the abuse his girlfriend, Ann Taylor, had suffered at the hands of her father and his so-called friends in the days when she still lived with him. Her trial for GBH had taken place before Jason met her, and having come to terms with the details of her past herself, she'd told him everything when they'd become lovers, including the fact that she'd witnessed a murder seven years before.
Thadeus confirmed that the murder victim had been Heidi Robes, and that she'd been killed during a violent sex game that had got out of control. Usually the parties they held never went that far, or so he'd claimed. I wasn't so sure.
Thadeus called his group of paedophiles the Hunters, and there was a perverse hint of pride in his voice when he mentioned their name. One of the Hunters, and a participant on that night, was Les Pope. Pope had been charged with getting rid of Heidi's body and framing her father, John, in order to keep suspicion as far away as possible from the group. According to Thadeus, Pope had used one of his lowlife clients to do the dirty work, something that the client had obviously done very efficiently, given how things had turned out.
Even when Ann's account of the murder became public some years later, and the second participant from that night, Richard Blacklip, was subsequently arrested, things still hadn't got out of hand. Blacklip got bail, was supplied with a false passport and a ticket to Manila, and then it was simply a matter of Pope telephoning Tomboy to organize his murder, thereby avoiding the possibility of a problematic trial, where the truth of the Robes murder might have come out.
And up until two months earlier, the truth looked like it might have remained buried for ever. I'm sure it would have done, too, if it hadn't been for the television programme.
I don't suppose either Jason Khan or Ann Taylor made a habit of watching Newsnight, BBC2's late-evening current affairs programme, but for some reason — call it fate, if you like — they were both sat in front of it on the evening when the producers chose to interview the newly installed Lord Chief Justice, Tristram Parnham- Jones.
I still wonder what Ann's reaction must have been. She'd never seen the face of the man in the black leather mask — the most violent of all her father's 'friends' — but she remembered his voice clearly enough. Would always remember the smooth, controlling tones of the person who'd molested her and then taken a knife to a screaming and pleading Heidi Robes. And now this man — who, years later, must have continued to haunt her dreams — was the one on the television talking. There was, she was adamant, no mistake.
But what could she say? The police hadn't found any evidence to back up the claims made at her trial regarding the murder she'd witnessed, and no one had been charged in connection with it. Who was going to believe her now, if she started accusing the most senior judge in the land of being a child murderer on account of his voice? I could see her point. They'd think she was mad. She'd already been threatened with a spell in a psychiatric institution once, and would be fully aware that claims like that, from someone with her background, would probably get her carted straight off to one.
But Jason was different. Jason was a street thug and a hustler, whatever his rushed conversion to Islam might have suggested, and he would have sensed an opportunity to make some serious money. His problem, of course, was how to use the potentially explosive information he was holding to best effect, so he turned to his solicitor — a man he knew to be corrupt — for help organizing some form of lucrative blackmail.
What Jason didn't know was that Pope was only representing him in legal matters in order to remain close to Ann and keep tabs on what she was or wasn't saying. The Hunters, it seemed, were very careful and very thorough, and initially that thoroughness paid off. Pope strung Jason along, while simultaneously planning his murder. But Jason must have got wind of what was going on, because he'd phoned Asif Malik, a senior detective and fellow Muslim, requesting that they meet up urgently. Presumably (although no one knows for sure), Jason was going to spill the beans.
His phone, however, was being tapped on Thadeus's orders, and the call was picked up by the Hunters, who were now keen to get him in the ground as soon as possible. Billy West watched Jason leave his home to go to the meeting, and instead of killing him there and then and saving Malik's life, he'd got greedy and shot them both.
There had been five men present on the night of the Heidi Robes murder. Five Hunters: Eric Thadeus; Les Pope; Richard Blacklip; a man called Wise who, Thadeus told me, had died of cancer three years previously; and Tristram Parnham-Jones.
Only Parnham-Jones still survived.
45
I left the house the way I'd come in and headed back to the Jaguar, dialling 999 as promised, to call an ambulance for Bill.
I couldn't hear anything from Theo in the boot when I reached the car, so I got inside, turned on the engine and started driving. I had no idea where I was going.
As I drove, I thought through the case, and in particular Simon Barron's part in it. How had he got so close to Emma and Thadeus, when everyone else on the investigation was convinced that the man behind the slayings was Nicholas Tyndall? I'd never know, of course, but as a former detective myself I could surmise. My guess was that Barron had realized some years ago that by convicting John Robes of the murder of his daughter, he'd made a terrible mistake. I felt sure that somewhere further down the line he'd come across the name Richard Blacklip and
