When these facts came to light, Clive’s solicitor was engaged in the thankless task of preparing to lodge an appeal against his client’s conviction. In the absence of any new evidence or witnesses he knew this was a total waste of time. Clive stoutly maintained that he had signed a limited confession under duress, and that this had subsequently been doctored to include statements he had never made. Until now his solicitor had never believed this himself, let alone felt that there was the slightest chance of getting anyone else to do so. The Hugh Starkey scandal changed all that. Within weeks a lively media campaign was underway. The quality papers ran thoughtful, heart-searching articles expressing grave and widespread anxieties concerning the present system of policing, while the tabloids slammed and blasted their readers into a state of outraged moral indignation. From one end of the land to the other, the air was redolent with the stink of bent filth.
The first I knew of all this was during one of my occasional walkabouts at the school. Keep everyone on their toes was the idea. I knew it was no use trying to treat the staff as responsible adults. They wouldn’t be working for me if they were. In the teachers’ room I noticed an article pinned to the notice-board with three large felt-tipped exclamation marks beside it. It had been cut out of one of the local free papers. The headline read RESERVOIR VICTIM’S FIRST HUSBAND ALSO DIED MYSTERIOUSLY.
With the help of large photographs of Karen, Dennis, the house in Ramillies Drive, the Elan Valley and the Cherwell boathouse, the ‘exclusive’ article covered a two-page spread. ‘Our own reporter’ first summarized the events leading up to Clive’s conviction and then the ‘recent developments which have created demands for the case to be reopened’. But most of the article was devoted to what was termed ‘an astonishing oversight’ by the police, namely their failure to note the ‘disturbing parallels’ between the circumstances of Karen’s death and that of her first husband, ‘local Chartered Accountant and Rotary Club stalwart Dennis Parsons’.
Since these parallels amounted to no more than the banal coincidence that both Karen and Dennis had ended up in the water, one was initially left with the impression that the article was a feeble attempt to fake a sensational breakthrough where none existed. But the facts as printed were
I have no doubt whatever that this piece was ghost-written by ‘our own reporter’ to a scenario supplied by Clive through his solicitor. The rag in which it appeared was after all an advertising medium, for sale by the column, page or spread. Clive’s advertisement merely took a rather unusual form, that’s all. There was no follow-up in the legitimate press, and I forgot all about the incident until a few weeks later, when my answering machine recorded a call from a Chief Inspector Moss, or some such name.
It was a grey, gloomy day with a bitterly cold easterly wind which had brought the pavement out in grease spots. I had been out for a walk along the canal, and I got home feeling depressed and bewildered, full of disgust for myself and others. In this state of mind the message from the police seemed less alarming than it might otherwise have done. If I had been enjoying the fruits of my crimes more, I might have felt guiltier about them. As it was, I was so miserable that I might as well have been innocent. I called back and made an appointment to see Moss the following morning.
I left the BMW at a cash-and-flash car park and walked to St Aldate’s police station, where I was led upstairs to an interview room on the second floor. A paunchy, balding bloke in his mid-fifties sat doing a crossword puzzle. As I entered, he started whistling a phrase which I recognized with some surprise as the Fate motif from Wagner’s
Moss stared at me for some time as though considering how best to proceed.
‘Several months ago, Clive Reginald Phillips was tried and convicted for the murder of your wife,’ he finally said. ‘Due to various irregularities in the investigative procedure which have recently come to light, that conviction has been ruled unsafe and is about to be set aside.’
I started gasping, as though I’d just run all the way from North Oxford.
‘This will entail various practical consequences,’ Moss went on gloomily. ‘One, of course, is that Phillips will be released from prison.’
‘But he murdered my wife!’
‘I wouldn’t go around saying things like that if I were you, sir. You could find yourself facing charges for criminal libel.’
‘It’s enough to make you despair of British justice!’ I cried, writhing about tormentedly in my chair.
‘Another consequence is that the file on the case will have to be re-examined. Since the Force originally concerned is now the subject of disciplinary action, we in the Thames Valley Police have been asked to take on the task of reviewing the evidence and deciding what further action, if any, to recommend.
He lifted a file from the desk.
‘I have to say that one or two items here appear to corroborate the version of events which Mr Phillips gave at the outset. For example there’s this florist’s assistant who was collecting a Red Star delivery from Banbury station. He remembers seeing two cars parked in the forecourt, one of them a yellow sports car and the other a, quote, red Alfa Romeo, unquote. He was then shown a photograph of a BMW like the one you drive, and he said yes, that was it, he could tell one of those Alfas anywhere.’
I said nothing.
‘Another witness, who was meeting his aunt off the Oxford train, not only confirmed the presence of this second car, but also identified Clive Phillips from a photograph as one of the two men sitting in it having what he described as “a loud argument”.’
‘But none of this was mentioned at the trial!’
‘Quite so, sir. Transcripts of these interviews were communicated by us to our colleagues in Wales, but in the light of the overwhelming evidence of Phillips’s guilt they apparently didn’t consider them relevant to the investigation.’
The door opened to reveal a WPC pushing a trolley laden with styrofoam mugs of tea and coffee.
‘ “Ye blessed souls, that taste the something something of felicity!” declaimed Moss fruitily. ‘Tea for me, please Fliss, since there’s nothing stronger. How about you, sir?’
‘Coffee,’ I croaked.
‘ “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons …” ’
‘It’s a bit early in the morning for Eliot,’ I snapped.
‘A matter of taste,’ Moss replied, patting the woman constable’s bottom as she left. ‘Personally I have excellent taste in poetry, women, music, beer and crime. And I have to say that this business doesn’t do a thing for me. Ah!’
He swooped down on his newspaper.
‘The solution was staring me in the face all along. Simple, really.’
I’d had enough of this cat-and-mouse game.
‘Excuse me, Inspector, but what exactly was it you wished to speak to me about?’
Moss finished filling in his crossword and sipped his tea noisily.
‘Well, sir, the last thing we want to do is waste a lot of time reinvestigating this case when the identity of the murderer has in fact already been established beyond a reasonable doubt.’
He was inviting me to confess! I felt I was going to faint.
‘I’d like to call my solicitor,’ I muttered.
‘What we must remember,’ Moss told the ceiling, ‘is that just because Phillips is being released, that doesn’t mean he’s innocent.’
I stared at him open-mouthed.
‘It doesn’t?’
‘Of course not. All the review board has said is that he wasn’t given a fair trial. It’s entirely a matter of speculation what the outcome might have been if he had.’
‘But that’s ridiculous! You mean a guilty man could be set free because of some technical detail?’
‘Happens all the time. Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do about that, but we do try and prevent the innocent being persecuted as a result. Now if the case were to be reopened, it would of course be very distressing
