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 discovered that he was part of a wide and well-connected paedophile ring. Obviously there couldn't have been a great deal of evidence against any of them for anything, but something about them must have led him to believe that it was they, not her father, who had murdered Heidi. This would have put him in a terrible position, made worse by the fact that, according to what Thadeus had told me, John Robes had committed suicide in prison several years earlier. Unable to tell anyone else of their possible involvement for fear of what it would do to his own reputation, it may well have been this knowledge, coupled with his unending sense of guilt, that had pushed Barron into premature retirement.
However, like all coppers, he could never entirely let go. So when the Met issued a rallying call for retired detectives to come back and help in London's burgeoning murder investigations, he'd volunteered. I don't suppose he'd known at the time how much the Malik/Khan case impinged on the one that had caused him so much pain, but it wouldn't have been that difficult for him to make the connection once he'd found out Ann Taylor's real identity. The problem, from Barron's perspective, was that no one on the investigation seemed that interested in Ann's death or the light her testimony of child abuse years earlier might throw on the case, so he'd used the North London Echo's investigative journalist, Emma Neilson, to publicize his suspicions. He'd fed her information, ignorant of her own duplicitous role, hoping that her articles would prompt a rethink of strategy within the investigation. I don't suppose Emma had been too keen to draw attention to the fact that Ann's death might not have been suicide, but she would have had little choice but to adhere to Barron's wishes and write the articles if she wanted him to remain onside.
And then Barron had found out something that suddenly made him a dangerous liability. It could well have been the name of someone else involved. He'd probably even confided to Emma who it was, and, in doing so, sealed his own fate. She'd lured him to an isolated meeting place, doubtless with the promise of information of her own, and had then silenced him for ever, nearly succeeding in getting me arrested in the process. Very neat. And very ruthless. She really had been a cunning operator.
But something nagged at me, something that I just couldn't get out of my head. You see, it was the timing. Heidi Robes had been abducted and murdered seven years ago. According to Thadeus, one of Pope's lowlifes had got rid of her body and planted the false evidence of her father's guilt. Tomboy Darke had left London for the Philippines seven years earlier, having made enough money (by his account, as an informant) to set up a business there. One of Tomboy's criminal trades when he'd been back in England had been burglary. Coincidence? Let me tell you something, speaking as a copper: there's no such thing. It was eleven o'clock when I pulled off the M1 just short of Leeds and drove until I found a deserted lay-by. I got out and switched on the mobile, ignoring the banging coming from the boot. As I walked across a piece of scrubland towards some trees, I dialled our dive lodge in Mindoro. It would be a little after seven in the morning there.