I put the car into gear and pulled away.
39
The following afternoon, at a hotel in Somerset, I put the tape from Raymond's car into the video recorder in my room, and watched for thirty seconds. It was enough. I have seen many dreadful things in my time. I've been an inner-city copper for close to twenty years so there aren't that many sights that can shock me. But this one did.
Molly Hagger was on the tape. She was sitting on a bed in a sparsely furnished room, her hands tied behind her back. She was naked but for a pair of black frilly knickers but she still looked thirteen, maybe even younger, and she was in great distress, sobbing fearfully. A naked man appeared in front of her, side-on to the camera. He was balding, middle-aged, and worryingly thin. I vaguely recognized his face. I think, perhaps, that I'd seen him before on the television. He had a hungry look in his eyes and an angry erection. As I watched he struck Molly round the face and called her a dirty little whore. There was an intense pleasure in his voice. He grabbed her by her curly hair and pulled her towards him, slapping her again. She cried out in pain as he forced her to her knees and thrust himself roughly into her mouth.
I switched off then. There was no point in watching any more. It was too distressing. And I knew, without a doubt, that he had ended up killing little Molly Hagger, and that Raymond had filmed it all in glorious technicolour. The hardest part was realizing that outwardly here was a respectable man who had probably shaken hands with royalty before now; the sort of person who appeared on television to give his weighty opinion on events in the world of Customs and Excise. The sort of man who underneath the façade is a foul, deceitful monster who can keep that fact hidden from almost everyone who knows him.
An hour later I posted the tape, along with a detailed report on what I believed had gone on, to DS Asif Malik. As promised, I also posted a briefer version of the report, careful to take out any mention of Nigel Grayley so as not to prejudice any future trial, to Roy Shelley at the North London Echo. In neither report did I mention my own part in the affair, although I had little doubt that that would become common knowledge soon enough.
An hour after that, I paid my bill and continued my drive westwards in the rental car I'd hired in the name of Mr Marcus Baxter, a travelling salesman from Swindon.
Epilogue
I approach the Philippine Airlines desk with a smile, and get a smile in return from the Oriental girl. She's older than her colleagues, somewhere in her thirties, and I expect she's the one in charge. She greets me happily as if it really is genuinely good to see me, and asks me the usual questions about whether it was me who packed my suitcases or not, and all the rest of it. I answer everything correctly, and we have a quick banter about what the Philippines are like at this time of year. 'I've never been there, you know,' I say, and she tells me that I won't be disappointed. 'No,' I reply, thinking that it's been years since I sat on a palm-fringed beach, 'I know I won't.' She briefly checks my ticket, sees that it's all in order, and flashes me another smile as the cases begin their journey along the conveyor belt.
'Have an enjoyable trip, Señior Baxter.'
'Thanks very much. I will.'
I move away from the desk and head towards passport control and my new life. I'm not nervous. There's no need to be. Three months have passed since that night at Raymond Keen's house and, in a land of constantly changing images and an ever-shrinking attention span, I am already yesterday's man. I look different, too. I wear a full beard now and glasses, and my face looks fatter. I've put on weight elsewhere too, mainly round the waist, the result of country cooking and quitting the cigarettes. You wouldn't recognize me from the photos they showed in the papers. No-one would.
And I feel better too, like a new man; a man who's put the past behind him. There are regrets, of course. That Carla went to her death so soon after I'd called her a liar is something that will stay with me for a long time. But, in the end, the past is the past, and at least I can safely say that I have achieved far more as an individual than I ever achieved as a police officer. Thanks to evidence found on Raymond's premises and my reports to Malik and Shelley, Mehmet Illan and at least half a dozen of his associates are behind bars awaiting trial for their involvement in one of the largest people-smuggling operations in British history. Nigel Grayley, a married father of four, will never go on trial for his crimes, however. Four days after his arrest he slashed his wrists with a smuggled razor blade and bled to death in his cell. An inquiry is now under way to ascertain how he got hold of the blade, but no-one's shedding any tears, and the tabloids celebrated the news, which was fair enough. The world is a better place without him.
The remains of Molly Hagger and the other girls have not been found. Most people accept that the secret of their whereabouts died with Raymond, but there are others, myself included, who think that maybe Illan could shed some light on the mystery. But he isn't talking, and neither is anyone else who might know. In the end, you can't really blame them. No-one wants to be associated with that particular crime. Predictably, Danny hadn't made it to Jamaica. A week after Raymond's death his body was discovered with gunshot wounds in the boot of a stolen car in the Heathrow Airport long-stay car park after a security guard had detected a particularly repulsive stench coming from it. I was sad but not surprised when I read about it in the papers.
One piece of good news that has come out of all this, though, is that Anne Taylor is alive and well. I'd mentioned in my report that she'd gone missing too, even though Kover had denied abducting her, but a few days later she turned up in one piece, having gone on a jaunt to Southend with another, older girl in search of a new market for their services. She's still heading down a rocky road, one that could yet put her in an early grave, but at least for the moment she continues to breathe the same air as you and I.
Mark Wells had the murder charges against him dropped and has begun legal proceedings against the Metropolitan Police for wrongful arrest, demanding an estimated two hundred thousand pounds in compensation. However, his case has not been helped by the fact that less than a month after his release he was rearrested after being secretly filmed trying to sell crack cocaine and underage girls to an undercover police officer. He's been in custody ever since.
And so, through all this, there's only one participant who hasn't been brought to justice. One Dennis Milne, multiple murderer. I was specifically and publicly named as a suspect in the Traveller's Rest killings two days after the discovery of Raymond's corpse, and though there's been what police describe as a major manhunt, I've so far managed to evade capture. I suspect now that I'll evade it for ever. I've got enough money for now and I've got a friend in the Philippines for whom I can do some work when funds finally begin to run low. I know I'll always be able to rely on old Tomboy.
Do I deserve to escape? I've thought about that a lot these past months. I've done great wrong, there can be no doubt about that, and if I could be put in the same position again knowing even half of what I know now, there's no way I would have pulled the trigger on that cold, wet night and sent three innocent men to their graves. But you can't change the sins of the past, you can only work to limit those of the future, and try to carry out deeds that help to make the world a slightly better place. In that, I think I have been at least partially successful. Would the world be a better place without me in it? On balance, I think probably not. But then I would say that, wouldn't I?
And to those who may one day sit in judgement? What would I say to them?
Just two words.
Forgive me.