choice. Plead not guilty to murder and face an almost certain conviction based on the evidence. Or plead guilty to manslaughter and claim that I stabbed Benedict in self-defence when he got violent, even though I couldn’t recollect how it had happened.
‘Look at it this way,’ Ferris had said. ‘If a jury finds you guilty of murder it’ll be life. If you go down for manslaughter you could be out in four or five years. That’s not the end of the world. And having got to know you a little I’m sure you can handle it.’
He’d been right. I had managed to cope. But ironically the period after my trial had proved more of a struggle for Ferris.
Something happened to make him kill himself. My lawyer sent me a copy of Southampton’s local evening newspaper, The Post. On the front page was a story about how detective Neil Ferris had jumped off a railway bridge into the path of a train. His wife, Pamela, was quoted as saying that she had no idea why he did it, and he didn’t leave a note.
That night I lay on my bunk feeling sorry for his wife and daughters. But I wasn’t able to dredge up any sympathy for the man himself.
‘Do you plan on seeing Ash?’ Scar said.
‘Of course.’
‘What makes you think he’ll talk to you?’
I shrugged. ‘No reason why he shouldn’t.’
‘So what do you think he can tell you that you don’t already know?’
‘Maybe nothing, but he might be able to shed light on a few things that have bugged me.’
I drank some champagne and glanced out of the window. The rain had stopped, and the sun was trying to force itself through the cloud cover. A lump rose in my throat again. I still couldn’t believe I wouldn’t be sleeping in that dingy cell tonight.
‘Anne Benedict has moved house,’ Scar was saying. ‘I gather it happened soon after the trial. She’s now living in Eastleigh on the outskirts of Southampton. Both her sons have moved out so she’s by herself.’
Anne Benedict. The distraught wife of the victim. As she’d stared at me across the courtroom the thing that had struck me most had been her blank expression. What I’d expected to see were eyes filled with hate, but instead they were just devoid of life. That, I thought at the time, seemed strange. The Post – for whom her husband had worked – had described them as a close and happy family. But of course that was crap. Happily married men don’t pay for sex with prostitutes. I was keen to talk to the widow to find out what, if anything, she knew about what had happened.
‘Finally we come to Joe Strickland,’ Scar said. ‘He is a prominent Hampshire businessman with a few million quid to his name.’
Strickland’s name had come up during the investigation because a few weeks earlier he had made threats against Rufus Benedict. The reporter had made an official complaint to the police, and Strickland was given a verbal warning.
There was no question that Strickland would have been the prime suspect if the evidence against me hadn’t been so overwhelming. Benedict, The Post’s long-serving investigative reporter, had been probing Strickland’s business activities and was apparently close to publishing a story about him involving large-scale criminal activities, including corruption of local government officials. But the article was never written because Benedict was stabbed to death.
‘I’ve got Strickland’s address,’ Scar said. ‘He lives in a big detached house in an upmarket part of the city.’
‘Is he married?’
‘He’s got a wife and daughter. The wife’s name is Lydia and she runs one of his companies. The daughter lives with her boyfriend in London. He made his money as a property developer and now has his hand in lots of local pies, some of them illicit by all accounts.’
‘I’m looking forward to talking to him,’ I said.
Scar furrowed her brow. ‘Do you really think he’ll be up for it? He’ll probably tell you to fuck off.’
‘But I won’t,’ I said.
‘Then he’ll have you arrested.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Then maybe he’ll have you killed.’
‘Now that would be an admission of guilt.’
Scar rolled her eyes and filled my glass. I swigged back the last of the champagne and said, ‘Thanks for helping me out on this. You’ve been a gem.’
‘To be honest it’s been fun,’ she said. ‘It beat looking for a full-time job as soon as I got out. And it’s put me back in contact with some old friends on the coast.’
Scar had been released from prison two months earlier after serving four and a half years inside for cutting off the testicles of the man who raped her and disfigured her face. It was yet another example of cock-eyed justice, and it made my blood boil. The judge took a dim view of the fact that she went to the man’s house, broke in and attacked him while his wife was out shopping. But he accepted there were extenuating circumstances and was lenient when it came to sentencing.
Scar was no stranger to Southampton, having lived most of her life in neighbouring Portsmouth, where she long ago established a reputation as a bit of a tearaway. So when I’d told her what I planned to do she’d offered to help – after first trying to talk me out of it.
She got a part-time job serving behind the bar in a club and agreed to do some legwork for me when she wasn’t working. I gave her access to one of my accounts in which I had some money stashed. That in itself was a mark of how much I trusted her.
‘So are you ready to head south?’ she said.
I put my glass down and stood up unsteadily.
‘You’ve got me drunk,’ I said. ‘But it feels good.’
Scar smiled up at me and reached for my hand. Hers was soft and warm.
‘Do you want to go straight to the hotel?’ she said.
I shook my head. ‘First I want you to take me to the cemetery.’
The champagne had gone straight to my head, but I was determined to stay awake during the ninety-minute drive to Southampton. The sun finally penetrated the cloud cover, turning it into a glorious day.
Fields rolled away into the distance on either side of the M3. Traffic whooshed and hummed and the sound of it was strangely soporific. Lorries the size of small houses. White vans weaving from lane to lane. Brake lights flashing on and off. Overhead gantries issuing threats and warnings.
It all became a blur to me as I sat back and listened to Westlife oozing out of the car’s speakers. As we drove past Basingstoke, Scar asked me about some of the inmates we’d left behind, especially Monica Sash who, like me, was serving time for a crime she didn’t commit.
‘She wants me to clear her name after I clear my own,’ I said.
‘Eh?’
I shrugged. ‘Told me her family will pay
