Page 32 of The Truth Will Out (DI Sam Cobbs #18)

“Consider it your initiation test. I’m kidding. I would normally have chosen either Liam or Oliver, but they’ve sat in on interviews before; you haven’t. Hopefully, it’ll help you settle in and appreciate your position on the team.”

“I won’t let you down. You’re amazing. You’ve always put others before yourself. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by me over the years; that’s why I jumped at the chance to join your team.”

“I’m delighted to have you on board, Nick. Let’s see what the evil twins have to say. ”

“Blimey, are they related?”

“No, at least, I don’t think they are. It was me fooling around. Who do you reckon we should speak to first?”

“The female.”

“Good, that’s what I thought as well. Right, will you do the honours and ask Jason to bring her in? I’ll be in Interview Room One. The solicitor is ready and waiting for us.”

Michele Turner entered the room, indignation rife in her eyes. Nick said the normal verbiage for the recording, then Sam asked her first question.

“Which do you prefer to be called, Ivy or Michele?”

“Whichever. You’re not going to get anything out of me anyway, so it doesn’t really matter, does it? Er… no comment.”

Sam resisted the urge to roll her eyes and sigh. Instead, she fixed a smile in place and asked another ten questions, to which Turner gave the obligatory ‘no comment’. Then Sam asked the officer at the back of the room to escort Michele back to her cell.

“I had a feeling it would go like this. The next suspect is an ex-copper. Will you be wanting a word with him before the interview begins, Miss Nyland?” Sam asked the duty solicitor.

“It might be a good idea, Inspector.”

Sam and Nick took a ten-minute coffee break before returning to the room. She sat opposite Gareth Penn. His demeanour was entirely different to Turner’s. Sam sensed he was going to be more forthcoming with his answers than his associate.

“Tell me, Mr Penn, when did you meet up with Michele Turner?”

“I can’t remember the exact date. It must have been nearly twenty years ago, during the investigation into Pendle House.

The longer the investigation went on, and the more times I met her, the more I knew we had an affinity for each other.

Before you ask, there was never anything romantic between us.

It was obvious pretty early on that the investigation would fail the minute I set foot in that place.

It didn’t take long for my DCI to warn me off.

He told me to wrap things up early before they got a chance to get going.

You know yourself what that’s like, Inspector.

To me, it was like a red rag to a bull. I spent the next two months going back and forth to the children’s home under the pretext of wrapping up the investigation.

Every time I went back, the hackles rose on my neck.

My gut told me that the man in charge, Foster, was lying and that sinister things were happening there. ”

“I can only imagine the frustration you must have felt. Why didn’t you take it higher?”

“Back in the day, there was a lot of corruption going on in the Force. If you do your research, the superintendent at the time, Morley, was on the take. He was brought down by another DCI and his team. The case of Pendle House got shoved to the side until things were deemed to have settled down. By then, it was too late. The children’s home had already been classed as unsafe by the public, and the council finally grew some balls and shut it down. ”

“So justice was finally served.”

“Hardly. That’s when Ivy—sorry, Michele—and I decided to work together. I uncovered some secret files when Pendle closed down. Don’t ask me how I gained access to the place. I’m sure you can figure that out yourself.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Okay, can you tell me what was in the files?”

“Kids’ names, the dates they arrived, the punishments they received and, in some cases, the manner in which they died.”

“And you did nothing about it?” Sam queried, aghast.

He wagged his finger. “Don’t sound so shocked.

I tried, believe me. No one wanted to know.

They told me to let it go after the home had closed its doors for the final time.

I was ordered to bury it, except I couldn’t.

Night after night, I lay awake, imagining those innocent kids screaming as they were beaten black and blue.

Some of the beatings were so harsh they led to several young girls dying.

Answer me this: would you have walked away?

Done nothing? Our job is to serve the community, not sit back when something as deplorable as this surfaces. ”

“Why has it taken you and Michele this long to start dishing out the justice if, as you say, it affected you the way it did?”

“Michele wanted to avenge their deaths earlier, but she’s been ill. She had cancer. Fortunately, being the fighter she is, she pulled through. She got in touch with me last year and said the time was right.”

“Why kill Claire Owen, a member of my team?”

“She gained access to a file she shouldn’t have, which effectively got the ball rolling. As soon as we knew a copper was digging into Pendle House, it was obvious we would need to come up with a plan to silence those involved, and quickly.”

“Why couldn’t you have just kidnapped and tortured them? That would have been bad enough, but to take their lives, especially Claire’s. All she was doing was her job.”

He shook his head. “She wasn’t; it went deeper than that. Michele recognised her from a photo taken at the home. She helped out there as a child.”

Sam shrugged. “So did a lot of people. We found the photo, the one you’re referring to. There were a lot of other children wearing a uniform similar to Claire’s. We assumed they were volunteers from a nearby school.”

“Ah, yes. But the others didn’t witness a beating first-hand. Claire did; she chose to say nothing.”

Sam and Nick exchanged a concerned glance.

“She was just a child herself. What could she have done about it?”

“Spoken out. I don’t have to tell you that there have been a lot of high-profile cases of abuse over the years. The people who have remained silent are just as much to blame as the abusers themselves. Don’t you agree?”

He had a point. Which was why, deep down, Sam was struggling to forgive Rhys.

“I’ve got you thinking about that now, haven’t I?” Penn said.

“You have, simply because none of it makes any sense: the length of time you’ve waited, the manner in which you chose to silence, or should I say kill, your victims; the way you kidnapped Rhys but kept him alive. Why?”

“Because Michele had plans for him.”

“Such as? ”

“No comment.”

That’s where the interview effectively ended, because every question Sam asked after that was met with the same response. She nodded for Nick to end the interview, and Penn was returned to his cell.

The rest of the day was spent with the team, filling in the necessary paperwork for the CPS and tying up any loose ends.