A Dreadful Past (25 page)

Yellich and Carmen Pharoah dropped their cups into the waste bin, one after the other, and re-entered the interview room. They sat side by side at the table across from Margaret ‘Mad Molly' Silcock and her solicitor, who also sat side by side.

Yellich reached up to the side of the wall above the table and switched on the tape-recording machine, causing the twin cassettes to spin slowly and the red recording light to glow softly. ‘The interview is recommenced at 15.40 hours. I am Detective Sergeant Yellich of Micklegate Bar Police Station. I am now going to ask all present to re-introduce themselves for the benefit of the tape.'

‘Detective Constable Pharoah, also of Micklegate Bar Police Station.'

‘Laurence Grove, solicitor and notary public, of Elliot, Burden, Woodland and Lake, St Leonard's Place, York.'

‘Margaret Silcock, of nowhere now.' Silcock once again spoke sourly.

‘My client is willing to help the police all she can,' Laurence Grove spoke in polished received pronunciation, ‘but she wishes for something in return.'

‘We don't, and the Crown Prosecution Service does not, plea-bargain,' Yellich replied. ‘Any help given by your client will, of course, be noted and may be reflected favourably in sentencing or in any parole application your client makes.'

‘It isn't for me … I want nothing.' Silcock spoke for herself. ‘It's for my daughter; she's been a silly girl and she's gone and got herself into trouble with the police. She's been arrested and is being held on remand. She's still only nineteen. She's charged with possession with intent to supply but it's a class B drug … cannabis. It's not like she was arrested with a ton and a half of heroin under her bed but it's enough for a gaol sentence and I don't want her to go down the same road that I went down in life. I want more for her. She deserves more. If you drop the charges before she comes to trial I'll give you all you need to nail German and Hayes. I promise, you'll be able to hang them out to dry with what I can give you.'

‘It's not our call,' Yellich replied coldly. ‘It's up to the CPS.'

‘I think you and the Crown Prosecution Service will be most interested in what my client has to tell you,' Laurence Grove said in his soft voice. It was the assured and calm voice of an educated man, so Yellich thought. ‘Most interested. I was certainly interested.'

‘It's a good deal for you,' Molly Silcock persisted. ‘German and Hayes – they're clever, you won't get anywhere near them. You won't get within a mile of them, either of them – not without help from me, you won't. And I reckon you're right, Mr Yellich: they would have murdered little Gerry Womack to stop him talking, and you're right that they will be wanting to murder me for exactly the same reason. With me and Womack off the scene, they'll live to collect their inflation-proof pension and retire by the sea, and they'll do that knowing you can suspect what you want but you can't arrest or charge them without evidence or unless someone is prepared to confess to being part of what they did. And to be able to prove their involvement.'

‘And that person is you?' Yellich added. ‘Is that what you're saying?'

‘Yes,' Molly Silcock sat stone-faced, ‘that person is me. I'll confess and I'll give details you can check.'

‘So how many assaults are we talking about?' Carmen Pharoah asked.

‘The taxi driver, the working girl, the old woman and the young man who was probably a university student,' Molly Silcock replied. ‘Just four assaults. That is as a gang of four of us but German and Hayes had earlier victims first as individuals and then as a pair, so they said, but I don't know any details of those.'

‘So, as a gang it was four that we know about.' Yellich folded his arms. ‘How many murders?'

‘Twelve,' Silcock replied in a matter-of-fact manner. ‘We did twelve murders, all told.'

‘Twelve!' Yellich gasped and he and Carmen Pharoah glanced at each other. ‘Twelve?' he repeated. ‘Twelve?'

‘You see, I thought you might be interested in my client's confession.' Laurence Grove smiled. ‘For what she can give you … for what statement she is prepared to sign I think the Crown Prosecution Service might look favourably upon her very modest request in respect of her daughter.'

‘Do you know,' Yellich sat back in his chair, ‘Mr Grove, I think they very well might. I can make a phone call, test their response to the offer.' He looked at Silcock, who remained expressionless. ‘We know about the young boy who was deliberately knocked off his bike by a speeding, car, we know about the farmworker who was stabbed, we know about the dog walker who was found hanging from a tree branch with one of his feet still attached to his dog by the leash … that animal was so traumatized it had to be put down … we know about the three members of the Middleton family … and others. We know there was a gang of four and you were linked because of a distinctive jacket you used to wear, Molly – it had the logo of the San Francisco 49ers or some such sports team's name on the back.'

‘It was the Miami Dolphins,' Silcock advised. ‘It still is. I still have the jacket. The Miami Dolphins are an American football team. I liked the jacket. I kept it. Never threw it out.'

‘My client is confessing,' Laurence Grove protested. ‘You don't need to tell her how she can be linked to the other three gang members.'

Yellich nodded. ‘Fair enough although I was really just going over the facts in my head. So we know about eight murders. What were the other four?'

‘They were all out of the York area,' Silcock explained. ‘There was one in Hull, one up in Newcastle, one in Leeds and one in Lincoln. German had a car, you see – we went all over in it. In fact, the first murder we did was over in Hull – an old boy who was putting his household rubbish out early one dark night. German felled him with a golf club. He went down instantly and Hayes made sure with a claw hammer. Me and Womack – well, we waded in with our boots. He wasn't going to get up again.'

‘Yes, we heard about Womack's winkle-pickers,' Yellich replied with distaste.

‘They were deadly,' Silcock added. ‘He always used them to kick people in the head if he could. That was his favourite target area. The head. He could do as much damage with those shoes as German with his club and Hayes with his hammer. I suppose I didn't help either. I was angry about some things and I used to kick as hard as I could. Both me and Womack used to kick that hard because we wanted to stay in with German and Hayes, but also because we were both angry about some things in life. I dare say we needed a victim. Quite a lot of victims, really. German and Hayes seemed to enjoy the violence of it all but me and Womack did it because we were angry and we needed victims. There was no other reason.'

Yellich and Carmen Pharoah remained silent. Laurence Grove shrugged one of his shoulders and gave an ‘I-told-you-so' look to Yellich and Pharoah.

‘We did the boy on the bike on the same night we did the old boy in Hull,' Silcock continued, unprompted. ‘We were driving back, all excited and worked up after our first kill, and German saw the boy ahead – quiet road, dark night – drove up behind him, knocked him flying and we all cheered him for doing that. Then German, he was all for taking another victim that night. “Let's make it a hat-trick”. I remember him saying that because I didn't know what a hat-trick was. I still don't. But he wanted another victim. He was really fired up. Much more than Hayes and me and Womack were. Much more.'

‘A hat-trick is scoring three points in a row,' Carmen Pharoah explained. ‘It comes from the game of cricket in Victorian times. If a bowler took three wickets with three successive balls a hat was passed round the spectators for people to put money in as a tribute to the bowler, and the money in the hat was presented to the bowler at the end of the match.'

‘I never knew that was the origin of the term.' Laurence Grove smiled at Carmen Pharoah. ‘Thank you.'

‘It's just something I learned along the way.' Carmen Pharoah returned the smile. ‘But that's what German meant, Molly.' She looked at Silcock. ‘He wanted three victims in all in the one night.'

‘Oh … I did wonder.' Silcock spoke in a detached, absentminded manner, the earlier sourness having left her voice. ‘Anyway, Hayes said, “No, we must not push things. We'll get away with it if we don't push it … and two in one night – well, that is not a bad start … but we'll leave it like that for tonight”.'

‘So what then, Molly?' Yellich leaned forward. ‘What did you do then?'

‘Well, then we settled down into killing people. It was Hayes who was in charge. He said we should have different types of victims, use different methods … and we had to go out of town for some of them. That way we'd get the thrill but we wouldn't bring the police down on us. We didn't want the police to link them. So some of our victims were young, some were old, some were battered to death, some were knifed – that was in Lincoln, one old woman, strangled by Hayes and German …'

‘They took turns, you mean?' Yellich asked quietly. ‘Took time over it … one after the other?'

‘No,' Molly Silcock explained, ‘they had a length of rope which they looped twice and put it over her head and round her neck. Hayes pulled one end and German pulled the other. Some victims we robbed, some we left with their money and watches and stuff … And Keith Hayes was right – I mean, was he right? The police never saw any link between the murders … and we just kept on killing for the fun of it. The sense of power we got after we'd done a murder … it was the best high I ever had.'

‘When did you stop?' Yellich asked calmly in an otherwise utterly silent interview room. ‘Why did you stop?'

‘After the murder of the family,' Molly Silcock explained, ‘the man, wife and their daughter. After that murder. We knew the girl was blind because Womack's mother cleaned for them and she had the keys to let herself in the house, so Womack took the keys and had copies made and put the original ones back on his old mother's keyring. We killed that family, smashed the house up a bit and took a few things from it to make it look like a burglary which had gone bad, like the burglars were disturbed by the family. Anyway, we were sitting in the pub a couple of nights after that and it was German who said, “That's it for me. Whatever it was that was in me is now gone”, and Keith Hayes said, “Yes, I feel like that as well. No more killing for us. We'll stop now, we'll quit while we're ahead. And we don't see each other, not no more”.' Silcock paused. ‘Then one by one we just got up and walked out of the pub. German went first, then a couple of minutes later Hayes stood up and walked out, then me, leaving Womack to finish his beer and follow us, and we never saw each other again. Except that time I saw German in the magistrates court building but we never spoke. We were never a gang again. In fact, that was the pub we first met in – the George and Dragon.

‘Me and Womack were sitting at a table and German and Hayes were on the next table and Womack said he'd love a victim because he's fed up of being the little bloke that everybody sniggers at, and I said “I know what you mean; I hate those women who look life fashion models, I really hate them”. Hayes must have overheard us because he said, “Perhaps we can help you there – come and sit with us”. So we did. That's how me and Gerry Womack met German and Hayes.'

‘Right,' Yellich breathed deeply, ‘let's get all that in the form of a statement confessing to your part and implicating Womack and German and Hayes. We'll notify the other forces about the murders which took place in their area and they will want to come and take statements from you. I can only take a statement in respect of the assaults and murders you committed in York.'

‘This will help my daughter?' Silcock pleaded.

‘No promises … but yes …' Yellich nodded. ‘I think for this the CPS will drop the charges against your daughter. It's a very good deal you're offering. But, like I said, I can't promise. It will be their decision.'

George Hennessey stood beside the grey metal Home Office-issue filing cabinet which stood beside his desk with his right forearm resting on top of the cabinet. He looked up at the ceiling and then down at the hardwearing carpet on the floor. ‘I don't know,' he said, drumming his fingers on the cabinet. He turned to Yellich. ‘What would you do, Somerled? What would be your recommendation?'

‘Well, they're not going anywhere, sir.' Yellich stood just inside Hennessey's office with his back towards the open doorway. ‘It isn't as though they can disappear into the criminal fraternity and acquire new identities, and importantly, most importantly, they don't know that we're looking for them. If we're right about them they'll still believe that they have the initiative and right now they'll be tracking down Silcock. They can't get to Molly Silcock through her daughter because her daughter is in custody.'

‘So what you're saying,' Hennessey replied, ‘is that they are in a can run but can't hide situation?'

‘I suppose I am, sir.' Yellich nodded. ‘And I'm also saying that they can't run very far even if they do run.'

‘Yes … yes … I think you're right.' Hennessey walked across the floor of his office and looked out of the window at the walls of the city which, by then, were holding a large number of foot passengers; tourists walking slowly looking to their right and left and the locals walking purposefully, ‘walking the walls'. ‘All right, we'll do that: we'll leave it until Monday. You and the team have worked hard this week, covered a lot of ground. Tell them to grab what's left of the weekend. We'll arrest German and Hayes next week. But a clergyman and a probation officer … Heavens, this job is always so full of surprises and the press are going to have a field day. They'll be all over it; they'll be clinging to it like a pair of wet denim jeans. OK, Somerled, have a good weekend. Or as I said, what's left of it.'