Reckless Endangerment by Graham Ison Page B

room at Fulham police station in Heckfield Road. It was apparent that the confident, almost cocky plumber we’d interviewed at his home in West Drayton had reverted to type, replaced by the obsequious ex-con.
    Dave turned on the recording machine and announced who was present.
    ‘Twenty-eight years ago you were convicted of a burglary at a dwelling house in Harwich, Mr Miller,’ I began.
    ‘It was a mistake,’ said Miller.
    ‘They always say that,’ murmured Dave.
    ‘But it’s true,’ protested Miller. ‘It was my mate’s fault, see. It was just after midnight and we’d been out clubbing. My mate reckoned as how he’d lost his key and he asked me to help him get into his house without waking up his parents. I’d just got through a ground floor window round the back when I was grabbed by the bloke who lived there. Far from being in bed, him and his missus had been watching telly. Well, you could’ve knocked me down with a feather. His wife must’ve got straight on the blower because the next thing I knew was the law turning up. By that time, my mate had scarpered and I got nicked. Turned out it wasn’t his house at all, but a drum he’d fancied screwing. I still got done for it, though.’
    ‘Didn’t you know where your mate lived, then?’ Dave was obviously having a problem swallowing this tale.
    ‘Of course not,’ said Miller. ‘I wouldn’t’ve got talked into it if I’d known it wasn’t his house. It was only later I learned he’d been done for burglary before. Some mate he turned out to be.’
    ‘And the rape of a fifteen-year-old girl called Janet Smith?’ I asked. I didn’t believe Miller’s tale about the burglary, but I intended to return to it later.
    ‘That wasn’t rape. I was stitched up.’ Miller leaned forward and placed his arms on the table, implying that he was about to impart a confidence. ‘We’d met at a nightclub down Harwich—’
    ‘That’s where you were living at the time, was it?’ asked Dave.
    ‘Yeah, I was born and bred there. Can’t you hear my Essex accent?’ said Miller, with a twisted grin. ‘Anyway, me and Janet had been going steady for about six months and we’d just got engaged. We was in love, see. And it was her what suggested having sex. She said it was OK, now we was going to get spliced, and we took precautions an’ all. But after, when she got home, her mum cottoned on straight off what she’d been up to. That’s the trouble with mothers, they can always tell. Anyhow, Janet got the third degree from her parents and they threatened to throw her out on the street if she didn’t say I’d raped her.’
    ‘And I suppose it was her parents who called the police?’ I said.
    ‘ Called ’em?’ Miller scoffed heatedly. ‘They marched her straight down to the bloody nick, didn’t they? Well, it turned out she was only fifteen. She’d told me she was nineteen, coming up twenty. Anyway, the next thing I know is I’m nicked and I went down for seven years. The prosecuting brief had her tied up in knots in the box. The poor little bitch was in tears by the time he’d finished with her, and she eventually admitted that she was only fifteen and the brief conned her into saying that I’d forced her into having sex.’
    ‘And did you?’ asked Dave. ‘Force her, I mean.’
    ‘Of course I never. She was willing enough, but it was all down to her bloody parents. They’d told her that she wasn’t old enough to give her consent and that meant it was automatically rape, whether she’d agreed or not. But that was all bullshit because after I got banged up I shared a cell with a bent solicitor and he told me what the law was. I thought about appealing, but he said I’d got no chance. And he said that if Janet changed her statement now, then she’d get done for perjury and she’d finish up in the nick an’ all.’
    ‘Did you ever see this girl again?’ I asked.
    ‘Of course I did, and you’ve met her an’ all, Mr Brock. I’m married to