Free Dead or Alive by Ken McCoy Page A

reputation back then. It was he who advised them to cuff him.
    â€˜I may turn violent. That’s why you’re arresting me.’
    â€˜Yes sir,’ said one of them.
    Sep didn’t correct him in his form of address. The rain was now drenching him and the constables. The young people and the landlady stood in the shelter of a doorway to watch proceedings as Sep was put in the back of the car just as the ambulance was arriving. It was waved away by one of the constables.
    â€˜You should have let them take me to hospital,’ said Sep, ‘with one of you in the ambulance and one of you following in the car.’
    â€˜Are you injured, sir?’
    â€˜I’m mentally disturbed and need treatment that I can’t get at the station.’
    â€˜We can take you to St James’s if you like.’
    â€˜It’s OK. Just take me to the station and get me the duty doctor.’

TEN
27 April

Nunroyd Secure Psychiatric Clinic, North Yorkshire
    â€˜Y ou killed a man,’ said Professor Gilmartin.
    Sep shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t.’
    â€˜Explain that to me.’
    â€˜For a start, that man accidentally dying in police custody is not the reason I’m in here. Had he not been epileptic, I’d still be a detective inspector with the West Yorkshire police.’
    â€˜Had he not been a suspected paedophile would he still be alive?’
    â€˜Who knows? The CPS found I had no case to answer and here you are, still banging on about it. The coroner’s verdict was “sudden unexplained death in epilepsy”.’
    â€˜Tell me about him.’
    â€˜He was sexually abusing children. The evidence we’d collected was cast-iron, not to mention sickening. To me he wasn’t a human being; he was an enormous, filthy pig with a foul mind and chins down to his belly button.’
    â€˜So, you’re glad he’s dead.’
    â€˜It was a result, no doubt about that. His death’s made the lives of a lot of good people much easier.’
    â€˜I assume you mean the victims?’
    â€˜Yeah, and their parents. He did a lot of lasting damage did Johnstone. Dying is probably the only decent thing he’s ever done in his life. I’m just pissed off that I’m carrying the can for it. His death attracted a lot of publicity and the IPCC needed a scapegoat to show that the police can’t get away with a death in custody without someone being punished. They also took great care to cover up why he’d been arrested. I’m guessing you thought it was a driving offence – driving under the influence or some such thing.’
    The look on her face told him he’d hit the mark.
    â€˜I’m right, aren’t I?’
    â€˜You see yourself as a scapegoat, do you?’ she said.
    â€˜Of course I’m a scapegoat.’
    â€˜What about the incident in the pub?’ she asked him.
    â€˜Well, I’ll give you that one. That was possibly my own fault but there were mitigating circumstances. You see, to handle my getting the sack and my wife shacking up with Detective Inspector Cope, and my daughter not wanting to know me, and my colleagues turning on me, etcetera, etcetera, I needed a comfortable place to go that wasn’t the tatty bedsit I’m living in right now.’
    â€˜You mean everyone turned against you for no reason?’
    â€˜No truthful reason. My wife, from whom I was already separated, claimed I’d assaulted her, which wasn’t true, but it didn’t stop her reporting it to the police – or to my colleagues, as they’re otherwise known. It was her word against mine and she had the cuts and bruises to back her story up.’
    â€˜Which she didn’t get from you?’
    â€˜No. I think she got someone to thump her so she could have some bruises. Don’t ask me why.’
    â€˜She might just have fallen.’
    â€˜They weren’t those type of bruises. There wasn’t enough