Wringer gives a brief nod. ‘Thanks, Doc. I’ll bring them.’
‘And clean this fucking mess up.’ Wolfe leaves the room and heads back to his cell. Nobody stands in his way.
Some say street fights are won with the right attitude. An ability to put aside fear and weigh straight in. Some say they are won by those in the best physical condition. Wolfe knows better. He knows that street fights – specifically those taking place within the close confines of prison walls – are won by a superior knowledge of human anatomy.
Chapter 20
Independent on Sunday, Sunday, 12 October 2008
LOVE’S LABOURS LOSING?
Sandy East goes to meet one of England’s most notorious married couples.
At first glance, Nigel and Carly Upton look like any other recently married pair. She is slender, with sleek, dark hair and an elfin face. He is larger, a strongly built man, albeit unaccustomed to physical exercise in recent years. They sit close together on the sofa, holding hands as they talk to me. Clearly in love, still at the stage where physical contact is regular and important, but mature enough to be self-conscious about being openly and demonstrably affectionate, they could be any couple that have found a fresh lease on love in their middle years.
Until you remember that Nigel Upton has served seven years of a life sentence for the murder of two teenagers. And that the two met, fell in love and married while he was a convicted prisoner in Strangeways.
Upton was arrested in 2001, following the discovery of the bodies of Sam George and Esther Fletcher in their car in a well-known ‘lovers’ lane’ just outside Buxton in Derbyshire. Prior to the double murder, police had received numerous reports of a man loitering in the area, watching the ‘courting’ couples. Investigators believed that Sam and Esther surprised and recognized their Peeping Tom and didn’t live to report him to the police.
Carly Upton, née Gleeson, was an unmarried forty-one-year-old primary school teacher who became interested in Upton’s case, started writing to him, then visiting and eventually campaigning for his release. Her efforts mainly took the form of letters to newspapers and Members of Parliament and minor fundraising until she had the great stroke of luck to secure the interest, and then the support, of Maggie Rose, a lawyer, author and campaigner who first came into the public eye last year when she secured the release of triple murderer Steve Lampton.
Rose spotted three significant discrepancies in the case against Upton. First, that the primary crime scene, where the two bodies were found, was contaminated by bystanders and the first police officers to attend. Second, that the initial search of Upton’s house was incomplete, necessitating a second search and opening up the possibility of evidence being planted between the two. And third, that crucial evidence suggesting Upton could have been several miles away on the night in question was withheld by police at the original trial.
‘Having Nigel home still feels like a dream,’ Carly tells us. ‘All we want now is to find out who really killed those teenagers and be left in peace.’
Such a happy ending is unlikely to happen any time soon as Derbyshire police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the crime. A source close to the investigating team told us, ‘Upton is guilty as sin. Maggie Rose doesn’t care about justice, just about proving to the world how clever she is. Thanks to her, a killer is back on the streets and he will kill again.’
At their home in Macclesfield, already subjected to vandalism and acts of graffiti, Carly is obstinate in the face of public threats. I ask her how long she would have carried on supporting Upton, had Rose not come to their aid. ‘As long as it took,’ she tells me. ‘Nigel is my lover, my best friend, my husband. If I’d had to spend the rest of my days as a prison wife, I would have done.’
PROPERTY OF AVON AND SOMERSET POLICE. Ref: 544/45.2 Hamish Wolfe.
Chapter 21
SNOW CLOUDS. THEY’VE been gathering all morning, thundering in from the west. They are above Pete Weston now, pregnant with a thick, cold purpose, layer upon layer of damp air in which ice crystals are forming. With every minute that passes, the textured density of the sky seems to be getting closer. It has to break soon, or the world will drown in the freezing mass that is above him.
‘Pete, the boss wants a word.’
Pete takes a long, slow drag and holds out his fag. Sunday is trying to give up but takes it anyway.
‘Any idea what about? And give me that back. I thought you’d quit.’
Sunday nicks a second puff before handing it back. ‘He’s just heard Maggie Rose has requested a visiting order for Hamish Wolfe.’