He found them in a Waitrose shopping bag at the bottom of the cardboard box, wedged into a rusting bulldog clip. The most recent statement was on top, a list of the usual standing orders plus a page and a half of cheque withdrawals. One particular transaction on the second page caught Winter’s eye. On 6 June, Hennessey had withdrawn £115,000 in cash. The sum had been covered by an earlier transfer of £133,000 from a deposit account, leaving Hennessey with an end-of-month balance of nearly £18,000 – a useful nest egg if you anticipated disappearing for a while. Winter made a note of the account number, and then the date of the £115,000 withdrawal, before folding the June statement into his jacket pocket. Getting access to personal finance data was tricky these days and some banks went as far as demanding a court order, but there were still ways and means of smuggling out the odd detail without going through the hassle of applying to a judge.
Several minutes later, armed with the floppy disk, Winter was back with the woman next door. He’d finished at Dr Hennessey’s. He was grateful for her help.
She peered up at him.
‘OK for me to lock up again?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘You think anything’s happened to him?’
‘I doubt it.’
He gave her a pat on the arm, eager to bring the conversation to a close, then paused.
‘Nice man, is he?’
The woman nodded at once.
‘Real charming,’ she said. ‘Real old school. Trust him with your life, you would.’
Faraday sensed the disappointment in Dawn’s face the moment she and Rick Stapleton returned to Southsea CID. He called them both into his office and sat them down. The two boxes of videos were still on the floor, though by now he’d switched off the fan.
‘Well?’ he said.
They’d brought Addison back to the interview room at the Bridewell. The mask, safely bagged, was ready for despatch to forensic for checks, but in Stapleton’s view there was no point waiting for the result from the labs. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, they had just twenty-four hours to hold Addison in custody. The time limit was due to expire in ninety minutes’ time. Unless Faraday managed to secure a twelve-hour extension from Hartigan, they’d have to let him go.
‘Has to be him,’ Stapleton said. ‘Guy lives in the right area. Eats, sleeps, breathes sex. Admits he takes walks where they all happened. Can’t alibi himself for any of the dates. And now turns out to be hiding a Donald Duck mask. What the fuck else do we need?’
Dawn was looking at her hands. Only when Rick got truly excited did he stoop to swearing. Faraday picked up a cassette he’d left on the desk.
‘What about his brief?’
‘She’s advised him to say nothing. He’s still denying it, still insists he’s had nothing to do with any of them. I’ll give him full marks for nerve, sad man.’
‘And the mask?’
‘Says he’s never seen it before in his life. Surprise, surprise.’
Faraday glanced at Dawn. She anticipated his next question, throwing a sideways look at Stapleton.
‘If we were right about the girl putting a phone call through after we saw her, why would he risk leaving it in the garden?’
‘He was at work.’ Stapleton couldn’t hide his impatience. ‘And we were sitting on his front door when he got back.’
‘But we searched that garden after we nicked him,’ she insisted, ‘and the mask wasn’t there then.’
‘We had a quick look round. On the way to the shed.’
‘Wrong. I had a proper look.’
‘Behind the flowers and stuff? Funny, I could have sworn you were with me.’
Dawn shrugged. In certain moods, conversations with Rick were always like this. He’d made up his mind. The clock was ticking. Charge the guy. Bang him up. The small print would sort itself out.
Faraday stooped to the video player. Seconds later, Shelley Beavis appeared on the screen. She did her party piece about wanting to become an actress and then confessed her passion for Paul Addison. As the placard with her name came up, Dawn looked less than surprised.
‘Funny kind of rape,’ she murmured.
There was a long silence. From the harbour, miles away across the city, came the faint parp of a ship’s siren.
‘OK,’ Faraday said at last, ‘so where are we now?’
Stapleton leaned forward on the chair. Irritation heightened his normal glow.
‘The guy’s guilty as fuck, boss. The girl’s irrelevant, I’ve always said so. What we’re after is the wanker who goes poncing around with the mask. It has to be him. Has to be.’
Dawn shook her head, equally forceful.
‘But why? Why would he want to do it? The guy’s educated, good-looking. We’ve got nothing on him from Vice and the college report no complaints. What does he get out of exposing himself?’
‘Pass.’ Stapleton rolled his eyes. ‘I thought we wanted a result, not an explanation.’
‘But what if the result’s wrong?’
‘It’s not wrong. It can’t be. It all fits. Maybe the guy’s tired of all that straight sex. Maybe he’s jaded. Maybe it’s a power thing. Maybe he hates Walt Disney. Maybe he needs to take a few steps back and pretend he’s some inbred retard who only gets it up in disguise. Maybe it’s role-play. Yeah’ – he nodded – ‘maybe it’s that. Maybe he gets a bit pissed at night, and forgets himself and takes things too far.’
‘We didn’t find one bottle,’ Dawn reminded him, ‘not one.’
‘You’re right. So how much proof do you need? I’m telling you. The guy’s seriously weird. Doesn’t drink. Doesn’t smoke. Just screws himself silly. With all those students.’
‘What makes you think that?’
Stapleton stared at Dawn in disbelief.
‘You don’t think he helps himself?’ He nodded towards the screen. ‘Bird like Shelley turns up? Can’t wait to come across? You don’t think he takes a break from all that heavy porn and tries out a move or two for himself? This is social worker talk, love. We’re just here to put him away.’
‘Quite.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning I’m not sure.’
Dawn stole a glance at Faraday, embarrassed by a conversation which had got out of control. In these moods, fuelled by a conviction dangerously close to hysteria, Rick could give enthusiasm a bad name.
Faraday was trying to compute the strength of the case against Addison. Stapleton was right. Circumstances would certainly argue for his face behind the mask, but the hard evidential truth was that circumstances weren’t quite enough. A confession would be favourite. Confirmed by a positive match on the mask from forensic.
Faraday glanced at Stapleton.
‘You’ve organised a swab?’
‘Yeah.’
A mouth swab would be enough to establish Addison’s DNA. The swab would accompany the mask to Lambeth for forensic checks. Only one of the three women had confirmed physical contact with Mr Duck, and she’d washed her clothes within the hour, but the Scenes of Crime boys had retrieved her jeans and T-shirt from her airing cupboard and thought there might just be a chance of rescuing something useful. A hair. A single fibre. Not that it mattered. Addison’s DNA inside the mask – from snot or scalp dandruff or sputum – would be more than enough for Faraday.
He glanced at his watch.
‘I’ll go and see Hartigan about an extension. Twelve hours won’t make any difference to the forensic, but we ought to have another go at him.’ He frowned. ‘Once he’s had a bit of a think.’
Eight
Tuesday, 20 June, early evening
Addison’s solicitor returned for the evening interview. She’d argued the case against detaining her client for a further twelve hours, pointing out that indecent exposure didn’t even warrant the power of arrest, but Hartigan had ignored her, contending that Sunday’s assault was serious enough to justify a custody extension pending further inquiries.
The solicitor’s name was Jul
ia Swainson, and the jungle drums at the Magistrates’ Court suggested she was cutting a swathe through some of the city’s older legal fraternity too bored or desperate to care about their marriages. Not just an Oxford degree. Not just an implacable determination to succeed. But a lean, gym-honed figure and a slightly crooked smile that spoke, to Dawn, of mischief and curiosity.
Her presence in the interview room beside Addison stiffened Stapleton’s determination to put the lecturer away. Not only was he screwing the tastier students but he was clearly making a major impression on his legal adviser as well. The coolness of the guy under fire. The fact that he never betrayed anything more than a faint irritation at this intrusion into his well-ordered life. Stapleton was beginning to hate him.
He started the three audio cassettes, announced names and times, and then asked Addison about the Shelley Beavis video.
‘Souvenir, is it? Keepsake? Trophy?’
Addison and his solicitor exchanged glances the way good friends might at a party, an unspoken acknowledgement that they were in the company of lesser mortals. Dawn knew exactly what was coming next.
‘This has nothing to do with the offence in question,’ Julia said silkily. ‘As far as I’m aware, Shelley Beavis has made no complaint.’
Stapleton gave her one of his fuck-you looks, but Addison interrupted. He had absolutely no problem talking about Shelley. What, exactly, did Stapleton want to know?
‘I want to know about the video, the one where she says she fancies you. Why did she do it? Why did she put all that stuff on tape?’
‘It’s an exercise all my students go through. At the start of the first year I ask them all to give me a video statement. I want to know why they’re on the course, what they expect, where they want to get to. It’s a way of concentrating minds. It makes them think.’
‘And are they all as frank as Shelley?’
‘Of course not. She was exceptional.’
‘Because she said she fancied you?’
‘Because she did it so well.’
‘So well?’
For a moment, Stapleton was lost. Dawn, sitting beside him, came to the rescue. In these situations, it paid to be frank.
‘I don’t understand you, Mr Addison,’ she said. ‘What exactly do you mean?’
‘Shelley wants to be an actress,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s rare to find someone so young prepared to think so laterally.’
‘You’re saying she made it all up?’
‘I’m saying she was giving me a performance. She realised the potential of the video. She realised what an opportunity it gave her. It was a stage. She took advantage of that.’
‘How do you know?’
‘She told me. When we talked about it.’
‘She told you that she didn’t fancy you?’
‘She told me she was playing a role. I’d asked them all to come up with something original, to think hard about what they did with the tape. Most of them were pretty clueless. Shelley wasn’t. She was clever. She seized her opportunity. I applauded her.’
‘Did you believe her?’
‘Yes, I did. She caught my attention. That’s what a good actress does.’
Addison sat back, patient, articulate, waiting to see where the interview might go next. He might have been conducting a seminar on a particularly difficult subject. His air of self-possession, of command, was almost tangible.
‘So when you realised she didn’t fancy you …’ It was Stapleton this time.
Addison looked him in the eye, then shrugged.
‘No problem.’
‘You didn’t try and press it?’
‘No.’
‘Never tempted?’
‘No.’
‘So why is her father so convinced that you took advantage of her?’
‘I have absolutely no idea. Perhaps you should ask him.’
‘We did. He seemed pretty clear about it.’
‘And Shelley?’
Stapleton didn’t reply. Dawn was watching the solicitor. She had her fountain pen out and she was making notes on a big yellow pad. Dawn then turned to Addison.
‘I want to ask you about the mask again, Mr Addison. You’ve told us you’d never seen it before.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘So how did it get there?’
‘I have no idea. There’s access to the garden from the alley at the back.’
‘But you say the door’s locked most of the time.’
‘It is. But it’s not an enormous wall. It’s not wired or anything.’
‘You’re suggesting someone climbed in? Planted it?’
‘I’m saying it’s possible.’
‘But why would anyone want to do that?’
For the first time, Addison faltered. The easy, seamless pattern of question and answer, prompt and response, came to an end. Dawn repeated the question. Addison said he didn’t know.
‘Do you have enemies, Mr Addison? At the college, maybe? Colleagues with some kind of grudge?’
‘Everyone has grudges, especially in my business, but I can’t believe any of them would do that.’
‘Who, then? Who’d go to all the trouble of climbing your wall and hiding the mask like that?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘It would be somebody who knew, wouldn’t it?’
‘Knew what?’
‘Knew that you were in trouble already.’
The solicitor’s pen came to a halt. She looked across at Dawn.
‘My client wasn’t in trouble. I thought we’d made that clear already. There’s been no complaint from Shelley Beavis and there’s nothing actionable as far as the video tapes are concerned. My client is here to defend himself against a possible charge of grievous bodily harm regarding last Sunday’s incident by the pond. Until the mask appeared, there was no pertinent evidence to link him with that.’
Rick Stapleton jumped in.
‘The hiking boots? The lack of an alibi? A preoccupation with sex?’ He was talking to Addison now. ‘I’m not sure you’re taking this as seriously as you ought to, Mr Addison. You have a great deal at stake here.’
‘That sounds like a threat.’
‘Not at all. Three women have been frightened witless. One of them has been physically injured. She won’t be taking that dog for a walk for a long time. Not just because of her hand, but because it’ll take months before she gets her confidence back.’
‘I agree.’ Addison nodded. ‘But you’re talking to the wrong man. I wasn’t there. It wasn’t me.’
‘Can you prove that? In a court of law?’ Stapleton was staring at him. ‘Because quite soon you might have to.’
Addison raised an eyebrow, then sat back in his chair, leaving his solicitor to interject once again. She might have been talking to a child.
‘We have nothing to prove. The burden of proof is on you.’ She glanced at Dawn. ‘May I have ten minutes alone with my client?’
Faraday was still at his desk, wrestling with the overtime sheets, when he heard the tap at the half-open door.
‘Mr Faraday, sir?’
It was the young lad from Traffic, Mark Barrington. He was wearing a full set of motorcycle leathers and cradled a bulky white helmet. Acutely uncomfortable on CID territory, he had the look of a burglar disturbed during a particularly dodgy break-in.
Faraday beckoned him into the office.
‘Shut the door,’ he said. ‘Joyce tells me they had another go at the Fiesta.’
‘That’s right, sir. The engineers and Accident Investigation. Seems the Fiesta was well under the speed limit.’
‘And Prentice?’
‘Didn’t see her until the last.’
‘Does he say that? Admit it?’
‘No, sir. He still says he can’t remember anything.’
‘How many times have you seen him?’
‘Just the once, sir. For the full statement.’ He unzipped his jacket, producing a thick wad of photocopied sheets. ‘It’s all in there, si
r. I’d appreciate them back when you’ve finished.’
He was already edging towards the door. Faraday left the photocopies untouched on the desk.
‘What about the phone? Prentice’s mobile?’
Barrington paused by the door.
‘That’s proving a bit tricky, sir. I filled in a C63 and the Inspector endorsed it, but I think there’s a bit of a hold-up with Vodafone. They’re talking about a four-week waiting list.’
‘Who says?’
‘My Sergeant, sir. He took the call.’
Faraday at last reached for the photocopies. The question he couldn’t answer was why the lad had taken the risk in coming over here to Southsea nick. Traffic belonged on the first floor at Fratton, a tightly managed fiefdom with absolutely no time for the scruffy lay bouts in CID. Not only that, but he’d brought a copy of the AI report with him, a gesture that could turn good intentions into an extremely difficult interview with his Sergeant.
‘You were the last to see her alive,’ Faraday murmured. ‘Vanessa Parry.’
Barrington’s grip on the door handle slackened. He muttered something about trying to give her CPR – cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, the last-chance kerbside bid to revive a bursting heart. Barrington was looking thoughtful. He nodded at the photocopies in Faraday’s lap.
‘I made a note of the phone number in red Pentel,’ he said. ‘It’s Prentice’s mobile.’
Rick Stapleton looked at his watch for the second time. Addison and his solicitor were still in a huddle outside in the corridor. He could hear the low murmur of voices and, once, a little burst of shared laughter.
‘They’re taking the piss,’ he said in disgust. ‘Why don’t we just get it over with and charge him?’
Nearly a year of working with Rick had taught Dawn a great deal about patience. In these moods, he was like a kid denied his rightful due. Most suspects would have caved in by now, bowing to the sheer force of Stapleton’s conviction, but not Addison. Addison was outside, cooking up another little surprise.
‘Take it easy,’ Dawn told him. ‘Let him sleep on it. We’ve got half a day yet.’
‘He’s guilty.’
‘So you keep saying.’
‘This is a waste of bloody time. You know it and I know it. If I was the guvnor, this would all be over.’
The Take Page 10