“Woah, steady on there.” Leaning forward incredulously, the solicitor let out a chuckle of mistimed mirth. “That’s a bold accusation.”
DCI Harvey stepped in, strict and uncompromising. “If you would kindly let us continue, then we will be able to make our accusations clearer for you and your client.”
A stare off between either opposition commenced, and both of them believed that their side was right. The solicitor gave up first and threw her hands up irritably. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you. The easiest way to tackle this chain of events is to work chronologically through our evidence. To travel across the timeline of the case,” DCI Harvey suggested, awaiting confirmation.
“This is your interview, DCI Harvey. Not ours,” the solicitor said.
Knitting her fingers together pensively, DCI Harvey gave a smirk at the admittance. I had a feeling being in charge was where she flourished and where she preferred to be: in control.
“Received. This all began when Mr and Mrs Carling entered our station on the 13th and claimed that their daughter had been kidnapped. Mrs Carling also claimed her daughter was taken by the primary school in town. In broad daylight and in the middle of the day,” she hinted.
“That strikes us as odd. Broad daylight. On the school run,” McCall spoke slowly as though explaining something to a group of children. “At that time of the afternoon, there would be plenty of parents and kids around too, as well as neighbours and teachers. That’s a lot of people to be placed near the scene, no?”
Both the solicitor and Mrs Carling were obliged to agree.
“For the tape, I am showing copies of the witness statements,” I said as I dished them out. “Despite all of these factors, we only managed to receive two witness statements of the incident, neither of which fully mentioned a kidnapping. They said, and I quote, that a van pulled up to the pavement and left about two minutes later with the kid. The mother then proceeded to cry and shout that her daughter was kidnapped.”
Letting the sheet fall from my grasp, I scrutinized Mrs Carling to see if I could spot a change occurring in her outwardly composed exterior. McCall simultaneously folded her arms.
“Were those faked theatrics, or did the kidnapping really take place exactly as you told us?” she pressed. “It’s a clever scheme, using the school run as cover. A time where you knew your husband wouldn’t be with you. Mr Carling didn’t know that you premeditated these plans, did he?”
The solicitor refused to let Mrs Carling answer. “My client went through a dreadful event, and I don’t think it’s very fair to discredit that.”
Ignoring the comment, I passed a sheet of paper towards Mrs Carling and urged her to tick a box. Any box. It didn’t matter which.
Taking the pen cautiously, Mrs Carling picked up the biro we’d given her. Quivering, she placed the pen in her left hand and pinched the nib between her thumb and forefinger. And ticked the box.
“Thank you,” I stated coolly. “Now, if you could tick the next box along to the right.” Looking unsurely towards the solicitor, Mrs Carling did as asked.
Her left hand leant against the first tick she’d written only seconds ago, and it smudged when her skin dragged across the page. She tutted and was probably used to the quirks that came by being left-handed. Blind to them, even.
“That will be all, Mrs Carling,” I stopped her halfway through, seeing everything that we needed to know. The solicitor seemed curious as to where this was heading. “For the tape, I am passing over a ransom letter we seized from the suspects business offices. This letter was planted in your husband's private office, which only a select few people had access to. Someone with knowledge months prior to the incident to know that Sarah would be taken. As we can see, ink stains over the side of the letter reveal that a left-hander wrote this.”
“Many people are left-handed, DI Cooper,” the solicitor said sceptically with an unimpressed frown directed towards me.
“Aye. But there are only a select few people involved in this kidnapping. Jerry Clark isn’t left-handed, nor is anyone else we’ve interviewed. All apart from Mrs Carling, who had access to all the aforementioned places.” I didn’t doubt my inkling.
“Circumstantial.”
Hearing that was quickly becoming tiresome. With my temper threatening to snap, I leant forward so the solicitor could see my earnestness.
“Is it? How many times before a coincidence isn’t a coincidence anymore? Once? Or twice?”
McCall placed a rectangular object on the desk, followed by the number of items we’d formerly taken out to inspect. “For the tape, I’m showing the suspect Sarah Carling’s school bookbag. Handed over to us from Mrs Carling's possession. Stated to have been on Sarah’s person at the time of the kidnapping.” The bag was striking compared to the otherwise morbid room, and Mrs Carling averted her eyes from the tabletop. “Considering it had been dropped in the scuffle, nothing was broken nor ruined. As you can see for yourselves, the material isn’t scuffed or ruined.”
“Circumstantial,” the solicitor huffed and slapped the desk with her palm. “Everything is purely circumstantial. There are no grounds to charge my client on.”
DCI Harvey held up a spindly finger to silence the frustrated woman. I’d never seen anyone hush so quickly. “A diamond earring was found and bagged as evidence at Jerry Clarks address at Barnhill Road. Upon retrieval of the jewellery, your daughter identified the earring as yours.”
Instinctively, Mrs Carling's hand shot up to touch her earlobe and left us to sigh in the utmost satisfaction.
“Did that panic you, Mrs Carling?” I wondered. “The earring has already been sent off for forensics. Either you admit your involvement in the kidnapping, or we will arrest you anyway when the forensic reports come back stating that the earring is yours.”
The solicitor refused to back down, a matter of pride and professionalism over anything else. A chance to prove she could still win this case. “Until you have the evidence to back that up, DI Cooper, then I suggest you be patient and don’t prematurely threaten my client with that sort of talk.”
DCI Harvey simmered for a while. Thinking and pondering. Scheming, if I didn’t know any better. How a wartime official would plan tactical manoeuvres, strategic movements to take down the enemy. To rile Mrs Carling up, to get her passionate and heated. Loose lips sink ships. Wasn’t that what they always used to say back then?
She came across as calm at first. But the calmness unsettled us, and we were on her good side, so I’ve no idea how Mrs Carling must’ve felt. It was a menacing kind of calm, with words unspoken between the pauses. Seeping out into the open wound of the interviewing room and filling the empty space with a perilous sense of uncertainty. DCI Harvey didn’t speak loud, yet it felt as if her voice boomed and echoed from all four corners of the room.
“How does a mother sleep at night knowing she’s willingly handed over her daughter to a man of Jerry Clark’s type? Aggressive. Capable of anything.” She shrugged and paused. “Angry. That poor girl must’ve wondered why she’d been sent away with this strange man, crying because all she wanted to do was go home. To go to school and play with her friends like all the other children.”
“No.” Mrs Carling whispered.
The interruptions and denial didn’t halt DCI Harvey’s cool discourse.
“Wondering why the strange man was hurting her. Mistreating her. I’d even go so far as to say, abusing her.”
Mrs Carling begged her to stop. “No.” Rising a semitone higher. There was a sense of delirium about her when she covered her face in hopes it would drown out the noise.
“DCI Harvey, that’s quite enough,” the solicitor ordered, half-yelling. “You’re disturbing my client.”
“The man’s an ex-convict!” DCI Harvey shouted in return, red in the face. “He could’ve done anything to Sarah whilst nobody was watching. I’ve had cases where the kidnapper assaulted the girl they’d taken and raped them. Beaten them to a bloody pulp, pinned the
little girl down and had their way with the child all week long. Those children have ended up dead. It’s happened before, and I believe that it could have happened again had we not found Sarah in time. Jerry Clark is a very dangerous man, and anyone involved with him could only imagine what he’s capable of. I, for one, wouldn’t let that man be involved with my child if I were involved. Jerry Clark is only out for himself.”
McCall agreed, sensing that DCI Harvey’s tactic was beginning to weaken the mother. “I worked on the case where I saw first hand the injuries that Clark’s victim sustained. It wasn’t pretty. Do you know how old that girl was, Mrs Carling?”
Julie Carling didn’t make eye contact, trembling in her seat. Staring at her own hands that were clamped tightly against each other and coated in a sheen of sweat. The temples at the side of her forehead were pushed outwards.
“The girl was beaten to a bloody pulp. Purple bruises covered her skin, and blood had dried upon her neck. In fact, blood had dried everywhere. She couldn’t walk for weeks. An animal’s instincts don’t change. A shark still sniffs blood and thinks it’s time to attack.”
I saw the moisture collecting in the corner of Julie Carling’s eye. Heard the sodden sniff.
“And you handed him your daughter on a plate,” I scoffed. “A filthy, rotten scumbag like him, and you let him have your daughter if he wanted to. To touch her in places that shouldn’t be touched, stare at her whilst she changes. He left imprints of bruising around her wrists from the strength of his fingers alone. A man like him could break a kid like Sarah, and--.”
A whirlwind of air hit my skin as Mrs Carling hit against the desk like she was suffocating. “He’s not a monster! You don't know him like I do. Jerry wouldn’t hurt Sarah. He isn’t capable of it anymore.” She shook with each sob that escaped her lips.
DCI Harvey had hit a nerve. A crucial nerve that made the mother repulsed by the accusations. The knockout punch was served, rendering the opponent helpless. For us, the triumphant validation that our assumptions were correct entitled us to breathe a sigh of relief.
For the solicitor, she knew that there was nothing left to help her client. Sinking lower in her chair, she waited for a confession.
“How would you describe your relationship with Jerry Clark? Strictly professional or sexual?” Mc Call asked pointedly. “What I really want to know is how long you’ve been having an affair with him.” She sat with her pen poised, whilst Mrs Carling gaped like a fish and regretfully stared towards her feet.
“Oh, come on,” McCall said scornfully. “You and your husband could barely stand to be within inches of each other unless you had to be. Did you think the kidnapping could fix your marriage and get Jerry a new life with the money? Get him out of the country and pretend that the affair never happened?”
The shamed mother started to sob, awful hiccups. “That’s not true. I loved my husband.”
“Loved?” I said. “Past tense. You’ve admitted it already, so go ahead tell us the real details of you and Jerry Clark.”
Julie Carling shook her head in refusal, claret coloured veins striking against the whites of her eyes and lids that had puffed to twice their average size. Blubbering with all the terror of a person knowing they’re about to die, she panicked and respired irregularly.
“No.”
“If you don’t talk, we could always look at extending your prison sentence,” I bargained and threatened the mother into a confession. “Maybe even talk to the prosecutor about doubling the prison time or tripling it if we feel strongly enough. The women in there are tough,” I inhaled loudly. “They wouldn’t think twice about fighting a woman of your size. You’re much weaker than some of the others, and you’d struggle to last months, let alone years.”
Her eyes flickered between us all, trying to figure out whether we were lying. Our faces gave nothing away.
“And if I talk, I want immunity.”
“You wish,” DCI Harvey scoffed. “If you talk, we’ll keep your prison sentence as it is. Minimum rather than maximum,” she fabricated.
“If I talk, then Jerry doesn’t get extended prison time either.” She bargained in a wobbling tone. One that told us she was pushing her luck, yet she was incredibly frightened of us. Our threats had her spooked.
“Hm. We’ll do our best,” DCI Harvey glared, and I knew she had no intentions of doing such a thing.
Julie Carling reluctantly nodded and took a glance at her solicitor, who urged her ahead.
“We were talking about your marriage,” I prompted.
“I’d asked Bob for a divorce, but he refused,” she started hesitantly as she stared at a hold in the wall. “The marriage had already turned toxic, and we were only together legally so that Sarah could have both parents around whilst she grows up. He’s the one who wanted us to pretend for her sake.” Mrs Carling looked weak and timid, almost as though she’d never said these words out loud before today. “I was bloody miserable. What woman wouldn’t be? My needs weren’t being met, and I was a frumpy mother, bored senseless and stuck in a house where my husband and I would argue constantly. That was until Jerry arrived as an employee.”
“And that’s when this all started?” DCI Harvey sat forward. “That’s when the affair began? Was it an instant attraction?” DCI Harvey asked.
“Pretty much. We hid the secret touches and hidden glances. It was exciting. More fun than I had in years. Then things started getting more serious. We couldn’t go a day without needing to speak or be together,” she trailed off.
“So, where did it go wrong?” I chewed my nail subconsciously.
“Bob found out that I’d cheated on him with someone and said that I needed to find my own place, but that he still wouldn’t let me file for divorce. He never found out who the man was. Said that he wouldn’t sign the divorce papers, regardless. I don’t think he could handle being legally separated after the failure of his business. It had dented his ego enough. He couldn’t handle telling his friends and family that things hadn’t worked out in our private lives either.” She sighed, looking more haggard than ever as if the ordeal had sucked the life out of her.
“But you still took Sarah to school?” McCall asked.
“For the past month, I’ve had to co-parent at my old home. Bob’s home, I suppose it is now. I’d arrive there at seven am every day to get Sarah ready for school, then I’d take her home again at three in the afternoon and have dinner with her and Bob too. We’ve been acting like we’re happy families, so that she wasn’t aware of our arguments and difficulties until she’s fast asleep, and that’s when I go back to Barnhill Road,” she explained in embarrassment. “When I was searching for this new house to rent, Jerry convinced me that Bob was out of order by forcing me to move out, whilst still wanting to stay legally married. That Bob didn’t really give a crap about my life and my relationship with Sarah. Convinced me that Bob wanted Sarah all to himself.” She stopped, choked up.
“So before you moved from the family home and into Barnhill Road, Jerry suggested that he fake his death and arrange the kidnapping?” I asked, still confused.
“Uh-huh.” Mrs Carling nodded. “Jerry begged me to have a new start with him. To get away from all this mess and go somewhere where I wasn’t tied down to my marriage. He wanted to get away from his crimes that he’d committed when he was younger, as he thought that his criminal record was holding him back. Jerry has all these crazy ideas, and if he was given a chance to break away from this small town, he could put that brain of his to good use,” she said eagerly.
“Unfortunately, his plan to get away from it all included yet another crime. Some leopards don’t change their spots,” McCall sighed. “So he arranged to fake his death and live secretly at number five with you, a legally married woman? Then what?”
“We only moved in a month ago since he’s been using his alias, and we’ve been living out of suitcases ever since.” Julie Carling took some water. “Bob never comes around to visit, anyway. It’s always me trav
elling to see them when he tells me to,” she spat. “Jerry had convinced me before faking his death that the ransom would be the easiest way to get money from you guys because you’d take the allegation seriously. He was utilizing the resources we had around us.”
“You planted the note,” I agreed. “Put the plan into action and wait for the right moment. So why choose the school run?”
“I always take Sarah to school as part of the agreement between Bob and me. It’s the one time I get to have Sarah all to myself whilst Bob is busy working,” she admitted.
“Jerry took Sarah back to number five on the day of the kidnapping, whilst you called Bob frantically. He was duped into thinking that Sarah was really taken, which made the ordeal even more convincing,” McCall derived.
“Bob let me stay with him during this past week, thinking that I was just as worried about Sarah’s whereabouts as he was,” she sighed.
“Despite all the problems between you two and your marriage, your husband still let you stay over with him when you were both supposed to be worried about your daughter. The child you have a mutual responsibility to care for,” I said scornfully. “He sounds like a caring man and not as spiteful as you’re making him out to be. He didn’t want a divorce for the sake of your daughter, the one you’ve exploited,” I shook in anger. “You’d really have left your family behind for a criminal?”
“I knew that Sarah would be brought up well by a father like Bob if and when Jerry and I fled the country,” Julie Carling wept. “Bob always puts Sarah’s needs above everyone else's, including mine and my need for freedom.”
DCI Harvey almost couldn’t believe what we were hearing. “How did Jerry find out about the sting we were setting up? I presume you had something to do with it?”
“Yeah,” she mumbled nervously. “I had to collect my belongings when Bob wanted me to stay with him during this past week. Bob was so upset when he heard about Sarah, and I don’t think he wanted to be alone in the bigger-than-normal house without her there. Anyway, I went to get the suitcase I’d been living out of at Barnhill Road and told Jerry you were planning a sting in hopes that we wouldn’t get caught out. Before you judge me, I made sure Sarah was sorted and comfortable at the address before leaving.”
Abduction in Dalgety Bay Page 22