by M J Lee
Emily thought for a moment before answering. ‘A good kid, trying to handle a shitty situation. I’m sure he blames himself for his brother’s kidnapping. Even worse, I think the father blames him.’
‘That’s why he’s hiding upstairs all the time?’
‘I think so. When I was the FLO, it was hard to get him to come out of his room, even to eat.’
‘I had the same feeling, but…’
‘What is it, Ridpath?’
‘Some of his statement didn’t ring true.’
‘Like?’
‘Meeting his friends by accident and they just happened to have a basketball?’
‘You think he arranged to meet them?’
‘Possibly, I don’t know. The encounter with the man didn’t feel right either. Almost as if it was scripted.’
‘He’s told it so many times now, he must know the words off by heart.’
‘No, not scripted in that sense, but more expected. As if it was what I wanted him to say…’
‘Rather than him saying it. A police training video?’
‘Or the sort of safety films they show at schools.’ He shook his head, trying to work out what he was trying to say. ‘Something didn’t feel right about it…’
‘I wouldn’t talk about feelings, not while Turnbull is in charge. He’s only after facts, more facts and even more facts.’
‘Facts don’t tell the whole story, Emily. We choose the ones we like to confirm our assumptions.’
‘What about evidence, Ridpath? Isn’t it our job to collect evidence to prove someone’s guilt or innocence?’
‘True. But sometimes we know somebody is guilty but can’t prove it. Or we have the evidence of guilt but can’t convince the CPS that it will stand up in a court of law. Or, and this is the worst, we can prove guilt, the CPS wants to go forward, but some clever lawyer gets the guilty off on a technicality. A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.’
‘Where’s that from?’
Years of doing pub quizzes gave him the answer. ‘The Pirates of Penzance.’
She looked at him quizzically.
‘Gilbert and Sullivan.’
‘Oh, I know him. Didn’t he sing “Claire” or something like that?’
Ridpath rolled his eyes. ‘I give up, Emily, you’re a lost cause. But, before I forget…’ He took the bag with the mobile phone out of his pocket. ‘Can you get the techies to download the data on this?’
‘Which bits of the data?’
‘All the text messages and the specific location data for the day of David’s disappearance.’
She eyed him suspiciously. ‘What are you up to, Ridpath?’
He held out his arms. ‘Me? Nothing. But I bet Turnbull didn’t look at it.’
‘I don’t think he did. There was no point. We had the time when David disappeared.’
‘But the location data will give us an exact time he went to the park and a time when he returned.’
‘Is that important?’
‘It might be, I don’t know yet.’
‘OK, I’ll ask one of them to do it.’
‘Today, if you can. I’d like to give it him back tomorrow.’
‘But that means going back to HQ. I was planning to check out the local area for CCTV now.’
‘You can do it later. Your bike will be handy for getting round the streets.’
‘I know.’
‘I can give you a lift back if you want?’
‘The last of the gentlemen, that’s you, Ridpath.’
‘You’re only just discovering the truth, Emily? And I thought you were a smart detective.’
Chapter 32
After dropping Emily Parkinson off at Police HQ, Ridpath drove back out to the Coroner’s Court in Stockfield.
The place was quiet. Mrs Challinor was chairing an inquest and the new coroner, Helen Moore, was nowhere to be found. Only Sophia was in the office.
‘I didn’t think I’d see you today,’ she said.
‘Thought I’d check in. See if anything was happening.’
‘Mrs Challinor will be back shortly. Her inquest should be finished for lunch.’
‘Did Dr Schofield get in touch?’
She eyed him suspiciously.
‘I only want to know if he released David Carsley’s body?’
‘Yes, the form is here somewhere.’ She searched her desk. ‘Here it is. Signed and sealed.’
‘Great, can you see that Padraig Daly gets a copy and arranges a time to pick up the body from the morgue? Michael Carsley is in no shape to arrange a funeral, we’ll have to do it for him. Can I leave the details with you?’
‘No problem.’
As Sophia was speaking, Mrs Challinor came into the office, talking to David Smail. ‘If that smarmy barrister interrupts me again when I’m questioning a witness, I’ll…’
Ridpath never found out what she was going to do to the solicitor.
‘…Ridpath, you’re in. We weren’t expecting to see you today.’
‘It seems nobody was. Can we have a chat?’
‘Come into my office.’
He followed her and watched as she arranged the inquest’s files neatly on her desk, before sitting down heavily in her chair. ‘Been one of those days, Ridpath. Witnesses not turning up, others turning up but not answering questions. And a junior legal counsel confusing a coroner’s court with a court of law. How has your day been?’
‘Interesting, Mrs Challinor.’
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘I met with the pathologist this morning.’
‘And?’
‘The details of the case are disturbing. He thinks we may have a child serial killer operating in Manchester. And so does the criminal profiler.’
She stared at him, her blue eyes, surrounded by the nest of grey curls and alabaster skin, boring into him. ‘Do you agree, Ridpath?’
‘Yes.’
‘What does Claire Trent think?’
‘I don’t know yet, I haven’t briefed her, but…’
‘The mere fact she has asked you to look into the investigation tells me she’s worried.’
‘Exactly, Coroner.’
‘What have you discovered?’
‘Not a lot. The investigation seems to have been thorough, if a little pedestrian. Charlie Whitworth would have been scouring the streets, not stopping until he found the killer.’
‘Policing has changed since DCI Whitworth’s day, Ridpath. You of all people should know that. What are your next steps?’
He checked the clock. ‘I’m going to interview the wife this evening, find out why she left.’
‘Women leave the marital home for many reasons, Ridpath.’ Her eyes then seemed to lose focus for a second. ‘Mainly, because they start to hate the man they thought was the love of their life.’
‘But to leave without her kids?’
‘Don’t judge, Ridpath.’ She then paused for a moment, brushing an imaginary piece of lint from her blotter. ‘Let me tell you about myself. When my children were six and four, I left my husband. The man I thought was the kindest, gentlest human being on earth turned out to be a controlling, jealous monster.’
‘But you took your children with you?’
She shook her head. ‘Not for a year. I had nowhere to go. The house was in his name, everything was in his name. The saving grace was that he loved the children. I set my own house up, starting almost from scratch, and finally, eighteen months later, petitioned for custody of my children. It took another year for them to come back to me. Two and a half years of hell.’ She tucked one of the long grey curls behind her ear. ‘Children change so much and so quickly at that age.’ She glanced across at the picture on her desk of her daughter and her grandchild. ‘In many ways, we are still trying to make up for the time we lost.’ She sighed. ‘My daughter and I had a difficult time together. I blame myself, I should have listened more, understood more, but I didn’t. We’re still working on our relationship to this day, even thou
gh she now has children of her own.’
This was the most open Mrs Challinor had ever been with him about her personal life. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ was all he could mumble in response.
‘I tell you this, because you shouldn’t judge her. You don’t know what she went through and is still going through. I was an educated, professional woman with a good job, great salary and a brand new home and yet it still took me two and a half years to come to terms with what happened and get my children back.’
‘I understand, Mrs Challinor.’
‘And then to have one of your children abducted and murdered.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if it had happened to me.’
Chapter 33
Detective Constable Emily Parkinson rode her bike from Police HQ back to Wythenshawe, cursing Ridpath all the way.
She’d seen her friend in the digital department and asked him to do a quick job for her on the data on the mobile phone. He had ummed and ahhed for a minute or two as he always did, before agreeing after being bribed with a promise of a free latte and danish tomorrow morning.
She’d also asked him about the latest scanners and camera detection apps, looking for a way to short-cut her search.
‘There are some detectors on the market to pick up spy cameras and microphones, but they don’t find everything, and they are best used in a small room. Out on the street, they’re pretty useless. I’m afraid you’ll have to go old school.’
‘Shanks’s pony?’
‘We used to call it the number 11 bus when I was a kid.’
‘Looks like it’s back to the beat. Thanks for your help – and I can pick up the phone tomorrow morning?’
‘Sure, I may even have downloaded the data by then.’ He smiled, to show he was teasing her. A techie type of teasing.
She was going to have to do this the hard way; by eye. Luckily the weather was good and it shouldn’t get dark until nearly eight o’clock. But she wasn’t walking around the area. At least with the bike, she could cover more ground.
She’d done the long pedal down Princess Road, cars rushing past her, and had finally reached Wythenshawe about forty minutes later, slightly tired but ready to get going.
Ridpath’s plan was to try to find CCTV that may have been missed. She felt it was a bit of a stretch. The first thing any investigative team did these days was check for CCTV.
If there was one thing that had changed modern policing in the last ten years, it was the widespread use of security cameras. She’d been on a course which explained that London had a CCTV camera for every 67 people living in the city. Manchester didn’t have that many, but there were still a lot of cameras out there.
Turnbull and his team would have picked up the obvious ones, on the lampposts and watching traffic. She had to look for the ones they might have missed. They could be on houses, in banks or shops, even in cars if they were parked in the same place every day.
She brought out her Manchester A–Z. On the map, Princess Parkway, the main road to the airport, was virtually a motorway. It formed a barrier on the west side of Wythenshawe Park. She was sure MIT would have discovered any CCTV on the road or its slipways.
That left the north, east and south sides of the park. Each one had quite a clearly defined housing estate on each side. Her plan was simple; to ride around looking for CCTV, crossing off each road as she completed it. She would then cross-reference the CCTV she saw with the CCTV on the list examined by Turnbull’s team and note the differences.
If there were any.
It was going to be painstaking, detailed work, but it was the sort of investigation Emily liked. The nitty-gritty of digging deep and doing a job well.
Emily checked her watch. Four p.m. on the dot. But where to get started?
She checked the map again and decided to begin in the south, where the Carsleys’ house was. She had to start somewhere and this was as good a place as any.
Tucking her suit trousers into her socks – mustn’t get oil on them – she adjusted her helmet and began to pedal.
She was going to kill Ridpath when she’d finished this.
Chapter 34
Molly Wright had retired to the pub at five o’clock. There was nothing happening at the Carsley house and there was no point keeping a photographer on overtime on the off-chance that Carsley or his son would make an appearance.
It was one of those pubs that had the atmosphere deliberately designed out of it by some interior decorator with a penchant for red velour curtains, fake horse brasses and ugly brown carpets. Even the Stella had more gas in it than usual and actually lived up to its advertising promise of being French and ‘reassuringly expensive’.
What a load of bollocks.
It was probably made in Warrington or some other benighted expanse of warehouses, business parks, motorways and megastores. A dormitory town whose sole purpose was to allow its citizens to sleep through their meaningless lives.
She had written reams of stuff praising places like that. The Milton Keynes of this world, garden cities where nothing grew except mould and wife-swapping.
She swallowed the last of her Stella and thought about ordering a bottle of wine but all they had was some cheap Chilean plonk which was better used as paint stripper.
She forced herself to think about the story.
Meeting the Family Liaison Officer, Emily Parkinson, and Ridpath on the street had been a welcome, if short, interruption in the endless boredom of standing outside the Carsley house.
It looked like her source had been correct. Ridpath was somehow involved in the investigation into David Carsley’s death. But how?
She hated men like him. So full of themselves and their own self-importance. Men who obviously enjoyed their jobs and looked down on her like a cockroach that had somehow survived a nuclear attack.
All she was doing was providing a necessary service for the punters who liked a bit of a racy read in their morning Sun with the cornflakes. She could also do the highbrow stuff as well for The Times or Guardian. Slightly less risqué reads for the readers of Staines and Ongar with bigger words, longer sentences and at least an attempt at punctuation.
She had been good once.
Extremely good.
Believing in her vocation to educate mankind and reveal the hidden truths of society… The sort of journalism made famous by Harold Evans, World in Action and Panorama. That was what she grew up on, what she had tried to be when she started.
But they don’t tell you in journalism school about the endless grind of it all. Or the fear of working for psychopaths who also called themselves editors. Or the necessity of toeing the party line on every little peccadillo of the bloody owners.
Her mind was wandering today.
Focus, Molly.
Where are you going with this story?
Was it time to give it up?
She looked at her notes from the other night. The word POLICE printed in block letters. Should she interview Ridpath? Give him his fifteen minutes of fame?
Nah, he’d never say yes, his sort never do. Too prissy, too perfect, too police.
But his boss might. Claire Trent. Talk to the engine driver not her cleaning rag.
She might be up for a one-on-one. The sort of in-depth shallow interview the Guardian specialised in.
What was the PR girl’s name – Sarah whatsherface?
She scrolled through her contacts and found the woman.
‘Hi Sarah, it’s Molly Wright, I have an absolutely fab idea I’d love to run past you if you have a second.’
Sometimes, it was like taking candy from babies.
Chapter 35
Irene Carsley’s flat was number 3 in a large old semi-detached house in Chorlton, not far from where the body of her son had been discovered.
Once, back in Victorian times, this place would have housed the family of a rich merchant or manager of a cotton mill, lavishly decorated and cared for by servants, housekeepers and gardeners.
These days it housed eight flats with paper-thin walls and ‘cosy’ kitchens.
The area had been transformed into flats for students in the Sixties, each large house subdivided and then subdivided again. The local estate agent described them as ‘bijou properties’. It was estate-agent speak for small, cramped and jerry-built.
Ridpath stood in front of a long panel of illuminated doorbells, looking for number 3. He pressed it and almost immediately the security alarm buzzed and a thin reedy voice asked, ‘Who is it?’ in a broad Scottish accent.
‘Hello, Mrs Carsley, it’s Ridpath from the Coroner’s Office, I rang you earlier.’
Without another word, the security alarm buzzed again and Ridpath heard the click of a lock being released. He pushed open the door and was greeted by a dark, dingy hall with stairs leading upwards. On the right, a pile of letters, circulars and discarded junk mail lay on a stained table. There was a strong smell of frying onions and sizzling spices, as if he had stepped into the kitchens of a restaurant on the Curry Mile.
On his right, the number on the door had a broad ‘1’ painted next to a modern timed light switch. He pushed the button and a single light bulb illuminated the stairs. He climbed upwards, getting to the first landing before the bulb went off and he was in darkness again.
He took out his phone and brought up the flashlight. Using this, he found himself standing next to number 3, knocking loudly on the door.
It was opened by a small thin woman with mousy hair in a fringe that almost covered her eyes. ‘Mr Ridpath?’
He showed her his ID. ‘Actually, it’s Detective Inspector Ridpath.’
‘You a copper? I thought you said you were from the Coroner’s Office?’
‘I am employed by Greater Manchester Police but seconded to work at the Coroner’s Office.’
She grunted and undid the security chain, walking away from the door, leaving it open.
Ridpath took that as an invitation to enter.
He pushed open the door and walked into the small, windowless bedsit. On the floor next to the bed, an open suitcase was being used as a wardrobe. Opposite, a two-ring hob sat on a wooden table with a gas bottle on the floor. A sink was doubling as a washbasin and a place for drying clothes. He couldn’t see where the toilet was.