by M J Lee
‘Nah, healthy it is. Full of vitamins and iron. A doctor told me that once. We were doorstepping Liam Gallagher and I went down the pub. Met the doctor there and we had a long chat.’
‘The doctor was in the pub? What time was this?’
‘In the afternoon – Liam didn’t usually wake up till six so we always got a few pints down our necks before we started in the evening.’
Molly was tempted to ask him more but decided against it. This was one of those conversations she was always having while waiting for something to happen – for Godot to arrive or Estragon to realise he was never coming.
There was movement at the front of the nick. She elbowed the photographer, who stuffed the remaining lump of pie in his mouth and reached for his cameras like a gunslinger going for his six-shooter.
Paul Turnbull, the SIO, had appeared in the doorway and was waiting for a car.
Molly Wright walked up to him, the photographer trailing in her wake.
‘Hello, DCI Turnbull, anything to say regarding the Carsley case?’
He looked at her down his long nose. His bald head was shinier than normal. Either he had recently shaved it or the sun was at the correct angle to highlight its smoothness.
Either way, it annoyed Molly. She hated men with bald heads almost as much as she hated other reporters.
‘No comment, Molly.’
‘Don’t be like that, Mr Turnbull, you must have something to say.’
‘Oh, I do, Molly, but not to the likes of you.’
She didn’t like that sneer, not one little bit. ‘We hear you’ve brought Michael Carsley in for questioning?’
‘Have I?’
He was going to play that little game, was he?
‘Yeah, you have. And you’ve got till this evening to charge him otherwise you have to let him go. But he’s not singing, is he, Mr Turnbull? Doesn’t know your tune, does he? My readers are going to be wondering, is he the bad man who killed his son or are the police looking for a convenient scapegoat?’
Turnbull faced her. ‘And what do you think, Molly?’
‘I haven’t decided yet, Mr Turnbull.’
A car squeaked to a halt in front of them, forcing the photographer to jump out of the way as he took his shots.
‘But when I do, I’m sure my articles will help the readers make up their minds. It could go either way.’
‘Bye, Molly, I have work to do.’
He stepped down and opened the car door.
‘Which way would you like it to go, Mr Turnbull? I think your boss, Claire Trent, has already made up her mind, don’t you?’
At the mention of Claire Trent’s name, he stopped for a moment and then sat in the back seat, slamming the door. The car raced off out of the main gate.
Molly Wright smiled to herself.
The case could go either way, Mr Turnbull, but for you a conclusion has already been decided.
You’re toast.
Chapter 60
Back at Police HQ, Ridpath went to see Chrissy first. Luckily Turnbull wasn’t there but still at Wythenshawe nick putting the screws on Michael Carsley.
‘Did you get hold of Liverpool?’
‘You’re meeting with a DI at their HQ at eleven a.m. tomorrow. He’s on duty this weekend but off for a week to Llandudno from Monday. I know it’s Sunday but I thought…’
‘You did well, Chrissy.’
‘At two p.m., the pathologist can squeeze you in for half an hour. Now, he was defensive and didn’t want to meet, I had to push hard. I’ve sent the results of his post-mortem to Dr Schofield.’
‘Great. I have one more job for you. I need to interview Daniel Carsley this afternoon.’
‘If he’s in the care of social services, that could be tricky, Ridpath.’
‘He hasn’t been returned to his mother?’
‘Apparently not, I don’t know why. I’ll have a go at persuading them but I ain’t promising anything.’
‘I know you’ll manage somehow.’ He turned back to Emily Parkinson who was opening a file on her desk. ‘We need to go to see your friendly house-trained techie and check that footage once more.’
‘Not again, Ridpath. I’ve seen it so many times now, there’s nothing new on it.’
‘I’ve got an idea.’
‘You keep saying that.’
‘Do you have a street map of Manchester, Chrissy?’
‘There’s one here,’ said Emily, holding up her Manchester A–Z.
Ridpath walked over to her desk and was joined by the civilian researcher, still wearing her City scarf despite the heat.
‘Can you find a map of the Wythenshawe area?’
Emily found the right page.
‘Now, can you mark on it the position of the ATM?’
‘I already did it. Here.’ She stabbed her finger on the page.
‘Can you add in the position of the Carsleys’ house?’
She took a red pen and marked an X. ‘It’s here.’
He traced both marks with his finger on the page. ‘If you follow the roads from the park to the Carsleys’ house, one of the routes takes you past the ATM.’
‘So you think David was walking home when he was picked up by the man in the car?’
‘Exactly. I think he got bored waiting for his big brother to finish playing basketball and he knew he wasn’t wanted on the court, so he decided to go home.’
‘It’s the sort of impulsive thing a seven-year-old would do,’ Chrissy said. ‘I remember my daughter, Molly, deciding to walk to her brother’s nursery, rather than come straight home from school with her friends. Luckily, she was found by a stranger who brought her home. All those hours memorising her address had paid off. I was never so worried in my life. The worse thing was I didn’t even know she was missing.’
‘There’s a big problem with your theory, Ridpath.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The timing. David Carsley was picked up at twelve thirty.’
‘Was he? I want to look at the footage one more time.’
They went to the techies’ floor. Phil Reynolds sat behind his bank of monitors as if he were cemented to the chair and hadn’t moved in the last week.
‘Hi, Em, good to see you again.’
They walked around and saw he was looking at a robbery.
‘Two armed thugs held up a post office in Little Hulton. Got away with fifty quid and a box of Twix. We’re sure they’ll strike again.’
‘Could we ask a favour? Could you call up our ATM footage again?’ asked Ridpath.
‘There’s nothing else on it. Myself and Em have been over it a thousand times.’
‘It’ll only take five minutes to satisfy a little itch I have.’
‘There’s a cream for that, Ridpath,’ said Phil Reynolds, but he typed a number into his keyboard and after the rattle of keys, the image of David Carsley walking past the ATM appeared on one of the monitors. They watched the whole sequence; the car stopping, them chatting, the door opening and the boy getting in the car before it drove off. In the top right-hand corner, the timer counted up.
12.31.24.
12.31.25.
12.31.26.
All the way to when the sequence ended at 12.32.08.
‘Is there any way the timer could be wrong?’
‘Shouldn’t be. The ATM would be linked back to the bank’s mainframe over a secure line. Banks operate to accuracies of milliseconds. They have to.’
‘But it’s not the ATM we’re dealing with, it’s the CCTV. Was the camera integrated into the ATM?’
Emily imagined the scene in her head. ‘No, it’s separate. One of those globe type cameras mounted on the wall.’
‘What would happen if it wasn’t part of the ATM but a separate system?’
‘It wouldn’t be linked to the mainframe.’
‘When you talked to the head of security, Emily, what did he say?’
‘He said it was one of the old machines with a separate camera which records on ha
rd disk.’
‘What if the time was wrong? What if it was, for example, exactly an hour behind?’
Reynolds shook his head. ‘But that’s not possible. The only time that happens is when they forget to readjust the clocks forward for British Summer Time…’
There was a long silence in the room, broken only by the whirr of electric fans keeping the machines cool.
It was Reynolds who spoke again. ‘The machines haven’t been properly maintained, have they? The timer is one hour out. When it says twelve thirty, it’s actually one thirty.’
‘There’s a quick way to check,’ said Emily.
She pulled out her mobile phone and rang Brian Carter, the head of security, praying he would pick up.
He did. ‘Carter.’
‘Hi there, it’s DS Emily Parkinson from GMP. We’re looking at the footage you sent across from the ATM.’
‘ATM? Oh, I remember – the abduction of the boy. I hope it was useful.’
‘It was indispensable, but I have a question. The timer, is it accurate?’
‘Of course.’
‘But could it be one hour out?’
The man chuckled. ‘Sometimes, the older machines don’t switch over automatically after we put the clocks forward for BST. It would only update the time if it was switched off and rebooted. The maintenance team should have done it, but sometimes they cut corners to save time.’
‘So it could be one hour off?’ Emily crossed her fingers.
‘If it wasn’t rebooted recently, that’s more than likely. I can get them to run a diagnostic on it, if you like?’
Emily punched the air. ‘Please could you check and send me an email with your findings for our records?’
‘No worries. I hope you find the bastard.’
‘Oh, we will – and with your help, we’re getting closer.’
Chapter 61
‘Shall we update Claire Trent?’
‘Not yet, let’s interview Daniel Carsley first.’
Back on the MIT floor, Chrissy had both good and bad news for them.
‘Give us the good news first.’
‘The social workers will allow you to interview Daniel Carsley.’
‘That’s great news,’ said Emily.
Ridpath scratched his head. ‘Why do I feel there’s a big “but” coming now.’
‘But, as Daniel was taken into care after an Emergency Protection Order of the Children’s Act, 1989, I had to apply for an interview under Section 44, subsections 6–9.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means we will have to follow the government best evidence guidelines to the letter, including conducting the interview in the Care Home, videotaping the interview, a social worker being present all the time, a written interview plan with questions being presented before it takes place and if Daniel, or the social worker, decide the interview stops, it must end immediately.’
‘Anything else?’ asked Emily.
‘I forgot, they’re only giving you one hour.’
‘Jesus,’ Emily said under her breath.
‘Good, it’s the right way to do it. We’d better start the preparations. Can you operate the video camera, Chrissy?’
She lifted up her damaged arm. ‘This is feeling a lot better since I came back to work.’
‘Good. This could be the most important interview of this case.’
‘There’s one other thing,’ said Chrissy, ‘Turnbull has applied to Claire Trent for an extension to hold Michael Carsley for longer. She has granted him just four hours.’
‘Not twelve hours?’
Chrissy shook her head. ‘He’s not a happy bunny.’
‘Are they going to charge him?’
‘The word on the street is yes, but he hasn’t confessed yet. The extra time is for Turnbull to get his ducks in a row with the CPS. The reporters have caught wind of it and a couple of them are already camped outside Wythenshawe nick.’
‘Molly Wright?’
‘And her photographer.’
‘Once it gets out, the whole place is going to be besieged,’ said Emily.
Chrissy threw another paper down on the table. Irene McMurdo’s pinched face stood out from page three beneath the headline MY CHILD WAS MY LIFE and Molly Wright’s byline.
‘Looks like we need to work quickly,’ said Ridpath, picking up the recording equipment. ‘Before Michael Carsley is hung, drawn and quartered in the pages of the national press.’
Chapter 62
They parked outside Ford Avenue children’s home at 3.45.
For a moment, Ridpath took a deep breath, wrapping his arms around himself and tapping his fingers on either shoulder.
‘Shall we go in?’ asked Emily Parkinson.
‘Just give me a second.’
‘Are you OK?’ Chrissy Wright leant forward from the back seat. ‘I have to go in and set up before we start at five p.m.’
‘I know the time, you don’t have to remind me,’ Ridpath snapped.
‘Hey, you need to calm down, you can’t interview a child in this sort of state,’ said Emily, placing her hand on his arm.
‘I know, I know. Give me a second. You two go in first and set up. I’ll be there in a tick.’
Emily raised her eyebrows at Chrissy, and they both got out of the car, Chrissy extremely gingerly with the cast on her leg. Emily went round to the boot to get the camera and recording gear they had borrowed from Phil Reynolds.
Ridpath sat alone for a moment. Why was he so tense about this interview? They normally never worried him. There was a pattern for questioning co-operating witnesses they had all learnt years ago.
Establish rapport.
Ask the interviewee to explain the event in their own words.
Drill down on the details.
Close the interview and explain the next steps.
Every interview was the same and yet everyone was different. It was exactly as he’d been trained at Edgeley Park, and refined on the job by Charlie Whitworth.
And Charlie was the best interviewer in the business.
So why did this one feel different? Was it because it was a child? The same procedures were in play whoever was interviewed. Obviously with children and vulnerable adults, you had to be far more careful with language and the way questions were framed, but the procedures were still the same.
Establish rapport.
Ask the interviewee to explain the event in their own words.
Drill down on the details.
Close the interview and explain the next steps.
‘Get yourself together, Ridpath.’
He took three deep breaths, filling his diaphragm and then letting the air out through his mouth. He instantly felt warmer, calmer, more controlled. He wished he’d known about these coping techniques far earlier in his career.
‘Time to make it happen,’ he said out loud.
He got out of the car and walked up the path leading to the front door. After being checked in by security and going through the usual Covid-19 precautions, he was led to a large room off the lobby. Here, Chrissy had already set up and Emily Parkinson was sat next to a tall woman with short hair and a black leather jacket.
She held out her hand. ‘I’m the social worker, Ruby Grimes.’
‘DI Ridpath from GMP. I presume you’ve already met my colleagues.’
‘Actually, I know Ruby socially, Ridpath, we’ve met a few times.’
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask more details, but he guessed this was neither the time nor the place. Instead, he reached into his bag and pulled out the interview plan he had written with Emily that afternoon.
Ruby Grimes flicked through it, taking in the details. ‘I can keep this for our files?’
‘Of course.’
‘And who will be leading the interview today?’
‘Emily… DS Parkinson will lead as she has already established a rapport with Daniel. I will jump in occasionally when needed. Chrissy is here to operate the camera and t
he recorder.’
‘Good. I don’t have to remind you of the ground rules. If Daniel wants to stop the interview, it will cease immediately. Or if I feel Daniel is being put under too much stress, I will call a halt. Understood?’
‘Agreed. What’s his demeanour been like since coming to the home?’
‘Not good, I’m afraid. He’s fluctuating between being totally uncommunicative to shouting and swearing that he wants to go home.’
‘Not the best time to interview him.’
‘No, the circumstances of being separated from his father have not been good for him.’
‘What about the mother?’
‘We assessed her living environment and decided it would not be a safe place to put a vulnerable child. We asked Daniel and he was vehement that he didn’t want to live with her.’
‘Why?’
‘He didn’t say and I didn’t ask.’ She glanced at the time. ‘Shall we begin? We agreed you would only have one hour.’
Ridpath nodded.
The social worker and Emily Parkinson went upstairs to fetch Daniel.
Chrissy and Ridpath were left alone in the room with the civilian officer fiddling with the controls on the video camera and adjusting the levels on the mike.
Three minutes later, Daniel appeared at the door, recognised Ridpath and stared at Chrissy, before being asked to sit down in a chair beside the desk.
He sat awkwardly, his head staring down between his knees at the floor.
‘Before we start, Daniel, do you want me to call you Daniel, or Dan like I used to when I was in your house?’ asked Emily.
‘Dan’s fine,’ he answered without looking up. The accent had a soft Scottish burr to it, as still untainted by the whine of Manchester.
‘Good, Dan it is then. As I was explaining upstairs, this is a more formal interview; that’s why we’ve got Chrissy here to record it.’
‘I’ve already given lots of interviews.’
‘I know, Dan, but we need to understand what happened to David on the day he disappeared.’
‘Dave. We called him Dave, not David.’
‘OK, Dave it is. We’re going to start taping, if that’s OK with you.’
‘I suppose I don’t have much choice, do I?’
The social worker leant forward. ‘That’s untrue, Dan. If you want to stop the interview, you can right now.’