‘Yup.’
‘OK. What about Cunningham?’
‘No sign yet.’
‘Right. I’ll talk to Steve.’
To Steve Boxer he said, ‘Wait for Neil Cunningham. You’ll see him coming – he drives a very distinctive car – a Morgan. Call for back-up from the squad car and arrest him as soon as he gets out of his car.’
‘I take it the DVD was the goods then, guv?’
‘Oh yes.’
He had hardly put his phone down when Paula called. ‘What’s the story?’ she asked.
‘It’s porn. Paedophile, as we thought. How did you do with Edmund?’
‘Not well. He denies everything. Agrees that he has sold DVDs but insists that they were legit – a recording of Amy. Says Gina must have got hold of a rogue one from somewhere – nothing to do with him.
‘Was he able to show you genuine Amy DVDs?’
‘He was awfully sorry but he’s fresh out of them. Went like hot cakes, apparently. Do you want me to bring him in and confront him with the stuff on the DVD? See if we can shake something out of him?’
‘Not yet. He’s a minor – we need to go carefully. Stay with him, though. I’m sending someone over with a search warrant. Keep him there and give his room a good going over. I’ll ring the headmaster and tell him what’s happening.’
Canon Aylmer was predictably resistant to the prospect of a police search. ‘Really, Chief Inspector, I hardly think – all this has already been most disruptive. Mr Bright has had to leave a class to sit in in loco parentis on your officers’ interrogation of the Carson boy.’
‘Crime is disruptive, I’m afraid.’
‘But surely this search can be done on a more unofficial basis.’
‘There’s no such thing as an unofficial search, sir. I’m sure you’ll understand that we have to follow procedure.’
‘And what exactly do you expect to find?’
‘I can’t say exactly, but the search is in connection with the distribution of pornographic material.’
‘Oh, well.’ Canon Aylmer gave a little laugh of relief. ‘If it’s top shelf magazines you’re looking for, I don’t know why you’re picking on Edmund Carson. I’m afraid you’d find them under a lot of the beds. Adolescent boys, you know.’
‘It’s a good deal more serious than that, sir. We’re talking about the distribution of obscene images of children. I wouldn’t be wasting my officers’ time on anything trivial.’
‘All the same, I’m not sure I can give permission without –’
‘With respect, Canon, I don’t need your permission. I’m informing you as a matter of courtesy. One of my officers will be arriving with a search warrant in the next half hour.’
He called the duty sergeant to get search warrants issued for the school and for the theatre, then he looked at his watch. Not yet ten. The next step was to talk to the Carsons and he wanted to take Sarah Shepherd with him. He made himself a cup of coffee and stood drinking it, looking out of his office window, waiting for Finnegan and Lytton to return with Alex Driver. When he saw them arrive, he went down to greet them. Driver was handed over to the duty sergeant and Scott took his officers on one side. ‘It’ll do him good to sweat for a bit,’ he said. ‘Andy, I need you to go back to the theatre for a search. Top to bottom. You know what you’re looking for. Take one of the guys in the squad car in with you. Sean, I’ll drop you off at The Abbey School. You can help Paula with the search of Edmund Carson’s room. I’m picking up Sarah Shepherd and taking her out to Charter Hall with me.’
The temperature had risen under a weak, struggling sun, and the roads were slushy as they drove out to Lower Shepton. In the unswept drive of Charter Hall, however, snow still lay thick. Scott rang the doorbell and clattered the heavy, wroughtiron knocker, but got no reply. Ten-thirty, he knew, was early for Glenys Summers. He led the way round the side of the house, glancing into outhouses as he went, feeling the snow begin to leak in through the seams of his shoes. The little blue boat, he noted, was missing from its place by the landing stage.
They found Hector Carson in his lair, dressed in a huge coat with a moth-eaten fur collar. The room was cold enough to send their breaths spiralling up in steamy clouds, despite the pungent smell emanating from a calor gas heater near the desk. Hector Carson gazed at them, mild and perplexed.
‘Was I expecting you?’ he asked.
‘No, sir. Detective Chief Inspector David Scott. You remember me?’
‘Oh. Yes,’ Carson said unconvincingly.
‘And this is PC Sarah Shepherd. She was your family liaison officer – after your daughter’s death.’
Light came into Hector Carson’s eyes. ‘Do you have some news?’
‘I’m afraid not. We’re here on a different – though probably related – matter, regarding your son, Edmund.’
‘Edmund? Has something happened to Edmund?’
‘No. Edmund is quite all right, but – you haven’t had a phone call from the school, then?’
‘I don’t answer the telephone, I’m afraid. I find it such a distraction.’
‘I see. Mr Carson, I’d really like to talk to you and your wife together about this. Do you think we could go into the house?’
‘Well,’ he said gazing about him vaguely, ‘what time is it?’
’10.45.’
‘Oh, that’s a little early for Glenys, I’m afraid. Her beauty sleep, you know…’
‘Perhaps just this morning you could wake her? This is quite important.’
‘But nothing has happened to Edmund?’
‘No.’
‘Well, we can go indoors and see.’
He led the way, not round the side of the house to the front door but between some outbuildings to the kitchen door, which he opened, ushering them into a large, hardly modernised, Edwardian kitchen, where the remains of a solitary breakfast still lay on the table. Leaving them there, he went into the interior of the house and they heard his heavy tread on the stairs.
From force of habit, they looked around, opening drawers and cupboards, glancing at postcards stuck to the fridge. Scott was amused to see that Sarah Shepherd also checked the bread bin and the freezer, favourite emergency hiding places, but theirs was not in the nature of a real search. Scott had a warrant in his pocket but he wasn’t ready to use it yet.
Hector Carson returned, looking anxious, and said his wife would be down soon. He waved vaguely to chairs and the three of them sat round the table, contemplating the remains of Hector’s breakfast, which he seemed to have no will to clear away. They sat in silence: Scott did not want to say any more until Glenys appeared and neither Sarah nor Hector came up with any small talk. Thus they were when Glenys appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a towelling dressing gown and slippers but she had stopped to put makeup on, Scott thought – nothing excessive, just enough to give her the dewy complexion of a younger woman.
‘What’s this? A wake?’ she asked. ‘Haven’t you offered our guests a cup of coffee, Hector?’
‘No, really.’ Scott put up a hand to forestall her. ‘We’re fine.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I think I’ll have one. Hector darling, would you mind?’ He stood up and she took his chair. ‘Now, Chief Inspector, what’s all this about?’
‘This morning, Mrs Carson –’
‘Glenys, please!’
‘ – two of my officers, one of whom was PC Shepherd here, interviewed your son Edmund in his room at Marlbury Abbey School with regard to the selling and distribution of obscene images of children. We believe that he has been selling DVDs containing pornographic material.’
She was neither shocked nor amazed, and she was too shrewd and too canny an actress, he thought, to attempt to feign shock and amazement. Instead, she looked at him very steadily, opened her eyes wide and said, ‘And what does Edmund say about that?’
Scott ignored the question. ‘I understand,’ he said, ‘that DVDs of your stage show, Amy, are being stored in one of the outhouses
here.’
‘And who told you that?’
‘We conducted a thorough search here, Mrs Carson, after your daughter’s death.’
‘I see. Well, you know more than I do. I never go into the outhouses. I’ve made one of them available to the Aphra Behn Theatre, and what Hector and the children do with the rest of them is up to them.’
‘But you know of the existence of these DVDs? You remember the recording being made?’
‘I do, vaguely. It wasn’t a big deal. Only two cameras, as I recall.’
‘Have you ever watched the recording?’
‘Now why would I want to do that?’
‘What about you, Mr Carson?’ Scott asked.
Hector Carson looked round from mopping up some spilled coffee and said, ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Oh do come and sit down, Hector,’ his wife said. ‘Forget about the coffee. Have you seen any DVDs of Amy around anywhere?’
‘Aah,’ he said, ‘I don’t –’
‘You won’t get anything from my husband, Chief Inspector,’ she said. ‘He’s not of this world, I’m afraid.’
‘Would you mind if we had a look for the DVDs?’
‘Be my guest, though I don’t quite see how they connect to this alleged crime of my son’s.’
‘We believe that the DVDs he has been selling are packaged as DVDs of Amy.’
‘And what makes you think they’re not of Amy?’
‘We’ve watched one of them.’
If she was shocked now, she showed it only by the slightest flush.
‘And you obtained this one from Edmund?’
‘Tell me,’ Scott said, waving her question away, ‘when Amy was recorded, who made the recording?’
She hesitated for a moment. ‘Neil arranged it, I suppose. I really didn’t take an interest.’
Scott stood up. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘There’s just one more thing before we go outside to look round. You had a housekeeper when you were away in Switzerland. Can you tell me her name?’
‘What on earth does she have to do with anything?’
‘It’s one of a number of leads we’re following to a paedophile ring we think Edmund may have been drawn into.’
‘Oh really, this just gets more and more ridiculous.’
‘The name of the housekeeper, Mrs Carson?’
She looked at her husband and then back at Scott. ‘I was very sick while we were away. That’s why we went. I was in a clinic for most of the time. Hector made all the domestic arrangements. I suppose I knew he’d found a housekeeper, but I have no idea of her name.’
‘Mr Carson?’
‘The housekeeper you employed in Gimmelwald, Hector. I don’t suppose for a moment you can remember her name?’
‘Name? Oh no. It was some time ago. So much has happened, you see, and…’
He trailed off. Scott stood up. ‘Never mind. But it does mean, I’m afraid, that I shall have to bring in a team of officers to go through all the papers in the house until we find her name and address. We do try not to create too much chaos, but I can’t guarantee that the papers in your study won’t get mixed up quite a bit.’
Animation sprang into Hector Carson’s face. ‘No, no!’ he said, struggling to his feet and toppling his chair over. ‘I really can’t have that. There is years of research in my room – years. If my notes are disturbed, I shall never…’
‘I understand that, sir. So if you could find us the name and address yourself, you’d save everyone a lot of trouble. I suggest PC Shepherd goes over to your study with you to help you find what we need. Meanwhile, I’ll take a look round outside.’
He glanced back as he walked away from the house and saw Glenys Summers standing at the kitchen window, watching him, her face inscrutable.
His search yielded nothing: the stables where Gina had, presumably, seen the boxes of DVDs, were empty. Other outhouses held theatrical paraphernalia, some stacks of mildewed books and several rusty bicycles, together with the assortment of useless and broken objects that accumulates where there is no will to throw them away. He returned to the car, switched on the engine to get the heating going and waited for Sarah.
She appeared five minutes later, triumphant. ‘Not a problem at all,’ she said. ‘It turns out he kept a diary while they were in Switzerland. Said he couldn’t get on with his writing so he kept a diary instead. I could just get the name, but I thought you might want to take the diary away.’
‘You thought right.’
Armed with his search warrant, he commandeered the six volumes of Hector Carson’s Swiss journal. Carson tore at his wild hair and protested tearfully; Scott was impressed by the way Sarah soothed him but found himself with little sympathy for the man. They piled the books in the car and departed.
Back at the station, Scott learned that Neil Cunningham had still not turned up at the theatre and that officers sent to his home had found it empty. Boxes of papers were being brought in from the search of the theatre; the Carsons’ boat had been seen moored near the scene dock; Edmund Carson’s room and common room locker were as clean as a whistle.
Scott took Paula with him to see Alex Driver. When he looked in through the spy glass of the interview room door, he saw that he was pacing the room with the contained, neurotic energy you see in caged cats. Offered coffee and a cigarette, he took both. Questioned about the DVDs in his office, he insisted, initially, that, as far as he knew, they were recordings of Amy and that whatever the police claimed to have found was planted evidence. Told that all the DVDs in the box contained criminal material, he suggested that boxes had been switched without his knowledge.
‘Where did the box come from?’ Scott asked.
‘It was cluttering up the under-stage space,’ he said, drawing on his cigarette in a way Scott found irritatingly Noel Coward. ‘Neil wasn’t happy with it down there so I brought it up and gave it a temporary home.’
‘And who put it under the stage in the first place? That would be your responsibility, I imagine?’
‘Oh yes, I put it there.’
‘And where did it come from?’
‘From the person who made the video, I assume. It just turned up one day. I think Lynette – our ASM – must have taken delivery of it.’
‘What did you plan to do with the DVDs?’
‘Oh the whole thing was a cock-up. Neil assumed The Duchess of York’s management would sell them and take a cut, but they didn’t want them because it wasn’t filmed there, so they became a white elephant. I thought we might be able to get rid of them during the panto season – sell them in the foyer.’
‘Were you present at the recording of the show?’
Driver took a sip of his coffee and grimaced theatrically. ‘I was in and out.’
‘And can you tell me who was doing the recording?’
‘Doing the recording? Yes, it was Glenys’s son – Edmund Carson.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Wasn’t it odd not to use a professional?’
‘According to his mother, he’s a gifted amateur, and Neil likes to save money. He arranged it. It was up to him.’
‘Mr Driver,’ Scott said, ‘we have a box full of pornographic material taken from your office, and my officers are removing from the Aphra Behn Theatre material which is very likely to incriminate you. Would you like to start again? Wouldn’t you like to forget this pathetically unconvincing tale you’ve been telling me and try telling the truth?’
Driver stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Thanks for the fag,’ he said, ‘but you can take the so-called coffee away. Rat’s piss might be preferable.’
‘We’ll be keeping you in custody over the weekend,’ Scott said, with a glance at the duty solicitor, who had sat silent throughout the interview, ‘so you’ll have the opportunity to see if you prefer the tea.’
He ate lunch in the canteen with Paula, who was quiet and distant. That suited Scott, who wanted a chance to think. Afterwards, he took H
ector Carson’s journal up to his office and started to read it. The early stuff was tedious – obsessive detail about the travel arrangements for the journey out – and he found the whole thing irritating in its self-conscious style and its air of portentousness, but he persisted and began to build up a picture of the life the family had lived in Grimmelwald. Gina had been right in her supposition that no-one had been paying much attention to the children. Hector wrote of endless days at the clinic, soothing, cajoling, distracting. Glenys, at least in the early months, seemed to have been always on the point of discharging herself and Hector had appointed himself as her loving gaoler. Of Edmund and Marina he found barely a mention, though he scanned forward into the record of the second year of their exile. He found the name he was looking for, though. The housekeeper who had had charge of these two lost children was a Mme Ducret, Martine Ducret, and her husband was Armand Ducret.
He looked at his watch and was surprised to find that it was already four o’clock. He needed Boxer back to track down the Ducrets. It was unlikely that Cunningham was going to turn up at the theatre now. He called Boxer. ‘Come back in, Steve.’ He said. ‘And stand the others down. I’ve got a job for you.’
Unable to settle to anything else while the evidence was still coming in, he decided to phone Gina. It was, after all, only fair to let her know that her hunch held true thus far. He called her home number and, after a delay, was answered by her mother. ‘Virginia’s not here,’ she said, ‘and I really don’t know where she is. I tried to keep her at home, but she insisted on going to a meeting out on the coast – Dungate, she said, I think. She phoned some time ago to say she was on the train, but she said she wouldn’t be home till after five, so I can’t think where she’s gone to now.’
‘What time did she call?’
‘About three-thirty.’
‘I see. Thank you.’
So where was she? She’d worried him yesterday: there was something hectic about her. She’d escaped from the house on some pretext and taken a train – where? He knew where. Of course he did. She couldn’t trust him to do his bloody job, could she? He’d made a joke of it when she called out to him to make sure he got hold of a DVD, but she was serious. She really thought it was all up to her. Well, she hadn’t gone to the theatre in search of a DVD, so there was only one other place she could have gone.
All the Daughters Page 23