“Do you know a little girl called Annabel Gaucin?” he asked.
I looked sideways at my solicitor. Ever so slightly, she shook her head.
“No comment,” I said.
“She’s only six years old.” There was contempt in his voice. “Mr. Halley, why is there a photograph of Annabel Gaucin naked on your cell phone?”
“No comment.”
“A photograph of her standing naked in your house?”
“No comment.”
If he’d seen the photo, he knew damn well that Annabel had been standing in the bath next to Saskia, and both of them had been covered in bubble-bath foam. Apart from their smiling faces sticking out amongst the bubbles, hardly a square inch of bare skin had been visible on either of them. And how did they know the photo was of Annabel anyway?
I was beginning to understand what Maggie had meant about the police twisting everything to make it look bad.
It didn’t seem to make any difference if I answered their questions or not, and I didn’t like it. It made me squirm in my seat.
• • •
THE INTERVIEW continued in much the same manner for the next hour, with me saying “No comment” to every direct question put to me by the superintendent. D.S. Fleet sat silently throughout, watching me. I had heard him say nothing since reciting the arrest caution at Banbury railway station.
I requested another private conversation with Maggie Jennings, where I again voiced my objections to not answering the superintendent’s questions.
“I know what I’m doing,” Maggie said. “You don’t have to prove your innocence.”
“But I want to,” I replied. “I am innocent.”
“I know what I am doing,” she repeated. “Trust me.”
I wasn’t entirely sure that Maggie believed in my innocence. Perhaps the questions about the photo of Annabel had shocked her. But, at the time, it had never crossed my mind that anyone could ever think that it was anything other than what it was, a proud father taking a snap of his six-year-old daughter harmlessly playing in the bath with her best friend. Marina had been in the picture as well, and it had been her idea to take it.
So I went on replying “No comment” to every question I was asked, and, eventually, like me, the superintendent got fed up with it.
“Interview terminated at . . . twenty-two eighteen,” he said, stopping the recording. He then stood up and walked straight out of the room without a further word.
“What happens now?” I asked Detective Sergeant Fleet, the silent sidekick, but, as before, he said nothing. He just looked at me as if I was a piece of dog shit that he’d picked up on his shoe and then he followed his boss out the door, closing it behind him.
“They’ll definitely keep you here overnight,” Maggie said, “and probably question you again in the morning. They will be already searching your house and checking through your computer memory for any other indecent images.”
“The photo of Annabel is not indecent,” I said. “It shows her standing in the bath with my daughter, and they are both covered from head to toe in bubble-bath foam. My wife is in the photo as well. There’s nothing remotely sexual about it.” But it was true that, at the time, I’d had a thought that I probably shouldn’t have taken it. And I wouldn’t have done without Marina’s insistence.
“They’ll keep you here anyway,” she said. “They can hold you for thirty-six hours, unless they apply to a magistrate for an extension.”
“An extension?” I asked.
“In total, they could hold you for up to ninety-six hours before they must either charge you or release you.”
“Ninety-six hours! That’s four days.”
“That would be in an extreme case,” Maggie said, trying to be reassuring. “If they find no further images, and the one they have you say looks so innocent, then you will be released sometime tomorrow, maybe on police bail to reappear at a police station at a future date when they have completed their inquiries. Unless, of course, they have statements from other people that are incriminating.”
From whom? I thought. McCusker must have terrorized someone into making a complaint about me in the first place. Who knows what else he might have set up?
Maggie went over and knocked on the door. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Where are you staying?”
“My office has fixed a hotel. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. The police will let me know if and when you are to be interviewed again tomorrow. In the meantime, say nothing to any of them about your case. And be warned, there is no such thing as a ‘friendly, off-the-record chat’ with a custody officer.”
The door opened and two of those selfsame custody officers came in as Maggie departed.
In keeping with my instructions, I said nothing to them as I was frog-marched once again back to cell number 5. There seemed little chance of anything “friendly” towards me from this lot anyway. Even the meal waiting for me in the cell was stone-cold and had clearly been left there for ages. It was a dark brown stew of indeterminate content, and the gravy had congealed on the plastic plate to a texture akin to wallpaper paste.
With four days of this diet, I thought, I’d soon be back to my riding weight.
• • •
“HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THESE?” asked the superintendent the following morning.
He threw a brown envelope onto the table in the interview room, and I could see all too clearly the top few of the thick wad of photographs that had spilled out of the end. The images were of young children in sexual situations, and they were enough to make any normal person sick.
“No comment,” I replied once more.
“This envelope was found in your shed,” he said, “hidden under a stack of old gardening gloves.”
I could hear the blood racing through my ears, my mouth went completely dry and my throat felt like it was closing up.
I’d never seen the envelope or the photographs before. They had to have been planted there by McCusker, or by one of his chums, but I didn’t think the superintendent would believe me even if I’d been allowed by Ms. Jennings to say so.
Suddenly, the stakes had been raised considerably, and I could feel myself plunging headlong into oblivion, unable to stop, like the Titanic steaming full-speed ahead into an iceberg, followed by a one-way trip to the abyss.
Whoa, I said to myself. Calm down. Take a few deep breaths.
I forced myself to slowly take a drink of water from the glass in front of me.
“I would like to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Watkinson or to Detective Sergeant Lynch.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d asked, but, as before, the superintendent took no notice.
“There are fifty-eight highly indecent images of children in this envelope,” he said, sorting through some of them on the table in front of me. “Some of them showing children in sexual situations with adults, not that you can see the adults’ faces of course. Let me tell you, Mr. Halley, there’s enough here to get you a nice long stretch in the slammer. And you know what happens to people like you when they get inside.” He drew a finger across his throat.
“Please do not intimidate my client,” said Maggie Jennings.
The policeman glared at her in a manner that suggested that he’d have quite liked to intimidate her as well.
“I will answer your questions,” I said to him, “but only if you allow Detective Chief Inspector Watkinson and Detective Sergeant Lynch to be present.”
Maggie Jennings looked at me in amazement and again asked for a private conference with her client.
“Are you sure that is wise?” she asked when we were alone.
“I’m fed up with being accused of something I haven’t done and then not defending myself. Those photographs have been planted in my garden shed. I’ve never seen them before nor want to see the
m again. It may not be wise to answer his questions, but it can’t be any worse than saying ‘No comment’ all the time. It sounds as if I’ve something to hide, which I haven’t. Even I’m beginning to doubt my innocence as I listen to myself.”
“OK,” Maggie said, shaking her head in disagreement. “You’re the client.”
But instead of continuing with the interview, I was taken forcibly back to cell number 5 and left there all alone for ages and ages.
To say it was frustrating would have been a major understatement.
I was used to being in control and knowing what was going on. But here I was totally isolated, not even aware what was happening to my family.
Were Marina and Sassy somewhere together? Or was my little Saskia frighteningly alone in some unfamiliar children’s home as McCusker had insinuated?
Not knowing was the worst bit.
These days, we are all so used to having cell phones and the Internet immediately at hand that we feel completely at a loss without them. It’s as if we are addicted to the contact with the world at large and are unable to cope with even a few hours of digital isolation.
I clenched and unclenched the fingers of my right hand as if flexing them back and forth would take away their urge to be texting on my phone or typing on my computer keyboard.
Meanwhile, the fingers on my left hand remained stubbornly unresponsive to any stimulation whatsoever—not least because they were still lying some fifteen yards away from me in the custody sergeant’s desk drawer.
The time dragged by interminably, and I went on worrying about Marina and Saskia. I considered that it was my role to look after them, a role that I was currently failing to fulfill in spectacular fashion. I wasn’t even able to look after myself.
There was no clock in the cell. As a general rule, I used the time readout on my cell phone instead of a wristwatch. So I tried to estimate how long a minute was. Then five minutes. Then ten. But I had no way of knowing if I was right.
For the second time today, I could feel the panic rising in my throat.
Calm down, I told myself again, calm down. More deep breaths, not that deep breaths were very pleasant. Police cell blocks, I had discovered, had an all-pervasive smell: a mixture of stale sweat, urine and vomit overlaid with the pungent aroma of ammonia disinfectant.
I had to do something to keep my brain active so I started to do mental calculations about my surroundings that did not involve the passing of time. How big was my cell? How many cubic meters of air were there in it? If a lungful of air was five liters, how many different lungfuls of stinking air were there in the cell? And so on.
I knew I was being silly, but such had become my state of mind that anything was better than climbing the cell walls, and I felt pretty close to that.
I must remember, next time I’m arrested, to have a book with me to read, not that this lot would have let me keep it.
• • •
THE CUSTODY STAFF came for me, in the end, and I was frog-marched back to the interview room and sat down forcibly on the chair by the table.
I looked up at the clock on the wall. It showed the time was ten minutes to noon. I had been back in my cell for just over two hours. It had felt like five times as long. How did anyone cope with years of solitary confinement? I reckoned I’d go mad in a week.
Maggie Jennings came in, followed by the superintendent, his detective sergeant sidekick, and then by D.C.I. Watkinson, who took a seat slightly behind the other officers. There was no sign of D.S. Lynch, but one couldn’t expect everything. D.C.I. Watkinson would have to be enough.
The superintendent went through the procedure for starting the recording, stating the date, the time and those present in the room.
If I’d thought the presence of D.C.I. Watkinson was going to make everything fine, then I’d been sorely mistaken. If anything, the demeanor of the superintendent had hardened, as if he hadn’t liked being dictated to by one of his prisoners.
“Right, Mr. Halley,” he said. “Let’s start again. Do you know a little girl called Annabel Gaucin?”
“Yes,” I said. “She is a school friend of my daughter.”
“Has she ever been in your house?”
“Yes,” I said. “She has stayed over on several occasions. And before you bother to ask, yes, I took a photograph of her about two weeks ago with my daughter in the bath. My wife is in the shot as well, and the photo is not sexual in any way.”
“Wouldn’t you say that taking a photograph of two naked six-year-old girls was sexual?”
“No,” I said, “I wouldn’t. They were completely covered in bubble-bath foam. What is remotely sexual about that?”
“Marilyn Monroe thought bubble bath was sexy. She was often filmed in a bath full of bubbles precisely for that very reason.”
“That’s different,” I said. “And anyway, the one I took is certainly not indecent.”
“A jury will be the judge of that.”
Oh God, I thought. A trial? With a jury? Surely they would understand that the photograph was just an innocent family snap. But how about the other ones, those in the brown envelope found in my garden shed. There was no way that they could be described as innocent family snaps.
“Mr. Halley,” the superintendent went on, “have you ever inappropriately touched Annabel Gaucin?”
“No,” I said indignantly, “I have not. I haven’t touched any little girls except my own daughter, of course.”
“Have you ever touched your daughter’s genitals or her anus?”
I didn’t like the way these questions were going. Perhaps “No comment” would have been better after all.
“I often changed her diapers when she was a baby,” I said, “like all good fathers. And I bathe her occasionally when my wife is away or busy. But, no, absolutely not, I have never ever touched her in any sexual way. I wouldn’t.”
“Have you ever been naked in your daughter’s presence?”
I thought back to when little Sassy regularly used to climb into bed with Marina and me in the mornings. I’d been naked then.
“Probably when she was a baby,” I said. “My wife and I think nothing of walking round our bedroom undressed. Saskia would sometimes be there.”
“When was the last time you were naked in your daughter’s presence?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Last year? Last month? Last week?”
“Much longer ago that that,” I said, sweating slightly. “Years. Probably not since she’s been at school.”
“Have you ever been naked in the presence of any other child?” he asked.
“No,” I said with certainty.
“Are you the adult in any of these pictures?” He picked up the brown envelope.
“Absolutely not,” I said. “And I have never seen those photographs before. I believe that they were planted in my shed by the same man who has been threatening me on the telephone, the same man who had my daughter kidnapped from school.”
I looked at D.C.I. Watkinson in expectation that he would back up my claims, but he sat there tight-lipped, saying nothing. He’d obviously had his orders to sit still and stay silent.
I turned back to the superintendent. “Have you even talked to Detective Chief Inspector Watkinson about Billy McCusker?” I asked.
“That is not relevant to this case.”
“Yes, it damn well is,” I said angrily. “McCusker phoned me yesterday on the train only a few minutes before I was arrested to say that I would pay for not doing as he wanted, and he also said he hoped my little girl wouldn’t fare too badly in a children’s home. So don’t tell me he’s not relevant to this case. It has everything to do with Billy McCusker.”
“Billy McCusker didn’t take the photograph of the two little girls standing naked in the bath.”
He seemed obsessed with it.
“Look,” I said, trying to sound as rational as possible, “have you actually seen the picture? If so, you know as well as I do that that it’s just an innocent family snapshot, which, on its own, would not have resulted in any arrest or even a raised eyebrow.” But, I thought, it had been like icing on McCusker’s cake. Even he couldn’t have imagined his good luck.
“So why was I arrested?” I went on. “And before anyone had seen that picture on my phone anyway? Someone must have made a complaint against me. Who was it?”
The superintendent said nothing.
“It wasn’t Annabel Gaucin or her parents who complained, was it?” I said, working up quite a head of steam. “So who was it? Someone with an Irish accent?”
Again there was no response.
“I’m telling you, Superintendent Ingram, this whole thing is a complete setup. Billy McCusker, or one of his cronies, hid those photos in my shed where they knew you’d find them. Then they called you and made a complaint against me. Have you even tested the photographs for fingerprints? You certainly won’t find mine on them.”
“Interview suspended at twelve twenty-two,” said Superintendent Ingram suddenly, pushing the buttons on the recording machine.
The three policemen stood up in unison and turned towards the door.
“How much longer am I going to be held here?” I asked with a degree of anger in my voice. “I would like to go home and look after my family.”
The superintendent didn’t even pause in his movement.
“Chief Inspector Watkinson,” I called out to him, “you must realize what is going on. Can’t you do something?”
He briefly turned and looked at me with sorrow in his eyes, but still he said nothing. My only hope was that he’d speak to Ingram outside.
The door closed behind the three of them, leaving me alone in the room with Maggie Jennings.
Dick Francis's Refusal Page 17