by Jane Isaac
‘Carter and Ingram both worked at the estate agents,’ Beth said. ‘Jason took over both branches when Stuart stepped down after the charge last year. Perhaps his father-in-law suspected he was on drugs. If Jason had something to hide, planting those images would be a surefire way of getting him out of the way.’
‘Hmm.’ Freeman was lost in thought.
‘Vicki Ryan’s part in it is intriguing though, isn’t it?’ Beth said. ‘Waite indicated she knew about the plant on Stuart Ingram’s computer and was present when they organised it. If he’s speaking the truth, then it makes you wonder whether she made up those sexual harassment allegations as a guise, to court police attention and get us to look at his laptop. If they were both servicing cocaine habits, it’s possible they were in it together.’
Freeman gave Beth a hard stare. ‘We’ll have to play this one close. The last thing we need is any more flak from Mike Carter or Northants News.’
‘But it all fits though, doesn’t it? I saw Jason Carter arguing with Waite at the cafe.’
‘It’s unlikely the prosecution would want to use that in court. You weren’t even supposed to be there.’
‘Maybe not, but it shows Carter and Waite were associated.’
Freeman gave a heavy sigh. ‘Right, let’s pull them in.’ He turned to Osborne. ‘Speak with the source handling unit, will you? Get them to ask their informants in the field how well Vicki Ryan and Jason Carter are known as cocaine users, and whether they’re in debt to anyone? Oh, and I’m going to need to borrow some of your staff to assist with the interviewing on this one. Most of mine are at the pub.’
42
Sharman Villas reached up to the night sky, casting imposing shadows over the terraces opposite. The road was quiet, the windows masked by tightly shut curtains; residents winding down and preparing for bed at the end of a long day.
Beth and Osborne climbed out of the car to the hum of a motorbike passing along the main road nearby. The smell of chip fat hung in the air from the cafe at the bottom of the road. Beth led Osborne across to the entrance and keyed in the number for Vicki Ryan’s flat. There was no answer. Beth checked her watch and pressed again.
Two teams had been coordinated to surprise Vicki Ryan and Jason Carter at their homes at precisely 10.30 p.m. that evening. Beth and Osborne were responsible for Vicki, and Freeman had taken it upon himself to pick up Jason Carter. They’d arranged to take them to different stations to be interviewed so their paths didn’t cross and there was no opportunity to collude. It was late on a Wednesday, they expected both would be at home. Beth bit her lip. If they didn’t reach Vicki, there was a chance an associate of Carter might contact her, inform her the police were on their way. At the very least, prior warning of Jason’s arrest would give her the opportunity to concoct a story. At worst, she could disappear.
Beth tried the keypad one last time and was beginning to weigh up her options when excited voices nearby were followed by a peal of laughter. A group of people turned the corner at the top of the street, engrossed in their chatter as they approached. The three men and two women were dressed in suits and smart attire, but the slackened ties on the men, the hair hanging loose on the women, suggested relaxation. Vicki was in the centre of the group, and looked fresh, happy.
They were close to the apartment block entrance when one of the men nudged Vicki and muttered in her ear. The group immediately hushed.
‘Hello, Vicki,’ Beth said. ‘We need to have another word.’
‘I’m busy right now,’ Vicki said.
‘It won’t take long.’
‘As I said, I’m busy.’
At present, they had no firm evidence of Vicki’s part in planting the abusive images on Stuart Carter’s computer, only Waite’s word that she was in the car when it was arranged. It was still possible she wasn’t involved. But Beth wasn’t about to be pushed aside. She rested her hand on Vicki’s forearm.
‘If you’d come with us.’
‘Get your hands off me!’ Vicki shouted, whipping her arm up into the air, shrugging her off.
‘Right, we’ll do this the hard way. Vicki Ryan, I’m arresting you for perverting the course of justice.’ Beth wrenched Vicki’s arm behind her back.
‘Hey!’ One of the men moved forward but Osborne blocked his path. Beth recognised him as Marcus, Vicki’s boyfriend. ‘Miss Ryan is coming to the station with us,’ Osborne said. ‘Unless you want to be arrested for obstructing a police officer and join us at Campbell Square, I suggest you stand back.’
‘Do something!’ Vicki pleaded at Marcus as Beth snapped handcuffs over the woman’s wrists.
For a second, Beth thought Marcus was going to rush forward, support his girlfriend. But instead he stood back, impotent, while Beth loaded Vicki into the car.
‘I’ll see you at the station,’ he said.
*
Vicki Ryan sat opposite Beth in the interview room, tugging at the skin on her neck. She appeared to have shrunk in the last hour, the processing through custody and arrival of the duty solicitor melting her former belligerence.
Beth wondered how the interview with Jason Carter was unfolding. Freeman had texted them as soon as they arrived at Campbell Square to confirm he’d picked up Carter and taken him to a station in the north of the county. He was interviewing Carter himself, despite the fact that chief inspectors rarely interviewed, but Beth suspected Jason’s connections with the press influenced his decision. He would never expect a member of his team to do something he wouldn’t do himself and if there was a backlash on this one, he would deal with it personally.
‘Tell me about your time at Ingram’s estate agents,’ Beth asked Vicki.
‘I went through this last year. I worked for them for six months, from May to October 2016.’
Beth ignored the frustration in the other woman’s voice. ‘What did you do there?’
‘I was in sales.’
‘What did your job entail?’
‘House viewings. Valuations. That sort of thing.’
‘Why did you leave Ingram’s in October?’
‘You know why.’
‘For the recording please.’
Vicki cleared her throat. ‘I made a complaint of harassment against the owner, Stuart Ingram. I didn’t want to continue there afterwards.’
‘A complaint you later dropped.’
‘Yes. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t true.’
‘Are you saying it was true?’
‘Yes. I just didn’t want to have to stand up in court and go through it all again. It was easier to drop the complaint and leave the company.’
‘Tell me about Jason Carter,’ Beth said.
‘He managed the sub-branch of Ingram’s in Corby. I was based at the main branch in Northampton, but when Corby was short-staffed I helped Jason there.’
‘What was the nature of your relationship with Jason Carter?’
‘What?’ She cast a glance at the duty solicitor beside her. ‘I-I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Oh, come on, Vicki. We already know you were close. Where were you on the second of October 2016?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her jaw tightened. ‘What is all this about?’
‘How did you meet Ian Waite?’ Beth said, brushing the question aside.
Vicki’s face clouded. ‘I don’t know anyone by that name.’
‘Are you sure? Because Ian Waite has told us otherwise.’ She watched Vicki swallow long and hard as she continued. ‘Vicki, you have been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. If convicted, you could be facing a significant term of imprisonment.’
Vicki paled. She looked like she was going to be sick.
Her solicitor sat forward. ‘I must object. That statement is intimidatory.’
Beth ignored him. ‘Waite claims he planted child abuse images on Stuart Ingram’s computer. He also claims it was you and Jason who paid him to do that.’
‘No, no, it wasn’t me.’
‘A
re you saying you weren’t in the Grosvenor shopping centre car park on the second of October 2016? Be careful how you answer here, we’ll be checking camera footage from the area, appealing for witnesses.’
‘No. I mean, yes…’
‘Which is it?’
‘It wasn’t me that asked him to put the images on Mr Ingram’s computer. You have to believe me.’
‘Who was it then?’
She looked down, her breaths jerky.
‘Does your new boyfriend know about your cocaine habit?’ Beth asked.
Vicki’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t have a cocaine habit. I don’t touch the stuff anymore.’
Thick lines appeared on her solicitor’s forehead. ‘My client’s been arrested for perverting the course of justice, not drug offences,’ she said, pointing her biro at Beth. ‘I’m warning you, detective. Keep to the offence she’s been arrested for.’
Beth had dealt with many solicitors during her career. Their job was to protect their client’s best interests; hers was to unravel the truth. They often disagreed, especially when boundaries were pushed. Some officers, especially in their early years in the job found the lawyers daunting, but to Beth they were people, like herself, with a job to do.
‘You need to start talking,’ she said to Vicki. ‘Otherwise, perverting the course of justice will be the least of your worries.’
Vicki dropped her head into her hands. When she looked back up, tears glistened in her eyes. ‘Jason was very competitive, always comparing his branch’s performance to others. He put in long hours, got his staff to do leaflet drops far and wide to bring in new clients and boost trade. I worked there more and more, sometimes even on my day off. I was struggling to keep up, but I needed the money because I was saving for my own place. He offered me something, to make it easier.’
‘That being?’
‘Cocaine. I didn’t take it regularly at first. But it was a busy time, we were aiming to turn over our first half-million. Jason said when we reached our target he could take me on there, full-time. It was closer to my home, more convenient. The people there were friendlier too. Old man Ingram could be really austere. Jason was very persuasive. Before I knew it, I was taking cocaine daily. We both were.’
‘Were you having an affair with him?’
‘No. We had sex a few times, but it wasn’t about that. We took some coke, had a few drinks. Celebrated sales. I don’t take it anymore. Haven’t touched the stuff since I left.’
‘Who else worked there?’
‘There was another salesman, Luke, he mainly did lettings, and Helen who was part-time on sales, and Jason, and me when I helped out. It was only a small branch.’
‘What about Luke and Helen? Did they take drugs too?’
‘No. Luke’s a Mormon, he doesn’t do drugs or alcohol, and Helen has young children. We didn’t take anything when they were in the office.’
‘Where did you get the cocaine from?’
‘I don’t know. Jason organised everything. He covered the costs and I worked the odd extra day for him. But I started to notice things weren’t quite right at the branch.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Jason was securing new business, keeping it to himself. That wasn’t unusual, everyone had their own clients. But he kept some properties back, those where people were moving with their jobs or needed a quick sale and I noticed he failed to progress offers or feed them back to the client.’
‘What happened with these properties?’
‘After several weeks, a contact of his came in with a low offer. By then the sellers were so desperate they accepted. We worked closely together, Jason and I, when I was in the branch. I don’t think anyone else noticed. But when I looked into it, I discovered that, later, the same properties were sold on at the full asking price.’
‘He was underselling?’
Vicki cringed at the term and nodded. ‘I couldn’t believe it at first. It took me a while to track it back and realise what was going on.’
‘How many properties were involved?’
‘There were four files in his drawer when I searched. At least two of them with offers that weren’t communicated to the clients, and then sold on at an undervalue.’
‘Can you remember the purchasers’ names?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s an awful practice, goes against every code of ethics. I confronted him, threatened to leave and he said he was using the money to pay off a £20,000 drugs debt. £20,000! I had no idea. He said if I told anyone, or tried to resign, he’d pass my name to his supplier and they’d come after me. I was terrified. A couple more weeks passed and I was struggling to cope.’ She gulped a breath. ‘Then old man Ingram asked for the books. Jason got jumpy, thought he was suspicious. So, when I next went back to the Northampton office, he cooked up a plan. I never really understood all of it. I knew they were doing something to his computer, but I let Jason deal with it. My job was to raise the harassment allegations and keep them going for long enough for the police to investigate, and then later drop them.’ She was crying now, her breaths coming in gasps. Tears pooled on the table in front of her. ‘Then I could resign and he promised to leave me alone. I couldn’t wait to get away from there.’
Her solicitor sat forward. ‘My client’s distressed. I suggest we take a break.’
‘No,’ Vicki said, wiping away the tears. ‘I’ve lived with this for long enough. I want to get it out now.’
‘You’re telling me you arranged to have child abuse images planted on Stuart Ingram’s computer?’ Beth said.
‘Not me, no! It wasn’t my idea. It was Jason’s. He set up the meetings, dealt with it all.’
‘But you did go with him?’
‘I was with him in the car when he met the guy.’ She paused a moment, massaged her temples. ‘It was only meant to get old man Ingram out of the way for a while, so Jason could pay off the debt, smooth things over. I had no idea what would happen, how things would escalate. You have to believe me.’ Another tear leaked out of her eye.
Beth leaned forward. ‘Is Jason still underselling houses?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him since I left. It was hard enough to watch Mr Ingram’s case unfold on the news. I hated myself for being a part of it.’
Her shoulders sunk as the tears turned into sobs. She covered her face like a child. It was a pitiful sight.
That explained why Vicki had retreated from the media’s eye after she’d dropped the complaint, Beth thought. And also why she avoided Beth’s questions at the flat and was so intent on putting the incident behind her.
‘What about the people Jason organised this with?’ she pressed finally. ‘You met Waite. Did you meet any of the others? Those that supplied the drugs, or those that bought the houses?’
‘No. Waite was the only one, as far as I remember.’ She wiped the back of her hand beneath her nose and sniffed. ‘What will to happen to me?’
‘That’s not my decision,’ Beth said. ‘But you need to cooperate. I’ll need the addresses of the properties you believe were compromised, and the dates they were sold.’
‘I’m not sure I’d remember.’
‘You’re going to have to try.’
43
Beth eased back into a chair in the corner of the office behind the custody suite and sipped the last dregs of her coffee. As soon as she had finished with Vicki she’d hotfooted over to the station where Jason Carter was being interviewed. She was now with Freeman, passing on Vicki’s account.
‘Interesting,’ Freeman said as she finished up. He rested his elbow on the arm of his chair. ‘Obviously, we’ll need to get CPS agreement, but with Waite’s account and Vicki’s it looks like we’ll have enough to charge them all with conspiracy to distribute indecent images of children and perverting the course of justice. We’ll leave organised crime to investigate the underselling. They’ll need to arrange searches of Jason Carter’s home and businesses; identify the houses mis-sold and who was involved.
’
‘I can’t understand how he got away with it. I mean, wouldn’t the business accounts have been scrutinized?’
‘One would expect so. But many houses are sold on offer. It could have been a few grand here, a few grand there. He’ll have carefully selected the addresses, been convincing with the owners, used different buyers and taken steps to show the sale appeared legitimate on the books. What let him down was he didn’t advertise the properties. He was in deep with his suppliers. If he carried on the practice, it would have showed up eventually.’
‘How did you get on with Jason Carter?’ Beth asked, changing the subject.
‘He refused to answer our questions.’
‘That was a quick interview then.’
‘It was. Mind you, we had to wait nearly an hour for the Carter family solicitor to arrive.’
He placed down his mug, dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. It had been a long day and now, with the adrenalin rush of the evening’s events passed, the last ounces of energy were seeping out of them.
‘Okay, it’s time we called it a day,’ Freeman said.
He reached for his jacket and was wriggling into it when Sheryl, the custody sergeant, appeared.
‘Sir, Mike Carter’s in reception. He’s demanding to speak to someone senior about his son, making a real fuss. Apparently, I won’t do.’
The edge of a smile tickled Freeman’s lips. ‘Is he now?’ he said, slipping his jacket back off and placing it over the chair. ‘Well, we’d better see what he wants then, hadn’t we?’ He indicated for Beth to join him.
The reception area was empty apart from a young couple sat in the corner, deep in conversation together, and Carter, who sat opposite them.
Carter stood when Beth and Freeman emerged from the door leading to the back office and marched across to them. ‘I want to know what’s going on,’ he said to Freeman.
Beth had often heard officers talk about Carter’s aggressive demeanour, but only now could she appreciate it in full force. He was a bear of a man, well over six foot, his wide frame mirrored in the glass doors behind him. Cropped grey hair was swept back from an angular face with a strong jaw and eyes that held a formidable weighty stare. She wondered how many unlucky incumbents that stare had intimidated over the years.