by Ford, P. F.
She made her way back to the bathroom, stopped to flush the loo, and then continued back downstairs and into the lounge. Slater looked up as she walked into the room.
‘Mr Crump seems to have lost his voice,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t seem to be able to tell me what he was doing on Monday afternoon.’
‘Perhaps his wife can help,’ said Darling. Crump seemed to make a tiny, involuntary movement, almost a flinch. ‘Is your wife here, Mr Crump?’
‘No,’ he said, rather hastily. ‘She’s away at the moment.’
‘Where is she?’ asked Slater.
‘She’s gone to see her father.’
‘When will she back?’
‘I’m not exactly sure. He’s not well, you see. She’ll come back when he’s feeling better.’
‘You’d better leave her a note in case she comes back this afternoon,’ said Slater.
For the first time Crump’s face became animated.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’d like you to come down to the police station with us,’ said Slater. ‘I think we need to get some answers, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to get any here, does it?’
‘Am I under arrest?’
‘Not yet,’ said Slater. ‘At the moment you’re just helping with our enquiries, but, if you’d prefer it...’
‘You never told me whether you saw him double back on that film,’ said Slater. He glanced at Darling, who was sitting next to him in the observation suite. He could see Michael Crump through the window, and the contents of the man’s pockets were strewn on a table in front of him.
‘Not that I could see,’ Darling conceded.
‘That’s a pity. Our case would be a whole lot better if we had him on film following Chrissy, or at least heading in the same direction.’
‘There is another way he could have got there. Around the back of the school,’ said Darling.
‘He could have used a helicopter,’ said Slater, sighing, ‘but with no proof, the only thing we know for sure is that he followed a different girl who went in the opposite direction to Chrissy, and who’s to say he was following her with any intent? Maybe it just happens he was going the same way.’
‘But you saw him sizing up those two little girls on the tape.’ Darling’s voice was sharp. ‘And, anyway, just look at him. He’s definitely guilty about something.’
Slater followed her gaze through the window. Crump sat in exactly the position he had adopted when they had first put him in that room – head bowed, hands in his lap, staring resolutely at the table in front of him.
‘Did you notice he couldn’t look either of us in the eye when we spoke to him earlier?’ said Darling. ‘And his wife obviously doesn’t sleep in the same room as him.’
Slater looked at her, his eyes wide.
‘Oh well, that’s it then. He must be guilty if his wife doesn’t sleep with him. Why didn’t you say so before? We could have had this case closed by now.’
She returned his critical gaze.
‘I’m just saying it could mean there’s something dodgy about him, that’s all.’
‘It could just as easily mean there’s something dodgy about her,’ he pointed out.
‘Well, yeah, I suppose,’ she grudgingly agreed. ‘But it’s always a bloke, isn’t it?’
‘I know you’re quite new to all this,’ said Slater, ‘but I think you’re in danger of getting a bit carried away with your suspicions. Your belief that “it’s always a bloke”, “his wife doesn’t sleep with him”, and “he looks guilty about something”, doesn’t make this man a child-killer, and I promise you it won’t cut much ice with the DPP. In my experience, they like us to produce something called evidence. I know it’s a pain in the arse, and your way is probably much quicker, but there you go, that’s how it works.’
‘Okay,’ said Darling. ‘Have it your own way, but I’m telling you I’m right.’
‘I hear your opinion, and if we prove he’s our man, I’ll be happy to accept you were right. But we’re going to prove it the way we’ve been trained, not on a whim, okay?’
Darling sighed and rolled her eyes.
‘Okay, whatever,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to play good cop or bad cop?’
Slater adopted a deadpan expression.
‘You’ll notice the absence of a film crew,’ he said, caustically. ‘That’s because this isn’t a film set, this is the real world. Until I’ve had a chance to assess your capabilities, all I want you to play is quiet cop. Is that clear?’
‘I didn’t mean anything-’
‘Good,’ interrupted Slater, slipping on a pair of latex gloves and flexing his fingers. ‘Just as long as we’re both going to be professional about this.’ He poked at the stuff on the table. ‘He doesn’t carry much, does he?’
Darling sniffed her disapproval.
‘Just a wallet, a snotty handkerchief, fifty-eight pence in small change, and a couple of boiled sweets,’ she said.
Slater picked up the wallet and opened it. He slid out a ten-pound note and pushed it back, then he carefully peered into each compartment.
‘Ah, what’s this?’ he said, sliding a small photograph from the wallet. He placed it on the table where they could both see it was of a small girl. Slater guessed she would have been about the same age as Chrissy Morrison.
‘I wonder who she is,’ said Darling. ‘And more to the point, why is he carrying her photo around?’
‘Did you notice any photos of children in his house?’
‘No, I don’t think so, not even in the woman’s bedroom.’
‘No, I don’t recall any. So it’s not likely she’s his daughter, is it?’
‘At his age I would think not.’
Slater poked around in the wallet again and produced another photograph. This one was obviously from a pregnancy scan.
‘I don’t know much about these things,’ said Slater, placing the photo in front of Darling. ‘Do you?’
‘It’s not something I’ve had to worry about so far,’ she said, ‘but I do have a mate who had a baby a few months ago. She made everyone study her scans, and I believe she takes about a hundred photos a day of her kid. Bores the arse off those of us who aren’t interested. Anyway, like I said, I’m no expert, but if I remember right, the later scans were quite detailed so I would think that’s quite an early scan, where the baby’s just forming. It just shows up like some sort of indeterminate blip on the radar, if you see what I mean.’
Slater thought he knew exactly what she meant.
‘You don’t think it’s a scan of his own kid, do you?’ asked Darling. ‘He hardly looks capable, and he’s so old!’
‘We’ll ask him in a minute,’ said Slater. ‘But I don’t think you need to worry about an imminent arrival. This scan is donkey’s years old. Look how tatty it is.’
As soon as they entered the interview room, Crump began to polish his glasses. He had no handkerchief to use now so instead he used the hem of the fleece he was wearing. As they sat down across the table from their suspect, Slater became aware of the same faint odour there had been in the man’s lounge earlier. He wondered if Crump had picked up the smell from the house, or if the house had picked up the smell from him.
Over the next half an hour, Slater tried his best to wheedle information out of the old man. All Crump had done was sit and polish his glasses. Slater finally decided he had no choice but to assume the guy wouldn’t talk because he had something to hide. He adjourned the interview and stalked out of the room, Darling following behind, to find DI Goodnews and ask what he should do next.
‘Do we have good enough grounds to get a search warrant?’ asked Goodnews.
‘We know he was at the school gates,’ said Slater. ‘He appears to be caught on CCTV taking sneaky peeks at the little girls, and he followed one of them away from the gates. He’s also carrying a photograph of a similarly aged little girl.’
‘And he won’t tell us a bloody thing,’ added Darling. ‘All he says is he
wants to speak to a solicitor first. He’s definitely guilty about something.’
Goodnews looked enquiringly at Slater.
‘He’s distinctly furtive about something,’ he agreed. ‘He can’t look anyone in the eye, and he doesn’t stop polishing his glasses, like it’s a nervous thing.’
Goodnews considered for just a few seconds before she made up her mind.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Go for it. Get a search warrant, get a full forensics team down there, and turn the bloody place upside down. Stick him in a cell for now, and arrange a solicitor if that’s the only way we’re going to get him to talk.’
‘We’re looking for anything that might link Crump to the murder of Chrissy Morrison,’ said Slater, as he and Darling led Ian Becks and his forensics team into Crump’s house. ‘You know the sort of thing to look for. We’re particularly interested in finding kiddie porn or anything like that. We’ll start upstairs.’
As Becks dispersed his team, Slater and Darling made their way upstairs. Before they could start searching, however, his phone began to ring.
‘It’s me,’ said Goodnews, in his ear. ‘According to the duty solicitor, Mr Crump is ready and willing to answer some questions.’
‘What, already? But we were just going to start searching his house.’
‘It’s your choice, but if I were you I’d get back here while he’s willing. If your pet geek and his search team are half as good as you keep telling me, they know what they’re doing without you holding their hands, don’t they?’
‘So what’s changed his mind? He didn’t want to talk earlier.’
‘I can’t imagine,’ said Goodnews, innocently. ‘Perhaps someone suggested to the solicitor that we have enough evidence to charge him, and that it was only a matter of time before that became public knowledge.’
‘If someone did suggest that, they were taking a big risk,’ said Slater. ‘All the evidence we have is circumstantial. We have nothing concrete. That’s why we’ve trooped out here with a search warrant.’
‘Perhaps someone thought it was worth taking a punt and seeing what happens.’
‘That’s fine as long as that someone doesn’t leave someone else to catch the fallout if they’ve made the wrong call.’
There was a brief pause and then Goodnews spoke again.
‘Are you saying you want me to interview him?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I just want to voice my opinion that I think we should find some hard evidence. I don’t want a shit storm heading my way if we’ve got it wrong.’
‘Darling thinks he’s our man,’ said Goodnews.
Darling was standing right next to Slater, so he turned away from her and lowered his voice.
‘Are you telling me you’re backing five minutes’ experience over fifteen years?’ he hissed.
‘It’s not always about experience. That’s the whole point of introducing young blood and new thinking.’
‘What is this?’ Slater was unable to keep the irritation from his voice. ‘Some sort of experiment? What’s coming next? Ouija boards?’
‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ Goodnews snapped. ‘And remember who you’re talking to. I’ve told you before – as long as I know what’s going on, I will always cover your back. That applies to all my officers, and it applies to you and Darling right now. And I can assure you it’s not an empty promise.’
Slater tried to slow his breathing. He really didn’t want to argue with Goodnews, but he couldn’t see why they needed to rush.
‘So, are you going to come and do this interview?’ she asked, quietly.
‘Yes, I suppose so. We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.’
He ended the call and stuffed the phone back in his pocket.
‘What was all that about?’ asked Darling.
‘We have to go back,’ he said. ‘Apparently Mr Crump can’t wait to talk to us.’
She smiled.
‘Great! Perhaps he’s going to confess.’
When they walked into the interview room, Slater immediately noticed the familiar, musty aroma that seemed to accompany Michael Crump again. He was staring down at the table again, just as he had earlier, but this time, as the door opened, he jumped so hard he banged a knee against the table and began furiously rubbing it, then he slipped his glasses off once again and began polishing them. The duty solicitor was a man Slater had come across before, although he couldn’t recall the guy’s name.
Darling set the tape rolling and went through the introductory formalities, in the process reminding Slater the solicitor was called Donald Swanning, then she sat back, looking confident. She had been chatting to Slater all the way back in the car about how she was sure Crump was about to confess. Slater wasn’t so sure.
‘I hope you’re going to be a bit more co-operative this time, Michael,’ he began. ‘We have some CCTV footage that puts you in a pretty awkward situation, and you won’t do yourself any favours if you don’t explain yourself. Do you understand?’
‘My client realises he didn’t cover himself in glory earlier,’ said Swanning. ‘But he’s now prepared to answer your questions as best he can.’
Slater nodded to the solicitor and then looked at Crump, who slipped his glasses back onto his nose.
‘Good,’ said Slater. ‘In that case let’s start again with a clean sheet. So, Michael, how about you tell us why you were stood outside the school gates just as the kids were coming out of school.’
Crump swallowed hard, and for a few seconds Slater thought he was going to play dumb again, but then finally he raised his head, focused on a point above Slater’s head, and began to speak.
‘I never thought about it being going home time at the school. I never had any kids, so it’s something I just didn’t think about.’
‘But why were you there?’
‘I was waiting for a lift.’
‘Why did you need a lift?’
‘I work part-time for a cleaning company,’ he said. ‘They have their own vans, but I use my own estate car mostly. It needed a service, so I dropped it off at the garage and one of the other guys was supposed to pick me up and take me back to the yard, but he never turned up.’
‘We’ll need to know the name of the garage where your car was serviced, and we’ll need to speak to the person who was supposed to pick you up,’ said Slater. ‘Can you write them down for us?’
For the first time, Crump looked Slater in the eye for just a second or so before he looked away.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course I will. I understand you need to see if I’m telling the truth.’
Darling slid a notebook and pen across the table. Crump took the pen and wrote down the information, then slid the book back across the table. Darling looked down at the page.
‘So what happened to your lift?’ asked Slater. ‘Why didn’t he turn up?’
‘When I saw him next day he said he was there. But I think he arrived early, and he didn’t wait, so he was gone before I even got there.’
Slater felt a tad disappointed. He thought this explanation was quite plausible, and it would explain why Crump had been looking up and down the road. He could see Darling out of the corner of his eye, though, and he could tell from her body language that she was unconvinced.
‘So you’re telling me you hadn’t realised there would be schoolchildren and parents milling about all over the place?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Crump. ‘If I had realised I would never have arranged to wait right in the middle of them. I don’t like crowds, you see, and I find it difficult being around children. I just thought it was an easy place for anyone to find, you know?’
Darling nearly jumped from her seat when Crump mentioned he found it difficult being around children, and Slater briefly thought he was going to need to restrain her, but the moment passed as quickly as it had arrived.
‘What do you mean you find it difficult being around children? Don’t you like children?’
‘No, no, it’s not t
hat,’ explained Crump. ‘I think it’s because I never had any of my own. I just don’t know how to talk to them or anything, and when that happens other people think I’m weird. I’m just embarrassed by my own inadequacy I suppose.’
‘Inadequacy?’
‘That’s what my wife calls it,’ said Crump, sadly. ‘According to her I’m inadequate in just about every way you can imagine, and especially inadequate when it comes to dealing with children.’
‘You didn’t tell us your wife’s name,’ said Slater.
‘Melanie.Her friends call her Mel.’
‘So who’s this young girl?’ Slater placed the photograph he had taken from Crump’s wallet on the table in front of him.
Crump stared down at the photo and his mouth opened silently once or twice, then he licked his lips and looked up at Slater.
‘Ah,’ he said, at last.
‘I assume you know who she is. We found the photo in your wallet.’
‘You’re not going to believe me.’
Slater gave him an encouraging smile.
‘Try me.’
Crump looked across at his solicitor. The solicitor nodded his encouragement.
‘I suppose you could say she’s a sort of fantasy,’ he said, looking down at the photograph again.
Darling sat up even straighter in her chair. Slater began to feel a little sick. He hoped this wasn’t going to be some sort of sordid sexual fantasy confession.
‘I take it you found the scan photo in my wallet as well?’ asked Crump.
Slater slid the photo across the table.
‘This one?’
Crump looked down sadly at the second photo, and for a minute Slater thought he was about to start crying, but then he seemed to pull himself together. He looked up at Slater.
‘Do you have any children?’ he asked.
‘No.’
Crump sighed.
‘No, me neither,’ he said. ‘But I nearly became a father about twenty-five years ago. This was the first scan. I remember the day she told me she was pregnant like it was yesterday. It was like I’d climbed Everest, won the lottery, and become the first man ever to be a dad, all rolled together. Best day of my life, it was.’