The Widow

by Fiona Barton

  There followed a lecture on finding sexual partners online, with the older detectives following with difficulty. It wasn’t that they were computer illiterates, it was that the close proximity of Dr Jones and her restless legs was far too distracting to allow full concentration. In the end, Dan Fry took over, using the psychologist’s computer to take his bosses into a cyber-fantasy world.

  ‘As I’m sure you know, it’s basically instant messaging, Sir,’ he explained. ‘You sign into a chat room that advertises itself as for singles, say, or teenagers, use a nickname to hide your real identity, and you can communicate with everyone else in that ‘room’ or just one person. You just start chatting by writing texts.’

  ‘They can’t see each other so they can be anyone. That’s the attraction for predators. They can assume a new identity, or gender, or age group. Wolf in sheep’s clothing,’ Fry said.

  Once contact was established with a likely individual – a young teen, perhaps – the predator might persuade her to give her email address so grooming could go on in private.

  ‘Once they have one-to-one contact, anything is possible. For consenting adults, that isn’t a problem, but some youngsters have been tricked or manipulated into posing for explicit photographs, using a webcam. The predator can then blackmail them into other acts. Young lives ruined,’ Fry added.

  Recap over, Sparkes had a go in an over-eighteens chat room. Matthews had suggested Superstud as his nickname and snorted when his boss opted instead for Mr Darcy – Eileen’s favourite. But Mr Darcy was greeted by a flurry of flirty messages from would-be Elizabeth Bennets that quickly escalated into direct sexual propositions.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said as the explicit messages scrolled up the screen. ‘A bit in-your-face for Jane Austen, isn’t it?’

  Dr Jones laughed from behind him. He signed himself out and turned to face her.

  ‘But how do we find Glen Taylor?’ he asked. ‘There must be hundreds of these chat rooms.’

  Fry had his plan ready.

  ‘Yes, but we’ve got his computer so we know where he’s been. Taylor’s clever and when Operation Gold started to bite he probably deleted files and data, but it’s all still there on the hard drive, invisible to him but very visible to the blokes in the forensic lab. They’ve dug out all sorts of information and we know where he hangs out.’

  Sparkes found himself nodding, seduced by the mental picture of Taylor’s face when he arrested him. He could almost smell the fox-like stench of Taylor’s guilt. He tried to focus on the practicalities.

  ‘“We” being who, exactly?’ he asked.

  ‘Fleur and I would work out a character, a back story and a script with some trigger words to use,’ DC Fry said, pink with excitement at the prospect of real detective work, and Dr Jones murmured her assent.

  ‘It could be very valuable for my research.’

  It felt signed and sealed, but Matthews piped up with the question no one had asked. ‘Is it legal?’

  The others in the room looked at him.

  ‘Will it stand up as evidence in court, Sir? It could be seen as entrapment,’ he pressed.

  Sparkes wondered if Matthews was reacting to the new boy’s clever-dickery. He didn’t know the answers, but Fry gave him a possible way out.

  ‘We don’t have a case to destroy, from what I’ve seen, Sir. Why don’t we see how far we get first? Then we can revisit this question,’ he said.

  Matthews looked unhappy, but Sparkes nodded his agreement.

  Chapter 22

  Tuesday, 12 June 2007

  The Widow

  FUNNY THINGS, BIRTHDAYS. Everyone seems to love them, but I dread them – the build-up, the pressure to be happy, to have a good time, the disappointment when I don’t. I’m thirty-seven today and Glen is downstairs doing a tray of breakfast. It’s still early and I’m not hungry yet so the food will be like sawdust in my mouth, but I’ll have to tell him I love it. Love him. I do. I do. He’s my world, but every birthday, I wonder if maybe this year there’ll be a miracle and we’ll have a baby.

  I try not to think about it, but birthdays are difficult. It’s that moment when you realize another year’s gone past, isn’t it? I know there’s everything else going on, but I can’t help it.

  We could adopt from abroad. I’ve seen all these articles about babies from China, but I can’t say anything to Glen without upsetting him.

  Here he comes. I can hear the cups and plates rattling on the tray. He’s all smiles and there’s a red rose in a vase beside the boiled egg. He sings ‘Happy Birthday’ as he comes round to my side of the bed, putting on a funny voice to make me laugh. ‘Happy birthday, dear Jeanie, happy birthday to you,’ he croons and kisses me on the forehead, nose and mouth.

  It makes me cry and he shifts the tray off my lap and sits so he can put both arms round me.

  ‘Sorry, love. Don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ I say, trying to smile. He shushes me and goes to get his card and present from the wardrobe.

  It’s a nightie. White broderie anglaise with pink bows. Like a little girl’s. ‘It’s lovely,’ I say and give him a kiss. ‘Thank you, darling.’

  ‘Try it on,’ he says.

  ‘Later. Need the loo.’ I don’t want to put it on. I go to the bathroom and take a Jeanie pill. I hate birthdays.

  Just before Bella’s birthday, in April, the first since she went missing, I went to Smith’s to buy a card for her. I spent ages looking at the pictures and messages and I picked one with Teletubbies and a badge – ‘I am 3’ – because I read in the papers that she liked them best.

  I didn’t know what to write so I went and sat on a bench in the park to think about her. I don’t feel sad because I know she’s alive. Her mother and I believe she’s alive. So does Glen. We think a couple whose child died took her and went abroad. I wonder if the police have thought of that. I expect Glen’s told them his theory.

  So I write ‘Dearest Bella. Happy Birthday. I hope you are home soon’ and some kisses. I address it to her, Miss Bella Elliott. I don’t know the number of her house but I expect the postman will know. The mother says she gets dozens of letters every day. She said on Woman’s Hour that some of them are nasty letters from ‘mad’ people, telling her she deserved to lose Bella. One of those must be mine.

  I wrote at the beginning, when I was so angry with her for leaving Bella on her own when I couldn’t even have a baby. I wanted her to know how wrong she’d been. I didn’t sign that one either.

  I put a stamp on the birthday card, all bumpy with the badge inside, and walked home the postbox way.

  On the day, 28 April, Dawn was on breakfast television with a little cake with three candles. She was wearing the birthday badge I sent next to her Find Bella badge. She thanked everyone for the lovely cards and presents and said she wasn’t unwrapping them until Bella comes home. The woman doing the interview got all choked up.

  I unwrapped the present I bought for her – a baby doll with golden hair and a white and pink dress – and put her on my bed.

  I could do it because Glen wasn’t here. He’d gone out for a drive. He wouldn’t be back for ages and until then I could spend time with Bella.

  I have photos of her from the papers and nice colour ones from magazines. I decided not to put her in the scrapbooks because she’s real and special and I hope to meet her one day. When she comes home.

  I plan it. How we’ll meet in a park and she’ll know it’s me and come running over, laughing and nearly tripping over she’s running so fast. Her little arms will wrap round my legs and I’ll bend down and pick her up and swing her round.

  It’s my favourite daydream, but it’s beginning to take over my day. Sometimes I find myself sitting at the kitchen table and the clock shows I’ve been there for more than an hour and I don’t remember the time passing. Sometimes I find I’m crying but I don’t know why, exactly. I went to the doctor to talk to him. I didn’t mention Bella but he knew all about Glen’s ‘circumstances’, as he put it,
and I came away with a new prescription.

  ‘You need some peace of mind, Mrs Taylor,’ he said, tearing it off his pad. ‘Have you thought about taking a break from what’s happening?’ He meant well but there is no break to be taken. I can’t stop the thoughts by catching a plane somewhere. I don’t control them – or anything – any more. I’m a passenger, not the driver, I want to tell him. Anyway, the pills should let me carry on being Jeanie when I need to be.

  Bella’s mum is on the telly all the time. She’s being interviewed on every talk show, spewing out the same old stuff about ‘her angel’ and how she cries herself to sleep every night. She never misses an opportunity. I wonder if she’s getting paid.

  I raise the question on a radio phone-in late at night. Chris from Catford comes straight on the line to back me up. ‘What kind of mother is she?’ he screeches. I’m glad other people see through her too.

  Since ‘retiring’, as Glen calls it, I spend my days watching daytime telly and doing word searches in puzzle books and taking part in radio phone-ins. Funny, I used to think that the radio was for brainy people – all that talking. But I started to put the local commercial station on for company and I got pulled in. There is a sort of gang of people who phone in – the same voices, week in, week out. The old bloke who wants all immigrants thrown out, the woman who can’t say her Rs who thinks politicians should be put in pwison, the young lad who blames women for the rise in sex crime. They start at angry and their voices get higher and louder as they work themselves up. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, they can always be outraged, and I got addicted to it.

  I finally picked up the phone one day when they were discussing whether paedophiles could be cured. I said my name was Joy and told the presenter that paedophiles should be strung up. It went down well because there were loads of calls agreeing. And that was it. I was one of them. I changed my name every week or so. Ann, Kerry, Sue, Joy, Jenny, Liz. It was brilliant being someone else, even for ninety seconds, and having someone listen to you without knowing who you’re married to and judging you.

  I found I had lots of opinions. I could be Mrs Angry or a ‘bleeding heart liberal’ as Glen puts it. I could be anyone I wanted.

  And, of course, Lisa had disappeared with the rest of my life. At first, she kept calling round and inviting me in. She wanted to know all about it and was so sweet to me. She said she didn’t believe a word of it. But the kids didn’t come round any more. There was always an excuse: Kane had a cold, Daisy was practising her ballet for an exam, Lisa’s sister was coming to stay. Then she nailed the gate shut. Just one nail, high up.

  ‘I was worried about break-ins,’ she said. ‘You understand, Jeanie?’ And I tried to.

  Chapter 23

  Monday, 18 June 2007

  The Detective

  OVER THE WEEKEND, Dan Fry and Fleur Jones had picked the name Jodie Smith. Jodie because they thought it had a child-like ring to it and Smith for anonymity. Jodie was a twenty-seven-year-old woman from Manchester, a junior secretary in a local authority office who’d been abused as a child by her father and who got a sexual thrill from dressing up as a child for sex.

  ‘It’s hardly subtle,’ Sparkes had commented when presented with the first draft of the lurid back story. ‘He’ll see straight through this. Couldn’t we tone things down a bit? Anyway, why would a woman who’s been sexually abused want to relive that as an adult?’

  Fry sighed. He was impatient to get going, finally get his teeth into some real police work instead of acting as the incident room gopher, but he could sense the mood was changing in the room; the DI was in retreat. ‘That’s a good question, Sir,’ he said, using his favourite positive-reinforcement technique.

  Sparkes thought Fry was a patronizing little twat but decided to hear him out.

  The younger officer pointed out that Jodie was modelled on an actual case study and there followed a detailed psychological analysis of motives, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, acting out and the darker side of human sexuality. Sparkes looked impressed and interested, his misgivings pushed back into a recess for the time being.

  ‘What does Dr Jones say? Has she signed off on this?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, well almost, Sir,’ Fry said. ‘I read the final draft to her on the phone this morning and she seemed happy with it, and I’ll email it in a minute for her comments.’

  ‘OK. Once we have her approval we’ll present the strategy to the DCI,’ Sparkes said.

  DCI Brakespeare loved new ideas. Innovation was his byword, along with a clutch of other management clichés – and, crucially, he was as determined as Sparkes to nail Taylor. ‘This could make our names,’ he said, rubbing his hands together as he heard them out. ‘Let’s take it to the Chief Super.’

  It was decided to put the whole team before Chief Superintendent Parker. The meeting was a classic. Dr Jones arrived wearing what looked like pyjamas, a diamond glinting in one nostril, and Parker sat behind his Master of the Universe desk in full uniform and Brylcreem.

  He listened in silence as DCI Brakespeare outlined the plan and the risk assessment, and quoted the necessary legislation to go undercover, then blew his nose and said, ‘Where’s the evidence that this will work? Has anyone else tried it? Sounds like entrapment to me.’

  Brakespeare, Sparkes and Fry took turns in offering answers and Dr Jones interjected with scientific data and charm. Finally, CS Parker put up his hands and pronounced judgement.

  ‘Let’s give it a punt. If we don’t get the evidence here, it sounds like we’re unlikely to ever manage to put it in front of a jury. Let’s make sure we have clean hands – no prompting or leading. Everything done by the book. We’ll get the evidence and then see if the judge allows it. Let’s face it, if Taylor takes us to a body, it won’t matter how we got it.’

  He called Sparkes back in after the others had left to ask him about Fleur Jones.

  ‘Is she flakey, Bob? She looked like she got dressed in the dark and we are trusting her as our expert. How will she stand up to cross-examination?’

  Sparkes sat down again. ‘Very well, Sir. She knows her stuff – has degrees and research papers coming out of her ears.’

  Parker looked dubious.

  ‘She’s an expert in sexual deviancy and frequently works with criminals,’ Sparkes ploughed on. ‘And that’s just the university staff.’ The joke fell to the ground, writhing.

  ‘Right,’ the Chief Super said. ‘OK, she’s qualified, but why her and not our own people?’

  ‘Because she’s got an excellent working relationship with Fry already – he trusts her. And she’ll look good in front of a jury.’

  ‘This is on your head, Bob. Let’s see how she gets on, but make sure you are there every step of the way.’

  Sparkes closed the door quietly.

  He joined Fleur Jones and the others in the forensic lab for a tour of Glen Taylor’s virtual playground. It was not an edifying experience, but Dr Jones seemed the least affected. They stood behind the technician as he scrolled through the websites and chat rooms they had found on Taylor’s hard drive during their first search, spotting his favourites, the times when he visited, length of stay and other helpful habits. LolitaXXX seemed to be top of his list of porn sites and he hung out in Teen Fun and Girls Lounge chat rooms, using five different identities, including Whosthedaddy and BigBear. Matthews smirked. ‘Not Mr Darcy, then, Boss.’

  Taylor’s public chats were fairly innocuous, flirtatious and jokey – the sort of small talk you’d hear at a teenage party. The more explicit stuff happened away from the chat rooms. The inbox of an email address used only for his ‘sexcursions’, as Taylor called them in his mails, offered up a far more sinister glimpse into his secret world. Here, he persuaded others to join him. From the photos sent to him, some were teens, others adults, but they all looked like kids.

  Sparkes asked for a printout of all the chat-room conversations and private emails and Fry took them away to confer with Dr Jones.

&n
bsp; ‘Is he up to this?’ Matthews asked. ‘He’s only just got here and he’s got no operational experience.’

  ‘I know, but he’s got the knowledge … and we’ll be there every step of the way. Let’s give him a chance,’ Sparkes answered.

  ‘You’re going to call yourself Goldilocks? Are you sure?’ Matthews laughed when Fry and his tutor reappeared in Sparkes’ office.

  Fry nodded. ‘We think it will appeal to his interest in children and fantasy,’ he explained.

  ‘Bloody hell. Bet he doesn’t fall for that one.’

  But he did. Goldilocks met BigBear and flirted discreetly for a week. Fry and Matthews sat for hours in front of a computer screen, their working life compressed into a tiny room in the Forensics department lit by a buzzing fluorescent tube, with Jodie’s life story pasted up on a wall beside them. Fry had found a photo of a girl he’d admired at college on Facebook and had an enlargement of her face stuck just above the screen.

  ‘Hi Goldie.’

  ‘How’s things?’

  ‘How are you feeling tonight?’

  Sparkes, occasionally watching over his shoulder, felt a mixture of excitement and nausea as the nightly tango with Glen Taylor continued. Fleur Jones had given Dan Fry extensive coaching and she was on the end of a phone if they needed her, but even with Matthews in the room, Sparkes worried that his newest recruit must feel very alone.

  He’d gone out on a limb and he realized it was all about pushing himself up the ladder. But he knew it could also finish him if it went wrong.

  ‘It’ll work,’ Fry kept saying when spirits dipped.

  Occasionally, another member of the team would put their head round the door. ‘Shagged him yet?’ one asked Fry. ‘Has he asked what colour your eyes are?’ said another. Matthews had laughed – joined in the joke – but Sparkes realized the young detective had become a sideshow. He caught a glimpse of Fry one night reflected in the window behind the desk. He’d pushed himself back from the keyboard and was sprawled, legs splayed and spine curled back into the chair. Perhaps realizing that he was probably the mirror image of his quarry, Fry straightened up instinctively.