The Crime Tsar (37 page)

What on earth was she twittering on about?

‘Stolen goods, Jenni? Illegally imported rolling tobacco? What?'

‘Some sort of pornography …' Jenni stopped. Had she gone too far?

‘I see.' MacIntyre paused.

Jenni rushed into the silence.

‘Alexander, their autistic boy, he found a video in a cupboard. I didn't watch it but the cover, the title – I think it was …'

‘What, Jenni?'

The Gnome's voice was hard. She hesitated. What was he thinking? Did he believe her?

‘Something involving children.' She rushed on. ‘Look, I could be wrong, it may be perfectly innocent. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. I haven't even told Tom. I didn't see it properly. I'm sorry …'

MacIntyre frowned. Was Carter going to prove more trouble than he was worth?

‘Don't worry, Jenni. The matter of the transmitters will have to be looked into and if anything else turns up –'

Bingo!

‘Thank you, Robbie. I hope you don't think I'm being hysterical.'

‘Not at all, Jenni. Not at all. And, Jenni, when you get back we must find time for a meeting. I so enjoyed our last encounter.'

‘Me too, Robbie.'

You're a bad liar, Mrs Shackleton.

‘Right … let me know when you can get away from your husband. And thanks for the call. I'll look into it.'

Jenni Shackleton the broken flower panicking in her husband's absence was a hard act to swallow but she sounded genuine enough and the snippet about Carter's sexual preferences was extraordinary. He wanted to know more but gossip wasn't his style. An accusation like this needed to be shot down immediately. Unless of course it was true.

After a brief series of phone calls a man called Trevor Hemsley was put in charge of the delicate matter of searching the Chief Constable's house. He found it vaguely irritating, as it was his day off and he was reconstructing
The Mary Rose
out of a balsa kit, but he put down his glue, put on his coat, and went to work.

Jenni was dressed and reading a tour guide when Tom got back with the new tickets. He looked hot and exhausted. He was sweating and his face was red, not with sun but exertion.

‘Darling, when did you last have your blood pressure checked?'

Shackleton never ceased to be amazed at the mood and subject changes his wife was capable of.

‘I've got the tickets. The flight's at eight-thirty tonight. OK?'

Jenni was sweetly surprised at his question.

‘Of course, Tom. You do look awfully hot, you know. Come and sit down, I'll get you something to drink.'

She gave him a bottle of too cold sparkling water from the minibar and stood behind him running her cold fingertips, like cobwebs, across his forehead. He didn't dare move. He didn't like the feeling of her mortuary skin on his but knew better than to shrug off her attentions. He glanced up at her but she wasn't conscious of him – she was looking into some distance that contained pleasure. A look that didn't include him.

‘Are you worried about this bug?'

Her voice had a softness, as if she wanted him to say yes. Wanted to be able to comfort him.

‘No. But I'd like to know who put it there.'

‘Maybe it was the security services. Making sure you're sound before you get the Met.'

‘Doubt it. That lot haven't much time for the police. They think we're not bright enough to get up to anything that could remotely be a security risk. Anyway, they're too sophisticated for that sort of hardware – they tend to go in more for phone tapping.'

Jenni continued to soothe his troubled brow. He wished she'd stop.

‘What about the press?' Jenni asked.

Tom didn't say anything for a moment; he was beginning to realise why Jenni wasn't doing an impression of a Komodo dragon that had stepped on an anti-personnel mine.

‘Jenni … has this got anything to do with you?'

She squatted down beside him, her delicate bird hands on his arm.

‘If it had it would be for you. You know that, don't you?'

He touched her hair. Yes, he knew that was what she believed and there was no point in trying to inflict reality on her. He wasn't even sure he could withstand the onslaught of naked hatred that would provoke. This oasis of peace and gentleness was so rare.

‘I know Jenni, I know.'

For one awkward moment each thought the other was going to attempt a kiss. Jenni had never really liked kissing, tongues and teeth awkwardly and messily in conjunction. She saw the panic in his eyes, those innocent eyes that had looked so hurt so often.

An image she hadn't thought of for years came into her mind: Tom on their first date, when she'd reached up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek as they said goodnight. The same look of panic. But then she'd gently touched his lips with her fingertips and asked him what was wrong. Looking at him there in the Spanish hotel room she could hear his soft, sad voice from that night. ‘Nobody ever touches me.' She remembered wanting to hold him and protect him.

Then the fear.

The fear it was a trick.

She was quite happy to give him her body but anything else would come at a price.

‘Don't you want me, Tom?'

Abruptly he was on his guard again. What he'd thought was companionship was something far more threatening. He preferred
her when she was telling him how much she hated the thought of sex with him. He didn't understand this playful kitten act and he certainly didn't like it.

He looked at her face: there was something strange, different, about her. As if she was slightly out of focus, blurred.

She mistook the intensity of his look for desire. Had she been without drink, without drugs, she would have seen the revulsion there but all she saw in those still beautiful eyes was the twin reflections of herself. She wanted to feel her power over him again. The altered state of her mind hid the reasons for their frigidity with each other. Dieter had given her back her magical powers and she was invincible.

Tom froze as she undid his shirt, expertly slipped the buckle of his belt and undid his zip. Her sharp red nails disappeared from sight and reappeared as she eased his penis free. She held the limp troglodyte in the sunlight. She kissed it. Shackleton looked down at her. He felt like a character in a sci-fi movie whose wife is replaced by an alien. Attempts at oral sex had been abandoned early in their marriage. The idea repelled him. Nevertheless her tongue and lips were expertly manipulating him when the phone rang. For a moment he thought she would continue while he answered it but the phone was on the other side of the room. He stood up, hating having to gather his trousers around him as he picked up the receiver. She stayed kneeling on the floor, not looking at him but still wrapped in dreams. She reached across for her vodka.

Tom kept talking as long as he could. It was Vernon who'd simply called to reassure his boss that everything was under control. Most chiefs would have resented the intrusion but Shackleton was grateful as well as relieved. Vernon's fussing had never been so welcome.

After a minute or two Jenni got up, picked up her handbag and reapplied her lipstick. Tom could see she had completely forgotten what she, moments before, had wanted so badly. Relieved, he rang off and suggested they pack.

She turned and beamed at him.

‘Why not?'

Two Special Branch men arrived at Carter's house with Hemsley from MI5 at the same time as what looked like a regiment of Royal
Engineers descended on Shackleton's, where Lucy hovered clutching her keys, on the verge of self-accusatory tears. They went through every nook and cranny of the house with her trailing from room to room begging them to be careful and replacing everything precisely after they'd examined it. They were pleased to find a second transmitter in the hall-light fitting.

In the middle of all this Jason opened the front door.

Lucy scuttled out to reassure him but he didn't seem very interested. He had a car waiting outside full of friends, and the promise of a party later. He just wanted to dump his bag and be away.

At Carter's house three discreet men waited in their discreet car until he arrived to let them in, Eleri being in London with Alexander. All he had been told, by the Gnome's disinterested assistant, was that there was a possibility his house had been bugged by a person or persons unknown.

The men thought he seemed nervous when he opened the door, miskeying his burglar-alarm code and causing it to contradict him angrily, giving him another ten seconds to get it right. He pushed the buttons again. Silence.

The largest of the men asked politely, in a voice that suggested urbanity and education, if they might look around. Carter nodded. He was sweating – a greasy sheen covered his nose and upper lip. The men could smell the fear. They were not curious by nature or training; they knew they'd find out why soon enough. One man went to search the top floor, the second the mezzanine floor study, and the third, the urbane one, took the ground starting in the kitchen, where Carter was clumsily filling the kettle and attempting to plug it in.

It didn't take long to find the bug behind the Coalport teapot. Carter was by this time sitting at the kitchen table staring blankly out at the garden. The next thing to be found was an envelope. The second faceless man brought it into the kitchen, careful of possible fingerprints and ready to bag up the evidence. Nothing was said. The man opened the envelope and displayed its contents. Photographs of young men in artistic poses of physical splendour, photographs of younger men entwined in each other's arms, laughing, and finally three photographs of teenage boys arching their naked bodies as they were caned by stern uniformed men. Carter barely nodded when the educated tones asked if they were his. There was a faint tut.

He put them on the table. Carter reached across and turned them over, face down.

A few minutes later the other bug was found and a small pile of magazines was brought in. The atmosphere was by now poisonous. Judgements had been made.

‘Behind the bath. Nearly missed them. Not what we're looking for though, are they?'

‘Can't ignore them,' the urbane one replied. Hemsley worked on a need-to-know-only basis.

Carter, hearing they'd been found behind the bath, turned to look.

‘These yours too, Mr Carter?'

Carter saw the provocative poses of the children.

‘No.'

He was so surprised at the images he didn't think to say anything else for a moment then the full horror of the images hit him. His explosion of anger took the investigators by surprise.

‘No. No, my God … They're not mine. I'd never … No. What's going on?'

One of the men restrained him, but too late to stop Carter's fingerprints being left on the evidence. The only fingerprints that would be found. The third searcher had found the hidden floppy disc. He wanted to take Carter's computer so they could examine the contents of the files. Back-up was called for. The evidence neatly bagged up.

By now Carter's fury had subsided into shock. He was mumbling, ‘That's not mine. It's not mine. It's filth … not mine.'

Just before the video was found the doorbell rang. Carter was allowed to answer it.

His deputy stood on the doorstep.

‘Jesus Christ. What's happened, Geoffrey?'

Carter stared at him.

‘Come in. Danny, I've … I've got some visitors.'

The Gnome was intrigued. Hemsley was in his office presenting the results of the search.

‘So … let me get this straight. The Chief Constable had three transmitters in his house, a quantity of questionable photographs and an amount of illegal material with paedophile content?'

‘That's right, sir.'

‘But he's denying some of it is his?'

‘Yes, sir. Says the pictures are his but that he's not a paedophile. Very emphatic about that, sir.'

The Gnome looked at the colour laser copies on his desk.

‘Believe him, Hemsley?'

‘I wouldn't want to say, sir.'

MacIntyre nodded.

‘And the transmitters?'

‘The police tell us they're the same as those found at Shackleton's house. Obviously an amateur planted them, sir – they weren't even switched on – possibly someone with a grudge. None of the agencies would use anything so crude. The whole thing feels a bit odd to me, sir.'

‘Hmm …' The ugly little face scowled with concentration. ‘Thank you, Hemsley. Keep me informed. Oh … one thing … where is Mr Carter now?'

‘At his office, sir. We've handed everything over to his force. His ACC Complaints is forwarding the details to the Home Office.'

He left the room.

Nothing had surprised the Gnome since he failed Music O level but this puzzled him. He reached out and spread the photocopies across his desk.

Homosexual sex had never appealed to him but the images before him were intriguing: domination and degradation, flesh as food. The youths concerned quite old enough to know their own minds and, more to the point, bodies. On the very edge of popular morality of course but quite appealing. MacIntyre smiled. So this was what the urbane Mr Carter had learned at public school.

He looked at the magazines and any sexual interest he'd felt evaporated. Children.

He turned on the video and saw a small boy being woken by a naked man. From the weary misery in the boy's voice it wasn't the first time. He clutched a small threadbare teddy in his right hand.

MacIntyre watched what followed with tears running down his face. He had controlled his emotions until he realised the tune he could hear playing in the background was ‘Away in a manger'.

The cattle are lowing,

The baby awakes,

But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes …

The childish voices so full of Christmas. He could taste ginger and feel the paper tearing from his presents.

He stopped the video. When was the last time he'd cried? At the sight of the magnolia in his garden. Beauty made him cry but this kind of ugliness tore him open. He had fought his way to where he was because of bullies and this suffering of little children roused a kind of righteous anger in him. Whatever the evil in him he knew it was not this, never this.