‘What?’
‘That you’d do background checks, that you’d discover Yvette and I knew each other. And from where.’
‘I’d still prefer you tell us.’
‘St Asaph’s School for Boys and Girls. It was an orphanage a few miles from Chester. I joined the Board of Trustees.’
‘How old was she when you met her?’
‘She was fourteen. Her mother had died. But I deny anything untoward took place at the orphanage.’
‘So
would I, in your shoes. Nevertheless, while Yvette was in care, she got pregnant and gave birth to Russell at the age of fifteen.’
Poole’s tone became almost haughty. ‘Well, I’m not the father, Inspector. Like I said, nothing improper happened between us.’
‘Was it your decision to let Yvette keep the baby at the orphanage?’
Poole hesitated. ‘Partly.’
‘How would that work?’
‘We had suitable family quarters away from the rest of the residents. It seemed. . . unnecessary to separate mother and child.’
‘Especially if you were over a barrel and had to do as you were told,’ sneered Noble.
‘I’m not the father,’ insisted Poole. ‘How many times?’
‘You can prove that?’ asked Noble.
‘I don’t need proof. You can’t tie me to unlawful sexual intercourse because it never happened. It would be the word of a deranged young girl against mine.’
Brook’s eyes narrowed. His show of temper had thrown Poole off-balance and loosened his tongue but the expathologist was smart enough to avoid crowing about DNA tests.
‘So you don’t have proof,’ persisted Brook.
Poole looked away. ‘I told you. I don’t need it.’
‘If we find out which company you used to test your DNA against Russell Thomson’s, all the denials in the world won’t wash,’ said Brook quietly. ‘Even if there wasn’t a match, the fact that you sought a professional judgement is damning enough.’
Poole
looked puzzled for a second then broke into a wide grin. ‘Good luck making that case, Inspector,’ he said, almost laughing now. Brook was wrong-footed for the first time.
‘If you’re not the father, who is?’ asked Noble.
‘Take your pick,’ said Poole. ‘Yvette did. She could string anyone along. All the boys lusted after her at St Asaph’s. You’ve seen her. She must have given you two the treatment. She always does.’ Brook stared back at Poole while Noble shuffled uncomfortably on his seat. Poole grinned again. It was an unpleasant sight. ‘I see she did, Sergeant. Did she come over all vulnerable? Did she make you feel strong and masterful?’ Noble made to stand but was halted by Brook’s voice.
‘Then there’s the money.’
‘Money?’
‘The money you used to set her up.’
Poole shrugged. ‘I could deny it, but why would I? I felt sorry for the girl. I helped her out when she left the orphanage. I could afford it.’
‘And that’s when the sexual relationship started?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did your wife know?’
‘No, thank God.’
‘And Alice?’
Poole just shook his head.
‘And now?’ asked Brook.
Poole sighed. ‘Now I’m getting married again, I’ve decided to turn off the tap. She can make her own way in the world. She won’t have any trouble finding another benefactor.’
‘But she doesn’t see it that way.’
‘She thinks I owe her. I move and she follows. Then she asks for money.’
‘Which
you gave her willingly for eighteen years.’
‘I told you, I felt sorry for her. And I could afford it.’
‘What changed?’
Poole became evasive. ‘I just said. I’m getting married. I decided – enough is enough.’
‘And you’re worried she might take it badly and come after you, spouting her lies.’
‘Hell hath no fury . . .’ Poole shrugged.
‘Did she threaten you?’
‘Not exactly. But with this lad drowning . . .’
‘Wilson Woodrow!’ exclaimed Brook. ‘You think she had something to do with that?’
‘It was a suicide,’ added Noble. ‘We have it on film.’ Noble knew he’d said the wrong thing almost at once. Brook’s imperceptible glance in his direction spoke volumes.
‘Maybe not then,’ admitted Poole. ‘But this Wilson – the lad who drowned – he was always pestering her, trying to get into her bed. He may even have succeeded, for all I know.’
‘Yet you still rang her this morning after Sergeant Grey tipped you off?’
Poole hesitated. ‘I didn’t ring her,’ he said firmly.
‘But Grey rang you.’
Poole picked his words carefully. ‘He’s a friend. He thought it might be Kyle’s body. He thought I ought to know.’
‘But you didn’t think Alice ought to know.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You rang Yvette in the early morning to tell her we’d found a young man’s body, maybe Russell’s body, maybe Kyle’s body, you had no way of knowing . . .’
‘I told you—’
‘. . . but
you didn’t see fit to tell Kyle’s mother,’ pressed Brook.
‘It wasn’t Kyle.’
‘You didn’t know that.’
Poole took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t want to alarm Alice. She’s sensitive.’
‘And Yvette isn’t.’
‘Only to her own needs.’
‘You think she didn’t care that her own son might have drowned?’ said Noble. ‘She was there in a shot.’
Poole stared back, mute.
Brook drained his tea. ‘When we check the call you made to Yvette . . .’
‘I told you,’ answered Poole confidently. ‘I didn’t ring her. Go ahead and check. I’ve got nothing to hide.’
Brook smiled his understanding. ‘No, you didn’t need to ring her, did you? When Grey rang you, you were already there, at her house. In her bed.’
Poole stared straight ahead. When Brook and Noble wouldn’t break their gaze, he sighed. ‘I felt sorry for her.’
Noble bristled and his fists clenched. ‘You snivelling—’
‘John.’
‘She can’t be alone, Sergeant,’ said Poole. ‘Believe me. It kills her. Since the orphanage, she’s always . . .’ He hung his head. Noble’s breathing slowed. A moment later, Poole looked up. ‘About that cigarette.’
Noble reluctantly pulled out his pack and offered it round. There was silence as each lit up, appreciating the temporary kinship of tobacco.
‘Does Alice have to know?’ said Poole finally.
‘Oh,
I think Alice already knows what she’s getting into without our input,’ replied Brook.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means, like Yvette, she knows the basis of your relationship and what it makes her.’
Poole’s face betrayed his fury. ‘I don’t think there’s any need for that!’
‘Did money change hands?’ asked Brook, ignoring Poole’s indignation.
‘Money?’
‘Grey. Did you pay for the heads-up?’
‘Not . . .’ Poole tightened his lips around the rest of the sentence.
‘Not yet.’ Brook took a long pull on his cigarette. ‘Let me speak plainly, Len. Sergeant Grey is no friend of mine. He’s a time-serving dinosaur and has no place in a modern Force. However, this job does something to people and he may once have been a decent officer. So, if he’s a friend of yours, can I suggest, for the sake of his pension, that you never mention even the promise of money changing hands again?’
Poole nodded and stood to leave.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ve said my piece.’
‘Then it’s our turn. Tell me about Russell.’
Poole reluctantly sat back down. ‘I hardly know him and that’s the truth, Inspector. When he was two or three I saw him quite often when Yvette moved to Chester. He was a cheerful little chap if a bit shy. When he got to five or six and started school, I barely ever saw him.’
‘Because that’s the time you met your wife.’
‘I’d
already moved to Uttoxeter, met Eileen and we got married.’
‘But Yvette still followed.’
‘Yes. But I hardly ever saw her unless I ran into her in the town by accident. I was working in Derby, see. In 2003 we moved back to North Wales. Yvette followed and I’d give her help getting set up, but they couldn’t settle in one place because of Russell’s problems.’
‘The bullying?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And when you moved back here six months ago, you set Yvette up again.’
‘I didn’t even know she was here, believe me. Do you think I would have put her in a house so close to Alice, and let Russell attend the same college as my future stepson? I had no idea, until three months ago when she turned up on my doorstep asking for money – that’s the truth.’
‘Which doorstep?’
‘Not Alice’s, thank God. The house I’m renting in Station Road.’
‘So she found you and started blackmailing you again.’
Poole stiffened. ‘I told you. I’m not Russell’s father. It wasn’t blackmail, I –’
‘– felt sorry for her,’ finished Brook sarcastically. ‘Tell me, did you get Russell’s DNA from his toothbrush? It was missing when we processed Yvette’s house.’
Poole smiled. His smugness had returned. ‘I didn’t steal Russell’s toothbrush. The lad must have taken it with him.’
Brook gazed at Poole, choosing his words. ‘What have you got on Yvette?’
Poole sneered at Brook. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Yes,
you do. Your relationship with Yvette is tawdry and exploitative. And whether Russell is your son or not, Yvette has every reason to shout about you from the rooftops, especially if you’ve stopped paying for her silence. But has she done that? No. Has she spoken to Alice? No. She didn’t even admit to us that you’d told her about the body in the river. But that’s not the worst of it. The fact she’s prepared to sleep with you without being paid . . .’
‘How dare you!’
‘Don’t bother. You say she’s unstable but I say she knows exactly what she has to do to survive. That’s why you’re worried, isn’t it? You know something about her that’s keeping her in line but that knowledge also makes you a target. What is it?’
‘Inspector, you’re barking up the wrong tree,’ Poole told him.
‘Is it something to do with Yvette having no photographs of her son?’
Poole bristled, unable to look at Brook. ‘I wouldn’t know about that. She said they got lost in the move.’
‘So you asked her about that as well?’
Poole glared back at Brook and stood to leave. ‘Goodbye, Inspector.’
‘What do you think?’ asked Noble, back in the Incident Room.
‘I think Len is a very easy read,’ replied Brook, firing up his computer.
‘Think he’s lying about when he started having sex with Yvette?’
‘Wouldn’t you, if you exploited a fourteenor fifteen-yearold girl in your care?’
‘If
only we could get a DNA comparison between Len and Russell.’
‘That’s what worries me, John. He was too confident on that score. I think he was telling the truth.’
‘About not being Russell’s father?’
‘About
believing
he’s not Russell’s father.’
‘Then why support Yvette financially all these years?’
Brook shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Guilt maybe. Can you cue up the last broadcast for me? There’s something I want to see.’
DC Cooper came in at that moment and dropped a large envelope on Brook’s desk. ‘One enlarged photograph of Russell Thomson in his bedroom.’
Brook thanked him and absentmindedly pulled it from the envelope. It showed Russell’s face in close-up but in no greater detail, but Brook wasn’t interested in that. He took out a magnifying glass and looked again, holding the lens against the background by Russell’s left ear.
‘What is it?’
‘This picture. Behind Russell’s head there’s a piece of a film poster. I think it’s the missing one. Can you read that?’
‘A-N-D something, something R-A-O-H-S,’ read Noble.
Brook wrote it out. ‘I need one of those crossword solvers.’
‘What about Google? Type the first word and see what it suggests.’
‘But what if AND is also the end of a word?’
‘Then guess. Hand, sand, land, band.’
Brook tried HAND and various permutations of smaller words like ‘in the’ and ‘of the’ but was offered nothing that
created a match with the end word. He tried again with SAND but came up blank again.
Noble started the recording of that afternoon’s Deity broadcast. ‘Sir.’
Brook closed his laptop and looked up at the screen as the first newspaper flashed up its sombre headline –
bullied girl takes overdose
. A moment later, Brook pointed at the screen.
‘There. Pause it.’
‘
UNKNOWN BOY HANGS HIMSELF
,
’ read Noble.
‘Right. The
Denbigh Examiner
,’ said Brook, making a note. He skimmed what he could read of the story but it was just an expanded version of the headline.
‘Unknown,’ said Noble. ‘That’s pretty unusual in this day and age.’
‘For a teenager anyway,’ added Cooper. ‘No parents? No dental?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘An orphan then,’ said Noble. He looked up excitedly at Brook. ‘St Asaph’s.’
Brook smiled. ‘Just a few miles away. Okay, move it on. Stop.’
Noble halted the film at the picture of the youngster hanging, neck snapped.
‘Pretty gruesome for a local paper,’ said Cooper.
Brook nodded. ‘That’s what struck me. They normally show them alive and well.’
Noble chewed the inside of his lip. ‘To be fair, it’s not actually in the local rag. It’s just a random photograph on its own. I don’t see a caption, or any text.’
‘Good spot,’ said Brook. ‘It’s not from the
Denbigh
Examiner
. But it’s been placed next to it so we unconsciously
accept it as part of the package. It doesn’t belong.’
‘You think someone from Deity has shuffled this picture into the pack,’ said Cooper.
‘I do.’
‘Why?’
‘To tell us this boy’s death means something, maybe,’ said Noble.
‘I think so,’ said Brook. ‘I think we need to speak to the local police in Denbigh. This looks like a Scene of Crime photograph to me.’
‘The local paper wouldn’t have access to SOCO pictures,’ said Noble.
‘And they wouldn’t print them if they did,’ said Cooper.
‘Agreed. I only said it looked like a SOCO picture,’ said Brook. ‘But if it isn’t, somebody else has taken this at the scene.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning Wilson Woodrow may be the latest in a long line.’
‘What do you want? I’ve done nothing wrong.’