The Widow

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.

‘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.

Fry was also having to engage with other blokes in the chat rooms so that Taylor didn’t feel singled out, and the puerile humour and endless innuendo was beginning to wear him down. He could picture them, he said. Heavy-metal T-shirts and bald spots.

Sparkes began to worry that being the bait would prove too much for him.

He couldn’t fault the younger man for his commitment – he found Fry leafing through women’s magazines to get in character and starting to talk about PMT, much to Matthews’ disgust.

And it was all taking so long. After fifteen nights in the chat room, Matthews was getting restless and told his boss it was a waste of time.

‘What do you say, Daniel?’ Sparkes asked. It was the first time he’d used the junior officer’s first name and Fry realized he was being put in the driving seat.

‘We’re building a relationship with him because we don’t want it to be a quick sex session. We want him to talk. Why don’t we give it another week?’

Sparkes agreed and Fry, glowing with a new sense of power, rang his former tutor to urge her to up the ante. She was doubtful at first, but they agreed that Jodie should play hard to get and disappear for a couple of days, and then hit Glen hard.

‘Where’ve you been?’ BigBear asked when Goldilocks reappeared. ‘Thought I’d lost you in the woods.’

‘My dad said I was on the computer too much,’ Goldilocks said. ‘He punished me.’ They both knew that she was twenty-seven, but the game was on.

‘How?’

‘Don’t want to say. I might get into trouble again.’

‘Go on.’

And so she did. BB, as she now called him, was hooked.

‘Why don’t we meet up, somewhere online where your dad will never find us?’ he suggested.