In daylight, the five-storey concrete block that was District Police Headquarters was more frightening by far than it had been in the dark. As they walked towards the entrance, it brought back all Mike’s memories of repeated visits sixteen years earlier when he had been questioned and questioned and questioned about how and why his wife and daughter died. Those had all been in daylight and the place had not changed. The same phones rang just as faintly beyond thick doors in corridors used to enduring drunken assault, blood and vomit, which still carried the same tang of disinfectant, floor polish and testosterone. What came back sharply enough to sting his eyes again was the bewildering mixture of sorrow and resentment, that she could have gone and that she could have left him to suffer this as well.
She owed him happiness, he thought as they waited at the desk.
Mike and Rachel were led to an interview room by a WPC who unwrapped tapes and loaded them into recorders. She sat down opposite them. The door was flung open and Detective Sergeant Wilson came into the room flushed with expectation like an invader coming to pillage a city. He switched on the tapes and recited the words of the formal caution.
‘Last time we met, Mr Martin, you denied any suggestion of improper behaviour with Luke Sturgess when he was fifteen years old.’
‘That’s because there wasn’t any.’
‘Do you recall a pupil called Caroline Oaks?’
‘No,’ said Mike, surprised.
‘Come on now. You taught her, didn’t you?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘A pretty girl. I’m sure you would remember her.’
‘I don’t think of students in terms like “pretty”.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. You prefer boys, don’t you?’
‘Don’t respond to that,’ said Rachel. ‘Sergeant, that is disgraceful. Please conduct this interview according to the guidelines.’
Wilson smirked at the WPC who kept her expression wooden.
‘Listen,’ said Mike. ‘I taught three hundred children last year and another three hundred children the year before that. I’m sorry if I can’t remember all their names. Some of them only bothered to turn up once or twice in the whole year.’
‘Caroline Oaks has made a statement to the effect that in October last year she saw you and Luke Sturgess in your classroom during the lunch break. She saw you through the window in the door as she walked past. She says that you had your arms round Luke Sturgess and appeared to be interfering with his person.’
‘What does interfering—’
‘Don’t say anything,’ said Rachel.
‘Can you tell me where you were at lunchtime on Thursday, October the eighth last year?’
‘I haven’t a clue.’
Rachel Palmer leaned forward. ‘My client cannot be expected to answer that question without notice or without recourse to his diary.’
Wilson gave her a frosty look and turned back to Mike. ‘Do you deny that you had your hands inside Luke Sturgess’s trousers on that day?’
Mike glanced at Rachel for support but she was looking down at her mobile phone.
‘Hold it there, Sergeant. I wish to interrupt this interview for a private discussion with my client,’ she said.
They stopped the recorder and Wilson left the room with ill grace. Alone with her, Mike shook his head in disbelief. ‘I don’t know what they’re talking about.’
‘I think I do,’ said Rachel. ‘Give me a moment. I just got a text message from someone who might know the answer.’
She made a call. ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Are you free to talk?’ She listened. ‘No, it will only take a minute. Am I right in thinking you mentioned a girl called Caroline Oaks?’ Mike saw her eyebrows rise. ‘Oh really?’ She listened again. ‘Are you quite sure that’s true?’ she said, then finally, ‘Got it. Thanks a lot. Talk later,’ and put the phone away.
‘What was that about?’ Mike asked.
‘Wait and see.’
She opened the door and told the policewoman outside that they were ready to restart.
Wilson and the WPC came back in. ‘I hope you’ve persuaded your client to be more helpful,’ he said.
Rachel smiled pleasantly.
When the tape was running, she said, ‘Before we continue, Sergeant Wilson, I should tell you I have received information from the school where my client teaches and where the girl who has accused him is a student. I hesitate to tell you how you should do your job but I presume you are aware that the girl in question has a history of disturbed behaviour?’
Wilson looked at her without answering. ‘Specifically,’ she went on, ‘that Caroline Oaks has been excluded from school on two occasions for inappropriate public sexual behaviour, that she is presently undergoing psychiatric treatment and that she has recently told other students that she is pregnant by her own father?’
Wilson blew out a noisy breath, tapped his pencil on the table and looked at the WPC as if he expected her to step in and say something. The WPC looked pointedly the other way.
‘Well?’ Rachel demanded. ‘I wouldn’t like to think that you had some sort of vendetta against my client, that perhaps your judgement has been clouded by personal antipathy. Could it really be that you haven’t made a single enquiry about the character and reputation of this girl before deciding to accuse Mr Martin?’
‘We’ll check this,’ said the WPC. ‘I’ll call the school.’
Wilson gave her a dirty look, said ‘Interview terminated’, stabbed the stop button and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
‘I’d like you to record my objection to that as unacceptable,’ said Rachel to the WPC. ‘No time of cessation given, no proper logging of the tape details, no check with my client to ensure he is happy with the procedure so far.’
‘I’ll write all that down, Mrs Palmer,’ said the WPC, and the tone of her voice said it might even be a pleasure.
‘I would like to point out that my client is here voluntarily and that the matter under investigation relates to the alleged downloading of indecent images which he utterly denies, not the ramblings of an unreliable witness concerning something entirely different,’ said Rachel. ‘I require you to sort this out within no more than half an hour, then we shall leave.’
‘Noted. If you don’t mind waiting here, Mr Martin, I’ll make some calls.’
Left to themselves, Mike turned to Rachel. ‘That was amazing,’ he said. ‘How did you find that out? Of course, I remember hearing her name now. Who do you know at the school? Someone on the pastoral team? It must have been to know all that. Was it Jenny Johnson? Dave Matthews? I’m amazed they told you.’
‘It wasn’t amazing at all and it wasn’t any of the staff. It was a real expert – my daughter.’
‘Your daughter, Lulie? She’s at my school? I didn’t realise.’
‘She is and she keeps her ears open. Tales of Caroline Oaks and her wicked ways are apparently legion.’
‘Well, say thank you from me, will you? What’s next, do you think? Is this sort of thing going to keep happening?’
‘As long as there are pregnant teenagers with fertile imaginations and as long as there are bad apples like our DS Wilson, then yes, I’m afraid it is. You’re a convenient whipping boy for a lot of whips at the moment.’
The WPC came back into the interview room.
‘I’ve talked to the school,’ she said. ‘They more or less confirmed what you said.’
‘Is that all?’ Rachel demanded. ‘No apology?’
‘That’s not for me to say.’
‘Well, it’s not your fault. I take it we can go now?’
‘Do you mind waiting a moment? Detective Inspector Meehan would like a word.’
‘Ah,’ said Rachel. ‘That will be the apology then.’
DI Meehan came in with a laptop under his arm. He put it on the table. He was older than Wilson, thin and sandy-haired with a quiet intelligence about him.
He introduced himself. ‘I have to remind you that you are still under caution, Mr Martin,’ he said. He started the tape again, listed the people present and the time. Rachel looked at him sharply then frowned at Mike.
‘As you know, Mr Martin, you were originally arrested on suspicion of downloading indecent images of minors. The investigating officers removed a computer and a large box of photographs from your house. We have now examined both of those. We have copied some of the images on the hard drive of that computer to this laptop to facilitate this interview.’ Meehan pressed a button on the laptop.
‘For the purposes of the tape,’ he said, ‘I am now showing Mr Martin images MM thirteen to nineteen copied from the hard drive of the Dell desktop computer removed from his house.’
He turned the screen to face Mike and Rachel and a slide show of images cycled before their eyes. Mike laughed in recognition.
‘You find these funny, do you?’ Meehan asked.
‘They’re torture instruments,’ said Mike.
‘And that’s funny?’
‘Only when the police think a history teacher shouldn’t have them on his computer. They’re medieval. I was teaching my class about life in the fourteenth century – the Hundred Years War.’
‘So if we were to ask your head of department, Mr Martin, he would confirm that this was part of the course, would he?’
‘Well, my present head of department has only been in the post for six months. His predecessor would have but I’m afraid she had a stroke. She’s in a home now.’
Rachel held up a hand to silence Mike and stepped in. ‘I don’t think it would take very much to justify a history teacher having historical images on his computer, do you?’
Meehan shrugged. ‘Maybe. For the tape, I will now show Mr Martin twelve more images scanned from photographs in the box removed from his house. These are numbered MM one to MM twelve in our record.’
Both Rachel and Mike stiffened a little at his tone. It was clear that what went before had been a sideshow. This was the main event. Mike looked at the first picture. His vision misted over as his eyes filled with involuntary tears. He wiped them, glared at the policeman and then looked back at the screen because he could not do anything else. Gally in the bath at Bagstone, Gally holding tiny Rosie up out of the water, both of them laughing.
‘Can you identify the subjects for us, Mr Martin?’ asked Meehan.
‘That’s my wife and daughter,’ said Mike.
‘Mr Meehan, you should know that both Mr Martin’s wife and his daughter died,’ broke in Rachel. ‘I don’t feel this is suitable for your—’
‘I know they did, Mrs Palmer,’ replied Meehan. ‘Mr Martin may have forgotten, but I was one of the investigating officers at the time,’ and Mike did suddenly remember a quiet young man with a dogged politeness about him. He looked at Meehan and nodded almost as if meeting an old friend.
‘In that case, why are you showing my client pictures which are personal to him and very upsetting and can have nothing whatsoever to do with the accusations made against him?’
‘The accusations about Luke Sturgess are no longer my main concern, Mrs Palmer, and the pictures I have shown you so far are not nearly as upsetting as the rest of these images, which, strangely enough, I don’t remember Mr Martin showing us at the time of the original investigation.’ Meehan pressed another key, gestured for Mike to look, and the bottom dropped out of his life as the other pictures marched out of the screen, one after another.
‘I thought she had thrown them away.’
‘She being your late wife?’
‘Don’t answer that,’ interrupted Rachel. She was staring at the screen with horror on her face. ‘Inspector Meehan, I would like to suspend the interview to speak to my client.’
‘I thought you might,’ said Meehan. He logged the tape off, stood up, and he and the WPC left the room. Before they closed the door, Detective Sergeant Wilson peered in at Mike with a dark look of triumph.
There was a long silence. Mike had his head in his hands. Rachel continued to stare at the screen.
‘Is there something you want to tell me?’ she asked in the end. ‘Because right now I’m wondering if I’ve been the biggest mug ever. What the hell did you do to that little girl?’
‘No, no,’ said Mike. ‘Not me, not us. Nothing. We did nothing at all. We were just trying to protect her.’
‘Protect her? Look at the pictures, Mike.’ He lifted his head, glanced at the screen for a moment then turned immediately away. ‘I can’t.’
‘Then I’ll tell you what I see,’ she said. ‘First picture: Rosie, black and blue down one side of her face with a swollen eye. Second picture: Rosie with a deep cut across her forehead and fresh bruising. Third picture: Rosie’s thighs with cuts and puncture marks. Fourth picture: well, I don’t even know what that one shows but she doesn’t look like any two-year-old should. She looks like a child from a concentration camp. Fifth picture . . . Do I need to go on?’
‘No, please don’t.’
‘In that case, start talking, Mike. Tell me what the hell you did because my sympathy is running out very, very fast.’
‘I didn’t know they were there.’
‘I don’t give a toss whether you knew they were there or not. Who did it?’
‘She did.’
‘Gally did that? She did that to her own daughter?’
Mike looked at her in astonishment. ‘No, of course not. I don’t mean Gally. Rosie did it. She did it to herself.’
‘Mike, those are pictures of a tiny toddler who has been systematically assaulted. Bruises, cuts. They are horrific. No child that age could do that.’
She stared at him and in the long silence he looked steadily back at her, then he reached out a hand and turned the laptop round so that it kept cycling its accusations at the wall.
‘Well?’
There was a bluebottle in the room, buzzing at the window. A car engine burst into life out in the yard. Tyres squealed and he heard the two-tone siren start as it disappeared up the road. He knew why. He also knew how absurd it seemed in this place of simple facts and accusations and narrow rectitude, and he found he could not call up the energy to defend himself.
‘Rachel. She did. There’s something else you don’t understand. Rosie wasn’t . . .’ but the lawyer was still staring at the laptop.
‘Oh, I’m supposed to believe this is something about Ferney and all the rest of this story, am I?’ He nodded. She muttered something angry. It sounded to him like ‘Bullshit’. Then she drew several long, slow breaths while he watched her in dull despair and gave up hope of explaining.
‘I’ve had faith in you,’ she said eventually, the pain in her voice showing through a fading attempt at professionalism. ‘I think I just lost it.’
The silence stretched and he knew time was running out. Words would not come.
‘I need to think about this,’ she said. ‘I’d better go and talk to them.’ She went outside. Mike heard muffled words in the corridor and a young policeman came and stood by the door.
The lawyer came back with Meehan. She didn’t seem able to meet Mike’s eyes.
‘Mr Martin,’ Meehan said, sitting down, ‘I have to tell you that I am now reopening the investigation into the death of your wife and daughter. I’m not yet in a position to charge you but I wish to interview you again at noon tomorrow. Mrs Palmer has agreed that you will voluntarily surrender your passport to her and that you will not leave your village without notifying her and me.’
Mike followed Rachel out of the police station, trying to keep up with her. She was walking fast, not looking back. As they drove out of the car park, she crunched a gear. ‘Bugger,’ she said. ‘All right, now listen to me. The bad news is that Meehan always thought you were guilty and he’s watched too many cold-case dramas on TV. I don’t think he’s ever had one of his very own. He would just love to reopen this case.’
‘What will he want to know tomorrow?’
‘He’s been looking at the toxicology report. That was what got you off the hook last time, apparently.’
‘Yes.’
‘It showed you were in London when they took whatever it was?’
Mike was silent.
‘Come on,’ said Rachel. ‘Don’t clam up. There’s no time for that.’
‘Yes, that’s what they said. They decided Gally took the stuff no earlier than eight in the morning. I was in London then. People saw me.’
‘Toxicology has come a long way since then. He’s having the findings checked out all over again.’
‘He’s out to get me, isn’t he?’
‘He thinks he’s on to something.’
‘And you’re not sure he’s wrong, are you?’
‘That shouldn’t surprise you, not after those pictures. Now you tell me, Mike. Why did you take those photos?’
‘We were desperate. Gally heard about a healer, somewhere up in the Lakes. We took the pictures because she wanted to see them.’
‘Did you go to a doctor?’
‘No,’ he said after a long time.
‘Meehan will want to know why not.’ He heard a formal distance in her voice.
‘I’d rather be dealing with Meehan than with Wilson,’ he said, ‘but even then—’
‘Meehan’s a lot smarter than Wilson and a good man, I’d say.’
‘I’m glad of that.’
‘You shouldn’t be. A good man on a mission is a lot harder to stop than a bad man with a grudge.’
That was the last thing she said until she pulled up at his gate and he opened the door. He went to find his passport and when he came back, she got out too and they stood there facing each other.
‘I’ve decided,’ she said. ‘What I would really like is to turn time back and not have you tell me anything crazy. I’m going back to my office and I’m going to tell them that I can’t represent you any more for personal reasons. I’ll have them put someone else on it. Then the only advice I can give you is that you don’t tell them what you told me. Don’t say anything that they can’t say to Meehan and his sort. That’s really all I can do for you now.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she added in a distorted voice, then she got back into the car and drove away.