Alex Howard - Time to Die

What he hadn’t expected were arson attacks on synagogues, more because of the unusual commitment to violence than anything, drug dealing and other armed robbery. That was one of the virtues of a Bishops Avenue address, he guessed. You wouldn’t be thought of as a gangland criminal. Arms dealer, maybe; armed robber, no way. In many ways, thought Whiteside, I’m being a bit naive. Now I come to think of it I can recall at least one other multimillionaire tycoon with an equally chequered past. Well, I’ll talk about it with Hanlon later. It’ll be the Rabbit Bingham connection that will interest her. Now that is something unusual.

Whiteside went into his small kitchen, opened the fridge and poured himself a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, returned to the lounge and stared out of the window again at the houses opposite. There was hardly any movement in the street. When it was hot, which it was at the moment, London was torpid. Like a reptile, the city dozed in the heat. Upper Holloway was quiet today. Down at the other end of the Holloway Road at Highbury and Islington, where Upper Street began, it would be a different story. There, the affluent young middle-aged would be out feeding their addiction to contemporary or retro furniture and objets trouvés . They’d be sitting outside the bars and cafes or pubs with their Farrow amp; Ball paint jobs, discussing the new developments at the Tate, the Tanks, the Turner or politics. Islington was getting staid now; it was old hat. The hipsters and medianistas had moved to Old Street or were reclaiming King’s Cross. The more adventurous were going south of the river. The iconic Hoxton White Cube was closing.

Whiteside loved London. North London anyway; he felt out of touch in East, West or South London. If he could have afforded it, Hampstead would be his ideal location, but it was way, way out of his price range, which is how he’d ended up here. Holloway is probably best known for its women’s prison but it had come into being as a Victorian middle-class suburb, large town houses in a then far-flung area of London.

In later years most of these houses had been divided into flats. Irish immigrants had moved in; Johnny Rotten, he seemed to remember, was from here. One of these days he’d get a blue plaque. Now there were more diverse incomers but the area still retained its architectural beauty despite the house conversions. The streets, by London standards, were wide. It had a spacious, airy feel. He’d come to like it very much. It was relaxing.

His phone beeped to say he had mail. He checked it. It was from the Shapiro Institute to say Dr Cohen had some documents for him that he was sending over. The text explained they couldn’t email them because they had to be signed for.

He texted back thanks, I’ll be in, and drank another mouthful of wine to toast the success of the day. He wondered what they could be about. Conquest, maybe. The Sauvignon was clean and robust against his palate. He thought of ‘Rabbit’ Bingham. He wasn’t clean and robust. He conjured up Bingham’s face, his scant fair hair brushed over his balding head. His pale, pudgy body. What was startling about Bingham was his charm. The word ‘monster’ normally follows ‘paedophile’ but Bingham wasn’t monstrous, he was utterly charming. That was the problem, really. Self-deprecating, witty, humorous; if Whiteside had children he’d probably have entrusted them to Bingham without a second’s thought.

He’d met Hanlon on that case, when he was working briefly for the Met’s child abuse unit. Hanlon had been investigating a child prostitution murder. Like many paedophiles, Bingham had been uncomfortably bright, and, now he remembered, quite wealthy. He thought of Conquest immediately. Money for services rendered? Was it possible that Conquest was a fellow paedophile? Bingham had worked in IT, he remembered that much. He remembered too that Hanlon had looked into the source of Bingham’s money and drawn a blank. There was a conspicuous gap between Bingham’s earned income and his lifestyle. Hanlon had been sure he was dealing in child porn via secure subscriber websites. The CPS hadn’t been interested in that. Everyone just wanted Bingham sent down with the maximum speed and the minimum fuss. Bingham, like many paedophiles, was very good at hiding things. They’d only arrested him because of a tip-off. Bingham would still be free if it hadn’t been for that.

Bingham had been jailed in the end for possessing several thousand graphic, sexual images of children and babies. Some of these were now irrevocably lodged in Whitehead’s own memory. Before he’d joined the unit he didn’t know how you had sex with a baby, now he did, and he would have to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life. He’d never really understood the true meaning of depravity until he had seen those images. Unfortunately, they had proved unforgettable. It was the only time in his life he had ever experienced such levels of rage and disgust at others that he’d felt truly murderous. He had looked into the face of true evil. The charming face of ‘Rabbit’ Bingham. For weeks, months even, after he left the unit he’d felt defiled.

Whiteside, however, was not telepathic. He had no way of reading minds. Other people too had been irrevocably affected by Bingham’s trial. Lord Justice Reece had been the trial judge. He too had seen the images but he’d drawn very different conclusions from Whiteside, very different indeed.

The judge had pored over them in the rooms reserved for him in the court building. For years he had fought against this side of his nature and refused to acknowledge it to himself. Only when he’d been drunk had he allowed himself to think about children. But now the forces inside him were too powerful to control and he felt as if this trial had been sent to free him, to liberate him. The serpent had proffered the apple: take, eat of this fruit of knowledge. And the judge did. And it was good. He could hear the old school song ‘Come Unto Me’ as they’d sung it in chapel all those years ago, ringing in his ears.

He’d stared at the pictures. The delicate, innocent flesh excited him tremendously. At first he’d resisted, but Bingham’s photo collections were the sexiest, most erotic things he had ever imagined in his life. The pictures gave him a window on a world he had never seen before. He’d intuited its existence but he had never dreamed that such nirvana was attainable, and Bingham had been there. They were the most arousing pictures he had ever seen. Bingham was like an explorer who had returned from an unknown continent that the judge longed to visit.

He was extremely grateful for the prosecuting QC who had insisted on the most extreme descriptions and illustrations of the degrading sexual acts that had been forced on the children. Bingham’s defence lawyer had kept up a barrage of ‘objection’, Reece a counter-offensive of ‘overruled’. The QC’s intention had been to ensure, without any shred of doubt, the hideous guilt of the defendant in the minds of the jury. The judge had found these commentaries and pictures incredibly erotic. He’d wanted more. He’d been profoundly grateful for the fact he wore long robes during the trial.

At one point his eyes had met Bingham’s. In the course of his legal career the judge had done this countless times. This was different. Bingham had recognized a true soulmate. He made no sign to the judge. There was no smile or nod of the head, it was just a look, but it had been enough. They both knew what it meant. The jury, the audience in the gallery, the lawyers and court officials all had seemed suddenly insubstantial. He knows, he’d thought with a shock, he knows. Like calls to like.

After the trial Reece had discreetly used his lobbying power and got himself appointed as the legal expert on a parliamentary committee to look into paedophilia. The authorities were delighted that such a senior figure had been so public spirited to volunteer for such a depressing job. He’d used it to engineer a meeting with Bingham.