Mark Sennen - Touch

‘Ah well, if my numbers came up I could send them to boarding school!’ Enders grinned. ‘I tell you what, I would think somewhere like this would suit the lovely Ms Meadows very-’

‘Shut up. Anyway, we are here.’

Everett Mitchell’s house was number seven. White plaster, black wood and shiny steel intermingled with diagonal lines running in all directions. Little windows sat juxtaposed with big windows, huge windows trumped the lot. A hotchpotch of styles and materials vied for attention in a physical manifestation of an architect’s wet dream. They drove up the curving S-shaped drive across gravel that crunched with the sound of money and stopped in a turning circle in front of a double garage attached to the left hand side of the house. Riley wondered if an internal door in the garage led to the inside. If so it would be easy to bundle a girl from the car and into the house without any risk of being seen.

As they got out of the car the front door opened and a man came striding out. He was in his forties or early fifties with dark hair and a jet black goatee beard and had the air of a country landowner about him. He dismissed them with a wave of a hand as if to shoo them away.

‘No thank you. Whatever you are selling I am not buying, I don’t want any hassle and nobody else on the estate does either. We don’t need you lot round here. Back in the car now. Go on, or I will call the police.’

The voice rang with a confidence belonging to someone used to getting their own way, the type of voice Riley despised. He had heard the tone often enough in certain parts of London and the man’s manner told the lie to the myth of a classless society. Some people assumed the world moved for them and them alone. In this case Riley would enjoy showing the idiot how wrong he was.

‘Shocked as you may be to hear, sir, we are the police. Detective Sergeant Riley and Detective Constable Enders. If you could step back into the house we would like a word. Assuming you are Mr Everett Mitchell, that is?’

‘Yes, I am but I don’t have the time for-’

‘I will rephrase what I said, sir. Step back in the fucking house before I change my mind and decide to take you down the station.’

For a moment Mitchell appeared taken aback, but then he smiled and a new persona slipped into place. ‘Well, why didn’t you say so to start with? Your scruffy little car doesn’t exactly say “police” to me. It says “trouble”. Come on in.’

Mitchell turned and walked back to the house and Riley clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms to stop himself from boiling over.

‘Let’s face up to reality, Darius,’ Enders said, giving Riley a wink. ‘I am a paddy and you are black. We are not worthy to lick the shit from the man’s shoes, let alone his arse. However, what has really upset me is what he said about our poor car. She’ll never get over such blatant prejudice.’

Mitchell disappeared inside the house and the two detectives followed him across the threshold and went into a hall with snow-white carpets and dominated by a sweeping staircase. A shout came from a room off to the right. They walked down the hall and into a spacious lounge where Mitchell was reclining on a huge sofa.

‘I’ve told the wife to make some coffee. Should be here in a minute,’ Mitchell said, waving at them to sit down. ‘Now what can I do for you? I assume you are investigating the awful business with Mr Trent.’

Riley sat in an armchair and began by asking Mitchell the same questions that had been put by the door-to-door team. Had he noticed anything suspicious? Had he any inkling of what Trent was up to? How well did he know Mr Trent? When Mitchell answered he seemed relaxed, not an ounce of tension in his voice.

‘I know him of course. Lent him my lawnmower once and I chatted to him in the road occasionally. We went to a barbecue a year or so ago but the do wasn’t my type of thing at all. Full of academics. Load of bollocks. Hot air and canapes. Fizzy wine. Environmentalists with big people carriers and tales of holidays in Peru. Labour voters and hypocrites. Poor show indeed, I thought. Those kinds of people don’t know how to have any fun.’

‘What is your impression of Mr Trent himself?’

‘Weasely, isn’t he? No confidence. Of course the news came like a bolt out of the blue when he was arrested, but on reflection it figures. Sneaky kind of guy like him. Unattractive. Wife probably keeps her legs shut and I wouldn’t blame her.’

‘So you had suspicions?’

‘No, of course not. I am just saying now you have got him I am not entirely surprised.’

At that point a woman entered the room with a jug of coffee and cups on a tray. Long blonde hair framed a model-like face and a white towelling dressing gown hugged her full-figure. As she walked across the room Riley glimpsed a flash of golden thigh.

‘Ah, Catherine. Meet Chief Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis. There has been a murder. Ha, ha, ha!’

Riley introduced himself and Enders and explained the reason for the visit. Mrs Mitchell nodded and poured the coffees. Then she went to sit on the sofa next to Mitchell. The top of her dressing gown fell open and her left breast slipped into view. She made no attempt to cover herself and Riley averted his gaze.

‘Oh come now, Mr Riley. Don’t be shy. My wife isn’t.’

Riley wondered how much longer he would be able to refrain from hitting Mitchell. He was turning out to be an annoying little shit. But then there were a lot of them about these days. Riley turned to Enders, the cue for him to take over the questioning.

‘Mr Mitchell. Do you know a man by the name of David Forester?’

‘David. Forester.’ Mitchell’s face crinkled in puzzlement for a moment. ‘Ah, David Forester. Yes, of course. Nasty guy. Met him at the Snappers. Photography club in Plymouth. Didn’t take to him. He likes young models. Girls. If you get my drift.’ Mitchell patted his wife’s leg. ‘I prefer something a little more mature myself. Ha, ha!’

‘Did he ever come here?’

‘Forester? Good God no. I wouldn’t let scum like him in my house. As I said, I only met him the once.’

‘Mr Mitchell. Your business interests.’ Riley took over again.

‘Ah, I thought it wouldn’t be long before you got onto that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Everybody buys it, everybody uses it, but those of us providing the stuff are viewed as little more than pariahs.’

‘I don’t care what you get up to as long as it is legal. What I want to know is have you ever got involved in harder material? Mock rapes, that sort of thing.’

‘You don’t get it do you? I sell porn, yes. Explicit, yes. But the sex is clean, above board. Your assumption is because I am in the industry I must be a paedophile rapist animal buggerer. It is like me labelling you and your colleague sadistic thugs because of the violent behaviour of a tiny percentage of police officers.’

‘And Forester? Your business had nothing to do with him?’

‘Forester!’ Mitchell shook his head. ‘So if you can’t get me on the dodgy porn you’ll try and link me to some scrote drug dealer? Give me a fucking break.’

‘Mr Mitchell,’ Riley decided to try a change of tack. ‘We had a report of some bright flashes of light from one of your upstairs windows. As if someone was taking photographs in the middle of the night. Can you explain that?’

‘Of course.’ Mitchell seemed unperturbed, got up from the sofa and went to a bureau where he opened a drawer and took out a small camera. ‘I used to make the films, years ago, but now it is cheaper to buy them in. Still, me and the wife, we like to take a few pictures for old times’ sake, don’t we love?’

Mitchell strode across to Riley and showed him the screen on the back of the camera. Riley’s heart beat a little quicker when he saw the screen showed a naked woman tied to a bed, but the bed and the room did not look anything like the scene in Forester’s videos. And the woman was Catherine Mitchell.