Catherine Hunt - Someone Out There

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll have to toughen up a bit if you want to succeed in this firm.’

The schoolgirl had been suitably chastised. He started to move away then stopped.

‘Hurt yourself, have you?’ He was staring at the cut on her eyebrow. She’d hoped the thick spectacles would hide it but very little got past Morrison.

‘Oh, that.’ She attempted a laugh. ‘Just an accident.’

‘I hope it’s not too painful,’ he hissed.

Her body tensed. For one horrible moment she thought he might reach out and put his arm around her shoulders. But he didn’t. He wasn’t that sort of person. She relaxed – just a little.

Ten minutes later the phone on her desk rang. Mrs Hakimi, and her brother, had arrived in reception.

Harry Pelham sat glowering and silent while the policemen took his home apart. There were four of them: two from Sussex CID and two from London, from the Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crime and Operations Unit. This was no ordinary police raid. This was a high-powered team tackling an outrageous crime.

‘We’re arresting you, Mr Pelham, on suspicion of downloading and possessing indecent images of children.’

The officer in charge, Detective Inspector David Barnes, laid it out for him. They had information that he was a paedophile. They had search warrants, for his home and his office, and they were looking for child pornography. When the searches were done, he would be taken to the police station for questioning.

He stared at the detective, his face tight with fury. ‘You cannot be serious. I’ve got a young daughter of my own. Jesus, what sort of man do you think I am?’

Barnes stared back. It was clear from the slight curl of his mouth what the answer to that question was.

‘We’ll need to take your computer to check the hard drive,’ he said.

‘Look,’ Harry took a step towards him, ‘I am not a paedophile. The idea disgusts me. Understand that.’

‘That’s what we’re going to check, sir.’ Barnes’s face was expressionless now but his voice oozed disbelief. He was big with broad shoulders, reeking of ambition and confidence, bordering on arrogant. Harry wanted very much to hit him.

‘There’s personal stuff on my computer. What right do you have to look at that?’

‘We can look at whatever we want,’ said Barnes and paused, watching Harry for a reaction, then added, ‘But in fact we only read the things that are relevant to the investigation. We’ll be scanning the photo files and doing key word searches connected to the child pornography we think has been downloaded.’

‘I’m telling you there’s none of that filth on my computer,’ Harry snarled.

‘In that case, sir, you have nothing at all to worry about.’

The urge to smash his fist into Barnes’s poker face was almost uncontrollable but as well, growing stronger all the time, were feelings of fear. Barnes’s assured attitude worried him.

‘What evidence have you got?’ he said more quietly. ‘I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding that I can explain.’

‘We’ll go through that at the station,’ said Barnes smoothly.

They started searching downstairs, clearing cupboards, tipping out drawers, shaking books and magazines to see if anything incriminating would fall out. They made it clear he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere on his own, without supervision. He must stay with them, in their sight, so they could be sure he wasn’t destroying evidence. When he went to the bathroom, one of them followed and waited outside.

They spent most time in the room he used as an office, which was a bit of a mess. The cleaner, who kept the rest of the large house in good order, didn’t go in there because Harry preferred it undisturbed. They sorted through methodically, taking files from shelves and a cabinet, sifting the contents, collecting up memory sticks, CDs, his laptop and iPad, putting everything they were taking away in a pile on the floor. They fired up the main computer, checked it was working properly, then closed it down and separated the parts before taking them out to their van.

They drove it all, and Harry, to the police station at Hollingbury. The place was heaving; busy with the fallout from a drugs raid, and the only free interview room was the size of a small box with one tiny window high up in the wall. Harry paced up and down in it, waiting for Ronnie Seymour to arrive and for the interview to begin. There was a tape recorder bolted to a table. The table was bolted to the floor.

Ronnie had had a not very satisfactory conversation with Barnes before coming to see Harry. The detective had been cagey, reluctant to give away too much of his case, but Ronnie, whose long experience had given him a sixth sense about these things, suspected Barnes had something to justify his bullish approach. As he entered the interview room there was a frown on his round, sleek face.

‘What’s going on, Harry?’ he said.

‘I’ve no idea. What have they told you?’

‘That they think you’re involved in child pornography and they can prove it.’

‘It’s not true. You know that, don’t you?’ Harry demanded.

‘I’m sure it’s not true,’ the lawyer was impatient. ‘But why are they saying it?’

‘I don’t know. I wish I did.’

‘All right. Let’s see what they’ve got.’

Barnes and a detective constable called McLaren, one of the officers who’d searched his home, conducted the interview though Barnes asked almost all the questions. His bulky presence dominated the small room, and right from the start, Harry, who was a big man himself, complained that he felt cramped and claustrophobic, like there was not enough air for all four of them to breathe. McLaren inserted two separate cassettes into the tape recorder and set them running simultaneously. He stated the time and who was present and asked Harry to confirm that he had been cautioned prior to the interview. Then Barnes took over.

‘Mr Pelham, what credit cards do you have?’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Ronnie said at once, holding up his hand, ‘before my client answers anything, I think it’s only fair that you tell him what grounds you have for making these very serious allegations against him.’

Barnes considered. He hadn’t encountered Ronnie Seymour before, but he knew he had a reputation as a wily and effective criminal lawyer. No need to make this difficult, Barnes thought, no need for confrontation. After all, the evidence was clear.

‘OK.’ He shrugged and sat back, putting his hands behind his head with his elbows menacingly pointed out, looking sure of himself. ‘We have information, and material, that implicates Mr Pelham in child pornography, possibly as part of a paedophile network. We have discovered that indecent images of children were downloaded from websites, paid for by a credit card registered in his name.’

‘That’s crap,’ Harry snapped, ‘I’ve never been near that kind of website. The whole idea is sick. Totally sick.’

‘So, what credit cards do you have?’ Barnes repeated.

‘A few of them. Some business, some personal, but I don’t use any of them to buy that muck, all right?’

‘Can I see them, please?’

Ronnie shook his head. ‘I am sure, Detective Inspector, that my client has no objection to showing you the cards,’ he said for the benefit of the tape, ‘but before he does can you please tell us the number of the card you’re talking about.’

The solicitor was anxious to avoid a fishing expedition. He wanted to make sure the police had a particular number that they could reasonably believe was registered to Harry.

Barnes tore a piece of paper from his notebook, flicked through the rest of it with large, rather elegant fingers, then wrote out a sixteen-digit number on the paper. He handed it to Harry.