She reread the statement given by the organic vegetable deliveryman. My, how Harriestown had changed in the few years she’d been gone. The previous occupants of the area would have been interested in organic vegetables only as potential missiles. So engrossed was she that the sharp rap of knuckles on her door jamb made her start. The pages she was holding fluttered to the desk unheeded as Carol pushed back in her chair, heart thudding, eyes wide. This was new, she thought. The old Carol Jordan was a lot harder to startle.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to creep up on you.’ The woman in the doorway looked more amused than apologetic.
It was Carol’s habit to form descriptions of new encounters as if she were registering their details for the National Criminal Intelligence database. Medium height; wiry as Carol herself. Straight shoulders, full breasts, narrow hips. Wavy brown hair cut in a tousle that had been fashionable a few years before, but which she’d probably hung on to because it suited her incongruously cherubic face. The cast of her features made her look as if she was perpetually on the verge of a smile. Only the eyes gave her away; she had the long flat stare of the cop who’d grown weary of the variety of human viciousness and misery. She wore black jeans, a black silk T-shirt and a leather jacket the colour of crème caramel. Whoever she was, Carol was certain she’d never met her before. ‘I was miles away,’ she said, getting to her feet.
‘And who wouldn’t be, given half a chance.’ The woman’s eyes crinkled in an easy smile as she moved forward, extending a hand. ‘Detective Sergeant Jan Shields. I work Temple Fields.’
‘DCI Jordan,’ Carol said, accepting the warm, dry handshake. She gave a wry smile. ‘You’re the Vice, then?’
Jan groaned. ‘Oh please. One bloody TV series and we’re back with a label from the bad old, sad old days. Yeah, I’m the Vice. That’d be why we get the scuzzy office and you get the management suite. How are you settling in?’
Carol shrugged, slightly uncomfortable with the assumption of camaraderie from an officer junior in rank though probably roughly equal in years. ‘We’re feeling our way. So, Sergeant Shields, is this a social call? Or is there something I can help you with?’
‘I think it might be me that can help you.’ Jan waved a slim manila folder, this smile a tease.
Carol raised her eyebrows, moving back behind her desk. ‘Really?’
‘Your team’s working cold cases till you hit a fresh jackpot, right?’
‘We’re taking a look, yes.’
‘And one of those cases would be Tim Golding?’
‘You’re well informed, Sergeant.’
Jan shrugged. ‘You know how it is. Gossip travels faster than a speeding bullet.’
‘And we’re today’s hot news.’ Carol sat down. She wanted to give the impression of confidence. ‘So what is it you have for me?’
‘It’s a bit of a long story.’ Jan gestured to the chair opposite Carol. ‘May I?’ She sat down and crossed her legs with easy confidence.
Carol leaned forward. ‘Let’s have it, then.’
‘When you were here before, I was on secondment to a Home Office team working with the FBI on a long-term investigation into paedophiles using the internet. You’ve probably heard of Operation Ore?’
Carol nodded. The news media had leapt on Operation Ore with the avidity of a starving coyote in a meat-processing factory. The investigation had netted thousands of potential arrestees on both sides of the Atlantic: men who surfed the net and used their credit cards to buy access to sites where they could download child pornography. But the sheer scale of the results had made Operation Ore a victim of its own success. Overstretched law enforcement agencies looked at the mountain of evidence and threw their hands up in despair. Carol had heard one colleague estimate that with the officers at his disposal it would take nine and a half years simply to interview all the names from his patch, never mind to seize and analyse their hard drives. ‘You were involved in that?’
‘In the early stages, yes. I’ve been back here two years now, and most of what I’ve been doing since then has been prioritizing our hit list, in between the usual shit on the streets. In the last six months, we’ve started pulling in our prime candidates. What we do is kick their doors down and seize their computer equipment. After a preliminary interview we usually release them on police bail till the analysis is done.’
‘Which can take weeks, I imagine?’
Jan’s mouth twisted in a half-smile. ‘If we’re lucky. Anyway, I got a stack of stuff through yesterday from the techies. They’d stripped out a pretty rich seam from a guy we pulled in a couple of months ago.’ She shook her head. ‘You’d think I’d be used to this by now. The guy’s a senior NHS manager. You need a hip replacement or a new knee at Bradfield Cross? He’s the one you blame for the length of the waiting list. Respectable house in the suburbs, wife’s a teacher, two teenage kids. And his computer’s like a fucking sewer. So, I’m wading through his shit and I find this–’ She flipped open her file dramatically and pulled out a print of a digital photograph, blown up to cover most of an A4 sheet. She passed it across to Carol. ‘I recognized the kid from the media blitz.’
Carol studied the photograph. The background showed a dramatic rock formation. Slender birch branches crisscrossed one corner. A skinny child stood naked and hunched in the middle of the frame. Sandy hair, Harry Potter glasses. Features she’d memorized in the course of her long day’s reading. There was no room for doubt: this was Tim Golding. She felt the familiar rush that came with a fresh lead and hated herself for it. This wasn’t something to rejoice over. Carol understood that now better than she ever had before. ‘Are there any more?’ she asked.
Jan shook her head. I’ve been right through the archive. Nothing.’
‘What about the other missing kid–Guy Lefevre?’
‘Sorry. That’s the only one. And it doesn’t mean my guy is the one you’re looking for. These sick bastards swap shots all the time. The fact that there’s only the one pic of the Golding boy would suggest to me that my target wasn’t the photographer.’
I’m inclined to agree with you. But I want to talk to him nevertheless.’ Carol met Jan’s eyes in a long, measured stare. ‘I’d like his file now and I’d like him in an interview room first thing in the morning. Do you want me to clear that with your senior officer?’
‘Sorted already. My guvnor agrees you get first crack. Full house beats a flush.’
‘Thanks, Sergeant. I appreciate it.’ Carol slid the print back towards Jan. This background–any idea where it might be?’ She pointed to the unusual rock formation.
Jan shook her head. ‘Not a clue. I’m a city girl, me. I get the shakes if I’m more than five miles from Starbucks.’
‘It looks pretty distinctive to me. But for all I know, there could be rocks like this from Land’s End to John o’Groats.’
‘Yeah. But there’s only one Tim Golding.’
Carol sighed. ‘Wrong tense, I think.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Looking at this, I think we should be saying there was only one Tim Golding.’
His hands are sweating. They slither and slip in spite of the thin layer of talc inside the latex gloves. It makes the preparation difficult. He’s not really used to anything that requires finer control than rolling a joint. When his fingers fumble and a blade nicks him through the glove, he swears out loud at the beads of blood