The Mushroom Man (12 page)

I sat up. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, he’s bagged a brace of vicars. With a shotgun. He left a picture of a toadstool cut from your books at the scenes. He’s also claiming two others, but we think they were accidents.’

‘Crikey. Any theories about the motive?’

‘’Fraid not. All contributions welcome. The interesting thing is that the first one, which may
have been an accident, was in East Anglia. Gradually they are working this way, to where the pictures originated. It’s as if he’s growing tired of driving so far.’

‘Or can’t afford the petrol,’ I added.

‘Possibly.’

‘So you want to concentrate your efforts up here?’

‘That’s right. We need an office, telephones, a fax, a HOLMES terminal, all the manpower you can spare. You name it, we want it.’

‘You’ll want Eric’s address, too,’ I said.

‘Who’s Eric?’

‘He’s the local vicar-killer. It sounds as if Gilbert didn’t tell you about our own little investigation. We’ve an eight-year-old been kidnapped. I can give you a couple of offices and a DC to be going on with. We’ll make him Acting DS. He’ll organise the rest for you.’

Peterson didn’t look pleased. ‘A rooky DS!’ he protested. ‘We need a bit more weight than that.’

‘He’s got it,’ I told him. ‘What about the librarian?’

‘We want to see her next.’

‘OK. C’mon, I’ll show you your offices and introduce you to John Rose. Then he can take you to the library.’

I stood up and held the door open for them. Peterson paused in the doorway and said: ‘Can I ask you a personal question, Charlie?’

‘Er, yes. Fire away,’ I replied.

‘Thanks. Tell me this: have you ever shagged a sheep?’

‘No,’ I answered. ‘But I’m in a long-term relationship with a Swaledale ram who has.’

Nigel and most of the others arrived back about two o’clock. I asked him what they’d found.

‘About twenty rolls of negatives, plus a part-used one in the camera,’ he informed me.

‘Where are they now?’

‘The photographer has taken them to Foto Finish to be printed. He said it would take him a week to do them himself, but they’ll put them through this afternoon. He has an arrangement with them. It’ll cost us, though.’

‘Who’s with him?’ I asked.

‘Sparky’s gone along to make sure nobody runs off a spare set.’

‘Well done. You had me worried for a while. What about the video?’

‘I replayed the one in the camera. It’s just him and her. She’s double-jointed. We found another six tapes, though.’

‘Has that pervert Marriot from the Porn Squad taken them?’

‘Yes, boss. They have the set-up to watch them all at the same time. What a way to spend an afternoon.’

‘Mmm. Did you look at any of the negatives?’

‘Yep. Plenty of arms and legs and writhing bodies. Couldn’t tell who was who, though.’

‘That’ll do to be going on with. Let’s see what the Lallys have to say for themselves.’

We went downstairs. As we walked past the front desk the sergeant called out to me: ‘Mr Priest!’

I spun to face him: ‘Mr Jenks!’

‘Er, Charlie. You wouldn’t happen to have a radio, would you?’

‘Er, yes, I would just happen to have,’ I replied.

‘Good. Where is it, please?’

‘It’s next to the sideboard, under the CD player.’

‘C’mon, Charlie, you know what I mean.’ He looked exasperated.

‘Oh!
That
radio,’ I said. ‘It’s in the car. Why?’

‘Thank Christ for that. One of the new ones is missing and someone’s calling this afternoon to take them back. They’re faulty. The buttons aren’t waterproof and they stick in if they get wet. You wouldn’t like to fetch it, would you?’

‘No, I wouldn’t. I’ll leave you my keys, though.’ I fished them out of my pocket and dropped them on the desk. ‘It looks new and shiny; that’s why I chose it.’

‘The car?’

‘No, the radio.’

We dragged Lally out of his cell and installed him in an interview room. He didn’t kick and scream,
fortunately. These days we have to treat people like him as if they were Faberge eggs. I hovered over the twin tape recorders for a few seconds, then switched them on. I droned the words with studied indifference: ‘Taped interview with Paul Darryl Lally. Also present DS Newley and DI Priest. Mr Lally, you have been informed that you are entitled to have a solicitor present during any interview. We can arrange a duty solicitor or send for one of your choice. Do you understand?’

He wasn’t much of a specimen. Easy to dislike; that’s how I prefer them. He was skinny, but with big, bony shoulders. His hair was long and lank, and a row of tattooed dots ran round his neck. A similar row were visible on his wrist, with a big letter A that was looped at the top. His fingers were decorated with the inevitable LOVE and HATE.

‘Do you understand, Mr Lally?’

He stared at me.

‘I take it, Mr Lally, that you are forgoing your right to have a solicitor present.’

Silence. I felt like a man who was trying to teach a parrot to talk, but didn’t realise it was a sparrowhawk in the cage. He just sat there unmoved and unblinking.

‘For the tape, please,’ I said. He didn’t stir, so I added: ‘Mr Lally nods.’

‘I’m saying nowt!’ he blurted out.

‘Ah! So you
can
use your tongue for speaking,’ I
said. ‘After watching the video we weren’t sure if you knew its proper use. Now, let’s see how good it is at names, eh?’

He lounged back in his chair and folded his arms, to demonstrate that he was bored and had no desire to continue.

I leant forward, two-thirds of the way across the table. ‘Names, Lally, of all your customers. But most of all the procurers of the kids. I don’t care if you get one year or twenty, but I want those names. Understand?’ I paused for a second, before adding: ‘Mr Lally nods.’

‘I said fuck-all!’ he yelled into my face.

Now I sat back. ‘Look, Lally,’ I told him. ‘At the moment you are charged with allowing your premises to be used for immoral purposes. At the best you’re going to cop for taking photographs of under-age children in sexual acts. If I’m feeling benevolent you might get away with having taken part in those acts yourself. Do you follow?’

‘I’m saying nowt!’ he said.

‘Let’s see, then: there’s assault, procuring children of tender age for sexual purposes, unlawful sexual intercourse…the possibilities are endless. But no doubt you know more about it than me.’

He scowled at me as if I’d just popped out of a boil he’d squeezed.

‘OK,’ I went on, ‘play it your way. We’ll have the photos printed in a couple of hours. Let’s see
what they tell us. Meanwhile you might like to know that our forensic people have been having a look at the sheepskin rug from your studio. So far they’ve found enough sperm on it for a trout farm. I wonder if any of it is yours? Interview terminated. Take him to his cell, Sergeant.’ I stopped the tapes.

Nigel came back and paced up and down the interview room, clenching and unclenching his fists.

‘For Christ’s sake, sit down,’ I told him. ‘This is the cheapest carpet known to mankind. It wears out quicker than a Rottweiler’s patience.’

‘Grrr!’ he said, holding his fists up.

‘Sit down!’ I ordered.

‘Didn’t you…don’t you…didn’t you want to smash his fucking head in?’ he growled, dragging the chair away from the table and flopping into it.

‘No,’ I replied.

‘No!’

‘No. He’d probably enjoy it. All you can do is not let him know he’s got through to you. Sometimes it’s impossible. Do you think he’ll talk?’

Nigel shook his head. ‘He’s rehearsed the situation. Or he’s been brainwashed. Say nothing and let them try to prove otherwise, that’s the code.’

‘Yes, you’re right; he’s been on the course. It’s going to get tougher, y’know. We’ve all the photos to look at, for a start. Once we’ve ascertained that little Georgina isn’t involved, we could hand the
whole thing over to the Porn Squad, if we wanted.’

‘No, boss. Let’s go through with it. It’s just that…well… I wonder how everybody else handles something like this?’

‘Not very well, Nigel. Mainly through booze and taking it out on the wife.’

‘What if you haven’t a wife?’ he asked, looking straight at me. He obviously didn’t want the ten cents answer.

I twisted my chair sideways away from the table and stretched my legs out. ‘Various ways,’ I said. ‘We all find our own. We even run seminars on it, I believe. Maybe we should all go on one. That won’t help today, though.’

‘What do you do, Charlie?’

Nigel, the paragon of politeness, had never called me Charlie before.

‘What do I do? Oh, I make a joke of it; look on the bright side. I try not to see victims; just people who are involved. Maybe I pretend that some are even willing victims. It just happens that someone has done something that is against the law, and that’s where I come in. We employ social workers to pick up the debris. It’s not so much handling the situation as ignoring it. Maybe I’m storing trouble for the future, but it seems to work for me.’

It was a lie. It had worked for me in the past, but last year’s future is today. ‘It’s a depressing job, Nigel, but what would happen if we didn’t do it?
Go fetch the other one; let’s see what she has to say for herself.’

To hell with political correctness – Fenella Smith, common-law wife of Paul Lally, was a slag. I wouldn’t have shagged her with the ragman’s trumpet. Her skin was the colour of curdled milk, and in spite of being dragged out of bed at seven in the morning she had more black around her eyes than a steam tug has around its funnel, except that most of it was no longer around her eyes.

She’d taken the same correspondence course on frustrating the law as her paramour, but she was better at it. I couldn’t goad her into uttering a word. I made the same deal and told Nigel to take her away. While he was gone I ejected the tapes and placed them in envelopes, as per proper police procedure, although they said more about me than about the prisoners.

Dave Sparkington was back, with the photographs. A quick glance through them told me they were what we’d expected. I suppose it was a relief – if they’d been somebody’s holiday snaps, would I have been disappointed? I don’t know.

Maggie was on her way to City HQ with a photo of Georgina to compare with anything on the videos. I gazed at the pictures of her on the wall, as if to fix her face in my mind, although it wasn’t necessary. She was already there for all time. One photo, taken at school, was the overriding image
that had appeared in all the papers and in all the publicity briefings. It showed a cheeky eight-
year-old
, with wire-framed spectacles and a gap in her teeth. A plain Jane so far, but bubbling with life and hovering on the brink of who-could-tell-what. She’d be very easy to love.

‘OK,’ I said, without enthusiasm, ‘you know what we’re looking for. Let’s get on with it.’

There were four of us: me, Sparky, Nigel and Jeff Caton. We each grabbed a handful of photos and started working our way through them. After a few initial gasps we fell silent, with just the steady flick of the turning prints indicating our progress.

‘Jeez!’ I heard Jeff mumble under his breath. I glanced his way and he held one up for my inspection.

‘I know. I’ve already had a couple like that,’ I said.

Sparky stood up and went into the corridor for some fresh air. Nigel plodded on in silence, like a quality-control robot, devoid of expression. I looked out of the window; it was raining again.

‘Lally!’ exclaimed Jeff after about half an hour. We gathered round him to study the evidence. It was almost certainly him, doing bestial things to a little blonde girl. We found a few others of him. In one he was staring straight at the camera with her sitting on his knee. You wouldn’t have sent it to grandma to put on the sideboard, though.

‘How about this?’ said Sparky, sliding a print across to me. A male was having relatively normal sex with an adult woman. The interesting bit was the tattoo on his arse. It depicted a Union Jack, with the number 18 in the middle.

Nigel leant across to look. ‘Eighteen? What does that signify?’ he asked.

Sparky took the photo back and placed it on his facedown pile. ‘Nazis,’ he explained. ‘One is for the letter A, eight is for H. AH – Adolf Hitler. I don’t suppose the ones in Virginia Water wear tattoos.’

‘No!’ reported Nigel. ‘And they don’t keep pigeons and whippets, either.’

‘Cut it out, you two!’ I demanded. ‘His haircut looks familiar, I’ve had a few with him on.’ He was a skin- head, with just the last bit at the back allowed to grow long.

‘With luck, I’ll be running my fingers through it in the next couple of days,’ Sparky muttered grimly.

‘Just how sick can one person be?’ Nigel wondered.

Georgina wasn’t in any of the photographs.

When we’d finished we discussed our findings. ‘It looks to me,’ I said, ‘as if we are dealing with four adult males, two adult females and two children.’ The others agreed. ‘OK. So did anyone recognise any of the adults?’

‘Only Lally.’

‘Right, so how do we get to them?’

‘Circulate descriptions.’

‘Yep. So we need decent mugshots of them all. To start with maybe we should sort the pictures according to the adults on them, then do some cross-referencing. Jeff, could you have a think about that, please?’

‘Will do, boss.’

‘Then what?’ I asked.

‘See what Forensic come up with.’

‘Yes. A few sets of dabs would help cut some corners. We can’t afford to sit around waiting, though.’

‘How about trying to identify the children, Charlie,’ Sparky suggested. ‘CPU might have them on their at- risk file. And we know where they all are between nine and four, most days.’

CPU was the Child Protection Unit. We’d have to call them in as soon as any kids were involved. I told Jeff to give them pictures of the girls. Sparky wandered over to the big map on the wall and started attacking it with a highlighter pen.

‘What are they, Dave?’ I asked.

‘Schools.’

‘What are you thinking?’

‘School photographs, Charlie. We can’t rely on just rolling up and flashing pictures before the headmistress’s eyes; but if we could obtain pictures of all the kids we could do a practical comparison.’