The Judgement Book (6 page)

Adam waited until everyone had finished reading, then asked, ‘So, what do we make of that?’

‘A bloody nutter,’ growled one uniformed officer at the front.

‘Perhaps,’ replied Adam, slowly. ‘Or someone coldly sane and with a grand purpose – in their eyes at least. You all remember that hoax bomb in Plymouth? That contained a note which talked about a Judgement Book opening. We dismissed it as a crank at the time. But now we have to ask ourselves – was that a warning of what was to come?’

Another silence. Most of the crowd in the MIR kept glancing down at the blackmail note. Next to Dan one woman whispered what they all seemed to be thinking. ‘What the hell are we up against here?’

A middle-aged detective in a crumpled suit spoke. ‘It’s that stuff about the schoolgirl that’s worrying, isn’t it, sir? If Freedman liked them that age, what could have been going on with his daughter?’

There were a couple of groans from around the room. ‘My thoughts exactly, Jack,’ replied Adam. ‘An unpleasant possibility, but something we have to look at. It’s a sensitive one. You and Claire can handle it.’

The man nodded, as did Claire. Dan noticed she was rubbing her hand over her stomach. He wondered if she was feeling ill. She looked a little pale. He reminded himself to call her as soon as he could.

‘Come on then, team, what else?’ Adam demanded. ‘Where else do we go?’

‘What about the riddle, sir?’ asked a young detective at the side of the room.

‘What indeed?’ replied Adam. ‘Well, as it’s such a high profile case, we’ve got codebreaking experts coming in courtesy of the National Crime Faculty. We can let them work on the riddle. Us mere mortals will stick to the mundane old detective work.’

Dan stared at the pictures of the Freedmans on the felt boards. He knew he wouldn’t be leaving the codes alone. He’d always found puzzles enticing, and was bloody-minded enough not to give up until he knew the solution. He studied the numbers on the photocopied sheet.

61, 43, 21, 51

He wondered how they could form a word. His first instinct was that they looked like coordinates, but to where? And why so many number ones? Dan tried to let the numbers swirl in his mind, to see if they’d form any patterns, but Adam’s voice drew him back to the MIR.

‘So where else do we go then, team? Come on, let’s start making some progress. The media are all over us, not to mention our beloved High Honchos at headquarters. And it looks like the blackmailer has other victims in mind. We’ve got to stop him. So, what about how he knows all this? Could he have been there at the hotel, when Freedman was with this prostitute?’

There were some murmurs of no. ‘I agree,’ said Adam. ‘How could he? He’d have to have been in the actual room. And kinky though he might have been, Freedman wouldn’t have been up for giving a show. So, could he have bugged the room?’

‘Or she, sir,’ said Claire quietly.

Adam nodded. ‘Quite right. Our blackmailer could be a man or a woman. So, come on then team. How does our person get their information?’

Dan started to speak, but stopped himself. He was an observer here, however much he might like to think of himself as an amateur detective. But Adam had spotted the movement and turned, head tilted expectantly. Dan felt his face reddening.

‘Yes?’ Adam prompted. ‘Come on, if you’ve got an idea, share it with us. You’re amongst friends.’

A lick of laughter rolled around the room. Everyone was staring at Dan. There was no way out.

‘It sounds like a conversation to me,’ he made himself say, trying to keep his voice calm and level.

‘Explain,’ replied Adam.

Dan looked down at his photocopied sheet, gave himself time to think.

‘Well …’ he began, and, annoyed to hear his voice croak, swallowed hard. ‘It sounds like the details are taken from something Freedman himself said. It’s all from his perspective, isn’t it? How could some observer know it was his fantasy, to have sex with a schoolgirl? And everything about the disguise, the cost of the room and the extra fifty quid for the spanking? It sounds like a level of detail and insight that could only come from the man himself.’

‘So what are you saying?’ asked Adam. ‘That he told someone about it? Wrote it down somewhere?’

The room was still oppressively silent. Dan avoided eye contact with anyone but Adam.

‘Not wrote it down,’ he said finally. ‘That’d be too risky. I’d guess he told someone about it. And that’s how the blackmailer got to know.’

Adam nodded thoughtfully. ‘But it’s a very detailed account, isn’t it? That’s what makes it so convincing. And we have to assume the blackmailer got it right, otherwise why would Freedman kill himself? It doesn’t sound like a rumour, something someone heard second or third hand.’

Now it was Dan’s turn to nod. Suddenly he was more relaxed. It felt like just the two of them talking, as they had so many times before, friends discussing a case in a quiet corner of a pub.

‘Yes,’ Dan said. ‘It sounds like the blackmailer heard it all from Freedman himself. But who would he tell about something like that?’

‘Who do we tell our innermost secrets to?’ asked Adam. ‘Our family usually, but clearly not here. So let’s see if Freedman had any close friends he might have confided to. Boasted to, even.’

‘And there’s another possibility, isn’t there?’ mused Dan. ‘Is Freedman religious?’

‘Why?’

‘What if he’s confessed what he did to a priest? What if that’s how the blackmailer got all this?’

‘Good thought,’ said Adam. ‘And let’s take it one step further. Who else do people speak to in professional confidence? What if Freedman had a counsellor? Might he have talked to them? What about a lawyer? Or a doctor? Maybe he was worried about catching something from the prostitute and had to go to his doctor and explain. Let’s get working on anyone Freedman could have told about his fatal indiscretion.’

Some of the detectives, mainly the younger, more keen ones, took more notes, others just nodded.

‘Right,’ Adam said, with a tone in his voice that said it was time for the discussion to end, ‘there’s just one more thing for now then. Our little game. What do we call our blackmailer?’

In his experience of major investigations, Dan had quickly learnt it was a tradition to give the criminal they were hunting a nickname, and often an unpleasant one.

‘How about Blackie, as it’s a blackmailer?’ an older man at the back said, and laughter rolled around the room.

‘Not in these days of painful political correctness,’ Adam replied. ‘No matter how harmless the idea it could be misinterpreted, and I don’t need some daft row with the PC brigade. Come on, give me something else.’

There was a silence, filled with thinking, then Claire said, ‘Worm.’

‘Worm?’

‘Yes. We don’t know if we’re hunting a man or woman, and worms are hermaphrodites. Plus – well, Worm seems to sum up the kind of person our blackmailer is.’

Adam nodded. ‘Worm it is.’

The door swung open and rattled against the wall. A uniformed sergeant bumbled in. He was chubby and red-faced.

‘Sorry to interrupt you, Mr Breen,’ the man said, with a hint of a Welsh accent.

‘Yes, Taff?’ replied Adam. The police had never been renowned as the most imaginative organisation, particularly with their nicknames.

‘Something you should know about, sir. Two of the bobbies on patrol have just reported something bizarre. They’ve arrested a bill-poster. He was sticking up a board near the city centre, one of those huge ones out in the middle of the Marsh Mills roundabout.’

The sergeant looked around at the expectant faces. ‘Go on,’ replied Adam.

‘This billboard, sir. It only had writing on, not like those fancy posters with pictures that you see, just these great big letters. But it was what it said that made me think, sir, given what happened yesterday …’

‘Just tell us, man,’ snapped Adam, losing patience.

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It said –’

The sergeant squinted at his note book. Everyone was watching him intently. Dan was tempted to ask the assembled to hold a quick vote on whether Taff’s nickname should henceforth be changed to procrastinator.

Adam folded his arms, glared. A perfectly polished black brogue tapped irascibly on the floor.

The sergeant looked up and finally the elusive information came. And, remarkably, it was worth waiting for.

‘I’ve got it now, sir. Here it is. It said – “Vote Will Freedman MP, Prostitute Party.”’

Chapter Five

A
DAM RAN DOWN THE
police station stairs, Dan following. Their clattering footsteps echoed from the cold concrete and chased them along the flights. A series of uniformed officers and traffic wardens stood back to let them through. The MIR was on the fourth floor, but Adam wasn’t at all breathless.

‘Come on,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘I’ve had the world’s press on the phone to the station this morning wanting interviews. You can tell me what you reckon’s best to do while we go see this poster. I think we just found out how our Worm planned to expose Freedman.’

Adam jogged over to a battered blue Vauxhall Cavalier and climbed in. The car smelt strongly of stale cigarettes. The detective pushed a series of buttons until one rolled down a window. He breathed in the clean air, gunned the engine and accelerated out of the police station.

‘What are you going to do with the poster?’ Dan asked, as they followed Exeter Street eastwards, out to the edge of the city. He fumbled to clip the seat belt around him. Adam’s driving wasn’t reassuring.

‘Look at it, get it photographed, then taken down and bagged up for forensics to check.’

Perfect, thought Dan, but didn’t say so. Not yet. He was thinking his way through the scoop he wanted, and how to sell it to Adam.

Yet again he was serving two masters. He needed to bank some credit with Lizzie, appease her with a sacrificial story to be sure of securing time to work on the case. Over the past few years he’d had to learn to become adept at balancing the two interconnected worlds, hack and amateur detective, keeping both Lizzie and Adam happy. It could usually be done, but sometimes required near-shameful cunning and the kind of deviousness which would make Machiavelli rise from the ground and applaud enthusiastically.

The car’s clock said it was coming up for half past ten. The timings might just work out.

‘And what about the media?’ Dan asked, holding on to the door strap to fight the force of Adam’s cornering. A couple of horns blared from the blurs of the cars they passed.

‘Haven’t thought about that yet. Got more important things to worry about.’

They turned onto the embankment, the sun laying a carpet of diamonds on the wandering River Plym. The green slopes and spreading trees of the parkland around Saltram Country house rose from the opposite bank. It should have been one of the city’s most beautiful areas, in many places it would have boasted a promenade, cafés, shops and bars. Not in Plymouth, city of missed opportunities. Here there was a railway line and dual carriageway.

A couple of canoeists paddled hard through the smooth waters, leaving waves of glitter in their wake. An occasional fisherman sat hunched over his rod. Dan suspected they were more enjoying the day than in serious pursuit of an elusive fish. The effort of catching and landing one of the unfortunate creatures might only spoil the mood.

Adam accelerated around a milk lorry and the car bounced on the bumps in the uneven road. Dan’s stomach lurched with it. They’d be at the Marsh Mills roundabout in a couple of minutes. Time to make the move.

‘I’ve got a suggestion about the media,’ Dan said, trying to make his voice sound nonchalant.

‘What?’

‘A press conference. That way you’ll sort them all out at once. Give them half an hour of your time and they’ll go away with a story and leave you alone for a while.’

‘Not a bad idea. But I’ve got lots on with the investigation and can’t really spare the time.’

‘It’ll be worthwhile,’ Dan quickly interrupted. ‘We can make the media work for us. I reckon if I come up with what you should say, we can hit big articles in all the papers, national and local, and get it on all the TV and radio news too.’

‘How would that help?’

‘We could work in a way to try to get anyone who knows Freedman to come forward. Particularly the people we discussed at the briefing. Lawyers, priests, that sort of thing. And any of his mates. It could be a useful shortcut to finding them. It might even raise something at the Blackpool end.’

They were approaching the roundabout. Adam slowed the car and changed down a gear. The engine growled in protest.

‘Mmm,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Sounds good. What would I have to say to make sure all the media ran it?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort that bit out. I’ve got a few ideas.’

Dan ignored the warning voice in his mind that told him he was yet again crossing the line. From impartial hack to … freelance detective and media adviser. It went against all the journalistic principles of impartiality and neutrality. He could see Lizzie berating him, a sharpened fingernail wagging.

The thought succeeded only in making him smile.

A couple of police cars had pulled up on the side of the road ahead. The traffic slowed as other motorists gawped and pointed. For some people, this was high excitement. Only last week Dan had realised the numbing mundanity of many lives when he’d sat in the Old Bank pub on Mutley Plain, waiting for El, and overheard three women animatedly advocating the merits of various deodorants. The discussion had lasted almost half an hour.

Adam indicated and tucked in behind the police cars.

‘And what’s the price?’ he asked, reaching for the car door.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Dan replied lamely.

‘Just get on with it please, time’s against us. Remember how well I now know you.’

Dan tried to keep a straight face. ‘Fair cop. OK, let me get Nigel here to film the billboard before you take it down. It’ll be a scoop for me. That’s the trade off for the advice on how to handle the media.’

Adam didn’t reply, so Dan continued his salesman’s patter, ‘Then I’ll work up a way of getting the story everywhere. It’ll really give the investigation some momentum.’

They got out of the car, walked over to the roundabout. Dan pointedly took out his mobile, caught Adam’s eye, waited. The detective frowned, but managed a slight nod.

‘It’d better be a bloody good splash of a story,’ he muttered.

‘It will be.’

Dan had no idea yet how he’d make it happen, but he could worry about that later. Sometimes it was better to win one battle at a time.

Claire sat down on the same dining chair Adam had the night before and felt no more welcome. Detective Constable Jack Roffey stood beside her, notebook in hand. Yvonne Freedman and Alex sat side by side on the sofa. Both had their hands folded in their laps, just like they were preparing to face a firing squad.

‘I’m sorry to bother you again, but I know you’ll appreciate we have to ask certain questions,’ Claire began. They both nodded, but didn’t speak. ‘It’s important I get a full picture of Mr Freedman’s movements and behaviour in recent days.’

They nodded again in unison, the movement dislodging a tear from Mrs Freedman’s eye. She was wearing a black skirt and jacket, patent black shoes and a white blouse. Alex wore jeans and a T-shirt. She had to split the two of them up, Claire thought, couldn’t ask the important questions with Mum here.

She tried to put on a sympathetic smile and began. ‘Was there anything at all you found unusual in Mr Freedman’s behaviour in recent days?’

Yvonne shook her head again, another tear rolling down her cheek, chasing the first towards her chin. Alex managed a low ‘No.’

‘Was he spending a lot of time away? Working?’

Alex jumped up from the sofa. ‘Jesus, I told you that last night. He was always bloody working. That was all he did.’

She stalked out of the living room, slamming the door behind her. An expensive looking blue vase rattled on the mantelpiece. Jack made to follow, but Claire held out an arm to stop him. Her limited experience of teenagers suggested being followed was exactly what was wanted, and all that was required to justify another outburst against adult persecution. Let her calm a while.

‘Mrs Freedman?’ Claire asked. ‘Was there anything unusual about your husband lately?’

‘No,’ said the woman softly, dabbing at her face with a handkerchief. ‘It was a complete shock. Everything was normal. Our lives were all normal until …’

Her voice tailed off, but her mouth remained half open, glossed lips quivering. Claire sensed she wanted to say something else.

‘Go on,’ she prompted gently.

‘Until he started with all the party thing – the politics.’

Her cheeks coloured, the anger starting to show through the pain, the words coming more easily now. ‘Climbing the greasy bloody pole! He got caught up in it. That was when we lost him. When all these toadies told him how talented he was – how far he could go. When he started to think he could be prime-bloody-minister! We stopped being his family … started just becoming the decorations a bloody MP needs to help in his career!’

Claire hid her surprise, raised a calming hand, but the tirade hadn’t finished. Nowhere close. Yvonne Freedman’s face creased with lines of misery and anger.

‘Do you know what happens to wives and daughters of so-called special men? We’re not people in our own right any more. I stopped being Yvonne and started being “Will Freedman’s Wife”. And Alex – well, it was the same for her. “That MP’s daughter” they called her. How do you think that feels? So what are we now he’s gone, eh? And left us with the legacy of shagging some teenage – bloody – tart!’

Yvonne buried her head in her hands and began to sob. Claire nodded to Jack to sit with her and walked out into the hallway. From upstairs roared a thumping beat and howling electric guitar. She climbed the stairs and knocked on the vibrating door. There was no answer.

She pushed at the door and it swung open. A pointedly unmade bed, the duvet in a pile, posters of tanned, muscled young men grinning down from the walls. She must be getting old, Claire thought, they looked adolescent. The music was overwhelming, an instant headache. But then, every generation thought that of the anthems of the new young. Her parents had said the same to her. Claire reached across to the stereo and turned it off.

‘Alex?’ she said. ‘Alex?’

She opened the wardrobe door, then knelt down and checked under the bed. A few old board games, balls of fluff and dust, but no Alex. Claire walked over to the window. It was open, and the garden shed was just below. An easy jump. She leaned out. No sign of Alex. ‘Shit,’ she said to herself.

Claire sat down on the bed, suddenly felt tired, longed to lie back and close her eyes. No chance. No time. They had to find Alex. But first, she allowed herself the luxury of a few precious recuperative seconds.

Claire rubbed her eyes and caught a sight of herself in the wardrobe mirror. It might have been the angle, or the light, but she was convinced she was growing fatter.

She was going to have to tell Dan soon.

It was one of the busiest press conferences Dan had seen. The room was packed with journalists, cameramen and photographers. Dirty El stood at the front, grinning happily. Dan noticed he’d bought himself a new pair of jeans, the fashionably grimy and battered look. He’d never fancied a pair himself, didn’t see the point of something new that was produced to look so worn. It was hardly value for money. They’d be falling to pieces in weeks. He prided himself on resisting the more absurd dictates of fashion.

A friend once remarked that Dan Groves had found a style he liked in the mid 1980s, and had stuck with it ever since. He’d been about to remonstrate when the fire of his argument was dowsed by the realisation that the claim was entirely and annoyingly true.

‘Beers on me next time we go out,’ El gushed, stroking the long lens of his camera, then added, ‘Like my new jeans? All courtesy of our dead MP.’ He did a little twirl, ran his hands unappealingly down his ample backside and launched into one of his impromptu and forever dreadful rhymes.

‘The MP may be totally dead,

But he’s feathering Dirty El’s bed,

He snapped up his shots,

Gave the tabloids the hots,

And lifted his bank balance way out of the red.’

For once, Dan struggled for words. He thought it was one of the worst he’d heard, and that was against some very strong competition. El didn’t seem to notice, still less care.

‘Your tip-off meant I was the first one with pics of Freedman’s house and the cops on the scene,’ the photographer continued gleefully. ‘I hoovered up the cash. Sold the snaps to everyone. Even better, all the papers want a follow-up too. They love their dirt. Especially when it’s an MP who’s been caught with his pants down. Naughty naughty!’

Adam walked in at exactly midday. Dan had never known his friend be late, another of his quirks. He sat down to a blaze of photographers’ flashes and blinked hard. A cluster of microphones rose threateningly on the desk in front of him, all propped up on a strip of white plastic bearing Adam’s name and the Greater Wessex Police crest.

Dan had sat himself at the back of the room, Nigel alongside, bowed over his camera. He and Adam always tried to make sure it wasn’t obvious how well they knew each other. It could raise awkward questions from the other journalists. And it was particularly important today, given how they’d agreed to stage-manage the press conference to make it their own little drama.

Adam straightened his already perfect tie and welcomed the gathering. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, thanks for coming here. We are investigating a highly distressing case and we need your help in finding the person responsible.’

Dan checked his notes. Adam was sticking exactly to the script he’d written a few minutes earlier.

‘Will Freedman was a popular and talented Member of Parliament for the Tamar constituency of Plymouth. Yesterday evening, he was found dead at his house. We can now confirm he committed suicide.’

Adam looked around the room. All the journalists were taking notes, the cameramen intent on their shots.

‘Mr Freedman left a note, which said he was the victim of blackmail over an issue in his private life. I believe it was the actions of this blackmailer that led Mr Freedman to kill himself. I have two things to say about that. The first is that a man has been pushed to his death over an indiscretion. Whatever anyone may think about that, it is a personal matter, and to use it against him is both illegal and immoral. In fact, I go further. We have all done things we are ashamed of. I say the actions of this blackmailer are disgusting and reprehensible and have no place in a modern and caring society.’