Buried-6 (29 page)

The traditional method, whereby an eyewitness might identify a suspect in the flesh, was rapidly becoming a thing of the past. It was time-consuming and expensive, with only a handful of stations capable of setting up and running a ful parade. Wilmot was one of several roving officers who had been special y trained in newer identification procedures and, as such, he was able to oversee a video parade almost anywhere it was needed. He’d been informed wel in advance of the impending arrest and had presented himself at Colindale within ten minutes of the suspect’s arrival in the custody suite.

Wilmot drew from a database of several thousand individuals on video, using half a dozen different search criteria to narrow them down to those of a similar age and ethnic background; those whose height, weight and colouring were within acceptable parameters. After half an hour, he’d assembled the eight fifteen-second clips he would be using alongside the footage he’d already shot of the suspect. Now, it was simply a question of editing them al together into a sequence for the witness to watch. With random selection of the chosen extracts built into the software, Wilmot did not even have to think about it, and would not be aware of the running order himself until the finished sequence was shown to the witness.

Wishing al elements of the job were as straightforward, as
foolproof
, Wilmot pushed a button and let the computer do it al for him . . .

Yvonne Kitson sat in the far corner, watching the ID officer make his final preparations. He was clearly efficient and cared about what he was doing, and there was no reason to think that things would not go the way she was hoping. Yet stil she felt as knotted with nerves as she could ever remember. Getting everything right from this point on was hugely important to her, personal y as wel as professional y. Though she knew there was every reason to feel confident, she’d seen many cases a damn sight more buttoned up than this one fal apart at the last minute.

She wanted so badly to enjoy the reaction when she told Amin Latif’s family that she’d found their son’s kil er; to see his mother’s face when the right verdict was reached and a suitable sentence handed down. But she knew she’d have to wait a while, that she should assume nothing. And al the time, the very possibility that such things might not happen tied those knots a little tighter.

Despite the news she’d been given that afternoon by a contact at the Forensic Science Service . . .

She’d arrested Farrel at the parental home at 4 p.m., an hour after the cal from the FSS. While Adrian was being taken to Colindale, she’d stayed on to speak to the parents. The encounter had been characterised by a great deal of shouting and crying; by the suggestion that Kitson was not up to her job; by patronising speeches and veiled threats from Farrel ’s father, which Kitson ignored, despite the huge temptation to stick him in the back of the car as wel and do two for the price of one. When she’d final y been al owed to speak, Kitson had informed the Farrel s that, aside from the solicitor they had already announced they would be sending to the station, they were not al owed to inform anyone of their son’s arrest. This was not up for discussion. The identity of others who had taken part in the attack for which their son had been arrested was yet to be ascertained, and as police believed he was in a position to pass on those names, Adrian would be held incommunicado, with even the usual telephone cal denied him. After listening to another rant from Mr Farrel – this time on the subject of the rights of those in custody – and a suggestion that Kitson was making a career-threatening mistake, she informed them that she would be back later with a warrant to search the house. Then she left, eager to get to work on Adrian Farrel , in no doubt as to where he inherited his confidence from.

Watching as final touches were put to the video parade, she wondered if the boy sitting downstairs in a cel was quite so confident now.

‘We’re about there,’ Wilmot said.

Kitson opened the door, exchanged a few words with an officer on duty outside, and half a minute later Nabeel Khan was shown into the room.

He looked a little better than the last time Kitson had seen him, but that was hardly saying much. The bruises had healed, but she knew she was not looking at the teenager she imagined him to have once been. Before he and his friend Amin had stood waiting too long for a bus one night, six months before.

He took off his coat and nodded nervously in her direction. ‘How you doing, miss?’

Kitson could talk to him now. For obvious reasons, until this point, she had not been al owed any contact with the witness. To ensure that any evidence he might provide could not be seen as tainted, officers unconnected with the original case had col ected him from his home, then waited with him while preparations were being made. Now that the video parade was itself being videoed, and any conversation would be a matter of record, Kitson could speak freely to the boy.

‘I’m pretty good, Nabeel,’ she said. There was no need to ask how he was.

She talked to him as he took a seat next to Wilmot; told him that the whole thing would only take a couple of minutes, that it was al very simple and that he needn’t worry. He seemed relaxed enough. He told her that he was much happier doing it this way, on the computer; that he was relieved he wouldn’t have to stand in ful view of anyone. He laughed when Kitson tried to tel him that wouldn’t have happened; said he’d seen it on TV and knew al about the two-way mirrors and stuff . . .

Then Wilmot took over, began the official preamble, and Kitson could do little but sit back and watch.

Each short clip had the same basic shape. The subject sat in front of a white background, looking straight at camera, until a short bleep signal ed that they were to look to their right.

Five seconds later another bleep indicated that they should turn the other way. Final y, they turned back to the camera and stared at it until the clip ended. Then the next one began.

The expressions ranged from vacant to insolent. Though instructed to keep their faces as blank as possible, the subjects looked variously bored, fascinated or disgusted. Some looked contented, presumably because they’d just picked up eighty quid for a few minutes of their time, when they’d only popped into the station to produce valid car insurance or explain where their girlfriend had got her black eye and split lip. They were al between sixteen and twenty-one. Al were blond, though the length of hair and its style varied, from flat-top to floppy. None of the young men wore earrings, the subject in the seventh clip having been instructed to remove a gold cross on account of the fact that it might be said to draw unfair attention to him.

When the montage had finished and the screen went blank, Wilmot asked the witness if he wanted to see the footage a second time.

The witness shook his head.

Wilmot then asked the important questions, as he had to, but Kitson didn’t need to hear the answers. The face of the witness had remained more expressionless than many on the video, but Kitson had heard the noise begin towards the end of the sequence.

At around the minute and a half mark.

It continued now as Wilmot tried to elicit a response: the banging of bone against metal as Nabeel Khan’s leg shook uncontrol ably beneath the table.

‘It’s this business with the kids I don’t get,’ Porter said. ‘How could Jane Freestone have let her brother come near her kids?’

‘She may not have known back then. Not for sure, anyway.’

‘She knows now though, right? And she’s stil happy enough to send them out to the park with Uncle Grant.’

‘Apparently.’

‘You stick by your family. I understand that. We’ve both seen people doing it, standing by relatives who’ve done some of the sickest fucking things. A lot of the time, however misguided they are, part of me even thinks that’s
honourable
, you know?’

Thorne knew. He’d watched people eaten away from the inside by what those closest to them had done, while refusing to turn away. Insisting, despite everything, on being the only ones
not
to.

‘But only up to a point, don’t you reckon?’

‘Children, you mean?’

‘Right. It’s got to be a different story when it comes to your kids. No matter how much you might love your brother or your father or your husband, you put the kids first and last, surely to God?’

‘Maybe she genuinely thinks he’s innocent,’ Thorne said.

Porter was not convinced. ‘I think Freestone’s open enough now about what he did, isn’t he? About what his preferences are. We’re talking about his nephews here; kids whose trust he’s already got, for heaven’s sake.’

‘I know . . .’

‘What if there were other kids?’ She said it like the ignorance was unforgivable. ‘We don’t know what he’s been doing for the last five years.’

‘Keeping his head down, I should think.’

‘It’s not his head I’m worried about.’ She paused before asking the question, as if Thorne’s answer was important to her. ‘Do you think people like Freestone can change what they are?’

‘Bloody hel ,’ Thorne said. ‘Do we real y need to get into this?’

‘We’re just talking.’

‘Like you said, it’s a preference, and whatever
they
might be, most of us are stuck with them.’ He hesitated, feeling awkward, searching for a way to articulate it. ‘I suppose . . . I’m not convinced that you could make me start fancying blokes, however much therapy you gave me.’

‘Right. And listen, I accept al the evidence about abusers having been abused themselves. It’s just—’

‘I know . . .’

‘I’ve been putting myself in her shoes, in Jane’s shoes, and I couldn’t do it. It’s hypothetical, obviously, but I think I would have had to cut myself off from him. Me and the kids. I mean, Jesus, if you’ve got some of your own, you know what the parents of the kids he hurt have gone through, don’t you? You’ve got that to live with as wel .’

‘I suppose so,’ Thorne said.

She shook her head. Disgusted, adamant. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted him to come out of prison.’

They were sitting in one of the large CID offices on the third floor. Cut off from their own incident room back at Becke House, this was about the only place they could talk with any degree of privacy; to discuss progress, or the lack of it. To take a few minutes.

But they were stil interrupted. Officers from various station squads moved in and out of the room at regular intervals, and the conversation was friendly enough. This was unusual, as ordinarily there was resentment between those who worked at Colindale ful time and those, like Porter and Thorne, who were using it as little more than a facilities house. It was petty, territorial stuff:
our
interview room,
our
custody suite,
our
tea and biscuits. But, thus far, there had been only genuine enquiries as to how things were going, and both Thorne and Porter had been wished good luck on numerous occasions.

Word went round a station when there was a major case on the premises. It changed the mood of the place.

It was clear from many of the comments, passed openly or whispered too loudly in corners, that Grant Freestone’s record – the crimes for which he had been convicted in the mid-nineties – was colouring opinion; preying on the minds of others just as much as it was on Louise Porter’s. This certainly explained al those messages of good luck . . .

Thorne drank his tea and watched Porter work her way through a can of Diet Coke and her second packet of crisps. On the far wal , a large whiteboard was covered in names, pictures and numbered bul et points. Lines and arrows, up and across in red marker pen, linked a face to a blown-up section of the
A–Z
, a registration number to the photograph of a woman who had been severely beaten. Porter stared at the familiar map of an enquiry; the blood and beating heart of a case they knew nothing about. But Thorne knew that her mind was racing; was ful of doubts and questions about their own case. Its fluttering, irregular heartbeat.

‘Are we so sure this is the right thing?’ Porter asked. ‘We could just play safe and do what he’s asking. Would getting Mul en in here do any harm?’

‘It’s not about
playing safe
. It’s about refusing to be dictated to by a suspect, unless you’re certain there are no other options.’

‘So it’s about who’s in charge, is it?’

‘I don’t want Mul en in here.’

‘I’m thinking about Luke.’

‘So am I.’ Thorne tried to sound thoughtful as opposed to plain sul en, but he wasn’t certain he’d pul ed it off.

‘Wel , then, can we afford not to do what Freestone’s asking?’

‘
Demanding
.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘He’s pissing us around.’

‘Wel , hopeful y we’l know soon enough.’

‘Why is he insisting that he has to talk to Mul en in private anyway? Why al the secrecy?’

‘Look, I don’t trust him any more than you do, but—’

‘I don’t trust
either
of them,’ Thorne said.

Porter rol ed her eyes, but she obviously agreed, to some extent at least.

Thorne watched her lift up the packet, tip her head back and pour the remaining crisps into her mouth. Stil chewing, she nodded towards the door and Thorne looked round to see Brigstocke and Hignett hovering, like funeral directors come to col ect a body.

‘Shal we get this done?’ Brigstocke said.

The four of them took the stairs down to the ground floor, Porter and Hignett a few steps ahead of the two men from the Murder Squad. Thorne thought Brigstocke looked tired, guessed the DCI was probably getting even less sleep than he was.

As they stepped on to a smal landing, with the other pair now a ful flight below them, Brigstocke turned to Thorne. ‘Any thoughts on how you and Porter are going to run this?’

‘We thought we’d try to play it by ear,’ Thorne said.

A few steps on, Brigstocke shook his head, mumbled, ‘God help us . . .’

On the way to the custody suite, they met Yvonne Kitson coming from another direction. Thorne let the others go ahead.

‘Crowded in here today,’ he said. ‘I heard you brought your schoolboy in.’