I shook my head. 'Sadly, we were just good friends,' I confessed.
'She's looking her age now,' he went on. 'Bags under her eyes. Looks tired.'
'I'm not surprised, running a place like this,' said Jeff. 'It must be an eighteen-hour day, seven days a week. It'd give anyone bags under the eyes.'
I licked the froth off my top lip. 'There could be another reason for them,' I said, brightly. 'Maybe there is something in this telepathy, after all…'
It looked suspicious, the way he stood up and followed me into the gents' toilet. If he'd been over five foot four and under sixty-five I'd have been worried. He was just a little old man, though.
Definitely not my type. Probably one of the old regulars who still came into the pub even though it had been overtaken by the youth boom.
He hovered behind me as I did what I'd come in to do. I was drying my hands under the blower when he spoke:
'Er, it's Inspector Priest, isn't it?'
I didn't answer, waiting for him to continue.
'You're, erin charge of looking for that little girl, aren't you? Can I have a word?'
I cast a glance at the cubicles. Both doors were closed. I nodded and pointed at the exit.
Instead of returning to the big room where the music was, I turned left, into the old-fashioned taproom. This was where the men did the serious drinking while their wives, one night per week, sipped a milk stout or a port and lemon.
The room was almost empty on a Monday evening, hence the karaoke. I led the little man to a quiet table in a corner and we sat down.
'I saw your picture in the paper and on the telly. I, er, hope you don't mind me talking to you in here; when you're, er, trying to relax, like.'
Not so far, I thought, but I'm getting close. He shuffled nervously and fidgeted with a beer mat.
'My daughter,' he continued. 'She said I should have a word with you.
I don't want to waste your time, though. You've plenty on your plate already.'
Well, it didn't sound as if he wanted my autograph. He fumbled with the beer mat and it fell from his fingers. I reached across and placed my hand over it.
'What's your name?' I asked.
'Er, ny name? It's Toft, Norman Toft.'
'Right, Norman. Start at the beginning and tell it in your own words.
First of all, where do you live?'
'Er, Crowfields Road. Number twenty-six.'
'Go on.'
'Well, I first noticed it two weeks ago…' He licked his lips and glanced towards the bar, but I ignored the gesture. 'Saturday night.
I'd been in 'ere for a couple of pints, like I usually do. I was looking out of the back window, just before I went to bed. I have a back garden, then there's a dirt road, and then there's the gardens of the 'ouses on Crowfields Street. They're a rum lot live on the street.
Problem families, gipsies, that sort. It used to be a good neighbourhood before they started bringing them in from…'
Now I was beginning to feel thirsty. He'd get a drink out of me by attrition if he didn't come to the point soon. 'Just tell me what you saw, Norman,' I interrupted.
'Right. Flashes.'
Oh no! Not Unidentified Flashing Objects!
'Flashes?' I echoed.
'Yes, well, not at first. There was a car parked in the lane. I turned the light out and watched it for a while, er, through my binoculars.'
He must have noticed my change of expression, and looked embarrassed.
'I wasn't pimping!' he protested. 'We get all sorts of carrying-on in that lane. Last year I had a row of cabbages stolen. And all next door's runner beans went.'
'That's OK, Norman. You were being a good citizen. So what did you see?'
'Well, I've worked it out. If I'm number twenty-six, the 'ouse behind me is probably number twenty-five, so next door to him will be twenty-seven. That's where I saw the flashes. Number twenty-seven, Crowfield Street.'
'Where were these flashes?'
'In a bedroom window. The curtains were closed but I could still see 'em.'
'And what were they like?'
'Like from a photographer.'
You work on a case for months, sometimes years, searching for evidence, sifting meaningless facts and observations, waiting for the breakthrough to come. And you pray that when it does come you will recognise it, because it is never quite what you expected. I thought about it until I realised my teeth were nearly meeting through my bottom lip. 'Maybe he's a keen amateur photographer,' I suggested.
Norman shook his head. 'Not on Crowfield Street. Dog fighting and pigeons is the only 'obbies they 'ave.'
'So how many flashes were there?'
'Dozens. 'Undreds. Went on for best part of an hour.'
'OK. Anything else?'
'Yes. I saw them leave. They got in the car and drove away.'
'Can you describe them?'
'Yes. There was a man, a woman, and a little girl.'
I had a salty taste in my mouth. I wiped my lower lip with my finger.
It was bleeding. 'Let me get this straight,' I said. 'You told me it started two weeks ago. So when did you see what you've just described?'
'Two Saturdays ago. And then again this Saturday.'
'What time?'
'Oh, about… just before midnight to one o'clock.'
'Same thing? Same people?'
'Yes.'
'And now you're reporting it to me?'
'Er, yes.'
I thought: You stupid, doddering old fool! You idiotic apology of a human being! I didn't say it, though. Instead I stood up and nodded towards the bar. 'What'll it be, Norman? Pint of bitter?'
Chapter 10
The girl on the switchboard told me that my contact had been made redundant at the last reorganisation, so I needed to cultivate a new one. I explained who I was and the nature of the investigation I was involved in, and they were very cooperative. People usually are. That was how, nine o'clock Tuesday morning, Sparky and I came to be dressed in green overalls and driving a gas board van towards Crowfield Street.
Paedophilia and child pornography must be at the sick end of the league table of of fences It's all around us all the time, but mostly it is spread so thinly it remains unnoticed and undetected. It's kept within the family, and the victims suffer in silence, repressed by fear, guilt and an ignorance of what is normality. Nobody ever complains, and without a complainant we have no crime.
We stumble across the evidence, and prosecute for possession of indecent material. In the various raids during the Georgina investigation we'd found more than we expected. All the owners claimed they had bought it mail-order from abroad, but our vice people were confident it was being produced locally.
There is a mythology around the subject, created in the dreams of the evil genie who lives inside all of us. For
