‘Oh come now, Mr Riley. Don’t be shy. My wife isn’t.’
Riley wondered how much longer he would be able to refrain from hitting Mitchell. He was turning out to be an annoying little shit. But then there were a lot of them about these days. Riley turned to Enders, the cue for him to take over the questioning.
‘Mr Mitchell. Do you know a man by the name of David Forester?’
‘David. Forester.’ Mitchell’s face crinkled in puzzlement for a moment. ‘Ah, David Forester. Yes, of course. Nasty guy. Met him at the Snappers. Photography club in Plymouth. Didn’t take to him. He likes young models. Girls. If you get my drift.’ Mitchell patted his wife’s leg. ‘I prefer something a little more mature myself. Ha, ha!’
‘Did he ever come here?’
‘Forester? Good God no. I wouldn’t let scum like him in my house. As I said, I only met him the once.’
‘Mr Mitchell. Your business interests.’ Riley took over again.
‘Ah, I thought it wouldn’t be long before you got onto that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Everybody buys it, everybody uses it, but those of us providing the stuff are viewed as little more than pariahs.’
‘I don’t care what you get up to as long as it is legal. What I want to know is have you ever got involved in harder material? Mock rapes, that sort of thing.’
‘You don’t get it do you? I sell porn, yes. Explicit, yes. But the sex is clean, above board. Your assumption is because I am in the industry I must be a paedophile rapist animal buggerer. It is like me labelling you and your colleague sadistic thugs because of the violent behaviour of a tiny percentage of police officers.’
‘And Forester? Your business had nothing to do with him?’
‘Forester!’ Mitchell shook his head. ‘So if you can’t get me on the dodgy porn you’ll try and link me to some scrote drug dealer? Give me a fucking break.’
‘Mr Mitchell,’ Riley decided to try a change of tack. ‘We had a report of some bright flashes of light from one of your upstairs windows. As if someone was taking photographs in the middle of the night. Can you explain that?’
‘Of course.’ Mitchell seemed unperturbed, got up from the sofa and went to a bureau where he opened a drawer and took out a small camera. ‘I used to make the films, years ago, but now it is cheaper to buy them in. Still, me and the wife, we like to take a few pictures for old times’ sake, don’t we love?’
Mitchell strode across to Riley and showed him the screen on the back of the camera. Riley’s heart beat a little quicker when he saw the screen showed a naked woman tied to a bed, but the bed and the room did not look anything like the scene in Forester’s videos. And the woman was Catherine Mitchell.
Mitchell pressed a button on the camera and another picture appeared. This time Catherine sat topless on the bed. Click. Mitchell himself, naked and tied to the bed. Click, click, click. The pictures streamed by, each one either of Mitchell or his wife. There were ropes, handcuffs, dildos, whips, candles and other paraphernalia, but Riley’s overriding impression was of flesh.
Mitchell was chuckling now and a giggle came from Mrs Mitchell too. When Riley looked across at her she smiled and opened the lower half of her dressing gown; she was wearing nothing down there either. Enders was gawping and Riley began to wonder if they were losing control of the situation. He pushed the camera away and stood up.
‘Mr Mitchell, we would like to take a look upstairs, if you don’t mind.’
‘Because I took a few photographs for my personal use and some peeping tom wanker reported it? Do me a favour.’
‘It is a request, that is all. We can go and get a warrant.’
‘Sorry I do mind.’ Mitchell raised a hand to his forehead, wiping an almost imperceptible bead of sweat away before he continued. ‘Our daughter is upstairs. She has not been feeling well so she slept in our bedroom last night. I would hate for her to be disturbed.’
‘We will be back, Mr Mitchell.’ Riley beckoned to Enders and they left the house to the sound of Mitchell’s raucous laughter.
As they walked to the car Enders was laughing too. Riley gave him a look of disapproval.
‘No, no, boss, this is serious. I need some professional advice. What the hell do I tell the wife when she asks how was my day?’
Riley shook his head. He was more concerned with what he would tell DI Savage. Maybe it might be better to skip over the part with Mrs Mitchell and her dressing gown and only mention the pictures and the fact Mitchell wouldn’t let them upstairs because of his daughter. Then something came to him.
‘Patrick, we need to get back to the station pronto, there is a hunch I want to check. If I am right then I think we might have the bastard.’
Chapter 25
Harry woke late and took a shower. Truth be told the shower in the cottage was pretty ineffectual. The water dribbled out like pus from a sore and could hardly clean the dirt away, let alone the shame.
Last night. Again.
Strange, Harry thought, how the problems came the morning after the night before. Like a drunk, he never regretted his actions at the time, sorry came later.
Never mind. He hoped Emma would be OK, but she would need to learn not to be naughty like that.
When he had seen her out of her room he’d gone a bit mad and lost his temper. Guests shouldn’t go nosing about in other people’s houses as if they owned the place. And her seeing him with Lucy, he didn’t like that at all. What she must have thought of him he had no idea, but he reckoned she had been disgusted as well as scared and that was why she tried to run away.
She didn’t get far. At the top of the stairs he had managed to grab her foot and she fell face down on the landing. He forced his body on top of hers, feeling the delicious skin-to-skin contact as she squirmed beneath him. He regretted to admit it but he nearly had her there and then. Shameful, disgusting, but of course Emma was to blame. He hoped she wouldn’t prove too troublesome, but either way there were only another six days and then the process would be done. God had only needed seven days to create the world, true, but Harry reckoned he needed fourteen to clean the girls and get all the badness out of their systems. Two weeks of fruit and water would purify their bodies and then he could test them.
After the business with Emma he couldn’t bring himself to go back down to Lucy for quite a while, worried about what she would say. He knew she would have guessed what had happened, for naked girls did not turn up in the living room unannounced as a general rule.
When he got back to her she sat still and said nothing. Harry decided not to try and explain. He simply kissed her, gave her a quick cuddle and said goodnight.
Goodnight, Harry.
Was the voice in his head Lucy or Trinny?
Lucy, Harry.
Strange. Where had Trinny gone?
She’s gone for good. She left me to deal with you now.
Thank goodness, Harry thought. Then he went to bed, leaving Lucy alone in the living room for the night.
After taking the shower in the morning he thought about getting Lucy up to the bathroom so he could prepare her for her leaving. He had showered in order to save the hot water for her. She was heavy and uncooperative when he carried her up, but she seemed to brighten up a little when he plopped her in the bath.
Nice smell.
The bath overflowed with bubbles. Harry had tipped in half a bottle of Lucy’s favourite peach infusion.
How sweet of you.
He had wanted to make the occasion special since this was their last day together.
Is it?
