Rob handed him the warrant. “We’re here to conduct a search of the premises,” he told the astonished gallery owner.
“But I haven’t done anything,” he retorted, going red in the face. He kept glancing at the diners next door, terrified everyone would find out about his record.
“This could ruin me,” he hissed to Rob.
“I’m sorry, sir, but you lied to us. You knew Katie’s family and you denied it when asked.”
“I don’t know what you mean?” he fumed.
“Katie Wells? You have Lisa Well’s painting hanging in your gallery.”
“That’s Katie’s mother?” he gasped.
Rob was impressed. If he was lying, he was damn good at it. “I had no idea Lisa was Katie’s mother. I never made the connection.”
“Uh-huh.” Rob left him standing outside with a police officer and went to see how the search was progressing.
Gloved officers systematically worked their way through the back office. They confiscated Payne’s laptop and mobile phone, much to his dismay.
Then a press van arrived and immediately began filming.
“Get rid of them,” hissed Rob, as a man with a lens walked right into the gallery. Two uniformed officers escorted him out.
“I swear, I’m going to have to move again because of this,” complained Payne. “Thanks very much!”
Rob ignored him. If he was innocent, it would hurt his reputation, but once again, he should have thought of that before he sexually assaulted a minor.
“Let’s go to the apartment,” Rob said to Mallory, once the forensic team had taken the electronics away. They’d get the report in due course.
Payne’s apartment block was not much to look at. Constructed by ugly brown brick, typical of the council blocks in the seventies, it stretched sixteen stories into the sky. His flat was somewhere in the middle.
It was much nicer inside. Payne had good taste. Cream carpeting, classy off-white walls, a collection of impressive paintings by artists Rob had never heard of.
The master bedroom was a decent size for a council flat, even if it was dominated by a king-size bed. A landscape in a gilt frame hung on the wall in front of the bed. Rob stopped in front of it. Cows grazed in a meadow with a series of hills in the background, but instead of the expected colours, it was painted in shocking pinks, vibrant yellows and luminous greens. The combined effect was a gauche explosion of colour.
Each to his own.
There was nothing to implicate Payne in Katie Wells’ abduction. His flat appeared to be clean. They hadn’t found so much as a packet of Haribo’s in the cupboard.
They were about to leave when an officer in the second bedroom gave a shout. It had been converted into a study.
“You got something?” The gloved officer was searching the desk.
He handed Rob up a sketch. It was pretty simplistic and looked like it had been drawn by a child. In the bottom left hand corner was a signature.
Rob caught his breath.
Katie Wells, 11 years old.
21
Anthony Payne was arrested on suspicion of the abduction of Katie Wells.
Rob let him stew while the team plundered his phone records, bank accounts and cell phone data. Anything that put him in the vicinity of Belgrave Street on the morning of Katie’s disappearance.
Failing that, any co-conspirators he might have worked with, properties he might own or vehicles he might have leased. Other than a storage facility on Lower Richmond Road, there was nothing suspicious.
Rob dispatched uniform to search the storage unit. It was in a secure building with constant CCTV coverage. No way he could have smuggled Katie in there. “Look at that footage,” he told the PC over the phone. “Make sure he wasn’t there.”
“I move around a lot,” Payne said when the interrogation finally got underway. “I need somewhere to store my stuff.”
“Why do you move around so much?” Mallory asked.
Payne raised an eyebrow. “You really have to ask?”
“We’re searching it as we speak,” Rob told him.
He shrugged. “Like I said, I’ve got nothing to hide. I don’t know anything about Katie’s disappearance.”
“Where did you get the sketch?” Rob asked. “For the recording, I’m showing the suspect a pencil drawing by Katie Wells, found at his home.”
He slid the paper across the table. Payne’s eyes softened. “The kid drew that for me, okay? It’s nothing sinister.”
Rob frowned. “You expect us to believe that?”
“Believe what you want. It’s true, ask her mum. While Lisa showed me her work, her daughter drew that. She was sitting at the kitchen table with us.”
Mallory made a note to check with Lisa.
“Was that the first time you met Katie?” Rob studied him across the table. Payne was at ease, arms folded in front of him, brow smooth and unfurrowed. Not a drop of perspiration under his arms or on his forehead. He didn’t come across as a guilty man.
“Yes.”
Beside him sat his solicitor, a chubby man with a goatee. He’d represented Payne during his trial and was well versed with his history.
“Is that when you decided to start spying on her?”
“What? Are you crazy?” Payne glanced at his solicitor. “Is he allowed to ask me that?”
“My client has denied he had anything to do with the disappearance of Katie Wells,” the solicitor said.
“So you didn’t watch her? Follow her around, learn her routine?”
“No!”
“And you weren’t lying in wait on the morning of the second of August, when she walked to school.”
“Once again, my client has denied any knowledge of Katie Wells' disappearance.”
Rob ignored him.
“Are you sure? Because I think you did. I think you liked what you saw that day you visited the Wells’ house, and it triggered a yearning inside of you. It’s been over five years since you were released from Wakefield. Five years of hiding your passion from other people, and when you saw Katie, you snapped. That’s why you kept her picture.”
Payne just shook his head, while his solicitor looked boot faced.
Rob went on. “You planned your moment carefully, didn’t you, Ant? When Katie was late for
