solitary, directorial voice whispering instructions to a small child blinking at the camera. That's really beautiful, that is… But three of the videos had muffled conversations off-camera, and these were the ones that Caffery sat and watched. It was a snippet, a tiny, inconsequential sliver of conversation he was looking for and when he found it his heart sank.
It would be in this one.
He disliked this video in particular because the child in question a boy who seemed to be about nine -was so patently trying to be brave, so patently trying to please the camera and, worst of all, was so clearly ashamed of his body. He was overweight for his age and it wasn't the abuse he seemed most unhappy about: he seemed more afraid that he wouldn't be good enough, that he might be too fat to please.
The video was set in a bathroom it was a surprisingly clean room. In fact, it was a typical suburban bathroom from some time in the eighties. The walls were a pale, rag washed pink, and there was a pink and grey floral border around the door, fluffy pink and white towels on the rail. The sink was in the shape of a shell, and the taps were gold-coloured. It might have been shot in winter because at times the child appeared to be shivering with cold. The other people in the video, two adult men, wore rubber masks.
'What an oinker,' someone whispered off-screen. Then something Caffery couldn't understand which ended clearly with the word 'flabby'.
'Squeal like a pig,' someone else giggled. 'Ah sayed squayeel lahk ah payig.'
'What do you think, Rollo?' Another male voice.
Caffery inched forward a little on the sofa.
'He smells.' It was a dull and uninterested voice. 'He smells like milk.' A shuffling sound and something off- screen fell over. The tape was paused, and when the picture came back the bath was full and the boy was lying on his back in the water, propping himself up so that his immature genitals were exposed above the water-line.
'OK, that looks good now let's have you just touch yourself…'
Caffery stopped the tape and rewound a few frames, started the tape again.
' What an oinker ******* flabby:
'Squeal like a pig, I said, squeal like a pig:
'What do you think, Rollo…'
'He smells. He smells like milk.' 'OK, that looks good He rewound again.
' pig.'
'What do you think, Rollo?'
'He smells. He smells like milk.'
'OK, that '
Rewind. Play.
'He smells. He smells like milk.'
'OK '
Rewind. Play.
He smells, he smells like… smells like milk… smells, smells like milk, smells… Rollo? He smells. He smells like milk. OK, that looks good… What do you think, Rollo? He smells, smells like milk, what do you think, Rollo, Rollo, Rollo.
Caffery groped in his jacket pocket for his mobile. He just had time to register his visit and drive through the traffic to North London before Holloway visiting hours started.
He registered under Essex's name, Mr. Paul Essex, and used Essex's driving licence as ID. He didn't want anyone seeing the name Jack Caffery on the roster of visitors, and he didn't want anyone knowing he was job. He switched off his mobile and put it with his other belongings in the glass-fronted locker in the visitors' centre and let the officer stamp him an invisible visitor's pass tattooed on the back of his hand -like a teenager going to a nightclub.
He'd been here dozens of times before, but something odd happened on this visit. He realized it as he walked along the line of tape that led visitors through the system, passing them under the cold, programmed attention of the screws, past the drugs amnesty boxes, past the mouth search 'Lift your tongue, please, sir, and now just turn your head, this way, good, and now this way.' He realized that this afternoon he was seeing it with new eyes because you're on the other side now, like it or not you are on the other side. This was what it was like to be on the outside, to see clearly the towering, bureaucratic engine, to feel its threat. The female officer didn't meet his eye as she ran her hand around the waistband and shook the front of his trousers. 'Thank you, sir.' She held out a hand to show him the way through.
Waiting outside the visitors' room an officer walked a passive drugs dog down the queue the animal must have smelt Caffery's discomfort because it paused next to him, turned its head slightly, eyeing him coldly -just as if it knows which side you're really on. Discomfited by the dog's naked stare he loosened his collar and turned away his eyes, conscious of the officer's attention on the side of his face. For God's sake, move on, move on… Eventually the dog did turn away. It continued down the line, finally coming to sit at the end of the queue, next to a woman with a baby in a car seat. 'Madam.' The baby might have been what had made the dog stop. Sometimes drugs came in in babies' nappies. 'If you'd like to come with me.'
'Mr. uh Essex.' The officer at the door ticked off the bogus name on the clipboard and unlocked the door, nodding towards the nearest table. 'You're on reception one.'
The first 'reception' desk, on the row reserved for new inmates still in reception week, was the closest to the senior officer. Caffery sat on the red plastic visitor's chair, his back to the officer, and looked around the room. Polystyrene tiles hung from the ceiling, the carpet was shiny with tea stains in an emotional encounter the first thing to go on the floor was the tea, he'd seen it happen time and time again. The officer unlocked the holding cell and the quiet, bass murmur of conversation crescendoed as the inmates came out, a cloud of trapped cigarette smoke coming with them. Caffery rested his hands on the little wooden table and didn't look up. He sat and stared at his hands and waited, and soon here she came, out from the back of the group, in a pale blue T-shirt, her jogging trousers rolled up to mid-calf, bare ankles, trainers and an ankle chain. Her hair was held back severely from her face, her earrings were in place. She took a polystyrene cup from the tea bar and dropped into the blue inmate's chair opposite him, her glittering little eyes taking in his clothes, his face, his eyes.
'You come in under a different name,' she said. 'I asked the kangas who it was, they said Essex.'
'An old friend of mine.' He felt in his pocket for change. 'What do you want, Tracey? Tea? Coffee?'
'Nah did you bring my fags?'
'You know I can't bring them in here you know that.'
'OK,' she said lightly. Caffery could tell she was glinting with satisfaction at getting him here with just one phone call. But she wasn't going to be the first to show her hand. 'What're you here for, then?'
He leaned forward, his hands clasped on the little child's table between them. 'Who's Rollo?'
'Eh?
'Rollo. From Carl's videos.'
'Not him again? You don't want to get anywhere near him he blades your sort.'
'He lives by the park in Brixton, doesn't he?'
'So?' She frowned, scratching nervously at the inside of her arm. 'So what?'
'What's his real name?'
'What am I? A cunt? I'm not telling you anything.'
'You'll tell me, Tracey or that trouble we talked about is going to come back to haunt you.'
She stared furiously across at him. 'Nah…' she said. 'Nah you're more scared of the dirty squad than I am. You're not going to let them have the rest of those vids because you don't have them any more -you've traded them already.' She spat into her polystyrene cup, wiped her mouth and looked up. 'I know your game. I know your connections.'
He didn't speak. He pressed both hands palm down on the table. Behind her, in the creche, children screamed and ran in circles. A baby lay on its back, kicking its legs and arms, having its nappy changed. Lamb might think she had him straddled, but she'd already given him more than she knew.
'Right.' He stood up to leave. 'Always nice to see you, Tracey.'
'Wait!' She half stood, her eyes bright and desperate.
'What?'
She glanced nervously at the guard and lowered her voice to a hiss: 'You never asked me about the boy, you
