He left Atherton to his examination and went upstairs where a different explanation for the impoverished appearance of Wilson’s house soon presented itself. In one bedroom an unmade bed and a few sticks of furniture indicated where Wilson had spent his final night. But in the back bedroom, where thick curtains kept out the daylight and the floor was deeply carpeted, it became clear what Wilson had been spending his money on as soon as Thackeray switched on the light. The DCI found himself facing a bank of high-tech equipment only some of which he recognised. A computer, video recorders and a wall stacked high with tapes and CDs crowded the single padded black leather chair from which Wilson had evidently indulged a hobby which Thackeray guessed, knowing Wilson’s tastes, would have seen him arrested without much ceremony had the law ever invaded his privacy here. And whatever he had earned, it was clear that a large proportion of it must have been spent on travel: the unlikely sight of Wilson clad in various unlikely combinations of swimming gear and sarongs smiled out from a wall of snapshots taken in exotic locations, young boys at his side. Even before examining a single tape Thackeray felt a shudder of revulsion go through him. This room alone, he thought, would launch an investigation which could last for years. He was thankful that the force had a special unit to deal with pornography and computer crime.
Without moving any further into the room he had looked around carefully, but the written records he sought were not in evidence. Everything, he thought, must be locked away in the computers, and to crack their passwords and codes he would need expert assistance. Quietly he left the room and closed the door behind him with a plastic gloved hand. It was possible, he thought, that Wilson’s extra-curricular activities had brought down the vicious retribution which Atherton was examining in the livingroom below. But the sort of images Wilson had been downloading from the Internet, and quite possibly copying and circulating amongst his friends, were more likely to involve young children on the other side of the world than anywhere near at hand. So why had someone killed him?
Superintendent Longley must have been talking again for some time before the sound of his voice jolted Thackeray back to the present and his unenviable situation on the boss’s carpet. He turned away from the window with a start.
“Are you bloody listening to me?” Longley asked irritably as his colour rose from pink to puce.
“Sir?”
“I was telling you why I’ll let you handle this case, if you could do me the courtesy of paying attention,” Longley snapped.
“Sorry,” Thackeray said. “I was just wondering how many thousands of images that bastard has been distributing.”
“Aye well, that’s one of the things you’ll have to find out, isn’t it? And who he’s been distributing them to. You can bet your life that the answer to his death’s somewhere in that disgusting trade, if that’s what he was into. We’ll get some help on the computer side of things. But you can go ahead and look at his bank accounts and any other financial information you can find. And find out where he went on his jaunts abroad. He must have been coining it if the scale of the thing’s as big as you say it is.”
“I’ll need to talk to Barry Foreman. He was his boss.”
“Of course you will,” Longley said. “And you’ll do it by the book. Background on the dead man’s what you’re after, not fantasies about Foreman’s affairs. Not unless and until they’re relevant. Understood?”
“Right,” Thackeray agreed without enthusiasm. “It’s at least possible that someone told Foreman I’d been talking to Wilson,” he said. “He wouldn’t be best pleased.”
“After your last chat with him he’s already wondering if you’re going off your rocker,” Longley said. “‘out’ he thought you were, when I met him at the regeneration meeting. Finding out you’ve been wasting your time investigating him through Wilson’ll confirm his worst suspicions.”
“Nice to know I’ve got your support,” Thackeray said. Longley looked at him for a moment, taking in the furrows of anxiety which seemed to have deepened around angry blue eyes since the previous day, and reckoned that Barry Foreman might have a point. He was more than usually aware that Thackeray had almost blown his career once and he wondered whether he was about to make the attempt again.
“You’ve got my support, Michael,” he said more calmly than he felt. “Get the incident room set up. By the sound of it Stanley Wilson’s not much loss to the world, but we need to know who put him down. They may not be so discriminating next time. Keep me on top of the investigation, will you? Oh, and by the way, what’s the state of play on the Adams boy? Have we come up with anything to shut his father up?”
“It’s run into the sand,” Thackeray said shortly. “Just as I always thought it would. The kids won’t say anything. But I think I’ve shut Grantley Adams up anyway, if that’s all you’re worried about. He’s found out the hard way what we’ve known for years - that the law’s an ass where soft drugs are concerned - and he’d much rather his precious Jeremy remained an innocent victim than got himself a criminal record for possession - or worse. I don’t think we’ll hear much more from Mr. Adams.”
“He’s raising his voice loud enough in the Gazette,” Longley said doubtfully.
“Well, he’s got what he wanted as far as the Carib Club’s concerned. The place is closed. He’ll have to be satisfied with that.”
Laura Ackroyd drove back to the Project on the Heights that lunch-time out of a sense of obligation rather than with any enthusiasm. She had spent much of the morning trying to persuade Ted Grant to find some space in the paper for a feature on the drug problems of Wuthering but without much success. His attention, never long-lasting, had switched overnight to the threat that the flood defences - protecting low-lying parts of the town - were about to be overwhelmed by the rain which had been relentless for most of the winter. Reporters had been dispatched to talk to threatened householders, photographers sent out to snap the teetering walls of sandbags which were all that now protected some streets from inundation, page layouts had been sketched out and possible headlines tossed around the editorial meeting: Laura’s argument that there was an equally serious crisis on the Heights met blank looks of incomprehension. In exasperation she had called the magazine editor in London for whom she had written before, but gained only an equivocal promise to think about the idea and let her know.
“Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” she muttered as she heard the phone go down at the other end. “Thanks a bunch.”
“First sign of madness, talking to yourself,” Bob Baker had hissed in her ear as he passed behind her desk. “And by the way, I can’t get anyone at police HQ to take your murdered druggie seriously. I should stick to knitting patterns if I were you, love. Leave crime to those who understand it.”
Laura had swung round on her chair but Baker was already out of reach. Turning back to her computer screen angrily she wondered what would have happened if she had hit him. The sack did not seem too unpleasant a prospect today.
She parked as close as she could to the Project and wondered who owned the dark blue BMW which stood by the kerb on the other side of the road. She did not think much of its chances of survival, although the cluster of youths who habitually loitered around the flats appeared to be keeping well back in the shadows under the walkways on this occasion. She was aware of their hostile eyes following her progress across the muddy pathway to the doors of the Project.
Once inside she was surprised to find herself confronting a tall black man in designer jeans, expensive leather jacket and tigerish aspect.