Allegation

by R. G. Adams

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘We didn’t have the equipment anymore, and it was too expensive to replace it. The first lot got destroyed in a fire actually. The old centre burnt down completely. Everything went.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Kit stood for a moment, watching Amy’s fingers as they resumed their position on-screen, turning her words over in her mind until she found the gap in them that she could push through. ‘Sorry, did you say the first lot of equipment?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So you had another lot?’

  ‘Yeah – to replace the stuff that went in the fire.’

  ‘What happened to that then?’

  Amy looked up, an ugly knot forming beneath her cerise fringe. Kit ignored it, smiling as if she had no idea she was really starting to get on Amy’s nerves.

  ‘When Micky got ill, he gave it back to whoever it was who’d donated it.’

  ‘That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?’

  ‘The person wanted it back apparently. It raised a few hackles here, but Micky packed it all up and took it away. Pretty much the last thing he did before he went off sick actually.’

  ‘Who donated it?’

  ‘No clue, sorry.’ She was becoming outright uncooperative now, but Kit had to get just a little more.

  ‘I’m just wondering if that’s something that I ought to report. It doesn’t seem right to me that someone takes a donation back. Especially as you’re saying that the donor can’t even be traced. No audit trail, you see? The council won’t like that.’

  It was far from being one of Kit’s best lies, but Amy’s fear of getting into trouble combined with her uncertainty about the meaning of an audit trail did the trick.

  ‘I think there’s a list of donations here somewhere. The name might be in that.’ She reached into her desk drawer and immediately brought out a large notebook. She leafed back through it. ‘There you go – 2006. It will be in there, I expect.’

  She turned the book around for Kit to see. Kit leant over it and ran down the page that listed donations to the centre, mainly money and sports equipment. Then she got her phone out of her pocket and took three photos of the entry showing a very generous donation made on 8th January 2006, including a computer, a webcam and a DVD burner. She emailed the photos to her own account and to Ricky’s before going outside and climbing back up to Micky Winter’s bench, where she sat for a while. She picked up her notebook, turned over a new page and drew two overlapping circles. In the first she wrote Micky Winter’s name. In the overlap she wrote youth centre and webcam/cameras/tech. And in the other circle she wrote Len Cooper. Then she walked down the hill to her car, so fast she stumbled and turned her ankle on the crumbling tarmac path, her welling anger and disgust so strong she didn’t even register any pain.

  *

  Tyler opened the door to his flat, clearly having just woken from a nap, his hair on end and his face thoroughly hacked off.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘OK.’ He stepped back and let her in, and she went into the living room and sat down. He disappeared into the kitchen and appeared a few minutes later with two mugs of coffee.

  ‘What’s up then?’

  ‘We need to speak to the police.’

  ‘What? Not this again. I’ve told you, I’m not doing it. What’s the point? Winter’s gone.’

  ‘I don’t think it was just him.’

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

  ‘Let me ask you something.’

  His face changed as he heard her tone. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘Let me ask you first. Then we can go from there. When you went to the centre that night, you said Winter took you into a room. You said it had a mirror on the wall?’

  ‘That’s right. Why does that matter?’

  ‘Ty, you are going to have to tell the police what happened, and all about the men you saw in Winter’s house.’

  ‘Why?’

  There was nothing to do but just come out with it. ‘I don’t think it was drugs he was selling. I think Winter filmed you.’

  ‘He didn’t. I’d have seen it.’ But his face showed a hint of fear.

  ‘I think he had a webcam. Behind the mirror – it was one-way. I think that’s what he was selling to the men in his house. Not drugs. DVDs.’

  Tyler took a huge gasp of breath then, as he understood what she meant; and, when he let it out, a choking sob rose from his throat and filled the air. Kit was across the room and on her knees in front of him before she knew it. She put her arms around his huddled shoulders and held him while he cried himself out, his face buried in her shoulder. After a long while, Tyler raised his head, still snuffling, but slowing now.

  ‘You’re going to need to tell someone now, Ty, OK?’

  He nodded. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I’ve been looking into it.’

  He opened his mouth to ask her more, but she was firm. ‘No. I can’t tell you. It’s to do with work. It’s all connected, I can’t tell you how. But I’m sure I’m right. And there are other kids to think about here. It won’t have stopped once Winter died. That route dried up maybe, but they will have found another. People like that don’t stop. Ever.’

  She didn’t wait for his answer. She went into the kitchen and made a call. When she got through to Beth Mackay, Kit gave her a summary, leaving Len Cooper’s name out of it.

  ‘You are saying that this Micky Winter was abusing kids and selling the films? It sounds like a long shot to me. Have you got any evidence whatsoever for any of this?’

  ‘Tyler remembers he saw men going back and forth to the house handing over cash. They were buying something, Beth. Plus, Winter had equipment. Webcams, stuff like that. I know he was making DVDs at the centre and live-streaming stuff later, too. But the equipment he used was donated and Winter insisted it was all given back to the donor before he died. He took it away himself. Quite unusual for someone to ask for a donation back, don’t you think?’

  The silence told her that Beth was registering all this. ‘It’s unusual but it’s hardly proof of a crime, is it? Who was this donor?’

  ‘Not sure, to be honest with you. But I reckon they’d have a record at the centre. If you speak to Amy on reception, she’ll know about it. See what you think when you’ve done that.’

  ‘All right. I’m not promising anything. I can’t see it going anywhere. But I’ll send an officer up for a chat.’

  ‘No, Beth – will you go yourself? Please?’ Kit knew the whole thing was less than rock solid as yet, but she also knew that it would only take Beth Mackay seeing Len Cooper’s name in that book for her to get a bee in her bonnet. And she knew Beth would then find a way.

  ‘Well, first things first, you’d better send your laddo in to see us. I’ll see what I think.’

  ‘OK. I’m not going to bring him myself, though. It’s easier for him to talk about it if I’m not there.’

  ‘Whatever you think is best.’

  Kit found the number of the probation office and made another call. Thirty minutes later, Emily Morrison arrived at Tyler’s flat. She was petite and unnecessarily girly to Kit’s mind, tapping up the stairs in her patent high heels and swinging a headful of auburn hair in all directions. But she was stronger than she looked. She brooked no nonsense from Tyler and soon had the arrangements made for him to speak to the police. Kit watched him leave, pale-faced and shaky, and she had to go for a walk on the promenade afterwards to get control of her swelling tears.

  *

  It was nearly the end of the summer before Kit was told that both Len and Matt Cooper had been charged. Chloe had been video-interviewed, and Steph and Nicolette’s cases had been reinstated. It hadn’t taken long to find out that Len Cooper had indeed attempted to bribe Steph Harman into withdra
wing her case. As she had said, she hadn’t accepted a penny from him. And just as she had said, it had been the sheer impossibility of winning that had got to Steph. Once she understood it, Beth sorted that out in short order. She also traced Katie Cooper to a high-dependency psychiatric unit in London, where, over time, Katie had gradually given the full story of her estrangement from the family, after years of abuse at the hands of her father.

  *

  On the day she heard the news of the charges, Kit had bypassed another dose of Georgia’s simmering resentment and gone straight to Cole’s office to explain how she needed a few hours off. He listened to what had happened and sent her away at once. As she made her way home, she texted Tyler.

  Can u meet got news

  His answer came back at once.

  OK beach at 12

  She hesitated about the beach, thinking it too public, but after a few seconds she realised that it was the best place they could go. The beach was their happy place, the right place to give Tyler good news. As soon as she got home, she changed into her swimming gear and shorts, locked up and set off on foot towards his flat. She knew he’d been waiting for this, but she had more to tell him than either of them had been expecting, and she couldn’t wait to do it. Beth’s official call that morning had ended with some off-the-record news that Kit had never dared hope for.

  He was waiting for her outside, a six-pack of Stella in his hand. They walked down the high street and over the footbridge to the promenade.

  ‘So, what is it?’ There was a nervous edge to Tyler’s voice. He’d been in counselling all summer with a psychologist arranged by Emily Morrison, and he was doing well, but he was still fragile and it dawned on Kit that there was no way of knowing how this conversation was going to affect him. He’d been vindicated at last. But maybe the vindication would finally bring home the abuse, would be the final confirmation that it had happened.

  ‘Beth called me this morning. It’s good news.’

  ‘Yeah, you said. So go on.’

  ‘They’ve charged someone. His name’s Len Cooper.’ She paused to let him take it in. They’d reached the beach now and he put his rucksack down on the sand and fiddled about with it, unpacking a beach mat and his fags, keeping his head down. She did the same, then sat on the sand, lighting two of her own cigarettes at once and passing one to him. He sat down next to her and they both kept their eyes straight ahead towards the sea.

  ‘Charged him for what?’

  ‘The whole place was kitted out with cameras. Cooper and Winter did it together. I was right, but it wasn’t just the therapy room, they were filming kids in the toilets and the changing rooms too.’

  Tyler’s breath caught in his throat. ‘Sick bastards. How did they catch him?’

  ‘No idea,’ she fibbed. Beth had explained that it was the examination of Matt Cooper’s laptop that had started the police on the trail. Annie had presented it to the police before they had the chance to turn her house upside down searching for it. Unsurprisingly, it had contained thousands of child-abuse images. Matt’s role in Coopers’ Ltd had provided the golden opportunity for Beth, enabling her to argue with her still-rattled seniors that a search of Len’s business premises was justified. She’d proceeded to oversee an exceptionally thorough sweep; her officers, not knowing what she knew about Tyler’s statement and Len’s donation to the youth centre, had thought the boss was going overboard on this one. Len seemed a good enough bloke to them, and they saw no reason to blame him for what his pervert son had done. Until they came across a large stash of recording equipment and DVDs hidden in a locked storage unit in a disused warehouse. The true nature of Len Cooper’s connection with Micky Winter had soon become gut-churningly clear.

  Tyler didn’t need to know any of this yet. But there was something she had to tell him. The silence between them was tense, but Kit was struggling to phrase what she needed to say. She understood now how ashamed Tyler was to talk to her about what had happened. But she knew there was one thing that had played on his mind more than any other, since the day she had told him her theory about the one-way mirror and what Micky Winter was selling that enabled him to afford his big house on The Avenue. It was the sticking point, the thing that had prevented Tyler from being able to say that his abuse was in the past.

  ‘There’s something else,’ she managed finally.

  ‘Is it bad?’ He was still ready for the system to let him down.

  ‘No, it’s not bad. Just let me tell you, please?’

  He nodded, but his face remained unsure.

  ‘It looks like there’s no film of you.’ She kept watching his face as she said it. ‘They think it got destroyed in the fire.’

  He breathed out then, long and hard. ‘Good. That’s really good.’

  ‘Yeah. Danny saw to it. Without realising it, but he did.’

  ‘I don’t want to think about it anymore now. I need to get my head around it.’

  She understood that he couldn’t trust it yet, couldn’t let himself believe there was no film of him circulating, repeating his abuse again for numerous strangers, keeping it live for unknown years to come. Beth’s team had found plenty of evidence of Len Cooper and Micky Winter conspiring together, filming the abuse of children in the youth centre, and selling the films on DVD to a local paedophile ring and later to a wider audience via live streaming. Len Cooper’s activities had not ended with Winter’s death, but he had never been able to recreate the perfect access afforded to him by their friendship and Sandbeach youth centre.

  All this had been easy to find out, but the police had found no footage that Beth could link to Tyler’s rape, the date of which he’d been able to pinpoint exactly, because it had coincided with the fire at the old youth centre. ‘Quite a coincidence, that fire,’ Beth had said on the phone to Kit that morning, her voice dropping to a whisper. ‘You’d almost think it was revenge or something.’

  ‘Yeah, you would.’ Kit had fronted it out without a pause. ‘Weird, isn’t it?’

  Tyler was opening a can now, which he passed to her before opening one for himself. ‘What happened with that bloke you told me about from work? With the two girls? Did you get him too?’

  He thought he was shifting the subject. He didn’t know the connection between all the parts of it as yet. She still owed the Cooper children confidentiality. He’d find out eventually, but she couldn’t be the one to tell him.

  ‘Not sure it was me so much as his daughter, but yes, he was got.’

  She thought about Lucy, brave and loving, who had overcome her father’s control and done her best to protect her little sister. Kit had heard from the kids’ new social worker that Lucy had taken to a communication board with delight and was using it to display some teenage attitude. It was driving Annie up the wall. Kit felt chuffed every single time she thought about that.

  ‘Well, good. Serves him fucking well right. Why have you still got a face like a ripped dap then?’

  ‘I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Danny tried to tell me, Ty, and I didn’t listen. I let him down.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

  He drained his can before speaking. ‘You are dead wrong about that. He loved you the best out of all of us. He wouldn’t have told you about it even if you had wanted him to, because he was ashamed. He thought it was his job to look after me and he screwed it up. That’s just the way he saw it. Now have this and shut up.’

  He handed her another opened can. The sun was starting to go down. Tyler made a fire then went up to the kiosk for chips. While he was gone, she tapped out a text to Alex, arranging to call in to the café over the weekend. She sent it quickly, before she could change her mind, and just had time to read his happy reply before Tyler got back.

  ‘What are you grinning at? You’re bipolar or something, you are.’

  She ignored him, and they ate their chips. When
they’d finished, they ran into the warm sea and swam out until they couldn’t touch the bottom.

  ‘All right now?’ he asked her when they paused, treading water and trying to get their breath back.

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  ‘That’s good. It’s done now, you know, the thing with me. It happened, and nothing can change it but I’m OK; I’m doing pretty well, actually. And you are going to have to learn to forget about your stupid job. You’re going to be a rubbish social worker if you can’t get over stuff. You’ll be mental by the time you’re thirty.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I was just working it out – you do know you’ve got about forty years of this ahead of you, don’t you? Wanna think about a career change?’

  She laughed. ‘No way. I’m good at this one.’

  ‘So what. It’s still a shit job.’

  She splashed him in the face. ‘Shut up. Race you?’

  And they raced each other to the end of the rocks, just like they used to do when they were children.