He doesn’t reply. He looks incredulous.
FM: DI Clemo?
JC: No. It didn’t. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I was doing my job. Isn’t this session supposed to be over by now?
Although there’s a clock in plain view on my desk, he glances at his watch. It’s obvious that he’s not going to engage with this today.
DAY 4
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2012
Crimes against children, particularly cases involving abduction and homicide, continue to be problematic as both a social phenomenon and judicial responsibility. Such cases routinely receive intense community, media, and law enforcement attention, and can rapidly overwhelm local investigative resources.
—M. C. Boudreaux, W. D. Lord, and R. L. Dutra, “Child Abduction: Aged-Based Analyses of Offender, Victim, and Offense Characteristics in 550 Cases of Alleged Child Disappearance,” Journal of Forensic Sciences 44(3), 1999
Stay united in your fight to find your child. Don’t allow the stress of the investigation to drive a wedge into your family life. When emotions run wild, be careful that you do not lash out at or cast blame on others . . . Remember that everyone deals with crises and grief differently, so don’t judge others because they do not respond to the disappearance in the same way you do.
—“When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide,” Missing Kids USA Parental Guide, US Department of Justice, OJJDP Report
Email
To: Corinne Fraser
Cc: James Clemo
From: Janie Green
October 24, 2012 at 06:58
OPERATION HUCKLEBERRY—PRESS REVIEW 10/24/12
Morning, Corinne
Roundup of this morning’s press coverage relating to Operation Huckleberry below. This is just the nationals and locals. Due to the vast quantity of material, we’ve yet to go through everything that’s online, so I’ll forward that later. As usual, “highlights” below with link to scanned copies.
I’m copying this in to DS Martyn at his request. The material is concerning him and he’d like us all to get together later this morning to discuss tactics. He and I can do 10 or 11?
Janie Green
Press Officer, Avon and Somerset Constabulary
THE SUN
“ANGRY”
Blood: On her hands
Rage: In her eyes
Gashed: Across her forehead
THE DAILY MIRROR
“BLOOD ON HER HANDS”
Loner photographer mum says on her website she “likes to work alone”
Neighbor says she “never saw Benedict”
THE DAILY MAIL
“DO WE NEED TO LOOK ANY FURTHER?”
Could the answer to Benedict Finch’s disappearance lie close to home? . . .
RACHEL
I slept only fitfully after looking online. The phrases I’d read repeated in my head over and over again. When I woke up for what felt like the hundredth time, the Stormtrooper clock beside the bed read 4:47 a.m. Ben’s bedding was twisted around me and I felt exhausted and cold. Nicky was sleeping in my room, with the door open. I didn’t want to wake her. I crept downstairs quietly and didn’t turn any lights on.
On the kitchen table I found her laptop. I opened it and the glow from the screen lit up my fingers, poised over the keyboard. It asked me for a password. I watched the cursor blinking as I tried to think what it might be. I knew it wouldn’t be the name of any of her daughters. She’d lectured me once on password security and the foolishness of using your children’s or pet’s names. I tried “Rosedown,” which was the name of the cottage we grew up in. “Incorrect password” was the computer’s response. I tried “rhubarbcustard”—a reference to Nicky’s blog. It didn’t work. I had one more shot at it, and no clue what to try. On a whim, because it was my password in spite of her advice, and because my exhausted brain couldn’t come up with anything else, I tried “Benedict.”
It worked. I leaned back in my chair in surprise, but then I felt a rush of affection toward Nicky: my bossy sister, a proud-enough aunty to use Ben’s name as her password.
Now that I was in, I searched “Benedict Finch Missing.” News items from all different sources appeared on the screen. The story had exploded. Images of me from the press conference appeared alongside Ben’s photo: my bleeding head, my white pallor, my body language, and my angry eyes. Many of the news headlines were blatantly aggressive toward me.
But I still couldn’t help myself.
Like a moth to a flame I clicked on the Facebook site.
There were hundreds of posts. The top one was from somebody called Cathy Franklin.
Cathy Franklin The mother has done something to him thats obvious
2 hours ago · Like
Stuart Weston Police wouldn’t have let her tlk at press conf if they suspected her
2 hours ago · Like
Cathy Franklin Stuart that’s not true has been seen before that people crying in press confs have been convicted.
1 hour ago · Like
Rich Jameson Some people hang themselves like that perhaps they’re trying to catch her out. U wouldn’t believe how many people have done this go to www.whereisbenedictfinch.wordpress.com u wd be amazed.
42 minutes ago · Like · 6
Write a comment . . .
I clicked on the link. My heart was pounding, my mouth bone dry.
The page appeared instantly:
WEB PAGE—www.whereisbenedictfinch.wordpress.com
WHERE IS BENEDICT FINCH? For the curious . . .
FACTS
Posted at 03:14 by LazyDonkey, on Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Benedict Finch went missing at 15:30 on Sunday, October 21.
The last person to see him was his mother.
She let him out of her sight.
And she never saw him again.
Yesterday she appeared at a press conference to appeal for help finding Ben.
This blog wants to draw your attention to some things that have happened in the past.
CASE HISTORIES
Ian Huntley
This man appeared on television shortly after the disappearance of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. He was later convicted of their murders. He was the last person to see them alive.
Shannon Matthews
Shannon’s mother appeared on television on numerous occasions after the disappearance of her daughter. She was later convicted of her kidnapping.
Tracie Andrews
This woman appeared at a televised press conference to appeal for help finding her fiancé’s killer. She blamed a road rage incident. She was later convicted of murdering him herself.
What do these things tell us?
They tell us that nothing is what it seems.
54 people are discussing this post with 94 comments
Cathy_07926
I’m very troubled by what I’m reading here. Why don’t we all stop persecuting the mother. Have any of you ever heard of “innocent until proven guilty”?
Jen loves cookies
Cathy, I agree with you. As a human being who lives and breathes I want to hold out my hand to Rachel and Ben and the father so they know there are people out there praying for them and their little boy. I was awake all night thinking of them. What that family must be going through.
SelinaY
OMG you only have to look at that mother to know she’s done something. She is guilty until innocent for me, get real everybody, how else will we stop evil scum hurting our kids.
Mountain biker
Why did the mother let her kid run off like that? Asking for trouble. And what about the father?
JuliaPeachy
That dad is a doctor. Saved my baby girl’s life. Heart goes out to him at this time.
JohnDoe
A kid running alone in the woods? Seriously? Did she want something to happen to him? That’s out of a nightmare.
> Joker_864
Trees can walk. Ivy wraps around your feet. Branches carry you up and away. Little finches are prey for bigger birds.
RichNix
I wouldn’t want her for my mum. Scared me.
Cloud99
She shouldn’t be allowed a kid. It’s disgusting what she did. U don’t realize how stupid people are till you read this stuff. A child is a gift. I wouldn’t let my kids run off, doesn’t she know the risks.
HouseProud
I feel sorry for Benedict Finch with that mum I hope his dad can take him after this.
Forever twenty-one
As a mum of four I would want people to stop speculating and start praying for that little boy.
Rational_Dawn_to_Dusk
Speculation is a drug. It fuels our society.
Happyinmydressinggown
People need to stop being sat in front of their screens and get out there and help look for this little boy. Police should give us more information. Whatever the mother has done we must pray for god to protect this poor little boy wherever he is.
The kitchen light came on suddenly. Nicky was standing in the doorway. She looked crumpled and sleepy in her nightie.
“What are you doing?”
I gestured to the laptop. “Who would write something like this? Do you know what they’re saying?”
She took a quick look, and pushed down the lid of the laptop.
“Don’t look at it! You mustn’t. There’s no point. It’s sick people using Ben to get their moment. It’s grotesque. It’s a feeding frenzy. Promise me you won’t look again. Promise me!”
“It’s not just people. It’s the newspapers too.”
“Promise me you won’t look!”
I promised, but my hands shook for a long time afterward.
JIM
I spoke to Emma before I left for work, a quick call because I’d missed her the night before.
She answered her phone quickly—“Hey how are you?”—but I could hear the drag of fatigue in her voice and she yawned generously.
“Good. You? Did you sleep well?”
“What do you reckon?”
“I reckon you were awake half the night like me.”
“I was.”
“Are you OK?”
“I’ve survived on less.”
“Everyone on the investigation’s going to be feeling it.”
“I know.”
She still sounded flat, and I didn’t like it, because it wasn’t like her to let things get to her. I wanted to buoy her up.
“But it’s what we do it for, isn’t it? A case like this.”
“Yes, you’re right. If we get a result, that is.”
She stifled another yawn, apologized for it, and then she snapped back into something resembling her usual efficient tone, as if she’d suddenly realized how dispirited she sounded.
“I was worried about you yesterday,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“The press conference, Rachel Jenner out of control, and the whole country watching? Don’t be obtuse.”
I didn’t really want to answer that.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“If I say I’m sure, then I’m sure.”
“OK. Good. Sorry, I’m not fully awake yet, I don’t think. I overslept. I didn’t mean to upset you. Can I give you a quick call back in a few minutes, when I’ve finished getting ready?”
“I’m on my way in already, I’m literally about to step out the door, so I’ll see you at the briefing.”
“OK—I’ll see you then. I’ll be more with it by then, I promise.”
We said our good-byes, and they were affectionate enough, but I ended the call feeling a bit cheated, because the conversation hadn’t lifted my spirits the way I’d thought it would.
At work our priority for the morning was to go and talk to the member of the fantasy role-play group who’d already given some difficulties to the pair of DCs who went to interview him. First thing in the morning checks had thrown up some previous on him, indecent exposure no less, meaning that he’d just shot straight to the top spot on our interview list.
DCI Fraser stuck to her guns by insisting that she’d like to talk to him herself. “We’ll see this young chappie in his home, I think, Jim,” she said. “But let’s not book an appointment, eh? We’ll surprise him.”
It was a long time since I’d been accompanied to an interview by a senior officer, and I tried to fight off the thought that she wanted to keep an eye on me after the balls-up at the press conference. More likely, I hoped, she was living up to her reputation as somebody who liked to stay in touch with the roots of her investigations. She asked Woodley to come along too.
We took an unmarked pool car. I drove and Fraser studied the stereo, glasses halfway down her nose. Woodley sat in the back, but took the middle seat and leaned forward each time Fraser said anything.
Fraser asked, “Did you see the email from Press Office this morning?”
“I did. Pretty brutal.”
“Indeed. I’m meeting DS Martyn about it at eleven and he’s not going to be a happy bunny.”
DS Martyn was the officer ultimately overseeing this case, and Fraser’s senior officer. He was never a happy bunny. I waited for her to say more, but she turned on the radio.
“What do you like to listen to, Jim?” she asked.
“Five Live usually, boss,” I said. “Or Radio Bristol.”
“Those are very pedestrian choices,” she said. “How about a little culture? Have you ever heard of culture, DC Woodley?”
“I played the recorder at school,” he said.
I glanced in my rearview mirror; he had a deadpan expression, hard to know if he was teasing. Fraser looked amused. She put on a classical music station, turned up the volume.
“I would have had you down for a Radio Four listener, boss,” I said.
“No, no. There’s far too much danger of hearing one of our pals from Scotland Yard crucifying himself and the entire force on Radio Four. I like to avoid that if I possibly can.”
She leaned her head back on the headrest and when I glanced at her as we stopped at traffic lights, she had her eyes closed.
We turned up at the address at 09:00. Our man lived in a basement flat, in a shabby street in Cotham. From the looks of it, the street was mostly student flats, which had been carved out of a terrace of tall flat-fronted Victorian buildings. The Bath stone facades had probably been attractive once, but were now dirty and cracked in places. Not a single building looked well looked after. Wheelie bins littered the pavements or were crammed into the tiny areas that fronted the street. Most of them were disgorging overstuffed black bin liners. In front of our man’s property, a bin for food waste had tipped over and deposited its rank contents on the threshold.
“Not a proud household then,” said Fraser, stepping carefully around the muck in a pair of little heels.
We had to repeatedly press the buzzer to get an answer. Our man eventually buzzed us in through the communal door and we waited in the hallway for him to appear. Fraser flicked through the post that had been dumped on a hall table. Food delivery flyers littered the floor, and these, together with Fraser’s shoes and lipstick, were the only sources of color in the drab space. The light was on a timer and clicked off just as he inched open the door to the basement.
“Edward Fount?” asked Fraser.
He nodded. Fraser introduced us. We produced our badges and he squinted at each one in turn. He was a slight man, with very pale skin and hair so black that it must have come out of a bottle. It fell in greasy tendrils around his face and made him look feminine.
He lived alone apparently. There were only three rooms: his bedroom, a corridor that was pretending to be a kitchen, and a room that must have been a bathroom if the smell coming from it was anything to go by.
“They don’t like him,” Fraser had told Woodley and me before we left. “The organizers of the
fantasy meetings—the ones we’ve spoken to—are wary of this boy. He’s a new member, and they don’t know him well. And, on top of that, nobody saw him leave the woods on Sunday. Some of them say that he doesn’t play by the rules, which is a cardinal sin in role-play apparently. Some of them complained that he’s dirty too.”
He was dirty. His body odor was powerful even before we stepped into his squalid bedroom, which had only one small window through which you could see a small section of the backyard: all concrete and the winter carcasses of rampant self-seeded buddleia plants.
The bed was a single, with bedding on it that had probably never visited a launderette. A desk, roughly constructed from bits of MDF, was the centerpiece of the room. It had a PC on it, and a dusty iPod dock, which cradled his phone. Music was playing: Celtic sounding, the lyrics in German. It wasn’t mainstream. The walls were covered with posters and artworks depicting dark and bloody fantasy worlds.
Edward Fount sat down on the side of his bed and was unafraid to study us intently from behind his fringe. Fraser took the computer chair, adjusting it for wobble before she settled on it, crossing her legs. I saw Fount’s eyes run down her calves and linger on her shoes, which were a dark maroon patent leather. Woodley and I stood against the wall. There weren’t more than a few feet between us all.
“Does that window open?” said Fraser.
Fount shook his head. “It’s painted shut. Doesn’t matter, it’s always cold down here anyway.”
“You need ventilation,” she said, “or you’ll get sick.”
“I take vitamins,” he said. A feeble gesture indicated a tube of vitamin C tablets on his desk, beside a warped black plastic tray with the remains of a microwaved meal in it.
“Well, that’s good,” said Fraser. “It’s important to take care of yourself.”
Fount nodded.
“Especially, I’d say,” she continued, “when you are out doing battle every weekend. Would I be right?”
“Not every weekend,” he said. “Once a month. And it’s not always a battle. It’s a narrative, a storyline we enact.”
“ ‘Narrative’ is a very grown-up word, Mr. Fount, and so is ‘enact.’ I’m impressed. So tell me, what character do you play in these ‘narratives’? I understand you all develop roles for yourselves, would that be right?”
What She Knew Page 13
