by Gayle Curtis
‘I know. There’s just something odd about this. It feels peculiar.’
He frowned. ‘And a death threat isn’t?’
‘Yes, but it’s straightforward, isn’t it? This is different, it could be perceived either way – a nice gift or a sinister gesture. Really, there’s nothing nasty about any of it. If I went to the police, they’d just laugh at me.’
‘What about the sympathy card and the flower?’
‘Mum. She asked Daphne to order it for her; she had a funeral to go to the next day and she addressed it to me by mistake.’
‘Oh. By the way, have you seen the papers this morning?’ he said, grabbing his keys from the table and pressing a newspaper to her chest.
The headline read: ‘POLICE UNCOVER MORE REMAINS AT HOUSE OF HORROR’. The story was to do with the Château Bonne Nuit children’s home in France. She put it in her bag; she’d read it on the train.
Cara’s body was at the bottom of the ocean, Rita was sure of it. The girl had been murdered that night, along with Raymond, and – for whatever reason – her body had been removed from the scene. Regardless of the evidence she had conspired with Jason to plant on Adrian Player’s property, Rita could say with absolute certainty that the body of Cara Fearon would not turn up at Château Bonne Nuit.
Rita sat in the all-too-familiar chair opposite Lester, wishing she hadn’t worn an emerald-green trouser suit. Under the bright lights it was garish against her freshly dyed red hair.
‘What’s wrong?’ Lester whispered, leaning forward. He’d been very attentive since they’d persuaded her to return to the studio following her outburst. He’d been on his best behaviour during the last couple of interviews.
‘I look like a character from The Wizard of Oz,’ she replied in a whisper, but a few of the crew heard and began to laugh along with Lester.
‘You look great,’ he said. ‘Stop worrying.’
Lester had told her they were going to discuss Adrian Player, and Rita had to be mindful of what she said. She was more nervous than she had been throughout this entire process.
‘What did it feel like, the day you had enough evidence to charge Adrian Player? Tell us what that was like.’
Rita exhaled deeply. ‘Where do I begin? It was a momentous day, probably the most important of my career. During a routine search of Adrian Player’s extensive properties, one of the places we started to focus on was the old football ground. We knew this place held particularly special memories for him, it was where his father had taken him as a child.’
‘Why that place specifically?’ Lester said, staring at Rita intently. It was the most engaged she’d seen him.
‘It was widely known that Adrian had been extremely close with his father. Towards the end of his life, Mac Player had lived with Adrian and Gloria. In fact, after he died, Adrian couldn’t bear for his father’s bedroom to be cleaned out, and the clothes were still hanging in the wardrobe when our officers did their search.’ Rita reached for her water; her mouth was extremely dry. ‘Mac used to take Adrian to the football ground, and that was where he was selected to play for the county, although his career didn’t last. Years later, the club relocated and the old ground became derelict. Eventually, Player bought it. He never did anything with it, although I think he did have plans to renovate the place. It was an area of interest for us, and one of our officers found a piece of crucial evidence in the old changing rooms.’
‘Are you going to share with us what that was?’
Rita smiled. ‘It was a rucksack belonging to Raymond Hammond. He’d had it with him the night he was killed.’
‘That wasn’t all the incriminating evidence you found, was it . . . ? Did I read somewhere that Cara Fearon’s gym clothes were found at his private club? Specifically, a leotard containing some bloodstains.’
‘We didn’t know if it was blood, the stains were unidentifiable, but yes, we found Cara’s gym clothes. It made up part of the evidence that was the basis for the sexual allegations against Player, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided the rucksack and gym clothes weren’t enough to prove he’d had anything to do with the murders.’ Rita was leaning forward, her enthusiasm palpable. ‘It was so tense for a couple of days, but that same week, we received a call from Rose Bale, the Olympic gymnast, who, on the back of Emma Player’s allegations against her stepfather, wanted to tell her own story. Of course, with a historical case, it’s all circumstantial evidence, so we had our work cut out. Adrian Player has always escaped justice because he could explain away any reason a child might be in his home or at one of his gyms, but after the first search of his property, a secret room upstairs was brought to light.’
‘Just remind our viewers about that room,’ Lester said.
‘One of our officers was clever enough to work out that part of the footprint on the third floor didn’t match the lower one. We found the entrance to a secret room behind some fitted wardrobes.’
‘That must have been really exciting.’
‘It was, but we had to release him a couple of days later because we didn’t have enough evidence to charge him and the clock had run out. We kept calm and continued with the investigation. Gloria Player collected him from the police station and they stayed in a hotel.’
‘Did she know about the hidden room?’
‘I think the jury decided she did know. She was protecting him, we were sure of that, even though she denied all knowledge of what was going on.’
‘Ultimately, it ruined her life. He sold so many stories about her before he was charged, donating the money he received to charity, all to keep up the facade of a good citizen – which the public still believed he was.’
‘Gloria was given plenty of opportunity, chances to tell us what she knew. Witness protection was on offer, but she refused to take it.’ Rita was still disappointed that Gloria had changed her mind that day at the police station. Rita heard Gloria’s phone ringing when they were just about to walk through the entrance, and from the conversation, she could tell she was talking to Adrian. Gloria hung up and walked back to the car without saying a word. She’d been found guilty of conspiring with Adrian and had served two years in prison. Rita glanced at the crew, checking in case Gloria had managed to get back in, preparing herself for another outburst.
‘Sad, though,’ Lester said, ‘what a state she’s in now. It could have been so different for her.’
‘Depends how you look at it, Lester. She was free to speak out at any time. She didn’t have a problem shouting about it in front of everyone in this studio.’
‘What was the damning evidence that proved Adrian Player was running a large paedophile ring, apart from the videos and photographs? As you said before, historical sex offences are so difficult to prove, aren’t they?’
‘They are, and to be honest, we were struggling to find anything concrete. We had eight hundred hours of footage that we’d found in Adrian’s house, but we had to prove he’d produced those films himself, otherwise we were looking at a charge of downloading indecent images, and that carries a pathetic sentence. Then, during the interview with Rose Bale, she gave us a piece of information that sealed his fate. Rose had been describing the inside of this secret room in Adrian Player’s house. She said that when she stayed there, she would scribble graffiti on the walls – all the children who had the misfortune to enter that room did it. We knew from what we’d seen that the walls were one plain colour, but Rose described this tiny picture she’d drawn in the corner of the room.’ Rita paused to take a breath. The atmosphere was buzzing and there wasn’t a sound coming from anyone in the studio.
‘And?’ Lester said.
‘It was a major breakthrough. We called the officers still searching the house, and at first we were concerned that Adrian had paid someone to re-plaster or paint over it, but they confirmed it had been wallpapered. Later that day, Forensics carefully removed the layers; and that night, along with all the other graffiti, we found the small picture that Rose Bale had described.
It proved she was there and that she was one of the children on the footage.’
‘Fascinating stuff.’ Lester shook his head. ‘What else was uncovered in the room?’
Rita shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Well, among some children’s games in an old chest, there were some sex toys, and also certain types of underwear. After examining all the video footage, we could match some of that underwear to a few of the children who were filmed . . .’ Rita paused, a lump caught in her throat, a familiar pain rising in her chest. ‘I’m sorry, Lester, I need to stop there . . .’
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
FIVE YEARS LATER
For five years Rachel had been in prison serving a sentence for manslaughter. The last two weeks, she’d been kept in a witness protection cell and hadn’t been allowed to see anyone. Today she was being released – taken to start a new life.
In her mind, she had imagined standing outside the prison gates, a bag with a few belongings in her hand, waiting under the cold, grey December sky for Howard to collect her. His mood would be sombre, but he’d tell her how much he’d missed her, squeeze her leg once they were in the car and tell her everything would be okay. Then she remembered he was dead, and she’d killed him. It was ironic she should miss him now after the way he’d treated her. Moving from that vision, she swung violently across to angry emotions fuelled by resentment, feelings no one would agree she was entitled to. Diminished responsibility, that’s what had been decided, and Rachel knew DCI Cannan had pushed for self-defence. She’d had a quiet, off-the-record word with her, so desperate was the detective for Rachel to give evidence against Adrian Player.
Rachel fiddled with her bag as she sat in a waiting area on the public side of the maze of locked doors. Albeit for only a short period, she wished she could go back in, return to the safety of routines and structure – the strict rules pulling her through the day when she didn’t always feel like living.
In her hand she held a piece of paper. On it was written the address of a safe house where she was going to live. It had been a surprise to her that she was so hated, so actively hounded by the public, that she was in anybody’s thoughts at all.
‘They want blood,’ Khaled, her probation officer, said. ‘You were involved with a minor. The public have a long memory and the press have been digging into your story again.’ He’d also told her that remorse would be a positive step towards being forgiven and having any hope of being accepted. She wondered if she was deluded by her own arrogance because there was a reason he was telling her this.
‘Ignorance is not an acceptable excuse in the eyes of the law, Rachel,’ DCI Cannan had told her after she’d been remanded in custody. ‘You won’t get away with it. You conspired to kidnap, had a relationship with a minor, and on top of that you were complicit in giving lifts to children for Adrian Player. You can deny all knowledge, insist that you didn’t know what was happening to them, but no one is going to believe you. Add killing your husband to that list and you’re in real trouble.’
On paper, she knew how it all looked. The facts were black and white; the story would have been clear in the forefront of her mind had she been reading about a stranger. But the whole truth was what was important – the areas that made the black and white fade into grey.
Moments later, Khaled escorted her through a side door and straight into a waiting car.
He leaned in and smiled encouragingly. ‘Okay?’
‘Where am I going?’
‘The address is on the paper I gave you.’
‘What’s it like?’ Rachel could tell she would get on well with Khaled. He was blunt and brutal but she already felt she could trust him, and he seemed to like her.
‘Somewhere busy, but just on the outskirts of Leeds. In your current state, you need to be near amenities.’
‘Why can’t I just go back to Norfolk, live across the other side of the county, somewhere remote?’
‘Rachel, you know why.’
‘But I don’t know anyone. I’ve never been to Leeds.’ She sounded like a child, she knew that, and she also knew that arguing was pointless, and there was no choice in the matter. She’d committed to her decision and there was no way back, not if she valued her freedom.
‘Listen, diminished responsibility, self-defence, whatever you want to call it, you killed your husband. You’re being given a new life; there’s lots of people who’ve been in your situation who’d be grateful for that.’
She looked out of the window. Any mention of her husband made her feel ashamed, guilty about what she’d done to him, to them all.
‘Rachel, you understand what will happen with regards to your child, don’t you?’
She gritted her teeth, swallowing any feelings that were trying to rise to the surface. ‘Yes, I know.’ She frowned, running her hands up and down her legs, trying to comfort herself. She hadn’t wanted to know the sex of her baby when it was born; it seemed to be the only decision she had any control over. Rachel had prayed for a girl and hoped that, if it was, she’d be just like Cara, but she couldn’t say this out loud to anyone, knowing how it would look. You couldn’t hope for anything when you were a registered sex offender. Still, having a girl felt like a positive contribution to society, some way of making up for all the wrongs she’d committed. Then she remembered the reality of it and saliva swirled in her mouth, bile rose in her throat, the two meeting just before she swallowed them down. She often thought about the child who had been taken away the moment it had been born, its screams fading down the corridor, still clear in her mind. That child would eventually become an adult, and that adult would discover their mother was a sex offender. It would never work, her life was over and the switch had been flicked, darkness filling the room like black ink in water. She was a paedophile.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
THE LESTER BARCLAY SHOW
FIVE YEARS LATER
Adrian Player’s appeal success was attracting some bad press. Rita had expected it, but there appeared to be more focus on him being innocent than she’d anticipated, and a campaign against his conviction had been set up on social media, and it appeared public favour was leaning towards him. Some of the nation still loved him and simply didn’t believe he was a paedophile. It was bad enough during Operation Ladybird that the Crown Prosecution Service would only accept the charges of sexual assault and not conspiracy to murder two children, stating there wasn’t enough evidence. Rita and her colleagues had known at the time the CPS were worried because Adrian was such an esteemed member of society and a jury would vote in his favour and he’d be found innocent of all charges. It was better to go with the lesser charge and ensure a conviction for something. That said, it had been difficult for the team to accept. Now it was possible the case would be quashed.
Rita went into the television studio in a foul mood that didn’t go unnoticed by Lester.
‘Read the papers, I take it?’
‘Let’s not, hey?’
Lester laughed, rattling her like a thin piece of glass in a windowpane.
‘Seriously, Lester, you piss me off and I’ll walk out on this. There’s quite a lot of information you haven’t asked me about.’
Holding his hands up in defeat, Lester didn’t say another word to her until the interview started. It was the final bit of filming to complete the second episode, all to be aired that coming weekend.
‘I wanted to touch on an avenue that was explored during the investigation. Château Bonne Nuit, the children’s home in France. A well-known tabloid newspaper printed potentially inflammatory and contentious photographs of various figureheads seen with some of the residents of this home. The pictures range from 1996 to 2007. What can you tell us about that?’
‘We did look into Château Bonne Nuit, but at the time we had no reason to believe there was any connection. It was part of the evidence that Adrian Player and other high-profile celebrities had been involved in a paedophile ring. It turned out to be a fortuitous line of inquiry.’
After a few moments, Lester looked up from his notes. He was expecting her to say more, but she didn’t.
At last he said, ‘There’s been a rumour that some of the residents couldn’t be traced and the French authorities were looking into it.’
‘I can’t comment on the procedures of a police force in a foreign country. I believe the site is now closed.’
He pulled a photograph from the stack of papers he was holding. ‘Can you tell me who you think that is in the picture?’
Rita leant forward and examined the girl Lester was pointing to. She sighed and sat back in her chair. ‘I don’t know, is the answer to that.’
‘Come on, Rita. Everyone has an opinion on this girl. She’s a dead ringer for Cara Fearon.’
‘If you say so.’ Rita wasn’t going to be drawn into speculation. ‘Operation Ladybird is an ongoing investigation. Just because people have been convicted and sentenced doesn’t mean it’s over.’
‘That wasn’t what I asked you.’ Lester sounded agitated. ‘I mean, you must have something to say about this photograph?’
‘There is always hope that someone is still alive, and I understand that. People will continue to report sightings of Cara, the same as with any missing child. Part of that is usually because they can’t accept the worst, because the truth is unbearable.’ She took a deep breath, frustrated at having to repeat the same sentences over and over again. ‘Cara vanished off the face of the earth. We found damning evidence to suggest that she’d been murdered. Like I’ve already said, her clothes from that night were found.’
‘You didn’t find those items immediately, though, did you?’
‘No, but we’ve already been over all this. Adrian Player wasn’t forthcoming with any information.’ Rita gave Lester a sarcastic smile. ‘The search dog led one of our officers straight to the evidence.’
‘Brodie, the search dog? Quite the detective.’ Lester raised an eyebrow, and Rita found herself becoming more irritated.
