The Widow(40)

Sparkes raised an eyebrow. “Sorry?”

“A Covert Human Intelligence Source, sir, to watch him at work. We covered it at college, and I think it’s well worth a try,” he finished, uncrossing his long legs and leaning on Sparkes’s desk.

Sparkes had automatically leaned back—physically and mentally. It wasn’t that Fry was cleverer than him. It was the confidence the younger man had that he was right that needled him. That’s what university does for you, he thought.

“Bloody university education,” he could hear his dad say. “Waste of bloody time. It’s for people with money and nothing to do.”

“Not you,” was the message to the seventeen-year-old with an application form in his hand.

There’d been no further discussion on the subject. His dad was a clerk at the district council and preferred his world small and known. “Security” was his watchword, and he urged his son to have the same lower-middle-class mind-set.

“Get your A Levels and get a nice office job, Robert. Job for life.”

Bob had kept his application to the police secret from both his parents—funny, he always thought of them as one person, mumanddad—and presented it as a fait accompli when he was accepted. He didn’t use the words “fait accompli.” His mumanddad didn’t hold with foreign stuff.

He’d done well with the police, but his rise was not meteoric. That wasn’t how things were done in his day, so it was words like “committed,” “insightful,” and “methodical” that punctuated his appraisals and recommendations.

The new breed of graduates on fast-track entry would cringe if they were described in the same way, Sparkes thought.

“Tell me about chat rooms,” Sparkes said, and Fry, who looked like he barely shaved, let alone went looking for sex on the Internet, told him he had written a dissertation on the subject.

“My psychology tutor is researching the effects of pornography on personality. I’m sure she’d help us,” he’d said.

By the end of the week, Sparkes, Matthews, and Fry were on their way to the young officer’s alma mater in the Midlands. Dr. Fleur Jones greeted the senior officers at the lift door and looked so young the detectives thought she must be a student. “We’re here to talk to Dr. Jones,” Matthews said, and Fleur laughed, used to—and secretly enjoying—the confusion created by her dyed red hair, pierced nose, and short skirts. “That’s me. You must be DI Sparkes and Sergeant Matthews. Nice to meet you. Hello, Daniel.”

The three men squeezed their joint bulk into the utilitarian booth that served as Fleur Jones’s work space and two began scrutinizing the walls out of habit. The message board was covered in childish drawings, but when Sparkes and Matthews focused in on the detail, they realized they were looking at pornographic images.

“Good grief,” Bob Sparkes said. “Who the hell did these? Not your usual kindergarten artworks.”

Dr. Jones smiled patiently, and Fry smirked. “Part of my research,” she said. “Getting habitual pornography users to draw what they witness online can reveal personality traits and lets them see things differently, perhaps enabling them to see the human beings behind the sexual objects they seek out.”

“Right,” said Sparkes, wondering what the sex offenders in his area would produce given crayons. “Well, Dr. Jones, we don’t want to take too much of your valuable time, so shall we get down to the reason we’re here?”

The psychologist crossed her bare legs and nodded intently, eye contact unwavering. Sparkes tried to mirror the body language, but he couldn’t cross his legs without kicking Matthews and he started to feel a bit hot.

Dr. Jones rose and cracked open her window. “Getting a bit stuffy in here—sorry. It’s a small room.”

Sparkes cleared his throat and began: “We’re investigating the disappearance of Bella Elliott, as DC Fry has told you. We have a suspect, but we’re looking for new approaches to find out if he took the child. He has an extensive interest in sexual images of children and adults dressed as children. There are images on his computer. He says he didn’t download them intentionally.”

Dr. Jones allowed herself a twitch of a smile of recognition.

“He’s very manipulative and is turning our interviews into a master class in evasion.”

“Addicts are brilliant liars, Inspector. They lie to themselves and then to everyone else. They’re in denial about their problem, and they are experts at finding excuses and other people to blame,” Dr. Jones said. “Dan tells me you are interested in trying to interact with the suspect in sex chat rooms?”

She can’t be more than thirty, Sparkes thought. The psychologist clocked the pause and smiled knowingly. “Er, yes, yes, that’s right. But we need to understand much more about these chat rooms and how to approach our man,” he said quickly.

There followed a lecture on finding sexual partners online, with the older detectives following with difficulty. It wasn’t that they were computer illiterates; it was that the close proximity of Dr. Jones and her restless legs was far too distracting to allow full concentration. In the end, Dan Fry took over, using the psychologist’s computer to take his bosses into a cyber-fantasy world.

“It’s basically instant messaging, sir,” he explained. “You sign into a chat room that advertises itself as for singles, say, or teenagers, use a nickname to hide your real identity, and you can communicate with everyone else in that ‘room’ or just one person. You just start chatting by writing texts.”