Flawed (19 page)

They hadn't known one another long. ‘What do you always say, boss?’

Alix Hyde smiled serenely. ‘When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.’

He'd expected she'd want to take over at this point. He was wrong. ‘Your idea, Charlie. Your local knowledge, your
contacts. You bring it home. As long as I get Walsh I'm a happy bunny.’

He gave a little thought to where he should start. He didn't want Selkirk thinking his son had betrayed him. On Monday morning he took Jill Meadows and went to Dimmock High School, and they took the area car because he wanted to be noticed. He wanted Selkirk to think that one of Noah's teachers had become concerned about him. After all, if they hadn't noticed his bruises they should have done.

It wasn't the first time Chalmers had had detectives in his office. He'd learnt to be courteous and patient and wait for them to declare the reason for their visit. ‘So what can I do for you, Sergeant Voss?’

Voss chose his words with care, not because he was uncertain of his ground but because that was the kind of policeman he was. ‘I'm here about a pupil of yours. Noah Selkirk.’

‘Oh yes?’ The tone of his voice, and the audible question mark, told Voss a couple of things. That Chalmers knew the boy, and that he wasn't as surprised as he should have been to have policemen making enquiries about him. This was a nicely brought–up child from a good family; his head teacher should have been astonished to be asked about him in this way. But he wasn't, which raised the possibility that he had some idea what was coming.

‘Have you seen him today?’

‘As a matter of fact I have,’ said Chalmers.

‘Did he seem all right?’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘You seem quite sure of that, sir.’

‘I made sure of it, Sergeant.’

Voss nodded slowly. They could pussy–foot around for a while longer, but it was becoming obvious the Principal knew what he was talking about. So he put it on the table. ‘Only we've been alerted to the possibility that Noah's father is hitting him. I don't mean the odd shove – enough to leave bruises. Mr Chalmers, is that why you're keeping a close eye on him too?’

Des Chalmers pursed his lips while he thought. But silence wasn't an option and he certainly wasn't going to lie. T can't vouch personally for the truth of the allegation. I noticed he had a black eye but I don't know how he got it. Noah hasn't confided in me or any of his teachers. Someone else raised his concerns with me.’

‘Who?’

‘Someone who asked me to be discreet, for fear of giving the boy even more problems. Someone who wouldn't lie to me, and would fully appreciate the seriousness of what he was suggesting.’

‘Someone you know.’

‘Yes.’

‘A usually reliable source.’

‘Yes.’

Charlie Voss nodded. ‘You're talking about Daniel Hood.’

‘Ah.’ Chalmers didn't like secrets, was glad it was out. ‘He's spoken to you too? When we talked he was thinking of the police as a last resort.’

Voss sniffed in a manner he'd picked up from Deacon. ‘People always do. No one ever thinks,
We've got a little problem here let's get the police in before it turns into a disaster.’

Chalmers grinned. ‘I thought your days of seeing little old dogs across busy roads were gone.’

‘Dogs, yes,’ said Voss. ‘Children, no. We still go to a fair bit of trouble to keep them safe.’

Chalmers nodded. ‘So what is it you want me to do?’ Nothing wrong–foots a detective like someone genuinely trying to help. For a moment Voss couldn't think of a thing. All he'd wanted to achieve by coming here was to be seen coming here.

Meadows stepped in to fill the gap. ‘Actually, sir, you've already done it,’ she said smoothly. ‘We wanted to know if you were aware there could be a problem, and we wanted to ask you to keep an eye on the boy. And to call us if you've any reason to be concerned.’

‘Of course I will. To be honest,’ said the Principal, ‘I'm glad to have this made official. As I told Daniel, the moment I saw something definite I was going to take it up with our designated person for child protection. But that carries the tiny risk that the first thing you see is an obituary. Keeping children safe is a minefield. You can get it wrong both ways –keep a watching brief for too long, or start a train of events that'll leave the kid worse off than before you knew. You're very welcome to the hot potato.’

‘Thanks,’ said Charlie Voss sourly.

Voss gave careful thought to where he should confront Adam Selkirk. But the more he considered, the clearer it was to him that actually there was no decision to make. It couldn't be anywhere public, because not making a song and dance about it was what he had to offer Selkirk in return for the truth about his little sailing trip – i.e., that it was a week earlier or later than claimed, or perhaps never took place at all. If everyone whose opinion mattered to Adam Selkirk already knew that he'd been beating his twelve–year–old son, the incentive to cooperate would be gone.

There were good reasons, too, why he shouldn't take this to the man's home. Voss didn't propose to arrest Selkirk and lead him away in handcuffs, which meant that after he'd told Selkirk what he knew and intimated what it was going to cost him, he was going to leave the house in River Drive and Adam Selkirk would be alone with his wife and son. Afraid, perhaps, but also very, very angry. The least Voss could do was ensure he had some time to think, to calm down and work out the least painful option before he went home to his family.

So it was the offices of Selkirk
&c
Fine, Solicitors at Law, in Butterfield Square. Dimmock didn't really have a smart area, but if it had this would have been it: three ranks of Georgian
stucco houses in the middle of town, ranged around one end of the park. For a hundred years it had been a residential area. But even before the First World War these tall, many–roomed buildings were proving difficult to run without staff, and some were divided into large comfortable flats and some were adapted to commercial use. Adam Selkirk and his partner Miriam Fine had the whole of one four–storey house in the middle of the western terrace, looking down the park to the monument. It was gracious accommodation for successful professionals.

Successful professionals who could afford the best help. The receptionist didn't ask the detectives if they had an appointment: she knew who they were. She called Selkirk's office and he came downstairs and showed them to a conference room that had nothing in common with the interview rooms at Battle Alley.

Selkirk saw them seated before settling himself at the head of the walnut table. ‘To coin a phrase,’ he said, his low voice musical with good humour, ‘should I call my client?’

Meadows smiled dutifully, Voss not at all. ‘We're not here to discuss Mr Walsh, sir,’ he said, face and tone void of expression. ‘It's possible you may wish to have your own solicitor present. Though I'm guessing not.’

The expansiveness of Selkirk's welcome had frozen on him like wet clothes on a winter washing–line. Only the mental activity behind his eyes continued unabated. Voss could almost see the cogs whirring, the belts running, the machinery of the brain processing information and churning out thoughts and conclusions and plans of action. The man was still because the brain was racing.

Finally he said, ‘I think you'd better tell me what this is about, Sergeant.’

Voss nodded. ‘We've just come from Dimmock High School. Are you aware that your son's head teacher is concerned about him?’

Selkirk managed to look surprised. ‘No. As far as I know he's doing well at school. Except’ – the machinery behind his eyes changed gear – ‘that's not what you mean, is it? However good or bad, a twelve–year–old's marks in design and technology are never going to attract the attention of CID. So what's happened? What's the little sod been up to?’

Charlie Voss didn't often feel the urge to thump someone. But he felt it now.

Meadows stepped in quickly enough that she must have guessed. ‘What makes you think it's something Noah's done? Most parents finding a policeman on the doorstep need reassuring that their child is safe. But you immediately jumped to the conclusion that Noah was in trouble. Why is that, sir? Does he have a history of getting into trouble?’

Selkirk was regarding her with basilisk eyes. ‘I'm not most parents, Constable,’ he said, his tone barely the right side of objectionable. T deal with police officers every day of my working life. And I'm perfectly well aware that if some harm had come to Noah you'd be handling this interview in a quite different way. So somebody's in trouble. I haven't murdered anyone this week, so I'm guessing it's Noah. So I'll ask you again: what's the little sod done?’

‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Voss firmly. ‘I haven't seen him. It's not his behaviour I want to talk to you about.’

That was the moment that Adam Selkirk knew why they
were here. In his eyes Voss saw all the whirring machinery stop dead, as if a girder had been thrust among the cogs. The weight of understanding dragged down the corners of his mouth. But he said nothing, just watched Voss with still eyes and waited for the sky to fall.

‘Good,’ said the detective softly. ‘Now, how do you want to do this? Do you want to tell me all the ways a twelve–year–old boy can collect bruises? Or shall we talk about what happens in the leafy fastness of River Drive when you come in at the end of a hard day and the housekeeper goes home?’

‘I don't hit my son,’ Adam Selkirk said, as precisely as if he was chiselling the words in marble.

Voss sighed, disappointed. ‘All right. So tell me about the time he fell off his bike, and the time he walked into the patio door, and that time you played American football in the park and didn't make enough allowance for the fact that you're bigger than he is, and…’

‘You're not listening to me, Sergeant,’ said Selkirk, with the kind of quiet force that Deacon employed when he was too angry to shout. ‘I don't hit my son. I love my son.’

‘The little sod must be glad to know it,’ said Voss stonily. Surprise made Meadows look away from Selkirk and quickly at the Sergeant. She'd never heard him speak like that to anyone, including thugs and drug dealers. He was famously even–tempered, polite even in the face of provocation. He didn't work at it: it happened naturally, it was who he was. Now all at once he was starting to sound like…

She hesitated, and edited the thought in the privacy of her own head. No, it wasn't Detective Superintendent Deacon he was starting to sound like. It was Detective Inspector Hyde.

Again she pushed the verbal equivalent of a shoulder between the two men. ‘Sometimes, though, it isn't a question of love. People do hit children they love dearly. And wives and lovers. Some people find it difficult to control their anger. Everybody shouts at their family sometimes, and feels guilty about it afterwards. Some people find it difficult to stop at just shouting.’

Selkirk looked down at her in such a way that even Meadows, a fit and well-trained young policewoman who believed she could probably take him if she had to, felt the pressure of intimidation. For his wife and his son, trapped with the big angry man in their charming, desirable, above all private home, the pressure must have been crushing. Waiting for him to explode. Never being quite certain what would set him off this time.

‘Constable,’ he said, and his tone was so low it rumbled like the voice of an elephant, ‘I spend half my life in courtrooms. I know at least as much about domestic violence as you do. In fact, I know more. I know you're accusing me of something I haven't done. Ever. I have never laid a violent hand on my son. Who told you that?’

It wasn't a question the detectives wanted to answer just yet. ‘I'll tell you who it wasn't,’ volunteered Voss. ‘It wasn't Noah. And it wasn't his mother.’

‘I know
that,’
Selkirk said with towering disdain. ‘Neither of them would say anything so absurd. You say you've been to Noah's school? But I don't think this came from the school. I know where this came from. That meddling little…maths teacher.’ He managed to invest the words with a venom more usually associated with terms like
paedophile
and
vivisector.

‘I'm not prepared to disclose the source of our information at this stage,’ said Voss stiffly. ‘Someone who was concerned for Noah's well-being drew our attention to what was happening, and we're taking it from there.’

Whatever else Adam Selkirk was, he was an intelligent man. Even this angry he was capable of quality thinking. Now he was thinking beyond the accusation that had been made, beyond even who had made it, to why it was being investigated at precisely this time in precisely this manner. The low stridency in his voice softened. ‘Yes, you are, aren't you?’ he said. ‘Not Social Services, not Child Protection – you. The Criminal Investigation Department.’

‘Child abuse is a criminal offence,’ Meadows pointed out.

‘Of course it is,’ he agreed. ‘But it's not – how shall I put this? – the most rewarding kind of investigation. The kind that leads to plaudits and promotions and the prospect of a division of one's own some day. Unlike, for instance, Serious Organised Crime. Now there's a way to make your name -taking down criminal masterminds when other policemen, good policemen, have failed. There's a way of getting noticed. Don't you think so, Sergeant Voss?’

So he knew what they were doing. So much the better, thought Voss, who hadn't looked forward to explaining it. ‘We do our best to deal with all the crimes that come to our attention,’ he answered, deadpan.

‘I just bet you do,’ sneered Selkirk. ‘So what's the deal here? I suddenly remember I wasn't on
Salamander
the last weekend in June and you let me get on with thumping my kid?’

If he'd thumped Meadows she could hardly have been more astonished. It was an extraordinary thing for anyone under
investigation to say, let alone a man whose career depended on verbal aplomb. He couldn't
really
think there was a deal like that on offer – or that, if there had been, it wouldn't have been dressed up an awful lot more carefully, since one party couldn't be seen offering such a trade and the other couldn't be seen needing it.