There’s a rather unseemly scuffle, but Quinn has a foot and several stone on his side. The kid’s already yelping about ‘brutality’ as I follow the two of them back to the landing and call Gislingham up.
‘Start the search in there. There’s at least one laptop hidden in the bedclothes.’
When I turn to look back at Azeem I think it’s quite possible he’s shat himself.
*
Interview with Barry Mason, conducted at St Aldate’s Police Station, Oxford
23 July 2016, 12.42 p.m.
In attendance, DI A. Fawley, Acting DS G. Quinn, Miss E. Carwood (solicitor)
EC: Are we to take it that you are ready to press charges?
AF: We still have some questions to ask your client, Miss Carwood.
EC: In relation to the pornography allegations?
AF: For the moment, yes.
EC: Very well. But may I remind you, the clock is ticking.
AF: Mr Mason, are you in contact with an individual by the name of Azeem Rahija?
BM: I haven’t a bloody clue who you’re talking about.
EC: Are we talking about the same family as Yasir and Sunni Rahija?
BM: What, those Asian paedophiles who were in the papers? Of course I bloody well don’t know them. Jesus Christ.
AF: Azeem Rahija is the younger brother of Yasir Rahija. He’s seventeen.
BM: So?
AF: So you have never had any contact with him, or any of his family? You’ve never accessed pornography from them –
BM: How many more bloody times. I don’t buy porn. Not from them, or anyone else. I’ve bought the odd girlie mag, but that’s it. End of. Go on - check my phone – check my bloody PC – you won’t find any of that shit on it.
AF: Unfortunately the hard drive on your computer was destroyed in the fire. We have no way of knowing what was on it. Or what might have been erased. We have to tell you, however, that we’ve found two videos on your mobile phone. Videos which contain extreme and sexually explicit images of young children –
BM: No way – no fucking way. Do you hear me? I did not download anything like that. It must be a virus or something – that happens, right? Or someone hacked it -
EC: [intervening]
What evidence do you have that my client knew the Rahijas? Do you have phone records? An email trail?
BM: They don’t have any of that because I never bloody well spoke to them.
AF: For the tape, I am showing Mr Mason a still taken by a CCTV camera. Mr Mason, we believe you made contact with the Rahijas through this youth. We have a witness who saw you together.
BM: [looking at the picture and then at the officers]
Where the fuck did you get this?
*
11 May 2016, 7.09 p.m.
69 days before the disappearance
The Chen home, 11 Lanchester Road, Oxford
Jerry Chen comes into the kitchen, where his wife is stacking the dishwasher. The sun is declining and the golden light glimmers through the leaves of two silver birches, which hang like curtains either side of the large and mature garden.
Jerry puts down his bag on the kitchen island, and his wife pours him a glass of wine.
‘How did the lecture go?’
‘Professor Helston was there. He’s asked me to give it again at the LSE in the fall.’
‘High praise, coming from him. Will you be back from Stanford by then?’
He takes a sip of the wine and checks the label. ‘This is pretty good. And yes, should be fine – Stanford’s in September. This would be November sometime. Where’s Nanxi?’
‘In the sitting room. She’s teaching Daisy to play chess.’
Jerry smiles. ‘It’s about time Nanxi had a decent opponent her own age. I can’t keep letting her win.’
‘You shouldn’t do that. She knows when you’re faking it. She’s not stupid.’
‘You’re probably right. You usually are.’
Joyce’s turn to smile. ‘As far as I could tell, Daisy had never even seen a chessboard before.’
‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me. If she didn’t look so much like her mother, I’d swear that child was a changeling. I daren’t even imagine the debility of the Mason gene pool.’
He makes a face and his wife laughs as she closes the dishwasher door and straightens up. ‘What was it Eric Hoffer said? Even if most of the human race are pigs, every now and again a He pig marries a She pig and a Leonardo is born. Something like that.’
She glances at her watch. ‘Lord, is that the time? I need to run Daisy home. Can you call her?’
Jerry goes up the steps towards the living room, but the little girl is already standing there.
‘Oh, Daisy,’ he says, slightly discomfited. ‘I didn’t notice you. How long have you been standing there?’
‘I wanted to thank you for the make-up bag. I love it.’ She’s swinging it now, by its little strap. It’s striped black and white, with a neon pink splash in the centre saying Girly Crap in large wobbly letters.
Joyce Chen looks up. ‘You’re very welcome, Daisy. Isn’t it irritating when two people send exactly the same present? We could hardly return it, and Nanxi thought you might like to have the same one as her. Did the two of you have a nice time this afternoon?’
‘Oh yes,’ says Daisy, smiling. ‘It’s been the best day.’
*
‘You can’t smoke in here.’
‘Yeah, right.’
The boy’s lying full stretch on the sofa in the family room, his feet up on the seat. There’s a paper plate on the floor with a dozen fag ends in it already. Maureen Jones is sitting as far away from him as the space will allow, and the social worker is standing by the door. It’s Derek Ross, the same bloke who came in for Leo. We exchange a silent acknowledgement and I ask him if he has any idea what the kid’s name is.
‘Mickey Mouse,’ the boy says, leering at me. ‘George Clooney. The Dalai Lama. Queen Vic-fucking-toria. Take your pick, pig.’
‘That’s not going to help,’ says Ross. He sounds exhausted and he’s barely been here an hour.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘As I’m sure you know, members of your friend Azeem’s family have recently been convicted of sexual assaults on children. We are currently going through material seized at the house to ascertain whether further offences have been committed.’
‘Can’t scare me, pig. I don’t know nothin’ about any of that shit.’
He starts coughing and sits up. ‘I’m outta here. You can’t stop me.’
‘If you insist on leaving I will have no choice but to arrest you.’
‘It’s really best if you cooperate,’ Derek says to the kid. ‘Seriously.’
The boy and I stare at each other for a long moment, but he blinks first.
‘So where’s my fuckin’ lawyer?’
‘Like I said, you’re not under arrest. And Mr Ross is here to protect your interests.’
‘I want to make a complaint – that git hit me. The cocky one.’
I’m tempted to ask if he’s playing the role of pot or kettle on that score. ‘If you want to make a complaint, you’ll have to tell us your name.’
He grins at me nastily and taps the side of his nose. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, pig. No flies on me, see.’
I reach for one of the hard-back chairs and swing it alongside him. Then I sit down and open my cardboard folder and show him one of the CCTV images. The one of him and Daisy on 19 April.
‘Do you know who this is?’
He takes a deep drag and blows the smoke in my face. ‘What if I do?’
‘This girl is Daisy Mason. Her face has been all over the press and the web for the best part of a week. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed.’
He narrows his eyes, but says nothing.
‘She’s missing. She may even be dead. And a few weeks before she disappeared she was seen talking with you.’
‘I talk to lots of people. Sociable bloke, me.’
‘I’m sure you’re quite the life and soul. Only that wasn’t the first time you’d spoken to her, was it?’
I get out more pictures. ‘April twelfth, April fourteenth, April nineteenth. And here, on May ninth, is Daisy Mason in the back of a car registered to Azeem Rahija. With you presumably in the front seat.’
More silence. More smoke. I can see his brain working in his eyes. He doesn’t know how much I know.
‘Why were you stalking her?’