‘They’ve just found a surveillance device in the fire alarm in Mr Slater’s bedroom and we’ve found the same sort of wiring that was in Amber’s cupboard. And look,’ Wyre pointed along the ceiling, ‘the tiny wire had been painted to blend in and it leads to the back of the fitted wardrobe. There’s surveillance equipment inside.’
‘Bag it all up. I want to know exactly what he’s been recording.’ She shook her head as she thought of his daughter. Amber had not known her father was watching her comings and goings. She clenched her hands. They had to find the recordings and her big hope was that they’d be on his laptop or a hard drive of some description. She ran from room to room. ‘Mark any recording equipment as a priority.’ Running down the stairs, she noticed that Mr Slater was now staring at the door. He turned away slightly so that she couldn’t see his face and she wondered what expression he was trying to hide.
All the kitchen drawers were open and two officers were reaching into cupboards. Gina looked down and saw a scrape mark on the lino flooring. Bending down, she began to press it and pull the kickboard, trying to work out how to loosen it. She knocked the one end and the other side flew forward. ‘Can I borrow your torch?’ The officer passed it to her and she shone it under the cupboard and spotted a rectangular chunk of metal. Reaching through the grime and cobwebs, she grabbed it and slid it out, bagging it immediately.
Kapoor’s image kept running through her mind. What if her colleague was on this hard drive? She swallowed and bit her bottom lip, knowing she had to see exactly what Mr Slater had been up to. She hurried along the hallway, almost tripping over the runner. ‘What have you done with her?’
Theo Slater slowly turned, shrugged his shoulders and made a zipping motion with his fingers across his lips.
44
The tape had been rolling for several minutes and Gina knew that Briggs was watching from behind the interview room screen. Jacob slid the file to her. With PC Kapoor missing, they were all on the case and would stay fully on it until she was found. As Theo Slater tried to pull another one of his eyebrow hairs out, Gina took a photo from the file. The dark-suited male solicitor whispered in Theo Slater’s ear. ‘This is a photo of the hard drive found under the kickboard of your kitchen.’ She placed another photo next to it. ‘This is the recording device found in your bedroom.’ She slid two more photos across the table. ‘The device in which it records to and finally the bits of equipment and lead we found in your daughter’s apartment. I’ve seen the footage.’
‘I didn’t hurt my daughter.’
‘You think recording her in her own home, without her knowing, wasn’t hurting her?’
‘I wanted to protect and look out for her, that’s all. She’d never lived alone before. I mean the camera was in the hallway where people come and go.’
Gina pulled out another photo. One of a woman lying next to Mr Slater in bed. ‘Did you want to protect and look out for this woman? Who is she?’
He shrugged his shoulders and sighed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know. Your computer tells us that you uploaded a clip of you and this woman having sex to an online porn site. Did you have her permission? Did she even know you were recording her?’
‘No comment.’
Gina leaned back, the creaking plastic chair filling the pause. The heater clicked on and began to whirr.
Theo brushed a few specs of dandruff from around his ear and leaned forward.
Glancing back at her notes, Gina knew exactly what he had been doing. All the sound from their encounter had been recorded. The AppyDater app that he’d deleted was easily restorable and that woman was one of his hook-ups. ‘You met her on AppyDater. I’ve seen the messages…’
A bead of sweat formed at his hairline even though it was bitter cold.
‘The day after, you talk in your message about having a lovely date and how you came back to yours for sex; consensual sex by the sounds of it. After watching the recording in full, I see you, glancing up at the camera grinning, but she doesn’t do that once. She is totally unaware that she is being filmed. Then, the evidence on your laptop shows that you’ve edited the footage to blur out your own face and uploaded it to The Horn House, an online user community porn site that anyone can upload to. There is something else that bothers me…’
The man began to waft his jumper. The heat that his own nervous body created was getting to him.
‘The name BearBoy.’
‘I’m not saying anything. I want to leave. Can I leave?’ His glare met that of his solicitor. The man whispered to his client once again. Theo sighed and leaned back.
‘This is serious, Mr Slater. Take this as a warning. If you do this again, this as evidence will be used as a course of conduct. Going back to BearBoy. We found a phone at your daughter’s house, one that she used to message her dates and there was an interesting message from BearBoy. For the tape, I’m reading the message from the file. “I can see U puttin it about. You don’t have to do it! You’re a nice girl.” Can you explain why you sent that message to your own daughter?’
He stood, knocking his chair against the back wall.
‘Sit down, Mr Slater.’
The man glanced at his solicitor.
Jacob leaned forward and smiled warmly in Theo Slater’s direction. ‘We’ve seen the recordings on the hard drive that were taken from your daughter’s apartment. We just want to know why you sent her that message.’
Theo seemed to be less antagonised by Jacob and he sat. ‘My solicitor has prepared a statement.’
Gina slouched back. Great, not what she wanted. Just as she thought he might open up. She glanced at her watch. The clock was ticking and the thought of Kapoor being kept hostage and taunted with death was getting to be too much. The sickly feeling in her stomach was being further exacerbatedby the heat blasting on her feet and the coldness above that was making her nose feel like it had frozen solid. They were getting nowhere fast.
The man pulled out a piece of paper. ‘My client wishes to express that he didn’t place the surveillance equipment in his daughter’s apartment for any reason but to ensure her safety. It was her first stint of living alone and, as her parent, he was worried. He knows he went about things wrongly and for that he’s deeply apologetic, but it was all done with the most sincere of intentions. He hoped by connecting with her on AppyDater that he would make her see that she didn’t need to be on there. He admits that he was being overprotective and by being like that, he overstepped the mark but he had no intention of hurting her.’
