Those Left Behind - 12. A picture is worth a thousand words

The whole place had a rather bleak, unloved air, as if no-one spent enough money on it, which was probably true. After all, why have luxury around for interviews with potential felons. DS Marcus was at the Police Station with another policewoman, introduced as DC Cynthia Creaton. She was big, sleek, glossy and dark skinned, and Ludo suspected there were muscles underneath her uniform, and he didn’t want to find out. The name rang a bell, he thought Arthur had talked to one called Cynthia.

He had been asked to come into the station and had arranged it for Monday lunchtime, whilst Damian was still at school. It was explained that this was an entirely voluntary chat, he was just there so that they could confirm all the details of his previous statement. Ludo wondered what would happen if he walked out; he wouldn’t of course, but did they have anything they could charge him with to make sure he stayed, obstruction perhaps? Or was he reading too much into the situation, based simply on TV dramas.

Ludo had never read any Kafka, but he heard enough about the man’s stories and the next hour or so reminded him of that. Nothing made complete sense, and they’d pick up on the most trivial seeming thing and push it. Then it would be necessary to go over everything again, ‘for clarity’. All the while, he worried that they didn’t believe him, that there was going to be something that would trip him up.

When it came to Jackie, he felt very much as if he was betraying their marriage, talking about all the shit times and what a bitch she could be. But the rest of the story didn’t make sense unless he did, trying to make them understand that work, Damian, and the house kept him busy, he didn’t have time to worrit over Jackie’s work. If she came home in a half-decent mood and they got to sit quietly together and moan about shit TV, then that had counted as a win.

When they started asking him about Jackie’s colleagues, he was almost entirely clueless. Andreas, he had a memory of, but her previous project partner was simply a name, Ludo wasn’t aware of ever meeting him. Their idea of what socialising with Jackie’s firm was like was entirely off the mark. A couple of drinks and conversation that simply skimmed the surface was hardly making friends.

Then they brought up Molly. She was nothing at all to do with Jackie’s projects at work, of that he was pretty certain. Yes, he’d met her last year at the firm’s Summer party, but he could barely conjure an image of the woman, which led to the question of why they were asking. That was the other thing; he couldn’t ask questions. That wasn’t how it played out. The burden of guilt hung over him, he was constantly on edge, convinced he’d be found out, though for what he wasn’t sure.

There was something going on, of that he was certain. They knew something and had no obligation to tell him.

***

“Well?”

“The husband’s pretty convincing. Cynthia agrees, he must be a bloody good actor.”

“Or remarkably dim.”

“Focused, I think, sir. They never had a nanny, most of the child-care fell on the husband and he had a full-time job. I never thought of it like that, but Cynthia put me right. He said that he had neither interest nor leisure time to bother with the wife’s colleagues, and I got the impression he didn’t much like them, either.”

“What about the photographs we found in the wife’s computer files, are they pukka?”

“Work still needs to be done, but we’re inclining to them being faked.”

DI Donaldson shook his head, “This case is turning weird. You’re confident. The photos are fake.”

“Pretty much so. We’ve had the preliminary tech report, and it looks likely.”

“Fake as in…”

“A composite, what you see is not the image of a real happening”.

DI Donaldson peered at the images on the screen again, “So this isn’t Ludovic Wilson or the Molly woman?”

DS Marcus shrugged, “It may well be them, but lifted in from other photographs.”

“Like a collage?”

“But more sophisticated, sir.”

“You can say that again. I knew that they could do clever stuff.”

“According to the tech guys this isn’t particularly clever, basic really.”

“So, you are going to show him them?”

“That is the plan, sir, once the tech guys have produced their final report. So that we’re clear what they are.”

“Good, see what he makes of them, whether he knew about them.”

“They were in the files that he told us about, in that backup. We’d have likely not found them otherwise.”

“But...”, DI Donaldson waggled his head.

“Yeah, I know. It could all be bitter and twisted, even more.”

“Keep me posted. Oh, and Graham?”

“Sir?”

“It might be worth having a think. How effective would they have been?”

“What do you mean?”

DI Donaldson tapped the screen, “If we’d just happened to find these when we searched the Wilson’s house after she’d done a runner. Along with those receipts and that…”

“Would we have fingered the husband?”

“Precisely. How effective.”

“Good point. I’ll have another chat to the tech guys and find out how noticeable the fakery would have been. At the very least it would have kept us busy for a bit.”

DI Donaldson smiled, “Exactly that.”

***

The sense of being kept in the dark lasted till Tuesday afternoon when Graham Marcus appeared with something like news. Arthur was out, at a meeting, attempting to keep up appearances at work. The boys were off to a friends’ house after school. So far, the school had been understanding and there had been no reporters door-stepping them. Yet.

Damian’s school mates were largely fascinated, as were the parents if truth be told. Ludo had had a couple of sympathy, ‘is there anything I can do’, calls, barely disguising the caller’s keen interest in what was going on. He was attempting to keep well out of the way.

“I have some photos I’d like to show you, sir.”

They sat down at Ludo’s desk and Graham Marcus laid three pictures in front of him. At first Ludo didn’t recognise what he was looking at. A foyer, all glass and marble, and two figures shaking hands in one, sitting together in another, passing what might be an envelope in the third. Each picture had a date and time stamp, though the dates meant nothing to him. Then it hit him. The guy looked like him. And the woman. Vaguely familiar. He looked at Graham Marcus, in puzzlement and wary.

“Do you recognise the images?”

“Not at all. I am not familiar with the place and the two figures, who are they?”

Graham Marcus looked him, “You tell me, Sir?”

It went round like that for a bit till finally Graham Marcus said they had reason to suspect it was him and Molly? Molly, of course that’s who it looked like. So that was why they were going on about her yesterday. But he’d never met her like that. Never mind who it actually was in the picture, and who had taken it.

Ludo’s mind went into overdrive, how to prove something didn’t exist, the non-existence of a meeting. He was almost at gibbering point when the small part of his brain still functioning, kicked into action.

“I might be able to tell you where I was, if those time stamps are accurate.”

“We believe they might be.”

Not giving anything away, was he? And where had the pictures come from, for God’s sake? Ludo got his laptop and logged into the firm’s intranet, pulling up the diary manager.

He gave Graham Marcus a thin smile, “Welcome to my world. The firm logs all our movements, meetings and some meetings have the meeting video shared.” He wittered for a bit longer then managed to pull up the first date. “From 2pm to 5pm I was in a Zoom meeting logged on from my old work PC, and there’s a summary transcript.” The second date was no use, he was in transit, but for the third there was even video stored on the server.

Graham Marcus gave Ludo a brief smile, “Thank you sir. Now, could you check these dates, please?”

He produced a second set of pictures, three again. At first and second sight, they were identical except for the timestamps. These new times were all when Ludo’s movements were not logged by the diary manager. Shit.

Graham Marcus gave a broader smile, “Thank you, sir. I am sorry we put you through that, but I wanted to be certain.”

“What?”

The policeman pointed to one of the first three pictures. “That corresponds to the video evidence you showed us. So, this could not be you in the picture. We think it is not you in any of them. Nor is the woman, Molly.”

“Then what?”

“The photos are being examined in detail. It seems these three, he pointed to the first set, are fakes. Clever but not foolproof. The figures may be you and Molly but taken from other images.”

“So, I’m not going mad, they really are pictures of something that never existed”, he shook his head. “Bloody hell.”

Graham Marcus simply raised an eyebrow. “Then, having created the fakes, it seems the second set have their timestamps altered. And our tech people are able to confirm which set of images came first.” He gave a thin smile, “Though I will not bore you with the technical information.”

The penny dropped, “They faked some images, then tweaked the timings so it was more likely that I could have been there?”

“Precisely.”

“Someone was trying to set me up?” O God, where had the pictures come from, not…

“It seems so... More work needs doing, by technical people of course. But your diary information was very helpful.”

“But who?”

Graham Marcus simply stared at him, then he said, very quietly “They came from the data that was backed up.”

“You mean, my wife?” The next penny dropped with a thump.

The policeman stood up. “I’m sorry, sir. Whilst you are not officially in the clear, yet; I believe this might be reasonably conclusive.”

“Shit, shit, shit”, then Ludo realised who he was talking to and apologised.

Marcus gave him thin smile, “Don’t worry, I have heard worse. We do have one question?”

Here it goes, Ludo mentally ducked, “Yes?”

“How easy would it be for your wife to get this information”, Graham Marcus tapped the timestamp on one of the pictures.

Ludo frowned, “Pretty easy. For a start, security at work is rather less rigorous than at the bank. At one point, Jackie knew my password, though I am not sure whether she had the most recent one, but if we were both in the house and I was working, I never bothered locking the laptop if I wandered away to get a coffee or something.”

“So, she could simply have had a look. Is the information easy to find?”

“Dead easy, the diary manager is key to everything we do. And besides, she was well versed in checking, she’d look to see what I had on if she planned a late-nighter.”

“Did that matter?”

Ludo stared at the policeman, hadn’t he taken anything onboard. “To check childcare arrangements, make sure Damian was cared for. My work diary formed a family diary of sorts, my engagements but the major events in Damian’s life too and Jackie’s work hours.” Marcus made to ask something, but Ludo ploughed on, pretty sure what the question would be, “And no. Jackie’s information was purely date and times, no details.”

In a daze, Ludo told Graham Marcus who to contact with a view to getting the diary information from work, but he barely registered. When Arthur returned, Ludo was simply staring into space. Without question, Arthur poured them two strong G&Ts, at this rate they’d be alcoholics by the time the case was over. If it ever was.

“So, the police think they were faking pictures to make it look like you and Molly had an arrangement.”

“I imagine there might be receipts too, fake ones for nights away.”

“Shit, of course, a clandestine affair. A paper and picture trail. Would it have worked?”

“Fuck knows. I was barely coherent when Marcus left so never asked.”

“It might not have worked, but it might have given them time to get away and nicely set up somewhere safe.”

“Rather than the quick run for it.”

“So, I managed to fuck up their plans.”

“Seems like it. But was Jackie really planning all that?”

“And who did the faking?”

“Not Jackie, her skills definitely didn’t run to visuals or even fancy software. She was purely a lists of figures sort of girl.”

Talk round it as much as they might, there was no further information available. And there it seemed to sit. Life went on, and Ludo tried to concentrate but the thought of what Jackie might have been doing, and how he never realised, kept coming back to him.

***

“We reckon it’s all pukka?”

“Looks like it, sir. A bit more work to be done, but the tech people are confident and the electronic diary from the husband’s firm would seem to confirm things. We need to get on to them.”

“What about the people in the pictures, models presumably.”

“Possibly. The husband has sent through some images but there’s not much. Seems that they weren’t big on photos unless they were of the kiddie. We’re doing the rounds of agencies, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. We may get lucky.”

“Or we may not. So, what was going on? They were planning to frame the husband?”

“Looks like it. Keep an open mind though, might be a double bluff?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. This case is messy enough as it is. You like the husband?”

“Yeah. But that’s not to say…”

“Follow the evidence, that’s all we can do?”

“Any word from Eastern France or wherever that place is.”

“A few movements, nothing concrete but a few interesting leads and those bank accounts seem to be the start of a paper trail.”

“So, back to the old foot slogging.”

DS Marcus grinned, “Well, it’s all done with computers now, sir.”

“Not quite all, but it’s just as tedious, I bet!”