Emma Carwood intervenes. ‘Are you seriously alleging that my client drove to the level crossing, unloaded his daughter’s body into a random wheelbarrow and then disposed of it in that pile of whatever it is, all in broad daylight, without a single person noticing anything?’
‘I think you’d be surprised how easy that would have been, Miss Carwood. The locals are so used to contractors on that site they probably wouldn’t have given him a second glance.’
‘And the wheelbarrow in question – do you have it? Have you examined it?’
‘Our forensics officers have collected several wheelbarrows from the site and are analysing them now. As well as two further items that we believe have a bearing on the case. We will, of course, keep you fully informed. May I resume?’
She hesitates, then nods.
I turn to Mason. ‘So, Mr Mason. As we have already informed you, we have found a pair of gloves carrying your DNA and your daughter’s blood. The same sort of gloves the man in this footage is clearly wearing. We also found particles of railway ballast on those gloves. Are you really still claiming this man isn’t you?’
‘Yes I bloody well am – I was nowhere near there at the time. I’ve told you a thousand times, I was driving about and then I went home. That’s it.’
‘We’ve found nothing to corroborate that story, Mr Mason.’
‘I don’t fucking care, that’s what happened.’
‘OK,’ I say, ‘let’s just accept, for the sake of argument, that your story is true. Explain to me how gloves bearing your DNA ended up in a skip in Loughton Road.’
‘I could have left them somewhere – anyone could have picked them up.’
‘When did you last see them?’ asks Quinn.
‘I told you, I don’t know. I don’t remember.’
‘Fair enough,’ I reply, ‘let’s accept that as well. Just for the sake of argument. Next question: how did your daughter’s blood get on them?’
He swallows. ‘I don’t know.’
‘No explanation at all? Come on, Mr Mason, an accomplished liar like you – you must be able to do better than that.’
‘There’s no call for sarcasm, Inspector,’ says Emma Carwood.
‘Look,’ says Mason, his voice breaking, ‘have either of you got kids?’
I open my mouth but no sound comes. ‘No,’ says Quinn quickly. ‘Not that it’s in any way relevant.’
‘Well, if you did,’ he says, ‘you’d know that they’re always getting into scrapes – falling over, grazed knees. Daisy has nose bleeds all the time – the blood gets all over the sodding place. Those gloves were just lying about in the house – there are all sorts of ways it could have happened.’
‘I believe you tested my client’s car, Inspector?’ says Emma Carwood. ‘As well as the high-viz clothing he had in the back? As far as I know, you found no incriminating evidence whatsoever. No fluids, no DNA, nothing.’
Quinn and I exchange a glance. It still bugs me. That he left no trace in the truck. He doesn’t strike me as that meticulous. Though as Quinn was quick to point out, everyone’s that meticulous if there’s enough at stake.
I change tack. ‘Has your daughter ever been to the car park by the level crossing, Mr Mason? For a walk on Port Meadow, perhaps?’
He puts his arms on the table and drops his head into them. ‘No,’ he says, his voice muffled. ‘No no no no no.’
Emma Carwood leans over and touches him on the shoulder. ‘Barry?’
Then suddenly he sits up. There are the marks of tears about his eyes, but he wipes his face with a sleeve and sits forward.
‘Show me that bloody footage again,’ he says quickly, pointing at the screen. ‘Show it to me again.’
‘OK,’ I say as I slide the cursor back three minutes and press Play.
‘Slow it down,’ he says after a moment. ‘There, slow it down.’
We’re all staring, watching the screen. The entire sequence only takes two or three seconds. We see the figure with the barrow take a couple of steps, his head down. That’s all.
Barry Mason sits up, like a man come back from the dead. ‘That’s not me, Inspector. And I can prove it. Do you hear me – did you get that on your bloody tape? I can prove that isn’t me.’
***
It’s 5.45 and Quinn and I are standing behind Anna Phillips as she taps her keyboard.
‘Are you sure we can’t get a better close-up – see his face?’
She shakes her head, her eyes still on the screen. ‘’Fraid not. I’ve tried, but he has his back to us the whole time.’
‘Bloody hell,’ says Quinn under his breath. ‘That’s all we sodding need.’
‘But what Mason said – you think he’s right?’
‘Give me a second,’ she says, frowning into the screen. ‘I’ve downloaded a photogrammetry app – I haven’t used one before but I’m hoping it’ll give us some sort of answer.’
‘What the hell is photo-whatsit when it’s at home?’
‘It creates three-dimensional models from ordinary photos. It’s pretty impressive actually – look.’
Three clicks and the still from the train camera opens up into 3D. A plastic replica of reality hangs suspended in a bright blue universe, like one of those cross sections you used to get in geography books. I can see the figure with the barrow, the railway line, the trees, the far edge of the car park, even the bushes along the track. Anna moves the cursor around and the image rotates. Left, right, tilt up, tilt down.
‘It’s accurate enough to give you proper measurements,’ she says. ‘Heights, distances between objects, that sort of thing. I could probably tell you how fast the train was going if you gave me long enough.’
‘I just need to know if what Mason said is right.’
More work on the keyboard and grid points appear all over the image. One more click and the 3D image disappears, leaving only lines between the points, and numbers at each intersection. Anna sits back.
‘Afraid he is. Perhaps not to the millimetre, but yes. He’s right.’
***
At 11.15 the following morning, Anna Phillips draws up outside the Victorian two-up two-down owned by Pauline Pober. There are hollyhocks in the front garden and borage plants swarmed with bees. DC Andrew Baxter loosens his tie and looks out of the car window. The night’s rain has blown over and the sun’s already hot.
‘This has Wild Goose Chase written all over it,’ he says testily. ‘We’ve arrested Mason now, so what’s the point?’
Anna turns off the engine. ‘Judging by what I saw yesterday, that Mason arrest isn’t as cut-and-dried as we might have thought. And in any case, I told Mrs Pober we were coming. It would be rude to just not turn up.’
Baxter mutters something about old biddies and cats, which Anna decides not to hear. They get out and she locks the car, and as they go up the path, a curtain twitches next door. Anna was brought up in a village like this – she knows what piranha bowls they can be.
But far from being on the watch for their arrival, Mrs Pober takes a good three minutes to answer the door. There’s a dark smear across one cheek and a rather unpleasant – and very distinctive – smell.
‘So sorry,’ she says, smiling broadly and wiping her hands on a pair of grubby trousers. ‘The bloody drains are blocked again, so I had to get the rods out. Come through to the back. The air’s a bit better out there, if you catch my drift.’
Anna suppresses a smile at the expression on Baxter’s face, and the two of them follow her through the cottage to a small but dazzling garden. A square of lawn with flowers jostling for space in the borders. Lavender, clematis, penstemons, carnations, blue geraniums.