Barnes and banged down his fist hard on the table.
Barnes looked at him. ‘Are you a violent man, Mr Pelham?’
‘Can we keep to the point, Detective Inspector,’ Ronnie intervened before Harry could react.
The policeman had brought with him a large brown envelope and now he took out of it a set of photographs, spreading them on the table in front of Harry. They were pictures of children. Hard-core child pornography.
‘Have you seen these before, Mr Pelham?’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Does that mean you have seen them before or you haven’t seen them before, sir?’
‘No, no, no. Of course I haven’t seen them before.’
Harry felt nauseous and his legs were shaking. He opened his mouth to drag in air. Really, there was no oxygen left in this room, he could hardly breathe at all now. He saw Barnes watching him, and for a moment, just before he fell to the floor, was suddenly aware of his own open mouth, the nervous licking of his lips, the sweat marks left by his hands on the table. His body language was shouting out a message, a message that the detective had surely heard loud and clear, that Harry Pelham was indeed a thoroughly guilty man.
‘It’s like the end of everything for me because Ahmed’s my whole world. I’m just devastated. I think I always knew it would happen but that doesn’t help, you know, when it does.’
Mary Hakimi, tears rolling slowly down her face, went on to explain to Laura what it felt like to have her son snatched away. She wasn’t ranting, she was just terribly sad which made it all so much worse. She was thirty-four, the same age as Laura, but her face was strained and careworn with lines of worry already carved between her eyes.
‘It’s been the worst time of my life. I can’t even face going into his bedroom. When the news came – that he was in Tunisia – I suppose I should have been relieved that he was alive, but for me it was my worst fear come true; the fact that he was there and then knowing that I won’t be able to get him back.’
Laura glanced at her brother. Clive Walters listened, scowling, simmering, occasionally grunting or puffing air into his cheeks.
‘I was always worried about it,’ Mary Hakimi repeated. ‘That’s why I came to you. And I thought once I had the order from the court that a passport couldn’t be issued, then Ahmed was safe. That’s what I thought. It was all I had.’ She sounded dazed at how stupid she’d been to rely on such fragile protection. As if she’d had a choice.
Laura nodded, tried to say some words of comfort but they sounded wholly inadequate.
‘And to find out that you just forgot to renew it, well, it’s beyond belief and I don’t know how you can make that kind of mistake because it’s people’s lives you’re ruining. My son should have been protected by the law and now he’s been taken away.’
An angry rumble of agreement came from Clive Walters. His fleshy face, with its heavy jowls, looked increasingly belligerent.
‘And don’t try telling us it’s not your fault,’ he said. ‘You won’t get away with that one. I’ve been onto your boss and he says there’s no doubt that Mary would have been sent a letter about renewing the order. That’s crap and you know it. She never got sent any letter.’
Mary Hakimi seemed not to have heard what her brother had said; she was still in that dazed world of her own.
‘You have to understand, it’s my family that’s gone. Have you got children?’ she asked.
Laura shook her head.
‘Then maybe you won’t understand how this has torn my life apart.’
Laura picked up a piece of paper from the file in front of her. Sarah had thrust it into her hand as she was on her way to the conference room on the ground floor where Mrs Hakimi and her brother were waiting for her. It was a copy of a letter – the letter that had supposedly been sent to Mary Hakimi. Sarah had just written it.
It did the job. Most likely it would get Morrison Kemp off the hook. She could see no easy way it could be challenged. All she had to do was hand it to them. Clive Walters would be furious, would deny his sister ever received it, but he would have the devil’s own job proving it.
She put the letter firmly back in the file and took a deep breath.
‘Mrs Hakimi, I do understand and I want you to know that I will do absolutely everything I can to get your son back.’
There was a spark of hope in the woman’s eyes but her brother was having none of it.
‘Hang on a minute. Empty promises are no good to us. It’s your fault he’s been taken. You were negligent and we want compensation. How much is what we should be talking about.’
Laura kept focused on his sister. ‘Mrs Hakimi, as you know, it’s only possible to get a court order for the return of your son if he’s been taken to a country that has signed the Hague Convention. Unfortunately Tunisia hasn’t and so you have to rely on the courts in Tunis and start custody proceedings there.’
‘You are joking, I take it,’ Clive Walters interrupted. ‘She’s got sod all chance of winning there as I’m sure you’re well aware.’
‘I’ll get in touch with a lawyer in Tunis who deals with this sort of case,’ Laura continued. ‘I assure you we’ll do everything we can to bring Ahmed home to you. Every possible avenue will be explored.’
It sounded better than it was – she was painfully aware there were no grounds for optimism.
‘And you think we’re going to be satisfied with that? No way. There’s been a major cock-up and I want to know how much you propose to pay in damages.’
‘Mr Walters, I’m afraid I must make it clear that Morrison Kemp in no way accepts any liability for what has happened, although, of course, we very much want to help in any way we can.’
‘I know what’s going through your mind,’ he growled, ‘you’re thinking that I can’t prove it. Can’t prove there was no letter reminding Mary about the court order. Well, let me tell you that whatever you say, I will make the most tremendous fuss. I’ll go to the press, to the Law Society, whatever it takes to get justice. Your name will be mud.’
‘Please, Clive,’ said his sister. ‘This isn’t helping. All I want is to get Ahmed back.’
Tears flooded her eyes. ‘Anything you can do, I’d be so grateful,’ she choked out.
‘You can trust us to do all we can.’
‘Trust you,’ burst out the brother, ‘why should she trust you now when you couldn’t be trusted to do the job properly in the first place?’
Good point, thought Laura. Excellent point.
‘I know it won’t be easy,’ Mary Hakimi swallowed hard, ‘but I’ll try anything, anything you can think of. Please let me know.’
Clive Walters looked at her with disgust. He’d seen the chance of a big fat pay-out and he wasn’t going to let it slip away. But for now he was stuck. He had no claim, he wasn’t the injured party. It was up to his sister and his sister was off in cloud cuckoo land. Reluctantly he got to his feet, refused to shake Laura’s hand and instead put his arm around his sister’s shoulders and guided her out of the room.
The second they had gone, Sarah came through the door.
‘What happened? Did you show them the letter? Did it work?’ she said, slumping down in the chair just vacated by Mary Hakimi.
‘I don’t think that letter was … ’ Laura