Page 20 of Little Children (Detective Kim Stone #22)

Nineteen

Kim knew better than to have any preconceptions of what a paedophile and his home would look like.

The stereotype of dirty raincoats and unshaven, unkempt men hiding in dark corners was a myth that had been debunked decades ago.

Sex offenders didn’t always come from the dregs of society.

Some were well educated, living well with decent jobs.

Some were successful, established businessmen who were able to afford a decent property with a high wall to prevent the local riff-raff from getting to them.

And that appeared to be the case with Roderick Skidmore.

Stacey’s overnight research, shared over breakfast, had informed them the man was forty-two years of age. He’d grown up as an only child of middle-class parents. His mother had been a school counsellor and his father a commercial building inspector.

Not only was he a paedophile, but he was also a pretty intelligent guy who made a very good living designing websites.

He’d served two short terms in prison for possessing indecent images of boys under ten, and although she could understand Red’s assumption that Lewis was in the wrong age bracket for this particular paedophile, ten wasn’t a million miles away from twelve.

‘How is this even possible?’ Bryant asked as they approached the intercom.

She knew he was talking about the fancy house and high walls.

She wished she had the answer, but the truth was that many thousands of men maintained successful lives and careers while being paedophiles.

Sexual deviancy didn’t render them incapable of performing well in every other part of their lives.

A smooth, clear voice came through the speaker.

Bryant introduced them both and asked if they could have a word.

They heard the sound of a gear engaging before the left leaf of the solid-oak gate began to slide along the wall to reveal the three-storey white house, a modern square block, with a lot of glass.

Parked on the gravel drive were a Lexus and a Porsche.

‘Two million,’ Bryant whispered. ‘And I’m not kidding. I could not hate this guy more.’

Kim understood his point. Bryant didn’t hate him because he was a man with a Porsche. He hated him because he was a paedophile with a Porsche.

The front door opened once the gate had slid back to the locked position.

The man himself was a fair representation of the property in which he lived. She guessed him to be an inch or two shy of six feet, dressed in plain black trousers and a white shirt, open at the neck. His hair was a sandy colour, cut tidily.

He smiled and held out his hand. She ignored it and, on this occasion, so did Bryant.

‘Roderick Skidmore?’ she asked.

He retracted his hand with a look of acceptance.

Kim didn’t care how much money he had, it wasn’t enough for her to shake his hand.

‘I assume you’re here about Lewis and Noah,’ he said, stepping back so they could enter his home.

‘You know them?’ Kim asked, surprised at the familiarity.

‘Not really, no.’

‘So, you’ve been expecting a visit?’ she said, stepping into the hallway and wondering how the hell the Blackpool team could write him off without even a conversation.

The man shrugged as he closed the door.

Her gaze was drawn to the artwork on the wall. Nausea hit her immediately. Every piece was black and white, and every one was of a semi-naked prepubescent boy. It wasn’t the pictures themselves that made her want to vomit – it was the reason the man had them hanging in his hall.

‘Nice,’ Kim said sarcastically.

‘My house. I make no apology,’ he said with an easy shrug.

‘May we talk where your artwork is not so prominent?’ she asked.

‘Kitchen,’ he said, leading the way.

From the set of Bryant’s jaw, she could see he was struggling just as much as she was. She wasn’t sure she’d ever interviewed a paedophile quite like this one.

‘There’s a distinct lack of shame about your perversion, Mr Skidmore,’ Kim observed, unable to leave the subject untouched.

He didn’t even wince at the term she’d used.

‘I am free to decorate my own home as I like,’ he said, pointing to a small table with four chairs.

‘I’ve done nothing wrong that I haven’t already been punished for.

I had images that I enjoyed. I was neither in the photos, nor did I take them, and I didn’t circulate them.

I was caught and I was punished. You may not agree with the term I served, but that’s your problem, not mine.

It’s your system.’ He paused. ‘Please take a seat.’

‘I’ll stand,’ Bryant said, while Kim sat down.

‘I won’t bother to offer you coffee,’ he said, leaning against the countertop. ‘You are here to ask about the boys?’

Yes, but she had a couple of other questions first.

‘Must be annoying to be the first port of call when a child goes missing?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘Not at all. Completely understandable.’

‘Must bring the locals knocking at your door with pitchforks and torches?’

He shook his head. ‘The locals never bother me. I get the odd email or text message, but they never turn up here,’ he said as though the idea was preposterous.

‘Why is that?’

‘Because I’m rich,’ he answered, matter-of-factly.

There was no arrogance or pretence in his tone, and Kim got it.

With money came the perception of power.

Harassing this man was not like throwing eggs and dog shit at the home of some grubby paedo in a council flat.

And yet there was no difference other than the presentation.

If it weren’t for the photos on the wall and the unapologetic attitude, even she’d be wondering how those images had got on his computer.

‘And your business hasn’t suffered since your prison term?’

‘Trust me, my clients have no interest in my conviction.’

‘You design websites?’ she asked to make sure she understood. That meant he had to have a company name which would have been out there in public during his trial. What self-respecting business would opt to use his services again after that?

‘None that you’re likely to see,’ he said, sitting back in his chair.

Bryant cleared his throat, signalling his discomfort, and she could understand it. However well he presented himself, he was a sex offender who liked young boys and yet he was living this charmed life. She wanted to know how it was possible.

‘I don’t design sites for Clearnet,’ he explained, and she began to understand.

That was the name given to the regular internet by users of the dark web.

‘So tell us how that works, Mr Skidmore,’ she asked. There was no better way of finding out the workings of the swamp than asking the people who lived there.

‘I’ll use the most common example of the iceberg.

The normal internet is the part of the iceberg above the water.

The deep net is the rest. It’s by far the biggest part of the internet.

It’s where companies run their intranets or where database details are kept.

Personal information, bank details. It’s where emails are stored, messaging accounts, legal, financial, medical info.

The deep web accounts for around ninety per cent of all websites.

It’s so large that it’s impossible to discover exactly how many pages are active at any one time. ’

‘But that’s not where you operate?’ Kim asked.

‘I work in the dark web, which is a part of the deep web – but a very small part. Much smaller than the Clearnet that you know so well.’

‘So, you write websites that support illegal activity?’ Kim asked.

It always paid to establish someone’s level of intelligence, not to mention their access to resources.

This man appeared to have an abundance of both.

That meant he had the power to make young boys disappear, which made him very interesting to the investigation.

A fact that shouldn’t have escaped the attention of the local team.

‘Not always illegal. Sometimes unsavoury or immoral, but not always illegal,’ Skidmore answered.

Bryant coughed again.

‘Glass of water?’ Skidmore asked.

‘I’m good, thanks,’ Bryant answered, not moving an inch from the doorway.

Kim realised that Skidmore wasn’t attempting to be charming. He wasn’t attempting to be anything. He was unashamedly being himself.

‘So, to finish my analogy, the dark web would be the bottom of the submerged iceberg.’

‘And that’s where you spend your time? At the lowest level?’ she asked.

‘Very passive aggressive, officer.’

‘What stops us accessing the bottom of the iceberg and closing you all down?’

She meant the police generally, though she knew that there were teams in place investigating the dark web and that their task was an uphill battle. The place was full of weapons, drugs, pornography, illicit links, extremism and hacking scams.

‘First of all, you need to disabuse yourself of the notion that it’s like a grubby house with a dark room where you can shine a torch and expose a group of men in the corner on their mobile phones. Unless you know what you’re doing, you’re not even going to find it.’

‘Why not?’ Kim asked.

She could just contact Cybercrime and get this information from them, but she was here now, and she didn’t know what else she might learn.

‘Okay, think of search engines like Google as small fishing boats. They’re only able to catch the fish that are closest to the surface. The dark web isn’t indexed by regular search engines.’

Kim knew that once you found your way there, the dark web was full of trading sites where people could purchase all kinds of illegal goods and services. She also knew it was the home of keyloggers, botnets, ransomware and phishing schemes.

It reminded Kim of a Ouija board. Although she wasn’t particularly sold on the afterlife, she did feel that such an instrument was asking for trouble. Once you opened that door, you couldn’t close it again. Once you left your footprint in the dark web, you were susceptible to any kind of scam.

The troubled look on Bryant’s face urged her to hurry up. He wanted to be out of this man’s presence as soon as possible.

As did she, but she was learning a lot. This man was an expert in doing bad things and knowing how to get away with it.

But how bad were the things he was prepared to do?

‘So, your only knowledge of Lewis Stevens and Noah Reid is what you saw in the press?’

‘Pretty much,’ he answered.

She frowned. ‘That’s not a definitive yes, Mr Skidmore, which is troubling, as is your use of their first names only when we entered your home. Do you know them or not?’

‘I’ve seen Lewis around. I knew his name. Blackpool isn’t a large town.’

‘I still don’t see how you would know his name.’

‘Lewis has been on the news before. It’s not the first time he’s gone missing, which I assumed was why I hadn’t yet been spoken to. Red thinks he’s a runaway, doesn’t he?’

Did everybody in this town refer to the detective inspector by his nickname?

‘Red isn’t investigating, we are, and we don’t think Lewis has run away.’

Skidmore pushed back his chair. ’Well, you’re wasting your time here. He’s a little old for me. At twelve, he’s practically an adult.’

‘Guv,’ Bryant growled, and Kim got the message. She was on her final warning with her colleague before he did something they’d both regret.

‘Where were you on the night he disappeared?’ Kim asked.

‘I was here, alone. I never left the house.’

‘And Sunday night when Noah disappeared?’

He shrugged. ‘Same, I’m afraid.’

No way to prove or disprove his alibis, and he knew it.

She stood. ‘Excuse me if I don’t thank you for your time,’ she said, heading for the door.

Once outside, she locked on to his gaze.

‘You’ve been most informative, and I feel I’ve learned a lot. Not least that you can dress a piece of shit in finery, a crown and call it king, but at the end of the day it’s still just a piece of shit.’

She turned and headed for the car beside Bryant, who finally had a smile on his face.