And into Lisbon from Madeira.
Donaldson looked at the photograph again. Something odd about Tiger Mayfair.
He rooted around his stationery drawer and found a magnifying glass which he held over Tiger’s head.
Yes, there was no mistaking it.
Donaldson laid the photo down and breathed deeply.
Scratch-marks down his left cheek.
Henry stumbled out of Morton’s office with a face of granite and all-pervading waves of cold fear gripping his intestines.
Allegations of sexual harassment, followed by indecent assault and then, possibly, rape, were dreadful to be levelled at anyone. Especially when they were untrue.
And that is what Siobhan had alleged against him.
She had said that from the first moment they’d met, he had constantly made lewd comments to her, sexual jokes and innuendo and he had leered at her virtually all the time. ‘Active mental groping’ was the term used.
She had gone on to tell Morton she had become physically sick as a result of his behaviour, but she felt powerless to do anything about it. After all, he was a Sergeant, she was only a Constable. But above all he was a man.
To Morton she said that Henry had forced her to kiss him at the NWOCS office in King Street when they had been there alone, collecting equipment. He had rubbed his body up against hers but she’d managed to struggle free and tell him not to touch her again. That night, she claimed, she’d gone to bed and cried herself to sleep, petrified at the thought of doing observations with him the following morning in Lancaster.
Things got worse after the shooting incident when, in the casualty department of all places, he had enticed her into the cubicle where he was receiving treatment and exposed himself to her.
It all culminated at King Street, again when they were alone. This time, she alleged, Henry forced her to undress and tried to rape her. He failed to penetrate her and ejaculate because he could not maintain an erection.
She had been terrified. Put through an horrendous ordeal by a man with power.
And now she wanted some action taken against him.
As the story was revealed to Henry, he simply sat there open-mouthed, unable to believe what was being said. It was all nonsense, of course. Both had been willing participants in the engagement until Henry’s head had cleared and he realised how foolish he was being — which was at the point where his very erect penis had brushed up against the lips of WDS Robson’s vagina.
Henry ran quickly through the legal definition of rape in his mind. Only the slightest degree of penetration needed to be proved, neither did the emission of seed have to take place. The other main thread to the offence was the question of consent. Was there true consent to the act of intercourse, or was it obtained by fear, force or fraud? Henry had dealt with enough rapes to know the pitfalls of proving it to a court; Siobhan would struggle to convince a jury she had been raped.
It was the others elements of her allegation which worried him.
Sexual harassment.
Indecent assault.
The former was strongly condemned by the police service and many male officers had lost their jobs because of it; the latter was a serious criminal offence which was often used in place of rape because it was easier to prove. It could lose him his job too — especially if he was in prison.
And I stopped myself from shagging her just to prevent future repercussions, he thought. Now I wish I’d carried on. What the hell was behind this?
Henry calmly relayed his side of the story.
‘ Whatever the truth of the matter,’ Morton said when Henry had concluded, ‘and I don’t suppose we’ll get to it anyway, this is a very serious matter, Henry. Very, very serious.’
‘ I realise that.’
‘ It affects so many others, directly or indirectly — the job, the squad, your wife, kids… God, the effect it could have on them beggars the imagination,’ Morton emphasised, making Henry squirm. ‘Your friends, colleagues. Mud sticks, old lad, even if these allegations prove to be unfounded.’
And wives divorce you.
And friends snub you.
Oh, shit.
‘ But at the moment,’ Morton explained, ‘no one but we three know about this. Maybe there is a solution. Let me have a think about it.’
His mind reeling, Henry made his way back to the comfort zone of his desk and slumped heavily down in the chair. His first reaction had been to find Siobhan and demand of her what the hell she was playing at, but he’d been severely warned against this course of action. Anything which smelled of intimidation or victimisation would be dealt with harshly, Morton had said.
Henry’s thoughts were bleak. He had never considered himself to be a sexual harasser. The notion made his skin crawl. Maybe he always had been, but hadn’t recognised it. Maybe he was so immersed in the sexist white heterosexual culture, he couldn’t see when he was harassing a woman. Could he be one of those men who made his blood boil? Those who constantly touched women, patted their arses, brushed against their tits? Perhaps he was.
Kate!
She would go ballistic. His eyes closed in a shudder of despair.
Two years of getting his marriage back on the straight and narrow. Working hard at it. Putting family first. It had taken a lot of dedication and love.
Once again through his own foolishness it was very likely to come tumbling down around his ears.
How the hell could he keep this quiet?
Just then, his day took a further turn for the worse. In stalked Superintendent Guthrie from the Discipline and Complaints branch.
Henry suddenly felt weaker than alcohol-free lager.
For the second time that day, Henry came out from an interaction with a higher-ranking officer with his head in a spin. Again he had difficulty taking in what was told him. This time things were in his favour, but even so it did not feel like a victory. It simply added to his overall confusion.
Shane Mulcahy had been into the police station earlier and retracted his complaint of assault, saying that everything was his fault. He’d pulled a hidden knife on the detective and the officer had acted in reasonable self-defence. In other words, Shane admitted he deserved what he got — a knee in the bollocks.
And to add weight to the retraction, Superintendent Guthrie said he had checked the custody record and found it backed up Henry’s description of the fight in the cell corridor.
‘ What?’ Henry had said, totally perplexed. ‘You mean the custody record says..?’
‘ That you acted in self-defence, yes.’ The Superintendent winked at Henry. ‘I knew things would work out for you. They always do when it’s a flimsy allegation. So, all I need to do is tie the loose ends up and write the whole unpleasant incident off. And I hope you learn something from the experience.’
‘ I’m sure I shall.’
On leaving the room Henry made his way quickly to the custody office where he looked up the relevant custody record.
It was true.
Eric Taylor had written that he’d observed the tussle between him and Shane, and had entered it onto the custody record.
Except it wasn’t the original entry, as Henry well knew. Because he’d checked the custody record last week and been in despair that firstly he’d forgotten to make an entry himself, and secondly that Eric Taylor did not leave him any space to write something in later.
Henry knew that Taylor was a good custody officer. Very fair in his dealings with prisoners and police officers alike. So why had he changed the entry in Henry’s favour?
Not something Taylor would have done in a million years.
He replaced the custody record binder on the shelf and sauntered back up to the CID office, trying desperately to get a grip on what had happened. He found it impossible and very disturbing.
‘ We need to judge this just right,’ Morton was saying. His audience consisted of Gallagher, Tattersall and Siobhan Robson. ‘Henry’s a dangerous individual because, basically, he’s honest. He might bend the rules to get a conviction, but you can bet it’ll be watertight in the end and will survive even the most ruthless scrutiny. So, people, how do we proceed?’