Chapter 32
Before leaving Heron Hall, Kelly and Emma had watched some of the footage that Dan had uploaded from the USBs found in Jamie Robbins’ room.
They discussed it in the car on the way to Chapel Stile.
The tiny hamlet was a gem of nostalgia nestled in the Langdales. It still boasted a red telephone box and the local shop sold scones, toffee and maps.
Despite the images being personally repugnant, they weren’t illegal and the porn angle was a dead end.
Jamie Robbins, it would seem, was merely a pervert, but on the spectrum of deviance Kelly had witnessed in her eighteen years as a police officer, he was most definitely at the ‘normal’ end of the rainbow.
The images were all very similar. In the business, they might be deemed as vanilla, or bland. But it was still a distraction and Kelly wondered if that might be on purpose.
‘Do you think they were planted?’ Emma asked.
‘A diversion if anyone searched his room?’ Kelly asked back.
‘If somebody was looking for the suitcase that was actually in Angelina’s room?’
‘Which is virtually identical.’
‘Exactly.’
For a man of Jamie Robbins’ means, the haul wasn’t sophisticated or unique.
What was unusual though was the idea that a man of Jamie’s influence, and one who was so busy, needed to drag this amount of porn around with him in a suitcase, when he could have used the hotel Wi-Fi.
He could have easily gained access to better quality films and media content by simply hooking up to the internet.
And who printed out real photos anymore?
Even if he didn’t want the front desk to see his search history or his downloads, he could have firewalled his VPN, or used a remote one.
Emma caught up on the team’s progress and fed Kelly information as she drove.
‘Kate just texted me,’ Emma said.
Kelly waited.
‘She says YouthBlast doesn’t have a separate certification from the MHRA,’ she said.
‘MHRA?’
‘Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.’
‘Ah, why?’
‘Because it uses ingredients already passed for consumption. Allegedly.’
‘What about a patent?’
‘Yes, in the USA.’
‘Where was it tested?’
‘Like I said, it wasn’t required to be officially tested because it allegedly uses ingredients already deemed safe.’
‘So, they got a patent to protect their secrets essentially.’
‘Looks that way.’
‘How long until the lab tells us what’s in it?’
‘Another couple of days.’
‘And what if they lied about what’s in it?’
‘It’s illegal to trade in a product that makes medical claims without MHRA approval.’
‘Interesting. Anything else? Do we know if Skippy met a natural end or a chemical one yet?’
Emma laughed. ‘Not yet. We’ve had an email from Manchester Airport security,’ Emma told her as she navigated the winding roads towards the Langdales.
‘Jamie had a return first-class ticket back to New York scheduled for next week on a private flight. Tilda was scheduled to take the same one. The same for Paul Burlington. In answer to your inquiry they’ve confirmed that Hank Hampton and Sandy Cooper are booked on it too, as well as their security detail. ’
‘Please tell me we have names for the heavies?’
‘We do. From what I can tell from the scanning of boarding passes and the time stamps, our main man, the big one who likes baseball caps, is called Kevin Streeting; he’s a Brit. Ex-Special Forces. Worked with A-list celebs.’
Kelly didn’t normally handle cases involving private jet travel across her desk in Penrith. That world was unfamiliar to the Lake District. They had helipads and fancy yacht moorings but that level of wealth was uncommon around here.
‘Has he got a UK passport?’
‘Yes.’
‘So maybe we can get to him without ruffling too many feathers.’
‘They’ve attached the CCTV of Jamie passing through Manchester airport security with the others.’
Most ports were accommodating when it came to investigations.
All it took was a few clicks of a mouse and they had their answer.
Together with what the small group ordered to eat on their way from New York to Manchester, it was confirmed that the suitcase full of porn was not part of anyone’s luggage.
‘Jamie travelled light; on the security footage he’s carrying a holdall and a suit carrier, neither of which are the right size for us.’
‘So, what’s the likelihood of him picking up a case containing porn from a secret address in the UK, after he stepped off a plane and between Manchester and Cumbria, or that it was already in his room. Or his sister gave it to him?’
‘Not likely,’ Emma said. ‘I’m just checking Paul Burlington’s luggage list, and he didn’t have a suitcase matching the size and weight either.’
‘When I spoke to him he looked shaken up. Scared. Worried about something more than losing his friend and partner.’
‘Did he seem upset at all?’ Emma asked.
‘Upset, yes, but not emotional, does that make any sense?’
‘Heaps,’ Emma said.
‘Maybe the stash was supplied by the hotel. You know some of these finer establishments cater for some highly unusual requests for the right price.’
Emma screwed up her face.
‘Guv,’ Emma said to her. ‘Joe Folly posted on his Instagram last night. I follow him and I’ve been keeping an eye on his activity so me and Dan can hopefully work out where he is.’
They were almost at Angelina’s address and Kelly pulled into a parking spot and stopped the car.
Emma showed her the post and Kelly watched it.
The Reel was fresh and slick. The graphic was edgy with catchy modern music giving the impression that the podcaster challenged the system and won, every time.
They’d tried to locate the address of the account holder, but some social media providers could be slippery fuckers, and anybody could run an Instagram account from anywhere in the world.
They’d got nowhere and no closer to locating the DiggerMan or finding a contact for him.
The DiggerMan gets to the bottom of everything…
the Reel promised to expose anything that was being hidden from sight.
Joe Folly’s face was posted at the top of each slide and Kelly saw the same young and handsome guy from the podcast. The same man who appeared to know Angelina Robbins very well.
He was charismatic in a US-jock kind of way, with a broad, confident smile, even though he was English.
He was immediately likeable. She’d visited his site several times to check out posts about Jamie and YouthBlast, as well as general podcast episodes about the supplements industry, and each time she listened to him, she was convinced more by him.
He had two million subscribers. Emma, an avid podcast listener, told her that Spotify alone had over 170 million users.
Mainstream media didn’t matter anymore. Anybody could create an account like this, and if they were clever and committed, they could connect with millions of people around the world directly, bypassing the establishment.
They were the news now. The mainstream was being squeezed out by these digital wizards who accessed people’s lounges and bedrooms as friends.
They projected their own investigations onto ordinary citizens in their homes.
It was no longer filtered by corporate giants with only money in their hearts.
Companies like Hampton-Dent, who had everything to lose if they let go of the narrative.
These kids provided instant access to independent news with no filter through the establishment, which was why governments wanted them shut down. It was as scary as it was genius.
She watched as Emma flicked through Joe Folly’s last posts. It seemed as though he was in the USA when he’d last connected with his millions of fans, but then at the bottom, and easy to miss because it was the only one like it, was an update posted last night, like Emma said.
England is so beautiful, guys, more news very soon. I’m home! You’re not gonna believe this one.
The Reel was a compilation of Lake District locations and Kelly stared dumbfounded as Emma tapped through it.
‘Is that…?’
‘Rydal,’ Emma said.
‘He’s been here all along,’ Kelly said.