Chapter 95
Dressed in a Garda-issue grey tracksuit, without his fancy clothing and trappings of wealth, Thomas Clarke looked like a criminal.
Lottie knew that looks could be deceiving, but she also thought she had a good handle on Thomas.
Boyd did the introductions for the recording, then she launched straight in.
‘Did you know about the safe in the floor of your garage all along?’
‘Sadie said it was for her late mother’s jewellery. I’d forgotten all about it. I never used it.’
‘What made you go and look in it?’
‘I was having a drink in the kitchen, staring at the leaves falling from the trees around the garage. I was thinking of Sadie and Lily when it clicked with me that we had a safe in there. For the first time, I wondered what might be in it. Honestly, it was curiosity that made me have a look.’
‘And what did you find?’
‘Cash. A lot of it, and it wasn’t mine. It had to be Sadie’s.’
‘How much?’
‘I didn’t count it, but going by the bundles, the guts of ten thousand euros.’
Lottie wondered if this was the money Liam had spoken about. ‘Where would Sadie come by so much cash?’
‘I don’t know. We have two bank accounts.
A joint one for our household stuff that both of us access.
And my business account. Sadie has no secret bank account – well, not that I know of, and after this, what do I know?
I thought it might have been her rainy-day fund.
I have no answer as to how she amassed it. ’
‘Why would Sadie need a rainy-day fund?’
‘Search me.’
‘Maybe it was a running-away fund, if she wanted to leave you.’
He mulled over her words before replying. ‘Maybe. Okay, look, I admit I lose my temper with her sometimes, and maybe she did want to leave me, but I still don’t know where she’d get ten grand.’
‘Why did you go to Alice Quigley’s house after you found the cash?’
He remained silent.
‘Thomas, did you find something else in the safe?’
To her surprise, he started to cry. ‘I went to Alice because of the photos. Awful photos.’ He sniffed, and she handed him a tissue from the box on the table.
After he’d composed himself, he said, ‘There were images of Lily and Freya. Two innocent children. Someone might class them as just snaps of kids having showers, undressing and that, but I knew what I was looking at. I couldn’t believe it. ’
Lottie tried to keep her voice calm and professional, while wanting to gouge out the eyes of whoever had exploited two young girls. ‘Do you indulge in porn sites, Thomas?’
His eyes bulged in his head. Genuinely horrified. ‘God, no. No way. I’m not into anything like that. I swear.’
‘Your friend Cameron Healy was into it.’ She recalled the asinine porn on his work computer, and then the disturbing images of children found on his laptop.
‘He was not my friend. I hardly knew the man.’
‘What did you do when you discovered the cash and photos?’
‘I took everything out of the safe and went inside and drank some more. I thought Caroline’s mother needed to know about the photos. Her granddaughter was naked in some of them. I can’t believe this. I honestly can’t get my head around it.’
‘Were the children posed?’
‘I don’t think so. It was like they were changing or dressing when the photos were snapped. From where or by what I don’t know.’
Lottie found it difficult to continue the interview.
She was thinking of the images they had discovered, and the fact that Freya’s iPad had been hacked.
The growing consensus at the National Cyber Crime Bureau was that some sort of virus had been embedded in one of the games the girls played.
StarryModel was the likely source. That didn’t explain what they’d resurrected from Cameron’s laptop or the hard copies Thomas had found.
‘Do you know who was involved?’ she asked.
‘I don’t, but I’m horrified. Who would do such awful things?’ He raised his hands towards the ceiling, then let them drop to the table. ‘My little girl. God… It’s unthinkable.’
‘I agree.’ Lottie desperately tried to keep her emotions balanced in front of him. She felt Boyd push his knee against hers to let her know she wasn’t alone. ‘You got a taxi to Alice’s, why?’
‘I’d been drinking. I didn’t want to be pulled over with those disturbing photos in my possession.’
‘What did she have to say when you arrived?’
‘Like me, she was horrified. She talked all sorts of shite, checking stuff on her laptop. She kept saying it was Sadie’s fault. That Sadie had killed Caroline and Freya, and that she must have snapped the photos and hidden them. That she had to be selling them, hence the cash.’
‘Did you believe her?’
‘I didn’t know what to believe. The photos and money were in our safe, for fuck’s sake!’
‘Where are they now?’
‘Alice told me she’d hold onto them until we decided what to do.’
‘Did she talk about Dermot Macken?’
‘She may have done, but I don’t remember.
She opened a bottle of whiskey and we drank through the night.
I passed out at her kitchen table. Then this morning she said we had to go talk to this Eugene guy.
She said he was Sadie’s father and he must know where she was hiding.
Why would she say she was hiding? Someone took her and Lily. ’
‘The thing is, Thomas, I can’t understand why Alice would trust you.’
‘I can’t understand why I trusted Alice. She drove up to Dublin and went into that house, where she assaulted the young carer. She was like a woman possessed. Said we had to go to a farm. I had no idea what she was talking about.’
‘But you still went along with it.’
‘All I wanted was to find my family. I wanted answers and I was caught up in her mania. That’s the truth. Where are Sadie and Lily, Inspector?’
Lottie shook her head and capped her pen. ‘That’s what I want to know too.’