Chapter 26
Bradshaw said that Pure Pulse Productions wasn’t a limited company; it was structured as a sole trader. That meant that a single individual ran and owned the business. Poe was glad. It would make what he was about to do a whole lot easier.
Knight worked out of an office above a letting agency.
It was in a part of Romford yet to be hit by the gentrification stick.
The kind of London that Londoners could still afford.
Poe and Bradshaw had arrived early. Spotting a coffee shop on the opposite side of the street, they took a window seat and had breakfast while they waited for Knight to arrive.
Bradshaw had asked why they didn’t doorstop him at his home, but Poe thought that saying what he was about to say in front of Knight’s wife was unnecessarily aggressive.
They could always threaten him with that if things didn’t go their way.
‘Come on,’ Poe said. ‘No one likes being questioned when they have pastry crumbs on their jumper.’
‘Is that true?’ Bradshaw said sceptically.
Poe shrugged. ‘I’m not a fact-checking website, Tilly.’
They crossed the road. The door to Pure Pulse Productions was closed and locked. Poe pressed the buzzer.
‘Yes?’
Poe introduced himself. Bradshaw did the same.
‘Are you here for the auditions?’
Poe rolled his eyes. ‘I’d rather watch a Ben Fogle documentary.’
‘Then how can I help you?’ Knight asked.
‘It’s … sensitive,’ Poe replied. ‘Not something you want said out loud in this part of London, I imagine. Also, it’s very much in your interests to let us in. If you don’t, our next stop is the Metropolitan Police’s Complex Investigation Team.’
Knight buzzed them up. Poe had known he would. The Complex Investigation Team was well known in Romford. One of their investigations, Operation Winter Key – a specialist inquiry into historic child abuse – had made national news.
Knight met them at the top of the stairs.
If Poe could have designed a British pornographer, he’d have come up with someone very much like Toby Knight.
He looked like a fart searching for a trouser leg.
Seedy, sordid, sleazy. All the bad s-words, none of the good ones.
He had so many pockmarks his face resembled a dartboard.
He was balding but had a ponytail. He wore gold hoops in his ears.
Bradshaw had said that he no longer starred in his own movies.
Said it was probably due to him getting married.
Poe thought it was more likely because of his halitosis.
When he said, ‘I’m Toby Knight, how can I help you?
’ a wave of stink washed over Poe. It was so bad he started to cough.
Bradshaw put her hand over her nose and said, ‘Wowsers.’
Knight led them into a small meeting room.
Poe wondered if it had ever been used as a location.
He gestured to the moulded plastic seats around a Formica table.
It was sprinkled with sugar and stained with tea and coffee.
He offered Poe his hand. Poe ignored it.
He said, ‘No, thank you. I don’t want an STD. ’
‘Do you know anyone who does want an STD, Poe?’ Bradshaw said.
‘You make a good point, Tilly.’
‘Have I done something to upset you, Mr Poe?’
‘I don’t know. Probably.’
‘Then I think I’d like to have my solicitor present.’
Poe leaned forward. Hardened his jaw. ‘If I leave this room, I don’t come back to this room, Mr Knight.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘Yes you do,’ Poe said. He handed over one of the gumshoe business cards.
He’d enjoyed the joke at first, but things were getting serious now.
Perhaps they should get some new ones printed.
Too late now, though. Knight held the card like Poe had passed him someone else’s toilet brush.
He put it on the Formica table, where it immediately welded itself to the warm sugar.
‘I have been hired by a woman whose name shall remain confidential,’ Poe said. ‘This woman recently discovered that her daughter has been making pornographic films.’
Knight smirked. ‘And let me guess, she doesn’t like that?’
‘No, she does not.’
‘This business isn’t for everyone, I’m afraid.’
Poe paused a beat. ‘Good, you should be afraid.’
Knight stopped smirking.
‘My client’s daughter acquired some exceptional fake ID,’ Poe continued.
‘It’s so good, the counterterrorism police in Cumbria are investigating the supplier.
Anyway, I digress. The counterterrorism police aren’t your problem, Mr Knight.
Your problem is that although this ID stated she was eighteen, she was actually fourteen. ’
‘Fourteen?’
‘A very mature-looking fourteen, but fourteen nonetheless. She ran away from home and spent a year in London making films with people like you.’
‘Don’t matter,’ Knight said. ‘All my models sign consent forms. They confirm they are performing voluntarily and that they are over eighteen.’
‘She lied, Mr Knight. And because she was a child, legally she couldn’t consent.’
‘If she lied, then she’s the one who’s in trouble, not me.’
Poe snorted. ‘Yeah, that’s exactly how the law sees it. The paedophile claims the girl said she was sixteen, so it’s her who goes to jail. You see that on the news all the time.’
Bradshaw said, ‘Poe is being sarcastic, Toby Knight.’
‘I got that, thank you!’ Knight snapped.
‘Raise your voice to Tilly one more time and I’ll throw you out of that window,’ Poe said. He said it with a smile, but Knight got the message.
‘Sorry, miss,’ he mumbled.
‘It’s a shame you’re a sole trader and not a limited company,’ Poe went on.
Knight studied him carefully. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Because a limited company is legally distinct from the identity of the owner. You’d have limited liability should Pure Pulse Productions incur any debt.
In other words, your personal finances wouldn’t be at risk.
But you’re a sole trader. And sole traders have full liability for debt. Your personal finances are at risk.’
‘Pure Pulse Productions has no debt, Mr Poe.’
‘You mean Pure Pulse Productions has no debt yet.’
‘I don’t under—’
‘If you were unlucky enough to have filmed my client’s fourteen-year-old daughter, your business is – cover your ears, Tilly – to put it bluntly, fucked.
My client is going to press charges against everyone who sexually exploited her daughter.
You might avoid prison, but you won’t avoid the mountain of brown smelly stuff heading your way.
If you thought what happened to the porn industry was bad when Traci Lords was caught lying about her age, you haven’t been paying attention.
Traci Lords lied about her age during the analogue era.
It cost the porn industry hundreds of millions of dollars to seek and destroy the tapes of her having sex.
But you uploaded your films during the digital age.
And the digital age has wings. Once something’s on the internet, it’s always on the internet.
Now, you’re an industry insider. You know the business better than me.
Tell me, Mr Knight, what will the multibillion-dollar pornography companies do to the person, or sole trader, who uploaded child pornography to their websites?
When they start getting subpoenas? When it starts costing them money?
Do you think they’ll sit on their hands and take the fines and the bad press?
Or do you think they’ll go after the person, or sole trader, who exposed them to that risk? ’
Knight said nothing for almost a minute.
‘Now, I can hear the cogs already beginning to turn in your seedy little mind,’ Poe said. ‘You’re looking for a way out. A way to mitigate the damage. My advice is to stop that right now. If you have filmed my client’s daughter, there’s only one way to keep your house and your marriage.’
‘What do you want?’