Register. Print-outs from the database gave him name and address records, photographs, risk assessments, and offenders’ modus operandi. Sex offenders on the register were obliged to confirm their registration annually, failure being subject to a penalty of up to five years imprisonment.
And Murfin was right – there weren’t many of them, just a dozen or so. Some of the individuals could immediately be discounted on grounds of age. How did you get yourself on the Sex Offenders’ Register at the age of sixteen? It didn’t bear thinking about.
Then Cooper stopped turning the pages. A face was looking out at him, the usual full face and profile shots taken in a police custody suite on arrest. The face itself was unremarkable. It was the representation of a middle-aged man with receding hair and a hint of grey stubble, a man who could pass unnoticed in any street. Cooper realized it was the eyes he remembered. They were calculating eyes, watchful and suspicious of the world. In some circumstances, they might look like the eyes of a predator.
‘Sean Deacon,’ he said.
‘Oh, him,’ said Murfin. ‘A nasty piece of work. He has a record of violence towards children. His partner kicked him out when she found out he was physically abusing her two children.’
‘How old were they?’
‘Four and six,’ said Murfin.
The address given for Deacon was in Wirksworth, about ten miles northeast of Ashbourne, on the other side ofCarsington Water. So Murfin had extended the search criteria anyway, and had pulled out Sean Deacon at the second attempt.
‘Does he have a job at the moment? Where does he work?’
‘At the Grand Hotel. He’s a kitchen worker.’
‘What – here in Edendale?’
‘Absolutely.’
Cooper had an image of a man slouching from an interview room to a cell in the custody suite at Edendale, a man who turned to look at him over his shoulder as he passed. It was that tilt of the head he’d recognized in Dovedale, a face half turned away in shadow, but the angle of a cheek and the slope of a shoulder were distinctive. You might change your face, but it was difficult to hide the way you moved.
‘I think I was involved in an arrest,’ he said. ‘Or at least an interview.’
‘You have a good memory.’
‘For faces, yes.’
‘Handy.’
‘If he’s on the register, he must have been convicted under the Sex Offenders Act since 1997.’
‘Oh, yes. He was later convicted for attempting to abduct a seven-year-old from a park in Matlock. He was given four years in prison, spent thirty months inside, came out on licence, and now he’s on the Sex Offenders’ Register.’
‘And he was watching children in Dovedale on Monday,’ said Cooper.
‘Is this him, then?’
‘Yes, this is him.’
Cooper was feeling quite shaky now. It would pass, he knew. If he gave it a few hours, and got a good night’s sleep, he’d be absolutely fine, just as he’d told Superintendent Branagh.
Then he thought about going home to Welbeck Street. And it occurred to him that home, on his own, might be the place where he would feel worst.
At the end of the morning, he walked out of E Divisional Headquarters and crossed the road, passing the back of the main stand at Edendale FC. The last match of the UniBond League season had been played a few weeks ago, but it wouldn’t be long before the preseason friendlies started at the beginning of July. Some Yorkshire side from Sheffield or Barnsley would be the first visitors, he’d heard. Then a local derby with Buxton or Matlock.
He didn’t follow the Edendale soccer that closely, but it was useful to be aware of big matches from a policing point of view. Also, it helped to know when you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere to park your car on a Saturday.
Liz Petty had dashed over from Buxton, still in her blue sweater, and met him for lunch in May’s Café off West Street, in a lane running steeply downhill to Edendale’s Clappergate shopping centre.
He’d
And Murfin was right – there weren’t many of them, just a dozen or so. Some of the individuals could immediately be discounted on grounds of age. How did you get yourself on the Sex Offenders’ Register at the age of sixteen? It didn’t bear thinking about.
Then Cooper stopped turning the pages. A face was looking out at him, the usual full face and profile shots taken in a police custody suite on arrest. The face itself was unremarkable. It was the representation of a middle-aged man with receding hair and a hint of grey stubble, a man who could pass unnoticed in any street. Cooper realized it was the eyes he remembered. They were calculating eyes, watchful and suspicious of the world. In some circumstances, they might look like the eyes of a predator.
‘Sean Deacon,’ he said.
‘Oh, him,’ said Murfin. ‘A nasty piece of work. He has a record of violence towards children. His partner kicked him out when she found out he was physically abusing her two children.’
‘How old were they?’
‘Four and six,’ said Murfin.
The address given for Deacon was in Wirksworth, about ten miles northeast of Ashbourne, on the other side ofCarsington Water. So Murfin had extended the search criteria anyway, and had pulled out Sean Deacon at the second attempt.
‘Does he have a job at the moment? Where does he work?’
‘At the Grand Hotel. He’s a kitchen worker.’
‘What – here in Edendale?’
‘Absolutely.’
Cooper had an image of a man slouching from an interview room to a cell in the custody suite at Edendale, a man who turned to look at him over his shoulder as he passed. It was that tilt of the head he’d recognized in Dovedale, a face half turned away in shadow, but the angle of a cheek and the slope of a shoulder were distinctive. You might change your face, but it was difficult to hide the way you moved.
‘I think I was involved in an arrest,’ he said. ‘Or at least an interview.’
‘You have a good memory.’
‘For faces, yes.’
‘Handy.’
‘If he’s on the register, he must have been convicted under the Sex Offenders Act since 1997.’
‘Oh, yes. He was later convicted for attempting to abduct a seven-year-old from a park in Matlock. He was given four years in prison, spent thirty months inside, came out on licence, and now he’s on the Sex Offenders’ Register.’
‘And he was watching children in Dovedale on Monday,’ said Cooper.
‘Is this him, then?’
‘Yes, this is him.’
Cooper was feeling quite shaky now. It would pass, he knew. If he gave it a few hours, and got a good night’s sleep, he’d be absolutely fine, just as he’d told Superintendent Branagh.
Then he thought about going home to Welbeck Street. And it occurred to him that home, on his own, might be the place where he would feel worst.
At the end of the morning, he walked out of E Divisional Headquarters and crossed the road, passing the back of the main stand at Edendale FC. The last match of the UniBond League season had been played a few weeks ago, but it wouldn’t be long before the preseason friendlies started at the beginning of July. Some Yorkshire side from Sheffield or Barnsley would be the first visitors, he’d heard. Then a local derby with Buxton or Matlock.
He didn’t follow the Edendale soccer that closely, but it was useful to be aware of big matches from a policing point of view. Also, it helped to know when you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere to park your car on a Saturday.
Liz Petty had dashed over from Buxton, still in her blue sweater, and met him for lunch in May’s Café off West Street, in a lane running steeply downhill to Edendale’s Clappergate shopping centre.
He’d
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