I get an idea, though, when Bob starts reading out highlights of my grime sheet, in the most disparaging voice I’ve heard yet from an English copper.
“You’ve got quite a history, haven’t you, son?
Let’s see. June 1999: assault occasioning actual bodily harm, common assault and
resisting police, for which you received an 8 month prison sentence, suspended.
2000: disorderly behaviour for which you received a fine. Lots of arrests round then, eh?
August 1998 – possession of a blade, 1999 – simple drunk and resisting police, lots of those.
Ooh, more charges in the Nineties – common assault, assault on police and resisting police? Plus all this page of arrests we couldn’t be arsed to charge you for… Our lazy mates across the water, I suppose. Huh.”
He’s just getting going. “But even just over here… It looks like you moved to England and stayed? A good dozen charges, two pages of arrests? More of the same. Oh, no?” The disdain gets upped a notch. “Possession of illicit substances, possession with intent to supply, assault, ABH.” He yawns for effect, then quotes the most recent. “Charged with drunk and disorderly, and GBH. That’s grievous bodily harm, for assault of a police officer…”
The inspector glares at me, making it very, very, clear that I, personally, am in some very deep shit before we even start. Forget my wondering how they got anyone to confess anything! I’m already tempted to beg for mercy. I practise the phrase, ‘no comment’, in my head.
“I think you’ll find that was an error,” Tanya pipes up calmly. “Mr Cullinane was only convicted of one count of common assault. The other charges were dropped or didn’t stick.”
He checks the file; she’s right. Thank fuck for that barrister I spent my then-savings on. Inspector Bob relaxes into being only 99.9% sure I’m guilty.
Tanya continues, “And that was twenty years ago. I know, 2003 hardly seems any time gone, but it’s been two decades, now.” Josh squirms, confused by Tanya’s suggestion that time flies. Of course, he barely remembers the Millennium. My pisshead years really are a lifetime away, for him.
I stay quiet. She’s got this. “I think the record makes clear that Mr Cullinane has spent the last twenty years as an upstanding member of society, no matter his youthful indiscretions.”
“Bit more than indiscretions, love,” Bob mutters. But he takes the point. Ancient history isn’t going to bear on this incident. He starts the whole interview again, along a different, direct line of attack: “Were you in an alley off Neckinger Row this evening?”
“No comment.”
“Were you with anyone, near Neckinger Row this evening?”
“No comment.”
“Did a man have sex with you this evening?”
I can’t help smiling. “No comment,” I tell them as apologetically as I can.
Bob looks to the ceiling. It’s uninspiring. “What would you say if I told you we have photographs of you, engaged in sex acts, in that alley off Neckinger Row?”
“Are you telling me that? In that case, I’d like to see them.”
Tanya nods in approval. “And so would I.”
“Certainly, Ms Jeffries.” Bob almost cracks a smile. “Pull them out, Josh. For the benefit of the DIR, I’m showing the suspect images 2024-09-16, Sierra-Oscar-Uniform 1671, parts alpha to delta. Four photos of the alley in question.”
They are, indeed, four A4-size black-and-white photographs of that location. Brick walls rising up each side, building site behind, in each one, all from the same point. And complete with me and Dan in them. He’s not really recognisable, given he’d pulled up his hoodie against a brisk wind, but my face couldn’t be more plain, my neck arched back as he sucks me off. I suppose one could argue it’s not definite that that’s what he’s doing, just because he’s kneeling at the right height with his face in my crotch, but we all know he is. It’s actually a hot picture.
That’s picture one. The next one, my face is blurred but I’m showing the world my cock. The camera’s focused on it. It’s not a flattering shot. Dan draws much better pictures of me showing off my junk.The third and fourth are also blurred, because I’m moving, getting fucked. But I can hardly claim they aren’t also me.
I try to keep my face impassive, and look to Tanya to respond. This is what she’s paid for.
Bob lets us stew in the silence for a few minutes, then breaks it. “So, Mr Cullinane. Penis. Exposure of. That’s indecent. And sex. Public place. Which equals Gross Indecency. That’s what these pictures show you doing.”
“No, they don’t,” Tanya interrupts him. “Firstly, it’s your assertion that one of these gentlemen is Mr Cullinane. Secondly, a photo doesn’t mean the gentlemen concerned didn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy. This chap might well have believed himself to be well away from any potential onlookers – we can look at the map later. In which case, the intent of exposure is lacking. Which also means there can be no intent to cause alarm or distress to anyone.”
She takes a breath and continues, “Similarly, outraging public decency requires some public present, to be outraged. If this couple believed themselves to be out of view of the public, again, no offence has been committed. Furthermore, I’d really like to know where these photos came from. They’re very clear, for that size. Taken by a professional, possibly? By someone who remained watching for a good few minutes.”
“Minutes?” Josh asks.
“I’m not an expert on gentlemen’s sexual encounters,” – Bob coughs, because she definitely is – “but I feel it’s unlikely that someone watching this couple would see both this possible oral sex, and what might possibly be penetration or just be one man standing behind another, and take these remarkably well-composed photographs, in less than five minutes. I mean, I’m sure you’d all have a better idea than me,” – she smiles round at all of us – “on how long it takes a man to get hard and then get mouthed to orgasm, and then to shuffle round, and then for any further activities to… how shall I put this… really get going?”
She says all this in a polite calm voice, without a hint of humour. She’s good.
Josh blushes, definitely thinking of the last time he got sucked off. Bob is nearly, but not quite, perfectly inscrutable. Probably doesn’t get enough blow jobs. Most long-term coppers are divorced.
“Mm.” Bob isn’t admitting anything. “This scene was enacted in a public place. No-one can expect privacy in an open thoroughfare! And I’m sure that Analysis will confirm that this image and Mr Cullinane’s new mugshot are of one and the same person.”
I’m sure, too. I keep my gob shut and look to Tanya.
“They may be. But on expectation of privacy – look at the alley on a map.” She reaches for her tablet, but Josh is already pulling out folder SOU 1672, Google Maps and Streetview images of the area. The location is clearly correct. The disused factory is still intact on the map, though half the hoardings are already in place, in front of it.
She taps the picture. “They’re leaning on that wall, what, four feet in front of that gate? Even with the new wooden hoardings, this gentleman is a good twenty, more like thirty feet from the road. And there’s a slight curve. And it’s dusk. Where’s our photographer standing?”