‘Jesus,’ Kelly said. She pulled into a service station on the outskirts of Penrith. Indecent images of children were graded into three levels, A being the most offensive material.

‘That’s not all,’ Kate said.

Kelly’s stomach turned over. ‘I’m turning round, I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ she said.

‘Sasha Granger and Chloe Tate have been identified in some of them,’ Kate said.

‘God, I feel sick,’ Kelly said. She did a three-point turn. Whatever Fabian Kennedy-Craig could tell her about George Fellows, or his mother, could wait. News like this had the effect of turning a department upside-down. It made officers sick to their stomachs. This was a whole side to the case that no one had expected; the sheer volume and nature of the findings threw up hundreds of other possible explanations as to why somebody might want to take revenge against Kennedy-Craig and his friends. She saw a case like this growing exponentially until they were sucked down a hole that could span years. They could be looking at thousands of arrests and an infinite number of leads to hand over to Europol, who gathered information like this on paedophiles all the time. Nowadays, images and videos containing child porn were rarely kept private. They were worth so much on the dark web. But Kennedy-Craig didn’t need money. She was back to motive again, and came up with only one sickening conclusion.

A deduction that Kate confirmed.

‘Kennedy-Craig and Lord Reilly have been identified in some of the footage,’ Kate said.

‘Have you got the child abuse unit on board?’ Kelly asked.

‘Yes. Done,’ Kate replied.

‘Good; ask them if this changes how long we can hold Nellie Lowther,’ Kelly asked.

‘I’ve already done that,’ Kate said. ‘Highly unlikely, because we have no more evidence that she is involved directly than we did this morning. Even though the evidence was found on her property.’

‘Fuck,’ Kelly said.

‘I know,’ Kate said.

‘I’ll be twenty minutes,’ she said, and ended the call.

Chapter 55

Kelly returned to the office to receive more bad news. The CPS had refused the charges of soliciting minors against Nellie Lowther on lack of evidence and also dismissed the charges of boat theft against Paul Edderbridge. Until they had his DNA from something like the cigarette end or beer can, they weren’t interested. Both were free to go.

Meanwhile, Kelly called a briefing meeting with the child abuse team, which was based on another floor at Eden House.