by M. G. Cole
But that sense of progress was an illusion. All cases had an ebb and flow. The massive rush chasing leads would soon peter out as the investigation became more targeted, and with it, the pace would slow. If the investigation team hit lucky, momentum would finally coast them towards an arrest. The sad fact was, like his Land Rover, it would probably cough, splutter and roll to an unsatisfactory stop. Unsolved, until somebody gave it a push at a later date.
“I’ll get on it,” said Chib.
Garrick searched for any signs of sarcasm or a sign that she was overwhelmed. It was a lot of material to gather across a huge county, but he found none as she made a set of bullet points in her notepad, in her perfect handwriting. Not wanting to portray himself as a lazy fifth-wheel, he added:
“I’ll go down the Truckstop in Ashford. I know the manager there. It’s only a few miles from Folkestone, so it’s possible they could have been operating out of there.”
It had been a while since he had a visit in this little nook of Kent, well over a year at least, and already it had changed. Since Brexit, the Ashford International Truckstop had expanded considerably. As he pulled off the Orbital Park roundabout on the A2070, he didn’t recognise the place at all. The road in passed a Jaguar/Land Rover car showroom, with gleaming beauties parked outside all beyond his financial comfort zone. Half a dozen warehouses now occupied the land, and a new superstore was being built to cater for the swelling middle-class housing estates in the vicinity. The town had the potential to become a sought-after booming financial centre, especially with quick access to the Channel Tunnel and a high-speed train that deposited commuters into London in thirty-five minutes – quicker than some London suburbanites could get into the city themselves. And all of it close to the spectacular Kent Downs. It would have been perfect… if not for the country’s crippled economy and general sense of gloom.
It was just after lunchtime when Garrick parked and walked to the manager’s office. There were a few lorries parked up, with licence plates from across Europe, but it felt empty. Things only really picked up at the end of the day, when drivers searched for a safe place to sleep where they wouldn’t have to worry about their trailers being broken into. Somewhere with shower facilities and a decent but cheap café, they could relax in. At night, it was a buzzing International community, but day, a ghost town.
“David!” exclaimed the portly manager as he sprung from his chair and embarrassed Garrick. Over the years they had got to know each other reasonably well, so all formal modes of address had faded into memory. Garrick was please about that, he didn’t enjoy the stuffy formality of ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ that the force demanded. Having people who treated you as a mate was something much more valuable. “It’s been too long! A year? Sit down.”
Garrick took the offered seat at the desk. “Eighteen months, maybe. You haven’t changed much, Doug.”
Douglas Clarke patted his ample stomach appreciatively as he popped a capsule in his Nespresso maker and hit the button to make a coffee.
“A little wider. And you’re a little greyer, but all is as it should be.”
“I see your empire has grown,” Garrick peered out of the venetian blinds as a lorry entered the park with a heavy diesel rumble. It sported a vehicle registration code P for Portugal.
Doug handed the Nespresso to Garrick. “Fell off the back of a lorry,” he laughed, then remembered who he was talking to. “Well, not literally.”
Garrick took the coffee with one hand and waved the comment aside with a chuckle. The smell from the rich liquid was already turning his stomach, but he didn’t wish to offend Doug, who was pleased with his new toy. Doug sat behind his desk, elbows propped on the desk as he leaned forward.
“So what brings you here?”
“Well, first of all, how’s Cathy and the kids?”
“She’s fine. Still at William Harvey. And Elizabeth has gone got herself into Liverpool Uni. Your old neck of the woods, I believe.”
“She’s left school already?” Garrick was shocked. He’d met Doug’s daughter once and recalled her as a little freckle-faced girl with gapped teeth.
“Tell me about it.”
Garrick motioned to drink the coffee, but stopped short of actually sipping it. He put the cup on the desk and pulled his phone out – after selecting the wrong pocket twice.
“Do you recognise these girls?”
There was a tactic understanding that no forms of prostitution were encouraged on site. Prostitution itself wasn’t a crime under UK law, only soliciting for it was. The unspoken acknowledgement was that nobody wanted drivers kerb-crawling in their lorries, and the girls would be infinitely safer in a controlled environment.
Doug studied the pictures and chewed his lip thoughtfully.
“I can’t say they ring a bell. But they all look the same to me.” He laughed and passed the phone back.
Garrick’s smile remained in place even as he remembered Doug’s shortfall. He was a nationalist. If not an out-and-out racist, but he had fiercely denied that in the past, even though his views were more suited to the nineteen seventies.
From that point Garrick had little patience for a social chat. He thanked Doug for his time and went to see the staff in the restaurant. Nobody seemed to recognise the girls. Garrick was about to admit defeat when one of the cook changed his mind.
“Wait a sec. I think she was here.” He indicated to Jane Doe. “Oi, Peter, isn’t this the girl you tried to get off with?”
The older of the two cooks shot daggers at him. Garrick looked at him expectantly.
Peter walked across and looked at the phone again. The picture had been taken in the morgue, so showed a close-up of the girl’s face. Garrick had deliberately turned it black and white to hide the pallor on her face. With her eyes closed, she could be asleep.
“Maybe. The one I helped,” he spat at the younger cook, who walked away chuckling. “Phil’s a moron. I didn’t try getting off with no one. But she looks a bit like a girl in here the other night.”
“Do you remember what day?”
“Two, three nights back. Three, I think. I wasn’t supposed to be in today, but Mandy was sick.”
“What’s your name?”
“Peter Thorpe.”
Garrick sat with Peter in the corner of the restaurant as staff set about cleaning the surrounding tables.
“You’re sure that was the night?”
Peter nodded. “That was my last night. I was off yesterday.”
The night of her murder. Garrick glanced around for any security cameras. He couldn’t see one. He’d leave that for Chib.
“It was pouring down. Freezing. She came in when most drivers had gone back to their trucks to get their heads down. Normally we shouldn’t let the girls in.” He looked around uncomfortably. “But she looked upset and was soaked to the bone. Shivering, too. I felt bad throwing her out. I’ve got daughters of my own, and I know these girls have had it tough. I didn’t see the harm in letting her sit quiet in the corner and warm up.”
The cook folded his hands on the table and glanced around, keen not to be overheard.
“She wanted to buy something warm. She looked half-starved and, I don’t know, like she’d had a bit of a shock. Her English wasn’t up to much, but she had a handful of crumpled fivers she kept offering. We’re not supposed to serve anybody who isn’t a driver, but we had a load of leftovers that would binned . So I gave her a meal. Didn’t take her money.”
Garrick nodded, appreciating the man’s kind gesture, but he had to cover all the bases and there was no room for politeness.
“Did she try to thank you in some other way?” Peter looked offended, but there was something plastic about his reaction. Something that didn’t quite feel authentic.
“I dunno what you mean.”
“Come on. A good-looking girl like that? I’m sure she wasn’t afraid of sex for favours.”
“Can’t a man help out a girl without being branded a perv?”
&nbs
p; Garrick held up his hand to calm him. “You’re quite right, but I had to ask. Did she tell you her name?”
“I didn’t ask. It’s not as if I sat down and chatted to her. She ate everything by the time I started loading the dishes. When I looked again, she’d gone.”
“Was that the first time you saw her?”
Peter nodded. Garrick took the man’s full details and noted down the names of the other four staff who had been on duty that night. After getting their addresses from Doug, he drove to the nearest two who lived in Ashford.
Both women had worked there for longer than Peter. The first, lived in the town centre, claimed not to have seen a thing. She coughed and spluttered through the questions, and Garrick remembered she was the one Peter was currently covering for. The second woman, Shelia, was in her fifties. Despite being at home, she had put on makeup and looked quite glamorous. She kept Garrick talking on her doorstep despite the drizzle and wore a disapproving scowl when she recalled the night in question.
“He gave her a heaped plate of chips, egg and ham. Beans, too. We had a load left and it would be a shame to sling it all, but he shouldn’t bloody be feeding the tarts who come in. We’re not a charity.”
“Do a lot of girls come in?”
“Only every now and again, and only when it’s really bad outside. But you should see his face when they do. Always taking a shine to them.”
“So this wasn’t the first time it happened?”
“Ha! He thinks he’s a regular Prince Charming. He’s a bloody flirt, so they should be thankful they don’t understand half the shit he’s spouting.”
Garrick held up the girl’s picture again. “Think carefully. Had she ever been in before?”
“I can’t remember.”
“How long as he worked there?”
“Peter?” She looked to the sky for divine inspiration. “Maybe about four years.”
“Married? Kids?”
She laughed. “Married alright. That’s all he ever talks about, how bloody fed up he is with his missus. You know, they divorced last year. Or are they separated? I don’t think they live together no more.”
With much to chew on, Garrick visited another cook who lived in Harrietsham. He vaguely recalled seeing the girl but had thought little about it. He commented that Peter was a sucker at the best of times. He’d seen him undercharge drivers who didn’t have the right money on them. He was always helping and more than happy to give two fingers to their boss, who they both thought was a dick. Just as Garrick was leaving, he added that he thought Garrick and Shelia had had a thing. He wasn’t sure if that had led to Peter’s divorce or if he was on the rebound. Either way, it had soured the atmosphere in work which used to be filled with lively banter. For the last several months, it had been dire.
“Peter Edward Thorpe,” said Garrick as he pinned a picture of the cook on the wall, taken from his Facebook page. From what he could see, his posts were mostly about fishing and Crystal Palace Football Club. “Cook at the Truckstop, which is the last place our victim had been seen alive.”
It was the end of the day, and the ten-strong members of the investigation team had gathered for the briefing. All but he and Chib were in uniform.
“We’re still waiting for the video footage from there,” Harry said. “They’re slow but promised it by the morning.”
“Good. We need to run a background check on Thorpe too.”
A young Asian PC Liu waved her hand “Already started.”
Garrick struggled to remember her name. It began with a ‘P’. She had just started a few months before he’d taken leave and remembered being impressed with her acumen back then.
She continued. “He has been there for just over four years, having been hired just before the Christmas as maternity cover, which turned permanent. He’s divorced, his wife left him and moved to Canterbury with her new man, taking the children with him.”
“Was there a child care case?”
“No. It seems he was fine with her doing that. Other than a couple of speeding offenses over the last twelve years, he has no record.”
Garrick nodded as he soaked up the information.
“Where are we on the ANPR list from the Truckstop?”
The Automatic Number Plate Recognition system was a vital tool in cataloguing the trucks entering and leaving the rest stop.
“Came through in the last hour,” Liu said.
“Thank you Fi… Fei…”
“Thanks, Fanta,” said Chib, glancing knowingly at Garrick.
“Fanta?” Garrick smiled. “That’s really your name? Like the drink?”
PC Fanta Liu had obviously heard this all before. “My dad is Chinese and has no imagination. You can call me Chao-Xing if you prefer?”
“Do you prefer Fan, or…?”
“Oh, I really hate Fan, sir.”
Garrick nodded. “Noted.” He took a breath to continue, but Fanta interrupted.
“Are we now following the line that the victims were a sex workers?”
“It’s the most likely one at the moment,” Garrick replied.
“But neither showed signs of sexual activity when they died.”
“Sex isn’t always a two-way street, Pepsi.”
She pulled a face as guffaws rippled across the room.
“We have one name, Galina from Iran, definitely an immigrant. Still no name or nationality for our Jane Doe, but we now know that she was hanging around the Truckstop the night of her murder and was behaving frightened and vulnerable. The only thing currently linking the two girls is the ritualistic removal of skin from their bodies.”
He took in the faces of his team. Harry Lord was possibly a couple of years older, but other than that he was the eldest, something that made him feel like a fossil.
“We will keep pushing. Keep looking for connections, no matter how weird and wonderful.” He tapped Peter’s picture. “We have our first person of interest. Is there anything that connects him to the first victim? Was she ever at the Truckstop? What I would like to see is our suspect list growing a little more. If Thorpe was having an affair with his co-worker, then I want details. Was he abusive to his ex-wife? Dig deeper, people, dig deeper.”
6
While he had been dreading a session with his therapist, Garrick actually discovered he was entering the building with a spring in his step. The small unassuming office was on the outskirts of Maidstone and the pleasant young receptionist hadn’t made him wait, instead he was led straight into Dr Amy Harman.
With wavey shoulder-length blonde hair, streaked with darker strands, and red plastic rimmed glasses, she bucked the idea of what Garrick thought a psychologist should be. He didn’t want the sessions, and in fact had found them useless, but HR was paying and it was a mandatory requirement that he complete the course as he came to terms with his sister’s death. Dr Harman had assured him that everything was confidential, and she reported nothing back to HR other than her assessment whether Garrick was fit for duty.
She wore a smart blue suit jacket and skirt, with a white blouse underneath, and a black pencil skirt. She was about the same age as him, but could pass for younger. Even though it was the end of the day, she looked as if she had just walked through the door. She gestured to the comfortable sofa and Garrick sat. No shrink’s chair for him. Dr Harman sat in her single seat at an angle to him, so she could better observe his reactions. Although she had a pad and pen to one side, Garrick couldn’t remember her writing anything down.
“How are you today, David?”
“Have we started?” After a career of interrogating hardened criminals, he hated the fact this slip of a woman made him feel so inferior and nervous.
“If you like. If not, then it’s just a courtesy.”
“Fine, how are you?”
“You’re my last client of the day, so that makes me feel happy.”
“Then you can speed through this and we can both go home.”
Harman laughed. It was a soft, warm
sound that calmed Garrick. “What I meant was, there is no rush. If we tip over the hour, don’t worry, your workplace is picking up the bill.” She shared a small conspiratorial smile.
Garrick folder his arms and settled back on the couch. “It has been a busy day, which is a good thing. I thought I would be shattered, but I’m not. Quite the opposite.”
“Did your leave of absence help recharge your batteries?”
“I think being back at work is doing that. It’s giving me a focus. Being stuck at home was more like a prison sentence.”
“Surely locked up with the one person you get along with.”
“No…” he shook his head before he realised the route Dr Harman’s questions were taking him. He was annoyed, but forced a smile and wagged a finger at her. “Dr Harman, are you coaxing me into saying incriminating things about myself?”
“You really are a policeman. Suspicious of everyone. You’re the one leading the conversation, I’m just listening in, like I would a radio station.”
“When I’m on my own, my thoughts have time to drift to places I don’t want them to. At work, I don’t think about my sister. At home, it’s difficult not to.” He glanced at her and held up his hand to stop a question that he was coming. “No, I haven’t heard any more news. I’ve resisted asking the Americans, because if they had something to tell me, they would do. So what’s the point?”
He lapsed into silence, waiting for the doctor’s next question. He really hadn’t thought about his sister all day, for the first time in a long time. Only Harman bringing it up had made him…
Wait, did she? Did she mention Emilie or…?
He frowned at her and was once again disarmed by her lopsided smile.