Chapter 5
Bromley Magistrates’ Court
Josh couldn’t stop grinning as they exited the afternoon session at Bromley Magistrates’ Court. He was wearing clean jeans and a shirt that Bex had bought him so Ingram could have his original clothes DNA-tested, and looked like a decent, middle-class kid. With Bex willing to put herself forward as a character witness on his behalf and post herself as surety for him, the court appointed lawyer lined up by the duty solicitor had presented a solid case for bail.
She had been prepared to argue with Ingram about the court hearing, but the sergeant had surprised her.
“I’m sick of the station being used as a dumping ground for any strays without a home. Coming up for the weekend I’ll be lucky to get social services to take on Brymer’s case and find a spot for him. I’m dealing with an overworked front counter and that’s simply because police have become the point of last resort. It’s not fair to my men. Frankly, if you can get Brymer off on bail and out of my holding cells, I’ll dance a jig for you.”
Ingram had even provided a police constable to escort them.
“I was shittin’ myself in there, but you pulled it off,” Josh said, pumping her hand.
“It’s only the first step, but at least we can get you home now.” His exuberance made her feel like smiling.
They were huddled outside the courtroom. The hallway was filled with nervous litigants and witnesses, bored police officers and frazzled court officials skipping from one case to another as the list callers shouted out the names of the next cases.
Across the faux marble floor, Bex caught sight of a slim woman in a tight-fitting pale lemon suit. It wasn’t a color that many women could wear. On her, the subtle color highlighted a creamy complexion, tawny eyes and auburn hair cut to precision. The skirt was short enough to showcase shapely calves and red-soled, black-vamped high heels.
With a start Bex recognized Isla Standing, Quinn’s ex-wife. All Bex knew about Isla was that she was a hot-shot lawyer with hot-shot looks.
Isla stood in earnest discussion with an Asian man dressed in an impeccably cut navy suit. A red silk tie was intricately knotted and his dark hair was sleekly pulled back from a broad forehead to sit just above his suit collar.
“That daft cow Ingram can go jump in a lake. I can’t wait to see her face when she learns I’ve got bail.” Josh’s gloating voice brought her attention back to the conversation.
Constable Swaversley, who had accompanied them to court, raised a hand to clamp Josh on the shoulder. He stood a good half a head shorter than the teenager but was twice as broad. “Oi, you, don’t go getting too cocky, son. You’re only released on bail. The charges still stand,” he said sharply.
“What happens now?” Bex asked, but her attention was distracted wondering if Isla was representing a client in court. When she looked past Josh’s shoulder, the couple had disappeared through the doorway.
“Now I take him back to the station to sort out the paperwork. Only then is he free to go,” said Swaversley.
“I’ll let you go on ahead with Constable Swaversley, Josh, but I’ll make sure I’m there in time to sign the documents.”
Josh’s eyes widened in alarm. “You’re not coming with me?”
“I have something to take care of. I promise I’ll be there for you.” Bex patted him on the arm to reassure him. She couldn’t explain to herself her strong desire to see Isla Standing in action. Perhaps knowing a little more about Isla would give her clues to handling the truculent Quinn who seemed hell bent on giving Bex a hard time running her new team. “I promise I won’t let you down, Josh,” she said again as he resisted Swaversley’s tug to move forward.
“Come on, mate, I don’t have all day.” Swaversley nudged Josh to start moving.
Bex watched the duo exit before she crept into the opposite courtroom, slipping into a bench near the door. Her recent training had brushed over court procedures and she was curious to see the real thing in action.
The room was filled with Scandanavian wood furnishings and a neutral vinyl flooring. A huge royal crest hung behind the three magistrates seated at an elevated bench at the front. None wore robes. The two men and a woman were dressed in dark, conservative suits, the men with ties and the woman with a string of pearls around her throat. Bex had been stunned to learn that magistrates weren’t legal professionals and volunteered their time to the court. She found it difficult to comprehend how such a system could work.
All wore expressions of polite interest and the chairman held himself with military dignity, although the woman on his left looked distinctly harried.
A few reporters clustered together, scribbling notes, in the front seats to take down the prosecutor’s words. The Asian man in the immaculate suit stood as unmoving as a statue in the defendant’s stand to the right. His gaze remained riveted to Isla. The witness box was empty.
A young couple sat at the far end of Bex’s bench and a dark-haired woman, her head slightly bent, sat in the seat in front of her. Her hair was swept back in two sleek wings, covering her ears and knotted into an elegant chignon at her nape.
There was a scattering of people on the other side of the aisle, but otherwise the courtroom was almost deserted. A lucky fact considering there didn’t appear to be any air conditioning that Bex could tell. The female magistrate dabbed discreetly at her forehead with a handkerchief.
As the prosecutor took his seat, the clerk of the court called on Isla, then quickly lowered his head, prepared to take notes while she spoke.
Seated on the court’s right hand side, facing the magistrates, Isla appeared unperturbed by the heat. In one fluid movement she uncrossed her sheer legs and rose to her feet. As she did so she drew every male eye to her figure like metal filings pulled towards a magnet. She continued to hold their attention more captive than a police hostage as she spoke.
“Your Worships, my client is an upstanding citizen whose business in this country benefits numerous enterprises. I submit to the court that my client, Li Jian, is not here to challenge the court’s ruling of a guilty verdict. He readily accepts that he neglected to pay the fines imposed for his speeding offenses. But I put it to the court that this non-payment was not done deliberately. Mr Li was originally in a temporary abode at the time of the offenses and when he moved…”
Bex flicked her head to the side as two men barged through the courtroom doors, drowning Isla’s next words. The woman in front also turned her head, revealing a delicate profile and teardrop-shaped eyes. The taller of the two men had greasy hair tied back in a man bun. The other wore a sneer lifting one side of his lips, almost like a feral dog baring its teeth.
As they approached down the aisle, their attention latched onto the young woman in front of Bex. The sneering one moved past Bex to stand in the aisle with arms crossed belligerently waiting until the woman shrank back in her seat to make way for him to pass her. He took two steps and then sank down so close to her that she scuttled sideways to perch on the edge, unable to move any further away. Bex frowned at his rudeness.
Isla’s voice continued to flow through the courtroom, its tone and timbre as rich as her Titian hair. She had not broken her rhythm when the men entered.
“…Li wishes to abide by this country’s laws. I put it to Your Worships that the only reason this matter has been brought to court is because of my client’s visa…”
She heard the bench behind her creak as the other man took a seat.
“… your kind here. Go back to your own country.”
The vehement hostility of the words hissed by the sneering man as he leaned into the woman, drew Bex’s attention away from Isla. He was almost spitting in fury as he lashed out. The woman sat frozen in her seat. She didn’t move a muscle.
“…robbing our kids of futures…kicking honest people out of jobs…” the man spewed more racist comments, his flat, hate-filled voice barely audible.
The woman’s stillness reminded Bex of the man in the defendant’
s box.
“Your Worships, all my client requests is that his sentence…”
Bex tried to concentrate on Isla’s defense but she found herself riveted by the couple in front. She watched his thick lips moving, only inches away from the woman’s sleek hair and her anger boiled as she caught more sickening slurs.
“…matter to be removed from criminal court so that it doesn’t impede his visa restrictions…” Isla’s voice floated over their heads.
Infuriated by her lack of response, the man elbowed the woman so sharply she uttered a stifled squeak. Bex’s anger flared.
She leaned forward, shoving her warrant card under his nose as she reached forward with her other hand to pinch him hard on the lobe of his ear. “Can the comments, knucklehead, and show some respect for being in court.”
He yelped and flung his arm up abruptly. She swiped his elbow aside, trapping it hard against the wooden back of the bench. His head arched backwards as he glared at her. The young woman leaped from the seat into the aisle.
Bex was vaguely aware that the clerk of the court had raised his voice and she saw a blur as the defendant rushed from the dock, but she was watching her attacker’s eyes focus behind her right shoulder. Instinctively she released him, dodging left.
The anticipated blow missed the back of her head and glanced off her shoulder. She let the force of it propel her body downwards. As she hit the seat, she swung her legs up onto the bench, shooting one foot out to connect with the greasy-haired man’s cheek. She felt rather than heard his grunt as he toppled over the bench back.
There were shouts and a blur of people moving down the aisle just beyond the vision of her resting head.
As greasy-hair’s body slumped, the original offender lunged over the seat in front of her. Bex retracted her legs into her torso. She uncoiled them like a spring to connect with his chest, applying his momentum to launch him over her head. She heard him crash into the aisle behind her. Then, using the other attacker’s inert body as a weight to push off from, she drove herself along the smooth wooden surface over the edge, twisting her body to sprawl on top of him. A tangle of moving legs tripped over them as panicking journalists tried to escape the melee.
Ignoring the chaos, she planted an elbow between his shoulder blades, pinning his winded body to the floor. Twisting her neck to the side, the first thing she noticed was a pair of black high heel pumps. The legs that rose from those expensive shoes wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Radio City Rockette line up.
Beside Isla were two tiny feet encased in ballet flats, standing close to a pair of men’s glossy black leather dress shoes below crisply pressed, blue-suited legs.
The craven desire to flee before she could be identified flitted through her mind. Bex’s hip and shoulder, which had taken the brunt of the landing, albeit softened by the man’s body, ached. Bruises would develop by the end of the day. She hefted herself upright, sitting back on her haunches to face the trio.
Bracing herself, she met Isla’s tawny-gold gaze, then a set of hooded, serpent black eyes regarding her with an impenetrable expression as Li Jian clasped the sleek-haired woman to his chest. The young woman, whom Bex had tried to defend, stared back at her with a look of disdain.
“Li Jian and Li Xiu Lan, I believe this is Detective Chief Inspector Wynter, from the Youth Crimes Team.” Isla’s voice had a noticeable bite as she looked down her nose at Bex, who grimaced in return.
Bloody hell! The oath popped into her head, succinctly summing up her conflicted feelings of frustration and humiliation. This was not the scenario she had anticipated for officially meeting Quinn’s elegantly groomed ex-wife.
But before she could acknowledge Isla’s introduction she was hauled to her feet by two incoming police officers. The black-gowned usher hovered behind them.
Clamping an arm to her side, one officer barked, “Right, what’s going on? We don’t take disorderly conduct in court lightly, you know.”
“Neither do I, officer,” replied Bex indicating yet again the warrant card hanging from its lanyard. “You’re going to need to make two arrests.”
Chapter 6
Third floor, New Scotland Yard
After a solid hour of contacting local hospitals, police and other relevant authorities and speaking with all the parents that Sydney Morgan had phone numbers for, Quinn was left with the conclusion that the school bus seemed to have vanished.
Phoning Mrs Malone, Fairbridge House College’s corporate services manager, Quinn elicited the names of twenty-two girls who were listed as boarding the bus.
“What’s going on?” she wailed down the line. “I’ve had three other parents contact me because their daughters haven’t arrived home. This really isn’t my responsibility. Can I give you the Head Mistress’s number? She’s flying out to the Bahamas tonight, but you should still be able to catch her at home.”
Quinn took the head mistress’s details and was greeted with well-bred disbelief when he recounted the facts.
“Are you telling me that twenty-two students from Fairbridge House never made it home today? But where are they?” Ava Stidolph’s controlled voice betrayed a hint of alarm. “There must have been an accident!” she insisted.
“Not that we can ascertain, Ms. Stidolph. Does the school have CCTV installed?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’d like access to any footage that shows the girls boarding the bus. Plus, I need to know how the list of girls going home by bus is compiled.”
“Of course. I’ll get Mrs Malone to download the footage and email it to you. The list is compiled at the start of each semester. If the girls decide not to take the bus on a particular day because they’re getting a lift or whatever, then they have to notify the front office in the morning. That list is then handed to the bus driver who counts heads before the bus takes off. It’s all part of our duty of care.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you think this will be over quickly? I mean, will you find the girls soon? It’s just that I have a 10:15 flight booked to leave the country.”
“We’re doing all we can to locate them as quickly as possible, Ms. Stidolph. But you might want to delay your flight. There are twenty families with missing children in Bromley and I think they’re going to want a lot of reassurance.”
The school’s CCTV footage gave a clear view of the bus in front of the school. Quinn counted twenty-two heads boarding. Then the bus pulled out of the school parking lot at 1:15 p.m.
“Reuben, call the bus company and get the bus route. Then check and see what CCTV footage we can pull in from around those streets. I doubt the route includes any major highways, so we won’t be able to rely on ANPR footage. But we might get something useful from shops or businesses along the route.”
Eli was slumped over a computer keyboard, his jaws sawing frantically as he chewed his nicotine gum.
“Don’t worry, Eli, we’ll trace the bus’s movements. London’s got more CCTV cameras than any other city on Earth. No one can escape detection,” Quinn said with confidence.
Idris approached Quinn. He jerked his head to the side indicating he wanted a quiet word. Irritated to be interrupted, Quinn fidgeted impatiently as he waited for Idris to speak.
“Quinn, what are you doing? I know you want to help Eli, but this isn’t our case.”
“It’s not a case yet,” Quinn said tersely. “The most likely explanation is that the bus has broken down somewhere. We just need to locate it. Then transport twenty-two girls home. That’ll be the end of it.”
“If the bus has just broken down or been delayed why didn’t the driver call it in? In fact, every teenager I know has a smart phone, why hasn’t one of them called it in?”
Quinn balled his fists, hating to admit that Idris had brought up the very points he’d been trying to ignore. His gut had a very bad feeling about the situation. In the background he could hear Eli on the phone, offering soothing platitudes to Sydney. Eli was hanging in there but it was eas
y to see the news had shaken him.
“Eli needs to take this to Bromley Police,” Idris said reasonably.
“You know that if this is a kidnapping, every minute counts. With every other CID in London overworked, who’s going to give this attention? Let’s just see what pans out…”
“Quinn, you’ve got to listen to this!” Reuben lowered his voice so only Idris and Quinn heard him, but there was no hiding his excitement. He hunched forward, forcing the others into a huddle. “Mrs Trenby, one of the mothers I contacted earlier, just called back. She’s just accessed a voice mail message from her daughter, Gillian, sent through earlier today. I’ve recorded it. Have a listen.”
He held his phone in his palm.
“Hey, mum. Just letting you know I won’t be home because I’m getting off at Kim’s stop and…” The voice was drowned by a loud crack, like a car backfiring. Quinn exchanged a tense look with Idris and Reuben. Some scuffling sounds came through as though the phone was being rubbed against material through which they could hear muffled shrieks and panicked yells. Some more words were shouted and then the voice mail cut out.
“Do you think that was a gunshot?” Reuben asked. “You used to be an Authorized Firearms Officer, Quinn, what do you think?”
“It’s possible. I need you to get that sound enhanced by IT to see if there’s anything else we can pick out of it. Wait. Just play that last part again,” Quinn ordered.
They all heard the sudden report, followed by muffled shrieks. Reuben increased the volume. Quinn strained to interpret the shouted words through the stifled background. The sibilant sounds came hissing through most clearly, but the words in between disappeared in the mush of background noise.
First there was a male voice: “Sit down…stay in your seats… else…”
Then a girlish tone: “…sister alone…father’s a police…cer…!”
“That’s Imogen’s voice!”
Quinn glanced over at Eli. “What’s that, Eli?”
Bex Wynter Box Set Page 18