CHAPTER 32
It was almost forty-eight hours since Kurts, Wassan and Marchant had been escorted back to London and, just as Ridley had predicted, they’d all been ‘no comment’ the entire time. Kurts could be charged with perverting the course of justice, because Barry had been hiding in his flat – but they still needed to prove he knew Barry was there. Wassan was just hours away from being released. And Marchant was waiting for his lift back to Essex, after his good deed of playing chauffeur to his brother had finally exonerated him from any involvement in the train robbery.
Jack was head-down, checking numerous family statements supporting the fact that Marchant had never left the hospital at any point during his sister-in-law’s 27-hour labour. It wasn’t his aim to undermine Ridley or make him feel stupid; all Jack wanted was to be taken seriously.
Ridley sat at his desk, door open, and looked through the army service records of every man and woman who’d ever crossed paths with either Barry Cooper or Mike Withey. There were so many possibilities, but, as the hours ticked by, his gut got louder and louder. He was on the wrong track. He looked up to see Jack in the doorway.
‘Rashid Wassan’s solicitor’s saying we either charge him or let him go, sir.’
‘Release him,’ Ridley said. He had no option.
When Jack returned to the squad room, Ridley was standing by the evidence board. He’d added the photos of Marchant and Wassan to the discarded evidence pile, so that only Mike Withey, Barry Cooper and Thomas Kurts remained on the board, in pride of place, staring him dead in the eyes and challenging him to solve a 24-year-old train robbery and a brand new murder.
‘Once you eliminate the impossible . . .’ Ridley muttered. He sifted through the discarded evidence, picked up the photo of Dolly Rawlins and stuck it next to Mike Withey before completing the quotation. ‘Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
He let out a long sigh. He beckoned to Jack. The two men stood side by side, hands in pockets, looking at the women from The Grange. Laura and Anik could hardly believe what they were seeing.
‘Can we justify search warrants?’ Ridley asked.
‘We wouldn’t find anything, sir,’ Jack said, with an absolute certainty that made Ridley turn to look at him. ‘They’re smarter than that. Always have been. They hid in plain sight, then and now. They looked like a bunch of women opening a kids’ home, so that’s all we saw.’
Jack tapped the photo of Dolly Rawlins as he started to speak, and he swept a hand to include all of the other photos as he continued.
‘Dolly Rawlins, the grief-stricken wife of a criminal mastermind driven to murder because of marital betrayal. Ester Freeman, a two-bit madam running her own brothel. Connie Stephens, a dumb prostitute. Julia Lawson, a drug-addled ex-doctor who turned to dealing to survive. Gloria Radford, the downtrodden wife of a gunrunning husband. Angela Dunn, nobody of consequence. And Mike Withey, burnt-out drunk. Individually, they’re easy to ignore ‒ but together . . .’ Ridley and Jack looked at all seven photos, side by side. ‘Leader, second in command, horsewoman, gun expert, seductress, inside man, and a babysitter to keep Kathleen’s kids out of harm’s way. Ester’s insane decision to shoot Dolly was something no one could have predicted and it was what pushed them into this waiting game. They had to wait for Ester to get out or she’d have grassed them all up. They had to wait for the local pub landlord to stop making cash on the side by traipsing hundreds of tourists through what quickly became a notorious murder scene. And they had to wait for Norma to die. When the coast was finally clear, Mike made the mistake of asking Barry to help burn down Rose Cottage. The only time two blokes were left to do a job, and they fucked it up!’
‘Sounds like you admire these women, Jack.’
‘I do, sir. They watched us underestimate them back in 1995 and they watched us do it again now. Me, sir. They watched me underestimate them.’
Ridley removed the photos of Dolly Rawlins, Gloria Radford and Mike Withey ‒ leaving Ester, Julia, Connie and Angela.
‘So, who’s the mastermind now?’
‘Not Ester. They don’t like her, don’t trust her and, anyway, she was out of the loop for too long. Not Connie ‒ she’s not capable. Julia or Angela. They’re both smart and organised enough to juggle families and jobs. Angela’s my guess ‒ she was Dolly’s protégée and she still puts flowers on Dolly’s grave.’
Ridley stood, arms folded, legs apart, temples pulsing as the tension flickered through his facial muscles. He nodded.
‘Let’s bring her in.’
*
The drive to Angela’s flat in West London was short and silent. Ridley was driving faster than normal, which was an indication of how annoyed he was. From the car park beneath Angela’s third floor window, they looked up to see the flat in darkness. It seemed that Angela, Rob and the kids had gone. Within minutes, Ridley was requesting search warrants and co-ordinating simultaneous entries into Ester’s home on the Isle of Wight, Julia’s care home in Chester and Connie’s B & B in Taunton. Ridley wanted to be the one to search Angela’s flat; if she was the ringleader, as Jack suspected, then she’d be the one with all the answers.
*
The Chester police arrived in force, expecting to have to herd unwanted children into the back of a police van just to stop them from scattering like rats, but what they actually found was an English lesson in mid-flow. Julia’s two helpers, who she ‘trusted with her life’, kept the children entertained while the police searched the three adjoining houses. The female helper escorted the police while the male helper, Daniel, continued the class as though nothing untoward was happening at all.
Daniel spoke as if he was reading a quote from a textbook.
‘The police burst in through the door, all red-faced and sweaty. Burst.’
A sea of tiny hands shot into the air and Daniel pointed to a young Asian lad, who was dressed in clothes at least three sizes too big for him.
‘Verb!’ the boy shouted with pride.
‘Brilliant!’
Daniel caught a glimpse of the overweight PC in the corner of the room scowling at the children, as though they were not worth the effort Daniel was putting in.
‘Sweaty,’ Daniel continued.
Again, tiny hands reached for the ceiling. Daniel nodded his head towards the PC and asked if he knew what sort of word ‘sweaty’ was. All the while, the children’s hands strained into the air, begging to be chosen. The PC flushed with embarrassment as a girl, no more than 6 years old, explained to him what an adjective was.
There was nothing suspicious at Julia’s. Her paperwork was meticulous, there were no drugs or alcohol on the premises and the kids were well looked after. The sergeant questioned everyone to try and ascertain where Julia was, but no one knew a thing.
*
The bleached blonde at The Grange B & B in Taunton told the local police that Connie had probably ‘nipped to the shops’.
‘Well, I dunno, do I? I’m up at five to do the breakfasts, then it’s the bedrooms, then packed lunches for the walkers, then general stuff, then the dinner prep! I’m sure I saw Connie yesterday on the third floor. Maybe I didn’t. We sometimes don’t see each other for days and we’re in the same building! She’s gone then, has she? Where to?’
She was still gibbering away to herself when the police left.
*
On the Isle of Wight, Sergeant Henderson knocked on Ester’s front door for a fourth time before deciding to send his accompanying PC round the back to try and find an alternative way in. They had the paperwork to force entry, but an open window would be the best solution seeing as no one was home.
Through the kitchen window, the PC was faced with Geoffrey pinned flat against the side of the fridge-freezer, his eyes screwed tight shut. He had taken Ester’s advice about hiding his fetishes in order to bag himself a nice woman, so was dressed in blue jeans, a white T-shirt, a black V-neck jumper and black brogues. He looked good. But the smart clothes coul
dn’t hide the fact that he was a broken man. The PC tapped gently on the window, so as not to frighten him further.
Like a greyhound out of the starting gate, Geoffrey bolted for the front door, raced outside and barrelled straight into Sergeant Henderson. Once Geoffrey was down, he stayed there. He lay on his back, his arms wrapped around his face, sobbing, ‘I miss her! I miss her! I miss her!’
Henderson got to his feet and dialled a number in his mobile.
*
Ridley looked out of Angela’s balcony window, across the grey, rain-filled skies of West London, and tried to maintain his trademark calm demeanour ‒ but his fist was clenched tight around his mobile phone as if he was about to explode. It wasn’t something Jack had ever seen before, and it wouldn’t last long, he was sure of that. Next to Ridley was Angela’s stack of transparent plastic sewing boxes, neatly labelled by client name. The stack stood seven boxes tall and when Ridley kicked out at the third one up, he sent the top four flying across the lounge. He then returned to the balcony window. His shoulders were tense beneath his coat and they moved rhythmically up and down as he took deep, controlled breaths.
While Jack waited for Ridley to calm down, something made him glance upwards at the high shelf, out of reach of sticky fingers. The worn teddy bear and yellow teething ring had gone. Jack smiled in admiration for what the women had managed to achieve. The patience, the mutual trust, the mutual love, the organisation that lay behind this was staggering. Of course Jack was frustrated at always being several steps behind them but, my God, what special women they were!
‘Geoffrey Porter-Lewis is being escorted across to us,’ Ridley said when he finally spoke. ‘He’s all we’ve got. You’ve met him, Jack – will he give us the women?’
‘He won’t know anything, sir. Geoffrey will snap like a twig and Ester would know that.’
‘I’m going to send you some uniforms. Tear this place apart. And when Geoffrey arrives I want you to interview him.’
And Ridley left without another word.
Jack pushed his hands deep into his pockets and took his place by the balcony window. On the balcony, next to a child’s bike, a bunch of flowers stood in a bucket. Jack could see the handwritten label in its plastic pocket on the side of the wrapping: ‘To Dolly. Never forgotten. X.’
The rain started to fall just as Ridley stepped outside, forcing him to jog across the car park to his BMW. Jack felt sorry for him, even though his own arrogance – no, not arrogance; Ridley wasn’t arrogant – his own blinkered self-belief was responsible for this monumental mistake. Ridley was an excellent officer, but he played by the rules and the truth was that anyone can learn them. And once you learn the rules you can predict what someone might do. The women had predicted Ridley, move by move, and that’s why he’d failed. Jack was different. Jack, for the first time in his career, was thinking outside the box . . . He was thinking like them.
CHAPTER 33
The squad room was a hive of activity. Fourteen officers were all backtracking several weeks, retracing steps, re-investigating, re-interviewing, rereading, reversing through everything they knew, back to the moment the women were first mentioned.
They knew that they would not be travelling on their own passports, and that their mobiles had all been left behind at their respective homes. They knew that the school Angela’s children attended was under the impression that the Dunn family had gone on holiday to Greece; Riel and Aggie had been practising yassas and efcharisto for days. They guessed that Angela would have lied to her children about where they were going, but they had to explore the possibility of them being in Greece regardless. They also knew that Ester’s parole officer was a total waste of space. He hadn’t even known she’d left the Isle of Wight.
*
Jack watched three PCs systematically work their way through Angela’s flat, expecting to uncover a clue. What did they think they’d find? Flight information jotted on a notepad perhaps, together with the name of the hotel they’d be staying in? Jack knew that the flat would be clean, because he knew Angela was smart. He paced the lounge, thinking. Not only did these women have to disappear without a trace, they had to disappear with £27 million. Jack had a sudden flash of inspiration and bolted for the front door.
Irene at number 36 remembered Jack from his last visit, and excitedly showed off the dining chairs Angela had re-covered, now sitting around her family-sized dining table.
‘I wanted to ask you about Rob.’ Jack showed his ID and Irene looked confused. ‘He’s done nothing wrong. I’d just like to ask you about his business. He does up cars, doesn’t he?’
Irene didn’t know how to answer in case she got Rob into trouble.
‘Irene, I just need to know if their flat has a private garage.’
*
Rob’s double garage was also his workspace but it was sparsely kitted out now ‒ as though the best tools had disappeared along with his family. Half-empty shelves lined two of the walls, and different sized hooks lined a third. Some of the tools left behind dated back decades; Jack could loosely date them because Charlie owned similar ones. Rob, like Charlie, was a man who liked quality and remained loyal to his old work tools through the passing years. He was probably an ordinary man, dragged into an extraordinary world by the woman he loved. Jack knew that he’d do exactly the same for Maggie.
He scrabbled about in oil-stained filing cabinets and chests of drawers. He sifted through stray nuts and bolts, spare parts and mislaid drill bits but found nothing of significance. After about twenty minutes of pointless searching through the neatest garage he’d ever seen, Jack stepped out into the fresh air. Boys on bikes circled just outside, looking over his shoulder to see if the garage contained anything worth stealing.
‘What sort of car was in here last?’
The biggest kid got £5 out of Jack before telling him about the coach. Once he’d paid up, Jack pinched the brow of his nose, waiting for a recent memory to come back to him; then he headed at a jog back towards the entrance to the flats. To the left of the main door was a narrow space where five large bins were stored ‒ four black, one blue. Behind the black bins was a sheltered dry spot of ground being used by at least two homeless people. Blankets and sleeping bags were rolled up against the wall, together with a rucksack and a pile of tatty, ripped old foam squares that Jack expected would be laid out into a mattress at night. These foam squares were the memory he was searching for – he’d seen them in Connie’s house.
Jack flipped the lid on the bins to reveal more squares of foam ‒ dirtier, smaller, more torn. The rough sleepers had certainly salvaged the best ones. He took out his mobile and snapped some photos before racing back to Rob’s garage. He’d left the door wide open and the gannet children were swarming.
Back in Angela’s flat, Jack called Ridley. He was cautious about going to him with another hunch, but a hunch was all he had. He requested that someone check into a coach purchase made by Robert Chuke, and he told Ridley about the foam squares. He’d already googled different types of vehicle seat stuffing, and his theory was that if the women had emptied the seats, then it had to be because they were putting something else in. He had no idea if twenty-five seats would hold £27 million, but Angela was a talented seamstress, so it could fit. These women weren’t criminals who’d be escaping on a private jet; they were ordinary people who would use their innate skills to their best advantage – driving out of the country in a second-hand coach with a couple of kids in tow seemed typically ‘them’.
In the time it took Ridley to say ‘leave it to me’, Jack had had another thought.
‘Sir, did the Chester police get a list of the kids at Julia’s place?’
When Jack came off the phone from Ridley, he went back into the flat.
‘This doesn’t look like a search,’ he said to the uniforms as he looked around the lounge. ‘This looks like you’ve ransacked the place! Someone lives here! Tidy it up.’
He stepped back out onto the balcony and
logged into HOLMES, scrolling through the list of kids found to be living at Julia’s. He wasn’t certain what he was looking for but when he’d thought about Angela absconding with her children, even taking the memories of her dead baby, he’d remembered Julia saying she’d die for those kids . . . and yet she’d just left them all behind?
He thought of Sam. An unwanted scallywag who occupied a soft spot in Julia’s heart. His name was not on the list of children present at the care home. He thought of Suzie, the gentle giant of a girl who’d helped Julia protect a waif from Darren, the bully – and her name was not on the list, either. Darren’s name had been added in red by the police; he was in a secure children’s home as of a week ago, having been arrested in possession of a stolen bike and a rucksack full of his own clothes. They’d assumed he was running away ‒ and not for the first time.
Most of these will never know where they’re from, so it’s vital for them to know where they’re going. Do you know where you’re from?
Julia’s words spun round in Jack’s head. She was doing so much for so many kids who, without her, would be abused, corrupted or even murdered. Jack could have been just like Sam if he’d not been rescued by Charlie and Penny. He didn’t feel he was chasing hardened criminals who deserved to be in prison. He didn’t feel he was making the streets a safer place for ordinary people to live in. He felt like he’d be making the world a worse place by removing these women from it. What harm were they actually doing by taking long-forgotten money and starting life again?
*
Darren had been in three fights during his short stay in the children’s home and had won all of them. His position in the hierarchy was strong and the older lads were already looking to recruit him to their gang. He’d prove useful on the outside, seeing as he was only eleven and, therefore, highly unlikely to get nicked for anything and definitely not in danger of getting prosecuted.
Daniel, Julia’s helper from her care home, had been to see Darren on the day he was arrested. Darren had attacked him, scratching his neck and punching him in the balls so hard that his eyes had streamed for at least a minute. Today, Darren was calm, but silent. He was a terrifyingly self-destructive mixture of depression, helplessness and fury. He didn’t listen to a word Daniel said; he hardly blinked and the tears flowed unashamedly. Darren was broken.
Buried - DC Jack Warr Series 01 (2020) Page 27