“Yes sir,” said Andy looking down at his feet.
“Now sit down and answer a few questions about your previous jobs,” said Padwick in a friendlier tone.
Andy sat down in the chair in front of the desk.
“You’ve worked in C.I.D and the Vice Squad with the Met.” It was a statement of fact and not a question.
“Yes sir. About eight years with C.I.D. Three years and fourteen months with vice.” Andy volunteered the information.
“You were involved in the breaking up of a paedophile ring?”
“Yes sir amongst other things,” was Andy’s guarded reply.
“Have you ever come across the name Mark Lemmings?”
“No sir,” said Andy.
“Rawlings, I am not surprised. He has been in prison for the last fourteen years. Briefly, let me tell you something about this man.”
Padwick picked up a file and cleared his throat.
“Mark, David, Lemmings. He was born the 5th of April 1975 in London, Hackney. Father died when he was six. Mother moved to Leeds and remarried. The new husband had two children from a previous marriage. They were boys and much younger than Lemmings. By the time Lemmings was fourteen he was buggering his two step brothers. One of whom was only four the other was six. He was caught by his stepfather. He called the police. He was arrested and social services referred him to the Child Psychiatric Unit at St. James Hospital, who assessed him. The report that the psychiatrists wrote about Lemmings was that even at his tender age, he was an extremely dangerous paedophile. The CPS decided not to prosecute, because the two step brothers were petrified of Lemmings. They could not be relied on as credible witnesses; so instead they agreed with Social Services to go for a full care order. After the obligatory case conference with social services, parents, NHS and the police, it was decided he should go into secure care. The full care order was made, with the consent of the parents and Lemmings was sent to a residential special school. A year later he absconded from the special school. Took a train to Kings Cross and was picked up there by one of the men that spend their time in the area looking for young runaways. Some weeks later he started work as a rent boy. Very soon he was plying for work around Kings Cross. He was just fifteen. By the time he was seventeen, he was running his own team of rent boys and making a lot of money out of his immoral earnings. He first drew the attention of the London Police, when he almost killed a client who wouldn’t pay. Normally, he is as cold as ice. Cunning and very controlled, but when he loses it, he loses completely. He is vicious and doesn’t know when to stop. He is highly dangerous, intelligent, and as cunning as a fox; and will stop at nothing. He is suspected of being involved in at least six murders. We were lucky to catch him.”
“How was he caught, sir?” asked Andy.
“Luck really. He was by this time involved in a paedophile ring. They abducted children at fairgrounds, drugged them and sodomised them. One such child was taken from a fair in Hackney. Brought to a caravan site, given a glass of milk that was drugged and then the sexual assaults began. One of the members of the ring lost it and strangled him. They had not planned the murder, so they panicked and dumped him. He was found the next day on waste ground near the fair in a plastic bin bag. DNA linked the body to a known paedophile. He was one of the ring. He confessed and dropped Lemmings in it. Lemmings gave a ‘No comment’ to all questions. He remained silent throughout the trial but was convicted nonetheless.”
“Why is Lemmings a concern to us, sir?” asked Andy.
“He’s been released from prison and failed to meet the terms of his release. He needs to be caught and sent back to prison. Our criminal friends tell us he is in this area and active. Paedophiles have no friends in the criminal world or in prison. In fact they are in great danger from serious criminals. They hate them.”
“Local informants?” asked Andy.
“No, Manchester. Why did you ask?”
“Thought the info might have been from London, sir. Is this the confidential investigation you want me to carry out?” asked Andy.
“No. This nick has the worst clear-up rate in Yorkshire. You know why?”
“No sir,” he said, although he had a good idea.
“It’s because we have a number of bent police offers. Some I suspect quite senior. We are going to catch them, Rawlings, and burn them. I was appointed to clean-up this nick and by God I’m going to do it, and to that end I’m selecting a team that will find those officers who are a disgrace to the uniform and the service. You are now part of that team. Have you got a problem with that?”
“None whatsoever, sir,” said Andy gruffly.
“Good, you will discuss this with no one but DCI Green and me. Now take a good look at Lemmings’ file and study it. If he is on this patch, I want to know where and I want him picked up quickly.”
Padwick picked up the phone on his desk and pressed a button and said,
“Cathy, ask DCI Green to join us.”
DCI Bill Green was a big man. Over seventeen stones in weight and six foot four in height. He was close to the end of his career as a Policeman and was actively planning his retirement. He had accepted his present post on the strictest understanding that it would be his last. He had been picked, not for his powers of investigation, but because he was an honest, down-to-earth police officer. He had no great flair for police work, but what he did have was a dogged determination and a photographic memory, together with a character that would not give way to anything. His mates called him ‘The Rottweiler’ and in truth, not only did he act like one he looked like one as well. He was, as his superiors knew, a safe pair of hands and once he was given a case he pursued it with a stubborn determination. He never gave up. This had brought him more successes than others with more ability. His rise up the ranks had been slow but measured. Bill Green was not a man who would hurry things; he was after all, a Yorkshire man.
As he entered Mark stood. DCI Bill Green gave him a cursory look and turned to face Padwick.
“You sent for me, sir?”
“This is DI Rawlings, Bill. He is the latest member of our special team. I’m putting him under your command with responsibility for Vice.”
“I could do with an extra officer, sir,” said Bill Green.
“Take him away, Bill and brief him, then set him to work. Have you picked the officers that are going to work with him?”
“All but two,” said Bill Green. He turned to Rawlings and spoke to him directly.
“Half the Vice Squad was corrupt, so we’ve changed them or posted them elsewhere,” he said.
Padwick looked at Bill Green. “I think it’s time he met his team, Bill.”
“Come with me,” said Bill Green without looking at Mark.
They left the room together and went through the door and down the stairs to the first floor. Bill Green showed Andy into a large office.
“This is my office. Take a seat. You will have six officers working in your section. They are one DS and five DCs. I’ve picked four of your officers; you need to choose two more. In your office are their records plus ten others that have expressed an interest in your section. Use your DS to choose the others. He’s a good man, any questions?”
“Not right now, sir. But I’ll get back to you when I’ve had a chance to settle in and looked at my case load.”
“Fine, now I’ll introduce you to your section.”
Bill Green showed him out of the office into the corridor. Turning off the corridor Bill Green led Mark into a large room with various desks and a group of officers.
“This is your CO, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced to the room as he led Mark through the room and into an office at the end.
“This is your office. All the files you need have been placed in those filing cabinets.”
Mark looked at the six, large grey filing cabinets with five draws each. He made a quick mental calculation. About sixteen hundred files, he thought. Not bad. It would take him about three months to work through them
, if he was given the time.
“Report to me when you have an idea of what you need and I want a written report on your priorities, based on your cases in twenty-four hours.” With that he left.
Mark left his office and entered the common office where his officers were. They all stood as he entered.
“My name is DI Andy Rawlings if you didn’t know already. Who’s my DS?”
“I am, sir, DS Frank Newton.”
“Right, come into my office. I’ll talk to each of you later, on a one- to-one basis. Carry on.”
Once in the office, Mark pointed to the chairs opposite his desk and Newton sat down on one of them.
“What are case priorities at the moment?” said Andy
“Same as you would expect, sir. There are the tarts and their pimps around Chapletown and their punters. There have been a couple of serious assaults on working girls and a new brothel has opened in Harehills. Run by Romanians with imported girls. Then there is the new porn shop and there seems to be a large number of nasty DVD’s in circulation. The porn shop could be the source. Usual links with drugs and vice. We planned to raid the brothel as soon as you arrived and approved the raid. There’s a house we’re watching where we believe porn DVD’s are being copied distributed and supplying the local trade.”
“What’s happening on the gay front?” asked Andy.
“Why do you ask, sir?”
Mark glared at DS Newton.
“Sorry sir. It’s just that your question threw me. The whole gay community is in an unusual state of agitation at the moment. We don’t know why, but something has whipped them up and we don’t know what.”
“Can you make a guess?” said Andy.
“No sir. But it’s big,” said Newton.
“Why do say that?” said Andy.
“Normally, they are a pretty quiet bunch. Nothing much happens. Except the usual, but something has really got them wound up.”
“Right, keep me informed. Have we got anyone on the inside?” said Andy.
“No sir.”
“Then how do we know about this,” said Andy.
“It’s street talk, gossip and some information from a small-time grass, sir.”
“I want a list of all the contacts and the officers they talk to on my computer in an hour and the files on the priority cases,” said Andy.
“Yes sir.”
*
Bill Green had returned to the Super’s office.
“What do you make of him, Bill?” asked Padwick.
“Well, it’s obviously too early for me to tell; if he is even half of what it says in his file, you’ve got yourself a pretty sharp officer and a very good DI. What happened in London? Why, the transfer here?” said Green.
“It’s a long and curious story. I’ll tell you it some other time. Let’s hope I’m right about him, Bill, cos’ we need him badly. Now how’s your investigation going? Have you got any further since we last talked?”
Chapter 3
Lord Justice, Sir Bartholomew Stanford-Grey was a North of England circuit judge. He came from a long and distinguished family of lawyers and judges. At his family seat in North Yorkshire, the portraits of his famous ancestors decorated the staircases up to the third floor. One of whom had been a favourite of James I; for the rigorous way in which he had dealt with the King’s enemies. Most of which, to the King’s delight, Lord Stanford-Grey had hung, tortured and in many instances, drawn and quartered in the name of the King. Bartholomew had been given a classical education. Sent to a Catholic public school in the North of England, he left after achieving some very good ‘A’ Levels to read Law at Oxford University, where he graduated with a First Class, Honours Degree. He entered the chambers of an old family friend. He quickly rose through chambers and became a QC at the age of thirty-five. After some ten years, he had been called to the bench at the age of forty-four. As a judge, he was very highly thought of, for his thoughtfully considered, knowledgeable and carefully delivered judgements.
It was at his Catholic public school that he first developed or rather had developed for him his ‘other’ tastes. It was customary for boys to share cubicles at the school swimming pool and swim in the nude at the school. At twelve years of age he had his first homosexual experience with another boy. Their sexual experiments would have never been discovered if they had not lingered after one of their swimming lessons. They had not come out of their cubicle when their class had already changed and were gone. A Jesuit brother and teacher at the school had come along checking the cubicles and caught them. He ordered them to report to him that evening for corrective instruction and penance. The corrective instruction proved to be a number of homosexual acts that he carried out on both boys and the penance consisted of kneeling on the stone floor and asking God’s forgiveness for the acts they had just participated in. This continued until he left the school, by which time he was a fully practising homosexual with a string of relationships with younger and older boys to his name. This carried on at Oxford, discreetly with likeminded adults.
Some years later he developed a craving to capture the thrill and excitement of those younger years. He had turned his attention to the procurement of young boys. This inevitably led to ‘rent boys’. He had to take great care, given his professional status and as his position grew, it became ever more dangerous, as he rose in prominence. When he was appointed to the bench, his appetites and position place him in grave danger, but had its advantages. He read social services reports, had conversations with senior police officers and there was a strong gay community amongst the law fraternity. All this provided him with a constant flow of information. The germ of an idea began to form in his mind and he began to carefully plan and prepare. He started to become impatient because his appetite was becoming ferocious, all-consuming and untameable. And he knew it. Since he could not control his desires, or his fantasies; he had to find the safest way to satisfy them with the minimum danger. As a Judge, he could not go to the usual clubs and bars. He could not take the risk of going out cruising in the red light areas of the city in his car. He needed a procurer, someone who he could send out to find his ‘toy boys.’ Where could he find such a person? It was a real and terrible problem.
The solution came unexpectedly. He had been half listening to a case he was presiding over, when the prosecution suddenly ask him to allow them to introduce a witness under court protection. The man they wanted to protect was an Albanian. He had been part of a human trafficking gang and was prepared to give evidence in turn for immunity from prosecution and a new identity. Bartholomew asked the prosecuting council to present to him the argument for immunity and details of the witness. When these were provided, Bartholomew saw an opportunity. It was small, but it could be developed to his advantage. The gang had been providing young girls for the sex industry. The witness was wanted for several crimes in his own country, including attempted murder and had a growing criminal record in this country.
He had turned Queen’s evidence because he was facing a long prison term, but what frightened him most was extradition. In Albanian he faced a possible death sentence. What was more, it was highly likely that he would be killed if the other gang members got the chance. He was a totally vulnerable man and vulnerable men could be manipulated. Bartholomew summoned both prosecution and defence to his chambers. He would grant immunity, reluctantly, under certain conditions. He would allow the witness to be placed into the police witness protection scheme but under a supervision order. Regular reports on the man would be made and reserved to him. They were to be made to him only. The defence protested, but in reality they could do nothing but accept the judge’s ruling. Some eighteen months after the trial had ended, Bartholomew made a phone call to a very senior police officer and the Albanian, soon afterwards, became his personal valet at his North Yorkshire home.
Chapter 4
The New Cross estate had been built in the late 1950s. When local councils had been provide with funds by central government to build housin
g for the baby boom of the late 1940s. It was situated five minutes from the M1 motorway, as it curled its way towards the city centre, which was ten minutes away where the motorway ended. The estate comprised of four large grey blocks, built around a central square with a bit of a green in the middle and a play area, normally inhabited by teenage hoodies. On the ground floor, the blocks had central tunnels, off which, were stairways leading to the seven floors of flats that made up the blocks. All the doors to the flats faced the central square. It was late at night when Mark entered one of the flat’s tunnels. Passed through it and turned right at the end of it. He knocked on a door with a plastic forty-seven on it. The door was a half- wood, half-reinforced glass affair, with peeling red paint. It was the door of a ground floor flat. He waited.
“Who is it?” he heard a voice say softly through the door.
“Mr P,” he answered.
He heard the bolts being drawn back and the door opened a few inches, still on the security chain. The space behind the door was in total blackness. The door closed and he heard the security chain being removed. The door was opened just enough for him to pass through into the lightless passage that lay beyond the door; at the end of which he could see a light through the underside gap of another door at the end of the small hall. In the inky blackness, he made for the light as the front door was shut and bolted behind him. A man followed as he entered the poorly lit front room of the flat. The curtains were tightly drawn across the windows and reached from ceiling to floor. They were of a heavy green material. A two-bar electric fire fixed to the wall, burned full, on the side wall. The floor was cheap brown lino covered with a plastic sheet. There were two tattered and old settees with an arm chair. A naked boy was in the armchair. He was curled up, as if in his mother’s womb and he was no more than six years of age. Four men sat on the settees. Two had their trousers down around their ankles and were in a state of high arousal. The room, despite the fire, had mould on the walls and smelt of damp. As Mark entered the room, one of the men said,
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