The Cambroni Vendetta

by David George Clarke

  After parking his car in Rappington village in the small space hidden from the main road behind the village church, Rosselli clipped Goccia’s lead to her collar and the pair set off. For Goccia, the walk was even more exciting than before since a number of police dogs had taken the same route and left their delicious scent behind. As she nuzzled her way along the grass bordering the wire mesh fence that defined the limit of the factory site, she pulled harder against the lead, as if she wanted to tunnel under the fence. She stopped and gave a low whine.

  “What is it, my little bloodhound? What have you found?” asked Rosselli as his attention fell on the fence. “Oh, Goccia, you clever girl. Where would I be without you? You’ve found us a way in.”

  He bent over and carefully separated the mesh at the same spot Gus Brooke had used after he dumped the Golf. It was well interwoven, giving the appearance of being one continuous stretch of mesh, but it gave easily to his fingers. Seconds later Rosselli and Goccia were inside the fence and Rosselli was closing the breach.

  “Come, cara,” he said, glancing up and down the path, “we’re a little exposed here; there might be other strollers and their dogs.”

  He hurried towards the factory buildings, skirting them until he reached the far side and the internal road that led from the main gates through the large vehicular access passage to the central yard. Looking up before he walked into the passage, he saw the faded sign.

  “The factory?” he read. “Couldn’t the owners have thought of something more imaginative to call it?”

  Staying in the shadows, he continued through the passage to the yard and then on to a pair of double doors that served as the main entrance.

  For the next three hours, Rosselli made a meticulous examination of the derelict buildings, assessing them from his own point of view as a possible place of execution for Jennifer Cotton, and also to find where Gus Brooke had hidden Trisha McVie’s body.

  For the execution, after considering several possibilities, he decided that a large, open area on the upper floor of the rear building would be ideal. The area had once been a reception and dispatch area for consignments of goods in small crates. These would have been hoisted from the ground floor loading bay below and transferred to a pulley system running on girder rails rigged ten feet from the floor. It was the hoists and rails that attracted Rosselli’s attention along with the rusted and compromised safety rails designed to prevent anyone falling from the edge of the area and tumbling five metres into the loading bay.

  He stood back, taking in the whole area while a sequence of events played out in his mind. He could visualise the action and it made perfect sense, but which players apart from his target would be present was still based on certain assumptions and the consequences of actions that hadn’t yet taken place. As the days passed, the detail would change, even though the overall outcome would be the same. There was no urgency; he had the time and the patience. For now, he was still merely an observer waiting for the main actors to commit themselves further.

  Satisfied with his provisional plans for Jennifer Cotton, Rosselli turned his thoughts to Trisha McVie. He had kept her body in mind as he examined the factory, checking and eliminating various locations where a body could be hidden.

  Then, as his eyes roamed the open area above the loading bay, he noticed a number of large storage bins arranged along the rear wall. Clusters of heavy-duty ropes were scattered on the floor, and one bin had some lying across its lid. As Rosselli walked over to the bins, he could see that the dust and grime on the floor showed signs of disturbance: cleaner patches alongside some of the ropes that appeared to be fresh. He shrugged. Perhaps they were the result of disturbance during the police search. Nevertheless, the bins were worth investigating, and it was as he looked closer at the jumble of heavy ropes that he saw residues of shredded plastic tangled up with them.

  He bent to examine them. “Latex, from protective gloves, Goccia. The sort that the police would wear at crime scenes. But surely the officers who searched here last Wednesday wouldn’t have been so careless.”

  He paused, smiling. “But perhaps our detective was, if his mind was distracted while dumping the body. If these residues are from him, he might as well have left his address and phone number along with a signed confession.”

  He looked up at the bin with the ropes lying across its lid. Why would one bin be like that?

  “I think we might have found what we’re looking for, little lady.”

  After recording the scene as he had found it, Rosselli opened his backpack to retrieve a pair of heavy-duty industrial gloves and began pulling the ropes from the lid.

  On lifting the lid, he saw that the bin was almost full of more rope, and again, the telltale shreds of plastic adhering to the rope’s rough surfaces. Sure now that he’d found the body, he recorded the arrangement of rope on his phone and carefully began removing it from the bin.

  As the ropes were removed, first a hand was exposed, and then a foot. Several minutes later, Trisha McVie’s entire body lay before him, spread across the packed rope beneath her.

  He already had a record of her face and the injuries to her head from when he first discovered the body in Brooke’s garage. He took a few more shots including several showing the whole body in situ.

  Apart from the damage to Trisha’s nose, Rosselli could see no other injuries to the front of the body. He carefully rolled her sufficiently to examine the rear of her torso before rolling her body back its original position.

  He looked over to where Goccia was sitting watching him and shook his head.

  “You know, principessa, the only injuries are to her head and nose; there are no other marks on this body. No defence bruising on her arms or scuffing to her knuckles. Nothing. I have a feeling there was no fight involved here, but an unfortunate accident. So sad for a young woman to lose her life that way and end up here, tossed in a dirty bin to rot. But her loss is our gain. She has given us a great opportunity to complete our mission of ending the life of another young lady who clearly does deserve to die and placing the blame squarely on Detective Brooke’s shoulders.”

  Goccia’s tail thumped the floor in apparent agreement; she always enjoyed her master’s little lectures.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, using the shots he had taken on his phone as reference, Rosselli had finished putting the ropes back in place on the body, closed the lid and replaced the ropes on top.

  When Brooke returned here, which the detective probably imagined he would never do, he would see nothing out of place and yet have everything to panic about.

  Despite the ropes and the heavy-lifting work, Rosselli approved of the location Gus Brooke had chosen to hide the body. The lid closed tightly onto the bin, effectively sealing it from the outside environment. He assumed the blow flies would have had a limited opportunity to lay their eggs on the body, depending on where she had been in the cottage for several hours and how sealed that location was. And from the body’s condition, he worked out that Brooke must have washed it thoroughly before wrapping it in the towels, towels that Brooke must have removed for disposal along with the plastic bag that had encased her head. Anyone turning up here over the next few days wouldn’t be assaulted by the stench of a rotting corpse or swarms of buzzing, hungry flies.

  * * *

  Rosselli now turned his attention to the system of overhead rails onto which hoists with attached hooks had once been secured for hauling boxes of cargo.

  He looked around the scattered debris in the cargo area until he located a number of old and rusting hoists. He examined each one with a critical eye and found them perfectly acceptable for his purposes.

  The rails were more than three metres above the cargo area floor, and in order to reach them, Rosselli dragged an old table from a dark corner of the area along with some metal-framed chairs. After positioning the table beneath the rails and a chair on the table, he climbed up to run his hand along each of them, checking their condition. They were a
ll rusty, several substantially, but not irretrievably. For now, he chose the smoothest. Grabbing the hook dangling beneath it, he pulled its wheels along the rail and back again several times.

  “Progress, Goccia,” he said, catching the pug’s eye as she responded with more tail thumping. “A few hours’ work with some abrasive paper, grease and lubricating oil and we’ll have these operating as smoothly as they did on the day they were installed. But before we do that, we need to be sure we have eyes on the place so we are warned of anyone visiting the site. And the eyes will be useful during the final act of our drama.”

  * * *

  During his examination of the factory, Rosselli had located a small storeroom away from the main platformed cargo area, its door unlocked and the simple lever-operated handle working. It would make the perfect spot for hiding the essential materials he needed for his operation in the factory.

  After finishing his trials with the hoists, he called Goccia. “Come, little one, let’s go; there are things to do. And the first is to change hotels to somewhere far closer to this so-called factory. Then tomorrow morning, we’ll make a few purchases before coming back here to complete our preparations.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  On Sunday evening, after a tiring and ultimately fruitless day pounding the streets in and around Nottingham along with a large squad of their colleagues, Jennifer and Derek returned to the flat in The Park frustrated and dejected.

  Jennifer peered without interest into the fridge for dinner inspiration.

  “This whole exercise is pointless, Derek. There’s nothing to be gained from widening the search this far. The farther we get from Rappington, the more red Golfs there are and the more false leads. We’re missing something and I’m convinced it’s got to do with the factory.”

  Derek peered over her shoulder and on seeing the sad state of the fridge, made a decision.

  “Pizza,” he said. “I’m phoning for some.”

  “That’ll be the third time this week. We’ve got to have something healthier.”

  “Indian?”

  “OK, as long as I don’t have to make any decisions. My brain is bursting.”

  As Derek pulled the menu of a nearby Indian restaurant from behind a fridge magnet, Jennifer’s phone beeped.

  “It’s Henry,” said Jennifer. “I must talk to him. He doesn’t know about Trish and he’ll be gutted. He’s very fond of her.”

  She shuffled into the sitting room and flopped on a sofa, calling up Henry’s FaceTime contact details as she did.

  Henry responded almost immediately with his normal cheery greeting, but one look at Jennifer’s face on his screen sounded alarm bells.

  “Jennifer, whatever’s happened?”

  Jennifer took a deep breath, but couldn’t hold it together and burst into tears. Hearing her from the kitchen, Derek ditched the call he was making to the restaurant and ran in, taking Jennifer’s phone from her.

  “Hi, Henry,” he said, peering at the screen. “Got some difficult news.”

  For the next few minutes, with Jennifer curled up against him, Derek explained what had happened and where they had got in the search for Trisha.

  “That’s tragic,” said Henry. “I don’t know what to say. It’s horrible. Have you got no leads on what might have happened?”

  “None,” sobbed Jennifer. “She’s just evaporated. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Look,” said Henry. “I’ve just arrived in Perugia and the car is taking me to the villa. Do you want me to pick up Connie and fly over? Perhaps there’s something we can do to help?”

  “Thanks, Henry,” said Derek. “But we’ve got dozens of people who do this for a living racking their brains. No offence.”

  “None taken. It’s just, you know, she was, is, a friend. And you don’t know for sure that she’s dead, you know. There could be other explanations, surely.”

  “Well, she could be being held somewhere against her will. We just don’t know, there’s nothing to go on except the dumping of the car.”

  “This factory sounds odd,” said Henry. “Why do you think the car was dumped there? Who knew about the place?”

  “Any number of people,” said Derek. “It’s been derelict for years. I think the last company moved out in 1994.”

  “But isn’t it secured?”

  “No, the chain across it wasn’t doing anything.”

  “Who knew that?”

  Derek paused to think, but before he could answer, Jennifer took the phone from him and spoke to the screen. “The owners will have known, and anyone passing who happened to examine the chains, which seems an unlikely thing to do. And significantly, there has been no vandalism at the site for about twenty-five years. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, after all. A bit far for the town lads unless they have transport. And anyway, there’s nothing worth stealing there. There was talk some months ago that it might be being used in connection with organised crime, which is why the SCF undertook surveillance for a while. But it turned out to be rumour, nothing more.”

  “So you can add the police to your list of people who knew about the chain,” said Henry.

  “You’re not suggesting a police officer is involved, surely?” said Jennifer, rather more sternly than she meant.

  “Not at all,” replied Henry, feeling slightly rebuked. “Just completing the list. Surely you have to consider everything and everybody.”

  “But no one in the police here knew Trisha,” said Jennifer, still objecting forcefully. “None of them has any reason to hurt her.”

  “Perhaps it was an accident,” countered Henry. “Maybe something happened to Trish that put someone in a difficult position.”

  Jennifer still wasn’t convinced. “But it’s only the car that’s been dumped there. Why dump the body in a different place. The factory couldn’t have been searched more thoroughly, believe me.”

  “I do. But perhaps that should give you hope. Suppose there isn’t a body; maybe she’s still alive and being held.”

  “So why draw attention to themselves by dumping the car there?”

  “From what you say, it wasn’t meant to be found. Could whoever’s involved have taken Trisha there after the search?”

  “Unlikely,” said Derek. “The gates have been locked up with a padlock for the first time in years. The owners put one on as soon as the final team moved out on Thursday afternoon.”

  “Any other ways in?”

  “Don’t think so, and anyway, if you’re talking about dumping a body or forcibly taking someone there, if you don’t go in through the gates, there would have to be a hole in the fence. And you’d have to carry the body there on foot.”

  “The fence was looked at,” added Jennifer. “Gus Brooke walked the perimeter and checked it. It was about the only useful thing he did do. I was happy to have him out of the way for half an hour.”

  “Not the best of your plods, then,” said Henry.

  “Oh, he’s OK. He was having a bad day. I think he was sick. Certainly looked it.”

  “Hmm,” mused Henry.

  “What?” said Jennifer, challenging again. “You don’t even know him.”

  Henry laughed. “I wasn’t thinking about your Gus Brooke. I was thinking about perspective. You know that Trisha stopped by the roadside near Rappington and her wheel was changed by some Sir Galahad. This person then whisked her away, overcame her and whatever happened, felt the need to dump her car only four miles from where she’d stopped with a problem. Firstly, it’s all very local, and secondly, it’s Trisha we’re talking about here. She’s a cop, like you guys. She can look after herself. She’s trained to be suspicious. If some oik, even if he was big and beefy, looked like he was about to try something, she wouldn’t give in easily. I suspect he would be damaged.”

  “Interesting thought,” agreed Jennifer. “And it would be good to think whoever is behind this has been hurt. But suppose she went willingly and something happened that was out of her control. Suppose she was slipp
ed a Mickey, for instance.”

  “Why?” said Henry. “That’s normally for rape, not murder.”

  “Could’ve gone wrong,” suggested Derek.

  “Sure, but I still think that makes it local. Look, the car’s just climbing the hill to the villa and the reception’s rubbish from about here until I get onto the villa’s wi-fi. I need to tell Connie. She’ll be shocked. She only met Trisha once, I think, but she liked her a lot. I’ll call you back shortly.”

  “Actually, Henry,” said Jennifer, “I’m knackered and heading for my bed as soon as we’ve eaten something. I need to be fresh tomorrow. Along with most of the team, I’ll be trawling through hundreds of traffic cam records from a wide area around the city from last Tuesday night to when Trisha’s Golf was discovered. There’s a possibility that wherever she went after the wheel was fixed was actually some distance from Rappington. We can’t afford not to do it just in case there’s a sighting of her following someone for whatever reason. It’s work that requires a good deal of concentration, but at least I won’t be pounding the streets like today.”

  “OK, Jennifer. Let’s talk tomorrow or the next day. And try to stay positive. Trisha’s a resourceful lady; she might be hanging in there somewhere.”

  “We can only hope,” replied Jennifer, but something in her heart told her otherwise.

  Chapter Forty

  The following afternoon, Rosselli returned to the factory site with Goccia, his backpack laden with a number of purchases he had made in the back streets of a Nottingham suburb earlier that morning.

  Setting his backpack on a table, he removed three identical boxes containing battery-powered CCTV cameras, each of which would last up to three months on one charge. The storeroom had little in it apart from the table and more metal-framed chairs. Rosselli had resigned himself to balancing on one of the chairs until he noticed a serviceable wooden ladder in a dark recess in the corner. “Perfect!” he exclaimed to Goccia.