The Body Dealer (A DI Erica Swift Thriller Book 5)

by M K Farrar

  “Want to grab a coffee and bacon sandwich.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  They stopped off at a local café and chose a window seat. A waitress came up and took their twin orders of coffee—black for her—and bacon sandwiches. Their food arrived quickly.

  “How’s Poppy been lately?” Shawn asked, then took a bite of his sandwich.

  “She’s good. We’ve been making sure to do regular trips out to see her dad, and I think she gets a lot of comfort from that, you know? You and I might just see a gravestone, but she sees it as a place where she can talk to him.”

  He nodded, quickly chewed, and swallowed. “I get that. This past year has been tough on her. On both of you.”

  “Yeah, it has been. I couldn’t have got through it without your support, though.”

  He shrugged and glanced away. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You were there for me, which meant a lot. You should come over and have dinner with me and Poppy one evening, if we ever manage to get some time off. I’d like for the two of you to spend some more time together.”

  It wasn’t exactly an invitation of a raucous night down the pub with the rest of the team, which was what the younger members preferred, and that she rarely got to go along to, as she always needed to get home to Poppy. Shawn was young and single, with none of the baggage she had.

  “I mean,” she added hurriedly. “No pressure, if you don’t want to. I realise it probably isn’t exactly your idea of a fun night out.”

  He lifted his gaze to hers. “I’d love to, Erica.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Yes, really.”

  Her cheeks heated. “Okay, great.”

  “Guess we’d better hurry up and solve this case then.”

  She laughed and finished up her food, knowing full well that the moment they solved this one—assuming it could be solved—something else would land in their laps. There was rarely a quiet moment, which was probably why so many detectives’ relationships ended. They were married to the job.

  Taking the final gulps of her coffee, she stood and pulled her jacket back on.

  “Let’s hope Rudd found something on the CCTV footage. Right now, it’s the only thing we have to go on.”

  Chapter Six

  She hid in the bushes, her arm around the shoulders of her thirteen-year-old daughter, waiting and watching. It was late evening, but still the French sun beat down on them. Even the shade created by the foliage did little to help. Linh Phan was used to the heat, however. In her home country of Vietnam, it was always hot in the summer. A mosquito whined around her head, and she slapped it away.

  Her daughter, Chau, didn’t complain. They’d done a lot of this over the past few weeks, the sitting and waiting, stomachs knotted in anticipation.

  The small number of belongings they’d brought with them from Vietnam were inside bag slung across their shoulders. They had to be able to move fast and silently, so hauling large suitcases around with them simply wasn’t practical. Not that they owned enough to fill big suitcases anyway. Linh had made sure they’d packed only the basics—some changes of clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, food and water. On top of that, she’d also included a photograph of the family she’d left behind, and Chau had brought a picture of her with her friends.

  It had hurt to leave them all, but they needed this opportunity. She had so many people relying on her at home. Her parents were elderly and unable to work, and her sister’s family were also struggling since her husband had suffered an injury and been unable to work. Linh’s own husband had died in a motorbike accident when their daughter had only been a few years old, and she’d never wanted to remarry. Besides, she’d seen this as an opportunity to give her daughter a new life. When would a chance like this land in their laps again? They’d come to the agreement to fund her passage, and then she would work off the rest when she arrived in the UK. Her daughter was capable of working as well, though Linh hoped Chau would also be able to get an education at the same time. She knew it was a risk, but something had to change. They were all going to bed hungry, and the money her sister’s husband brought in was nowhere near enough to pay for everything, and her sister was pregnant again.

  They’d been dropped off at this location several hours ago and given the licence plate number of the lorry to look out for. It was a Southern Ams Freight lorry, but they couldn’t only go on the name printed across the side. They needed to make sure they got the right one. That particular lorry had been tampered with, the roll-up mechanism opened before the driver had left his last rest stop, giving them access. The driver would be unaware of his stowaways—there was a fine for every stowaway a driver brought into the country, even if the driver didn’t know anything about it—and they couldn’t risk being caught.

  Linh and Chau weren’t the only ones waiting. Movement came from other bushes around them, skinny people with dirty faces and filthy clothes, with only the sparsest of belongings. All had wide eyes and taut mouths, that air of anticipation and fear surrounding them. Though they sat or crouched on the ground, their muscles were bunched, ready to spring into action.

  “Will they be here soon, Má?” Chau asked in Vietnamese.

  “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  In another hour or so, it would be getting dark. The dark was good for them—it would mean they’d be less likely to be noticed running to the back of the lorry and climbing inside. These lorry parks were all along the motorways of Southern France, beyond Paris. The massive haulage business between the UK and the rest of Europe meant that thousands of trucks used these routes every day. The drivers travelled distances that almost matched the one she and her daughter had done since leaving Vietnam, but the drivers were forced to take breaks and would sleep in their vehicles. That was when Linh and Chau needed to make their move and be in situ the following day when the driver woke early to do the final part of the journey through the Channel Tunnel to Dover.

  More vehicles arrived, the drivers climbing out of their cabs to use the services or just stretch their legs.

  “Má, there!” Chau pointed at a lorry with Southern Ams Freight across the side.

  Linh sucked in a breath. They’d seen many of these vehicles. Could it be the right one this time?

  She lifted her head from the bushes to get a better look. Sure enough, the licence plate was the same as they’d been told to watch out for.

  “Yes, Chau. It’s time.”

  They still needed to wait, however, for the driver to climb down from the cab and move away from the lorry. There were other huge sixteen-wheelers parked in front of him, too, but, for the moment, there wasn’t anyone behind.

  The door cracked open, and a white man in his mid-forties jumped down. He stretched his arms into the air, pulling his t-shirt tight across the barrel of his belly, and yawned widely. Another driver sitting at a picnic bench called him over, and he lifted his hand in a wave then sauntered over.

  “Now is our chance, Chau.”

  They weren’t the only ones to see the opportunity. They’d arrived here with others in a van, and they’d be making this next portion of the trip with those same people.

  Two men ran out from the bushes first, heading straight for the back of the lorry. Linh snatched up Chau’s hand and they ran as well, staying as low to the ground as possible, hinged over at the waist, bags bouncing on their backs. The last thing she wanted was for the men to get on board first and do something to lock them out. They couldn’t run the risk of getting stranded here. While the rest area had toilets and picnic tables, there was nothing else but fields and miles of motorway all around.

  The men reached the roll-up doors and yanked at the bottom. For a few horrifying seconds, Linh didn’t think it was going to open, and her fears of being trapped here would come true, but then they managed to edge it up—just a few inches at first, working quietly so as not to be heard—and then enough to allow them to wriggle beneath.

  Others had spotted the
opportunity and were running for the lorry as well. Linh didn’t want to lose their place. She would fight if she had to. But everyone knew that trying to stop one of them from getting on might break out in a fight, and that would get them all noticed. These strangers had never even exchanged a few words, but now their futures depended upon one another. Like it or not, they were in this together.

  The two men scrambled on board first. Linh helped Chau by giving her a shove, and then she climbed on with her daughter. The whole back of the truck was filled with huge plastic containers. They’d been given instructions that the container they needed was in the middle of the load and would be empty and ready for them. The only way to reach it was by clambering up the ones in front of it and crawling through the small gap between the tops of the containers and the lorry roof.

  Others were coming up behind them, so they had no choice but to make way. Everything was done in almost supernatural silence, everyone aware that the slightest noise might alert the driver or one of his friends to the stowaways.

  Linh followed her daughter over the tops of the containers, moving in a commando crawl, dragging herself elbow over elbow. Her bag wedged against the roof, and she yanked it free, not wanting to leave it behind. Not only would the presence of a bag alert any official who might search the vehicle that there was someone in here, but it also contained all her worldly belongings.

  The two men found the correct container first and pulled off the lid, pushing it to one side before dropping down inside it. The others followed, Linh helping Chau in first, before climbing in herself. They huddled into a corner, Linh with her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, waiting as one person after another jumped in, too. Whoever had boarded last would have had to pull the bottom of the roller back down again, hiding that it had been opened.

  They needed to stay silent now. The driver would most likely get a few hours’ sleep, and in the morning, he would begin the next leg of his journey to Dover, unaware of the people hiding in the back.

  Chapter Seven

  Erica couldn’t get over the feeling she was trespassing by being in Gibbs’ office. She kept thinking he was going to walk in and demand to know what she was doing in his chair.

  There was no way in which this felt like her office, and neither should it. She was only here on a temporary basis, though it concerned her that the super had gone to the level of promoting her into this position in the first place. If this was the case that Gibbs was going to be off for a week or so, he wouldn’t have bothered, which made her think they were assuming Gibbs would be off for much longer. He must be needing some recovery time, which worried her. How bad was the stroke?

  A framed photograph of Gibbs and his wife stared at her from the desk. Feeling awkward and guilty, she quickly picked it up and slid it into one of the drawers. She couldn’t focus while Gibbs was staring right at her. She’d brought a couple of items from her own desk to make this one feel more like home, and even though she knew it was only temporary and didn’t want it to look as though she was trying to move in permanently, she replaced the photograph with one of Poppy. Then she positioned her pot plant on the end of the desk, telling herself that if she didn’t bring it with her, she’d forget about it and it would end up dying.

  Her gaze drifted to the sealed envelope containing the ‘get well’ card that everyone, including herself, had signed. She’d drop it off at the hospital on her way home. Would he mind if she stopped by with flowers and a card from them all? Or would he think it to be an imposition, and not like her seeing him in a vulnerable state?

  With a sigh, she leafed through the piles of paperwork on Gibbs’ desk. Superintendent Woods had been right about the quantity. She needed to get her head around the court case that was coming up, too, and let the prosecuting solicitor know that he had to put her on the stand instead of Gibbs.

  She anticipated receiving the DNA Snapshot report of their Jane Doe, assuming the sample hadn’t been corrupted in the fire. It would give them a better idea of who the victim had been. Normally, she’d be able to retrace the victim’s final movements, or question family and friends to find out if there was anyone who might have wanted to hurt them. Without knowing the victim, all those avenues of enquiry were shut off, and they were left with little to go on. Finding out the victim’s identity would go a long way to finding out who’d killed her and why. Motive was key in these kinds of crimes, and right now they had none.

  A knock came at the office door, and Erica looked up to see DC Hannah Rudd lurking.

  “Rudd, what can I do for you?”

  “I’ve found something,” the young detective constable said. “I’ve just emailed the file over to you.”

  “The CCTV from the warehouse?” Erica checked, clicking open her computer browser.

  “That’s right. Scroll through to six-seventeen.”

  Erica pulled up the file Rudd had sent her and scrolled the cursor along to the time stamp she’d said.

  On the screen, a white van drove past the building.

  “Look, there,” Rudd pointed out.

  Erica sat back. “There are plenty of white vans in London.”

  Rudd nodded eagerly. “I know, so I checked the number plate, just to see if it flagged up on the system, and it doesn’t come up.”

  Erica frowned. “Doesn’t come up at all?”

  “Nope. It’s not a registered plate.”

  “A fake one?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “So, a white van with a fake number plate shows up shortly before the body is discovered. I’d say it’s a reasonable assumption that this was the vehicle used to move the body—if she was dead by this point. Why else would someone be driving around this area, at that time, with fake licence plates, unless they were up to no good? Are there any images where we can see who’s driving?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I need to go through the footage in more detail. As soon as I spotted the van, I checked the licence plate and came to talk to you.”

  “Good work,” Erica said, and Rudd beamed. “Are there any other identifying marks on the van?”

  “Not so far, but I’ll see if we can find it on a different camera. We might be able to get a better view from a different angle.”

  “Excellent.”

  The van at least meant they had something substantial to go on.

  Rudd’s gaze landed on the card propped up on her desk. “Are you stopping by the hospital after you leave here?”

  “Yes, I am. Thought he’d want to know that we’re all thinking of him.”

  “Good idea, boss.” Rudd nodded and smiled, before backing out of the room and closing the door behind her.

  With a sigh, Erica sat back in the chair and steepled her fingers to her lips.

  What did they have? A white van with fake plates. A burned body of a young woman. No motive yet, though, and no suspects, except for potentially whoever was driving the van, if they could find it.

  It wasn’t enough, though. They needed more.

  ERICA LURKED OUTSIDE the hospital room, a bunch of flowers gripped in one hand and a get-well card signed by all the members of their team in the other. She suddenly felt awkward and ridiculous for bringing Gibbs flowers. She would never have dreamed of giving him flowers on a day-to-day basis. Gibbs was more of an expensive whiskey kind of man, or maybe a decent packet of cigars, but those were hardly the sort of things she could bring to the hospital. In fact, it was probably his love of those things that had landed him in the hospital bed in the first place. She imagined he’d get plenty of lectures on clean living from the doctors and nurses over the next few weeks and days to come.

  A nurse walked past and gave her a smile, which Erica returned.

  This was stupid. She wouldn’t stay long. He might even be asleep. What was it that was making her feel so out of place? Was it that she knew he’d ask questions about what was happening at work, and she’d have to tell him that she’d been given a promotion—albeit temporary—into his job? It wasn�
��t as though she’d done anything underhand to get it. He was a professional—he’d know someone else would have to step into the role. But things like strokes could change people. They made them confused and angry. Perhaps that was the main reason she was anxious about going in. She and Gibbs hadn’t always seen eye to eye. But she’d always trusted him as her boss, and the idea of seeing him sick and vulnerable sat uneasily on her shoulders.

  Come on, stop being such a baby, she scolded herself.

  She moved to step into the room, only to almost collide with another woman with short, greying hair and a lined face.

  She recognised Pamela Gibbs instantly from the occasional times Mrs Gibbs had popped into the office, or the Christmas dos. They knew each other to speak to, though could in no way be considered friends.

  “Oh, Erica. How lovely you’re here. Charles will be pleased to see you.”

  It took Erica a moment to click onto Gibbs’ first name.

  “I don’t want to disturb him, if he’s not up for visitors.”

  “No, please, do come in. He’s been like a bear with a sore head—even more grumpy than usual. I mean, I can’t say I blame him. He’s had one hell of a fright.”

  “How is he?” she asked.

  “The doctors are confident that he’ll make a full recovery, but it’s going to take some time. He had some nerve damage to his left side.” She blinked suddenly, and Erica realised she was holding back tears.

  Erica placed a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”

  She flapped a hand near her face. “Yes, yes. It was just such a shock, you know? One moment, everything is normal, and the next everything changes.”

  Erica knew how that felt only too well. “I understand.”

  “Yes, of course you do. I’m so sorry about your husband, and your father, too. Charles told me.”

  “Thank you.”

  She wanted to move on. She couldn’t stand the sympathy in the other woman’s eyes. That was the trouble with everyone knowing your business—they always felt sorry for you, even if they were the one with a husband in a hospital bed.