A Price to Pay

by Paul Gitsham

  ‘No.’

  Warren maintained a neutral expression. The suspect had stopped ‘no commenting’ again. A sign that he was getting flustered.

  Warren opened the lid of his laptop and turned it so that the screen was visible. The Federation rep and solicitor shuffled their chairs around so they could see more clearly, whilst Warren read the exhibit reference into evidence.

  ‘This is CCTV footage taken in the car park at Middlesbury Police station, two minutes before the text message was sent to Paddy Cullen. It shows the rear entrance to the station. The time stamp on the footage is accurate to within one second of those used by the mobile phone networks.’

  The footage was clear, but in black and white, enhanced by passive infra-red to compensate for the lack of light.

  At 03.48 the door opened, and Shaun Grimshaw stepped out clutching a packet of cigarettes. Pulling his collar up against the wind and fine drizzle, he picked a cigarette from the pack and slipped it between his lips. The camera flared white briefly as he ignited his lighter, the tip of the cigarette glowing as he puffed on it, before tipping his head back and exhaling into the night air. After a few inhalations, he swapped his lighter for a mobile phone. The screen lit up against the dark background.

  After a few seconds typing, he dropped the phone down to his side again, and turned his attention back to his cigarette.

  Behind him the door opened, another figure stepping out. Grimshaw nodded in acknowledgement, before turning his attention back to his phone. After exchanging a few words with the newcomer, he took one last drag of his cigarette, before stubbing it out on the lid of the metal waste bin and using his swipe card to head back inside.

  The newcomer picked up his own phone, and quickly typed something, before returning it to his pocket and swiping himself back in.

  ‘The text was sent at 03.50 and 22 seconds,’ said Warren. ‘Shaun stops using his phone at 03.50 and 7 seconds.’

  ‘Maybe the text was delayed?’ said the Federation Rep.

  Warren wound the footage back a few seconds.

  ‘You can see from this angle, that the phone used by Shaun is a smartphone with a touch screen – the whole handset lights up. His personal phone is a Samsung. We’ve looked at his phone, and his usage log shows that he was using it to check his email, specifically to respond to an offer for some cheap tickets to next week’s Manchester City match. The burner phone is a cheap, standard handset, with a 2-inch square screen and keypad.’

  Warren let the footage continue. Now that they were looking for it, it was clear that the newcomer’s phone was bulkier, and the screen took up only a third of it. Every eye in the room was focused on the timestamp on the bottom of the screen.

  At exactly 03.50 and 22 seconds, the newcomer pressed a button with his thumb, and returned the phone to his pocket.

  Warren turned to the suspect.

  ‘It was raining, and cold and nearly four o’clock in the morning. You don’t smoke, so why did you go outside to use your phone, Jorge?’

  Wednesday 02 December

  Epilogue

  ‘Ah, Warren. Do come in.’

  Assistant Chief Constable Mohammed Naseem was all smiles as he welcomed Warren into his office at the force’s headquarters in Welwyn.

  Six days had passed since the charging of Jorge Martinez with the murders of Joey McGhee, Kourtney Flitton, and his friend of many years, Shaun Grimshaw, and the attempted murder of Frankie Cullen. That morning, the Crown Prosecution Service had also authorized multiple charges of misconduct in a public office, with several more in the pipeline.

  Without asking, he handed Warren a porcelain cup of coffee. White, no sugar. Naseem was a man who remembered the small details, even down to the small plate of custard creams he gestured towards.

  ‘Hell of a case, Warren,’ he started as he settled back in his chair, ‘conducted under difficult personal circumstances, I understand.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Warren helping himself to a biscuit. He refrained the urge to dunk it. He didn’t want to seem too familiar.

  The past few days had been long, but all the loose ends had finally been tied up. There were months more work to be done before Martinez’s trial in the summer, but Warren could finally relax and take some personal time. Two intensive sessions with the counsellors in Occupational Health had left him feeling, if not healed, then at least more grounded. Susan would be joining him for another session in a week or so, and Warren was feeling unexpectedly optimistic. A last-minute deal for a week in the sun immediately after Christmas would give the couple some valuable time together.

  Naseem flicked open the leather-bound notebook on the desk in front of him. Over the years, Warren had become familiar with that book. It was no secret that Naseem was planning on writing his memoirs when he finally retired, and Warren’s exploits were sure to feature heavily. He still wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that; he’d be the first to admit that there were aspects of this, and other cases, that he would rather not dwell on too heavily. And he certainly didn’t look forward to reading about them, or having his decisions picked over by the presenters of True Crime TV documentaries.

  ‘I hear that Martinez has finally admitted everything,’ said Naseem.

  ‘Not much choice really. The weight of evidence against him is overwhelming. His only hope now is to plead guilty and hope that his minimum tariff will see him released before he’s too old to enjoy his freedom.’

  ‘Well I, for one, hope the bastard dies in there,’ said Naseem. ‘He deserves everything coming to him.’

  Warren had to agree. The final nail in Martinez’s coffin had been from the shooting at the barn. AFO Kemp had survived being shot by Paddy Cullen, and before being run over by the van Cullen was driving, had witnessed Martinez take the shotgun off a bewildered and frightened Frankie Cullen and shoot Grimshaw in the back of the head, before turning it on Frankie.

  The testimony had explained the lack of gunshot residue on Frankie Cullen’s hands, and why Grimshaw had turned his back on his friend, Martinez, as he raced towards the downed AFO. That had been an incredibly heroic move, given that Paddy Cullen was still armed, and Warren had vowed to make sure that was noted on Grimshaw’s posthumous citation at the Police Memorial on the edge of St James’s Park.

  ‘So, tell me how you realized that he, and not Shaun Grimshaw, was Northern Man.’ Naseem carefully removed the lid of an expensive-looking fountain pen.

  ‘It was largely down to DS Rachel Pymm,’ said Warren. ‘She spotted that the white van that we had identified as the one used to ferry Cullen’s workers around hadn’t been run through SOC’s private database like we requested. Jorge Martinez had offered to phone up his old colleagues at SOC and get it fast-tracked. Instead, he gave them a false licence number, just one digit different, and told them that we had already run it through the DVLA, so there was no need for them to bother. If they had done that first, they would have realized that the number doesn’t even exist.’

  Naseem scowled. The sloppy procedures of DCI Ian Bergen’s unit were the subject of an ongoing investigation by Professional Standards. Bergen had resigned with immediate effect the day after Martinez’s arrest, but it wouldn’t be enough to quell the embarrassment. Or save the careers of others in the unit. Already the press were sniffing around, and it would only be so long before the whole sorry affair hit the front pages.

  ‘Loose lips sink ships,’ observed Naseem. The moment Jorge Martinez left that unit and transferred to Middlesbury, all operational contact with that team should have stopped. It’s a disgrace that he was kept in the loop as regards the Cullens.’

  ‘In their defence, they saw Grimshaw and Martinez’s transfer to the CID unit covering the Cullens’ patch as a two-way exchange. A lot of the Cullens’ more minor infractions came across our desk first, and Martinez and Grimshaw kept them in the loop.’

  Naseem’s glare stopped Warren from going any further down that path.

  ‘So, Martinez was str
inging Grimshaw along, all this time?’

  Warren sighed. In some ways, this was one of the aspects that saddened him the most.

  ‘Yes. He’s quite unapologetic about that. He and Grimshaw teamed up from the first time they met at training college. Shaun was … a difficult person to get along with at times, and it seems that Jorge exploited that somewhat. He befriended him and used him as a shield to deflect suspicion away from himself.’

  Naseem’s lip twisted. ‘Yes, the infamous Brownnose Brothers. I met them hanging around the lifts in Welwyn on a number of occasions. As I recall, DS Martinez was rather more smooth-talking than his colleague.’

  Warren felt a stab of guilt; he’d fallen into that trap. Shaun Grimshaw’s abrasive attitude had made it all too easy to assume the worst when the finger of suspicion had been pointed towards him.

  ‘Yes, and we all fell for his charm. Which it now seems was a complete lie.’

  ‘I’ve heard that Martinez also embellished his past somewhat,’ said Naseem.

  ‘Yes, it appears that he reinvented himself when he went to university. He portrayed himself as having a wealthy upbringing in Cheshire, when in reality he came from a poor, unprivileged, single-parent family on a housing estate in Stockport. He kept up the pretence when he joined the police, even going so far as to convince Shaun and others he met that he had grown up on the same street as a Manchester United player. That may have been his downfall. That type of background comes with the sort of trappings difficult to finance on a police officer’s salary.’

  ‘Hence the corruption.’

  ‘Not immediately. We looked at his financial record, and it seemed that he played fast and loose with credit cards at first, and when that stopped working, turned to gambling, a habit he never really kicked. CCTV from local betting shops shows that the betting slips that we found in Shaun’s drawer were actually his. Shaun liked a flutter, but nothing more. Jorge even stole money from the communal coffee jar and planted it in Shaun’s drawer for us to find.’

  Naseem shook his head. ‘It sounds as though he stitched him up good and proper.’

  ‘Yes, forensics on the jumper found in Shaun’s drawer had traces of Kourtney Flitton’s blood on it. But DNA retrieved from the neck matched Jorge. It seems that he wore it when he killed her. He then left the murder weapon where it could be found with more fibres on it for good measure. He was so anxious that the evidence was found, that when he attended the scene of the murder with the SOCOs he pissed off CSM Andy Harrison by pointing out the knife, in case they missed it.’

  ‘That’s great work, Warren. Have you managed to persuade the witnesses to name him as Northern Man?’

  Warren smiled. ‘Every single one of them. As soon as we told them that he was in custody, everyone rolled over and admitted he was Stevie Cullen’s fixer. Silvija Wilson and Ray Dorridge have testified that Jorge put the frighteners on them to ensure that they kept their end of their bargains with Stevie Cullen. When Cullen was killed, he managed to persuade Malina and Biljana Dragić that if they stuck to the story he had concocted about the hooded killer and waited out the custody clock if they were arrested, they’d be released without charge. When that didn’t happen, and they were charged, he threatened to kill their Aunt Silvija and Annie if they exposed him.

  ‘He then convinced Silvija Wilson that he was the only hope she had of keeping her nieces out of jail. He also promised to kill Annie, if she said anything. He used the same threats with Annie when he travelled to Manchester with Shaun to arrest her. Since the four women were unable to communicate, he was able to play them off against each other.’

  ‘Clever bastard,’ muttered Naseem, ‘so why didn’t he kill Wilson and Dorridge, or even that friend of Stevie Cullen when he had the chance? He killed Joey McGhee and Kourtney Flitton to stop them saying anything.’

  ‘I’ve been giving that a lot of thought. I think that he might have considered it but missed his opportunity. At first, he tried to shift the focus of the investigation away from Dorridge, and towards Rimington to buy himself some breathing room. When Shaun was killed, and then implicated as Northern Man, Martinez no longer had anyone to pin their deaths on. It would have been too suspicious if they ended up dead as well.’

  Naseem nodded. ‘It sounds like they were bloody lucky. What are they saying now?’

  ‘Both Malina and Biljana Dragić, and Anica Vuković, have confirmed that Silvija Wilson phoned Martinez after Annie stabbed Cullen, and that he arrived to clear up the mess. We have CCTV footage of him leaving the station suddenly, immediately after Wilson called the burner phone. He then had the balls to go back with Shaun to attend the crime scene, and also helped coach the two girls and Wilson after their initial interview to get their stories straight.’

  ‘Cheeky bastard. What about the Cullens?’

  ‘No loyalty from them either. They’re all trying to save their skin, or at least receive a reduced sentence. They’re claiming that the whole set-up was masterminded by Stevie Cullen, with Jorge involved from the outset. But that’s not going to stand up in court. We’ve already established that the oldest sister, Lavender, did the accounts for his business. We also found his laptop in her office. IT are restoring the hard drive as we speak. The workers we rescued have said that Rosie, the mother, and the youngest daughter, Saffron, were responsible for looking after them, if it could be called that.

  ‘Ray Dorridge has implicated the father Seamus and the twins, Frankie and Paddy, in Emil’s death, saying that they turned up to keep an eye on the workers the night that he was killed trying to escape with Annie. They’re all claiming that Stevie was the one who fired the shotgun into the forest, and we’ve matched fibres caught on the hole in the fence to a jacket in his wardrobe, but I don’t think we’ll ever truly know who pulled the trigger and killed him. I suspect the CPS will charge them all under Joint Enterprise.’

  Naseem grunted. ‘No honour among thieves, eh? Still some justice at least. And fancy leaving your disabled brother to face the music. There’ll be a special place in hell for Paddy Cullen.’

  Warren agreed. However, he worried that the full horrors of the Cullen farm had yet to be fully unearthed. Annie had said that the reason she and Emil had decided to escape, was because other women in her position had been forced to end their pregnancy. Teams with dogs had been searching the farm, to see what else they might find. He dreaded reading the report when it finally crossed his desk.

  Warren paused, choosing his words carefully. ‘Speaking of which, I don’t suppose you know which way the wind is blowing, as concerns Anica Vuković and the other captives do you?’

  Naseem got up and refilled the two men’s coffee cups. ‘That’s a decision that the Crown Prosecution Service will have to make.’

  Warren waited.

  ‘But unofficially, I hear that with the testimony of the two nail technicians, including one who claims to have witnessed the whole altercation, they are minded to consider self-defence, or possibly manslaughter with a recommendation of time served for Annie. I believe that a Serbian charity has stepped in to cover her legal costs, which will help. She will be deported of course, but hopefully she will eventually be able to put it all behind her. As to the rest of the captives, their status in this country will be viewed “sympathetically”.’

  Warren was relieved to hear that Annie was unlikely to go to prison for murder or manslaughter. The last time that he had seen Annie had been at the small funeral for Emil and their child. So far, neither the Home Office nor the Foreign Office had managed to identify Emil, and so he had been buried, alongside his baby boy, who Annie had named Nikola, in a council funeral. Warren and the team had donated money for a simple headstone and flowers, with enough set aside for completion of the headstone if Emil was ever properly identified. He hoped that Annie would be able to pay her respects one last time before she was deported.

  Warren had also given money towards the funerals of Joey McGhee and Kourtney Flitton. Perhaps if he hadn’t given ca
sh to Joey McGhee that night, their paths might not have crossed and both of them would still be alive. Tony Sutton had dismissed that notion as nonsense, but still Warren’s conscience troubled him. Professional Standards had mostly agreed with Sutton’s assessment, although formal advice had been placed in his file.

  Warren could live with that.

  Back in Middlesbury, a chill wind whistled down the road by the shops. Karen Hardwick stood in front of the post box. In her hand was the letter from Nottingham University. It had sat on the table for weeks, taunting her with its importance, but today was the day she needed to reply. If she didn’t post it now, she ran the risk of missing the deadline on Friday.

  Yes or No? That was the question that she’d wrestled with all this time. Finally, after another night of no sleep, she’d made her decision, scrawling her signature and sealing the letter in the prepaid envelope before she could change her mind. Again.

  Oliver snuffled quietly in the pram beside her. Wrapped up tightly against the cold in a mustard-coloured jacket, with a knitted hat covering his ears, he was oblivious to his mother’s emotional turmoil.

  Taking a deep breath, Hardwick pushed the letter through the slot. She heard the quiet thump as it landed on the pile of letters already inside the bright red pillar box.

  Reaching down, she gently touched her sleeping son’s face.

  The decision she had just made would affect them both. But she knew that above all else, when it came to the future, hers was lying in front of her.

  Don’t miss where the story began in DCI Warren Jones’ first case, The Last Straw. Available now!

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