A Tangled Web

by A L Fraine

  “So, why did he hit her? Did he say why he was angry?” Jon asked.

  “I think it was because we went to a club the other night without them. We were all out together, but we got separated, so, Olivia wanted to have some fun and go to a club.”

  “And he didn’t like that.”

  “No,” she replied.

  “He has no right to do that to you,” Kate said.

  “I know,” Lily replied, sniffing back more tears.

  “It’s okay,” Evie said. “You’re doing well.”

  “So, where is this Jacob now?” Jon asked, feeling like he needed to have a word with the asshole.

  “I don’t know. I’ve not seen him since Olivia left the house. He must be out looking for her, or…”

  “So, where’s the house you lived at? Do you have an address? I’ll need the full names of this Jacob and his friends too.”

  8

  “So, what’s your assessment?” Jon asked Evie in the quiet of the side-room.

  “She’s traumatised,” Evie began, her eyes switching back and forth between him and Kate from across the table. “She’s been through a horrific series of events, and it’s going to take a long time to fully unpack. She’s going to live with this for the rest of her life.”

  “Is it just violence?” Kate asked, “Or are we talking rape here as well?”

  “I don’t know. Right now, she’s not telling me much, and she’s focusing on her missing friend. I can’t rule out violence, sexual violence, or drug abuse. My guess would be that it’s a cocktail of all of those things, and she could also be blocking stuff out. I’ll refer her to some specialists who will be able to work through this trauma with her, but don’t expect to get all the answers you want in the timescale you need them. She might not remember some of it until years down the line, and if drugs were used, it might never come back. But what is clear is that she needs help and support.”

  “I understand,” Jon replied. “I’ve worked a few cases like this before. Thank you, Evie, give her whatever she needs.”

  “I’d like to keep her here for a little longer today, she seems to feel safe here.”

  “That’s fine. We’ll probably have more questions for her anyway, provided that she’s okay to answer them.”

  “She seems to want to help for now, so I’m sure that will be ok.”

  “Good. Her parents are in, I think, so I’ll go and talk to them shortly, and when Lily feels up to it, I’m sure they’d like to see her.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Evie replied, and left them to their work.

  ***

  “Lily’s run away from home a few times,” Dion said, pointing out the reports in the file that Jon held as they walked through the station. “Seems like she was something of a rebel for a while. Olivia too. We have several reports of her running away, plus some petty crime too. The last report was just under a year ago. Lily’s parents kept in touch, but Olivia’s seemed to give up.”

  “Right, so Lily’s been a bit of a handful for her parents, it seems.”

  “Looks that way. She doesn’t have a record though, she’s not been in any trouble with us.”

  “What about this Jacob Cole, and the others?”

  “We’re looking into them now, but a quick check confirmed a criminal record. Petty stuff mainly. I’ll get the full report to you as soon as I can,” Dion replied.

  “Good work,” Jon said. Dion nodded, and walked off, leaving him and Kate in the hallway.

  “What do you think so far?”

  “She’s not telling us everything,” Kate replied.

  “That much is obvious.”

  “I don’t like it. I want to know what she’s hiding. And as for Olivia, I think we need a little more to go on.”

  “I agree. I’m not about to assign loads of resources to this yet. It’s only been a day since her apparent disappearance, the latest of many, and we need to look into Olivia a little more first.”

  “I think you’ll find another rebellious teenager,” Kate replied.

  “Oh, I know. But, aren’t all teenagers like that? I remember hating some of the things my parents did back then. You must have rebelled at some point?”

  “No. I was a good girl.”

  “I don’t believe a word of it. I bet you were a right tearaway.”

  “Me? How very dare you. I was a model child.”

  “Ireland,” Jon replied, referring to her teenage adventure when she tried to hunt down the killer of her aunt.

  “Meh,” Kate replied with a shrug.

  “Thought so. We’ve all got skeletons in our closets, it’s just that some are more horrifying than others. Right then, let’s go say hi to her parents, they’re downstairs.”

  Kate nodded and followed Jon down to the ground floor, and into a side room where two adults awaited. The woman, Lily’s mother Jon guessed, was pacing back and forth in front of the man who was sitting on a sofa.

  He stood when they entered, though.

  “Is she okay? Is Lily here?” the woman asked, while the man stayed silent, waiting.

  “Before I answer that, can I just confirm that you’re Myles and Nina Austin?” Jon asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Nina replied and passed him some ID, which he checked and confirmed.

  “Very good. Okay, I’m DCI Pilgrim and this is DS O’Connell, and yes, she is,” Jon replied. “But, we just want to have a chat with you before we bring her down. Okay?”

  “What has she done?” the man asked.

  “Nothing,” Kate replied. “She came to us for help. Her friend has gone missing.”

  “Oh?” he asked.

  “Olivia?” the woman asked.

  “That’s the one,” Kate confirmed.

  “Lily came here this morning,” Jon added, “because her friend, Olivia Cook, has gone missing from the house they were living in.”

  “Ugh,” the man grunted. “Her again? She’s nothing but trouble that one.”

  “Myles,” Nina admonished him. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. So, what happened?”

  “Well, firstly, are we right in thinking that Lily ran away from home about a year ago?”

  Nina nodded. “She’d been going missing for several years before that though. She was always a handful. Olivia encouraged her I think too. She last went missing just after her sixteenth birthday. We filed a report with the police, but we just couldn’t find her. We did get some messages from her though, saying she was okay and to stop looking for her.”

  “More like abusive texts,” Myles added. “There was nothing friendly about them.”

  “Just stop it, Myles. If she came to the police, then clearly she needs help. I want to help her.”

  Myles sighed but said nothing.

  “Well, she came to us today, because of Olivia. They’ve been living together, and Olivia recently went missing.”

  “Why?” Nina asked.

  “Apparently, one of the young men she was living with hurt both of them, and Olivia seems to have had enough, so she left.”

  “Someone hit Lily?” Nina gasped.

  “She’s okay,” Kate added. “But she will need your support. You have to understand, she’s been through an intense, traumatic experience. Something that she may never fully recover from, and something that can, and likely will, flare up from time to time.”

  “You’ll need to be there for her as she works through this. She’s going to need professional help.”

  “My God, what happened to her?”

  “We don’t know the details,” Jon replied. “She’s not told us everything. She’s focusing on her missing friend.”

  Myles rolled his eyes.

  “What she doesn’t need, are your opinions of Olivia,” Jon said, looking at Lily’s father. “They’re not helpful. She needs your full support.”

  “Of course, anything,” Nina replied. Myles nodded too, his bolshiness gone following Jon’s words.

  “I’m sorry. Yes, of course. I’ll help her
.”

  “Okay, that’s good. We’ve got some investigating to do, so we’re going to need you to stay here for a while. But we’ll have some questions for you all before long.”

  “That’s fine, thank you,” Nina replied.

  “We’ll bring her and her social worker in,” Jon said, and Kate went to get her. They walked in moments later. Lily looked cautious and shy, but her mother just hugged her and promised everything would be okay.

  Satisfied that everything seemed to be going well, he left the room. He’d be back down later, but for now, the family just needed a little time.

  “It’s always nice to see family members being reunited,” Kate commented as they made their way back upstairs.

  “Aye. I just wish it happened a little more often,” Jon replied. “We see far too much death and pain in this job.”

  “What do you think’s happened to Olivia?”

  “Hopefully nothing. I’m still hopeful that Lily is wrong and that she’ll be hidden at her parents’ house or somewhere.”

  “That would make for a nice change,” Kate agreed.

  “Which means this will likely turn into a multiple homicide case or something.”

  “Yeah, that would be just our luck,” Kate replied as they returned to the SIU office.

  “So, what have you got for us, Rachel?” Jon asked.

  “Well, it turns out Olivia was a bit more of a tearaway than Lily was. She’s got a small criminal record, mainly for theft and drugs offences, she’s also been reported missing by her parents, Geoff and Sylvie Cook several times throughout the years.”

  “Just like Lily,” Kate commented.

  “In some cases, exactly like her. Some of them happened around the same time, as if they went missing together.”

  “Which they probably did,” Jon muttered.

  “Like Lily, the final report was from a year ago, but unlike Myles and Nina, Olivia’s parents didn’t follow up as much. It looks like they just gave up,” Rachel said.

  “They’d finally had enough?” Kate mused.

  Rachel shrugged. “Other than that, I’m not sure there’s much here, really. There’s no new report on her going missing, so Olivia could be anywhere,” Rachel said.

  “There’s an abuse case to be looked into,” Kate suggested.

  “True,” Jon agreed. “But Olivia has a track record of going missing and then turning up later. Apart from the fact that Lily’s not with her, this doesn’t seem much different.”

  “She’s got previous,” Rachel agreed.

  “I know, and yet, something’s not right here,” Kate answered.

  “Got a feeling in your blood?” Rachel asked her.

  “Something like that.”

  “Me too,” Jon agreed. “I’ve definitely got a feeling.”

  “It’s probably that gravy,” Kate replied.

  9

  “So what else do you have for me?” Jon asked, sitting at the table in the office with Kate, Dion, Rachel, and Nathan.

  “We’ve been looking into the house that Lily told us about,” Nathan replied. “She was right, it’s not owned by Jacob, but by a man called Vassili Syomin. He’s a Russian National living in the UK. He’s got dual passports and has been here a while racking up a nice little criminal record for himself over the years. He’s mainly been trafficking drugs, and most of the offences we’ve charged him with are related to that. But I think there’s more to him than just being a drug dealer.”

  “Oh?” Jon asked. “Been doing some digging, have you, Fox?”

  “A little. He’s managed to escape any serious jail time, mainly because of his lawyer, who’s got some serious weight behind him.”

  “What kind of weight?”

  “He’s a Russian Mafia lawyer, and you don’t hire a mob lawyer if you’re not linked to them somehow.”

  “So, he’s got links to the Bratva? Shit. What have we stumbled onto here?”

  “I don’t know. It might be that Olivia and Lily know nothing about all this, but then, maybe not,” Nathan answered, with meaning filling his words.

  “Crap, what if Olivia found out something she shouldn’t have?” Kate mused.

  “Then the Mob would not be happy,” Jon replied, filling in the blanks.

  “That’s a leap,” Nathan said. “It’s far more likely that Lily and Olivia are just victims, and this is more of a lover’s tiff between Olivia and Jacob.”

  “So, how does Jacob Cole fit in?” Rachel asked.

  “Although, it does look like Jacob is working for Vassili, I think that’s as close as he gets to the mobsters,” Dion answered. “I think he’s just a low-level cog in a much bigger machine.”

  Jon nodded and sat back in his chair. Memories of a case from a couple of years ago returned unbidden to the forefront of his mind, along with the fallout that resulted from it. It wasn’t a case he liked to think about too much. But what he did remember, was the viciousness and cruelty of the Russian gangsters.

  Mafia men were cold and cruel wherever they were from, of course, but this was one case he remembered more than some others, mainly because of the group's carefree attitude to human life.

  Still, his previous experience with that criminal fraternity might be of use in this case.

  “I’ve had some previous dealings with the Russians,” Jon spoke up. “It was a money laundering and human trafficking case up in Nottingham, and they were a tricky group to deal with.”

  “Do you think they planned on trafficking Lily and Olivia?” Kate asked.

  “I have no idea. Lily’s not been very forthcoming, though, so maybe, but maybe not. This could just be a simple case of abuse,” Jon replied.

  Kate nodded.

  “Okay, so this house where Lily was living with Olivia. It’s owned by Vassili, and with his links, this could be a front for some of their activities,” Jon suggested.

  “I agree,” Nathan replied. “There have been sporadic complaints from their neighbours, but they often withdraw them, which makes me think Vassili has been intimidating them into keeping their mouths shut.”

  “Okay, but all this is speculation for now. There could be nothing there, so I’m not about to go breaking down their door just yet. But I think it might be worth a quick house call to see what shakes loose. We need to focus on Olivia for now, though, so keep digging while Kate and I go and have a word with Vassili.”

  “Will do, Guv,” Dion replied, and they all got up from the table, and went about their business, with Kate grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair as Jon made his way outside with Kate following on his heels.

  “What are you thinking about?” Kate asked as they made their way outside, and into the waiting pool car.

  “I’m thinking that my initial assessment, where I said I wasn’t prepared to put resources into this, might have been premature,” he answered, getting into the car and driving off with Kate in the passenger seat. “There’s more to this than just a missing person case.”

  “Yeah, I have the same feeling.”

  “These mafia connections are worrying,” Jon remarked after a while. “It could make things a lot more complicated.”

  “Organised crime has a way of doing that,” Kate agreed. “But I’m not sure that Olivia and Lily were mixed up in that side of things.”

  “I hope not. Those guys are ruthless.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me there. So, what do you hope to accomplish with this visit?”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure, but I’m hoping we get to see Jacob. If we can find him, and ask him some questions… Who knows, maybe Olivia will be there too.”

  “I think that’s a long shot.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “So, you had Russian Mobsters up north then?”

  “Oh aye, we’re all fancy up there, you know. We get all the best people coming to Nottingham.”

  “Sounds like it,” Kate replied as they drove on through the Surrey countryside, heading east towards Redhill, and
the house that the girls had been living in. “You know, I have a bad feeling about what these guys were doing with Lily and Olivia.”

  “Me too. It was nothing good, that’s for damn sure.”

  “I think they groomed them and were using them, sexually.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” Jon agreed. “I think these two girls only remained strong while both of them were there, but when Olivia left, Lily realised she couldn’t stay. She realised the truth of the situation.”

  “That’s nightmarish,” Kate replied.

  “I dread to think what they’ve been through,” Jon said, as they drove into Redhill and made their way over to the estate. The house was located on a reasonably busy backstreet, a kind of rat run through this side of town where the locals cut through to shave seconds off their journey. The sizable house sported a wall, a hedgerow, and a set of dented gates to keep trespassers out.

  It wasn’t the biggest house he’d seen since coming down here, the Miller Gang’s boss’s house was much more impressive, but this was nice too. Or, had the potential to be, he thought as he walked up the driveway with Kate.

  The garden was a mess. Amongst the uncut grass, there were piles of rubbish, some discarded wood, and other detritus piled up here and there. Vassili wasn’t taking care of his property, it seemed.

  “Hmm, not keen gardeners then,” Jon commented.

  “They probably have bigger concerns,” Kate agreed as they approached the door.

  “They need to get that grass cut,” Jon remarked. “There could be a body in there, for all we know.”

  “It’s grarss, not grass,” Kate replied, drawing out the ‘are’ sound in her preferred pronunciation.

  “I think you’ll find there’s only one R in grass, not two.”

  “I’ll soon have you talking properly, you’ll see,” Kate replied.

  “I do talk proper-like, love,” Jon replied with a wry grin.

  They used the doorbell, and before long heard the locks being undone before the door opened. The woman on the other side didn’t pull it very wide though, only enough to show her face. She was probably in her late twenties, and there wasn’t much that was remarkable about her, other than her cold blue eyes that flicked between Jon and Kate.