The Robert Finlay Trilogy

by Matt Johnson

  ‘They didn’t know. I didn’t know. Nobody knew before I checked what these people were like. I had no idea…’

  ‘What do they do … I mean what kind of people are they?’

  ‘Drug dealers.’

  ‘…And you promise they can’t touch us in England?’

  ‘I promise. They’re small-scale, local. They don’t operate over here.’

  Jenny stopped crying. The line went quiet for a few seconds.

  ‘Robert,’ she said, breaking the silence. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘I know. Tonight … I promise.’

  ‘OK … bring some wine home?’

  The hole in my stomach reappeared as we ended the call. I hated lying about the Cristeas, but, caught on the hop, it seemed the best thing to do. I hoped, prayed, that I was right.

  Marius Gabor had recognised me. Word had reached the Cristeas and now Marica knew. I shrugged it off. It didn’t matter. I doubted if our paths would cross again. And if they did, it wouldn’t be on their turf, it would be on mine.

  I’d been lucky; in fact Jenny and I had both been lucky. The prospect of having been exposed while in Bucharest was too unpleasant to think about.

  Naomi joined me as I was returning to the DCI’s office.

  ‘You OK, Finlay?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  She frowned. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I’m fine, really,’ I said. ‘Your coffee is actually quite nice.’

  Naomi laughed, her curiosity seemingly diverted.

  As we sat down, the DCI explained the office-based detectives had put a lot of hours into identifying the connection between the murder victim, the dead gunman and the suspects from the petrol station. The telephone call that had interrupted us earlier was news that the dead gunmen’s phone had been used in a number of areas around London and, on two occasions, in the west of England.

  I reiterated what I had learned about the Cristeas from Interpol. Naomi left us for a few minutes to run some checks through the Police National Computer.

  When she returned, she was smiling. ‘Found them,’ she said.

  ‘Names and addresses for our suspects, you mean?’ said Bowler.

  ‘No, but a list of known associates; houses they use, phone numbers, et cetera. Just a question of time, now. I can start drawing up a list of places to turn over. If we can relate the forensics we have from the murder scene to similar samples from new scenes, we can start to narrow down the identity of the killers. If we strike lucky we might even find the actual people during the searches.’

  Bowler slammed his pen on the desk. ‘Brilliant; get on it Naomi.’

  I was just about to leave when a thought occurred to me. ‘I know it’s a Saturday,’ I said, ‘but I thought there would be more than just us in today?’

  ‘There are. The other two have gone over to Old Street. The WPC who saved your bacon didn’t turn up for work this morning. They’ve gone with her sergeant to check her home and make sure she’s OK.’

  Chapter 70

  The cell was dark.

  Occasional light came from torches that the guards carried. From these glimpses Lynn had discovered that immediate escape from her prison was unlikely. The only way in or out was the solid wooden door. It opened into a space that seemed to have been hewn from rock. The rear wall of the cell was concrete blockwork – a possible weakness, she’d hoped. But after a few minutes exploration she found that it, too, was solid and, without tools, impregnable.

  On first waking, Lynn had been utterly confused as to where she was. At first, she had expected it to be her own bed, but the cold, rough feeling of the damp blanket covering her brought with it the memory of the kidnapping.

  Whatever drug they had used to knock her out had left an acrid taste in her mouth, and a God-awful headache. It was like a bad hangover. Cold, headache and a severe thirst.

  There was no telling how long she had been unconscious. In the dark, she now checked her limbs. No pains, no injuries. Clothing seemed intact. That was good. Sniffing her armpit produced little by way of an odour, which suggested she had only been out for a few hours at the most. The final check was the toughest.

  Unbuttoning her trousers, she slid her hand slowly into the top of her knickers. Carefully, she checked for any sign of injury or sexual assault. There was none. As she re-buttoned her waistband, she let out an audible sigh of relief.

  With no idea where she was or what her captors were planning, Lynn mulled over her options. There were several, but all depended on knowledge. For the time being, there was little she could do other than wait. She had no idea if she was even in the UK. Extreme possibilities plagued her. If the kidnappers were terrorists, then her fate didn’t bear thinking about. It was possible, though, her captors just planned to use her for sex. If that were the case they had better watch out, she thought. One chance would be all that she would need to turn the tables on them.

  Lynn forced herself to think sensibly. She wasn’t an obvious target to secure a ransom pay-out. Her parents were ordinary, not wealthy, and the idea that someone would kidnap a cop for ransom seemed absurd. Chances were the men didn’t even know she was a cop, so wouldn’t realise that, before very long, her colleagues would be looking for her. She knew the lads would stop at nothing to find her.

  Thoughts of the kidnappers being terrorists were daft, she told herself. It was just a case of a group of men who had stumbled across a lone female motorist at night and had taken the chance to grab her. The drug and face mask suggested they were prepared, though. Perhaps she could tell them she was a cop? That might persuade them to dump her, let her go. But the more she thought about that idea, the more she dismissed it. Knowing they’d kidnapped a police officer might make them panic. Their solution might be to kill her and hide her body.

  No, best wait, she decided. Wait until I find out what is going on and then think about how the hell I’m going to get out of this.

  An abrupt burst of bright, wavering light from outside the door was her first indication she had a visitor.

  The door burst open. Two torch beams pierced the gloom, pointing into her eyes, making her squint.

  ‘Step forward.’ The man giving the orders barked the instruction. His voice was deep, strong.

  Lynn pictured a powerful man behind it. This was not the time to try and escape.

  As she stood to obey, Lynn felt two sets of hands grab her arms from the side and force her hands behind her back. Next moment, a set of rigid handcuffs were clicked into place over her wrists.

  She kept silent, but her mind was racing. The men had found her handcuffs. They had been in a bag on the back seat of her car. If the kidnappers had found them, they probably had her warrant card, too, and that meant they knew she was a cop.

  Silently, the men guided her along a small corridor and out into a larger, cooler area. It remained dark, but there were more torch lights, perhaps six or seven. More men then grabbed her, stopping her from walking any further.

  Her arms held tight, Lynn glanced around her, trying to gain a perspective on where she was and how many people were holding her. Her guess was that these were minions who had brought her out to meet the boss. Perhaps now she might learn what was going on.

  ‘Close your eyes, Miss Wainwright.’

  They knew her name. Why did he want her to close her eyes when there was so little light? It was the same powerful, accented voice she had heard in the cell. He was maybe fifteen or twenty feet in front of her, hidden in the darkness.

  ‘You know my name,’ Lynn said. ‘What is this, some kind of hostage thing?’

  The hard slap to the back of her head caught Lynn completely by surprise. If it hadn’t been for the support of the men holding her arms it would have been enough to floor her. Stunned for a moment, she only just caught the repetition of the instruction.

  ‘Close your eyes.’

  Once again, a torch beam lit up her face. Lynn did as she was told.

  From be
hind, someone slipped a small hood over her head. From some distance away there was the sound of an engine starting up. A generator. Lights came on.

  Lynn took the chance, and opened her eyes, looking down past the edge of the ill-fitting hood. To each side she could see boot-clad feet; black, military type. The kind that police wear. The kind that she wore. For a moment a forlorn hope entered her mind. Was this a practical joke? Some kind of test? Why had they needed to hit her so hard, then? Met coppers were renowned for their creativity in putting together tricks to play on their fellow officers, but this was too much.

  To her right she heard shuffling. People walking quietly. Lots of people. What was this, some kind of audience? For a moment, she felt sick. Then, bar the distant drone of the generator, all was silent.

  A hand snatched at the hood and pulled it back, away from her head. For a moment, the lights blinded her. Then her eyes adjusted to the brightness, and she was able to focus on her surroundings. They were in a cave of some kind. The walls and roof were a dark grey.

  A man in grey military-type fatigues was standing looking at her. Next to him was a woman, her head bowed, looking at the floor. Like Lynn, she too seemed to have her hands tied behind her back.

  This wasn’t a joke.

  Glancing across to her right, Lynn saw the cause of the shuffling noise. There were about thirty or forty women, most with their hair tied up, all facing the man that stood in front of them. They stood in complete silence. Behind the women, to their side and near to her, she quickly counted eight guards. No chance of escape.

  There seemed to be no reason for the hood. Placing it over her head had to have been a mind game, a ploy to create fear. It had worked.

  ‘We have new girl,’ the man in front said. He seemed to be addressing his words to the women.

  Lynn looked at them. Their shoulders were hunched; faces drawn and pale. They looked like junkies – a line-up of forty or so drug addicts. Lynn felt a shiver run down her spine.

  ‘…And we have problem. Big problem.’ The man shouted the word as he turned towards the figure at his side.

  The woman cowered away from the gaze of the silent audience. Only Lynn could see her face. The eyes were swollen and red. The poor wretch kept her vision fixed to the floor, only raising her look for one fleeting moment before the speaker continued.

  In that instant, Lynn saw fear and desperation. A plea for help.

  ‘This … piece of filth went to police. This piece of shit tried to escape.’

  Lynn wondered what the hell was going on. The man’s voice was like the others – East European. But he spoke in English. Were all the women English? Was she still in England?

  ‘Today, we are joined by new girl. Like we have warned you and we now warn this new girl. If you run, we will find you. If you go to authorities, they will bring you back to us. When we catch you, we will punish you. If we do not catch you, we will punish your families.’

  Lynn quickly ran her eyes over the men. No weapons that she could see. How were they keeping the women under control? It must be fear, but fear of what? Her question was answered almost immediately.

  The man at the front pulled a pistol from where it must have been tucked into his trouser belt. With practised skill, he cocked the gun and then pointed at the head of the woman next to him.

  There was no hesitation, no opportunity for a last word, no respect for the taking of a life. As the pistol roared, blood, hair and skull fragments splattered across the floor. The woman’s lifeless form collapsed in a heap at the man’s feet.

  Lynn felt her hands begin to tremble. From the watching women, there was no word, no reaction. Just the same thousand-yard stares.

  The man walked towards her. He raised the pistol. Lynn could see it was a Glock. The barrel pointed at her eye.

  My God, she thought. He’s going to shoot me.

  But he didn’t. He just smiled.

  ‘WPC Lynn Wainwright. So very nice to meet you. You killed one of my men; now you will work to pay debt you owe us.’

  Lynn didn’t reply. The obvious truth she’d avoided for the past few minutes was confirmed. These were the slave traffickers. They had come back for her. These men must be from the gang they had been looking for at the house in Ealing.

  Her mind raced. At least she now knew why she was here, wherever ‘here’ was. What the speaker meant by working off her debt she would no doubt learn. They didn’t plan to kill her, it seemed … at least not immediately. Shooting the poor woman was clearly a lesson – to her and to the others.

  ‘Take her away,’ the man barked to the two men who held Lynn’s arms.

  As they spun her around, Lynn caught a glimpse of a tattoo on the forearm of the man who she had thought was about to execute her. She recognised it.

  ‘Legio Patria Nostra’.

  Chapter 71

  The news about Lynn Wainwright didn’t take long to reach me.

  It was midday and I had just arrived outside Scotland Yard. I was parking the Citroen when my pocket started buzzing. It was Josh … he sounded concerned. Together with the SO19 duty sergeant, he had been to Lynn’s house to verify the local inspector’s report that nobody was at home. The bed didn’t look like it had been slept in and the neighbours had noticed that her car hadn’t been in its usual spot. Lynn hadn’t gone home the previous evening.

  As Nina and I had been amongst the last people to see Lynn, Josh had been tasked to call us. I wasn’t much help. Nina had spent more time with Lynn, so I suggested she might be a better person to speak to.

  Josh told me discreet checks had been made at hospitals covering the route Lynn would take to work and with the Police Information Room to see if there had been any road accidents involving her car. With no reports of sightings and no clue to her whereabouts, ninety minutes after having noticed her absence, the SO19 duty inspector put in a call to his Chief Superintendent, Peter Ackerman.

  Phone calls were made to Lynn’s friends and colleagues. Did she have a boyfriend she might have stayed overnight with? Had she gone somewhere that might have delayed her getting to work? Was she depressed or particularly upset at being suspended? All responses came back negative.

  Lynn Wainwright had disappeared.

  And there was an even more worrying development. Josh was calling from Lambeth car pound. Lynn’s car had been found on a removal lorry on its way to their lock-up facility.

  It had been found abandoned in the middle of the street.

  I had just finished the call with Josh, slipped off my seat belt and reached for the car door, when the phone rang again. It was Toni Fellowes. She wanted a chat.

  ‘On a Saturday?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ came the brittle response. ‘On a Saturday. Are you in your office?’

  ‘I’m outside. Just parked the car. I’ll be there in a few minutes.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting.’

  As I walked into our squad office, Toni was standing, looking distracted, as if something was playing on her mind. She wasn’t the only one. After the earlier call from Jenny, I wasn’t minded to give our liaison officer an easy ride. I wanted answers.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked, as she pulled up a chair and sat down. She indicated that I should do likewise – and in my own office, I thought.

  ‘I’ve been better. Have you spoken to Jenny today?’ I asked, bluntly.

  ‘I haven’t. Should I have?’

  ‘Perhaps, yes. I imagined after exposing your charges to a risk like the Cristeas, you might be being extra careful.’

  She held her hands up in apology. ‘Look … I know. Believe me, if I could turn the clock back I would. Like I said on the phone, it was an oversight. I thought someone else was doing the checks; they thought I was. Left hand, right hand.’

  ‘A little bird told me you knew about the Cristeas.’

  ‘Nina Brasov, I’d bet.’

  Not being the best at masking surprise, my reaction gave me away.

  ‘I thought so,’ Toni conti
nued. ‘She called me. She seems very protective of you.’

  ‘We get on pretty well … she’s a good detective.’

  ‘Well, she was an angry detective when she called me. I tried to reassure her that I hadn’t known the extent of the Cristea criminal connections, but she was having none of it.’

  ‘Is she right?’ I demanded. ‘When I first asked you about it, I thought it was a case of you being careless. Now, it strikes me as a bit of a coincidence you gave me and Jenny a copy of a book that Cristea Publishing put out, just when I’m about to take a trip to the same resort they’re staying at.’

  ‘She’s not … I promise you. Slave trafficking is not on the MI5 radar, especially not at the moment.’

  ‘But what about the more obvious reason – that you were setting me up to try and locate Chas Collins? It’s been in all the papers that the CIA and people like you are looking to have talks with him … and we all know what that means, don’t we?’

  ‘Believe me, this was a simple cock-up, not a conspiracy.’

  I gave her a wry smile. I didn’t believe her, and I made sure she knew it. Truth is, I’d never yet met a spook who was completely trustworthy. The fact that Toni had been pursuing an agenda shouldn’t really have been a revelation to me.

  ‘OK … let’s leave it,’ I said. ‘I asked you if you’ve spoken to Jenny because the Cristeas have been in touch.’

  ‘Contacted you, you mean?’

  ‘It looks like the family sent a team over here to kill off a witness who was going to give evidence against them.’

  ‘And they contacted you about that?’

  ‘Not exactly. We had an email from the daughter, Marica. Like I told Nell, I saw one of their men near the scene of the murder this week and I was sure he clocked me. Well, it looks like I was right. He did recognise me and reported it home. The email was a warning to keep out of her father’s way.’