A uniformed constable came into the room with a sheet of paper in his hand.
‘Marked “urgent”, sir,’ he said as he handed it to Thackeray. Thackeray glanced for a moment at the faxed photograph of a dark-haired, serious-faced young girl before handing it to Mower.
‘Jasmin Ibramovic,’ he said. ‘Do some copies of this for circulation. Let’s find them, shall we, before anyone else does?’
Mower photocopied the photograph of Jasmin and the image of Elena taken from the CCTV tape, which was lying on his desk, and took his jacket back off its hanger by the door.
‘With a bit of luck we’ll trace them, guv, before any harm’s done.’ But as he left the building to begin his inquiries he knew that he was probably whistling in the wind and he guessed that Thackeray felt much the same.
Thackeray himself went back to his own office, closed the door and lit a cigarette with his customary contempt for the building’s no-smoking rules. He felt weary to the marrow of his bones and his back was beginning to jab with the pain he was trying to become accustomed to. He took a painkiller with a swig of mineral water and, leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes. Somewhere in the swirling mist of panic that suddenly filled his mind he could see Laura’s stricken face. It was only just over a week since Jack Longley had suggested the option of early retirement to him and he had angrily rejected it. But now? he wondered. He knew that Jack’s own career could end in ruins very soon if the inquiry found him culpable for the last of the division’s cock-ups, and he wondered if his own could possibly survive if Laura’s catastrophic intervention in this murder investigation ended as badly as it seemed it might.
He stubbed out his cigarette and desperately lit another. He could just about imagine life without his job. He had spent nearly a month in a hospital bed contemplating that contingency. Life without Laura, and after this evening that no longer seemed such a remote possibility, was much harder to get his mind around. And life without the job and without Laura filled him with an all-consuming dread. Somehow, he thought, he had to find a way through this nightmare or it would undoubtedly destroy him. But where the path to salvation lay he had, at this moment, no idea at all.
By nine-thirty Mower had exhausted all the lines of inquiry which remained open to him. No one in the ticket offices at the almost deserted railway station or the long-distance bus station had recognised either of the two girls he was seeking when he had shown them their photographs, and the train station in Ilkley, he had ascertained, had already closed for the night. He sat in his car drumming his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel before driving off towards the north of the town where Aysgarth Lane, the hub of the Asian community, doubled as the focus for the sex trade after dark when most of the chattering shoppers in shalwar kameez had made their way home and drawn the blinds against the weather and the mysterious ways of the West. He drove slowly down the main artery, just as slowly as some of the other cars with a single male occupant cruising the Lane. On every corner a handful of women, shivering in mini-skirts and skimpy tops, stood watching carefully to see which car would slow down as it passed and offer the opportunity for them to dart to an open window as a driver drew to a halt.
The trade, Mower thought, was as old as time and as relentless. But he was looking for someone in particular and when he saw her he stopped sharply, bringing a hoot of protest from the car behind. A tall black woman, in thigh-length boots and very short shorts, with a fake fur jacket clutched around her neck to protect her from the wind, came up to the car and then hesitated.
‘Come on, Jackie, I don’t bite,’ Mower shouted through the open window. ‘Get in and keep warm for a minute, why don’t you?’ The woman glanced around at her companions, and then at a couple of men in leather coats who were leaning against a wall a little further up the street, before giving a shrug and doing as she was told.
‘I didn’t recognise you for a minute, Mr Mower,’ she said, pulling the door closed and sitting shivering in the passenger seat. ‘I’ve not seen you for a while. Are you looking for business?’
‘I’m not so desperate I need to pay,’ Mower snapped. ‘I need some help.’
‘Oh aye?’ Jackie said, glancing out of the window at the shadowy figures on the street, and Mower considered how he had almost not recognised her either. When he had first met her, in the course of an investigation soon after he had arrived in Bradfield from the south, he recalled thinking how she had seemed too attractive and far too young to be travelling down the road she was already set on. He knew that even now she was still in her twenties, but she looked forty in the poor light, heavy make-up failing to conceal the ravages of an addiction she sustained on the street.
‘Let’s go for a little drive,’ she said, turning back to Mower with dead eyes and an attempted smile that looked grotesque through the bright red slash of lipstick. ‘It looks better, doesn’t it? I do have my reputation to think of.’ Mower shrugged and slipped the car into gear and drove up Aysgarth Lane until they reached the suburban semis that lined the main road a mile or so further out of town, where he parked in a bus-stop layby and switched the engine off.
‘We need some help, Jackie,’ Mower said. ‘What have you heard about foreign girls here on the game? Brought in illegally, probably against their will?’
Jackie looked out of the side window of the car for a long time before she answered.
‘Rumours is all,’ she said. ‘And even repeating them to you might be dodgy. There’s some right vicious characters muscling in these days. Foreigners.’
‘You read about the girl we fished out of the canal?’ Mower said quietly.
‘A black lass? Aye, we heard about her. Were she one of ’em?’
‘We think so. And there was someone with her. An Albanian girl we’re trying to find. Only looks about fifteen or sixteen…’
‘They’re not on the street, them girls,’ Jackie said. ‘They daren’t let them out of their sight. They’re kept in back rooms somewhere, massage parlours, clubs, you know the score.’
‘Do you know where?’
Jackie shook her head slowly.
‘No names. Just a hint,’ Mower persisted.
But Jackie shrugged.
‘I’d tell you if I knew,’ she said. ‘It’s one thing to make your own mind up to do this. Summat else entirely to be forced. That’s disgusting. But I’ve not heard owt definite. Just that it’s going on. Now you’d best drop me back. I’ve a living to make.’
‘Couldn’t you try rehab?’ Mower asked, wondering how quickly the living she was making would kill her. ‘Get out of all this?’
‘And then what? Live on t’dole? Even without the smack I’ve got expensive tastes, me. It’s simple economics, Mr Mower, isn’t it? I make more in a night this way than I’d make in a month on t’bloody minimum wage.’
Mower started the car again and did a U-turn to head back to town.
‘If you hear anything, you’ll let me know?’ he asked as Jackie opened the passenger door when he stopped at her particular street corner.
‘If I hear owt, pet,’ Jackie said, staggering upright on the pavement again in her stiletto boots. ‘Take care.’
‘And you,’ Mower said as he drew away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DCI Thackeray called a meeting for his murder team early the next morning and briefed them on the overnight developments. Leaving Laura Ackroyd’s name determinedly out of his description of how Elena had evaded their attention and been given shelter in Ilkley, he was aware of one or two knowing looks between his detectives when he necessarily mentioned Joyce Ackroyd as the girl’s initial rescuer. When he had to admit that Elena and her new friend were once more on the run, there was a collective sucking in of breath around the room.
‘I’ve got a call out for the two girls,’ Thackeray said deliberately, quelling the murmur of speculation. ‘So far we’ve found no evidence that they’ve left the area by train or coach, although Jasmin does seem to have drawn out some money fr
om her post office account. But for the moment we’ll have to assume they’re still in West Yorkshire, unless we find evidence to the contrary from the CCTV tapes from the train and the bus stations. But if they’re still here, they’re at great risk. The Albanian girl is a crucial witness and we need her found. But whoever brought her here is also undoubtedly looking for her. We’ve evidence of that already. Immigration say they had no one seeking information on The Heights when Joyce Ackroyd says she had a visit from two men claiming to be their officers, so we can only assume it was the traffickers looking for the girl. They’ve killed once and will undoubtedly kill again to protect themselves if they find her before we do. Or smuggle her out of the country by the same route they use to smuggle girls in. The same applies to the girl she’s with. So finding them is urgent. A top priority. Their lives are at risk. I’ve got Jasmin’s father coming in at ten to go through all possible places she could seek refuge. He’s understandably going frantic. Kevin, I want you and Sharif to talk to him when he arrives, and Omar, you take over as family liaison officer when he goes back home. They’re going to need a lot of support. It’s all arranged with the Ilkley police.’
Mohammed Sharif, known generally as Omar, nodded, his dark eyes sympathetic.
‘Are there other kids?’ he asked. Thackeray shook his head.
‘She’s an only child.’ His face remained impassive and he hoped no one could guess how sick that made him feel.
‘Right,’ he said, knowing that he had to press on to save his own equilibrium. ‘We have made some progress. We know now that the dead girl is called Grace, and that she told the missing girl Elena that she was African, regardless of what she told the footballer she slept with. We still have some of the footballers to interview today, including Lee Towers, whose fiancée is sure that he slept with one of the girls, and the goalkeeper, Dave Peters, who’s admitted as much to his wife. They’re coming in later and I want to find out everything they can remember about their encounter with the two girls. And if they’re having memory problems, we’ll remind them that to sleep with someone who’s offering services under duress can be legally regarded as rape. That should put the fear of God into them. I’ll talk to both of them myself, and you can sit in Pete.’ He nodded to a young detective who was sitting at the back of the room, looking slightly sickened by what the meeting was being told.
‘The rest of you,’ Thackeray went on implacably. ‘I want every massage parlour and dodgy venue that opens during the day visited this morning and searched for signs of prostitution on the premises. Then there’ll be overtime tonight as we work our way through all the clubs. We’re getting some help later from John O’Malley and the vice unit at County. I want every single one of the obvious places raided, and if that turns up nothing useful we’ll have to start looking for the less obvious. I don’t believe these two girls are the only trafficked women in the town. From what Elena has already said there are ten or a dozen she knows of hidden away in a house somewhere and taken out from there to work. I want them found.’
When tasks had been allocated and most of the grim-faced detectives had bustled away, Thackeray gestured for Mower to follow him into his office. The Sergeant closed the door carefully behind him and watched as his boss sat heavily down behind his desk, lit a cigarette and drew the smoke greedily into his lungs.
‘We’re up to our necks again,’ Thackeray said bleakly.
‘How did the Super take the news,’ Mower asked. Thackeray shrugged wearily.
‘How do you think?’ he said. ‘Incandescent hardly does it justice. If he gets his hands on Laura I think he’ll strangle her himself.’
And you too, Mower thought, noticing how Thackeray’s hands shook as he flicked the ash off his cigarette. He could still scarcely credit himself how naïve Laura had been in her dealings with the Albanian girl, and he wondered how rocky her relationship with Thackeray had become for her to fail to give him even a hint about what she had become involved in. But those were questions he had more sense than to even whisper with his boss in his present state. He glanced at his watch.
‘Lee Towers is due in shortly,’ he said. ‘I take it you’re planning to give him and his mate a hard time?’
‘Oh yes,’ Thackeray said. ‘I want chapter and verse about what these footballers were up to that night, and any other night they entertained Elena and Grace, or girls like them. They must have some idea who’s organising that particular service. I’ll tell them that if they can’t put their finger on a source we’ll have to assume that they’re hiring the girls themselves and face the consequences of dealing in trafficked women. That should sharpen their minds a bit.’
‘And I’ll prod Ibramovic into recalling everything Elena told him, as well as trying to work out where she and Jasmin could have gone.’ Mower hesitated for a moment. ‘Who’s going to talk to Laura, guv?’ he asked eventually, and was shocked at the sudden flash of anger in Thackeray’s eyes.
‘The Super,’ he said flatly. ‘He’s agreed to that, insisted in fact. And he’ll organise something with Joyce Ackroyd as well. He wants us out of it.’
‘Right, guv,’ Mower said, feeling relieved for himself and the DCI, and apprehensive for Laura at the same time.
‘In his present mood he’ll be looking for something to charge the pair of them with,’ Thackeray said, his face like stone.
‘That’d be a bit harsh if they didn’t know we were looking for the girl,’ Mower said carefully.
‘I don’t think so. Not really,’ Thackeray snapped, and Mower wondered if this time there was going to be any way back.
Ten minutes later Michael Thackeray and his young DC, Peter Hodge, found Lee Towers and a solicitor waiting for them in an interview room on the ground floor. Thackeray nodded grimly at the lawyer, then concentrated on the footballer, who was sitting bolt upright on his chair looking distinctly uncomfortable. He was an athletic-looking young man, in a suit and an open necked black shirt, which revealed a heavy gold chain around his neck. He was tanned and sporting blond highlights in his fashionably tousled dark hair, which occasionally flopped into his curiously pale eyes, but he fiddled nervously with a gold ring on his finger as he watched the two police officers take their seats and Hodge switch on a tape recorder and announce who was present in the room.
‘My client is here voluntarily to assist in any way he can,’ the lawyer said quickly.
‘I’m aware of that,’ Thackeray said. ‘But this is a murder inquiry and I have reason to believe your client knew the victim and her friend, whose whereabouts are at present unknown. I’m sure he has no objection to this interview being taped?’
Towers glanced at the solicitor and then shook his head.
‘That’s OK,’ he said in little more than a whisper.
‘Right,’ Thackeray said. ‘Then perhaps we can start by your telling us how you first met the two girls we now know as Grace and Elena, and how your relationship, if you can call it that, developed.’
Towers swallowed hard and opened his mouth, but for a moment nothing came out.
‘In your own words, Lee,’ his lawyer offered sympathetically. ‘You’ve done nothing illegal.’ Thackeray raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing, and eventually Lee Towers leant across the table towards him and began.
‘They turned up at a couple of parties at the country club,’ he said.
‘A bit louder for the tape,’ DC Hodge said sharply, and Towers repeated himself.
‘OK really fancied the black lass but I liked the other one better, Elena she said her name was.’
‘Did they give you any other names?’
‘No, just Grace and Elena. That’s all you need, isn’t it? They were both up for it, no problem. Didn’t object when we asked them to come upstairs.’
‘Who, exactly, went upstairs on which occasion?’ Thackeray snapped.
‘The same both times. OK and the black lass took one room, me and Dave, Dave Peters, went with the other one.’
‘Singly or to
gether?’ Thackeray’s tone was contemptuous now, and Towers flushed and glanced away, while his solicitor’s lips tightened in distaste.
‘Together,’ he said. ‘She said she didn’t mind.’
‘Let’s leave that on one side for now then,’ Thackeray said, to the obvious relief of everyone in the room. ‘Did these girls tell you anything at all about themselves?’
‘Not really,’ Towers said.
‘You didn’t chat them up, then? Spend any time getting to know them?’
‘Not really,’ Towers said again. ‘There was a lot of drink around and I thought they were only there for one thing.’
‘So you knew they were prostitutes?’ Thackeray snapped.
‘Not really,’ Towers said again, looking sick. ‘There’s always a lot of girls around, girls ready to go to bed with you if that’s what you want. I wouldn’t call them prostitutes exactly, just an easy lay.’
‘Did you pay her?’
Towers glanced at his solicitor for help but the lawyer’s face was not sympathetic.
‘Not the first time,’ he said. ‘But later, the last time I saw her last week she asked for a hundred quid. It were a bit unusual that. They didn’t usually ask for money.’
‘They?’
‘Different girls, they come and go. There were another two little tarts at the Chelsea party. That’s what upset our women so much.’
‘And you were sure the girl – or girls – you slept with were willing? They gave their full consent to whatever you and Dave asked them to do? The foreign girl you met at the Rochdale party, especially? Anyone can see she’s very young.’
‘Of course she did,’ Towers said, angry this time. ‘What are you saying? That we raped her? That’s rubbish. She was willing. She didn’t seem to enjoy it much…’ He stopped suddenly realising that he had perhaps gone to far. But it was too late. Thackeray’s voice took on a note of controlled fury.
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