‘Rutherford,’ he said, his voice rising as Ag applied her teeth.
‘It’s Morrie, sir. We’ve got a situation.’
Heck listened to what he was told and hung up. Five minutes later he was in the Cherokee on his way to the scene.
12
Joni’s breath was even as she took long strides to the gate at the end of the street. The lighting was poor and she couldn’t see a sign of anyone behind the metal bars. She looked around. The houses on both sides appeared to be empty, no lights showing. The residents would be out on the streets. The two-up two-down buildings didn’t have basements so there was nowhere to hide. Besides, she was sure the half-naked woman had gone over. What she found harder to understand was how she’d done that. The gate was at least ten feet high. Joni was pretty sure she could make it, and even made an attempt to jump and grab the top. It would have been hard and she had to get back to the brothel in Burwell Street. Although she wasn’t responsible for Corham major crime, she didn’t want to hand the case over to Morrie Simmons completely.
Then she saw a trail of blood high up on the gate. The young woman hadn’t looked much more than five feet eight. She must have either been as fit as a special forces operative or extremely desperate. Remembering the damage she had done to the men back there, Joni wasn’t sure which applied.
‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Is anyone there?’ She paused, aware how ridiculous she sounded. ‘I can help. Really.’
There was no sound in the derelict factory beyond the gate.
‘Please, listen to me.’ Joni thought of the woman, naked apart from the jacket she had presumably stolen from one of the men inside the house and bloody; perhaps she was injured. ‘I can help. Please, come back.’
Stupid, she said to herself. The poor woman probably can’t even speak English. The others looked distinctly foreign, with their dark complexions and the rings under their eyes. And she’ll be scared of anyone who comes after her.
Then she had a thought. Could the wounded man have been speaking Albanian? She knew that many Albanians understood Italian. She took one of her cards from her wallet, turned it over and wrote in that language, ‘I can help. Please call me on my mobile number. PLEASE!’ She pushed the card under the gate.
As she jogged back, Joni was struck by an intense sadness. She knew exactly what deprivation and cruelty could do. It was one of the reasons she had joined the Met after Oxford. She was going to help the women, especially the one who had escaped. She was a victim, no matter what she’d done.
Joni, atheist that she was, had always been one for missions.
13
‘What?’ Heck said, surprised. ‘Joni Pax is down here?’
DI Morris Sutton nodded, his comb over shifting precariously. He was forty-four, overweight and a recently reformed, and bad-tempered, smoker. ACC Dickie hadn’t been keen on having him at Force HQ, never mind heading up the MCU in the Corham conurbation, but Heck had insisted when the initial planning was being done. Morrie was a good cop, even if his manner was abrasive and he had problems with women, gays and ethnic minorities. Ruth Dickie’s idea, put into operation when Heck was on sick leave, was that Joni would erode the former and latter of those prejudices, even though she was DI responsible for major incidents outside Corham and thus had a much larger brief. The fact that both Simmons and Pax reported to Heck meant they would have to cooperate. Sutton was Heck’s sop to the Major Crime Unit in Newcastle, where he and Morrie used to work. He wanted to show that Ruth Dickie didn’t get everything she wanted, as well as build bridges with the officers, many of them senior, who resented both his past involvement in the anti-corruption unit and his new position. That was one reason he had declined promotion to detective chief superintendent – the others were that he wanted to stay as close as possible to investigations and that he was unsure how he would perform after he’d been wounded. He had the impression he’d played into the ACC’s hands. She was building her fiefdom and could exercise more control as he was still only a DCI. It also saved money from her budget.
‘Where is she then?’ Heck asked, looking around. There were few men in the street now, only some locals standing behind the crime scene tape that had been unrolled. The lad in the traffic light was still attached to the wall, but the cardboard box had been lifted off his shoulders. He looked longingly at the bystanders, waving listlessly at another young man who departed shortly afterwards.
‘She went after the woman who wounded the victims,’ Sutton said. ‘I’ve tried her mobile, but she’s not answering.’
‘We’d better organise a search party. The fugitive is probably armed.’
‘People say she wasn’t, at least not any more. What about the knocking shop?’
Heck raised an eyebrow. ‘Forgotten the procedure, Morrie? Search it from top to bottom. There are usually drugs and weapons in these places. This time we might get lucky and find something that’ll incriminate the fuckers who run the dumps.’
‘One of the women said she was from Albania. I think the wounded men were too – they don’t look English – but I can’t get confirmation.’
‘Albanians, eh? Surprise, surprise.’ Clan-based criminal organisations from that country had spread all over England, controlling prostitution and moving into the drugs trade. There had already been some vicious fights with long-established Newcastle gangs. ‘If they’re pimps or heavies, they won’t open their mouths.’
Paramedics had removed the prone figure from the threshold, as well as another man who’d been found unconscious with a punctured kidney at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor. Both were alive but urgently needed surgery. The traffic-light boy had seen another man stagger off down the street with a piece of cutlery in his head. A couple of WPCs were looking after the five working girls, none of whom could speak much English. Social services and the Border Agency had been informed, but would take their time to show up on the Sunday night before a bank holiday.
‘I can squeeze the women,’ Morrie Sutton said. ‘Get them to talk.’
‘Talk?’ Heck said, with a laugh. ‘Know much Albanian, do you? Even if they speak English, they’ll pretend they don’t. Then a lawyer in a sharp suit will turn up and bail them out. Unless the girls identify the men, we won’t be able to prove the scumbags were even involved with the place. You know how scared they’ll be of saying anything. And none of the customers is going to talk voluntarily.’
‘What if we find an interpreter?’ Sutton asked.
‘A lot of them speak Italian.’
Heck turned on his heel. ‘Joni,’ he said. ‘DI Pax. Glad to see you’re still in one piece.’
‘I lost her,’ Joni said, her breathing regular.
‘Didn’t you hear your phone?’ Sutton demanded.
‘I was undertaking a high-speed pursuit, Morrie.’
‘Not high-speed enough.’
‘That’ll do,’ Heck said. ‘What was that about Albanians speaking Italian?’
‘They get Italian TV from across the Adriatic,’ Joni replied. ‘And there’s been a lot of trade between the countries since the end of communism.’
‘A lot of illegal immigrants too,’ Sutton added.
Joni looked at him. ‘And legal ones, would you believe? I spent four months in Bari. Plenty of Albanians actually get their papers sorted and work in the city.’
‘So you think you’ll be able to get something out of the girls?’ Heck asked.
‘I can try. How many are there?’
‘Five,’ Sutton said. ‘Plus the one you let get away.’
‘Shut up, Morrie,’ Heck ordered. ‘All right, we need to make sure social services and the UKBA keep them in the vicinity. In the meantime, we’ll take them into custody overnight so you can talk to them.’
‘Em, hang on, sir,’ Sutton said. ‘This is a Corham MCU case.’
‘Jesus, Morrie, no one in your team can speak Italian, right?’
‘Don’t think so,’ the DI muttered.
‘W
hile DI Pax has an Oxford degree in the language. With French, if memory serves. What’s your problem?’
Morrie Sutton shook his head. ‘Nothing, sir.’
‘You should be thanking your colleague for her offer of help, not glowering at her.’
‘I’ll wait till she comes up with something useful, if you don’t mind, sir.’
Heck raised his eyes to the night sky.
‘I’d like to have a word with the traffic light too,’ Joni said. ‘He’s about the only witness we’ve got.’ She looked at the faces behind the tape and saw none she recognised. ‘His mates seem to have left him in the shit.’
‘I can handle that,’ Sutton said.
‘Do it together,’ Heck said. ‘Joni cuffed the boy.’
‘And followed him from the town centre.’
Morrie Sutton stared at her. ‘Why did you do that?’
Joni raised her shoulders.
‘Women’s intuition?’ Sutton scoffed.
‘Maybe.’ Joni smiled. ‘You’re forgetting something.’
‘And what might that be?’ Heck asked. He wasn’t a female-cop hater like Morrie, but he didn’t like being strung along any more than the next man.
‘Traffic light – his name’s Nick – didn’t only see the woman close up. He saw the men who came out of the house – the customers. Judging by their rapid departures, I don’t think they want their names in the papers.’ Joni gave Heck a more expansive smile. ‘Who knows? Maybe we’ll catch a town councillor or a paragon of local business who had his pants down.’
Heck exchanged glances with Sutton. Neither of them looked hugely enthusiastic about the prospect.
14
Michael Etherington had watched as his grandson stowed the bulky costume into the back of his mother’s Rover. ‘I hope you aren’t going to do anything illegal with that.’
‘Cool it, General Gramps,’ Nick said. He was a handsome lad, recently eighteen and taller than his father had been, his hair raven black and, to Michael’s mind, too long. ‘It’s a bit of fun. Remember fun?’
His grandfather, who had commanded British forces in Bosnia and Kosovo before ending up at a desk in Whitehall, didn’t have it in him to be strict with the boy. Not only was he in his last year at the Abbey private school and almost ready to leave home, but he’d lost his father. Michael’s only son, Alistair, had died of a heart attack fifteen months earlier. In addition, Michael’s wife Christine had died a few weeks later. She’d driven into a tree. Nothing had been found wrong with the car, though there was black ice on the road so suicide could at least not be talked about. Michael had realised Christine would never recover from Alistair’s death, but he couldn’t be sure if she’d killed herself. Helping out Nick and his daughter-in-law, Rosie, was a way of coping – that was why he had moved in with them. They needed help, too. Alistair, a lawyer, had invested badly and lost clients because of his drinking.
‘Of course he remembers fun,’ Rosie Etherington said, squeezing Michael’s arm. ‘That’s why neither of us is going anywhere near the town centre tonight. Omelette aux fines herbes and a nice Chablis will do for us.’
Nick rolled his eyes as he closed the car door. ‘Fun means a lot of things, but not those.’ He smiled. ‘Well, maybe the Chablis.’
‘One beer, all right?’ Rosie said, her tone hardening slightly.
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘And back by midnight,’ Michael added.
Nick, dressed in a grey boiler suit, clicked his heels together and saluted. At least the afternoons he’d spent in the school cadet force had taught him something.
‘Yes, Gramps.’ He got into the car and reversed smoothly down the drive.
They watched him head down the village’s main street.
‘He didn’t kiss me,’ Rosie said, lowering her gaze.
Michael put his arm round her thin shoulders. ‘He’s eighteen. Kissing his mother isn’t high on his list of priorities.’
Rosie gave him a serious look. ‘He was unhappy recently.’
‘You have to let him go,’ Michael said, remembering what he’d got up to at his grandson’s age.
‘Yes,’ Rosie said softly. ‘I suppose I do.’
They went into the former merchant’s house and turned on the lights.
15
Outside the brothel, Joni said, ‘Go home, sir. You need your sleep and we’ve got this under control.’ She glanced at Morrie Sutton, who nodded reluctantly.
‘I want to interview the boy,’ Sutton said.
‘Both of you,’ Heck repeated. ‘Then DI Pax can talk to the women. You’ve got plenty on your plate, Morrie. The house search, canvassing the neighbours – they must have known what was going on here.’
‘This street’s full of squats and dope dealers,’ Morrie said. ‘You think they’ll say anything to us? Plus, the Albanians will have put the shits up them.’
Heck ignored his objections. ‘You’ve also got to organise the search for the missing woman.’
Sutton shrugged. He knew of old that when Heck Rutherford was in this mood, there was no arguing with him. He walked over to his senior subordinate, DS Nathan Gray, and went into a huddle with him and his DCs.
‘Anything you want to tell me, Joni?’ Heck asked, his eyes on hers. ‘I hope you didn’t let the woman go. It looks like she’s responsible for three serious attacks.’
‘Having been forced to work as a sex slave for God knows how long,’ Joni said, in disgust. ‘No, she got over a gate and was away by the time I got there. I felt I’d be more use here. I gave Nathan the location.’
‘Anything else?’
Joni ran her fingers over the scar that bisected her right eyebrow. It was the result of a knife attack in Hackney when she was seventeen. The boy responsible hadn’t been able to walk for two weeks. She should tell her boss that she’d left her card with the message in Italian. ‘There’s blood on the gate. I’ll let the techies know.’
‘All right,’ Heck said, leaning against his Cherokee. ‘Don’t step on Morrie’s toes any more than you have to.’ He frowned. ‘And don’t let yourself get emotionally involved with the women. We need to keep our distance, especially as they may be illegals.’ He didn’t mention Maureen Hughes, but he’d had to tell Joni that he thought she’d lost her objectivity in the battered woman’s case. He’d been impressed that she hadn’t allowed the publicity to go to her head. If it had been Morrie Sutton, he’d still be walking around like a pigeon with its chest puffed out.
‘OK, I’m for my bed,’ he said, opening the door of the Jeep. ‘One last thing, Joni. Why did you follow the lad in the traffic light from the town centre?’
She looked at him, then dropped her gaze. ‘I don’t know, sir. Hunch?’
Heck looked at her dubiously, then got into the 4×4. There was something strange about her. At first he’d thought she needed time to get used to Pofnee and the north in general but, if anything, she was getting weirder – the faraway look; the intuitive leaps that usually turned out to be on the button; the quick reactions, like her pursuit of the woman earlier. Joni Pax wasn’t like any other detective he’d met. And then there was the issue of why she’d left the Met. There was no way of knowing how much the last operation she’d run still preyed on her mind.
He watched as she swung her long legs into a patrol car, then started his engine and pulled away from the scene. He was heading for bed, but he wasn’t sure how much sleep he’d get. He had hunches too, though he put them down to his years of experience. The people who controlled the now defunct brothel in Burwell Street wouldn’t be happy and someone would have to pay. He hoped the missing woman turned herself in to the police before the men who saw themselves as her owners found her.
Driving through the now quiet town, Heck Rutherford told himself to get a grip. Maybe Ag would wake up when he slipped into bed. Then his phone rang. It was ACC Dickie, requiring a status update – and telling him that she wanted a meeting at nine the next morning. So much for the May Day bank ho
liday.
16
Suzana had waited for at least ten minutes after the footsteps retreated down the street, then slipped forward and picked up the rectangular card. In the light from the street lamp beyond the gate she made out a name she could pronounce – Jo-ni Pax – under a red and blue shape, something like an old-fashioned shield. The word ‘Police’ was easy enough to understand – it was almost the same in Albanian. So the woman police had nearly caught her. Why hadn’t she tried to get over the gate? And why had she written in Italian that she wanted to help? It must be a trick. Her captors would have friends in the police.
She knew it wouldn’t be long until other police started searching. Men from Leka’s clan would be on her trail too. She retreated into a crumbling building, the remnants of its roof long collapsed to the floor. She cut the soles of her feet even more on the broken stone and wood. There was very little light, but she came across an old sack and tore it up, wrapping strips of the rough material around her feet. She shivered as she stood up, her naked legs and groin covered with goose pimples. She fumbled her way round a corner and stopped dead. Ahead was a light, the smell of woodsmoke in the air. Suzana waited, then crept forward slowly, feeling gingerly with each foot before putting her weight on it. Finally she made out a motionless figure wrapped in ragged blankets on the other side of the fire’s dwindling flames. She clutched about with her hand and found a length of wood she could use as a weapon. Then she made her approach.
A loud snore broke the silence. Suzana waited, but there was no movement from the man lying on his side, the light playing over a long beard and filthy hands.
She saw an almost empty plastic bottle on its side by the sleeper, the smell of raw alcohol pricking her nostrils even through the smoke. It looked like she was in luck. The man was comatose. He never stirred as she went through the shopping trolley full of plastic bags to the rear. She found a pair of trousers that fitted her when she fastened an old tie round the waist, as well as a thick shirt with holes in the armpits, a pullover and – she stifled a shout of joy – some socks and a pair of trainers big enough for her rapidly swelling feet. Deep down she found a woollen hat that she pulled low, hiding her hair beneath it completely.
Carnal Acts Page 4