The Devil's Cliff Killings

by Simon McCleave

  CHAPTER 13

  Nick and Merringer came into Interview Room Three. Hayley had been allowed to have a shower and was now wearing a standard grey tracksuit. The room was painted white and sky blue with one small window high up on the far wall. It smelt of cheap shower gel and coffee.

  Beside Hayley sat her legal-aid solicitor, a small woman with short brown hair and kind eyes.

  Now she had showered and most of her make-up was gone, Nick thought Hayley looked a good three or four years younger. In fact, she was a young seventeen. Her black-and-red hair was still wet and tucked behind ears that were full of earrings and studs. Her feline eyes locked into his for a moment with a defiant look that said, ‘This is boring me, so can we get on with it?’ Hayley had been in interview rooms like this a dozen times before. It didn’t faze her. It was just part of the game. Seventeen, and she was already an old pro. That’s what having addict parents and growing up in care did to you.

  Nick put down the folder and papers on the grey plastic table and moved his chair back to get comfortable.

  ‘Hello, Hayley.’ Nick reached over and clicked the tape machine. ‘For the purposes of the tape, I’m Detective Sergeant Evans. This is my colleague Detective Constable Merringer. Present as well are Hayley Collard and the duty solicitor, Carol Brown.’

  Hayley was staring at the floor, but when she looked up, she gave the detectives a withering look.

  ‘You understand that you’ve been brought here to help us with our enquiries into the disappearance of Rosie Wright?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Jesus, I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about,’ Hayley sneered and then kicked the table.

  Brown leant over and whispered in her ear. Nick guessed she had told Hayley to tone it down.

  ‘Yeah, I understand,’ Hayley said reluctantly.

  Nick leaned forward so that his arms rested on the table. He looked at her and said, ‘Hayley, at the moment, we’re not interested in the drugs, prostitution or the knife. We’re interested in finding Rosie Wright, that’s all.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘Because we know that she was a friend of yours, wasn’t she?’ Merringer said.

  ‘Was she?’ Hayley was trying to be clever and play games.

  Nick gave an audible sigh and sat back. It is going to be like that, is it?

  ‘DC Merringer, what is the likely sentence for threatening to assault a police officer with a knife?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Hard to say. But I do know that last month a man in Cardiff was sentenced to twelve years in prison for a very similar offence,’ Merringer said, joining in with Nick’s game.

  ‘You said you’d forget about the knife, you wanker!’ Hayley shouted.

  ‘If you help us and tell the truth ... Twelve years. Long time, Hayley. That would mean you would be just coming up to your thirtieth birthday by the time you get out,’ Nick said, looking her directly in the eye.

  Don’t fuck with me. I’ve got a teenage girl to find.

  Hayley looked at Brown, who nodded to confirm that what Merringer had said was correct. As far as Nick was concerned, he was going to make Hayley an offer she couldn’t refuse in return for all the intel she could give him.

  ‘Okay, here’s the deal, Hayley. I want you to tell me everything you know about Rosie Wright. What you talked about, where and why you met. What happened last Monday night. Or you’re going to spend a decade behind bars doing laundry or making signs in the noddy shop at HMP Styal,’ Nick said, spelling out her options very clearly.

  Hayley shrugged. ‘What do you wanna know?’

  ‘When did you first contact Rosie Wright?’ Nick asked.

  ‘A few months ago,’ Hayley said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On a fan site for Billie Eilish. We just started talking,’ Hayley said.

  ‘And you’re a fan of Billie Eilish?’ Merringer asked. Nick was pretty sure that Merringer had no idea who Billie Eilish was.

  Hayley shook her head. ‘No. That’s just how it works?’

  ‘How what works?’ Nick asked, although he was beginning to put some pieces together.

  Hayley seemed reluctant to talk. She sat back in her chair and looked at the nails on her right hand. Nick saw that she had a small blue tattoo by the thumb on that hand – Te iubesc.

  ‘Nice tattoo. It’s not French, so I’m going to take a guess. Romanian?’ Nick said.

  Hayley frowned as if to say, ‘How the bloody hell did you know that?’

  ‘Let me suggest something to you, Hayley,’ Merringer said. ‘You meet and befriend teenage girls on websites for someone else? Am I right?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘And Rosie was one of these girls?’ Nick asked.

  Hayley nodded and now looked down at the floor. She was starting to lose some of the bravado she had when she started the interview.

  ‘For the purposes of the tape, Hayley nodded to answer affirmative to the last question,’ Merringer said.

  Digging into an A4 envelope, Nick took out a photo of Christian Vasilescu, the Romanian man Rhyl Police had identified and seen her with. ‘Hayley, do you know who this man is?’

  Vasilescu was in his early thirties, with dark skin, shaved head and chiselled features. He looks like a charming, handsome thug, Nick thought.

  ‘Yes,’ Hayley said.

  ‘Christian Vasilescu? Is that right?’ Merringer asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Would it surprise you to know that Mr Vasilescu is wanted in Romania in connection with people trafficking, drug smuggling and extortion?’ Nick asked.

  Hayley shrugged. ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘How do you know Christian Vasilescu?’ Merringer asked.

  ‘He’s my boyfriend.’

  Nick and Merringer exchanged a look – how many times had they met vulnerable girls or sex workers who thought their pimps were their boyfriends?

  ‘And why were you planning to travel to Dublin this morning with Mr Vasilescu?’ Nick asked.

  ‘To see some of his friends. They live there.’

  ‘Are his friends in Dublin from Romania?’

  ‘Yeah, some are. Some are Irish.’

  Sipping his coffee, Nick could feel the interview losing a little focus. ‘So, you befriended Rosie Wright on the Billie Eilish website for Christian. What happened then?’

  ‘Me and Rosie started chatting and stuff. You know, about school, friends and music.’

  ‘And I’m guessing you pretended that you went to school and lived with your parents?’ Nick asked with no hint of judgement.

  ‘Yeah. I needed to check her out. Get her talking. Trust me.’

  ‘Check her out?’ Merringer asked.

  ‘We have a profile of what I’m supposed to look for. You know, mainly girls who are in care or with foster parents that they hate.’

  ‘That’s not Rosie Wright though, is it?’

  ‘Some of the girls I talk to are just unhappy at home. They want to run away, take drugs, self-harm, usual shit.’ Hayley explained.

  ‘And why did you think that Rosie Wright was one of these girls?’

  ‘From what she told me online. She said her dad was a psychopath. And that her mum and brother were both criminals. She hated being home and already had a bag ready to run away,’ Hayley explained.

  Rosie must have known about Gareth Wright’s criminal record. However, the fact she labelled her mum a ‘criminal’ was surprising. Did Rosie have suspicions about what Kathy Wright was doing at Rhoswen? How? Had she confronted her mother with what she knew?

  ‘So, you checked Rosie fitted what you were looking for and then arranged to meet her?’

  ‘Yeah. I met up with Rosie in Chester.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To see if she would meet me in secret. You can tell a lot about someone if they’re willing to meet someone they’ve met online on their own without telling their parents,’ Hayley explained.

  ‘And it was Christian that Rosie saw p
ick you up in Chester?’ Merringer clarified.

  ‘Yeah. That wasn’t meant to happen.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Christian told me to arrange to meet Rosie again. She suggested that I come and meet all her friends. I had a time and a place of where she was going to be.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I gave all that information to Christian. That’s it. That’s what happens,’ Hayley said.

  ‘You didn’t go and meet Rosie last Monday night?’ Nick asked.

  ‘No,’ Hayley said.

  ‘Did Christian meet Rosie last Monday night?’ Nick asked.

  ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me stuff like that,’ Hayley said.

  ‘Come on, Hayley. What happens to the girls whose information you pass onto Christian?’ Nick asked.

  ‘I dunno. It’s not my business,’ Hayley said.

  Nick was starting to lose patience. ‘Hayley, where does Christian take the girls that you groom online for him?’

  Hayley tried to settle herself. Then she looked up at him and said, ‘Ireland, I think.’

  ‘This is bullshit, Hayley! Does Christian take the girls via Holyhead to Dublin to work as prostitutes for the Romanian gangs out there?’

  Hayley looked at the floor and nodded.

  ‘Hayley, is that what’s happened to Rosie?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see her. I promise you, I don’t know or I’d tell you.’

  ‘Where does Christian Vasilescu live?’ Nick thundered.

  ‘I don’t know!’ Hayley shouted at him.

  ‘Bollocks! Where does he live?’ Nick thundered as he looked directly at her. He didn’t have time for her lies.

  ‘I know he sometimes stays up at the travellers’ place on Woodburn Farm.’

  THREE DAYS, NINETEEN hours

  As Ruth marched through the incident room towards her office, she reassured herself that everyone was working flat out on finding Rosie.

  Mugshots of sex offenders flicked rapidly across French’s computer monitor, and Sian had been logging calls from the public of possible sightings and tip-offs while keeping an eye on the media. They had to wade through these to sift out anything that seemed useful. Sometimes it was difficult to know where to start. Already that day they had sightings of Rosie in Canterbury with a ‘weird-looking man’ in an orange baseball cap and an hour ago in a furniture lorry on the M5 near Birmingham. It wasn’t until there was some kind of pattern that they could take any of these seriously. Two or three sightings in Canterbury, and then things would change.

  French looked up at her for a moment. ‘Boss, SOCO have come back to us about the tracks at the riverbank. They’re inconclusive. There’s no evidence that anyone launched a boat from there in recent days.’

  Ruth nodded as she sipped her coffee. Someone must have taken Rosie by road then. She glanced up at the large monitor on the wall showing news footage of the search for Rosie with local volunteers helping police officers. Ruth paused the television and Sian looked over at her. ‘Boss?’

  Feeling a little unsettled by their row the previous evening, Ruth smiled and approached. Moving close to her, she took Sian’s hand. ‘Are we okay?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ Sian whispered back but avoided any meaningful eye contact. Ruth wasn’t convinced, but she wasn’t going to pursue it now.

  ‘What have we got?’ Ruth asked, back in work mode.

  Sian pointed up the monitor. ‘This is the BBC’s footage of the search. Now if I play it forward a bit ...’ Sian took the remote from Ruth and played the shot for a second and then paused it again. ‘There.’

  Ruth looked up at the screen. Steven Haddon was standing with his black labrador talking to another man who Ruth recognised but didn’t know why.

  ‘Steven Haddon. And this here ... is Martin Hancock,’ Sian said.

  ‘Our resident sex offender,’ Ruth said. ‘Do they know each other?’

  ‘I don’t know. And maybe Hancock was just there out of the goodness of his heart to help look for Rosie.’

  ‘His paedophile heart?’ Ruth said sardonically. ‘Can you go and have a word with Steven Haddon and find out if he knows Hancock and what they talked about. We’ve seen this before in Soham, haven’t we? I don’t want anyone to accuse us of ignoring a suspect just because he’s in plain sight.’

  ‘Okay if I take DC French with me?’ Sian asked.

  ‘Of course. How’s he doing?’ Ruth asked. She couldn’t help worrying about new CID officers and how the job could affect them.

  ‘Still at the very serious stage, but he’ll be fine. I’ll have him making inappropriate jokes before you know it,’ Sian said with a knowing smile.

  ‘I don’t doubt that. Let me know what Haddon says as soon as,’ Ruth said, still not certain if Sian was annoyed at her. She was certainly being a little distant.

  As Sian turned to go, Merringer arrived with some computer printouts. ‘Boss, I’ve done some digging on Jason Wright. The minor offences and cautions date back to the late eighties and early nineties. It’s so long ago that they’ve been filtered from his record, which is why they don’t appear on the PNC when we checked the first time,’ Merringer explained.

  ‘What’s there?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘There’s a whole string of allegations that were recorded by Conwy Police at the time. Molestation and indecency. No convictions in the 1980s,’ Merringer explained.

  Ruth rolled her eyes and said, ‘In the 1980s, judges and coppers thought a fifteen-year-old girl in a short shirt was just a “dirty, little flirt” who was asking to be sexually assaulted. If a boy grabbed your tits, he’d probably get a pat on the back from the local bobby.’

  Merringer nodded seriously. ‘However, Wright had a conviction of underage sex with a fifteen-year-old girl in 1991 when he was nineteen. Suspended sentence so it was wiped from his record.’

  ‘And the sex offenders register wasn’t until the late nineties, so he wouldn’t have gone on that either,’ Ruth said, thinking out loud.

  ‘But this caught my eye, Boss. In 1993, Wright was charged with sexually assaulting his fourteen-year-old sister, but the records show that the charges were dropped a few months later,’ Merringer explained.

  There was something a little unsettling about Jason Wright’s pattern of behaviour as a young man. Was it something that he stopped doing? Or did he just find ways of not getting caught?

  CHAPTER 14

  Parking at the main farm gates, French turned off the car engine. He wound down the window and gestured to Steven Haddon, who was standing beside an enormous green-and-yellow John Deere tractor. He was tinkering with something on one of the vast wheels that rose above his head at over eight feet in height. Either he hadn’t heard them arrive or he was ignoring their presence. Sian knew that police officers brought out all sorts of strange and sometimes unpleasant behaviour in people.

  Opening the door, she was hit by the wall of heat from outside. They’d become used to the car’s air conditioning and the hot air took her breath away for a moment. The smell of the farm was thick and there was a stillness all around. It was as if everything had stopped moving or making any form of sound because it was just too hot.

  Wiping his oil-stained hands with a rag, Steven turned to look at Sian and French as they approached across the dry, potholed yard. A labrador and spaniel got up out of the shade of the feed shed and wandered over to see who had arrived. The dogs were too hot to do much more than sniff around their ankles for a moment.

  ‘Mr Haddon?’ Sian called as she tried to navigate around a pile of cow dung.

  ‘Afternoon,’ he said as he squinted up at the sun and shielded his eyes.

  Sian showed her warrant card. ‘DC Hockney. Have you got a minute?’

  Steven nodded and looked concerned. ‘Yeah, of course. Any news on Rosie?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ French said as he pushed his Ray-Bans back onto the bridge of his nose. Sian wanted to remind him that he wa
sn’t in an episode of CSI: Miami.

  ‘God, what’s happened to her? I just don’t understand it. It’s terrible,’ Steven said as he shook his head.

  Taking a photo out of an envelope, Sian showed him a still of the BBC News’ footage she had shown Ruth earlier.

  ‘Can you tell us if you know this man, Mr Haddon?’

  ‘It’s Steven, please. Erm ...’ Steven studied the photo for a couple of seconds. Sian wasn’t sure if he was trying to buy time before responding. ‘Yeah, it’s Martin. He came to help us when we searched the woodland at the back.’

  Steven handed the photo back to her nonchalantly and gave her a look as if to say, ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Is Martin Hancock a friend of yours?’ French asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know his surname. He’s not a friend of mine. I’ve seen him down the pub a couple of times.’

  ‘What about in the last few days? Apart from when he came to help in the search, have you seen him around?’ Sian asked. If Ruth remembered what had happened in previous cases like this, the perpetrator would try to involve themselves in the chaos they had caused as much as possible.

  ‘Not really. Look, I’ve heard all the rumours around the village about Martin. He’s this or he’s that. I’m not really interested in gossip. When I talked to him at the pub, he seemed a nice enough bloke,’ Steven said.

  ‘Thank you, Steven,’ Sian said. She didn’t like to point out that ‘a nice enough bloke’ is how virtually every infamous killer in British criminal history is described by those who ‘knew’ them. Most people saw genial, caring GP Harold Shipman as an all-round ‘good bloke’, until it was revealed he had murdered an estimated two hundred and fifty people. As Sian was once told in training, Joe Public’s instinct for who is guilty of terrible crimes and who is not is about as reliable as a chocolate fireguard.

  ‘If you want to talk to anyone about Martin, you should ask Jason,’ Steven said, gesturing to the cottage next door.

  Sian and French exchanged a meaningful look – that was interesting.

  ‘Martin Hancock is a friend of Jason’s?’ French asked.

  ‘I don’t know if they’re friends. But I’ve seen them drinking at the pub together,’ Steven explained.