Die Last

by Tony Parsons

  The other side of the motorway was still open, heavy traffic steaming south for the coast, not moving fast and slowing further with that ghoulish instinct to observe tragedy. Their hand-held devices covered many of the faces at the windows of the cars and the lorries, and I wondered what possible reason anyone could have to want to look at this scene ever again.

  The sergeant nodded at the paramedics and something passed between them, giving me access to my friend without need of explanation, and I knelt by the bag and inhaled deeply, not tasting the sea any more, just the diesel fumes of the motorway and the dead winter fields beyond.

  We don’t call it a body bag. We call it an HRP – Human Remains Pouch – and although the movies like to show them as heavy black rubber jobs, the reality is different. The HRP that held Billy was white plastic with webbing handles and a black zip running the length of it, which I pulled down briskly before I had a chance to think about it too much and change my mind.

  His face was marked with scuffs and bruising where he had fought for his life. There was a red mark around his neck, as vivid as a lynching, and I pulled the zip down to his chest so that I could see the four numbers tattooed above his heart for the first time and the last time. It still looked like him. It is the elderly that appear changed by death, and it is the sick that seem changed by death. The young dead – the dead robbed of the fifty more years of existence that they are owed – look unchanged, as if they have not yet finished with life.

  There was a single knife wound just under the tattoo of his warrant number. He fought them with everything, but death, when it came, would have come quickly.

  I gently patted his face twice and zipped up the HRP.

  When I stood, DCI Whitestone and Edie were there. Beyond the heads of Whitestone and Edie, I could see the traffic slowing down to look at Billy.

  ‘They knew,’ I said. ‘They let him bring in another load, but they knew he was a cop. And they knew from the moment they first looked at him. The moment he drove into that camp. The moment they looked in his eye.’

  ‘We don’t know what happened to Billy,’ Whitestone said, for once in her life sounding uncertain.

  ‘I know he was nowhere near ready,’ I said, the sadness stronger than the anger now. ‘He had basic training to drive that lorry. He had no training at all at working undercover. Billy had never even worked as a Surveillance Officer.’

  ‘He was our best bet,’ Whitestone said.

  ‘It was a suicide mission,’ I said. ‘But you can replace him, right? We can get another TDC in from Hendon. All these young kids are good with computers. No problem replacing Billy, right?’

  ‘You’re angry with me. I understand.’

  ‘You don’t understand a damn thing,’ I said. ‘Ma’am. I’m angry with myself. I should have told him to walk away. From West End Central. From this madness.’ I lifted my chin at DCI Whitestone. ‘From you.’

  ‘Billy would have ignored you,’ she said.

  ‘You should have sent me,’ I said.

  She exploded. ‘Now you’re talking like a child! They know you in that camp!’

  She got a grip on herself and looked at the sergeant from the Port of Dover Police. ‘Did they give him a phone? Did he have a burner on him?’

  ‘If they did, they must have taken it with them on this side,’ he said. He gestured at the fields beyond the motorway. A long dark line of officers from the Specialist Search Team were making their time-consuming way across the field, on their hands and knees on the frozen earth. ‘But if your man ditched a burner before they took him, we’ll find it.’

  ‘Nothing in the back of the lorry?’ Whitestone said.

  I felt Edie touch my arm. It didn’t change a thing.

  ‘Only the usual,’ the sergeant said. ‘A bucket that was used for a toilet. Remains of food – some of it looks like it was bought back in the Balkans. So your man brought in a load, but they were long gone by the time we found the body. But I’ll get my SIO to have a word with you, ma’am.’

  The sergeant climbed into the back of the lorry. Whitestone and Edie watched the HRP being loaded into the ambulance. The traffic on the other side of the motorway had ground to a complete standstill. People were getting out of their cars. A crowd had gathered on the central reservation, phones held in front of their faces, bright white lights shining, collecting their souvenirs.

  I began walking towards them, my fists clenched by my side, feeling my throat choke with rage and grief.

  Here were the members of the public that Billy Greene had served. Here were the ordinary men and women that we are sworn to protect without fear or favour. Here were the good honest citizens who would call us in the middle of the night if someone was kicking down their front door.

  I realised that I had wondered for a long time if they were worth it. And now I had my answer.

  ‘Max?’ Whitestone said, and began giving me instructions about liaising with the Port of Dover and Kent Police.

  But I was not interested.

  I kept walking towards the ghouls in the middle of the motorway.

  I was done.

  ‘You’re early,’ Mrs Murphy said. ‘Everything all right?’

  I was unsure of what to say, unsure how to explain it, unsure of what would happen next in my life. I felt I had lost my moorings, as though I had been cut adrift from the only thing that I was ever any good at.

  Stan padded across the loft towards me, his tail wagging his pleasure at my unscheduled appearance. I crouched down beside my dog and let my fingertips run through fur that was softer than silk. He looked at me with a love that I did not deserve.

  ‘I just wanted to be home,’ I said.

  That was it. That was all. That was everything.

  Mrs Murphy nodded.

  ‘Best place for you,’ she said. ‘The policeman on the news down there in Kent – was that your colleague?’

  I nodded, not looking at her, my hands on Stan. Dasher had been sleeping in Stan’s basket and he stirred himself to greet me with his saucepot smile.

  I pressed my face against the Labrador-Retriever’s beautiful golden head. He grinned at me as if it was a wonderful life.

  ‘A terrible thing,’ Mrs Murphy said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I? Then I’ll be off to pick up our Scout.’

  ‘I’ll come to the school with you,’ I said.

  Mrs Murphy looked at me steadily, as if understanding that something had changed.

  Then she smiled.

  ‘That would be grand,’ she said. ‘We’ve got time for a nice cup of tea. Sit yourself down.’

  I could hear Mrs Murphy making the tea and Radio 2 turned on low coming from the kitchen. There was an old Luther Vandross song playing. ‘Give Me the Reason’. It was strange to be home so early in the day. But it felt good and right. And it felt peaceful. That was the best thing of all. I had a glimpse of a different life.

  What would I do now? I had seen that there were private security guards appearing all over London. Some of them had no qualifications beyond a shaven head and big boots, but some of them were serious men – ex-British Army Gurkhas, small and smooth-skinned Nepalese who never raised their voice but who would not be beaten in any physical confrontation unless they were killed. Maybe that was a road I could take. If I did not want to be a real cop any more, then someone might pay me to be a different kind of cop. Right now, I didn’t care what I did.

  I just knew that I had had enough.

  But the police is what you know, a voice said. And it’s the only thing you know.

  Nesha buzzed up to walk the dogs and Mrs Murphy decided that Scout would approve if the whole gang of humans and dogs were waiting for her at the school gates.

  So we all walked to the school, Nesha with both the dog leads, proudly demonstrating his dog-handling skills as we passed through the market and Stan and Dasher caught the scent of all that fresh meat, Mrs Murphy smiling to herself as she hummed that old Luther Vandross song. And I felt how far I had tr
avelled from normal life, the life that carried on in all its decency and dignity while I stood on the hard shoulder of a taped-off motorway.

  At the school gates there were parents chatting, people who saw each other every day while I was at work, and there were more fathers these days, and then a distant bell rang and the children were streaming out and home, and one face among them shone like the brightest star.

  ‘Daddy!’ Scout said.

  We were not the most physical father and daughter. But she touched my arm and I smoothed Scout’s shining bell of hair and it meant as much to me as any hug. We smiled shyly at each other.

  ‘You got home from work early,’ she noted, and she took my hand and did not let it go, not even when we waved off Nesha and the dogs as they headed to the park. Scout held my hand all the way back to the loft.

  And when she finally let it go, my phone began to vibrate and I fought the urge to throw the damn thing out of the window.

  GINGER GONZALEZ CALLING, it said.

  Her voice was soft and low and urgent.

  ‘The woman in the cab,’ she said. ‘Rabia Demir. The one who lived, Max. She’s sitting in my office.’

  PART THREE

  The Girl in the Cab

  27

  The lights were coming on all over Chinatown.

  I drove as close as I could get, the blues and twos flaring and screaming, all the city making way for me. I left the BMW X5 on Gerrard Place but it was only when I saw the shrine of dead flowers that I realised exactly where I was parked.

  For a long moment I stood under the red-and-gold awning of the dim sum restaurant, staring at the flowers that marked the spot where we had found the lorry with twelve women who died and one woman who lived.

  And then I ran.

  I ran through the dawdling late afternoon crowds on Gerrard Street to the doorway by the duck restaurant halfway down and then up the ancient wooden staircase three steps at a time to the bright white room on the first floor.

  The door to Sampaguita was closed.

  Low voices were coming from inside.

  I went in without knocking and stared at Ginger Gonzalez and a man I didn’t recognise. He was not yet thirty, a clean-cut City type, lean inside his good suit, the kind of man who goes to the gym for a serious cardio workout before he goes to move money around in one of the big glass towers. He looked privileged but not soft. It was a look you were seeing more and more. He was smiling at Ginger as he moved slowly towards the door, about to make his exit.

  I was about to knock him to the ground when Ginger spoke.

  ‘Max, this is Kris. Max is a colleague of mine, Kris.’

  He held out his hand, smiling politely, and I had shaken it before I knew what I was doing.

  ‘Good to meet you, Max.’ He turned to Ginger. ‘I’ll call you later.’

  As he left, I stared at her wildly.

  ‘Where is she?’ I said. ‘Where’s Rabia Demir?’

  ‘She’s gone, Max.’

  ‘How can she be gone? Where did she go? Have you got a number, an address? Why the hell didn’t you keep her here?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I tried, but Kris showed and she got spooked.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes.’

  I went to the window and desperately looked down at the crowds.

  Then I banged my fist hard against the wall and cursed.

  ‘You don’t know where she went, Ginger? You let her walk out just because some john from Deutsche Bank shows up?’

  Her face clouded.

  ‘Kris is not a client, OK?’

  I looked at her for a moment, long enough to work it out.

  ‘That guy’s your boyfriend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I let it sink in.

  ‘And he doesn’t know, does he? He doesn’t know what you do here.’ I looked at the sign on the frosted glass of the door, the words inverted. Sampaguita – Social Introduction Agency. ‘Don’t tell me he really thinks you’re some kind of dating agency?’

  ‘Men believe what they want to believe.’

  I stared at the door as if the girl in the cab might walk back in. But then I knew Rabia Demir was putting as much distance as she could between herself and this room.

  I pulled up a chair and stared at Ginger.

  ‘I’m sorry, Max. I did my best to stall her.’

  ‘Talk me through it,’ I said.

  ‘This young woman shows up uninvited. It happens maybe a few times every day. Looking for work. Word of mouth. She wouldn’t tell me who talked to her about what I do here. She claimed she didn’t remember. And I get that every day too. But I didn’t realise it was her, Max. You have to believe me. She was different from the photographs.’

  I called up the photos on my phone and slid it across the desk.

  ‘How was she different?’

  Ginger scrolled through the photographs of Rabia Demir and Mr Click-Click, shaking her head.

  ‘She didn’t have – I don’t know – the spark she has in these pictures. She was blurry. As if she was on something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something bad and strong. And everything about her was wrong. She had a tattoo on the inside of her right wrist. There.’ She showed me. ‘You know I don’t like tattoos. My clients don’t like tattoos.’

  ‘Yeah, I know they’re a really discerning bunch, your clients. What kind of tattoo, Ginger?’

  ‘A bar code.’

  I thought about the reasons why someone would get a bar code tattooed on their wrist.

  I could not think of a good reason. I could not even think of a bad reason.

  I leaned back in my seat and sighed.

  ‘So you turned her down,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t get the chance. She lost her temper with me. She told me she knew I operated on a fifty-fifty split with my girls but she wanted a better deal. I also get one of those every day – the kind of girl who thinks she can do a bit better than everyone else. Little Miss Special. And then suddenly I knew who she was.’

  ‘The prettiest girl in the village,’ DCI Whitestone said.

  Whitestone was standing in the doorway. She nodded at me as she came into the small white room, followed by Edie. I had sent them a text message on my drive to Chinatown telling them that Rabia Demir was waiting for us up at Sampaguita.

  ‘So where is she?’ Whitestone said, apparently not surprised to find Rabia Demir long gone.

  ‘She scarpered,’ I said.

  Whitestone leaned against the wall and folded her arms, staring at Ginger with undisguised contempt.

  Edie sat on the desk.

  ‘You got an address?’ she asked Ginger. ‘A number? Anything?’

  ‘I’m not police, OK?’ Ginger said.

  ‘No,’ Whitestone. ‘You’re a pimp, Miss Gonzalez. And for the life of me I don’t understand why we didn’t bust you long ago.’

  Ginger looked at me, pleading.

  ‘There was no way I could get her to stay. I called you as soon as I knew, Max. But when I got back, Kris had arrived and he was talking to her.’ I saw her face flush with embarrassment. ‘Kris thought she was my PA.’

  ‘And who the hell is Kris?’ Whitestone said. ‘Another lonely heart?’

  ‘Boyfriend,’ I said.

  Whitestone shook her head. ‘And I bet he doesn’t know what you do, does he?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I bet he doesn’t have a clue, does he? The poor sap! One born every minute. Not married, is he? That would be par for the whore-mongering course.’

  ‘Why don’t we continue this interview at West End Central?’ Edie said, easing off the desk.

  Ginger ignored them.

  ‘Max,’ she said. ‘Rabia was angry with me. I showed her my standard contract. My usual terms and conditions.’

  Whitestone laughed scornfully.

  ‘I pay my taxes!’ Ginger said. ‘And so do my staff!’

  ‘Your staff!’ Whitestone said.

  ‘But Rabia sa
id she had already had an offer of work somewhere else. She was raving. And she kept telling me how much more they would appreciate her at this other place. And she kept repeating the same thing about why it was a much better place to work. No papers. No papers. In the middle of this stoned rant about why she would be better down the road. No papers.’

  ‘No papers,’ I said. ‘Meaning that if she worked for you, there would be forms to sign and taxes to pay and work visas required. But not at this other place.’

  ‘Because they use illegals,’ Whitestone said.

  We waited.

  Whitestone was staring hard at Ginger.

  ‘What can you do for me, Ginger?’ she said.

  ‘I think I know where she’s working. Rabia mentioned a name at the other place.’ She hesitated. ‘And it was a name that I know.’

  We are used to being lied to in our job. It happens constantly. People will say anything to escape whatever is coming for them. But I believed Ginger was telling the truth, even as Whitestone and Edie looked forward to the moment they shut her down.

  ‘There’s a woman,’ Ginger said. ‘Madam Theresa.’

  Whitestone stirred at the name.

  ‘Madam Theresa was a pimp in the old days,’ she said, her eyes still on Ginger. ‘Started out in the Sixties and Seventies. When the rich and famous were hanging out with the Krays and the Warboys. Prostitution in the golden age of social mobility. Madam Theresa was meant to be French or Belgian, the black sheep of some European aristocracy. They said Madam Theresa Defarge could get you anything. Have I got the right pimp?’

  Ginger nodded briefly. ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘But I thought Madam Theresa died years ago,’ Whitestone said.

  ‘She’s alive and working again harder than ever,’ Ginger said. ‘She made a comeback and now she’s operating out of that big luxury apartment block on the south side of the river. The circular one directly opposite Big Ben.’

  ‘The Hopewell Centre,’ I said.

  ‘When was the last time you saw this Madam Theresa?’ Edie said.

  Ginger shook her head. ‘Years ago.’

  ‘And when was the last time you spoke to her?’ Whitestone said.

  We watched Ginger Gonzalez bite her lower lip.