by Bo Brennan
“You bloody won't. You're confined to your desk until I tell you otherwise!” Sangrin huffed getting all red faced and loud. “This obsession with Dale Johnson is bordering on harassment. If anyone is going to speak to him - it will be me.”
Knightsbridge, London.
She was anxiously looking up and down the street as they turned into Hans Place.
“Deja vous,” Maggie murmured as she pulled up outside St Saviour’s Church.
Colt couldn't help but notice how drawn and thin she'd become since their encounter outside New Scotland Yard. Elizabeth Cordwell looked more tired than his whole team put together. But she seemed relieved to see him, even managed a half smile as he stepped from the car. “She's in there,” she said rushing towards him. “I think she's about to leave.”
Colt and Maggie followed her inside as she marched straight towards a pockmarked young woman rolling up a grubby sleeping bag, with equally grubby hands. “Tell them about Penny,” she demanded grabbing the girl's arm. “Tell them what you told me.”
“Get the fuck off me you crazy bitch,” pox face said swinging a punch.
Colt grabbed her fist mid-air. “I wouldn't do that if I were you,” he said and pushed aside his jacket, discreetly revealing his ID. “Sit down.”
The woman licked her lips, her eyes darting everywhere as they all lowered themselves slowly into seats.
“Tell me what you know,” Colt said quietly.
“I ain't no fuckin' grass,” she hissed.
Maggie gestured over her shoulder. “And we've got no problem telling this lot you are if you don't start talking,” she warned.
The woman scratched feverishly at her arms. “What's in it for me?”
“A sense of civic duty,” Colt said. “And a place on a treatment programme if you want it.”
The smack head sneered. “Get stuffed.”
Maggie cleared her throat and pushed her chair back, ready to stand. Ready to announce a grass in their midst. “Ease up,” the woman hissed reaching out to stop her.
Maggie recoiled from her scabby, bruised arm and remained in her seat. “Talk,” she said.
The woman twitched and glared at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth glared back. “Just tell them what you told me about my daughter. Please,” she whispered fiercely. “I can’t bury her until I know the truth.”
“She fucked off with some bloke,” the woman mumbled. “That's all I know.”
“What bloke?” Colt pressed.
The woman jittered in her seat and scratched some more. “Some weirdo who hangs around the hostels. He picks 'em up in the cemetery and they go off in his car.”
“Was she turning tricks?” Maggie asked.
Elizabeth frowned and shook her head. “She wouldn't do that. Penny wasn't that sort of girl.”
Colt patted Elizabeth's arm as Maggie sighed beside him. Before she joined the unit, she'd earned her stripes in Vice. He knew where her head was at. The way this story was going was a familiar one for runaways.
“What sort of car?” he said trying to elicit as much information as possible before the withdrawal cramps kicked in.
“I dunno,” she said. “I wasn't paying much attention. I was busy.”
There were only two kinds of busy where an addict was concerned. Busy scoring drugs, or busy prostituting their drug addled bodies to pay for them. He didn't want to know which. “You were paying enough attention to recognise the girl.”
“Couldn't miss her. She looked like a fucking daffodil.”
Colt remembered the vivid yellow dress and green canvas high-tops adorning her broken body in the Waterloo station gents, and was in no doubt she'd seen her. “The bloke she was with,” Colt said. “Is he a punter or a pimp?”
She doubled up and gripped her stomach. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple. They were running out of time. Her cravings were winning. Colt gritted his teeth and gripped her arm. “Punter or pimp?” he said.
“Dunno, I've never done him,” she growled rocking in her seat. “Ask her.” She nodded over Maggie's shoulder where a girl wearing heels, a micro mini, and a halter neck top that barely contained her breasts, was peering through the door. “She's the only one that's ever come back.”
Maggie stood up. As soon as the girl saw her, she turned tail and ran. Maggie followed. Colt pushed free of his chair and sprinted across the church hall in pursuit. By the time he got to the street, Maggie had the woman's hands up her back and her face pressed against the cold stone wall of the church.
Colt picked up the abandoned stiletto in his path as he sauntered up the pavement to join them, all the while trying to work out what language the woman was cussing in.
“I'm not vice anymore,” Maggie said. “I just want to talk to you.”
“You fucking bitch,” she spat with a heavy accent as Maggie released her. Scooping her spilled stretch-marked breasts back into her top, she smiled at Colt as he passed her her shoe. “Hello, Big Boy. You like what you see?”
Colt grinned at Maggie. “Who's your friend?”
“A street girl named Desire,” she said drolly.
“You desire this?” she said bending over and giving him an eyeful as she forced her gnarled foot into the ill-fitting shoe.
Colt grimaced and showed her his ID. “I desire the name of the man you met in the cemetery. You can tell me about him here, or I can take in you in for solicitation.”
She pouted and crossed her unmarked arms. “I don't know no man.”
Colt sighed and glanced at his watch. He didn't have time to be fucked around again this morning. “Call a wagon to take her in, Mags,” he said.
Maggie pulled her phone from her pocket and started dialling.
“He name John,” the hooker said. “He good man. He gave me place to stay and money.” She jutted her jaw and rubbed her fingers together in the air. “Lots of money.”
Colt stared at her. This girl was clean. Well, where drugs were concerned at least. Her idea of lots of money would be higher than a fix. “How much money?” he said.
She flipped him the V sign. “Two thousand.”
He raised his brows. She had an okay body and a pretty face, but streetwalkers were ten a penny. A man willing to pay two grand for it would go through an agency, delude himself he was getting high class. But agencies had rules, making them far less likely to cater to extreme tastes. “What exactly did he get in return?” Colt asked tilting his head.
Desire shrugged and looked at her shoes.
“Did he hurt you?” Maggie probed.
“No,” she snapped. “He kind man. He no touch me. He look after me.”
“Then what did he want?” Colt said, his patience wearing thin.
“Bērnu,” she mumbled tracing a crack in the pavement with her shoe.
Colt looked to Maggie seeking a translation. She raised her shoulders and shook her head in response, while Desire sighed in frustration. “How you say?” she said cradling her arms to her chest and rocking back and forth.
“Baby?” Maggie asked.
“Yes, is it,” Desire said grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Baby!”
Colt reached into Maggie’s bag and pulled out her handcuffs. “Looks like I desire your company after all,” he said snapping them on her wrists and turning towards the sound of approaching sirens.
The ambulance came to an abrupt halt in front of Maggie’s car. As they bundled Desire into the back seat, paramedics ran into the church. “You go,” Maggie said. “I’ll stay with her.”
Colt entered the church to find Elizabeth Cordwell out cold on the parquet floor, blood trickling from her nose. Both her handbag and the smack head were long gone.
Chapter 48
The Daily Herald, London
Colt frowned as he flicked through the Crossley file. He didn't bother to ask if Ryan had got it from Flick. Ryan wouldn't reveal his source, and Colt didn't want to hear the answer anyway. The point was he had them and they'd clearly been doctored. Inserts had been
made in the text with a different pen, by a different hand. Extra lines added. Words that praised the Crossleys parental care were crossed out and replaced with words that damned them.
Colt's eyes narrowed at the extensive expert testimony provided by Lord Professor Barrington. Glancing up at Ryan, he asked, “Did the Crossley children end up at the New Lives Foundation?”
Ryan nodded. “The one with the health issues is still in their care. The other two were forcibly adopted.” He pulled a dog-eared newspaper supplement from the back of the file and handed it to him. “This is how the parents found out. The case hadn't even been heard when this appeared in the national press.”
The supplement was eye catching and colourful. Fun spilled from the page. Small children played in the sunshine with life sized cartoon characters from their favourite shows, as adults looked on sipping wine. The colourful childlike scrawl written in mock crayons titled the supplement National Adoption & Fostering Week 2007. Colt thumbed the page and was greeted by hundreds of small faces smiling back at him. When he looked up to question the point, Ryan gestured for him to keep going.
Colt did. When he reached the fourth page a shudder raced his spine, goosing his flesh. The Crossley children were circled in red felt tip. “Why didn’t they report this?” Colt said.
“They did,” Ryan said flatly. “I got gagged and they're in prison.”
Colt glared at him. “To the authorities. The police.”
Ryan glared back. “I am now. What are you going to do about it?”
Colt reeled and blew a breath up his face. This was way outside his remit. A conspiracy of this magnitude was in the realms of the Serious Organised Crime Agency's work, but even they wouldn't investigate a state sanctioned kidnapping ring - they were the state sanctioned police. And if the laws weren't in place to prevent this - the only criminal element was fraud and forgery of the case notes. And by all accounts they'd been obtained dubiously themselves.
Colt sat back in his seat and closed the file. He had no idea what to say, or where to start. “Maybe you should speak to the fraud squad, or their local MP. Stephen Charmers isn't it?”
Ryan gritted his teeth and jutted his jaw. “And that's coming from one of Felicity Firman's good guys?”
“I haven't arrested either of you yet,” Colt snapped and dragged his hands down his face in frustration. “Look, the system sucks, Ryan. I don't like it any more than you do. It needs to change. Laws need to change. But until then we have to work with what we've got. The Crowley Trust is testament to that, so is your protection of source. I could be cuffing you right now, but I'm not.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Why aren't you?”
“Because I'm a good guy like you?” Colt offered attempting to disarm him. It didn’t work. Ryan Reynolds eyeballed him suspiciously, waiting. It was time to lay his cards on the table. “I want Dwight Sanders and you can help me get him,” Colt said. “I need that tape of the raid on his house.”
Ryan raised a brow and crossed his arms. “It's in the public domain,” he said. “The footage is on our website.”
Colt had watched the two minute online clip a dozen times. It was what else might have been captured by the recorder he wanted. “Is that all you were given?”
Ryan nodded and leaned across the table. “Tell me what else you're looking for?”
Colt ran a hand across his jaw and his tongue across his teeth, weighing up his need for disclosure. They had nothing on Sanders. There was nothing to lose. “His visitors,” he finally said.
Ryan's eyes widened, one side of his mouth crooked a smile. His excitement at the prospect of a massive scoop was evident. Dwight Sanders moved in high circles. “There are others involved. How many?”
Colt shrugged. “Three, maybe four.”
Ryan gnawed his bottom lip, thinking. “That's all the tape I was given.”
“Who did you get it from?” Colt pressed.
“His name was John.”
Colt felt his pulse race. For the second time this morning he was hearing the name John in connection with a case. He needed his surname and address. “Where's your payment record?”
Ryan glanced away. “Paid him cash.”
Colt sighed and clenched his jaw, wishing his investigation team had the freedom of the press. He wasn’t averse to chucking a bung for information himself. The Crowley Trust would certainly benefit from a more ethical lawyer if they came out of this unscathed. “Where can I find him?”
“I don't know,” Ryan said. “I met him in St Saviour’s cemetery.”
The sudden rush of blood had his heart beating in his wrists and neck as well as his chest. “Tell me what he looks like,” Colt pushed.
“Normal. Average,” Ryan spluttered. “Just a regular guy.”
Colt cracked his knuckles and thought about Alan Roberts, still imprisoned in the safe house. He was tall and young with a mop of black hair, average didn't fit, but he described him anyway.
Ryan shook his head. “Nah, nothing like him,” he said.
“I need to find him,” Colt spat. He let out an exasperated sigh, hung his head and rubbed at his temples. “Sanders is an evil fucker, Ryan,” he murmured picturing the basement scene he would never forget. “No child is safe with him and his cronies walking the streets.”
Ryan sucked in a deep breath and rummaged through his satchel. Pulled out a picture and pushed it under Colt's nose. Colt dropped his hands and looked up. “That’s Lord Professor Barrington. What’s he got to do with Sanders?”
Ryan stared at him. “It came up in my research. The boy to his right is Dwight Sanders. He grew up in care back in the days when the New Lives Foundation ran orphanages and children’s homes. Look at Barrington's hand.”
Colt studied the picture and sighed. Knew exactly what Ryan was insinuating. “I get that you’re gunning for Barrington, I do,” he said. “But if you go there, you’ll be facing a lawsuit so big it will shut this paper down.”
Ryan set his jaw. “His hand is on Dwight’s arse.”
“His hand is out of view. It could be on his back.” Colt rubbed at his brow and checked his watch. “I have to go. Can I take this?”
Ryan nodded. “But only if you agree to do something about the fraud in the Crossley file. I’d report it myself, but, well, I’ve been gagged, I shouldn’t have it, and I don’t know who to trust.”
Colt gave a weary smile. “Leave it with me. I’ll get someone to contact you.”
New Scotland Yard, London.
Colt threw the photograph of Dwight Sanders and Lord Professor Barrington on the viewing room table in front of Bob. “Why didn't Sanders' background check show he grew up in care?”
“I don't know,” Bob spluttered picking up the picture. “I couldn't find any records before he became famous.”
“The fucking press could.” Colt glared at him. “I got that picture from Ryan Reynolds.”
Maggie cleared her throat. “Did you get anything else, Guv?”
Colt circled the name John on the white board next to Desire's name. “He's selling footage as well as babies. Consider finding him a priority. What did you get from the hooker?”
“She's been bailed,” Maggie said. “We got a Latvian interpreter in, but she couldn't, or wouldn't, give us any indication of where she was taken, other than it being local. John took her there on Sunday, she gave birth on Monday, and he dropped her back at St Saviour’s cemetery yesterday.”
“She’s touting for business two days after giving birth?” Colt said incredulously.
“Wants to get knocked up again as soon as possible,” Maggie said with a shrug. “Easiest two grand she’s ever made by all accounts.”
Colt grimaced. “Sounds like a false economy to me, especially once the pregnancy starts showing.”
“You'd be surprised,” Maggie said dully. “There's a market for everything. It's a win win for her. She gets more money for bareback sex, and all the time she stays clean she’s got a buyer for her babies.”
Colt shook his head in dismay and dropped into his chair. “What are the odds of a street girl staying clean?”
“Virtually zero,” Maggie said. “Most of them are only there because of addiction. And it's bloody hard work weaning their babies off crack or heroin.”
Colt drummed his fingers on the table. “So, if you're after a healthy baby, you're best off catching their mothers before they're addicted and hitting the streets.”
“And Haltingbury Social Services has an endless supply,” Bob mused.
“Desire did say there were other girls at the place she was taken to,” Maggie added. “She didn't see them because she had her own room, but she heard them. On Monday, while she was giving birth, apparently one of them was shouting and screaming about it being her birthday or something.”
Colt scrubbed a hand over his head. “Penny Cordwell was clean, but she wasn't in care or on the streets, and she wasn't pregnant either. How is Elizabeth, by the way?”
“Got herself a concussion and a broken nose,” Maggie said. “Her husband came down from Winchester to take her home. She's a bit happier now she knows we're investigating her daughter's death and disappearance.”
Bob let out an exasperated sigh. “So why did John take their daughter, and how the hell did they even come into contact with each other?”
“She's adopted,” Colt murmured. “She was in London looking for her birth brother.”
“Maybe she found him,” Maggie said plucking the picture from Bob's hand and a magnifying glass from the images table behind her. “Sanders grew up in care, and St Saviour's is right on his doorstep. John was filming the comings and goings at his house; she could've turned up there.”
“But why the fuck was he filming Sanders’ house in the first place?” Bob asked. “You don't think he's supplying the paedophile ring with children do you, Guv?”
Colt clasped his hands behind his head and let out an exasperated sigh. “Fuck knows. But something connects them.”