by Bo Brennan
Sangrin raised his brows and tossed the financial report she'd done on Sarum back at her. “Show me the evidence where Barrington or Johnson was paying him. I've been through it a million times and all I can find is untraceable cash deposits.”
India chewed at her cheek as Firman and Sangrin waited for her response. “Sarum's last phone call was to Johnson,” she said. “Lisa Lewis went to that car park with a bag full of money, probably to buy her son back.”
“Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions,” Sangrin said leaning across the table. “Let’s break this down. I’ll make it nice and clear and simple in the hope that it will finally sink in.”
“The last call from Sarum's phone might’ve been to Johnson, but, we have no idea whether Sarum made the call or Lisa Lewis did, after she killed him. I asked Dale about it.”
India's eyes narrowed at his continual use of the doctor’s first name. It must have been a wild night. Sangrin was cheap; access to Johnson's eager to please pool of floozies would easily cover his price.
“He doesn't recall the call, nor personally recall George Sarum, but accepts it's possible they may have met due to the nature of his job. He calls social workers, and they call him, at all hours of the day and night due to his expertise. It’s not unusual that Sarum would have his number in his phone. But, it is unusual that someone of Detective rank would assume Lisa Lewis was meeting him at the car park the night she died, especially when all the evidence points elsewhere. To be frank, Kane, it looks like you’re attempting to fit him up.”
“How much did he pay you to say that?” India asked glaring at him. “She was meeting someone up there. The cash can only have come from Sarum, and considering one of them called Johnson from his phone the night he died, I think we can safely assume he's involved with the disappearance of her son, and ultimately her murder. That's evidence based policing.”
“There you go again with your assumptions,” Sangrin sighed. “These are the facts: Lisa Lewis was mentally ill.” India rolled her eyes. “Like it or not she was mentally ill. The woman was sectioned for Christ’s sake. George Sarum's financials indicate he was up to no good. A baby is missing. My theory is that she sold her baby to Sarum and came back to collect payment. He sold the missing baby on, and that’s where the cash in his accounts came from.”
“Lisa Lewis did not sell her son.” Sangrin was a lost cause. India turned all her attention to her real boss. “My theory is that Johnson encountered the baby at the hospital. Used Sarum to get him out of the hospital and deliver him to Barrington. Barrington sold him on and got his hired help to chuck her off the roof when she wouldn't go quietly.”
Sangrin shook his head and waved his arse wipe of a note in her face. “Your theory’s shit. It falls at the first hurdle. Dale Johnson’s wife drove Hector to the hospital, so unless your random finger of blame is pointing her way, I suggest you shut up now.”
India glared at him. “Who killed Lisa Lewis?”
“Welcome to my investigation.” Sangrin spread his hands. “The post mortem results prove her and Sarum had sex before he died. They also both had cocaine in their systems. She was dressed like a whore - had on a shirt down to her naval, and a skirt up to her nipples. She could’ve been buying drugs or selling her body. That car park is notorious for after-hours pursuits.”
India looked to Firman. She didn't need to ask him what he thought. The expression on his face as he wistfully stroked his beard proved she was on her own again. “All right, I get it,” she said evenly. “What do you want me to do?”
Sangrin grinned and leant back in his seat, rubbing his stomach. “I'm a little bit peckish,” he said. “Run to the shop and get me a bacon butty. When you get back you can go through the CCTV looking for our punter's Range Rover.”
London.
“Praise the Lord!” Bob came through the car speaker phone like a god squad TV evangelist. “I'm at St Saviour’s Church, Boss. Father Carey has just given me a photograph of John.”
Maggie and Colt looked to each other, wide eyed in united awe. “The John?” Colt said incredulously.
Bob laughed. “Well, it might not be the John, but it's certainly the John who dishes up the down and outs their dinners on a Sunday lunch.”
“Do we know him?” Maggie said gripping the steering wheel in excitement. “What's his surname, Bobby boy?”
“Smith,” he said, and the briefly buoyant mood inside the car deflated with a groan. “I know, I know,” he chirped. “It might be a common name, but, this one's in the right place at the right time. I'll be with you in thirty minutes.”
Colt braced himself against the dashboard when Maggie slammed on the brakes, clipping the hoodie in a baseball cap right outside the Yard. Maggie remained in her seat, staring at the blank space the hoodie had occupied, while Colt leapt from the passenger door, thinking the worst. When he reached the front of the car, the shaken pedestrian was clinging to the bumper as he hauled himself up. Colt slid his hands under his armpits and helped him to his feet. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“What are the chances of that?” he replied, head down, dusting dirt from his knees and retrieving his cap from the road.
Colt frowned and tugged the hood from his head. “What are the chances indeed,” he said staring down at Ryan Reynolds. “Did you do that deliberately?”
“Kind of. I need to speak to you,” he said glancing over his shoulder at the uniforms running towards them. “In private. It's about Dwight Sanders.”
Colt gestured the uniforms to back off and opened the back door for an unshaven Ryan Reynolds. “You look like shit. Get in,” he said.
Once inside the building, Colt found the first empty meeting room off reception and dumped Ryan in it. There was no way he was going to be the first journalist to set foot in his unit. “You've got thirty minutes,” he said pulling out the chair opposite him. “Make it good.”
“I can't eat, sleep, or even think straight,” Ryan said. “Everything is such a confused mess.”
Colt glanced at his watch. “What has your diet, and sleep pattern, got to do with Dwight Sanders?”
“I think I might've seriously fucked up, got involved in something real bad,” Ryan said rubbing at his face. “I need to know if Declan Maloney is one of them.”
Colt narrowed his eyes. “One of who?”
Ryan screwed up his face and clenched his fists. “One of Sanders’ lot. Please, just tell me if he's one of them. I'll never be able to forgive myself if he is.”
Colt clasped his hands together on the desk. “Why would you think that?”
“The picture,” Ryan said. “I thought since you'd met him, you'd work it out yourself and just deal with it. Then I'd know either way. I swear to god, if he is, I didn't know. You have got to believe me. But that picture has gone round and round in my head. Barrington had his hand on Dwight's arse, and his arm around Declan's shoulders. Declan won't even talk about his time in care. If Sanders is a paedophile, Declan could be too. He travels backwards and forwards between London and Ireland all the time, picking up the girls. He’s here now. It’s doing my head in. I can't live with what we might’ve done.”
“What have you done, Ryan?”
He started to blub. “We supply the kids.”
“Who are we?” Colt said.
Ryan laid his head on the table and sobbed long, keening wails. “You said there were three or four of them involved. It could be Sanders, Declan, and one or two of the others.”
“Who are the others?” he said, punctuating the words with a firm prod to his shoulder.
Ryan looked up, strings of snot hanging from his nose. “The Crowley Trust. It was supposed to be a good thing. Made me feel a part of something worthy. Now I just feel sick to my stomach. I don't think she knows. I think she’s a good person deep down. She might've been duped as well. But I don’t know about the others. Social Services threatened to take one of their kids. You need to look into them. They might be the ones you’re looking for i
n the Sanders ring.”
Colt stared at him. Declan Maloney, the now known van driver helping Haltingbury's girls to abscond abroad, had also grown up in one of Barrington's NLF homes, alongside Dwight Sanders. He'd written off the Crowley Trust as a necessary evil in an unfairly weighted system, but this was a game changer. He'd also thought he'd met every player in the Trust, including the bent brief who administered it. If there were others - and they were up to no good - he could wear Ryan Reynolds being duped, but not Felicity Firman. Never, Felicity Firman.
“I know about Declan, Niamh, Felicity, Jerry, and you,” he said. “I even know about Stephen Charmers MP. Who else is involved?”
Ryan wiped his snotty nose with his sleeve. “Only Mickey.”
Colt tried hard to ignore the bogey clinging to Ryan's cheek, but gave in and threw him a packet of Kleenex from his jacket pocket while he waited for him to compose himself. “Full name,” he said taking out his notebook and pen.
Ryan blew his nose and dropped the snot rag on the table. “Crown Prosecutor Michael Moore.”
Colt almost gagged. His pen couldn't even scratch paper. The very real possibility that the prosecutor working the case could actually be a part of it, made him feel physically sick. His mind raced. Michael and Barrington moved in the same high powered child protection circles. They all did. Colt included. It made no sense. None of it made any sense.
He reeled at the pressure on his shoulder, and turned almost blindly to find Maggie holding something in her hand. He stared at her, hadn't heard her knock. Her lips were moving but he couldn't hear what she was saying. It was Ryan Reynolds' whiney voice that cut through the brain fog and brought him back.
“That's him. That's John,” he cried. “I paid him two grand for the Sanders tape.”
“Mags, you'd better pull up a chair,” Colt said. “There have been a few developments.”
Winchester, Hampshire.
Fucking bacon butty. India shook her head as she stepped from her car and stormed towards the door. What a total waste of skin that moron was. If it wasn't for Firman she'd have ripped him a new arsehole by now.
She tapped her foot as she waited. Felt her blood pressure rising by the second. “Mrs Johnson,” she said when Jeeves finally opened the door.
“I'm afraid Mrs Barrington-Johnson is not taking visitors today,” the snooty bastard said pushing the door closed.
India jammed her boot in the gap. “I'm afraid she's not taking the piss out of me today either.” She pushed him aside and strode inside. Paying the antiques and artwork no heed, she headed straight for the drawing room to find Arabella sitting in an armchair with her back to the door. “Want to tell me what the hell is going on?” she said closing in on her. “You didn't take Hector to the hospital. You can't even drive.”
“You're right. I can't,” she mumbled slowly lifting her head. “Can't eat solids at the moment either.”
India gasped in horror at the woman's face. Her porcelain skin and delicate bone structure, replaced by a grotesque Halloween mask of multi coloured bruises and abrasions. One eye was completely swollen shut. The other, which Arabella peered at her through, was a maddening red where the white should be. India glanced away, took a step back and dropped into the armchair opposite, staring at the empty fireplace
“It's not as bad as it looks,” Arabella said quietly.
India swallowed hard, she couldn't look. Couldn't bear to.
“Facelift.” Arabella grunted an uncomfortable chuckle. “That's the official line.”
India forced herself to look at her, wincing as she gripped her ribs. “Lift from the toes up now, do they?”
“Would appear so,” she said. “I think it’s clear I can't help you, Detective.”
“Fine, but you can help yourself,” India said. “Leave him.”
“If only it were that simple,” she murmured.
India frowned. “It is simple. This is your father's estate. Get him to kick the cunt out for good.”
“Simple and crude,” Arabella murmured. India made no apology. “You and I live in different worlds, Detective. In mine, men do as they please and women do as they're told. Dale means more to my father than I ever will. He's the son he never had.”
India leant forward and clasped her puffy hands. “I can't help the fact your father's a knob, but I can help you. I can put you in my car and take you to a place of safety right now.”
“If it were just me, I'd be tempted,” she whispered. “But I can't leave my son.”
“Where is he?” India said pulling away and straightening up.
Arabella raised a puffy hand. “Hector's fine. He's at school.”
“We'll pick him up on the way.”
Arabella grimaced. “They'd never let me take my son. I'd have conveniently thrown myself off of the nearest bridge by the end of the week.”
India clenched her jaw and frowned. “You know shit about their business dealings don't you? Turn queen’s evidence and you and Hector can go into witness protection. We can set you up with new identities and a new life somewhere else.”
“You seem distressed my lady,” Jeeves said appearing in the room. “Should I call for the Master?”
Arabella's beady red eye roamed to the snooty man servant and then back to India. When she spoke again, a single tear rolled down her cheek. “If I have to tell you to leave again, Detective, I shall be forced to take out a restraining order.”
“I hear you,” India said standing up and straightening her jacket. “Apologies for the intrusion. I won’t be bothering you or your family again.”
The snooty man servant closed the drawing room doors behind him as he escorted her off the premises. “One last thing,” India said turning to face him as they reached the front door. She grabbed the starchy white collar at his throat and pulled him close. “See what they did to her? That isn’t a fucking patch on what I'll do to you if anyone finds out I was here.”
Chapter 51
New Scotland Yard, London.
Colt stared at the wall covered with pictures of Barrington's associates. Celebrities, charity ambassadors, social workers, judges, barristers, members of parliament, and international dignitaries, all stared back at him. Declan Maloney and Stephen Charmers MP were the latest additions to the side marked persons of interest.
“I'm with Bob. I honestly can't see Michael Moore being one of them,” Maggie said. “We've worked with him too long. We would've picked up the signs.”
“And he fingered a judge by pointing out the gavel cufflinks,” Bob added. “The man's passionate about child protection. From what you've said about corruption in the system, I can actually understand him getting in with this Crowley lot. Charmers too. Right up until 2007, he was always gobbing off about exposing the flaws in the Family Court system, and then he suddenly went quiet. From what I've dug up on him, it's more likely he'd put a bullet in Barrington's head than share the same air space with him.”
“The Crowley Trust solicitor, Jerry Flynn, is low rent,” Colt said. “Hasn't got a moral bone in his body, but he's just a paper pusher. The only other male involved with them is Declan Maloney.”
“I haven't met him like you two,” Bob said causing Maggie to squirm. “But we can't rule him out. He's got direct links to Sanders and Barrington, and connections to vehicles and a judge in London. That alone makes it worth pulling his pants down for a closer look.”
Colt smoothed a hand down his throat. “If we all agree that everyone else is involved with the Crowley Trust for idealistic reasons, why can't he be? Just because he was abused doesn't mean he's abusing. He's more likely to be a witness.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Maggie said. “I think Ryan Reynolds has got his knickers in a twist and let the paedo poison seep into his brain. The Crowley Trust might be shady, but they haven't broken any criminal laws. And according to the Haltingbury missing girls' list that Felicity Firman checked, the under sixteens aren't in Ireland anyway.”
“Which bring
s us back to John,” Colt said cracking his knuckles. “We now know he’s a social worker and his girls go missing. If he’s also the social worker who took Tracey Jolie from her foster home, we've got two witnesses still in the hospital. We get him - we get Haltingbury's missing under sixteens and the Sanders tape.” He stood up and pulled the photographs of George Sarum, Alan Roberts, and Brian Fleming off the wall. Tucking the photos in his briefcase, he said to Mags, “It’s visiting time. We'll get the girls something nice on the way. Bob, Declan Maloney is in London this week. Find out where he's staying. I want to speak to him.”
Hampshire CID, Winchester.
“You've been gone for over two hours,” Sangrin snapped.
India put the greasy brown paper bag on his desk. “They'd run out of bacon. I had to go into town.”
Sangrin peered at her suspiciously. “The CCTV footage is on your desk.”
“Thanks, Sarge,” she said. “Enjoy.”
Sangrin smiled and looked her up and down. “Oh, I will.”
India gritted her teeth as she took a seat at her desk; piles of DVDs from every camera in a two mile radius of the NCP car park cluttered it. The prick had her looking for a needle in a haystack, when the pitchfork was all mangled out of shape on Barrington's estate.
People like them – especially ones who could do that to one of their own - didn't dirty their hands with the lowly likes of Lisa Lewis. They paid others to do it for them. Equally ruthless others, who just like them, had no conscience and a penchant for money. She'd like to get her hands on the employee records for Johnson and Barrington's business interests, but she had no hope. Besides, like Sarum, a killer was unlikely to be on the official payroll.
She picked a random DVD from the top of a stack and loaded it into the hard drive. As she waited for the crappy old system to warm up, she kicked back in her chair to watch Sangrin polishing off his bacon butty, and smiled inwardly as he let out a satisfying burp.