Hell's Mouth

by BATEMAN, A P

  Gowndry shrugged. “We had plenty of bidders. A bit of a ring going on. There’s plenty of people who want what the heart desires… But you’ve got to keep them in line. The punters, that is. They tend to talk, invite friends in on it. Well, we closed it all down to re-evaluate how best to go forward. That Syrian family were past their fuck-by-date anyhow…”

  “So you drowned them?” O’Bryan spat.

  He shrugged. “Mitchell did it. Easy enough. A noose on a pole. Take them down a few feet and wait. They soon stop their struggling…” He smiled. “Mind you, they didn’t much like having to watch…”

  “Bastards!” the woman who had done the talking screamed. She started to translate hurriedly to the rest of her family. The man and his wife looked horrified, pulled their off-spring closer.

  “Yeah, well,” Gowndry grinned. “At least you know what’s coming if you don’t play along.” He walked a few feet closer, aimed the shotgun at the group. “And that goes for all you camel-fuckers!”

  O’Bryan shook his head. “You thought the DNA from all of the people who abused them sexually would be lost in the seawater, didn’t you?”

  Gowndry sneered. “But it wouldn’t be. Not for sure. Hundreds of mineshafts to lose them down, never see them again, and Mitchell opted for drowning them. He and John Pascoe thought making them look like asylum-seekers who capsized and drowned would work better. But Pascoe’s police contact said that the DNA would hold up to an autopsy. Everyone sweated for a while, but they ended up buried in Swanvale without a post-mortem. We could thank the local Muslim community for that.”

  “But you thought you’d get them dug up and disposed of in case an exhumation and autopsy were ever sought at a later date?” O’Bryan stared at Gowndry. “Down that mineshaft you mentioned,” he paused. “But he was seen, Mitchell that is, and that’s when he drowned John Turner in the same manner.”

  “Shame, that one,” Gowndry paused. “Mitchell knew him for years. Not a bad bloke, apparently.”

  O’Bryan still held the torch in his right hand, down by his side. He had been working the aperture carefully in his hand, tightening the beam. The cavern was well lit, but the tactical torch was equipped with a strobe, emitting twice the light of the beam, around a million candle-power and flashing ten times a second. Gowndry was six-feet away, but the shotgun looked steady in his hands. He imagined the man taking a peg at the pheasant drive and blasting eighty of the poor birds from the sky during a brandy-fuelled day with Ogilvy and their business associates. He had no reason to believe the man was anything but expert with the weapon.

  “Right,” Gowndry said decisively. “Get back in the cells.” He looked at O’Bryan and smiled. “You too. If I were you, I’d pick the one with the younger women. One of those camel-fuckers might let you do her. If you can stand the smell, that is…”

  The woman who had done the talking screeched and bolted forwards. Gowndry swung the shotgun at the same time as O’Bryan pressed the strobe button and the light disco-balled in Gowndry’s eyes. He squinted, held a hand to his eyes and swung the weapon one handed. The noise of the shotgun blast was deafening in the confines of the cavern. There were simultaneous screams from the women and the husband went down. He had been skimmed by a few pellets, but those pellets had been point blank and his shoulder had turned crimson. O’Bryan grabbed the barrel with his left hand and felt the searing heat in his palm. He turned to the family and screamed for them to run. They didn’t need telling twice, and they pulled their father to his feet, the mother swept up the youngest daughter and they were on their feet like greyhounds out of the gate.

  Gowndry kicked out, but it was weak and he was off-balance. O’Bryan kicked back and drove the ball of his foot into the man’s gut. He fell backwards, but kept hold of the shotgun, trying desperately to bring it around onto O’Bryan. He was determined, knew he was out of options and this was the last fight he’d have. O’Bryan knew it too. But he’d been in this position before, and he knew how far he could go. He threw the torch into Gowndry’s face and the man screamed as it smashed into his eye. It was enough for him to release his grip on the shotgun, and it dropped with a clatter onto the ground, O’Bryan letting go of his grip on the barrels to keep a hold on his opponent. Gowndry punched and flailed, but he was not a strong man. O’Bryan caught hold of him, positioned him well, then pounded him in his already bruised face. He went down hard, a repeat of the bar, but he landed right next to the shotgun and went for it. O’Bryan calculated the distance, but he knew he’d never make it and was already running. He swept up the torch, which was still strobing and reached the end of the cavern as the shotgun blast echoed out. He didn’t feel its blast, but he heard the pellets as they clattered and ricocheted off the rock walls. He could hear the man opening the breach and reloading the barrels behind him. The tunnel was long and before the next corner, Gowndry would hit him for sure. He grabbed the brand new claw hammer out from his waistband, and as he raced past the low section of ceiling, he smashed the hammer against the first of the four by four post. It rocked out and debris dropped from the ceiling. O’Bryan hit the next one, and the next. He could hear the posts clattering on the rock floor behind him, the sound of twenty-pounds of dirt hitting the ground each time. Without losing momentum, he knocked out the last post and the sound behind him was deafening. The roof of the tunnel dropped with hundreds of tonnes of rock and soil falling all at once. The lights running down the tunnel went off and turned O’Bryan’s world into darkness, interspersed with the strobing of blue-white light. He was lifted off his feet by a great wind, the force of the rock-fall behind him, and it carried him a clear twenty-feet down into the darkness. He landed in a heap, his face in the dirt. He had dropped the torch, but it was impossible to lose. When he reached it, he switched off the strobe and widened the beam. The cave was entirely blocked with earth and rocks, some as large as household appliances, several tonnes in weight. He heard a sound and turned around sharply. It was the young woman who had done the talking.

  “Are you okay?” she asked tentatively.

  “I think so,” he replied. “Where are your family?”

  She shrugged. “I thought I would come back to help you,” she said. “You helped us out of there… It was the least I could do.”

  34

  O’Bryan had noticed the strobing of the blue lights, recognised the play of illumination off the walls of the building from countless crime scenes nearing twenty-years of service. He didn’t know if the family had noticed. They were huddled tightly and talking in their own language. O’Bryan knew they were safe now, and had relayed this to the young woman. She had spoken to the rest of her family, but the look on their faces told him they were far from relieved.

  There were three police vehicles and an ambulance. All had their blue lights operating on top. O’Bryan surveyed the scene, watched as the uniformed officers bunched the guests into a sort of holding area, while plain clothed detectives prepared clipboards for interviewing. O’Bryan frowned, but walked on with the family behind him. He saw DS Hosking and she hurried over.

  “Jesus! What happened to you?” she asked. She looked at the bedraggled family and frowned at him. “Who are these people?” O’Bryan stared at her, but she raised her eyebrows in annoyance. “I’m sorry about yesterday, you saw my note, right?”

  “What note?” He thought about the house, the room for clients, the hit on the back of his head, the boot of the car, the clifftop, the fight… “What are you talking about?”

  “I got an urgent call,” she said. “You were upstairs in the loo, I felt a little embarrassed at calling up to you, to speak to you through the door… I left a note on the kitchen table along with your coffee. Trevithick told me about your letter. What the hell were you thinking? You couldn’t possibly have hoped to get away with it, acting unofficially. I didn’t let on to where I’d seen you…”

  “And where did you see me?”

  She frowned, reached out and touched his shoulder tenderly. “A
re you okay, Ross?” “Of course,” he said. “Where were we? Whose house was that? Yours?”

  “No!” she replied hostilely. “I never said it was my house. It was a place in one of our investigations. I borrowed the keys, that’s all. I wanted somewhere safe to talk. Hey, don’t mention it, okay? I’ll get into serious trouble.” O’Bryan nodded and she said, “Look, we’ll talk later. I have work to do.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Charles Ogilvy,” she said. “He turned a shotgun on himself in the middle of his charity gala.”

  “Where?”

  “In his study,” she said. “His wife discovered the body. She went looking for him. Seems an ex-lover of his was here tonight, bold as brass. She thought he was up to his old tricks and thought she’d catch him out. Then she found him…” She turned and started back towards the house.

  He called out, “Do you know a man called John Pascoe?”

  She stopped and looked back, frowning. “Lawyer. Slimy bloke.” She nodded. “Yeah, our paths have crossed. He’s a lawyer who turns a blind eye to stuff. His family are well respected, but they’re wealthy. They didn’t get that way by being nice.”

  “How so?”

  “They own property, hotels and holiday lets. They get the planning they need and don’t pay all the VAT or tax they should. Keep their staff on either zero hour contracts or training schemes that have them working illegal hours for half the minimum wage, or so I hear,” she paused. “Big in the freemasons too. Funny handshakes and back-scratching. Well, they all are, aren’t they?”

  “Who?”

  “The ones who get on down here. Those, and the ones who want to get on.” She turned and walked back to the steps, jogged up them and disappeared inside.

  O’Bryan waved at a uniformed officer, beckoning the man to come over. He did so, a little begrudgingly. O’Bryan explained what had happened, that the family had been imprisoned. He asked if he could get them some water first, then contact a senior officer. He wanted to keep it out of the hands of CID for a moment, see them entered into the system before he did what he planned next. He watched the officer walk up the steps to the house. It looked like he spoke to a waiter hovering at the top of the steps and he too walked inside. Less than a minute later, DCI Trevithick came out and stood at the top of the steps. He surveyed the area, then made his way down the steps and walked towards them. O’Bryan groaned inwardly. He backed away from the family, took out his iPhone and took a picture of all of them, huddled in their group. He thumbed the screen, then looked at Trevithick as he drew near. When he looked up DS Chris Harris was approaching from another direction. The light shone off his red hair and it made his greying beard appear whiter. He looked like Santa Clause for a moment, and the sight was surreal.

  “What are you doing?” the DCI asked incredulously.

  “I’ve just taken a picture of these people, and emailed it, along with a short report, to

  Devon and Cornwall HQ in Exeter. I have also uploaded it to the internal server at Scotland

  Yard.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “I don’t trust anyone I meet down here,” O’Bryan paused, eyed DS Harris for a moment. “These people have just become public knowledge. They have entered the system. I’m handing them over to you now, DS Harris.”

  “Where did you find them?” Harris asked.

  “They were being held in cells built in an old smuggling tunnel on the creek side of the estate.” O’Bryan watched the uniformed officer return with two waiters. One carried glasses of water and orange juice on a tray, the other carried a tray with a large selection of canapés arranged on tiny plates. It looked comical, given their state of appearance, but they did not waste time tucking in. O’Bryan said, “There was a cave-in. A section of the roof of the tunnel collapsed. Lucky timing, I guess.”

  DS Harris nodded towards the family. “So what’s their story?”

  “Refugees. Syrian I’d bet,” O’Bryan paused, took his iPhone back out of his pocket. “I’ve got Charles Ogilvy’s insight into what Pete Mitchell, Clive Gowndry and John Pascoe were up to…”

  “Pascoe?” Trevithick asked. “The solicitor?”

  “The same.”

  “Are you sure?” DS Harris asked. He looked at Trevithick, then back to O’Bryan. “There’s all sorts of ramifications if that’s the case…”

  Trevithick moved it on. He looked like he was pressed for time and the Syrian family was another hassle he didn’t need. “What were they up to?”

  “I’ve got Gowndry’s confession on here too.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “No,” O’Bryan said. “When I get a better signal or onto some Wi-Fi, I’ll upload it. Same as before. Exeter and Scotland Yard first.”

  “I could take it. It’s evidence.”

  “You could try. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Trevithick shook his head. “You think you’re a real hot shit, don’t you?” He shrugged. “Alright, what is Gowndry’s confession. The salient facts, I’ve got a shit storm here.”

  “What’s going on?” O’Bryan asked.

  “You first.”

  O’Bryan shrugged. “Gowndry, Mitchell and Pascoe ran a sex ring together. From what I gather it ran through from straight to gay to paedophilia. But the straight aspect would still have been nothing more than rape. I don’t even know how to begin classifying the rest of it,” O’Bryan nodded towards the family, now enjoying smoked salmon and caviar on blinis. “These people were lucky; from what I gather. They were brought in by boat three nights ago. The night I was assaulted and you did nothing about it…” Trevithick seemed to be taking it on board. He nodded, remained silent. “Mitchell and Pascoe saw me watching them.” O’Bryan looked towards the house and the gathering of guests. “So your turn. What’s happening here?”

  Trevithick stared at him. “Charles Ogilvy is dead.”

  “He killed himself?”

  “No. Why would he?”

  “Listen to the recording later.”

  “Well, he didn’t kill himself. But he was shot with one of his own shotguns. Know anything about that?”

  “You suspect me?”

  “Well you turned up here tonight with his mistress in tow. And you both headed towards his study. It’s not a stretch of the imagination.”

  O’Bryan laughed. “Not for your limited imagination, no.”

  “Meaning?” he snapped.

  “Gowndry turned up in the cave with a shotgun. Ornate and expensive, by the look of it.”

  “And?”

  “And he held us at gunpoint. We all escaped, I fought with him and managed to get away. The last I know of him, he was shooting at me and missed. He hit a strut, the roof caved in and he was under about ten tonnes of rock and earth.”

  “Shit! He’s still in there?”

  “He isn’t going anywhere in a hurry.”

  Trevithick turned and took out his mobile phone and started to dial as he walked away towards the house. It was turning into a busy night for him.

  O’Bryan looked at DS Chris Harris. “Right, now he’s gone, I want to talk to you.”

  The detective nodded. “Okay…”

  “Mitchell and Pascoe dug up the Elmaleh family because somebody convinced them that DNA would be an issue if they were exhumed and a proper autopsy was ever sought. That somebody was in the police.”

  “You suspect the DCI?”

  “You called for further action in the investigation. It was denied by Trevithick. I trust you.” He opened up his iPhone and thumbed down to his contacts. “What’s your email?” Harris told him and O’Bryan typed it in. “I’m sending you the recordings of both Ogilvy and Gowndry, both made tonight. You need to get a search out for Pete Mitchell too. He’s a priority and with a fishing boat, he has the means to get away, head in any direction and stay off the radar.”

  “I’ll get on it.” He looked at the family, now eating what looked like soft-poached quail’s egg wrapped in pan
cetta. “I’ll call social services right now and get them accommodation for the night. They look in pretty rough shape. They’ll get clean clothes and a shower.”

  “They’re crucial witnesses. They will identify Pete Mitchell and John Pascoe as their abductors.”

  “John Pascoe has been listed as a missing person. It’s early, but he had appointments he didn’t keep and it’s out of character.”

  O’Bryan thought back to the clifftop, the axe, his battered body on the ground… “Maybe he caught wind of all this and has taken off.”

  “Most likely, by the sounds of it,” he said. “I’ll get the ball rolling here,” he said and turned towards the family.

  O’Bryan made his way towards the house. He needed to find Sarah and tell her what had transpired. But most of all, he wanted to warn her that the link left in the chain, Pete Mitchell, was on the run and had nothing to lose.

  35

  Day one...

  O’Bryan awoke, ripped from his stupor by the incessant banging. Metal on metal, absorbed and echoed by wood. Heavy oak, but even that seemed to be shaking within the frame.

  He should have tipped Anderson’s cognac down the sink when he arrived, should have washed it down the drain with the wine and the European beer. But he’d washed the filthy liquid down his own throat instead. He had kidded himself that he could stop at one, but the devil on his shoulder dug in his claws and accepted another. And then the deal was done, he’d signed up again and drank the place dry.

  He could have coped without the drink, had he not continued to recount the last moments of the Elmaleh family. The image of them scared and knowing their fate, watching their loved ones taken one by one and drowned in such a cold and proficient fashion. Who had been first? Who had been the lucky one? Who had endured the torturous scene for the duration? Who had watched the other four members taken one by one and pushed under kicking and screaming, pulled out lifeless and still? O’Bryan thought of them, used and abused, terrified and aware at the end, knowing their time had come, that they would never gaze upon their family again or take in another day. Something so casual about the way Clive Gowndry had regaled at the facts. Those people had been nothing more than a commodity in a market almost too sick to imagine, yet alone witness. The family that O’Bryan saved from the cave would have suffered a similar fate, because as much as they would try to break them, human spirit has untold resolves and he could see it in their eyes that they would have kept fighting. How long before they too would have been drowned out at sea? Or thrown down that ominous mineshaft? O’Bryan could see the futility in life. There wasn’t always someone who could help. There were countless people out there suffering even worse fates and meeting similar ends. The thoughts of this, over and over throughout the night had made him reach for a bottle. And then another. Now came the regret. Now came the knowledge the agony of over sixty days of staying dry had been in vain. That he had broken over sixty promises to himself, but ultimately he had broken the promise to Chloe. She would never know, but he would know every second of every day. Today was the first day. And today would be the hardest day of all.