by Rob Sinclair
She counted six police cars as she approached. One ambulance. Overhead she could see the far-reaching searchlight of a helicopter, sweeping the area all around. As she parked up and shut down her engine, she heard the helicopter for the first time, too, could even feel the vibrations from its whirring rotors.
The dashboard thermometer read minus five. Dani braced herself for the blistering cold as she stepped out of the car.
Even without the blue strobes of light, the road – a major east-to-west route – was well lit, though it was flanked by tall and dense evergreens either side that gave little clue as to what lay beyond. A tall and stocky officer in a bright yellow jacket wandered over to intercept Dani as she approached the cordon that was blocking the road in both directions.
The officer introduced himself as Talbot. He’d been expecting Dani.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
The last she’d heard, the van the police were searching for had been pulled over and the two drivers apprehended, but she could already sense tonight wouldn’t be quite as straightforward as that.
The officer shook his head, disappointment. ‘The traffic officers were waiting for back-up. We heard the rumour about a body inside the van. They couldn’t leave the scene with the perps until help arrived. But…’
He scratched his head like he wasn’t sure exactly how or why whatever had happened had indeed happened.
‘The bastards fought back. Knocked one of our guys clean out, the other one… he’s in a bad way.’
He looked quite disturbed by that fact.
‘The perps are still running?’ Dani asked.
A rub on the back of his neck this time, another nervous, almost apologetic reaction. ‘Chopper lost them about five minutes ago.’
Which perhaps explained why the helicopter was now circling almost randomly, the searchlight sweeping all over rather than honed on one spot.
‘And the van?’ Dani said.
‘Come and take a look. We haven’t opened it up yet. Obviously it’s not been our priority, and it’s locked, and I really wasn’t sure on protocol.’
Which was perhaps understandable, given the ever-changing nature of the scene, though Dani had a flash of worry that perhaps the delay in opening up that van could be a huge mistake. The mystery caller had claimed there was a body in there, but what if the person inside was alive? Or at least had been when the van was first stopped.
Dani headed into the mix of police cars and uniformed officers, warm breath swirling into the air all around. The paintwork and glass of the vehicles glistened with ever-thickening frost. By the open back doors of the ambulance was a copper, face bloodied, holding gauze up to the side of his head.
‘Ahmed’s the one that got off lucky,’ Talbot said. ‘Wyatt’s been rushed off to A&E already.’
Dani nodded. She’d try to catch up with Ahmed soon enough, but he wasn’t the priority for now. Catching the two runners was. And opening that van, even if Dani was massively apprehensive about what they would find.
‘You’ve got dogs out?’ Dani asked as they approached the closed back doors of the van. The front of the vehicle was off the road, sunk into a ditch, a patrol car right alongside it. Dani could imagine the scene as the arresting officers had closed in and forced the van to a stop.
‘Yeah, but they lost the trail already. We’ve got farms dotted all around here, and there’s a lot of water in the fields, pools, streams too. Whether the two perps know a few tricks about how to lose dogs or not, it seems the landscape’s helped them out here.’
‘But fields also means there’s not many places to hide, surely? From the eye in the sky?’
Talbot shrugged. ‘There’s plenty of villages around, though. Honestly, I don’t know. But for now, they’re gone.’
And while Dani wasn’t going to apportion blame for that, at least not yet, it was a bitter pill to swallow. The police had actually done a sterling job to begin with. Only minutes after the 999 call handler had put the alert out, the van had been tracked using ANPR and then traffic officers had quickly picked up the trail just the other side of Brownhills. That initial flurry, up to the point where the van had been stopped, had shown a well-oiled machine in operation.
After that…
‘Any idea who the mystery caller was?’ Talbot said.
‘No idea.’
‘Or why they asked for you specifically?’
Dani did have an inkling, but she didn’t want to say it just yet.
‘I recognise your name,’ Talbot said.
And there was that glance to go along with his words. Dani avoided an eye-roll. Just.
‘Let’s get these doors open,’ Dani said, nodding over to the van.
‘They’re locked,’ he reminded her.
‘Then get a crowbar or whatever.’
Talbot looked unsure for a moment but then nodded and headed away. As he did so he grabbed the radio from his chest, though he was too far away for Dani to hear what was said. He disappeared out of sight for a few moments and Dani looked around the scene, trying to sort out her thoughts which were all the more jumbled given the time of night and the lack of sleep.
Dani looked up to the sky. The helicopter was over in the distance to the north, perhaps a mile or two away. Then the searchlight turned off. The chopper circled around and turned to head back south.
Dani was sure she knew what that meant.
Talbot, another yellow-jacketed officer by his side, was back with Dani just as the helicopter hurtled by overhead.
‘Nothing we could do,’ Talbot said, his face apologetic. ‘They’ll come back out if we get a sniff, but for now…’ He shrugged. A lame gesture.
‘We’ll catch up with them,’ Dani said, trying to remain positive. ‘We’ve got the van, and whatever trace evidence we can find.’
‘We haven’t called Forensics yet,’ Talbot said. ‘We didn’t really know what we were looking at here. But we do know the van reg is bogus. Or at least, it doesn’t belong to this vehicle.’
‘Let’s just get this thing opened up,’ Dani said.
Talbot nodded to his colleague who stepped forwards with the crowbar. He clanked the prongs into the gap between the back doors and grunted as he heaved. The lock snapped and the left-hand door swung open a couple of inches.
Dani reached forward and pulled both doors wide. She stared at the thick roll of black plastic inside. Talbot pulled back the ends of the plastic a few inches. Just enough to reveal strands of light blonde hair, stained with dark smudges. The other officer shone his torch onto the bundle as Talbot tore through the layers to expose the first foot or so of plastic.
They were left staring into the deathly eyes of a young woman.
‘Shit,’ Talbot said.
Dani said nothing.
‘Do you know her?’ Talbot said after a few moments of ghastly silence.
‘No,’ Dani said. ‘But we’ll do everything we can to figure out who she is. Call Forensics in.’
Talbot brought his radio back up as Dani continued to stare. The woman was all of twenty years old, and even judging by the little Dani could see of her, there was no doubt she had suffered a horrible and violent death.
No, Dani had no clue who this woman was, though she had a very clear idea who would.
Chapter 25
Monday morning came around far quicker than Dani expected it would. Having left the crime scene at Brownhills at just gone eight a.m. on Sunday morning, Dani had had every intention of taking only a quick rest before carrying on working through the day.
That had never happened. Having called and given Easton the lowdown on what had happened in Brownhills, she’d crashed out at the hospital for several hours, only waking in the early afternoon, at which point, despite her impassioned protests, Jason had persuaded her to take what he’d described as a much-needed break. And the break was much needed, even if it wasn’t entirely welcome. Dani had spent most of the rest of the day wishing the hours away, and had even managed to d
o some bits and pieces from afar when Jason was otherwise engaged.
Which was why, come nine a.m. on Monday morning, she walked into a meeting room at HQ which was already filled with a dozen other officers for the team briefing she’d managed to set up.
Most of the participants were from Homicide, but there were also three less familiar faces from the Organised Crime team. Snow was falling outside the large windows which ran along one side of the long room. The first snow of the season. In typical British fashion, the roads around central Birmingham were already in chaos, and Dani had to hope the inclement weather didn’t have an adverse effect on their work.
The room hushed as Dani and Easton got themselves ready. McNair was sitting up front too, though it was Dani who took the lead and opened up.
‘We have two murder victims which we are treating as linked,’ Dani said, pointing to the photos of the bodies of Clara Dunne and the Jane Doe from the van. Dani briefly explained the circumstances of how each body had been found. ‘We’re light on direct physical evidence that connect these two crimes, but we do have some commonalities between the two.
‘Firstly, we believe this man, Nicolae Popescu, may have had some involvement in Clara Dunne’s death.’ She pointed to the picture of him. ‘Popescu was deported from the UK in 2013, though his whereabouts since then are up for debate, and evidence is sketchy to say the least – however, we are still in discussion with the Romanian authorities on that front. Regardless, we’re keeping an open mind. He may be in the UK, and if he is, he’s here illegally at the very least.
‘We also have this man. Victor Nistor. Another Romanian national who’s lived here for several years. He owns a haulage business in Tipton. There’s a direct link between him and Popescu.’
Dani explained about Brigitta’s car, and the fact Nistor was apparently some sort of carer to Brigitta.
‘And lastly, we have the 999 call that was made in the early hours of Sunday morning, which provided the police with details about the van in which we found Jane Doe’s body. We know the call was made from a handset with a Romanian number, though we’ve had confirmation it’s a prepaid device which isn’t registered. That call was from an anonymous female. I’ve listened to the call myself several times, and it’s evident the caller is not a native English speaker. Possibly Romanian, possibly not, but as far as I’m concerned it’s another piece of evidence pointing towards Nistor and Popescu. We’re still waiting on confirmation of triangulation of that call to pinpoint where it was made from.’
A hand went up at the back of the room. DC Constable, one of the Homicide team.
‘Yes?’
‘Sorry, are you saying the only link between Jane Doe and those two suspects is the fact the phone was Romanian, and the accent of the 999 caller?’
Dani thought about that one for a second. Was that true? It felt like there was so much more than that.
‘Do we have enough to bring Nistor in?’ Constable then asked, giving Dani a bit of leeway to ignore the first question.
‘I don’t think so,’ Dani said. She explained about his previous arrest and Nistor’s tough lawyer who surely wouldn’t stand the police interrogating their client without a clear charge. An arrest would get them another twenty-four hours to interview him formally, but Dani would rather have something more concrete against him before they did that. ‘We do have the go-ahead for surveillance against Nistor, though. At his home address, business address, and also at Brigitta Popescu’s address. That surveillance is getting underway as we speak.’
‘What about the Jane Doe?’ DC Grayling shouted out. ‘Any idea who she is?’
‘Her prints don’t match anything on file,’ Easton said. ‘So she doesn’t have a criminal record, and nor has she come through immigration, if indeed she’s not a British national, which is one possible theory.’
‘There was no ID for her in the van,’ Dani said, ‘so at the moment she remains unidentified. Similarly, there was no ID for the males, but we have had Forensics do a thorough sweep of the van and we’re hoping to see some results of that today. The post-mortem of Jane Doe will also be taking place soon.’
Although Dani wasn’t really expecting that to give them much more than they already knew, which was that the young woman had died in a brutal attack.
‘So what’s the theory here?’ piped up a voice from the back of the room.
The gruff DI Ricard was part of the Organised Crime team, and the most senior member of that team in the room. Dani knew of him but had never worked alongside him.
‘The theory is that Victor Nistor is running an illegal operation out of his business address in Tipton. Whether prostitution, drugs, extortion, or whatever, we don’t know yet. We do need to find out. The working theory is that Clara Dunne was investigating the disappearance of her brother, Liam, who hasn’t been seen for more than five years. We don’t know what linked him to Nistor or Popescu, but we believe they know what happened to Liam. Nistor, or people close to him also knew Clara was digging, and they silenced her. The very fact she herself was living and working under an alias shows she was making progress in finding what had happened to Liam, and was concerned for her safety.’
Ricard sniffed at that, as though it sounded ridiculous, though it was he who’d asked for the theory. Theories were just that. Unproven. And they were fluid and changeable. There to give an investigation a direction.
‘And what about your Jane Doe?’ he asked. ‘Why was she killed?’
‘I really don’t know,’ Dani said, trying to sound confident. ‘But I do think that the two men transporting her were likely in the process of disposing of her remains, given how we found her body. So this does once again point to an organised operation, rather than some random killing, particularly when paired with the 999 call.’
‘DI Stephens,’ McNair said, getting to her feet. ‘Perhaps you could concentrate on the most important strands of investigation that we’ll be following.’
Dani wasn’t sure whether the prompt was for her benefit or not.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I already mentioned the surveillance which is in operation as of this morning. Secondly, we’ll have a dedicated CCTV team led by DC Constable, who will be trawling records on various fronts. Liam Dunne’s disappearance. Clara Dunne’s murder. The van we intercepted on Sunday morning – we’ll scour records for other sightings of it – to see if we can pinpoint either where it was likely to have come from, or where it was going to. We need to keep digging into Nistor’s background, and also Popescu’s. Where is he now? Then we have forensic findings to consider and cross-refer.’
Dani looked at her watch. She still had a couple of minutes before she needed to scarper.
‘Are there any more questions?’ she asked.
‘Are we making a public announcement?’ asked a young female officer Dani didn’t recognise.
McNair got to her feet again to answer that one.
‘Not yet,’ McNair said. ‘We’ve decided it would be prejudicial to make a public announcement linking the two deaths at this stage. The two perps who escaped custody yesterday know we have Jane Doe’s body, and that we’re looking for them, but we have to assume they don’t know how we came across the information about that van. The point is, we may well have an ally somewhere within Nistor and Popescu’s circle, and we need to both work on identifying that person while not jeopardising their safety.’
‘But you don’t have any information on who the insider is?’ Ricard asked.
McNair turned to Dani.
‘No. Not at this stage,’ Dani said.
And she didn’t feel even slightly bad for the lie.
Chapter 26
With the snow still falling, thick and lusciously white, and the temperature low enough to ensure the flakes stuck wherever they fell, the city centre streets were already looking like a winter wonderland as Dani gingerly walked along the pavements. Even if she had changed into winter boots before leaving HQ, the surface remained treacherous.
One issue dominated Dani’s mind as she walked. Ana Crisan. Why hadn’t she told the team about her suspicion that Ana was the anonymous caller? Dani really wasn’t sure, but it felt like the right thing to do, not just to protect Ana, but to protect Dani too. She knew there was a lot of doubt in the air – aimed at her – from the hastily pulled together investigation team, and throwing more unsubstantiated beliefs at them would only further alienate Dani, and open her up to more abuse and rebuke if it turned out she was wrong.
Regardless, the team had plenty else to be doing to further the investigation, and before she revealed her hand, Dani would continue to ponder how best to reach out to Ana.
Satisfied that the team – whipped by McNair and Easton – were in good shape, Dani was determined not to lose touch with proceedings at court. It was only last Thursday, all of four days ago, when she’d been up on the witness stand, but so much had happened – to her, at least – since then, even if she’d only missed one day of the trial.
Wanting to remain as inconspicuous as she could, following the grilling she’d received from O’Hare while on the stand, Dani took a seat in a quiet spot in the public gallery. She’d heard news that the two sides were expected to give their closing statements today, and it was possible a verdict could be delivered soon after.
No one else in the public gallery paid Dani any attention, and as the court filled and then rose for the judge, Dani was glad that neither O’Hare nor Barker had clocked she was there.
Yet proceedings had only just got underway when O’Hare dropped her latest bombshell. Would anyone really have expected anything less at this stage? She really was a first-class sneak.
‘Your Honour, we have one further witness who we’d like heard. This relates to evidence that has only come to light during the course of the trial.’
Barker was understandably unimpressed with this, given how far into proceedings they already were, and the judge ordered both barristers over to the front where a heated though muted back-and-forth exchange ensued between the three. From where Dani was sitting she couldn’t make out any of the conversation properly.