by J. P. Carter
Anna leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, and fixed Quinlan with a hard stare.
‘First you need to know, Mr Quinlan, that a few hours ago we arrested Craig Sullivan and his associate Lorna Fitzpatrick at a house in Dulwich where three children were being held against their will and used as sex slaves.’
Quinlan blinked as though he’d been caught off guard and a pulse started to throb in his left temple.
Anna continued. ‘We spoke to the children and one of them, a young Romanian boy named Darius, described how you raped him when Sullivan took you to the house last week. He also told us that you were a regular visitor there.’
‘He’s lying,’ Quinlan shot back. ‘I’ve never been to any house in Dulwich and I’ve never met anyone named Darius.’
‘You’re the one who’s lying again,’ Anna said. ‘You see unbeknown to you there are spy cams in the bedrooms at the house and you were filmed in the act. I’ve seen for myself what you did to that boy, and the video will be used as evidence when it comes to trial.’
Quinlan stopped blinking and clenched his eyes shut. Next to him the duty solicitor slumped back in his chair, shaking his head.
‘The National Crime Agency will be responsible for the investigation into what has been going on in that house and they’ll charge you in relation to the offences you committed there,’ Anna said. ‘The questions I intend to ask relate to the boy who died while chained to the wall in the pub cellar in Camberwell. And let me tell you that you’ll be digging an even deeper hole for yourself if you don’t answer them truthfully.’
Quinlan sat there without responding, his eyes closed, his shoulders stiff with tension.
Anna cleared her throat, said, ‘So tell me, Mr Quinlan, did you act as a talent scout for Craig Sullivan by telling him where and when his people could abduct Jacob Rossi? And what is your connection with a man named Roy Slater?’
Quinlan’s eyes sprang open then and Anna saw that tears had breached the lower lids. Rather than meet her gaze, he raised his head and stared up at the ceiling. It was several seconds before he began to speak, and when he did the words came out in a tortured wail.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
After her session with Neville Quinlan, Anna grilled Craig Sullivan and Lorna Fitzpatrick. In both cases it was like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone. On the advice of their lawyer they said as little as possible and only answered her questions when he gave them the nod.
It was eight o’clock when she decided she had got as much out of them as she was ever likely to get. She asked Walker to contact the National Crime Agency.
‘Tell them they can come and collect all three of the scumbags,’ she said. ‘And make sure we pass on all the video recordings from the interviews.’
Anna planned to hold another briefing so that everyone was kept abreast of what was going on. Detectives Benning and Prescott were on their way back from Rotherhithe with Jacob Rossi’s phone and wallet, plus some of Roy Slater’s personal belongings. And DCS Nash was due to arrive at any minute, having spent another day at the Yard with the Met’s senior management team.
Anna decided she needed a cigarette break before the meeting got underway. On the way out to the rear car park she grabbed a coffee from one of the vending machines.
The night had closed in and the cold air made her wish she had put her jacket on. As she lit up, she tried to tune out the wail of sirens that came from every direction. The riots were in full flow again and she had to force herself not to think about all the harm that was being done to people and property across London. Instead, she focused her mind on the events of the day. And what another extraordinary day it had been.
She’d begun it by dropping Chloe off at the hospital to be with Tom. Soon afterwards she had found herself racing across South London to a house where despicable things were being done to children. Then later she had rushed to the scene of a murder, where she had stood over the body of Roy Slater, the man who’d been in possession of Jacob Rossi’s mobile phone and wallet.
It had been like a ride on a nerve-racking rollercoaster. Her emotions were still spinning and she felt limp with fatigue.
She consoled herself with the fact that the mystery of who had kidnapped Jacob appeared to have been solved. But there were still far too many unanswered questions for Anna’s liking.
And for that reason she wasn’t prepared to signal the winding down of the investigation just yet.
*
Anna was on her way back up to the ops room when she received a call from DI Bolt, who was still at the crime scene in Bermondsey.
‘I’ve got a couple of updates for you, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Is it convenient to talk?’
‘Of course. What’s the situation there? Any problems?’
‘Nothing we can’t handle at present. We did get some more back-up so thanks for weighing in on our behalf. The scene’s secure now, and as you’re probably aware the action has moved away from this manor to the London Bridge area.’
‘Actually, I haven’t heard that,’ Anna said.
‘Well it’s only just flared up. One mob descended on the tube station, caused a lot of damage there, and then moved on to the Shard building where there’s now a battle with riot cops. Another bunch rampaged through Borough Market and a few shops are on fire.’
Anna pulled a quick breath and felt a chill race over her skin.
‘I’ll get across it when I’m back in the office,’ she said. ‘Meanwhile, tell me what you’ve got.’
‘Well first we struck lucky with CCTV footage,’ he said. ‘There’s a private security camera outside one of the shops close to the alley. We managed to retrieve it and confirm what we suspected. A group of five youths wearing hoods and masks can clearly be seen attacking Slater as he walked from the betting shop towards the car park. They dragged him into the alley, then reappeared five minutes later and scarpered. It’ll be difficult, if not impossible, to identify them since their faces are covered.’
Well thankfully that’s not my problem, Anna thought to herself.
‘So Slater just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ she said.
‘That’s about the size of it. And from the CCTV we know that the time of the attack was twelve-thirty. As soon as I get the chance I’ll email the CCTV clip to you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I also contacted the betting shop manager,’ Bolt said. ‘He told me that Slater was a regular there and had been for a couple of years. It suited him apparently because he drank in a pub just along the road.’
Bolt then confirmed that forensics had swept the alley and Slater’s body had been taken away, along with his car.
Before hanging up, Anna told him what her officers had found at Slater’s house, and said the details would be sent on to him.
When Anna returned to her office, she found DCS Nash waiting for her. The boss was in his early fifties, tall and broad-shouldered, with a grey beard and a blunt, square face.
Anna had never seen him looking so tired. His eyes appeared heavy and dry, and his voice sounded like gravel in his throat.
‘I hear we’ve identified the perp in the Rossi case,’ he said. ‘It makes a change to get some good news. It’s been nothing but murder and mayhem these past few days, and still there’s no end in sight to the bloody riots.’
‘But it’s not all good news,’ Anna pointed out. ‘Roy Slater is dead, and there’s a lot we don’t know about what he did and why he did it.’
Nash shook his head. ‘Well you need to neutralise those negative thoughts, Anna. I want us to flag this up as a result for the MIT. And then I want us to pull back from the case until the riots are over. We need to reassign all but a couple of the team. I’ll arrange for a press conference at which I’d like you to also mention how you uncovered the child brothel in Rotherhithe before the NCA takes the credit for it.’
‘But there are still leads that have to be followed up, sir. And we haven’t even informed the
parents yet.’
‘You can break the news to the parents before the presser, which probably won’t be before tomorrow afternoon. And I’m not saying we should drop the investigation entirely. Just let it be known that Roy Slater kidnapped the boy and was subsequently knifed to death in an unconnected attack by a gang of youths. You can mention the note that was sent to the parents and which we now assume came from Slater. But there’s no need to let on about Slater’s wife having had an affair with Jacob’s dad.’
Anna felt uncertainty beat in her heart. It was surely too soon to shout from the rooftops while easing back on the investigation.
Nash must have sensed her concern because he patted her on the shoulder, and said, ‘These are unprecedented circumstances, Anna. The Commissioner has issued an instruction that all investigations not connected to the riots need to be either put on hold or run with a skeleton crew.’
‘But this case is linked to the riots. It was a rioter who threw the petrol bomb into the pub, which led to Jacob’s death.’
‘I appreciate that. But you’re not actually looking for the arsonist, are you? And I doubt we’ll ever find whoever it is unless someone phones in with a name or turns up here with mobile phone footage of it taking place. And so I can’t justify leaving you with a team of a dozen or more when the Rossi case is now all but solved thanks to what was uncovered in Slater’s house.’
‘Well at least let me keep the team together for one more day, sir. I need to satisfy myself that we’ve covered every angle and I can work out what to say to the media.’
Nash rubbed a hand over his face and nodded.
‘That seems reasonable. I’ll get back to you with the time and place for the press conference.’
‘Thank you, sir. Will you be returning to the Yard?’
‘I will first thing in the morning. The set-up over there is like a wartime command centre. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to know where and how to assign our limited manpower and resources when so much shit is happening.’
Anna nodded. ‘I can imagine. I’ve just been told that the latest trouble spot is London Bridge.’
‘That’s one of many. There’s a lot of bother again in Tottenham, Peckham and Stratford, and mobs are even heading towards the Yard from both ends of the Embankment. Riot police are in place to push them back, but it looks as though there’s going to be one hell of a battle.’
‘Sounds like it’s being organised to me,’ Anna said.
‘Oh, much of it is. We understand that some of the targeting is being coordinated through social media, especially Facebook and Twitter. There are now dozens of hashtags relating to the riots and they’re all trending. It’s aimed at stretching our resources. We can’t be everywhere, but the rioters can if they can mobilise enough support and so far that’s not been a problem for the gangs and anarchists behind it. Some of the spooks at MI5 are even speculating that the Russians have got involved in order to make things worse. They believe they’re behind some of the incendiary online posts and rants that are encouraging riotous behaviour.’
Nash said he would say something about the riots at the briefing, prompting Anna to glance through her office window into the ops room.
‘I think we can get on with the meeting now, sir,’ she said. ‘It looks like everyone is here.’
CHAPTER SIXTY
Nash took the floor after Anna had called everyone together for the briefing. He had an audience of eleven, including DI Benning and DS Prescott, who had just arrived back from Roy Slater’s house in Rotherhithe.
Nash told the team how pleased he was that the Jacob Rossi case had been resolved so quickly.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been here to lend a hand,’ he said. ‘But myself and other senior officers have been coordinating the Met’s response to the riots. It’s been a mammoth struggle, and as you all know the situation on the streets has deteriorated since the video of those officers beating the girl was posted online.’
He went on to describe the current situation and made mention of the disturbances at London Bridge and the battle that was looming between police and rioters on the Embankment close to Scotland Yard.
‘The strain this is putting on manpower is intolerable,’ he said. ‘Thankfully this latest development in the Rossi case means that we can scale back on the investigation so in the days ahead some of you will be reassigned to other duties.’
Nash then said that he was confident the forces of law and order would eventually prevail and normality would return to the capital.
‘We have been here before, notably back in 2011, and it has never taken the city that long to recover,’ he said. ‘But until the streets are safe once again, I implore you all to be careful out there.’
He then handed over to Anna before slipping out of the room.
She could tell that what Nash had said about scaling back the investigation had taken them all by surprise. So the first thing she did was reassure them that they still had plenty of time to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.
Referring to the notes she’d hastily drawn up, she started to work her way through all the points she wanted to raise.
‘I’ll start with the paedo, Neville Quinlan,’ she said. ‘A short time ago I confronted him with the evidence from the house in Dulwich, including the video clip from the hidden camera that recorded him raping the boy. He had no choice but to fess up to being a customer of the trafficking gang to which Craig Sullivan and Lorna Fitzpatrick belong. But he continued to deny any involvement in the Jacob Rossi abduction, and we know now that he was otherwise engaged when it took place.
‘He also said that he did not tip the gang off about the boy’s route from school to home. And he insisted that he didn’t know and had never heard of Roy Slater. Both Sullivan and Fitzpatrick said the same, and I’m convinced now that they’re telling the truth. I can’t in all honesty believe that any of them sent that note to Jacob’s dad. But I can believe it came from Slater. So unless evidence emerges that proves they’re lying we forget them and hand them over to the NCA.’
Next Anna passed on the updates from DI Bolt, saying that the CCTV footage showed that the Slater murder was not linked to Jacob’s kidnapping.
‘He was another victim of mob madness,’ she said. ‘It seems he drove over to Bermondsey on Friday to visit his favourite bookmakers’ about the same time The Falconer’s Arms pub was hit by the petrol bomb. So Slater would not have been aware that the pub was on fire. We’ll therefore never know if he would have attempted to rescue the boy if he’d been alerted.’
Anna explained that Slater’s Renault car would be examined and that forensics would search inside it for traces of Jacob’s DNA.
‘For now the assumption has to be that he snatched Jacob by himself,’ she said. ‘He was probably waiting in his car for the lad to walk past him last Monday, then grabbed him and shoved him in the boot before taking him to the pub cellar. His motive is less clear. Either he was out to get revenge on Jacob’s dad for screwing his wife. Or he was planning to extract a ransom payment to sort out whatever gambling debts he’d racked up. It could very well have been both.’
She invited detectives Benning and Prescott to talk to the team about the visit to Slater’s house in Rotherhithe.
It was Benning who stood up and pointed to a cardboard box on the desk in front of him.
‘We brought back most of his small stuff and paperwork,’ he said. ‘His laptop and clothes, along with Jacob’s mobile phone and wallet, are with forensics.’
‘What about the rucksack that Jacob had with him when he vanished?’ Anna said. ‘Was that in the house?’
Benning shook his head. ‘Definitely not. We searched every room and the loft as well. It was obvious to us that he was a man of few possessions and my guess is he sold most of what he had to fund his gambling addiction. There are a couple of his bank statements in the box and they show a big overdraft in his current account.’
Benning pointed out that they didn�
�t come across anything to suggest that Jacob had ever been in the house, and there were no photographs or newspaper clippings of him or his father.
Before Benning sat down, Anna asked him if he had heard back from the Australian embassy about Mark Rossi’s stepbrother, Joseph Walsh.
‘Not yet, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘I’ll call them again after the meeting.’
‘Great. It’s one of the loose ends I want tied up. Tomorrow we’ll try to pull everything else together and go tell the parents. The boss is also keen to stage a press conference so before then we need to know everything there is to know about Roy Slater.’
Anna was then told that two officers would be on duty in the ops room overnight and she encouraged everyone else to go home to bed. She had her own notes to type up but decided to leave them until tomorrow.
As she was collecting her coat and bag from her office, DI Benning popped in. Seeing him up close gave her a bit of a shock. He looked really rough. His eyes were sunken and shadowed and his face was a ghostly pallor.
‘Are you feeling OK?’ she asked him.
‘I’m just tired and gutted,’ he said. ‘It’s all so fucking sad. To think that poor Jacob probably died in that hellhole of a cellar because his father played around with another man’s wife.’
Anna nodded glumly. ‘I know what you mean. And I dread the thought that Jacob’s mum will now learn about it. Breaking the news about Slater tomorrow won’t be easy.’
‘That’s why I’d like to be there with you, ma’am,’ Benning said. ‘Would that be possible? You see, I still feel that I let them down. I should have found their son before he died and I didn’t. I failed.’
‘I was intending to take you with me anyway,’ she said. ‘It will probably have to be in the morning first thing. Do you want me to pick you up?’
‘No, I can either make my own way there or meet you here. Just let me know what time.’
‘I will. Now try to get some rest, Detective. You look as though you really need it.’