Throwaways (Crime Files Book 2)

by Jenny Thomson

  Tommy had no idea, either, and he’d seen some terrible things in Iraq. Things he only hinted at, because he wasn’t that big on talking about his past.

  “Could he have forced Suzy to do it? To bite off Sheena’s finger? Say at gunpoint?”

  Tommy was pinning a picture of Tanya Baker, the third woman to go missing, on our board and turned round. “Nah. The medical examiner pathologist told the cops he was pretty certain the finger had been bitten off as Suzy was in her death throes, in one go. He said if she’d been ordered by her captor to bite it off, there’d be hesitation bites. Not one clean bite, although they’d have to see Sheena’s hand to be sure.”

  I’d been concentrating hard on the picture of Sheena, hoping that by looking at her we’d somehow become connected and I’d have a moment of blinding insight and understand what had happened to her. Instead, I asked Tommy if he thought there was any chance she was still alive.

  He didn’t blink. “I think she’s dead. If you were involved in something like that, if some mad bastard dragged you off the streets, killed someone in front of you, you would go to the police or tell someone. But nobody’s heard from Sheena, so she must be dead.”

  I wasn’t ready to believe that. “Unless she’s too scared to come forward and has gone into hiding. Holed up somewhere.”

  Tommy leaned over and put a hand on my arm. “I hope you’re right, but her finger was bitten off. There’d have been a lot of blood. If Sheena had been restrained in any way, she might not have been able to staunch the flow of blood.”

  He didn’t need to spell it out: Sheena could have bled to death or she could have got an infection. I wrapped my arms around myself to beat the chill snaking its way up my back like icy fingertips as we talked about Tanya Baker. If any of the women were destined to be abducted and murdered, it would have been her. Tragedy didn’t come close to describing her hellish life. She’d been put into care at the age of four when her heroin-addict dad bludgeoned her mum to death with an ashtray and jumped out their high-rise window to his death, leaving little Tanya alone. She had no traceable family.

  She’d spent most of her childhood in the care system because she was deemed a problem child and would wake up screaming in the night. Once she’d stabbed an Action Man in the eye with a pair of nail scissors because he was “a bad daddy” before hurling the doll out a window. The words that her various social workers had scrawled in her file time and time again were unplaceable, unstable, and unadoptable. By the age of nine, she’d been written off. They stopped trying to place her with a family. God knows the impact of knowing she’d never have a proper home would have had on a kid.

  Were the social workers too overwhelmed by the number of kids they had in their care to pay attention to one very troubled little girl? That was the question the Daily Scot newspaper had asked when they’d printed the leaked notes. Yep, someone had betrayed Tanya again by handing over her confidential files.

  Tanya had last been spotted getting into a black Honda Civic. One of the other girls had written down the number plate. It’d been traced back to an elderly schoolteacher; the car had been stolen from outside her home. The vehicle was later found abandoned on a landfill waste ground, gutted by a fire. If any of the missing women had been in that car, we’d never know.

  Tanya Baker was the odd one out of the trio. She never had the chance of a decent life. Not like Suzy or Sheena. And she had nobody to miss her. The police only found out she was missing after a friend went to the police station to report that Tanya had stolen money from her. The cases had only been linked because she’d gone missing round about the same time as Sheena and Suzy and was known to walk the same streets.

  “What else did your police contact tell you?” I said, then paused and added, “What was his name again?”

  Tommy raised his George Clooney eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  He was keeping it a secret. Considering everything we’d gone through together, he should have been able to trust me. It rankled that he didn’t.

  We didn’t have a picture of the fourth missing woman. She’d called herself Kim, but she spoke with an Eastern European accent and the police didn’t know a thing about her, including whether she was really missing. They suspected she’d been sex trafficked by an Albanian gang. The last time she was seen, she’d been climbing into a silver BMW with blacked-out windows.

  “Tommy, how do we know that Kim has even gone missing? From what I’ve read, these sex traffickers often move their ‘merchandise’ around. Makes it tougher for the police to close down their trade in misery.”

  I’d done my research. The gangs who trafficked these women were merciless; they saw the girls as something to be owned and traded and to do with whatever they wanted. Usually they’d been lured to the UK with the promise of jobs in top hotels and restaurants. Only when they arrived, they were stripped of their passports and belongings so they couldn’t leave and ordered to work off “their debt.” For some that meant being placed in brothels up and down the country run by madams who had often been sex trafficked themselves and hardened by their experiences. For others it meant working the streets.

  Tommy winked at me. “My, Miss Kerr, you have been hitting the books.”

  “Treating Kim like she’s missing might ruin our investigation.” Already I was talking like a cop. “There’s also a chance she’s just moved on.”

  “Good point. We’ll count her out for now. We don’t even have a picture of her—just a vague description.”

  “What?” My tone was sarcastic. “Your snout can’t help you with that?”

  Tommy tutted. “A snout’s a civilian informant. You need to get a handle on this police lingo if we’re gonna do this.”

  Of course I knew that. I’d just been winding him up.

  Tommy went serious. “You know what you said about Kim? That she might not be missing?” I nodded. “Just because these four sex workers are missing doesn’t mean all the cases are linked. The only ones we know for certain are linked are Suzy Henderson and Sheena Andrews.” He was right. “So we need to focus on Suzy and Sheena.”

  For the first time, he’d used their first names. They were starting to become as real to him as they were to me.

  With all the details written down, we decided upon a course of action. There was a slim chance Sheena might be alive, so we’d start with her parents. We’d pose as the concerned cousins of Tanya Baker to try and get them to speak to us.

  There was also a good chance they’d tell us to get lost.

  Chapter 4

  The story of Sheena Andrews’ downward spiral had been the one the press had reveled in telling. Horse-loving, private-school-educated teen ends up going from a girl in pigtails to a slapper in fishnets, selling sexual favors for the price of a lottery ticket—one newspaper columnist’s words, not mine.

  The Andrews lived in a fancy townhouse on the outskirts of Glasgow in an area where the house prices were in the hundreds of thousands. We knew this because we’d Googled the place. Years ago, I’d dated this guy who lived nearby called Paul Slater whose parents restored and sold antique furniture for a living. They were very well-to-do—”we count the new Chief Constable of Scotland’s police as a close personal friend” kind of thing—but even their house wasn’t as big as this one.

  The red sandstone villa was set on enough land for Sheena to have a horse in the back garden if she’d wanted—if her parents didn’t mind their Wimbledon-standard lawn being chomped away and covered in hoof marks.

  When Tommy and I saw the house, we exchanged incredulous looks, but I was the one who spoke first. “How the hell does someone who comes from a house like this end up prostituting themselves?”

  Maybe the answer to that question would help us find Sheena and the others.

  The tall but stooped figure of James Andrews opened the door after we’d rung the bell. His hair was peppered with gray, and he wore thick, round glasses that made him look like an aging Harry Potter. Our introducti
ons barely registered on his gaunt face before he invited us in. I recognized him from the pictures in the newspapers of the couple at the emotional press conference where they’d pleaded with Sheena to contact them.

  As the director of a multimillion engineering company, he was used to being in front of the cameras announcing deals, but he’d looked ill at ease at the press conference, unable to make eye contact whilst his wife had stared straight ahead as she’d wept.

  James Andrews’s movements were stiff as he led us into the living room. He was sleepwalking his way through the days. I’d been that way after my parents were killed.

  Helen Andrews was sitting on the couch doing a crossword and looked up at us and nodded when her husband introduced us. He sat down beside her, and she put down her magazine, and her hand slid into his.

  They would have once been a handsome couple, but grief had wrung every last drop of life from the pair. There were gray bags under Helen Andrews’s eyes, the kind you get from crying so much you think you’ll never stop. She was a trim woman in her forties with short brown hair that might once have been bobbed but now looked in need of some TLC.

  We sat down, taking care that we didn’t crinkle the couch cover that looked like Harris Tweed. My eyes zoomed in on a photograph in a solid silver frame, sitting on the mantelpiece of the original Victorian fireplace. The girl in the picture was at that age where you’re trapped between childhood and adolescence. Her blonde hair was the color of newly spun hay. She was standing next to a pony with a fuzzy mane of shocking white hair. They were both showing off their teeth.

  James Andrews caught me looking. “Yes, that’s our Sheena. Beautiful, isn’t she?” A wistful smile played on his lips, bringing some light to his grim face.

  “Yes, she is,” I said as Tommy nodded. Rummaging about in my handbag, I brought out a pen and a notepad. “I hope you don’t mind if I write this down? We’d appreciate anything you can tell us that might help us find Tanya.”

  They both shook their heads, so I got started. We’d decided it’d be better if I did the talking.

  “What can you tell me about Sheena? What was she like?”

  The full focus of Helen Andrews was on me. “I’m glad you say was and not is. Because they haven’t found Sheena’s body we’re supposed to have some hope that she’s still alive.” She exchanged a glance with her husband, who quickly looked away, then dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then clamped it shut. He’d spoken about their daughter in the present tense. He was clinging to the hope that she was still alive.

  Helen Andrews carried on. “If Sheena were alive, she would have found some way of contacting me. She phoned me every day, even when things were bad and she knew I wouldn’t like what she was telling me. And I’d always beg her to come home. I’d tell her we’d get her back on her feet and she could go to university and train to be a vet like she always wanted to be.”

  Her face lit up as she spoke about her daughter, and just for a moment, I saw how she must have looked before grief drained her beauty. “She was a lovely little girl. She was bright, warm, and funny, and she loved horses. That’s why she wanted to be a vet.” She motioned towards the picture. “That’s her pony, Chester. We still pay for his keep at the stables. She adored that horse.”

  Her features relaxed; remembering was helping her to cope with the grief, and I knew how she felt. Since my parents and brother were killed, remembering the good stuff had stopped me from falling into a deep depression. When you’d lost someone you loved, the memories were all you had left.

  My eyes scanned the room, taking in all the antiques. The next question wasn’t going to be easy, but it had to be asked. “Did you know what Sheena was doing?”

  James Andrews clenched his other hand into a fist. “No, not at first.”

  His wife finished answering. “We only found out when the police brought her home one night. We made her see a psychologist after that. Dr. Cassidy. He was so good with her. Wasn’t he, James?”

  He nodded. “If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have known about the abuse.”

  This was news to us. There’d been no mention of this in the media, and we thought they’d eked out every last drop of salacious detail.

  “What abuse was that?” Tommy said.

  James Andrews seemed to have trouble focusing. As he stared straight ahead, his wife was the one who spoke. “Sheena was taken advantage of by a teacher at school. Her art teacher. We’d no idea what had been going on until she told her therapist.”

  “Was he ever charged?” I asked. Maybe this teacher had snatched Sheena as an act of revenge and grabbed Suzy Henderson to muddy the trail leading back to him?

  A brief look passed between the couple. I didn’t know what it meant until Helen Andrews spoke. “It wasn’t a man, dear. It was a woman. If it’d been a man, there’d have been no chance of him avoiding prison. At least that’s what our lawyer said.” She turned to her husband. “Isn’t that right, James?”

  His face reddened. “That predatory bitch. She destroyed my little girl. Sheena was never the same after that woman got her claws into her. She started cutting school, drinking, smoking, and staying out late. When I’d ask her where she’d been, she’d give me that impish smile of hers.” His face softened. “It was the smile she used to give me whenever I’d come back from a business trip. She’d come bounding in to see what I’d brought her from Tokyo, Singapore, or Dubai, or wherever I was coming back from this time. Only this time it turned into a smirk. I…”

  His voice wavered, and he pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m ashamed to say that I wanted to wipe it off with my fist.” His eyes fixed on me, and he didn’t seem to catch the disapproving glance from his wife. “But I didn’t hit her. As I told the police, I would never hit Sheena. My father used to batter me senseless with a leather belt; usually with the buckle end. I vowed never to hit my children.”

  We already knew Sheena was an only child, so there was no way of being sure he hadn’t hit her, although he didn’t seem like the type.

  “What was this teacher’s name?” I kept my voice steady and calm like I was making a comment about the weather. “The one who abused your daughter?”

  “Marie Fredericks.”

  I noted down the name.

  “Do you have any idea how we can contact her?”

  James Andrews snorted. “After what she did, the only place she could get a job was in a prison. Ironic considering she should have ended up behind bars.”

  “So you reported it to the police?” I said.

  James Andrews shook his head. “We discussed it with the school and our lawyers, and they thought it was best that they dealt with it internally. I wasn’t happy about that. Neither of us were.” His wife nodded. “But we didn’t want to ruin Sheena’s future by dragging her through the criminal justice system. You read about what they do to the victims of sexual predators, making out like it’s their fault or like they’re fantasists. Imagine how they’d treat a young girl who’d been taken advantage of by her female teacher. They’d have destroyed her. She wasn’t strong enough for that. On the outside she may look like an adult, but on the inside she’s just a child.”

  Whilst understanding their reasoning, I couldn’t believe they hadn’t gone to the police. Had the teacher been male, they would have, so why was a woman any different? But I didn’t say that. Instead I said, “How long did this go on for?”

  “Two years we think,” Helen Andrews said. “It started when Sheena was fourteen. That’s what she told Dr. Cassidy. We’d no idea anything was wrong until she started to turn into a wild child. It wasn’t just the bad habits she picked up; it was the way she started to dress. Like someone much older, who was trying to attract the wrong kind of company. She’d always dressed like a teenager, but never so…” She looked sheepish. “Provocatively.

  “We tried to talk to her, but it was no use. She acted as if we were in the wrong. Said we were suffocating her.�
� She took a pronounced breath as though bracing herself for what she was about to say next. “Things got so bad that when Sheena turned sixteen we found her a place of her own.” Her face relaxed. “While I helped her to decorate, she was happy. She became her old self again. It was almost like I had my daughter back.”

  “What happened?” Tommy said. He’d been listening intently. And knew there was a but coming.

  The couple eyed each other warily.

  “She moved this man in,” Helen Andrews said. “She said he was her boyfriend. He was at least ten years older than her. It wasn’t until later that we realized he was the one encouraging her to sell herself, to fund his habit.”

  “Did you speak to him after she disappeared?” He had to be a strong suspect. She was his cash cow. What if she’d threatened to go home to her parents, cutting off his access to money? That would have given him a motive to kill her.

  “No,” James Andrews said, “by then he’d died of a heroin overdose. The police told us. They think our Sheena had been selling her body to pay for his drugs. They said they saw that kind of thing all the time and there was little they could do because she was sixteen.”

  That didn’t surprise me. Sixteen-year-olds were treated much like adults in Scotland, being able to leave home as Sheena had, vote in the Scottish elections and even get married.

  Helen Andrews’s gaze moved from me to Tommy. “Is that what happened to your cousin? Did she meet the wrong kind of man who took advantage of her?”