Detective Mike Croft Series Box Set

by Jane Adams

  Mike had taken the stairs. He found himself facing a pair of glass doors leading to a surprisingly plush lobby, with an elderly, blue-rinsed receptionist seated behind a solid wood desk. The lobby was decorated with potted palms and comfortable armchairs. Mike did a doubletake. It looked more like the entrance to a small hotel than to a company specializing in soft porn. He found himself checking the logo on the glass doors — and his own preconceptions — before crossing to the woman at the desk and asking if the editor might be available.

  He laid his identification in front of her. She took her time, putting on her glasses and reading carefully before returning it to him.

  ‘You’re a long way from home, Inspector Croft,’ she said cheerfully. ‘If you’d like to take a seat, I’ll see if he’s free. May I tell him what it’s about?’

  Mike reached into his overcoat pocket and produced the magazine, withdrew it from the evidence bag and laid it open at the centrefold.

  ‘This woman,’ he said. ‘I need to know if she did other work for you beside this.’

  ‘May I?’ Mike nodded and she flicked back to the front, checking the date. ‘Miss July this year,’ she said. ‘Well, it will all be on file. All our young ladies are registered, you know.’

  Mike nodded. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘She’s not in any trouble, I hope?’

  ‘If you could just tell him I’m here . . .’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She spoke into the intercom, telling the listener that a police officer needed to speak with him. Moments later, he was being directed through to the inner office.

  Darren Prestwick had been editor of the three magazines put out by Primart Publications for the previous five years. He had learnt early on that image was everything. He was a businessman and wore a business suit and an air of competence and authority that he felt went well with the job.

  He listened to what Mike had to say without comment, then got up and crossed to a second desk housing a computer.

  ‘We keep everything on a data base,’ he said. ‘Cross-referenced under real name and any they might have appeared under in our magazines. All of our girls come to us through an outside agent, and this one, if I’m not much mistaken, came in through Mr Vincenza.’

  ‘Vincenza? Vinnie Vincenza, used to have a basement office, back of Holland Park?’

  Darren Prestwick smiled. ‘He still does,’ he said. ‘And a second model agency in Bristol, though he no longer runs the main business end himself. He has managers to do that.’

  ‘Things must be looking up for him,’ Mike commented.

  Prestwick was manipulating the data base. ‘Ah, here we are. Yes, I was right. Vincent Vincenza, came in through his London office apparently. If you give me a moment I’ll print out for you. It looks as though she just did the one edition. Our monthly feature.’ He frowned. ‘We had her booked for a shoot last week too, but she didn’t show.’ He swung his chair around and gave Mike an interrogative look. ‘Is there some kind of trouble, Inspector Croft? Because if there is, I’d like to know. We want our girls to have a clean background. Insist on it.’

  ‘Did you meet Marion O’Donnel personally?’ Mike asked.

  ‘No, generally I don’t. Their agents deal with ours and they do the shoot, usually in our studio out at Victoria Dock. We’ve got a converted warehouse down there. I approve and select the finished shots.’ He paused. ‘I’d like to know what your interest is, Inspector Croft.’

  Mike frowned, took the magazine back and replaced it in his pocket. ‘There’s a good reason Marion O’Donnel didn’t turn up for that second shoot,’ he said. ‘By that time she was dead.’

  2.15 p.m.

  ‘That was your governor,’ Morrow announced as Price returned from lunch. ‘He’s been to see the publisher. Seems Marion O’Donnel did only the one shoot for them. Didn’t live long enough to pose for any more.’

  ‘Any mention of David Martin?’

  ‘No. The original shots were sent in by one Vincent Vincenza. Alias Mr Brian Hammond. Offices in London, Bristol and maybe bloody Rome as well for all I know. Your boss is planning on paying him a call this afternoon.’

  ‘What’s he driving?’ Price asked automatically, thinking about Mike’s wreck of a car and wondering if it would make the distance. ‘No, never mind.’

  Morrow gave him a puzzled look. ‘He says he knows Vincenza from when he worked the King’s Cross beat. He was small time then but things have been looking up for Vinnie this last year or so, bought a place out Malmesbury way. Lives there with one of his ex-models.’

  ‘So,’ Price asked, ‘what’s Vincenza been up to that pays so well since then?’

  ‘That’s what your boss wants to find out.’

  Price glanced at the magazines stacked on his desk. ‘Not much point in going through the rest of these then,’ he commented.

  ‘Not for the moment, no. Croft checked on Theo Howard, but they denied all knowledge, so, for the moment, we’ve drawn a blank. This afternoon though, I’ve got something else lined up. Took me a while to get it set up and it might not even be relevant.’ He paused, frowning. ‘There’s just been something puzzling me ever since I saw the crime scene, the way it was laid out. Reminded me of something Vice brought in a month or two ago.’

  * * *

  Mike reported in, bringing Flint up to speed on his investigations.

  ‘I think you’re wasting your time looking for a link,’ Flint told him. ‘Martin knew the girl, just happened to give her his number. What could be more natural than that?’

  ‘Probably nothing,’ Mike agreed. ‘But there’s still two suspicious deaths. We have to look at all angles.’

  ‘And one of them not even on our patch. Seems to me you’re wasting resources, Croft. Anyway, we’ve finally got a breakthrough on our rapist.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘That’s right. That file you wanted pulled on Phillip Myers? Well it panned out. He’s got previous.’

  ‘Myers has? What?’

  ‘Conviction for indecency and a couple for possession. Agreed it’s a long time ago. His student days . . .’

  ‘And nothing since? And what exactly was the charge?’

  He listened as Flint filled him in. ‘It hardly adds up, sir,’ he protested. ‘A student prank and now a series of very violent attacks with nothing in between . . .’

  ‘We don’t know that. Myers isn’t stupid. Anyway, like you said yourself, we have to check it out.’

  He paused — Mike could hear voices in the background — then Flint spoke again, his voice grave. ‘There’s been a development. A woman’s body’s just been found on wasteland close to Aston Park.’

  ‘Same MO?’

  ‘Looks like it. I’ve got to go. Look, check in later with anything you turn up your end. There’s something else, too. David Martin’s done a bunk,’ he paused. ‘It was a risk we took in letting him go, but you said yourself you couldn’t pin anything on him.’

  ‘I thought you’d put a tail on him.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mike! We don’t have the manpower, you know that. Look, if we need him we’ll find him and bring him in. Meantime, we’ve other fish to fry.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  3.15 p.m.

  Mike called the office again on his mobile and asked to be put through to the collator.

  ‘Anything come through from either of the other areas?’

  ‘I take it you’ve heard about Phillip Myers? Flint’s been like a bloody dog with two tails since I gave him that one.’

  Mike laughed humourlessly. ‘I’ll just bet he was. Even if Myers is our man, it still leaves another bastard on the loose, or is he planning on Myers being blood type O as well as A?’

  ‘God knows. He’d probably give it a go. Anyway, this might interest you more. We’ve got two possibles so far. Neither is a perfect fit, but not bad for a beginning. One’s a feller called Osbourn. Served three years of a five-year stretch for serious sexual assault. Released three years ago, faded int
o the woodwork since then. Originally from Manchester. He’s no good for our first two victims, but those two could well be down to our other unknown. He’s the right blood group for the last four and Marion O’Donnel too. We don’t know about the dead woman until the path reports come in.’

  ‘Sounds promising,’ Mike said. ‘And the other one?’

  ‘The other one was sent through from Bristol. A more interesting proposition. Three charges of serious sexual assault and a series of public order offences. Seems he became obsessed by some young girl. Fits the description of our attack victims, blonde hair, blue eyes, small. She was still at school at the time, used to follow her there. Follow her home, sit outside her house until all hours. He never touched her, just made a nuisance of himself; when they finally got the evidence to pull him in on the assault charges, he disappeared. The thing was, guv, all the girls he attacked fit the same broad description. We’re running it through PNC and Voters, see if he’s turned up here under his own name or any of his known aliases.’

  ‘You’ve informed Flint?’

  ‘Told him we’re tracking, not a lot else to tell him yet unless our man surfaces here.’

  It was a long shot, Mike knew, but it sounded more likely than Phillip Myers.

  ‘The other thing, Mike, the kids have turned up. We had a call from Oaklands. Uniform’s on its way out there now.’

  4 p.m.

  The project Morrow had in mind was a series of videos. Morrow, Price, Beth Cooper, Stein and an officer from the vice squad crowded into the tiny projection room.

  ‘Where the hell did you get these?’ Price thought he had seen everything, but the films he had witnessed in the last hour had been beyond belief.

  Stein had looked sick. He gripped the arms of his chair tightly. ‘Are these snuff movies, sir?’

  For once, Morrow hadn’t tried to put him down.

  ‘In a way, I suppose they are,’ he said. ‘The thing is, we know that these are real.’

  He turned to Price, answering his question. ‘We’ve had four of them turn up over the last year, year and a half. We checked with other forces; similar numbers have turned up all over the country, some duplicated, and still others what look like salesman’s samples. Made up of clips of other films, complete with titles and order numbers.’ He shrugged. ‘These things go in fashions and the open market follows the black market pretty damn closely. You remember a while back, the fuss that was made about the executions video? Well, we think that’s pretty much what we have here, but with, shall we say, overtones that the straight version didn’t have.’

  Price felt sick. He glanced across at Beth Cooper. Her gaze was fixed carefully upon the screen and her features smoothed clear of all emotion. Tension showing in the fixed gaze and the way she held her pen, hard enough almost to break.

  He switched back to watch the film. In the last two hours he had seen beheadings and amputations. Strangulation. A man dying in breathless agony, his lungs full of mustard gas, three-quarters of a century ago. Another; present-day in a small white room, an execution, Price guessed in some nameless American jail, the camera panning across the room to show the witnesses behind the plate-glass window.

  Another scene, a kneeling man, the camera closing in on his face as realization dawned that the man dressed in combat gear and ski mask, with the gun in his hand, was for real. That he was going to die, here and now and without the hope of reprieve or mercy. A moment later and the man was dead. Brains and bone blasted across the lens as the camera came in close for the final shot. And intercut with it all, dancing shadow figures superimposed across the screen, the couples and singles and groups involved in sexual acts as varied and as starkly brutal as the many ways of dying Price had seen.

  ‘It’s this last scene I want you to look at.’ Morrow’s voice was oddly serious for him.

  The final piece, a car, stationary upon a grassy hill, the camera panning across the scene then zooming in to show the courting couple in the back seat. Price felt every muscle tighten in anticipation and from across the room he heard Beth Cooper gasp. He wanted to look away, not to see it, but he found himself involved in the incident. Wrapped up in the plot in a way that both attracted and appalled. He couldn’t look away even as he saw the flames begin to lick beneath the car. The flames begin to rise higher as the camera drew back far enough to show the entire scene. The couple in the car on the hill, the stillness of the summer’s day.

  ‘Why don’t they move? Why don’t they get out? Don’t they know what’s happening to them?’ Stein’s voice drawn thin with anguish. ‘Why don’t they get out?’

  It seemed to last for ever, but Price knew that was just illusion. Less than half a minute had passed from gathering their first impression of the scene to the moment when the car exploded into flame. ‘It was rigged,’ he whispered. ‘It was bloody rigged!’

  He looked at Morrow who was nodding slowly. He’d seen this before but the shock of it never left him and it showed now on his face.

  Vaguely, Price was aware of Stein pushing himself from his chair and running from the room. Price’s gaze was fixed upon the television screen as through the smoke he glimpsed the bodies burning up inside.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  4 p.m.

  Jake was editing his new film, the first section of the plotline already put together by actors, of a young man being kidnapped. In the film, he was hitching along a lonely road. It was night-time, but there was enough light to catch the blond of his hair. He was quite tall, slender, dressed in the ubiquitous blue jeans and a dark top.

  A car pulled up just ahead of him and he began to run towards it, then, when he reached the car and bent to look inside, it became clear that something was not quite right. The young man began to back away, then to turn and try to run, but already two people had emerged from the car and grabbed him. Pinning his arms behind his back they bundled him inside.

  Jake re-ran the sequence, checking to see that there were no clear shots of the blond one’s face. He’d use the same actor later for the final sequences, and for the major sequences up to the middle of the film; the face of the man he had down in the basement would be either covered or filmed obliquely. It would be easy enough to substitute the head shots later.

  The initial sequence, Jake decided, would do. It didn’t have the stark tension he would have liked, the real fear factor, but then even the best actors couldn’t substitute for the real thing, the genuine terror of someone who’s trapped with no way out and a growing fear that they are going to die.

  Jake skimmed through to the later sequences, classic S & M skin shots, unremarkable but sound enough. The young man from the kidnap scene was doing what he was good at now. Jake flicked back through the script and the rough storyboard that he had put together to organize his shots. According to the brief he’d been given, the young man abducted in the early scenes, after a period of torture and humiliation, would not just cooperate with his captor’s sexual desires — but would actively participate. It was, Jake thought, unimaginative and a little old-fashioned these days. A new take on the rape victim that was really gasping for it, hardly artistically demanding or particularly stimulating. But it would sell, and who was Jake to argue with the demands of economics?

  He had begun to cut what were for Jake the interesting scenes. Those with Blondie in the basement. Jake didn’t know the guy’s name, he wasn’t interested, though he was mildly surprised that the man hadn’t volunteered it. Most people these days saw enough TV drama and police reconstructions to know that you should try to make direct contact with your captor’s psyche. Make yourself real for them. A person, not just a piece of meat, though such distinction would have been wasted on Jake.

  He ran the sequence he’d been working on, something he’d shot that morning. It would need tightening up, but he figured he had enough footage not to have to do another take.

  He had the sound turned down; soundtracks would be dubbed on afterwards by someone who was better at the words than he
was. Jake was purely an image man. He made a note that Blondie’s voice would need to be dubbed too. In some ways he was a bit of a disappointment. Not enough reaction. Jake needed him to plead and scream a whole lot more.

  4.15 p.m.

  Flint was still trying to get to grips with Myers. The man seemed to have worked himself into a loop and nothing Flint could do would break him out of it.

  ‘I have done nothing,’ Myers said in answer to almost every question.

  ‘How did you get those scratches, Mr Myers?’

  ‘I have done nothing, Superintendent Flint.’

  ‘Where were you last Thursday evening, Mr Myers? From about six o’clock. Were you home? We could bring your wife in perhaps. Ask her.’

  ‘I have done nothing wrong, Superintendent Flint.’

  ‘And these other occasions? You’re a businessman, an engineering consultant, isn’t it? You must keep records, an ordered man like yourself. Where were you on March the twenty-fifth of this year? On April the nineteenth? On July the seventeenth?’

  ‘I have done nothing wrong, Superintendent Flint. Nothing at all.’

  ‘That’s not what your record shows. And these young women, Mr Myers.’ He laid a series of photographs on the interview room desk. ‘These badly beaten, frightened young women. Recognize any of them, do you? Or did they all look different before you tried to bash their brains out through their ears?’

  Flint paused. Myers continued to regard him steadily. He was furious, Flint knew, but keeping himself well under control now.

  ‘I have done nothing wrong,’ he said again.