Gone Too Far : DCI Miller 4: Britain's Most Hated Celebrity Has Disappeared

by Steven Suttie

  “Okay, well, I hope you’ve advised Kathy to keep out of it?” Piers sounded extremely anxious and uptight.

  “Of course. But… well this is Kathy we’re talking about, it’s not always that straight-forward.”

  “Well I want to make this as clear as I can. This stops now. Tell Kathy. It stops now.”

  “Okay. I’ve already… she’s… she won’t listen to me.” Sally had gone from sounding stressed and emotional, to sounding scared. Piers was being very hard with her. She’d never heard him speak to her, or anybody else in such a bossy, unpleasant way.

  “This is very bad Sally. I hope I can depend on you to help me to get this back in the box?”

  “What, well, I mean of course. Yes.”

  “Okay, I’ll come and collect you now. We’ll go and face Kathy together. She has to realise the danger that she is putting herself in. I’ll be at your office in twenty minutes.”

  “Okay… thanks Piers.” Sally put the phone down and realised that she was trembling. She felt weak, and noticed that she was sweating. “Shit shit shit, what have I done?” Sally tried to work out if she had screwed up. Had it been good idea ringing the boss of London TV? From Piers’ response, it seemed like he already knew that Bob Francis had another side to his public personality. The public personality that puts him at the top of every “beloved national treasure” and “best-loved stars” list, time-after-time.

  The more Sally thought about it, the clearer it became that Piers knew exactly what was going on with Bob Francis. She’d barely said anything about it. Sally was trying to remember exactly what she had told Piers. She was frustrated that she couldn’t remember the exact words she had used, but she was confident that she had only hinted at what was being alleged by Janet Croft. Then it came back to her. She had said that Janet had said something that didn’t paint Bob in a good light. That was all. Shit. There must be something in this, to attract such a reaction.

  Sally was agitated. She was fidgeting, rocking in her chair, messing with her skirt, constantly checking her watch. This was scary, and Sally didn’t want any part in it at all. Piers’ response on the phone had really given her a cold-chill down her spine. The way that he had spoken in that snappy, nasty style told her a lot. It reminded her of a newspaper story that she’d read about Manchester Police a year or two earlier.

  The legend had it that throughout the seventies and eighties, the Manchester Police Training School instilled a piece of wisdom in all of the new recruits. It was along the lines of “Remember that nobody is above the law. Nobody. Oh, except for the MP for Rochdale, we just have to leave him to it.” The remark was about Cyril Smith, the big fat disgusting former MP who sexually and physically abused lots of children over a forty-year period, and everybody knew about it. It was an open-secret in the north of England. The police, the schools, the council, the care homes that he visited for sex with little boys, as well as the Scout groups, the holiday camp staff, and even, its rumoured that the Prime Minister of the 1980’s, Mrs T knew about Cyril Smith and his perverted desire for small boys. Smith’s crimes were practically committed in broad daylight, under the noses of the powers-that-be and nobody had the courage to do anything about it. It was so blatant that trainee police officers were told about it as a black joke.

  And that’s just what this felt like for Sally King, as she waited for Piers to appear at her office. It seemed as though Piers was Manchester Police’s equivalent in this, only it wasn’t a dead MP that he was covering up for, it was a living celebrity. The biggest celebrity in the land. Sally was beginning to regret making that phone call now. The moment that she saw Piers’ face when he pulled up outside the office, she knew that there was trouble in the air. For the first time, Sally got a real sense of danger.

  “Shit.”

  PART THREE

  Chapter 40

  “Okay, this had better all start making sense now Jack.” DC Jo Rudovsky was standing over the husband of the missing TV star, Kathy Hopkirk. “I’ve given you a letter there which confirms that you will be treated as a prime witness, and when you sign it, it basically means that you will be under police protection from that moment onwards.”

  Jack Greenwood was scanning the contents of the letter which confirmed that he was now a member of the Witness Protection programme. Eventually, he nodded.

  “Is anybody else being put on this?” he asked. He looked scared, and slightly emotional.

  “I have just been informed that Sally King, Kathy’s…”

  “Yes, I know who she is,” snapped Greenwood, in a bid to hurry things along.

  “I’ve just been informed that she has volunteered herself into Charing Cross police station, and has formally requested to join the Witness Protection scheme. We are presently making plans to transport her up north.”

  “And what about me?”

  “You’ll be travelling north as well, with us.”

  Greenwood had a sudden look of panic in his eyes. “We’ll be followed, you bloody maniacs. As soon as a police car leaves here with me inside it, we’ll be followed by a hundred reporters and paparazzi goons.”

  “Don’t worry about all that,” said DC Peter Kenyon in a firm, but fair tone of voice.

  “Well I DO FUCKING WORRY ACTUALLY!” Jack Greenwood was shouting at the top of his voice. This unexpected outburst made both Rudovsky and Kenyon jump with fright. The hysterical eruption made Rudovsky angry, and she shot a furious look across the table at Greenwood.

  “CAN YOU FUCKING NOT?” she bellowed back, as loudly as she possibly could. The radio DJ looked stunned, and mildly embarrassed, being shouted at by a detective half his age and size. It worked though, Rudovsky snapped Greenwood out of his self-pitying before he’d even managed to go there.

  “There’s no need for acting like a big diva pal. We’ll have none of that bullshit, right?”

  “Okay… I’m sorry.”

  “Well knock it off. If you make me jump like that again, I’ll rip that piece of paper up and you’ll be on your own.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just a bit tense. I’m tired as well, I’ve not slept in days.”

  “DC Kenyon, do me a favour please, go down and ask at reception if they’ve got a violin I can play for this one.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Greenwood wasn’t in the mood for Rudovsky, and the feeling was completely mutual.

  “Oi, I just told you, zip it. Have you got any idea how irritating it is to be sent down here, to sort you out, when me and him were this far off nicking a violent burglar who punches old ladies in the face and then shits on their stairs?” Rudovsky held her thumb and forefinger up. “We got some concrete DNA evidence back from the labs, it’s a case we’ve been on for weeks. We’ve sat and held the old ladies hands, tried to comfort them in hospital, we’ve promised them we’ll catch this bastard.”

  Greenwood looked totally disaffected by Rudovsky’s frustration, but she carried on telling him anyway. “We were planning to go and arrest the suspect, and take him off the streets for a good while. We were looking forward to going around and telling the old ladies the good news, try and build them up a bit. And then this happens!”

  “Oh I am sorry my wife has gone missing!”

  “That’s not what I’m on about Jack, and well you know it. I’m talking about you acting like a dick all week. You’ve frustrated our Detective Inspector so much, we’ve been lumbered with coming down here to listen to you shouting and acting like Elton John with no tea-bags. Meanwhile, our suspect could very possibly go and punch another old lady in the face tonight!”

  “Are you done?” Greenwood was staring down at the floor.

  “Do you not even feel bad about what I just said?”

  “No. I’ve got my own problems.”

  “See DC Kenyon. I told you. This is why Saunders has sent us here. Well this cock-splurt can come up north, I’m not staying down here a minute longer!”

  “Wait Jo, we’ve got to sta
rt a new interview, there’s been some new information. Miller has text me.” DC Kenyon was not saying anything that Rudovsky wanted to hear.

  “Could this lead to us finding Kathy?”

  “I’m not sure. He’s the only one who knows that.” Kenyon nodded in Greenwood’s direction.

  “Okay, right, sit down then Pete, lets get on with it. Start the tape, let’s get cracking.” Rudovsky sat down and there was no mistaking her eagerness to get started.

  Kenyon introduced the recording with the official legal jargon, before getting straight into the prepared questions that DCI Miller had text through.

  “Okay, Jack, in the interests of trying to find out where Kathy is, we need to know why you have requested to sign the WP?”

  “Because basically, Kathy was about to reveal some very uncomfortable facts about a major celebrity. These were not facts that the celebrity would want to be revealed. If Kathy’s disappearance is connected to that, and I strongly suspect that it is, well… I’m very probably going to be the next to disappear.”

  “Well, now that’s interesting!” said Kenyon, who finally looked like he might be getting engaged with this investigation for the very first time.

  “And to think you could have said this on Sunday, Jack!” said Rudovsky, there was no attempt to hide her discontent. “I think you need to tell us the full story.”

  For the next twenty minutes, Jack talked about the situation that Kathy had found herself in, following the Talk AM show. Both of the detectives were intrigued by the speed in which this had escalated. They allowed Jack to talk until he was done. The story ended when Kathy went off to Manchester by train the previous Thursday morning.

  “And you’ve not heard from Kathy in any way, shape or form since your phone call with her at seven forty-five pm on the night that she disappeared?”

  “No. I’ve not.”

  “What was the lady called, the lady who contacted Kathy about the abuse?”

  “Janet Croft. She is an old drunk, well, she’s sober now, has been for a few years. But I told Kathy that this was going to be a nightmare, I told her to leave well alone.”

  “Does anybody else know anything about this?”

  “As far as I know, only Sally. Sally told Kathy to leave it alone as well. They’d had a big row. Kathy stormed out of the office and they haven’t spoken since.”

  “So in theory, the only people who know about the abuse claims are you, Sally and Janet Croft?”

  “As far as I’m aware.”

  “Are you sure Jack?” asked Kenyon, softly.

  “I don’t know if anybody else knows. I certainly haven’t said a word about this, until the last few minutes. That’s the truth. If anybody else knows, then it has come from Kathy, or Sally, or Janet Croft.”

  “Interview suspended at,” Rudovsky looked at her phone. “Fifteen hundred hours.”

  Rudovsky turned off the recording device and scribbled down some notes on her pad. Kenyon also did some paperwork.

  “Right, Mr Greenwood, that’s very helpful. We’ll have to leave you here while we go and have a look around, but I’m going to ask my boss to release a statement saying that you’ve been released from police custody earlier today, without charge. That should get rid of the media circus outside. I’ll tell the desk sergeant to find you somewhere comfortable to sit until we get back.”

  “So I’m not going back in that cell?”

  “No. Not yet anyway. We need to go and check that your story adds up.”

  “It does. Seriously, I’m not making this up.”

  “I believe you. Right stay here, I’ll get someone to come and sort you out. Order you a take-away or summat. Cheers.” With that, Rudovsky and Kenyon dashed out of the interview room and headed through the maze of corridors towards the custody desk.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking Pete?”

  “Go and find this Janet Croft?” asked Kenyon.

  “Yes, you are. That’s weird!”

  “It’s a pretty common name I’ll bet. There’s going to be a few of them in the Greater London area.

  “Well, she’s going to be aged fifty five, fifty six, if she was fifteen and did her apprenticeship forty years ago.”

  “Fucking hell, check out Sherlock Holmes here.”

  “Plus she’s bound to have had some scrapes with the law being a piss-head for all that time. If not, we’ll soon find her via the NHS database, Watson.”

  “Ha ha! You’re getting sharper you Pete! I can see you as a DS in fifteen, twenty years!” scoffed Rudovsky as they left the police station’s back-door which led into the car park. They were quick getting into the Manchester CID pool car.

  “I’ll be retired by then Jo. Believe me.”

  “Or poached by the National Crime Agency.”

  * * *

  Rudovsky and Kenyon were driving onto the Boundary Estate in Bethnall Green, just forty-five minutes after finding Janet Croft’s address details on the PNC. Janet’s flat was on the estate. She lived on the second landing of Hurley House, a once grand, two-tone, red-bricked four-story tenement block which was built during Queen Victoria’s reign. The Boundary estate, also known as Arnold Circus, was the world’s very first council estate.

  “I’ve always wanted to come here,” said Kenyon. Rudovsky laughed.

  “What?” he asked. He looked surprised by Rudovsky’s reaction.

  “You, you’re tapped Pete. I could understand if we were stood at the Colosseum in Rome or summat. But I’m intrigued now, why have you always wanted to come here, to some shitty council estate in London?”

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Kenyon looked out of the window at the tall, impressive buildings as Rudovsky drove around the estate. They still looked rock-solid today, over a hundred years since they’d been built.

  Building this estate had been a grand experiment which had worked so well, tens of thousands of similar schemes were built all across Europe in the years which followed. The buildings at Arnold Circus were very ornate, and had been built to last. Affordable housing had been in great demand back then, at the height of the industrial revolution, mainly because of unscrupulous landlords renting out slum properties with no regard for their tenant’s health or well-being. The workers didn’t earn enough money to buy a property, so affordable social housing was required urgently. It shows how slowly society is progressing, when the very same situation is happening again, over a century later.

  The enormous success of the Boundary Estate taught Britain’s and subsequently, the world’s local councils that if they built good quality housing to rent to low paid, working people who couldn’t afford to buy their own homes, there was an enormous amount of profit to be gained from it. Like all council estates that came after it, the Boundary Estate had required a hefty investment at the time, but it paid for itself twenty times over, generating extra funds for other council activities such as social services, children’s and youth services as well as parks and recreation.

  Council estates are still the main bread-winner at most UK town halls, although this fact is never publicised. The current trend is to demonise people who live in social housing. Unfairly, the media, particularly Channel 4, Channel 5 and the Daily Mail have been running a “hate your-local-council house-tenants” campaign for a number of years, desperate to convince the general public that people who reside in social housing are scum-bags who sit at home all day watching TV and laughing at all of the “normal” people who go out to work, and who subsequently fund the council-scum’s lifestyle. It’s total nonsense of course, and the vast majority of council house tenants are in full-time work, and pay their rent just like any other person who lives in any other type of rented accomodation. But the media don’t mention that, it wouldn’t help them demonise the working-class. They actively encourage the public to believe that people on council estates are no good. It’s no different than saying that everybody from Ireland is thick, and that everybody with brown
skin is a terrorist.

  Yet, no matter how ridiculous it is to smear people who live on council estates, the media is guilty of doing this, on a regular basis. Despite the brainwashing media trying to convince people otherwise, council estates have been a good thing, and as a result of their success, they have been recreated all around the world. And it all started right here, in Tower Hamlets.

  As Rudovsky and Kenyon parked their unmarked CID car outside Hurley House, Janet Croft’s tenement building, there were lots of people loitering around the area, groups of men and gangs of youths standing on corners, smoking pungent smelling joints and laughing loudly. Music was booming from several different flats. Drum n Bass from one window, mellow Reggae from another. There were people of lots of different ethnicities and age groups, mostly men, but there was also a group of boisterous teenage girls by the shops, who were attracting lots of cat-calling attention. Rudovsky and Kenyon felt quite stressed, intimidated even, as the locals openly viewed these two outsiders with suspicious eyes.

  Once inside the relative safety of the tenement’s stair-well, and away from so many prying, inquisitive eyes, the Manchester officers breathed a sigh of relief. As they made their way up the stinking, decaying stairwell, Rudovsky decided to go about her business in as loudly and as confidently a manner as she could. There was no other way, she felt. Kenyon looked quite nervous as well, and he was famously as soft-as-shite if anything did kick off – so she decided that she was going to pursue this enquiry at full volume, just to tell the spectators that their visitors were police officers, and that they were here on business. Business that didn’t concern any of them. Hopefully, this would be enough to keep the peace, she reasoned to herself. But even though they were from Manchester, both Kenyon and Rudovsky were acutely aware of the tension and distrust that existed between the Metropolitan Police, and its multi cultural communities.

  After inhaling the foul, stale-piss stench of another stinking, stone-cold staircase, the detectives found themselves standing outside Janet Croft’s front door.