by Iain Cameron
‘Yes, you’re right, I sent them out. Have you found her?’
‘Thanks to our friends in Interpol, we have a fine digital fingerprint system. They have a unit based near our offices here in Bucharest and I think they like to keep us local boys sweet, you know?’
‘I see,’ Henderson said, willing the detective to speed up, but realising he would only move at his own pace.
‘Your victim’s name is Elena Iliesc, she is nineteen years old and comes from a town in Romania called Oradea which is close to our border with Hungary.’
‘How do you spell her name?’ he asked.
The Romanian detective spelled it out for him and he noted it down. ‘She worked at a local factory in Oradea and was arrested in the town centre for assaulting a tourist. She claimed this person spilled red wine over her dress but, in return, Miss Iliesc scratched the tourist before punching her in the face. She only received a fine. She was lucky, in my opinion, not to go to prison. The courts here do not like the tourist industry damaged in such a way.’
‘Do you know why she came to the UK?’
‘I have already instructed the local police in Oradea to talk to her family.’
‘Thank you, I appreciate you doing this. Have the local police reported back to you?’
‘Yes, indeed they did. She disappeared six months ago as she walked home from work. She didn’t have a car and so a colleague often gave her a lift, leaving her with about a two-kilometre walk to her home. She lives in a rural part of the town.’
‘Disappeared how?’
‘The family do not know, but we believe it is the work of traffickers. They kidnap girls walking along the road or standing waiting at a bus stop. It not only takes place here in Romania, but also in Hungary and Bulgaria too. These girls are taken to Germany, France and the UK to become prostitutes or slaves on farms and in houses and factories. I am disgusted to know this trade goes on in my country.’
Henderson knew a little about it, dubbed by many commentators ‘modern day slavery’, but he had no direct experience.
‘So,’ Henderson said, ‘if she was kidnapped in Romania six months ago and we find her body in the UK only a few days ago, it sounds like she must have been working for the traffickers all this time and fell out with them or tried to escape and they caught her.’
‘Yes, six months is not enough time to earn enough money to satisfy her kidnappers. If she cannot work or will not work, they would have no choice but to kill her.’
‘Thank you very much for calling me,’ Henderson said. ‘What you’ve told me will be a huge help in trying to find her killer.’
‘I would like to thank you, Inspector, on behalf of Elena’s family, for investigating this case. The family would like to find out who killed their daughter and have made a generous donation to the police benevolence fund to ensure we keep them fully informed.’
TWENTY-SIX
The train arrived at Victoria Station and, trying hard not show it, Henderson couldn’t wait to get off. From Brighton up to about East Croydon he and Walters discussed the Longhurst case, keeping to non-contentious issues as there was always lots of movement and noise on any train from the south coast.
Now, with the name of Castle Hill Girl, Elena Iliesc, he set the murder team the task of finding anything else they could about her. Having been in the UK for less than six months and, assuming she had been in the hands of traffickers all this time, there was little chance she would appear on national databases like the DVLA or Inland Revenue, but they would look nevertheless. They would also look on social media, make contact with other agencies and charities, and talk to Border Force.
He didn’t understand enough about human trafficking in the UK to know if they used commercial sea ports such as Calais to Dover or Zeebrugge to Hull, or brought people over to the UK in private yachts and trawlers as used by many drug dealers. If using the official sea crossings and bringing the girls into the UK by bus disguised as a school trip or cultural exchange, everyone on board would still need some form of identification and, with a bit of luck, the details would be recorded somewhere.
The underground train felt hot and clammy despite the cold February day outside where the thermometer wouldn’t shift from about six Celsius. It was noisy too, buskers playing in a carriage up ahead, and the rumble of the wheels as it thundered through a narrow tunnel. The bustle of the crowd prevented much conversation taking place between himself and Walters which suited him, as the earlier discussion on the train had exhausted everything they knew about Cindy and Elena’s murders before it turned to relationships.
Henderson was a keen poker player, although he hadn’t played for several weeks, and believed he could hold a straight face when many would crack. For some reason, his uncommitted expression didn’t fool Walters and she probed and poked like a well-drilled detective.
They exited Vauxhall Station and walked along Albert Embankment. He liked this part of London, busy without the cloying crowds of Oxford Street or Covent Garden. There was plenty around to spark his interest, although people-watchers would be having a harder time with everyone wrapped up in warm coats, scarves and hats to ward off the biting wind whipping off the Thames.
‘Isn’t that the MI6 building?’ Walters said, jerking a thumb at the brown-faced building with green windows, dominating an enormous corner plot overlooking Vauxhall Bridge.
‘It is, but they’re now called SIS, so I suppose we should call it the SIS Building.’
‘What’s SIS?’
‘Secret Intelligence Service.’
‘It’s not much of a secret if they’re housed in such a prominent building and everyone knows where it is.’
‘It used to be called the worst kept secret in London as all the cabbies knew where to find it. I see it’s been repaired after Raoul Silva’s bomb blew it up.’
‘What? When did this happen?’
‘In the James Bond film, Spectre.’
‘Oh. I don’t watch that rubbish.’
‘What do you call Fifty Shades?’
‘It’s not the same thing.’
They turned down Tinworth Street and it didn’t take long to reach the headquarters of the National Crime Agency. They were housed in a glass and brown-brick building, looking more like the scientific research unit of a major university than a crime-fighting agency.
Ten minutes later, after passing through an elaborate security system, they both took a seat in the office of NCA Officer, Rebecca Gregson.
‘Smart office, shame about the view,’ Walters said after they were seated.
‘It is. Watching the people in the building across the street sit at computers holds no fascination for anyone. Perhaps to distance themselves from us, they don’t use the institutional furniture you see in our place and every other police office you visit.’
‘It’s a funny organisation, the NCA. It’s a police force, but not having any powers of arrest, it isn’t really.’
‘You can ask Rebecca about it now, here she comes.’
‘Angus Henderson,’ she said as she walked into her office. ‘I’ve haven’t seen you for ages.’
Henderson stood and found himself in a hug rather than the handshake he expected.
They broke away and, after taking another look at his face, she turned to Walters. ‘You must be Detective Sergeant Walters. Pleased to meet you.’ Walters made do with a handshake.
Gregson walked around her desk to take a seat, as Walters shot him a look. He shrugged as if to say, ‘did I not mention that I knew her?’
‘Welcome to the National Crime Agency. I hope I can be of some help. So, where are you now, Angus?’
‘Still in Sussex, although we’ve moved offices from Brighton to Lewes.’
‘You might not be aware, Carol, but Angus and I go back a long way. We were both officers in Glasgow in the same unit. He stayed on to chase murderers, I went into drugs. To be honest, a personal vendetta against the scum responsible for killing my cousin.’
‘What made you join the NCA?’ Walters asked.
‘The short answer is they were recruiting and I quite fancied a change. The longer explanation is more about the approach of the NCA versus the police. Like you and every officer I know, I got really fed up with the paperwork, the procedures we’re required to follow for doing something simple, like booking in a suspect, and policy directives for everything else. Here, there’s greater emphasis on gathering intelligence and using computers to analyse detail before bringing in you guys to make the arrests.’
‘And leaving us with all the paperwork and dealing with the CPS,’ Henderson said.
‘You got it. Our role has changed since the days of SOCA, our predecessors at the Serious Organised Crime Agency. We now have the power to compel you, Detective Inspector Angus Henderson, or your ultimate boss, the Chief Constable of Sussex, to undertake a specific operation. SOCA didn’t have such authority.’
‘It’s a good position to be in,’ he said.
‘You interested? I could put in a good word.’
Henderson hesitated. He’d left Glasgow after he shot and killed a well-known drug dealer. The consequent rumpus, fed to the press by the dead dealer’s family, piled too much pressure on his marriage and work, but his domestic situation at the moment was nowhere near as bad. Moving here wouldn’t be the get-out Rachel so desired as he doubted the NCA was any less pressurised.
‘No, I’m happy where I am.’
‘If you ever change your mind, you know where I am. Now to business. You said on the phone you’re investigating two murders with suspicions they’re connected to human trafficking?’
He went on to explain about his call from Principal Agent Gabriel Albescu who first raised the suspicion that Elena Iliesc had been trafficked.
‘What I’d like to know,’ Henderson said, ‘is how it works. How do they bring girls into the country, what they do with them when they get here and how the commercial side works. Also, I’d like to find out if you’re in possession of any intel to suggest how much of this activity is taking place in Sussex.’
‘We class human trafficking under six broad headings: sexual exploitation, forced labour, domestic servitude, organ harvesting, forced marriage and child-related. How old are your victims?’
‘The latest one is nineteen.’
‘Take your pick of the categories excluding the last one.’
‘I imagine our victim’s role is sex-related,’ Walters, said. ‘She looks young and pretty, but I can also see how she might work in a factory or someone’s house or even be forced to donate her organs.’
‘You asked how they get into the country, Angus, well the answer to that question is in every way imaginable. Many are duped by people they like or trust. They respond to an advert in a newspaper promising a better life in the UK, something like working in an office or au-pairing for a good family. They are driven away from the airport or ferry port by an ‘agent’ who takes their passport. He tells them they are now five thousand pounds in debt and are forced to work in potato fields in Norfolk, brothels in London or in the kitchens of large hotels and restaurants in Manchester to pay back what they owe.’
‘Which I imagine they never do.’
‘Which they never do, you’re right. The other way they arrive here is when they’re kidnapped, like your victim, a common occurrence in rural parts of Romania, Albania, Bulgaria and Hungary. They are either smuggled into the UK on lorries or provided with fake papers and turn up at the border like so many school groups who do so every week.’
‘I think you already answered one of my questions, Rebecca, which was how the business worked. I can see if traffickers are bringing people into the UK to work as prostitutes or as domestic help, money will be changing hands with the person they end up working for.’
‘Yes, but don’t forget, the people they bring into this country are considered no more than commodities by the trackers. They can be bought and sold like a bag of heroin or a stolen laptop. Some traffickers may not work in prostitution or the labour side, but are only handling people they can sell to whoever needs them.’
‘It’s a sickening business,’ Walters said.
‘It really is and it’s one of our main priorities to try and stop it wherever we find it going on.’
‘I suppose the hold they have over the victims is confiscating their passports and bringing them into a strange country where they don’t speak the language.’
‘Yes, but they also use violence. Despite the kidnappers needing slaves to work, say as prostitutes, they think nothing of breaking bones, smashing faces and injuring organs.’
‘A lesson to others who are thinking of resisting,’ Walters said.
‘Right, and another hold they have is telling the women they know their sister or their mother and threatening to kill them if they try to escape. It’s a growing problem We have hundreds of cases going on at the moment.’
‘So many?’
‘It’s shocking, I know.’
‘What intel do you have specific to Sussex?’ Henderson asked.
Gregson picked up a computer printout from her desk. ‘Your victim was found where?’
‘The first came from a village called Hurstpierpoint, about twenty-five miles north of Brighton, and the second, in a field about four miles to the north-east of Brighton.’
‘We currently have three cases going on in Sussex: a clothes factory in Crawley where we believe the Indian workers are beaten regularly, a private clinic in Uckfield where we have some doubts about the source of their organ donations, and another case in Worthing concerning a chain of brothels.
‘I don’t suppose you’d be willing to share this intel?’
‘We will, but not at such an early stage in the investigations. As I said earlier, when we’ve gathered enough information to make arrests, you’ll hear from us.’
‘That’s a pity, as I’d like to get a heads-up as to who could be behind these murders.’
‘If you can identify them, I promise you this. You’ll receive the full support of the NCA in closing them down.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
Vicky Neal looked down at the paper in her hand. The number seemed to match the sign on the door, although the sign was held on by only one screw so it was lopsided, leaving callers unsure if the house was 61 or 19.
‘This is the place,’ she said to DC Deepak Sunderam beside her.
She shoved the paper back into her jacket pocket and pressed the ‘call’ button on the grubby intercom pad.
They were standing outside a house in Buckingham Street, a wide street in Brighton not far from the station, sectioned off on either side to allow the parking of cars. Although it was a fair distance from the seafront, a more typical seaside scene she couldn’t imagine, made more realistic with the loud cawing of numerous seagulls perched or hovering over the rooftops. Most of the houses on the road were painted white, some cream, with bay windows, no gardens and one side catching the early evening sun, making her feel all she needed to do now was turn a corner and buy an ice cream and she would feel the warm sea breeze on her face.
‘Yeah?’ a voice on the intercom crackled.
‘Nick Scanlon? Police, open the door.’
‘Police? What? Nick’s not here, he went out about an hour ago.’
‘Nick, don’t mess with me, I know it’s you. Open the bloody door.’ She was bluffing, she didn’t know Nick Scanlon from Old Nick. In fact, she didn’t know many people in Brighton full stop.
‘What do you want?’
‘To read your bloody gas meter, what do you think?’
‘Eh?’
‘We’d like to ask you some questions.’
‘That’s what you lot always say before you drag me down to John Street.’
‘We’re not here to drag you off anywhere, Nick. Just open the door.’
She heard an electronic click and nothing more.
‘Maybe we’ve panicked him,’ she said to Sunderam, ‘and now he’s sprinting down the f
ire escape before jumping over his neighbours’ fences.’
‘No, I think he’s probably scooping up all the needles and his stash and dumping the whole lot down the toilet. If we don’t hear anything else from him, at least we’ve done some good today.’
‘He might still be in there. In my experience, these guys are wary of people like us, but if they can see a way of gaining some advantage, curiosity often gets the better of them.’
A minute or so later they heard a door slam and in between the noise of a car driving past, the sound of shuffling feet coming closer.
The door was hauled open and a bedraggled figure in a crumpled white t-shirt and black stained jeans stood before them. His eyes looked bloodshot and his thick black hair was such a mess, a magpie would refuse to bed there.
‘Yeah, what d’ya want?’
‘We want to talk to you about some people you might know. Can we come in?’
‘Are you gonna arrest me?’
‘No. We just want to ask you some questions.’
‘If you’re not gonna arrest me, why don’t you ask your questions someplace else. There’s a decent pub around the corner. I could do with a drink.’
Neal thought for moment. The detectives didn’t come here looking for drugs inside what could turn out to be a skanky house with filthy carpets and stained walls, and she quite fancied a drink. ‘Fine, get your jacket.’
Scanlon wandered back the way he’d come, his pace faster, no doubt brought on by the allure of free booze.
‘I wouldn’t mind a glass of something,’ she said to Sunderam, ‘just to make Mr Scanlon feel comfortable. Are you okay driving us back to the office? I wouldn’t want to get busted by Sussex police before I’ve got my feet under the desk.’
‘No problem. I don’t drink much in any case.’
‘Why, because of your religious beliefs?’
‘A bit, but I’m third generation and my family aren’t deeply religious.’
‘What then, are you one of those lightweights who blabs out all their secrets after only a couple of pints?’ she said smiling. ‘It’s obviously not to control your weight, there’s hardly an ounce of fat on you.’