by Iain Cameron
‘You learned to cook when you lived on your own.’
‘There was no Mrs Carmichael living across the road for me, that’s for sure. It’s partly true. When I was married, Laura didn’t mollycoddle me like my mum does to my dad. If I came in late from a shift there might be something left for me to eat, but sometimes she would be out taxiing the kids to ballet or swimming and I had to make it myself.’
Henderson picked up his beer and slowly took a drink, his way of indicating he didn’t want to talk any more about his former marriage.
‘Oh, did I tell you Marnie’s leaving?’
‘Which one is she?’
‘The large lady in my office who always wears black except for her specs which come in every colour of the rainbow.’
‘I remember her now, large and loud.’
‘The very one, and if booze is thrown into the mix, she becomes many decibels louder. She’s jumping ship and moving to ITV.’
‘Not fronting a television programme, I hope.’
‘Oh no, unless they can find a camera wide enough and they don’t mind their ratings plummeting. She’s joining them as a researcher in current affairs.’
‘Not fancy a move into television yourself?’
‘Maybe. I’ll keep in touch with her and see how it pans out. It might be fun being on first-name terms with a bunch of celebrities.’
‘Or not, if you find the work they do in front of the camera is all a bit of a show and they behave like spoiled brats when they’re away from it.’
‘Trust you to be so cynical. How are you getting on with finding out who killed Cindy Longhurst?’
‘Are you asking in a professional or personal capacity?’
‘Personal.’
‘None of this will appear in print?’
‘Nope.’
‘We now believe she was killed for helping trafficked women escape from their kidnappers.’
‘What? I knew she was an ardent campaigner against fracking and building power stations, but I never believed anything she campaigned against would result in her being murdered.’
‘Trafficking is in a different league from standing outside a field in Balcombe trying to stop lorries moving in and out with fifty like-minded companions. The men operating trafficking businesses are evil and ruthless beyond measure.’
‘I imagine it goes with the territory.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘With drugs, it’s attractive to kids and young people with no future and they see a bit of buying and selling as a way of getting out of their situation. The only people attracted to a business involving the slaving of another human being have got to be twisted individuals in the first place. They must be sociopathic, or even psychopathic.’
‘Fair point, but I believe Cindy was aware of the dangers she faced.’
‘How can you say such a thing? She’s a middle-class mum with her own business and a kid at private school. How could she possibly comprehend it?’
‘There’s no need to raise your voice.’
‘Well, your arrogant attitude winds me up. You’re blaming her for getting herself into this situation, not the evil people who killed her.’
‘No I’m not. Don’t be soft.’
‘Don’t call me soft.’
‘I meant–’
‘I know what you meant. You’re patronising me.’
‘Look, can you calm down and talk about this like a reasonable person?’
She stood and towered over him. ‘Is this what you call it? Well, you can stick your bloody drink, I’m going home.’
THIRTY-TWO
Eric Stansfield didn’t realise he was singing until a car drove past, the first this morning. Most days if a car approached, the driver would offer a wave, but this time the guy inside laughed. He didn’t have his fly open and Dusty, the Golden Retriever ambling on the lead beside him, wasn’t doing anything daft like pissing on his wellington boots. It had to be the sight of a white-haired old geezer singing and moving his head in time to the music.
For his birthday three weeks past, he had treated himself to an iPod. Neither his miserable son nor his daughter would buy it for him and all he got from them was a bottle of wine and a pair of welly boot socks, same as last year. With help from a younger member of the tennis club, he managed to convert all his vinyl albums and cassettes to digital, or whatever the young generation called it when an LP popped up on his iPod. He called it magic and something a 16th century Sussex witch would be proud of and burned at the stake for her efforts.
Now, whenever he took Dusty for a walk he could listen to the music he would never throw away; Marillion, U2 and the incomparable Thin Lizzy. No longer was he required to suffer his ears being assailed by the cackle of arguing crows, the cawing of hawks overhead as they hunted for small animals in the frosted grass or the endless thrum-thrum of his welly boots as he strode along the tarmac road.
Despite giving the dog a daily walk and living not a mile from this place, King’s Lane to the south-east of Cowfold, he hadn’t adapted well to living in the country. It was his wife who wanted to move here as she believed the fresh air would be better for her asthma. It seemed to be doing the trick as she didn’t wheeze as much as she used to when they lived in Falmer. He missed being close to Brighton, especially now with so many bands he liked all those years ago re-forming and back touring.
He hated the journey too. A lecturer in Medieval History at Sussex University, he cycled to work from the old house, but living out here, he was forced to endure a tortuous drive through narrow and pot-holed country lanes, and to battle for road space with speed hogs on the A23. If Rod at the tennis club could manage to make his iPod play through his car’s speakers, he would become a friend for life, and no longer would he subject him to a complimentary bottle of his wife’s ghastly nettle wine.
The dog was feeling frisky, not often a trait associated with elderly retrievers, so he decided to enter the field at the point where King’s Lane changed into Moatfield Lane. Gates and big dogs didn’t mix, in particular those secured with a chain, as no way could he lift the heavy mutt over. This one, thank goodness, wasn’t locked and so they entered the field without drama from the dog at being lifted, or him trying to make it home with a slipped disc.
He understood enough about farming to know that at this time of the year, if the farmer intended cultivating this field, something would already be planted there. He skirted the edge of the field for a minute or so and, seeing only grass, he unclipped the lead and let Dusty roam free.
Five minutes later he couldn’t see the dog and assumed she was foraging in the row of trees he could see twenty or so metres in the distance. He reached the trees as his favourite track of all time popped up on the Dad’s Faves playlist, Waiting for an Alibi by Thin Lizzy. Scott Gorham’s beautiful guitar intro had him smiling, but before the voice of the late but legendary Phil Lynott stormed into his ears and reawakened sleeping goose bumps, he ripped the ear buds from his head.
Dusty was sitting there in the rough grass wearing the dog equivalent of a smile on her face that said, ‘hey, pop, see what I’ve found.’ Facing Eric was the naked body of a young girl.
A girl of model-type proportions he would say later in the pub, her gorgeous face only spoiled by the bullet wound to her skull. He omitted to tell his friends he threw up at this point and had to hang on to the nearest tree to stop him falling, his knees as wobbly and unsteady as his wife’s overweight nurse on her bicycle.
THIRTY-THREE
Henderson parked on the road behind Grafton Rawlings’s Austin Healey 3000. He could have chosen to drive into the field as his Audi was equipped with four-wheel drive, but not only did the surface look bumpy, the mid-morning sun had melted the frost and the movement of support vehicles had turned it into a quagmire.
He took a pair of wellingtons and an oversuit out of the boot. Walters did the same. Walking across the field to the small cluster of vehicles and people in the distance, he was too preoccup
ied to notice much of his surroundings: green fields, birds chirping their hearts out and a couple of pheasants pecking at the ground twenty metres away. He did, however, take note that the remote location had kept neighbours and the press away for the moment.
He pulled out his ID and presented it to the constable, positioned there to keep the public and media away from the crime scene. With no rowdy crowd to deal with, it wasn’t surprising to find him examining the proffered document with exaggerated importance.
The first thing Henderson spotted was the body, only about a metre inside the tree line. The killer could have moved it further in, making its discovery less likely, but chose not to do so. Why? The second thing he noticed, the body was naked, same with Cindy, same for Elena. He bent down beside the pathologist, his heart heavy and his mood sombre.
‘Morning Angus.’
‘Morning Grafton, what do we have here?’
‘You’re not going to like it. Naked, only a little bruising this time, young, pretty, and a bullet to the head. Sound familiar?’
‘All too familiar, if you ask me.’
‘Of course, you can’t quote me until I can get her back to the mortuary, but first indications are not encouraging.’
Henderson suppressed an urge to punch or kick someone, not the man in front of him or any of the other people here, but whoever was responsible for doing this.
‘I would estimate the time of death as sometime last night, I would guess between ten and three in the morning.’
Looking closely at her face now, straight collar-length brown hair parted to the right of centre, a young almost elfin face, he recognised her. He’d seen so many photographs of young women these past few weeks, but when Sally Graham came up with the encrypted file, the low concrete building, the barn conversion, the women enjoying themselves, he’d memorised the faces. This lifeless individual in front of him was one of them.
‘Thanks Grafton,’ Henderson said a few minutes later. ‘I’ll see you again at the P-M.’
‘It’s one of the trafficked women, isn’t it?’ Walters said as they stood at the edge of the copse of trees looking out. At times like this Henderson wished he smoked, something to soothe jangled nerves and take the edge off frayed emotions.
‘I’m sure I’ve seen her picture in the file. To confirm, we’ll take her picture down to the P-M.’
‘We’ll need to get the bullet analysed.’
‘Even if it’s not the same shooter, if her photo checks out, it’s the same team.’
‘It’s a funny case this,’ Walters said, kicking a clod of turf with her boot. ‘The murder of three women will cause the papers apoplexy and they’ll start printing dire warnings to all women not to go out and not to get into cars with strange men, but we know they’re not in any danger.’
‘Yes, but we’re not going to enlighten them, are we?’
‘Why not?’
‘Why give the traffickers a heads-up? Let them think we’re clueless, but we’ll get them, we’re getting closer.’
‘You seem very sure, but from where I’m sitting, it feels like we’re adding scraps. I can’t see the whole picture.’
‘I think we’re at the stage now when one piece of information will clinch it. If we can discover the name of the businessman behind the traffickers, the location of those low concrete buildings we’ve seen in the photographs or the address of a house being used as a brothel, we’ll be on to them.’
‘I wish I shared your conviction.’
‘Would you rather hear me say that I wasn’t confident of catching them, or throw my hands up in the air and say I don’t have a clue and we should give up now?’
‘Goes without saying.’
‘I tell you though, if I did say it Youngman would replace me like that,’ he said snapping his fingers together.
‘Why would he? We’ve made progress, albeit slow and with no clear idea about the final goal, but progress nevertheless.’
‘Because he told me he would.’
‘Not in so many words, surely? Perhaps you misread the signals.’
‘There’s no mistake. He told me unequivocally.’
‘I’m gobsmacked. You should have said something.’
‘Would it have made any difference? C’mon, let’s get back to the office.’
**
Henderson returned to his office after the team meeting. He left his folders in the office and walked over to the staff restaurant for something to eat. He brought it back to his desk without seeing anyone he knew. At this time of night, thoughts of going home often surfaced, but heading back to an empty house for the first time in almost a year, didn’t hold much appeal.
Rachel had moved out of the house they shared in College Place and had gone back to live with her parents, a move she would not have considered without some careful thought. Her mother would be on her case from the moment she arrived. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The tension between them had been simmering for months, but like the anticipation of a slap, it still stung when it occurred.
The murder team kicked around what little information they had about the new victim. After the P-M, if the photograph in Cindy’s files matched their latest victim, Sally would email a copy to Linda Herschel at AWE and await confirmation of her identity.
He was convinced without confirming the girl’s photograph or receiving a ballistic match for the bullet lodged in her skull, the same group of human traffickers were responsible, but they would undertake the necessary checks nevertheless. They’d killed this victim for the crime of escaping from their evil grasp. This was a sign, if one was needed, they were dealing with people who came from the bottom of a cess pit with no real concept of what it felt like to be human.
This meant when he finally cornered them, and he had to think positive here as he wanted to believe he would catch them, the team needed to be prepared for a vicious shoot-out. If they thought so little of the girls bringing them pots of money, they wouldn’t hesitate to gun down a couple of cops, armed only with extendable batons.
Henderson chewed the toasted ham sandwich but it tasted bland in his mouth. It wasn’t the fault of the sandwich, although it didn’t come away entirely without blame, but this case. It had buggered up his relationship with Rachel and now it had turned him away from food.
No, he couldn’t blame the case for everything, harrowing and disturbing as it might be. Rachel had been unhappy for some time. The worst aspect was he couldn’t do anything about it. His job, like many he could name: accountant, computer programmer, sales staff, all experienced periods of intense activity followed by a lull. In his case, and anyone employed within the emergency services, they also carried the burden of the horror of what they faced, a lot more disconcerting than a monthly balance sheet or a terse round of contract negotiations.
‘Working late, boss?’ Walters asked.
Henderson looked up to see Carol Walters standing in the doorway. ‘Hi Carol, on your way home?’
‘Yep, feet up with a glass of wine for me. My brain and everything else works better with a glass of wine in my hand.’
‘I can’t agree with you there,’ Henderson said, his attention already on a large glass of Glenmorangie. ‘Mind you, you’ve only got a couple of things to think about–’
‘I know, I know. We want the name of the local businessman, the location of the low buildings, the address of a brothel. See, I do listen. Don’t stay too late. See you tomorrow.’
He picked up the analysis done by Phil Bentley of Sussex businessmen, those who had been to Longhurst Studios to shoot a video or television advert. Phil Bentley had run all the names through the Police National Computer and it threw up a fair number possessing a criminal record.
Henderson went through them one at a time and put a line through those whose crimes were purely financial or involved insignificant sums of money. His pen went through those who had been disqualified from acting as a director for embezzling investors’ funds, another who’d done time for a dri
nk driving offence and another for selling houses in Spain that had never been built.
He then outlined work he would ask Bentley to undertake on the remaining twenty-seven. It was hard to imagine a businessman becoming actively involved in a human trafficking operation from Eastern Europe, if not from Eastern Europe themselves, or having strong ties in the region.
Based on names alone, he could see a few fitted the criteria, but more work would be required to try and uncover if the others in the list also had connections. He jotted down some criteria for Phil to consider: having an Eastern European partner, family living there, a change of name to hide Eastern European origins. It was all he could think of at the moment, and left PC Bentley to fill in anything he wanted to add.
Two names, not on his Phil’s list came into Henderson’s head: Constantin Petrescu and Ted Mathieson. Petrescu, the owner of Regency Wines and the house where Mike Harrison first met Cindy, was born in Romania, and Mathieson was married to a woman from Lithuania. They had examined Mathieson in detail, too much detail in DS Vicky Neal’s case, but not Petrescu. Why would they? There were plenty of businessmen in Sussex from Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, the countries named by the Bucharest police officer who had called Henderson, so why would they target him?
Of course, the analysis of this list would be futile if the businessman in question didn’t have a criminal record. However, the optimist inside always believed the next lead would be the one to supply the breakthrough and he would pursue it regardless.
He pushed the paperwork to one side, his mind on a glass of the good stuff, when his phone rang.
‘Good evening, this is Detective Inspector Henderson,’ he said, looking at his watch; eight-fifteen.
‘Inspector, the women are gone.’
‘Who is this?’
‘Linda Herschel at Action for Trafficked Women. I received the email today from Detective Graham. What’s it about?’