by Iain Cameron
‘It’s in connection with an enquiry we’re undertaking. Is she one of the three women you housed at the Baden Powell Drive address in Colchester?’
‘Yes, she is. Her name is Ivona Lupei. She’s dead, isn’t she?’
‘We found a body this morning and we believe it to be Ivona.’
The phone went quiet at Linda’s end, except for the occasional loud, distressing sob. Perhaps, if Linda felt the loss of one of her clients so keenly, she was in the wrong profession. It was obvious she was a good person and a fantastic fundraiser to have encouraged a philanthropic billionaire to back the charity, but human trafficking was the dirtiest business he’d ever encountered. Those involved in the drug, money laundering and gun running trade all had a choice, these women didn’t.
‘I’m sorry Inspector,’ Linda said. ‘I don’t know what came over me. In truth, I didn’t know Ivona that well.’
‘No problem. You said at the beginning of our call about the girls…’
‘Yes. When I got the email from Detective Graham, I called the house in Colchester. I received no response from the house phone or from any of their mobiles which is unforgiveable. At that time of the evening, they all should have been at home after returning from work. You have to appreciate, all the women in our houses are required to follow the charity’s communication protocols. They are forbidden to be out of contact with this office, ever.’
‘I understand.’
‘When I received no response, I sent someone around to the house. When they got there, the house was locked up, but the person I sent had keys so they went inside. The breakfast dishes were lying unwashed on the worktop. They’ve been taken, Inspector Henderson, the traffickers have taken back my girls.’
THIRTY-FOUR
Henderson carried a cup of black coffee up to CI Edwards’s office. When he finally made it home last night, he took a seat in the lounge with a large glass of Glenmorangie in one hand and the case notes on his lap. The next time he looked at the clock it was almost two in the morning.
‘Come in Angus and close the door behind you,’ Edwards said as he approached.
‘Morning gov.’
‘What’s the latest?’
‘After I spoke to you last night, I called the Colchester police. Someone from ATW went to the house in Baden Powell Drive with a couple of officers. When they got inside they confirmed there was no evidence to suggest there had been any form of a struggle, but there was no sign of the women.’
‘It looks like the traffickers grabbed them elsewhere.’
‘This is what the cops think. They checked their call register and asked their patrol cars for any reports of a street altercation or someone struggling to haul another person into a vehicle. As yet, no one has informed them of seeing anything amiss.’
‘They might have approached them at their place of work, telling them one of their friends was ill or grabbed them on their lunch break.’
‘Colchester are following this up. If they find CCTV of the women with their abductors we’ll be the first to know.’
‘A car or van registration would be better.’
‘It would, but don’t forget Maggie Hyatt, the woman Cindy was photographing the day she was kidnapped. She got a good look at both kidnappers but didn’t manage to identify their faces when we gave her mug shots to look at. She might be able to recognise someone from a CCTV picture.’
‘Was the woman from ATW any more open with information, now that a couple more of her clients are missing?’
‘She gave us the names of the two missing women.’ He opened his notebook. ‘Marina Vasilescu, aged twenty, and Felicia Marinca, aged eighteen.’
‘Eighteen? Bloody hell. Only a few years ago we’d be calling her a child.’
‘She also sent us photographs which, to no one’s surprise, matched pictures in Cindy’s collection.’
‘When you think about it, Cindy went to all that bother of freeing those women, and got killed in the process, but for what? Nothing. The four she freed who were living in Colchester are either dead or back working for the traffickers.’
‘Don’t write off everything she achieved. According to Linda Hershel, she released ten women, the four we know about and another six who went elsewhere.’
‘Where they’ll be picked off again by the traffickers if they’re not careful.’
‘Plus, don’t forget, the pictures Cindy left behind put us on to the traffickers.’
‘Although I suspect it wasn’t her original intention. So, Angus, any good news to tell me?’
He explained about the analysis conducted of Sussex businessmen.
‘I understand where you’re coming from with this, but my advice is to take care. There’s a lot of business people out there with the same mentality as Ted Mathieson. Rub them up the wrong way, and in a couple of days’ time they’ll be interviewed on South Today, complaining of police harassment or bending the Police and Crime Commissioner’s ear. Next thing we know the issue will be sitting on the Chief Constable’s desk.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind.’
‘This businessman Cindy told Linda Hershel about might be one of Cindy’s customers. It would be a good idea to check the list against something like the top fifty businessmen in Sussex.’
‘Good idea.’ Henderson had thought of doing it late last night and asked Phil Bentley to follow it up, but he didn’t want to discourage the Chief Inspector as she often thought of things he didn’t.
‘Anything else?’ she asked.
‘I’m hopeful the P-M this afternoon will offer us something.’
‘Why should it? We didn’t get anything from the other two. The traffickers are being pretty thorough, divesting the corpses of their clothes to avoid incriminating fibres and dumping the bodies in rural spots in the middle of the night, away from cameras and in places where no one will spot what they’re doing.’
‘Yes, but this is the first victim not to be beaten which makes me think they also have the other two. Why bother bashing up Ivona to reveal the whereabouts of the missing women when they already have them in their custody?’
‘We can hope they got away, but chances are you’re right, they’ve grabbed all three.’
‘The traffickers maybe gave Ivona a choice, become a prostitute, drug mule or whatever business they’re involved in, or be killed.’
‘She must have refused to be part of it.’
‘If you think how this scenario might have played out: she’s captured and they drive her back to their base. They drag her out of the car and ask her, what’s it to be, work for us or face the consequences? She refuses to do their bidding and they shoot her.’
‘Most likely raped her first.’
‘Maybe, but my point is, they might have carried out this murder quickly and maybe in a state of anger. I’m hoping they made a mistake this time.’
‘Let’s hope so as I fear for those missing girls.’
‘I do too. It could be they’re not giving them a choice at all but killing them and dumping their bodies for some dog-walker or farmer to find.’
‘Which means the clock is ticking. We need to find them and it needs to be done soon.’
He looked at his watch. ‘Hell, is that the time? I better get a move on or the P-M will start without me.’
**
Henderson’s thoughts glazed over as the rasping buzz of the bone saw filled the mortuary air, cutting through Ivona Lupei’s skull with the ease of a chainsaw slicing into a log. He doubted if anyone in the room, except maybe the pathologist and his assistant, maintained their concentration throughout a post-mortem, not him, DS Walters, the photographer or the young lady from the coroner’s office looking a bit peaky and green around the gills.
The P-M wasn’t such a long and arduous procedure that it couldn’t command his attention for the whole of its duration. However, many of the procedures the pathologist undertook, cutting into the skull, running a sharp knife down the cadaver’s chest and emptying the remain
s of their last meal into a bowl, would turn anyone’s stomach if they looked too closely.
When Henderson first saw the body at the crime scene, he noticed Ivona didn’t display the extensive bruising seen on the other two victims: broken noses and depressed cheekbones, smashed and bruised ribs, damage to kidneys and deep cuts on both arms and legs. Grafton had spotted this too and examined the dead woman’s organs thoroughly to ensure the traffickers hadn’t changed tactics and were now using less visible forms of torture, such as waterboarding or electric shocks.
He found no evidence of any maltreatment beyond marks on her arms and legs, the result of rough handling, not systematic cruelty. If the traffickers hadn’t kidnapped the other two women as they suspected, he felt sure the woman lying here would have been tortured to reveal their whereabouts, reinforcing his view that all three had been kidnapped. In which case, he feared another two visits to the mortuary in the near future, unless of course, the ACC lost patience with the current lack of progress and replaced him with someone else.
He had stared at the faces of the two most recent victims and examined their backgrounds to see if he could understand any commonality in the traffickers’ selection process. The technique worked in some serial killer and rapist cases, as the perpetrators often preyed on a type of woman with which the killer was familiar, be it nurses or students, or those with a certain characteristic such as tall, small or anyone who looked to be over thirty. The only distinguishing features he could find were the women all came from poor backgrounds, they were aged between eighteen and twenty-five and all came from rural areas.
Henderson’s last hope of finding a breakthrough in the case lay with the genital examination. When talking to CI Edwards earlier, she said she wouldn’t be surprised to find Ivona had been raped before being shot, a statement based more on the ruthless nature of traffickers than any information obtained from the crime scene. The pathologist confirmed she had indeed been raped, evidenced by bruising and several examples of tearing.
When no traces of sperm were found, Rawlings concluded that the rapist must have used a condom, but tissue samples would be extracted and examined just in case. Henderson tuned out now, as the pathologist moved through his tail-end checks.
By the time he would de-robe and drive back to the office, it would be after four o’clock. Earlier in the day, SOCOs at the crime scene had discovered tyre tracks, those not trampled into the mud by their support vehicles, plus several fibres on nearby branches close to the site of the body, and Henderson wanted to make sure they were being followed up.
He was so deep in thought it was only when he looked up, he realised the pathologist was looking at him. To be fair, Rawlings spoke in such a soft voice it was often difficult to determine if he was talking into the head microphone he wore or to his assistant.
‘DI Henderson, come and take a look at this,’ he was saying.
Henderson walked towards the examination table, the smell of death, decay and disinfectant increasing with every step. He edged around the table, past Ivona’s tagged feet and stood beside Grafton. In one hand, he held Ivona’s hand and with the other he was using a small pointed instrument to scrape debris from under her fingernails into a petri dish.
‘If I’m not mistaken,’ Grafton said without taking his eyes away from what he was doing, ‘these are skin cells. If we’re lucky, they may belong to the man who raped her.’
THIRTY-FIVE
Henderson walked back into his office in buoyant mood. He’d told the team about the skin cells found by the pathologist and had relayed the news to CI Edwards. Without hesitation, she authorised for its analysis to be fast-tracked, an expensive process but easily justified in this case.
She also counselled caution. DNA was only useful if the suspect appeared on their records or if they had someone already in custody to compare it against. If the traffickers were being careful and hadn’t picked up even a parking ticket in the UK, they would extend the search to European police forces, in particular, Hungary and Romania. This presented its own problems, but Henderson knew he had to try, no matter the time and effort required.
Ten minutes later, DS Vicky Neal came into his office carrying the Mathieson Transport file. Since her run-in with Ted Mathieson, she’d taken a step back, but still convinced of his guilt, kept a close eye on him and his business. Through Henderson’s contact at the National Crime Agency, Officer Rebecca Gregson, Vicky had been put in touch with their drugs team.
Neal sat down at the meeting table and opened her folder. ‘There’s been a couple of developments since we last spoke,’ she said.
‘Okay.’
‘I told you the NCA have been watching Mathieson for several months, after receiving a tip-off from a drug dealer?’
He nodded.
‘Through contacts the NCA have in Germany, they believe Mathieson will be bringing into this country a substantial quantity of cocaine and heroin on Thursday. I’ve agreed with the NCA we’ll mount a joint operation to intercept it.’
‘At Dover, on the M20 motorway or when the lorry reaches its destination at Mathieson’s Transport?’
‘When it arrives at Mathieson’s Newhaven depot.’
‘I can understand why you’d want to do it there as you’re likely to catch Ted Mathieson with his hands on the merchandise, but in some ways I think you’ve picked the most difficult spot.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Have you seen the massive steel door they have at the end of the loading bay? Once a lorry’s inside and it’s closed, you’ll never get in. By the time you bash in the front door and make your way through the Reception area, he could have poured the whole lot down the nearest drain.’
‘I’ll mention it to my contact at the NCA, but I’m sure they’ve got it covered.’
‘I hope so.’
‘There’s more. The NCA also found out the name of the person he sells it to.’
‘Surprise me.’
‘Charlie McQueen.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
She smiled. She didn’t do it often and when she did, her face softened and even he had to admit, she did look attractive. ‘Here’s the good bit. They’ve watched Mathieson a couple of times drive up to Devil’s Dyke and hand the drugs over to Charlie McQueen.’
‘Watched how?’
‘They had a bloke observing the scene through binoculars from some distance away.’
‘You know what I’m going to ask you now. Were they in position at the time when Mathieson got stabbed?’
‘No, I did ask, but their informant only finds out a few days before a shipment is due to arrive. It doesn’t leave a wide enough window to get someone in place.’
‘Nevertheless, what you’ve said strongly suggests the little toad was lying when he said he’d been mugged, as we both suspected.’
‘Yeah, and the whole thing makes sense if the person Mathieson was meeting at Devil’s Dyke was Liam McKinney.’
‘Now I get it,’ Henderson said, as he watched a number of disparate strands coming together, a result of hearing that Ted Mathieson was involved in the importation of drugs. ‘McKinney gets leery with Mathieson for reasons we don’t know, maybe he was trying to rip him off or doing the dirty on McQueen and attempting to start his own business. Either way, they argue, maybe exchange a few blows before McKinney pulls out a knife and stabs him.’
‘Right.’
‘Charlie McQueen, upset at the prospect of losing a good supplier, decides he’s had enough of McKinney and decides to top him. With him out of the way, a recovered Ted Mathieson is happy to go back and sell to McQueen.’
‘That’s what the NCA think.’
‘It all hangs together well, except it doesn’t sound to me like a good enough reason for Charlie McQueen to top one of his team. Does he have anger issues or something?’
‘I think McQueen experienced other problems with McKinney going back months, according to Nick Scanlon, the dealer we talked to. The stabbing of Mathie
son was the last straw as far as McQueen was concerned.’
‘Have you passed this intel on to Gerry Hobbs?’
‘I have.’
‘Is he pulling Charlie McQueen in for questioning? If he is, I’d like to be a fly on the wall of the interview room.’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘The NCA believe that due to the pressure McQueen is feeling after a few successful drugs busts and attacks on his business by a Russian gang, his business is contracting. As a result, they think McQueen needs Mathieson badly. In a bid to restore his faith, Charlie McQueen might be doing the pick-up himself at the next get-together on Devil’s Dyke.’
‘Interesting. Why don’t you do the stop there and arrest both of them? It’s a better place to mount an operation than the Newhaven depot.’
‘We considered it, but if we do Newhaven first, we can nab Mathieson and also the drivers involved. Then, the next day when Mathieson is due to meet Charlie McQueen, an NCA officer, who I’m assured is as portly as Ted Mathieson and about the same height, will drive a similar car to the one Mathieson uses for his trips to Devil’s Dyke. With a bit of luck, McQueen himself will show up, and if he does, we’ll nab him as well.’
**
‘Thanks for the beer, Angus, cheers,’ Gerry Hobbs said lifting the glass to his lips.
‘Cheers,’ Henderson said.
‘How are you getting with your big murder case?’
Henderson and Hobbs were sitting in the Hove Place, a pub not far from where Hobbs lived. They were squeezing in a quick drink before heading home, Henderson to a quick-cook lasagne for one and Hobbs to wish his kids goodnight before taking a seat and listening to what his exuberant wife did with her day.
‘Christ, three dead and two missing,’ Hobbs said, ‘it’s like the plot of one of those serial killer books my missus reads.’
‘Aye, it doesn’t make good reading. If it wasn’t confined to a small group of people, we’d have mass panic on our hands.’