by Iain Cameron
‘Any worse than it is now? Look at this place,’ Hobbs said looking around the lounge of the pub. ‘There’s hardly any women here.’
‘I could take the pressure off by telling the press what we know, or think we know, but I don’t want to alert the traffickers that we’re getting closer. They probably think the cops here are as corrupt and incompetent as the ones in their own country. Well, let them. When we turn up I want it to be a big surprise.’
‘They haven’t given you much to go on, have they?’
‘You know as well as I do even the most careful killers make mistakes. Our job is to find them.’
‘Locard’s Exchange Principle and all that.’
‘The very man. Can you manage another?’
‘Sure, but only the one.’
Henderson went to the bar for refills. Hobbs was right, he could see plenty of people in the pub, but the few women around were in the company of men and they didn’t look relaxed. It wouldn’t keep everyone at home at night, there were still those who were blasé about their chances, those who didn’t read newspapers and others who deliberately ignored what they believed to be Big Brother telling them what to do.
He returned to the table. It was in the corner with a good view of the room, a habit ingrained into drug dealers, ex-cons and police officers.
‘Cheers,’ Hobbs said, lifting a fresh pint of lager to his lips. ‘It’s not like me to pry into other people’s lives, Christ knows I get my fill of drama at home, but it’s usually you who’s heading home first, not me. Everything all right between you and Rachel?’
‘No, it’s not, Gerry. She’s left me.’
‘She’s what?’
‘She hasn’t moved all her stuff out, only a suitcase full, but she’s gone back to live with her parents where she’ll, and I quote, ‘reconsider her future.’ Whatever that means.’
‘I’m really sorry to hear it, Angus.’
‘Ach, these things happen, but thanks.’
‘She doesn’t get on with her mother, I seem to remember.’
‘You’re right there. They’re too similar in so many ways and argue over everything.’
‘I warned you, mate, that Vicky Neal is a real ball breaker.’
Henderson laughed. ‘You think I’d go out with someone I work beside? No way. It’s nothing to do with Vicky. It’s the job, Gerry, nothing else.’
‘You’re stuffed then. If she said you had questionable toilet habits or smelly feet, you could do something about it, but the job’s the job. It can’t be changed. In fact, without getting too poetic, it’s more than a job, it’s a… a calling.’
‘You must have seen this with Catalina, but when you first meet a new woman, you explain the kind of work you do and any time you’re called away it’s okay, they’re not too bothered. Then, when you move in together, it all of a sudden becomes a major problem.’
‘It’s the same with alcoholics. When the couple go out, she loves the fact they’re forever in the pub and, after sinking a few down his neck, he’s the life and soul. Then, when they get married it’s like one of those Christmas records by Slade or Shakin’ Stevens. Once you’ve heard the same song a hundred times, you could take a hammer to it.’
Henderson said goodbye to Hobbs ten minutes later, Hobbs walking towards Church Road and home, Henderson heading towards the seafront to the place where he’d parked the car.
He decided he would eat his lasagne beside a roaring gas fire and have a couple of glasses of Glenmorangie to ward off the blues. He could take his pick of the cause: Rachel leaving, him not solving this murder case, or the sight of a lovely young woman being dissected with the pathologist’s knife.
He started the car and remembered he was low on whisky. He could drive back to College Place and buy it from the local pub, but they added at least ten pounds to the price. He racked his memory, trying to recall a decent off-licence in Hove, and then remembered his favourite booze shop, the Regency Wine Warehouse, was close by in Portslade.
Once inside the warehouse, he wasted no time admiring the comprehensive wine selection and headed straight for the whisky. Regency dabbled in Irish, included a few of the American big brands and even one or two Japanese, but it majored on Scottish whisky. Henderson didn’t stop to ponder if he’d like a peaty malt from Islay or a single blend from Orkney, and instead reached for his favourite tipple and took it to the counter.
‘The boss not in tonight?’ he asked the male assistant as he wrapped his purchase.
‘No, he doesn’t often stay beyond five.’
‘Family man?’
‘Have you met his missus?’
‘No.’
‘You know him like? I’m not talking out of school?’
Henderson had spoken to him a few times but he wouldn’t say he knew him well. ‘Whatever you say won’t get back to him.’
‘She comes in here quite a lot, but she’s too fond of the stuff we sell, if you know what I mean. Her antics drive him potty.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, I think he avoids going straight home after work and tries instead to visit some of the other branches most days. I know if I was married to a woman like that I would do the same.’
Henderson walked back to his car, the assistant’s little tale playing on his mind. Well, well, everything in Constantin Petrescu’s garden wasn’t as golden as the owner would have everyone believe.
His thoughts were interrupted when his phone rang.
‘Hello, DI Henderson here.’
‘Ah, good evening, DI Henderson, I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time. It’s Hal Anderson from the DNA and Forensics Unit.’
‘No, it’s fine. You’re obviously working late.’
‘Well, we knew this was a rush job and you would want a result as soon as possible. We’ve analysed the skin cell samples from the body of Ivona Lupei you sent us and found a match on the system. It belongs to a man by the name of Vasile Lazar.’
THIRTY-SIX
Veronika Kardos woke, her head thick and woozy as if she’d downed six shots at her favourite nightclub, Peaches and Cream in the centre of Budapest. Not that she ever drank that much as the salary she received as a shop assistant didn’t allow it.
On Tuesday night, she stepped off the bus into a downpour, looking miserable and feeling sorry for herself. Why did she take the lift from the handsome stranger in the Toyota? She’d read in newspapers of girls being kidnapped and taken to foreign countries to work in filthy factories and serve in the houses of abusive and ignorant people. She liked to joke with a girl at work that she wouldn’t find it so bad. Veronika had once worked in a dirty tyre factory and didn’t she wait hand on foot on her alcoholic father?
The one thing she feared was becoming a sex worker. She was catholic and, unlike her father and neighbours who pretended to be pious when the occasion demanded it, she believed she was the real deal. Not a bible-thumping maniac who gave all her earthly goods away to the poor and couldn’t wait to get to heaven. One who liked to have a good time as far as her money would allow but lived by the teachings of Christ. She regularly visited an elderly neighbour, assisted the priest on Sundays and didn’t believe in sex before marriage.
The other girls in the minibus, those she could speak to when they weren’t sleeping under a drug-induced haze, had depressingly familiar stories like her own. What they had in common was they all did low-level jobs, not a difficult thing to find across Eastern Europe, and came from poorer backgrounds. As a result, their families could not afford to bribe the police and newspapers to conduct a concerted effort to find their missing children. They knew it, the traffickers knew it.
Her eyes opened at the border and she believed she saw signs in English making her think they were in the UK. The scenery passing the windows was of fields and trees, but with darkness all around she couldn’t see anything to give her any idea of the direction they were travelling.
She must have dozed off for a spell and when she awoke, her head was c
lear. She felt the bus slowing and moments later it turned to the left and into a narrow path between dark trees. The trees surrounded them as they drove, making her think they were in the middle of a forest.
In the gap between the seats in front she had an oblique view of the windscreen. The dancing headlights picked out a long low concrete building to the left, and a brightly-lit house in the shape of a very large hay barn about one hundred metres on the right. She hoped they would be told to go right, but somehow knew it would be left.
‘Everybody out,’ the driver’s mate said in broken Hungarian. The man speaking was thin and wiry and had the eyes of a weasel, while the driver was a bull of a man with little or no neck, reminding her of big Erik, a worker on a neighbouring farm who had the strength of two and the intellect of an eight-year-old. Neither man resembled the Toyota driver who had lured her into his car. She assumed he was back in her home country looking for other girls to kidnap; the evil swine.
They trundled out of the minibus slowly and moodily, some annoyed to be woken up from a dreamless sleep, others quietly weeping They stood close by the bus, their presence illuminated by the lights of the vehicle and a bright light on top of the concrete building. Away from the noises inside the minibus, she could now hear the sounds of dogs barking and realised it was coming from the far side of the concrete building. She liked dogs, but she didn’t like the sound of those ones.
‘This will be your home for the next few days,’ the little weasel said. He spoke Hungarian, badly, but then most Hungarians believed Romanians did most things badly.
‘What happens after then?’ Veronika asked.
Weasel-eyes walked over and punched her in the face. His fist hit her on the cheek and even though she saw it late due to the shadows formed by the lights, she still managed to deflect her head and diminish some of the force. It hurt, but the runt wasn’t strong enough to break bones. She was sure glad the driver didn’t punch her as she wouldn’t hear the rest of the arrival speech.
Weasel-eyes raised a finger and pointed it round the bedraggled group of girls. ‘None of you ask me any questions, understand? Where was I? Ah, yes. Do not think of trying to escape. This area is surrounded by a high fence and if we find you we will use these,’ he said, pulling a gun from his waistband and holding it up for them to see. ‘If you try and hide, we will release the dogs you can hear barking and they will come looking for you. These are not friendly little pooches but big hungry, hunting dogs. You will hope we find you before they tear you to pieces. Come,’ he said waving his gun in a ‘follow me’ gesture, ‘this way.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
At eight-seventeen on a cold, clear Thursday evening, the gates of Mathieson Transport slid open and a huge Volvo truck reversed into the yard. The brakes let out an ear-shuddering hiss as the truck slowed before disappearing inside the jaws of the loading bay. Once it had come to a halt, the heavy steel loading bay door started its descent with a loud rattle and shake, disturbing the peace and calm of a quiet Newhaven night.
When the door reached the halfway point and Ted Mathieson had left his observation spot at the window on the first floor, two armed officers, one from the NCA and DS Vicky Neal from Sussex Police, nipped under the rapidly closing door. They were both wearing black clothes, black flak jackets and black baseball caps, and snuck into the shadows of the partially-lit loading bay on the opposite side of the truck from the driver to await this evening’s expected entertainment.
A minute or so later, the door leading from the office area opened and Ted Mathieson walked in carrying a can of Coke and, down at his side what looked to Neal in the dim light like a gun.
‘Steve, good to see you,’ Mathieson said to the truck driver as he climbed down from the cab. ‘I’d give you a hug but my gut would give me dog’s abuse.’
‘Are you taking anything for it?’
‘Nah, just some paracetamol if it plays up, but I tell you, it doesn’t half pep up your sex life.’
‘How? I would have thought an injury like that would put something as boisterous as shagging on the back burner for a couple of months at least.’
‘No way. My young missus felt so sorry for me after being stabbed, so she did, all I have to do now is just lie there and let her mouth do all the work.’
‘I must try that some time. Her indoors thinks her tongue’s for licking the bottom of crisp packets.’
They both started laughing and the shoulders of the NCA officer in front of Neal shook. She hoped it wouldn’t spoil the recording he was making, the voices of Mathieson and Steve coming over loud and clear. The two men moved around to the front of the truck and from there, the officers could see them. If one of them looked in their direction they could duck behind the truck or stay still and let the shadows and dull light keep them hidden.
‘Here’s your Coke, but there’s no Snickers left, only a Bounty.’
‘What happened?’ Steve said, holding up the ‘gun’ which she realised now was the dark shape of the chocolate bar, bent over in the middle to form an ‘L’.
‘Just before you arrived I heard a noise outside in the yard and thought it might be those thieves who’ve been breaking into warehouses around here. I must have turned too quickly and tweaked my wound. It screamed bloody blue murder at me. I put my hand against a wall for support and realised I was still holding your Bounty bar. Sorry mate.’
‘No worries, it still tastes the same,’ Steve said, tearing off the wrapper and starting to munch.
‘How’s Otto?’
‘Jolly as ever even when he’s telling me bad news. He says the next batch will cost us more, maybe an additional ten per cent as his sources are feeling the heat from the DEA. Market forces, he says.’
‘Market forces my arse. He probably needs the money for the shopping mall he’s planning to build in Strasbourg. Doesn’t he know the EC are talking about moving it all back to Brussels? Let me make some enquiries and I’ll get back to you before you see him again. If he’s playing us for silly buggers, don’t you worry, I’ll call his bluff.’
‘Do you want to deal with the stuff now?’
‘Nah, we’ll do it in a mo. I want to show you something first. Walk this way.’
‘What, walk like you do with one hand over my gut?’
‘Fuck off, you cheeky git.’
The two men walked back to the door leading to the offices, opened it and disappeared inside. The door snapped closed behind them on the strong spring of a fire door.
NCA Officer Gary Walker turned to face Neal. ‘So far, so good,’ Walker whispered. ‘We’ve got on tape what they’ve been talking about and it’s obviously about drugs–’
‘I’m not totally convinced,’ Neal said. ‘I’m sure a good lawyer could persuade a jury otherwise.’
‘I suppose what they said could be twisted out of context, but it won’t matter if we catch them with their hands on the goods.’
She nodded, she wanted it too.
‘So now, we either wait and see if they come back and bring out the merchandise, or if they’ve called it a day and gone home.’
‘It won’t be much fun staying in here all night.’
‘You’re right but if I’m not mistaken, that big black button by the door opens the loading bay door. If it doesn’t work, there’s an access door beside it and if it’s locked we, or the guys outside, can force it open.’
‘Thank god for that. I didn’t bring anything to eat and I like my food.’
Walker removed his NCA cap to reveal thinning grey hair and drew his sleeve across the sweat dotted on his brow. She felt hot but not under her hat, under her flak jacket. No way would she take it off, because if she did, as sure as eggs were eggs, shooting would start.
Walker replaced his cap. ‘If they do bugger off home, we’ll search the truck.’
‘Up there,’ she said, indicating the ceiling, ‘I can see a couple of PIRs. This place is alarmed. They’ll set the thing before they go, I’m sure.’
‘If they
do,’ Walker said ‘we’ve got twenty, twenty-five minutes to pull this lorry apart and find the drugs before the key holder or the local plod shows up. It’s my least preferred option. See, we might find the stash, but we’ve only got the tape as evidence against Mathieson and his driver.’
Most of what Walker just talked about had been covered already in the briefing. The NCA guys were ex-coppers and top-notch at analysing what-ifs and undertaking risk assessments. They’d looked at the ‘going home’ scenario and thought it unlikely. If Steve’s truck contained a stash of Class A drugs as they anticipated, no way would he or Ted Mathieson want it going back on the road the following day.
In addition, they wouldn’t want regular staff unloading the truck in the morning and making a chance discovery. The NCA expected the truck to be divested of its illegal cargo tonight, the question was, when?
Neal sat in silence for several minutes, wondering if the men had gone out for a beer to celebrate their good fortune or were sitting upstairs, tucking into a curry take-away. She liked take-aways but preferred the real thing, especially with Nan bread and cold beer. She had to stop thinking about food, this could be a long night.
A short time later Walker said, ‘I hear movement.’
They ducked down, peering around the bumper of the truck for thirty seconds or so before the door opened. Ted Mathieson and Steve walked in, jabbering on like a couple of old women as they discussed a video Mathieson had obviously been showing his driver.
They stood talking guy’s stuff for a few minutes before Steve clapped his hands together. ‘Right mate, let’s press on. It’s been a long day and I’d like to go home. I’ll get the gear.’
Now came the tricky stage. They’d debated in the briefing about where Steve would stash the drugs, but with no knowledge of the truck he drove they instead pooled their experience. This ranged from dummy fuel tanks, to hollow body panels and fake spare wheels. It could also be hidden within the load. However, with only two guys in attendance and one of those not fit to lift anything heavier than a pen, the officers didn’t believe they would be capable of unloading a large lorry most likely stacked with heavy pallets.