by Chris Simms
Edwards stepped fully into the room and read from the paper in his hand. ‘Report just received from a patrol car over in Rusholme. The student who brought the laptop in – Philip Young.’
Roebuck’s eyebrows lifted. ‘What about him?’
‘They think it’s his body in the flat below the one he was renting.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Officers forced the front door of the flats. Two bodies in a ground-floor flat bedroom. The female who occupied it and what appears to be Philip Young. They’ve both been bludgeoned to death.’
Iona turned to Roebuck. We shouldn’t have let him go, she wanted to say. We need to find that girl in the duffel coat. Fast.
Roebuck’s face was white. ‘Anyone arrested at the scene?’
Edwards shook his head. ‘The female – a nurse called Wendy Morgan – was engaged. Patrols are out looking for the fiancé now.’
FOURTEEN
Nina walked down the aisle of her office. Eight women worked part time for her, the shifts of each one arranged by Nina so there were always at least three people in. A phone rang. Keyboards clicked. Business was good; what had started as a front for what she really dealt in had steadily grown. Thanks to her, it was now a viable commercial enterprise in its own right. True, not enough to sustain her large home and very comfortable lifestyle. How far she’d come! Her early years: they may as well be another person’s. She didn’t want the memories. She wished she could bleach them from her mind. She had no idea if her parents were still alive, her younger brothers and sister. She didn’t care. Her mum and dad had sold her at the age of fourteen. She didn’t know of any other girl who’d worked her way out of the brothels in the mining town of Vorkuta. Those she’d started with, she was sure, were dead by now. But she had guile as well as good looks. The owner of the brothel was soon won over. Better jobs came her way. Evenings that involved being taken to hotels in the town centre to visit men there. Men who could afford suites.
Clients started requesting her by name. Sometimes for an entire night. A few would even take her down to the hotel restaurant for a meal. It was on one such evening, while escorting an obese finance officer from a mining company, that she had been introduced to him. The one who saw that she was truly special. Sensing he could save her, she’d worked extra hard to enchant him, harder than with anyone before. And it had worked. He paid the necessary fee and took her out of the old gulag town, out of the Pechora coal basin completely.
Europe followed. England. He trusted her. No more clients: she was his. He didn’t want anyone else to touch her. Now she helped him run his business. She looked at the long thin white boxes piled neatly on the shelves. A spot of colour was stuck to each one – yellows, golds, beiges, tans, browns and blacks. So many shifting shades, the differences so subtle. But this wasn’t his business. His was the secret one. The one that involved the two young girls in the basement of the main house.
She entered her private office at the far end and closed the door. Four in the afternoon on Saturday. He was due to call. She turned on the computer, eyes moving briefly to the table where she’d so carelessly placed the laptop.
Heslin had known there were hidden aspects to her business. After all, she knew a few things about his set-up, too. The fact she paid him in cash each month to keep their entire arrangement off the books suited them both.
She logged into her video link and waited.
Clearing her throat, she took a small mirror from the top drawer and checked her appearance. Her platinum hair was cut by a hairdresser who visited her at home once every fortnight. The woman had worked for Toni and Guy’s but left when she knew enough of her clients would leave with her. Nina adjusted a strand of the jagged fringe and then bared her teeth: a perfect set of veneers.
Her natural teeth were as good as could be expected, but the poor diet and lack of dental care from her early years had weakened them irrevocably. If it wasn’t for several thousand pounds of private work, she’d now look like so many of her countrywomen: a mouth full of brown stumps every time she smiled.
Glancing down, she checked how the silk of her blouse contoured her breasts. They were, she thought proudly, perfectly natural. And something he was especially fond of.
The inner window on the screen clicked, went dull for a moment and clicked again. Suddenly, his face was there. She immediately smiled, eyes wanting to search his face for a clue to his mood. But his gaze was directed down at something off screen. He looked preoccupied, impatient. He usually did. She waited for him to speak.
‘There – that one, OK?’ He handed something to someone at his side and glanced up. ‘Can you hear me?’
She broadened her smile, a tight feeling in her throat. ‘Yes. Hello.’
His fine black hair shifted ever so slightly. She wondered where he was. Bright sunlight was bathing the side of his face.
‘Is it cold there?’ he asked.
‘Cold, but not uncomfortably so.’ She knew not to show weakness of any kind. He abhorred weak people. They were, to him, victims-in-waiting.
His mouth moved, rubbery lips twitching with amusement. There was something strangely sensual about them. ‘It is hot where I am. Too hot.’
‘I love the heat.’
‘I know you do.’
He was looking directly at her. Examining her. She felt her chin lift slightly, eyes on his. They were so dark. Inscrutable. His fingers came into view, a pistachio held in them. The knuckles of his thumbs jutted out for a second before the shell gave way with a sharp crack. She tried not to shudder at the noise. The bones of her middle fingers had made a very similar sound when he’d snapped them all those years ago.
Still looking at her, he popped the nut in his mouth and crunched on it. Don’t look down, she told herself. Even though if feels like you must.
‘My beautiful one. You are so beautiful. I wish you were here with me.’
She let herself blink.
‘Do you not want to be here with me?’
She inclined her head. ‘Of course I do.’
There was a twinkle in his eyes. ‘But you don’t know where I am.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Anyway, you said it’s hot there.’
He looked to the side and dropped the shells into something, smiling as he did so. ‘Soon, my pale jewel, soon. Then we will share such things together.’
She smiled, but not for too long.
‘First, though,’ he sighed, looking back at her. ‘We must work.’ He lifted a sheet of paper and continued to chew. It was the profile of one of the girls in the basement. The blonde, slender one. Shandy. ‘What is her real name?’
‘Madison.’
‘Madison.’ He considered it for a moment. ‘Madison. OK, this one we want. She is a virgin?’
Nina nodded.
‘She must be a virgin. The buyer I have, it is a condition. No sale otherwise.’
‘She is a virgin.’
He sipped from a shallow cup, swilled the liquid around his mouth and swallowed. His lips peeled back in a proper smile. ‘Aaah, this is why you amaze me so. Information like this – only someone with your particular skills. Good. I have her travel arrangements in place.’
‘OK.’
‘She must be ready for collection on Wednesday.’
‘In four days?
‘Correct.’
‘OK.’
The sheet of paper disappeared from view. He held up another. ‘This one, without a passport, Rihanna. Her real name?’
‘Chloe.’
He frowned. ‘We will stick with the name Rihanna. Have her ready to travel on Friday.’
‘You’re getting a passport for her?’
‘She will not need one; it will be a private flight.’
The jet, Nina thought. He only used the private jet when a girl was exceptional. Chloe Shilling certainly was not that. For a start, she wasn’t a virgin. Why go to the trouble of taking her abroad on a private flight? There was only one explanation she could think of.
They were going to use Chloe like they did Jade: to carry a bomb. Nina swallowed. ‘Where …’ She stopped. It was not a question she should ask. ‘They were expecting to travel together.’
He looked irritated. ‘So you explain to them how that is not possible.’
‘Very well.’
‘And the girl you lost.’ He held her eyes once more.
Nina’s thoughts turned to when Teah Rice managed to get out. The chase across the golf course, Gorton reservoir on one side, the M60 on the other. If she’d headed to the right at the bottom of the golf course she’d have found help, all the houses there. But she went left. And found herself on the motorway bridge, the lanes of the M60 below her.
It could have been so much worse. The girl had died, yes. But what she’d seen … If she’d escaped to report that, everything would have been over. Nina was actually quite relieved when the girl had stepped out into the air. ‘What about her?’
‘My client? He still wants this type of girl.’
‘I’m looking. I will find another.’
‘It must be soon. You have caused me to lose face.’
‘I am sorry.’ She thought about the basement. ‘I’ve put precautions in the place.’
‘Precautions?’
‘I have taken away their mobile phones. There is no access to the internet. And we lock the upper and lower doors behind us. There won’t be another escape.’
‘There must not be.’ He leaned closer to the screen. ‘Is there anything else?’
It took a monumental effort not to flinch from his gaze. How did he sense these things? It was uncanny. The urge to glance at the table where she’d left the laptop almost got the better of her. She looked calmly back at him. ‘Anything else?’
‘You are not telling me something.’
‘No.’ The shake of her head felt too rapid. Like she was trying to remove water from her hair. ‘There’s nothing else.’
He broke eye contact to crack open another nut. He popped it in his mouth. ‘OK.’
She knew that he knew something was amiss. It had been noted. And, eventually, he would raise it again. He never let anyone else’s secrets survive. Like cockroaches, he sought them out and stamped them open. She heard a voice off camera and his attention switched. He listened to the person speaking then looked back at her. ‘Tomorrow.’
The screen went blank and she breathed out slowly, fighting the shiver that was trying to take hold of her shoulders. The video-link connection might be off, but she didn’t trust the computer. He had access to it remotely. He might be there, watching her. Listening to her. The same went for the tiny camera hidden on the shelf unit behind her. When Nina found a suitable girl, she’d bring them to this office for an initial assessment. While the girl thought she was being interviewed for a role answering the phone in the next room, he was observing them from thousands of miles away. If they were judged to be suitable, Nina would mention the possibility of earning much better money – out in a very expensive club abroad.
Nina got up and left by a side door. Once safely outside, she took a cigarette from her packet and lit it with trembling fingers. Chloe. Why had he started using girls for that kind of thing? Carrying bombs. The only explanation was money; someone was obviously paying him huge amounts.
FIFTEEN
Iona shifted the phone to her other ear. The person she was speaking to at the university was humming to himself. ‘OK,’ he finally said. ‘That’s been logged as a high priority with the central IT department.’
‘Great, thanks. What will happen next?’
‘They’ll forward the message on to the IT department within each faculty.’
‘Each faculty has their own IT department?’
‘Yes. Faculty IT departments will then send your email to each student on their list.’
Iona didn’t like the multiple stages to the process; it increased the chance of error occurring somewhere down the line. ‘Can the central IT department not just email every student directly?’
‘It doesn’t work like that, unfortunately.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Well, historically, when the two universities merged back in 2004, certain schools within what was the Institute of Science and –’
‘OK.’ She didn’t have time for a lesson in the evolution of the University of Manchester. ‘How long before each student receives the email?’
‘I’d say within two hours. Whether they actually read the email, that’s another matter. Don’t bet on it, not with it being a Saturday.’
Iona looked at the message that would soon appear in around thirty-nine thousand students’ inboxes.
Can you help? It is vital that a female student at the University of Manchester contact Greater Manchester Police immediately.
This person was seen purchasing a Dell laptop from an unauthorized vendor in the student union building on Oxford Road last Tuesday at about five p.m. She is approximately 5’10” tall, has black hair and was wearing a distinctive purple duffel coat and green or orange Converse trainers.
Could this be you? Do you know her?
Please phone the number below with any information. All calls will be treated in the strictest confidence.
‘Can I ring you in another hour to check on progress?’ she asked, with more cheer than she felt.
‘Yes. You have my direct line, don’t you?’
‘I do. Thanks again, Lucas.’ She hung up and looked at the table by the photocopier. Euan was placing the posters she’d had printed into a plastic crate for transporting over to the campus. Six uniformed officers would be waiting for them. They were going to need a lot of drawing pins.
Iona jiggled one knee up and down. She didn’t believe Philip Young had been killed by the fiancé of the woman in the ground-floor flat. She wanted to see the crime scene for herself, but there was no chance of that. Forensics had sealed the place off so they could go about their business. It was a painstaking process and Iona had a horrible feeling the investigation was lagging far behind what was really going on.
The laptops. It was all about the laptops, she felt certain. Someone wanted them back. Khaldoon Khan was in Pakistan, so it wasn’t him. Most people in the CTU were sure it had to be Nirpal Haziq. Could it be someone else in CityPads? The owner, Shazan Quereni, was being looked at closely. His parents were from Iran and had fled to Britain in 1979 when the Shah was toppled from power.
Shazan had been three years old. He’d gone to school in Longworthy then done a business studies course at Bolton College. He’d worked in mobile phone sales before becoming an estate agent. Three years ago he’d set up CityPads. There was no record of him ever leaving Britain to visit any red-list country. He had no known association with any domestic extremist groups. He’d been a member of the Conservative Party since 2006. It didn’t appear that he was religious.
Iona looked at the papers on her desk. Four Dell laptops had gone missing from CityPads. Philip Young had bought one. The girl in the duffel coat another. Two were still unaccounted for. The thought made her nervous.
At a table alongside Euan’s desk, four support workers were going over the log for the previous day. It detailed every incident that had been reported to the Greater Manchester Police. In light of Philip Young’s death, the workers had been instructed to comb it for any type of violent crime. One of them was looking over, her hand half-raised.
Iona got up. ‘Find something?’
‘Yeah, this: a young female, found on Leardon Street in Fallowfield at eleven minutes past six in the afternoon.’
Fallowfield, Iona thought. A residential area popular with students. The worker clicked on the incident number to bring up the details. The attending officer had responded to a call from a member of the public who’d been returning home from work. She’d spotted the girl lying on the pavement and immediately called for an ambulance. The girl had sustained a serious head injury. There was no sign of her being robbed; her purse was still in her coat, as was a mobile phone. She
was wearing earphones connected to an iPod.
Iona looked for an identity. Emily Dickinson. There had been a student union card in her purse: University of Manchester. The girl had been taken to the Manchester Royal Infirmary. She was still unconscious.
Iona’s stomach tightened as she picked up a phone, called the police station on Bootle Street and asked for the officer handling the case.
‘That’ll be Sergeant Stephens,’ the control room operator had replied.
‘Jim? Sorry, James Stephens?’
‘That’s correct. Putting you through now.’ The phone rang twice.
‘Sergeant Stephens speaking.’
‘Jim, it’s Iona.’
‘Iona? Why are you phoning me on this—’
‘It’s a work call. I didn’t know I’d be put through to you.’
‘Oh. How’s things?’
‘Yeah, fine. And you?’
‘I’m good. Legs a bit stiff from the ride last night.’
She grimaced. Liar. ‘Right. Hayfield, was it?’
‘Yeah, near there. I fixed your mum’s dishwasher before coming in this morning.’
‘They’ll be grateful for that. Thanks, Jim.’
‘Hey, no problem.’
She stayed quiet, not wanting to discuss her family. Too often, it felt he was a part of it. She knew he wanted to be.
‘So, what’s up?’
She leaned a little closer to the support worker’s screen. ‘You know the serious assault yesterday afternoon on Leardon Street?’
‘Young adult female? They don’t think she’ll recover. Complete waste of a life.’
‘What was she wearing?’
‘Wearing?’
‘Specifically, her coat. Did she have one on?’
‘Hang on – I’ll bring up the attending officer’s notes. He just submitted them.’
Iona leaned her hand more heavily on the table. The ominous feeling was now making her chest feel tight.
‘Here you go … purple duffel coat, leggings – black. And green trainers, Converse.’
Iona lifted her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Black hair?’