1911021494

by MICHAEL HAMBLING

  ‘If it comes to a trial she will be called as a witness. Won’t it be seen as interference by an investigating officer?’

  ‘That’s a risk, Martin. But I think we’d get through it okay. Will you trust me on it?’

  Martin nodded. ‘Of course, as long as it’s not for too long. Remember that we’re meant to be visiting your grandparents at the weekend.’

  ‘Yes, Sunday, but it’s not certain yet. I have an uneasy feeling about this case. If we do go, I’ll find someone else to look after Nadia. By the way, Hannah can get a direct train back to London from Gloucester after we’ve visited. I’ll give her the money to get a taxi back to her flat from Paddington.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  Martin leaned over and kissed her cheek. ‘I’d better be off. Look, Sophie, you’re going to have to speak to Archie Campbell again. He phoned late last night and said that he’s been calling you on your mobile every few hours and you haven’t been answering.’

  ‘I know. Other than you, he and Harry Turner have been the most influential men in my life. He was a father figure to me for the eight years I was with West Midlands. I phoned to tell him about it on Monday, but I just told him then hung up. I didn’t want to tell him at all, but that would have been a dereliction. I just can’t cope with it. Not from the investigation side. My brain just seizes up. I’m scared I’ll break down if I talk to him about it.’

  ‘Sophie, I know how he feels about you. I expect he’s hurting as much as you, just thinking about what you’re going through. At least let him know that you are alright.’

  He called to Jade, who put her head round the door. ‘All done, Mum. There’s a bag on my bed.’

  Martin smiled at his daughter and turned back to Sophie. ‘By the way, I thought you wanted to get to work by eight?’

  ‘Barry took over at six this morning. He texted me last night just before I went to bed. That’s why I slept in late. He’s a real gem. I hope his girlfriend realises that.’

  ‘Was that the loud woman at the party we went to before Christmas?’ Jade asked.

  Sophie nodded.

  ‘Didn’t like her. A bit shallow. Attention-seeking. And he seemed a nice man. Kind of shy, you know?’ said Jade.

  ‘Don’t make judgements on the basis of one meeting, young lady,’ said her mother.

  ‘But first impressions are often right, aren’t they?’

  ‘That’s the problem, Jade. Often they are. But not always. So it’s always worth giving someone a second chance before making your mind up. They might not be their normal selves the first time around. Anyway, time for you to be going. Have a good day, both of you.’

  She tidied up and stacked the plates in the dishwasher. She grabbed the bag that Jade had left on her bed and went out.

  * * *

  Marsh was sitting outside Nadia’s room.

  ‘She’s still asleep, apparently. A nurse has just been in to check on her and thinks she’ll be awake shortly.’

  ‘Fine, Barry. I’ll take over from here. Go and get some breakfast, and we’ll meet in the incident room at ten. By the way, did you manage to rescue anything from that fire?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘Only a few bits and pieces. Some charred paper and remains of burned clothes. We gave it to forensics. They might make something of it. But there are no fingerprints in the house or on that pick-up.’

  ‘What? None at all?’ Sophie couldn’t believe this.

  ‘No. Every door handle, switch and knob has been wiped clean. They did a slick job. It must have been that pair we saw in the afternoon. Forensics are staying on. They reckon those guys have got to have missed something, somewhere.’

  ‘Professionals, Barry. They’re not going to make it easy for us. But if that young lad was killed on the farm, then there will be traces. He must have lost a lot of blood.’

  ‘So you think it’s linked? I’ve told forensics there’s a chance of it being the same people.’

  ‘She said that they’d been forced to watch someone called Stefan being killed. I’m guessing that’s the body you found,’ said Sophie.

  Marsh nodded. ‘Nearly forgot. HQ phoned the station and said that a Romanian speaker will be with us later this morning. Apparently Kevin McGreedie used her last year in a case at Bournemouth and she was really good. I’ll be off, ma’am. I’ll get someone else here by nine thirty.’

  Sophie took the chair into the ward. She sat beside Nadia’s bed until the young woman opened her eyes. Sophie squeezed her hand and stroked her hair.

  ‘Hello, Nadia. You see, here I am. There has been someone with you all night, making sure you are safe. How do you feel?’

  Nadia gave her a sleepy smile.

  ‘I feel I am from bad dream. Men will be look for me.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. I think you need something to eat and drink. Shall I ring for the nurse?’

  Nadia had her breakfast and was sipping coffee. Sophie decided it was time to ask about what had happened to her. Nadia struggled to find the right words.

  ‘I go on roof. They were looking. I was hide. I there for all day. I come down in dark and to fire for warm. I saw you.’

  ‘What happened before then, Nadia? How long were you there?’

  Tears came to the girl’s eyes.

  ‘I not have words in English. Bad, bad men.’

  ‘You said yesterday that they killed Stefan. Was he a young man? Did you know him?’

  ‘He was with them. He saw me. We are . . . how you say?’

  Sophie said, ‘Friends?’

  Nadia shook her head.

  ‘Family?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Brother? Is he your brother, Nadia?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Cousin?’

  ‘Yes. Cousin.’

  Sophie decided to wait until the interpreter arrived before she tried for any more information. She showed Nadia the clothes that Jade had left for her.

  ‘These are for you, Nadia. My daughter has given them to you.’

  Sophie had expected there to be one set of clothes, but Jade had included underwear, a pair of faded blue jeans, a pair of pink trousers, two T-shirts, two jumpers, one pink and the other blue, and socks. She’d even thought to include a jacket, a hairbrush, a pair of gloves and a pair of trainer shoes. Sophie was surprised at the thought that had gone into the selection.

  ‘Is very kind,’ Nadia said. ‘What is name?’

  ‘Jade. Don’t change into the clothes yet, Nadia. The doctor is coming back to examine you. You must wait. How are you feeling now?’

  ‘I am sleepy. But I safe now.’ She looked intently at Sophie and squeezed her hand. ‘Thank you. With my heart.’

  Mark Benson arrived a few minutes later to examine Nadia. Sophie sat and watched.

  ‘Now you,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You looked a bit peaky yesterday evening. I’ll just give you a quick onceover.’ He winked at Sophie and mouthed, ‘Good for her to see.’

  She sat on the end of the bed while he took her blood pressure and listened to her chest through his stethoscope.

  ‘Fully fit,’ he solemnly announced.

  ‘I should bloody well hope so, you cheeky devil. You look as though you’ve wanted to do that for ages.’

  ‘All part of the Benson service.’

  He and Sophie went outside for a moment so he could speak to her. ‘Now, Nadia is physically already on the road to recovery. Some good food, exercise and time to relax are all she needs. I’ll prescribe her some more sedatives to help her sleep. I imagine that will be a problem. Psychologically? She will need some counselling once things settle. Today, though, we’ve got to decide what we do with her. There was an overnight fishing boat accident and the hospital really needs her bed.’

  ‘I can put her up myself, Mark, but only for a couple of nights. It would be convenient while we’re questioning her. But we’ll have to find somewhere for her to go after that.’

  ‘Do you think the Roman
ian embassy might have some suggestions?’

  ‘Possibly, but I’m worried about her safety. I think she’ll be in extreme danger, though I don’t know any of the facts yet. We’ve got an interpreter coming in this afternoon. I have to let the embassy know that we have her, so that they can inform her family back in Romania. But if any information leaks out, the gang that did this to her could find out where she is. And I’m not having that happen.’

  ‘Sounds fair to me, if you’re happy to do it. I’ll come back in after lunch to do another check, and I’ll discharge her then if all is okay. Suit you?’

  ‘Fine. And thanks.’

  * * *

  When Sophie arrived at Swanage police station a little later, Marsh told her that the forensic team was still at Brookway Farm.

  ‘We’ll have to leave them to get on with it, ma’am. They’ll let us know the instant they find anything. David Nash is in charge again.’

  ‘Fine. It’s just that with so little to go on, I feel as if I’m in limbo. Until we interview Nadia this afternoon we can’t really make any progress.’ She paused. ‘Let’s work through the probable order of events yesterday, okay? Take me through it, Barry. We’ll see if anything occurs to us.’

  He began. ‘Jack Holly and Jen Allbright called at the farm at about ten thirty in a marked squad car. The man who answered the door raised their suspicions, but not in any direct way.’

  ‘Okay, stop. That probably means he wasn’t either of the two men that you and I saw in the afternoon. Their attitude would have made anyone suspicious. How did they describe him?’

  ‘Late thirties. Gap in his front teeth. Medium height. So you’re right. The one who talked to us didn’t have a gap in his teeth, and the other one was short and bulky. So there are at least three,’ he said.

  ‘And Holly didn’t comment on his accent, so it’s unlikely that he was foreign. Let’s move on.’

  Marsh continued. ‘They decide to leave. They decide to move the girls out? I’m guessing here. You probably know more than me from your talk with the girl.’

  ‘She did say “we”, as if she was part of a group. I got the impression that it was a group of women or girls, but I might be wrong. Somehow she escaped, and I’m guessing it was during the move. But why didn’t she have any clothes on?’

  ‘Maybe they were stripped. It would reduce the chances of escape. It’s a well-known method of intimidation, isn’t it?’ said Marsh.

  ‘She says that she hid on the roof. Do we have any photos of the place?’

  ‘I asked Jimmy to take some while he was over there first thing this morning. I’ll get him to print them out.’

  While Marsh was gone, Sophie went in search of Jack Holly. She asked him to start examining photofit images on the national police database to see if he could pick out the man at the farm. When she returned Marsh was back with Melsom and the prints.

  ‘Can either of you remember where the bathroom was?’ she said.

  ‘Top floor, back wall, halfway up the stairs,’ replied Melsom.

  ‘So is that its window, do you think?’ She pointed at one of the images. ‘It’s like a little dormer, sticking out from the building.’

  ‘I think so, ma’am,’ he replied.

  ‘So if she got out, she could clamber up using that downpipe, then onto the small roof, and from there up onto the main roof?’

  ‘Looks like it could be done if someone was agile enough. I wouldn’t like to have chanced it though. And it explains the towel. And once she was missing, they’d look for her on the ground or hiding in one of the sheds. Maybe it didn’t occur to them that she’d gone upwards. They’d expect her to make a run for it,’ he said. ‘Clever girl.’

  ‘That’s my Nadia,’ Sophie said. ‘Now, what happened next?’

  ‘They’d spend some time searching for her, but it would have to be quick. The other girls would have to be guarded while they were doing it, and maybe there were only the three of them,’ said Melsom.

  ‘We know they didn’t find her, so what would they do?’

  ‘Get the rest of the girls away then come back to make a more thorough search,’ he said.

  ‘But you and I turned up, Barry. That probably spooked them even more. Once we’d gone they burned the stuff they didn’t want to take, and left by boat. So the big question is, where could they have gone?’

  ‘Poole Harbour’s vast, ma’am. Isn’t it the largest natural harbour in Europe? It’s got three or four inhabited islands and dozens of small ones. The shore this side is a maze of creeks and inlets, and the far side is one huge built-up area. They could have gone anywhere,’ Marsh said.

  ‘Yes, but they didn’t, Barry, did they? They probably went somewhere very specific. We need to think it through. Let’s move back to the body on the rock. We’ve already said it was a very public statement. They knew the body would be found, and that we’d start making enquiries when it was discovered. They’d guess that we’d do exactly what we have done and start a house-to-house. They knew we’d get to their place sooner or later, so they’d have another ready. In fact, my guess is that they were going to move anyway. That’s why they put the body where we found it. A twisted sort of farewell gift. Didn’t they say that the place was rented from an agency and was up for sale? I think they’ve got somewhere else, somewhere better. Now comes the guess work. Criminals don’t change their habits much. That applies to most people by the way, not just the slime balls. So the new place won’t be vastly different from the old one. Let’s assume that their system, whatever it was, was working for them. They’d want to keep it going. So their new place is likely to be near the harbour.’

  ‘But Poole Harbour has a coastline of thirty-six miles, ma’am, so I’m told. And that’s not counting the islands,’ said Marsh.

  ‘Bear with me, Barry. Let’s look at the map. The islands wouldn’t be any good for them. They’d be a trap. I think we can also discount all the residential areas. I don’t think they’ll want to be too close to their old place either. They’ll still be based at a farm, or maybe industrial buildings of some kind. That’s my guess, anyway.’

  ‘I can’t fault your reasoning, ma’am,’ said Marsh.

  ‘I think they’d been planning this move for some time. You know, if it hadn’t been for your Mr Kirby’s new binoculars, and you getting off the mark so quickly with the house-to-house, we might have missed them entirely. Maybe they thought they had plenty of time for a leisurely move, and then Allbright and Holly came calling. If so, Nadia owes her life to their prompt action. If the gang hadn’t needed to get away so fast, they would have taken their time searching and they’d have found her.’

  She turned to Melsom. ‘And you, Jimmy. You deserve a ticking off for deciding to wander down to the farm yesterday afternoon without my say-so. But you may just have saved that girl’s life.’

  ‘So do we start looking along the coastline? It’ll take a long time, ma’am,’ asked Marsh.

  ‘We’ll wait until this afternoon. I want to hear what Nadia has to say before I decide. If she confirms my thoughts, then I’ll get the go-ahead from HQ to assign the manpower to it. Meanwhile, Barry, you and I have to make an attempt at identifying those two heavies from the photofits. So fetch yourself a coffee and get stuck in. Jimmy, the tongue-cutting may give us a lead. Start digging to see if there are records of any previous incidences. By the way, I think the victim might be Nadia’s cousin. If so, his name is Stefan.’

  ‘The pick-up truck is a dead end. They hired it from a company in Poole, but gave false details. An address that is no longer there for a man who doesn’t exist,’ said Marsh.

  ‘Well, it was worth a try.’

  Sophie called Archie Campbell again. This time she managed to speak for longer.

  Chapter 5: Horror Story

  Wednesday, Week 1

  Nadia was discharged from the hospital and she and Sophie drove to the police station. As they entered they passed someone waiting in the reception area who Sophie vagu
ely recognised. She led Nadia to her temporary office, and called Marsh to sit with the girl.

  ‘The interpreter’s arrived, ma’am. She’s waiting in reception,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what I was afraid of. Okay, you stay here with Nadia. I’ll go and get her. Or not. Oh, why did it have to be her?’

  Marsh looked puzzled.

  ‘We have a history. I didn’t realise she was a Romanian speaker. I may have to abort this, Barry, and get someone else. So be prepared. And this cubbyhole is too bloody small. Is there any chance of getting somewhere a bit more spacious and comfortable?’

  Sophie returned to reception and approached the visitor.

  ‘Doctor Porter.’

  The woman smiled awkwardly. ‘Hello again, Chief Inspector. I suspect that you might not feel very positive about taking me on as your interpreter. And I can understand that. You left me feeling humiliated and ashamed last time we met. I have to say that I deserved the tongue-lashing you gave me. It was only after your harsh words that I fully understood how badly I’d let that young woman down. It made me rethink my approach to what I was doing. I suppose I really owe you my thanks. I offer you my apologies over what happened, even though they can never bring that poor girl’s life back.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘I didn’t know you were a Romanian speaker.’

  ‘My husband is Romanian. I met him on an exchange of Business Studies students. I’m fluent in spoken rather than written Romanian. I imagine that’s what you want? That’s why I’m registered with the local police in Bournemouth.’

  ‘Yes. To get someone in from UCL would take days, and whoever they did send would be vastly overqualified for the interpreting I want them to do. But I’d be prepared to wait if necessary. Do you understand that?’