He Knows Your Secrets

by Charlie Gallagher

  ‘Sex workers, Harry. I’ve worked with them before when I was undercover. I heard a lot of talk about the police, none of it was positive. The general consensus is that police see sex workers as fair game who are asking to be victims. I don’t know any of this for sure but it would make sense.’

  ‘What else was in that rucksack?’’

  ‘Relevant lines of enquiry Harry! That’s what.’ She reached down for another evidence bag. This one contained a lined page from a notebook laid out face up and visible through the plastic. It was a list of names. The page was headed Ugly Mugs.

  ‘Ugly mugs?’ Harry said.

  ‘Yeah. A common term on the street. We had the same system in the North West. If a girl had a bad client, if they got beat on or the client was particularly depraved, the client’s name was added to this list. They were known as ugly mugs. The list got shared so the other girls knew, sometimes with other houses, too.’

  Harry’s eyes lingered on Maddie long enough for her to sense an enquiry.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We had a system?’

  ‘I was good at it, Harry. Undercover work, I mean. That doesn’t mean I had sex for money! There are other roles you can perform without blowing cover.’

  ‘I assume blowing cover wasn’t one of them?’

  ‘A Harry Blaker joke! And a crude one! I should start documenting these — each one feels like a breakthrough.’ It felt even more like a breakthrough in that moment. Harry seemed calm again — interested maybe.

  ‘I surprise myself sometimes.’

  ‘I much prefer you joking to how you were when you came in here. You’re not angry with me anymore, then?’

  Harry sighed. ‘Is there any point? You have that excitement about you. I’ve seen it before. I might as well see where it goes and stay involved. If I tell you to leave it you’re just going to carry on in private, as it would appear you have already. You have your teeth in this.’

  ‘There is something here to get my teeth into. Something more than just a career criminal running girls. I just need to find it.’

  ‘Fine. You have twenty-four hours to make headway. If you haven’t, if there’s nothing more you can tell me you’re going to have to move back to your case file. And I mean grounded at the nick until it is done.’

  ‘Headway?’

  ‘Headway. Right now all we have is a career criminal running sex workers. Even if you could get any of the workers to talk to you, it’s pretty much decriminalised. Headway means getting something Major Crime might be interested in.’

  ‘I think Major Crime are already interested . . .’ Maddie studied him intently.

  His nose twitched upwards.

  ‘Tell me you’re not!’

  Harry turned away. ‘I’m always interested in catching criminals, Maddie. We just need to make sure we’re focusing our efforts on the right ones. This is Major Crime.’ He started moving away now. Maddie had to call after him.

  ‘So you keep saying! What are you going to do? If CPS call you again, I mean?’

  ‘Same as you. I’ll be ignoring my phone.’

  ‘What if they miss you out and go to the Chief Inspector?’

  Harry didn’t stop or turn to answer. ‘Very likely. You have twenty-four hours as far as I’m concerned, but Mr Lowe might have different ideas if he gets a sniffy prosecution lawyer on the end of the phone. I suggest you start making your headway as soon as possible.’ He reached the door and he was gone.

  Maddie looked back down at the contents of Holly Maguire’s bag. The items were strewn across her desk and floor in clear plastic evidence bags. In isolation they were a mishmash of nonsense: an address book, a metal door number, some out-of-focus photos, a solid ashtray — totally unrelated. But Maddie was certain they were pieces of a puzzle and the hidden message was so important that a young woman had ended her life to deliver it. Harry might need some convincing, but Maddie was very much there already. Whatever picture these pieces of puzzle made, it was very much of interest to Major Crime.

  * * *

  ‘Fuck!’ Kelly stepped back from the kitchen drawer. The paperwork that had been in her hand fell to the floor and a little drop of blood fell on top of it. She shoved her finger into her mouth and sucked.

  She was back at her flat. She didn’t think he would come here first. She’d hardly spent any time there — always at Holly’s. But she hadn’t thought he knew her mum’s address at all and yet he’d walked right up to the door. She had to assume he knew her better than she thought. Surely he would be looking for her right now. And she knew what it would mean if they found her.

  She just needed a few items. She was convinced her passport was in the kitchen drawer, she could remember putting it in there when she moved in. There had been no reason to move it since. It wasn’t there. The drawers were untidy. She had been grabbing stacks of old letters and documents to clear the drawer out completely and, in her haste, she had stabbed her finger on a discarded bottle opener.

  The prick of pain had distracted her from the panic a little. She focused on her breathing, but this merely quelled the panic to a niggling anxiety. She needed to get out of there.

  The thud against the door made her jump so hard she expelled air in a whimper. She was frozen to the spot. It was a single thud, not a knock, and it was accompanied by a clink of glass as if someone had bumped a sack of jars against it. She paced over to the door. The spyhole showed the wall opposite and nothing else. She listened. There was no sound. It was impossible to move through the stone walkways without being heard. She waited a full minute or more, her eye pressed against the spyhole the whole time. Nothing.

  She felt for the handle. To her heightened senses the metal was cold and the sound of the mechanism was deafening as she turned it. She stepped back, her body so rigid that it made her neck ache. She pulled the door quickly.

  A black sack yawned inwards, the top layer of its contents spilling out. Two glass bottles thudded onto the thin carpet.

  ‘What the hell?’ She pushed out with her foot and nudged one of the bottles. A label for some cheap vodka rolled into view. She expelled a breath. It had to be some lazy neighbour who couldn’t be bothered to walk the two flights down to the bins. She stepped to the door. She stuck her head out enough to check both ways. The corridor was empty.

  She dropped the two errant bottles back in the sack and pulled the sack together to tie it. She caught a glimpse of something white. It was on the other side of the sack. She leaned forward. Something was written on a stapled piece of paper in messy writing. She moved around to see it.

  Put this in your bin. Do it now.

  You have work tomorrow.

  You will be told where.

  Do it now.

  Kelly felt the air leave her lungs again. She stepped right out into the corridor this time to view the whole length of it. There was still no one in sight. She stared over dumbly at the black sack, not knowing what to do. She moved back inside and leant on her front door to hold it closed.

  ‘Think!’ she said to herself in a voice that didn’t sound like her own. She looked around her flat, not knowing what for. Her gaze lingered on the knife drawer.

  She yanked it open too hard, the cutlery inside made a metallic clang and she spun back to face her front door like someone the other side might now know what she was doing. She shook her head. Most of her knives were near useless; the good ones had all been at Holly’s. The only one that looked sharp was a small, stubby thing she had used for peeling fruit. She pushed it into her pocket and moved back to the front door, tugging it open. The bag was still there. She bunched it up and tied off the neck. She felt her pocket for her keys and pulled the door shut.

  She read the note again, this time she seemed to absorb the words a little better. You have work tomorrow. She read that sentence a couple of times. If someone was coaxing her out of her flat to hurt her, why write that? And why coax her out at all? The doors here were easy to force; she was pretty certain that hers wo
uld just push open and then someone would be able to confront her away from prying eyes.

  She felt a little more assured, enough to be able to move forward. Still, she tiptoed along the corridor to the stairs. She stopped at the top. The layout was different to Truro House, the stairs more enclosed, and she couldn’t see down the middle. She stopped to listen. Silence.

  The air outside of the block was still. She rucked up the doormat so that it would stop the communal door on the ground floor from latching behind her. She had a fob but it would make a second or two’s difference and that might be time she needed. The confidence she had gained from reading back the note was all but gone now as she stepped away from the building and out into the open. She felt exposed and vulnerable. The bins were all stored together. The block had a wide tunnel for cars that looked like it had been gauged through the middle of the building as an afterthought. The road itself was only just wide enough to allow access to the car park behind. The bins were kept in a recess on the right, half way along.

  She took a sharp turn left. The tunnel was formed by huge concrete posts that were intermittent along its length with a steel mesh bolted to them to create storage areas behind. These stone posts wore a layer of grime and the staining continued onto the ceiling. There was a reddish brown staining on the floor, too, where rivulets of rusty water from the cage had formed shallow puddles. The daylight was vastly diminished as she moved under the building and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She waited for it, her heightened senses picking out the rustle of something near the bins. It sounded like a rodent — hardly unexpected but it still slowed her pace.

  Her bin was marked with her flat number daubed on the front. Normally she would have to go hunting for it, spinning each filthy bin until she found hers. She wasn’t here enough to use it much, so it would get pushed to the back. Yet, today, it was near the front and clear to see, just a couple of steps past a couple of the other bins, one of which was on its side as if it had been swept out of the way in a hurry. She moved towards it, conscious that the other bins and the shadows provided plenty of places for someone to hide in wait. She dropped the bag when she got to the bin and pushed her hand into her pocket to feel the handle of the knife. She looked around and her attention was caught by the sound of a car passing the front of the building. The strains of a couple arguing leaked from an open window in one of the flats somewhere above her.

  She turned back to her bin and lifted the lid, swinging the sack at the same time to drop it in. She caught sight of something and her swing halted, the sack clinking as it collided with the lip. She didn’t drop it in. instead, she stared down into the foul-smelling depths. She gasped. She couldn’t scream. The lid crashed back down and she stumbled backwards dropping the sack. She stumbled over a low kerb that unsettled her balance. She felt the pain in her left forearm before she realised she was on the ground, lying in a puddle. Her back was instantly soaked and a rank smell filled her nostrils. A shadow moved to her right, she jerked towards it. Freddie Rickman stood over her, his dark suit seeming to merge with the blackened ceiling. Livid red scratches on his face were the only source of colour. His eyes fidgeted over her body, finally resting on her mouth.

  ‘I thought long and hard about what you did.’ His voice was a growl, low in volume but laden with menace. ‘About how I make amends for that and about how I get some control. You’re out of control, Kell.’

  ‘I . . ..’ She stammered, ‘I—’

  ‘You don’t SPEAK!’ His roar seemed to come from everywhere, reverberating off the walls and ceiling as if he was all around her, part of every shadow. It pushed her head back down so far she felt the stinking puddle in her hair. ‘The easiest thing to do would have been to kill you. And I still might. But not yet. I have a better use for you. You will work tomorrow. This is how you will know where.’ She heard something clatter to the floor and slide towards her. A mobile phone. She didn’t reach out for it. ‘Where is yours?’

  She reached into her pocket then held her phone out mutely. She was in no position to argue. He snatched it from her.

  ‘Tomorrow you might find that the work is different, but I think you know your place now, Kell. I think I’ve showed you what I’m capable of. I think you will get on with it. What do you say?’

  She jerked a nod. Her mind flashed with the image of that bin, of what she had seen inside it. A tear sprang from her right eye and her neck pulsed with pain as she moved slightly. Her back flashed cold from her soaking hair.

  ‘Keep that phone on. Start following instructions — no questions.’ He stepped away and gestured with his hand. An engine surged behind her and she turned to see a flat-fronted van moving quickly towards her. The bumper dipped as it braked hard, stopping just short of where she still leant back on her forearms. She kicked out, trying to find some grip on the floor, finally dragging herself backwards and out of the way. She was barely clear when the van surged forward a few metres. She heard the back doors pop open. Her vision was now blurred with tears but she was aware of a bin being wrenched free, knocking others over as it was pulled towards the van. It was her bin. She turned away; she couldn’t even bear to see the outside.

  One of the felled bins rolled to rest against the van’s front bumper. She managed to pick out a figure moving around to drag it away. She heard doors close and then the engine surged again. The van turned a corner hard to disappear out of sight and the noise of its engine was sucked away into the distance a few moments later. Kelly was left alone.

  Chapter 23

  Tuesday

  Maddie leant back in her chair and ran her hand firmly down her face, pulling her skin taut as she did so. Her view of the ceiling was replaced by one of PC Vince Arnold, who was now standing in front of her desk.

  ‘Shit, love, you’ve got a lot going for you but don’t be pulling that face again. It’s enough to make me look elsewhere and I know how devastated that would make you!’ Vince’s grin was as big as everything else about him. His uniform clung to broad shoulders, his load vest with baton, radio and cuffs jutting out of it at different points, making him look bigger still, pushed out as it was by the stab vest underneath. The stubble of a few days before was now starting to take shape as an established beard.

  ‘Strange that you should come to me talking about looks. What’s with the beard, Vince? It’s starting to look like you’ve done that on purpose. You look like a hipster.’

  ‘Hipster, I’ll take. Action Man was what the lads on section said.’

  Maddie clicked her fingers. ‘Action Man! I don’t see it. Give it a bit more growth and you might get to sweaty biker?’

  ‘Like I said, Mads . . . I could go off you!’

  ‘I heard you were seeing someone, anyway. Is that true? Has your hopeless flirting with me become all the more inappropriate?’

  ‘Did you? I’m sorry, Mads, I didn’t want you to hear about it this way. I was going to tell you myself only you get to the point where you just don’t want to be breaking no more hearts, you know what I mean?’

  Maddie laughed hard and Vince joined in, his laughter booming around Major Crime’s empty office. It was still early morning, too early for any of her detective colleagues.

  ‘I very rarely know what you mean, Vince.’ Maddie said.

  ‘Anyway, you wanted to see me? I got your text. Is that what this is all about? You just wanted to check for yourself that I was off the market?’

  ‘Well yeah, I mean that was the main reason. I had some other stuff I planned to ask you about, too, though. You know . . . to make it seem like I didn’t care. I guess I might as well still ask you. See if I can keep up the façade.’

  ‘To save face?’

  ‘Exactly. So, tell me what you know about Freddie Rickman?’

  Vince’s face flickered in surprise. ‘Freddie Rickman!’ He licked his lips and seemed to be considering it carefully. ‘Official or unofficial?’

  ‘I’ve checked the systems. I know all the official stuff. Do you
think I would be asking you if I wanted that?’

  ‘I suppose not. And you’re right, there isn’t much known about him officially, not when you consider that he has to be one of the biggest players round here. Freddie Rickman has got his fingers in a lot of pies. Some we know about and there’s probably some we don’t. I remember when he was involved in the drug supply for the area — that was a while ago now. He was fair game for a while, but then he got a bit bigger and we all had to back off him. I thought the powers that be were building something against him, giving him enough rope and all that. Turns out he was one of those who just fall between the cracks.’

  ‘Between the cracks? How does a known criminal do that?’

  ‘Simple, Mads. We see it a lot. You just have to get to be the right size. He got too big for the likes of me doing anything worthwhile by stopping him in his car, but not big enough for the drug squads out of headquarters to be bothered with him. The man’s made a career out of it. You know as well as I do that the management here are only interested in the criminals that are visible. Freddie Rickman runs all his stuff quietly. Girls is his thing now. I’ve not heard his name linked to drugs for a while. He might have packed that up. It’s a lot less risk, I suppose. No one carries anything illegal and you don’t get no one talking to you about it.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘The girls who work for him need to make a living. Some of them enjoy what they do but they need to be switched on. It’s a tough world on your own. A man like Freddie could easily add a bit of security, maybe even get the clients. I’ve no doubt he deals with the payment side, taking his cut first, of course. So the girls just need to go where they’re told and they’re onto a good thing. I know a few. They don’t walk the street. They work out of sight. He’s not stupid.’

  ‘Do you know where?’

  ‘Where they work? Not officially. We used to have a few of the local hotels hosting them. That’s what I’m talking about when I say visible. We had a few calls and did some enforcement work — well it was more like disruption. No one got nicked that I saw. I guess Freddie learned from that. I’ve not heard anything about hotels since.’