Running Blind (Detective Inspector Helen Grace)

by M. J. Arlidge

  It was. The van slipped through the gates, then quietly turned the corner. It was now driving directly along the quayside, making good progress towards the dockside. Helen’s eyes were glued to it, drawn almost hypnotically to the bright lights, when suddenly and without warning they cut out. She could hear that the van was still moving, but it was proceeding in darkness now, presumably so as not to draw attention to its arrival. Straining, Helen peered into the gloom, trying to track the vehicle’s progress. The moon was hidden behind clouds tonight, but she could just about make out the contours of the van, as it came to a halt right beneath her. Moments later, the engine was switched off and two figures emerged, heading away from the van quickly, before disappearing among the stacked storage containers.

  Scrambling across the roof, Helen scurried down the fire escape. She was hurrying towards the second floor, keen to alert Whittaker to the van’s arrival, but as she reached the doorway below, a handful of officers emerged at speed, pushing past her and away down the stairs. They were clearly aware of the van, but had no intention of involving her in their operation. Hers was still a watching brief.

  She stood on the fire escape for twenty seconds or so, then slowly started to descend. She was happy not to be in the vanguard, but she refused to sit idle, when their investigation was reaching its climax. The officers didn’t look back and seemed unaware that Helen was shadowing them. They paused as they reached ground level and Helen did likewise, watching on from above, as one of the officers peeked round the edge of the building. Helen recognized Carter now – she was pleased that one of the fitter, sharper men was leading the hunt.

  Happy that the coast was clear, Carter scuttled quickly across to the van. Sliding along the side of it, he darted a look into the cab, then signalled to his fellow officers to follow. They raced across to join him, before fanning out in pairs to search for their quarry among the storage containers.

  Helen descended the last few steps and crept forward, keeping in the shadows of the building. She knew Whittaker would be watching, so she switched off her radio, before following in the other officers’ footsteps. Whittaker would presumably try to call her off, but once she was among the containers, there would be little he could do. She didn’t dawdle, sprinting across the dockside without making a sound, never once looking back.

  Moments later, she found herself in a maze of storage containers. She had never been up close to them before and was shocked by just how vast they were. Walking through the narrow corridors that separated the stacked containers, she had a keen sense of how tiny and fragile she was, how easily and comprehensively she would be crushed if one of them were to be dislodged. She pressed on, keeping her guard up and her senses alert. There were more-experienced officers ahead of her, but she wouldn’t be unhappy if she was the one who came face to face with the traffickers. They were the authors of all this misery and she was keen to see them pay for their crimes.

  Moving fast, she prowled the alleyways, searching for signs of life. The tall corridors shut out the moonlight and it was almost impossible to make out anything in the gloom. Then suddenly Helen glimpsed something that stopped her in her tracks. Up ahead, a torch beam was playing over one of the containers. Now Helen hesitated, casting an eye around for her fellow officers. But there was no one so, summoning her courage, she moved forward, striding towards the shadowy figures.

  As she did so, her foot connected with something hard and she watched on in horror as a discarded wrench skidded across the floor, striking the nearest container. A deep, metallic clang boomed out, as the wrench rebounded off the steel. The effect was instantaneous. The torch beam was extinguished and the figures fled.

  Now shouts rang out and a handful of new torch beams suddenly lit up, as the other officers sprang into action. Helen cut right, running past two sets of containers, before darting left, determined to cut off the fleeing traffickers. Immediately she came face to face with a sweating Roberts, but side-stepping him deftly, she pressed on. She could hear shouts ahead, sounds of a scuffle, so she upped her speed, determined to help. Emerging breathless from a corridor of containers, she suddenly caught sight of a strange tangle of limbs, heads and torsos, grappling in the dirt. The fugitives were trying to wriggle free, but they were outnumbered and even as Helen approached, they finally gave up the fight. Still protesting at their rough treatment, they were pinned down and cuffed, torch beams trained on their blinking faces.

  Something about the timbre of the voices worried Helen and as she got close to the prone figures, she realized why. These weren’t the traffickers they were after – they were kids. A pair of teenage toe rags, utterly bemused by the welcome party that now surrounded them.

  33

  ‘What a bloody cock-up.’

  The two teenagers were being questioned by Carter in one of the unmarked vehicles, but nobody held out any hope of connecting them to the traffickers. They were just opportunist thieves who paid occasional visits to the docks whenever they got wind of a shipment from the Far East – which usually contained high-value electrical items like TVs and laptops. Whittaker’s team had caught two petty thieves, not the big fish they were after.

  ‘All that preparation, all that waiting for this,’ Roberts continued, clearly livid.

  Whittaker looked at him, but said nothing. Nobody had mentioned Helen’s clumsiness so far and she was glad of it. It hadn’t mattered in the end but could have cost them dear if she had alerted the traffickers to their presence.

  ‘So what now? We going to pack up?’

  ‘Somewhere you’d rather be, Roberts?’ Whittaker shot back tersely.

  ‘No, but he’s not bloody going to turn up now, is he?’

  Roberts gestured angrily to the stevedores who stood at a distance, regarding them.

  ‘The world and his wife are going to know we’re down here now. And if this trafficker is as well connected as he appears to be …’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Whittaker responded firmly. ‘And, besides, if he doesn’t show this time, then –’

  ‘We’re wasting our time.’

  ‘That’s my decision, not yours.’

  ‘Be reasonable, guv –’

  ‘Is that your way of volunteering for first watch, Roberts?’

  The rest of the team now got involved, debating the pros and cons of further stakeouts. Keen to avoid being dragged into the debate, Helen crossed the dockside towards the containers. Swathed in darkness for so long, they were starting to be illuminated by the sun, and what had seemed sinister and impressive earlier now looked workaday and ordinary. Soon the quayside would be thick with stevedores ribbing each other as they settled down to another day’s work, unloading TVs, crates of oranges and the rest of the bounty that passed through the docks every day.

  Helen stood still, debating whether to stay or go. The debate continued behind her – Roberts continuing to make his point forcefully – but as Helen watched on, her attention was now drawn to a very different noise. She wasn’t sure what it was at first. It sounded like a low drone, or a baby moaning in its sleep. It seemed to cut through her, though why she couldn’t say. She closed her eyes, focusing on the noise, trying to pin down what it was. And now she realized what was so unnerving about it. It wasn’t one noise, it was a chorus of noises, each sounding as pitiful as the other.

  ‘Over here!’

  The other officers looked up, uncertain whether to respond or carry on their argument.

  ‘Over here. I can hear something,’ she continued. ‘I can hear …’

  And now the voices of her fellow officers were stilled, as they hurried to join her. They strained to listen too and now they all heard it.

  A long, slow wail of despair.

  34

  ‘Get it open.’

  Whittaker was dockside now. Hurrying out of their hiding place, the team had located the source of the noise. It seemed to be coming from a dark-red container that had recently been lowered into the unloading bay. What had sounded like
a long, unnerving moan was now clearly a chorus of voices, pleading for help in words nobody present could understand.

  ‘Get the bloody thing open.’

  The stevedores were working as hard as they could to open the container, but evidently not fast enough for Whittaker, whose frustration was mounting. Helen wondered if there was more than simple human concern at play – Whittaker had been the one who’d wanted to delay. At what cost was not yet clear.

  Finally, the bolts slipped out of their holdings and the doors started to move. Slowly at first, then with gathering momentum, as those present laboured to get them open. As the doors parted, Helen hurried forward to help, then suddenly stopped in her tracks. There were at least fifty men and women packed into the freezing container, but only half of them were screaming for assistance. Others were insensible, passed out on the metal floor and at least three of the inhabitants were dead. They had been pushed to the front of the container to isolate them from the living – one of them was already in an advanced state of decomposition.

  The next few hours were some of the most harrowing of Helen’s short life, as the dead, the dying and the traumatized were removed from the fetid container. Swallowing her horror, Helen pitched in, guiding the terrified immigrants to the awaiting ambulances. Many of the women were determined not to be touched by men, despite their exhaustion and weakness and Helen was pleased to be able to help, reassuring them and securing them the medical treatment they so badly needed. But mostly Helen felt impotent, as she knew they all did. They had saved some lives, but the trafficker remained at large. He had presumably decided not to show – the risk of arrest too great following the recent publicity. His callousness was stunning – he had sacrificed these people to save his own skin – but for now there was nothing Helen could do.

  They had played and lost.

  35

  Helen returned to base without saying goodbye to Whittaker or the team. She still wasn’t particularly welcome and, anyway, what was there to say? They were putting a brave face on it, but everyone was in shock, still trying to process the grim events of the morning.

  Helen muddled through her shift in a daze, fulfilling her duties faithfully, but she was on autopilot, barely taking in what was happening. The only thing that did cut through her fog was McBain’s jibes – he couldn’t resist mocking Helen’s ambitions to bring in a major collar. Helen was learning fast. It’s fine to grab the headlines, play the hero, but unless you bring the perpetrators to book it’s best not to bother. You only end up making yourself, and your colleagues, look foolish. Helen knew that the top brass were angry at the lack of progress, following all the headlines, and she wondered if any of the fallout would stick to her.

  ‘Don’t open a can of worms, unless you know what’s inside,’ McBain chuckled as she signed off for the day, after a tiring shift. ‘Back to the day job now, eh?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Back to basics,’ he crowed, echoing the sentiments of the country’s beleaguered Prime Minister.

  Helen didn’t stick around to hear any more half-baked maxims, heading home for a well-earned rest. Fortunately, the flat was deserted, so conversation wasn’t required – a small mercy given the twenty-four hours she’d just had. Fatigue was catching up with her and Helen already had the next few hours planned out – a cup of tea, a long bath and then an even longer sleep. But as she stepped into the kitchen, her eyes fell on the post that had been tossed carelessly onto the table.

  There was an envelope on it that she recognized. The card she had posted to Marianne. It had been sent back unopened, as Helen had expected but also feared. It was a fitting ending to a perfectly dismal day.

  36

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you again.’

  ‘All part of the service,’ Helen replied gamely, attempting a smile.

  ‘Would you like to come in?’

  Colin Patterson stood aside and let Helen in. He lived in Woolston in a small council flat which didn’t look much from the outside – graffiti on the door, broken doorbell – but was surprisingly pleasant inside. The Christmas tree was already surrounded by a large pile of presents and an expensive bottle of single malt was well under way.

  ‘Can I offer you a drop or are you on duty?’

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t drink.’

  ‘Really?’ Patterson questioned, looking genuinely surprised. ‘What do you do then?’

  It was a fair question and not one Helen felt she could answer. Not to a stranger anyway.

  ‘Anyway,’ Helen carried on quickly, ‘I just wanted to see how you were and give you a quick update on the case.’

  There wasn’t much to say of course – Helen had called him after the farm raids and the rest had been well covered by the newspapers – but Helen felt it was her duty to see how he was. If she couldn’t solve the case, she could at least keep an eye on those who’d been most affected by it.

  ‘Not a pretty picture, is it?’ Patterson gestured at the latest headlines in the Southampton Evening News, a copy of which lay on the sofa. ‘Poor devils must have really suffered …’

  A snatched photo of the immigrants being treated by paramedics stared back at Helen from the paper.

  ‘What they must have gone through,’ Patterson said, his breathing rattling slightly as he spoke.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got any real news for you … Like I said, we know that all these guys were trafficked from Spain via Southampton. We’ve still got eyes and ears down at the docks, though whether they’ll use that route now is hard to tell.’

  ‘All you can do is watch and wait, I suppose,’ Patterson went on.

  ‘I suppose so, I just wish we could have done more for Addisu, for all of them …’

  ‘You tried your best. Now, are you sure I can’t get you a drink of something?’ he asked, the concern evident in his voice.

  ‘No, you’re all right, but I might have a smoke, if that’s ok?’

  Helen pulled a cigarette from her pack and offered one to Patterson.

  For a moment, he looked a little nonplussed, then, patting his chest, replied:

  ‘I’m trying to give them up. But don’t let me stop you.’

  Helen lit her cigarette gratefully, drawing deeply on it. She looked around the room for an ashtray, but could find none. In fact, there were none of the telltale signs of a smoker’s home here – in Helen’s flat her lighter and cigarettes were always close at hand.

  ‘Could I grab an ashtray?’ she asked. ‘I’d hate to drop ash all over your lovely carpet.’

  ‘Of course, sorry.’

  Apologizing, her host hurried off to the kitchen. Helen waited patiently in the living room, listening to the clattering emanating within, her hand cupped beneath her cigarette to catch the falling ash. A couple of minutes later, Patterson emerged, clutching a china saucer.

  ‘Can’t find the wretched thing. This’ll have to do,’ he said brightly, placing it on the table.

  Despite his bonhomie, there was something awkward in his tone now, a failure to meet her eye. Helen could tell he was lying and she realized now that he was flustered because he didn’t own an ashtray. This wasn’t particularly suspicious in itself – maybe he hung out the living room window like many others – yet his fingernails were unstained and she remembered now that he had hardly smoked the cigarette she’d given him at the roadside following the accident. So why had he asked for it?

  Patterson was jigging up and down on the balls of his feet now, watching in silence as Helen finished her cigarette. The smoke was clearly irritating him – or his lungs at least – so Helen stubbed it out, preparing to make her excuses and leave. Before she could do so, however, Patterson started to cough. He had been trying to calm his lungs for a while, patting his chest repeatedly, but now he broke into a long and violent coughing fit. It wasn’t nice to listen to – painful, mucus-laden hacking – and as Helen stood there awkwardly, a spectator to his suffering, she suddenly realized where she’d heard that awful sound
before.

  37

  Patterson insisted on seeing Helen back to her bike.

  ‘Can’t be too careful round here,’ he confided to her, nodding meaningfully towards a group of youths who loitered at the street corner.

  ‘I think I can handle myself.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Patterson agreed wryly.

  They were heading towards her bike now, passing a row of garages that adjoined the block of flats.

  ‘What’s the damage?’ Helen said, gesturing towards the garages.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your van. What’s the repair bill going to be?’

  There was a brief pause, then Patterson replied:

  ‘Haven’t put it in yet.’

  Now it was Helen’s turn to pause.

  ‘I thought you needed it. For your work?’

  ‘I do …’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been driving it?’

  ‘No. Well, maybe a little bit …’

  ‘Surely its not roadworthy?’

  McBain would have enjoyed this, Helen thought to herself – she sounded like a real traffic officer. But Patterson did not look like he was enjoying himself – in fact, he looked decidedly keen to end the conversation and send her on her way.

  ‘You didn’t come all this way to check up on my van now, did you?’ he said lightly.

  ‘Mind if I have a look?’ Helen asked quickly, refusing to be fobbed off.

  Again Patterson hesitated, unsure how to respond, so Helen continued:

  ‘A quick once-over and I can tell you if you’re likely to get pulled up over or not?’

  Helen was chancing her arm now. She had no right to look at his van without a warrant, but was banking on Patterson not wanting to appear defensive or shifty. Thankfully, he relented, but it was with ill grace that he opened the garage door for her. Helen stepped inside, flicking the strip lights on.