Where could they have gone? His head was throbbing fit to bust. Concentrate, Pete. Come on, man, pull yourself together. Then he remembered the decorators over at his house. They might see the bitches running around.
“Oh no, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispered, running outside, surprised to find it was already night.
Thank God for the full moon, at least he was able to see. What time was it? He glanced at his watch, just after seven. What about the decorators? Would they still be around? He looked over towards the main house. Thank fuck for that, their van was gone. At least he didn’t have to worry about them finding the bitches. But what about his staff? His housekeeper might not have left yet. Would the girls have gone over there? Mrs Baxter would have a fit. He stopped to think about it. Nah, they wouldn’t know it was safe. So where would they go? Come on, Pete. Think!
He scanned the grounds and drive. Not a sign of life. They must be here somewhere. Without someone to open the gates there was no way out. Forcing himself to breathe normally, he tried to think what he should do next.
Phone Joey, that was it! Reaching down automatically towards his pocket, he realised he was naked. Shit! He had to put some clothes on. Turning back towards the studio, a movement caught his eye. One of the brats was climbing over the side gate. There was no time to worry about getting dressed. He had to stop her. He took off, sprinting towards the gate, keeping to the edge of the drive under cover of the bushes. The last thing he needed was someone in the main house to see him and call the police thinking he was an intruder. He had to grab the girls and get them back in the studio.
As he neared the gates, desperate for breath, he saw the dark one was about halfway to the top. Where was the blonde? He reached the gates just in time to grab the girl’s leg and drag her down. She hit her head on the drive and cried out. Pete instinctively looked over at the house. Did anyone hear her? When he looked back, the girl hadn’t moved. She must have knocked herself out. Good, one less to worry about. But where was the other one?
Through the ornamental bars Pete saw the blonde running for the woods. Shit! Fuck! Joey! He had to call Joey. He scooped up the unconscious child and headed back to the studio as fast as his shaking legs could carry him.
Slamming the door shut with his heel, he slung the girl on the floor. Where was his phone? Where? Great, he fumed, chucking clothes across the room. This is all I need with the concert promotion about to hit the national papers. Where is the fucking phone? He spotted it finally under the coffee table and snatched it up.
As he listened to the ringing tone, he began to shake. Head to toe, he quivered uncontrollably. “Come on, Joey, come on,” he whispered. “Answer.”
Pete shifted from foot to foot, sweat pouring down his back. The kid on the floor still hadn’t moved. He didn’t think she was even breathing. What should he do now? Why was that bastard never around when he needed him? He cut the connection and dialled again. Once again it rang and rang. With shaking hands he redialled. This time it only rang once.
“Fuck me, but you’re an impatient bastard,” Joey snarled. “What’s wrong this time? Too old? Too young? Too–”
“The blonde’s gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“The bitch hit me with a bowl. Knocked me out and now she’s gone.”
“Are your decorators still around?”
“What? No! What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I’m asking,” Joey said, as if speaking to a child, “because if they are still there they might see her. If they’ve gone you can relax. We know she’ll be in your grounds somewhere. I’ll come over and help you look.”
“Joey! Will you just fucking listen? She’s gone. Gone. I saw her through the gates. She ran into the woods. She’s stark naked and escaped from my house. She’ll bring the police here. And it’s not just my balls on the line. If I go down, you’re going with me. Now get your arse into gear and get over here. We’ve got to find her before someone else does.”
“Oh shit. Right, I’m on my way. What about the other one?”
Pete looked down at his feet. The child lay perfectly still, her head at an impossible angle to her body. “She’s here and she’s not going anywhere in a hurry. I think she might have broken her neck.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
7th October (late afternoon/early evening)
Paolo glared at the mound of papers covering his desk, all waiting for his signature – none of which he could sign until he’d read them. Every new government promised they’d cut down on bureaucracy and then, as soon they’d got their man installed in number ten, they all decided more reports, more forms, more tables, more bloody paperwork was needed to cut down on crime. He seemed to spend more time reading about his job than actually doing it.
He reached for the top report, ignoring the pain throbbing in his temples. The headache would pass eventually, but the paper stack would keep growing unless he did something about it.
An hour and a half later, Paolo would have cheerfully added to the crime figures by murdering whoever it was who’d thought money spent recording statistics was more important than having coppers on the beat.
A knock dispelled his murderous thoughts. As he looked up, Dave stuck his head round the door.
“You busy, sir?”
Grateful for the interruption, Paolo shoved the papers to one side and signalled for Dave to come in and sit down.
“What have you found out?”
“Nothing we didn’t already know, unfortunately. The kids on the streets are Albanian, some of them as young as ten when they are first put out.” Dave paused, and Paolo could see the younger man was fighting not to explode. “You’re right about the older women taking care of them. You can tell they are all sick about how young these girls are, but no one is prepared to say who the pimps are or where the girls might be kept during the day.”
Paolo sighed. “So we’re no further forward? A kid takes an overdose, probably to escape the shit life she’s leading, and no one will tell us anything.”
“I did see someone who might help us, sir, but she won’t speak to me.”
“Really? Who?”
“Do you remember that older prostitute you spoke to when we were working the serial killer case? The woman didn’t know anything about the killer, but seemed to know who was dropping the kids off and picking them up. At the time she was too scared, or stoned, to tell us. I looked for her today, but she’s no longer on the streets. It seems your words about going into rehab did the trick. She’s been clean for a few months and is helping out at the soup kitchen on Donald Street. I went and had a chat, but she says she’ll only tell you and no one else what she knows.” Dave grinned. “In her eyes you’re the closest she’s ever going to get to God.”
Paolo scanned the papers screaming at him, thought about the hours he would need to spend after the meeting with his team just to make a dent in them, looked back at Dave and nodded.
“Let’s get the debrief over and done with and then we’ll go chat to her,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ve never had a fan club before, so I think I’d better do what I can to make sure the only member doesn’t leave it.”
Dave held the door open for him and then followed him to the main office. Paolo scanned the room. Only a couple of chairs were vacant. Everyone he needed was there. Normally he stood when addressing his team, but his legs felt like they’d give out at any moment. God, he had to get some sleep. Taking one of the vacant chairs and turning it to face the room, he sank down on it.
“Right, as you all know, we arrested a couple of men in the act of handing over stolen cigarettes in the early hours of this morning. Which is good, of course, but that wasn’t why we were there. Our informant has been feeding me scraps of information about the child trafficking, all of which has been spot on, which is why we’ve been able to pick up so many of the girls and take them into care. My fear is that she’s been found out and was forced to give us the run-around last night.”
A few officers whispered to colleagues. He waited until the murmuring stopped. “Two things arise from that assumption. Firstly that she is in danger, but as I have no idea who she is or where to find her there is nothing we can do to help her. Secondly, I think we were deliberately sent to the motorway services last night to keep us occupied while children were brought in and delivered elsewhere.”
CC called out. “Sir, each time we ran a check on the mobile she used to call you, it was a prepaid throwaway job. Same with yesterday morning’s call.”
Paolo nodded. He already knew that, but CC was putting the information out there for the rest of the team.
“The two men in custody are both Albanian, which leads me to suppose they are known in some way to whoever is running the trafficking ring. They claim to know nothing about that, but we’ll keep questioning them. Maybe we’ll get a break.”
“The important thing here is that there are most probably a number of children about to be handed over to perverts. We’ve got to find them. Our informant was our only link to those kids and I don’t think I’ll be hearing from her again, so we need to find a new source of information. I want all of you to get in touch with any contacts you have. Most criminals won’t have anything to do with child sex crimes and might be prepared to help put the bastards away. See what you can find out.”
He glanced at the clock. Nearly half past six. Where did the bloody time go?
“Okay, everyone, home time. I know half of you are dead on your feet from last night, so get a good night’s sleep.”
Over the murmurs of good nights and see you tomorrows, Paolo called to Dave.
“No rest yet for us. Let’s go and see my one and only fan.”
Dave drove the car into the tiny parking area behind the old St Peter’s church. Paolo got out. By the light of the full moon, the back of the church looked romantic, like something out of a Disney film, but Paolo knew how much of an illusion it was. There was nothing romantic, no hint of fairy-tales, about this part of town. He couldn’t help comparing the area as it was now with his childhood memories. He’d been an altar boy in this church, with the priest celebrating mass to a packed congregation. Now the building was deconsecrated and used as a soup kitchen and shelter for the homeless. He smiled; maybe there was more godliness in the building’s new role than there had ever been in the old one.
Paolo waited for Dave to lock the car and then the two strolled round to the shelter’s main entrance in Donald Street. As they walked in, Paolo was nearly knocked backwards by the stench of unwashed bodies, stale urine and boiling vegetables. The last time he’d been in the building was during a mass and he’d almost passed out from the smell of incense. Wishing he could wave some incense around now, he looked over at Dave, who seemed to be trying to breathe without opening his mouth.
“You okay?”
Dave nodded. “When I was here earlier the place was virtually empty, so the smell wasn’t so bad. How do they cope with it day after day?” he asked, indicating the people at the back of the building, standing behind a long trestle table. They were ladling soup and handing out bread rolls as if they couldn’t smell the people shuffling along in front of them.
“I suppose after a while you’d stop noticing it,” Paolo said, but he wasn’t convinced by his own words. Surely no one could ever get used to it? Mind you, he thought that about autopsies as well and yet Barbara Royston appeared not even to notice the odour of decay while she was working.
He glanced up at the workers, trying to pick out the former prostitute and addict they’d come to see.
“Where is she, Dave? I can’t spot her up there.”
“You won’t, Inspector, because I’m behind you,” said a slightly out of breath voice.
Paolo spun round and was confronted by a massive sack which virtually obscured the speaker. He could hardly believe what he saw when she put the sack down. The woman was dressed in jeans and a sweat shirt. The last time he’d seen her she’d been wearing a halter neck top and short skirt in the middle of a freezing cold spell. She looked twenty years younger than the woman he remembered on the streets waiting for customers.
She pointed to the sack. “Bread rolls. Today’s leftovers donated by the local bakery. Excuse me while I take them up front. I won’t be long.”
“Can I help you with them?”
The woman smiled and aged ten years as her decayed teeth appeared. “No, best if you stay back here. Most of our people are a bit uncomfortable around you lot. You wanna wait for me outside?”
Paolo nodded and Dave followed him out into the relatively fresh night air. They’d barely settled on the low stone wall separating the shelter’s grounds from the pavement when the woman came out to join them. She lit a cigarette.
“They’ll kill you,” Paolo said with all the zeal of a reformed smoker.
“I’ve given up drugs, booze and sex. A girl’s gotta have one vice,” she said, waving the smoke away from them.
“You’re looking good, Alice. I wouldn’t have recognised you if we’d passed in the street.”
She grimaced. “Not Alice, not any more. You can call me Michelle. That’s also not my real name, but it’s a good one to start over with.”
Paolo noted the educated voice, completely at odds with the way she’d spoken when he’d last seen her. “You’ve also lost your foreign accent,” he said.
Michelle laughed. “I’d been pretending to be exotic for so long, I’d forgotten how to speak normally.” She looked down and shrugged. “I’d forgotten lots of things.”
When she looked up again Paolo could see she was battling tears. He waited while she fought to control her emotions.
“You saved my life,” she said. “That day, when you were asking about that maniac who was killing prostitutes, reminded me how I came to be on the streets and I remembered, just for a few minutes, who I used to be. It was enough. A few days later I found myself here, in desperate need of a fix, but John, that’s the guy who runs the place, helped me into rehab instead.”
Paolo smiled. “Then it’s John who saved you, not me.”
Michelle shook her head. “No, it was because of the things you’d said that I listened to John. Your words started me thinking again. Anyway, you’re not here to listen to my life story. What do you want to know?”
“Well, who it is that’s putting kids out on the streets would be a start.”
Michelle sighed. “I wish I could give you a name, but I don’t know it. All I do know is that they are vicious. Everyone, even the pimps, are terrified of them. They are Albanian and well connected, it seems. We used to wonder if the police were taking backhanders from them. Is that true?”
She looked up from under her lashes and Paolo could see a glimpse of the girl she must have been before her life took a turn for the worse.
“Not as far as I know, but I promise if I find out that is the case, I won’t rest until the buggers are brought down – and that’s no matter how high up they might be. So, what can you tell me?”
Michelle lit another cigarette from the glowing end of the first and dragged the smoke deep into her lungs. “It’s a well-run people trafficking organisation. The kids are picked up in Albania and brought over here. They have no money or passports and no way of getting in touch with their families. They’re farmed out to paedos to be broken in and passed around until they reach an age where they’re considered too old. Or the drugs have made them look too old. After that, they’re put on the streets.”
Paolo nodded. “That’s pretty much what we suspected. We need to find out who’s bringing them in. If we can do that, it’s a short step to finding out who is in the paedo ring. The poor kids we’ve taken into care won’t, or can’t, tell us anything.”
“I’m amazed some of them can walk, let alone talk. They’ve been passed around and fed drugs for years by the time they’re put out on the streets,” Michelle said. “Poor little cows are like robots. I don’t know the people at the top, but I can point you in the direc
tion of a couple of men lower down who drop off the kids for work and pick up them up again when they’ve earned enough for their keep. I don’t know the men’s names, but I can describe them.”
“Any chance you can remember the car registration?”
She shook her head. “No, sorry. I didn’t know anyone would come asking me for it so didn’t make a point of looking. But I did get a good look at the two pigs running the girls. I’m sure I can give you a good enough description to do one of those identikit things they’re always showing on Crimewatch.”
“That would be great, Michelle. Can you come to the station tomorrow? I’ll make sure our artist is available to spend some time with you.”
Michelle nodded and got to her feet. “I have some stuff I need to do here tomorrow morning. The breakfast shift. I’ll come down after that.” She looked up at the church clock. “I must get back inside; they’ll be needing another pair of hands to dish out the food. I wish I knew more, but I don’t. Still, I’ll ask around and pass on whatever I find out. If anyone can help those kids, it’s you. I know you won’t let them down.”
She glanced over at Dave as if she thought he would let people down, nodded at Paolo, and went back inside.
“Bloody hell,” said Dave, “she doesn’t think much of me, but she believes you can walk on water.”
Paolo stood up and brushed bits of debris from the wall off his trousers. “Then I’d better not fail her or the kids,” he said. “Walking on water? I wouldn’t mind getting my ankles wet, but I’d be more likely to drown.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
7th October (evening)
Someday Never Comes (#2 - D.I. Paolo Storey Crime Series) Page 4