He thought back over the nightmare of the last couple of days.
At least with the brat dead, he didn’t need to worry about her pointing fingers at him, but as it hit home just how close he’d come to losing his chance at the big time, he almost threw up.
“I’ve worked hard for this, Stuart. I deserve whatever comes my way and I’m not sharing it with those losers.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
8th October (late afternoon/early evening)
Paolo looked down at the child’s body and felt rage surge through him. She looked even younger than the girl he’d seen at yesterday’s autopsy. Violated and killed at such a young age. What sick bastards would do such a thing? But he knew he had to let the rage pass or it would cloud his judgement and he might miss some small clue that could lead him to the traffickers.
Forcing the anger to the background, he turned to the waiting hospital staff.
“Who found her?”
“I did,” a young nurse said and stepped forward. Fighting back tears, her voice was almost inaudible.
“Can you tell me exactly what happened,” Paolo said. “Take your time.”
The nurse took a deep breath and managed to stop the tears from falling. “We’ve been so busy; we’re all behind in our work. If the hospital hadn’t brought in agency nurses we wouldn’t have been able to cope. It was my turn to check the patients’ blood pressure and temps, but I was late. Normally, I’d have finished and been back at the nurses’ station. If I had been I’d have seen the woman before she went in and maybe asked who she was. I might have been able to stop her.”
She stopped speaking and wiped her eyes. The sudden silence highlighted the sound of Dave’s pen scratching on his pad as he took notes.
“You’re doing well,” Paolo said. “Tell me what you saw.”
“I was working my way down the ward when I saw a nurse in our uniform leave the girl’s room. I didn’t recognise her, but assumed she’d been sent from one of the other wards to fill in. The policewoman was outside the door, so I didn’t think there could be anything wrong. You know? It just didn’t register that there might be a reason to worry. It took me another half an hour or so to get to this end of the ward and then when I came in, I saw the pillow over…I saw…I…I’m sorry. I can’t…”
Paolo waited until the nurse had composed herself.
“Could you describe the nurse to us?”
“Dark hair. She was too far away for me to see her face clearly, but olive skin.”
“Height?”
“Taller than average. Taller even than me, I think.”
“How tall are you?” Paolo asked, guessing at about 5ft 10in.
“I’m 5ft 11.”
“So the fake nurse could have been about 6ft? Maybe an inch or two more?”
The nurse nodded. “It’s difficult to tell from the other end of the corridor, but I think she was about that.”
“Anything else you can remember?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry, I was so behind on my round, I wasn’t really paying attention. That’s all I can recall.”
Paolo smiled. “You’ve done very well. You’ve certainly given us enough to look for on the CCTV. With a bit of luck we might see her as she leaves, or getting into a car, or at least see which direction she took when she left the hospital.”
He turned to the WPC who’d been standing by while the nurse had been speaking.
“How did you come to let her in?”
The WPC looked haggard, as well she might, Paolo thought. She had been placed there for one reason only – to stop anyone hurting the child.
“Sir, I’m so sorry. She seemed to be part of the hospital staff.”
“I realise that,” Paolo said. “I’m aware you were tricked. What I want to know is how it happened.”
“The nurse, sorry, the woman dressed as a nurse came through the double doors with a blood pressure machine on a trolley. The same as the real nurse. She started at that end of the ward, going into three rooms before she reached this one. She looked and acted like a nurse. She’d been in the other rooms first, and went into two others afterwards before she left the ward. It didn’t occur to me there might be anything wrong with her.” She hung her head. “I’m so sorry, sir. She seemed genuine.”
“Did you get a good look at her face?”
“Not really. Maybe enough for an identikit image, but…” She took a deep breath. “I’m afraid I didn’t look too closely, sir. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s no good getting upset over it now. Go back to the station and see if you can work with our artist. Maybe we can get a good enough image to put out to the media.”
“Yes, sir.”
Paolo watched as the WPC left, then turned to Dave.
“Smart move by the killer,” he said. “If the fake nurse had come directly to the child’s room, alarm bells would have rung in the WPC’s mind. By going to the other rooms first, she made it look like she belonged on the ward. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have fallen for it as well.”
Dave shook his head. “I don’t believe you would have, sir. I’ve never known anyone as suspicious as you.”
Paolo sighed. “I wish our WPC had been more suspicious, but it’s too late to cry over what can’t be changed. Now we’ve got a murder inquiry on our hands. Let’s stop these bastards before they destroy anyone else.” He took out his phone. “Before we go down to collect the CCTV footage I need to arrange for uniform to run a search and interview.”
Paolo and Dave left the hospital nearly an hour later, with Dave holding copies of yet more CCTV film from the hospital security cameras.
“One problem we might have is if the killer was aware of the cameras. If she was, all she needed to do was ditch the uniform and we won’t pick her up on the film as she left,” Dave said.
“I know, but let’s hope she hadn’t taken the cameras into account. But if she has ditched the clothes, let’s hope uniform find them in the overall search of the hospital. We could do with a break on this.”
They walked through to the parking area where Dave had left the car.
“It gets dark so early now,” Paolo said. “And it’s bloody cold at nights, but still feels like spring during the day. No wonder everyone’s going down with flu.” He groaned. “I do believe I have now officially turned into my father. He always blamed flu outbreaks on unseasonal weather.”
Dave laughed. “Not just your father. We all do that, don’t we?”
“I suppose we do. Right, let’s make sure we’ve covered everything before we head off home. Uniform are questioning everyone left in the hospital and conducting a room by room search. Not that I think we’ll glean much from that. I would imagine the woman left as soon as she’d done what she came to do.” Paolo clenched his fists. “I’m pretty pissed off with myself.”
Dave stopped next to the car and began his usual patting of pockets looking for the keys. “Why, sir?”
Paolo walked to the passenger side and peered through the gloom over the top of the car. “Because I should have realised she was in danger.”
“I don’t see that, sir,” Dave said as he finally located the keys and unlocked the door. “Even though you left someone outside to protect her, there was no reason to believe anyone, other than whoever left her at the hospital, even knew where she was.”
Paolo waited until they were in the car before answering. “You’re right, of course, but clearly someone did know. What I’d like to find out is who dropped her outside. I mean, if the people who brought her to the hospital were the traffickers, why did they bother? Why didn’t they simply kill her in the first place?”
“But they came back to do it, sir,” Dave said, looking at Paolo as if he’d lost the plot.
“Yes, I know that, but it doesn’t make sense to do it that way. I don’t think it was the traffickers who left her at the hospital. I think someone else found her and brought her here. Then, somehow, the traffickers found out where she was and covered their tra
cks by killing her. Which makes me wonder how the hell they knew where she was.”
Dave started the car and reversed out, doing a three point turn and heading towards the station.
“I’ll tell you another thing, Dave. We’ve been looking at this trafficking thing from the wrong angle. We’ve been concentrating on the streets, trying to pick up the pimps. Okay, so we might get lucky and discover the two men Michelle described, but even if we do, they aren’t likely to be the ones actually bringing the kids in. I think we need to start investigating the Albanian business community.” He pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket. “Tomorrow morning we’ll get together a complete list of all those businesses that could be used as a cover.” He scribbled down his thoughts as he spoke. “Import/export companies, language schools, overseas haulage, employment agencies specialising in finding work for Albanians and so on. There has to be a definite connection between Albania and Bradchester. The girls don’t arrive here by magic. We’ve got to find the routes and the people making it possible to use those paths. Maybe they are shipped in from other cities, as the mysterious tip-off woman said, but someone is putting them to work here.” He nodded, feeling more positive than he had for a long time. “There’s a link, Dave, and we’re going to find it if we have to work overtime every day from now until Christmas.”
Dave pulled up outside the station and Paolo got out.
“See you tomorrow, sir,” Dave said, but didn’t immediately drive away. As Paolo closed the door, the window slid down and Dave leaned over towards the passenger side. “Would you like to join a few of us later? I’m meeting Rebecca in the Nag and Bag and then we’re heading off to the Indian in the High Street. There’s about ten of us going. You’d be more than welcome.”
Paolo was tempted. It would be nice to spend an evening in company, but the bloody paperwork had stopped simply calling to him. It was now screaming through a loud hailer. If he didn’t tackle at least some of it tonight, he’d never get to sleep.
“Thanks for the invite, Dave, but I’ll pass this time. Maybe next, hey?”
He watched as Dave’s car disappeared into the night. When was the last time he’d gone out for the evening? God, it was so long ago he couldn’t even remember. I’ll get this case put to bed and then fix up some sort of social life, he promised himself. It was his birthday in eight days. Maybe he should go out for a celebratory drink after work with his team. He did a quick calculation. The seventeenth of October fell on a Thursday this year. Thursdays weren’t such great nights to go out.
Maybe someone else’s birthday would be a better event to begin his new social life, he decided, as he walked into the station. But he would be damned if he’d work late on the seventeenth, he thought, going into his office. He flicked the light switch and groaned, convinced there was double the number of files there’d been when he left to go to the hospital earlier.
Two hours later he switched off the light and headed for home.
As he walked into the apartment he couldn’t help but remember the excitement of choosing it with Katy earlier in the year, only a few days before she’d been picked up and attacked. Don’t think about that, he told himself, but his inner voice only went a bit quieter. He had no idea how to switch it off completely. Maybe he needed Jessica Carter’s help as much as Katy.
He slung his jacket on his bed and wandered into the second bedroom, flicking on the bedside light. This was supposed to be Katy’s for the weekends when she stayed with him. She’d chosen the colour scheme and Paolo had decorated – red and black dominated. Not his choice, but he’d wanted Katy to feel the room was hers. He picked up the photo frame from the dressing table. The picture had been taken four years earlier, back in the days when he and Lydia had been the contented parents of two lovely, healthy girls. In the photo he had his arms around Katy and Sarah, with Lydia standing next to Sarah. He could almost feel the warmth of his daughters’ bodies as they snuggled into him. They were all laughing and Lydia looked radiantly happy.
Paolo remembered the day it had been taken. It was towards the end of their holiday in Wales. One of those rare magical moments where the weather was perfect, no one was upset with anyone else, the girls were having one of their best friends with each other days and Lydia had held tightly to his hand as they walked, almost as if she couldn’t bear to let it go. Katy had gone up to a complete stranger and asked him to take a picture. The man had turned into a David Bailey clone, insisting on taking several photos from different angles until Katy said she was happy with the result.
And now Sarah was dead, wiped out in a hit and run that had been targeting him. And Katy was in hospital, again because of him. No wonder Lydia couldn’t bear to be in the same room. In her place, he doubted he’d want to be in the same country.
He put the photo back on the dressing table and switched off the light. It hurt too much to be reminded of all he’d lost.
Paolo switched on the television. He needed noise, any kind, to block out his thoughts. Settling himself down in the armchair, he tried to empty his mind and relax. The news came on. A photograph of a pretty blonde child, only six years old, holding a baby doll and grinning happily at the camera, filled the screen. As the image faded, the camera panned to a young couple, clearly distraught begging for news of their daughter who’d disappeared the day before.
The woman was crying and shaking her head. “I was watching her through the window while she played in the garden. The phone rang and I went to answer it. I came back with the phone in my hand. Seconds. I was only gone seconds and Lucy…my baby…she wasn’t…I couldn’t see…I ran outside.”
She pulled herself together and pointed at the doll in the picture she was holding.
“She loved her baby doll. It went everywhere…everywhere…”
As she collapsed again, her husband put his arm round her and faced the cameras.
“We found her doll in the flowerbed of our front garden,” he said. “Lucy wouldn’t have gone outside the gate without it.”
The screen filled once again with the image of the six-year-old clutching her doll. A number came up and a voice asked viewers to call with any information relating to the disappearance of Lucy Bassington.
Paolo felt sick. What sort of world were they living in?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
9th October (morning)
After another all-night session on the new album, Pete knew he needed to get some sleep or he’d collapse. He could catnap here in the studio, but now that the decorators had finished, he fancied stretching out on his king-size bed over in the main house.
He shut up the studio, changing the number sequence on the lock. Until he’d had chance to get rid of all the evidence in there, he didn’t want anyone coming over to clean. He strolled across to his mansion, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face and the glint of sunlight on the lake in the distance. Acres and acres of land and all his.
God, he loved his place. Who would have guessed a council estate boy like him would end up lord of the fucking manor. As he approached the wide stone stairway leading up to the massive oak door, he wished his mum was still alive. She’d have loved living here. His dad briefly cast a shadow over his pleasure, but Pete shoved his memory to one side. No way was he going to waste time dwelling on that bastard. He’d been dead for fifteen years and still Pete couldn’t think about him without wanting to run and hide. Even at the height of his fame with The Vision Inside he’d been scared of his dad. Scared to go home and visit his mum and scared his dad would show up at one of the places the group were performing. The fact that he’d never shown any interest in Pete’s music or career, and wasn’t likely to turn up, hadn’t stopped Pete from crapping himself whenever he was told he had a visitor.
Memories of the beatings he’d had as a kid made him shake, which was stupid because the man was long buried and couldn’t hurt him anymore. Stupid prick, he swore silently, shrugging off the memories.
He opened the front door and looked around. He’d
been living in the house for years, and yet every time he came in he got that same sense of awe. A Jacobean staircase stretched out in front of him and split at the top to lead up to the two wings of the house.
“Ah, there you are, Mr Carson. I wanted to have a word, if you’ve got a moment.”
He turned to see his housekeeper coming towards him, her usually cheerful face looking very serious for once.
“Problem, Mrs Baxter?”
“Not now, but I think there might have been one.”
Pete sat on one of the hall chairs and pointed at the one next to him.
“Take a seat and tell me what’s up.”
Mrs Baxter sat on the very edge of the seat. Pete wondered if she was scared of it breaking. It looked very flimsy, but had been hanging around the place for a couple of hundred years, so must be sturdier than it looked.
“We’ve had an intruder,” she said.
“What, here in the house?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s a bit weird,” she said. “Tony, the gardener’s assistant, came through the side entrance today. He usually comes via the main gate, but apparently his wife dropped him at the side gate for some reason. Anyway, the whys and wherefores aren’t important. What is important is that Tony spotted blood on the drive and there was also some on the gate. It was almost as if someone had climbed over it while bleeding.”
Waves of nausea swept over Pete as he listened. Oh no, oh fucking no. He tried desperately to come up with some plausible explanation, but his mind refused to operate. All he could do was picture that brat as she climbed. She must have been bleeding, the little cow. He waited for the blow to fall – for Mrs Baxter to say she knew what he’d been doing over in the stable block.
“I realised straight away what had happened,” she said, nodding fiercely, her usually placid face screwed in disgust. “Someone must have climbed the gates to break in and cut themselves as they scrambled over. There are some very sharp points in the wrought ironwork.”
Someday Never Comes (#2 - D.I. Paolo Storey Crime Series) Page 8