No Way Out: an edge of your seat crime thriller

by DC Brockwell

  “Yes, sir,” they replied.

  “Now get out of my fucking office, the pair of you!”

  Nasreen followed Terrence out of Adams’ office, along a corridor, and into an empty conference room. She was in for it with Terrence now. She heard the door slam, it closing so violently she felt the air brush her cheeks.

  Here we go, she thought, round two.

  “Thanks a fucking bunch, Nas!” Terrence boomed. “I’m in the shit for something you did! And now the IOPC’s going to investigate me and everything I’ve done!”

  “He said they received a complaint against me, not you! And you got yourself in the shit, so that’s on you!” she shouted back, her temper rising by the second. “If you hadn’t said anything it’d just be me in the shit.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. If you’d kept quiet you could’ve denied knowing anything, but you didn’t – you just wanted to get me in deeper, so no, thank you.”

  That shut him up. Terrence paced back and forth over the same stretch of blue carpet.

  “Why did you lie to me?” he asked finally. “I’d have told you to stop, to leave it, and we’d both still have our jobs!”

  “I never lied to you!” She pointed at him. “I didn’t say I’m not continuing the investigation. You never asked, and I never told! When we got given this case I told you I was going to find him. I’m surprised you didn’t know I was doing it outside of work hours. Did you think I’d really just drop it because Adams told me to? Danny’s my friend, and that’s what I do for friends, and what I’d do again if I had to.”

  Another long silence enveloped them.

  “He’s crooked, you know,” she said eventually, her voice cool and pointed.

  “What? Who?” Terrence asked, in a calmer voice. He had his back turned to her.

  “Adams. I heard him in the stairwell last night. I overheard him talking to someone on his mobile. He’s on the take.”

  “Don’t be so stupid.” Terrence turned back to face her.

  “It’s true; I heard him talking to someone about knowing what’s at stake, about having to deal with someone who represented everything he hates, and whoever he was talking to warned him that I was investigating Danny’s disappearance. Adams told them I wouldn’t be after today. He’s right so far, except that I’m going to carry on.”

  “Stop it, Nas.” Terrence held his hands up. “This has gone far enough. If you want to get fired, that’s your business, but I want to keep my job.”

  “Even if it means working for a corrupt super?”

  “You have no proof of that. All I’ve got to go on is your word, and right now your word means fuck all to me.”

  Nasreen turned her back on him. It was frustrating, but she hadn’t expected him to believe her straight away; it was a lot to take in. If she hadn’t come to terms with it yet, she couldn’t expect Terrence to have accepted it.

  Another silence fell over them.

  Finally, after a few minutes of quiet, Terrence opened the conference door and she followed him into the corridor. She looked back down the hallway at Adams’ office and saw him talking on his mobile phone.

  “Look,” Nasreen whispered to Terrence, “he’s probably talking to his co-conspirator right now, telling him how he’s grounded us, congratulating himself.”

  “Nas, stop it now, okay? I’ve had enough. I’m going to go back to my desk and start looking at transfer options. God knows we’re done here.”

  With the partition separating them, Nasreen switched on her PC and waited for it to boot up. It was only now, in the silence, that she realised the gravity of her situation. Everything she’d worked so hard to achieve was falling apart before her very eyes, and on top of all that, she was about to be investigated by the IOPC, which no police officer wanted on their record.

  The Independent Office for Police Conduct was a non-departmental public body which, since 8th January 2018, was responsible for overseeing the system for handling complaints made against police forces in England and Wales.

  The functions of the Independent Office for Police Conduct were previously undertaken by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the IPCC, which had been established in 2004 and abolished upon the creation of the IOPC.

  No police officer wanted to have dealings with the IOPC, and most officers’ careers never fully recovered after they were made the target of an IOPC investigation. That was all Nasreen had to look forward to.

  That being said, she was still determined to find Danny, no matter what the cost; it was her duty as both a police officer and a friend, a duty she took with the utmost seriousness…

  36

  Steven Dyer couldn’t understand why his superiors hadn’t ordered a search warrant for the farm. They had enough evidence that something big was happening to order one, and he was positive the warrant would prove fruitful.

  According to his team, the visitors of the barn they’d interviewed had given them zero information to go on. None of them were talking, much less offering to testify, and even though his agency knew Rothstein owned the farm, they had their hands tied by the burden of proof and probable cause. These were shitty lawyer terms – unfortunately his agency had to abide by these laws, or risk losing in court when they came to charge Rothstein. After all the work and all the hours they’d put in, the last thing they wanted was to have Rothstein’s case thrown out because they didn’t meet the criteria needed to prove he was a criminal deserving of incarceration.

  Not that he knew the Director General, Steven had heard that Michael Wells was a big picture thinker; he would rather sit back and wait until he had an airtight case than go in on a hunch. So far, this approach had served him well; Wells had a distinguished career, with not a single blemish to his name, and Steven knew he intended to keep it that way.

  He took a photo of a man he’d not seen before. The man was tall and lean – so lean, in fact, that he thought the man might disappear if he turned sideways.

  Steven shivered as he took the photo. It must have been minus six outside, and he was on surveillance duty again. It was lucky he was wearing a puffer jacket over a thick jumper. He also had on two pairs of socks under his thick leather boots, and he was wearing a beanie hat.

  And so it was his team’s job to remain hidden outside the farm, taking more and more photos of the visitors without knowing what was happening inside. It was becoming a laborious and painful task, but an important one. Without the intel they provided, the agency wouldn’t be able to interview them and possibly break one down enough to make them give up what was going on in the barn. While he certainly didn’t enjoy this aspect of his job, he carried on taking snaps of these ever-increasing criminals like the truly dedicated professional he was.

  He saw Beatrice Harrison (formerly Rothstein) emerge from the farmhouse, flanked by the petite Japanese girl he’d seen on a few occasions. Looking through his binoculars, he watched Beatrice as she walked along the path towards the barn.

  His relief team member had told him that a Range Rover had pulled up outside the barn and reversed inside. He’d apparently taken note of the number plate and had also taken photos of Beatrice talking to the driver.

  Steven sighed at the thought of another seven hours watching the visitors coming and going. He so badly wanted to find out what was happening in there; he was tempted to creep around and take a look inside. However, he knew he couldn’t, not until he was given the authority to do so…

  37

  “Last night was great,” Danny whispered.

  “I know,” Kimiko replied as she swept the floor. “I enjoy very much.”

  As soon as Kimiko had appeared to clean his room, Danny had noticed the natural smile she wore, like a woman freed of her shackles. She was beautiful, he thought, kind and sweet. He watched her vacuum, tempted to walk up to her and kiss her on her gorgeous lips.

  “Guard be here soon,” she warned. “Better get out of clothes.”

  Realising what time it was,
Danny unbuttoned his jeans and took them off while sat on the edge of his bed. Then he pulled his jumper and T-shirt over his head before whipping off his underwear. It was shower time.

  He stood naked in front of Kimiko, who had a lovely smile for him while he waited for the guard’s arrival. He wanted her badly – he could have taken her right there and then on the bed – but he’d have to wait until later for that.

  One of the guards entered.

  Danny took a step forwards, meeting the guard’s stare. After a while, he started feeling uncomfortable. The foreign guard was staring at him for too long. “Are we going, or what?”

  The guard turned and stood in the doorway.

  Danny heard raised voices, followed by screaming and shouting coming from outside. A male voice shouted for assistance, and the guard turned to him and said, “You wait here,” before rushing off in the direction of the showers.

  Danny stepped into the doorway and looked to his right. He couldn’t see anyone.

  He looked to his left, and while it was all clear at the bar, he couldn’t be sure whether all the guards were down in the shower area or not.

  Deciding it was now or never, he turned to Kimiko, kissed her on the lips and said, “I love you, but I’ve got to go.”

  Without thinking, he ran towards the stairs in front of him. He heard Kimiko shout, “Danny, wait!” Adrenaline drowned out everything after that.

  As he ran towards the steps, he heard a guard call after him.

  Although his legs felt like jelly, he was sprinting.

  He flew up the stairs – his feet barely making contact with the carpet – and he could see the opening getting closer with every step. He was almost at the top, almost there.

  By the time he reached the top stair, he could hear one of the guards right on his tail.

  When his front foot made contact with the barn floor, a searing pain shot through his heel as something sharp tore through his skin, causing his foot to erupt in a pool of blood.

  Before he could stop himself, his other foot met the same fate, the skin tearing and a gush of blood pooling on the floor.

  With a scream, he fell backwards, shards of glass piercing his back.

  The guard behind him grabbed his hair and pulled him down the carpeted stairs, a line of blood pouring out of his skin.

  Danny was dragged through the bar area, along the corridor – past his room and all the others – and then over to the left, stopping outside the second room of five.

  “You on C Wing now,” the guard said in his broken English. “You just made big mistake.”

  Opening the door to the second room, the guard pulled Danny in by his hair.

  He crouched into a ball as the guard kicked him hard in his ribs, his boot connecting sharply with Danny’s ribs. He felt the air vanish from him in an instant.

  “Bea here in minute, you piece shit,” said the guard, before he left the room and locked the door behind him.

  Danny felt faint as he looked around the room and saw how red it was – there were patches of red all over the floor and walls, but the deepest red patch was beneath where he was lying, right in the middle of the room. He knew it was blood, and this blood looked fresh.

  He gulped. He was about to enter hell…

  Courtesy of the PNC, Nasreen copied down some addresses of the missing sex workers’ families she’d found while screening the cases, dating back ten to fifteen years earlier. Then she unlocked her drawer, pulled out her file on Danny’s disappearance and slid that into her bag, along with her notebook.

  “Adams wants to see us in his office,” said Terrence solemnly.

  “You go ahead; I’ll be there in a sec.”

  She quickly closed down her PC, locked the drawer, and pushed her chair under her desk. The desk probably wouldn’t be hers for much longer, so she picked up the picture of her and Mina – the one her husband had taken – and placed it in her bag, along with the other bits she needed.

  Putting on her suit jacket, she picked up her bag and walked back along the corridor to her inevitable suspension. Considering her career was in tatters, she didn’t feel too bad about it, not really. Adams was in the wrong, putting Danny’s case on the shelf like that. No one could make her give up looking for him.

  “Detective Constable Maqsood, please take a seat,” Adams said as she entered his office. “This won’t take long.”

  Nasreen placed her bag next to the chair and sat down. “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve spoken to my contact at the IOPC and they are pursuing their investigation into your recent behaviour. In the interim, you are suspended on full pay, pending the outcome of the enquiry. You are to make yourself available to the officers at the IOPC at any time of their choosing. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, without flinching.

  “Do you have anything you wish to add at this time, detective?”

  She had plenty she wished to add, not that it was worth repeating to a bent police officer. As far as he was aware, she knew nothing of his corruption, and that was the way she wanted it to stay. She would make it her own personal mission to find out how dirty he was. First, she had to find Danny. Then, once she’d completed her mission, she would focus her energy on Adams. It was a promise she made to herself in that moment. “No, sir, I have nothing to add.”

  “Don’t you want to apologise for your behaviour? Don’t you want to save your career?”

  “I said I have nothing to add, sir,” she replied, ignoring his incredulous look. “Are we done here? Am I allowed to go home now?”

  She picked up her bag and left Terrence awaiting his sentence from Adams, and as she walked out she muttered, “Dirty bastard,” under her breath, barely audible even to her. If there was one thing in life that she detested it was people abusing their power. Corrupt police officers were right at the top of that list, along with dirty politicians, and while she wasn’t naïve – she knew corruption went on – she’d never observed it in any of her other colleagues before.

  Maybe she’d chosen the wrong career; maybe she should’ve applied to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. Maybe she would get greater job satisfaction working there, helping bring these people to justice.

  Knowing she wouldn’t be back in the office for a while, she picked up a few more trinkets from her desk and then did the walk of shame, with most of her colleagues watching her as she left – word travelled fast, but nowhere faster than at police HQ. The rumour mill would be turning, and before long, her indiscretion would transform into something much bigger. “Did you hear? Nas got suspended for conducting an unofficial investigation!” would turn to, “Did you hear? Nas got suspended for shagging Terrence!” – or something along those lines. It was annoying, yet inevitable.

  She made her way down the stairwell and out to the car park at the rear of the building and had just got to her red Fiesta when Terrence ran up to her.

  “Nas, wait! I’m glad I found you before you disappeared.”

  “What, Terrence? What do you want?”

  He looked sorrowful. “I’m sorry this happened, sorry I yelled at you earlier. You were right, I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

  “It doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s over!”

  “It doesn’t have to be. Tell the IOPC that you were in the wrong and beg for leniency. You don’t want this to be the end of your career – the end of us – do you?”

  “Of course I don’t,” she sighed, “but I can’t see any way out of this. No one recovers after being investigated by the IOPC, you know that. I’ll be lucky if I get demoted back to a uniform.”

  “Look, you broke a code of conduct, sure, but it’s not like you’re being investigated for corruption or anything like that, is it?”

  “No, I was just doing my job.”

  “Come on, Nas, be reasonable here. You were in the wrong, and you should’ve told me what you were doing. I’d have talked you out of it.”

  No, he wouldn’t! Sometimes she th
ought no one knew her. Or rather, people thought they knew her, but didn’t. She couldn’t be persuaded to do something if she didn’t want to; she was headstrong and independent. Some people called her stubborn, and they may be right. At least she wasn’t a sheep, or a kiss arse. “All right, Terrence. Enough said. I’ve got to go now.”

  “Listen, you can always call me if you need to talk. You know I’m a good listener, and you never know, you might find I give good advice too.”

  She got into her car, started the engine, and backed out of her space. She then moved forwards a little way, stopped suddenly, and wound down her window. “Hey, Terrence, I forgot to ask: what did Adams say after I left? Are you suspended too?”

  “Not a chance,” he replied with a smile. “They can’t suspend me; I’m too important to their ethnic statistics. I’ve been given a formal written warning. One more and I’m out.”

  Nasreen nodded. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

  “Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself. See you soon, Nas.”

  She thanked him, then drove out of the staff car park.

  Glancing at the digital clock on her dashboard, she saw that it was 09:56, which was great – she had the rest of the day to plan her investigation. She also decided to give Mina’s nanny the afternoon off and pick up her daughter from school herself; she hadn’t done that for a long time…

  38

  Beattie watched one of the guards as he bandaged Danny’s feet. “Make sure it’s nice and tight; if he bleeds out, he’s no good to anyone.”

  Outwardly she was calm. Inside she was seething; there was no other word to describe the rage she felt for her “Star Bee”. He’d waited for his chance, and he’d taken it – at least temporarily – when two of Alan’s girls had started fighting. Well, fighting wasn’t exactly the right word for it: scrapping was far more appropriate. They’d punched, kicked, bitten, pulled hair, and spat at one another.