‘Hurry up, Hanway, you won’t get a seat near the front,’ said Gavin. He jostled past her, closely followed by Carys who paused at her desk while she gathered up her notebook.
‘Everything okay?’
Laura smiled. ‘Yes, thanks. Lead the way.’
‘Okay, everyone,’ said Kay, as they found somewhere to sit, ‘I’ll keep this short and we’ll regroup in the morning. As you’re probably aware, we’ve had no results today after searching the five farm properties and two smallholdings, although we did identify a handful of minor infringements for our colleagues to follow up at a later date.’
She paused and rapped her knuckles on the bullet points written on the whiteboard. ‘Let’s revisit why we believe Ethan and Shelley’s killer to be linked to agriculture rather than another industry. One, manual labour is a requirement and modern slavery represents a cheap resource. Two, the fact that properties are spread out over several acres means that workers can be kept hidden for long periods of time – in outbuildings, or other temporary accommodation. Gang masters have the ability to buy supplies of food in large quantities without raising suspicion locally.’
Kay dropped her hand and paused for a moment, staring at the carpet before raising her gaze to the team once more, her expression hardened. ‘Finally, and most importantly for our interests, agriculture represents an opportunity for modern slaves to be kept in isolation, and if they’re isolated from others then it’s easier to create an atmosphere of fear and control. Ethan and Shelley broke the rules. They managed to escape, but paid for it with their lives. Shelley risked everything to try to help the ones who might still be held captive. We owe it to her and Ethan to find them. No, we didn’t get the results we wanted today, but we’re not giving up. Get yourselves home, get some rest, and then be here at seven-thirty tomorrow morning because we’re going to find the bastard who did this.’
Laura pushed back her chair as the gathered officers began to disperse, her heart racing after Kay’s words.
The DI was right.
They would find who murdered Ethan and Shelley, whatever it took.
Chapter Forty-Two
Gavin shovelled another chopstick-laden scoop of noodles into his mouth, then swallowed and resisted the urge to yawn.
The incident room had finally emptied an hour ago, DCI Sharp walking past Gavin’s desk to check he was all right before heading home, and now he was relishing the unusual peace and quiet.
His gaze flickered to Kay’s desk as her phone began to ring, and he wiped his hands before answering the outside line.
‘It’s Lucas,’ said the voice. ‘I wondered if some of you were still around. Kay not there?’
‘She headed off a little while back. She’ll be on her mobile if you need her, though.’
‘That’s all right. I was just going to give a quick update about the post mortem on the young woman who was found in that skip this morning.’
Gavin frowned, and reached for his notebook. ‘That was quick – I don’t think the guv was expecting that until later this week.’
‘In the circumstances, my staff and I thought we’d reschedule some of our less pressing cases. Least we could do.’
‘That’s good of you, thanks. What can you tell us?’
‘As I suspected, Shelley was strangled, but someone used their hands, rather than a ligature.’
‘Prints?’
‘Gloves, I’m afraid. No indication that she was sexually assaulted. Actual cause of death was heart failure, caused by the strangulation.’
Gavin ran a finger under his collar and swallowed. ‘What about–– what about her feet?’
The pathologist sighed. ‘They haven’t been found. I had a conference call with Harriet and her team earlier, and despite working their way along the entire length of the alleyway and a search of litter bins in the area, they’ve got nothing.’
‘Were the feet removed––?’
‘After death, as I first thought. Going by the state of her legs, I would think two to three blows with a blade such as a cleaver.’
Gavin winced. ‘That’d take some doing.’
‘You’d certainly need strength. I suppose we have to consider that her killer was quite possibly in a rage, too.’
‘And bigger than her. Do we need to look for another crime scene?’
‘No – myself and Harriet are of the opinion that her feet were removed in the skip.’
Gavin tucked the receiver under his chin and leaned across to his computer, refreshing his emails. ‘We haven’t got Harriet’s report through yet.’
‘She mentioned she was going to finish it tonight and send it over first thing,’ said Lucas. ‘I’ll have mine to you by mid-morning tomorrow, too.’
‘Did Harriet mention whether Shelley was carrying any belongings?’
‘There was nothing noted apart from two five pound notes and a bit of loose change. She had no distinguishing features such as tattoos or skin discolouration. If Kay hadn’t recognised her––’
‘We wouldn’t have been able to identify her.’
‘Something that was consistent with both Shelley and the body of Ethan Archer is the paleness of skin tone, as if they suffered from a lack of sun exposure.’
‘Kay said Shelley told her that they’d been made to work indoors all the time they were held captive,’ said Gavin. ‘I’d imagine whoever did this to them couldn’t risk having them seen outside.’
‘Well, that would be consistent with my findings.’ Lucas covered the phone and spoke to someone at the other end. ‘I’ve got to go, Piper – we’ve just been requested to attend an incident in Dartford.’
‘Thanks for calling – safe travels.’ Gavin placed the receiver back in its cradle, then gathered up the remnants of his takeaway and wandered into the kitchenette.
As he waited for the coffee to percolate, he sorted out the food scraps from the recycling and then heaped sugar into a large mug of coffee and wandered over to the highlighted tasks on the whiteboard at the end of the room.
They were almost two weeks into investigating Ethan’s death, and they were still no closer to finding out who was responsible for his and Shelley’s brutal slayings.
He placed his coffee mug on a desk close by, his gaze falling to the map spread out across an adjacent table.
Brightly coloured sticky notes indicated the properties that had been searched that day, the boundaries between each farm marked with a yellow highlighter pen and a red tick across the middle to show that the owners were in the clear – for now.
He spun around the map until it showed Hildenborough in the bottom right-hand corner and Sevenoaks at the top.
Somewhere within that area west of the two towns, there might be others like Shelley and Ethan, desperate to escape horrific working conditions.
But where?
He shoved the map aside, and reached across the table to a stack of aerial photographs that had been printed out from a well-known app and arranged into separate bundles for each of the properties. Slipping the paperclips from each bundle, he laid them out on the table until he had a view across the whole of the western fringes of Kent, and crossed his arms over his chest as his eyes took in the landscape.
The field where Ethan’s body had been found was marked with a silver dot, making it easier for him to get his bearings. To the north of that, he could see the woodland where Barnes had found the tread marks that might have been left by the van Peter Winton said he had heard in the lane outside his house. South of Maitland’s farm were the properties owned by Hugh Ditchens and the Peverells, the Ditchens’ orchards blending seamlessly into a wide paddock on the edge of the Peverells’ rabbit farm.
Further away from the properties, the nature reserve that included the reservoir provided an even greener expanse, the angle of the aerial shot catching the water glistening in the sunlight.
Gavin yawned, wrapped his fingers around his coffee mug, and then stopped.
Ever since Laura had returned from
the searches that morning, she’d been quietly embarrassed at the lack of a breakthrough based on the intelligence she’d gathered, but he and Carys had both agreed that her logic had been sound.
He flipped through the pages in his notebook, trying to find his notes from the pre-search briefing that had been held, in which Kay had reiterated the parameters.
Somewhere isolated.
Somewhere people could be hidden.
Somewhere a light aircraft could be stored.
He looked at the photographs once more, his gaze falling on the property belonging to the mushroom farmer. The precise placement of plastic roof coverings identified the growing houses, and he traced the line of buildings with his finger before tapping the photograph, a memory clutching at the corner of his thoughts.
As it began to take shape, he scrambled for his mobile phone, only checking his watch and realising the late time when the number connected.
A sleepy voice answered. ‘Piper?’
‘Sorry to wake you up, guv. We need to extend the searches. I think I might know where Ethan and Shelley were being held.’
Chapter Forty-Three
A bitter stench of animal waste and death clung to the air as Kay walked beside Adrian Peverell towards a corrugated iron-clad shed, her stomach churning with dread.
‘Why rabbits?’ she said.
The man beside her shrugged, and rubbed his hand over a sprinkling of red sores covering his cheeks. ‘Helen did some research and found out how much rabbit meat was being imported from the EU for pet food. She figured we’d be able to fill a gap in the market and provide in-country supplies and save retailers money on those import costs.’
‘Is it going well?’
‘Really well.’ He blinked, as if surprised at his own success. ‘We can hardly keep up with demand, to be honest.’
Kay gestured to the taller of the buildings in front of her. ‘Do you have any other buildings on your land?’
‘No – just these. There was an old barn around the back of those when we first bought the place, but the roof had collapsed and the supporting timbers were rotten – it was cheaper for us to have it pulled down.’
As she passed she nodded to Gavin, who, after phoning her to share his theory that the outbuildings at the rabbit farm met the same parameters set for the other properties searched the day before, was now leading the interviews and speaking with the Peverells’ team of part-time workers.
She tried to ignore the blood-spattered apron of the smaller man in the group of four who milled about in the yard waiting for their turn to be questioned, and instead concentrated on what Adrian Peverell was telling her.
‘We have a few thousand rabbits here at any one time. They’re kept in cages from the day they’re born until we slaughter them.’
‘How long are they in the cages for, then?’
‘About eighty days. We separate out the males and keep them away from the females so we can artificially inseminate those and control the number of litters they have each year. Obviously, the more the merrier for us.’
Kay grimaced, took the protective bootees and gloves he held out, and slipped them on while he lifted the latch on the door to the first building.
‘Ready?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘All right, well – I should tell you that you’ll probably find this confronting if you haven’t been on a farm before, but just remember it’s the same process for chickens.’
She took a deep breath, and then followed him inside.
Her first impression was that the layout was similar to the mushroom farm, except that instead of rows of shelves containing fungi in various stages of growth, this building contained rows of cages, each half a metre square and stacked four cages high.
A terrible squealing came from the far side of the building before falling silent, and she turned to Peverell, unable to keep the shock from her face.
‘What was that?’
He shrugged. ‘They fight from time to time.’
Swallowing down her retort, she wandered a few metres further into the battery farm, her boots scuffing through waste that coated the floor in a slick of manure and old straw. Her eyes widened in horror as she paused next to one of the cages.
Eight rabbits blinked up at her, their mouths open as they panted in the stagnant air.
‘Don’t they need more room than this?’
‘They’re fine.’
‘Where’s their water supply?’
‘In that bottle there. It’s drip fed.’
‘How is the building ventilated?’
The farmer jerked his thumb upwards, and she raised her eyes to the ceiling to see a line of battered vents.
Frustrated, she gritted her teeth, then turned and followed him through the bowels of the building then back towards the main door.
The search team was waiting to start on the battery farm having already checked the slaughterhouse, and she had no desire to stay inside any longer.
‘I can’t help noticing that these cages haven’t been cleaned out in a while,’ she said.
Peverell paused and glared at her over his shoulder, his eyes hardening. ‘We clean them out every day.’
‘There’s a dead rabbit in that one.’
‘It’s a fact of life – and this business, detective. Do you want to see the slaughterhouse next?’
Kay wrinkled her nose as a handful of flies launched into the air above the cages before descending on the next row, the drone from their wings creating a horrific white noise she was sure she would hear for days. She’d rather do anything but see the other side of the farming operation, however, professional interest made her nod in agreement.
‘Lead the way.’
Half an hour later, she tugged off the gloves and plastic bootees and tossed them into a dustbin Peverell indicated outside the slaughterhouse.
He had been matter-of-fact during the tour, describing the butchering process, showing her the enormous walk-in cold rooms where the meat was kept until shipped out to the pet food companies, and extolling the fact that his business only used a third of the space of other commercial meat enterprises.
She’d been taken aback at the scale of what he and his wife were doing.
‘Like I said, there’s a demand for the meat,’ he said as he shut the door and tore his gloves off. ‘If that’s everything, I’ve got paperwork to do. Will your lot be much longer?’
Kay peered past him to where the search teams were beginning to congregate in the yard for a debrief, their faces stoical.
‘Thank you, Mr Peverell. I think we’re done here. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.’
He nodded, then turned his back on her and stalked towards the house.
‘Jesus.’ Kay exhaled, checked that Gavin had the debrief under control, and then moved away from the yard towards a grassy track that began at the side of the slaughterhouse building.
She took deep breaths as the stench from the farm subsided with a fresh breeze whipping through a paddock to her left, and gulped the sweet aroma of freshly cut grass while she walked.
The track widened, the ground under her feet levelling out between an avenue of coppiced trees and neatly cut hedgerows of blackthorn and damson, and the stress of the past few hours began to subside a little, allowing her to focus her thoughts on what angles of enquiry she’d have to follow up next.
When she glanced over her shoulder, she was surprised to see how far away from the rabbit farm she’d strayed.
Beyond her position, she spotted the tell-tale tangled branches of fruit trees and wandered closer to take a look. After a hundred metres or so, she found her way blocked by a single chain that had been stretched across the track at knee height, a simple hook attaching it to a wooden post on the right-hand side.
Tugging her folded-up copy of a map of the area from her pocket, she eased out the creases with her fingers, traced her progress and realised she was standing at the border with the Ditchens’ land. Surpr
ised at the lack of boundary markings or other signage at the fence line, she refolded the map and then set off back towards the Peverells’ yard.
The cloud cover broke for a moment, bathing the landscape in a warm sunlight that promised better weather ahead, and she squinted in the sudden contrast from the gloom that had cloaked her surroundings a moment before.
As she drew closer to the rabbit farm, the now familiar stench wafted towards her. She took a final, deep lungful of fresh air and then plunged onwards as a uniformed officer stumbled away from the group dispersing from the yard and rested her hand on the side of the slaughterhouse.
Kay took one look at the young police constable’s face, and waved her towards to a patch of undergrowth beyond the open door of the outbuilding. ‘There’s a breeze around that side of the building. It helps.’
‘Thanks, ma’am.’
Kay turned away from the police constable as Gavin sloped towards her, his face glum.
‘Guv, I’m sor––’
She held up her hand to stop him. ‘Like I said to Laura yesterday, we have to follow up these leads. As it is, I want you to give the council and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs a call. Ask them to inspect this place to check on their farming practices. I can’t imagine they’re going to be too impressed with the conditions in that outbuilding.’
His shoulders straightened as he pulled out his phone. ‘Thanks, guv. Will do.’
Satisfied the rest of the team could manage without her, she made her way over to where she had parked, swapped her boots for shoes, and shoved the silage-covered wellingtons into a plastic bag that she sealed and placed in the back of the car to wash when she got home.
Reversing into the lane, she stomped on the accelerator.
As the countryside passed by in a blur, she tried to temper her frustration. Two searches in as many days turning up nothing did little for her relationship with the Chief Superintendent, but she stood by her decision to listen to her detectives.
She was sure that they were close.
‘Dammit.’
Turn to Dust Page 18