by G D Sanders
‘Sorry, Nigel, I’d rather keep the apartment to myself for a little while longer. Actually, I don’t really feel like coffee.’
‘What do you feel like?’
‘Champagne is always good …’
‘… for starters?’
Ed smiled.
Nigel signalled for the bill and, despite Ed’s protest, signed and handed it back folded over a twenty-pound note.
‘Put it on my tab.’ Turning back to Ed, he said, ‘If the lady wants champagne I know just the place.’
With a hand on her elbow, Nigel steered her from the restaurant, turned right into Mercery Lane and led her across the High Street.
‘Isn’t this your office?’ asked Ed, her voice betraying disappointment.
‘You’ll be surprised. It’s my secret place for a nightcap.’
‘You’re arousing my curiosity.’
‘More than your curiosity, I hope.’
Nigel guided Ed to his private office on the first floor. With a flourish he removed the top left book from shelves behind his desk and pressed the back panel. There was the faintest noise of an electric motor and the bookcase swung open to reveal a door. Nigel pulled the door open. Soft light illuminated a small room which contained a bed and a bar. It was just as Verity had described.
‘After you, there’s champagne on ice.’
‘Give me a moment, I’ll just go to the loo.’
Ed walked through the outer office and into the staff lavatories. Once inside she checked everything was okay, flushed the loo and washed her hands. On her way back she heard sounds coming from the secret room. At first she wasn’t sure what it was but then she realized. The bugger was watching porn.
‘Together with the champagne I thought this would get us in the mood.’
Ed glanced around the room and a wave of nausea gripped her stomach. It wasn’t porn. It was her voice and their images on a screen at the foot of the bed. The bastard had recorded their encounter. Yet again she’d been undone by her readiness to leap into bed. Actually they were on the bed, her face and partially clothed body in full view while Nigel was keeping his back to the hidden camera.
He smiled as her expression changed from brief puzzlement to shocked recognition.
‘I thought this might add a little piquancy to the evening.’
The arrogant bastard, he was not only showing her the video, he actually thought it would turn her on. She looked again at the screen as if reliving the moment but, in reality, searching for a spy-cam hidden in his secret room. She couldn’t see one but she was certain there would be a camera there, covering the bed. Ed allowed her face to soften sensuously before replying.
‘God, that really was intense.’
‘The unexpected often is.’
‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’
‘Only the special ones.’
‘Do you bring them all here?’
‘Only the special ones.’
‘Stephanie?’
‘Jealousy doesn’t become you.’
‘I’m not jealous, just curious and the idea intrigues me.’ Ed fought another wave of nausea as she continued, ‘Who knows what I might be inspired to do …’
Leaving what she might be inspired to do unspoken, she changed the subject.
‘But first, where’s the champagne?’
Nigel took a bottle from a small refrigerator, filled two flutes and handed one to her.
‘Here’s to the continuation of our lovely evening.’
‘How did this place come to exist?’
‘When the office was being renovated we stumbled on this lost space. I realized it was a godsend and got a firm down from London to construct the room.’
‘And it does the job?’
‘You should see their faces when I press the panel and the shelves swing open.’
‘I guess a drink at the office is easier than committing to a night away.’
‘And better for me … it’s a double whammy. They come up here expecting to be perched on an office desk and then the little darlings are gobsmacked as I take down the book and press the panel. One touch of my finger on the button and they’re in a James Bond movie, their dreary lives left behind.’ Nigel shrugged his shoulders with false modesty. ‘I’m never sure if I should put my success down to my natural magnetism or a spin-off from 007’s charisma.’
On the back of his self-perceived charm, Nigel stepped closer and Ed allowed an exploratory kiss before breaking away to refresh her champagne.
‘I won’t ask how many, but give me the highlights. Who do you remember with the greatest pleasure?’
‘It would be invidious to name names but I do have a penchant for the young and naive. They can be quite touching. Sometimes I don’t go all the way but let them savour the anticipation of a return visit.’
From Nigel’s look Ed had no doubt he was heavily into young women. She imagined them here in this room and the effect his moment of pleasure would have on their young lives. The thought sickened her but she forced herself to press on with her plan: her career was at stake.
‘Where do you find them? Surely you don’t hang around outside schools?’
Full of his successes but, knowing she was a police officer, he topped up their glasses, giving himself time to think before replying.
Ed knocked back half of her glass and sat on the edge of the bed with a look of aroused anticipation. She watched his desire to boast overcome his circumspection. He began to describe the like-minded group of artists who met regularly at his home. He explained how they moved on from professional models to the fresher faces of young girls from the school.
‘Don’t be alarmed. They were all sixth-formers, all at least 16, most 17 or 18.’
‘Are you sure?’
Spurred by Ed’s look of arousal, Nigel was too into his story to stop.
‘Well … there were a couple who lied but they were almost 16 and well up for it. After we said goodbye, they were soon doing it with snotty-nosed oiks behind bus shelters. I’d shown them how it could be but, if the silly cows had no appreciation of style, it was hardly my fault.’
Ed’s feeling of nausea, which had never been far away, returned. Worry was added to her feeling of revulsion at the cavalier pleasure he took in possessing and discarding young women. Had he seen something in her readiness for sex which made him think she’d no boundaries? Ed pushed the thought aside feeling even more determined to nail the bastard. Ignoring his revelation of underage sex, she hung on his every word and adopted a position suggesting she would be the reward for a masterly climax. Nigel strove to excel and became so wrapped up in his account he started to mention names. He concluded with a flourish and moved to sit next to her on the bed, turning her lips towards his own and murmuring, ‘That’s enough talk.’
At this point she no longer needed to fake it: her stomach heaved. Exaggerating her unsteadiness, Ed got to her feet and dropped her empty glass onto the bed.
‘Sorry, Nigel, I don’t feel so good. I must get to the loo.’
For a second time that evening Ed walked through the office and locked herself in the staff lavatories. First she checked a slim voice recorder in the pocket of her trousers. Satisfied, she put two fingers in her throat, gagged a little, spat into the bowl, wiped her lips and flushed. After checking her appearance in the mirror, she washed her hands and returned to Nigel.
‘Sorry about that.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Very queasy.’ Her face registered disappointment. ‘I should go.’
Frustrated and angry, Nigel managed a clipped ‘If you must,’ before adding, ‘My car’s out back.’
‘I’ll walk. It may help to clear my head. Before I leave, you should give me that tape.’
‘I think not.’
‘Come on, Nigel, don’t play games. I’m not feeling so good.’
‘One never knows when a hold may be useful. That recording’s my insurance.’
‘Oh … like thi
s, you mean.’ Ed pulled the voice recorder from her back pocket. ‘I’ve got our entire conversation here.’
Nigel snatched the recorder from her hand and pressed play. The quality was excellent. Nigel’s face registered increasing alarm as he heard the recording. It began with Ed’s voice.
‘What follows is a conversation between Nigel Drakes-Moulton and Ed Ogborne recorded at his place of work on the evening of Tuesday the seventeenth of June two thousand and … ’
Nigel stopped the playback. ‘You bitch!’ He fumbled to open the device before triumphantly removing the memory card and thrusting the recorder back into Ed’s hand.
‘There, now get out!’
‘Surely an exchange would be the gentlemanly thing to do. You’ve taken my insurance so it’s only fair you should give me yours.’
‘Fuck off! I’m one up and I’m staying one up.’
Ed made a lunge to retrieve the memory card but Nigel held it out of reach. Her shoulders drooped in resignation.
‘Not so bloody clever now, are you?’ said Nigel waving the memory card in her face.
‘Nigel, please …’
‘Piss off!’
Beaten and dejected, Ed turned and walked from the room.
‘That’s it. Get your sorry arse out of here.’
On the street, Ed stopped in a doorway and smiled. If Nigel played the audio recording she could imagine his reaction when the pre-recorded introduction faded into silence. Ed retrieved the actual recording from the waistband of her trousers, slipped the memory card into her handbag, and hurried home. She made several copies of the recording and hid them around the apartment. More than anything, she wanted a hot shower and a good night’s sleep but her career was still at stake. She lost no time in making her way to the Station and getting her colleagues to join her. Ed’s sense of what was to come strengthened her step. A long night and a difficult day lay ahead. With the team she would be investigating Nigel as a suspect while secretly she must eliminate the videos which threatened her career.
47
As soon as Ed reached her desk, she organized warrants to search Nigel’s office and The Hall at Stelling Minnis. She needed to retrieve and destroy the video he’d recorded in her hotel room. Fortunately, Nigel was a legitimate suspect. He might have used a camera with a built-in DVR recording onto an SD card but she was convinced he’d used wireless surveillance. Why else get her moved to a room with a direct sight-line to his office only 80 metres away? Any recording he’d made of her would be on a computer in his secret room. She remembered Verity saying that he was fastidiously opposed to members of TOBs having sex at The Hall. His own sex life was private and she was sure he restricted his more egregious behaviour to his secret room. It was there he brought the schoolgirls and it would be there he kept his video recordings.
Ed’s gut feeling was that Nigel hadn’t carried out the abductions but, given his confessed interest in nubile young bodies, it remained a possibility. There was no way Kimberley or Lucy had been held in his secret room but she was justified searching it for potential links to the missing girls. Her number one priority was to find and get rid of the sex videos. She must get there tonight and confiscate anything which might be incriminating.
If he had any sense, Nigel would be stripping the place right now but you could never be certain and a police raid would show she meant business. Ed was confident the sex tape wasn’t at The Hall but it could be on any device seized from his office. In the interest of self-preservation she would need to exercise careful control over her team’s activities and keep all her wits about her. She must be the first to see any of Nigel’s computer records and she had to see them alone.
When Mike arrived, she took him aside.
‘I’ve had a tip-off about Drakes-Moulton’s estate agency.’
‘Verity Shaw?’
‘Probably best you don’t know. It could have come from any number of young women.’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘There’s a hidden room behind the bookshelves in his office, which must be searched. If he abducted the girls he can’t have kept them there so we’ll also need to search his home.’
At that moment Nat walked into the CID Room looking bleary-eyed.
Ed rounded on the young DC. ‘Good of you to join us, Nat. I said this was urgent! You need to buck your ideas up. We’re going to raid Nigel Drakes-Moulton.’
‘Action at last!’
‘No heroics,’ Ed warned. ‘You’ll be going with Mike and two women PCs to his home, The Hall near Stelling Minnis.’
Nat’s eyes lit up. He made to speak but Ed silenced him with a raised hand and continued the briefing.
‘Drakes-Moulton may’ve had a tip-off so get there asap. Right now he could be getting rid of anything incriminating. If he’s not at The Hall, wait until you get a call from me.’
‘Where will you be?’ asked Mike.
‘I’m taking Jenny and two male PCs to his office. Once we’ve gained entry I’ll call you. If there’s no one at The Hall that’ll be your cue to call Drakes-Moulton with the usual warning that you have a warrant and if he doesn’t come to let you in you’ll force an entry.’
‘What are we looking for?’ asked Mike.
‘Anything that might implicate him in the abductions. Bag any computers and bring them straight to forensics. Jenny and I will do the same at the estate agency. Right, let’s get moving!’
48
By the time Mike and Nat had returned from Stelling Minnis, Ed and Jenny were already at their desks with coffees. Mike flopped into his chair. ‘I hope you’ve had better luck. There was nothing of interest at The Hall. We bagged a laptop and a desktop, which are with forensics, but I don’t hold out much hope. Since Lucy’s disappearance he would have had weeks to remove anything incriminating.’
‘Any signs the girls were held at The Hall or in the grounds?’
‘Nothing in the house, and uniform drew a blank in the outbuildings. How did you get on at his office?’
Ed glanced at Jenny.
‘A large pack of condoms under the bed and a pile of DVDs.’ Jenny held up two DVDs to show their garish covers. ‘A bit raunchy but nothing more than you’d find on adult TV.’
Nat looked at Jenny with even more interest than usual. ‘Did you get his computer?’
‘We bagged two,’ said Jenny before Ed took over.
‘There was a desktop in his office and a laptop connected to a home entertainment system in the secret room. All top-of-the-range components packaged into a wall unit. I don’t hold out much hope. He said that both the laptop and the desktop had nothing but confidential office business. He was so relaxed that he’s given us the passwords so we could look at them ourselves.’
‘And …?’
‘So far, nothing but estate agency stuff,’ said Ed, ‘but I’ll get them to forensics and go through them properly later.’
‘With his involvement in TOBs,’ said Mike, ‘I can’t believe he doesn’t have images on his computers, at least on one of them.’
Ed was sure Mike was right and she didn’t need reminding for the thought to make her jumpy. Whether or not he had pictures of schoolgirls, he had the sex video of the two of them. So far she’d controlled this aspect of the investigation but there’d been no sign of the video on either of the computers she and Jenny had confiscated from the estate agency.
‘Given what he uses the secret room for, I’d have put money on there being images on the laptop we found connected to the home entertainment system but it appears to be clean.’
‘The geeks might get lucky with deleted material,’ said Nat.
Ed didn’t need reminding. This was exactly what she was afraid of. She had to stay on top of this. ‘I intend to try them. However, he’d plenty of time to delete or dispose of the laptop but he didn’t do that. Why?’
This was sailing close to the place Ed didn’t want the team to go until after she’d located and destroyed any images of her and Nigel together. S
he was on a tightrope but, despite her concern, she relished the thrill of operating on tiptoe.
‘He knew we’d not find anything,’ said Jenny.
‘Exactly, he was so bloody arrogant he gave us the passwords.’ Ed paused, thinking before saying, ‘I’m sure he could access girlie photos from that laptop but, if it’s clean, where are the images stored?’
‘They might be on a CD or flash drive,’ said Nat, ‘but I reckon he’d go for an external hard drive.’
‘Jenny, you disconnected the laptop, was there a hard drive attached?’
‘No!’ Jenny was visibly annoyed the question should be asked. ‘If there’d been one, I’d have bagged it.’
‘So, he keeps it somewhere else,’ said Ed.
‘Or it’s hidden.’
At Nat’s words, Jenny brightened.
‘There was something that puzzled me.’ Jenny paused until all three of her colleagues were looking in her direction. ‘The components of the home entertainment system were top of the range but there was a great jumble of leads tucked behind it, more than I’d have expected.’
Ed’s eyes lit up. ‘Right, I’m going back there now. Those leads could be a deliberate distraction.’ She was out of her seat and walking to the door before any of the others moved.
‘Jenny, come with me. If we’re right, one of those leads will be connected to a hidden hard drive.’
Thirty minutes later, Ed and Jenny returned with a bagged hard drive from Drakes-Moulton’s secret room.
‘It’s bound to be password protected. I called ahead to forensics and they’ve got their expert out of bed. She’s on her way in. I’ll get this down there so she can prioritize it. If you need me, call my mobile.’
‘Before you go, what about the others?’ asked Mike.
‘Yeah, Leaman, Grieves and Podzansky,’ said Nat, enthusiastically. ‘When do we raid them and get their computers?
Ed shrugged. ‘They’re not like Anders and Carlton. None of them was in TOBs and there’s no other known link to young women. We haven’t enough for warrants.’
Later that night, Ed was introduced to the forensic IT expert in the depths of the department. Out of sight at the far end of a large basement room the technician had a bench covered with electronic equipment.