Hidden

by Roger A Price

  ‘Good point. Your call.’

  Thanks for the backing, Vinnie thought but didn’t say. ‘OK, let’s try it. But any deal will have to depend on us getting hold of Babik, and quickly.’

  This time Harry nodded his agreement and they both walked into the office. Inside was a grubby space, but nowhere near as grubby as the spaces occupied by the girls. There was a camp bed at one end of the large office, next to a makeshift kitchenette, and a table and chairs at the other end. Sitting on one of the chairs was a white woman in her thirties, fat and unkempt, wearing elasticated jeans and a jumper. She sat crossed-legged, smoking a cigarette.

  Vinnie introduced both Harry and himself and then told the woman, who confirmed her name, what the DS had suggested, adding, ‘It’s all about trust, isn’t it?’

  ‘I know that, and I know I’m hardly in the best place, but if you nick me I’ll say fuck all and come up with a crock of shite if this ever gets to court. Perhaps I too am a victim here?’

  Right at that moment Vinnie wanted to knock this poor excuse for a woman into next week. Not that he ever had, or would, hit a woman. But Jody Watson was barely human, let alone female. He breathed in deeply. ‘Let’s cut out the bullshit; I can’t guarantee you all you are asking, but I can start off that way.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ Watson said.

  ‘If you can give us Babik quickly, before he finds out, then I can at least go to the CPS with something solid.’

  ‘Ok, I can give you Babik, I’m sure of that, and he’s close, for the moment. Then when you have him, I can give you the rest. All the proof you’ll need. I’ll be the best witness you ever, or never, had.’

  ‘Ok, let’s start you off as a witness,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘Great, but not here, any of Babik’s men could turn up at any time. Get me out of here and once I’m safe I’ll tell where he spends most of his afternoons.’

  Vinnie asked Susan to arrange transport for the witness, but she suggested that he and Harry take Jody to the nick in their car; it would be quicker than waiting for a plain CID vehicle. Vinnie agreed and Susan said she would finish off searching the office, then join them at the station.

  ‘Once we have her in a witness interview room she’s all yours, Susan, it’s your gig,’ Vinnie assured her. Susan smiled and Harry took hold of Watson’s arm. They headed out of the building and towards Vinnie’s Volvo. He was glad to get out of the place.

  Chapter Twelve

  Harry suggested he should drive the car and that Vinnie sit in the back seat with Watson. Even though she was not under arrest, it would be safer that way, Vinnie realised. If she tried to make a run for it, she would soon be under arrest. And the back seat would give him a further chance to build a rapport with her. That was one of the hardest parts of the job sometimes; having to befriend those who made your skin crawl.

  Those who assaulted women were a good example. They often — but not always — came in two classes; the big steroid-pumped macho-men and the snivelling insignificants who only felt powerful when dominating anyone weaker than themselves. Some of the latter were often pitiful and weak beyond belief; not what you might expect. Fake empathy or sympathy was often the way to open them up. Hearing these beasts admit what they had done was the reward. Vinnie decided to try a similar approach with Watson.

  It wouldn’t take Harry long to drive the few miles back into the centre of Preston, but as soon as Vinnie started talking he saw Harry’s eyes in the driver’s rear view mirror, registering an understanding. He also saw the speedometer drop down to 25.

  ‘Look, I’m sure we can swing this with the CPS, especially when we get our hands on Babik. I understand more than you think; it must have been a nightmare working for him,’ Vinnie started.

  ‘You have no idea, at first I thought it would be fun, and he was paying me a grand a week. Back in the day, I’d have had to sell my arse to earn that kinda money,’ Watson said.

  Vinnie smiled while inwardly cringing. ‘When did it turn sour?’

  ‘Almost straight away. He said after the girls were burnt out he would probably be moving on, as he wasn’t sure if he could replace them. It was how he stayed ahead of you lot, I guessed. He said I would then receive a bonus, but if I didn’t do as he asked he’d chain me up, and offer me as a special for 24 hours to some of his special clients.’

  ‘Special clients?’

  ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know.’

  Vinnie took a glance out of the side window for a moment’s respite, and noted that they were still in the industrial estate, but away from the all the other units. There was grass on both sides of the road and it looked as if the brown-belt area was being extended. The road was dotted with many junctions that only led a few metres before ending; yet to be developed. A couple of hundred metres ahead he could see the main exit from the site, where it joined a major road on the edge of Ribbleton, an easterly district of Preston. He turned back to face Watson.

  ‘How confident are you that we can get hold of Babik straight away?’

  ‘Very, and he won’t be far away.’

  ‘How are you so sure? I thought he was a very cautious man.’

  ‘He is, but it’s Tuesday afternoon.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Look, as soon as we are safely in the nick, I’ll tell you, I promise.’

  ‘Be an act of good faith if you told us now. I can have the cavalry on his case straight away. And in any event, you’re safe now.’

  Vinnie then saw Watson’s eyes widen as she looked over his shoulder. She had a faraway gaze, but unlike those of her charges, this gaze had purpose and focus. He was facing her and would have to turn fully around to see behind himself. He started to move when he saw Watson’s gaze shift quickly to her right hand. Vinnie instinctively looked down as Watson pulled her hand from inside his suit’s left-hand outer pocket. He was about to ask her what she’d been doing — that thousand-yard stare must have been a ruse to distract him — but she spoke first.

  ‘If I die, go after them with the key to all you need.’ And as she spoke, she pushed Vinnie back into his seat and turned towards the car door.

  ‘Harry!’ Vinnie shouted, to warn him that Watson was making a run for it, when time suddenly reduced to a crawl. As he turned back to face Watson, and was about to reach for her arm, an ear-slitting roar filled the car and his ears. Splinters of shattered safety glass sprayed Vinnie’s right cheek, the side the roar had come from, and at the same instant, warm liquid sprayed his left cheek. But before he could compute what was happening he felt his body thrown violently forward as the car braked heavily. They hadn’t been travelling fast… it soon came to a stop and inertia threw Vinnie back into his seat, upright.

  Time caught up. First, he looked to his left and could see the origin on the warm liquid.

  Watson’s head.

  It looked as if it had exploded. There was a small black bullet entry wound in the right-hand side of her face, and loose skin flapped where the left-hand side had been. The glass was gone from that window, and as the car stopped, Watson’s lifeless body finally came to rest against the back of the front seat.

  ‘Christ, are you OK?’ Harry shouted, and Vinnie knew he was, but couldn’t answer straight away. He turned to his right, and finally he saw what Watson had seen in her final moments. A large black motorcycle with two men on it. The pillion passenger was lowering a short-barrelled weapon which looked like an Uzi sub-machine gun. He threw it to the ground, and then used both hands to grip the rear grab bar as the bike’s rider power-slid the large machine around in a doughnut before accelerating away from them. It was at the site’s entrance in seconds, where it turned right and disappeared in the general direction of Preston centre.

  ‘I’m fine Harry, but Watson’s dead. What the hell just happened?’

  But Harry didn’t answer; he was already on the radio, asking for help.

  *

  It took Christine until lunchtime just to clear her inbox of spam.
That left about 30 emails requiring varying degrees of attention. Some would be a quick reply, some had work attached. One was a newsfeed from one of the regional ITV’s court reporters, about a criminal trial that had concluded whilst she was away. It was a modern slavery case. Two British Pakistanis had been convicted of using two Romanian women as skivvies. The defendants had both been sentenced to four years and the two women were now being looked after by social services. As interesting as this whole modern slavery thing was, it had clearly been comprehensively reported throughout the trial and ITV was planning a post-trial special programme to highlight the issue.

  As unsavoury and as unbelievable as the concept of modern slavery was, it was the nationality of the two women that caught Christine’s eye. The reporter was John Debroski, who had obviously spent some time in court. The victims were not named in the piece. Christine knew Debroski; not well, but they had been on the same journalism course at college, way back. He was worth talking to.

  Twenty minutes later she had tracked Debroski down and with the lure of a free lunch — which was the usual currency when one reporter needed a favour from another— she put her desk phone down and reached for her handbag. She’d arranged to meet Debroski in a small bistro near to Piccadilly Gardens in the heart of Manchester, close to Minshull Street’s crown court.

  Chapter Thirteen

  An hour later, Vinnie and Harry were cleared to leave the scene. By now a full cordon was in place with a number of gazebo-style portable tents over and around Vinnie’s Volvo and the point from where the motorbike gunman had struck. Watson’s body was still in situ and would be for some time. A mobile police station had just arrived and Vinnie and Harry removed their outer clothing and bagged and tagged it all up, ready for the exhibits officer. Most detectives carried a holdall with some overnight kit in, and Vinnie’s was in the boot of his car, so he was able to put on a sweater, jeans and a pair of trainers. Harry’s overnight bag was back in the office at Preston, so he had to make do with a white paper suit for now.

  ‘Not a word,’ Harry said, as he zipped his suit up. Vinnie had to swallow the desire to speak aloud one of several remarks that were flying around inside his head. He just smiled, instead. They both sat down to reflect. Before Vinnie had changed, he’d had to wait until a CSI was available to swab both sides of his face. He could still smell the metallic aroma from his left cheek, and no end of wet wipes had been unable to remove it. That smell would be trapped in his nasal memory for some time to come.

  Harry broke his train of thought by speaking first. ‘I reckon from the time the first door went in, until the attack, was no more than twenty minutes.’

  ‘If that,’ Vinnie replied.

  ‘Not much time to organise and mount an attack.’

  ‘She said he wasn’t far away.’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘And in any event, once tipped off that a raid was going down, if that’s what happened, you’d have thought he’d have got as far away as possible. Not the opposite,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘The problem, of course, is that the attack was targeted at Watson, no one else. Who knew we were taking her?’ Harry said.

  ‘Apart from the DS, any number of officers and some of the women will have seen us two walk Watson out of there.’

  ‘Can’t imagine any of the women tipping Babik off, can you?’ Harry said.

  Vinnie couldn’t, but knew that if they discounted the women it only left one possible consideration, and it wasn’t one he wanted to admit. Then a thought hit him. ‘You do realise, Harry, that if we had arrested Watson she would probably still be alive? It wouldn’t have been you and me escorting her, she’d have been transported in a secure police van designed specifically for prisoner transport.’

  A moment’s pause was followed by both of them shouting, ‘Susan!’ Vinnie could hear Harry on the radio trying to raise DS Grady as thoughts and associations started to take root. She had persuaded them to treat Watson as a witness — even if the rationale was valid. She had been the one to say that it would take ages to arrange a plain CID car to come and collect the ‘witness’. And they all knew that prisoner vans were for transporting prisoners only. But even if the unthinkable was true, how the hell had Babik organised the attack so quickly? They hadn’t even left the estate. Then, Vinnie thought about the five or so minutes Susan had kept them, asking about how deeply she should search the office. It had struck Vinnie at the time as basic questioning. Questions he wouldn’t have expected from a DS. He’d just written them off as over-efficiency. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  They’d find out soon enough, well, as soon as they could ask Susan to hand over her phone. He turned to face Harry, ‘She still searching the office?’

  ‘I’m just waiting to find out. She’s not answering her radio, which could mean several things, so I’ve asked the uniform sergeant supervising at the mill to go and grab her.’

  Vinnie picked up his crumpled copy of the operational order and turned to the staff list. He soon found DS Susan Grady’s details and keyed her mobile phone number into his own.

  ‘That’s strange,’ Harry said.

  ‘What is?’ Vinnie said, as waited for his call to be connected.

  ‘The sergeant has come back saying that she is not in the office, and no one has seen her.’

  ‘And her phone has just rung out to voicemail,’ Vinnie said, as he pulled his phone from his ear and killed the call.

  Vinnie watched as Harry’s complexion reddened and he took an office chair. This was followed by a brief spell of overarm head-rubbing. Harry was as stressed as Vinnie felt.

  ‘Before we do anything else, I’d better ring the Lancs chief, Brian Darlington. Then we’ll need a lift back to Preston nick.’

  Vinnie didn’t envy his boss the next five minutes. He left the mobile police station to give him some privacy and to try and blag a lift from one of the uniforms.

  Five minutes later Vinnie was joined by Harry, huffing and puffing as he climbed down the metal steps from the mobile station’s front door.

  ‘How did Darlington take it?’

  ‘Damn,’ Harry answered, as he slipped off the last step. Vinnie caught his arm to steady him. ‘These bastard disposable slip-on shoes,’ Harry said, by way of explanation. He steadied himself and then caught his breath. Vinnie couldn’t help himself as a half laugh sneaked out.

  ‘I told you not to,’ Harry said.

  ‘Sorry, but—’

  ‘No buts.’

  ‘OK, OK but what about Darlington?’

  ‘He’s one seriously pissed off chief constable. He’s on his way to Preston nick, so we need to grab a lift, sharpish. I’m not meeting him dressed like the ghost of Ronald McDonald.’

  *

  By the time Christine arrived at the smart-seeming bistro overlooking Piccadilly Gardens, she could see John Debroski sitting at a table in the window. He’s keen, she thought. She hadn’t known him too well when they were at college, but she’d always wondered if he fancied her. She wasn’t being full of herself, but the unspoken had always made her wonder. He was a good-looking man in his late thirties, proportionate in height and build. In fact, proportionate seemed to sum him up, if she recalled correctly; he was always pleasant but always in the middle. Never a leader, nor a follower; always somewhere in between.

  Salutations and a quick catch up over, she’d seen nothing to change her view. Especially when he asked her if she was married, even though it was obvious from the lack of jewellery that she was not. She ignored the question, flagging the waiter over. ‘Just a BLT for me please. John, have you chosen?’ John replied by ordering a fillet steak sandwich; he was going to milk it.

  ‘OK, Christine, how can I help?’

  ‘That trial you covered around the corner, the slavery one, I’m interested in the two aggrieved.’

  ‘No can do,’ Debroski started. Which Christine had expected.

  ‘Look, I’m not after nicking any exclusive you are doing—’

  ‘T
rying to do,’ Debroski clarified, then added, ‘I’m trying my best to get them to let me do a feature, but they are naturally scared.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Social services have them until they can decide what best to do; I reckon they’ll choose to go back to Romania, so time’s short.’ Debroski asked what Christine’s interest was. She didn’t want to give too much away, she sensed that Debroski would jump on it, so she merely said she was interested in how life had been for them in Romania before they left, and what they had expected the UK to be like. Debroski didn’t answer straight away, and then the food arrived. Halfway through the meal he suddenly spoke.

  ‘OK, here’s the deal. I’m struggling to get them to meet me as they want to forget all about what’s happened to them. Understandable, I know, so if I try an approach from your agenda and they agree, I can hijack the interview at the end and get some quotes for my piece. At the very least I can use those asides to wrap a story around.’ Debroski then returned his attention to his meal.

  ‘No way, you’re just after exploiting them. The story at any cost. It’s shits like you that give the press a bad name,’ Christine said. Her blood was up now; it looked like she’d underestimated Mister Average. He spat a mouthful of food onto his plate, too demonstratively, in her opinion.

  ‘I thought you were a big shot TV reporter now?’ Debroski said.

  ‘Meaning what, exactly?’

  ‘Meaning I didn’t think you would bother about upsetting a couple of immigrants, if you got what you were after.’

  Now, Christine was really angry. She didn’t dignify his comments with an answer, but reached into her purse for a £10 note, which would cover her half-eaten sandwich but not Debroski’s extravagant one. ‘Deal’s off; buy your own lunch,’ she said, as she threw the tenner on to the table before getting to her feet. Immediately, the waiter was there.

  ‘Everything alright with your meal, madam?’