DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Murdered, and don’t pretend that you don’t know. It’s been plastered on the radio and television, and social media was full of it for a while.’

  Detective Inspector Waverton entered through the front door. Any more weight, Wendy thought, and he would have had to come in like a crab, sideways.

  Mary Wilton looked at Waverton, feigned a smile, changing it to a scowl. Waverton wouldn’t be getting special treatment that night, nor could he avoid arresting the woman.

  The four retreated to the back of the house, a small bar in one corner, two sofas where the women would wait, scantily dressed, while the men made their choice.

  Waverton took the most comfortable of the sofas, Wendy sitting alongside him. Hopwood remained standing, and Mary Wilton leaned against the wall, her arms folded.

  ‘Mrs Wilton,’ Wendy said, ‘you employed a woman from the Philippines, Analyn.’

  ‘The name is not familiar.’ She knew the situation was tenuous, having been there before. Denying what was obvious wouldn’t assist her case, and the maximum sentence was between six months and seven years. She would be truthful.

  One of the uniforms came into the room. ‘No drugs, not that we can find.’

  A sniffer dog would have had more success, Wendy knew, but that was up to Waverton and the Brent Police. It wasn’t going to happen, and the woman would be charged with running a brothel, the women working there would be checked for their right to be in the country, their age, and cautioned. Yet again, Waverton’s decision.

  Wendy passed over a photo of Analyn, a blow-up from William Townsend’s phone. The definition had been lost in enlarging it, but it was clear enough for the purpose.

  ‘Not the name she used. She wasn’t here for long, no idea where she is now.’

  ‘I don’t have an issue with you on that,’ Wendy said. ‘The woman’s elusive, but we need to find her. Any idea where?’

  ‘Sorry, pointless asking. I just don’t know. Some of them breeze in, entertain a few men, and leave. Easy money, no references needed, just an ability to turn a few tricks, make a few lonely men happy for a while. Does no harm.’

  ‘As you say, but the law’s the law. The women haven’t committed a chargeable offence, you have.’

  ‘I know the drill. If I could help, I would. Assistance in a murder enquiry can only go in my favour.’

  Wendy could well imagine that in the dock at her trial, Mary Wilton would not be bedecked with her hair piled high, a shade of blue, and the blouse and the skirt, along with the stilettos, would be gone; all replaced by a sombre outfit more befitting the woman’s age.

  ‘What name did she use?’

  ‘I don’t know, and that’s the truth. She said she had been in the country for some time, had a British passport.’

  ‘Did you check it?’ Garry Hopwood asked.

  ‘I took her word for it.’

  ‘Which means,’ Waverton said, obviously feeling out of it and confident that Mary Wilton wasn’t going to spill the beans, ‘that she could have been underage, illegal.’

  ‘I trust my girls.’

  ‘Hopefully, the women in the house are all legal,’ Wendy said. ‘Are they?’

  ‘They are’

  ‘I’ve another photo, a woman who’s been in this house, not a prostitute from what we know. You must study it carefully and answer truthfully. People have died, continue to die. Why they do, we don’t know, but if we’re correct, you could be at risk and so could Meredith Temple and your girls.’

  Wendy handed the second photo to Mary Wilton.

  ‘Her name is Amanda Upton,’ the woman said.

  Wendy was so excited that she felt as though she wanted to kiss the woman, absolve her of all crimes. A name at last. She texted her DCI, ending the message with ‘more to come’.

  ‘What can you tell us about her?’

  ‘A shrewd woman, she made her money as a high-class escort. No drugs, worked out at the gym daily, financially sound after three years. She used to travel overseas, paid for by wealthy and secretive men who wanted absolute discretion, no two-bit hooker with a big mouth and genital herpes.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Is she dead? Is that why you’re here? Not for the other woman, but for Amanda?’

  ‘For both. The woman we know as Analyn, is, we believe, alive, although for how long we can’t be certain.’

  ‘Amanda?’

  ‘You obviously don’t keep abreast of the news.’

  ‘Never watch television or look at the internet. A Luddite, I suppose I am, but what about Amanda?’

  ‘Why are you so interested?’

  ‘She is, or should it be was, my daughter?’

  Wendy felt a lump in her throat, so did Sergeant Hopwood. DI Waverton looked into space, unable to comprehend the gravity of what had just been said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Wilton, but your daughter, Amanda, is dead.’

  Mary Wilton sat still, saying nothing. Eventually, she spoke. ‘I hardly ever saw her, not for years, and then one day, she turned up here.’

  ‘Any reason?’

  ‘We weren’t close, although I did my best when she was younger. I paid for her to go to a good school, and she was a bright student, went to university, a degree in English. I was proud of her, not selling herself at first.’

  ‘You were a prostitute?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Until I was too old. It’s for young women, but Amanda never saw any of the seedier side. I managed to buy a small flat, and I never messed with drugs. School holidays I’d be there for her; she boarded most of the time, so it wasn’t so difficult to make money, and then take the time for her.’

  ‘Her father?’ Waverton asked.

  ‘No idea. He could have been a banker or a labourer. I never knew, although he must have been honest and decent, otherwise she wouldn’t have grown up to be such a beautiful woman.’

  ‘Escorting?’

  ‘She had been kept away from it, as much as I could, but she knew that her childhood had been paid for by illicit earnings. Ambitious, ruthlessly ambitious, that was Amanda. I tried to talk her out of it, not that I was one to talk. She joined an agency that dealt with the wealthy and the discreet, men who wanted absolute silence and total involvement from the woman, not a five-minute screw or a blow job, but a weekend or a week, the sort of woman they could take to a function, impress with.’

  ‘Amanda was capable?’

  ‘I’m sure she was. And then she’s here, wanting to spend time with me.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘She left after twenty minutes, and I never saw her again.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Janice and Meredith were here, ask them.’

  ***

  Larry knew that Janice Robinson was dead, Meredith Temple was doing well at university, and Cathy Parkinson, the other English woman who had been at Mary Wilton’s brothel, was still prostituting. She was living in Hammersmith, not far from the station, and whereas the address indicated upmarket, the reality was anything but; it was a rundown hotel, a probable place where the women on the street could bring the men, no questions asked if a percentage of the price was handed over at reception.

  ‘Cathy Parkinson?’ Larry said at the reception.

  ‘She’s not been in for a few days,’ a long-haired male with a cleft chin, beady bloodshot eyes and a pointed nose, said. He looked between thirty-five and forty-five years of age, and he didn’t impress, so much so that Larry took hold of the register, spun it around and looked for the room number himself. Computers hadn’t made it to the hotel yet and weren’t likely to if it proved to be operating as a brothel.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ the man had protested. In vain, as far as Larry was concerned.

  ‘The room’s been paid for, up until the weekend.’

  Larry climbed the four flights of stairs, walked down a dark corridor – the lights didn’t work, not even the emergency lights.

  Outside, on the street, a uniform stood, an
other one in the small lane at the rear.

  Larry knocked on the door and waited. Inside the room, the sound of a television. It was late at night, and judging by no lights visible under the doors of the other rooms on the floor, no one else was staying the night.

  According to Meredith Temple’s description, Cathy Parkinson was beyond her use-by date, the first flush of womanhood long gone, replaced by a snarling woman who craved alcohol and drugs, not particular in which order, and she was usually the last one to be chosen at the brothel.

  He banged on the door again, harder than the first time. The volume on the television did not alter, nor was there the sound of someone moving around. Not willing to break the door with a firm shoulder, not as easy as it looked in the movies, with their paper-thin doors and make-believe locks, and the brooding hunk of a police officer, muscles bulging.

  Larry took out his phone and called down to reception. ‘Up here and with a key,’ he said. ‘And don’t take forever, or I’ll have you down the station, answering questions as to why you let women screw for money in your hotel.’

  A uniform brought the man up. ‘He tried to do a runner, but I caught him before he got far.’

  ‘Anything to say?’ Larry looked over at the receptionist, a bruise developing just under his eye where the uniform had smacked him one. Serves him right, Larry thought.

  The door opened with the master key. Larry gingerly opened it, ensuring he was wearing nitrile gloves. He stood at the door, not crossing the threshold.

  ‘Cathy Parkinson?’ he shouted once more.

  With no option, he entered the room, keeping to the centre, a bathroom to one side, an open wardrobe to the other, the ubiquitous metal hangers. No doubt a Gideon Bible in the drawer, he thought, not knowing who Gideon was and why so many bibles.

  The room was at least clean, probably because the woman lived there permanently, working from home.

  A small fridge, the television perched on top. Larry switched it off.

  A noise from behind him, the sound of a man being sick.

  ‘The bathroom,’ the constable said. Outside of the room, in the corridor, the disinterested long-haired man from reception down on all fours, getting rid of the curry he had eaten earlier.

  Larry looked at the woman suspended from the metal pipe coming out of the wall, a shower fitting attached. Even he felt his stomach heave.

  The constable left and walked away, getting as far as the stairs before he joined the long-haired individual in being sick.

  It was a job for Gordon Windsor. And it was proof that seeing Amanda Upton at her mother’s brothel was a death sentence.

  Larry phoned Isaac to update him, Wendy to find Meredith, and Windsor to bring his team down. It was going to be another long night.

  Chapter 19

  The discovery of Mary Wilton and her house of ill repute had thrown the case wide open. Of the three English women at the premises on the day that Amanda Upton had visited, two were dead and another was frightened.

  Meredith Temple had provided the first solid evidence in a murder enquiry that had dragged on too long.

  The depressing hotel room where Cathy Parkinson had died had been checked over by the CSI’s, the woman’s body taken to the pathologist. Isaac had seen enough corpses in his time to know there had been a struggle. The hanging in the shower seemed to serve no purpose as there were also multiple knife wounds to the body, except to add to the possibility that the killer had a perverted sense of the macabre. It was a sloppy killing, the likelihood of evidence stronger than in the murders of the other women.

  Gordon Windsor offered his appraisal that death had come slowly, that the woman had not been in good health, and that she, along with many who sold themselves, was a drug addict – a syringe and tourniquet had been found in the bathroom. He also confirmed that recent sexual activity was probable. Which meant that this time the murderer had had sex with the woman before killing her, whereas with Janice Robinson he had not, assuming the killer was one and the same for both deaths.

  Seminal fluid contained DNA, and it could be traced if there was a record on the database or could prove conclusive at an arrest and subsequent trial.

  Wendy sat with Meredith in an open area at the university. Neither woman was saying much; Wendy because she was mulling over what had happened and how to move forward, Meredith due to her fear.

  Around the two women, the students moved up and down, talking to one another, some reading, others playing with their phones, one or two asleep. They were blissfully unaware that in their midst was a woman who had seen the seedier side of life, an acquaintance of two recently murdered women, and a police officer.

  ‘I can’t say I knew her that well, Cathy, that is,’ Meredith said. ‘She was a terrible tart.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She seemed to enjoy it. After a time, or maybe it was always, you start to hate yourself and what you’ve become. The reason that so many become further drawn to heroin. A vicious cycle, screwing to make money to buy the drug, hating yourself, needing more drugs, screwing more, no longer caring what you do or with whom.’

  ‘You managed to break the cycle.’

  ‘Cathy was predisposed.’

  ‘Janice had been sexually abused in her early teens.’

  ‘A lot are. Cathy, when she did speak, would talk about her family; a mother she loved, a father she hated. It’s the same story as Janice’s, I suppose.’

  ‘Janice wasn’t too close to her mother, but she was to her brothers, especially the younger one.’

  ‘My parents were good people; I loved them, and nothing happened to me. My only problem was that I enjoyed men too much, especially in my teenage years.’

  ‘So did I,’ Wendy admitted. ‘Never drugs, only alcohol.’

  ‘What about me? What now? I’ve given you information, and Cathy’s dead and so is Janice. Am I to be the next?’

  ‘I can’t be sure. We don’t know why people have died, not yet. You saw Amanda Upton, as did Janice and Cathy. There has to be a link through the woman.’

  ‘Mary?’

  ‘Do you care?’

  ‘Not really. I can’t say anything against her, though. She played it straight, never cheated on the money, and we did have protection from violent men.’

  ‘Amanda comes into the house; she meets with her mother,’ Wendy attempting to focus on the murders, to try and make sense of the killings so far.

  ‘I was never introduced, and until you told me, I never knew she was Mary’s daughter. An attractive woman, elegantly dressed, nothing cheap about her.’

  ‘High-class escort. A rich man’s folly,’ Wendy said.

  ‘And she is the dead woman in Kensal Green?’

  ‘There seems little doubt that she is.’

  ‘The Asian girl?’

  ‘Any more you can tell us about her?’

  ‘She stayed a few weeks, kept to herself, did her job, and then left.’

  ‘After Amanda Upton had been in the house?’

  ‘Two, maybe three weeks after. I’m not sure of the dates, time blurs when you’re living on the edge. Do you think it’s significant?’

  ‘It could be. She must have spoken to you.’

  ‘Conversations, never about the men, but then we don’t.’

  ‘A whore’s code of silence?’ Wendy said.

  It was the first smile that Meredith Temple had allowed herself.

  ‘Hardly. Cathy might sometimes, but we preferred to forget. It was neither love nor pleasurable; it was carnal, animalistic, dogs on heat. It was just disgusting.’

  ‘And Analyn did what you did?’

  ‘If she was distressed, she never showed it. Not a smile or a laugh, impassive, a china doll.’

  ‘A seasoned prostitute? Sold herself in the past?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, but she would ask about Mary occasionally, what her history was, where she came from, family, that sort of thing.’

  ‘What did you say?’

>   ‘I don’t think any of us said very much, and besides, what did we know? We didn’t know about her daughter, not really.’

  ‘You suspected?’

  ‘It was Janice. She had finished with a client, a fat and sweaty man who usually chose me, but for some reason he decided on a change.’

  ‘A keen judge of women?’

  ‘Just a man too ugly he couldn’t find one for free.’

  ‘Janice?’

  ‘She was curious. She told me that Mary and her daughter were talking at the back of the house; Mary smoking a cigarette, the other woman standing nearby.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘According to Janice, the other woman’s telling Mary about her life; not in glowing terms, either. As to how it was good money, but that some of the men were dangerous individuals, secretive men, possessive, wanting her to always be there.’

  ‘She wanted out?’

  ‘She was frightened for her safety. No idea why.’

  ‘If she overheard something, the same way that Janice had, then who knows. Powerful people have powerful secrets, facts they would not want to be known.’

  ‘Janice would have told Cathy, who wasn’t always discreet.’

  ‘She could have told Analyn?’

  ‘It’s probable. As I said, a few weeks, and she was gone.’

  ***

  Early the next day, Wendy picked up Mary Wilton from the former brothel. The women who had been plying their wares at the place on the day the police had first visited were long gone, some to a different brothel, others back to the street.

  At the mortuary, the madam, duly charged with running a brothel, but out on bail on her own surety, and now dressed more fittingly for the solemnity of identifying the Jane Doe, looked away as the sheet was pulled back.

  Wendy was the first to look, and even though it had been kept in a cooled environment, the effects of time were starting to show on the dead body. If a body had a soul at death, not that Wendy believed they did, then this one did not. An attempt to make the deceased more palatable in appearance for the next of kin to identify had not occurred this time. All that Wendy could see, as did Mary Wilton when she turned around, eyes glazed, to look at the body, was a slab of flesh and hair, the caricature of a person.