‘It’s Amanda,’ Mary Wilton said.
With that, the woman turned around and left the room, not once looking back.
Wendy found her outside on the street, a cigarette in her mouth, a handkerchief in her hand, a look of desperation on her face.
‘Difficult?’ Wendy said as she put her arm around the woman who had visibly shrunk.
‘I never wanted her to follow me into the business, that’s why I devoted my time to her, ensured she had the best opportunities. Not that it made any difference, only that she found a better quality of man, made more money, but it’s all the same, isn’t it?
‘A lecherous fornicating drunk on his way home from work, a labourer, a wife-beater, they’re all the same, and the bastard who did that to her, influential, one of those who goes home to his wife and children of a night, has a title or infinite wealth.’
Wendy found that she had little empathy with the woman, who showed a momentary humility but was, apart from her love for her daughter, cold-hearted, more interested in the bottom line, money in her bank account, and the protection afforded the girls at her brothel was more there to protect the assets.
However, the brothel was central to the investigation, in that of five women who had passed through its door, three had been murdered, another was attempting to put her past behind her, and the fourth, an Asian woman, was the consort of Ian Naughton, who was increasingly looking to be the “Mr Big” in whatever criminal venture they were dealing with.
The madam and the police officer sat down in a coffee shop, Wendy ordering a latte, the other woman preferring a cappuccino. Mary Wilton perused the menu, choosing a slice of cheesecake; Wendy, conscious that she shouldn’t, but knowing that she would, ordered a slice of chocolate cake that was in a glass-fronted cabinet on the shop counter.
‘We need to find the connection,’ Wendy said after she had taken the first bite of her cake, ‘and Mrs Wilton, it might be you.’
‘I’ll accept that I’ve broken the law, not the first time either, and there are other convictions against my name, but I can’t see how. I’ve always held that discretion is vital, and I’ve never spoken about the clientele, not to others. Sure, sometimes one of the girls would tell me about a client, even have a laugh amongst ourselves, but I chose my girls with some care. I know that a few had their problems, drugs usually, bad men more often than not, but they all had some education, the sense to know when they were on a good thing with me.’
‘Tell me about Janice,’ Wendy said.
‘There’s not much to say. She was rough around the edges, a working-class accent, not that I liked it much, but she didn’t swear and she was polite. And besides, she had an endearing quality about her, the sort of person you instinctively trusted. Without the drugs, she could have got on in life. Not achieving too much though as her education wasn’t the best.’
‘You didn’t try to discourage her from prostituting herself, to get herself sorted out?’
‘Don’t misjudge me. I’m still a cold-hearted businesswoman trying to make a decent living, and remember, it was prostitution that gave my daughter the opportunities, but then…’
‘Flat on her back,’ Wendy said, not sure if the woman was sanctimonious, giving a story for her benefit, or whether it was just an act. She felt the latter was the most likely, but at least the woman was talking.
‘It’s strange,’ Mary Wilton said, her voice barely audible, a tear in one eye. ‘I’ve been around prostitution all my life, my mother even, but you don’t want to think that your children are going to end up making the same mistakes.’
‘Mistakes? Do you see it like that?’
Wendy took another bite of her chocolate cake, signalled over to a waitress who was looking into space, made it clear that a repeat order for both women was required. The waitress, another foreign student on a working holiday by the look of her, smiled and slowly walked over to the counter and the coffee machine.
‘Not for me, prostitution. I never had any issue with what I did when I was younger, nor with running a brothel. Men need an outlet, and if no one is harmed, then I can’t see it as a crime. And why am I guilty of an offence, but the girls aren’t?’
‘The law can be illogical,’ Wendy admitted.
‘You asked about Janice.’
‘There’s more?’
‘She was a drug addict, not as bad as Cathy Parkinson, but bad enough. Even if I had wanted to help, which I didn’t. I don’t say that to be callous, but I’ve seen plenty of women like them over the years, and whereas some of them sort themselves out, most don’t.’
‘The trauma of their childhood?’ Wendy said.
‘I was academic in my earlier life, the chance of achieving something, finding a decent man, a decent life, but that didn’t happen.’
‘The “Mrs”?’
‘Briefly, when I was young, a few years before Amanda was born. A holiday romance, an infatuation with respectability. Three months later, we’re married in a registry office, just the two of us and a couple of witnesses.’
‘What happened?’
‘It came out one night. We’re in bed in the little bedsit that we rented. We’re just talking about this and that, our plans for the future, our past history, people we had known, places we had been.’
The waitress arrived, deposited the coffees and cakes on the table, made an attempt to clear away some crumbs and sauntered away, balancing the used crockery that she had taken. Wendy thought back to the shoe store in Knightsbridge and the manager of the shop. The waitress would have been lucky to have lasted the first day there, but in the coffee shop, she had the look of someone who had worked there for a while, not concerned as she started scrolling through her smartphone after she had deposited the dishes in a dishwasher.
‘You told him?’
‘My mother had been a prostitute, and she had tried to shield me from it, but I knew. How couldn’t you? There was no father figure in the house, and when you’re young, you just don’t understand, but in my teens, with the phone calls, the late-night knocks at the door, I figured it out. She admitted to it, told me that my father had taken off with another woman, not died as I believed, and that out of desperation she had turned to the only occupation that would pay enough money to look after me, give me a chance in life.’
‘A different time back then,’ Wendy said.
‘No equality, not that I’m making a case for feminism, but a deserted wife with a child didn’t have many options. It was either work in a factory making clothes or a laundry, manually scrubbing clothes and ironing, paid a pittance, allowing yourself to be treated as chattel, no more than a serf to the squire, or else you did what many others had done.’
Wendy, who was almost twenty years younger than the woman, could understand where Mary Wilton was coming from. She had experienced the injustice back then, although it was tempered to some extent by the time she entered the workforce, and growing up on a farm with a mother and father who loved and cared for her was something she was glad of.
‘Your husband?’
‘Before I met him, I was away from home, aiming to get a place at a university, struggling to make ends meet. Part-timing in a restaurant, studying at nights; I needed money. I placed an ad.’
‘Where?’
‘Not so much an ad. I had been approached a couple of times before, knocked back the offer. I just made it known to the next one who came along, a professor at the university, one of those who said he could help with my entry into the university, but couldn’t. No different to the casting couch, and I, in desperation, fell for it.’
‘You slept with him?’
‘Not that it helped. He bragged to another professor who offered his assistance for services rendered, but I knew that academia and I were not to be close friends. I was blacklisted, thrown out with the bathwater. After that, I milked whoever had the money, was outwardly respectable, inwardly half-decent, and could pay.’
‘The holiday?’
‘I wasn
’t tainted by what I had done. I still maintained an innocence about it, and I always believed in romantic love.
‘I went down to Bournemouth on the south coast, booked into a small hotel, walked along the promenade, bought fish and chips, heavy on the vinegar, wrapped in a newspaper, not the cardboard box that you get today, paddled in the sea. I was happy, just minding my own business, when Albert, that was his name, comes alongside, starts talking. He was a commercial fisherman, knew all about the tides, where was the best place to catch fish. Not sure if you would find many fishermen these days, but back then, there were plenty of boats going out to sea.’
‘You spent time with him?’
‘He wasn’t educated, so I downplayed mine. But yes, we were inseparable, and then after the marriage, it came out, as I was saying. I thought that honesty in marriage was important, but it wasn’t, not to him. He attempted to put on a brave face about it, and then one day, he goes out to sea, leaving a letter on the mantlepiece, telling me he loves me, but he can’t deal with my having sold myself to other men.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I waited for him to return from the sea, to see if I could quiet his concerns.’
‘Did you?’
‘There was a massive storm that day; his boat never returned, he and two others drowned at sea. We had parted in anger, never a chance to say I was sorry. Since then, I’ve been Mrs Wilton, never fallen in love again.’
It was a sad story, one of many that Wendy had heard over the years, but it was the past. The present was still playing itself out, and those that had died violently had to be vindicated; those that were still alive needed to be protected.
‘Cathy Parkinson?’ Wendy said, not wanting to dwell on Mary Wilton’s past, although feeling some sympathy for the woman, realising that everyone, rich or poor, educated or not, male or female, had a sad story to tell.
‘Nothing could be done to wean her off heroin. Sometimes Janice would moderate her injecting, but not Cathy. She was not a person that I warmed to; entertaining when she was in a good mood, sullen when she wasn’t. Another sad tale, but let’s not talk about it. She did her job, played up to the men, wiggled the hips, got them excited, but no class about her. Although who knows, before the drugs got her.’
‘Meredith Temple?’
‘Classy. I didn’t like tattoos, but I accepted them. She wasn’t strong on the drugs, not as much as the others, and if she was in a good mood, she wouldn’t inject, Maybe a bottle of wine, no more. Educated, I could tell that, but I always suspected that she was mildly schizophrenic. I’m not a doctor, so I could never be sure, but she walked away from me one day, gave me a hug, thanked me, and that was it. I never saw her again.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Two years, give or take a few months. She told you about my place, didn’t she?’
‘She did,’ Wendy admitted.
‘I should be angry, but I’m not. At least I know about Amanda. It’s always better to know than to worry indefinitely, don’t you think?’
Wendy wasn’t sure if it was, but she wasn’t about to admit that to the woman. ‘Yes, it’s best to know,’ she said.
Over behind the coffee shop counter, an anxious-looking manager eyed the occupied table. It was close to lunchtime, and the place was starting to fill up, not to just drink coffee and eat cake, but to purchase a meal, to spend real money, more than the amount the two women had spent so far.
Wendy called the woman over, opened her warrant card. ‘Two meals, your special for the day, and make sure we’re left alone.’
‘Of course. A special discount for our fine police service.’ It was not as obsequious as at the restaurant where Meredith Temple worked, but it still read as ‘better to have the police on our side than against’.
Another place probably underpaying the staff, Wendy thought, but it was only too common in the city. She would do nothing about it; she had bigger fish to catch.
‘What connects the five women?’ Wendy said, looking directly at Mary Wilton. ‘Why is your daughter the catalyst for the deaths, and why was she in the cemetery? We have a direct connection from there through a man to Analyn. What is it? Is it you, Mrs Wilton? Is there something you’re not telling us, something that got your daughter murdered?’
‘All I know is that Amanda was scared of something or someone, but that’s it. I just don’t know. I wish I could help, I really do.’
Wendy was sure in part that the woman was genuine in her desire to assist, and sad that her daughter was dead, but there still remained the nagging sense, an intuitive belief that the woman was holding something back. Whether it was out of fear, the same as her daughter, or for another reason, there was no way of knowing.
The manager reappeared, two plates of chicken and rice, a salad in a dish to one side. ‘A couple of glasses of white wine,’ she said. ‘You look as though you could use it. Bad news, is it?’
‘Thanks,’ Wendy said. She didn’t need someone being nosey. She cast a glance over at the manager who was moving over to tidy the table next to them, ears pricked. ‘Privacy, as well,’ Wendy said.
A look of disinterest from the manager as she walked away. ‘I was only doing my job,’ she said as she passed Wendy.
The food was good, and for a while, nothing was said. Eventually, it was Mary Wilton who spoke.
‘If Analyn was trafficked, I’d not know, and the others are all English, so it can’t be that.’
‘It would be the most logical reason for the deaths, the secrecy of the organisation, but we’re not convinced that it is, not yet. Analyn appears to have free movement and not to be under duress. We know that she was in a village to the south of London on her own and that she was in Kensal Green Cemetery on one occasion. Apart from that, we don’t know a lot about her, other than she was also in a house in Holland Park masquerading as a nanny to the children or a maid, but was probably neither; more likely the live-in lover of the man at the house. The name of Ian Naughton mean anything to you?’
‘Not to me, but then, most of them don’t give their names, a first name sometimes, and cash still reigns supreme in the world of prostitution. A few have used credit cards, but the bank account name I use is innocuous enough not to raise suspicion.’
‘You seem calm about Amanda’s death,’ Wendy said.
‘Life hardens you, and I’ve seen more than my fair share. As a police officer, you must feel the same about death, inured to the inevitable, no matter how tragic.’
It was true, Wendy thought. She gave scant regard to those that had died, not even her husband. Sure, she was upset for a few weeks, but he had been suffering for some time, barely recognising her at the end. They’d had a shared history stretching back over many years and two sons from their union. If anything happened to them, she was sure that she wouldn’t be able to distance herself from the grief with the ease that Mary Wilton apparently could.
But then the self-confessed madam was a conundrum, one moment caring and sweet, the next, hard as nails. Wendy left her at the table after paying the bill, offering a compliment to the manager on the quality of the meal, appeasement for the harshness she had subjected her to before. It wasn’t the woman’s fault; it was purely a natural inquisitiveness, the need to know other people’s business. It was the same with a car accident, the dead and injured lying around, the medical teams tending to them, the crowds forming, anxious to see what was going on, to believe that however bad their lives were, others had it worse.
It was mid-afternoon, and she was needed in the office. There had been developments, as now the woman at the grave had a name, and there were connections, however circumstantial or coincidental, between Brad Robinson and the young and still innocent Rose, Brad’s sister and father, and the two other dead women.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t over yet, and were they coincidences? Wendy didn’t believe in them, no more than her colleagues at Challis Street Police Station did. She was confident that on her arrival at the station, her DCI
would be ready and waiting, and probably Detective Chief Superintendent Goddard with his obligatory compliment for excellent policing, his need to stir the pot, to tell them they could do better. But then the chief superintendent had someone to answer to, Commissioner Davies, a man unloved by most, sucked up to by a few.
The heavy workload was not about to reduce but to intensify. Wendy knew she was ready for it; she only wished her legs didn’t ache so much.
Chapter 20
Bill Ross closed the lid of his laptop, straightened the loose papers on his desk, looked outside at the rain, and decided that he had had enough for the day. It was just after four in the afternoon, a miserable day in the office at Canning Town Police Station wrapping up the paperwork on the death of Warren Preston.
He cared little about how the man had died, but Pathology had confirmed that he was bodily intact and that the jogger had probably disturbed his killers. His gang, almost certainly the people responsible for his death, were not to be found, having gone to ground in one hovel or another.
Ross knew that policing, more a vocation than he would admit, was important, and taking the attitude of ‘couldn’t care less’ about who had murdered the verminous hoodie Warren Preston wasn’t correct. He vowed to lift his game, get a transfer to somewhere else, to be more politically correct. Those that knew him would say it was impossible, but he was determined.
He put the laptop in his backpack, grabbed an umbrella from behind the door, looked around the office, and said his farewells. There was a warm fire at home, a warm wife as well, and it was still early enough to spend time with the children before they went to bed. He had to admit feeling pleased with himself.
The death of Hector Robinson still concerned him, but the paperwork wouldn’t be completed until the team at Challis Street found out who was orchestrating the murders of the Robinson family members, another prostitute and a Jane Doe, if not actually committing them.
Hector Robinson had been killed by the gang that Preston had belonged to, no doubt about that. Murdering one of another gang’s members was regarded as a rite of passage, the same as a three-point turn when you’re learning to drive; an occupational hazard when you’re the one who’s murdered. But Robinson was a different issue, and if the man was integral in some way, although how was unclear, his death could not be put down as a man down on his luck, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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