Flesh and Blood (A DI Amy Winter Thriller)

by Caroline Mitchell

  ‘Gary,’ she said sharply as she watched him scrolling through his mobile phone. ‘How are you getting on with your hospital enquiries? There’s no update here.’ She had given him the tasking first thing this morning, as Molly had enough to contend with. Regardless of his personal issues, she shouldn’t have to ask if he was pulling his weight.

  He dropped his phone as if it was hot, shoving it into his pocket before turning to face her. ‘Sorry, ma’am. I’ve spoken to the hospital in Blackpool, but they’ve had nothing suspicious come in. I’m working my way through local doctors now.’

  Amy arched an eyebrow. They only ever called her ma’am when they were in trouble. ‘I want a list of everyone you’ve spoken to. They work shifts, so there could be someone you’ve missed out.’

  ‘No need,’ Steve said, a triumphant smile on his face. ‘I’ve sorted it.’

  Gary’s face creased in a frown. ‘You didn’t say you were working on this too.’

  Steve shrugged. ‘I just spoke to May, she’s a staff nurse who came back from leave today. She was on duty when this guy was brought into casualty by ambulance. He was sopping wet from head to toe and could barely breathe.’

  ‘When was this?’ Amy’s pulse quickened. This could be just the lead they needed.

  ‘Exactly two weeks after our first victim, Chesney. It’s got to be related.’ Steve’s eyes were alight as he relayed his latest findings. He was in his element when pitted against another member of the team. ‘Get this – they treated him for an overdose. He’d been drugged.’

  Gary looked utterly crestfallen. It was a blot on his copybook, one that would not be forgotten.

  ‘Do we have a name for Mr Soaking Wet?’ The sudden breakthrough brought Amy a sense of exhilaration. At least one member of her team was on the ball.

  ‘Not yet,’ Steve replied. ‘A member of the public called it in after finding him washed up on the beach. He discharged himself without giving his name.’

  ‘Shame we don’t know who he is,’ Gary said, his frown deepening.

  ‘But why shouldn’t we?’ Amy said. ‘The hospital has CCTV, hasn’t it? Steve, speak to local officers. I want that CCTV. Then get a detailed description from the nurse. The intelligence and public protection team can cross-check the images. We could be on to something here.’ There could be a reason the man didn’t report his assault to the police. He was either in fear for his life, or he might not want them knowing what he was up to. Could the same be said for the other victims?

  ‘Sorry.’ Paddy bumbled in, a Gregg’s bag in his hand. ‘But doughnuts for everyone!’

  ‘I’ll make us some coffees.’ Gary jumped up from his desk.

  Sighing, Amy wished she had an office of her own to escape to. She missed Notting Hill. She glared at Paddy for the late intrusion.

  ‘I’m going to find Donovan. Steve can fill you in.’ But the ring of her desk phone stilled her movements.

  ‘I’ve got a Rachel Cummings on the line. She’s asked to speak to you,’ Elaine from front office said. ‘She said she’s from social services.’

  ‘Ah, right. Of course, put her through,’ Amy said as a spark of recognition lit in her brain. She had tasked Molly with contacting social care to ask if they’d had any information on teenagers hanging around in the area.

  ‘Sorry for the impromptu call, but I was wondering if you could spare the time to meet,’ Rachel said, after introducing herself. ‘I was forwarded an email from an officer in your team asking for information.’

  ‘That would be Molly,’ Amy said, wondering why she didn’t just respond to it. ‘She’s just come back to her desk. I can transfer the call if you like.’ Amy had the briefing to prepare for. Such a task would be safe in Molly’s hands.

  ‘I’d prefer to speak to you, if you don’t mind. I’ll be in town at eleven. We could meet at Costa, I won’t take up much of your time.’

  Amy sighed. She was trying to delegate, but Rachel sounded insistent and it was just a quick coffee, after all . . . ‘OK, see you then,’ she said, before hanging up. She had forgotten to ask her what she looked like, but she had a feeling Rachel would recognise her. What was so important that she had to meet with a detective inspector?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  MO

  Progress was slow, but it was coming. Instead of dreading the counselling sessions, Mo had begun to look forward to them. They provided her with a front-row seat to the past. Most people would find it difficult, reliving their darkest moments, and for a while, that had been the case. But as her life story progressed, she relished reliving the pain. It was fucked up. It was masochistic. But she was developing a new understanding of herself: the satisfaction of being the hunter instead of the hunted. Of course, she didn’t tell her therapist that. She’d have her committed if she did.

  Today, Miss Prim and Proper was wearing a pristine white suit. It was a bit John Travolta for Mo’s liking, but she guessed it was the latest designer wear. Her hair had been coloured, the streaks of grey disguised for now. She had a glow, a sparkle. Perhaps she was getting laid. Mo wondered if she was seeing someone. But there was a wedding ring gracing her finger. Maybe she was having an affair.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Ms Harkness said, catching Mo’s eye. Mo was almost at the end of her journey. She only had a few sessions left. But she had to walk through fire to come out the other side.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she said, leaning back on the sofa and closing her eyes. Today, Mo was wearing a blouse and corduroy skirt. She had picked them up in the charity shop; they had only been worn once. She needed to portray that she was getting her shit together and that she didn’t harbour any more dark thoughts. It was important to portray a clean image of yourself to the world. Rain tapped the windowpane like tiny insistent fingers, and she allowed herself to relax as Ms Harkness counted down.

  Now she was standing on the street, sheltered under an umbrella with Wes. It was raining back then, too. Mum had given her the money to get a chippie tea. She knew she had been struggling since she’d split up with her stepdad, but Mo was glad he had left. Maybe now her mum could meet someone who would treat her with some respect. Someone Mo would be happy to call Dad.

  As always, Mo had texted Wes the second she got out. Since the house party, they had been spending more and more time together. Mum thought she was out with friends. She wasn’t to know that her ‘friend’ was fifteen years older than her and they were having sex. It wasn’t that she wanted to do it, but she’d had little choice. Wes had been kind to her, and she depended on him. She couldn’t lose him now. She was in deep – so deep she could not back out. Wes and her circle of friends were the only ones who understood. She was his. Nothing else mattered. It was why it was so important for Wes to have taken her virginity.

  ‘It shows that you care,’ he’d said. ‘That you’re mine.’ And she was. So why did he want to share her with his friends? At first, his request had come as a shock. She had grown up thinking that when two people loved each other, they didn’t see anyone else. But Wes was in trouble, and he needed her help. ‘Just be nice to them,’ he’d said. ‘All they want is a kiss and a cuddle. Who wouldn’t, with a gorgeous girl like you?’

  Of course, it hadn’t just happened like that. It had taken her a while to get him to open up about what was really wrong. And now they were huddling under the umbrella as she prised the truth out of him. Mo relayed the story to Ms Harkness. She wanted every detail, every description laid to paper.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ Mo said, the smell of salt and vinegar rising from the plastic bag full of chips and sausages as she huddled it close to her chest. ‘And if you love me you wouldn’t want me to flirt with your friends.’

  ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked.’ Wes dragged a hit of nicotine from his cigarette. ‘I’m finishing us. This. It’s over.’ He blew the smoke from the corner of his mouth, watching her intensely.

  ‘But . . . you said you loved me!’ The tears Mo had been holding in were now trailing
down her face. ‘What have I done wrong? I . . . I don’t understand.’ Suddenly, her emotions were too big for her immature mind, and she sobbed as a hiccup caught in her throat.

  ‘Babe, it’s best we keep it that way. The less you know, the better.’ Wes stroked her hair. ‘I’m in deep shit, and it was wrong to get you involved.’ He’d sighed as he touched her necklace. All that stuff I bought you. It didn’t come for free.’

  ‘So, you owe money? Is that all it is?’

  ‘Is that all?’ Wes thumbed away her tears. ‘Babe. You don’t understand. I ain’t talking about the banks. These are loan sharks, nasty bastards. They’ll break my neck if I don’t keep them sweet.’

  ‘Then work out a way of paying them back.’ She was trembling now, her heart breaking into tiny pieces inside her chest.

  Flicking his cigarette on to the pavement, Wes stubbed it out with his trainer. ‘I have . . . I can. But the debt’s grown too big. They’ll give me a beating. Make an example of me.’

  ‘There must be a way.’

  ‘There is, but . . .’ He paused, his look holding a pinch of regret. ‘No. I can’t ask.’

  ‘What? Name it. Whatever I can do to help.’

  ‘Remember those guys at the party? The ones with the nice gaff? Well, they’re the blokes I wanted you to be nice to. They like you,’ he said. ‘A lot.’

  Mo remembered. Their house had been a far cry from the squats that Wes had taken her to before. They’d had a hot tub, alcohol was free-flowing, and people were having sex in the bedrooms. Mo had felt intimidated, as these men were in their fifties or older. She had asked to leave, and Wes hadn’t spoken to her for a week afterwards. Then he’d asked her to be nice to his ‘friends’. It all made sense now. Those people were rich because they were criminals. Wes needed Mo to smooth things over with them. It was a no-brainer as far as she was concerned.

  ‘Just name the time and place.’ She gave her boyfriend a watery smile, almost dropping the bag of chips as he drew her in for a kiss. She had got used to them now. She had got used to a lot of things.

  ‘There’s a party next week,’ Wes said, as he let her go. ‘They’ve told me to be there. I wasn’t going to go, but if you’re by my side, then they might let me off. But you need to be nice to them, Mo. No running away.’

  Mo strained to remember the men he was talking about as he described them. One of them had been naked in the hot tub, drinking champagne and smoking cigars. He had two acquaintances, their arms around young girls barely older than her. She hadn’t liked the way their eyes had trailed over her as she walked around. Wes was telling the truth when he said they had a thing for her. But there was no way she would let him end their relationship because he had dug himself into a hole. Besides, she was partially to blame. He had spent so much of that money on her. She couldn’t desert Wes now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Molly’s eyes were bright, her face animated as Amy entered the office. Amy had seen that look before. She had stumbled upon a lead and could barely contain herself. Normally she would follow Amy into her office to share what she had found, but given they were all working out of one room, there was no such luxury.

  ‘Can I have a quick word in private, ma’am?’ she said. Paddy and Gary were working at their computers, heads down, while Steve and Donovan were chasing up their Mr Anonymous. Amy knew that Molly was competitive and did not like to share too soon. She couldn’t blame her for that. Their old DCI, Ma’am Pike, had a habit of taking credit for other people’s ideas in the early stages of an investigation, but Amy wanted a team who trusted each other enough to be open about what they had found. She was about to tell her to share it with the team, when she paused. Molly had not been herself lately. She had picked up on a sense of unease between her and her mother. Perhaps this was a personal problem.

  ‘Walk with me,’ Amy said, turning back into the corridor. She saw a lot of herself in Molly, but she had yet to figure out if it was a good thing. Would she be as hardened and cynical as her in ten, maybe twenty years? Amy’s walls had been built long before she discovered her true bloodlines. You gave your all to a job like this, and each year that passed, it chipped a little piece of you away.

  Amy’s growing suspicions regarding the male victims in the case bothered her. Carla had given up her life to protect others, and therein Amy’s sympathies lay. She had been a force for good. But as a police detective, should Amy allow her personal feelings to get in the way? She had worked through the information robotically, determined to find a swift outcome so they could return to Notting Hill. But this wasn’t a popularity contest. It was the gnawing, lingering suspicion that each of these men – these victims – were like her biological father: the devil in disguise. She dismissed the thought, pushing open the heavy glass door to the outside yard. It was mercifully quiet, which was a blessing in itself.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ she said to Molly, as soon as they were out of earshot. Many of the offices above had their windows open due to the warm weather and Amy was mindful of her audience.

  ‘I interviewed Martin O Toole’s sister, Julie. He had an iPad. It wasn’t seized by police because she kept it for herself.’

  ‘Naughty Julie,’ Amy said. ‘Have you called a local unit to seize it?’

  ‘I’ve done one better.’ Molly grinned. ‘I seized it myself. She had it in her bag.’

  ‘Good.’ Knowing Molly, she would not wait for the tech team to examine it. ‘Find anything interesting?’

  ‘A link. I found a link.’ Molly’s smile widened. ‘Martin spent a lot of time on Streamsite. Hours every day.’

  ‘What’s Streamsite?’ Amy had never heard of it.

  ‘It’s a site where people can both upload and download pirated content, such as books, movies and video games. The problem is that when people download stuff like this, they download malware too. The criminals who use it get paid by malware companies to allow them to attach viruses so they can hack the user’s computer.’

  Amy could never understand why people used piracy sites when they could get content for free at their local library. And it wasn’t as if books or streaming such as Netflix were very expensive these days.

  Amy moved them both out of the way as a police car reversed out. ‘What’s Martin watching some illegal movies got to do with his murder?’ She was aware of the criminal element attached to such sites, but the killer was hardly going to follow him to a seaside resort and murder him for going online.

  ‘The link,’ Molly said. ‘I got the tech team to email me the results of Chesney’s computer interrogation. He spent hours online accessing Streamsite too. It’s not a well-known site, so it’s more than a coincidence that they were both using it. I bet our third victim has been on there too.’

  ‘OK, well, that’s something worth looking into. I’ll need more data. If they had logins, for example, or if there’s any other sites they have in common. Maybe they’re part of an online group of people who recommended the site, like a WhatsApp group. Book the iPad into the property system for now and arrange for the tech team to interrogate.’

  ‘There’s something else.’ Molly gave her a furtive glance.

  Amy knew there had to be. Her earlier information was nothing she couldn’t have shared with the team.

  ‘I went for a wander last night, and I . . .’ She took a deep breath. ‘I got speaking to some teenagers near the pier. I think they’re the same ones Carla spoke to before she died.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Molly had done good, obtaining Martin O Toole’s iPad. At least they had something concrete to interrogate. If her gut feeling was anything to go by, they would find more than Candy Crush on his hard drive. Winter had praised her for ‘outside-the-box thinking’ after Molly embellished how she had got her hands on it. She wasn’t Steve. She didn’t enjoy blowing her trumpet or drawing too much attention to herself. But it was dog eat dog now, and she needed to retain her place on the team.

  Her father had given he
r a tip-off that they were looking at diversity targets for the team. As a senior officer, he was privy to all sorts of things. Amy’s high-priority crime unit had gained a high profile since their last big case. Each one of them was an ambassador for the Met Police. One wrong move and any one of them could be transferred to another team. Her dad had told her to be careful, because staff were constantly under review, and they had received an influx of submissions from officers wanting to join. Which was why Molly had to be careful not to reveal too much of herself. She couldn’t risk sharing her personal secret – not when she could be replaced so easily. But staying quiet about last night’s outing could backfire on her. Now that was one secret she had to share.

  Molly wished Winter would at least crack a smile, but she seemed cast in stone as she waited for her to reveal what she had been up to the night before. She inhaled a deep breath, hoping what she was about to say wouldn’t get her into trouble.

  ‘I didn’t set out to meet anyone. It kind of happened.’ A SERCO lorry parked in the custody bay, picking up prisoners from the night before.

  ‘Right,’ Winter said. ‘And I take it you went off on your own?’

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ Molly reasoned. ‘I just went for a walk on the beach.’ Heat rose to her cheeks as Winter stared her down. ‘I got chatting to a gang of teenagers hanging round under the pier.’

  Amy continued to stare, unblinking, and a chill crept up the curve of Molly’s back. For a second it seemed that she wasn’t breathing. Then at last, she took a breath.

  ‘What time of the night was this?’ Winter’s words were short and clipped.

  ‘After work,’ Molly replied, feeling her boss’s disapproval burn.

  ‘Why didn’t you mention this in the briefing?’

  ‘Because I wanted the chance to bring it to your attention first.’ Since she had come to work this morning, Molly had been run off her feet.