SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENTS

by M. G. Cole

  “She was here illegally. She came to me for help and I helped. To be honest, when she told me she wanted to claim asylum, and her dreams about studying law, she reminded me of… me. But much smarter and more determined.” She clutched her damp tissue against her breast. “I still have friends in the legal profession, so I really thought I could do something different with her.”

  She signed and fidgeted in her seat. “To be honest, most of the people we try to help never really stand a chance. Many are sent back, denied a future here. Most don’t have the skills to set up a new life. Do you know how high the suicide rate is amongst refugees? It’s awful. With Jamal, I saw a real chance to make a difference. For her to make a difference.”

  “Walk me through that.”

  Trisha’s eyes rolled to the ceiling. Garrick wasn’t sure if she was trying to recall or editing her reply.

  “She told me she was in trouble with the man who brought her over here. That’s not uncommon. I didn’t pry, but I did offer her some counselling for sexual abuse services. Which she didn’t take.” She said the last in a whisper, her cheeks flushing. Garrick realized that talking about murder was fine, but sex is where Trisha Warren drew the line. “I was not aware about the drugs issue until Manfri told me.”

  “You had known him before Jamal.”

  “Yes. He is a charmer.” She blushed again. “Very bright too. He came to some of our congregations and asked about legal paid work. One of our programmes placed low-skilled workers in seasonal employment.”

  “You mean menial tasks nobody else wants to do?”

  “Work that the more fortunate citizens of this country can’t be bothered to do. It still needs doing. One of my successes is with the farming community. Tiring work, but hones. I put Manfri on one of those.”

  “He must have enjoyed that.”

  “He hated every second. But that’s how he met Jamal.” Her tale of how they met matched Manfri’s own account. “He was the one who brought her to me for help. So, the first thing I did was to put her on a farming project. I hoped that if she was earning some money honestly, then she would be able to break away from… whatever it was she was being forced to do.”

  “You never asked her? Even if you thought it was prostitution rather than drugs?”

  “It is not my role to make judgement calls. I’m trying to help them. If I know of anything illegal… well, that’s a terrible moral tangle, isn’t it? She didn’t want labouring work, I think Manfri had warned her off it. We had discussions about her legal status her. She had a terrific case for asylum.”

  “Did you know that Manfri’s father was using her?”

  “Only after his death. When Kezia ask for help to arrange the funeral.”

  “You did an amazingly quick turnaround on the arrangements.”

  “The Romani people don’t like the dead to linger around too long.”

  “And that’s when you were told about the drugs?” She nodded. “By which time you also knew Jamal had been murdered. And you knew she was living with the Travellers. And you knew I was looking for evidence amongst the refugee camp. And still… you remained silent.” He raised his hands in confusion. “Please, help me out here. I don’t understand…” She was quickly becoming one of the most frustrating people he had ever dealt with.

  “I think, perhaps it’s a question of ethics.”

  “Now I’m fascinated. Please educate me.”

  “The poor girl dies–”

  “Was murdered, that that’s a technical distinction,” Garrick interjected sarcastically, then prompted for her to continue.

  “And Manfri loses his father at the same time. Tell me, how humane is it to tell the police that the two deceased were involved in drugs. Particularly when one of them was doing so against her own will? You would descend on an already ravaged, and maligned, community for what reason?”

  “Because the drugs were connected to both their deaths.”

  “That was not apparent to me.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether it is apparent to you or not!” Garrick cried incredulously. “You withheld evidence!’

  Trisha looked shocked, and a rapid bout of halting breathes prevented her from replying. Tears welled in her eyes, and Garrick couldn’t help but wonder if they were crocodile ones. He was was losing his temper. “Let me tell you the picture you’re painting for me. Guiding Hands is more about your ego than it is about helping others.”

  “Not true!”

  He steamrolled over her. “And you saw that if Jamal was successful in claiming asylum, getting her degree, then you suddenly have poster child for your charity. All because of you!” Trisha’s eyes narrowed in anger. “And the very reason you chose not to tell me that you knew her is because the moment you discovered she was involved with drugs, it would come back and bring your whole charity down. All that good work you’ve been doing gone, like that.” He slammed his palm on the desk, making her jump. “Your poster child was suddenly a liability! That’s why you withheld evidence from me!”

  “I withheld nothing, detective! You are accusing me of not answering questions that you didn’t ask!”

  It took a moment for Garrick to untangle that sentence in his head. Then he laughed when he realised that she twisted the accusation round to blame him. He paused the interview and had to leave the room to calm down.

  After a couple of Ibuprofen swilled down with a lukewarm green tea, he returned for more punishment. Trisha’s hysterics appeared to have vanished during the break too.

  “Tell me about Galina.” He tapped her picture as a reminder. It had not moved from where he’d originally set it in front of her. “And please, fill in the blanks of any question I so naively failed to ask.”

  “I have already told you everything. It was last year, I don’t recall. I don’t even think I knew her name. The only assistance she wanted was work.”

  “The farm labouring?”

  “Yes. And she was good at it. I tell them where to go, and they go. It’s that transparent. They know their employer has been vetted by Guiding Hands, so they are not going to be abused and will be paid. And that’s the only interaction we have. They only come back if they need to complain, and that doesn’t happen.”

  “Do you remember which farm she worked on?”

  “Brabourne. We place a lot there. I don’t know how long she stayed. As I say, we don’t hear from the employees unless there is a problem, and the employers only contact me if they need more people, or have a complain themselves.”

  “May I have the address?”

  “Of course.”

  He handed her a pen from the folder and asked her to write it on the back of Galina’s photograph.

  “One last thing, and then I will get an officer to take you home.” He took the final photo out. It was one of Mircea ushering Galina into the back of the Audi. “Have you ever seen this man before?”

  She looked long and hard before finally answering. “I’m not sure.”

  “Take your time.”

  “It’s not very good quality.”

  “Squint.” He was joking, but she did so anyway.

  “It does look a little like Mr Constantine. I’m guessing that’s Galina. It’s hard to tell.”

  Garrick propped his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers across his mouth. He had a sudden feeling that he was in for a longer night than he anticipated.

  “Mr Constantine?”

  Trisha pulled a face and nodded. “It would make sense if it was. He’s a businessman who is occasionally over from Bucharest. He helps us a lot in placing people who wish to work, right across Kent, East Sussex and Surrey, in fact. Nice chap. He does a lot of work at Brabourne. Handles their import-exports, I believe.”

  Garrick didn’t quite know what to say. Just how much should he reveal? His duty was to solve the murders, not the drugs network. That was the domain of the National Crimes Agency, and they already had a team waiting to sweep in. Perhaps he should go to Brabourne Farm with a
member of that team, it could be a nice symbolic handing over of the baton just before he closed his own case.

  25

  Superintendent Margery Drury was unable to stay so aloof in the face of a job well done. She beamed her praise at the whole of Garrick’s team. She even congratulated PC Harry Lord, who she normally preferred to keep at the end of a stern look.

  “You should come and celebrate with us tonight, ma’am! This, and my birthday!”

  Drury’s smile widened. “Harry, I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do less!”

  Harry expected nothing less. Drury never joined the proles in the pub, but she was canny enough to pre-pay a round or two in advance when she was in a good mood. And this morning, she was in a fantastic one. Solving the case was praiseworthy enough, but it seemed Mircea’s enterprise was turning into a major county lines operation. One that meant his job as a truck driver was nothing more than cover he used to run his real business.

  Duke’s body had been exhumed that very morning, in what she considered could be a record-breaking short burial, and Fanta confirmed that his cause of death would be known by lunchtime.

  Garrick had started the day, for the first time in a while, with a sense of optimism and without the dull throb of a headache. There were more surprises in store too, with the arrival of a text message from Wendy. It was a vague: are you doing anything this weekend? But to Garrick it was as if a firework had jolted his senses. Perhaps the date hadn’t been such a disaster after all? He resolved to focus some of his detective skills on his own love-life.

  There were smiles throughout the incident room as Drury shook everybody’s hand, even the ones she was only vaguely aware existed, and assured them that their magnificent diligent work would not go unnoticed. Garrick didn’t have the heart to tell her that there were still a lot of holes in the case.

  Then, at 10:36, he didn’t have to. The report came in.

  Another murder.

  Another young girl.

  Another skinning.

  The jubilation in the incident room vanished in an instant. Drury rounded on Garrick and Chib, who looked more shocked than anybody else.

  “Another murder,” Drury echoed. “Then who the hell have we arrested?”

  Garrick was thinking the same thing, but was savvy enough to keep his mouth shut. Chib, however, was too new to know when to shut up.

  “Maybe it’s a copycat, ma’am. Maybe there’s a third–”

  “There is never room for ‘maybe’ on my team, DS Okon. Is that clear?” The ice in Drury’s voice was cooler than the fresh snow outside.

  Before any more of his team could be sacrificed to Drury’s temper, Garrick broke the spell by sharply clapping his hands and barking orders.

  “Wilkes, Lord, you’re coming with me and Chib to the scene.”

  Fanta moved to intercept Garrick. “Can I come too? Please?” She cast a look at Drury, who was stomping from the incident room in a volcanic temper.

  “I need you here.”

  Fanta rolled her eyes like a petulant teenager. Garrick was so wired that he almost snapped and pulled rank, before stopping himself. PC Lui’s attitude was a quirk he could live with, and her performance had been exceptional. He needed her onside.

  He pointed at the evidence board. “Go through everything. I want bullet points of every hole and unknown we have.” Fanta frowned. “For example, we know Mircea left his cab and met Jamal at Castle Hill, but we don’t know how he got there.” That point in particular had been nagging him. He had originally thought it had been Duke, but Manfri’s confession had squashed that idea, and he hadn’t had much time to give it any further thought. “And the skin. We need to know more about this trophy hunting behaviour.” He saw the disappointment on her face. “Think of it as out special project.”

  “A dog walker?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the young constable standing at the edge of the police tape. She was wearing a sensible padded all-weather jacket, a reminder that Garrick was, as usual, under dressed.

  “Poor sods. It’s always the dog walkers stumbling over something gruesome. I’d stick to a cat.”

  White Hill Road had been sealed from the Challock side where it joined Faversham Road, right down to where it ended at the A28. The road running along Kings Wood had a thin layer of snow on it. Several police cars from the first responders were parked to the side. Garrick’s team had parked in the middle of the road to preserve any evidence in case the killer had parked on the verge. The poor dog walker had been ferried back to the station for their statement to be taken.

  Garrick and Chib ducked under the police tape and cautiously approached the body that had been bound to a tree just ten yards from the road. PC Wilkes and Lord stayed back, taking down details from the officers who had arrived first.

  “Single file, Chib,” said Garrick as he carefully picked his way through the snow. He was making sure not to trample any prints, not that he could see any. They stopped within four feet of the body. The surrounding area showed signs of many footprints that had since been half-filled by fresh snow. The girl was completely naked, her blue dress and panties tossed casually aside. Her hands had been bound so tightly by cable ties that she was still upright against the tree. The snow around her feet was deep red, three feet in every direction. She had bled freely as the skin was carved, leaving a grizzly display of muscle from the nape of her neck to below her buttocks. She looked more like an anatomical mannequin than a real human being. The freezing temperature had preserved the wound and applied a layer of glistening frost across it.

  Garrick adjusted his angle so he could see her face, framed by long wavy blonde hair. Her skin was alabaster, blue eyes wide in agony and now frozen, along with a river of tears down her cheeks.

  “He’s getting more adventurous and taken a bigger swathe of skin. And look at the lines. Smoother, not so ragged. And that is in the dark and the cold.”

  Chib was looking at the floor. “He made no effort in disguising his footprints.” Not only were some of them in the blood, there were so many that they could easily trace them walking back from the corpse, keeping parallel to the road.

  “Serial killers can get overconfident when they think they’re unstoppable,” said Garrick sombrely. “That’s usually when they make a mistake.” The trail of both his and her footprints leading to this spot were very clear. It didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt like a statement.

  “Sir, do you see her ankles?”

  Garrick knelt for a better look. Her bare feet were covered by red snow and had been splayed apart. If the killer was following the same modus operandi as the others, it wouldn’t be for sexual reasons. Garrick suspected it was to anchor the girl in place as she was carved up. The flesh above her ankles was bloodied, raw and frozen.

  “Foxes,” Garrick said. He pointed to sets of paw prints milling around her legs. “They saw the chance for a free meal and took a chunk out of her.”

  The squeal of brakes from the main road signalled the arrival of two large white vans. SOCO had arrived. He and Chib backtracked to the road and told the forensic team where they had walked. The area was suddenly a flurry of activity.

  Garrick extracted himself from the others and spotted the line of footprints that led away from the body. There were so close to the road that he could easily track them. They led a hundred yards further down to the entrance of the car park. The footprints stepped from the trees and were lost in snow that had been churned by at least two vehicles. The dog walker’s car was still here, and the area was widely used by couples looking for a half-hour’s privacy and doggers.

  He couldn’t help feeling that the timing and nature of this murder was not random. As if they were being mocked for arresting the wrong people. That was nonsense, of course. He wasn’t the target of anything; he was just feeling frustrated. He went back to join the others. Standing around in the cold watching the SOCO team was also making him feel redundant. He nudged Chib’s elbow and indicated to his car.
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  “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “We need to tick a few more boxes.”

  “Shouldn’t we supervise this?”

  Garrick waved his hand dismissively. “Let Harry and Wilkes do that.”

  He recognised the disappointment on Chib’s face. During his stint as a DS, learning the ropes, there was always a frisson of excitement when SOCO arrived. It was only through experience that he’d come to acknowledge their job was slow and laborious. The glamour soon wore off. She’d learn.

  Brabourne Farm was only nine miles away, but across the treacherous snowy Downs it took close to forty-five minutes. His head throbbed from concentrating as he gripped the wheel tightly. The previous night’s snowfall had only added a veneer to the previously cleared B-Roads, but when that had iced up, it led to some moments of Chib gasping and clutching at the dash as the Land Rover’s wheels occasionally slipped. Garrick had been in no danger of losing control, but he was relieved when they passed the welcoming whitewashed walls of the Five Bells pub in Brabourne, and turned at the old classic red phone box that reached from the snow like a bloody finger, beckoning them to their destination.

  They had passed through Wye along the way, and Garrick resisted the urge to stop at the Pilgrim’s Tale Bookshop to unload his new problems on John. His focus on the investigation had been off since returning from compassionate leave. Perhaps others would be more forgiving as they considered his circumstances, but Garrick couldn’t shake the feeling it had cost another life.

  The connections between Guiding Hands and Brabourne were too strong to ignore. Two minutes later they were at the end of the tract to Brabourne Farm. The black tarmacadam was a bold scar leading to the main next of buildings fifty yards from the road. It had been cleared that very morning, and judging by the mounds of snow ploughed to the sides, it had been diligently cleared every day over the weekend.

  They pulled into a three-sided courtyard, with a grand, red-bricked farmhouse to one side. The gable end was green with ivy reaching from the ground. Double glazing, a satellite dish and fresh pointing showed that care and love had been lavished to it recently. Perpendicular to the house were four stables, the old doors replaced with sliding black shutters. A pair of plain white transit vans had been reversed into two of the open doorways. The other two were shut. The third side was a huge barn space. From the scaffolding and snow-laden plastic sheeting, major restoration work was underway.