Death in a Far Country

by Patricia Hall

  ‘Looking like cats who’d stolen the cream,’ Jolene said. ‘Bastards.’

  ‘Of course they said nowt had happened, but we knew it had,’ Katrina said. ‘One of my mates said it’s an open secret. If anyone wants a woman, it’s arranged for them. And then we saw them again at the Chelsea party. Two girls were just leaving as we arrived, legging it across the car park again wi’a couple of big blokes, and Lee and Dave didn’t know where to look. That’s why we were so fed up that night, an’ all. When someone started joking about it, I just lost it.’

  ‘And it was the same two girls?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t swear it were t’ same two,’ Jolene said. ‘It were a bit dark to see much. But it were two young girls so we thought they must be t’same.’

  Thackeray thought it better not to tell the women that there was no way it could have been the same girls, as one of them by that time was already dead and the other had disappeared. The fact that they had been so quickly replaced and the footballers evidently content with the new arrangement would only fuel their fury.

  ‘Do you know who does the arranging if these girls turn up?’ Thackeray asked, stony-faced now.

  ‘Minelli, of course.’ Jolene’s face was hard as she spoke the name of a man she obviously hated. ‘Minelli controls everything about the players. Even their sex lives.’

  ‘So he’s a pimp?’ The word dropped into the conversation like the crack of a whip.

  ‘When it suits him. Other times he’s telling them to lay off sex at home before a big game,’ Jolene said, passing on advice from the team manager that obviously rankled. ‘Thinks he’s some sort of God, that man. You wouldn’t believe it.’

  Thackeray took a deep breath. To say that he had disliked Minelli on sight would be an understatement, he thought, although he knew this was an instant reaction to the Italian’s too close proximity to Laura. But he knew that he was walking on thin ice here, and might be too ready to believe the women’s vindictive and quite possibly fanciful allegations about United’s boss. He must watch his objectivity, he thought. That morning he had received his own summons to an interview with the inquiry team at County HQ, scheduled for the following week, and he was only too aware of how searching their questions would be about his abandonment of procedure when Laura had been in danger. He knew that making a habit of unpredictability would be fatal to his career within a very short time.

  ‘Has anyone you’ve spoken to suggested where these girls come from?’ Thackeray asked as neutrally as he could manage, but both women shook their heads at that.

  ‘She was foreign, the white girl, someone said,’ Jolene said. ‘But the other one, the black bitch. She spoke English all right. Someone said she and OK were getting on just fine.’

  ‘Did you see Paolo Minelli with them at all?’ But both women shook their heads at that.

  ‘And did he seem to be involved in getting them off the premises when you two turned up? On either occasion? Did he hustle them out to the car park or anything like that.’ But again they shook their heads.

  ‘They were with two other blokes the second time,’ Jolene said. ‘They were heading to a car on t’far side of the car park. By the time we got inside the lads were all present and correct but they looked a bit shifty. The first time we got a better look because they passed us in t’corridor when we went upstairs. After that there was a bit of mayhem, wasn’t there? Hardly surprising. Then after we’d seen them again, running off when we arrived for the Chelsea party, it all kicked off again.’ And in spite of pressing on with their questions, that was about as much as Thackeray and Mower could elicit in the way of eyewitness evidence about what had gone on the night of the celebration parties.

  When the women had gone, having checked and signed their statements, Thackeray called Mower into his office and waved him into a chair.

  ‘Well, we’ll have to check all that out,’ he said. ‘We know it can’t have been the dead girl they saw the second time because her body had already been found. So it looks as though there’s a regular supplier of a number of girls no doubt as and when they’re called for.’ He glanced away, his face bleak.

  ‘I’ll come with you to interview Minelli,’ he said. ‘We’re going to be about as popular as a couple of suicide bombers once it gets out we’re investigating Bradfield United. And it will get out. You can be sure of that, once we start working our way through the players.’

  ‘A pity it’s happened when they’re on a winning roll,’ Mower said. ‘The fans’ll think we’re going to damage their chances in the Cup.’

  ‘Never mind the bloody Cup,’ Thackeray said with unusual vehemence. ‘There’s a girl dead and another one missing. We’re talking life and death here.’

  ‘That’s what the fans think too, guv,’ Mower said, with a crooked grin. ‘You don’t talk proportion with football fans in a situation like this.’

  ‘Then it’s time they grew up,’ Thackeray snapped. ‘That’s a game, this is a murder, and by the looks of it a whole lot more viciousness as well.’

  ‘Can we believe anything those two bimbos said?’ Mower asked. ‘They obviously hate Minelli.’

  ‘We can’t necessarily believe anything they said without corroboration,’ Thackeray said sharply. ‘So that’s our next step. We’ll talk to Minelli now, straight away, and then work our way through the players, starting with Okigbo, who told me to my face he’d never seen the victim before. It sounds to me it’s quite possible he was lying, and he may not be the only one if all these girls were on the game. The town’s probably full of men who know them and won’t want to admit it.’

  ‘Right, guv,’ Mower said equably.

  ‘And there’s something else that may be significant,’ Thackeray said. ‘When I went to the United party with Laura I was surprised to see our old friend Steve Stone there, living it up with the best of them. His sister’s Minelli’s girlfriend, apparently. It may be an innocent connection, or it may not. Stone’s not come to our attention again, since the last time, as far as I know, but we know what he was into back then, even though the Crown Prosecution Service wouldn’t have it. If Minelli’s procuring girls he may be using Stone’s services to source them.’

  ‘Whoa, guv,’ Mower said, looking alarmed. ‘That’s jumping a few guns, isn’t it? I know you weren’t best pleased when the CPS threw the case out, but he does have legitimate businesses. We gave him a fright back then. But we’ll need something rock solid to take Stone on again.’

  ‘Well, let’s give Paolo Minelli a fright, shall we?’ Thackeray said. ‘And then we’ll tackle young Okigbo. It looks as if he’s lied about knowing the dead girl, and in the absence of any other suspects, that makes him number one in my book. Unless he’s got a very convincing alibi indeed.’

  Paolo Minelli had been summoned from the training ground to meet DCI Thackeray and Sergeant Kevin Mower and did not look best pleased about it when he came into his own office, hot and sweaty and wearing a muddy tracksuit and trainers. He glanced at the two officers who were sitting waiting for him, and then closed the door to the outer office, where a secretary was sitting at her desk with an ill-concealed expression of curiosity on her face. He tried to smooth down his dishevelled hair irritably and wiped his face with a tissue.

  ‘Gentlemen?’ he said, when the officers had introduced themselves. ‘What is so urgent that I have to leave my team just now?’

  Mower took the artist’s impression of the dead girl from his file and offered it to Minelli.

  ‘We’re are investigating the death of this young woman,’ he said. ‘And we have reason to believe that she was at a party for your team members a couple of weeks ago. Do you remember seeing her?’

  Minelli wiped his brow again, still breathing heavily, and took his seat behind his desk before taking the picture from Mower and studying it for a moment in silence.

  ‘No,’ he said at length. ‘I don’t know this girl. I’ve never seen her before. Certo.’

  ‘This would be the pa
rty two Saturdays ago at the country club, after you won your game against Rochdale and Okigbo scored the winning goal.’

  Minelli shrugged as eloquently as only an Italian can, and spread his hands wide.

  ‘I remember the party,’ he said. ‘Of course, we had a good win and the team were excited that evening. What is the phrase? Over the moon? But I didn’t see this girl.’

  ‘Could she have been with Okigbo? Is she his girlfriend?’ Mower asked. ‘A black girl? I don’t suppose there are too many black girls at your parties.’

  ‘I don’t think OK has a girlfriend. He’s not been in Bradfield very long.’ Minelli shrugged again. ‘I didn’t see her, but I spent a lot of time at that party with the chairman in another room. We had a lot to talk about.’

  ‘It’s been suggested to us that girls are sometimes provided for your team members, invited to parties for their entertainment, as you might say. And that you might be doing the providing,’ Thackeray broke in harshly, although he had asked Mower to take the lead in the interview. Mower glanced at his boss anxiously, wondering if there was something going on here he did not know about. He was certainly offering Minelli more information than he would have done himself at this stage in the interview.

  Paolo Minelli bunched his fists on the desk in front of him for a moment, gazing at Thackeray’s disdainful face, before he replied, his features contorted with anger. He launched into what the police officers guessed was a string of Italian expletives before switching back to English.

  ‘That is an outrageous suggestion,’ he said, almost choking with emotion. ‘You make it sound as if I provide prostitutes for them?’

  ‘The suggestion’s not true, then?’ Thackeray persisted.

  ‘Is not true,’ Minelli said. ‘I don’t know where these girls came from or who they might be. But you should be aware, Inspector. I have enemies here who would like to get rid of me, who have other plans for the club. I know that. I didn’t realise they would go this far.’ He took a deep breath to calm himself before he continued more quietly.

  ‘You know what young men are like, especially young men who have plenty of money and lots of testosterone. There are always girls around, just like round a pop group. It is natural. But I am their coach, not their father. I don’t interfere in their private life unless their private life is interfering with their work. Drink, drugs, girls… You know the problems. But at the moment we are quite lucky here. I do not have any difficulties with the players at the moment.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear that,’ Thackeray said drily. ‘But I think you may be running into problems with Okigbo. He was allegedly seen with this girl, and now she’s dead. Show Mr Minelli the picture of the other girl we’re looking for, Kevin.’ Mower did as he was told, but again Minelli, after staring for a moment at the blurred CCTV image, shook his head angrily.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen her before either. But these young men – there are lots of girls, you know? They come and go.’ He smiled faintly at the two officers, as if soliciting their sympathy, and glanced away again, wiping his brow, when they did not respond.

  ‘Black girls?’ Mower asked bluntly.

  ‘Not so many black girls,’ Minelli said. ‘But half the team are unmarried. The girlfriends come and go. What do you expect?’

  ‘So it would surprise you to know that it has been suggested that these two girls are prostitutes, call girls, apparently, who were brought to the party by a couple of men?’ Thackeray said.

  Minelli took a sharp breath and visibly paled beneath his tan.

  ‘It would surprise me, yes,’ he said. ‘I told you. I know nothing of girls like that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t expect your players to make use of services of that sort?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Minelli said. ‘There is a risk, a risk of diseases… I would be worried about that, yes. Who suggested this, anyway? Who is telling you all these lies?’

  Thackeray smiled grimly.

  ‘You know I can’t tell you that, Mr Minelli,’ he said. ‘But the source is reliable.’

  He looked at the coach bleakly for a moment.

  ‘Your own partner is Angelica Stone, is that right?’

  Minelli nodded, with what appeared to be genuine surprise.

  ‘Is that relevant, Inspector,’ he asked faintly.

  ‘Only in so far as she is the sister of Stephen Stone, who has come to the attention of the police at one time or another, in the context of prostitution.’

  ‘Steve?’ Minelli said, looking astonished. ‘He is Angelica’s brother, but I hardly know him… He’s a businessman, as far as I know, a legitimate businessman. He owns clubs. What has Steve Stone got to do with any of this?’

  ‘Probably nothing at all,’ Thackeray said. ‘It may just be a coincidence that he was at another party for your players at the West Royd club last weekend. Nothing to do with these girls at all?’

  ‘That is where I saw you, too,’ Minelli said suddenly, as if something that had been bothering him had suddenly fallen into place. Thackeray nodded but did not elaborate.

  ‘Right, that’s fine then, Mr Minelli,’ Thackeray said, sounding suddenly uninterested and conscious of Mower’s worried look. He guessed that he had probably gone further than he should down that avenue. ‘And you can confirm again that you have never seen either of these girls.’

  ‘Never,’ Minelli said fervently.

  ‘So all that remains is for me to ask you to arrange meetings for us with your team members, starting with Okigbo, Dave Peters and Lee Towers.’

  Minelli gazed at Thackeray for a moment, looking appalled.

  ‘All the team?’ he asked, almost choking on the words.

  ‘Eventually,’ Thackeray said, his expression implacable. ‘But those three young men first, starting with Okigbo. This afternoon if possible.’

  ‘This will get into the papers,’ Minelli said, licking his dry lips. ‘This place is like a – what do you call it? – a sieve?’

  ‘I dare say it will,’ Thackeray said. ‘There’s very little I can do about that.’

  Back outside the stadium, where a few desolate looking fans were queuing in the rain in the hope of still getting a ticket for the match against Chelsea the following week, Mower glanced at his boss with curious eyes.

  ‘You were pushing it a bit with the Steve Stone issue, weren’t you, guv?’ he asked.

  ‘Steve Stone and the possible presence of prostitutes in the same place would make anyone wonder,’ Thackeray said shortly as they walked back to the car. ‘We know he was involved three years ago and got away with it. Why should anything have changed. After the balls-up by the CPS he probably thinks he’s invincible.’

  ‘Do you want to talk to him?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Thackeray said. ‘You’re right. If we move on Stone we’ll have to be extra sure we’ve got something very solid to go on. I don’t want another case chucked back at me for lack of evidence. But if he was at one Bradfield United party, when I saw him, he might well have been at the previous one, when these girls were also seen. So we can legitimately ask him about that. But first we’ll talk to these young footballers. If some of them were in bed with the murdered girl and her friend once, they could well have been with them again the night our victim died. They could easily have arranged to see them again. It’s the only real lead we’ve got so far.’

  ‘Did you believe Minelli was as squeaky clean as he claimed?’ Mower asked as he started the car and drove back towards the town centre and police HQ.

  ‘Not really,’ Thackeray said. ‘I think he’s a very good actor. At the very least he knows more about the girls than he’s prepared to admit.’

  ‘What we really need is the second girl,’ Mower said. ‘And what really worries me is that she may be dead as well and we just haven’t found her body yet.’

  As he pulled into the police car park Thackeray’s mobile phone rang and Mower watched as he listened to the caller and his face hardened.

&
nbsp; ‘Thanks for letting me know, Amos,’ he said, before disconnecting. He glanced at Mower.

  ‘Amos Atherton,’ he said. ‘He’s just got blood test results on our victim. She was HIV positive.’

  ‘Well, that’ll come as glad tidings to whoever she’s slept with,’ Mower said quietly. ‘Including the father of her child. And if that includes any of the footballers, Minelli will do his nut.’

  ‘And if she really is a tom, there could be hundreds of men,’ Thackeray said. ‘Not least, Bradfield United’s star player. I think Paolo Minelli’s troubles have only just begun.’ And Mower could not understand why Thackeray allowed himself a faint smile of triumph at that.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  For the hundredth time that morning Laura Ackroyd’s hand hovered over the phone on her desk and then moved abruptly back to her computer keyboard as she tried without much success to concentrate on work. At her side was a copy of the day’s first edition which included on its front page the slightly blurred image of the girl the police wanted to interview, the girl she knew as Elena, which had arrived in the office the previous afternoon. She knew, with a feeling of sick horror in her stomach, that she would have to tell Thackeray, sooner rather than later, where Elena was. Concealing her whereabouts now she was wanted as a witness in a murder case was indefensible, morally and legally. The police needed to know what Elena knew about the dead girl and the longer Laura stood in the way of that, the more trouble she knew she, and the Ibramovic family and Elena herself, would be in.

  But still she hesitated, with her hand half on and half off the telephone. She could not bear to send the police to Elena’s safe haven in Ilkley unannounced, she decided. The least she owed the girl she and Joyce had tried to help, and the family who had offered her shelter, was that she should tell them face to face what they had to do. She would go out there as soon as she finished work, she thought, and then tell Thackeray what she and Joyce had done. A couple more hours would not make much difference to the police inquiries she decided, and it would be kinder to the girl if she offered to take her to police headquarters herself rather than letting the police pick her up and quite likely terrify her more than she was terrified already.