The Cabal

by Catriona King

  Craig cut in. “A brothel?”

  “That was the assumption although we never got any detail. High class was all we knew, with tight security.”

  Kyle nodded. “Maybe somewhere for the great and not-so-good to go, away from prying eyes? It could be in the country somewhere. Possibly looks like a farmhouse or manor house from outside.”

  Craig thought fast. “Nicky, set up a meeting with D.C.I. Sheridan in aerial support. I want to see what they have on their surveillance photos. If this place exists, there’ll be some signs of extra security.”

  It was left to Andy Angel, their resident renaissance man, to bring them back to the important point.

  “Liam mentioned she was kidnapped, chief.”

  Craig seemed surprised for a moment, then he gave a wry smile. “Timely reminder, Andy. Yes, while we need to know as much about Veronica Lewis as possible it’s only to help find her. We’re not pursuing her for any crime, she’s a victim here. So…she was reported missing-”

  Annette interrupted. “By whom? And why is it a kidnapping instead of a missing persons case?”

  “Not sure. But someone must have reported her missing so, Nicky, can you find out who that was, please? Her son might know. Apparently, he uses her apartment to do his washing.”

  Nicky asked before anyone else could. “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-four, but still a student so he often used her machine. Anyway, when whoever it was got to Lewis’ place of work she wasn’t around and none of her mail had been opened. Some of it was days old and still lying on the mat. They did the usual phoning around but no-one had seen her since Friday, so they reported her missing.”

  Liam screwed up his face. “So she went missing from a brothel?”

  Craig scanned the pages in his hand then shrugged. “Her place of work is all it says here.”

  Annette pressed another point. “And why kidnapping?”

  “Sorry, Annette. The truth is I don’t know, so find out for me, please. But whichever label we put on it Lewis has been missing for three days.”

  Liam asked two questions. “Ransom demand?”

  “None yet.”

  “OK. So why the C.C.?”

  Craig turned to stare at him. “What?”

  “This is a woman who’s been missing for a few days. Sad, but not that unusual. So why is the Chief Constable of the PSNI getting personally involved?”

  The obvious answer horrified Craig and he shook his head and turned away, trying to cover his shock. No way had Sean Flanagan been one of Veronica Lewis’ punters; he just couldn’t see it. Flanagan was happily married, more than happily; he’d seen him with his wife and it was real love. When he said as much it was Liam’s turn to shake his head.

  “Sorry, boss, your loyalty’s laudable but even happily married men have been known to go over the side occasionally, and why else would the Chief be getting involved?”

  Craig nodded heavily. “You’re right, Liam, we have to check it out. But I still say the answer will be no.”

  Liam’s finger shot up to volunteer.

  “Not you, Liam, sorry. Kyle, you’re skilled in subterfuge. See what you can suss out about the C.C. getting involved.”

  Spence rubbed his hands together in anticipation; poking around in other people’s business was his forte, and digging through the C.C.’s dirty laundry was the stuff of dreams. When he stopped rubbing he gave a grudging shrug.

  “To be honest I don’t think I’ll find anything. I did the force’s top-level security screening for years and there was no dirt on Flanagan. Not even a rumour. It’s more likely he’s been told to stick his nose in by someone else.”

  “You mean someone higher up is worried.”

  “More than likely. Madams are the holders of men’s secrets and a high-class madam equals very powerful men, like we said. My guess is someone in government, ours or somewhere else, is bricking it in case Lewis has been kidnapped for that information and that’s why Flanagan’s been tasked to investigate.”

  Craig made a face. “So why not do it himself? It would have kept things secret.”

  “And risk people lower down putting two and two together to make five about his personal life if anything got out? Nope. Too risky. The Chief Con trusts you, and trusts that you can keep all of us quiet as well.”

  Craig raised an eyebrow. “And can I?”

  Spence adopted an innocent look. “Why, boss… How can you even ask?”

  The response was a wary grunt. Craig knew Kyle Spence too well to be reassured.

  “OK, let’s see what we’ve got so far. Aidan’s going to dig into Lewis’ file, Annette will check out why her disappearance is now being labelled as kidnapping, Liam and I will check aerial surveillance and go on the hunt for the pleasure palace, and Kyle will investigate why the C.C. is getting involved.”

  He shifted his gaze to Andy and found him gazing longingly at a chocolate bar on his desk. He’d had the good sense not to start eating it, which was progress of a sort; six months before it would have been smeared all round his mouth, briefing or no briefing.

  “Andy, since Jake’s back; welcome Jake.” There was no pause for comment in the circumstances. “I want you two to interview the son and look around Lewis’ home.” He turned back to his deputy. “Liam…” He’d been about to say, “interview some of the escorts” when an image of Liam getting a slap across the face for being vulgar stopped him dead in his tracks. Instead he turned back to Andy, tacking on the task for him and Jake, and then returned to look at Liam’s now disappointed face.

  “Liam. Can you think of anything else we need to do?”

  The D.C.I.’s chagrin turned swiftly to pleasure, never one to hold upset for long. “Yep. Who’s been protecting Lewis all these years?” He glanced at Aidan as he asked it, adding. “How many years has she been active anyway?”

  The word active made Craig wince, certain as he was that it would be followed by a bawdy joke. For once he was wrong and Liam kept a studiously straight face as Hughes replied.

  “At least thirty, that I know of, but I’ll check her file.”

  “Well, OK then. So, who’s been protecting her during those years? And so successfully? No hooker, no matter how high-class, could stay out of jail, hospital, or the tabloids that long unless someone was covering her back.”

  The twinkle in his eye told everyone that he’d really wanted to say ‘ass’.

  “Good catch, Liam. Opinions, everyone?”

  Davy Walsh had been sitting quietly since he’d given up on his list of Liam’s transgressions, now he pushed back his long EMO black hair, normally controlled in a ponytail but making a rare bid for freedom that day, and ventured a suggestion in his soft, slightly stammering voice.

  “S…Surely her wealthy clients have the power, and a vested interest in protecting her, chief.”

  Nicky smiled proudly at the analyst, her tendency to view Davy as her surrogate son undiminished by his advancing years and the just over a decade between them. She’d responded to his suggestion before she realised what she’d done.

  “That’s a very good idea, Davy.”

  Craig smiled. “As Nicky said, good idea.”

  But Aidan Hughes wasn’t so sure it would lead them up the hierarchy. “Normally the person organising protection would have a financial interest in the business.”

  “A partner in her escort agency?”

  “Possibly. Or if not, maybe she hired a body guard herself.”

  “OK, but what’s to stop one of Lewis’ wealthy clients being her partner? Lots of people avail of their business’ benefits.”

  Hughes shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose.”

  Davy hadn’t finished. “Once we locate her business w…we can find out who owns it. That might give us a name.”

  His tone of voice said even he was dubious it would be that easy.

  “More likely it’ll be a shell company, but it’s worth a try.”

  Liam had another suggestion. “What if he
r place is just one of a chain of brothels? Owned by someone elsewhere, with protection thrown in. It would make sense if a criminal gang was involved, or even if some of the bigwigs who used the place wanted to ensure absolute privacy. Like that time in Fermanagh, remember? All those weirdos auctioning girls off in that tower place.”

  Craig shuddered as he recalled the case from twenty-thirteen when they’d cracked a ring of people traffickers who’d specialised in selling young girls. Liam was still talking.

  “If a gang is involved they could have just let Lewis run the place, paid off the cops and press for her, etcetera, all for a cut of her profits.” He paused for breath before continuing. “Or maybe it’s a franchise? Sort of Orgies Incorporated, run by different madams in different places but always in the same way. Like some central coordination thing.”

  Craig rolled his eyes. “Now you’re just stretching credibility.” He was suddenly serious again. “There’s nothing to stop the partner or gang possibilities, but we’ll need to find plenty of evidence, especially if you’re insinuating that Sean Flanagan is one of those paid-off cops.”

  Liam shook his head. “I wasn’t thinking of him, actually. It’s more likely to be someone at ground level who’s taking a bung. D.C.S. level or below. The higher ups would be too busy attending their fat boy dinners.”

  It was hard to argue with considering the size of some businessmen.

  When there were no more suggestions Craig nodded to wrap up. “OK. Kyle, put out some feelers in Intelligence to find what there is about organised brothels and bought off cops, and Aidan, dig deeper at your end.” He glanced at the clock. “This should keep everyone busy for a few hours. We’ll reconvene at five o’clock.”

  Chapter Two

  Whitehall, London.

  The elderly man rotated his crystal tumbler slowly, not forcefully enough to smear the ice-chilled liquid inside up its sides, but just enough to make a satisfyingly gentle clink as the cubes of frozen water touched. It was his ritual before an event: gin, no tonic, just three cubes of ice and a wedge of lime. Sour enough to reflect his mood and sharp enough to keep him alert, the clink’s very sound enough to warn his subordinates that something was afoot.

  Ritual over, he drained the glass, pulled out his phone and rose from his seat at the private club’s bar, murmuring into the handset as he strolled past the scurrying flunkies towards his chauffeured car. Making calls was an everyday activity in his privileged life, but this one was the signal to let the first domino fall.

  ****

  The C.C.U.

  When Ash Rahman strolled into the squad-room an hour after the briefing had dispersed, his swagger was as loud a call for attention as anything Nicky had ever seen. That was, until the analyst realised that the only audience present comprised the PA, a pre-occupied Davy whose head was so far buried in his semi-circle of computers they’d have to send in a St Bernard to get him out, and a grey pigeon pressing its face against the office’s tenth-floor window from the outside.

  His entrance’s impact not so much lessened as non-existent, the newly-returned-from-New-York analyst down-graded his saunter accordingly. Nicky gave a knowing smirk and then walked past him murmuring. “Tea?”

  It proved better than a rescue effort in ensuring that Davy’s eyes lifted, and as a side-effect granted Ash a watered-down version of the welcome that he’d craved. Davy stood up at his desk and gave a nod.

  “You’re back, bro.”

  In the shorthand of Generation Y Ash answered “Yo.”

  Davy’s eyes narrowed suddenly as he noticed his subordinate’s garb, and his next words weren’t, as Ash had expected, ‘tell me all about the project’, but a typically ego-deflating Northern Irish. “What the hell have you got on?”

  Ash glanced down at his baggy trousers and responded with a cool scan of Davy’s skinny jeans, waistcoat and narrow tie. As a comment on whether he thought US or UK fashion was better it spoke loud. When Nicky reappeared with the tea she threw in her two-pennies worth on Davy’s side.

  “Hate your sweat shirt and baggies, Ash, but I like the red, white and blue Mohican. Very Free World. I’d just be careful where you wear it in Belfast though. Some people might think you’re a Union Flag.”

  With his readjustment period over and the junior analyst yanked firmly back down to earth, everyone lifted a mug of tea and Nicky returned to her desk to let the analysts talk. There was no point in her eavesdropping as most of it would be in acronyms and computer-ese, but when it gave way to police business after ten minutes she turned her bat ears back on.

  Ash leaned over his boss’ desk, squinting at Davy’s central screen.

  “What’re you working on?”

  “A kidnapping.”

  Ash’s response was to the point. “Why?” We’re the murder squad didn’t need to be said.

  “Because the C.C. asked the chief to, that’s w…why.”

  Ash gave a slow whistle. “Something’s rotten on high.”

  “Exactly.”

  “OK. So that explains why you’re running UK kidnapping data for the past five years.”

  Davy responded with a non sequitur. “She’s a madam.”

  “And that explains why you’re cross referencing it with Vice arrests.” Ash pulled up a chair and stared at the two results. “Have you got anything?”

  He already knew the answer; there was a red-flash alert scrolling along the bottom of the page. Davy clicked it and a page opened, displaying two names.

  “Where-?”

  Before Ash could finish the question, a map of the UK appeared with two cities highlighted, so he read their names aloud.

  “Manchester and Edinburgh. Two women kidnapped. One in March and one in April this year, both known prostitutes.”

  “Sex-workers. The boss says so.”

  Nicky gave up eavesdropping and walked across to the pair.

  “Were they madams?”

  Ash screwed up his face. “Is that important?”

  “It might be if you’re looking for similarities with what we’ve got. Well, Davy?”

  Davy’s lean fingers flew across the keys and after a moment of silence he gave a half-surprised nod.

  “One was. In Manchester. The Edinburgh one was a high-class escort who apparently w…worked out of her own flat.”

  Nicky warmed to her theme. “The madam. Low or high class?”

  “It doesn’t say. But that doesn’t matter so much. If we can establish a pattern, then there’s nothing to s…say the level wasn’t being tailored to the customers in the area they served.”

  “You’re saying the important link is kidnapping and sex work.”

  He nodded and began typing again. Nicky’s face fell.

  “You’re checking to see what happened to them.”

  Ash was in the right position to see the search results and it wasn’t good news.

  “Both found dead! After how many days?”

  Davy clicked again. “The Manchester one after five, with the Edinburgh one it was a w…week. They died soon before they were found, so that means they were held somewhere first.”

  Nicky flopped down on a nearby chair. “Our one’s been gone three days already. You need to tell the chief right away.”

  The analyst had already done so, sending an alert to the whole squad’s phones with one tap. When it had gone he pushed back his seat, frowning.

  “What’s the connection between kidnapping a sex-worker and killing them?”

  “Were they rape-murders?”

  Davy shook his head. “The files say there was no sign of sexual assault on either woman.” He gestured to his right-hand screen. “And the database says that violence connected with sex-workers is normally one of two sorts: s…spontaneous attacks during a dispute, over money or jealousy, or in a minority of cases weirdos who target them for sex attacks and kill them right away. Why go to the trouble of holding them for days?”

  Nicky shook her head primly and stood up. “That’s what we have de
tectives for.”

  ****

  When the text appeared on Craig’s and Liam’s phones they both missed it, too busy leaning over a map table trying to make sense of some aerial views, with Liam asking the D.C.I. in charge so many questions about marks and anomalies that Craig could see the jump-suited man winding up to throw a punch.

  He intervened quickly. “Liam, for the last time, it doesn’t matter what that white line is! It’s obviously not a building and that’s all we’re interested in.”

  He cast an apologetic glance at Theo Sheridan and stepped away from the table to take a seat, hoping that his withdrawal would encourage Liam’s newly discovered geographic nerdiness back into its box. When it didn’t the small, muscular helicopter pilot pulled up a chair beside Craig and gestured at Liam, whose large nose was now pressed flat against the horizontal glass screen.

  “Doesn’t get out much, does he?”

  Craig suppressed a smirk, torn between his liking of Sheridan, whom he’d known since he’d moved back to the province from London eight years before and often encountered since at courses and the force’s football tournament, and his loyalty to his deputy of all those years. He plumped for the second.

  “Let’s just say Liam’s a man of wide-ranging enthusiasms.”

  This time he couldn’t stifle his laugh.

  Sheridan nodded sagely.

  “If you say so. But it would help if you told me exactly what you were both looking for, and why.”

  Craig’s expression said that he wished he could; it would be useful to bounce ideas off someone outside his team.

  “All I can say is what I’ve already told you. It will probably, but not definitely, look like a house. A large one, like a farmhouse or a mansion house. Somewhere secluded, probably with only one approach road, and with heavy security.”

  “Any idea what sort of security? High-level with electrified fences, dogs and guards, or just a low level domestic alarm system?”

  “What differences would you see from the air?”

  The pilot thought for a moment.