‘Joel, I don’t need the details danced around. From seeing what they allow onstage, I can picture the seediness of the back rooms.’ His story as it stood didn’t warrant his sullen look. Either she was less prudish than she thought or Joel wasn’t the tall-striding, womanising hunk of man people took him for. For a lot of guys, this sounds like a good night out.
‘She rubbed oil all over me. She was young.’
‘Young?’
‘Fourteen. Fifteen max, I’d say.’
‘What? Are you sure?’
His face told her that however he knew, he was satisfied of the fact. ‘It’s clear as day on the footage. There’s no mistaking it.’
‘But you were passed out? Surely it shows you not moving at all?’ She scrambled for anything in her colleague’s defence.
‘I don’t remember any of it. That’s the truth. I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but that’s the truth. Not that anyone would believe it. A half-cut copper filmed getting a naked massage from an underage girl. Not just anything, that. I’ll be hung out to dry and slammed in a cell. I’m sure you know what they do to coppers in prison and I’m damn sure you know what they do to sex offenders. I’ll lose everything.’ He looked at the photo of his mother. ‘All for a stupid mistake.’
‘Mistake? You can’t blame yourself. You didn’t know what was going on.’
‘Trusting Leilani was the mistake. Getting in that position was the mistake.’
‘Do you know where that girl is? We need to tell the Child Protection Team as soon as possible. Why’d she do it?’ Sarah had so many questions, and she hoped Joel had the answers.
‘I don’t. Only ever saw her on the recording. Leilani threatened to release the footage if I didn’t do as she said. I gave her thousands. She then wanted me to keep tabs on someone. On you.’
‘Me?’
‘She wanted to know when you were at work, when you left the office, when you came back and everything in between. Those photos. Those photos were a set-up.’
‘What? You knew that was happening?’
‘I had no choice. What did you want me to do? She’s never more than a couple of clicks away from sticking that damn video online.’ His fist slammed the armrest. ‘There was nothing I could do.’
‘You could have told Hayward or Dales. You could have told me.’
‘And what did you do when it got personal? Run straight to Dales? The behaviour code slides under the carpet once the thumbscrews tighten, doesn’t it? Hayward? Do you really expect me to go to him, hamburger in hand, and ask for help?’
‘Is this why you were eager for MCT to take the case?’
‘The less I had to do with it, the more distance I could get from her.’
He was right. She’d thought Joel was a confident and unshakable police officer, and nothing she’d heard tonight had changed that. But this was Joel the man, the human being. Scared, alone and in a situation from which he saw no escape. She wished he were wrong, that people would believe him and believe he couldn’t recall the events of that night, but they wouldn’t. He was, as Dales would say, bang to rights if that video were ever released. Leilani had him and there was no certainty she’d ever let go. Sarah needed to link this all together and put a stop to it. Before that, she needed an answer to the most pressing question.
‘Why me?’
‘I’m a man of my word. Name what you need.’ Dibbles shielded his cigarette from the wind and flicked his lighter. The light from the flame exposed his pockmarked skin. His hands had a permanent shake. They’d agreed to meet on the hill in Amblin Park, Mavenswood’s highest point. The lights of the town below attracted young lovers to the viewpoint in the summer months, but cold, damp autumn evenings left it empty.
Dibbles held out a cigarette.
‘Trying to quit.’ Dales stood with his hands in the pockets of his dark grey peacoat, collar flapping in the breeze.
‘No one really quits, Steve. We just change our poison.’
‘Then poison must be good business.’ Dales looked straight at him. Dibbles was an old hand and couldn’t be given an inch.
‘We’ve all got to pay the bills. How you doing that these days? Inspector? DCI?’
‘Tutoring detectives. Passing on the skills I learned from locking you up.’
‘That’s cold.’ Dibbles drew a deep breath of moist evening air and spread his arms. ‘You know, this is a funny-looking cell you’ve got me in. And, if you must know, the poison business is booming.’
‘I’m here about Moretti.’
‘Sally-Anne? What about her?’
‘Still see much of her?’
‘From time to time.’
‘Still dealing to her?’
‘I’ve not seen her in a while, but she’s still buying from my boys.’ The trouble with men like Dibbles was, favour or no favour, there was no honour amongst thieves. Dales couldn't be sure whether he was being honest, or cooking up a story on the spot.
‘What?’
‘Cocaine.’
‘Still active?’
‘Up to this week. Last sale was last Thursday.’
‘Know anything about a poisoned batch?’
‘Hang on, how many favours do you think you have?’ Dibbles' cigarette moved up and down in the corner of his mouth as he spoke.
‘Sorry. Thought your life would be worth more than one question.’
Dibbles stamped his cigarette out on the damp grass, opened the box and lit another one. ‘Word got around some woman OD’d at the big hotel outside of town. Some say it’s poison, some suicide. You’ll know more than me about that.’
‘Any idea how Moretti knows the location of our ANPR cameras? Something I’m sure someone in your position in the drugs chain is no doubt aware of himself?’
‘What can I say? You guys are getting slack.’
‘Poisoned, Dibbles. The drugs were poisoned. Moretti’s in the frame. The two of you were lovers. She’s privy to things she shouldn’t know and you probably do. She tells us the victim, her girlfriend, took cocaine the night she died and it so happens you sold her some the day before. You starting to see how this is looking?’
‘Sally-Anne?’ Dibbles didn’t look as surprised as Dales expected. ‘For murder? That’s heavy. Can’t say I’m surprised she started dating women.’
‘That doesn’t surprise you at all? She loved you at one time.’
‘I loved her, Steve. She didn’t love me. I’m no expert, but love doesn’t wake you up in the middle of the night, knife in hand and scream you out of the house. That woman’s trouble.’ Dibbles was shouting and began stepping nervously from side to side.
‘You loved her? You rented out her body for money and drugs. That’s a funny idea of love you’ve got there.’
‘Our lives aren’t the same as yours. My choices aren’t so easy and were even less so back then.’
‘She didn’t even have the choice, did she? You ran her life and now you’re trying to tell me you didn’t know she was seeing someone? You pride yourself on knowing everything that goes on in that town down there and you’re telling me you don’t know that the woman you obsessed over for years, a woman who still buys cocaine from your stock, started a new relationship?’ Dales voice rose and he became acutely aware that he had no idea whether Dibbles was armed. A call for assistance all the way up here would take a long time to arrive.
‘I’m telling you exactly that. What? You think I had something to do with killing her girlfriend?’
‘If I was saying that, you wouldn’t be breathing air this fresh.’
‘I want nothing to do with Sally-Anne Moretti. I’ll happily take her money, but I don’t care who she’s in a relationship with. That crazy bitch hasn’t changed.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘I’m going to throw you a freebie, for old time’s sake. Sally-Anne wants someone murdered.’ Dibbles settled down. His hands shook as he took the cigarette from his mouth.
‘Who?’
/> ‘Been saying someone’s ruined her life and wants them dead. She’s come into money and offered an obscene amount. Won’t be long before some sicko takes her up on it.’
‘Who is it?’ Dales wanted nothing more than to shake it out of him. He'd worked on his temper over the years, but Dibbles never failed to make him lose it.
‘Your favour’s just expired. We’re done.’
‘Dibbles, I’m not messing around. I need to know.’
‘Believe me, it’s no one you need to worry about.’ Dibbles threw his cigarette on the floor and spread his arms. ‘Why don’t you hit me, old boy. Grab me by the throat, slam me into that tree. Force it out of me, just like the good old days.’ Dibbles grinned. ‘What? Don’t they let you do that anymore? Cut your balls off, have they?’
‘You’ve still got the scars from last time.’
Dibbles pushed his finger into the side of his face and traced the line of a deep scar where Dales had broken his cheekbone years before. ‘I wouldn’t want this hickey to heal.’
‘I saved your life. If you’d swallowed those wraps, you’d have died before they strapped you to the stretcher.’
Dibbles stepped towards him. ‘You kept me alive, and I sat in a cell for a few of years, performing politely so some clueless div would let me back out on the streets. I’d reformed, they said. As they patted themselves on the back for saving another wayward soul, I walked out the door and picked up exactly where I'd left off.’ He thrust his finger down towards Mavenswood. ‘I run that town whilst you take orders from people who’ve hardly walked a day in your shoes. DC Dales was the devil on our back. You and Matt were men to fear. Running into the pigs these days is nothing more than a minor occupational hazard.’
Dales clenched his fists in his pockets. Dibbles was no stranger to his cuffs. The same set, scuffed and stiff from years of administering justice to men like the one gloating in front of him, were clipped to the side of his belt, itching to get reacquainted with the wrists of one of Mavenswood’s oldest villains.
‘You ever, even for a damn second, think about the lives you affect?’
‘People want the product and I supply it. What happens to their lives is none of my business. I don’t give a damn about any of them. That town’s full of freaks.’ Dibbles stepped back, his hands by his side, beckoning Dales forward. ‘Come on, make me talk. Make me give it up.’
Dales resisted the urge to punch his lights out. ‘I’ll find my answers down there.’ He looked towards the town. ‘Not seen Moretti in around four years, you say?’
‘Yeah, so what?’
‘There’s someone down there that may change your mind about that town.’ Dales hoped that if Dibbles knew he had a son in Mavenswood, he'd think twice about poisoning its streets. Telling him now would only put the boy, and his mother, in danger.
‘I doubt that very much. Now, I’ve got a question for you. You regret it, don’t you?’
‘Regret what?’
‘Saving my life. You’d rather I’d died that day. I’m free; your precious system let you down. And you know you could have ended it all by just letting me swallow those drugs.’
‘And miss out on the pleasure of breaking your jaw? Never.’
‘She wouldn’t say. Blackmail, too, I expect. I looked out for anything, any clue that’d tell me something. A way of getting to her. I threw question after question using everything we’ve been taught. I got nothing. I do know she came into money pretty recently.’ Joel looked exhausted. Having his work colleague jump in his cab must have only added to his stress.
‘Where’d her money come from?’ Sarah sat forward on the sofa.
‘No idea.'
'Both her and Moretti have shot up in the world in a very short space of time. Moretti put it down to inheritance. Dales said she didn’t have a pot to piss in, his words not mine, and neither did her folks. Moretti called Enderson the day he died and Enderson had been giving money away to someone, or someone was blackmailing him. Leilani’s blackmailed you and has god knows what intentions for me and we know she’s old friends with Moretti.’
‘Okay. Okay, let’s say you’re onto something. How are you intending to prove all this?’
‘Your statement.’
‘Sure, I do that and I’ll be the next defendant in the box.’
‘With mine, yours and everything else we can piece together, what connects these people and their victims, we’ll have a case. Your statement binds it all together. We’ll bring Leilani in and turn The Candy Club upside down until we have all the evidence we need.’
‘Look. That’s not going to happen. I need to stay as far away from this as possible. I get what you’re saying, I do. And I know it’s my responsibility, but there’s too much at risk. We’ve got to keep quiet.’
‘Keep this quiet? Joel, come on. It’s a difficult decision; there really is no other way. You’re not just duty-bound to do it. This will continue unless we do something. Think about the girl, Joel. You’re in a hell of a position, but think about the girl. Whoever that child is, she’s in a hell of a position too. We act and we can stop this.’
Joel stood up. She waited for it to hit. Inside this proud man was a battered heart. He’d lost his mother to an expression of human savagery. Somewhere inside, he understood the need for the empowered to intervene regardless of personal cost.
‘Whenever I fail, I’m that guy. That guy who watched. Who did nothing. I remember my dad telling me. I was young. Fourteen. Too young for the details he told me, but that’s my dad, you know. Wanted us to be tough. Made us ready for the world by hiding none of it from us. Made us men, he said. Taught us to be tough, tougher than a teenager should ever need to be.
‘I started this job, so I never had to be that guy. Watching while others suffered. I wanted to be the one that could do something, that would do something. And now that I can, I’m trapped and shit-scared. Maybe it’s in the genes.’
‘The genes?’
‘That guy? That guy was my dad. When the mugger produced a knife, he ran. He left her there.’
She stood up and wrapped her arms around his thick torso. He embraced her too. It was different to the last time. The Candy Club had been awkward and now she knew why. She’d gotten carried away with thoughts of affairs and romantic liaisons. Now they really connected. Connected through the need to protect those whom others had abandoned.
Joel cried and her tears weren’t far behind. ‘I’ll do it. Let’s end this.’
Twenty-Three
Sarah started work sitting at her desk with both the Hargreaves and Enderson files open. The True Connections website was open on her screen, asking her to login or register a new account. She clicked to register and created a new username for a mock account: SG456. The name didn’t have to be fancy; she was only on the site to answer one question and, after doing so, she’d have no reason to ever come back.
Her email notification pinged with a message from Intel. The business registry check on The Candy Club had come back. It was registered to a Mr Richard White. Doesn’t sound like Leilani’s sister.
She wondered where Joel was. She’d texted him, but hadn’t heard back. Dales left Manford’s office and walked over, rubbing his tired face. She minimised the browser window and went back to her files.
‘There’s been a change. Moretti’s been trying to solicit someone’s murder. I’m not sure who, just that that someone had ruined her life and she wanted them gone. I just told Manford and he’s getting the surveillance teams jacked up to keep tabs on her. It shouldn’t affect our case. She lied about the drugs too. She’s still a regular buyer and picked up a batch the night before Sheila died.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I got in touch with Dibbles last night.’
‘What were you doing working last night?’ Not taking your own advice, that's what.
‘Everything I’ve been telling you not to. Dibbles owed me one from a while back. Figured I’d cash it in as we’re looking at Mor
etti.’
‘I probably don’t want to know the list of villains that owe you favours, do I?’
‘No, you don’t. Cuppa?’
‘Love one. Sarge, there’s a few things I should have told you by now.’
She figured he’d heard this kind of thing from numerous officers during his years as a supervisor. She’d been told in training that screwing up was a fact of the job, but concealing it would always catch up to her.
‘Have you been stealing black biros from the office? You know if you accidentally take them home, sit in the lounge and realise they’re in your pocket, that’s not actually theft. It’s in the regs. Somewhere towards the back.’ Dales walked into the kitchen, still within earshot.
‘No, I’m not the biro thief. Leilani Hayes is involved in blackmail and is using the backrooms at The Candy Club to provide sexual services involving minors.’
Dales walked back around the corner from the kitchen empty-handed. ‘Okay, tea can wait. What have you got?’
She looked around to make sure no one was listening. ‘It’s best you hear it from Joel, but in short, Leilani’s been extorting money from him. He passed out at The Candy Club and she recorded an underage girl giving him a full body massage. It may be an isolated incident; it may be an indicator of a more sinister pattern.’
Dales pulled up a chair. ‘When you say minor, how old are we talking?’
‘Mid-teens. Child Protection won’t be in for another hour. I’ve sent them an email with as much as I know, so they’ll pick it up first thing.’
‘What do we know about the kid?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘Is Joel willing to statement this?’
‘He was last night. There’s more. We think she’s trying to blackmail me too.’ She needed to get it all out. She'd kept it a secret from the one person who was able to help her the most, partly through shame, and partly through not wanting to find out the truth about her husband. If Leilani's allegations were true, it would have shattered Sarah's family. Now, having spoken to Joel, she'd realised there were no depths Leilani wouldn't sink to.
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