The Devil's Cliff Killings

by Simon McCleave

  ‘Welsh?’ Nadia said. He could see the word didn’t mean anything to her.

  ‘Welsh. It means she comes from Wales. But to you, she would have sounded English,’ Nick explained, hoping that he wasn’t coming across as patronising.

  Nadia’s eyes widened as she processed what he had asked her. ‘Yes. Two girls in the room next to us. They were English, maybe Welsh. I don’t know difference.’

  Wondering quite what he had stumbled upon, Nick clicked his phone to bring up a photo of Rosie.

  Leaning over, he showed it to her. ‘This is the girl I’m looking for.’

  ‘Okay, I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you ever see the English girls?’ he asked.

  ‘Only once. At the top of stairs,’ Nadia explained.

  Nick found another photo of Rosie and asked, ‘Think carefully, Nadia. Was this one of the girls you saw?’

  Nadia peered at the photo. ‘Maybe. It was dark. This girl had all her hair down so I not see her face. But it could be her, yes.’

  ‘When did the girls leave the house?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Two days ago. I heard them screaming when Christian opened the door.’

  ‘What about Hayley? Was she there?’

  ‘Yes. Hayley went into the room to talk to them a lot. Maybe she knows who this girl is that you look for?’

  Nick nodded. Maybe she does.

  RUTH PULLED OFF THE main road and headed for Capelulo. The sky overhead was a patchy grey and she saw the first spots of rain on the windscreen. She had some questions for both Jason Wright and Steven Haddon before handing on the case files to the CPS. Even though she trusted Sian, Ruth also wanted to make sure that everything was secure at the Wrights’ home. She was the SIO, and it was her responsibility if anything went wrong.

  Her phone rang. It was Drake. She took it on her Bluetooth headset.

  ‘Boss?’ Ruth said.

  ‘We have a situation at Capelulo, Ruth.’ Drake’s voice immediately made her feel nervous.

  ‘What is it?’ Ruth asked as her mind began to play over various dark scenarios.

  ‘About fifteen minutes ago, Blake’s men took Kathy and Gareth Wright from the house.’

  ‘How?’ Ruth asked, but she was really thinking about Sian. She was down there checking everything with Bennett and the AFOs. Was she all right?

  ‘They were dressed as police officers. No one was harmed but ...’ Drake paused for a split second. ‘... They took Sian with them, Ruth.’

  Ruth pulled the car over as her anxiety went through the roof.

  Oh God, no.

  ‘Jesus!’ Ruth said as her heart raced.

  ‘I’ve got armed units out and a helicopter. We’ll find them and we’ll get her back,’ Drake said. ‘I just need you here.’

  ‘Yes, boss. I’m on my way back,’ Ruth said and then hung up. Her mind was whirring. All she cared about was finding Sian safely.

  Pulling the car out, Ruth headed back towards the main road to Llancastell. As she waited to pull out, she tapped her fingers nervously on the steering wheel. Her heart thumped noisily. It was difficult to concentrate on the road.

  The tension in Ruth’s stomach was getting tighter. And there was the added guilt at having driven Sian away. She would do anything to get her back safely.

  For the next ten minutes, Ruth was lost in her thoughts and the panic of what had happened. If Blake’s men knew Sian was a police officer, why take her with them? Was that a good sign? Did it mean that they weren’t prepared to shoot her in cold blood? Why weren’t the AFOs alerted?

  Ruth’s whirring brain was broken as the Tetra radio crackled. ‘Control to three-six, over.’

  ‘Three-six, received,’ Ruth said after a moment. She prayed there was good news about Sian or the kidnappers.

  ‘Ma’am, we have a report of two burnt-out vehicles two miles east of Capelulo, on the intersection of A-three-four-five and Corwen Road, over,’ the operator said.

  ‘Three-six, received. En route now,’ Ruth said as she punched the location into her satnav and spun the car around at speed. Her pulse started to quicken.

  ‘Burnt-out vehicles’ doesn’t sound good. Blake’s men knew that they would be spotted in their fake police cars very quickly. Maybe they had ‘clean’ vehicles waiting for them? What would they have done with Sian, Kathy and Gareth Wright? Taken them with them? Or worse? Got rid of them there and then? Ruth felt sick.

  Two minutes later, Ruth sped around the bend and saw blue lights and smoke rising from a field to the left of the road. Pulling onto the uneven track, she could see that there were already two patrol cars and a fire engine in attendance.

  Her car bumped and jolted over the rough heathland. Looking into her wing mirror, she spotted Nick arriving and parking beside her.

  What’s happened? Where is Sian?

  A uniformed police officer, muscular, young and mixed race, arrived as she flashed her warrant card, anxious as to what had been found.

  ‘What have you found, Constable?’ Ruth asked, finding it hard to hide her concern.

  ‘Two burnt-out vehicles, ma’am,’ he replied.

  ‘Nothing else. No sign of anyone around?’ Ruth said.

  ‘No. We’ve had a scoot around and that’s all we could find,’ the constable explained.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ruth said as she turned. About fifty yards further along the farm track were two burnt-out cars. Uniformed police officers were examining the ground for tyre tracks. They would have to wait for the metal to cool down before they could take a look at the charred vehicles themselves. Ruth could still see some of the police markings on the paintwork that hadn’t blackened, and from the shape, she guessed it was a BMW X5 and a Land Rover Discovery.

  There was only one conclusion to draw. Blake’s associates, dressed as police officers, had taken Kathy and Gareth Wright before they could turn any evidence against Blake. What terrified Ruth more was that Sian was with them. What were they planning on doing with her?

  As Ruth got closer, she could smell the acrid smoke, which took her straight back to the car bomb that had killed Merringer. The orange flames and his body being tossed like a burnt doll high into the air. The recall of it startled her and her pulse began to race. Taking a breath, Ruth was scared she was going to have a panic attack.

  She turned to see Nick approaching.

  ‘Any sign of Sian yet?’ Nick asked.

  Ruth shook her head, taking another long breath, and pointed at the burnt-out shells of the two fake police vehicles. ‘They switched cars and then torched these.’

  ‘Why would they have taken Sian with them?’

  ‘No idea. My guess would be that she realised they weren’t real police officers and they couldn’t risk her raising the alarm,’ Ruth said.

  There was a heavy silence as they both looked at the smouldering vehicles.

  Where the bloody hell are they now?

  ‘We’ll get her back, boss,’ Nick said.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Ruth said with a forced smiled. She wished she shared his confidence. She was keen to change the subject. ‘What happened at the hospital?

  ‘Nadia Kowalski says there were two English girls at the house in Bangor. I showed her a photo of Rosie Wright and she said one of them could have been her. She said that Hayley Collard spent a lot of time talking to the two girls in their room,’ Nick explained.

  ‘Maybe it’s worth having another crack at Hayley. It’s a long shot but we don’t want to go to trial only to find that Rosie is in Dublin,’ Ruth said. ‘Anything from the Gardaí?’

  ‘Nothing concrete, boss.’

  The officer who briefed Ruth earlier approached them. He had clearly found something of interest. ‘Ma’am, there are tyre marks heading away from this scene. Big tyres. Off-road. I would say the vehicles they switched into were four-by-fours.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Nick asked.

  ‘My dad owns a tyre yard, sir. I worked there a lot when I was younger,’ the officer explain
ed.

  ‘Don’t suppose you know the make of tyre or vehicle yet?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Not really,’ the officer hesitated, but Ruth knew he could be pushed to make some kind of guess.

  ‘But your hunch is?’ Ruth asked. They needed something to go on and fast.

  ‘They looked like Pirelli Scorpions. Ten-inchers,’ the officer said.

  ‘Does that help us with the vehicle?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘They’re fitted as standard to all new Range Rovers,’ the officer said.

  ‘Which happens to be Blake’s vehicle of choice. And always black,’ Nick said.

  ‘Thank you, Constable. That’s brilliant work,’ Ruth said with a smile.

  She clicked her Tetra radio. ‘Three-six to Control. All units, the suspects are likely to be in two Range Rovers. Possibly black. Suspects are armed, so approach with caution. We also believe that Detective Constable Hockney is in one of the vehicles.’

  ‘Control received.’

  At that moment, a black-and-yellow H135 helicopter from the National Police Air Service thundered overhead and then skimmed away over the fields in the ongoing search.

  Suddenly, two uniformed officers in high-vis yellow jackets shouted over and put an arm up to signal that they had found something. They had been searching the undulating heathland that led down to a wooden area.

  Turning on her heels, Ruth ran past the black, sizzling shells of the burnt-out vehicles and over the gravel track. She was starting to panic. What have they found?

  For a moment, everything seemed very quiet and the wind stopped. It felt unnaturally still. Her boots made a rhythmic swish through the grass and in the distance a chainsaw on a farm reverberated with an angry snarl.

  ‘What have we got, Constable?’ Nick asked.

  ‘It’s a body, sir,’ the officer, young, blonde and pasty, said. ‘A woman.’

  Casting her eye into the undergrowth, Ruth felt sick in the pit of her stomach.

  Oh God. Not Sian ... please, not Sian.

  Ruth hesitated for a moment before forcing herself to focus on the body that was slightly hidden by thorn bushes and brambles.

  She saw the legs, then trainers. It was Kathy Wright. Thank God.

  From the unnatural twist in the legs and the torso, Ruth assumed that her body had been flung into the undergrowth after death.

  Ruth moved so she could see Kathy’s face clearly. There was a neat black-and-red hole in her temple with a smear of blood across of her forehead. Kathy’s once blue eyes were wide open – they were opaque. Blake’s men hadn’t even allowed her the dignity of closing her eyes once she was dead. Cold and callous didn’t cover it.

  Nick wasn’t saying anything. Ruth knew that he was worrying about Sian too.

  ‘Ma’am!’ the other officer called over from further along the undergrowth. ‘There’s another one here.’

  This was unbearable. Ruth’s stomach twisted again.

  Had Blake’s men swapped cars and shot all three of their victims? Ruth’s mind was rattling with overwhelming scenarios.

  ‘Male body,’ the officer shouted.

  Again, a huge wave of relief.

  Moving down the bushes, Ruth and Nick could clearly see Gareth Wright lying face up with an identical shot to his head.

  Where was Sian? Would they have shot Kathy and Gareth and spared Sian? Was killing a police officer a step too far? Ruth hoped that Kathy and Gareth had been the targets for the hit and that was it.

  Scouring the undergrowth, the next few minutes were agonising. For a second, Ruth saw what she thought was a boot, only to realise it was a fallen piece of wood. As they moved further down the field, the bushes and undergrowth stopped by a dry stone wall and a steel gate to a field.

  Sian wasn’t to be found anywhere.

  CHAPTER 32

  The air inside the cloth hood was getting increasingly warm. As Sian sucked in air, the cloth moved back and forth in rhythm with her breath. The plastic ties around her wrists were cutting into her skin, so she had to try to use her tongue to push the black material away from her mouth to get more air. She was claustrophobic at the best of times. Ruth used to tease her when Sian would gasp for air and struggle under the duvet when it went over her head. It felt like she was drowning.

  It had been quiet inside the Range Rover for the past ten minutes. Having been taken from the fake police BMW, she had been hooded and her hands tied, but not before spying the looming black Range Rover that was waiting for them. As she sat in the heat and darkness, she heard a strange sound. When she smelt the petrol and the smoke, she knew the gang had torched the fake police vehicles. Then the sound of two gunshots about a minute apart. She could only assume that Gareth and Kathy Wright had been killed. Was she going to be next?

  However, the car doors slammed and the vehicle she was in sped away.

  Hearing some mutterings from the front about a landing strip at Llandegla, Sian wondered if the gang were flying out of Wales. What were they going to do with her? If they were going to kill her, why not do it earlier when they had stopped? Maybe they assumed that having a police officer in one of the vehicles gave them some protection if they were located? The police weren’t going to smash the vehicle off the road or fill it full of bullets while they had her.

  And then a darker thought occurred to her. If the gang got to the airfield undetected, what did they plan to do with her then? She thought it wasn’t likely that they would just leave her there.

  At some point, they were going to kill her.

  NICK HAD DRIVEN OVER to HMP Styal in Cheshire to interview Hayley Collard in the young offenders’ wing. He made Ruth promise to keep him informed about the hunt for Sian. Nick had naively assumed that when Blake was sent down for life in 2018, his quest to bring him to justice was won. Secretly, Nick wanted Blake dead, but a life spent rotting in jail would have to do. Except everyone had underestimated Blake’s power from within prison. And now Sian had been caught up in his power struggle from within HMP Rhoswen.

  Although Llancastell CID were convinced that Rosie had been murdered by her mother and brother, Nick still wanted to find out the identities of the two girls that Zofia had seen at the house in Bangor. He wanted to rule out any chance that Rosie had been taken by Vasilescu, however remote the possibility.

  Hayley was sitting in the prison’s interview room when he arrived. It was painted in a cheerful primrose yellow with large windows that let in the burning sunlight from outside.

  With her blue hair pulled back off her face, Hayley looked tired as she inspected her chipped nails.

  Sitting down at the grey table, Nick could feel the sweat from his lower back against the chair.

  ‘Hi, Hayley. I need to ask you some questions as part of our investigation. Is that okay?’ Nick asked.

  Hayley looked up at him and shrugged. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘I’ve been told that you’ve already spoken to detectives from MDS? Is that right?’ Nick asked. He knew that Modern Day Slavery would be interested in the intel that Hayley might be able to provide about the smuggling of girls from North Wales down through Holyhead to Dublin.

  Hayley nodded and sat back in her chair with a sigh.

  ‘I’m only here as part of the investigation into the abduction and disappearance of Rosie Wright,’ Nick said as he fished out his phone.

  ‘Yeah, I know who Rosie is, don’t I?’

  ‘Okay. I’ve spoken to Zofia, who was being held at the house in Bangor. You know Zofia?’

  ‘Yeah, course.’

  ‘She tells me that there were two girls at the house the day before the fire. She says one was English and one was Welsh? Is that right?’

  ‘It might be,’ Hayley said. Nick, aware that the Polish girls hadn’t been able to specify the Welsh accents of the girls in the next room, could see that the question had got her attention as she leaned forward onto the table. His tactic had worked.

  ‘What does that mean, Hayley?’ Nick asked.

  ‘What if
there were two girls in that house. And what if one of them was Rosie? What then?’ asked Hayley.

  Nick could feel his pulse quicken. Was this bullshit or was Hayley telling the truth? They were already ninety-nine per cent certain that Rosie was dead.

  ‘What are you telling me, Hayley? Was one of the girls Rosie?’

  Hayley said, ‘I told you that yesterday.’

  ‘What?’ Nick said trying to recall their conversation. ‘You said we would never find her.’

  ‘I’m going to spend the next few years in this place. If you want me to tell you about Rosie, then you need to offer me something in return,’ Hayley said.

  Nick wasn’t convinced. ‘The proviso of any deal that we offer you would be that we find Rosie safe and well.’

  Hayley snorted. ‘I don’t know if she’s alive and well, do I? All I can do is point you in the right direction.’

  ‘Dublin?’

  ‘Get me an offer where I don’t serve any time, then I’ll start to talk to you.’

  ‘Before I start negotiating anything on your behalf, Hayley, I need you to confirm that Rosie was abducted and taken somewhere. Otherwise, I’m walking out of this room and you’ll never get this chance again,’ Nick said.

  Hayley looked at him for a moment as she weighed up his last comment.

  ‘Yes. Rosie was taken and I think I know where she is now,’ Hayley said.

  AS THE CAR TOOK ANOTHER corner at speed, Sian felt herself helplessly pushed against the door behind the passenger seat. Moving her forearm against the door, she began to move her left hand slowly over the inside.

  She could feel the door panel and the padded armrest. Sliding up the inside, she felt what she assumed was the switch for the electric window. As she ran her fingers away from her along the panel, she came to the button that locked the door. It was raised about half an inch.

  It was unlocked.

  Maybe they thought that if she was hooded with her hands tied, she was going nowhere. She was aware that she was alone in the back but there were two men sitting in the front of the car.