The Tangled Lock (The National Crime Agency Series Book 3)

by Bill Rogers

  ‘None of which takes us any further forward,’ said Gates.

  Andy was not the slightest bit offended. It probably helped that he was an academic. Plus the fact that Gates was not his boss.

  ‘I am aware of that,’ Andy replied. ‘I do, however, have a few suggestions.’

  ‘We’re all ears,’ Gates responded.

  He smiled benignly. ‘Firstly, I think that you should be concentrating on the fact that if, as we now suspect, he is moving around his hunting grounds either by bicycle or on foot, it implies that he must have good local knowledge, and spend some time scoping the immediate vicinity. But since the crime scenes are spread along two lines, one fourteen miles to the west of Manchester city centre, and the other nine miles north-east of the city, he must have another means of getting to each new kill zone. Find that means of transport, and you will be able to concentrate your search more effectively.’

  ‘We’ve been tracing every car, van, and lorry that was caught on cameras at the relevant times within three miles of the crime scenes,’ said Gordon Holmes with an air of exasperation. ‘I don’t see what more we can do.’

  ‘And secondly,’ Andy continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted, ‘as has been noted before, the lack of defence injuries on any of the victims implies someone who has gained their confidence. Someone charming, reassuring, whose presence neither surprised nor concerned them. There will be other street sex workers whom he has approached or who have seen him. SI Stuart is correct. It is vital that DCI Holmes’s officers talk to as many of the girls as possible about joggers and cyclists and anyone who might fit the profile I drew up, however sketchy it may have been.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Gates. ‘And while we’re about it, apart from the leaflets we discussed last time, what are we doing about reassuring the sex workers, and persuading them to stay off the streets?’

  Jo seized the opportunity. ‘I have just been offered a meeting with the Convener of the North West Association of Prostitutes, Ma’am. She is apparently our best hope of achieving that. At least until we have apprehended the unsub.’

  ‘Sounds like a good move,’ said DS Truckett. ‘That was something we were slow to do.’

  ‘Better get on with it then,’ said Helen Gates.

  ‘Unfortunately there is a quid pro quo,’ said Jo.

  The ACC’s eyebrows arched. ‘Go on.’

  ‘She is not prepared to go ahead until a meeting has been arranged for her and a representative of the national association with the Chief Constable and the Mayor for Greater Manchester to consider the setting up of a safe zone like the one being trialled in Leeds.’

  All eyes turned to Helen Gates.

  The colour drained from her face. She clenched her hands. Jo imagined the long, perfectly manicured nails biting into flesh. She inhaled, and exhaled. Inhaled again. ‘That kite has already been flown,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Several months ago, before all this started. The answer was no then, and I have no doubt it will be no now. Besides, it’s only three weeks since the mayoral elections were held. I imagine that the last thing he’ll want to get embroiled in is a political and moral hot potato like this one.’

  The look on her face was enough to dissuade anyone from challenging her. To Jo’s surprise, it was Andy who put his head above the parapet. ‘With respect, Ma’am,’ he said, ‘that was then and this is now. And I have no doubt that the Mayor will already be taking a singular interest in the fact that a serial killer is wreaking havoc in his fiefdom. If the promise of a meeting is all that is required for this person to assist the investigation, what harm can it do? It is not as though you will be promising the outcome she seeks.’

  Helen Gates’s face remained impassive. After what felt like an eternity, she gathered up her papers, and pushed back her chair.

  ‘Leave it with me,’ she said.

  ‘Excuse me, Ma’am,’ said Jo. ‘Just a thought, but the UAV we used on Operation Juniper. The SkyRanger drone that GMP were trialling. Is it still available?’

  Gates frowned. ‘Sadly not,’ she said. ‘I don’t need to tell you that the trial was a complete success. The Chief Constable pencilled two into this year’s budget. The previous Police and Crime Commissioner rubbed them out. He said we already had access to a helicopter, and a fixed-wing aircraft through the North West Air Operations Group. In the light of continuing cuts he couldn’t justify the cost of the two staff needed for each of the drones. Not when they wouldn’t be operational 24/7.’

  ‘Merseyside Police have one,’ Jo replied. ‘Perhaps you could borrow it.’

  ‘Had one,’ said Gordon unhelpfully. ‘I enquired. They lost it in the River Mersey a few years ago. Haven’t replaced it yet.’

  ‘I believe the Greater Manchester Fire Service possess two,’ she persisted. ‘Perhaps they might lend us one through the Blue Light Collaboration Programme.’

  The Assistant Chief Constable stood up.

  ‘Speaking of collaboration,’ she said, ‘from what I hear the National Crime Agency have drones coming out of their ears. Why don’t you talk to your superiors, SI Stuart?’

  Jo felt her cheeks burning as Gates stalked from the room.

  ‘Damn,’ she whispered to Max. ‘I should have thought of that.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Just proves you’re human.’

  Chapter 57

  It took three hours for Helen Gates to come through. Another two for Jo’s meeting with Selma Strangelove to be set up.

  They met under the blue awning of Odd Bar on Thomas Street, in the Northern Quarter – a stone’s throw from Jo’s apartment. It was seven thirty in the evening. All of the polished chrome pavement tables were taken.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ said Jo. ‘It’s quieter.’

  They found seats on a sofa in a corner that looked out over the street, and placed their bags and jackets on the adjacent seats to ensure their privacy.

  Strangelove was not at all what Jo had been expecting. In her early fifties, dressed in a smart twinset over a crisp white shirt, she could easily have been mistaken for a Conservative Member of Parliament.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ said Jo, ‘but I haven’t eaten since this morning. And there’s fifty per cent off main courses on Thursdays.’

  ‘That suits me,’ said Strangelove.

  They ordered their food, and the waitress brought Jo a Flying Dog Easy IPA, and Strangelove a cider.

  ‘You do realise, Ms Strangelove, that I can’t promise the politicians will go for a safe area,’ said Jo. ‘Only that they are prepared to hear you out.’

  ‘I know. But it’s more than they’ve agreed to before. It’s Selma by the way.’ She held up her bottle. Jo clinked it with her own. They both drank, and placed their bottles on the table.

  ‘I can’t believe how difficult it’s been to persuade the working girls to stay off the streets till we’ve caught this man,’ said Jo.

  ‘You have no idea, do you?’ said Strangelove. ‘I know I said that for some of these girls sex work is a career choice, and a lifestyle choice. That is what we are fighting for. For those few it may well be possible for them to work out of a well-managed brothel as an independent, but only if they are really lucky. And if they can find one that isn’t run by foreign gangs using young girls trafficked for the purpose. And besides, the law makes the keeping of a brothel illegal. So what alternative do they have?’

  It sounded like a rhetorical question, but Jo responded anyway.

  ‘Can’t they join an escort agency, where the big money is?’

  Strangelove shook her head.

  ‘Competition is fierce for the best agencies. Once you have worked the streets, your chances of making that transition are minimal.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because the agencies are looking for professional women, for students, for graduates. For girls and women who can make a man feel as though he is on a special date with someone who is on his wavelength, who can engage in intelligent, empath
etic conversation, and who can make it feel like a girlfriend experience rather than a hurried and tawdry transaction. It requires girls who look the part. Who can walk into any hotel lobby, and head straight for the lifts without the concierge, the desk clerk, or security giving them a second glance. When you have worked the streets, it wears you down and it leaves its mark.’

  Jo knew exactly what she meant. The physical and emotional scars that showed when you were close up with a working girl and their constant hypervigilance as they scanned the vicinity not just for punters but for police, pimps, and potential predators.

  ‘There are other escort agencies of course,’ Strangelove continued. ‘Over fifty in Manchester alone. I personally would not work for most of them.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because they are run by people trying to get around the law. They provide no security for their girls or health checks, and don’t bother to vet the clients. Most of the girls you see out on the streets have tried one or more of these agencies and decided it is safer, and more lucrative, to work for themselves.’

  ‘The only other alternative would be for them to work from home,’ said Jo. ‘An option they have already ruled out.’

  ‘Precisely. What if they have children or a partner who is unaware of their secret life? If there are two or more of them in the house, they could end up being accused of managing a brothel. And if they live alone, do they really want to invite strangers into their home, which is legal, but where they may be at even greater risk than taking their chance out on the street?’

  She drained her bottle, and put it down on the table. ‘So, SI Stuart, you tell me. Having discounted those options, how much notice do you believe these girls are going to take of me when they are feeding a drug habit, struggling to pay off crippling debts, or to pay a pimp, or trying to support their children when their benefit has been removed? None of them woke up one morning thinking, I’m going to become a prostitute. They all – we all – have a story to tell.’

  ‘I understand that,’ said Jo.

  She saw the scepticism in Strangelove’s eyes.

  ‘No, I really do. I worked Vice for several years, including one occasion when I worked undercover. I’ve seen the type of men who cruise these streets. Heard every demand imaginable. I’ve listened to the girls. Heard their stories.’

  ‘But you never had to do what they do.’

  ‘No. Thank God.’

  ‘Even with your experience I doubt you can really understand how it is to live such a life. Constantly fearful, without backup or protection. Face it, SI Stuart. You are a tourist in their world.’

  Jo knew she was right. For a fleeting second she realised this must have been how it was for her mother. She shuddered at the thought.

  Strangelove misread Jo’s body language. ‘If you want to stop girls being trafficked for sex,’ she said, ‘enslaved, and brutalised, and men living off the proceeds of prostitution, there is only one solution: make prostitution legal, and subject to regulation. The only way to stop this trafficking in, and profiting from, the use of women’s bodies is for prostitution to be legalised. Legalisation will open it up to regulation, and regulation means safety. That’s what the Home Affairs Select Committee recommended and the Government Review is looking at right now.’

  Strangelove and Jo saw that the people on the nearest neighbouring tables had stopped talking, and were staring at them.

  Strangelove lowered her voice. ‘As long as prostitution remains criminalised, then any woman whose sexuality is overt, whether or not she openly sells it, will be regarded as immoral and therefore “asking for it”. That more than anything else explains the attacks on sex workers in the Western world and in those cultures where the notions of shame and dishonour are used to excuse the gang rape of women and girls.’

  ‘I accept all that,’ said Jo, ‘but what I’m faced with right here, right now, is that the working girls in Greater Manchester are at even greater risk than ever of losing their lives. We can’t sit around waiting for the politicians to change the law.’

  ‘They don’t have to. All you need is for the local authority to designate an area of the city – preferably the safest of the existing red-light districts – as a prostitution zone, a managed area where street workers can ply their trade between the hours of 7pm and 7am unhindered. They don’t need to change the law for that. They can vote it in tomorrow.’

  ‘Managed in what sense?’

  ‘Overseen by a Safer Manchester partnership involving the police, and sex worker charities. The police are still around but less visible, and they are not out to criminalise anyone. There is a police liaison officer who has won the trust of sex workers, and as a result there is a massive increase in the willingness of the girls to report attacks and rapes, with a number of men having been apprehended, and jailed.’

  Jo nodded thoughtfully. ‘In an ideal world I could see them going for that,’ she said. ‘Especially in the light of these murders. But they are also being told that, since the Ipswich murders, a zero-tolerance approach to kerb-crawlers has completely eradicated street prostitution there.’

  Strangelove shook her head. ‘In which case it’s probably swelled the numbers in those badly managed brothels and escort services.’

  Jo sighed.

  ‘I’m sure I can get you that meeting, but I can’t promise that they will go down that road.’

  ‘That’s all I’m asking. You persuade them to let me bring some people from the Leeds managed approach to talk with them, and I’ll do what I can to help you. But you can warn them that if there isn’t some movement on this we’ll go big nationally. We’ll organise press releases, protest marches, television interviews.’

  She picked up her empty bottle, and paused with it halfway to her lips.

  ‘Promises were made after the Ipswich murders. There was going to be a major review of the laws on prostitution. Apart from one minor change, nothing was done. And now this. Well, they won’t get away with it a second time, Jo. You tell them that!’

  Before Jo could respond, a waitress appeared with their food. While they were eating, Strangelove made a number of phone calls to contacts among the working girls. Her final conversation was with the journalist Agata Kowalski.

  When she had finished, she smiled at Jo. ‘Keep your phone on,’ she said. ‘You should expect a call.’

  Chapter 58

  It was 10pm when Jo and Selma parted company.

  Jo walked slowly back to her apartment through the jumbled network of streets that was the epicentre of Manchester’s bohemian nightlife. Past New York fire escapes snaking down the sides of red-brick former textile factories, now upmarket apartment blocks. Past brightly lit shopfronts of bookshops, florists, artisan bakeries, and independent cafes. Music pulsed from dozens of bars, thronged with live-in-the-moment millennials, and young-at-heart members of Generation X.

  She paused beside the iconic twenty-foot-high David Bowie tribute mural in Stevenson Square by graffiti artist Akse. One of a score of portraits created for the festival, Cities of Hope. Bowie had his finger to his lips. Jo knew what he was saying: Keep our secret. There was one secret in this city that she was desperate to discover, and to reveal.

  Cities of Hope.

  She carried on walking. Ahead of her two couples tumbled out of a bar on to the pavement. Their laughter echoed along the narrow street. Jo had not felt this alone in years. Not since before Abbie. Maybe not even then.

  Jo’s phone rang. It was Agata. The reporter sounded breathless. As though she had been running.

  ‘Are you okay?’ said Jo.

  ‘Jo,’ she said, ‘Selma came good. A cyclist matching the description you’ve circulated has approached some of the girls. I have one of them with me. She’s prepared to speak with you, but only if you come right now.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘The Marble Arch. It’s a pub on—’

  ‘The corner of Gould Street and Rochdale Road,’ said Jo. ‘Get me a ca
n of Wild Beer Bibble. I’ll be with you in ten.’

  Floodlit brickwork on the upper storey, marble stone and pillars below, Number 73 Rochdale Road – a Victorian pleasure palace for work slaves of the Industrial Revolution – stood proud like the bows of an ocean liner.

  Jo shouldered her way through the crowd at the bar. Agata spotted her first, and waved her over. She followed the line of mosaic floor tiles to a table tucked into a corner at the far end of the pub.

  ‘This is Sylvie. Sylvie, this is Senior Investigator Stuart.’

  Twentyish, going on forty, Sylvie tried to make eye contact. Heavily mascaraed eyes lingered warily for a second and then slid past Jo to the far end of the room.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to speak with me, Sylvie,’ said Jo.

  ‘S’okay. You’re paying.’

  Jo looked at Agata.

  The reporter shrugged apologetically. ‘I’ve already sorted it,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, it’s on me.’

  ‘So, Sylvie,’ said Jo, ‘you saw a man matching the description we’ve been circulating.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw him a few times.’

  ‘Where was this?’

  ‘Piccadilly the first time. Ancoats the second.’

  ‘Where exactly?’

  Agata pushed a hand-size reporter’s pad in front of Jo. ‘I made a note.’

  The page was covered with longhand notes, as were the next five pages.

  ‘You’ve already interviewed her?’ There was no escaping the accusation in Jo’s tone.

  ‘No. I just asked a few questions to make sure it wouldn’t be a waste of your time.’

  ‘If you two are going to spend all night arguing,’ said Sylvie, still staring into the middle distance, ‘I’m out of here. Time is money. Besides, I’ve got my reputation to think about. Less time I spend here with you, less chance there is someone’ll get the wrong idea. Wonder if maybe I’m a grass.’

  She had a point, Jo realised.