by Vince Vogel
“Prince Philip.”
“Try again.”
“Prince Harry.”
DS Blake merely shook his head.
“Don’t tell me he’s the queen,” Otis said.
“Are we gonna sit here and play silly buggers all day?”
“All night, if I have to,” Otis said.
“Have you had the girl all along?” His eyes narrowed when he asked this and Otis felt odd.
“No comment,” he said.
“That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”
“No comment.”
“Your friend killed a police officer today.”
“Who?”
“A Scotland Yard detective inspector by the name of Jonathon Powell.”
“No,” Otis said. “You’ve got it wrong. He was going to meet him. Find out about the Ring. About the people what took Jess.”
“But your friend murdered Powell in cold blood. We’ve dozens of eyewitness reports saying that a man matching your friend’s description was firing his gun in the museum cafe, the main hall and in the surrounding grounds and streets. I’ve got three members of the public in hospital with gunshot wounds. All from the gun he dropped when armed officers cornered him.”
Otis went pale. “Is he dead?” he quickly asked.
“No. He managed to escape. But that’s where you come in. This man is highly dangerous. Whatever you’ve come to London for, Mr. Rawly, it’s got way out of hand. You need to help us find him before he kills again.”
“He only kills the bad.”
“Jonathon Powell wasn’t a bad man.”
“He must’ve been if Dorrin’ killed him.”
“Did you know he intended to kill DI Powell?” the detective asked.
“No. He went there to get information from him.”
“Information about what?”
“About the Ring.”
DS Blake frowned. “What the hell’s the Ring when it’s at home?”
“Dirty old men usin’ children like slaves.”
Blake stared at him from across the table. Something appeared to be confusing him.
“You know, you’re down as his accomplice at the moment,” he said to the old man.
“Aren’t you worried about the Ring?”
“I don’t give a monkeys about the Ring. I wanna know how you and this Dorring fella ended up killing one of our officers in cold blood.”
“We weren’t there to kill him.”
“Then why bring guns?”
“Because we were in danger from the Ring.”
“No!” Blake shouted, striking the table with his fist. “You’re the fuckin’ ring, mate. You an’ him.” He pulled some papers from the folder and slapped them down on the table in front of Otis, the old man looking down at them.
“That’s a written statement,” Blake said. “Do you recognize the signature on it?”
Otis usually had to wear glasses for reading. It took several seconds before he could focus his eyes on the paper and on the signed part at the bottom. It was then that he looked back up at the detective with a stunned look on his face.
“It’s Molly’s signature,” he said.
“Molly Rawly?”
“Yeah.”
“And who is Molly?”
“My wife.”
“And can you tell me why your wife would have made a signed statement to us?”
“No,” Otis said. He was frowning and gazing at the detective. He had no idea what was coming next.
“So let me get this straight,” Blake said, “you see no reason why your wife would make a statement to us?”
Otis shook his head.
“Can you read it?” Blake asked.
“I ain’t got me glasses,” the old man said.
“Then I’ll give you the gist of it. This afternoon, your wife contacted the police. When they visited her, she made that statement. In it, she tells a wonderful little story about how you managed to afford the land your cottage is built on.”
“That land was left to me,” Otis said. “I never bought it.”
Blake pulled several papers from the folder. They were land deeds.
“Says here you purchased it off a man named Frank Jordon,” Blake said.
“Frank Jordon owned the land. That’s right. But he left it to my mother. She was a maid at his manor. Looked after his old ma before she died. As a thank you, he gave her that little piece of land.”
“Not what it says here. It says you paid cash for it on the 4th of October, 2010, having rented it up until then.”
“No. No. Not one penny were handed over. Frank Jordon left that land to my mother after she looked after his mother when she were dying. Then my ma bequeathed it to me in her will.”
“4th of October, 2010,” Blake repeated. “That’s a couple of months after Jess went missing, isn’t it?”
The old man wasn’t what anyone would term an intellectual. He’d never been taught to mimic intelligence by being given a first rate education. He’d left school well before his exams and taken to the fields. He was unable—and unwilling also—to appear smart like the so-called smart people. There were no long words from the mouth of Otis Rawly. No ability to quote the right people and know the right moments in history. No other languages except his mother tongue—which was spoken roughly to some ears. But that wasn’t to say he was stupid. Far from it. He was more intelligent than most of the so-called intelligentsia. For his was a purer form of intelligence. One that was raw and untainted by other men’s ideas. Uncultivated and wild—but his own. An intellect which was quick and could read other men like they read their books.
Therefore, Otis realized what was happening.
“Come on, then,” the old man said. “Out with it while we’re still young.”
“Where’d you get the money from?”
“I didn’t. I already told ya, the land were left to me mother.”
“Then why didn’t she ever register it?”
“Because she were like me. Didn’t do all that legal crap. She didn’t trust lawyers and folk what looked down on her. When old Frank gave it to her, she merely accepted it. No need to sign titles or nothin’.”
“Don’t waste our time with this, Mr. Rawly.”
“Then don’t waste mine. You want me to say somethin’, don’t ya? Trip meself up. Want me to confess to somethin’. Well, I ain’t, so ya better come out with it.”
Detective Sergeant Ian Blake stood up sharply from the table so that his chair skidded back and hit the door.
“Otis Rawly,” he boomed down at the old man, “I’m arresting you for the 2010 kidnapping of Jess Rawly…”
The rest of his words faded from Otis’ ears. He glanced down at Molly’s statement. The words were too blurred to read. There was pages of it. A long statement. Then he glanced back up at the cop. The man’s voice came back to him.
“You sold your daughter to Darren Crosby, didn’t you?” he said.
Otis merely shook his head at him and laughed gently. It probably wasn’t the time to find things mirthful, but what else was there to do in such a ridiculous situation?
“This man Dorring is your accomplice,” Blake went on. “Your wife told us that you’ve hired him to help you. That you’re tracking down the men who’ve had her all this time and killing them to cover things up.”
“An’ you believe that?” Otis shouted up at the man.
The cop placed his hands on the table and leaned forward so that their faces almost touched.
“Why would your wife make it all up?” he asked Otis.
The old man didn’t reply to the question. All he said was, “Where’s Tina?”
51
Barker and John were sitting in the car eating lunch, Barker tucking into his sandwich and John able only to pick at his for a few minutes before accepting that he didn’t have the appetite. Hadn’t had one for a long time. It was then that Harriet Green called.
“Harry?” Barker said when he answered
the phone on speaker.
“I’ve got an update on Jess Rawly,” she said. “She’s been taken by someone.”
“Who?” Barker asked, sitting forward and dropping his sandwich on the dashboard.
“No name, only a description. Short, stocky guy with curly black hair. Pug faced, apparently.”
Barker and his old partner turned to each other and frowned.
“It’s him, John,” Barker said.
“Appears so.”
“Who’s him?” Green asked.
“The same bloke we caught on CCTV at the hospital throttling Kenneth Anderson.”
“How’d you know this?” John added to Green.
“Douglas Fairbottom,” she replied. “He’s the homeless guy I told Bob about. Jess was staying with a friend of his—woman named Shirley. He was gonna bring her into us, but this curly haired guy came and took her before he had a chance.”
“What else is he saying?” John asked.
“Says the guy stabbed Shirley. I sent a couple of constables to the location. They found her body in an abandoned corn storage depot.”
“Where’d the guy take Jess?” Barker asked next.
“He doesn’t know,” Green replied. “But he did get the registration number of the car which took her.”
“Have you put it through yet?”
“Yes. It belongs to a company.”
“What company?”
“Jordon’s Orchards.”
“Jordon’s Orchards?” Barker mused loudly. “Does it belong to anyone in particular?”
“No. It’s registered to the company. To the security offices there.”
John had been quietly thinking to himself this whole time. His eyes brightened and widened at the same time when he figured something.
“Definitely Jordon’s Orchards?” he said.
“Yes,” Green said.
“Well, Jordon's Orchards is who Otis Rawly works for.”
52
Dorring had tied Gemma up with some cord he ripped off the house telephone in the lounge. He didn’t want to, but had no choice. He could hardly have her running around the house while he removed the bullet.
She had a first aid kit. Having removed his jacket and cut his t-shirt away, he’d poured surgical spirit over the wound at the back of his shoulder. The slug hadn’t gotten far. You could see it, glittering off the electric light as it poked out slightly. He’d gone to work on the wound, cutting back the flesh with a Stanley knife he’d found underneath the sink in a tool box. Cutting back the edges, he’d increased the wound’s circumference, freeing up the bullet. Then, using the end of a pair of sharp scissors, he’d prized it out. Thankfully, it hadn’t broken apart and the thing came out in one piece. When it did, he sighed loudly with relief. Then he’d poured spirit over the hole in his shoulder and stitched it up.
He was finishing it now.
As his fingers had gone to work, his mind had also gone to work.
The man waiting for him at the entrance to the museum. The one who’d fired at him. He’d been dressed almost identically to Dorring. Blue jeans, black jacket, white t-shirt. He was blond haired. It was neatly parted, just like Dorring’s. The man he’d seen in the reflection of the windscreen had been dressed identically. Same hair. It was enough to match the description of Dorring, if a member of the public was asked to identify the man taking the shots. Then there was the pistols they’d used. When he’d watched Powell’s head explode, he’d wondered why it hadn’t been a neater shot. Then when he’d seen the muzzle flash, he’d wondered why they weren’t using rifles. Now he was sure why. They were using the same type of pistol that he’d gotten off Philip Foster. FNXs. The slug he’d just pulled out was a .40. Thankfully, it had been fired from long range, meaning it hadn’t hit him at full velocity. But that wasn’t what he thought about. What he thought about was the fact that it was the same type of bullet he’d loaded into his own pistol. He’d made a terrible mistake throwing it down when he’d bumped into the armed officers on the side street. They were probably connecting the gun to the bullets they’d pulled out of Jonathon Powell and the people shot today.
How stupid, he couldn’t help remarking in his head. How very fucking stupid, Alex.
It was obvious that Foster had given him up to Grayling. Otherwise, how did they know his gun and where he’d be? Under duress, or was he always working for them? They’d matched their own guns to his and they’d set it all up.
And Dorring had walked straight into the trap they’d set.
As for Otis and Tina, he could only guess. If they were lucky, they’d be with the police and merely swept up as part of the conspiracy. They wouldn’t kill them. Dorring was sure of that. Otis would merely be held as an accomplice and turned over to prison. Sent to rot his years away for something he hadn’t done. That’s how it worked. Tina would be thrown into the care system at best. Handed back to the Ring at worst.
“What are you going to do to me?”
It was Gemma. He’d tied her to a chair in the kitchen and she sat a few yards away at the edge while he sat at a table.
Cutting the last thread with his teeth, he glanced over at her and said, “Nothing. I’ll leave in a moment. Don’t worry. I’ll call someone and they’ll come and free you. I told you, I don’t mean you any harm.”
“Then why take me?”
“I told you. I had no choice.”
“Who are you? They said on the radio that you’re a hitman. Is that true?”
“They say whatever they’re told to say. Whether that’s true or not has very little to do with it.”
“Then who are you?”
Dorring stood up. He flexed his left arm. The numbness was fading and he was getting the feeling back. He’d worried that the bullet had damaged nerves, but once it was out, he realized that the slug was only putting pressure on an artery there and this was what was causing him to lose feeling.
Stepping towards the woman, he stopped before her. She cringed from him. To her, he was a monster.
“My name is Alex Dorring,” he said. “I wish we’d met under better circumstances, but I’m afraid life doesn’t work within such convenient terms. Now I’m going to use your telephone and then I’ll be gone.”
She didn’t say anything. Merely stared up at him. He wasn’t going to win her over. Not when he’d already threatened her with a knife and tied her to a chair.
There was a phone on the kitchen wall by the door. He lifted the receiver and dialed a number.
“Salut?” a man on the other end answered.
“Georgie?”
“Da?”
“Sunt prieten cu sora ta,” Dorring said.
53
Jordon’s Orchards had offices in London. The company owned land all over the country. Their name was on the labels of two in five bottles of apple juice sold in Europe and one in six bottles of cider. They were an empire. Frank Jordon was known as the Apple King. His family name went back centuries as Somerset landowners and fruit growers. Under Frank, they’d grown larger, monopolizing the market by buying up smaller orchards until he owned more than anyone else in the country.
DS Bob Barker, John Hudson and Harriet Green walked into the foyer of a five story block of concrete and went straight up to the reception desk.
“How may I help you?” asked the woman behind it.
The two detectives flashed their identifications while John stood at their back.
“Can you tell me if someone from your security department is here?” Barker asked.
“Yes. Someone would be upstairs in their offices.”
“Who?”
“A Mr. Stevens. He’s head of security here at our London office.”
“Then show us to him.”
“I’d rather give you the telephone number for our security team. They may be able to help you. Mr. Stevens is rather busy.”
“We called them earlier and were given the runaround by some twat in a call center. That’s why we’ve had to come here.
”
“May I ask what this is about?”
Barker leaned his elbows on the top of the desk and bent forward so that their noses almost touched.
“No,” he said. “Just show us up to your Mr. Stevens. Now!”
Flustered and red-faced, the woman came from behind the desk and they followed her into a lift. On the fifth floor, they were guided along a corridor to an office with a glass wall. The man inside was talking on the phone when the receptionist knocked on the door.
Placing a hand over the receiver, he called out, “Come in.”
She opened the door and ushered the three of them to go inside. They came before Mr. Stevens’ desk and his eyes widened. But he didn’t get off the phone and merely continued to listen to what the person on the other end said, waving a hand at them as if to say ‘Wait’.
Bob Barker wasn’t willing to wait.
“Get off the phone, sir,” he growled.
Mr. Stevens placed a hand over the receiver and said, “This is an important call. I’m afraid it can’t—”
Barker had taken the phone from him.
“He’ll call you back,” he said into it before putting the phone down.
“What the hell is going on?” Stevens said. “Jeanette,” he addressed the receptionist, who stood at the door, “who are these people?”
“We’re the police, Mr. Stevens,” Barker informed him.
“Identification?” Stevens said.
Barker and Green got their IDs out.
“And him?” Stevens asked, nodding in the direction of John Hudson.
“He don’t have his,” Barker said.
“Well, then he’ll have to—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Barker snapped. “I’ve just about had enough of all of this. You’re gonna give me some information and you’re gonna do it quickly and without fuss.”
“Or what? You’ll get a warrant?”
“No,” Barker said, leaning forward so that he was over Stevens. “No, not a warrant. Just a bloody good beating.”
Stevens gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He was a thin man with almost paper white skin. It looked as though he’d avoided the sun his whole life. He also looked like the type of man who had avoided fighting his whole life too.
