Three Weeks in September

by Ted Tayler

  Sajid couldn’t see his vehicle for a while. There was a black van parked next to it. One of those with the tinted windows. It made it impossible to see anyone in it. It had been a long afternoon, and as he reached the driver’s door of his car, he yawned and stretched. Once he got home, he would sleep for a few hours until he met his friends.

  The side door of the van slid open and Abdul Sajid was dragged into the back. He tried to cry out but the hand over his mouth and nose held a cloth that smelt odd. So odd. Perhaps he could have that sleep now instead, he thought. The van door slid shut, and the driver pulled away from the parking spot. A third target had been secured.

  The driver called his team leader.

  “All is safely gathered in,” Danny Tipper confirmed to Phoenix.

  “When they turn up, you can put Sajid in with the rest,” said Phoenix. “Then we’ll move on to Rotherham. We’ll leave you to do the necessary and then dispose of the bodies.”

  “Understood, Phoenix,” said Danny. “Any news from Larcombe yet on the new face?”

  “The ice-house believes he’s Hamid Khan, thirty-seven-years-old,” said Phoenix. “He’s been missing for two years, as far as immigration is concerned. He arrived here in 2012 and they stopped him at the port of Felixstowe. He had been caught getting out of a container with seventeen other men. At first, Khan appealed against deportation because he had strong connections and family in the UK. Then, when that didn’t wash he claimed asylum. He reckoned his life was in danger if he returned to his homeland. While he waited for a decision on that appeal he lived with a cousin in King’s Lynn. He didn’t turn up at the immigration centre for his fortnightly appointment. He must have found stronger family links in the north. The authorities have been hunting for him ever since.”

  “Well, they can stop searching now,” said Rusty. “Remind me, what did this guy Sajid do that warranted us grabbing him?”

  “He’s been grooming girls for over five years,” said Danny Tipper. “He passed his victims among the male members of his family and the wider community. Kids often wander into the supermarkets to keep warm, to shoplift, and buy ice creams in the summer. That was when Sajid befriended them. Cherry Staines was sixteen when she was stabbed to death in 2011 and buried in a shallow grave by her eighteen-year-old boyfriend, Nadim Sajid. Cherry had given birth to a son at fourteen by an unknown, older married man. That man was Abdul Sajid, Nadim’s uncle.”

  “The families of the men were unaware of the relationships and the existence of the child,” Phoenix added. “Cherry Staines had elected to speak out to Abdul and Nadim’s relatives. The following week the boyfriend murdered her. His uncle was suspected of having helped his nephew dispose of the body. Police questioned both men, but Nadim Khan skipped bail and escaped to the Irish Republic by ferry. From there he disappeared to mainland Europe.”

  “Abdul Sadiq never faced trial,” said Danny, “Cherry Staines had a low IQ and had been the target of localised grooming from the age of twelve. The police and council officers who had already had dealings with her from the age of eleven described her as ‘out of control’ three months after her twelfth birthday.”

  “Another case of missed opportunities, and sweeping the problem under the carpet then,” said Rusty.

  “If Cherry had been a high-achieving student, from a rich family, those responsible for her death would have faced a relentless search,” said Danny. “Instead, the whole sorry business was just a blip on the headlines up here. Nobody cared enough about the poor kid to keep hunting for the answers.”

  The conversation died once again. The agents sat inside for several minutes alone with their thoughts on the tragedy. Danny Tipper broke the silence.

  “You can get off to Rotherham, Phoenix,” he said, “we’ve got things covered here. Are you meeting your next contact, Gus Dickerson tonight?”

  “No, I told Gus we’d meet up tomorrow lunchtime,” said Phoenix. “Rusty and I will stay overnight in the Olympus safe house in Sheffield. We’ve got more dodgy characters to trace in the region, and I don’t expect to get every one of them in one day.”

  “Good hunting, Phoenix,” said Danny.

  “We’ve done the groundwork, Danny. So, there should be no worries.”

  Phoenix and Rusty left the trading estate and drove off to join the M62. Forty-five minutes later they headed south towards Barnsley on the M1. Within the hour they would arrive at the safe house. Phoenix planned a good night’s sleep before meeting the Sheffield team leader tomorrow.

  Phase one of ‘the missing’ operation was complete.

  *****

  In East Anglia, Artem Klimenko, the Ukrainian gangster relaxed after another day dealing with finding work for the migrant workers he controlled. His office was in Wisbech, a once-wealthy river port whose architecture suggested a relocated slice of Holland. The town’s streets were lined with traditional English shops sat among an expanding share owned by people from abroad.

  Most of Wisbech’s ten thousand migrant workers travelled from eastern Europe with dreams of earning a better living. Many soon found themselves housed in squalid conditions, exploited by corrupt gangmasters. Often, they didn’t know who they lived with or the name of the person who collected the rent. The signs weren’t hard to spot. The unease when questioned, either appearing confused and unwilling to reveal information. Failure to provide a passport or payslips, and refusal to reveal employment details, are key indicators of exploitation.

  These workers in and around this corner of Cambridgeshire were among the three hundred thousand incomers to East Anglia over the past two decades. Sometimes they pick broccoli, sometimes they wrap flowers to go on sale at petrol stations, and sometimes they pack fruit for supermarkets. The majority in the Wisbech area came here from Lithuania.

  Numerous food processing factories and acres of farmland around Wisbech made it a magnet for migrant agricultural workers. The huge influx of eastern European workers dramatically changed the profile of the small town. Its population now stood at around thirty thousand, of whom a third were incomers. This migrant workforce had been what drew Klimenko here four years ago. Now thirty-three years old, he had since facilitated the smuggling of hundreds of illegal immigrants to the UK.

  The Ukrainian gangmaster was a ruthless thug who had one hundred henchmen spread out across the whole of East Anglia. His office In Wisbech purported to operate a recruitment agency supplying workers to the agricultural and food sectors. To many, it appeared legitimate. The reality was far more sinister.

  If you dug deeper, clear evidence existed of the exploitation of migrants on a large scale. The process began in eastern Europe, where Klimenko charged six hundred pounds to bring a worker to the UK, with promises of a good life, and rich rewards.

  Migrants got dropped off at night outside the town and were then brought to an HMO. A house of multiple occupancies that was not only overcrowded but almost uninhabitable. The houses bore the signs of being occupied by dozens of migrant workers. Mould on the walls, broken washing machines and scrapped furniture in the garden. A ramshackle network of electrical wiring winding through every building.

  Upon arrival, the migrants were soon pushed into debt by Klimenko’s agents to increase their control. They were immediately charged one month’s rent, in advance. Their passports were confiscated and often used to commit identity fraud. If they worked, then they got paid less than the minimum wage. Illegal deductions taken from their pay kept them reliant on the gangmaster.

  In the houses Klimenko controlled, each tenant paid fifty pounds a week rent. This enabled him to collect over two thousand pounds in a month from houses in very poor condition. Those same properties cost him six hundred pounds a month to rent from their owner. Workers moved between properties, adding to their sense of insecurity. He controlled his henchmen with an iron fist. They adopted the same policy with the migrants.

  In several of the HMO’s he operated, a member of Klimenko’s gang would occupy one room. They acted as t
he resident alpha male, collected the rent, and as they usually spoke better English than everyone else, they were the spokesperson if authority came knocking. Initially, the local police turned to them for translation services in neighbourhood disputes. In time, they realised they only heard what Klimenko’s thug wanted them to hear.

  Soon after Artem Klimenko arrived in the UK, Hugo Hanigan and the Grid learned of his criminal operations. The Ukrainian demonstrated the attributes the Grid fostered. His operation made a mountain of cash that needed to be laundered. It wasn’t long before they invited Klimenko to join the network of organised criminal gangs that Hanigan headed.

  The gangmaster was always outspoken. In early July, when Hanigan called the Grid leaders to a clandestine meeting in Surrey, he had challenged the maniac banker on several matters. He had found an ally in Gregor McGrath, the Glasgow gangster. An experienced criminal who was both respected and feared. Since that meeting, and its explosive conclusion, McGrath had needed his wits, and clever lawyers, to keep him from prison.

  Shabbir Shah, the Cardiff criminal had gone to ground over the past month. Either he had returned to his home country, or he too kept his distance from the authorities. Klimenko knew of the power struggle in boroughs across London. The Mighty Quinn had been brutally murdered only two weeks after he had met him for the first time at the hotel. Someone had put the squeeze on the Grid. That Surrey conference had raised many questions. Who had been responsible for the killings around the country over the past few months? Was it a simple matter of inter-gang rivalry as Hanigan had said? If so, why was there no evidence of a threat to any of his own operations? It was clear someone envied the profits he amassed for the Grid’s coffers.

  Because he disliked Hanigan, Artem wasn’t in the habit of contacting him. Notifications arrived by email or text when the Grid’s leaders needed a warning or a reminder of something. Maybe Hanigan informed them of a fresh burst of activity by agencies such as HMRC, Border Force, or the police. Or nudged them to keep finding methods to increase the flow of funds to the Glencairn Bank.

  The messages were coded, of course, in case they fell into the wrong hands. Artem thought Hanigan often behaved childishly. It served the Ukrainian’s purpose to use the Grid’s bank to cleanse his ill-gotten gains, but if he could operate without it, he would gladly do so.

  Hanigan hadn’t contacted him for ten days, but Artem Klimenko wasn’t concerned. He was curious about the rumours that the Mighty Quinn’s territory had been integrated into that controlled by Colleen O’Riordan. A woman indeed. What was the world coming to? Her late husband had been a proper villain. Artem would have loved to have met him.

  The outer door opened. One of his men must have dropped by with a problem. Artem looked at his Rolex watch. It was almost seven o’clock. He wondered what niggling problem it could be this time. The sooner he dealt with it, the sooner he could drive out to his favourite restaurant. Artem dragged open the bottom drawer of his desk. He took out two glasses, and a bottle of vodka. Work was over for the day.

  As he poured measures into the glasses, he looked up into the face of a stranger.

  “The office is closed,” he said, “we re-open at ten o’clock in the morning.”

  “Now then, Klimenko, that’s no way to greet a colleague.”

  “A colleague?” asked Artem, getting up out of his chair. If he needed to throw this young upstart out he wanted to be on his toes, poised and ready to spring into action.

  His visitor sat on a chair by the office door. He seemed unmoved by Artem’s agitation.

  “You and I will go for a drive in the country in a few moments. My men are arranging transport, so why don’t you relax while we wait?”

  “Who are you?” demanded Artem. His eyes darted from the young man to his leather jacket hanging on the back of the interior door to his PA’s office. If he reached that, he could get the gun from the inside pocket.

  “You’d never make it,” the young man warned.

  Klimenko lunged across the office towards the jacket. He placed his left hand on the jacket against the wooden door and tried to grab the pistol. He heard a swish as something passed his head. Klimenko screamed as the thin-bladed stiletto pinned his hand to the door.

  “I did warn you,” said Tyrone O’Riordan, covering the distance between them in a flash. He held a second blade across the throat of the stricken Ukrainian. “Our ride has just arrived.”

  The door opened, and two men entered.

  Tyrone retrieved the stiletto from the back of the gangmaster’s hand.

  “Get him outside into the vehicle. He won’t need a jacket. We’re not going far. Find a towel or something. Try the washroom. I don’t want him bleeding over the seats.”

  Artem Klimenko was frogmarched outside and bundled into the back of a people carrier. Either side of him sat the two man-mountains. Tyrone O’Riordan sat in the passenger seat, nodded to the driver to get moving, and then half-turned to talk with their captive.

  “In case you haven’t worked out who I am yet, and how you got into this predicament, maybe I should enlighten you?”

  “Whoever you are, you don’t know who you’re messing with,” Klimenko snarled.

  “I know exactly who you are, and what you have done,” said Tyrone. “I also know the head of the organisation to which you belong has tired of your constant criticism of the way the Grid is controlled.”

  “Hanigan is a madman,” said Artem, “he thinks none of us should criticise how he handles matters. Yet dozens of our people have died because of the decisions he has taken. Those of us who speak up won’t be silenced.”

  “I visited Surrey last month. I overheard you say though you lived in the Fens, you still had your finger on the pulse of what happened across the country. How foolish. Hugo Hanigan died over a week ago. The Grid is now under new management. You know nothing.”

  “Who are you?” Artem asked once more. “How could you have been at that meeting? You are not a senior Grid leader. You are just a boy.”

  “There are many ways to listen in to conversations, Klimenko. Who do you think disposed of Hanigan’s security team that night? Who rid the world of Michael Terrence Quinn? You have had enough clues to my identity. My late father might have excused the way you treat female migrant workers you smuggle into the country, but my mother is not so forgiving. That’s why you are being replaced.”

  “You are the O’Riordan woman’s son,” said Artem.

  “That I am,” Tyrone replied. “Tyrone O’Riordan, at your service. My mother has taken control of the network of organised crime gangs scattered across the country. I carry out specific duties for her, such as this one. The role for which my father ensured I was trained gave me the skills needed to run the Glencairn Bank on her behalf.”

  “Good luck convincing the other leaders that letting a woman take over is acceptable.”

  “That remark gives the reason for this little trip,” tutted Tyrone. “My mother hates men who abuse women. We found evidence implicating you among Hanigan’s papers after I killed him. He kept incriminating snippets on every crime lord in the network, in case he needed a lever to use in negotiations. When Colleen O’Riordan learned you forced female workers into sham marriages and made them sell a kidney to settle imaginary debts; it sealed your fate.”

  The people carrier came to a halt in the gateway to a large field.

  In the distance, Artem could hear a heavy farm vehicle.

  “Time to meet the grim reaper, Klimenko,” said Tyrone.

  Artem Klimenko was dragged screaming from the people carrier. Even though his main interest in East Anglia was the money he could make, he understood the harvest was well underway.

  The men soon returned to the vehicle. The screams of the Ukrainian gangmaster were drowned by the roar of the combine harvester as it covered the spot where he lay, pinned to the ground by his arms and legs. As the sound of the farm vehicle receded, silence reigned over this small corner of East Anglia.

&nbs
p; Tyrone made the call to his mother.

  “All is safely gathered in,” he said.

  “How did Klimenko take the news of Hugo’s death and the new regime in charge of the Grid?” she asked.

  “He was more cut up about it than I imagined,” replied Tyrone.

  CHAPTER 5

  Thursday, 4th September 2014

  In the Sheffield safe house, Phoenix and Rusty waited for Gus Dickerson and his team to arrive. The two friends had checked what was lacking in the kitchen when they arrived last night. A visit to the supermarket before it closed had filled in the gaps. There was no time for fine dining, they had work to do, so the nearest takeaway was the next stop to pick up their evening meal.

  Later in the evening, Phoenix had read through the Rotherham report files for the umpteenth time, while Rusty watched a DVD.

  “What is that?” Phoenix had asked.

  “Filth,” Rusty had replied.

  Phoenix had seemed unimpressed with what he thought was a comment, rather than the title, but Rusty didn’t enlighten him any further. It made a change for a safe house to have a copy of a recent film release. It had been a long day. He wanted to unwind. A story about a corrupt cop on more drugs than the criminals was as good a way to relax as any.

  This morning they had woken up, showered and dressed, eaten a reasonable breakfast prepared by Rusty, and it was still a few minutes before eight o’clock.

  “I’ll call Athena first, to catch her before she leaves Geoffrey’s house. Then, I’ll see where Giles and Artemis reached tracking the two bombers. Once that’s out of the way, we’ll go through our schedule today to make sure we’ve covered everything. What do you reckon we should do for lunch?”

  “You’re very domesticated this morning, Phoenix. This is a side of you I don’t see that often.”

  “Gus Dickerson arrives at noon. I think he has the nous not to turn up with a dozen vans, but we are hunting seven targets across South Yorkshire. If we have a dozen of us tucked up in this three-bedroomed semi-detached house it would be cosy.”