by Iain Cameron
‘Neither.’ She leaned forward, composing her words with care. ‘Ed, there are discrepancies in the accounts.’
‘Wh’dya mean discrepancies? I run a tight ship.’
‘I mean the accounts don’t stack up. Since the start of the year sales have been increasing fast and Jacques is forever telling me about all the new customers he signed up, so by now I would expect to see profits and cash rise, but instead they fell for the third month in a row.’
‘I told you before, London Home are slow payers, they–’
‘I’ve looked at them, but they’re too small to make such an impact.’
‘Well it must be...’
She listened to his lame excuses but she was expecting them. This conversation could not take place a couple of weeks ago, but ever since, she’d spent many evenings poring over the numbers, forcing her accountancy-averse brain to understand, and she’d even roped in Gemma Ferguson, the FD of Brian’s business, who’d examined the details and concurred with her conclusions.
‘Listen to me, Ed. I crunched the numbers and I know you’re stealing.’
He leapt up and leaned over the desk, trying to intimidate her, but at five-foot nine and weighing about seventy kilos, it didn’t have the same impact as her husband or Stefan Pearson.
‘You fucking liar, I never stole a penny, why would I steal? My girlfriend’s in a good job and I’ve worked solid for twenty-odd years without a break. Why would I need to do it, eh? Eh?’
‘Ed sit down and stop shouting.’ Unlike her children, he did as he was told.
She waited a moment or two for his hot head to come off the boil. ‘Why does anybody steal? It’s usually to fund gambling debts or an expensive drug habit.’
‘What the fuck are people saying about me, eh?’
‘Nothing. I’m only asking the question and–’
‘For your information I don’t do any of that crap.’
‘Everybody knows you bet on horse racing, isn’t that a form of gambling?’
‘Yeah, but it’s nothing, a few quid, here, a few quid there.’
‘Only last week you boasted you’d won three hundred pounds. How many bets do you need to place to win that much?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s easy when you know what you’re doing.’
‘I’ll take your word for it, but what I’m talking about here is a serious matter.’
‘I stole nothing. You hear me?’
‘I hear you. I hoped you’d come clean and admit what you’ve been up to–’
‘Why the hell would I? I didn’t do nothing!’
‘Ok, we’ll do this the hard way. Let me show you the proof.’
She placed the invoices in front of him, one after the other. The company involved, the same on every one, ‘BH Temporary Staff,’ all authorised by the man facing her with the stony stare.
‘What’s this? Temp invoices? We’ve needed temps ever since I started working here.’
‘I know, but this agency, ‘BH Temporary Staff’ is owned by you and if I do the numbers it gives us on average, five temps a day for over a year. I think someone would notice, as only fifteen of us work in this building and–’
‘What the fuck are you trying to pull? You gonna sack me?’
‘What choice did you leave me, Ed? Count yourself lucky I don’t call the police.’
The chair flew back and hit the wall as he got to his feet. He placed one hand on the desk and pointed with the other at her face. ‘You fucking bitch. I’ll get even with you, see if I don’t.’
He stormed out of the office, thumping the door against its stopper and brushing past a startled Jacques, who came over to see what all the fuss was about. Hardacre grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and headed to the stairs. On the way past her office, he turned his head towards her and mouthed something she could not hear but going by his thunderous glare, he wasn’t wishing her a good day.
THREE
Detective Inspector Angus Henderson walked away from the conference room after the press briefing in a sombre mood. For the last two weeks, he had been leading a large team of officers from Sussex Police in tracking the movements of a gang of drug smugglers using the south coast to bring in consignments of marijuana and heroin from Pakistan.
The latest intel suggested a sizeable shipment was due into either Shoreham or Newhaven harbours at some point over the next two weeks and he was putting together a couple of surveillance teams to watch both harbours and intercept it. The prize was not only the seizure of the dope, but by arresting the participants they would soon put a name to the person financing the operation. With the large sums of money involved, his chips were on Brighton villain Dominic Green and my, my what a mighty triumph it would be to see him go down. Alas, he wouldn’t be there to see it as he had been pulled off the case.
At first, he was convinced he’d done something wrong or upset his new boss, Chief Inspector Lisa Edwards, but the more he got to know her, the more he realised she feared the wrath of the media as much as he feared the same from an armed and dangerous criminal. It was something he needed to get used to, but a welcome change from her predecessor, Steve Harris. A few months back, Harris moved to Manchester to join his accountant wife after she started a new job there. With him in the chair, the conviction of a crook brought great pleasure, not for removing another low-life from the streets and leaving Sussex a safer place, but for improving the look of his arrest stats.
It would have cushioned the pain a little if Henderson’s removal from the drugs case had been to undertake something of equal importance, but the media going gaga about a missing woman didn’t rock his boat. The conference room for the third press briefing of the week could not squeeze another body inside, as it contained all sections of UK press and television, satellite broadcasters and web-based magazines, and a smattering of teams from all over Europe and the US. The sage who’d once said, ‘sex sells,’ got it damn well right.
He pushed open the door to Interview Room Three and walked in, DS Carol Walters following in his wake. When they both sat down in the sparsely decorated room with only a desk, four chairs and austere grey walls, she labelled the tapes and switched on the recording equipment.
‘Present for this interview is Detective Inspector Angus Henderson,’ Henderson said.
‘Detective Sergeant Carol Walters,’ the DS said.
Henderson nodded towards the subject sitting opposite. ‘Can you please state your full name and date of birth, sir.’
‘Richard David Wood, 6 February 1977.’
‘Thank you for coming in this evening, Mr Wood. I do hope PC Davidson has made you, if not comfortable, at least relaxed.’
‘No complaints but I’m sure glad I didn’t book me a room for the night.’
‘Mr Wood, as you are no doubt aware, we are investigating the disappearance of Mrs Kelly Langton and are in the process of interviewing anyone who knew her.’
The investigation into the mysterious disappearance of the former model ‘Kelly’, now plain Kelly Langton, was to be called Operation Condor and he hoped the system-generated name was not prescient, as in his mind at least it conjured up images of a large carrion bird picking over the bones of a dead woman.
It wasn’t Henderson’s job to try and understand the psychology of the press or even the police, but it was curious to note how the majority of missing persons cases were handled by a local bobby who could conclude without too much investigation or shoe leather, that he or she buggered off as they were sick of being treated like a doormat, while others were elevated to the front pages of every newspaper and all available police resources thrown at them.
A cynic might suggest it was influenced by the amount of media coverage and in this instance, it was considerable as a decade’s worth of ‘Kelly’ pictures were accessible from photographic agencies and newspapers, and not only was this catalogue more voluminous than most, the subject in question was beautiful, often wearing little, and better to look at than pictures of a pasty
politician or a pubescent pop star.
For the moment, he would do as his boss requested and assume CI Edwards saw something in this case beyond a simple disappearance, making her think it might involve criminal intent. If true, it would make his transfer worthwhile, and not, as he suspected, a case better conducted in private by the Family Liaison Officer, away from the glare of all this publicity.
‘Is there any news?’ Wood asked.
Henderson shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. Nothing has been heard from Mrs Langton since dropping her boys off at school three days ago.’
‘It’s awful but I read as much in the paper.’
‘If I can make a start, Mr Wood. You’re a journalist of Lower Rock Gardens in Brighton. Is this correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who do you work for?’
‘The Sunday Times. I’m what’s known in the trade as an investigative journalist and spend anything from a couple of weeks to a few months getting to know drug gangs or criminal families and then writing an exposé in the newspaper.’
‘Does this type of work put you in any danger?’
‘Not really. Like your surveillance guys, I dress the part, dye my hair, grow a beard, anything to change the way I look at the moment.’
‘What are you working on now?’
‘I can’t tell you, but last year I investigated two Romanian gangs involved in bringing in people from their homeland, often kidnapping young men and women on country roads to work on vegetable farms in Norfolk and Suffolk. They treat people like slaves, and all the money they earn goes straight to the criminals in repayment of a loan they are told is for transport and lodgings but no matter how much they work, they can never pay it back.’
In his spare time, Henderson liked nothing better on a Sunday morning than to head over to a coffee shop in Seven Dials and read the thick weekend newspapers. If he was trying to forget about work, he would avoid the serious articles and seek out quirky stories about mobile phone usage or acceptable etiquette on the Underground, while at other times he would read the sort of stuff Wood talked about, half-hoping it offered some insight into the problems he was trying to solve.
Wood’s hair was fair, grown to collar length and parted in the centre. He had sharp eyes but despite the well-scrubbed face and an absence of stubble, he wasn’t what the ladies would call handsome, but craggy in an outdoor way. He wore blue jeans and a white t-shirt and by its prevalence at the press conference earlier, the closest thing media-types could claim as a uniform.
‘How well do you know Mrs Langton?’ Henderson asked.
‘I’ve met her a couple of times. Let me think. Yeah one time when we got together at a pub for someone’s engagement party. I can’t remember who, but sometime in July on a hot day, upstairs in the King and Queen. The other time at a dinner party at their house, last weekend.’
‘I’ll come back to the dinner party. How would you characterise your relationship with Mrs Langton?’
‘A relationship?’ Wood said, smiling. ‘How could I have any kind of relationship with Mrs Langton when I hardly know her? It’s Celia Warren, my girlfriend who knows her. They’ve been mates since school.’
‘We are aware of that sir. We have spoken to Ms Warren.’
‘Well, if you’ve spoken to her, you would know Kelly was her friend, not mine. So don’t ask me if I know her well, because I don’t.’
‘What I think Inspector Henderson means,’ Walters said, ‘is if Mrs Langton is a close friend of Celia, we might expect you to have met her on more than two occasions, especially as she is quite the celebrity.’
‘I see your point, but I understand they’re not what you might call bosom buddies. Celia lives in Brighton and they live out in the country, and I know Kelly’s got her own business and can work as she likes, but Celia’s a nurse at the hospital and works shifts. I guess you could say they move in different social circles and don’t see one another so much, but they talk on the phone a couple of times a month.’
‘If we can come back to the dinner party,’ Henderson said, ‘the weekend before Kelly disappeared. How did she seem to you then?’
‘I suppose the same as the rest of us, as we were all well pissed by the end of the night. I talked to her for a bit and she seemed fine, happy even. I mean, hosting a dinner party can be stressful but if she was feeling the strain, I couldn’t see it. To me, she was enjoying herself.’
‘How would you characterise her behaviour?’
‘Come again?’
‘Did she seem tense or worried about anything?’
Wood shook his head. ‘As I said, she seemed happy.’
‘How about her husband, Brian? How well do you know him?’
‘The same as Kelly, really. Celia got the invite, not me and let’s be frank, you wouldn’t invite a journalist to your dinner party if you could help it, would you? In popularity surveys, we rank lower than estate agents and it you must know, it really pisses me off.’
Henderson smiled. His girlfriend, Rachel Jones was a journalist with The Argus, Brighton’s main local newspaper but as much as he would like to leap to her defence, he did not.
‘How would you describe Brian, based on the short time you’ve known him?’ Henderson hoped he didn’t sound as bored as he felt but this witness was obviously useless. How he made a living as an examiner and inquisitor of modern life he would never know, as he sounded half asleep at this dinner party. Perhaps he was drunk before it started.
‘I know he used to be famous in the nineties for door-stepping drug dealers and rogue builders who were ripping off pensioners. Now, he produces documentaries and political programmes for the major networks and by all accounts he’s making more money than he ever did standing in front of a camera.’
‘Interesting,’ Henderson said without much conviction.
‘I mean, he’s a big man and rough looking, which I imagine is an asset when dealing with criminals and the like. He’s older than Kelly by about fifteen years but they look to me like a together couple.’
‘How so?’
‘Ach, you know, helping her serve food, he made coffee the way she liked it and he always made a point of touching her shoulder when he walked past, as he topped-up the wine and the coffee, you know the sort of thing.’
‘Would you describe them as a loving couple?’ Walters said.
He forced a smile but it sounded more like a snort. ‘They’ve been married for what, ten years? In my case, I was married for five and you would never describe me and my ex as ‘loving’ and certainly not in public, but the Langton’s looked happy enough to me. I mean, they own a big house, got two kids, pots of money in the bank; what else do you need?’
‘What do you think happened to Mrs Langton, Mr Wood?’ Henderson said.
‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’
‘I asked first.’
‘Police station, primary school, what’s the difference? I really don’t know her well enough to speculate whether she would or would not run away with someone, but I talked to Celia and she couldn’t think of anybody who’s shown a particular interest in her, or knew someone with a grudge or a stalker or anything else. She was, she is a nice person and not the type to attract enemies and in my line of work, I’ve met plenty who do the opposite.’
‘So you don’t think she’s been kidnapped, as some newspapers are speculating, or any harm has come to her?’
‘I don’t think so but it’s too early to say, although if she doesn’t show up in a few days, it’s a distinct possibility, don’t you think?’
‘We will look at all possibilities,’ Henderson said.
‘So what is it you guys are thinking? Do you think she’s been kidnapped?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Wood,’ he said. ‘You’re an experienced journalist and you surely don’t expect me to share my thoughts and conjecture at this stage of the investigation? Your colleagues in the media do enough of that as it is.’
Henderson left the interview room, m
ore glum than after the press conference. Ricky Wood was the last of the dinner party guests to be interviewed and the hoped-for breakthrough hadn’t materialised. With not much more to go on, he had a bad feeling they were now in for a long haul.
FOUR
‘How long has it been here?’ DS Walters asked, raising her voice over the din of a dodgy exhaust rattling beneath a dirty white van as it drove past.
‘The woman in there,’ PC 2357 said, nodding towards a row of terraced houses nearby, ‘thinks it’s been sitting here nearly a week, and by the look of the grime on the window, I would say she’s about right.’
She turned to look at the copper for the first time and an acne-marked complexion met her gaze. Aged no more than twenty, about the right level of experience required to stand around on a chilly Sunday morning guarding a car that wasn’t going anywhere, but she was in no mood for smartarses.
‘Constable, carry on watching this car and make sure it doesn’t get tampered with and I’ll get on with making all the assumptions and deductions. In my book, we leave the detective work to the professionals, if it’s all right with you?’
‘Yes ma’am, sorry ma’am.’
She walked towards the car. She could have pulled him up about calling her ‘ma’am’ as she was only thirty-seven and too young to be mistaken for his mother, granny, or elderly aunt but she didn’t want to be here all day.
The call informing her Kelly Langton’s silver BMW X5 had been found in the car park beside a parade of shops in Pound Hill, Crawley, came through as she lay in bed. While it wasn’t unusual to find her still in bed at quarter to eight on the morning of her day off, as a lie-in wasn’t so much a luxury, as an essential component of her well-being, it was unusual for her to be suffering from a thumping hangover.
Single and without a boyfriend, an active social life, no hobbies and with a job impacting on all three, she didn’t often go out on Saturday nights, but as she had been working long hours all week she needed to get out to let off some steam. After cajoling the two biggest boozers she knew, her neighbour Sarah and her friend Evie to accompany her, the bars of Brighton didn’t know what hit them.
