Killing Pretties

by Rob Ashman

  Pietersen and Malice leaned forwards with their elbows on the table.

  Tears began to fall into Elsa’s lap. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and began to quake. Her arms and shoulders trembled.

  ‘Elsa, are you okay?’ Pietersen asked. ‘Do you want to stop the interview?’

  ‘It was a phone,’ she blurted out, her whole body swaying back and forth as she sobbed. ‘Damien said she had to leave her mobile at home because he didn’t want to risk her being tracked. He had to be extra vigilant because of his job. Belle said she didn’t like the thought of travelling without one so he sent her one of ours.’ She straightened up, her face red. ‘I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want any of it.’

  ‘Any of what Elsa?’ Pietersen asked.

  ‘The screwing, the fucking, the sleeping with total strangers,’ she snarled the words through gritted teeth, droplets of spit peppered the surface of the desk. Her balled up fists hit the table. ‘The more we did the more he wanted. Every day another suggestion, every day a new face to look at. On and on and on, it was never ending.’

  ‘Are you telling us you never wanted the swinging lifestyle?’ said Pietersen.

  ‘Of course, I didn’t want it,’ she shrieked. ‘Would you? Year after year of fucking the men and women he paraded in front of me while he… he… he got his rocks off. But it was never enough, he wanted more and more. What about this one; I‘ve met so-and-so and he’s interested; I saw a woman today that would be right up your street – it was never ending!’

  ‘Did Belinda Garrett come to your house on that Saturday?’ asked Pietersen.

  ‘Yes, she did. Damien picked her up from the station and she arrived around noon. I’d prepared a nice lunch but Damien wanted us to perform straightaway. He was scaring both of us so we did as we were told and went upstairs. We eventually came back down around four o’clock and had something to eat. Then Damien wanted us to go again. Belle was tired and wanted a rest but he was insistent, offering her money. We went to bed and I eventually fell asleep exhausted. I woke about three in the morning and Belle had moved into the spare room. In the morning Damien said she’d gone, caught the first train back to London. I never saw her again.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us this at the time?’ Malice asked, scribbling notes into his book.

  ‘Damien said he would hurt me if I didn’t do as he said.’

  ‘Had he hurt you before?’

  ‘Nothing serious, a slap here and a punch there. Nothing to cause lasting damage.’

  ‘What happened to Belinda Garrett?’ Pietersen asked in soft tones.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kaplan sobbed into her sleeve. ‘You have to believe me. Damien made me screw other people so he could jerk his tiny dick. It was the only way he could get off. I wanted to please him, he’s my husband and I love him. I don’t know what happened to Belle, I really don’t.’ Elsa collapsed on the desk with her head on her forearms, her whole body rocked as she sobbed. ‘I didn’t want to do it, but what else could I do?’ She straightened up. ‘I have no money of my own and he threatened to throw me out on the street if I didn’t do as he said. He would pack my bags and put them in the car until I agreed to do what he asked. Other times he would dump my clothes in a pile in the garden and threaten to set them on fire. Then he’d tell me I had one more chance and buy me flowers, can you believe that – fucking flowers.’ Elsa banged her fists down on the table, the coffee cups jumped. ‘I had no one to turn to, no one to tell – he made sure of that. He drove my friends away. I have nobody. I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘How long had this been going on for, Elsa?’ asked Pietersen.

  ‘Years.’ She rubbed her eyes in her jumper. ‘So many years. I’ve lost count. He’s going to come back and hurt me, I know it. You need to help – please help.’

  ‘Were there others, Elsa?’ Malice said. ‘Other people like Belinda Garrett who you slept with and then they disappeared.’

  Kaplan slouched her shoulders and nodded her head. Tears landed in her lap.

  Malice flashed a look at Pietersen who took the hint.

  ‘Interview suspended at 10.45,’ she pressed the button and the red recording light went out. ‘Would you like to take a break, Elsa? Another coffee perhaps?

  Elsa nodded, her head bowed.

  Outside in the corridor Pietersen turned to Malice, ‘We need to bring in specialist support. This is domestic abuse, gaslighting, coercive control the whole nine yards.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Waite.’

  Malice went to walk away and Pietersen grabbed his arm.

  ‘Tell me again you didn’t shag her.’

  Chapter 58

  Eight months later

  M alice unwrapped a sweet and popped it into his mouth, then offered the packet to Pietersen. He looked around at the sea of earnest faces, each one eager for the show to start. The room was a buzz of whispered conversations. The crackle of expectation hung in the air.

  ‘My mouth is dry,’ she said, removing the paper.

  ‘Yeah, mine too. I don’t do well at this waiting game.’ The heel of his foot was tapping up and down.

  ‘I can see that, you can’t sit still.’ She reached over and placed her hand on his knee. ‘Stop, you’re making me nervous.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he twisted in his seat to look over the heads of those sitting behind him. ‘It’s standing room only at the back.’

  ‘Not surprised, I bet the majority of them are reporters. The steps outside are going to be awash with cameras when this is over.’

  ‘It might be best if we sit tight for a while to let things die down.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know which way this will go.’ His foot started tapping again.

  ‘Nor me. What do you think?’

  He put his own hand on his knee to stop the damned thing jerking up and down.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think, it’s what they think,’ Malice nodded in the direction of the nine women and three men of the jury who were waiting for proceedings to kick off. The same way they had sat every weekday for the past seven weeks as the terrible events that had taken place at the home of Damien and Elsa Kaplan were laid before the court.

  Early on in the trial the judge had taken the unusual step of bussing them to the house so they could view for themselves the secret enclosure behind the drying room. One woman had to be helped away from the workshop when she felt faint having seen the butcher’s hooks suspended from the ceiling. And all twelve had suffered a joint recoil of revulsion when shown pictures of the underwear found under the floorboards in the office.

  All the while Elsa Kaplan had maintained her demeanour of a broken woman, sitting in a crumpled heap, working her way through a box of tissues a day.

  On the day she gave her testimony, the judge was forced to order numerous adjournments due to her breaking down. For five hours she took the stand while the prosecution tore apart her lifestyle and her character. The harder he pushed the more she’d dissolved into a pool of her own tears.

  That was five days ago, this was verdict day.

  The court fell silent as a sound of footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs from the holding cells below The head and shoulders of Elsa Kaplan appeared above the rail running around the dock, flanked by a uniformed officer. She took her seat, folded her hands in her lap and stared at the floor. She was wearing the same beige tracksuit as yesterday. The same tracksuit she’d worn for most of the trial.

  The judge took his seat in the high-backed leather chair, taking pride of place underneath the crest of arms hanging high on the far wall. He gathered his robes around himself and adjusted his notes, then the clerk of the court rose to his feet and addressed the courtroom.

  ‘Will the defendant please stand?’ His monotone voice filled the room. Elsa got to her feet and steadied herself by holding onto the rail, her knuckles white. The clerk turned to face the jury. ‘Would the chairperson please stand.’ A tall woman wearing a dark sui
t got to her feet. ‘Have you reached a verdict on which you are all agreed?’

  ‘We have.’

  The clerk looked down at his papers.

  ‘On the first count: Do you find the defendant, Elsa Kaplan, guilty or not guilty of the charge of accessory to the murder of Belinda Mary Garrett?’

  The woman straightened herself and clasped her hands behind her back. She tilted her head back slightly. The whole courtroom leaned forwards in their seats.

  ‘Not guilty.’

  Her voice was clear and crisp.

  A gasp rippled around the courtroom. People held their hands up to their mouths. Elsa Kaplan pulled out a hankie from her sleeve and continued to stare at the floor as tears streamed down her face. Malice lasered the jury chairperson and shook his head, grinding his teeth. Pietersen dropped her head and closed her eyes.

  ‘On count two: Do you find the defendant, Elsa Kaplan, guilty or not guilty to the charge of accessory to the murder of Brendan Anthony Bairstow?’

  The silence was deafening.

  ‘Not guilty.’

  A second gasp washed through the room.

  ‘On count three: Do you find the defendant, Elsa Kaplan, guilty or not guilty to the charge of accessory to the murder of Melissa Cromwell?’

  ‘Not guilty.’

  Elsa collapsed to her knees, her hands still grasping the rail. The sound of sobbing filled the courtroom. The officer stepped forward to help her back into her chair. Elsa’s forehead was resting on her knees, her hands covering her head. Her shoulders shook.

  The courtroom burst into a cacophony of voices.

  Pietersen stared into the middle distance, her face expressionless. Malice cast his eyes up to the ceiling and balled his fists.

  The judge demanded silence and then dismissed Elsa and the jury. The uniformed officer wrapped her arm around Elsa’s shoulders and led her away.

  People dashed from their seats to claim a prized spot outside the courthouse in order to get the best photograph. Malice and Pietersen remained seated.

  ‘Thirteen people!’ she hissed under her breath, still gazing straight ahead. ‘Thirteen people!’

  ‘I know,’ replied Malice, he scraped his fingers through his cropped hair.

  ‘There were thirteen items of underwear and we could only join the dots on three of them.’

  ‘If the forensics isn’t there, there’s not much we can do about it. We found multiple human remains in the cess tank and the drains but couldn’t identify them. We could speculate but…’

  She snapped out of her thousand-yard stare to face Malice.

  ‘I feel as though we’ve let them down,’ her voice was shaking, tears of frustration in her eyes. ‘Those people who died will never see justice. Their families will never see justice.’

  ‘It’s all about what we can prove, and today we proved nothing.’

  ‘That’s shit.’ She slapped the palms of her hands against the vacant seat in front. Malice put his hand on her arm.

  ‘We did our best,’ he said. ‘But without Damien Kaplan it was always going to be an uphill battle.’

  ‘I can’t help feeling she played us.’

  ‘Once the specialist unit got involved it was no longer our case. You can’t blame yourself. If it wasn’t for you we would not have got this far. There is little doubt that Damien Kaplan murdered those people, there is some closure in knowing that.’

  ‘But no justice,’ she rubbed her eyes.

  ‘The defence did a brilliant job of portraying Elsa as a victim in all of this. And let’s face it she gave them plenty of ammunition.’

  ‘You’re not making me feel any better.’

  Malice unwrapped another sweet.

  ‘You got Marjorie Cooper, that was a result,’ he said, trying to sound up-beat.

  ‘Yeah, after all her ducking and diving she made a full confession last week. Ryan is walking around like a dog with two dicks. He’s got enough leads on bent coppers to keep him busy for the next eighteen months. And, no doubt, a promotion to look forward to.’

  ‘When does your transfer come through?’ he asked.

  ‘Should be anytime now. I think Ryan is pleased to get rid of me. We never hit it off.’

  ‘His loss is our gain. You’re a good detective.’

  ‘But a shit UCO.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m not cut out to work in anti-corruption.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because it turns out I’m complicit in it.’

  ‘Complicit?’ Malice screwed up his face.

  Pietersen turned in her seat and looked at Malice squarely in the face.

  ‘If we’re going to be working together I want you to promise me something.’

  ‘Since when did we get engaged?’ Malice sniggered.

  ‘No, I’m serious. I want you to promise you won’t lie to me again.’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t screw–’ he shook his head.

  ‘Not that. There’s been something bothering me about the Cooper investigation. Nobody walks around with a set of printouts in a briefcase showing screenshots of a spreadsheet. That just doesn’t happen.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That information would have been held on a flash drive and protected with a password.’

  ‘Don’t know anything about that,’ Malice pursed his lips and folded his arms across his chest. His foot started dancing again.

  ‘No? I’m not sure about the drug dealer friend of yours who happened to stumble across the bodies in the warehouse - that may or may not be true - but I do think is there was a memory stick that contained the payment schedules. So why would you not hand that over?’

  ‘I can assure you–’ Malice went to stand up, Pietersen tugged the sleeve of his jacket pulling him back down. She leaned in.

  ‘You didn’t hand it over because the digital forensics team would be all over it and they’d find there’d been a deletion,’ her voice no more than a whisper.

  ‘The briefcase was full of papers.’

  ‘I reckon a name was deleted from the file – your name.’

  ‘Kelly, you’re talking rubbish.’

  ‘We’re going to be working together so I thought it was best to get things clear. You’re a good man, and a damned good copper, and you took a major drug dealer off the streets. So, that’s why I don’t think I’m cut out for that line of work. Come on, I’ll buy you a coffee.’

  She got up to leave, Malice stayed in his seat, looking up at her.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said.

  ‘Then say nothing, that’s what I’m going to do. As you said, I’m a crap UCO but a good detective.’

  Chapter 59

  Six months later

  T he plane touched down in Hamburg thirty minutes late. Elsa Kaplan let go of the armrests when she heard the brakes and could feel the aircraft slowing down. For all her experience with international travel, she hated landings.

  She looked out to see the rain driving horizontally past the window.

  The plane taxied to the stand located at Terminal 2 and the stewards opened the front door. She collected her coat and bag from the overhead locker, filed out with the other passengers and showed her passport to the bored looking guy who waved her through. She paid a visit to the Ladies to change her clothes while she waited for her suitcase to appear on belt No.6. It was only a three-night stay but she could never do that with anything under fifteen kilograms of luggage.

  The taxi queue outside arrivals was short and the driver hopped out to put her case in the back.

  ‘Hotel Reichshof in der Kirchenallee bitte,’ she said sliding into the back seat and brushing her hair back.

  ‘Na sicher,’ the driver replied looking into his rear-view mirror. He pulled away from the concourse and headed for highway B433. The driver turned left into Kirchenallee and pulled up outside the arched frontage of the hotel. He jumped from his cab to retrieve her case.


  ‘Stimmt so,’ she said, handing him more euros that he’d asked for. He tipped his head in a shallow bow.

  ‘Vielen dank.’

  The concierge almost fell over himself as he dashed to her assistance. He smiled broadly, took the handle of the case and steered it through the glass doors leading to reception. Four grey check-in desks sparkled under the vast chandelier hanging in the vaulted ceiling. Three fresh faces looked in her direction.

  She took out her phone and fired off a message to the agency to say she had arrived safely. They in turn were grateful for the confirmation that the €150 booking fee would be deposited into their account by close of business tomorrow. She tapped at the screen to send another text.

  ‘Einchecken, madam?’ asked the concierge.

  ‘No thank you,’ she said lapsing into English. ‘I’m waiting for Mr Madison. Could you look after my case?

  ‘Ah, of course, madam.’

  Elsa’s high heels clipped on the marble floor as she wandered into the next room to take a seat at the bar. She slipped her coat from her shoulders and eased herself onto a black leather bar stool. The hem of her dress rode up her thigh. She made no attempt to correct it.

  The barman came over with a glass of champagne.

  ‘Forgive the familiarity, madam. You must be Elsa. Welcome to our hotel.’

  ‘Nice to be here, Vince,’ she said, pointing her finger towards his name badge. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Mr. Madison said he won’t be long?’

  ‘Cheers,’ Elsa raised the glass.

  ‘Cheers, madam.’

  She glanced around the bar. An older couple were sitting in a half-moon booth in the far corner and two men in business suits were pretending to be deep in conversation, when actually they were stealing furtive glances at the latest arrival.

  Elsa sipped her drink and smiled at them. She wore nothing under her dress save for a splash of expensive perfume and body glitter. A €100 request with which she was only too pleased to comply.

  ‘Elsa!’ a voice boomed out. ‘Elsa, how lovely to see you. Sorry to keep you waiting.’ A tall slim man in his early thirties dressed in chinos and a blue shirt rushed over and took her hand. He leaned in and kissed her once on each cheek. ‘I was stuck on a damned conference call. Such a bore. Have you been waiting long?’