Breaking Point

by Frank Smith

  A small, dark-haired young woman of about twenty raised a tentative hand. ‘A little,’ she said almost inaudibly. ‘And Italian and Serbian.’

  ‘Excellent! Thank you. Now, please tell them I want everyone into the showers; all of you, children as well, and I want you to make sure you scrub yourselves thoroughly. Hair, hands, face, everything. Do you understand?’

  The girl hesitated, eyeing him narrowly as if trying to read his thoughts; looking for some ulterior motive behind his words. Bell pointed to her blood-streaked arms and held her eyes with his own.

  ‘I want everyone to be clean when they leave here,’ he said quietly. ‘Where are your clothes?’

  The girl pointed to small bundles underneath the benches.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Wash yourselves thoroughly, dry yourselves off and put your clothes on.’

  ‘The towels, they are not dry.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Bell told her, ‘but I’m afraid you’ll have to do the best you can until we can get you out of here. Please tell the others. We’ll have you in warm blankets soon.’

  The girl still looked puzzled, but suddenly her expression changed, and he knew she understood. She turned away and fired off a string of words in a language Bell felt sure was Serbian. She raised her own bloodstained hands and switched to Italian. Suddenly it was as if everyone got the message at the same time, and there was a stampede into the showers.

  Bell turned to face his men. ‘Head lice,’ he said crisply, ‘and who knows what else after living in such squalid conditions. They need to be cleaned up before we take them out of here.’

  The men exchanged glances. ‘Head lice,’ one of the men repeated. ‘Good idea, sir. Wouldn’t want that sort of thing to spread.’

  ‘Right,’ said Bell. He pointed at one of the men beside the door. ‘Find out if the medics and interpreters have arrived,’ he said, ‘and tell them I need them in here now.’

  As the man left the room, Bell turned to the man beside him. ‘Now, let’s get these bodies covered and clean up some of this mess.’

  Twenty-Nine

  When Trowbridge received confirmation that the barn had been secured and the women and children were safe, he issued the order to serve the search warrants that had been issued for Kellerman’s home and his offices in each of his nightclubs and so-called massage parlours in London.

  ‘Kellerman must have thought this place was so remote and secluded that he didn’t have to worry about an escape route,’ Trowbridge observed as the Range Rover descended into the valley behind the house. ‘But then, he always did think he was cleverer than anyone else, so I’m sure he thought he’d be quite safe here.’

  ‘And Bell is quite sure he’s dead?’ said Paget.

  ‘Oh, yes. His face is badly damaged, but Bell says there’s no doubt it’s Kellerman. And we have his prints and medical history, so verification won’t be a problem. Bell didn’t say exactly how he died; Kellerman was dead by the time he and his men got to him. No doubt it will all be sorted out in due course.’

  The man who had been the operator back in the caravan, and was now their driver, said, ‘Sounds as if they’ve found your man, Chief Inspector.’ He turned up the volume of the mobile radio.

  ‘. . . hiding underneath a wooden bridge over the stream,’ a voice said. ‘Claims he’s the copper we were told to look for, but he doesn’t look much like the picture we have. He’s soaked through and suffering from hypothermia, so we’ve dried him off and wrapped him in a Mylar blanket. He’ll survive, but he’s buggered up one knee pretty badly, so we’ll need a medic. Over.’

  ‘He’s damned lucky to be alive at all,’ Trowbridge growled. ‘He wouldn’t be if Kellerman’s people had found him.’

  On one level, Paget was thankful that Lyons had been found more or less safe and sound, but another part of him could hardly wait to tear a strip off the young idiot, buggered-up knee or not.

  The women and children had gone. Those injured in the melee had been treated and taken away by ambulance, while the others were given blankets to wrap themselves in before being shepherded on to waiting buses. From there they would be taken to a facility some twenty miles away, where they would be fed, supplied with fresh clothing and given a place to sleep before any attempt was made to question them.

  Paget stood off to one side. There was little he could do but stay out of everybody’s way until the ambulance came for Lyons. The police surgeon had examined the injured knee and given the man a shot to kill the pain. ‘Keep him warm and he’ll be fine,’ the surgeon said cheerfully. ‘At least he’s better off than some I’ve seen in there tonight.’

  Paget hadn’t been ‘in there’. After having a word with Bell, Trowbridge had come out to tell Paget that Kellerman, Slater, a middle-aged woman and another man were all dead.

  ‘Unfortunately, the crime scene is a complete shambles,’ he went on. ‘Four people dead, two of them almost torn to pieces by the look of them; seventy or eighty women and children, at least some of whom must have been involved in the killing, but any evidence there might have been has been totally destroyed by all the milling about. And to top it off, Bell said all the women were dirty and scratching at themselves, which suggested lice to him, so he ordered them into the showers to clean up.’

  Paget eyed Trowbridge sceptically. ‘They may have been dirty, but they probably had blood on their hands and under their nails as well, and Bell should know that you don’t get rid of lice simply by showering,’ he said. ‘In fact it sounds to me as if he deliberately set out to destroy the evidence. Just what the hell did he think he was doing?’

  Trowbridge shrugged. ‘I’m sure Bell only did what he felt needed to be done at the time,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it’s done now, and the operation was successful.’

  ‘We’re also talking about four murders that were committed on my patch,’ Paget reminded him. ‘I can’t just walk away from that, so I need to talk to Bell and the men who were in that room, as well as the women themselves.’

  But Trowbridge was shaking his head. ‘Trouble is,’ he said, ‘it’s a matter of priorities, and there’s a lot to be done before anything like that can take place. These women have a wealth of information regarding how they got here, what happened to them, and who their captors were, and we’ll need their cooperation. And that’s going to take time, because one thing they’ve learned along the way is not to trust anyone, including the police. And then, of course, Immigration will want to process them, so it could be months before you get a crack at them, and by then I doubt if CPS will even want to touch it.’

  He looked off into the distance. ‘I’m not suggesting what Bell did was right,’ he said, ‘but considering who the victims are, and what these women have suffered at their hands, I can’t help wondering if that is such a bad thing?’

  ‘Possibly not, but isn’t that something for the courts to decide, Ben? And as I said, this is my patch.’

  ‘Duly noted,’ Trowbridge said, ‘but as I said, you will have to wait your turn. This is my operation, and you are under my orders. So please let me get on with my job.’

  ‘What about the people who killed Newman, Doyle, Fletcher and Ryan?’ Paget persisted. ‘Are they just going to disappear?’

  ‘One of the suspects is already dead,’ Trowbridge pointed out, ‘and the other, Luka, will be questioned in due course, as will all the rest of Kellerman’s men we’ve rounded up tonight.’ He glanced at his watch and his voice hardened as he said, ‘So, if you have any more questions, Neil, I suggest you take it up through your chain of command.’

  As Trowbridge strode off, two ambulance men arrived to take Lyons away. They were big men, but surprisingly gentle as they examined Lyons before lifting him on to the trolley. Lyons opened his eyes, said something unintelligible then fell asleep again.

  Paget left the barn feeling completely frustrated. ‘Lice!’ he muttered under his breath. That was just an excuse. Bell had known exactly what he was doing when he’d ordered those women
and children into the showers, and Trowbridge was going along with it. It wasn’t that Paget wanted to see the women punished for what they’d done – he could hardly blame them after what they’d been through – but as he’d told Trowbridge, that was for the courts to decide, not people like Bell or the superintendent.

  He’d been told last week that Luka Bardici was off limits, but he’d hoped at least to be able to question Slater. If he could make a case against the Australian for at least taking part in the killing of Newman and Doyle and Fletcher – he wasn’t so sure about Rose – he just might have been able to force Trowbridge to produce Bardici.

  But Slater was dead and Bardici had been whisked away. Chances were that no one would ever stand trial for the killings, and Paget didn’t relish the thought of trying to explain that to Emma Baker.

  His thoughts were interrupted when he was forced to step out of the way while the SUV Bell had used to smash his way into the barn was moved to make way for a long black van. The van swung round and began backing into the barn, travelling its entire length until it came to a halt close to the door of the changing room.

  Curious, Paget followed as did several members of Bell’s squad. The driver spoke into a mobile phone, then he and his mate got out, opened the rear doors and pulled out four stretchers. The door behind the van was opened by the police surgeon, who motioned the men inside.

  Paget leaned against the wall and waited.

  He didn’t have to wait long before the door opened again and the stretchers bearing body bags were loaded into the van. The doors were closed, the driver and his mate got in and the van drove off.

  Trowbridge and Bell emerged from the room. ‘Not much point in your hanging about here,’ the superintendent told Paget. ‘I expect you’ll be glad to get back home. Our driver will take you back to your car.’

  ‘Not until I’ve seen the inside of that room,’ said Paget quietly.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Trowbridge told him. ‘No one’s stopping you. Not that there’s much to see, and it’s not as if you’ll need to file a report; we’ll be doing that ourselves.’

  Do you really think I won’t? thought Paget, but he remained silent.

  ‘If I can be of help . . .?’ Bell offered. ‘Anything in particular you’re looking for, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘As a matter of fact there is.’

  ‘And what would that be, sir?’

  ‘Lice,’ said Paget caustically. ‘I’m looking for evidence of head lice.’

  Thirty

  Sunday, March 30

  It wasn’t until he saw the calendar on the office wall that Paget was reminded that the day after tomorrow would be All Fools’ Day. Perhaps, he thought cynically, he should wait until then to write his report.

  Perhaps he had been the fool for believing that he and Ben Trowbridge could work something out in order to make sure that those who were responsible for the deaths of Newman and Doyle were brought to justice. Trowbridge had made it very clear right from the beginning that he had first claim on Luka Bardici, and Paget had no trouble with that as long as he could get a crack at the man when Trowbridge was finished with him.

  But Trowbridge had also made it clear to him last night that it wasn’t going to work that way. ‘In fact,’ he’d said, ‘I intend to use the threat of being charged with the murders of Newman and Doyle as a lever to get what I need from him, so I can hardly turn him over to you if he gives us what we want, can I?’

  Paget sat back in the chair and rubbed his face with his hands. The trouble was, even if he did get his hands on Bardici, how was he going to prove that the man had anything to do with killing Newman and Doyle? Fletcher, who might have been persuaded to turn Queen’s evidence if promised a new identity, was presumably dead, killed by Slater. But Slater was dead, too, so even that avenue was blocked.

  Brow furrowed, he stared moodily into space as he tried to decide what to put in his report. Alcott had made it very clear that whatever Trowbridge wanted, Trowbridge would get, which meant that Alcott had had his own orders from higher up, so Paget couldn’t expect any help from that direction.

  Even the arrest of Skinner and McCoy had been made by members of Trowbridge’s team, and the superintendent had made it very clear that it would be his men who would track down Roper and his wife and bring them in.

  But his thoughts kept returning to the rage and the sheer desperation that had driven those young women to turn on their captors and kill them with their bare hands. It went against the grain to condone what they had done, but he could understand the pent up fury that had brought them to the point where they felt they had nothing more to lose.

  Coaxed from their homes with a promise of a better life, they had found themselves caught up in a hellish nightmare where they were beaten and sexually abused to the point where they no longer had the will to resist. Their captors called it ‘preconditioning’ for their future life in the sex trade from which there would be no escape. Once ‘broken’, they were transported in almost airless containers buried beneath legitimate cargo on lorries or on ships for hours, sometimes days at a time. They would emerge smelling foul and gasping for air. Many of those who did survive were traumatized for life. Those who didn’t were written off and disposed of like so much rubbish. A few losses were acceptable. It was the cost of doing business.

  After all that, to be brought to this remote place, stripped and paraded naked to be bought and sold like cattle, must have been the final degradation that had sent them into a killing frenzy. What did they have to lose? After what they’d been through, even gaol would almost be a luxury.

  Tired as he’d been when he’d finally fallen into bed, Paget hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d lain awake, staring into the darkness as the faces of the women and children filing mutely past him on their way to the buses refused to go away. Shivering in their wet clothes, and apprehensive about what might happen to them, some of them were crying quietly, while others stared fixedly at the ground or straight ahead. Those who needed medical treatment for superficial cuts and bruises were patched up and taken to join the others. They had all been told that they were being taken to a safe place, and they’d been assured that they would come to no harm. But why, after what they’d been through, should they trust anyone’s word, including that of the police?

  ‘Why should they?’ Trowbridge had asked rhetorically during an uneasy truce between the two men. ‘Where some of them come from, the police are as bad or even worse than the traffickers. In some cases they are the traffickers. God, you should see some of the histories compiled by Europol and the NGOs in Eastern Europe. I tell you, Neil, when I read some of the stuff that crosses my desk, and I hear the stories these women have to tell, there are times when I’d like to take a gun and wipe these bastards out myself.’

  Strong words from a man who had seen more than his share of the seamier side of life during his time in the Met.

  Yet not surprising, Paget thought, because he, too, had been deeply affected by what he had seen last night.

  The plight of the young women was bad enough, but it was the look on the children’s faces that had brought a lump to his throat and moved him close to tears. He’d expected them to be scared, even terrified by what they must have seen that night, but when he looked into their eyes he’d felt a chill go through him the likes of which he’d never felt before.

  There wasn’t a tear. No expression on their faces, nothing in their eyes. They were blank, lifeless and perhaps wilfully blind to what was going on around them. He’d wanted to say something to them; something that would let them know that they were safe, that they would be taken care of, that their lives would be rebuilt, but the words refused to come, and he wondered now whether it would have been a lie if he had been able to find the words.

  Now, sitting in his office in the cold light of day, he wasn’t quite so certain that what Mike Bell had done last night was wrong. Yes, he’d gone out of his way to make sure that the crime scene was compromised and evidence was d
estroyed, but perhaps there was an element of justice in what the man had done.

  He looked at the clock. Ten past four on a Sunday afternoon. The office was dead quiet, and he’d been there an hour already, yet he hadn’t put a single word on paper.

  Paget was still struggling with his report when Alcott made an unexpected appearance. He paused in the doorway to light a cigarette, but his dark, bird-like eyes never left the chief inspector’s face as he blew smoke toward the ceiling.

  ‘I had a call from Chief Superintendent Brock half an hour ago,’ he said as he came into the room and sat down. ‘He asked me for details of a raid that took place last night at the Roper farm, and I had to tell him we were still working on the report, and I’d get back to him.

  ‘What I didn’t tell him,’ he continued, ‘was that I didn’t even know there had been a raid at the Roper farm, or that we had recovered Lyons, because no one had bothered to tell me. The only thing that may have saved both you and me from a royal bollocking is that it seems the raid was successful and Trowbridge was thanking us for our cooperation – but even that was something I had to hear from Brock!’

  Alcott flicked his open mackintosh out of the way and sat down facing Paget. ‘So, if it’s not too much trouble, Chief Inspector, would you care to tell me just what the hell has been going on, and why I have not been kept informed?’

  Paget drew a deep breath and let it out again slowly as he swung his chair around to face the superintendent. Alcott was right; he should have been informed long before this; he had every right to be upset, but he had wanted to sort things out in his own mind before committing anything to paper. What he hadn’t counted on was Trowbridge calling Brock. But thanking them for their cooperation was just twisting the knife as far as Paget was concerned.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ he said apologetically. ‘I should have informed you before this, but I wanted to try to sort things out in my own mind before I talked to anyone about what took place last night. And I still can’t make up my mind about what to say in my report.’