by Iain Cameron
‘Of course,’ she said in strong Surrey tones.
‘It was founded by myself and Virginia Mason three years ago to try and assist the thousands of women who are trafficked into this country every year.’
‘Do you confine your activities to the UK?’
‘Oh, no. Our aim is to help women wherever human trafficking takes place. We have operations in Germany, France and Sweden. We rehouse the women and give them a safe place to stay until they feel able to move on. If they wish to remain in the country they have been trafficked to, we will help with visas, learning the language, job hunting, housing and anything else they need. If they prefer to return to their home country, which can be problematic as you can imagine, the traffickers still being there, we will assist with their onward passage.’
‘Impressive.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It sounds like an expensive operation.’
‘Oh, it is, but we couldn’t do it without the backing of our benefactor.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Joshua Lindberg.’
‘The mobile phone entrepreneur?’
‘Yes, the same. He gives us a generous allowance every year and, like any other charity, we also receive donations from people who support what we do and from the women we’ve helped once they get back on their feet.’
It all clicked into place – the large offices, the range and scope of work they did. Lindberg started his mobile phone company at the beginning, before the indispensable little devices became as ubiquitous as fries in a MacDonald’s restaurant. Back then, queues would develop outside Lindberg’s shops whenever they received a new delivery; they couldn’t sell them fast enough. As a result, Lindberg didn’t become an ordinary millionaire, limping into the lower reaches of the Sunday Times Rich List, but a billionaire, regularly vying for top place alongside property developers, industrialists and software entrepreneurs.
The super-rich bought football clubs or retired to a yacht moored in Monaco, to bask in Mediterranean sunshine and benefit from a low tax regime which ensured they couldn’t spend their fortune, no matter how hard they tried. Lindberg was different, son of an émigré from Poland, he never forgot his roots and vowed to donate all his money to charitable causes and leave nothing to any of his four children.
‘As I said on the phone,’ Henderson said, ‘we are interested in a house you own in Baden Powell Drive, Colchester.’
‘After you called, I looked the house up. When we were a much smaller organisation I knew all the properties and the names of all the women living there, but now,’ she said with a shrug and turning her palms skyward, ‘we’ve become too big.’
She turned to her computer and shook the mouse to wake it. After a few minutes tapping on the keyboard she said, ‘There are three women living in that house.’
‘What can you tell me about them?’
‘We originally put four women into that house, all brought to us by a good friend of the charity.’
‘What’s this friend’s name?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you, although I don’t think it would do any harm to say as she’s dead now, but she came from Sussex.’
‘Was her name Cindy Longhurst?’
‘My God,’ she said. ‘How did you know?’
Henderson would have punched his palm in satisfaction if he wasn’t facing such a stony face which might misinterpret his exuberance. It was the connection he had been looking for.
‘Her name came up in our investigation.’
‘If you need to speak to her, I’m sorry to say, Inspector, Cindy was killed several weeks ago.’
‘I know,’ Henderson said.
‘I suppose you do, being the police. Do you know if anyone has been arrested yet?’
‘No, I’m afraid they haven’t.’
‘I hope you do find someone soon. Cindy was such a lovely person.’
‘Did you know her well?’
‘Yes, for a number of years. We got together after meeting one another on various marches and demonstrations.’
‘What’s the connection between Cindy and the women in Colchester?’
‘She came to me, it must be about four or five months ago. She said she found in the course of her work as a photographer a place where trafficked women were being held when they first arrived in this country.’
The photograph they’d seen on Cindy’s portable hard disk drive of a series of low concrete buildings, nestled out in the woods popped into Henderson’s mind.
‘We tried to interest the police here in Croydon. I have a good relationship with them but Sergeant Halliday said they were too busy with a murder and a fatal bus crash. So, Cindy went ahead on her own.’
‘To do what?’
‘She went to the place where the women were being held and I’m not sure how, managed to get some of them out.’
‘It’s a dangerous activity for any member of the public to undertake on their own.’
‘A lot of the activities my staff get involved in are dangerous, Inspector. We deal day in, day out with evil people. It doesn’t mean I condone unnecessary risks. You must understand, I don’t regard anyone who works here as an employee, I consider them members of my extended family.’
‘Did Cindy bring the women to you?’
‘Yes, she did. If my memory serves me right, she released ten. Four decided to return home and the other six have settled here in the UK.’
‘You help them settle by doing what, providing them with a house…’
‘We moved four of the Sussex women into Baden Powell Drive and applied for visas to allow them to stay and work here. In time, they’ll apply for full UK citizenship. At some stage in the future when they’re ready, they’ll move on and other trafficked women will take their place.’
‘Do you know anything about the place in Sussex where these women were being held?’
‘No, and I didn’t ask Cindy about it. You see in this business, Inspector, we try to compartmentalise information. The less people know about something important the lower the chance they might blab about it to friends or, God forbid, be forced to reveal it at the point of a knife or gun.’
‘Does this happen often?’ Graham asked.
‘More than I care to think about, to be truthful.’
‘Did Cindy know the identity of the traffickers?’
‘She was trying to find that out when she was kidnapped. She believed the gang was being led by a local businessman, but she wouldn’t reveal his name without further confirmation. She didn’t want to blacken his name without better evidence, that’s how principled Cindy could be.’
‘It’s all credit to her that she didn’t. Most people are only too happy to put the first thing they find up on social media and worry about the consequences later.’
‘I agree, it’s much too prevalent nowadays. In situations where we know the name of one of the traffickers, we, and all the people we work with, are encouraged only to reveal the perpetrator’s name with a police officer or someone from the National Crime Agency present. It’s safer for all of us this way.’
Henderson realised he would not find out anything more. He could understand the reluctance of anyone working in this field not to expose themselves any more than they needed to, but he felt cheated. One word, one name or address from Linda and he felt confident they would get their hands on the killers of Cindy Longhurst and Elena Iliesc. It felt like he’d gone fishing for trout and a pike had snapped his line.
‘You said there are three women in the house, but there used to be four.’
‘Yes, the fourth left a few weeks ago and she didn’t come back. No phone call, not so much as a ‘thank you’ email. We tried to find out what had happened to her, but the other girls said she’d been unhappy and, in their opinion, had gone back to Romania.’
‘Is this her?’ Henderson said, passing over Elena’s photograph.
She picked it up and looked at it. ‘Yes, it is. This is Elena. Such a lovely girl.’ S
he looked at him suspiciously. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘I’m sorry to say, but Elena was found murdered three weeks ago.’
‘What?’ she said, dropping the photograph and her hand moving to cover her mouth. ‘This is terrible news.’
No one spoke for the next minute or so, the quiet of the room pervaded only by cars passing outside, the whir of the desk computer fan and the sobs of the ATW director in front of them.
‘Did you not see her picture in the paper?’ Henderson asked. ‘It was widely circulated.’
‘I don’t read many newspapers or watch news programmes,’ Linda Herschel said, dabbing her eyes with a paper handkerchief. ‘This work is harrowing enough without adding to it.’
‘I understand.’
‘How did she die?’
Henderson went on to explain about Elena’s death and the connection they’d made to Cindy’s.
‘You think the traffickers killed both women?’
‘Before coming here today I had some doubts, but I don’t now.’
‘I told Cindy what she was doing was dangerous. She said, no, the place where they were being kept was out in the country and mostly unguarded. The guards lived in a house nearby and only went near the place when they brought food or dragged one of the women back to their house for sex.’
‘I think Cindy was killed for releasing the women and Elena for escaping. I also think they will kill the remaining three women in Baden Powell Drive if they can locate them.’
She nodded, but this time her voice sounded weary. ‘This is how they work, they like to send a message to the others to stay in line. If you study history as I do, it makes me sad to say, but they operate in much the same way as the Nazis did with their prisoners.’
‘Bearing in mind this increased risk, we and your charity need to think about how we can protect them. Also, I would like to speak to the women and try and find out more about the place where they were being held.’
‘I agree we need to do everything to protect them although I’m confident their location is still secret or they’d all be missing or dead by now.’
‘Elena was beaten before being killed.’
‘She was? How awful. Why did they do this? To reveal the location of the other women?’
‘I believe so. Is it a risk you’re willing to take?’
‘No, no it’s not. I’ll move them as soon as I can, but I can’t let you speak to them and they would refuse to talk to you if approached.’
‘I can offer them protective custody until the traffickers are caught.’
‘The answer is still no, I’m afraid.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying, I think this is a crazy decision. If we can find the place where the kidnapped women were being held, we can close this operation down. With a bit of luck, we’ll also arrest the traffickers. Don’t you think this would be in the best interests of the charity and the women housed at Baden Powell Drive?’
‘I can understand your frustration, Inspector, I really can, but I can’t let you near them. It’s a policy enshrined in the very fabric of this charity. The less people know about these women and their backgrounds, the safer and more able they are to get on with their lives.’
THIRTY-ONE
‘She said she wouldn’t let you speak to any of the women?’ CI Edwards said, her expression aghast. ‘I haven’t heard anything so stupid for a long time. She wouldn’t take such a bloody pious tone if we put her in handcuffs and dragged her down to the station for obstructing a murder investigation.’
Henderson was sitting opposite Chief Inspector Edwards in her spacious office although the gap between the two of them didn’t half feel small when she was like this. She was in a bullish mood, as frustrated as everyone else on the team at the obdurate attitude of Linda Herschel at ATW.
‘On the one hand, I can understand her trying to protect the women,’ Henderson said. ‘One slip of the tongue in the wrong company and it could endanger any one of them in their secure houses. On the other, when the danger is so imminent for those women at the house in Colchester, it looks as if she’s following procedures just for the hell of it.’
‘Something still bothers me.’
‘What?’
‘They beat up Cindy, we think, so she would reveal the location of the photos she took of the women in order to destroy them. Agreed?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘although now we have them, their only use will be in confirming the place where the kidnapped women are being held once we know where it is. The photographs don’t tell us much more as they don’t contain any location information.’
‘Did the kidnappers believe the photos were more damaging than they are, or are we missing something?’
‘Maybe they’re paranoid about leaks, because as Linda said, Cindy suspected the guy running the show is a local businessman.’
‘He won’t be a businessman much longer when we get hold of him.’
‘I don’t think we’re missing anything,’ Henderson said, ‘unless there’s some pictures we haven’t seen. Even then, I don’t think this is the case as we saw the place where Cindy stored the back-up disk drives and we’ve examined them all.’
‘Let’s park that issue for the moment. We know they beat Cindy for the reason we said, but they also did the same to Elena. This time, to reveal the location of the house where she and the other escapees were living.’
‘Agreed.’
‘This is what’s bothering me. Why haven’t the kidnappers come for them?’
‘I don’t know, as I don’t see how a young woman like Elena could hold out after all the abuse she must have suffered.’
‘Me neither. I think she must have told them.’
‘In which case the attack on the women could happen any day now.’
‘If it hasn’t happened already.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘You didn’t see them when you went there, did you?’
‘No, according to a neighbour, they were all at work.’
‘I don’t imagine the people at ATW keep daily tabs on the women so there might only be two in the house or none at all.’
‘I’ll contact Linda and ask her to do a check on their whereabouts, and find out when they intend moving them to a different location.’
‘Did Linda tell you any more than simply filling in the blanks in Cindy’s story? I feel for Cindy, you know? Here’s a woman with a good business, two kids and a smart house, putting herself on the line to try and save those unfortunate women.’
‘Getting killed for it too.’
‘Aye, but I’m sure she was aware of the dangers. You said Linda Herschel warned her?’
‘She did, for all the good it did.’
‘Cindy sounds like a head-strong woman with strong principles, not something you find on every street corner. In which case, it wouldn’t make a difference what Linda Herschel said, I think she would have gone there regardless.’
Henderson walked back to his office in sombre mood. CI Edwards didn’t often wear her heart on her sleeve, but this case had got to her as well, making Henderson feel no matter what resources he required, she would authorise it. In fact, he didn’t need any more resources than were in place. The paucity of leads didn’t fully occupy his team at the moment.
**
Henderson walked over to the bar and bought the drinks; vodka and lime for Rachel and a pint for himself. He didn’t need to savour his drink this evening as, for once, he wasn’t on-call. Despite a wish to stay at the office to try and find an opening in the Cindy Longhurst case, he decided he fancied a night in the pub. Also, based on the mood Rachel had been in lately, no way did he want to work late or sit indoors.
‘You’ve never taken me to this place before. It’s small but neatly formed.’
‘Are you angling for a job as your paper’s restaurant and pub critic?’
‘No, I’m just saying.’
They were seated in a pub called The Hand in Hand on Bri
stol Road, a short walk from their house. Small it was and would feel crowded with more than twenty people inside. Early evening on a cold Tuesday, he counted six customers including them, so there was no need for anyone to encroach into their space just yet.
‘When we go out it’s often at the weekend,’ Henderson said. ‘Friday and Saturday nights this place is packed, we would never get in. It’s not so bad in the summer as people stand outside in the street drinking, but not at this time of year, only smokers are so foolhardy.’
‘Good choice,’ she said lifting her drink. ‘I meant to ask. How’s your dad?’
‘He’s fine. I told you about his chronic inability to cook?’
‘Yes.’
‘I meant what I said it. He couldn’t knock up a plate of beans and toast or scrambled eggs. I suspect if he tried making a sandwich, he’d chop one of his fingers off.’
‘I thought they taught you all those things in the navy?’
‘No, it’s the opposite. Unless you work in the kitchens, all meals are served.’
‘How does he survive on his own?’
‘When mum went into hospital last time, about six or seven years ago, Mrs Carmichael across the road brought in food for him. She’s too old now but her daughter does it and stops him starving to death.’
Henderson’s parents lived in Fort William in the north of Scotland and yesterday his mother, Mary, was admitted into Belford Hospital for a gallstones operation. Back in the day, this involved serious open surgery with the attendant risk of infection and long recovery times. Nowadays, they used keyhole techniques, requiring no more than a series of small cuts to the abdomen. Most patients were allowed home the same day. His mother was spending an extra day in hospital due to complications and would require about ten days recuperation.
He’d instructed his father not to expect his wife to look after him during her convalescence period. A few years back, his father had taken up carpentry, refitting the shed at the back of the house and converting it into a workshop. To give his dad something to do and to give his mother some peace, he’d recently sent him a picture of a bedside table from the John Lewis catalogue and asked him to reproduce it.
