1911021494

by MICHAEL HAMBLING

  ‘Do we go across to pay him a visit?’

  ‘No. Let’s just keep a watch on the place for the time being. This can’t count as substantive evidence, can it? I don’t want to alert him by calling again. As far as he’s aware, we only know about Frimwell. Let’s keep him in the dark but watch his movements. By the way, Matt, has there been any luck with the search for street girls from Romania?’

  ‘We’ve got teams out in Bournemouth, Poole, Weymouth and Dorchester. I’ve asked our colleagues in Hampshire for their help. Southampton and Portsmouth are much bigger markets, so it’s more likely they will have ended up there. That’s if they haven’t moved them further afield to the Midlands or the north. I’d guess that most of the trafficking for the whole country comes in through the South Coast ports and then the women are distributed around some kind of network.’

  ‘It’s appalling, isn’t it? What you’ve just said describes these women as goods for consumption in the market, not human beings with lives to fulfil.’

  ‘I know. But that’s the reality of how they’re treated by the men who run them. A commodity, just like any other. It’s a dreadful truth, Sophie.’

  ‘From what Nadia said, the gang appears to start with a softening up process in which the women are beaten, raped and intimidated. It’s likely to be carefully planned, even though it might not appear so to the girls on the receiving end. How long do you think this stage might last, before they’re shipped onwards to start work?’

  Silver drummed his fingers as he thought. ‘The drugs would make them more acquiescent. So my guess is a couple of weeks. Maybe three at the most. It wouldn’t be too long because while they’re not working, they’re not earning. And it’s the money that drives it all. It’s lucrative once they start working, once they’re out on the streets, but before then they’re using up money rather than making it.’

  ‘So we need to trace the batch Nadia was in by the middle of next week? I’m assuming they’ll have been delayed a bit because of the moves.’

  He looked at her. ‘Do you realise that you used the word “batch” just then? But your logic is right. We probably have a few more days at most. They won’t be working a five day week.’

  Sophie stiffened. ‘Nadia has her heart set on us finding the youngest one, Sorina. Let’s focus on her, Matt, if you think I’m in danger of not seeing them as individuals. She’s sixteen. She’s slightly built and looks younger than her years. How do you think she must be feeling right now? Terrified, weak, exhausted, sick to the heart? Again, I’m only guessing, Matt. It’s so far outside my experience. But she’s there in my heart, in my mind and in my soul. She isn’t just another item on a list for me!’

  ‘Sophie, I know that. I didn’t mean my comment in the way you’ve taken it . . .’ Silver’s reply was too late. The door had already slammed shut behind her.

  * * *

  Silver didn’t follow her. He’d never seen her so edgy. It couldn’t be the case, since progress was steady and the whole team knew they were starting to home in on the perpetrators. Today’s discovery of a body was probably a one-off, someone who’d crossed the gang and paid for it. So what was causing her moodiness? The funeral was in two days’ time, but she’d never known her father anyway. If anything, the discovery of the truth behind her father’s death had led to an unexpected blessing in the form of her grandparents. So what was going on?

  Down the corridor in the ladies washroom, Sophie was bent over a toilet, vomiting.

  Chapter 18: The Gun

  Wednesday, Week 2

  Barry Marsh decided to visit the quayside warehouse early in the morning, before the GPR team arrived from Bournemouth University. He’d woken early, too agitated to go back to sleep. After an early breakfast he was ready to take the first ferry across from Studland to Sandbanks. The warehouse was almost deserted now that the main forensic team had finished their work. A solitary squad car was parked at the entrance. He had a quick word with the constable on duty, then unlocked the small staff door and walked inside. There was no point in carrying out another search. The forensic team would have gone through the place more thoroughly than he could. But was there something else, something less obvious, which might yield some insight into the premises and the company that owned it? He spent several minutes looking idly through the rooms and corridors. Nothing. He sighed and went back outside, stopping to speak to the officer in the car.

  A man in his sixties came wobbling by on an ancient, squeaking bicycle and came to a halt beside him.

  ‘Found summat interesting here, then?’ he said.

  ‘Can’t be sure, sir,’ Marsh replied.

  ‘Ricky Frimwell’s place. But you probably know that.’

  Marsh looked at him with more interest. ‘Do you know him, sir?’

  ‘Not really. Surly bugger. I tried saying good morning a couple of times as is only polite like, and just got ignored, so I didn’t bother from then on. I come past most days, see.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him here?’ asked Marsh.

  ‘It’s been empty for months, years more like. There was a van here a couple of days ago when I came by, with a couple of men loading it with boxes from inside, but I didn’t stop.’

  ‘We haven’t heard that from any of the other people around. They said they haven’t seen anything.’

  ‘That’s because these other places don’t open up their doors till nearly nine. I come past between seven and seven thirty most days.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m a bit late today.’

  ‘So when did you see this? Which day?’

  ‘Not in the morning at all. It were nearly dark. Must have been Saturday afternoon. I live up yonder.’ He pointed in the general direction of the nearest housing estate. ‘I’ve got a dinghy. My pal and me use it for a spot of fishing and just mucking about in. Keeps us out of trouble.’ He gave Marsh a toothy grin.

  ‘Anything else you can tell us about Frimwell?’

  ‘No. Don’t even know why I knows his name. But there used to be an older bloke who was here, and a woman. She was a cracker. But I ain’t seen them in years. I used to think it were them that owned it. They had a posh car, like.’

  Marsh took out his notebook. ‘Can I have your name and address, sir? I’ll need to arrange for someone to visit you and take a formal statement. Anything at all you can remember would be very useful to us.’

  He phoned the incident room and asked Melsom to contact the old man. He’d only just finished when a van arrived with the GPR team and their equipment.

  He chatted with the geophysicist in charge, and she explained how ground penetrating radar worked, and what they might expect to see if there were any more bodies buried.

  ‘I don’t think we’ll find any more,’ Marsh said. ‘The dog we used is the best in the business and after sniffing out the body we dug up, it lost interest completely. But we have to check, and there could be other stuff.’

  The technician set up the equipment and the team started their survey. It took only half an hour to scan the small yard, and Marsh was impatient to see the results.

  ‘As you said, no bodies,’ the team chief reported. ‘But there are a couple of other things down there that show up as slight disturbances on the readings. There’s no detail on the radar, so we’ll go over the ground again using some different techniques.’

  The second run confirmed that a small, dense object was buried under the ground. The expert explained that it might be natural, possibly an unusually solid rock. Marsh phoned the information through to Sophie, and requested for two of the forensic officers to carry out the dig. The archaeology team found nothing else, so they packed up and left. The chief remained to give advice. While they waited they looked at the printouts.

  ‘You say it might just be a large stone?’ Marsh said.

  ‘It’s possible, although the readings indicate something metallic. But we won’t be sure until it’s dug up. There are all kinds of variables at work in this kind of survey.’
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br />   Two of the forensic officers were back within an hour and, with a specific location to dig, it wasn’t long before they found the object. Inside several layers of heavy-duty plastic was a handgun, wrapped in an oily rag.

  * * *

  ‘It hadn’t just been chucked away, ma’am,’ Marsh informed Sophie. ‘It’d been well wrapped and carefully buried. My guess is that with a good clean, it would still be usable. And we found a bag of bullets beside it. I looked at the arrangement of fence posts around the outside of the yard. The place where the gun was buried was lined up exactly with one of the posts at the side and another at the back. The body was in the same position on the other side.’

  ‘Was there any clue as to how long it had been there?’

  ‘The woman in charge of the unit thought about ten years for the gun. She had a look at the hole where the body was, and thought that it had been there longer. Maybe up to twenty years. But forensics will be able to give us a date on that, won’t they? Isn’t there a time-scale for different stages of decay?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not exact, Barry. It depends on the type of ground and the organisms present. That soil was particularly poor and had never been cultivated. It would have been sparse in microbes and that might have had an effect. Benny’s lot will let us know, I’m sure. By the way, what type of gun was it?’

  ‘A 9mm handgun. That was what the forensic guy said when he bagged it up. I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘The army’s been using those for more than forty years. Bullets are easy to get hold of, so it’s often used by the underworld.’

  ‘Well, he reckoned it was quite an old model. But it was only him speculating. He told me they’d have to wait for an expert to check it. They don’t like committing themselves, do they?’

  Sophie walked across to Pillay. The boat was nowhere to be found.

  ‘It’s so frustrating,’ the young DC said. ‘I thought we were really getting somewhere when I found its name, but there’s been nothing since.’

  ‘I’m visiting Weymouth this afternoon to speak to a colleague about street girls. Do you want to come? It’ll do you good to get out for a couple of hours, and I might need your help.’

  * * *

  Pillay was struggling to keep calm. Seated opposite her in a town centre café was Detective Sergeant Alan Metcalfe. He was the most introverted policeman she’d ever come across. He met each question with a silence that seemed to last for minutes. She supposed he was examining her words from every possible angle before committing himself to a reply. Even then his answer gave the minimum information.

  ‘I really can’t be sure,’ he was saying. ‘I just don’t want to commit myself when I’m not certain about the reliability of the information I have.’

  ‘I’m only here to find out what you’ve picked up about these Romanian girls. The report we got was that you’d got a whisper about some new girls who were about to hit the streets. I was sent down just to check out the details.’ She paused, teeth gritted. ‘It’s the murders, sir. We need every bit of intelligence we can get. We know another small group of girls were brought across about two weeks ago. After what we found on that farm, we need to find them before it’s too late.’

  She tried desperately not to look across at Sophie, who was sitting at a nearby table reading a magazine. Could she hear all this? Blood from a stone was an understatement.

  ‘How sure can you be about your information?’ he asked.

  ‘We know they were smuggled in through Poole Harbour a couple of weeks ago, because we have one of them who managed to escape. So we’re in no doubt, sir.’

  He frowned and took another sip of coffee.

  Pillay was angry now. ‘Look, if you’ve got information that might help us, it’s your duty to share it. Sir.’

  ‘Unless it puts my work at risk,’ he answered immediately. ‘My snouts, my leads, my efforts. Do you think I’m going to risk losing all my contacts? I’ve put years into them. They trust me.’ His voice had become sharper.

  ‘We found two buried bodies, for Christ’s sake. Give me something at least,’ replied Pillay, pink faced. ‘I have to know something. Please?’

  ‘Five new girls is what I’m told,’ he replied.

  ‘Romanian? Can you confirm that?’

  ‘It’s possible, but I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that some of the local girls aren’t happy about it.’

  ‘Do you know who might be running them?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Does the name Midwinter Tide mean anything to you, sir?’

  Again he shook his head.

  ‘So there’s nothing else you can give me?’

  ‘No. It’s all rumour. Everything is in my line of work. The key is separating what might be true from the rest of the junk, which is often put there deliberately. What’s the expression? Smoke and mirrors? It’s a dark world, being undercover. The crooks know I’m around, so much of what I get could just be misinformation.’ He stood up. ‘That’s the best I can do for you.’

  She nodded. ‘Well, thank you, sir.’

  He turned to go. ‘Next week. Possibly.’

  * * *

  ‘So you knew he was going to be like that?’

  ‘Well, I suspected. It’s just his manner. He sees himself as a bit of a maverick. He’s been undercover for some time. It’s a kind of experiment HQ is trying. He guards his secrets, keeps them close to his chest, so I had to find a way of coaxing the information out of him. And it worked, didn’t it? You played your part well, Lydia.’

  ‘He was so frustrating. The way he examined every question I asked, then looked at me as if I was some kind of forensic specimen. It gave me the creeps.’

  ‘The thing is, Lydia, he keeps his ear really close to the ground, so he’s always the first to pick up on anything new in this part of the county. Well, that’s what Kevin McGreedie told me. It was Kevin who suggested that you take the lead. He said that if I used my rank, we’d get absolutely nothing. Apparently he’s totally opposed to any form of hierarchy. He’s a kind of lone wolf. We got what we came for, so let’s go home.’

  Chapter 19: Need Your Love So Bad

  Thursday, Week 2

  Neither of the Howards had any religious faith. The loss and emptiness that followed Graham’s disappearance had led them both to question any beliefs they might once have had. So they decided to hold the funeral service at Gloucester’s crematorium.

  Sophie looked around her as she stepped from the black limousine. She’d expected to see a handful of people and was taken aback by the numbers present. Many of them were friends and neighbours of the Howards, but she caught sight of several figures in uniform. Her boss, Dorset’s chief constable, with ACC Jim Metcalfe and Matt Silver. Kevin McGreedie had come across from his Bournemouth base. She also spotted Archie Campbell, now ACC for West Midlands. There were several officers standing with DC Peter Spence, presumably from the Gloucester force. Finally, Tom Rose, Barry Marsh and Lydia Pillay from Swanage. Sophie swallowed. The level of support from all her colleagues, past and present, was overwhelming. They were all such busy people. How could they do this? She was about to say something to Martin, but realised that she wouldn’t be able to speak. She straightened the jacket of her dress uniform, squeezed Martin’s hand tightly, and stepped forward to take her mother’s arm. She walked into the building and the inner chapel as if in a dream.

  Susan had chosen the first piece of music: Fleetwood Mac’s “Need Your Love So Bad”. Sophie knew its significance. It had been the song her mother and father had listened to together, on the evening she’d been conceived.

  A local representative of the Humanist Society conducted the service, and Martin gave the eulogy:

  ‘I feel privileged to be able to speak about Graham Howard, because, in a way, I’ve known a part of him throughout my adult life. The part I speak of is, of course, his daughter and my wife, Sophie. He would have been so proud of Sophie, of the person she is and the things she has achieved. O
f her calm nature, and yet her love of excitement. Of her brilliant mind, and yet even more importantly, of her wonderful ability to empathise. Many of her qualities were his too. His friends speak of his open-mindedness, and of his willingness to listen to their problems. Of his gentle nature, of his great personal strength of character and of his tenacity.

  ‘Graham was born in Gloucester on the fifteenth of May, 1949. James and Florence were overjoyed at the birth of their son. He proved to be everything they wanted: mild-tempered, contented yet interested in the world around him. He was a cheerful and bright child, who excelled at his local primary school, passing the eleven-plus exam with ease to get into the city’s grammar school. He was a good all-rounder, but enjoyed the sciences above all other subjects. Hence his decision to study biochemistry at university. This subject was then in its infancy, but he foresaw how it would expand during the latter part of the century into an area of major scientific importance. Throughout this time, he also kept up his love of literature, particularly poetry. He particularly liked the oriental verse form.

  ‘He decided that he didn’t want to travel too far away from his parents, James and Florence, for his university education, so he started at Bristol in the autumn of 1967. He worked hard, enjoyed his studies, and joined in with several sports, notably rowing.

  ‘It was at a dance organised by the rowing club that he met Susan. Anyone who has met Susan will tell you what a striking person she is. Knowing her the way I do as my mother-in-law, I can understand him being completely bowled over by this sparkling and vivacious woman. He thought that she was an eighteen-year-old bank employee, as did everyone else there. In fact she was a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl.

  ‘To say that they fell in love is an understatement. It was as if they were truly meant for each other. Florence and James have kept his diaries and some of his notebooks, and can attest to his single-minded love for Susan. Some of his poems to her are beautiful and will be read in a few minutes by Hannah and Jade, his two granddaughters.