1911021494

by MICHAEL HAMBLING

  ‘She said he’d had enough. He hadn’t told her all of it until that final conversation when she walked away. And he claimed he didn’t know about the murders. He said that his main job was running the boat and getting supplies. He was away a lot, so was a bit out of touch. He walked out on them when he found out. That would have corresponded with us finding the bodies last week. She said that he seemed genuinely disturbed by it. And depressed,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Maybe. It just seems odd, that’s all.’ Marsh still seemed unconvinced.

  ‘I wonder if the rest of the gang are starting to panic,’ McGreedie said.

  ‘It’s difficult to say. They’ve now killed two of their own. The young lad Stefan, when he started making noises after he recognised Nadia — although he wasn’t important. But this Blossom character was a lot further up the hierarchy, I’d guess. He was listed as one of the directors of the front company, Midwinter Tide. One of the others, Hazel Duff, died a couple of years ago. Maybe there’s a power struggle going on and the others are feeling the pressure. Who knows? But at least we know a bit more about who we’re up against. We need to be cautious, Kevin. Any gang that can kill its own members so easily is very dangerous. This man Ricky Frimwell looks to be a psychopathic sadist from what we’ve discovered so far. And the man at the top, this Charlie Duff character? He could be the same.’ She paused. ‘And thanks to both of you for your concern. But you’ve no need to worry about me, really. I’m feeling a lot better about things this morning. I slept well last night for the first time in a fortnight, although I’d have been even better if this coffee was drinkable.’

  She peered into the cup at the dregs. Barry Marsh hadn’t even finished his.

  * * *

  In the Swanage incident room, Pillay was on the phone.

  ‘No, I don’t think you should search it. Just leave it exactly as it is and withdraw. Get your squad car pulled right back out of sight and we’ll get someone over as soon as we can. We’ll just leave a plainclothes officer on watch, but we don’t want to spook any of the gang if they come for it.’

  She put down the phone and turned to Sophie and Marsh.

  ‘That was the Poole control room. They’ve found the boat. They were about to search it, but you probably heard what I said. I thought it was better to keep a watch on it in case someone pays a visit. It’s tied up on a small mooring in Lytchett Bay, a creek off the north end of Poole Harbour. It’s almost completely covered by a tarpaulin. The name’s hidden, but one of the men took a peek under the covering.’

  ‘Absolutely right, Lydia. We’ll get Jimmy across there. He can have a quick look inside, then keep a watch.’

  ‘I could do it, ma’am. I’ve done all the other boat stuff.’

  ‘No, Lydia. I’ve got something else planned for you. So brief Jimmy, then get back to me in ten minutes. This is going to take a bit of planning.’

  * * *

  The night was cold and dank. A bone-chilling breeze was coming in from the west. They were protected by the high ground of the Wyke Regis and Charlestown areas west of Weymouth’s town centre, but the cold was numbing. Sophie wondered how long Pillay and Nadia would be able to keep up their watch. At least she and Marsh were sitting in a car, albeit with the engine off. The two young women were walking slowly around the seedy area by the railway station, on the lookout for street girls. Both wore hats and scarves. Sophie judged that it would be impossible for anyone to recognise the young Romanian girl. She was hoping that if the gang had decided to put the women out onto the streets, Nadia would recognise them. So far the two of them had made three wide circuits of the area, but to no avail. The pavements were empty. At one in the morning, Sophie finally called them back to the car.

  ‘We’ll give it another try tomorrow,’ she said. ‘There’s just no sign of life at all.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, ma’am. It’s Monday and too bloody cold for anyone to even think of being out on the streets looking for a girl. I’m perishing.’ Pillay warmed her fingers on a cup of coffee.

  Nadia rubbed her hands, but her eyes were bright. ‘We’ll come every night until they are here. I do not mind cold. We must find Sorina.’

  Pillay sighed. ‘She’s right. If they are going to be put onto the streets, then this is the right place. We did spot one working girl and had a brief chat, but she only hung around for a few minutes. They’ll be working by phone tonight. I’ll just have to pile on more thermal undies for tomorrow night.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, Lydia,’ Sophie said. ‘Now let’s all get home to our warm beds. We’ll meet again tomorrow morning at eleven. Try to get a good sleep.’

  * * *

  Thirty miles away, hidden from view in the porch of a chandler’s store, Jimmy Melsom was also chilled to the bone. He was sitting deep in the shadows on a low wall beside the entrance door, with a direct view of Midwinter Tide’s mooring. He kept glancing at his watch as the minutes ticked away. During the four hours he had spent on watch, no one had visited the area. If the weather had been more benign he would have considered staying beyond one o’clock. As it was, in these freezing conditions he would need the car heater on full for the thirty minute drive home.

  He left the porch and walked along the quayside to his car, trying to keep to the shadows. He got in and drove away.

  The gap-toothed man watched from a small jeep parked in a shadowy unloading bay between two tall buildings alongside the approach road. He’d only arrived a few minutes before and had, as usual, kept watch for five minutes before getting out. He’d been about to open the door of the jeep when a man walked by. Why had they been waiting in the shadows? Who was he? He stayed in the vehicle and took up his mobile phone.

  ‘Boss? There could have been someone watching the boat. He’s just walked to a car and driven away. Might be a cop. But there’s no one else around now. Do you think I should give the boat a miss and come back?’

  He listened and then walked towards the boat. He boarded Midwinter Tide but didn’t stay for long. In less than half an hour he’d started up the jeep and was heading west.

  Chapter 27: Conjectures Confirmed

  Tuesday, Week 2

  Inspector Constantin Enescu from the Romanian police arrived at Dorset police headquarters late on Tuesday morning. Sophie was there to meet him, along with Chief Superintendent Neil Dunnett. Matt Silver had collected him from Bristol airport and had brought him up to date on the case. He and Sophie were looking for confirmation that the Romanian end of the operation was either under close observation or had been broken up.

  Enescu, a tall, dark-haired man in his early fifties, confirmed that the Bucharest authorities had opted to keep watch. They had infiltrated the suspected gang with an undercover operative, but had made little progress in discovering any more detail about the UK side of the operations. The Romanian gang had lost all contact with their British counterparts. They were now attempting to expand into Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France.

  ‘We are gaining plenty of information about the methods they use, and we now have the names of most of the girls who’ve recently been taken to these other countries. Once we have all the information we need, we will move in on the gang while the police in the other countries arrest the men holding the young women there.’

  ‘Does this mean that the gang have more contact with the men holding the women in the rest of Europe?’ asked Sophie. ‘I mean compared to here, where we think they lost contact as soon as the girls were handed over?’

  ‘Yes, that is so. In the other countries, it is Romanian criminals who have the girls and run them as prostitutes. This means that some of the profits come back to the gang leaders in my country. They have retained control. We think they learned how to do it from observing the gang here in Britain. It was the first.’

  ‘Do you know when it started?’ asked Silver.

  ‘More than ten years, we think. We have just interviewed one woman who has found her way back to my country. She managed to escape from the men wh
o were working her in your country. She then made her way to Amsterdam and worked there for herself for many years. Once she had saved enough money she returned to Timisoara to look after her mother who had become ill. But she is not telling us anything helpful yet about the men in Britain. She says that all the police are sexist pigs. There were lots of times when police could have helped or even rescued her but didn’t bother. So she says why should she help us now?’

  ‘But she might be saving the lives of these latest young women,’ Sophie said.

  ‘I have said that to her myself. But she is, what you say, hardened? There is no kindness or softness left in her. Her life has been a cruel one, I think, and it has had its effect on her. She wants nothing more to do with any of it.’

  ‘So there is nothing more you can help us with?’

  ‘Not yet. We plan to move in on the gang within a month, once we have all the information we need. After that we will let you know anything we find out as we interrogate the men involved. But we cannot arrest them any earlier. It must be done at the same time as the police in the other countries so that no one escapes. But there is one thing. One of the original gang, a man named Barbu, has stayed here in England. He is probably the one in day-to-day contact with the girls.’

  ‘Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘She said that he is cruel and enjoys violence. A sadist? Is that the right word?’

  Sophie nodded. ‘Yes. That fits with what we know about the gang over here. We suspect that there is at least one Romanian national still with them. Now, how can we help you?’

  ‘I would like to interview the young woman you have, the one who escaped. Her information will add to what we know about how the gang traps these women, and she can confirm many of the details we are unsure about.’

  ‘Yes. We expected that you would, so we have brought her along. She is waiting in another office. Your English is very good, Inspector. Have you been to Britain before?’

  ‘I spent three months here some years ago. I was nominated to take part in a joint programme run by your Home Office and my country’s police department at a time when we were looking to modernise. I had good English before then, which was one of the reasons I was chosen. I was here as an assistant and translator to a chestor. That is equivalent to your assistant chief constable, I think.’

  ‘Are you in charge of the investigation into the gang?’ asked Dunnett.

  ‘No, sir. A comisar is running the investigation because of the links with other countries. But I am involved because of my experience, and because I also speak French as well as English. So I am in charge of the international links with the other police forces.’

  ‘There is something else, Inspector,’ Sophie added. ‘On Friday night we discovered the bodies of two young women buried on the same farm. They’d both been murdered in the same way, by what seems to be a frenzied knife attack. They’ve been dead for up to two or three years. They haven’t been identified yet, but it’s possible they are Romanian. We’re still waiting for the results of DNA analysis. We’ve asked for ethnic characteristics to be included in the check to give us a better idea of their backgrounds. One of us will contact you immediately if we find them to be Romanian. It would speed things up if you already had details of any missing women from the same area as the ones we are currently looking for.’

  Enescu nodded.

  Sophie sat in on the interview with Nadia. She had told the young woman that she need not answer anything that was too upsetting. But the Romanian officer was professional and very gentle. He translated both his questions and Nadia’s responses into English for Sophie’s benefit. Enescu made detailed notes of all Nadia’s answers. He took time to crosscheck with a document he had brought with him. Clearly he had prepared most of his questions well in advance, or had them prepared for him. Sophie was impressed with his professionalism.

  When he’d finished, Sophie asked him to keep her updated on the investigation in Romania, particularly following the planned actions in France and Holland. She bade him goodbye, and took Nadia back to her mother in the safe house. They would be back out on the streets of Weymouth that coming night.

  * * *

  Sophie returned to the incident room in Swanage where Barry Marsh was talking to Jimmy Melsom about the boat.

  ‘Who’s watching it now?’ she asked.

  ‘A DC from Poole,’ Melsom replied. I’ll take over again late afternoon if you want me to, but I’m not sure it will be very productive, ma’am. I found something odd when I went back first thing this morning.’

  ‘Explain, please, Jimmy.’

  ‘I know you told me to watch it only until about one last night, and it was perishing cold, so I was glad to come away. But I was a bit unhappy about leaving it completely unwatched, so I left a couple of small oil spills on the gangplank, and a few small smears on the grab handles to the cabin. I did it earlier in the evening, when there were other people about. And someone had been on the boat after I left last night. There’s a footprint on the gangplank, and smears on the door handle.’

  ‘Fingerprints?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Whoever it was had gloves on. The thing is, ma’am, just before I came away I did hear a vehicle approaching, but it didn’t come into the car park. I checked carefully as I left, and there was no vehicle there that wasn’t there earlier when I arrived. It must have parked somewhere else. I must have missed him by a matter of minutes. I could kick myself.’

  ‘I feel like kicking myself every single day, Jimmy. Don’t worry.’ Sophie was looking through a sheaf of papers in her in-tray, marked “Urgent and Confidential”.

  ‘Nothing else had changed, you say? I wonder what he was doing.’

  ‘If he went inside, maybe he was removing anything incriminating,’ Marsh suggested. ‘Now we know that there’s been some activity, why don’t we just break into the boat and search it? My guess is that they’ve been and gone. We could have a video surveillance system set up to pick up anyone who does visit, though I don’t think it’s likely. That gives us the option of using Jimmy with us in Weymouth tonight.’

  Sophie seemed to have stopped listening. Finally she lifted her eyes from the papers. For the first time in this investigation they looked cold and calculating.

  ‘Sounds good to me. Can you arrange it, Jimmy? Barry and I have some DNA profiling to discuss.’

  Holding the papers, she walked with Marsh through to her office and closed the door behind them.

  ‘The body we found buried at that depot looks to be that of Andy Thompson. He was on the fringes of a gang operating out of the West Midlands twenty years ago.’

  ‘Who did the profile match with?’ Marsh asked.

  ‘His half-brother, Billy.’

  Marsh looked troubled. ‘Isn’t he the one in hospital? The one whose gang killed your father?’

  ‘Yes. Which is why I’m telling you, and only you. I don’t want this spread around, Barry. I don’t want people whispering about me, or my father. We’ve got to keep our eye on the ball here.’

  ‘But, ma’am, couldn’t some kind of conflict arise because of this?’

  ‘No. There will be no conflict.’

  ‘What about the gun?’

  ‘The gun is still under analysis. It’s been buried there as long as the body. We’ll probably never know whether it was the one that shot Thompson, because he was killed by a bullet in the head that went in and came out.’

  Marsh looked at her. ‘You know that’s not what I meant, Sophie.’

  ‘There will be no conflict.’

  She turned and walked out. It was only as she walked down the corridor, her hands shaking and the nausea rising in her throat, that she realised that for the first time, Marsh had called her Sophie. And she knew why. He was wondering if the buried gun was the one that had killed her father. She knew it was. It was confirmed by the emailed forensic report in her hand.

  * * *

  Melsom and Marsh, with a small forensic squad, broke into
the boat that afternoon. It was immediately apparent why the vessel had been visited the previous night. There was a strong smell of bleach in the cabin and the small bridge. The surfaces had all been wiped clean.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ one of the forensic team said. ‘We’ll find something, somewhere. From what you’ve said, it will have been a quick wipe down and they’ll have overlooked something.’

  The documents cupboard had been left hanging open, emptied of its contents.

  ‘I think we’ll get it towed somewhere secure once you’ve finished your first check,’ Marsh said. ‘Then you can really get to work on it.’

  * * *

  That night in Weymouth was as unproductive, and as uncomfortable, as the previous one. A biting wind blew in from the north-west, carrying occasional flurries of sleet. The few people out on the streets hurried from pub to car or taxi as fast as they could, hunched into their coats with their collars drawn up. Nadia and Pillay made two rapid circuits but met no one. No girls were out on the streets on such a vicious night. They finished the evening by making a quick visit to the two late-night clubs that were still open, looking to see if any of the girls were inside, but they were both empty.

  Shit, thought Sophie as they drove away. This is all falling apart.

  Chapter 28: Not for the Faint Hearted

  Wednesday

  The doorbell rang just before eight. Jennie was sipping a mug of tea and listening to the weather forecast on the radio. She walked to the door, looked through the small spyhole, then opened it.

  ‘Good morning,’ Sophie said, trying to sound brighter than she felt. ‘Sorry to call so early, but I wanted to be sure of catching you in.’

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ asked Jennie, as she ushered the detective into her large, airy kitchen.

  Sophie could hear from the weather forecast that the current cold snap was coming to an end. Temperatures would climb during the day as a bank of milder air moved in from the south-west. Thank God, she thought. Yet another visit to Weymouth was planned for tonight, and she really didn’t know how her body could stand a repeat of the previous two nights’ freezing temperatures. She was worn out, and knew it.