Comply or Die

by Tony Hutchinson

  ‘Mine are only little ones,’ Ed clapped his hands. ‘Right, I’ve got a van around the corner. They’ll take it away. Do you need five minutes to tell the charming Charlene what’s happening?’

  ‘Any problems?’ Bev said, as Ed got back into the car.

  ‘Good as gold. I’ll give him a couple of minutes to break the bad news to Charlene.’

  ‘Was that the blonde who glared at me?’

  Ed couldn’t kill the smile: ‘Yeah, she thinks you bat for the other side.’

  ‘Cheeky cow.’ Bev glared at the house.

  Billy Wilson appeared at the door and nodded. Ed called Julie Trescothick’s mobile and within a couple of minutes a white Transit pulled up behind Ed.

  Ed opened his car door, but didn’t get out.

  He spoke to Julie. ‘Can you just take it straight down to the lab?’

  ‘No problem.’

  Ed drove away, his thoughts on an 18-year-old girl he hoped had escaped to a new life.

  Bev answered her phone.

  ‘Hi Tony… really? Is he sure? If he only got a glimpse, he could be mistaken…100 per cent. Okay. Thanks then… Yeah, I’ll get back in touch. Cheers.’

  Bev turned to look at Ed. ‘Tony Welch. Plymouth CID.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘The guy driving the car into the garage?’ Bev said. ‘The witness is adamant. It wasn’t Sukhi.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘One hundred per cent certain,’ Bev said, sitting in a chair next to Ed, facing Sam.

  Sam had been hoping it was Sukhi but now she wondered if he was going to sell the car, the buyer would more likely be another Asian.

  She told Bev and Ed what she was thinking.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Ed said. ‘But bearing in mind they’re running, I reckon they’ll be avoiding the Asian community. They’d have too many questions to answer.’

  ‘Like what?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Like where are you from, where are your parents from, what village are your parents from? What are you doing here? They’ll be terrified someone will know their parents. They might want to avoid any contact. How new is his car?’

  ‘Fifty-nine plate,’ Bev said.

  ‘Why not just go to an Internet café and sell it on one of those ‘we’ll buy anything’ sites?’ Ed went on. ‘What if they didn’t drive it to Plymouth? What if someone just wants us think they did?’

  ‘Family?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Could be anybody,’ Ed said. ‘Let’s say they didn’t get away. There might be a circumstance when Aisha’s family need to get shot of the car. Burning it out up here would be too suspicious. But what if they drove it to a place where they found out the couple might go? We know Beth told Aisha about Cornwall. I don’t think the immediate family would drive the car but they could get anybody to do it. And I mean anybody. A lot of people would be sympathetic and on their side.’

  Sam was shaking her head, struggling to understand how a parent could hurt their own.

  Ed was reading her mind.

  ‘It happens,’ he said simply.

  Sam told them she wanted door-to-door teams knocking on houses in Aisha’s street the following evening.

  ‘As opposed to house to house?’ Bev asked, the difference important.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Sam said. ‘There’s no need to speak to every member of the household just yet. Let’s do door to door. It’ll be much quicker. If we need to opt for house to house, that’s an option further down the line. If Aisha went home after she got off the bus, she can’t have had much time. Her mother was home just after six. It is a small time window. Let’s see if anyone saw anything.’

  ‘Uniform did that at the time,’ Ed said.

  ‘I know, and I don’t expect to get anything this time, but you never know. We just need someone who’s fallen out with the Bhandals since. It’s also an opportunity to see what reaction we get from the family. Tell them and everybody in the street it’s the so-many-weeks anniversary of her going missing. I’ll get the Post on board, give Darius a call.’

  The onions were huge and the curry sauce was so thick Sam imagined it sticking to her ribs. She had been about to go the canteen and get a sandwich when Bev said she was doing the Chinese run.

  In the HOLMES room, the Scottish voice of a ‘Yes’ campaigner was coming from the television. Sam swore to herself as the plastic fork snapped, a fine spray of curry sauce splattering her white shirt. Thankfully there was always a collection of metal forks in the office, forks that never found their way back to the canteen. Her white blouse could wait. The curry was delicious.

  The office manager, a Detective Sergeant, answered his desk phone, his fork stirring his curry as he listened. He put the phone down.

  ‘That was the lab. There’s blood on the settee. Human blood.’

  Sam wiped her mouth: ‘Keep that to yourselves. I don’t want it leaving this room.’

  Heads nodded. Everyone knew the importance of keeping quiet and the penalty for a loose tongue.

  ‘We sit tight on the settee... ’

  Spontaneous laughter rumbled through the room.

  ‘Very funny,’ Sam shouted. ‘You know what I mean. Let’s see if we can identify who the blood belongs to.’

  Everyone finished eating in silence. Sam knew they were all hoping the same thing; the blood wasn’t Aisha’s.

  Luke Wylam contacted Sam just after 3pm and suggested they meet at the sea-front car park in an hour.

  There was a salty crispness to the air, the best efforts of the sun losing its battle against the chilled breeze sweeping from the sea. Sam stood by her car, watching the seagulls following a trawler coming into port, the birds’ equivalent of a fast food outlet.

  Was this Wylam heading slowly towards her? Head down, rounded shoulders, hands in pocket, probably walking at half his normal pace, walking to a meeting he didn’t want to attend.

  ‘Luke?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Sam said.

  ‘Did I have a choice?’

  He was surly, unshaven, and anxious, perhaps even frightened.

  ‘Let’s cut to the chase then,’ Sam told him. ‘You said on the phone you wanted to talk about an assault but don’t want to make a complaint. Believe me when I say, young man, it’s years since I took a report of an assault. I’m here because you said you were attacked on the tow path when you were drunk. Correct?’

  ‘Yeah.’ His eyes bored as deep into the ground as his hands did in his pockets.

  ‘Well I haven’t time to mess about. Tell me what happened and don’t leave anything out.’

  She reached into her coat pocket, flipped open a packet of cigarettes, and offered him one.

  He shook his head.

  ‘It was a Saturday night,’ he began. ‘Well, Sunday morning, a few weeks ago. I’d been thrown out of the Jolly Roger. The doorman said I was being an arse. He’s younger than me, cocky bastard.’

  ‘Do me a favour, Luke. Look at me when you’re talking,’ Sam said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Gives me more of a clue whether or not you’re lying.’

  ‘I’m not.’ He shifted his weight, just once, from side to side.

  ‘Then you won’t mind looking at me,’ Sam insisted. ‘Why did you get thrown out? Be specific. What did you do?’

  He looked up.

  ‘I slapped this girl’s arse, tried to get a kiss off her,’ Wylam said. ‘I pulled her, she pushed me and I went backwards. Her and her mates laughed. I went to go back to her – I was angry – but before I knew it, the young doorman’s got hold of me. Took me outside.’

  An image of Tom King flashed through Sam’s mind. He seemed to have a knack of being in the right place at the right time. Or maybe he kept an eye on particular individuals.

  ‘Are you a member of any silly boys’ groups wearing T-shirts that some may find demeaning to women?’ Sam asked.

  Wylam’s eyes dropped again.

  ‘Mortimers. There’s
a few of us in it. It’s just a bit of a laugh, you know.’

  ‘I know some of the people I work with take a slightly different view.’ Sam’s voiced was loaded with disdain. ‘What happened on the tow path?’

  ‘Somebody grabbed me from behind,’ Wylam said. ‘I didn’t hear them coming. Punched me on the back of the head, just once. I stumbled forward. Then he kicked me in the stomach. I went down, puked up. He whispered ‘prick’ and jogged off. It looked like the young bouncer but I only saw him from behind and I don’t want this going any further. If you arrest him, I’ll say I can’t describe him?’

  ‘I understand,’ Sam said.

  ‘It was him though,’ Wylam went on. ‘He’s so tall, and no way could an ordinary lad kick that hard. It was like a proper UFC job.’

  ‘A what?’ Sam was thrown.

  ‘Ultimate Fighting Championship,’ Wylam said, a look of ‘what planet have you been on?’ crossing his face. ‘Cage fighting. You know, martial arts. It was ages before I got up. I couldn’t breathe.’

  Wylam touched his head and told Sam he had been left with a lump behind his ear and a large bruise across his stomach.

  ‘Do you know Jack Goddard?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘The leader of Mortimers?’

  Wylam scowled. ‘Liked to think he was. He set it up but most of us knew who the real leader was.’

  ‘And that is?’ Sam pressed.

  ‘Elliott Prince.’

  Ed walked into Sam’s office. Bev Summers was already there.

  ‘Guess who comes out of Rendezvous at about 2.45am on the morning Jack Goddard’s killed?’ Sam said.

  Ed felt tired. He hadn’t been right since the curry and couldn’t be bothered with the guess-who game.

  He lowered himself into a chair, his forehead suddenly clammy.

  ‘You alright?’ Sam said. ‘You’re white as a ghost.’

  Paul Adams walked past the office.

  ‘Paul, any chance of a cuppa?’ Sam called out. ‘Do one for Ed, plenty of sugar.’

  Ed loosened his tie. ‘So who is coming out of the club?’

  ‘Tom King,’ Sam said. ‘So much for him going home after work.’

  ‘He must have gone home and come back out,’ Ed told her. ‘He was too sure the taxi driver would alibi him.’

  Paul appeared with the tea. ‘The kettle had just boiled.’

  Ed had just put shaking fingers around the mug when he fell from his chair, the steaming tea hitting the floor a fraction before he did.

  Paul dropped to his knees and was rolling Ed away from the tea before Sam and Bev were out of their seats. Ed was out cold as Paul struggled to move him into the recovery position.

  Bev ran to the toilets, returning with dampened toilet paper she used to mop Ed’s brow and face.

  Slowly he began to come round and Sam helped Paul lift him so he was sitting with his back against the wall.

  ‘Take it easy, Ed,’ Sam said. ‘You passed out.’

  Ed’s speech was slurred, his eyes fighting to focus.

  ‘No idea what happened there. Sorry…Thanks,’ he mumbled.

  ‘You need a doctor,’ Sam told him. ‘Bev, can you call?’

  Ed slowly shook his head and began to clamber to his feet.

  ‘No need for that,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine. Maybe something I’ve eaten. More embarrassed than anything.’

  Sam pressed him but Ed, sounding more like himself as the minutes passed, was adamant.

  The compromise was Paul driving him home.

  ‘I’ll ring you later,’ Sam said, still shaken. ‘And don’t worry about coming in tomorrow. Get some rest. Play it by ear. And I still think you need a doctor.’

  Ed managed a weak smile. ‘I’ll be okay.’

  When Paul and Ed, still unsteady, had left, Bev shook her head.

  ‘None of us are getting any younger, and we still push ourselves,’ she said. ‘This is a young person’s game, Sam. Me and Ed, we’re not in our 30s any more. Long hours. Constant pressure. It’s no wonder he flaked out.’

  Sam nodded, wondering if she was pushing her team too hard.

  ‘Let’s see how he is tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Tell everybody to knock off early tonight, get a flyer. Paul’s done the interview strategies for Tracey, Alex and Charlotte. We’ll get them in tomorrow, and I want Tom King bringing in as well. That should do for tomorrow. Hopefully by Saturday tea-time the lab will have the DNA results on the blood.’

  ‘Okay,’ Bev said, ‘And Sam, don’t just preach to us. Look after yourself. How your brain doesn’t go pop... ’

  Sam’s eyes were dull with fatigue but she couldn’t switch off.

  ‘You know the most interesting thing I learnt today, Bev?’ Sam said. ‘The real leader of the Mortimers is Elliott Prince.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sam eyed the microwave glumly and searched the freezer. There was a pasta dish she might eat later but for now, the lunchtime curry would do. She went to the wine chiller, selected a 2010 Albert Grivault, and popped the cork on the bottle of white burgundy.

  She had spoken to Sue Whelan before she left the office. Ed was sleeping.

  She kicked off her shoes, walked into the sitting room and sat down.

  Elliott Prince was a conundrum, identified by Ed as the weak link but who had nonetheless thrown paint through a police station window. He was a frightened young man when he brought them the picture of Jamie Telford, then played down taking photographs of sleeping girls. He was also the student who named all the dead in the river as wearing the ‘slags and beer’ T-shirts.

  Sam tilted her glass, looked at the clarity of the wine, took a long sniff, swirled her glass, and sniffed again. Elliott Prince was bothering her. What was that film? The weak member of the gang, a man with a limp, turned out to be the leader... convincingly lied his way through a police interview. What was it called?

  ‘The Usual Suspects’, Sam said aloud, remembering Kevin Spacey’s turn as the bad guy, Keyser Söze.

  Sam leaned back, closed her eyes. Was Elliott Prince their own Keyser Söze? She laughed. Bev was right. They were all in danger of cracking up. She took a sip of burgundy.

  Friday 18th April 2014

  As soon as she walked into the building, one of the detectives from the Intelligence Cell appeared behind her.

  ‘Boss, I’ve got the text traffic between Tracey Davies, Charlotte Swains, and Alex O’Connell.’

  Sam stopped. ‘Anything useful?’

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘Bring your stuff up to my office.’

  Sitting at the desk, she laid out the analytical chart. A series of boxes contained a typed message then the name of the sender.

  ‘This lot is just for the night of Jack Goddard’s murder, the Saturday through until Sunday,’ the detective told her.

  Sam read the messages, most of them none evidential but short snaps of conversations giving a glimpse into the lives of young female students. The messages after 9pm caused Sam to sit up.

  9.16pm. Tracey Davies. To Amber University. Some cheeky twat wearing those T-shirts walked up to me in the pub and asked for a shag

  9.30pm. Tracey Davies. To Amber University. Bouncer threw him out after he threw pint over him I hope he beats the shit out of him

  9.50pm. Amber University. To Tracey Davies. See where he goes. Might be able to get something later.

  ‘Do we know who this Amber University is?’ Sam asked.

  The detective shook his head: ‘No. She’s listed in all three phones as Amber University, same number. We’re getting a subscriber check done.’

  Sam already knew exactly who she was.

  10.20pm. Alex O’Connell. To Tracey Davies. Are you two in Rendezvous

  10.20pm. Alex O’Connell. To Charlotte Swains. Are you two in Rendezvous

  10.35pm. Tracey Davies. To Alexander O’Connell. Yes and so are the wankers.

  ‘No messages from Charlotte?’ Sam asked

  ‘Not yet,�
� the detective told her. ‘Later though.’

  12.33am. Tracey Davies. To Amber University. Tossers in Rendezvous.

  12.38am. Amber University. To Tracey Davies. Do what you can

  03.35am. Tracey Davies. To Amber University. Me and Charlotte just left. Not alone.

  03.36am. Amber University. To Tracey Davies. Where’s Alex.

  03.37am. Tracey Davies. To Amber University. Still in club.

  03.37am. Amber University. To Tracey Davies. Are they pissed?

  03.38am. Tracey Davies. To Amber University. Mortal

  03.44am. Alex O’Connell. To Charlotte Swains. You ok.

  03.44am. Alex O’Connell. To Tracey Davies. You ok.

  03.46am. Tracey Davies. To Alex O’Connell. Yes.

  ‘Is that the lot?’ said Sam, looking up.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Any pictures?’

  ‘Just the usual rubbish they all seem to take,’ the detective said. ‘Nothing of interest to us.’

  Sam was disappointed. Those conversations could be about anyone, anywhere. They could deny all the messages were about Jack Goddard.

  The detective spoke again. ‘We’ve also triangulated the phones. Tracey’s and Charlotte’s are by the tow path. Alex O’Connell’s phone’s in the town centre.’

  Sam stood up, slowly. ‘Wow. Good work.’

  ‘Cheers Boss.’

  Ed called Sam as he left the house and she told him about yesterday’s conversation with Luke Wylam.

  He felt better after a decent night’s sleep, but passing out for the first time in his life worried him. Why had that happened? Sue told him to take things easy, have a few days off, make an appointment with the doctor. She wasn’t happy he was going into work on Good Friday but he had too much on his plate. He’d get around to the doctor eventually.