A Narrow Trajectory

by Faith Martin

  ‘But surely he’s not going to play ball with us now? Not when his boss will be on high alert, what with the news that we’re looking into missing girls again,’ Rollo said.

  ‘Yes, but there are two things that will help with that.’ Hillary leaned forward slightly in her chair. ‘The one thing we’re all agreed on is that Darren would be normally very wary indeed of meeting Jake again in case his boss finds out and wonders what he’s up to. Right?’

  ‘Right.’ Rollo nodded.

  ‘But if he is seen talking to Jake, he’s now got the perfect cover for that. He can either say that Jake had approached him to talk about the missing girls. Or, if he prefers, he can tell Medcalfe that, as the brother of one of the missing girls, he was attempting to find out how much bother Jake would be to them and was trying to warn him off.’

  ‘Got it. Yes, that’s clever.’ Rollo nodded again and followed the thought through. ‘All Chivnor has to say is that he was threatening Jake with a knife in his ribs one dark night to warn him off co-operating with the police.’

  ‘Right,’ Hillary said. ‘Plus, when Medcalfe finds out that Jake’s working as a civilian here at HQ, it will instantly make him a high-priority threat. In which case, he’d probably send Darren to sort him out anyway – he’s one of his most trusted and experienced enforcers. He sure as hell won’t want to get his hands dirty himself.’

  ‘OK. So that’s one reason why Chivnor might feel brave enough to risk re-establishing contact with our boy. And since I understand that Jake’s already offered to give him a fortune, greed will also have been eating away at him all this time. And let’s not underestimate good old greed.’ Rollo smiled wolfishly. ‘But what’s the second thing? You said there were two things in our favour.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘The other is pressure. Before, Darren wasn’t in any hurry. He could afford to take his time. But as soon as Medcalfe hears about our MisPer review he’s bound to get nervy. And a nervy boss is an unpredictable boss. So if Darren is going to get his pay-off and get out of the country, he’s got to do it fast. In other words – he’s now motivated.’

  Steven shifted slightly in his chair. ‘This is beginning to sound a bit iffy to me, Hill,’ he said tersely.

  ‘Oh yes. It is,’ Hillary agreed, making no bones about it. ‘And we’re going to have to warn Jake and play strictly fair with him. Drum it in to him that he’ll be playing a dangerous game. That Chivnor could turn on him at any moment. You’ve seen him,’ she said to Steven, ‘He’s hell bent on doing whatever it takes to get answers about his sister, he’s that desperate. And it’s not as if he hasn’t already put himself in the firing line already. And, quite frankly, this is the best shot we’ve had of getting Medcalfe in quite some time. Even Donleavy can see that.’

  ‘Look, I’m not saying it’s not tempting, believe me,’ Steven said, looking between the man who was shortly going to take over his old job, and Hillary. ‘It’ll be one hell of a feather in my cap if, right from the start, I can deliver Medcalfe. But I’m not happy about putting Jake at risk.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘Me, neither. But Jake’s already at risk,’ she said. ‘He’s been meeting Chivnor at night and nearly getting stabbed. He’s been flying by the seat of his pants all this time, and it’s sheer dumb luck he’s got through it so far with his skin intact. So what we’d be doing now is giving him proper backup, and actively improving his chances of survival. When you look at it that way, we’re doing him a favour.’

  Rollo Sale sighed. ‘She’s right, you know. Things have probably already gone too far now to back out anyway. And who knows – if we don’t follow through, maybe Chivnor will be tempted to offer up Jake to Medcalfe as proof of his loyalty anyway.’

  ‘In which case, we’ll be fishing the boy wonder’s body out of the Thames before the week is out,’ Hillary said.

  ‘OK. So we announce the MisPer review. We brief Jake on what he’s going to say in his next meeting with Chivnor. What else?’ Rollo demanded.

  ‘We start investigating several of the missing women cases,’ Hillary said. ‘Which is just what Medcalfe will be expecting us to do. Not that we’ll let Jake anywhere near his sister’s case, of course,’ Hillary said quickly and firmly, reaching into her briefcase and extracting several buff-coloured files that she’d collected from Records. ‘I’ll be taking on that one, and perhaps one other, personally. The rest I’ll divide up between the rest of the team. Commander Donleavy and I have been sorting through the old cases, and have come up with a number of missing women whose disappearance was almost certainly down to Medcalfe and his gang.’

  She distributed the files between Steven and Rollo, but they all knew that it would be Rollo who would oversee them. Steven had enough on his plate starting his new job and running the Jake/Darren scenario, without adding that to his list.

  ‘So, along with Jasmine Sudbury, we have Rebecca Tyde-Harris, Amanda Smallwood, and Lydia Clare Allen,’ Hillary began. ‘There are others, and Wendy and Jimmy will have their hands full with them as well, but these four are our best bets. I’ll leave these copies with you. Steven, you’re going to want to talk to Jake right away, I take it?’

  Steven nodded. ‘Best get it over with, and start planning our strategy,’ he said grimly.

  ‘OK.’ She got up and picked up her briefcase. ‘I’ll send him down to you. In the meantime, I’m going to tell the troops about the MisPer review and allocate them their cases. We’ll meet up again later, after you’ve had a chance to see how things go with Jake, and make sure we’re all clear on what’s what? Yes?’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Rollo said, a shade hollowly.

  Hillary could tell that her new boss wasn’t particularly happy with the speed at which things were happening, nor with the way that he’d been presented with a fait accompli by the Commander and herself, and she could hardly blame him for that. After all, the poor sod had been expecting a gentle, easy slide into his new job and instead he’d been landed with a potential disaster.

  Still, Hillary supposed philosophically as she walked down to her office to brief her team on their new cases, it was as good a way as any to find out just what her new boss was made of.

  The moment she walked into the communal office, she looked across at Jake. After he’d confessed what he’d been up to, she’d ordered him back here to catch up on his paperwork, and with strict instructions not to talk about his situation to anyone. And under no condition was he to call his mother and stepfather with the latest developments. She was confident that, in spite of evidence to the contrary, he knew better than to disobey a direct order. Besides, he must have been as aware as anyone that until she’d had a chance to clear things with the Commander, he could still face legal action.

  And she could see, from the way he looked anxiously back at her, that the time must have dragged for him whilst everyone had been deciding his future. It had probably been good for him – in her opinion a salutary lesson or two would do him no harm at all.

  So her face gave nothing away as she said calmly, ‘Jake, I think the new boss wants a quick word with you.’

  Over in her seat, Wendy Turnbull grinned and blew him a raspberry. ‘And just what has the boy wonder been up to then, to get called to the headmaster’s office?’ she goaded cheerfully.

  Today, her short black hair was standing up in tufts, the tips of which had been dyed turquoise, which matched her nail polish and eye shadow. She was wearing a black leather bustier and a pair of skinny blue jeans that had been hand-stencilled with skull and crossbones. A pair of skull and crossbone earrings dangled from her ears.

  Jake shot the goth a flippant finger and a carefree shrug, but Hillary could see that his eyes were troubled as he went past her on his way out.

  Hillary could only hope that both Steven and Rollo read him the Riot Act for his past misdemeanours, and also managed to get it through his thick head just how incredibly lucky he’d been so far.

  But it worried her that they then had only a short amount
of time to start briefing him in what he would need to do in order to handle Chivnor safely from now on. Well, as safely as it was possible to handle someone as violent and unpredictable as one of Dale Medcalfe’s enforcers. Normally, such training lasted months – not days.

  It wasn’t a task that she envied either of them.

  When he’d gone, she looked across at Jimmy and gave him a very slight wink, and saw him smile faintly. No doubt the old timer had quickly figured out what had happened, and had been wondering which way the brass was going to jump.

  But in truth, once she’d learned Jake’s story, there really hadn’t been much doubt that she would take on his sister’s case. After all, that’s what they were all there for, wasn’t it? To try and protect the gormless, innocent and unlucky, whilst at the same time, doing their best to heft the villains out of circulation. At least for a while. And she knew the old man had agreed with their decisions when she’d put him in the loop earlier.

  ‘OK, troops, apparently the PR department have come up with a good wheeze,’ she began, and totally for Wendy’s benefit, since she knew that Jimmy would be far too wily to believe a word of what she was about to say. ‘They’re going to do a big publicity blitz about missing persons, in an effort to massage our crime figures.’

  She launched into a quick explanation for Wendy, whilst Jimmy continued to look thoughtful. When she’d finished, the young woman looked visibly disappointed.

  In her early twenties, Wendy had already gained a sociology degree, but was humming and hawing about whether or not to take the plunge and become an actual social worker. She’d joined the CRT team to gain more experience, but mostly, from what Hillary had been able to gather, because she was hooked on detective novels and crime shows on the telly and saw herself as a detective.

  She had a winning way with her, and there was no doubt that she enjoyed working with Hillary – especially when she got to go out and about interviewing witnesses, but Hillary was yet to be convinced that she’d make a good police officer. It was not her outrageous personality that concerned Hillary so much, since a lot of people responded well to her. It was more to do with the softness of her heart which would be an asset in social work, if only Hillary could just knock some of the harder realities into her head.

  She could understand why Wendy was hesitating. Recent cases in the media had tended to sling mud at social workers, more often than not casting them in the roles of incompetent do-gooders or neglectful dupes. But Hillary, like every good copper, knew that good social workers were an absolute necessity in modern-day Britain.

  ‘So, no murder cases then?’ Wendy said now, all but pouting her disapproval. Since she’d started here, she’d helped work on several cold murder cases, and had been thrilled to watch and learn as Hillary Greene had solved them all.

  After that, a review of MisPer cases seemed rather tame.

  Over at his desk, Jimmy hid a grin at the youngster’s petulance, then winced as he twisted in the chair and a lance of pain shot up his back.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Hillary said, taking out the files. ‘I’ve cherry picked several that I think look interesting, from our point of view. As I’ve just explained, most missing people turn up. But some don’t. And some don’t because they can’t.’

  At this, Wendy visibly perked up. It was not that she was particularly ghoulish – despite her dress sense. Nor was she immune or oblivious to the pain and misery that violent crime inflicted, not just on the victims, but on their friends and family.

  Hillary knew that she enjoyed the thrill of the puzzle, and the satisfaction it brought when they were finally able to expose a killer. And who could blame her for that? Didn’t they all feel the same way? But so far, things had all been a bit remote for the girl, cushioning her to some extent from the punishing reality of what life in the police force was all about. Not only had the crimes they’d worked on been years old, taking off the edge and rawness to some extent, they had all been of the domestic or private and personal kind. What’s more, working cold cases meant that you dealt with people who had had time to get over the worst of the shock, and to adjust and adapt: all of which allowed them to do the bulk of their work without really getting their hands dirty.

  Hillary knew, though, that things were going to be very different with these new cases. This time they were all going to get very dirty indeed. And she wondered just how the girl was going to cope, tackling head on the sordid underbelly of prostitution, drug addiction, and wrecked, lost lives.

  Then again, perhaps it would give Wendy the wake-up call she needed to get her priorities sorted out.

  ‘So, there are four main cases,’ she began crisply. ‘Jimmy, you and Wendy can take two, whilst Jake and I work on the others.’

  Jimmy’s eyes sparkled as he detected yet another lie drop from his guv’nor’s lips, because he knew damned well that she wouldn’t let Jake Barnes anywhere near his sister’s case. Besides, he had no doubt the boy wonder would soon have his plate full tackling the fall-out from his activities with Darren Chivnor.

  He understood why Hillary wanted to keep Jake’s activities – and the truth behind all these MisPer cases – a secret from Wendy; for whilst he didn’t doubt the girl’s loyalty, he did wonder about her discretion. And the last thing they needed now was for anyone to start talking out of turn – especially if the media should get a hold of it.

  And he didn’t doubt that right now Steven and their new boss would be giving Jake a proper roasting and letting him know in no uncertain terms what would happen to him if he didn’t have the sense to keep his mouth firmly shut as well.

  ‘Jimmy,’ he heard Hillary say his name, and instantly became attentive. ‘We have a list of eleven women here altogether, and you and Wendy will need to check them all out at some point and in your own time, but I want you to concentrate on these two.’

  She handed him two files, smiling as Wendy shot up to hover over the old man’s shoulder in order to speed read the case notes.

  ‘First up, Rebecca Tyde-Harris—’ Hillary said, looking at her own copy.

  ‘Hell, that sounds like a posh bird type of name to me,’ Wendy interrupted.

  Hillary smiled, but ignored the comment – which had been rather perspicacious. ‘Aged twenty-eight when she went missing in April 2010,’ she continued seamlessly. ‘As you can see from the photograph, Rebecca was five foot nine or so, with brown hair and green eyes.’

  ‘Pretty,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Shush,’ Jimmy said a shade impatiently. ‘Haven’t I told you before about not interrupting a senior officer’s briefing?’

  ‘She did indeed come from an upper middle-class background,’ Hillary continued doggedly, pretending not to see the clenched-fist salute Wendy pulled behind Jimmy’s back, ‘and attended college in Oxford as an English Literature student. Unfortunately, she seems to have gone off the rails pretty quickly, no doubt due to the usual mixture of finding bad friends, good booze, and an easy supply of the recreational drug of her choice.’

  Jimmy sighed. ‘Let me guess. The parents were supportive at first, loaning her money and trying to get her into rehab, before realizing, in the end, that they were only enabling her drug habit, at which point they were forced to cut her off.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘And we all know what happens next.’

  ‘What?’ Wendy asked eagerly.

  ‘She went on the game to feed her habit, what do you think?’ It was Jimmy who spoke, and again, a shade testily. This was uncharacteristic of Jimmy, he was normally very patient with the youngsters, but he was finding it hard to get into a comfortable position in his chair that didn’t set his back aching, and for some reason, Wendy’s sometimes naïve outlook on life grated on him today.

  ‘Oh,’ Wendy said flatly.

  Jimmy glanced at the name of the missing woman’s pimp at the time of her disappearance, but he already knew what he’d see. Unless he really was losing his touch, all of Hillary’s so-called MisPer review cases would ha
ve Dale Medcalfe’s dirty fingerprints all over them.

  ‘Right,’ Hillary said crisply. ‘So, you know the drill, Jimmy. Contact all her old friends from college that you can find, question her family again, and see if any of the girls on the street will talk to you. Streetwalkers have a limited shelf life, so most of the girls she would have known are probably long gone by now, but there’ll probably be one or two who still remember her,’ Hillary said.

  Jimmy nodded but gave an unhappy sigh. ‘Not that anybody in that line will want to talk to us,’ he said, and again, strictly for Wendy’s benefit.

  ‘Well, in this case, you might have struck lucky,’ Hillary said. ‘When she disappeared, the parents put up a substantial reward for any information that led to her whereabouts being discovered. As far as I can tell, that money’s still unclaimed and up for grabs. You might want to confirm that with the parents before mentioning it to any witnesses.’

  Jimmy flipped through the case file until he found the relevant information, and Wendy whistled between her teeth when she saw all the zeros. Then she blinked. ‘Hey, guv, if Jimmy and I can find her, can we claim the reward ourselves? Even my half of that much would let me put down a deposit on a decent mortgage somewhere.’

  Hillary grinned and left it to Jimmy to put her clear on that later.

  ‘Your second vic,’ she swept on, ‘is Amanda Smallwood.’ They all turned to the second file, and Hillary once again summarized the bare details. ‘Amanda was thirty-five, divorced, and a single mother of two. As you can see, she too was an attractive woman, petite with red hair and green eyes. That’s another bonus for you two, because a MisPer with a striking physical appearance is more likely to remain in people’s memories. And pretty women in particular, tend to stick in people’s minds for longer. She went missing in December 2013 – her children are now being raised by their grandparents.’

  ‘The father of the kids must have been a prime suspect, guv,’ Wendy said eagerly.

  ‘Normally yes. In this case, no,’ Hillary said, and she saw Jimmy tap a relevant page for the goth’s attention.