As if by Magic (12 page)

Karen nodded shortly. ‘That wasn’t exactly what I meant... Anyway, I didn’t know her name was “Imrie” until I saw the news. We don’t always deal in full names, it is down to the client – they can tell us as little or as much as they like. Sometimes, we do just get first names.’

‘But you did meet her?’ Jessica asked.

Karen shook her head. ‘That is always up to the client. We spoke on the phone and she explained who her husband was and where he worked and then a day later there was a cash payment and photographs put through my door.’

‘Do you get a lot of cash payments?’ Jessica asked, deliberately being provocative as she glanced around at a few of the more expensive items in the room.

‘I can assure you everything is correctly accounted for,’ Karen replied sharply. ‘If you would like to inspect my books, then you’re welcome to. Unless, that is, there is now a law against taking cash...?’

Jessica held her gaze before Reynolds cut in. ‘That won’t be necessary. I think what my colleague is getting at is that you’re telling us you’ve not had any direct contact at all with Mrs Imrie, other than by phone?’

‘Correct.’

‘Did she ever email you? Or text you?’ Jessica asked.

‘No, we had two phone conversations and then I received the money and photographs. Some clients are incredibly private people, so we work around them.’

‘How much was the fee?’ Reynolds asked.

‘Five hundred pounds.’

‘And you got the full amount in cash? Would you still have that?’

‘It was all cash, twenty pound notes, but I paid everything into the bank. There will be records of it.’

Karen was still thinking about things from her accounting point of view but Jessica knew the notes could have been useful to them for fingerprints. ‘What about the photos?’ she asked.

‘I’ll still have them.’

The woman uncrossed her legs and stood up rigidly straight before crossing to a pink wooden cabinet underneath the fish tank. She entered a code into a padlock and swung the doors open, before hunting through a set of cardboard files and passing one to Jessica. She opened it gently to reveal three medium-sized colour photos of Gordon. They looked like they had been taken with a long lens from a distance, as opposed to being posed or snapped on holiday. Without touching them, Jessica closed the file and handed it to Reynolds.

‘Did you possibly keep the envelope they came in?’ Jessica asked but Karen shook her head as she crossed back to her chair.

‘Can you talk us through exactly what happened on the evening?’ Reynolds asked.

‘We’d been told he goes out on a regular night each fortnight and so I followed him from his house,’ Karen said.

‘Are you always personally involved?’ Jessica asked.

‘Not always, it depends on the individual case. This one seemed relatively straightforward; he caught a bus into the centre and went straight to this hotel bar. I was on the same bus and followed him in. He hung around the bar area trying to talk to pretty much anything under the age of forty with long hair.’

‘What did you do?’

Karen flicked her hair dismissively. ‘Oh, I don't get involved in all of that but I watched him cross to that other place you mentioned and that’s where Annie comes in...’

Jessica turned her attention to the other woman, who was still staring at the floor.

‘Do you want to pick the story up from there, Annie?’ Jessica asked.

Slowly, Annie raised her head and brushed the hair away from her face. Even first thing in the morning with no make-up and slightly pale skin, she was incredibly pretty; with bright green eyes and high, curved cheekbones that perfectly framed her face.

‘What would you like to know?’ she asked, her accent definitely not local.

‘Are you a student?’ Jessica asked before Reynolds could say anything.

Annie nodded wearily and stifled a yawn. ‘Bit of extra money, innit?’ She turned to face Karen. ‘Not quite five hundred quid though...’

The elder woman was unmoved.

‘Basically, there are a few of us girls,’ Annie began. ‘At short notice, we get a call from Karen who might ask us to come to some pub or club, or somewhere in the city. We’ve got to get dressed up and get there quickly, then she fixes us up with this little microphone thing.’

‘It has its own storage,’ Karen interrupted, reaching into a nearby drawer and tossing Jessica a small device. ‘It clips to their tops or their bags and records everything that is said.’

Jessica examined the object, which was tiny enough to hold easily between her thumb and forefinger. It was cylindrically-shaped, with a raised area at one end which she assumed was the microphone, and heavier at the other. On the back was a black plastic crocodile clip. If it could do what Karen claimed, then it was impressive.

‘Depending on the amount paid, we have other devices,’ Karen explained. ‘We’ve got micro cameras that are part of a handbag. What you’ve got there is towards the lower end – but it is perfectly functional.’

Jessica nodded and turned back to Annie. ‘So you got the call...’

‘Yeah, I was already out with a few friends when my phone went off. She told me I had fifteen minutes, but I was already out and dressed, so it didn’t take long. She clipped the microphone to my bra, showed me the photos, told me he was called Gordon, and then sent me into the club.’

‘Was he easy to spot?’ Reynolds asked.

Annie laughed. ‘Oh yeah, straight away. It was about seventy per cent men but he was right at the front of the bar trying to start conversations with any girls who went near him.’

‘What did you do?’

‘At first, I went to the other end of the bar and got myself a drink. It’s always good to check a place out first, know where the exits are, where the bouncers are standing – if there are any, find out where the toilets are: those sorts of thing.’

‘It’s all about safety-first,’ Karen said, clearly trying to show she was a responsible employer.

Jessica watched Annie roll her eyes. ‘After that, I watched him for a few minutes. The trick is to get them to come to you. So, when he noticed me, I looked away quickly but then I’d start looking at him again. By the time he had spotted me twice, he had come over and introduced himself as “David”.’

‘Not Gordon?’ Jessica clarified.

‘No, he said his name was David and that he worked as a lawyer.’

They already knew he worked as a mid-manager in a factory, so it appeared as if Gordon had thought through his repertoire enough to have a back story too.

‘What did he say?’ Jessica asked, before Karen cut in.

‘If you’d like, I can just play it for you?’

Jessica swapped a look with Reynolds as if to say, “Why didn’t you tell us that on the phone?” before Karen led them into a room she called her “study”. Jessica thought the amount of studying anyone in their right mind would have been able to do in there was surely up for debate, considering roughly a third of the room was taken up with various cushions, throws, drapes and other pink objects that matched the rest of the house. Jessica found herself drawn to a particularly monstrous creation that seemed to be a cross between a teddy bear and a traditional doll. It had black beady eyes that glared at her from the other side of the room as Karen switched her computer on and they waited for it to boot.

Annie stood behind all of them, her arms crossed defensively as Karen started the recording and Jessica turned her back to the doll in order to help her think straight.

There was a muffled noise before a crackle, and then Annie’s voice sounded.

“I like your tie.”

Jessica looked at Annie who gave her a half-smile and shake of the head, whispering loudly ‘It was this awful green thing.’

“Can I buy you a drink?” said a voice that they assumed was Gordon’s.

“Sure, I’m on the rose.”

Good girl, Jessica thought, as they heard the muffled sound of Gordon ordering drinks.

“What’s your name?” he asked afterwards. There was a forced awkwardness to his voice that Jessica could tell came from not being comfortable chatting to girls.

“I’m Rachel, you?”

“You can call me Mr Right if you want.”

Jessica cringed and exchanged another knowing look with Annie.

On the recording, Annie giggled so naturally that Jessica was almost convinced she found it funny. The playback continued in much the same vein for a few more minutes, with Gordon regaling her with endless lines about how pretty she was, how nice her dress was, and wondering if she wanted to “go somewhere a little more private”.

At that point, Annie made her excuses and left. For her it was uncomfortable and embarrassing; for Helga, it would be heartbreaking.

The recording clicked off and Reynolds told Karen they would need a copy of it.

‘What was he like when he was talking to you?’ Jessica asked Annie.

‘He kept touching my arm at first, plus he was leaning in and trying to talk into my ear. I guess that’s why you can hear him so clearly. Then, at the end when he was saying we should go somewhere quieter, he had a hand on my knee.’

‘What did you do after you said you had to pop outside?’

‘That’s our get-out moment. You check your phone, say you’ve got to make a quick call and then you’re off and out the door and don’t go back.’

‘Did you see if anyone else was near him after you walked away?’ Jessica asked.

Annie shook her head. ‘I was so pleased to get out of there. I walked calmly away and then, the minute I was out of the door, I ran to the end of the road and jumped in a taxi.’

From what she had heard on the recording, Jessica wasn’t surprised.

‘What happens after that?’ Reynolds asked.

Karen picked up the story. ‘Each job concludes in the same way. The girl calls me straight away to say how things have gone and then delivers the recording device the next day, when they get paid.’

‘A hundred quid,’ Annie added, sounding annoyed at how small her cut was.

‘There are other costs,’ Karen scolded, before turning back to Reynolds. ‘When I’ve got the recording, I listen or watch it back and then I call the client.’

‘What happened when you called Gordon’s wife?’

‘Well, that’s just the thing,’ Karen began, in what Jessica knew was a universal way of guaranteeing there was going to be bad news for an investigation, ‘When I called, the mobile number just rang and rang. There wasn’t voicemail, so I left it an hour and then tried again. I tried a dozen times at various points during the day but there was no answer then, or on the next day.’

‘You’ve not had any contact at all with her since?’ Jessica clarified.

‘No.’

‘And what did she sound like on the occasions before her payment when you spoke?’

Karen drummed her fingers on the desk and breathed out noisily. ‘I’m not sure really. She was quite well-spoken, perhaps a little older than I might have thought when I saw the photo of Gordon.’

It was next to nothing to go on considering they had no paper trail back to whoever had paid Karen for the information. It could be Helga, of course, and they would check her accounts to see if that amount of money had been withdrawn recently, but all they had was Karen’s version. Judging by the recording and Annie’s account, there was every chance Gordon had tried it on with other girls as well, but without any witnesses coming forward and the absence of anything else on CCTV, they had little else to work with.

As Karen led them out, Reynolds told them someone would need to take official statements at some point, while Jessica took one last look at the staring pink doll.

FOURTEEN

Back at the station, Reynolds went to check in with Cole, who had spent the morning in a meeting discussing recruitment, as Jessica walked through to the main floor where she felt as if everyone was watching her. Rowlands was at his desk, viewing back her television performance from the previous night on his computer.

‘Haven’t you got anything better to do?’ Jessica asked as she perched on the edge of his desk.

Rowlands laughed. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this.’ He scrolled towards the start and then set it playing again. ‘It’s that look on your face after she gets your name wrong. It’s like you want to rip her throat out.’

‘Well how hard is it to get someone’s name right?’

Dave laughed again as he scrolled forward and played the part with Jessica apologising for calling Sophia “Sophie”. ‘Apparently quite hard,’ he added.

‘What sort of a name is “Sophia” anyway,’ Jessica protested. ‘I’d bet her Mum spelled Sophie wrong on her birth certificate. Either that, or she has some weird pronunciation of the letter “E” just because she’s on television. I was doing her a favour.’

Rowlands went to skip back to the start but Jessica stopped him. ‘Hang on, go forward a bit,’ she said, directing him through the moments where she was talking and the CCTV footage was playing.

‘This is the boring part,’ he complained before she made him freeze the screen as the recording was near its end.

The image was from a CCTV camera at a crossroads on the road the bar was on. They had footage of Gordon on his way there, but he hadn’t made it that far after leaving. The exact screen she asked him to blow up to the full size of his monitor showed Gordon heading towards the bar and was the last time they had footage of him alive.

‘What’s that?’ Jessica asked, pointing towards the bottom corner of the screen.

Dave leaned in and squinted, before rocking back on his chair. ‘A bin bag that’s leaking?’

‘No...’ Jessica said, trying to think what it looked like before it fell into her mind. ‘Do you remember the other week when we went to visit Toxic Tony? He was wearing that big, heavy coat that had some sort of yellow padding falling out of the side.’ She pointed back to the screen. ‘What do you reckon?’

Rowlands leaned in closely again. ‘I suppose it could be but it doesn’t seem much like a person.’

‘True, but if you’re curled up in a ball, wrapped in a coat that’s almost as big as you, I guess it’s no surprise. This is only a few streets away from where he sleeps.’

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Jessica had shown the freeze-frame to a dozen people, including Reynolds and Cole, but no-one – including her – could say for sure what the smudge at the edge of the camera shot was. While they had someone working on enhancing the image in case it was anything more than a bin bag, Jessica drove into the city centre to see if she could find Tony herself.