“Not so fast, Michael,” Carlton said sternly. “We’ll need to speak to all of you before you go anywhere. What happened to him?” The police officer nodded toward Billy. He was whining in agony.
“I didn’t see anything, and you can’t hold me,” Mick snarled. The last thing he needed was a lengthy interview with Merseyside’s finest. “He fell.”
“I think you know better than that, Michael. You can answer some questions here, or we can do it at the station. It’s up to you. Did anybody see anything?”
“Like Mick said, Billy fell,” Gus added.
“Okay, he fell. Put him in an ambulance,” Carlton nodded to one of his officers. He stepped forward and helped Billy onto the main street where the emergency services were working flat out, ferrying the shocked and injured to casualty. There was thick black smoke billowing from the entrance to the club and an army of firemen was battling the flames inside the building. “Witnesses are telling us they heard gunshots and an explosion of some kind,” Carlton said. Would you care to enlighten me what went on here?”
The gangsters remained silent. There was no point in making a smart reply; Chief Carlton was nobody’s fool. They had all had prior dealings with him. He knew who ran the city’s underworld, but knowing who was in charge was not enough to lock them up behind bars.
“Okay. My constables will take your details and a brief statement. If I need to talk to you, I’ll be in touch. I don’t suppose any of you are carrying firearms?”
The group of villains stayed tight-lipped again. The weapons had been stored in vehicles when they had come out of the club. They stared stony-faced at the police chief.
“Fine, let’s get them processed, constable.” Chief Carlton walked by them and further into the alleyway. He was curious as to why they were there. “What were you doing here?” He mumbled to himself as he looked around.
Jinx watched him while waiting his turn to speak to the uniformed officers. The police officer stopped near the backdoor and pulled on the steel plate. It was solid. There was a skip next to it, overflowing with empty boxes and bin bags. He shoved it out of the way with his Sshoulder. Some of the bottles rolled off the top and smashed onto the floor. Behind it was an arched basement window set into the wall. There were rusted bars set into the brickwork.Chief Carlton knelt down and studied them. The bolts, which should have secured the metal frame, were missing. He poked his index finger into one of them and frowned. Jinx smiled as Carlton tugged at the bars and they came away in his hands. He looked around at Jinx as he pushed against the grimy window they protected and it creaked open. “Is this what you were looking for?” The police officer raised his eyebrows as he spoke.
Jinx looked away. That was how they had gained access to the club and escaped unnoticed. Someone had known where the stake money was. They had known how to get into the cellar, and the hiding place for five kilos of uncut cocaine. Jinx wanted his money back and he wanted Leon put out of business. The arrival of the mysterious masked men could prove to be useful if he played his cards right. On the other hand, the Turks would be looking to recover their cocaine and slaughter whoever had had the nerve to steal from them in the first place. Bodger would have a score to settle with him too for wasting his minder. Whatever happened over the next few days and weeks, someone was going to die. Jinx was adamant that it wouldn’t be him.
Alec Ramsay waited for the team to gather in the briefing room. There was an air of excitement and anticipation as they arrived and took their seats. Photographs of the crime scene were flashing across a bank of screens on one wall and the detectives chatted and made comments to each other as each picture appeared. Alec took off his suit jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his crumpled white shirt and loosened his tie before standing up at the front of the room to the left of the screens.
“Good afternoon. I’m sorry if you have been called in from your leave, but as you can see from the crime scene photos, we have a nasty one to deal with.” There were murmured responses from the gathering, then a hush descended over them as they listened to their superintendent. Some of them had been at home less than twelve hours before Alec had summoned them back to work. “At eight o’clock this morning a letting agent working for a company called Ashfords opened up this factory unit on Jamaica Street.”
The screens showed pictures of the building and the surrounding streets. Most of the officers were familiar with the waterside area as a notorious red light district. It bordered both the river and the city centre and to its north was the Toxteth area.
“He made an emergency call at one minute past eight when he discovered the body of a woman hanging from the rafters.” Alec turned toward the screen as pictures of the tortured female flashed across them. The brutality of the scene they were looking at reflected on the faces of the detectives. It didn’t matter how many times they had seen death, this scene hit them hard.
“We have a list of missing persons going back six months who fit the profile of the victim. She is female, long auburn hair, mid twenties to thirties and as you can see, the killer strung her up and tortured her to death. We don’t know if she was a working girl or not, and for now it doesn’t matter because we have evidence that there was a child at the scene. We may be looking for a mother and child whose family have not reported them as missing, or they may not be related. We need to know who she was.”
Will handed out lists of the missing persons. “The list is compiled of women who match the age of the victim, but we don’t know if any of them have children.” Alec spoke to the team as the lists were distributed. The detectives scanned the names and images as they listened.
“Some of the women are known prostitutes and others are not. It doesn’t matter at this stage, they are all someone’s daughter, mother or sister, and they will be treated with the same respect. Are we clear?”
“Guv.”
“Vice have spoken with many of the girls who they know work in that area,” Alec continued. “None of them are aware of any friends missing. We are waiting for preliminary results to come in. I want to be in the position to match them to our missing persons list as soon as we have them. Smithy, your team has the top half of the list to work on. Work down to M, please.”
“Yes, guv.” Smithy was a well-built detective with thinning red hair and a beer-belly that hung over his belt. He looked slovenly but he was a key member of the Major Investigation Team. His commitment to the job had cost him three marriages and left him with limited access to his kids and grandkids. He played prop forward for the police rugby team and drank heavily after every game, which had compounded the tensions at home. Life as a bachelor suited him for now. “What about rounding up the usual suspects, guv?”
“Uniform are picking up all known sex offenders on our patch,” Alec pointed to Chief Carlton. His uniformed officers usually did the groundwork and sifting on major cases. They flagged up anyone without a concrete alibi and brought them in for further questioning. “We can get on with identifying our victim for now and find out whose footprints they are.”
The picture changed to the small bloody footprints from the unit. “Will, your team takes the bottom half of the list.”
“Yes, .guv” Will snapped his fingers and his team began sorting through their part of the list of names. The teams moved and studied their lists. They chatted quietly as they studied the information. Some of the women on the list were similar in appearance, but photographs could be misleading and people often changed their hairstyle. They couldn’t make assumptions at this point.
“We need as much detail as we can get our hands on before the initial forensics are completed. I want dental records, bank details, credit card transactions and, where possible, samples we can match to the DNA results. Find out the names of friends and relatives and the places they frequented. Tread carefully. I don’t want their families rattled by our investigation. I want to know who the child is without alerting the killer that we’ve found the body. We don’t want to spook him yet, in case the child is still alive.” Alec was worried that clumsy police work might upset the families of the missing and alert the press. He had never had children, but he could empathise with the parents of missing children and he had witnessed the mistakes made by fellow detectives who had worked on some of the high profile child abductions and murders in Liverpool over the last few decades. He needed to avoid a press circus at all costs.
“Guv. I have another question.” Smithy put his hand up.
“What is it, Smithy?” Alec smiled. He told his team repeatedly that the only stupid questions were the ones you wished that you had asked earlier.
“Will mentioned that we may be dealing with more than one victim, guv.” The detectives in the room nodded. “Apart from the child, I mean.”
“We may be.” Alec paused. Speculating at this point could hamper the already complicated investigation. “There are several blood pools at the scene and we don’t believe they could possibly be from the same victim, but until we get forensics back, we should concentrate our efforts on her.” Alec nodded to the screens. The woman’s distorted features stared out of the screens for all to see.
“We need to work through these lists thoroughly because if we do have multiple victims, then they will be on those lists, no mistake. I do not want the press to know anything about the missing persons list or the child until we’re ready to tell them. Are we all clear about this?” There had been leaks in the past, usually spreading from careless conversation at home or at the pub. The job of a murder detective was a tough one; they often played hard during a case to unwind and take their minds off their work for a few hours. When alcohol numbed their senses it also numbed their brains. Sometimes people overheard details of investigations and leaked them to the press. “I do not want this case discussed over the pool table down at the pub, clear?”
“Guv.”
This investigation possibly involved more than one victim, and the press would go to town when it became public knowledge. High-profile cases attracted society’s nutcases and just dealing with the number of crank calls that a newspaper feature could generate became a fulltime job for at least one detective. They needed every detective employed in the investigation.
“Crack on, find that kid.”
“Yes, guv.” They replied in unison.
“Kisha.” Alec turned to a slim black detective who was sitting in Will Naylor’s team.
“Guv?” She replied as she looked up from her list. She was marking some notes in the margin of her list. Kisha was keen and her superiors had already noticed her potential.
“I want you to gather the names of everyone who has rented that unit for the last ten years, and everyone who has worked at Ashfords and had access to their keys,” Alec said. He knew that Kisha would find it a mundane task, but he needed a detective with focus to sift through the pages of irrelevant information and come up with the leads the investigation would require if they were to find the killer. She was a good detective and that was why he had picked her for the task. He knew that she wouldn’t see it that way now, but one day she would.
“Guv,” Kisha sighed and looked disappointed. A task like that could throw up dozens of names and an equal number of dead ends. Anyone could have had a set of keys cut. She felt like she was being side-tracked from the main team and her heart sank. It was like being left on the subs bench during the cup final.
“I also want a list of employees who worked in that factory unit and a list of service companies that have completed works on the building since it has been empty. Stevie, you take that, please. Work with Kisha and cross-check the information.” Alec didn’t rate Stevie. He was a probationary officer and his detective review date was close, but Alec couldn’t see him cutting it. He knew that Kisha would keep him on track and double-check his side of the investigation. He had paired them up for a good reason.
“Yes, guv,” Stevie smiled and looked across at Kisha. She was gorgeous and Stevie had a thing for her, despite the fact she had knocked him back at the Christmas party. Kisha didn’t return his gaze and she certainly didn’t share his enthusiasm for the task they were to work on together. She had no interest in Stevie, or any other men, for that matter. Kisha hid her sexuality from her colleagues. She was female and black. Prejudice was frowned on in the modern police force, but it was still there, lurking in every department, and she knew it. Kisha was ambitious and she wanted to progress as far as she could on the merits of her abilities as a detective. In a meritocratic world that might have been possible, but she lived in the real world and knew that being a black lesbian would stifle her progression. Working on a list of names going back years was bad enough, but working with Stevie compounded the issue. She despised him and had no respect for his abilities as a member of MIT.
“Get moving, everyone. I want this information collated as soon as we can, please.” Alec clapped his hands together and the detectives began organising their investigations. Within minutes they had assigned a list of names and the telephone lines were buzzing. Alec watched them delegate tasks and begin their search with a sense of pride, but there was a nagging doubt in his mind. There was more to this crime than one murder. The other blood pools were a mystery. The child’s footprints were of huge concern, but they had to start with the woman who had been tortured to death before they could piece together what had happened in that unit. The evidence didn’t add up at the moment and waiting for the forensic results to be processed was time wasted, but that was all he could do. Wait.
He pulled out his Blackberry and scrolled through his contacts for his wife’s number. She was annoyed that her mother was visiting and Alec couldn’t take his days off. They had planned to go to Chester to shop and to have some lunch on the banks of the river, but now she would have to suffer her mother alone. Their twenty years together had been happy enough and they got on well, but their marriage was plagued with Alec’s absence. They had become brother and sister rather than man and wife. She mothered him, constantly feeding him Quorn instead of meat in an attempt to give him a healthy diet. He thought of the last lamb chop that he had tasted and he craved meat as he dialled her number.
“Hello,” Gail sounded stressed.
“Hi, it’s me.” Alec always said that and it irritated his wife immensely, which he couldn’t understand.
“I know it’s you, Alec. I have your number programmed into my phone and your name comes up on the screen when you call. Your phone does the same thing, too.” She sounded angry.
“Yes, sorry. Are you okay?” Alec stuttered. His mind went blank when he had to call home to make excuses. He could never find the words to tell her how he felt. When he said sorry, it didn’t sound like it was enough.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“Is there a reason for the call, Alec?”
“I was just saying hello.”
“Hello, Alec.”
“You sound pissed off.”
“Don’t swear, Alec. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Sorry.”
“When are you taking a day off?”
“I’m not sure. This is a nasty one, darling. We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, but there is a child involved.” The line stayed silent but he could hear her breathing. He felt sick with guilt whenever this happened. “I’ll try and get half a day when we have the forensic results back.”
The phone clicked and she hung up.
“That went well, Alec. Well done.” He said aloud as he walked into his office. He had at least one murder to investigate and then he had promised that he would take some holiday and take Gail away. They needed some time alone together. He couldn’t remember the last holiday abroad they had had. Then he did, and it made him cringe. They had gone to Gambia for a fortnight and Gail had hated the place as soon as she had landed there. The poverty was overpowering and they hadn’t been able to walk up the street in their resort without being accosted by a mob of limbless beggars. Alec had got a call from headquarters two days into the holiday when the bodies of two men had been discovered in an abandoned car near the city centre. They had cut the holiday short since Alec had had to fly home and Gail had refused to stay in Gambia alone. She hadn’t spoken to him for a week afterwards. Maybe they could go somewhere nearer to home this time, he thought.