Dead Gorgeous (A Mystery for D.I. Costello) (20 page)

They were still about twenty yards from the house when Stanway stopped and turned to Angela. “Leanne – she’s got Polish grandparents, hasn’t she?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Does she speak Polish?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Get her out here with us. We might need an interpreter.”

Angela phoned through. By the time they reached the gate, she could see Leanne heading down Katy’s front path.

Stanway stood back to let Angela precede him. “I’m right behind you, Angie, and the back-up can be here in ten seconds.”

“Sir.” Angela walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

Nothing happened at first, so after a few moments Angela rang again. They waited a little longer, straining their ears for any sound from within. She had just lifted her hand to ring for the third time when they heard a key turning in the lock. They looked at each other.
Locked from the inside,
thought Angela
.
The door was pulled open to reveal a giant of a man with a close-cropped head, dressed in black jeans; his pristine white T-shirt stretched across powerful looking pectoral muscles. His unfriendly gaze moved slowly over each of them. Angela experienced a slight shiver.

“I help you?” he asked in some unidentifiable accent. His words belied his expression; he didn’t look in the least as though he wanted to help them.

“I hope you can,” began Angela in a businesslike tone. It was obvious the man’s mother tongue wasn’t English, but she decided not to speak slowly for him; she wanted the advantage. She held up her identification. “I’m Detective Inspector Angela Costello of the Metropolitan Police; this is Detective Chief Inspector Stanway and Detective Constable Leanne Dabrowska. We have reason to believe a young woman is being held in this house against her will.”

The giant took his time computing this sentence. At no time did he appear fazed or worried. Finally he shook his head and gave a small, somehow unpleasant, smile. He clearly wasn’t troubled by their appearance on the doorstep. “Is not so,” he said.

The amount of time he’d taken coming back with his answer had given Angela the opportunity to construct her next comment.

“In that case, you won’t have any objection to us taking a look, will you, sir?”

It didn’t take as long for him to deal with this. He pushed his bulk more squarely across the front entrance. “Is not good time; my girlfriend sleep.” He spoke with finality. Angela could see she was dealing with a bully. She’d always believed it best to let bullies know, right from the outset, you weren’t going to be intimidated by them. In her experience it saved a lot of trouble in the long run. She took a step forward. “We’ve received a report from a concerned member of the public,” she said. “May we come in?” She didn’t bother with
please
; if push came to shove, Stanway had a warrant in his pocket.

A look of surprise dawned on the man’s face as she moved towards him, but just then a door further down the corridor opened and he half-turned. “Klara!” the man called and Angela sensed both warning and menace in his voice.

A female shape appeared in the dimness of the hallway. She was very tall with long blonde hair. It was immediately evident she was not the woman from the upstairs window. She said something in a half-asleep voice. The three police officers could only make out the final word, “Igor.”

Angela pounced on the name. “Right, Igor,” she said to the man, continuing her move forward. “We just want a few words. We won’t take up much of your time.” She crossed the threshold quickly, followed by Stanway and Leanne. The first door on the right stood open and she went through it and found herself in a comfortable sitting room looking out onto the street. A three-piece suite was grouped around an empty fireplace. A few books and some ornaments were arranged on the shelves, one in each alcove either side of the fireplace. A couple of upright chairs primly guarded a folded table by the back wall.

Angela sat down in one of the single armchairs. Stanway, close behind her, took the other one and Leanne headed for the
sofa. With a face like thunder, Igor followed them into the room. Angela suspected he was much more used to people cringing before him rather than barging past. She took her notebook and a pen out of her bag. “May I have your full name, please, Igor?”

Igor narrowed his eyes at Angela as he subsided onto one of the upright chairs. He jerked his head to Klara, now standing in the doorway, and said something to her. She looked hesitantly round at them all, took a step towards him, rested her hand awkwardly on his shoulder and looked down at him with the most unconvincing smile Angela had ever seen. The man tugged at the girl and she perched herself half-on, half-off his lap. Angela would have been willing to lay odds that what he’d said had been along the lines of, “Come here and pretend to be my girlfriend.” She cast an enquiring glance at Leanne who correctly interpreted the look and shook her head. “Russian, I think, guv,” she said, under her breath. Angela nodded.

She opened her notebook and tapped a fresh page with the pen. “OK, may I have your full name please, Igor?”

“Igor Dimitri Zolnerowich.” Like Angela he made no attempt to speak slowly. He looked at her with an unpleasant smile as he rattled off his name.

Angela saw he was playing her at her own game, which amused her. “Would that be the usual spelling?” she asked. She sensed rather than saw Stanway and Leanne quickly hide smiles, but Igor saw them clearly and his eyes darkened as he guessed they were sharing some English joke. The woman suddenly jerked and winced, causing them all to look at her. As she settled again on her unlikely perch, her eyes glazed over and she stared out of the window.

So you express your chagrin by pinching the lady,
thought Angela.
Not nice.
“OK, Igor, thank you,” she said, writing, phonetically, what she could of the name. “Now is this your girlfriend – Klara, is it?”

“My girlfriend,
da
.” Igor hugged Klara closer to him but his eyes never left Angela’s face, which meant that he wasn’t looking at Klara. As she wrote, Angela looked up briefly and saw Klara’s eyes fixed on her with an intense stare. She held the other woman’s gaze briefly.

“How many other people are living here?”

“Six; three mans, three womans.”

“We’d like to talk to them.”

“No possible, sleeping,” answered Igor, with finality. He kept his eyes fixed on Angela, bold and intimidating. Out of the corner of her eye, Angela could still see the intense gaze of the woman on his lap.

Stanway cut in. “The thing is, Mr Zorrovitch – s’cuse the pronunciation – we have to take these matters very seriously. As I’m sure you’re aware, you’re living in a very nice borough of mostly affluent middle-class people…” Stanway got into his stride and continued with what Angela suddenly recognized as his speech to the Neighbourhood Watch committee given at a fundraising dinner earlier in the year.

He was doing it for a reason. He leaned forward in his seat, casting a slightly dismissive gaze to Angela on his right and Leanne on the left, engaging Igor in a clearly man-to-man manner, and began spouting what she knew could become a lengthy analysis of local crime statistics. It worked. After some more of Stanway’s monologue Igor’s attention diverted, with a puzzled frown, to the D.C.I., allowing Angela to look Klara fully in the face without Igor noticing.

The minute she saw she had Angela’s attention, Klara raised her eyes slowly to the ceiling. Then she repeated the process to make sure she was understood. Angela nodded; a barely noticeable gesture. Klara gave the merest of smiles and seemed to relax.

Stanway recognized what had happened. He cut off the exposition on summertime pickpocketing in the riverside pubs,
and went straight into the matter in hand without a pause. “So anyway, Mr Zorrovitch, we’ll have to talk to your housemates. Please, just call them in here.”

Igor looked at him, uncertain of what he was dealing with. He hadn’t picked up most of what Stanway had been saying, but he recognized there’d been a change of tack and could tell they were now back on course.

“Your housemates, Igor,” repeated Angela.
I applaud you for having a stab at the surname, sir,
she thought,
but I’ll stick with what I know, if you don’t mind.

“They sleep.”

“Then wake them up.”

Igor looked at the three officers. “No – you make me?” His smile was contemptuous. He was baiting them.

Stanway beamed at him. “No, I won’t make you.” He cocked his thumb behind him to the street. “My officers outside will be the ones to make you.” He took the walkie-talkie out of his pocket and it cackled into life.

Igor understood that without a problem. He stood up, unceremoniously unseating Klara, and stomped over to the window. It didn’t take him long to locate the van outside and he had no trouble assessing how many men it could hold. He barked an order at Klara and she went out of the room. Seconds later they could hear her knocking loudly on a couple of doors and calling out to people.

Five minutes later, two more men and two more women had joined Igor and Klara in the front room. The men, in T-shirts and jeans, were cast very much in the mould of Igor. They looked questioningly at him and threw wary expressions towards the police officers. The women, another blonde and a brunette, were tall and slim, like Klara. There was a glassiness in their eyes and Angela thought she could detect faint traces of what could be white powder just below the nostrils of one
of them. As the room filled up, Igor spoke rapidly, no doubt giving them a rundown of what was going on.

“So,” said Angela, looking at them. “You three men are living here with your girlfriends?”

The two men who’d just walked in suddenly became alert and each grabbed hold of the nearest woman. One said “
da
”, the other said “
tak
”, and they nodded their heads in a helpful manner.

“A more unconvincing set of ‘couples’ I’ve yet to see,” said Angela, sketching quotation marks in the air. “Are you telling me there are only three women living here?” This was met with more “
das
” and “
taks
” and nods, even some smiles this time. They’d switched on full cooperation mode.

The most cooperative, however, was Klara. She hung back behind Igor, and when Angela asked for confirmation that only three women were living in the house she held out her hand and raised four fingers.

“We think differently,” said Angela. “And while we’ve got you all gathered here, we’ll put this to the test.” She looked at her young colleague. “Leanne.”

“Yes, guv.” Leanne went into the hallway and stood at the bottom of the stairs. She took a deep breath, opened her mouth and beginning with the name “Asia”, let out a very long, very loud, stream of something in Polish. One of the two newly arrived men started forward and shouted at her. Stanway put out a hand to stop him and spoke rapidly into the walkie-talkie. The man shrank back and began speaking in a low voice to the others. In the brief silence before the sound of the back-up team came tearing up the front path, a distinct noise came from somewhere far above them. They could all hear the muffled sound of someone banging and calling out.

“She’s up there, guv,” said Leanne, just as Stanway opened the front door and police officers overran the house.

It didn’t take long. Leanne raced up the stairs ahead of the back-up team, and it quickly became obvious the missing woman was locked in the attic. In his haste to get her out of sight and answer the door, Igor had stashed the stepladder behind the nearest bedroom door, leaving it easily available to be run up against the loft hatch. When they pushed up the trap door, the tear-stained face of the woman from the photographs appeared over the hole. Leanne called up to her in Polish, gently explaining who they were. When she realized rescue had arrived, the tears began all over again, this time in relief and happiness. She was helped through the hole and down the ladder, shaking and sobbing and all the while being comforted by Leanne.

She clung to Leanne all the way down the stairs, out along the front path and into the street, where she finally stopped and looked around.

A small crowd of curious onlookers had gathered, all wondering volubly what could possibly be going on. Only two bystanders – Katy Devine and Father Martin Buchanan– waited in patient silence as the scene unfolded before them.

As she looked up and took in the crowd, Asia finally caught sight of a face she’d seen before; she recognized the priest from the confessional into which she’d run during her mad dash for freedom at the beginning of last week. Martin smiled and raised his hand, half-benediction, half-wave. Whether she was just glad to see a familiar face or had guessed he was instrumental in her rescue remained unclear, but it didn’t matter. She let out a loud cry as she flew across the road and into his arms.

As the brouhaha of the police raid died down, Angela spotted Rick, Jim and Gary coming towards her along the pavement. She beckoned them over to join her, Leanne and Stanway.

“Looks like a good result,” began Rick. “Do you want us in there, sir?” he asked Stanway, nodding towards the house.

“Probably, but let’s get these people sorted first,” replied the D.C.I. As he spoke, the three men, now handcuffed, were led out and taken along to the police van.

“What is it, wrongful imprisonment?” asked Jim.

“For starters,” said Stanway. “But from the look of a couple of those women, we might find something other than damsels in distress. Did you notice the traces of white powder on the face of one of those women?”

“I did, sir,” said Angela.

“Hmm. Yes. Well, who knows, we might find more of the same inside.” As Stanway spoke, Martin led Asia back across the road to Angela.

“I expect you have some questions for these women,” he said.

It was Stanway who answered. “I think we’ll let them recover a bit from their ordeal; especially this one,” he said, looking at Asia. He smiled gently at her. “Miss – er?”

“My name is Asia Krol,” she told him. “I am very thanking you for rescue me.”

“All part of the service,” beamed Stanway, and when Asia looked puzzled, he added slowly, “I’m very happy to help you.”

“Ah!” Asia smiled and nodded.

Stanway indicated with his hand to where the other three women were standing, of whom only Klara looked fully aware
of her surroundings. “Will you wait there with your friends?” he said in the same slow voice. Asia nodded and moved towards the others.

“Mind you, I’m not sure how much of an ordeal it was for the others,” he said to Angela. He looked towards the police van and back to her. “Are we looking at ‘disorderly house’, do you think?”

“I wouldn’t think so, sir. Going on what Martin could glean at the beginning of last week, along with the comings and goings observed from Katy’s bedroom, I would think they were being taken out to parties and gatherings to be used as high-class prostitutes.”

“That ties in with what she said on Monday,” agreed Martin.

“Hmm. So I suppose the ‘boyfriend’ pantomime was exactly that. They wouldn’t really have got a look-in,” said Stanway.

“No, sir; they would have been under very strict orders not to – er – handle the merchandise.”

Stanway nodded and looked at Angela and Leanne. “Well done, the pair of you,” he said. “Very well done.”

Leanne and Angela smiled. “You deserve congratulations, too, sir. I think that was a good bit of teamwork in there,” said Angela.

Stanway beamed. “That’s what it’s all about, eh?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” replied Angela. “I remember that speech.”

Stanway gave a smirk. “I cut it down considerably for the Neighbourhood Watch do. I could have spun it out for twenty minutes.”

“It did the trick, all right.”

Stanway nodded. “OK,” he said. “The work goes on. We need to put these women somewhere until we can talk to them.”

“The nuns attached to our parish run a hostel for students,” said Martin. “It’s nearly empty at this time of the year. I can arrange rooms there for the time being.”

“Some of them might also need a detox programme,” said Angela.

Martin nodded. “The sisters will know how to access one. All sorts of problems turn up at that hostel.”

“Excellent,” beamed Stanway. “Leanne and Derek, you get that sorted with the, er, Father here. Get the women settled in. Make sure they understand someone will be coming to talk to them tomorrow, then come back and join us at the incident room.” He turned to the others. “OK, let’s follow that van and get started with these men. A search team will be here to go over the property any minute, and they’re best left to get on with things on their own.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Angela. “I’ll just thank Katy for her cooperation and the use of her house.”

“Absolutely. Make that on behalf of us all, Angie.”

Within fifteen minutes, Katy and Father Martin sat comfortably in her living room, reliving all the excitement over a cup of tea, a search team had started a painstaking examination of the house with the blue door, and the street had emptied of all visible signs of police presence.

A very palpable sense of euphoria and self-congratulation pervaded the incident room later that day. Jokes and lighthearted banter went back and forth between the team as they settled down. It was still going on when Angela took the case file from her office and joined them. Jim, Rick and Gary shared in the pleasure of a successful outcome but bemoaned the fact that they weren’t really needed during the event.

“I was hoping to rush in there, throw a woman over my shoulder and come running out,” joked Jim, “so I’d be a hero and you could all give me a pat on the back.”

“We’d have to give you oxygen, more like,” countered Rick. “Apart from the one we already knew about, they’re tall girls, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, they looked more like they could pick
us
up and carry us,” laughed Gary. “When they’re not strung out on something or other, that is.”

Silence suddenly reigned in the room.

“Yes,” said Angela, after a moment. “I know we all feel good about the rescue, and it’s only natural to have a laugh and a joke, but what was happening to those women stinks.”

“Yeah,” said Gary. “They might have an addiction now that they didn’t have when it all started.”

“You can’t be sure of that with the fashion industry,” countered Rick.

“That’s true,” agreed Angela. “Still, let’s not wallow, chaps and chapess, we’ve got work to do.”

“Yes, we don’t really know if this gets us any closer to Kirsty’s murderer, do we?” remarked Rick.

Angela cast a glance at the picture of Kirsty and Asia on the board. “We’ll know more tomorrow,” she replied, “after we’ve spoken to that poor woman they shoved in the loft.”

Rick nodded. “Asia, isn’t it? I bet she’ll have a better night’s sleep than she’s had for some time.”

The others were nodding and agreeing with him when Angela spoke. “Yes, Asia,” she said, giving it the correct pronunciation. Leanne looked up, caught her eye, and they exchanged smiles. “Leanne’s been educating me about Polish names and how they get changed into pet names. But I’m sure you’re right. She should sleep very soundly tonight. Well, let me just say it definitively, once and for all. Congratulations, everybody, on a job very well done today. It went much more smoothly than we’d a right to hope for. But we need to get back to the task in hand. Jim and Rick, I want you to take those men.” She looked at a page on her desk. “I gather two of them are Russians and one is Polish.”

Rick and Jim looked pointedly at Leanne.

“No,” said Angela. “I want Leanne to go with Derek and speak to the women. Gary and Derek, get a couple of interpreters in. The men can stew overnight and you can get started first thing in the morning. Oh – please will you arrange for a Russian interpreter for the women, at the same time? I wonder if those ladies who looked so spaced out today will be ready to talk to us after a night’s sleep, or just desperate for their next fix.”

“That’s a point,” said Gary. “I wonder if they’re even aware they’ve been taken from a bad place to a good one.”

“We’ll find out tomorrow,” said Angela. “Leanne can interpret for Asia. That’s one lady who knows exactly where she is.”

“Going through an interpreter with these blokes might make it more difficult to tell if they’re stonewalling,” remarked Jim.

“Oh, I think you’ll get the measure of them once you’ve got into the interviews,” replied Angela. “But honestly, I doubt they’ll be able to tell you much. I’d lay odds they’re hired for their muscle and probably get their orders and their wages from a go-between. Whatever racket’s going on, they won’t know who’s behind it.”

“So, do we try to find out who is pulling the strings, or pass it on to Vice and Narcotics?” asked Gary.

“Good question,” said Angela. “Let’s run with it a bit more. We need to do the first interviews at least.” She looked across the room. “Leanne, can you and Derek find out who owns that house? They might know what’s been happening there or be completely in the dark, but it’s as good a place to start as any.”

“Will do, guv,” replied Derek.

“Jim, Rick, even though we’re not handing it over yet, get through to Vice and Narcotics. Bring them up to speed, and see if the address is on their radar.”

“OK,” said Rick. Angela stood staring into space, a small frown on her face. “Got nothing to do?” he joked.

“I wish!” replied Angela. “I could really do with sitting down quietly to let my mind wander over all the facets of this case. All the different threads are floating about in my head, confusing each other. Unfortunately, this afternoon’s events won’t write themselves up, and I want the report finished before Stanway asks for it.” She picked up the loose-leaf case file. Just as she raised it in the air to emphasize her point, the telephone rang on the desk behind her. The shrilling made her jump, and the file flew from her hand, pages scattering everywhere across the floor.

“Oh, no!”

Gary ran forward. “Don’t worry, Angie,” he said. “I’ll get this; you answer the phone.”

“Thanks.” Angela turned and picked up the receiver. “D.I. Cost – oh; yes, sir, right away.” She put the phone down and turned back to the room. “Hang on to that for me, Gaz. Stanway wants a word.”

D.C.I. Stanway turned from the contemplation of the roses on his windowsill with a beaming smile on his face as she entered the room. “We’re getting mentioned in despatches, so to speak,” he said.

“Oh, really, sir?”

“Yes, the assistant chief commissioner has heard about the operation over the weekend, and the rescue today. She has asked me to extend her heartfelt thanks and congratulations to everybody involved.”

“Oh, great, sir; I’ll pass that on. They’ve all been a bit hyper since we got back, but they’re calming down now.”

“That’s understandable; but yes, must get the noses back to the grindstone. You’ll need interpreters for the interviews. I mean, I know they all speak English to a degree, but we want to make sure everything’s clear.”

“I’m on to it sir. Gary and Derek are making the arrangements. Jim and Rick can make a start on those three men first thing.”

“What about the women?”

“I’ve asked for a Russian for the three models, but Leanne can deal with
Panna
Krol.”

“Panna? I thought her name was Asia.”

Angela grinned. “
Panna
means ‘Miss’. I’ve had a potted language lesson from Leanne over the weekend.”

“Oh, right. Well, you seem to have it all under control, Angie. I’ll leave you to get on with it.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied Angela, but she didn’t get up from the chair.

Stanway raised his eyebrows at her. “Is there something else, Angie?”

“Yes, sir. My mind is becoming cluttered with issues around this case and I’d like to go over them with you. Do you have a few minutes?”

The D.C.I. looked at his watch. “Not right now. I was due at a meeting two minutes ago. In any case, I know you. The stuff you kick upstairs to me is usually very relevant, quite likely off the beaten track, and will most probably take more than a few minutes.” He smiled. “I don’t expect the meeting to last all afternoon. I’ll call you when I’m back.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied Angela. She got up and made her way back to the incident room to find most of the team either working at computers or talking into telephones. Gary, however, sat perched on the corner of a desk holding the now tidied-up case file in his hand.

“Ah; thanks, Gazza,” she said, going over to him. “The sooner I get started on this report, the sooner it’s finished.” She reached out to take the file from his hand, but he resisted, holding onto it by one end, an odd look on his face. “Gaz, I need this,” she said, pulling gently at it.

“Yeah, but I want to show you something.”

“Oh, what?”

“As I was picking up those papers – the witness statements and stuff – I noticed something funny.”

“Ha ha, or peculiar?”

“Peculiar.”

“OK, want to come into my office? You can tell me there.” Gary nodded and followed Angela to the door.

Leanne put down a telephone and called across the room. “Guv?”

Angela paused and turned towards her. “Yes, Leanne?”

“I’ve just been speaking to the Land Registry. The house we raided today is owned by somebody called Massingham.”

The room went quiet. Everybody stopped what they were doing and looked at Leanne.