Authors: Chris Simms
Iona sat back. The woman spoke with an assurance that suggested she knew her stuff.
‘Many of you will be aware of the recent high-profile cases related to organized gangs grooming vulnerable young girls in order to then sexually exploit them. Despite what many of you may believe from media coverage, it is not only practised by certain ethnic groups.’
She looked carefully around the room and Iona realized she was searching for anyone readying themselves to question her assertion. No one did.
‘The issue reaches across all races and classes,’ she continued, ‘and affects – we believe – thousands of children. Certain individuals are more vulnerable. Children who’ve been placed in the care system, for instance. We estimate they are over four times more likely to face exploitation. My colleague here, Margaret Hammersley, can give you some anecdotal evidence.’ She looked at the lady at her side.
‘Thanks, Linda.’ She hooked light brown hair back over both ears, fringe splaying out across her forehead like a fan. ‘I’ve been carrying out research in several care homes across the region, conducting surveys where possible or just chatting to the children about their experiences – when they’re willing to talk. While I’ve been in houses – often during the afternoon, in broad daylight – I’ve seen cars pull up on the road outside and simply toot their horns, like a taxi picking up a fare. A girl – usually a girl, sometimes two or three – will rush to the window, see which car it is, then start heading for the front door. The vehicle might be a BMW or a Lexus or something more ordinary. The men driving can be late teens through to forty, sometimes older. Staff may try to ask the children where they’re going: they get a similar response to any parent asking their teenage offspring unwelcome questions, I imagine. “Out,” is the general response.’
‘Hang on.’ Iona looked to where the comment had come from. Someone from Sullivan’s team, heavy features emphasised by his look of outrage. ‘Why don’t the staff stop the girls from leaving, if it’s that obvious? What’s going on?’
Margaret Hammersley made a small chopping motion with one hand. A gesture, Iona thought, that hinted at the frustration she felt. ‘They don’t have that power – to restrain a child or young adult against their will. Or confine them. Not in those circumstances. Not at that time of day. They can advise. Ask things like, “Do you think it is a good idea to go off in that man’s car?” You can probably guess the answer.’
The officer thought for a second. ‘Then take the car’s registration. Report that.’
‘Staff often do. One home near Stockport collected nineteen registrations during a one-month period. But the local police can’t do much more than make a note of them – perhaps run a check on the database. Unless an allegation comes from the actual girls, their hands are pretty much tied, too.’
O’Dowd gestured at Roebuck. ‘That’s another one for your team; gather in registrations of all cars that have been picking up girls from care homes. We’ll need those details on HOLMES, see if any cross-matches come up.’
Roebuck turned to Euan. ‘Got that?’
Iona saw he was already typing it down. ‘On it.’
‘So, you now sense the nature of the problem for children in care,’ Bakowitz stated. Several heads were shaking in weary disbelief. ‘Another vulnerable group we’ve identified is children being transported overseas for forced marriages. Legislation in 2008 prevents someone being taken abroad against their will – figures giving us an insight into the problem are still far too sparse for my liking. However, summer is the peak for it. A charity based in Derby that helps those in danger of forced marriage received seven hundred and sixty-nine calls this June alone. A home affairs select committee report dating back to 2008 found, during that year, over two thousand students went missing from school registers. These are children who, come September, simply do not reappear in their class. The desk is empty. It transpired some had moved to new areas and joined a new school: many had not. Thirty-three in Bradford alone are still unaccounted for.’
O’Dowd sat forward. ‘Ms Bakowitz, if you could elaborate on which countries are known to be involved in …’
‘Bridenapping? Of course.’ She pushed her notes to one side and began to speak from memory.
Libby Williams lowered herself stiffly on to a chair. Once comfortable, she raised her phone back to her ear. The laptop was in front of her, positioned on a lace-work placemat to stop it from scratching the table. ‘Yes, the screens have stopped flitting about.’
Her son spoke. ‘Well done. Tell me what you can see.’
‘It’s that one with all the thingumyjigs.’
‘The icons?’
‘Yes. There’s that little waste-paper basket in the corner. And in the middle is that green dot for the music.’
‘Spotify?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. You’re on the desktop, that’s what it’s called. Now, Mum, see if you can find an icon that is a blue square with an S in the middle. I think I put it by the Spotify dot. It will have the word Skype below it.’
‘Yes, that’s right beside it. Do I move the cursor over and click on it?’
‘Get you! Clicking now, are we? Yes, click away.’
‘The desktop has now gone. It’s been replaced by a grey screen. Oh, now it’s making a noise. I can see a little photo of you. It says you’re calling.’
‘So now you just click on the green telephone at the bottom.’
‘Oh my Lord, I can see you. You’re waving!’ She couldn’t help laughing. ‘You’re waving!’
‘Mum, I’m waving at you. Close your mouth unless you want a fly to get in.’
‘And I’m there, too, in a little square in the corner. I can hear your voice so clearly!’
‘That’s the idea. You can hang up the phone now and we can talk like this.’
‘You want me to put the phone down? Will it not cut the connection?’
‘No – we’re on the internet, Mum. The phone line is completely different. Go on, put that big old lump of plastic in your hand down. Good. Still hear me loud and clear?’
‘Yes. How remarkable. I wish your father was still alive to see this. Amazing. Your picture isn’t straight, on the wall behind you.’
‘Mum! We won’t continue with this if you start using it as a way of tidying up, OK?’
‘Well, it isn’t straight. So, can you see me just as clearly?’
‘Yes. Well, no. Not if you lean to the side like that. Mum, you need to be in front of the little camera. And now my screen has gone pink. Mum, is your finger over the lens? It is, isn’t it?’
She laughed and lowered her hand.
‘Oh, you’re back again. But wait, did you feel that over in Poynton?’ He frowned theatrically. ‘I think it’s an earthquake. Oh! Oh! Everything’s shaking!’
She watched with an amused expression as the view of her son started to bounce up and down and from side to side. ‘That’s you, silly. You’re wobbling your computer about.’
The movement stopped and he grinned at her. ‘You sussed me.’
Across the street, Liam watched the man. His head and shoulders were visible through the living room window. He was chatting away to someone, having a right laugh by the look of it. Then he’d put his mobile to one side and continued to speak. The guy’s face shone faintly with reflected light. Liam guessed he was looking at a laptop’s screen. Nina’s laptop. He checked his watch: just after three. Another couple of hours and it would be completely dark. He continued along the road to check what was behind the house. A backyard or small garden, hopefully.
‘We know bridenapping goes on in at least seventeen countries, worldwide,’ Linda Bakowitz said, eyes trained on the meeting room wall where it joined the ceiling. ‘China to Mexico, Russia to South Africa. In some regions of Kyrgyzstan, a Central Asian country bordered by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and China, it is thought that up to eighty per cent of marriages are forced. Many regions view the practice as a tradition, not a crime. It goes on in Chechnya. Dealers operate in Vietnam, taking young girls over the border into China. The same for Somalia and Kenya. Within Europe, it’s estimated seventeen per cent of marriages in Georgia are forced, fourteen per cent in Turkey.’
She directed a finger at Euan’s laptop. ‘The entire process has been greatly facilitated by the internet – that’s kidnapping in general, not just that of girls for marriage. You’ll know better than I that things like Twitter and social networking sites make it easy for criminals to communicate. Large amounts of money can change hands online, too – going from one currency to another in the process. Foreign travel, across the EU and beyond, is easier now than ever. We know the international links are there. I recently attended a seminar with the Serious Organized Crime Unit’s team. We went over the case of a British boy kidnapped last year. The family paid a ransom to an account traced to Paris. The investigation that followed led, eventually, to arrests in Pakistan, Romania and Spain.’
O’Dowd coughed. ‘For the purposes of this investigation, we have a young girl who disappeared from a care home near Stockport—’
‘An area with one of the country’s highest concentrations of care homes,’ Margaret interjected, emotion straining her voice. ‘All those big houses at cheap prices. Local authorities in London and the south east short on space and budgets ship the children up here.’
‘So we’ve gathered,’ O’Dowd replied. ‘And one of these girls has then reappeared at a checkpoint on the Lebanese-Israeli border – with horrific consequences.’
Bakowitz interlinked her fingers. ‘Given that the girl in question was Caucasian and taken to the Middle East, I’m of the opinion she’d been trafficked originally for sex, not marriage.’
Iona took a quick glance about. Everyone’s eyes were glued to Bakowitz.
‘It is deeply disturbing,’ she added quietly. ‘And it goes beyond anything I’ve experienced before. These girls are, as I’ve said, vulnerable. Suddenly, all this attention is being lavished on them. They’re bought gifts. Nice stuff, at first. Little treats. A meal in McDonald’s, trinkets from Accessorize, often a pay-as-you-go phone. That mobile opens up a direct channel of communication. Then it’s invitations to house parties – where there are cigarettes, alcohol, drugs. They’re lured in very carefully.’ She tapped her fingers against her file. ‘But, there’s a huge difference between being exploited sexually and detonating a bomb that’s strapped to your body—’
‘If she detonated it.’ Iona realized she’d spoken her thought aloud. She looked up. O’Dowd was scrutinising her. Next to him, DCI Roebuck’s eyebrows were raised. Christ, Iona said to herself, knowing she now had to back her comment up. ‘Sorry to butt in,’ she started nervously. ‘But we don’t know she was aware of what she was carrying, do we? She may have been told it was something entirely different. In which case, someone else may have actually detonated it.’
The room remained silent.
Damn it, Iona thought. Why did I open my—
‘Good point,’ O’Dowd said, consulting his file. ‘Jade Cummings was reported missing from her care home in mid-October. She died on November eighteenth. That’s a six-week period. Long enough to indoctrinate someone to the degree they’ll commit suicide for the cause?’ He glanced at Iona. ‘I doubt it.’
She felt a surge of relief. I didn’t drop a clanger, after all.
‘Research on this tells us,’ O’Dowd carried on, ‘that, unless the bomber has lost loved ones in what they perceive as unjust circumstances – an airstrike or drone attack, for example – the process of indoctrination is long and slow. The religious argument must be accepted first; then the case for sacrificing yourself. Six weeks … I can’t see that as being sufficient.’
‘If the indoctrination only started at the point of her disappearance.’
Iona looked across the table. Martin Everington had thrown the comment in. She saw that he was slouched low in his seat while cartwheeling a green biro through the fingers of one hand. She suddenly wished he’d drop it. He was so bloody confident.
He looked up at the senior officers. ‘What if the grooming – religious or whatever – had been going on for a while before she went missing? We’re talking like her disappearance wasn’t her choice. But – maybe – she went willingly.’
Iona saw heads nodding round the room and was acutely aware that few had reacted that way when she’d spoken. Martin’s eyes touched hers and she immediately looked away. He had a point.
O’Dowd traced his finger over his sheet. ‘Jade Cummings had been in care since the age of seven. She had one period with a foster family when she was nine, but that fell through within eight months. She’d been in a home near Reddish ever since.’ He looked at DCI Sullivan and was about to speak when his Blackberry buzzed again. Rather than pick it up, he glanced down at the screen and gave a dismissive flick of his fingers. ‘Where was I? Jade Cummings. Let’s review things from the angle of her being groomed not for sex but suicide. Re-interview staff and children from the care home, if necessary.’
DCI Sullivan immediately looked at Martin. ‘Happy to do that?’
‘With pleasure, sir.’
Iona kept her eyes on the table, smarting at the turn of events. One minute her contribution looked like it was taking priority, the next it had been swept aside by Martin’s. She could feel gloating glances settling on her from every direction.
O’Dowd was about to say something else when his Blackberry buzzed again. ‘Christ sake.’ He glanced at the screen, frowned, picked the device up and read the message more carefully. The room watched as he pressed a few keys. ‘Charles? I just got your text. What’s going on?’
As he listened to what was being said, a ping came from Sullivan’s jacket. He retrieved his phone and scanned the screen, straightening up as he did so. He turned to the superintendent, a forefinger raised.
‘Great, let me know as soon as,’ O’Dowd said, cutting his call. ‘Andy?’
DCI Sullivan spoke. ‘Word from Eamon Heslin’s apartment. Some paperwork has been recovered that lists what could be several clients. Might be whoever bought those laptops. It’s being biked over as we speak.’
O’Dowd clenched one fist in response before jabbing a finger at his mobile. ‘That was the liaison officer at the embassy in Islamabad. Khaldoon Khan and his sister have relatives in the mountains of north Pakistan. They think that’s where they headed from the airport.’