Authors: Robert Bryndza
T
he past few
days had passed in a haze of frustration. To have come so close, and then to have to pull back, had left the figure raging inside. Not only had DCI Foster survived, she’d come back from it stronger.
She’s been put back on the fucking case!
After witnessing the appeal from Lewisham Row, where DCI Foster had publicly linked the murders, the figure was torn. There was an instinct to flee far away, to start again, but there was also an itch which needed to be scratched. The link had been made, but the police had nothing. The figure was sure of this.
So, at six pm, the figure drove up to Paddington Train Station, where the cabs dropped off and picked up passengers, and where the girls hung around . . .
The girl looked confused when the figure pulled up in the car. She was standing a little way down the end of a dirty slip road which was used by cabs to turn around, or by people on the lookout for a good time.
‘I can give you a good time,’ she said, automatically. She was a thin girl with a strong Eastern European accent. She shivered in tight leggings, a spaghetti strap top and a large, ratty, fake fur coat. She had pale pointed features and shoulder length, poker-straight hair. Her eyes were surrounded by glittery eye shadow and she was chewing gum. She leaned back against the skip, waiting for a response.
‘I’m looking for a good time . . . Something a bit different, a bit rarer.’
‘Oh yeah? Well, you know, when stuff is rare, it costs more.’
‘I know your boss,’ said the figure.
She scoffed at him. ‘Yeah, they all say that . . . If you’re looking for a discount, you can fuck off,’ she said, going to turn away.
The figure leaned forward and told her a name. She stopped and came back to the window, dropping all pretence of being alluring. Her eyes were frightened. Fear surrounded by glitter.
‘Did he send you?’ she asked, looking around at the cars roaring past.
‘No. But he knows I put a lot of business his way . . . So he’ll expect me to get what I want.’
The girl narrowed her eyes. Her instincts were good. This might be harder than expected.
‘So, you come here and drop the name of my boss. What do you want me to do?’
‘I like outdoor scenes,’ said the figure.
‘Okay.’
‘And I like it when the girl plays scared . . .’
‘You mean you want a rape fantasy?’ said the girl bluntly, rolling her eyes. She looked around and pulled down her top, showing her small pert breasts. ‘That will cost more.’
‘I can afford it,’ said the figure.
She pulled her top up. ‘Yeah? Show me.’
The figure pulled out a wallet and opened it, pushing it under her nose. The money was in a crisp block, glinting under the street lights.
‘Fifteen hundred. And we have a safe word,’ she said, pulling a mobile phone from her leggings. The figure put a hand out and covered the phone.
‘No, no, no, no. I want this as real as possible. Within the realms of fantasy. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going.’
‘I have to call.’
‘An extra five hundred. The boss doesn’t have to know.’
‘No way. He finds out, and I don’t get to have a safe word.’
‘Okay. All above board. Two grand. And the safe word is Erika.’
‘Erika?’
‘Yes. Erika.’
The girl looked around and chewed on her lip. ‘Okay,’ she said. She pulled open the door and got into the car. The figure drove off, activating the central locking, telling her this, too, was part of the game.
T
he incident room
was rather quiet after the press conference. Officers milled around as the occasional phone rang. An air of expectation needed to be quenched. The few calls that did come through were from the usual time-wasters.
‘Jesus. You’d think that someone would come forward with information,’ said Erika, looking at her watch. ‘I can’t bear this; I’m nipping out for a cigarette.’
She had just reached the steps of the police station when Detective Crane appeared behind her.
‘Boss, you’ll want to take this,’ he said.
‘Who is it?’ asked Erika.
‘We’ve got a young girl on the line who says she’s Barbora Kardosova, Andrea’s long lost best friend,’ said Crane.
Erika hurried back with him to the incident room and took the call.
‘Is this the police officer who was on the television this afternoon?’ asked a young female voice with an Eastern European accent.
‘Yes. This Detective Chief Inspector Erika Foster. Do you have information about George Mitchell?’
‘Yes,’ she said. There was a pause. ‘But I can’t talk on the phone.’
‘I can assure you that anything you say here will be treated confidentially,’ said Erika. She looked down, and saw it was a withheld number. Erika looked over at Crane, who nodded to show he was already working on a trace.
‘I’m sorry, I won’t talk on the phone,’ the girl said, her voice shaking.
‘Okay, that’s okay. Can I meet you?’ asked Erika. ‘It can be anywhere you like.’
Peterson was hastily scribbling on his notepad. He held up a sign, which read: GET HER TO COME IN TO STATION?
‘Are you in London? Would you like to come to the station here at Lewisham Row?’
‘No . . . No, no . . .’ The girl’s voice was now panicky. There was a pause. Erika looked up at Crane, who mouthed that it was a pay-as-you-go phone.
‘Hello, Barbora, are you still there?’
‘Yes. I’m not saying any more over the phone. I need to talk to tell you things. I can meet you tomorrow at eleven am. Here’s the address . . .’
Erika scribbled it down hastily and went to ask more, but the line was dead.
‘It was a pay-as-you-go, boss; no joy,’ said Crane.
‘She sounded really rattled,’ said Erika, replacing the phone.
‘Where does she want to meet?’ asked Peterson. Erika tapped the address into her computer. A picture on Google Maps popped up on screen. It was a vast expanse of green.
‘Norfolk,’ said Erika.
‘Norfolk? What the hell is she doing in Norfolk?’ asked Moss.
Erika’s mobile phone rang. She saw it was Edward. ‘Sorry, I just have to take this. Can you work out a route, and we’ll decide how to proceed when I come back,’ she said, and left the incident room.
The corridor outside was quiet and she answered her phone.
‘So lass, I take it you’re not coming?’ said Edward. Erika saw that it was five past five.
‘I’m so sorry . . . You’re not still waiting there? On the platform?’
‘No, lass. I saw you on the telly this afternoon, and I thought, unless you can fly, you wouldn’t be here at five o’clock.’
Erika thought back. The morning seemed like a million years ago.
‘You did well for that press conference, love,’ said Edward. ‘You made me care about that girl, Andrea. She hasn’t been getting very nice things said about her in the papers, has she?’
‘Thank you. It all happened at once. I was called in this morning, I was about to get on the train to you and . . .’
‘And it all got away from you, eh?’
‘Yes,’ said Erika, softly.
‘Listen love. You do what you have to do. I’ll be here for you.’
Moss appeared at the door, signaling that she wanted to speak.
‘Sorry. I have to go. Can I phone you back later?’ asked Erika.
‘Yes, love. Take care of yourself, won’t you? You catch that bloke, lock him up and throw away the key.’
‘I will,’ said Erika. There was a click, and Edward hung up. ‘I will. I promise I will,’ she repeated.
Taking a deep breath, she went back into the incident room, wondering exactly when she’d be able to honour her promise.
E
rika
, Moss and Peterson set off early from London the next day to meet Barbora Kardosova. They had tried a search on her several times, but it had brought up a blank. Her National Insurance, passport and bank account numbers had ceased activity more than a year previously. Her mother had died two years previously, and she had no other living relatives.
Just as the sun broke through the clouds, they plunged into the gloom of the Blackwall Tunnel. When they emerged a few moments later, the sun had vanished again behind a bank of steel-coloured clouds.
‘Now we’ve crossed the river, we’re looking for the A12, boss,’ said Moss. Peterson sat in the back, engrossed in his phone. They’d stopped for petrol just before Greenwich, and Moss had indulged her sweet tooth with packets of red liquorice bootlaces.
The built-up sprawl of London soon gave way to the A12 dual carriageway which was neglected and crumbling in places, and they noticed how flat the landscape was. Brown fields with bare trees whizzed past, and towards Ipswich they turned off the dual carriageway and slowed as they hit a single-lane road.
‘It’s quite eerie, isn’t it? This straight road through nothing,’ remarked Peterson, speaking for the first time in a hundred miles. The road carved its way through a vast expanse of flat fields, and the wind roared across the bare soil, buffeting the car. The road rose up a little, and they crossed a metal bridge over a canal of choppy water. Dead grey reeds lined the straight waterway all the way to the horizon. Erika wondered if the water reached the edge and poured away into nothingness.
‘It’s an old Roman road, the A12,’ said Moss, stuffing another red bootlace into her mouth and chewing.
‘They burnt hundreds of witches in Suffolk and Norfolk,’ added Peterson, as they passed a deserted windmill in a field next to the water.
‘I’ll take high prices, door-to-door traffic, smog, and a crowded Nando’s over this any day,’ said Moss, shivering and turning up the car heater. ‘How far?’
‘There’s about six miles to go,’ said Peterson, consulting his iPhone.
The trees thickened and the landscape changed to woodland. The car sped along under a canopy of bare trees, and Erika slowed as she spied a lay-by with a picnic area, which was no more than a scrub of soil and a picnic bench. A wooden sign had the number 14 painted on it.
‘What did she say, picnic area 17?’ asked Erika.
‘Yes, boss,’ said Peterson, tapping on his phone. They carried on a little more as the wood seemed to get denser. The road wove to the left and right, past picnic area 15. They took a sharp bend, and a picnic bench with the number 16 slid past. The picnic area was overgrown. The bench was rotten and had collapsed.
‘Advise on your status,’ said Detective Crane’s voice, bursting through with static on the police radio mounted on the dashboard.
‘We’ll be approaching within the next few minutes, skip,’ said Moss.
‘Okay, keep an open line of communication. That’s what the Super asked for,’ said Crane.
C
hief Superintendent Marsh
had been against sending three of his officers off to Norfolk on what he thought was a wild goose chase.
‘Boss, Barbora Kardosova was one of Andrea’s closest friends, and she says she knows George Mitchell,’ Erika had pointed out, when she was sitting in his office.
‘Why hasn’t she come forward before? Andrea has been in the newspapers for weeks. And why don’t we get the local plod to take a statement? You’ll be gone for a whole day. You’ve just launched a major appeal in London,’ said Marsh.
‘Sir, this is our strongest lead. We’ll leave early, we’ll be in contact the whole time. Again, I’d like you to entertain my hunch on this one.’
‘Why was she using an unlisted number? We’ve no idea of her whereabouts,’ said Marsh, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes.
‘Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. That’s not an offence is it?’ asked Erika.
‘It would make everything far more bloody easy if everyone was tagged at birth with a GPS tracker. It would save a fortune . . .’
‘I’ll be sure to pass that along to the next journalist I meet,’ said Erika.
‘Keep me informed every step of the way,’ he had said irritably, waving her away with a hand.
T
he sky had grown heavy
, and Moss had to put on the car headlights. The surrounding woodland was now thick, and the bare branches seemed impenetrable. The sign with the number 17 appeared up ahead, and they came to a stop at a patch of bare soil. The bench had been removed, leaving four deep impressions in the soil. Moss killed the engine and the lights, and they were left in silence. When Erika opened the door, a cold breeze floated past, bringing with it the smell of damp and rotting leaves. She buttoned up her coat as Peterson and Moss joined her.
‘So now what?’ asked Moss.
‘She said she’d meet us here; she was very specific,’ said Erika, pulling out the scrap of paper where she’d written the original directions. They looked at the road beside them. It was empty in both directions.
‘There looks like a track up ahead here,’ said Moss. They made towards a gap in the dead brambles and undergrowth. After squeezing through for several metres, it opened out onto a track for walkers. It was well-kept, under a huge canopy of trees stretching away to a corner, where the track disappeared. Erika imagined that in the summer this bleak and creepy woodland corner felt different.
They waited for almost forty minutes, the radio clicking and beeping as Crane, back in London, checked their status.
‘It’s a bloody wind-up,’ said Peterson. ‘No doubt it was the woman who said . . .’ His voice trailed off as they heard the crack of a stick breaking, and the whoosh of leaves being disturbed. Erika put her finger to her lips. There was a rustling, and through the undergrowth came a woman with short blonde hair. She wore a pink waterproof jacket and black leggings. She held a knife in her hand, and what looked like a canister of mace in the other. She stopped fifty yards from where they stood.
‘What the fuck?’ said Moss.
Erika shot her a look. ‘Barbora? Barbora Kardosova? I’m DCI Erika Foster; these are my colleagues, Detective Moss and Detective Peterson.’
‘Take out your IDs and throw them over here,’ said Barbora. Her voice shook with fear, and as she came closer they could see her hands did too.
‘Hang on,’ started Moss, but Erika put her hand in her pocket, pulled out her ID and slung it across. It landed a few feet from Barbora. Moss and Peterson reluctantly did the same. She picked them up, and keeping the canister of mace trained in their direction, looked through their ID.
‘Okay, you can see we are who we say we are. Now please put the knife and the mace away,’ said Erika. Barbora put them down on the ground, and came cautiously towards the three of them. Erika could just make out the face from the picture she’d seen on Facebook. It was still beautiful, but the nose was now smaller and straighter. The face was fuller, and the long dark hair was now short and dyed blonde.
A dark-haired man and a blonde-haired girl . . .
thought Erika.
‘Why are we going through all this just to talk to you?’ started Moss. ‘You know we could nick you here and now for having that knife. It’s more than seven inches long, and don’t get me started on the mace . . .’
Barbora had tears in her eyes. ‘I’m so scared, but I have to talk to you. There are things I have to tell you or I’ll never forgive myself . . . I shouldn’t have contacted you using my real name,’ she said. ‘I’m in the witness protection programme.’