A few mumbled responses of, ‘No, guv,’ greeted this request.
Strong gave a frustrated sigh. “Moving on, we know Helena was involved with this man, Stefan Szymanski.” He pointed to a photograph of the Pole. “Earlier this afternoon, we brought Szymanski in for further questioning. We tracked him down to the massage parlour, Sweet Sensations, in Chapeltown. We also brought in the receptionist and the three girls working there, one of whom we suspect could be Helena’s friend, Lyudmyla, who she was supposed to have been visiting on the evening she was last seen. Kelly, you accompanied her to the house in Luxor Grove where they’ve all been staying. What can you say about that?”
Stainmore described the house, the various girls’ rooms, a couple of Spartan kitchens and bathrooms before mentioning the locked ground floor room where she was told special parties took place. “Lyudmyla also mentioned a locked basement room as well,” she continued. “And, on the Thursday night Helena was last seen, Lyudmyla tells me that Szymanski made them work when it was supposed to be a night off.”
“And I’ve just been to see DCS Flynn,” Strong came back, “he’s agreed we get a warrant to search the house. So, Jim,” he turned to DS Ryan, “I’d like you out there with the SOCO boys and see what they can turn up. Take Malcolm with you. I know it’s a long shot some two weeks on, but see what the neighbours recall. Probably all flats or bed-sits, but, you never know, you might come across some observant soul who remembers something around that time.” Strong then turned to Denholme. “We’ll come to Stella in a minute, but anything you can add to that, Vince, bearing in mind we now know you had the house under surveillance.”
“That’s right. We had an anonymous call telling us that there were sexual parties being held there. I’ve got a tape of the call here, so if there’s a player I could borrow …?”
“Try this,” Kirkland said from the back, picking up a tape player and passing it forward.
Denholme put the machine on the table in front of him, placed the tape inside and pressed play. A young female voice with a distinct Eastern European accent began to speak:
“You need to know,”
she said,
“house on Luxor Grove, number fifty-seven, men come there for … for disgusting sex. And the girls, they are young and are made to perform everything. You need to stop this.”
“Can I just take your name, please?”
a male voice asked.
“No,”
she replied,
“no names. Just stop it.”
A dialling tone interrupted, indicating the call was over.
“Can you play that again,” Stainmore asked.
Strong nodded to Denholme, who rewound, then pressed play once more.
“You got something, Kelly?” Strong wondered when it had ended.
“Make your mind up for yourself, guv,” she replied. “Come and have a word with Lyudmyla.”
“You think it’s Lyudmyla?”
“Ninety-nine per cent. I’ve just spent most of the afternoon with her.”
Denholme raised his eyebrows. “Makes sense, I suppose.”
“She was also lying when she said she didn’t know the address. I think she wanted to separate herself from the other girls. She kept saying she had nothing to lose but they did. Families back home, she was talking about.”
“You’ve had Szymanski on your radar for some time, Vince. What can you tell us about him and his connections with this man?” Strong pointed to another photograph on the board, “Stanislav Mirczack.”
“Stefan Szymanski,” Denholme began, “born in Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains in 1969. First arrived here, we believe, nearly three years ago. He first came to our notice when he was employed by Mirczack to manage the massage parlours; Shangri La in Bradford, Butterflies in Morley and Sweet Sensations in Chapeltown. In conjunction with the local authorities we do some spot checks to make sure there are no under-age activities, drugs, anything like that, health and safety checks.
“Mirczack himself became known to us in 1996. Originally from Yugoslavia. As well as the three parlours, we believe he has interests in two nightclubs in Leeds and property through a company known as Balkan Investments – including 57 Luxor Grove.”
“But you’ve no evidence of any criminal activities?”
“We know he has connections with some heavy operators in Eastern Europe and is associated with an Albanian crew in London, but nothing we can tie him down to here so far.”
“Is he running the other parlours with Eastern European women?”
“No, the others are mostly staffed by English girls. Sensations seems to be the only one of its kind. But bear in mind, the girls you’ve brought in are only one shift at Sensations. There must be another group of girls who do the days this lot don’t.”
“Of course,” Strong said. “They weren’t working seven days a week. Have the girls said anything about any others, Kelly, Luke?”
“No, guv,” Stainmore replied. Ormerod shook his head.
“So trafficking, then? Is he involved with that?”
“We’re not sure,” Denholme responded. “We’re working with the London boys and the Greater Manchester force because we suspect these girls may be sold and shipped around the country between establishments but it’s early days, we’re still looking for links.”
Strong exhaled deeply. “So any idea where he is now?”
“We think he may be out of the country. We’ve got a watch on all air and seaports to let us know when he passes through.”
“All right. Kelly, you speak to Lyudmyla again. She’s obviously not telling you everything – that phone message for a start, and any other girls and where they might be.”
“What about the other two, guv?” Ormerod asked, “Nadia and Katarina.”
“Who’s the officer sitting in with them at the moment?”
“Kath Milner.”
Strong nodded. “She’s pretty experienced. See if she can tell you how they’ve reacted while they’ve been kept waiting. Keep her with you when you talk to them in the light of what Kelly’s told us. You know what to look for.”
“Right, guv.”
Strong turned to Denholme. “Vince, can you find out a bit more about Mirczack’s whereabouts? I wouldn’t want him walking in on our search party at Luxor Grove. And we could do with getting a formal statement from Stella too. She must know something about another shift of girls. Can you and Sam conduct the interview?”
“No problems. I’ll get on it.”
“Trevor, can you chase up the ballistics reports for me on Helena?”
Newell nodded and walked back to his desk.
“John,” Strong addressed Darby, “You come with me, I want you to sit in with me on our next little chat with Szymanski.”
Lyudmyla sat nervously nibbling the skin at the side of her thumb when Stainmore returned to the ground floor interview room carrying a brown file. She looked up expectantly. The female uniformed officer acknowledged the detective’s nod and left the room.
“Would you like another drink?” Stainmore asked, indicating the empty styrene cup on the table between them.
The young woman shook her head. “Thank you, no.”
“I don’t blame you.” Stainmore smiled and studied her for a few seconds. “Lyudmyla,” she finally began, “Why did you let me think you didn’t know the address of the house?”
She looked indignant. “I didn’t.”
Stainmore raised her eyebrows in a gesture of disbelief.
“I didn’t,” the girl repeated. “It was Nadia you asked and she wasn’t sure. Then you ask something else.”
“But you wanted the others to think you didn’t know too.”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“What shifts do you and the other two actually do?”
“We work from eleven in the morning until ten at night.”
“I mean what days do you work?”
“Usually Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.”
“So what happens on the other days.”
“They have other girls but I don’t know who.”
Stainmore raised her eyebrows again. “Come on Lyudmyla, you must know.”
She exhaled heavily. “I don’t know. Helena, she tell me there are more girls in another house, but I don’t know names or where they are.”
Stainmore paused for a few seconds, then opened the file she had brought with her. “Okay. One more picture for you to look at.” She pulled out a photograph and passed it across to Lyudmyla. “I think you know this man.”
The girl took hold of it then immediately put it face down on the table.
“Be honest with me.”
She looked at Stainmore, eyes moist. “Yes,” she said.
“Can you tell me who he is?”
“You know who he is. It’s Chris. He come regular to see me. And now he’s dead. He was in the paper. Shot, they said.”
Stainmore picked up the photograph and placed it back in the envelope. “What was your relationship?”
She looked puzzled. “Relationship? He come for sex. We have good sex.”
“Nothing else?”
“Like what?”
Again Stainmore paused. “Was that why you telephoned the police?”
Once more Lyudmyla looked puzzled.
“To report fifty-seven Luxor Grove. ‘Disgusting sex parties’?” Stainmore quoted.
She looked away.
“It was you wasn’t it?”
Finally, she looked back at Stainmore. “They will kill me too.”
“Who will?”
The girl remained silent.
“Seeing the reports in the paper of Chris’s murder, you think you know who was responsible?”
“Can I have that drink please? Coffee, black with sugar.”
Stainmore held her gaze for a second. “Okay,” she said with a grim smile. “But if you want me to help you, you’ll have to help me.”
With the female uniform back in the room alongside Lyudmyla, Stainmore went upstairs in search of her boss. She found him coming out of Interview Room 2 with Darby.
“How’s it going, guv?”
“It isn’t,” Strong responded, thrusting his hands deep into his trouser pockets. “Clammed up, demanding a solicitor. You?”
“There is another house but she claims not to know where or the names of any other girls. She reckoned Helena knew, though. She got a bit emotional when I showed her Baker’s photo. Reckons they used to have ‘good sex’, whatever that was.” Stainmore glanced at Darby who was smirking but ignored him and looked back to her boss. “Anyway, she’s spooked. I think she has an idea who shot him. It definitely shook her up when she saw it splashed all over the papers and I think that’s why she made the call to Denholme’s mob.”
Just then, Newell strode up the corridor. “Guv,” he said, “just got hold of the scientist at the ballistics lab. The bullets recovered from the bodies of Chris Baker and Helena Cryanovic were fired from the same gun.
Strong pulled his hands from his pockets and clenched his fists. “I knew it.”
“So all we’ve got to do is find the gun,” Newell suggested.
“Easier said than done. Have you seen Vince?”
“He was in the CID room on the phone.”
“Right. Let’s go see what he might have for us.”
“I’ll get Lyudmyla a coffee and see what else I can tease from her,” Stainmore said, heading for the stairs.
In the incident room, Denholme was replacing the receiver when Strong, Darby and Newell entered.
“Any news on Mirczack, Vince?”
“According to our boys, he’s out of the country. We talked to Immigration and he took a flight to Riga from Leeds/Bradford on Tuesday. There’s a flag on him so as soon as he’s checked in on a return, they’ll let us know.”
Strong thought for a moment. “Riga, that’s Latvia isn’t it?”
“That’s right. We think he has connections there.”
“That’s where the containers were headed from Felixstowe. What about Stella? What was she able to tell you?”
“Got her statement here.” He held up some sheets of paper. “Basically, she worked only one shift with the other team. From what she can remember, there were four of them. She could remember three of their names, all presumably false, and struggled to remember the fourth. As with the Luxor Grove team, Szymanski brought them in and took them back. But she never heard where they lived.”
“Shit, we need to find them. If they’re locked in like the others, well … You sure Stella didn’t have a clue?”
Denholme spread his hands wide. “I tried all sorts to see if she could remember the minutest detail; had they mentioned anything they passed, a shop, a building site, but there was nothing.”
“Have you released her?”
Denholme nodded. “Thought it best. I can always get hold of her again if I need to.”
“Colin,” DCS Flynn appeared at the door. Strong walked towards his boss and followed him out into the corridor.
“The warrant’s been signed for Luxor Grove and the team are on their way. How’re things progressing?” Flynn asked.
“Slowly, sir. Szymanski’s not saying a word now.”
“What about the women?”
“Kelly’s back in with Lyudmyla. She’s the one that Baker used to visit. She obviously knows more than she’s already told us. Luke’s speaking to the other two.”
“You know we’re going to have to get Immigration involved?”
Strong leaned back against the wall then looked away from Flynn for a second. “I know. But once we do that, we won’t get much more from them. They’re definitely frightened. From what Kelly said, Nadia and Katerina have families back in Estonia, which, if my O Level Geography serves me well is right next door to Latvia which is where we think Mirczack is at the moment.”
“I can probably delay Immigration until the morning,” Flynn offered.
“In the meantime, what do we do with them? I can’t let them back to the house. They’re not technically under arrest.”
“We haven’t got a budget for a B&B. Besides, you won’t want them disappearing into the night. You’re going to have to do the best you can in the soft interview suite.”
Strong looked heavenward as he pondered this. Before he could respond, Ormerod appeared.
“I’ll leave that with you, Colin,” Flynn said, turning on his heel and walking off in the opposite direction.
“Thank you, sir,” he said quietly to his retreating back. Looking to his DC, he sighed, “Tell me you’ve got something positive to tell me.”