Hit and Run

Chapter Seventeen

At the station, Harper immediately demanded his own solicitor. While arrangements were made, Richard and Janine caught up with other events, taking reports from officers staffing the incident room.

‘All known haunts covered for Stone – no joy,’ Richard summarised.

‘Someone must know where he is,’ Janine complained. The man’s face had been plastered the length and breadth of the country ‘Any more sightings in Warrington?’

They looked at the log. Nothing had been added in the last few hours. ‘Did you speak to them?’ she asked Richard.

‘Butchers did. But maybe…’

They might get more cooperation from the neighbouring force if a request came from a more senior rank. Janine nodded. ‘I’ll call – though it looks like he’s moved on going by that log.’

‘Boss.’ Another detective constable had brought them coffee and biscuits. Janine took a cup and chocolate bourbon; she bit into the biscuit and took a sip of the drink. Drinkable. Just. She had her own coffee maker in her office but when things got crazy like this there wasn’t time to stop and make a decent brew. So much for her fond imaginings of relaxed child-free coffee breaks.

Richard was handed another folder. ‘From Poland, sir,’ the young DC explained.

Richard riffled through the faxes.

‘Let’s see.’ Janine moved closer. She wondered how long Sulikov had been smuggling women. How many Rosas and Marta had left family, home, friends and country to wash up in sleazy suburban brothels at the whim of men like Harper? ‘Do Poland know he’s into this?’ Janine asked Richard.

‘No reference here, but this is all history,’ he said dismissively. ‘They’re still collating further data.’ He scanned the document. ‘Started out as a teenager in gangs – smuggling alcohol and cigarettes.’

‘More money in human cargo these days,’ Janine observed. She was forming an image in her mind of the Pole: broad Slavic face, high forehead and wide cheekbones, a balding head, perhaps a scar. A cliché, she realised, a stereotype conjured up by the fearful reactions of the young women when his name had been mentioned, married to a clutch of corny images from Second World War films. She, of all people, should know that killers came in many guises: the bland and the attractive just as likely to be perpetrators as the wild or ugly-looking.

And a trafficker like Sulikov could rely on the silence of the people he transported. Living beyond the law, the illicit workers and their associates forfeit any protection from it. Unable to get help if they were robbed, beaten, starved or forced to work in dangerous situations. The death by drowning of nineteen Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay had sounded a wake-up call to government, but while the underlying cause of poverty and desperation remained there would always be people prepared to take a risk. And people making money from that need.

She looked at the clock. It was three-twenty. ‘What’s the time difference, here and Poland?’

‘They’re an hour ahead. I’ll get someone onto it now.’

‘Tell them it’s urgent. We don’t want to be hanging around waiting for them to get on board.’

‘I’ll ask them to take a look at his place. See if he’s there.’

‘Yes, but emphasise we don’t want him tipped off. And ask them for a photo. I’m trying to fix a meeting with Immigration – see how we handle it.’

‘Their way.’

‘Usually.’

There was often disagreement between local teams like hers and the immigration service on how over-stayers or illegal entrants were handled. Immigration, bound up in their own numbers game, favoured speedy deportations enabling them to tick boxes, though many acknowledged that the approach severely limited attempts to gather intelligence on the bigger players behind the scenes. For detectives it could mean watching while suspects or victims of other crimes were bundled away leaving a case in tatters.

‘Is The Lemon in?’

Richard nodded and she went to see if her boss could be of any help.

‘I’ve arrested Harper on suspicion, sir,’ Janine told DCS Hackett. ‘I need to begin interviews with him soon as his brief arrives. He was seeing Rosa Milicz as well as managing the brothel where she lived.’

‘And Stone?’ Hackett’s shrewd eyes scrutinised her.

‘He’s implicated too. He drove the van, bringing the women in. I’m hoping the women can tell me more about both men – and about Sulikov; we’ve still very little on him. Can we keep them here until I have a chance to talk to them, properly?’

‘Sorry, I’ve already had Immigration on, they want them at the removal centre near Leeds as soon as possible.’

‘I don’t want them deported.’

He leant forward, his head tilted to one side. ‘There’s not much chance of that – this is a murder enquiry. I’ve made that quite clear. Will the girls talk?’

‘Probably not – especially as we’re treating them like criminals. They’ve been falsely imprisoned to all intents and purposes; no passports, no outdoor shoes or clothing. They signed up for dancing or waitressing, not prostitution.’

‘Are we talking murder or trafficking here?’ He was warning her to stick to the case.

‘The two may well be linked.’

‘Don’t lose your focus.’

‘No, sir. But I won’t get much chance to find out, will I?’

‘Not unless you get a move on. Though there is a road network between here and Leeds, Janine, if push comes to shove.’

Sarky git.

She got up to leave.

‘And your leak?’ he said sourly.

As if it was some fault in her own plumbing. ‘Plugged,’ she told him.

He waited.

‘Ian Butchers. He was too close to the case, had a young brother killed in a hit and run.’

He gave a weary sigh, made as if to speak, hesitated. Then, ‘You disregarding procedure?’

‘Chris Chinley has been exonerated.’

‘Nevertheless. Can you imagine…’

‘But it didn’t, sir.’ She blushed as she interrupted him, aware that this was dicey ground. Never interrupt a senior officer. Hanging offence; drawing and quartering too with a boss like Hackett. But she ploughed on, ‘We’d gain nothing from launching a formal disciplinary – we’d lose a decent copper with over twenty years’ service.’

‘I don’t know that I can approve that decision.’

She felt an edge of anger that he would dismiss her arguments. And an eddy of anxiety as she prepared to tackle him. Her skin felt slightly clammy. ‘I don’t think you need to, sir. It’s sorted.’

He glared at her, gimlet-eyed. She could tell it was touch and go but she didn’t volunteer anything more. She’d had plenty of run-ins with Hackett in the past and had come to learn that he appreciated it when his officers stood their ground and confronted him head on. She felt heat crawl up her back as she waited, her mouth dry.

He gave a crisp nod of dismissal. Her legs felt weak when she got out into the corridor, as if she had been running uphill.

She found Marta in the yard, having a cigarette, waiting to be transported to the removal centre. It was cold out there; the grey sky promised rain; Janine thought she felt a spot of drizzle in the air. The miserable light signalled the end of the afternoon. Janine shivered and buttoned her coat.

‘What was going on with Rosa?’ Janine asked her.

Marta took a breath, began to speak, then tried again as her words caught and emotion flushed through her face. ‘She wanted to go home. She was having a baby, she wanted to keep the baby. I told her; don’t be stupid, they’ll stop you. It’s dangerous,’ she spoke animatedly. ‘Sometime she tells me maybe she can turn herself in to the police. Crazy. What about us, then where would we all be?’ She shook her head. ‘But Rosa was going home. Once she makes up her mind.’ She blew air out of her lips, ‘pouf.’ A gesture of exasperation.

‘Who killed her?’ Janine asked quietly.

Marta looked away, smoked her cigarette. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Who do you think killed her?’ Janine continued to watch her, forcing her to make eye contact. When Marta finally spoke Janine had to strain to hear.

‘I’m very afraid to tell you this.’ She rubbed at her upper arms, turned her head from side to side as though checking for eavesdroppers. ‘Very afraid.’

‘Please, Marta.’

She shuddered. ‘Sulikov, I think – his bully boys. Now no one else will think of trying to get away.’

Janine felt her pulse kick and quicken. Suspects, and a motive. Now they’d found the brothel, now they’d found Marta, things were opening up. Some cases were like this; you’d batter away for days, weeks even, and then the first crack would appear. It was always a liberating moment no matter how grim the circumstances.

‘What’s he like, Sulikov?’

‘I never met him.’

‘But you knew of him in Poland?’

‘Yes. He was the man, the boss. A very bad man.’

‘What about Harper?’ It would be useful to know what Marta thought about him before she and Richard interviewed him.

‘He let her dance at the club and Rosa thought he was a prince,’ she said bitterly. ‘He would never go against his boss. He’s not a brave man. He was using her. She loved him, he screwed her. Just like they all do,’ Marta paused. ‘She was thinking of names,’ she said, ‘of little clothes…’ Her eyes watered, she wiped at a tear smudging her make up. Her nose reddened. A tug of wind wrapped her blonde hair about her face.

‘Could he have killed her?’

‘Harper?’ Marta seemed sceptical.

‘When you said bully boys…’

‘Lee Stone,’ Marta suggested.

Not Harper then? What had his role been – just to keep quiet? Or had he told Sulikov Rosa was talking about leaving – had he set the wheels in motion and then walked away?

Janine watched a magpie land across the other side of the yard by the rubbish bins. It bounced a step or two and then began to stab at something on the ground. Its mate joined it. The harsh calls of the birds echoed round the concrete square. Two for joy, Janine thought. Hard to see from where she was standing. Did they have that rhyme in Poland? Did they have magpies?

‘You don’t know where Rosa was heading?’

‘I thought she was going into work. Well, that’s what she said but now, thinking of it, she was…’ Marta struggled to find an English word, ‘a little strange, like she was hiding something.’ She nodded. ‘She was running away.’

‘Since then – have you heard anything, from Lee Stone or Harper? Have they said anything at all that might help us?’

‘We’ve not seen them.’ Marta finished her cigarette, dropped it on the floor into a convenient puddle. It died with a little hiss.

Janine thought again of the bleak room that had been Rosa’s home, of the squalid life she’d led, servicing men at the brothel and then gyrating for them at the club. Putting her hopes in Harper. And it had all ended with one of the men, maybe Stone, strangling her.

The other two girls appeared, lighting up as soon as they emerged through the double doors. They both looked pale and tired.

‘The girls,’ Janine said, ‘some of them, they must know what they’re really going to end up doing. People must know it’s going on.’

‘Oh, you know do you? You have experience, yes?’ Marta said hotly. After a moment she added in a softer tone, ‘Maybe we know. But there’s always a chance, something better here. Back home, nothing.’ She shook her head very slowly. ‘No hope. Nothing.’