Clean Cut

Chapter Nineteen

You could feel the adrenalin pumping as Langton gave the briefing. Both Krasiniqe brothers were illegal immigrants, shipped into the UK as very young teenagers. Both had been drawn into Camorra’s world, used and abused by him, and totally dominated by his perversions, his threats and his so-called voodoo powers. They now knew how Carly Ann North’s death linked to the brothers, and to Camorra. Along with his illegal traffic of immigrants, they now wanted him for her murder.

They were pulling back on press releases and television coverage, as it was imperative they did not tip off Camorra to leave the country. They now had another team of extra officers to push up the hunt for him; they also had, from Idris Krasiniqe, a good description of the house in Peckham where he was known to reside.

The stunned team listened as Langton listed the pieces of the jigsaw that were still missing. They needed to interview Eamon Krasiniqe’s cellmate, who was believed to have fed the poison to him. Who was the visitor listed with the assumed name and fake ID? Who wanted Arthur Murphy dead? Langton was also going to get Vernon Kramer brought in for questioning again, this time at the station.

Langton suggested that what they were looking at was a massive clean-up by Camorra: all the dead were connected to him, and he had simply got rid of them. Rashid Burry had been found in the same white Range Rover that had been used to transport Carly Ann’s body. They knew Joseph Sickert had needed a safe house and, assisted by Arthur Murphy, he had ended up at the piggery. The Range Rover had been to the same location.

Langton was at full speed. ‘Did Camorra want Gail’s children? He’s a sick perverted bastard. I reckon Sickert saw Rashid and co. turning up at the farm and knew something bad would happen. They took Sickert and the two older children; he presumed Gail and the toddler would follow. The biggest reaction I got from him was over the murder of Gail and Tina. He must have known about it — it was all over the news — so, Sickert takes the kids and goes on the run. Right now, our priority is to find out where he and the children were first taken.’

Langton ran his fingers through his hair. Holding the reins on this case was a nightmare.

‘We know the immigration service is totally screwed, but we do not know how many bodies this man has shipped illegally into the UK. We keep on hearing about his wealth and that it’s cash; we hear he has a fleet of vehicles and houses. He must have money stashed somewhere. He couldn’t bank it, unless he also uses the poor souls he ships in to open up strings of accounts. We are talking about them paying up to five thousand for transportation and God knows how much on top for visas and passports. Maybe these bank accounts are well hidden, but that is another area we need to start digging into.’

Anna felt that this was one of the keys to the whole case, but it was like a loose end dangling, with no one quite catching hold of it.

At this point, a call came in to say that they had found the house in Peckham. It was empty and, according to neighbours, had not been used for some weeks. A team of SOCO officers were ready to break in and begin searching for evidence. Frank Brandon and Harry Blunt left the station to join them.

Grace had little to add to the briefing; she had not been able to gain any further details from the two children held at the Child Protection Unit. Langton asked Anna to take over and, if she got anything, to join them at the Peckham property; he would go over there after interviewing Vernon Kramer.

There was a lot of movement with officers and squad cars moving out; after the initial high, the incident room fell silent. Langton waited for Vernon to be brought in and taken to the holding cells. They had had a bit of an argy bargy with the open prison Governor, who said they could conduct the interview there, but Langton refused. He wanted no prison authorities breathing over his shoulder, no prison officer privy to the interview. Mike Lewis had instructions to cut up rough: to use, not a squad car, but a white prison van. Langton wanted Vernon cuffed.

Vernon Kramer’s photograph had been almost the first up on the incident board, with Arthur Murphy’s beside him. It had a few red arrows linking him to Gail and to Joseph Sickert; he was also linked to Rashid Burry, but a question mark was over his relationship with Camorra. He had given them only a very vague description of Camorra’s house but, even so, he had a red line linking him to the prime target.

Harry Blunt and Frank Brandon had got into a heated argument. The house was, as Harry said, hard to fucking miss, but they had missed it. Now there was a team of SOCO officers, plus two forensic scientists and three assistants, ready to enter the premises. The usual police warning was given, in case there were occupants, then they burst open the front door. It took some hammering, as there were so many bolts and locks; although it looked like wood, it was, in actual fact, a steel security door. There was a similar door at the rear; whoever had been there had obviously left via this back door, as the bolts were not thrown across.

Brandon gave instructions for the SOCO team to be wary, just in case the place was booby-trapped. After the house was deemed safe to enter, Brandon and Harry went inside.

From the outside, it appeared to be an ordinary property — a three-storey house with a double garage and an overgrown front garden — but the inside was something else.

Harry whistled. ‘It’s like one huge brothel, from the old days! Look at the mirrors, and the drapes.’

‘I’m looking, I’m looking,’ Frank muttered. Everywhere hung massive gilt mirrors, reflecting ornate reproduction furniture.

‘So when were you last in a whorehouse this size?’ Harry dug his toe into a once-white carpet, now stained and dirty.

Frank took in the heavy chandelier and the matching wall lights with crystal drops. The wide staircase had a black boy figure at the bottom, holding a glass-flame torch. ‘You buy this gear in a place in Marble Arch. The Arabs love it.’

‘Lotta marble — that’s not cheap,’ Harry said, running his hand over a hall table; it was thick with dust.

‘Well, he flashed his money around, didn’t he?’

Frank looked through a set of double doors into a dining room. A large oval table with gilt legs and fourteen fabric-covered chairs dominated the room, which was hung with yet more elaborate mirrors, above cabinets full of Capo di Monte figures. The lounge was next, with dirty white leather sofas and a massive plasma-screen TV. The kitchen was filled with every possible kind of culinary equipment, all filthy. The once black-and-white tiled floor was greasy and the cooker looked as if it had never been cleaned. The smell was pungent. There were baskets of rotting vegetables; food had been put in the waste disposal unit, but no one had bothered to turn it on. The fridges and deep freezes bulged with yet more food. There was an industrial roll of black bin-liners left on the floor; a few bags had been filled, as if someone was trying to clear up, but had just abandoned the rubbish instead of removing it.

The first-floor bedrooms were equally over-dressed, with drapes and mirrors, and equally filthy. The wardrobes were empty, but grimy sheets were still on the unmade beds. These were removed for tests. They had, thus far, found no indication that anything untoward had been happening. It was, to all intents and purposes, merely the home of someone with pots of money and no taste, who hadn’t been able to hire decent cleaners! Not until they moved up to the next floor, did an all-pervading feeling of something wrong hit everyone.

This floor was also carpeted, but in a deep burgundy; it was threadbare, in some places worn down to the floorboards. The three bedrooms had locks and chains on the outside. The one bathroom for that floor was old-fashioned and filthy. Each room was bare, apart from single beds with dirty sheets. The top floor had another two rooms, again with locks and chains on the doors. Inside were children’s toys and cots, again stained, and an overpowering stench of urine; faeces were growing mould on the floor. There was no bathroom at this level, just washbasins; in one, they found dirty nappies and some children’s nightclothes.

Brandon and Harry returned to the ground floor to check if any papers or documents had been left behind. In a small anteroom by the kitchen was a printing press; acid had been poured over it and the two boxes of papers alongside, which contained stacks of hard-backed passport covers.

Brandon poked around as Harry looked over the printing press. ‘So this is where he forged the documents.’

They found some charred papers in a fireplace, and more in the bins outside.

‘Shit!’ Harry turned over a piece of paper. It was handwritten and burned almost black, with some of the words crossed out, but what was left of it described the availability of a white eight-year-old boy.

They turned when a SOCO officer appeared in the doorway. ‘We’ve opened the cellar.’

They stood at the cellar doors and looked down a flight of stone steps. The cellar was much larger than one would have thought; it ran the entire length and width of the house. There were wrought-iron candleholders spaced three feet apart, leading down; by now, forensic had brought in some lamps. The white-suited scientists were already at work; there were markers on the steps to indicate where they shouldn’t tread.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Harry muttered.

On one wall was a massive cross; in front of it was a stone altar. Grotesque masks, skulls and hideous shrunken heads hung on the walls, and robes in various shades of red hung on hooks.

‘Oh my God,’ Brandon breathed.

There were deep red stains over the stone altar. The forensic team was gathered around it, taking scrapings. There was a hideous smell that made their nostrils flare. Both men knew it was the stench of rotting flesh.

Anna was led into the Child Protection Unit’s ‘home’ section by the carer working that morning, Alison Dutton. This was an area dressed like a warm, friendly house. The nursery was decorated with paintings and big colourful posters. A doll’s house and boxes of toys were placed neatly against one wall. The room was bright and cheerful, with coloured bean bags and small children’s tables and chairs. Nothing gave any hint of the torment that brought these children into this environment; everything was designed to help the children adjust to normality, yet the entire place was somehow fake to Anna. The women she met were kindly and helpful but, at the same time, protected their charges with a set of rules and regulations made by the Government. The children were waiting for the social services to find them a foster home; until a satisfactory one had been found, they would remain at the protection house.

Anna was told that the little girl, Sharon, was making great progress; she had not started to talk yet, but had formed a strong bond with one of their team. At first, she had refused to eat and never slept; it had taken time and patience for them to get her to the point that she could now be spoon fed and had begun to play with the toys. She had not, after examination, been sexually abused, but she was deeply distressed. She could not control her bladder and would easily become hysterical, screaming continuously.

‘What about the little boy?’

They were having problems with him; unlike his sister, he was not responding. Although he did sometimes talk, he was quite violent if anyone touched him. His medical examination had been very difficult, as he was so traumatized. They ended up tranquillizing him. When examined, it became obvious that he had been sexually abused. His anus was ulcerated; he also had wounds to his genitals and marks on his wrists as if he had been tied up. They were concerned that the infection in his bladder was not responding to the antibiotics.

Anna felt tears stinging her eyes. But she was there for a reason. She spent considerable time explaining the need for her to at least attempt to talk to Keith.

When she got a cold, flat refusal, she went on the defensive. ‘Alison, do you think I want to do this? That little boy’s mother was found mutilated and his other sister decapitated; all I want is to find out what he might know.’

‘Detective Travis, all I have trained for, all I do, is to try to help these wretched children in any way I know how. Yesterday he held my hand — only for a second — but that was my first breakthrough. You want to try to talk to him about his dead mother, his dead sister? Don’t you understand? I am trying to heal what has been done to him.’

‘Please, let me just have a few moments with him. I am not asking to be alone with him; you can be in the room and monitor whatever occurs between us. If you want me to stop at any time, I give you my word that I will. It’s just possible too, that what I need to know might help him.’

Mike Lewis tapped on Langton’s door, then popped his head round. ‘Kramer’s in the holding cell, and not a happy man.’

‘Right.’

‘You want him brought up here?’

‘No, he can stay down in the cell, and Mike — keep the uniforms off my back, will you?’

Lewis hesitated, then gave a nod and closed the door.

Langton flipped a pencil over while he looked at his watch. Five minutes passed before he got up and walked out.

The Hampshire station had only four holding cells; these were situated at basement level. Used mostly for drunks and smalltime burglary suspects, they were cold and bare. They smelt of mildew, stale vomit, urine and disinfectant. The cell doors were the old heavy steel studded ones, with a central flap that opened for officers to monitor the prisoner. At ankle level was a second flap, used for pushing in meal trays. The walls were a dim green, and the stone floor a dark red. Each cell was as unwelcoming as it could be.

Langton carried a clipboard, holding all the statements that had been taken in the previous sessions with Vernon.

Printed by the side of Vernon’s cell door, in chalk, was his name and time of arrival. Langton noisily opened the flap, purposely banging back the bolt. He looked into the cell, just half his face showing.

‘We need to talk,’ he said.

‘Too bloody right we do. What the fuck is going on? I want a lawyer, because this isn’t fucking right. You got no right to bring me here and bang me up!’

‘Have you been offered a cup of tea?’

‘I don’t want a bloody cup of tea, I want to know what the hell is going on. What you got me here for?’

‘To talk.’

‘I’m all talked out with you. I am not saying a fucking word until I got legal representation.’

‘I need some answers.’

‘To what? What the fuck are you up to?’

Langton clanged the flap back into place and shot back the bolt. He turned to Lewis. ‘Leave him here to stew,’ he said loudly. ‘I’ll come back in the morning.’

‘You can’t leave me in this Victorian shithole!’

Langton kept his voice raised so Vernon could hear. ‘See if we can get a lawyer in; this time of day, one probably won’t be available until tomorrow. Maybe we can contact the guy he used before.’

Vernon screeched, banging on the door, ‘You can’t do this to me! You listen to me! You can’t leave me in here! I know my rights!’

Langton looked at Mike and smiled; they both remained silent.

‘Eh, you still out there? You bastard!’

Vernon could be heard kicking and banging; there was a thump as his mattress hit the door. It then sounded as if he was trying to haul his bunk bed across, only to discover that it was bolted to the floor. In a rage, he then threw himself at the door: there was a thud, thud, then another kick.

Then there was a pause, as if he was trying to hear what was going on outside the cell. ‘You still there?’ he called out.

Langton let a few minutes pass before he shot the bolt again and opened the flap. Vernon was calmer now, having exhausted himself.

He looked up at Langton. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ he said, near to tears.

‘I just want to talk to you, Vernon, and get some answers.’

‘To what, for Chrissakes? We’ve been through it all before, ain’t we?’

Bang. The flap closed and the bolt went back across: Langton was starting to get impatient. He checked his watch and sighed.

Lewis wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. It was a game that could get them both into trouble. Obviously, Langton wanted to unnerve Vernon and get him to talk, but about what, Lewis didn’t know. Vernon had given a statement that Rashid Burry had been at the bungalow with Gail. He had also given details of being taken to Camorra’s property; sketchy they might have been, but Lewis didn’t understand what more they could get from him.

Langton obviously had a different opinion. The charade of opening and shutting the flap in the cell door continued, as did Vernon’s accusations. He veered from threatening legal action, to abusive screaming, to throwing himself against the cell door, kicking and punching at it. Eventually, he huddled on the mattress on the floor, crying. Langton gestured that the cell door could be opened.

‘I can leave you in here for the night, or we can talk and you can be taken back to prison. Up to you, Vernon.’

‘Can I have a cup of tea?’ The man gave them a strange look, all fight gone, and then got slowly to his feet. His next words were hardly audible. ‘I knew it wasn’t over.’

Anna built a garage from wooden bricks and drove a few toy cars inside. Keith, Gail’s son, had not said one word for over an hour. He stood with his back pressed against the wall while Anna built a fire station and then a house with the toys available for the children. All the while, she was watched by Alison, the Child Protection Officer, whose patience was running out.

Anna knocked down the garage and built a square pen. She went over to the farmyard filled with plastic animals and brought back two pigs. She crawled on the floor, making snorting noises, and put the pigs inside the pen.

Keith moved away from the wall; he came and sat beside Anna. It was an electrifying moment. He had been so silent, so unapproachable. Without a word, he picked up the wooden bricks and began to assemble square pens of his own. He then pointed to the two plastic pigs. She handed them to him and he placed them inside the pens.

‘Oink oink,’ Anna said.

She would never forget the way he looked up at her, his tiny freckled hand holding a pig. His head had been shaved to a crew cut because of the head lice. It made him appear older and tougher than he really was. The expression in his clear eyes was so painful.

‘Mummy,’ he said.

‘Do you remember this place? Did you help feed the animals at the bungalow? There were hens too, and a henhouse.’

He nodded, and began building something else. He was very focused, looking around to find the right bricks, all the while remaining totally silent. Another carer, younger and more junior than Alison, came in and handed her some notes. They sat whispering together as Anna watched the boy select toy cars from all the various types littering the play area. He was very careful, discarding one after another, then choosing a red and white car to place at the side of the house he had built. It took a long time.

‘Is this your house?’ Anna asked.

He stared at her and then went to pick up a red bus; he stood with it in his hands.

‘Oh, that’s a bus. Did you go on a bus?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know where this house is?’

He stared at the house he had built and then angrily kicked it apart, stamping on the bricks. He put the bus down and started to crawl around, running it up and down the worn carpet.

‘Did you go with Joseph? Leave the house with Joseph?’

It was so frustrating and, at the same time, so emotionally draining; the child was so tense, so far out of reach, and yet so close to answering. His lips moved as if he was saying something, then he went and sat in a corner, holding the bus and refusing to even look at Anna. She stood up and stared at the carers.

‘Thank you,’ she said. Then: ‘I think I should go.’

Alison joined her; she could tell that Anna was upset. ‘It takes a long time. If we do have any breakthrough with him, we’ll contact you. You did actually get him to interact with you, which is more than we have been able to do.’

‘It’s heartbreaking,’ Anna said, turning to look at the boy huddled in the corner with the bus.

‘Yes. We have tried to get his grandmother here; she has promised twice and not turned up, which is even worse. I don’t think she wants any involvement, to be honest. We obviously didn’t tell the children she was due to come. We’ve learned never to make promises.’

‘What will eventually happen to him and his sister?’

‘We are waiting on suitable foster carers, but they will have to be very special.’

‘Will they be able to stay together?’

‘I can’t say. It will be a big decision for whoever takes him on; his little sister is doing very well, but she is still mute.’

They walked to the door, speaking softly so that he wouldn’t hear. ‘But she was not sexually abused?’

‘She was not penetrated, but she was used for oral sex. We use dolls and play games; well, you must know how we work.’

‘Dear God…’ Anna closed her eyes, near to tears. Everything in her wanted to say, ‘Let me take them, let me care for them!’ In practical terms, it was ridiculous to even contemplate, but she felt so angry and emotional; she felt she needed to help these two defenceless children. She knew that numerous foster families felt the same way, but few were trained to deal with such traumatized children; even sadder was the fact that siblings sometimes had to be separated.

Anna was shaking Alison’s hand when the younger carer who had been in the nursery room with them hurried out.

‘Alison, can you come in quickly?’ she said.

‘What’s happened?’

‘He was using the crayons and began scrawling all over the wall. I told him to give me the crayon and then he started to urinate in the corner of the room. I went over to him, not to admonish him, but to take him into the toilets, and—’

Alison turned and hurried away. Anna hesitated, but then followed. The door was ajar. The little boy was screaming, kicking and fighting; then suddenly, as if all the fight had been sucked out of him, he ran into Alison’s arms, weeping. She sat rocking him back and forth.

‘It’s all right, no one is going to hurt you. You’re safe, shush now, there’s a good boy.’

Anna jumped; the young girl had come to stand behind her.

‘Thank God — at last.’ She shut the door.

‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

‘He’s crying, letting Alison hold him; it means we’ve broken through.’

‘You mean you’ll be able to talk to him?’

‘Maybe.’

The door opened again. Alison asked for some orange juice and biscuits, and a clean pair of pants. She looked almost with irritation at Anna.

‘No, you can’t see him,’ she said. ‘Please don’t even ask.’

Vernon sat with his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the table. He looked in bad shape. Langton sat opposite him, Lewis to his right. Vernon had been talking for over an hour, and he was shaking. Langton checked his watch. It was almost four. He picked up his clipboard and jotted down a note.

Lewis glanced down. Langton had scrawled: He’s still holding back.

‘What’s going to happen to me?’

Langton said they would get a duty solicitor in but, until they had pressed further charges, he would remain at the station.

‘But I done nothing.’

‘You withheld vital information, Vernon. If you had disclosed what you knew—’

‘But I had nothin’ to do with it, I swear before God. All I was doing was protecting myself. This isn’t right. I could have told you where the house was, but you know I’d be dead meat.’

‘You declined to have a solicitor present at the start of this interview: that is correct, isn’t it?’

Vernon looked at the tape recorder and then at Langton. ‘But we was gonna make a deal, you said to me.’

‘I know what I said, Vernon, and the deal is you will continue this interview and make a formal statement.’

‘I don’t want a fucking lawyer.’

‘That’s your decision.’ Langton stood up. ‘If there is anything else you want to talk to me about, now is the time, because if you think you have a hope in hell of staying in a cushy open prison, you’ve got another big think coming.’

‘You can’t do this to me.’

Langton smiled, and said softly, ‘You want to bet?’ Then he turned to Mike Lewis. ‘Arrange for him to be taken down to the holding cell.’

‘Ah, don’t put me back down there,’ Vernon bleated.

‘It’ll be a lot cushier than where you’ll end up.’

‘In a box, you bastard! That’s what’ll happen to me!’

Lewis hesitated, then got up. He was confused as to whether Langton meant what he had said, and watched for a signal, but Langton had his back to him, looking down at his clipboard. Lewis walked out.

Langton looked at the tape. ‘For the benefit of the tape, DI Mike Lewis has just left the interview room; time is four-fifteen p.m.’

He switched it off and suddenly picked up the clipboard; he swiped it fast across Vernon’s face. Vernon gasped and sat back. Langton placed it back down in front of him as if nothing had happened.

‘You have two minutes, Vernon.’

As Vernon gawped at him, Langton brought up the toe of his shoe and kicked him in the groin so hard that the man reeled back in his chair, clutching at his balls in agony.

‘One minute,’ Langton said, never taking his eyes off the sweating, frightened man. ‘Talk, Vernon, fucking start talking to me. Tell me about Clinton Camorra.’

Vernon squeezed his eyes closed. ‘It was all that prick Murphy’s fault; he tried to blackmail him.’

Langton walked into the incident room, taut with anger. Anna had just returned to the station and was at her desk.

‘We leave for the house in Peckham in five minutes,’ he snapped, and slammed his office door.

Lewis came in; she asked what was happening.

‘Vernon’s down in the holding cell; bastard has been lying from the get go. It’s taken bloody hours, but—’

Before he could finish, Langton bellowed for him to join him in his office.

Lewis had never seen him quite so angry.

‘It’s been staring at us in the face, but we concentrated so hard on the bloody illegal immigrants. Camorra used the poor bastards to bring in drugs as well as themselves! The women and kids too, all of them were mules; they not only paid the son of a bitch to get them into the country, they also swallowed condoms full of heroin. He’s been concentrating on the poor — thousands of homeless in North Uganda, Somalia and Jamaica — making promises to care for their families. Joseph Sickert was one of the mules, brought in five years ago. He worked for Camorra and was sent to Gail’s to look for Arthur Murphy because Murphy, on the run for Irene Phelps’s murder, had threatened to talk unless Camorra got him out of the country.’

In the patrol car, Langton continued to fit the jigsaw pieces together.

‘Camorra has a virtual army tied to him, afraid of him. He has used mules to open bank accounts in Christ knows how many names, but his bulk fortune is in cash. A control freak, he lost it when he murdered Carly Ann North; we know how he manipulated his henchmen, the Krasiniqe brothers and Rashid Burry. But now comes the twist: Sickert. Sent to track down Murphy via Gail, he starts to have a relationship with her, and when Murphy is arrested, he refuses to go back. Rashid Burry is sent to warn him and sees all her kids; he mentions that they would be useful to Camorra and that Sickert would get paid for bringing them to him.’

Langton rubbed his knee, grimacing with the pain. ‘White kids, worth a lot of money; but by now, Sickert is involved with Gail and even cares for them. He’s also sick. Whether or not he killed Gail’s husband, we don’t know, but he makes the big mistake of asking for Rashid Burry to help him get medication.’

Langton shook his head. ‘This is now supposition, but maybe Sickert wanted out — who knows. But whatever went on at the piggery, I don’t think he was involved in the murders. What he did do was take off with the two kids.’ He turned to Anna. ‘You get anything from them?’

‘No. The little boy is still very traumatized, and the little girl hasn’t spoken yet. Both have been sexually abused.’

Langton sighed. ‘Maybe I’m wrong; maybe he did take them to Camorra. We know the white Range Rover was at the piggery.’

The car drew up outside the Peckham house. Patrol cars, forensic vans and SOCO teams were all still there.

‘That scum Vernon, he knew this place. We could have got here sooner.’ Langton slammed the car door shut and headed into the house. Anna and Lewis followed.

Brandon led them through the house, pointing out what had been taken for evidence; then they went into the cellar.

Langton stood looking around. No one spoke. After spending half an hour there, they left and drove back to the station in silence. The horrors that had taken place in the house sickened them all.

‘It was well cleaned out,’ Lewis said, when they were back in the incident room.

Langton sighed, closing his eyes. ‘Camorra’s had enough time — he could be anywhere, using Christ knows how many different names and passports. He’s got rid of anyone that could finger him, and with the amount of money he’s got stashed, we might have lost him for good.’