Dead of Winter

Chapter 15

Harding took the foetus from its drawer in the mortuary, held it in her hands and placed it in the scales. Three pounds two ounces. Fi was a good weight at thirty-six weeks; the last couple of weeks would have seen her put on a few more pounds. Things didn’t usually affect Harding; she hadn’t a maternal bone in her body, but the waste of life before it had ever had a chance was symbolically terrible somehow. No one ever intended this baby to take its first breath. Jo Harding turned from studying the X-rays and watched Mathew the diener as he delicately laid out the tools for the next autopsy. She loved his hands: they were expert, long-fingered, big but subtle in their touch.

He looked across at her. ‘I had a call to say that some of the forensic results for Fi are back, Doctor Harding. They’ve been emailed to you.’ Mathew didn’t mind working late. He was softly spoken, soft-mannered. Mathew had had many women in his life. They trusted him. He was their friend and he was quietly confident and knew when to wait and when to listen. Someone like Harding made a welcome change for him. He knew if they continued working late into the night they would have many more nights together. Harding had more energy and enthusiasm than any woman Mathew had ever slept with. She was physical with him. She was angry inside. He would learn a lot from her. He knew he had to enjoy it while it lasted. When she tired of him there would be a new posting for him and a new diener for her.

She walked back to her desk and checked her emails. She printed the results and snatched them up in one hand, car keys in the other. She turned to Mathew:

‘You don’t have to stay.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll hang around.’

‘Please yourself.’

Harding went out to the consultants’ car park and pressed the key fob on her red Audi TT. She drove the short distance over to Fletcher House to take the news to Davidson.

As Carter passed Harding on her way out of Davidson’s office she had a smile on her face that was a mixture of smug and satisfied. He wondered whether he’d find Davidson with his pants round his ankles or hanging from the ceiling. . he wondered which scenario would do it for Harding. Carter definitely did nothing for her. She either liked boys wet behind the ears and half her age like Mathew her diener or she liked men with power and position: men with a lot to lose, like Davidson. Carter was grateful he was neither. He had enough troubles in his private life. He’d been faithful to Cabrina. . not an easy thing for him. The thought of moving on, starting again, wasn’t easy either.

He knocked and Davidson called for him to come in. Davidson looked fired up. He was almost smiling. He motioned for them to take a seat and then he handed Carter a file across the desk. Clipped to the front page was a mug shot of a man with designer stubble over a less than handsome face.

‘This is the father of our dead baby. . His name is Sonny Ferguson. Father was an old East End villain, name of Dexter.’

‘Yeah. . I recognize him. His dad was still around up until a few years ago.’

‘Yes. Dexter ruled Soho for twenty years. When Dexter got killed Sonny took over but he isn’t the man his father was, thank God. He hasn’t the brains. Bit by bit he’s lost Dexter’s hold on the drug empire. Now he concentrates on people-trafficking.’

Davidson waited a few minutes for Carter to finish reading the front page of the file then he pushed another photo across to him. It was a shot of Sonny talking to a slighter, older man outside a club.

‘His DNA is on file because he was accused of raping a seventeen-year-old at the beginning of his career. It went to trial but the girl dropped the charges at the last minute. This photo was taken in the last year. It was a surveillance operation by MIT 10 into the use of trafficked women in clip joints in Soho. This is outside Digger Cain’s club on Brewer Street. Digger has a warren of clip joints going in Soho. As soon as we shut one down another three spring up. He was caught on camera then. The Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to bring a conviction. Digger tidied up his act, on the surface. We know Sonny was providing Digger with trafficked girls as escorts and we believe he still is. Word is Sonny and Digger together provide the UK clip joints with their girls from the Eastern bloc.’

‘It would fit for Silvia if she was trafficked, raped,’ said Carter. ‘But Sonny’s twenty-eight; he’s too young to have been around when the Carmichael murders happened. Plus. . he doesn’t fit the type we are looking for — Chichester.’

‘He may not be Chichester.’ replied Davidson.‘But he has questions to answer, not least how the mother of his child came to be buried under the patio.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘In the last year Sonny has been narrowing down his enterprise; mainly because he’s being squeezed hard by the new gangs. Some of them have taken over the clubs north of London. We know he still has business with Digger though; he goes in there most evenings.

‘Is the surveillance cell still in operation? Do we have an undercover officer available, sir?’

‘No. But maybe we can still use the building opposite. Find out.’ Davidson reclaimed the photos on his desk, placed them together. ‘And find Sonny.’