Vanished

Chapter 12

One and a half bottles of wine later, Ridley was still there, passing on random information as it came to him. Josh had shared intel from the national operation he’d been heading up for the past several months. Although they still had no leads on who the main players were, they had learnt about some of the methods of transportation, the latest being a small fleet of light aircraft, the closest of which they suspected flew out of Farnham. It was already under surveillance, together with the pilot and the aircraft’s owner. It had displayed no suspicious activity in over three months, but Josh insisted on remaining focussed because this level of overcautious downtime among drug gangs was common in the States.

‘Josh isn’t sure that they’ll try and come back for their stuff — the volume of drugs and weaponry we found is all relative, and Josh thinks it’s probably not worth it for them. But, regardless of that, the last order Steve gave was that a plainclothes undercover surveillance team from his squad must be in and around Avril’s home, 24/7.’

‘That team should be yours, sir.’

‘We’ve got visible uniforms there as a matter of course, doing door-to-door, searching the immediate area and woodland, checking car plates — looking the way a murder investigation should. As we thin out, Steve’s men will stay in place. And Steve’s issuing a press release tomorrow morning. It’ll mention the cannabis, but nothing about the rest of the drugs haul. The police presence will be explained as a standard response to a reported break-in, resulting in the discovery of Avril Jenkins’ body. No details of how she died will be shared and Jessica Chi will be kept out of the papers altogether.’

‘Well, if this smuggling operation goes as far and wide as Josh suggests, then I bet he’s right when he says they can afford to write Avril’s house off as a loss. I can’t see them coming back,’ Jack said.

Ridley firmly disagreed, but Jack knew that was only because he’d put all his bloody eggs in Steve’s basket, so he had to believe that Steve’s surveillance strategy would work.

‘And you’re attending the Drug Squad briefing in the morning, Jack. I need to know if they — we — have CCTV footage of Avril’s murder due to the discovery of the set-up in the cellar. In the afternoon I’m meeting Terence Jenkins off his flight from California.’

Jack wanted to ask Ridley straight up why he was really splitting him from the rest of the team, but then a floorboard creaked from upstairs making both men freeze. Jack looked at the clock on the wall: 12.15 a.m. ‘I’ll get off now,’ Ridley whispered. But it was too late. As he reached for the lounge door handle in an endeavour to sneak out, Maggie walked in, almost bumping into him. She walked straight up to Jack, took his half-full wine glass and gulped it back.

‘We were whispering.’ As soon as Jack said the words, he realised it made it sound like he was blaming Maggie for being awake.

‘Well, I’d hate to hear you shouting.’ Maggie took the empty glass into the kitchen. ‘Thank God Penny’s on the top floor.’

Ridley stood perfectly still, making no noise whatsoever, in the hope that Maggie wouldn’t even notice he was there. She returned to the lounge, eating a cold dauphinoise potato, sipping on a fresh glass of wine and smiling in Ridley’s direction. ‘You said yes, then, Simon?’ Ridley raised his eyebrows quizzically, as though he should know what Maggie was talking about. ‘To being best man. Is that not why you boys are making your way through the wine rack?’

Jack wished to God that Maggie hadn’t woken up. He wasn’t at all sure if he wanted Ridley as his best man, seeing how fragile their relationship had been of late. Not that he had a plan B; Penny was right about that. ‘I was about to ask you, sir... if you want to... no pressure.’ Ridley’s still-confused expression made Maggie ask Jack whether he’d even given Ridley his invitation. ‘We’ve been busy, Mags. I meant to... it’s in my desk, sir. I think. Or my bag. I’ll check tomorrow. The wedding’s on the twenty-seventh of this—’

‘Twenty-fifth.’ Maggie gulped more wine.

‘Twenty-fifth of this month.’ Then Jack said the words he should have said about three days ago. ‘We’d all love it if you were there as my best man.’

Ridley gracefully accepted, saying that it would be his honour to be such an integral part of their big day. He then moved towards the front door, ordering an Uber as he went.

The frustration Maggie felt at being woken quickly disappeared. ‘Just because the job is losing Ridley, doesn’t mean you are,’ she said softly.

Jack snatched up a clean glass and poured himself some wine. ‘Jesus, Maggie, you make me sound like some lovestruck fucking girl.’ He immediately regretted his words. ‘I’m sorry. He could go out on a high, you know. He’s exceptional. But instead of giving this case everything he’s got left to give, he’s handed it to the Drug Squad. Sometimes there’s a spark of the old Ridley, but it doesn’t last long.’ Jack looked like a child who’d just realised that Superman wasn’t real. ‘I don’t want to remember him like this. I want to be proud to have worked alongside him.’

Maggie rested her cheek on his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. ‘Do you want to hear about my day instead?’

Jack kissed the top of her head and said that he’d be happy to listen to her troubles instead of thinking about his own.

In a nutshell, Maggie was exhausted. Since the pandemic, nothing had been remotely normal. They were all working back on their own wards and in their own specialities, instead of making up the numbers in ICU; but their workload was now triple what it should be due to all of the postponed operations from the years in lockdown. Hundreds of people were now so much closer to death than they should be, and every day was filled with new horrors. Just last week, Maggie had to tell one man that his tumour had grown significantly during lockdown and was now too big to remove. His lifesaving operation was no longer an option; so, she sent him home to die with his wife and three children.

Maggie slumped down on the sofa, then slid forwards so that her backside was hanging off the front of the cushion and her chin was folded into her chest. She sat her wine glass on her stomach, tipped it until the rim hit her bottom lip, then poured wine into her mouth.

Maggie’s anecdote made Jack ask about their friends Regina and Mario whose baby girl had a life-threatening illness.

‘Money’s their biggest problem — no surprise there,’ Maggie told him. ‘Regina’s nursing post at the hospital couldn’t be kept open because she was taking far too much time off with little Princess. Not her fault, but with the extra staffing pressures caused by the pandemic, it had to be filled. Mario’s still decorating and he’s taken on some odd jobs to help keep their heads above water. Princess is doing well on the new treatment from the US... all being paid for by their “mystery benefactor”.’

Since the day Maggie told Jack that she knew the £100,000 donation to Princess’s medical care had come from him — money he should have handed over as evidence, but decided to put to better use — she’d never mentioned it again. On the rare occasion that Regina’s family came up in conversation, Maggie always used the words ‘mystery benefactor’ — it seemed to make her feel more comfortable.

‘Whenever Regina and Princess go to the States for treatment, Mario stays here and works. He’s always sad. He’s missing so much of his little girl’s life, which is doubly awful seeing as they don’t know how long her life might be.’

Jack couldn’t imagine how painful it must be for Mario not to be with his little girl for every second of her medical treatment. He was certain he couldn’t be away from Hannah. ‘It’d be good to catch up with them. Are they coming to the wedding?’ Jack had been hit by a wave of guilt. ‘I should call him. Do you think?’

Maggie placated him by saying that Mario had a wonderful family who looked after him. He was rarely on his own. And yes, they were coming to the wedding. ‘It’ll be lovely to see little Princess.’ Tired tears appeared in Maggie’s eyes. ‘Apparently, she’s getting some good movement back into her left arm.’

Jack sat next to Maggie and adopted the same slovenly position she’d chosen. ‘Makes you realise that most parents have nothing at all to complain about.’ But his gentle words quickly turned to sarcasm. ‘Talking of prima donna parents who can’t cope with their perfectly healthy kids... how’s Wetlock?’

Maggie deftly dragged herself upright, without spilling a drop of her wine. ‘Well, Jack, you’ll be thrilled to hear that he’s not coping. Tania continues to disappear and take drugs at every opportunity, and he continues to be out of his depth. For a man capable of understanding the intricate workings of the cardiovascular system, he’s shit at understanding his little girl. He just throws money at the problem — like getting her that flat — but that just makes things worse by distancing them more, but he has no idea how to be around her. He’s embarrassed by her, actually, that’s the problem. She’s not the daughter he wanted, and he hates the idea of others knowing he’s failed.’ Maggie paused for Jack to offer some consoling words, but they didn’t come. She glanced to her right, about to tear a strip off him for being silently smug, but Jack was fast asleep by her side.

By 6 a.m, Jack had given up on any kind of proper sleep.

Maggie had covered him up and left him on the sofa, but he’d woken with a crick in his neck just twenty minutes later and headed upstairs to bed. Since then, they’d both been awake on and off throughout the night, taking it in turns to see to Hannah. She’d had a cough and a slight temperature for the past two days, and at night, she became an over-dramatic coughing and sobbing machine, who just needed to be in somebody’s arms. Calpol helped to send her back to sleep, but only for an hour at a time and then they were stuck until she could have another dose. Between them, Maggie and Jack walked miles up and down the landing, squeezing Hannah against their chests as she stared at the ceiling, wide awake but content because she was being held.

Maggie appeared in the kitchen doorway as Jack was attempting to make porridge in the microwave for the first time ever. She took over as this was easier than teaching him how to do it properly. ‘Maybe Princess could be a bridesmaid with Hannah?’ Maggie could see how much their conversation from last night had been playing on Jack’s mind. ‘Is that a terrible idea?’ Maggie planted one long, firm kiss on Jack’s lips. She loved how things played on his mind until a lovely, heartfelt solution came to him.

‘It’s not a terrible idea, Jack, it’s an amazing idea. But the truth is, she may not be well enough to come. She has good days and bad days. And she can’t walk, of course.’

‘She can be in her pushchair. Ooh, Hannah can push her down the aisle!’ Maggie returned to making the porridge as Jack’s enthusiasm ran away with him. ‘Princess could sit in that little red car of Hannah’s and Hannah could push her!’

A giggly scream came from the doorway. Hannah was bouncing about on Penny’s hip, waving her arms in the air and laughing with her mouth wide open. Maggie and Jack glared at her through furrowed brows. How dare she look so fresh after the night they’d had? Jack broke first. He took Hannah in his arms and told her what a good girl she was for laughing at his idea about Princess and the red car. ‘Hannah loves the idea of pushing Princess down the aisle, don’t you, lovely girl, so it’s two against one now, Mummy.’

Maggie smiled, but it wasn’t real. Her medical knowledge was a gift, but sometimes she wished she didn’t always know the horrible truth. She’d love to believe the dream of Hannah pushing Princess down the aisle in her little red car. But it would never happen.

After his shower, Jack was buttoning his shirt in front of the mirror when he remembered that he wasn’t going to Ridley’s briefing this morning, he was going to Steve Lewis’s at the Drug Squad offices across in Staines. And the Drug Squad ‘uniform’ was more casual than Ridley’s team’s. Jack reassessed his attire and changed into jeans, a plain T-shirt and his leather jacket. He also wore the sturdy work boots he’d treated himself to when he was in the Cotswolds, not least because they made him half an inch taller.

Maggie had left the car as she’d decided to run off her bad night’s sleep. Jack used to wish that he had her motivation to keep fit, but not anymore; now, he was happy to sit back in the warm blast of the car’s heaters.

Jack had been to the Drug Squad offices in Staines once before, many years earlier, and it hadn’t changed at all. The building still looked like nondescript offices, with only the high fence and security gate suggesting it was anything more. As Jack pulled up at the gates, a female voice spoke to him through a speaker mounted on a metal pole, asking for his name and the name of the person he was here to see. She then asked Jack to hold up his ID to the camera set on top of the speaker, before opening the gate and instructing him to drive round to the second set of double white doors, where someone would meet him.

As Jack followed the single road around the building, he saw a man in a hoody standing halfway up a set of steps. The man lifted his arm, signalled towards the parking area, then waited for Jack to join him. ‘You’re thirty minutes early, Jack. DCI Lewis isn’t here yet. Come on up — you can sneak into the back of Josh’s briefing whilst I make a cuppa.’

Jack followed the man in the hoody — whose name he hadn’t been told and didn’t ask for — along a bright, freshly painted second-floor corridor. To their right, a wall of waist-high windows overlooked the car park and to their left, evenly spaced posters instructed passing officers to ensure their weapons were secured and locked away at the end of each shift. The Drug Squad had never appealed to Jack — far too much testosterone was required to make the grade.

The man in the hoody paused outside a communal kitchen. ‘Blue door at the end. I’ll catch you up. Tea or coffee?’

Jack requested a white coffee with no sugar, then continued down the corridor as instructed.

Beyond the blue door, Josh stood at the front of a full briefing room. Jack slid in and leant against the back wall. Josh was wearing black combat trousers and a black T-shirt which was almost splitting at the seams where it stretched across his biceps. He still wore his beanie hat concealing a thin wire that stretched upwards from his blue hearing aid. The rest of the room was filled with carbon-copy men in jeans, hoodies, tight T-shirts, several ponytails, lots of three-day stubble and the odd tattoo. It was a uniform by any other name and one that Jack was only halfway to achieving, but at least he didn’t stand out too embarrassingly.

‘You’ve all read the latest report in the front of the file.’ Josh glanced up and his eyes immediately found Jack standing at the back of the room. Josh handed a file to a guy on the front row. ‘For DS Warr at the back.’ Without looking, the guy passed the file over his head to whoever was behind him. As Josh continued, the file made its way into Jack’s hands. ‘A short recap...’ Josh smiled and nodded in Jack’s direction, indicating that this was for him. ‘To date, we have 2,500 crimes linked to this gang, from speeding fines to murder. Twenty-nine people, all linked to this operation, are now dead... not including your two ladies, Jack. Three hundred and seventy-two robberies, 108 assaults, over 300 weapons offences. The guys at the top are smart and we’ll only catch them by turning the guys at the bottom. DS Warr’s team is investigating the murder of a lady whose property had been taken over by this gang or one on a par with it. This was an active hub until a fire brought the emergency services in and her body was found. Now...’

Josh paused to emphasise the importance of what he was about to say. ‘Millions of pounds’ worth of equipment is still on site. So, we’re conspicuously retreating in the hope that they come back to collect. I’ll get into why that’s so important in a minute. During lockdown, this gang forcibly took over empty hotels, B&Bs, restaurants and cafés. With empty streets there was nowhere to hide, so they have laid low and used wherever they could as temporary dealing hubs. Things have opened up again now and so they’re back on the streets, peddling their gear and spreading the word. This isn’t just London I’m talking about, this is national. The regional figures are in the file. An operation of this size is complex and, just like in the US, many of the dealers we come across first, those on the front line doing the selling, are themselves victims.’

Josh scanned the room, looking every man in turn in the eye. ‘I’ll repeat that. They’re kids. Or users. We help them. We turn them. We use them... which brings us back to DS Warr’s crime scene. An undercover team is watching. If they come back to collect their equipment and their drugs, we’ll be waiting.’

Jack loved Josh’s decisiveness. He dealt in facts based on first-hand experience, and that gave him an unequalled authority.

‘In the US, we’re focussing on the big telecom companies. Tracking pay-as-you-go cell phones that are racking up hundreds of calls per day as dealers communicate with supply on the one hand and demand on the other. We know London is talking to Norfolk in a big way, ’cos we’ve intercepted more than 700 calls from hundreds of different cell phones. Heroin, cocaine and fentanyl shipments have been seized to the tune of around £20 million, but there’s more. And it’s getting worse by the day. Fentanyl, as you all know, is a hundred times more dangerous than morphine. Well, get this... we just got word of another drug that’s a hundred times more dangerous than fentanyl. Carfentanyl is used to tranquillize elephants. And it’s on your streets, killing your children.’ Josh clicked his fingers. ‘Like that. Emergency responders cannot save people from these new drugs.’

He took a few seconds out, to pace the small area at the front of the room in silence.

‘The codename for one of the mixers is Scramble. We caught two of the main men up in Manchester with the intention of turning them. Both OD’d in police custody.’ A murmur went around the room like a Mexican wave, as every officer tutted at how incompetent the Manchester custody sergeant must have been to allow that to happen. Twice! ‘One guy,’ Josh continued, ‘had taped five milligrams of fentanyl to the inside of his wedding ring. The cops never did find where the second guy hid his little suicide dose. So, we start with the little people. The people who are not willing to die for this cause. They’re our way in.’

Jack was gripped by how passionately Josh spoke. In fact, Jack was listening so intently that he physically jumped when a hand landed on his shoulder. It was the nameless guy in the hoody, carrying two mugs of coffee.

Jack was led back along the windowed corridor, then up two flights of stairs. The higher they went, the grubbier the building got. Visitors clearly never came up this far. The floors were scuffed, the walls were scratched, and the doorframes were chipped.

As they approached the final set of double doors at end of the last corridor, the young man in the hoody turned to Jack and smiled for the first time, showing off a missing canine tooth. ‘They keep us up here, out of the way.’ He then pressed the intercom button on the wall next to the double doors and they were buzzed in.

Beyond the double doors was a small reception area with desk, sofas and a kitchen tucked away in the corner. There were four doors, three with glass in them, so Jack could see that the rooms were empty. But the fourth door was blacked out, and this was the room the young man in the hoody headed for. The large room had blackout blinds on every window and was lit with strip lights that were just bright enough to see with, but not bright enough to give you a headache. There were six monitors, set out in twos, with each pair angled slightly inwards to surround the user. And there was a huge amount of electronic surveillance equipment. One man sat with his back to Jack, working two screens and two keyboards at once. Moley sat at another pair of screens with Anik by his side attentively watching his every move.

Steve Lewis dashed across to Jack, shook his hand and thanked him for making the trip to their HQ. He pointed to the man who had his back to the room. ‘Edgar Matthews, tech wizard. And you know Mark Sinclair, aka Moley. They’re civilians. You’ll only ever see the backs of their heads whilst you’re here. No one actually knows what Edgar looks like.’ Steve gave a silent laugh at his own joke, ‘And the guy who brought you up here is Sergeant Mike Tulley.’

Mike grabbed Jack’s hand and began furiously shaking it. ‘Oh shit! Did I not say that? I did. Didn’t I? Sorry, Jack.’

‘So, Jack,’ Steve continued, ‘in the interest of sharing, this room and everyone in it is at your disposal for the rest of today. But first, you’re going to tell Mike, Mal and I everything you know about your dead woman.’

Jack bristled at the fact that Steve still didn’t know the names of the murder victims. ‘Which dead woman are you referring to, sir?’

Steve wasn’t making a joke when he replied, ‘The chopped-up one.’

In that moment, Jack decided that he hated Steve Lewis. A murder victim to him meant a druggie, or a dealer, or some other waste of space. Not a human being. He clearly put Avril and Jessica into one of those categories and that made them forgettable. Ignorable.

Jack now realised Ridley had been spot on to hand the lead to Steve, so that his own team could focus completely on getting justice for the two women who had died so brutally at the hands of men who would also not have cared less what they were called.