Vanished

Chapter 13

Across London, Ridley was giving his morning briefing to a skeleton squad of seven officers. Despite their efforts, no one had any news on the whereabouts of Adam Border. It was hugely frustrating.

The photograph of Avril as a young woman standing next to a small boy in school uniform had been left in the hands of Laura. Using a blow-up of the badge on the boy’s blazer, she’d tracked the school to Leeds and was now explaining to Ridley that the current school principal had only been there for a couple of years and so wasn’t able to recognise the boy.

‘They have copies of all school year photos going back decades, so he’ll do some digging for us. And he’s going to ask the geography teacher if she can help, because she’s just hit seventy and has been there all her working life, so might know the boy by sight.’

‘Let’s hope it’s Adam Border.’ Ridley hadn’t broken a smile yet this morning. His face looked tight, almost pained. On her way into work, Laura had called Jack to relay everything that she knew he’d miss in this morning’s briefing, so Laura knew that Ridley had been drinking with Jack until the early hours. She put his dour look down to this and hoped that his mood would become more positive as the morning progressed and he got more caffeine inside him.

Ridley asked whether Laura had located Jessica Chi’s family yet.

‘Not yet, sir, no. Her flat just off the King’s Road gives us nothing useful. The modelling agency she was registered with had her next of kin down as her mum, but the phone number in China doesn’t exist. The college gave us a previous address for Jessica in the Netherlands, which we’re looking in to now. Both Avril and Jessica have only got sketchy backgrounds, sir. We’re moving as fast as the evidence will let us.’ Laura sounded like she was defending herself against an accusation of tardiness that Ridley hadn’t even made, but she felt it had been insinuated.

Ridley moved the briefing on. ‘We’ve been given a report from Josh Logan on the pilot who works out of Farnham. He’s one of several under observation, but he’s the most potentially relevant to us due to geography. This file is for information only, he’s not to be approached. If he crops up as pertinent to our side of the investigation, tell me before you do anything. Archie Calder-Blythe is an ex-British Airways pilot. No criminal record. He used to work privately for a music producer out in Henley, ferrying his wife and two kids back and forth to the South of France. Archie was loaned out to various friends and family over the years, and we’ve got details of all his known journeys — short jaunts to Eastern Europe mainly. Also Belgium and the Netherlands. Morgan will filter information on him through to us, as it comes in from Josh’s end.’

Ridley put his hands on his hips and, although he tried to hide it, inhaled sharply. Laura gave a slight shake of her head as it was clear to her that Ridley was fighting off a sudden wave of nausea. She thought it served him right for boozing on a worknight. He exhaled, relaxed his shoulders and brought the briefing to an abrupt end.

Mal and Mike sat silently listening to everything Jack had to relay about Avril Jenkins, from his meetings with her and from the personal documents he’d found in the filing cabinet in her cellar. The only thing he didn’t tell them was that he’d found the red notebook: he still wanted to take a little more time to get to grips with its contents first. Mal and Mike were giving him their undivided attention, whereas Steve never looked up from his iPad. Once Jack had finished speaking, Mal flicked off the tape recorder, smiled and thanked him for his time.

‘Steve and Mike are going to leave us now, and I’m going to talk you through some footage from the hidden cameras in Avril’s home. You OK for time?’ Jack said that he was, then, whilst Steve was still in the room, clarified that he’d be able to take a copy of whatever he was about to watch. Steve confirmed that Mal would sort all of that out, then he and Mike left. Mal stood up. ‘Come with me, Jack. We’ll get a refill on the coffee, then head to a viewing room.’

Back in the main squad room, Mal grabbed a laptop from his desk and handed it to Jack. He then went to make two coffees just as Anik finally noticed that Jack was there. ‘Hey, Jack, this is Moley. He’s a genius. I don’t just mean he’s a smart guy, I mean he’s an actual genius.’

Moley let out a short and rather gormless-sounding laugh. He sat at least six inches out from his desk due to the length of his arms and legs, while next to him, Anik bounced around on his seat like an excited child. Jack felt a smile spread across his face: he didn’t like Anik, but he liked that Anik was finally excited about the job in front of him. He normally spent his days looking into space, waiting for inspiration. But here he was with Moley, the tallest kid in the world, riveted by his ability to manipulate any technology and get it to reveal all of its secrets.

Jack heard a ‘ready?’ from over his shoulder. He told Anik to keep up the good work, then headed off towards the private viewing room with Mal.

‘So...’ Mal started, ‘Moley went over the hidden CCTV system inside the Jenkins home. He knows it’s not being monitored live from outside the property, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be logged into from a remote hub or even turned on and off. He’s put all the cameras on a loop now, so if anyone does turn it on and log in, they’ll see an empty house. We know the system hasn’t been on since the fire.’

‘Really?’ Jack questioned the probability of this. ‘If I’d just murdered one person and then set fire to a second inside a cannabis farm, I’d want to watch the house to see what we did when we turned up.’ Mal speculated that perhaps the gang had bigger things on their minds. ‘This case, Mal,’ Jack continued. ‘Should me and you keep in touch? Your boss seems to have a lot distracting him and, to be honest, so does mine right now. I’d hate for any key information to get lost.’

Mal grinned. ‘Subtle as ever, eh, Jack. We can talk whenever you like, for sure. And no one else needs to know. As my grandfather would say, Nie wywołuj wilka z lasu.’

‘Oh, I’ve been waiting for some impromptu Polish wisdom! Go on then. What does it mean?’

‘It means, Don’t call the wolf from the forest.’

‘Ah. Don’t invite trouble, right?’

‘You are my brother from another mother, Jack Warr. You sure you’re not Polish? You’re too smart to be English.’

This friendship didn’t go back far, but it was strong. Jack and Mal had met on a self-defence refresher course and spent seven days being thrown about on blue rubber mats whilst learning how to take a knife or a gun off an attacker. During lessons, they’d often paired up as they were roughly the same height and build. And during lunch breaks, they’d talked.

Mal stopped halfway down the corridor, opened the nearest door and slid the sign from VACANT to OCCUPIED. ‘What was I saying, Jack, before you changed the subject to wolves?’ Jack reminded Mal that he said the cameras have now been put on a loop. ‘Yeah, that’s right. So, if anyone from the outside turns the system on, they see a recording of no activity. Today, the house will be handed from your uniformed officers to our undercover officers. If the gang sees the house empty on their cameras, they could decide to come back. But you want to hear the exciting part? We’re not watching the loop. We’re watching live.’

The viewing room was small with two bare white walls, one wall of closed window blinds and one wall of windows facing the corridor they’d just walked down. Mal set the two coffees down on a low table in front of two small sofas positioned side by side. Then he flicked on the strip lights and closed the blinds on the corridor windows. Jack sat on one of sofas and opened the laptop. As he looked at the locked log-in page waiting for its password, Jack sipped his coffee and wondered what horrors he was about to be shown.

Mal sat down next to Jack, took the laptop from his knee and placed it on the low table. Jack listened to Mal tapping the keys before leaning back to reveal a screen filled with three videos ready to play. Each video was labelled with the name of the room it was taken from.

‘What we’ve got, Jack, is a recording from the night Avril died. But we’ve only got the kitchen. No other cameras were recording. It’s like this throughout. Some cameras record, some don’t. And none record all the time. There’s plenty for us to play with — hundreds of hours, in fact — but there are huge gaps. And, before you ask, there’s no footage of your mystery man, Border, breaking in and stealing random stuff. But Edgar’s ploughing through it and we’ll show you anything we do find that relates to your murder investigation. The main problem we have to sort out is the timeframe. There is no timeline or date, so again Edgar will be attempting to put what we’ve got in some kind of order, so we can only presume that this was on the day of the murder.’

Jack leant forwards and Mal clicked ‘kitchen’. Instantly they could see the view from a high-vantage camera taking in the whole of the kitchen including, beyond the open door, the hallway and the bottom two stairs of the staircase...

Avril walked down the stairs and past the open kitchen door carrying two small white bin bags. She headed for the front door. After a pause of perhaps twenty seconds, Avril came into the kitchen, now empty-handed, and headed for the bin. As she struggled to pull the tight-fitting bin bag out of the slender pedal bin, three men, wearing full face masks and black leather gloves rushed in. They were all average in build, but clearly muscular beneath their black clothes. One of the men took the lead — he grabbed Avril around the waist, pinning her arms to her sides, and covered her mouth with his free hand. A second man put his arms behind her knees and swept her legs from the floor, into the crook of his elbow. Her frail body was then carried with ease from the kitchen, out into the hallway where they disappeared from sight. Once they’d gone, the third man calmly cleared the contents of the split binbag from the kitchen floor...

Mal stopped the video. ‘We don’t know where they went.’ Jack stared at the frozen image of the third man with the bin bag in his hand. He was so calm. So cold. ‘We named the guy who grabbed her Alpha. The man who picked up her legs Beta. And the guy with the bin bag Gamma. Ready?’ Jack nodded.

...for three minutes and twelve seconds, Gamma emptied the fridge of all ready-to-eat food, such as bread, butter, cold meats, cheese, cooked chicken legs and boiled potatoes. Whilst he made sandwiches and peeled ready-boiled eggs, the footage blanked out.

Mal paused the video again. ‘We took a long time finding the hidden cameras in every room, master bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, drawing room and dining room. Very professional set-up, hidden in bookshelves, light fixtures, ceiling lights — a number even looked like part of painting frames. Next, we have footage from the exterior of the house, again no timeframe, but judging by the light it looks like afternoon. So this could have been filmed before the footage you just watched in the kitchen.’ He started the video again.

‘OK, so this guy arrived in a Jag with blacked-out windows. We have this from the external camera footage covering the front of the property and hidden up near the arch of the entrance. Edgar’s working on it at the moment, so this is a copy.’

The footage showed the empty pathway leading to the house, and the gravel section beyond to the gates.

‘Here we go, and before you ask, the licence plate has been covered in mud. Edgar’s trying to clear it digitally, but as you can see it’s obliterated. But the Jag is this year’s four-door model, so that’s another lead we can check out.’

Jack leant forward to watch the Jag driving up from the gravel section to the paved drive that led to the garages. The Jaguar pulled up not far from the greenhouse, and the outbuildings. The driver’s door opened, and then the front and rear passenger doors.

Mal zoomed in on the sharp-suited man and froze the picture. ‘He’s wearing a black baseball cap pulled low over his face, and his collar’s turned up, hiding all distinguishable facial features. There’s nothing to run through facial recognition. We estimate his height to be over five eleven, he’s well-built and that suit is expensive, he’s also wearing black leather gloves.’

Jack stared intently as the three passengers got out of the Jaguar, sighing with frustration as all three pulled on balaclavas before slamming the doors shut.

‘We are certain these are the three men in the earlier footage from Mrs Jenkins’ kitchen, but again their faces are hidden and they’re gloved up.’

He pressed continue as the man in the baseball cap opened the boot and handed out packages to each of the men. With the boot open, the three men leaning in all had their backs to the camera.

‘We think these contained the paper suits. We are enlarging this section to make sure, and to see if there are any labels we can trace.’

The footage continued with the man wearing the baseball cap seemingly giving orders to the other three, he then got into the Jag slamming the door. He revved up the engine and did a fast U-turn before driving out of the grounds. The three men headed into the house... and the footage blanked out.

‘OK, Jack, the next section is presumed to be a continuation of the footage we have from the kitchen. As I said we have not as yet had time to piece what we have in running order. OK here we go again.’

...through the open door of the kitchen, Alpha and Beta carried a struggling, clearly terrified Avril out towards the stairs. Gamma continued with his picnic preparations by searching cupboards and finding plates and cutlery. Four minutes later, Alpha and Beta came back downstairs, joined Gamma in the kitchen and they all tucked in...

Mal stopped the kitchen video. ‘Again, we have no footage of where Alpha and Beta went. I’m sorry, Jack. I mean, I’m guessing they went to the master bedroom as that’s where she was found. But they were not missing for long enough to have committed the murder and sliced her up.’

Jack didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. ‘You want me to carry on?’ Again, Jack nodded and Mal fast forwarded. ‘They each come and go from the cellar several times, bringing out all of the equipment they need for a mammoth cooking session. OK, here’s where they have everything they need, and they are still wearing their balaclavas, possibly as protective masks over their mouths.’

...Alpha took a flick knife from his pocket and cut a small hole in one of several plastic bags on the kitchen island. He slid the tip of the blade into the hole and lifted out a small amount of white powder. By the time he’d done this, Beta had laid out a piece of greaseproof paper onto which the white powder was tipped. Alpha then filled a glass half full of water and folded the greaseproof paper into a funnel so the white powder could slide neatly into the glass. He then shook the glass, mixing the powder and water together. They all watched expectantly as the powder dispersed...

Mal commented on the action on screen: ‘If there’s any colouration, they know the MDMA’s not pure. What they do next is attach a specially made heavy iron press to the kitchen table and bang out a couple of thousand MDMA tablets. It compresses the powder into that.’ Mal handed Jack a small triangular tablet, with each side measuring 5mm in length. ‘We used the same machine to press that out of soft rubber, so we know exactly what we’re looking for. Watch these guys work, Jack. Alpha punches the tabs, Beta counts them into piles of ten and Gamma slides them into two-inch plastic zip-lock bags and boxes them up. It’s almost beautiful. For five hours, they do this. Then they break for more ham and cheese sandwiches.’

Jack watched the men lifting their balaclavas and masks just enough to take bites of food and sips of drink. Their chins were fleetingly visible each time, showing that all three men were white. This seemed clumsy and stupid, so perhaps they weren’t the smartest people in the world? Or perhaps they hadn’t been told about the cameras?

‘Mal, do you think the guy driving the Jag knew about the CCTV on the exterior of the house? I mean, he made sure his face was obscured, and so did the three passengers.’

‘Maybe, I dunno.’ Mal paused the video. ‘The next four hours are spent mixing cocaine with boric acid powder and splitting it into half-kilo bags. You wanna watch? I’m going to send this footage to you anyway.’

‘Hang on, is this it? I mean, you said there were cameras in almost every room in the house — the master bedroom, the bathroom where she was murdered... do you have any footage of that?’

‘No, but we are still scrolling through hours of footage. There are big gaps, when the cameras were turned off or the footage deleted. Like I said before we are doing our best to find every second that was recorded.’

Jack had had enough. The missing footage was infuriating: not knowing exactly what had happened to Avril. He didn’t relish the idea of watching her murder on video, but he needed to watch it in order to get the men responsible.

When Jack and Mal returned to the small reception area, Josh was seated in the middle of a double sofa, legs spread wide, taking up the entire space. He had his beanie hat in his hands and was pulling at a small thread that had come loose. He noticed Jack looking at his cochlear implant. ‘Stops me doing field work. So, I consult and lecture and teach.’ Jack apologised for staring. ‘’S’OK. My nephew thinks I’m bionic. Every cloud, as they say.’

Jack thanked Mal for his time. ‘If you get to these three guys before we do, Mal, don’t let them take the easy route out of this by licking the inside of their wedding ring. They have to pay for what they did.’

‘Deal. The external footage shows that the three men arrived in a black Jaguar on this occasion, but we also have footage of them in a Range Rover. Unlike the Jag, we have that licence plate. It’s false, obviously, tracing back to a motorhome owned by a retired couple in Dorset. But we’ll get them, Jack. We’ll get them all. And we’ll save those three for you.’

‘It’s the driver of the Jaguar I want.’

‘We’ll find him. Alive and kicking,’ Josh added. He stood and asked if Jack needed anything further from them today. Jack explained that Terence Jenkins, Avril’s brother-in-law, was arriving from California shortly, so he was going to head back across town and hopefully fill in some more blanks. Josh offered to walk Jack down and swipe him through the key-card doors to get out of the building.

Once in the car park, Jack paused. ‘Avril had a connection to Leeds. What does your drug intel say about that part of the country?’

‘Same as any bigger city. There’s high-end and low-end supply and demand, sales and distribution. It makes me laugh how the middle-of-the-road-masses never see the drug dealing that goes on around them. I’ll dig out some specifics if you give me a lead.’

‘All I know is that Avril was connected to the place. I’ll see what I can find out from Terence and let you know.’ Jack paused. ‘They were wearing masks and gloves. Would that be because of the chemicals? You gave me a vented mask when I dropped down into the outbuildings in Avril’s back garden.’

‘They’d know that fentanyl can be absorbed through the airways and skin, sure. But the men who killed her, Jack, they’re small-fry. The guy in the Jag is the one we want to know more about. You know, compared to the US, this is all early days. They’ll be selling mostly at festivals, concerts, raves, you know. They’re using kids and druggies as runners. They got no idea of the shit they’re selling, nor do the dealers. But with junk like fentanyl and carfentanyl being mixed with boric acid, cocaine, heroin... it’s fucking Russian roulette out there. When this crap flooded the US, we were playing catch-up right from the start. People were dropping dead in the streets, literally. Like stones. Fentanyl certainly lived up to its name: the drop-dead drug. But here... here we can see what’s coming, we know how to stop it. I mean, we still got to get ahead of them instead of just about keeping up, but we will. Your lady’s house is such a good opportunity for us, being an active base.’

‘I want to know what you know, Josh. I need to know how they work.’ Jack knew that it was a huge request to ask Josh to share years of painstakingly acquired knowledge, but he also knew that it was impossible to chase a criminal whose behaviour you couldn’t predict. ‘How about dinner?’ The sudden and unexpected suggestion took Josh by surprise. ‘Penny’s food is addictive. It’s not imaginative, but if you want something heart-warming, she’s your woman.’

Josh looked puzzled. ‘Anik said your wife was called Maggie.’

‘She is. Well, she’ll be my wife soon. Penny’s my mum.’ Jack suddenly thought how lame Josh might think it was for a grown man to be living with his mum. He was just about to explain how she recently became a widower when Josh leapt in.

‘Mamma’s cooking! Oh my God, Jack, I miss my mamma’s cooking like you wouldn’t believe.’ Josh’s laugh boomed and his deep Alabama accent bubbled to the surface. ‘Heart-warming! I know that kinda food. And you guys really know how to make gravy. I’d love to come. Thank you. And, yes we can talk shop, but not at the table and not in front of your mamma.’