Chimera (17 page)

Rosa shut her eyes momentarily. Then she shook her thin shoulders, squaring them as if for an ordeal.

“Trixie text me that afternoon. I go to Terry to get the gear and he give me the bag. I get taxi to Trixie’s house like always.”

“Wasn’t that expensive?” asked Kate. “It’s miles from Abbeyford.”

Rosa gave her a look that indicated scorn. “She pay for it. Always Trixie pay for it.”

Of course. Kate acknowledged this with a raise of her eyebrows and nodded for Rosa to continue.

Rosa dropped her gaze to the table and her thin, shaking fingers clasped together. “When I get there, Trixie is mad. Really mad. She had a big fight with her husband and he shake her. The night before that one, they had a big fight and she is still really mad.”

The bruising on Trixie’s arm. Kate recalled the post mortem results and realised that at least one part of the mystery was cleared up. Had Anderton and Olbeck ever taxed Jacob Arlen on that bruising? Not that it mattered now, anyway. She turned her attention back to what Rosa was saying.

“Trixie always shoots up first.” Rosa gave a one-shoulder shrug. “She have the money so she go first. She had the syringe ready—” she held up her hand, clasping an imaginary syringe. “She looks at me and says ‘fuck him if he thinks I’m giving this up for him’.” Rosa fell silent for a moment. Again, she brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. “Then she puts it in her arm.”

The interview room stilled. Kate could hear the three sets of breathing aside from her own.

“What happened then?” she asked softly.

Rosa’s face contorted. “She died. Maybe one minute later. She fell on the bed and died.”

“You knew she was dead straight away?” checked Olbeck.

Rosa nodded jerkily. “Her face – her mouth – it was blue. She didn’t breathe.” She took a deep shuddering breath, as if to remind herself that she herself was still alive. “I was so scared. I – I knew I had to leave her. I got all the drugs and things and I wiped around the bed with a cloth. All that time, I was doing this—” She held her hands out and shook them up and down. “I was scared more than ever before. I left.”

There was another short moment of silence.

Then Olbeck asked “You left her dead on her bed and you knew her children were in the house?”

Rosa’s face twisted again. She nodded and then burst into tears. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry for it all. I will pay. I know I will pay. I am ready to pay.”

Olbeck nodded. He looked across at Kate, who returned his nod. “I think we’ll leave it there for now,” he said and named the time and date before switching off the recorder.

Back in the office, Kate and Olbeck faced each other across his desk.

“Blimey,” said Olbeck.

“Exactly,” said Kate. She leant back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. “What the hell do we do now?”

Olbeck leapt up and began pacing around the room, just like Anderton. “We have a confession. We’ll have to go through with it.”

“I know that,” said Kate. “It’s just—”

“I know,” Olbeck said. “I feel sorry for her too. But she’s a criminal, Kate. She might be vulnerable and exploited and fighting addiction, but she’s a criminal.”

“Yes,” said Kate. She leant forward and put her head on Olbeck’s desk, feeling depressed. “Do you think she’ll get any treatment in prison?”

“I don’t know,” said Olbeck sombrely. “I’d like to think so.”

“She’ll probably get worse,” said Kate. “You know what the drug situation is like in prison.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Olbeck almost shouted. “She’ll be testifying against some hardened criminals if I get my way. Believe me, heroin or not, she’ll be safer in remand.”

Kate sat up. “We’re going after Stelios Costa then?”

“Are you kidding? The chance to put him away for trafficking – of drugs and quite possibly people as well?” Olbeck grinned tiredly. “Just hold me back.”

Kate also smiled reluctantly. “Well, if you put it like that…”

“Come on,” Olbeck said. “Let’s run it past Anderton. Then we can go home, get some sleep, and go in all guns blazing tomorrow. Possibly quite literally.”

Chapter Twenty Two

Kate was waiting on the doorstep at five am the next morning. It was pitch black; the sky glittered with stars and the full moon was crossed and re-crossed by wispy black clouds hurrying across the sky. Kate stamped her feet to keep the blood moving, her breath steaming in front of her. Beneath her coat, she felt the reassuring bulk of her anti-stab vest. It was so long since she’d worn one that she’d forgotten the weight of it.

The lights of Olbeck’s car appeared at the end of her road and the anxiety and excitement inside her leapt up another notch. She hurried down the garden path and virtually jumped into the passenger seat.

“You’re keen,” said Olbeck, grinning. “Here, I got you a coffee.”

Kate eagerly grasped the warm paper cup with her cold fingers. “Thanks. So, are we raiding first?”

“You bet.”

“Shame,” said Kate. “I could just do with hauling Stelios Costa’s arse out of bed and bundling him out of the house in his boxers.”

Olbeck laughed. “Well, Anderton and Theo have that pleasure. You can sit in on the interview later if you like and give him evil looks across the desk.”

“I don’t want to sit in,” said Kate. “You know what he’ll be like. He’ll just ‘no comment’ himself to death.”

“True.” Olbeck hunched forward a little in his seat, peering through the dark windscreen. “It should be up here, I think.”

They parked some way down from the house they’d come to enter. As Olbeck switched off the engine, Kate could see the others had already arrived: a team of uniformed officers, their colleague, Jane, wrapped in a voluminous puffa jacket, her face still smeared with sleep. There were two women there that Kate didn’t recognise, both smartly dressed in black suits. No press, thank God; too early for them. Kate climbed out of the car and shut the door quietly, shivering as the cold enveloped her.

“Morning,” Jane said, yawning. Several red curls could be seen peeking out from beneath her woolly hat, in jaunty contrast to her pale skin. “We’re just about to go in.”
Kate could see several of the officers readying the device that would force the door open. Kate had used one several times when she was on the beat and felt a flash of envy for a moment. Detective work was all very well, but sometimes all a girl wanted to do was bash down doors…

The two women came over and shook hands. The older one introduced herself as Karen Elliot and her companion as Sarah Grange. They were attending at Anderton’s request, seconded from the civil service.

“We work for the Modern Slavery helpline,” Karen Elliot explained, shivering a little in the cold. “DCI Anderton thought we might be able to assist.”

Kate nodded. “We don’t know for certain that any of these women are actually trafficked,” she said. “It seems that at least a couple of them were able to freely come and go as they pleased.”

Karen Elliot frowned. “Not all slaves are kept chained up, Detective Sergeant. Psychologically, whilst they might physically be able to leave their place of work, they’re unable to actually go far because they’ve been so brainwashed.”

Kate was getting impatient. “I realise that, Ms. Elliot. Perhaps we could talk about specifics in more detail after the raid?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

The woman’s penitent tone made Kate feel bad. She was only trying to help, after all. Kate hastened to reassure her.

“Okay, we’re off,” Olbeck said, gesturing at them both to be quiet. The three women fell silent. In the quietness that followed, Kate heard rather than saw the crash of the battering ram, followed immediately by the splintering of wood and the shouts of the officers who crowded through the door.

Kate and Olbeck waited tensely. This was always the worst time. What were the officers going to find behind the door? A bunch of terrified women or a furious man wielding a weapon? Kate found herself clenching her fists and made herself relax her hands.

They waited one, two, three agonised minutes, straining their ears. Then Olbeck glanced at Kate. “Okay. Let’s go. Ladies—” he nodded at the government workers, “please stay here until we let you know it’s safe for you to join us.”

The three officers hurried to the front door of the house, which was now hanging by one hinge. A splinter of wood from the shattered lock scraped against Kate’s coat as she crossed the threshold. The house was cold and it stank: of blocked toilets, of unwashed human flesh, of rotting food. Trying not to grimace, Kate followed Olbeck through the hallway. All the overhead lights had been switched on but as they were red and purple light bulbs, visibility was poor. Red light bulbs in a brothel… Kate shook her head at the cliché.

There were shouts in the room ahead of them and a crash. Kate and Olbeck froze and then jumped back against the corridor wall as a gaggle of four burly uniforms appeared in the doorway ahead, carrying a struggling, handcuffed man between them. He was bowled along past them and out the front door, no doubt to be slung into one of the vans that were parked out of the front.

“A punter?” asked Kate quietly.

“Not this early in the morning, surely?” replied Olbeck. “We’ll ID him back at the station.”

They cautiously walked further into the building. The room which had disgorged the struggling man was obviously a kind of sitting room, last decorated sometime in the early eighties from the looks of the swirly-pattern carpet, pockmarked all over with cigarette burns. A filthy sofa stood against one wall and on it were four women, huddled together and shivering. There were two more women slumped against it on the floor. All were thin and shaking and terrified. Several female officers were already attempting to talk to them, offering blankets and soothing words.

Kate and Olbeck wordlessly surveyed the room for a moment. Kate wondered whether she should be talking to the women as well, to see if they could tell her anything more than Rosa already had. She even took a step forward before changing her mind. These poor girls were in no fit state to be questioned as yet.

“Come on,” said Olbeck. “We need to find the drugs.”

It was a struggle to get the gloves over cold fingers. Kate could feel the tip of her nose going numb as she and Jane followed Olbeck out of the room. What must it have been like for these women here, being raped and abused, spending their days naked and shivering? No wonder they turned to drugs – or, as was more likely, were deliberately given them to ensure their compliance. What kind of man would voluntarily want to actually have sex with these emaciated, strung-out, blank-eyed girls? A bad one, Kate told herself as she turned to follow Jane into another small room. A bad man. One who saw women as commodities, nothing more than that – a product to be exploited and then tossed aside when they had finished.

As it turned out, the heroin was easy to find. Upstairs, in a filthy bathroom, Olbeck pulled away the side of the bath to reveal two black rucksacks, each containing several pounds of brownish powder, some already divided up into individual plastic bags. Olbeck looked up from his search at Kate and Jane. “Not the brightest tools in the bunch, are they? Talk about a crap hiding place.”

“They probably thought they were being really original,” said Jane. “Stupid bastards.”

“There might be more,” said Kate, crouching down. She hefted one of the bigger bags in her hand. “Do you think this is the Sulatenil stuff?”

“No idea. I won’t be injecting it to find out. We’ll have to wait for the test results,” said Olbeck.

Kate grinned. She heaved herself to her feet. “Are you going to tell Anderton?”

Olbeck got up, groaning a little. “God, my back. Yes, let’s get back to the station while SOCO get to work here. Anderton’s going to be a very happy man.”

“Let’s see Stelios Costa ‘no comment’ his way out of this one,” Kate said vindictively, as they made their way back to the car.

When they arrived back at the station, Olbeck sprinted off to the interview room where Anderton was enclosed with Stelios Costa. Kate decided to check on Rosa. As she peered into the holding cell through the peep-hole, she braced herself. But Rosa was sitting up in bed quite calmly and quietly, clasping her hands over her knees.

Relieved, Kate pushed open the door. “You’re looking better, Rosa,” she said, sitting down at the other end of the narrow bed.

Rosa didn’t exactly smile but her face relaxed a little. “I feel better. I feel as if I was in a dark cloud and now it is starting to break, a little.”

“That’s good to hear,” said Kate. “I’m glad because I need you to come with me for a moment. There’s something you can do for me.”

Immediately, Rosa tensed. “What?”

“Nothing bad,” soothed Kate. “We’ve arrested several people who were present at the building that you indicated was a brothel. You remember you gave us the address?”

Rosa nodded cautiously. “You have arrested them? For Maria’s death?”

A little taken aback, Kate shook her head. “Not specifically for that, no. We’re still gathering evidence. What I need you to do is identify the two men that we currently have in custody. Can you do that for me?”

Rosa’s sense of calmness was rapidly disappearing. “What if they see me? They will hurt me, I know it.”

Kate hastened to reassure her. It was only after several minutes of persuasion that Kate was able to get the girl to go up to the interview room floor with her and an accompanying officer, where the man who’d been arrested at the brothel was currently under surveillance in the room with a one-way mirror on the wall.

“Here, Rosa,” said Kate, gently positioning the girl so she could see into the room. “Can you identify this man?”

Rosa gazed through the glass, her thin, grubby fingers at her mouth.

“Is Terry,” she said eventually.

Kate nodded. “Thank you.” She left Rosa in the care of the PC who’d accompanied them up to the viewing room and quickly ran to the interview room where Anderton and Theo were. She knocked.

“Detective Sergeant Redman has entered the room,” said Anderton. All four men in the room looked at her: Anderton and Theo inquisitively, Stelios Costa and his lawyer with a frown. Kate murmured her request in Anderton’s ear and although he looked surprised, he nodded.

“Two minutes, Kate,” was all he said. Happy with that, Kate straightened up and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. Hopefully her little intervention would at least have given Stelios Costa a few minutes’ worry if nothing else came of it.

Back in the viewing room with Rosa, Kate watched Terry being removed by several officers. The door of the room shut and then opened again and Stelios Costa was ushered in. Anderton and Theo remained by the door.

She saw Anderton’s mouth move as he gave an instruction and Stelios turned to face the mirror. Kate saw him smile as he looked straight ahead and was momentarily disconcerted. It was as if he could actually see them.

She could feel Rosa begin to tremble beside her. “It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t worry, he can’t see you. Can you identify this man, Rosa?”

Rosa was breathing fast. After a moment, she said in a voice so small, it was barely audible, “It is Costa, his name is Stelios Costa.”

“Thank you,” said Kate. A positive identification at least. Now they just had to make sure that Rosa would testify as a prosecution witness, and then finally they might be able to jail one Costa brother for good.

“He is such a bad man,” said Rosa, still in an almost whisper. “I always think his face is like a shark.”

Kate looked at Stelios, looking at them. She knew what Rosa meant – it was something in his eyes; a blankness, a void, nothing behind the flat black gaze.

“He can’t hurt you here,” she said, anxious to reassure Rosa. “You’re perfectly safe.”

Rosa stood still, hugging her thin arms across her body. “I know he does bad things but I never see him angry,” she said. Then she looked up at Kate. “Only when the bald man comes once. That was the only time.”

“Sorry?” asked Kate. “What bald man?”

Rosa shrugged, turning back to look at Stelios again, who was being ushered out of the door by Theo. “I don’t know. He came one, two times. Last time Stelios was very mad.” She relaxed a little as the viewing room door shut. “I am very tired now.”

“I’ll take you back to your cell,” said Kate, nodding at the PC. They walked slowly back down the corridor, Rosa and the PC in front of Kate, who was puzzling over what Rosa had just told her. Was it significant?

It wasn’t until they reached the cell floor that things began to fall into place. As Kate realised the significance of what she’d just been told, she stopped dead, as if she’d just walked into a heavy, immovable object. Surely – was she wrong? She
had
to be wrong – but what if she wasn’t?

“Take Rosa into her cell,” she asked the PC. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Kate sprinted back up the stairs to the office floor, wondering what the quickest way of obtaining the photograph she needed would be. After a moment of hesitation, she went over to the paper recycling box by the window and dug through it. Would it still be here? Just as she was asking herself the question, she spotted it and pulled out the crumpled paper with a cry of triumph. Then she wheeled around and ran back down the stairs again.

“Can you let me in?” Kate asked the PC, who was just turning to go. He looked surprised but nodded, reaching for his keys.