Death in a Far Country (14 page)

‘There is one thing you need to know about these encounters with the girl you knew as Grace,’ Thackeray said. ‘If she is in fact the same girl who was found dead in the canal, you have to know that she was infected with the HIV virus. In the circumstances, you may want to have a medical check yourself. I’m sorry.’

‘Dear Jesus,’ OK Okigbo whispered, his eyes filling with tears. ‘What have I done?’

Laura Ackroyd got away from work early that afternoon and arrived at the Ibramovic’s house just as a tall dark-haired girl in school uniform with a heavy bag over her shoulder was letting herself in through the front door.

‘Hi,’ Laura said. ‘You must be Itzak’s daughter.’

The girl nodded gloomily.

‘Jazzy,’ she said. ‘You’re Elena’s friend?’ Laura nodded and to her surprise the girl turned and took hold of her arm in a bruising grip.

‘Can you find the men who did all that to her?’ she asked fiercely. ‘It’s disgusting what happened to her. Horrible. She told us all about it. And I bet my dad left the worst bits out when he translated.’

Laura extricated herself gently from the girl’s hand.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But unless Elena is willing to help the police it may be difficult to pin the men down.’

‘But the police will send her back home. That can’t be right. They might come for her again. Or kill her. Or her family will.’ It was obvious that Jazzy had been overwhelmed by Elena’s story.

‘Let me talk to your mother,’ Laura said gently. ‘Something else has happened that I need to talk to Elena about, and then we’ll have to see what we should do next.’

Jazzy pushed the front door open and went inside, calling for her mother as she did so. Lilijana came from the kitchen to greet her, closely followed by an anxious looking Elena.

‘We need to talk,’ Laura said, seeing the anxiety deepen in the eyes of all three of them.

‘Come in,’ Lilijana said quietly, waving Laura into the sitting room where she sat in a chair facing the other three, Elena between the mother and Jazzy, who put a protective arm around the other girl’s painfully thin shoulders. The two girls, not that much different in age, had obviously become friends.

‘Elena,’ Laura said, hoping that without Itzak to translate she could make herself understood. ‘The night you ran away you were not alone, were you? You ran away with someone else, another girl? There were two of you. You had a friend with you?’

The girl looked at her with blank eyes for a moment before the tears came and she nodded.

‘She lost,’ she whispered. ‘Grace lost. Men come and I run. Grace run.’

‘Did they catch up with Grace?’ Laura asked, reaching
out a hand as if to seize her by way of illustration and Elena nodded dumbly.

‘Was Grace a black girl?’ Laura asked, but Elena shook her head, not understanding.

‘Black? African?’ Understanding dawned and Elena nodded again.

‘African. Yes. She say African.’

Laura sighed, knowing that the answer made Elena’s position untenable and her own probably even worse.

‘You must talk to the police, Elena,’ Laura said. ‘Your friend Grace is dead.’

Elena gave a slight moan and clutched Jazzy for support as tears flowed down her cheeks. Lilijana put a protective arm around both girls.

‘Go upstairs you two,’ she said. ‘Jazzy, look after her. I want to talk to Laura alone for a minute.’ The girls left, without glancing back, although Jazzy looked mutinous, and Lilijana stood up angrily to face Laura.

‘I need to talk to my husband,’ she said. ‘Elena needs to have things explained to her in her own language.’

‘There’s nothing you can do, any of you,’ Laura said. ‘There’s no choice, believe me. Either Elena comes back to Bradfield with me to talk to the police or I send the police here to talk to her. I’m sure you’ll be able to continue to look after her, if that’s what you want, but she’s a witness in a murder inquiry. She must tell them what she knows. There’s no choice. Honestly there isn’t.’

‘How did her friend die?’ Lilijana asked quietly.

‘She was pulled from the canal in Bradfield last week. She was attacked and then either fell, or was pushed, into the
water. The police are looking for Elena as a witness. Her photograph is in the evening paper. I don’t suppose you see the
Bradfield Gazette
out here, but the two girls were caught on street cameras. She and her friend are quite recognisable. It won’t be long before someone sees her here and realises who she is. The photograph will get into the national papers, perhaps be on TV…’

‘They don’t think she did it?’ Lilijana asked, looking horrified at the idea.

‘No, I’m sure they don’t, but she may have seen who did,’ Laura said. ‘She must make a statement to the police.’

The other woman nodded slowly.

‘Let her stay here,’ she said. ‘I will get Itzak to explain all this to her when he comes home. Give us a little time to prepare her, and then send your policemen here. It will be kinder that way.’

Laura sighed.

‘There’s one policeman I know quite well,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell him when I see him this evening. That should give you time to prepare Elena. I’m sorry to have to put you through all this. I didn’t realise there might be a connection between her and the dead girl until yesterday myself, and it was as much a shock to me as it is to you. But you must see, it changes everything.’

‘Yes,’ Lilijana said. ‘Poor girl. As if the other things she’s been through are not enough. We sat up late last night while she told Itzak more details about her life since she was kidnapped. For some of the time she was in some dreadful bar in Belgrade. I feel ashamed that she was abused in my own city. Then she was sold, like a slave, sold and sold again. How can this happen in this day? What is going on in the
world?’

‘I spoke to a charity in London that helps these girls and they said there are thousands of them being trafficked around Europe,’ Laura said. ‘They are kidnapped, or else tricked into believing they’re being offered a legitimate job in a more prosperous country. And if they try to run away their families are threatened. It makes me sick to think about it.’

‘She must tell the police everything she knows. It’s the only way these men can be stopped,’ Lilijana said with sudden determination. ‘Itzak and I will tell her what’s happening. Prepare her. And Itzak can translate for her.’

‘Fine,’ Laura said, with a feeling of immense weariness. ‘I’ll leave it to you and Itzak. I’m really sorry to have landed you in all this.’ Lilijana put a hand on her shoulder as she got up to go.

‘We all have to do the best we can,’ she said.

Laura drove back to Bradfield slowly, and when she got home poured herself a large vodka and tonic and flung herself down on the settee before calling her grandmother to fill her in on the latest developments. Joyce listened in silence until she had finished, and when she spoke her voice sounded strained and Laura wondered if she was crying.

‘Some decisions are hard to take, pet. But I think you’re doing the right thing. You’ve no real choice.’

‘Michael will be furious we’ve kept her under wraps as long as we have,’ Laura said.

‘Aye, well, you’re going to have to face him down on that. We did the right thing in the beginning. We couldn’t know how it would turn out.’

‘No,’ Laura said, not really believing herself. ‘I’ll let you
know what happens.’

For a long time she sat watching the clock creep round from six o’clock to seven, feeling too sick to think about cooking a meal, merely refilling her glass to bolster her courage. Just after seven she jumped as the phone rang, and she answered it expecting to hear Michael Thackeray’s voice telling her, as he often did, that he would be late home. But the voice at the other end was that of Ibramovic, and she could tell immediately that his news was not good.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Have you spoken to the police yet?’

‘Not yet,’ Laura said.

‘It’s just that Elena has gone. She and Jazzy have packed a bag and disappeared.’

‘Oh hell,’ Laura said, as she heard Thackeray’s key in the front door. ‘That is all I need.’

Thackeray found Laura sitting on the sofa staring into an empty glass and could tell from the lack of response to his arrival that something was seriously wrong. He took his coat off and hung it up carefully, trying to control the feeling of dread that almost overwhelmed him.

‘Bad day?’ he asked, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder. She shrugged slightly and turned towards him with eyes full of tears.

‘I’ve messed something up big time,’ she said. ‘You’re not going to like this.’

He sat down beside her and took her hand.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked, and slowly she told him how she had met Elena at her grandmother’s house and everything that had followed. She would have found it easier to struggle through her story if Thackeray had responded in any way, but once he realised that what she was telling him was related to the case he was working on he got up and went to the window, where he stood with his back to Laura, gazing into the wintry garden outside without saying anything at all while he listened to her halting explanation of what she had done and why.

When she had added as a post-script the devastating
news that Elena and Jazzy Ibramovic had apparently run off together rather than allow Elena to face the police, Laura paused briefly. When Thackeray still did not respond, she sighed.

‘I’m sorry, Michael,’ she said. ‘I’d really no idea what we were getting into with this. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I’m really, really sorry.’

Thackeray spun round to face her at that, his face white and drawn and his eyes angry.

‘Sorry hardly seems to cover it this time, does it?’ he said. ‘I can hardly believe that you and Joyce could have been so stupid. To think that you could hide someone who was so obviously here illegally was one thing.’

‘The girl was half starved when Joyce found her,’ Laura said.

‘Right. But to try to hide someone who had been trafficked by thugs who you must have guessed would stop at nothing to keep Elena quiet is something else entirely. Even if you didn’t make the connection to the dead girl, you knew Elena was being hunted by men who were running a vicious illegal racket. You must have known that she was in danger. And if she was in danger, you were too. And so was Joyce. And now, to cap it all, you’ve lost her. You could have brought her to see me this afternoon but you warned her you wanted her to talk to the police and then you left her in Ilkley. Wasn’t it obvious to you that she would run away again? Surely you could see that? So just at the moment when we’ve gone public with her picture as a witness to the killing, she’s haring around Yorkshire, barely able to speak English, with no means of support, a prey to anyone who recognises her.
And she’s got another child with her. So in the end, all you’ve achieved is to put two girls at risk. And me in an impossible position. How the hell do you think I’m going to explain all this to Jack Longley, who’s at the end of his tether over this inquiry we’re involved in. How am I going to tell him that we’ve got to start a massive hunt for a witness whose whereabouts have been known to my girlfriend for the last four days?’

‘The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass you,’ Laura said, her voice so quiet that Thackeray could barely hear her.

‘Again!’ Thackeray said bitterly. ‘The timing couldn’t be worse, could it? Just when the inquiry is going to rake over the embers of the last case you got inadvertently involved in.’

‘That wasn’t my fault,’ Laura said, stung into vehemence now. ‘Vince Newsom stole that document. You know he’d do anything for a story. He’s completely ruthless.’

‘So you say,’ Thackeray said.

‘That’s not fair, Michael,’ Laura said. ‘You know what happened.’

‘You didn’t have to go drinking with Newsom that night,’ Thackeray said. ‘You didn’t have to get so drunk that he had to drive you home. Why was he so keen to do that, anyway? Did he think he could sneak into your bed for old time’s sake while I was away? I’ve always wondered.’

‘Michael,’ Laura cried, terrified at where Thackeray’s anger was taking him. She had seen him furious before, and depressed and distant, but never overtly jealous. And the fact that he could well be right about Vince Newsom’s motives that night only frightened her the more. ‘I was worried about you. I had a drink too many. It wasn’t the end of the world.
He must have found the paper in my bag when he looked for my door key.’

‘Right,’ Thackeray said, tight-lipped. Laura had not realised how the incident still rankled but she knew it would hurt far more if he ever discovered that Newsom had in fact claimed to have slept with her that night, and although she denied it to him and to herself, there was still the niggling doubt left at the back of her mind that it could be true. She could not remember.

‘Never mind all that,’ Laura said, desperate to change the subject, however uncomfortable that might also be. ‘It’s water under the bridge. What can we do about Elena?’

‘You can’t do anything about Elena,’ Thackeray said flatly. ‘You’ve done far too much already. Tomorrow I’ll want formal statements from you, and Joyce, and this translator and his wife, chapter and verse about what’s been going on from you all. In the meantime, I’ll have someone talk to the family in Ilkley tonight so we can put out descriptions of the two girls across the county. The parents must be seriously worried by what’s happened. How old is the daughter?’

‘Sixteen or seventeen, I think,’ Laura said. ‘She’s still at school.’

‘I want the two of them found, and the sooner the better,’ Thackeray said. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll get straight back to the office and set it all in motion.’ He looked again at Laura who had slumped back in her seat gazing at him with a stricken expression and tears in her eyes, but his face did not soften.

‘I won’t come back tonight,’ he said. ‘So don’t wait up. I need to think. In fact I reckon we both need some space.
Tomorrow is not going to be a good day.’ And with that he pulled on his coat again and went out, closing the front door very deliberately behind him. Laura gazed at it for a long time, until she could no longer hear the engine of his car as it made the long descent into the town centre. She wondered if he would ever come back and she sat for a long time without moving, feeling totally drained of all emotion. Then she rang Joyce to tell her what had happened.

‘If the girls turn up at your place, call the police, Nan,’ she said urgently. ‘Michael’s right. If she was a witness to a murder, or has information about the men involved, she’s in real danger. She didn’t tell us half of what she knew. And now she’s on the loose with another girl who’s got absolutely nothing to do with anything.’

‘You can’t blame Elena,’ Joyce said with some heat. ‘She’s got very little English and she was terrified, suicidal in fact. She said as much.’

Laura ran a hand wearily over her eyes and sighed.

‘Michael is furious with us,’ she said. ‘It’s all a horrible mess. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me.’

There was a silence at the other end of the phone for a moment before Joyce spoke again.

‘I’m sorry, pet,’ she said eventually. ‘You know I’ve never thought he was the right man for you, but I’d not want to be the one to drive you apart. Give it time. If he loves you he’ll come back.’

‘Maybe,’ Laura said quietly, feeling a cold chill inside. ‘And maybe not.’

She spent the rest of the evening wandering restlessly around the flat, drinking coffee and nibbling at a sandwich,
which was all she felt she could eat but in the end she found it choked her. She hurled the remnants into the bin, and poured herself another vodka and tonic as a nightcap, only to find her heart thumping when the phone rang. She grabbed the receiver hoping that Thackeray might have calmed down enough to call her, only to find an angry Itzak Ibramovic at the other end.

‘We’re worried to death about Jasmin and I’ve just had the police round,’ he said. ‘Did Elena tell you anything about this other girl, the girl they’ve found dead.’

‘No,’ Laura said. ‘She never mentioned her. I had no idea. If I’d known I would have insisted she went to the police. I’m so sorry about all this. Have they found any trace of them?’

Ibramovic snorted.

‘I’ve rung round all Jasmin’s friends, youth hostels, anything I can think of. She’s taken her post office book and I know she had several hundred pounds in there that she was saving up for a holiday. If she’s drawn that out they could be in London by now. Anywhere. I don’t think the police know where to start looking to be honest.’

‘I’m sure Jazzy will contact you,’ Laura said. ‘She’ll know how worried you’ll be. Has she got a mobile phone?’

‘She has, but she’s switched it off,’ Ibramovic said. ‘She’s not stupid. She probably knows she can be traced via the mobile. In any case, she’s left the charger in her room so the battery will run down eventually.’

‘Perhaps she’s switched it off to conserve the battery. In case of an emergency.’

‘Like when these animals catch up with them, you mean,’ Ibramovic said bitterly.

‘What can I say?’ Laura asked helplessly. ‘Elena fooled us all.’

‘Me most of all,’ Ibramovic conceded. ‘I was the one she talked to most, in her own language. She gave no hint that she had run away with someone else. I blame myself.’

‘The police will pull out all the stops to find them,’ Laura said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘They really need her as a witness.’

‘And the traffickers really need to prevent her becoming one,’ Ibramovic said. ‘Who would you put your money on finding them first?’

‘The police,’ Laura said firmly. ‘They’ve far more resources. They will find them. We just have to hope it won’t take too long. What did they say about publicity? Are they going to launch an appeal for the two girls to come back?’

‘Apparently,’ Ibramovic said. ‘Given that they’ve already released information about Elena in connection with the murder case they can’t back down now to protect her and Jasmin, can they? The traffickers must already be out looking for Elena and that puts Jazzy at risk as well.’

‘Elena must have known that,’ Laura said. ‘She must have been very frightened of talking to the police.’

‘She was very frightened,’ Ibramovic said flatly. ‘That was obvious. And now we are very frightened too.’ And with his voice breaking, he hung up.

Guilt, Laura thought, as she flung herself back into her chair trying to control the despair that threatened to overwhelm her, was an emotion that had never tormented her greatly before, but it had stormed into her life now, and in a way that revealed more clearly than she had ever
understood how it had distorted Thackeray’s life for so long. If these girls were harmed in any way by the mistakes she had made today, she thought, she would never forgive herself.

The phone rang again suddenly and again she seized the receiver with a hope that was dashed this time by her father’s voice.

‘I’ve been trying to get through for an hour or more,’ Jack Ackroyd complained. ‘Your phone’s been permanently engaged.’

‘I’ve been busy,’ Laura said irritably. Jack was the last person she wanted to talk to this evening.

‘Aye, well, I thought I was doing you a favour by letting you have the latest on the United situation.’

Laura hesitated, not registering for a moment what her father was talking about.

‘Oh, Bradfield United?’ she said dully, neither knowing nor caring now what happened now to the football team and all its works.

‘I told you about the share offers,’ Jack said sharply. ‘Well, I’ve decided to sell to Les Hardcastle after all. It were the better offer, marginally, but I reckon he’s a better bet in the long run. I can’t see how Sam Heywood’s lass is going to make a go of it. She knows less than nowt about football.’

‘Right,’ Laura said listlessly, without the energy to argue. ‘And does that give Les his blocking share, do you think?’

‘I don’t know if it clinches it, but it’ll certainly help,’ Jack said.

‘Dad, this isn’t a good time,’ Laura said. ‘Let’s talk about it another day, shall we. Give my love to Mum.’

‘Oh well, if you’re not interested…’

‘Goodnight, Dad,’ Laura said, and hung up abruptly, adding another ounce of guilt to the burden that already weighed her down. And the worst thing was, she thought, as she got ready to go to bed alone, that there did not seem to be any way now that she could undo the events she had inadvertently set in train. She was impotent, and that was the hardest thing of all to bear.

Sergeant Kevin Mower, who had been hauled away by DCI Thackeray from a contented evening with a six-pack of lagers and a DVD, was not in the best of moods when he reported back to his boss at police HQ at eight o’clock that evening. But when he saw the look in Thackeray’s eyes when he strode into the main CID office, just as Mower was carefully hanging up his leather jacket, he decided that even the mildest complaint about unwanted overtime would be too dangerous to indulge.

‘Guv?’ He was, he could see from the empty desks, the only person Thackeray seemed to have summoned. ‘Do we have a problem?’

‘The second girl,’ Thackeray said. ‘You won’t believe this.’ And he repeated the gist of what Laura had told him in staccato sentences, which told Mower all he needed to know about the state of his domestic relationship. And by tomorrow, Mower thought grimly, his professional standing would not be in much better shape when he passed on the news to Superintendent Longley.

‘We need to find the pair of them,’ Mower said when Thackeray had finished.

‘I’ve asked Ilkley to interview the parents this evening, but I want you to go over there tomorrow first thing and talk to them in more detail, take statements, look at both the girls’ rooms, and anything else you can think of. Take Sharif with you. I imagine Ibramovic is a Muslim so it might be reassuring. We’re not gunning for him. Laura obviously talked him into it.’

‘And Laura?’ Mower asked tentatively.

‘I’ll ask Jack Longley to organise interviews with Laura and her grandmother tomorrow. You and I will keep well out of that.’ Mower did not think he had ever seen Thackeray look so bleak. His recent brush with death had aged him but this personal calamity seemed to have added another ten years.