No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) (26 page)

Returning to the main office, he heard his office phone ringing. Breaking into a trot, he nearly spilt his coffee as he dived for the handset, snatching it up just before the call was diverted somewhere into the bowels of the police station’s voicemail system.

“It’s Harrison,” the crime scene manager stated unnecessarily. “We’ve found the victim’s handbag and purse. Chucked over a fence and covered in what is almost certainly her blood.”

“Brilliant news. What have you found out?”

“We’ll have to do a full look-see back at Welwyn, but it could be robbery. The handbag is full of what you’d expect: lots of condoms, some lube, tissues, ciggies and a lighter, plus what looks like a crack-pipe and a couple of rocks. There’s also a mobile phone, a rape alarm and a can of what looks like pepper spray. Her purse was unclasped and has a bank card, but no money. I’m no expert, but prostitution’s usually a cash business. Unless she had a very slow night, you’d expect her to have at least a few quid in there.”

“That’s great, Andy. What’s the name on the cards?”

“A Miss Melanie Clearwater. She has a basic Lloyds-TSB debit card and not a lot else. I’m guessing that either the attacker took the rest, or more likely she didn’t carry any valuables in case she got mugged.”

Warren made a note of the name. “You say the rape alarm and the pepper spray were in the handbag?”

“Yeah, towards the bottom. It doesn’t look as if she used them.”

“Suggesting either she was taken completely unawares or she knew her attacker and felt safe.”

A rustling down the line suggested a man in a paper suit shrugging. “Above my pay-grade, Chief, but you could be right. Anyway, I think we’re done for now. It’s up to the lab folks down at Welwyn. I’m going to knock off and get some sleep. I’ll have a report with photos for you tomorrow lunchtime.”

After thanking him and hanging up, Warren leant back in his chair to mull over the latest findings. Harrison’s mention of sleep had reminded Warren just how tired he felt. He glanced at his clock; he probably had twenty minutes until the support worker was due to arrive. His office door was closed and nobody could see in…

The ringing of his desk phone jerked him back to full wakefulness. Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs, he grabbed it.

“Constable Yvonne Fairweather from Welwyn to see you.” It was the main reception desk. He looked at the clock; she was fifteen minutes early. For the briefest of moments, he felt an irrational anger — couldn’t a man get just a few minutes’ shut-eye around here? Was that too much to ask? He felt a sudden urge to tell the receptionist he was in a meeting and that he’d see her at ten as agreed.

“Send her up,” he ordered, with as much authority as he could muster. Picking up his coffee, he saw that it was cold. He swallowed it anyway, grimacing slightly. He didn’t know how Susan did it. She was discouraged from taking her coffee cup into her teaching laboratory with her, so as often as not would scald her mouth as she tried to drink as much of her coffee as possible in the five minutes she’d snatch at break-time after tidying her lab and talking to students, before leaving the cup to cool for the next hour, then downing the rest in the five-minute gap between successive lessons.

Her prized possession was a massive coffee mug bought as a leaving present by her mentor when she finished her teacher training — a deliberate wind-up since she never had the time to finish a normal mug of coffee, let alone the pint or more that this monster held. It was therefore rather strange that neither Susan nor Warren could stomach iced coffee.

A few moments later, the liaison officer arrived at his office. A tall, willowy woman of about thirty, she was dressed in jeans and ankle-length black boots, with a blue woollen jumper underneath her thick padded coat.

“Sorry for the attire, sir, but we try not to dress like police officers. It scares off clients and makes us unpopular with the girls.”

Warren waved his hand dismissively. “No need to apologise. I quite understand.”

“I’ve been to the hospital and seen the victim.” Warren noticed the young woman’s mouth twitched slightly as she fought for control. “She’s one of my regulars, sir. Goes by the name Mel on the street.”

Warren nodded. “We found what we assume is her purse. It had no money but had a bank card in the name of Miss Melanie Clearwater.”

“That would be right. What was it, a robbery? I’d expect her to have a couple of hundred pounds in her purse at least by midnight.”

Warren shrugged. “We’re keeping an open mind at the moment. We also found what we think is some crack cocaine in the handbag — could she have just paid her dealer?”

Constable Fairweather shook her head. “I doubt it. She wasn’t a particularly heavy user and even if she had just paid off her dealer she’d probably still have had some cash left over. What we do know is that she doesn’t appear to have been raped. Her clothing and underwear were intact and an investigation shows no sign of significant bruising. It’s always difficult with prostitutes obviously, but they found no traces of any semen, suggesting that she hasn’t had either vaginal or anal sex tonight. They’ve taken swabs, of course, but if it was a normal night she’s probably already had a handful of clients — the DNA will be a mess.”

“I must admit I don’t really know much about this side of policing and I’m new to the town. It might help if you fill me in on what it is you do and how the sex trade works in this area.”

The constable paused, weighing up her thoughts, before leaning forward and steepling her fingers. “Well, basically, the local sex trade for Middlesbury and the surrounding villages is mostly centred around Truman Street and its offshoots. With the council, we operate a sort of containment operation. I assume that you’ve been down there?”

Warren nodded his assent.

“Well, as you can see, it’s almost entirely non-residential, so that keeps the antisocial behaviour to a minimum. These days, the sex trade is very different. The girls get a lot of their business online. They probably only walk the streets a couple of nights a week. The clients come from all over and each girl probably does a half-dozen or so a night. It’s mostly kerb-crawling. The girls operate an informal network and look out for one another. They make a note of the licence plates of any weirdos. Regulars who can be trusted get serviced quickly; clients that the girls don’t like are ignored. They are encouraged to report any assaults et cetera to the police. It works fairly well. It’s always going to be a dangerous business, but serious assaults are a fraction of what they were ten years ago.”

“So if we went out tonight asking for witnesses, would the girls be likely to co-operate?”

Fairweather smiled tightly.

“Not for you, but they would for my team. But bear in mind, these girls only work a couple of nights a week, usually on an irregular schedule. We’d probably need to go out a few nights in a row to pick up everyone that was working last night.”

Warren conceded the point. He’d leave the questioning to the experts — besides which, his team were busy enough as it was; he didn’t really want them up half the night as well.

“By the way, I notice that you haven’t mentioned pimps yet — do the girls have them?”

Fairweather shook her head. “Not in the way I’m imagining you are thinking. The days of flashily dressed thugs standing on street corners, watching over the girls and taking their earnings and dealing out beatings are largely gone. That being said, many of the girls, Mel included, work for so-called ‘Escort Agencies’ that source clients online for them. They then take a cut of the girl’s earnings.”

“Do you know anything about Mel’s…agent? I ask because it’s possible that she knew her attacker. We found a can of pepper spray and a rape alarm buried in the bottom of her handbag. They don’t appear to have been readily available to her, suggesting that she wasn’t feeling threatened.”

“I wouldn’t read too much into the pepper spray. It used to be that the girls would carry flick knives. We managed to discourage that, but have agreed to turn a blind-eye to pepper spray or mace. The problem is, the girls can’t conceal a can of pepper spray the way they could a flick knife, so they get left at the bottom of their handbag.”

“And what about her agent?”

For the first time, since meeting, the PC looked uncomfortable.

“I think it’s unlikely that he’s responsible. He’s no knight in shining armour, but he is a sensible businessman and he looks after the girls on his books. We have an…understanding with him.”

Warren looked at her sternly.

“Be that as it may, Constable, one of his workers was beaten to within an inch of her life last night and might never regain consciousness. There is good reason to suspect that she knew her attacker and so I intend to interview this so-called agent and see if it generates any leads, relationship or no relationship.”

* * *

Constable Fairweather had a BlackBerry smartphone with a list of the contact details for most of the local ‘escort agencies’. Mel had worked for a local agency called the Discreet Companions Agency. It had a glossy website that advertised well-turned-out ladies of all ages, suitable for private dinner dates, business meetings and companionship. Prices were negotiable with the escort and subject to a booking and administration fee. No mention was made of any ‘extra services’.

“The agency is run by a Daryl Hedgecox as an apparently legitimate business. He supplies women on demand for social functions or dates. He charges a hefty upfront administration fee, then the girl negotiates her own terms with the client and pays about twenty-five per cent to him to remain on his books. The girls are freelancers and he refuses to engage in any discussions regarding ‘extra services’ that the girls may supply. That way he is insulated from any suggestions that he is living off immoral earnings. He pays his taxes and apparently encourages the girls to do likewise. He skirts pretty close to the wind, but on the face of it he’s a legitimate businessman.”

“And nobody has tried to close him down? There must be something you can get him on?”

Fairweather looked irritated. “Look, I realise that it seems as if we are giving him a free pass — and perhaps we are — but people like Daryl Hedgecox are far better than the alternative. He’s an intelligent man; he knows that if he treats his girls OK, doesn’t rip off his clients and pays his taxes, we’d rather he ran things than some of the other scumbags out there. He also helps the girls report any dodgy clients and keeps his own records of who can be trusted. He doesn’t deal in drugs and he doesn’t threaten the girls with violence. Like I said before, he’s no knight in shining armour, but he’s better than a lot of the alternatives.”

Warren nodded.

“I understand your argument and I’ll try not to step too hard on your toes. Nevertheless we need to work out exactly what happened to Mel last night and he could well provide clues. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

Fairweather still didn’t look entirely satisfied, but she clearly knew when to fight her battles.

“He’s probably still in bed at this time of the morning. He tends to keep the same hours as his girls. He lives just south of Cambridge. If we go now, we’ll probably still catch him before he gets up.”

“Always the best time,” Warren agreed. “I find folks aren’t at their sharpest when you’ve just woken them up.”

Chapter 33

After picking up Tony Sutton and filling him in on the way, the three police officers pulled into the large, semi-circular, gravel drive in front of Daryl Hedgecox’s palatial home.

“Christ, guv, we’re in the wrong business,” opined Tony Sutton as he craned his neck to get a good look at the mansion in front of them. Warren parked between a brand-new Range Rover and a classic Mercedes soft-top.

“He can’t have made all of his money in the escort business, surely?”

Fairweather shook her head. “Unlikely. Rumour has it, he bought a whole load of cheap houses when the market was just right and rented them to students. A few years ago he offloaded some of them at a huge profit. Where he got the initial capital from, we don’t know.”

Warren grunted. “I wonder if his neighbours know what he does for a living.”

“I doubt it very much. Apparently, Mr Hedgecox has wormed his way into the local community since moving here. He sits on all the local committees. He even applied for an Enhanced Criminal Records Check to become a member of the governing body at his daughter’s primary school. Seems he’d forgotten about an early conviction for selling hardcore pornography under the counter in his father’s video shop in his late teens. That put the kibosh on that ambition.” Fairweather smiled briefly.

Warren was relieved she still remembered that he was ultimately not the sort of person you wanted associated with local schools.

After walking up a short garden path, the officers found themselves standing on a covered porch between two carved sandstone lions flanking the door. Money can’t buy good taste, mused Warren.

Taking a deep breath, Warren pressed the doorbell. Deep inside the house a sonorous chime echoed. A few moments later, Warren depressed the button again. Finally, they heard a shuffling behind the door.

“Yeah? What is it? What do you want?”

The voice was rough-edged with sleep and irritation.

“Mr Hedgecox, it’s the police. Can we come in and ask you a few questions?”

Warren held his warrant card up to the door’s spyhole.

“No. Speak to my lawyer. I have nothing to say.”

“Well, you don’t even know what we’re here for, Mr Hedgecox, so how can you be so sure?”

“I’m a legitimate businessman. Speak to my lawyers if you wish to ask anything.”

Warren paused. “Are you quite sure about that, Mr Hedgecox? All we need to do is ask you a few questions as part of a routine enquiry. It’s your choice: either you invite us in and we do this all civilised and we’ll be on our way in a few minutes with nobody any the wiser. Or, we can return with an arrest warrant and blue flashing lights and those really annoying, deafening sirens that tell all of your neighbours for miles around that the respectable Mr Hedgecox has just had a visit from the Old Bill.