On Laughton Moor (24 page)

  ‘We ran. I still can’t believe we did. We didn’t even try to help him, any of us. We ran, and all the way back Craig was telling us we had to keep it a secret, that he would kill us if we told anyone. We all swore not to, because we knew we’d be in so much trouble. His body was found  later in the Trent, the stream must join it somewhere. We knew it was the same boy, his photo was in the paper. I think his death was put down to misadventure, something like that. I felt so terrible, like I’d pushed him in myself. Even now, all these years later, I can’t believe it, how we could all just have stood there and watched him wash away. I read in the newspaper that he’d hit his head while he was in the water and drowned. Tommy Heron. Six years old and dead because of us, because of me, because I just stood there and let Craig bully him into jumping, like he bullied us all . . . Twelve years and every day it’s all I could think about .’ Bowles was sobbing now.

The duty solicitor, who had sat as if carved from stone, sprang into life, rummaging through her bag for tissues. Bishop announced the interview was suspended for the benefit of the tape and she and Knight hurried out. Kendrick burst into the corridor then hustled them into his office.

  ‘Brilliant, bloody brilliant. We need to find the records on this poor lad who drowned, find his brother’s name and bring him in. Case closed by teatime.’

Bishop looked dazed and Kendrick pointed a meaty finger at her.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘It’s just all making sense now, Pollard being killed first, hit more times than the others because he was the ringleader, then Kent . . . ’

  ‘All the victims were killed by blows to the head too, Bowles said the boy hit his head in the water and drowned.’ Knight added.

Bishop agreed, and then explained to Kendrick about the death of her own brother and the possibility that the killer had been referring to that in the messages.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ said Kendrick. ‘How would he know about that though?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. It happened before I was born, he fell into a neighbour’s pond when the ice broke, it was in the news but I don’t think that many people know about it. My parents never came to terms with it, blamed themselves, blamed each other . . . ’

Kendrick made an impatient gesture with his hand. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

56

Paul Hughes hurled his suitcase into the back of the hire car. He’d had enough. How his dad had thought he was supposed to find a woman who was being protected by the police he had no idea, but it had been a stupid plan from the beginning. He fully intended to drive back down south and tell his father so. Dougie had been worse than useless and he’d not even seen Richie for all the good he was. It was time his father cut all ties with the bunch of Lincolnshire freaks he called family. He revved the engine, screeched out of the hotel car park and onto the ring road. He was soon on the M1, flying along, feeling more furious with every mile he travelled. His dad obviously had him down as some sort of mug, a tame monkey he could send off here and there at will. Surely he’d done more than enough to prove himself by now?

  He pulled into some services, not even sure where he was. About halfway home, he thought. Abandoning the car at a jaunty angle, he strolled through the main building and into the toilets. As soon as he walked past the first cubicle door, it flew open to reveal a huge man wearing a black cap pulled low over his face. Hughes didn’t have time to react as the man seized the front of the expensive leather jacket he was so proud of and dragged him towards a service door.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ A huge hand clamped Hughes’ mouth closed. He continued to struggle, but his captor was incredibly strong. The door clanged open and he was outside, drizzle just beginning to fall. He was lifted off his feet and a black space loomed in front of him; disorientated, he took a second to realise it was the open back doors of a van. Unceremoniously, he was lifted and flung into the back, crying out as his knees and hands hit the metal floor. The doors slammed behind him and Hughes hunched his knees to his chest, terrified. He had no idea who had grabbed him or why, only knew that he and his father had made a lot of enemies over the years. As the vehicle began to move, he was uncomfortably reminded of all those, like Milica Zukic, whose unhappy journeys in vans just like this had helped to pay for his jacket.

57

Kendrick led them up to the CID room. At her desk, Bishop discreetly checked her mobile. Nothing from Claire. She turned on her monitor, began the search. Kendrick had gathered the rest of the team around him and was summarising Bowles’ revelations. Reactions ranged from horror to anger, disgust to disbelief. They’d heard and seen worse of course, much worse, but the passivity of Kent, Brady and Bowles was shocking in itself. The noise level increased as Kendrick sent them back to their desks, the whole room fired by the desire to bring the brother of the dead boy to justice, whatever his motivation. Knight stood quietly by Bishop’s desk.

  ‘Here’s a report on Tommy Heron’s death.’ Bishop said. Knight bent to study the screen.

  ‘He did definitely die then, I wanted to clarify that first. We could have been looking for the brother when the boy himself might have survived, come after Pollard and the gang when he was old enough to fight his own battles.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

They read silently. Sure enough, the boy had come from a travelling family and his death had been judged accidental. Bishop frowned.

  ‘So why didn’t the brother come forward at the time? Why didn’t he tell his parents or the police that the only reason his little brother had fallen in the water was that a gang of yobs about three times his age had goaded him into it?’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

Bishop kept searching, the minutes ticking away. Kendrick bustled over.

  ‘There’s a problem, sir,’ Bishop looked up at him. ‘Why didn’t Tommy Heron’s big brother tell someone what happened? And why is there no mention of him in any of these reports?’

58

Kendrick’s face was red as he clumped around Bishop’s desk to stand behind her chair and peer at her computer monitor.

  ‘What do you mean, he’s not in the reports? He must be, wasn’t he interviewed?’

  ‘Doesn’t seem like it. The boy’s body was found before he was reported missing, the news was broken to his parents who said they’d told him hundreds of times not to go on the moors. The verdict of accidental death was given. If they were a travelling family, they probably moved on as soon as they could. Why would they want to stay in a place where their son died?’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense. Is Bowles sure they were brothers?’

  ‘He seemed to be, but I suppose he could have just presumed . . . ’

  ‘Get back down there and find out!’ Kendrick roared.

Bowles looked worse than ever. His tear stained faced was gaunt, as if he’d lost weight since they’d brought him to the station. He shuffled back into the interview room. Bishop restarted the recording and snapped at Bowles: ‘Are you sure the other boy was Tommy Heron’s brother?’

Bowles blinked at her, confused

  ‘Who else could he have been?’

  ‘His friend, his cousin, his nephew, his neighbour, his school mate, some kid he’d just met and decided to hang around with for the day? Am I making myself clear?’

Gawping, Bowles thought it through.

  ‘So they might not have been brothers?’

  ‘Did they do or say anything that made you think they were, or did you just presume?’

  ‘I suppose I presumed, we all presumed. They didn’t say anything when Craig talked about their mum and dad. It was just the way the older boy looked after the younger one, made sure he didn’t stand too close to the water’

Bishop didn’t bother to comment, knowing they should have asked Bowles before whether he’d heard the boys speak to each other, whether names were mentioned. Back upstairs, Kendrick was working himself into one of his rages.

  ‘If they weren’t brothers, what chance do we have of finding him? He could be anybody, if they were travellers he could be anywhere. Can Bowles even describe this boy, not that it’ll help us twelve years later, I expect he’s changed slightly. Well?’

Bishop admitted that Bowles couldn’t, not properly, nor could he give them a name. As Kendrick took a breath to refill his lungs in preparation for his next onslaught, Varcoe half stood and beckoned to them.

  ‘Tommy Heron’s parents are named as Annie and Christian Heron.’ She pointed to her screen.

  ‘And?’ Kendrick barked.

  ‘Annie Heron died six years ago, she jumped from the top of a bridge. Christian Heron died this summer, July, seems as if he was a heavy drinker. Do you think this could be what triggered the murders?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Kendrick, calming slightly.

  ‘Well, the mother of the drowned boy killing herself, his father drinking heavily, eventually dying because of it?’

  ‘The whole family destroyed.’ said Knight.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘It would make sense if we were still looking for the brother, but so far, there doesn’t seem to
be
one.’ said Bishop, frustrated.

  ‘I just thought it could be a motive.’ Varcoe explained.

  ‘You’re right, and the timing works. The death of the father in July, a few months to track down Pollard, Kent, Brady and Bowles and start planning, follow their movements. How would he know who they were though, the four of them?’ Knight puzzled.

  ‘If they mentioned each other’s names when they were out on the moor, it wouldn’t be too hard to track them down, would it?’ Bishop asked.

  ‘It took us a while, and he wouldn’t have anything like the resources we have.’ Kendrick wasn’t going to let them forget that.

  ‘We don’t know how long he was planning this for. If he was determined enough, he’d find a way,’ said Knight.

  ‘True. We need to keep searching. I’m late for a meeting with the Super, I’ll be back soon. Keep at it, we’re almost there, I can practically smell him.’

Wrinkling her nose at the DCI’s imagery, Bishop turned to Knight.

  ‘Still missing it, aren’t we? Even though Bowles has given us all he can.’

  ‘For now. We’ll get there.’ Knight spoke with more conviction than he felt.

59

Brady isn’t dead, I knew it. That bloody dog, I should have killed it too, then made sure Brady was definitely gone. The newspaper says he’s in a coma, and from the miserable tone of the piece, it doesn’t seem likely he’ll be waking up in a hurry. As good as dead. Bowles has judged himself apparently, made an attempt at suicide. There was no mention in the paper, I suppose the police will be trying to keep it quiet just in case the nasty old murderer turns up to finish the job for him. They’ve served their purpose, anyway. I followed one of his neighbours into the newsagent and heard her gossiping about it in there. She’d seen the ambulance take him away and the man who lives in the flat below Bowles told her two policewomen had found him and called the ambulance.

It will soon be over. Such a relief.

60

Paul Hughes swore to himself that if he survived this day, he would try to persuade his father to concentrate on trafficking drugs, not people. It was so much more impersonal, less involved, and there was still plenty of profit to be made. They’d done all right out of drugs before, after all. Perhaps this was the lesson his captor was teaching him, the terror and discomfort of the confined space, the unknown, the images dancing through your mind, each imagined version of your fate worse than the last. Hughes had a nasty sense though that the real lesson would be much more violent than a ride in the back of a van, however uncomfortable. Sure enough, before too long, the van apparently left the relative smoothness of the road behind, turning left onto what seemed to Hughes to be the roughest track on the planet. Pothole after pothole, bump after bump, the speed the vehicle was travelling at worsening the ordeal. Eventually, to Hughes’ relief but also to his horror, the van stopped and the doors were flung wide. Two men stood grinning at Hughes, their eyes registering his discomfort.

  ‘Comfortable?’ the taller man asked, his English heavily accented.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want? You’re making a big mistake here.’

The shorter man shook his head slowly.

  ‘So many questions. There is no mistake, Paul Hughes. You are our guest.’

This man’s English was more fluent, though still accented. Hughes stared from one to the other.

  ‘Guest?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ the shorter man said, reaching into his coat, his hand reappearing holding a gun. Hughes’ eyes widened. ‘You will learn what it feels like to be taken to a place where you have no identity, where you have no personality and are just there to be used by others who have no regard or respect for you.’

He waved the gun at Hughes, indicating he should get out of the van. Hughes scrambled forward, terrified, wide eyes searching his new surroundings. There was a barn and a yard, no further buildings in sight, no other vehicles. The taller man had taken Hughes’ mobile phone from him when they’d first bundled him into the van and had turned it off then. He now made a show of removing the sim card and battery, snapping the sim in two and stamping on the handset until it was no longer recognisable as a phone, just a pile of debris. The smaller man

grinned.

  ‘Much better. No interruptions. Now,’ he shoved Hughes so he had to start walking, ‘Move.’

Hughes stumbled towards the barn, following the taller man, who had by now overtaken them. Nausea gripped his stomach; bile rose in his throat and he swallowed it down. He didn’t think he’d get much sympathy from these two. Trying to think clearly through the panic, he stammered:

  ‘You don’t need to do this, I’ve got money, I can. . .’

  ‘What? A bribe?’ sneered the man with the gun.

  ‘Think of it as a gift. . .’

Both men laughed.

  ‘No, Paul. We don’t want your money.’

  ‘My dad will murder you.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

They reached the huge double doors of the barn, which were padlocked. The smaller man kept the gun trained on Hughes while the tall one unlocked. Hughes was then shoved inside. Dingy straw was scattered here and there on the floor. The smell of animals remained but there were none here now, unless you counted the two men, which Hughes supposed he did. Against one wall, a scarred pine chair stood waiting. A wave of the gun indicated that Hughes should sit. He moved slowly towards it, wondering if he should just try to run. If they shot, at least it would be quick. The smaller man seemed to read his mind.

  ‘Sit down, Paul. We want to talk to you.’

Hughes lowered himself gingerly onto the chair. The smaller man handed the gun to his friend, who levelled it at Hughes. Standing to one side, out of the line of fire, the smaller man stood relaxed, hands in his trouser pockets.

  ‘So, Paul.’ he said, tone friendly. ‘Have you guessed who we are?’

  ‘How should I know? Amateur gangsters from some shithole country in Eastern Europe I suppose.’

Both men narrowed their eyes.

  ‘Be polite, Paul,’ warned the smaller man. ‘We can just shoot you now.’

Hughes swallowed. He knew they would. They’d not bothered to hide their faces from him, which couldn’t be a good sign.

  ‘So, again, do you know who we are?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You will have many enemies.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘No, because your victims never have the opportunity to accuse you. We are here to represent them.’

Hughes wriggled in the chair.

  ‘To represent who? What are you talking about?’

The taller man gave the gun back to his colleague, then took a length of clothes line from a reel on the floor and securely tied Hughes to the chair. He struggled, but the smaller man waved the gun at him and Hughes contented himself with shouting abuse instead. The smaller man came close, slapped him hard around the face.

  ‘I told you to be polite.’

Hughes stared back, blood running from his nose.

  ‘You are part of a group who has brought people, women and girls, some men, with promises of work and money, into your country as slaves. Is it true?’

  ‘No.’ Hughes said firmly.

  ‘A reminder, then.’ said the smaller man. He nodded to the other man, who took a photograph from his pocket at held it in front of Hughes. A girl smiled out, dark haired, her eyes huge and expressive.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘My sister,’ the taller man said without expression. ‘Now dead, because of you, your father, your friends.’

  ‘Dead? But. . .’

  ‘A drug overdose. Taken after eighteen months working as a prostitute in one of your filthy houses.’

The man breathed heavily through his nose then spat at Hughes’ feet. He stepped back and reclaimed the gun.

  ‘My cousin also came to this country to work for you. We rescued her from the place she’d been held for almost two years, forced to service men, hundreds of men, perhaps thousands. You dare to ask who we are?’ He moved closer, leaning toward Hughes until their noses were almost touching, staring into  Hughes’ wide eyes. ‘You will be punished and then you will be killed, though your suffering will still not be such as theirs. You will not exist for long in the hell they did, where not even their body was their own. Perhaps then your father and his friends will see the wrong they have done.’

I doubt it
, Hughes almost said, but he thought better of it. Under no illusions, he knew his dad saw him less as a son, more as an employee. His father didn’t seem to have the emotions other people had, either for his family or anyone else. Hughes knew he was entirely dispensable. His captors exchanged a glance and the smaller man left the barn, soon returning with what looked to Hughes like a tool box which he set down at Hughes’ feet, along with several large petrol cans.

Hughes stared the box warily.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Tools, of course. The tools we need for our work.’

Bending, the smaller man opened the box, took out pliers, a hammer, a chisel, screwdrivers and a Stanley knife. His eyes bulged, panic hurtling through him, one word racing through his brain. Torture. They were going to torture him to death. The smaller man grinned, picking up the hammer and weighing it in his hand.

  ‘I see you guess our intentions, Paul. We will have fun, just like your customers had with our sisters, our cousins, our friends, our compatriots. Now,’ he bent over the box again and retrieved a digital camera, ‘Smile for your daddy.’

In the glare of the flash, Paul Hughes screamed.