Watcher (23 page)

Lothian and St Clair, Edinburgh
Friday 28 December, 9 p.m.

‘What’s she doing in that pic?’ Jack asked as he squinted.

‘She’s playing her Xbox – she’s online playing with other gamers; look at the headset.’ We all stared at each other as Lavender spoke.

‘So, if she’s being held somewhere and is safe, then … if she was online playing, could we contact her?’ Jack asked, his voice hesitant as he recognized his technological limitations.

‘We could log on and list her as a friend. If she confirmed that we were her friends, then we could search for her online any time she was playing and …’ Lavender stopped.

‘And? What are you thinking?’ I asked.

‘It couldn’t be that easy – if she was online and we had a headset we could talk to her. It’s a long shot but if there’s anyone who can find her in that community it’s—’

‘Moses!’ we all said at the same time.

Moses was an avid online gamer; his saving grace was that his fear of poverty and his sense of responsibility prevented it from becoming an addiction. He was a true insomniac and whiled away the wee small hours playing with other sad bastards in different time zones. Unlike Connie, he enjoyed playing against Chinese people because he needed the challenge. Sexual abuse at the hands of a paedophile ring in childhood had left him with post-traumatic stress disorder; unable to endure the night sweats and flashbacks, he fuelled himself with caffeine and chocolate.

‘Being an online gamer is part of the bond she shares with Moses,’ I said. ‘Connie doesn’t have a lot of friends because Malcolm watches her like a hawk.’

Jack shook his head and gulped a large mouthful of cold coffee. ‘Has he never heard the rule about talking to strangers?’ he asked. ‘Doesn’t apply on Xbox live-gaming as far as I can see,’ I replied. Jack scratched his head, his shoulders slumped. ‘Christ, even Malcolm is more computer-literate than I am.’

‘Yeah, well – he manages the girls’ Internet bookings, so to that extent he has moved with the times,’ I said.

‘Brodie,’ interrupted Lavender, ‘this is a shot in the dark but predators do frequent these rooms and if she moved to another media with him – like email or webcam – then they could have arranged to meet up.’

She went silent, got up and stood by the window. It was freezing outside, a snow flurry was falling, and the coldness of the glass must have gone some way to stopping the hot flush she seemed to be experiencing. ‘Bancho said there was no sign of a struggle in her bedroom. She went willingly or she was drugged, maybe both. If she met him on the net, then the chances are none of us will know him.’ Lavender fanned her face, which was the colour of putty. ‘I should have checked the parental controls were in force in the games she was playing; I’m the one who knows how to do this stuff.’

‘Moses should have checked,’ Jack said, unconvincingly. The mere idea that Moses Tierney would be responsible enough to impose checks on a minor was laughable. Some of the Dark Angels were runaways barely a couple of years older than Connie. His business empire would grind to a halt if he did not recognize the autonomy of minors.

Lavender stared at the fluorescent clock on the wall as the seconds ticked away. Like an hourglass, it felt as if every falling grain of sand brought Connie closer to death. Even Lav had to admit she needed help in her quest to hunt down the killer online. She sighed and went against her nature; she was a control freak, and preferred to dictate to everything and everyone around her. Now, she had to let that go. Dialling his mobile she held her breath. Moses didn’t always pick up, but this time he answered her on the second ring. She put him on loudspeaker.

‘Please tell me you’ve found her. I’m sick with worry.’ Moses could barely speak for the tightness in his throat. He knew first hand the suffering Connie would be experiencing at the hands of a paedophile if that was who had taken her; he seemed to be walking a thin line between sanity and a breakdown. I wondered whether it was possible for him to distinguish where his pain ended and Connie’s began.

‘There’s a lead, Moses – I need you to follow it,’ Lavender told him.

‘I’ll do anything.’

‘Get on Xbox live – see if you can find her; we think she might have met someone online.’

‘Not a chance,’ he replied immediately. ‘I set the parental controls on the handset – she can’t go anywhere dodgy without me knowing. In fact mostly she only played with me.’

It was a crushing blow. Lavender had tried to tell us at the outset that the chance of this working was remote, and it had seemed too easy; nonetheless, she had built her hopes up. Jack put his arm around her as her lips trembled.

‘The other difficulty we have is that she’ll be playing on his site using his name; it’s too hard to change just for a short period. Unless I know who he is, or what game-tag he uses, I’m fucked on my controller,’ said Moses.

‘What about her controller?’ Lavender asked.

‘Surely that’s with the police?’

‘I’ll contact Bancho and arrange for you to get it,’ Joe intervened.

‘I’ll get hold of Connie’s controller to find out who her friends are – it’ll tell me if they’re online or not,’ Moses said.

‘Will it also tell you the last time she played with them on her console?’ asked Lavender.

‘Lavender – if that bastard has contacted her online, believe me I’ll find him.’

The phone went dead. Moses was always too busy to bother with social niceties – especially tonight.

Pilrig
Street, Leith, Edinburgh
Friday 28 December, 10.30 p.m.

Lavender had struck gold. Grandspin, one of her associates in vengeance.org, had hacked into the Lothian and Borders police computers – and bingo, he’d come up with a list. It contained the names of girls, including the dead girls Katya, Bianca, Mihaela, Florenta. Glasgow Joe recognized some of the other names, so armed with only a scrap of paper, we set off in search of the girl who had survived the Ripper – even though in my heart I feared she was a phantom.

I jumped off the trike as it was slowing to a stop, and ran to the stairwell of the flats in Pilrig Street. The snow was coming down fast and furious; I pressed a buzzer at the side of the door and waited. My foot started tapping – not a good sign.

The names were all from Eastern Europe, picked up from Bancho’s monitoring of The Hobbyist site. Joe had expected Bancho to share this information – it was no surprise to me that the bastard hadn’t. The girls had appeared, and then, for one reason or another, had disappeared from the street scene in Edinburgh. At least one girl was lying dead in some remote corner of Edinburgh, but the prostitute I was hoping to find tonight had escaped from the clutches of the Ripper early on in his career. One thing was certain: she wouldn’t be a redhead by now. In hiding she would have done everything she could to change her appearance. I was praying she didn’t dye or shave her pubic hair as well, otherwise identification would be difficult. I was assuming she wouldn’t cooperate because if she existed she had gone to ground, become a ghost.

The stair door clicked open. Joe was at my back; holding on to my shoulder he pushed me behind him. ‘It’ll look less suspicious this way.’ I didn’t like to ask how you could look anything but suspicious at an illegal brothel.

He marched in, ignoring the crushing smell of cat’s piss in the stairwell. He took the stairs three at a time. I ran to keep up. I pressed the front door bell but, when it opened, our way was barred; it would seem sex slaves, prostitutes and tennis stars are not the only thing Eastern Bloc countries export. The female bouncer was doing a good job of impersonating a brick shithouse – in a previous life she had definitely been an Olympic hammer thrower. Glasgow Joe has always had reservations about hitting women, especially ones who can match him pound for pound. Joe leaned forward and whispered in her ear; she smiled coquettishly and stepped aside. I shivered. ‘Brodie, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.’ He pointed at the hammer thrower. ‘Juliana.’ He eyed me coldly, my distaste was obviously written all over my face. I stuck my hand out to introduce myself.

The hallway of the flat was pretty bare. The other doors were shut and, I assumed, occupied. Juliana led us into the kitchen. Cheap units lined the small room and its walls were marred by handprints and stains I didn’t want to investigate. A calendar of Bucharest hung on a loose nail above the kettle, a red pen had marked crosses and someone was counting off the days until an event.

Juliana’s nails were shell pink and clean, in stark contrast to her massive, sausage-like fingers. She retrieved cups from the cupboard and placed a teaspoon of instant coffee in each one. I pointed to the red crosses. ‘Who made those?’ I asked.

Juliana tapped her butcher’s hands over her heart and tapped some more. I raised an eyebrow at Joe. ‘What are you waiting for?’ I asked her.

‘In three weeks I get married – my fiancé will repay the loan to them as soon as it is through from building society.’ Juliana smiled; it looked as if, inside, she was already doing a victory slide. My mind was doing cartwheels: I thought she was the hired muscle and now I’d discovered she’d been forced into prostitution too, which by her looks was surprising enough, but, to cap it all, she’d found a man amongst her customers.

‘Erm, your fiancé? Is he from Edinburgh?’ I asked.

‘No – he from Musselburgh,’ she replied.

There were so many things I wanted to ask, and I knew that I didn’t have much time. Thankfully, Joe interrupted appropriately for once. ‘Juliana – Brodie. Brodie – Juliana. Introductions over.’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘I’ve been keeping my eye on these brothels for some time – the lassies are frightened to open their mouths; through the grapevine I heard about Juliana.’

The big butch woman smiled, and like every newly engaged woman I’ve ever met she kept flashing her ring about. The diamonds were little more than chips, but he was laying out a lot to her owners.

‘Juliana’s man,’ continued Joe, ‘is into cross dressing. He’s straight but they often go for – no offence, doll – butch women, don’t they? This guy heard about Juliana on The Hobbyist site and decided to check her out. The rest, as they say, is history.’

‘My reputation spread once I came here – I appeal very much to a certain type of man. My man likes to dress as woman – sometimes – but he’s no hobbyist!’ Juliana spat into the sink. ‘Joe met my man, Arthur.’ She smiled again. ‘Joe asked if he could meet up with me – maybe I could help him with some things. After my man says it’s okay, I agree.’

Joe nodded and smiled throughout this conversation. ‘Do you have anything for me?’ he asked her.

Juliana reached down into her extensive bosom and pulled out a rumpled photograph taken from an Internet website. She slid it across to him. ‘Sonia – she change her name, colour of hair, but she’s the one you want. He put her in hospital for five weeks.’ Juliana held up her hand and splayed her fingers, giving me another opportunity to admire her good fortune.

I looked at the photograph. A doe-eyed girl with elfin features and a sleek black bob stared warily out at us. Joe bit his tongue; we both knew that this girl had the fair skin of a redhead. So much depended upon her. Could she identify the Ripper? She’d kept silent for months – why should she speak now? Joe took his mobile out of his pocket. Looking at Juliana, he spoke slowly: ‘Arthur? He explained to you what I was going to do?’ He nodded, encouraging her to agree, and even I was impressed by how much he had done on his own.

‘Oh, yes. I said to him, time to get out of this business; they’ve had enough out of me,’ Juliana said defiantly. The three of us stayed quiet. None of us really wanted to address the ways in which people got their money out of Juliana and others like her. The silence was awkward – but not for long.

Wham! Suddenly a sledgehammer started breaking through the front door. The first smash cracked it, the second and third took it off its hinges. A black jackboot from an intruder brought it crashing down in the small hallway, bringing down the coat stand. The sounds of screeching filled the air as two underweight waifs ran screaming out of the front room. They clutched their scanty clothes to their chests; they looked frightened and ashamed at the same time. Close on the heels of the slaves, a man who had struggled into his boxer shorts came running into the melee, his flaccid penis poking through the opening, jiggling as he ran. An enormous hairy muffin top hung over his pants. I held his eye. I looked from him to the young girls and back again. I saw fear but no shame.

My right leg moved involuntarily back; it swung forward in an arc, connecting with the punter’s wedding tackle. On the basis he wasn’t using it in any marital bed, I figured no one would miss it, especially those young girls he’d just had a threesome with. The punter crashed at my feet, while the intruders stormed in over the top of him, sledgehammers held aloft. They herded us into the kitchen. It was a sickening crush; I like to choose the naked people I share epidermal surfaces with.

I sidled up to Joe. In a fight there was no one better. Using his body as a shield, I watched the action. Five men carrying weapons had burst into the flat and the occupants of the other rooms were now being frogmarched in beside us. One of the punters was at least ninety. It was sickening – they could at least have allowed him to put his knickers on; for my sake, not his.

Then I heard a voice I recognized and everything changed again.

‘Police, you’re all under arrest.’

St Leonards Police Station, Edinburgh
Friday 28 December, 11.35 p.m.

Bancho bundled us all into the back of a waiting paddy wagon; when I say ‘all’, Glasgow Joe was exempt. He was allowed to drive the trike to St Leonards. I was squashed between Juliana and a half-naked punter with the hairiest back I’ve ever seen. Juliana kept wriggling around to get more space, and I ended up the meat in a very unpleasant sandwich.

It was the first time I’d ever travelled in a police van, and I sincerely hoped it would be the last. It was a high-profile police raid; Joe and I had been caught in its net, and paperwork would have to be processed before we were allowed back on the street to hunt for Connie. I’d screamed in Bancho’s face but his attitude implied Connie’s abduction was a matter for the police. I didn’t agree – I was sick of pointing out that they were no good at bringing children home alive.

Joe tried to get me to shut up; Bancho was very close to charging me with breach of the peace and resisting arrest. I calmed down when Joe pointed out that the fact he was allowed to drive the trike meant we would be able to start hunting for Sonia as soon as we were released and he was sure it wouldn’t take us long, now we had a photograph to go on. She couldn’t stay a spectre forever. I had started to believe she was flesh and blood, not some figment of an overactive imagination. I was excited; we were getting closer to the Ripper, and closer to Connie.

The paddy wagon drew to a jerky stop outside St Leonards, and the motley crew and I disembarked. I felt filthy, tired and just bloody desperate to be on my way. We were heading for the police cells; surely for Connie’s sake if not mine, Bancho wouldn’t make me languish there. The still, small voice of reason in my mind knew if the detective thought for one moment that I was interfering in his investigation he’d lock me up and throw away the key until the first court on 2 January – but that was way too late.

Desk Sergeant Munro walked towards me shaking his head. ‘Lassie, will you never learn?’ He smiled sadly and tapped me gently on the head. ‘You don’t have the sense you were born with. As for Glasgow Joe, what was he thinking of, taking you to a joint like that?’

Sergeant Munro had separated me from the crowd. Presumably on Bancho’s instruction, he took me into a private room and set about the paperwork to release me. He laid his pen back down on the desk and held my eyes.

‘Brodie, do you have any idea what these animals who traffic in humans are like? They’re not your junkie from Pilton: it’s the Mafia, Russian and American. It’s international organized crime … you’re lucky you’re still alive.’

‘Lucky?’ I shouted. He was trying to be kind but I didn’t feel lucky when Connie was still missing. He raised his hand to quieten me. ‘There’s still hope for your sister; there’s plenty of time for grieving if it doesn’t have a happy ending. Those girls out there: what age do you think they are?’

‘Fifteen,’ I answered.

‘Close. They’re
fourteen
and the poor souls don’t even know they’re in Edinburgh. They can’t speak English, and they’ve been kept inside for months being used by dirty old bastards like him.’ Sergeant Munro jabbed his pen in the direction of the hairy, fat man.

‘Imagine shagging something like that forty times a day.’ He shivered and smiled at me as he pushed a form across for me to sign.

‘It’s a big deal rescuing these lassies … I’d bet my wages the poor wee souls will be caught again and on their backs in a Birmingham brothel before January is out.’

I handed him his form and pen back.

‘You know where Bancho’s room is … Oh, and Brodie, stop fighting with him and we’ll all be better off.’

‘Thanks.’ My voice was cold. I didn’t see much to be grateful for and, pushing the chair back, I left. The corridor to Bancho’s room was empty, and I heard the noise long before I even saw the door to the operations room.

Thummp, thummp, thummp.

Banging. It sounded like he was being attacked but, in spite of the good sergeant’s pep talk, I didn’t feel like rushing in and saving him. The door was slightly ajar and a sliver of brighter light shone out. Warily, I edged the door open with my toe. The shouting and swearing was extreme, even to my accustomed ears, but there was only one voice.

My mouth went dry, and I stood in the doorway, mouth open, appalled, witnessing a man’s complete meltdown. Bancho was banging his head off the wall; a shattered telephone lay in bits on the floor. I could only conclude that he’d received news he didn’t want to hear, and I knew it was Connie. I put my hand on his forehead. It was cut and bleeding. I held him, I had to calm him down; I didn’t want to discover the source of his pain but I had to.

Bancho needed to tell me what he knew, what had happened – I was bloody fed up with men keeping secrets from me.

‘Tell me!’

He refused to answer, shaking his head violently from side to side, but his eyes drifted in the direction of a scrunched-up message. As I moved to pick it up, a shadow crossed his eyes whilst he debated whether or not to let me in on his secret and I quickly grabbed the message in case he changed his mind. The information was written on a yellow message pad. Patch had phoned two hours ago and left the results of the DNA test on Thomas Foster. I now understood why Bancho was in hell. Thomas Foster’s results were negative; he was not the Ripper. Now there could be no dispute.

How many girls had died as a result of DI Bancho’s narrow-mindedness?