Pop Goes the Weasel - [21]
‘Getting there. A lot of them have been bussed straight from Poland via the docks, some are students from the local universities, but several others – including our victim – seem to have been poached off the streets.’
‘Tarted up and relaunched at Brookmire?’
‘Why not? It’s safer, and by the look of Alexia’s flat well paid too.’
‘Edina suggested that Alexia was walking the streets for the Campbell family before joining Brookmire. Any of the other girls?’
‘Yup, the Campbells had lost a few to Brookmire. Anderson’s lot too.’
Charlie had a sinking feeling. Prostitution wars were never pretty and it was always the girls that suffered, not the people who ran them.
‘So did the Campbells kill Alexia to make a point?’
‘Makes sense. Not that we can prove it.’
‘Anything else?’
DC Fortune had been waiting for this, keeping his trump card up his sleeve until the appropriate moment.
‘Well, I chased Brookmire through Companies House and HMRC. Took a bit of doing, lots of shell companies and foreign-based holdings, but in the end I traced it back to Top Line Management, an “events company” owned by a certain Sandra McEwan.’
Charlie should have known. Sandra McEwan – or Lady Macbeth as she was affectionately known – had been involved in prostitution and racketeering in Southampton for over thirty years – ever since she’d allegedly killed her own husband to take over his crime empire. She was driven and fearless – she’d already survived three stabbings – but she was also smart and imaginative. Had she taken prostitution to the next stage with Brookmire, provoking her rivals into a deadly response?
‘Well done, Lloyd. Good work.’
It was the first time she’d used his Christian name and it had the desired effect. He muttered a shy thank-you and Charlie smiled. Perhaps they were going to make a good team after all.
‘Let’s keep on it. See if you can find out what rock Sandra’s hiding under these days, eh?’
DC Fortune scurried off. Charlie was pleased. It was good to be back in the groove and she sincerely hoped that she could now get justice for Alexia and put one more violent lowlife behind bars. It would be quite a feather in her cap. And one in the eye for Helen Grace.
26
People never take any notice of couriers. In their uniform of biking helmet and leathers they are viewed as robots, programmed to come, drop and go without personality or impact. Cogs in the wheels of everyday business.
People thought it was ok to be rude to them, as if they were somehow less human than real people. This was certainly the case now. She stood by the front desk ignored, waiting patiently for the two receptionists to finish their private conversation. Typical – underlining their own sense of self-importance, in the process betraying how utterly worthless they were. Still, they would get their comeuppance.
She coughed and was rewarded with an irritated glance from the fat one. Reluctantly she dragged her carcass over.
‘Who?’
Not even the dignity of a whole sentence.
‘Stephen McPhail.’
She kept her voice neutral.
‘Company?’
‘Zenith Solutions.’
‘Third floor.’
She paused, momentarily unnerved at having to go inside the building with her precious cargo, then regaining her composure, she walked to the lifts.
The receptionist at Zenith was no more polite than the others.
‘Need a signature?’
The courier shook her head and handed over the package. A plain, brown cardboard box, bound shut with duct tape. The receptionist turned away without saying thank you and placed it on her desk, before resuming her conversation.
The courier left, slipping away as anonymously as she’d arrived. She wondered how long the receptionist would gossip for before actually doing her job and alerting the Chief Executive to his unexpected package. She hoped they wouldn’t wait too long. These things begin to smell after a while.
27
‘What I’m asking you to do is potentially very dangerous and if you say no, I will respect that decision.’
Tony had suspected something was up the minute Helen had asked to meet him in the Old White Bear. It was a grotty pub round the corner from the station – it was where you went if you didn’t want to be overheard.
‘I know you’ve done undercover work before and know the drill,’ Helen continued, ‘but your circumstances are different now. That said, you’re the best male officer I’ve got, so…’
‘What exactly do you want?’ replied Tony, blushing slightly at the compliment.
‘It looks like our killer is targeting men cruising for sex,’ Helen went on. ‘We could put an ad in the Evening News asking for punters to come forward and help, but I can’t see that working. The girls on the street aren’t telling McAndrew a single thing…’
‘So we have to put someone in the line of fire.’
‘Exactly.’
Tony said nothing. His expression was neutral, but he was excited by the prospect. His life had been so regimented for so long that a chance to be on the front line again was tempting.
‘We can only do so much working with motive and MO – this killer is scrupulously careful about forensics and uses out-of-the-way locations. So we need someone on the ground, posing as a punter, sniffing around. I know you’ll need time to process this. And I’m sure there’ll be loads of questions you want to ask, but I need an answer fast. This could be…’
