He laughed bitterly. ‘I thought you had a downer on her, Trish, I really did. According to Mary, everyone was jealous of her. Everyone was an arsehole. How could I not have seen what was going on under me bleeding nose? Last Sunday in the pub she was sitting on Kevin’s fucking lap and I was smiling at them. They were laughing at me! Pair of bastards. I thought she was just a little girl, Trish . . .’
Trisha had heard enough. His self-pity hit a nerve in her and she felt the anger inside her boil over. Pulling him around to face her, she stared into the face she had loved once - many moons before, when they were young and life was fun and he was still a nice bloke. She looked around at their shabby council flat. Make do and bloody mend all her married life. Keeping it all together until he came home, the conquering hero, and she had to take a back seat again.
‘She never was a kid, Lenny, you saw to that,’ Trisha told him bitterly. ‘Traipsing her round pubs with the scum of the fucking earth - what did you expect? She looks like a fucking whore. Plastered in make-up. Dressed like a woman, for Christ’s sake. Other men take that on board even if you don’t. And let’s face it, Lenny, the men you mix with are all slags. Womanisers. Whore chasers. You only have to look at the type of women in the pubs you frequent so fucking often. No decent girl would be seen in them. Yet you took Mary there from a baby. Everyone making a fuss of her, and her bright enough to learn early that if you say something clever you get the kudos. Well, she wasn’t that clever and, as God is my witness, I knew something like this would happen one day. I knew it. Mary learned too much far too soon.’
She sipped at her own drink, trying to control the bitter hurt and resentment she had felt towards him for so long. ‘My mother and my sister Kathy won’t even be seen with her in public. They certainly don’t let their kids mix with her no more. Now I wonder if anything happened, and with you being so fucking lairy, no one dared to say anything to us. Mary knew that you and your rep saved her from a hammering time and time again. She used you, Len, you’re right about that. She learned to use people at an early age and she learned it from you. At your knee.’
‘I don’t ever want to clap eyes on her again, Trish.’
She snorted with suppressed mirth. ‘We have to go to court yet, Lenny. This will be all over the estate by the weekend. You know you can’t keep anything secret round here for long. We’ll be made a fucking show of and people will talk behind our backs because, let’s face it, they ain’t going to say anything to our faces, are they? Not with you and your temper and your drinking and your fucking shitty ways!’
She stood up and said desperately, ‘I loved it when you was banged up, Lenny. I had a life then. I could tell that little madam where to go and that boy of ours, your son, got a look in now and again. It’s like Ian don’t exist for you. What’s the matter, Lenny, too masculine for you now he’s a six-footer, eh?
‘When you went away we had the perfect marriage. You courted me with letters and I visited you regularly and had a chat. Something we’d never have had while you were home because you always had people to see, things to do. Money to steal. You’re a tealeaf, Lenny, not a real robber. You’re nickels and dimes in comparison to the real villains. Just another nutter who strongs it. And Mary learned all that at your knee.
‘Look at the way we live,’ she burst out. ‘And you called yourself an armed robber? If it wasn’t for my job in the newsagent’s we’d be hard pushed to pay the bleeding rent some weeks. You taught her about easy money, that’s what happened to Mary. Because I can guarantee you they paid her for her slagging, Len. When I think of the trouble this is going to cause, I could cheerfully murder the pair of you!
‘And when you’re beating up Kevin, remember the times you took her round that pub to him. You gave our little girl to him and people like him without even realising it. You gave her a taste for the scum of the earth, Lenny. It’s all she’s comfortable with nowadays.’
Lenny was in shock. In all the years he had been with his wife he had never heard her say so much, or talk such sense.
He cried.
Trisha looked at him without compassion. She was dead inside. Had been since she saw the first photograph.
‘Be a man and kill Kevin, Lenny. Kill him. Make sure no other little mites have to endure what he wants from them. For once, Lenny, be a real fucking man! Go down for something worthwhile.’
He just nodded, didn’t answer her. There was nothing left to say.
‘And before you kill him, find out who else is involved. Let’s nip this in the bloody bud. If nothing else, we can help pay back the debt that little whore has dropped in our laps. Those children were used and abused by evil men and women. And someone, somewhere has to pay for that.’
Chapter Eight
As Kate stepped into the shower her phone rang. Cursing, she answered it, naked and wet.
‘Ma’am?’ It was DC Golding’s voice.
‘What’s happened?’ Kate was ready for anything. Sleep had eluded her and she was already wide awake. Patrick Kelly had seen to that.
‘Mercedes Alston has been found. She’s in Grantley Hospital suffering from hypothermia. She’d been dumped in the woods by the golf course. Bless her little heart, ma’am, she’d taken off her shoes and socks as if getting ready for bed, and waited for someone to come.’
‘But the golf course was searched earlier. How could they have missed her?’ The anger was back in Kate’s voice again and Golding was wary now.
‘You’ll have to ask the search teams that, but the dogs missed her as well don’t forget. Unless she wandered there from somewhere else.’
Kate banged the phone down and went back into the shower.
It rang again.
‘Hello, Kate, Ratchette here. You are to be interviewed today in connection with Patrick Kelly and his disappearance. I don’t need to impress upon you the importance of this investigation, do I?’
She smiled grimly and answered him with false bonhomie. ‘Will they be interviewing you at all, sir? Only you knew him personally long before I ever did.’
Ratchette slammed down his phone and Kate mentally chalked one up to herself. The two-faced bastard wanted to bury her and she knew it. Well, he could look elsewhere for his sacrificial lamb. She wasn’t in the mood to let them cut her throat just yet.
She had dressed and left her house in fifteen minutes flat. It felt like the old days, before Patrick. She didn’t dwell on the loneliness in those days. She knew that if she did she would be fucked. In more ways than one.
Mercedes was none the worse for her ordeal. Albeit pale and tired, she was smiling at all and sundry as she lay in her hospital cot being made much of by nurses, doctors and the police.
Kate was amazed by her beauty and wondered who mated with Kerry Alston to produce such a child. Whoever it had been probably had no idea she even existed. Kerry had been a fuck, an hour’s interlude, a drunken shag. The thought saddened Kate but she knew she was right. It was how the job got you in the end. Cynical.
She shrugged off her gloomy thoughts. Robert Bateman was by the child’s bed and she smiled at him.
‘Another one of yours?’
He shook his head. ‘No, dear. I am here because the duty worker’s on her hols. Probably got a drink in one hand and a waiter in the other as we speak! Gone to Greece, see, a big girl. She’ll be easy prey for the bubbles.’
He took Mercedes’s hand in his and she grinned at him happily. ‘Poor little mare, isn’t she?’
Kate didn’t answer, simply asked: ‘May we have access to the files, please, or have I got to get a court order?’
Bateman looked coy. ‘Now you know the score. I’ll give you access to the files by all means but they won’t tell you anything. Names aren’t permitted, you know that. It’s like trying to work out a crossword puzzle at times. I’ll give you an example. Recently two of my clients had a fight. I had to write that my client, who we’ll call Joe Bloggs, had a fight with another person.’
He sighed theatric
ally, making Kate want to laugh.
‘No, you won’t get anything from them, but you can have them all the same. I always do me bit if I can. But we have to protect our clients, and while protecting them we watch our own arses.’
‘Did anyone have any idea that these children were being used for pornographic purposes?’
Robert shook his shaggy head. ‘Not an inkling. But it’s hardly something you’d advertise, is it? None of the kids showed the classic behaviour but that could be because they were still pretty new at it. I can’t really comment.’
He pulled Kate away from the bed and said gently, ‘Kerry Alston was abused by her father. Awful abuse.
Photos of her are still winging their way round the Internet, love. Along with the new ones, of course.’ He waved his hand in a gesture of disgust. ‘What goes around comes around, eh? We live cosy lives, Miss Burrows. Not everyone is so lucky.’
‘I suppose so. But, Mr Bateman, if I had been abused I don’t think I’d want to perpetuate it, would you?’
‘That is something you can only answer through experience, love,’ he said sagely. ‘Not through thoughts or feelings. They are all victims, whatever way you look at it. Drop by the office and I’ll have what you need, OK?’
‘Thank you, Mr Bateman.’
He laughed girlishly. ‘Call me Bobby, love - everyone else does. Did anyone ever tell you that you have a wonderful bone structure? I bet you take a lovely photo.’
Kate smiled at the compliment. ‘Thank you.’
As he swept out of the ward with a backward wave she turned to the bed. Golding looked at her in disgust.
‘I reckon he’s a queer.’
Kate grinned. ‘Takes one to know one, Golding.’
He kept quiet after that but Kate knew she had annoyed him.
Patrick’s sister looked at him with contempt.
‘I don’t believe you, Pat. You got a woman like Kate and you blew it? Honest, I wonder if any man born has ever had a brain in his head. You especially should have realised you weren’t dealing with your normal tits and arse there. Christ, you should have been grateful she gave you the time of day!’
Patrick held up his hands in surrender. ‘All right, Vi. We’ve had the Kate Burrows Appreciation Society for the last half hour, can we give it a fucking rest now? I dropped a bollock and I am paying for it, dearly. Happy? Shall I cut one of me hands off or commit hara-kiri? Will that prove I agree with what you’re saying?’
Violet felt unexpectedly sorry for him. Her voice slower now, full of compassion, she said: ‘I know you’re in lumber, Pat, but for fuck’s sake you’re forty odd years old. Leave all the ducking and diving to the younger chaps, eh? Enjoy life while you still can. Ooh, you make me angry! Just like when we were kids. Nothing was ever enough for you, was it? You had to have it bigger and better than everyone else. Even your bike was like a work of art! Streamers and all the rest of it. Mum was caught between feeling proud and having a strong urge to break your bleeding neck most of the time. Now look at you, up shit creek without a paddle as usual. But you’ll get out of it. You always do.’
Despite herself she smiled at him. But he didn’t smile back.
‘Not this time, sis. This time I might just be in over me head.’
Violet blew a raspberry, grey hair bobbing on her head as if possessed of a life of its own.
‘I’ll believe that when I see it, boy. Now get that grub down your Gregory and we’ll see if we can come up with something between us. You know what they say, Pat, two heads are better than one.’
‘Yeah but, Vi, that only counts if the two heads are above average intelligence. So, love, where does that leave you?’
She grinned. ‘See, you cheeky fucker! Even with all this hanging over your head you’re still making jokes. That Russian had better watch himself, mate. Then, when you’ve sorted this lot, Pat, do me a favour and fucking retire, will you? I can’t take all this any more. I’m too old for it, boy. And without wishing to offend, love, so are you. There’s loads more frosting on your bonce. Grey as a badger you are.’
Patrick chuckled. He loved Violet, nothing fazed her.
‘Just because there’s snow on the roof don’t mean there ain’t a fire in the grate, Vi.’
She rolled her eyes in exasperation. ‘Shagging and fighting are two different things. The sooner you realise that the better off you’ll be.’
He didn’t answer her this time. There was nothing he could say. His show of unconcern was slipping and he knew it.
DI Jenny Bartlett was like a breath of fresh air and Kate was over the moon to welcome her into the team.
She and Leila sat and drank coffee as Jenny asked them pertinent questions about the investigation. ‘So, the dead kids showed no physical signs of abuse?’
Leila shook her head. ‘No. The photos show them engaging in oral sex. It’s the older kids who seem to have been used more aggressively. I think the adults concerned were aware that two and three year olds would be outwardly hurt - bruised, cut et cetera. It’s all been arranged very professionally. The mother of one child, Kerry Alston, was herself a victim of abuse, both ritual and parental. Her father handed her round to his friends as a party piece, evidently. There’s no doubt in my mind that she enjoyed what she was doing, though she’s trying to say now she was forced into it. That she’s too scared to open her mouth. The usual old fanny.’
‘Has a specialist interviewed the kids?’
‘Not as yet,’ Kate told her. ‘We have a consultant psychologist coming from Aberdeen. He’s an expert in the field and we want to cause as little trauma to the kids as possible. You must remember that at first these were treated as separate offences. Child endangerment and attempted murder. Now it seems the mothers are in cahoots. Honestly, it’s the weirdest case I’ve ever worked on.’
Jenny sighed. ‘The kids should have been interviewed by a psychologist before now. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. Let’s start on the mothers.’ She looked at her notes. ‘This Regina Carlton - what has she had to say for herself?’
‘At the moment, she is under supervision in Rampton Hospital. We’ve nothing much on her since as far as we know her kids haven’t been involved in anything else. They certainly haven’t turned up in any photographs so far. We’re pulling apart the Parkes girl’s place as we speak. See if she has anything else that might enlighten us.’
‘This latest kid, Mercedes, she was found in a place that had been thoroughly searched earlier, yeah?’
Kate nodded.
‘So either the search team fucked up, or she had been kept somewhere else for a while? If the mother is involved with paedophiles then it’s logical that she could have been taking her some place, isn’t it?’
Jenny looked at the other two women and tried to explain what was going through her mind.
‘I once worked on a case in Wales where kids were being taxied from playschool to paedophiles’ houses. Even the cab firm was in on it. You can’t underestimate these bastards, believe me. They walk through society invisible to the rest of us. They’re from every walk of life, doctors and lawyers right down the food chain to roadsweepers. And they all cover each other’s arses.
‘We have no idea yet how big this network is. It could be small or it could be huge. What we do know is that the men in those photographs are real. They have names, dates of birth, and more than likely wives and kids of their own. We need to find out who they are and what they do for a living. Chances are there are other kids involved with them. Statistics prove that there’s a paedophile in every street in the country. Scary thought, girls, isn’t it? Over a thirty-year period the number of kids affected could be in the thousands and they keep at it until they drop down dead. We have to stamp on this and do it soon.’
Kate was impressed and it showed.
Jenny sipped at her coffee, her huge bulk overflowing the spindly office chair. She had a light in her eyes that pleased Kate, one that denoted energy and determination. She wanted th
ese lowlifes as badly as Kate.
It was a good start.
‘One more thing - when I interview the suspects you keep out of it unless I say otherwise, Kate. I know how to rattle them and trip them up. It’s a knack I’ve developed over the years. Are you OK with that?’
She nodded her agreement. ‘But remember, I have a few tricks I use myself!’
‘Good. Then let’s finish this coffee and get started, eh?’
Leila grinned. ‘I warned you about her, Kate. She’ll run you ragged.’
Jenny looked into Kate’s eyes and said, ‘But it’s for the common good, that’s the main thing. The sooner we clean the streets of this scum, the sooner I can get on to the next case and the next lot of nonces. And, believe me, they are legion. Fucking legion.’
Willy felt a presence near him and strained to see through the darkness. He was sore, and he was confused. They had put him in the dark, removed his watch and clothes, and left him tied to a small Z-bed. He wasn’t sure if it was day or night, or how long he had been incarcerated.
He could smell a pungent aroma and realised it was aftershave.
‘Who’s there? Fucking get me up and fight me like a man.’ His voice was hoarse from lack of water and disuse.
A heavily accented voice replied, ‘We won’t harm you, Mr Gabney, you are more like insurance to us. We want to use you to bargain with Mr Kelly. Please, put yourself at ease about everything, I beg of you.’
‘Up yours, mate. Pat Kelly will take you and break you like a fucking child’s toy! You don’t know who you’ve picked a fight with, you don’t. Well, you’ll soon find out, mate. Quick smart.’
The voice was laughing now. ‘I speak better English than you do, Mr Gabney.’
Willy said scornfully, ‘Well, that ain’t hard, is it? Everyone speaks better English than the English. The real English, that is. Ain’t you ever noticed how everyone speaks English but we don’t bother learning anyone else’s language? Why would we? When prats like you bother to understand us, we don’t need to learn nothing. But we teach good fucking manners, boy, remember that.’