A Killing Moon (24 page)

The Tanner brothers didn’t clean Kassia’s flat
, he’d texted Noble from the scene.
Too thorough. Remember their place?

Who then?
replied Noble.
Ostrowsky?

That would be my guess. She’s Polish. Connected somehow. Suspect Max killed her and Greg’s covering for him again
.

He’s got history of violence okay. Thought you were going home to rest?

‘That’ll be the day,’ Brook muttered under his breath before going through to his office to spend a couple of hours trawling around various pro-life websites.

‘These people really mean it,’ he said, logging off finally. He returned to the dying embers of his fire and tapped out another text to Noble.
Priority on picture and dental of KP
.

His head sagged and his eyelids closed. The vibration of Noble’s reply stirred him.
Ye-ssssssssss. Now leave me alone
.

Brook lay on the sofa to compose further thoughts for the morning but failed to commit them to the digital ether before collapsing into a deep sleep.

Twenty-Six

25 April

Jake woke with a groan. He had read long into the night, unable to rest on the spongy foam cushions. The fetid draught being sucked under the ill-fitting front door had given him a stiff neck, though it was preferable to the reek of old woman – decay and cheap perfume – stuck in his throat.

No doubt Nick was sleeping like a baby in the next room: he could get a full night’s kip on a bed of nails. Knowing this, he had offered Jake first dibs on the soft bed, but Jake had let him have it, certain that the old woman had died on that mattress. Even ten years after his stint at the hospital laundry, he knew the smell of death. The way he’d known his mother was gone almost before he’d opened her bedroom door that last morning. The pungent, vinegary odour of burnt crack overwhelmed by the faecal smell of uncontrolled bowel and bladder, the first casualties of the dead brain’s inability to direct muscle function.

He dragged himself upright, wondering why he couldn’t hear Nick moving about like a kid on Christmas morning. Every morning. Always out like a light, then first to rise, chivvying for breakfast or a PlayStation opponent. As Jake swung a foot to the floor, he felt the string fall away from his neck. It had been cut, and the key was gone.

‘Nick!’

With one bound he was at the front door. It was unlocked, the key on the inside. He opened the door and popped out a wary head. The corridor, with its slick of permanent damp, was deserted. He stepped back into the flat and closed the door, then ran to the bedroom to confirm what he already knew. Nick was gone.

He dressed, his mind racing. Where? The answer wasn’t long in coming – the Intu Centre. Nick loved it there. The bustle. The bright, colourful shops where he could window-lick, panting at all the things he couldn’t afford because his brother was a relief barman who wouldn’t even do the lottery.

Jake zipped his top and pulled the hood in tight, a scarf covering his mouth. He stepped outside into the cool morning for the first time in days, locking the door behind him, and passed the neighbouring flat in time to see the door close on an old woman’s frightened gaze.

Nick finished the large chocolate chip cookie, unaware of the brown glaze smeared around his mouth. As he walked, he gazed happily at the shops, smiling at the well-scrubbed faces rushing by, pleased that he could take time while others hurried.

He passed the mobile phone store for the third time, trying not to look. Technology was calling but Nick had to resist temptation or a telling-off beckoned. He had enough money – he’d checked his stash inside Mr Ted – but Jake would be suspicious, and would demand to know how Nick had managed to afford a new phone.

Fucked over
, Nick remembered with glee from previous reprimands, shaking his head in wonder at the pleasure bestowed by a handful of harsh consonants.

He wandered on past WH Smith towards the escalator for the first floor and the food court, aware of more than one person staring at him as they passed. He stepped smartly on to the moving steps and turned to see a woman following his progress.

Nick pulled up his parka hood, mood darkening.
Jake said we couldn’t go out. He’s gonna be real mad
. He put his hand in his pocket to feel the comforting crinkle of the notes stuffed into his teddy, and smiled, his disquiet forgotten. Time for a burger.

Noble and Brook finished explaining the background to their search for the missing girls to the packed incident room.

‘So now you’re saying the girl in the van wasn’t Caitlin Kinnear
or
Nicola Serota,’ said DC Smee.

‘The dead girl was pregnant,’ said Noble. ‘We confirmed last night that Caitlin had recently had an abortion. We haven’t ruled out Nicola Serota yet but we have a new front-runner.’ Noble flicked at the remote and the Interpol girls disappeared, to be replaced by a single new face. ‘This is Kassia Proch. She’s from Warsaw and has been in the UK for about a year, according to Immigration . . .’

‘Interpol again?’ said Charlton.

‘Actually we generated this lead ourselves,’ replied Brook. ‘John.’

‘Kassia has been renting a small flat in Vernon Street for six months. We spoke to the agent who showed her round the place. Kassia paid her deposit in cash, which leads us to believe she’s been earning regularly, but we’ve found nothing on the books.’

‘She’s not PAYE.’

‘No.’

‘Prostitute?’

‘All things are possible.’

‘Benefits?’ queried Charlton.

‘Not claimed a penny,’ said Noble.

‘Cash-in-hand work,’ concluded Charlton through pursed lips. ‘This is why they come here. The black economy. Too many cracks to fall through—’

‘Sir,’ interrupted Brook. Charlton fell silent.

‘The agent remembers that Kassia had a tattoo of the Polish flag on her upper arm,’ continued Noble. ‘It’s not definitive and we’re waiting on dental records and blood tests for final confirmation, but . . .’ He shrugged the rest.

‘How long on dental?’

‘It’ll take time, but at least we have a name.’

‘Killed in her flat?’ asked Charlton.

‘She was,’ said Brook. ‘SOCO found extensive blood spatter, though the place had been thoroughly cleaned. Sheets and fabrics have been removed, every surface wiped, scrubbed and bleached, where necessary. No prints or usable DNA yet. The SOCO team are still working it, and we’re canvassing, but the timeline’s a little vague and we’ve had nothing from neighbours so far.’

‘Nothing?’

‘It’s not a residential building,’ said Noble. ‘Most of the units are small businesses and empty after six if not before, so she’d have the building to herself in the evenings.’

‘If she was a prostitute, maybe the Tanners were customers,’ speculated Charlton.

‘Again possible.’

‘CCTV?’ prompted Charlton.

‘Not installed and no record of visitors, though there is an entryphone system,’ said Cooper. ‘There are dozens of prints but we’ll keep trying to isolate anything useful.’

‘What about cameras?’

‘Vernon Street is off the main drag so no cameras pointing at the building. DC Cooper is looking for the stolen van travelling on nearby streets, but it’s a needle in a haystack without a time.’

‘Then assuming Kassia Proch is the girl in the van,’ Charlton continued carefully, ‘why brief us about Caitlin and the Interpol girls?’

‘Because we’ve found a link,’ said Brook.

Charlton closed his eyes briefly. ‘A serial killer?’

‘As we only have one body, that’s overstating it at this point,’ said Brook.

‘Two bodies if you count the foetus,’ retorted Charlton.

Brook lowered his head in agreement. ‘I put it together in the briefing when I mentioned the victim was pregnant. Constable Banach touched her crucifix and I knew. Bernadette Murphy is Irish, Daniela Cassetti is Italian and the other three girls are Polish. They’re all from devout Catholic countries where family planning is frowned upon and access to abortions is either restricted or non-existent.’

‘Caitlin Kinnear is Northern Irish,’ argued Read.

‘But she’s from the Catholic community.’

‘So you think these girls were abortion tourists?’ said Charlton.

‘Not all of them came to Britain exclusively for that purpose,’ said Noble. ‘Valerie Gliszczynska was in the country for eighteen months before she disappeared.’

‘Then how . . . ?’

‘We paid a visit to the Rutherford Clinic last night,’ said Noble. ‘Spoke to a Dr Fleming. Four girls from the original Interpol inquiry were on record at the clinic. Caitlin Kinnear and Kassia Proch make six. They’d all made an appointment to arrange a termination. Some became pregnant while they were here, like Valerie and Caitlin, some journeyed to England with the sole objective of getting an abortion.’

‘Nicola Serota,’ said Read.

‘Right,’ agreed Noble. ‘She was only here for two days before she visited the clinic for an appointment.’

‘Why didn’t her sister tell me she was pregnant?’ asked Read.

‘Likely she wouldn’t have known,’ said Banach. ‘Unplanned pregnancies in Poland are kept secret. If the news gets out, I’ve heard about girls being sent to another part of the country to stay with relatives – sometimes never to return. Nicola’s safest option was to tell no one.’

‘I agree,’ said Brook. ‘To that end, all the girls found the money to pay for a no-frills private abortion so fewer people would know about their condition.’

‘But if Kassia Proch wasn’t on Interpol’s list,’ said Charlton, ‘how did you find her?’

‘As you pointed out, Nicola Serota disappeared sixteen months ago,’ said Brook. ‘That’s a long time in captivity, so I asked Fleming about young women from Catholic countries who’d registered recently but hadn’t gone through with the termination. Kassia Proch’s name came up.’

‘She visited the clinic thirty-six hours before we found her body,’ said Noble. ‘She was due to undergo the procedure that evening but pulled out. Apparently she had a change of heart, quite common in Catholic women.’

Charlton was thoughtful. ‘And you think someone at this clinic is targeting these girls on religious grounds?’

‘Might be racial,’ suggested Morton. ‘Nobody likes a health tourist.’

‘We’re ruling that out,’ said Brook. ‘All the girls on the clinic’s books, apart from Kassia, were willing to put up the money to ensure discretion.’

‘So race isn’t significant?’ queried Charlton.

‘Only insofar as whoever’s targeting these girls knows that foreigners are less likely to be missed until it’s too late to pick up their scent.’

‘And we think it’s somebody with a connection to the clinic?’

‘Either one of the staff or someone on the picket line,’ said Noble.

‘Picket line?’

‘Every girl who visits the clinic has to run the gauntlet of pro-life protesters persuading them to think again.’

‘Something they have every right to do,’ retorted Charlton.

‘As they’re not striking miners, yes,’ said Brook. Charlton shot him a glance. He sometimes forgot Brook’s past growing up near the Barnsley coalfields. ‘But when we visited, persuasion had spilled over into intimidation, which Dr Fleming complained was a daily ritual for staff
and
patients. We had to step in.’

Charlton sought the right words. ‘Some people find it hard to condone the taking of a human life.’

‘And some find the responsibility for another human life too much to contemplate when their own is spinning out of control,’ replied Brook.

‘Then these women should take care not to get pregnant.’

‘I’ll be sure to mention that on our next battered baby call.’

There was silence in the room and the assembled detectives looked between Brook and Charlton like a crowd at a tennis match.

Cooper’s face contorted in calculation. ‘Hang on. I make that seven missing girls in total – we’re missing one.’

Brook nodded at Noble, who reloaded the picture of the original girls. ‘We’ve eliminated the first girl, Bernadette Murphy. She wasn’t on the Rutherford database.’

‘Meaning?’

‘She didn’t have a termination and may be a separate case,’ said Brook.

‘So she might actually have gone off on her travels after all,’ said Charlton.

‘It’s possible.’

‘So what now?’

‘We’ve put together a list of staff at the clinic, from the director down to the cleaners,’ said Noble. ‘This includes staff members who have since left but were in post when Valerie Gliszczynska disappeared two years ago. I’ve divided the names up. We’re looking for anything that jumps out – extreme religious views, criminal record; the usual drill. But these are the caring professions, so we may have to dig deeper for other skeletons.’

‘What sort of skeletons?’ asked Smee.

Brook shrugged. ‘People with moral and religious objections to the clinic’s work are unlikely to be working there, but there might be somebody who, for instance, has lost a child and, religious or not, might take a dim view of destroying a healthy foetus.’

‘But with that mindset you’re unlikely to murder a pregnant woman,’ said Banach.

‘That’s true,’ admitted Brook. ‘So Kassia may also be a separate case. But according to Dr Fleming, she changed her mind and cancelled the termination at the last minute.’

‘So maybe the killer didn’t know that,’ said Banach.

‘Who knows, but we’re groping in the dark here.’

‘Are we checking names against the Sex Offenders Register?’ asked Smee.

‘None of the staff are on the register,’ said Brook. ‘John and I already discussed the possibility of a pair of rapists operating, but we don’t think these crimes are sexual in nature. Kassia hadn’t engaged in sexual activity before her death.’

‘A pair?’ said Charlton.

‘It was a line of enquiry on Caitlin and Valerie,’ explained Brook. ‘Abduction is a lot easier with two pairs of hands.’

‘You mean like the Tanner brothers,’ observed Charlton drily. Brook prepared a reply but thought better of it.

Banach said, ‘I don’t have a staff list.’

‘No,’ said Brook. ‘I want you and Rob back to the clinic to check out the protesters. They may not be keen to cooperate, but do your best. We want a list of regular pickets, and when you get names, feed them back to Dave to run background.’

‘We have a pregnant murder victim,’ said Banach to Morton. ‘We can use that.’

‘Good idea,’ said Brook. ‘Start with Father O’Toole. He’s likely to know everyone and seemed to be in charge.’

‘Father Patrick O’Toole?’ exclaimed Charlton.

Brook eyed him. ‘He mentioned he knew you.’

Charlton nodded. ‘We’ve . . . met.’

‘Then you’ll know where can we find him,’ said Brook. ‘Sir.’

Charlton spent a few seconds hunting for offence in Brook’s tone. ‘I’ll get my address book when we’re done.’

‘One final thing, something we need to bear in mind,’ said Noble, his tone sombre. ‘We have one body so far.’

‘Two,’ insisted Charlton, stern at this second omission.

‘That’s the complication,’ said Brook softly. ‘Not all the girls were abducted at the same time.’