Behind Closed Doors (7 page)

At six the three of them walked down the hill into town. Their father wanted to stop at the first place they came to – a basic-looking taverna with uncomfortable wooden chairs outside, set around tables set with red check oilskin tablecloths, unlit tealights in glass jars. He stood outside perusing the menu for several minutes.

‘I’d really like pizza,’ Scarlett ventured.

‘They do pizza here.’

‘I mean a proper pizza. Not Greek pizza.’

‘What the hell’s a “proper pizza”?’ he asked, but he moved on, and Scarlett let out a sigh of relief. Juliette didn’t give a stuff where they ate. The chances were she wouldn’t eat much anyway.

Walking along, her father draped his arm around Scarlett’s shoulder. She was taller now, almost as tall as her mum. He used to hold her hand.

‘There are some nice places in the market square,’ Scarlett said casually, wanting to push him away because he was her dad and she was too hot to walk along like this.

‘Expensive, you mean.’

They carried on walking. Strolling. Clive glanced from side to side at the restaurants and cafés that were starting to line the road, one after the other, but he didn’t seem keen on any of them.

‘Well,’ Scarlett said, risking pushing it even further and wondering whether she was getting close to that scary tipping point when her father’s patience would snap, ‘at least there’s only three of us. If you’re going to have a nice meal, tonight would be a good time to do it…’

So they ended up at Nico’s pizzeria. He was handing out flyers when they approached, and he gave Scarlett a smile as she led the way on to the terrace.

The pizza was good, the meal was good, and thankfully her father had seen the prices on the menu and hadn’t complained about them. Hadn’t complained about anything much, just for a change – apart from when he’d finished the whole pizza, every crumb including the crust, and mentioned in passing that the Italian sausage had been a little salty. He could not bring himself to eat a meal without spoiling it with a comment.

But for once Scarlett didn’t care: the night was becoming wonderful, full of promise. She had chosen a seat facing out towards the market square, which meant that Juliette could sit opposite her, facing into the interior of the restaurant which made her feel safe, enclosed, protected. From this position Scarlett could watch Nico working, stare at his bum and his thighs, the way the denim fabric stretched as he moved.

He wasn’t very good at the flyer thing. He chose the wrong tourists – even Scarlett could see that – trying to hand them out to people who clearly wouldn’t be interested in pizza. She felt sorry for him, too – what a job to have! Trying to be nice to all these rude sods who ignored him, passed him by without listening or even acknowledging his presence. She resolved to tell him about that later on, to try to make him feel better, because surely doing this night after night would erode his self-confidence, make him miserable.

Later on
. She had made that decision, then. The mechanics of it yet to be worked out – how to get out of the apartment without Juliette knowing, sneak off and meet him, risking her life in the process because God knew her father would kill her, would actually genuinely kill her if he knew what she was planning – but the decision had been made.

When they finished their pizzas and stood up to go, she tried to catch Nico’s eye – but he had crossed over to the fountain, to try and tempt a young family into the restaurant, and had actually managed to persuade them to stop and talk to him. She looked and looked, hung back a little, even, but his back remained facing her.

‘Come on, Scarlett. What are you doing?’ her father said, and the tone of his voice made her turn around straight away and follow.

Under her breath, she mouthed the words, ‘Later, I’ll see you later,’ before following them back towards the apartment and her mother.

When the meeting came to an end, Lou phoned Jason from the corridor.

‘Hey,’ he said when he answered. ‘Two calls in one day – you can’t tell me you’re busy.’

‘It’s work, though – doesn’t count this time.’ She kept her voice low, even though the people leaving the briefing room were all talking among themselves, paying her no attention.

‘Really? Shame. So what can I do for you?’

‘When you were on Op Nettle with me, you were going to do a subject profile for the McDonnells. Do you remember? Did it ever get done?’

He paused before answering. ‘It was on the list, but I never did it. Other stuff kept taking priority.’

‘That’s what I thought. Oh, well.’

She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t leave it there, and left a hesitation dangling in the conversation between them, waiting for him to fill it. She could almost hear him smiling. Eventually he said, ‘You want me to do a profile for you?’

He was in the office with other people listening, of course. Otherwise his response might have been a whole lot cheekier.

‘Can you do it on the quiet?’

‘Urgently?’

‘Doesn’t have to be long. Just the latest intel, risks, warnings. Anything that looks interesting. Check with Sam before you do it; she might have some new stuff.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Leave it with me.’

Waterhouse was an arse. He’d turned his back on her and was walking away without so much as a goodbye. Lou had met officers like him before, but fortunately not many.

‘Stephen – wait a minute. I’d like a word.’

When she caught up and stood in front of him so that he could not ignore her, or walk past, she checked to see if anyone was in earshot. The other participants of the meeting were continuing to walk away from them, down the corridor.

‘I’m sure you’re probably having a very bad day, so maybe we could just start again. I’m here to help, and if there’s anything my team can do, let me know. In the meantime, I’d like to speak to Scarlett, and then the family.’

The tone of her voice was firm but calm, and anyone else might have capitulated and agreed with anything she had just said. But, as she’d thought, Waterhouse had been worn down by his years in the Job, and compromise was something that didn’t come easily. Nor, it seemed, did apology. Even so, what she got was a lot more than she had expected.

‘You’re right, it’s been a shitty week, let alone day. You can go along with Caroline, if you think it’ll help. And by all means, if you want to go and see the family. There’s nothing new they can tell us for Op Pentameter, I’m sure. So knock yourself out.’

‘Thank you,’ Lou said. She’d been on the verge of asking what constituted a shitty week for him, since the moment she’d mentioned it there had been a flicker behind his eyes, as though she’d reminded him of something he’d been trying to forget. But he turned aside quickly and continued on his way – heading down the stairs to the basement, no doubt, instead of taking the lift. Lou wondered if he had a problem with lifts or was just trying to avoid getting stuck in a confined space with her for a moment longer.

Caro Sumner was waiting for her in reception. This time there was eye contact, a warm smile.

‘You don’t remember me,’ she said, ‘but I’m not surprised. We only met the once, at the Cold Case review five years ago. You were in the middle of your OSPRE process.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lou said. ‘You were with the Met, weren’t you?’

‘That’s right. I transferred over, in the end. Have you got time for a coffee?’

Lou looked at her watch. Just past five – there was no point setting off now, anyway. She would just get stuck on the dual carriageway with everyone else.

‘I would really like that, thanks. What’s happening with her?’

She didn’t need to use the name, not here in reception with several people within earshot.

Caro said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ve booked her into the Travel Inn tonight. I was going to take her over there later. You can come with me, if you like?’

‘Thanks. That would be great. I need to call back into the incident room first, if that’s okay?’

‘Sure. I was going to go home first anyway. I can meet you there.’

They went into the canteen together. The kitchen was long closed, but there was a whole variety of vending machines at their disposal. Caro went for the coffee machine and came back with something that looked like muddy water. Lou got a can of Coke and a bag of crisps, wondering whether this would end up being dinner.

The canteen was empty, thankfully.

‘I’m sorry about the boss,’ Caro said, when Lou joined her at a table under the window. It was dark outside, felt like midnight already.

Lou smiled. ‘I’ve met worse, believe me.’

‘He’s not so bad when you get to know him. Unfortunately Scarlett is a small part of the investigation here – her appearance has just thrown everything up in the air. He’s desperate to get some arrests, and he thought Scarlett would just unravel everything neatly for him. Trouble is, she’s not talking.’

‘She must have been through a lot. Unimaginable things.’

‘That’s what he doesn’t seem to get. Anyway – luckily he’s got us, right?’

‘You been here long?’

‘Six months,’ Caro said.

‘Enjoying it?’

‘Most of the time. Better than where I was before, anyway.’

Lou didn’t ask. ‘So what’s the plan for Scarlett?’

Caro sipped her coffee. ‘They’ve applied to get her the forty-five days’ support under the National Referral Mechanism. At least that would mean we could get her some help while she needs it. She’ll need to co-operate, though – and there’s some discussion about whether it’s possible to be trafficked back into your own country.’

‘What about her family?’

‘Apparently they’re on their way back from Spain.’

‘Apparently?’

‘I’m not convinced. The last we heard this morning, they’ve managed to get the travel company to subsidise them on a charter flight home tomorrow. I believe they had been planning to stay out there and finish the holiday, though, when it looked as if they were going to have to pay for new tickets to come back early.’

Lou let this information sink in. Their daughter had been missing, presumed by everyone to have been murdered and disposed of. No trace of her for ten years. And now she had been found, and this wasn’t important enough to bring them home from holiday?

‘Then they must have heard from her,’ she said.

‘That’s what we thought, but Clive denied it over the phone.’ There was no way anyone’s budget was going to stretch to a flight out to Spain, so all discussions with the family had been conducted by telephone.

‘That’s insane. Where do they think she’s been? You’d think they’d be rushing back.’

‘I think it’s all to do with the other daughter, Juliette. She’s got some sort of mental health problem by all accounts; they take her on holiday every year and she gets upset with routines being disrupted.’

Lou drank her Coke from the can. It was icy cold and made her shiver, but the sugar was beginning to give her a buzz. Thoughts and questions were bombarding her from every angle. Memories of Juliette – she’d been thirteen when Scarlett vanished. Lou had met her, and even then she’d thought her odd. But back then – inexperienced, as much as she hated to admit it – she’d put it down to her being a teenager, and deeply traumatised by her sister’s disappearance. ‘She did attempt suicide a couple of months after they got back from Greece,’ she said, remembering. ‘Paracetamol, I think. After that they tried to keep her away from all the drama.’

‘The boss is totally focused on the trafficking stuff, you know. He isn’t bothered about the family, since they’re not to blame for her going missing, for her being trafficked. He’s torn between wanting to get shot of her before the press gets involved, and waiting to hear what she’s got to say.’

Of course: there had been that mention of Nigel Maitland. To all outward appearances a respectable farm owner, Maitland had apparent connections to organised crime. He’d never been convicted of anything, but his name kept coming up in intelligence reports – and, after a young woman, Polly Leuchars, had been murdered on his property last year, Nigel’s business, along with that of his daughter, Flora, had been closely scrutinised. Lou knew as well as any of her colleagues that Nigel Maitland was up to something. The trouble was proving it.

‘What’s the connection with Maitland and the McDonnells?’

‘There’s historic intel suggesting that Maitland is the transport man for the McDonnells’ trafficking operation.’

‘Oh,’ Lou said, disappointed. She had seen the same intelligence. And, last year, boxes containing stolen passports had been found in the back of Flora Maitland’s car. The lack of forensic evidence, coupled with Flora’s steadfast claims that she had merely found the boxes littering the side of the road and had been planning to take them to the nearest police station, meant there was nothing to connect any of it to her father. In turn, there was not enough to pursue a prosecution. Yet.

‘Is that it?’ Lou asked.

‘There was a suggestion that some of the trafficked women had been put to work in Lewis McDonnell’s brothel in Carisbrooke Court.’

‘And Scarlett was working as a prostitute there?’

Caro shrugged. ‘Hard to say. She was on the premises, but the way she was dressed – jeans, T-shirt – looked like she was just doing reception for them, housekeeping maybe. Or it could have been her night off. She’s not answered that particular question. There was also a phone call from a number we believe was in use by Maitland to the phone that was seized from Scarlett during the warrant this morning.’

‘That’s interesting – so she definitely knows him?’

‘We asked her about it, but she was vague. Said at first it must have been a wrong number, then she said she used to get calls on her phone for people who might have been in the flat, because they knew she was there most of the time. Wouldn’t commit to anything.’

‘But you really think the Maitland-McDonnell network trafficked her? I mean – we did consider that she might have run off, didn’t we? Why would they kidnap her in Greece, just to transport her all the way back home? And were they even involved in trafficking ten years ago? Maybe she’s just worked her way back to Briarstone and she’s working for them?’