Broken (53 page)

She was puzzled about it all, but also elated.

If she could get a witness to say that Suzy had been here, she could place her once and for all with one of the mothers. Before and after her arrest.

It wasn’t much, but at least it was a start.

Janice Hollington was dressing for work when she saw the police car arrive. She’d looked out of her bedroom window to see who was being visited. Janice was a gossip, and like most dedicated gossips, what she didn’t know she surmised and what she surmised immediately became fact.

Her penchant for embellishing stories had caused her trouble over the years at Grantley Hospital where she worked on the psychiatric wing. At fifty-two she was nearing the end of her nursing days and she knew it. She liked the job which paid enough for her to have a good holiday every year with her husband George, but her habit of sifting through the most mundane of conversations and sensationalising them had made her colleagues wary of her.

Janice started gossip and embroidered it until it fitted her mood at the time. She knew this, but it didn’t stop her from indulging in her favourite pastime. Consequently, she was given a wide berth and treated rather distantly by her fellow members of staff who had experienced her troublemaking at first hand.

When she saw a uniformed policewoman and another in civilian clothes walking along the pavement outside she nearly had a seizure, convinced they had finally come to arrest Mandy Clarkson’s son, Thomas, for drug dealing or similar.

At last, it was happening! She’d known by the way he dressed and that stud in his nose that he was breaking the law somehow. You only had to look at his long hair and baggy trousers to see that much. Art student indeed!

Then Janice saw the women hesitate at her gate. Her mouth was a perfect O as she realised they were coming to see
her
. The uniformed woman stayed put. To see a plainclothes policewoman walking up her path was a terrible shock. There could be only one reason to bring the police to her respectable doorstep.

Her husband must have died.

On her way downstairs Janice wondered how she felt about that, and was amazed to find that she didn’t actually feel upset. But, she reasoned, no one had actually told her that he was dead yet so maybe she was still due for a shock.

She opened the front door, a hesitant smile on her coral-painted lips.

‘Mrs Hollington?’ Kate enquired pleasantly. ‘May I talk to you for a moment, please? DI Kate Burrows, Grantley police.’

Janice registered the ID card with the woman’s picture on it and thought it didn’t do her justice. She looked like a convict herself in the grainy black and white photo.

‘Please. Come in.’ She took Kate through to her pristine lounge with its burgundy Dralon corner unit and large overfilled MFI cabinets.

‘Now - how can I help you?’

Kate noticed the gleam in the woman’s eyes and realised she was enjoying the drama.

‘Can I get you a coffee? Or tea perhaps?’ Janice asked.

‘No, thank you. I am just going to ask you a few questions about work yesterday. I understand you were on duty and brought in a visitor to Regina Carlton. A certain Suzy Harrington?’

She saw Janice Hollington visibly relax.

‘Oh, you scared me. I thought me husband was dead and I was already spending the insurance in me head!’ She laughed nervously and Kate laughed with her, though she wasn’t sure if it was an actual joke. It sounded more like a statement of fact.

‘Can you remember her?’ she asked politely.

Janice grinned. ‘How could I forget? What’s he done?’

Kate was nonplussed. ‘I’m sorry, who are you talking about?’

Janice shook her head knowingly. ‘It was a transvestite, that Suzy, I’d lay money on it. We’ve had a few of them on the unit over the years.’

Kate was still unsure what she meant.

‘Can you start at the beginning?’ she asked. ‘Tell me exactly what you saw.’

Janice pointed to a seat and Kate sat down. Janice perched on the end of the corner unit and crossed her legs at the ankle.

‘I knew it was a bloke straight off. But then, we get so many strange cases these days as I’m sure you are aware. So I just acted normal like. He was a tallish man, in a wig and heavy make-up. He was dressed smartly, though. Not over the top. From a distance he could probably get away with it. Nice eyes.’

‘You’re sure this was the person who came to see Regina Carlton?’

Janice nodded vigorously. ‘No doubt at all, she gets so few visitors. Mainly her solicitor or Social Services. Not only that, he was so outlandish you couldn’t help remembering him really.’

‘You are sure it was a man?’

Janice grinned again. ‘Look, love, I
know
it was a bloke. He had great big feet and hands. Even without the obvious, you could just
tell
. Nice eyes and nice teeth, I remember that much, but the make-up was overdone. Heavy foundation so he ain’t had any hormone treatment. Definitely a TV not a transsexual.’

Janice laughed, launching into one of her stories.

‘We had one on the unit last year - right nutter. He used to walk around the streets late at night dressed as a woman. His wife had had enough and in the end he was talked into going into hospital voluntarily. He was a barrister and all, but there you go. It affects all sorts. I still see his wife sometimes, you know, around town. I have to laugh. She never acknowledges me like, but she knows I know. You being a policewoman would probably know him if I said his name . . .’

Kate didn’t like the way the woman was practically confiding someone else’s private business in her. She knew that if she asked for the name she would get it. Instead she stood up.

‘I’ll send round a PC to take a statement from you. If you remember anything else that might be of help you can tell them, OK?’

Kate knew she was being petty, just dismissing the woman, but Janice’s sort got on her nerves.

Janice stood up uncertainly. ‘Well, it was a shock as you can imagine. But after what I read in Carlton’s notes . . . I mean, is it really surprising she’d mix with that type of person? I wonder, could I ask why you are enquiring about her? Is it to do with her kids and that?’

The last was said in a low, concerned voice as if they were in a room full of onlookers. She was letting Kate know that she was in on what was happening.

Kate ignored her. ‘Thank you for your help,’ she said, and was out of the house almost immediately. People like that really did leave a bitter taste in her mouth.

Kate knew her visit would be a hot topic of conversation for Janice, in the hospital as well as with the neighbours. Regina didn’t need any more on her plate than she already had, but thanks to the Janice Hollingtons of this world she was going to get much, much more than she’d bargained for.

But if Janice was telling the truth about the visitor being a TV, which Kate felt she was, then this case had taken on yet another strange dimension.

As she got into the back of the police car it gave Kate food for thought. All the mothers, though admittedly involved with the paedophile ring, had sworn they personally had not done anything to their children. This was a long shot, and she knew it was, but what if someone had dressed as them? Trevor had said something about pretend hair . . . hair for every day of the week. And he was too small to understand about men dressing as women, would have assumed it was a real woman. He’d also said the person smelled of apples and that had struck a chord in Kate’s head though she couldn’t think why.

Had someone else said it? She would have to comb through the statements again.

Whoever had visited Regina had distressed her enough to make her try once more to end her life. So what had they said? Regina was under heavy sedation, pushed over the edge again. She had been the catalyst for their investigation, the first mother to be arrested. She had also sworn over and over that whatever she was guilty of, she had not tried to kill her son.

If someone else was behind it all, then whoever it was knew about the paedophile ring, knew the children were being abused and knew the mothers. Every movement of their lives. Someone had watched them and had taken opportunities that were as dangerous as they were sinister.

Maybe the mothers had been telling the truth all along. Maybe they had
not
abandoned their own children. Maybe whoever had taken Trevor and little Mikey had also killed their mothers. It would have been a logical step if they’d been opposed while trying to snatch the kids.

This was quite a story Kate was spinning herself but it was all she had. That and Barker.

She needed to talk to his wife and she needed to do it soon. She was also due to see Kerry Alston today and wondered what fresh revelations that might bring.

She lit another cigarette and stared out at the passing scenery without seeing it. All she could see was Suzy Harrington walking away from arrest.

Well, not for long. Not if Kate Burrows had anything to do with it. Suzy’s days of being protected by an influential pervert were strictly numbered.

Boris ate slowly as usual. He savoured food, enjoying the taste and the texture of it. Sergei usually knew better than to question him while he was eating but today he decided to chance it.

‘Have you thought any more about Patrick Kelly?’

Boris looked at him for a few moments before answering.

‘What is there to think about? He is an intelligent man. He understands. I will take the club from him for a fair price. What has he to worry about?’

Sergei, for the first time ever, wondered if his friend and mentor had become overconfident. It was almost inconceivable, admittedly, but there was a first time for everything. How to hint as much without causing offence was going to be difficult. Boris was always on his dignity, looking for slights where none were intended and constantly questioning his men, trying to gauge their opinion of him. He needed their reassurance that he was respected by everybody. And, if Sergei guessed rightly, so did Patrick Kelly. He had a feeling that once Mr Kelly was back on his feet, he might well come looking for retribution. Boris would. Sergei himself would. Why was his boss so convinced that Kelly wouldn’t?

‘It will be seen to have been done, though. It will be common knowledge among his peers . . .’ Sergei’s voice trailed off mid-sentence. He knew better than to push it. Just to plant the seed of doubt was usually enough.

Boris shook his head in a friendly way. ‘He’s not a real villain. Too soft now. He was looking for an out at some point. I mean, he was a sleeping partner, for God’s sake. No, he’ll let it go. Once Mr Gabney has explained the situation Kelly would have to be a lunatic to try and do anything to us. We blew up his offices. We went to his woman’s home. We shot him in the street like a dog. He knows our strength - he’d be crazy to try anything.’

Sergei didn’t answer and Boris, aware that his orders were being subtly queried, carried on talking. He wanted to justify his position.

‘Patrick Kelly is an also-ran, as they say here. At home he would have been murdered long ago, you and I both know that. It’s why we came here. We knew that our kind of operation would clean up in Europe. They can’t control us here. Aren’t geared up for our ruthlessness or our immense strength. We have the money and we have the power to take over. In five years we will run this country as we do our own.’

He laughed at the picture he was painting.

‘Look how easy it was to walk in here, buy a house for cash in Holland Park costing two million, then mortgage it to the hilt. We had clean money in under a month. This country was ripe for a killing and we obliged. Don’t worry about Kelly. He will know by now that I have in effect taken over London and I didn’t even have to fight for it.

‘The money everyone earns for me and for themselves is enough to guarantee their allegiance. We are invincible. I let Kelly live as a sort of public relations exercise. Everyone knows he was defeated and that he took it like a man. It will be a very clear example of what we are capable of. What we are really about.’

Boris looked at his number two and smiled, his handsome face brimming with confidence.

‘So, Sergei, stop worrying and let me eat, eh?’

Sergei saw the sense in what he was saying but the uneasy feeling remained with him. From what he had heard about Kelly he was very much like Boris: fair but hard. But unlike Boris, he would not take any chances. He would take out the opposition even if he liked and respected them.

It was good business sense and Sergei was inclined to go with Kelly on that one. But of course he didn’t say this to his boss. He was aware that if anything
did
happen to Boris, he would be expected to take everything over.

There was always that to take into consideration. After all, a man had to look after himself, didn’t he?