Dead or Alive (15 page)

Winnie left the pub. Sep picked up his pint, took a huge swig and grinned at Cope. ‘I've not a fuckin' clue who she is, by the way.'

‘You seemed to know she was a prostitute.'

‘Och – that was just an easy guess. Women do that tae me, y'know. Come up an' speak tae me, buy me drinks. There must be somethin' about me that's attractive. I reckon it's ma resemblance te George Clooney.'

‘Yes, I can see that.'

‘And I can assume ye takin' the piss,' said Sep.

‘You assume correctly.'

‘By the way, if yer a copper I was also takin' the piss when I told her I was a criminal. I wouldnae tell a proper friend o' mine anything like that.'

‘What makes you think I'm a copper?'

‘I'm not sayin' y'are.'

‘I imagine if I was a copper you'd have plenty of information to sell me, especially about these foreign pimps you hate so much.'

‘Och aye. I'd grass them bastards up right enough – fer the right price, of course. I'm no grass, never have been, but them bastards needs banging up. I did two years fer nuthin' compared to them slimy bastards.'

‘Assault, was it?'

‘I thought it was a fair fight until it turns out that the other guy's a town councillor, and a man beyond reproach accordin' tae his honour the fuckin' judge. I took a few blows mesel' but I laid him out wi' a stoatin' left hook. Broke three knuckles.'

He showed Cope his left fist, displaying three misshapen knuckles which he'd broken in a fight two years previously. Cope lowered his voice and said, ‘How much would you call the right price?'

‘What?'

‘Let me get you another drink, Jimmy. We'll take them to that table over there and talk business.' He nodded towards an empty table by the window.

Sep pretended to be non-plussed, but went over to the table anyway. Cope brought him another pint.

‘Look, mister,' Sep said. ‘I'm a bit pissed right now. I've maybe given ye the wrong impression.'

‘I don't think so, Jimmy.'

‘Are ye the polis, then?'

Cope hesitated then said, ‘I am, yes – and I'm even keener than you to get those slimy foreign bastards off the streets. So I'll pay good money for good information.'

‘How good?'

‘Depends on the information. Up to five hundred for info that leads to a conviction.'

‘A monkey? Jeez, man, that's some wad!'

‘If you put me on to anyone major it could be a grand. For filling me in with odd bits of information from time to time, it's never less than fifty quid. You don't have to do anything other than tell me what you know. People, places, jobs, times, stuff like that. We don't even have to meet. You can phone me with the info and I'll pay money directly into your account.'

‘Account? Ye mean bank account? Do I look like a guy wi' a bank account?'

‘Ah, perhaps not. In that case we would have to meet at discreet places. Definitely not here.'

Sep nodded, still maintaining the look of bewilderment on his face, as if he wasn't sure of anything.

‘Look,' said Cope. ‘Do you know the Adelphi on Hunslet Road?'

‘I do.'

‘Why don't I meet you there at noon on Friday?'

‘What for?'

‘To discuss this when you're sober.'

‘Oh, right.'

‘So you'll be there on Friday?'

‘Friday, aye. What time?'

‘Noon … twelve o'clock. The Adelphi on Hunslet Road.'

‘Adelphi,' repeated Sep. ‘Twelve o'clock noon on Friday.'

‘If you're not there I'll know you're not interested in earning good money,' said Cope. ‘Either that or you've forgotten what we've been talking about. Do you want me to write it down and stick it in your pocket?'

‘What? No, I'll remember. I'm not an eejit.'

Cope wasn't convinced but he got to his feet and said goodbye.

‘See ye Friday,' said Sep.

‘Let's hope so.'

Sep watched him go and grinned from under his mop of straggly hair. He finished his second pint and rang Winnie's mobile.

‘I'm meeting the guy on Friday tae talk business.'

‘Thought you might. You put on a good show while I was there.'

W
innie switched on her laptop. She was watched by her guest, Gabriela Ciobanu, who had been with her for over a week without opening up about her captivity. Winnie thought she'd been patient with her for long enough.

‘Gabby,' she said, ‘if I'm to help you I need to find out where this house is. I've spoken to someone about you and he's going to help.'

‘Oh dear. I do not like people knowing about me.'

‘He's a good man – he used to be a policeman.'

‘Oh dear.'

‘Gabby, you're such a wuss I sometimes wonder how you plucked up the courage to run away from that place.'

‘What is a wuss?'

‘Oh, someone who's frightened of their own shadow.'

‘I am frightened of many things,' said Gabriela. ‘This man who used to be a policeman. Why is he not a policeman anymore?'

‘He, er … he retired,' said Winnie without looking up from the laptop. She went into Google Maps. ‘Have you seen this before?' she asked Gabriela.

‘Erm, yes. My brother showed me London streets before I came here. I was very impressed.'

‘Well I'm bringing up Leeds streets … here we are.'

She clicked into Street View, zoomed into the area where she had found Gabriela and pointed to the exact spot. ‘This is where I found you and I think you'd been coming from this direction.' She ran a finger along a road. ‘How long had you been out when I found you?'

‘Oh, I don't know. Maybe ten … fifteen minutes.'

‘Fifteen minutes. Had you come far?'

‘I do not know. I start running but then I slow down because with my bare feet it is painful.'

‘I'm guessing about half a mile tops. Do you remember seeing any street names?'

‘No … but I see a church. A big church.'

‘What did they call it?'

‘I do not know.'

‘Right there are a few churches around there, you can have a look at them.' She brought the little yellow man on to Harehills Road opposite St Augustine's Church.

‘That is it!' said Gabriel. ‘That is the church. I was coming up a small road and it is right in front of me on the other side of a big road.'

‘Coming up a small road? Could it be this road?'

Winnie rotated the image so they were on Lascelles Terrace, facing the church.

‘Well, this is daytime. I saw it only in night time but that is what I saw,' said Gabriela. ‘But this is the road.' Her face crumpled as she remembered how distressed she'd been when she saw the church. Winnie spoke quickly to take her new friend's mind off her distress.

‘So, to see the church you must have come up this side road from Roundhay Road, which is another main road.'

‘Did I?'

‘Yep.' Winnie clicked her position down to the bottom of the road. ‘Here's Roundhay Road, so did you turn right or left up Lascelles Terrace?'

‘I turned to my right. It is at the opposite side of the road from which I am walking.'

‘So you turned right, therefore we turn left to retrace your steps, and you must have walked uphill on Roundhay Road, not downhill.'

‘Er, yes, it was uphill.'

‘How far?'

‘Quite a long way I think. Yes. First I come down the road where the bad house is and I turn to my, er, to my left up this road.'

‘This road being Roundhay Road?'

‘I suppose it must.'

‘Good, now we're getting somewhere. Right, we're going to move down Roundhay Road and the road with the bad house should be on the right.'

‘Yes, I understand that.'

Winnie sent the picture travelling down the road, stopping at all the roads leading off from the right. Gabriel kept shaking her head, then she remembered, ‘There is stone wall at the end of this road, with a gate that was open. I remember because I hide inside the garden while a car came past up this Roundhay Road.'

‘OK, that's good. That's very good.'

Two roads down, Winnie swung the picture round to reveal a curved stone wall on a corner, with an open gate. Gabriel squealed, ‘This is it! That is the road. Oh my god!'

‘Spencer Place,' said Winnie. ‘Right, we're going to move up Spencer Place and take a look at each house. What side of the street is it on?'

‘Erm, it was on the left when I came out so it will now be on the right.'

‘How far up?'

‘I do not know. Quite a way, I think.'

Winnie moved the picture up the street, looking at each house on the right until Gabriela gave a cry and put her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh dear, I think that is it,' she said. ‘Could you erm, turn the view round please?'

Winnie moved the picture round 180 degrees until it was showing a mosque at the other side of the street.

‘That is it!' Gabriel cried. ‘I remember this building. Please turn it back round to the house.'

Winnie did as instructed and brought up a picture of large terraced house set back from the road in a poorly tended, long garden. Gabriel stabbed her finger on the screen. ‘It is this house. I remember the gate. I cannot open it so I have to climb over it. It is definitely that one.' She pointed to a window on the top floor. ‘That is my room. You cannot see from here but it has bars on the windows. I can see the garden and the gate from my room.'

‘Definitely?'

‘For sure. That is all I have to look at for three months.'

Winnie stared at the picture for a full minute, memorizing every detail. There was no house number anywhere, and when she got there it needed to be the right house.

‘OK,' she said, at length. ‘I'm going to have a walk up that street and take a good look at the house. I need to get a proper address. It's all right, you can stay here.'

‘Oh please be careful, Winnie. I am lost without you.'

‘Before I go, Gabby, I need to tell the man who will help us that I've found out where the house is. Do I have your permission to tell him?'

‘Oh dear. I don't know. I'm so frightened of those terrible men.' Gabriela's face had taken on a look of sheer terror.

‘Don't worry, love. The more people you have on your side the less frightened you'll be.'

Gabriela took a few seconds to collect herself. ‘All right, I am a wuss. You must tell him.'

‘Good girl. I'll tell him and I'll leave you his number.'

‘Just in case you don't come back, you mean?'

‘For your peace of mind, Gabby, just while I'm gone. I'll definitely be back, unless I'm struck by lightning or something.'

‘F
irst I need to know they're still using the house,' said Sep, when Winnie phoned him from her van with this latest development. ‘With Gabriela having escaped, they might be worried she's gone to the police.'

‘If she'd gone to the police, the house would have been raided by now, surely?' Winnie asked. She'd decided not to tell him that she was on her way to the house right now – he'd no doubt give her a valid argument.

‘Possibly,' said Sep, ‘if she'd managed to get to the police straight away.'

‘Not with the Gabriela I know,' said Winnie. ‘She's scared to death of authority.'

‘No, but the pimps won't be certain of anything. How long since she escaped?'

‘Couple of weeks now.'

‘That long? I imagine they'd move their girls to another house the second they knew Gabby was missing and move them back once they thought they were safe – which should be about now. They'll have a selected bunch of clients who use the girls and who know where the house is. Move the girls away for too long, you lose money. The one thing you can rely on with pimps is that they're greedy and stupid.'

‘So, you think they'll move the girls back fairly quickly.'

‘I do, but before I tell Cope about this I'd like to keep an eye on the comings and goings at the house. I don't want the raid to be a false alarm.'

‘I've just had a nasty thought,' said Winnie. ‘Do you think Cope is mixed up with these people? Keeping the cops off their backs?'

‘Dunno. When I speak to him I'll tell him about a gang operating a brothel in Spencer Place. If the gang are still in the house now, but clear off soon after I tell him about them, we can assume he's mixed up with them. Personally, I doubt it. Wouldn't be worth his while. Formosa's big time, these guys are low-life scrotes. All the same, we need to be very careful in checking them out properly. Think things through without going rushing in.'

Winnie was feeling guilty at not telling Sep she was on her way to the house right now. But what the hell? What harm could it do? She was only going for an eyeball to ascertain the address. She drove past the house and parked a hundred yards away, then walked back down the footpath with a plan in mind – a plan that had just occurred to her. It would have been better had she given her plan more thought, but Winnie had always been a child of impulse.

D
ragos Macedonski was looking through the window of the room vacated by Gabriela. He was a huge, solid man – six-feet-six and two hundred and fifty pounds. After her disappearance, the girls had been moved to another house for ten days as a precaution. But the other house was far too small for the girls to be entertaining clients so, with no visits from the police, Whitey had now brought them all back. As a precaution he had men working in shifts to keep a lookout for anyone in the road outside acting suspiciously. Dragos had now seen something that caught his attention. A woman had walked up the road, stopped at the gate, and looked at the house for around ten seconds before moving on. A few minutes later she had walked back down the road and stopped again. She didn't look like police, but with this plain-clothes lot you never can tell. Whitey was downstairs. Dragos rang him on his mobile.