Wilderness (Arbogast trilogy) (15 page)

Glasgow, Scotland, February 21
^st
2010

Kovan Kocack wasn’t sure when she was going to see mummy, her anne (ahn-neh) again. He said it would not be long but it seemed to be so very long. He had been nice to her and brought her lots of toys but there was no-one to play with and she was bored. He said she should call him daddy.

Kovan had been left in a flat in one of Glasgow’s high rise blocks. She was unaware of the huge search going on around the country with thousands of man hours being spent to try and find her.

It was a large apartment and had recently been partially redecorated. His organisation owned many flats around the city and they proved useful from time to time, especially in cases like these. There were four bedrooms and only two were occupied. One was his and the other was for Kovan. He noticed the girl was growing tired of his games. He had tried to calm her, to befriend her but she had resisted. He knew that she had been through a lot and understood he would need to be patient before she would trust him, open up to him. He watched as she sat by the window. They were high in the sky he had told her and she was like a princess in an ivory tower.  Looking out, though, it was hardly the land of fairy tales. This was a bleak part of Glasgow. The flats looked like they had been forced up from under the ground.  Once considered the epitome of 1960s planning, the plans had quickly gone wrong. These towering artefacts of forgotten modernity were now themselves obsolete and would in time be torn down for the next big idea. People were leaving the flats in search of new communities and few remained. This had been useful when the company was looking to buy up multiple properties for next to nothing, allowing a network of safe houses to be established. The neighbours were mostly old people who never asked any questions and refugees who had to wait, sometimes for years, before they were told if they were good enough to remain in their squalid new homes. But the police had been making faster progress than they would have liked. As he looked down on the barren ground he could see young people loitering, kicking cans and searching for violence, anything to pass the time. If they knew what was going on far above their heads then maybe they would act differently. As the self appointed guardian watched the frosty landscape disappear for another day he sat with the girl, watching the city light up. It was another day for people to keep wondering what had happened to the little girl on the bus. It was time to make the call.

14

Istanbul, October 14
^th
2005

The last two years had been a wonderful blur. Onur proposed at the same restaurant that they had sealed their bond. They had been given a standing ovation from the other diners in a gesture which still made Hanom smile. Six months later they were married and the happy couple set themselves up in the old family home. That is to say that Onur moved in with her father’s blessing, her mother having passed away not long after they had wed.

No-one had been surprised when Hanom had announced she was pregnant and soon there were four souls bound in the rickety walls of the shambling wooden home which had weathered well through the years. It had all happened so quickly and it still surprised Hanom that she had gone along with it. All her dreams had been put on hold with her desire to travel only stretching to their honeymoon. The pair had travelled to the United Kingdom, hardly the tropical paradise of which Hanom had dreamt, but it had been during their month away that Kovan had been conceived. Hanom had never considered having children so young and it had taken some time to get used to the idea that her life would soon no longer be her own. She had heard that people underwent a profound change when they entered parenthood. This had certainly been true for Hanom who no longer felt she was giving up her independence but was opening up a whole new life that had her child at the centre. As the years went by Kovan grew into an inquisitive girl, always questioning what she saw. Hanom’s father said she reminded him of her as a child. He laughed when he remembered her mother always scolding her for her far-fetched fantasises. I will not do that, she would say, my child will be encouraged to reach out and take what she wants. Onur was still busy with the city’s Metro system. He had done well and was now a senior engineer on the project which was slowly transforming the way people travelled. He explained to her that he was tasked with managing the tunnel system. Hanom thought this a dangerous task and preferred not to know when they were going through the blast cycles. She was proud of him and they lived a good life.  He had been pestering her to move from Canturkaran to a new modern home but she felt that she could not leave her father behind when he seemed so happy. They had quarrelled about this but she had won in the end, and they stayed – for better or worse.

Motherwell, Scotland, February 21
^st
2010

The results of the autopsy came two days after Stevie Davidson’s body was discovered, which was longer than normal but his body had been frozen solid and extra time had to be allowed to allow him to defrost – he had become known as ‘The Thing’ in the morgue. Neither Arbogast or Ying felt the need to be at the autopsy. Arbogast had sat through his fair share. As an investigator you learned a lot about your job listening to the coroner. Now if he was at a crime scene he could spot telltale signs, like the angle a gunshot wound have made, or the height of an attacker who had stabbed his victim – a sight all too familiar in Glasgow with its love affair with the blade. Autopsies were one of those things that people would always ask you ‘What’s it like?’ Arbogast always thought this was a bit like asking a solider if he had killed anyone and just as unpleasant. Arbogast remembered his first time. He had watched as the coroner made a V neck incision into the victim’s chest. True to his unwritten rule of attending all major events in his life with a hangover he had had particular problems when the scalpel had started to slice away at the skin, like peeling away wrapping tape on a parcel. He had held it together at first but when the circular saw cracked open the skull he had lost the contents of his stomach which had created a Jackson Pollock tribute on the mortuary floor. He remembered the looks from his senior officer and the others there that day. But with those halcyon days behind him he felt that he had done his time and had happily delegated Stevie Davidson duty to young Frank Simmons, whose eyes had lit up at the prospect. When PC Simmons did report back it was with information they hadn’t been expecting.

“We were right about the broken neck but that wasn’t the cause of death,” Frank said, wincing at the memory. “When you saw his body there were no obvious signs that anything else had happened other than the snap, which was obvious given the way he was found. My god his neck looked strange, almost twisted round 180 degrees.” The waiting detectives knew to be patient while PC Frank Simmons collected his thoughts but they could sense they were in for a surprise. “The thing is, though, he had been badly beaten. The bruising had died away but when they peeled back his skin from his torso you could see the marks. He had been beaten viciously with a blunt object although it hadn’t broken the skin. The coroner said it looked like he’d been beaten with a club of some sort – one of the marks was in the sign of a cross, as if two people had been beating him or as if he’d been attacked from different angles.”

Arbogast had been sitting at his desk taking it all in. He squeezed his upper lip with his thumb and fourth finger, deep in thought. “And we think the beating was the cause of death and that he didn’t fall?”

Simmons explained that there were no other problems with Stevie Davidson. There were no abnormalities thrown up other than the break of his neck which had been inflicted post mortem. “The coroner said he’d died of internal haemorrhaging brought on by a sustained and brutal attack.”

“Poor bastard,” Rosalind said.

“I’m beginning to think our Stevie was just unlucky,” Arbogast said, “We know that he does tie into the family but this has all the hallmarks of some kind of gangland execution. It’s not been a straight hit and they’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make it look accidental. The way I see this now is like this: Stevie’s driving the bus, wrong place at the wrong time. Mary Clark gets on board with Kovan in Glasgow. The bus isn’t going its normal route but the destination’s the same, it will just take longer to get there. We think she has arranged to meet her husband, John, somewhere en route. Let’s assume it would be the end of the line as that’s nearest to her home, so they meet in Shotts.”

“But the bus stopped two miles away – stuck in the snow,” Rosalind said, “There would be no way to know that was going to happen. When we found her she had no phone on her so presuming the handset was taken she’d have had no way of making a call.”

“Unless the child had the phone?” Frank said. Arbogast and Ying had almost forgotten he was there.

“Of course, Kovan,” Arbogast said, nodding, “Yes let’s suppose Mary gave her the handset to make her feel more secure, maybe she thought she’d be able to speak to her mum – but what about the bus? If John Clark was waiting in Shotts he wouldn’t be able to follow in his car – they only have a Fiat 500 – very urban but hardly one for getting through a blizzard.”

Rosalind was unconvinced, “Let’s suppose there was someone else – possibly John – possibly a third party. Someone was following the bus and when it stopped that’s when this happened. The pickup wasn’t supposed to happen there, but it did – events forced them to change the plan. They don’t need the driver so they take Stevie Davidson up to the church; they improvise and leave him there. Kovan is only 5 and I don’t even know if she can speak English. One thing is sure though – she would not have survived the night on her own. Someone knew where to find her and they have her now. I think she’s still alive.”

Frank interrupted, “Where does Mary Clark fit into this? I sat with her those first few hours in the hospital. She could have died. I don’t think her husband would have stripped her and left her to her fate like that and why would she let him if she was involved anyway? It seems reasonable to me that someone is in on this, probably someone we’ve already spoken to. You might remember Sir, that Mary wouldn’t say how she got hold of Kovan. Is it possible she’s been played by the traffickers?”

It was a scenario Arbogast had been struggling with for some time “Yeah, it’s an angle I just don’t get at all. I agree – I think Mary had a plan. I think what she has told us is true, but there’s something she’s hiding and I don’t know what it is. I think Mister Kocack knows more than he’s saying too, but what, I just can’t say. He’s working for a company with serious ties to a firm bankrolled by organised crime, masquerading as a legitimate concern. Maybe we should introduce Onur Kocack to his benefactor?”

“John Madoch?” Rosalind said, “I met him a few months ago and he’s quite the celebrity these days. Civic dinners and the big charity man, he’s been careful to change his profile. I doubt he’d be so stupid as to be involved here – not directly anyway.”

Arbogast considered the ceiling for inspiration, “Madoch may not be directly involved but I can’t help but feel someone who works for him is. Mary Clark doesn’t have the connections to organise something like this. She’s a charity worker with no form and no cash. That her husband is missing is more of a concern than anything else right now as I’d place him in the same league. They’re both citizens, not criminals. I’m going to have a chat with my old pals at the SCDEA again and see if they can shed any more light on this. I don’t think Hanom will come in until we find her daughter. We should be getting a fix for a location on her mobile soon so hopefully that will help with the search. Frank let me know how it pans out. Rosalind I think it’s time I paid a visit to Madoch Group HQ.”

He had made the call and the old man was on his way. Hanom didn’t know it but she was only a few floors away from her daughter. She had been housed in the same high rise as Kovan but they would both have to be moved. The police had identified her at the club – that much he was certain of, but he wasn’t sure how. At the flat they had a strict policy of having no doors locked in the house until lights out. That way he could keep an eye on the girls. Hanom couldn’t be trusted to dance anymore and it might be time to keep her sedated, make her really work for her money. When he arrived on the 7
^th
floor she had been in the shower. He waited but she did not appear so he had tried the door which had been locked. He had shouted at her to come out but he could hear she wasn’t in the shower even though the water was on. He kicked open the door to find her wrapped in a towel, trying to conceal a phone behind her back. ‘What are you doing – where did you get that’ He lost control and slapped her with the back of his hand. She fell to the floor with the phone spinning across the exposed wooden floorboards of the bathroom, a forgotten puce relic of the 1970s which hadn’t been touched since the day it was installed. The phone had only one number on it. She had sent a picture of herself and seemed to have called the number three or four times, the last time had been seconds ago. Now he understood. He got the house guard to phone the number from a call box. The man who answered simply said ‘Yes’ but he knew that it was the policeman. He assumed the worst – the phone calls must have been made over a period of time but they could point the way to their current location. That meant they would be able to trace them, and so his hand had been forced. There had been much talk of the safe place – time to find out if it is.

Onur Kocack had appeared quite shaken after speaking to the two detectives.
‘What could Onur have to do with this?’
Eric watched as Onur sat fretful at his desk. He was pretending to read the site maps but he could tell that he wasn’t concentrating on them.