Behind Closed Doors (15 page)

None of that. Sitting on her hands, gazing at Lou with her eyes wide, Annie had been entirely passive throughout.

Pulling herself back from the distraction, she began leafing through the file again in case there was a second statement from Juliette. Halfway through, she stopped. There it was – it wasn’t on Juliette’s statement at all. It was on the interpreted statement of Vasilis Kaloudis, aged fifty-three, owner of the Pirate Bay bar.

A local boy who was unreliable.
 

That was it.

Lou looked in case she’d missed a second page of the statement, but at the top it said clearly ‘page 1 of 1’. From the date of the statement onwards Lou worked through the file trying to find further mention of Nico. Then she logged on to HOLMES to cross-reference the name.

The only ‘Nico’ in the system was in connection to this statement; nowhere else was the name mentioned. Lou searched under other spellings, other possible permutations, but they all drew a blank.

They’d never bothered to follow it up, she thought. Despite the line of enquiry that they’d all hurtled down for so long: that Scarlett had run away. If she’d run away, with no clothes or food or money or passport, she had done it with help. But then there was that crime series, the one that had been discounted at the time – foreign girls going missing from Rhodes and Corfu. Even if they were much older, it felt as though that lead had been dismissed far too easily.

Lou put in a call to Caro’s mobile number, but it went unanswered. She left her a message, asking if she knew any more about Nico and why this wasn’t followed up at the time. Said that Caro could ring her back on the mobile whenever.

On the top of Scarlett’s file was Juliette’s statement. The short sentences gave a sense of the girl who’d given it, as much as of the DC who’d interpreted what she’d said and written it up. There was a suggestion of something behind it, some deep, unspoken trauma.

Scarlett did not discuss running away. I do not believe now that she ran away
.

Lou hadn’t interviewed Juliette. It had been obvious early on that Juliette was in a fragile, vulnerable state. They’d used their best ABE-trained interviewers, who had submitted the transcript as evidence. The statement was made separately. A few weeks after Scarlett’s disappearance, Juliette had attempted suicide and ended up in hospital. There had been an investigation by the IPCC, but luckily they’d all followed policy to the letter and eventually it had been dropped. There had been no further interviews with Scarlett’s sister.

What did she mean,
now?
Had she believed at some point, then, that Scarlett had run away?

There was a knock at Lou’s open door and she looked up to see Caro.

‘Hi,’ she said, ‘that was quick.’

‘I was just heading to the car park; I didn’t hear it ring. Sorry.’

‘No problem – come and have a seat. Are you in a hurry?’

‘To get back on the motorway? Not likely. How can I help?’

‘It’s this statement from Scarlett’s sister.’

‘Have you seen something interesting?’

‘Juliette said that she doesn’t believe
now
that Scarlett ran away. As if she’d changed her mind about it.’

Caro thought about this. ‘Scarlett was fifteen; I think we were all hoping that she’d run away and not been abducted. Maybe Juliette was hoping the same thing, but by the time she gave her statement she had resigned herself because we hadn’t heard anything or found her?’

‘Had she run away before?’

‘No. She’d been getting into a bit of trouble at school, though. By the sound of it she was just a typical teenager, testing her boundaries.’

Lou slotted the statement back into the case file. ‘I’m in danger of losing sight of the real aim here – getting some useful intel that SB can use in Op Pentameter. It’s easy to get lost in the file, wondering where it all went wrong, what we missed.’

Caro nodded. ‘I understand. All we want to know is where exactly she’s been for the last ten years, and it all starts with that night she disappeared.’

‘That reminds me: did you get my message about that boy – Nico? Do you know if that was followed up?’

‘Yes, they looked, but we never got anything more on him. The resort has a transient population of kids that come and work in the holiday season, and then disappear back to the mainland once the tourists leave. There’s not much of a system for monitoring casual employees. They work on a day-by-day basis, some of them. The Greek police seemed to give up on that line of enquiry pretty quickly.’

‘Even though she might have run away with him?’

‘We only had that bar owner’s statement. The girl who came in might not even have been Scarlett. The family denied all knowledge of a connection with a local boy. Even Juliette.’

Lou pulled out the statement again. ‘She was asked about him, specifically?’

‘I’d need to check the transcripts,’ Caro said, ‘but from the statement – doesn’t it say something about friends? She had no friends in Greece?’

Lou read aloud from the statement: ‘
We
didn’t make any friends while we were on holiday. There were no people our age staying in the apartment block so we stayed together most of the time
.’ Again, even that sounded loaded – nobody their age? At all?

‘If they’d mentioned a boy she’d met, we would have made more of that connection. As it was, you remember, it was all about putting a watch on the ports…’

‘I remember that,’ Lou said. And spending days poring over maps of Greece, looking for possible routes away from Rhodes. ‘Where’s Scarlett now?’

‘Back in the VVS, for the time being. I collected her from the hotel this morning and took her back there. We’ve connected her with Social Services and one of their officers has been trying to find her some emergency accommodation. And, in between that, I’ve been trying to talk to her. She won’t say anything about her life, about what’s happened. She just shuts up.’

‘I’ve had a bit of an idea about that. I’ve got someone who might be able to help.’

Scarlett Rainsford. Sam couldn’t quite believe it.

They were sitting in Lou’s office, the door shut behind them. Sam was enjoying the warm, slightly uncomfortable feeling of having been proved right. She had sensed yesterday that something big was kicking off, not least because of the boss’s unexpected trip to Knapstone, and this must have been it. Scarlett Rainsford.

‘Where’s she been?’ was the first thing Sam thought to ask.

‘She hasn’t told anyone yet,’ Lou said. ‘Which is why I want you to talk to her.’

‘Me?’

‘If you’ve got nothing more urgent on. I’ll give you a couple of hours to get up to speed with it – I’ve got the file here, you can have a look – and then I’ll take you to meet her after lunch.’

‘Right,’ Sam said.

‘It’s supposed to be informal – intel-gathering for SB, that’s the focus. And from my point of view, if we can persuade her to access the National Referral Mechanism, so much the better. SB haven’t had any luck there. Have you met Caro Sumner?’

‘No, is she SB?’

‘She used to be Met. I wondered if you’d met her when you were there.’

‘No, doesn’t ring any bells.’

‘Waterhouse has got her acting as Scarlett’s personal minder for the time being. I think she could use a hand.’

‘How is she?’ Sam asked. ‘Scarlett, I mean?’

Lou looked her straight in the eye, and Sam was struck by how exhausted she looked.

‘She looks and acts perfectly in control. I doubt that’s really the case.’

The back of the minibus was full of people. That was what it felt like, anyway.

Towards dawn Scarlett had woken up to find the bus jolting, slowing down. Instantly she was alert, wondering if this was it: they were going to finish her off, bury her in the woods. When the vehicle stopped, she pulled herself back into the piles of luggage, trying to hide. Outside she could hear a conversation, voices she did not recognise, and then some women in the background, laughing. The sound of the language was different.

The back doors opened. Scarlett shrank back, tucking herself into a tight ball, expecting at any moment to be hauled out. But instead something else happened – someone got in. Then another person. Just as she lifted her head to see, the doors shut again. In the small space at the back of the bus were two new girls. One of them was barely conscious, her head lolling against the shoulder of the other. Both dark-haired.

Then the side door of the minibus slid open and the vehicle swayed as people climbed in. She counted – one, two… three… four… and then lost count. Women, by the sounds of the voices, all of them talking and laughing in a language Scarlett could not understand. More luggage was piled in up to the roof, effectively sealing the three of them inside a tight, airless cave. Through a small gap at floor level Scarlett could feel a cold draught from the open door. She wriggled until her cheek was against the dirty floor, saw through the gap pairs of feet, dusty shoes, long skirts, bags and boxes.

Did they know?

Scarlett thought of calling out, trying to attract their attention. In the end, her dry throat giving out a croak, she shouted, just once, ‘Hey! Can you hear me?’

The voices grew louder, all talking at once.

A moment later the back doors opened. Scarlett gasped and rolled into a ball.

‘You,’ said a man’s voice. Something hard jabbed her in the back.

‘Please help me,’ she whispered. ‘Please don’t kill me. I want my mum. I want to go home…’

‘You be quiet,’ the man’s voice said. ‘You make a sound, I kill these first and then you. Understand? Yes?’

Without turning, without looking, she nodded. Tears were pouring down her cheeks all over again. Just when she’d thought she couldn’t cry any more.

Lou clearly didn’t recognise the older woman who opened the door to her. ‘DCI Smith,’ she said, showing her warrant card. ‘And DS Sam Hollands. We’re hoping to see Scarlett.’

‘Oh, come in. I’ll let her know. You can wait in the kitchen.’

‘You’re Social Services?’ Lou asked, when the woman didn’t identify herself.

‘That’s right. My name’s Orla. Have a seat.’

She shut the door behind her. Sam and Lou remained standing. There was a monitor on the work surface in the kitchen which was turned off. It was early afternoon and the sun was casting a golden light over the sorry-looking laminate units, the microwave which had been overlooked by the Cleaning Fairy, the mugs piled in the sink.

The door opened and another woman came in – short, greying hair, a smile that was kind. Sam had a vague feeling that she recognised her.

‘Sam,’ Lou said, ‘this is Caro Sumner. Caro, this is DS Sam Hollands.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ Caro said. ‘Lou told me you were coming. All help appreciated, and all that.’

‘Hope I can be of use,’ Sam said. ‘Where’s she going to go, after this?’

‘No idea at the moment. It all depends on whether she’s willing to access the National Referral Mechanism. At the moment she’s refusing.’

‘Why would she refuse?’

The door opened and Orla came back in. ‘She’s half-asleep, but she agreed to see you. I’m going to leave you to it for an hour or so, if that’s okay. I need to get back to the office.’

‘Thank you,’ Lou said.

‘I’ll let you two go in,’ Caro said. ‘It’d be a bit crowded in there with all of us.’

They went into the living room.

Scarlett Rainsford was curled on the sofa, the hood of her sweatshirt up, concealing much of her face. Her khaki coat was covering her like a blanket, just a pair of thick socks with grubby soles poking out. The television was tuned to one of the music channels, the sound down.

‘Hi again, Scarlett. Remember me from last night? My name’s Lou Smith.’

Scarlett remained where she was.

‘This is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Sam Hollands.’

‘Hello,’ Sam said, sitting down on the armchair opposite Scarlett’s sofa.

Scarlett raised her head, briefly. ‘I’m sick of being asked questions.’

‘I bet,’ Sam said. ‘Hard to sort things out without them, though.’

‘Nobody’s asking the right questions, either,’ Scarlett said, rolling her eyes.

‘It’s not easy to know what the right questions are. This isn’t the sort of thing that happens every day. Certainly not in Briarstone.’

Scarlett smirked at this, and Sam breathed out.

‘I just want to get out of here,’ Scarlett said. At last she sat up, pulling the coat over her knees, hugging them.

‘Where will you go?’ Sam asked.

‘Anywhere. I have got friends I can stay with. Or I can find somewhere.’

‘We need to be sure you’ll be safe,’ Lou said.

‘I can look after myself. I’m only here because you lot keep giving me free food and hotels and I’m too fucking tired to get up and walk out. Sooner or later you’re going to get bored with me in any case.’

‘We can get you access to housing, anything else you need for a fresh start, through a system that looks after victims of trafficking,’ Sam said. ‘But, in order to get that, you have to talk to us about what happened to you, about where you’ve been.’

‘I don’t need housing. I told you, I can look after myself.’

‘I’m sure you can,’ Sam said. ‘You’re an adult, and a UK citizen. All I’m saying is, there’s help for you – so why not take it?’

Scarlett’s right foot was dancing an impatient little beat. ‘Because there’s nothing I can tell you that will help. It’s a trade-off, right? I tell you stuff and you help me. If there’s nothing to tell, there’s nothing to give. It’s bloody extortion just like everything else.’

The three women sat in silence for several seconds.

At last Sam said, ‘You spoke to Caro, didn’t you? When they first found you?’

Scarlett answered this with a shrug.

‘You mentioned you’d been brought here in a lorry – ’ she consulted her notes ‘ – and that someone in Briarstone was responsible for bringing you here.’

‘You want me to give you names,’ Scarlett said, ‘and I’m not going to do that. It wouldn’t help you anyway. I don’t know who you think I am. I’m a nobody. I cook them oven chips and beans and wash their sheets. I don’t know anything about anything.’ The sweatshirt had ridden up her arms, revealing pale skin, scratches.