On Laughton Moor (11 page)

18

Knight had attended several post mortems in his career, but this would be his first since his transfer to Lincolnshire. He’d struggled to find a parking place and was dangerously close to being late. In his experience, being late for a post mortem was usually seen as incredibly rude by the person performing the procedure. From his brief meeting with Jo Webber earlier that morning, he doubted she would see it any differently. A minute before eleven thirty, according to his watch. Knight hurried through the door and glanced around. The room was as expected, spotless white tiles, temperature cool if not cold, white clothed figures moving purposefully.  Disinfectant and formaldehyde hung in the air, bleach too. Other smells would follow, Knight knew. As with crime scenes, it wasn’t always so much what you saw at a post mortem, it was the smells and the sounds. You could, in theory, avert your eyes from the horror, but the smell couldn’t be avoided. It was everywhere, seeming to creep inside your nose, your body, out through your own pores to mingle again with the stench of the room or the scene. Sounds were the same. The noise a saw made as it cut through human bone was not one Knight thought he would ever forget if he walked out of the room now, left the force and never attended another post mortem. You would always remember certain details, and Knight supposed that was the way it should be.

A technician bustled forward bearing a scene of crimes suit for Knight. He thanked the figure, unable to determine who he was speaking to because of the hood and mask that they already wore. He stepped into the suit, pulling it up over his clothes and was struggling with the zip when another figure approached. This one had yet to don her mask and hood, and Knight once again felt his stomach lurch at the sight of Dr Jo Webber.

  ‘Inspector Knight, you’re here. Good, we’re ready to start.’

She indicated the stainless steel table that stood in the middle of the room, brightly lit by overhead spotlights. The body lay waiting. He’d taken a quick phone call from DS Bishop just as he’d arrived at the mortuary and now knew their victim’s name was Steven Kent, aged twenty seven. Steve, the name mentioned by Mike Pollard, but the victim wasn’t the man from their CCTV footage. Back to square one with that. Officers were on their way to Kent’s home to begin their search, and though Bishop had said they were struggling to find a next of kin, they would need to be identified and informed quickly. Kent’s parents had apparently died together in a car accident a few years earlier. Kent hadn’t been married, but there was probably a girlfriend or partner. Officers would be en route to his workplace too, his colleagues would surely know about his family and domestic situation.

With hood, face mask and gloves now in place, Knight followed Webber over to the table, and Steven Kent’s body. He gazed down at the dead man, naked under the glare of the spotlights. Knight stepped back, as far from the table as possible. Webber glanced at him, then began to speak, relaying the details she’d just been given about Kent’s identity to the others in the room, and for the benefit of the recording equipment. She also described Kent physically; his eye colour, hair colour, ethnicity and so on. Webber also noted a scar on Kent’s abdomen which seemed to indicate he’d had an appendectomy. At this point, Knight’s feeling of dread became more apparent. He knew Webber would soon make the Y-incision and the internal examination would be underway. He bit down on the inside of his lips behind his mask. Knight had never pretended autopsies didn’t affect him, and distrusted any officer who claimed to be immune from the effect they had. Seeing a fellow human being cut and opened up like meat in a butcher’s shop just seemed wrong, especially with a victim of murder such as this man. It was often the final indignity of a body that had been attacked, broken, a life cut short because of anger, calculation or senselessness. There were other reasons, of course. It was a procedure that needed to be completed, however, to help Knight and his colleagues catch the person that had killed Steve Kent, and possibly Craig Pollard, and so Knight steeled himself as Dr Webber crossed the floor to the body again.

Knight stepped out into the corridor, glad it was over. He stood for a few seconds, breathing in the fresher air. The door behind him opened and Dr Webber appeared.

  ‘If you’d like a quick chat, Inspector, you could go up to my office - upstairs and second on the left.’

  ‘Thank you.’

She looked at him.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Fine thanks, just . . . ’

  ‘Catching your breath?’

  ‘Something like that.’

She smiled in understanding.

  ‘I’ll see you in my office.’

She disappeared again, and Knight trudged off in the direction she’d indicated.  The stairs were scuffed tiles and his footsteps echoed around him. He reached a small square landing, the walls painted a sickly green. A battered wooden door held a name plate bearing Webber’s name, black lettering on a silver background. Knight paused outside, not sure whether to go in. It seemed a little presumptuous so he stood outside, feeling like a naughty schoolboy waiting for the headteacher. He soon heard footsteps and the doctor appeared, now wearing black trousers and a tailored red shirt, suit jacket in one hand, paperwork in the other. No wedding ring, Knight noticed, though that meant nothing considering the procedure she’d just performed. She smiled as she saw him standing there.

  ‘You should have gone in,’ she said, pushing through the door, and then holding it open for him.

  ‘I didn’t like to. Anyway, the door might have been locked.’

  ‘It might,’ she agreed, ‘but it wasn’t. My secretary’s next door, I don’t bother too much when she’s there, I just lock my papers away and take my laptop with me.’

  The room was fairly small, pale blue walls in here, blue carpet tiles. There were several filing cabinets, a scuffed wooden desk and a couple of battered chairs. Dr Webber seated herself behind her desk. Knight couldn’t help noticing her own chair was a well padded leather number, looking much newer and more comfortable than the one he gingerly sat in. She noticed his expression and laughed.

  ‘I bought this one myself. Not that I spend that much time in here, but I like to take care of my back, it soon complains if I don’t, it likes some luxury. Now,’ she glanced at the notes she’d brought with her, ‘Steven Kent.’

Knight nodded, and she leaned back in her chair.

  ‘Obviously I’ll be providing a full report as soon as I can, but a few things you’ll want to know now. We found no other injuries except those on the back of the skull, either inflicted by his attacker, or defence wounds. He received three blows to the back of his head with a blunt instrument. A wooden club or bat is my best guess, though there are no splinters or anything to substantiate that. I don’t think you should expect much help from the traces we removed from his body, I’m afraid. No alcohol in his system. What else? Blood group A+. Time of death: between eleven last night and three this morning. Of course, it was a cold night, he was lying outside . . . it’s difficult to be exact. He died where he fell, the body wasn’t moved. All in all, a very healthy young man, except . . . ’

  ‘Except his head has been bashed in.’

  ‘Exactly.’

There was silence for a few seconds. Knight glanced at a framed photograph on the wall just above Jo Webber’s head.

  ‘Is that your dog?’ he asked, just for something to say. Webber followed his gaze.

  ‘Yes, Jess. She’s only nine months old, still a puppy really, but she’s got so big. Anyway,’ she stood up, ‘I’m

sorry, Inspector Knight, but I have a meeting in ten minutes and I need to get across to the other building. I’ll get my full report over to you as soon as I can, later today I should think.’

Knight also got to his feet.

  ‘Thank you Doctor,’ he said, ‘she’s a lovely dog, by the way. We always had boxers when I was growing up. I’d love one, but it wouldn’t be fair in my job.’

  ‘Call me Jo. That’s what I thought, but my neighbour has her during the day, they keep each other company.’

Knight paused outside the door.

  ‘Thanks again, Jo. No doubt we’ll speak again soon.’

She smiled.

  ‘No doubt.’

19

Bishop sat at her desk, phone wedged under her chin, arms stretched high above her head, hands clasped together as if in prayer. She’d been on hold for what seemed like forever, and she’d had about enough. DC Sullivan hovered in front of her desk with mug of tea.

  ‘Just put it down anywhere, it’s fine, thanks Simon. Honestly, this is a bloody joke, he’s only in Lincoln. I could have walked there faster, fifteen minutes I’ve been waiting for this arse . . . .Hello? DI Foster?’ She pulled a face at Sullivan, laughing as he went back to his own desk. ‘That’s right, sir, a woman called Ivona. A terraced house, several women apparently being brought in from Serbia, possibly other countries, then forced to work as prostitutes . . . Just anything you have. We think they may have been tipped off that they’d been rumbled, the woman we have here was shipped out of the house all of a sudden, which suggests something was up. She’s linked to a couple of . . . sorry, just hang on, that’s my boss.’

Her mobile had started to ring. Knight. She answered the call. ‘Hello, sir?’

  ‘I’m on my way back to the station, can we get together when I get in? Are you there now?’

  ‘Yes, sorry, just hold on, boss,’ she picked up the receiver of her desk phone, ‘Sorry, DI Foster, I’m going to have to go, but if you could let me know about anything you have . . . Oh, of course. I’ll go and have a word with her.’ She quickly gabbled her phone number and email address, then snatched up her mobile again, ‘Sorry sir, yes, I’m at the station.’

  ‘About fifteen minutes then?’

  ‘Fine, see you in the conference room.’

An incident room was being set up, whiteboards headed with a photograph of Craig Pollard and a space where Steve Kent’s face would appear when they had the picture. Autopsy photos, a timeline of Pollard’s last day, everything they had so far, which in truth didn’t amount to a great deal, had been summarised by the incident room manager, DS Robin Cuthbert, known throughout the station as ‘Monk’ on account of the bald pate surrounded by thick black hair, serene expression and rotund figure. He was standing next to the whiteboards, pen in hand, frowning in concentration as he studied some paperwork propped on the desk beside him. Bishop marched in through the door unnoticed by Cuthbert, strode up to him and clapped her hand down onto his shoulder. Cuthbert jumped towards the ceiling with a squeal.

  ‘Afternoon, Brother Cuthbert, how’s it going?’

Cuthbert held a hand to his chest.

  ‘Bloody hell, Catherine, you’ll kill me one of these days.’

  ‘Rubbish, you’re as strong as an ox. Just to let you know, DI Knight’s on his way back from the Kent PM, no doubt he’ll be in here some time soon. I’m meeting with him first, but he’ll want to see where we are with this lot too.’

  ‘Inspector Wallpaper? I can hardly wait.’

  ‘Now now, Monk, let’s give him a chance, shall we? He’s actually starting to grow on me.’

Cuthbert snorted.

  ‘Like a boil you mean? A big, juicy boil, growing on your. . .’

Cuthbert stopped as the door flung open again, and DCI Kendrick crossed the room in four strides.

  ‘DS Cuthbert, where are we up to?’ he boomed.

Cuthbert wrung his hands.

  ‘Well, sir, as I was telling DS Bishop here . . . ’ Both men turned around, but Bishop had vanished.

Scurrying down the corridor, Bishop couldn’t help smiling to herself. It helped to keep your eyes and ears ever alert for Kendrick, who had a nasty habit of appearing without warning. It wasn’t as if he was easy to miss, Cuthbert had only himself to blame. No doubt she’d be seeing him soon enough, he’d probably want to be in the meeting with Knight when he heard about it. She turned into the conference room, turning on the lights. One of the bulbs was obviously faulty and kept flashing on and off.

  ‘Great.’ muttered Bishop to herself. She collected three cups of water, prepared in case DCI Kendrick did decide to join them. The room smelt stale, even worse than usual, provoking more mumbling from Bishop. Her mobile beeped as it received a text message, and she smiled as she read
:
Enjoyed last night. Same again tonight? Doesn’t matter what time. L x

Louise certainly seemed to want to try again. She felt a small stab of guilt; she definitely needed to do some thinking about whether she wanted to jump straight back into a relationship, albeit a more casual one. Now was definitely not the time to do it though. She set her notebook on the table and took a sip of water. She hadn’t drunk the tea Sullivan had made for her, and it would be cold by now, even if she had time to nip back to her desk before Knight arrived. Right on cue, the door opened and he wandered in, looking as if he had all the time in the world, absent-mindedly brushing rain from his hair.

  ‘Pouring down out there,’ he said, pulling out a chair and settling in it. ‘How’s it going?’

Bishop opened her notepad.

  ‘Steve Kent’s flat is still being searched, but it’s turned up an interesting find already. A mobile phone with no numbers stored in the memory, and that has only received calls from one number.’

  ‘Instructions about his dodgy deliveries?’

  ‘Could well be. We’re trying to track down the number, but I suspect it’ll be difficult, if not impossible. It seems Kent was single; he had a girl living with him for a while according to his neighbour, but she moved out over a year ago. The neighbour never knew her name, neither did the blokes he worked with. We did find out from them that he has a sister living in Leeds so we’ve been onto West Yorkshire, they’re going to track her down and break the news. It’s almost certain he would have had another mobile phone, a personal one, but no sign of it so far, it’s looking like whoever killed Kent took the phone, as we’re presuming happened with Pollard. We haven’t found it in the area around the crime scene, or anything else. The van’s gone off to forensics; we’re not expecting much. Seems like the invisible killer’s struck again.’

  ‘A person who knows about forensics, the traces they can leave. Most people have a vague idea about that sort of thing these days though. The victim was attacked when he was vulnerable, as Pollard was. It seems Kent had his back to his killer, climbing out of the van.’

  ‘I suppose that makes it easier for our murderer, hit them when they don’t even know you’re there. Kent was quite a big bloke, as was Pollard.’

  ‘Around six foot, yes. Doctor Webber mentioned that Kent had only been hit three times, according to what she found during the post mortem, whereas Pollard . . . ’

  ‘He’d been hit loads of times.’

Knight nodded grimly.

  ‘Maybe Pollard had pissed our friend off more than Kent had.’

A deep sigh from Bishop.

  ‘Or he’s getting better with practice, knew just where to hit this time.’

There was a pause. Knight sat up straight.

  ‘We need to establish what links Craig Pollard with Steve Kent. I’d like to think we’d have stumbled across that fact without our helpful murderer leaving us another calling card. Has a photo of Kent gone to Pollard’s parents, his brother?’

  ‘Yep, the one that’s on his driving licence. It’s a few years old but I wanted them to see him as soon as possible. Hopefully, we’ll come across a more up to date one in his flat somewhere.’

  ‘Have you got a copy?’

Bishop rummaged through her papers and handed one over. Knight considered it.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to have changed much to be honest, not that he was looking his best when I saw him.’

  ‘What else could Jo Webber tell you after the PM?’

Knight explained what the pathologist had said.

  ‘We keep coming back to the question of why Kent stopped the van. Milica Zukic said they stopped very suddenly, then she heard him shouting. There could have been a vehicle blocking the road, pretending to have broken down?’

Knight nodded.

  ‘If that’s what happened though, why didn’t he wait until Kent was bending over the engine and then smack him one? Although, I suppose he’d have ended up with bits of brain and skull all over the engine, and if he is forensically aware . . . ’ Bishop’s voice trailed away.

  ‘He wouldn’t want to take the chance when he’s been so careful, plus there would be no guarantee Kent would stop, especially when he had his passenger locked in the back of the van, not that our murderer would have known that. We still need a name for our anonymous caller especially if Mike Pollard recognises Steven Kent as the Steve that was Craig’s mate. Maybe he was right when he said Nick? We’re waiting on the analysis of Milica Zukic’s clothes, but I don’t think we’ll find any blood or anything to suggest she killed Steve Kent, even if it would have meant she could escape. Where would she go? She doesn’t speak enough English to be able to blend in, and she knew Ivona, this man she calls the “Vuk” and gang would come looking for her.’

  ‘It seems a bit strange she hasn’t picked up more English though, if she’s been here a few years?’

  ‘She said she wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone though, didn’t she, although she must have said a few words to people she worked with. They might have been Serbian too though I suppose, taken in by the same people who brought Zukic here. Did you speak to Intelligence?’

Bishop nodded, screwing up her face.

  ‘Just now. I spoke to a DI, Foster’s his name, he’s going to call me back. I wasn’t able to give him much to go on, just the names Ivona and Ron. There’s a member of his team working over here on another assignment, he said to go and speak to her but I’ve not had a chance yet.  We could try to narrow down the area Zukic could have been held, but . . . ’

  ‘But it would be mainly guesswork, given how little she can tell us. They’ve been clever, threatening her, keeping her separate from the other girls, transporting her in vans so she couldn’t see road signs or landmarks.’

  ‘Bastards.’ said Bishop, with feeling. Knight nodded agreement.

  ‘If they’ve moved Zukic, surely they will be moving the other girls too? Did Foster mention any raids that might be a reason for the sudden panic, maybe Ron and Ivona were tipped off?’

  ‘I asked him, he’s going to do some digging.’

  ‘Do we have any locals whose card you’d mark for this sort of thing?’

  ‘People trafficking? Most wouldn’t be seen dead getting involved, code of honour and all that, but . . . anything organised around here usually has one man behind it, and I do mean well behind it, he usually keeps his head down these days. Dougie Hughes.’

Knight blinked a few times.

  ‘Hughes?’

  ‘Yeah, you know the type – local boy, dragged up on the worst of the back streets, place so rough even the dog shit wears knuckledusters. He has bigger ideas, starts by grafting on building sites, saves enough to buy a van, drug dealing all the while, sets up a legit firm of builders. Still dealing, takes on a few blokes, now branches out into plumbing, buys some warehouse space, takes on a few more blokes, doesn’t deal himself now he has minions to do it for him. Throws himself into the legitimate stuff, sets up a taxi firm, a club, a betting shop. Hairdressing salon for his Mrs to work in, beauty parlour, money flooding in, building the big shopping centre in town, the man’s a walking stereotype. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got his sticky fingers in this somewhere, probably owns the courier firm Kent worked for if we can dig deep enough. He might have a bit less cash floating around these days, economic situation and all that, maybe he’s moved into dealing people as well.’

Knight said softly, only just audibly, ‘Sounds like a Hughes I know.’

  ‘Sorry, boss?’

  ‘It’s okay, carry on, just thinking out loud.’

  ‘He has property that could be used, the warehouse space Zukic mentioned, the club, the betting shop,  – they could all be used to find punters for the poor buggers that are brought into the country, or for cheap labour to work in with not many questions asked, or to transport people.’

Knight was chewing his thumbnail again.

  ‘Plenty of opportunity, yes. Can you see him doing it?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. He’s the type, but he knows how to keep his nose clean. We’ve never really been able to send him down for anything yet, he’s bloody clever, and of course the more money he’s got, the better the people are that surround him, protect him, advise him, know all the tricks and loopholes.’

  ‘It’s all supposition though. Do we have anyone closer to him?’

  ‘You mean an informant?’

Almost imperceptibly, Knight nodded. Bishop shook her head regretfully.

  ‘No, sir, not that I know of.’

  ‘We could get Milica Zukic to have a look at him, she might have seen him at some point? I know it’s unlikely, but it’ll only take a few minutes. Otherwise . . . ’

  ‘I’ll sort that, sir, get some mugshots of a few of the local well known pervs and kerb crawlers, see if Milica can recognise any, might give us a handle on the location of the house she was held in, at any rate?’

  ‘Fine. We should have the full post mortem report later, we’re waiting on Mr and Mrs Pollard and Mike to see if they know what could link Craig Pollard to Steve Kent if anything. DC Varcoe’s going to try that teacher at Pollard’s old school again today, see if she can give us any more names, Anna may as well show her the picture of Kent too. Hopefully West Yorkshire will get some info from Kent’s sister?’