I so wish I could tell you this -
really
tell you. I don’t know what to do, Imo. I’m confused and unhappy. But I’ve got to be positive. So I’m going to order a large glass of cold white wine and try to focus on constructive thoughts before I return to the hotel. And to Hugo.
Laura xxx
Monday morning dawned bright and crisp - just the sort of autumn day that Tom normally liked. After Kate had left the evening before he had been sorely tempted to hit with a vengeance a very nice bottle of single malt that he had in the cupboard, but now he was glad he had resisted. The wine had been quite enough, and he started the day with a clear head. Well, at least it was clear of over-indulgence in alcohol. In every other way it was clouded in confusion, with a million diverse and apparently unrelated thoughts vying for supremacy in his mind.
‘Thank you, Kate!’ Tom muttered to himself. Personal issues were the last thing he needed to resolve at the moment. He had to focus on the job in hand.
His first stop was headquarters, but he wanted to get back to Oxfordshire as soon as possible. Like Becky, he could feel the tension simmering under the surface, but unlike Becky he wanted to understand the root cause.
Despite the fact that it was only seven in the morning, he found quite a few of his team already in place. They were an enthusiastic bunch, so he called everybody together for a quick heads up on any progress made within the eleven hours since he’d left for the supposed peace of his apartment. He leaned against a desk at one end of the room, and people pulled up chairs or sat on desks around him. Ajay was always keen to be the first to speak, and this morning was no exception.
‘We’ve found some information about Tina Stibbons, sir. She’s got a record. She was working as a nurse for an old gentleman near Cromer, and the chap’s daughter accused her of stealing some valuable stamps. Her prints were all over the album - which she explained by the fact that she had been looking at the stamps with the old guy’s permission. He couldn’t remember if he’d given it or not. The daughter was adamant that she was going to see Tina jailed, but two days before the court case, all charges were dropped. The stamps never turned up, Tina left Cromer, and nothing more was said. The local force were livid, but as the old man was dying it seemed inappropriate to charge them with wasting police time. They strongly suspected some form of blackmail, but nothing could be proved. The daughter suddenly seemed desperate to sweep it all under the carpet. God knows what Tina had turned up.’
Tom could see a pattern forming here, given what Tina aka Annabel had told him the day before.
‘Good work, guys. Did you manage to turn up a picture of Tina?’
‘We most certainly did, and it’s not a pretty sight, I can tell you! What on earth was old Hugo thinking of?’ Ajay said. As a man who had to have every hair in place at all times, and prided himself on his Asian good looks, it was a fairly typical comment.
‘Looks aren’t everything. She took care of his mother, and so perhaps he saw a different side of her. Where’s the picture?’
‘On the board behind you, boss. Top right.’
Tom turned to look at the magnetic white board behind him, and even he was more than a little staggered by the picture. Tina Stibbons and Annabel Fletcher were unrecognisable as the same person. Yesterday she had told him that part of the deal was ‘a bit of a makeover’ and she wasn’t joking.
One of the young women handed him a much-needed cup of coffee, and pointed to the picture next to it.
‘That one was taken of Lady Annabel just after their wedding. Their marriage was big news, although Hugo wanted it to be private so a lot of it was behind closed doors. But given his high profile, the paparazzi had a field day with their telephoto lenses. Have any of you ever watched those American programmes about makeovers?’
The men in the team looked blank, but a couple of the girls smiled and nodded.
‘They take the plainest of girls and give them extensive plastic surgery. They really do turn ugly ducklings into swans, with nose jobs, chin jobs, eye tucks, tummy tucks, boob jobs, all sorts of veneers on their teeth, their skin practically removed and then re-grown, laser hair removal where they have too much in the wrong place, hair implants where they haven’t got enough, and when they’ve created a completely different physical specimen, there’s the hair and makeup. It’s remarkable - except that they all turn out looking pretty identical. Well, she looks like a product of one of these programmes, and I would estimate that the new look set her back about half a million.’
‘Does anybody but me think it’s a bit odd that he turned an ugly duckling into a swan with his first wife, and then did a reverse trick with his second wife?’ Ajay said, back on his favourite topic of how people look. Most of the team nodded, but Tom felt a strange compunction to defend Laura.
‘I think you’re all aware that she’s been ill, and the depression or whatever it was has obviously had an impact on her. But I wouldn’t write her off, if I were you. She’s got a certain something.’
Tom smiled through the whistles and ribald remarks that he might have expected. It was good to lighten the atmosphere, even at his own expense.
‘Okay, what else have we got?’
He took a sip of his coffee as he looked around the room, and a young constable who he remembered just in time was called Alice, raised her hand.
‘We’ve checked the flights of both Laura Fletcher, and Imogen Kennedy. They all tally. The only thing is, we don’t know exactly where Kennedy was the night before. Given the timings, I thought it would be worth checking flights from all London airports to Paris, just in case she came and did it, then flew out and back again. But I found nothing.’
‘Good thinking, Alice. Well done. We’ve got no reason to suspect Imogen Kennedy, and she claims not to have seen Hugo for a good few years. However, when I asked what she thought of him, I detected a lie. She seemed vaguely noncommittal. She said he wasn’t much fun, or something like that. There was something about her indifference that seemed calculated. On the other hand, Laura has changed from adversary to a staunch supporter where Imogen’s concerned. Alibi or no alibi, I don’t want Imogen Kennedy ruled out. Alice, can you please check out everything you can find on her, any visits to the UK in the last couple of years, in fact
all
trips and we can see if these tie in with Hugo in any way.’
Tom looked around the room.
‘Okay. Moving on. Do we have any news on Danika Bojin, the missing girl?’
‘No boss, we’ve not found any sign of her at all. We went round to see the family she was living with - the Gregsons - and they’ve not heard from her. They said she’s a delightful girl, and ever so grateful to Sir Hugo. She’s been with them two years, since she was just sixteen. They can’t see any way that she could have been mixed up in this.’
‘Did they have anything useful to add?’ Tom asked.
‘They did say that quite a lot of the girls disappear again. The gangs track the girls down and grab them again - having already been paid in full, of course. In an attempt to prevent this from happening, once the girls have been re-housed they’re not supposed to keep in touch with each other. The theory is that by keeping them apart their trail goes cold, and it helps to integrate them into the lives of the families - who aren’t supposed to know about each other either. It’s all to do with safety and security, apparently. Gregson says he’s not entirely sure of the logic of this, and some of the charity workers agree with him. But Sir Hugo is adamant, and he who pays the piper…
‘Anyway, according to Peter Gregson, Danika broke that rule. When she first came to them a couple of years ago, she kept in touch with two girls…’ Ajay consulted his notes ‘Mirela Tinescy and Alina Cozma. The girls agreed that they wouldn’t tell each other where they were living - but they met up every month for an hour. Peter found out about it because Alina Cozma went missing within the first six months, and Danika asked for his help.’
First this girl Alina goes missing, and now Danika Bojin. Tom knew that Jessica had been quite dismissive of some of the girls for throwing away their chance of a new life, but these two didn’t seem to fit that bill at all. He jotted the names down in his notebook, with an approximation of the spelling.
‘Why was Danika concerned?’
‘Alina had missed two of their meetings, and whilst they couldn’t contact her, they were sure she would have let them know if she’d been moved. I think they’d watched one too many James Bond movies, because they’d set up a ‘dead drop’.’ Ajay grinned.
‘They agreed that if anything changed they would write a note and stick it to the base of a waste bin in Green Park - near where they met. There was nothing. Of course, the note could have dropped off, but Danika was really worried. She hadn’t seen her friend for nearly three months so she decided to approach the charity. She went to Egerton Crescent and her friend Mirela Tinescy went with her. They spoke to Jessica Armstrong to ask her if she knew what had happened to Alina. Jessica either couldn’t or wouldn’t help them. She just shouted at them for breaking the rules - said they’d be in serious trouble. Hugo wasn’t there.’
Ajay now had everybody’s full attention. Nobody in the room moved as he continued.
‘Danika decided she didn’t care whether she got into trouble. All she cared about was her friend. So a couple of days later, she decided to try to find Hugo at his home in Oxfordshire. Mirela wasn’t quite brave enough to go with her, so Danika went alone. After all her trouble, Hugo wasn’t there. She told Lady Fletcher all about it, and according to Danika she was very sympathetic and helpful. She said she was going to follow it up. But she only heard from Laura once, a couple of weeks later. Danika was really disappointed - but of course it wasn’t long after this that Laura was sent back to the care home. It would have been just before Christmas - a couple of years ago.’
Tom was momentarily stunned. If Laura had met Danika, why had she said nothing yesterday when they listened to the message? She’d seemed disinterested, and she’d actually said she knew nothing about the girls. Why would she lie?
‘How do we know all this, Ajay, if Danika is still missing?’ Tom asked.
‘She told Peter Gregson the whole story, because she felt she’d broken his trust. He’s pretty sure that since then she has stuck to the rules. That is, until she went missing on Wednesday.’
Tom was still bewildered by Laura’s lack of response. Then a thought struck him. He had assumed that Laura had been upset by Annabel’s message, but maybe he had misread her completely. Maybe it was the news that Danika was missing. Although it was two years since they’d met, he couldn’t believe Laura would have failed to recognise Danika’s name.
‘Have we checked up on this…’ Tom consulted his notes ‘Alina Cozma with Jessica Armstrong? Becky says she’s responsible for following up any missing girls.’
‘No. We’re going back to talk to her when the office opens this morning. We’ll try to find out whether anything did happen to Alina, or whether she just did a runner. We need to talk to the other girl, Mirela Tinescy, as well, to see if she can throw any light on where Danika might be.’
‘Right. And get details of any girls that have gone missing in, say, the last twelve months. Any of them might be a suspect. See what you can get. Now, what else? Anything on the bodyguards?’
The room had been gradually filling with people, and Tom noticed that the DCS had arrived and was sitting listening at the back of the room. Alice raised her hand a bit more cautiously this time. She looked over her shoulder at the now full room of people, and Tom reflected that she looked way too timid to be a policeman. She was undoubtedly bright, which was just what he needed, but her cheeks went slightly pink as she started to speak.
‘Yes, boss. I spoke to the company that normally looks after Sir Hugo yesterday. They said that this weekend he had specifically stood them down. He said he had private business to attend to, and wasn’t attending any functions. They backed up what Lady Fletcher said - he tended to use them primarily when he needed to go to a public event, and there had never been a hint of any trouble so they didn’t understand why he bothered.’
‘Did you ask them if, in their experience, Hugo had a mistress or if other women accompanied him anywhere?’
‘Yes, we asked the question. But all of their guys - and there were about three different ones who were generally assigned to him - said that there had never been a hint of another woman.’
Tom stuck his hands in his pockets. That was a bloody useless dead end, then.
‘Okay. Anything on the wigs?’ he asked, without much hope.
One of the older, but most popular detective constables stood up.
‘Not much we could do yesterday, because everywhere was closed, but we’re back onto it today. There is one other thing though, boss. I did a bit of digging to find out what was supposed to be wrong with Lady Fletcher. Although the doctors won’t confirm anything, when that picture of her was published people started trying to rake up whatever dirt they could, no doubt paying for information. The story was that she had Delusional Disorder, and that ties in with what her mother told Becky. At least, that’s what it was when she went in the second time. I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, and for the thicko audience here, I’ve simplified it down to a couple of sentences.’ The policeman referred to a printout in his hand. He coughed theatrically.
‘
Delusional disorder involves the person holding one or more non-bizarre delusions. They can be quite functional, and don’t show odd or bizarre behaviour except as a direct result of their delusional belief.
‘
Apart from a few jeers in response to the ‘thicko’ comment, the much-reduced definition was met with silence. Only Tom had a question.
‘What would be termed a non-bizarre delusion?’
‘I believe it’s when the delusion is actually plausible, even though patently untrue. A bizarre delusion would be if I believed that every person in this room actually had a blue face, or that the Martians have invaded my living room. A non-bizarre delusion would be believing that every time I walk out of a room, everybody laughs at me, or if I believe that my wife is having an affair with the milkman, even when evidence proves conclusively that said milkman is gay. The person who is delusional believes him or herself to be one hundred per cent correct, and can’t be reasoned with.’