Dead of Winter Tr (12 page)

He looked across at her. ‘I had a call to say that some of the forensic results for Fi are back, Doctor Harding. They’ve been emailed to you.’ Mathew didn’t mind working
late. He was softly spoken, soft-mannered. Mathew had had many women in his life. They trusted him. He was their friend and he was quietly confident and knew when to wait and when to listen.
Someone like Harding made a welcome change for him. He knew if they continued working late into the night they would have many more nights together. Harding had more energy and enthusiasm than any
woman Mathew had ever slept with. She was physical with him. She was angry inside. He would learn a lot from her. He knew he had to enjoy it while it lasted. When she tired of him there would be a
new posting for him and a new diener for her.

She walked back to her desk and checked her emails. She printed the results and snatched them up in one hand, car keys in the other. She turned to Mathew:

‘You don’t have to stay.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll hang around.’

‘Please yourself.’

Harding went out to the consultants’ car park and pressed the key fob on her red Audi TT. She drove the short distance over to Fletcher House to take the news to Davidson.

As Carter passed Harding on her way out of Davidson’s office she had a smile on her face that was a mixture of smug and satisfied. He wondered whether he’d find Davidson with his
pants round his ankles or hanging from the ceiling . . . he wondered which scenario would do it for Harding. Carter definitely did nothing for her. She either liked boys wet behind the ears and
half her age like Mathew her diener or she liked men with power and position: men with a lot to lose, like Davidson. Carter was grateful he was neither. He had enough troubles in his private life.
He’d been faithful to Cabrina . . . not an easy thing for him. The thought of moving on, starting again, wasn’t easy either.

He knocked and Davidson called for him to come in. Davidson looked fired up. He was almost smiling. He motioned for them to take a seat and then he handed Carter a file across the desk. Clipped
to the front page was a mug shot of a man with designer stubble over a less than handsome face.

‘This is the father of our dead baby . . . His name is Sonny Ferguson. Father was an old East End villain, name of Dexter.’

‘Yeah . . . I recognize him. His dad was still around up until a few years ago.’

‘Yes. Dexter ruled Soho for twenty years. When Dexter got killed Sonny took over but he isn’t the man his father was, thank God. He hasn’t the brains. Bit by bit he’s
lost Dexter’s hold on the drug empire. Now he concentrates on people-trafficking.’

Davidson waited a few minutes for Carter to finish reading the front page of the file then he pushed another photo across to him. It was a shot of Sonny talking to a slighter, older man outside
a club.

‘His DNA is on file because he was accused of raping a seventeen-year-old at the beginning of his career. It went to trial but the girl dropped the charges at the last minute. This photo
was taken in the last year. It was a surveillance operation by MIT 10 into the use of trafficked women in clip joints in Soho. This is outside Digger Cain’s club on Brewer Street. Digger has
a warren of clip joints going in Soho. As soon as we shut one down another three spring up. He was caught on camera then. The Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to
bring a conviction. Digger tidied up his act, on the surface. We know Sonny was providing Digger with trafficked girls as escorts and we believe he still is. Word is Sonny and Digger together
provide the UK clip joints with their girls from the Eastern bloc.’

‘It would fit for Silvia if she was trafficked, raped,’ said Carter. ‘But Sonny’s twenty-eight; he’s too young to have been around when the Carmichael murders
happened. Plus . . . he doesn’t fit the type we are looking for – Chichester.’

‘He may not be Chichester.’ replied Davidson.‘But he has questions to answer, not least how the mother of his child came to be buried under the patio.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘In the last year Sonny has been narrowing down his enterprise; mainly because he’s being squeezed hard by the new gangs. Some of them have taken over the clubs north of London. We
know he still has business with Digger though; he goes in there most evenings.

‘Is the surveillance cell still in operation? Do we have an undercover officer available, sir?’

‘No. But maybe we can still use the building opposite. Find out.’ Davidson reclaimed the photos on his desk, placed them together. ‘And find Sonny.’

Carmichael watched Ebony drive away down the lane. He watched the red dot of her car follow the undulations of the land until it disappeared from sight. Then he took out his
phone and looked at the screen as he waited for it to respond.

Ebony pulled over to reset her sat nav to get back to the station. As she did so her phone lit up in her bag. Carmichael looked at his screen. It was asking him for an instruction. Did he want
to test the program?
Yes he did.
Did he want to turn on the microphone?
Yes he did.
He put the phone to his ear and listened. He heard Ebony talk to herself as she read out the
instructions for getting to the airport and keyed them into the sat nav
.

Carmichael pressed ‘finish’ on the screen and he turned away from watching the lane. He took a deep breath of the cold fresh air and briefly closed his eyes to the low winter sun.
Then he headed up over the gate to the paddock and walked up towards the top of the hill, from where he could see for miles. Rosie followed him up there. He sat on the trunk of a fallen tree that
he planned to clear away in the spring and Rosie jumped up beside him. This was his favourite place on the farm. From here he could see across the magnificent Dales. Here he could lift his face to
the sky and know that there was nothing between him and the clouds above. On the starry summer nights, when the heat and the memories would not let him sleep, he’d sat out there alone on his
hilltop many times. Thirteen summers, thirteen springs, and now, on this winter’s day, he knew what it had all been for. He knew where he belonged. He said farewell to his farm.

He walked back inside his house, through to the sitting room and his gun cupboard. He took out his Steyr Scout rifle, laid everything on the kitchen table and took out his cleaning kit.
Spreading the lubricating oil on a cloth, he worked it into the metal. He cleaned the barrel with rod and cloth. Afterwards he went upstairs to his bedroom and pulled down the gun bag from the top
of his wardrobe. Inside it was a fleecy moisture-proof lining. He brought it back down to the kitchen and packed the rifle inside along with his hunting knife and some basic medical supplies. When
he’d finished he went into the sitting room and sat at his writing desk, took out the key from its hiding place in the false bottom on the tankard and unlocked the drawer. Inside was a
journal: a woman’s diary. ‘Louise Carmichael’ was written on the front. He didn’t open it. He knew what was written in it. He kept is as a reminder that he had betrayed her.
It was still splattered with her blood.

By three in the afternoon Ebony was back at her desk in Fletcher House, with Jeanie working across from her. Carter had swapped his desk and now he sat back to back with her in
the ETO. He swivelled his chair around to talk to her.

‘Did you know that Carmichael speaks Spanish, Ebb?’ Ebony didn’t even ask what had prompted his question. She had become used to the way Carter’s brain worked by now. He
liked to think and talk at the same time, throw the ideas out in the air and see what they sounded like; his thoughts didn’t always follow one another. ‘Why did he move his daughter
– do you know?’

‘He said he didn’t see it as a crime scene, more personal. He admits he lost control: broke down. But he didn’t move the other women. He also admits the affair, a short-lived
thing, and puts it down to being self-destructive.’

Robbo came into the ETO and walked across. ‘You survived a night in the wild then, Ebb?’ He pulled up a chair between Ebony and Carter. ‘Why didn’t he show up that night,
Ebb? What did he say?’

‘He got drunk . . . alone.’

‘Well . . .’ Robbo chipped in. ‘The killers can’t have known he wouldn’t turn up . . . so Louise and Sophie were never meant to be the target: they were never meant
to be there. Chrissie was. She rented the cottage. She chose her guests. What did he say about Chrissie?’

‘He said he didn’t know her well. She was his wife’s friend. She was a very private person, nervous around men. They were never in a position where she would think of opening
up.’

‘He said that, did he? That’s not what I heard,’ said Robbo. ‘I heard Louise and Chrissie became friends via Carmichael. Chrissie was someone he met when he was in the
SBS. She was called out to an emergency and they met then, kept in touch. Maybe her father James Martingale will know. Although I doubt it. I don’t think Chrissie Newton got on with her
dad.’

Ebony was thinking things through; she had that horrible feeling that she’d been lied to.

Robbo enlarged a photo on the PC screen.

‘How would you like to look like that at sixty-eight? This is James Martingale.’

‘Very Pierce Brosnan,’ said Carter.

Robbo scrolled down the screen:

‘I’ve been finding out about him. He donates huge amounts to research facilities in universities around the UK. He’s a very wealthy man. I’ve found pages and pages on
Google; none of which says anything personal. I haven’t come across any angry clients or court cases but, I did see an interesting guest list for the last annual dinner party for the top
brass of Martingale’s Mansfield Group. Guess who was on the top table?’

Carter shook his head.

Robbo’s eyes opened wide behind his wire-rimmed glasses. He mouthed, ‘Davidson.’

‘Shit. You’re joking.’

Robbo shook his head, grinning. ‘I would say he’s been offered a very lucrative deal to sit on the board when he retires. Any trouble, he’s going to be able to sort it with his
old pals he’s made over the years in the Force. When it comes to licensing or planning permission, for instance. If you’re an ex-chief superintendent in the MET people are going to
listen to you.’

‘No shit . . .’

‘He’s not the only one that Martingale is courting. Harding has received quite a bit over the years from Martingale and the Chrissie Newton Foundation.’ Robbo brought up a
Google search.
Top surgeon donates new dialysis machine to NHS hospital.
‘He gives a lot of laboratory equipment to Doctor Harding and her Pathology unit.’

‘No wonder Davidson’s not so keen on reopening the case . . . embarrassing to haul your prospective boss over the coals,’ said Carter. ‘But what’s happening about
the surveillance on Digger’s club . . . any news about Sonny?’

‘We’re hoping to move cameras into the flat opposite: it’ll take two days to get permission and set up. We should have a good chance of finding Sonny. I’ve managed to get
quite a lot of info on him from various UCs working on drugs seizures in the last two years. He has a big coke habit. Sonny’s a party animal. He does the circuit of all the clubs almost every
night. Sometimes see him with a woman . . . different one every time.’

‘What about in his organization?’

Robbo shook his head. ‘He works alone at this end but he relies on a network of agents and couriers and sub-lieutenants around here and Eastern Europe. He finds a safe house to bring the
girls in, stays in it for a few months, then finds somewhere else.’ Robbo handed round photos of Sonny taken from surveillance cameras and CCTV footage. His black leather jacket and broad
shoulders were recognizable in most of the photos. ‘He’s a big fish in a small pond: a creature of habit. Sonny goes to see Digger most evenings as he makes his rounds of the dealers
and the lap dancing clubs. Over the years he’s built up a close relationship with Digger. Plus Digger was a great pal of Sonny’s father.’

‘Maybe there’s a father-son relationship going on there?’ said Jeanie.

‘Maybe, but I doubt either of them goes so far as to actually feel affection. Both of them have been linked to violent crimes in the past. Here’s a picture of Digger.’

Robbo gave them a photo of a slim, dark-haired man in his sixties coming out of Cain’s.

‘Smart-looking guy.’ said Carter, ‘he’s got the same look as Martingale.’

‘Yeah, definitely. In his early days Digger could have given Tony Curtis a run for his money in the looks department – now he’s more of an ageing Dirk Bogarde. An immaculate
dresser. His suits are made in Savile Row; his shoes handmade in Italy. Digger has pretensions of being a tumble-down-toff but it had never been proven. His mother was a colourful figure in Soho.
She ran one of the first high-class call girl rings. She supplied London’s rich and famous with girls. She made enough money to send Digger to private school and he went on to Oxford to study
English, but he came back to his roots in the end.’

‘What’s his sexuality?’ asked Jeanie.

‘Digger likes slim nubile boys.’ He placed another photo on the desk. It was one of Sonny and Digger together walking towards Sonny’s car on Brewer Street.

‘Digger keeps Sonny in business. Digger says he doesn’t take trafficked girls any more but he’s lying. He doesn’t put them on show any more, but he has escort agencies
and brothels that spring up all over the place. Sources say that Sonny just gets the girls then unloads them and gets another lot. Digger does the rest. He puts them to work.’

‘And,’ said Carter, ‘Sonny’s also been responsible for breaking the girls when they get here: it’s a good explanation why Silvia was carrying his child. Do you have
an address for him, Robbo?’

‘Yes . . . Lives with his mum in Southwark. At least, he gives that address.’

‘Is Martingale here in the UK?’ Carter pressed for a print out of the photo of Martingale. ’

‘Yes, he is at the moment. He’s working out of his hospital, the Mansfield, in Hammersmith.’

‘Well, while we wait for the surveillance on Sonny to be organized, we’ll pay Martingale a visit – see if he can tell us any more about his daughter.’