A Narrow Trajectory Read online

  ‘Oh. She was another prostitute then, guv,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll find a lot of female MisPer cases fall in that category,’ Jimmy said. ‘For obvious reasons. Most are drug addicts, all are vulnerable to attack, and when they’ve been in that life for some time, they’re almost estranged from friends and family. They lose their support network. So if their bodies do show up, they often lay unclaimed in morgues.’

  Wendy sucked in a breath. ‘That’s harsh. And it’s not fair, either, what you said about pretty women being more memorable. It shouldn’t matter,’ she insisted.

  Hillary sighed heavily, and felt about a hundred years old. Had she ever been that young and idealistic? If so, she could no longer remember it.

  ‘Nobody said it was fair,’ she said flatly.

  When Jake came back an hour later, he found them all hard at work.

  Hillary told him to help Wendy, who was busy sorting through the bulk of the other MisPer cases that they were going to review, and gave him a long, hard look, just daring him to make a fuss about it. It was grunt work plain and simple, demanding painstaking patience and hours spent on the phone and on the computer, checking and re-checking facts. She knew he must suspect that she was probably in the very process of reviewing his sister’s case, and feel desperate to be included.

  But Steven and Rollo would have hammered it into him now, though, and that he wasn’t going to be allowed anywhere near it. And that his main job was to do everything that he could to help Steven and his new team hook Darren Chivnor so thoroughly that he would never be able to wriggle free.

  Without a word, Jake went over to Wendy and accepted the pile of folders that she gleefully thrust into his hand. Then he returned to his own half of the desk and began reading.

  But for all his silence, he was, in truth, not feeling particularly unhappy. After all, he’d got what he wanted – sort of – in that Hillary Greene and the CRT team were now going to start looking actively for Jas. And whilst, naturally, he so very much wanted to be a part of that, since working here he was becoming enough of a realist to know and accept that that simply wasn’t going to happen.

  He was feeling excited about getting in contact with Darren Chivnor again. After all, it was more than possible that Chivnor might be able to lead him to Jas, or to Jas’s body, faster than Hillary Greene’s more painstaking investigation.

  At least things were progressing. When he’d come to work that morning, he’d had no idea that so much could change for the better, and so fast. And Steven had given him permission to warn his mum and Curtis that Hillary Greene would be calling on them soon to interview them, so at least they’d have the comfort of knowing that something was finally being done.

  And yet, at the back of his mind, a dark realization was slowly taking shape – sometime soon, he might actually have to face the fact, once and for all, that his little sister was dead.

  Over at her desk, Hillary Greene was, in fact, not reviewing Jasmine Sudbury’s case at all, but the other case that she and Donleavy had selected.

  Lydia Clare Allen had been twenty-nine when she’d disappeared in the winter of 2014. Strictly speaking, this case wasn’t particularly cold, but neither was it being actively investigated, either, so nobody was going to cry foul. A local girl, she’d lived in the town of Wantage all her life before leaving home at the age of sixteen to share a place with three other girls in Oxford. Like their other cases, she had quickly spiralled down the usual route of drink, drugs, and finally prostitution. Photographs of her were few and far between, but one blurry shot of her taken at a party when she was nineteen or so, revealed that she had been about five feet ten inches tall, with long – almost certainly dyed – blonde hair and big pansy brown eyes.

  Her mother had reported her missing when she had failed to return home for the Christmas holidays. From the case files, it was clear the officers who’d taken the original complaint had quickly concluded that she’d either fallen foul of one of her Johns, or had just legged it for sunnier climes with a sugar daddy.

  Hillary hoped that was the case. But Dale Medcalfe wasn’t well known for taking it kindly when one of his girls tried to leave his control, thereby trying to rob him of his immoral earnings; the likelihood that they’d track Lydia down to some Greek island, enjoying her happily-ever-after, seemed somewhat remote.

  She sighed, and glanced at her watch. Already the day had got away from her.

  ‘All right everybody, it’s nearly five. Get off home, and we’ll start fresh tomorrow.’

  Wendy needed no second bidding and was off like a shot, but Jake looked as if he might want to linger and make another plea to be included in his sister’s case. After one look at Hillary’s set face, however, he too collected his jacket and tablet, and left quietly.

  When the youngsters had gone, Jimmy looked across at Hillary and sighed.

  ‘So what are they going to do about Chivnor, guv?’

  Hillary quickly filled him in on the finer details of what had been decided. When she’d finished, it was clear that Jimmy too had his doubts that Jake was up to the task of running someone like Darren. It wasn’t as if Chivnor had earned his reputation as a knife-man by whittling images of Pudsey the bear.

  ‘I know. Steven’s not happy about it, either,’ Hillary confided. ‘But since the idiot’s already on Darren’s radar now, we don’t really have much choice but to go with it.’

  ‘You’ll be in on it though, guv? When Jake and Chivnor meet up, I mean,’ he asked uneasily.

  Hillary smiled across at the old man wryly. ‘You know me, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘Every time those two meet, I’m going to be right there, watching and listening.’

  Jimmy gave a short grunt of laughter. ‘Does the guv – I mean, Steven, not the new man – know that?’

  ‘If he doesn’t, then he really hasn’t been paying attention all these years, has he?’ Hillary said.

  And this time, Jimmy Jessop laughed until his back started to hurt all over again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  That evening Darren Chivnor sat slumped in his favourite chair ostensibly watching the football on telly, but more often than not watching his girlfriend Lisa as she sat on the sofa and painted her toenails.

  The sight made him happy.

  Lisa was a pretty, blonde-haired, blue-eyed babe, and he’d always known he was lucky to catch her eye. They’d both grown up in the Leys, both attended the same squalid, useless comprehensive, both came from broken, working-class homes. But still, he’d always felt Lisa was a cut above the rest and way out of his league.

  Perhaps because she worked part time at a beauty salon and always looked like a million dollars. Perhaps it was just the way she’d always tried to dress well. She might not have been able to afford designer labels, but she’d always had style. Real class, not like some of the skanks he knew.

  He shifted slightly in his chair and sighed slightly. He knew that he himself was no oil painting – a shaved head, a few tats. He was in good physical shape, true, but even so, he always felt that she could have done better. That was why he’d worked so damned hard to give her everything she’d never had.

  Growing up where he had, he’d always been aware of Dale Medcalfe and his gang – there was no getting away from them. And his mum had always warned him off them, telling him to stay away from them and go straight. His dad probably would have said the same, had he hung around long enough to bother. He hadn’t, though, and as the oldest, Darren had always felt the responsibility of looking after his mum and younger brothers weighing heavily on him. And much as he wanted to please her, and do well at school and get a job, and all that stuff that she wanted for him, he’d always known deep down inside that it was never going to happen. At a very young age, Darren had come to grips with reality on the estate.

  The teachers at the school had been so dispirited by the grinding inevitability of it, they were often out sick. And if not absent, they were dead scared of the older pupils, who came to school carryi
ng knives and razors. So what chance had he got of getting enough of an education to get through exams and try for uni? Bloody none. Not that he’d had the brains for all that stuff anyway. And even if he had, and got a degree, everyone knew that nowadays that was no guarantee of getting a good job. You saw people with fancy diplomas serving you Big Macs at the local McDonald’s every day.

  Nah, he’d long since realized that that particular game was for losers. So when, at the age of just eleven, he’d been approached by one of Medcalfe’s lower-rankers to do a spot of running and fetching for him, he’d jumped at the chance. And simply hadn’t told his mum. Not that she noticed – she was too busy being worn out working three jobs and trying to placate the truant officers, who were always coming round.

  And from those humble beginnings, Darren had tirelessly worked his way up the ranks. He’d even joined the local gym, where they were giving out free martial arts classes in an effort to keep the city’s disaffected youth off the streets. And in the alleyways behind the public-funded sports centre, he’d been given lessons of other kinds, by different kinds of masters – lessons in how to use a knife, baseball bat, and other sundry items.

  And the pay in Medcalfe’s outfit was good. Very good. Before long, and as he took on more and riskier higher-level responsibilities, he managed to save enough for a deposit and a mortgage on a former council house just outside the Leys, for his mum and brothers.

  Of course, by that time she knew, or suspected, what he was up to, but had become too worn out by life to object.

  And it was around then that he’d reconnected with Lisa. At school she’d gone out with the school ‘stars’, such as they’d been. A kid slumming it from one of the outer burbs that every­one knew would go on to work in his dad’s estate agents in Summertown. And, ironically enough, a younger brother of another of Dale Medcalfe’s gang, whom everyone expected would go on to uni and the chance of a fabled ‘good, steady job’.

  Back then, of course, he’d never have dared to ask her out, fearing the inevitable rebuff and the taunting from his mates that was bound to follow. But after leaving school at sixteen, just three short years had seen his circumstances change dramatically. Not only that, but Lisa’s dad had died, and her mum had hit the skids. The landlord had tossed them out of their home and Lisa had taken to sleeping on friends’ sofas or floors, forced to shift from one crash pad to another.

  And it was only then that Darren had decided to risk making his move.

  He had been only a mid-level man in Medcalfe’s outfit then. And all he could offer her was the sofa at his mum’s new house. She’d been glad to take the offer, though. And, after a little while, had been glad to take all his other offers as well. Because by then she’d had the chance to see how things could be for them, and Lisa had always been a bright girl.

  Darren was coming to the big man’s attention more and more, and was making a bit of a name for himself. He was streetwise, brutal, and hard-working, and his star was definitely on the ascendant. He was fast becoming just the kind of trustworthy lieutenant Dale was famous for looking out for, which meant that it could only be a matter of time before he started earning serious money.

  And so it had turned out. Since then he’d bought a second place outright – a nice flat in a converted Victorian house in Botley. He had a view of some trees and everything. They had satellite telly, a good car, went on holidays abroad.

  And Lisa had flourished. With money to spend, she got classier and classier. No kidding, he reckoned she could be a model or something. They’d been together for five years now, and were even starting to think about having kids of their own.

  And therein, lay the rub. Things were going to change soon, and although this life was great for a young guy on his own, as a family man … forget it.

  He looked outside as a gust of wind-driven rain pounded on the windows and sighed heavily. He was getting heartily sick of grey, cold, broken England. They should be abroad somewhere now – in the Caribbean sun maybe, for a winter break. Or even, long term, further afield. Australia maybe? Why not? He certainly didn’t want to be stuck here in bloody Oxford, forever at the beck and call of someone like Dale. The thought made him squirm even more. Such thoughts, he well knew, were dangerous. Dale didn’t tolerate dissatisfaction in the ranks.

  He wasn’t quite sure when he first started thinking such thoughts. For a long time, he’d been contented enough – running Dale’s girls, transporting the overseas merchandise, slapping back in line anyone daft enough to try to skim the profits, or grass to the coppers. And he’d always been careful, and unlike a lot of Dale’s firm, had never been nabbed or spent a day of time inside. He knew Dale liked that about him. Dale was a careful man himself. Very careful. He now had more millions than the taxman believed, and led a life of insulated ease in his mansion in Headington.

  It was the sort of life that Darren envied and coveted for himself – or, at least, a lesser version of it. He wasn’t greedy. Just enough to get out of this life and set himself and Lisa up somewhere nice would do him well.

  This was why he’d been so intrigued and tempted by Jake Barnes’s offer.

  The man had appeared on the horizon quite unexpectedly and offered him just what he craved most. Money; a way out; the promise of finally making all his dreams come true. And he could still hardly believe it. He was still, in fact, half-inclined to wonder if it was all some sort of trap. Dale’s trap perhaps – setting him up, testing his loyalties. Or, far more likely, a copper’s trap.

  Over on the sofa, Lisa shifted around and started to paint the nails on her other foot. Occasionally she’d hum softly under her breath, the latest pop tune, or a golden oldie. He wondered what she’d say if he told her that a total stranger had handed over twenty grand in cash, along with a slew of first-class forged documents for both of them. Because that alone would provide enough spending money for a month or so.

  But that wouldn’t be nearly enough, of course – as that millionaire bastard Barnes well knew. They’d need more. Proper seed money to set up some kind of business – holiday lets, a bar, something like that. But then, Jake Barnes had even promised that as well.

  And Darren was tempted. Extremely tempted.

  The trouble was he still didn’t know what it was that Barnes wanted in return for all this bounty. And the last time they’d met to discuss just that, things had gone badly pear-shaped, and he’d probably scared him off forever.

  Or maybe not. Maybe he should just stop poncing about and call him? Set up another meeting. Explain what had gone wrong. Because the bloke definitely wanted something from him all right – Darren could almost smell the need and desperation on the man.

  And Darren had had the chance to do his homework on Barnes now – the internet truly was a wonderful thing. Like himself, Barnes had grown up in a working-class family, and on a large housing estate. But unlike Darren he’d had brains, and luck on his side. He’d made his fortune young, something to do with IT, and then bought up tons of real estate when the bottom fell out of the market.

  And now he worked as a civilian at Thames Valley Police HQ.

  Just the thought of that made him go cold all over. It didn’t even matter that he wasn’t a real copper, because if Dale ever found out they’d been in contact … well, that would be it. The very least he could expect would be a severe beating, with major hospital time afterwards. And a demotion right back down to scut work. And that was only if he was lucky, and Dale was feeling in a generous mood. Because if he weren’t – well, his mum would just have to arrange a funeral for one of her sons.

  And Lisa would look really beautiful in black.

  He gave a brief snort at his own bleak humour and when he sensed Lisa look up at him, pretended to be sneering at the antics of the Arsenal team on the telly.

  But he continued to think.

  On the plus side, Jake Barnes had been up-front right from the start about where he worked. He’d shown good faith by turning up at their meeting with the
documents and the money. And after having tried to chase him across the dark, Oxford park, he was confident that Barnes had been at the meeting alone.

  But best of all, Barnes had sworn that he didn’t want Darren to grass Dale up and that this had nothing to do with his day job. Of course, he could have been lying, but Darren didn’t think so. And for sure, coppers didn’t use civilians in undercover work – the media and insurance people would have hissy fits if they did, and got killed or injured because of it.

  Besides, Darren had always been a good judge of character – it was one of the reasons he’d risen so fast in Medcalfe’s organization. If people owed Dale money, Darren was good at sorting out the bullshit from the truth. And reading someone, with an eye to seeing just where to apply the right pressure, had become second nature to him.

  It was the same with the girls. He knew which ones were trying to hold out on them, or pull a stunt, and which ones were genuinely in trouble or failing. And, likewise, how to deal with both situations.

  No, over the years, he’d developed a good nose for scenting trouble – picking up on the slightly off; the dodgy; the dangerous. And he’d got none of those vibes from any of his encounters with Jake Barnes.

  In truth, the millionaire whizz kid intrigued him. He was obviously out of his element, and scared witless by what he was doing, but he’d gone through with it anyway. But just what the hell did the guy want? What was so important to him that he was willing to be so generous with the incentives? And if the twenty grand and the documents were just the sweetener, what might the true pay-off be like?

  Darren could feel his chest go so tight it was hard to breathe, and his mouth all but watered at the thought of it. He could almost feel the prize in his hand: leaving Oxford for a new life in the sun somewhere with Lisa. It was only something he’d agree to if it didn’t involve crossing Dale – because, for sure, his mum and brothers wouldn’t be safe if he did. Even if he and Lisa got away, he knew Dale would take it out on his family.