Buried Dreams, page 25
‘Who’s they? I’m guessing Eddie Checkley doesn’t spend all day hanging around threatening kids?’
Lily wiped a hand across her nose. ‘I’ve been told that they’ve got people watching us everywhere, making sure that everyone keeps in line. Even in the police…’
Billie gave a little groan. She’d had dealings with corrupt officers in the past, so knew that it was a possibility. ‘So Maya was going to spill the beans about the orphanage scam?’ Billie wanted to clarify.
‘Yeah, she thought she could save all the kids and make her dad proud, with him having been a crack serious crime investigator and all that…’
Ellis looked like he’d been slapped in the face. He wiped his hand across his eyes. Was that a tear that Billie had spotted about to spill out?
‘Yeah, well I’m not doing such a good job of that right now, am I? Can’t even save my own girls.’ He sighed.
Billie loosened her grip on Lily a little. She could feel the fear pulsating through her shaking body, her earlier smart girl posturing forgotten now.
‘Will my dad be all right?’ Lily’s face crumpled up. ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened–’
‘So please, tell us absolutely everything you know,’ Billie pleaded. ‘Do you have any photos of this Mitch, for example? You might not know him, but he may actually live locally if the gang have that much info on you. Maybe someone can pinpoint a young man who has travelled abroad twice in the last week.’
Lily paused, before finally answering through a sigh, ‘I’ve got a photo of him on my mobile.’ Billie released her arms and let Lily delve in her pocket for her phone. She held it up. It was a photo of Lily on one side and Maya on the other, with a young man in the middle. All were posing with wide smiles outside of the Romanian orphanage.
‘But that’s Smokey Boy Patel,’ Ellis gasped, looking around in the mad hope that the young man was actually skulking in a dark shadow.
‘They made him do it,’ Lily whispered.
‘Mitch Patel, that’s his real name,’ Teddy confirmed. ‘Smokey Boy is his nickname.’
‘Where is his gaff?’ Ellis cut in, just as a loud smash rang out along with a hail of glass from one of the large windows in the smoking room. Billie caught a quick glimpse of Smokey Boy’s face, looking desperate. A bottle seemingly stuffed with a rag, landed smack in the middle of one of the little oak-smoking fires before bursting into a ball of flames, tracking with breathtaking speed across the room as one little fire merged into the next and surged upwards. A wall of flame had blocked off the open exit route within a matter of seconds.
‘Run!’ Billie pulled Lily behind her as she raced into the office, hoping for an escape route through the window.
‘It’s got bars on it!’ Teddy shouted as the fireball roared across the ground almost to the open door, in a plume of dark smoke and the overwhelming smell of now burning kippers. Billie turned, spotting a fire extinguisher on the office wall. She yanked it off and aimed it at the flames licking the door frame as Ellis grabbed Lily and pulled her out of the office. The fire had already reached the ceiling and was tracking across the smoking room towards them at an incredible pace.
‘There’s a window in the back room,’ Teddy shouted as Billie gave up with the fire extinguisher and followed them as fast as she could, the heat already almost unbearable. Thick smoke was already coming into the packaging room, but Ellis had hold of Lily’s wrist, attempting to pull her behind him as he clambered up the crates and cardboard boxes. She suddenly dropped, seemingly losing consciousness. Teddy was almost through the window, coughing and spluttering but he turned and hung back, reaching out his arm in an attempt to help. It was too late. Billie caught Lily in her arms as Ellis lost his grip and the teenager tumbled back through the boxes, taking Billie down with her.
There was a loud bang as the fire devoured some combustible materials possibly in the cupboard Billie had noticed in the corridor. The effect was that the fire burst into the storeroom, shooting along to the boxes which caught alight immediately.
‘Billie!’ Ellis yelled. Billie, coughing, had no time to respond as she dragged Lily across the room.
‘Go! I’ll get them.’ Billie suddenly heard Smokey Boy shout, as he scrambled back through the window and jumped to the floor. He raced across to Billie, picking up Lily by the ankles, whilst Billie lifted her under her arms.
‘There’s an old coal access door over in the corner, behind those crates,’ he shouted over the roar of the fire and between hacking coughs. Billie kicked the crates away and spotted what Smokey Boy was directing her to – a tiny door in the wall. Billie was gasping for breath. She hoped that they could get Lily through it. Suddenly the door was kicked open from outside. The fire behind roared up in response, as Teddy’s face appeared in the opening.
‘We’re over here, give her to us,’ he shouted, as Billie and Smokey Boy struggled with the lack of oxygen and weight of Lily’s body. Ellis now came into view, having flung himself down on the ground outside next to Teddy. Within seconds they were in grabbing distance. The two of them seized hold of Lily, yanking her out through the desperately small space, like men involved in a tug of war. As her legs finally disappeared, Billie waved Smokey Boy forward.
‘Go,’ she cried, almost choking with the fumes and smell of burning fish. Smokey Boy sat back on his knees, sweat dripping from his brow. He shook his head, struggling for air.
‘No. Get out. I’m staying. I don’t know what I was doing. I didn’t mean for that to happen, I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to protect my family.’ He held his head in horror. Billie lunged for his arm.
‘It’s not your fault, you’ve been coerced, we can explain it all, you can give us more facts!’ She jumped back as the cardboard boxes erupted into a huge bonfire. Billie felt as though her lungs would burst. ‘Let’s go.’ Billie took a step forward, but Smokey Boy, sobbing now, scuttled back out of reach.
‘No. I couldn’t live with the shame. I can’t put my family through that. I love my family…’ He turned and stood upright, staggering towards the flames, when a beam along which the fire had been licking suddenly caught fully alight. It fell down with a deafening crash and flared up, a curtain of noise and heat cutting off any further hope of a safe exit for Smokey Boy Patel.
‘Billie, for God’s sake hurry!’ Ellis had slid halfway through the tiny door, his large frame not allowing him to enter any further, but it was enough for him to grab a handful of Billie’s shirt and yank her back towards him. Devastated, as well as aware that her flesh felt as though it was melting, she finally turned and flung herself out through the coal door and onto the grass. Ellis pulled her away swiftly to where Teddy crouched alongside Lily as locals gathered, trying to help him revive the girl. Billie could hear and then see fire engines and an ambulance arriving, the smell of smoking and burning herring filling the atmosphere.
‘There’s a teenager in there!’ she screamed, as the first fireman jumped from the still moving truck. ‘He’s just an innocent young lad,’ she cried, as Ellis pulled her close in a hug. She felt tears of shock and horror spill down her cheeks as Ellis stroked her hair. ‘He was just a boy,’ she sobbed.
Chapter 40
A Good Heart
In the end, Smokey Boy Patel had a good heart in more ways than one, Billie mused sadly, as she sat in the hospital corridor. The young man had finally died outside of the A & E entrance to the hospital, following more than one resuscitation attempt during the journey. The long wail from a small room just inside the building, followed by his father running out and leaning against the wall, utterly heartbroken, had announced the final ending.
Neither Billie nor Teddy, sitting with his head in his hands, nor Ellis marching up and down the corridor, restless and looking as though desperate to take some sort of action, was in any doubt as to the outcome of Smokey Boy’s final journey.
Despite the fact that the young man had started the fire and had clearly been involved in Maya’s disappearance, Billie felt tears spring into the back of her eyes. In the end, he had saved her life and explained the reasons for his actions, though she could tell by Ellis’s appearance that he was absolutely distraught that the secrets that Smokey Boy had held had died along with him.
Teddy, though heartbroken by the fact that his home and business had been reduced to burning embers, had nonetheless insisted on accompanying Billie and Ellis to the hospital, genuinely desperate, Billie was certain, to offer support to Lily and Smokey Boy. He got up from his seat now, crossed to Smokey Boy’s dad and wrapped his arms around the shoulders of the sobbing man. Another family member emerged from the room and led him, still weeping, from the building.
‘I feel so responsible,’ Teddy said through a sigh, as he took his seat next to Billie again. ‘If I’d flagged up the protection racket years ago, things may never have got this far.’
‘Or your business might have been burned down earlier,’ Billie replied. She knew that there was no easy solution to violence instigated by local gangs, let alone international ones. ‘Here, take a look at this. Do you recognise her?’ Billie clicked on her mobile and brought up the photo of the skeleton bride as a young girl in Srebrenica.
‘That’s Irina! She looks younger than I remember her, of course, but what’s she got to do with anything? She must be in her forties now.’
‘Unlikely to have made it out of her teens, I’m afraid. She’s the skeleton in the chimney.’ Billie registered the look of total shock and horror on Teddy’s face.
‘But, I thought she’d ran away…’ Teddy rubbed his hand over his mouth. Billie thought he might be about to throw up.
‘Ran away from what, Teddy? Look, Irina, the body found in Ellis’s back garden, and Ozzie Kingsnorth all appear to have been branded with a wasp tattoo. We think they are linked to people traffickers and that Eddie Checkley is at least high up in the pecking order. Was Irina trafficked?’ Teddy scratched his head, deep in thought.
‘Eddie’s dad and mine jointly bought up all the old terraces on one side of our little street, bar Uncle Tommy’s place. He was more a distant relative, especially with being a magistrate during his spare time, at the local court. My dad and Eddie’s were always wheeling and dealing so they kept him at arm’s length. He was my favourite, though, and I was always bunking off to his to get a bit of peace.
‘At our gaff, Eddie’s dad and mine were always kicking off, squaring up to each other. We were the original dysfunctional family. I’m pretty sure they used the terraces as a brothel when I think about it now, but then, as a kid, I had no idea why all the new girls kept arriving, many of them foreign. They kept piles of dicey stuff up in the attics too. I once saw a gun in a bag there and sacks that I’m guessing were full of drugs. That all seemed to kick off big time after my dad died in a car accident. Spun off the road and hit a tree. Hadn’t had his brakes checked apparently. Eddie got all the houses then.’
Billie exchanged glances with Ellis who had stopped dead in his tracks.
‘Where was Eddie’s brother, James, during all this?’ She had to know.
Teddy shrugged. ‘Off at some posh boarding school. He was just a little kid then, younger than me. And he had a different mother to Eddie. Bit like he lived on another planet really. Never saw him around our street growing up.’
Billie breathed out a quiet sigh of relief.
‘So what do you know about this Irina?’ Ellis asked Teddy. ‘Did you know she was stuffed up the chimney all this time?’ Billie could see that with his girls both currently AWOL, Ellis wasn’t in the mood to gently coax out information. Her own judgement so far was that Teddy was simply another victim of Eddie Checkley’s various illegal and cruel endeavours.
‘No!’ Teddy protested, so that the receptionist looked up over her specs and held her finger to her lips. ‘No,’ he answered again, quietly but firmly. ‘But I think some of those foreign girls were married off. Fake weddings to get a passport maybe, or for Eddie’s mates to claim extra benefits perhaps…’
‘How old were you when your dad copped it then?’ Ellis looked like he still needed some convincing.
‘Twelve,’ Teddy answered. ‘Mum had long ago done a runner, so Uncle Tommy took me in. But I knew how to access all of the houses, through the top attic rooms. They were joined, you see, and when I was a kid, I used to take out certain bricks so that I could squeeze through from one to the other. I showed Irina how to do it one day, after I’d seen Eddie hitting her, through a hole in the floorboards above one of the houses.’
‘So you spoke with Irina?’ Billie’s ears pricked up. Teddy nodded sadly.
‘Yeah, Irina was kind to me, and she wasn’t that much older. She told me that she wanted to go back home. She’d been sent to England to finish her education, because of that fighting kicking off in Bosnia, remember? But she said she was trapped. She missed her grandad…’ Teddy wiped his eyes. ‘So I showed her how to get across to Uncle Tommy’s attic. I told her that I would leave the front door open when I went to school, so that she could get across and run away. I thought she had. Never saw or heard from her anymore…’
‘Did you never light a fire in the room then?’ Ellis looked confused.
‘No. We never even went in from one month to the next. Back then, the front room was always kept tidy. Just like everyone else, we only used that when visitors came and me and Uncle Tommy, well, we never had any. More or less lived in the back of the house, overlooking the garden.’ Teddy closed his eyes tightly. Billie guessed that he was imagining the awful scenario that had taken place as Irina had slowly died a harrowing death, only a room away. ‘Maybe someone sussed what she was up to, chased her and she couldn’t make it out of the attic, so tried to hide in the…’
‘How’s the girl?’ Ellis stopped a doctor who had raced to take Lily inside on arrival from the ambulance.
‘Too early to tell,’ she answered. ‘She’s being treated now and is stable, but not conscious yet.’ Ellis spun around, blowing out his lips in exasperation as Billie’s mobile rang. It was Josta.
‘Hello, dear heart, I’m just ringing to see how Ash is getting on?’
‘Ash?’ Billie frowned. ‘I haven’t heard from him since he was at the crime scene with you. He said that he was heading home to bed, he had a bit of an upset tum–’
‘Oh, my apologies, haven’t you heard? He collapsed and was whisked off to the hospital.’
‘I’m at the hospital now, but I didn’t know that Ash was here.’ Billie ran her fingers through her hair as Ellis stopped pacing and Teddy looked up, worried. Ellis marched over to the receptionist sitting at a desk.
‘Has a DS Ash Sanghera been admitted tonight?’ he asked.
‘Ward five,’ the receptionist replied. Billie, who had overheard the conversation, had ended her call and was already marching at speed along the corridor, following signs with ward directions listed on them. Ellis and Teddy followed close behind. As Billie stopped outside of the ward and pulled the door open, a tiny but fierce-looking nurse descended on her like a Rottweiler.
‘You can’t come in here, it’s well after visiting time,’ she announced, at the very moment that Ash appeared in a hospital gown, dragging a drip behind him.
‘Ash,’ Billie called, moving the nurse firmly to one side as she rushed over to her friend.
‘Make it quick,’ the nurse snapped, clearly realising that she wouldn’t win the fight, but standing against the door to ensure that Ellis and Teddy didn’t follow.
‘Are you okay?’ Billie held Ash’s shoulders, looking aghast at the paleness of his face.
‘Yeah, yeah, just a spot of food poisoning they reckon. They’re keeping me in on fluids overnight and running a few tests. I’m feeling like a right wuss, taking up a bed when someone else needs it.’ Ash sighed.
‘Don’t be crazy. You deffo look like you need it,’ Billie reassured Ash.
‘Hey thanks. You know how to make a guy feel better,’ he joked weakly.
‘So what have you eaten?’ Billie took Ash’s arm and helped him towards the bed area.
‘I only had that coffee. We’ve been way too busy to knock back any sarnies today after all. But you had a coffee too,’ he added before turning quickly. ‘Oh, I need the bathroom again,’ he moaned, trying to pick up pace towards a door off the nurses’ station.
‘I didn’t drink it,’ Billie explained. ‘It tasted bitter… hang on, did the canteen staff make it for you or–’
‘No,’ Ash started to say before he picked up more speed, dragging his drip clumsily into the bathroom behind him and slamming the door shut. The final word of his answer was muffled, as he concentrated on making it to the toilet just in time.
‘Who gave it to you then?’ Billie held her ear against the door, having failed to catch his answer.
‘I need the netty.’ An old man had appeared in the corridor, walking towards the nurse like a pyjama-wearing zombie.
‘There’s another one just along the corridor, Wilf, pet. Look, you really need to go,’ the nurse snapped at Billie.
‘Ash, who gave you the coffee?’ Billie called more loudly.
‘Nurse!’ Another voice bellowed from one of the side wards. ‘I can’t sleep for all the racket out there!’
‘Too late,’ the old man announced, emptying his bladder on the floor. Tears of embarrassment started to trickle down his cheeks. The nurse closed her eyes for a moment, looking completely at the end of her tether. Billie could hear nothing but moans and bowel-emptying sounds from the direction of Ash.
‘Don’t get yourself upset, Wilf. Come on, I’ll get you cleaned up. It’s no bother.’ The nurse managed to paste on a sympathetic smile. Billie sighed. Maybe she was letting her imagination run amok. She stepped away from the bathroom door and enveloped the diminutive nurse in her arms.
‘What you need, my love, is one big hug.’ Billie almost lifted her off the floor with her bear hug before releasing her. The nurse blinked, looking astonished.
‘I’m on till seven in the morning. I’ll keep a close eye on him,’ she whispered as Billie, reminded herself that the small nurse with the big heart could probably beat her hands down in a shit day at work competition. The moment was broken as Ellis suddenly slung the door open. It crashed loudly against the wall.
Lily wiped a hand across her nose. ‘I’ve been told that they’ve got people watching us everywhere, making sure that everyone keeps in line. Even in the police…’
Billie gave a little groan. She’d had dealings with corrupt officers in the past, so knew that it was a possibility. ‘So Maya was going to spill the beans about the orphanage scam?’ Billie wanted to clarify.
‘Yeah, she thought she could save all the kids and make her dad proud, with him having been a crack serious crime investigator and all that…’
Ellis looked like he’d been slapped in the face. He wiped his hand across his eyes. Was that a tear that Billie had spotted about to spill out?
‘Yeah, well I’m not doing such a good job of that right now, am I? Can’t even save my own girls.’ He sighed.
Billie loosened her grip on Lily a little. She could feel the fear pulsating through her shaking body, her earlier smart girl posturing forgotten now.
‘Will my dad be all right?’ Lily’s face crumpled up. ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened–’
‘So please, tell us absolutely everything you know,’ Billie pleaded. ‘Do you have any photos of this Mitch, for example? You might not know him, but he may actually live locally if the gang have that much info on you. Maybe someone can pinpoint a young man who has travelled abroad twice in the last week.’
Lily paused, before finally answering through a sigh, ‘I’ve got a photo of him on my mobile.’ Billie released her arms and let Lily delve in her pocket for her phone. She held it up. It was a photo of Lily on one side and Maya on the other, with a young man in the middle. All were posing with wide smiles outside of the Romanian orphanage.
‘But that’s Smokey Boy Patel,’ Ellis gasped, looking around in the mad hope that the young man was actually skulking in a dark shadow.
‘They made him do it,’ Lily whispered.
‘Mitch Patel, that’s his real name,’ Teddy confirmed. ‘Smokey Boy is his nickname.’
‘Where is his gaff?’ Ellis cut in, just as a loud smash rang out along with a hail of glass from one of the large windows in the smoking room. Billie caught a quick glimpse of Smokey Boy’s face, looking desperate. A bottle seemingly stuffed with a rag, landed smack in the middle of one of the little oak-smoking fires before bursting into a ball of flames, tracking with breathtaking speed across the room as one little fire merged into the next and surged upwards. A wall of flame had blocked off the open exit route within a matter of seconds.
‘Run!’ Billie pulled Lily behind her as she raced into the office, hoping for an escape route through the window.
‘It’s got bars on it!’ Teddy shouted as the fireball roared across the ground almost to the open door, in a plume of dark smoke and the overwhelming smell of now burning kippers. Billie turned, spotting a fire extinguisher on the office wall. She yanked it off and aimed it at the flames licking the door frame as Ellis grabbed Lily and pulled her out of the office. The fire had already reached the ceiling and was tracking across the smoking room towards them at an incredible pace.
‘There’s a window in the back room,’ Teddy shouted as Billie gave up with the fire extinguisher and followed them as fast as she could, the heat already almost unbearable. Thick smoke was already coming into the packaging room, but Ellis had hold of Lily’s wrist, attempting to pull her behind him as he clambered up the crates and cardboard boxes. She suddenly dropped, seemingly losing consciousness. Teddy was almost through the window, coughing and spluttering but he turned and hung back, reaching out his arm in an attempt to help. It was too late. Billie caught Lily in her arms as Ellis lost his grip and the teenager tumbled back through the boxes, taking Billie down with her.
There was a loud bang as the fire devoured some combustible materials possibly in the cupboard Billie had noticed in the corridor. The effect was that the fire burst into the storeroom, shooting along to the boxes which caught alight immediately.
‘Billie!’ Ellis yelled. Billie, coughing, had no time to respond as she dragged Lily across the room.
‘Go! I’ll get them.’ Billie suddenly heard Smokey Boy shout, as he scrambled back through the window and jumped to the floor. He raced across to Billie, picking up Lily by the ankles, whilst Billie lifted her under her arms.
‘There’s an old coal access door over in the corner, behind those crates,’ he shouted over the roar of the fire and between hacking coughs. Billie kicked the crates away and spotted what Smokey Boy was directing her to – a tiny door in the wall. Billie was gasping for breath. She hoped that they could get Lily through it. Suddenly the door was kicked open from outside. The fire behind roared up in response, as Teddy’s face appeared in the opening.
‘We’re over here, give her to us,’ he shouted, as Billie and Smokey Boy struggled with the lack of oxygen and weight of Lily’s body. Ellis now came into view, having flung himself down on the ground outside next to Teddy. Within seconds they were in grabbing distance. The two of them seized hold of Lily, yanking her out through the desperately small space, like men involved in a tug of war. As her legs finally disappeared, Billie waved Smokey Boy forward.
‘Go,’ she cried, almost choking with the fumes and smell of burning fish. Smokey Boy sat back on his knees, sweat dripping from his brow. He shook his head, struggling for air.
‘No. Get out. I’m staying. I don’t know what I was doing. I didn’t mean for that to happen, I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to protect my family.’ He held his head in horror. Billie lunged for his arm.
‘It’s not your fault, you’ve been coerced, we can explain it all, you can give us more facts!’ She jumped back as the cardboard boxes erupted into a huge bonfire. Billie felt as though her lungs would burst. ‘Let’s go.’ Billie took a step forward, but Smokey Boy, sobbing now, scuttled back out of reach.
‘No. I couldn’t live with the shame. I can’t put my family through that. I love my family…’ He turned and stood upright, staggering towards the flames, when a beam along which the fire had been licking suddenly caught fully alight. It fell down with a deafening crash and flared up, a curtain of noise and heat cutting off any further hope of a safe exit for Smokey Boy Patel.
‘Billie, for God’s sake hurry!’ Ellis had slid halfway through the tiny door, his large frame not allowing him to enter any further, but it was enough for him to grab a handful of Billie’s shirt and yank her back towards him. Devastated, as well as aware that her flesh felt as though it was melting, she finally turned and flung herself out through the coal door and onto the grass. Ellis pulled her away swiftly to where Teddy crouched alongside Lily as locals gathered, trying to help him revive the girl. Billie could hear and then see fire engines and an ambulance arriving, the smell of smoking and burning herring filling the atmosphere.
‘There’s a teenager in there!’ she screamed, as the first fireman jumped from the still moving truck. ‘He’s just an innocent young lad,’ she cried, as Ellis pulled her close in a hug. She felt tears of shock and horror spill down her cheeks as Ellis stroked her hair. ‘He was just a boy,’ she sobbed.
Chapter 40
A Good Heart
In the end, Smokey Boy Patel had a good heart in more ways than one, Billie mused sadly, as she sat in the hospital corridor. The young man had finally died outside of the A & E entrance to the hospital, following more than one resuscitation attempt during the journey. The long wail from a small room just inside the building, followed by his father running out and leaning against the wall, utterly heartbroken, had announced the final ending.
Neither Billie nor Teddy, sitting with his head in his hands, nor Ellis marching up and down the corridor, restless and looking as though desperate to take some sort of action, was in any doubt as to the outcome of Smokey Boy’s final journey.
Despite the fact that the young man had started the fire and had clearly been involved in Maya’s disappearance, Billie felt tears spring into the back of her eyes. In the end, he had saved her life and explained the reasons for his actions, though she could tell by Ellis’s appearance that he was absolutely distraught that the secrets that Smokey Boy had held had died along with him.
Teddy, though heartbroken by the fact that his home and business had been reduced to burning embers, had nonetheless insisted on accompanying Billie and Ellis to the hospital, genuinely desperate, Billie was certain, to offer support to Lily and Smokey Boy. He got up from his seat now, crossed to Smokey Boy’s dad and wrapped his arms around the shoulders of the sobbing man. Another family member emerged from the room and led him, still weeping, from the building.
‘I feel so responsible,’ Teddy said through a sigh, as he took his seat next to Billie again. ‘If I’d flagged up the protection racket years ago, things may never have got this far.’
‘Or your business might have been burned down earlier,’ Billie replied. She knew that there was no easy solution to violence instigated by local gangs, let alone international ones. ‘Here, take a look at this. Do you recognise her?’ Billie clicked on her mobile and brought up the photo of the skeleton bride as a young girl in Srebrenica.
‘That’s Irina! She looks younger than I remember her, of course, but what’s she got to do with anything? She must be in her forties now.’
‘Unlikely to have made it out of her teens, I’m afraid. She’s the skeleton in the chimney.’ Billie registered the look of total shock and horror on Teddy’s face.
‘But, I thought she’d ran away…’ Teddy rubbed his hand over his mouth. Billie thought he might be about to throw up.
‘Ran away from what, Teddy? Look, Irina, the body found in Ellis’s back garden, and Ozzie Kingsnorth all appear to have been branded with a wasp tattoo. We think they are linked to people traffickers and that Eddie Checkley is at least high up in the pecking order. Was Irina trafficked?’ Teddy scratched his head, deep in thought.
‘Eddie’s dad and mine jointly bought up all the old terraces on one side of our little street, bar Uncle Tommy’s place. He was more a distant relative, especially with being a magistrate during his spare time, at the local court. My dad and Eddie’s were always wheeling and dealing so they kept him at arm’s length. He was my favourite, though, and I was always bunking off to his to get a bit of peace.
‘At our gaff, Eddie’s dad and mine were always kicking off, squaring up to each other. We were the original dysfunctional family. I’m pretty sure they used the terraces as a brothel when I think about it now, but then, as a kid, I had no idea why all the new girls kept arriving, many of them foreign. They kept piles of dicey stuff up in the attics too. I once saw a gun in a bag there and sacks that I’m guessing were full of drugs. That all seemed to kick off big time after my dad died in a car accident. Spun off the road and hit a tree. Hadn’t had his brakes checked apparently. Eddie got all the houses then.’
Billie exchanged glances with Ellis who had stopped dead in his tracks.
‘Where was Eddie’s brother, James, during all this?’ She had to know.
Teddy shrugged. ‘Off at some posh boarding school. He was just a little kid then, younger than me. And he had a different mother to Eddie. Bit like he lived on another planet really. Never saw him around our street growing up.’
Billie breathed out a quiet sigh of relief.
‘So what do you know about this Irina?’ Ellis asked Teddy. ‘Did you know she was stuffed up the chimney all this time?’ Billie could see that with his girls both currently AWOL, Ellis wasn’t in the mood to gently coax out information. Her own judgement so far was that Teddy was simply another victim of Eddie Checkley’s various illegal and cruel endeavours.
‘No!’ Teddy protested, so that the receptionist looked up over her specs and held her finger to her lips. ‘No,’ he answered again, quietly but firmly. ‘But I think some of those foreign girls were married off. Fake weddings to get a passport maybe, or for Eddie’s mates to claim extra benefits perhaps…’
‘How old were you when your dad copped it then?’ Ellis looked like he still needed some convincing.
‘Twelve,’ Teddy answered. ‘Mum had long ago done a runner, so Uncle Tommy took me in. But I knew how to access all of the houses, through the top attic rooms. They were joined, you see, and when I was a kid, I used to take out certain bricks so that I could squeeze through from one to the other. I showed Irina how to do it one day, after I’d seen Eddie hitting her, through a hole in the floorboards above one of the houses.’
‘So you spoke with Irina?’ Billie’s ears pricked up. Teddy nodded sadly.
‘Yeah, Irina was kind to me, and she wasn’t that much older. She told me that she wanted to go back home. She’d been sent to England to finish her education, because of that fighting kicking off in Bosnia, remember? But she said she was trapped. She missed her grandad…’ Teddy wiped his eyes. ‘So I showed her how to get across to Uncle Tommy’s attic. I told her that I would leave the front door open when I went to school, so that she could get across and run away. I thought she had. Never saw or heard from her anymore…’
‘Did you never light a fire in the room then?’ Ellis looked confused.
‘No. We never even went in from one month to the next. Back then, the front room was always kept tidy. Just like everyone else, we only used that when visitors came and me and Uncle Tommy, well, we never had any. More or less lived in the back of the house, overlooking the garden.’ Teddy closed his eyes tightly. Billie guessed that he was imagining the awful scenario that had taken place as Irina had slowly died a harrowing death, only a room away. ‘Maybe someone sussed what she was up to, chased her and she couldn’t make it out of the attic, so tried to hide in the…’
‘How’s the girl?’ Ellis stopped a doctor who had raced to take Lily inside on arrival from the ambulance.
‘Too early to tell,’ she answered. ‘She’s being treated now and is stable, but not conscious yet.’ Ellis spun around, blowing out his lips in exasperation as Billie’s mobile rang. It was Josta.
‘Hello, dear heart, I’m just ringing to see how Ash is getting on?’
‘Ash?’ Billie frowned. ‘I haven’t heard from him since he was at the crime scene with you. He said that he was heading home to bed, he had a bit of an upset tum–’
‘Oh, my apologies, haven’t you heard? He collapsed and was whisked off to the hospital.’
‘I’m at the hospital now, but I didn’t know that Ash was here.’ Billie ran her fingers through her hair as Ellis stopped pacing and Teddy looked up, worried. Ellis marched over to the receptionist sitting at a desk.
‘Has a DS Ash Sanghera been admitted tonight?’ he asked.
‘Ward five,’ the receptionist replied. Billie, who had overheard the conversation, had ended her call and was already marching at speed along the corridor, following signs with ward directions listed on them. Ellis and Teddy followed close behind. As Billie stopped outside of the ward and pulled the door open, a tiny but fierce-looking nurse descended on her like a Rottweiler.
‘You can’t come in here, it’s well after visiting time,’ she announced, at the very moment that Ash appeared in a hospital gown, dragging a drip behind him.
‘Ash,’ Billie called, moving the nurse firmly to one side as she rushed over to her friend.
‘Make it quick,’ the nurse snapped, clearly realising that she wouldn’t win the fight, but standing against the door to ensure that Ellis and Teddy didn’t follow.
‘Are you okay?’ Billie held Ash’s shoulders, looking aghast at the paleness of his face.
‘Yeah, yeah, just a spot of food poisoning they reckon. They’re keeping me in on fluids overnight and running a few tests. I’m feeling like a right wuss, taking up a bed when someone else needs it.’ Ash sighed.
‘Don’t be crazy. You deffo look like you need it,’ Billie reassured Ash.
‘Hey thanks. You know how to make a guy feel better,’ he joked weakly.
‘So what have you eaten?’ Billie took Ash’s arm and helped him towards the bed area.
‘I only had that coffee. We’ve been way too busy to knock back any sarnies today after all. But you had a coffee too,’ he added before turning quickly. ‘Oh, I need the bathroom again,’ he moaned, trying to pick up pace towards a door off the nurses’ station.
‘I didn’t drink it,’ Billie explained. ‘It tasted bitter… hang on, did the canteen staff make it for you or–’
‘No,’ Ash started to say before he picked up more speed, dragging his drip clumsily into the bathroom behind him and slamming the door shut. The final word of his answer was muffled, as he concentrated on making it to the toilet just in time.
‘Who gave it to you then?’ Billie held her ear against the door, having failed to catch his answer.
‘I need the netty.’ An old man had appeared in the corridor, walking towards the nurse like a pyjama-wearing zombie.
‘There’s another one just along the corridor, Wilf, pet. Look, you really need to go,’ the nurse snapped at Billie.
‘Ash, who gave you the coffee?’ Billie called more loudly.
‘Nurse!’ Another voice bellowed from one of the side wards. ‘I can’t sleep for all the racket out there!’
‘Too late,’ the old man announced, emptying his bladder on the floor. Tears of embarrassment started to trickle down his cheeks. The nurse closed her eyes for a moment, looking completely at the end of her tether. Billie could hear nothing but moans and bowel-emptying sounds from the direction of Ash.
‘Don’t get yourself upset, Wilf. Come on, I’ll get you cleaned up. It’s no bother.’ The nurse managed to paste on a sympathetic smile. Billie sighed. Maybe she was letting her imagination run amok. She stepped away from the bathroom door and enveloped the diminutive nurse in her arms.
‘What you need, my love, is one big hug.’ Billie almost lifted her off the floor with her bear hug before releasing her. The nurse blinked, looking astonished.
‘I’m on till seven in the morning. I’ll keep a close eye on him,’ she whispered as Billie, reminded herself that the small nurse with the big heart could probably beat her hands down in a shit day at work competition. The moment was broken as Ellis suddenly slung the door open. It crashed loudly against the wall.
