Chapter 15: Much Ado About Something

0600 hrs Monday, April 8^th 27 Castle Road Bury. St Edmunds

DAY 8

My alarm woke me from another strange and disturbing dream where Vince Cowan and I were double dicking Dixie – or it might have been Trixie – however, the female being abused then changed from a badge bunny to Maddy, then to Molly, followed, most surprisingly, by Eloise Donizetti and then finally Rebecca. In the dream, Vince and I moved on from double dicking to spit-roasting the females, and it was Rebecca who was being roasted when the alarm sounded. I woke with a start, still half asleep and with a hard-on, not my usual state in the morning. As I washed and dressed I pondered on the relevance of the dream still fresh in my mind. Why should Vince be with me in the dream, other than I had seen him the previous day? Vince hadn’t been with me at Neasden, and I never took part in spit roasting, or double dicking, Trixie or Dixie, but did engage in many a three/69 with them. However, spit roasting, double dicking, three/69, and treble dicking was carried out with the Swiss Cottage quartet of Enee, Menee, Mynee and Mo. And why did Eloise Donizetti figure in the dream? Granted I was sexually attracted to her, but I was also attracted to Liza with a zed, her partner Gloria, and Sharon Douglas as well, but none of them had appeared in the dream.

I sighed. My libido was stirring and I recalled Vince Cowan’s advice from the day before:

‘Put that lovely Molly and yourself out of your collective misery. Give the woman what she wants and what you deserve.’

Molly had asked me if Vince and I had been close when in London. One couldn’t double dick (DP) a female without being in perilously close contact with the other male involved in the DP, and Vince and I always teamed up when DPing any of the Swiss Cottage quartet badge bunnies, and we would make up two-thirds of the males airtight/treble dicking (TP) any badge bunny being abused, and I use the term ‘abused’ intentionally. Let’s face it, there is very little love and tenderness involved when DPing, spit roasting or making a female airtight by plugging each of her three apertures with a penis.

When lodged in the twat or arse of one of the bunnies I would often feel Vince’s dick through the tissue of flesh separating the two orifices. Our pricks weren’t flesh to flesh – and anyway we always wore condoms - but close enough to coordinate our thrusts, and have one dick going in as one dick withdrew. We were quite proud of our teamwork, and the girl being DP’d seemed to enjoy the experience. So yes, at times I was extremely close to Vince, often only a membrane away!

I let myself out of the house quietly and was careful not to slam the house or car door. The thought of Molly splayed out in her bed gave me a pleasurable feeling in my groin – Vince’s words had started something.

I drove to Thurston Hall still wondering about dreams and what they really tell us about ourselves. An hour’s vigorous workout in the gym had me sweating like a pig, driving out all thoughts from my mind other than the effort required to do the exercises. After a bracing shower I felt refreshed and ready for whatever the day threw at me.

I was looking forward to the presentation I was to give Brownlow and Warren. They would gasp in surprise when I revealed the rabbit up my sleeve. (A hypothetical rabbit, obviously). I was more ambivalent about seeing Maddy that morning. I was going to tell her I had broken up with my fiancée, citing Rebecca’s unfaithfulness for my action, and at least that portion of my tale was true. How Maddy would react to the news was the dilemma I faced.

Would she give a great shout of joy, fling her arms around my neck and shower me with passionate kisses before dragging me off to her bed, pausing only to give her notice to the firm in Silicon Fen and her elbow to Peregrine Lindt? Conversely, she might merely offer me her commiserations and continue with her career, and the business with benefits relationship with Lindt. If the latter, I would initiate the plan to make her insanely jealous with my shagging offensive, first with Sharon Douglas and after a few days adding the two PCSOs Liza and Gloria. If Maddy still hadn’t come to her senses and realised what she was missing by not having me as her squeeze, I would add the delectable Molly Miller to my harem.

When she joined me at our table for breakfast Maddy wore a fixed, forced, smile on her face.

“What’s up?” I asked, “Has Peregrine flown the coop?”

She smiled properly, but not for long. “Let’s eat, and we can talk afterwards,” she said.

I didn’t like the sound of that, but nodded and started on my Full Monty of a breakfast.

Maddy eyed my cholesterol-laden plate in surprise. “I thought you were on the muesli?”

“I have a feeling I’m going to need a full breakfast. Something’s wrong, Maddy. What is it?”

“Later, Adge. Just let us enjoy our breakfasts.”

I tried to but failed and left half on my plate.

“I’ll get the teas,” she offered, and left before I could say anything.

My heart sank. Something terrible was going to happen. I could feel it, and Maddy was sending out bad vibes. What the hell was going on?

She came back with the teas, Darjeeling for me, Earl Grey for her. We sipped our tea, looking at each other over the rims of our cups. Her face was pale and drawn, and she had tears in her eyes.

“Tell me the bad news, Maddy.”

She took a deep breath. “I thought the meeting in Zurich between Peregrine and Herr Professor Hockenheim, the CEO of AI Research, was to do with my proposed move to Silicon Fen but it wasn’t. Peregrine has been appointed Chief Research Officer at AI Research in Palo Alto, California, and is taking me as his Senior Scientific Officer. We fly from London Heathrow tomorrow. I came in today to tell you to your face rather than by text or a message left on your answerphone.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “I thought I was going to be working in Cambridge and that we would be able to keep in touch and meet up occasionally, but instead I will be in the USA. But we can Skype and...”

I was gutted and didn’t hear anymore although I watched her lips moving as she carried on speaking; those inviting lips that I only tasted once and would never taste again.

She had finished talking and was looking at me interrogatively. “You do have Skype enabled on your phone, don’t you Adge? How else are we to keep in touch? Emails and texts are only partially useful as I want to see you when I talk to you.”

It broke my heart to say what I knew I had to say. “No, Maddy, we both know that when you leave Thurston Hall we will never see each other again. When I say ‘see’, I mean meet up and enjoy the banter and jokes we share. It would curdle my heart to see and talk to you on Skype knowing you had just got from Peregrine’s bed or would be getting back in it after talking to me. I couldn’t bear seeing you and not being able to touch you. Anyway, you will have a steep learning curve in the new job, and thinking about a guy back in Suffolk who made you laugh from time to time will do no good to you or your career.”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. I reckon she knew as well as I did our goodbye would be final but had tried to convince herself it was not so.

“I will miss you so much, Adge. I know there can be nothing more than friendship between us – you are engaged to be married and I am wedded to a career, but I value the friendship between us and hoped it could be continued when I left Thurston Hall.”

I knew, we both knew, there was more than friendship between us, and I was no longer engaged but it was too late. Maddy was poised to achieve a position of high status and importance; the position she had striven for over many years. Eventually, when she had what she wanted – prestige and recognition among her peers – she might forge a relationship based on love, humour, and physical attraction, like that between us now, but until then she would stick with relationships like the one she had with Peregrine Lindt, business with benefits.

We both stood up from the table. She held out her hand and I took it. We did not shake hands but clasped them like lovers, lovers parting forever. I saw the glint of tears welling in her eyes, matched by mine. To save what dignity I had left I broke the handclasp. “Good luck, Maddy. I hope you achieve everything you desire.”

I started to walk away but she gripped the sleeve of my jacket.

“I will never forget you, Adge,” she whispered and then kissed me. A warm, all-enveloping kiss that flooded my body with pleasure and light and joy, and when she withdrew her lips from mine, despair, knowing I would never enjoy such enchantment again. She turned and left, taking my heart with her.

Di Felicity Warren was at her desk when I entered the CID room.

“Good Lord, AJ, has someone just died, you look terrible?” She said, her face showing her concern. Someone had just died – me – but I wasn’t about to tell her that.

“I overdid the gym this morning, Ma’am,” I replied, then switched into professional mode. “I met a friend of mine yesterday who is the coordinator for the Human Trafficking Unit at the National Crime Agency in Manchester. He was adamant he never saw the list of trafficked girls that Sergeant Rampley gave you. The list that was, according to Detective Superintendent Fuller, treated with scorn by the NCA.”

“Was your friend on the helicopter that landed here last night?”

“Yes, and I handed him Sergeant Rampley’s diary, given me by his widow. The diary is in code, but no doubt will be deciphered by those clever people at the NCA.”

A huge smile spread across her face. “Did you tell your friend what Detective Superintendent Fuller said about the list?”

“I certainly did, Ma’am, and Vince Cowan, the NCA’s coordinator for the Human Trafficking Unit, is going to investigate thoroughly into the variance in what he knows and what Detective Superintendent Fuller said.”

“Well, let’s hope the truth will out, AJ.”

“Amen to that, ma’am.” I held up the flash drive received from the Tommy Atkins lookalike. “If you connect your laptop to the DCI’s screen I have a presentation to show you and him. I hope that after viewing the footage DCI Brownlow will be minded to ask for Highway Authority traffic camera footage from Ipswich and the surrounding area.”

Fliss Warren frowned. “It will have to be a very convincing argument for DCI Brownlow to...”

“Believe me, Ma’am, it is extremely convincing.”

“In that case let’s get the show on the road, AJ. Bring the rest of your team along, there’s plenty of room in the DCI’s office.”

Brownlow met us at the door to his office. “DI Warren tells me you have some interesting footage to show me concerning the mysterious list of the late Sergeant Rampley, AJ.”

“Yes sir, footage of those missing girls that Sergeant Rampley had marked with an asterisk. It makes very interesting viewing.”

We all piled into the DCI’s office, and DI Warren hadn’t exaggerated, Brownlow’s office accommodated us all with room to spare. Fliss Warren connected her laptop to the 42” LED screen on the wall and then switched on her laptop. The camera footage started to roll. Brownlow said nothing until the final footage, of Kate Hodge in Ipswich, finished. I had purposely kept the footage of Eloise Donizetti picking up Betty Smith off the consolidated USB.

“Yes,” said DCI Brownlow, “I admit there is a Vivaro van seen in the vicinity from where all four girls disappeared and within a time frame of when each girl disappeared. However, we can’t assume that it is the same van...” He held up his hand as he saw me about to interrupt him. “Although I agree that as all the vans had false plates it could be the same van. However, the last footage shows --” he looked at his notes, “Kate Hodge, getting into the van voluntarily. Let us suppose the other girls also willingly got into the van...”

I couldn’t keep quiet any longer and jumped in. “The one missing girl we cannot put near to a Vivaro van when she disappeared is Betty Smith.”

I slid the USB of the camera footage from Bury St Edmunds with all the sightings of Betty into Fliss Warren’s laptop and pressed run. Brownlow gave me an annoyed look for interrupting him but said nothing. We watched as Betty left her workplace, had her hair done, and then walked to the car park where she got into a Mercedes.

“The car is being driven by Missus Donizetti,” I said, “who is the managing director of Fowler’s Funeral Home. I interviewed Missus Donizetti on Saturday, who said she met Betty Smith via the Tinder dating app, and that Betty Smith left her house early next morning after a night of Sapphic love. We have no evidence to the contrary and it would appear that Missus Donizetti’s connection to Betty Smith is only sexual. However, Betty Smith and Kate Hodge both live in Ipswich, and found in the glove compartment of Kate’s car was a Camper and Down business card, the firm of solicitors for whom Betty Smith works, worked. Betty Smith’s office telephone number was written on the back of the card.” I saw Brownlow was about to interrupt but forestalled him. “Kate Hodge was a self-employed beautician; on the day she went missing she was booked to work at Fowler’s Funeral Home!”

Brownlow and Warren exchanged glances and finally connected the dots.

“So, all five girls are connected, and the Vivaro van connected to four of them needs to be tracked,” I concluded. Game, set, and match, with still a rabbit up my sleeve.

DCI Brownlow rubbed his chin. “I admit there’s a good case to answer for a full traffic trawl but it will take many man-hours and cost us an arm and a leg. Our budget is closely scrutinised by Detective Superintendent Fuller, Assistant Chief Constable Barnaby, the Chief Constable, and finally the Police and Crime Commissioner. I am going to need a very convincing reason to ask for such a trawl.”

“Well, this might help, sir, and is probably the reason Sergeant Rampley had marked these particular names,” I said, and then wrote the five names of the missing girls on the whiteboard:

Mel Reynolds

Linda Rogers

Kate Hodges

Dawn Sturrock

Betty Smith

Then alongside their first names, I wrote their baptismal names:

Amelia

Belinda

Catherine

Doreen

Elizabeth

“Bloody hell! Should we be looking for missing girls named Flora, Florence, or Felicity?” Brownlow said.

“It could be that there is a serial abductor/killer with an alphabet fetish about, but there is also the possibility that the alphabet series is to put us off the scent of who the real victim was,” I said. “There’ s a well-known story by Agatha Christie, which I saw on telly a few years back, where several people are murdered to disguise who the intended victim was. Hide in plain sight and thus conceal the motive and the murderer.” I pointed to the names Kate Hodge and Betty Smith. “These two stood out like sore thumbs from the other three girls on the list. Kate is older than the other girls and Betty is taller, which means there is not some serial abductor running about Suffolk kidnapping, or worse, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, petite girls. I believe that either or both, Kate and Betty were the intended targets and the other three girls merely camouflage to hide the real intent of the abductor/murderer, using their given names as a blind.”

DCI Brownlow nodded his head in agreement. “Well done, AJ. Well done your team...”

“And well done Detective Sergeant Rampley, Sir,” I said. “It was he who spotted the connection.”

“Yes, we owe a debt of gratitude to Drab,” Brownlow said. “I will get onto Highway ---”

The phone on his desk rang and he picked it up. He listened for a moment before replying. “Yes, he’s here in my office. I will send him down immediately.” He replaced the telephone, and frowning looked at me. “Detective Superintendent Fuller wants to see you in his office immediately. Amanda said he is on the warpath. Have you done anything that might have set him off, Sergeant?”

“No sir, nothing at all.” Although getting the traffic camera footage from Ipswich would not go down too well with him, nor sending Rampley’s diary to NCA, but how would Fuller know of either of those deeds?

“You best get down to his office straightway, AJ. Leave arranging the trawl of camera traffic to me and DI Warren.”

Fliss Warren looked petrified, so I winked at her, hoping she would know I would never drop her in the clag.

I made my way down the stairs to Fuller’s office, thinking he couldn’t know of my under-the-radar visit to Ipswich, or what I had brought back from Felixstowe. He must have learned that a helicopter from NCA landed last night at Thurston Hall but surely wouldn’t know the reason. But what if he did, the diary was now in safe hands.

Amanda, Fuller’s PA, was at her desk in the outer office. “He’s in a foul mood, Sergeant. I don’t know what you have done, but he is not a happy bunny.”

I got the impression she was rather pleased Fuller was not a happy bunny and wondered if she had suffered at the hands of Fuller, or other parts of his anatomy. I knocked on his office door and waited for him to say ‘enter’. I waited several minutes and was about to knock again when I heard him.

“Come in Dolihaye.”

Fuller was seated at a desk only slightly smaller than the control deck of the star-ship Enterprise. He was writing and didn’t look up as I entered. I stood like a lemon in front of his desk while he completed whatever he was writing. I suspect it was a ploy to have me quaking in my shoes, straight out of the ‘How to Intimidate Subordinates for Dummies’ handbook. Eventually, he looked up at me, or to be more accurate looked up and glowered at me.

I had not taken much notice of Fuller when first meeting him. He was one of six senior officers on the panel assessing my application for a transfer to the East Anglian Constabulary and the only one to object to my application. He was in his middle forties, possibly into his fifties, a small man who compensated for his lack of inches by being assertive and aggressive. He was a snappy dresser; the suit he was wearing was bespoke and had probably cost him a month or two of my salary. His silk shirt was pale blue and the tie was in the colours of the MCC, the Marylebone Cricket Club, although I doubted Fuller was a member of that august body, there being a 27 year waiting list to become a full member. As he put the pen he had been using back into his breast pocket he shot the cuffs of his shirt, displaying diamond cuff links. The pen was an expensive Mont Blanc fountain pen. Rebecca had one from her father when she graduated; she said it had cost £600! Fuller was a flash sod, showing off his wealth, and in doing so also showing he wasn’t from the class he aspired to. His thin face was dominated by dark brown eyes, cold and heartless. A pencil-thin black moustache followed the line of his sneering top lip under a narrow nose. He wore his dark hair sleeked back with a widow’s peak and I wondered if he had used colour to disguise any grey. All in all, Fuller came across as a nasty piece of work, although a certain type of woman might like his rather raffish air. I had been taking inventory of him while he just stared, glowered, at me. Eventually, he spoke in the strangulated accent of someone born to the east of Cheapside but who tried to imitate the accent of someone born in Belgravia.