Perfect Girls: An absolutely gripping page-turning crime thriller Read online

  It took some time and a lot of very careful prompting to get Ifeoma to expand on this. Eventually it was established that they inserted their male organs into her, in more than one orifice. It made her bleed. Sometimes they were rough and bit and slapped her. Auntie Florence regularly beat her. Once when one of the other girls tried to run out of the house, Florence told the two men who worked with her to beat her too. These two men regularly raped the girls, whenever they felt like it.

  After she had finished with Ifeoma, Rachel phoned the police surgeon who had examined them in hospital the night before, and checked that he had given a formal statement of his findings and that photos had been taken of any injuries. Then she interviewed fifteen-year-old Essie. Essie was a little bolder and more confident and seemed to welcome the chance to talk about what had happened to her. Her story was very similar to the younger girl’s, save that in her case she had positively yearned to go to England and study. The subsequent shock and disillusionment had made her angry. She was the girl who had tried to run away.

  Rachel checked the video recording, then went in search of coffee. She did not expect to bump into Brickall in the hallway, looking pleased with himself.

  ‘Job done, thank Christ.’ He waved a sheaf of paper in her direction. It looked suspiciously like a hand-written witness statement.

  ‘Hold on, what’s that?’

  ‘The statement made by the eighteen-year-old. The video guy had to leave, but she’s too old to require Special Measures so I did a routine pre-statement notice.’

  Rachel stared at him. ‘Routine as in you wrote down what the interpreter said and got them to read it back to her in her own language?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And the witness signed it?’

  ‘Of course. Don’t worry, I took an accompanying statement from the interpreter too; it’s all covered.’

  Rachel was shaking her head.

  ‘How do you know she understood it? These girls have had no education.’

  ‘Because I told the interpreter to ask if the kid was able to read and she said yes.’ Brickall scoffed.

  ‘Back up the truck, Einstein…’ Rachel was already checking her watch and taking out her mobile. ‘These girls have been beaten and abused into compliance; they’re going to say whatever they think we want to hear. We can’t be sure she really does know how to read; not at any level of complexity.’

  Brickall looked exasperated. ‘I did the standard procedure we do with any non-native English speaker. She knows what’s in her fucking statement: it was read to her in her own language!’

  Rachel was shaking her head slowly. ‘But there’s something else you’ve overlooked. Something even more important.’

  He looked blank.

  ‘She says she’s eighteen, but there’s no documentation to back that up: she doesn’t have a birth certificate or any genuine ID. She might be younger. Considerably younger. And if she is, she needs Special Measures.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘You know how this works: if the fact we’ve just assumed she’s of age comes out in court, the defence will try and use it to throw out her case. Belt and braces, Detective Sergeant.’

  ‘Fuck, we’re going to have to video her, aren’t we?’ Brickall covered his face with his fingers.

  ‘Don’t panic, I think my video operator’s still packing up, and I can phone the office and tell them to send one of the interpreters back here. They can’t have gone too far. They’ll have to claim an additional fee, but I’ll sort that with Upstairs.’

  After a couple of phone calls, the female interpreter returned, cheerfully confessing that she had been having ‘a cuppa and a cig’ at a nearby coffee shop. An hour and a half later, and the video interview of the allegedly eighteen-year-old Augustina had been completed and Rachel and Brickall were in her car on their way back to the NCA offices.

  ‘What a fucking carry on,’ Brickall said. ‘This is why I bloody hate trafficking cases.’

  ‘Stop stressing: we got it done.’

  ‘Thanks to you spotting the glaring error.’ Rachel knew Brickall well enough to know that it pained him to acknowledge this. ‘There would have been a right old shit storm if I’d submitted that written statement to the CPS. You can bet it would’ve got back to Patten.’

  ‘No problem, fuckwit.’

  They both let it go unmentioned that, after his recent six-month suspension for professional misconduct, Brickall could not afford to be caught making any more mistakes.

  ‘Seriously, I owe you one.’

  ‘Good, because I was going to ask you a favour.’ They were at a set of traffic lights, so she could turn her head to the left and look at him. ‘Quite a big favour.’

  Brickall groaned. ‘Suppose I can’t really say no now, can I? Go on, what is it? You want me to set you up with that new guy in Child Protection, the one who’s replaced You Know Who.’

  He never mentioned Giles Denton by name, as though he was Lord Voldemort. There had been little love lost between him and Denton when they worked on cases together, but after the Irishman abruptly left his job at the NCA, simultaneously abandoning his romance with Rachel, Brickall was even more full of bile.

  ‘I want you to come on a road trip with me.’

  ‘Road trip? What the fuck, Prince?’

  They were now turning into the basement parking area of the NCA. ‘Come over to mine for a drink this evening and I’ll tell you all about it.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I take a handful of kitchen towel and throw it into the toilet bowl. Using the handle of the toilet brush, I push it down towards the U bend, then attempt to flush. It won’t. Instead the water level swirls and rises queasily towards the rim. Then I text Clayton.

  I check my phone every ten minutes or so, for the next couple of hours. Nothing. This is infuriating. She said that he would be on hand to help. That implies a certain level of responsiveness. I pace, unable to settle.

  After more than three hours he replies.

  Sorry, was at the game. Coming over now.

  Of course this guy was at the game. That’s where all guys like him are.

  As I answer the door, he does a double take at the resemblance between me and his girlfriend. ‘Wow,’ he says, ‘It’s like she’s still here!’

  Technically she is, wrapped in a sheet on the floor of her closet.

  ‘How’d the toilet get blocked?’ he wants to know.

  I tell him I was doing some cleaning in there and accidentally dropped the paper towel into the bowl. He accepts my explanation without question. ‘Sure. The bathroom does look super clean.’

  He clears the blockage by sticking his hand in and pulling out the towel. I could have easily done this myself, but this fact doesn’t seem to occur to him. I offer him a cold beer, one of the six pack I bought specially. I don’t drink beer, but I hold a bottle and pretend to swig. He doesn’t notice that the level of liquid in my bottle isn’t going down, because his eyes are focused on my chest. I’m wearing a sheer chiffon blouse that I found in the closet, through which my pink bra is clearly visible.

  When he realises his staring is obvious he blusters about noticing my top, asking if it’s his girlfriend’s. I tell him it’s mine. ‘Weird; she has one exactly like it.’

  ‘It’s one of my favourites.’

  ‘It’s hot,’ he leers.

  We chat for a while. His small talk is leaden and predictable and I am bored. I can tell that he’s thinking about going to bed with me.

  ‘Guess I’d better get going,’ he says eventually. ‘But anything you need.’

  I nod, already knowing what his next chore is going to be. He’ll be back.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘Are you sure you actually live here?’

  Brickall was standing in the living room of Rachel’s flat, looking around at the bare walls, minimalist furniture and general absence of belongings, save the running shoes in the hall, a couple of pot plants and a colourful rug.

/>   ‘What – just because it’s tidy? Trust me, it doesn’t look like this when Joe’s been staying here.’

  ‘But you tidy up after him?

  ‘Of course.’

  Brickall shook his head. ‘Still can’t get used to you being a mother. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.’

  ‘It’s only been six months: it’s all still pretty new.’

  She was slowly becoming accustomed to the practical and emotional demands of parenthood, but compared to most women with teenage children, she needed ‘L’ plates. Besides, Joe’s adoptive parents were still his parents. She and her ex-husband Stuart Ritchie were content to play a peripheral role.

  ‘Hasn’t changed your design choices, that’s for sure.’ Brickall indicated the spartan décor. ‘Still light on the personal touches.’

  Rachel pointed to a framed photo of Joe that had pride of place, then handed him a can of lager. ‘See – doesn’t get more personal than that. Anyway, look how useful a bare white wall can be.’

  She indicated the longest wall in the sitting area, where she had Blu-Tacked all the printable evidence from the Phoebe Stiles case. There were blown up photos of Tiffany Kovak, Phoebe Stiles and Jennifer Van der Wieke (aka Heather Kennedy or Stacey Gunnarson), crime scene photos, the CasaMia listings, stills from the Lovely Locks commercial and from the CCTV at Valley Plaza. She handed Brickall a file containing crime reports and forensic results, which she had attempted to place in some sort of chronological order.

  Rachel poured herself a glass of wine and sipped it slowly while Brickall flicked through the papers.

  ‘Okay, so the MO with Phoebe Stiles was a bash on the back of the head with a lump of marble… how about the first girl?’ He flicked back to the crime report on Tiffany Kovak.

  ‘She was hit on the back of the head with a Padres souvenir baseball bat. That’s her local team. Their stadium’s a couple of blocks from her apartment.’

  ‘And afterwards they find the baseball bat in the apartment, but it’s been completely cleaned using Citranox. That’s a very… strange… touch.’ Brickall pursed his lips with a sort of grudging respect. He put the file down and looked at the pictures on the wall. ‘So this person here, wearing a Padres cap, who is this? Not Tiffany presumably.’

  ‘That’s someone a neighbour in Los Angeles identified as Phoebe Stiles. Except it can’t have been Phoebe, because on the day in question she was definitely dead.’ Rachel put down her glass of wine and joined him at the wall, pointing to the still from the commercial. ‘It could be the same person as this girl, but it’s hard to tell from the CCTV images.’

  ‘Christ, talk about wheels within wheels. This is a right old hall of mirrors you’ve got here, Prince.’

  ‘Mixing your metaphors after just the one beer,’ Rachel grinned. ‘Seriously though Mark, what’s your gut telling you?’

  He thought for a few seconds. ‘That this isn’t someone who enjoys killing. It’s almost as if they want to get the killing bit out of the way so they can get to the good bit. So – what’s the good bit? You’d think it could be robbery, except if I understand the reports correctly, nothing was stolen. And the places were left clean and tidy.’

  ‘Pathologically clean,’ concurred Rachel. ‘Literally.’ The doorbell rang and Rachel went to admit the curry they had ordered. She laid out the food on a tray with plates, forks and paper napkins and plonked it on the coffee table. ‘Tuck in.’

  As she bit into a poppadum, sending greasy splinters all over the front of her sweatshirt, she asked, ‘So what about the CasaMia link? How does that fit in?’

  Brickall was washing down a mouthful of rogan josh with his lager. ‘Is there a link though? I don’t know how you can be sure, given that literally millions of people use the site. Isn’t that like saying two crimes are linked because the victims both use Facebook?’

  Rachel shook her head violently, covering her mouth to stop her pilau rice escaping. ‘Not when the person who rented both girls’ apartments used the same profile photo.’

  ‘Unless you’ve got a forensic link, that’s still just circumstantial.’

  ‘The girl in the video is the key to this; I’m sure of it. She turned up at the shoot safe in the knowledge that the real Phoebe wouldn’t show. She could only have done that if she knew Phoebe was dead. And the DNA she left in the dress and the shoes is the same as the DNA on the lipstick I found in Tiffany Kovak’s apartment. There’s your forensic link. You can’t possibly say that’s circumstantial.’

  Brickall considered this as he chewed on a naan. ‘Fair enough. So if the perp is the girl in the shampoo ad – or her accomplice – then she’s targeting women who all have a very similar look to her own.’ He pointed to Tiffany, Phoebe, Jennifer and the Lovely Locks girl. ‘Look at them; from a distance they could be quadruplets. So what the fuck’s that all about?’

  ‘That’s what I need to find out.’

  Brickall siphoned lager from the can and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘It strikes me that this is a hell of a lot of trouble to go to when the killing itself is so perfunctory, almost an irrelevance. She drives around San Diego in Tiffany’s car, wearing a lipstick that she’s copied from this chick,’ He stood up and tapped Jennifer’s photo. ‘Then in LA, she turns up at professional shoot and does Phoebe’s day job for her. It’s a bit like that thing De Clerry… De Clarry…’

  ‘De Clerambault’s Syndrome.’

  ‘That’s the one. Where the sufferer believes they have a relationship with someone they don’t know at all.’

  Rachel considered this, picking bit of poppadum off her sweater. ‘Kind of, but that’s not quite it. There’s a piece of the puzzle that we’re missing, but I can’t quite work out what it is.’

  Brickall belched discreetly. ‘What can you do about it from here? Not a fat lot.’

  ‘Where Tiffany’s concerned, no, but we can look harder at Phoebe. Know your victim.’

  ‘And other great crime-solving clichés,’ Brickall quipped. ‘I’m guessing this is where the road trip comes in?’

  Rachel nodded. ‘This weekend. You up for it?’

  ‘Go on then.’ Brickall sat down on the sofa, closer to her this time, and put down his can. He scrutinised her face, and there was something in his gaze that made her hackles shoot straight up. ‘You know something Prince, you’re not a bad-looking bird when you make the effort. Quite pretty.’

  Rachel indicated her curry-stained hoodie and tracksuit bottoms. ‘I sincerely hope you don’t think this is making an effort.’

  ‘Maybe it’s because your hair’s down,’ He tweaked one of the long blonde locks that fell around her shoulders. ‘You always have it tied up at work.’

  He didn’t relinquish her hair, but wherever he thought this was headed, it was not somewhere she had any desire to go. In fact, his sudden change in manner sent curdling panic through her. Not Brickall, for God’s sake. Never Brickall. That was the last taboo.

  Keep the deflection light, she told herself. Don’t bruise his ego. ‘I sincerely hope you’re not making a pass at me, Detective Sergeant?’

  He jutted his chin defiantly. ‘What if I did?’

  ‘Don’t be daft; you know you’re not my type.’

  ‘And why’s that? You never did say.’

  ‘You swear too bloody much.’ She stood up and lifted the tray of dirty dishes to avoid having to overtly recoil. ‘Now go on with you, it’s a school night.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I love office supplies stores. They’re full of interesting stuff, and the way they’re laid out makes them feel neat and orderly. I like that.

  So although this is a visit of expediency, I spend a happy afternoon pushing my giant cart up and down the aisles. I pick up a bale of air cushion packaging for void-filling, some heavy-duty tape and a large double-walled cardboard shipping box. ‘Military grade!’ it boasts on the label. ‘Suitable for machinery and small engine parts. Recommended weight up to 150lb’. This will be s
turdy enough, I decide. I already have gloves and cleaning stuff.

  Back at the apartment I text Clayton. Need you to help me with something real quick. I have pizza!

  I add a pizza emoji followed by a smiley emoji, because that’s the sort of girl he’s used to. Those sorts of girls. He replies within seconds with a tongue-out emoji.

  I drag the sheet-wrapped body out of the closet into the hallway. I’ve had the aircon switched up high, but even so it’s high time for it to leave before decomposition really kicks in. I fold it into the box (really hard to do single-handed; I’m sweating by the time I’m finished), press the air-pocket wrap into all the spaces and tape the box up tight. She can’t weigh more than 125 pounds, so it should hold fine.

  The doorbell goes as I’m fixing the last bit of tape. I shove the gloves out of sight, open the fridge and answer the door holding a 15" pizza box. This guy is sure to think bigger is better.

  We decide we’ll do the drop while the oven is heating, then come back and enjoy the pizza. I tell him it’s some unwanted stuff from the apartment of my recently deceased aunt, which I’m donating. ‘That’s cool,’ he says, as he hefts the box into the bed of his pickup. He doesn’t complain about how heavy it is, because he wants to appear macho. Of course he does.

  I tell him there’s a special place the charity uses for people to leave donations, which they collect another time. As we pull up into the lot, the penny drops.