Chapter 5: Chapter 5

FIVE

Gina and Jacob sat opposite the young man. He must have been at least six foot tall and was hunched over, awkwardly playing with the frayed cotton T-shirt they’d given to him when he arrived.

‘Is she going to be all right?’ he asked. ‘I held her, there was nothing else I could do.’

‘You did all you could, Toby. She is being cared for at the hospital now. Can you please confirm your full name?’ Gina asked.

Jacob gripped the pen, ready to note down any details. ‘Toby Benjamin Biddle.’

‘Where were you going this morning?’ Gina watched as he picked his nail. His slightly greasy dark hair was starting to stick to his acne-scarred forehead. Although he’d washed since his initial examination by the station medical officer, she spotted a fleck of blood to the left of his ear. After speaking to Nick, the desk sergeant, she knew that he’d arrived in a state after trying to stem the blood that had been flowing from the girl’s abdomen.

‘I had this job to go to. An agency sent me to Rashers Meat Packing Plant on Cleevesford Industrial Estate. I was

meant to be having an induction at seven thirty. I haven’t even managed to call them yet.’

‘We can do that for you.’ Gina knew they would be verifying that information anyway.

‘Thank you. Although, I doubt they’ll want me after not turning up. The only excuse these crap employers accept for not turning up is death.’ Toby thought about what he’d just said. ‘I’m so sorry. What an idiot, I shouldn’t have said that—’

Gina leaned forward. ‘Toby, it’s fine. You may have saved her life. Please tell me everything you can remember. Start from the beginning.’

‘I was just driving, enjoying the quietness of the roads. There’s not much in the way of traffic around when you take the scenic route early on a Saturday morning. I wasn’t looking forward to arriving at work, I mean, who would look forward to packing meat all day on a day like this?’ He wiped the sweat from his brow and took a sip of water. ‘All I remember is going around the bend on Laurel Lane and seeing a girl falling out of the back of a van. It happened so quickly, I don’t know what more I can add.’

‘Describe how she fell out of the van.’

He closed his eyes as if trying to recall what had happened. ‘From what I remember, it looked as if she had pushed the door open and was trying to slip out. No, it was more like she was leaning against the door and fell out, I think… oh, I don’t know. She wasn’t poised to jump. It happened too fast. Sorry, I don’t know. All I know is that I literally had to do an emergency stop. I thought I might have hit her but when I checked, I hadn’t.’

Gina glanced at her notes. One of the officers had noted that there had been no marks found on the front of Toby’s car that were consistent with hitting her. There had been dried mud over the bumper, the bonnet, and indeed most of the car. Not washing his car had shown him to be telling the truth. The dirt had remained undisturbed. She also spotted a further note about his car boot being full of old clothes in bags, and the back seat of his car had been littered with fast food containers mixed with shoes and old bags of books. There had been nothing to suggest the girl had been in his car and, given his collection of clutter, there would have been no room for her.

‘What happened then?’

‘I was scared. I think I felt sick but wasn’t sure what to do. I kept thinking, what if I’d run over her? What would I see? Was she going to be covered in blood on the road? I got out and walked around the front of the car. I hadn’t hit her, thankfully. She was just lying there, eyes slightly open. She was trying to say something but it just came out as a murmur.’

‘Could you make out anything she was trying to say?’ Gina hoped he’d remember something. The girl had been trying to tell him something.

‘It sounded like, “help her”.’

‘Did she say any more, like who she was referring to?’ ‘No, she started fitting and passed out. The ambulance

turned up and took her from there. She didn’t try to say anything else. I did notice she was bleeding from her side when I went around to help her. I pulled off my T-shirt and held it to the wound, hoping to stem the flow of blood. That’s when I called you guys. I really don’t have any more to add. Shit, I can’t believe this has happened.’ He leaned back on the plastic chair and rubbed his eyes. The emergency T-shirt

they’d issued him with rode up, revealing his hairy stomach. It was far too short for his elongated torso.

‘Going back to the van. Can you describe it?’

‘The van. It was definitely white and it was Transit size. Quite a high roof. I saw some signwriting on the side as it drove away. I couldn’t make out what the text said but I could see that the letters were dark green.’

Gina knew that searching for all the owners of large white vans would be a lot of work. They were one of the most common work vehicles on the road. Green signwriting would narrow any suspects down a little bit.

‘Anything else about the van?’

‘No. I wish I saw more. At the same time I was trying to do an emergency stop and was panicking as I thought I might hit the girl.’

Gina looked up and smiled. ‘You’ve done really well. If you think of anything else later or even tomorrow, give me a call. We may need to speak to you again and we will be keeping your clothes, I’m afraid. Is there anything further you remember?’ She passed him a card. His clothing had already been bagged and sent to forensics for analysis.

‘No. I can’t think of anything. The copper who brought me in, they took my car. What do I do?’

Gina checked her notes. ‘We’ll explain that to you soon. We’ve found that you haven’t got a valid MOT certificate but, luckily for you, your insurance was still in date. Unfortunately this will be passed to the traffic department. This will be explained to you later.’ Gina thought about mentioning the dangers of driving a vehicle that wasn’t roadworthy but she could see that he’d been through enough for the day. If the

poor girl lived, it would be down to him stopping and administering first aid at the scene. He’d potentially lost his job and he’d had to call his mother to pick him up as his car had been impounded. ‘DI Driscoll will keep you a little longer while he completes your witness statement. He’ll ask you to sign it, then you can go home. Your mother is in the waiting room.’

The young man exhaled and slumped over the table while he waited. Gina smiled and left the room. Detective Constable Harry O’Connor walked down the corridor. His shiny bald head reflected the strip light above. ‘Bakewell tart in the main office, courtesy of Mrs O,’ he said as he passed. Her stomach rumbled. She was definitely heading over to get a slice before it all went.

‘Before you settle, call Rashers Meat Packing Plant on Cleevesford Industrial Estate. Tell them that we have their most recent recruit here, which is why he didn’t turn up for work. Explain that he’s been helping us with our enquiries following an incident in the area, this morning. I hope the poor kid doesn’t get laid off before he’s even started.’

Harry put his thumbs up and continued.

Gina thought about what Toby had said. He described the girl as falling. Was she trying to stay in the van and had she been flung out as it sped around a bend? Was she trying to escape from her captor? She knew it would take a lot for someone to voluntarily jump out of a moving van, especially in her physical state. Had she seized her only opportunity to escape? Questions sped through her mind. She also thought that the van driver must have realised his back door was open and decided not to stop and close it. The van driver had now

become their main suspect and she needed to find out who he was.

SIX

‘Great,’ Gina muttered as she fought to open the jammed window in her office. It was over twenty degrees already and the room felt like a sauna. She slammed her palms into the glass. Another maintenance job to report.

At least the incident room was dry. Spring had been difficult with the mould and mildew spreading up the damp wall, leaving a nasty smell throughout the room and along the corridors. That problem still hadn’t been attended to even though she’d reported it on numerous occasions, but the emergence of summer had disguised it, for now. She pushed at the window, but it was still going nowhere. Giving up, she snatched her paperwork and headed along the short corridor, into the main office.

As she grabbed a slice of Bakewell tart, she sat on the desk and placed her paperwork down before devouring what was a late breakfast.

‘You’re coming to the pub tonight, aren’t you, guv?’ Detective Constable Paula Wyre called.

‘Pub?’

‘Nag’s Head, after work. A few of us are going. I did mention my birthday earlier in the week. Thought I’d buy you

all a drink instead of bringing cake. Cake would be wasted on this place. Tesco can’t compete with Mrs O.’

‘Oh gosh, yes. Of course I’ll be there,’ she said.

She began speaking to the team between bites. ‘Jacob and I have just this minute finished interviewing a young man called Toby Biddle in relation to this morning’s call. As we know, a young woman tumbled out of a van around seven thirty this morning and she is now in a critical state and in Cleevesford Hospital.’ Jacob nodded and took a slice of cake as he listened. He held the plate towards Wyre who shook her head. That woman’s willpower was enviable, Gina thought. As always, her perfectly fitted, black trouser suit complemented the poker straight black fringe she’d recently adorned. ‘After speaking to Doctor Nowak at the hospital this morning, we’ve since found out that she may not make it. There is evidence of heavy drug use, track marks on her groin and arms. Her organs were in a failing state. She was also admitted with a bleeding abdomen. To be frank, we’ve seen some sights and wondered how people survive, well, times that by five and you have this girl. She looked so thin, I have no idea how she managed to stand. Is PC Smith back as yet?’

Smith took his hat off as he entered. ‘Got relieved from sentry duty about an hour and half ago. I’m not up to much, I have a list of visits to make and minor incidents to attend to.’

Gina held out her hand, gesturing for him to sit in the empty chair beside Wyre. ‘We won’t keep you long. Any updates, Wyre?’

‘I just checked with the hospital again. She has been placed on a ventilator so won’t be good for any talking. Forensics turned up and took samples with Doctor Nowak present.’

‘Great, they’ll probably already be heading to the lab.’ She continued addressing the room. ‘The biggest complication we have at the moment is that we can’t identify our victim. We have taken a DNA sample in the hope that her DNA may be on our database. If it isn’t, we start with the basics. Research runaways, people reported missing, you know the drill.’ She glanced at her phone to see if she’d received a missed call from Bernard, wanting to catch up on his preliminary findings at the hospital. She hadn’t missed a thing. It was way past lunchtime and a call was imminent.

‘What did the interview with Toby Biddle give us?’ Wyre asked as she turned over a new page in her pad.

‘Keith confirmed that Biddle’s car had not touched the girl. She hadn’t landed on it nor had she been hit by it. His car was so full of his own rubbish she can’t have come from it either. Biddle stated that she fell from a white van as he went round a corner on Laurel Lane. The way he described the incident, I’d say one of the back doors was open, she lost her balance and flew out of the door, falling onto the ground. We don’t know for definite whether she jumped on purpose to escape the van or she accidentally slipped out. We need to know how she got in the van, what she was doing in the van and why she was so emaciated. We need the van driver found. It was described as a white Transit size van with dark green signwriting.’

‘What did the sign say?’ O’Connor asked as he leaned back in his chair, chewing the cake in his mouth. Gina looked at the last bit of cake between her fingers and placed it on the table. The sound of O’Connor’s chewing had ruined any enjoyment of the sugary treat. Of all the things that could have ruined her eating experience – it could have been the way the girl had looked, the thoughts that were running through Gina’s mind on what the girl may have been through, or the look on

her daughter’s face when she passed Gracie over to her that morning, but no, it was O’Connor’s mastication that had ruined her enjoyment of the Bakewell tart.

‘Toby Biddle couldn’t read any of the words on the van. I don’t think he had the chance while he was performing an emergency stop. Everything happened too fast for him. He said the lettering was dark green. Unfortunately that’s all we have to go on at the moment.’

‘So, a large white van with dark green signwriting.’ O’Connor wrote a few notes down. ‘Shall I look into this, start to at least form a list of vans like this in the area?’

‘Yes, please,’ Gina replied.

‘Toby said he thought he heard her saying, “help her”, suggesting that there is another girl somewhere. This is a worry and it’s why we need to get on to this with all we have.’

‘Guv, I have to get going,’ Smith said as he stood.

‘Sorry. I know you’re really busy and I didn’t mean to hold you up. I want you to keep your eyes and ears open. The girl in the hospital is a very serious user and covered in syringe marks. She or her captor was getting the stuff from somewhere. It’s important that we work closely with uniform on this one and I’d like you to report back to me on anything that might be relevant because, as yet, we haven’t even identified her.’

‘I will, guv. Catch you later.’ He grabbed his hat and hurried away.

She spotted Briggs watching from the back of the room.

He must have entered while she was speaking.

DCI Chris Briggs had kept a friendly distance since their break up. Remaining on good terms had started off easy, but

an awkwardness had developed between them lately, or maybe it was just her. Being around him still led her mind back to their brief but passionate relationship.

Gina cleared her throat. ‘We need to put out a press statement for anyone who saw a large white van with dark green signwriting travelling along Laurel Lane this morning. The incident occurred between seven fifteen and seven thirty.’

Briggs placed a hand on the door frame. ‘I’ll liaise with Annie in Corporate Communications to get that done ASAP. For this case, Harte, you’ll be Senior Investigating Officer but make sure you report to me daily with progress reports. I want to know what’s happening and when, and I’ll also deal with the media. Keep me updated.’

‘Will do, sir,’ she replied. SIO again, she was relishing the thought. The pressure was immense but, once again, being in control of the investigation and the path it took, along with controlling the budgets, was everything she’d worked so hard for over the years. She smiled at him and he returned her smile. The other detectives began to speak to one another, comparing notes and talking about what happens next. Briggs turned and left the room, leaving her there with her thoughts.

Smith darted in, car keys in hand, ready to dash out. ‘Is this cake for anyone? I’m starving.’

Gina nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Great.’ Crumbs flew from his mouth as he continued to speak and eat. ‘Right, I’m off to Cleevesford Chippy.’

Gina scooped her paperwork up and stood. ‘I don’t know! Cake followed by fish and chips at lunchtime, and a pastry for breakfast. Sounds like a recipe for diabetes.’

‘I’m not pigging out, guv.’

‘It wouldn’t be any of my business though and I’m a fine one to talk. I live on takeaways at the moment. Ignore me, I’m pulling your leg, Smith.’

He gave her a knowing look and let out a little laugh. ‘I was actually responding to a call. Apparently, the owner and staff have seen what they believe to be drug deals going on in the bus stop opposite the chippy. We’ll be keeping our eye on that.’

‘Sounds like you have a lot on.’

‘It makes the day go fast. See you later.’

‘Remember, keep me updated,’ she called, but he’d already left the room.

Gina’s phone began to buzz in her pocket. She snatched it and placed it against her ear while Keith spoke. She hoped forensics had come up with something. When he finished she ended the call. The room went silent as everyone stopped what they were doing, to hear what Gina was bursting to say. ‘You won’t believe what Keith has discovered on the girl. Bernard is sending the reports through. We need to find the van driver and bring him in, now.’