Despite the sweeping smoked glass along the front of the medical facility, the rear of the building was featureless and functional and Kay noted signs pointing to administration offices and storerooms as she kept up with Harrison.
They turned a corner, and Kay peered around Harrison to see two more armed guards halfway along the next corridor.
One of them pivoted to face them as they neared, and Kay shuffled from foot to foot as their identification was checked once more.
Finally, the guard waved them past and pointed to a door on the left.
‘Thanks,’ said Harrison.
He pushed open the door and beckoned to them to follow.
As Kay passed him and into the room, she took a sharp intake of breath.
A man lay on a single bed to the left-hand side of the door, a series of tubes and wires protruding from under the blankets as machines next to the bed beeped and whirred.
Two armed guards stood to the right of the room, and Harrison waved them outside.
‘Stay by the door, though.’
The taller of the two nodded, and pulled the door shut behind them.
Sharp circled the end of the bed, his face impassive while Harrison approached the man in the bed.
‘Gareth? It’s Simon Harrison. We wanted a quick word.’
The man’s eyes flickered open, and his eyes swept the three faces that stared at him until his gaze found Kay.
‘So, you’re Kay Hunter, huh?’ He managed a small smile. ‘I’d say it’s nice to meet you properly at last, but—’
‘Yeah, I know. Circumstances.’ Kay shrugged. She had no time for niceties. She folded her arms across her chest. ‘What did Katya tell you about Demiri’s business that got her killed?’
Jenkins swallowed, lowered his eyes and shook his head.
Kay glanced up at Sharp, who nodded.
‘The thing is, Gareth, our pathologist tells us she wasn’t dead while she was in the boot of your car. She was just unconscious. The force of the car crash killed her. So, where were you going with her? Did you decide she’d outlived her usefulness?’
A single tear rolled down the man’s cheek.
Kay swallowed. She hated the line of questioning, but she and Sharp needed answers, and so did Harrison.
‘The bastard,’ he rasped.
He wiped at his eyes and glared at her. ‘He has another man that works closely with him – Oliver Tavender. He phoned me four days ago and told me to have the car ready at the back of his nightclub in Maidstone town centre. When I got there, he told me to stay in the car. I watched him in the mirrors. He dragged something towards the back of it, opened the boot, and then came back round to where I was sitting and told me to dump it in woodland the other side of Ryarsh.’
‘What caused the crash?’ said Sharp. ‘Early indications from the crash investigators are that there was nothing on the road to cause you to swerve. Even the truck driver that was parked on the hard shoulder said the car went out of control for no apparent reason.’
Jenkins sniffed. ‘I’d already decided earlier that night to get Katya away from Demiri. She knew stuff – way too much about his business. I knew she was in danger.’ He glanced at Harrison, his eyes contrite. ‘I know I shouldn’t have got involved, but I couldn’t help it. I knew I had to dump whatever was in the boot of the car first though, otherwise Tavender would’ve got suspicious. I was driving down the motorway, and I used my own mobile to phone Katya. I wanted to warn her, to tell her that I’d be at her place within the hour and that I’d take her away.’
‘Where to?’ asked Harrison.
‘I don’t know!’ Jenkins spat. ‘I just knew I had to get her away.’
‘What happened?’ said Kay.
‘I couldn’t get a signal to start off with, and then when the call went through, I could hear a phone ringing in the back of the car.’ He choked out a sob. ‘I knew then that he’d killed her, and that it was her body that Tavender had put in the boot. They’d found out she’d talked to me. I was in shock. I-I just remember staring at the phone, trying to process what I was hearing, and then I looked up and saw the truck on the hard shoulder. I was too close. I—’
The machine next to the bed starting beeping at an alarming rate, and Kay reached out and touched Jenkins’s shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry, Gareth. We had to know.’
He nodded, and wiped at his eyes once more.
‘What about the two women whose bodies were found near Aylesford last year?’ said Sharp. ‘Did you dump those?’
Jenkins shook his head. ‘I’ve got no idea who was responsible for them,’ he said. ‘I’m not the only one Demiri uses.’
‘What exactly did Katya tell you?’ said Kay. She gestured to Harrison. ‘Apparently, you never got to make your last report.’
Jenkins glanced across at Harrison, who nodded.
‘It’s okay, Gareth. They’re on the investigating team now. We need to pool our resources to put Demiri away once and for all.’
‘We understand he’s involved in people smuggling,’ said Sharp.
Jenkins let out a sigh that wracked his whole body. ‘It’s worse than that. I found out from Katya what goes on at that nightclub of Demiri’s. I was meant to be meeting Harrison that night, and that’s when I was going to tell him. Demiri’s running a kill club.’
‘A what?’
‘He has a secret room there. Invitation only. There’s maybe five or six clients that are the only ones who know about it. One of them flies in from Europe especially.’
Sharp moved closer to the bed. ‘What sort of room?’
Jenkins’ face turned paler. ‘A torture chamber,’ he whispered. ‘Demiri’s clients pay to pick a girl from each new boatload that’s smuggled in. He’s making a fortune from letting them live out their sick fantasies.’
Kay
