‘We’ve been told that you haven’t been entirely truthful with us,’ Isaac said.
The three were sitting in a large room at the back of the house.
‘I told you what I know. I’ve been honest about the business conducted here. I’ll take my punishment when the time comes.’
‘Which will not be severe. You know this. Is that why you’ve been so helpful?’
‘Once this is over, I’ll sell the house, find a place in the country.’
‘Amanda?’
‘I had hoped for better for her, I really did.’
‘Mrs Wilton,’ Isaac said, ‘coming back to what I said before. We have it from a reliable source that you know more than you’ve told us.’
‘I’ve told you what I can.’
‘Can or will? There seems to be a subtle difference. One infers there is more.’
‘They both do if you want to debate semantics. I admitted to knowing the three dead women, one who, if you haven’t forgotten, was my daughter. What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry for their deaths? It won’t make them come back, will it.’
‘Are you frightened there might be more if we keep pressing? If you tell us more?’ Wendy said.
‘My daughter has died. What do you want me to do? Tell you more, put your lives at risk, as well as others.’
‘We want and demand the truth,’ Isaac said.
Wendy thought her DCI was pushing a little too hard, but she could see his point. A possible breakthrough in the murder enquiries, and the fear that the two teenagers, Brad Robinson and Rose Winston, were still targets, considering that Brad’s father and sister had already died, and the two were back at school with no police protection.
‘Ian Naughton?’ Wendy said.
‘The man in Holland Park is not Ian Naughton. He is somehow tied in to Analyn, but I’m not sure of the connection,’ Mary Wilton said.
‘Then who is he?’
‘I don’t know. Analyn spoke to me once as to how she had come to this country. I know she had not been trafficked.’
‘Analyn, where can we find her?’
‘I’ve no idea. I know of another woman, a friend of hers, where she lives. I suggest you go and see her.’
***
Bill Ross drove. A multi-storey high-rise greeted him and Larry on their arrival. Larry had seen worse not far from Challis Street Police Station, the burnt-out remains of Grenfell Tower, a reminder of similar blocks of flats.
New Barn Street was a thoroughfare connecting Barking Road and the A13 up to Dagenham, Ross’s next assignment, although Larry wasn’t sure it was going to be any better there; just a change of scenery, not that there was much, and a different set of villains.
Ross parked in the open area in front of the building, a patrol car close by to ensure no vandalism. As Larry looked skyward, he saw despair and squalor. Some people had washing draped over the glass-fronted balcony rails, others had attempted to create another room by blocking the balcony front from floor to ceiling with wooden boards. Once it would have been under the control of racketeers, but now it was the local council, who had clearly abrogated their collective responsibility. In the car park about forty cars, although none were old or perilously cheap. A smattering of Japanese imports, some English cars, more BMWs and Mercedes that people on subsided rents and low incomes should have been able to afford, in contrast to the building. It was high crime, low intellect.
It was good, Larry thought, that they were afforded protection by the government, both national and local, but…
A pub next to the building was closed, its windows boarded up, the outside brickwork graffitied. Larry thought it was a depressing area, the sort of place that engenders drug-taking and crime. He and Ross would do their job and get the hell out of it.
Sean Garvey lived on the fifth floor, which was just as well, as the lift inside wasn’t working, vandalised by the looks of it. Larry assumed the vandals who had smashed the control panel didn’t live up at the top of the building as there were at least twenty floors, but he wasn’t sure of that. Vandals, youth on the cusp of crime, but still too young to be legally responsible, had probably thought it was fun. Outside, as they prepared to enter the building, a crew of local council workers arrived, followed closely by a repair vehicle from the lift company.
‘Not much point, is there?’ Ross shouted out.
‘Not much,’ the reply from a white-overalled man with a ruddy complexion and a beer gut. ‘Still, it’s a job. Just glad I don’t have to live here.’
Larry smiled at the humour between the two men as he opened the door of the building, the lift at the end of a hallway, the stairs to their right. At the fifth floor, Ross was attempting to catch his breath; Larry had fared better, and he appreciated his get-fit regime that went with the lower alcohol consumption and his wife spurring him on.
The sound of a child crying from one of the flats, two people arguing in another flat. Ross knocked on the door where Sean Garvey lived, a surly youth answering it. ‘Yeah, what do you want?’
‘I telephoned. Inspectors Ross and Hill, may we come in?’
The reason for the patrol car stationed outside, Larry realised. Not just to make sure that Ross’s car was untouched, but to make sure that Garvey, known on sight to the local police, didn’t make a run for it.
Larry could see that Garvey had an arrogance about him, and though he was sixteen and should have been in school, he wasn’t, and judging by his attitude, he wasn’t concerned either way. The flat was not an agreeable sight, but then that had been expected.
‘You’re after our Sean?’ a fat
