During the next hour no less than twenty more people converged on the house in Dulwich. They included patrol officers, local CID detectives, paramedics, a forensics team, and three social workers.
The paramedics examined the children before whisking them away from the scene. Arrangements would be made for NCA officers to question the children further.
The three perps were also taken away in separate vehicles. Craig Sullivan was seen as a real catch. The fact that he’d been collared purely by chance wouldn’t stop the Major Investigation Team taking full credit for it; Anna knew that Nash would see to that.
Unfortunately Sullivan’s arrest, and the discovery of the child brothel, probably wouldn’t move them any closer to solving the Jacob Rossi case. They knew that Neville Quinlan had met up with Sullivan last Monday afternoon. But it now appeared that the pair hadn’t set off together to abduct Jacob on his way home from school. Instead, Sullivan had brought Quinlan to the house so that he could satisfy his lust for young male flesh.
Both of them would be questioned further, of course, along with Sullivan’s accomplice, Lorna Fitzgerald. She hadn’t spoken since Anna had stopped her clobbering Sweeny with the baseball bat. But she’d been easily identified from the driving licence and credit cards in her purse. And a PNC check had revealed that, like her paymaster, she had form for dealing drugs.
The perv who was about to have his way with Vicky Woods also had a criminal record. Samuel Broderick was a fifty-four-year-old accountant who had served time for molesting three underage girls some years ago. His profile was similar to that of Quinlan, and Anna guessed they were part of the same paedo network that made use of the services provided by human traffickers like Craig Sullivan.
It was a lot for Anna to get her head around, even before the search of the house uncovered some disturbing pieces of evidence.
Walker found a drawer full of medications that had clearly been used to control the children. There were sleeping pills, tablets that were known to cause listlessness, and batches of the notorious date rape drugs – Rohypnol and Ketamine.
Far more incriminating evidence was found on Lorna Fitzpatrick’s laptop, which she had obviously been using when Anna and the team arrived. In her panic she’d neglected to switch it off.
When a forensic technician fired it up, a shot of the bedroom that Vicky Woods had occupied filled the screen. It transpired that there were hidden cameras in all the bedrooms. This led to the discovery of a folder on the laptop containing fifteen video clips of ‘punters’ having sex with the children, presumably used for blackmailing the men or selling the clips to online paedophile sites.
Among those caught on camera was Neville Quinlan, and the time and date stamp on the recording showed that he was abusing Darius when Jacob was snatched off the street.
So on the one hand it seemed to clear him of direct involvement in the abduction. But on the other it was proof positive that he had been up to his old tricks.
*
Eventually everyone except the forensics officers moved outside the house in order to protect the integrity of what was now a crime scene.
Anna welcomed the opportunity to light up a cigarette. She desperately needed a nicotine fix and the first drag went down a treat.
She was anxious now to get back to Wandsworth so that she could put Quinlan on the spot and conduct a formal interview with Sullivan before handing him over to the NCA.
She also wanted to get the team together for another status review. Quinlan had been their prime suspect in the Rossi case, and if he was no longer in the frame then it was a serious setback.
She said as much to the group that was gathered around her on the driveway. Walker, Mortimer and Sweeny had been joined by two detectives from the local CID and three uniforms.
They all compared notes, and Anna passed on what Vicky Woods had told her. Walker mentioned the drugs, the cameras in the bedrooms and the video clips on the laptop. One of the local detectives said that he had spoken to several neighbours who’d had no idea what was going on in the house.
‘It’s owned by a bloke who lives in Spain with his wife,’ the detective said. ‘He lets it out fully furnished through an estate agent. We’ve found documents showing that the current tenant is one Lorna Fitzgerald and she’s leasing it for six months. The rent comes from a bank account that was set up in her name only three months ago.’
‘It’s an MO that’s often deployed by sex trafficking gangs,’ Walker pointed out. ‘They move between various rented properties so they don’t arouse suspicion by staying for too long in any one place. And they market the kids on the Dark Web or through personal contact with paedos like Quinlan who are known to them.’
‘It’s a sick fucking business,’ Sweeny said, and they all nodded in agreement.
Anna then handed over responsibility for the crime scene to the locals and they said they would liaise with the NCA team.
‘We’ll question Sullivan and Fitzgerald first just to satisfy ourselves that they weren’t involved in Jacob’s kidnapping,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think they were. Then it’ll be over to you guys and the crime agency. With any luck this could be the beginning of the end for at least one of the child trafficking gangs who for too long have been operating in this city with impunity.’
Minutes later they were heading back to Wandsworth and this time Walker was driving. Sweeny and Mortimer were following on behind.
Anna stared out of the window, her mind stuck on what she had seen and heard in the house. The children’s stories had been upsetting enough, but those vile video clips had been burned onto her retinas. They would always be there, a gruesome reminder of the depths of depravity to which some men can sink.
‘Cheer up, guv,’ Walker said. ‘You should be buzzing with a sense of satisfaction. Those kids are out of harm’s way thanks to us.’
Anna looked at him, shook her head. ‘You and I both know that they’ll suffer for the rest of their lives because of what’s happened to them.’
‘That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be pleased with ourselves. It was a result. And a good one.’
Anna sighed. ‘I suppose so. But what we do just doesn’t seem to be enough when it comes to this sort of thing.’
‘We can only do our best, guv. You know that.’
She did, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
‘We might well have earned brownie points for closing down a child brothel, Max,’ she said. ‘But we’ve been dealt a blow with the loss of our prime suspect in the Rossi case. We now know that Quinlan was busy elsewhere when Jacob was abducted. That’s why he lied to us about his movements.’
‘But we do know for sure that he was parked outside the lad’s school a few days earlier.’
‘I’m inclined to believe that it was just a coincidence. He probably went there to have a wank in the car while ogling the kids.’
‘Or he was scouting for talent on Sullivan’s behalf.’
Anna shrugged. ‘We can push him on that. And Sullivan too. But I don’t think that is what happened.’
‘So if you’re right we’re now down to four persons of interest – Roy Slater, Gavin Pope, Michelle Gerrard and Mark Rossi’s long-lost stepbrother Joseph Walsh, or whatever his name is now.’
Anna nodded. ‘That’s correct, but three of them we still haven’t managed to trace, which is so bloody frustrating.’
But as luck would have it there was an encouraging development on that front before they got back to Wandsworth. A message came through from HQ that Michelle Gerrard had turned up at her house and was being brought in for questioning. So at last they would be able to find out why the sick troll had been targeting Mark Rossi with vile and offensive remarks. And if she had anything to do with Jacob’s abduction.