Caelan had driven to Barmouth for the afternoon. Early December probably wasn’t the best time to visit a seaside town in north-west Wales, but after days being trapped indoors by the weather, she had felt like escaping now the rain had finally stopped. Walking under the endless pale blue sky, the sea by her side, the beautiful Mawddach estuary behind her and the wind chilling her cheeks, was perfect. The village where she was staying was quiet, with a petrol station, two pubs and a grocery shop. People had been polite enough, even friendly, but the old urge to keep her head down was always there. Blending in, quickly becoming part of the furniture, had been vital to her safety for so long, it was now second nature.
It would take time to get used to being free.
She turned back towards the town centre, bought a tray of chips with a generous serving of mushy peas spooned over them, and found a bench across the road to perch and eat. Dressed in clothing of her choice, no need to report back to anyone about where she was or what she was doing. Spending her time reading, watching films, playing video games. Relaxing. Using her own name, smiling at people she met.
Telling the truth, living openly.
She had pretended to be someone else for so long, she had almost forgotten how being herself felt. Almost. But the solitude and the clean Welsh air were helping, the contrast with the bustle of London striking. If she didn’t think about the job she had walked away from, or about Nicky, she was happy.
She dug into the chips, relishing the bite of the salt and the tang of vinegar. She was content, at least. She had decisions to make, and the time to think them through. She had a home to go back to in London when she was ready. She was healthy, she was young. She could start again.
As she ate, an elderly couple tottered by, arm in arm, the man carrying a bag of shopping in his free hand, the woman clutching an umbrella that she held over them both. Caelan nodded as they passed her, ignoring the sudden tightening of her throat. She crumpled up the polystyrene tray and dropped it into the bin beside the bench.
Clouds were beginning to skim across the sky.
Back at the house, she reversed onto the driveway, leaving the car ready as always for a quick getaway. She smiled to herself as she unlocked the front door. Old habits definitely died hard.
In the hallway she paused, listening. Usually she would step out of her shoes, but today she kept them on. With her phone in her hand, she crept down the hallway. The kitchen door stood open. Hadn’t she closed it? She thought so but couldn’t remember for sure. She stopped and waited.
Nothing.
She shoved the door open and marched inside.
The man sitting at the kitchen table, cup of coffee in one hand, chocolate digestive in the other, grinned at her.
‘You took your time.’
She stared at him, anger rising. ‘How did you get in here?’
Ian Penrith held up a bunch of keys, and Caelan shook her head. She leant against the door frame, ready to tell him where to go.
‘Your friend Mr Davies needs to be more careful,’ he told her, biting into the biscuit.
‘You mean you stole them?’
Penrith lifted his shoulders. ‘The keys were in his jacket pocket, which he’d left in my office. When I picked it up, they fell out. That’s not stealing.’
‘Couldn’t you just have knocked?’
A smirk. ‘Where’s the fun in that? Anyway, you would have ignored me.’
‘How did you know which was the right key?’
‘I didn’t. I brought the whole bunch with me and hoped one would fit. He’s living with his sister at the moment, isn’t he? He’ll have to hope she’s at home when he leaves work tonight, otherwise he’s in for a chilly evening under the stars.’
Typical. Caelan refused to be persuaded to smile back at him. ‘Still doesn’t explain how you knew I was staying here. Did Ewan tell you?’
It was Ewan Davies’s house. A former soldier and then police protection officer, he had transferred onto their team permanently just before Caelan had walked out. She liked Ewan, had trusted him as soon as they met. They’d worked together briefly, and the friendship between them had grown stronger. When he’d realised she needed a place to run to, he had offered her this house. He’d bought it when he was still in the army and rented it out, but was currently between tenants. On the border of Wales and England, it had seemed far enough away for Caelan to feel she was truly leaving her previous life behind. Now, suddenly, that life had barged back in, in the large and ungainly form of Commander Ian Penrith.
‘No, Ewan didn’t say a word,’ Penrith said. He tapped the side of his nose. ‘I worked it out for myself. Used to be a detective, you know.’
‘Where did you park your car? I didn’t see it.’
‘In the pub car park, where I hoped you’d miss it.’ His eyebrows danced. ‘Thought I’d do my bit for local business and sample a half of bitter while I was in there.’
‘Very clever. What do you want, Ian?’ But Caelan already knew.
He smiled again. Somehow it never looked right on him. Penrith had a face made for scowling. ‘Well, we’re back here again,’ he said. ‘You resign, we run after you to beg you to come back into the fold. It’s becoming a habit.’
‘You’re going to beg?’ She moved further into the room though she didn’t sit down. ‘This should be interesting.’
He finished his coffee, thumped the mug onto the table. Reaching for the packet of biscuits again, he shoved a whole one into his mouth. ‘Is Detective Sturgess here?’
Caelan stared at him, the question stinging as though he had slapped her. ‘Nicky? No. Why would you think she would be?’
Penrith chewed, swallowed. ‘Then where—’
‘With her parents, at their house in Derbyshire.’ Caelan spoke without emotion. ‘Didn’t you know?’
He shook his head. ‘No reason why we should. She’s definitely not coming back, so it’s none of our business. I thought you and she might have patched up your differences.’
‘She’s made it clear she never wants to see me again. End of story.’
Penrith stared, and for a moment she thought he was going to sympathise. Instead, he took two more biscuits. ‘More fool her then.’
In spite of it all, Caelan laughed. ‘She blames me for what happened to her.’
‘And you blame Assistant Commissioner Beckett.’ It wasn’t a question; he knew the answer.
‘Did Beckett send you here?’
His mouth full, Penrith shook his head again, biscuit crumbs flying. ‘No,’ he managed to mumble. ‘This is my show now.’
‘Your show?’ Caelan gave in, pulled out a chair and sat opposite him. ‘It makes no difference. I’m not coming back.’
‘Let me tell you what’s going on before you throw me out.’
She snorted. ‘I can guess. James Mulligan.’
‘In a way.’ Penrith slipped a hand into his jacket, removing a brown envelope from the inside pocket. He opened it, unfolded the contents and shoved them across the table towards Caelan.
‘Whatever it is, I don’t want to see.’ Folding her arms, she turned her face away like a child.
‘I’ll explain, then,’ he said. ‘It’s a post-mortem report.’
She snorted. ‘Most people bring a bottle of wine when they visit.’
Penrith waited, but Caelan was determined not to blink first.
After a few seconds, he said, ‘The victim was a young woman. We’re not certain of her age, but her wisdom teeth hadn’t come through. Based on that and other factors, the pathologist estimates she was between fifteen and twenty-one. We don’t know who she is, or where she came from.’
Under the table, Caelan clenched her fists. He knew exactly how to draw her in. ‘Description?’
‘Dark hair, brown eyes. Thin almost to the point of emaciation. Evidence of drug use.’
She closed her eyes, seeing a face from the past, the face of someone she had failed. When she turned back towards Penrith, he pushed the papers towards her with a fingertip. She didn’t pick them up.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
He took a breath as though to steady himself. ‘She’d been beaten, raped, and not for the first time. She had injuries that proved she’d endured sexual abuse over a long period of time, and from a young age.’
Bile rose in Caelan’s throat and she swallowed it down. Penrith’s voice was a monotone, his face a mask. This was their job at its most sickening, crimes that tore them apart, filling them with a burning fury. She knew Penrith well enough to be aware of his ways of working, and was sure he wouldn’t be using this as a way of persuading her to think about a return. Beckett would manipulate the situation to suit herself without thinking twice, but not Penrith. Not this.
‘How was she killed?’ she asked, aware of the tremor in her voice.
‘She was shot in the back of the head.’
‘An execution,’ Caelan said softly. ‘Where was she found?’
‘Dumped in a bin on an industrial estate. She’d been restrained, burnt with cigarettes, and…’ Penrith stopped, shook his head. ‘You get the idea.’
‘And you haven’t identified her? Someone so young?’
Where were her parents, her teachers? Social services? But Caelan knew as well as any police officer that many young people were alone in the world, by choice or through the neglect and apathy of their families. Or to protect themselves from those same families.
‘We don’t know,’ Penrith said. ‘She’s not been reported missing, as far as we can see. She’s not the first.’
‘What do you mean?’
He removed another envelope from the same pocket. He took out three photographs and studied them, then laid them on the table. Three faces. Three bodies. Three pairs of blank, unseeing eyes fixed on hers. ‘Taking during their post-mortems,’ he said unnecessarily. He pointed to one of the photographs. ‘This girl was found first. Evidence of violent sex, restraint, beatings. Shot in the head and dumped.’ He tapped the next one. ‘This boy – the same story, and he was shot with the same gun.’ Now his finger landed on the third face. ‘This is the latest victim – I’ve already mentioned her injuries.’ He nodded towards the envelope Caelan still hadn’t touched. ‘And you have her post-mortem report in front of you.’
‘You think they were sex workers.’ It was a statement, not a question. All the clues were there. Caelan stared at the three young, lifeless faces, a chill spreading through her stomach. ‘Have either of the first two victims been identified?’
Penrith shook his head. ‘No. We know the three are linked, though.’
‘How?’ Caelan couldn’t take her eyes off the photographs. These were children, their bodies brutalised, used and thrown away. She was numb with horror, and with despair.
‘They were all killed with the same gun, though their bodies were dumped in different areas.’ Penrith paused, taking a moment. ‘The bodies were washed, though whoever killed them didn’t comb their hair.’
‘What do you mean?’
Reaching into his pocket again, Penrith brought out a clear evidence bag. Inside was a tiny bright pink feather. ‘The pathologist found this in the hair of the male victim. The girls didn’t have feathers, but there was pink fluff in their hair that came from the same source.’
Caelan took the bag and studied the feather. The colour was vivid, garish. ‘They were all in the same place at some point,’ she said. ‘Held somewhere maybe.’
Penrith nodded. ‘And then maybe they did something wrong and were punished. Raped, beaten, murdered.’
She handed the evidence bag back to him. ‘Absolute bastards.’
‘It gets worse.’
‘Worse?’ She almost laughed. ‘How could anything be worse than this?’
‘In a million ways, you know that. It was the wrong word to use. I meant more complicated.’
He took out another photograph. ‘Last one, I promise.’
This time Caelan looked down at the beaming face of a young woman. Hair the colour of treacle, wide green eyes. She blinked.
‘Who is she?’
‘Her name’s Lucy. She’s received death threats and… well, other threats. Threats of a personal and… vicious nature.’ Penrith widened his eyes, inviting her to join the dots.
‘You mean threats of sexual violence.’
‘Correct.’
Caelan saw the flash of disgust in his expression, but his tone remained matter-of-fact. She swallowed. ‘What does this have to do with…’ She nodded at the other photographs, the post-mortem report.
‘A photograph of the third victim’s body, taken after she had been thrown into the bin with the other rubbish, was sent by text to Lucy. Untraceable.’ Scowling, Penrith pointed at the photograph. ‘And Lucy is James Mulligan’s kid sister.’
He stopped, again appearing to be waiting for her to make the connection. She looked up at him, imagining she could feel the eyes of the woman in the photograph on her. She thought about it, not liking the possibilities coming into her mind. It was tenuous, but feasible.
‘Are you saying someone’s using the threats to the sister to send Mulligan a message?’
‘It’s possible. We have three victims we can’t trace. They were obviously involved in sex work, possibly trafficked. We know Mulligan had his fingers in that particularly horrific pie.’
Sickened, Caelan considered what he was suggesting. ‘Does Mulligan recognise any of the victims?’
‘He says not. To be fair, he could barely look at the photographs.’ Penrith screwed up his face. ‘Not so easy to deny what you’ve done when you’re brought face to face with the people whose lives you were involved in destroying.’
‘Then the people Mulligan worked with telling him to keep his mouth shut? Why would they? Why would they think he would grass?’
He sat back, folding his arms across his considerable belly. ‘For the reason we’re offering: to take some time off his sentence – a deal. Someone is obviously worried he might open his mouth – the same people who murdered, or ordered the deaths of, these three young people. What else could it be? Lucy Mulligan’s doing well at university; there’s never been any question of her being involved in anything dodgy like her brother. She has no enemies.’
‘As far as you know.’
‘She’s had a brick thrown through her window, messages sent by text and email. She’s even been followed, and now she’s been sent a photograph of a dead girl? She’s adamant she has no idea what’s going on, and Tim Achebe believes she’s telling the truth.’
‘But—’
‘Achebe knows we’re considering making Mulligan an offer,’ Penrith went on. ‘We want to use him to get close to the people he was working with. Lucy went to the local police about the threats, understandably worried and frightened. When she received the text with a photograph of an obviously dead girl, Achebe got to hear of it.’
‘You’re worried about the operation you’ve dreamed up involving Mulligan.’ Caelan didn’t bother to try to disguise the scorn in her voice, but Penrith was undeterred.
‘And I’m worried about Lucy. If she’s already under threat, and her brother’s not even back on the streets yet… We know James Mulligan had contact with people traffickers. You can imagine what a laugh they’d think it would be to force his sister to work in one of their brothels.’
Caelan could visualise the horror only too well. ‘She’d be dead within months.’
Penrith stared at her. ‘You mean weeks, if not days.’
Silence.
‘Has Mulligan said anything? Does he know who might be involved?’ Caelan asked eventually.
A snort. ‘He won’t talk, not a word. He’s terrified, and who can blame him? I think there’s only one way to approach this. We’re going to let him go and see where he leads us.’
Caelan couldn’t believe it. ‘What? I saw him shoot a man dead. You’ve evidence of his involvement in everything from selling crack to kidnap, torture and murder, and you’re allowing him to walk free?’
Penrith grabbed more biscuits. ‘Whatever he’s done, Mulligan’s classed as small fry. We want to offer him a compromise. We’ll protect his sister if he helps us put away some of the real villains he knows.’
‘Wouldn’t him working with us put her in more danger? Why would he even consider it?’
‘Because he’s a selfish bastard who’s terrified of prison.’
‘Still.’
Penrith shrugged. ‘It’s a risk, but a risk to her, not to Mulligan. We’re dangling a fairly huge carrot.’
Caelan shook her head. ‘You’re going to forget what he’s done?’
He wagged a finger. ‘I didn’t say that. He’ll still do his time, don’t worry.’
‘Beckett mentioned this before. I told her then I wouldn’t be involved. Mulligan knows me, he’s seen my face.’
‘He offered you a job.’
‘When he thought I had a kilo of coke to sell, yeah. Before he knew I was police. Once he found out who I really was, he told his men to kill me.’ The memory was all too vivid. The gun pointed at her face, the blank eyes of the man holding it, and Caelan’s own lack of fear. She had almost willed him to pull the trigger.
Penrith gave another snort. ‘But they didn’t. Mulligan respects you, I heard him tell you so himself.’
‘What are you proposing?’
‘Mulligan goes back to his old job – being a scumbag. You step in as his right-hand woman, learn the ropes. Maybe you’re a cousin, a new girlfriend. We haven’t worked out the details.’
‘You don’t think it’ll look obvious? Mulligan suddenly reappears just when his sister’s being threatened? Every dealer in London will have heard about him being arrested.’
Penrith was shaking his head. ‘I don’t think so. The word on the street is that Mulligan got away when his men were nicked. He ended up in hospital and was interviewed by the police but never charged.’
‘Strange how rumours get around, isn’t it?’ Caelan knew Penrith would have told his numerous informants and contacts to start the whispers. ‘I still don’t buy it. Why would Mulligan have a new assistant all of a sudden?’
‘Stands to reason. The two men he used for protection and as general thugs are in jail and will be for years. He can’t do everything alone.’ Penrith lumbered to his feet and went to the sink to fill the kettle.
‘Mulligan and his men weren’t the only people arrested that day,’ Caelan reminded him. ‘How are you going to keep Waits—’
Penrith flicked the kettle on to boil and held up a hand. ‘Already dealt with. If Waits wants to see his baby, he’ll play along.’
‘Really? You think that’ll work? The baby isn’t due for months.’
‘He’s already agreed. He was easily persuaded, especially when we made additional promises. You know how much leeway we have when we need it. Better food, softer toilet paper…’ He grinned. ‘All of which can be rescinded when the job’s done. Seriously, though, he’s desperate to see the child. If we can make that happen – and we can – he’ll do anything we want, including keeping his mouth shut.’
Caelan leant back, thinking it over. Penrith crossed to a cupboard, removed two mugs and found a box of tea bags.
‘Make yourself at home, why don’t you?’ she said.
‘Were you offering to make the drinks?’ He waited. ‘Thought not.’ He poured water into the cups and sloshed the tea bags around with a spoon. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘I don’t like it. It’s too risky, and Mulligan especially can’t be trusted.’
Penrith set a mug in front of her and sat back down. ‘We’re not doing it for him.’ He gestured at the post-mortem report. ‘We don’t even know this girl’s name.’ Leaning across the table, he tapped a thick finger on the photograph of Lucy Mulligan. ‘And this young woman has done nothing wrong, apart from being born into the same family as her worthless brother. We need to help them. Both of them.’
Caelan eyed him. ‘I didn’t believe you’d stoop low enough to use innocent people to get what you wanted. Seems I was wrong.’
He smiled. ‘You think? Not only is Lucy Mulligan innocent, she’s someone we can’t afford to lose.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s a computer expert, and I mean the best of the best. A wizard. She has all sorts of top-secret government types sniffing around her, waiting for her to graduate so they can snap her up. We need to protect her. If we do, it’ll make all of our careers. If we don’t…’
‘We’ll be hung out to dry.’ Caelan was beginning to see why Penrith had travelled here to speak to her himself.
‘It won’t bother you, of course, since you’ve abandoned your career yet again anyway. But some of us still have a mortgage to pay and are depending on having a pension when we retire.’ Penrith sipped his tea, watching her over the brim of his cup. ‘Think about it, Caelan. Think about these kids, dumped like so much rubbish. Remember those girls in the brothel you found. We’re talking about people traffickers, the ones at the top of the chain. It’s a chance to put them away for the rest of their lives.’ He stopped, then said, ‘Remember—’
‘Don’t.’ It was a command, and for once, Penrith listened. Neither of them spoke, Penrith drinking his tea and Caelan staring at nothing, torn by what he had told her. She wanted to walk away and never look back, but what she had heard was like a siren call. She had no choice.
Penrith knew her as well as she had thought she knew him, and now she realised he wasn’t above pressing every button he could think of.
‘What does Mulligan say?’ she asked eventually.
Penrith kept sipping. ‘No.’
‘What?’
‘Mulligan said he wouldn’t do it.’
‘Then why—’
‘We told him about the threats his sister had received, what they specified in graphic detail would happen to her if he talked, showed him the photographs of the three victims. He didn’t much care, at least acted as though he didn’t, so we told him he’d serve three years in an open prison if he spilled his guts. That changed his mind.’
Caelan was sickened. ‘Only three years? Probably not even that.’
‘It’s a bluff, of course. Once we’ve got what we need, he’ll never see the light of day, but he doesn’t need to know that.’ Penrith glanced at his phone. ‘I have to get back to London.’ He made her meet his eyes. ‘What do you say? I’m not asking you to rejoin the force. You’ll be a… contractor. You’ll report to me, and only me. No need for you to liaise with Assistant Commissioner Beckett at all. No need for you to even see her.’
‘Beckett’s agreed to this?’
He shrugged. ‘She’s looking the other way.’
‘Great. Then if it blows up in our faces, she walks away without a scratch?’
‘As always.’
‘And if we make arrests, she gets the glory?’
‘If you want applause, Caelan, you’re in the wrong line of work. You know that. Beckett plays the game; we do the dirty work. Always.’ He stood. ‘Well?’
She closed her eyes, hating herself. ‘All right, I’m in.’
To Penrith’s credit, he didn’t gloat, didn’t even react. ‘Good. I’ll give you tonight to close up this place. Come to my office tomorrow morning and we’ll get you on your way.’ He dumped his mug in the sink, picked up his phone and the bunch of keys. Holding them up, he grinned at her. ‘Looks like Ewan might get these back tonight after all.’ He left her sitting at the table, her head in her hands.
Once she’d heard the front door close, Caelan opened her eyes.
Penrith had left the photographs and post-mortem report on the table. She turned away from them, knowing he had done so deliberately. She had been manipulated, and now she acknowledged she had allowed it to happen.
Elizabeth Beckett had been right. Undercover work was like a drug, and once you had tasted it, felt the rush, there was nothing else like it. This time, though, it would be different. She wouldn’t allow them to take complete control, not again.
She didn’t trust them. She had grown used to thinking of Penrith as an ally, but now she wondered whether she had been fooled.
Lucy Mulligan smiled up at her as she took her mobile out of her pocket and scrolled to the number she wanted.
‘Caelan?’ Nicky’s voice was weak, groggy. Caelan swallowed.
‘How are you?’ she managed to ask.
‘I asked you not to call.’ Nicky spoke quietly, but there was no mistaking the steel.
‘I just wanted to let you know, I’m going away for a while.’
Nicky would understand what she really meant, Caelan knew. It was all part of the game. The doublespeak, the deception. There was silence, and Caelan moved the phone away from her ear, checking the screen to make sure the signal hadn’t been lost. At last Nicky spoke again, her voice gentle.
‘The job will kill you one day, you know. I mean it, Caelan. You saw what happened to me. Don’t let them do the same to you.’
Caelan’s mouth felt parched. ‘I won’t.’
‘But you’re still letting them rule your life?’
‘No, I…’ She allowed her voice to fade. What was there to say?
Nicky clicked her tongue. ‘You can’t stay away, can you? Even though it’s destroying you and everything that should be important to you.’
Caelan’s laugh was bitter. ‘I don’t think it was me who did that, do you?’ She closed her eyes, regretting the words as soon as she had said them.
Nicky’s tone changed, cold and clinical once more. ‘Goodbye, Caelan. Please don’t call me again, not ever. I’ll be changing my number.’ She was gone before Caelan could reply.
Mechanically Caelan pushed the handset into her jeans pocket and went upstairs to pack.