Monday morning came around far quicker than Dani expected it would. Having left the crime scene at Brownhills at just gone eight a.m. on Sunday morning, Dani had had every intention of taking only a quick rest before carrying on working through the day.
That had never happened. Having called and given Easton the lowdown on what had happened in Brownhills, she’d crashed out at the hospital for several hours, only waking in the early afternoon, at which point, despite her impassioned protests, Jason had persuaded her to take what he’d described as a much-needed break. And the break was much needed, even if it wasn’t entirely welcome. Dani had spent most of the rest of the day wishing the hours away, and had even managed to do some bits and pieces from afar when Jason was otherwise engaged.
Which was why, come nine a.m. on Monday morning, she walked into a meeting room at HQ which was already filled with a dozen other officers for the team briefing she’d managed to set up.
Most of the participants were from Homicide, but there were also three less familiar faces from the Organised Crime team. Snow was falling outside the large windows which ran along one side of the long room. The first snow of the season. In typical British fashion, the roads around central Birmingham were already in chaos, and Dani had to hope the inclement weather didn’t have an adverse effect on their work.
The room hushed as Dani and Easton got themselves ready. McNair was sitting up front too, though it was Dani who took the lead and opened up.
‘We have two murder victims which we are treating as linked,’ Dani said, pointing to the photos of the bodies of Clara Dunne and the Jane Doe from the van. Dani briefly explained the circumstances of how each body had been found. ‘We’re light on direct physical evidence that connect these two crimes, but we do have some commonalities between the two.
‘Firstly, we believe this man, Nicolae Popescu, may have had some involvement in Clara Dunne’s death.’ She pointed to the picture of him. ‘Popescu was deported from the UK in 2013, though his whereabouts since then are up for debate, and evidence is sketchy to say the least – however, we are still in discussion with the Romanian authorities on that front. Regardless, we’re keeping an open mind. He may be in the UK, and if he is, he’s here illegally at the very least.
‘We also have this man. Victor Nistor. Another Romanian national who’s lived here for several years. He owns a haulage business in Tipton. There’s a direct link between him and Popescu.’
Dani explained about Brigitta’s car, and the fact Nistor was apparently some sort of carer to Brigitta.
‘And lastly, we have the 999 call that was made in the early hours of Sunday morning, which provided the police with details about the van in which we found Jane Doe’s body. We know the call was made from a handset with a Romanian number, though we’ve had confirmation it’s a prepaid device which isn’t registered. That call was from an anonymous female. I’ve listened to the call myself several times, and it’s evident the caller is not a native English speaker. Possibly Romanian, possibly not, but as far as I’m concerned it’s another piece of evidence pointing towards Nistor and Popescu. We’re still waiting on confirmation of triangulation of that call to pinpoint where it was made from.’
A hand went up at the back of the room. DC Constable, one of the Homicide team.
‘Yes?’
‘Sorry, are you saying the only link between Jane Doe and those two suspects is the fact the phone was Romanian, and the accent of the 999 caller?’
Dani thought about that one for a second. Was that true? It felt like there was so much more than that.
‘Do we have enough to bring Nistor in?’ Constable then asked, giving Dani a bit of leeway to ignore the first question.
‘I don’t think so,’ Dani said. She explained about his previous arrest and Nistor’s tough lawyer who surely wouldn’t stand the police interrogating their client without a clear charge. An arrest would get them another twenty-four hours to interview him formally, but Dani would rather have something more concrete against him before they did that. ‘We do have the go-ahead for surveillance against Nistor, though. At his home address, business address, and also at Brigitta Popescu’s address. That surveillance is getting underway as we speak.’
‘What about the Jane Doe?’ DC Grayling shouted out. ‘Any idea who she is?’
‘Her prints don’t match anything on file,’ Easton said. ‘So she doesn’t have a criminal record, and nor has she come through immigration, if indeed she’s not a British national, which is one possible theory.’
‘There was no ID for her in the van,’ Dani said, ‘so at the moment she remains unidentified. Similarly, there was no ID for the males, but we have had Forensics do a thorough sweep of the van and we’re hoping to see some results of that today. The post-mortem of Jane Doe will also be taking place soon.’
Although Dani wasn’t really expecting that to give them much more than they already knew, which was that the young woman had died in a brutal attack.
‘So what’s the theory here?’ piped up a voice from the back of the room.
The gruff DI Ricard was part of the Organised Crime team, and the most senior member of that team in the room. Dani knew of him but had never worked alongside him.
‘The theory is that Victor Nistor is running an illegal operation out of his business address in Tipton. Whether prostitution, drugs, extortion, or whatever, we don’t know yet. We do need to find out. The working theory is that Clara Dunne was investigating the disappearance of her brother, Liam, who hasn’t been seen for more than five years. We don’t know what linked him to Nistor or Popescu, but we believe they know what happened to Liam. Nistor, or people close to him also knew Clara was digging, and they silenced her. The very fact she herself was living and working under an alias shows she was making progress in finding what had happened to Liam, and was concerned for her safety.’
Ricard sniffed at that, as though it sounded ridiculous, though it was he who’d asked for the theory. Theories were just that. Unproven. And they were fluid and changeable. There to give an investigation a direction.
‘And what about your Jane Doe?’ he asked. ‘Why was she killed?’
‘I really don’t know,’ Dani said, trying to sound confident. ‘But I do think that the two men transporting her were likely in the process of disposing of her remains, given how we found her body. So this does once again point to an organised operation, rather than some random killing, particularly when paired with the 999 call.’
‘DI Stephens,’ McNair said, getting to her feet. ‘Perhaps you could concentrate on the most important strands of investigation that we’ll be following.’
Dani wasn’t sure whether the prompt was for her benefit or not.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I already mentioned the surveillance which is in operation as of this morning. Secondly, we’ll have a dedicated CCTV team led by DC Constable, who will be trawling records on various fronts. Liam Dunne’s disappearance. Clara Dunne’s murder. The van we intercepted on Sunday morning – we’ll scour records for other sightings of it – to see if we can pinpoint either where it was likely to have come from, or where it was going to. We need to keep digging into Nistor’s background, and also Popescu’s. Where is he now? Then we have forensic findings to consider and cross-refer.’
Dani looked at her watch. She still had a couple of minutes before she needed to scarper.
‘Are there any more questions?’ she asked.
‘Are we making a public announcement?’ asked a young female officer Dani didn’t recognise.
McNair got to her feet again to answer that one.
‘Not yet,’ McNair said. ‘We’ve decided it would be prejudicial to make a public announcement linking the two deaths at this stage. The two perps who escaped custody yesterday know we have Jane Doe’s body, and that we’re looking for them, but we have to assume they don’t know how we came across the information about that van. The point is, we may well have an ally somewhere within Nistor and Popescu’s circle, and we need to both work on identifying that person while not jeopardising their safety.’
‘But you don’t have any information on who the insider is?’ Ricard asked.
McNair turned to Dani.
‘No. Not at this stage,’ Dani said.
And she didn’t feel even slightly bad for the lie.