Dead Of Winter (Willis/Carter #1)(29)
He knocked and Davidson called for him to come in. Davidson looked fired up. He was almost smiling. He motioned for them to take a seat and then he handed Carter a file across the desk. Clipped to the front page was a mug shot of a man with designer stubble over a less than handsome face.
‘This is the father of our dead baby . . . His name is Sonny Ferguson. Father was an old East End villain, name of Dexter.’
‘Yeah . . . I recognize him. His dad was still around up until a few years ago.’
‘Yes. Dexter ruled Soho for twenty years. When Dexter got killed Sonny took over but he isn’t the man his father was, thank God. He hasn’t the brains. Bit by bit he’s lost Dexter’s hold on the drug empire. Now he concentrates on people-trafficking.’
Davidson waited a few minutes for Carter to finish reading the front page of the file then he pushed another photo across to him. It was a shot of Sonny talking to a slighter, older man outside a club.
‘His DNA is on file because he was accused of raping a seventeen-year-old at the beginning of his career. It went to trial but the girl dropped the charges at the last minute. This photo was taken in the last year. It was a surveillance operation by MIT 10 into the use of trafficked women in clip joints in Soho. This is outside Digger Cain’s club on Brewer Street. Digger has a warren of clip joints going in Soho. As soon as we shut one down another three spring up. He was caught on camera then. The Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to bring a conviction. Digger tidied up his act, on the surface. We know Sonny was providing Digger with trafficked girls as escorts and we believe he still is. Word is Sonny and Digger together provide the UK clip joints with their girls from the Eastern bloc.’
‘It would fit for Silvia if she was trafficked, raped,’ said Carter. ‘But Sonny’s twenty-eight; he’s too young to have been around when the Carmichael murders happened. Plus . . . he doesn’t fit the type we are looking for – Chichester.’
‘He may not be Chichester.’ replied Davidson.‘But he has questions to answer, not least how the mother of his child came to be buried under the patio.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘In the last year Sonny has been narrowing down his enterprise; mainly because he’s being squeezed hard by the new gangs. Some of them have taken over the clubs north of London. We know he still has business with Digger though; he goes in there most evenings.
‘Is the surveillance cell still in operation? Do we have an undercover officer available, sir?’
‘No. But maybe we can still use the building opposite. Find out.’ Davidson reclaimed the photos on his desk, placed them together. ‘And find Sonny.’
Chapter 16
Carmichael watched Ebony drive away down the lane. He watched the red dot of her car follow the undulations of the land until it disappeared from sight. Then he took out his phone and looked at the screen as he waited for it to respond.
Ebony pulled over to reset her sat nav to get back to the station. As she did so her phone lit up in her bag. Carmichael looked at his screen. It was asking him for an instruction. Did he want to test the program? Yes he did. Did he want to turn on the microphone? Yes he did. He put the phone to his ear and listened. He heard Ebony talk to herself as she read out the instructions for getting to the airport and keyed them into the sat nav.
Carmichael pressed ‘finish’ on the screen and he turned away from watching the lane. He took a deep breath of the cold fresh air and briefly closed his eyes to the low winter sun. Then he headed up over the gate to the paddock and walked up towards the top of the hill, from where he could see for miles. Rosie followed him up there. He sat on the trunk of a fallen tree that he planned to clear away in the spring and Rosie jumped up beside him. This was his favourite place on the farm. From here he could see across the magnificent Dales. Here he could lift his face to the sky and know that there was nothing between him and the clouds above. On the starry summer nights, when the heat and the memories would not let him sleep, he’d sat out there alone on his hilltop many times. Thirteen summers, thirteen springs, and now, on this winter’s day, he knew what it had all been for. He knew where he belonged. He said farewell to his farm.
He walked back inside his house, through to the sitting room and his gun cupboard. He took out his Steyr Scout rifle, laid everything on the kitchen table and took out his cleaning kit. Spreading the lubricating oil on a cloth, he worked it into the metal. He cleaned the barrel with rod and cloth. Afterwards he went upstairs to his bedroom and pulled down the gun bag from the top of his wardrobe. Inside it was a fleecy moisture-proof lining. He brought it back down to the kitchen and packed the rifle inside along with his hunting knife and some basic medical supplies. When he’d finished he went into the sitting room and sat at his writing desk, took out the key from its hiding place in the false bottom on the tankard and unlocked the drawer. Inside was a journal: a woman’s diary. ‘Louise Carmichael’ was written on the front. He didn’t open it. He knew what was written in it. He kept is as a reminder that he had betrayed her. It was still splattered with her blood.
Chapter 17
By three in the afternoon Ebony was back at her desk in Fletcher House, with Jeanie working across from her. Carter had swapped his desk and now he sat back to back with her in the ETO. He swivelled his chair around to talk to her.