Gary stopped Cleo’s red car in front of a pompous-looking villa on the
edge of Middlethumpton. Midas Avenue was clearly nouveau riche. The shapely
front lawns looked like artificial turf and the flower-beds looked as if they
contained pre-ordered pots full of plants and flowers that don’t grow outside
in temperate climates.
“They come every week to replace the plants, mend the turf and generally
tidy up,” said Amy, “but I’m not allowed to talk to them.”
Dorothy thought of the hours she put into the care of her garden and
decided she preferred geraniums doing their own thing to orchids lined up in
rows and colour-sorted.
It took a while for someone to answer the door.
“Why don’t you just open it with your key?” Dorothy asked Amy.
“I only have a key to the back door and my parents would not want you to
go round the back.”
Gary thought Mr and Mrs Campton sounded as nouveau-riche as their
ostentatious villa looked, and they turned out to be even worse.
“These are my friends,” Amy said. “They’ve brought me home, Daddy.”
“Home from where?”
“From Dr Gibbons and a cup of tea at Dorothy’s friend, Cleo’s.”
“Well, if you are friends of Amy’s, you’d better come in,” Campton said,
looking Gary and Dorothy up and down critically. “I though I don’t quite know
why an older person would want to be friendly with a limited person like my
daughter,” he said, looking at Dorothy mockingly. His first view of Gary was
more positive, making Gary wonder if he was being assessed as a prospective
groom or investor.
“So she is your daughter, is she?” he said.
“No relation. Adopted,” said Campton and Dorothy immediately decided
that Campton would try to wriggle out of his molestation of Amy by arguing just
that.
“You’d better introduce yourself,” said Mr Campton.
He jumped a step backwords when Gary told him he was a C.I.D. Superintendent
investigating the illegal activities of a certain medical professional.
Mrs Campton had now joined them and heard most of what Gary had just
said.
“I’m sure you aren’t talking about my daughter’s therapist,” she said.
“He’s doing a great job. A month ago she did not have any friends and now she
has brought some home so her communication skills have definitely improved.”
“They would improve more if you allowed your daughter the freedom she is
entitled to,” said Dorothy.
She disliked these people and was anxious to leave, doubting whether they
would be influenced in their opinion of Gibbons if they thought his therapy was
good for Amy or even if they just thought he would take her off their hands.
Gibbons was unmarried, as far as she knew, and Amy would admit and probably
even describe sexual relations with him so that the parents could insist on
Gibbons marrying her. It had happened before. You didn’t need to be in Asia or
Africa to come across such forced nuptials. The women were invariably victims.
But you could also argue that the British royal family did all they could to
procure heirs for their dynasty. Wasn’t the fate of Princess Diana a glaring
example? This was a time when Dorothy was glad she had remained single.
“What are you talking about, woman?” said Campton.
”Abuse, Mr Campton,” said Dorothy.
“I never touched her!” he said.
Gary shivered. The guy had gone on the defence too quickly. They had
come to report Gibbons’ planned abuse and it looked as if they had someone in
front of them who was no stranger to it himself. Dorothy had been right.
“What do you mean, Mr Campton?”
Amy started to cry. Mrs Campton frowned.
“He isn’t her father,” she said as if that legitimized his behaviour.
“So that makes abuse alright, does it?” said Gary. “A loving family, I
see.”
Mr Campton had the decency to look guilty.
“How long has it been going on?” said Gary.
“Shut up,” said Mrs Campton.
Mr Campton said nothing
“Why didn’t you stop it, Mrs Campton?” said Gary. She had given herself
away and he was satisfied that she had spared him a lot of questioning.
“I didn’t know about it, until….”
“Shut up, Rose,” Campton shouted.
“I got her an abortion and then it stopped,” Rose Campton continued,
looking quite defiant. “The therapy was to help her to get over it.”
“This is awful,” said Dorothy as she put her arm around Amy.
“Where did you meet Mr Gibbons?” Gary said.
“At our showroom.”
“Looking at luxury limousines?”
“Doctors need good cars,” said Campton.
“Sort of like adopted daughters needing abuse, Mr Campton? Is that how
you see it?”
“The little slut wanted it,” said Campton.
Gary took out his cell phone and texted to Mia to send a patrol car to
Midas Road immediately and to come herself.”
“Five minutes,” replied Mia.
“So what are you saying, Mr Campton? That Amy seduced you?” said Gary. “I’m
not fooled for a second. What about you, Mrs Campton. Were you fooled?”
Rose Campton had had her own life to lead, she said. Her husband had
taken Amy in like a daughter.
“And treated her as a victim,” said Gary. “I suspect that you knew about
the abuse and may even have condoned it.”
“I could not prove it,” said Rose Compton in self-defence. “Amy did not blame
her father. She said it was someone at the disco. But she’s not allowed to go there.
It was a long time before she said it was him.”
Gary turned to Amy.
“Is that the truth?” he said and Amy nodded.
”I thought the therapy would make her feel better,” said Mrs Campton.
***
Dorothy decided that the fortune-teller in Amy’s dream was actually that
awful adoptve father. Did Amy instinctively know that she was heading for the
same abuse by Gibbons? Or was she lying and Campton was telling the truth when
he said Amy had seduced him? Not that it mattered who initiated the abuse.
Victims were either silent or told the truth. Very few resorted to lies. Amy
had wrapped herself in a kind of mental cocoon. Her body no longer belonged to
her. She regarded the abuse as her fate.
***
The patrol car arrived almost immediately after Mia, who had driven
herself in her own car and had brought Len Wolfe with her. She rang the front-door
bell.
Gary moved fast, believing that Mia was bound to have difficulties with
the Camptons. He was very glad to see Len.
Rose Campton was startled, but had followed Gary to open the front door.
Seconds later Len and Mia and the two patrol cops entered. Gary announced that he was arresting Mr and Mrs
Campton for abusing a dependant.
Anything they said could be used in evidence against them. Mr Campton shouted
that his lawyer would sort things out. Gary said that he was not taking any
chances. They would be held in custody until the public prosecutor had
considered the cases.
“Since we have two cars and Sergeant Wolfe here, these two suspects can
be transported separately,” said Gary. “They are not to communicate.”
“What about me?” said Amy. “Do I have to stay here?”
***
Amy’s relief was plain to see as she watched her parents being led away.
They did not turn round to her, even to say goodbye. It was as if she had never
existed now she had in their eyes betrayed them. Gary was reminded of Cleo’s
anguish at the knowledge of how much children trusted their parents and went
through all sorts of nightmares rather than telling on them, while those evil
adults spent their anger and hatred on their own offspring.
Even as a grown young woman, Amy had clearly found it impossible to
escape the awfulness of her situation. She was not yet mature enough to get
away from her own nightmare except by writing about it in her dream and despite
the pseudo therapy being endured at the hands of a pseudo-therapist who was
moving in to molest the defenceless young woman.
***
“I don’t think my mother really knew,” said Amy.
“Did you try to tell her?” said Dorothy.
“She said I was making it up. And then the baby started, but she still
did not believe me. She got someone here to get rid of it.”
“Horrifying,” said Dorothy. “I think Amy should sleep in my spare room
until further notice,” she told Gary.
“Pack a bag, Amy, but I’d rather take you to our cottage because I don’t
want Mr Gibbons to see you.”
“I’d forgotten that,” said Dorothy. “You’re right.”
“It’s possible that we can arrest him soon, but how soon depends on the
information we can get about him. We can’t prove that he abused Amy because he
had not yet done so in a drastic form and we cannot arrest him for considering it.
He could deny that he was grooming her for his convenience and we have no conclusive
proof.”
“But you think he has a trail of past abuse to his credit, do you?” said
Dorothy.
“I’m sure of it.”
“I wonder if he was affiliated to Ronnie Fish’s business,” said Dorothy.
“It all seems such a small world.”
“I’ll get Chris and Colin to look through the documents we found at the Fish
house. Who knows, we may be in luck.”
“You might also want to find out if Campton specialised in supplying
gangsters with smart cars, Gary.”
Amy came down from her bedroom carrying a board-bag.
“Let’s go then,” said Gary. “You can return to the villa as soon as the
forensic checks have been made, Amy.”
“I don’t think I’ll want to.”
“Why don’t we cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Dorothy.
***
Colin Peck spent a sleepless night at HQ sifting through databanks to
find Gibbons. Chris went home to get a good night’s sleep since he had finished
the forensic work on hand and wanted to be well away from HQ before another
gruesome find was delivered. He would file his report in the morning.
Since he had skipped work all day Monday, Greg phoned Mia early on
Tuesday morning to get the lowdown on what else had been happening over the
weekend, thus avoiding a penny lecture from Gary, who was usually
laissez-faire, but now genuinely worried about the expansion of the Amy case to
include abuse, car-smuggle and money-laundering.
Bearing in mind that luxury cars could be a convenient way of manilulating
cash, Gary had no doubt that Campton was up to something more versatile than abusing
his daughter. He would also explore the off-shore banking that such traders
used.
As for Gibbons, he had cooked his goose as far as Gary was concerned,
but there had to be evidence. Would Gary have to wait long for proof that
Gibbons had progressed from ghost-hunting to far more sinister pursuits?
***
Amy had moved into Grit’s little guestroom in the twin of the Hurley
cottage that was now integrated to make one home for the growing Hurley family.
Gary’s twin brother Joe lived with his wife Barbara and their baby son in a
bungalow next door to the original Hartley half of the double-cottage. Grit and
Roger were glad to welcome Amy. They would have long talks with her – not to
replace the parents who had made her life a misery, but to get her away from
her dependence on them. Grit had been briefed on the true circumstances by
Gary, who had explained the situation to her after Amy had gone to bed. Grit
was horrified, of course, as Cleo had been. Roger thought he had come across
the name Campton, but had never been to the show-room. It was not even nine o’cclock,
but Amy was grateful for the kindness she was getting and might possibly have
been able to enjoy an uninterrupted night’s sleep for the first time since she
had had reason to fear the unwanted attentions of that beast of a father.
***
The ritual chat in front of the log fire and drinking the coffeepot
empty was a late hour Gary looked forward to every day. Cleo was always eager
to be brought up to date and was now thinking seriously of re-joining the HQ
team as an adviser, not least since it gave her an opportunity to assess the
people Gary and his team hauled in on various counts.
Gary’s description of the appalling Campton couple and Amy’s ordeal
incensed Cleo. Where were the social services when you need them?
“Amy never complained,” said Gary. “She just wnet along with it long
after she was old enough to walk out of that villa.”
“Were social services anxious to avoid confrontations with the rich, or
were they being bribed a blind eye?” Cleo said.
Cleo was now on a hobbyhorse of hers, an acutely aware of her own
responsibilities as a mother. Abused
kids are not only found in poor families,” she lectured. Any family could become dysfunctional. The
Camptons were entirely disfunctional, after all, but ordinary people were often
overawed by affluence. Money is power.
“Thanks for the sermon, my love, bit what should I do with Amy?” Gary said.
“Why don’t you leave that to me, Sweetheart?” said Cleo. “I can always
use an extra baby-sitter and it will be good for Amy to be with the kids. She’ll
forget what brought her here and she can stay at Grit’s for a few weeks.”
“Or at least until we’ve nailed Gibbons and dealth with her corrupt
parents,” said Gary.
***
So when Grit brought Amy to breakfast at the Hurley cottage next morning,
Cleo’s plans for the day included calling on Amy’s help with the children, but
Amy should not go out for fear she might be seen by Gibbons, Gary insisted. He
was sure that by evening or next day he would have enough evidence against that
nasty customer to arrest him.
“Monday did not go the way I wanted it to,” said Gary. “Let’s hope I can
do better today.”
Amy was grateful for what everyone had done for her, and said so.
“But what will happen to my parents?” was her immediate worry, as if
they had ever worried about her.
“Your father will be charged with abuse, Amy, and for that you will have
to sign a statement. We need to know more about the luxury car scam your father
is running so that we can get him on that. We don’t know yet how deeply your
mother is involved, so she may be freed in a day or two. I can’t detain her for
being afraid of the consequences of telling on your father’s indecency, but
there’s the abortion you were forced into. That is a crime and she will be
punished for it. Do you know who the woman was who came to do the abortion?”
“She was an oldish woman and she was a proper midwife, I know that,”
said Amy.
“But you didn’t want it to happen, did you?”
“I was drugged with something the woman said would make me feel better.”
“And you drank it all?”
“Yes. I passed out and slept through it all.”
“Did you get the midwife’s name?”
“I don’t remember it.”
“Your mother will know,” said Cleo, “assuming she wants to be helpful,
which she won’t unless she thinks it will help her.”
PeggySue appeared with her favourite storybook and went straight to Amy.
“I think you already have a job,” said Cleo. “PeggySue wants you to read
to her. Will you do that, Amy?”
Amy reacted as if it was the first time anyone had asked her to do anything
nice. She nodded and went to sit on the sofa with the little girl. Soon the
pages were being turned and PeggySue was echoing every word of the first story.
“She knows them all by memory, Amy,” said Gary. “Don’t make anything up
or take shortcuts.”
“I won’t,” she said as PeggySue chivvied her to get on with it. “I could
live here forever.”
“You won’t want to when you have your life sorted out,” said Grit. “But
you can stay with me until that happens.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s settled then,” said Gary. “I’ll leave the rest to you wonderful
ladies.” A round of hugs followed before he finally left for HQ. He shook hands
solemnly with Amy. Hugging her would not have been a good idea.
***
Colin Peck was waiting for Gary in his Superintendent office, enjoying
the coffee Nigel had offered him.
Colin was lawyer and
had joined HQ in the days when he was dating the daughter of Cleo’s ex-husband
(but that’s a different story). He had cleaned up the HQ archives, digitalized
all the files and made an internal database for local crime. For a lawyer that
was small fry and Colin was ambitious. He was half way through an internet
course on crime detection outside the forensic laboratory. What he had learnt
about unsolved crimes had been an eye-opener. Even if Gary thought he should
let sleeping dogs lie, but Colin was determined to analyse the legal reports
and make his conclusions known.
“It was all before my
time,” Gary had told him. “Roger had to make hard decisions. Things will be
different with me in charge, but there’s no need to rub Roger’s nose in his
failings.”
Gary felt a stab of
conscience that he was sometimes negative about the guy who was now his
step-father.
“I’m not planning a
hate campaign,” said Colin. “Unsolved cases usually remain unsolved. Look at
that dreadful case with Princess Di!”
“Don’t start on that,
Colin. Royal houses only survived thanks to their treachery and ruthlessness
and the Brit royals are no exception. I suppose they thought they were
defending their rights.”
“With murder?”
“Assassination or
fratricide. That sounds better, though you can’t rule out matricide and patricide,”
said Gary. “There was no proof (at least, none was made public) that Diana’s so-called
‘accidental death’ was m anaged by her husband or the othersin the ‘firm’, so
it may just have been an accident after all. There is good reason not to burden
a royal house with crime. The loyal public want them clean and above board even
if they have to turn two blind eyes to what goes on.”
“I’m not going to
discuss that old mystery, but coming back to the present, you’re right, Gary.
Gibbons has had a chequered past.”
“Tell me about it!”
“You could read the
data I’ve collected.”
“I will, but can you
put your finger on anything that could make me haul him in now? I’d like him
out of the way.”
“For a start, he
embezzled the house he’s living in.”
“It was an old
relative’s, wasn’t it? We can’t get him on that without a not of research.”
“The circumstances
surrounding the death of that relative are now historic, but an attempt was
made to prove he had been murdered.”
“That’s more like it,
but it didn’t work out, I assume.”
“Judging by the report
I read about the inquest, it should have.”
“But it’s out of
date.”
“The word murder only
appears once, and not at the inquest, only as a suggestion from a minor cop
that was poo-pooed at the time.”
“So Gibbon’s slate is
clean on that.”
“Generally speaking,
that is unlikely. As far as I can see, he has not actually qualified as
anything, though he did study medicine for a few semesters. He left without any
kind of qualification.”
“That may be where he
gets his bedside manner,” said Gary.
“That is a euphemism
if ever there was one;” said Colin. “He went to Spain and spent three years in
prison for rape there. He had been practising as a doctor and helped himself to
at least one patient. He was extradited after serving the prison sentence.”
“Not before?”
“I don’t suppose the
British law system wanted him back. He already had a criminal record for
offenses committed when he was a teenager. After that he reformed enough to get
into a medical school.”
“Amazing!”
“His application for
the medical school was OK. He did get enough academic qualifications for that.
Down the years he has used some pseudonyms, but they were modelled on his own
name and he went back to it after returning to the UK and, for the one and only
time I could trace, actually found a job rather than inventing one.”
“Quite a biography.”
“I doesn’t end there.”
“OK. What was the job?”
“He was a chauffeur.”
“I smell a rat,” said
Gary.
“He is one.”
“Who did he chauffeur?”
“Various people –
usually those who had drunk and driven and lost their driving licences for a
time. The most prominent seems to have been …”
“Don’t say it – a Mr
Campton.”
“How on earth could
you know that?” said Colin.
“By putting two and
two together. I’ll explain.”
“He’s caught the
Hartley Agency bug, Colin,” said Nigel who had been making coffe and now seved
it. “Gary He ticks on hunches these days.”
“I hate to say it, but
Nigel is telling a grain of truth,” Gary admitted.
“So where did you get
that name?” said Colin.
“Supposing…”
“Once upon a time…”
Nigel chipped in.
“Shut up, Nigel!” said
Gary. “Supposing a guy came into your car salon and asked for a job? He had
been in prison in Spain and had been thrown out of the country on release from prison, though he won’t have
admitted that. Mr Campton, the manager of the car showroom, had lost his
license temporarily – a terrible predicament for someone trying to sell cars.
He needed someone to drive clients around who did not want to do their own test
drive. So he hired the guy to do that, bought him a uniform, and let him drive
around in those smart carsand run him and his mates around when needed.. When our
chauffeur-employer he did not need one any more he would have thrown him out,
but our guy managed to persuade Mrs Campton that he was really a medical
therapist and was about to inherit a house where he could set up a surgery, if
only he had a little financial support.”
“So you are talking
about Mr Campton, I take it.”
“Exactly,” said Gary.
“It sounds like a
story in Crimes Weekly,” said Nigel.
“And that’s where Mrs
Campton would come into the story. She was worried about the daughter’s
reaction to the abortion the mother had forced the daughter to have after she
had been abused by Campton.”
“Ofo course it could
just have been blackmail,” said Colin, getting into the spirit of it. “I wonder
what Gibbons knew about Campton. He must have hd a hold on him.”
“It may not have been
exactly like that,” Gary conceded, “but it is a continuation of the fraud
theory concerning Gibbons. We need something to charge him with. We can charge
Mrs Campton with her crime because we can prove it by getting the girl
medically examined, and even more so if we can find the midwife involved.”
“Name?”
“I’ll have to ask Mrs
Campton. She’ll tell me hoping to exonerate herself, but it doesn’t work that
way, of course.”
“Campton might have
supplied Ronnie Fish with girls,” said Nigel.
“We can’t rule that
out,” said Gary.
“There have also been
stories about sexual predation, but stories are not charges,” said Colinnow in
has role of lawyer. “Judging by his biography, Gibbons is a wily customer and
fits in with the preditor profile. He probably also frequents the dark net,
Gary. You could get an IT expert to track him and maybe catch a few others helping
themselves to illegal photos and videos. The dark net is a bottomless pit.”
“We can confiscate all
his computer stuff and deal with tha,” said Gary. “Better make anote of that,
Nigel.”
“The dark net is all
but impenetrable, isn’t it?” said Nigel, nodding.
“Perhaps not for a
serious hacker, and we have one on our books,” said Gary.”Macintosh. Ex-hacker.”
“I hope he’s clean now,”
said Colin.
“Governments hire
hackers to keep their nets secure and if they are clever, they employ other
hackers to double-check. In the end a steady job is more of a draw than risky
manoeuvres, cynical though it sounds.”
“Is there no other way
of getting at Gibbons?” said Nigel.
“We could send a decoy
in.”
“A dangerous game,”
said Nigel.
“I thought Mia might
be able to handle it.”
“So you want her to
get Gibbons to seduce her, do you?” said Nigel.
“I want Mia to get him
near enough to handcuff him after she has thrown him with one of her Judo
tosses.”
“He’d deny it all,”
said Nigel.
“He can’t if his
activity is recorded.”
“That’s on wonky legal
ground, Gary,” said Colin.
“A girl has to protect
herself,” said Gary. “Mia has no partner, so she could be looking for one,
couldn’t she?”
“I would have thought
her wretched husband Mike had provided her with enough distress.”
“She’ll be bluffing,
Nigel, not genuinely looking for a guy.”
“On your head be it!”
“If she knows what the
mission is, its legal police work, Nigel,” said Colin.
“Rumpole rides again,”
said Nigel. “Or is it Perry Mason?”
“Any more coffee?”
said Gary, who could see that Nigel had annoyed Colin with that comment.
***
Gary sent a patrol
team to the Campton luxury car salon that morning. They removed all the
documentation and Ned, who was an essential part of the team, confiscated all the
electronic equipment he could find and was looking forward to cracking some
codes.. He was not as much of a hacker as Macintosh was, but Mac would be on
hand to get at the data if Ned had problems.
It would not take long
to find out if Campton was in contact with Gibbons and Ronnie Fish. A print-out
of previous emails would probably say plenty about the activities. Ned was worried
about the possibility of them getting into a social network that could not be
accessed easily, but the perpetrators of online crime usually worked to a
pattern.
Gary could hardly
believe that his almost fairy-tale predictions were coming true.
Mia was briefed on the
Gibbons case and vowed to get an immediate appointment on the grounds that she
was suicidal. The ruse worked. She would go there at 4:30 that afternoon; after
surgery hours, apparently.
“He doesn’t have an
assistant,” said Gary.
“All the more reason
to expect something nasty,” said Mia. “I’ll switch my movie brooch on.”
“I was going to
suggest that.”
“I have one with
blue-tooth now, Gary, so you can watch the drama unfolding and record it in a
streaming mode. I’ll send you the link.”
“I’ll be next door at
Dorothy’s Mia. I’ll come to your rescue immediately something happens.”
“I’ll lay him out,
Gary, but I can’t run to bracelets.”
“No problem. Good
luck.”
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