Rachel Plays with Fire.
Attack!
Rachel drove straight home from the station. She wasn't going to go out and get pissed, not when Holly's killer was still out on the loose. She made a coffee and sat down with her computer. She had the pictures Holly had taken with her camera, and she was going through the ones she hadn't seen one by one. They were mostly of the girls themselves, preteens or teenagers only just developing, being forced to have sex. But luckily some of the punters were seen, and their faces were photographed by Holly. Rachel sent those pictures to a double email she was planning on sending to both Janet and Gill. She had no idea why she was sending Janet this stuff, but she decided it was for a good cause. If one didn't get it, then the other would.
There were three hundred pictures on Holly's camera, and going through them was taking a long time as Rachel was studying each one. Holly had photographed the same car twice to make sure she had the number plate. It shouldn't take too long to PNC the lot. Rachel was smiling at the thought of the punters getting their just desserts for what they helped do to these kids.
Yet the same question came back to haunt her - who murdered Holly?
Her phone rang, and she jumped. Rachel dug around for her phone, and checked the caller ID. It was Alison. For sec Rachel wondered if she should just simply cancel the call, but she knew how much it would hurt Ali. She didn't need that, besides Rachel wanted to know how she was doing. Sighing, Rachel accepted the call. " Hi, Ali. How're you doing?" Rachel asked.
" Is there any news?" Her sister whispered, ignoring the question. Rachel was worried for her sister, she seemed to have lost the will to live, and the question instead of her usual cheerful greeting didn't bode well. " Yeah, we've managed to speak to some of the girls, found schools Hol-," Rachel paused at the name of her niece when she heard the sobs from Alison's end. Her sister was quick to reassure her. " It's okay Rach, you can say it. You were saying Holly -," she prompted, though Rachel could hear her sister's voice tremble just by saying her dead daughters name.
Pleased her sister was letting her say the name of her daughter even if she was uncomfortable, Rachel continued more sensitively. " We did some investigating and we found schools where this was going on, and we've already questioned some of the girls who've been kidnapped. Everyone's taken an interest from CID to the sex crimes unit-"
Alison wasn't interested in any of that. " What's being done to find the bastard who murdered my daughter?!" Her voice rose angrily. Rachel knew then Alison wasn't going to like this.
Rachel winced. " We're looking for him, but so far we're trying to unravel what he's done to the girls-"
But Alison wasn't listening, or seeming not to.
" No you're not. I can't believe you. You promised me you'd find them." Alison slammed down the phone before Rachel could say they'd already made plans to arrest the scum behind this. Rachel closed her eyes in pain.
It took Rachel a while to get her control back, but she poured through the pictures with a greater need. It was strange. Some of the pictures showed the gang noticing Holly, though distantly. Those pictures had already been sent off so the thugs could be identified, but the others showed they clearly knew Holly was there, so why didn't they do anything? Anyway, she'd rung up Gill only a few minutes ago, and told her what she was doing at the moment, that she'd send pictures to her via email. Gill said that would help since she would be in the office early so she could make early inquiries. She was going to find this bastard and she would make him pay for Holly and these girls. Even if it was the last thing she would ever do. Her eyes may've been studying the pictures, but her mind was still firmly on what her sister had said. Rachel was trying, really trying, to crack down hard on the bastard responsible for Holly's death, Gill said they were doing all they could to help, but it wasn't good enough for Alison.
For a certain point of view Rachel could sympathise with her sister's point of view. Investigations were hard enough at the best of times. It wasn't like what you saw in television dramas. It was a lot of boring work. With investigations you could not concentrate on one single avenue to solve a crime, you needed to follow it all up. That's what they were doing with this case. Rachel was doing it because she knew Holly had been gunned down in a street when she'd gone out jogging. There was so little for them to investigate from that. All they did know about it was Holly had jogged down a street, and the bullet had gone in from an angle. Rachel had visited that same street before she'd gone to Gills. It wasn't far from where Holly had lived with Tony and Alison, and already the place where the gun shot had gone off had been checked. There was nothing. The bullet had been calculated to be shot from a car. There hadn't been any witnesses. Why would there be at that time of the morning? It was so early. Rachel was angry someone had shot Holly, but she was even more furious someone had done it from a car and left the scene before anyone had realised what'd happened.
Alison knew police work was tough, sometimes you spent long hours working to solve crimes till your brain was mushy with fatigue. When you got home you were knackered, and you were even worse in the morning because you hadn't gotten much kip. Hold on, what was that? Something in one of the pictures had grabbed her attention. Rachel furrowed her brow as she leant forwards, and she clicked the mouse to go back. No, not that one. She rejected another two pictures before - AHA! There it was.
Rachel studied the picture closely. It showed a car, and there was a man inside it with two other men nearby, talking to the man inside. Rachel frowned. This wasn't some punter. No, this was someone else...
The front door bell rung. Rachel frowned harder at the door as the bell rang again and again. Someone's impatient, she observed. Who was it? She wasn't execting anyone coming for a visit? Could it be Godzilla? Maybe. It wasn't Janet, she said she wanted to spend some time with the girls tonight. Not that Rachel blamed her, after all the shit they'd been through recently, didn't they deserve the chance to be with their mother and didn't Janet need to reassure herself her daughters were safe with her? Rachel envied that of her friend, and it made her wonder about the baby she'd miscarried. Would it have been a boy or a girl? Shaking the sad thought - Rachel hadn't managed to get over the fact a child she'd carried in her body had died - her thoughts turned to other candidates. Alison was certainly a possibility, and for a moment as Rachel walked to the door cautiously, she entertained the possibilities of Alison coming round personally for a chat and an apology over a nice cuppa.
Then again, it might not be Alison. Rachel remembered how Salt and Tower had accosted her and Gill outside Gill's own house. Reaching for a weapon, Rachel only managed to get her hands on an empty glass wine bottle. Fuck, she thought to herself. I'm supposed to be a police officer, and yet I can't find a decent weapon to use against bastards who come to my front door.
Rachel opened the door.
" Hi, Rachel." Andy smiled at her though it didn't reach his ears. Rachel blinked. This was a surprise. Since when did Andy Roper bother coming round to her place when he didn't exactly get on with her and called her an airhead? The DS nodded at the bottle in Rachel's hand. " What were you planning on doing with that?" He asked amiably enough.
" What?" Rachel asked, then she looked at the bottle. " Oh! Right, sorry Sarge."
She put it down close to the phone.
" It's okay, especially after your meeting with Tower and Salt this morning," Andy waved her apology aside. " Er, may I come inside? It's a bit cold."
" Um, yeah. Sure." Rachel moved out of the way to let Andy inside. " Not to rude or anything, but what're ya doing here?"
Andy took the question in his stride. " I was in the neighbourhood, and I just wanted to see how you were doing."
Rachel was surprised by the kindness on Andy's face, it was a far cry from someone who thought she was stupid. Andy saw the expression, and he sighed. " Rachel, I know we're not exactly friends, and I know you know what I said about you after the briefing, but I had time to think afterwards and I thought I could've been more supportive."
If she'd been shocked by the kindness now, Rachel was even more stunned. Something niggled at the back of her head, though.
" Thanks, sarge, but how did you know I knew what you said 'bout me after the briefing?" Rachel asked.
Andy smiled. " Come on, do you honestly think me being a policeman for so long wouldn't have taught me one or two things? Anyway, how far have you gotten? We've been focused on finding the gang responsible for kidnapping those girls, but you've been focused on finding Holly's killer. How much have you learnt?"
Rachel sighed wearily as she pointed at the sofa for Andy to park himself down before dropping onto her armchair. " Not a lot," she said, " I'm going through a load of photographs, but its mostly about the girls and some gang members. I'm sending the pictures over to Gill so she'll have people to identify in the morning."
Andy nodded. " But you're still no where near finding out who murdered Holly?"
" No," Rachel replied sadly.
" It's frustrating, sometimes," Andy mused to himself, though he was clearly speaking for the pair of them. " Is there anything I can do, help you sort through the pictures?"
Rachel smiled at his kindness. " Well, actually I was planning on seeing a few more pictures before I head to bed. There's just so many of them. Holly had done a too thorough job. But if you want to help, then you can."
" Thanks," Andy smiled gratefully.
Rachel grabbed the laptop, and the two police officers sat down on the sofa, going over the pictures. " That looks like someone's meeting that one, a supervisor supervising the supervisors." Rachel observed.
" Definitely a hierarchy, with whoever in charge getting the cut of the profits with the others doing the leg work," Andy looked unsurprised, but then again neither was Rachel. It was how most gangs worked.
Rachel moved the pictures along, sending some of the pictures off to Janet and Gill at the same time when she found a picture she wasn't expecting.
It was a street, and there was a black car in the picture. A tall man with grayish dark hair, wearing a black coat, was talking to a man who was handing him money. Rachel clicked on the email send before she realised who the man was.
It was Andy, the man sitting next to her. He was looking down at the email and her with cold and angry eyes.
Time seemed to stand still as she heard a metallic clicking sound, and Rachel found herself looking down the barrel of a gun. Rachel froze, her right hand moving towards her mobile. Her mind raced. She had to keep Andy talking.
" You're him, the one who murdered Holly?" Rachel whispered quietly, pressing the call to send to Gill. Hopefully her answerphone would work.
Andy sneered. " Very good, Bailey. Ten out of ten."
Rachel took a staggered breath. " Why?" She whispered. " You're a respected police officer, you've got a career..."
" Why?" Andy said, his arm lashing out and grabbing her arm to pull her up. Rachel yelped and struggled in his grip, but Andy just jammed the gun in her face as a warning.
" Don't Rachel, You asked me why I murdered your niece. Why I became a crook, putting girls into prostitution and getting them addicted to drugs? I'll tell you. Two words. Retirement. Janet."
" What's Janet gotta do with this?" Rachel asked as she tried to pull away, but Andy was too strong. One thing she was pleased about was she'd bunged her phone under a cushion. Now she had to keep Andy from remembering it, keep him talking.
Andy's voice rose to a hysterical yell. " Everything!" He lowered his voice to regain some of his control. " Everything, Bailey. I was married once, and I tried to move on from Janet. Honestly I did, but the pressures of work got to me. I started drinking, and there were money worries. She left me, for someone else."
" Doesn't explain why you've suddenly turned to crime," Rachel opened her mouth without thinking, then she began kicking herself. Instead of letting him talk and confess everything, she'd interrupted him.
Andy didn't seem bothered about the interruption. He just held her tightly, and pressed the gun barrel close to her temple. Rachel closed her eyes, praying to god the bastard didn't go mad enough to shoot her. At this range her brains would splatter against the wall. Please, she begged. Please Godzilla, get someone here quick!
" The bitch left me for someone else, and I broke down!" Andy was saying, seemingly unconcerned his finger was tightening round the trigger, but Rachel quickly noticed. It was kinda hard not to when your whole attention was drawn to the trigger in the first place. " My job was going nowhere, I wasn't DCI material, so I gave up hope. Then I arrested a bloke who was pimping a young girl, and he told me it was so easy. I put him away, but what he said struck me. So I set up a gang, a hierarchy so no-one would recognise me and what I did. I was getting a massive cut of the profits every week, all to going into my retirement. I made sure the girls were picked out carefully, made sure they wouldn't be gone long so they could be put to work. That way uniform and CID wouldn't be overly aware of it."
Rachel was panting. She felt physically sick from being in this man's presence. Here she was being held at gunpoint, he was only a second away from killing her, and here he was calmly talking about his crimes like he was taking a casual walk.
" You said something about Janet, what did you mean?" She asked, trying vainly to keep herself calm.
Andy's expression changed. He seemed to become fanatical. " I love Janet. I do. She loved me, but she chose Adrian," he spat the name like it was a bad taste in his mouth. " A geography teacher. What could he know and how could he look after Janet? He's a petulant, uncaring, sulky bastard. He doesn't deserve her."
" And you do?" Rachel asked disbelievingly with a matching smirk. Andy's face darkened dangerously. Well done Rachel she berated herself, and he pressed Rachel against the wall. " It's not a good idea to patronise someone who's holding a gun to your head, Rachel. Of course I deserve her," he said, when the meaning of Rachel's question went through his brain. " I love her more than anyone else in the world."
Rachel was still looking for reasons why Janet wouldn't want anything to do with Andy especially since he was responsible for the whole situation.
" What about the girls? Elise and Taisie."She asked, feeling guilt for even bringing those two up.
" I have nothing against the girls, Rachel." Andy said, and something in his voice made Rachel believe him. He looked disbelieving, she noticed, as if he assumed Rachel thought he would hurt them and he couldn't believe her for saying what she had, and he sounded like it to. When Gill and Janet heard this, they would have a field day. " How-how could you think that?"
" You've been selling girls, taking them away from their normal lives and sinking them into prostitution, drugs, and raping them." Rachel liked the way that sounded. " How do you think Jan would feel if you did the same to Elise and Taisie?"
Andy lashed out, punching and kicking Rachel, making her scream in pain and surprise at the sudden blows. She tried to fight back, but Andy still had an iron grip round her wrist, stopping her from trying to get away. " How dare you say that to me, you airheaded, good for nothing bitch?! I made sure those girls were safe, kept my lads away from their school. I would never hurt those girls, they're a part of Janet, and I would never hurt them-"
" They're also a part of Adrian," Rachel pointed out. " Tell me something, what happened with Holly?"
Andy took a few deep breaths, calming down when he was asked about Holly.
" My gang often caught sight of her photographing them. Sometimes they would chase her, and she'd run off before they could catch her and give her the same treatment as the other girls," Rachel bristled at the thought of her Holly being turned into a drug addicted whore. One thing was certain, Andy was so gonna die for this, for what he'd done to Holly, and those girls and their families. Janet and Rachel had thought Geoff Hastings was notorious and evil, but this guy had scored something higher by ripping families apart. Rachel was delighted by one thing, Hastings had been murdering people for years without getting noticed, but Andy had been doing this for a short amount of time.
Andy carried on, unaware of Rachels thoughts. " I soon caught her, but I didn't say a word to her. I just followed casually. I watched her go home. I told the gang it would be handled, but I had other things to do. They were told to carry on as normal and forget this girl even existed since she couldn't do anything."
Ah, Rachel thought. That explains why in those pictures the gang members clearly knew Holly was there, but didn't do anything about her. How she knew why, and best of all Andy had confessed to it.
" I watched her, before I went to work. She would go jogging for half an hour before her mum took her to school. I followed them there as well, and found most of the girls in the quota came from there. It answered questions about why she was so interested. I shot her in the head when she was far enough away from home. There was nobody about, so I was in the clear." Andy said, then he growled angrily. " Then I find she's the girl we're investigating later on, and she's your niece. I had no idea who she was."
" You knew all that, and you didn't bother trying to interfere?" Rachel smiled skeptically as best she could.
Andy shook his head. " No, I didn't. If I had then it would've aroused suspicion. I didn't want that. I watched you as well. You should know that."
Rachel was confused for a moment, her mind going back...then her eyes widened. " It was you in the carpark tonight, wasn't it?"
Andy nodded, pleased he'd frightened Rachel. " I never knew you scared easily in the dark, Bailey," he taunted her. " All that time in the office, showing yourself as a tough bitch, like Gill, and you're like her." Andy nodded thoughtfully, keeping the gun trained on Rachel regardless of where his thoughts were straying. " A weak, stupid, bitch."
" I am not weak." Rachel argued.
" Oh, no. What about Nick Savage?" Andy cruelly taunted. " Didn't you harass him or something?"
Rachel looked down. She'd been so stubborn last year, constantly harassing Nick Savage, invading his private life, even going so far as to risk her career by PNCing his car, and worse, even lying in court. If she hadn't gone for him, tried to punish him, then she wouldn't have almost been run down by someone he'd told Carl Noris to try and kill her. But Rachel had, she'd been so angry that she'd been led on by Nick that she'd forgotten there were limits to how far you could push someone, and it wasn't just her he'd led on over the years, lying to her. Worse, he'd been married with kids.
" It was you who followed me to Gills, and got Salt and Tower to attack us, right?" Rachel asked, looking up into Andy's eyes.
Andy frowned. " How did you know I followed you?" Then his eyes narrowed at the trick question. In truth Rachel had been purely guessing what Andy had done, but it was the most obvious thing he could've done, unless he'd PNCed her, but he wouldn't have done that. PNCing left tracks, and it may come up sooner rather than later. It had been a mistake Rachel was not intending to repeat, unless it was on a case.
" Very good, Bailey." Andy ground out, angry he'd been tricked so easily by someone he'd called an airhead. He was now seriously rethinking his opinion of Rachel. " You're right, I did follow you. I waited outside, but you didn't come out. I called those two useless morons, and set them on you."
" You even told them who I was, that's how they knew who I was," Rachel said. It was all slotting into place.
" That was a mistake." Andy admitted.
Rachel shook her head at the coldbloodedness, it simply didn't completely add up for her. " Did they never see you?"
" And risk me being identified?" Andy's opinion of Rachel returned to what he'd originally thought of her. " No."
" What now?"
Andy smiled, and he raised his gun.
Janet sighed as she got into work the next morning. " Morning Gill," she said as she saw her boss. Everyone else in the office was still and quiet, and Janet dimly noticed some of them were even furious. There was no sign of either Rachel or Andy.
" Morning Jan," Gill replied, her voice cold and angry.
That voice made Janet's skin crawl with apprehension. Oh, uh, Gill was in one of her truly bad moods. " What's wrong?" She asked fearfully.
" Rachel left a message on my phone last night, along with photos Holly had taken." Gill replied, and Janet could see her old friend was trying to stop herself losing her temper. " She called again, but I was out with Julie, and I forgot to take my phone with me. I didn't think anything of it 'til I were in the car on my way to work this morning." She replayed the recording.
Within seconds Janet was sitting down, listening as Andy confessed to the murder of Holly Bailey, and the forcible kidnapping and prostituting the school girls. When it came to why, Janet felt herself becoming sick, especially when Elise and Taisie were mentioned. For a horrible moment Janet wondered what Andy would've done if the girls had been kidnapped, despite what he thought about them.
The sound of Rachel screaming in pain as Andy beat her made Janet cry.
" Stop it," she whispered before she shouted. " Turn it off!"
Gill turned the phone off without a word. Janet took a breath. " What's happened to her?"
" We don't know," Gill confessed.
" Andy doesn't know Rachel sent that message, does he?" Mitch asked.
" Doesn't look like it," Gill replied. " At least there was no sign he had last night. If he comes, then we'll know."
" And Rachel?" Janet asked desperately. " What about Rachel?"
Andy came in at that moment, looking cheerful. " Morning everyone," he said as he took off his coat and slung it on the hatstand. He didn't seem to have seen the glares coming his way. " Sorry I'm late, by the way Gill. Traffic was murder. Did you have a nice night? I certainly did. Got home, went out like a light. Listen I've been thinking about this schoolgirl case, and-" he turned, and finally he saw the way everybody in the office was looking at him.
" What is it?" Andy smiled, though inwardly he was nervous. " What's the matter? Has something turned up?" Discreetly he looked around the room for inspiration. " Where's Rachel?" He asked, giving himself a pat on the back for his quick thinking.
" That's funny, that's what I want you to tell us," Lee glowered at him.
Andy wasn't about to take that, not from a DC. " Careful Lee, I'm a DS."
Gill was furious by the thoughts of what had happened to Rachel whilst this violent crook who'd been her own sergeant scolded one of the other officers in this office. She showed him her phone and played the recording. When it was finished, Gill folded her arms. " Detective Sergeant Andy Roper, I'm arresting you for trafficking and kidnap, and the assault and battery on DC Rachel Bailey, and the attempted intimidation and attack on two policewomen yesterday. Anything you do say will be given in evidence. Mitch, Lee," she nodded at the two men, who walked over to Andy. The former sergeant let them get close, but then he pushed the two men aside, and made a run for the door.
" Stop him!" Gill shouted.
She needn't have bothered, Andy had stopped close to the door. So did everybody else when they saw what had made Andy stop.
There, covered in blood, leaning on one side of her body, and looking half dead was Rachel.
