‘I need to talk to someone in CID,’ Helen interrupted brusquely.
‘Can I ask what it’s regarding?’the custody sergeant enquired coldly.
‘I’ll discuss that with them.Is DI Brooks in?’
It still felt strange for Helen to say that, even though she didn’t begrudge Charlie her promotion.It just landed oddly, as if each time she said it another piece of her own identity was erased.
‘Well, she wasn’t, but …’
Following his gaze, Helen turned to see Charlie push through the doors.She was in a hurry, barely noticing Helen or Drayton,and seemed highly agitated.More alarming still, she held a wodge of bloodied cotton wool to her nose.
‘Jesus, Charlie!Is everything alright?’Helen enquired, hurrying across to her.
Charlie stopped in her tracks, bewildered to see Helen in the atrium, before eventually muttering:
‘Not really, but I can’t talk about it right now …’
She tried to move past, but Helen took her arm, stopping her.
‘Have you had that checked out?I mean I don’t want to state the obvious, but it looks like your nose might be—’
‘Broken, yes, I know,’ Charlie fired back.‘And no, I haven’t, there’ll be time for that later.’
She tried to move away, but once more Helen resisted.
‘Charlie, you can’t possibly be thinking of carrying on working.You need to see a doctor, you need to be in A&E.’
Now Charlie paused, shooting a pained look at Helen, before diverting her gaze to PC Mark Drayton.The custody sergeant was leaning on the desk, his eyes glued to the two women.Gesturing to the corner of the lobby, Charlie ushered her former colleague out of earshot, the pair retreating behind a potted plant.
‘What are you doing here, Helen?’she demanded.
Now Helen paused.She could sense her friend’s anger, but also her distress, her eyes glassy and uncertain.Suddenly Helen felt foolish to have come here, as if she were a child who’d stepped into a grown-up’s world.
‘I … I’ve got some more information about that assault I was telling you about.’
She was talking quickly, keen to get the information out before she was dismissed out of hand.
‘I’ve got the details of the van that Selima was abducted in.In fact, I chased it for several miles around the A33, before I got pulled over.Can you believe that?’
It was an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, but it cut no ice with her former colleague.Clearly Charlie couldwellbelieve it.
‘Anyhow, I’ve got the registration number, plus a link to a money transfer outlet, which the illegal workers visited.I think that could be a useful place to start.’
Charlie was looking at Helen as if she was speaking a foreign language, so she pressed on:
‘I also made brief contact with one of the workers.She’s Kurdish too, I think, with similar Deq tattoos.She seemed in real distress, pressedthisinto my hand as she left …’
Helen unfurled the scrunched-up note, the words ‘HELP ME’ crystal clear in dark black biro, before offering it to Charlie.But her former colleague simply stared at the piece of paper, dumbfounded, as if Helen had conjured up this prop to underscore her wild fantasy.
‘Seriously, Helen, you want me to launch an investigation based onthis?’
Helen was aware how foolish she looked, how pitiful her ‘evidence’ seemed in the cold light of day, but there was no question of giving up yet.
‘Of course not, but listen to what I’m saying to you, Charlie,’ she countered forcefully.‘I found the van.I saw the workers.There were at least a dozen other women, who are being held against their will, forced to do God knows wha—’
‘And the woman you helped, Saskia, she was—’
‘Selima.’
