Robert Bryndza - The Girl in the Ice

Erika realised she was lucky, though, and blessed in comparison. Had Tatiana, Mirka, and Karolina said goodbye to family just like she had? Erika remembered the crumbling bus terminal in Bratislava: rows and rows of bus platforms. Each platform had rusting metal poles holding up an enormous long shelter, and it had been so damp. She had wondered if it was damp from the tears of all those teenagers who had to say goodbye, to leave a beautiful country where the only way to succeed is to get out.

Did the parents of the three dead girls cry? They had not known that their girls would never return. And what had happened when the girls arrived in London? How had they ended up working as prostitutes?

Tears rolled down Erika’s face, and when the waiter came to take her coffee cup, she turned her head away and angrily dried her eyes.

She had cried enough tears to last a lifetime. Now it was time for action.

36

The next afternoon, Erika felt like she had exhausted all the options she could take as a civilian. She was making another cup of coffee and weighing up her options, when she heard a bell ringing. It took her a few moments to realise it was the front door. She left her flat and went down to the communal front entrance. When she opened the door, Moss was waiting on the front step, her face giving nothing away.

‘Are you making home visits?’ asked Erika.

‘You make me sound like a bloody Avon lady,’ said Moss with a wry grin.

Erika stood aside to let her in. She hadn’t expected to ever receive visitors in the flat, and had to clear off the sofa for Moss. She grabbed several days’ dirty plates off the coffee table, and the teacup overflowing with cigarette butts. Moss didn’t comment and sat down, shrugging off a backpack she was carrying.

‘Do you want some tea?’ asked Erika.

‘Yes please, boss.’

‘I’m not your boss anymore. Call me Erika,’ she said, tipping the dirty plates into the sink.

‘Let’s stick with boss. First names would be weird. I wouldn’t want you to call me Kate.’

Erika stopped, her hand hovering over a box of teabags, ‘Your name is Kate Moss ?’ She turned to see if she was joking, but Moss nodded ruefully. ‘Your mother called you Kate Moss?’

‘When I was given the name Kate, the other, slightly thinner . . .’

‘Slightly!’ laughed Erika, despite herself.

‘Yes, the slightly thinner Kate Moss wasn’t a famous supermodel.’

‘Milk?’ said Erika, grinning.

‘Yes, and two sugars.’

She finished making the tea whilst Moss busied herself pulling paperwork from her backpack. Erika came over with mugs and biscuits.

‘That’s a good cup,’ said Moss, taking a sip. ‘How did you learn to make such a good tea? Not in Slovakia?’

‘No, Mark, my husband. He ingrained in me the tea ritual, and so did my father-in-law . . .’

Moss looked uncomfortable that she’d led the conversation down this path. ‘Shit, sorry, boss. Look, none of the team at the station enjoyed reading about . . . about, well, you know. And we didn’t know about . . .’

‘Mark. I’ve got to start talking about him sometime. When you lose someone, not only are they gone, but everyone around you doesn’t want to talk about them. It drove me slightly crazy. It was like he’d been deleted . . . Anyway, why are you here, Moss?’

‘I think you’re on to something, boss. Isaac Strong sent some case files over. DCI Sparks is refusing to see the link, but there were three young girls killed in similar circumstances to Andrea and Ivy. All three found in water with their hands bound, hair missing from their scalp. They’d been strangled. There was evidence of rape, but they were sex workers.’

‘Yeah, I know about those,’ said Erika.

‘Okay, well, there’s more. The phone box we found under Andrea’s bed. Crane requested a trace on the IMEI number written on the box. It matches the IMEI number of Andrea’s old iPhone, the one she reported missing. Crane then got in contact with network providers and gave them the IMEI number. They’ve confirmed that the handset is still active.’

‘I knew it! So Andrea reported the phone missing, but kept it and bought a new SIM card,’ said Erika, triumphantly.

‘Yes. A signal was last traced for that handset near to London Road on the 12th of January,’ said Moss.

‘Someone’s nicked it and they’re using it?’

‘No,’ said Moss, pulling out a large ordinance survey map and starting to unfold it. ‘The signal came from a storm drain running twenty feet below ground. It runs off London Road, beside the train track to Forest Hill Station, and then on towards the next station on the line, Honor Oak Park.’

Erika peered at the map.

‘The storm drain is a major tributary,’ Moss went on, ‘and over the past few days an enormous amount of meltwater from the snow and rain has seeped into the ground and will have rushed through the storm drain.’

‘Pushing anything with it, including a phone,’ finished Erika.

‘Yeah.’

‘So the phone battery is now dead, obviously?’

‘Nothing has been detected. It’s an iPhone 5S, and the network tells us that it will still broadcast its location to phone masts for five days after the battery has discharged – of course, that’s now passed.’

Erika looked at the map; she saw Moss had drawn a red line from London Road along to Honor Oak Park. It covered just over a mile and a half.

‘So, what? The theory is that the phone was chucked or dropped into a drain when Andrea was taken?’

‘Yeah. But it’s not a theory that DCI Sparks or Chief Superintendent Marsh want to hear. They’re convinced they have their man in Marco Frost, and they’re under pressure from Oakley et al to make a conviction. They’ve been through his laptop and there’s a lot of Andrea on there. Photos, letters he’d written to her, Google search history about places she’d been, and was going to . . .’

‘This is a major breakthrough, but why are you here, Moss?’ asked Erika, getting up to make more tea.

‘I’ve been there when we questioned Marco, and he is – was –

obsessed by Andrea. But, he just doesn’t seem like he’s got it in him. He also has very large hands. Isaac showed us the handprints on Andrea. And I don’t know, it’s not much more than a hunch.’

‘You don’t think he did it.’

‘I have doubts, but they are a hunch. I think that this phone could open up the investigation,’ said Moss.

‘Well, you’ve got to get a team down in that drain, to at least have a look,’ said Erika.

‘Yeah, but under whose authority, boss? I haven’t got any. Your hands are tied. It would cost a huge amount, plus the manpower involved, who would sign off on either of those right now? The team is now focusing resources towards the prosecution of Marco Frost.’

Erika thought. ‘Does anyone else share your doubts about Marco Frost?’

Moss nodded.

‘Peterson? Crane?’

‘And others. We’ve made copies of the files on Tatiana Ivanova, Mirka Bratova and Karolina Todorova.’

She handed them to Erika, who flicked through, looking at the photos of the girls – all lying on their backs, naked from the waist down, their wet hair plastered to their pale faces. Fear in their eyes.

‘Do you think he deliberately leaves their eyes open?’ asked Erika.

‘Possibly.’

‘If it is the same killer, how the hell does Andrea fit in with this?’

‘Whoever it was ventured out of their comfort zone? She’s a different kind of girl,’ said Moss

‘Only because she was rich. The girls are all similar. Dark, beautiful, good figures.’

‘Do you think Andrea was working as a prostitute? Did you see the stuff in the papers?’