19. TwoThree
It was there in the eyes, but also the rough skin, the contoured stubble, the angular slant of his large lantern jaw; as if he'd taken a hammer to the bones himself. Looking at him sent shudders through Sally, driving her back to the suffocating mud of the bird preserve.
Gabriel was the youngest of four, and close to a carbon copy of his elder brother. They could almost be twins. But something was off. Maybe the eyes were slightly too close-set, or the hint of a receding widow's peak. Something she couldn't put her finger on, but disquieting.
Beside him sat his lawyer, a tall man with a slick side parting and a designer charcoal wool suit.
"Any minute," Liam muttered by her side.
Sally turned. He had some of the old life about him, now. His skin was still blotchy, a nervous tic worked like a pulse in his throat, but he no longer stank of alcohol.
"Where is she?" Sally asked.
"Coming. She's done at Umberside. Gemmell says she's angry."
"At us?"
"Probably. She wants our statements, apparently." Liam eyed her. "Especially how the whole thing with the Rooks started."
"She'll have them," Sally answered. "It's simple. I asked them questions. I saw the girl."
"Right. Well. She wants us to wait for her."
Sally glared at Rook. They'd waited for almost two hours for the lawyer to arrive. She felt the boy on the beach's empty eyes watching her. Waiting.
"Who's Gemmell?" she asked.
"Oh. One of the Dover officers, a DI. Nice guy."
That was the old Liam, she figured. Making friends everywhere. She looked up at the clock again. The second hand ticked another minute around. After 4 p.m. With every tick and every breath, she felt the killer's trail getting colder.
"I'm done waiting. Let's get in there." She started toward the door.
"Sally, we have to–" Liam began, but she was already in the corridor. Interview Room 1 was right there, and she pushed in.
"About bloody time," Gabriel Rook said as she entered. "It's not a champagne room at the peep show, love, is it?" He gestured to the one-way glass. "Sit yourself down and let's hammer this out like a pair of consenting adults, shall we?"
Sally pulled out her chair and looked at the lawyer. "I'd advise your client to restrain himself."
"My client's been waiting in this room for nearly an hour, Detective," he answered drily. "Some frustration is perfectly understandable."
"It's officer, not detective. I'm with the NCA."
"Of course you are," he said smoothly.
The door opened and Liam came in, carrying two coffees.
"Tea boy, finally," Rook said. "Pop an extra sugar in hers, mate, and there's a quid in it for you. Icy lass like her needs sweetening up."
Sally pierced him with a look. "Then it should be hotter, shouldn't it, Mr. Rook? Not sweeter."
He laughed and leaned back, one arm across the back of his chair. "I'm not bothered, am I? Sweeter, hotter. Any hole's a goal, you know what I mean?"
Liam frowned, put the coffees down and went to the camera on its tripod, already pointing at Rook. "Commencing interview." He hit the record button.
"Come get some," Rook said.
"NCA Officers Liam O'Connell and Sally Rogers," Liam began. "Interview one with Gabriel Rook, Rye police station, 4:13 p.m., his solicitor present." He looked to the man in the fine suit.
"Richard Carrack," he said.
"All very proper," Rook mocked.
Sally took a moment while Liam repeated the standard caution, letting the moment settle. Then she began.
"Peep show, you said. Is that the business you were running out of your farm, Umberside Lodge, with those five girls?"
"Women, get it right," Rook countered. "Not girls. They're all legal. At least, that's what their paperwork said."
Sally nodded. "We're looking into their paperwork. Now answer the question."
"The peep show question?" Rook took a languid moment, still reclined into his chair. "I suppose. Squalid name that though, isn't it? You have a lass do what our ladies do, for a painting or something, and they call it high art, put it in the National Gallery."
"Not a lot of high art made in fake taxi backseats though, is there?" Liam said.
Sally looked to him. That was good.
Rook just chuckled. "You got me there, guvnor. Basically, we run a talent agency, OK? They work a little with us, they move on."
"They're victims of human trafficking, indentured by you."
Rook held up his hands. "I didn't indenture shit, lady. None of that's my doing, is it? I'm a businessman, like my brothers."
"Those girls were terrified of you," Sally pressed. "They claim they were beaten. We're looking into evidence of rape."
"Rape? Fuck that, that's not how we roll. And as for terror, well, maybe they're just skittish bitches, nervy about going on camera. Simple creatures, you know?" He grinned. "Bird-boned."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. It's just, part of the appeal, isn't it? Tits and ass, sure, but graceful too. Slender limbs. Slender necks."
A rush of hot blood ran to Sally's cheeks. Rook noticed and his grin spread.
"You heard that your brother assaulted me in the mud?"
Rook made a show of surprise. "My brother did what? I'm shocked, Officer. I think you must be mistaken. My brother would never hurt a fly."
Liam was looking at Sally now too, concern etched in his features.
Sally went on. "Last night you picked up the girls for this 'talent agency'. 3 a.m. You went with your brothers and your dogs down to Dungeness."
"Never happened."
"The girls were waiting in your father's old Crab Shack. Gives you deniability on the way they arrived here, offers a clearing house for the trafficking gangs. Then you charge an extra tax; all the girls have to perform on your livestream."
Rook's face took on a quizzical look. "That's an interesting story. Incendiary, some might say. Nothing to do with us, though."
Sally leaned closer, shifting tack smoothly. "Where are they? Roarke and the others?"
"How would I know? I'm in here."
"They ran. Right before that, your brother was on a call. It was heated. Who was he talking to?"
"I think it was your mum."
Liam snorted. Sally didn't let up. "Did you kill that boy, out on the beach last night?"
"Did I kill him? Come on now, I just said I wasn't even on the bloody beach, didn't I? Make your mind up, I'm either trafficking girls or murdering boys, but hardly going to be both, is it?"
"That's a good point." Sally looked at Liam. He produced a printout from a folder and slid it across the table.
"And this is?" Rook demanded.
"Preliminary forensic analysis of particulate matter," Liam said. "Found in the back of your van, as well as in the soles of your shoes and the discarded boots the girls in your 'talent agency' were wearing."
"In English," Rook said, as his lawyer picked up the paper.
"In brief, the grit in your van, in your boots and in the girls' boots matches the shingle from Dungeness."
Rook snorted. "So bloody what? That grit's everywhere. Doesn't mean we were down there last night, does it?"
Liam produced another piece of paper and slid it over. "Further particulate analysis of the rotten wood in the Crab Shack floorboards. It's cheap plywood, crumbling with a black mold infection, also partially infused with thermally degraded triglyceride matrix B."
"Matrix what?"
Liam waved a hand. "A major after product of degraded cooking oil. The kind of thing you'd find in a seaside Crab Shack. Splashed liberally."
Rook turned to his lawyer. The man was studying the paper closely. "This is all bullshit, right? Used cooking oil could come from anywhere. My own effing kitchen, maybe? Anybody's kitchen."
"In this particular combination with the Dungeness grit and the plywood fibers?" Sally narrowed her eyes. "Possibly. But the black mold's the kicker."
"Kicking what?"
"You've got to maintain your facilities," Liam chimed in. "Damp treatment's a serious business, Mr. Rook. Keeping those girls in the shack for hours, maybe the whole night at a time? It's bad for their health, all kinds of respiratory issues."
"Respiratory issues? And I told you, they're women, not girls."
"Stachybotrys chartarum," Sally pushed on, reading smoothly off her notes.
She'd rehearsed the pronunciation. "Black mold's not unique, but there are multiple strains.
This one, it seems, pops up where there's been substantial, lengthy water ingress and neglect.
" She looked up. "You been in many other abandoned plywood kitchens on Dungeness beach recently, Gabriel? "
His jaw dropped slightly.
His lawyer laid the paper down firmly. "These findings are preliminary. Pending full analysis, which I happen to know could take days, especially in the case of this black mold speciation. It's far from enough to place my client at any particular location at any particular time."
"We'll get there, though, won't we, Gabriel?" Sally said. "Plywood. Mold. Dungeness sand. Cooking oil. In your boots, in the girls' boots, in your van. We haven't even mentioned the Labubu doll."
"The fucking what?"
Liam produced a photo. It showed the silvery doll, its rainbow hair incongruent against the dark chipboard floor of the Crab Shack.
"You missed it in the dark. One of the victims dropped it.
She confirmed it's hers. Those girls were in that shack last night and this morning.
You personally collected them. We have the whole timeline. "
Rook stared.
"Now's the time to get ahead of this," Sally said. "Before you take not only the full weight for the abduction, rape and trafficking of those girls, but also the murder of that young man."
"Those are two fully disparate charges." The lawyer leaned in. "You may or may not have evidence here to support the former charge, but you have none for the latter."
"We have your client placed on the beach at the time of the murder," Sally said. "He has a history of violence and cruelty. We're simply following the evidence."
"We don't have to respond to any of this," the lawyer cautioned. "You're fishing, and you're wildly off base."
"Then let's get back on track," Sally said.