Buying the Virgin novel Chapter 126

BETH

Who does Klempner remind me of?

It’s irrelevant. I dismiss the thought.

“Hello, again,” he says. “Nice to see you both. I was getting really quite annoyed at the trouble you’ve been causing me, but now you’re back, we can all be friends again.”

He nods to one of our captors. “Un-gag that one.” He points at Charlotte.

With deliberate roughness, the tape is torn from her mouth, leaving her lips bleeding. She licks over her mouth but says nothing, simply staring at Klempner.

He arches brows. “Nothing to say?”

“Like what?” She almost spits the words. “Am I supposed to plead with you? I still don’t know why I’m here.”

“You’re here because you’ve made my life difficult, and now you’re going to…. compensate me, for it.”

“I don’t think that’s it.” Her voice is strident, insistent.

How can she be like this? She should be terrified. Instead, she’s just angry….

“Is that right?”

They’re playing some sort of…. game?

“You said you knew my mother,” she says.

He doesn’t move, except to tilt his head a little. His eyes are flat, lids hooded. After a pause, “So?”

“How did you know her?”

“I told you. She worked for me, with the other whores.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He shrugs, saying nothing.

“What became of her?”

“She died….” His eyes stay cold, but there is… what? An eagerness for her to believe? “…. Heroin overdose.”

“And what do you know about my father, Frank Conners?”

He laughs. “Conners? Your father? Don’t fool yourself. You might have his name, but that’s all. You’re a whore’s brat. Your father could have been anyone….” He pauses. “Could have been me…” he drawls.

She looks as though she has bitten into rotten meat. “Why do you hate me so much?”

“Hate you? Why should I hate you? I don’t know you. You’re nothing.”

She tilts her head. “That’s what I’m asking. You don’t know me. So why do you hate me? If I was just a nuisance, for being a police witness against you, I think you would have simply had me murdered. So, there’s more to it, and I think it’s to do with my mother.”

His lips curl into a sneer. “Really? Well, you’re over-thinking it. You’re simply goods, with a value. And so’s she…” He points at me. “And despite what you told me about her husband and ransoming her, I’ve decided against it. You’re being sold as a pair. Quite the exotic mix, two lookers like you. There’s quite a market for that kind of.… novelty item…. in some parts of the world you know.”

There is a ring-tone, and he glances down before plucking a phone from his pocket. “Yeah…. they’re here. You did a good job. Are you joining us for the fun? Sure, we’ll wait, there’s no hurry. See you later.” He nods at the men in the room. “Lock them up.”

“Like that, Boss?”

“I need to pee,” says Charlotte. “Are you going to take this tape off?” Klempner hesitates. “If you don’t,” she continues, “It’s going to get smelly around here, pretty quickly.”

He sniffs, nodding at one of the men. “Take it off her. And the other one.”

The tape is stripped away from the both of us and we are thrust into a small bare room, where I collapse onto the floor in an agony of pins and needles. Even Charlotte dances around the floor, flapping her hands as blood pumps back into her fingers. Then she paces up and down, shaking arms and legs, stretching limbs and straining her neck backwards. “God, but that feels good,” she says. “Thought I was going to seize up entirely like that.”

She grins down at me. “Come on. Cheer up. Could be worse.”

I struggle to sit up from my spot on the floor. “Worse?” I ask, unbelieving. “How?”

“We could still be tied up.”

*****

MICHAEL

We sit around the table, James and I, Richard and Will.

Will, sighing, says “As you know, since it is clear that something in Charlotte’s family history, relates to Lawrence Klempner and this current situation, I’ve had good reason to be able to investigate old records which might otherwise not be deemed relevant, that I could not otherwise justify assigning resources to. You know about the first part, when, at Michael’s request, I had her birth certificate located, along with her parents’ marriage certificate. And now, with Corby identified, I have more of a free hand. It was difficult before, simply not knowing who could be trusted….”

“What makes you think he was their only informer?” asks Richard.

“Because, having identified him, with the benefit of hindsight, all the information we know to have leaked out, including how they knew you were here, can be traced back to some connection with him….”

“How did he know we here?” demands Richard.

“He was there in the aftermath of the attack on the building. It was probably no more complicated than listening in to you giving instructions to your helicopter pilot.”

Richard rubs the back of his neck, distress on his face.

“Of course,” continues Will, “We can never be one hundred per cent sure, but we are ninety-nine per cent sure, that, in terms of police infiltration, Corby was acting alone. Remember, he even manoeuvred himself into being the officer to interview Charlotte about Blessingmoors, then tried to use that, to attack James.”

“So, you know who he is, or was?” asks James.

“He was essentially Klempner’s right-hand man. Certainly, that was his role in the days of the original investigation. This was known at the time, according to the records, but was never provable, because witnesses either clammed up or vanished entirely. In time, Corby himself, or as he was then known, Elliot Bech, also vanished, and in truth, it was assumed he’d probably been murdered himself in some form of gang dispute. They’re a violent bunch, and occasionally, what was left of them, would be found floating face down.”

“So, Corby… what? Had a change of identity and joined the police force?”

“So far as we can tell, yes. He seems to have been there as a sleeper for years, positioning himself to be in the right place if there were movement on the Blessingmoors investigation or any of the other inquiries which we now know to be linked to it….”

“How did you establish those links?” asks Richard.

“Through Charlotte’s identification of individuals known to her from Blessingmoors, but also known to us through other activities. It’s a huge network, working internationally, and all on the general theme of trafficking vulnerable individuals; children, migrants, the dispossessed. The movement is typically from one country to another, where the victims don’t speak the language, don’t know the local laws and have no way of requesting help. However, large as the network is, Klempner is the king-pin, the common link. Take him out of the system, and a lot of it simply falls apart.”

Will chews his lip, hesitates, then continues, “On the subject of Blessingmoors itself, I have to say that I am pleased that Charlotte is not present to hear this, although I suspect I am not going to say anything that she didn’t actually know already…. The cellar that she led us to on the site: forensics have now had the opportunity to re-excavate, from where the site had been demolished over it, and investigate….

…. What they found is not good. The examination of the site is still by no means complete. Suffice it to say, that a number of shallow graves have been identified. The human remains within have been recovered, and there is an on-going effort to identify the individuals concerned….”

There is an appalled silence around the table. “Under the circumstances, “says Will, “I’m not going to dwell on this too much. All I am going to say is that there is all the motive in the world, for the culprits to try to remove Charlotte, as a witness to much of this, from the picture, and to prevent her giving testimony at court. All aside from the considerable monies made from the trafficking, she is effectively witness to institutionalised murder.”

“So why…” I interrupt, “… have they not simply murdered her?”

Will raises a hand, forestalling me. “I’m coming to that.” He glances around the table. “I have to say, that we are missing certain records. Corby may be responsible for that, or it may be that over twenty years or so, they have been misplaced or misfiled, and we have simply not yet located them. However, some things have come out, about which we are clear…. and there’s no easy way to deliver this…. Charlotte’s father, Frank Conners, was murdered, either by, or at the instruction of, Lawrence Klempner.”