‘These girls, were some of them underage?’
‘What?’
‘I said, were some of the girls underage?’ Langton snapped.
‘I never went with them, but yeah, some of them were.’
‘Do you know this girl, Carly Ann North?’ Langton slapped down the photograph that Dora had given them.
Johnson stared for a moment, then shook his head. ‘No, I don’t know her. I had nothing to do with her.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Ah, shit man. I’m getting all wound up. This isn’t right. I didn’t know her.’
Langton now placed the mortuary shots of Carly Ann in front of him. Johnson recoiled. This was followed by the horrific photo of the mutilated boy found in the canal. Now Johnson was really caving in: the sweat stained his jacket and dripped down his face.
Langton placed more photographs down as if he was dealing a game of poker: Arthur Murphy, Eamon Krasiniqe, Rashid Burry, Gail Sickert, her little girl. The more he was forced to look, the more agitated Johnson became. Lastly, he was shown the e-fit of Joseph Sickert.
‘No, no, I didn’t know him,’ he said, gasping for breath.
‘Let’s start again from the top, Mr Johnson. Tell me what you know about Carly Ann North.’
Johnson stood up. He was shaking. ‘No, you can’t. I got nothing to do with these people, I swear before God.’
‘Sit down!’
The man slumped into his seat. His lawyer leaned close, whispering; he sat listening, his head bowed. He repeated that all he had done was take the food into Courtney, that’s all he had ever done, and he was not connected to any of the other crimes.
‘But you do know about them, don’t you?’ Anna said. ‘You must know about Rashid Burry. You said you went to the house in Peckham.’
Johnson’s lawyer held out his hand. ‘Could I please have a few moments alone with my client?’
Langton spoke into the tape recorder that they were leaving the room and turned it off.
Anna followed Langton into the corridor. ‘He’s sweating like a pig and we haven’t even got to his boss yet.’
Mike Lewis walked towards them. ‘Thought you might like to know: we have been on a paper-chase that was mind-blowing. Emmerick Orso bought the house in Peckham eight years ago. It was buried as a company purchase, for use by his employees. Water bills, electricity and gas bills are sent to a box number in Clapham. So far, we’ve got over a hundred and fifty different post office boxes! Household bills also appear to be paid out from another property in Clapham and another one in Tooting. We reckon he also owns numerous others, but I thought you’d want to know about the Peckham house and the other properties as they link to the bus tickets found on Joseph Sickert.’
Langton nodded and turned, as Johnson’s lawyer came out and said quietly that his client wished to give a statement. In return for assisting their enquiries, he wanted a deal on the charge of being an accessory to the murder of Eamon Krasiniqe. ‘I truthfully believe that my client is only directly linked to that case; perhaps he has information regarding the other.’
‘I can’t offer any deal until I know what he’s got in exchange,’ Langton told him.
‘I think a deal will really be beneficial, Detective Chief Inspector Langton.’
‘For him or for us?’
‘For you, obviously: he’s going to give information on Eugene Camorra.’
Anna and the rest of team were unaware that Langton already knew that Camorra was the man who had attacked and almost killed him.
‘Let’s see what he’s got then, shall we?’
Chapter Twenty-Two
The case that had felt as if it was running away from them was now back on track. David Johnson’s work as bodyguard and driver to Emmerick Orso had been lucrative. He had kept his mouth shut, and it had paid off: he and his family owned a house in Esher. He had been a trusted employee, working first at the warehouse, but said he knew little of the actual running of the business; he had been orchestrating the deliveries and the lorry drivers. He had, however, been fully aware that the cargo was often not African artefacts, but illegal immigrants.
He said that he had first met Joseph Sickert at the warehouse; he was an illegal immigrant, one of the loaders, and had been a big strong man, with no signs of his sickle cell disease obvious at that time. As Sickert couldn’t drive, he was moved out to work at the house in Peckham, as one of Camorra’s henchmen. It was here that Sickert met Arthur Murphy and Vernon Kramer; this was before Murphy murdered Irene Phelps. Rashid Burry was dealing drugs and often used the women at the house. Camorra ran the house, selling children and women, who often were addicted to drugs by this time.
‘Sickert was a big guy and knew how to handle his fists; he could be a real mad bastard. Nothing phased him — he was always ready for a fight.’
Johnson was unclear about what had caused the rift between Camorra and Sickert; all he knew was that Sickert was being kept short of money. Sickert’s earnings were being siphoned off to pay for his wife and two children to be brought into the UK, and he constantly asked when this would happen.
Johnson became a little confused about the exact time it had all started running out of control. Sickert had begun to be disgusted by the scene at the Peckham house and tried to get to see Orso, turning up at the factory and causing trouble.
Camorra was heavily into voodoo and drugs, and had orchestrated a sickening ceremony with a young boy who had just been brought to the UK. Carly Ann North, his girlfriend at the time, was terrified and tried to run away. She had started to have sex with one of the Camorra gang, Eamon Krasiniqe; when Camorra found out, he went berserk. He caught up with Carly Ann and brought her back to the house, where he raped her and then forced Idris, Eamon’s brother, to also have sex with her. Then he killed her.
Rashid Burry ordered Idris Krasiniqe to dump her body and cut off her head and hands. When Langton asked Johnson if he was one of the men in the white Range Rover, he denied it, but said he was certain that Camorra was sitting in the car, watching, with Rashid Burry. He said that Burry had told him what a close shave it had been when the street cop had turned up.
When Idris Krasiniqe was arrested and charged with Carly Ann’s murder, he named two other men who were with him: both had been, at some point, working for Camorra. Camorra and Rashid Burry went to a halfway house to track them down. This was, coincidentally, the same time that Arthur Murphy killed Irene Phelps and went into hiding at Vernon Kramer’s hostel — the time when Camorra had, wrongly, surmised that the police were closing in on his operation.
According to Johnson, this was also around the same time that Orso became concerned by Sickert. Orso wanted him taken care of. Orso knew that Sickert’s two sons were in the UK: he was even employing his wife, Ella, as his maid! Orso had given Johnson orders to get rid of Sickert. The latter was sent to stay at Murphy’s sister’s bungalow.
Then Murphy turned up, threatening Camorra. He had killed Irene Phelps and he wanted a passport and money to get out of the country; if Camorra didn’t supply them, he said he would tip off the police about the Peckham house.
Murphy was caught and sent to Parkhurst prison, where Eamon Krasiniqe was already an inmate. Krasiniqe had been forced to work for Camorra like a pack mule, due to his relationship with Carly Ann; he had also been pumped full of drugs, and was out of his skull when he was arrested.
The mess that Camorra had created was threatening to come too close to Orso’s business empire. When Orso was informed about Arthur Murphy’s threats, he gave the orders for Camorra to get rid of Murphy; he didn’t care how he did it.