‘What did you do?’
‘I got out of there. I felt… quite cold.’
Fiona took both her hands out of her scarf and laid them on top of it. Her wedding ring was iridescent in the blazing stained-glass light. Merrily stood up, turned to watch the figure that might be Thomas Traherne moving away along the path up the wooded hill which might be Credenhill. Traherne had been the vicar at the church below the hill. She had a strong feeling there was history here that Fiona wasn’t yet prepared to disclose.
‘Those things you didn’t ask…’
‘I don’t have the knowledge. Do I?’
‘How about if I ask them?’
‘That might be helpful. If you don’t mind.’
‘OK.’ Merrily picked up her bag. ‘Your car or mine?’
23
Billy Grace had found bruising around the pubic area in both cases but no traces of semen, and no internal damage. Neither Maria nor Ileana Marinescu had been raped. Or, it seemed, had recent sex of any kind.
‘So… was there an attack with intent to rape?’ Bliss said to the class. ‘Or was it something random? Group of lads coming back from the pub, spot these two on their own, maybe wander over, see what’s on offer.’
‘Maybe simply thinking they were prostitutes?’ Darth Vaynor said.
They had decent CCTV now, of the girls entering and leaving the Grapes in Church Street at 9.45 p.m. On their own, both times. Nobody following them.
‘Very drunk, presumably, the attackers,’ Rich Ford said, the veteran uniform inspector. ‘And then it gets progressively out of hand.’
About fifteen of them in the incident room, including seven uniforms and Slim Fiddler and Joanna Priddy from crime-scene.
Rich Ford, months off retirement, glanced over his shoulder, cleared his throat.
‘Perhaps I should mention that while the two Lithuanian gentlemen helped into the hospitality lounge in the early hours were completely pissed – one vomiting profusely all over the reception desk – neither had any blood on him. We did manage to talk to them this morning before they were checked out, and it was fairly clear that neither of them had seen – or at least remembered seeing – anything untoward.’
Statistics showed overwhelmingly that most crimes against economic migrants in Hereford were committed by other migrants. Maybe retribution for non-payment of business protection or the required percentage for procurement of employment. Neither of which seemed to apply to the Marinescu sisters.
‘However, if this is to do with some existing conflict we know nothing about,’ Rich said, ‘there’s likely to be retaliation, isn’t there? Could be trouble on the streets tonight – and that could give us an in.’
‘If the girls had been on the game,’ Bliss said, ‘we’d have to consider the possibility that they’d intruded on someone else’s street corner or pub of choice… or failed to cough up the agreed percentage of their earnings to the pimp.’
‘Which in this case would be Goldie,’ Darth Vaynor said. ‘And we don’t have any reason to think Goldie’s lying about them not being involved in prostitution.’
Slim Fiddler grunted.
‘Less they was doing a foreigner?’
‘Can’t be ruled out,’ Bliss said. ‘Or, as Darth said, that somebody thought they were on the game. We’ll come back to that. Let’s just deal with the second possible motive – robbery.’
Turning to Brian Wilton, the office manager, who brought up on the monitor a picture of the pale blue handbag found in Bishop’s Meadow down by the river. A twin to the one Bliss had seen in East Street.
‘Contents emptied out,’ Brian said. ‘Wallet-type purse found in the Cathedral Close, empty. Bits of make-up kit also picked up between the Cathedral and the river.’
‘Likely to be DNA,’ Slim Fiddler said. ‘We’re still waiting.’
‘Also, that lays a bit of a trail.’ Bliss went over to the blown-up street map, tapped it with his pen. ‘Quickest way from East Street to the Cathedral Close is through this little alleyway, almost directly across the street from the car park. Curves round past the old Alfred Watkins house into the Cathedral grounds. We might assume that, after killing the Marinescu sisters, the attackers ran across East Street, into the alley, going through the bag as they went.’
‘Why take only one bag?’ Karen Dowell said. ‘If the other was left in East Street and there was a few quid left in the purse…’
‘I don’t think we ever really considered this was about robbery, Karen, I’m just gerrin it out the way. What else? Any ideas?’
‘Personal?’ Rich Ford said. ‘They’ve committed some offence against their family?’
‘According to Goldie Andrews, they have no known family over here, and they didn’t mix much with other migrants.’
‘What about non-compliance?’ Darth Vaynor said. ‘They were invited to work for somebody but, being religious, they declined, and…’
‘Maybe.’ Bliss wrinkled his nose. ‘Have to be more complicated, though. Like that they were threatening to come to us. And how often does that happen?’
He waited for more, got blank faces. They were talking to the Romanian authorities, but the suggestion so far was, as Goldie had thought, that the Marinescu girls were from a fairly rural area and maybe not exactly sophisticated.
Bliss was still pretty sure, mind, that there was a lot of stuff Goldie hadn’t told him, maybe in connection with the fruit farm. Time to float this one.
‘It’ll surprise none of you to learn that these girls came over to work in the tunnels. In the last instance, Magnis Berries, off the Brecon Road. So… what do we know about Magnis Berries? All shut when me and Terry called in the other day, and no particular reason to take it further at that stage.’
Silence.
‘Aw, come on, children, what’ve we heard?’
‘No suicides,’ Brian Wilton said. ‘Unlike some similar establishments.’
‘Rumours of intimidation? Threats, bribery? Think back to the van driver who demanded his weekly blow job for getting a woman to work on time. Pretty scary for a couple of young lasses from a village in rural Romania.’
‘It’s a newish establishment,’ Karen Dowell said. ‘They seem to have started up with full knowledge of the kind of reputations that some fruit farms had got themselves for bullying and poor working conditions. Brought in local people as supervisors. I don’t suppose they pay any more than the others, but we’re not getting rumours.’
‘Then why did the girls leave? We need to find out.’
Karen said, ‘If we’re descending on Magnis Berries, that’d be rubbing shoulders with the Mansel Bull inquiry. I believe the farm’s being extended onto what used to be Mr Bull’s land.’
‘It is?’
‘I learned last night that he sold it a month or so ago. Causing a bit of controversy locally, as you’d expect.’
‘Absolutely.’ Bliss was blinking hard. ‘Right. Well, not too much is clear at the minute, but I still don’t expect this to take long. We’ve gorra lorra DNA to play with. So – need I say – any excuse to snatch a sample from any bugger, we grab it. Welcome to Swab City.’
‘OK, Karen.’ Assembly over, Bliss shut the door of his office, waved her to the spare chair, sat down behind his desk. ‘Give.’
‘The bit of controversy?’
‘Indeedy.’
‘You’re going to get overexcited now. This is only from my mum, right, so it might need some more looking into.’
‘I see Mrs Dowell as an impeccable source, Karen.’
Karen sighed.
‘Magnis Berries, the parent company, is in the Vale of Evesham. Well established, fairly responsible. So what you hear – or what you don’t hear – is pretty reliable. It’s still a shit job, but nobody at Magnis gets a bucket of muddy water thrown over them when they pass out from the heat.’
‘But just because it’s not too bad for the wairkers…’