Chapter 9

Andy took the card out of his wallet and rang ‘Off the Bone’. When he put his phone away, he laughed.

“Jim told me that if I can get the team in, he’ll set up the function room, on Saturday evening, just for us. He is still happy with us, and the place is, or so he said, going gangbusters. The room is big enough for your team and their partners if they want to come. I’m sure that Jim will have enough food for us all. Here’s the address, it’s smart casual, and we’ll meet you at seven. Now I’ve got to round up the others.”

“With what you’ve done, this week; I doubt that that would be too hard. Now run along, I’ve got real work to do.”

Before he got in his car, he rang Sue, again, and passed on the invitation for Saturday evening. He told her that the whole team, and their partners, were invited. When he got home, he told Maria what had been arranged, and she wondered if Dave and Jenny would be able to join them again.

They had settled Andrea into the spare room and had dinner around the kitchen table. Andrea looked around.

“You know, this is just like my old home. Our house was built around the same time. The more I’m with you two, the further I get away from that cave, as well as what took me there, in the first place. What else have you in mind to show me?”

“Well,” smiled Andy. “We have an invitation from Jim, at the ‘Off the Bone’, to have our whole team for a dinner, in their function room, on Saturday evening. I think that it will be an experience not to be missed. Alex and the dive team are coming, so you’ll be able to see them all in a much better place than when you last saw them. I think that they’ll all be happy to tell you how relieved they were to see you, even if you were gobbing off at us.”

It had been a long day, and they had an early night, Andrea looking forward to sleeping in a proper bed, with the curtains open so she could see the moon. Andy had Maria snuggled into his shoulder.

“Darling, there is a little bit of news that I had, while you were shopping for Andrea. It added to something we found out in the cave. There was a book down there, with a note that it was to Ferdinand Shields. Andrea knew him, as he had given lectures at her college. He worked as a Safety Inspector at the Inspectorate of Mines.”

He felt her stiffen.

“And you failed to tell me that little thing!”

“Yes, I needed you to be unstressed to look after Andrea, and you did it very well. Since then, I have spoken to Sue; and Ferdi was heading to Heathrow to skip the country, the Tuesday after you went to Sheffield.”

“I’ll rip that guy’s head off, the sneaky bastard!”

“You’ll have to wait in line. The Sheffield DCI and the DC were going from the hospital to arrest him, just before you came back with the shopping. I think that he’ll be spending a few nights in the cells, while they trace his phone calls.”

“All right, there has to be more. What about this Shields?”

“He’s in a morgue, in Oxford. He was heading to Heathrow in his van, when a couple of squad cars came up behind him, in full flight. He must have thought that they were after him, had a heart attack, and the police said that the car sped up before going off the road, and rolling, several times.”

“So, that’s it, then? No arrest, no trial, no extra work to get the prosecution up to speed. It’s not long before you turn twenty-five and we have to decide what we do; we can think about our future.”

“Yes, my love, we have a future. Now, we have a guest, how quiet can you be?”

They took it easy, the next day, with Andy busy with washing and vacuuming both cars, after which, the vacuum was brought inside and he had the task of using it, from the upper floor to the downstairs. Maria and Andrea kept themselves busy with dusters and polishing rags. It was, overall, very relaxing and a good break from the stress, for all of them.

On Saturday, they took the Audi to the dress shop, where Andrea was fitted with a classy wrap-around in varying shades of darker blues. She tried to tell them that they shouldn’t do this, but Maria assured her that it was all part of the plan. A plan to introduce her to the world at the press conference. For that, Collette came up with an elegant skirt suit and silk blouse.

That evening, when they arrived at ‘Off the Bone’ they were greeted with hugs by Jim, who told them that he was over the moon at seeing all of the team that raided the place. He asked about the group of strong-looking guys and Andy told him that they were the dive team that found all the clothing from the victims, as well as the car with the girl in it.

They went up the stairs to the function room, finding the tables crowded with friends and well-dressed women. Alex came over, with his wife, and then took Andrea to introduce her, formally, to the men who had saved her life. Jim stood next to Andy and asked the question.

“Who is that girl, she is certainly being feted by those guys?”

“I told you that they’re the dive team. This week we found where she had been imprisoned, underground, and left to die. She has so much courage, I’m in awe. If you read the papers, next week, you’ll find out the rest of it.”

Maria had seen Jenny and Dave, sitting at a table. Andy had to look twice at who they were sitting with. They went over to say hello.

“Good evening, Sir,” he said to the Assistant Commissioner. “I’m pleased to see you here, with your lovely wife.

“I just had to come when young David, here, told me about the dinner. It isn’t often that I visit the scene of the crime, these days. Is that lovely girl, with Alex, the one you took out the cave the other day?”

“Yes, Sir. That’s Andrea, and she is getting her life back together. Maria and I are looking after her and will be bringing her to the event on Monday. Do you want to be introduced?”

“Not now, maybe later in the evening. Now, is it possible to look at the cellars, here?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, I’ll find Jim and get him to show you. The lift now has keyed lock for the basement, and the lift is the only way to it.”

He left them to find Jim, Maria in conversation with Jenny. As he started to walk from the table, Dave stood and joined him.

“Let’s find Jim then have a small chat, Andy. You will have questions about how I’m here with the AC. There are wheels, within wheels, and you, my boy, are being talked about in high places.”

They saw Jim and told him that the Assistant Commissioner would like a personal tour of the basement. Jim had a big grin on his face as he went towards the table.

The two of them went out to towards the top of the stairs, where Dave looked Andy in the eyes.

“You, Andy, have a problem. That is that you love policing, and you are so good at that you have been noticed. When you get noticed, it often leads to being ordered to do something that you don’t want. I’ll come clean with you, and this stays between us. I do work for the Anti-Terrorist Squad, but I am also with another, far more secretive, government force; one that you would never have heard of. When you left our dinner, after I told you about the website, I was intrigued enough to pass your name onto another member of the squad, who lives near here. He made it his business to find out what you were up to, and he came back to me with the information about your case. Even he was surprised at what you found, in this very building.”

“That would be the spook who visited Sky Walker in hospital?”

“Oh, dear. I’ll have to tell him that he was rumbled. You’ll have to introduce me to Sky; he sounds like a canny man.”

“So, where does this leave me and Maria?”

“Some time, next week, you are going to meet a couple of very highly placed people, who will make you an offer. I can’t tell you what it will be, as news of your latest success will need to be processed before they make it. All I can tell you is that it will solve a lot of your worries, and maybe use some of those skills that my big brother taught you. He kept me up to date with what you achieved, in the week, and I have to say that you are an exceptional investigator, the sort of officer the country needs.”

“So, you and Alex are brothers?”

“We are, but we don’t get to see each other very often. I went for that rescue team course, once, and flunked. They had to pull me through a very tight space after I froze. I’ve never put a mask on since. Anyway, let’s get back to the room; I’m interested in how much Jim praised you when he was in the basement with the AC. And I want to talk with that lovely lady you brought with you. She was, what, the fifteenth victim?”

“You’re so far behind the times,” grinned Andy. “There were sixteen boxes of clothes in the cave, before hers. We’re going to try and trace the other two, next week.”

They went back to the ladies, via introducing Dave to the rest of the team from Aston, as well as Terry, now at Harborne. Sue had brought Mervyn, who had also been involved with the cannibal case, if only as an advisor. Mervyn asked Andy if Jim would like a few boxes of the new ice-cream dessert that he had been involved in developing. Sue said that if they had that dessert on the menu, she would be coming back every Saturday night. Andy had a good meal, sitting at a big table with a lot of friends, along with his future wife and, he suddenly realised, two people who he had saved from certain death. At one point, Andrea leaned his way and whispered.

“If someone had told me that I would be eating a dinner with this many coppers, I would have told them they were crazy. The really crazy thing is that all of these coppers are so bloody nice! Even the, what do you call him? The AC. Last one of those I saw was in a hotel room, and the fan rattled.”

After the meal, Jim came out and asked if those who had been in the raid could gather, down by the lift doors with the letters, for a group picture, seeing that they were all here. It was, he told them, a small price to pay for the evening. He had organised a photographer from the local paper, to record the occasion. They all trooped downstairs and arranged themselves in front of the lift doors, for their picture. When they went back up to the function room, Andrea asked Maria what that had been about.

“Oh, that was because we wound up a case here, a little while ago. You may have read about it in the papers. This was where young men were ritually killed and parts of them cooked for the diners. The criminals are all doing a lot of years in jail for that.”

“I read about that in the papers. ‘The Cannibal Tribe of Birmingham.’ It was horrible. So, this is the group of officers who broke that case. Wow, you guys should have been given medals.”

“We did get commendations, which, to a copper, is better than a medal, because it’s on your record, for life.”

“Will you get commendations for saving me?”

“Probably a couple will, but not all of us. It depends on the AC, and how much hoo-ha he wants to create at the press do on Monday.”

For the rest of the night, and all-day Sunday, Andy thought about what Dave had said. He wondered how he could do policing work, along with whatever they had in store for him. He would, he hoped, find out next week.

Monday, they went into the station and then boarded the bus for Sheffield. Andrea thought that it was a little like the school outings of her youth, though, this time, she was dressed like the teacher. At Sheffield, they were taken to a police gymnasium, which had rows of chairs at the front for them. There was a small dais, with a microphone. The press were there, in force, with some TV cameras and lights. Eventually, the AC got on the platform and cleared his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press. I have called this meeting to tell you about a series of deaths that have been largely under-reported, or, in some cases, not reported at all. Over the last ten years, a number of women had been murdered and dumped, in the open. All had been sex-workers, and all had drowned. My office can give you a sheet with all the names that we have, as well as where they were found. A lot of the places, where they had been found, were sites of old coal mines, with a few that didn’t match, until a team of young Detective Constables were given a set of old files to work on. It is they who took the total number of linked cases from the six they had, to thirteen, spread between Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, and Manchester.”

He looked around at the press.

“Then there was another, this time the victim was discovered in the old Tar Tunnel, near Ironbridge. She had also been drowned, and carful testing of the water, in her lungs, showed that she had died in limestone filtered spring water. This led a very capable detective, Andrew Barton, to the conclusion that all had been kept in an underground cavern, likely only accessible by an underwater swim. Not being accredited with any caving or scuba skills, he was sent to learn by his superior, DCI Susan Cousins. Not only did he achieve accreditation in both sets of skills, but he did so well that he is now on the rescue register. Such was his determination that he would be the one going to look for the next likely victim.”

There was a buzz among the journalists as Andy blushed.

“The problem was to locate the cave. Now, Andrew had the idea that the locked cave, known as the Boat House, at Creswell Crags, was the most likely, and, by various means, he, and DCI Alex Anderson, the diving leader, managed to get the keys needed to enter that cave. They did so, for the first time, on Wednesday of last week. What they found made sure that a full exploration, including underground diving, had to happen. This occurred on Thursday, a joint operation between Birmingham and Sheffield, using both teams of divers. They found, when they had swum through a long tunnel, another cave. In that cave was an abducted girl. Could you come up and show your pretty self to the press, Andrea.”

Andrea stood and went to stand beside him as there was a barrage of flashes.

“Andrea had been in the darkness of that cave for about two weeks, others had been there for an estimated three months before being murdered. There was evidence, in her prison, that gave the detectives a lead on who the murderer was. His name was Ferdinand Shields, a retired Safety Inspector for the Inspectorate of Mines, here in Sheffield. I say ‘was’ because he died in a car roll-over, on the way to Heathrow with a one-way ticket to Brazil in his wallet. Without the determination of the team of Detective Constables, and the help of their superiors, this lovely lady, standing tall and proud beside me, would have been left to die, a long and slow death in the dark. At this point, we usually ask for questions, but in this case, I have given you everything that you should know. My office will be able to answer your questions. Thank you for coming.”

There was a clamour of questions shouted as the AC led the Birmingham and Sheffield officers out of the gymnasium, through a side door flanked by a couple of uniformed officers.

In what looked like a changing room, he turned to the assembled officers, and Andrea.

“I think that went pretty well. The press have enough to dig up all the stories they want, and you all get a little breathing space before they track you down and want your side of things. My men are clearing the gym, and we’ll have to wait for them to do so, because this room doesn’t have another exit. It looked good, but that’s about it.”

There was a general chuckle and that broke the tension, allowing the different groups to talk for a while in relative peace. Andrea asked him what was going to happen with her, now.

“Now, my dear, you will be a celebrity for a while. They all got your picture, and, if I were you, I’d get myself an agent, so that you can make hay while your sun shines. My officers will be tasked to look after you, as long as it takes. Andy and Maria are due for some down time, so they can be your guardians, if that’s what you want.”

The door was opened.

“It’s clear, now, Sir, but they’re all outside the front. The bus from Birmingham is out the back door, if your guests want to leave that way.”

“Thank you, sergeant. Now, I want to see the Sheffield contingent, in your conference room, this afternoon. I will meet your team, Sue, tomorrow morning in the conference room at Aston. Before you all go. It was a brilliant plan last week and executed perfectly. You’re all a credit to the force and the co-operation has not gone un-noticed. Andrea, you have shown bravery and determination to live that will be an ongoing part of you, even if it hadn’t been apparent, before. Now, get along, I’ll go out the front and the press can talk to me.”

The atmosphere in the coach back to Birmingham was lively. Sky came to where Andrea was sitting and introduced himself as the first one that Andy had saved, embellishing the tale as he told it, while Andy wanted to curl up in his seat on the other side of the aisle. Maria could hardly stop herself screaming with laughter at the look on his face. Back at the station, Sue told Lee, Sally, and the others that they had time off until the meeting on Tuesday, while the rest of the team grumbled as they went back to work.

Before they left, Sue gave Maria a note.

“This is an agent that we have used to represent other high-profile witnesses and victims. He knows what’s needed to maximise the returns for Andrea. You have an appointment with him, this afternoon.”

The five of them went to a pub for lunch. Lee and Sally were a little awestruck after the press conference, never having been to one before, as well as wondering what tomorrow’s meeting will involve. They had a relaxing lunch, Andrea thanking the two for helping with the search for her.

“I have so many people who I owe my life to, it’s not something I have had, before. For too many years I’ve been on my own, without friends. On the street the only ones you can trust are yourself and your instincts. All the other girls would push you under a bus if they could snag a good customer out of it. Without that time, on my own, I could never have started thinking this way. Mostly, though, I’m indebted to the four of you, who worked out what was going on and also figured out that I, or another girl, was somewhere, hidden away.”

That afternoon, Andy waited while Maria took Andrea to see the agent. Then they went home and took Andrea to meet his Auntie.

Tuesday morning, the three of them were in the conference room, with the rest of the team, when the AC came in, with the Chief Super.

“Good morning, officers, and lady. It’s not often that I get to be at a meeting like this. Last time I was here, I handed out commendations to every member of that team who solved a very nasty case, involving eleven murders. Today, the case included sixteen suspected victims, as well as Andrea, who was the intended seventeenth. I know that not all of you worked on the case, directly, but I have been told that DCI Cousins makes sure that all of you have briefings and that all of you have input. With that in mind, once again, all members of the team will get a commendation added to their record.”

There were gasps and smiles as Sue thanked him on behalf of them all.

“There will also be a commendation added to all the dive team, while the Sheffield officers got a note added to their records, for a job well done. We have claimed the body of Shields from Oxford, along with all the contents of his van, which are with FSI. Ironbridge have secured his house. I can tell you that FSI found a sound system with a tape of grinder noises, which is how he was able to be away in the evenings without anyone knowing. The manager at the Inspectorate has claimed that he thought that Shields was using the cave to hide stolen goods or illegal drugs, and has been allowed to go home, on bail, after being charged with obstructing the police.”

He turned to the CS, and they spoke, quietly. Then the CS stood.

“I have to thank you all, once again, for a job well done. Now, if you can look after Andrea, Sue, we would like to have a short word with Andrew and Maria.”

The others all filed out, the CS holding the door and waiting until they were around the corner and out of sight. He nodded to the AC.

“Come along, you two, there’s a couple of people in my office who want to have a word.”

Maria took hold of Andy’s hand as they followed him to his office. Inside, the CS went behind his desk, which had two, very well-suited gentlemen sitting beside it. They were shown two chairs while the AC came in and sat to the other side of the desk.

When they were sitting, one of the strangers, who wasn’t so strange to them, spoke up.

“Andrew and Maria, I can see that you have recognised me as the Minister in charge of the police. I’m here so that you can be certain that what you are about to hear is all totally approved and above board. This gentleman, beside me, cannot be named, so, for the moment, we can laughingly call him ‘M’. He is the officer in charge of a squad which is intended to seek out terrorists, both here and overseas, who do not have the best intentions towards this country. You already know one of their men.”

Andy nodded, while Maria became more worried at where this was going. Were they going to take her Andy away from her? ‘M’ cleared his throat.

“You two are in a very unique situation. On one hand, you are both exceptional investigators, on the other, you are both worried that when you marry, you will be split up. I can understand that. We have done some background searching into both your histories and found that we have a job for the two of you, that also ensures you stay together. Now, if you other gentlemen leave us, the rest is for these two, only.”

The AC and CS left the office, much to Maria’s amazement.

“Now, we have a proposal for the two of you. Refuse and you carry on, taking what life throws at you. Agree and you are certain of exciting, and dangerous times, working in the best interests of the country. Are you in?”

Andy looked at Maria, who smiled and nodded.

“Yes, Sir. I believe that we’re in.”

“Right. Andrew, you are due to inherit the dress shop that your mother has deeded to you, when you turn twenty-five in, what is it, five weeks?”

“Yes, Sir. That’s the terms of the will.”

“We want you to resign from your present positions and take up the dress shop. I say ‘resign’ but this will only be a token, as you will both be part of my group, with continuation of service and the usual increases in rank. When you marry, you will be able to present a real front, with nothing made up in a back-room. Then, you will be able to go overseas on buying trips, tour the manufacturers in this country, even expand your operations. All of it as a cover for your work for us. We need people with your insight and imagination, to discover those small things that lead to us cracking bigger organisations. It could be tedious, it could be dangerous, it will certainly be appreciated by your Government. No matter how it pans out, you will be together, using all the skills that you have, between you. Have I your agreement?”

Maria looked at Andy before saying, “Yes, Sir, we are looking forward to working for you.”

“Good, now run along and join your team. DCI Cousins has been advised that we were going to talk to you but hasn’t been told why. It won’t be a surprise to her when you resign. Take some time off, make sure that the girl Andrea gets something to do in life, she is wasted with what she was doing. I can tell you that one of our sidelines will put some money into funding the dig in the cave. I saw the pictures and it will be a job for life, also likely to advance our knowledge of the prehistoric.”

As they were going back to the CID office, they entered the lift to go down. When the doors closed, they held each other tight and kissed. Maria murmured.

“I love you, Andrew Barton. Double O seven.”

He smiled.

“I love you too, Maria Barton. Double O seven and a half.”

As the door opened on their floor, she laughed.

“Yes, buster! The better half, and don’t you forget it!”

Marianne Gregory © 2023.