Girls on Film: (DI Angus Henderson 7)

  Girls

  on

  Film

  Iain Cameron

  Copyright © 2018 Iain Cameron

  The right of Iain Cameron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the copyright owner.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  To find out more about the author, visit the website:

  www.iain-cameron.com

  DEDICATION

  For my daughters, Lucy and Amelia.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  About the Author

  Also by Iain Cameron

  ONE

  ‘Look at me, Maggie look at me…that’s it.’ The shutter clicked. Cindy adjusted the exposure on the camera a half-stop and tilted the light away from her subject, trying to harden the look. ‘This time Maggie, don’t smile, look serious. Face me but don’t look at the camera. Great, that’s it. Hold it.’ The shutter clicked again and again.

  In between pose changes Cindy Longhurst glanced at her watch. She did everything fast when she was ‘in the zone’. Five to seven. Bugger. She needed to wrap this up soon. Her daughter was appearing in the school play this evening and she couldn’t be late.

  ‘I just need a few more, Maggie, all right?’ she said.

  ‘Sure thing.’

  Maggie Hyatt was a self-employed businesswoman, a recently divorced mother of two with a superb figure and legs that a stocking manufacturer would drool over. Maggie wanted to change the pictures displayed on her promotional material and website for something more professional, whilst still emphasising her considerable assets.

  ‘What if I sit on the couch again?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Okay.’

  Cindy re-positioned the camera and walked over to adjust Maggie’s clothing, a fetching green dress that hugged her figure.

  Before she got there, the door of the studio flew open and two men barged in looking as if they owned the place. Cindy turned to face them.

  ‘Boys, if you could please wait outside, this is…Hey, what are you doing?’

  One of the men, large and barrel-chested with a pockmarked face, grabbed her arm, slapped her cheek and frogmarched her into the office at the rear of the building. At the same time, his smaller and thinner companion ushered Maggie Hyatt out the door without a word.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Cindy said, trying to regain her composure, her face stinging. ‘What are you doing in my studio?’

  A fist came flying towards her, knocking her backwards over the desk.

  ‘Shut the fuck up lady. You talk when I ask a question.’

  The two men rifled through the drawers of her desk and the filing cabinet, searching for what, photographs? They were wasting their time as she worked digitally, saving her photos on hundreds of little SD cards, all backed up on various portable hard drives which she stored off-site.

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Where are what?’

  ‘Don’t play innocent with me or you get another smack, understand? You know what I want. The pictures you took of the girls. I want them.’

  ‘I take lots of pictures of girls.’

  In one stride he reached out, grabbed her blouse, pulled her towards him and punched her again.

  ‘Where do you keep the pictures we come here for?’ he shouted into her face.

  She groaned, her eyes filling with tears. Had she always known it would end like this? ‘Filing cabinet…bottom drawer…blue box,’ she muttered.

  The skinny guy walked to the filing cabinet. Reaching into the bottom drawer, he threw a load of SD card boxes that were in his way onto the floor before hauling out the blue box. A bunch of old pictures she took at a little studio she used to own in Portslade.

  ‘This one?’ he said holding the box in the air.

  ‘Yesh,’ she slurred. The punches to her face left it swollen and throbbing, neither aids to good diction or vision.

  The big guy opened the box. ‘These are camera cards,’ he said to his companion.

  ‘We can look at them there,’ he said nodding at the computer.

  The big guy shook his head. ‘No time. The other woman will call the cops. What we gonna do?’

  ‘Shut up, I’m thinking.’

  ‘Make it quick.’

  ‘Ok. I decide. We take her with us.’

  The big guy walked over to Cindy, pulled a gun from his jacket and pointed it at her head. ‘Any shit from you, you get this, understand?’

  TWO

  ‘More wine, sir?’ the waiter asked, lifting the bottle from the ice cooler.

  Detective Inspector Angus Henderson, Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team, declined. He was on-call this evening and it was never a smart move to meet a distraught witness or a fearful victim smelling of booze and unable to think straight.

  The waiter filled his companion’s glass before replacing the bottle in the cooler and walking away.

  ‘I like this place,’ Henderson’s girlfriend, Rachel Jones said.

  They were seated in the Blue Marlin, a seafood restaurant in St George’s Road, Brighton. They’d eaten there once before, but at prices that wouldn’t shame smart restaurants in London, they didn’t do it often.

  In the last few months, Rachel had changed jobs and locations. She’d left the soft pastures of country and environment reporting for a promotion into general news. Not with a specific brief to cover crime, but on occasion, their professional paths did cross. In addition, The Argus, the newspaper where she worked, moved out of Hollingbury, the place where Henderson used to be based. His unit had been relocated to Malling House in Lewes and the newspaper to Manchester Street in the centre of Brighton, giving Rachel the option of a walk first thing in the morning instead of a drive.

  ‘I like it too,’ he said. ‘It’s only a short distance from the house, meaning we don’t need to bring the car and spend twenty minutes trying to find a place to park the blooming thing.’

  She put down her wine glass. ‘We were talking about this in
the office the other day. Why is it when they build a new block of flats, they only give the owners one parking space? If a couple live there, they might have a car each and if they have any grown-up kids, they’ll have one as well.’

  ‘Aye, it’s the same on new housing estates. With smaller houses, there’s often no garage and if there is, it’s single with no room to park more than one or two cars outside.’

  ‘I suppose it’s because we live on a small, congested island.

  ‘You say that, but it’s not so small or congested where I come from. The problem isn’t so much about space but that a large proportion of the population is shoehorned into London and the south east of England. It encourages builders and developers to use computer programs to squeeze as many houses into a piece of land–’

  His phone rang. He pulled it out and mouthed ‘sorry’ to Rachel.

  ‘Henderson.’

  ‘Detective Inspector Henderson, Lewes Control here. We’ve received reports of a suspected kidnapping. A patrol car is on site. Can you attend?’

  Henderson sighed, yet another night-out with Rachel spoiled. ‘Yes. Get hold of DS Walters and tell her to meet me at the scene. What’s the address?’

  He finished the call a minute or so later and looked over at Rachel. She looked peeved. Her tetchiness was a recent development as in the past, she seemed to take such interruptions in her stride.

  ‘You need to go?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What is it this time?’

  ‘A suspected kidnap.’

  **

  Henderson called DC Sally Graham and DC Phil Bentley on the way. From what little he knew, information would be at a premium and he would set the two detectives on the task of finding witnesses.

  He reached Hurstpierpoint, a small village about ten miles north of Brighton. It boasted a decent selection of local shops and pubs, but was best-known as the location of Hurstpierpoint College, an expensive co-ed private school boasting a host of famous alumni.

  He drove through the village centre and turned down a narrow road called Langton Lane, which looked as though it didn’t see much traffic. A few moments later, he turned into a driveway but didn’t need to check the address. Despite the darkness of the cold January night and the absence of street lights, he saw a police patrol car and a small gaggle of neighbours standing in a huddle shivering under hastily grabbed jackets.

  He got out of the car and approached the cop who was guarding the crime scene from encroaching neighbours and any journalist who might appear. He pulled out his id.

  ‘Evening sir.’

  ‘Good evening, constable. I was told this incident took place in a photographic studio. Where is it, in one of the rooms inside the house?’

  ‘No sir, it’s a building out back. Follow the path there,’ he said pointing, ‘around to the back of the house. You can’t miss it.’

  Famous last words as he falls into the duck pond. ‘Thanks.’

  Henderson made to move away but stopped for a moment to look at the house. It was constructed from grey stone with large bay windows, perhaps with four bedrooms inside and two or three large reception rooms. ‘Substantial’ was the word that came to mind. Lines of trees on either side separated it from any neighbours. To the side of the house, in the place where many would build a garage or site an extension, it was paved and tarmacked, a drive-through for customers of the studio, he assumed.

  He continued walking. At the rear of the property stood a large, brightly lit wooden building with sweeping lines and masses of glass. It was so striking and elegant, it wouldn’t look out of place in an architectural magazine.

  Inside, a cop was gazing at the photographs stuck on the wall. There were many, some huge and others passport-sized, arranged in such a way to make this provincial studio resemble a photography exhibition in an arty part of Paris or Milan.

  ‘Good evening, constable. DI Henderson, Serious Crime Team.’

  ‘Ah, evening sir,’ he said turning around.

  ‘What can you tell me about what happened here?’

  The constable reached into a jacket pocket for his notebook. ‘We received a call at eight-sixteen from a Ms Maggie Hyatt,’ he said reading from his notes. ‘She said two men came into the studio while she was being photographed. One of the men ushered her out while another manhandled Ms Longhurst into the office at the rear.’

  ‘Who’s Ms Longhurst?’

  ‘She’s the photographer: Cindy Longhurst. She owns this place, I’m told.’

  ‘Ok. Go on.’

  ‘Ms Hyatt went home but later became worried about what happened to Ms Longhurst and decided to come back. She found the studio as you see it now, lights on, doors open but no sign of Ms Longhurst. She then called us.’

  ‘Why didn’t she call us earlier.’

  ‘Initially, she believed it to be a personal matter and none of her business.’

  ‘Fair enough. Anything else?’

  ‘I’ve found one other witness. Mrs Lidia Rathbone lives down the road and was walking her dog down the lane. When she passed the end of the driveway, she saw two men bundling Ms Longhurst into a car and driving off.’

  ‘Why didn’t she call us?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. Maybe she thought it was a prank or they were messing about.’

  ‘Did she note down any details about the kidnappers’ vehicle?’

  ‘No, sir. She’s quite elderly and doesn’t know anything about cars.’

  ‘Anything more?’

  ‘No sir, that’s about it.’

  ‘You’ve done some excellent work tonight, Constable Murphy. Well done.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Where are the two witnesses?’

  ‘Ms Hyatt is sitting in the waiting room over there,’ he said pointing, ‘and Mrs Rathbone has gone home. Too cold for her, she said.’

  ‘I assume you noted her address?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Good. I’ll take a look around here and then I’ll speak to Ms Hyatt. You go over to the driveway and direct my detectives to this place. They should be here in a few minutes.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Henderson didn’t know much about photography. He’d been inside a couple of studios, the family having photos done when he was married to Laura in Glasgow, and he’d been in the place where police photographers worked when not attending crime scenes. This place looked to be on a different level.

  The room where he stood, a sort of ante-room with six Apple iMac computers, led into a huge open studio with portable room dividers to section off the space, floor-standing lights, light-deflecting umbrellas, numerous cameras and a variety of reflectors and screens to create different effects and backgrounds.

  He walked from the studio into an office at the rear with a desk, filing cabinet and personal pictures of a girl and boy. With strewn papers and a floor scattered with SD cards and other bits of debris, it looked as though someone had started a fight in here.

  ‘Evening sir.’

  Henderson turned to see Detective Sergeant Carol Walters coming towards him. ‘Evening Carol.’ He looked again. Gone was the usual shapeless trouser suit and anorak, replaced with a smart, dark patterned dress, light black jacket and, a rarity, eye make-up and lipstick.

  ‘Did I drag you away from something more appealing than a photographic studio in the sticks?’

  ‘You did, but I won’t hold it against you.’

  ‘Do I know your date?’

  ‘Not unless you’ve been looking for a man on Tinder.’

  ‘You don’t expect me to respond, do you?’

  ‘Then the answer is no, you don’t know him.’

  ‘Have you been briefed?’

  ‘The super-efficient Constable Murphy out there told me about two witnesses, and a car driving off with our victim inside.’

  ‘It’s all we have at the moment. Let’s go and talk to one of the witnesses.’

  They walked through the studio. ‘This is some place,�
� Walters said. ‘You can still smell the newness.’

  ‘It should feel familiar to you as you’re forever redecorating.’

  ‘True.’

  They walked into the room he’d been in earlier, which he knew from a sign above the door was called the Video Production Suite. From there, they came into what looked like a waiting room with soft chairs, a coffee machine and a television hung from the ceiling.

  ‘Ms Hyatt?’ Henderson asked.

  The woman sitting there stood and extended her hand.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Henderson and this is my colleague, Sergeant Walters. Thank you for waiting. We’d like to ask you some questions about what happened here tonight.’

  ‘Fine with me,’ she said retaking her seat.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ he said nodding towards the drinks machine.

  ‘I’ll take a black coffee.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Walters said. ‘You want one, sir?’

  He nodded.

  Maggie Wyatt was in her early forties, with thick, wavy brown hair, a pretty unmarked face and a figure a twenty-five-year-old model would be hitting the gym to try and achieve.

  ‘If you can repeat the story you told the constable earlier,’ Henderson said, as he took the cup from Walters.

  After hearing her account and waiting as she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, he asked, ‘Why were you here?’

  ‘I run a health food business on the web: Maggie’s Farm. You might have heard of it?’

  Henderson shook his head.

  ‘Oh, you should take a look. Some of my products can prevent razor drag,’ she said looking at him. She then looked at Walters, ‘and there are others to reduce spots caused by using too much foundation.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s all good quality stuff.’

  ‘It is, and I was here to get some up-to-date shots to put on the website. It hasn’t been updated for a few years. You’ve got to freshen it up now and again, haven’t you?’

  ‘So, you were in the studio getting shots done when two men came in. What time was this?’

  ‘Around seven.’

  ‘Could you describe them?’