Chapter One; Next steps
Rose Callaghan removed her glasses as she sat behind her desk and rubbed her eyes which burned with extreme tiredness.
There had been little elation at the time, and seven days on from the raid at the Stirchley Grange Mills there was a numb feeling of discontent at what they'd been able to achieve. The workload she and her team had faced in the days since had been overbearing in just simply piecing together all of the evidence from the location. Evidence which seemed to grow on a daily basis, none of which correlated none of which seemed to give even the slightest clue as to the truth of what went on and who was associated with The Mills or the regular events held their known as The Phoenix. Of the three arrests made a Miss Vanessa Colling, a Stephen Hunter and an Anthony Drysdale none of the individuals had so far shed anything but shade so far as Callaghan was concerned. She and Parsons had held them all for as long as permitted grilling them, coercing them and used every trick in the book to gage both opinion and understanding. They hadn't even been able to get them to admit their full names. Each insisting infuriatingly on their surname as being Wolf. Each having refused to cooperate and with nothing to charge them with of note they had even more frustratingly had to be released after 24 hours, albeit under caution. Forwarding addresses had been taken from each; without checking Callaghan strongly suspected that none of them would even reside at the addresses they'd provided.
Bringing up the recording of the interview she had sat herself with Vanessa Colling the morning after her arrest she watched as the short haired heavily tattooed girl simply sat, in a near reclined position opposite of her and Parsons and answered with a combination of answers that alternated between "No Comment" and the occasional silent arrogant shake of the head when Miss Colling felt the question didn't even warrant a response. Even now as she had at the time Callaghan felt her ire rising while Parsons sat to her left mute, perhaps he thought he was being intimidating and brooding. He wasn't he was looking weak, pathetic and incapable. Callaghan increasingly questioning if he was even able to handle the pressure and increasing profile of the investigation.
While Parsons seemed to knock off every evening to spend time with his family this investigation was beginning to dictate her every living moment. In congratulating her only days beforehand her Super had advised her when faced with such frustration to take a step back and re-evaluate for fear of occasionally missing the obvious. Sound advice were it not for the fact that this was now the seventh possibly eighth time she'd watched this footage back. Between her and her colleagues that number could be tripled. Whatever Vanessa Colling knew she wasn't letting on, she was well prepped and was competent unlike fucking Parsons. Was he along for the ride did he share her drive? Callaghan stopped herself, chastising herself for allowing her frustration to become personal with him, his naivety and subsequent excitable eagerness had genuinely proved useful at times over the past few weeks. Callaghan set herself high standards that was all; she'd get him to her level if it killed her or him.
There was a complexity building around this case though that mirrored and represented the physical lay out The Mills themselves. Just like the crumbling buildings Callaghan believed there had to be weaknesses to be exploited if she kept pressing. Like a dog with a bone, she was determined not to let go as she continued to watch the Collings interview not for the first time wondering why such an attractive girl would scarify her skin with the myriad of inked designs across her exposed arms, chest and up the side of her neck.
"I'll be in your head." The words of the masked man echoed around her bringing a grimace to her lips as she realised how true the prophecy was already becoming, distracting her making her think of nothing else.
She needed the distraction now more than previous, a shiver running through her as she allowed the slightest remiss of the highly charged, highly ill-advised sexual encounter with the stranger in the alleyway to the rear of The Crown on the evening that followed the raid. Callaghan had reprimanded herself countless times over the course of the last week but couldn't forget his touch his control over her. The ease with which he'd not only disarmed her with his charm but coerced her with very little in the way of resistance into the darkness of that alleyway. Making her feel as she has never felt before.
She'd blamed the intensity of, and the quantity of alcohol consumed coupled with the release gained and the need for such release at the end of such a day. No matter how she tried to justify her actions though she'd cheated on the man who'd asked her to marry him. The man she'd been with since they'd met in their second term at University and remained faithful with until now. That night she'd gone home and showered washing him off of her cleansing her body hoping to cleanse her conscience. Slipping naked into their bed she nuzzled up to him and gently aroused him, waking him from his sleep with the tenderest of kisses. Earning his somewhat passionate kiss back before he entered her, and she'd lay there for a missionary style fuck that came nowhere near close to the intensity or satisfaction of her earlier encounter. As she lay in his arms post coital, chastising herself for even thinking off him, the stranger. The stranger who'd eventually revealed his name to be Andy Baxter a National Sales Manager, or so the business card he'd slipped her for his contact details stated. Her number exchanged with him, which he'd entered directly into his iPhone as she'd waited with him at the Taxi Rank.
Chewing on a pencil as now absent minded she watched the expressionless features of Vanessa Colling on the screen in front of her, Callaghan felt her teeth sinking into the soft wood of the pencil in sheer frustration of all circumstances. Pushing thoughts of Andy Baxter immediately to the back of her mind she refocused on the screen. Although there would be more chance of her getting the truth from interpreting the tattoos that littered Collings body she mused.
Her desk phone rung twice snapping her from her train of thought.
"Ma'am" The male voice at the end of the line stated "I've Bernadette Wise on hold for you ... her daughter wants to give another statement."
Callaghan sat forward from the slumped position she'd not realised she'd assumed. The feint glimmer of hope the words offered immediately pricked her interest and her hope.
"Put her through,"


"This is what we've been fucking reduced to?"
Chloe set the half-eaten McChicken Sandwich back in the cardboard box and poked her fingers through the greasy fries, tipped into the second half of the open container, that were rapidly going cold.
"There are worse places to be," The Wolf answered finishing the last of his Quarter Pounder as he stood from behind the desk in the corner of the Porta-Cabin sat in the corner of the disused Warehouse.
"Yeah, you've kept me chained up in most of them," Chloe couldn't bite her tongue on the remark not genuinely meaning a word of what she said.
The Wolf ignored the remark, reaching back to check he'd definitely finished the drink sat on the desk before he headed for the door of the Cabin. Wiping her fingers on a paper napkin Chloe followed him. He hadn't said to follow but she knew that he'd expect her to follow.
"This place is only temporary ... technically it's not mine but shall we say the legal owner is a little out of touch with his assets at present." The Wolf stated as they passed the two white vans parked up alongside the Porta-Cabin, one of which they were sleeping in the back of while constantly moving around the City for the last week or so. By the direction he headed he was making for the wide hanger doors that had been slid open on arrival earlier
"I'm making renovations as we speak."
"It's a big enough space. We..." Chloe offered.
"For what?" The Wolf immediately cut her off.
"A Phoenix Event"
"Not happening Blondie... Too public, too close to the City would attract far too much attention and if it's passed your mind last week, we had quite a bit of that... too much of it."
Chloe wasn't fond of his patronising her, but even more so she hated the fact that he'd been reluctant to share any plans or any details of what was to follow the loss of their base at The Mills. She knew he always had a plan. From the moment she'd met him she'd been caught up in his drive his determination to succeed and his level of success. The Wolf has been prepared to walk over anyone to get that what he desired. Chloe trusted that she had his confidence; she trusted him implicitly and she hoped by now he trusted her. Losing the Mills had been unexpected to a certain degree, there was always the risk that what they were doing would attract attention. What the Wolf had established in the basement, where she'd been briefly imprisoned, had always increased the risk of attracting attention. Chloe shivered thinking of the cruel torture she'd felt at his hand while held chained by the throat in the cold darkness of that cell for days on end, weeks as it subsequently turned out to be.
Where they had been exposed, how they'd been exposed remained a mystery and maybe explained The Wolf's reticence to share, he didn't know who he could trust in his own organisation. The prospect that anyone close to the organisation would cross The Wolf was unthinkable to him and to her. His rage had seemingly been contained but Chloe knew silently he'd been picking off everyone associated to The Mills and subjecting them to the most subtle of cross examinations. She'd previously had blood on her hands for him and Chloe suspected were he to discover treason from within she'd be expected to kill for him again.
Passing through the hanger doors a cold wind whipped up off the Docks into their faces, the weather seemed to be breaking, not that Cloe saw the light of day much even during the recent heat wave. Chloe's blonde hair whipped around her face as overhead Seagulls noisily squawked as the flew buffeted by the wind.
"So, what do we do to survive?" She asks pushing her hair off her face as best she can.
The Wolf doesn't look back or to his side as she falls back in step as he offers his response.
"Something we don't have to worry about fortunately ...the Ying and the Yang of last week's events ... we've technically dropped costs albeit we only had time to salvage around twenty percent of our narcotics. But... thanks to a very generous financial benefactor we became incredibly cash rich the night before the raid".
"Financial Benefactor?" Chloe looked up at him already astutely aware he'd obviously hidden something substantial from her; perhaps she didn't yet have his full confidence and trust back. "What? ... Who?"
"Your friend from the Spa..." he chuckled darkly "...the lad with the big dick who didn't know how to use it"
"Kelvin Phillips?" Chloe offered
"It's fucking ridiculous what these footballers get paid ...it really is." The Wolf stopped, resting his upper body against a metal barrier overlooking the choppy waters of the wide basin of the Docks. "Turns out he did care about his Fiancé despite lending her to me for the night while he fucked you ... cared about her to the tune of four hundred k"
"Four hundred." Chloe could hardly keep the excited tone from her voice.
"A week's wages if you believe the tabloids ... but he was very keen that his precious little Charity didn't become a Movie Star."
"Movie Star?" Chloe didn't follow what he meant. Charity Lett was a part time model and one-time failed pop star from what she'd gathered having out of curiosity looked both him and her up online.
"I'll have to show you the performance she put in some time... she was a wild ride... took some restraining."
Chloe didn't flinch at his crude description she could only imagine what he'd subjected the artificially enhanced blonde to. She'd seen his worst; she'd experienced his worst.
"Fake tits, nothing between her ears and all fillers and cheap hair extensions her ... I thought you had taste."
"So, you wouldn't let me pay for a boob job for you?"
His remark might have been glib, but Chloe was surprised how hurt it made her feel. She bit her tongue on a response not wishing to give him the satisfaction.
"There'll be an overseas pornographer who'll bite our hands off to pay for the rights for that video." The Wolf casually stated. "That'll be another lump sum to the bank account."
To their left a heavy-duty crane lifted a series of shipping containers on top of one another, up against the side of the warehouse.
"Pick a room... I'm assuming you'll want a waterside view"
"We're going to be living in those?" Chloe exclaimed
"Short term yes... I believe it's what they call sustainable living... this money... this opportunity... we have to protect it until we can make it work for us ... Austerity. If we stay off the radar and we invest this is our opportunity to move back ...to go legit"
"Go legit... how are the fuck you going to achieve that?"
"Don't worry I have a plan... although we may need a few hustles here and there to bridge the gap."
Chloe knew what that would involve, not realising that she shook her head subconsciously.
"Don't worry Blondie I know you put yourself out to pasture ...you're not part of the plan ...not in that capacity anyway."
Somewhat relieved to hear him say this immediately Chloe's imagination was ignited. The Wolf had a plan as vague as he'd been with the details, she never truly doubted he wouldn't have a devious scheme or two up his sleeve but going legit sounded riskier warehouse parties for generating revenue and keeping hidden chained up sluts in underground tombs. She knew he could be relied on though; turning on his heels he started to walk back towards the Warehouse. Their conversation was apparently over
"Although under the original terms of your retirement..." he said pausing and looking back "I will need you to start leaving a scent trail ... now that your little friend has had a taste of the best little fuck he's had in his insignificant little life."
Chloe smirked.
"You really do know how to compliment a girl... but why don't we use the skinny little blonde you abducted ... I mean were grooming... keeping as bait... whatever the fuck she's for," she smirked.
"She's nothing more than our last resort ...and young Sophie is residing miles away from here now"
Chloe simply nodded, her mind turning immediately to Jack Hughes as he'd requested.


Callaghan reverse parked her BMW on the busy terraced street the parking sensor beeping frantically as she squeezed into the tightest off spaces.
Pulling hard on the hand break she took her phone and quickly scanned her email. Noting and opening an email stating that forensics had a positive set of prints from the drinks can found at the site and potential DNA from hairs found in the room that matched no known records but crucially matched none of the officers who'd, along with herself entered the room during the raid.
Stepping out of the car slipping her small tan leather bag over her shoulder she surveyed the street as she would any location, she arrived at for the first time, her training to assess her environment her first instinct.
The pleasant tree lined avenue didn't scream affluent neighbourhood, but she was certainly in a respectable postcode. Heading along the pavement she found the three-storey town house she was looking for. Stepping up a short path through a perfectly maintained little garden she pressed her finger to the doorbell.
Moments later a familiar face answered the door. With a broad smile but tired looking eyes, Bernadette Wise gave a cheery enough; "Good afternoon Detective Callaghan."
"Afternoon Bernadette," Callaghan returned her smile. "How are you?"
Immediately as Bernadette stepped back through into the hallway her smile morphed to a rueful look, "By the Grace of the Lord I'm so mercifully happy to have my baby back ... but my troubles they ain't rescinding."
Without pushing Callaghan could assume what she meant; there was rarely the blissfully happy ending to situations such as this. While Bernadette Wise was sadly in a minority of parents reunited with an abductee the psychological trauma of the victim and the associated short- and long-term problems were often just as traumatic as the days, weeks, or months of being separated.
"You're accessing Victim Support I hope," Callaghan enquires as they entered a light airy kitchen.
"Morning noon and night," Bernadette responded. "Those two officers have been like Angels from the Good Lord... the support they've given me and my baby."
Callaghan reached out with an unexpected and out of character, even by her own admission, gesture as she touched the back of Bernadette's arm to offer reassurance.
"Tea or Coffee Detective?" Bernadette offered sucking up a response to the kindly gesture.
"You know what Tea would be nice... just a splash of milk and one sugar."
"She's out in the garden with the real lickle angel ...You go on out I'll bring you your Tea." Bernadette didn't wait for a response; as she picked up the kettle and filled it from the sink, Callaghan was sure she saw the dark-skinned lady wipe a tear from her eye.
The pleasant late afternoon sun that had broken through what had previously been a murky grey day beamed down on the long strip of a garden. At the far end of the garden playing with a scattering of outdoor toys Callaghan saw the infant daughter as a butterfly floated across the garden between an array of beautiful pink and purple flowers; Callaghan had no idea what they were called despite their aesthetic beauty. Flowers came from supermarkets as far as she was concerned. The scene would have looked idyllic were it not for the metaphorical shadow sat at a small wooden table at the edge of the decking on to which Callaghan stepped out on to.
Mica wise dressed plainly in black leggings and a dark grey Tee that stretched over her visibly pregnant belly. She too gazed off into the distance of the garden, but Callaghan suspected her mind was elsewhere; she could take a guess at exactly were.
"How are you Mica?" Callaghan asked drawing back the wooden chair on the opposite side of the table from the young mixed-race girl.
"Feeling a little better," Mica stated pulling her thoughts from wherever they were and turning to face Callaghan.
Her gaunt face and empty eyes told a picture that a thousand words could never tell. What had she seen? What had she been subjected to? Callaghan had so many questions, but she knew she had to treat Mica with softer than kid gloves.
"Here you go," Bernadette appeared at Callaghan's shoulder and placed a tray on the table on which was set a glass of water, a side plate of biscuits, two cups, a ceramic pot of Tea with matching ceramic milk jug and sugar bowl.
"Thank you," Callaghan barely whispered her appreciation before setting her soft gaze back on Mica to let the young women know she was the focus of her attention. "Do you mind if I take notes while we chat?"
Mice nodded her agreement meekly as Callaghan took a note pad and pen from her bag before setting it back at her feet.
"I'll leave you two to it," Bernadette offered but neither of them responded leaving her to head across the lawn towards the toddler who had sat herself down amongst a collection of dolls and soft toys. Re-enacting a far more innocent Tea Party than the one Callaghan faced.
Mica Wise suddenly was rapidly becoming her best and only source to tap into to discover the truth of The Mills and the dark enigma that was the Wolf. If it took her days, weeks and months she would gently press to extract the cruel knowledge that Mica held in her head. r"
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Pub: 28 Mar 2021 07:35 UTC
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