Joining Blunt's team had filled Leibnitz with renewed vigour. It made a difference to how you felt when someone showed sufficient confidence in you to let you get on with something. And Blunt seemed to show that confidence in her. He seemed totally different to all the stories and gossip she had heard. If he were that bad, she surmised, then why had they given him this new unit?
As for her colleagues, she liked Flint. Although she had been taken aback by her ferocity with the solicitor: it had just come out of the blue. She wondered whether she herself would ever possess the presence of mind to do something like that. Or, indeed whether or not she could get away with it. Again she had heard all sorts of rumours and gossip about Flint and Blunt. The more far fetched of which she discounted. However, looking at the body language between them, slightly strained, and considering her colleagues words she felt sure that ??
Now, Ahmed. What a smoothie! An original mutual antipathy between him and Flint appeared to have given away to the opposite. She pondered as to the cause of the almost damascene shift.
And Cushion? Well, he was just Cushion.
Enough of the meandering Leibnitz chided herself. She needed to get her thoughts together for when the team held their next meeting. She had decided to make notes so that she would miss nothing out. It took her back to her student days and her preparations for tutorials.
She had hardly started to bash away at the keyboard when an interruption came in the form of the phone.
An agitated social worker insisted on talking to her about the girl...(fill in) brought in by Cushion and Ahmed and interviewed by Leibnitz.
Apparently, the girl had opened up to the social worker. Yes a boyfriend of Pakistani origin had been involved in her move to Norwich. BUT and it was a big BUT things were a lot more complicated than that.
Firstly, the girl had been abused by her stepfather from a very early age, about eleven. The man drugged her mother with sleeping tablets and then sexually abused young Carly.
A combination of threats and rewards were used to ensure that her mother never found out. Carly detested her stepfather and as early as twelve had turned to alcohol, tobacco and most probably drugs. She could not manage a double lesson at school and had to nip out for a cigarette.
Her teachers found her difficult. Instead of attempting to find out what lay at the bottom of her aberrant behaviour they found it easier to pander to her whims. The Social Worker said that teachers were not to blame as the deluge of legislation had rendered their job almost impossible. And, let's not forget the job of a teacher is to teach.
However, notwithstanding these facts she felt that the police should be made aware of what had happened to the girl at home.
Before Leibnitz had chance to respond the social worker continued with even more disturbing revelations.
According to Carly, She and others are being run by a gang of British Pakistanis and a couple of Afghans. The girls are run out of taxi companies, takeaways and shops. Those that they trust, such as Carly, were allowed to go out on the street. Before that she was driven to various locations and made to have sex with men either singly or in groups. If she did not agree she was beaten, put in a small dark room and starved; no sex no food. In one encounter she was plied with vodka until almost senseless and raped by a number of men, she lost count of the exact number. The modus operandi involved recruiting girls like Carly at places where youngsters congregated, take aways and other fast food outlets in the poorer parts of the city. Trusted girls acted as recruiters and had procured others as young as 12. They first of all befriended the girls found out about their home life and concentrated on the more vulnerable ones with problems at home and school. All the girls were sweetened with food, alcohol, money and drugs. The 'Honey Monsters' as Carly and her colleagues were known as then gradually introduced them to having sex with their 'masters'. Another way of tying the girls into the gang involved introducing them to harder drugs such as heroin.
The girls were all imprisoned in flats above the takeaways and taxi offices.
Whilst the social worker seemed intent on giving Leibnitz the low down on this sordid operation the young constable was increasingly mindful of the fact that she was preparing for the team meeting.
She interrupted the social worker,
'Look I am sorry to interrupt you but it is not my department. If you give me a moment I am going to put you back to the switchboard. They will then put you through to the correct department'
'Well they told me that you were the person to speak to!' came the miffed response
'Who told you?'
'A constable Gayde'
Immediately, Leibnitz pictured in her mind the 50 year old deadbeat that she had worked with for a while. A hissy, fussy, posturing little shit who always liked to wear a white bullet proof vest. Leibnitz had accused him of thinking he was the lone ranger. That always used to agitate him. Another of his peculiarities was cuffing folk as often as he could. 'Nowhere man' accurately described Gayde as did the words 'hero in his own mind'.
'Well, I apologise for him making a mistake. I'll put you back to the switchboard'
'Ok, no wonder fewer and fewer people have confidence in you lot'
Leibnitz refused to rise to the bait and put the woman back to the switch board.
She then dialled another number,
'Gayde, why did you put that social worker through to me?' she asked
'Well you lot and the wonderful Blunt seem to be dealing with all this sex stuff so I thought this'd be one for you'
'Grow up 'Lone Ranger' the silence informed her of his bristling at his nickname; it caused her to smile with satisfaction. It was nice to get a little of your own back on such a shit!
'Fuck off' and a slamming of the phone his curt response.
She continued to bash away at the key board: this time uninterrupted. She put down all the facts she had discovered from talking with the officers at Weybridge and the journalists from the Times. She could not wait to let the rest of the team know what she had discovered.