Blunt sat waiting for his staff. Saeed had accompanied the team hitting The Attic, Flint had gone to Riverview Heights near Happisburgh, Cushion to Sefton Manor not far from Dereham, and Leibnitz was finishing off some Morski and Pidrik paperwork.
Saeed when he informed Blunt that they would all be back soon alerted him to the fact that Flint seemed a little off. When she walked through the door he knew all was not well. Her pale face, dark bags under her eyes and hunched shoulders screamed a silent distress.
He walked over to her and ushered her into Strumpshaw's office next door. Before he could say anything her eyes welled up with tears and her face began to crumple. He put his arms around her and she burst into tears. Then it all tumbled out bit by bit, between sobs, what she had experienced at Riverview Heights. Her tears mingled with a mix of emotions: sadness, anger, frustration. She veered constantly from one to the other. Her description affected Blunt. He tensed with anger and total lack of comprehension regarding what she told him. He asked her whether she wished to go back to her hotel and take a little time to recover. She pulled away from him, wiped her face and eyes with a damp tissue and stated that she wanted to stay.
The others sat waiting for them. Flint's face told them that they had better tread carefully. Blunt asked each of them to state what they had discovered. Flint asked to go first. He noted the look of concern on Ahmed's face as he looked at her.
In a tremulous voice she described how they had burst into Riverview Heights catching the staff, if you could call them that, unawares. On first entering everything had looked normal. It looked like a children's home. However, the look and extremely nervous reactions of the staff alerted them to the fact that they may find something a great deal more sinister. Some of the staff tried to run away. The team's first task had been to attempt to secure the building.
As they worked their way through the property the team became increasingly agitated at what they were uncovering. The property contained in excess of fifty children. Their ages ranged from about three years old to fourteen. You didn't need to be a psychologist to figure out that these youngsters were emotionally damaged. When the team had entered one of the dormitories they had all cowered in silence on their beds. They were so traumatised they were unable to cry.
In the one of the rooms they had discovered forty copying machines. The tapes they were copying were of the children being sexually abused in vast variety of vile ways. All the faces of the children and adults had been blurred. This would make identification, and therefore prosecution, difficult.
The property also contained a studio fully equipped with modern recording apparatus: a totally professional set up. In an office they had found printed video covers in English, French, German Italian and nearly every language on the globe. Furthermore, the videos had also been dubbed into all the languages.
If that were not enough, they had also discovered fifteen guest bedrooms. Obviously the sickos with money could indulge in live performances with the children. Five of the rooms had been occupied. In one of them they had found a presenter of BBC children's programmes. Flint had lost it at that moment. She had not been able to stop herself and had dragged the shocked sicko out of the bed and kicked him in the bollocks. She just kept on kicking the figure writhing and moaning on the floor. Members of the raid team had to drag her off him. He screamed that he would lodge a complaint of police brutality and make sure the press knew.
She informed Blunt that she would probably be on a disciplinary when the bastard lodged a complaint. He stated that he would fight any attempt to do so. He doubted whether her colleague in the guestroom would say anything. And as for James Prescott the press would be more interested in his sick tendencies. Indeed they would probably crucify him.
In one of the offices they found computers containing a large number of files. Unfortunately these were encrypted and they needed someone to break the code to open them. She suspected that they contained details, names and addresses and perhaps predilections, of customers.
In yet another office they had found packages ready to be sent out. All the packages were addressed to PO Boxes and no doubt the names on the packages were false. The correct names of course would no doubt be in the encrypted files.
The children themselves all spoke Russian. Therefore one could assume that they had been imported from Russia. Blunt said that most of the countries of the old Soviet Union spoke Russian and that it was unwise to assume.
Flint concluded that a team was still at the building collating everything. The original team needed to be relieved. They had become so overcome with emotion at the filth they had discovered that they couldn't carry on.
Cushion then outlined what they had found at The Attic. The young men were Russian and were male prostitutes. There were ten of them living at the attic. The bedrooms were obviously for sexual encounters with the boys. The boy's ages ranged from fourteen to eighteen. Obviously The Attic specialised in young meat. Listening to Flint's account of what had been found at Riverside Heights made sense of what a couple of the boys had said. It would appear that they had probably graduated from Riverside Heights.
In the office they did find some paperwork that listed some of the customer's predilections and peccadillos. They had found a file on Shinton and Ramsome. This seemed to intimate that the younger the boy the better for that pair!
Cushion who knew of Shinton's crime asked whether he could go and arrest him. The information proved that Shinton had not just broken but bust open and trampled on the terms of his parole! Flint requested if she could go with Cushion. Blunt did not disagree but asked her whether or not she could manage to refrain from detaching his testicles from the rest of his body. It elicited a small smile.
Cushion concluded by questioning the testimony of the witnesses from The Attic. If it could not be trusted then Morski and Pidrik were surely in the frame. Flint countered with the testimony of Loveday and the fact that nothing had been found on him/her! Cushion countered with 'Not yet'. Blunt allowed them to argue the point for a moment before asking Ahmed to describe what had been uncovered at Sefton Manor.
It would appear that the manor operated as a fully functioning body farm. Parts were obviously lopped off the inmates to order and shipped around Europe. The inmates or the amputees were from all over the world. Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. They were obviously set up to cater for the wealthy across the globe.
Ahmed commented that Bondarevski had organised things exceptionally well. All the properties had been let to the people in them. Therefore the landlord company could always claim that it knew nothing of the nefarious practices for which the buildings were being used. Of course that meant that in any court case the buildings could not be confiscated. Therefore, Bondarevski, if it were indeed he, kept all his most valuable assets. He could always sell the properties and set up the operation again somewhere else: and no doubt would.
Blunt informed them that Leibnitz had some important information to convey.