‘Anton went to school at St Michaels, Bevois, but left without any qualifications. His charge sheet starts when he’s about fifteen. Possession, theft, battery. And then it just gets longer and longer. We never pinned anything major on him though and his times in prison were brief and to the point.’
‘So what about his girls?’ Helen responded. ‘What have we got on that?’
‘He ran girls from the mid-noughties onwards,’ Charlie replied. ‘Had a fairly big stable. Picked up a lot of girls from care homes, got them onto drugs, then made them work for him. I’ve spoken to a few girls who had “dealings” with him and by all accounts he was a nasty piece of work. Controlling. Violent. Sexually sadistic. And very paranoid. He was always convinced that people were watching him, that his girls were plotting to leave him, and he would often inflict terrible beatings on them for no good reason. He never used a bank – didn’t trust them – never carried ID and always had a knife close at hand, even when he slept. He was a guy forever looking over his shoulder.’
Helen let that thought settle, then added:
‘Was he successful?’
‘He made good money,’ DC Sanderson replied.
‘Any known enemies?’
‘The usual suspects. No specific incidents around the time of his death.’
‘I’m guessing he wasn’t married?’
Sanderson smiled and shook her head.
‘So why was he targeted?’ Helen replied, wiping the smile off her face. ‘And why was he hidden away? He’s an unmarried, lowlife pimp, so there’s nothing to expose. He wasn’t a hypocrite with a loving family waiting for him at home. He was what he was and made no attempt to hide it.’
‘And the heart was left intact,’ DC McAndrew added.
‘Exactly – the heart wasn’t removed. So what was the point? Why did she kill him?’
‘Because he attacked her?’ DC Grounds offered. ‘We know he used the old cinema to imprison and torture his girls.’
‘But he wasn’t killed there,’ Helen interrupted. ‘He was murdered elsewhere, then buried at the cinema. It doesn’t fit.’
‘Perhaps she bided her time – after he attacked her,’ DC Fortune said, picking up the thread. ‘Waited for the right time, then attacked him somewhere they wouldn’t be disturbed. Maybe she dumped the body at the cinema as a message to other pimps – and the other girls.’
‘Then why bury it?’ Helen countered. ‘Why hide him away if you want to make a point?’
Silence descended on the team. Helen thought for a moment, then:
‘We need to find out where he died. Do we have any addresses?’
