A Deadly Vice: A Prequel Novella (DC Jake Tanner Crime Thriller) by Jack Probyn

Author:Jack Probyn
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Cliff Edge Press
Published: 2021-05-09T22:00:00+00:00

She arrived after just four minutes. Flustered, dressed in a police vest. She’d come with another uniformed officer, and in the short time it had taken her to arrive, the street was teeming with them. A cordon had been erected at both ends of the street, and blue flashing lights danced across the terraced houses like they were preparing for a disco. Officers were beginning to conduct their house-to-house enquiries up and down the length of the road. At last, some organisation, some semblance of logic behind DCI Payne’s decisions.

‘Where are they?’ Danika asked as she approached the front door.

‘They’re upstairs in the bedroom still. They’re scared. They don’t know what’s going on.’

‘Sherlika to the rescue,’ she said, flashing a wry smile as she slipped past him.

Jake followed her up the stairs. Within a few seconds of their arrival, the women in the room appeared to relax. Perhaps it was the presence of another woman – all the officers so far had been male, and they needed a face they could trust – or perhaps it was because Simona had spread the word that a female police officer was coming to speak to them.

Either way, Jake was pleased. They each looked more receptive to the idea of divulging information on what they’d seen. With any luck, at least one of them would know what happened to Arabella.

Danika approached the girls and started speaking to them in Slovenian. It was only the second time Jake had heard her talking in her native tongue, and it was a continual source of bewilderment. The language, the vocabulary, the sounds, the inflections in her voice. Languages were beautiful, and it was just a shame he couldn’t speak anything other than English. He’d like to have continued his German post-high school, but back then he hadn’t found it cool, and had focused more time on playing with his friends. Something he regretted to this day.

After a few minutes of waiting outside the room, Danika emerged.

‘Arabella was here,’ she began. ‘Simona said that last night Anthony tried to rape her in his office, but Arabella walked in before anything happened. Then she sprinted out of there, and nobody’d seen her until this afternoon when she bumped into Simona after her shift. Apparently Arabella had spent the day looking into the club’s records, and found proof that the girls were being smuggled over illegally. Simona says she came back to help them. And then she called you.’

Jake nodded.

‘But then Anthony turned up and he dragged her out of the house.’

‘Was he alone?’

‘They said he was. One of them came to have a look but ran back into the room after they saw him. These girls have never known anything other than fear. I’m worried for them.’

Jake empathised with her. He was worried for them too, but not nearly as much as she sounded like she was. For now, these girls were safe. But Arabella was still out there, somewhere. Right now she was his priority.

‘Did any of the girls see where they went?’

Danika shook her head.

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