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.
