Hanging Hill - Mo Hayder [109]
‘Did you believe it?’
She gave a cold laugh. ‘I’m a post-menopausal woman who’s lived in a man’s world for twenty years. A more cynical, cruel creature it’s hard to find. But it’s true, I thought SOCA might help. I believed that at least other agencies would check it – make sure a target they were looking at didn’t have a great big flag marked “SIB” waving over it. Why didn’t you check before you started leaving messages at Mr Mooney’s office?’
‘You’re telling me Mooney’s in trouble?’
‘Yes.’ Watling splayed her hand out to indicate the long line of folders. ‘These represent almost two years of work – they’re ready to go to the Service Prosecuting Authority, which is our version of the Crown Prosecution Service, and, believe me, just as anal about procedure and—’
‘Hold on, hold on. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but Mooney – he’s a big cheese, isn’t he?’
‘Extremely. Doesn’t mean he can’t be a naughty boy.’
Zoë stirred her coffee thoughtfully. She watched the sugar dissolve and waited for this new information to move itself into line. ‘OK,’ she said eventually. ‘I get it now. I’ve stumbled into something and I apologize for that. I didn’t check SOCA because it never occurred to me – I just pulled Mooney’s name out of a hat, from Dodspeople, because he’d done some time in Kosovo. I thought he might give me some information, point me in the right direction. I’m working on a misper on my patch, a pornographer who had something a bit moody going on with someone connected to the UN in Priština. I followed my nose, came up with Mooney as a starting point.’
‘Look,’ Watling folded her arms, ‘you know, of course, because it’s unspoken conventional wisdom by now, that where the United Nations goes, human trafficking goes too. That it makes a kind of hole in the ground, and all the women in the region who aren’t weighted down just roll into it.’
‘Yup.’
‘Well, that’s what happened in Priština. The floodgates opened, the prostitutes poured in. Except this time the UN got smart and set up a unit to monitor it. The Trafficking and Prostitution Investigation Unit.’
‘Yeah – I saw that. Mooney headed it up.’
‘And, as it turned out, made a few inroads into the local population himself.’
‘Inroads?’
‘That’s a euphemism. To make what he did sound less horrible, the way he abused his position.’
‘Like?’
‘Oh – no limits. Selling girls to the highest bidder, offering protection from criminal prosecution for sex, arranging abortions – some of the babies were his. The list is mind-boggling.’
‘It’s funny.’ Zhang rubbed his head, perplexed. ‘To meet the guy you’d think he was the kindest person on the planet.’
‘OK,’ Zoë said slowly. ‘I’m getting the drift now. I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say I bet he persuaded them to do porn movies too.’
‘Very good. Very good. You should charge for that.’
‘Thank you. And for my second trick, he wasn’t actually making the movies, was he? Doing the nuts-and-bolts lighting and camera work? He was just providing the flesh.’
‘We don’t know. We think so. It’s one of the areas we haven’t put a line under yet.’
‘Well, let me help you put a line there. Let me make a guess and say that’s how he links to my man Goldrab. Who probably, at a guess, did provide all the technical stuff. David Goldrab? Ring any bells? Gold-rab. British citizen, had a lucrative market in the nineties bringing porn in from Kosovo. It was cheaper to make it out there, of course.’
‘Goldrab?’ Zhang glanced up at Watling questioningly. ‘Ma’am? Didn’t that name come up somewhere?’ He pulled a file towards him and shuffled through the papers. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen it.’
Watling pulled one of the other files across. ‘Was it in the …? No. It was one of those payments, wasn’t it? One of the companies.’
‘Ding-dong.’ Zhang shot a finger at her. ‘That’s it.’ He put down the file and snatched up another, moving through the pages at lightning speed, muttering names under