Silent in the Grave (9781311028495)

by Ellis, Tim

  He smiled. ‘We’d be living in a perfect society if that were true.’

  They walked through the gauntlet of press. Flashlights exploded, shoulder-mounted television cameras tracked their progress, microphones were thrust in their faces and questions fired at them like bullets from a Gatling gun.

  He held up a hand. ‘Once I’ve spoken to the family, I’ll come out and give you a brief statement.’

  The noise level remained the same. It was as if he hadn’t spoken.

  ‘I wouldn’t call that “waiting patiently”,’ he said to Richards, as they crunched up to the front door over the weed-infested gravel driveway. He much preferred block or crazy paving. Not that he was any expert on driveways, but aesthetically he found block paving – especially if a pattern had been created using different-coloured blocks – a lot more pleasing to the eye. Also, there was less maintenance involved because . . .

  They stepped inside when a uniformed officer opened the door.

  The stench of cigarettes, body odour and toast rushed up their nostrils. But there were other smells lurking in-between as well, such as fear, loss and guilt.

  He nodded at the constable. ‘Victim support?’

  ‘Yes, Sir. Ann Langford.’

  ‘How are the family?’

  ‘The mother’s taking it the hardest.’

  Some of the Williams family were gathered in the lounge. They knew what was coming – the hordes of press descending on the house, and the arrival of Constable Langford, was a clear indication that events had taken a turn for the worse. The BBC news on the 3D muted wide-screen television was just showing him and Richards arriving at the house.

  It was a family that reflected the multicultural and haphazard make-up of families in twenty-first century Britain. Fiona Williams was an obese woman who drank, smoked and lived on child-support and other generous benefits. Although the average birth rate was one-point-nine children per family, Fiona had bucked the trend by giving birth to seven children. Jade had been the eldest of the seven – followed by Mason, Bella, Noah, Liam, Madison and Heath.

  Mr Williams had long-since departed the scene. After a spell in Wormwood Scrubs for armed robbery, he had turned up dead in 2003 with a bullet in the head. Police suspected that he’d been executed by drug dealers, but nothing could be proven.

  Fiona had then lived with a string of white, black and Asian men who had fathered the remaining six children. The current adult male living in the Williams’ household – Nasrul Mujahid – was a Bangladeshi immigrant who barely spoke English, didn’t work and wasn’t the father of any of the children. He stared into space like a visiting alien – and in a way he was.

  There was also Jade’s boyfriend – Lee Martin – sitting in the armchair in front of the television like the master of all he surveyed. He had left school with a D-Grade GCSE in Design and Technology, and promptly joined the queue at the Job Centre. Looking at the expensive and elaborate tattoos on his neck, arms and hands, one might have mistaken him for a professional footballer earning thousands of pounds a week.

  ‘You’ve found her, haven’t you?’ Fiona asked. She wasn’t crying, but her hand was shaking as she put the cigarette between her dry cracked lips and sucked in a lungful of smoke. The ashtray in her lap was overflowing with ash and cigarette butts – she’d been chain-smoking since the news of her daughter had leaked out earlier.

  Constable Langford sat on the arm of the threadbare sofa, because there was nowhere else to sit.

  He didn’t envy her the task of supporting Mrs Williams, who appeared to be one of life’s habitual victims.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ he said.

  ‘I want to see her.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea, Mrs Williams.’

  ‘Was she . . . ?’

  ‘Let’s wait and see, shall we? The pathologist will carry out a post mortem tomorrow morning, and then we’ll have a clearer idea of what we’re dealing with.’

  ‘Is she really bad?’

  ‘We think she died shortly after being abducted, and she’s been left in the boot of a car since then.’

  Tears flooded her eyes and ran down her face. ‘Oh God! Have you any idea . . . ?’

  ‘A whole array of forensic specialists are gathering up the evidence as we speak. I promise you, we’ll do the very best we can to find out who’s responsible for your daughter’s death.’

  ‘Do you want us to make an appeal for help on the television?’

  ‘Not yet, Mrs Williams. I know it’s hard after you’ve been waiting for news of Jade for so long, but we need to wait a little bit longer.’

  Outside, he said to Richards, ‘We need to re-examine the statements and alibis of all those related to Jade.’ He was well aware that eighty percent of murders were committed by people the victim knew.

  She added it to the growing list in her notebook. ‘Did you see her boyfriend?’

  ‘I saw him.’

  ‘It was as if he didn’t care.’

  ‘Or he already knew what we were going to say.’

  The press were eager for the scraps he’d promised them.

  He waited until he could hear himself think. ‘Early this morning, the body of Jade Williams was found in the boot of a blue Volkswagon Polo that had been parked at the Marin supermarket in Hoddesdon for at least a month. As yet, we have no details regarding her death, but I would urge anybody who has any information relating to the abduction or murder of Jade Williams to contact the confidential number you’re all familiar with. There will be a briefing in the press room at the station at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Thank you.’

  ‘Inspector Parish?’ a ginger-haired woman with an upturned nose huddled in the scrum two rows back said. ‘What about questions?’

  ‘I’m sure – like me – you have a million and one questions. Unfortunately, I have no answers. Now, if you’ll excuse us. The sooner we begin, the sooner we’ll get some of those answers.’

  ***

  He decided not to bother with lunch. Instead, he went back to his office to make himself a coffee. Grimm had moved everything about, and taken his framed awards, certificates and photographs off the walls and stacked them at the side of one of the cabinets out of the way.

  The man was an idiot.

  If Grimm was the next big thing – God help the police force. He couldn’t trust him. If he left the man here all week he wouldn’t have a job to come back to, and the Chief Constable would take a dim view of any command decisions that reflected badly on Essex Police Force.

  The door opened.

  ‘Oh, hello Ray, back so soon?’

  ‘You’ve moved everything around.’

  ‘I thought I’d make myself at home, so to speak.’

  ‘You can leave now.’

  ‘I’ll go to the canteen for lunch, shall I?’

  ‘No, you can leave. Go back to Chelmsford. I don’t need you anymore.’

  ‘I thought I’d be here . . .’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’ll let the Chief Constable know you’re on your way back.’

  ‘Oh, okay. I hope you’ll say some nice things about me?’

  ‘You can at least hope, Ollie.’

  ‘Goodbye, Ray.’

  The door closed behind him. ‘Good riddance, Ollie.’

  He phoned the Chief Constable, but he was unavailable for the rest of the day, so he left a message with his personal assistant – Sue Keen: ‘Just say that Acting Chief Inspector Grimm was defective upon arrival, and has been returned to sender.’

  While he was mulling over what to do next, he put everything in his office back the way it had been. He couldn’t ignore the Red Spider, and he couldn’t ignore his job. Was it possible to do both? Maybe, with Carrie’s help, he could. He’d try anyway. If it didn’t work he’d need to re-think his strategy.

  The coffee forgotten, he began moving everything from the incident room into his office. Constable Edna Terrell was using the corridor as a short-cut between the canteen and Oper
ations, so he co-opted her help in the name of efficiency.

  ‘But I’m meant to be back on shift, Sir.’

  ‘You are, but you’re working for me.’

  ‘Inspector Threadneedle will say I shouldn’t have listened to you.’

  ‘Would she now? You do realise I’m a DCI and Maureen Threadneedle is an Inspector?’

  ‘Where’ve you been, Sir? Everybody knows Inspector Threadneedle eats DCIs for breakfast.’

  ‘Yes, I have heard the stories about the pile of rotting human bones in the corner of her office. Okay, you’d better go, and leave my name out of it.’

  She smiled. ‘Thanks, Sir.’

  Maureen Threadneedle certainly had a reputation.

  Once he’d made his office into an incident room, he phoned the mortuary at King George Hospital.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s DCI Kowalski from Hoddesdon. Could I speak to Doctor Riley?’

  ‘Not here, I’m afraid. Doctor Paine is about though.’

  ‘I’ll speak to her then.’

  He waited for Sandra Paine to come to the phone. He’d forgotten what it was like to mix it up with a pathologist.’

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ a voice said.

  ‘But now I’m back.’

  ‘What can I do for you, DCI Kowalski?’

  ‘I have in my possession six post mortem reports from the early eighties. I’d like you to take a look at them.’

  ‘Are you working a case?’

  ‘Absolutely not. I can bring them over later.’

  ‘I’ll be here until seven.’

  ‘Thanks, Doc.’

  ‘If you bring a chicken korma, a couple of poppadoms and a diet coke with you, I’d be prepared to sit and listen to you filling me in on the background details.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can rustle up on the way.’

  He ended the call, rummaged in the boxes for the post mortem reports and piled them on his desk ready to take with him.

  Carrie stuck her head round the door. ‘Oh!’

  ‘I’m back.’

  ‘Where’s the Acting Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Gone back to the warehouse for modification.’

  ‘It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.’ She came fully into the office and looked around at the whiteboard and old cardboard boxes. ‘So, what’s the plan now?’

  ‘You and I are going to do two jobs.’

  ‘Still no more money?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t think so.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘The perverts are having a grope-a-long a couple of rooms down the corridor,’ Xena said to the dishevelled man standing in the doorway.

  He grinned.

  Even though the man looked like a tramp who had been living rough for months, Xena thought there was a certain charm about him.

  ‘Sergeant Gilbert warned me about you.’

  ‘Well, Sergeant Gilbert ought to keep his filthy warnings to himself.’

  ‘I’m . . .‘

  ‘. . . Charlie Baxter. I didn’t get where I am today by not knowing who was trying to get into my room.’

  ‘He also said you were a very good detective.’

  ‘Very good! Is that the best superlative he could come up with? I’m a fucking brilliant detective.’

  He stepped into the room and shut the door. ‘You’ll need to be. If Sergeant Gilbert is innocent, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.’

  ‘I’ve never met a solicitor who was a monkey’s uncle before. Stick is innocent. I thought you were meant to believe in the innocence of your clients before agreeing to represent them.’

  ‘It helps, but the law society makes no such stipulation. Even the guilty are entitled to representation.’

  ‘Solicitors are all whores.’

  ‘That’s certainly one bigoted perspective I’ve heard before.’

  ‘So, why should Stick employ you instead of someone who has a wardrobe full of clean clothes and a razor?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I don’t look like this when I’m in court.’

  ‘You look worse?’

  ‘It’s because of Jerry Kowalski.’

  ‘I see, you’re the type of man who blames a comatose patient for all his troubles.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. Jerry became involved in a request by the local authority for a restraining order. Social workers were trying to keep a local hoodlum away from his girlfriend and son. He wasn’t impressed with the way the case was going and decided to fire-bomb my offices, above which was my flat with all my clothes and possessions inside. At the moment, I’m living from hand to mouth.’

  ‘You were insured, weren’t you?’

  ‘Do you know how long it takes for insurance companies to settle a claim?’

  ‘Not personally.’

  ‘Months, years . . . I’ll resemble Robinson Crusoe by the time they decide I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Didn’t the police . . .?’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about those useless . . . present company excluded, of course . . .’

  ‘There was no evidence it was him?’

  ‘Exactly! The insurance company think I paid him to torch the place.’

  ‘And you didn’t?’

  ‘No’

  ‘A bit like Stick then – guilty until proven innocent?’

  He sat down on the plastic chair, rested his briefcase on his thighs and opened it up. ‘Except, the police didn’t find a Molotov cocktail and other incriminating evidence in my house.’

  ‘I know about the murder weapon . . .’

  He thrust a photograph at her. ‘A 9mm Uzi submachine gun.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve seen an Uzi before. What about the serial number?’

  ‘There’s a serial number all right. The gun was manufactured by Israel Military Industries, and was part of a shipment they sent to the Ukraine National Defence Force. Needless to say, the guns ended up somewhere else. This particular one found its way here. With the promise of full immunity from prosecution clutched in his hands, Leonid Yurkov – a Ukrainian immigrant and known gun dealer – swears he sold the Uzi with a full 40-round magazine to DS Gilbert, and has made a written statement to that effect.’

  ‘But that’s rubbish.’

  ‘Is it? Sergeant Gilbert’s fingerprints are all over the weapon. His index finger was lifted from the trigger, and a thumb print was taken off one of the rounds . . .’

  ‘We know how easy it is to transfer fingerprints from one surface to another – that can’t be relied upon.’

  ‘If fingerprints on the murder weapon was all they had we might successfully convince a jury of their unreliability, but it’s not. They also found a recording of the murder on a digital camcorder, and his fingerprints are all over that as well.’

  Xena grunted. ‘So, he was holding an Uzi with one hand and a camcorder with the other? That’s laughable.’

  ‘No. Detective Inspector Banister was pleased to show me the recording. One can clearly see that the camera is positioned on the dashboard filming through the windscreen. They also found a mini-tripod with the camcorder.’

  ‘Why would he record himself killing four men? I know Stick’s a blockhead, but he’s not completely moronic.’

  ‘A magistrate was happy to give Banister a search warrant for Gilbert’s house. Behind a secret panel at the back of the wardrobe in the main bedroom Banister found a box full of goodies.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘There are three passports with Gilbert’s photograph in each one.’

  ‘What does he need three passports for?’

  ‘That’s a good question, but a better one is: Why does he need three passports with a different name inside each one?’

  ‘Different names?’

  ‘Yes. Also, there are supporting documents for each named passport such as driving licences and so on; the picture of a young woman, a hundred thousand pounds in various currencies, a Glock-19 that has been linked to three o
ther murders . . .’

  ‘Has the woman got a name?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Well, it’s obvious to a blind man with a wooden leg and a stutter that Stick’s being set up.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes, and we’d better find out who’s doing it and why.’

  ‘He’s lucky.’

  ‘He is?’

  ‘I have a secret weapon.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘A hacker called Cookie.’

  ‘Hasn’t there been something on the news about . . . ?’

  ‘That’s her.’

  ‘She’s a fucking traitor – passing all those secret documents to our enemies.’

  ‘You’d rather she didn’t help us?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘She helped DCI Kowalski and his wife . . .’

  ‘I thought that was you.’

  ‘With Cookie’s assistance.’

  ‘Okay, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.’

  ‘I’ll set her to work then.’

  ‘You’re not the only one with a secret weapon.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Jennifer D’Arcy.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Stick’s girlfriend.’

  ‘He hasn’t mentioned her.’

  ‘Let’s keep it that way. She just happens to be employed in Missing Persons at Southend.’

  ‘Ah! An inside man.’

  ‘Exactly. Also, as you can see, I’m not really in any condition to start chasing down leads, but I do have my very own Detective Inspector who is ready, able and willing.’

  ‘Good,’ Charlie Baxter said, putting everything back in his briefcase and snapping the locks shut. ‘Between us, I think we have a plan.’ He stood up to leave.

  ‘Are you going somewhere?’

  ‘I have work to do.’

  ‘We’ll use this room . . .’

  ‘You will not,’ Staff Nurse James said, sticking her head round the door. ‘This is a hospital room not INTERPOL.’

  Xena sighed. ‘Not you again? This is my solicitor, Charlie Baxter. I’ve blown the whistle on what’s been going on in this slaughterhouse. We have tape recordings, video evidence and photographs. He thinks I have a cast-iron case, and I’m going to sue you for everything you’ve got.’