Silent in the Grave (9781311028495)

by Ellis, Tim

  ‘As always, you know I’ll do my very best to . . .’

  ‘How many times have I heard that?’

  ‘Probably as many times as you’ve asked me for evidence that just isn’t there.’

  ‘Paul’s not a magician, Sir. He can’t produce evidence out of thin air.’

  ‘You think I’m being too hard on him, don’t you, Richards?’

  ‘You’re always too hard on all of us.’

  ‘This is about the Court of Human Rights again, isn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything. Did I say anything, Paul?’

  ‘Mary didn’t say anything, Sir.’

  ‘I want you to get your people working out what that clue means, Toadstone. A clue is only a clue if we know what it means, and because you haven’t been able to work it out yet – it’s useless.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Come on, Richards. In the absence of any evidence we’d better go and do some real police work.’

  They moved out of the tent and stripped off the paper suits.

  As they were walking back to the car Richards said, ‘You’re really mean to Paul.’

  ‘I know. I’m thinking of changing my ways.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’

  ***

  Inspector Karen Brown wasn’t happy with her – not happy at all. Earlier, she’d stood in front of the Inspector’s desk on the fourth floor of Southend Police Station – a concrete and glass monstrosity that leaked like a sieve when the rainy season came – spinning lies like a master criminal.

  ‘You’re on two weeks holiday, D’Arcy.’

  ‘My boyfriend betrayed me.’

  ‘Is that my fault? Look at my holiday chart.’ She pointed to a red line stretching for two weeks between Monday, May 23 and Friday, June 3 against PC J D’Arcy’s name. ‘See that red line there . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  ‘That means you’re on holiday.’ Inspector Brown was all bluff and bluster – everyone knew that. It wasn’t hard to crack the thin outer shell and get to the soft centre inside.

  ‘I know, but . . .’

  ‘That’s a permanent red line, not something that can easily be wiped out and replaced with the symbol for two weeks’ hard labour.’

  ‘I didn’t want to go on holiday on my own, Ma’am.’ Which was true. She burst into tears, which was also true.

  ‘Stop crying, D’Arcy. You’re a grown woman for God’s sake.’ She passed Jenifer a paper tissue.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ma’am. He went on holiday with a belly dancer instead of me.’

  ‘Men are pigs. You know that, I know that, the whole world knows that. Get over it.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’ She blew her nose and then looked around for a bin.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ the Inspector said. ‘Take it with you.’

  She held it loosely in her hand.

  The Inspector screwed up her face. ‘Your place has been filled in Missing Persons. I’ve got someone undergoing two-weeks training in there now. You’ll have to go on the beat with a PCSO around Southend.’

  She couldn’t find out what Banister had on Rowley if she was plodding around the seafront arresting drunk holidaymakers.

  ‘I would, but I twisted my knee getting out of the taxi at the airport, Ma’am.’

  ‘Then you should be on sick leave.’

  ‘Please, Ma’am.’

  ‘You’re a pain in the fucking arse, D’Arcy. You can be a gopher for two weeks – it’s the best I can do.’

  ‘A gopher?’

  ’If people want something, you go for it.’

  ‘I won’t have to go far, will I?’

  ‘We’re not bartering about what you can and can’t do, D’Arcy. You’ll do whatever people want you to do, or you can get back to your boyfriend-less holiday.’

  ‘Whatever they want me to do?’

  ‘Stop showing your ignorance. Get out there and start asking people if they need things doing, or going for. I want to hear that you’ve been a fantastic help, that it was a brilliant idea of mine to bring you back from holiday and that they’re putting me forward for an OBE.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  She had to limp around a bit, but not too much, and only when people were looking. It wasn’t really the holiday Rowley had promised her. She’d been looking forward to lying on a sun-kissed beach in her swimming costume. Maybe, once she’d proved Rowley was innocent, they could try to go on holiday again.

  So far, she’d tidied up seven desks with drawers, found some compromising photographs inside a desk drawer belonging to Sergeant Larraby that she had to promise never to mention as long as she had a hole in her arse, completed masses of filing and moved a ton of old case files and boxes down to the basement store on a trolley.

  ‘You’re a Godsend, D’Arcy.’

  ‘Here’s a tenner. Go to the canteen and get me a couple of egg mayo rolls, a 7UP and whatever you want.’

  ‘I could kiss you, D’Arcy.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Ma’am.’

  ‘Well, if you change your mind.’

  ‘Can you do some photocopying for me, D’Arcy?’

  ‘Of course, Inspector Banister.’

  ‘Excellent. Men have got better things to do than copy things – it’s women’s work.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Have you ever been a blonde?’

  ‘I think if I said yes, sooner or later you’d find out I was telling a lie.’

  ‘I would? Oh yes . . . I would. You have a dirty mind, D’Arcy.’

  ‘I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sir. You said you had some photocopying?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He pointed to six inches of paperwork on his desk. ‘Copy everything.’

  ‘Do you mean the file covers as well?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Probably not?’

  ‘That’s probably right, D’Arcy. One copy of each, and don’t read what you’re copying.’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  But she did – she read everything and took notes. Once she’d moved the photocopying pile to a dark corner, she carried few files at a time into the ladies toilet before she went to the photocopy room. It took her slightly longer than it should normally have done, but nobody was timing her.

  Chapter Twelve

  There was nothing she could do about the woman and man at the airport, but it threw into doubt Gilbert’s guilt. Why were two professionals interested in him? Who were they? Had they set Gilbert up? Why?

  On the one hand, it appeared as though Gilbert was innocent just like Xena Blake had said he was. But on the other hand, it looked as though he was as guilty as hell. Why did he have four passports and other documents in four different names? And why had he lied about where he was on Sunday morning?

  She had to do some more work – it wasn’t simple by any means. When she checked on the other three names in the passports, she found that they had miraculously risen from the dead and filled out application forms to obtain identity documents.

  ‘The world is full of fucking zombies,’ she mumbled.

  She realised that the names and the documents weren’t important. The only thing that was important was why did Gilbert have them? She checked the credit cards, but none of the three accounts had ever been used.

  Next, she traced the serial numbers on the currencies, but all she could find was that they had been issued by the Montepio Geral Bank – a branch of the Portuguese banking company – at 10 Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria, London on March 17, 2012. Why use a foreign bank to obtain currency?

  The Uzi 9mm, and its route to Leonid Yurkov, via a Captain Vasyl Litovsk of the Ukraine National Defence Force, had happened the way Yurkov had said it did in his statement. However, he’d omitted Litovsk’s name, which she sent to the Ukrainian police in Kiev in the hope that they weren’t as corrupt as everyone else.

  Through the serial number on the camcorder, she discovered
that it had been purchased from a camera shop in Hoddesdon – without a CCTV security system – on Friday, May 20 with cash.

  She got up, made herself a coffee and had some more of Honey’s apple pie. It seemed that each time she followed a lead, she was moving backwards instead of forwards. Whoever was setting Gilbert up had sewn it up very nicely, and tied it off with bows. Each winding path she meandered down reached a dead end. Dead ends were good, she liked dead ends – had an affinity for them, but too many dead ends made her suspicious, and she had reached that magic number now.

  The camcorder footage of the murder was certainly incriminating, but apart from the fact that it had been found in Gilbert’s secret box with his fingerprints all over the case, it could have been recorded by anybody.

  As she was examining the recording frame by frame, she noticed a fingerprint on the lens – was it Gilbert’s, or had the real killer made a mistake? Was it possible to lift a fingerprint from a film to check it? She had no idea, but she took a still of the frame showing the fingerprint anyway. Maybe there were people in the forensics department at Hoddesdon who could do something with it.

  She decided to send Xena Blake another email:

  Hey sleeping partner!

  I’m not saying Gilbert’s innocent of his crimes yet, but I’m certainly curious;

  The three other passports and identity documents definitely belong to Gilbert – I’d be interested in his explanation about why he has them;

  The currencies were obtained from the Montepio Geral Bank – a branch of the Portuguese banking company – at 10 Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria, London on March 17, 2012 – no details by whom;

  There’s a fingerprint on the lens of the camcorder (see attached still). I don’t know if this is Gilbert’s print or whether it belongs to somebody else – maybe you can check it out?

  Maybe I’ll come in for another sleep soon.

  Scylla

  There was a knock at the door.

  Her inclination was to ignore it, but the second knock was accompanied by a “Yoo-hoo!”, and she knew Honey would never give up.

  She opened the door.

  ‘I come bearing gifts,’ Honey said, stepping inside before she was formally invited in. ‘I hope you like cup cakes,’ she asked, peeling a tea towel off a fancy plate full of elaborately designed cakes. ‘Do you like cup cakes? I love cup cakes. I like to make them, and I definitely like to eat them.’ She carried on along the hall and into the kitchen. ‘Of course, I have to be careful of my weight, but don’t we all? There are so many different cup cake designs. My personal feeling is that the cup cake has been unfairly maligned . . . Ah, I see you’ve been eliminating the apple pie – excellent. Well, Alice Kellogg – cup cakes are next on the menu. Shall I make a pot of tea? There’s nothing like a lovely cup of tea with a cup cake. I see you’re on the internet – strange, I didn’t see anybody come to connect you up. Oh well, maybe I missed them. I expect a girl of your age will be shopping, downloading music and a hundred other things . . .’

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m busy,’ she said, closing the laptop so that Honey couldn’t see what she was working on.

  ‘That’s all right, dear. You carry on, don’t mind me. I’ll make the tea, and sit here as quiet as a dormouse eating a cup cake and wait for you to finish. Did you like the apple pie?’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘I have a special ingredient, you know.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Passed down from my great, great grandmother . . .’

  Honey went on and on and on . . . It was obvious that the woman had no idea about how quiet dormice were, and why had she mentioned her internet connection? Was Honey standing at her window watching the bungalow through a pair of fucking binoculars?

  ***

  The Health Care Assistant with bottle-blonde hair and Cyrillic tattoos on her knuckles was fussing around her, puffing up the pillows, filling her water jug, dusting and other stupid things in an attempt to look busy.

  ‘Will you fuck off?’

  ‘Poshyol ty (fuck you). No understand English swear words. Russian swear words much better.’

  ‘If you don’t understand English swear words, how did you know what I said was a swear word?’

  ‘Svetlana not stupid, shluha vokzal'naja.’

  Xena laughed. ‘You, fucking bitch. What did you just call me?’

  ‘Train station whore.’

  ‘You’re in England now, you’re not allowed to swear at patients.’

  ‘Sorry, Svetlana no understand English.’

  ‘I bet you’d understand soon enough if I offered to give you a thousand pounds.’

  ‘Yes, but you not got thousand pounds, so Svetlana no understand a word you say.’

  Her phone activated.

  ‘Get the fuck out and leave me alone,’ she said to Svetlana.

  ‘Otebis,’ Svetlana said, and closed the door.

  ‘And to you as well, you Russian fucking bitch . . . Yes?’ she shouted into the phone.

  ‘Making more friends?’

  ‘Friends are overrated. I’m sure you’re familiar with ye olde English saying: “A friend in need is a pain in the arse.” Take you as a case in point, Stickamundo.’

  ‘I thought you said I wasn’t a friend.’

  ‘You’re not. What do you want?’

  ‘Charlie Baxter said you were going to yank down on the electric switch yourself unless I rang you this afternoon.’

  ‘And I would have done as well. You have a lot of explaining to do, numpty. First, I know those passports are yours – why have you got four passports in different names?’

  ‘I’m . . .’

  ‘Secondly, you weren’t at the station on Sunday morning. Are you fucking crazy – lying about your alibi? Where were you?’

  ‘I’m . . .’

  ‘And you’d better tell me everything. And it had better be worth waiting for . . . Well?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t tell you.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t tell you,’ she mimicked. ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life behind bars? They’ll call you, “The Stickman of Alcatraz”.’

  ‘The Birdman had birds he used to feed.’

  ‘And you have sticks that you used to carve. They won’t let you have knives and sticks in your cell, you know.’

  ‘Alcatraz is a tourist attraction now.’

  ‘You’ll feel right at home then.’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘You’ve said that already. Why can’t you tell me?’

  ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘Look Stick, if you don’t tell me I’ll wash my hands of you, I’ll drop you like a bag of dirty washing, I’ll . . .’

  ‘I get the picture.’

  ‘I don’t think you do. You’ll be all on your own. No one will care whether you live or die. Jenifer will walk away and find another . . .’

  ‘Leave Jen out of this.’

  ‘She came to see me, you know. She begged me to let her help.’

  ‘And you said no.’

  ‘Once I remembered that she worked at Southend, and DI Banister – the Senior Investigating Officer on your case – is also at Southend, I said yes. She’s gone back to work today, but she’s undercover. I told her to snuggle up to Banister, to find out what he has against you.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘She wanted to know what type of snuggling up I meant, so I told her to do whatever was necessary. I like Jenifer, and she definitely likes you. I think she’ll make an excellent undercover police officer. She’s willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, and I think she’d do anything for you . . . Oh, did I tell you that Banister is a bit of a ladies’ man? He likes blondes mostly, but what man can resist a woman when she offers herself on a plate with stew and dumplings . . . ?’

  ‘I know what you’re doing.’

  ‘You don’t have any idea what I’m doing – is it working?’

  ‘No. I can’t tell you?�
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  ‘Stop saying that. Mmmm! If I recall, you said exactly the same thing when I asked what you did in Special Ops.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I knew it. I’ll find out.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You asked me to help you, but you’re not willing to help yourself.’

  ‘Focus on Shrub End.’

  ‘I’ve got Tom Dougall working on that line of enquiry, but I have all these frayed ends flapping about that need tying up.’

  ‘Some frayed ends never get tied up.’

  ‘And do you know how exasperated that makes me?’

  ‘Was there anything else?’

  ‘What about the Glock-19 and the three murders between 2009 and 2012? What about the £100,000 obtained from the London branch of the Montepio Geral Bank on March 17, 2012? What about the colour photograph of a woman in a blue dress called Chloe dated April, 2009?’

  ‘I can’t help you with any of those things.’

  ‘Won’t?’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Just because you signed the Official Secrets Act doesn’t mean you can’t defend yourself, and have to eat macaroni cheese in prison for the rest of your life.’

  ‘Macaroni cheese?’

  ‘You can tell me. I promise I won’t tell another living soul. It’ll be our little secret.’

  ‘There are other people who want to use the phone.’

  ‘Fuck ‘em. It’s interesting that the murders, the money and the girl all have dates that coincide with your time in Special Ops.’

  ‘I’ll ring you again soon . . . and thanks.’

  The phone call disconnected.

  She stared at the phone. If he’d been standing in the hospital room she would have thrown the phone at him, and then beaten him within an inch of his life with the hard hospital fucking pillow.