The Terror at Grisly Park (Quigg 5)

by Ellis, Tim

  ‘Talking of sauce, I think the hickory smoked would be better, Coveney.’

  ‘I could get both, Sir.’

  Tolliver undid one of the buttons on her blouse, which already had three of the buttons undone.

  His eyes were drawn like magnets to her ample cleavage inside a red lace bra.

  ‘I’m not going to tell you my source. You can spit-roast me all you want, but all you’ll get is a tender breast and a bony thigh.’

  ‘I think she’s right,’ Coveney said, squeezing one of the woman’s arms. ‘I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil.’

  ‘Well, Tolliver,’ he said, ignoring her pathetic attempt to seduce him. ‘Constable Coveney is our culinary expert. If she doesn’t think you’re worth the trouble, then I’ll have to let you go. Security can frog-march you to the exit, and don’t come back.’

  ‘You don’t want to know about Cora Jiggins then?’

  His eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Cora who?’

  Tolliver smiled and held her arms out for the security guards. ‘When you’re ready, gentlemen.’

  How did she know about Cora Jiggins? What did she know about Cora Jiggins? Shit!

  ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

  ‘All this talk of barbecues has made me hungry. Some tea and biscuits would help my vocal chords work better.’

  ‘I don’t know that what you’ve got to tell me is worth one of my hobnobs yet.’

  ‘Cora Jiggins was born on the July 3 1883, and murdered on her twentieth birthday in 1903 in the basement of the Waterbury Asylum for the Criminally Insane.’

  ‘We already know that.’ Well, he knew most of it, but he hadn’t known the exact date or that she had been killed on her twentieth birthday.

  ‘She was committed to the asylum three months earlier for killing seven men over four years after she’d had sex with them, and injuring an eighth man. They called her the “Black Widow”. It was a famous case at the time.’

  ‘Keep going.’

  ‘My vocal chords are beginning to constrict.’

  It sounded as though she had information he needed. How did she know about Jiggins and Coveney didn’t? Should he give her one of his hobnobs? The information she had he’d probably find out himself when he visited Dr Hudson tomorrow, but then he might not.

  ‘I’m sure you want more than a cup of tea and a hobnob for your information.’

  ‘You know what I want, Inspector.’

  ‘I’m a bit tired. It’s been a long day. I have a headache.’

  ‘An exclusive.’

  ‘You reporters have a one-track mind.’

  As far as he knew there were no other journalists within spitting distance of Grisly Park. She was the only one who seemed to have sniffed out a story. It wouldn’t hurt to give her the exclusive.

  ‘Okay, but you’d better be worth it.’

  ‘I’ve had no complaints so far.’

  He wondered if they were talking about the same thing.

  Chapter Ten

  Avery Malpass took his time heading towards the Clown’s Revenge. Trying to get beyond the advertising hoardings while there were people in the park was the quickest way for security to be called, and for him to be thrown out on his ear and squander his one opportunity. He’d waited a long time to find his daughter, a few more hours wouldn’t hurt.

  There were some strange attractions in the theme park, and he wondered how the owners hadn’t been arrested and locked up for a very long time. He’d walked past the enormous queues outside Spook Castle, Lucifer’s Crypt, Death’s Dungeon, the Black Lagoon, the Bates’ Motel, the Mangler’s Mansion, Halloween Hell and the Slasher’s Torment. Instead of being arrested, and subjected to years of psychological counselling, the owners must have been raking in the money.

  He recalled seeing a television programme about people’s morbid fascination with evil, carnage and gore – the urge to observe death, destruction and decay from a safe distance. As long as there was depravity, fear and a pile of corpses to ogle, there would be an endless queue of people in search of explanations for their own mortality.

  It also raised the issue of the shifting line between normal and abnormal. Years ago he would have thought that the people who visited this theme park were abnormal, but there were so many of them. Surely they couldn’t all be crazy. Maybe he was the abnormal one for not liking any of it.

  Anyway, he wasn’t here because of the attractions. Would Willow welcome him with open arms? Why had she joined a doomsday cult? Did she believe in what Hugo Twelvetrees was advocating? Was the world coming to an end?

  Certainly, if this was the first place someone saw, they’d think they were staring into the sulphur pits of hell. And even beyond – in the world outside – it wasn’t that much better. The world wasn’t a nice place to live. Oh, there were pockets of good, sanctuaries where the innocent could take a breather, but these refuges were getting smaller and smaller, gradually being eroded away by man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.

  If he was a betting man – if he’d had anything to bet with – he would have put all his money on Lucifer. God was losing the holy war. All of human kind – with their black hearts – seemed destined to serve the dark lord. There would be no daylight, only nightmares. Humanity would become Satan’s minions, and the world as he knew it would come to an end. Maybe Hugo Twelvetrees was right. Maybe the world was coming to an end.

  He’d stopped to eat somebody’s leftovers at the Todd & Lovett Pie Emporium, and the pie certainly was exceptionally good. He just hoped it was made from beef and not human remains.

  Slowly, the crowds began to thin out, the screams from the attractions died down and the side stalls battened down the hatches. He found a hollow under a bush and hunkered down to grab some sleep before he ventured into the Clown’s Revenge.

  ***

  He drove to Monica’s flat and moved some of his stuff in – enough for the detectives to realise that Mervyn Jones been living there for a while. He filled up one half of the wardrobe in the bedroom with some of his old clothes; slipped a toothbrush, razor and aftershave, and a half-used Wash & Go into the bathroom; and put an extra towel on the hanger over the radiator.

  In his pocket he had a plastic bag with some of his pubic hairs in. He’d been a detective himself – a reasonably good one – and knew about the shit and debris people left behind. He put a few hairs in the shower plughole and on the floor in the bathroom and bedroom.

  He stripped off his clothes, climbed into the bed and masturbated onto the bottom sheet. Monica’s smell quickly gave him a hard-on. Then he sprinkled the last few hairs into the bed and pulled the quilt back. Only a fool would think he didn’t live here now.

  Next, he went into the kitchen, made himself beans on toast, and ate the lot. After losing so much sperm, he was as hungry as a satyr. He left everything dirty in the sink for forensics to find if they had a mind.

  There were still a few plastic bags he needed to empty. He’d brought round some dirty washing – underpants, socks, and shirts – and jumbled them up in the washing basket. There was his old Xbox console, which he attached to the back of the television and a few of the games he’d grown tired of. He’d also brought some crushed empty beer cans and stuffed them into the kitchen waste bin.

  The last bag contained some paperwork. A bank statement telling him he was overdrawn by three hundred and fifty-five pounds; a letter from the taxman informing him that he still owed them seven hundred pounds from last year, even though he’d probably get a rebate this year; a letter from his sister in Truro, Cornwall telling him her husband Bill had died in a car crash and that the funeral was on Wednesday the 11th – did he want to attend? Did he fuck? Couldn’t stand the workshy bastard. He was probably pissed and driving without a valid tax disc or insurance anyway, so he deserved everything he got. He used Monica’s phone and dialled the number – nearly an alibi.

  ‘Hello, Dominique Cullen speaking?’

  ‘Dom, it’s Merv.’

&nbs
p; ‘You got my letter then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I tried to phone, but I obtained the discontinued tone.’

  ‘Got cut off. Lost my job and couldn’t pay the bill.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I’m working again now, but they can fuck off if they think I’m paying to have it reconnected.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t swear, Mervyn.’

  ‘I rang to tell you that I won’t be coming to the funeral. I’ve got a new job, I’m on nights, and I didn’t like the bastard anyway.’

  He heard her sniffle. What did she expect? He’d warned her the guy had a record, hadn’t worked for years and was basically a scumbag, but she hadn’t listened.

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t come, even though I might need the support. You know you also have two nephews you haven’t seen for at least three years.’

  ‘Can’t stand them either. Too much like their father for my liking. Neither of them will amount to much, you know. If I had my way, I’d have them put down.’

  ‘I know you’re joking, but I’m not finding things funny at the moment.’

  He wasn’t joking at all. The two boys, Norton and Harley – Bill Cullen was a motorbike nut – were probably about eleven or twelve now. An uglier pair of shit-faced bastards he had yet to see. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were responsible for half the crime in Truro, and he didn’t want to go down there in case he beat the shit out of them and ended up on the child protection register to add to his troubles.

  ‘Anyway Dom, I hope the funeral goes well and I’ll be in touch when things settle down.’

  ‘Thanks for ringing, Mervyn. It means a lot to me.’

  He put the phone down. Two birds with one phone call. He emptied the rest of the bag and spread the remaining paperwork over two drawers in the sideboard. How could anyone not believe he lived here?

  Finally, before he left for work, he moved about the flat and deposited his fingerprints for posterity. The police would come – either here, or at work – he just had to wait for them to arrive.

  ***

  The command centre staff had changed over, and the day staff had gone home. Constable Hanson had thirty-three theme park staff and hotel guests remaining on the list of interviewees for tomorrow. Coveney protested about going home, suggesting that they should be out searching for Kline.

  ‘Where?’ he’d asked.

  ‘Well, in the park.’

  ‘How big is the park?’

  ‘I know it’s big.’

  ‘Be specific, Coveney.’

  ‘In the brochure it says that the park covers ten square miles.’

  ‘How long would it take to search an area that large, not forgetting that we’re not talking about up and down either?’

  ‘I know . . .’

  ‘How long with – at best – seven of us, if no one got time off to sleep, eat, or anything else for that matter?’

  ‘Months?’

  ‘More months than any of us have time to give. Go home, Coveney, and take your fellow inmates with you. Kline will turn up. If she doesn’t . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Well, we can sleep safely in our beds knowing that, under the circumstances, we did everything we could.’

  ‘Won’t the Chief . . . ?’

  ‘The Chief wouldn’t give me the dirt from under his fingernails. Are you lot still here?’

  Eventually they left.

  Thankfully, the night staff had brought provisions, so they weren’t going to be deprived of coffee and hobnobs.

  Simcox made Jessie Tolliver a milkless coffee without sugar and after a single finger signal from Quigg, gave her one hobnob on a plate.

  ‘So, tell me everything you know about Cora Jiggins,’ he said to Tolliver once she’d devoured the hobnob.

  ‘She was born in a little village on the other side of South Acton called Twyford Brook. Her mother died in childbirth and she was brought up by her father and three elder brothers. When she was seven, there was a house fire. Her father and brothers died, but she managed to escape without injury. Rumour had it that they all took turns to sexually abuse her, and that’s why she killed them, but there’s no proof of that. She was sent to the Withermarsh Green Orphanage where she stayed until she was sixteen years old. We lose track of her for nearly four years until 1903, when she was committed to Waterbury Asylum.’

  ‘You say she killed seven of eight men who slept with her. What happened to the eighth?’

  ‘He managed to escape and get help. Without him, she probably never would have been caught.’

  ‘What about the other seven?’

  ‘They died.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, but how did the authorities find out she’d killed seven men?’

  ‘She was living in a boarding house in Twyford Brook. Under the floorboards of her room they discovered a Queen Victoria chocolate tin . . .’ She shivered. ‘Inside the tin were seven shrivelled penises.’

  He involuntary checked that his was still where it should be. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘She’d bitten three-quarters of the way through the eighth victim’s penis, and it had to be surgically removed. In those days, surgery was a bit like torture. Apparently though, he survived to tell his tale. Anyway, Cora Jiggins was committed to Waterbury and within three months she was dead.’

  ‘Where did you get all this information from?’ Simcox asked her. ‘I couldn’t find any of that.’

  She pulled a sheaf of papers from her handbag and held them up. ‘The eighth victim’s name was Elijah Teal – he told his tale like I said. It wasn’t published, but I found the original handwritten manuscript in the local museum. They let me have it photocopied for a substantial donation.’

  ‘Which you’ll claim back on expenses, no doubt,’ Quigg said.

  ‘Of course. So, what have you got for me, now that we’re partners in crime?’

  ‘Hardly partners. The police were called here on Tuesday after there had been supposedly eight murders in Room 13 of the hotel . . .’

  ‘Supposedly?’

  ‘The bodies appear to have been put through a meat grinder. Forensics found DNA evidence for eight victims. We’ve identified one – possibly two – of them . . .’

  She was scribbling furiously in a notebook, and looked up when he stopped talking. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Let’s be clear about the conditions of our arrangement,’ he said. ‘You can’t communicate or print in any way, shape or form what’s going on here until I authorise it, are we agreed?’

  ‘You sound like a legal document. Can I have another hobnob?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ He waited.

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘And you print what I say you can print – nothing more, nothing less?’

  ‘That smacks of censorship to me.’

  He shrugged. ‘As someone once said to me: “Take it or leave it,”.’

  ‘I see, so that’s how it’s going to be?’

  ‘That’s very much how it’s going to be, Miss Tolliver.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I have a choice then, do I?’

  ‘None at all.’

  He knew she was so eager for the exclusive that she’d have performed the dance of the seven veils if he’d asked her to. He was definitely tempted, but he controlled his primal urges.

  They shook on the deal.

  ‘I’ll leave Constable Cheal to fill you in on all the other details. I’m off to bed now. I have another long day ahead of me tomorrow.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘I’m in Room 22 when you’ve finished. Knock three times.’

  The three Constables rolled their eyes as they glanced at each other.

  Tolliver laughed. ‘You must have a very strange imagination, Inspector.’

  He smiled and left.

  Leaving the impossible on a small table by the door, he began to think through the likelihood of different scenarios. If the eight victims who had been killed in Room 13 were all men he might have had the idea that the “Black Widow” was ba
ck and killing again, even though she’d be a hundred and thirty years old by now. It wasn’t likely, and he didn’t believe in vampires or ghosts.

  Not only that, there were eight victims – one of whom might be called Cora Jiggins. If there had only been Jiggins, he could have argued that she was being killed on the anniversary of the original woman’s rape and murder. But there were another seven victims – how could they be explained?

  The more he thought about it, the less any of it made sense. And his head throbbed from churning it over and over in his brain.

  Jessie Tolliver had filled in some blanks about Cora Jiggins. They now knew what had happened to her before Waterbury and why she’d been committed. They knew the identity of her eighth victim, and what she used to do to the men she murdered.

  Subconsciously, he found his hand drifting to protect his groin. He recalled catching the skin of his penis in the zip of a pair of jeans once when he’d been at university. God, it hurt like hell. The idea of someone biting through his erect penis filled him horror.

  They now had a timeline – more or less – for Cora Jiggins. There was a gap of four years from the time she left the orphanage to when she was committed to Waterbury, but if Tolliver’s information was correct, Jiggins had spent that period collecting penises.`

  He found Frye’s clothes hanging up in the wardrobe. They looked as though they might fit him. There was a dark grey suit, a light blue shirt, a dark blue tie, and even a pair of briefs and socks. In the bathroom were the toiletries.

  After stripping off his clothes – including his boxer shorts – and checking that there were no earrings in the bed, he slid under the quilt and switched the light off. He was just drifting off when there was three knocks on the door.

  Crap! It was getting so a man couldn’t get a decent night’s sleep. He wriggled into the hotel-supplied bathrobe and opened the door.

  ‘I need somewhere to sleep,’ Jessie Tolliver said, shouldering past him into the room.

  ‘The reception desk is downstairs.’

  ‘They don’t have any empty rooms.’