The Exhibits in Mrs Salmon's Waxworks

by Tim Ellis

  After nearly an hour the group came out. Some peeled off, but Paolo, the woman, Benny and another man climbed into a black Mercedes sports and drove along Kensington Road into West Kensington.

  Jack followed them at a good distance.

  The Mercedes turned left into North End Road, right into Star Road, past Queen's Tennis Club and pulled into a car park beneath a high rise on Greyhound Road overlooking Bayonne Park.

  He turned the van's headlights off, pulled into the side on Greyhound Road, and waited for Paolo and the others to reach the apartment. He saw a light go on. The apartment was on the sixth floor, the fifth one from the left. He put on his ski mask and bullet-proof vest, screwed the silencer on the Glock and climbed out of the van.

  As much as he would like to have travelled up in the elevator to the sixth floor, the last thing he needed was to get stuck in a broken lift, so he took his time and walked up the stairs.

  Outside the apartment, he gave two taps on the door and then stood to the side.

  Eventually, Benny opened the door.

  Jack shot him twice, caught him before he fell and lowered him to the floor in the hallway.

  'Who is it, Benny?' he heard Paolo call.

  Jack closed the front door and then made his way to the living room.

  Both Paolo and the other man went for their guns.

  He shot them both.

  The woman was about to scream.

  Jack aimed the gun at her and shook his head.

  She closed her mouth.

  He indicated for her to lie face down on the floor, knelt on her back and put restraints around her wrists and ankles. Then he searched the apartment.

  All the drugs he found he piled in a heap on an unmade double bed in the bedroom. The money he stuffed into two large empty holdalls. It was probably destined to make its way into enterprise coffers. He could have burnt it, but he was sure he could find a use for it.

  When he was ready to leave, he set fire to the drugs on the bed, removed the restraint from the woman's ankles and said, 'There's a fire in the bedroom. I suggest you get the hell out and raise the alarm.

  He made his way out of the apartment with the two bags of money, down the stairs and over to the van where he waited to make sure the woman raised the alarm and people began leaving. When he was sure there would be no collateral casualties, he drove back to Catherine Wheel Yard.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Thursday, December 5

  'Morning 'Spector Quigg,' Mandy said.

  'Good morning, Mandy. How are you?'

  'I saw you yesterday in the car park. Did you see me flashing my melons?'

  'Was that you?'

  'Sure was. What did you think?'

  'Impressive.'

  'Thanks.' She sat down and put her Doc Martins boots on his desk. 'I watched the videos.'

  'All thirty of them?'

  'All of 'em.'

  'It wasn't me, you know. Someone just put my head on top of the body.'

  'Yeah! I guessed that when I saw the size of his dong-a-long.'

  'There's not that much difference.'

  'Three inches I'd say.'

  'I think you're exaggerating, Mandy.'

  'Should we measure it to be sure?'

  'I don't think so.'

  'I cocked-up though.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I was watching the videos with my Wayne in bed. We were naked and getting really frisky until I happened to say that yours weren't that long.'

  Quigg's face creased up. 'And he wanted to know how you knew?'

  'Yeah.'

  'So, he's coming to kill me?'

  'Well, I didn't answer him cos my mouth was full at the time, but I don't know if he'll forget what I said.'

  'That doesn't sound promising, Mandy.'

  'No, I guess not.'

  'So, I'll just have to wait until he decides one way or the other?'

  'I guess so. But if I find out first, I'll give you the heads up, so that you can make a run for it.'

  'Very generous.'

  She stood up. 'Anyway, gotta bail, big blue whale.'

  'Better shake, rattle snake.'

  On the way out of the door, she flicked the back of her skirt up to reveal her bare cheeks framed in a pair of black peek-a-boo panties.

  As far as he was concerned, he couldn't see the point in a woman wearing something like that. They may as well wear no panties like Amy English.

  So, Wayne knew, or at least guessed, that Quigg might be the father of Mandy's baby and was coming to kill him. Great! Maybe he should ask Jack to kill him first, or arrange to have him fitted up for a crime and locked up. He knew he wouldn't do either of those things. His penis had made a stupid mistake. Now, as the owner of that penis, he had to face the consequences of its actions.

  After clearing his email inbox, sorting through his external and internal mail, and tidying Rummage's desk up. He made his way back down to the carpark, climbed into his Mercedes and wondered how Rummage was doing. He'd never been involved with anyone who'd been addicted to drugs before, but knowing what he knew about sex addiction, he could imagine it would be quite difficult to stop. What would he do if someone said, "No more sex, Quigg!" He couldn't imagine the situation arising, but what if? No, he couldn't even contemplate it.

  He took out his phone and called Emma McCurdy at the estate agents – Mildew & Proudfoot.

  'Emma McCurdy.'

  'It's Detective Inspector Quigg, Ms McCurdy.'

  'Number 5 Boleyn Gardens. A Victorian three-bedroom terraced house in Upton Park, Newham. I haven't heard from you for some time, Inspector Quigg.'

  'That's because you haven't been doing your job, Ms McCurdy.'

  'The Roman Temple of Mithras?'

  'I want my house back. If I don't get it, I'm going to sue you, the archaeological society, the judge who allowed them to dig up the back garden, Newham Council, the government . . . Have I missed anyone?'

  'I don't think so.'

  'And I'm not selling the house now, so I want you to return the keys to me on Monday morning.'

  'I'll find out what's happening, Inspector.'

  'I've just told you what's happening, Ms McCurdy. And there better be no sinkholes left that will swallow up the house. I want everything returned to the way it was. And don't expect a fee. If anything, you should be paying me for the inconvenience and psychological trauma I've had to suffer.'

  'Let me call you back.'

  'I'll be waiting for your call.'

  At the waxworks, he parked in his usual place on the double yellow lines and went inside the command centre.

  'Talk to me, ladies.'

  'Good morning, Sir,' Amies said. 'Would you like a coffee and a couple of hobnobs?'

  'I could get used to you as my partner, Amies.'

  'Doctor Perkins is here with the men setting up the ultra-wide band penetrating radar,' Coveney said.

  He glanced at his watch. 'They're early.'

  'They set off early because of the snow.'

  'I expect everybody has decided to take a duvet day today.'

  'Except us, Sir,' Hanson said.

  He looked at the new member of the triumvirate – Constable Caroline Cobb. 'I wouldn't mind having a duvet day with you four ladies.'

  Coveney snorted. 'Is that the porn star talking?'

  'You have a dirty mind, Coveney. I meant all of us under separate duvets.'

  'I'm sure.'

  Amies put a steaming mug of coffee and two hobnobs on a plate in front of him.

  'You'll make someone a good detective constable one day, Amies.'

  'Thank you, Sir. I did try to call you last night around five o'clock.'

  'Oh?'

  'But there must have been something wrong with my phone, because all I heard was slurping and squelching noises. It's all right this morning, but . . . Maybe it was the snow.'

  'Last night at around five o'clock?'

  'Yes.'

  'I was in my car conte
mplating the nature of the universe.' With Susan Montague riding him as if he was a bucking bronco at the hoe-down, he thought. 'Yes, must have been the snow. So, why did you call me?'

  'We carried out more checks and we're sure that Judas Ransom didn't die of a brain tumour at the Royal Brompton Hospital in 2013, which gave us justification to request an exhumation order from a magistrate via Inspector Wright.'

  'And you're only telling me this now because! There are such things as texts, emails, Morse code, semaphore, carrier pigeons and smoke signals, you know. A potential detective is not meant to make unilateral decisions without the specific authority of the Senior Investigating Officer.'

  'It was late, Sir.'

  'And that's your excuse?'

  'Do you want to know what they dug up?'

  'No, no! Keep it to yourself, no chance of ever becoming a detective Amies. I may as well go home and leave you to it. Maybe you'd be so kind as to let me know when you've solved the case, by whatever method of communication you deem appropriate.'

  'The coffin had a body inside, but it wasn't Judas Ransom.'

  'Now, that's interesting. Who was it?'

  'A ninety year-old man who's body disappeared from the mortuary around the same time as Ransom died.'

  'So, you're almost certain that Judas Ransom is the phantom of the waxworks, Amies?'

  'Yes, Sir.'

  He finished his coffee and hobnobs and stood up. 'Well, let's go and see if we can't find him, shall we?'

  They went into the waxworks and met up with Perkins and the team of men who had set up the radar equipment against one of the columns.

  'Thanks, Perkins,' he said.

  'When Constable Amies told me about the whooshing noises and the dispute between the acoustic engineer and the architect, I was as curious as anybody to find out whether the columns were solid or hollow.'

  'Ralph,' the radar technician said, holding out his hand.

  'Quigg,' he said, shaking the hand.

  'Ready?'

  'Let's do it.'

  Ralph turned the equipment on and gradually, the information was transmitted to a connected computer screen. 'Will you look at that?' he said. 'It reminds me of one of those pneumatic cash transportation tube systems you see at the supermarket.'

  'Or a round elevator shaft,' Perkins posited.

  They could clearly see that the column was hollow.

  'What's that?' Amies said, pointing to a vertical line.

  The technician shrugged. 'No idea.'

  Perkins examined the column more closely where the vertical line was shown on the screen and found a barely noticeable crack along the line of the cement between the small majolica tiles. He traced it up and down with his finger. 'I think this is a door, Sir.'

  'Will it open?'

  'Not from this side.'

  'Okay! Enough tiptoeing around. Let's get that door open one way or another.'

  'I have tools in the van,' Ralph said. 'Do you want me to go get them?'

  'Please,' Quigg said.

  'It'll be a shame to destroy the tiles,' Amies said. 'They're really old, aren't they?'

  Perkins nodded. 'As old as the waxworks. When the dental hospital was built in 1888 . . .'

  'All right, Perkins,' Quigg interrupted him. 'We don't need a history lesson.'

  Ralph returned carrying a heavy toolbox, put it down on the floor and took out a club hammer and chisel. 'Say the word, Inspector.'

  'The word.'

  Ralph attacked the crack in the cement and gradually prised open the access panel.

  Quigg peered inside and tentative stuck his head in to look up and down. It was like the black hole of Calcutta, or at least how he imagined it would look like. 'Anyone got a torch?'

  Ralph held one out to him. 'Here's something I prepared earlier.'

  'Thanks.'

  He shone the torch up and down the inside of the column, but it was no help – there was nothing to see. No cables, no ladders, no anything. 'I'm none the wiser,' he said, pulling his head out of the opening, switching the torch off and handing it back to Ralph. 'You might be right about pneumatic tubes. That probably explains the whooshing noises.'

  'What are we going to do, Sir?' Amies asked.

  'No, no. You're in charge, Amies. You tell me what we're going to do.'

  'Me?'

  'Well?'

  She took the torch off Ralph, shone it up and down inside the column and came back out again. 'Mmmm!'

  'That's helpful. Do we know what time the whooshing noises start at night?'

  'No, Sir.'

  'If I send you in there Amies . . .'

  'Me, Sir?'

  'You're expendable. If I send you in there and the tubes start moving up and down in the column . . . Well, I hate to think what would happen.'

  'And me, Sir.'

  'Perkins?'

  'Mmmm!'

  'Don't exhaust yourself.'

  Perkins stared up towards the ceiling. 'I suppose, what we're saying is that these columns are being used as a mode of transport within the waxworks, similar to a pneumatic tube system . . .'

  'Why are you repeating what numerous people have already said, Perkins?'

  'I'm trying to make sense of it all, Sir. So, this is how the bodies and exhibits are moved up, down and around the waxworks, but I think the real question is: Where are they being kept?'

  'Meaning?'

  He looked around and twirled his arms. 'I mean, where do the pneumatic tubes go? If they are going up, down and around, where do they stop? This door opens on this floor, but we know that the bodies and second exhibits aren't on the different floors. So, where are they being kept?'

  'Good point, Perkins. And what's the answer?'

  'I haven't got one, Sir.'

  He glanced at his watch. 'I have an appointment at two o'clock and I haven't even had lunch yet. Call Amy English again, Amies. Ask her if she'd be so kind to come and tell us where the bodies and exhibits are stored. As Perkins has pointed out, if they're not in the waxworks proper, where the hell are they?'

  'Okay, Sir.'

  'I want you to stay, Perkins.'

  'I can do that.'

  'What about you, Ralph.'

  'I'm getting paid by the hours, so it works for me.'

  'Great. I'll be back around four o'clock, and I'll expect some answers.'

  He strode out of the waxworks towards the train station.

  ***

  She'd sent Harry numerous personal messages, but he hadn't responded. It wasn't like him. Not like him at all. Usually, he was writing a response while she was still typing. In the end, she decided to call him, but the number was unobtainable.

  Then she overheard the news on the television that someone had turned on in the kitchen. There had been a fire overnight on Crow Lane in Lambeth that had destroyed a row of terraced houses and killed thirteen people, including three children. The police were treating it as arson.

  Didn't Harry live in Lambeth?

  She walked through into the kitchen.

  Ruth was eating her Muesli.

  As she watched the fire crews trying to contain the fire, she thought about the voice on the EVP:

  The night is here . . . The crows are burning.

  She called the emergency contact number at the bottom of the screen. Yes, Harry Hudson was one of the victims. Had it been a warning for Harry? Why did he not connect the message to the road he lived on? Would she have done, if she'd known his address?

  Poor Harry. She didn't know him that well, but he seemed a nice enough man.

  So, now she needed a new partner.

  ***

  As planned, Jack parked the van in a side street at quarter to ten. Steve Sallow shuffled off to start selling the Big Issue opposite the entrance to the Viaduct Tavern and providing a running commentary via radio to the rest of the team.

  Shortly afterwards, the guests began arriving. Steve counted them in. The Shadow Board, plus the Chairman, should have numbered nine, plus a couple f
or security. Jack was working on twelve.

  At ten-thirty they moved in.

  Valerie Zepp and Jimmy Crisp remained in the downstairs bar area, and locked the doors. Besides the barman, there were only two customers in there. All three were restrained and gagged.

  Pete Pussett and Kenny Kincaid went to the kitchen and disabled the staff with restraints and gags.

  Jack rolled up his ski mask and went up the stairs first.

  There was a man and a woman standing outside the door.

  'This is a private function,' the woman said.

  'Vulture77,' he said to throw them off guard, and then fired two shots.

  Both collapsed on the floor. From Lucy's description, he had the feeling these were the two people who had planned to torture her in the container. He could have wounded them and taken them back to Catherine Wheel Yard, but he wasn't going to be a party to Lucy's plan for revenge. Torturing people to get answers out of them was one thing, but torturing them for revenge was something else entirely.

  He burst into the function room and waved his gun around. 'Everybody sit perfectly still. I want to see hands on the table. Anybody moves, I'll shoot first and ask questions later.'

  'What the hell are you doing?' a woman said.

  Bob Birdwhistle and Mike Roberts searched everybody and found three handguns.

  Terry Tumbler and Tulbahadur Thapa came in carrying the nooses and began looping them over the beams.

  'We're serving the real hanging breakfast. If I'm not mistaken, you lot are the Shadow Board of Directors. Which one of you is the Chairman?'

  Nobody said anything, but he noticed a few heads move imperceptibly towards the woman who had spoken.

  He searched her and found a police identity badge for Assistant Commissioner – Julia Noseworthy. 'So, you're the Chairman?'

  'I have no idea what you're talking about, and if you don't stop what you're doing . . .'

  'I'm Jack Neilson, by the way.'

  'I know . . .'

  'I guessed you would.'

  While the others were preparing the nooses, he search everyone, removed their personal possessions and put it all in a backpack one of them had brought. It would serve two functions. First, it would take the police a lot longer to find out who they were and connect the dots; and second, it would give him time to find out who they all were and make sure he'd eradicated all the cockroaches. Because that's what they were – cockroaches. And everyone knew that getting rid of cockroaches was a full-time job.