The Wages of Sin (P&R2)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘You probably made the right decision, Doc,’ Parish said.

  ‘At least I’m still alive.’

  ‘You make it sound as though the station is riddled with dirty cops, Doc?’ Richards said.

  ‘There was certainly quite a few back then, Richards,’ Parish said, ‘but there’s not so many now. I’ve told you about DI Ranger in Vice, and of course you know about Chief Inspector Naylor. There’s a few more in Vice because they have easy access to drugs, a couple in Robbery who investigate their own robberies, three in Traffic who take spot fines to let people off, one in Fraud…’

  Richards scratched her head. ‘If you know who they all are and what they’re doing, why don’t you arrest them?’

  ‘What do we need when we arrest someone for a crime, Richards?’

  ‘Is this part of my revision?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Ummm… Evidence?’

  ‘She’s good isn’t she, Parish?’

  ‘Sometimes, Doc, but sometimes she’s a pain in the arse.’

  ‘Sirrr.’

  ‘So, do you think there is any evidence against these dirty cops?’

  ‘Well, I suppose not, otherwise they’d be in prison.’

  ‘That’s right, Richards. I’ve got better things to do than search for evidence against dirty cops. The best thing is to stay out of their way. Sooner or later they’ll get found out.’

  ‘How can I stay out of their way when I don’t know who they are?’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about that. You’re my partner, they all know not to mess with me and mine.’

  ‘Oh okay, Sir, if you say so.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Except,’ Doc Michelin said, ‘you didn’t stay out of Naylor’s way, did you?’

  ‘No, that was unfortunate, but necessary.’

  ‘I hope you’ve still got eyes in the back of your head, Parish?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Doc, I’ve got Richards watching my back. So, let’s get back to Lewin. If Naylor killed him, he must have found out something.’

  ‘I thought the same thing, but I guess we’ll never know what he stumbled on. Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge now. If Naylor did kill Lewin he got away with it, and officially Lewin committed suicide.’

  ‘What are you going to do about it, Sir?’ Richards asked.

  ‘Do about what? As the Doc has just said, John Lewin committed suicide, and Naylor got away with murder. Not only that, if you recall we have three other murders to solve. The only reason I looked at Lewin’s death was to make sure our killer hadn’t murdered him. I’ve done that – the case files can go back to evidence lock-up tomorrow.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like you, Sir.’

  ‘Sometimes, Richards, you have to know when to leave well alone, and this is one of those occasions. Right, Doc, as much as I love your company, I’m sure you’ve got to go and do what forensic pathologists do, and I’ve got Chelsea versus Barcelona to watch.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. I’d much rather stay here and watch the match with you, have a couple of beers, be an armchair pundit, but there’s work to be done.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Doc, DI Parish isn’t going to watch the football match because he promised to help me with my studying.’

  ‘When’s your exam?’

  ‘Next Wednesday.’

  ‘Good luck with that, Constable.’

  ‘Thank you, Doc.’

  ‘She’ll pass with flying colours, Doc, and for your information, Richards, I’m going to multitask tonight.’

  ‘Men are useless at that, Sir.’

  ‘That’s a sweeping generalisation with no supporting evidence.’

  ‘There’s a mass of evidence, Sir. Women consistently beat men at multitasking activities.’

  ‘If I can’t watch the football and tell you how to revise properly at the same time, I’ll ring up the Funeral Directors and order my handcrafted solid oak coffin tonight.’

  ‘Handcrafted solid oak! That’s a bit expensive, Sir.’

  ‘I’ll leave you two to your domestic bliss. Don’t get up, I’ll show myself out. Give me a ring and let me know the score, Parish?’

  ‘Will do, Doc. See you in the morning.

  It was quarter to eight. Parish went into the living room and switched the television on with the sound barely registering. He didn’t need to hear the pundits and commentators to understand what was going on.

  ‘I’ll go and get my stuff,’ Richards said.

  ‘You do that, Richards.’

  When she came back she sat beside him on the sofa with her books on her knee.

  ‘Ready when you are?’

  ‘All the questions in the exam are multichoice.’

  ‘I knew that.’

  ‘To pass you have to get fifty-six percent of seventy questions spread over four sections correct, did you know that?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘There are actually eighty questions, but ten are validation questions, and don’t contribute to your overall score. Did you know that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In the last exam there were 719 candidates, 181 failed, and 14 achieved exceptional scores.’

  ‘Twenty-five percent failed? I’m history, Sir.’

  ‘No, Richards, seventy-five percent passed, and you’d better get an exceptional score, or you will be history because I’ll have to find a more intelligent partner.’

  ‘No pressure then, Sir?’

  ‘Right, you should have a notebook with the four sections to mirror the sections of the exam. One: Assaults, Drugs, Firearms and Defences; Two: Evidence; Three: Property Offences; and Four: Sexual Offences. Have you got that?’

  ‘No, Sir. I’ve got a notebook, but it hasn’t got anything in it.’

  ‘What have you been doing for the past three weeks?’

  ‘Well, reading mostly, and making some mindmaps, and…’

  ‘Watching the Crime Channel hoping to get some tips?’

  She blushed. ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘Do the sections, and then I’ll tell you what else to do.’

  As the teams came out of the tunnel at Stanford Bridge he hunched forward, and Richards began labelling four of the five sections of her Project Book.

  Chelsea had just kicked off when she said, ‘Done that?’

  He carried on watching the match. ‘The multichoice questions in the exam will have one right answer and three distracters, and the same format will be used for all questions.’ He pulled four folded pieces of paper out of his pocket. ‘Get some glu-stick and stick one each of those examples at the start of each section.’

  She scurried up to her bedroom to get the glu-stick, and then stuck an example question on the first page of each section. ‘Okay, Sir.’

  ‘Look at the format of the question. Each one gives you a scenario and four possible answers. Only one of those answers is correct. You have two hours to complete eighty questions. How long can you spend on each question?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me I’d be answering maths questions tonight.’ She went to the sideboard, took a calculator out of the drawer, and keyed in the numbers. Smiling she said, ‘One and a half minutes for each question.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘Lionel Messi has just scored for Barcelona.’

  ‘That means nothing to me, Sir. I hate football.’

  ‘One and half minutes, Richards. Do you know how long one and a half minutes is?’

  ‘Duh… One and a half minutes?’

  ‘Close your eyes. I’ll say now, and you tell me when you think one and a half minutes has passed.’

  ‘This should be easy.’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘All right, Sir?’

  ‘That was twenty-one seconds.’

  ‘Let me try again. I can do it.’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Twenty-three seconds.’

  ‘Another try, Sir?’

  ‘We could be here all night, but you
wouldn’t be able to do it. Humans are useless at calculating the passage of time that’s why we invented the clock.’

  ‘So, why did you make me do it, Sir?’

  ‘To illustrate the importance of having a little timer on your desk during the exam. It takes one second to tick the right answer, why do you think they’ve given you ninety seconds?’

  ‘Well, you need time to read the scenario and the choices.’

  ‘Exactly. Don’t rush. Read the damned scenario and each one of the four answers. Most of the people that fail do so because they don’t use the available time to read the questions and answers properly. They walk out of the exam after an hour thinking how easy it was.’

  ‘I’ll put my watch…’

  He pulled a square piece of white porcelain out of his pocket. ‘Here, you can use this.’

  ‘It’s lovely, can I keep it?’

  ‘If you pass with an exceptional score. Sometimes people get stuck on difficult questions, it’s important to by-pass these and come back to them if you have time at the end… Oh shit!’

  ‘What, Sir?’

  ‘Barcelona have scored again.’

  ‘Can we focus on my future, Sir? How am I going to pass this exam?’

  ‘All that’s left to do now is construct your questions.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘There are books, software packages, and courses out there, but none of them can replace hard work. No one can do it for you, Richards. The end result is you ticking the right answers of a multichoice question. Therefore, you must create your own multichoice questions in each section until you exhaust all the possibilities. When you open the exam paper, it’ll be as if you’re opening your Project Book.’

  ‘So, you want me to go through my books and create multichoice questions for each section?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I highlight the right answer?’

  ‘Of course. Use colour, drawings, and anything else so that you can visualise the answer.’

  ‘And you did this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll give it a go.’

  ‘Very generous of you. Before you disappear up to your bedroom to watch the Crime Channel, you should know that in discussion with your Mother, I’ve blocked your reception with the Parental Controls.’

  ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘If you pass the exam with an exceptional mark, your Mother and I will unlock it.’

  ‘It’s like being a prisoner in the Gulag Archipelago since you came to live with us, Sir.’

  ‘I can pack my bags and leave if you want me to, Richards?’

  ‘You’re so mean, I’m surprised I’m not already psychologically damaged.’

  ‘You haven’t got time to watch television. All your attention should be directed towards studying for this exam.’

  ‘I’m going up to my Crime Channel-less bedroom now, Sir. I hope Chelsea lose.’

  ‘Oh they will, but I don’t care as long as you pass your exam, Richards. By the way, what’s the answer to the example question?’

  ‘A?’

  ‘B.’

  ‘Bugger! Oops, I nearly said B as well.’

  ‘Get up there and start working.’

  ‘Goodnight, Obergruppenführer.’

  ‘Goodnight, Richards.’

  At ten o’clock – after the match – Parish rang Doc Michelin. ‘Hi, Doc.’

  ‘Hello, Parish. Chelsea lost 4:1.’

  ‘Bad news travels fast?’

  ‘One of the guys had a mobile TV, so we watched most of the game on that.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘They’ve drained the water into two tankers, and removed the gubbins from the bottom of the pool, which included a Ford Cortina engine and three shopping trolleys by the way. They’re now building scaffolding from the bottom of the pool to bring the body down, while others build more scaffolding alongside the steps, and up to the diving board. It won’t be long now before we retrieve the body, and then the real work begins.’

  ‘See you in the morning, Doc.’

  ‘Sweet dreams, Parish.’

  Before he went to bed, he walked Digby round the block and thought about the idea of Trevor Naylor murdering John Lewin.

  Chapter Twelve

  Thursday 4th March

  ‘This will fool him,’ Parish said to Richards as he banged on the Chief’s door like a Neanderthal.

  ‘Come in Parish,’ the Chief shouted.

  ‘You were meant to think it was Kowalski, Chief.’

  ‘It’s eight o’clock, I was expecting you not Kowalski.’

  ‘One of these days, Chief.’

  ‘When that day comes, Parish, I’ll be in the home with senile dementia. I won’t even know who I am never mind who you are. Help yourselves to coffee, and tell me what’s going on, Richards?’

  ‘Morning, Sir, you’re looking good.’

  ‘I’ll feel even better when you catch this killer.’

  Richards told the Chief what they’d done yesterday. ‘It was a long day, Chief. We got a call at four in the morning to go to the Redbridge Tribune at Gants Hill, and discovered that the reporter Marie Langley had been abducted by someone wearing a pig mask and driving a dark blue Renault Master.’

  ‘Don’t forget to tell the Chief how you snore like a Vietnamese pot bellied pig, Richards.’

  ‘Sirrr. I’m going to put a deadlock on my bedroom door, and I’m never ever going to speak to you again.’

  ‘You should see a sleep specialist about that, Richards. It’s amazing what doctors can do these days.’ The Chief ran a hand over his full head of hair. ‘I’m a living testament to that fact.’

  ‘Can we not talk about my snoring, Chief? Then we found out from her Editor that she had written two articles about the Women’s Refuge Shelter in Chigwell. We went to speak to her boyfriend – a Mark Wozcniak – who DI Parish doesn’t think is involved in her disappearance, and he gave us another lead to a place called The Chameleon Club where they have sex with animals.’

  ‘In Chigwell?’

  ‘DI Ranger in Vice knows about it.’

  The Chief’s brow furrowed. ‘Does he now?’

  ‘You know about him don’t you, Sir?’

  ‘I know things about a lot of people, Richards. Carry on.’

  ‘Well, then we went to the Women’s Refuge, and DI Parish fell asleep.’

  ‘You’re a tittle-tattle, Richards.’

  ‘I’m getting my own back, Sir. They wouldn’t let DI Parish talk to the two women Marie Langley had written the articles about, so I spoke to them instead.’

  ‘And you know what women are like when they start talking, Chief – she was gone for bloody hours, and because I was a man, they treated me like a criminal. Remember that I’d been up since four. I pleaded for a coffee, but nothing materialised, and that’s why I dozed off.’

  ‘You don’t mind if I carry on do you, Inspector?’ Richards said with an air of superiority.

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Then we came back to the station and saw the Graphologist, Amanda Sprinkles. She gave us a profile, which led to us discovering that the killer isn’t sexually assaulting the victims. He tries to, but for some reason he can’t do it. So, we’re looking for a sadistic loner with a grudge against women, but the person who says he’s my boss thinks there’s more to it than that.’

  ‘The religious Tetragrammaton, Parish?’

  ‘Yes, Sir. I think we’ll find that the messages Dr Jeffers is deciphering will also be religious in nature.’

  ‘Any news on them?’

  ‘We should have the first one this morning,’ Parish said.

  The Chief nodded. ‘Carry on, Richards.’

  ‘DI Parish made me do the press briefing next.’

  ‘I saw you, Richards. What were you thinking of, Parish?’

  ‘It’s Kowalski’s fault, Chief. He said I looked like a tramp, so to maintain the high standards of the police force I made the executive dec
ision to use Richards as my mouthpiece, and it worked up to a point.’

  ‘Yes, the point at which Richards thought she was a celebrity. Thank God you pulled her off the podium when you did. The Chief Constable rang me, and I said we’d started Red Nose Day early.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Chief,’ Parish said as he helped himself to another four-sugared strong Colombian coffee. ‘I’ve learned my lesson. Richards will never talk to the press again.’

  ‘You’re both so mean.’

  ‘Is that it, Richards?’ the Chief asked.

  ‘No it’s not, Chief. After being thrown to the wolves without any prior training or moral support, DI Parish made me go to Friendly Farm. The owner – Mrs Wesley – said The Chameleon Club is a group of people who make donations to support their Animal Rescue Centre. The Inspector and I were given a guided tour, but we saw no evidence of anything untoward.’

  ‘What evidence were you expecting, Richards?’

  ‘I asked her exactly the same thing, Chief?’

  ‘You’re just trying to embarrass me, so I’m not going to answer. Then we went to see Mr Reeves, the husband of the second victim. Her Mother was there as well, and she was angry that we hadn’t appeared to have done anything, but we calmed her down in the end.’

  ‘It’s not going to be a media disaster is it, Parish?’

  ‘No, I think she was still in shock, but Richards did a good job consoling her.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  ‘Credit where it’s due.’

  ‘Then we went to Boynton’s Estate Agents where Susan Reeves used to work, and we spoke to the manager about the phone call she received. We’ve got the address and telephone number the caller gave Susan now.’

  ‘Anything useful, Parish?’

  ‘The telephone number was a mobile, which is probably at the bottom of the King George’s Reservoir by now, but the address he gave was 37 Grove Lane in Grange Hill. I’m wondering why he would use a local address when he didn’t have to.’

  ‘Well, I think you’d already concluded that he is local?’

  ‘Yes, but I think the address is a clue to where he might live.’

  The Chief stood up and looked at the map of his area of responsibility. ‘It goes from the B173 – Lambourne Road – to Pudding Lane.’

  ‘I’m not saying he lives on Grove Lane. That would be too obvious, but I think he lives around there. The trouble is, even if the killer came into the station and performed a song and dance routine on Kowalski’s desk, we wouldn’t know it was him. I’m hoping Toadstone and Doc Michelin are going to find something useful for me at the Marie Langley crime scene today. Also, Richards and I have still got to visit the first victim’s partner, and then go onto Redbridge Social Services.’