by Tim Ellis
‘Nobody likes them, Parish, but somebody has to find justice for murdered children.’
‘Make me feel mean, why don’t you?’
‘This case now belongs to you and Richards. Ten-year-old Amy Linton went missing in January of 2003, and although there was an intensive search at the time, and a twelve-month investigation which consumed a vast amount of man-hours and money, no sign of Amy was ever found – she simply vanished.’
‘That was eight years ago, Chief. What…?’
‘Her body was found yesterday afternoon.’
‘Oh!’
‘In a shallow grave in Galleyhill Wood by two fourteen year-old boys hunting truffles.’
‘Toadstone’s…?’
‘…already there. Doctor Michelin is ready to move the body to the Mortuary, but he’s waiting for you and Richards to give him the nod.’ The Chief pointed to two evidence boxes. ‘Help yourself to those on your way out.’
‘You’ve heard about, Richards?’
‘I had a faxed report about her success last Wednesday.’
‘And you didn’t think fit to let me see it?’
‘I thought it would be better that you heard how she’d done from her own lips.’
‘I suppose. Have you seen her this morning?’
‘Shortly after you arrived. You were in the toilet, so I called her in here and congratulated her.’
‘How are you, Sir?’
The Chief screwed up his eyes. ‘What are you after, Parish? I haven’t got any money.’
Parish smiled. ‘I can understand why you might think that, Chief, but with everything that has gone on lately I was just wondering if you were okay?’
‘Thanks for thinking of me, Parish, but Richards has already beaten you to it. I’m fine though, I had another check-up last Thursday and my white blood cell count is normal, which they tell me is a good thing.’
‘I’m glad. All ready for the medal ceremony on the twenty-first?’
‘Will you get the hell out of here, Parish. You’ll be asking me out on a date next.’
‘Just being friendly, Chief.’
‘Well don’t, it makes me nervous.’
‘Briefings?’
‘In the mornings at eight-thirty.’
‘See you then, Sir.’ He hefted the two boxes up and lugged them out past Debbie Shinwell, the Chief’s secretary and secret lover who everyone knew about.
Richards was sat on her hands on Kowalski’s desk swinging her legs like a teenager.
‘You’re like a moth drawn to Kowalski’s light, Richards. Get your arse off his desk and stop flirting with a man twice your age who isn’t allowed to get excited anymore. If you’re not careful, you’ll give him another heart attack.’
Kowalski bellowed with laughter. ‘Yeah, but what a way to go, hey Parish.’
‘Good one, Ray,’ Ed Gorman said.
‘Sirrr,’ Richards said jumping off the desk. She had her long black hair in a ponytail, and wore a pair of tight jeans, brown calf-length brown boots, and a short-sleeved beige angora jumper.
Parish dropped the two boxes on the floor next to his desk. ‘I thought the tablets they’d given you to take made you incontinent, Ray?’
Richards laughed. ‘You mean impotent don’t you, Sir?’
‘I always get confused between those two,’ Parish said and grinned.
‘And neither of which apply to me, Parish. I’m still the Greek Adonis I always was.’
‘Come on, Richards, Kowalski and Gorman may have nothing better to do with their time, but we’ve got a case.’
‘A case, Parish?’ Kowalski said. ‘I have a vague recollection of having a case once. Do you remember, Ed, it was around Christmas about seven years ago – a case of Budweiser?’
Kowalski and Gorman rolled about with laughter.
‘Glad to see you’re all right anyway, Sir,’ Richards said.
‘And I’m glad you passed your Phase Two, Richards?’
‘Thanks, Sir.’
***
They walked up the High Street, turned right, crossed over onto Brewery Road, and entered O’Flynn’s Garage to sign out a pool car. It was a two-year-old Ford Mondeo that they’d had before, and it was in better condition than Parish’s own nearly four-year-old Ford Focus even though it had more mileage.
‘Will you be all right walking back along Brewery Lane on your own later?’
‘I don’t know, Sir.’
‘Well, until you do know we’ll walk back together, I could do with the exercise.’
‘Thanks, Sir. Where are we going?’
‘Galleyhill Wood.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘You’ll be hearing a lot more about it after today, Richards. A ten-year-old girl called Amy Linton was buried in a shallow grave there eight years ago.’
‘And she’s just been found?’
‘I knew there was a reason I brought you along.’
‘Murdered?’
‘Toadstone and Doc Michelin are at the gravesite. I’m sure they’ll be only too pleased to give us the benefit of their wisdom when we get there, but until that conversation takes place I have no idea. A massive search was carried out at the time, but they found no sign of her.’
‘I’ve never worked on a child case before.’
‘It’s not nice, Richards. After this, you’ll never want to work on another one – none of us do, but unfortunately we can’t pick and choose our cases. The Chief gave it to us because Kowalski and Gorman both have kids.’
‘I’ll never have any children, Sir.’
‘Oh, and why’s that?’ As soon as the question had escaped his mouth he wished he’d chained it up and kept it locked up in a dark recess of his mind.
‘Because I can’t find the right man. All the men that want me I don’t want, and all the ones I want I can’t have. What’s a girl to do, Sir?’
‘The right one will come along, Richards, you just wait and see. Stop being in such a hurry to find a man. You’re still only twenty-one, you’ve got the rest of your life in front of you.’
‘If you say so, Sir.’
Galleyhill Wood sat between Lower Nazeing in the north and Waltham Abbey in the south along the B194, and they eventually found the area that had been marked off with blue and white police tape deep in the wood along a dirt track.
A group of onlookers had already formed on the muddy path, and an entrepreneurial woman in a mobile food van was selling tea, coffee and hotdogs. The press had arrived in droves. Parish and Richards were bombarded with questions as they shouldered their way through the crowds and ducked under the tape.
‘What is it this time, Inspector?’
‘Do you want to pose for photographs, Constable Richards?’
‘How many bodies?’
‘Male or female?’
Parish turned and held up his hands. There were two uniformed Constables with orders to arrest anybody trying to sneak under the demarcation tape. He signalled to one and said, ‘I need to separate the press from the onlookers.’
‘Leave it to me, Sir.’
The two Constables shepherded the onlookers left and the press right until Parish could speak to the press without the onlookers hearing.
‘There’s a press blackout until six o’clock tonight,’ he told them.
‘You’ve got to be joking?’
‘At least tell us why?’
‘You can’t do that?’
Parish looked at the young man with red livid spots around the left side of his mouth. ‘I think you’ll find that I can,’ he said.
Some of the other journalists rounded on him. ‘Yeah shut up, Masterson, now everyone knows you’re a dipstick.’
Parish continued. ‘The body of a young girl has been found, and I need time to inform her parents. I don’t want them to hear about the discovery on the news.’
‘Christ, is it Amy Linton after all this time?’
Parish saw that it was the freckle-faced Catherine Cox who had spo
ken.
‘Good morning, Miss Cox?’
‘Good morning, Inspector, glad to see you’re in one piece again.’
He smiled. ‘I’ll give you more information once I’ve seen the gravesite, or I can simply walk on by and keep the information to myself.’
‘We agree,’ a tall man with long straggly hair and a bald patch said looking around to make sure they all did agree – especially Masterson.
‘Okay then,’ Parish said.
They stepped onto the corrugated steel walkway and followed it forty feet as it snaked into the woods towards a bright blue tent enclosing the gravesite.
After donning paper suits, masks and latex gloves outside the tent, they slipped inside. A child’s skeleton lay in a grave about twelve inches deep in the centre of the twelve-foot by twelve-foot space delineated by the tent. Aluminium boards had been positioned around the area over plastic sheeting to prevent the ground becoming contaminated with footprints.
‘You took your time, Parish,’ Doc Michelin said.
‘It’s good to see you as well, Doc.’
The forensic pathologist from King George Hospital stood up. ‘Sorry, these child cases really sour my mood. I hear congratulations are in order, Constable,’ he directed at Richards. ‘It is you beneath all that paper, isn’t it?’
‘It’s me, and thanks, Doc.’
‘Top five I hear?’
‘Yes, well done, Mary,’ Toadstone chirped in. ‘You and the Inspector never did do the IQ tests, did you?’
‘Never mind all this chit-chat,’ Parish said. ‘What have we got?’
‘It’s not conclusive yet, but I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure this is Amy Linton who went missing in 2003. There are remnants of a bright green dress, which I distinctly recall her wearing when she went missing.’
‘I don’t want to be one of those DI’s who make a mistake about something like this, Doc. When will you know?’
‘Let me get her back to the Mortuary. I’ll compare the dental records, and then we’ll be sure.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s ten past ten now. Come to lunch at one o’clock. If I’m not mistaken, it’s your turn to buy, and I’ll confirm the identity then.’
‘Sounds good to me, Doc.’
He squatted to look more closely at the child’s remains. ‘Any idea on cause of death yet?’
‘None.’
‘What about you, Toadstone?’
‘We’ve excavated the grave as you can see, and any evidence has been collected and will be processed in due course.’
‘Did I ever tell you that you’d make a good politician, Toadstone?’
‘No, but thank you, Sir.’
‘It wasn’t a compliment.’
‘I know.’
‘Have you checked the area for any other graves?’
‘We’re doing that now.’
Parish stood up. ‘Any questions, Richards?’
‘Have you got a DNA profile of Amy Linton, Doc?’
‘Yes, but it’ll take time to compare DNA samples, dental records are considerably quicker.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Okay, let’s get moving,’ Parish said. ‘We’ll see you in the hospital cafeteria at one o’clock, Doc.’
They left the tent, took off the forensic suits, and began walking along the corrugated walkway toward the growing horde of press congregated on the path, but before they reached the tape Doc Michelin called them back.
‘Problem?’ Parish asked.
‘You could say that, Parish. There’s another body underneath Amy Linton.’
‘Crap.’ After thinking about the implications of a second body he said, ‘Let’s keep that information to ourselves until we know what we’re dealing with, Doc. Get the first one back to the Mortuary as planned, and let’s confirm identification before the story leaks out.’
‘Are you going to tell the press about the second body?’
‘No, not yet. Let’s…’
‘Sir?’ came from Toadstone inside the tent.
Parish stuck his head through the entrance. ‘You don’t want me to put a paper suit on again do you, Toadstone?’
‘I’m afraid so, Sir.’
When they’d re-entered the tent Toadstone said, ‘After we found the second body, I decided to dig down along one side of the grave.’ He pointed to a trench that had been freshly dug. ‘Up to now, we’ve found another three bodies underneath the top one.’
‘You’re determined to ruin my day aren’t you, Toadstone?’ He knelt on the aluminium and saw what Toadstone was talking about. The bodies were stacked one on top of the other and the side view resembled geologic strata in rock.
‘Four children, Sir,’ Richards said, shock evident in her voice. ‘Who could possibly kill four children?’
‘That’s what we’re going to find out, Richards. Right, we’ll stick to the plan. As far as the press is concerned, we’ve found one body. I don’t care what you have to do to disguise the fact that we’ve found more Toadstone, but do it.’
‘Okay, Sir.’
Outside, Richards said, ‘I don’t think I like child cases, Sir.’
‘Welcome to the club, Richards.’
When they reached the press area Parish stayed within the police cordon. ‘I can confirm that the body of a young girl has been found, and that it is probably Amy Linton. However, as previously agreed, nothing is to be made public until six o’clock tonight. I first have to wait for confirmation of her identity, and then I need to tell her parents. You’ll know that I don’t normally make threats, but these are the parents of a child who have been grieving their missing daughter for eight years, so if anybody has the idea of reneging on our agreement you can be sure that I will find you and end your career.’
There was complete silence. ‘Good, I’m glad we understand each other.’
‘Good speech, Sir,’ Richards said as they walked along the path back to the car.
‘Thanks, Richards.’
‘What now?’
‘Back to the station to read the files on Amy Linton, and make up an incident board. Until we have some idea who the other children are we’ll focus on her.’
‘This is not what I had in mind for my first day back, Sir.’
‘Or any day, Richards.’
####
About the Author
Tim Ellis was born in the bowels of Hammersmith Hospital, London, on a dark and stormy night, grew up in Cheadle, Cheshire, and now lives in Essex with his wife and five Shitzus. In-between, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps at eighteen and completed twenty-two years service, leaving in 1993 having achieved the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1 (Regimental Sergeant Major). Since then he has worked in secondary education as a senior financial manager, in higher education as an associate lecturer/tutor at Lincoln and Anglia Ruskin Universities, and as a consultant for the National College of School Leadership. His final job, before retiring to write full time in 2009, was as Head and teacher of Behavioural Sciences (Psychology/Sociology) in a secondary school. He has a PhD and an MBA in Educational Management, and an MA in Education.
Discover other titles by Tim Ellis at http://tim-ellis.yolasite.com/
Warrior
(Adult Historical Fiction)
Path of Destiny
Scourge of the Steppe
The Knowledge of Time
(Young Adult Science Fiction)
Second Civilisation
Orc Quest
(Young Adult Fantasy)
Prophecy
Adult Crime:
Solomon’s Key (Harte)
Body 13 (Quigg)
The Graves at Angel Brook (Quigg)
A Life for a Life (Parish & Richards)
Jacob’s Ladder (Stone)
The Wages of Sin (Parish & Richards)
Collected Short Stories
Untended Treasures
Also due out in 2011/2012:
The Timekeeper's Apprentice
Orc Quest: The Last Human
&
nbsp; The Graves Beneath Eternity Wharf (Quigg)
The Flesh is Weak (Parish & Richards)