***
Owen too had changed and put his head round Cyril’s office door.
“I’ve never seen owt like that in my life, Sir. Glad to get away. Body is with the Pathologist and Trevor has been admitted to Lockwood; paramedics wanted a full medical examination and for him to receive a few days of hospital care in order to check his mental stability. They’ll ring before post mortem; I guess you’ll want to attend. I’ve prepared this statement for the press.”
Owen dropped a typed sheet of A4 onto Cyril’s desk. “I’ve cleared it with Liz.”
Cyril picked it up and read it. He just nodded his approval.
“We asked around and people have reported seeing nothing. They knew about the family, of course, and the local kids knew them as the hermits. Stories of the house being haunted kept the young kids away. One elderly neighbour mentioned seeing a bicycle leaning against the wall of the house in the early hours on two or three occasions but saw no one. It’s being emptied and sorted at the moment. Your For Sale sign is with Forensics.”
“Well done! I don’t suppose we have anything on André Malraux?”
“Europol sent details this morning. Apparently he was a jeweller working in Monaco pre war; it’s a short train ride from Menton,” Owen caught Cyril’s eye and quickly added, “as I’m sure you know. He travelled freely; even after the Italian occupation he maintained his position and this, it is believed, is probably one of the reasons he was able to help the Jews and minorities. On his return, it’s known that he had lost a degree of dexterity in his hands through frost bite received whilst in the camp; he was no longer able to maintain his profession. Strangely enough, although, he never appeared to work, he was always quite wealthy, buying property and renting, particularly in Monaco itself. You could class him as a millionaire.”
“No mean achievement for an out of work jeweller. Where’s the wealth now? We know he didn’t marry again. Was it left to Phillip?”
“According to this report, it all went over the card and roulette tables of the Principality, losing property by property in the process. Died a pauper and according to the date of death it didn’t take long; alcoholic poisoning on the death certificate.”
“Now, Sherlock you’re going to tell me where all the money came from, yes?”
“I spoke with our Liaison Office at Europol and he informed me that it’s believed that he possibly wasn’t the humanitarian his peers believed him to be. He helped the desperate, poor sods who were fleeing from the Nazi’s by helping them cash in their valuables; you can imagine, when travelling light, that could mean jewels and gold. As a jeweller, he was in a perfect position to identify the best and probably pay the lowest possible price to a desperate refugee. He also had the wherewithal to move it into Monaco and bank it for a rainy day. It was of no use to him until his return from Buchenwald and then he probably took just enough to live comfortably without drawing attention to himself, Nancy managed to keep nursing. As you can imagine, there were a few wealthy elderly along the Cote d’Azur who paid well for personal care. However, once Nancy left with little Phillip, Malraux decided he would live life to the full, what else was there?”
“And the stepfather?”
“Jarvis, according to reports, was a hard-working chap, small, independent builder who made a comfortable living. He was older than Nancy by some way, but had no criminal record. They seemed happy enough. Died in 1986 from mesothelioma, we know it as asbestosis.”
Owen quickly looked up expecting Cyril to be giving him the look for stating the obvious but he was pleasantly surprised.
“Didn’t know what that was. Well done, Owen. We’re no further forward apart from knowing that the paternal father of one of the people we interviewed was a Resistance fighter but also a mercenary bastard and people shifter during the war. We really need to find this Mary Nixon or Stuart as we believe she’s now called. Do you know, Owen, there’s something the good Doctor Flint isn’t telling us. He’s apparently so open, giving us everything we ask for, but something in here,” Cyril put his hand on his head, “call it, as the old coppers said in the films, instinct or my sixth sense...well one tells me he is as tight as a submarine door and he’s keeping something from getting wet.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Charles had been correct; you couldn’t miss the pink lions positioned on two stone pillars standing on either side of a wrought-iron, electric gate. The yellow, block-paved drive, edged with pink and white hibiscus, stretched a hundred metres before turning to the left. Peter drove the white Triumph to the bell and pressed. He noticed the camera positioned behind the wall facing him directly. He smiled as the gate moved silently to the left and a yellow light flashed a warning to the right of one of the lions.
Rounding the bend was the colour co-ordinated pink and white, Mediterranean villa that looked more like a cheap wedding cake, dripping with columns and cherubs. Three cars were parked around the turning circle; Peter couldn’t help but recognise Phillip’s yellow Ferrari as it contrasted with the facade of the building.
Charles, wrapped in a pink and white striped robe, met Peter at the door with a smile and a kiss on either cheek. Not surprisingly the interior design and decoration of the house was no better. It was furnished in the style that might best be described as Liberace, the height of bling and bad taste.
“Darling you’re on time, how marvellous, Phillip said you would be. He’s by the pool, we’ve been playing.” He giggled. “After you, shoo! Shoo!” His hand tapped Peter on his back-side as if he were a cow being moved into a barn.
Peter saw Phillip climb out of the pool as he emerged from the darkness of the house. Stepping carefully through the large, glazed doors that led to the patio and pool, the brightness was immediate. Phillip was naked. He smiled and waved before walking up to Peter; water pooled behind him on the dark tiles as he approached. They kissed.
“Come and swim!” he said, whilst unbuttoning Peter’s shirt.
Charles had removed his robe and he too was now naked, Peter couldn’t help but notice his finely honed physique. Feeling very uncomfortable, he put a hand on Phillip’s as he moved to unbutton his shorts. Phillip instinctively withdrew his hand.
“I’ll just sit here and watch you boys swim.”
Peter sat on a long cushioned bench as the two splashed and squealed in the pool. Both were trying to climb onto what looked like inflatable dolls.
A dark skinned girl who seemed about seventeen, but you couldn’t be sure as to her real age, came towards the pool pushing a trolley. Peter noticed the Champagne in the bucket immediately. She smiled and stopped the trolley by the bench, brought a small, round table and placed it in front of him. She smiled, bowed and backed away before returning to the house.
“Do the honours, darling, we’ll take an aperitif before the picnic proper.”
Charles climbed out and deliberately posed provocatively in front of Peter before collecting and pulling on his robe.
“Like my new girl? I have two, twins, identical in every way and with the most delicious ebony skin. Innocent they are, innocent. Did she give you the slightest feeling, tingle down... there, darling?” He looked at Peter’s groin and winked. “Or are you purely a man’s man? She didn’t stir anything in my loins either; give me a real man any day. That’s why, darling, we are good at this job.”
Peter didn’t answer he just continued to pour the drinks. He knew what it all meant, he knew why he was there but for the first time he had no appetite. He passed a glass to Charles and held one up until Phillip saw him and swam to the pool’s side. Peter stood and passed him the champagne flute.
“Sit!” Charles tapped the cushion next to him and as Peter sat he rested his hand on Peter’s knee. “Something is troubling you, no smile and no swim. I can see it in your eyes. What is it; do you not love us anymore?”
Peter shot a glance at Phillip, wondering what had been said; Phillip reddened and moved away leaving his champagne on the side.
“I’m
done, I’ve had enough and I’m getting too old. The police are closing in and it won’t take them long. We’ve all done well and we should call it a day or stop for a while at least.”
Charles’ hand moved at lightning speed up Peter’s thigh and latched on to his testicles with a vice-like grip. He began to squeeze. Peter’s scream shattered the quiet as he bent and made a grab at the hand in an attempt to prevent further agony, but it just seemed to make it worse. The voice he then heard was not the whimsy lilt that he normally heard from Charles, but a voice that now took on a hard and cold masculine edge.
“Now, let’s talk this over. I have cargo that needs shipping; I have a buyer for this cargo. I have been paid handsomely to establish this cargo within the homes of the wealthy so everything is fine apart from...” His hand tightened.
Peter groaned and felt as though he were being slowly and expertly castrated.
“You, my small pricked friend, will do your job, I’ve absolutely no doubt about that. I know this for two reasons.” He stopped talking and looked at the nails on his free hand; he breathed on them and polished them on his robe. “I know this because one telephone call will submerge you up to your scrawny neck in shit. You have a history, my friend, and not one to be proud of but you do have a skill and fortunately for you right now it is a skill we need. To help keep the darker aspects of your fucking, miserable life secret, you need to keep using the skill we need. N’est-ce pas?”
He squeezed just a little harder and tears began to flow down Peter’s cheeks. He nodded his agreement. Immediately, the vice was opened and Peter sucked in a huge amount of air to counter the nausea. Through tear-filled eyes, he glanced across at Phillip in the pool and made out the word sorry from silent lips.
“Lovely, darling, just lovely! Drink or your champers will be warm and we can’t have that!”
The familiar voice returned. Mr. Hyde had immediately been replaced.
***
Peter concluded the medical inspection of the girls, the ebony twins. He had taken blood samples for tests and confirmed that both girls were virgins. He also noted that they had not been circumcised, always good for business, nor were they anywhere near sixteen. It would take two days for the blood tests to show whether they were free from AIDS and then, if they were considered ready, the transportation would begin to meet the buyer’s timescale demands. They had been shipped from Sierra Leone or Liberia.
If they were anything like the many others, their parents had paid, in rough diamonds to get them to Europe, believing they were buying them hope, the chance of an exciting new life. They had been told they would work in the homes of the rich, be cared for and loved, well fed and educated; that had been Phillip’s responsibility, to sell false hope to people who had none. Easy! Just like selling water in the Sahara. These desperate people still had horrific memories from the troubled past, abduction as children, being involved themselves in the displacement of thousands, the lack of rights and freedom, the rapes and the slavery. When the war ended, it was the girls who had difficulty reintegrating. They had been mercilessly abused and were considered tarnished for being ‘bush wives’. Now, with an additional mouth or mouths to feed they were unable to marry because of the stigma of rape. They had become a burden on society, and if they did manage to locate them, on their families as well. Many fled to the cities and turned to prostitution as an only means of supporting themselves. For those who couldn’t face more sexual abuse, there remained begging. The boys were supported back to work; they handed in their guns, unaffected by social stigma and fell in with the country’s Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration Programme, receiving skills and education for their co-operation.
The new girls were housed and trained in a variety of domestic skills whilst with Charles in the South of France. They were safe sexually and helped medically. It must have seemed like heaven. As Phillip often quoted, virgo intactus when they arrive, virgo intactus when they leave, we boys make perfect guardians. After a few months, depending on the buyers’ requirements, they could travel to wherever market forces demanded. If it were the Middle East, their virginity would be highly prized and there they would become domestic and sexual slaves. Once new stock was demanded, they would be bought back at a fraction of the original cost. This would then be the time when they would volunteer to donate a kidney.
After recuperation, they would be moved to some other slave work, domestic, industrial work or low grade prostitution, facilitated by an addiction and reliance on chemical substances. If they were destined for Europe, then their first new role in life, until their mid twenties, would be prostitution in the up-market, exotic, escort arena. This arena is awash with eastern girls, they are two a penny. Good looking, young, exotic girls with skin like chocolate were always in demand in Southern France as more and more wealthy Russian and Chinese guests arrived with expensive and unusual tastes. They might be enrolled, if they were particularly very young and skilled, guided into a life dedicated to feeding the insatiable appetite of internet pornography, that is, of course, after first earning a large sum from the first wealthy user. To purchase the virginity of identical, attractive twins, all the better for being underage, would come at an astronomical price, equal to that paid in the east, and well into six figures. There was always a queue!
As their age increased and with new stock arriving, they too would volunteer as lucrative kidney donors, followed by an existence in some form of modern-day slavery, Prostitution and the sex trade were legal in Germany, for example, and the cost of a whore could be as little as the price of a Big Mac! On a number of occasions, the demand for girls came from the United Kingdom; this placed an additional responsibility on Peter’s shoulders as he would have to deliver the girl. He always found the journey to be fraught with dangers, not least as he travelled through the Tunnel with his drugged and concealed cargo.
“Oh! Who’s a sensitive soul today? Think of it as farming, as a business. But remember that with the animals we manage there are a number of pay days.” Charles tipped out rough diamonds from a silk purse. “Pay day one is ours and ours alone. Everything else is spoken for. Peter, consider it a gift, or as the girls’ dowry. It is for us to share. Here Peter take some, I know how much they mean to you. I also hope you have lots of dollars for us.”
Peter sat motionless but couldn’t help but marvel at the quality of uncut gems that lay scattered in the sunshine.
“When are the girls going?”
“The buyer would like them delivered in two weeks, transport is already organised, so don’t worry, you’re not the delivery boy on this occasion, Phillip is. Mary is ready to become mother and ensure the merchandise is handled carefully and respectfully at first, as usual. You know how gentle and kind she is when looking after our virgin stock, don’t you, Peter! You though, darling, earn these gems by fulfilling your usual tasks; secure cutting, polishing and selling, turning these objects into American dollars. This constitutes a key element of our work and, of course, our girls need their regular medicals. Depending on your report, some we’ll keep and some we’ll lose. Farming, Peter, it’s just like I said. Never give them names and never get attached, easy peasy, lemon squeezy.” He then giggled.
Peter didn’t stay long after the picnic. His appetite had gone but the pain in his groin hadn’t. He made the excuse that he needed to get the tests in. Once in the car, he felt as though he had been in the lion’s mouth and had escaped. He felt the diamonds in his shorts pocket and his mood improved somewhat. Once cut and certificated, they would keep the wolf from the door, not that he had experienced a wolf at his door, it was just plain avarice.
He dropped the blood tests into the lab alongside a brown envelope that ensured anonymity. They would be ready in two days.
***
Cyril hated every aspect of a forensic autopsy whether he was looking at a fresh corpse or a skeleton. Why any human beings would choose it for a job when they could become a doctor who saved lives baffled him. He remembered his c
areers’ teacher at school advising on possible professions and he wondered how many at that stage considered this human form of butchery. Maybe he had not been guided in that direction owing to his disappointingly low grade in Biology. Even then, he could never quite get to grips with cutting up a cow’s eyeball; to him it was such a messy business that soiled your lab coat. He remembered that he also didn’t like touching frogs or fish, but that wasn’t, as far as he was aware, a pre-requisite of medical study. What also confused him was how pathologists seemed to love it, the minutiae, the prodding, dissecting and weighing. It was like a challenge, a search for the truth concealed in a mass of usually mangled organs and gore. He stood, holding a stainless steel hand rail, his knuckles white, as he peered through a sloping, glass screen providing a clear view of the highly illuminated table and the remains of Eric Johnson. Two robed, masked figures photographed, cut and commentated as they performed, what seemed to Cyril, an almost ritualistic and reverent danse macabre round the body. The speaker, situated in the ceiling tiles above his head, allowed him to hear every slice, grind and saw cut that was performed on the rancid corpse. He never felt comfortable; he always felt like a cheap voyeur. On more than one occasion, his stomach had decided to turn itself inside out and only by a swift departure to the gents did he save his breakfast from being unceremoniously deposited upon the tiles.
“You’re sure, natural causes?”
Only The Dead: an explosive new detective series Page 13