by Ellis, Tim
‘My very point – Ruben is back.’
Parish’s face creased up. ‘I don’t...’
Tears were running down Richards’ face. ‘There were two people in that cellar,’ she said.
‘You keep saying that, Richards, but you never say who the second person was.’
‘That’s because I don’t know who it was.’
‘And not only that, Dr Suresh said that the second person could just be in your imagination, much the same as Toadstone and I not arriving to save you.’
She bit her bottom lip. ‘I know.’
He turned to Father Rosario. ‘I still don’t see the connection between the two cases, Father.’
‘Tell me this, did the killer take Nadine Chryst’s eyes and Lord Latham’s tongue?’
Richards and Parish looked at each other.
‘We haven’t made that public,’ Parish said. ‘How could you possibly know that?’
Father Rosario pulled up a chair from one of the nearby desks.
‘I’m sorry, Father,’ Richards said. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘No thank you, Constable.’ He leaned forward. ‘Proverbs 6:19. There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: Haughty eyes; a lying tongue; hands that shed innocent blood; a heart that plots evil; feet that are quick to rush into evil; a false witness who pours out his lies; and a man who stirs up dissention among his brothers.’
‘And we have “Green-Eyed” and “Silver-Tongued”. What does “Haughty” mean?’
‘Someone who is arrogant, and shows disdain of others.’
‘That’s how her boyfriend described Nadine Chryst, Sir.’
‘Mmmm,’ Parish said. ‘Okay, what about Lord Latham?’
‘Silver-tongued means persuasive and eloquent, but it can also mean someone who deceives through the clever use of words – a lying tongue.’
‘I’m not convinced, Father,’ Parish said. ‘So, what you’re saying is that another Ruben is out there killing people in the name of God?’
‘Yes.’
Parish shook his head. ‘The only way that could happen was if someone knew what Ruben had done.’
‘The second person in the cellar,’ Richards whispered.
They were quiet for a handful of minutes.
‘You know we’re going to have to find out whether that person is real or imagined once and for all, Richards. We’ll take you to Dr Suresh tomorrow morning. He can hypnotise you again and we’ll get to the bottom of this.’
‘Oh God.’
‘You shouldn’t really be blaspheming while there’s a priest here, you know.’
‘Sorry, Father,’ she said.
‘That’s all right, my child. God will forgive you.’
‘So, if what you’re saying is true, the next victim – if there is one – will be minus their hands?’
‘That is my contention.’
‘I hope you’re wrong, Father.’
‘So do I, Inspector. So do I.’ He touched Richards’ shoulder and said, ‘Remember, even a small star shines in the darkness.’
‘What do you mean, Father?’
‘You are the light that will guide your mother out of the darkness.’
Richards started crying. ‘Thank you, Father. Will you pray for her?’
‘I already am, my child.’
Parish stood up and shook Father Rosario’s hand. ‘It was good to see you again, Father.’
‘And you, Inspector.’
Richards escorted the priest out.
Was there a second person in that cellar? Is he carrying on Ruben’s work? Was Father Rosario right about the messages? It seemed like the only clue they had to the identity of the killer was buried somewhere in Richards’ subconscious.
He picked up the phone and keyed in the number for Dr Suresh.
‘Hello...’
‘...Dr Suresh?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Inspector Parish.’
‘Hello, Inspector.’
‘I need you to see Richards tomorrow morning and hypnotise her.’
‘I have a full schedule...’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor, but this is urgent police business. You know you discovered a second person hanging about in her brain...?’
‘Yes.’
‘We need to find out who it was.’
‘If the person is real, and not part of...’
‘Of course, but if he is real it may be the person we’re looking for.’
‘The murders of Nadine Chryst and Lord Latham?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll re-schedule two appointments between ten and twelve. Is that all right?’
‘Thanks, Doctor.’ He put the phone down.
Richards returned.
‘You’re booked in between ten and twelve.’
‘Oh God.’
‘You’re not getting religious on me, are you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Asking Father Rosario to pray for your mum.’
‘Every bit helps.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
‘Are we going now?’
‘You probably need to wash your face, it’s looking a bit streaky.’
‘So kind. Do you think Father Rosario is right?’
‘Whether he is or he isn’t, we haven’t got a lot else to go on, have we?’
‘I don’t suppose so.’
‘Dr Suresh will find out whether the second person in the cellar is real or not, and we’ll go from there. If he’s just a product of your imagination... Well, at least you’ll know and can move on with your life, and we’ll also be able to move on with the investigation.’
‘And what if he’s real?’
‘Well, then you’ll know that your nightmares are grounded in reality, and we’ll have a suspect, but... I don’t want you being vague and wishy-washy while you’re in there talking to Dr Suresh. I want a description, a name and address, and a full confession.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
He squeezed her arm. ‘I know you will. Come on, let’s go home.’
‘We’re not going to see the bodies?’
‘We can do that first thing in the morning before Dr Suresh discovers your secret.’
‘Oh, and what secret might that be?’
‘If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?’
***
Once he was sitting in his car, Stick took his notebook out and referred to the notes he’d made about who had owned 117 Hobbs Cross.
Judge Boyd and her husband between 1987 – 1999
Mathew Tucker and his wife between 1999 – 2005
Mally Haynes and Buzz Pig 2005 – 2008
Louise Marsden and Iwona Pryzgoda 2008 - 2011
Of those, Mathew Tucker was dead; Mally Haynes and Buzz Pig were too stoned to remember anything; their manager – Monty Kellman – was fishing for turbot in the Arctic sea around Baffin Island, and was therefore unavailable for the next three weeks; Louise Marsden was dead; and Iwona Pryzgoda was in Romania. That left Judge Boyd, her husband, and Mrs Tucker. The problem was, he needed to talk to someone who knew who the gardeners were, after the Romeros had gone back to Mexico in 2005.
It wasn’t worth asking the Boyds about the gardeners during the time they lived at the house because, as he recalled, they could only just remember the Romeros. Mrs Tucker wouldn’t know, because she had left everything like that to her husband. He needed to go back to Ermentrude’s Garden Centre.
The roads were busy. It was going home time. People were eager to reach the sanctuary and warmth of their homes, to shut out the white noise and chaos, and for just a few hours, reclaim their sanity.
It was quarter to six by the time he arrived at the garden centre. He noticed the opening hours were 0900 – 1800. Only just in time, he thought.
Cherry was on the till again. There was a queue of five people.
He smiled. ‘Could I see Mrs Harper please.’
‘I’m sorry, she
’s gone home.’
‘Hey mate, there’s a queue,’ a fat sweaty man with an enormous belly and long straggly hair called along the line.
Stick waved his warrant card in the general direction. ‘Police business.’
‘Does it say you have the right to jump queues on that card?’
That’s all he needed. Xena would have threatened to arrest the man, or simply ripped his throat out and stamped on it in front of him, but he wasn’t like that. He decided the best course of action was to ignore the man.
‘I need to speak to her urgently. Have you got a mobile number for her?’
‘The fat man had shuffled to the front of the queue. ‘And does it you say on that card you can ignore decent hard-working folk?’
He turned to face the man. ‘Look Sir, I’ll be out of your hair soon. I just need...’
‘Yeah, well I need to get home, and you’re stopping me from doing that.’
‘This will take a lot longer if you...’
‘Oh, so now it’s my fault?’ He started barging Stick backwards with his protruding belly.
One thing that Stick didn’t like to advertise too much was his 3rd Dan black belt in Aikido. As a young man he’d had very little physical strength, but he needed to defend himself from the bullies. He decided that Aikido, which blended with the motion of the attacker and redirected the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on, was what he wanted to become proficient in. The bullies soon learned to pick on other people.
Stick pulled the fat man forward in the direction he was already moving by his arm, twisted it and forced him down to the floor, and then put the plastic restraints on him.
There was clapping from the remaining people in the queue, and a small crowd that had gathered to watch the spectacle.
‘The number?’ he reminded Cherry.
She gave him the number.
Thank you. Stick sat on the fat man’s back and keyed in the number.
‘You’re going to fucking pay for this mate. This is... this is fucking torture, or something similar. My lawyers will have you for fucking breakfast, and...’
‘I’m trying to make a phone call here, can you shut up?’
‘Yeah you’d like that, wouldn’t you? An innocent man...’
Stick brought one of his heels back and jabbed the man in the side of the chest. ‘Oops, sorry.’
‘Clare Harper.’
‘Mrs Harper, this is Detective Constable Gilbert. My partner and I visited you yesterday.’
‘Yes.’
‘I need to look at the personnel records that the Romeros kept between...’
‘Sorry. If they ever existed they don’t anymore. We had a clear-out. I only have personnel records dating from 2005.’
Nothing was going to plan. ‘Did you know any of the people the Romeros took on to help them?’
‘Before my time, sorry.’
‘When the Romeros went back to Mexico, do you know who took over their gardening contracts?’
‘I think someone who used to work for them on a regular basis got the contracts, but I don’t know what his name was.’
‘Do you know who would?’
‘Sorry. I’m not being much help, am I?’
‘It’s not your fault. If you don’t know, you don’t know. Thanks for listening anyway.’
He ended the call. Now what?
‘Am I under arrest, or not?’ the fat man under him asked.
‘Do you wish to apologise?’
‘You can fuck off, mate.’
‘In which case, I think I will arrest you. Let’s see, obstructing a police officer in the pursuance of his duties, striking a police officer... Now, that alone will get you...’
‘All right... I’ll apologise.’
‘I’m waiting.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Have you got a pair of scissors?’ he asked Cherry at the till.
She passed him a pair over. He cut through the plastic restraint, and handed them back.
‘Thanks very much for your time, Cherry,’ he said as he made his way to the door.
‘Just wait, mate. I’ve got all these witnesses who saw you attack me.’
‘Shut the fuck up, you fat bastard,’ a man in the crowd shouted. ‘All we saw was you acting like a prat.’
There were loud cheers.
‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’ he said as he barged past Stick.
The man in the crowd who had spoken up before said. ‘We’ll all leave our names and phone numbers with the girl on the till, officer. If that idiot does make a complaint about you, we’ll all act as witnesses for you.’
‘Thanks very much,’ he said, and made his way out to the car park. Now he’d go home. He needed time to think how to tackle the brick wall in front of him. Maybe Xena and DI Carter had come up with something. He wondered how they were getting on together.
***
Xena had a problem – her bank account was bereft of sufficient funds.
They were at the Cathedral Hotel in the centre of York. The cost to stay the night – just for her – was £119. If she hadn’t sent those photographs by courier, she would have been fine. Now, she could afford £119 – just. But if she paid that much money for the room, she’d be – to use the current terminology – “maxed out”. That wasn’t the problem though. The problem was afterwards. She’d have no money for food, petrol, or anything else, and would have to go cap-in-hand to Buxton. That was a major problem, especially after the way she’d treated the bitch. What goes around comes around jumped into her head, and then she thought she might kill the person who had thought that phrase up.
‘I’ve decided I don’t want to stay here,’ she said.
‘Why’s that, Sarge? This is a very nice hotel.’
‘It’s too obvious.’ It was the first thing that entered her head.
‘Too obvious? Ah, you haven’t got enough money to pay for a room, have you?’
‘Did I ask for your fucking opinion?’
‘Do you want me to pay?’
Xena gave her a look that would have turned lesser mortals to stone. ‘I’m just going to go and find somewhere less obvious.’
‘Well, I think I’ll stay here in the lap of luxury.’
‘If you do, you won’t get to see what’s in those boxes, and I’ll fucking leave you here when I go back tomorrow.’
‘Or, you could let me pay, which will require you to stop calling me Buxton. You don’t have to call me Ma’am – Jen will do. What do you say?’
‘Or, I could just fucking leave you here, and drive back to Hoddesdon tonight. What do you say?’
‘Come on, Xena. I think we know each other well enough by now. I won’t try to take over your investigation, but you have to treat me like a human being. Let’s put our differences aside and solve this case together.’
‘You’ll pay?’
‘Yes.’
It was certainly an option. She was tired of being on her guard all the time. It would probably be good to have a decent conversation for a change.
‘For everything?’
DI Jeannette Carter smiled. ‘Yes, I’ll pay for everything. This is a busman’s holiday for me.’
‘I can imagine. Okay, let’s do it... Jen, but we need ground floor rooms. We don’t want to be lugging those boxes up three flights of stairs.’
‘They have lifts, you know.’
‘I know. It takes people a while to appreciate my sense of humour.’
‘That’s what you call it, is it?’
There were rooms at the back in an annexe. They were slightly cheaper at £109. Carter paid for two rooms next to each other, and Xena drove the car round and parked it outside the annex door. By the time they were settled in it was quarter to six.
‘What about eating first?’ Xena suggested. ‘Then we can come back, hump the boxes into one of the rooms, shower, and start wading through them?’
‘Okay. You don’t want to go to the bar later, and see if we
can pull something half-decent?’
‘I’m too knackered. The best I can do is pull the quilt over my head tonight.’
They avoided the hotel restaurant because they didn’t want to get dressed for dinner. Instead, they walked along the High Street until they found an Italian restaurant and ate there. When they returned to the hotel they shifted the four boxes out of the boot of the car and into Xena’s room. After a shower they opened the first box, and a large brown rat jumped out and ran under the bed.
They both squealed and jumped onto the bed.
Insistent knocking came from the other side of the door. ‘Is everything all right in there?’ a man shouted.
‘Fuck off,’ Xena shouted back.
‘What are we going to do?’ Carter said.
‘You can crawl under the bed and kill it.’
‘Never gonna happen, Blake.’
‘Rats can’t climb can they?’
They pulled the bedspread up, so that it wasn’t touching the floor.
‘Jesus, we’re stuck here,’ Carter said. ‘They’ll find our rotting corpses in about six months time and wonder what happened.’
Xena was sitting on a pillow with her back against the headboard and her knees drawn up. ‘I think we should make a run for the door.’
‘And then what?’
‘We sleep in your room.’
Carter’s eyes narrowed. ‘I get the bed.’
‘We both get the bed.’
‘All right. What about the boxes?’
‘Fuck ‘em.’
They scrambled off the bed, and escaped through the door. Once they were in Carter’s room they roared with laughter. Then they raided the mini bar, and once it was empty Carter rang room service and asked them to bring over two bottles of wine.
‘Have you ever been with another woman?’ Carter asked.
‘In your own words, “Never gonna happen, Carter”.’
But after they’d consumed the two bottles of wine, they ordered another two bottles, and one thing led to another...
Chapter Nineteen
Richards parked up outside 38 Puck Road at five thirty. Once they were inside the house, she rushed up the stairs to take a shower and get changed, shouting ‘hello’ to Alicia Mae and Jack on the way.