by Ellis, Tim
Once two squad cars had arrived with Constable Andrew Bucknall waving the search warrant in the drizzle, they entered the house. The body parts were stored in jars on a shelf in the kitchen. The next victim had been identified as Deidre Morrison – who was apparently guilty of plotting to murder her husband – but there was no evidence of such a crime. They found this information written on a scrap of paper – in Leonard Anstee’s handwriting.
They arrested Leonard Anstee and charged him with three counts of murder, and a further count of conspiracy to murder Deidre Morrison. but there was no justification for holding Father Peter Runnt. When Parish and Richards interviewed him that night, he confessed to visiting Anstee, but as far as he was concerned he had just been visiting one of his parishioners.
***
Xena took the call from David Rushforth.
‘I spoke to him earlier,’ Rushforth said. ‘He wanted to know who my gardeners are, and I pointed him in the direction of Squibb Landscapes in North Weald Bassett.’
‘Thank you, Mr Rushforth.’
‘You’re welcome. How’s the case...’
She ended the call. The last thing she wanted was to feature in a book about how Dave Rushforth had solved the case for her.
There was no time for the yellow pages, so she rang 118118, and asked for Squibb Landscapes.
‘Hello.’
‘Did a skinny policeman come in to see you today?’
‘Who’s calling?’
‘Detective Sergeant Blake.’
‘Yes. He had a photograph of a group of five gardeners behind a woman. Wanted to know if I knew any of the gardeners.’
‘And did you?’
‘Just one. A young man who joined the Army called Harry Hall.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes... except he wanted to know who Harry had worked for before.’
‘And...?’
‘Oh, I told him Portman Landscapes in Theydon Bois.’
‘Thank you.’
She felt like a telephonist as she rang 118118 again and asked for the number of Portman Landscapes. It rang continuously. She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was twenty to six. She rang the Duty Sergeant.
‘Sergeant Jackson.’
‘It’s DS Blake. I need a squad car to go to Portman Landscapes in Theydon Bois.’
‘Certainly, DS Blake. And when they get there, what will they be doing?’
If she’d been a DI, she would have shoved her hand so far up Jackson’s arse that she could have ripped out her tonsils. ‘You know I’m trying to track down DC Gilbert? Well, he went there sometime today. So, I want them to take a look, and see if there’s anything unusual. I need to speak to someone from there, but I’m racking my brains wondering how to find out who owns the company, and how we contact them.’
‘Wait.’
Fuck’s sake! Wait! Who the fuck did she think she was?
‘Okay. Companies House states that Trevor Portman owns the company. There’s no answer when I ring, so I’ve sent a car round to his home address. As per your request, I’ve also despatched a second car to the business.’
Maybe she’d misjudged Jackson. Saying thank you was going to be like swallowing a brick.
‘Are you still there, DS Blake?’
‘Thank you.’
She heard mocking laughter. ‘I knew you had those two words somewhere in your vocabulary.’
The phone went dead.
Sometimes, she had an idea why people resorted to murder. Murder was certainly preferable to saying “thank you” to some people.
Now she had to wait. ‘Where the fuck are you, Stick?’ she muttered. ‘I’m going to kick your arse all the way home when I find you, you fucking dork.’
‘Any news?’ Carter asked.
‘I’m waiting for a phone call.’
‘Coffee?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ve gone as far as I can with Samuel’s information.’
‘Yes, I know. Stick’s got the final piece of the jigsaw in his pocket. We just need to find the stupid bastard before he loses it.’
She felt a hand on her shoulder. ‘He’ll be all right,’ Carter said.
‘I thought you were making coffee.’
It was another half hour before Jackson rang her.
‘About fucking time. Are your people driving around in milk floats?’
‘No wonder they hid you away in the MIT.’
‘Never mind the compliments, have you got any news?’
‘Apparently, Mr Portman is on holiday. A Mr Justin Heywood is looking after the business until Mr Portman’s return next week, but Heywood’s nowhere to be found. We rang him – no answer. So, I had the bods in forensics track his mobile phone. He’s currently driving down the M2 towards Dover. I’ve notified the port authorities to detain him. As for the business, it’s all locked up, but I’ve asked for an emergency search warrant.’
‘Tell your men to break in now, and start searching.’
‘I’ll obviously have to clear that with Inspector Threadneeedle, but I don’t...’
She put the phone down and headed towards the car park. The fucking bitch was trying to do her job. Her judgement of Jackson had been spot on – she was a fucking bitch.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Carter called after her.
‘You’ll have to stay in the car.’
‘I know.’
From Hoddesdon to Theydon Bois, onlookers thought that they were witnessing a car chase. Xena drove so fast that Carter kept making grunting noises out of pure fear. At one point, Carter was forced to thrust her head out of the passenger window and vomit – the wind whipped the vomit out of her mouth as if she were caught in a tornado.
When they arrived at Portman Landscapes – skidding in a circle on the gravel like Vin Diesel in a Pontiac Firebird – four uniforms had broken into the place and begun searching.
‘Come and help,’ Xena said to Carter.
‘I thought...’
‘Never mind that.’
It was quarter to eight, and already dark. She took two torches from the boot of the car, and passed one to Carter. She also noticed that the gates were still locked with a thick chain and a substantive bolt.
‘I have just the fucking thing for that,’ she said, and opened the boot again. ‘Da, da!’ she announced holding up a pair of bolt cutters.
‘Have you got the strength to work them?’ Carter said.
‘I had them specially modified, so that I could operate them without too much trouble.’
She made short work of the chain on the wire mesh gates.
‘Hey, not bad,’ Carter said, and smiled.
Portman Landscapes was large. In fact, it was spread over four acres, and consisted of turf, plants, soil, manure, and a myriad of other supplies for designing and building the perfect garden. There were also four buildings containing dry supplies, and one full of machinery from rotovators, lawnmowers, and strimmers, to a small mechanical digger. And, wherever they looked, there were small locked storage pods, which needed opening and searching.
It was ten to eleven before Xena eventually found Stick in one of the lockable storage pods on the edge of a turf field.
‘Have you caught him?’ was the first thing out of his mouth when she pulled down the gag.
‘Not yet, but we will. No thanks to you though. So, how come someone from Special Ops let Heywood lock him in here?’
‘He caught me unawares.’
‘I’ve a good mind to fucking leave you in here, Stick,’ she said. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just shut the fucking door, and pretend I haven’t found you?’
‘Because you like me...?’
Xena threw back her head and laughed. ‘I fucking hate you. You’re the worst partner I’ve ever had. You’re ugly, you’re stick-like, and your breath still stinks like Lucifer’s arsehole. I’d swap you for a fucking nodding dog any time of day. I suppose you want me to untie you now?’
&nbs
p; ‘Yes, please.’
‘...Sarge?’
‘Yes, please, Sarge.’
‘I’m only going to do it if you promise not to be a stupid fucking dickhead again.’
‘I promise.’
‘I didn’t hear any conviction in that promise.’
‘I PROMISE.’
‘Conviction does not equal loudness.’
‘I promise, Sarge.’
She untied him. ‘Next time I’m just going to fucking leave you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Sarge.’
Aftermath
The third victim was found to be a man called Anthony Vincent. He was rumoured to have run down and killed a five year-old girl while using his mobile phone, but nothing could be proven. As he was a Catholic, and a parishioner of St Gobnait’s church, Richards suggested that he’d sought forgiveness through the confessional. Instead, Father Peter Runnt had found him guilty, and passed his name to God’s current executioner – Leonard Anstee.
Leonard Anstee, who wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the box, had nothing to say during his interviews. In fact, he made no statement to Parish at all. He also refused to talk to his court-appointed solicitor, and said nothing to anyone in his defence.
Father Rosario was found hanged in his office at Our Lady of Sorrows Church. There was a suicide note written in the priest’s own hand: “May the Lord forgive me.”
At the same time, Father Peter Runnt disappeared. Parish was convinced Father Rosario would never have committed suicide, but there was no evidence of foul play. The Coroner’s Inquest concluded it was suicide.
***
‘I’m sorry, Sir,’ Toadstone said. ‘My people found nothing that could help us find who made that DVD.’
‘And all the other stuff?’
‘I had Erin Donnelly working on that – she found nothing either, and she’s one of the best computer people there is. If she found nothing, then there was nothing to find.’
‘Thanks anyway, Toady.’
‘You’re welcome, Sir. You’ve had nothing else?’
‘Not for a couple of days.’
‘Maybe that’s it...?’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Kowalski said, but he knew that all he’d had was a taste of what was to come. Whoever was out to get him would never stop until he was finished.
His appointment with the Chief Constable didn’t go well. He was advised that if things got out of hand, they’d have to let him go. Oh, they’d let him keep his pension, but bringing the force into disrepute was not something they could, or would, tolerate.
***
Angie was released from hospital the following week, but was required to keep weekly appointments at the psychiatric department. It would take time for her to heal, but she had navigated through the worst. They kept Alicia Mae Carter on as a nanny, because Angie still had trouble bonding with Jack. Whenever she held him, she was reminded of everything bad that had happened to her.
***
Erin Donnelly was planning her next move. The initial sortie had gone better than expected, and that he should come to her for help in trying to find out who was targeting him, she thought was just perfect.
***
They decided to meet in the middle, two weekends a month when work commitments permitted. There was some debate about where the middle actually was, and Xena wanted Carter to put her mileage counter on, so that they could compare the distances travelled from Buxton and Hoddesdon to Daventry off the M1 motorway.
Xena had convinced herself that she wasn’t a lesbian. It was merely to tide her over until she could find a man who would give her what she needed. She had no feelings for Carter. For her, it was simply about the sex.
‘I don’t want you getting any fucking ideas that we’re in love or anything like that, or that there’ll be a civil ceremony down the road. We’re here to have sex, end of.’
‘I have no illusions of expressing my undying love for you. If I was going to leave my husband and children, and choose a partner to share my life with it would be someone who didn’t swear all the time, who appreciates a sensitive woman, and who didn’t have so many sex toys... Will you get them off the bed?’
‘I know they’re great, aren’t they?’
‘Beats me how you had the balls to go into a shop and buy them.’
‘Have you ever heard of the fucking Internet?’
Carter picked up a long thin green penis-shaped object with dangly bits and nodules, licked her lips, and turned it round in her hands. ‘What does this do?’
‘Let’s go and find out,’ Xena said. ‘We can eat afterwards’.
***
Stick met Jennifer D’Arcy on Saturday outside the tapas bar in Southend. She was small and fat. Stick was tall and thin. They were a perfect match. The following week, she came back to his house and pretended to be a French maid. That night, Stick had sex for the very first time.
***
Toadstone had given him the picture, locket, and hair back, together with the results of the DNA test. Tom Besnard – the photographic magician in forensics had managed to enlarge the picture of the woman sufficiently to push it through the database, but there was no match. He wasn’t surprised. His birth and childhood seemed to be a riddle shrouded in mystery inside an enigma.
He thought he had the answers, but now he realised it was all a lie – They had set him up, knowing he could never check his ancestry to the Italian royal family. So, who was he now? Why had this woman suddenly appeared from the shadows? What had been in the envelope? Where could he go from here? He had the dead woman’s picture and DNA; he had the name Jessica Butler – which they’d discovered had belonged to a woman who had died twelve years previously; and he had the locket and the cutting of hair – it wasn’t much at all.
Shortly after Frankl was released he’d had an accident crossing the road. The driver of the white van said Frankl just leapt out in front of him – it was as if he’d been pushed. There were no witnesses.
‘At least he won’t be suing you now for false arrest,’ Richards said.
‘Your concern for his demise is touching.’
‘Scumbag. But now we’ll never know what he did with her handbag.’
***
Tumbers in Peru,
On the border with Equador
Father Peter Runnt had a mission from God – To punish the sinners of the world. His time in Britain had run its course. As had his time in Argentina, Holland, and Russia before that. He was not downhearted though, because Peru had a lot of sinners. In fact, he was surrounded by sinners wherever he went in the world. There was still much work for him to do.
***
The Defence Geospatial Intelligence Fusion Centre (DGIFC), Feltham, South West London
The DGIFC is a top secret installation. It provides traditional and digital cartography and aerial photographic interpretation to all military services, but especially the RAF.
On the seventh basement level there is a small section that deals with military experiments. This section used to be located within the labyrinthine underground corridors of the MI6 building at Vauxhall Bridge, but they moved under the cover of darkness during the winter of 1992. It is guarded by a small detachment of soldiers from a special unit set up by a non-existent department in the Ministry of Defence.
Military experiments – especially those involving genetic manipulation – aren’t legal. In fact, they’ve never been legal. Yet, since 1953, when Watson & Crick suggested the double-helix model of DNA structure, military experiments have been conducted on human beings.
The head of section is a microbiologist called Ruth Völker. Her grandfather – Herbert Kuhl – assisted SS Hauptsturmfürer Josef Mengele at Auschwitz with his research into heredity, using the inmates – especially twins – for human experiments. Although it would be inappropriate to ever say so, Ruth has always been a great admirer of Josef Mengele’s work on heredity.
Her predecessor – Orvill Lorenz – who pioneered genetic engi
neering within the section was a friend and a mentor, and it was only natural that she should follow in his footsteps.
As well as directing the work of the section she was also responsible for protecting its secrets, and the section had many secrets. Not least, Jed Parish – Codenamed: Epsilon 5 – which kept jumping out of the damned box to frighten them. Soon, a decision regarding a final solution would need to be taken.
####
Be Not Afraid
Be not afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.
Acts 26:17
__________
Chapter One
Monday, 25th February
‘You’ve been invited, Parish.’ the Chief said.
‘To the Women’s Institute for their AGM again? Don’t tell me, they want me to talk about all the grisly murders I’ve investigated since the last time I frightened the life out of them.’
‘You’ve been invited as well, Richards.’
‘I don’t think I want to talk to a load of old fuddy-duddy women about knitting and needlepoint.’
Parish looked at her. His face creased up. ‘What do you know about knitting and needlepoint?’
‘Nothing at all. That’s why I don’t want to talk about them.’