Body 13 (Quigg Book 2)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘I would very much like to be there when the virus is activated by inputting the password.’

  ‘It will destroy all the records?’

  ‘Everything.’

  Just before the exit, Bartholomew stopped. ‘Did you know he visits the comatose Dr Poulson each night before he goes home?’

  ‘Really? How quaint.’

  ***

  After having stopped off at the Macdonald’s on King’s Mall and ordered a take-out, Duffy pulled into the station car park at four fifty. She hadn’t eaten, but Quigg had ordered and consumed a double cheeseburger with fries, an apple turnover and a coffee. He knew that, sooner rather than later, he would have to repay her. She had paid for two meals now.

  They climbed the back stairs and found Walsh wandering up and down the corridor outside the incident room.

  ‘Have you got crabs, Walsh?’

  ‘I’d rather be pacing out here in the corridor than sitting in the storeroom on my own, Sir.’

  ‘Storeroom! There is only an incident room in this corridor, Walsh. There may be storerooms in other corridors, but in this one we have none. Why are you pacing, anyway?’

  After Mave’… Duffy... rang me with the names, I went up to forensics. Asquith tried Aarushi first and it worked. He was in, but that’s when things started to go wrong.’

  Quigg should have known. ‘We have to keep reminding ourselves that…?’

  ‘…Life is never that easy, Sir,’ Walsh finished off.

  ‘That’s right, Walsh. So, what happened?’

  ‘All the information has gone. Asquith says it was a malicious virus.’

  ‘Crap! Now we have nothing.’ He told Walsh about the shooter.

  ‘We’ve still got Ahmed’s bank records, Sir,’ Walsh said.

  Quigg felt despondent. ‘OK, let’s go home. I’ll have to give some thought to where we go from here, if we go anywhere.’

  ‘You’re not going to give up, are you, Sir?’

  ‘I’m not going to do anything for the moment, Duffy, except go home to think. Didn’t I just say that?’

  ‘Sorry, Sir.’

  They were standing in the corridor staring at him as if he had more to give. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you both on Monday.’

  ‘Are we not working tomorrow, Sir?’

  ‘There seems little point, Duffy.’

  They trudged along the corridor to the stairs.

  The case at first had branched off in all directions, but each one had been a cul de sac in disguise. Now he had no leads to follow. He couldn’t ever remember a case being so difficult. It was as if he were a participant in a game: a game in which no one had told him the rules, or who the other contestants were. And, based on his performance so far, he imagined he was losing. Losing what, he had no idea. Had he moved forward at all on the game board? He still had no clue who Body 13 was or why it was taken. What he did know was that someone with powerful connections was determined to stop him finding out the answer to both questions.

  He followed Walsh and Duffy out and made his way to the tube station. He had just enough time to visit Debbie and then get home.

  ***

  When he arrived at the hospital, a female armed guard was standing outside Debbie’s room. He nodded and showed his warrant card; he wasn’t in the mood for smiling. How long would the Chief keep the armed guards here, he wondered? It must be seriously eating into the Chief’s budget.

  Mr Poulson wasn’t about; he was glad. He didn’t want to waste time talking to her father. He came to talk to Debbie, spent all day looking forward to it and wasn’t going to be robbed of it by Mr Poulson.

  ‘Hi, Debbie.’ He leaned over and kissed her cheek. She smelled of soap and not perfumed soap either. He still remembered the smell of her expensive perfume when she had leaned in the window of his clapped out car. That was probably the moment he fell in love with her.

  ‘What a day - in fact, what a night and a day. After I left you I travelled home on the tube. When I got off at Upton Park, two men followed me and then attacked me. I’ve got two cracked ribs and a broken arm that the hospital put in a plaster cast. I know, you’re wondering why? Well, that’s what’s interesting. They warned me off the case. Why is that interesting, you ask? Well, today we exhausted all our leads and there is no case. Yes, so why did they warn me off? If I knew that, Debbie, I’d know what happened to Body 13. We found the man who shot you. Yeah, unfortunately he’d been shot as well - in the back of the head, executed. So, we’re not going to get a lot out of him, I’m afraid.’

  A waif of a nurse came in, took Debbie’s pulse and blood pressure, plotted them on her chart and left without speaking. It was seven thirty. Nurse Robertson would come on shift soon.

  ‘One thing we’ve decided is that someone powerful is behind the disappearance of Body 13. Don’t ask me why; we haven’t worked that one out yet. Oh, by the way, I’m having lunch with Ché Guevara’s granddaughter tomorrow. It’s not what you think. She’s paying and she’s promised me a corner piece to the jigsaw if I give her an exclusive on Body 13. To be honest, Debbie, I haven’t really got much of a choice. If I don’t get another lead, I’ll have to drop the case and investigate something else. She obviously knows something, and I don’t mind if she tells me what it is and gives me a free lunch as well. What? Yeah, I know there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I’ll be careful. All she’s getting from me is the story.’

  ‘What else? Oh yeah, I’ve got my appointment with the bank manager tomorrow morning at ten. I keep extending my loan; pretty soon they’ll be banking with me.’ He laughed. ‘And my mum knows about you - not that I was going out with you, she knew that already, but that you’re in hospital having your appendix out. For God’s sake don’t tell her you were shot. I don’t tell my mum anything usually because she worries a lot, but I was feeling weak last night and let my guard down.’

  ‘Here again, Inspector?’

  ‘Nurse Robertson - good to see you.’

  ‘Have you got a second job as a bouncer at one of the local bars, Inspector? You look as though you came off second best.’

  ‘The state of my bank account, I could do with it.’ He wasn’t going to tell her what really happened.

  ‘It’s my last night on duty tonight, Inspector.’

  ‘But who will look after Debbie if you’re not here?’

  ‘Don’t worry; all of the nurses on this ward are excellent. They all want to see Dr Poulson recover.’

  ‘Are there any signs that she is recovering?’

  Nurse Robertson picked up the chart and examined it, then riffled through her notes. ‘There’s no change, which is good. She’s holding her own. What we don’t want to see is any deterioration in her condition. As long as there’s no change, she’s on the way to recovery. It’s just a matter of time before her brain repairs itself and she wakes up.’

  He liked Nurse Lillian Robertson and would write a letter of gratitude to the chief executive. ‘I’m grateful for all you’ve done for Debbie, nurse. Have a good holiday.’

  ‘Hardly a holiday, but thank you. A couple of days to move my body clock back to daytime hours and then I’ll be back to work on the day shift.’

  He kissed Debbie on the cheek.

  ‘Goodnight, nurse,’ he said on his way out.

  ‘Goodnight, Inspector,’ she called after him as she turned Debbie onto her side.

  ***

  All the way home on the tube he was like a paranoid schizophrenic staring at every passenger, wondering if they were stalking him, waiting to get him by himself to finish the job. When he arrived at Upton Park Station, he had a headache from looking around and second-guessing all the potential assassins.

  If anyone were following him, they had on the cloak of invisibility. There was no way he was going to get jumped a second time.

  He made it home unscathed, but his headache had escalated to a rare 10+ on the Richter magnitude scale. He hoped Beryl wasn’t going to torture him until she got what she
wanted. He wasn’t up to it tonight.

  ‘Is that you, Quigg?’

  He wandered into the kitchen. She was listening to Radio 4. ‘Who else would be letting themselves in through the front door with a key at this time of night, Mum?’

  ‘You might have been attacked again and had your keys stolen. They could have come here and robbed us blind. Never mind that an old woman with a weak heart lives here.’

  ‘A weak heart, Mum? Who are you trying to kid? You’ve got the constitution of a gorgon.’

  ‘I’m a fragile old woman, Quigg. If you don’t look after me, I won’t be long for this world.’

  ‘You’ll outlive me, Mum.’

  ‘That had better not happen, Quigg. A mother should not outlive her son. And if you don’t want to tell your own mother what’s going on in your life, I understand. I worry, you know I worry. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you’re still my only son and I worry. Even when you keep things from me I’m going to worry. And my imagination is a lot worse than real life, let me tell you.’

  ‘Debbie was shot in the head, Mum. It was a mistake; it should have been me. I go and visit her every night and talk to her.’

  ‘Oh, Quigg. Is it the case you’re working on?’

  ‘Yes, Mum, but there’s not much of the case left after today. All I have is brick walls.’

  ‘Sometimes you have to know when to let go, Quigg.’

  ‘I know, Mum. I’ve been thinking that now is probably the time. I’ll give it some thought tomorrow and make a decision on Monday when I get to work.’

  ‘Whatever you decide, Quigg, I know you’ll do the right thing.’

  ‘’Thanks, Mum. Have you got anything to eat?’

  ‘You men are all the same. You’re lucky, Quigg. I know you’re always short of money at this time of the month, so I made a beef broth with dumplings and bought a large white farmhouse loaf for mopping up the gravy.’

  ‘You’re an angel in disguise, Mum.’

  ‘And don’t you forget it, Quigg.’

  ***

  The phone vibrated on his bedside table again. It was getting to be a regular occurrence. Thankfully, this time it was ten in the morning; he was having a Sunday lie in.

  ‘Quigg?’

  ‘Detective Inspector?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t know me.’

  ‘Then why are you ringing?’

  ‘I’m filling in for Dr Poulson. My name’s Jim Dewsbury.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘And there’s something I’d like to discuss with you about the bodies from the Mugabe fire.’

  ‘Can’t we discuss it on the phone?’

  ‘I would much rather talk face-to-face.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Eleven?’

  ‘I should be able to get there by eleven.’

  ‘I’ll see you then, Inspector.’

  He liked short phone calls; they were efficient on the ears and the vocal cords. Climbing out of bed, he realised that he was limited to a one-hand wash again. Having a shower would be a major undertaking and he didn’t have the time now. He smiled. Maybe he should ask Cheryl or Janice Dobbs – or both – to come round and wash him with shower gel and a couple of sea sponges.

  After he’d washed with difficulty, and alone, he put on a pair of jeans, some blue sneakers and a loose fitting blue and white striped shirt. The white stripes were thin and the shirt looked more blue than white. Apart from the cauliflower ear, the swollen right eye and cheek and the cuts and grazes too numerous to mention, he looked reasonable.

  He rang Duffy.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Meet me at Hammersmith morgue at eleven.’

  ‘Oh! I thought we weren’t working, Sir?’

  ‘Is it a problem?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘You have to be prepared for a phone call at any time of the day and night when you’re a detective, Duffy. If it’s a problem I’ll go on my own.’ He was being unfair. He knew how much she wanted to be a detective. She would agree to come and then re-arrange her life. The job always came first or you got out, escaped, found a nine-to-five to please other people, but died inside yourself because you weren’t doing what you needed to do.

  ‘It’s no problem, Sir.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see you there.’

  ‘OK, Sir.’

  He smiled. He had been like that once, resenting the intrusive phone calls. But after a while they became part of your life - you expected them, adjusted your free time accordingly. Sometimes, you welcomed the phone calls; they were a valid excuse to get out of having lunch with the in-laws, going shopping or walking the dogs. Invariably, though, the phone calls came when you were making love, had promised the kids a trip to Macdonald’s or were in the middle of a speech as the best man at a wedding.

  He went downstairs; he knew Beryl had been up since six; she had always been an early riser. He hadn’t changed since being a teenager. Given the opportunity, he would lie in bed all day - sleeping intermittently - loathe to venture out of the womb-like security of his quilt, until, of course, nature made it impossible to stay.

  ‘Is that you, Quigg?’

  ‘Who else would be coming downstairs at ten-past-ten on a Sunday morning?’

  ‘We could have had burglars in the night.’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘You’re up early.’

  ‘I’ve got to go out.’

  ‘The case?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought it was dead?’

  ‘It might not be.’

  ‘You be careful, Quigg.’

  ‘I will, Mum.’

  ‘Should I cook us a Sunday lunch?’

  ‘Sorry, Mum, a beautiful woman is buying me lunch.’

  ‘Pleasure?’

  ‘She’s a journalist, Mum - might have a lead on the case.’

  ‘You’re going to die a lonely old man, Quigg.’

  ‘Debbie said that.’

  ‘She’s right.’

  ‘See you later, Mum.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Duffy was already propping up a stainless steel mortuary table when he arrived ten minutes late. She looked great in a pair of jeans, a floppy hat and a long coat tied in the middle with a belt.

  ‘Glad you could make it, Duffy,’ he said when he walked into the mortuary through the squeaky doors.

  She smiled. ‘I had nothing else better to do, Sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  A man stepped forward - a small, balding man with long straggly hair sprouting from his ears. Quigg shook the extended hand.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Inspector. Jim Dewsbury - I’m filling in for Dr Poulson while she’s recovering from her accident.’

  Accident! He didn’t know who had told Dewsbury that, but he’d have to be a fabricator of stories to call being shot in the head by a Glock45 an accident.

  ‘What’s so important that you drag me to the place I hate the most?’

  Thankfully, there were no bodies on the steel tables, but the smell still triggered feelings of dread. Sweat broke out on his hairline and ran down his back.

  ‘If you want, we can go and sit in the cafeteria?’

  Quigg looked at Dewsbury to see if he was joking, but didn’t detect any humour in his offer. ‘I’d prefer that,’ he said, nonchalantly.

  ‘Fine, I’ll just get my coat from the office.’

  ‘Are you OK with that, Duffy?’

  ‘Am I paying again, Sir?’

  He grinned. ‘Could be, but let’s see if we can get the well-paid doctor to cough up, shall we?’

  Quigg moved towards the door, edging it open with his shoulder while he waited for Dewsbury.

  ‘Right, let’s go, Inspector,’ Dewsbury said as he came back in a white hospital coat over his blue uniform.

  They walked along the corridor to the patient lift, and had to wait until it arrived from the third floor. When the doors opened it was empty. ‘Second floor,’ Dewsbury said out lou
d as if it responded to voice commands, but he pressed the ‘2’ button as well. The doors closed and they chugged up to the second floor.

  When they arrived at the cafeteria there was no one in the queue. Quigg let Dewsbury go first. Following him, he ordered a coffee and a chocolate muffin. Duffy brought up the rear and could only manage a small bottle of water. Quigg nodded and let the well-paid Dewsbury pull out his wallet when the girl on the till asked "all together?" Finding a sparsely populated area of the cafeteria, they sat down.

  ‘There were fifteen people who died in the fire at Mugabe Terrace,’ Dewsbury said.

  Quigg felt no need to respond to information he already knew.

  ‘Four of the fifteen were children.’

  He wondered when Dewsbury was going to get to the point.

  ‘We connected two of the children to their parents through DNA analysis, but the other two children – both females – weren’t related to any of the other adults who died in the fire.’

  Quigg took a swallow of coffee to swill the muffin down. ‘Visiting friends…’

  ‘Don’t forget, the fire was in the early hours of the morning.’

  He tried to think of reasons why two children would be in a block of flats which did not contain their parents in the middle of the night. ‘A sleepover?’

  Dewsbury rubbed his shaven chin between thumb and forefinger. ‘Could be, but…’

  ‘Go on, Doc, say what’s on your mind.’

  ‘You’d need a second opinion if it ever got to court, but I found evidence that both girls had been sexually abused.’

  Quigg looked askance. ‘I’ve been focusing on finding out the identity and location of the missing body. I know next to nothing about the other people who died in the fire.’ Immediately he thought that maybe he’d been negligent in looking at Body 13 in isolation to the other occupants of Mugabe Terrace.

  ‘Both girls were around seven or eight years old.’

  Shit! Quigg thought. Is it another crime? Or are they connected to the disappearance of Body 13? If the girls weren’t related to the occupants of the flats, why hasn’t the alarm been raised about two missing children? Quigg closed his eyes.