The Skulls Beneath Eternity Wharf (Quigg Book 4)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘I didn’t murder anybody, although I did come close a few times.’

  ‘Did you have cause to go into the Mental Health Wing?’

  ‘Spent many happy hours there working out drug regimes. Why?’

  ‘Did you ever go down to the old boiler room?’

  ‘I didn’t know there was one.’

  ‘Can you show me your forearms?’

  He undid the buttons of his shirt cuffs and pushed the shirt and white coat sleeves up one at a time – the arms were bare.

  ‘Thank you. One last thing, and then we’ll get out of your way. Could I have a sample of your handwriting?’

  Salisbury shrugged. ‘Sure, I don’t see why not. You’ll destroy it once you’ve framed me for a crime I couldn’t possibly have committed?’

  ‘Of course, Sir. I see you’re getting the hang of how this self-sustaining police force works.’

  Salisbury passed Quigg a scrap of paper that he’d written some abusive words on.

  ‘Very kind, Sir, have a nice day now.’

  ‘And you, Inspector. Although, in a police state the forces of evil always have nice days.’

  ‘People are weird,’ Kline said.

  Quigg’s phone vibrated.

  ‘Quigg.’

  ‘You’ve got to see this.’

  ‘Hello Perkins. A short introductory comment would have been useful – something like, "Good afternoon, Sir. It’s your friend Perkins from forensics here".’

  ‘Are you on your way?’

  ‘You’re excited, aren’t you?’

  ‘If you’d seen what I’ve just seen you’d be excited as well.’

  ‘So where are you?’

  ‘In the cavern.’

  ‘That’s not even close to where we are now.’

  ‘Make a detour.’

  ‘I’ll see...’ Perkins had ended the call.

  To Kline he said, ‘We’ll have to visit Flannery Shipp tomorrow. Perkins has got himself all excited and wants to show us what he’s found in the cavern at Eternity Wharf.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘There is a woman in Fulham.’

  ‘That’s nothing new, Mr Whiteley. Quigg has three women in Fulham,’ Bartholomew said down the phone. He was sitting in his study with the door locked when one of his mobiles had vibrated across his desk. He’d been selecting the little entertainment parcels from a series of encrypted photographs his Romanian contact had sent him in preparation for the Last Supper. There was one little boy... He rubbed his crotch at the thought of what he was going to do to that little boy.

  ‘Then this is a fourth woman with twins called Edith Golden who is a tattoo artist. She and Quigg used to be an item apparently.’

  Bartholomew’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘And the twins?’

  ‘My man believes they are Quigg’s because the big-breasted woman...’

  ‘Constable Duffy?’

  ‘Yes, except she is no longer a constable. She appeared at this woman’s flat and is still there.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  There was a brief silence at the other end. ‘My man suspects that she is offering respite from the babies.’

  ‘Never had any myself, but I would imagine they can be troublesome.’

  ‘Most definitely. I have three.’

  So, Quigg has another little secret? A woman and two babies would be a significant weakness outside his fort, and his partner is lying in a hospital bed as well. As a plan began to germinate in a dark recess of his mind the corner of his lip curled up – this time Quigg.

  ‘You have done well, Mr Whiteley. I have transferred the agreed amount into the numbered account you gave me.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  He ended the call.

  Good news always pleased him – and more was to come. While he was enjoying the Last Supper, his wife would be attending a charity do. He smiled – they did a lot of charity work at the Torture Chateau. Well, this time would be different. There would be an unfortunate accident. He’d arranged for his wife to have one final all-encompassing orgasm before she died. Five young men would fuck her in every hole and beat her to death as they did so. Sadly, Lady Poppy Langham would die from her injuries. Of course, where she had been found would be hushed up. It wouldn’t do for the wife of a KBE to be fucked and beaten to death in an S & M Club when she was meant to be at a charity do – that wouldn’t do at all – appearances must be maintained.

  He clicked on the picture of a young girl with freckles across the bridge of her nose. Phillip would enjoy her, he thought. He sent the twelve pictures of those he’d selected back to his contact, and then dragged the email to the shredder.

  ***

  After walking back to Kennington station, they caught the train to Embankment on the Northern Line, changed to the Hammersmith & City Line, and then hopped on a train back to Hammersmith.

  ‘Just in time,’ Quigg said as they exited the tube station and headed towards the police station car park.

  ‘It was getting busy, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Going home time. It’s always heaving with sweaty smelly bodies.’

  ‘That didn’t include me, did it?’

  ‘Obviously not. You smell like a summer breeze.’

  Once they reached the car they set off down Fulham Palace Road to the warehouse at Eternity Wharf. It was ten past six when they arrived. As usual, they had to put on zip-up suits, boots and gloves before climbing down the ladder to the cavern.

  Industrial spotlights, powered by a generator located in the warehouse, were positioned in the caverns and also the tunnels between caverns. The Chief, Janet and Perkins were in cavern number nine where the hole was located.

  ‘Ah Quigg, about time you got here.’

  ‘Hello Chief, I didn’t know they made paper suits in triple extra large. It’s certainly a snug fit.’

  ‘It ripped at the back when I forced the zip up.’

  Quigg peered round the back of the Chief and saw the tear from arse to neck. ‘You should complain, Sir. Shoddy workmanship, and tell them you’d like your own specially made-to-measure suits.’

  ‘When do I ever attend a crime scene, Quigg?’

  ‘You’re here now.’

  ‘Perkins was beside himself, so I had to come down here to calm him down. And not only that, I have no secretary thanks to you, so I don’t know what the hell’s going on in my own station anymore. And I’m a Detective Sergeant down.’

  ‘Grab yourself one of the young women from administration. I’m sure there’s someone there who will suit your needs. What about Cheryl?’

  ‘She’s a good few months pregnant. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?’

  You know I haven’t got it in me, Chief. I can barely get out of bed in the mornings.’

  ‘Cheryl eh? Yes, she’s got her head screwed on the right way round, and it’d only be for a short time until I could get a proper secretary.’

  ‘Or you might want to keep Cheryl?’

  ‘Didn’t I just say she was pregnant?’

  ‘You’re not allowed to discriminate against...’

  ‘Me discriminate, Quigg? When have ever known me to discriminate against anyone? And that was a rhetorical question by the way – one of those that doesn’t require an answer.’

  ‘I knew that, Chief.’ He looked at Janet. ‘What about you, Janet?’

  ‘Don’t get me involved.’

  ‘You are involved. What the hell’s going on? Have you found some new evidence?’

  ‘No, not new evidence,’ Perkins said. ‘It’s a lot more interesting than that.’

  ‘Well, are you going to tell me what you’ve found, or do I have to set Kline onto you?’

  ‘Come and look,’ Perkins said leading them to a table with two monitors and a laptop sitting on it. He sat down in front of the laptop and said, ‘Watch.’

  Quigg and Kline leaned over Perkins’ shoulder.

  ‘I take it this is the camera down the hole?’
r />   ‘Yes,’ Perkins said. ‘Quite deep as well.’

  ‘Are those the decapitated bodies?’ he said pointing at a mishmash of arms, legs and torsos.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was that?’

  Perkins cackled insanely. ‘That’s what I wanted to show you.’

  ‘It’s a rat?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A snake?’ Kline offered.

  ‘No.’

  Quigg leaned closer. ‘A monkey?’

  ‘You’re scraping the barrel, Inspector,’ the Chief said from behind them.

  Perkins cackled again.

  ‘Will you stop making that noise, Perkins. What the hell is it then?’

  ‘Watch.’

  ‘There’s more than one of them – a swarm of...’

  Perkins paused the recording.

  ‘Jesus,’ Quigg said. ‘Are those what I think they are?’

  Staring at them from the screen of the laptop were two hairless human faces with skin like tissue paper, opaque eyes, and pointed teeth.

  ‘Humans,’ Perkins said as if he’d discovered the evolutionary missing link.

  ‘This is a joke, isn’t it?’ Kline asked.

  ‘It’s no joke, Constable,’ the Chief responded.

  Quigg leaned closer. ‘How many are there?’

  ‘We’ve counted seven up to now,’ Perkins said, ‘but we have no real idea how many there might be down there?’

  ‘And we’ve seen them feeding off the bodies,’ Janet added.

  ‘In terms of the case,’ Quigg said. ‘It confirms that the decapitated bodies are down there. Those... things have nothing to do with us.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Quigg,’ the Chief said. ‘You’ve told the press that those bodies are bubonic plague victims from the seventeenth century.’

  ‘I could say now that we’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘Yes you could, but then what are you going to tell them after you’ve made a retraction – the truth?’

  Quigg knew the truth was out of the question. ‘Well... What about those creatures?’

  ‘The scientists would want to go down there – to capture them, study them, examine them... you know the thing. By the time they’d finished, we’d have some new exhibits at London Zoo.’

  ‘They’d find out about the bodies.’

  ‘It would all come out, Quigg.’

  ‘This is a disaster of epic proportions, Chief. These killers have been eluding the police for a hundred and twenty years – it would certainly make us look bad.’

  ‘Very bad, but that’s a minor consideration.’

  ‘No one would believe us – we’d have to show them the evidence. People aren’t ready to see what we’ve seen.’

  The Chief shook his head. ‘We have to protect people from the truth. That’s what we‘re employed to do. We can’t leave all those bodies down there, and we can’t bring them up into the daylight either. They deserve a decent burial.’

  ‘Fire,’ Kline said with a demonic look in her eyes. ‘Burn everything.’

  ‘No,’ Perkins cried.

  ‘He’s a scientist,’ the Chief said. ‘Wants to make a name for himself by revealing to the world that he’s found... a new species of human. Don’t you, Perkins?’

  ‘Please, Sir? I... we could all be famous.’

  The Chief put a hand on Perkins’ shoulder and spoke to him as if he were his father. ‘That’s not our role in life, son. We have to protect the public, not only from the truth of those poor dead people in the hole and what happened to them, but also from those creatures. Can you imagine what would happen if they escaped from their lair beneath us? They eat human flesh for God’s sake. No, there’s only one course of action open to us. Anything else would be madness.’

  ‘We could send in a team of anthropologists to record how they live – their rituals, customs and habits. You know, like they did for the lost tribes of the Amazon?’

  ‘No, son. Those creatures are cannibals. It would end in disaster.’

  Perkins was close to tears. ‘What about the film, Sir?’

  ‘You know the answer to that question, son. No one can ever find out what we’ve discovered down here. Are you with us? Will you destroy it?’

  He gave a heavy sigh. ‘I’ll do it, Sir.’

  ‘One day you’ll realise it was the right thing to do, son.’

  ‘Come on Kline,’ Quigg said. ‘Let’s go home.’

  They climbed the ladder, and then removed the suits.

  Using both hands, Kline re-did her ponytail. ‘How did those creatures get down there?’

  ‘We can only speculate. Maybe some of the killer’s victims escaped down that hole. Maybe they came from somewhere else. We have no idea how long they’ve been down there. We’re also making the assumption that they are a product of what’s happened in the caverns. That might not be the case. They could have existed long before those caverns were built. Maybe there’s a whole society of those creatures living under London. We have no idea how deep that hole is, or where it goes. There could be any number of entry/exit points. Maybe the creatures come out into our world at night and feed off humans, dragging the carcasses down into that hole.’

  ‘I don’t scare easily, you know,’ but she looked back over her shoulder all the same. ‘Do you think it’s right?’

  ‘What, burning everything?’

  ‘Yes. I mean those creatures are still alive – still human.’

  ‘Hardly, Kline. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t invite them for lunch, would you?’

  ‘I’d be on the menu.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ***

  They said goodnight at the station. Quigg still had two stops to make before he could call it a night and go home. In fact, it was more of a doss-house than a home at the moment with the amount of time he spent there.

  This case was an encrypted enigma folded a thousand times, and hidden inside a secret compartment of a hundred and one step Japanese puzzle box. It wouldn’t be so bad if he thought he was getting close to solving the case, but he was nowhere near it. He had nothing. No wonder the killers had managed to hide what they were doing for all these years. And it was only by accident that they’d been discovered. If Lisa Evans and her boyfriend hadn’t fallen through that floor, the torturing and killing would have carried on ad infinitum.

  Now, here he was – with the help of Kline, Perkins, and Janet, of course – trying to solve a mystery that had been in existence for over a hundred and twenty years. What did he have after a week? He’d accumulated a considerable amount of evidence, but no real clues as to the identities of the killers.

  It had all started in 1891, or maybe before then with the creation of a cavern complex in the shape of a wheel of eternity beneath Eternity Wharf. Was it called Eternity Wharf then? They had probably camouflaged the cavern system within the building work associated with the Charing Cross extension, the London Underground, and the sewers. It probably wasn’t even worth asking why they were doing what they were doing. One person wanted to torture people and write down its physical and psychological effects. To do that he needed privacy. He had then recruited an apprentice. The apprentice had then become the master who had recruited his own apprentice, and thus the cycle had continued to the present day.

  He had an idea that the two people who had started it all were Michael Ostrog and possibly Alexander Pedachenko. Ostrog had ordered the hatch covers, and obviously been heavily involved with the building of the wheel of eternity. Pedachenko supposedly worked at Charing Cross Hospital as a surgeon. He must have organised the hidden door in the boiler room, and also acquired the key to the door in the stairwell, which had been passed along and copies made.

  Although it was interesting to discover how it might have all started, what he really wanted to know was who the killers were now. He had one suspect left – Flannery Shipp. If it weren’t him, then he’d have to re-evaluate his strategy. But... what would happen if they did catch the killers? Al
l they’d be able to charge them with was the murders of the seven recent victims. Nothing else could come out. The more he thought about it, the messier it became.

  He parked on Edith Grove and walked round the corner to Edie’s flat. He should have rung during the day to find out if Duffy was okay. Was she still here? Were his children – Lily Rose and Dylan – behaving themselves? Had Edie recovered?

  ‘Yes?’ It was Edie.

  ‘It’s me.’

  The buzzer sounded and the door clicked open. He walked up the stairs.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You asked me that yesterday and two babies crawled out of the woodwork. How many have you got today?’

  ‘Still two.’

  ‘I said I’d come back today, so that we could talk. Has Duffy gone?’

  ‘About an hour ago.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘One night’s sleep isn’t going to make me feel young again.’

  ‘I have an idea.’

  ‘What, you take the babies, and I get on with my life?’

  ‘Temporarily.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He told her about Ruth, Duffy, and Lucy.

  ‘Bloody hell, Quigg.’

  ‘I know. Then, of course, there’s my mum. I have lots of people to take the weight off your shoulders.’

  ‘You’ll want to keep them?’

  ‘I promise that will never happen. As long as you let me see them now and again, and I can be involved in their lives I’ll be happy. And if you ever need a break, I can take them off your hands.’

  ‘You’ll want to have sex with me again?’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘You don’t find me attractive anymore?’

  ‘Of course, but I didn’t think...’

  ‘We used to have great sex. There’s been no one since you.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘I don’t know what I want anymore. What about all your other women?’

  ‘I’ll tell them. They won’t mind.’

  ‘Maybe, I’ll have to think about it.’