by Tim Ellis
‘I bet.’
‘Constable Coveney had taken charge when she arrived with the truck. Much to the chagrin of the park manager, she cordoned off a large portion of the car park with blue and white striped tape. In the space, she parked the mobile incident room, and then made Perkins move the two forensics’ vans inside the cordon. Generators were humming like the Audi TT’s engine.
‘Good job, Coveney,’ he said, and passed her the plastic bag with the shopping in.
‘Thanks, Sir. Do you want one?’
‘Not at the moment. I’d better talk to someone, find out what the hell’s going on.’
‘The manager – Frank Whitfield – is a right jumped up twit. We should probably arrest him now, and make him suffer a bit before questioning him.’
‘Have you got somewhere to keep him if we do?’
‘We could chain him up outside like a dog, strip him naked, and go out every now and again and kick him a few times.’
‘I take it he upset you?’
She grinned. ‘No, but I think I pissed him off.’
‘I’ll leave you to switch everything on then. Come on Kline, let’s go and find Perkins.’
‘You’ll find him in the Waterbury Hotel, and you’ll need two things to get there.’ Coveney said before they could get out of the door.
‘Oh?’
She passed him a key on a ring, and a Grisly Park glossy brochure. ‘The key is for a little buggy parked outside, and the brochure has a 3D map inside. This is a massive place. Not only does it go on for miles in every direction, but it’s also been designed like a computer game with different levels. You could spend a month here and not see everything.’
‘What would I do without you, Coveney?’
‘I think you’d get lost, Sir.’
Outside, Kline tried to get the keys to the buggy off him, but he held on for grim death. ‘Over my dead body, Kline.’
‘We’re in the right place for that to occur, Sir.’
He drove at a leisurely pace through the park entrance and flashed his warrant card to the cashiers. The place was mostly dead. Apparently, it didn’t come alive until the evening.
‘Can’t you go any faster?’
‘This is not a sports car in disguise.’ He passed her the map. ‘Which way to the Waterbury Hotel?’
It took them twenty minutes to reach the Waterbury. Before they could hunt down Perkins a tall thin man with a bald patch and glasses who said his name was Frank Whitfield – the park manager – accosted them.
‘I have a complaint.’
‘Already, Sir? We haven’t even begun the investigation and you want to make a complaint.’
‘That woman in the truck, she was extremely rude to me.’
Quigg took him by the elbow, and led him beyond Kline’s hearing. ‘You’re lucky, Sir. She wanted to chain you up naked outside the truck and kick you in the bollocks every now and again for obstructing a police investigation. I persuaded her to give you another chance, but you’re not making it easy for me. I can let her arrest you if you want, Sir?’
‘Of course I don’t want to be arrested.’
‘Well, I advise you to shut the fuck up then.’
‘I see, you all stick together.’
‘We’re a team, Sir. We’re here to do a job. What we dislike intensely are obstacles placed in our way. Do you get my drift?’
‘Yes Inspector, I understand.’
‘Excellent. We’ll get on just fine from now on then. Have you given a statement?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘If you wait by the hotel reception, my colleague and I will be with you shortly, Sir.’
‘Fucking arsehole,’ Kline said when Whitfield had wandered into the hotel.
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ he said.
They discovered Perkins outside Room 13.
‘I bet you’re in seventh heaven here, aren’t you, Perkins?’ Quigg said to him.
‘It’s certainly very interesting. I planned to book myself in here for a two-week holiday in August.’
‘People actually stay here?’ Kline said.
‘Oh yes. This is the ultimate horror experience. There are the day- and night-time attractions for visitors, who only come for a couple of hours and then leave again. They’re what you might expect – horror rides, trick or treat, kiddies entertainment, weird creatures wandering about all over the place, and lots of screaming and so forth. Then there are the hardcore attractions for horror aficionados like myself, which is where the money is.’
‘Don’t tell me, Perkins,’ Quigg said. ‘You pay them a thousand pounds and they murder you?’
Perkins smiled like a ghoul. ‘You catch on quick, Inspector, but they stop just short of that.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, but if there’s been no murder why are we here?’
‘You’d better suit up.’
After they’d put the paper suits, boots, and gloves on, he led them into the room.
‘There was blood, brains and slivers of flesh everywhere – ceiling, walls, and floor.
‘Keep on the walkway, please.’
‘It’s pig, isn’t it?’ Kline asked. ‘I mean, you’d expect to find something like this in Room 13 at a horror park, wouldn’t you?’
‘Room 13 is usually where it all happens, that’s why they don’t have a Room 13 in normal hotels. And no, it’s not pig.’
Quigg grunted. ‘It looks like someone filled a blender, and then forgot about the lid before switching it on.’
Perkins nodded. ‘Yes, it does.’
‘So, you do a DNA analysis and find out who the victim is. Kline and I join up the dots and find the killer. We all go home.’
‘That’s certainly a good plan, Sir, but you’ve forgotten one thing.’
‘I’m listening?’
‘Up to now, we’ve identified seven people in this mess.’
‘Up to now? You mean there could be more?’
‘Yes, but that’s not all.’
‘You like your little secrets, don’t you? Come on, out with it, man?’
‘Mixed in with all these remains, we’ve found some strange DNA that we can’t identify.’
Kline laughed. ‘You mean you’ve captured the DNA from a vampire, zombie, or werewolf? Wicked!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Kline,’ Quigg said.
Perkins stared at him. ‘It’s not so ridiculous, Inspector.’
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Thank you for choosing and reading my book. If you enjoyed it, I would be grateful if you could write a review and post it on Amazon.co.uk and/or Amazon.com.
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About the Author
Tim Ellis was born in the bowels of Hammersmith Hospital, London, on a dark and stormy night, grew up in Cheadle, Cheshire, and now lives in Essex with his wife and five Shitzus. In-between, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps at eighteen and completed twenty-two years service, leaving in 1993 having achieved the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1 (Regimental Sergeant Major). Since then he has worked in secondary education as a senior financial manager, in higher education as an associate lecturer/tutor at Lincoln and Anglia Ruskin Universities, and as a consultant for the National College of School Leadership. His final job, before retiring to write fiction full time in 2009, was as Head and teacher of Behavioural Sciences (Psychology/Sociology) in a secondary school. He has a PhD and an MBA in Educational Management, and an MA in Education.
Discover other titles by Tim Ellis at http://timellis.weebly.com/
Warrior
(Adult Historical Fiction)
Path of Destiny
Scourge of the Steppe
The Knowledge of Time
(Young Adult Science Fiction)
Second Civilisation
Orc Quest
(Young Adult Fantasy)
Prophecy
Adult Crime:
Harte & KP
Solomon’s Key
Stone & Randall
Jacob’s Ladder
Parish & Richards
A Life for a Life
The Wages of Sin
The Flesh is Weak
The Shadow of Death
His Wrath is Come
Quigg
The Twelve Murders of Christmas (Novella)
Body 13
The Graves at Angel Brook
The Skulls Beneath Eternity Wharf
Collected Short Stories/Poetry
Untended Treasures
Where do you want to go today?
Winter of my Heart (Poetry)
Also due out in 2012/2013:
The Timekeeper’s Apprentice
The Writers’ A-Z of Body Language (Non-Fiction)
The Gordian Knot (Stone & Randall 2)
The Breath of Life (Parish & Richards 6)
The Terror at Grisly Park (Quigg 4)
Also, come and say hello on my FB Fanpage:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tim-Ellis/160147187372482