There is no Fear in Love: (Parish & Richards #20)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Never mind wasting your time supposing. Call Doc Paine and tell her about the baby. We want to know who the father was.’

  ***

  He was still sitting outside 36 Hainault Road in Chadwell Heath wondering what to do next, so he decided to call Bronwyn.

  ‘Abacus Investigations?’

  ‘You have a telephone voice like honey.’

  ‘Do I know this Honey?’

  ‘Are you enjoying running the office?’

  ‘I’m doing a bit more than running a small office. I’m in control of a vast empire in the making.’

  ‘In control?’

  ‘Well, you’re hardly in a position to control anything grubbing about in the suburbs, are you?’

  ‘As much as I find your megalomaniacal ramblings about control and forging empires mildly interesting, I actually called to find out if you’d done the work I asked you to do.’

  ‘Mmmm! Let me see. Have I done any work? The gorgeous megalomaniac looks through her notes and lo and behold she finds some legible scribblings. I’ll leave Paige Belmont until last, because there’s something very strange about her. Jenny Bates has no criminal convictions, but she does have seven points on her licence, because she likes to drive very fast and usually gets caught doing it. Nothing interesting in her telephone records, but her financial accounts show that she has an online gambling problem – she keeps losing. For now, she still has money in the bank, but it’s not going to stay there very long at the rate she’s losing it. In the last six months she’s given the online casino fifteen thousand pounds.’

  ‘She’ll no doubt be dipping into the company funds to feed her addiction soon, but that’s not our concern.’

  ‘She doesn’t own any property, but she and her husband do have a hefty mortgage on their four-bedroom detached house in Chigwell Row. The business premises are rented. Nothing adverse in the press or online about her or her husband.’

  ‘It sounds as though she’s too wrapped-up in her own problems to concern herself with Paige Belmont.’

  ‘Then there’s the very naughty Lester Belmont . . .’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘He might have said he’d stopped seeing Riley Quinn, but he never did. He screws her like an alley cat twice a week on Tuesday mornings and Friday lunchtimes in the little love nest he’s renting at 23 Shere Road in Redbridge, not far from Gants Hill tube station. It’s a one-bedroom top-floor flat, and because it’s next door to Gants Hill Library I have CCTV footage of the two of them entering and leaving all loved-up.’

  ‘Sounds like a motive to get rid of your current spouse.’

  ‘If you’re looking for a motive to commit murder you should have said. Riley Quinn is fourteen weeks pregnant. Do you want to see a still of the ultrasound scan that she had taken three weeks ago?’

  ‘I’ve seen scans before – four to be exact. Is the baby okay?’

  ‘Babies – there’s two of the little rugrats. And yes, they look as happy as pigs in shit.’

  ‘Okay. The more we find out about Lester, the more he resembles a murder suspect.’

  ‘That’s not all. I’ve saved the second-best for second-last.’

  ‘Surprise me.’

  ‘He took last Thursday off work.’

  ‘With Riley?’

  ‘You would think so, but no – Riley was working.’

  ‘Where did he go then?’

  ‘At twenty-past ten that morning he parked his car at Woodford tube station and used his credit card to pay for a return journey to Willesden Green on the Jubilee Line.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I’ve left the easy part for you. Out of interest, however, I did look at his holiday record for the previous six months and found that he takes at least four days off every month.’

  ‘And goes to Willesden Green?’

  ‘I see you’ve played this game before. I cross-referenced those days off with his credit card records, which incidentally is linked to a bank account in his name only, and I found a match. So yes, he goes to Willesden Green regularly.’

  ‘He’s looking less like a suspect now, but he’s obviously up to something . . .’

  ‘Or Riley Quinn?’

  ‘That’s the type of comment I’d expect from a megalomaniac. If Lester was in Willesden Green, he’d have found it difficult to kill his wife and dispose of her body, because she disappeared between leaving Chocoholics at twelve thirty, and arriving at Bongo Illustrations at one o’clock. How long does it take to travel from Woodford to Willesden Green?’

  He heard the tapping of a keyboard.

  ‘Forty minutes.’

  ‘So, let’s say he left at ten-thirty. He’d have arrived at ten past eleven. Even if he hadn’t gone anywhere or done anything, but crossed to the opposite platform and caught the next train back it would have taken him until ten to twelve to reach Woodford. Then, of course, he’d have had to drive to where his wife was meeting the Managing Director of Chocoholics on the Ilford Trading Estate, a journey of . . .?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘When you’re ready?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, you’re waiting for me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He heard tapping on the keyboard again.

  ‘Twenty minutes – all things being equal.’

  ‘So, he would have just had time to meet his wife outside Chocoholics, but then what? Where’s her car?’

  ‘You’re assuming that Lester boarded the train to Willesden.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Also, the whole thing could have been a charade just to provide an alibi. He might have only travelled one or two stops and then returned to Woodford.’

  ‘What about his car? When did he pick that up?’

  ‘Five-thirty, but he could have simply left it there as part of the subterfuge and taken a taxi, or hired a car. There’s CCTV coverage of the east and westbound platforms, the ticket office and the car park, but there’s also a million blind spots, so the fact that he wasn’t caught on CCTV coming back at some other time doesn’t actually exonerate him of any crime.’

  ‘So, we’re back to square one – Lester Belmont is still our main suspect. Let’s focus on Paige Belmont. What have you got on her?’

  ‘As I said earlier, there’s something particularly strange about Paige Belmont. Everything seems to be fine after she got married . . . Well, until now, that is. Before though, that’s a different story. Her maiden name was Singer. According to the records Paige Singer was born on March 18, 1977, which makes her nearly thirty-nine; she has no siblings; her parents were Arthur Singer and Caroline – née Mulhern – who supposedly both died in an Air France Concorde plane crash on July 25, 2000, which was on its way to JFK Airport in New York and crashed into a hotel near the Charles De Gaulle airport near Paris killing all 100 passengers and its nine crew members. I say “supposedly”, because out of curiosity I decided to take a quick peek at the details of the crash. Guess what I found?’

  ‘The Singers weren’t listed as passengers?’

  ‘If you’re going to cheat, Kowalski. I’m not even going to play the game with you. No, they’re not listed. And it’s always interesting how one little mistake makes a nosy megalomaniac suspicious about all the other details surrounding Paige Singer’s life. When I looked at her birth, school and university records the bare bones were there, but beyond that there’s nothing of any substance. The records aren’t real. In a word, Paige Singer doesn’t exist. Or, more accurately, she’s a facsimile of a real person.’

  ‘Any idea when those records were created?’

  ‘No, but she’s been living a normal life since August of 2000 when she began working at the accountancy firm KPMG. And, what’s interesting, is that her parents supposedly died in the air crash the month before, so I’m guessing around that time.’

  ‘Did you find out about the email she sent via Bowden-Kady’s wifi on Thursday morning?’

  ‘Yes. It was to lpbrown@hotmail.c
om. The account has since been deleted. It said:

  Hi Lucy,

  Looking forward to seeing you at the usual time and place.

  PNB

  ‘Lucy!’

  ‘I know. Maybe she decided she was a lesbian and ran away with a woman, not a man.’

  He grunted. ‘Maybe, but we have no idea where the usual time and place was, do we?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any luck finding her car?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  ‘But you’ll keep looking?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘What about the phone call she was expecting?’

  ‘She received a text from Lucy at around twelve-forty that day confirming the meeting at the usual time and place.’

  ‘What’s going on, Bronwyn?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s been murdered.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like it, does it?’

  ‘I’d say she’s done a runner.’

  ‘But why? And if she’s not Paige Singer or Belmont, who is she?’

  ‘I imagine there could be any number of reasons she adopted a false identity and became someone else.’

  ‘Such as?’ he said. ‘You’re the world-renowned expert in false identities. I’m surprised you even remember who you really are anymore.’

  ‘Never mind who I am. Let’s just focus on this woman. Maybe she’s a Secret Service agent? The Russians found her, and now she’s running for her life.’

  ‘Next unbelievable tale?’

  ‘Well, what about an undercover police officer? There’ve been lots of those crawling out from under stones recently.’

  ‘Keep going?’

  ‘She could have been hiding from someone, but they spotted her in the cake shop, and now she’s running for her life?’

  ‘Someone?’

  ‘Someone she robbed? Someone who hurt her? Someone who wants to kill her? Someone . . .?’

  ‘Next?’

  ‘Maybe she escaped from prison, or a psychiatric hospital like that Rose Needle, or . . .?’

  He interrupted. ‘Or . . . Maybe there’s a simple answer. Maybe her husband was telling the truth after all, but was too embarrassed to say he’d been gazumped by a woman. A man would be bad enough I suppose, but a woman.’

  ‘I’ll go along with your simple answer. So, you tell Harry that his dad was mostly telling the truth, but instead of running away with a man his mum was a closet lesbian and she ran away with a woman instead. Although, everything will be all right because he’ll soon have a new mum called Riley and two half-siblings to drive him crazy.’

  ‘I’m tempted, but there are still a number of things that simply don’t add up.’

  ‘What doesn’t add up, Kowalski, is the amount of time you’re devoting to this case for a measly one hundred and fifty pounds. You should tell him that if he wants any more of our valuable time, then he needs to stump up some more cash.’

  ‘You’re all heart.’

  ‘Hey! Megalomaniacs don’t have hearts. Weak pathetic hearts are for lesser mortals such as yourself.’

  ‘I’m going home now. I’ll sleep on it and decide what to do in the morning. While I’m doing that, you might want to consider moving out of your squat into something a bit closer to the office.’

  ‘Are you crazy? I love that squat.’

  ‘I’m being practical – Highgate is too far away.’

  The line went dead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Right boys, here’s the plan.’

  ‘We’re all ears, Mrs K.’

  ‘I’ll go and see Lisa Porterfield at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing near Euston Square station and pick her brains about Morton Gillespie . . .’

  Joe’s forehead creased up. ‘On your own, Mrs K? You know what your husband will do to us if we let you go on your own and something happens to you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Shakin’ said. ‘He made a point of explaining in graphic detail, using his hands and extraordinary facial expressions for emphasis, what would happen to us if anything happened to you and we weren’t there. I still have nightmares about it.’

  ‘Nightmares,’ Joe agreed, nodding.

  ‘Don’t worry, boys. I’m only going on my own because the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing is a specialist unit for pregnant women, who I’m sure are of no interest to either of you single boys.’

  Joe pulled a face. ‘Yuk.’

  Shakin’ put his arm around Joe’s shoulders. ‘Let’s not be so hasty, Joe. Lots of men find pregnant women extremely attractive, so there must be something to it.’

  ‘Take no notice, Joe,’ Jerry said. ‘He’s just teasing you. I have a wealth of experience in the subject, and I can tell you that pregnant women are off-limits. So, I’m going to go there on my own, and you two are going back to the Halls of Residence. Shakin’ will ask his young lady to try and locate DCI George Hill, and also see what she can find out about Dr Morton Gillespie at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery on Cleveland Street. He died in a hit-and-run accident three days after Emily Hobson was murdered . . . I don’t know if your young lady is up to the task, but it would be good to take a look at the police report on that hit-and-run.’

  ‘She’s pretty nifty with that keyboard, Mrs K. I’ll no doubt have to give her plenty of encouragement . . .’

  ‘Encouragement,’ Joe agreed. ‘Always a good thing.’

  ‘But don’t worry, I’m sure Kelly Muffet will be up to the task.’

  ‘What about me, Mrs K?’ Joe asked.

  ‘You should probably get some rest, Joe – you look tired.’

  ‘Oh, I am. It’s been a long and traumatic day.’

  ‘And tomorrow, I’ll meet you both at Temple station at nine-thirty. We’ll focus our investigative energies on Helen Veldkamp and Elina Palameika, and maybe visit DCI George Hill, if Miss Muffet can find him. How does that sound?’

  ‘Works for me, Mrs K,’ Shakin’s said.

  Joe nodded. ‘And for me. In fact, I could fall asleep right now. I wasn’t tired until you mentioned it, but now I feel as though I haven’t slept for a million years.’

  They made their way back to Pimlico tube station and travelled together to Victoria where they separated. Shakin’ and Joe went eastbound on the Circle Line to Temple, she travelled northbound on the Bakerloo Line to Baker Street, and then caught a Circle Line train eastbound to Euston Square.

  The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing was a bit more than a wing. In fact, it was a lot more than a wing. It was a five-story state-of-the-art concrete and glass building that was connected to the main University College Hospital. It offered a checking-in area, ultrasound facilities, a labour ward and birthing pool, a neonatal unit and a relatives room.

  Jerry asked a dozen people where she might find Staff Nurse Lisa Porterfield and eventually located her in the neonatal unit on the second floor. She wasn’t permitted into the unit, so she had to send a message via another nurse entering through the keypad-locked door to ask her to come out and talk about Emily Hobson.

  Lisa Porterfield was an attractive forty-one with dark hair, a slim face and figure, and crows’ feet in the corner of her eyes.

  ‘I’m Lisa Porterfield,’ the woman said, but she didn’t offer her hand. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Jerry Kowalski. I’m a second-year law student at King’s College. Have you got time for a coffee?’

  Lisa checked the fob watch hanging on her chest. ‘I can spare twenty minutes.’

  They took the lift down to the ground floor, Jerry bought the coffees in the small cafe run by Women’s Institute volunteers and they sat down in a corner next to a window overlooking an inner courtyard with a flag-stoned path around a water feature that contained turtles and enormous goldfish.

  ‘What’s this about Emily Hobson?’

  Jerry didn’t really want her coffee. She should have bought herself a bottle of water instead. In fact, she didn’t really want anything other than to get home and soak in a lovely hot bubble b
ath. Joe had been right, it had been a long and traumatic day. It seemed as though they were making progress, but it felt more like they were standing still. Yes, they’d found out about Morton Gillespie, but it hadn’t moved their investigation very far forward – if at all.

  She told Lisa Porterfield about her, Joe and Shakin’ having to write a paper discussing the legal issues, problems, implications and citing relevant case law should the murderer be caught and prosecuted today.

  ‘There doesn’t seem much chance of that,’ Lisa said.

  ‘No, but I have discovered some new information.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You were going out with Morton Gillespie at the time, weren’t you?’

  ‘It was a bit more than that. I think he was planning to ask me to marry him, and I would have said yes. I didn’t expect to meet the love of my life when I started training, but that’s what happened. I fell in the deep end and couldn’t get out, and then he was killed by a hit-and-run driver. I was devastated. I don’t know how I survived afterwards, it’s all a bit of a blur. I just wanted to curl up and die. Afterwards, I discovered that they’d found the burnt-out car that hit him on some waste ground. It had been stolen a couple of hours earlier, but they never caught the person who killed him. They said it was probably joy-riders.’

  ‘Do you remember anything from the night Emily was murdered?’

  ‘Not really. Emily and I didn’t get on. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but she wasn’t choosy about who she slept with. She used to think I was stuck-up, and I suppose I was. My parents were quite well-off and I went to Grammar school, whereas Emily came from a Council estate and went to a secondary school. So, we didn’t really have much in common.’

  ‘Where were you on that night?’

  ‘In my room studying, and then I went to bed. I only found out that Emily had been murdered the following morning.’