by Tim Ellis
‘Which way?’
‘You ask me as if I know. I do not know. I have never been down here before.’
Kline looked every which way, but there was only back through the passageways, or forwards – into the water.
She pointed across the lake. ‘We have to go through there.’
‘Then I will die here. I cannot swim.’
Kline slid into the lake and began treading water. She had no idea how deep it was, but her feet didn’t touch the bottom. She reached out a hand. ‘Climb in, Emilia.’
‘No, I cannot.’
‘It’s your turn to trust me now. Climb in, I will swim for both of us. After all you’ve endured, it would be a shame for a little bit of water to stop you now.’
Emilia glanced behind her.
The footsteps were growing louder.
She began to climb in.
Kline took hold of her. ‘Remember when you were lying in that field and the Germans were all around?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you panic?’
‘No.’
‘If you panic now, we will both drown.’ She turned Emilia round, put her hands under the old woman’s arms and eased her backwards and into the water. ‘Just relax now. I’m a good swimmer – as a child I won competitions.’
She lay on her back and began kicking, pulling Emilia with her.
‘Why did you not continue with your swimming?’
‘That’s a long story.’
‘We are doing nothing else.’
She didn’t want to open that box. ‘Maybe another time.’
Gradually, they moved away from the stone landing area and into the darkness. The natural light in the rock seemed to fade the further they went as if someone had turned down the dimmer switch a couple of notches. Thankfully, there was just enough light to see by.
‘Here we come,’ a male voice echoed within the cavern.
They heard a large splash, and it was difficult to make out how many Einsatzgruppen were actually following them.
‘We’re not going to make it, are we?’ Emilia whispered.
Kline didn’t answer her. She was beginning to think along the same lines.
***
More police, forensics, reporters, photographers, television crews and a circling helicopter had turned up while she’d been sleeping on the back seat – it was a fucking media circus, and she was in the middle of it.
The time was six-fifteen when she started the car and slowly pulled away from the crime scene.
Jesus fucking wept! What was it all about? Not just Gatekeeper murdered, but his wife and son as well. Who were these people? What did they want? She had obviously stumbled onto something, but what?
The roads were reasonably quiet. Rush hour was working up a head of steam, and the traffic would soon be gridlocked. If she’d left it another half hour she would never have got home in time.
As she drove through the gates of the church, she switched the engine off and freewheeled into Quigg’s parking space. With any luck, he’d be in the shower, getting dressed or eating his Coco pops.
Hopefully, she could put Quigg’s key back on his key ring and sneak into bed before anybody noticed she was gone.
She let herself in through the front door.
It was twenty to seven.
Quigg had moved a dining chair from the kitchen table and was sitting facing the door with a scowl on his face and his arms and legs crossed.
‘Well, well, well – if it isn’t Lucy Nielson . . .’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘How do you know my last name?’
‘I’m a detective – remember. I know everything about you.’
‘Everything?’ She began to edge towards the connecting corridor, so that she could go to her room and get some sleep.
‘Stand still.’
‘I was . . .’
‘I know everything except what you’ve been doing while normal people have been asleep in their beds.’
‘I just went for a . . .’
‘You’re not going to start lying to me, are you?’
‘Don’t you have work or something?’
‘Which brings me to the subject of my car key . . .’
She wound it off her key ring and threw it up in the air for him to catch.
He caught the key with ease. ‘Thank you. Now, I’d like you to explain to me why you stole . . . ?’
‘. . . Stole? Hardly I fucking live here, I borrowed it.’
‘. . . Why you stole my car – not your car – not the communal car – my car, and you don’t even have a driving licence, and thus . . . no insurance?’
‘I’m a good driver.’
‘Which is irrelevant. So, where did you take my stolen car?’
‘You’re treating me like a child.’
‘I don’t think you want me to answer that. You’re just lucky I haven’t draped you over my knee already.’
‘Like that’s ever going to happen. Do we have to do this now? I’m tired.’
‘Where?’
‘I needed some fresh air. I just drove until you ran out of petrol.’
‘A lie.’
‘You don’t know it’s a lie.’
He stood up and walked towards her. ‘Turn round. Put your hands in the air.’
She hugged herself. ‘You can’t make me do that.’
‘Do it before I call for back-up.’
She turned round and stuck her hands in the air.
He pushed her against the wall, put a foot between her feet and spread her legs. ‘Don’t move.’
‘You’re being a bit overzealous, aren’t you?’
He ran his hands down her naked arms, over her breasts, her midriff until he found the Walther PPK stuck in her waistband and pulled the gun out.
‘Interesting,’ he said. Next, he ran his hands up the inside of her legs, lingered on her crutch and then rifled through her pockets – removing the contents.
‘Those are mine.’
‘Really? So, you’re Hans Fröbel? A paid up member of the Waffen SS?’
‘It’s my secret identity.’
She heard him sniffing and turned round to face him again.
‘This handgun has recently been fired.’
‘It must have gone off when I wasn’t looking.’
‘Let’s list your crimes, shall we? Stealing a car, driving without a valid licence and without insurance, carrying a concealed and illegal firearm, breaking and entering, killing . . . I presume you shot and killed Hans Fröbel, because how else would you be in possession of his identity card and ring? Removing items from a murder victim, leaving the scene of a crime . . . Have I missed anything?’
‘No, I think you’ve covered everything.’
‘The evidence is overwhelming, Lucy. It’s time to come clean.’
‘I want a lawyer.’
‘We’re all out of lawyers.’
‘I could take the fifth.’
‘If you lived in America.’
She pushed past him and headed towards the kitchen. ‘Let the condemned woman at least have a coffee before she spills her guts.’
‘Make me one as well.’
‘You’ve got a fucking nerve, Quigg.’
‘Well?’
She told him what had happened during her time away.
‘Are you accomplices going to keep quiet?’
‘They’ll keep their mouths shut.’
‘I should arrest you.’
‘Go right ahead. The stuff I have on you . . .’
‘All right, maybe I won’t arrest you, but there are lots of other things I could do to you.’
She grinned. ‘Now we’re talking.’
‘You know I don’t mean that.’
‘It’s your fucking fault anyway.’
‘Mine?’
She pushed a coffee along the breakfast top at him and began slurping her own.
‘If you’d have believed me in the first place . . .’
‘Yeah well, you can
forget all about your secret messages from now on.’
‘What do you mean?’
He held up Hans Fröbel’s identity card and black sun ring. ‘You’re interfering in an active police investigation.’
Chapter Twelve
What was he going to do with Lucy? What could he do with her? He was meant to be a murder detective, but he was as guilty as she was, if not more so because of his age and position. Up to now, she had murdered three men – albeit in self-defence with mitigating circumstances – and he was implicated in each murder one way or another. His crimes resembled a psychopath’s bucket list:
Keeping an unregistered gun in his home;
Failing to report a whole series of crimes;
Failing to arrest a murderer;
Covering up three murders;
Disposing of a body;
Perverting the course of justice . . .
In fact, once the real police began to unpeel the layers of his double life, they’d need a second sheet of paper for his other crimes:
Diverting criminal financial assets for own use;
Hiding said financial assets;
Defrauding the Inland Revenue of income tax and VAT;
Abusing his position in public office;
Living in the same house as a multiple murderer;
A jury would convict him without a moment’s hesitation – he was a rogue cop. They’d bring back the death penalty just for him, appoint an official hangman, re-open the execution room at Pentonville Prison and oil the drop-gate on the gallows – any last words, Quigg?
He’d had to stop at the petrol station on the corner of Godolphin Road and the A402 to fill up. Lucy had been telling the truth – the Jaguar was running on fresh air.
As he was paying for the petrol his mobile vibrated.
‘Quigg.’
‘Why does everything you touch turn to shit, Quigg?’
‘Good morning, Chief. I’m not late for our briefing, am I?’
‘You’d better come to the Strand Campus.’
‘I’m confused. Where are you?’
‘The Strand Campus.’
‘Have you shifted the venue of our briefing?’
‘Stop being a moron, Quigg. I’m here because there’s been a fire.’
‘A fire? Are the professor and Kline okay?’
‘Kline? Why are you asking about Kline?’
‘She was supposed to be staying there overnight to help the professor with the jigsaw puzzle.’
‘The fire brigade haven’t found any bodies.’
‘So they’re both all right?’
‘You’re not listening, Quigg. No professor, and no Kline.’
‘Have you tried ringing Kline?’
‘If I were you, and thank goodness I’m not, I’d get your arse over here and stop asking stupid questions.’
‘On my way, Chief.’
He stared at the phone as if he’d had a psychotic episode. A fire! Where the hell were Kline and the professor? The Einsatzgruppen jumped into his mind. The professor knew about the Order of the Black Sun. They’d been forced out of the shadows . . . And Lucy had stumbled over their messages on Twitter and tried to get them decrypted by Gatekeeper – that’s why they’d killed him and his family. Now, the professor and Kline were next on their list. Emilia had said that with the number she had all the pieces. His heart sank – the Einsatzgruppen had taken them.
‘Should we keep your card until you remember that you left it here with us, Sir?’ the cocky male cashier said.
He took it out of the machine and slipped it back in his wallet. ‘Sorry.’
‘Next, please,’ the cashier said.
He wandered back to his car, climbed in and phoned Dr Solberg.
‘Hello.’
‘It’s Quigg.’
‘The man with no first name.’
‘Have you . . . ?’
Drivers were making a hell of a racket on their car horns behind him. He was hogging a petrol pump and there was a fifty car queue trying to get to work.
‘Just a minute. I need to move my car.’ He put the phone on the passenger seat, drove out of the petrol station onto the A402 and pulled into the Owl Cafe car park.
‘Hello?’ he said into the phone.
There was no answer. She had hung up.
He rang again.
‘Hello?’
‘I was at the petrol station. I needed to find somewhere to park.’
‘And now you have found that place?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve called me to book an appointment?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘For the therapy.’
‘I need therapy like I need a hole in the head.’
‘Yes you do.’
‘As well as a family of three, a tattooed man was also murdered at 73 Woodfield Drive in East Barnet during the night . . . ‘
‘Which I am sure will fall under the pathologist at Barnet Hospital.’
‘Yes well, you pathologists are as thick as thieves, so I’d like you to obtain a copy of the post mortem report for the tattooed man. I also want a complete set of photographs of his tattoos.’
‘And am I to tell them that it is you who want all this information?’
He thought about it for a moment. The murders were connected to his case, and the investigating officers might find something useful that he could use. He had to keep in mind that he was a murder detective not a criminal. Although he had a swag bag full of secrets to hide, he also had to maintain the outward appearance of being an innocent man.
‘Yes, you can tell people I want the information.’
No doubt the investigating officers would contact him to find out what he knew. Well, he could give them a few snippets, but due to the sensitive nature of his case he would be unable to divulge certain information – such as Lucy shooting the tattooed killer, removing the man’s wallet and black sun ring, and his involvement in covering it all up.
‘And if I do this thing for you, will you come to me for therapy?’
There was no way in hell that he was lying on a couch for Ingrid Solberg to tinker about inside his head. God! There were things in there that he didn’t even know about.
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘You will not.’
‘I promise.’
‘You lie very easily, Quigg.’
‘Police officers don’t lie.’
‘As soon as your case is over, you will come to me?’
‘I promise.’
‘Another lie.’
Yes it was, but it was the best he could do. ‘I’ll call in later for the report and photographs.’
‘I look forward to seeing you, Quigg with no first name.’
He ended the call.
And that was another reason why he didn’t want her fiddling about inside his head.
Hoping he wasn’t making a rod for his own back, he phoned the press officer – Susan Vietch – and re-scheduled the press briefing for four o’clock.
Traffic on the A40 was moving slowly, but at least it was moving. It took him thirty minutes to reach the Strand Campus, and then he had trouble finding a parking space.
There were three fire engines, a red four-by-four with “Fire Chief” on the doors, the Chief’s black Ford Mondeo, rent-a-crowd and hordes of press in the quadrangle.
‘Move the press and the rubberneckers out of the quadrangle,’ he said to two constables who seemed to have nothing else better to do.
He followed the fire hoses up the stairs of the South West Block to the fourth floor.
‘Ah! Here he is,’ Chief Bellmarsh said. ‘Did you stop off for breakfast, Inspector?’
‘Trouble parking, Sir. It’s like a free-for-all out there.’
‘And I hope . . . ?’
‘Oh yes. I had the press and the rubberneckers moved out of the quadrangle, and a black Mondeo that looked a bit suspect towed away.’
A red-faced fireman offered his hand. ‘Sub-office
r Sean Pryce.’
‘Quigg. Pleased to meet you. The Chief tells me you found no bodies?’
‘That’s right, but we have found something else.’
He stepped into the smoking burnt-out shell of Professor Emilia Razinsky’s office.
‘Any idea on cause yet?’ Quigg asked as he followed Pryce inside. Pieces of charred wood crunched underfoot.
‘Accelerant. Whoever started it wasn’t trying to hide the fact. Take a look at this . . .’ He pointed to a fist-sized hole in a wooden panel and the space behind it. ‘I’d say that was a secret passageway, and . . .’
‘. . . An escape route,’ Quigg finished for him.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Have you sent anybody down there?’
‘No. Not our job, I’m afraid.’
Quigg turned to the Chief.
‘What are you looking at me for?’
‘We should send a team in there, Chief.’
‘A team? A team of what? Do I look like I’ve got a team? Do you think I brought a team with me?’
‘What about CO19?’
‘They’re a team all right, but why would a team of armed police officers want to go into a secret passageway looking for a professor and a detective?’
‘I think it could be the Einsatzgruppen who burnt this office.’
The Chief gave a strangled laugh. ‘The what?’
‘An SS Death Squad.’
‘You’re crazy as a coot, Quigg. The Second World War ended in 1945, and the SS disappeared with them.’
‘Maybe not, Sir.’
‘Look, Quigg. As much as I like your fantastical theories, I’m not sending a team of peple into that passageway. Kline and the professor might not even be in there, and even if they were there must be other exits – why haven’t they come out?’
‘Maybe they can’t.’
‘Meaning?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe the people who set fire to the professor’s office are chasing them.’
‘You have nothing but maybes, Quigg.’
‘Well, where else could they be?’
‘I don’t know, but you’re not decimating my budget based on a stack of maybes.’
‘I’ll go on my own then.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Quigg.’
He began tearing at the blackened wood surrounding the hole. ‘Can I borrow a torch?’ he asked a fireman.