The Haunting of Bleeding Heart Yard (Quigg)

by Tim Ellis

  They wouldn’t be able to identify her. They’d call her by a number, or maybe “Jane Doe”. She’d be the unknown woman in Cell 41. Nobody would ever . . . Quigg wouldn’t be able to visit, or Duffy, or Ruth. They’d have to communicate through a third party using invisible ink or something . . .

  The doorbell tinkled as she entered the chemist.

  ‘Yes, Madam?’ a spotty-faced young man asked.

  They shouldn’t have men serving women in chemists, she thought. In fact, they shouldn’t have women serving men either. Chemists were intimate places.

  ‘An Early Response pregnancy test-kit, please.’

  ‘Certainly, Madam. Are you hoping for a boy or a girl? Maybe twins or more? What . . . ?’

  ‘Will you shut the fuck up?’

  The young man’s face turned bright red. ‘I was just . . . That’ll be nineteen pounds, please.’

  ‘Nineteen fucking pounds? The pharmacy in the shopping centre sell it for fourteen pounds.’

  ‘That’s probably because they’re a chain of stores and are able to buy in bulk. We’re a small independent chemist and . . .’

  She took out a twenty and handed it to him.

  ‘The local supermarket do sell pregnancy test-kits. Maybe they’re cheaper there, but I’m not sure whether they sell this make . . .’

  A woman standing behind her holding a snivelling toddler said, ‘I bought one off the internet – never again. Came from Eastern Europe somewhere . . . that’s how I’ve got five kids instead of four. Yeah you want to . . .’

  She didn’t bother waiting for the pound change. She grabbed the bag with the test-kit in and headed for the door.

  ‘Some people!’ the woman said behind her.

  That was the last time she’d use that fucking place. She should have simply stood on a soapbox and told anybody who was interested what she was going into the chemists’ for, how the pregnancy had happened and what she planned to do if the test-kit showed a positive result – nosey bastards.

  She walked back.

  Was she going to take the gun? If they caught her and found that gun . . . best not! There wouldn’t be any of those Nazi skinheads at Gatekeeper’s house now.

  Pansy waved when she arrived back. ‘Yoo-hoo, Miss Lucy.’

  She smiled and returned the wave. ‘Crazy as a fucking cuckoo,’ she mumbled through bared teeth.

  Duffy hadn’t even seen the note. The lazy bitch had gone back to bed. Now, she didn’t even have the kids to look after. Yeah, Quigg better do something about Duffy post fucking haste.

  In the bathroom, she removed the stick from the box, pushed her jeans and knickers down to her ankles, and sat on the toilet. Did she need a pee? Maybe. There was some urine swilling about in there somewhere.

  She’d decided, after considerable deliberation, that the easiest method was to hold the stick under the stream of urine. Peeing into a tiny cup was fraught with difficulties. Men had an aiming mechanism, but women couldn’t aim for toffee. She read the instructions, even though she didn’t have a magnifying glass, both pages front and back. She found that closing her lazy left eye improved the sight in her right eye.

  The urine was coming. There wasn’t much of it, but it might just be enough to trigger a reaction. Maybe she should have bought two test-kits.

  She pushed the stick between her legs.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was a surreal experience walking away from an offer of sex. As much as he would have jumped at the opportunity under normal circumstances, two-thousand five hundred pounds was a bit pricey – even with the ten percent summer holiday discount. He wondered if he should go back upstairs and ask for a voucher that he could reclaim at a later date, but then he dismissed the idea as measly. Who could possibly have any respect for a man who collected vouchers for sex with prostitutes?

  He wiggled the key into the lock of 74a Elms Avenue and opened the door. Thankfully, the stench of death was absent. He made his way along the hall to the first room on the left.

  The downstairs flat consisted of a living room, a bedroom and a kitchen/dining room. There was also a storage cupboard under the stairs on the right, and a shared garden at the back of the house.

  After checking a few cupboards and drawers he sat in a chair and called Nicola Brennan.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s DI Quigg. You haven’t told me everything about your step-daughter, have you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Catherine wasn’t commissioned to write a story by Volcano Monthly, she was never going to Reykjavik, and now she’s moved out of the flat where you told me she lived. What’s going on, Miss Brennan?’

  ‘I wish I knew, Inspector.’

  ‘You say she’s your late husband’s daughter?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell. As I said, he worked in exhibitions at the Barbican Art Gallery.’

  ‘When did you marry him?’

  ‘February 1998.’

  ‘You weren’t married long then?’

  ‘No. He was a lot older than me. He died three months ago, but we had already separated by then.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, we separated in 2003.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We simply grew apart.’

  ‘And his daughter, Catherine?’

  ‘She and I became friends, but I didn’t see much of her to be honest. As I said, she’s a freelance journalist and her job took her all over the world.’

  ‘Except to Reykjavik?’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘There’s nothing else you can tell me?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I really . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yesterday you asked me if Catherine had a tattoo on her chest – was it a number?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Frank had a number tattooed on the inside of his left forearm.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘When I asked about it, all he would say was that it was something he always needed to remember.’

  ‘Do you recall the number by any chance?’

  ‘Yes. It was 128145.’

  ‘That was the same number as the one on the victim’s chest.’

  ‘It was Catherine, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s beginning to look that way.’

  ‘Oh God – poor Catherine.’

  ‘There’s nothing else you can remember?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you for your help, Miss Brennan. As soon as I know anything for definite, I’ll be in touch.’

  He ended the call.

  Yes, it was definitely looking as though the victim was Catherine Bernado, but why? Was it all about the number? Professor Razinsky had certainly been excited about the discovery, but she hadn’t said why. And why was the number so important? Was it more than just a number? Why did Frank Bernado have the number tattooed on the inside of his left arm? Was he a concentration camp survivor? And why did his daughter Catherine have the same number tattooed on her chest? Was it a concentration camp number, or something a lot more significant?

  ***

  Kline looked around for something to use as a weapon, but there was nothing lying on the gallery walkway. What she did notice though, was that a section of the metal safety fence had rusted through.

  Quickly, she began moving the hollow two-inch circular handrail forwards and backwards until it gave way and snapped.

  The two men on the ladder were about twenty feet away from the gallery when they stopped.

  Two bolts jumped out of the ladder and bounced on the concrete below.

  Kline had an idea.

  She wedged the piece of metal between the wall and the ladder and began trying to loosen the top bolts.

  ‘I like what you are thinking,’ Emilia said, and started pushing the metal with her two hands as well.

  One bolt shot out so far
it landed in the black sludge.

  Then another.

  With a loud scraping noise the ladder separated from the wall.

  The two men stared up at Kline and Emilia, put their right arms out in a salute and shouted, ‘Heil Hitler.’ They Roman candled down like skydivers without parachutes and splattered on the concrete in a spray of crimson.

  ‘A minor inconvenience,’ the last skinhead shouted up at them. ‘There are thousands more willing to take their places.’ He snapped his booted heels together and saluted. ‘Heil Hitler.’

  ‘Crazy bastard,’ Kline shouted down to him.

  ‘The trouble is,’ Emilia said. ‘He is right. “. . . and they shall cover the face of the land, so that no one can see the land.” Exodus 10:1-19.” When God spoke of locusts, he was talking about these abominations.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Kline said. ‘Come on, we still have to find a way out of here. He might still be able to climb up, and we also don’t know if there are any more of them, or where they are.’

  They walked round the gallery to where the sliver of light came through a square hole about fifteen feet above them – there was another rusty ladder leading up to the opening and a grill blocking their escape.

  ‘Is there a lock on the grill?’ Emilia asked.

  ‘I can’t see,’ Kline replied. ‘We have to go up there, it is our only way out. We have no way of going back down now.’

  ‘Yes. Maybe we should have checked that we could actually get out up here before we demolished the ladder.’

  ‘Would it have made any difference if we’d known?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘I’ll go first,’ Kline said. ‘The ladder looks worse than the other one.’

  She began to climb, gingerly putting a foot on each rung and pulling herself up.

  The fifth rung snapped and gave way.

  Her shoulders wrenched as she dropped, but she held onto the sides with both hands. A jagged piece of metal tore into her ankle as her foot went through the gap, and she felt the blood trickling into her shoe, but ignored it.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Emilia called up to her.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ She hauled herself up to the next rung and started climbing again.

  At last, she reached the top of the ladder. The grill had a rusty old lock on it. She reached up and tried to yank it off, but it was a substantial lock. What she saw though, was that the two pieces of metal were in far worse condition.

  ‘Can you pass me that piece of metal?’ she said to Emilia.

  ‘You will have to come down. I don’t think the ladder will take both of us.’

  She edged down the ladder until she could reach the piece of metal Emilia stretched out towards her. Once she had it in her hand, there was nowhere to put the damn thing. The only place she felt it would be safe was under the middle of her bra at the front. It was a good job she had a bra on. When God was giving out breasts she must have been hidden behind the door. Some women got more than their fair share and needed oversized canvas sacks to keep them in. All she needed were two corn plasters, but she wore a bra because police regulations stated that she had to.

  Once she was back at the top of the ladder again, she wedged the thin end of the metal tubing between the pieces of the rusted latch and began moving it up and down.

  ‘He’s climbing up the wall,’ Emilia whispered.

  ‘Fuck! How?’

  ‘He is using a knife and the uneven bricks.’

  ‘How close is he?’

  ‘I think it will probably take him another ten minutes to reach us.’

  She re-doubled her efforts. After a few more minutes the lock came free of the latch. She climbed further up the ladder, pushed the grill open and pulled herself through the opening.

  Leaning back through the hole she said to Emilia, ‘Climb up.’

  Emilia began to climb.

  At the top Kline helped her through the square hole.

  Just then, the last Einsatzgruppen following them reached the gallery and climbed up.

  He laughed as he walked towards the ladder. ‘I have to say, you’ve done better than I expected, but it’s only a matter of time now before I catch you. If you tell me what I want to know, I’ll kill you quickly.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself,’ Kline said, and slammed the grill down.

  He roared with laughter. ‘It will be a shame to kill you. Maybe I will let you live and keep you as a plaything.’

  Now she had the problem of how to stop him coming through the grill after them.

  ***

  WELCOME

  FOSSIL-HUNTERS

  Roger Crankshank stopped his five year-old dark blue Ford Ka and stared up at the sign as he drove into Fairlight Cove in East Sussex. If he had his time over again he would be a fossil-hunter, and in the future he still might. In his mind was a flash-photograph of him standing with one leg resting on the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Yes, a hunter of dinosaur bones – that was his destiny – not a hunter of missing persons. He was just treading water until lady luck grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shook some sense into him.

  Fairlight Cove lay east of Hastings, a veritable home from home for birdwatchers, walkers and frequenters of tearooms and picnic areas. In the past it was a place of smugglers, tunnels and taverns. Now, all that remained to light the fires of curiosity were a few old coastguard cottages, insect fossils from the Valanginian age of the Lower Crustaceous period and a church with a tall tower.

  He headed for the post office, but the post office had closed. Postal services were now available in the newsagents, so that’s where he went.

  ‘Hello,’ he said to the teenager behind the counter. She had long dark hair, more eye shadow than was really necessary and thin oblong glasses that made her look more like a secretary than an assistant in a newsagents.

  She smiled. ‘Hello.’

  ‘I’m enquiring after someone.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Caitlin Hughes. Do you know of anybody by that name who used to live round here?’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Probably about six or seven years ago.’

  ‘I would have been nine years old. I think you need to talk to Mrs Howe the owner. She knows everything about everybody in the village.’ She stuck her head through a door and shouted. ‘Mrs Howe.’

  He heard someone coming down a set of wooden stairs.

  A large attractive woman in her early fifties appeared. She had blonde hair, gold circular earrings and a leopard-skin type top underneath a black cardigan.

  ‘This man wants to know about someone in the village,’ the assistant said.

  ‘Thank you, Megan. Can you fill up the lemon bonbon jar, please.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Howe.’

  ‘Sheila Howe, how can I help you?’

  He showed her his licence.

  She took it off him, inspected it front and back, and then handed it back.

  ‘I’m investigating a missing person.’

  ‘And you think that person has been found here?’

  ‘I don’t know. Her name is Caitlin Hughes. She went to work in London, married a policeman and had a daughter called Phoebe.’

  ‘Sorry. There’s only ever been one Caitlin in the village, and she’s only seven years old.’

  ‘None in the past?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about her family – Hughes?’

  ‘You can double check with the Vicar, but I think the last Hughes in the village died in 1903.’

  He was beginning to get a bad feeling again. Who was DI Quigg’s ex-wife? He had an idea and took out the photograph of Caitlin and Phoebe. ‘Maybe you recognise her?’

  ‘Little Sally Tomkins. I haven’t seen her since . . . oh it must have been around 1993 – she was taken into care ’

  ‘Really?’

  She glanced at the assistant. ‘Are you all right on your own for a while, Megan?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Howe.’

&n
bsp; ‘Call if you need me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Sheila Howe said to him, ‘You’d better come up.’

  He followed her up a set of bare wooden stairs to a first-floor flat full of dolls.

  ‘Excuse my collection. They’re all Victorian porcelain dolls.’

  There were dolls of all shapes and sizes on every surface, and in every nook and cranny.

  ‘You have a lot of dolls,’ he said.

  ‘Four hundred and thirteen at the last count, but I have the feeling I missed Beatrice out.’

  ‘They all have names?’

  ‘Oh yes. And I remember every one of them.’

  He sat down on the predominantly green floral-patterned sofa. ‘What about your husband?’

  Her eyes narrowed to slits. ‘What about him?’

  ‘I just wondered . . .’

  ‘Well, don’t you wonder about him. The worms are keeping him company in the graveyard. He wanted to be cremated because he was scared of cold dark places full of insects, so I buried him.’ She smiled like Cruella DeVille. ‘The least I could do after he cheated on me with that trollop Tabitha Mundy. I mean, Tabitha is a cat’s name for God’s sake.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, Mr . . . ?’

  ‘Crankshank, but call me Rodney.’

  ‘Are you married, Rodney?’

  ‘No, I’m not. You were telling me about Sally . . .’

  ‘Yes I was, but if you want to know about her you’d better learn some patience. Fairlight Cove has a population of a hundred and sixty one inhabitants. I know every one of those people, and most of them are boring. We get lots of tourists during the summer, but they don’t want to sit and talk to the locals. Now you’re here, wanting information that I have in my head. Yes Rodney Crankshank, you’d better learn some patience if you want my information. Can I get you a cup of tea and some biscuits?’

  ‘That would be lovely, Mrs Howe.’

  ‘Please call me Sheila.’ She went into the kitchenette and filled the kettle up at the sink. ‘Did you know that Sheila means Heaven?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ He still had a bad feeling, but now it was mixed with other feelings of trepidation, impatience and fear. Why fear he had no idea. Maybe it was the talk of burying a husband who expressed a wish to be cremated – revenge beyond the grave. Maybe it was the idea that she’d helped him on his way in no small measure. He shivered, and hoped he wasn’t going to be kept here too long.