The Gordian Knot (Stone & Randall 2)

by Ellis, Tim

  She made her way out of the Chief’s office, along the corridor and down the stairs. That’s all she needed, somebody digging around in one of her past cases. She’d better give Randall a ring and warn him. They couldn’t make him come back for the review unless they found something unlawful. Christ, the bastards could lock him up again.

  Out in the car park she lit up a cigarette and rang him. She was bloody freezing without her coat.

  ‘Hello, Molly.’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘I’m busy at the moment. I’ll ring you later.’

  The phone went dead.

  She hated the way he did that.

  ‘You fucking bastard,’ she screamed into the phone and felt much better for it.

  Chapter Four

  Before he left the flat he rang Ruby.

  ‘Where’ve you been, Cole Randall?’

  ‘You know – here and there.’

  ‘Are you dealing with me direct now?’

  ‘Yes. Rhino is yesterday’s hacker.’

  ‘Wicked. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Jim and Colleen O’Connor, 24 Hay’s Mews in Chiswick. Everything you can get your hands on, especially telephone, bank and credit card reports.’

  ‘You’re trying to get me into trouble, aren’t you?’

  The phone went dead.

  He smiled. He’d never met Ruby, but he trusted her. She’d done a good job for him with the Hansen clan.

  He caught the tube to Green Park on the Piccadilly Line, switched to the Jubilee Line and hopped on a train to North Greenwich.

  Bradley Bath was tall and wiry, in his mid-forties and dressed in a pair of dark blue overalls that had never seen the inside of a washing machine.

  They shook hands. Randall followed him across the slip road and down inside a circular metal ladder onto the concrete maintenance walkway. His mobile activated half-way down the ladder. He leaned his back against a metal ring. It was Molly. He told her he’d call her later.

  ‘You don’t look as though you’ve brought a pair with you,’ Bath said, pointing at his own overalls when they were standing at the beginning of the walkway.

  ‘Was I meant to?’

  ‘You should have been told. I wish I’d known, I could have supplied you with a pair. She was built in 1897, so you can imagine the filth that’s accumulated down here. She’s never been cleaned, you know. Me and my mates wander about and pick up a few crisp packets now and again, but the old girl could do with a proper scrubbing.’

  ‘I don’t suppose they want to close the tunnel,’ he ventured. He wished he’d known as well. His favourite donkey jacket was going to get ruined and he was wearing some half-decent clothes that were reasonably new.

  ‘Exactly right. Every time they close the tunnel for refurbishment there’s a hue and cry. You’d think the end of the world had come. There’s a lot of pressure to keep her open.’

  ‘What happens when there’s a breakdown or an accident?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe the hullabaloo if I told you. There’s no room to do a u-turn in there, so the recovery truck has to reverse all the way to the broken-down vehicle and then pull it out. For health and safety reasons they have to close the tunnel while they’re doing it as well – sometimes for over an hour. The tailback goes on for miles. It’s a joy to behold. Never a dull moment here, you know.’

  ‘Is that what happened with the O’Connor’s car?’

  ‘No . . . Well, it didn’t break down, did it? One of our guys got in the car, drove it out of the tunnel and parked it up on the other side. It wasn’t until later that we realised something wasn’t quite right, so we called the police.’

  ‘I see. Do you . . . ?’

  Bath carried on as if Randall hadn’t said anything. ‘Did you know that seven men died during her construction?’

  Randall shook his head.

  ‘Rumour has it that they’re still down here . . . you know, their ghosts and so forth. Can’t say I’ve ever seen them, but some of the lads say they have.’

  ‘Really?’ He didn’t believe in ghosts.

  ‘Anyway, what is it you’re looking for?’ he asked unlocking a small metal door inset into the wall and taking out two high-powered torches.

  ‘I don’t know until I find it.’

  ‘Well, you’ll need this when you do. It’s like the inside of my wife’s knickers in there.’

  ‘Dark and hairy?’

  ‘Did I mention the smell?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yeah, smells in there as well. Well, you can imagine, can’t you? The new-fangled tunnels all have super-duper extraction systems and ultra bright overhead lights. All she has is a couple of ventilation towers that are as much use as a concrete parachute. I get jealous sometimes, but well . . .’ He stroked the wall of the tunnel. ‘She can’t help it. One of these days they’ll give her a proper facelift, and she’ll be the pride of Greenwich.’

  Bath led the way into the tunnel. The smell was bad and the air was thick with exhaust fumes. If the council were really concerned about health and safety, they both should have been wearing breathing apparatus and ear defenders.

  ‘They’re going to give her a new fire detection system though. Don’t know when, but she’ll enjoy that.’ He patted the wall again. ‘She’ll be around for a fair few years yet. They let pedestrians use the walkway until 1969, but that was when there were a lot less cars on the road.’

  There was no walkway on the right of the tunnel, it was simply concrete wall. The walkway on the left that they were on was raised above the traffic and had a metal rail to prevent people falling onto the road. There were bundles of red powder fire extinguishers tied to the railing at regular intervals.

  As they moved further inside the tunnel the noise made his ears pop. He had to get closer to Bath to hear what he was saying.

  ‘The one thing that bothers me about the O’Connors is what happened to them when they got out of the car,’ he said.

  Bath shrugged. ‘There’s no way in or out of here unless you’re in a vehicle or on this walkway.’

  ‘Do you think they walked out?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nobody saw them if they did. And not only that, why get out and walk when they were in a perfectly good car? Also, it’s nearly one and a half miles to the other end. That’s about a hundred and fifty miles in here.’

  Randall nodded. He could well believe it. His head was throbbing. He felt as though he was sucking in air through an exhaust pipe and his nose had clogged up with black sooty shit. He was beginning to think that coming down here was probably the worst idea he’d ever had.

  They reached a place on the walkway where it widened and there were two locked doors inset into the wall.

  ‘This is where we keep our equipment,’ Bath said unlocking the left-hand door.

  They went inside.

  Bath switched a light on and closed the door.

  ‘Phew! That’s better,’ he said as the noise and fumes dissipated. ‘Take a seat, I’ll make us a brew. It can be pretty grim in that tunnel if you’re not used to it. Although I’m not sure you ever get used to it. I’ve been maintaining this tunnel for over twenty years and sometimes it gets to me as well.’ He switched a kettle on and began putting sugar, coffee and coffee mate into two mugs.

  There were no chairs. Four beer crates turned on their sides were being used, so he sat on one of those. In the middle of the beer crates was another upended one with a piece of wood on top and a filthy pack of cards in the centre. He didn’t see a sink or any water to either fill the kettle or wash the mugs, but he ignored any misgivings he might have had. His mouth and throat felt as though they’d been cleaned with a very old toilet brush.

  Bath passed him a steaming mug and smiled. ‘That’ll clear some of the shite from your pipes.’

  He couldn’t taste a damned thing. For all he knew he could have been drinking sewage water, but it dislodged some of the gunk that had caked the inside of his mouth and throat. />
  ‘Where did the car stop?’

  ‘About a hundred yards that way,’ he said pointing back the way they’d come.

  ‘Is there any way they could have got into this room or the one next door?’

  ‘They’re kept locked at all times. Only the maintenance workers have keys, and nobody forced the locks. And let’s say they did get in here – then what?’ He waved his arm about. ‘There’s nowhere to go. Up there . . .’ he pointed an index finger towards the ceiling, ‘. . . is the Thames – a million tons of water.’

  ‘No access or sewerage tunnels?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘How did they get out of the tunnel then? Have you or your mates got any ideas?’

  ‘We discussed it all right. And apart from a cloak of invisibility, alien abduction, and some other stupid ideas from a guy who reads a lot of weird science fiction crap, we ain’t got nothing. I reckon you oughta call in that Jonathan Creek fella. He’ll work out what happened to them.’

  ‘He’s not real, you know.’

  ‘Really? Well, he should be.’

  ‘I noticed an emergency phone on the wall outside.’

  ‘Yeah, mobiles don’t work down here. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s no CCTV either.’

  ‘I was going to ask about that.’

  ‘They keep talking about it, but the trouble is it wouldn’t stay clean for more than five minutes, and we’d be down here cleaning the lenses on a daily basis. You know what that’d mean, don’t you?’

  ‘Tunnel closures?’

  ‘Spot on, mate. So, you’re investigating the disappearance of these people?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not a copper?’

  ‘Used to be.’

  Bath pursed his lips and nodded his head. ‘How come the police aren’t looking into it?’

  ‘They think the O’Connor’s planned it all.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  He shrugged. ‘I haven’t formed an opinion yet, but I’m still left with the problem of how they got out of the tunnel. Did anyone check the boot of the car before driving it out of the tunnel?’

  ‘Ah, you’re thinking they hid in the boot, my mate drives the car out of the tunnel, they climb out when the coast is clear and hey presto they disappear for real.’

  ‘It’s one idea I had.’

  ‘No. The car could be seen by the CCTV camera. When I said there’s no CCTV in the tunnel, I didn’t mean there’s none at all. There are cameras monitoring traffic going in and out – that’s how we know when there’s something wrong in here.’

  ‘What about another car stopping and picking them up?’

  ‘The police thought that’s what might have happened, so they took copies of the DVDs, traced every driver and questioned them all.’

  He thought about what Bath had just said. Maybe the police had done a thorough job in tracing and questioning all the drivers, but maybe they hadn’t. If they thought the O’Connor’s had faked their disappearance, then they might not have bothered tying the loose ends together. ‘Any chance of getting a copy of those DVDs?’

  ‘Don’t see why not. I’ll speak to my supervisor in the Traffic Management Centre when we get out of here.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Should we move on?’

  ‘May as well,’ he said leaving what looked like primordial dregs in the bottom of the mug. He had a quick look around the room. ‘So, there’s no way out of here?’

  ‘Not unless you’re a cockroach. As you can see, we keep all our equipment in here. Next door we store the grit, salt and chemicals that we need to keep the tunnel open.’

  ‘Are there any more storage rooms?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No ventilation ducts?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve probably seen enough then.’

  ‘Are you sure? We could stay down here all day, if you want.’

  ‘Very kind, but I’ve seen what I needed to see.’

  ‘You know how they got out of the tunnel then?’

  ‘Not yet, but I will.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘If a Priest is equivalent to a Constable, then an Archbishop must be the same as a Sergeant, which makes me senior to him,’ Molly reasoned.

  Tony smiled. ‘I don’t think it works like that, Gov.’

  ‘Well, let’s go from the top down then. If the Pope is the Police Commissioner . . . what comes next?’

  ‘A Cardinal, I think.’

  ‘And a Cardinal is equivalent to a . . .’

  St Peter-in-chains church was part of the diocese of Westminster, and the Archbishop’s residence was located in Ambrosden Avenue directly behind Westminster Cathedral.

  They’d arrived fifteen minutes ago, and been told by the Archbishop’s secretary – Father Jimmy Fleming – to take a seat in the large ornate entrance hall. Molly was trying to figure out whether to pull rank on the Archbishop or not. She felt he’d made her wait long enough.

  ‘Yeah, I think an Archbishop is a bit higher than a Bishop, so he’s probably the same rank as you.’

  ‘You think, but you don’t actually know.’

  ‘Well no, it’s not an exact science. He’s certainly got a better house than you,’ Tony said looking around.

  They were sitting on red velvet covered chairs with patterned gold-leaf frames, the ceiling was decorated with gold and green squares and had a glass chandelier dangling in the centre. The floor was elaborate parquet and the doors were arched. There was also a matching arched fireplace, which had a portrait of the new Pope above it. A central red-carpeted staircase led upstairs through gold-painted columns and reminded Molly of an ancient Roman house.

  ‘He lives in a better house than me, you mean. The church pay for this. It’s like you living in a police house. I bet he doesn’t even pay the utility bills out of his wages.’

  ‘And he’s closer to God.’

  ‘Are you trying to infer something?’

  ‘No, I mean in terms of rank.’

  ‘You don’t think a DI is god-like then?’

  The door opened before he could answer.

  Father Fleming was a big man with grey hair, a trimmed grey beard, glasses and a paunch. ‘The Archbishop will see you now,’ he said.

  ‘About time,’ Molly mumbled.

  Archbishop Henry Godfrey came round an enormous mahogany desk to welcome them and direct them into easy chairs positioned on a thick oblong rug. Molly noticed his thinning slick-backed hair and chubby hands. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. The change in Pope has caused no end of additional work for me. Can we get you some refreshments?’

  ‘Coffee would be good,’ Tony said.

  ‘Do you make it with holy water?’ Molly asked.

  The Archbishop smiled. ‘I can ask Father Fleming to make some especially for you, Inspector Stone.’

  ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble. Tap water will do.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Father Fleming nodded and left the room.

  ‘So, how can I help you?’ Archbishop Godfrey enquired.

  Molly’s face creased up. ‘You do remember that Father Nathan Grove from St Peter-in-Chains church, which is part of your diocese if I’m not mistaken, was crucified in the early hours of this morning, don’t you?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Good. I was beginning to think that maybe you’d had a lapse of memory.’

  ‘Not at all. It’s extremely sad, but it still doesn’t explain why you’re here.’

  Molly glanced at Tony.

  ‘He’s one of your priests. Don’t you care what happened to him?’

  ‘He’s in God’s hands now.’

  ‘I’m sure that will be the case, but I’m more interested in who sent him there and why.’

  ‘And you think I can help?’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘No.’

  Father Fleming came in with a tray of refreshments, put it down on a wooden table
with religious magazines on and poured the drinks. ‘Help yourself to milk and sugar,’ he said and left.

  ‘No you can’t help? Or no you won’t help?’ Molly asked.

  He didn’t answer the question directly but said, ‘I am bound by the confessional.’

  Molly’s brow furrowed. ‘Father Grove has been the parish priest at St Peter-in-Chains church for eighteen months. Where was he before that?’

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘Surely his career path isn’t bound by the confessional? We’re trying to find his killer.’

  ‘I understand . . .’

  ‘I don’t think you do. He was crucified in the same manner as Jesus Christ. Roman nails and a spear were used. He’d been stripped naked except for his clerical collar and above his head – instead of INRI on a wooden plaque – the killer had carved ATHEOS, which means . . .’

  ‘Without God?’

  ‘That’s right. Does any of that mean anything to you?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. It doesn’t.’

  Molly exhaled loudly in exasperation, took a swallow of her coffee and then said, ‘Why won’t you help us, Archbishop?’

  ‘There’s nothing I can help you with, Inspector.’

  ‘I’d like a copy of his personnel file.’

  ‘I can give you that, but it only contains information from the time Father Grove became the parish priest at St Peter-in-Chains church.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘You keep saying that, but you’re not sorry really, otherwise you’d help us catch his killer.’

  Tony interrupted. ‘Father Grove was crucified on a heavy wooden cross. You don’t know where that cross came from, do you?’

  ‘It is an item of church property that was kept in a storeroom for religious festivals and events.’

  Tony nodded.

  Molly continued. ‘Did Father Grove have any relatives?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Everybody has relatives.’

  ‘Father Grove didn’t.’

  Molly shook her head. She felt as though she were running a marathon through maple syrup. ‘Do you know why the killer left the clerical collar on Father Grove?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was he a good priest?’