The Gordian Knot (Stone & Randall 2)

by Ellis, Tim

  After throwing on his clothes the first thing he did was switch his laptop on and check his emails. Another message from Ruby was wedged between something with Chinese characters and an offer of free Viagra for a month from . . . He deleted those and opened Ruby’s email.

  Hi Cole Randall,

  It’s late! I hate the Blackwall Tunnel. The report is attached. Also, I did some digging on George Swash – he’s a very naughty boy! Reports attached.

  From Ruby, your greatest fan

  He printed off the reports, but seven pages were lost. Three hardly had any ink on them and were unreadable, and then the printer ran out of paper. There was nothing he could do about it, so he took what he had.

  Keeping each report together, he laid them out on the kitchen table. There were reports for Jim and Colleen O’Connor’s joint bank account, joint credit card account, their mobile telephones and their home phone number. Next, he had the bulky report on the cars entering and leaving the Blackwall Tunnel. Finally, there were reports for George Swash’s mobile number, home number, bank account, credit card account and online activity – the last seven pages of which were missing.

  He scooped up all the reports, stuffed them into his shoulder bag, shrugged into his faithful old donkey jacket and took the stairs two at a time down to the cafe.

  Kiri looked up.

  He smiled and waved but didn’t stop.

  The cold hit him like a sheet of ice. As he hurried along the street to the police station he wondered if Jacob had slept well in the cell at Shoreditch.

  Molly was standing on the pavement next to the car park stamping her feet and rubbing her hands.

  ‘You should be waiting for me, not the other way round.’

  ‘Hello, Molly. Lovely to see you. Your beauty and sunny disposition is always a pleasure to behold.’

  ‘Stop waffling. Well, explain away?’

  He passed her Jacob’s hair that he’d put into an envelope. ‘Give that to Perkins and ask him to compare the DNA analysis with Hansen’s offspring.’

  She stared at him. ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t really want to know.’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘I think I’ve got Jacob.’

  Her eyes opened wide. ‘Think you have him! What does that mean?’

  ‘He says he’s someone else.’

  ‘The fucking bastard. Where?’

  ‘Need to know.’

  ‘I need to know.’

  ‘No you don’t.’

  ‘How . . . ? Where . . . ? I want to see him.’

  He held up his hand. ‘Let’s find out if it’s him first, and then I’ll tell you everything.’

  Her jaw set hard. ‘You’d better.’

  He passed her the content only of the email Ruby had sent him:

  1. Upshaw has visited Haig fifteen times in prison.

  2. Haig has been visited by his mother, and a friend called Graham Pilton.

  3. Also, a man calling himself John Adams – an alias – visited him (possibly Swash).

  4. Upshaw has a crush on Haig.

  5. The ‘Free Haig’ website has been disabled.

  ‘Don’t you have somewhere to go?’ he said pointing at his watch. ‘It’s twenty past eight.’

  ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ she hissed running towards the station rear entrance like an Olympic sprinter.

  As he began walking towards Hammersmith station he smiled and shook his head – if anyone was crazy it was Molly.

  Did he have Jacob? What if he’d got it wrong and had to release David Hill? He shrugged. Well, if the man wasn’t Jacob then he was a burglar anyway and would be unlikely to go to the police with his tale of woe.

  Thankfully, he’d left two men following Molly until he knew for certain. Jamie Harris and Josh Longson were on today. John Crabbe had agreed last night to keep the issue of Jacob between the two of them, and was going to call in at Shoreditch to provide him with food and water on his way off duty.

  At the tube station he bought a ticket to Chiswick Park, and the woman behind the bullet-proof glass gave him a leaflet about an Oyster card when she handed him his ticket. He stuffed the leaflet into his pocket – what the hell was an Oyster card? Maybe it was a guide for dining out on aphrodisiacs in London.

  The journey was only four stations on the District Line, so wouldn’t take him long, but the morning rush hour was in full swing. A train came almost immediately. He was sucked up in the ebb and flow of people and had to stand up for the whole journey with no opportunity to take out and examine the reports.

  At Chiswick Park he exited the station and phoned Athena as he walked up Bollo Lane.

  ‘How are you Mr Randall?’

  ‘After hearing your voice I feel as though I’ve just burst forth into the sunshine.’

  ‘You want to get yourself some sunglasses.’

  ‘I have a job for you.’

  ‘I’m the one who gives you jobs, remember?’

  ‘Do you recall DI Stone?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘She needs a security system installed in her flat.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Can you get your best people on it and . . . ?’

  ‘They’re all our best people.’

  ‘You know what I mean . . . and install the best system you’ve got. Send the bill to me.’ He gave her Molly’s address.

  ‘No fee necessary. Call it our treat after what she went through.’

  ‘You’re truly a goddess Athena.’

  ‘And don’t you forget it, Mr Randall.’

  He turned right into Hay’s Mews and phoned John Crabbe.

  ‘I’m at Shoreditch station now,’ Crabbe said.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Yeah. He looks as though he had a bad night.’

  ‘Good. Slip the food and drink through the bars, don’t take the padlock off.’

  ‘I’ve done this before, Mr Randall.’

  ‘Just making sure. Thanks for your help last night, John.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘I’ll meet you there at seven tonight before you go on shift.’

  ‘See you then.’

  The call ended.

  He walked up the path of 24 Hay’s Mews. The terraced house had an open porch, a small overgrown garden and a bay window with the wood surrounds painted black.

  Marge had given him a spare key. He slipped it into the keyhole and opened the door.

  Before he could step inside the entrance hall he had to pick up a stack of mail and free papers that had piled up behind the door. What it told him was that Jim and Colleen hadn’t been back to the house since their disappearance. He closed the door behind him and shuffled through the mail – nothing jumped out at him, but then he couldn’t see inside the envelopes.

  The heating wasn’t on and he wondered if the freezing conditions had damaged any of the pipes yet. He opened a cupboard behind the door. There were coats, scarves, shoes and umbrellas stuffed inside.

  He moved through the house on a whistle-stop tour. The living room was at the front with the bay window, there was a home office in the back room, and the kitchen led out to a small enclosed patio containing some dirty weather-beaten plastic furniture. There was also numerous cupboards, a toilet and separate bathroom. Upstairs, were two bedrooms. One of them had an en suite and a walk-in wardrobe, the other didn’t. In the corner of the second bedroom was a set of stairs that led up to an attic bedroom. With the exception of the bathroom being downstairs, it appeared to be a normal house. He’d checked the price of the properties in the area and this would probably be worth around £650,000 – a good investment for a young married couple.

  Starting where he’d ended up – in the attic – he began retracing his route and looking more closely at the house that belonged to Jim and Colleen O’Connor. The attic was full of boxes. In the boxes were clothes belonging to both of them, ornaments, paintings, books, women’s shoes, old crockery and cutlery. If he’d had to guess, these were items th
at a newly married couple might have brought with them or been given by doting parents.

  The couple had obviously slept in the bedroom with the walk-in wardrobe and en suite bathroom. He rifled through the drawers in the bedside cabinets and found their passports. It didn’t mean anything. If they were going to run they’d change their names – the old passports would be a liability. All their clothes and shoes were in the wardrobe.

  In each room he found what he should have found. One day, a married couple were living here, the next day they weren’t. They’d left to go somewhere on the Saturday morning and vanished en route. He still didn’t know how, why or what had happened to them. They’d been missing three days now, and he could feel the trail freezing over.

  As an act of kindness, he put the heating on a low setting. If they ever did return to this house, then thousands of pounds worth of repairs was probably the last thing they needed.

  He left the house and began walking back to the station. On the face of it, Jim and Colleen O’Connor had walked out of their home on Saturday morning with every intention of returning, and he might have proceeded on the basis of that conclusion until he realised someone was following him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Molly only had time for a quick pee before she was running up the corridor to the Chief’s office.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  By the time she got there it was eight thirty-two and she was rasping like an asthmatic’s apprentice. She’d have to get down to the gym, maybe get a personal trainer to give her a workout.

  ‘She’s waiting for you,’ Sian Wallace, the temp who’d been acting as the Chief’s PA for the last seven months said. She was about the same age as Molly, had ginger hair down to her shoulders and the longest legs in Hammersmith. Tony had been sniffing round, but as far as Molly knew he had been unsuccessful in his efforts to part those legs. ‘Coffee?’

  Molly nodded as she opened the door.

  ‘Ah DI Stone. I was beginning to think I might have to send out a search party.’

  ‘I’ve been here since quarter to eight, Ma’am. God only knows how I’ve managed to be late.’

  ‘Well, you’re here now.’ The Chief leaned forwards, resting her elbows on the desk. ‘Before you brief me on your current investigation, perhaps you can explain to me how Mr Swash from the CCRC came to be locked up in one of our cells when you were meant to be signing over evidence to him in the Haig case at Margravine Gardens, and why you’ve submitted a request to extend his detention for ninety-six hours?’

  Molly brought her breathing under control and sat down in one of the two chairs in front of the desk. Here we go, she thought. She opened her mouth to speak, but Leggy Wallace came in with her coffee and placed it on the edge of the desk in front of her.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said and picked up the cup to take a sip – more time to think.

  ‘Take your time. I’m sure we both have nothing else better to do for the rest of the day.’

  ‘Sorry, Ma’am. I have evidence that Swash is part of a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the Haig case.’

  ‘What evidence?’

  ‘I’d rather not say at this stage.’

  ‘You haven’t got any evidence, have you?’

  ‘I will have by the end of the day, Ma’am.’

  The Chief stared at her. ‘Tell me what you know?’

  ‘Swash has Kelly Upshaw’s number in his mobile phonebook.’

  ‘And . . . ?’

  ‘A gut feeling . . .’

  The Chief stood up and began pacing round the room. ‘You do have a copy of PACE?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am. Section 24(6) refers to “reasonable grounds for suspecting”. I’m also familiar with Castorina v Chief Constable of Surrey (1988) and satisfying the three questions regarding unlawful arrest. I suspected that Swash was guilty of the offence; I had reasonable cause for that suspicion; and I arrested him in accordance with the Wednesbury principles.’

  ‘Then why is he saying that he hasn’t had a phone call, and that he wants to speak to a solicitor?’

  ‘I was standing next to him in the ESW when he made his phone call, and then I confiscated his mobile phone. He also declined a solicitor at that time.’

  ‘Now he wants to talk to one.’

  ‘At the moment he doesn’t need one because I don’t plan to interview him until later tonight. He can speak to the duty solicitor then.’

  ‘I don’t know whether to suspend you now and refer your case to Professional Standards, or give you some more rope to hang yourself.’

  ‘I’d appreciate some more rope, Ma’am.’

  ‘You have until eight thirty tomorrow morning. I’ll pass on your request to hold onto Swash for the maximum ninety-six hours, but if you don’t produce convincing evidence to support your actions by this time tomorrow morning he walks and you take his place.’

  ‘Thank you, Ma’am.’

  ‘I wouldn’t thank me just yet, DI Stone.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.

  ‘What about the death of the priest?’

  She passed the Chief what she’d constructed earlier in preparation for the press briefing in ten minutes time. Already she was beginning to panic at the thought of getting back on that particular horse.

  ‘Yes, that will do fine. What are you keeping to yourself?’

  ‘The Archbishop wouldn’t tell us a damned thing. He said that Father Grove’s past was protected by the seal of the confessional, and now he’s gone off somewhere and nobody will tell me where. His assistant Father Fleming was going to spill the beans, but before he could he was supposedly called to the Vatican. So, there’s no one at the Archbishop’s residence now who can or will provide us with any information about Father Grove. Something is going on, but I have no idea what.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve considered a search warrant for the Archbishop’s residence?’

  ‘And dismissed the idea. The sacramental seal is inviolable. No judge will force the Archbishop of Westminster to break the priest-penitent privilege even if it isn’t protected by case law.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘Also, the priest’s diary for 2013 is missing. It’s probable that the killer took it, so I had forensics do a sweep for fingerprints in the priest’s office, and in his house. Interestingly, we found two sets of prints at the house, neither of which as yet have been compared to Father Grove’s prints. However, the second set belong to someone called Marshall Grant who was charged with burglary in 2005 and spent two years in HMP Erlestoke in Devizes. He also died in a hit-and-run in 2012.’

  ‘If he died in 2012 . . .’

  Molly stood up, conscious that it was five to nine. ‘Exactly. I haven’t got any answers to that yet, Ma’am. All I can say at the moment is that DC Read and myself are trying to piece the fragments together.’

  ‘I can see you need to go. Hopefully, you’ll have more for me tomorrow morning. That, of course, all depends on whether you’re still a serving police officer by then.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  She ran along the corridor towards the stairs. At this rate she wouldn’t need to go to the gym, she could simply start wearing training shoes and a tracksuit, and fill out her application form for the London Marathon.

  There was no one else there. Oh, there were reporters, cameramen, photographers and a hundred other people associated with asking her embarrassing questions on television, but there was no one from the press office to offer her support during her time of need. She was a woman alone in more ways than one.

  Her heart was racing. She sat down, poured herself a glass of water, took a sip and cleared her throat. The piece of paper she’d written her briefing on looked as though it had been screwed up in her pocket – and it had. She placed it on the table in front of her and ran her hand over the creases to flatten it out. She began to read:

  ‘In the early hours of Monday morning Father Nathan Grove – the parish priest at the Church of St Peter-in-Chains on Hegel
Street in Hammersmith was murdered. As yet, we have been unable to ascertain a motive for the murder, but we are pursuing a number of leads.’

  The questions began:

  ‘Kate Wallis from the Greenwich Times,’ a thirty-something woman with dirty blonde hair and sunglasses on the top of her head even though it was minus six degrees outside stood up. ‘Is it true that Father Grove was stripped naked except for his dog collar and crucified on a cross in the church?’

  There was uproar.

  How the hell . . . ? But she should have expected it. The homeless man who had found the dead priest – Peter Gillibrand – would have spilled his guts for a decent meal, a bottle of meths and a warm bed for the night.

  There seemed no point in denying it. ‘Yes.’

  A black woman with long straight hair asked the next question. ‘Francis Marriott from the Shepherd’s Bush Camera. When you say “crucified”, do you mean that he had nails through his hands and feet, a crown of thorns on his head and a spear pierced his heart?’

  She wasn’t going to split hairs by explaining that the crown of thorns was actually made of barbed wire. ‘Yes.’

  People looked at each other in disbelief.

  ‘Dennis Holt from the Barking & Dagenham Chronicle,’ said an older man with a pasty complexion and thinning brown hair. ‘Have any more priests been crucified?’

  She screwed up her face. ‘I’m sorry I . . .’ Shit! The bastard was asking if there was a lunatic going round crucifying priests – a serial killer. ‘There has been one priest murdered and one priest only, and we have no expectation of finding any further dead priests.’

  A young woman with thick-rimmed glasses and black corkscrew hair protruding from a beret stood up. ‘Angela O’Leary from the Knightsbridge News. Did the killer leave any message?’