The Gordian Knot (Stone & Randall 2)

by Ellis, Tim

  ‘Maybe she wanted to get pregnant?’

  ‘Well anyway, Jim’s wedged between a rock and a hard place now.’

  ‘Do you think it’s the reason he disappeared?’

  ‘Jim’s not like that. He’ll stick by Ginny come what may, and Colleen wouldn’t have upped and left of her own accord either.’

  ‘Did she know about Ginny?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Jim planned to tell her, but there was a major stumbling block. They recently found out that Colleen couldn’t have babies.’

  ‘Bloody hell. I can imagine that Ginny’s pregnancy would have been a smack in the mouth.’

  ‘Yes, probably. I don’t know what Jim was planning to do next.’

  ‘Disappear?’

  ‘No. Colleen would have wanted to know why.’

  ‘Can you tell me what Jim was working on?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Jim is our best software development engineer – there are seven of us in total. After we won the award people from the Ministry of Defence came calling. They offered us a very lucrative contract, but it was classified top secret. Jim was allocated to that.’

  ‘Do you know if he was having any problems?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘Presumably, as his boss, you have access to what he was working on?’

  ‘No. There were a number of stipulations. One of them was that I would be kept out of the loop. They dealt with Jim directly. I only knew its codename – Salamander.’

  ‘Have you got a contact number at the MoD?’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t give you that.’

  ‘Did Jim do his work here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then surely, what he was working on would be on your server, and . . .’

  ‘No. He had secure access into the MoD vault. All his work was completed inside there.’

  ‘You’re talking about an online vault?’

  ‘Yes. And before you start thinking that Jim might have been stealing government secrets and selling them on to the highest bidder – he wouldn’t, but he couldn’t either. He had to pass through intricate layers of security going in and coming out of the vault. He couldn’t upload or download anything. If he’d tried to, it would have tripped all kinds of booby-traps and alarms. He kept everything inside his head.’

  ‘So, if there were people who wanted what he was working on, then kidnapping him was the only solution. The only way to get the information was for Jim to tell them.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Christ! Do you think that’s what happened?’

  ‘I expect you’ve informed the MoD?’

  ‘No, not yet. Well, although he disappeared on Saturday, he’s only been missing a day and a half from work.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they want to know why he hasn’t been into the vault since Friday?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Software development isn’t a nine to five job. He was working towards a deadline and often stayed late here. The MoD are only concerned about the end result.’

  ‘And you have no idea what Salamander is?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Maybe you ought to tell them he’s missing. I suspect the longer you leave it, the more problems you’ll have in explaining why you didn’t contact them.’ He took out a business card, wrote his mobile number on the back and passed it to McCann. ‘When you do ring your contact, let them know I’m investigating the O’Connors’ disappearance, and that I’ve also signed the Official Secrets Act.’

  He saw McCann’s eyes narrow.

  ‘Ex Detective Inspector in the Met,’ he explained, as he stood up and offered his hand. ‘Thanks for taking the time to see me, Mr McCann.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  They made their way out.

  ‘I’ll ring the MoD in a minute. I expect you’ll be hearing from them.’

  The corner of his mouth went up. ‘I expect I will.’

  He glanced at Ginny. She gave him a surreptitious smile and a quick wave – he smiled and waved back.

  Outside, there was a light smattering of snow. He decided to walk back to the bus stop and save the sled and huskies for later.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Someone,’ she said.

  ‘Someone called . . . ?’

  ‘Someone called mind your own business.’

  ‘That’s a cool name. Imagine, when people asked what your name was you could say, “Mind your own business,” and they’d say . . .’

  ‘Shut up, Tony.’

  On the way to the hospital they stopped off at Shepherd’s Bush and had lunch in The Stinging Nettle on Goldhawk Road. As usual, Tony had a meal that could have fed a third-world country.

  She had a lot on her plate, but not for lunch. There was too much going on to feel hungry. She ordered a salad and pushed it round the plate.

  ‘Don’t you want that?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Salad would complement this sausage, mash and gravy.’

  She pushed the plate towards him absently. ‘Sometimes you can be disgusting.’

  He slid everything from Molly’s plate onto his own. ‘I know.’

  The slate-grey sky looked heavy and foreboding as they entered Hammersmith Hospital and walked down to the mortuary.

  Doc Firestone was just finishing off the post mortem of Father Nathan Grove – or whoever he was. He had started the PM early and they were half an hour late.

  Molly was relieved that they didn’t have to sit through another slicing and dicing session, she wasn’t really in the mood.

  ‘So, what have you got for us?’ she said.

  ‘You first?’

  ‘We came here to find out what you’ve discovered, not the other way round.’

  ‘A sharing of information puts what I’ve found into context.’

  Tony interrupted. ‘We’ve discovered that he’s not the man he said he was. He was passing himself off as Father Nathan Grove, but we haven’t found any records for a Nathan Grove. His fingerprints also match someone called Marshall Grant who was arrested for burglary in 2005, spent two years in HMP Erlestoke in Devizes, and was then killed in a hit-and-run in 2012.’

  ‘The hit-and-run was obviously a set-up,’ Molly added.

  ‘Interesting,’ Doc Firestone said. ‘Well, it falls in with what I found during the PM. Let’s deal with the boring stuff first. We know he was crucified. The nails through his hands and feet are replicas that can be purchased from a number of places on the internet. He died from a stab wound to the heart, which could have been made by a replica Roman spear, but without the weapon I can only be ninety percent sure. The crown was made from bog standard barbed wire . . .’

  ‘Any idea why the killer didn’t use a crown of thorns, Doc?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Have you ever tried to make a crown of thorns?’

  ‘Not recently.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you that it’s notoriously difficult and cuts your hands to shreds.’

  ‘That’s all very interesting, but not really what we came here for. Did you find anything that we can use?’

  ‘Impatient as ever, DI Stone.’

  ‘I have a low boredom threshold.’

  ‘Two things. First . . .’

  Tony interrupted again. ‘Before you go into that, Doc. Can you tell whether he had sex . . . ?’

  ‘There was no evidence . . .’

  ‘No, I don’t mean at the front.’

  ‘Oh, you want to know whether he’d had anal sex?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not recently.’

  ‘Had he ever had anal sex?’

  ‘The anal sphincter muscle is not anatomically designed to comfortably admit external objects – it is designed to relax and stretch when stimulated internally by rectal fullness from stool. The automatic reflex is for it to contract and tighten when pressure is applied externally. So relaxation of the sphincter for external penetration is learned
over time because otherwise it’s very uncomfortable, and must only be done with gentle continual pressure, and lots and lots of lubricant. The risks, even with gentle insertion, are laceration of the anal tissue, and rectal mucosa, resulting in pain, bleeding, and difficulty passing stool comfortably . . .’

  Molly prompted ‘And the answer to the question is?’

  ‘No.’

  She could see he was dithering. ‘There’s a but coming, isn’t there?’

  ‘I was going to tell you this second, but I suppose I could make it first . . .’

  She sighed loudly.

  ‘If he’d spent time in prison, it might explain why I found something up there.’

  Tony’s eyes opened wide. ‘In his anus?’

  ‘Yes.’ He turned round, picked up a small silver cylinder and offered it to Molly.

  Her inclination was to reach out and grab the small object, but she forced herself to keep her hands by her sides. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It’s been disinfected.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  Tony grinned, put on a pair of gloves from out of his pocket and held out his hand. ‘Here Doc, I’ll take a look.’

  Doc Firestone placed it on Tony’s open palm.

  Tony stared at the cylinder. Each of the seven sections was completely covered in numbers, letters and symbols, which had been engraved into the silver from every angle possible.

  ‘It’s three inches in length,’ the Doc said. ‘Has a diameter of half an inch and there are seven sections.’

  ‘Is it solid silver?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tony whistled softly. ‘Must be worth a few bob. What did you find inside?’

  ‘Nobody has been able to open it yet.’

  ‘Nobody?’ Molly asked. ‘Who is this nobody?’

  ‘Oh you know, just some of the other mortuary staff, a porter, three nurses and a medical rep’ who wandered in off the street trying to sell me some post mortem instruments.’

  ‘You do know this is evidence?’

  ‘All it is at this moment in time is a cylinder nobody can open.’

  ‘I presume it was examined for fingerprints and DNA?’

  ‘Contrary to popular belief, I do have an inkling of what I’m supposed to do as a forensic pathologist. I have been doing the job for a few years . . .’

  ‘Too few to mention, Doc?’

  He smiled. ‘Yes, very good, Detective. There were no retrievable fingerprints, and the DNA belonged to the victim.’

  ‘You’re thinking that the letters, numbers and symbols on each section are the combination locking mechanism?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Seems logical.’

  Tony spun the sections with a finger. ‘Each one spins all the way round.’

  ‘You obviously have to stop each section at a specific point much like a combination lock . . .’

  ‘And you have no idea what the combination is?’ Molly said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bag it, Tony. We’ll get someone who knows what they’re doing to examine it.’

  Tony grinned. ‘Never mind, Doc,’ he said slipping the cylinder into an evidence bag, throwing the gloves into a waste bin by the door, and sliding the bag into a pocket of his jacket. ‘You gave it your best shot.’

  ‘Yes I did. And while you’re wondering what the cylinder was doing in his rectal passage you might want to think about that.’

  Tony glanced at Molly. ‘Well, the priest must have been trying to hide it.’

  ‘From whom? And why?’

  ‘Ah, you think this is what the killer was looking for?’

  ‘I would say so, yes.’

  ‘More like what’s inside the cylinder, you mean,’ Molly said.

  ‘You’re making a number of assumptions, Inspector. First, there might be nothing in the cylinder. Second, the cylinder might not be hollow. Third, the sections might not be a combination lock at all. Fourth, the message might be on the outside instead of the inside . . .’

  ‘Hey, that’s brilliant thinking, Doc. So, we might have to line up the sections for a message to appear?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘Which is all very amateurish,’ Molly concluded. ‘We’ll give it to a professional.’

  ‘Are there such people?’ Doc Firestone asked.

  Tony’s face lit up. ‘The number, Gov.’

  The Doc’s face also lit up. ‘You have a number?’

  ‘We thought it might be a telephone number, but we’ve not had much luck dialling it.’

  ‘Keep that number to yourself, DC Read. This is not a problem-solvers convention, you know.’

  Tony pulled a face. ‘Sorry, Doc.’

  ‘That’s all right, Detective. I’m fully aware of how difficult it must be to work with DI Stone.’

  Molly gave half a laugh. ‘What’s difficult Doc, is trying to get information out of you. There was something else you were going to tell us first that was relegated to second.’

  ‘So there was.’ He turned, picked up a specimen bottle from the stainless steel work surface containing the victim’s organs and held it up. ‘This.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Dermatobia hominis from the Oestridae family of Botflies.’ He put the bottle down and signalled for them to follow him to the mortuary table. ‘Take a look at this,’ he said, pulling the plastic sheet covering the victim down to the waist.

  Father Grove had been left lying on his front, so that the Doc could show them what he’d found on the back.

  They leaned in to see a hole – approximately an inch in diameter – that Doc Firestone was pointing at between the shoulder blades and just right of the spine.

  ‘On closer examination I noticed a red lump . . .’

  ‘Acne?’ Tony offered.

  ‘You might think so, but no. When I palpated it I felt something hard inside, so I decided to investigate further. I opened up the lump with a scalpel, and to my surprise I found the larvae of a botfly. It was a surprise because usually, after eight weeks, the larvae hatch into botflies and fly away. These larvae died for some reason.’

  Tony pulled a face. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘The larvae of the botfly parasitize humans. The botfly’s eggs usually drop off a mosquitoes legs and then uses the mosquito bite as an entry point to burrow into the subcutaneous layers of the skin where they secrete an antibiotic to prevent infection, and then party for eight weeks on human blood and warmth until it’s time to leave home.’

  ‘You’re rambling again, Doc,’ Molly said. ‘We do have other places to visit, you know.’

  ‘The larvae have been in this man’s back for at least two years, but what’s interesting is that the botfly is a native of the Americas – from Veracruz in south-eastern Mexico to northern Argentina, Chile and Costa Rica. Also, short-stay tourists are not subject to botfly infestations – he lived there for some time.’

  Tony rubbed his stubble. ‘That might explain why we can’t find any record of a Father Nathan Grove, Gov. Maybe he wasn’t born in this country.’

  ‘Hmmm, possibly. Is that it, Doc?’

  ‘A smile and a thank you would suffice, DI Stone.’

  ‘It’s not Christmas yet.’

  ‘Will that change anything?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  Tony slapped him on the back and grinned. ‘Thanks Doc, you’ve been a great help.’

  ‘It’s nice to be appreciated.’

  Molly headed for the door. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘She loves you really, you know.’

  The corner of his mouth went up. ‘I don’t think DI Stone loves anyone, Detective.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  As they were walking across the car park Tony said, ‘I’ll try the number on the cylinder.’

  ‘It won’t work,’ she said.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘The cylinder is not only alphanumeric, but incorporates symbols. Any combination would incorporate the numbers, lett
ers and symbols.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Do your worst.’

  Her mobile grunted.

  Tony climbed into the car and began working on the cylinder like a safe cracker.

  She remained outside – even though it had started snowing – and paced around the car park while she took the call. She was shivering, but there were some conversations Tony wasn’t meant to hear. She could have brought him in from the cold, told him all her secrets, but she didn’t want to compromise him. If she was caught though, he would be tarred by the same brush anyway. No one would believe he didn’t know, or wasn’t part of the conspiracy.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s Strebler.’

  ‘I hope you’ve got good news?’

  ‘Good and bad.’

  ‘Give me the . . . bad first.’

  ‘The fingerprint doesn’t match any of the staff at the ESW.’

  She screwed her face up. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Sergeant Cooke told me that there were only four people who had access to the safe where the inactive cards were kept. That fingerprint should match one of those four people. If we pretend that you and Sergeant Cooke are innocent, that leaves the other three sergeants.’

  ‘That’s true. Except . . . the safe was left open on that day because the only people in were staff.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Strebler. If you don’t mind me saying so, it’s a good job there’s no fucking inquiry, because they’d skin you alive and then hang you out to dry.’

  ‘I know, but in my defence . . .’

  ‘You have no fucking defence. Jesus! So, we have no idea who accessed the storage unit?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s the good news?’

  ‘The jinn is back in the bottle.’

  ‘The day has not been completely wasted then. Okay, what are we going to do about this partial fingerprint? It’s a loose end that needs to be tied up and double-knotted.’

  ‘Sergeant Cooke and I are going to look at the CCTV from that day and see if we can’t make some sense of it.’

  ‘That’s a start. What about checking their bank accounts?’