The Gordian Knot (Stone & Randall 2)

by Ellis, Tim

  It was ten to six. He’d have to snaffle down his meal and coffee and then make a move. It would take him twenty minutes on the tube to Shoreditch High Street and then he’d have to walk to the police station. Why hadn’t Molly rung? Maybe he’d have to ring her after all.

  Kiri brought his meal. ‘Bon appétit.’

  Oh, he had a good appetite all right. He would have eaten a scabby donkey, two rats and a mess of fried cockroaches, spiders and maggots, he was that hungry.

  He’d just loaded up his fork when Molly rang.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Professor Nicholas Louis looked like a professor. When Molly thought of a professor she had a picture in her mind that had been catalogued under “P for Professor”.

  He had Einstein-esque white hair, eyebrows that would have put the Amazon rainforests to shame and patches of stubble around his chin. His glasses were perched forgotten on his forehead, and his exotic multi-coloured dickey bow could only be called eccentric when compared with the rest of his unkempt clothing.

  ‘Show me,’ he pleaded.

  Tony held up the silver cylinder.

  The professor grabbed at it, but Tony snatched it away. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s evidence in a murder investigation.’

  ‘I must have it.’

  Molly moved between Tony and the professor. ‘Shall we introduce ourselves first?’ she said.

  He tore his eyes away from the cylinder and stared at her as if she was an alien being. ‘Oh, of course. I’m sorry. I collect them, you see, but they’re as rare as hen’s teeth.’

  ‘I’m DI Molly Stone and the person guarding the cylinder is DC Tony Read.’

  ‘I’m Nicholas Louis, Professor of Informatics. Come, come. I have an office. Not everyone has an office, but I have an office.’ He wheeled round and led them along a corridor at a forty-five degree angle to the reception.

  His office was cavernous, dark and with the exception of the tired-looking parquet floor the walls and ceiling were cold grey stone. It could have been made into a home-from-home, but the professor clearly wasn’t interested in the decor.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ he urged. ‘Please excuse the mess, but . . . Well, I suppose there’s no excuse.’ He sat down in a battered old Captain’s chair. ‘This is my office, and I like it just the way it is. They wanted me to have a clerical person or something, but I declined their very kind offer. If someone came in here and tidied up, I’d . . . Well, I don’t know what I’d do – retire probably.’

  There were curtain rails above the windows, but no curtains. Overflowing bookcases stood against two of the walls, but there were also tottering stacks of books, magazines, files, folders, research papers, objects and the like on the floor and other available surfaces.

  ‘They say that a messy desk reflects a creative mind. Goodness knows what my office says about me. There are seats somewhere. Will you see if you can find them? I’ve mislaid my glasses for the moment. There used to be a coffee machine in here, but goodness knows what happened to it.’

  ‘We’re fine thank you, Professor.’

  Tony spotted a chair, but had to scoop the mess piled on it onto the floor before he could pass it to Molly to sit on. He then decided to perch on a stack of books instead of launching himself on another chair hunt.

  ‘Forehead,’ Tony said tapping his own forehead.

  The professor reached up and smiled. ‘I was wondering where they were. So, are you going to show me, or watch while I have a psychotic episode?’

  Molly nodded at Tony. ‘Hand it over.’

  Tony took the cylinder from his jacket pocket and dangled it in front of the professor.

  Professor Louis took the bag as if it contained one of the eight missing Faberge imperial eggs. ‘Oh my! There are only twenty three of these in existence – I own seven of them. This could be the eighth. A millionaire recluse called William Antrobus used to spend a year designing and making each one to give to his lovely wife – Amaranth – on her birthday. Inside, he engraved the words: Immortal Love, and signed it: WA. When she died, he stopped making them and died soon afterwards himself.’

  How beautiful and sad, Molly thought, and wished somebody would love her like that. ‘What we need . . .’ she began.

  ‘Is for me to open the mneme?’ he finished for her. ‘That’s what they’re called, you know. Think of them as ancient memory sticks.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is different from the other mnemes that I have in my collection.’

  ‘Different? In what way?’

  ‘It’s solid, the disks fit together. Whereas the disks in the others I own rotate within a framework. The others have end caps, but the last disks on this one are the end caps. Also, the disks on the others are carved with the complete alphabet and a five, six or seven-word password is input. This one, I’m sure, works on the position of the letters, numbers and symbols. Yes, this is a very different mneme – much more complex.

  ‘Will you be able to open it?’

  ‘What is the history behind it?’

  ‘Everything I tell you is confidential?’ Molly said.

  The professor nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re familiar with the murder of Father Nathan Grove?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The mneme was found up his back passage during the post mortem.’

  The professor’s forehead creased up. ‘His rectal passage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How utterly fascinating.’

  ‘We’ve also discovered that the victim is not Father Nathan Grove, but a petty criminal called Marshall Grant who appears to have stolen the priest’s identity.’

  The professor held the mneme up to the fading light from the window. Dribble leaked from the corner of his mouth. ‘Is it all right to take it out of the bag?’

  Molly nodded. ‘Yes. It’s been disinfected, but I suggest you wash your hands after touching it.’

  He half smiled. ‘I will.’

  ‘We also know that Grant spent some time in the Americas, but we don’t know exactly where.’

  Louis already had the mneme out of the bag and was stroking it, inspecting it and turning it round and round in his fingers. ‘This is beautiful.’ He dropped his hands in his lap and stared at Molly. ‘If I open it, I get to keep it. That’s my price for helping you.’

  ‘I’m sorry Professor, I can’t promise you that. As far as we know it belongs to Marshall Grant, who might or might not have relatives.’

  ‘I thought you wanted me to open it?’

  ‘I do, but it’s not mine to give you.’

  ‘What if this Marshall Grant doesn’t have any relatives? What if he stole it? What if . . . ?’

  ‘You could put in a claim. I’ll do what I can, but there are no promises.’

  His face sagged. ‘I suppose that will have to do. I have your permission to photograph it, possibly write an article on opening it and to keep records about it?’

  ‘Yes. Except . . . you can’t publish anything during an active investigation.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘So, can you open it?’

  ‘If I can’t, then nobody can. Especially as the person who designed it is dead, and the person who locked it has probably joined him.’

  ‘How long is it going to take you?’ Tony asked.

  ‘It will take as long as it takes, young man. Possibly by tomorrow. No other clues?’

  Tony grinned. ‘We have a number.’

  ‘Really?’

  Tony read the number out.

  Louis repeated the numbers and wrote them down on the corner of a scrap of paper: ‘0531080870418.’

  ‘You’re not going to lose the number, are you Prof’?’

  ‘Don’t worry detective, I remember where everything is.’

  ‘Except your glasses?’

  The professor smiled. ‘Yes, except my glasses.’

  Molly passed him a card. ‘My number for when you open the mneme.’

  ‘I’
ll ring you tomorrow.’

  ‘And . . . I shouldn’t need to tell you that because it’s evidence in a murder investigation it should be kept secure at all times.’

  ‘It’s also very valuable and extremely rare. I have a safe where I keep the others.’

  Molly stood up and offered her hand. ‘Thank you for helping us, Professor.’

  ‘It’s my pleasure. And rest assured, you came to the right person.’

  Tony led the way, but the professor didn’t bother to accompany them. He was already engrossed trying to open the silver mneme.

  ‘Do you think he’ll be able to open it?’ Tony said.

  ‘Put it this way, he’s got more chance of opening it than you have.’

  ‘Another couple of minutes and . . .’

  When they turned the corner the car wasn’t where it was meant to be. In fact, Tony’s Alfa Romeo Spider had disappeared.

  ‘Oh God!’ he said. ‘My car’s been stolen.’

  ‘In broad daylight?’ Molly asked. Although the day was straddling the light and dark, and would soon embrace the darkness.

  Tony saw an old tramp wrapped in a moth-eaten blanket sitting against a wall with his arm round a shivering mongrel dog. He squatted down in front of the tramp.

  ‘Did you see a red car here?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Did you see who took it?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Tony took out his wallet and passed the tramp a five pound note.

  The dog growled.

  ‘Pilchard said, “No thanks”.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Is that what your car is worth to you – a crummy five pounds?’

  ‘How about twenty?’

  ‘How much you got in that there fancy wallet?’

  ‘Fifty pounds.’

  ‘That’ll do.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Do you want to know, or not?’

  Tony emptied his wallet and passed the money over.

  The tramp pointed at a sign on the wall:

  Unauthorised vehicles will be

  re-located at owner’s expense

  Naujokaitis Towing Service

  24 hours service 7 days a week

  020 – 7316 – 1206

  £250 per day storage

  Cash/Visa/Mastercard/Debit

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Tony said. ‘They’ve towed a police car away.’

  The tramp stood up, threw the blanket round his shoulders and said, ‘Come on Pilchard, let’s go and get us a slap-up meal.’

  The dog barked and wagged its tail.

  ‘I’ll have to catch the tube back to the station now,’ Molly said.

  ‘What about my car?’

  ‘You’d better go and get it.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming with me?’

  ‘I have something to do back at the station.’

  ‘Who’s going to pay the charge?’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Do you think . . . ?’

  ‘No. The Chief won’t pay when you break the law. You know damn well that not even the police can park on double yellow lines – regardless of what stupid sign you display in the windscreen.’

  ‘Crap.’

  ‘You’d better ring them before they go home for the day. I’ll see you at the station in the morning.’

  She headed towards Temple tube station. It was twenty to five and there were a lot of people about. The snow was heavier now. She’d get back just in time to interview George Swash. Although Strebler hadn’t found the mole yet, she had Swash by the testicles.

  The journey was a straight forward run on the District Line from Temple to Hammersmith with ten stations in-between. She needed to make three phone calls before she began squeezing Swash’s testicles. Perkins was the first person on her list. He was definitely mincing around with the DNA analysis of those hairs. She found it difficult to concentrate on the murder investigation and keeping Haig in prison when Perkins was keeping her on tenterhooks.

  Then there was Strebler. He would have rung her if he’d had any news, but she wanted to make sure.

  Lastly, there was that bastard Randall. How had he got hold of Jacob? She’d have to ask him. The more she thought about it, the less it made sense. Jacob had remained in the shadows. How had Randall found him and captured him? And if it was Jacob, what were they going to do with him?

  Would the professor be able to open the mneme? What the hell was in it? Was it the reason the false priest had been killed? They were at the end of the second day and still none of it made any sense. Were the contents of the mneme the key to unlocking this mystery?

  She made a detour into the custody suite once she reached the police station, and told Sergeant David Williams to make sure that the duty solicitor was available in half an hour, so that she could interview George Swash.

  On her desk she found that the request to hold Swash for ninety-six hours had been refused.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Crap! Now all she had was less than an hour to get Swash to confess, which was as unlikely as Father Christmas wriggling down her chimney with a sack full of presents. There were two problems with mentioning the child porn. First, his solicitor would terminate the interview because that’s not what he’d been arrested for. Second, they’d want to know how she knew about it and she couldn’t tell them that.

  Perkins appeared.

  ‘Is your fucking phone broken? She aimed at him.

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you on the phone.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Yes, those hairs are a match. It’s probably Jacob.’

  ‘Probably? What does that mean?’

  He stared at the floor and shuffled his feet. ‘I don’t know if George Hansen had any more children, or possibly brothers . . .’

  ‘We don’t want to go there. As far as I’m concerned it’s Jacob. You now need to go home and forget today ever happened.’

  ‘I’m certainly going to try.’

  ‘Try very hard, because if you ever mention it to anybody I’ll deny it, of course. You’re the person who did everything. If necessary, I’ll be the one who arrests you for perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to . . . Well, I’m sure you get the gist of what I’m saying.’

  ‘I can’t imagine why I ever agreed to help you, DI Stone.’

  ‘You think I’m a wonderful person, and because you know that sometimes two wrongs do make a right. Goodnight, Perkins.’

  He slouched out. ‘Goodnight.’

  She phoned Randall.

  ‘I knew you’d ring just as I was about to start my meal,’ he said.

  ‘Some people who still work for a living don’t have the opportunity to eat.’

  ‘You’ve got news for me?’

  ‘It’s who you thought it was.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Now, I deal with the situation.’

  ‘And what about me?’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘He didn’t do anything to you. We have unfinished business.’

  ‘Speaking from experience, I can tell you that revenge is a terrible thing. Let it go, Molly.’

  ‘No. Think of it as an early Christmas present.’

  Randall didn’t speak for quite a while.

  ‘You don’t have to wrap it up you know,’ she prompted him.

  ‘Meet me outside the old Shoreditch Police Station and Magistrates Court at seven o’clock.’

  ‘Don’t start without me..’

  The phone went dead.

  She hadn’t noticed before, but her heart was thrashing about like a dripping sheet on a washing line. God, was she really going to act as judge, jury and executioner? In the abattoir she’d been semi-conscious, fighting for her life and she’d had a gun. Would Randall have a gun for her? If he didn’t, how was she going to kill Jacob? Could she kill him with her bare hands in the cold light
of day? Was she really a cold-blooded murderer?

  She picked up the phone on her desk and rang Vice in the hope that there might still be someone there.

  ‘Waters?’

  ‘Hi Rolly, it’s . . .’

  ‘Molly Stone! I heard you’d come back to work. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Bloody knackered. I wish I was sitting at home with a couple of bottles of Liebfraumilch. Instead, I’ve got to go down to the cells and interview a paedophile.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d been transferred to Vice.’

  ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Rolly.’

  Roland Waters wasn’t a nice person inside or out. There was talk of him creating his own retirement fund. If Professional Standards wanted dirty cops, then they didn’t need to look any further than DI Rolly Waters. Vice seemed to attract the dirty cops – it was the gravy train of jobs.

  ‘That’s true. So, why are you interviewing a paedophile?’

  ‘He’s been arrested for perverting the course of justice. I know that he was blackmailed into doing it because of his predilection for little boys, but I’m not supposed to know what I know.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘George Swash.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘He’s the Records Manager at the CCRC, and he’s helping a rapist and a murderer – one of mine and Randall’s old cases – to get out of jail.’

  ‘I didn’t much like Randall.’

  ‘He’s not here anymore. I’m the idiot standing underneath the bucket of shit now.’

  ‘So, you need my help?’

  ‘I’m giving you a paedophile.’

  ‘We have lots of paedophiles. They’re like ducks in a shooting gallery these days. No wonder the birth rate is falling.’

  She knew what he’d want, but she asked anyway. ‘What do you want?’