by Ellis, Tim
‘The description doesn’t shake any bananas off the tree. So, why are you worried?’
She finished chewing a piece of sausage and then took a drink of her red wine. ‘Why would she talk about you and Richards at all, and especially to someone I don’t know? Also, there was something in his eyes.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Yes.’
‘What am I meant to do with that?’
‘I don’t know. I just had a feeling something wasn’t right.’
‘On the phone, you said you were worried... About what?’
‘The Chief Constable.’
He took a swallow of his Guinness. ‘Where is he?’
‘Klosters in Switzerland, skiing with his wife and three children.’
‘What do you think is going to happen to him?’
She stopped eating, put her knife and fork down, and sat back with concern etched on her face. ‘I don’t know. I just have this feeling.’
‘I don’t know you very well, Audrey. Do you often get feelings?’
‘Only about cars.’
‘So, if the Chief Constable was a car, what would you do?’
‘I’d put him in the garage and lock the door.’
‘Mmmm.’
They finished the rest of the meal in silence. None of it made any sense. Who would harm the Chief Constable, apart from terrorists and high-level criminals? But that would be nothing to do with him and Richards. And how could the DCC possibly be involved? There certainly appeared to be more to his current situation than a simple disciplinary case. Now that he thought about it, DCI Marshall seemed to come into the team with an agenda – she was acting on orders. Somebody wanted to destroy the team, get him moved out and break up his partnership with Richards, but why? And more importantly, who? Richards was on the money again. If the Chief Constable didn’t return to work on Monday, he’d be up a creek without a paddle. But what could he do about it?
‘Have you been in contact with him?’
‘And say what?’
‘Surely you don’t think the DCC is involved in arranging an accident?’
‘...Or more,’ Audrey said.
‘Jesus- murdering the Chief Constable to get to me is a bit far fetched.’
‘I know, but you didn’t see the look in his eyes.’
He checked his watch. It was one thirty-five. ‘I’m going to have to go.’ He signalled for the waiter to pay the bill.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I have a meeting with an author...’
‘No, about...’
The waiter came up with the bill on a small stainless steel dish. Parish put his credit card on it, and then waited until the waiter brought the machine. He keyed in his PIN number, and then it was done.
‘...The Chief Constable?’
‘I have no idea, Audrey.’
‘If it was you, he’d do something.’
‘Yes, I think he would.’ When he’d met the Chief Constable for the first time, he’d been struck by the similarity between him and the Chief, not in looks, but in outlook – old school, men of honour.
He wasn’t old school, but he liked to think of himself as honourable. Yes, if the Chief Constable was in trouble, he had to do something. Not only that, if he was going to get out of the hole he’d dug himself into, he needed him to come back to work and sort out the mess the DCC had created.
‘Now that Chief Day has gone, who is his best friend on the force?’
‘Of course! The Assistant Commissioner of the Met, Paula Tindall; they went through Hendon together.’
‘Have you got her number?’
She rummaged in her bag and found her address book. Parish pulled out his mobile and keyed in the numbers as she read it off.
‘Assistant Commissioner.’
‘Oh!’ He was expecting a PA or a secretary, not the AC herself. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Parish from Hoddesdon Police Station.’
‘And you’ve rung my direct line because you’re tired of being an Inspector?’
He liked her already. ‘It’s about Chief Constable Miller-Gifford, Ma’am.’
‘Go on.’
‘He’s in trouble. I’m sitting here with Audrey, his PA...’
‘Hello, Paula,’ Audrey said as he held the phone towards her.
‘What type of trouble?’
‘I need to meet with you.’
‘I’m sorry...’
‘Remember the police Inspector who survived being run over by a train a few weeks ago?’
‘Yes, I recall seeing something about that.’
‘That was me, and what nobody knows is that it was attempted murder.’
‘Okay... the best I can do is six thirty tonight.’
‘Six thirty is good, Ma’am.’
‘Get the tube to St James’s Park, walk along Broadway, and turn right down Caxton Street until you reach the St Ermins Hotel. I’ll be in the bar.’
‘We’re not going to get a room, are we, Ma’am?’
He heard laughter. ‘Do you want to get a room?’
‘If it’ll help the Chief Constable.’
‘No, I don’t think you need to bring an overnight bag, Inspector.’
‘Okay, Ma’am. See you there.’
He ended the call. Audrey gave him the details of where the Chief Constable and his family were staying in Klosters and they made their way out to the car park.
‘Oh, one other thing,’ she said as he held the door open and she slid into the Morgan. ‘The man who came to see the DCC had a slight limp. I think that’s why he carried a cane.’
Parish smiled. ‘That was the little piece of jigsaw I’ve been hunting ages for, Audrey.’
‘It was?’
‘Yes. Now I know who and what it’s all about.’
‘Glad I could help. I’ll keep my ears open.’
‘You do that, Audrey, and thanks.’
She beeped as she screeched out of the car park of the Red Lion pub in Chipping Ongar in her V6 Morgan Roadster. He took things more leisurely and pointed his Ford Focus back towards Hoddesdon.
This was all about him, about his parents George and Enid Parish, about who he was and where he’d come from. He knew the man with the limp must be Sir Charles Lathbury, if that’s what he called himself. He guessed another “accident” would look suspicious, so now Lathbury was going to destroy him. But why?
***
He was five minutes late picking up Toadstone on the High Street. They didn’t have far to travel; Broxbourne was the next town along the A1170. He turned right into Park Lane and left into Baas Lane until he found Carnaby Road. They were fifteen minutes early.
‘I need to make some phone calls.’
‘Okay, I’ll sit here and keep a look out for UFOs.’
‘You do that, Toadstone.’
He rang Richards.
‘Hello.’
‘Is Marshall there?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s just to tell you that there’s been a change of plan tonight. I can’t take you home.’
‘Oh.’
Toadstone nudged him.
‘Hang on.’
‘I’ll take Mary home.’
‘Toadstone’s here with me; he said he’ll take you home.’
‘Okay. Where...?’
‘I’d love to stay and chat, but I have to call other people, bye.’
‘You...’
He smiled. Not knowing where he was going would gnaw away at her like an alien parasite. Next, he rang Angie.
‘I’ll be late tonight. Probably about half eight, so can you keep them amused until I get there.’
‘What, you mean like the Dance of the Seven Veils?’
‘I’m sure Kowalski would like that. In fact, I think I would as well.’
‘I bet you would.’
‘At least they’re not bringing their wives and kids tonight.’
He told her where he was going, and why.
‘It’s a mystery. I hope I
’m not carrying the offspring of Frankenstein’s secret liaison with a vampire, or an alien’s love child...’
‘Have you been watching Mary’s DVD collection?’
‘Daytime television is rubbish.’
‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Be careful.’
‘I will.’
He turned to Toadstone. ‘What number is it?’
‘Thirty-seven.’
He drove round to 37, Carnaby Road and parked up outside the ex-council three-bedroom semi-detached house. Clearly, Terri Royston wasn’t a household name as an author, he thought. A recently cut privet hedge acted as a demarcation line between the two houses and separated the front garden from the pavement. On the left was an open concrete driveway, without a car, that led to a garage with two rotting yellow wooden doors, which appeared not to have been opened in a very long time.
From a half-open door at the side of the garage there appeared a middle-aged hunched-shouldered man wearing khaki overalls, a flat cap, wellington boots, and carrying a pair of hand-held shears, but then he vanished round the back of the house.
They walked through the old black wooden gate down the path to the front door and Parish knocked on the wood.
‘I’m coming,’ an angry female voice bellowed from inside.
Eventually, the door opened. A flat faced old woman, wearing trainers, pink slacks, a flowery waistcoat over a red pullover, large round bottle-bottom glasses and a red and black scarf knotted like a bandanna holding back her grey, wiry hair from her face, stood before them. Oversized garish jewellery hung around her neck and from her ears. She had both hands on a walking frame and a long Cuban cigar clenched in her brown-stained teeth.
She took a deep draw on the cigar then removed it. ‘Whadya want?’ she said, blowing the smoke in their faces.
‘I rang earlier,’ Toadstone said. ‘I’m Chief Scientific Officer Paul...’
‘Well, don’t just stand there like fossils, letting in the cold to bother my rheumatics’, come in and shut the door.’ She put the cigar back in her mouth, swivelled a hundred and eighty degrees like a ballet dancer, and hobbled back along the hall, which had old, yellowing newspapers stacked two feet high against the right-hand wall.
Eyeing Parish, Toadstone held his hand up to his nose and mouth as they began following Terri Royston along the hall with its threadbare carpet. Smoke hung like a fog that had drifted in from the Atlantic, and the stench of cigars was enough to stop a raging bull in its tracks.
She led them past a front room with the door closed, and before going into the kitchen they turned right into a seriously cluttered back living room.
‘Sit down, if you can find a space,’ she said, sitting in a battered old armchair- with the stuffing bursting out of the side- in the corner to their right.
Parish looked around for somewhere to sit, but couldn’t see anywhere. There was a sofa next to the chair against the wall to their right, but it was covered with books, papers, and magazines. There was also a brown Chihuahua wedged in a gap that snarled at them as they came into the room.
‘Bundy!’ the old woman shouted. ‘Don’t worry about Bundy. His bite is worse than his bark.’
Above the sofa was a montage of different sized photographs in an assortment of frames. Parish examined them with a critical eye and determined that there were three families. One had three children, another two, and the final one, five. Scattered about the wall were photographs of innocent babies, eager schoolchildren and cynical teenagers.
A bookshelf crammed with books covered the complete wall to their left. In front of it, on the floor, were more books in stacks of varying heights. Parish perched precariously on one of these stacks; if he’d had a fishing rod he could easily have been a model for a garden gnome on a mushroom. Toadstone continued to stand.
‘Well, whadya want?’
Toadstone led. ‘We’re here about the trunk murders.’
‘You think I did ‘em?’
‘No, you wrote about them in your book: The History of Serial Killers in England .’
‘Yeah, that was my best seller; sold over ten thousand copies.’
‘Did you actually see the police records?’
Scythes of afternoon sunshine cut through the grey net curtain draped across the window at the far end of the room and highlighted the dense smoke swirling from Terri Royston’s cigar.
Based on the knowledge that smoke rises, Parish kept his head low. ‘What Dr Toadstone wants to know is do you have copies of the original police records from the trunk murders?’
She flicked the inch of ash from her cigar onto the carpet to add to the pile of ash already there. ‘You’re police, aren’t you? Why are the police comin’ round here wanting my copies of their own records? Show me some identification before I get my shotgun out.’
Parish was glad he hadn’t handed in his warrant card as the DCI had demanded. He remained bent over as he passed it to the old woman.
‘The police records were destroyed unfortunately,’ Toadstone said.
She moved the warrant card to varying distances in an effort to read the writing. ‘Looks like the real deal to me,’ she said, throwing the card back like a frisbee. It hit the bookcase and disappeared between Grey’s Anatomy and an old copy of The Oxford Compendium of Quotations.
‘I wrote that book over ten years ago, ya know? I still got those records somewhere, but beats me where. I’ll have to look for ‘em, but it won’t be today. Today I’m busy. Give me your number, and I’ll call you when I find ‘em.’
Toadstone passed a business card to her and said, ‘We’d be grateful if you could find them as quickly as possible, because there has been a copycat murder.’
‘A copycat murder?’ Her mouth dropped open and her eyes closed to slits. ‘I ain’t seen anything in the papers, and I get all the papers.’
‘It’s not been in the newspapers,’ Toadstone said.
‘Whadya want to know about the records?’ she said tapping the side of her head. ‘Cursed with eidetic memory: see it once, remember it forever.’
‘Well, we wanted to know whether the police had any suspects.’
‘And I didn’t write about them in my book?’
‘No, Miss Royston.’
She giggled, like a motorbike engine starting up. ‘Miss Royston? I ain’t no Miss’, she said, pointing to the photographs behind her. ‘Three sons and ten grandchildren are testament to that fact.’
‘Do your sons live locally?’ Parish asked.
She stopped smoking and peered at Parish. ‘Why, you think one of them did it to boost the sales of my book?’
‘We need to eliminate them from our enquiries.’
‘You’re police, find out yourself.’
‘Suspects?’ Toadstone tried to veer the conversation back to the original question.
‘Yeah, there was one man they were looking at, but I couldn’t put it in my book because of the libel law. A man called Tobias Southern, but there was no evidence linking him to any of the murders, even though he didn’t have any alibis for some of them.’
‘Do you know...?’
‘Yes, he had family – a wife and three children as I recall, and that’s why I couldn’t print his name. My publisher’s solicitor said that it wouldn’t be worth the trouble.’
‘Was there anything else that you didn’t put in your book?’
‘I interviewed one of the original detectives who investigated the murders. Found his name on the reports – a Detective Inspector Herbert Lanchester. Had to go to Runwell Asylum because he’d been committed with schizophrenia – thought he was the Lord God himself when he wasn’t on his medication. Of course, he’s dead now. Died in 2003 at the age of seventy-one; hung himself – poor sod.’
‘And what did he say?’ Toadstone tried to hurry her.
She finished drawing on the cigar and let the smoke drift slowly up her nostrils. ‘I’m gettin’ there, Mr Toad-in-the-hole. People today ain’t got no patience.’ She
blew the remaining smoke up at Toadstone who coughed like a chronic bronchitic. ‘Said he was sure it was Southern. But him and his partner also thought that someone else must be helping him, because for some of the murders he had alibis and that’s why they couldn’t pin it on him.’
‘And he had no idea who an accomplice might have been?’
‘None. Although there is a last name scribbled on the edge of the last page of the final report in capital letters – WEST- but I couldn’t find any reference to a person with that surname, so maybe it has nothing to do with the case.’
‘Do the records include post-mortem reports of the victims?’
‘Certainly do.’
‘Then it’s fairly urgent we get copies of your copies,’ Toadstone stressed.
‘I’ve said I’ll find them, and I will. If I ain’t rung you by Friday, you’ll have to jog my memory.’
Parish stood up. ‘Thank you very much for your help, Mrs Royston. We’ll see ourselves out, and you’ll ring Dr Toadstone when you find the original police reports so that we can obtain copies?’
‘You bet- got his number,’ she said, tapping Toadstone’s card that lay on the arm of the chair.
They hurried along the hall and through the front door. Once outside they took deep lungfuls of fresh air.
‘Another five minutes and I think I would have died,’ Toadstone said.
‘Stop being a drama queen, Toadstone.’
Chapter Six
At five o’clock, as people were commuting home from London, he left his car at Chigwell Station and caught the tube on the Central Line to Mile End where he switched to the District Line and jumped on the next train to St James’s Park. It took him an hour and ten minutes because the stations were overflowing with people.
As he was passing New Scotland Yard on Broadway, he received a phone call from a number he didn’t recognise.
‘Parish.’
‘Hello, Inspector. It’s Catherine Cox.’
‘How did you get my number?’
‘Constable Richards gave it to me.’
‘She wouldn’t do that.’
‘When I said I’d have to speak to the new DCI about the trunk murders, she gave me your number willingly.’