by Ellis, Tim
‘The trunk murders... I’m sorry, I’m not familiar...’ Shit! How in hell had she found out about the dead woman in the trunk, and why was she using the plural of murder?
‘I had a phone call.’
‘That’s very nice for you.’
‘It was from a man who wanted to know why news of his handiwork hadn’t appeared in the newspapers, or on the television.’
‘Oh?’
‘I said I had no idea, but that I did know a man who would.’
‘And that would be me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you record this conversation?’
‘Unfortunately, the Chigwell Herald isn’t equipped with phones that have recording equipment attached to them.’
‘Why are you using the plural?’
‘I’m the reporter, and now you’re asking the questions? So, do you know about the trunk murders, because I don’t want to waste my time if you know nothing?’
‘I might.’
‘I hate to use the cliché about scratching backs, Inspector, but what do I get if I tell you what I know?’
‘A dark, dank cell if you don’t.’
‘I’ve been in worse places.’
He knew he’d have to bring her into the group. The killer wanted publicity, and at the moment he wasn’t getting any. Catherine Cox wanted a story, and if she didn’t get it from him she’d go elsewhere with what she knew.
‘Nothing I tell you is to be made public until we’ve agreed certain conditions.’
‘You’re not going to make those conditions too onerous, are you?’
‘You’ll understand when you know the details of what’s happened. Come to my home at eight thirty tonight and I’ll tell you everything.’
‘Everything?’
‘I live at...’
‘I know where you live. Will there be others there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay.’
‘What else did the caller say?’
‘That there was another body in a trunk at the old Blake’s Hall Railway Station.’
‘Have you been there?’
‘I don’t want to end up dead like Masterson.’
‘Good decision.’
‘He also said that if he didn’t see something about his work in the newspapers and on the television tomorrow, there’d be another murder.’
Crap! The bastard was forcing his hand. How could he possibly go to the press when he was suspended from duty? ‘I’ve got to go now, but it’ll see you tonight.’
He phoned Toadstone and told him about the body.
‘It’s getting messy and complicated now, Sir.’
‘You should have thought about that before you hid the first body, Toadstone.’ He ended the call.
At six twenty-nine he walked into the St Ermins Hotel. There were a few people in the bar. The decor was a mishmash of colours, but predominantly browns, greens, and reds. He saw Paula Tindall sitting alone at a table with four chairs. He didn’t know her, but she nodded at him as he looked around.
‘Can I get you a drink, Ma’am?’ he asked as he approached.
‘It’s Paula in here, and I’ve already ordered you a pint of Guinness.’
‘Oh?’ He sat down in the chair opposite. A waiter in a red waistcoat with spiky gelled hair put a pint of Guinness in front of him.
‘Thank you, Miguel,’ she said.
She must come in here a lot, he thought, and wondered if she was married. He didn’t know anything about her private life. What he did know was that she was head of Specialist Operations with responsibility for Counter Terrorism, Security and Protection throughout the UK, and that in the past she had been the senior investigating officer on over twenty murders.
‘You must have pretty comprehensive files at the Met if you know I drink Guinness.’
She laughed. ‘We do, but not on police officers. I rang Audrey once she’d returned to the office and she told me a bit about you, and also what you like to drink.’
Paula Tindall was in her late forties. She wore her blonde hair short, and Parish wondered whether high-powered women cut their hair short for functional reasons, or to appear more masculine in a man’s world. Her glasses were round and rimless over washed-out blue eyes, and she had on a pair of beige trousers with zips and ties and a brown and white horizontally striped top. If he hadn’t known what she did for a living, he would never have guessed. Maybe he just wasn’t a very good detective.
He smiled. ‘The simplest solution is usually the best.’
‘I see you’re familiar with Occam’s razor, or the law of parsimony?’
‘As you know, a murder detective is often faced with competing hypotheses. I find Occam’s razor a useful tool.’ He took a long swallow of his Guinness.
‘So, why did you need to see me in person, Inspector?’
‘Because if I told you over the phone what I’m about to tell you now, you’d think I was on the waiting list for a frontal lobotomy.’ As soon as he spoke he was reminded that he still hadn’t phoned Dr Rafferty. She’d tell him to take a long walk off a short pier when he asked for another appointment. He made another mental note to ring her.
‘I’m listening.’
He recounted what had happened when he applied to Somerset House for certificates of his parent’s births, wedding, and deaths. He told her about Alex Knight pushing him under the train, and trying to kill him again by sabotaging his car. He outlined their bargain, and his visit to the MI6 building in Vauxhall to find Sir Charles Lathbury. Then he described his meeting with Audrey and her concerns following DCC Heather Devine’s visitor. And finally, he told her what he’d found out under hypnosis about a man with a limp.
‘That sounds like a complicated plot for a thriller.’
‘I know.’
‘What’s your little secret, Inspector, and why are MI6 desperate to kill to keep it hidden?’
‘I wish I knew, but trying to find out has got me into this mess in the first place.’
‘Yes, what mess are you in exactly?’
He didn’t see any point in hiding the truth from her, so he told her about the circumstances of his gross misconduct, the illegal trunk murders investigation operating out of his back room, and the ‘For Disposal’ ticket that he was keeping from DCI Marshall. He didn’t see any reason to complicate matters by telling her about the recent addition of Catherine Cox to his little band of outlaws.’
The AC went quiet while she digested what he’d said. ‘You don’t do things by half do you, Inspector? No wonder you need the Chief Constable to come back and unravel the Gordian knot you’ve created for yourself. And now you’ve also made me an accessory – very kind.’
‘I’m not one for hogging all the glory, Paula.’
She took a drink and smiled. ‘I never did like that scheming cow Heather Devine. So, you think the person from MI6 – who is calling himself Sir Charles Lathbury – is going to prevent the Chief Constable of Essex from returning to work next Monday by facilitating an accident while he’s in Klosters skiing with his family? And all that to prevent him from intervening in the demise of your career?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re right- I wouldn’t have believed you on the phone. In fact, I’m not sure I believe you in person. I’ll ring MI6 tomorrow...’
‘That would be a mistake. They would simply deny everything and you’d alert them to the fact that we know what’s going on.’
‘At least no accident would befall James.’
‘I’m not sure about that. I can imagine it would be extremely difficult to prove an accident was something else.’
‘What do you suggest then?’
‘Well, I was going to go over there myself, but what do I know about being a bodyguard? No doubt trained professionals are already deciding the type of accident the Chief Constable is going to have, which might or might not include his wife and children. I mean, skiing is an accident waiting to happen, isn’t it?’
‘Mmmm, I
know a man in Switzerland who used to be a Stasi agent in East Germany. He might be the very person we’re looking for. I’ll contact him when you’ve gone.’
‘I feel better already. Do you need to tell the Chief Constable?’
‘Of course, I’ll ring him as well and apprise him of the situation.’
‘The other reason for not letting them know that we know, is that you’d never know if I’ve been telling the truth, or whether ACC Devine was involved in anything untoward.’
‘Yes, there is that. If I can get rid of her, then that would be a good day’s work. I’d be in your debt, Inspector Parish.’
‘All I want is for everything to return to as it was, with a decent chief in post.’
‘Okay, leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do.’
After throwing back the last of his Guinness, he stood up. As he turned to leave, he said, ‘If I wasn’t about to have a baby and get married, I would have booked that room, Ma’am.’
Laughter followed him through the door and out into the street.
***
Most of the Berlin Wall was stolen piece-by-piece between 9th – 23rd November 1989. On the night of 11th November, the forty-three year old Colonel Werner Haack, whose Stasi codename was Abraham, crossed over into West Germany and made his way to Switzerland before the celebrations had finished. Under the name of Lukas Bryner – a retired teacher of German – he took up residence in the chalet in the Canton of Glarus, which he had purchased some years previously when he’d realised he needed a place where nobody knew him, just in case communism came to a tragic end.
He ended the call from Paula Tindall, one of the few people who knew who he really was compliments of a brief youthful affair on a mission to London eighteen years ago. He knew she would never betray the father of her child, so he had let her live.
It wasn’t the first time she’d asked him for a favour, but usually it was to arrange accidents, not stop them from happening. He grunted, because he knew, in the end, it amounted to the same thing. People would need to die.
He walked to the bedroom and changed his clothes. Now he was sixty-five and should really think of retiring. Catching his reflection in the mirror, he smiled – once he’d been young, but not anymore. Now his face was pasty and heavily lined, and his hairline had receded so far back he had to tilt his head forward to see it. He was slightly comforted by the fact that he still had a strong jaw-line and a straight nose, and he hadn’t developed the flab or paunch most men had in abundance at his age. He needed to get out more. Switzerland was a place for long walks, yet he preferred to read rather than walk. In fact, he hated walking.
It was five thirty in the evening – he’d catch the train. He could drive, but preferred not to. It was only 55 miles to Klosters-Serneus in the next Canton of Graubünden and the journey wouldn’t take long on the train. He packed his travel bag housing the reinforced hidden compartment that accommodated his Glock 21, silencer, spare magazine, 500 bullets, and cleaning kit. He had also made room in the foam for a wire garrotte with lead weighted bamboo handles that he had designed himself. Also there were four telescopic cameras, four wireless bugs and a slim laptop computer with the software to receive signals from both devices. Lastly, he had what he like to think of as his little box of tricks, which contained glass syringes and needles and vials of drugs that had no names.
He phoned the railway station and booked himself on the nineteen ten train, which would arrive in Klosters at twenty-one thirty-two.
Next he rang the Hotel Alpina on Bahnhofstrasse in Klosters, close to the railway station, and booked a double room for himself under the name of Grell. This was where the policeman and his family were staying. Then he called for a taxi to take him to the station.
***
It was eight fifteen by the time he put the key in the door of 38, Puck Road. What he really wanted to do was eat his dinner, take a shower and climb into bed. There was a parasite inside his head banging to be let out. Instead, Angie made him a coffee and he took two extra-strength painkillers specifically designed for head parasites.
After making each of them drinks, Angie had deposited his team in the back room. He took his coffee and joined them.
‘You all know Catherine Cox from the Chigwell Herald,’ he began.
They nodded.
‘Catherine rang me earlier to tell me that she’d received a phone call from our killer. He informed her that there was a second body to be found at the old Blake Hall Railway Station...’ He looked askance at Toadstone, who nodded. ‘...Which Toadstone has now retrieved, and that if he didn’t start getting some publicity by tomorrow, then he’d kill again...’
‘He’s going to kill again anyway,’ Richards said.
Parish grunted. ‘My thoughts exactly.’
Richards stood up with Terri Royston’s book open in her hand. ‘It says here...’
‘Excuse me, Richards,’ Parish said. ‘Whose briefing is this?’
‘Oh... So, you don’t want me to...?’
He sat in the seat she had vacated. ‘You may as well carry on, seeing as you’re stood up.’
‘Huh! Anyway, it says here that:
Twenty-eight year old Olive Durand was his second victim. Her dismembered body was found on 25th May 1953 in a steamer trunk stored in the left luggage and lost property store at Blake’s Hall Railway Station on the Epping to Ongar line. On the night she disappeared she also had been out dancing at the Rivoli Ballroom in the High Street, Chipping Ongar...
‘Is it still an active railway station?’ Ed asked, scratching his bald patch.
‘No,’ Toadstone said. ‘It closed in October 1981; it’s now a private house.’
Kowalski said, ‘So, not only has the killer deviated from the original date for this murder, because it’s the 24th of May not the 25th, but he also can’t be using the same locations. Where was the second trunk left?’
Toadstone gave Parish a knowing look. ‘It was left on the doorstep of the house, while the occupants were out, with instructions not to open it until the 25th.’
Parish stood up again. ‘We’re getting ahead of ourselves, and it’s your fault Richards.’
‘But...’
‘Sit down, and don’t speak again until you’re spoken to.’
‘Huh.’
‘So, as I was saying, Catherine rang me and threatened to go public with what she knew about the trunk murders. I could hardly let that happen, so here she is.’
Catherine’s face reddened. She smiled coyly, and nodded at everyone. ‘I wouldn’t...’
‘Yes, you would- you’re a reporter,’ Parish interrupted her. ‘But that’s neither here nor there now. So, the reason I couldn’t let you go public is that we’re running an illegal investigation here. I’ve been suspended from duty...’ He told her most of what had happened in the last two days.
‘What a great story,’ she said.
‘Which you can’t print,’ Parish countered.
‘But...’
‘If you did print our little story you’d become a household name, of course, and probably end up in London working for one of the main tabloids, but in the process you’d ruin the careers of everyone in this room. I leave it to you, but I wouldn’t have allowed you to join us if I thought there was any chance that you would print anything untoward.’
‘Bugger,’ she said. ‘The best story I’ve ever had, as well.’
‘I’m not saying you can’t print some of the story, just not the juicy bits. So, let’s move on. Ray, you go first.’
‘You asked me to arrange times you could visit Carole Dobbins, Tollhurst & Chandler, and the Statics Club...’
‘Hang on a minute...’ Parish said. ‘I see you’re busy writing everything down, Catherine. Well, write down these details; you’re not getting anything for free. Tomorrow you can start working for a living by being my new partner, and we’ll need to know where we’re going.’
Richards threw Catherine Cox a glance that should have turned her
to stone. ‘But...’
‘Don’t worry, Richards. It’ll only be until next Monday when the Chief Constable comes back and sorts this mess out.’
‘Huh!’
‘If he comes back,’ Kowalski said.
‘Have faith, Ray.’
‘I don’t know...’ Catherine began.
‘Yes you do. Tell your editor you’re on the story of a lifetime with the man of your dreams, and not to bother you. Carry on, Ray.’
‘Okay, you’re seeing Vincent Chandler at Tollhurst & Chandler tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. In the afternoon at two, Carole Dobbins – she’s a nurse on shift work at a private hospital. At six, Shelley Longhurst – who’s the manager of the Statics Club.’
‘Thanks, Ray. Have you got our itinerary, Catherine?’
‘In shorthand.’
‘That will stop people following us. Right Ed, your turn.’
Ed stood up. ‘Paul matched three suspects through the fingerprints left on the first trunk. I went to see two of them today, and I’ll see the third one tomorrow. The first one was a man named Victor Lindgaard, who’d previously been in trouble with us for kerb crawling. He said the only time he could have left his fingerprints on a trunk was at a car boot sale at Hillside Farm, at Pepper Hill in Great Amwell, near Ware, on Sunday 1st May. He gave me a description of the man running the stall, but it’s a long shot. I’ll go and visit the owners of Hillside Farm tomorrow and see if they’ve still got the records of the sellers on the 1st.’
‘Yeah, you’re right, Ed,’ Kowalski said. ‘It is a long shot. Even if you find the seller, and even if he describes our killer, we won’t have any more than we’ve got now. He’s hardly going to give you his name and address.’
‘I know, but...’
Richards interrupted. ‘But he might be able to remember something about the person who bought it which will build up our knowledge, and that’s what we do isn’t it? I mean, what if he was with a woman, or a woman bought it. What if the seller helped carry the trunk to the buyer’s car. What if...’