Shadow of Death (9781476057248)

by Ellis, Tim

‘We could flip a coin to see who wins it, or we could both go on the weekend and between us pay for the other one.’

  ‘You’re not trying to trick me, are you?’

  ‘You have a distorted image of me. I’m really a very nice person.’

  ‘Huh, if you say so.’ She turned to Parish. ‘You’d better stop the car then, so that I can climb in the back. Catherine and I have some detective work to do.’

  ‘If you’re working together, you only get one guess, not two.’

  ‘Don’t be mean, Sir.’

  ‘All right, two guesses, but you have to tell me the answer before five o’clock.’

  ‘Why five o’clock?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘That’s just the way it is, okay?’

  They both nodded. ‘Okay.’

  He pulled over while Richards climbed into the back seat, then set off again. He was glad DCI Marshall had suspended him with pay.

  ***

  He pulled up outside 37, Carnaby Road in Broxbourne at three fifteen. The three-bedroom semi-detached house looked more or less the same as the last time he’d been here. Except that someone had done some weeding along the drive in front of the garage with its rotting wood doors, and the edges of the lawn – as it met the concrete path – had been tidied up. Parish thought it looked a lot neater.

  ‘You two wait here while I’ll go and see if there’s anyone home.’

  ‘Okay,’ Richards said.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Richards?’

  ‘You just get your credit card ready.’

  He smiled. ‘As if.’

  Deciding not to knock on the front door, he walked down the path between the garage and the house. The side door of the garage was closed, as was the back door. He was pleasantly surprised when he reached the back garden. An L-shaped brick fishpond inset into a paving stone patio contained water-lilies and was populated by Koi carp.

  Beyond the patio was a beautifully laid out garden with an archway halfway down the grass path. A plethora of different trees, shrubs and flowers had been planted on either side. To the right of the patio was a greenhouse containing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, herbs and lettuce. The garden was like a sanctuary.

  He put a foot up on the pond wall and leaned over to look at the multicoloured fish.

  ‘They’re my fish,’ a man said from behind him.

  Parish jumped and turned round.

  The man looked to be in his early sixties with thinning grey hair and a heavily lined face, but he had the body of an Olympic weightlifter. He was at least six inches taller than Parish’s six-foot one, and had forearms the size of Parish’s thighs, and a neck like the trunk of an oak tree.

  ‘They’re beautiful,’ Parish said.

  ‘Aye, my fish. They’re beautiful all right.’

  ‘You must be Arnold?’

  ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘I met with your mother the other day. She was helping us with our inquiries- I’m a policeman.’ He took out his warrant card and held it up.

  ‘With the other man?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Mother’s away. Comes back tomorrow.’

  ‘I know. I wanted to speak to you.’

  ‘Me? I don’t know anything.’

  ‘Do you work?’

  ‘Only here. I keep the garden looking good, grow vegetables and feed my fish.’

  ‘What do you keep in the garage?’

  ‘My tools.’

  ‘Can I look?’

  ‘If you want.’

  They walked back along the path and Arnold opened the side door to the garage, walked in first, and switched the light on. ‘My tools and fish food, and I sit here listening to gardening on the radio. Inside smells.’

  ‘Your mother’s cigars?’

  ‘Terrible.’

  The garage was as Arnold described it. On and leaning against the far wall were a petrol lawnmower, a petrol strimmer, shears, a hoe, rake, brush, and a number of other gardening implements. There was an old chair in front of the main double doors and next to it a table with a coffee mug on it. Against the left-hand wall were bags of fish food, soil, peat and so forth.

  Having met Arnold, and seen what his life consisted of, Parish knew that the man was a gentle giant and not the killer of two women.

  ‘You have it lovely in here.’

  ‘Arnold’s Den mother calls it.’

  ‘Talking of your mother, she has some papers that are very important to my investigation.’

  ‘Mother comes back tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but I need the papers today.’

  ‘Mother comes back tomorrow.’

  ‘Do you think I could come in the house and look for the papers?’

  ‘Mother says no one must go in the house.’

  ‘I’m sure she doesn’t mean the police.’

  ‘Mother didn’t say.’

  ‘You could make me a coffee while I look for the papers. I’ll show you what I need if I can find them.’

  Arnold laughed. ‘Mother’s room is like the rubbish bin.’

  Parish smiled. ‘Yes it is. Your mother let me in to her room, but she forgot to give me the papers.’

  ‘And the other man?’

  ‘The other man isn’t here today. Do you think you could make me a coffee?’

  ‘One coffee?’

  ‘Yes, one coffee – with four sugars if that’s okay?’

  Arnold laughed again. ‘Mother only allows me to have one sugar, but when she goes away I have two.’

  ‘Yes, I can only have four sugars when people don’t know about it.’

  ‘Arnold make coffee.’

  Arnold shut the door as they left the garage. Parish followed him across the path, through the back door and into the kitchen. It was a small kitchen, similar to the rest of the house, with overflowing surfaces, bulging cupboards and boxes stacked on top of each other on the floor.

  ‘Is it all right if I look in your mother’s room for the papers I need?’

  ‘Mother will be mad.’

  ‘No she won’t, I promise you. She meant to give them to us the other day, but she forgot.’

  ‘Arnold won’t get into trouble?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Arnold will make the coffee...’ He laughed, ‘with four sugars.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Parish made his way through the kitchen and into the hallway. The door to the back room was closed, so he opened it and switched the light on. It was exactly as he remembered it. He could have done with Richards and Catherine’s help, but wasn’t going to jeopardise the fragile rapport he had created with Arnold by having them come in the house. There was no good place to start, so he began rifling through the papers on the sofa. Arnold came in with his coffee and stood by the door watching him.

  ‘Mother says she knows where everything is.’ He laughed again. ‘I don’t think she knows where anything is.’

  ‘No, I think you’re right, Arnold.’

  While he was searching a pile of papers next to Terri Royston’s chair, his mobile activated.

  ‘Parish.’

  ‘Touchstone Security; there’ll be a Paul Hartson meeting you at five.’

  Parish wrote down the company’s telephone number that Kowalski read out in his notebook. ‘Not bad for a clerical assistant. See you later.’

  He eventually found the old Essex police reports in a pile on the floor in the corner of the room. ‘Here they are,’ he said, showing Arnold.’

  ‘You’ll bring them back?’

  ‘Of course, I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble for letting me find the papers I need. I’m going to obtain copies, and then tomorrow morning – before your mother returns – I’ll ask someone to bring the originals back to you. You can then decide whether you tell your mother that I was here, or not.’

  ‘I always tell mother everything.’

  ‘Okay, that’s fine.’ He took out a business card and passed it to Arnold. ‘I wouldn’t want your
mother to think I’m a reporter or other undesirable. This is who I am – Detective Inspector Parish. Your mother knows me. As I said, someone will come round tomorrow morning with these papers, and you can put them back. Is that all right with you?’

  ‘Do you catch murderers?’

  ‘Yes. You know about men that murder?’

  ‘Mother tells me, but I don’t like to listen.’

  ‘No, it’s not very nice, is it?’

  ‘Do you want to see my fish again?’

  Parish finished his coffee. ‘That would be great, Arnold.’

  They went outside and stood by the fishpond.

  ‘How many Koi carp have you got?’

  ‘Twenty. Mother buys them for me.’

  ‘They’re beautiful and all different colours.’

  ‘They all have names, you know.’ He started pointing to fish as they swam by. ‘That’s Betty, and Tiger- Poppy is over there, and Madrigal, Suzy, Nosy...’

  Parish stretched backwards. ‘I have to go now, Arnold. You’ve made this back garden wonderful. Is it all right if I come back and see the fish sometimes?’

  ‘You can come back and see Arnold’s fish.’

  He shook Arnold’s enormous hand. ‘Thank you, Arnold.’

  Outside in the car, he passed the old police reports to Richards. ‘Well, what have you two been concocting?’

  Richards moved back into the passenger seat. ‘We’ve got the answer.’

  ‘Okay, go for it.’

  ‘Do you want to tell him, Catherine?’

  ‘No, you tell him.’

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick. I don’t know what’s worse, you two at each other’s throats, or being nice to each other.’

  ‘The clue was: “What went before?” Well, what went before was that we went into Harold Wood Hospital, Catherine got chased by someone we think is the killer, and we found some CCTV cameras but couldn’t trace them back to the source.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ Parish said.

  ‘Are we right so far?’

  ‘I’ll tell you whether you’re right or wrong when you’ve finished giving me the answer.’

  ‘Sometimes you can be so mean.’

  ‘Is there more?’

  ‘We need to find out who owns those cameras and get copies of any recording from when Catherine was chased. We don’t think you phoned Ed, because he’s either out or busy. It wasn’t Paul, because he’s busy as well. So, it must have been Inspector Kowalski. You asked him to find out if Countryside has employed a security company to look after the site, and, if they have, to ask one of their officers to meet you there at five o’clock so you can get access to the CCTV recording.’

  He turned the key in the ignition, pursed his lips and said, ‘Sorry, I rang DCI Marshall to find out how the Bin Bag Case was going.’

  Richards laughed and hit him on the arm. ‘You’re a liar.’

  Both women squealed, bounced up and down and hugged each other.

  ‘I think I’ve gone deaf,’ he said as he set off back to Harold Wood Hospital.

  ‘When can we go?’ Richards said.

  ‘Well...’

  ‘Which health spa?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘Maybe I made that one too easy. What about the best out of three?’

  Catherine’s grin disappeared. ‘You’re not going to renege on what you promised, are you?’

  ‘No,’ Richards said still laughing. ‘He’s just teasing.’

  During the drive back to Harold Wood Hospital, Richards and Catherine read the old Essex police reports from the 1950s of the original trunk murders.

  ‘Oh my God, Sir.’

  ‘What now, Richards?’

  ‘You told us that Terri Royston said the name “West” had been written in the margin of the last page of the last report.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s not West.’ She handed the folded report to Catherine. ‘You look at it. What does it say?’

  Catherine examined it closely. ‘It looks like W, E, dot, ST, dot, J, dot.’

  ‘That’s what I see as well,’ Richards said, taking the report back. ‘Terri Royston got it wrong. It looks like the WE are initials, and ST.J stands for St John – WE St John.’

  Parish pulled into a lay-by and looked at the report. ‘I knew there was a reason I brought you along today, Richards. So, the killer might not have been Southern at all, and he wasn’t just called St John because he spouted sayings from the bible.’

  ‘Or,’ Catherine said, ‘Southern had someone called W.E. St. John helping him.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ Parish mused as he set off again. He wondered how it helped them.

  ***

  It was four fifty-five when they arrived back at the hospital reception. A bald, overweight man with a goatee beard wearing dark blue trousers, a light blue shirt and dark blue tie, and an open high-visibility yellow jacket with Touchstone Security emblazoned above the heart met them.

  ‘Paul Hartson. How can I help?’

  Parish showed the man his warrant card and introduced Richards and Catherine. ‘You could start by telling us where you were this morning.’

  ‘I carry out two tours of the site – one in the morning, and one in the afternoon.’

  ‘And you didn’t see us?’

  ‘Obviously not; it’s a big site.’

  ‘What about the CCTV?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got you on the recording. I went back to the site security office – as I always do after my tour – and reviewed the recording. I saw you arrive, bumble around in the cellars, and then leave. If you’d have caused any damage, or been up to no good, I’d have passed the evidence onto the police.’

  ‘When we were... bumbling around in the cellars – as you so aptly describe it – was anyone else down there with us?’

  ‘Not that I could see.’

  ‘But...’ Catherine started to say, but Parish stopped her by holding up his hand.

  ‘I’d like to take a look at the recording, if that’s all right with you?’

  ‘No problem.’

  He led them along overgrown concrete paths through a jungle of boarded-up buildings and trees to a small block building with a sign on the door which read: Security Office.

  ‘This used to be the old security office when the hospital was open, and to keep costs down Touchstone tendered for the contract by running things from here. It would have cost a lot more money to re-locate to another part of the site.’

  ‘The CCTV cameras already existed then?’

  ‘Yeah, except we upgraded them to infrared, which also reduced long-term electricity and lighting costs for Countryside, and surprisingly improves security because no one likes walking around in the dark.’

  ‘After this morning I can understand why. You’ve got cameras all over the site?’

  Hartson gave a short laugh as he unlocked the door and went inside. ‘You’ve seen the size of this place. There are working cameras in strategic places, dummies in low-level areas.’

  He sat down in front of a computer and large monitor with split-screen views of a dozen locations within the hospital site, and began using the mouse to retrieve the security recording from the morning.

  ‘There we go. You understand that the cameras have built-in motion detectors, so the software only records events?’

  ‘I see,’ Richards said. ‘So you knew an event had taken place because it had recorded something?’

  ‘Spot on.’

  They watched themselves in the reception, saw Catherine walk along the corridor, then Parish and Richards follow her. The camera switched and Catherine was outside the mortuary, appeared to scream and then began running – there was no one else there.

  ‘Here’s the last bit in the sub-basement.’

  ‘Why have you got a camera down there?’ Parish asked.

  ‘You saw the boilers and the piping- worth a small fortune to metal thieves.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  They watched again as Catherine ran into the boiler room, fo
llowed shortly after by Parish and Richards. After a while they left with Parish holding onto Catherine.

  ‘Can I get a copy?’ Parish asked.

  Hartson put a DVD into the drive of the computer, shifted to Windows Explorer, found the CCTV file and dragged it into the DVD Drive icon. It was a short file of 37 KB and took thirty-six seconds to copy. He opened the drive, slipped the DVD into a plastic folder, and passed it to Parish. ‘There you go. Would you like me to give you the guided tour?’

  ‘I don’t think so. You’ve been most helpful, thank you.’

  ‘I suppose you need showing back to your car though?’

  ‘Richards, did you use that ball of golden thread I gave you?’

  ‘Golden thread...? Oh, no I left it in the car.’

  ‘Lead the way, Mr Hartson.’

  Back in the car, after Paul Hartson had left, Catherine said, ‘I wasn’t lying. There was someone in that basement chasing me.’

  ‘Well,’ Parish said. ‘As far as I can see there are two possible scenarios. Either you’ve been lying to us, or you’ve been telling us the truth. The tape suggests the former, but I believe the latter. What about you, Richards?’

  ‘If she is telling the truth, then why isn’t there a man on the recording? We all watched it; there was no man.’

  Catherine threw herself back in the seat and crossed her arms. ‘I know I’m telling the truth, so the recording must have been altered.’

  ‘Is it possible to take a person out of a recording?’ Richards said.

  ‘Let’s give the DVD to Toadstone tonight,’ Parish said. ‘With today’s technology I should imagine anything is possible, and if the recording has been altered there’s a strange looking computer technician in forensics called Steve Potts who seems to know what he’s doing. I expect he’ll get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Catherine said. ‘I’m beginning to think I’m losing my mind.’

  ‘If the tape was altered,’ Richards said. ‘Who altered it? Paul Hartson didn’t give me the impression he was St John.’

  ‘You always have to ask the questions that nobody knows the answers to, don’t you, Richards?’

  ‘Sorry Sir.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘I want to go as well,’ Angie said.