Shadow of Death (9781476057248)

by Ellis, Tim

  ‘Probably won’t,’ Parish said. He looked at Yugai. ‘You have address of Askew?’

  Yugai pointed to a shelf the length of the wall above the worktop and computer/security equipment. ‘File... telephone numbers inside.’

  Toadstone stood up and found it among all the other books, files and papers. ‘Only a telephone number,’ he said. ‘Should I ring it?’

  ‘And alert him we’re here looking for him?’ Ed said.

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  Ed pulled out his phone, found a number in his phonebook, and pressed call. ‘Hi, who’s speaking? It’s Sergeant Gorman. Listen Julie, can you give me the address of this telephone number?’ He took the file off Toadstone and read out the number. ‘Write the address down, Toadstone: 45, Dudley Drive, Harold Hill, RM3 7YD. You’re a star in the making, Julie. Thanks.’

  Kowalski moved towards the door. ‘Come on Ed, we’ll go and get the bastard and bring him back here.’

  ‘If he’s at home,’ Parish said. ‘Toadstone and I will see if we can find anything here.’

  He was glad Kowalski had come with him, but sometimes he was like a bull in a china shop, and when you were running an illegal investigation you didn’t need someone breaking all the china. He had no warrant to actually be on the site, and if someone did end up in court. Well...

  ‘So, I guess your name is Yugai?’

  ‘Yes, Yugai... from Chechnya.’

  ‘Really?’ He knew very little about the place apart from what had been on the news concerning their fight with Russia for independence. Had the war ended? Was Chechnya independent now? He had no idea, and at the moment it wasn’t something that interested him.

  He sat down on the coffee table. ‘We’re looking for two women who came here earlier when Askew was on duty.’

  Yugai looked confused, and shrugged.

  ‘Two women... Here?’ he tried.

  Yugai shook his head. ‘Two women? No.’

  ‘Hiding, down there?’ He pointed downwards to indicate the basement.

  Yugai looked at the threadbare carpet and continued to shake his head.

  Parish realised he wasn’t going to get anything out of the Chechynan immigrant. ‘Thank you,’ he said and stood up. ‘What about you Toadstone?’

  ‘Everything appears normal. I’ve checked the Event Log, and all the events are recorded, except the arrival of Mary and Catherine. Are you sure they came here?’

  ‘I’m not sure of anything anymore, Toadstone. I had the idea that Richards might have returned here to find out why the killer wasn’t on that DVD, but maybe I was wrong.’

  ‘But if they didn’t come here, where are they, Sir?’

  Parish didn’t answer. He had no answer.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Catherine said.

  ‘You ask that as if we have a range of options to choose from. I don’t know about you, but all I can do is lie here and think about what he’s going to do to us.’

  ‘I can’t quite believe it. Parish and Kowalski will come and rescue us, won’t they? I mean, you’re used to this type of...’

  ‘What, because a killer abducted me before, you mean? You think I’m an expert victim, that I have advice for those unfortunate enough to become victims?’

  ‘Well, yes...’

  ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Catherine. For one thing, I wasn’t tied up last time.’

  ‘Did you fight him?’

  ‘I threw a bucket of my pee all over him.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I know, it’s not something a nice girl likes to admit to, and you’re not to print anything about that if we ever do get out of here?’

  ‘I wouldn’t betray a confidence, but... It’s given me an idea for a series of articles: ‘Voice of the Victim’. All anonymous, of course- what do you think?’

  ‘I think you have your priorities wrong.’

  Richards heard metal clanking on metal, a key turning in a lock. The door of the room they were in scraped open and a cold wind blew over her like the last breath of the dead from their lonely graves.

  Torchlight danced around the room, and she heard water sloshing underfoot.

  Catherine began screaming ‘Help!’ at the top of her voice.

  ‘If you carry on making that fucking noise, I’ll thump you,’ a man said.

  Catherine immediately closed her mouth.

  ‘No one will ever hear you, so it’s no use shouting and screaming. You should also know that it just makes Harry angry.’

  ‘What are you going to do with us?’ Catherine said.

  The man laughed. ‘Which one’s the copper?’

  Richards hesitated, but there didn’t seem to be any point in lying. ‘I am.’

  He shone the light on Catherine. ‘So you must be the journalist that I spoke to... Not very bright.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Harry and I expected our work to be front-page news; instead – a few words on page five and nothing on the television. Oh, and you know very well what we’re going to do with you.’

  ‘Which one are you: Adrian Alva or Joseph St. John?’

  ‘You have been busy. I’m sure that when Harry’s finished with the woman he’s pleasuring now, you and he will have lots to discuss. I think I’ll enjoy watching what he’s going to do to both of you.’

  ‘Who’s Harry?’ Richards said. She didn’t really know why she was asking, except maybe to find a way out by having knowledge about her captors.

  ‘Oh, you’ll find out,’ he said, turning away and laughing as he sloshed through the water to the door. ‘Harry knows how to please the ladies.’

  The door scraped shut and the man turned the key in the lock.

  ‘There are definitely two of them then?’ Catherine said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said and tears streamed down the sides of her face. She had been all right up until now, but it came to her that they had been following the right clues all along. If only she’d waited and not rushed in like a stupid fool, DI Parish would have found and arrested the killers before too long. Now, her stupidity had led her and Catherine into the killer’s arms. They would be lucky to get out of this alive. ‘I’m sorry, Catherine. I should never have brought you back here.’

  ‘That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all day.’

  ***

  ‘What did you think of the faces, Sir?’ Toadstone said.

  ‘Sorry?’ He was miles away, trying to work out what to do next. He could go down into the basement, but which basement? Where? How big was the site? In the building they were in, there was also a lower basement. How far did that go?

  ‘The pictures Rachel created in E-fit?’

  He pulled out his phone, brought up the pictures and scanned through them. They were like photographs. ‘Brilliant. It’s a shame we didn’t catch the front page. Catherine never sent them to her editor.’

  ‘We could still use them on Monday or Tuesday.’

  ‘If we have to use them on Monday, it’ll probably mean that Richards and Catherine are dead.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  He had an idea. ‘Yugai, do you know this man?’ He held his phone so that the security officer could see the display and flicked through the pictures.

  ‘Andy Askew,’ Yugai said, on fifth picture.

  So that they could both see the photograph on his phone, Parish shuffled round. The three-dimensional rendered picture was of a thin, handsome, middle-aged man with straight hair, no glasses and no moustache. ‘This is Andy Askew?’

  ‘Yes, Andy Askew.’

  Crazy Frog played on his mobile.

  ‘Give me some good news, Ray.’

  ‘I wish I could, but nobody at 45, Dudley Drive in Harold Hill had heard of Andrew Askew or Adrian Alva. The family were called Miller, and the husband – Terry Miller – was there. I checked birth and marriage certificates, passports and tortured the rabbit. They are who they say they are. Ed and I are on our way back. Any news from your end?�
�

  He told him about Yugai recognising the suspect as Andrew Askew.

  ‘So, where the hell have they got Richards and Catherine?’

  ‘That’s the million-dollar question, Ray.’

  He ended the call.

  ‘Yugai?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you tell me anything else about Andrew Askew?’

  ‘Yugai not like him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He smell of shit.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘He watch dirty films all time.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘No, you not understand. Bad film... men hurt women.’

  ‘He likes to watch pornographic films in which men are hurting women.’

  ‘I just say that, yes.’ He got up from the chair, walked over to where Toadstone was sitting and pointed at a strange-looking socket in the wall behind the computer. ‘Yugai not know what this is.’

  Parish shrugged. ‘Do you know what it’s for, Toadstone?’

  Toadstone peered at the metal female connector in the wall. ‘The others are round; this one’s oblong with a kink in it.’

  ‘So, do you know what’s it’s for?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why do you need to know what it is, Yugai?’

  ‘Andy has lead... take it with him.’

  Parish and Toadstone looked at each other.

  ‘I’ll phone Steve Potts,’ Toadstone said.

  ‘Thank you, Yugai.’

  ‘Yugai quid’s in,’ he said, and sat back down in his seat.

  Toadstone took a photograph of the connector and sent it to Steve Potts while he was having a conversation with him.

  ‘He says it’s a modified BNC connector for a camera feed. Unless you’ve got a matching male you won’t be able access it.’

  ‘And...?’

  ‘He says he could probably rig something up to access the feed within fifteen minutes.’

  ‘So, he’s on his way?’

  Toadstone spoke into his mobile.

  ‘It’ll take him at least an hour to get here, and he’ll want double time.’

  Parish stretched his hand out for Toadstone’s phone. ‘Hi Steve, DI Parish. I need you here in half an hour.’

  ‘I don’t...’

  ‘Richards could be dead in an hour, Steve.’

  ‘I’ve got a friend with a Kawasaki... I’m on my way.’

  He passed Toadstone his phone back.

  He turned to the Chechnyan. ‘Yugai, have you got a blueprint of the hospital?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘A map- showing the basements?’

  ‘Ah yes, Yugai have map.’ He got up again and walked over to the shelf above the computer and pulled out a green box file. ‘Here maps.’

  Parish took the box file. Inside were various plans and maps of the site and its buildings, but none relating to the basements. In the corner of each blueprint was a sheet number with a slash and the total number of sheets next to it. Sheet numbers 5, 17 and 33 were missing. He thought about ringing Medical Installations Co Ltd – the architects, but they were located in Cambridge or the East Thames Regional Health Authority – did that still exist? It was after eleven o’clock at night, and even if he could find someone who knew where there were copies of the blueprints, by the time the missing sheets arrived it would probably be too late for Richards. The only course of action left open to him was to go down into the basements and search every room, but he wasn’t going to go down there on his own.

  He rang the duty sergeant’s number at Hoddesdon with his fingers crossed.

  ‘Sergeant Jackson.’

  ‘Kristina, I’m so glad it’s you.’

  ‘What can I do for you, Constable Parish?’

  ‘You’ve heard.’

  ‘Everybody in the station has heard.’

  ‘I need...’

  ‘No, no, you’ve got it the wrong way round, Parish. Constables who ply their trade in Yorkshire don’t ask favours of sergeants in Essex, especially favours that are going to get the sergeant into trouble.’

  ‘Richards and a journalist are missing.’

  ‘You really know how to sweet talk a girl. What do you need?’

  ‘About twenty...’

  He could hear laughter, as if a Halloween party had broken out at the other end of the phone. ‘All right, what about nine?’

  ‘What do you want them for?’

  ‘I’m at Harold Wood Hospital...’

  ‘You want me to come with you to Yorkshire? I’m touched.’

  ‘Neither of us is going to Yorkshire.’

  ‘Sending a team of coppers into another police force’s area without telling anyone... I assume we’re not telling anyone?’

  ‘No, we’re not telling anyone.’

  ‘...Is like... Well, in fact, I don’t know what it’s like, because I’ve never done it before – no one has ever done it before.’

  ‘It’s such a big site, and the three of us can’t search it without some help...’

  ‘Three? Don’t tell me, that idiot, Kowalski, and his evil twin, Ed Gorman, are there with you?'

  ‘Yes, so nine would give us three each.’

  ‘I must be insane. It’ll take them about...’

  ‘...Half an hour.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Constable. It’ll take them at least half an hour to get organised.’

  ‘And in the meantime Richards could be...’ He couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

  ‘I’ll get them there as fast as I can, but your soul now belongs to me, Constable Parish.’

  ‘Thanks Kristina. Can you make sure they come with wellies, coveralls, and torches? Also, I’d like six battering rams and six crowbars. We’re searching basements; some of the doors may be locked, and the lower levels have a couple of inches of water in them.’

  ‘Is there anything else before I carry out your orders, Constable?’

  ‘When they get here, someone should ring Toadstone’s mobile number...’

  ‘Bloody hell, all the stooges are there together. I thought he had a bit more sense.’

  The phone went dead.

  ‘Sergeant Jackson thought you had more sense, Toadstone.’

  ‘So did I, Sir.’

  While he waited for Kowalski, Ed and the uniforms from Kristina, he interrogated Yugai and made some adjustments to the blueprints that he did have by incorporating the basements Yugai said existed.

  Above ground, Harold Wood Hospital had a potpourri of buildings. As well as the standard hospital ward blocks: maternity complex, mortuary, laboratory, administration, kitchens, outpatients departments and so forth, it also boasted a number of other buildings. There were quarters for male and female nursing staff, houses for doctors and married staff, the on-site security office and a fifty-foot boiler tower incorporating the furnaces for medical disposal.

  A central corridor ran the whole length of the half-mile site, and Parish broke it up into three searchable areas. First there were the basement corridors under the main hospital complex, which essentially made up an oblong dissected into four smaller oblongs, and all the corridors were connected. However, Yugai indicated that there were two sub-basements beneath the main one, and that as far as he knew none of the security staff had ever ventured into the second one. The central corridor continued under the second and third areas to the end of the site, and shot off at right angles to the edges of the site right under the buildings.

  He knew it would take a team of twelve all night and more to search the basements, and he was, of course, making the assumption that Richards and Catherine were being held somewhere in the basement. If they weren’t, then they were probably lost forever, and he would have to go home and tell Angie that her daughter – the best partner he’d ever had – was dead. The marriage would be off for sure, and God only knew if it would ever happen after that, because he would be a constant reminder. Maybe it was the worst idea he’d ever had getting involved with the mother of his partner, but
then you couldn’t choose who you fell in love with. If he got her out of this alive, maybe he needed to give Richards to another detective.

  ***

  Saturday 28th May

  Kowalski and Ed arrived back ten minutes after Parish had finished delineating the basement on the blueprints. Sergeant Jackson’s nine coppers – five men and four women – arrived five minutes later. Parish allocated Area 1, under the main complex, to himself, and it was agreed that once the others had finished searching their areas, they would come back and help Parish’s team. Kowalski took Area 2, and Ed, Area 3 – the farthest along the arterial corridor.

  The security office had a bank of eight radios permanently charging on the wall and Parish sequestered them for the search effort. Yugai showed them how the radios worked, and each team took two.

  As they were about to leave, Steve Potts arrived on a Kawasaki ZZR1400. Burst in through the door and said, ‘Let the dog see the rabbit.’

  ‘Glad you could make it, Steve,’ Parish said.

  ‘I hope I can help.’

  ‘So do I.’

  Toadstone had one of the radios and Parish told him to let him know if Steve Potts found anything.

  By the time they had descended into the basement it was twenty-five past midnight. Kowalski and Ed set off south-west with their teams along the central corridor. Parish headed north-east under the hospital reception with his two men and one woman. As he’d suggested to Kristina, they were dressed in dark blue coveralls and blue wellies, and had brought with them high-powered P7 LED Lenser torches.

  ‘Names?’ Parish asked.

  The shorter of the two males took the lead. ‘Bryn Davies, Roger Moorhouse and Heather Crispin.’

  ‘Okay, Heather can come with me, and you two can work together. We’ll all go up to the end of this central corridor, Heather and I will turn right, and you two can turn left. We’re obviously looking for Constable Richards and the reporter Catherine Cox, but anything unusual which suggests recent occupation. Look in every room. And stay off the radio unless you’ve got something important to say. All clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ Constable Davies said in his musical Welsh accent. ‘And locked doors we break down?’