by Tim Ellis
‘You’d be gang raped, and I’d be tattooed with the gang motto.’
‘Not so much fun. What about taking Kowalski and Gorman in with us to beat the crap out of them?’
‘Then they’d be put on the Child Protection Register, have their kids taken off them, and be thrown out of the police force. Is that what you had in mind?’
‘Maybe Ruthie Suddick has got a telephone?’
‘That’s a more sensible suggestion.’ Parish pulled out his mobile and called the Duty Sergeant.
‘Sergeant Jackson?’
‘Kristina, how lovely to hear your voice.’
‘You can be smarmy all day long, Jed Parish, but you’re not getting any more favours out of me until you start paying your debts.’
‘I’m wounded, Kristina.’
‘Enough of the crap, what do you want?’
‘Two things. Can you see if Ruthie Suddick, Flat 13, Cowper Gardens on the Bush Fair Estate in Harlow has a telephone number?’
Silence.
He waited.
‘Write it down...’
He signalled to Richards to write it down. ‘Go?’
‘01279 768980. And the second thing?’
‘Depends on whether we get an answer on that number, I’ll ring you...’
She cut him off. What the hell did she want from him? Maybe that was the problem. Maybe now that he was married she knew he couldn’t give her anything. She’d come round. They were friends for God’s sake. She’d known he was in a relationship with Angie, maybe she didn’t believe he’d actually tie the knot. He’d talk her round.
He dialled Ruthie Suddick’s number.
‘Ruthie?’
‘Miss Suddick, I’m Detective Inspector Parish from Hoddesdon Police Station. I’d like to talk to you about Allan Cousins.’
‘That bastard...’
‘We tried to get in to see you a few minutes...’ He heard laughter.
‘That was you?’
‘Yes.’
‘We haven’t had a good laugh like that for a while.’
‘I’m glad you approve. Can you come off the estate, so that we can talk?’
‘If you want to talk to me, you come back in.’
‘Back? I don’t think so.’
‘It’s okay, I’ll pass the word. They’ll let you through this time.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘We’ll be there in a few minutes.’
He ended the call.
‘We’re going back in,’ he said to Richards.
Richards’ brow furrowed. ‘Are you mad? We barely escaped with our lives last time. I don’t think we should return without a substantial police escort.’
‘I believe there’s something on the windscreen that needs your attention.’
‘You’re not expecting...?’
‘Oh, you think a Detective Inspector should get his hands dirty?’
‘Yes.’
‘You signed for the car. There’ll be gloves in the boot.’
‘Sometimes...’
‘You value my guidance so highly you’ve put me forward for Detective Inspector of the Year?’
‘Not even close.’
They arrived outside Cowper Gardens unscathed.
‘What about the car, Sir?’ Richards asked as they climbed out.
A hooded teenager slouched up to them. ‘A twenty, and you might have the wheels left when you come out, pig.’
‘Pay him, Richards.’
‘Me?’
‘You signed for the car, it’s your responsibility.’
She paid the boy.
‘Nice pair of tits, babe.’
Richards opened her mouth to respond, but Parish wedged himself between them and put his face inches from the boy’s.
‘You talk to my partner like that again and I’ll rip your throat out with my bare hands.’
He saw the boy’s hand move underneath his jacket.
‘If you even think of pulling a knife or a gun out on me, you’ll be shitting into a plastic bag for the rest of your life because your arse won’t work after I’ve rammed the weapon up there.’
The boy’s hand relaxed and slid out of his jacket.
‘I’ve been told to tell you that you’ve got twenty minutes then you’re dead meat.’
Richards checked her watch. ‘Come on, Sir, we’d better go.’
They strode towards Cowper Gardens. The lift didn’t work. The stairs stank of urine, but they had no choice. Eventually they reached number thirteen.
Ruthie was leaning out of the door with a two-month old baby girl wedged on her right hip like an appendage, and a lit cigarette in her right hand. She had long black hair with brown streaks at the front, a small ring through the left side of her bottom lip, and tattoos spiralling all down her right arm. Parish thought that in another setting, with the right make-up and clothes, she could have been considered attractive.
‘In here.’
They followed her into the one-bedroom flat. There was black mould on the walls of the hall. She led them into a tiny room with a two-seater sofa and matching chair, a hairy rug with a round wooden coffee table in the centre, and a painting on the wall above an electric fire of the sun setting on an idyllic beach.
‘We haven’t got long,’ Richards said.
Ruthie laughed. ‘Yeah, probably about thirteen minutes now. So, what do you want to know?’ She sat in the chair and Parish perched on the edge of the sofa.
‘Allan Cousins has been missing since the 10th September last year...’
‘Yeah, his old lady told me that story as well.’
‘Unfortunately, it’s not a story, it’s true.’
‘You mean he really is missing?’
‘Yes.’
‘What does that mean exactly?’
‘Nobody has heard from him, he’s not used his credit card, his bank account, or his mobile phone since that date. For all intents and purposes he has ceased to exist.’
‘He’s dead, you mean?’
‘I didn’t say that. We’re currently looking into Allan’s case that’s all. Did Allan know about the baby?’
‘No, he dumped me the week before he disappeared, and I didn’t find out I had Allana until the week after. God I cried. I mean, we were in love. He told me he wanted to spend the rest his life with me, then he just dumps me. I didn’t understand it, still don’t. One minute he was working all the hours God sends so that we could get our own place away from here, and the next he’s dumping me. All I can think is that he met someone else and fell in love again. I phoned his mum, told her about the baby, but she never liked me. She thought I wasn’t good enough for her precious Allan.’ Tears began to make her mascara run. ‘Crap, now look what you’ve made me do.’
‘Sir, we have four minutes to get out of here.’
‘One last question, Ruthie. When he dumped you, did he give a reason, or did he simply finish with you and walk away?’
‘Bastard did it over the phone. God knows what I ever saw in him. I mean, who dumps the woman they love over the phone?’
He stood up. ‘Thank you, Ruthie.’
‘Yeah, you’d better go. Those bastards will do some serious damage if you’re not out of here in time. Someone should come in with a machine gun and shoot them all, so that decent people can live normal lives.’
When they got outside there must have been close to a hundred teenagers standing in small groups. It was as if a hoodie breeding programme had been implemented while they’d been in the flats talking to Ruthie.
Nobody said anything to them as they made their way back to the car, but the menacing intent was clear. Now there were knives and guns openly on show as if they’d wandered into a gangster convention by mistake. What concerned him more though, were the rocks being juggled by a lot of the teenagers.
‘How long left?’ he asked Richards as he climbed in the driver’s seat.
‘Twenty-seven seconds.’
‘He
switched the ignition on, and put his foot all the way down to the floor. The car juddered, and then leapt forward skidding from left to right.
They nearly made it, but not quite. The exit was three hundred yards in front of them, but between the car and the exit was a group of teenagers. Behind the car, another group was closing in.
‘We’re going to die, aren’t we?’
‘You’re a right drama queen, Richards.’
He skidded forwards again. Rocks bounced off the car. An intricate pattern of interlocking spider’s webs erupted in the clear safety glass in the windscreen. He could barely see to drive.
The hoodies didn’t move, so he ploughed straight into them. He felt a slight resistance and the front and back wheels rose and fell on the passenger side as they bumped over something. A bloody squashed face appeared briefly crushed against the windscreen, but then it was gone. At last, they were over the estate boundary. He drove a further hundred yards beyond rock-hurling distance, stopped the car and climbed out to look back. The hoodies stared back at them defiantly.
‘Do you think you killed any of them, Sir?’
‘I don’t think so. Maybe a broken bone here and there.’
‘I was even more scared in there than when those two serial killers had me. Were you scared, Sir?’
‘Me?’ He smiled. ‘No.’ He was, of course, but to admit it out loud would be unthinkable. Apart from the fact that he was a man who was expected to be fearless, Richards also had to have confidence in his ability to protect her. If he admitted that he was a quivering wreck inside, she would think of him as such. Only stupid people weren’t afraid, but to admit that you were was an entirely different matter.
‘It’s all right to say if you were, I won’t tell anybody.’
‘I wasn’t afraid, Richards. Never have been afraid, never will be afraid – fear is my enemy.’
‘Oh, okay. I didn’t know places like that existed.’
‘There are ‘No Go Areas’ in London’s Canning Town, Toxteth in Liverpool, Moss Side in Manchester, and Handsworth in Birmingham. It’s a symptom of inner cities, and a failure of society to address the problems of disaffected youth.’
‘I’m always amazed at how you know this stuff, Sir.’
‘As a DI I get to see a lot of reports you don’t have access to. That’s how I know this stuff.’ The last three words he tried to mimic her.
She laughed. ‘You never sound like me. So, how are we getting back to the station?’
‘You always have to ask, don’t you?’
He phoned Kristina again.
‘You’re not dead then?’
‘Clearly not.’ He told her what had happened.
‘And now you want me to clear up your mess?’
‘Obviously I need...’
The phone went dead.
He sighed.
‘Waffle not working anymore, Sir?’
‘Waffle! I’ll have you know that it’s called the art of buttering people up, which took years to perfect.’
‘Whatever you’d like to call it, it isn’t working anymore, is it?’
‘A temporary setback is all.’
‘You’re thinking of divorcing my mum already then?’
‘Stop talking, Richards.’
‘I was just saying.’
They had to wait thirty-five minutes before the tow-truck turned up. Then they were forced to sit in the rear seat of the truck all the way back to Hoddesdon listening to Polish music and gagging at the stench of oil and smoked kielbasa, which – according to their driver Jerzy Krasinsky – was a Polish sausage made from horse meat.
Richards wrinkled her nose at the idea of eating a horse.
And if that weren’t bad enough, Jerzy had the window on the driver’s side open, and sang along to the Polish music like a demented dog.
At O’Flynn’s Garage, John Knight the manager, whose hobby was serious weightlifting, gave them the evil eye.
‘It wasn’t our fault...’ Richards began.
‘Save it for the report, babe. I could knit a pair of socks with all the yarn you people have spun me. A bit like what idiots put on their insurance claims: “I collided with a stationary ambulance that was coming the opposite way”. Yeah, whatever.’
Richards looked at Parish.
Parish simply shrugged. The prudent course of action seemed to be to keep his mouth shut. He could have pulled Knight up for the sexist way in which he addressed Richards, but then no doubt pool cars would become strangely unavailable in the future. He could have put forward a number of mitigating reasons for the car looking like it had been the victim of a serial crusher, but then he would be wasting his time. Knight and his team would use a high-definition camera to take a collection of revealing photographs that would catalogue every scratch and dent, and then compile a multi-layered report detailing the ‘before’ and ‘after’ conditions of the car with costs and recommendations. He would then have to justify the wide gap between the ‘before’ condition and the ‘after’ condition. Even though Richards had signed for the car he was the senior officer. It was his responsibility. He had to explain what the hell had happened.
They ambled back to the station with just enough time to meet Lola at four thirty in the incident room.
Chapter Five
‘You two look as though you seen a ghost.’
Parish told Lola what had happened to the car.
‘My advice is to never go into those ‘No-Go Areas’,’ Lola said.
Parish grunted. ‘Very helpful.’
‘Well, I got something that’ll cheer you up and loosen up your bowels.’
‘That’s disgusting,’ Richards said.
‘Only if’n you already got loose bowels. For those that is clogged up it be a Godsend.’
‘Can we move on?’ Parish asked.
‘So, I found another two MPs.’ She pointed at the board. ‘In 1995 there was Alison Cartwright, and in 2009, Alice Cooper.’
‘Nine,’ Richards mumbled writing the names in her notebook.
‘Yup. So, what did y’all find out about Allan Cousins?’
Parish indicated for Richards to tell Lola what they’d found.
‘We went to see his mother first. She said that the month before he went missing he had a lift home from a man who asked him lots of questions – a bit like an interview. And even though she rings his mobile number sometimes, she hasn’t heard from him since he disappeared. Next, we spoke to his boss at the shoe shop. He said that he thought Allan knew he was leaving that day because he kept looking out of the shop window and checking his mobile, but couldn’t explain why he never said anything to anyone.
Lola stared at Richards with her chin resting on her balled fists, but didn’t say anything.
Then we went to the Security Office. The woman there gave us a DVD of the CCTV coverage from the shopping centre for the 10th September last year.’
‘Why?’
‘She said that whenever there’s an event she makes a copy just in case.’
‘Sounds like a woman who knows chocolate from cow shit.’
Richards half-smiled and looked at Parish.
‘If’n you got something to say about the way I speak, Mary Richards, just spit it out and let the hyenas fight over the bones.’
‘No, it’s just that you have some... colourful phrases that’s all.’
‘That’s because I come from Haiti, which I already done told you about. I ain’t gonna lose my roots just because you want me to be a spitting copy of you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Richards said. ‘I like the way you speak.’
‘Well, that’s just fine and dandy then.’
‘Time’s running out,’ Parish said tapping his watch.
‘Next, we went to see his girlfriend. That’s when the car got... Anyway, she said Allan finished with her by phone. One minute he loved her and was working to earn enough money for them to be together, and the next he finished with her and she can’t explain why. She was pregnant,
but she didn’t find out until a week after he disappeared, so he never knew he has a baby girl.’
‘What can we conclude from all that?’ Parish asked.
‘Sounds like he knew he was going,’ Lola said.
‘It does, doesn’t it?’ Richards mumbled.
‘Speak up, Richards.’
‘Well, that’s what it sounds like, but it doesn’t make any sense. Why not tell people he was leaving, or at least leave a note for his mum? Why didn’t he clear out his bank account? Why hasn’t he rung his mum? Why didn’t he pack a bag and take clothes and things with him?’
‘Sometimes,’ Parish said, ‘people simply walk away from the life they had. They leave everything behind and become someone new.’
‘Maybe, but there’s the man who gave him a lift home. It sounds like he was recruiting him for something.’
‘Or maybe it was just a man who asked a lot of questions and gave him a lift home once.’
‘Maybe... But why hasn’t he let his mum know he’s all right?’
‘You met his mum.’
‘So, you think he went of his own free will,’ Lola said. ‘But you ain’t so sure, Mary Richards?’
‘No, I ain’t... I’m not sure.’
‘It’s okay if’n you want to talk like me, at least then we’ll all be able to understand each other.’
Richards smiled.
‘I don’t think anything at the moment, Lola,’ Parish said. ‘We’re just batting around the possibilities for now.’
‘So, you still think there’s a pattern?’
‘Oh, there’s definitely a pattern, but whether it’s the pattern of a serial killer...?’ He left the question hanging.
‘We’re still investigating then?’
‘Yes, we’re still investigating, Lola. Tomorrow, we’ll go and see Allan’s best friend – Peter Field. Then we’ll start on the next name... Alice Cooper. That’s one you found today, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’ She passed each of them a missing person’s report. ‘Her father reported her missing the following day.’
Parish checked that the report had the father’s name and address on it then said, ‘Okay, we’ll read the report later, but now we have to go and brief the Chief. Anything you want to highlight about this one, Lola?’
‘No, boss.’