by Tim Ellis
‘We’ll come back to the three-point connection. What about the other two?’
‘There are three parts to Blackfriars Hall, the Priory of the Holy Spirit, which houses the friars; Blackfriars Studium, a centre for theological studies by the friars; and Blackfriars Hall, which is a centre for the study of Theology and Philosophy.’
‘Okay, Blackfriars Hall and the Order of Preachers are connected, so we can forget about that.’
‘Why? I wanted to go to Oxford.’
‘The Dominican Order of Preachers don’t call themselves Frati Neri, they’re called black friars because they wear black habits.’
‘Why are you asking me about them if you already know the answer?’
‘Two people conducting independent research is far better than one person doing it.’
‘I suppose.’
‘That just leaves us with Roberto Calvi, Blackfriars Bridge, and P2. The message – Frati Neri – can only mean Blackfriars Bridge, and the only interesting thing about the bridge is that Roberto Calvi was found hanging from it in 1982.’
‘You’re thinking that Sir Charles Lathbury was connected to P2, aren’t you?’
‘Am I?’ What he was really thinking was that he should forget all about finding out who he was. So, what if he wasn’t Jed Parish. Did it really matter? He’d just have to live with not knowing. As soon as he started making enquiries outside this room a sleeping giant would open its eyes and look in his direction. Lathbury had already tried to kill him to stop him finding out, and maybe he had been acting on instructions. The Chief Constable had said that MI6 weren’t involved and that they had no file on him, which meant that Lathbury had two paymasters – MI6 and who else? P2 was probably a front for the Mafia, or were P2 something else entirely – puppet masters as one article called them? The one thing he knew for certain was that he would be completely out of his depth if he began to investigate P2.
‘Here’s an article written in January of this year about a senior Italian politician’s membership of P2 and his links to the Mafia.’
Parish read the article, but he had already decided to forget all about who he was. ‘Does it say anywhere that P2 are still active?’
‘I haven’t seen anything, but there was mention of the lodge being in London somewhere. After the Italian Freemasons threw them out of the Order, they set up here. That’s why Calvi came to London, he was a high ranking member of P2. We should talk to the reporter who wrote that article.’
Parish picked the article up. ‘He’s called Rowan Grieg.’
‘He’s a she.’
‘Rowan’s a man’s name, isn’t it?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘Okay know-it-all where can we get hold of her?’
She passed a piece of paper over. ‘I have a telephone number.’
‘You’ve not made any phone calls yourself, have you?’ He picked up the piece of paper and screwed it up.
‘No, why?’
‘I’ve decided that we’re going to forget all about who I am. All we need to know is that I’m Jed Parish.’
‘But...’
‘No buts. I think P2 are still active behind the scenes, that the Mafia are an integral part of P2, or vice versa, and that if we start prodding and poking them we’ll end up dead. It’s not worth it. I’m happy, I have a good life with a baby on the way, why would I want to jeopardise that?’
‘We could just...’
‘No, and that’s final. Put all this rubbish in the bin and forget about it.’ He leaned towards her. ‘And that means you’re not to start doing anything on your own.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You’re thinking you will, as you’re saying you won’t, but if you do, you’ll be putting not only your life in danger, but mine and your mother’s as well, and don’t forget the life of an unborn baby.’
‘I promise, I won’t.’
Chapter Six
Wednesday, 13th July
Lola didn’t turn up for the briefing at eight thirty. Parish guessed that Inspector Threadneedle was between Lola and the squad room. They’d catch up later, she knew what she was doing, and they knew what they were doing, so there really wasn’t any need for a meeting.
The Chief’s office was out of bounds because she was conducting interviews for a secretary, and Kowalski and Ed were in deep conversation at the other end of the squad room about something.
Today they were going to interview Peter Field – Allan Cousins’ best friend – and then go on to see Colin Cooper, Alice Cooper’s father. After that, well it depended on what Mr Cooper gave them.
As they walked into O’Flynn’s garage John Knight and four of his mechanics began laughing.
‘Are they laughing at us?’ Richards said.
‘At you I should think, they wouldn’t dare laugh at a Detective Inspector.’
‘They’re civilians, I don’t think they care about your rank, Sir.’
‘You’ve come to pay your final respects to yesterday’s car?’ John Knight said.
‘We’ve come for a pool car,’ Richards responded.
‘See, I told you,’ one of the mechanics said.
Knight was leaning against a six-month-old silver Saab 93. ‘Sorry, none left.’
Richards looked at Parish.
He hated confrontation, but didn’t shy away from it when the need arose. Worst of all, he hated self-appointed gatekeepers.
‘We’ll take that Saab,’ Parish said moving closer.
Knight looked at the other mechanics and laughed. ‘You’ve got no chance.’
He moved closer still until he was only inches away from Knight and whispered so that the others couldn’t hear. ‘You’re in charge of the garage and the cars, but you don’t decide who’s deserving of a pool car or not. Let me tell you how it’s going to go. You sign the Saab out to Constable Richards, and I won’t investigate you and turn your life inside out until I find something to arrest you.’
‘You can’t do that?’
‘I think you’ll find I can.’ He took hold of Knight’s arm. ‘You’ve now become a suspect in a murder investigation.’
‘Sign out the Saab,’ he said to his mechanics.
‘We haven’t...’ one of the mechanics said.
‘Are you deaf?’ He shouted. ‘I won’t forget this, Parish.’
‘I certainly hope not, Knight. Every time Richards and I come in here for a car you’d better give us one of the better ones. If we trash it, well that’s between me and the Chief Constable, and it has absolutely nothing to do with you – understand?’
Knight didn’t say anything, and Parish knew he’d made an enemy.
Richards came back with the keys. ‘Are you ready, Sir?’
He out-stared Knight until the garage manager moved aside, and then said, ‘Thank you,’ as he climbed into the Saab passenger seat.
Richards switched on the SatNav.
‘Do that outside. Let’s get out of here before Knight changes his mind.’
The Saab jerked forward and stalled.
‘Oops!’ She adjusted the seat and switched the engine back on.
Eventually they were outside on Brewery Road and Richards pulled into a bus stop.
‘I thought you were going to hit him.’
‘Don’t be stupid. Have you seen the size of him? It would have been like a gnat blunting its proboscis on an elephant.’
‘He’s big isn’t he?’
‘Even Kowalski would have trouble with Knight.’
‘What did you say to him to get him to change his mind?’
‘I said you’d go round his house tonight in a French Maid’s outfit and clean his loft out.’
‘So, you’re not going to tell me?’
‘This is a nice car.’
‘Good to drive as well.’
She finished inputting Peter Field’s address and pulled back out onto Brewery Road. At the roundabout she continued up Charlton Way and at the next roundabout turned right over the river onto Ess
ex Road.
‘Why are we using the back roads?’ he said.
‘I thought it would be nice to see a bit of countryside today, and anyway it’s the most direct route.’
He sat back and closed his eyes. This case was looking more and more like a dead end. Yes, there were patterns, but they only appeared to reveal the victims disappearing of their own free will – well, one victim anyway, and was it right to call the missing, ‘victims’? Where they’d gone to was anybody’s guess, but did it really matter? They were adults, and in this country an adult could do whatever they wanted and go wherever they wanted as long as it wasn’t against the law. No bodies of the missing had ever been found, which was revealing in itself. However, he had to be cautious about that, because if a killer wanted to hide bodies there were lots of places to do so. Amy Linton and all those other children buried in Galleyhill Wood came to mind. After today, he’d make a decision on whether to waste any more time on missing persons.
Then, of course, there were his origins. Had he made the right decision about that? He had a wife and child for goodness’ sake. Did it really matter who his mother and father were? If he found out he was the long lost son of Don Vito Corleone – the Godfather – would it change his life? He was who he was – Jed Parish – a Detective Inspector on the MIT at Hoddesdon Police Station in Essex. He liked being who he was. He had a good life with a beautiful wife, a baby on the way, a great partner, wonderful friends, and – for the moment anyway – a good boss. Why would he want to jeopardise all of that?
‘Didn’t you sleep well?’
‘I slept fine, what about you?’
She paused. ‘I slept like a top.’
‘No nightmares?’
‘None at all.’
‘You shouldn’t take up lying as an occupation, you’d starve to death. When are you seeing the therapist again?’
‘Next Monday at ten, and you?’
‘Friday at four. We should be able to co-ordinate our appointments so that we don’t have to go to the hospital twice, you know. When you go on Monday, tell him you want your next appointment on Friday afternoon.’
‘What if he hasn’t got any free slots on Friday afternoon?’
‘Arrest him.’
‘On what charge?’
‘I’m sure you can think of something.’
‘We’re here.’
The dashboard clock displayed nine-twenty.
Richards parked the Saab outside 17 Spinning Wheel Mead in Latton Bush, and although the village was only across the A1169 from the ‘No-Go-Area’ of Bush Fair, it was really a world away. There were no hooded teenagers loitering in every nook and cranny, no burnt out wrecks, and no litter. It was a quiet village, and the grass had been cut.
They walked up the concrete path of the three-bedroom mid-terrace house and knocked on the door. A dog began barking inside. The door opened a crack on a security chain, and a feeble-looking grey-haired woman’s head appeared.
‘Yes?’
‘Is it possible to talk to Peter Field?’ Richards said showing her warrant card.
‘If you want to fly to Afghanistan.’
‘He’s a soldier?’
‘More like a walking target for the Taliban. Joined up last year. No sooner was he out of basic training than they sent him there with his Regiment – the 3rd Anglians.’
‘We’re making enquiries about the disappearance of Allan Cousins.’
The dog was still barking behind her, and trying to squeeze out through the gap in the door.
‘That was a strange affair, and part of the reason Peter joined up... Look, Walnut won’t settle until I either shut the door, or you come in. If you want to ask me some more questions you’d better come in.’ She pushed the door too, removed the security chain, and opened it just wide enough for the two of them to edge in through the gap while Mrs Field held Walnut back with her walking stick.
Walnut was a black and white male Staffordshire Bull Terrier who could smell Digby and started sniffing Parish’s trouser legs.
‘You haven’t got a dog, have you?’
Parish opened his arms. ‘Not with me.’
‘You should have said before I let you in.’
‘You didn’t ask.’
Walnut started to growl as he stared up at Parish.
They moved the short distance along the hall and into the living room, which had chocolate brown curtains at the windows and two matching two-seater leather sofas facing the LCD television. Over the beige carpet was a large sky blue rug in the centre of the room with matching cushions on the sofas and a smaller oblong piece of rug on the wall instead of a picture. Parish had absolutely no idea about interior design, but he didn’t think the blue and brown went together.
‘If he sinks his teeth into your leg I’ll put him in the kitchen. I’m not going to offer you a drink because I don’t want to leave you in here on your own with Walnut. The only reason he hasn’t ripped your throat open by now is this stick.’ She poked the dog hard with it and he stopped growling. ‘On your cushion,’ she snarled at him.
The dog moved onto a cushion by the hearth, but kept its eyes on Parish as he sat with Richards on the sofa opposite the door.
‘So, what is it you want to know?’
‘Anything you can tell us about Allan Cousins,’ Parish said.
‘I don’t know anything. You need to talk to Peter.’
‘Is he coming back from Afghanistan anytime soon?’
‘Another four months yet.’
‘Then what do you mean?’
She pointed to a computer sitting on a drop-leaf table with a webcam perched on the top. ‘Peter set it up for me before he left. He phones me at pre-arranged times, and he’ll be phoning today at two-thirty. They’re four-and-a-half hours ahead of us in Afghanistan, so it’ll be seven o’clock at night there when he’s off-duty. He says it’s called Skype, or something like that, so you need to come back then and ask him what you need to.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mind, Mrs Field?’ Richards said. ‘We don’t want to impose on you and your son’s conversation.’
‘No, Peter isn’t my son, he’s my grandchild, and I’m Mrs Allsopp – Annie for short.’ She sighed. ‘My daughter was a drug addict, couldn’t look after herself, never mind Peter, so I brought him up. She died about eleven years ago, choked on her own vomit so they said. Peter’s all I have left now, and he’s a walking target for those evil Taliban.’
‘And Peter’s father?’
‘God knows, because I certainly don’t.’
‘We’ll come back about twenty-five past two then, if that’s all right with you?’
‘I’ll make sure Walnut is locked up in the kitchen. It’s Peter’s dog not mine, but I suppose he gives me peace of mind. No one would get out alive if those druggies from the Bush Fair estate tried to burgle this house.’
They made their way into the hall. Annie shut the living room door so that Walnut couldn’t get out, but they could hear him growling at a missed opportunity.
‘We’ll see you this afternoon, Annie?’
‘All right,’ she said and shut the door.
‘You were nearly dog meat then, Sir,’ Richards said and smiled.
‘Thanks for that, Richards.’
***
Mr Reginald Cooper had lived at 267 Millwards in Sumners with his daughter Alice, which wasn’t too far away from Latton Bush along the A1169. The problem, as Parish and Richards discovered when they knocked at the door of the detached house, was that Mr Cooper didn’t live there anymore – he had hanged himself ten months previously.
Parish rang Lola.
‘This is Constable Lola Laveque.’
‘Lola, it’s DI Parish.’
‘I couldn’t be at your meeting this morning. Devil’s spawn was tracking me like a bloodhound.’
‘That’s all right, I guessed it might be something like that. We’re sitting outside the Cooper address, but Mr Cooper is dead and someone else lives here now.�
��
‘Please hold.’
He held.
‘Mrs Cooper died in suspicious circumstances six years ago. There was an investigation...’
‘No, that doesn’t help us. Have you got any addresses of friends or relatives in the file?’
‘Please hold... Mr Cooper was convinced that his daughter’s ex-boyfriend – a Richard Milakovic – had something to do with her disappearance.’
‘Did he...?’
‘You ain’t rushing me, are you? If’n you is, I can easily put your poppet on the desk and fill it full of pins, maybe put its feet in boiling hot water, or hit its tiny little hands with a big hammer.’
He grimaced. ‘No, I’m not rushing you, Lola.’
‘Good. Lola doesn’t like to be rushed. You got a pencil and paper?’
He signalled for Richards to get her notebook out.
‘Okay.’
‘Number 7 Church End in Great Parndon, CM19 7HP.’ He echoed Lola so that Richards could write it down.
‘Thanks Lola...’
‘Just to keep you in the loop... I found another one from 1993 called Alisha Cave.’
‘That’s ten now. Does it fit...’
‘Yup. Meant to be a girl, and it was.’
‘I’m getting more and more curious, Lola.’
‘I thought you might be.’
The phone went dead
At the roundabout on the A1169 Richards took the first turning into Water Lane, and the second turning at the next roundabout into Brookside. She followed the road until the nice man in the SatNav said, ‘You have reached your destination.’
The dashboard clock displayed ten twenty-five.
Number 7 Church End was a three-story town house in the middle of a row of three.
Parish had to ring the bell three times before anybody responded.
‘Do you have to be so fucking impatient?’ a woman in her early fifties with short blonde hair and large purple earrings dangling from her ears said as she opened the door.
‘Sorry, I didn’t think you’d heard the first time.’
‘It’s a town house, moron. You have to fucking wait for people to walk down the stairs.’
‘I didn’t know.’