His Wrath is Come (P&R5)

by Tim Ellis

  Richards was sensitive in the way she described the devastation that murder brought to the families of victims. At the end, the girl called Pamela Howes put her hand up and told everyone how her dad had killed her mum just before Christmas.

  ‘Good job in there,’ Parish said once they’d thanked Kim Wise, said their goodbyes, and were sitting in the car.

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  ‘But you got me involved when you said you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Soon you’ll have your own child. I thought it would give you a chance to practise, but I think you need to go back to basics. I believe the government is running parenting classes for useless parents, you should put your name down early to avoid the rush.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Richards.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ***

  Tracy Shayler lived in Epping Green, which was a small village situated on the B181 between Epping and Harlow in the parish of Epping Upland. The village used to boast a post office and a general stores, but they closed some years ago. There were still two pubs within fifty yards of each other, a fourteenth century church, and a village pond that used to be the blacksmith’s cooling pond when blacksmiths still had a place in small communities.

  A privet hedge surrounded the three bedroom semi-detached house at 3 Green Close. Two leylandii trees appeared to be taking over the garden and blocking out the light to the front of the house.

  It was twenty-five to four when they knocked on the dark brown uPVC door.

  ‘We’re not going to get back for four-thirty,’ Richards said.

  ‘When we’ve finished in here you can ring Lola and tell her it was your fault that we’ll be slightly late.’

  ‘Why is it my fault?’

  ‘There was ten minutes taking that telephone call in the pub, and twenty minutes talking to children when I said it should only take five minutes, so there’s half an hour straight away. If it hadn’t been for your sloppy timekeeping I could have been back at the station now clearing my emails and intray.’

  ‘That’s not...’

  The door opened before Richards could respond fully. An attractive young woman stood there wearing a blue bathing costume with a plunging neckline and a multicoloured sarong tied around her waist. She had long wavy brown hair, dimples, and thick bushy eyebrows. The eyebrows had clearly been shaped and trimmed, but Parish felt that they needed slightly more work with the pruning shears before they took over her whole face.

  Richards flashed her warrant card. ‘Tracy Shayler, please?’

  ‘I’m Tracey Shayler.’

  ‘We’d like to talk to you about Alice Cooper.’

  ‘Oh my God, she’s come back?’

  ‘No, we’re simply making enquiries.’

  ‘After all this time?’

  ‘Yes, may we come in?’

  ‘Oh sorry, of course.’

  She led them through two small cluttered rooms to the patio, beyond which was a small swimming pool. A sunbed by the edge of the pool suggested that Tracy had been sunbathing, although Parish thought it was probably a bit too cold for him to take off his clothes. He liked the temperature to be at least over thirty degrees Celsius, and better if it was closer to forty degrees. If it was true that people came back as animals he’d probably like to return as a lizard – maybe a Komodo Dragon – and lie about on a rock in the sun all day. No pressure, no stress, just lots of sleeping, eating, and sunbathing – yes, he could live that kind of life.

  ‘Would you like a homemade lemonade, or a beer?’

  ‘Mmmm lemonade please,’ Richards said.

  Parish couldn’t remember ever having tried any homemade beer before, and wondered what it was like. ‘Homemade beer?’

  ‘My dad brews it in the cellar, and calls it Epping Green Ruination. He sells it at the local pubs. The villagers can’t get enough of it.’

  He licked his lips. ‘Go on, I’ll try a glass.’

  Within minutes she returned with two tall thin glasses.

  ‘You asked earlier whether Alice had come back,’ Parish said. ‘What did you mean by that?’ He took a cautionary sip of the dark brown ale. It tasted of fruit, but whether it was one lone plum or a whole vat of mixed fruit he had no idea.

  ‘Well, I knew she was going, but I wasn’t meant to tell anyone. She said she’d keep in touch, but I never heard from her again.’

  ‘Going where?’ Richards asked.

  Parish was sure his tongue was going numb. Maybe the beautiful Tracy Shayler had poisoned him. Maybe she was a zombie who stayed young and beautiful by devouring the flesh of all the men she’d poisoned. Maybe her father’s cellar was chock full of decomposing male bodies who had fell victim to her charms. Maybe the rotting flesh was also a secret ingredient in the beer. Maybe the whole family was in on it.

  ‘She didn’t say exactly where she was going, just that she’d met a man who had promised her a better life.’

  ‘Did she ever say who this man was?’

  ‘No. I asked her lots of times, but she wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘And you never saw him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No clue as to his identity?’

  He took a large swallow of the homemade brew, and thought his throat might be constricting. He could hear buzzing, and couldn’t feel his tongue at all now. He began to wonder if he would ever talk again, or whether anybody would be able to understand his cries for help.

  ‘Nothing, except... I had the feeling she was keeping something from me, and she never did that. We were like twin sisters, and I still miss her terribly. One time, I joked about going with her, but she became all serious and said I couldn’t, that she’d been specially chosen. It was a bit scary to see that look in her eyes, as if she’d been hypnotised or something.’

  ‘Did she tell you how her life would be better?’

  ‘No, she said she’d been sworn to secrecy, so she couldn’t tell me anything. She just wasn’t happy with her life. Her father came here banging on our door wanting to know where she was. We had to call the police because he refused to leave. Did you know he sexually abused her when she was little? Well, that’s what Alice said anyway.’

  ‘He killed himself?’

  ‘Nooo... I can’t say I’m sorry. He was a bit of a weirdo anyway. Sometimes I’d call for Alice, and he used to look at me as if he wanted to... you know.’

  ‘Are you all right, Sir?’

  Was he all right? Apart from the useless appendage he called a tongue, the slowly constricting neck, the blurred vision, and the buzzing inside his head, he was feeling fantastic.

  ‘Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that the brew sometimes has a strange effect on people the first time they drink it. You’ll be all right in about fifteen minutes once it wears off. My dad says there are nine poisons in the beer, four have a matching poison and counteract each other, but there’s a rogue one in there that gives it a fruity flavour, and it can have weird side effects on some people until your body creates a defence against it.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Richards said.

  He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t work.

  ‘You sit there until it wears off, Sir.’

  Richards and Tracy chatted away about Alice Cooper until he could feel his tongue again.

  He checked his watch. It was five past four. ‘Have you rung Lola?’ he said, but his mouth felt as though he was talking for the very first time, and it didn’t sound like his voice at all.

  ‘Are you feeling better, Sir?’

  He tried the words again, and she understood some of it.

  ‘Oh, of course, Lola. Please excuse me,’ she said to Tracy Shayler. ‘I have to make a phone call.’ She stood up, took out her mobile phone, and began walking round the swimming pool.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry about that,’ Tracy said to him. ‘I bet you thought I was trying to poison you?’

  He tried a dismissive chuckle, but it sounded more like a wild boar about to charge.

  ‘I have an ide
a,’ she said and went into the house.

  Richards completed her circuit of the swimming pool and said, ‘Lola’s okay about us being a bit late. She said she’s had a good day and found another five names.’

  ‘That’s fifteen from twenty-nine.’

  ‘You can talk again?’

  ‘I see you’ve not lost your ability to state the obvious.’

  ‘And you haven’t lost your mean streak.’

  Tracy returned carrying a clinking plastic bag and balanced it on the table. ‘Four big bottles of Epping Green Ruination,’ she said and smiled. ‘I know you think you’ll never touch another drop, but you will – they always do.’

  Parish stood up and lurched into Richards.

  ‘You’d better sit down again, Sir.’

  ‘No, I’m all right.’ The sooner he was in the car travelling back to Hoddesdon the better. ‘You carry the booze.’ To Tracy he said, ‘Thanks very much for your help and hospitality, Miss Shayler, and warn your father to expect a visit from the Health and Safety Executive.’

  Tracy looked at Richards with a worried expression.

  ‘He’s joking,’ she said.

  They were shown out.

  In the car Parish said, ‘Who said I was joking? That stuff was lethal, I thought I was going to die.’

  ‘Sometimes you’re a baby, Sir.’

  He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  ‘As I live and breathe, it’s Parish and Richards,’ Kowalski said when they walked into the squad room. ‘Are you two on holiday, or what?’

  ‘Are you in charge of the holiday rota now?’ Parish asked.

  ‘It would probably be more interesting than what Ed and I are actually doing, which is precisely nothing.’

  ‘I’d love to stay and chat with you, but Richards and I are late already.’

  ‘Late for what?’

  ‘Have you met Lola?’

  ‘A woman, tell me more?’

  ‘Come into the incident room and meet her, we’re unravelling a mystery.’

  ‘A woman and a mystery. You get all the good cases, Parish.’

  ‘When you’ve got it flaunt it that’s what I always say.’

  ‘You’ve never said that.’

  They all went into the incident room. Lola was sitting waiting for them and had already updated the list of names.

  It was twenty to five.

  ‘Hello Lola, sorry we’re late,’ Parish said.

  ‘That’s okay, boss, I was having a nice rest away from the clutches of devil’s spawn.’

  ‘Lola, this is DI Ray Kowalski and DS Ed Gorman.’

  Kowalski extended his hand towards her. ‘Pleased to meet you, Lola.’

  Lola crossed herself, and nearly fell backwards off her chair as if Kowalski was Satan himself. ‘Don’t you touch me, I don’t want your babies.’

  Parish burst out laughing.

  Richards said, ‘The word’s got out about you, Sir.’

  Kowalski grinned. ‘I don’t know what lies people have been spreading about me Lola, but the only babies I’ve given a woman are the four my wife is looking after.’

  ‘And all the others? I done heard you could fill up a shopping mall with the children who call you daddy.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard that as well, Ray,’ Ed said and nearly fell off his chair laughing.

  ‘You’re making fun of Lola. I think I’ll have to make two new poppets.’

  Kowalski and Ed turned to look at Parish.

  ‘Lola practises Haitian voodoo, so you two better not upset her from now on, because otherwise she’ll be sticking pins in your poppets.’

  ‘We’ll be as good as gold,’ Kowalski said sitting down and smiling at Lola.

  Lola shifted her elbows off the table, and eyed him through narrowed eyes.

  ‘Right, let’s get down to business before Richards and I have to brief the Chief.’ Parish moved to the whiteboard. ‘Lola is in charge of Missing Persons – MPs for short – and last week she discovered a number of interwoven patterns...’ He gave Kowalski and Ed a brief summary of where they were. ‘Are you interested in helping us?’

  ‘Sounds intriguing,’ Kowalski said, ‘and we’ve got nothing else better to do. Are you in, Ed?’

  ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Okay, today Lola has found another six names and added them to the list – Alistair Cornforth in 1988, Ashley Cort in 1989, Arnie Cobbler in 1990, Alisha Cave in 1993, Annie Corwin in 1997, and Alex Crow in 2003.’

  Kowalski rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘You’d think some of the first names would repeat themselves.’

  ‘Good one, Ray,’ Ed said.

  ‘You’re right, Sir,’ Richards said checking the list. ‘They’re all different.’

  ‘It could be relevant,’ Parish said, ‘but let’s not get overexcited until Lola has a lot more names. Richards, tell everyone what we’ve been doing today – the short version.’

  ‘We went to interview the friends and relatives of Allan Cousins and Alice Cooper, and we found a number of similarities. They broke up with their partners by phone before they disappeared, they received secretive phone calls from someone...’

  ‘Phone records?’ Ed interrupted.

  ‘Toadstone has them,’ Parish said. ‘Because we were late we didn’t have time to go up to forensics.’

  ‘I’ll pop up and get them while you’re in with the Chief.’

  ‘Thanks, Ed.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Richards continued, ‘they seemed to be living lives that were a lie because what they told people they were doing and what they actually did were two different things. We’d come to the conclusion that someone was choosing them for something, and they knew that they were going. We had that confirmed on our last visit by Alice Cooper’s best friend. We also have a vague description of a man with dark-hair and a thin face who drives a large dark car. The Inspector and me think that the 10th September is an anniversary of someone dying who was aged nineteen with the initials AC in 1984 or before.’

  She turned to the whiteboard and wrote the questions she and Parish had discussed earlier: 1. Why only one person a year? 2. Why the 10th September? 3. Why are the victims aged nineteen? 4. Why is it all so secretive? 5. Why the initials AC? 6. Why since 1984? 7. Why do they take nothing with them? 8. Why have none come back? 9. Where are they?

  ‘That’s a lot of questions,’ Lola said.

  ‘Yes, but we’ve answered some of them.’ She crossed off numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. ‘There, that only leaves four questions to answer.’

  Ed shuffled forward in his seat. ‘Except, your explanation is only guesswork. I’ll admit that it’s a reasonable guess, but guesswork all the same.’

  ‘I agree with Ed,’ Kowalski said. ‘Crossing them out is a bit premature, I’d just put a line under them.’

  Richards shrugged and turned back to the board. ‘Fine by me.’

  ‘And anyway,’ Parish said, ‘since when have we made lists? We’re not list people, Richards. Scrub the list out and draw a mindmap. In the centre bubble put “Lola’s MPs”...’

  Lola laughed.

  ‘And...’

  ‘I know, you don’t have to tell me how to draw a mindmap.’ She surrounded the centre bubble with the nine questions each in their own bubble attached by a spidery line.

  Parish stood up. ‘You can sit down now, your usefulness in mindmappery has come to an end for the time being.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Okay, let’s take each question in turn. Why only one person a year?’

  ‘That’s his only day off?’

  ‘Be serious, Ed.’

  ‘Sorry, couldn’t resist.’

  ‘The annual victim must be linked to the date,’ Kowalski said. ‘The 10th September every year is a bit of a give-away.’

  ‘Richards and I agree. So, if it’s not an anniversary what is it?’

  Nobody said anything for a time.

  ‘Birthday?’ Lola suggested.

  ‘Okay,
similar to an anniversary, but let’s not forget that serial killers don’t start killing just because they feel like it, there’s usually a trigger, so if he’s killing on his birthday what was the trigger?’

  Richards waved her hand. ‘It might not be his birthday.’

  ‘In which case, we come back to an anniversary, so let’s stick with that for the time being. Next question: Why are the victims aged nineteen?’

  ‘You’ve missed one,’ Ed said.

  ‘One and two are linked,’ Kowalski nudged him.

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘The only reason that I see for all the victim’s being nineteen is that the anniversary involves a nineteen year-old.’

  ‘Seems logical,’ Lola agreed.

  ‘Any other offers?’ Parish said holding the board marker over the third bubble.

  No one had anything else.

  ‘Sold to the lady in the very colourful top.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s too colourful for work, do you?’

  ‘Ain’t nothing too colourful,’ Lola said.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Parish interrupted.

  ‘Well, you started it. If you thought my top was too colourful you should have said something this morn...’

  ‘Can we stop talking about Richards’ top?’ Kowalski said. ‘It’s too colourful for the MIT. Now, if you were working Vice it would be fine – the more colours the better – or Robbery, I’m sure it would be okay...’

  ‘Since when have you been an expert on colours, Ray?’ Ed said laughing. ‘You know zilch about colours.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. What the hell am I doing talking about the colours of women’s tops? See what you’ve done to me Richards, I’m a shadow of the man I used to be.’

  ‘Don’t blame me, Inspector Parish started it. If...’

  ‘Stop talking, Richards.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Okay, I think we’re agreed that questions 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 are linked. The victims go missing on the 10th September each year, which is an anniversary of – maybe a teenager dying with the initials AC – on that date in 1984 or before who was aged nineteen.’

  There was nodding heads around the table.

  ‘In which case, we need to go back to 1984 or before to see if we can identify who AC was. If we can do that we’ll be able to find out who’s taking these people.’