by Daniel Cole
‘Oh, I’m that way,’ she said, looking off to the left.
‘I know. I just want to make a quick stop on the way.’
‘What are we doing here?’ she asked him, the rainclouds dispersing across the dawn sky as they parked outside Eloise’s gallery.
Climbing out, Chambers walked over to a car on the other side of the road and tapped on the glass, Marshall following him out as a bleary-eyed officer wound down the window.
‘Morning, Detective Sergeant.’
‘I need the logs from yesterday,’ said Chambers, the man handing over the uneventful surveillance reports.
‘Anything I can help you with, sir?’ he asked as Chambers flipped back one sheet and ran his finger down the page.
‘“Eloise Brown and her police escort seen entering the gallery with a painting and leaving nine minutes later with a different one”,’ he read aloud. ‘What painting?’ he asked Marshall rhetorically. ‘There aren’t any paintings in there!’
‘That’s not entirely true, sir,’ the man in the car interjected. ‘There’s always been one over the entrance.’
Chambers glanced back at the gallery and then tossed the clipboard through the window: ‘Keys!’ he demanded, the sleepy officer taking a moment to find them.
‘What’s going on?’ Marshall asked him, jogging to keep up as he marched over to the metal gates, Chambers peering through the bars at the illuminated painting sealed in a Perspex box above the door:
‘Son of a bitch!’ he spat, unlocking the gate before pulling the box down off the wall.
‘Chambers?’ Prising the plastic apart, he removed the canvas. ‘What are you doing?’ He switched his torch on and shone it over the painting in explanation. ‘… What?’ Marshall asked, bewildered.
‘She’s warning him.’
‘She’s what?’
He moved the beam over the grey blocks amid a sea of green: ‘Graves?’
‘I … Perhaps.’
‘… Fire,’ he said, highlighting the orange form in the corner.
‘Ummm.’
‘And trees.’
‘… So?’
‘His mother’s grave, the fire at the university, and the laurel tree wood. She’s warning him we know!’
‘I mean this with the utmost respect,’ said Marshall diplomatically, ‘but I think you’re reaching. These are just shapes. You’re seeing what you want to see.’
‘I don’t trust her!’
‘You don’t have to! But we need her. This isn’t enough to jeopardise that. Where would we be right now without her?’ He had no comeback for that. ‘I’m just saying, let’s not make any rash decisions.’
‘We need to watch her closely.’
‘We will,’ she assured him, Chambers staring at the painting in disdain:
‘And I’m still taking this down.’
‘Good morning,’ chimed Eve, making a beeline for the coffee machine, Chambers hunched over a book at the kitchen table. ‘What time did you get back?’
He glanced up for a moment: ‘About an hour ago.’ … And then back down.
‘How is she?’
‘She’ll be fine.’
‘Why don’t you try to get back to sleep?’ she said, though he showed no sign of hearing her. Pouring herself a drink, she took a seat beside him, moving two other books aside to make way for her mug. ‘What are you reading?’
‘The Bible,’ replied Chambers without taking his eyes off the page. ‘David and Goliath, to be precise.’ It was too early for a Sunday; Eve looked utterly lost. ‘The penultimate statue,’ he explained, a pained look on his face.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s just … I don’t get it … the meaning behind it.’
‘I’m not an expert,’ said Eve between sips of coffee, ‘but isn’t it a tale of good triumphing over evil against all odds?’
‘“Good” and “evil” are a matter of perspective,’ yawned Chambers.
‘Then a clearly biased underdog story,’ she corrected herself.
‘That’s just it,’ he said, turning another book towards her, which lay open on a dramatic picture of a young boy facing down a ferocious foe while an entire army watched on. ‘The story goes that every day for forty days the giant, Goliath, emerged from the Philistine ranks to challenge the Israelites’ best warrior to one-on-one combat to decide the outcome of the battle, and every day the king, Saul, declined, being both cowardly and unfit to rule.
‘That is until David, a young shepherd boy, takes up the challenge, walking out onto the battlefield to face the giant with nothing but his sling and five round stones from the creek. Striking him squarely in the forehead, he brings Goliath down before relieving him of his head with his own enormous sword … all in the name of God.’
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Eve.
‘The problem is, according to the book beneath your elbow, a slingshot can produce almost as much energy as a twenty-two-
millimetre long rifle round, meaning that David basically brought a gun to a sword fight … “Fight” is the wrong word: execution. That poor giant never stood a chance.’
‘You’re saying Goliath was the underdog in the story?’
Chambers nodded: ‘And was dispatched with accordingly.’
‘OK. What do you think it means then?’
He pushed the hefty book away from him and reached for his own tepid drink:
‘That when faced with the prospect of a fight he can’t win, even God isn’t above cheating like anybody else.’
Someone’s leftover Indian food had stunk up the investigation room.
‘What’s going on there?’ asked Chambers, fourth coffee of the day in hand.
‘I’m not sure,’ replied Marshall, wearing the exact same expression, as Eloise slapped Winter’s arm playfully.
‘I mean, I like the guy,’ he continued, transfixed, ‘and he said that one funny thing that time, but he’s like a—’
‘Right?’ nodded Marshall.
‘And she’s like a—’
‘I know!’
‘If you didn’t think she was up to something before …’ Chambers gave her a significant look. ‘Anyway … murder then?’ he suggested flippantly.
‘Murder,’ she concurred, sitting two empty chairs away from Wainwright, who too was staring over at the mismatched pairing as though she had to be missing something.
Unsurprisingly, things had felt a little awkward between them – Marshall knowing she was forever indebted to him, Chambers still embarrassed over his meltdown at the university. Of course, he had also made it worse by not recognising her from three feet away – absent of her usual heavy make-up and leather – and asking her to fetch him a sandwich from the canteen.
Still cringing about it, he assumed his place beside the scribbled table at the front of the room.
‘Here’s where we’re at,’ he started with a sigh. ‘I’ve got someone going through the hospital security footage and another working the Christopher Ryan angle. The orange van is a dead end, and we’re still trying to work out where and when he might have got to the Tall Oaks care worker. We’ve got two statues to go, a giant who’s been missing for over forty-eight hours now, and Marshall’s blood on the floor where said giant went missing. I’ve decided to take her off active duty for her own protection. She’s very unhappy with me about that.’
‘It’s true,’ Marshall confirmed to the others. ‘He’s being a patronisingly overprotective jerk.’
‘Told you. Oh, and as you all know, Coates and I got to have a little catch-up last night as well,’ he added in faux-bravado, consciously avoiding Marshall’s eye, who knew just how thin that façade really was.
‘And how is the old bugger?’ asked Winter, playing along.
‘He’s good. He’s good. For what it’s worth, he said he hadn’t killed anyone else over the last seven years. We talked about the weather, my leg, and then he went on to tell me how he couldn’t live a day on this earth if Eloise wasn’t on it.’
‘Well, that’s sweet,’ muttered Winter sarcastically; although, judging from the look on Eloise’s face, he’d just been well and truly upstaged by a narcissistically delusional serial killer.
‘We took a hit last night,’ continued Chambers, adopting a more serious tone. ‘A bad one. We’re confident the body is that of Maisey Jeffers, who worked at the nursing home, but without a head or any fingerprints, we’re waiting on blood tests for confirmation. But the plan is solid. We’re on the right track. Last night proved that; the locations are the key. And it was only blind luck on Coates’s part that he’d already hidden the body before we got there.’
‘He must suspect we’re surveilling these places now,’ Wainwright pointed out, Chambers and Marshall sharing a look.
‘True,’ nodded Chambers. ‘But he can’t rewrite his past, and I don’t believe he’d leave one of his “works” anywhere that wasn’t of great significance to him.’
Everyone turned to Eloise expectantly.
She looked a little awkward: ‘… I agree.’
They turned back to the front.
‘Then we still have four locations left,’ Chambers announced, pointing to their other list.
1. The Fire
2. The Grave
3. The Woods
4. The Observatory
5. The Gallery
‘… Eloise was right about the fire, so we’ll be focusing our attention on Coates’s mother’s grave and the laurel tree woods—’
‘Which is where precisely?’ asked Wainwright.
‘Wimbledon Common,’ answered Eloise. ‘A little west of the windmill.’
‘… While maintaining passive surveillance at both the other sites,’ Chambers finished as though he hadn’t been interrupted. He looked to Winter: ‘I’m going to need you to take Marshall’s place with me tonight. I’ll find a constable from a local station to sit with Eloise.’ With the exception of Wainwright, no one looked particularly pleased with the new arrangements. ‘Good. It’s decided then.’ He hesitated, again sharing a look with Marshall. ‘… Ms Brown?’
He stepped aside to give her the room.
‘The Bronze David. Donatello. Mid-fifteenth century,’ began Eloise, delivering her now trademark but always superfluous introduction. Marshall opened the sketchbook to the relevant page and held it up for the others to see. ‘The original is housed in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, but there are copies in both the Victoria and Albert Museum and in Kew Gardens right here in London, if anyone’s interested.’
They were not.
‘… It depicts a young and undeniably effeminate David in the moments after defeating Goliath in battle. Wearing only boots and a laurel-topped hat, he stands with one foot resting upon the giant’s severed head.’
‘Is it just me,’ blurted Winter, ‘or does using a giant to portray a giant seem just a little too “on the nose” for Coates?’
‘That and thematically it’s strikingly similar to one of the earlier statues – Perseus with the Head of Medusa,’ added Marshall.
‘Which he never got to finish,’ Chambers reminded them, feeling the familiar prickles across his neck return, as they did every time he recalled the memory. He looked over to Eloise: ‘Any theories?’
‘That’s what I was up all night thinking about,’ she told them. ‘Up until this point, all the statues have symbolised the most significant events in Robert’s life in chronological order,’ she said, gesturing to the list. ‘So, it stands to reason that whatever event this relates to either happened after I left him or …’
‘… Or?’ Wainwright prompted her.
‘… Or … we’ve finally caught up.’
‘Caught up?’ asked the chief inspector. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not following.’
‘As in, it’s still happening … right now,’ explained Eloise. ‘Robert has already cast Chambers as the greatest monster in his life before. Perhaps this next sculpture represents Robert finally besting him, or the police as a whole, once and for all.’
Marshall raised her hand.
‘Ummm, yes?’ said Eloise unsurely.
‘I think, for safety’s sake, we should remove Chambers from active duty.’
He shot her a look that suggested he wasn’t amused.
‘Hang on,’ said Winter with a puzzled frown. ‘If that’s true and the next statue is based on what’s happening now – on him beating us … then what the hell is the final one about?!’
The room turned back to Eloise, who just stood there for a moment looking uncomfortable:
‘I suppose, by that logic, we should prepare ourselves for the fact that Robert’s big finale, the point to which his whole life has been building, the defining moment of his existence … is yet to come.’
A heavy silence fell over the meeting as each of them tried to contemplate what kind of atrocity Robert Coates might conjure to surpass all of the horrors that had preceded it … each of them bar Winter anyway, whose rumbling stomach betrayed that he’d been thinking about something else entirely:
‘Anyone got dibs on the last onion bhaji?’
CHAPTER 30
‘I don’t really see how that’s relevant.’
‘With all due respect, I don’t really see what you do or do not deem to be relevant … as being relevant. So, why don’t you humour me? Is it, or is it not, true that you have a personal interest in the case you are currently investigating?’
‘As does everyone on the team.’
‘And you think that’s appropriate?’
‘I think it’s motivating.’
‘Motivation is such a broad term though, incorporating everything from long hours – to enacting vengeance – to uncharacteristic and desperate behaviours. How about we focus in on that for a moment?’
Following the team briefing, and feeling she already owed Chambers enough, Marshall had packed up her belongings and headed straight down to the fourth floor – home to the ever-
unpopular Department of Professional Standards. They had been more than accommodating in providing a private room for Easton to conduct his interview of a fellow officer while a characterless man in a cheap suit, her union representative, sat mutely at her side. Marshall had pictured an assertive and eloquent lawyer-type, poised to jump in and throw the detective’s more awkward questions back at him, not the useless, mouth-breathing mass of flesh they had provided her.
The interview had begun as the casual box-ticking exercise she had hoped it would be, but then quickly taken a different turn: statements laced with accusation being fired across the table at such pace, she wasn’t even sure which one she was addressing any more. It was curious that the very tactics Marshall herself had been trained to employ could still work so effectively on her.
‘You say other members of your team have their own “motivations”,’ started Easton, as if bringing up a provocative topic of conversation at a dinner party. ‘Is that something you’ve discussed amongst yourselves?’
‘Of course,’ answered Marshall. ‘We wouldn’t be doing much of a job if we didn’t know the history of the case, would we?’ It had come out with far more venom than she’d intended, and she knew he would be watching her reaction with interest. ‘Why are you even asking me about this?’
She gave the man to her left an elbow to the gut to make sure he was still awake.
‘It would be helpful if you’d clarify why this detail is of importance,’ he told Easton. ‘Detective Marsham—’
‘Marshall,’ she whispered.
‘… Marshall is involved in an active and very high-profile investigation, and as a result, there will inevitably be details that she is unable to share at this time.’
Not exactly Johnnie Cochran, but it was a start.
‘Look,’ said Easton, reverting to his friendlier demeanour, ‘I’m trying to help here. I’m on your side. But I’ve got a missing person and your blood at the scene. It’s been over forty-eight hours now, escalated to a kidnapping if not a pote
ntial murder, and you’re not giving me anything.’
‘I already told you—’
‘You cut your hand during an undocumented visit to Robert Coates’s home before you were even assigned to the case,’ he finished on her behalf.
The union official took a sharp intake of breath, as if finally having enough, as if about to explode, as if gearing up to shut down Easton’s desperate attempts to implicate her in the absence of their actual suspect …
He sneezed.
Rolling her eyes, Marshall peeled back the plaster to show Easton the healing wound encircling her thumb.
‘I presume you have witnesses to corroborate when you sustained that injury?’
She went to answer, when there was a knock at the door, smiling in relief when a familiar face stepped into the room.
‘Detective Chambers,’ said Easton coolly. ‘I wasn’t aware you’d be joining us.’
‘No. Neither was I.’
‘Had I been, I’d have told you not to bother. This is a private—’
‘I want him here!’ blurted Marshall.
‘That may be the case, but as you can see, we’re all full up.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Chambers. ‘I’ll just take Marty’s seat. He’s next to useless anyway.’
‘I resent that,’ the union representative told him.
‘But don’t deny it,’ Chambers pointed out. He held the door open for the man he’d had the misfortune of having dealings with in the past, while he packed his bag and got up to leave.
‘… Benjamin.’
‘… Marty.’
Letting the door shut on him, Chambers took a seat beside Marshall.
‘Thought I told you I could take care of myself,’ she whispered.
‘You did. But you also told me I was a “patronisingly overprotective jerk”,’ he reminded her, turning his attention to the scruffy man rapidly losing confidence across from them.
Having successfully placated Easton for the time being, Chambers and Marshall had got to enjoy a leisurely lift journey back up to Homicide before sitting down to their next engagement.
‘… My hands are tied,’ said Wainwright unapologetically. ‘The assistant commissioner blocked it herself.’