by Tim Ellis
Toadstone opened the ledger at random. ‘It’s a Receipt Ledger.’
‘Okay.’
He pointed randomly to the fifth line down on the left-hand side of the page. ‘On February 17 in 1981 Don Tomlinson paid £2,500 for Wendy Fleming from Miner’s House in Stanway.’
It took a while for the gears, cogs and ratchets to crunch into place, but eventually they did. ‘Miner’s House. I’ve heard of that. Didn’t it use to be a local authority children’s home?’
‘Yes, Sir. But that’s not the worst of it.’
‘Meaning?’
‘The Right Honourable Donald Tomlinson . . .’
‘. . . Is now the Member of Parliament for Stanway?’
‘The very same. But that’s still not the worst of it.’
‘You sound like the harbinger of doom.’
‘Sorry, Sir.’ Toadstone turned the pages of the ledger and then pointed to a name three quarters of the way down. ‘Hugh Peake is now Lord Peake of Moreton.’
‘Jesus.’
‘And that’s still not the . . .’
‘. . . Worst of it?’
‘Exactly, Sir. This ledger reads like a Who’s Who of Essex and the surrounding areas.’
‘Has anyone else seen this?’
‘Just you and me, Sir.’
‘Make sure it stays that way for the moment.’
‘Of course.’
Kowalski flicked through the pages of the ledger. With the exception of a couple of pages at the back, the ledger was full. ‘How much money do you think is accounted for on each page, Toady?’
‘I’d say roughly sixty lines at £2,500 on each line equals £150,000.’
‘And in the ledger as a whole?’
‘This is a four hundred page ledger. There are a few incomplete pages at the back, and varying amounts throughout the ledger, but in total I’d estimate about £60 million, Sir.’
‘I can’t even visualise that amount of money. The next question I have: Is where is it?’
‘I haven’t seen anything that points to the money being anywhere yet, Sir.’
‘After you’ve taken a photograph of every page of that ledger . . .’
‘A photograph of every page . . . ?’
He put his arm around Toadstone’s shoulders and lowered his voice. ‘We wouldn’t want to be involved in the possibility of this ledger being swept under the proverbial carpet would we, Toady?’
Toadstone nodded. ‘I understand, Sir.’
‘Good. And keep those photographs just between you and me’ He pulled out his phone and called the Chief Constable.
‘The cupboard is still bare, Kowalski.’
‘Then you might want to come yourself, Sir.’
‘You know very well that Chief Constables aren’t allowed to go out into the field. If I was sloshing about in effluent, how could I deny not knowing anything about it?’
‘You should make an exception for this one, Sir.’ He told the Chief Constable all that had happened since the discovery of Margaret Birmingham’s body, what had been discovered in the lock-up, and what the ledger contained.
‘That doesn’t sound good, Kowalski.’
‘Hence the phone call.’
‘Who knows about this?’
‘You, me and Toadstone. Why? You’re not thinking that this ledger should be conveniently mislaid, are you, Sir?’
‘You know me better than that, Kowalski. But I am thinking that the information the ledger contains needs to be managed.’
‘Managed? That sounds like a senior executive word, Sir.’
‘I’m on my way.’
‘We’ll be waiting.’ He ended the call, and said to Toadstone. ‘The Chief Constable is on his way. Right, I need a torch and – depending on what I find down there – you might have to send in some of your people.’
Toady passed him a bulky high-powered torch with a shoulder-strap. ‘Just say the word, Sir.’
‘Okay, let’s see what’s through the green door.’
He walked to the open door and began the descent one step at a time. Regardless of what he’d told Jerry, he was concerned that there’d been no contact from Bronwyn for over eighteen hours. Yes, she could look after herself, but she wasn’t Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, she was a damaged young woman with a chip on her shoulder three miles wide.
He’d expected maybe twenty steps – thirty at the most, but there was a lot more than that. He decided to stop counting after a hundred and three. Also, what he realised was that the stairs followed a spiral curvature.
Eventually, he reached flat ground, and discovered an unfinished underground tube station. He knew it was unfinished for three reasons. First, Snaresbrook Tube Station was above ground. Second, there was no railway track in the gap where a track should have been. Third, on his left was a wall, which meant that – had a train pulled into the station – there was nowhere for it to go.
He’d never heard of an underground tunnel being carved out of the rock beneath Snaresbrook before, but clearly somebody must have authorised it. There must be plans and blueprints gathering dust somewhere; minutes of meetings authorising those plans and blueprints, and the subsequent expenditure to connect South Woodford and Leytonstone on the Central Line. All the records must be in the National Archives and those of the Railway Company.
He imagined that the government of the day must have run out of money, or decided that it was more cost-effective to utilise the overground railway station that already existed. Whatever did happen, the underground tunnel at Snaresbrook had been forgotten over time, overlooked and erased from the collective memory.
Apart from the absence of any railway track, the unfinished platform and the uneven wall where the tunnel simply ended, the station itself was ready to accept passengers. There was thick power cabling attached to the far wall, which came to an abrupt end and dangled on the ground like an unfinished project; the underground station roundel SNARESBROOK had already been screwed in place on the opposite wall; and there was an old Victorian hand-powered red fire pump – in case of fires – further along the walkway.
The concrete platform was covered in a thick layer of dust. And – like the outline of ancient fossils formed from leftover carbon – encased a set of boot prints. The boot prints led from the right of the stairs and along the platform towards the open tunnel at the other end, and he guessed they belonged to Bronwyn. The owner of those boot prints had small thin feet – probably a size five or six. And if that had been all he’d noticed in the dust he would have been reasonably happy, but it wasn’t. Parallel to Bronwyn’s boot prints were a set of much larger impressions – a size eleven he would have said. Both tracks were fresh. But what concerned him most was a third set of tracks – the man had returned, but Bronwyn hadn’t.
As he created a fourth set of shoeprints parallel to the other three sets in the dust, he aimed the torch along the platform and up the tunnel, but saw nothing untoward. He wanted to call out Bronwyn’s name, but he didn’t. At the end of the platform, he jumped onto the ground where the track would have been if the station had been in operation, and made his way into the tunnel proper. The dark was as dense as a black hole and swallowed up most of the light from the torch.
‘DCI Kowalski?’ a voice called from behind him.
He turned and aimed the light beam at another torch bobbing towards him. A young woman with long brown hair wearing skin tight jeans and a baggy t-shirt with LOVE emblazoned across the front appeared out of the darkness with her arm protecting her eyes.
‘Is that you, Turtledove?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
He lowered the beam of the torch. ‘I see you’ve come dressed for undercover work.’
‘Sorry, Sir. I was told to get right over to Hoddesdon, and what I’m wearing was all I had with me – apart from my uniform, of course.’
‘We’ll forget about it this time, but I hope those clothes aren’t expensive, because I think you’re going to get a bit messy down here.’
&nbs
p; ‘I have other clothes, Sir.’
‘Have you been briefed?’
‘Dr Toadstone told me a bit about what was happening, but I don’t know why we’re underground, Sir.’
‘Jump down off the platform.’
She did as he ordered, and made her way towards him. ‘Oh!’
‘What?’
‘Wire has wrapped itself round my ankles.’
‘Wire?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
He forced himself to remain calm, but his voice had an edge to it. ‘Don’t think about anything else, Turtledove – just lie face-down now.’
But she did think about it, and she was far too slow responding to his order.
He ran towards her with the idea of throwing himself on top of her, but he was too slow, too far away, and the time between tripping the wire and the booby-trap detonating was too close together.
Amelia Turtledove disappeared in a veil of dust, debris and rubble as the roof and walls of the tunnel collapsed around her.
His immediate thought, as the pressure from the shock wave threw him backwards through the air like a piece of broken wood, was that the Chief Constable would never ever lend him another officer as long as he had a hole in his arse, but then sadness engulfed him as he thought about Amelia Turtledove – a bright young woman destined for greater things. A life and a future destroyed in the blink of an eye.
Lying on his back, he stared into the blackness and wondered how he was still alive. Pain ravaged the left side of his body. Was he having another heart attack? Using his right hand, he began feeling down his left arm, then his chest, hip and the top of his left leg. It was wet in parts, and he guessed it was blood from half-a-dozen shrapnel wounds. With difficulty, he pushed himself up. As he felt his lower left leg he realised where the majority of the pain was coming from – it was broken and the bone had pierced the skin.
‘And I thought: Kowalski will come and rescue me.’
‘And I thought you were dead.’
‘I soon will be.’
He shuffled round in Bronwyn’s direction, but he couldn’t see her. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, as he spotted his torch. It appeared to still be working, and had come to rest about two inches from the wall and shining directly at it. Using his balled fists like an orang-utan, he began swinging his arse along the ground towards the torch.
‘He shot me in the stomach.’
‘Shot you? Shot you? He has a gun?’
‘Yes . . . my gun.’
‘Your gun? Where the fuck did you get a gun from?’
‘You don’t need to know that, and it’s not important now anyway.’
He reached the torch, picked it up and aimed it in the direction of Bronwyn’s voice.
‘Blinding me is not helping my condition.’
‘You look like shit.’
‘Don’t think you’re gonna win any beauty awards either.’
She had her back to the wall, her knees drawn up and she looked really pale.
‘I can’t believe you let him shoot you in the stomach.’
‘I’ve noticed how you fucking pigs make up your own version of events. I hardly let him shoot me. Bastard caught me by surprise and knocked me out. When I came too, he’d been through my backpack and had the gun.’
‘Had you seen him before?’
‘No.’
‘Any idea who he was?’
‘No.’
‘Why did he shoot you?’
‘To make sure I’d never get out of here.’
‘We’ll both get out of here.’
‘Really?’
‘Trust me.’
He pulled out his phone.
‘Do you think I’d still be sitting here bleeding to death if there was a fucking signal down here?’
She was right – no signal.
‘That’s not the only reason he shot me,’ she said.
‘Oh?’
‘He wanted to know who else knew about the lock-up.’
‘And you told him?’
‘No I fucking well didn’t . . . but he already knew anyway.’
‘The old woman must have told him.’
‘The old woman?’
‘Why do you think I’m here?’
‘Because Jerry told you I stole the keys?’
‘She only told me after we’d found the old woman battered to death in her bed.’
‘He’s going after Jerry, you know.’
‘Jesus!’ A feeling of panic engulfed him, but he knew he couldn’t do anything with the information – or the panic. Grimacing with the pain, he edged himself along the ground to sit next to her and took her hand in his.
‘Got any water?’ she asked.
He shone the light in her face. ‘Worse thing you can do with a stomach wound is drink water.’
‘Thank you for that useless piece of advice, doctor. I’m going to die down here, and a drink of iced water would have been good before the grim reaper gave me a piggyback to Hell.’
‘I didn’t bring a supply of water with me anyway. It’s not as if I was on an expedition down the Orinoco, was it? And – you’re not going to die.’
‘I’m not? I’ve got news for you, Kowalski. We’re both going to join those children. Me first, then you.’
‘Children? What children?’
‘You didn’t notice the graves in the tunnel as you . . .’
‘Apart from the tunnel collapsing around me, I didn’t get much chance to notice anything to be honest.’
‘Well, I counted around fifty graves, but I expect there’s more.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘They’re shallow. It didn’t take me long to find a body.’
‘Bloody hell.’ After a handful of minutes he said, ‘People know we’re down here.’
‘So, there’s a search team already shifting rubble to make an escape route through which we’ll both be rescued?’
‘Well . . .’
‘I thought not.’
***
By the time he reached the airport his phone was fully charged. After returning the hire car and booking in at the check-in desk he wandered through into the departure lounge and phoned the Chief, but he was diverted to voicemail. He didn’t leave a message. What he had to say wasn’t something he could leave in a voicemail.
Next, he phoned Toadstone.
‘Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it, Toadstone.’
‘You’re welcome, Sir. I’ve always enjoyed William Arthur Ward’s quotes.’
‘So, what’s the good news?’
‘Ah!’
‘Ah! That doesn’t sound encouraging.’
‘I’m in a lock-up in Snaresbrook.’
‘That’s not even close to the Passport Office and GRO in Eccleston Square. In fact, it’s nowhere near Swansea either.’
‘I never went to London or Swansea, Sir.’
‘Never went?’
‘The Chief’s running a murder investigation . . . I didn’t really have a choice. I couldn’t have refused to lead a forensic team here by saying I had other plans. He would have asked me what those plans were . . .’
‘I get the drift. What’s the investigation?’
‘Well, it started off with an old woman being beaten to death in her bed in Woodford Green, but then Jerry got involved, and now we’re here in Snaresbrook.’
‘How did Jerry get involved?’
‘It’s a bit complicated, Sir. Have you got time to . . . ?’
‘Not really. I’m waiting to board the plane back to Gatwick.’
‘Oh well, I expect you’ll find out what the investigation is about soon enough.’
‘Well, if you’ve got nothing to tell me . . .’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Oh?’
‘As I said, I couldn’t go to London myself, but I did send one of my graduate forensic scientists – Kirsty Nichols.’
‘You did that on purpose, didn’t you, To
adstone?’
‘You credit me with far too much intelligence, Sir.’
‘That’s for sure. Well?’
‘She’s not back yet, but she has informed me by telephone that she found a number of fingerprints and took dozens of swabs from the applications forms. Once she returns, she’ll analyse everything, run the fingerprints through the database, create DNA profiles and run them as well . . . It’ll be good training for her. You’ll just have to be patient, and there’s no guarantee that any of the fingerprints or the DNA will belong to Carrie’s killer.’
‘Good work, Toadstone.’
‘Thanks, Sir. Any luck in Newcastle?’
‘We discovered a journal and a box of keepsakes kept by the first female victim – it should give us some leads.’
‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’
‘Of course. So, is the Chief there?’
‘Well, he is and he isn’t.’
‘I see. That lock-up you’re in is a portal to another dimension, and the Chief is shifting between the two?’
Toadstone gave a short laugh. ‘You’re not far away with that observation, Sir. There’s a green door at the back of the lock-up, and it has stairs that lead underground . . .’
‘And the Chief’s gone down there?’
‘Yes.’
‘On his own?’
‘Well . . . A PCSO called Amelia Turtledove from Saffron Walden has just followed him down there.’
‘Attractive, half his age, body to die for?’
‘How did you guess, Sir?’
‘If I were you, I’d send someone down there to make sure he wasn’t getting himself into any trouble.’
‘He’s the Chief.’
‘He also has a suspect ticker, and you know very well women find him irresistible.’
‘As soon as I’ve finished what I’m doing, I’ll go myself.’
‘It can’t do any harm. Okay, meet me in the Alf’s Head for lunch tomorrow.’
‘Are you buying again.’
‘No. It’s your turn, Toadstone.’
‘I thought it might be.’
‘Twelve-thirty.’ He ended the call, found Doc Riley’s number and dialled.