The Charnel House in Copperfield Street

by Tim Ellis

He checked all the rooms were clear and made sure he had all his personal effects – Gucci wallet, James Bond 1973 Rolex 5513 watch, limited edition Visconti Forbidden City fountain pen, Jacobs Canary Diamond cufflinks, Montegrappa gold tie clip, Kahr P380 pistol in the ankle holster, phones, notebook . . .

  He then made his way out.

  It wasn’t easy running a criminal empire. In fact, it was bloody complicated. There were so many things to think about – especially when you were also holding down a full-time job.

  ***

  She wasn’t happy. Oh, she’d given Ruth and Duffy the appearance that they’d convinced her it was the right thing to do, but she wasn’t convinced at all – not one iota. It was going to end in disaster – the secret writing was on the wall, the omens were all there huddled together muttering to themselves, and every single one of the planets was in alignment like some celestial message from the ancient gods. She had a bad feeling that the shit was going to hit the fan, and they were all going to get splattered in the stuff.

  Fuck’s sake! Why couldn’t they just be normal people, leading normal lives and doing normal things – like binge watching a series on TV; ordering in a Chinese take-away; slurping down a couple of beers and shagging until the early hours. Fuck! What was wrong with people? Why did life have to be so complicated?

  No doubt it’d be down to her again like it always was.

  She hacked into the Victoria and Albert Museum CCTV monitoring system and located the files for Room 133 of the Dr Susan Weber Gallery. Starting from ten o’clock, she soon found Ruth and Duffy pretending to look at an ugly chair. A man approached them wearing a hood and a red scarf around the lower half of his face – he was obviously the whistle-blower.

  Shifting to the different camera angles in the room, she eventually found a man in an overcoat who looked out-of-place. He was also pretending to look at the exhibits, but she could see his head moving sideways to look at Ruth, Duffy and the whistle-blower. Who was he? He didn’t look like an average copper. She zoomed in on his face and printed off a screen-grab.

  Instead of following the other three, she followed him and watched him make a phone call. Lucy had no doubt that the phone call was telling someone to follow Ruth and Duffy when they left.

  She then reversed the film and discovered that the man was already there waiting in the gallery before Ruth, Duffy and the whistle-blower had turned up, which could only mean that the whistle-blower’s phone was being monitored – he’d led the bastards straight to their door.

  She disappeared into the underground tunnel and checked that the CCTV still worked. It had been dormant for a while, so she made sure it was still connected, the cameras still worked and it was still recording. She could see the man at the entrance with Monty the mutt; the other man walking around the grounds; and . . .

  What the hell was that?

  There was a van parked at the end of the road, which wouldn’t normally have caused her any concerns, except that two men were sitting in the cab. They were a fair distance away, and even with the telephoto lens of the camera fully-extended, she couldn’t make out their faces, but it was too much of a coincidence that they should be sitting out there on the day that Ruth and Duffy meet a whistle-blower about police corruption.

  The thought of walking up the road, banging on the window and asking them what the fuck they thought they were doing crossed her mind, but that would only alert them to the fact that she already knew what they doing. Not only that, if they were corrupt police officers, as was entirely likely, then they’d simply show her their Warrant Cards and tell her it was police business and to piss off.

  Ruth and Duffy chasing a story of police corruption was asking for trouble. The police weren’t going to sit around contemplating their navels while an investigative reporter and her sidekick winkled out evidence of their wrongdoings. Not only that, rogue coppers were probably the worst type of criminals to deal with. They had the wherewithal to make a crime look like a police operation; to plant, manipulate and destroy evidence; and to make murder look like an accident.

  The house was their sanctuary, and if this was going to be where they made their last stand, then they needed more protection. Yes, she had the underground tunnel between the main entrance and her annex, but once it was discovered, it would be fairly useless. She had a poor woman’s armoury, but the ammunition would soon run out. There was the CCTV, but cameras were easily circumvented with a can of black spray paint.

  She called a number.

  ‘Formby Building and Joinery,’ a man said.

  ‘I want a panic room.’

  ‘You’ve called the right number. We specialise in building panic rooms to European EN1522/1523 ballistic standards – the ultimate in home security and safety, offering peace of mind . . .’

  ‘Is there another number I can ring where I don’t have to listen to the crappy sales pitch?’

  ‘How can I help you, Madam?’

  ‘You can stop calling me madam, for a start. My name’s Lucy.’

  ‘I’m at your disposal, Lucy.’

  ‘I live in the annex of a converted church. I’m expecting some uninvited guests soon, and I’d like to survive their visit if I can. I need my annex converting into a panic room – can you do it?’

  ‘Yes, Lucy. We’ll obviously need to take a look at the annex – photographs, drawings, measurements and so on – and then make our recommendations accordingly.’

  ‘How long from start to finish?’

  ‘That would depend on what work needs to be carried out. What if I send one of our advisers over to you?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now would be good. What about the work – when could you start?’

  ‘Tomorrow, if everything is agreed and an advance payment of fifty percent is made by money transfer.’

  ‘Fifty percent! You’re mugging me by phone.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll understand that there’s a significant outlay both in terms of finance and manpower. Half the cost up-front, with the balance on completion, is the way we operate – take it or leave it.’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to take it, but everything had better be to my exacting standards and satisfaction.’

  ‘I have no doubt that our own standards will coincide with your own and that you’ll be completely satisfied with our work.’

  ‘And tomorrow would be good to start as well. I’m in a bit of a panic to get the annex brought up to ballistic standards.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that, Lucy. Oh, and don’t think I missed the joke you slipped in there.’

  ‘Just checking you were on the ball. So, who’re you sending?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘St Thomas’ Church on Godolphin Road in Shepherd’s Bush. Nearest tube station is Goldhawk Road. It’s a five minute walk from there, although there are taxis outside the station.’

  ‘I have a man called Randy Gerber in Ealing who’s just finished a job there. He could be with you in approximately forty-five minutes.’

  ‘That would be good.’

  ‘In the meantime, let me send you our questionnaire by email, so that you can clarify your thoughts on exactly what you require before he gets there. It will make things that much quicker and easier, and you’ll also be talking the same language. Also, once advance payment has been made, your requirements will be communicated back here to the main office, we’ll arrange overnight delivery to our depot and a team will be with you by nine o’clock tomorrow morning ready to begin work.’

  ‘I’m impressed, so far. Send your questionnaire to lucyn@tru.com and I’ll take a look at it.’

  ‘That’s great. Anything else I can help you with, Lucy?’

  ‘You don’t deliver doner kebabs, do you?’

  ‘I can ask Randy to pick one up on his way to you.’

  ‘Fabulous. The full works with double chilli sauce.’

  ‘Consider it done.’

  ‘Thanks . . . You never told me your name.
’

  ‘Didn’t I? It’s Hugh Ambrose.’

  ‘Thanks, Hugh.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Lucy Neilson.’

  The line went dead.

  She smiled. Well, that went quite well. A panic room and a doner kebab with double chilli – what else could a girl want?

  ***

  Rummage and Perkins were waiting for him in the incident room. The whiteboard had been partially filled with the information they knew so far, which was pathetically inadequate for a day’s work.

  There were also three photographs of the lay-by; two more of the victims; a half-dozen disgusting close-ups of the headless necks, the four-inch scar on the male victim’s shoulder; the jagged scars on the female’s wrists; and a couple of photographs showing the restraining marks on both victims’ wrists and ankles.

  None of the photographs moved them closer to solving the case though. They simply brought into sharp focus how much they didn’t know about what had happened and who was behind their murders.

  ‘Any luck in Missing Persons, Sir?’ Rummage asked him.

  ‘Luck! It wasn’t a lucky dip, Rummage. I’ve got to go back at five o’clock.’

  ‘You were down there a long time to find out nothing.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you were timing me. Not only that, I combined the trip with a visit to brief the Chief, so I don’t know how you can say I was anywhere for any length of time unless you were following me with a stopwatch. Were you following me, Rummage?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘Do you know exactly how long I was in Missing Person?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about the time I took to walk to the Chief’s office?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or the length of time I spent briefing the Chief?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you in the male toilet peering over one of the cubicles and watching me pee?’

  ‘I was not.’

  ‘So, it was a wildly inaccurate assertion on your part?’

  ‘I suppose it was.’

  ‘There’s no “suppose” about it, Rummage.’

  ‘Someone said they saw you in the corridor with your trousers around your ankles.’

  ‘Well, someone ought to mind their own damned business. And for your information, a spider the size of a baby rhinoceros ran up my leg. I hate spiders with a passion, and it looked suspiciously like one of those flesh-eating false black widow spiders. So, I whipped down my trousers in an attempt to kill the monstrosity before it reached its intended target.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘The family jewels, Rummage. Why else do you think they’re called black widow spiders?’

  ‘Did you kill it?’

  ‘Couldn’t find it, which concerns me greatly. It could be having its lunch now, and I wouldn’t know anything about it. Did you know that it injects its victims with an anaesthetic first, so that it’s not interrupted during its meal? Anyway, we’re not here to talk about my comings and goings, rampant arachnophobia, family jewels, or the dietary requirements of false black widow spiders. What did you find out?’

  ‘No similar murders of beheading, branding, or both combined are recorded on the database.’

  ‘I would have been surprised if there had been. For a start, I would have already heard about them, but you never know until you look. What about the attempted suicides in Chiswick?’

  ‘No such records exist. Suicide statistics are collected by the different UK governments, and then collated by the Samaritans. No organisation keeps attempted suicides statistics, not even hospitals. Each case is treated on an individual basis and subject to medical confidentiality. Without knowing the identity of the woman, we have zero chance of finding out.’

  ‘So, you came up empty-handed?’

  ‘Much the same as yourself, Sir.’

  ‘What about you, Perkins?’

  ‘The blood samples we took from the lay-by tarmac belonged to the victims. We found hundreds of fingerprints on the items of debris scattered around and the litter in the waste bin, but unless we find someone to match them to, the best we can say is that they were in that lay-by at some point. We’re obviously running the prints through the database, but it’ll take time . . .’

  Quigg pulled a face. ‘How much time?’

  ‘This time tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s a long time, Perkins.’

  ‘If we get any hits in the meantime, I’ll obviously communicate the details to you.’

  ‘If it’s the best you can do. What about the CCTV?’

  ‘There are no cameras covering the lay-by. However, there is a camera on the westbound side of the A4 leading to the lay-by, and a camera on the eastbound side going back towards Chiswick. We’ve identified one white transit van that went in both directions twenty-five minutes apart, which suggests it stopped somewhere between the two sightings. I sent a man out to time the journey and it took him thirteen minutes between the two cameras, which leaves enough time to dump two bodies in the lay-by.’

  ‘Good work, Perkins. Presumably you have a registration number for us?’

  ‘I do: LT52 PCC.’

  ‘Does the camera show the driver?’

  ‘Yes and no. It shows an outline of two people, but both are in shadow. The image breaks up when we try to zoom in. The best we can say is that there appears to be a male and a female in the cab.’

  ‘Appears to be! That’s not very scientific, Perkins.’

  ‘I know. I could have kept that titbit to myself to maintain the illusion of forensic science limiting itself to empirical evidence derived from observation and experimentation, but I thought I’d throw in a smidgen of intuition to spice things up.’

  ‘And what figure do you put on this smidgen of intuition?’

  ‘Fifty-one percent.’

  ‘It’ll have to do, I suppose. Who does the transit van belong to?’

  ‘A man called Gerald Arthur Bishop, aged forty-two, married with two children. He works in maintenance, odd-jobs, labouring, building and similar types of work.’

  ‘Mmmm! At a push, I suppose you could argue that moving two headless corpses from A to B is a labouring job, but I’m not wholly convinced. What do you think, Rummage?’

  ‘I don’t think Bishop is our man, Sir.’

  ‘You’re probably right. What’s the address, Perkins?’

  ‘He lives at 14 Berrymede Road in Bedford Park.’

  ‘Not far away then.’ He looked at Rummage. ‘Go and ask Inspector Wright to send a car to pick him up and bring him in for questioning. Let’s find out what he has to say for himself.’

  ‘Okay, Sir.’

  ‘And while you’re doing that, I’ll speak to Perkins about a personal matter.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The worm turns, Rummage. What goes around comes around. You tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Have a nice trip then.’

  She left.

  ‘Ghosts, Perkins.’

  ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘You’re here to answer my questions, not the other way round. Tell me everything you know about ghosts and haunted houses.’

  ‘I’d urge you to come to my apartment and watch the Hammer House of Horror series from the 1980s. I think you’d be particularly interested in The House that Bled to Death, The Two Faces of Evil and Visitor from the Grave.’

  ‘Is your horror movie collection the basis of your knowledge on ghosts and haunted houses?’

  ‘Yes, but I know other stuff as well.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, there’s a general theory, which I subscribe to, that suggests the ghosts people see are actually aliens living among us.’

  ‘Aliens?’

  ‘You’d be surprised at the support there is for this theory.’

  ‘Well, thanks for sharing, Perkins.’

  ‘You don’t want to come round and watch the movies then? We could get beers and pizza
s in, and I could ask a few like-minded friends to come over and share their experiences. Maybe . . . And I don’t suggest this lightly, we could have a Ouija session, try and ask the dead what might be going on?’

  ‘I’ll take a rain check, if it’s all right with you?’

  ‘I’ll look forward to that, Sir.’

  ‘You can go now, Perkins.’

  ‘I hope the white van man pans out.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Perkins left.

  Sitting there staring at nothing in particular, he realised he should have known that Perkins would have found some way to introduce aliens into the mix. He couldn’t understand how a man of science could justify his belief in aliens, ghosts and the supernatural. It was as if two people were inhabiting the same consciousness – like Jekyll and Hyde.

  His phone vibrated.

  ‘Quigg.’

  ‘I am the renowned forensic psychiatrist Professor Alice Neuville. Ingrid Solberg asked me to call you.’

  ‘What are you renowned for?’

  ‘I am on the DSM-V taskforce, which provides a standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders; I am regularly called upon to act as an expert witness in high-profile cases; I am a best-selling author of more than ten books; I am a television personality, coming fourth on I’m a Celebrity Get Me out of Here in 2009; I guest lecture at various universities both here and abroad; I write a syndicated column for the Sunday London Times . . . Need I go on?’

  ‘No, I think you’ve made your claim to fame perfectly clear.’

  ‘What did you wish to talk to me about?’

  ‘I’ve been asked to investigate and solve the problem of a haunted house.’

  ‘Ingrid said you were a murder detective, not a ghost hunter.’

  ‘I am, but it’s a favour for a favour.’

  ‘All right, carry on.’

  ‘A married couple live in the house with their three children, but only the wife has experienced anything supernatural. Anyway, the reason I asked you to call was that the woman is an artist who paints beautiful pictures – most of the time.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Sometimes, she paints dark, evil and disgusting pictures using black ink and a crimson liquid to represent blood. In each picture there’s a naked woman chained to a table who is being mutilated, dismembered or tortured by a man who has his back to the viewer. She said the woman in each of the pictures is her, but she has no idea who the man is. To use her own words: “It’s as if I’m being compelled to paint them. Sometimes, I come up here to draw a flower, a bird, or something else and then, it’s as if I blackout. When I wake up and become aware of my surroundings again, I discover I’ve painted another terrible picture – it’s this house. There’s something terribly wrong with this house.”’