by Tim Ellis
His lip curled up. ‘Someone who can’t add two-and-two together to make five, I hope.’
‘Lupton’s death was hardly a reason to change the way we fuck.’
He told her about Pratt and his team going missing; about the disappearance of the surveillance van and the three officers; about their targets still being alive when they were meant to be dead; and about setting Medusa onto Lupton and Quigg.
‘That’s eight people, Victor. Surely, that amount of missing police officers would come to someone’s attention?’
‘Yes and no. I’ve had calls from some of my people asking where their people are, but no one will see a pattern because they’re mostly from different stations across London. I do it that way on purpose in the event of such a scenario.’
‘So, where are they?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘You must have some idea about what’s going on?’
‘Pratt and his team were sent to kill the reporter – Ruth Lynch and her news crew last night, but they’re still alive, so my guess is that they were interrupted and abducted before they could complete the mission.’
‘You mean, someone’s got them?’
‘Or killed them and hidden the van.’
‘Let’s hope it’s the latter, because if it’s the former . . .’
‘I know. Pratt knows things.’
‘He doesn’t know about me though, does he?’
‘No. Only I know about you.’
A man was standing in the doorway aiming a Glock-19 with a silencer at them. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Actually, DCI Thackeray, that’s not strictly true. I know about the young lady, as well now.’
Thackeray reached for the bedside table, but realised that the Kahr P380 pistol in the ankle holster was on the floor in the hallway with his clothes. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘All in good time,’ Jack Neilson said, as he rammed the stun gun into Thackeray’s testicles and pulled the trigger. He then wrenched the man’s arms behind his back, secured the wrists and ankles with plastic restraints and pushed him off the bed onto the floor.
Delilah Garrett thrust her jaw forward. ‘I hope you’re not going to shoot me with that thing?’
The corner of Jack’s mouth creased upwards as he undid his trousers and let them fall to the floor. ‘No, I’m going to shoot you with this thing.’
Her eyes opened wide. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. It’s been a while and we have some time to waste until it gets dark enough to spirit the pair of you out of here.’
She licked her lips. ‘So I see.’
Chapter Sixteen
Maria Krieger was awake and staring at her.
‘You pissed yourself,’ Lucy said.
The woman showed no reaction.
‘So, a hired killer?’
Still nothing.
‘I know that, because you’ve been getting phone calls from this man here . . .’ She pointed to Thackeray’s name at the top of her organisational chart. ‘Also, you’ve been getting regular payments of sixty thousand pounds into an offshore bank account in Lichtenstein with the number: LI088100002342015AB, which is the Lichtenstein Volksbank AG. Not only that, John Lupton . . .’ She pointed at his name on the side of the van, ‘. . . appears to have committed suicide last night, and guess what? This morning you received another sixty thousand pounds into that account. Nice work, if you can get it. Oh! I should tell you that the nine hundred thousand pounds in the account that you’ve obviously been saving for a rainy day, isn’t there anymore.’ She smiled at Krieger and stroked the side of her face. ‘You probably want to know what’s happened to all that money . . . Well, you won’t be surprised to learn that it’s in my account now.’
Krieger strained at the leash.
Lucy laughed. ‘I see that got a reaction from you. I like your motorbike as well, so I’m going to help myself to that. You won’t need the money or the bike where you’re going.’ She ripped the duct tape off Krieger’s face. ‘Ready to talk yet?’
‘You fucking bitch. I’m going to cut your heart out . . .’
‘You’ll have to find it first.’ She pushed the stun gun into the woman’s breast and pulled the trigger.
Krieger jerked and flopped over unconscious.
She stared at the men who had come round. ‘She’s got more balls than all you bastards put together. Right, let’s get this show on the road. Who wants to give me an exclusive interview?’
They all looked at one another, but no one volunteered.
‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s every man for himself in here. Each one of you needs to re-assess their situation. You’re finished as coppers, so don’t for one minute think that you’re going to get out of here and go back to your normal life – that life is gone for good. Decisions have consequences. What’s happening to you now is a consequence of your poor decision-making skills. The best you can hope for when this is over, is that you’re still alive and languishing in a prison somewhere. Having said that, unless you start co-operating with me, it’s looking doubtful. You see, you were going to kill me and mine, and I’m a great believer in tit-for-tat. So you can see, I’m not really inclined towards keeping you alive. If it was up to me, you’d all be lying face down with a bullet in the back of your head already, but my friend is doing a piece on police corruption and would like soundbites to include in her article and accompanying Panorama exposé. So, let’s get to it.’
She moved the camcorder to face Valerie Cowley. ‘You can go first. I want you to tell the viewers how your life of crime began. Look into the camera, speak clearly and no blubbering. Remember, the recording can be edited, so don’t bother trying to cry for help, leave cryptic messages, or anything stupid like that.’ She fingered the stun gun. ‘If you do, you know what will happen – clear?’
Valerie nodded.
Lucy pulled the duct tape off the woman’s face, gave her a drink of water and wrapped a piece of clothing around her neck to hide the rope.
‘Ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not going to ask you any questions – just speak as if you were telling your mother how your life got all fucked up because you made the wrong decisions.’ She switched the camcorder on and nodded.
‘My name is Valerie Cowley. I’m a police constable with the Metropolitan Police Service and I work . . . used to work at Shoreditch Police Station. I’m a single mother to a three year-old boy called Ethan, and a two year-old girl called Emily. Eighteen months ago, because I was struggling financially, I accepted a bribe of five hundred pounds from a journalist with the Daily Sentinel to reveal information about a sex trafficking case. Three months after that, Inspector Paul Raynham, who also works at Shoreditch, told me that I was being investigated for misconduct by the IPCC, which is now called the IOPC. He said that, if the case was proven, I would be dismissed from the police service and probably receive a custodial sentence for perverting the course of justice . . . I thought my life was over and that my children would be taken from me.’ She blinked to try and stop tears escaping, but they slithered down her streaked face anyway. ‘He said that there were people who could make it all go away, but I had to agree to join them. What choice did I have?’
Lucy switched the camcorder off, wiped Valerie’s eyes and face, gave her another drink of water and then said, ‘You’re doing good. Okay, I want you to talk about what you’ve been doing since you agreed to join them, and then name names.’
Valerie glanced at the men beside her.
‘Don’t worry about them, they’ll be naming names soon enough. The mathematics are simple – co-operate and live, don’t co-operate and die. And don’t think I’m afraid to kill any of you – I’m not. I’ve lost count of the people I’ve killed so far. But unlike you scumbags, who kill people for profit and to stop others from finding out you’re corrupt, I kill people in self-defence and to protect my family. You – bad; me – good.’ She looked at Valerie again. ‘Okay to continue
?’
Valerie nodded.
She switched the camcorder on again and nodded.
‘After I agreed to join them, Inspector Raynham arranged for me to attend two courses, one on working undercover and the other on electronic surveillance techniques. Soon after that, I was asked to take part in surveillance operations, which targeted gangs responsible for selling and smuggling drugs, trafficking sex workers into the United Kingdom from Eastern Europe, but these operations weren’t part of my normal police job, no one was charged or brought to justice, the surveillance was to find out what was going on and to take over. I was told that whatever the police did, the gangs would be out there making more money than we could shake a stick at; that we were risking our lives day-after-day to keep people safe for a pittance; that we could more effectively police the capital if we controlled the criminal network. I knew what would happen if I got caught, so I didn’t agree to do it with my eyes closed. At the time, when it was explained to me, it all made sense.’
Lucy stopped the recording. ‘How were you paid? How much money have you made? Give me some names.’ She re-started the camcorder.
‘I have an offshore account in Lichtenstein at the Lichtenstein Volksbank AG number: LI88104348023BC.’ A wry smile crossed her face. ‘Who’d have thought Valerie Portman – that’s my maiden name, by the way – from a high-rise in Clapham, would ever have had an offshore bank account? Each month, ten thousand pounds was paid into that account. I have a hundred and ten thousand pounds in there now. I was going to take my children to Disneyland in America for Christmas, but I don’t suppose I’ll be doing that now.’ Tears jumped into her eyes again. ‘Sorry. Besides Inspector Paul Raynham, who I’ve already mentioned, there’s Sergeant Bob Carlton from Whetstone Police Station in Barnet, Constable Mathew Scott from Winchmore Police Station in Enfield . . .’ Valerie provided a list of twelve other names and the police stations they served in.
Lucy switched the camcorder off. ‘A good confession, Valerie. I’m sure the paying public will be sympathetic to your situation. I wasn’t, I don’t give a shit, but I’m sure there are some gullible idiots out there who might think you and your kids should still be allowed to go to Disneyland. Let me ask you this, Valerie: Did anybody die during the unlawful operations you were part of?’
Valerie looked away.
‘I thought so. We’ll edit out your emotional drivel. We don’t want anybody feeling sorry for you, do we? Stick to the facts people. Anything else is a waste of your breath and my hearing.’
She connected the camcorder up to her laptop and uploaded the confession to the YouTube channel that she’d created called “Police Confessions” and attached a password to it. She didn’t press “Publish”, because she expected Ruth might want to edit it before making it available. She then sent Ruth an email telling her to use the third password on the fifth row on the board in her room, and attached a link to the YouTube channel.
One down eight to go, she thought.
Maria Krieger opened her eyes.
‘Hello, Maria. Glad you could join us again.’
The woman sneered at her. ‘You think you’re so clever, but you’re as thick as pig shit and twice as ugly.’
Lucy laughed. ‘I know I don’t have your impressive tits, but I’m not that bad.’
‘They call me Medusa, you know?’
‘I thought she was as ugly as sin, had venomous snakes for hair and turned people to stone?’
‘Before she was punished by the goddess Athena, she was a golden-haired beauty like me who was ravished by Poseidon. She also had two sisters called Sthenno and Euryale. The Gorgon sisters are well-known in certain exclusive circles for turning people to stone.’
‘Shit!’ She went back to Krieger’s offshore account to find that two lots of twenty thousand pounds from each sixty thousand were transferred into two other accounts in the same bank. Because they were internal transfers, they were evidenced on another page – she’d missed them. The bitch had two sisters who were also assassins.
Next, she re-checked the motorbike, but didn’t find anything,
Krieger was grinning.
She walked over to her, picked up the stun gun on the way and zapped her again. Then, she grabbed a knife and torch off the table, prised open her mouth and began poking at the bitch’s teeth with the point of the knife. She didn’t find any loose teeth, but she made the gums bleed quite a lot. She quickly checked Krieger’s body and found a small scar on the inside of her left wrist. Pushing down with her fingers, she felt something small and hard. She cut into the skin with the point of the knife and prised out a miniature GPS chip. She threw it on the floor and stamped on it, but even as she did, she heard noises outside.
***
At Kew Gardens tube station, Duffy caught the next District Line train to Hammersmith, where she had to walk between District and Metropolitan stations to travel on the Hammersmith & City Line the single stop to Goldhawk Road.
Holding on tight to her canvas handbag, she opened the zip and stuck her hand inside. Reassuringly, the USB stick with copies of the five journals on it was still there at the bottom with all the other clutter she kept in her bag. The record of Henry Gray’s naval service was in the cardboard tube gripped between her knees with the copy of architect Horace Cole’s original blueprint for 66 Copperfield Street.
Who was Surgeon Superintendent Henry Gray? Was there any connection to three year-old Briar’s imaginary friend called Henry? Even if there wasn’t, which seemed unlikely, the ink drawings created a definite link between the surgeon on the convict ships and Regina Humblin. Was Henry Gray the ghost in the house? Was he still making evil sketches by taking over Regina’s mind and body? Is that what ghosts did?
If she was being honest, she was a complete amateur. She had no idea about ghosts, the paranormal, or hauntings. When she thought of a ghost, she thought of a floating apparition beneath a bedsheet, moaning a lot and dragging clanking chains behind them, but she knew she was being naive. What were ghosts really? Of course, she’d had the bejesus scared out of her as a child by her father and brothers telling her frighteningly real ghosts stories, but she’d never seen a ghost herself and didn’t know anybody who had.
At first, she wasn’t sure about taking over from Lucy, picking up her sloppy seconds, but now – even though she knew nothing – she was definitely warming to the idea and was willing to learn how to become a paranormal investigator. As one door closed, another opened. Before meeting Quigg and giving birth to Marie, she’d had a career, a purpose in life; had worked hard to be accepted by the police and planned to make a long-term career for herself in the force. But then she’d fallen in love with Quigg, and love and babies were not kind to careers – especially women’s careers. Her life had irreversibly changed, and in some respects she’d lost herself by giving up her job and becoming a mother. Ruth and Lucy still knew who they were, but she was drifting aimlessly. Well, it was time to find herself again, and investigating the paranormal could be her chance to do that.
In the shower, Lucy had told her what Quigg had discovered when he’d visited 66 Copperfield Street on Sunday, and she’d also done a lot of the research for her. The house had been bought by the Humblin’s seven years ago and the strange events only seemed to occur to Regina between pregnancies. It seemed, however, that with each occurrence those events were becoming stronger and more pronounced. She’d heard strange noises; doors opening and closing; whispering; her name being called; muffled voices; seen lights going on and off; spotted shadow people from the corner of her eyes; noticed items going missing; had the feeling of being watched; touched in the shower; smelled whiffs of perfume; and there was a cold spot in the dining room. Also, there was Briar’s imaginary friend called Henry; and Regina’s dark artwork. There seemed to be a lot of evidence, or did there? With the exception of the imaginary friend and the artwork, they only had Regina’s word that any of it had happened.
Outside the train station, she caught a taxi the sh
ort distance to the church on Godolphin Road. In all, the journey took her forty-five minutes to reach home.
The guards and Monty were still guarding the church; Amanda was in the playroom with the children; and Janet was tidying up Lucy’s room. Ruth and Lucy were not at home.
‘You don’t often get to clean in here,’ she said to Janet Thomas, as she wandered into Lucy’s room and helped herself to the documents relating to 66 Copperfield Street that Lucy had stuck on her wall – the inventory map commissioned by the Metropolitan Board of Works in December, 1855; and the architect’s drawing of the house and land, which had been included in the Conveyance Deed.
‘She usually keeps the door locked and she won’t give me a key, but sometimes she forgets to lock it. This is one of those times. I’m going to clean this pigsty within an inch of its life. She’ll call me an interfering bitch, as she always does, but I just laugh at her. I know she hates me, but my job is to keep the house clean, and I’m going to do that with or without her help. I know nobody will sack me for doing my job.’
‘I’m sure she loves you really, Janet.’
‘Somebody should lock her up in one of those places for peculiar people and throw the key in the middle of the ocean.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Every word.’
She smiled as she took the documents along the corridor. Lucy certainly wasn’t anybody’s idea of a well-adjusted human being, but there was something warm and lovable about her. She decided that she didn’t want to ruin the decor in her room, so she stuck the documents up on the wall in the corridor between Quigg and Lucy’s two rooms. Next to them, she added the architect’s – Sir Horace Jones’ – original blueprint for 66 Copperfield Street and the record of Surgeon Superintendent Henry Gray’s naval service on the convict ships.
Once she’d put the documents up, she stood with her back to the opposite wall and stared at them. Things were going well. She may not know much about ghosts and the paranormal, but she did have an idea how to collect evidence and carry out an investigation. Lots of people learned on the job, and that’s exactly what she was going to do.