by Tim Ellis
‘She didn’t duck,’ Jack Neilson said. ‘Lock the door. I’ll deal with her.’
‘Okay.’
Jack pulled the Gorgon off the spike and dragged her through into the main room where he dropped her body next to her sister’s.
Medusa was straining against her restraints at the sight of the bodies – her two sisters.
Lucy checked the arms of the two Gorgon sisters. They both had scars on the inside of their left wrists. She grabbed the knife off the table, dug the GPS chips out and squashed them underfoot.
‘Right,’ Jack said. ‘Now that everything’s back to normal again, I have to go. I’ll be back when it gets dark.’
‘I probably won’t be here. I have to see Ruth and Quigg later.’
‘No problem. While you’re gone, I’ll get rid of the bodies.’
‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘We’ll have two more guests by then.’
‘Oh?’
He pointed at the side of the white van. ‘DCI Thackeray and someone called Delilah Garrett.’ He produced the bag of their personal possessions. ‘I’ll leave you to work out how she fits into it all.’
‘A girl’s work is never done.’ She looked at the eight captives who were left. ‘Right, who wants to be interviewed next?’
***
They drove to the Chamber of Commerce at 23 Dukes Avenue in Chiswick to see Vincent Owens – the work colleague who had reported Miranda Marron missing.
‘Why a work colleague, Sir?’
‘I don’t know, Rummage. Why do you ask?’
‘And how would a work colleague know that she’d had a child fifteen years ago – when she was only eighteen – and given it up for adoption?’
‘Maybe she told her work colleagues things about her private life, unlike some work colleagues I know.’
‘I suppose it’s possible that he might have known about her failed suicide attempt six months ago. She was probably hospitalised and off work for a time, maybe she had bandages on. Of course, she could have worn long-sleeved tops, in which case her wounds would have been hidden from view . . .’
‘Carry on as if I’m not sitting here minding my own business, Rummage.’
‘I was talking out loud.’
‘I heard you.’
‘It just seems strange that a work colleague would know intimate details about her life and report her missing.’
‘How about this: She doesn’t turn in for work, she doesn’t call in sick, or ask for a couple of days off. Mister Owens knows that it’s not like Miss Marron to do something like that, so he calls her, but receives no answer. He keeps calling her, but still nothing. He goes round to her house, but there’s no answer and the neighbours haven’t seen her either. He leaves it until the following day, but still nothing . . . Eventually, he has the idea that she’s dropped off the face of the earth, so he goes to the police station and reports her missing.’
‘It’s possible, but it still doesn’t explain how he knows so much about her.’
‘How about this: Eighteen months ago they were in a romantic relationship, and they shared intimate details with each other. After a year, he decides to end the relationship because she likes Chinese food, but he’s partial to Vietnamese. She’s so devastated that she attempts to end it all by cutting her wrists with a blunt knife. Now, he feels a sense of responsibility and decides to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid ever again.’
‘That’s a good story.’
‘I have more if you’re interested?’
‘I think I’ll wait until the movie comes out.’
‘As you wish.’
Chiswick Chamber of Commerce was located in a three-story house on the corner of Dukes Avenue, and if it hadn’t been for the sign hanging above the door, it might easily have been mistaken for someone’s house. Directly behind the building were the ruins of a stone castle or church that had been preserved for some obscure reason.
The Chamber of Commerce wasn’t like a shop – the door was locked, so Quigg pressed the doorbell.
‘Did you hear that, Rummage?’
‘I heard it.’
‘That’s what a doorbell sounds like.’
The door opened. ‘Hello,’ a man said. He wore checked trousers, a pink shirt, a checked dickie bow and a bright blue double-breasted jacket.
Quigg held out his Warrant Card. ‘Vincent Owens, please.’
‘Come in, come in. Can I offer you tea, coffee, or a strawberry milk shake?’
‘A milk shake?’
‘One of our commercial enterprises. We have bottles of the stuff waiting to be consumed.’
‘Is it cold?’ Quigg said. ‘There’s nothing worse than warm milk shake.’
‘Cold as the ice princess’s heart.’
‘Yes please, then.’
‘What about you, Miss?’
‘No, thank you. And it’s Detective Constable, not Miss.’
‘Of course. No offence, no foul. Your milk shake is coming right up, Inspector. I’m Gavin Roberts, by the way. Take a seat and I’ll notify Vincent of your arrival.’
They made themselves comfortable on a two-seater black leather sofa positioned in front of a side window.
Quigg looked around the walls. There were framed photographs of people receiving awards for: Export Business of the Year; Small Business of the Year; Workplace Wellbeing; Customer Commitment; Employee of the Year; Innovative Use of Technology . . . They seemed to have a lot of awards. It reminded him of the mantra: No one leaves empty-handed. Was that the one he was thinking of? Or, could it have been: Everyone’s a Winner? Maybe that was a song . . .
Not long after, Gavin returned with a tall glass of strawberry milk shake. ‘Vincent is coming down presently. Would you like a straw?’
‘No, thanks. It’ll do just as it is.’
‘If you find you do need a straw after all – just holler.’
Quigg took one swallow and put the glass on the table. The milk shake didn’t have the vaguest taste of strawberries or milk shake, it tasted of what he imagined old unwashed socks might taste like if they were soaked and distilled. It was the worst drink he’d ever had.
A younger man than Gavin wearing dark-grey suit trousers with a black belt, a blue and white striped shirt with a white collar and a pepper-red tie came down the stairs and into the reception area where they were sitting.
‘Are you here about Miranda?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you found her?’
‘We think so.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more for the moment, but we do have a number of questions for you.’
‘Yes?’
‘On the way over here, we were wondering why you reported her missing and not a boyfriend or relative?’
‘That’s a good question, Inspector. Well, her parents and other relatives live in and around Bolton. That’s just outside . . .’
‘I know where Bolton is, Mister Owens.’
‘Okay, well she has no one down here except me.’
‘Why you?’
‘We had a bit of a thing a while ago. Not very professional of me I know, but when two people are physically attracted to each other like we were . . . Anyway, we shared – like you do, but it came to an abrupt end – like it does. She had trouble coping with the situation, so she registered a cry for help. In the end, we agreed to be friends with benefits. In fact, we were closer living apart than we were living together.’
Quigg elbowed Rummage. ‘And what do you know about the child she gave up for adoption?’
‘Nothing. She made a point of telling me of her youthful mistake, because at first we were pretty serious, but she said she’d never been in contact with the child since giving it up.’
‘Do you know anyone called Lucien Green?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry.’
‘Did you know if she was seeing anyone else?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘How often did you and Miranda get together?’
‘Once, sometimes twice, a month.’
‘Have you any idea what she was doing in the days or hours prior to her going missing?’
‘No. She just didn’t turn up for work last Wednesday, which is unusual for Miranda. I tried calling her, but it went to voicemail and she never called me back. I went round to her house, but she wasn’t there, and the neighbours hadn’t seen her either, so the next day I reported her missing.’
‘Have you been in contact with her parents?’
‘I called last Friday, but they hadn’t heard from her. So, where is she?’
‘I’m sorry to say she’d dead, Mister Owens.’
‘Dead! Surely not suicide after all this time?’
‘No, not suicide. Miranda was murdered.’
‘Murdered! Jesus! Do you know who killed her?’
‘No, we don’t have a clear picture of what happened yet. Do you know if she was a member of any religious organisations?’
‘You mean like a church?’
‘Or a sect?’
‘We never spoke about religion. I’m certainly not religious, and she didn’t give me the impression that she was either.’
‘Do you have a key to Miss Marron’s house?’
‘Used to, but not anymore.’
As he stood up, he passed Vincent Owens a business card. ‘If you think of anything else that might be useful, regardless of how trivial it might appear, please give me a call.’
‘Of course.’
They shook hands.
Quigg and Rummage made their way out.
‘Anything to say about my storytelling, Rummage?’
‘I don’t think so, Sir.’
‘Keep in mind that I have years of storytelling experience based on observation, analytical reasoning, deduction and eliminating the impossible. As Sherlock Holmes once said, “Whatever remains must be the truth.”’
‘You’re an inspiration, Sir.’
‘Which is exactly why you sought me out, Rummage.’
Chapter Eighteen
Ruth was standing outside the five-storey Shoreditch Police Station in Hackney. She’d had her hair done, touched up her lipstick, was wearing something expensive from her wardrobe and held a microphone in her left hand as if it was an extension of her arm.
Dennis Ford had the camera perched on his left shoulder. ‘Okay, ready when you are.’
They weren’t live. This was merely a taster of what was to come – a trailer for the main event, the hors d’oeuvres. They’d met at Godolphin Road and discussed what they had so far – the expanding organisational chart; the undercover footage of 42157 Sergeant Richard Pollack and 85977 Constable Ryan Irwin from Belgravia Police Station collecting a bag of money at 17 Churchill Gardens Road in Pimlico and delivering it to a semi-detached house in Wilton Place, Knightsbridge; and the confession of Valerie Cowley from Shoreditch Police Station.
‘To use a cliché,’ Dennis said. ‘This is dynamite.’
Nate grunted. ‘More like nitro glycerine. It could all blow up in our faces if we’re not careful.’
‘Nonsense!’ Ruth said. ‘And we only have the one confession for now, but there will be others.’
‘We need to make a trailer,’ Dennis said. ‘Give them a taster of what we’ve got, and offer it up to the main news channels. They’ll pay a fortune for this stuff, and your face will be plastered all over the television.’
‘I am not sure I want my face “plastered” anywhere.’
‘You’ll be a household name. When they talk about investigative journalists, you’ll be mentioned in the same breath as Fisk, Adie, Amanpour, Woodward . . . They’ll give you awards until you run out of places to put them.’
‘Don’t think any of what you’re offering influences me in any way – I’m not that kind of girl.’ She smiled. ‘Where do I sign?’
‘Of course, we’ll need to verify this stuff. What we don’t want is to be caught in a scam. Then, you’ll become a household name for a totally different reason.’
‘Yes, we must get out there and get the other side of the story. Valerie Cowley has given us names. We will start at Shoreditch Police Station and ask them to comment.’
‘That should put the cat among the pigeons,’ Nate said.
So, that’s where they were.
‘Good afternoon,’ Ruth said into the microphone that was connected to Dennis’ camera. She didn’t offer up a smile, because police corruption was a serious business that affected everyone. ‘I am investigative journalist Ruth Lynch-Guevara reporting to you from outside Shoreditch Police Station in London. Recently, I was contacted by a whistle-blower – John Lupton – who was the Clerk of Committees at the Independent Office for Police Conduct. I say “was”, because he has since been murdered by a hired assassin to stop the truth from coming out, but as Launcelot in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice once said: “Truth will out”. I am here to make sure that truth comes out.’
Dennis stopped recording as two teenagers walked behind Ruth pulling faces and making lewd signs. ‘Not even recording, idiots,’ he called after them. He nodded at Ruth again.
‘John Lupton expressed his concerns to me at the extent of the corruption in the Metropolitan Police Service, which has been borne out by my investigations. Instead of protecting the public against criminals, they have become the criminals – accumulating wealth on an unprecedented scale. And let me also tell you, that it is only by the grace of God that I am here today, because they tried to kill me, my cameraman – Dennis Ford – and my driver – Nate Cullen – last night. As you can see, they did not succeed, because I appear to have a guardian angel who prevented a team of police officers from murdering us. I don’t know who that guardian angel is, or even if he or she is just one person, but what I can tell you is that they have those police officers and have posted a series of confessions on YouTube, to which I have been given exclusive access. Here is part of one such confession by PC Valerie Cowley who works at Shoreditch Police . . .’
A police officer came down the steps of the police station and interrupted her. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Keep the camera running, Dennis.’ She turned to the officer. ‘And you are?’
‘Inspector John Bishop. What are you doing out here?’
‘Making a report about police corruption.’
‘Do you have permission . . .?’
‘What! Permission to stand outside your police station on the public road?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Are you corrupt as well?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Would you like to know who is corrupt in your police station? Of course you do. Take a look at this confession by one of your colleagues, which has recently been posted on YouTube.’
Nate passed her a laptop and she played the video confession.
Bishop watched as Valerie Cowley confessed to taking a bribe; describing what she’d done; revealing that she had an offshore bank account in Lichtenstein with thousands of pounds in it; and then she began to name names starting with Inspector Paul Raynham . . .
‘Fucking hell!’
‘Besides uttering obscenities, would you care to make a comment about what you’ve just seen?’
He spun on his heel and headed back into the police station.
Ruth turned to face the camera again. ‘As you have just witnessed, Inspector John Bishop was shocked to discover that some of his colleagues at Shoreditch Police Station were corrupt. Sadly, we haven’t even scratched the surface yet. And we’re not talking about a few low-level police officers. This corruption extends all the way up to the higher echelons of power at New Scotland Yard. When we think of police corruption, we think of a few officers taking bribes, becoming slightly heavy-handed during an arrest, stealing from a crime scene . . . What we don’t think about is that they are running sex trafficking networks, laundering money through offshore bank accounts, blackmai
ling officials and murdering anyone who gets in the way of their criminal ambitions. Well, it’s time to start thinking the unthinkable, because I have evidence that the line between good and evil doesn’t exist anymore.’
Dennis stopped recording.
‘How was that?’ Ruth asked.
‘I’d stop eating my cornflakes in the morning to watch you.’
A senior officer came out of the blue main doors and walked down the concrete steps. ‘What’s going on here?’
Denis switched the camera on again.
Ruth smiled. ‘Hello. And you are?’
‘Chief Inspector William Morgan QPM.’
‘I am the investigative reporter Ruth Lynch-Guevara with my team, Chief Inspector.’
‘What’s this about police corruption . . . And it would help if you turned that damned thing off.’
‘I’m sure it would, but we’re not going to do that.’ Ruth took the laptop off Nate again and re-played Valerie Cowley’s confession.
‘It looks as though she’s being coerced.’
‘What she says has been verified.’
‘I should arrest you for perverting the course of justice.’
‘You and your corrupt officers are already doing that, Chief Inspector. I’m merely reporting on the extent of your crimes.’
‘Where is PC Cowley?’
‘I have no idea. Whoever has her, and the other officers who tried to kill me and my team last night, is contacting me anonymously and you have no right to enquire into my confidential sources.’
He stared at her. ‘You haven’t heard the last of this, Miss Lynch-Guevara,’ he said, and began walking back up the stairs.
‘It’s you who hasn’t heard the last of it, Chief Inspector,’ she called after him. Turning back to Dennis she said, ‘Okay, let’s go back to the house, edit what we’ve got and start contacting the news channels with copies. If we’re lucky, this will be aired on all the news channels tonight.’
‘Sounds like a plan to become rich and famous.’
‘Or dead,’ Nate added.
***
‘We’ll take a quick look at Miranda Marron’s house before we go to the hospital for the post-mortems, Rummage,’ Quigg said as they walked back to the Aygo from the Chiswick Chamber of Commerce.