The Charnel House in Copperfield Street

by Tim Ellis

  Well, it didn’t look as though the family meeting was going to happen at seven o’clock – events had overtaken anything that they might have to say. Not only that, all three of them would probably have ganged-up on him and backed him into a corner about having a vasectomy. Well, they could harangue him all they wanted, but he wasn’t going to get one.

  As he was walking between platforms at Westminster to catch a District Line train to Hammersmith, the Chief called him.

  ‘Hello, Sir.’

  ‘Bad news I’m afraid.’

  ‘Ruth’s not dead, is she?’

  ‘No, no. Nothing like that.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘Well, not as far as I know anyway. I said I’d call some people.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m sorry to say, Quigg. I spoke to Assistant Commissioner Andrew Wyatt in charge of Specialist Crime and Operations who spoke to DCI Victor Thackeray in Special Operations. He knows nothing about Ruth, and hasn’t authorised any counter-terrorism operations in Shepherd’s Bush. I then had a word with the Police Commissioner, seeing as you’re his golden boy, but he didn’t know anything either. Also, that collar number you mentioned . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It belonged to a dead police officer. It’s my considered opinion, in the absence of any other compelling evidence, that the people who abducted Ruth were not police officers. I know you said that Ruth was investigating police corruption, but I don’t think the two are connected. I mean, whether a police officer was corrupt or not, they’d have to be sailing pretty close to the wind to abduct the . . . partner of another police officer.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right, Sir.’

  ‘Of course I’m right. Maybe it’s something to do with the person who abducted your son. Has DS Hawking discovered anything yet?’

  ‘I’m on my way back to the station, Sir. She’s giving me an update at five o’clock.’

  ‘An update!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s not a code word you’re using for something else, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Sir.’

  ‘Well, keep me informed.’

  ‘Will do, Chief.’

  ‘Oh, by the way, I spoke to the Chief Superintendent at Barrow-in-Furness, and he’s agreed to let DS Hawking stay here until the end of the week.’

  ‘Thanks, Sir.’

  The line went dead.

  If it wasn’t corrupt police officers, then who was it? And if Ruth hadn’t been arrested, then she’d been abducted. But by whom? And why? Would he receive a ransom demand for her soon? No, it was far too much of a coincidence not to be a response from the corrupt officers Ruth was targeting. Maybe Lucy and her father would find some answers. He hoped so, because if they couldn’t find out what had happened to Ruth, then maybe she was lost.

  He reached the station and walked up the stairs to the squad room. DS Hawking was still sitting at the desk she’d been allocated. The surrounding area resembled a bomb site in the Blitz. All the evidence boxes were open and the contents spilled out on the floor, chairs and desks.

  ‘How’re things going, Sergeant?’

  ‘It’s not five o’clock yet, is it?’

  He glanced at the clock on the wall – it was eighteen minutes to five. ‘No, I don’t suppose it is.’

  ‘Time is a known quantity, Sir. It either is, or it isn’t. Eighteen minutes to five never has been, and never will be five o’clock.’

  ‘In which case, I’ll come back in eighteen minutes.’

  ‘At which time I’ll inform you on how things are going.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to that, Sergeant.’

  Rummage wasn’t at her desk. Where was she? Had she gone home already? Maybe she was in the toilet? Or the kitchen making coffee?

  He wandered up the corridor to the kitchen to make himself a coffee, but didn’t find Rummage there.

  While he waited for the kettle to boil he phoned her, but was diverted to voicemail.

  He decided to leave a message: ‘What’s the point of having a mobile phone if you never answer it, Rummage? Maybe you need to hand your phone in if you can’t be bothered to answer it. There’s not much point in you having a phone if you never use the damn thing. It could be given to someone less fortunate than yourself. So, with that in mind – call me. It’s quarter to five and you’re not sitting at your desk. Did you think that you could go home early because I wasn’t here? Well, I am here now, so you’ve been caught out. Where are you?’

  When he reached his office, he found the research Rummage had carried out on Anthony Underhill sitting on his desk, but he wasn’t in the mood to read it. He’d take the report home with him, or read it in the morning before interviewing Underhill. There was also a report from Forensics on Gerald Bishop’s torched van – no forensics whatsoever. The result didn’t come as a surprise to him, he’d been expecting it. Fire and water were the deadly enemies of forensics.

  There were also interim forensic reports of the home addresses belonging to Lucien Green and Miranda Marron. He perused the Summary page from both reports. Lucien Green’s head was found on a sideboard at the address, together with literature and paraphernalia on Sexual Magic. Neither abode was the crime scene.

  Surely sexual magic didn’t include murder, where was the joy in that? But hadn’t Green and Marron been raped and sodomised by multiple perpetrators – one of whom was Anthony Underhill? Although the two deaths appeared like murder, maybe it wasn’t murder at all. Right from the start he and Rummage had considered that they might have been the victims of a ritual. Maybe that’s exactly what it was – a sexual magic ritual. Maybe The Children had corrupted the teachings of Thelema to include sexual death.

  He wondered who The Children were and whether they had a local meeting place, or something along those lines. If they were raping, sodomising and decapitating people in the name of love, maybe . . . A horrible thought came to him then. He hurried along the corridor to look out of the window into the car park – Duffy’s red Toyota Aygo wasn’t there. Surely Rummage wouldn’t have been so stupid, would she? He took out his phone and called her again, but it went to voicemail.

  Crap! He wasn’t having a good day at all. So far, he’d lost his son Joe, Ruth, Lucy with his Mercedes and now his partner Rummage with Duffy’s Toyota Aygo. He was beginning to get a persecution complex.

  He called Perkins.

  ‘Yes, Sir?’

  ‘I want you to find Rummage, Perkins.’

  ‘Me? I’m not Missing Persons, Sir.’

  ‘No, but you can find her phone signal.’

  ‘I could do that.’

  ‘I think she’s gone after the people we’re looking for on her own.’

  ‘The people who decapitated the two victims?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On her own?’

  ‘I told her to come back here and do research, but she’s not here, Perkins. I keep getting diverted to voicemail when I call her. And my car isn’t here either. She was meant to leave it here for me. I’m worried about her, Perkins.’

  ‘I’ll get right on it, Sir.’

  ‘Call me as soon as you have anything.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He called Justine Chevalier.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you know anything else about The Children?’

  ‘Oh! You think I’m telling the truth now, do you?’

  ‘There might be some merit in what you’ve been saying after all. Well, do you know anything more, like where they meet?’

  ‘No. I told you everything I knew. Why are you asking?’

  ‘My partner’s gone missing.’

  ‘And you think they’ve got her?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. All I know is that she’s not where she’s meant to be, neither is my car and all my calls are being diverted to voicemail.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can, but I’m not promising anything.’

  ‘Call me if y
ou find out anything?’

  ‘Of course. The same applies to you?’

  ‘I suppose I could.’

  ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’

  ‘I’ll call you.’

  ‘Make sure you do.’

  He ended the call and made his way down to the custody suite.

  Sergeant Sage smiled at him. ‘How did you know I was down here, Sir?’

  ‘I didn’t. I’m here to speak to one of your inmates – Anthony Underhill.’

  ‘I don’t have any interviews scheduled.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ll have wait while I call his solicitor.’

  ‘There’s no time for that, Sage.’

  ‘If I let you in to speak to him without his solicitor being present, we’ll both get the sack, Sir.’

  ‘I know, but I still need to speak to him. Rummage is missing. Her life could be in danger. Underhill might very well know where she is.’

  She shrugged. ‘Are you ordering me to do it, Sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, but don’t blame me when you’re hauled in front of a disciplinary committee by Professional Standards.’

  ‘You’ll be the last person I blame, Sergeant.’

  She took the keys from the safe and led him along the corridor to Underhill’s cell.

  ‘Sure?’ she said, putting the key in the lock.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  She opened the viewing window and said, ‘Oh, shit!’ After pressing the alarm button, she unlocked the door, hurried in and held Underhill’s legs up. He was hanging from two of the bars in the window. ‘Get him down will you, Sir?’

  Quigg untied the man’s shirt from around his neck and helped Sage lower him to the floor.

  She held her fingers against Underhill’s carotid pulse. ‘No pulse,’ she said, and moved to give him cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

  He stopped her with the palm of his hand. ‘Don’t bother. He’s going cold, and look at the colour of him.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Even if you brought him back, he’d probably have brain damage. He’s been starved of oxygen for too long.’

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Sage said.

  ‘If it’s anybody’s fault – it’s mine. I was leaving him in here overnight to consider his options. It never occurred to me that suicide might be one them.’

  The Duty Inspector – Mark Robson – appeared at the open cell door. ‘How did this happen on my watch, Sergeant?’

  ‘He used his shirt, Sir.’

  ‘I’m not blind.’

  ‘He’s one of mine, Mark. I came down here to check on him and I found him like this. Nicky Wright sent a squad car to arrest him on suspicion of murder earlier. I hadn’t even interviewed him yet. He obviously knew what was coming.’

  ‘Okay, both of you need to write statements of exactly what happened in here.’ He turned to a constable loitering in the corridor behind him. ‘Call the Police Surgeon. Tell him there’s been a suicide in custody. Ask him to come over to examine the body and identify the cause of death.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Quigg stood up. ‘I have to go, Mark.’

  ‘You know the rules, Quigg.’

  ‘Rummage is missing. I don’t have time to write statements and answer questions . . . Maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll have to report you.’

  ‘I understand.’

  His phone activated.

  ‘Quigg.’

  ‘It’s Perkins, Sir.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ve traced DC Rummage’s phone.’

  ‘You have an address?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked at Sergeant Sage. ‘Write this down, Sergeant.’

  Sage took out her notebook and readied her pen.

  ‘Okay, Perkins.’ He repeated the address Perkins said. ’55 Staveley Road, Chiswick, W4 2SK . . . Thanks, Perkins.’

  He ended the call and went to leave. Then he realised he didn’t have a car. He stared at Inspector Robson. I need a squad car, Mark.’

  ‘To drive?’

  ‘No, no. For a lift and two people for back-up.’

  ‘Two people! I’ll send you with four – just in case. Come on, let’s get you on your way.’ He glanced at Sergeant Sage. ‘Stay here until the Police Surgeon has confirmed the cause of death. Also, get forensics down here. I don’t want anybody thinking that we’re covering anything up.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘And write your statement.’

  ‘I will, Sir.’

  ‘Right, Quigg. Let’s sort you out.’

  He nodded at Sergeant Ada Sage and followed Mark Robson out of the cell to Operations.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jack Neilson threaded his way through the London streets between the Hoboken Machinery warehouse and 44 Perrins Lane in Hampstead. It wasn’t easy trying to navigate between two locations when the whole of London was trying to get home. He had to make a number of detours through backroads and residential streets, but eventually he reached the address at ten past five.

  It was already dark, and he drove slowly along the lane with his lights on dipped beam. Parking was restricted to the right side of the road opposite terraced houses with just a narrow pavement in front of them. A fine example of a London street designed for horse and cart, not high-performance sports cars, he thought.

  Wedged in-between the parked cars was an entrance, which was wide enough for two vehicles side by side. The double wrought-iron gates were closed, but the lights were on in the long one-storey building beyond. Two men in suits were loitering in the courtyard.

  He parked the Audi in a space he found at the end of the lane, put on a bullet-proof vest, a ski-mask, armed himself with a silenced Glock-19 and various other close combat weapons, and walked back towards the double entrance. He made sure he was at the right address. On the left-hand brick post was a sign that read:

  H Piketon

  Ancient & Modern

  Furniture Restoration

  Est. 1945

  44 Perrins Lane

  Hampstead

  Watching the manner in which the two men moved, he guessed they were ex-military and that they were armed. It didn’t surprise him. From Delilah’s description of the two men who had freed Thackeray from the apartment on Birdcage Walk, and the fact that one of the Board members – Andrew Pottsboro – was CEO of Cheetah Risk Management and Security International, which employed people who had previously served in the Armed Forces, the Security Services and the Police Force, he expected as much.

  There were security lights and CCTV cameras on the front of the building, but the entrance gate was in shadow. He let himself into the courtyard, closed the gate and went as far as he could by hugging the wall on the right side of the property.

  He’d have preferred to use his knife, but the two men were standing in the beams from the security lights and there was no way he could approach them without being seen. He couldn’t see if they were wearing bullet-proof vests under their jackets, or not. As such, with no other available options, he took the head shot. He hoped first, that nobody had heard the clackety-clack of the two shots; and second, that the people inside weren’t glued to the security monitor.

  He dragged the bodies to the shadow against the building wall, beneath the security lights and the CCTV cameras. Next, he tried the front door – it was open. He slipped inside, stood still and listened. There were no sounds that he could hear. Slowly, he moved inside and went from room to room, but the place was deserted. He retraced his steps and spotted a sliver of light coming from beneath a shelving unit. The unit was hinged on the left, he opened it to reveal a set of concrete steps going down. He edged down the steps until he could see inside the cellar room.

  Ruth was secured to a chair. Her clothes were torn and her face was bloody and bruised. It appeared as though she’d been beaten quite badly.

  Two men were standing over her and had their backs to him, but he recog
nised Thackeray. He held a gun in his hand.

  ‘Where are my people being held, Miss Lynch?’ Thackeray said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And this Jack Neilson took them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who helped him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Thackeray raised his hand with the gun in it as if to hit her across the face.

  As he walked down the stairs, Jack shot Thackeray in the back of the head and then turned the gun on the other man.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The man held his hands up. He was older than Thackeray with a bald head and a paunch. ‘Commander Andrew Wyatt of the Metropolitan Police Service.’

  ‘Do you think I’m going to be impressed by that?’

  ‘No, probably not.’

  ‘You’re right – I’m not. Now, release Miss Lynch.’

  Wyatt did as he was told.

  ‘How many people have you got here?’

  ‘Two outside, DCI Thackeray and myself in here.’

  ‘If you’re lying to me, you’ll be the first to die.’

  ‘No, that’s all we have.’

  ‘Had. You’re the only one who’s still alive. If you co-operate, I’ll keep you alive, but these Glocks have a hair trigger, so if you piss me off . . .’

  ‘I’ll co-operate.’

  He patted Wyatt down, but didn’t find any weapons.

  ‘I haven’t got a gun.’

  ‘Make sure it stays that way.’ He picked up Thackeray’s Sig Sauer off the floor and slipped it into his pocket. ‘Help Miss Lynch up. We’re leaving.’

  He walked sideways up the concrete steps first, holding the gun on Wyatt who followed him up with his arm around Ruth’s waist.

  No one intercepted them as they left the property.

  At the Audi, Wyatt helped Ruth into the passenger seat.

  Jack opened the boot and removed his bag of weapons. ‘Get in,’ he said to Wyatt.

  It was already full of the owner’s junk. ‘I’ll never fit . . .’

  ‘I could simply shoot you and leave you here.’

  Wyatt climbed into the small space.