by Tim Ellis
The Corpse in Highgate Cemetery
(Quigg #8)
Previously:
The Twelve Murders of Christmas (Novella)
Body 13
The Graves at Angel Brook
The Skulls Beneath Eternity Wharf
The Terror at Grisly Park
The Haunting of Bleeding Heart Yard
Includes:
The Enigma of Apocalypse Heights (Novella)
Tim Ellis
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Kindle Edition
Copyright 2015 Timothy Stephen Ellis
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Kindle Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Books written by Tim Ellis can be obtained either through the author’s official website: http://timellis.weebly.com/ at Smashwords.com or through online book retailers.
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To Pam, with love as always
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A big thank you to proofreader James Godber
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Chapter One
Monday, September 1
‘Morning ‘Spector Quigg,’ Mandy said as she came in with his post and sat down in one of the two plastic orange chairs in front of his desk.
He glanced at the government-issue clock on the wall. It was twenty-past nine. ‘You’re a bit late today, Mandy.’
Mandy was the trainee administrative assistant. She had just turned eighteen, and appeared to have acquired more piercings in her left ear, her nose, her bottom lip and her belly button. Her hair colour had also altered from a striped orange and purple concoction to a checked black and white with FFC shaved into the back of her head.
‘FFC?’
‘Fulham Football Club. My dad loves them. He wouldn’t pay for me to get my hair done unless I got FFC shaved into the back.’
‘Smacks of child abuse to me. The Chief supports Fulham as well, you know.’
‘I know. Anyway, I’m late because of my bra not my hair.’
‘I’m intrigued.’
‘As you can see for yourself,’ she said, pushing her breasts up and squeezing them together with her hands to emphasise an impressive cleavage. ‘I weren’t behind the door when they was handin’ out the melons.’
‘You certainly weren’t, Mandy.’
‘Do you want to see them in the flesh?’
‘It’s a bit early in the morning for me – maybe later.’
‘Well, me bra snapped. And it wasn’t something that could be fixed with a needle and thread either.’
He examined her chest like a mammary gland aficionado. ‘Did you have to go out and buy a bra?’
‘No – luckily there was an old one at the bottom of my locker. It’s a bit on the tight side, but at least it stops all the men staring at my nipples – and they bounce around a lot as well – my breasts, not the men doing the staring. I don’t know how the bra got into the bottom of my locker though, because I always come to work in one, and I always go home in one.’
‘Maybe you took it off to show someone your breasts, and forgot to put it back on?’
‘I’ve never done that afore. I only offered to show you today ‘cause I feel sorry for you after you lost ‘tective Kline.’
‘There’s no need to feel sorry for me, Mandy.’ Although, he did feel sorry for himself.
His life had taken a battering lately. Yes, Kline had left him and gone to Israel to become a Mossad agent; Lucy had disappeared he knew not where; Mabel – his eighty-seven year-old mum – was pregnant, married to a Burmese native and running an English cafe in Bago with Maggie Crenshaw; he couldn’t sell his mum’s house because the chartered surveyors had found a Roman Temple of Mithras beneath the foundations; Caitlin – his ex-wife – was dead and their whole life together had been a complete lie; his daughter – Phoebe – was missing and he had no idea where she could be; Ruth had given birth to Luke, so now there were four children in the house; both Duffy and Ruth were denying him sex because they hadn’t got their pre-baby bodies back yet; and he’d found out the infamous chart at the station was a wind-up. If the truth be known – he was bereft, but – to coin a phrase – life went on. In fact, he’d heard it likened many times to a rollercoaster ride, and it was. Unfortunately though, there were no stations or pit-stops on a rollercoaster ride. He would liked to have clambered off, taken a breath of fresh air, looked at the scenery for a while and examined a roadmap of the future, but there was no time – no time at all. He simply had to carry on carrying on and see where the ride took him.
‘So, did you bring me any post, Mandy?’
She laughed. ‘I always forget why I come in here ‘cause you start chatting me up like you got designs on my post trolley. Yeah, I got post for yer. The usual brown envelopes, which look as boring as my Wayne watching football, and there’s a postcard here from Canada. I think those triples are turning into yetis.’ She passed him the postcard with a photograph of his triplets – Evie, Ava and Noah – on the front. Their bodies and legs were encased in snow, and their heads and arms had been made to look like snowmen. They certainly were beautiful kids.
‘I hear you got a new baby?’
‘Yes – he’s called Luke.’
‘And Cheryl has had her baby, yer know. She had a girl, and called her Poppy – it means . . . well, it’s the name of a flower so Cheryl told me. So, how many grunts you got now?’
‘Should we count them?’
‘My mum thinks you got a football team.’
‘My eldest is called Phoebe, but I’ve temporarily mislaid her. Then there’s the twins – Dylan and Lily Rose, Luke and Márie, and the triples in Canada – Evie, Ava and Noah, but they’re not really mine outside of the biological sense. How many is that?’
Mandy had been counting the children’s names on her fingers. ‘Eight – three short of a football team. And don’t forget Cheryl’s Poppy – even though she won’t let you have nothing to do with her.’
‘Yes, of course, there’s Poppy. That’s nine grunts then.’
‘And there’s also that other ‘Spector . . .’
Jesus! He’d forgotten all about DI Gwen Taylor. Where the hell was she now? Had she had the baby? Was it all right? What had she called it? Had she put him on the birth certificate as the father? He should find out the details, even though he’d said he wouldn’t.
‘Ten then.’
‘And don’t forget you need a couple of substitutes as well. I’d say you were slacking a bit, ‘Spector Quigg. I know from my Wayne that the new football season has already started.’
He screwed up his face. ‘I suppose I am.’
‘Anyway, I gotta deliver the post afore I get a sackful of complaints.’ She stood up and headed for the door. ‘See ya, ‘Spector Quigg. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, which shouldn’t stop you filling up your football team. And if you want to take a gander at my melons to cheer you up, just say the word.’
‘Very kind, Mandy.’
She left the door open on her way out.
On the reverse of the postcard Aryana had written:
The snow-children send their love.
You need a sacrifice in the catacombs
Love Aryana
XXX
‘QUIGG,’ Chief Walter Bellmarsh shouted down the corridor. ‘MY OFFICE NOW.’
Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse.
He ambled along the corridor.
‘Hello, Chief. How are you?’
‘Fed up, Quigg.’
‘Oh! Why’s that?’
‘Because of you.’
‘Me?’
‘You’re too high-maintenance for my liking.’
‘I don’t think . . .’
‘No, you don’t think. Kline was the best partner you’d ever had, and you let her leave.’
‘She joined Mossad. I didn’t . . .’
‘I’ve read the resignation letter, but that’s not why she really left, is it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You drove her away, didn’t you?’
‘No. She joined Mossad.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Anyway, the end result is that you need another partner.’
‘Maybe I should work alone for the foreseeable . . .’
‘You know that’s not permitted.’
‘Have you got someone in mind?’
‘A DS.’
‘Oh?’
‘Jane Dwyer.’
He threw his arms in the air and squeezed his face as if he was about to scream. ‘God help me, Sir.’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Quigg. You go through partners like beans go through Mrs Bellmarsh.’
‘But Dwyer is a ball-breaker. She’ll eat me for breakfast, and then pick her teeth with my bone splinters.’
‘Maybe that’s just what you need to keep you on the straight and narrow.’
There was a knock at the door.
‘COME,’ the Chief shouted.
Detective Sergeant Jane Dwyer from Vice opened the door and walked in. She was pretty in a boyish sort of way, with short spiky ginger hair, freckles and high cheekbones. She had a skinny physique, and small ill-defined breasts beneath a baggy green t-shirt. On the front of the t-shirt was a picture of an ape evolving into a caveman, a male and then lastly – a female. Underneath was the word: EVOLUTION?
‘Ah, Jane. Thanks for coming. You know DI Quigg.’
Her top lip trembled as she nodded at Quigg.
He smiled like a second-hand car dealer and nodded back.
‘I want you to partner Quigg on a case.’
‘Me and Quigg?’
Quigg interrupted. ‘It’ll be Quigg and Dwyer.’
‘Shut up, Quigg,’ the Chief said.
‘Sorry, Sir.’
The Chief looked at Dwyer again. ‘Yes, you and Quigg.’
‘I didn’t realise you hated me so much, Chief.’
‘I don’t hate you at all, Dwyer, but Quigg needs a partner.’
‘Just one case?’
‘Just one.’
‘It’ll be something to tell the kids about, I suppose.’
‘I didn’t know you had any kids, Dwyer.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Right well, I want you to get over to the West side of Highgate Cemetery – there’s a corpse in there.’
Quigg’s forehead creased up. ‘Aren’t there around 170,000 corpses in there, Chief? Is there any particular one you’d like us to dig up?’
‘Just because DS Dwyer is here, Quigg, don’t think you can start getting smart with me in a pathetic attempt to impress her.’
‘Sorry, Sir.’
‘The particular corpse I’d like you to investigate is above ground, not beneath it.’
‘I see. Doesn’t Highgate come under Holloway Police Station?’
‘The Commissioner wants you to deal with it.’
‘I don’t suppose the detectives at Holloway are pleased about that.’
‘If the Commissioner wants you on the case, then you’re on the case. Holloway can swivel. Perkins is already on his way.’
‘We’ll get over there then shall we, Sir?’
‘Good idea, Quigg. Shut the door on your way out.’
***
If Quigg was still alive she was going to kill him. She had her laptop open on the table in the Jazz Cafe on Camden Road – just round the corner from the tube station, and was staring at the tweet that complete strangers were retweeting, favouriting, and adding to their lists and groups – it had gone viral. Twitter were promoting it for fuck’s sake, it was trending and had over two million followers:
@Quigg #Lucycomehome
Yep! She was going to roast his nuts on a barbeque, crack them open with nutcrackers, eat them in a curry and then kill him slowly with a meat tenderiser. She’d take her time, bask in the sunshine of his misery and enjoy the moment.
After what had happened with those Nazi skinhead bastards, after she’d had to fight for her life with that crazy lesbian Morticia bitch, after her hard drive had become infected and worst of all – after the pregnancy scare – she’d had to get out. She’d been at Quigg’s house far too long, she’d become part of the fucking furniture, she’d become attached – not just to Quigg, but to Ruth, Duffy and those noisy fucking rugrats. Christ! They’d become her family. Yeah – it had been time to leave, but leaving behind the people she loved was turning out to be a problem.
Keeping a low profile was gradually becoming an impossibility. She was meant to be operating under the radar, hiding in the shadows, becoming a ghost in the machine. Or, at least that had been her plan. But Quigg had sabotaged that idea.
Not only that, the moron had created a “Lucy Come Home” page on Facebook – it already had over 200,000 Likes. She couldn’t walk down the street without seeing people wearing the button-badge:
LUCY
COME
HOME
It had become a collector’s item already, and was selling on eBay for ridiculous amounts.
Quigg was the stupidest bastard she’d ever had the misfortune to meet, and she loved him. That was the worst thing in all of this, she’d had to admit to herself that she loved him. Of course, that didn’t mean she wanted to have his baby. She didn’t want anybody’s baby – least of all Quigg’s. Christ, he’d already had more babies than a maternity unit. But she had to go back home, back to the chaos of living with Quigg and his menagerie.
What else could she do? He’d proved he loved her back. Lucy was going home, but he wasn’t getting any babies out of her – that was for sure.
She started her own campaign. The only way to get her name off the internet was to go back home:
@Lucy #Lucy’scominghome
***
DI Erica Holm from Shepherd’s Bush Police Station had made him an offer. Oh, not an offer of sexual gratification unfortunately, because she was an attractive woman – an offer of revenge.
‘You’ve done a good job so far in finding out about Quigg’s wife, Rodney.’
He screwed up his face. ‘I’d hardly call getting all my colleagues at Bulldog Investigations tortured and killed a good job.’ He thought about the bloodbath he’d found when he returned to the office that Thursday three weeks ago. Peter Minshall had been shot through the left eye, one of Sue Hutton’s breasts had been cut off, and the love of his life – Deidre Fishlock – had been nailed to the wall. There was only him at the agency now. Of course, at the time he’d thought that there was still the two partners who owned the detective agency: Ron Dring – who had leg ulcers and agoraphobia, and Mick Amato – who suffered with shingles and sciatica, but operatives actually on the ground, taking on cases, doing all the leg work, there was just him.
On the following Monday, after the bloodbath, he’d gone to see Mr Dring in his penthouse apartment in Mayfair, which had been a surreal experience on its own that he’d never forget. Suffering with long-term agoraphobia, Ron Dring had become a recluse. In fact, Rodney had never met Mr Dring. Oh, he’d heard the man’s v
oice via the loudspeaker on a telephone call wishing the staff – who were all dead now except for him – a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year, but he had never met him face-to-face.
‘Yes?’ a woman’s disconnected voice said over the intercom system in the lobby.
‘Rodney Crankshank to see Mr Dring.’
‘Walk into the lift, and don’t press any buttons.’
‘Will do.’ He did as he’d been instructed. The doors closed, the lift began ascending and the floor numbers flashed briefly in the LED display until it reached “P”.
The doors opened.
An attractive woman about his own age was standing there in a starched-white nurses’ uniform. Her crinkly red hair was clipped back into a ducktail, she had freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks, nice even teeth and a stethoscope hanging round her neck.
‘I’m Mrs Tippy Wishart.’
He licked his lips. There was something about nurses. Was it just him, or did all men have a thing about nurses? He would like to have seen what was hiding beneath that uniform. Was she wearing a white Basque under the white cotton? Was it holding up sheer nylon white stockings? Out of respect for his fallen colleagues he hadn’t been with a woman in three weeks. Not that he’d had a choice, of course. Women very rarely threw themselves at him. And when they did – he mostly didn’t want to catch them. He swallowed and gave her a weak smile. ‘Hello, Mrs Wishart.’
‘Rodney Crankshank?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Unusual name.’
‘My dad gave it to me.’