The Corpse in Highgate Cemetery: (Quigg 8)

by Tim Ellis

‘The results of the post-mortem should make interesting reading then. What about you, Perkins?’

  ‘I’m with Doctor Solberg on this, Sir. I think the killer is probably a vampire.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you, but that’s not what I meant. Have you turned up any evidence?’

  ‘Oh, evidence! Well, my team have uncovered nothing that would disprove the existence of vampires. They’ve collected up the usual discarded cigarette ends, chewing gum, litter, detritus and so forth, but with nothing to match it to . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Also, tourists traipse round here most days. There are thousands of shoeprints. As such, I’m not going to take any impressions because I don’t think it would serve any purpose whatsoever.’

  Quigg straightened up, and as he massaged his back he stared at the brick catacombs cut into the hillside. There were twenty-five stone entrances that led into the necropolis, with the five middle bays projecting outwards beyond those that flanked them on either side. The central bay had an arched entrance with cast-iron gates. Those on either side had square-headed doorways with coats-of-arms on keystones above each cast-iron panelled door. Above the crypt was a terraced balustrade with flights of stone steps at either end leading up to a walkway.

  ‘The Victorians really knew how to build things, Sir.’

  ‘They knew how to waste money, Perkins. What’s it all for?’

  ‘The architecture is pleasing to the eye.’

  ‘It’s full of dead people.’

  ‘Inside, but on the outside . . .’

  ‘It’s a waste of money. Do either of you have any observations on why the corpse is pointing her index finger towards those catacombs?’

  Doc Solberg and Perkins both moved to the corpse’s feet and looked up the body and along the right arm to the outstretched index finger.

  ‘Maybe she is not pointing to anything at all,’ the Doc suggested. ‘Maybe it is simply the way she has been arranged.’

  ‘Why arrange the body if the finger is pointing nowhere? And if the finger is pointing somewhere – why is it pointing to the catacombs?’

  Perkins rubbed his chin between thumb and forefinger. ‘You probably need to go into the catacombs to take a look, Sir.’

  ‘Or, I could send you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to destroy any forensic evidence that might have accumulated in there.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s any justification for sending me.’

  ‘I’ll give it some serious thought and inform you of my decision in due course.’ He certainly didn’t want to go into the catacombs himself and confront his worst nightmare. ‘How many dead people are residing in there, Perkins?’

  ‘Eight hundred and forty.’

  His heart began jitterbugging. ‘That’s a lot of dead people.’

  Dwyer returned. ‘The tourist group simply stumbled on the body – nothing more. No one saw or heard anything, and no one touched the body.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks, Sergeant. Next, I’d like you to go into those catacombs . . .’ Mimicking the corpse’s right arm, he stretched his own arm out and pointed to the line of doorways. ‘And . . .’

  ‘You’re confusing me with a new recruit, Sir. If you go into the catacombs I might consider following you at a distance purely out of curiosity. Otherwise, I’m staying out here.’

  ‘You’re not scared, are you?’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘All right. Well, I suppose we can leave the catacombs until we have a clearer idea about what’s going on out here. There’ll be a uniformed officer on guard . . .’

  Dwyer pulled a face. ‘In a cemetery? At night? And it’s not as if this is close to the road, human habitation, or . . .’

  ‘We’re talking about grown men and women, Dwyer.’

  ‘Like you and me, you mean?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, like us. If they’re ordered to guard the crime scene, then that’s exactly what they’ll have to do. You can’t pick and choose what you do in the police force, Dwyer – orders are orders.’

  ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’

  ‘Anyway, Perkins and his team will still be here . . .’

  ‘Unlikely, Sir.’

  ‘Why unlikely?’

  Just then, two of Doc Solberg’s assistants appeared with a body bag and a collapsible stretcher, and began preparing the corpse for transportation to the mortuary at Hammersmith Hospital.

  ‘As you can see, there’ll be no body here soon, and my people have nearly finished their fingertip search of the area. After that, we’ll be leaving.’

  ‘I see. Dwyer, contact the Duty Sergeant. I want the crime scene guarded until I say otherwise.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do say so.’

  Dwyer pulled out her mobile, moved away from the group and called the Duty Sergeant.

  ‘Anything else, Doc?’

  ‘No, you will just have to wait until after the post-mortem.’

  ‘And when will that be?’

  ‘This afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll call in if I’m in the area.’

  Dwyer drifted back. ‘The Duty Sergeant said she’ll organise something, but she isn’t happy.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Sergeant Wendy Bird.’

  ‘That’s something else about the police force, Dwyer. People aren’t paid to be happy, they’re paid to do a job. Well, there’s nothing more we can do here. Let’s go and talk to the people who run this menagerie.’

  ***

  Her rucksack was strapped on her back, so she didn’t actually feel anybody push her. If she hadn’t had the warning on Twitter she might have thought it was merely an accident. The platforms at Camden Town underground were well-known for being narrow, and the volume of travellers – due to Camden Markets – were more than the station could handle at times. Notices had been pinned up by the railway authorities at the station entrance informing anybody who was interested and had time to stop and read the notices that plans had been submitted for a major re-building programme.

  Of course, none of that helped her now. What did help her though was the eleven fifty-seven to Morden being seven seconds late.

  After some frantic arm flailing and body-popping she was able to land on her feet, but the momentum propelled her forward headfirst across the track, and she had to twist herself sideways so that she didn’t smash her skull open like an overripe avocado. She hit the far side of the track, but what she expected to be a concrete wall turned out to be an iron grate hidden behind layers of bill-posters, which she had no time to read as she passed. The grate gave way, her whole body disappeared through the opening, and she bounced off the walls until she hit the bottom of what appeared to be a maintenance shaft.

  ‘God in Heaven!’ she said, aching all over. She couldn’t decide what hurt the most – her head, her back, her legs, her arms or her whole body. She must have fallen about fifteen feet. Where the hell was she? She lay there looking up at the dim light stabbing through the grate opening and expecting human heads to appear telling her that everything would be all right, that a rescue crew was on its way, that they’d stop at nothing until she was safe and sound, but no heads appeared.

  She scrambled up onto all fours. The sound of the train pulling out of the station filtered through the opening and deafened her. Surely the train driver had seen her? What about the passengers on the platform?

  Craning her neck upwards she shouted.

  ‘HELLO?’

  ‘IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?’

  ‘HELP!’

  ‘DOWN HERE!’

  Nobody came.

  Her screams pierced the tunnel, but appeared to do nothing to attract any attention.

  Another train arrived.

  Not one single person had noticed her attempted murder – except the assassin, of course.

  Had the assassin been paid to kill her? By whom? Why? She wished she understood what was happening. If she’d kept her resolve and ignored Quigg�
��s campaign to get her to go back home, she’d still be safe now. Maybe it wasn’t about her, maybe it was about Quigg. That would certainly make more sense. Quigg had made lots of enemies doing his job, but everyone loved her.

  Now what was she going to do? She had a lot of crap in her rucksack, but that crap did not include a torch. Beyond where she was standing, the tunnel was pitch black in both directions. She looked around her. The shaft had been constructed of brick – Victorian brick. She touched the rough wall trying to imagine the men – because they would have been men – who had worked this far underground building the underground rail network.

  It occurred to her that she might very well have a torch. There was her tablet, her laptop and her mobile phone – they all had lights. Her heart began racing, and with a sliver of hope she took her mobile out of the back pocket of her jeans and unlocked it. The screen spluttered for the briefest of moments and then died. She tried switching it on again, but there was no sign of life. It must have got damaged when she hit the floor of the shaft with her arse.

  Next, she shrugged out of her rucksack, opened it up and threw in the phone. It was an expensive one as well, and someone might be able to repair it.

  Her laptop wouldn’t work either, but her tablet showed some signs of life. There was no wifi signal this far underground, but at least the light came on. Her wallpaper was a photograph of St Thomas’ Church on Godolphin Road. She touched the screen with painful fingers – her home, and it was her home.

  Throughout her childhood she’d lived in foster homes – too many to count, but they hadn’t really been homes, well not her homes anyway. Those homes had belonged to real children with real parents.

  Beyond the screen of her tablet she noticed something inset into the floor and knelt down to look.

  It appeared to be a map made from mosaics. But it wasn’t any old map – it was a map of a maze.

  And there was an arrow pointing to a location at the edge of the maze, which made the hairs on her neck stand up like the bristles on a wire brush. At the other end of the arrow it stated:

  YOU ARE HERE.

  ***

  Rodney parked his car opposite the Byzantium Club on Wartling Road. He could hear the waves crashing into the promenade on Royal Parade, the unruly children of day-trippers and tourists shouting and hollering, and the seagulls swooping and squawking overhead.

  He wasn’t looking forward to walking into a club full of Lithuanian criminals, but what choice did he have?

  A large ugly man with a deep six-inch scar on the left side of his face barred his way at the door.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m here to see Mr Danku.’

  ‘Mr Danku expect you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you not see him.’

  Rodney was impressed that the man could speak passable English. He couldn’t speak a word of Lithuanian. Did Lithuania have its own language? Or, did they speak Russian? He only had a vague idea of where Lithuania was on a map. Why were Lithuanian people in England? Why were Lithuanian criminals in England? They had their own country, why didn’t they stay there?

  ‘I’m here to pay Mr Danku some money.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For Mr Danku?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You wait here. Name?’

  ‘Rodney Crankshank.’

  ‘He know you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He expect money from you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why you pay him money?’

  ‘I’m paying for somebody else.’

  The man leaned towards him. ‘You here to cause trouble – I break you in two like a stick.’ He illustrated his threat with two chubby hands and the sound effect of a stick being snapped.

  A rancid smell emanated from the man’s mouth as he spoke and tunnelled up Rodney’s nose.

  ‘I’m here to pay Mr Danku some money, and then I plan to leave.’

  The man disappeared into the club.

  Rodney glanced up and down the road while he waited – it was reasonably quiet. A few people were walking purposefully in both directions as if they lived in the area, there was a black Transit van parked on double yellow lines, and a woman was sitting in a Vauxhall Insignia further along the road pointing a camera in his direction through a half-open window. He wondered what that was about, and whether he should smile or look nonchalant.

  The ugly man reappeared. ‘Mr Danku see you. Follow me.’

  He followed the man down a spiral staircase, along a corridor and into the club proper. There was a drinks’ bar the whole length of the room, bar tables scattered around, two mirrored balls hanging from the ceiling, and the wood laminate flooring throughout seemed to be the dance floor.

  There was a group of men and two beautiful women – barely old enough to drink – sitting in a booth.

  Nobody offered him a seat.

  ‘You gonna give me money?’ Marius Danku was a heavyset man in his early fifties with black curly hair, a broken nose and a greying beard.

  ‘A woman – Mrs Lola Trotter – owes you fifteen hundred pounds. I’m here to clear her debt.’

  He turned his head to speak Lithuanian to a younger man with tattoos on his neck and then turned back to Rodney.

  ‘Yesterday she owed fifteen hundred. Today she owes two thousand.’

  He knew what Danku was doing, but he either paid up or left. If the Lithuanian said Lola Trotter owed two thousand pounds, then that’s what she owed, and what he had to pay. ‘Okay, will a cheque do?’

  The Lithuanians looked at each other and then erupted into laughter.

  ‘You trying to be funny, Mister?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your Inland Revenue like paper trail, but we have cash only. You got cash?’

  ‘I can go and get cash.’

  ‘Do you no good.’

  ‘Oh! Why?’

  ‘I want bungalow, not money. Money gives no interest, but English property prices double every month. This is good place to own bungalow.’

  ‘But it’s not your bungalow, it’s Mrs Trotter’s. You have no claim on her property. I’m prepared to pay you the full amount of her loan and that will be the end of it..’

  Just then, something small and black rattled across the floor.

  He heard men shouting from behind him.

  ‘ARMED POLICE!’

  ‘GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR.’

  ‘HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEADS.’

  But the Lithuanians didn’t look as though they were prepared to follow any of those instructions. Instead, they produced guns and began firing.

  In the explosion that followed, he lost his sight, his hearing, his coordination and his balance as he crumpled to the floor like an unwanted Aunt Sally.

  Chapter Four

  As they made their way along sinuous paths towards the Gatehouse at the west cemetery entrance on Swain Lane, Quigg told Dwyer about the body and what Doc Solberg and Perkins thought.

  ‘A vampire?’

  ‘That’s their considered opinion.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘It’s us against them, Dwyer.’

  ‘There is no “us”.’

  ‘I didn’t mean “us” in the biblical sense.’

  ‘Or any sense.’

  ‘We’re partners, aren’t we? That’s an “us”.’

  ‘A very temporary and tenuous “us”.’

  ‘There you go then. I was right all along.’

  She ignored him.

  Quigg noticed the press waiting to ambush him beyond the arched walkway as they entered the administrative offices on the right.

  ‘Hello,’ a woman in her mid-fifties said, looking up from a click-clacking old-fashioned typewriter. Her face was oblong with a pointed chin. She wore bright red lipstick over thin lips making her mouth look like a knife wound, a black dress over a lumpy body and a gold chain around her wrinkled neck. ‘How can I be of service?’

  Quigg showed
her his warrant card. ‘Detective Inspector Quigg and Detective Sergeant Dwyer from Hammersmith Police Station – We’re here about the corpse.’

  ‘Up by the Circle of Lebanon?’

  ‘That’s the one. Can we see the . . . Manager?’

  ‘Curator. Yes, my brother – Max Mulhern – manages both the east and west cemeteries on behalf of the Custodians of Highgate Cemetery.’

  ‘Is your brother about, Miss Mulhern?’

  ‘It’s Mrs Travers actually, but you can call me Libby. If you’ll take a seat, I’ll find out if he will see you presently.’

  Libby disappeared through an arched door.

  They sat down on a wooden pew, which had been screwed to the wall by the entrance and boasted a brass plaque identifying the person who had donated the bench: Dr AV Helsing, 1897.

  ‘What do you think, Dwyer?’

  ‘I don’t think the killer is a vampire.’

  ‘That’s something we can both agree on.’

  ‘Just because we agree on one thing doesn’t mean you can start getting any ideas.’

  ‘Ideas are the last thing on my mind.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  Libby Travers came back out. ‘Max will see you now,’ she said.

  They followed her through the arched doorway into another vaulted room, which looked just like any other administrative office. There was a dark mahogany desk; a brown leather high-backed chair on castors; beige filing cabinets; and hanging on the stone walls were detailed maps of the east and west cemeteries, and photographs depicting some of the famous visitors including the Mayor of London – Boris Johnson, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, King Frederik Kaarle I of Finland and a woodcut of Basarab IV of Wallachia.

  As Quigg shook Max Mulhern’s proffered hand he said, ‘You and Libby are twins, aren’t you?’

  Max’s lip curled upwards. ‘Most people don’t notice the similarity, but I suppose you’re more observant than most people, Inspector?’

  ‘I like to think so. This is Sergeant Dwyer.’

  Dwyer and Mulhern shook hands, and then the Curator directed them to sit in two hard-back chairs. He was a short stocky man with brown wiry hair and had on a light grey double-breasted suit.