Lamb to the Slaughter (9781301399864)

by Ellis, Tim

  ‘I’ve only just acquired my equity card and already I’ve stolen the part of Hercule Poirot from David Suchet and been handed a ten-year contract to recruit police officers. You might want to grab the opportunity of being my agent now while I’m still a relative unknown.’

  Richards’ eyes opened wide. ‘I could get you in the Big Brother house, on I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here . . .’

  ‘I don’t think I could eat those bugs.’

  ‘Are you a man or a mouse? This is your career we’re talking about.’

  He nodded. ‘True.’

  ‘There are hundreds of programmes you could go on – Celebrity Pointless, Celebrity Mr & Mrs, Celebrity Cube, Celebrity Coach Trip, Celebrity Mastermind, Celebrity Chef . . .’

  ‘But I’m not a celebrity.’

  ‘Neither are the other people who appear on the shows.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘Trust me – I watch a lot of television.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Because I haven’t got a man.’

  ‘Ah! That’s what it’s all about?’

  She stared out of the side window. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Oh, I think you do.’

  ‘Marcus hasn’t phoned me.’

  ‘Mucus is not the one for you.’

  ‘He could be.’

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you this, but Maddie said he was seeing another woman.’

  ‘She’s a lying cow, and you’re making it all up.’

  ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘I hate men.’

  ‘You hate the wrong men.’

  ‘I hate you.’

  ‘That’s because you know I’m always right.’

  ‘Maybe I should settle for Paul.’

  ‘Paul has Maddie now.’

  ‘But he really wants me.’

  ‘But you don’t want him.’

  ‘Maybe I do now.’

  ‘No you don’t. You’re just jealous because he has Maddie and you have no one.’

  ‘That’s not a nice thing to say about your adopted daughter.’

  ‘I know.’

  They were silent for a while.

  ‘So, let’s get back to the case,’ he said. ‘Where is the special room located?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Four. How did Sally get out of the room to be able to use the phone?’

  ‘He must have left the door open.’

  ‘Does he live alone?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Five. Yes you do.’

  ‘Well, I suppose he must if . . . He hasn’t got a cellar. The special room must be on the ground floor.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Sally got out of the room and found the telephone. If the room had been in the cellar, she wouldn’t have been able to do that.’

  ‘Okay, so what do we already know?’

  ‘The removal man is hiring himself out for money . . .’

  ‘Is he a paedophile?’

  ‘I think he must be. If he wasn’t, the people who hire him probably wouldn’t trust him.’

  ‘If he is a paedophile, he might be someone who is already known to us?’

  ‘Needle in a haystack,’ Richards said. ‘There are so many of them.’

  ‘True. Let’s say he is hiring himself out for money. Who are the people hiring him?’

  ‘Paedophiles.’

  ‘Yes, but Sally Bowker’s death has given us a clue.’

  ‘It has?’

  ‘She was taken in Wells-Next-The-Sea in Norfolk.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did she end up in Hangman’s Wood?’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  If the removal man is taking children to order, then how are the paedophiles ordering the children?’

  Richards screwed up her face. ‘Still not there.’

  ‘One of these days your face is going to stay like that.’

  ‘Then I’ll never get a man.’

  He ignored her. ‘Tell me what happens when you go shopping.’

  ‘Am I with my mum?’

  ‘You can take your mum with you if you want, but I’m not there – I’m at home watching the football.’

  ‘Men are all the same.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We walk into the shop. Sometimes the assistant pounces on us, but we try to avoid them – we simply want to wander round and look at the items, feel the quality, try the clothes against us in the mirrors, maybe compare prices, imagine how it feels against our skin, make sure it isn’t too difficult for a man to take off . . .’

  ‘I hope your mother isn’t doing that.’

  ‘You’d have to ask her.’

  ‘All right, do you think the removal man has a shop full of children?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘How can the paedophiles choose the ones they want then?’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘Do I hear cogs and wheels clunking inside your head?’

  ‘I think maybe you do.’

  ‘What clue has Sally Bowker’s death given us then?’

  ‘The paedophiles aren’t local to where the children live.’

  ‘Exactly. There’s no physical shop that the paedophiles can stroll into to look and inspect the goods on sale, they don’t walk along the road to the park or the local school and see the child they want, so . . .’

  ‘Online.’

  ‘We’ll need to check . . .’

  ‘All the victims are in a shop.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Of course, they don’t know they’re in a shop. They don’t know that they’re the goods on sale, and they also don’t know that paedophiles are wandering around the shop looking at the goods on sale.’

  ‘I knew you’d get there if we persevered.’

  ‘I bet all seven children were members of the same online site.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right, Richards.’

  ‘I’m right.’

  ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

  ‘Nothing springs to mind.’

  ‘You forgot to say how brilliant I am.’

  ‘That thought never even crossed my mind.’

  ‘You’re the young Anakin Skywalker – my apprentice, and I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi – your mentor and father model – initiating you into the secrets of the Jedi knights and guiding you along the path of light.’

  ‘You live in a fantasy world.’

  He came off the M25 at Stifford, joined the A13 and followed the signs along the A1012 and Lodge Lane to Hangman’s Wood.

  When he swung onto the dirt track leading to the crime scene they were met with a wall of reporters, television crews and thrill-seekers.

  ‘How do they get here before us, Obi-Wan?’

  He smiled. ‘I don’t think you need to call me that in public. What about “Master”?’

  ‘As if.’

  He was about to get out of the car when his phone vibrated.

  ‘Parish.’

  ‘Hi! Yes. It’s Günter Kappel.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I translated your German report.’

  ‘Oh yes. Just a minute.’

  He put his hand over the receiver and said to Richards, ‘Go and introduce yourself to DI Gold. Ask her to meet me here. We’ll do a joint press briefing and . . .’

  ‘Who’s on the phone?’

  ‘Need to know.’

  ‘I need to know.’

  ‘What you need to know is that if you don’t do as I’ve told you there’ll be repercussions.’

  ‘Are they like echoes?’

  ‘Don’t say one word to the press, and if any of those photographers ask you to take your clothes off . . .’

  ‘You’re just the strangest person.’

  ‘You’ll be telling me next that none of them have offered to provide you with a full photographic portfolio.’

  ‘Well yes, but . . .’
<
br />   ‘You’re so naive, Richards.’

  ‘I’d be less naive if you told me why you don’t want me to listen to your phone conversation.’

  ‘Close the door on your way out.’

  He waited until he could see her hobbling towards the crime scene tape.

  ‘Okay, Mr Kappel, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve had a thought.’

  ‘Is that a new experience?’

  ‘Ha, ha! Yeah, I’ll have to remember that one. No . . . about your documents. I had the feeling that you expected them to say something else.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Well, look – I don’t want you thinking you didn’t get your money’s worth.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking that at all.’

  ‘Still . . . Anyway, I had this thought.’

  ‘So you’ve said.’

  ‘Those documents were classified as Top Secret and that doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah. Why would the Germans classify the contents of six boxes as Top Secret?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying – they wouldn’t. Especially considering what the contents were.’

  ‘Well, thanks for sharing . . .’

  ‘No . . . there’s more.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It could say something else.’

  ‘I thought you’d translated it.’

  ‘Yes, but the original German text could have been in code.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘Have you heard of the German Enigma machine?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m going out on a limb here, but you could ask GCHQ to decrypt the original document for you.’

  ‘If the government – and I use that term loosely – knew that you’d even touched the document, you’d probably wake up dead. My advice to you, is to bury all your memories relating to that document so far down in your subconscious mind that not even Sigmund Freud could recover it.’

  ‘I’m happy to do that, but hear me out first. You might want to know that I know some people, who know some people, who might know a person on the M4 Project.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘It’s a project to break original unbroken enciphered four rotor Enigma M4 messages that were published in the journal Cryptologia using distributed computing.’

  ‘You’re not listening . . .’

  ‘Yes, I am, Mr Parish. These people work under the radar . . .’

  ‘That’s hardly true if they’re publishing . . .’

  ‘No, you misunderstand – they don’t publish anything. Someone else published the encrypted messages, they just decrypted them.’

  ‘I’ll give it some thought.’

  ‘I kept an electronic copy of the documents, so . . .’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘I keep a copy of everything I translate. Don’t worry – they’re safe.’

  ‘Have you been listening to me, Mr Kappel?’

  ‘I’ve been listening, but I’m willing to take the risk – are you?’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch.’

  ‘Unbroken Enigma documents are so rare. Being able to work on them is – in itself – its own reward.’

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘You don’t need to know that.’

  ‘How many of them are there?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘If I agree to what you’re suggesting, then no one else is to have access to, or knowledge of, those documents.’

  ‘That goes without saying.’

  He grunted. ‘I thought that you not keeping copies of my documents would go without saying, but I was clearly wrong.’

  ‘I apologise, I should have made that clear.’

  ‘Yes, you should. And while we’re on the subject – there’ll be no communication or publication of any encrypted or decrypted information to anyone else without my specific authorisation.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I hope you do, Mr Kappel, because I don’t want to be responsible for anyone dying – least of all me.’

  ‘I’ll be in contact.’

  The call ended.

  Could the German report be in code? It would certainly explain why it had been classified as Top Secret. He should have thought of that. Maybe – in a dark recess of his mind – he had, but finding out that the pages were merely content lists from six boxes shipped from Rouen in France to Berlin in Germany in November of 1944 had given him an excuse not to pursue it any further.

  The decision was his. Richards was out of the loop. There was no pressure. When Kappel came back to him, he’d decide what to do for the best.

  And then, of course, there were the Epsilon files ticking away like a bomb in the box under his desk. Was he ever going to be free of his past? He was beginning to feel like Odysseus trying to reach Ithaca after the Trojan War, but being denied safe passage by the vengeful gods.

  Chapter Four

  Number 12 Winston Churchill Way in Steeple Bumpstead was a detached thatched cottage. It had three chimney stacks in the centre of the thatched roof, an entranceway with a small matching thatched roof and roses growing up trellises on either side of the door. There were four symmetrical windows left and right. Ivy surrounded the bottom right window and was moving up the whitewashed wall towards the window above it.

  Koll opened the wrought-iron gate and it creaked like something out of a gothic horror film. The garden was well tended. Seasonal flowers bordered the flagstone path, there was evidence of bushes and shrubs having been recently trimmed and the grass had been given its first cut of the year.

  Stick followed Koll down the path.

  The door opened before either of them could knock.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said a small middle-aged woman with rheumy eyes, a dour face and dirty blond hair cut in a bob. Anyone who cared to look could see that once she had been plainly pretty, but time had begun to re-model her face – a wrinkle here and a tug there. Now, she was on the downwards slope of life and gathering speed.

  ‘Shirley Bridges?’ Stick asked showing his warrant card.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘DS Gilbert and DC Koll. Could we talk to you about Mathew Pitt?’

  Her face showed no reaction. She turned and headed back into the cottage.

  Koll and Stick looked at each other and then followed.

  The inside of the cottage was as Stick had imagined it – cosy, flowery and full of old oak beams and patchwork embroidery.

  ‘Lovely house,’ he said, as he ducked through the living room doorway.

  ‘Thank you. Would you care for tea and scones?’

  He liked scones and hoped they came with jam and clotted cream. ‘Yes please,’ he said licking his lips. They hadn’t had lunch yet, but he’d seen a pub – The Fox & Hounds – as they drove through the village where he’d planned to go afterwards.

  Koll nodded.

  They made themselves comfortable on the flower-patterned seats and waited.

  Eventually, Shirley Bridges returned with a tray boasting a teapot and cosy, flower-patterned cups and saucers, and matching milk jug and sugar bowl. This was followed by another tray overflowing with freshly-baked scones, a jug of Cornish clotted cream and a bowl of homemade strawberry jam.

  They tucked in like starving urchins at the local tea room.

  Stick dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. ‘We’re sorry to bother you, but . . .’

  ‘You want to know what I know about Mathew Pitt?’

  He produced the photograph that had been in Pitt’s wallet, thrust it towards her and nodded. ‘Yes. We found this picture in his wallet – you were pretty.’

  The corner of her mouth creased upwards. ‘You mean I’m not pretty now?’

  Stick’s face reddened. ‘No . . . I er . . .’

  ‘It’s all right, Sergeant. I’ve never considered myself prett
y.’

  ‘What I meant to say was that you were prettier then than you are now.’

  ‘I would stop digging if I were you. Let’s just say I might have passed for pretty then from a certain angle, but now it really doesn’t matter where you stand. You said you found the picture in Mathew’s wallet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What were you doing searching through his wallet?’

  ‘You’ve not heard?’

  ‘I’ve not heard from Mathew since 1983.’

  ‘Ah! Can I ask how you know Mathew Pitt?’

  ‘He’s my brother . . . unfortunately.’

  ‘I see. Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your brother is dead. As far as we were aware he had no next-of-kin.’

  ‘Yes, that was Mathew – always very secretive. He wouldn’t have named me as his next-of-kin anyway. How did he die?’

  Stick hesitated, but she didn’t seem to be too bothered by her brother’s death. ‘He was murdered.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘So, you’ve just come here to inform me of his death?’

  ‘No. We know very little about Mathew. It would help us with our enquiries if you could fill in the gaps.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell really. Mathew was two years older than me. Our childhood was spent in a two-up two-down on the outskirts of Peterborough. We both left home as soon as we could. Mathew went travelling. I moved to London, joined the in-crowd and got pregnant.’

  ‘You say you hadn’t seen Mathew since 1983 – why was that?’

  ‘We had a falling out.’

  ‘Can you tell us why?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose it matters now. I was living in a one-bedroom flat with my daughter Pebbles . . .’ She pulled a face when Stick raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t ask. Paul Bridges and I married shortly after I became pregnant, but he didn’t even stay around for the birth of our daughter. Officially, we’re still married, but I haven’t seen him since the day he left and I have no wish to either.’

  ‘You say Mathew went travelling?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what people did in the 1970s – Australia, New Zealand, America, South-East Asia – he was gone for ten years. I hardly recognised him when he came back with long hair, a droopy moustache and bad habits.’

  ‘And he came back in 1983?’

  ‘He must have gone home first. Our father had already died, and mum didn’t stay around for too long afterwards, but she must have given him my address. Anyway, he tracked me down . . . I was working as a legal secretary by that time, and Pebbles was eight years old . . .’ She stopped talking and looked at them. ‘That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? He’s done it again, hasn’t he?’