by Tim Ellis
‘You’re sure access to the house was gained by key?’
‘More or less . . . We’ll know for definite when we meet tomorrow.’
‘All right.’
‘Also, how did he know your house would be empty for a prolonged period of time? And, how did he know about your CCTV system? If you could give those three questions some thought, it would be very helpful.’
‘I will.’
‘Thank you, and we’ll see you tomorrow at Roydon train station.’
The line went dead.
‘What are you doing?’ she said to Stick.
‘Eating and drinking. This was certainly a good place to have lunch. These pasties are the best.’
‘I’m glad you’re enjoying them – mine’s gone cold.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s probably because you’ve been doing a lot of talking.’
‘Are you trying to say something?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Well, you can make the other calls.’
‘Okay.’
He called Julie Hooley in administration. ‘Hi, Julie.’
‘Hello, Rowley. How are you?’
‘I’m good. How’s your mother?’
‘Oh, you know – one day up, one day down.’
‘What about Rabid the dog?’
‘Passed away, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, I am sorry . . .’
Xena interrupted. ‘As much as we’re fascinated by your boring life Hooley, Sergeant Gilbert wants you to find out something for us.’
‘Hello, Ma’am. What’s that?’
‘Body painters.’
Stick stood up and walked over to the pasty store again.
‘Hello! Are you still there, Ma’am?’
‘Yes, I’m still here. We went through a tunnel and I lost you for a moment. As I was saying, we need to talk to someone about body painting, and we’d like you to find out whether there’s anyone local who considers themselves an expert on the subject.’
‘Body painting?
‘People who pain bodies.’
‘Why?’
‘Never mind why. Do you think you can do that for us?’
‘I suppose it’ll stop me thinking about my boring life.’
‘And that’ll be a good thing. Put the details on my desk before you go home . . . ’
‘. . . To my boring life?’
‘Exactly.’ She ended the call.
Stick came back with another pasty.
‘Is that for me – to replace the cold one?’
‘No, for me.’
‘You’re a greedy pig. What about me?’
‘I would have bought you another one, but you don’t seem to have time to eat it.’
‘You’ve got a nerve. Ring Hefferbitch.’
‘Don’t you want to talk to her?’
‘Do I fuck. I’m going to sit here, eat my cold pasty and say nothing.’
‘Okay.’
He called Di Heffernan.
‘Hi, Rowley. Is . . .’
‘Yes, DI Blake is here. You’re on loudspeaker.’
‘What do you want?’
‘You do know that the body isn’t Mrs Tyndall?’
‘Doctor Paine called to tell me.’
‘A fucking apology wouldn’t go amiss,’ Xena shouted.
‘There seems to be a lot of static on your phone, Rowley,’ Di said.
Xena stopped eating. ‘Static! I’ll give you fucking static. You’re lucky to still be in a job after the cock-up you made. I went and told a man his wife had been murdered and then had to apologise for getting it wrong. If I had my way you’d be hung, drawn and quartered, you useless bitch.’
‘An unfortunate mistake . . .’
‘Unfortunate! I’ll tell you what’s unfortunate – that I have to work with you. You’d be more suited to working in a waste treatment facility, or cleaning toilets used by elephants . . .’
‘Jobs you’re overly familiar with.’
Stick picked up the phone, turned the loudspeaker off and moved away. ‘Hi Di! It’s just me now . . . Yes, she’s gone . . .’
‘I fucking haven’t,’ Xena shouted behind him.
Stick stretched his arm out to keep her at a distance. ‘The reason I called was to ask whether you’ve had any luck with the fingerprints found on the key yet? . . . Uh huh! Really. Oh well, it was worth a try. Also, can you find out who installed the CCTV system and when? . . . Thanks, Di. And I’m sorry about before . . .’
‘Don’t apologise for me . . .’ Xena shouted.
He ended the call. ‘I wish you wouldn’t.’
‘Wishing doesn’t make it so. Well, what did the bitch say?’
‘They found a match for the fingerprints on the key.’
‘That’s . . .’
‘. . . Not as helpful as you might think. They belong to the dead woman.’
Xena thought about it for a moment. ‘It’s a bit helpful.’
‘How so?’
‘We now know they used that key from the cigar box in the Welsh dresser.’
‘True.’
‘And that means the killer must have been in the house to obtain the key.’
Stick pursed his lips and nodded. ‘At the same time, he could also have found out that the Tyndalls were going away and leaving the house empty.’
Xena took a bite out of her pasty. ‘Not only that, we’ve been assuming that the killer obtained the key . . . What if it was the woman? What if the Tyndalls knew her? What if she was a willing participant up until the point that the killer took her life?’
Stick nodded his head slowly. ‘Mmmm! We need to show Mrs Tyndall a picture of the woman – maybe she’ll recognise her.’
‘Not as she is now though. Call Doc Paine and tell her that we’d like a photograph of the woman as she should be, before the body painting, and hair and eye modifications.’
‘Okay.’ He called Doc Paine.
‘And put it back on loudspeaker.’
He glanced at her.
‘I won’t say a word.’
‘Sergeant Gilbert! What can I do for you?’
‘Hi, Doc. Any news yet?’
‘About what?’
Xena leant over. ‘You said that because it would take you a ridiculous amount of time to actually get to the post-mortem, you were going to provide us with a running commentary.’
‘I didn’t actually say that, DI Blake. What I said was that if I discovered anything while I was conducting my examination I’d contact you.’
‘You haven’t contacted me.’
‘I haven’t found anything.’
‘A likely story. Have you removed the body paint yet?’
‘No.’
‘No? What have you been doing? You do realise I’m conducting a murder investigation, don’t you?’
The line went dead.
‘The bitch.’
Stick didn’t say anything.
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Have you got nothing to say?’
‘I think you’ve said everything that needs to be said.’
‘No, I haven’t. I’ve got lots more to say. Ring her back.’
‘She won’t answer.’
‘She’d better.’
Stick called Doc Paine back, but it diverted to voicemail. ‘Hi, Doc. It’s Sergeant Gilbert. DI Blake forgot to ask if you could provide us with a photograph of the woman as she normally looks? And have you had any luck with the eyeball serial number? Look forward to hearing from you.’
He ended the call.
‘You’re dying to say, “I told you so”, aren’t you?’
‘I never would.’
***
On the way back to the station Parish phoned Doc Riley.
‘I’m in the middle of . . .’
‘And I wouldn’t want to interrupt you, Doc.’
‘But?’
‘How did you know there would be a but?’
‘Call me Mystic
Meg.’
‘I bet you get called that all the time?’
‘People certainly like to think I have a crystal ball. What is it, Jed?’
‘The three-link chain has a barcode on the horizontal links.’
‘A barcode?’
‘Yes.’
‘I wasn’t expecting that.’
‘So you’ll look at it under a microscope? Feed it through a reader? Do whatever you do with barcodes?’
‘Of course.’
The line went dead.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said into the phone.
‘What?’ Richards said.
‘I think the barcode took her by surprise.’
‘It took us by surprise.’
‘Maybe you, but I had a nagging feeling it was a barcode.’
Richards laughed. ‘You didn’t have the slightest clue.’
‘You underestimate my powers of deduction, Richards.’
‘And you overestimate my gullibility.’
They reached the station and walked up the stairs.
‘Right, you make the coffees,’ Parish said. ‘I’ll go to the toilet and we’ll meet in incident room one in ten minutes.’
‘What if I want to go to the toilet?’
‘Make sure you wash your hands before you make my coffee.’
‘You can be disgusting sometimes.’
He wandered along the corridor in the direction of the toilets thinking about the case. Doc Riley was right about the tattoo – it was interesting in a morbid sort of way. Who engraved the tattoo on the inside of the boy’s top lip? How? When? And more specifically – why?
Tattooing a tiny tattoo that incorporated a barcode couldn’t have been an easy task either. It definitely wasn’t a five-minute job. Adam Weeks would certainly have been anaesthetised, specialised medical equipment would have been used, and it would have taken more than one person to tattoo the design on the inside of the top lip. The fact that his mother didn’t know also raised all sorts of bizarre questions. And it wasn’t a simple task of tattooing the design on the inside of the lip and then forgetting about it. A tattoo – in essence – was an open wound, and apart from it being sore would also have required at least a week to heal. And if Adam had been tattooed against his will why did he not tell his mother?
Questions! Questions! Questions!
It was always the same at the beginning of a case – the scales of justice were seriously lopsided with many more questions than answers.
On his way to the incident room he scooped up the four Missing Person Reports that had been left on his desk.
In the incident room he turned the chair at an angle, sat down with his feet on the table and took a swallow of coffee from his BOSS mug.
‘Okay, what’s our next move, Richards?’
‘Well, up to now we’ve contacted CEOPs and they know nothing about a three-link chain symbol relating to paedophiles . . .’
‘Aren’t we in danger of confounding two clues that might not be linked?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know what?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘The tattoo might have nothing to do with Adam’s abduction, sexual assault and murder. We’re making the assumption that they’re linked, and they might not be.’
‘It’s a reasonable assumption.’
‘It is, but it might also confuse the issue. Yes, we need to find out everything we can about that tattoo, but for the moment I think we need to focus on the abduction, sexual assault and murder of Adam Weeks. Let’s forget about the tattoo until Doc Riley has examined it properly and provided us with more information.’
‘You’re the boss.’
He pointed an index finger at the writing on his mug and smiled. ‘Yes, I am. So, forgetting all about the tattoo, what’s our next move?’
‘We need to talk to the Duty Sergeant and find out if uniform have established alibis for all the paedophiles yet.’
‘Okay – write that on the board.’
‘We’ve spoken to the mother – Janice Weeks – and discovered that she was abducted as a fourteen year-old from the Paradise Club in Cheshunt. She was then gang raped over a week, which resulted in her becoming pregnant with Adam. So, we need to obtain the original file relating to the investigation and see if there’s any connection between the two events.’
‘You can do that after we’ve finished here. Cheshunt detectives would have dealt with it, so the file will probably be held there.’
‘All right. What will you be doing?’
‘I’ll go up and see if Toadstone has found anything for us.’
‘That’s a nice easy job.’
‘How do you work that out? You’ll be sitting at a desk making one phone call and using your feminine charms to wheedle the file out of some crusty old Sergeant; whereas I’ll have to walk up the stairs, ask Toadstone whether he’s found any evidence but knowing in my heart of hearts that he hasn’t, and then I’ll have to cope with the overwhelming feelings of disappointment as I walk down the stairs again. I’d say you had the easiest job by a country mile.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘What else?’
‘We discovered from Kat Wagner at the Ink Criminal Tattoo Studio that the three-link tattoo could be something to do with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, or a symbol for a slave.’
‘And the barcode?’
‘And the barcode, but we’re waiting until Doc Riley has examined the tattoo properly.’
‘Correct, but we’re not going to talk about the tattoo, are we?’
‘No. And Missing Persons have provided us with reports of similar missing children.’
He slid two of the reports across the table. ‘Take a look.’
Richards sat down and began reading.
He examined the two reports he had left in front of him. Neither were relevant. One twelve year-old boy had run away from a care home and taken his belongings with him, the other boy was a glue-sniffer and often went missing.
‘Anything?’ he said to Richards.
‘This one,’ she said, passing one of the two reports back to him. ‘Billy Hunter. He’s fascinated by carnivals and the circus.’
He read it. ‘Mmmm! It’s possible. And there’s a carnival in town?’
‘I’m sure I’ve seen posters advertising it. In fact, I think there’s one on the notice board downstairs.’
‘We’ll take a look at it on our way out.’
‘The report states that he didn’t take anything with him, and he didn’t leave a note to say where he was going either.’
‘He could simply have run away to join the circus.’
‘Uniform have checked. Nobody at the circus has seen him.’
Parish nodded. ‘Okay, we can go and speak to his parents after we’ve been back to Janice Weeks’ house.’
‘And picked up the old file from Cheshunt Police Station.’
‘And that.’
‘Have we finished in here?’
‘I think so. We haven’t got much in the way of evidence, leads or clues, but it’s only the first day after all.’
‘And we’re not allowed to speak about the tattoo.’
‘Before you call the people at Cheshunt, go down and ask the Duty Sergeant about the paedophiles.’
‘Are you punishing me?’
‘For what?’
‘Mentioning the tattoo that we’re not allowed to speak about.’
‘You think I’m that petty?’
‘Yes.’
Chapter Seven
He helped himself to a tube map from outside the ticket office at Woodford station and worked out that he needed to travel to Tottenham Court Road on the Central Line and then change to the Northern Line, which took him directly to Highgate.
‘How long to Highgate,’ he asked the woman behind the bullet-proof ticket counter.
‘About an hour. Change at Bank.’
‘What’s wrong with Tottenham Court
Road?’
‘It’ll take you longer. Not by much – maybe ten minutes.’
‘Thanks.’
‘That’ll be twenty pounds.’
He smiled. ‘I’d have gone to the Apollo Theatre if I’d wanted to see a comedian.’
‘I’m cheaper.’
‘Not by much.’ He walked down the steps and through the underground tunnel onto the opposite platform. The next train wasn’t due for another seven minutes, so he went into the small cafe, ordered a coffee and stood by the window to drink it. He could see across the tracks, through the door on the opposite platform, into the ticket office and watch as each person entered. The last thing he needed was to lead those two men to Bronwyn’s squat in Highgate. Not only that, if he was mugged by them now they’d get everything – the locker key, the journal and the Glock-19. He could have driven back to the office and locked everything in the safe, but that would have wasted time and provided the two men with an opportunity to track him again.
‘A penny for them.’
He turned to find a thin attractive woman with short dark hair and a nice smile standing next to him nursing her own black coffee. ‘I know how much you ladies like a bargain. Well, I can tell you now that paying so much for fresh air wouldn’t be considered value for money.’
She laughed. ‘Off to London?’
‘You should be a detective.’
‘Maybe I am.’
The train arrived.
At this time of day there weren’t many people travelling – maybe seven were standing at different points along the platform. About thirty people left the train. He waited until the very last second and then boarded as the doors were closing.
He sat down.
The woman ambled up the aisle. ‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Feel free.’
‘My name’s Sarah,’ she said as she sat down opposite him.
‘Ray.’ He shook her hand. ‘Are you really a detective?’
‘No, but I’m sure it would be a lot more interesting than what I really do.’
‘Which is?’
‘I’m a trainee accountant. I’m having a career change.’
‘From what?’
‘Working in a flower shop.’
‘That’s a bit of a leap.’
‘Gillian Anderson said: “Just remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes action, perseverance, and facing your fears.” I’m doing all of that. I’ve set my mind on becoming an accountant, and that’s what I’m going to do.’