The Flesh is Weak (P&R3)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘Seeing as it was Masterson, I thought it might be related to the Amy Linton case, and I wondered if you wanted to take it?’

  It hadn’t occurred to him that Masterson’s murder might be linked to the Amy Linton case, but he wasn’t going to tell Kowalski that. Was there a connection? Masterson had obviously been investigating something that had got him killed, otherwise why would the killer ransack his home? Did he know something about the murdered children? Was that why he was so pushy yesterday morning in Galleyhill Wood? Why decapitate him and take his body, what was that about?’ If the two cases were related, maybe this was the break he needed. A wry smile cracked his face. Not even a day into the case, and he was already clutching at straws. Why the hell would Masterson’s murder be linked to the Linton case?

  ‘Which cases have you and Gorman got?’

  ‘That old tramp in the park, the couple outside the Chinese restaurant, and the three boys by the railway lines.’

  He and Richards only had the Linton case, but the body count was higher than all three of Kowalski and Gorman’s cases put together. If Masterson’s murder was related and he didn’t take it, vital clues could be missed. He and Kowalski would be wasting resources and scratching their heads pursuing the same killer, but travelling in different directions. If the two cases weren’t related, then he and Richards would be reducing the time they could work on the Linton case.

  ‘You haven’t fallen asleep, have you?’

  ‘Okay, hold the fort while I kick Richards out of bed…’

  ‘I’d like to come round and do that.’

  ‘I bet you would. Is Doc Michelin there?’

  ‘Just arrived.’

  ‘And forensics?’

  ‘Like flies on shit.’

  ‘We’ll be there in… oh, you’d better give me the address?’

  ‘He lives in a flat above the barber’s shop on Burford Street. The entrance is round the back of the row of shops. Ideal for backing up a van to dispose of a headless corpse without being seen.’

  ‘Are the press there?’

  ‘Didn’t see any when I came in, but they could be holding a convention out there by now.’

  ‘I’ll see you in about forty-five minutes.’

  He ended the call, but didn’t move. He thought he might as well have a wash and shave, brush his teeth, and spike his hair while he was in the bathroom.

  Afterwards, he crept back into the bedroom, leaving the bathroom door open a sliver so that he could see to get dressed by the finger of light.

  ‘Another murder?’ Angie asked from under the crumpled quilt.

  ‘That reporter I was telling you about?’

  ‘It wasn’t you was it?’

  He leaned over and kissed her. ‘Kowalski asked the same question. You’re my alibi.’

  ‘You’re in trouble then, because I was asleep and don’t remember you being here.’

  Putting his head under the quilt he kissed her belly, the belly that was creating his child, a baby Parish. ‘You wouldn’t rat out the father of your child, would you?’

  ‘I’m open to bribery.’

  ‘Tonight, you’ll get all the bribery you can handle.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to that.’

  Digby had jumped in the vacated side of the bed and snuggled into his warm beneath the quilt.

  Switching the bedroom light off, he went out onto the landing.

  He didn’t bother knocking on Richards’ bedroom door because she never heard his knock anyway. When he opened the door and stepped inside the bedside light was on, and Richards was sat up in the bed clutching the quilt under her chin with shaking white hands. The snoring clip was perched on the bridge of her nose, and her red tearful eyes were staring into an imaginary world beyond the wall.

  Sitting on the bed, he enveloped her in his arms and said softly, ‘Wake up, Richards.’

  She struggled against him, but he held her tight until the nightmare had fizzled out.

  ‘Oh God, Sir,’ she said wiping her eyes and pulling off the nose clip. ‘He was coming after me with a knife.’

  ‘I know, and that’s why you need to get back into counselling.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ She wriggled free of his arms and stared at him. ‘Anyway, why are you in my bedroom?’

  ‘Masterson’s been murdered.’

  ‘That can’t be a coincidence can it, Sir?’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’

  ‘We’re not on duty, are we?’

  ‘Kowalski phoned me, I said we’d take the case.’

  ‘I need my beauty sleep.’

  ‘With the nightmares, you’re not getting a lot of that these days.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m ugly?’

  ‘I’m sure you will be if you don’t get those nightmares sorted out. Right, enough chatter about sleeping. Kowalski would love to see you turn up in your pyjamas, but I think you should disappoint him and get dressed. I’ll be downstairs making the coffee.’

  ‘Okay, Sir.’

  Before he reached the door she said, ‘Sir?’

  He turned. ‘Yes, Richards.’

  ‘When you marry my mum and the baby has arrived, will you be my dad as well?’

  He looked at her to see if she was joking, but he saw something verging on desperation in her eyes that he had never seen before. ‘Of course I will. Any man would be proud to have you as a daughter. If you want, I’ll legally adopt you?’

  ‘I’d like that, Sir,’ she said softly.

  ***

  It was three-fifty by the time Parish pulled up behind Flat 3a above George the Barber’s at 211 Burford Street. The press had beaten him to it, but he was thankful they’d been corralled into an area demarcated by yellow tape and a uniformed copper, which allowed him to walk unhindered to the metal stairs up to the flat.

  As he passed the press, with Richards following like a sleepwalker, he ignored all the questions being shouted at him. As far as he was concerned they were still in the doghouse, but it occurred to him that with Masterson dead he didn’t have to eat his words anymore. By default, dead people didn’t have jobs. Not that he would have wished decapitation on anyone, but it could be argued that he had a motive. In a strange way, he would benefit from Masterson’s death.

  They put on the paper suits, plastic gloves and boots, and stepped into the hallway. It was a basic one-bedroom flat. To the left was the living room. There was a bedroom on the opposite side of the hallway, and the toilet/bathroom was at the end facing the front door. Kowalski stood in the living room talking with Doc Michelin.

  ‘Ah, here’s the number one suspect,’ Kowalski said. ‘You know, I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to let a person investigate the murder he’s suspected of committing. Isn’t that what Naylor did, and look what happened to him?’

  ‘Yes, very funny, Kowalski.’

  It was an oblong room with a kitchen-diner at the far end. To his left, in the far corner by the window, stood a notice board on a tripod. Apart from a lot of coloured map pins, the board was empty. There were also coloured pins on the burgundy carpet. An old grey filing cabinet sat to the right of the board with the bottom drawer open and empty. Behind the door stood a computer table with wires, a monitor, a mouse and mouse mat, a printer, and two small speakers, but no base unit containing the hard drive.

  ‘What do you see, Richards?’ he said.

  Richards looked around nervously at Kowalski and Doc Michelin.

  ‘Pretend we’re not here, Richards,’ Kowalski said from behind his mask.

  ‘They knew to take the hard drive and anything that could store data.’

  Parish turned to Kowalski. ‘You’ve checked his briefcase, pockets for a memory… Of course, without a body there won’t be any pockets?’

  ‘As you correctly deduce, Watson – no pockets. Also, no briefcase, and no memory sticks.’

  ‘What about his car, Sherlock?’

  ‘Forensics have yet to get to it, but from my cursory examination it a
ppears that the murderer ransacked that as well.’

  ‘Carry on, Richards,’ Parish said.

  ‘The notice board and filing cabinet tells us that either they were looking for something specific, but it was easier to take everything, or they took everything because it was all relevant.’

  ‘She’s getting good, Parish,’ Kowalski said. ‘Pretty soon you’ll be redundant.’

  ‘Take no notice of Kowalski’s flattery, Richards. You know he’s only after one thing.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘What about the room?’

  Richards looked around and moved further into the living room. There was an old brown leather three-piece suite, which had seen much better days. One chair faced the kitchen/diner, the two-seater sofa and the other chair were against the left-hand wall opposite a small television, DVD player, and stereo unit. In the centre, on a decrepit oblong coffee table was Masterson’s head with its wiry ginger hair, the livid spots around the left side of his mouth, and the green staring eyes.

  Whatever Masterson had done he didn’t deserve this, Parish thought.

  ‘I think that there was more than one killer,’ Richards said. ‘They must have subdued Masterson with something first, because there’s no evidence of a struggle.’ She looked up at the low ceiling and poked her index finger into a half-inch hole. ‘They hung him upside down from a hook screwed in here, laid plastic sheeting down on the floor underneath,’ she indicated the ten-foot gap between the second leather chair and the breakfast bar separating the kitchen from the living room. ‘They sawed off the head and drained all the blood from the body into a container. After putting the head on the coffee table, they must have taken the body down, wrapped it up in the plastic sheeting, and carried it outside to a vehicle. They were thorough, and they took their time.’

  Kowalski gazed into the half-inch hole and poked the end of his finger into it. ‘Good one, Richards, I didn’t spot this.’

  ‘Thanks, Sir.’

  Doc Michelin shuffled up next to Kowalski to stare up at the hole and said, ‘That explains a lot.’

  ‘Hi Doc,’ Parish said. ‘What can you tell us about the head?’

  ‘Good morning to you both,’ he said. ‘Well, Constable Richards is quite correct. A saw was used to separate the head from the body. Not any old wood or metal saw used for do-it-yourself purposes, but it looks like a proper bone saw was used. This suggests that the killer, and I’ll use the singular term for ease, came prepared because I doubt whether Masterson kept a bone saw lying around in here. He also came with a screw-in hook and plastic sheeting, which clearly suggests premeditation. I see no evidence of trauma to the head, but the pupils are dilated, which indicates Masterson was drugged before being decapitated.’ He bent down and pointed to a tiny speck of blood on the side of Masterson’s neck below the left ear. ‘That might very well be the site of a needle entry point. Now, if there’s nothing else, I’d like to get the head back to the mortuary, and try and get a few hours sleep before I need to begin the post mortem of Amy Linton?’

  ‘Who would do such a thing, Doc? Hanging a body upside down, chopping off the head, and draining all the blood sounds like something a vampire would do.’

  ‘An interesting idea, Parish, which is not outside the realms of possibility.’

  ‘You’re not going to say there are people out there who drink human blood are you, Doc?’ Richards said.

  ‘Yes there are, Constable. Most of these people have serious psychological problems. They dress in black, pay for body modifications such as getting their teeth capped, and so on. They believe that if they feed off human blood they will live forever just like the so-called vampire.’

  ‘I’ll have to read up on them,’ Richards said.

  ‘Right, I’ve got nothing else, Doc,’ Parish said. ‘What about you, Richards?’

  ‘Have you checked in his ears and mouth?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well…’

  Parish grunted. ‘Silence of the Lambs, Doc.’

  ‘Of course, the deaths-head moth – Acherontia styx – found behind the soft palate in the victim’s mouths.’

  ‘Did you know that the moth used on the poster was actually another deaths-head moth called Acherontia atropos, which is native to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, not Asia as Acherontia styx is?’

  ‘Hello Toadstone,’ Parish said to the masked man in the paper suit who had appeared beside them.

  ‘And the pupa found in the mouth of Bill’s sixth victim was also an Acherontia atropos instead of the Acherontia styx..’

  ‘I knew you’d crawl out of the woodwork if we started talking about films, Toadstone. Those are very interesting facts, but you know what – nobody cares.’

  ‘I care, Sir. If it’s worth doing something, then it’s worth doing right. There were a number of other errors in the film, do you want me to…’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, Toadstone. Well Doc, did you find any bugs in Mr Masterson’s mouth or ears?’

  ‘To be honest, I haven’t looked.’ Squatting, he peered into Masterson’s ears using a penlight torch, and then prised open the mouth. ‘Well, I never.’

  ‘What have you found, Doc?’ Richards asked bending over to get a closer look.

  ‘Oh no, nothing. I was merely surprised at his teeth. It looks as though they’ve never seen a toothbrush.’

  ‘Good one, Doc,’ Kowalski said.

  ‘That’ll teach you, Richards,’ Parish said. ‘Do you know that Silence of the Lambs is her favourite movie.’

  ‘I watch other films as well,’ Richards said defensively.

  ‘In her DVD collection are Hannibal, Red Dragon, Psycho, Se7en, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, all the Friday 13th films… Need I go on?’

  ‘No wonder you’re having nightmares, Constable,’ Doc Michelin said.

  ‘Are you still having nightmares, Mary?’ Toadstone asked.

  ‘I think I’ll go and wait outside,’ Richards said. ‘Then you can talk about me as much as you want.’

  ‘We’re done here anyway aren’t we, Doc?’ Parish said.

  ‘Time of death was between eleven and one o’clock. See how the face has taken on a slight grimace? This means that rigor mortis has only just begun and Masterson has been dead slightly over two hours.’

  ‘Who found him?’

  ‘Anonymous phone call,’ Kowalski said.

  ‘House to house?’

  ‘The flats either side are empty. I’ve had people out knocking on doors, but it’s the middle of the night.’

  ‘What about you, Toadstone?’

  ‘You know I can’t give you anything until we’ve analysed what we’ve collected.’

  ‘In other words, you’ve got nothing for us as usual? Anyway, I thought you were at Gallyhill Wood?’

  ‘I’ve left the three teams there working and sleeping in four hour shifts, but I’ve run out of people, so I thought I’d come here myself with two volunteers. Only the best for you, Sir.’

  ‘I appreciate your diligence, Toadstone. What would impress me even more though, is some evidence – a fingerprint, some hairs, chewing gum that matched someone on our database, anything to make my job a bit easier.’

  ‘I’ll do the very best I can, Sir.’

  ‘Why doesn’t that fill me with confidence, Toadstone?’

  ‘Stop being mean to Paul, Sir,’ Richards said. ‘He does the best he can.’

  ‘What’s it like having your own cheerleader, Toadstone?’

  His eyes creased up. ‘Very good, Sir.’

  ‘Right, come on Richards, let’s go home and get some breakfast.’

  Kowalski followed them out.

  As they stood peeling off the paper suits, boots, masks and gloves to put in the bin on the walkway outside the door of the flat Parish said, ‘Where’s Ed?’

  ‘We take turns in responding,’ Kowalski replied. ‘Tonight was my turn, so he gets to lie in.’

  ‘Why don’t…’

  Parish inte
rrupted. ‘You tell me why we don’t take turns, Richards?’

  ‘I suppose because I’m still in training.’

  ‘Still in training! How long have you been a trainee detective?’ Parish didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘Five months, that’s how long. Do you think that a person who’s been doing the job for five months should be allowed to take charge of a murder investigation? And not only that, you can’t even hear me knock on your bedroom door, so how will you hear your mobile go off? Also, what do you think your mother would say if…’

  ‘I only asked, Sir.’

  ‘Well, now you know.’

  As they passed the press area Parish stopped. The group fell quiet. ‘You know there’s a press briefing at two o’clock this afternoon?’

  They did.

  ‘Good.’ He moved towards his car.

  ‘Come on, Inspector. Tell us what’s happened to Masterson?’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Was it suicide or murder?’

  Parish held up his hands and they stopped shouting questions at him. ‘Unfortunately, I need time to prepare a proper press briefing to ensure there is no possibility of me being misunderstood or misinterpreted. You’ll have to wait until this afternoon to find out what happened, but don’t let that stop you from reporting anything that comes to mind.’

  Some of the press stood aghast with open mouths, while others were vociferous in their outrage at Parish’s slur.

  He knew he was being childish, but he didn’t care. He felt as though he’d got his own back, now things could return to normal.

  In the car Richards said, ‘Aren’t you worried they’ll turn against you, Sir?’

  ‘So, what if they do?’

  ‘They have a lot of power.’

  ‘So do I,’ but he knew that wasn’t true. What if they did turn against him? If they wanted to, they could ruin his career, print whatever they wanted about him. They might find out about his abuse in Beech Tree Orphanage, splash it all over the papers and the television. He’d become a figure of ridicule, of pity… He switched the engine off, got out of the car, and walked back to the press area.

  Richards followed.

  Again, the press went quiet as he stood in front of them.

  ‘Mr Oliver Masterson was murdered between eleven p.m. and one a.m. this morning. As yet, we have no leads and no suspects, but our investigation is ongoing.’ He wasn’t going to tell them that Masterson’s head was the only part of him that the killer had left. Some things the public didn’t need to know. ‘I can also confirm that the skeleton found in Gallyhill Wood is that of Amy Linton, and a further fourteen children’s skeletons have also been found…’