The Flesh is Weak (P&R3)

by Tim Ellis

  Looking coquettish, she leaned forward, put her elbows on the counter, and rested her chin in the palms of her hands. ‘Hello, Inspector, you haven’t called me?’

  He remembered Kowalski telling him about his father, who used to meet an old school friend on the bus day-after-day on the way to work. They’d sit together and chat about their school days, people they knew, and so on, but what was odd was that Kowalski’s father couldn’t remember the man’s name, and not once, in all the time they travelled together and talked, did he have to use the man’s name.

  ‘Hello. Sorry, I’m still in a long-term relationship, but you’re first on my list should it come to an end.’ He hadn’t come up here to talk about his private life, there were far more important things going on than that. ‘Listen, I need to see one of the computer technicians.’

  She picked up the phone and pressed a button. ‘Inspector Parish wants to see you… Okay, I’ll send him down.’ She put the phone down and pointed right along the corridor. ‘Third door on the right.’ She smiled and flapped her eyelids like a silent movie star.

  ‘One other thing. Toadstone said he’d organise a satellite map…’

  She pulled a rolled-up map from under the counter and put it on top. ‘It’ll be waiting for you when you leave.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’ He felt slightly uncomfortable not being able to say her name, but she hadn’t seemed to notice that he’d forgotten, or if she did she had the good manners not to point it out. As he strolled along the spotless corridor, he thought that maybe he could ask the computer technician what her name was and say, ‘Thanks, Mabel,” – or whatever – when he collected the map.

  ‘Steve Potts,’ the computer technician said offering his hand. The man was in his late twenties, had long black crinkly hair parted in the middle and a strange beard that only sprouted hair along his jaw line and a triangle under his bottom lip.

  As he shook the man’s hand, Parish couldn’t remember whether he’d met Steve before. Surely he’d remember the distinctive beard, even if he remembered nothing else. Maybe he had some weird disease that affected his memory. He’d have to go to the doctors and get a check-up done. Angie wouldn’t want to marry a crumbling wreck who couldn’t remember his own name. Maybe it was hereditary! If that was the case, he was finding out about his parents just in time.

  He pulled out the slip of paper Richards had given him earlier with Masterson’s email address on it. ‘I need you to hack into this email address and copy any documents he sent to the Hoddesdon Mercury in the last week.’

  ‘You do know hacking into people’s email accounts is a crime?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Okay.’ Steve sat down at his computer and began hacking. He was inside Masterson’s email ‘Sent’ folder within two minutes. ‘Yes, there was an email sent to the Hoddesdon Mercury at seven minutes past ten last night. With no message and one attachment.’

  ‘I’m interested in the attachment.’

  ‘Downloading… Ah, encrypted. Might take a bit of time.’

  ‘Can you give me a ring if and when?’

  ‘Will do, Inspector.’

  He turned to leave, but then said, ‘Oh, by the way, what’s the receptionist’s name?’

  Steve swivelled on his chair and grinned. ‘Yeah, a lot of people ask that, but they don’t get very far with Molly, she’s choosy who she cavorts with.’

  He wasn’t going to correct Steve’s misinterpretation of his question. ‘Thanks.’

  At the reception, he collected the rolled-up map and said, ‘Thanks for you help, Molly.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Inspector, and call me.’

  He smiled enigmatically as he opened the door into the connecting corridor leading back to the station.

  Now for coffee, he thought. He noticed a clock hanging in the corridor and saw that it was four twenty-five. There was no chance he was going to get to his intray and emails.

  Kowalski was in the kitchen. The kettle had just boiled, and steam hung like a pea-soup fog.

  ‘I hope there’s enough water in there for me?’ he said.

  ‘Parish, as I live and breathe,’ Kowalski said pouring water from the kettle into a Harlequins RFC four-quartered mug. ‘Shame about those two.’

  ‘I expect you’re talking about Holmes and Watson?’

  ‘Is that their names? Yeah, funny.’

  ‘Hilarious. It’s only a shame if you were expecting to have extra-marital relationships with two colleagues.’

  ‘That would have been good – a threesome. I can’t remember the last time I had one of those.’ He finished making his drink and moved to one side as Parish eased in.

  ‘So, you’re determined to die on the job?’

  ‘Oh, most definitely,’ Kowalski said laughing.

  ***

  The three women stopped talking as he opened the door. ‘All right to come in?’

  ‘Yes Sir, we were only talking about shoes,’ Richards said.

  ‘How exciting. We’ve got an hour before I have to go and brief the Chief, so tell us what you found out today, Richards?’

  ‘I phoned Doc Michelin, and he said the toxicology findings from Amy Linton were inconclusive, but that Masterson had been drugged with Flunitrazepam, which is…’

  ‘…Rohypnol,’ Holmes finished.

  A flash of impatience crossed Richard’s face.

  ‘That means Masterson was aware of what the killer was doing to him,’ Watson said.

  ‘What, you mean he watched them cut off his head?’ Richards asked.

  Holmes nodded. ‘He would certainly have been aware that’s what they were doing.’

  Richards pulled a face. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  Parish pulled up his sleeve and tapped on the face of his watch.

  ‘He also said that a woman from the University of Sheffield had been brought in to reconstruct the faces of the other bodies using the new computer software, and she should have something on Friday for us as long as you pay for lunch.’

  ‘That’s blackmail, it’s his turn.’

  ‘I said that, and he laughed.’

  ‘Has he done the post mortem of Amy Linton yet?’

  ‘Yes.’ She referred to her notebook. ‘The main points are that all the bones were present, but entirely separate from each other. There was no evidence of hair, skin, nails, or internal organs in the grave. He was able to rule out broken or diseased bones as a cause of death, but he found marks on the sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae in the neck consistent with…’

  ‘…her head being cut off?’ Holmes said.

  Richards slapped her notebook down on the table. ‘Are you going to finish my sentences off all the time, Sergeant Holmes?’ she said and turned to Parish. ‘Tell her, Sir.’

  ‘You’ve already told her,’ but he still looked at Holmes and said, ‘Stop finishing Richard’s sentences off.’

  ‘She does it with me as well,’ Watson said.

  ‘It’s nothing personal, Richards,’ Holmes said. ‘I do it with everyone, it’s a habit I’ve picked up.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like it,’ Richards said pouting and picked up her notebook again.

  Before she could continue Parish said, ‘Did he compare the marks on Amy…’

  ‘If you’ll let me finish,’ she said glaring at him, ‘you might find that you don’t need to ask the questions I’ve already asked.’

  ‘Okay, carry on, Richards.’

  ‘He compared the marks from Amy Linton’s cervical vertebrae with those of Mastersons’, and found a number of similarities, but he couldn’t say conclusively that they were made either by the same instrument, or by the same person.’

  Parish grunted. ‘Did he have an opinion?’

  ‘He said you’d ask me that,’ Richards said and grinned. ‘He told me to tell you that there was an eighty percent chance the marks were made with the same instrument, which he’s sure was a surgical bone saw, but only a fifty percent chance that the deca
pitations were carried out by the same person.’

  ‘I think we can assume that the killer was the same person – or people – if they used a bone saw each time to decapitate the victims and also sawed between the same cervical vertebrae. Someone knew exactly what they were doing.’

  ‘You don’t think Amy Linton was conscious while they cut her head off, do you, Sir?' Richards asked.

  ’I don’t think anything, Richards. Remember, keep that box with your kryptonite in locked tight at all times.’

  ‘Serial killers usually have a signature,’ Holmes said. ‘Is it possible that hanging the victims upside down, cutting off their heads, and draining the blood is our killer’s signature?’

  ‘We know that’s how they killed Masterson,’ Watson said. ‘Do you think that’s how they’re killing the children?’

  ‘I think there’s more to it than a signature,’ Parish said. ‘Let’s leave the speculation until we have more information. ‘If that’s how they’re killing the children, it could just as easily be Satanism, black magic, voodoo, or something else entirely.’

  ‘I haven’t finished yet,’ Richards said.

  ‘Carry on,’ Parish said.

  ‘Doc Michelin said that the skeleton showed evidence of being boiled, and that because the bones were all separate in the grave someone must have recreated the skeleton when they buried it.’

  They were all quiet thinking about this new information.

  Watson spoke first. ‘Why would they boil a skeleton?’

  ‘They didn’t boil a skeleton, did they?’ Richards said. ‘They boiled a body, and pulled out a skeleton.’

  ‘What about everything else?’ Holmes asked. ‘The skin, all the organs, the muscles… What did they do with that?’

  Everyone went quiet again as they thought of the possible answers to this question.

  ‘Are we done, Richards?’ Parish interrupted their thoughts.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Parish stood up, went to the main incident board, picked up the board marker and waved it at Richards.

  Richards smiled. ‘You can be in charge today, Sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Richards, I think I will. Okay, now we can do some speculating. We have twenty bodies – four graves each with five bodies one on top of the other – in Galleyhill Wood…’ Sergeant Holmes opened her mouth to speak, but Parish stopped her with a wave of his hand. ‘What we don’t know yet is whether they were buried all at the same time, or singularly at intervals. Toadstone – that’s our head of forensics – thinks that the graves might form a pattern.’ He reached across the table for the satellite map, unrolled it and attached it to another board. Toadstone, or someone else in forensics, had marked the relative positions of the four gravesites on it.

  The four looked at the map. Gallyhill Wood resembled the outline of England, but with Scotland cut off at Carlisle. It was surrounded by fields and sandwiched between the B194 on the left and Claverhanbury Road on the right. At the southern tip stood Waltham Abbey, which was where King Harold was buried after the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

  ‘Anybody know what this is?’ Parish said looking at the three female faces and pointing to a site with road access on the left wedged between the wood and the B194. The small rectangular shape contained a collection of buildings and vehicles where – if Gallyhill Wood were a map of England – Wales would have been.

  They all pulled faces and shook their heads.

  ‘That’s another job for you two tomorrow, Holmes.’ He examined the map more closely. ‘It looks like a farm, although there’s a lot of vehicles for a farm, or…’

  ‘…Maybe a caravan or traveller site.’

  ‘Thank you, Holmes.’ He pointed the board marker at her. ‘The ends of my sentences are also off-limits.’

  She grinned for the first time. ‘Sorry, Sir.’

  ‘So, what pattern can Toadstone see, I wonder?’ Parish said as he stepped back to take in the whole map.

  Erica Watson jumped up and put her hand out for the board marker.

  Parish held it away from her. ‘Don’t mark the map, and don’t forget who this symbol of authority belongs to?’

  ‘I’ll give it you right back, Sir.’

  He passed the marker to her. She recreated the pattern of the four gravesites on an empty whiteboard, and then added a fifth mark above and to the left of the first grave and directly opposite the fourth one. She then drew lines between all five marks and passed the marker back to Parish.

  ‘It’s a pentagon,’ Richards said.

  ‘It also suggests there’s another grave in the woods,’ Sally Holmes said. She stood up and put her hand out for the marker pen.

  ‘Everybody wants my marker pen today,’ Parish said handing it to her.

  She drew a five-pointed star inside the pentagon.

  ‘I don’t like where this is leading,’ Parish said, and then his phone lit up on the table accompanied by the William Tell overture.

  ‘Hello, Toadstone. You’ve rang to tell me that you’ve found another grave with five bodies in directly opposite and five hundred metres away from the last grave you found?’

  ‘You’ve got the map then, Sir?’

  ‘Yes, and it wasn’t hard to find the pentagon, and then the pentagram.’

  ‘There aren’t five bodies in this grave though.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘There are only two.’

  Parish waited, but Toadstone didn’t continue. ‘This is one of those times when you can give me more information again, Toadstone?’

  ‘I wish I had more information to give you, Sir, but I haven’t. What it does suggest, however, is that the killer hasn’t finished because the second skeleton is far enough down to permit another three skeletons to be buried on top. It also suggests that the children are not being buried en masse, but one at a time.’

  ‘And abducted and murdered one at a time as well?’ Parish said.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘But nobody seems able to tell me when any of the children died. I need to know the interval between each murder, and when the last one died.’

  ‘Did Doc Michelin tell you about the skeletons being boiled clean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that’s why. Any clues we might have had as to time of death have been destroyed, and because no flesh was buried with the skeletons there are no entomological markers either.’

  ‘I suppose the top skeleton is the last one that was buried, is there nothing that could tell you when?’

  ‘None that I can see, but Dr Murcer is taking soil samples from inside the grave. He might be able to find something that will tell us the last time the ground was dug up.’

  ‘And he’ll be working all night on that will he?’ Parish said hopefully, but knew it wouldn’t be that simple keeping Murcer away from Richards.

  ‘Someone will be analysing the samples based on his instructions.’

  ‘Anything else, Toadstone?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘I’ll wait to hear from you then.’

  He disconnected the call. ‘You all heard?’

  The three women nodded.

  ‘That’s twenty-two bodies,’ Watson said, ‘and we have no idea when the last child was buried, or when the next one will be abducted and murdered.’

  ‘You and Richards should compare notes on the black art of stating the obvious,’ Parish said.

  ‘I was merely…’

  ‘…Summarising our position,’ Holmes finished for her.

  Richards smiled. ‘It’s clever how you do that.’

  Parish looked at his watch impatiently. It was twenty past five. ‘Right, I’ve got to go and brief the Chief now, so let’s agree what you two will do tomorrow while Richards and I are at CEOPS in London.’ He passed the marker to Watson and sat down. ‘One: check out the caravan/traveller site at the side of the wood. Two: interview the nine witnesses that were in the park when Amy Linton went missing…’

  Holmes said, ‘They were
obviously interviewed at the time…’

  ‘But that was when she was simply missing. Now, it’s a murder inquiry.’

  Holmes nodded.

  ‘What about Amy Linton’s relations, Richards?’

  ‘Well, I arranged the interviews for Thursday like you said…’

  ‘Things have changed now that Holmes and Watson are on board.’ To Holmes he said, ‘See Kristina Jackson – the Duty Sergeant – before you disappear tonight. Give her my apologies, but tell her you’ll have to move the interviews from Thursday to tomorrow. She’ll kick and scream and hate me, but she’ll do it. That should keep you two mice occupied while the cat’s away. Any questions?’

  They looked at each other, and then shook their heads.

  Parish stood up. ‘Come on, Richards.’ At the door he turned and said, ‘We’re glad you’re both here to help us, aren’t we, Richards?’

  She gave a half-smile and said, ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Chapter Ten

  After collecting the rifle, and securing it behind the back seat, he returned to Lower Nazeing, but instead of going home he parked on the High Street and went to the Library to do some research on one of half-dozen computers. Afterwards, he carried out essential shopping for low-calorie food and drink, and bought a black holdall large enough to accommodate the transit case from a run down camping shop in a back street.

  After eating a WeightWatcher’s lasagne cooked in the microwave and drinking a glass of water, he packed a change of clothes and drove to Loughton train station, bought a long-stay ticket in the car park, and left the car there. He then caught the five twenty-three train on the Central Line to Liverpool Street, changed to the Circle Line, and hopped on the next train to Temple where he disembarked. He didn’t have far to walk to the Swissotel, which overlooked Victoria Embankment and had breathtaking views of the Thames and the London Eye.

  The receptionist was polite and efficient when he asked for a south-facing room on the top floor for the night rather than one overlooking the Thames – he wasn’t here for the view.