The Flesh is Weak (P&R3)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘Why didn’t I see that, Sir?’

  Parish took the photograph back from Tyrell and returned it to the envelope. ‘Because you weren’t looking. Think of those illusions where you have to force your brain to look at another perspective…’

  ‘The duck and the rabbit, and the old and young woman, and…’

  ‘Exactly. You have to force your brain to look at things from a different perspective. The woman in the photograph stands out because she’s made herself blend in by looking ordinary. Women don’t dress to look ordinary.’

  ‘You’re a brilliant teacher, Sir.’

  ‘And don’t you forget it, Richards.’ Parish stood up. It was quarter past three. ‘Thanks very much for your time, Sergeant,’ he said offering his hand. ‘And for the photograph.’

  Standing as well, Tyrell shook his hand. ‘I’ll show you out.’

  ‘And for lunch,’ Richards said shaking Tyrell’s hand.

  ‘You’re welcome. I’m sorry we couldn’t give you the name of your killer, but I hope you find him soon.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  They made their way back to Pimlico tube station, and Parish stood well away from the edge of the platform until the train had stopped.

  Richards kept looking round to see if they were being followed by a dark-haired woman, and also examined the crowds on the platform and inside the carriage. ‘Because you’re still alive she’ll try again won’t she, Sir?’

  ‘That would be my guess, but she’s unlikely to try pushing me under a train again, especially as you’re watching out for her like an owl looking for a mole.’

  She attempted to grin, but then her face contorted into a grimace. ‘Ow. Did you kill Murcer last night?’

  ‘I thought Kowalski had, but he didn’t. Murcer phoned in sick this morning, and Toadstone is making sure he’s transferred to somewhere desolate and a long way from Hoddesdon.’

  ‘Thanks, Sir.’

  ‘It’s no good thanking me if you’re going to keep making the same mistakes time after time.’

  ‘I won’t. In fact, I don’t even like men anymore.’

  ‘You could move in with Holmes and Watson.’

  She put her hand up to her face. ‘Stop making me laugh. I don’t like men, but I also don’t like women. I’m in-between at the moment.’

  ‘In-between is a good place to be, Richards.’

  ‘What’s in the envelope, Sir?’

  He lifted the briefcase onto his knee, opened it, and pulled out the envelope, but with his thumb partially covering the Somerset House crest and waved it in front of her. ‘If I’m not mistaken, Richards, this envelope has my name on the front. It does not say anywhere, please share the information contained herein with Police Constable Mary Richards.’ He put the envelope back into the briefcase and locked it.

  ‘You’re so mean, Sir.’

  He’d forgotten about the letter from the Registrar at Somerset House. What was he going to do? He checked his watch. It was five past five, and the train was nearing Chigwell station – too late now to phone them. The words on the page echoed in his mind: Unfortunately, we hold no birth, marriage, or death records for either a George or Enid Parish. If they had no birth records it could mean his parents were born in another country, but which country? Was he the son of immigrants? Maybe they were already married when they moved to this country and that was why there was no marriage certificate, but they had definitely died here – hadn’t they? All he knew was what he’d been told by the people at Beech Tree Orphanage, and later by social workers and foster carers. What if his parents hadn’t died, what if they were still alive somewhere? Jesus, he couldn’t wrap his brain around the thoughts galloping through his head.

  The train pulled into Chigwell station.

  ‘Are you staying here, Sir?’

  He’d forgotten where he was for a moment. ‘Do you want me to stay here?’

  ‘Do you want me to want you to stay here?’

  He pushed her towards the door and they stepped onto the platform.

  ‘Is there anyone following us?’

  ‘Not that I can see, Sir.’

  ‘What about the car?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Either a bomb underneath, or the brake pipe could have been cut.’

  ‘I’ll check when we reach the car park.’

  ‘Do you know what you’re looking for?’

  ‘Not really, Sir.’

  ‘I didn’t think so. I was joking anyway, Richards.’

  ‘Oh.’

  But he was only half-joking. Who was trying to kill him? A female assassin, what the hell was that all about?

  ***

  After eating and drinking, John Linton walked through the house looking for anything he might wish to take with him – there was only one thing – a photograph of the three of them together. John and Maggie stood with arms around each other and Amy squeezed in the middle. They were smiling, and it oozed ‘happy family’. The picture was from another time and another world. In the here and now that family didn’t exist, Amy Linton had been erased, only the back of Maggie Linton’s head could be seen walking away, and John Linton’s image resembled a shapeless ghost caught in-between.

  He knew he would never return to 16 Barnard Acres as he pulled the front door shut and put the key through the letterbox. They would be coming for him soon, but he would be long gone.

  Next, he drove to Lower Nazeing and emptied his bank account. The female manager looked at him as if he was taking her money, but he ignored her. After putting the money in his holdall, he drove to Hoddesdon and parked up outside the police station.

  Now, he would wait. There was no way he could find Amy’s killer. The only way was to follow the two coppers who had come to his house. They had obviously been assigned to the case, and sooner or later they would lead him to the person who had killed Amy and all those other children.

  He used to believe in the law and the justice system, but there were some crimes where the only right and proper punishment was death. Excluding death from the list of punishments available was wrong. How could it be right that a man who kills a child languishes in a prison at the expense of the victim’s relatives? No, it wasn’t right. Well, capital punishment was back on the list, and John Linton was the Lord High Executioner.

  ***

  Alex Knight knew exactly where DI Jed Parish lived and worked from the file Sir Charles had given her, so there was no need to follow him. She sat in her one-bedroom rented flat in the cheap part of Vauxhall with the television on mute thinking about the security footage from Pimlico train station. She’d gone back there, shown a fake warrant card, asked questions, and found out that the security DVD had been taken by Parish’s partner – she should have thought of that. If everything had gone to plan, and Parish had died in the tragic accident she’d planned for him, she wouldn’t need to worry that he probably knew by now a woman had pushed him under that train.

  Although she’d removed the hat and the black wig, and changed her clothes, she didn’t want to risk being identified. He probably hadn’t done it yet, but she was sure that Parish would get a close-up of her face. The people in forensics would use their photo editing software to remove the hat and give her brown or blonde hair, add some skin colour, and give her blue or brown eyes. By the time they’d finished with her image it would look as though she’d sat and posed for the bloody photograph.

  Crap! Maybe Sir Charles was right, maybe she was useless. Maybe she should go back to being a cashier in Morrison’s while she still could. If she didn’t kill Parish this time she wouldn’t get another chance. She gave a wry smile. Morrison’s would lose out on a fantastic check-out girl.

  How in hell had Parish survived the train crash? She’d watched the mobile phone video of him being helped out from under the train on the news. He hadn’t even been injured for God’s sake. Anybody would think he was Superman. Well, now it was either him or her, the shadow would make sure of that. Using the sofa, she
pushed herself up from the cushion she was sat on, went to the window, and peered through a small crack in the curtains. There was still enough light to look up and down the whole length of the street below, but she couldn’t see anyone shadowing her.

  One time, early in her secret service career, she had asked, “Why?” That had been a mistake, and she had never asked the question again. As a consequence she had no idea why Parish had to die, or what it was about his parents that had prompted such a decision to be taken. All she did know was that Sir Charles had given her an order, and if she wanted to stay in the job and stay alive she needed to obey that order.

  She made herself a coffee – a heaped teaspoon of dark roasted and four of sugar – then poured in the milk. As always, she overfilled it, and as she walked back to the cushion spots of coffee spattered on the threadbare carpet. The TV cameras want to come in here, she thought. The idea that secret agents all lived the high life drinking martinis that were shaken not stirred, and jetting off to Shanghai or Bermuda to kill a few bad guys and play baccarat was laughable.

  Yes, she carried a gun, a small second-hand Walther P-22 pistol with no serial number and a sticking trigger that had cost her £350 from a man in a pub. The department had given her £300 towards it, but she’d had to find the rest of the money herself. And that was it. There were no special gadgets, no Aston Martin DB7 with an ejector seat and machine guns, and no men with six-packs warming her bed and filling up her Jacuzzi with goat’s milk. She had a clapped-out Ford Ka with a slow puncture in the front offside tyre, and the last time she’d been with a man was in basic training five years ago, which was a one-night stand with a drunk who couldn’t get it up.

  How had she ended up here when all she’d really wanted to be was a fashionista? Her life had taken a wrong turn somewhere, but it seemed that it was too late to do anything about it. Maybe, if she could make this right and kill Parish so that it looked totally like an accident, maybe Sir Charles would let her walk away. He didn’t want her anyway, thought she was useless, and no one would ever believe she’d been a secret agent even if she took out a full page spread in the News of the World. Although, as many of her colleagues had pointed out, because she didn’t look like a spook she had less chance of being noticed, and it was probably true.

  Sir Charles had given her until Monday. Tomorrow, she’d drive to Hoddesdon in Essex and kill Detective Inspector Jed Parish before the deadline. She didn’t yet know how, but she had four days to think of something that would look like an accident.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Angie opened the front door and ran to the car before Parish had even switched off the engine.

  ‘Hello dar…’ he began as he opened the door, but Angie cut him off.

  ‘Don’t you “Hello darling” me. You’re trying to frighten me to death, aren’t you?’

  ‘What…?’

  ‘I saw you being pulled from under that train… No one could survive that.’ She started to pat his arms and legs, and put her hand inside his shirt. Digby danced around his feet barking.

  Parish burst out laughing. ‘Will you stop tickling me.’

  ‘I have to live here, you know,’ Richards said across the roof of the car. ‘All the neighbours are stood at their windows watching you two have sex on the driveway.’

  Parish pulled Angie’s hand out of his shirt, swivelled her round, and propelled her back into the house. Digby followed them barking for all he was worth.

  Inside, Parish took down Digby’s lead from the hook in the kitchen and put his harness on. ‘Come on,’ he said to Angie, ‘walk Digby with me?’

  ‘I’ve got the dinner to finish.’

  ‘Richards can finish that.’

  ‘I have…’

  ‘…to finish the dinner while your mother and I talk.’

  ‘Okay, you go with him, mum.’

  ‘The broccoli needs…’

  Parish encircled her wrist and pulled her towards the front door. ‘Come on, she knows what to do.’ He shouted over his shoulder, ‘If you could burn the broccoli there might be a promotion in it for you.’

  Angie slapped him on the arm. ‘If you burn that broccoli, Mary Richards you’ll be eating it for the next week.’

  ‘I won’t burn it, mum.’

  It took him forty-five minutes to calm Angie down. He explained what had happened, told her about the DVD, and that he’d get forensics to work on the image.

  ‘She won’t try it again. I’m sure it was meant to look like an accident, so I’ll be on my guard from now on. Once I get forensics onto the DVD I’ll have a clearer picture of what she looks like. We’ll find her, and then we’ll also find out who she’s working for and what it’s all about.’

  ‘It’s not about the dead children then?’

  His brow creased. ‘I don’t know. In a way, I hope it is.’

  A look of concern clouded Angie’s face. ‘What do you mean?’

  He stopped walking at a bus stop and parked himself on the bench. Angie sat next to him, and Digby lay down with his tongue lolling out panting.

  ‘If it’s not someone connected to the murderer of those children then that would concern me, because I don’t know who else it could be.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘First, I’m going to eat that broccoli, I’m starving.’

  They walked back to the house arm-in-arm. He also told her about contacting Somerset House and what the letter had said.

  ‘Maybe you’re an alien?’ she joked.

  ‘If that’s true, then you’re having an alien baby.’

  ‘You know you can’t keep bringing it home, Jed?’ Angie said as they stepped inside the house. ‘Now that we’re having a baby you have to make sure we’re safe?’

  He held her in his arms. ‘I know.’

  ‘Look who’s here?’ Richards called from the kitchen.

  Richards had changed into her Snoopy pyjamas and cerise-coloured dressing gown. Digby ran into the kitchen, barked and jumped up at the Chief who was sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee.

  ‘Something wrong, Chief?’

  ‘You missed briefing.’

  ‘Surely you…’

  ‘I saw what happened on the news. I thought I’d come round to see Superman in the flesh.’

  ‘He’s staying for dinner, Sir,’ Richards said.

  ‘You’re welcome, Chief, less broccoli for me. As for my miraculous escape, it was nothing.’

  ‘I’ve already had a call from the Chief Constable asking what happened and if you’re all right.’

  Parish looked at Richards.

  ‘I told him about the woman, and the DVD, Sir.’

  ‘I’ll serve the dinner up,’ Angie said. ‘Nice to see you, Walter.’

  ‘And you, Angie.’ He turned back to Parish. ‘Well, what’s going on, Parish?’

  ‘I wish I knew, Chief.’

  They went into the living room and he told Walter Day what he had told Angie.

  ‘And you don’t think it’s related to the case?’

  ‘No, it’s something else, but I have no idea what.’

  ‘Well, whether it is or not, we know how they killed Masterson.’ He pulled out his mobile and arranged for a patrol car with two uniforms to be parked outside the house during the night. ‘I’ll review the situation on Monday, but in the meantime you’ll have protection.’

  ‘Thanks, Chief, but I’m more concerned about Angie. We don’t know the lengths these people will go to get to me, so I was wondering if you could spare a plainclothes officer as protection for her during the day?’

  He nodded. ‘Until Monday.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  They went into dinner and the conversation quickly moved onto Angie’s pregnancy, baby names, and a gamut of other baby-related topics.

  ‘You’ll have to move out of your room, Richards,’ Parish said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’ll need the larger room for the baby. What with all the nappies, baby
clothes and everything else, also it’s next to our bedroom so that we can hear the baby crying in the night instead of you snoring and grunting. You can have the smaller room at the back.’

  She looked at her mother. ‘Is that right, mum?’

  But Angie couldn’t keep a straight face.

  ‘You’re so mean, Sir.’ She turned to the Chief. ‘He teases me like this all the time, you know.’

  By the time the Chief had left it was ten-thirty. Richards had already gone up to bed.

  Parish stood at the bedroom window in the dark looking at the police car parked across the road. Angie came up beside him. He put his arm around her waist, and she leaned into him.

  ‘From tomorrow, there’ll be a plainclothes officer looking after you during the day.’

  ‘Do you really think that’s necessary?’

  ‘I certainly hope not, but I’ll be a lot happier knowing that he’s here with you.’

  ***

  Thursday 12th May

  ‘Thanks for the meal last night, Parish,’ the Chief said.

  Holmes, Watson and Richards were in the incident room setting up for the briefing. He had to be at the Raglan Hotel by ten o’clock for the press briefing, and Richards had her counselling session at eleven-thirty at the hospital. He’d just made himself a coffee and was on his way to join the other three when the Chief burst out of his office with Kowalski and intercepted him in the corridor.

  Parish thought the Chief looked pale. ‘It was no problem, Chief. Angie enjoys cooking. She had the two uniforms in for a fry-up this morning. I’m sure the neighbours thought there was a dawn drugs raid going on at our house.’

  ‘I didn’t get an invite?’

  ‘No invitations were sent out, Kowalski. The Chief invited himself.’

  ‘I’m available tonight?’

  ‘We’re not running a guesthouse for starving coppers, you know. Stay at home and eat your own food.’