by Tim Ellis
‘The Chief told me what happened, Parish. Glad to see you living and breathing.’
‘Thanks, Ray.’
He finally reached the incident room at eight forty-five, and was conscious of how time seemed to be slipping away again. Putting his coffee on the table as he sat down he said, ‘Right, let’s get to it.’
Holmes took the lead. ‘Armed with the CrimInt printouts that Mary had done, we went to see the witnesses from the park. None of them remembered anything new, or wished to change their statements. Then we interviewed Amy Linton’s relatives, and although there are some wife-beaters, con men, tax-evasion specialists, and thieves in amongst them we didn’t find any paedophiles or child killers.’
‘And…’
‘…what about the site next to Galleyhill Wood?’ Holmes finished his sentence.
Richards looked at him and grinned.
Parish knew it was no use taking Holmes to task. ‘Yes?’
‘We discovered it was a Traveller site before we went out there, so we asked for the Traveller Liaison Officer from Potter’s Bar to accompany us. There are over a hundred families on the site, and we spoke to their leader – who is called Gunari Petersen. The welcome was extremely frosty. He said no Traveller would ever kill a child, and get the fuck off their site.’
‘How long have they been there?’ Richards asked.
‘Three years, but the Council are trying to move them on.’
‘What do you think, could our killer be there?’ Parish said.
‘Without any evidence I don’t think its worth upsetting them. They’re a very close-knit community, and trying to interview any of the men would cause resentment. They’re not going anywhere for the moment, so I suggest we leave well alone.’
‘I don’t think it’s a Traveller, Sir.’
‘And what makes you the expert all of a sudden, Richards?’
‘We know Amy Linton was killed eight years ago…’
‘…And the Travellers weren’t even here then,’ Holmes finished for her and then said, ‘Sorry, Richards.’
‘Good point,’ Parish said. ‘Okay, we’ll leave the Travellers alone for now. So, we’ve eliminated all our potential suspects, what now?’
‘We need more information on the bodies, Sir,’ Watson said.
‘And that won’t be forthcoming until tomorrow afternoon. Once I’ve done the press briefing, Richards and I are going to the hospital, and while Richards is in getting her brain re-wired I’ll pop down to the Mortuary and see what Doc Michelin can give us on account.’
‘Now everyone knows I’m going to counselling,’ Richards pouted.
‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ Watson said. ‘We’ve both been.’
Richards leaned forward. ‘Have you? Why?’
‘Well, I…’
‘Excuse me,’ Parish said. ‘This is not a group therapy session. While Richards and I are away, you two are going to do some more research. The CEOPS database narrowed down our search parameters to Satanists and Wiccans, I want you to investigate what we’ve got locally. Maybe the killings are about human sacrifice or something along those lines. Also, I went to see the computer technician in forensics before who’s meant to be one of the best there is, and he told me that all he could get from Masterson’s email was one word. Apparently as soon as he began decrypting the email it self-destructed.’
‘What…’ Richards began.
‘…one word?’ Holmes finished for her.
‘Sirrrr?’
‘Stop being a baby, Richards. The word was a name: Cain.’ He spelled it out for them.
‘As in Cain and Abel from the Bible?’ Watson asked.
‘Well, that’s what you’re going to find out, Watson.’
‘What about me, Sir?’
‘You can come with me to the press briefing, if you want?’
‘I knew you were going to say that. You know I won’t when I look like this.’ The bruising had hints of yellow around the edges, her bottom lip had swollen some more and looked as though she’d had body modification by the insertion of a lip plug, and her left eye was partially closed. ‘You’re so mean, Sir.’
‘Oh well, you can’t say I never offered. You can go and get a pool car, and then go up to forensics and see if Toadstone has anything new, he was in the woods when I went up before.’ He passed the Pimlico station security DVD to her. ‘Give him this and tell him to get one of his magicians to produce a realistic picture of the woman without the hat and black wig. Also, find out if he’s recruited a new entomologist yet, and if he has whether there’s any news.’
‘What about…’
‘He’s not there anymore.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure. Your admirer Paul had him reassigned to somewhere far away.’
‘Good.’
‘Men are pigs,’ Watson said.
Parish raised an eyebrow. ‘Thanks for that, Watson.’
‘Present company excluded, of course, Sir,’ she followed up with a smile.
‘I’m sure there are some nice men out there,’ Richards said. ‘I just haven’t found one of them yet.’
‘You’re like the Green Knight searching for the Holy Grail,’ Holmes said.
Parish stood up. ‘We’re detectives searching for a killer of children, Holmes, not knights on a quest. Right, let’s get to it. We’ll meet back here at four-thirty to catch up before I have to brief the Chief.’
***
Alex filled up her Ka at the garage on Rochester Row because it had a tyre pump that worked. This morning, she looked like a normal young woman on her way to a nine-to-five job. The rusty seven year-old car informed those who were interested that it wasn’t a well-paid job. The fact that she wore faded jeans, flat canvas shoes, and an orange linen top with ties at the neck and pleats under the breasts that made it flare out told them that it was also not a high-profile job in a blue-chip company. Alex Knight was merely an average woman in her late twenties who had a boring job to pay the rent and get her financially through each month just like the majority of people. The dirty blonde hair scooped back into a ponytail, and the slim figure that had no ‘love-handles’ beneath the buttocks as she walked to pay at the kiosk would have attracted young men if they’d bothered to look. If they had taken more interest in this woman and spotted the potential for parties and sex, they might also have noticed that this morning she was distracted.
On the passenger seat lay Jed Parish’s file. She had read it a number of times, but the one thing she wanted to know wasn’t there. Why did Sir Charles Lathbury, and the powers-that-be at MI6 want him dead? What was so terrible about his parents that they would rather kill Jed Parish than have him find out the truth?
‘Twenty-seven pounds thirty-two,’ the teenager at the till said.
Killing those bloody oil Sheikhs, that’s a mission she would happily have taken on. The price of petrol was an affront to hard-working people. She put a Snickers bar on the counter, something to take her mind off what she was being asked to do, and add a few pounds to her unloved body. She wondered if a man had fantasies and urges the same as a woman.
‘One day’s Congestion Charge as well,’ she said. Everybody wanted to steal her hard-earned money.
She pulled out onto Rochester Row and turned left onto the A202 because her SatNav told her to. It was a fairly straightforward journey on the A13 and A12 through Lambeth, Newington, Bethnall Green, Stratford, Leytonstone, and Woodford Green. Sixteen-point-two miles as the pelican flies, and according to Robbie on the SatNav it would take her fifty minutes. As if, she thought, more like two hours and fifty minutes by the time she’d navigated her rustbucket through roadworks demarcated by cones, traffic jams, accidents, speed cameras, and a thousand other delaying tactics imposed by Her Majesty’s Government. Sometimes, she knew, it was quicker to walk.
Once she got to Chigwell, she’d park up outside Parish’s house. She certainly wasn’t going to follow him all round Essex looking for an opportunity to
kill him. What she’d decided on in the end was a sticking accelerator and fractured brake pipes. Every morning Parish drove to Hoddesdon, and he might hop onto the M25, but early morning traffic would probably persuade him otherwise. In which case, he would definitely drive along the A10, and she’d be right along with him. As soon as he hit sixty or seventy miles per hour – depending on traffic – she’d use the remote control to activate the tiny explosive devices she would plant tonight to fracture the brake pipes and force the accelerator down to the floor.
Although murder might be suspected, it would be impossible to prove. The mangled wreckage would provide no clues, and she would be long gone. She might even walk round the shops in Hoddesdon seeing as she’d be travelling in that direction anyway. Yes, a tragic accident, exactly what Sir Charles had asked for – she’d be in his good books again and could broach the subject of her leaving the service.
***
Jenny Weber paced around his desk.
‘Oh good, I thought you weren’t coming.’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Well… you might have forgotten.’
‘You think sleeping under a train has affected my memory?’
She smiled. ‘Are you ready?’
They walked along the High Street together to the Raglan Hotel. The room was full again, and even before he could make an opening statement questions were aimed at him regarding his miraculous escape. When he distributed a grainy black and white photograph of a female that the police would like to question in connection with the incident, it didn’t take the brightest among them to put two-and-two together and realise that what they assumed was an accident was in reality attempted murder.
‘If someone is trying to kill you, Inspector, you must be getting close to finding out who murdered all those children. What aren’t you telling us?’
There was a lot he wasn’t telling them. ‘You’re making the assumption that the attempted murder was connected to the case I’m working on, but I’m not sure that it was. Everything I know about the dead children – you also know. Tomorrow, I’m hoping we’ll obtain facial reconstructions, which should enable us to identify some of the children at least. You will, of course, receive photographs of all of them, because we’ll probably need the public’s help in identifying the remaining children.
‘When you say your attempted murder might not be connected to the children in Galleyhill Wood, what exactly do you mean? Who else do you think is trying to kill you?’
‘If I knew, you’d know. Once we apprehend the young lady in the photograph then we might be able to obtain further information.’
‘Do you have any suspects for the children’s murders, Inspector?’
No suspects at all galloped through his head. ‘There is a large pool of suspects, and we are still collating information. Eliminating people from our enquiries, which as I’ve mentioned before takes an inordinate amount of time and manpower.’
‘What about Masterson’s murder, what’s going on with that?’
‘We’re still awaiting forensic evidence, but we think he knew something about the dead children in Galleyhill Wood we just don’t know what he knew, unfortunately.’
‘What’s happened to Constable Richards?’
‘Nothing has happened to her, she’s busy following up leads.’
‘She was seen arriving at the station this morning with bruising on her face?’
‘Oh that! An accident in her karate class – she dropped her defensive arm when she should have kept it raised. Nothing is broken, but she’s a bit swollen and sore.’
‘So there’s no truth in the rumour that she was the victim of an attempted rape?’
How in hell did they find that out? Is nothing private? ‘No truth whatsoever. Now, what I suggest, is that we hold another briefing at ten o’clock on Saturday morning, by which time I’ll have the facial reconstructions and the results of a number of other leads we’re following up. Thank you ladies and gentlemen – have a nice day.’
***
At about ten-thirty John Linten had decided that sleeping in his car was not the best course of action, so he found a seedy hotel and booked a room for the night. The ability to concentrate needed a clear head, and sleeping in the car would only give him backache. He’d spent years in the Army sleeping at all hours, in all positions, and in all situations, but now he was too old and fat to be crashing down anywhere. He needed a nice comfortable bed.
He had woken at five o’clock, taken a shower, and found a café that served him a poached egg on a slice of brown toast with a pot of tea. Then he took up position again outside Hoddesdon Police Station.
There was no mention of him on the seven o’clock news. In fact, the murder of Aaron Carter seemed to be yesterday’s news, and the story had been demoted to the fifth item on the list. The female newsreader had revealed that: “Detectives were still hunting the killer of Aaron Carter who was gunned down outside the Old Bailey"” ‘Gunned down!’ The use of emotive language – they made it sound like the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
They weren’t hunting him very hard, he thought. But then, they hadn’t found the person who had taken Amy from him either. Maybe the police were just useless. What if Parish never found Amy’s killer, what then? He had to face the fact that Amy’s murder, and the murder of all those other children, might never be solved. What would he do then? What would he do if he couldn’t find justice for Amy? He cast the thought from his mind because he had no answer.
He had seen both coppers arrive at eight o’clock, and when Parish left the station on foot with a different woman around ten o’clock he had followed them to the Raglan Hotel and stood at the back of the room listening to the briefing.
So, someone was trying to kill Parish? Maybe it was the killer of his little Amy. If that were the case, they’d try again. Yes, his strategy to follow the two detectives was sound. Now, all he had to do was wait for the killer to try again.
He had waited eight years, a couple more days was not going to kill him. He grunted at the thought. If he could find Amy’s murderer, then a couple more days was going to kill him, because he’d be joining Amy.
Chapter Fifteen
‘I’ll never be able to go out in public again, Sir,’ Richards said when he told her what had been said at the press briefing.
They were in the pool car driving along the A12 towards King George Hospital in Goodmayes.
‘You’re out in public now, Richards.’
‘After today, I’ll only be able to go out with a paper bag on my head, or stay in my room like a recluse. I could be like that man in the film who runs investigations from his bed.’
‘Oh, you mean Jeffrey Deaver’s character Lincoln Rhyme the quadriplegic who can only move one finger?’
‘Yes, that’s him.’
‘I didn’t know you were a forensic specialist?’
‘Well, I’m not.’
‘So, you have a wealth of experience in running investigations?’
‘You’re being mean.’
‘I’m being realistic. You’ve got a long way to go before you’re even qualified as a detective, and you can’t do that with a paper bag on your head, or from the comfort of your bed.’
‘Where would I be without you, Sir?’
‘You’d probably be leading a normal life, and my life would still be empty.’
‘Ah thank you, Sir. What are we doing after my counselling session?’
‘I’ll wait for you in the cafeteria, we’ll have lunch seeing as we’re in the vicinity. What did Toadstone say?’
‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten I’d been up to forensics.’
‘Well?’
‘I gave him the DVD and he said he couldn’t promise anything…’
‘He never does. What about clues… has he found any?’
‘They’re still analysing…’
‘And the entomologist?’
‘Sometimes you can be so impatient.’
‘Toadstone nev
er finds anything useful…’
‘That’s not true, Sir. In the last case he found the footprint, and the condom with the DNA sample, and…’
‘Whose side are you on, Richards?’
‘I’m on the side of justice.’
‘You watch too many films.’
‘What else have I got to do when I don’t have a man to keep me occupied?’
‘I want you to tell your counsellor how you have an unhealthy obsession with the Crime Channel, men, and appearing on television.’
She pulled into the car park and took a ticket at the electronic barrier.
‘You’re so mean.’
‘New entomologist?’
‘Is a woman and she should have something by tomorrow morning.’
‘You could have just said that.’
‘I did.’
Inside the main entrance area Parish said, ‘Half past twelve in the cafeteria, and don’t be late, Richards?’
‘I’ll see you there, Sir. Have a lovely time in the Mortuary.’
She caught the lift up to the second floor, and he turned left.
Doc Michelin had skeletons on every stainless steel table in the room, and he wasn’t the only pathologist in the Mortuary. There were another five people working on the skeletons.
‘Got yourself some help, Doc?’
‘I thought we were meeting tomorrow?’
‘We are, but I had to bring Richards for her counselling session, so I thought I’d pop down and say hello.’
‘Very community-spirited of you.’
‘And to see if you might just have a little something, a sliver, a tiny particle of a clue that would give my investigation some direction. I’m like a blindfolded man in a maze pointed in the wrong direction, with shackles around his ankles, and…’
‘Okay, I get the picture, Parish. I heard about Richards and that bastard Murcer. How is she?’
‘Her face is mess, but she’ll heal.’