by Tim Ellis
The Exhibits
in
Mrs Salmon’s Waxworks
(Quigg #11)
Tim Ellis
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Previously:
The Twelve Murders of Christmas (Novella)
Body 13
The Graves at Angel Brook
The Skulls Beneath Eternity Wharf
The Terror at Grisly Park
The Haunting of Bleeding Heart Yard
The Enigma of Apocalypse Heights (Novella)
The Corpse in Highgate Cemetery
The Lost Children of Bethnal Green (Novella)
The Charnel House in Copperfield Street
The Exhibits in Mrs Salmon's Waxworks
Coming in the future:
The Chimera in Teardrop Playground
The Succubus in the Screaming Woods
The Experiments at Church End Asylum
The Keeper of the Martyr's Crypt
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Kindle Edition
Copyright 2020 Timothy Stephen Ellis
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Kindle Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Books written by Tim Ellis can be obtained either through the author’s official website: http://timellis.weebly.com/ at Smashwords.com or through online book retailers.
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To Pam, with love as always
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A big thank you to proofreader James Godber
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Chapter One
Monday, December 2
Leaving the post-trolley blocking the door, Mandy – the newly promoted junior administrative assistant – invited herself into his office, flopped down in one of the two dark-grey plastic chairs in front of his desk and said, ‘Morning ‘Spector Quigg.’
She’d changed her hair again. Previously, it was braided in all the colours of the rainbow. Now, she had a green curly Mohawk with snowflake patterns shaved into the sides of her head. The usual gold jewellery in her piercings had been swapped for festive trinkets. She wore a sleeveless black leather half-jacket held together with two large buckles that emphasised her cleavage, barely covered her ample breasts and exposed her midriff. Beneath that, she'd wriggled into a skirt that had more holes than material and revealed a black lace thong underneath. On her feet she sported her usual scuffed black Doc Martin boots that she crossed on his desk.
‘Good morning, Mandy. I hear you've been promoted?'
'Did you have anything to do with it?'
'Absolutely not. Mrs Morbid must have seen your hidden potential.'
'S'pose.'
'So, how are you on this chilly Monday morning?’
‘Preggers.’
His eyes opened wide. ‘What! I hope you’re not suggesting it might be mine, are you? Goodness! You only took advantage of me that one time.’
‘Nah! It’ll be my Wayne’s.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Almost definitely. I mean, apart from that one time I made you feel better 'cause you was looking a bit down in the mouth 'n all, I’ve only been with my Wayne. What are the chances of it being yours when Wayne and me are at it like rabbits every morning and night?’
‘Yes, what are the chances?' He nodded in an effort to make it true. 'It’s bound to be Wayne’s baby, isn’t it?’
‘Course it is. And if it isn’t, who’s to know?’
‘Indeed. Who’s to know?’
‘Unless, of course, my Wayne gets suspicious and decides to do one of those eternity tests.’
‘A paternity test, you mean?’
‘If you say so, ‘Spector.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘I ain’t saying he would, but what if he did?’
‘Well, what if he did?’
‘And he found out it wasn’t his.’
‘He wouldn’t know it was mine, would he?’
‘I'm no good at telling porkers, so I suppose I'd have to tell him if he asked me face-to-face whose it was.'
Quigg shook his head. 'No, I don't think you should ever do that, Mandy. I have the feeling it would be a very bad idea. In fact, probably the worst idea you've ever had.'
'I know. He'd want to kill you for sure. He's already said that if another man ever touched me, he'd rip off their head and dip his jam on toast in the red jelly inside.'
'Exactly my point. I don't want you to ever tell Wayne that it might be my baby.'
'Well, as I said, it'll be my Wayne's grunt anyway. And besides, there ain't no reason for him to think it ain't his.'
'I certainly hope not.'
'So, how are you feeling, 'Spector? You want I should sit on your lap again and warm you up?'
'Very kind of you to offer, but it's a bit early in the morning for me, Mandy.'
'Well, all you gotta do is ask. I got a soft spot under my skirt for you, 'Spector.'
'I'll bear it in mind. Do you have any post for me?'
She let out a high-pitched squeal. 'Of course! That's what I really came in for, and I forgot it after all that. You always keep me talking like you got the hots for me or something, and I forget what day of the month it is.' She jumped up, went to the post trolley and bent right over to rummage around on the bottom shelf, so that he was sure he glimpsed the hidden entrance to El Dorado.
'The triples in Canada are getting big, 'Spector,' she said, reading his mail. 'Another photo-postcard with one of those creepy messages on the back.' She passed the card to him and he stared at the triplets. Mandy was right – they were getting big. It was hard to believe that he'd had three children with Aryana the psychic from Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan, and yet there they were in the picture dressed as three of Santa's ten reindeers. The message read:
Don’t stray too far into the waxworks.
Be careful the past doesn't come back to haunt you.
Keep the missionary’s daughter safe.
Love from Aryana and her reindeers
XXX
As usual, he had no idea what any of Aryana's warnings meant yet, but he knew that they had always proved to be uncannily accurate in the past, if only he could decipher them. He slid the card into the inside pocket of his jacket.
'QUIGG!' Chief Superintendent Walter Belmarsh bellowed down the corridor.
'I think somebody wants you, 'Spector,' Mandy said.
'The Chief's got a soft spot for me as well, Mandy.'
'That's not what I heard. I heard that he wants to get rid of you. Someone overheard him saying you were more trouble than you were worth.'
'I'm sure that's not true.'
'As true as you not being on the 'Spector's Chart again.'
'I'm at a loss what I should do about that, Mandy. If I only knew the categories, I'm sure I'd get the hang of it.'
'Maybe you need to think about what you did the last time when you moved up the chart, and what you didn't do when you moved down the chart.'
His eyes opened wide. 'Hey! That's a good idea.' He recalled that after sexually satisfying a sergeant and two constables when they'd caught him in the ladies' shower room, he moved up the chart two places and added nin
e points to his total in one of the five categories. Maybe he needed to visit the ladies' shower room again.
'ARE YOU ON YOUR WAY, QUIGG?'
'NEARLY THERE, CHIEF.'
'And I'll keep an ear out for you, 'Spector.'
'Thanks, Mandy. You're a real friend.'
'Gotta go, Buffalo.'
'See you soon, Racoon.'
He hurried along the corridor.
Christie Tinkley was sitting at her desk, but she didn't look at him. He wondered if the Chief knew that his secretary was really a man. It had been a shock when he'd discovered a shrivelled penis inside her panties. If he'd had a weak disposition and been that way inclined, he'd have had a heart attack and a major psychic episode right there and then on his knees in the stalled lift, but he'd managed to recover some composure and explain to her that he wasn't a jobby-jabber. It had been awkward until the engineers had got the lift working again, but at least he hadn't compromised his principals or turned the other cheek. Although Christie Tinkley was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, that beauty was only skin deep. The long blonde hair was a wig, the firm breasts with the water shoot cleavage had been cosmetically sculpted; the figure, the legs and the buttocks were all surgical enhancements. It was an optical illusion, a mirage, a figment of the imagination. He'd been reeled in hook, line and sinker – hoodwinked, hornswoggled and bamboozled.
He walked straight into the Chief's office without knocking.
'Did you go via the brothel, Quigg?'
'I came as quick as I could, Sir.'
'There's a body at the waxworks.'
Quigg chuckled. 'That's a good one, Chief.'
The Chief sat back in his executive chair and stared at him. 'It's not a joke, Quigg. A dead body has been discovered. Perkins and Doctor Solberg are already on their way. So, get your arse over to Mrs Salmon's Waxworks on Baker Street in Marylebone.'
'Anywhere near 221B?'
'Sherlock Holmes was a fictional detective who lived at a fictional address, Quigg.'
'I knew that, Chief. I was just pulling your leg. So, the game's afoot?'
'Sometimes . . . No, in fact most of the time, I despair of you, Quigg.'
'Very kind of you to say so, Chief.'
'I would have given the case to DI Singh, but the Commissioner said it's one that's right up your dark alleyway.'
'I wouldn't be averse to you letting DI Singh have this one, Sir.'
'I'm sure. How's Ruth's new job going?'
'No idea. Chief. We don't talk about work at home.'
The Chief's face crumpled up. 'You should know that I'm not comfortable with you having a spy in the Police Commissioner's office, Quigg.'
'Hardly a spy. As I said, we . . .'
'Just bear in mind that if she hears anything about me, I want to know about it. If I'm the last to know, you'll be the first in the queue at the job centre.'
'Understood, Chief.'
He thought about the conversation they'd had the night after she'd started working for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner – Sir Charles Rowan – as Director of Communications, which had been widely reported in the media. The job title was merely a front for her to lead a covert team designed to winkle out the endemic corruption in the Met.
'We need to talk, Quigg,' she said.
'Not the vasectomy again?'
'No, not that. But do not think that has gone away, because it has not.'
He licked his lips, slipped his hand into her silk dressing gown and caressed her nipple. 'I'm in the mood for some vigorous talking.'
'Not that either,' she said, pushing his hand away.
'Oh!'
'Police corruption. This is how the Independent Office of Police Conduct define police corruption:
Any attempt to pervert the course of justice or other conduct likely seriously to harm the administration of justice, in particular the criminal justice system;
Payments or other benefits or favours received in connection with the performance of duties amounting to an offence in relation to which a magistrates' court would be likely to decline jurisdiction;
Corrupt controller, handler or informer relationships;
Provision of confidential information in return for payment or other benefits or favours where the conduct goes beyond a possible prosecution for an offence under section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998;
Extraction and supply of seized controlled drugs, firearms or other material.'
He pulled a face. 'I'm well aware of how police corruption is defined. You've only been there five minutes and already you're bringing your work home?'
'That's because I have been thinking about you and how you might be corrupt, Quigg.'
His mouth dropped open like the drawbridge of a castle. 'Corrupt! Me? I'm shocked you would even use that word in the same sentence as my name, Ruth Lynch-Guevara. I'm the least corrupt police officer I know.'
'I have to be seen to be whiter than white, Quigg. If the press, or my enemies, get wind of some of the things the man I am living with has done, they'll use them against me.'
'I haven't done anything.' And while the lie was spewing forth from his mouth he thought about how he'd perverted the course of justice twice by burying the bodies of Ex-Detective Sergeant Mervyn Jones and the blonde big-breasted Black Sun Nazi assassin in a wood in Kent after Lucy had killed both of them in self-defence; how he'd allowed Lucy to keep all the Apostles' money to fund their efforts in bringing paedophiles and other untouchable criminals to justice; how he'd kept quiet about Lucy and her father Jack Neilson killing at least eight corrupt police officers; how he'd provided exclusives to reporters in exchange for information . . . In fact, when he'd thought about it, any corruption that had rubbed off on him was directly attributable to Lucy and Jack Neilson.
A few days after his conversation with Ruth, he'd managed to speak to Lucy. He'd told her to erase their digital footprints, to sanitize everything – social media, police and newspaper databases, old email accounts, search engine results . . .
'You think I don't know what's required?'
'As far as I'm concerned, I don't want any of us to exist out there.'
'You're in danger of not existing in here as well, Quigg.'
The Chief's voice jerked him out of his reverie. 'Are you still here, Quigg?'
'Half-way to Marylebone already, Chief.'
He went back into the squad room. His partner – DC Jezebel Rummage – was sitting at her desk going through her emails. He couldn't make up his mind whether she'd put on weight, or taken it off. Either way, she looked as fit as a butcher's dog. She was in her early thirties with long dark-brown hair tied up in an impossible knot at the back of her head, perfect arched eyebrows, full Botox-free lips and intense cerulean blue eyes that had shifting specks of light-grey embedded in them. She was wearing faded jeans, coloured patchwork slip-on flat leather shoes, a floppy dark-red t-shirt with Faith Over Fear printed on the front in white lettering and a sheepskin jacket was draped over the back of her chair.
'Ready to rumble, Rummage?'
'Are you going to say that all the time now?'
'It has a nice ring to it. Anyway, I was just reflecting that it's good to see you with your clothes on after you were nearly sex fodder for The Children cult.'
'Have you been saving that up?'
He half-smiled. 'It's been gnawing at me for ages, Rummage. I had to wait for you to come back from sick leave until I could say it, which reminds me – how are your wounds now?'
'Mostly healed.'
'Can I take a look?'
'So you can offer your unqualified medical opinion?'
'There'll be no charge.'
'Where are we going?'
'Baker Street in Marylebone. There's a dead body at Mrs Salmon's Waxworks.'
'Is it a joke?'
'I thought the same thing, but the Chief says not, so it looks like the game's afoot.' He tossed her the keys to his new Mercedes-AMG GT R PRO and said, 'You can drive.'
> She caught the keys and then tossed them back. 'No thanks.'
'I have a new car as well, Rummage. You'll love it. It's dark grey, has green stripes and resembles a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun.'
'I'm pleased for you, but I'm still a bit tender in certain places. You can drive.'
He held up his hands like a faith healer. 'If you let me take a look, maybe I can make those places feel better.'
'In your dreams, Inspector,' she said, grabbing her sheepskin jacket and heading for the stairs.
As he followed her out of the squad room and down the stairs, he hooked up the toggles on his duffel coat and double looped the striped Doctor Who knitted scarf that Lucy had bought him as an early Christmas present.
***
Due to roadworks on the Hammersmith Bridge Road, the satnav directed him along the A4 through Mayfair and Knightsbridge.
During the thirty-five minute journey Rummage stared out of the side window and didn't speak. She obviously had something on her mind, so he decided to keep his own counsel as well.
His mind jumped to the message a woman calling herself Rita the Medium had left on his phone in the early hours of this morning, which was strange in two ways. First, because he hadn't heard the phone ring; and second, because Rita's voice sounded as if it was coming from a long way off through a train tunnel with an S-shaped bend in it. She said she was a friend of Mrs Morpeth's and had heard how he'd exorcised Surgat the demon from the charnel house at 66 Copperfield Street and that she now needed help. It wasn't actually him who had done anything at Copperfield Street though. Duffy had carried out the research and uncovered the problem, and Rummage – who was once a priest and had encountered Surgat before as a child in Africa – performed the exorcism. If he was being honest, he was as much use as a fart in a colander.
