by Tim Ellis
'Please?' one woman said. 'I have children.'
'Is that who you were thinking of when you joined the enterprise? When the money began rolling in, were you thinking of your children? When innocent people were dying because of what your people were doing, did you think of their children?' He stared at them. 'Anybody else starts whining, and I'll shoot them in the knees and elbows before serving up breakfast.'
Terry and Tulbahadur slid a noose over each person's head and pulled it tight.
'On the table,' he ordered them.
They all climbed onto the table.
Terry and Tulbahadur tied the rope ends to an old Victorian radiator.
The three of them moved the large table to one side and the nine people – seven men and two women – began dancing like marionettes.
Jack made sure they were all dead and then said, 'Let's go.'
They made their way back to the van.
Steve Sallow joined them.
It was done.
***
He decided it would be easier to travel on the underground instead of by car, so he left his new Mercedes parked on the double yellow line and caught a Bakerloo Line train from Marylebone station to Oxford Circus. He bought two hot cheese and onion pasties outside the station and ate them while he walked the short distance to Professor Alice Neuville's Harley Street surgery for his two o'clock appointment.
'The doctor will see you now, Inspector,' the receptionist said.
He made his way through into the Professor's office.
'Welcome, Inspector Quigg.'
'Very kind.'
She wore a red pencil skirt, a red and white polka dot off-the-shoulder mid-sleeve blouse and red stiletto shoes. Her blonde hair was braided into a milkmaid braid, and she was still wearing the two watches on her right wrist.
'Lie down on the couch, Inspector.'
'Another physical?'
'Maybe later, but first we need to dig deeper into your psyche.'
'Is that wise?'
'Time will tell. So, tell me what's troubling you.'
'I think I'm addicted to sex.'
'Really? Do you think you're managing your sexual behaviour?'
'Mostly. Sometimes I feel as though it's managing me. I think one thing, but my penis wants to do something else.'
'Do your persistent sexual thoughts interfere with your ability to work?'
'No, I don't think so. I fit them into my work routine.'
'Are you able to maintain relationships?'
'If anything, I think I have more relationships than most.'
'Do you complete your daily activities?'
'I function very effectively. My daily activities are interspersed with bouts of sexual activity. I suppose what I'm saying, is that sex is just one of my daily activities.'
'Do you think you have your intense, repetitive sexual urges under control?'
'Sometimes I feel as though they're controlling me.'
'Has sex become a central focus of your life, to the point that you're neglecting your health, personal care or other interests, activities and responsibilities?'
'Sex is certainly important to me, but I don't think I neglect other aspects of my life.'
'Have you tried to reduce your repetitive sexual behaviour in the past?'
'Not consciously.'
'Do you find that there are adverse consequences to your sexual behaviour?'
'Adverse consequences! Do you mean babies? I've had a few of them in the past. And then there was the boyfriend who committed suicide, and my eldest daughter being abducted, and . . .'
'No. I was thinking more of sexually transmitted diseases?'
'Never had one. I'm always very careful.'
'Safe sex?'
'Clean women.'
'Do you derive satisfaction from your continued repetitive sexual behaviour?'
'I think I'm very satisfied and I like to spread that satisfaction around.'
'Are you a compulsive masturbator?'
'I don't need to.'
'Do you have multiple affairs, sexual partners, and one night stands?'
'Ah! Word gets around.'
'Do you persistently use pornography?'
'That wasn't me in those videos, you know.'
'It looked like you.'
'That's what everyone says, but people who know me will tell you that mine is a tiny bit shorter.'
'A tiny bit!'
'Hardly noticeable.'
'Do you have cybersex?'
'I wouldn't know how.'
'Do you meet with sex workers?'
'No.'
'Do you have feelings of guilt and shame?'
'About what?'
'I could hypnotise you, so that the thought of sex will make you feel sick.'
'I don't think so. Do you know how many times I'd be sick in a day?'
'Well, my professional opinion is that you're a normal healthy heterosexual male with an unusually high sex drive, which we call satyriasis.'
'Is there any treatment for the condition, Professor?'
She unzipped him, took out his penis and began bringing him to erection. 'Lots of sex, but I think you already knew that, because you've been self-medicating, haven't you, Inspector?'
'Guilty as charged.'
She hefted up her tight pencil skirt like a contortionist, swung her leg over the couch, sat astride him and eased him into her.
'Is this the physical?'
'What do you think, Inspector?'
'I think my penis is doing the thinking now.'
'Which is as it should be.'
After the appointment had finished, and she'd signed him up for another three sessions, he walked to the station and made his way back to the waxworks.
Amy English had arrived.
'Sorry to drag you all this way again, but we need more input.'
'Input?'
'Yes. As you can see, the columns are hollow, but you said they were solid. How do you explain that, Amy?'
'I returned to the office and carried out another search of the online archives at Kew. Apparently, one of the partners from Sir John Burnet & Partners was a man called Albert Halliday, and he was renowned for trying out new and innovative building techniques. He produced an alternative set of blueprints, but they were not the ones submitted to the Office of Works. All I can think, is that he tried out his innovate techniques without approval.'
'So, what have we got now?'
She took out her iPad and showed him.
'Here, you can see that the columns are hollow.'
'Uh huh! Is that it?'
'No.' She used her fingers to move the drawing down and said, 'The concrete between floors are also hollow. What he did, was put the pipes under the floor through a latticework. Nobody had ever done that before. What it means is that the concrete floor on each level is six feet thick, but hollow inside . . .'
'Where someone could live without being detected?'
'I suppose so. Also, there are access points . . .'
'Access points?'
'Yes.'
'Where?'
'Hidden in storerooms on each level.'
'So, we could lift an access point and go into one of these hollow floors?'
'Yes.'
'Amies! Get an ARU here.'
'Yes, Sir.' She hurried out to the command centre.
Amy English said, 'You should also look at this.' She held out her iPad, so he could see what she was showing him. 'The floor on each level is hollow, the columns are hollow, and they're all connected. Halliday was certainly ahead of his time.'
'I'm sure.' He took her by the elbow. 'I'd like you to show me one of these access points, Mrs English.'
'Okay, Inspector.'
'Call me when the ARU arrive, Perkins.'
'Will do, Sir.'
Aftermath
Friday, December 6
'There seems to be a problem with birth control in this station, Quigg,' the Chief said as they walked along the corrido
r together. He was just coming back from the toilet, and the Chief had been wherever he'd been.
'Not enough potential recruits being produced?'
'Too bloody many more like. How can I plan my budget if female officers get pregnant at the drop of hat?'
'I don't think it has anything to do with hats, Chief.'
'How many have you got now?'
'Hats?'
'Recruits?'
'Nobody said I had to count them. Anyway, I didn't realise birth control came under your remit.'
'It does when I start losing female officers who want to go on paid maternity leave to have babies. It hasn't got anything to do with you, has it, Quigg?'
'I don't know anything about paid maternity leave, Sir.'
'Talking of which, have you seen the state of Inspector Wright?'
'In what way?'
'She's looking a bit on the chubby side.'
'You'd know more about chubby than me, Chief.'
'I'm hearing rumours she might be pregnant.'
'Pregnant! Surely not? She's old enough to be your grandmother, isn't she?'
'And your name keeps cropping up in those rumours.'
'My name!' He gave a carefree laugh that sounded like a rat being strangled by a python. 'I'm her least favourite person, Sir.'
'You're everybody's least favourite person, Quigg.'
'That's true.'
'Well, I hope she's not pregnant. I can ill-afford to lose an experienced officer like Nicky Wright.'
'I agree completely, Sir.' When the Chief made a right turn and headed towards his office Quigg called out, 'Anyway, have a good weekend and give my best to Mrs Belmarsh.'
'Will do, Quigg. Good work on solving another complicated case.'
'Very kind of you to say so.'
'Who'd have thought Judas Ransom would take up residence in the hollow spaces?'
'Who indeed?' When the ARU went in, besides, the three missing bodies, the water tanks full of decomposing corpses and replacement exhibits, they also found Ransom dead. He'd died of a heart attack a month earlier.
Opening the door into the stairwell, he took the stairs two at a time. He hoped they had bottled beer and some snacks at the grand re-opening of the ladies' shower room. Apparently, from what he'd overheard in the canteen, they'd got rid of the individual cubicles with the curtains and made the room into a communal shower with shower heads and no privacy at all. He'd like to be a fly on the wall for the end-of-shift showers. The men's shower room had been modified in a similar fashion last year, not that it affected him – he never showered at work, and certainly not with other men.
It was dark and quiet in the corridor, and he wondered if he'd got the right day and time. He hadn't seen anybody else coming down the stairs. There were no sounds of merriment, chink of glasses or gurgling of wine and beer. There was, however, a plastic banner across the door that stated: WELCOME.
He opened the door, stepped inside, and then heard the door close and the key turn in the lock behind him.
The room was completely dark.
Hands grabbed and held him by the wrists and ankles.
Other hands stripped his clothes off.
He tried to protest in the strongest possible terms, but tape was stuck over his mouth.
The hands pushed him down onto the freezing cold floor and held him there.
How many of them were there?
Who were they?
Nobody said anything, but they obviously had a plan.
He felt warm water being sprayed on him, the splash and scent of shower gel being liberally applied, hands and naked bodies rubbing up against him, eager fingers clawing at his erection . . .
They kept him there for three hours and did unspeakable things to him. He lost count of the number of times they brought him to erection and forced him to ejaculate. He thought it would never end, and the cleaners – when they arrived early in the morning – would find a shrivelled skeleton of what was once a human being.
After they'd left, he lay there traumatised and unable to move for at least fifteen minutes. It was as if they'd drained him of his get-up-and-go, his energy, his sperm. He was a shadow of the man who had entered the shower room.
When he realised nobody was coming to rescue him, he found his clothes, got dressed and made his way out. His eye was caught by something on the wall of the changing room – it was the Inspector's Chart. He stared at the bottom couple of names, but he wasn't there. His shoulders slumped. Was he still just a jumble of letters in the tray? Then, just as he was about to slouch out he spotted his name. It was three from the top. Three from the top! Was it a mistake?
***
Saturday, December 7
'They know about us, you know.'
He was sitting in the hot bath. Nicky Wright was sitting between his legs. He had his hands on her stomach and could feel the baby moving.
'Any idea what it is?'
'Well, I'm pretty sure it's not an alien parasite.'
'I'm not convinced. When's your next scan?'
'Two weeks.'
'Do you want me to come with you? I'm becoming a bit of an expert on baby scans.'
'Next, you'll be wanting to marry me, Quigg.'
He half-laughed. 'I don't think there's any chance of that.'
'Because I'm an OAP?'
'That's not what I meant.'
'What did you mean?'
'I make it a point not to marry the mothers of my children.'
'I'm teasing you.'
'I know.' He put his hands under her thighs, lifted her up and eased her down onto him.
***
'Where are you going?' Quigg said, when he saw her dressed up in her leather motorcycle suit and boots, carrying a holdall and heading towards the door.
After working with Duffy to design the website for Arcane Paranormal Investigations Ltd; giving her access to the site so that she could make any changes; and then designing and ordering business cards, she did some research on Lola from Devon and had found an address.
'Devon.'
'Without me?'
'Come with me then.'
'You know I can't. I have to go to work.'
'We could have sex on the beach.'
'That might have tempted me if it wasn't the middle of December and snowing. You know I can't stand the cold.'
'I'll have to find someone who does like the cold then.'
'You don't mean that.'
'Don't I?'
'It's nearly Christmas.'
'I hate Christmas.'
'I've got a special present for you this Christmas.'
'Save it until I get back.'
'When will that be?'
'When I've finished doing what I'm doing.'
'And what's that?'
'Finding my mother.'
'Have you spoken to Jack?'
'He's had his say.'
'But what about the nursery?'
'The builders will be starting on Monday, January 6 and I've employed a foreman to make sure it goes to plan.'
'You'll phone me?'
'Or you could phone me?'
'Yes, I'll do that.' He hugged and kissed her. 'I'll miss you.'
'You'll survive.'
'It'll be touch and go.'
'I'm sure.'
***
Tuesday, December 24
They were standing outside Number 5, Boleyn Gardens in Upton Park Newham.
He handed Rummage the keys.
'What's this?'
'It's yours for as long as you need it, but I'll be charging you a pound a month.'
She burst into tears.
He pulled a face. 'It's not that bad. Of course, on a Saturday, when West Ham are losing at home, you probably want to be somewhere else, because the noise is pretty grim.
'Is this your house?'
'My mother's, but she's in Myanmar and doesn't plan to return, so you can have it for now.'
'You've been very kind, Sir.'
'Even after
being chained up for three weeks in a cold dark room?'
'I deserved it.'
'Anyway, I've had the place completely decorated. Beds and furniture have been replaced, and a lot of other things as well. And you're coming to us for Christmas dinner tomorrow. I'll pick you up at eleven in the morning.'
She burst into tears again.
He hugged her. 'I'm glad to see you're mended, Rummage.'
'Me too, Sir.'
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Thank you for choosing and reading my book. If you enjoyed it, I would be grateful if you could write a review and post it on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and/or Goodreads.
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About the Author
Tim Ellis was born in the bowels of Hammersmith Hospital, London, on a dark and stormy night, and now lives in Cheshire with his wife and a Shih Tzu called Molly. In-between, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps at eighteen and completed twenty-two years’ service, leaving in 1993 having achieved the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1 (Regimental Sergeant Major). Since then, he settled in Essex, and worked in secondary education as a senior financial manager, in higher education as an associate lecturer/tutor at Lincoln and Anglia Ruskin Universities, and as a consultant for the National College of School Leadership. His final job, before retiring to write fiction full time in 2009, was as Head and teacher of Behavioural Sciences (Psychology/Sociology) in a secondary school. He has a PhD and an MBA in Educational Management, and an MA in Education.
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