Jacob's Ladder (Stone & Randall 1)

by Ellis, Tim

  She answered ‘NO’ to all the questions and gave it back to him.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said glancing at the questionnaire. ‘You don’t seem to have any symptoms.’

  She stood up and put her coat on. ‘Thank you, Doctor, I’m sorry to be a nuisance.’

  ‘You’re not a nuisance, Molly. Try to forget about the schizophrenia for now. I’ll call you when the results come back, and then we’ll sit down and discuss where we go next.’

  ‘I’ll try to forget about it, Doctor, but I can’t promise.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Randall reached the café at twelve thirty-five. Lunch was in full swing. Two old women wearing headscarves and coats were sitting at his table drinking tea and eating fish and chips, so he had to find a seat further into the café near the counter. A plump youngish waitress with a ring through her left eyebrow and a chin that disappeared into her neck came up to take his order, but as soon as she saw who it was she muttered, ‘I’ll get Kiri,’ and walked away. He scanned the menu.

  ‘Hello, Cole Randall,’ Kiri said above the din of chatter, clinking crockery, and a crying baby.

  ‘Hello, Kiri, busy I see?’

  ‘We’re popular, it’s a curse.’

  ‘I always imagined it would be a curse to be popular. Thankfully, I never was.’

  Kiri smiled. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘I think I’ll have the Blackened Chicken and Bleu Cheese thingy, with a pot of tea.’

  ‘Quesadilla… It’s a Mexican word for a toasted tortilla filled with blue cheese. A good choice.’ She wrote his order down and said, ‘It won’t be long.’ Then she was gone. He watched her busying herself behind the counter and thought about the strange ebb and flow of fate. Of all the café’s in all the towns in all the world, I walk into hers. God, inside his head he sounded like a poor version of Rick Blaine in Casablanca, except that this was no gin joint and it wasn’t make-believe either. He had never cheated on Sarah and now, looking at Kiri and imagining her naked beside him, he felt as though he was betraying her. He had to remember that he was still grieving. All the time in the asylum, it was all he could do to remember who he was through the drug-induced haze. For a year he had been alone with his thoughts. Now he needed someone to talk to, someone to wipe away his tears, someone warm in bed at night to cling on to.

  ‘Is your offer still open?’ he said to Kiri when she brought his food. She was definitely attractive. Her white hair made her stand out in a crowd, and although she was thin she wasn’t skeletal like an anorexic. Her skin was pale and smooth, her mouth small and sensuous, and he wondered what it would be like to kiss her. As she put the plates on the table he realised that she did have breasts after all, but that they were small and hardly noticeable under her tight red top. He didn’t like large breasts anyway. He used to say to Sarah, who also had been self-conscious about her breasts, that all he needed was a handful, anything else was a waste. She used to tell him not to be disgusting. Then after the first pregnancy, after the breast-feeding, after the suction pumps and maternity bras, all she wanted was the two firm handfuls back again, but they were gone for good. Instead, she owned a pair of pendulous sacs with stretch marks.

  ‘It could be,’ she said. ‘Come in tonight before closing and we’ll talk about it.’

  He nodded and watched her walk away. She turned her head and smiled when she saw him watching her. He thought he felt a stirring between his legs, but he wasn’t sure. It had been so long since he’d felt anything resembling sexual attraction that he’d probably forgotten what it felt like.

  The blackened chicken and blue cheese thingy was accompanied by bacon, jack cheese, tomatoes and green onions. He was starving and waded in with knife and fork. Kiri was right, it was a good choice.

  He was using the Quesathingy to wipe the plate clean when his mobile activated.

  ‘Hello, Molly?’

  ‘I’m the only one who has your number, that’s how you knew it was me?’

  He carried on eating and spoke between mouthfuls of the blue cheese Quesa… ‘We’ll make a detective out of you yet, Molly Stone. What do you want?’

  ‘Are you stuffing your face?’

  ‘It is lunch time.’

  ‘Did you see the news this morning?’

  ‘I don’t have time to watch television.’ He could sense her impatience.

  ‘Pike gave an interview to profess his innocence and to complain about police harassment. He also told them that he’d obtained a restraining order to stop me investigating him. His solicitor delivered it to the station at about ten this morning. My hands are tied now, but I still think he’s the killer even though you said he didn’t leave his flat last night.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘You do? Well…’

  ‘I’d forgotten why I made you my partner. You’re good. Not as good as me, but you could be. We’ll continue your training now that I’m back.’

  He heard a derisory laugh from the other end.

  ‘What, you’re going to show me how to break into cars and kill people?’

  He grunted. She still had her sense of humour. ‘Let’s not forget breaking and entering,’ he said. ‘I was in Pike’s flat this morning, and guess what I found?’

  ‘Shit. You found a secret exit?’

  ‘I also forgot how scary you can be when you read people’s minds.’

  ‘I wish I could. Did you really go into Pike’s flat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And find a secret exit?’

  ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘It seems a bit far-fetched, Sir.’

  ‘But true all the same. I followed it down a set of steps, through a door into a tunnel, along the river, and out into an alleyway behind the flat, but there’s no evidence that he knows about it, or that he’s ever used it, and there’s nothing to link him to the murders either. We still have some work to do.’

  ‘Before you execute him?’

  ‘Before justice reaches its natural conclusion.’

  ‘I have a list of Pike’s property holdings…’

  ‘Which you can’t do anything with because of the restraining order? Give me a couple of addresses I’m at a loose end this afternoon – local one’s, of course, and bring the list with you tonight.’

  For some obscure reason her heart rate increased. Did she have the list on her? Yes, she discovered it folded up in the pocket of her slacks. Scanning down the list, she found the first local address: ‘200 Portobello Road, Notting Hill, W11;’ then further down: ‘Viking Wharf, SE1.’

  ‘I’m not constrained by the same rules as you anymore,’ he said. ‘I can see this partnership already beginning to show promise.’

  She mumbled something he didn’t quite catch then she said, ‘I’m trying to get a court order to look into his phone and credit card records.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky with a restraining order in place. Leave it with me, I know a man.’

  ‘You seem to have taken to the criminal way of life as if you were born to it, Sir?’

  ‘It’s true what they say about there being a fine line between criminals and coppers.’

  ‘Who says that?’

  He took a slurp of his tea. ‘Anyway, you still haven’t told me why you’re ringing?’

  ‘We agreed to meet after I finished work, but what time?’

  Before, it hadn’t mattered, but now he had an assignation with Kiri. ‘I have something to do later, so what about meeting at my flat between five and six?’

  ‘I guess that’ll be alright.’

  ‘We can save time if you tell me now what you’ve been doing all morning?’

  ‘I’ve been recovering in Accident & Emergency after you scared the shit out of me.’

  ‘I also forgot how you could whine for England.’

  He heard her musical laugh. ‘Now you’re making things up, Cole Randall.’

  ‘You should laugh more often, Molly Stone.’

  ‘I don’t have much to lau
gh about these days, and anyway people in glass houses…’

  ‘I have an excuse, remember?’

  ‘Haven’t we all got excuses?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘After I dropped you off and went home to change, Frank and I interviewed Pike and the woman he was with.’

  ‘I presume Pike was less than forthcoming?’

  ‘I’ll bring you a copy of the interviews.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Sandra, but that was her working name. Her real name was Olga Balanchuk, she comes from the Ukraine and works at Blueberry Escorts.’

  He checked his pockets for a pen and some paper, but he knew he didn’t have either. The chinless waitress walked past and he signalled for her to give him her pen and pad. He wrote the details down and said, ‘I’ll give them a call.’ To the waitress he said, ‘Can I keep them?’

  She huffed and walked away.

  ‘We’ve checked out Pike’s whereabouts for all the murders, and he was out of the country when the first and third murders took place.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a problem, isn’t it? Maybe we’re pissing up the wrong tree, Molly?’

  ‘You’re disgusting. Supposedly he has alibis for the fourth and fifth murders, and Frank’s gone to the escort agency to check with the girls Pike says he was with.’

  ‘Those alibis don’t necessarily hold up now. Once I’ve spoken to Sandra, we’ll have a better idea about his so-called alibis.’

  ‘I’ve already interviewed her, she knows nothing.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  ‘You’re not…?’

  ‘I’m going to do what I need to do to get at the truth, Molly, so don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear the answers to.’

  There was an eerie silence and he thought she’d ended the call. ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘I’m still here,’ she said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘We have another suspect.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Doctor Grady suggested we look at mental patients who were released at about the same time as the first murders. We found one who matched the profile – a Jacob Hansen, but he’s gone missing. We’re getting a court order to access his medical records and get a photograph.’

  ‘I’ll leave that one with you, but if we both believe Pike is the killer…’

  ‘I know, but I need to follow all the leads. And now that I can’t investigate Pike, if I wasn’t looking for Hansen I wouldn’t have any suspects at all and I’d have nothing left to do.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that would be a waste of public money.’

  ‘Since when did you care about public money?’

  ‘Since I heard about my right to compensation. I just hope they have enough in the pot to pay me all that I deserve.’

  ‘The Tarot reader came this morning as well and told us all about Tarot cards. She said that the cards and the Hebrew letters correspond, and suggested that the girls are at the centre of the murders. Carving the character on the forehead symbolises the mark of God and the girls are being sent to Heaven to be saved.’

  ‘Ravings of a lunatic,’ he said.

  ‘That’s why the killer might be Jacob Hansen. He fits the profile, Pike doesn’t even come close.’

  ‘Before…’ He stopped and took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, when I was part of the investigation, I remember we had a discussion about the possibility of there being two killers, partners working together.’

  ‘Two killers?’ Molly said surprise evident in her voice. ‘Christ, Sir, don’t say that. There’s nothing to indicate there might be two killers.’

  ‘I know, I know. I only mention it because someone threw it in the air when we were grasping at straws. You were burying your father at the time.’

  ‘Two killers? Shit, we can’t even find one never mind two.’

  ‘Something to think about. Anything else?’

  ‘We’re trying to locate all the families in Hammersmith with two children.’

  ‘What for? You don’t have the resources to protect them all.’

  ‘I know, but we might be able to narrow it down.’

  ‘Haystack and needle come to mind.’

  ‘Most helpful.’

  ‘Are we done?’

  ‘We’re done.’

  ‘Thanks for calling, I’ll see you later.’

  He finished his tea, took the pen and pad back to the counter and paid.

  Kiri smiled at him as she took his money.

  ‘Your waitress is about as friendly as a hungry piranha,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what you get when you steal a girl’s pad and pencil, Cole Randall.’

  He grunted and left.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  When Molly reached the hospital she dropped off her blood and CSF samples at the medical laboratory, and then she went down to X-ray and passed her form to the receptionist who booked her in for an MRI on Wednesday afternoon at three o’clock. She wanted to show the woman her warrant card and tell her that she needed it done today, but she didn’t. Next, she queued up at the pharmacy and gave the snooty woman behind the counter her prescriptions, but was told that they weren’t hospital prescriptions and she should take them to a chemist and pay like everyone else. Molly nearly gave in to a bout of pharmacy-rage, but controlled herself and walked away.

  It was five-past one when she’d finished her chores. She wasn’t particularly hungry, but she knew she needed to eat and drink something, and decided to walk up to the hospital canteen.

  She joined the queue and paid for a pineapple and avocado salad and a treacle-like coffee. While she was sitting picking at her salad and pulling faces at the coffee, she phoned Cole Randall to find out what time they were meeting later. But instead of the quick call she’d expected, Randall wanted to know everything she’d been doing and had sucked her phone credit dry. It was five to two by the time the call ended and she had to hurry to reach the Mortuary by two o’clock.

  Cole Randall concerned her. Now that he wasn’t a copper anymore, she felt that he was being lured over to the dark side, but what could she do? He was certainly old enough to make his own decisions, nothing she said would change his mind. And what had living in the light ever done for him? He had lost his wife and two children, a year of his life, and his job, everything that defined him as a person. Although, she might have said the same thing about herself a year ago when her father had died. How she had found her way out of the darkness she would never know. She imagined that revenge was the only thing that kept Cole Randall going day after day, the reason he got up in the mornings? What else did he have? And now she had asked the question, she realised that the only thing she had left was her job. Yet, she was risking it all for him. If she lost her job, who would she be?

  After catching the elevator down to the basement, she arrived in the Mortuary at exactly two o’clock. Tony and Dr Firestone were waiting for her.

  ‘Hello, Gov,’ Tony said. ‘Teeth okay?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Dentist’s appointment.’

  ‘Oh yes, I need to have a filling on Wednesday afternoon at three o’clock.’ The lie came easily to her. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him she was booked in for a brain scan. If she did, he’d be asking why? Then everything would become even more complicated than it already was. Lying was the best policy.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Doc Firestone said. ‘As much as I find your conversation scintillating, I’m up to my armpits in bodies and would appreciate you getting what you came for then buggering off so I can carry on.’

  ‘Sorry, Doc,’ Molly said. ‘What do you have for us?’

  ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve found another blonde pubic hair in the adult female’s genital area. I’ll have the DNA compared against Mr Pike’s, but I’m almost certain it’ll come back as a match.’

  ‘Crap,’ Tony said. ‘This case is getting more complicated than a Japanese puzzle box. Surely that rules Pike out, doesn’t it Gov?’
/>
  She felt a migraine coming on and would need to stop at a chemist on her way back to the station. ‘Well, he certainly couldn’t have left it there if he was in bed with a prostitute,’ she said. ‘It just seems so…’

  ‘…convenient?’ Doc Firestone suggested. ‘To find two pubic hairs in the same place on two separate victims at two different crime scenes is like winning the lottery twice. The odds are infinitesimal as to be in the realms of science fiction.’

  ‘Which means the second one at least was planted,’ Tony said. ‘And probably the first one as well. Pike has alibis, he doesn’t fit the profile, he’s a rich businessman, he wasn’t even in the country for some of the murders, and apart from the pubic hairs and the fact that we don’t like him we have nothing to connect him to the murders.’

  ‘But what if it is him? What if he’s planting his own pubic hairs at the crime scenes?’

  Tony scoffed. ‘Have you heard yourself, Gov? No one would believe that. Why would he do it? He’d need to be stupid or crazy to do what you’re suggesting. I think you’re getting a bit obsessive about Pike, he has alibis for most of the murders and they hold up. It has to be the killer trying to set him up like he did with Randall. Anyway, we can’t go near Pike now, so we should just forget about him and try to find the real killer.’

  She knew she couldn’t tell Tony about the secret exit from Pike’s flat, but as Randall had said there was no evidence that Pike knows about the exit, or that he’d ever used it. She would just have to let Randall pursue Pike. If she even looked at him the wrong way she’d find herself locked up for contempt, and that would be the end of a promising career.

  ‘I suppose so. Anything else, Doc?’

  ‘No. The killer chops them up and I put them back together again – nothing new. You’ll get my report tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Any evidence of sexual assault, Doc?’ Tony asked.

  ‘None. There is, however, evidence that she had sex prior to being murdered, but…’

  ‘…you can’t say whether it was her husband, the killer, or the Arsenal football team?’ Tony said.

  ‘I think we can rule out Arsenal, Detective. They’re playing Newcastle today and travelled up north yesterday.’