by Tim Ellis
The Wages of Sin
Tim Ellis
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Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Timothy Stephen Ellis
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Smashwords 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 Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Books written by Tim Ellis can be obtained either through the author’s official website: http://tim-ellis.yolasite.com/ at Smashwords.com or through online book retailers.
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To Pam, with love as always
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Flesh is Weak
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For the wages of sin is death.
Romans 6:23
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Chapter One
Monday 1st March
‘Right, Richards,’ Detective Inspector Jed Parish said as he pulled away from the curb outside 38 Puck Road in Chigwell in his nearly four-year-old Ford Focus. ‘I’ve recovered from my traumatic ordeal in Beech Tree Orphanage, and I’m now driving toward the station. You’re the constable pretending to be a detective, and I’m your brilliant and exceptionally good-looking boss, so I’m ordering you to brief me on the case the Chief gave us last week. I promise I won’t have a relapse.’
PC Mary Richards looked at him, scepticism etched on her fresh young face. ‘Only if you’re sure, Sir.’
‘I’m sure, Richards. Stop mollycoddling me.’
From memory she said, ‘It was an unsolved case dating back to 2003, Sir, but another corpse has turned up.’
Parish wondered where the killer had been, and what he’d been doing for seven years. ‘When you say, “another corpse,” do you mean a fresh one?’
‘Yes, Sir, last Wednesday – the 24th February – the day the Chief gave you the case. A woman was found hanging upside down in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Redbridge. She’d been sexually assaulted like the last one, stabbed over forty times, and slashed across the abdomen.’
‘With a meat hook through her ankle?’ He grimaced as he recalled the details from the photograph of the first murder that he’d seen briefly in the file last Wednesday, before Richards had snatched it off him. A middle-aged woman suspended upside-down. Maggots crawling in her empty eye sockets, mouth and nose. There was evidence of a multitude of stab wounds on her torso. Her abdomen had been slashed open, and her intestines were protruding through the wound. She was naked from the waist down, and her blouse had been pulled up to expose her breasts.
‘Yes, Sir. Her eyes were missing, and there was another message.’
‘A message?’
‘The first victim had a message as well.’
‘You didn’t tell me about a message, Richards.’
‘I’m telling you now, Sir.’
‘This is like trying to squeeze orange juice out of a grapefruit, Richards. If you’re not going to brief me properly, I’ll stop the car and read the file myself.’
‘Okay, Sir. I just don’t want you to have a mental breakdown or something. My mum made me swear that I’d take extra special care of you. If anything happened to you, I’d never hear the last of it.’
Her mum, Angie Richards, had made love to him this morning as if he was never coming back. She’d clung to him, cried, and wouldn’t let him leave until he promised to return in one piece.
‘Well, you can stop worrying, Richards. I feel great. Nothing’s going to happen to either of us today, because all we’re doing is paperwork and catching up with everything. Now, do you think you can stop pretending to be a nurse and go back to being a trainee detective, or should I begin interviewing for another partner?’
‘That doesn’t work with me anymore, Sir. You wouldn’t get rid of me, I’ve made myself irreplaceable.’
Inside he smiled. He knew she was right, they were like father and daughter now. ‘I’d replace you with a crash-test dummy at the drop of a hat, Richards.’
She laughed. ‘As if.’
‘Well?’
‘The first victim was a woman of forty-three. That was the photograph you saw in the file. We haven’t got the photographs from the second murder yet.’
‘How long had she been dead?’
‘Three months, Sir.’
‘Go on.’
‘Two ten-year-old boys found her hanging in a derelict school in Woodford Green. Her name was Tanya Mathews, she was a Social Worker…’
The car swerved as Parish turned his head to see if she was joking. ‘Not another bloody Social Worker, Richards? People don’t seem to like Social Workers very much.’ He was referring to their previous case and the murder of Diane Flint, the Director of Social Services at Redbridge Council.
‘People don’t like the police very much either, Sir. You want to see the men run when I tell them I’m a copper.’
‘If they’re stupid enough to run in the wrong direction, Richards, they’re obviously not intelligent men.’
‘I know, Sir, but I still haven’t found anyone decent like you.’
‘You will, Richards. Anyway, how did we get onto your love life?’
‘That’s just the point, Sir, I haven’t got a love life.’
‘So, this Tanya Mathews was a Social Worker…?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
He was becoming exasperated. ‘And…?’
‘Oh yes. A DI John Lewin investigated the case.’
Parish had heard that John Lewin was an uninspiring DI, but then he had never worked with him. He did recall though that the man had died in suspicious circumstances, and wondered if it had anything to do with the case.
‘Hang on, Richards. You said there was a message before?’
‘Pinned to her left breast, Sir, through the nipple.’
‘And the message said?’
‘Nobody knows. It was in a strange language and the investigating team couldn’t decipher it.’
‘How do you know it was a message then?’
‘What else could it be?’
‘What’s the point in sending a message that nobody can read?’
‘The Zodiac Killer did it.’
‘You’ve been watching that damned Crime Channel again, haven’t you, Richards?’
Her face reddened, and she looked at the gloved hands in her lap. ‘No, Sir.’
‘You must think I live up a coconut tree. What have I told you about using the Crime Channel as a replacement for training? Pretty soon you’ll be able to apply to join the FBI, but you’ll know nothing about police work in the UK, Agent Richards. So, now we’ve got two messages that need deciphering?’
�
��Yes, Sir.’
‘Well, that’s why they’ve put us on the case, Richards. We’ll find out what the messages say, or die in the attempt.’
‘I don’t think I want to die Sir, and my mum wouldn’t want you to die either. You’ve only just started shacking up with her.’
‘You’re the one who fixed us up together, and then forced me to move in with you and your mum, Richards. And for future reference we’re not “shacking up” as you call it, we’re living together.’
‘Kowalski says you’re “shacking up” with my mum. He makes it sound so sordid. It would be much better if you two got married, Sir. Then we’d all know where we stood.’
‘What do you mean? You know where you stand now.’
Richards stuck her bottom lip out. ‘I feel like an orphan, Sir.’
God, he thought, she was a scheming cow. ‘Stop trying to manipulate me, Richards. What do you mean the messages are in a strange language?’
‘I don’t know, Sir, I didn’t do languages at school.’
‘You’ve got the messages at the top of your list, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘I knew you already had a list. I bet you’ve been lying in bed watching the Crime Channel, and trying to solve the messages as if they were bloody celebrity crossword puzzles out of one of your women’s magazines.’
She blushed again and turned away. ‘I haven’t, Sir.’
‘You couldn’t lie to me if your life depended on it, Richards. I’m a detective. I know exactly what you’ve been doing. So when you do get yourself a man, remember that.’
‘Sirrr.’
‘Get on with it then. It’ll be the weekend before you’ve finished briefing me on this case. What did DI Lewin find out?’
‘Not a lot, Sir. All of the information on Tanya Mathews is in the file. She worked in the Mental Health team. DI Lewin investigated the cases on her caseload, but didn’t find anything that would merit someone killing her.’
‘What about the recent body?’
‘Susan Reeves. Two men were thinking of organising a rave at the warehouse. They went to see if it was suitable, but found the body of Susan Reeves instead.’
‘I hope you haven’t been investigating this case on your own, Richards?’
‘I did go…’
‘I bloody well knew it. Have I taught you nothing? This case is about women being murdered. Unless you haven’t noticed, you’re a woman, Richards. That’s why we have partners, so that we can protect each other’s back. If you ever…’
‘DI Kowalski went with me, Sir.’
‘Yes well… So you’d rather be working with Kowalski? And what have I said about Kowalski, Richards? He’s only after one thing and…’
‘He was a perfect gentleman, Sir.’
‘Now I know you’re lying, Richards. Kowalski hasn’t got that word in his dictionary.’
‘You know Kowalski wouldn’t do anything to me, Sir, he likes you too much.’
‘Kowalski likes women too much,’ Parish mumbled as he pulled into the car park at Hoddesdon Police Station. The clock on the dashboard showed five to nine. It was an hour fast because he hadn’t synchronised it with the atomic clock at Greenwich. At the end of March he knew it would right itself for British Summer Time.
‘Before we go up to the squad room, Richards, let’s finish the briefing. Tell me about Susan Reeves?’
‘She was a twenty-nine year old estate agent. A Mr Simpson called her office to arrange a viewing of a house in Chigwell on Monday 22nd February. She kept the appointment, and that was the last time anyone saw her alive.’
‘And Mr Simpson doesn’t exist?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Okay Richards, start another list.’
Richards took off her gloves, and pulled out her notebook and pencil.
‘We’ve got two female bodies that have been hung upside down with meat hooks pushed through their ankles. Write down victim profiles, locations, fingerprints and meat hooks. Both women were sexually assaulted, write DNA, hair, and fibres. The victims were also stabbed and slashed, write weapon and pattern. The eyeballs were removed, write method and eye colour. There was seven years between the murders, write prison and asylum releases, and look into DI Lewin’s death. Both victims had messages pinned to their breasts, write messages and GCHQ.’
‘That’s a brilliant idea, Sir.’
‘Thanks, Richards. We also need to see Doc Michelin about the post mortem of the last victim, and find out if he discovered anything that isn’t obvious from the photographs. We’ll get a copy of the PM report for Tanya Mathews and ask the Doc to compare the two reports. We might need to exhume Tanya Mathews’ body, but we’ll check with the Doc. Have I missed anything, Richards?’
‘It seems that the sick leave hasn’t dulled your mental capacities, Sir.’
‘Don’t try and flatter me, Richards. I’m still angry with you for starting to investigate the case without my expert supervision and guidance. As good as Kowalski is as a detective, Richards, he isn’t me.’
‘I’m sorry, Sir. I won’t do it again.’
‘Just see that you don’t. I’d hate to have to send you back to Cheshunt police station as a reject with the words, “Loose cannon” or “Disloyal,” typed on your report in bold capital letters. Well, what did you and Kowalski find at the crime scenes?’
‘Nothing, Sir. One was a dirty abandoned warehouse, and the other was a dirty derelict school. There was nothing special about either location.’
‘Am I to take your word for that, or do I need to visit the crime scenes myself?’
‘You should take my word for it, Sir.’
‘What type of detective would I be if I did that, Richards?’
Parish was glad that the snow had melted. The weather still resembled a Siberian winter, but at least he could walk properly and the roads were clear of slush and ice.
***
The Saab 93 coupe came to a stop on Conduit Lane opposite the car park at Hoddesdon Police Station. Chief Inspector Trevor Naylor didn’t look like Humphrey Bogart anymore, which meant he didn’t look like Trevor Naylor either. He had put on weight, and a ginger beard now covered the thin angularity of his face. His dark hair, instead of being slicked back, hung in rat’s tails an inch above his shoulders. Smoking a cigarette, he watched the occupants of the Ford Focus talking in the front of the car, then climb out and enter the station. His source had been correct – Parish was back at work today.
He picked up his mobile phone from the passenger seat, found Inspector Pete Ranger’s number in his phonebook, and dialled.
‘Vice, Ranger?’
‘Pete, its Trev.’
Ranger lowered his voice. ‘It’s been a while, Chief.’
‘You heard about my fucking gardening leave?’
‘I heard Parish had dropped you in it.’
‘Fucking Parish… Yeah, time for some payback, Pete. Can you meet me for a drink in the Alf’s Head later?’
‘About six-thirty?’
‘Ideal. I’ll see you then.’
‘Look forward to it, Chief.’
Naylor disconnected the call and smiled. There was no joy in the smile. He lit up another cigarette. By the end of the week Parish would be history.
***
Parish had no idea what to say to anyone when he was cheered and clapped as he walked into the squad room. A wave of emotion swept over him and tears ran down his cheeks. He shook hands with people and thanked them for their kindness.
DI Ray Kowalski slapped him on the back, and nearly sent him flying into the toilets. ‘Parish, as I live and breathe. Welcome back.’
‘Still got bugger all to do, Kowalski?’
‘You really know how to hurt a guy, Jed. I’ve been waiting to say hello to you. Now that you’re here, Richards and I have an appointment in the broom cupboard.’ His laughter reverberated around the squad room.
‘Don’t listen to him, Sir. I would never go in a broom cupboard with
DI Kowalski. Broom cupboards always have horrible things in them.’
Bunting had been put up welcoming him back, and his desk looked like a repository for cards, letters, and faxes wishing him a speedy recovery. He didn’t realise he knew so many people. Someone had moved his desk back slightly, and a similar desk had been pushed right up against the back of it. On top were a computer, phone, and in/out trays. It looks like Richards has made herself at home, he thought.
‘You knew about this didn’t you, Richards?’
‘Who me, Sir?’
‘Richards organised the whole damned shebang,’ Kowalski said still laughing.
‘You’re a rat, Kowalski,’ Richards said. ‘If there was ever a chance of you getting me in the broom cupboard, you’ve just blown it.’
Kowalski clutched his chest. ‘Rip my heart out and stamp on it why don’t you, Richards.’
Chief Superintendent Walter Day walked into the squad room, and people began returning to their desks. Parish hardly recognised him. Now that he had been given the “all clear” for his prostate cancer he looked like a new man.
They shook hands.
‘Welcome back, Parish.’
‘Bloody hell, Sir, you’ve got a full head of hair, some colour in your face and the grip of a grizzly again.’
‘Like you, Parish, I’m getting there.’
‘I’m really pleased for you, Sir.’
‘Thanks, Parish. What about you?’
‘I’m glad to be back, Sir. Sitting at home was driving me crazy.’
‘With two women in the house, and one of them being Richards, I can imagine.’
‘Excuse me, Chief,’ Richards chirped in. ‘Without me and my mum, DI Parish would have been on his own.’
