by Ellis, Tim
‘We’re sure,’ Parish said. ‘We’ll find our own way out.’
They retraced their steps until they found the front door, and let themselves out into the rain.
In the car Richards said ‘We’re working! Is that the best you could come up with?’
‘Under the circumstances.’
‘She was very beautiful.’
‘I didn’t notice.’
‘As if.’
***
She decided that as Stick wasn’t paying, she’d just buy a sandwich to eat in the car. Not only that, she couldn’t take him into a pub or a restaurant because she thought he’d frighten the paying customers. She also wasn’t happy about leaving him in the car alone.
On the A113 she found a mini market and bought a pack of prawn mayonnaise on rye bread, a bottle of pineapple juice, and a Mars bar. She nearly bought Stick a packet of crisps, but then decided she’d take a day off from being a bitch.
They were still no closer to finding the killer. Now, they had eleven bodies and no clear suspects. How did the occupants not know about the bodies? The conservatory was built in 2002, and the patio straight after in 2003 – both by Arvon Paving. How did the builders not dig up any of the bodies? The foundations of the conservatory only went down six inches and the bodies were buried underneath. Either that was a brilliant stroke of luck, or the killer knew exactly where to bury them. Everything pointed to... Her phone activated.
‘Yes?’
‘Where are you?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘DI Jeannette Carter from Buxton CID. I’m a bit late because there was snow on the lines, but I’m here now. I expected you to wait for me.’
Fuck! She’d forgotten all about the bitch from Buxton. ‘You think I’ve got time to waste waiting for you to arrive? I was told ten o’clock. It came, I went. Now, I’m out and about following up leads.’
‘Can you come and get me?’
‘I don’t fucking think so. That would take two hours out of my day. I’ll be back about five this afternoon, I’ll see you then.’ She ended the call before the bitch could start giving her orders. No doubt the fucking bitch would go crying “wee, wee, wee” to the Chief, and then the Chief would call Xena in and give her what for, but so fucking what?
Her phone activated again – unknown caller. She ignored it. Fuck’s sake. She was like a runaway from her own squad room. A rogue cop. An enemy of the state. ‘This is your fucking fault, Stick,’ she said out loud.
He moaned.
‘Are you ever going to wake up and be a fucking man?’
But he didn’t wake up.
Arvon Paving. That’s where she’d go next, and find out how come they never found any bodies – fucking blind morons. Her phone rang again – Chief Kowalski.
Her finger hovered over the off button.
‘DS Blake.’
‘I’m at a conference in London, and I get this call from DI Carter from Buxton...’
‘She was two hours...’
‘...And she informs me that even though she was two hours late you...’
‘...No, I didn’t fucking wait for her... Sorry Sir, but...’
‘...So I told DI Carter that my people have got better things to do than sit on their fat arses...’
‘...I hope that was a...’
‘...Figure of speech, but when you get back to the station you’d better...’
‘...Be nice to her?’
‘Have a good day, Blake.’
‘And you, Sir. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
She ended the call.
‘Ha! That’ll teach the fucking bitch from Buxton to rat me out.’
If Chief Kowalski was going to be as fucking awesome as that, maybe she would like working at Hoddesdon after all. She had a good mind to ring DI Carter and make noises of two gorillas having sex down the line, but she restrained herself.
Chapter Eleven
‘Are you sure it’s my turn to pay?’
They were just entering the Reception at King George Hospital.
‘I don’t know how you can think of food or money when mum’s upstairs.’
‘We have fifteen minutes before we’re due to meet Doc Riley. Should we pop up to the ward and say hello?’
‘Instead of tonight?’
‘No, as well as tonight.’
‘Yes, I’d like that.’
They caught the lift up to the third floor and walked into Beech ward. Because it was their first time visiting they had to ask at the nurses’ station which room Angie was in.
‘You know she’s been sedated?’ a plump Nurse Caroline Bishop said.
Parish shook his head. ‘No. This is the first time we’ve been to see her since she was admitted last night.’
‘Follow me,’ the nurse said. ‘Doctor Wade has put Mrs Parish on 75 milligrams of Zispin – a strong antidepressant, so she’s not really here.’
Parish realised that Nurse Bishop had a flare for understating the truth. Angie was snoring for England, and her pupil reaction to light was extremely sluggish.
‘The doctor is trying to give your wife’s mind time to repair itself, so that when she does wake up she’ll be better able to face her demons.’
‘How long will she be like this?’ Richards asked.
‘Probably a week, and then Doctor Wade will slowly try to reintroduce her back into the world.’
Seeing Angie lying helpless in the bed he felt like crying. ‘Will talking to her help?’
‘Let’s just say it won’t do any harm. If she can hear you through the drugs and her depression then it will bring some comfort.’
‘Thank you, Nurse.’
Nurse Bishop left.
‘We’ll have five minutes each,’ Parish said. ‘I’m sure neither of us wants to open our hearts while the other is here. You go first.’ He slipped outside and pulled the door to.
The ward was quiet. He saw a few nurses walking in and out of rooms, and some of the patients in pyjamas or nightdresses and dressing gowns moving about the corridor. This was the first time he had been on a mental health ward. His previous experience had been through films such as, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, so he had a fairly limited view of what they were like. He was glad to see that Beech ward was no different from any other hospital ward. There were no patients banging their heads on walls, no operating rooms where they carried out frontal lobotomies, and no one pretending to be Nurse Ratched.
Richards appeared after her allotted five minutes. She had obviously been crying, so he just slipped into the room and shut the door.
‘Hello, darling,’ he said, choking back the urge to imitate his son’s bawling. He sat in the plastic chair and held Angie’s hand. ‘Don’t worry about Mary or Jack, I’m looking after both of them. I miss you terribly, Angie. Please come back to me soon. I don’t know whether Mary has told you about the nanny... Well, I have to keep Mary from getting depressed as well. If I left her to her own devices she’d jump into the pit of despair herself. So, I’m keeping her busy, but don’t imagine that we aren’t thinking of you. Every minute of every day. You take things easy and get better soon. Digby sends his love. If it weren’t for him we’d have probably never found you. I’m not saying you smelled, but he knew where you were alright. We’re going to come back and see you tonight, so I’ll say goodbye for now.’ He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. ‘See you later, my love.’
Before he stepped through the door he dried his eyes.
‘Right, let’s get down to the cafeteria,’ he said as he walked through the door and strode along the corridor. ‘I could eat a horse.’
‘You don’t mean that,’ Richards said, running to keep up with him.
‘Man cannot live by love alone.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s bread.’
He ignored the lifts and headed down the stairs. ‘Yes, some bread to dip in the entrails would be just what the doctor ordered. What are you going to have?’
‘I see you still haven’t worked out how to answer my questions correctly.’
‘If I’m not hungry...’
‘Once you have a plate of food in front of you, you’ll be ravenous.’
‘I might try a bit of salad.’
‘That’s more like it. Starving yourself won’t do anybody any good, least of all your mum. Do you think she wants to wake up and discover she has a skeleton for a daughter?’
‘I’ve said I’ll eat something, haven’t I?’
Doc Riley was waiting for them again.
‘I thought you’d never get here,’ she said, getting up and leading them to the end of the dinner queue.
Parish smiled. ‘Do they starve you down in the Mortuary?’
‘Sometimes. I forget about food while I’m working on a post mortem.’
‘I should think so,’ Richards said.
‘No. I forget about food because I’m so involved with what I’m doing. I forget about drink as well. Sometimes, I start to feel light-headed, which nudges me to eat and drink something.’
Richards screwed up her face. ‘I can’t imagine eating or drinking while you’re up to your neck in corpses.’
Doc Riley gave a laugh. ‘You get used to it.’ She chose the Caesar salad with a side order of black pepper chips, and a mug of tea.
Richards had a Mediterranean wrap full of spicy lemon hummus, Kalamata olives, marinated artichoke hearts, feta cheese, tomatoes, basil and spinach, and a bottle of water.
‘I thought your appetite had gone on holiday?’
‘It has. I probably won’t eat it.’
Parish acquired a Mexican burger with peppers and chilli sauce, and a side order of black pepper chips. A chocolate sandwich beckoned him to pick it up and put it on his tray, and he also had a mug of coffee.
Once they were ensconced in the ritual of eating Parish said, ‘When you’re ready, Doc?’
She pulled out a post mortem report from a folder on the seat beside her. ‘This is your copy, but to save you some time I’ll tell you what you already know. There was evidence of a blow to the left side of the face, which resulted in a hairline fracture to the maxilla and loosened two of her upper teeth.’ While she was talking and eating she was also pointing to her left upper jaw. ‘As I said at the crime scene, her eyes had been hacked out with a knife. Well, once I examined the bones of the eyes I discovered scratch marks on the sphenoid, ethmoid, and lacrimal bones inside the eye sockets, and chips around the edges of the upper zygomatic bone.’ She pointed to the bone beneath the eyes. A photograph of a knife appeared on the table. ‘This is an example of what I think the knife looks like.’ The picture showed a black knife, and the description underneath stated it was a Columbia River A.G. Russell Sting Knife, which had been forged from a solid block of 1050 carbon steel. It had a double-sided spear point blade, and came with an arm sheath.
‘It’s a very nice knife,’ Richards offered.
‘Are knives nice?’ Parish said. ‘You’ll have to excuse my partner, she has a weird concept of what’s nice and what isn’t.’
‘Well, in a way she’s right. These type of knives can’t be bought in the UK. They’re ordered online from America and cost $45. I would say your killer has a thing for knives. In the sheath, you could carry this strapped on your arm underneath your sleeve, and nobody would know. I think this tells us something about the killer.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Well, I think he’s between twenty-five and thirty years of age. In a way, this is a sexy knife that would appeal to a younger man.’
‘Okay, I’ll go along with that.’
‘Also, the upper and lower eyelids had been cut off and discarded next to the body. When I examined the cuts along the edges of the skin the knife was a very close match.’
‘But you can’t say one hundred per cent that it was this knife?’ Richards said.
‘No, you’ll have to make do with ninety-five per cent. As well as the blow to the left side of her face, there was also bruising on her arms, on the abdomen, and on the thighs. This suggests to me that she was manhandled. Now, I know that removing her eyes and killing her is not the act of a lover, but some killers are gentle with their victims. The evidence suggests that this one wasn’t. He appeared not to care about the victim – all he wanted was her eyes.’
‘That’s interesting,’ Parish said. ‘We’ve considered the possibility that the murderer is a stalker. Somebody sent her a message with the term, “Green-Eyed” on it. Richards seems to think that she was killed because she had beautiful green eyes, and the killer is a collector, but I’m not convinced it’s that simple.’
Doc Riley continued. ‘The same knife was used to sever the femoral arteries. There’s not a lot to say about this. He knew what he was doing, but he didn’t really need any specialist knowledge. The point of the knife was pushed into the skin at the inguinal region, and the artery sliced through in an upwards movement. I believe Constable Richards had it right at the crime scene when she said that these cuts were functional, merely to kill the victim.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Richards said blushing.
‘Yeah, it’s not often she’s right.’
‘As if. I’m always right, you’re just too embarrassed to...’ Richards sighed and hung her head. She went to get up, but Parish grabbed her arm and held her down. ‘I have to go.’
‘No you don’t. Stay here.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Doc Riley said.
Parish gave her a brief synopsis of what had happened the night before.
‘I’m very sorry,’ she said.
‘Thanks, Doc. Now, we just have to wait... patiently. It’s no good Richards running to the toilet bawling her eyes out every five minutes.’
‘I look a mess,’ she said dabbing at her eyes with a paper tissue.
‘You look just fine. Carry on, Doc. What about the wire restraints at her wrists and ankles?’
‘They had cut the skin down to the bone. I can imagine that with her life ebbing away – when he began to cut her eyes out – she fought against him – against the pain.’
Parish shook his head in disgust. How could anyone do something like that? His job was always reactive. What he’d like to do was to catch a killer before he killed. That would be a job worth doing – saving people before they became victims instead of chasing killers. The film Minority Report based on the short story by Philip K Dick came to mind. In many ways, that’s what doctors did. Maybe he should have been a doctor.
‘There’s nothing special about the wire. It’s one millimetre stainless steel wire produced in China that can be bought at most outlets. It was wrapped around the wrists and ankles six times and twisted off by hand, but it’s too thin to lift any prints from.’
‘No sexual assault?’
‘None, which surprised me. Nadine Chryst was a beautiful woman. It reinforces Constable Richards’ conclusion that the killer’s main focus was the eyes.’
‘Yes, but why? Do you think it was personal?’
Doc Riley shrugged.
‘What I’m asking is whether this was directed at Nadine Chryst alone, or if you think there’ll be other murders? Richards here thinks we’ve got another serial killer...’
His phone began playing the William Tell Overture.
He touched the green button on his phone. ‘Have you got nothing to look at through your microscope, Toadstone?’
‘I have lots of things to look at, but a body won’t fit on a microscope slide.’
‘I hope you’re not ringing me to tell me...?’
‘...We have another body.’
‘You’re slowly becoming my least favourite person, Toadstone. Where?’
‘Along the Ongar Road. Turn onto Nine Ashes Road, and before you get to Paslow Wood Common there’s a dilapidated cottage on the right. You can’t miss it, my truck is parked outside.’
‘Do we know any details yet?’
‘The
victim is Lord Latham of Hook End. He used to be Shawn Latham, Member of Parliament, and the Defence Secretary from 1992 to 1994 during John Major’s Conservative Government.’
‘No pressure then. Okay...’
‘He’s had his tongue removed, and his femoral arteries cut.’
Parish sighed. ‘We’re on our way. Doc Riley is here with me, so I’ll let her know.’
He told Richards and the Doc what Toadstone had said.
Doc Riley’s brow furrowed. ‘I suppose that answers your question.’
‘I knew it,’ Richards said. ‘I hate to say, I told you so.’
‘No you don’t. You take great joy in telling me you were right.’
‘I would if my mum wasn’t lying in a bed upstairs.’
He squeezed her arm. ‘I know.’
***
Arvon Paving was located on the A121 in Loughton on the opposite side of the road to the Cricket Club between a dental surgery and Varryne House.
As soon as Xena pulled into the car park Stick woke up. And before she could stop him, he’d opened the door, and fallen onto the gravel where he curled up in the foetal position and went back to sleep.
She got out of the car. ‘For fuck’s sake, Stick. You’re beginning to seriously wind me up.’ She pushed the passenger door shut. ‘Well, you can fucking well stay there now until I get back,’ and she left him lying on the gravel next to the car.
Dark clouds were beginning to amass again, but the rain was holding off for the time being. She hoped it didn’t start raining until she’d got Stick back into the car. Christ, that dentist must have given him enough fucking Valium to knock out an elephant. Maybe he was having an allergic reaction. Maybe she should take him to the hospital. She’d speak to these paving people first, and then see how he was. God, he was more fucking trouble than a clapped out old banger. Maybe she should swap him for someone who wasn’t so high maintenance. Although, having said that, she had a weird fascination for him. Maybe there was something wrong with her.
‘Hi, babe.’
