by Tim Ellis
He walked up the path and knocked on the door. Maggie Crenshaw opened it.
‘Hello, Quigg. Your mum’s in the kitchen. Come in, won’t ya?’
‘Is that you, Quigg? About time - leaving me here all day without a word.’
‘I have got a job, Mum.’
‘It’s your job that’s made us homeless. What have you got to say about that, Quigg?’
‘Mum…’
‘Don’t you "Mum" me. How did you get here?’
‘A colleague - she’s waiting for me outside in the car.’
‘Waiting outside? What type of person are you, Quigg? Someone has the goodness to bring you all the way over here and you leave them sitting in a car outside while you have a nice hot drink. You go and bring them in this instant, or you won’t be getting any hot drink, I can tell you.’
‘I haven’t got long, Mum.’
‘You’ve got long enough to have a drink and introduce your poor old mum to a colleague.’
It was either bring Duffy in or leave. If he didn’t ask Duffy in, he’d never hear the last of it. He went out to the car and told Duffy to follow him in.
‘Problem, Sir?’
‘My mum wants to meet you.’
‘Have you told her we’re seeing each other, Sir?’
‘We’re not "seeing each other", Duffy. You had your wicked way with me last night, and will probably do the same tonight. That can hardly be construed as "seeing each other".’
‘No, Sir.’
He ushered Duffy into the kitchen and introduced her to his mum and Mrs Crenshaw.
‘Come and sit down, dear. Now this is a nice girl, Quigg. This is the type of girl you should be taking out.’
‘Mum…’ He knew this would happen. He knew she would embarrass him. He should have left rather than submit himself to the humiliation. Mrs Crenshaw made a new pot of tea while listening intently to Duffy telling his mum what happened last night. Not about them having sex, but about how Quigg had been distraught when he thought his mum had been in the fire.
Gradually, it was as if Quigg wasn’t even there. Beryl and Duffy were talking like old friends and Mrs Crenshaw was listening to every word as if her life depended on it.
At half past two, Quigg said, ‘Mum - Duffy and I have to go.’
‘Well, you’d better bring this nice young girl back, Quigg.’ Beryl put her hand on top of Duffy’s hand and squeezed. ‘You look after yourself, Mavourneen.’
‘Back where, Mum? I wanted to talk to you about what the insurance company said, but now I’ll have to ring you to find out. Duffy and I have to be somewhere else at three o’clock. Come on, Duffy.’ He helped Duffy up. ‘Go out and get the car started.’
Duffy said goodbye to his mum and Mrs Crenshaw, and headed for the front door.
‘I’ve got to go now, Mum. I’ll ring you later.’
‘Yes, you leave your poor mother in somebody else’s house.’ She turned to Maggie. ‘No consideration the younger generation. He’ll put his job before me every time. I’d have to be begging on the streets before he’d give me the time of day.’
‘I’ll ring you later, Mum.’
Outside in the car, Duffy said, ‘She’s really nice, your mum.’
‘What - like a tarantula is nice, or a piranha?’
Duffy grinned. ‘I’ll tell your mum you said that.’
‘You’ll never be seeing my mum again to tell her anything, Duffy.’
‘But…’
‘Drive. We’re already going to be late because you like to jabber.’
‘I was…’
‘Can you drive without speaking, Duffy?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Then do so.’
‘Yes…’
Quigg jerked his head sideways to stare at her.
She grinned, closed her mouth and drove.
***
ACFO Towers was sitting waiting for them in his office when they arrived back at Fire HQ. It was three fifteen.
‘Traffic bad?’ he asked for explanation.
‘Not ideal,’ Quigg lied. He was hardly going to tell Towers that his mum had kept Duffy talking and he’d had difficulty in making his escape. Now he was running fifteen minutes late. He’d have to hurry Towers up. ‘Success?’
‘Success, Inspector. There were a few firemen who were there and not on duty today, but to be honest, it shouldn’t make any difference. I’ve received confirmation on the number of bodies in each flat, so there you are.’ He passed across a blank floor plan and one with writing all over it. ‘Let me explain what the numbers mean. In each flat I’ve written the number of adults and the number of children. By the side of each flat is the number of people who confirmed the number of bodies.’
‘Thanks, Chief. I can get to work pinning names on the bodies now.’ He rolled up both drawings and held them loosely in his left hand.
They shook hands. Quigg headed towards the door followed by Duffy.
‘I hope I won’t have to bother you again, Chief,’ Quigg said.
‘It’s no problem, Inspector. I sit here each day waiting for a chance to improve interagency co-operation.’
Quigg smiled. ‘Well, you’re doing a good job, Chief.’
‘Another satisfied customer. My life has meaning.’
Chapter Sixteen
It was five past four when Quigg walked into the incident room. Walsh and Martin were sitting in the same seats as they had been sitting in earlier. He wondered whether they’d been there all day.
‘Where’s Mave’, I mean Duffy, Sir?’ Walsh asked.
‘Getting Cheryl, the fifth member of our team and, more importantly, making me a mug of coffee.’ He busied himself sticking the two floor plans of Mugabe Terrace on either side of the white board. It didn’t leave much white space in the middle for writing on.
Duffy and Cheryl came in and sat down. Duffy slid his mug of coffee across the table. As he leaned down and put his fingers through the handle, Cheryl winked at him. He felt as though he was a character in a soap opera.
He took a slurp of hot coffee; he liked his coffee burning hot. ‘OK, now that we’re all here, let’s begin with Cheryl so that she isn’t missed and doesn’t get into trouble. ‘Thanks for what you’re doing, Cheryl.’
‘Glad I can help, Inspector.’ Cheryl smiled just for him. She’d had her blonde hair cut short. It was now spiked with gel and made her look as young as Duffy. He couldn’t stop an extremely graphic picture of her leaping into his mind. She had on a tight canary-yellow angora top that showed her midriff and her cleavage, and a pair of jeans that must have been sprayed on. He wondered now why he’d said no to her offer of a date.
‘OK… great,’ he stuttered. ‘What did you find out?’
‘Here’s a post-mortem report that came in on the fax.’ She passed the eight-page report to Quigg.
He had a quick look at it. ‘It’s the PM report of the shooter. Doesn’t look as though it’s going to be of any help, but I’ll take a closer look later. Carry on Cheryl.’
‘I rang social services first. They said they had no fostered or adopted children in Mugabe Terrace. The woman I spoke to mentioned a boy on the child protection register, but she wouldn’t give me any names.’
‘We’re not interested in boys,’ Quigg said, ‘so that’s all right. Although a name would have been useful.’
‘I’ve got names, Sir,’ Martin said.
‘Good, but let Cheryl finish first, then she can get back to work. Go on, Cheryl.’
‘I was surprised at the numbers of missing children. Currently there are over 400 missing from all over the UK. 140,000 cases – that’s 383 children per day – are reported missing annually. That’s really scary, Sir.’
‘So you’ve got a list of these 400+ missing children?’
‘No, Sir - it’s not that simple. There are currently 400 foreign children who have gone missing from local authority care.’
‘Are these the same 400 that are missing?’
‘No, Sir - a different 400.’
‘There’re 800, then?’
‘No, Sir. There are also 18,000 trafficking victims currently being forced to work as prostitutes in the UK and a lot of them are children.’
‘Trafficking?’ Walsh said.
‘They come from China, southeast Asia and Eastern Europe mostly, but some are trafficked within the UK.’
‘How did we get on to human trafficking?’ Quigg said, conscious of the time. ‘All I wanted was to see if we could identify these two eight year old girls as local.’
‘I think that if two eight year old girls had gone missing locally,’ Martin said, ‘we’d have heard about it.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right, Martin.’ He hadn’t considered that the children might have been trafficked into the UK. If they had, it could lead to an international investigation. He smiled at the thought of an international investigation being run from a storeroom in Hammersmith.
‘Anything else, Cheryl?’
‘Not really, Sir.’
‘Is that a no or a maybe?’
‘Well, there’s an organisation called the Missing Kids Website, which is designed to help the police recover missing and abducted children.’
‘And…?’
‘The kids have to be reported missing first. I checked on the national database: no eight year-old girls are currently missing.’
‘Thanks for your help, Cheryl. I’m grateful.’
She stood up. ‘You’re welcome, Sir.’
Once she had left, Quigg said to Walsh, ‘Your turn.’
Walsh blushed. ‘I recorded an interview with the local BBC News team. It’ll be on at six thirty tonight. I looked awful.’
‘It’s not about how you looked, Walsh.’
‘Sorry, Sir. I also appeared live on the news at one o’clock on London OnFM Radio, which they recorded. It’ll be repeated hourly throughout today. I rang the Fulham & Hammersmith Chronicle as well. They’re running a front page spread asking for help.’
‘Excellent, Walsh. You’ll need to be at the front desk first thing tomorrow controlling the queue.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Finally, Martin. Let’s see if we can’t put some names to these bodies at last.’ He picked up a board marker. ‘Shoot, Martin.’
‘In flat one, on the left, lived a single man called Jack Ridpath. In flat two, on the right, a Mr and Mrs Tim Jeffries and their three year old son, Tom. In flat three, Mrs Paula Stenning, a widow with a daughter of five called Abbi. In four we have a divorced Mrs Julie Talworth. In five, a couple living together called Paul Janus and Alice Springer. In six, a single female called Arabella Merryweather. In seven, Mr and Mrs Randolf Peterson.’
‘Well done, Martin,’ Quigg said. ‘And in eight?’
‘No one knew who lived in eight.’
‘You contacted the mail sorting office?’
‘Only junk mail to the householder went to number eight.’
‘No papers, shopping deliveries, telephone line?’
‘Not a thing, Sir?’
Quigg looked at the one adult and two children’s bodies Chief Towers had recorded in flat eight on the floor plan. ‘It seems that we’ve found Body 13 and the two children, team,’ he said. ‘Well done. Through old-fashioned teamwork we’ve made significant progress today.’
‘Where to next, Sir?’ Duffy said.
‘Good question, Duffy. Here…’ He offered Duffy the marker pen. ‘You write the new list on the board for tomorrow. Number one: We flesh out the other occupants, so to speak. We want to know who they were, what they did for a living and so on. Walsh and Martin, you’ll be doing this. Ask the friends and relatives about them and see if any of them know anything about who lived in flat eight. Number two: Duffy and I will be going to visit Dr Dewsbury again. We need more information about these two children.’ He stabbed the ‘2C’ in flat eight with his finger. ‘If they’re not local, they might be from somewhere other than the UK. I want to know whether Dewsbury can provide us with more information about who they are.’
‘What about Body 13 and the Apostles, Sir?’ Martin asked.
‘Sounds like a pop group,’ Duffy said.
‘Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, Mave,’ Walsh said. ‘A bit like Suzie and the Banshees, or Bob Marley and the Wailers.’
‘Excuse me,’ Quigg interrupted them. ‘You’re like a pair of hens clucking away.’
‘Sorry…’
‘Stop clucking, Walsh.’
Duffy and Walsh grinned at each other behind their hands.
‘I’ve got an informant working on the Apostles, Martin. I’ll contact her tonight and see if she’s made any progress. There’ll be no briefing at nine in the morning; we’ll leave it until four in the afternoon. Any questions?’
‘She, Sir?’ Duffy said.
‘Need to know, Duffy.’
He looked at his watch – five o’clock exactly. ‘Don’t ever say you never finish on time in the police force,’ he said as they left.
Duffy hung back. ‘Will I see you later, Sir?’
‘I have nowhere else to go.’
‘Nobody’s forcing you, Sir.’
‘I know that, Duffy. I’ll be there about eight thirty.’
‘Do you want something to eat?’
He wondered what she meant by that. ‘You mean food?’
She grinned. ‘Yes, Sir.’
‘How about I ring you on my way to the flat and I pick up a Chinese, Indian or a kebab, depending on what we fancy.’
‘OK, Sir. Don’t forget Cheryl will be there.’
‘I haven’t forgotten, Duffy. Tell her I thought she looked real nice today. And, of course, you always look good.’
‘Thanks, Sir. Cheryl will be happy to hear you say that.’
Quigg pushed her out of the door and said, ‘Later, Duffy.’ He needed to send his report to the Chief Constable from the computer in his office, seeing as he had no computer in the home he didn’t have. He noticed that the majority of staff had gone home as he went into his office and shut the door. He logged on, typed a quick bullet-pointed list of progress from yesterday and today, and sent it to the Chief Constable with copies to the Assistant Chief Constable and the Chief. He remembered to write two letters of gratitude about Nurse Lillian Robertson and Jim Dewsbury that he printed off and sent to the CEO of Hammersmith Hospital, and then he logged off.
Before he visited Debbie, he needed to buy a few things such as a toothbrush, toothpaste, a razor, aftershave, some underwear, another shirt and a pair of jeans. He’d had on the clothes he was wearing for two days. He probably smelled like a homeless person. Maybe he should have asked Duffy to accompany him, help him choose. He hated shopping and he was useless at choosing clothes. He also needed to buy some painkillers. Someone had driven an articulated lorry into his brain and parked it behind his left eye with the engine running. He knew he needed to speak to Gwen Peters in vice, but he couldn’t face her today. Tomorrow - he’d go round to vice tomorrow and eat some humble pie.
***
The Choir was leading the congregation in singing Ye Holy Angels Bright. Bartholomew and James were standing in the rear pew of Westminster Abbey holding open hymnbooks, but deep in conversation. It was six forty-five.
‘The congratulations were premature, Bartholomew,’ James admonished him.
‘So it would seem, James. I apologise. It seems that Quigg is even more resourceful than we anticipated.’
‘How could he possibly have found out about the Apostles?’
Bartholomew turned the page to give the appearance of following the hymn. ‘Ah, yes - I could be directly responsible for that: a kindness that backfired. But I will rectify it. An investigative journalist by the name of Ruth Lynch, the granddaughter of Ché Guevara.’
‘Really? How interesting that after fifty years he is still causing trouble through one of his offspring.’
‘Not for much longer, James.’
‘We can’t afford any more mist
akes, Bartholomew. This Quigg is beginning to annoy me.’
‘There will be no more mistakes, James. And remember, we still have the final solution.’
‘Yes, but as soon as we implement that plan, things will become highly unpredictable.’
The hymn changed to Good Christian Men, Rejoice with Heart and Soul. Bartholomew and James had spent half an hour before the evening service on a whistle-stop tour of the historic abbey. They had peeped at the resting-place of seventeen monarchs, marvelled at the paintings, squinted at the stained glass and ogled the pavements and other artefacts. The last five minutes had been spent wondering how some of the significant people had managed to get themselves interred in such a hauntingly beautiful cathedral.
‘Money,’ James said.
‘No doubt,’ Bartholomew agreed.
‘Wouldn’t work today.’
‘No, not today.’
***
Quigg was thankful it was the 1st of December and that late night shopping for Christmas had begun. It had been so long since he’d been shopping, he forgot they shut at five o’clock. He wandered round the King’s Mall shopping centre for an hour and bought what he needed. It took him a while to find clothes that didn’t make him look like a teenager and he bought a soft furry rabbit for Debbie.
Loaded down with shopping, he made his way to the tube station at Ravenscourt Park on the District Line, travelled to Ealing Broadway and then back to East Acton on the Central Line. From there he lugged his shopping to the hospital.
Thankfully, he didn’t recognise any of the nurses or the armed guard and Mr Poulson was conspicuous by his absence. Apart from that one time, he hadn’t seen him again. Maybe the old man was avoiding him. If they were both employing avoidance tactics, it was hardly surprising they hadn’t seen one another.
‘Hi, Debbie - me again.’ He dropped his shopping by the door, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, then flopped into the chair.
‘Sorry I didn’t make it last night. My mum’s house went up in flames. But that’s not the least of it; I thought my mum was in the house. It’s all right, she wasn’t, thank God, but I had an awful night before I found out this morning. The fire brigade found someone in the house. I think he was sent there to kill me, but something must have gone wrong.’
