Dominion of Darkness: (Parish & Richards #19)

by Tim Ellis

  Stick stood back from the whiteboards and looked at what they had. ‘We haven’t got much, have we?’

  ‘That’s because they put an incompetent DI Sarah Nunn in charge of the investigation.’

  ‘Things were different in those days.’

  Xena grunted. ‘You make it sound like 10,000 BC – it was 1992.’

  ‘Yes, but CrimInt wasn’t introduced until 1994.’

  ‘Computers with a Graphical User Interface were available from 1985.’

  ‘The DNA database didn’t come in until 1995, and IDENT1 wasn’t introduced until 2004.’

  ‘There was still good old-fashioned police work.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Definitely. Are you having a secret affair with AC Nunn?’

  ‘She must be in her fifties by now.’

  ‘Some men like old women.’

  ‘I prefer Jenifer.’

  ‘Okay, so we’ll go and visit Mr Stone, find out what’s happened to his wife, examine the playground, and while we’re there we’ll walk the ground – especially along the public footpath and the stream to where Libby was found.’

  ‘We should grab lunch on the way.’

  ‘Good idea. Are you paying?’

  ‘I always pay.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes then. Bring the file, we might need to refer to it.’

  ‘It’s heavy.’

  ‘Stop being a wimp.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘What did the dogwalker say?’

  Parish pulled out of the Meadway estate and headed back to the station. ‘His name was Frank Herbert and he had a boxer dog called Terrence who likes male dogs.’

  ‘About finding the body?’

  ‘Terrence found the body and Mr Herbert called the police. That was about the sum total of what he had to say.’

  ‘We have nothing, do we?’

  ‘Par for the course.’

  ‘Why are you using golf jargon? You don’t even play golf.’

  ‘I watch it on the TV at weekends when the football season has finished. Anyway, how did you know I was talking about golf?’

  ‘I’ve been with men who played golf.’

  ‘Men!’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘How many?’

  ‘Dozens.’

  ‘I want all their names.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘And yet you remember they played golf.’

  ‘It just shows how interesting they were.’

  ‘At the station we’ll check with Missing Persons to see if any of those reported missing in the past four or five days match our victim. We should also get the photograph of the woman from Doc Riley soon, which will help. Then there’s the condition that Doc Riley described: Paraphilic psychosexual disorder. You can do some research on that . . .’

  ‘I’m surprised you even remembered it. I had to write it down in my notebook. And why am I doing the research and not you?’

  ‘Because you’re the underling.’

  ‘I see. Like a Hobbit, you mean?’

  ‘A good analogy. Not something I would have used myself because they have hairy feet, but an apt description all the same. If we get no luck in Missing Persons you can check CrimInt: fill out the Serious Crime Analysis Section form and send it off to Foxley Hall at Bramshill: and then cast your net wider and contact Europol and Interpol to see if there’s been any similar murders in Europe or the rest of the world.’

  He pulled into the car park and they made their way into the station and up the back stairs to the squad room.

  ‘So I’m doing all the work?’

  ‘You certainly have allocated tasks to fill up your day. The police force pay you an obscene amount of money, and that money would be wasted if you were sitting around twiddling your thumbs for large chunks of the day.’

  ‘What will you be doing?’

  ‘Supervising.’

  ‘I don’t need supervising.’

  ‘That’s good to hear. I’ll be able to turn my hand to some other outstanding managerial tasks that tend to get neglected when I’m working a case and supervising people.’

  ‘People! I’m the only people you have.’

  ‘That’s not true. There’s Toadstone . . .’

  ‘He doesn’t need supervising either.’

  ‘And there’s Doc Riley . . .’

  ‘Nor her.’

  ‘The Chief . . .’

  ‘You can’t supervise upwards.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, you see. Three-hundred and sixty degree supervision is an important part of being an effective leader.’

  ‘You’re making it up.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t need supervising?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then why have you spent the last ten minutes talking to a colleague . . .?’

  ‘I’ve been talking to you.’

  ‘. . . Instead of getting on with your work.’

  ‘It’s going to be like that, is it?’

  ‘Very much so. I am, however, willing to go with the flow and make you a coffee, but I don’t want you thinking that it’ll be a regular occurrence.’

  ‘You don’t even know where the kitchen is.’

  ‘I have a vague idea, a miner’s lamp and a canary. What can go wrong?’

  ‘I want green tea – no sugar, no milk.’

  ‘Get working.’

  After reaching three dead-ends, and having to retrace his steps each time, he eventually found the kitchen and returned with a green tea for Richards and a coffee for himself.

  ‘You found it then?’

  ‘Obviously, but it was touch-and-go for a while – work.’

  ‘I am.’

  He cleared the junk off his desk, deleted his emails and re-directed the mail in his in-tray while Richards was filling out all the different forms and faxing them off to the respective organisations.

  His phone pinged – it was the photograph of the dead woman’s face. There was no additional information such as her identity, or the identity of the killer, but then he wasn’t expecting any good news today. He sent a copy of the picture to Richards.

  ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Yes – the girl’s picture from Doc Riley.’ He stood up. ‘Let’s go.’

  They walked down to Missing Persons.

  ‘I don’t need supervising.’

  ‘So you keep saying. Sometimes, I like to witness first-hand how my underlings interact with the other underlings in the station.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘It is.’

  DI Diane Haxell and PC Jodi Grammatke both looked up as they squeezed into Missing Persons. It certainly wasn’t the cupboard it used to be when PC Lola Laveque had been in there, but it was still a tight fit for four people.

  ‘Long time, no see, Jed,’ DI Haxell said.

  ‘I was just saying to my underling here that sometimes I like to get out and about. This is one of those occasions.’

  ‘And you’re obviously out and about for a reason?’

  ‘Show her, Richards.’

  Richards produced her phone and showed DI Haxell the picture of the dead woman’s face. ‘She was found this morning, murdered yesterday and we think she went missing late last week.’

  Diane Haxell pursed her lips. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’ She sat back down at her computer and brought up the National Missing Persons Bureau website. ‘Okay, let’s key in some details – gender?’

  ‘Female,’ Richards said, pulling a face and glancing sideways at Parish.

  ‘Ethnicity?’

  ‘White-European.’

  ‘How old was this woman when she was last seen?’

  ‘Twenty-five to thirty-five.’

  ‘We’ll put unknown. Date last seen? We’ll put last Wednesday the seventeenth. Investigating Force: Essex. Location: South East. Any distinguishing features?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lacking any distinguishing features.’ She keyed in a file reference. ‘Clothing?’

&n
bsp; ‘No.’

  ‘Jewellery?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not much to go on?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay.’ She clicked on the SEARCH button. ‘Let’s see if we can find any matches.’

  Thirty-one pages came back, but none of them were a match for the woman in the photograph.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Thanks anyway, Ma’am.’

  ‘That’s what we’re here for, Constable Richards.’

  ‘Nice seeing you again, Diane,’ Parish said as he opened the door.

  ‘And you, Jed.’

  As they walked back up the stairs Richards said, ‘You fancy her, don’t you?’

  He laughed. ‘Were you looking at the same woman as me? I’m sure Diane is a very lovely person on the inside, but outside I like them a little less lumpy – like my mashed potatoes and your mother.’

  ‘Your wife, you mean?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Do you think I’m lumpy.’

  ‘If you are now, you won’t be by the time we’ve finished the London Marathon.’

  ‘You didn’t answer the question.’

  ‘That’s because I’m not a crazy person. Your mother asks me similar questions. I don’t answer those either.’

  ‘The dead woman hasn’t been reported missing then?’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘Does that mean nobody has missed her yet? Or maybe she didn’t have anyone to miss her? Or maybe she said she was going on a trip and she never arrived, but the person who might have reported her missing doesn’t actually know she’s missing . . .’

  ‘Have you finished?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Get on with your work then.’

  ‘Aren’t we going to lunch?’

  ‘Finish one more task and then ask me.’

  ‘You’re a slave-driver.’

  ‘It’s hardly likely that an underling would be permitted to go to lunch if they call their supervisor derogatory names, is it?’

  ‘I’m working.’

  ‘Good.’

  ***

  The door opened. Veronica Darling appeared carrying three thick files against her breasts.

  Shakin’ stood up and said, ‘Can I apologise for my earlier behaviour?’

  ‘Feel free.’ She waited.

  ‘Mmmm! Well . . . I’m sorry about my earlier behaviour.’

  ‘Okay. Can we move on now?’

  ‘Move on?’

  ‘Yes. Unless you’d like to embarrass yourself some more?’

  Shakin’ shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think I’d like to do that.’

  ‘Good, because you’re not really my type. Your friend, on the other hand, is my type.’

  Shakin’s face crumpled up. ‘Joe?’

  ‘Yes.’ She passed Joe a business card. ‘It has my personal number on the back – call me.’

  Joe’s face lit up like a Roman Candle firework. ‘Me?’

  ‘Sure. You’re cute.’

  ‘Cute?’ He turned to Shakin’ ‘Hey! Did you hear that? She thinks I’m cute.’

  ‘Yeah! Well, I suppose somebody had to eventually.’

  Jerry elbowed him. ‘Don’t be a sore loser, Shakin’.’

  Shakin’ sat back down. ‘I hope you’ll both be very happy together – I really do.’

  ‘Right,’ Veronica said, sitting down next to Joe. Shakin’ was sitting opposite, so she turned slightly to her left facing Jerry. ‘Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, shall we discuss strategy?’ She placed one of the three files on the coffee table in front of each of them. ‘I don’t need to tell you that the information contained in the file is confidential.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jerry said.

  Shakin’ and Joe nodded.

  ‘So, what did you think of Poppy’s story?’

  Jerry glanced at Shakin’ ‘We have a difference of opinion.’

  ‘That’s hardly surprising,’ Veronica said.

  ‘The boys think it was murder, whereas I think it was self-defence.’

  Joe looked at the intricate pattern he was weaving with the fingers of both hands in his lap. ‘I wouldn’t say we were completely on the side of murder, Mrs K – I’m about sixty-forty.’

  They all turned their heads to stare at Shakin’.

  ‘What about you, Shakin’?’ Jerry asked.

  ‘Eighty-twenty. As I said, Mrs K, I think she should have walked away before stabbing him seventeen times . . .’

  Veronica interrupted him. ‘A woman sought help from various agencies because her husband beat her repeatedly. She kept calling the police and he was eventually charged with assault. Before his court appearance he died. As he lay drunk on the sofa one night, she stabbed him to death. She was convicted of murder and given a life sentence by a judge who said she could have simply walked out or gone upstairs.’

  ‘There you go then. In law, as I’m sure you’re aware, the force used in self-defence must be equal to the threat and there should be no obvious means of escape.’

  ‘You don’t need to quote the law at me, Mr Stevens. Also, that particular case was in 1989.’

  ‘Look, if she’d grabbed a knife off the table as he was attacking her and stabbed him once or twice I could believe self-defence, but hiding a knife under her mattress and then waiting until he was asleep . . . I’m struggling to come up with anything other than malice aforethought – premeditated murder.’

  ‘Things aren’t that simple, Mr Stevens,’ Veronica said.

  He glanced at Jerry. ‘So people keep telling me.’

  ‘Almost half of all spousal murders committed by men involved killing women who had left them, or were attempting to do so. When battered women fight back, the law doesn’t always take into account the difficulty of their circumstances. A 2007 paper from America by a woman called Mary Wimberly argues that, “The assumptions of the law and subsequently of law enforcement officials reflect the social norms that compel women to silently and privately cope with domestic abuse.” Poppy’s actions were justified and reasonable because society gave her no other choice.’

  ‘I understand that women probably don’t get a fair shake where the law is concerned, but let’s not generalise. If I’m to go along with self-defence then I need to be convinced.’

  ‘A study was conducted of sixty-five cases between 1980 and 2000 in which a woman killed her male spouse after domestic violence. Only six cases – nine percent – resulted in a murder conviction. Acquittals are also rare. Only ten cases – fifteen percent – resulted in an acquittal based on self-defence. The most common result in the majority of cases was a manslaughter conviction.’

  Shakin’ said, ‘And we’re trying to get Poppy acquitted on the basis of self-defence?’

  Veronica nodded. ‘Yes. There’s a new partial defence of killing in response to a fear of serious violence . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ Shakin’ interrupted her. ‘But she’d been living with that fear for two and a half years.’

  ‘Which brings us onto a recognition by the courts of long-term fear and the impact of abuse.’

  ‘Don’t you see, Shakin’?’ Jerry said. ‘She was living with him all that time because she loved him, and also in the hope that things would change and get better, but they never did. At some point, because of the continuous abuse, the love and hope changed to desperation and fear.’

  ‘A bit like a boxer, Shakin’,’ Joe said. ‘The more you get hit in the head the more punch drunk you become. I don’t know if the beatings caused any physical brain damage, but maybe they caused psychological damage. Maybe she changed from a happy fun-loving woman to a person who felt her only escape from an abusive relationship was to murder the man she once loved, and stabbing him seventeen times was a way of exorcising those demons.’

  Veronica smiled, put her hand on Joe’s thigh and said, ‘Very eloquently put, Joe.’

  Joe’s face lit up like a Bengal Flare firework.

  ‘Yes,’ Jerry agree
d. ‘There’s Poppy’s defence right there in a nutshell, Joe.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Pardon me for throwing freezing water on the roaring flames of your enthusiasm,’ Shakin’ said. ‘But weren’t we meant to be checking the facts of the case before we set Poppy free on an unsuspecting male populace?’

  ‘You’re getting bitter and twisted, Shakin’,’ Jerry admonished him.

  ‘I’m already bitter and twisted, Mrs K.’

  ‘You don’t need to check any facts,’ Veronica said. ‘They’ve been checked by the police, the CPS and our team of legal experts.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Jerry said. ‘But it’s what we do. We never take anything at face value, do we boys?’

  ‘You’re the boss, Mrs K,’ Joe said.

  ***

  Kowalski knocked on the rear door of Browne-Baguely.

  Eventually, the door was opened by Holly – the young attractive woman he’d spoken to who’d been manning the reception desk earlier.

  ‘I’ll call the police,’ she said, pulling the door closed.

  ‘I’ve already done that.’

  She opened the door slightly. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m sorry to break the news to you at the tradesman’s entrance, but your boss has been murdered.’

  She put her hand up to her mouth, her face drained of blood and she said, ‘You’re not serious?’

  He pointed in the general direction of Tom Baguely’s body. ‘He has a knife sticking out of his chest, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘I used to be a Detective Chief Inspector at Hoddesdon Police Station, now I’m a Private Investigator. I was following your boss because his wife thought he was having an affair.’

  ‘Fiona thought Tom was having an affair?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘You say that, and yet he left by the back door. Where was he going?’

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘He’s dead. It doesn’t matter anymore.’

  ‘I don’t know. When I asked him where he was going, all he said was that he was going out and he’d be back in an hour.’

  ‘He obviously met someone in the alley. Any idea who?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What cases was he working on?’