by Ellis, Tim
Was he getting sloppy? It would seem so. Would it have happened if Richards had been here? He guessed he’d never know now.
The room was cold.
On the floor were three bodies wrapped in plastic. He couldn’t make out the features, but he guessed they were the three missing women.
Wyberg saw him looking. ‘Yes, here they are, but you’ll never be able to tell anyone. Move two of the chairs away from the wall.’
He did it.
‘Now sit in one with your hands beneath you.’
He hesitated, knowing that as soon as Wyberg had him restrained in the chair, he and Maddie were finished.
‘Well?’ Wyberg asked through tight lips.
Maddie’s face told him that she was going to do something and he should be ready.
‘I don’t think I will, Wyberg,’ he said.
‘What . . . ?’
Just then, Maddie jerked her head back hard into Wyberg’s face.
He staggered back, blood dripping from his bloody nose and split lip.
Parish rushed forward, kicked Wyberg between the legs and, as he bent over, rammed a knee in his face.
The knife clattered across the floor.
He turned to Maddie and said, ‘Are you all right?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
At the same time, the door banged shut.
Wyberg was gone.
‘Shit!’ He tried the door, but it was locked. What he also noticed was that it reminded him of the type of door used on industrial walk-in freezers. The corner of his mouth crept up at the irony – they were going to freeze to death in sunny Cyprus.
He picked up the knife and cut through the nylon cable tie securing Maddie’s wrists.
‘Can’t you open the door?’
‘It’s a freezer door.’
‘Meaning what?
‘I think this is a cold room, which is probably why the three bodies don’t smell.’
She pulled out her phone. ‘I haven’t got a signal.’
He looked at his. ‘The same.’
‘Now what?’
He began inspecting the room for a way out, which didn’t take him long at all. It was about fifteen foot square, and apart from the two plastic chairs and the three bodies it was empty. There were no windows and no other way out.
‘Richards thinks I have all the answers as well – I don’t. How’s the back of your head?’
‘Fine.’ She sat down in one of the chairs. ‘At least they know where we are.’
‘That’s something.’ He sat in the other chair. ‘I suppose we’ll just have to sit here and wait until they come and find us.’
A noise – like a motor – filtered into the room. The sound became louder and louder until it reached its operating level.
‘What’s that?’ Maddie asked looking round.
He hadn’t noticed the small innocuous vent high up in the corner of the room, but now it became the focus of his attention. He stood up, walked over to the vent and held his hand in front of it. ‘That – is the freezer motor warming up.’
‘He’s going to freeze us to death?’
‘It seems to be his intention.’
‘Surely that’s not possible in a room this size.’
‘I should imagine it is. Why build a freezer room if the motor you install is too small to freeze what’s in the room.’
‘I thought I’d be blown up or shot. I never would have guessed I’d freeze to death in Cyprus.’
‘We live and learn.’
‘How long do you think we’ve got?’
‘Not long enough. I can’t imagine Richards and Toadstone will start to worry until about eight o’clock tonight. Toadstone will be off to hobnob with the Air Commodore and Richards will think I’m up to something . . .’
‘Up to something? What does that mean?’
‘With you.’
‘With me?’
‘She’s very suspicious. The point is, she probably won’t think anything is wrong until tomorrow morning when I don’t come back.’
‘Won’t she get worried if you don’t answer your phone?’
‘She’ll probably think I have no signal, which is true. No, I think we’re on our own. Either we get ourselves out of here, or we freeze to death.’
***
They arrived back at the station at two-thirty. Before he went to see Inspector Threadneedle he thought he’d go and speak to the Chief, but Carrie – his secretary – said that he wouldn’t be back into work until Monday.
With that news, he didn’t know what to do. He’d killed a man, and he felt he ought to at least inform someone.
He took off the shoulder holster containing the Walther P99, deposited it in a large evidence bag and signed it back into the armoury. As DI Dougall had said, there’d be an investigation sooner rather than later, so he’d better secure the evidence.
Inspector Threadneedle was waiting for them in Operations.
‘I have Christopher Ebbin in the cells. In the presence of a solicitor, he has given us a signed confession admitting he’s the A406 shooter and that he killed three people who were using their mobile phones while driving.’
‘Has he said why?’
‘I think it’s fairly obvious why he did it. Instead of concentrating on his driving, a driver using a mobile phone mowed down Ebbin’s wife and twin baby girls six months ago. The children died. His wife is in a coma and is not expected to wake up. The driver got eighteen months in prison for dangerous driving, but will probably do half of that. I have the feeling that Ebbin will be remanded in custody and held in the same prison as that driver . . .’
‘We should probably tell somebody,’ Stick suggested.
‘I’m sure we should, but it won’t be me. You can tell somebody if you want to.’
After some thought he said, ‘I don’t think I will.’
‘We also have Ebbins’ Remington 700 target rifle, which is in forensics being matched to the recovered bullets.’
‘What about the three medical students?’
‘Two of them are in the interview suite awaiting your attention. We’re having trouble locating Dr Martin Wulff at the moment.’
‘It’s him,’ Koll said.
Stick nodded. ‘Yes, I think so as well. I’ll question those two, you go up to forensics and find out where Wulff is holding Arthur Winchell. Ask them to access his financial records, locate his mobile phone . . . whatever you have to do.’
She nodded and hurried off.
‘Thanks very much for your help, Ma’am.’
‘Contrary to urban myth, I can be helpful when I want to. Most of the time though, I just don’t want to. You caught me on a good day, is all.’
He grinned. ‘I’m sure your bark is worse than your bite, Ma’am.’
‘You’d be a fool to put that to the test, Gilbert.’
He interviewed Andrew Dolan and Gordon Kirkland, but as soon as he met them he knew neither of them was the killer. It was a well-known fact that you could never tell someone what a psychopathic killer looked like, because they looked like everyone else, but when you met one – you knew. You could see it in the dark whirlpools of their eyes, in their compulsive behaviour, in their attempts to hide behind a mask of sanity and any number of other signs that you couldn’t define – but you knew.
He let Dolan and Kirkland go. Wulff was the killer – they just had to find him.
A breathless Koll met him on the stairs. ‘He’s been paying rent for a lock-up on Snakes Lane Industrial Park in Woodford Green.’
‘Let’s go,’ he said.’
‘Should we take back-up with us?’
He felt naked without the handgun. ‘Good idea.’
They went back to operations.
‘Have you come back to test your theory, Gilbert?’
‘Maybe another day, Ma’am. We’ve found Wulff . . .’
‘And you want back-up?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Address?’
K
oll told her.
‘I’ll have two units meet you there.’
‘Thanks.’
‘What about forensics?’ Threadneedle asked him.
‘Yes, we probably need them as well.’
‘The phone’s over there.’
Koll phoned Di Heffernan and asked her to meet them there.
‘Phone Doc Riley as well,’ Stick said. ‘We’ll either need a doctor or a pathologist – Doc Riley is both.’
***
He had no idea what time it was. What he did know was that in another hour he would probably lose consciousness. They’d been pacing back and forward across the room to keep warm, but Maddie had just collapsed. He helped her onto a chair and held her tight, but his embrace wasn’t designed to work at minus twenty degrees Celsius.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘Sorry for what? It’s not your fault.’
‘I should have seen it coming.’
‘Of all the forms of wisdom, hindsight is by general consent the least merciful, the most unforgiving.’
‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘I would keep your last-minute confessions to yourself. You’ll only be embarrassed when that door opens.’
‘But it’s not going to, is it?’
She was probably right. ‘Okay, I’ll hear your confession.’
‘I think I’ve fallen . . .’
There were scraping and knocking sounds outside.
It could have been Wyberg, but they shouted anyway.
‘IN HERE!’
‘HELLO!’
‘OPEN THE DOOR.’
If nothing else, it had given them hope – a new lease of life.
The door opened.
Toadstone and a soldier stood there.
‘Me saving your life is getting to be a habit, Sir.’
‘We can't all be heroes, Toadstone. Somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as you go by.’
They hugged.
Toadstone smiled. ‘Will Rogers – if memory serves.’
Maddie hugged hm and said, ‘You’re definitely my hero.’ She took his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips.
‘The whole point of being a hero is to do something greater than yourself. It'd be easy to do it for the glory or the girls, but we're bigger men than that.’
‘True Blood, Beyond Here Lies Nothing – 2009.’
‘Have you ever beaten him?’ Maddie asked Parish.
‘Dozens of times.’
Toadstone smiled. ‘No, he’s never beaten me.’
‘I was about to hear your last will and testament . . . ?’ he said to Maddie.
‘It wasn’t important.’
‘I didn’t think it would be.’
‘Can I take you out tonight, Maddie?’ Toadstone said as if he had to get the words out in the quickest possible time.
She smiled and linked his arm. ‘I’d like that very much, Paul.’
‘You’re not going to stand the Air Commodore and his friends up, are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hey! What’s going on down there?’ Richards called.
He stared at Toadstone. ‘You didn’t bring hop-a-long with you, did you?’
‘I had to. You know what she’s like.’
‘I don’t blame you, Toadstone. I know very well what she’s like.’
They made their way up the steps.
‘It’s a good job you kept me here,’ Richards said. ‘Otherwise you’d both be goners.’
‘I thought Toadstone rescued us.’
‘Pah! I pieced it all together. He tried to ring you, but you weren’t answering, so he rang me. And because I knew you were here and I’d not long spoken to you, I had the feeling something had gone wrong, so I organised a rescue team.’
‘What about Jackson Wyberg?’
‘The Cypriot police are hunting him down now.’
‘Do we know who he really is?’
‘Not yet, but I’m sure we will.’
‘The bodies of the missing women are in that room down there,’ he said. ‘We’d better get Inspector Kefalis and his forensic people up here.’
Richards made the phone calls.
Aftermath
Kowalski was at his lowest ebb. After discovering that Julie Wilkinson wasn’t Julie Wilkinson, he’d decided to call forensics in the hope that they might be able to find something in the car that he could use to rejuvenate his investigation, which had reached a dead end.
He pulled into the driveway of his house.
Matilda and Bert were standing at the door.
He shook his head.
Inside he told them what he’d discovered since leaving the house that morning.
‘I always worried that it was your job that would get her killed,’ Matilda said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. ‘What do I know?’
‘How are the kids?’
‘Don’t you worry about them. They’ve been as good as gold. So, what are you going to do now?’
He picked up the phone and dialled the Chief Constable’s number. ‘This is what I’m going to do now.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Kowalski, Sir.’
‘Good news?’
‘No, Sir.’ He repeated the story.
‘What can I do?’
‘Three things . . .’
‘Is that all?’
‘First, I’d like a month’s leave. My mind won’t be on the job if I come back to work. I need to focus on my children and be out there looking for Jerry.’
‘Mmmm! Parish is too junior, Blake is still in hospital and then there’s Gilbert. Well . . . I’ll have to find someone to fill in for you. Next?’
‘Get the Assistant Commissioner and Professional Standards off my back.’
‘You’re in luck on that one.’
‘Oh?’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard about the fiasco at Shrub End?’
‘No.’
The Chief Constable told him about Chief Inspector Ezra Pine and his cronies paying Michelangelo to murder DC Koll, about the involvement of DI Tom Dougall and two of his men from Barking & Dagenham, about Michelangelo killing Dougall’s two men, and about DC Gilbert shooting Michelangelo and saving Koll.’
‘How does Dougall from Barking & Dagenham fit into all of this?’
‘DI Blake came from Barking & Dagenham.’
‘Ah!’
‘So, how am I lucky?’
‘Pine had someone from Professional Standards in his pocket. We haven’t discovered who yet, but we will. So, they need to look at themselves first before they start looking at my officers.’
‘And the AC?’
‘We’re old friends – leave him to me. And your final request?’
‘I’d like to run a national media campaign with the three photographs: Julie Wilkinson, Jerry and the unknown woman, asking if anyone knows or has seen any of them. Now, if I’m right, this unknown woman has already killed the real Julie Wilkinson and probably Wilkinson’s parents as well, but there could also be more victims. I think we’re looking for a serial killer, Sir.’
‘My teenage daughter is mad about vampires and vampire hunters – you people at Hoddesdon put me in mind of them.’
‘The vampires or the hunters?’
‘A good question, Kowalski. I’ll get my press officer to contact you shortly. Let her know what you have in mind and we’ll get that out by Monday. Also, you’ll need to warn Inspector Threadneedle – no doubt she’ll be swamped by calls.’
‘I think I got the dirty end of that stick, Sir.’
‘Yes, I don’t envy you that task.’
‘Thanks anyway.’
‘I hope you find Jerry soon, Kowalski.’
‘So do I, Sir.’
***
Once Inspector Kefalis had arrived, and they’d given statements, they left him to it and made their way back to the hotel.
‘What about Major Durrell?’ Maddie said before she left to get ready for her night out wit
h Toadstone.
‘We’re still on the case, so make sure Toadstone’s in bed by ten o’clock tonight. As far as we’re aware, the three missing women aren’t related to Caterina Makhairas’ death at all. It’s possible that Wyberg did murder her, but we don’t know that.’
‘Can we trust Kefalis to tell the truth if he does find that Wyberg killed Caterina?’
‘I think so. He’s a copper after all, and I don’t think he’s a bent copper.’
‘I’ll see you in the morning then.’
He opened the passenger door of the Land Rover and began sliding out of the seat.
‘I meant what I said in that room . . .’
He squeezed her arm. ‘Don’t wear Toadstone out. I’ll need him when I get back to England.’
She drove off.
They made their way to the bar and sat in the shade. Parish had a lager. Richards and Toadstone both ordered iced water.
‘Are we flying back tomorrow?’ Richards said.
‘As I said to Maddie, the case isn’t solved yet. We found the three missing women, but we still have no idea who killed Caterina Makhairas.’
‘Didn’t Wyberg do it?’
‘Have you got some evidence I don’t know about?’
‘I could have.’
‘Your evidence cupboard is bare, Mrs Hubbard. What about you, Toadstone? What did you discover? Why were you ringing me?’
‘Ah yes! In all the excitement . . .’
‘Excitement? Saving people and acting the hero must be a humdrum activity for you now. In fact, you could probably get a part in those Avenger Assemble films. What would you call yourself?’
‘Ooh,’ Richards said and smiled. ‘I love these games. What about Toad-in-the-Hole? That sounds a bit sloppy though – especially with gravy. Maybe Stoneman, Barney Rubble, the Rock, or the Stone, or just the Toad . . . You could have a latex costume like Spiderman . . .’
Parish grinned. ‘The Toad! Yes, I like that.’
