Deceit is in the Heart (P&R15)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘On the fifth floor?’

  ‘You can see the swans on the river from the fifth floor. I wouldn’t want you to be completely bored.’

  ‘So, your life up to now has been boring?’

  ‘Stop putting words in my mouth, Ray Kowalski. Up to now my life has been the best life I could ever have wished for – until Social Services took my children away, that is. I was content to be a wife and a mother, but that changed me. Now, I need something more.’

  ‘I hear there’s a vacancy as a claims adjuster on the fifth floor.’

  She took his hand in hers and held it against her cheek. ‘You’re the best husband and father a woman could ever wish for, but now you need to let me to fly again.’

  He sighed. ‘If you really want to fly again, then maybe I could give up work and be your wingman?’

  ‘You’re already my wingman, Ray. Every time I stumble you’re there to catch me, and that’s exactly how it should be . . . And haven’t you got the best job in the whole world?’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘I think you’ve answered my question. You could no sooner give up your work than I could bend over backwards.’

  ‘You can’t bend over backwards? I feel cheated. I want my money back.’

  ‘Are we agreed?’

  ‘I went out with a contortionist once, you know.’

  ‘I don’t think I need to know the gory details. Haven’t you got a job to go to?’

  He held her tight and kissed her. ‘And . . .’

  She put a finger on his lips. ‘I’ll be more careful than a mouse with clogs on.’

  ‘You’d better be.’

  She’d already told Charlie she was coming back to work, and when she opened the main door everybody appeared out of the recesses like squatters and clapped.

  Tears welled in her eyes and ran down her face. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ she said, hunting for a tissue in her handbag. ‘I’m sure we don’t pay you to stand around in the reception welcoming foolish people.’

  After they’d welcomed her back with hugs, kisses and handshakes, the staff of Baxter, Kowalski & Associates – located on the corner of Manor Road and Oak View Avenue, just along from Grange Hill tube station and opposite the cemetery of St Winifred’s Church – returned to their work. Soon, it was as if Israel Voss had never hammered nails through the palms of her hands.

  ‘I’ve had my orders from your husband,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Oh, and what would they be?’

  ‘Let’s just say that if you die – I die. I’m far too young, good-looking and cowardly to die.’

  ‘You got one out of three right. Ray and I had a conversation this morning. He said he’s not planning to kill you anymore, but I can tell you that I will if you try to wrap me in cotton wool.’

  ‘No cotton wool then?’

  ‘No. It’s business as usual as far as I’m concerned. Well, maybe without the abduction and the nails. I’d just like things to be normal for once.’

  ‘Normal is good. I’ll let you get on then. I have to be in court in forty-five minutes.’

  ‘Have a good day, Charlie. I’ll be spending my time catching up, so you don’t have to worry about me.’

  After he’d gone, she went to see the finance officer – Adrian Judkins.

  ‘Have you invoiced Illana Fraser for my time?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know where to begin.’

  She smiled. ‘I can imagine. All right, I’ll make out an invoice. I think I went above and beyond what was expected of me to sort out the smell seeping into her apartment.’

  ‘How are your hands?’

  ‘They’ll be as good as new soon. Thankfully, the nails missed the bones and blood vessels. They’re still stiff and painful, and I have to keep doing my exercises, but I’m getting there.’

  ‘You know if you need any help at all . . . Everybody thinks you’re Superwoman.’

  ‘Hardly, but thanks.’

  She returned to her office and made out the invoice, but she didn’t bill Illana Fraser for the time that Israel Voss had held her captive, even though – officially – she was still on the job.

  Afterwards, she closed her office door and began wading through two weeks’ worth of mail, files, court reports and a jumble of other stuff that had formed a twelve-inch stack in her in-tray.

  Most of the paperwork she distributed between the waste bin and the filing cabinet, but a letter from a Mrs Margaret Birmingham caught her attention. The lady was ninety-one years old and she wanted to write her last will and testament.

  That didn’t sound too arduous.

  She could help her to do that.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  ***

  Villa il Poeta

  Viale della Pineta di Fregene,

  Fregenae, Italy

  The temperature had just caressed thirty degrees Celsius, and the absolute humidity was ninety-nine percent. It was all she could do to slide into the pool.

  It was unusually hot for the time of year, but she wasn’t complaining to anyone in particular. Thirty degrees suited her just fine. If it didn’t, she’d simply walk inside, close the doors and ratchet up the air conditioning of the twenty-eight million dollar villa that Israel Voss had bought and modified for her.

  She walked up the steps, ran both hands over her hair to squeeze the water out, untied her bikini top and let it fall to the marble floor, and dried herself.

  From the corner of her eye she caught the flash from a telescopic lens high up on the fifteenth floor of the Hotel Fiumicino La Conchiglia on the Lungomare di Ponente, but she didn’t turn to look. It wasn’t the first time in the past month that she’d seen it. Maybe tonight she would pay him or her a visit. Voyeurism and masturbation was all well and good – if that’s all it was – it’s what made the world go round. But if someone was watching her for another reason, then that had to be addressed in no uncertain terms.

  Her privacy was important to her. Not least because of her little hobby. Someone becoming too curious about the activities of the stunningly attractive thirty-one year old recluse Zara Roche was definitely an unwanted distraction and had to be dealt with.

  She could understand why someone might become interested in her – other than for sexual reasons, of course. Israel Voss’ recent death meant that she had inherited his entire estate – less death duties – which had been kept to a minimum by his accountants. They were her accountants now. Everything Israel Voss had amassed in his lifetime was hers now, she was a billionaire. Not that money mattered to her in the slightest. It served a purpose, a means to an end, that was all.

  Arranging the engine failure of Israel’s plane was simple enough. With money, anything was within the realms of possibility. Waiting around until he died – whenever that might have been – was not something she was prepared to do. It was her life, and she wanted to take control of it. She didn’t want him looking over her shoulder anymore. What he could teach her had been exhausted a long time ago. Now, she was her own person. The apprentice had become the master, which was exactly how it should be. The universe had hiccupped for a nanosecond when Israel Voss had died, but then realigned itself with her at the helm of the Roche empire.

  Maria arrived with her ice cold strawberry punch. It had a million calories in it, but a girl had to get her enjoyment where she could.

  ‘Thank you, Maria.’

  She’d received Israel Voss’ last communication to her by video from his mobile phone, which he’d been kind enough to copy to his solicitors:

  ‘We’ve just ditched in the Baltic. The plane is sinking fast. My leg is trapped. This is the end for me. Everything I have is now yours, Zara. Take good care of it. Thanks for being a wonderful apprentice. Carry on my good work. Farewell cruel world . . . Israel.’

  He’d been up to his neck in sea water, but he still sent his solicitors the password to activate his last will and testament. Of course, they in turn had needed to verify that Israel Voss was really d
ead, but it was simply a matter of a rubber stamp when one of Voss’ pilots was discovered washed up on a rocky outcrop in Latvia.

  The solicitors – Rechtsanwälte, Urban & Reus – who were based in Wuppertal, Germany, but also had offices in New York, London, Johannesburg and Karachi, had invited her to the reading, but she declined. Israel had already informed her that she would be the sole beneficiary. He had no family, no relatives that he cared to reach out to, no hangers-on who wanted to get their grubby hands on his billions. She was his daughter, his apprentice, his sole heir.

  She wasn’t expecting any surprises, so it came as a shock when Joachim Rechtsanwälte had said that Israel had left her a sealed envelope.

  ‘Containing what?’ she had asked him.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Open it, and look inside. If it’s a letter – read it to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Mr Voss left strict instructions that only you were to open the envelope.’

  ‘Israel isn’t here now, and I’m telling you to open it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I cannot do that, Miss Roche.’

  She pushed the anger bubbling up inside her back to where she could control it. ‘I hope you’re not expecting me to travel to Germany?’

  ‘I could send my son to Italy with the letter.’

  ‘You could come yourself.’

  ‘I am eighty-seven years old. It takes me an age just to get out of bed in the mornings.’

  ‘How old is your son?’

  ‘Twenty-nine.’

  ‘And you trust him?’

  ‘As if he were my own son.’

  ‘Since when did the Germans make jokes?’

  ‘It is not genetically programmed into the national psyche, but some of us remember when life wasn’t so serious.’

  ‘All right, send your son. What’s his name?’

  ‘Julian?’

  ‘Is he gay?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. He has a wife, and a baby girl of three months called Christin.’

  ‘When will he get here?’

  ‘Let us say he will arrive late tomorrow evening, and he will come to the Villa il Poeta on Tuesday morning at ten o’clock with the letter.’

  ‘I look forward to meeting your son, Mr Rechtsanwälte.’

  ‘You will not be disappointed, Miss Roche.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  A letter! She wondered what Israel had left to say to her.

  So, now she was a billionaire. Probably the most eligible woman of marriageable age in the world. But she would never get married. Some people weren’t destined or meant to be married. The idea of a husband – maybe a child(ren) – filled her with horror. She had no maternal instincts at all, no cravings to fill an unfulfilled void, and as for sex . . . She licked the strawberry punch from her lips, sucked on an ice cube that had popped into her mouth, tongued it out with her thumb and forefinger, and ran it round her nipples, which made them stand up straight like little toy soldiers.

  The telescopic lens flashed again.

  She slid the ice cube slowly down her hard flat stomach and into her bikini briefs. It left a trail behind it not unlike that of a slug. The cold made her shiver. She caressed her clitoris with the quickly diminishing cube. And as the ice slipped inside her and melted, she made a noise deep down inside her like a prehistoric animal.

  Ice cubes – like men – were so disappointing.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Should we get to work?’ Sally Prentice said to her.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Log onto the computer system first and change your password, and then log into ViCLAS.’

  She did as Sally instructed.

  Sally sat down at the side of her. ‘When a serious crime occurs that qualifies as a ViCLAS reportable case, a detective completes the ViCLAS questionnaire . . .’

  ‘I’ve done that.’

  ‘Yes well, I don’t know what you’ve done and what you haven’t done, so let’s just assume you know nothing, okay?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No problem. So, once the detective has completed the questionnaire they send it to us . . .’ She scooped up a questionnaire from the top of a pile in a yellow plastic tray on Richards’ desk. ‘That’s your in-tray by the way.’

  ‘Already?’ Richards stared at the six-inch stack of reports and felt overwhelmed.

  ‘Don’t worry. Everybody here knows how you feel. Once you start to work on them, you’ll wish you had double that number.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘It’s hard to explain, but each one of those reports is a mystery that needs to be solved. If you like solving mysteries, then this is the place to be.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, sounding sceptical.

  Sally opened up the questionnaire. ‘The first thing we do is a quality assurance review to make sure every question has been answered correctly. Essentially, computers are only as good as the person inputting the data. The maxim: Garbage in, Garbage out – GIGO for short – definitely applies here. If you put garbage in, then that’s what you’ll get out. Keep in mind that you’re looking for a link to another violent crime. If you put in garbage then the software could throw up spurious links, or worse – miss genuine links, and result in us missing the killer.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Read through the questionnaire. There are no hard-and-fast rules, it’s a judgement call. If things don’t make sense, or if you feel there’s a piece of information that is missing – contact the detective who completed the questionnaire. In the early days, when we were using the Canadian questionnaires, we had to RTS a lot of them . . .’

  ‘RTS?’

  ‘Sorry – return to sender.’

  Richards nodded and smiled. ‘Simple when you know. Does it work?’

  ‘ViCLAS?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sometimes. There are issues of reliability, validity and the assumptions upon which the system is based. For now though, it’s the best we’ve got.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Now, we have our own questionnaire and people have had training, so we send very few back. If we do send a questionnaire back, the detective who completed it is given a roasting, so we try to solve any quality issues over the phone – we’re not here to make trouble for people.’

  ‘That’s good to know.’

  ‘This one . . . Oh, I should tell you, if you don’t already know, that the contents of the ViCLAS questionnaire – whether completed or not – are not to be communicated to anyone. The last thing we need is criminals altering their behaviour to circumvent or confuse the system.’

  ‘GIGO?’

  ‘Exactly. So, this particular questionnaire has been completed by Detective Sergeant Darren Estler from Holborn Police Station in London. Emily Stanton, the forty-three year old manager of the Glow Dry Cleaners on Bedford Row in Holborn was found beaten to death last Friday at approximately five in the evening. She was killed roughly an hour before her body was discovered by her son who had arrived to give her a lift home. The door had been locked, the sign turned to CLOSED, and the keys pushed back through the letterbox. A suspicious man of about thirty years of age, between five-feet-five and five-feet-six was seen loitering near the shop at the time. The post-mortem revealed that she had been tortured and sexually assaulted before her skull had been shattered by at least twenty-two blows from a blunt object, which has since been identified as a claw hammer. What do you think?’

  ‘A robbery gone wrong?’

  ‘No money was stolen from the shop, and although her handbag wasn’t found at the crime scene, it was discovered in a waste bin a few streets away. Her blood was on the bag, and nothing appeared to have been taken. Now what do you think?’

  ‘The evidence of torture and the handbag suggest that the killer was looking for something. They either found what they were looking for, or they didn’t. If they did, we don’t yet know what it was. Also, twenty-two blows from a claw hammer is way over the top and suggests it was pers
onal. If I were investigating the murder I’d focus on people she knew, or someone with mental health problems.’

  ‘Hey, you’re not bad at this, Mary.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘A murderer who had recently escaped from Broadmoor Hospital was re-captured and interviewed, but he was somewhere else when Emily Stanton was killed.’

  ‘Which narrows it down to someone she knew.’

  ‘Possibly, but I’d like you to read through the complete questionnaire again. Our quality assurance protocol requires that we give each questionnaire two passes before we enter the details onto the system.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Make notes about anything you feel the detective hasn’t made clear, or hasn’t included in the questionnaire. Your main focus will be on victimology, the offender if they’re known, the modus operandi, behavioural and forensic data. If you’re going to provide detectives with positive feedback that they’re able to use, then you need to know everything they know.’

  ‘Do you want me to ring the detective if I do have questions?’

  ‘Let me look at any notes you make this time, and I’ll listen in on the conversation. If there are no issues, then you can fly solo.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘But first . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Let me show you where the kettle and the coffee are. We’re classified as computer workers, and European Health & Safety Regulations stipulate that we have to take a five-minute rest break every hour. In reality, what we do is save the five minute breaks up and take half an hour all at once. If you start to suffer from visual fatigue . . .’

  ‘Tired eyes?’

  Sally smiled. ‘Yes . . . Headaches; upper limb injuries such as aching in your wrists, or your fingers go numb and drop off; back pain . . . you need to let me know.’

  ‘And what will you do about it?’