by Tim Ellis
She told him about Margaret Birmingham’s request for a Last Will & Testament to be drawn up and how, when she had come round to see her, it had turned into a final confession in more ways than one. She described what Margaret had said about killing her husband, and for explanation had given Jerry an envelope with three keys inside. She told him about the lock-up, about calling Bronwyn, about what they’d found inside, about the safe and the green metal door.’
‘I should keep you on a leash, Jerry Kowalski.’
‘I know, but I did phone Bronwyn and she has a . . .’
‘Has a what?’
‘Nothing.’ She didn’t want to get Bronwyn into trouble by telling Ray about the gun.
‘So, where’s Bronwyn now?’
‘I don’t know. She was meant to meet me here at nine o’clock, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she scarpered when she saw all the police activity.’
‘And you’ve got the keys to this lock-up?’
‘Yes.’ She rummaged in her bag, but couldn’t find the keys. Her mind went back to last night and how Bronwyn had hugged her. She thought it was a bit strange at the time, but dismissed it as part of their growing friendship. Instead, Bronwyn was helping herself to the keys.
‘Well?’
‘Bronwyn stole them from my bag last night.’
‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? So, presumably that’s where she is now?’
‘I guess so. I’ve tried ringing her, but I keep getting diverted straight to voicemail.’
‘Stay here. I’ll go and let Toady know where we’re going.’
‘You haven’t found a door key and the combination to a safe in there, have you?’
‘We haven’t been looking for either, but I’ll tell Toady to keep his eyes open.’
‘All right. One other thing.’
‘Not more bad news?’
‘If you’re looking for Mrs Birmingham’s murderer, you might want to pick up her four children.’ She told Ray what the woman had said: Not like my children.
‘And she didn’t tell you what she meant by that?’
‘No. At the time it was just a throw-away comment, but afterwards I wondered why a mother would say that about her children. I would never say such a thing about our children – they’re just perfect.’
He grunted.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ He climbed out and pushed the door to.
What did he mean by “Nothing”! Maybe he knew about Gabe smelling of cigarettes sometimes, or Oceana having an unhealthy obsession with a boy called Willie who was three years older than her.
He wasn’t gone long, and when he did return he had Dr Toadstone with him.
‘Hello, Paul,’ she said as he climbed into the back seat with a heavy plastic case.
‘Hello, Mrs Kowalski . . .’
‘Jerry.’
He nodded. ‘Jerry.’
‘I brought Toady with me for two reasons. If Bronwyn has the key, and she doesn’t open the door when we knock, we’ll need him to get his drill out. Secondly, even though you and Bronwyn have trampled through the place like a herd of elephants, it needs to be treated as a crime scene – evidence must be preserved.’
‘Elephants?’
‘All right, wildebeest.’
‘We both wore plastic gloves.’
‘That’s something at least, eh Toady.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Chapter Eleven
Villa il Poeta
Viale della Pineta di Fregene,
Fregenae, Italy
Julian Rechtsanwälte arrived promptly at ten o’clock. He was tall, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, with a physique and bearing the architect of the Aryan master race would have been proud of.
‘You’re not gay?’ Zara asked.
His brow furrowed and his face coloured slightly. ‘I’m sorry. I think there must be some confusion . . .’
‘Take your clothes off.’
‘I’m here to . . .’
‘. . . Accede to the wishes of a client who keeps Rechtsanwälte, Urban & Reus in the style they’ve become accustomed to. Take your clothes off.’
Julian placed his briefcase down on the marble tiles next to his right leg, looked around nervously and began loosening his tie.
Zara picked up the glass from the table next to her lounger and took a sip of her orange and lime. Even at ten in the morning, the sun was frying eggs, curdling milk and boiling brains.
She watched him disrobe until he was standing there with just his boxer shorts, socks and shoes on. ‘Everything,’ she said. ‘You look stupid like that.’
He removed the remaining items.
‘Come closer.’
Ducking under the parasol, he shuffled forward.
‘A bit small.’
‘I’ve had no complaints so far.’
‘Is that right?’
She sat up, took his penis in her right hand and cupped his scrotum with her left. Immediately, he began to swell, and soon had a full erection.
She looked in his eyes. ‘Would you like to make love to me?’
‘You’re very beautiful, but I’m happily married.’
‘What if I insist?’
‘Do you?’
She left both questions and his penis hanging between them.
‘You can get dressed now.’
‘Did I pass?’
‘You’re making the assumption there was something to pass.’
He put his clothes back on.
She directed him to sit at the table. ‘Help yourself to a drink.’
The ice cubes rattled and clinked as he poured himself a glass of orange and lime from the jug..
‘Well?’
Julian opened his briefcase and passed her a sealed white envelope.
She took it. ‘You could have brought this in your pocket.’
The corner of his mouth creased up. ‘But then where would I have kept my sauerkraut sandwiches?’
‘I see you have your father’s sense of humour.’ She opened the envelope and slid out the piece of paper from inside. There was one word and a number on it:
EPSILON 5
After returning to her villa from the Hotel Fiumicino La Conchiglia last night, she descended into the basement suite that wasn’t on any blueprint through the hidden door, stripped off the silicon prosthetics, took a shower and sat down in front of the computer wrapped in a cream towelling dressing gown.
She typed EPSILON 5 into the search engine and pressed GO, clicked on one article that indicated it was related to a British Government research experiment, and began reading:
The Epsilon Experiments were a series of genetic experiments into the two sides of human nature – good and evil – on five monozygotic twins in the early eighties. The experiments were conducted in a secret wing at St Winifred’s Maternity Home (now closed) in Heybridge, Essex, England by a team of scientists led by Dr Orvil Lorenz (deceased).
That was all she could find. Although she had one additional piece of information that she’d taken from DCI Will Shepherd’s wallet before she’d murdered him: EPSILON 5 – Zara and Zachary. Was she the Zara from the Epsilon Experiments? Did she really have a twin brother? What had happened to the other four sets of twins? Who were her parents? Who was Dr Orvil Lorenz? And what had he done to her? Was she really the evil twin? She smiled. Of course she was. But who was the good twin – Zachary?
She spent another hour going to the different websites produced by the search engine, but they all said essentially the same thing. There were a million questions spinning around in her head like the reel of a one-armed bandit.
Israel Voss had told her that she’d been abandoned outside a hospital in 1983, and after no one had come forward to claim her he’d been kind enough to take her in and adopt her. It all sounded so plausible, and he even had all the official documentation to prove it as well.
She went upstairs to the safe and found her birth certificate and adoption order that were mixed in with her other l
egal papers. The UK Certificate of Birth No: YE604389, was an original document in accordance with the Births & Deaths Registration Act 1947. It contained the following information:
Name and Surname: Zara Roche
Sex: Girl
Date of Birth: May 2, 1983
Place of Birth: St Winifred’s Maternity Home
Registration District: Essex
Sub-district: Heybridge
I Richard Daniells Superintendent Registrar for the Registration District of Essex do hereby certify that the above particulars have been compiled from an entry in a register in my custody.
It was signed on June 17, 1983 by Richard Daniells and in the left-hand corner was the page number 265/499. The Adoption Order stated that Israel Voss had adopted Zara Roche on July 24, 1983. It was signed by Gillian Jackson – residing magistrate – at Witham Family Court on August 6, 1983.
She was prepared to dismiss the idea of being Zara from the Epsilon Experiments, but after looking at her documents in the light of what limited information she had, she knew for certain that she was one half of Epsilon 5. And now, Israel Voss had confirmed it from the grave.
‘Anything my father should be concerned about?’ Julian asked.
She thought he looked uncomfortable in his suit and tie. ‘Take off your clothes.’
‘Again?’
She laughed. ‘No, not this time. I was thinking how you looked hot and bothered. Go inside and ask Maria for a pair of swimming shorts.’
‘A dip in the pool would certainly be welcome.’
‘After that, we can discuss how you and your father can help me further.’
***
Before they left Clifford Street Police Station, DS Lauren Perry called the criminal psychologist Gilli Allen to elicit her help in obtaining a criminal profile of The Family Man. She then took the file up to Josie Mundy and asked her if she’d be so kind as to task one of her minions to fax its contents to Dr Allen.
Parish drove the short distance to 53 Hartfield Gardens in Jesmond, which was a three bedroom semi-detached house in need of some exterior repair work. Weeds and tufts of grass had taken root in the guttering and resembled a neglected hanging basket; black paint was flaking off the wood panelling and rotting garage doors; and some of the flagstones on the driveway were loose and uneven.
Perry knocked as if she meant it.
They saw a woman’s face briefly at the side window. The door opened.
‘DS Perry from Clifford Street,’ she said, holding up her warrant card. ‘And DI Parish from Essex. Can we come in?’
‘Why?’
‘Four and a half years . . .’
‘. . . It’s about the family that was murdered here, isn’t it?’ Her Geordie accent was palpable. A linguist could have taken it to the bank and lived off the interest for years.
‘Yes. If . . .’
‘This is my home now, and I don’t want you lot coming round every five minutes like the ghost of Christmas past, wanting to rattle your chains in my house. If you hadn’t noticed – people live here. It’s not a fucking crime scene anymore. So no, you can’t come in. And don’t come back.’
The door shut.
‘That went well,’ Parish said, as they dawdled down the path.
‘You can’t blame her,’ Perry said.
‘Oh, I don’t. I certainly wouldn’t take too kindly to police officers arriving out of the blue to keep reminding me that I was living in a house where a family was brutally murdered.’
They went to the attached house next door – number 51.
Perry knocked again.
The door opened after the first knock, as if the woman had been standing behind it waiting for them. ‘Yes?’ She was in her sixties, overweight with white-grey curly hair. She had a squashed nose, and the creases in her face and neck looked as though they’d been sculpted over many years by Michelangelo Buonarotti personally.
Perry held up her warrant card, but didn’t bother saying who she or Parish were this time. ‘There was a family murdered next door . . .’
‘. . . I remember. Kylie Woodhouse and her two beautiful twins – Dolly and Donna.’
‘That’s right. Do you have time to talk to us?’
‘Let me see that identity card again?’
DS Perry showed her.
The woman examined it, and then looked at Parish. ‘What about you, young man?’
He produced his warrant card like a magician’s dummy.
‘Essex? Isn’t that a make-believe place from a reality television show?’
‘No, it’s a real place.’
‘If you say so. Well, I suppose you’d better come in then.’
The hall and stairs had brown and gold brocade paper on the walls, a gold-painted antique-looking mirror, and framed prints of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Scream by Edvard Munch. It was like a tour of the National Gallery.
The living room was a mass of colour with hundreds of nesting dolls on the mantelpiece, specially erected shelves, tables and on the windowsill: Traditional Russian Matryoshka dolls, owls, gnomes, lions, penguins, monkeys, hippos, pigs, frogs and dogs . . .
‘Excuse my babies. That’s what I call them. Of course, I know they’re not really my babies, but . . . I never had any, you know. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Tea would be nice, Mrs . . . ?’
‘Oh yes! I haven’t introduced myself. You’re the police, I thought you’d already know who everyone was.’
Perry shook her head. ‘Sadly, no.’
‘Well, there’s a turn up for the books. And I thought we lived in a police state.’
Lauren pulled out her phone. ‘I could soon find out if you don’t want to tell us.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I’m sure you could. My name is Diana Hardy, unmarried, ex-security guard at the airport.’
‘Tea would be lovely, Diana.’
‘I’ll go and make it then, shall I? Sit down, you’re making the place look untidy.’
She was gone for about five minutes, and returned with a tray of three cups with tea already inside them, a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar with a spoon sticking upright in the granules. ‘Help yourself. I have a collection of teapots in the kitchen, and they don’t go anywhere.’ She sat down in what was obviously her armchair, and put her cup and saucer on a side table. ‘So, what can I tell you after all this time that I didn’t tell the police officers in the days after it happened?’
Parish edged forward on the sofa. ‘He’s killed two more families since . . .’
‘I can read. He’s got the measure of you lot, that’s for sure.’
‘So it would seem.’ He took a slurp of the tea, which tasted like stewed prunes. ‘Can you describe what Kylie Woodhouse and her children were like?’
‘Kylie was a slip of a girl – all skin and bone. How she gave birth to twins is beyond me. She was beautiful though. Well, on the outside. Had a tongue on her like a rattlesnake, did that one. I used to babysit for her, you know. Well, that was until she brought home the Rollins fella . . .’
‘What about Kylie’s parents?’
‘Didn’t have nothing to do with her. Threw her out when she got pregnant, so she said. Oh, they wanted her back all right once she’d had those lovely twins, but by then it was too late. She told them where to go in no uncertain terms.’
‘What happened after she brought home Martin Rollins?’
‘Religion happened, that’s what. He was a Methodist so Kylie said. Used to spout all sorts of rubbish at her. Of course, he started off slow until he had his feet well and truly under the table. Tried to turn her into something she wasn’t. Read passages from the bible before they ate, took her and the twins to church on a Sunday . . . things like that.’
‘Did you babysit for Kylie once Rollins was living there?’
‘A couple of times he took her out, but that soon stopped. He said that a mother should stay at home to care for her children.
’
‘Did you get the opportunity to see anything that belonged to Martin Rollins while you were in the house?’
Diana shook her head. ‘No, you’ve got that wrong. In fact, come to think of it, I suppose the other police officer thought the same thing as well. All he wanted to know was whether I’d seen anything around the time Kylie and the twins were killed. I hadn’t, of course, and nobody ever came back.’
Parish glanced at Perry. ‘What do you mean?’
‘When I did the babysitting, Kylie used to bring the children round here to me.’
‘Round here?’
‘Yes. The two of them used to sleep top-to-tail in one cot – like bookends. This is a three-bedroom house, you know. Best thing I ever wasted my money on. I needed somewhere to live, you see. Everyone said that property was the thing to invest in . . . I don’t normally listen to what people say, but I did that one time. Anyway, the other two bedrooms were standing empty, so I suggested she bring the twins round here to me, and that way she could stay out as late as she wanted to without worrying about them, or that I needed to get home to bed.’
‘And you gave them back in the morning?’
‘Sometimes. If she’d made a night of it, I didn’t give them back until the following evening. Call me a silly old fool, but as I said before, I never married and I never had any children of my own . . .’ Tears ran down her face. She dabbed at her eyes with a paper tissue. ‘Look at me scriking like a mad woman. I used to love having those children in my house. It was like . . . Anyway, I bought a cot and then a bed with bedding, decorated the room, bought toys and everything. It was like . . .’ Tears burst from her eyes again, and she hurried from the room.
‘Did you know the children were brought here?’ Parish asked Perry.
She shook her head. ‘No – nobody did.’
Diana returned. ‘Sorry,’ she said, sitting back down in her chair. ‘After Kylie and the twins had gone, I didn’t have the heart to change anything. It was like I’d lost my own children. I keep telling myself I need to decorate their room again. Give the bed, the clothes and all the toys to charity, but . . . Sometimes, I still sit in the rocking chair next to the bed and sing to them . . .’ Tears streaked her face again, but she didn’t wipe them away. ‘I know they’re up in Heaven listening to me.’
