by Ellis, Tim
‘Okay.’
‘Which means what?’
‘I have a box.’
‘You collect a piece of evidence and put it in your little box?’
‘It’s not so little.’
‘So have you got a folder?’
‘I have a number of folders.’
‘Have you put anything in them?’
‘Separators.’
‘You mean you haven’t been compiling your folders?’
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘You’ve been doing nothing for four months. I blame myself. I should have been checking. I thought I could trust you, but clearly that trust is misplaced.’
‘You can trust me.’
‘Obviously not.’
‘I’ll take a small part of the blame.’
‘Very generous. What you will do is begin compiling your folders.’
‘After Christmas and New Year.’
‘Tonight.’
‘I can’t tonight, I have plans.’
The car swerved. ‘Of course, I’d forgotten all about your little assignation. You were giving me details?’
‘I was not. It’s none of your business.’
‘It’s going to be another disaster, isn’t it?’
‘It will not.’
‘So, where did you meet him?’
‘On the Internet.’
‘Uh oh.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to come with you.’
‘As if.’
‘I bet he looks like Brad Pitt, has a body like mine, and you love him already?’
‘His body is much better than yours – less flab.’
He laughed. ‘When you actually meet him he’ll be a small, fat, ugly bald guy.’
‘No he won’t.’
‘But what if he is?’
‘Well, then I’ll leave.’
‘Where are you meeting him?’
‘In the Plume of Feathers.’
‘He’s local then?’
‘From Enfield.’
‘And what’s his name?’
‘Peter Jones.’
‘Uh oh. I’ll have to come with you.’
‘You don’t believe anybody could ever be telling the truth, do you?’
‘At best, they tell half-truths. Everybody has something to hide.’
‘I don’t.’
‘So, you’ve told him that you snore like an elephant, talk in your sleep, have nightmares, wake up screaming like a banshee, hide in cupboards like an asylum inmate, get more excited about the thought of serial killers than you do about sex, and...?’
‘I do not.’
‘That’s settled then, I’ll come with you.’
‘I’m twenty-two, you know.’
‘You need to start acting like it.’
She crossed her arms. ‘Huh.’
‘Let’s get back to your evidence. You do know you can’t simply put a piece of evidence in your folder and let it speak for itself, don’t you?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘The examiner needs to see that you understand.’
‘I do.’
‘And you need to provide evidence of that. Each piece of evidence should be supported by additional evidence of understanding.’
‘It’s a nonsense.’
‘You could make a sacrificial pyre of your evidence box in the back garden, and go back to Cheshunt to work in the cleaner’s cupboard.’
She looked out of the window.
‘Don’t think I can’t see you smiling.’
‘I am not.’
‘I’ll wander into the Plume of Feathers tonight and have a pint to make sure you’re all right, that’s all. Tomorrow night...’
‘...We’re meant to be going to London.’
‘Oh yes. Well, let me give you a target. I want to see all your evidence in folders. Each piece of evidence is to be annotated with how you think it meets the relevant occupational standard. I want that on my desk on the 2nd January.’
‘That means I won’t have a Christmas and New Year.’
‘You could always go back to Cheshunt. I hear they’re looking for someone to pick up shell casings in the shooting gallery.’
‘Sometimes...’
‘...You’re lost for words?’
‘How did you know?’
***
Kowalski smiled. Parish seemed to have made a good call – although he’d never dream of saying as much to his face. Lola was proving to be a godsend. Half way through the first day of their partnership, and she’d hit the ground running. Well, probably not running. Waddling would be more accurate, like a penguin, or a...
‘You’re here to gaze into my beautiful blue eyes, to tell me you’re going to whisk me off to a faraway place where the white sand beach stretches as far as the mind can imagine, and the cool azure water laps at our naked bronzed bodies.’
‘That’s uncanny, Jenny. How could you possibly know what I was thinking?’
‘It’s a gift my mother passed onto me before she ran off with the dustbin man. I don’t see two plane tickets in your hand though, so why are you here?’
Jenny was a pleasant enough person in her mid-twenties. She looked a lot better now that she’d redesigned her hair into a blonde bob, rather than no style with a fringe that had been cut far too high. She’d also changed her glasses from large black-rimmed to thin rimless oblong ones that you hardly noticed. He’d heard her name mentioned a few times recently by some of the other officers, alongside words like “hot” and “cor”.
He thrust Jeremy Kincaid’s photograph at her. ‘As much as I’d like to be lying naked on a beach with you, Jenny, I have a murderer to catch, and this could be him. His details are on the back.’
‘Always the same with you murder detectives. You put death before having fun every time.’
‘And it’s a good job we do, otherwise you’d be out of a job.’
‘So, you want me to put this photograph on a sandwich board, and walk round Hoddesdon with it over my shoulders?’
‘You can do that if you want, but first I’d like you to send it to the press with a telephone number for the public to ring if they have any information about his whereabouts.’
‘In connection with?’
‘The murder of Lisa Taverner at The Snooty Pig in Wormley.’
‘You’ll owe me.’
‘I look forward to repaying the debt.’
‘You’re all talk, Kowalski,’ followed him down the corridor.
Lola had her coat, hat, and matching scarf on. Her substantial bag was slung over her shoulder as if she was prepared for a long hard winter.
‘Are you going somewhere?’
‘The Kincaid house with you.’
He checked the clock on the wall. It was ten past twelve. ‘What about some lunch first?’
‘I got rice and beans. I normally heat it up, but I can eat it cold on the way if we’re going to the Kincaids’ house. You want to share?’
‘Listen, you heat up your rice and beans and eat it here. I’ll go to the canteen because I need to see someone. I’ll meet you back here at one o’clock. We can go to the Kincaids’ house then. Is that okay with you?’
‘All right with me, Ko-wall-ski. Lola will be in the incident room eating her rice and beans, and looking if we done missed anything. Oh, and I found Mrs Kincaid’s grandmother living in a home.’
‘Excellent. No parents?’
‘Nope. Neither of ‘em got live parents.’
‘Okay. We can go and speak to her after we’ve done a search of the house. I’ll see you at one then.’
He wandered off towards the stairs feeling guilty. He didn’t need to see anyone, and he didn’t want to share Lola’s rice and beans. If he was forced to say why, it was probably because he wasn’t comfortable with her yet. He didn’t really know her, and had no idea what her cooking was like, or whether she lived in a clean house. In fact, what did he know about her? Was she m
arried? He didn’t think so. Did she have any children? Again, the answer was probably no. They hadn’t established the banter he’d had with Ed – that was the main thing. If he sat and had lunch with her, what the hell would they talk about? Apart from the case, what did they have in common? Maybe Parish’s idea wasn’t so good after all.
***
Doc Riley saw them enter the cafeteria and walked over to intercept them, and guide them to the end of the food queue.
‘Are you hungry, Doc?’ Parish said.
‘Famished.’
‘Me too.’
There was a Hawaiian day in progress, so he thought he’d try the Teriyaki meatballs with mango bread.
‘I hope you’re not going to breathe on me.’
‘I’ll try not to.’
He looked around, but disappointingly he didn’t see any beautiful girls in grass skirts and bikini tops handing out leis.
Doc Riley had a plate of Konbu Maki, which apparently was seaweed wrapped pork rolls. Parish was glad he hadn’t picked them. They looked too green for his liking. Richards ordered a Kamaboko salad, which had some shredded cabbage and noodles in it.
‘What’s that?’ he asked pointing to two pink elongated shapes. ‘They look like pieces of Brighton rock.’
‘Kamaboko – they’re fishcakes.’
‘Good luck with that. I hope you’re not going to breathe on me either. I hate fish.’
Once they’d sat down and settled into an eating rhythm Parish said, ‘Okay Doc, give me the good news.’
‘The good news is that I’ve managed to identify what was under that piece of skin...’
‘What do you think?’ he said to Richards. ‘Rose tattoo or not?’
‘I think it’s a rose tattoo, and I also think it’s Kasia Plaziuk.’
‘I have a bad feeling about it,’ he said.
Richards smiled. ‘I thought those meatballs didn’t look very nice.’
‘And the winner is... Inspector Parish,’ Doc Riley said. ‘It’s not a rose tattoo, which obviously means it’s not Kasia Plaziuk. It is a tattoo though, but of a butterfly. Unfortunately, I was barely able to recover the outline, so that’s all I can tell you about it.’
‘Last time you carried out tests on the amniotic fluid?’
‘And this time also. The baby was another boy. There is no DNA match for the father on the database though.’
‘Same cause of death?’
‘Suffocation before decapitation.’
‘Well, that’s two bodies in four days and we’re still no further forward. We don’t know who either of the victims is, and we have no suspects.’
‘The killer is being really inconsiderate,’ Richards said. ‘He should make it easier for us to find out who they are and who he is. Maybe leave us some clues in envelopes to open when we’re in difficulty. Do you think we’d open one of those envelopes now, Sir?’
‘See what I have to put up with, Doc. Instead of a partner who contributes to the investigation, I have one who makes facetious comments because she’s as much in the dark as I am.’
‘He always moans like this at the start of an investigation. He’s a half-empty type of person. We know lots of things about the murders we didn’t know before.’
Parish grunted. ‘Name one thing?’
‘The second victim had a butterfly on her right shoulder.’
‘We’ve only just been told that. Name anything else that could help us solve these murders?’
‘The victims are women in their early twenties who have recently given birth to baby boys. Neither of them appears to have been reported missing. Both had their head, hands and feet removed after death. The bodies were disposed of in the sewers, and the appendages are somewhere else.’
‘You’re just regurgitating facts about the murders. There’s nothing in what you’ve said that helps us identify victims or killer.’
Her brow furrowed. ‘You’re just having a bad hair day, aren’t you?’
‘You can’t think of anything, can you?’
‘If I say something useful, you’ll just pooh-pooh it anyway. I’m a half-full type of person, Doc. I can see that in four days we’ve made significant progress. The killer always makes it difficult for us. He knows that if we catch him he’ll end up in prison for the rest of his life, so he’s not going to leave us his name and address, and he’s not going to provide us with clues in little envelopes either. He’s going to make it as difficult as possible for us to catch him, because that’s what killers do. If catching killers was easy, anybody could do it, and it wouldn’t be worth doing. Instead, it’s difficult and we’re doing it.’
‘Don’t you just hate those half-full types, Doc? So, have you got anything else for us?’
‘I do actually...’
Richards stared at her.
‘...have something else for you.’
‘Oh?’ Parish finished his Kulolo pudding. All he could taste and smell now was coconut milk.
‘A colleague was working on another corpse using an ultraviolet backlight. The light happened to pass over the cadaver I was working on, and it highlighted something on the inside of her left wrist. I checked the first body again and she has the same mark – TC in a circle.’
‘And you’ve checked what it could be?’
‘Don’t worry, I know Maurice Michelin did a lot of additional work for you. TC in a circle is used as a stamp at the Toxic Club in Harlow.’
He smiled. ‘At last, a lead. Good work, Doc.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Richards said, ‘Should we go now?’
Parish stared at her. ‘You’re excited now, aren’t you? You’re imagining the possibilities such as CCTV, witnesses, suspects, all the things we’ve been lacking on this case so far?’
‘I just don’t want to be late getting back home. I want time to get ready.’
‘She’s got a date tonight, Doc.’
‘Someone nice?’
‘Ugly bald-headed guy with a limp and a beer belly.’
‘Take no notice of him. He just wants me to die a lonely old spinster.’ She stood up. ‘Come on then.’
‘Thanks, Doc. It was worth coming. I hope I don’t see you again until after the New Year. And should that be the case, have a good holiday.’
‘And you two.’
Once they were in the car Parish said, ‘Right, before we do anything else, phone the Border Agency. You need to tell them about Kasia Plaziuk and the birth of her son, about Mr Vojticek renting his flat out to an illegal immigrant, and about the Canon-Ryders employing her... Well, what are you waiting for?’
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit mean?’
‘Has a crime been committed?’
‘Well... yes, but...’
‘No buts. Are we not police officers?’
‘Well... yes, but...’
‘What would happen if we knew about a crime and didn’t report it, and then someone found out that we knew, but hadn’t reported it?’
‘Yes... but...’
‘Answer the question?’
‘We’d be disciplined.’
‘We? You, Miss half-full type of person. I’ve told you to report it, but you’re shilly-shallying.’
She rang the Border Agency and passed on the information. ‘There. Happy now?’
‘Infinitely.’
Parish’s phone played the William Tell Overture. ‘Good news I hope, Toadstone?’
‘Have I ever rung you with good news?’
‘That’s an interesting question. I can’t recall ever having received good news from you.’
‘There’s your question answered then, Sir. There’s another body.’
‘You really know how to spoil my day. Where?’
‘Iron Drive, Rush Green.’
‘Are you already there?’
‘Yes, we’re waiting for you and Mary. Di said you were going down to retrieve this one.’
Parish laughed. ‘So we are. Okay, we’ll be there in about fort
y minutes. Don’t start without us.’
‘I don’t think anyone is going to rush to beat you down there, Sir.’
‘Excellent. Have you implemented what we spoke about this morning?’
‘Being forceful is a thing of the past.’
‘See, you did have good news for me after all.’
He ended the call.
‘Another body?’
‘Yes.’
‘What were you laughing at?’
‘Oh, just something Toadstone said.’
‘What? Paul doesn’t usually say anything funny.’
‘Well, today he did. Why are we still sitting in the hospital car park?’
‘You haven’t told me where we’re going yet.’
‘Iron Drive, Rush Green.’
She keyed the address into the satnav. ‘You’re not going to tell me then?’
‘Tell you what? There’s another body, Toadstone said something funny, and that’s it. Drive.’
‘Huh!’
Chapter Fifteen
No sooner had they arrived outside the Kincaids’ house at 31 Churchfields Lane than Annie Edwards from across the road had opened her front door and was waving at them.
‘Cooeey, Inspector Kowalski.’
They walked over. ‘Hello, Annie,’ Kowalski said.
‘Would you like a mug of marmite while I tell you what’s been going on?’
‘Can’t stop, Annie. In a bit of a rush this afternoon.’
‘Who’s your little friend?’
‘This is Constable Laveque.’
‘There’s still no one at home, you know. They must have gone away for Christmas, although I don’t recall them going away at this time of year before. Maybe it’s because they lost the baby.’
‘Yes, we know there’s no one at home. We’re here to take a look round the house.’
‘Oooh, do you need any help? I know the layout. It’ll be the same as this one.’
‘No thanks, but I’d be grateful if you could keep a lookout in case someone comes back while we’re in there.’
‘Are you breaking and entering?’
‘We have a warrant.’
‘Okay, I’ll keep doggo.’ She laughed. ‘That’s the right word, isn’t it?’
