by Ellis, Tim
The trouble was, the yellow line didn’t take her very far. She reached a lift, and the yellow line disappeared under the left-hand door. If you wanted to travel in the lift you needed an access card – she didn’t have a fucking access card. Didn’t life suck? Just when she thought she was moving in the right direction they had to go and make the line disappear. She turned right – wherever right was going to take her. She was beginning to think that she’d never get out of this subterranean labyrinth.
There was a sign for the stairs, but she needed an access card to open the door. She thought she might shoot the lock off, but that would probably bring a bucket load of fire and brimstone down on her head. As she passed the door though, she noticed that it was slightly ajar. It had a self-closing mechanism, but it was wedged open with a piece of old chewing gum. She opened the door, and slipped through the gap. After scraping the chewing gum off the floor with a fingernail, she popped it into her mouth and pulled the door closed. The chewing gum tasted of lemon – among other things. It was good to feel something else in her mouth other than her tongue.
More CCTV, but the lighting was poor. There was a hollow echoing sound as she climbed the stairs and hung onto the metal rail. She looked up and saw that there were probably a million steps. There must be pit-stops at different levels, places where a weary traveller could get a drink, a three-course meal, a massage, book in for the night at a motel, or get some plasters for your blisters . . .
At the top she’d probably need an access card to get out, and wondered what she was going to do when she got there. Where did the stairs lead? What was at the top? Would she end up where she started – at French Ordinary Court – spat out like an unwanted piece of garbage, but missing two friends and all her stuff?
There was no one else in the stairwell. At intervals, when she felt faint and her legs had turned to jelly, she sat down on a step and rested. As she climbed she noticed that there were no other doors leading out of the stairwell onto other floors.
Why was it called Basement 7? Were there other basements somewhere? Where were they? What happened in them? Why did the government need them? No doubt, if she made it out of this hellhole, she’d find a lot of the answers contained within the files and emails she’d copied into her online vault. The bastards were in for a shock.
Eventually, after what seemed like ten years or more, she reached a door. Yes, she was right, she needed an access card. She knocked softly like a dormouse with mittens on.
No one would hear that.
She knocked again. Loudly this time, like someone in a hurry, someone who was impatient with life, someone who . . .
The door opened.
‘Yes?’
Standing there was a big unshaven man with heavy features wearing olive-green creased trousers, a tight t-shirt to emphasise his muscles, and a strap around his neck which was attached to a Uzi machine gun. He looked like a mercenary in the Bolivian jungle.
He grabbed her coat lapel and dragged her through the door. ‘Well, look who it ain’t. Hey Stig, you’re never gonna believe this.’ He pushed her into a room that stunk of body odour, beer and cigarette smoke. There were four men lounging about on battered old sofas and chairs, a coffee table overflowing with dirty magazines, beer cans and a full ashtray. On one wall was a dartboard with half a dozen darts protruding from it; on another a bank of television screens showing CCTV images of the car park; French Ordinary Court and empty corridors; and on another wall an open cupboard with an assortment of weapons and ammunition inside.
Stig stood up. He had rotting teeth, piggy eyes and a broken nose. ‘Yeah, you’re right, Don. I don’t believe it.’ He squeezed her face with a large stinking hand, squeezed a breast and walked round her like a lion guarding its dinner. ‘Don’t tell me, you liked it so much the first time, you thought you’d come back for seconds?’
‘I said I was going to kill you. Well, here I am.’
He laughed.
The others joined in.
She pulled the trigger of the Smith & Wesson. The noise was louder than she expected in the confined space and made her jump.
The look of disbelief on his face as he collapsed to the floor holding his stomach was her revenge wrapped up in fancy paper with a pretty little bow on top.
As if in slow motion, she shot all four men. After Stig, she turned and shot Don before he could turn his machine gun on her. Then, she shot the other two as they were scrambling for their weapons.
The room was full of smoke. Her ears were ringing, her head was throbbing, and Stig was bleeding and groaning on the floor.
‘You fucking bitch,’ he gasped, as he slithered along the floor like a snake trying to reach a machine gun, and leaving a slimy trail of blood in his wake.
She trod on his ankle and said, ‘I don’t think so.’
He rolled on his back and stared at her with a smirk on his face.
She shot him in the groin.
His eyes nearly popped out of his head. The smirk disappeared.
She pointed the gun at his face and pulled the trigger again.
There, it was done.
She put the gun down on the coffee table, sat down on the arm of a sofa and waited for them to come and arrest her.
The ringing in her ears stopped.
The smoke dissipated.
Her heart-rate returned to normal.
She waited.
Nobody came to arrest her.
After another ten minutes she realised that nobody was going to come for her. She stood up and got her bearings. She left the room and walked along a corridor. After passing the lift, she found herself in another corridor, and then at the door that led to French Ordinary Court.
It wasn’t time to leave yet.
She went back and searched the room. She found her own rucksack behind the sofa. It still had everything inside – including her laptop.
Stig had lied to her. All the men were there for was to stop unwanted guests getting into the facility. The people inside weren’t interested in what the men did with those who were caught, just as long as they didn’t live to tell the tale. Well, their luck had just run out – Cookie was still alive.
She opened the ruckside wide and filled it with a Glock 21, three boxes of ammunition, a silencer, and the wallets of all four men.
As she searched, she discovered a three-quarter-full jerry can of petrol and a box of six grenades and had an idea. First, she poured petrol over the dead men and the sofas and chairs and along the corridor past the lift. Next, she opened the door to the stairs, propped the door open with the jerry can by turning it on its side and letting the petrol slop out and run down the stairs.
When the jerry can was empty, she took out the pins from five of the grenades one at a time and tossed them into the stairwell, then she kicked the jerry can down the stairs and closed the door.
She could hear muffled explosions as she put her rucksack on, pulled the pin on the last grenade and tossed it into the room before closing the door and running up the corridor towards the exit into French Ordinary Court.
Instead of going to the car park, she made her way to Fenchurch Street station and used money from one of the wallets to buy a ticket back to Wanstead.
While she was sitting on the platform waiting for the train, she cried. She didn’t know whether the tears were for Harley and Romeo, the ordeal she’d been through, or the fact that she’d escaped when she never thought she would. Now, she was going to make the fucking dirty bastards pay.
Chapter Twenty
As it turned out, they didn’t have time to go to the address in Billericay to see the adoptive parents of Fannie Binetti’s son. The officers who were sent to pick up William Ismay received no answer at his house. When they looked through the letterbox they saw his feet dangling in the hallway. They were given permission by Inspector Threadneedle to force entry into the property, but when they cut him down he was a long time dead.
‘Can you arrange for Toadstone and Doc Riley to
go over there?’ he asked Maureen Threadneedle when she rang him to let him know what was happening. ‘Based on what we’ve found out about Ismay it probably is a suicide, but because he’s implicated in the murder of one of his workers we’d better go by the book.’
‘You can be really boring sometimes. Has anybody ever told you that?’
‘Not recently, but I’m sure it must be true if you believe it to be so, Maureen.’
‘And don’t think I’ll ever forget about the part you played in Lola Laveque’s death. If you hadn’t interfered she’d still be alive today. There’s a black mark against your name in my book, Parish.’
She ended the call before he had chance to respond, which was probably a good job because he had no idea what to say to her accusation.
They’d just pulled up outside William Ismay’s house in Chingford when Maureen rang him again. ‘We’ve got those two absconders you asked us to arrest – Laing and Poulson.’
‘Excellent. Please deposit them in the cells, we’ll interview them later.’
‘Your wish is my command,’ she said, and ended the call.
‘I don’t like her,’ Richards said.
‘You have the habit of repeating yourself.’
‘I thought you might have forgotten.’
‘I hadn’t.’
‘Good.’
‘But you know you can’t pick and choose who you work with, don’t you?’
‘I understand that.’
‘I’m glad.’
After showing their warrant cards to the uniformed officer standing at the gate, they walked up the path to 50 Mayfield Road in Chingford.
Although Ismay had been cut down, the rope he had used to fashion a noose was still attached to the handrail on the upstairs banister.
Parish looked up at the dangling rope and said, ‘Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.’
Toadstone pushed himself up from examining Ismay’s neck in the open body bag and smiled. ‘Confucius.’
Richards grinned. ‘Ha! He beat you again.’
‘Was it suicide?’
‘I’m waiting for Doc Riley to confirm that, but you might like to take a look at this.’ He passed Parish a piece of paper in a clear evidence bag, which had “I’m sorry” written on it.
‘Is it his writing?’
‘Looks like it. The doors and windows were also locked from the inside.’
‘He could have made it clear what he was sorry for. What do you think, Richards?’
‘Paying for Lorna Boyce to be killed?’
‘If he did. We haven’t confirmed that yet.’
‘Mixing horse meat with beef?’
‘Hanging yourself seems a bit extreme for a bit of horse meat.’
Richards pulled a face. ‘That’s all we know about, isn’t it?’
‘Mmmm.’
They began making their way back to the station to interview the four workers under caution, but had to make a detour back to Winton’s when Parish received a call from Sergeant Kristina Jackson telling them that the environmental health officer needed to see them.
‘What about?’
‘She wouldn’t say.’
‘How are you, Kristina?’
Richards glanced at him.
He signalled for her to watch the road.
‘I’m good. How are you?’
‘All the better for hearing your voice.’
‘I hear you have two children now.’
‘So it would seem.’
‘Have a nice day, Inspector.’
‘And you, Sergeant.’
‘I don’t like her,’ Richards said when the call ended.
‘Do you like anybody?’
‘There are lots of people I like.’
‘Just not the women I know.’
‘I wouldn’t say all the women you know – just some of them.’
‘I see.’
The environmental health officer – Valerie Nichols – was waiting for them outside the building.
‘What’s going on?’ Parish asked.
‘I’ve locked the factory down.’
‘I hope you haven’t brought me all the way back here to tell me that.’
‘That’s the wrong question. You should be asking me why I’ve locked the factory down.’
He glanced at Richards. ‘You ask her, my tongue has gone numb.’
Richards smiled. ‘Why?’
‘It’s not horse meat.’
Parish grunted. ‘Not horse meat? So, Ismay was paying those workers extra to mix beef with beef?’
Nichols shook her head. ‘It’s not beef either.’
‘What is it then? Donkey? Gorilla? Camel? Zebra?’
‘I’ve taken samples.’
‘What does that mean? Why exactly have you called us back here?’
‘I think it’s human.’
‘Human? You mean, someone’s cut themselves and . . . ?’
‘No. There’s a significant amount of human meat mixed in with the beef.’
Parish pulled a face. ‘Are you sure?’
She indicated a large plastic box. ‘We have a test kit. My conclusion needs verifying by a medical officer, but the test is ninety-nine percent accurate.’
‘Are we talking about one person?’ Richards chipped in.
Valerie Nichols shrugged. ‘That will require a full DNA analysis. So, the answer to your question is: I called you back here because, apart from the health concerns associated with eating human meat, I assume there’s been one or more murders and the bodies are being disposed of.
‘That might explain why Lorna Boyce was killed,’ Richards suggested. ‘And probably why William Ismay killed himself. Do you think the four workers knew that the meat was human, Sir?’
‘You’re missing the point as usual, Richards. This has been going on for four months. Human meat has been introduced into the food chain. People have been eating human meat. We might have eaten human meat. We’ve become a nation of cannibals.’
‘Oh God, you’re right.’
Parish’s face became even more serious. ‘There needs to be a media lockdown as well. Can you imagine if news of this got out?’ He looked at Nichols. ‘You need to speak to your emergency planning officer. What you’ve just told me must never come out.’
She nodded, took out her mobile and began ringing people.
‘Who are the dead people?’ Richards asked him. ‘Where have they come from?’
‘That’s another problem entirely. Contact the Interpol Liaison Officer and tell him what’s going on. Finding out where the human meat is coming from will require a specialist team.’
‘Do you know who it is?’
‘Not a clue.’
‘Have we got one at Hoddesdon?’
‘Do I look like the Oracle of Delphi?’
‘Now you come to mention it . . .’
***
Batabano Road
West Bay, Grand Cayman
Winnie Flowers and Rosibel returned within the hour.
Oscar and Safa had eaten, but the kitchen was a complete mess. Safa had returned to her bedroom.
‘You have it?’ he asked Winnie.
She nodded and passed him the piece of paper he had given her.
He looked at the indecipherable writing and then at Rosibel.
‘Raymond Kowalski, 11 Great Owl Road, Chigwell, England,’ Rosibel said.
The semblance of a smile crossed his face. ‘Then we are done. Safa has had two lemon pancakes. I hate washing up, I will leave that to you.’
Winnie looked around the room. ‘You never said you were going to torture my kitchen while I was gone.’
‘Lemon pancakes have a life of their own.’ He headed towards the front door. ‘Remember, Winnie Flowers. We were never here, and you have never heard of Oscar or Rosibel.’
‘Who?’
They left.
‘See,’ he said to Rosibel, as they walked along the road back to the hotel. ‘Everything is fi
ne. I have what I came for, and the woman and child are still alive.’
‘You think I should be grateful?’
‘I merely state a fact. You were concerned that the child would die. The child is alive. It was a good plan. Now, we will return to the hotel, pack and travel to the airport.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Yes. I do not want to give the woman the opportunity to change her mind and call the police.’
‘She won’t change her mind. What you asked of her was nothing. Her child’s life was her only concern.’
‘Still . . . we will leave tonight.’
They walked along Seven Mile Beach in silence. The sun had nearly been extinguished by the sea. The lights from the beach front hotels were nearly as bright as the day.
Oscar said, ‘When we reach the hotel, you are to book two rooms in the best hotel in this Chigwell, England.’
‘Yes, Master.’
He glanced at her.
‘I seem to have become your slave,’ she announced.
The corner of his mouth went up. ‘I’m sure there are worse occupations, and I promise I will only flog you if you betray me.’
She ignored him.
Once they reached the hotel he said, ‘I will meet you here in the reception in an hour.’
She carried on up to her room. He informed the woman on the reception desk that they were leaving, and to organise their bill and a taxi to the airport in one hour’s time.
In his room he quickly had a shower and packed the few items he’d brought with him into the overnight bag. He was drawn to the balcony like an addict to heroin, and the way the reflective surfaces were angled so that he could see every intimate detail he felt as though he were sitting in a hall of mirrors. He hoped that maybe he would see Rosibel naked one more time – and he did.
It was as if she couldn’t begin her act until he appeared on his balcony like a junkie in search of a fix. She stood in front of the mirror drying herself, but it soon became something more than that – something sensual and erotic. He couldn’t actually hear her, but he imagined that her breathing was heavy with desire, and that she was moaning softly and calling his name under her breath.
