by Ellis, Tim
They had one lead – a picture of a woman that had been in Pitt’s wallet: Shirley Bridges – dated on the reverse as June, 1983. She lived in the small village of Steeple Bumpstead at number 12 Winston Churchill Way, and that’s where they were going after they’d finished ransacking Pitt’s townhouse.
Koll was waiting for him in the living room. ‘Nothing, except . . .’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Except?’
‘Except the letters and numbers.’
‘Letters and numbers?’
‘Remember, I told you I could see patterns?’
‘Yes.’
‘Somebody has written tiny letters and numbers all over the house.’
‘Show me.’
They started on the top floor and worked their way methodically down to the cellar. Koll showed him the numbers and letters she’d already spotted – in the corner of door frames, behind radiators, on the base of lamps, underneath a handrail on the stairs – and wrote them down in her notebook. When they began actively searching for them, they discovered others as well. Eventually they collected all those they could find:
FO3RAN4AGM9AAT6
‘What do your pattern-making abilities make of that?’ Stick asked.
‘A password, identification key, pin number something like that.’
Stick pulled a face. ‘You’re guessing.’
‘Of course. Did you think I had the answer up my sleeve?’
‘That would be excellent.’
‘I don’t.’
His brow furrowed. ‘Also, it might have absolutely nothing to do with our investigation.’
‘Maybe we should give it to forensics and see if they can work out if it’s relevant.’
‘Good idea. Give Di Heffernan a ring.’
Koll made the call and passed on the alphanumeric characters. ‘Di Heffernan is out at Hangman’s Wood in Little Thurrock dealing with a dead child, so I had to pass it to Dawn Mines.’
‘I don’t know her.’
‘She said she was new, but that she’d get right onto it as soon as she’d finished doing her nails.’
‘Very funny.’
‘No, that’s what she said.’
‘She was obviously joking.’
‘Maybe . . . although she sounded serious enough to me.’
Outside, the blustery wind blew them every which way as they fought their way to the car.
Stick had the idea that the world had forgotten the seasons. The weather was unpredictable, you never knew what to wear from one day to the next, you couldn’t plan your life beyond a couple of hours.
As they set off, he dozed. He was still trying to recoup Thursday’s lost eight hours of sleep. His mind drifted to Saturday morning. Jennifer had been called in to do overtime because Southend United were playing local rivals Colchester United in a testimonial match for one of their players, and wasn’t going to be home until the early evening, so he’d gone to visit Xena in the hospital . . . Of course, that was after he’d been to the station to right a wrong that he’d committed some months previously.
Following the publication of government top secret files on the WikiUK site, he knew that he had to give Parish the box of Epsilon files that he and Xena were given by Holly Morgan and then hidden under the name “Smith” in the evidence store.
He smiled at the thought of Xena’s reaction when he’d told her.
‘YOU DID WHAT?’
‘I signed out the “Smith” box and put it on Parish’s desk.’
‘I heard you the first time, numpty. You’re trying to give me a relapse, aren’t you?’
‘You can’t have a relapse with nothing left to have a relapse with.’
‘You really know how to make a girl feel special.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You had to go and do it, didn’t you? You couldn’t let sleeping elephants lie, you . . .’
‘. . . Dogs.’
‘If I want to say elephants – I’ll say elephants. When Parish finds out that it was you who put those files on his desk, what are you going to say?’
‘I’ll say we came across them during the Smith case.’
‘Keep going.’
‘Well, that’s it really.’
‘You’re a total numpty, Stickadoo. He’s a detective, he’s not going to be satisfied with a measly statement like that. He’ll want to know where you came across them, who had them, why you signed “Top Secret” files into the evidence store in an attempt to hide them, and what he’ll really want to know most of all . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘. . . Is how come you knew to put the box on his desk?’
‘Ah!’
‘You might very well say, “Ah”, numpty. It was months ago that you heard Richards mention Epsilon – he’ll want to know why you’ve been keeping the files from him all this time.’
Stick screwed up his face. ‘Well . . .’
‘I’m waiting.’
‘I’ll just tell the truth.’
Xena had a fit of coughing, and had to sit up and press down on her stomach with both hands to stop the stitches keeping the two halves of her together from unravelling.
He stood up and put his hand on top of hers.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Helping.’
‘You pervert. Get your hand out of my knickers.’
‘I never would . . .’
‘You already did. If you’d gone down any further you would have needed an oxygen mask and flippers to get back out.’
‘I had to do it. I had a guilty conscience.’
Xena rolled her eyes. ‘I knew I could never trust you to keep schtum. You’re too nice and honest by far.’
Staff Nurse Louise James came in dragging a trolley behind her. ‘Time to change your dressing.’
‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a visitor.’
‘Your boyfriend can stay and watch, if he wants.’
‘For one – he’s not my boyfriend. For two – he’s not staying to watch anything that involves me hefting up my nightdress. And for three – can’t you do this after visiting hours are over?’
She put a finger up to her temple. ‘Mmmm, let me see – no.’
‘You’re a bitch. Is it part of your training? Do you have bitch sessions on the timetable? Do you practise being bitches on each other? Do you stand in front of the mirror practising your bitch look?’
‘Oh yes, all of those. Most of the time though, I never have to use it, but sometimes a patient comes in who makes all the training worthwhile . . .’
‘I hope you’re not referring to me, bitch?’
‘I don’t see how you could possibly think that when everybody knows you’re a model patient – pleasant, kind, always a happy smile for the nurses . . .’
He’d left them to their verbal sparring. Neither had seen him slip out through the door.
Yes, if Parish tracked him down, he’d tell him the truth – it was always the best policy.
Chapter Two
The man forced Henry Rattinger’s mouth open with the tapered end of the crowbar.
‘Tongue,’ he said matter-of-factly.
Two lengths of rope had been thrown over one of the wooden roof beams of the derelict farm building located at the edge of Icehouse Grove next to the A10, and looped around Rattinger’s wrists and ankles. He’d then been hoisted up so that he was at a thirty degree angle to the floor. His shoulder joints had rotated backwards and upwards, and then dislocated to accommodate the weight of his flabby body. The searing pain was evident in his tear-streaked face.
There was a mixture of abject fear, pain and pleading in Rattinger’s eyes, but he didn’t stick his tongue out.
‘It’s very simple, Rattinger – stick your tongue out, or I’ll break all your teeth, reach into the gaping hole and get your tongue anyway.’
The tip of Rattinger’s curled-up tongue appeared.
‘More.’
A strangled ‘Please’ came from Rattin
ger’s throat.
‘More.’ He ran the bar over Rattnger’s teeth. ‘The last time I’ll ask. Easy or hard – up to you.’
He took hold of Rattinger’s tongue with the spiked pincer forceps he’d found at a car boot sale and pulled hard.
Rattinger’s eyes bulged, and a noise like a pig being strangled came from the back of his throat.
‘That’s right – you struggle as much as you want, Rattinger,’ the man said. ‘It won’t make any difference to me, but for you it’ll be a lot more painful.’ He brandished a Stanley knife. ‘I’m going to cut out your tongue, you see,’ and that’s exactly what he did. He pressed the blade into the top of Rattinger’s tongue and dragged the knife sideways.
The majority of Rattinger’s tongue came away and dangled between the pincers of the forceps. He manoeuvred the appendage into a clear plastic sandwich bag, dropped the bag into a box, knotted the bag at the top and then slid the box into a pre-addressed envelope.
Guttural noises came from Rattinger’s mouth and blood gushed like a waterfall onto the concrete floor.
The man brushed the leaves and debris from a windowsill with his gloved hand, sat down and crossed his ankles.
‘Now, I’m going to watch you bleed to death, Rattinger.’
It took just over half an hour. Rattinger had changed colour from a healthy pink to a deathly mottled white, and there was more of his blood on the floor than there was inside of him.
The man could still detect a faint glimmer of life in the limp body. After he’d carved a three-word message into the skin of Rattinger’s forehead, he ran the blade of the Stanley knife around his neck – very little blood seeped out.
On his way to work, he called in at a post office and posted the envelope to:
Detective Inspector J. Parish
Murder Investigation Team
Hoddesdon Police Station
Hoddesdon
EN11 8BJ
***
Each morning Amy came down with a bowl of warm water and washed Jerry all over, brushed her teeth and her hair, took the stinking bucket away that Jerry was using as a toilet, and then brought her some breakfast.
The woman was as crazy as a cuckoo.
It only took a misplaced word, a stray look or a throw-away shrug that was translated into an implied offence for Amy to be tipped over the edge and give Jerry another beating.
How many beatings had she had now? Five? Six? Ten? She had lost count. She had welts on her welts. In some places the skin had broken and there was a line of caked blood. It was becoming increasingly clear to her that if Amy kept beating her as she had been doing with the rattan cane – then Jerry wasn’t going to last very long at all.
Amy was light and dark, good and evil, water and fire, life and death all in one person. One minute Jerry couldn’t have wished for a nicer human being, the next – she was like a demon from the sulphur pits of Hell. What had happened to this woman to make her like this?
‘If you let me go I can help you.’
‘Help me?’Amy’s face clouded over so fast. ‘Why do I need your help?’ She grabbed the cane. ‘You’re the one who needs help.’ And the beating started.
Another time Amy asked, ‘Do you like the food?’
‘I’ve never been keen on broccoli.’
‘Is that right?’ Amy’s eyes glazed over, as if she were in a different time and place, and seeing some other person instead of Jerry, but it was Jerry who received the beating. ‘Good girls eat their broccoli . . . Broccoli is good for you . . . Eat your broccoli . . . Eat it all up, you bad girl,’ – and between each sentence the rattan cane tore strips out of Jerry’s flesh.
‘Tell me about your parents,’ she’d said when they were sitting quietly together.
Amy went straight for the cane and began raining blows down on her.
‘You don’t even know me . . . You think I’m Amy Lawless . . . I’m not her . . . I’m nobody . . . Do you hear me? . . . I’M NOBODY.’ She ran up the steps of the cellar crying. But the next morning, it was as if nothing had ever happened.
How was she ever going to get out of here? And if Amy wasn’t Julie Wilkinson and she wasn’t Amy Lawless – who was she?
One time – when Ray had been away on a course – she’d watched a documentary on something called Stockholm Syndrome – where a victim bonded with their aggressor as a response to the trauma being suffered. It was not dissimilar to battered-person syndrome, and explained why traumatised men and women in violent relationships defended their spouses and stayed with their aggressor.
Is that what she had to do to survive?
What she did know was that if Amy kept beating her as she had been doing, then the only way she was getting out of the cellar was as a corpse.
‘Good morning, Amy,’ she said, and hoped she’d said it right and it wasn’t misinterpreted as, ‘Let me go, you crazy bitch,’ which is what was ticker-taping through her head.
‘How are you feeling this morning?’
That was not really the question Amy was asking.
Jerry had eventually realised that in Amy’s unhinged mind she needed continuous affirmation. She needed to know that she was loved, that Jerry appreciated everything Amy was doing for her and that when Amy beat her she realised it was for her own good.
‘I feel wonderful, Amy.’
‘After I’ve washed you, I’ll bathe those nasty cuts on your skin with Savlon. Goodness knows how you’ve got yourself in such a state.’
‘Thank you, Amy.’
She had to be on her guard all the time when Amy was in the cellar with her – it was so easy to make a mistake. She could imagine how children suffered under abusive parents.
What was Ray doing now? Was he searching for her? According to him, he was a brilliant detective. Well, he’d better be, that’s all she could say. Knowing Ray as she did, she knew he’d never give up. He’d turn over every stone, move heaven and earth, bend over backwards to find her. If he was trying to find her, then her job was to keep herself alive until he did. And with this crazy bitch, that was turning into a full-time job.
What were her children – Gabe, Oceana, Tabitha and Gabi – doing now? Did they miss her? Were her mother and father looking after them?
Tears filled her eyes and corkscrewed down her cheeks.
‘Why are you crying?’
‘I was thinking of my children.’
Amy’s face changed.
She retrieved the cane and began beating her again.
‘You have no children . . . You live here with me now . . . I hate children . . . I hate you for making me remember . . . Oh, and I remember everything . . .’
‘Stop . . . please stop.’
‘Stop? Oh no – there’ll be no stopping until you learn to do as you’re told, child . . .’
***
He passed the list to Carrie. ‘That’s as much as I can think of for now. I’ve put my mobile number at the bottom. Whoever they send as a stand in can ring me if they need to.’
‘I hope you find her soon, Sir.’
Kowalski nodded. ‘I’m going to give it my best shot, Carrie.’
‘And don’t worry about what’s happening here. I’ll ring the Chief Constable if things start getting out of hand.’
He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Thanks, Carrie.’
Over the weekend he’d exhausted every possible lead. He’d been through Jerry’s address book with a critical eye, rung all her friends, but no one had seen or heard from her. He rang Charlie Baxter, but Charlie had nothing – if Tug Muleford hadn’t taken her, then he didn’t have the faintest idea who had.
He rang Cookie.
‘You know you’re not allowed to use illegal means to find out information now. Those government assholes won’t be happy until they put all of us honest hard-working jobseekers out of business.’
‘I know.’ He recalled the first time he’d met Cookie. He’d been lying in a hospital bed connected up to a heart monitor. She looked like a hom
eless person with multicoloured hair ranging between black and yellow, strawberry eye shadow all around her light grey eyes, five silver rings piercing her bottom lip and a leather plaited choker around her scrawny neck.
‘So, why are you ringing me? You know I hate working for the police – it leaves a dirty taste in my mouth.’
‘You’re not working for the police, you’re working for me . . . you’re working for Jerry.’
‘And that makes it all right?’
‘It makes it less dirty. Indirectly, you’re working for Charlie Baxter.’
‘Does that mean I’ll be indirectly paid?’
‘No, I’ll pay you.’
‘Or . . . Instead of taking your blood money – I could work for free seeing as I like Jerry.’
‘You’re not becoming a philanthropist, are you?’
‘You want to keep your dirty language to yourself, Kowalski.’
As far as he knew, he told Cookie everything that had happened to Jerry since Friday.
‘Sounds like something Stephen King would write.’
‘Doesn’t it.’
‘I’ll do what I can, but . . .’
‘. . . You can’t promise anything?’
‘That’s right. Remember, I’m a hacker. Jerry ain’t got her mobile phone with her, she ain’t driving her car with its GPS system, she ain’t using her credit card. Julie Wilkinson ain’t Julie Wilkinson no more, so I ain’t got nobody to track . . .’
‘I get the picture, but you’ll do what you can?’
‘Of course. Ideas are already bouncing around inside my head.’
‘And you’ll call me?’
‘You must work with some weird dudes, Kowalski.’
The call ended.
If there was some way he could have avoided the next task – he would have done. He headed for the stairs. Most people didn’t bother him. If they weren’t won over by his good looks, charm and wit he had other tools in his toolbox. What he’d discovered – in the many years he’d worked with Maureen Threadneedle – was that nothing worked with her.
