Lamb to the Slaughter (9781301399864)

by Ellis, Tim

  ‘I’m seeing Pine tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Do you think she’s still alive?’

  He shrugged. ‘Let’s wait and see, shall we?’

  Xena interrupted. ‘And you’re going to this Alpha bank tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She began pulling the covers back. ‘I need to get out of here.’

  Tom Dougall and Stick both grabbed at the bed covers to stop her.

  ‘Now who’s being crazy?’ Stick said.

  ‘I’m going to handcuff you to the bed if you continue to act like an imbecile,’ Dougall informed her.

  ‘God! I hate being sick.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Following a straightforward journey along the M4 and M25, he arrived at Esher Police Station in Surrey at quarter to nine. It had been seven-thirty by the time he’d eaten the Chinese takeaway at Lizzie Bradford’s house and set off.

  Before he left, he decided to make one more phone call. Martin and Beatrix Wilkinson were dead, their house was probably empty or already sold. Going there wouldn’t serve any purpose, so he’d rung Esher Police Station and arranged to meet with a Chief Inspector Denise Branton at nine o’clock.

  The police station was dilapidated. It was one of the many stations on the closure list across the country. Esher was a relatively crime-free area, and the station was rarely used. The plan was to replace the stations with cheaper buildings in town centres for police neighbourhood teams – saving money and rationalising existing resources was the driving force behind the initiative. He’d read the strategic management paper on the proposed plans, but remained sceptical about the suggested benefits that would accrue.

  Denise Branton was well into her fifties, looked tired and all used up. He’d told her on the phone what it was all about, and asked her if he could get a copy of the report into the Wilkinsons’ car crash.

  She passed him the file, but didn’t offer him coffee. ‘So, why am I still here at this time of night?’

  ‘The Wilkinsons were murdered.’

  ‘Traffic didn’t conclude that. They identified a broken brake pipe that didn’t appear to have occurred during the crash, but without any suspects . . .’ She shrugged. ‘They couldn’t find anybody who wanted the couple dead.’

  ‘Rose Needle wanted them dead. They could have identified her as an imposter for their daughter.’

  ‘And . . . you’re saying this . . . Rose Needle has killed other people as well?’

  ‘Including her parents – seven that I know of, but there are probably more.’ He withdrew the newspaper article from his inside pocket and opened it up on her desk.

  ‘Where’s the evidence?’

  ‘I have none – she’s very good.’

  ‘You’re a DCI, you know all this means squat without evidence.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And this is your wife?’ she asked tapping the photograph of Jerry.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Reasonably pretty. How does she fit into all of this?’

  ‘I don’t know, but if Rose hadn’t taken Jerry she’d still be an unknown serial killer.’

  ‘It’s a bit far-fetched.’

  ‘And yet . . .’

  ‘Anything else I can do for you?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ He stood up. ‘Thanks for staying late.’

  ‘No hardship really. There’s just an empty house waiting for me when I leave here.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Is it your fault that my husband left me because he wanted children and I wanted a career?’

  His brow furrowed. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Is it your fault that I wish I’d made different life choices?’

  ‘I can see . . .’ He edged towards the door of her office trying to extricate himself from the situation.

  ‘Is it your fault that I have to act like a man in a male profession in a man’s world?’

  ‘Ah . . .’ He had some knowledge of strong-willed women in a male-dominated profession – Maureen Threadneedle came to mind.

  ‘Is it your fault there’ll never be a female Police Commissioner?’

  He held up his hand. ‘I can see you have issues.’

  ‘Issues! Yes, I have issues, but you don’t want to listen to my issues, do you?’

  ‘Maybe another time.’ He opened the door. ‘Thanks for the file.’

  He stepped out and closed the door behind him. He was sympathetic, but his only concern at the moment was finding Jerry alive.

  The car needed petrol.

  He imagined that it would be an easy run up the A406 at this time of night. He felt as though he hadn’t slept for a week, and was looking forward to getting home and sleeping in his own bed – even though Jerry wasn’t there to keep his cockles warm.

  Just as he slipped the car into first gear his phone rang.

  ‘Kowalski.’

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘You do know I’m a police officer? If I recall, you detest police officers.’

  ‘You gave me your card. You said ring me, any time day or night.’

  ‘I remember, and I’m a man of my word. What’s the problem?’

  He listened as she told him briefly about going into Bunker 7 to help Jerry, about passing the files she’d borrowed over to Group323, about the men – and woman – in black turning up at the squat, and about the drug dealers and the two innocent bystanders who had been murdered.

  ‘I should have guessed you were behind the leaked documents.’

  ‘So arrest me.’

  ‘I’m on a leave-of-absence.’

  ‘So you’re not going to help me?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ He was between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand his overriding priority was to find Jerry, but on the other he had an obligation to help Cookie.

  ‘You’re a murder detective, aren’t you? I’ve just reported a handful of murders. Don’t you have to investigate them or something?’

  ‘I’m actually the Chief of the murder detectives now.’

  ‘A promotion, which, if I’m not too much mistaken, you have me to thank for.’

  ‘You know I’m trying to find . . .’

  ‘So, you’re not going to help me?’

  ‘If you’d just let me finish.’

  ‘Go on then, but I’m not in a very good mood.’

  ‘I’ll try to bear that in mind. Where are you?’

  ‘Feltham – outside the Defence Geospatial Intelligence Fusion Centre (DGIFC) building – I followed the fucking bastards back to their lair.’

  He keyed the address into his satnav. It would take him north, but it wasn’t close to home. The journey time was twenty-two minutes – half an hour. He’d drive up there, make his excuses and then go home.

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’ll be with you in about half an hour.’

  ‘Half an hour? Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll see you then. I’m sitting in a beat-up old Volvo.’

  He ended the call.

  What other choice did he have? He said he’d be there if she ever needed him, and he was bound by that promise. She’d been there for him when he was being railroaded by a corrupt Chief Constable, so he couldn’t turn his back on her now just because it wasn’t a good time. Although, he didn’t really know how he could help her. If these people were government-sanctioned assassins . . . were there such people? He supposed there must be. It wasn’t such a stretch of the imagination to realise that the government had enemies. Was Cookie an enemy of the state? Hadn’t Sir David Attenborough said recently that humans were the only species that had stopped evolving because they’d put a halt to natural selection of its own free will? Maybe he should just walk away and let nature take its course.

  ***

  It was nine o’clock. Digby was snuffling about in the undergrowth by the bus stop. There was a couple on the other side of the road walking in the oppos
ite direction with an ugly looking animal that was probably a Pug, but could just as easily have been the beast of Chigwell Downs – he smiled and waved at them.

  ‘Come on, Digby,’ he said, dragging the dog away from the lamppost. ‘We have places to go and people to see. Keep your mind on the task at hand.’

  He’d looked through the list of green Range Rovers – there were fifty-five of them in the vicinity of Hangman’s Wood. Of those, twenty-seven were X-registered vehicles – still too many. Oh yes, it was doable, but throwing a mass of resources at the problem until something stuck was the old-fashioned way of policing. Now, with those resources disappearing before his very eyes like a magic trick, he had to be smarter than that.

  Tomorrow morning they’d visit Tilbury Power Station with a search warrant to gain access to the staff database. A paper list of three thousand employees wasn’t going to help them, they had to narrow the list down to manageable proportions by using the available technology. Of course, they’d have to take someone from forensics with them who knew how to get the best out of the software.

  He felt they were getting closer to finding Sally Bowker’s killer. Certainly, the mud between Sally’s toes was a key part of the jigsaw puzzle – maybe even a corner piece that would enable them to begin fitting the other pieces together.

  If they could just work out a decent-sized suspect list then it would simply be a question of trying the jigsaw pieces until they found the ones that matched. With a pool of three thousand suspects or more, the permutations were too great – there weren’t enough hours in the day, or people at the station for that matter.

  He recalled the voice on the DVD, and could imagine a man in his fifties, an old fisherman who – after the demise of being able to earn a living from fishing – had got a job at Tilbury Power Station working mostly on his own. A man who had once been married, but who now lived alone in a house without a cellar. A man who knew all about rope and knots, who kept himself to himself and drove a rarely-cleaned dark green X-registered Range Rover.

  If he was asked, he could go further. The man was over six foot with unkempt hair, wore dirty clothes, had size 11 trainers, rarely mixed with his work-mates and it would have to be a cold day in hell before anybody caught him smiling.

  Once they’d identified the killer, they’d be able to interrogate his telephone and bank records, match the tyre plastercast from Hangman’s Wood against the tyres on his Range Rover

  Yes, that was the type of man he was looking for – or was it? The man had a computer and knew how to use it. He was part of a sophisticated paedophile ring that had at least nine other like-minded individuals who were fishing in the same pond.

  Then there was the removal man. They were nowhere near catching him. He broke into a house and took a child. If the parents tried to stop him he simply killed them. He left no evidence and no witnesses.

  What also bothered him was the link between the paedophiles and the removal man. Paedophiles kept themselves hidden in the shadows, and he just couldn’t see them sticking their necks out to organise child model recruitment sessions in various locations around the southeast. It was also unlikely to be the removal man, which then begged the question: Who was it?

  Could it be that paedophiles were now being seen as end-users? Was a supply chain being developed? Were children thought of as products? Was the supply of children to paedophiles now considered a business opportunity?

  Digby barked at him.

  ‘Sorry, old fella.’ He’d been standing still and staring into the darkness, wrapped up in his dark thoughts.

  Then there was Henry Rattinger from Hornby’s. He’d had a quick look through the details of the twenty-three cases from the previous six months, but nothing jumped out at him and no names rang any alarm bells. He was hoping that the one case and the murderer would be obvious, but it wasn’t. Again, twenty-three cases was far too many. Tomorrow morning he’d ring Hornby’s, get someone to bring the files to the station and ask for someone to help them narrow down the cases in some way. If he needed a court order, then so be it – he’d just have to get one.

  And why had the tongue been sent to him personally? He kept returning to that question, but still had no satisfactory answer. Was he involved in one of Rattinger’s cases in some way? If he was, he had no idea which one.

  Also, he hated to admit it, but he could be wrong. It might have nothing to do with Rattinger’s cases – it might be something personal. Surely though – SPEAK NO EVIL – was a dead giveaway that it was related to a case. But he should go and speak to Rattinger’s wife, so that all the bases were covered.

  And then, of course, there were the Epsilon files. Angie had brought someone home for dinner. Not just anybody, but a professor of molecular genetics from the hospital paediatric unit – Professor Marsha Scoles.

  ‘There were rumours, but there have been rumours for a very long time now . . .’ She was a plain-looking woman with a loose bun tied up at the back of her head that didn’t suit the shape of her face. Her teeth were well-looked after, she wore rimless glasses, a cheap pearl necklace and a pinafore dress. Clearly, she cared more about her work than her appearance.

  Unusually, he wasn’t feeling very hungry and moved the new potatoes, broccoli and pieces of beef in the stroganoff about the plate with his fork. ‘Rumours about what?’

  ‘Genetically engineered babies.’

  Richards laughed.

  Scoles smiled. ‘Yes, I know, it sounds like science fiction, but they’ve been genetically altering babies in some countries for at least twenty years that we’re aware of. We know for certain that fifteen babies were born at a facility in New Jersey in 2001 as a by-product of a fertility treatment. It wasn’t meant to be genetic modification, but that’s what it amounted to. As soon as you make a change to the genetic material that could be inherited – the germline – then you’re breaking the law and crossing ethical boundaries. And the only thing that stops us from genetically engineering humans is the law, but some people disregard the law – especially the people who make those laws.’

  She put a mouthful of food into her mouth.

  They waited until she’d finished chewing and swallowing, taking a drink of red wine and was ready to continue.

  ‘Let’s talk about Orvil Lorenz – what do you know about him?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Richards said. ‘I tried to find out something about him, but I drew a blank.’

  ‘That hardly surprises me. Let me tell you a story, which I’ll deny if you ever repeat it. On 27 January 1945 the SS abandoned Auschwitz. SS Hauptsturmfürer Josef Mengele, and his assistant – Dr Herbert Kühl – were transferred to Gross Rosen camp. They weren’t there for long, because they didn’t want to be taken prisoner by the Soviets. Somehow, during their journey, they became separated. Mengele was eventually captured by the Americans and released before he escaped to Argentina. Kühl, on the other hand, was captured by the British, and volunteered his services as a genetic researcher. The British agreed, and also permitted him to bring his family to England. Kühl then headed up a top secret facility in Feltham, southwest London and died in 1956 at the age of 71. He was succeeded by his assistant – Dr Orvil Lorenz – who oversaw the Epsilon experiments at St Winifred’s maternity wing between 1989 and 1995.’

  She wiped her mouth with a napkin and took another swallow of red wine.

  Parish filled her nearly empty glass.

  ‘I’d be interested in hearing how you came by four of the five files from those experiments. Anyway, Lorenz died in 1995 and his place was taken at Feltham by Dr Ruth Völker – Kühl’s grand-daughter.’

  ‘So, what do they do at this secret facility?’ Richards asked.

  ‘I don’t know – it’s secret, but one assumes that genetic research and experiments have been – and continue to be – carried out.’

  ‘More to the point,’ Parish said. ‘How do you know about all this stuff if it’s top secret?’

  ‘I was a junior doctor on St Winifred�
��s paediatric ward from 1987 until 1995.’

  ‘And you didn’t do or say anything?’ Angie said.

  ‘Such as what?’

  Angie pressed her. ‘The experiments were illegal.’

  ‘Officially, I didn’t know about them.’

  Richards screwed up her face. ‘But . . .’

  ‘What do you think would have happened if I’d spoken out?’

  ‘Lorenz would have been arrested?’ Richards speculated.

  Scoles gave a wry smile. ‘Unlikely. Not only was I a junior doctor with my whole career in front of me, but Lorenz was employed by the government. These experiments were sanctioned by the government. The Americans and Russians were doing similar research. Since Watson and Crick suggested the double-helix model of DNA structure in 1953, genetic experiments have been conducted on human beings.’

  ‘But it’s illegal,’ Richards persisted.

  ‘Of course it’s illegal. The government don’t want just anybody creating monsters, they have to be government-controlled monsters. They were trying to create the perfect soldier.’ She took a large swallow of wine. ‘You seem to forget that human experimentation has a long history. Unit 731 in Japan, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the Russian covert poison centre called “The Chamber”, the South African Aversion project on gays and lesbians, Project 4.1 in the Marshall Islands, MKUltra on mind-controlling drugs, the Monster Study in Davenport, Iowa . . . Those are merely a few that stand out, but the Stanford Prison Experiment and Stanley Milgram’s electric shock study proved that most people are capable of the worst atrocities you can imagine – and some of the ones you can’t.’

  ‘What experiments was Lorenz doing on the twins?’ Parish asked. ‘What do the files contain?’

  ‘Yes, that’s really why I’m here, isn’t it? Staff Nurse . . . Angela – your wife – has told me about the question marks surrounding your birth and your parents, and that you’ve been referred to as Epsilon 5. Dr Lorenz was looking at the two sides of human nature – good and evil. He was experimenting on one twin, and using the other as a control.’

  ‘Jekyll and Hyde,’ Angie mumbled.