The Flesh is Weak (P&R3)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘I wouldn’t mind, but I spoke to him…’

  The Chief held up a hand to stop Parish from continuing. ‘You can’t do that either, Parish, it’s illegal.’

  Parish sighed. ‘What about a public stoning?’

  ‘Surely Masterson deserves some punishment, Chief?’ Richards said. ‘The Lintons were devastated.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to his boss at the Mercury – a Mrs Ruth Chambers, who admits that maybe Masterson was a bit over-zealous. Apparently, he’s young, keen, ambitious, and a very good reporter. She said she’ll have a word with him, give him a verbal warning when he turns up.’

  ‘Is that it, Chief?’ Richards said. ‘A verbal warning?’

  ‘Are you in the public stoning camp, Richards?’

  ‘If it’s good enough for DI Parish, then it’s good enough for me.’

  ‘You’re changing, Richards.’

  ‘I am not, Chief. Masterson was only thinking of himself and his career, DI Parish was thinking of the parents. I’d be happy to throw some stones at Masterson.’

  ‘I don’t think that will be necessary, Richards. Remember, we bring the criminals to justice, juries decide whether or not they are guilty, judges hand out lenient sentences because the jails are full, the prison service ensure that the punishment is carried out, and it’s all conducted within a civilised English society.’

  ‘Yes, but Masterson’s not a criminal, he’s just a…’

  ‘Never mind about Masterson, Richards, he’ll get his comeuppance sooner or later. Tell me what else you’ve been doing today?’

  Parish poured himself another coffee and relaxed while Richards briefed the Chief on their day. In the back of his mind he’d known that he wouldn’t get away with excluding the press from briefings. He smiled as he recalled the look on the reporters’ faces. Even though he’d have to eat his words, it would certainly make them think twice about double-crossing him in the future. Especially Masterson, the little shit. Now they knew – if they’d had any doubts before – that he wasn’t a DI to be messed with.

  Fifteen children! God, that was a lot of children. And Richards was right, that amount going missing from one area should have created a national emergency. Why hadn’t it? Certainly, Amy Linton’s disappearance had been heavily investigated and reported, but it wasn’t in the context of fourteen other missing children. Something wasn’t right. Where had those other children come from? Why hadn’t someone made a connection?

  ‘What are you thinking, Parish?’ the Chief said.

  ‘Runaways, or children trafficked in from Europe, but they’re definitely out of the loop otherwise we’d know about them.’

  ‘That’s brilliant how you came up with that, Sir,’ Richards said and smiled.

  ‘And Amy Linton?’ the Chief continued to dig.

  ‘I know, she’s not a runaway. I haven’t got an answer to that anomaly yet.’

  ‘Why are they being taken, Sir?’

  ‘You tell me, Richards?’

  ‘Oh! Well… by paedophiles for sex…’

  ‘Not just sex, what else?’

  Richards scooped up her bottle of water, unscrewed the cap, and took a drink. ‘Photographs and videos?’

  ‘Good,’ Parish said. ‘So, what do we need to do?’

  Richards’ eyes opened wide. ‘Of course, there’s an online task force, isn’t there, Sir?’

  ‘CEOPS – Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.’

  ‘They can check if there’s any pictures or videos of Amy Linton, or the other children on the Internet.’

  ‘We’ll make a detective of you yet, Richards. You can contact them tomorrow.’ Parish took a swallow of his coffee. ‘Who else might take these children and kill them?’

  ‘That’s a good strategy, Parish,’ the Chief said. ‘Work out why they might have been taken and by whom.’

  ‘Hopefully, Doc Michelin will be able to help us in this endeavour,’ Parish said, ‘but it’ll be difficult if all the bodies are skeletons. Carry on, Richards?’

  ‘A serial killer who just wants to kill children?’

  ‘Keep going?’

  Richards started picking at the label on the bottle of water. ‘I don’t know any more, Sir.’

  ‘Think about the black market…’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m thinking, but nothing’s coming to me.’

  ‘Organ trafficking.’

  ‘Of course. Did I tell you how brilliant you are, Sir?’

  ‘Stop trying to get round me, Richards. Have you told the Chief about your missed therapy appointments?’

  ‘What’s this, Richards?’ The Chief said leaning forward with a stern expression.

  ‘I was on my course, Chief.’

  ‘She’s still having nightmares you know, and the course was a good excuse to discontinue the therapy.’

  ‘I expected better from you, Richards. I could take you off active duty…’

  A mask of horror appeared on Richards’ face. ‘Please don’t do that, Chief… DI Parish made me book another appointment. I promise I’ll go this time.’

  ‘Do you think we can trust her, Parish?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Chief, I’m on top of it, I’ll make sure she goes. I’ve also booked myself in for a couple of sessions.’

  ‘After I made you do it,’ Richards pouted.

  ‘After I pretended to be manipulated, Richards.’

  ‘You’re so mean, Sir.’

  ‘So what’s next, Parish?’ the Chief interrupted.

  ‘Richards will contact CEOPS tomorrow, and also find out what the situation is with trafficking of children’s organs in the UK. We need to contact the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, but without names, faces, or background details we’ll probably get nothing. We’re obviously waiting on Doc Michelin and Toadstone. Doc Michelin will run samples through the DNA database, but I’m not hopeful that he’ll find any matches.’

  ‘I thought we weren’t meant to keep children’s DNA on the database, Sir?’ Richards said.

  ‘My understanding is that there’s a time lag between what we say we’re doing, and what we actually do – Isn’t that right, Chief?’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly comment, Parish.’

  ‘So, what you’re saying is that we still have children’s DNA on the database?’

  ‘Absolutely not, Richards,’ the Chief said. ‘Don’t put words into my mouth.’

  ‘Stop interrupting, Richards. So, if Doc Michelin doesn’t find any matches we might have to bring in a forensic artist to reconstruct the faces.’

  ‘That might not be necessary, Parish. I was reading a paper only this morning about a new piece of computer software that reconstructs faces from skull data. It takes a day to generate a face with this software, instead of two weeks with an artist.’

  ‘Sounds as though its just what we need, Chief, and no doubt it’ll be cheaper generating fourteen faces on a computer than employing an artist for months on end to construct the faces at £3,000 a time?’

  ‘A good point, Parish,’ the Chief said with a smile. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. The Chief Constable will look favourably on any savings we can make on the budget.’

  ‘Also, we need to wait for Toadstone and his people to finish examining the area. Hopefully, this time he’ll discover some evidence that will be useful and point me in the direction of the killer, or killers.’

  ‘You think there’s more than one killer?’

  ‘I don’t think anything at the moment, Chief. All I know is that fifteen is a lot of dead bodies for one person.’

  ‘Not really, Sir,’ Richards said. ‘Amelia Dyer killed up to 400 babies, Harold Shipman is believed to have killed as many as 250 people, and…’

  ‘All right, Miss Crime Channel,’ Parish admonished her. ‘What I would say is that it’s unusual, especially in the UK.’

  ‘Actually, Sir…’

  ‘Stop talking, Richards before you end up walking home.’

  ‘When’s
your next press briefing?’

  ‘I hadn’t given it much thought.’

  ‘We’ll say two o’clock tomorrow, shall we?’

  ‘If you say so, Chief.’

  ‘I do say so. Right, same time tomorrow then?’

  Parish stood up. ‘Come on, Richards, we have got a home to go to, you know.’

  ‘Oh… Have we finished?’

  ‘Well I have, but you can stay here and brief the Chief some more, if you want to?’

  The Chief had stood up as well and begun shovelling papers and files into his briefcase. ‘If you do, you’ll be on your own Richards, because I’m going home as well.’

  ‘I may as well go then,’ she said following Parish out the door. ‘Goodnight, Chief.’

  ‘Goodnight, Richards, and make sure you go to counselling?’

  ‘I will.’

  Outside Parish said, ‘I’m going to the toilet.’

  ‘Remember, you said you’d come with me to take the pool car back.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten. I’ll follow you up to the garage in my car and we’ll go home from there.’

  ‘Okay, Sir.’

  After he’d been to the toilet he went to the squad room to switch off his computer and collect Richards, but when he got there Richards was leaning against her desk talking to Kowalski and Gorman.

  ‘Not ideal having to eat your words in front of the press, Parish.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Richards.’

  ‘Sorry, Sir, he wheedled it out of me.’ To Kowalski she said, ‘That’s the last time you wheedle anything else out of me, Inspector Kowalski.’

  Kowalski laughed. ‘You’re a piece of work, Richards. She’s playing us both like balalaikas, Parish. You know that I can’t even spell wheedle, never mind do it.’

  ‘Oh don’t worry, Ray,’ he said winking at Kowalski. ‘I know exactly what Richards is like. If we put our hands and feet out on the table she’d thread knotted string through them and have us dancing around like marionettes.’

  Richards put her hands on her hips and said, ‘I’m not like that, Sir.’

  ‘You’re exactly like that, Richards. Come on, put that ball of string away, your mother will have dinner ready for us.’

  ***

  They arrived home at ten-past seven. Angie was busy cooking a Jamie Oliver vegetarian meal in the kitchen, which he knew he wasn’t going to like. He kissed her on the neck and said, ‘Have I got time to take Digby out?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Come on, Digby, get your skates on.’ Digby barked and wagged his tail. He put the black and white schnauzer’s lead on and took him out the front door. Richards had gone up to her bedroom to wash, and change into her pyjamas and dressing gown.

  ‘Well, Digby, how’s your day been?’

  The dog raised an eyebrow, but otherwise was more interested in sniffing and peeing on lampposts.

  He always felt that walking Digby at the end of the working day was like winding down after the London Marathon, which he’d run once to raise funds for breast cancer research – in a respectable three hours fifteen – while he’d been at university.

  Fifteen children! God, he hoped that was the end of it. Where did Amy Linton fit into that fifteen? In fact, he hadn’t given it much thought, but were five children all buried together at the same time or one after the other at intervals? And why five bodies in a grave? Were all the bodies female, or were there some boys as well? How long since the last body was buried? Had the killer finished, or was he still active? As usual at the start of a case, he had far too many questions without answers – his head was swimming.

  Then there were his parents. Should he find out about them? Did he really want to know? Now that Richards had planted the seed, he couldn’t stop it growing into a full-blown obsession. Why didn’t he have any mementoes? Their birth certificates, marriage license, death certificates – anything? Where were the photographs? It was as if his parents weren’t real, as if he wasn’t real. Now that he knew the truth about Beech Tree Orphanage, he needed to find out about his parents. He wanted to be defined as more than an abused child from the care system, more than a fostered kid. Before it all he’d had parents. He must have been wanted, loved. As much as he pretended he didn’t care, he did. If he was to move forward with his life, he needed to journey backwards to discover who Jed Parish really was. Tomorrow, he would begin his investigation by contacting Somerset House for copies of all the paperwork – the certificates and licence would provide him with clues, a starting point.

  ‘Come on, Digby, time to go back.’ He smiled. Yes, it was time to go back in more ways than one, back to the beginning.

  When he sat down at the dining table Angie put a plate of green mush in front of him.

  ‘Give me a clue?’ he said.

  Trying not to laugh, Richards snorted through her hand.

  ‘Don’t start, Jed Parish. I know you eat rubbish all day, so this is to make up for that. I don’t want you dying of a heart attack like Kowalski, so when you get home you'll eat healthy food.’

  ‘Kowalski didn’t die,’ he corrected her. ‘So, what is it?’

  ‘Asparagus, mint, and lemon risotto.’

  ‘And people eat this?’

  Richards burst out laughing. ‘He’s a peasant, mum. A fry-up for every meal would suit him.’

  Parish grinned and rubbed his hands together. ‘Now we’re talking.’

  Angie burst into tears.

  Parish and Richards looked at each other.

  ‘I’m only joking,’ Parish said. ‘I’ll eat this if it means that much to you?’

  ‘What’s wrong, mum?’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘How…?’ Parish said, but realised it was a stupid question then his mouth dropped open like the entrance to the Ghost Tunnel at the fairground.

  ‘You’re too old aren’t you, mum?’ Richards said. ‘People will think its mine.’

  ‘No I am not too old, Mary Richards.’

  Parish knew that this was a defining moment in their relationship. What he said next would determine his future with Angie.

  ‘I’m going to be a father?’

  ‘Only if you want to?’

  ‘Of course I want to. I didn’t think… Why are you crying?’

  ‘Because I don’t want it to jeopardise our relationship.’

  He took both of her hands in his. ‘How could it possibly do that, Angela Richards? I love you, and to have a child together is the greatest expression of our love. Nothing will ever jeopardise our relationship.’ He stood up, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her.

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick over my risotto.’

  ‘Well, you carry on and be sick, Mary Richards,’ Angie said. ‘You’re going to have the brother or sister you always wanted.’

  ‘You’ll have to get married now, won’t you?’

  ‘Thank you for that, Richards. I’d like to be the one to ask your mother to marry me.’

  ‘Well, you’re a bit slow, Sir.’

  ‘Will you?’ he said to Angie.

  ‘Of course she will, she’s been waiting ages for you to ask her. Can we eat now?’

  All three of them burst out laughing.

  Chapter Five

  Tuesday 10th May

  Parish woke to the sound of Crazy Frog vibrating across the bedside cabinet. He grabbed the phone before it fell on the floor and set Digby off barking. Smiling like the Cheshire Cat, his immediate thought was of being a dad, a father, a papa. He slid out of bed, crept into the bathroom, and closed the door quietly before switching the light on.

  ‘Hello, Kowalski?’

  ‘You took your time, Parish?’

  He put the toilet lid down and sat on it. ‘If I’d remembered you’re the Crazy Frog Kowalski I’d have switched the phone off and stayed in bed.’

  ‘When you find out what I’ve got to tell you, you’ll be glad you answered it. What do you mean, I’m the Crazy Frog?’

  ‘It’s
two forty-five, Kowalski, far too early for you to tell me you’ve had a eureka moment and decided that you’re a useless detective and you’re going to retire.’

  ‘Guess where I am?’

  ‘You know I’m no good at guessing games, but I’d say you were on the sofa because your wife has had enough of you stinking the bed out?’

  ‘In Masterson’s flat.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me you knew him?’

  ‘It’s a good job you’ve got an alibi, Parish. You have got an alibi, haven’t you?’

  ‘Do I need one?’

  ‘Most definitely.’

  ‘I know I’m going to regret asking this, but why?’

  ‘Somebody’s murdered Masterson.’

  ‘I was angry with him, but not that angry.’

  ‘I’ve not told you the whole story, Parish.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The place has been ransacked. Whoever killed him was obviously looking for something. They’ve helped themselves to all his files from a battered old filing cabinet, stripped the notice board clean that he’d been using, and helped themselves to his computer, mobile phone, and camera.’

  ‘Do you know what he was working on?’

  ‘Have you not been listening? They took everything. There’s nothing left to give us a clue.’

  ‘What about his workplace?’

  ‘Don’t know yet, but you haven’t asked about Masterson.’

  ‘You said he’d been murdered.’

  ‘That was an understatement on my part.’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘His head is on the coffee table, but his body is missing.’

  ‘Jesus… You must be up to your armpits in blood?’

  ‘Strangely enough there’s none, except for some leakage on the coffee table from the neck.’

  ‘That’s not possible?’

  ‘Whoever did this knew what they were doing and came prepared.’

  ‘So, why did you ring me, you and Gorman are the ones on duty?’