Dead Know Not (9781476316253) Read online

  The Dead Know Not

  Tim Ellis

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  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2012 Timothy Stephen Ellis

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  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  Books written by Tim Ellis can be obtained either through the author’s official website: http://timellis.weebly.com/ at Smashwords.com or through online book retailers.

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  To Pam, with love as always

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  A big thank you to proofreader James Godber

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  For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

  Ecclesiastes 9:5:6

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  Chapter One

  Monday, 14th January

  He placed his Blackberry on the desk in front of Kowalski and said, ‘Listen.’

  The snow had melted as if it had never been. Christmas and New Year had passed uneventfully in the Parish household. Absent friends had been toasted and wept over. The funerals of Lola, Chief Abby Kirby, and Catherine Cox had come and gone. His arm was still in a sling, and would be for some time to come. Angie was out of hospital, but still recovering from her ordeal both physically and psychologically. Little Jack Walter Raymond Parish had the lungs and staying power of an Olympic long-distance runner, and his father was glad to get back to work for a rest.

  ‘This be Lola, Inspector Parish.’

  Kowalski’s face went white. ‘Jesus, a voice from the grave.’

  ‘I know I is dyin’, but I don’t want you to fret none. You might want to blame yo’self for done taking me out of Missing Persons, but I don’t want you to do that neverways. Being a de-tek-tive was Lola’s dream, and you made that dream come true, so I gotta thank you for that. In fact, you can tell devil’s spawn to kiss my fat ass.’

  ‘There weren’t any elephants at that cottage, were there?’ Parish asked.

  ‘That’s Lola laughing.’

  ‘And you can tell that Ko-wall-ski that not only is he the best partner a girl ever did have, but his wife is one lucky lady. Well, Lola gotta go now, but I be thinking of you always... Oh, and say goodbye to that lovely Mary Richards for me.’

  Kowalski dabbed his eyes with a paper handkerchief. ‘They say that as you get older you become more emotional.’

  ‘It’s a sign of failing mental capabilities.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Glad I could help.’ He sat down in an easy chair. ‘Chief Kirby used to make me some of that monkey faeces coffee you’re hoarding over there.’

  ‘When they made me Chief, making you coffee was not part of the job description.’

  ‘An oversight, which I’m sure they’ll correct in time. Also...’ He indicated his injured arm and grimaced.

  Detective Chief Inspector Ray Kowalski laughed. ‘You should have been on the stage, Parish.’

  ‘I was only saying as much to Richards the other day.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I sent her to get the pool car. I didn’t want her to hear Lola’s last message. She’s only just got over all the deaths.’

  ‘You’re still on light duties.’

  ‘Oh, Richards will tell you in great detail how I do very little.’

  ‘That means sitting at your desk and staring into space for eight hours, and then going home to watch a bit of TV before falling asleep in your chair like a pensioner. You forget, I’ve done light duties.’

  ‘You need me, Kowalski.’

  ‘That might be the case, DI Parish, but you’re on light duties. Imagine if you will, what would happen to my shiny new promotion if you injure yourself again on my watch. And for future reference, it’s Chief Kowalski. Let’s not forget who’s pulling your strings now, Parish.’

  ‘Two things... First, I didn’t injure myself the first time. If you recall, it was a bullet aimed at Richards. And second, you need me, Chief.’

  ‘If you disobey orders, you’ll be in a world of trouble. You can’t go crying to the Chief Constable anymore. Now get the hell out of my new office before I change my mind.’

  As he passed Carrie’s desk he smiled.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she said.

  ‘I’m fine. What about you?’

  ‘Good.’

  He nodded and carried on walking. Neither of them had much to say to the other these days. He still couldn’t get used to the idea of her working there. She reminded him of the frenzied sex they’d had in a cupboard at Redbridge Council, and in the hallway of his flat. The sex had been memorable, but now it all seemed adolescent and embarrassing. Oh well, there was nothing he could do about it. Just as long as both of them knew it was in the past, best forgotten, and never spoken of.

  His intray was like the leaning tower of Pisa, and he hadn’t even dared to look at his emails, or in his pigeonhole. He’d get to them all in good time. If there were anything urgent he was sure people would be banging on his desk.

  He and Angie had discussed his newly discovered royal status and they’d agreed to forget all about it... well, nearly. He’d had the family tree professionally drawn, with the Italian Royal Family Coat of Arms put above it, had it framed, and hung it in the bedroom as a keepsake. Of course, he’d added Angie, Richards, and little Jack – they were his real family tree. The absence of a mother still rankled, but as far as he was concerned it was at an end. He’d found out why P2 had wanted to hide his birth and the consequences should it become public knowledge. There was still no evidence though. Apart from the written report and the family tree, everything else had gone up in flames. Without evidence all that was left was speculation. The only way proof could be obtained now would be through a paternity test, and the Prince of Naples would never agree to that. No, it was done and dusted, and he was happy with his lot.

  ***

  Two new detectives had been drafted in – Detective Sergeant Xena Blake and Detective Constable Rowley Gilbert – and they had already been allocated to a case. Three skeletons had been discovered the day before beneath a patio of a house in Hobbs Cross that had once belonged to a Labour Member of Parliament, a rock singer, and an actress – but not all at the same time.

  DS Blake had made it quite clear to everybody in the squad room that if anybody had the urge to mention swords, chakrams, bodices or anything else to do with warrior princesses she’d show them how the ancient Greeks used to create male and female eunuchs from fully-functioning slaves. Apart from her first name, Blake bore no resemblance to Xena the Warrior Princess. She was in her early thirties, short and squat with gelled mousy hair, and resembled an angry warthog both in looks and attitude.

  Rowley, on the other hand, was a walking hanger for his clothes. His body had never heard of calories, flab, or spare tyres. Parish imagined that a thinner person only existed as a curiosity in Barnum & Bailey’s Scientific Museum.

  Then this morning, as if someone had been waiting for Parish to return to work, a woman’s body – with her eyes gouged out – had been discovered in an abandoned furniture war
ehouse in Theydon Bois. Doc Riley and Toadstone were already on their way.

  Richards returned from the car pool. ‘I take it I’m driving?’

  ‘Unless you want to end up in a ditch somewhere.’

  ‘I’d prefer not to.’ She sat in her chair opposite him. ‘Do you think mum’s okay?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. She seems a bit down to me.’

  ‘She’ll be all right. She just needs time to get over her ordeal. What that Kincaid woman did to her was terrible. I’ve been looking after little Jack as much as possible. She’s been sleeping a lot. What we tend to forget is that not only was she kidnapped, forced to give birth under horrific circumstances, but she was also buried alive. We just have to give her time.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ He wasn’t sure at all. In fact, he was worried about her. Her get up and go had got up and gone. She seemed to be going through the motions with little Jack. He’d talk to Dr Rafferty about her on Friday at his next counselling session.

  ‘How’s Chief Kowalski?’

  ‘Insufferable. He kept saying I was on light duties like an automaton with a speech impediment.’ He stiffened his neck, tried to look like a robot, and said in a monotone voice, “You’re on light duties”, “You’re on light duties”.’

  Richards smiled. ‘So, he’s not letting you work the case?’

  ‘I don’t remember him saying that. He said that if anything happens to me you’ll be sacrificed.’

  ‘Of course. The trainees are always the first to get it. Where are we going first?’

  ‘Well, before we run off anywhere, you should know that Chief Kowalski didn’t offer me a coffee.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘Sometimes, you can be really astute, but at other times you’re really slow on the uptake.’

  ‘People are dying...’

  ‘...Might be dying.’

  ‘People might be dying out there, and you want to sit around drinking coffee.’

  ‘As well as drink coffee, we need to discuss our approach, strategy, tactics, and other important things rather than running off in all directions like lemmings. Remember our discussion...?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Good. Then you’ll also recall that I take four sugars in my coffee.’

  She sighed and stomped up the corridor towards the kitchen.

  He strolled in the opposite direction and found an empty incident room and waited. Well, here they were again. A lot had changed, but some things had remained the same. In his humble opinion, Kowalski would make a good Chief, and maybe that’s who they should have appointed after Walter Day’s death. Since the mass of resignations after the P2 revelations, the term “Dead men’s shoes” wasn’t relevant anymore. Now, there were spaces for advancement throughout the police force, and Kowalski had been in the right place at the right time. Short promotion boards were held, decisions taken, appointments made. The key was to keep the turbulence down to a minimum, appoint new people, and move on. Oh, there would be inquiries at the highest level, but these would soon fizzle out, and the findings would then be swept under the proverbial rug.

  The door opened. ‘You could have told me you were coming in here.’

  ‘You’re nearly a detective, aren’t you?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘You don’t switch it on and off like a light switch, you know. Unless you’re sleeping you should be in “detect” mode, and even when you’re sleeping, you should be thinking about detection. So, when you found I wasn’t sitting at my desk...?’

  ‘I found you, didn’t I?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Is the coffee still hot?’

  ‘You could sit this case out, you know. I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘You know I like hot coffee.’

  She stomped out.

  When she returned with a steaming mug of coffee he said, ‘Have you brought the file?’

  ‘You just want me to kill you and put you out of your misery, don’t you?’

  With a forlorn expression, he lifted up the injured arm in its sling. ‘I couldn’t very well carry it with only one hand, could I?’

  Off she went again.

  ‘I’m not going to do anything else you say now,’ she said when she came back with the file, and flopped into a chair. ‘I’m puffed out already.’

  ‘Puffed out at twenty-two years of age – don’t talk rubbish. You should be glad you still have the use of both your arms.’

  ‘I’m already fed up of you using that minor scratch as an excuse not to do any work.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can say such a thing to your superior officer. Right, should we move on? What does it say in the file?’

  She opened the folder. It had one sheet of paper inside, which she held up between thumb and forefinger. ‘Members of a Ramblers’ Club found the body at six-thirty this morning in an abandoned discount furniture warehouse.’

  ‘Observations?’

  ‘It says that they were meeting at six thirty to get an early start.’

  ‘In a warehouse?’

  ‘There’s a public footpath that runs through the property. It started to rain. After finding a door open, they moved into the warehouse for shelter.’

  ‘Ramblers should be used to the rain. It all sounds a bit iffy to me, Richards. They must have known it was going to rain – these are people who check the weather on an hourly basis. What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think anything.’

  ‘Well, you should. Have we got a list of these ramblers?’

  ‘Yes. Names and addresses.’

  ‘At least we have suspects this time. I like an investigation much better when we start off with suspects.’

  ‘The ramblers are hardly suspects, they simply found the body.’

  ‘It’s early in the morning, you’ve had a series of onerous tasks to complete, your brain is still in slumber mode. Taking those things into consideration, I’ll forgive you for opening your mouth and letting a load of jumble tumble out.’

  ‘I know everyone is guilty until proven innocent, but these are ramblers.’

  He laughed, and then grimaced as pain shot up his arm. He passed Richards his painkiller bottle. ‘Take two tablets out of there, please.’

  She passed him the tablets. ‘Is it really sore?’

  He popped them in his mouth and swilled them down with coffee. ‘I’ll live. So, you think ramblers are a special type of human being who are above and beyond murder?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘More or less. They’re people like everybody else, and people are the worst animals on the planet. Other creatures kill for food, or to protect their offspring. Humans possess a whole gamut of motives for killing other human beings as you very well know, and none of those motives are about food. I wouldn’t trust another human being if they had a halo.’

  ‘You’re so cynical. Some people would sacrifice themselves before they’d kill another human being.’

  ‘We’re not talking about me.’

  ‘I was thinking of mum’s midwife – Marveen Hollingsworth.’

  ‘All right, I’ll admit there’s one in a gazillion people who just might flout human nature, but they’re oddities, mules, statistical improbabilities. The people we deal with are guilty, we just have to prove it.’

  ‘The ramblers didn’t do it.’

  ‘Which has yet to be determined – We’ll investigate each one of them and then make a decision on their guilt or innocence.’

  ‘You sound like the judge and jury.’

  ‘We are. When we arrest someone – are they guilty of a crime?’

  ‘Well, yes?’

  ‘So, why do they have to go to court and be found guilty?’

  ‘That’s the law.’

  ‘Waste of money if you ask me. If I caught you red-handed stealing cookies from the cookie jar, would you be guilty?’

  ‘Yes, but...�
�

  ‘No buts. You’d expect me to punish you and put a lock on the cookie jar, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but...’

  ‘Stop saying, “but”, there are no buts. Would you expect to be read your rights? Be represented by a smooth-talking barrister before you spoke to me? Try to get the evidence ignored because I didn’t warn you I was coming into the kitchen? Put in a plea of mitigating circumstances?’

  ‘No, but...’

  ‘I’m going to remove “but” from your vocabulary.’

  ‘People have rights.’

  ‘Victims have rights.’

  ‘We’re more humane now than we were in medieval days.’

  ‘More gullible, pathetic, wishy-washy.’

  ‘Why do you work for a system you don’t believe in?’

  ‘Somebody has to counterbalance the widespread dysfunctionality inherent in the system.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘How many ramblers are there?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Put their names up on the board.’

  Richards wrote five names on the whiteboard: Samantha Watts, Patricia Caine, Roger Stallard, Jocelyn Hockley, and Martin Hyde.

  ‘Good. All of them potential killers waiting for the right opportunity.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘What about the warehouse?’

  ‘It’s a warehouse.’

  ‘Who owns it?’

  ‘A holding company called Midway Holdings.’

  ‘They need to be investigated. The warehouse is abandoned?’

  ‘Yes. Sixth months ago.’

  ‘Not long then. Who managed the warehouse before that?’