Shadow of Death (9781476057248) Read online

  The Shadow of Death

  Tim Ellis

  __________

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2011 Timothy Stephen Ellis

  __________

  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.

  __________

  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.

  __________

  To Pam, with love as always

  __________

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

  I will fear no evil

  From 23rd Psalm

  __________

  Chapter One

  Monday, 23rd May

  ‘Come in, DI Parish.’

  He walked into Detective Chief Inspector Hilary Marshall’s office. All Walter Day’s pictures, awards and mementoes had been removed. Now there were two matching watercolours of flowers that looked as though they’d been stolen from a dentist’s waiting room. The walls had been re-painted in lilac, and there was a new dark green carpet on the floor.

  She didn’t ask him to sit, and there was no offer of coffee. The desk had been moved so that instead of it being on the left, it now faced the door. DCI Marshall – probably in her mid-forties – had long blonde hair out of a sachet knotted at the back of her head, two double chins, large breasts, and was overweight by a good few pounds. Parish decided he didn’t like her one little bit.

  ‘There have been changes during your absence.’

  ‘So I see,’ he said, pretending to survey her office.

  ‘I don’t mean my office, Inspector. Government cuts have forced us to reduce numbers. It’s every man and woman to the bilge pumps.’

  He hadn’t realised the station was now a ship. ‘What changes?’

  ‘Because of DI Kowalski’s heart condition, I’ve transferred him to traffic analysis. We can’t have someone on the team who isn’t pulling his weight.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘I’ll be more hands-on. In fact, I’ll be running the team. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve used the word ‘team’ twice now. The emphasis will be on ‘teamwork’, and in my team I have you, Sergeant Gorman, and Constable Richards – a well-balanced hierarchy.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘From now on I give the orders. Oh, I know good old Walter used to let you run your own investigations, but I work differently. That’s my job now, and the team will do all the work. Are we clear, Inspector?’

  ‘As glass.’

  ‘Excellent. Get my team together in the incident room; we have a new case.’

  Outside the Chief’s office, in the desk where Debbie Shinwell used to sit, was a man in his early thirties who smiled at him as if her were a sex toy. He wore a Fair Isle, predominantly purple, sleeveless jumper and a dickey-bow, and Parish definitely didn’t like him.

  What the hell was going on? Kowalski transferred to traffic analysis, and a DCI running her own investigations! The place was going to hell in a handcart.

  ‘You could have warned me, Ed,’ he said to Sergeant Gorman in the squad room.

  ‘I know. I’m depressed, Jed.’

  ‘What, Sir?’ Richards said. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘And you haven’t told Richards either? Kowalski’s been transferred to traffic analysis.’

  ‘I’m not going to fall for one of your jokes.’

  ‘No joke, Richards. The new DCI is Hilary Marshall, and she’ll be running the investigations; the three of us are in her ‘team’.’ He never did double quotes with his hands because he thought it was pretentious, but he did this time.

  ‘You’re speaking in another language, aren’t you?’ Richards said.

  ‘I wish I were.’ He shook his head. ‘Right team- let’s get to the incident room. We have a case that the new DCI will brief us on, and then allocate tasks.’

  ‘I will still be working with you won’t I, Sir?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s looking doubtful.’

  ‘Oh God, Sir, we should never have come back. Do you want a coffee?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  Parish and Ed went through into the incident room. The DCI had a laptop connected up to a new wall-mounted interactive whiteboard.

  ‘Where’s Constable Richards?’

  ‘Making me a coffee; she’ll be here in a minute.’

  ‘In the team, Inspector, we don’t ask other members to make our coffee for us- we make it ourselves.’

  ‘Okay.’ He’d already concluded that this woman was an idiot. He’d never heard of her. Where had she come from? She must have been promoted out of harm’s way, probably way past her level of incompetence. Now she was here. Why had they got her? What was wrong with the Chief Constable?

  Richards came in with his coffee.

  ‘For those who don’t know me, I am Detective Chief Inspector Hilary Marshall, and I’m now the senior officer in charge of the Murder Investigation Team. I want you all to be clear from the start: I run the investigations, I make all the decisions, and the team gets the credit. In this day and age, there is no excuse for not contacting me for a decision. You all have a Blackberry; you know how to use it for phone calls, Internet access, Twittering and other means of communication.’ She picked up her Blackberry to emphasise her words. ‘This is the future. The criminal fraternity already understands this. Make sure you can utilise all its features and don’t become a technological dinosaur.’

  Ed and Richards both looked at him, but he declined to meet their eyes in case he burst out laughing. So, the Blackberry was the new face of policing? The woman was crazy. Maybe Kowalski had set this whole charade up, and Ed was in on it. Maybe he was being filmed, and Kowalski was laughing his arse off somewhere with Vice, Robbery, Traffic and the other teams all sitting round drinking beer, eating pizza, and watching him fall for it hook, line and sinker.

  ‘Before, the cases were distributed between the two lead detectives – Kowalski and Parish. As you know, Inspector Kowalski has been reassigned, and as such it’s been necessary to reorganise the whole department. We currently have seven cases, eight with the one I’m going to brief you on in a minute. You have files in front of you with a short synopsis of each of the cases, and I will allocate tasks accordingly.’

  The three of them reached for the files.

  ‘No, you can read the files after this briefing. Now, to the eighth case...’

  A picture appeared on the screen of a maggot-riddled hand protruding from a black bin bag. Then a second picture of another black bin bag that had burst open to reveal a pic n’ mix of dismembered hands and feet, and then a third – the camera looking down into the open bag of jumbled hands and feet.

  ‘These were discovered late yesterday at Bumble’s Green landfill site. Forensics is there now, together with a team of volunteer officers who are searching for more bin bags amongst the rubbish.’

  ‘Are there only hands and feet, Ma’am?’

  ‘At the moment, yes. And I’d like you to call me Chief, Constable.’

  ‘I’ll try, Ma’am.’

  ‘How many are there?’ Ed asked.

  ‘There are thirteen hands and twenty-four feet. Some of the left hands don’t match the right
hands and vice versa. There is also a mix of male and female hands, and an approximate age-range between seven and forty-five.’

  Ed grunted. ‘Children as well?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so, Sergeant. As for the feet, forensics has only found seven matches- the rest are odd.’

  ‘That’s a lot of bodies, Ma’am,’ Richards said.

  ‘When you say that some of the left hands don’t match the right hands, how many actually do match?’

  ‘Four pairs.’

  Parish did some calculations in his head. ‘That means there’re twenty-two bodies missing hands, and forty-one bodies missing feet. Are any of the hands related to the feet?’

  ‘We don’t know that yet.’

  He drew a breath through pursed lips. ‘So, potentially, we could have sixty-three bodies.’

  ‘Yes. Ideas?’

  ‘Surely these are off-cuts from either a hospital, crematorium, or burial service,’ Parish said. ‘They’re not...?’

  ‘Doctor Megan Riley – the new pathologist at King George Hospital – has conducted a cursory examination and concluded that the hands and feet were all hacked from living people.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Ed said.

  ‘Please don’t swear, Sergeant. There’s no place for foul language in my team.’

  ‘Sorry, Ma’am... Chief.’

  ‘Hacked?’ Richards said. ‘With an axe?’

  ‘That’s Doctor Riley’s assumption at the moment.’

  ‘And no bodies?’ Parish asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay,’ Parish reasoned. ‘We have a number of people out there with missing hands and feet. There have been no reports of a mad axe-man, so we can assume that either the victims are all dead, or they’re confined in some way.’

  ‘Good. I think we should proceed on three fronts. Constable Richards and I will go and see Doctor Riley with a view to identifying who these limbs belong to through DNA analysis, identifying marks, rings and so forth. Inspector Parish, I’d like you to go to the landfill site and co-ordinate efforts there, and Sgt Gorman- you can work on the other seven cases. I’ve flagged up a number of tasks to be done. We’ll meet back here at four o’clock.’

  While DCI Marshall was closing down the laptop, Gorman and Richards looked pleadingly at Parish, but what could he do? He shrugged and said, ‘I’m on my way.’

  Sitting in his car, he rang Kowalski.

  ‘What’s going on, Ray?’

  ‘I’m a has-been, Jed.’

  ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’

  ‘I was embarrassed.’

  ‘So, how’s the traffic analysis going?’

  ‘I’m thinking of applying for early retirement.’

  Parish gave a laugh. ‘You’re only in your mid-forties.’

  ‘Forty-two actually.’

  ‘I’m in charge of rubbish now.’ He told Kowalski what DCI Marshall had got everyone doing.

  ‘It’s not right, Jed.’

  ‘Are we going to take it lying down? We were a well-oiled machine when Walter Day was the Chief, now we’re all broken up.’

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘You sound defeated already, Ray.’

  ‘I am. I’m a brilliant detective sitting at a desk analysing figures. What type of job is that for a man who used to play rugby for the London Polish?’

  Parish knew that he’d actually kept the bench warm and after a knee injury he’d become a policeman. ‘Let’s meet tonight at my house and we’ll work out a plan of action.’

  ‘Okay. Ed and Richards will be there, won’t they?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll invite them as well. In the meantime, who have you told?’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘The Chief Constable?’

  ‘What for? He’s the arsehole who appointed her.’

  ‘Well, what about your old sleeping partner, Rhona Powers?’

  ‘I’ll try, but she’s a political animal; she won’t go against the Chief Constable.’

  ‘Well, do something, Ray. Ring people, spread the word, and I’ll do the same if I get the chance.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Six o’clock at my house.’

  ‘See you, Jed.’

  No sooner had he disconnected Kowalski, when You are the Sunshine of My Life began playing.

  ‘Hello, Richards?’

  ‘Help.’

  ‘Why are you whispering?’

  ‘I’m in the toilets.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to be with you.’

  ‘What, at the landfill site?’

  ‘No, as your partner. I don’t like the new team leader.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Kowalski; we’re meeting at the house at six tonight to discuss strategy.’

  ‘You mean I’ve got to work with fatty Marshall all day?’

  ‘Don’t call her that; you’ll get yourself into trouble. You’re my eyes and ears, Richards. It looks like Ed and I are being sidelined from the main investigation; it’s up to you to take notes and make sure I know everything that’s going on.’

  ‘Okay, Sir. I can be your mole.’

  ‘Good, keep smiling. See you later.’

  He ended the call. They were all looking to him to do something, but what? It wouldn’t be right to sabotage the investigations so that DCI Marshall looked bad. People’s lives would be affected. But if they solved the cases, she’d come out of it smelling of roses and end up keeping the job. He was between a rock and a hard place. Then again, if she lost the job, which crazy person would the Chief Constable appoint next time round? He wouldn’t do himself any favours moaning to the powers-that-be either. They’d say, “Give her a chance”, and they’d be right to say that as well – after all, this was only ‘day one’ of the New Order.

  ***

  He made his way along the High Street and turned left onto the B194 Nazeing New Road, which would take him through Lower Nazeing, along Middle Street and out to Bumble’s Green landfill site. It was eerie not having Richards sitting on his left. He kept turning his head to talk to her, and then remembering fatty Marshall had deprived him of the best partner anyone ever had.

  What was going on? The Chief Constable liked him, liked Richards, respected Walter Day, and had even told Chief Rhona Powers not to mend the team because it wasn’t broken. So what the hell was going on? Why had the Chief Constable sent a stupid management guru to run the Murder Investigation Team?

  He reached the outskirts of Lower Nazeing and pulled into a Road Chef. Rummaging around in a landfill site for severed hands and feet, torsos and heads could wait. There were more important things to do.

  Inside he ordered a large mug of coffee and sat down at a table overlooking the car park, as far away from a family with three noisy children as he could get. The restaurant was reasonably busy, but he barely noticed. Using the dispenser, he tipped four large sugars into his mug and stirred it absentmindedly. What could he do? He pulled out his mobile and phoned Ed.

  ‘You’ve rung to tell me it was all a mistake and Inspector Kowalski is on his way back to the team?’

  ‘Sorry, not yet Ed, but I’m working on it. Give me the telephone number of the Chief Constable’s office will you?’ If he hadn’t been knocked sideways by all of this he’d have formulated a plan of action at the station, and already have the Chief Constable’s number in his phonebook. With the death of Walter Day and Doc Michelin he was already feeling fragile. Now for somebody to start rearranging his life without a by your leave had bounced him three ways to Sunday. Well, fatty Marshall wasn’t going to get away with it.

  He heard rustling on the phone as he slid out his notebook and pen. Then Ed came back on and gave him the number. ‘You’re gonna fix it, aren’t you, Sir?’

  ‘I’m going to give it my best shot, Ed.’

  ‘Good luck. If you need back up, you know where I am.’

  ‘Keep your head down, Ed.’

  He ended the call and rang the number Ed had given him.

  ‘Ch
ief Constable James Miller-Gifford’s office: Audrey Bowers speaking.’

  Maybe, when he and Angie got married, they should adopt a double-barrelled name: Parish-Richards, Jed Parish-Richards, Detective Inspector Parish-Richards, Mr & Mrs Parish-Richards, Chief Constable... ‘Is the Chief Constable available, please?’

  ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

  He forgot who he was for a moment. ‘Detective Inspector Parish... from Hoddesdon MIT.’ They still hadn’t set a date for the wedding. He was going to ask Kowalski to be his best man, and, in an ideal world, the Chief would have given Angie away, and Doc Michelin...

  ‘I’m afraid he’s on a well-earned holiday until next Monday, Inspector. His deputy – Heather Devine – is carrying out his duties at the moment.’

  ‘When did the Chief Constable go on holiday, Audrey?’ He recalled the Chief Constable’s PA as a thin bony woman in her mid-forties with impossibly big hair and large oval green glasses.

  ‘Straight after Chief Superintendent Day’s funeral. They’d known each other a long time, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I knew. So, the acting Chief Constable appointed DCI Marshall as head of Hoddesdon MIT?’

  ‘That’s correct. Is there a problem?’

  ‘No, no problem.’ There was no point in telling Audrey; she wouldn’t be able to do anything. ‘Thanks very much for your help, Audrey.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Inspector Parish. I was sorry to hear about Chief Superintendent Day. Walter was a true gentleman, and you certainly don’t get many of those these days. How are you all coping?’

  What the hell! He may as well tell her; he had nothing to lose. ‘Not good, since the arrival of DCI Marshall.’

  ‘Oh dear, is there anything I can do?’