Breath of Life (9781476278742) Read online

  ‘Maybe there’ll be identifying marks on the body,’ Richards said.

  ‘The killer would hardly chop off her head, hands and feet, and leave a tattoo or birth mark for the victim to be easily identified. And not only that, the rats would have been feeding off the flesh while it’s been down there.’

  Richards pulled a face. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘But true, Mary,’ Toadstone agreed. ‘If you look closely when the light moves, you’ll see the rats’ eyes. They’re just waiting for the people to leave, so that they can carry on feasting.’

  The door of the truck opened. A woman, in her early thirties, with long dark brown hair blowing across her face, and wearing a padded red anorak said, ‘Where’s the body?’

  Maybe she has come from the North Pole, he thought. ‘Hello, Doc, they’re just bringing it up.’

  She climbed in, shouldered her way between Parish and Richards to peer at the screen, and cocked her head to one side. ‘No head?’

  ‘Nor hands and feet,’ the ponytailed forensic officer confirmed.

  ‘I hope you’re not feeling optimistic, Inspector?’

  She was so close he could smell the shampoo she used on her hair. ‘When dealing with forensics and pathology, Doc, I never feel optimistic. I’ve been let down so many times now I’m psychologically damaged.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d heard that.’

  He smiled and noticed a gold chain round her neck with an antique pendant. ‘Have you been talking, Richards?’

  ‘I never would.’

  ‘Nice necklace,’ he said.

  ‘A hobby. I collect them. It’s a Victorian wax seal fob. Men used to wear them attached to their watch chains both for decorative purposes and to seal their letters.’ She grasped it between finger and thumb and held it up to the light. ‘In the bottom is a precious stone with letters or an object engraved in it. This particular seal is a bloodstone with a bird engraved in it.’

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘I have a hundred and thirty seven of them now.’

  They climbed out of the truck, and put on masks as the body was winched up and manoeuvred through the access hole by two men pulling on the attached ropes. Once the body was safely on the pavement and the ropes had been removed, the plastic sheeting was spread apart to let Doc Riley examine it.

  She pulled a pair of plastic gloves on, held a forearm over her nose and mouth and said, ‘This job doesn’t get any easier.’

  Richards rushed out of the tent, and they could hear her retching.

  Parish opened his bottle of Vicks VapoRub, pulled down Doc Riley’s mask and daubed a smudge under her nose.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  He wiped a smear under his own nose, and breathed in again.

  ‘It’s worse than I originally thought,’ the Doc said. ‘The only thing we can hope for is that she has some unusual medical condition, or there’s an identifying mark on the body.’

  ‘Approximate age?’

  ‘I would say early twenties, and she’s recently had a child.’

  ‘I don’t suppose...?’

  ‘No, don’t even ask me for a time of death. I won’t know that until I examine the contents of the stomach.’

  ‘Toadstone reckons she’s been down there for at least a week.’

  ‘Yes, but that might not be when she was killed.’

  ‘When will you get to the post-mortem?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning. What about you meet me for lunch in the cafeteria, and we can discuss the findings?’

  ‘I used to...’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I went back in there for the first time this morning with my wife.’

  ‘You can always come down to my new mortuary, if you want?’

  ‘No, the cafeteria will be fine, but I’ll pay.’

  ‘A gentleman.’

  ‘It’ll be your turn next time.’

  Her eyes creased above the mask. ‘Strictly business.’

  ‘Strictly business.’

  And that was how they left it. He stepped out of the tent. ‘Come on, Richards, stop painting the pavement.’

  ‘Sorry, Sir.’

  ‘Don’t you carry VapoRub with you?’

  ‘I didn’t think it would be that bad.’

  ‘Next time put it on before looking at the body. Better to be safe than sorry.’

  ‘Did you get that out of a fortune cookie?’

  ‘Christmas cracker.’ He checked his watch. It was twenty past five. ‘Come on, let’s go home. We can take the pool car back tomorrow.’

  She passed him the keys. ‘I don’t feel up to driving.’

  ‘I don’t know, the things I do for you.’

  ***

  As soon as she walked into her flat after work Catherine knew someone had been there. These past five months she had been so careful. She ran to the spare bedroom, eased the carpet up, and lifted the loose floorboard. Her second laptop and research were still there. As far as she could see none of it had been touched. She put everything back in place, and sat on the bed.

  She was shaking, and felt close to tears. The bastards, she thought. Well, they weren’t going to scare her off. Now what? She had to assume they had planted cameras and microphones. These people could and would do anything they felt was necessary to keep their secret, but she was on to them – they just didn’t know it yet.

  She walked through to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine from a half-finished bottle she had in the fridge. It was a few days old and tasted like vinegar, but she swallowed it anyway. What she needed was another place to do her work, a secret place. If her flat were compromised, then the newspaper offices would be as well. In fact, everywhere she went was insecure.

  It was time to raise the stakes.

  It was time to take the initiative.

  Chapter Two

  ‘How did the antenatal class go, mum?’

  ‘The midwife told me I couldn’t bring Jed again.’

  ‘But he said it went fine.’

  ‘It was a disaster.’

  Richards laughed. ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  Parish walked into the kitchen and they both turned to look at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Mum says that the midwife has banned you from the antenatal classes.’

  ‘I’m going to lodge an appeal.’

  ‘A fat lot of good that will do you,’ Angie said.

  ‘There were mitigating circumstances.’

  Richards sat down at the table and grinned. ‘Pretend I’m the person hearing your appeal,’ she said. ‘What are these mitigating circumstances you’d like to put before the panel, Mister Parish?’

  Angie also sat at the table and stared at him. ‘I think I’d be interested in hearing them as well.’

  He took Digby’s lead off the hook. ‘Come on fella, it’s obvious that we’re not wanted around here.’

  Digby barked and ran round in a circle.

  ‘You and I against the world, Digby,’ he said to the dog outside, but Digby wasn’t listening, he was more interested in cocking his leg against No.53’s gatepost.

  Well, a case at last. It could have been a body with all its part though. And... he hoped it was just one body. One body would certainly be enough after the last few cases he’d had. Who would cut off a woman’s head, hands and feet? – Somebody who didn’t want her to be identified, which was probably the key to solving the case. Maybe he should get Constable Laveque from missing persons involved – it certainly couldn’t do any harm, and she’d worked well with them last time.

  After all his avoidance tactics, Doc Riley wasn’t so bad, after all. Maybe they could have a similar working relationship to the one he’d had with Doc Michelin, but probably not. Doc Michelin was a man not a woman. He’d accumulated masses of information about everything and nothing, and would go the extra mile to find out things about the bodies.

  And what was Catherine Cox doing? It looked like she was heeding his advice to be caref
ul. She seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth – gone underground. Maybe that was the way to deal with P2 – disappear, become one with the shadows, play them at their own game. He hoped she was all right.

  He shivered. It was definitely getting colder. He had the feeling it was trying to snow. A woman passed on the opposite side of the road with a mongrel that looked like a hyena. He nodded at her as he did to most of the other dog owners he passed while walking Digby.

  Why didn’t Richards like Nash? Maybe it was a woman thing. Nash was certainly pretty. Kowalski seemed to be putty in her hands. Maybe Richards was jealous. Maybe it was getting a bit crowded in that broom cupboard.

  Fancy being banned from the antenatal classes. How embarrassing is that? Maybe he was the first ever to have been banned – a record. Maybe he should contact the Guinness Book of Records to register his feat. It was hardly his fault that all the massaging and caressing had made him randy. Oh well, there wasn’t long to go now anyway. The ban would last a week at the most, and then he wouldn’t care. It wasn’t as if Angie was going to have a horde of children one after the other at the age of thirty-seven. He’d never have to meet that vindictive midwife Staff Nurse Hollingworth ever again. Discounting Richards, because he’d only adopted her, this would be his only biological child – one chance to propagate the species with the woman he loved.

  In bed that night, she was waiting for him.

  ‘I thought you said we couldn’t?’

  ‘I spoke to the midwife, she said I shouldn’t deny you.’

  ‘And I thought that bitch was one of the devil’s helpers.’

  ‘She thought the same about you.’

  He climbed into bed naked. ‘Oh well, let’s not talk about Beelzebub. Let’s discuss how this is going to work.’

  Tuesday, 20th December

  ‘Parish, as I live and breathe.’

  ‘Good morning, Kowalski.’

  ‘You’re not the only one with a case, you know.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The landlady of The Snooty Pig on Church Lane in Wormley – Lisa Taverner – was bludgeoned to death early this morning.’

  ‘Robbery?’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘At least you know who your victim is. I have no idea who mine is. How’s Nash coming along?’

  ‘Yeah, good. It’s a bit of a wrench working with a female after having Ed as a partner for so long.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  Richards came into the squad room. She had on a bright green North Face jacket over a roll-neck jumper, a pair of black denim trousers and leather boots. Her hair had been pulled into its predictable ponytail.

  Parish smiled. ‘Talking of which.’

  ‘You look astoundingly beautiful this morning, Richards.’

  ‘Oh? Where’s your new partner, Sir?’

  ‘Late. You’re not jealous are you?’

  ‘Pah! As if.’

  ‘You know that you’ll always be my first love.’

  ‘Oh yeah! What about your wife, Jerry?’

  ‘All right, my second love.’

  ‘And what about all the other women you’ve been with?’

  ‘You drive a hard bargain, Richards. You can be my one hundred and seventeenth love, and that’s my final offer.’

  She laughed. ‘I think you’ve forgotten some, Sir.’

  ‘They meant nothing to me. Merely one-night stands and brief flings.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a hundred and eighteenth in the queue.’

  Nash came in wearing jeans and a military parka with fur trim round the hood.

  ‘About time, Nash,’ Kowalski said standing up. ‘I was nearly being crushed between a rock and a hard place. Don’t sit down, we have a case.’

  ‘A case of beer?’

  ‘As much as that would appeal to me – no. A case of cranial blunt-force trauma on a licensed premises.’

  ‘At last.’ She did an about turn. ‘Murders are like buses round here. You wait for one to come along, and then two arrive together.’

  ‘Well, it was great talking to you two, but Nash and I have to go and do some work now.’

  ‘You be careful you don’t overtax yourself, Sir,’ Richards called after him. She looked at Parish. ‘So, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Missing persons first.’

  ‘We haven’t seen Lola for ages.’

  ***

  ‘Well, look who it ain’t,’ Lola said when they squeezed into her tiny cubbyhole. ‘You two still here? I felt sure that if you were still here you would have walked down to see how poor Lola was doing. Thought you must have been promoted and transferred after all that work I gone and done for you.’

  Parish had let Richards go in first. She was standing beside Lola, while he was crushed up against the door. If anyone else had squeezed in, no one would have been able to leave. They’d all have died of starvation, lack of air, and thirst.

  ‘You’re right,’ Parish said. ‘We should have come down before now and seen how you were doing – I apologise.’

  ‘We apologise,’ Richards added.

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry none, I kept myself occupied by making poppets of the people I helped who then deserted me. I stuck nice long pins through the head and the feet. Have you had headaches, or trouble walking, lately?’

  Parish’s brow furrowed. ‘I thought that maybe I had gout, or something. How have you been, Lola?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t care that the devil’s spawn found out I’d been helping you and reflecting my duties. You don’t care that she forbade me to go upstairs under pain of a million deaths in the pits of hell. You don’t care that I been stuck in this black hole for months on end like a prisoner. You...’

  Richards put her hand on Lola’s shoulder. ‘You should have told us.’

  ‘And what you gonna do for poor old Lola? The devil’s spawn does as she pleases – this is her domain.’

  ‘I could have spoken to the Chief.’

  ‘Chief Abby knows, but she ain’t doin’ nothin’ for poor old Lola.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with Inspector Threadneedle.’

  Lola rolled her eyes. ‘What you tryin’ to do, get me spit-roasted for her demons to eat? You leave well alone. Lola can take the punishment, but what she can’t take is being reflected by those she helped.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Parish said.

  ‘Yeah, but I bet you still came down here to ask for Lola’s help, ain’t you?’

  ‘We’re trying to identify a body,’ Parish said.

  ‘Now we gettin’ to the clucks of the matter. I didn’t think you came in here to chew the fat with poor old Lola.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Richards said.

  ‘And you want to know if your body is an MP?’

  Parish nodded, and banged the back of his head on the door doing it. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I got nothin’ else better to do than help ungrateful people. Have you got a photograph, or do you know what she looks like?’

  ‘She has no head, no hands, and no feet,’ Richards said.

  Lola rolled her eyes and nodded. ‘You two are always trouble. As soon as I met you I knew you was gonna make my life a misery. What else you got?’

  ‘Early twenties, recently had a baby,’ Parish answered her.

  ‘You ain’t gonna stand there and watch me, is you? Maybe this afternoon I’ll have something, but then again maybe not.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’ Parish said.

  ‘If’n I don’t do it then you’ll go runnin’ straight to devil’s spawn, and she’ll feed me to her demons. I’m sure I don’t want to be no food for no demons.’

  ‘We wouldn’t do that, Lola,’ Richards said.

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘And Inspector Threadneedle hasn’t really got any demons.’

  ‘I seen ‘em. Seen their horns and their fangs. Their drooling saliva burns holes in the floor.’ She shivered as she said it.

  ‘Should we come back this afternoon, or will yo
u ring us?’ Parish asked.

  ‘I’ll ring you. Don’t want to give devil’s spawn anything to complain about.’

  They squirmed out through the door.

  On the way up the stairs Richards said, ‘I feel really bad about not coming down to say hello and see how she was.’

  ‘Yeah. I can’t believe the Chief knows about how Maureen Threadneedle treats Lola. I’ll have a word, see if anything can be done to make her life easier.’

  ‘Like move her out of that cupboard. Nobody should be asked to work in a tiny space like that. Where are we going now, Sir?’

  ‘To see your spurned admirer, Paul.’

  ***

  ‘Okay, round up the usual suspects, Toadstone.’

  Toadstone prised his eye from an electron microscope. ‘Claude Rains playing Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca, 1942.’

  Richards laughed. ‘He beat you again, Sir.’

  ‘He didn’t beat me, Richards. We play this little game to amuse you. I give him the answers in the morning, and he memorises them.’

  ‘As if. Admit it, he’s the king.’

  ‘A king who needs a queen, eh Toadstone?’

  Toadstone’s face reddened. ‘I guess you’ve come up to find out what I know?’

  ‘About the crime scene.’

  ‘Of course. Well, we didn’t find any of the appendages. It’s my guess that they’re in another location entirely. I think it would be pointless to cut them off and then dump them with the body.’

  ‘Which supports the notion that the dismemberment was about hiding the identity of the victim,’ Parish said.

  ‘Seems likely.’

  ‘Was the body put in the sewers in Hailey village, or did it come from somewhere else?’

  ‘That’s a good question, Mary. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer. We’ve estimated that the body has been down in the sewers a week. There was some rain on Friday and Saturday nights, which meant that it could have travelled some considerable distance.’