Shadow of Death (9781476057248) Read online

  ‘Hello, Sir.’

  ‘How’s it going, Ed?’

  ‘I feel like quitting.’

  He told Ed about the conversation he’d had with Audrey, and the strategy meeting planned for tonight. ‘Bring your wife and children.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘The more the merrier, and bring the file on the other seven cases.’

  ‘Okay.’

  There was a knock at the side window.

  He had to turn the key in the ignition so that he could get power to lower the window, and then was hit with a foetid stench up close and personal. ‘Jesus, do you want to stand back a bit,’ he said, putting his hand over his mouth and nose.

  ‘Sorry Sir. After you’ve been wallowing about in shit for a while, you don’t seem to notice the smell anymore.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I suggest you and the others take a shower and dispose of your clothes before heading back to the station.’

  ‘Are we finished?’

  ‘Yes. You didn’t find any more black bags did you?’

  ‘No, nothing else.’

  ‘Thanks for volunteering. It can’t have been pleasant down there.’

  ‘Okay, Sir. See you back at the station.’

  He opened both windows briefly, to let the stench blow through, and then phoned DCI Marshall.

  ‘Hello, Inspector.’

  ‘I’m at the landfill site and I’ve just told the volunteer officer to finish and make their way back to...’

  ‘You should have rung me before you made that decision. I thought I’d made it quite clear that I make all the decisions?’

  ‘I can make decisions on my own, you know.’

  ‘That’s where you’re mistaken, Inspector. You can’t. Walter Day gave you far too much freedom. The team should be a well-oiled machine, but if one of the cogs decides to do what it likes, then the machine- or in our case, the team- will cease to function effectively, if at all.’

  Realising that he was about to say something which would probably put him in front of a disciplinary panel, he ended the call. Within a few minutes the phone vibrated, but he ignored it. He hadn’t chosen an appropriate ringtone for DCI Marshall, and decided that he never would, but Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf sprang to mind. Either the Chief Constable got rid of her, or he would ask for a transfer. That was, of course, if he lasted that long. To stretch the analogy beyond snapping point, he was a rogue cog with a mind of its own. A vision of machine parts rising up against their masters – or mistresses – jumped into his mind.

  It was twenty to three. He decided that he didn’t really want to go back to the station and play happy teams until he absolutely had to. Also, his stomach was rumbling because he’d had no lunch. He started up the car, waved at Toadstone and the volunteer officers, and drove out of the landfill car park. An all-day breakfast with plenty of four-sugared coffee at the Road Chef would calm him down. He couldn’t work effectively under these conditions; he’d have to speak to the damned woman. The more he thought about it, the more he realised it would be a fruitless task. She’d laid out her stall and this was the way things were going to be. Either he went along with it, or he was out on his ear. Maybe he should go before he was pushed, or dived dramatically head first into a slab of concrete. He couldn’t decide whether he preferred Naylor or Marshall. At least CI Naylor let him run his own investigations.

  ***

  He walked into the incident room at exactly four o’clock with a coffee he’d made himself.

  ‘Welcome back, Inspector,’ fatty Marshall said. ‘I’d like to see you in my office immediately after the briefing.’

  With a face like a bunch of sour grapes, he nodded, pulled out a chair, and sat down. From the corner of his eye he could see Richards and Ed looking at him, but he didn’t turn his head to meet their eyes.

  ‘As you know, Constable Richards and I have been with Doctor Riley most of the day at King George Hospital while she carried out a full post- mortem examination of the hands and feet. She’s working in an old operating theatre in the basement until such time as the mortuary is re-built. The conditions are not ideal, but I’m sure she’ll get by. Anyway, this is what we’ve discovered about the hands and feet. They’ve been frozen for an indeterminate amount of time, and because of that there is no way to pin down a time of death – if any deaths occurred – or time of amputation, but she’s sure they are all less than three months old. At least one of the victims is East European. Dr Riley found a metal surgical pin in one of the feet with a serial number engraved on it, and part of that number has Cyrillic letters. This is the first real clue we’ve had. Dr Riley is trying to identify exactly where that pin comes from and who it was inserted into to, which should give us the name of at least one of the victims. Also, we found a small tattoo on one of the hands, which I’ve asked Constable Richards to look into. Inspector, what did you find at the landfill site?’

  ‘Besides waste and seagulls, nothing.’

  ‘And Dr Toadstone’s team?’

  ‘Also nothing.’ That’s it, he thought: withholding evidence from a senior officer, perverting the course of justice, colluding with colleagues to... Within the space of a day he’d shifted from DI to criminal.

  ‘So, all we have are three bags of hands and feet. Tomorrow, I’d like you to work with Sergeant Gorman on the other seven cases, Inspector. Progress on some of them would be helpful. I assume you’ve made little headway on any of them today, Sergeant?’

  ‘No Ma’am... Chief. I’ve been...’

  ‘Let the Inspector know, Sergeant. Right, I don’t think it’s necessary to have two briefings a day. We’ll meet here at four thirty tomorrow afternoon and go from there. Thank you.’

  Parish followed the DCI into her office and shut the door.

  ‘You’re either with me or against me, Inspector.’

  ‘You’ve got me doing mundane tasks. You’ve taken my partner away. I normally run the investigations, but now I’m a lackey.’

  ‘Yes, I thought so. It’s all about you, isn’t it? To quote a well-used phrase, There’s no I in team. You’re not really a team player, are you?’

  He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of an answer. ‘And I’m Constable Richards’ tutor for the final phase of her Initial Crime Investigators Development Programme.’

  ‘My understanding is that you two live under the same roof, and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about a conflict of interests. Not only is it inappropriate for Constable Richards to be your partner, but I also can’t understand Walter allowing you to mentor someone you live with. So I’ve decided to allocate her to another tutor.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that I can, Inspector.’

  Feeling his face burning up with anger, indignation, and a multitude of other emotions he’d forgotten he had, he said, ‘What’s wrong with you? This was a good team until you came and destroyed it. And don’t even speak Walter Day’s name – he was a better man than you’ll ever be.’ He spun round, opened the door and slammed it behind him. As he strode towards the stairs the herringbone ripple glass in the door fell inwards and smashed on the new green carpet, and DCI Marshall shouted after him, ‘Come back at once, Inspector. If you leave you’ll never return.’

  Taking the stairs three at a time, he was past caring. If she was going to be in charge, he didn’t want to go back.

  Richards was leaning against the car.

  ‘You don’t look happy.’

  ‘I just lost my temper with the DCI.’

  ‘Oh, Sirrr!’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Her name is Valerie Nichols,’ Toadstone began.

  It was ten past six, and they were sitting in the large back room at 38, Puck Road with the curtains closed, so that the children couldn’t peer in, and the lights on. The dining table had been shifted against the wall and the whiteboard – displaying gory photographs of the dismembered woman in the trunk and her details – was in front of the table. T
he six dining chairs were in a line and sitting on four of them were Kowalski, Ed Gorman, Richards, and Parish. Outside could be heard Kowalski’s four and Ed Gorman’s three children annoying Digby, who was barking loud enough to wake the dead. Angie, Jerry, and Ed Gorman’s wife Minnie, were preparing a cold buffet in the kitchen and plotting a joint assault on Covent Garden market.

  ‘She was a solicitor, and she went missing from the Statics Club in Hertford on Saturday night two weeks ago – the 14th. Her flat mate reported her missing on Monday evening to Hertford Police Station.’

  ‘Why so long?’ Richards asked.

  ‘Carole Dobbins - the flat mate who went with her to the club- said she left with an older man.’

  ‘Description?’ Kowalski wanted to know.

  Toadstone pointed to an artist’s impression, stuck to the bottom of the board with blu-tack, of a thin angular-faced man in his late-thirties/early-forties with glasses, light brown curly hair and a slightly darker moustache. Along the bottom were further details: height – between five foot eleven and six foot one; weight – approximately a hundred and fifty-five pounds; clothes – a black polo neck jumper and black chinos. ‘Hertford Murder Investigation Team distributed this picture on the Tuesday as someone they would like to question, but as yet they haven’t found anyone that matches the description.’

  ‘Crap,’ Kowalski said. ‘So, it’s not even in our area.’

  ‘No,’ Toadstone said.

  ‘We have to pass it on,’ Ed said.

  ‘We can’t,’ Parish countered. ‘Toadstone has the body in his lab and he’s already carried out a post-mortem.’

  ‘Why have you done a post-mortem, Paul?’ Richards asked.

  ‘Because...’

  Parish got to his feet. ‘Because Doctor Riley has joined the dark side.’

  ‘You mean she’s joined us?’

  ‘Yeah, good one, Ray,’ Ed said.

  ‘I know it looks bad, but this is our chance to right wrongs.’

  ‘You could just say you didn’t realise who it was...’

  ‘We can’t do that, Ed. The first thing they’d ask is why has Toadstone carried out the post-mortem. The answer to that question is that either he did it on his own initiative, which nobody would believe...’ Toadstone opened his mouth as if to protest, but Parish held a hand up to stop him. ‘...or he did it on somebody’s orders. And it wouldn’t take them long to work out who that somebody was, especially after Toadstone had spilled his guts under the Chinese water torture.’

  ‘It’s a slippery slope once you cross that line,’ Kowalski said.

  ‘Toadstone and I crossed the line this morning. The question now is whether you three are going to join us in the light?’

  The three looked at each other.

  ‘Well, I don’t want to be a detective if I’m not your partner and you’re not tutoring me.’ On the way home in the car he had informed her of the conversation he’d had with the Chief Constable’s PA, and explained why he had lost his temper with DCI Marshall.

  ‘That’s not the right answer, Richards. The Chief Constable, Chief Day, and myself, for that matter, haven’t wasted an inordinate amount of time, money, and energy on your training for you to pack it in now.’

  ‘But you’ve thrown your career away because of me?’

  ‘What’s this?’ Kowalski said.

  ‘That’s certainly not the plan.’ He told the others what had happened in Marshall’s office.’

  ‘Yep,’ Kowalski said, nodding like a toy dog. ‘I can hear the water swilling round the toilet bowl as your career disappears over the U-bend.’

  Parish smiled. ‘I expect Marshall will suspend me this week while she organises a disciplinary hearing. I’ll consult my union representative as a matter of course, but what I’m hoping is that the Chief Constable will return from holiday and make everything right.’

  Kowalski and Ed gave each other a worried look.

  Parish smiled. ‘You’re not convinced?’

  ‘Breaking the glass in the Chief’s door is small potatoes compared to what we’re doing now,’ Kowalski said. ‘What do you think the Chief Constable is going to do when he finds out you kept a body, and the investigation of that body, a secret; that you ran the investigation from your back room while you were suspended from actually doing any police investigative work; that you didn’t inform the victim’s parents their daughter had been found, nor obtain a formal identification as the law requires; that the media were not informed; that...?’

  ‘All right, I admit, I haven’t ironed out the fine details of the plan yet, but trust me it’ll turn out okay. When Marshall has been replaced, and we’re running our own investigations, this one will simply be one of them.’

  Kowalski and Ed looked sceptical, and shook their heads as if they were listening to lame excuses from their children for naughty behaviour.

  ‘Anyway, let’s not get hung up on minor details. Who’s staying and who’s going? And I won’t blame anyone if they want to join the children in the garden.’

  ‘Ed and I are in,’ Kowalski said.

  ‘I’m in,’ Richards said. ‘I hate fatty Marshall.’

  ‘Okay, good,’ Parish said. ‘Look, when the powers-that-be find out what’s happened, you three won’t even get a mention. It’ll be down to me and Toadstone to take all the credit and collect the medals of commendation.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Kowalski said.

  ‘Shall I continue?’ Toadstone said.

  Parish sat back down. ‘Please do.’

  ‘Well, the flat mate...’

  ‘Carole Dobbins?’ Richards reminded everybody.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mary... Well, she thought Valerie had found the man of her dreams, gone back to his place, and stayed that night and the following day. But when she didn’t come home on the Monday night...’

  ‘What about texts between...?’ Ed began.

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ Toadstone said. ‘It’s not as if I could ask Hertford MIT for details of their investigation.’

  ‘Start your list, Richards,’ Parish nudged her with his elbow.

  She clucked, stood up and said, ‘Wait while I go and get my notebook.’

  ‘Hurry up then. You should have known, this is a briefing and...’

  ‘Do you want me to go and get my notebook, or stay here while you moan at...?’

  ‘Are you still here?’

  Richards left the room, but was back inside a minute.

  ‘Shoot,’ she said, opening her notebook and resting it on her knee.

  Kowalski grunted. ‘Is she still watching the Crime Channel, Jed?’

  ‘She’s like an addict, Ray. What can I do?’

  ‘I am here, you know.’

  ‘Write: Interview Carole Dobbins re. communications between Saturday night and Monday night. Carry on Toadstone.’

  ‘She was twenty-nine years old.’ He pointed to a head and shoulders photograph in the top left-hand corner of the board. An attractive blonde-haired woman in a blue sleeveless dress stared at them. There were highlights in her bobbed hair, freckles on her cheeks, and her chin was more pointed than round.

  Kowalski shook his head. ‘Why would...? No, never mind. I’m asking stupid questions again. It’s just...’ He clenched his massive hands and sighed.

  Toadstone began again. ‘She lived at 12, Meridian Way in Stanstead St Margarets and worked as a solicitor at Tollhurst and Chandler in Ware.’

  ‘There you go,’ Parish said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his feet. ‘Stanstead St Margarets is on our patch, so we’re obligated to find the killer of one of our residents.’

  ‘Except,’ Ed reminded him, ‘that you won’t have talked to the MIT at Hertford at all.’

  ‘We’ll talk to them after the Chief Constable comes back.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Kowalski said. ‘Let’s hope the Chief Constable is working from the same script as the one you’ve got. You have sent him a copy, haven’t you?’

  ‘Keep going Toad
stone, otherwise we’ll be here all night.’

  ‘Okay. I examined the metal trunk inside and out, and lifted full and partial fingerprints of fifteen different people, which were put through the database.’ He handed out three sheets of paper with names, addresses, and other details on. ‘These were matches, but there was nothing in the database for the other twelve sets.’

  ‘Suspects!’ Parish said. ‘It’s not often you give us suspects, Toadstone.’

  ‘I live to serve.’

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

  ‘Stop being mean to Paul, Sir.’

  ‘Write down...’

  ‘...Interview suspects and eliminate remaining twelve sets of fingerprints.’

  ‘Maybe I should let someone else be your tutor, like fatty Marshall wants.’

  ‘As if.’

  ‘The trunk itself is similar to a military footlocker produced between 1930 and 1950, but there is nothing to indicate who or where it was made. They are quite rare, but trying to identify its owner would be extremely difficult. There are, however, more tests I need to do, so I’ll keep you informed.’

  ‘If we were running a legal investigation, we could have appealed to the public through the media,’ Ed said.

  ‘Give it a rest, Ed,’ Kowalski reprimanded him. ‘You’ve made your point.’

  ‘I was merely saying, that’s all.’

  ‘When I examined the body I found that she’d been badly beaten, raped, and then strangled with her own tights. She was also menstruating and had the used tampon pushed in her mouth.’