Evidence of Things Not Seen: (Parish & Richards 18) Read online

  ‘Is that door still unlocked?’

  ‘Sure is, Mr K,’ Shakin’ said. ‘We’re here as your back-up at the specific request of Mrs K. And we thought that seeing as you’d rescued us from a life on the ocean waves, we’d return the favour. Didn’t we, Joe?’

  ‘That’s it exactly. Of course, we . . .’

  ‘Right, let’s get the hell out of here,’ Kowalski said. ‘We’ve got to find Bronwyn first – they’ve taken her somewhere. Open the door.’

  ‘Where’s the handle?’ Shakin’ said.

  ‘Don’t tell me you can’t open the door?’

  ‘Use the crowbar,’ Joe said.

  ‘Of course.’ Shakin’ wedged the crowbar into the gap and prised the door open.

  ‘What about the men?’ Joe said.

  ‘I have an idea,’ Kowalski said. ‘They’ve both got guns, so be careful. As they run past the room I’ll step out and knock them both down. You follow me out with that crowbar and take care of the first one, I’ll deal with the man behind him. Any questions?’

  Shakin’ and Joe looked at each other, then shook their heads. ‘You’re the man, Mr K,’ Shakin’ said.

  ‘Oh, by the way Mr K,’ Joe said. ‘Those two men have gone to the other building to get the power back on, but that ain’t gonna work because Shakin’ and me took all the circuit breakers out of the electricity cupboard and put them in my rucksack.’

  ‘I’m impressed at your ingenuity.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr K.’

  It wasn’t long before they heard the sound of running feet approaching along the corridor again.

  Kowalski did as he said, realising that the key to success was stepping out into the corridor at just the right time. He raised his right arm and swung it at throat-level towards the two running men, and as anticipated it knocked both off their feet.

  ‘Now,’ Kowalski said.

  ‘Shakin’ and Joe ran out and Shakin’ gave the first man a tap on the head – just hard enough to knock him unconscious, but not hard enough to crush his skull and kill him. Shakin’ wasn’t a murderer – well, not yet anyway.

  Kowalski dealt with the second man by planting a haymaker on the man’s jaw and knocking him out. He then searched both men and took their phones, door access cards and Glock pistols. Neither man had a wallet, or any form of identification.

  ‘You could give me one of those, Mr K,’ Joe said.

  ‘Have you ever fired a gun?’

  ‘Well, no . . .’

  ‘Have you ever killed a man?’

  ‘Well, no . . .’

  ‘Do you know where the safety catch is on a Glock-19?’

  ‘Well, no . . .’

  ‘I’d be better off giving one of them to a chimpanzee. Are you a chimpanzee?’

  ‘Well, no . . .’

  ‘Drag the bodies into that room and lock the door.’

  Shakin’ and Joe did as they were instructed.

  ‘Right, I’ll take it from here. You two go back out the way you came. Thanks for your help, but the last thing I need is a pair of gung-ho amateurs getting in my way. When you get outside, ring my wife and let her know that everything’s okay. No details – understand?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘We wouldn’t want Mrs K worrying unnecessarily, would we?’

  They both shook their heads.

  ‘Do you want us to wait outside for you and Bronwyn, Mr K?’ Joe said. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘No. You’ve both done enough. I’ll find Bronwyn and then we’ll be getting out of here ourselves.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. Haven’t you got lectures to attend?’

  ‘I’d much rather be doing this than sitting in boring old lectures,’ Shakin’ said.

  ‘Are you two still here?’

  ‘Say hi to Bronwyn for us, Mr K,’ Joe said over his shoulder as they wandered back the way they’d come. He turned to Shakin’ and whispered, ‘We’re gonna wait outside for them anyway, aren’t we?’

  ‘Of course we are, Joe.’

  ***

  ‘Why did you feel it necessary to beep the horn three times?’ Xena said as she climbed into the car.

  ‘To let you know I’d arrived.’

  ‘You think I didn’t know that? At seven-thirty – the time you said you’d be here – I looked out of the window and there you were, but that wasn’t enough for you was it? You then had to annoy all my neighbours by beeping your horn – not once, but three times.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s no good saying sorry to me – water off a duck’s back to me. But I’ve a good mind to make you apologise to all my neighbours. Especially those with babies who they’d just managed to get back to sleep; those who had been up all night with sick relatives; those who had been on the nightshift and were falling into a deep sleep . . . Need I go on?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Next time you beep your horn outside my flat there’ll be consequences.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘Pull in at the first roadside cafe you come across.’

  ‘I thought we had to . . .’

  ‘I’m hungry. Is that all right with you?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘I suppose Jenifer cooked you a full English breakfast with toast, coffee and the dance of the seven veils before you left, didn’t she?’

  ‘No, just toast and filtered coffee.’

  ‘Well, my chef is currently on holiday in the Maldives.’

  ‘I didn’t know you . . .’

  ‘So, anything else you want to tell me before I take forty winks?’

  ‘You didn’t brief the Chief.’

  ‘Unless you hadn’t noticed – I was a bit busy.’

  ‘I know that, but he came into the squad room last night and said that he expected to be briefed by you prior to the press briefing each day.’

  ‘He’s a knob.’

  ‘In your absence I had to brief him, and all I kept thinking was Chief Nibbles, Chief Nibbles . . .’

  ‘You need to see a head shrink.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘What about forensics?’

  ‘That’s a good point. I rang Di last night, but I was diverted to voicemail. I left a message asking her to call me, but she hasn’t.’

  Xena took out her phone.

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Shut up, numpty.’

  She called Hefferbitch’s number, but was diverted to voicemail. She didn’t leave a message. She called Toadstone, but that went to voicemail as well. She called the switchboard in forensics, but all she heard was the recorded message: “There’s no one in forensics at the moment. Please try again later. Opening times are . . .”

  ‘It is only quarter to eight,’ Stick said.

  ‘So now you’re the talking clock?’

  He turned left into Taverner’s Way and said, ‘What about the Huggamug?’

  ‘That’ll do. You can buy me a couple of bacon rolls and a coffee. I’ll consume them on the way. How’s your whittling going?’

  ‘Wood carving.’

  ‘Whatever?’

  ‘Very well, thank you. At the moment I’m carving a St Bernard with her three puppies for a client in Germany.’

  ‘And how much are you charging for that?’

  ‘Two thousand five hundred pounds.’

  ‘You’re fucking joking?’

  ‘Absolutely not. There’s a three-month waiting list, you know.’

  ‘I can’t understand why you don’t give up the police and whittle full-time?’

  ‘I tried that, but you wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘I can’t believe that. I’d snap your hand off if you offered me your resignation.’

  ‘Very kind.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  They went into the cafe. At the counter Xena ordered and Stick paid.

  Back in the car Xena said, ‘Try Hefferbitch again while I’m eating my breakfast.’

>   ‘Okay.’ He dialled Di’s number, but it was diverted to voicemail again. He didn’t leave a message. ‘I wonder if there’s something wrong with her.’

  ‘Of course there’s something wrong with her – she’s useless. And I’ll bet she’s too embarrassed after yesterday’s fiasco to show her face until everybody’s forgotten how useless she is. Try the reception again. Ask them if they know where she is.’

  He did that, and then ended the call. ‘They haven’t heard from her.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’ll follow it up.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess they’ll send someone round to her house.’

  ‘You guess? In the meantime, we don’t have a forensic team.’

  ‘Maybe we won’t need one.’

  ‘And maybe we will.’

  Stick started the car and headed for the A120. It was a straightforward run round past Ware, Bishop’s Stortford and Great Dunmow. As long as they didn’t hit any rush-hour traffic it would take them about fifty minutes to reach the River Blackwell in Braintree.

  ***

  On the way up the stairs to the hospital restaurant Parish said, ‘Oh, and by the way, Richards . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Remember when you fell asleep during the helicopter flight on our way out to the oil rig in the North Sea?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Well, your notebook happened to slide out of your pocket and fall open at the very page you keep a record of who’s paid for the meals we have with Doc Riley . . .’

  ‘You looked in my notebook?’

  ‘I’m the senior officer. I have a right to inspect your notebook.’

  ‘It’s an invasion of privacy.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘Have you ever heard of the Human Rights Act?’

  ‘Oh, so now you want to invoke the Human Rights Act? What about all the people you were keen to torture yesterday?’

  ‘That’s not the same thing.’

  ‘Are you of the same opinion about the Human Rights Act?’

  ‘What opinion is that?’

  ‘That it should only apply to certain categories of people?’

  ‘I’d have to give that question some serious thought.’

  ‘You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, why should murderers, paedophiles and other evil people be treated the same as the rest of us? They’re not the same. When they step over the line that separates right from wrong, they should forfeit their human rights.’

  ‘An interesting point of view.’

  ‘Anyway, we’re not talking about other people. We’re talking about you invading the privacy of my notebook.’

  ‘No, we’re not. We’re talking about conspiracy to defraud. I’d be well within my rights to arrest both of you, lock you in the dungeons beneath Hoddesdon Police Station and throw the keys into a crack in the earth’s core. You’ve been recording who paid for the meals in advance, so that it was always my turn to pay and never Doc Riley’s. Well . . . who came up with the masterplan to defraud me of my hard-earned shekels?’

  ‘It was a simple mistake,’ Doc Riley said. ‘There was absolutely no intent or conspiracy involved.’

  ‘A simple mistake that kept repeating itself time after time. It was you, wasn’t it, Richards?’

  ‘You think I’d do that to the man who adopted a poor orphan girl when all she had was . . . ?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m shocked to the bone.’

  ‘And you’ll be even more shocked when I inform you that I’m not paying for the next six months. You can work it out between the two of you who is paying.’

  ‘I never pay.’

  ‘If you can’t do the time, don’t commit the crime.’

  The hospital restaurant hadn’t been open long, so everything on the hotplate was freshly cooked. Parish had the full works with three pieces of crispy fried bread.

  ‘You’re doing it on purpose, aren’t you, Mr Flabby?’

  ‘Sticks and stones . . .’

  Richards had a bowl of cereal with slices of fruit mixed in, and Doc Riley ordered scrambled egg on toast. They had a large pot of tea between them.

  Once they were buckled in and breakfast was underway Parish said, ‘When you’re ready, Doc.’

  Doc Riley opened up her draft report at the picture of the enlarged barcode under Adam Week’s top lip and slid it across the table.

  Parish and Richards continued eating as they listened to what the pathologist had to say.

  ‘I know you’re both familiar with barcodes – they’re everywhere. Like most other barcodes, this particular one is a Uniform Product Code or UPC barcode, which was developed in America for the grocery industry in 1971 by George J Laurer to eliminate human error at the till. They’re composed of a mixture of narrow and wide black bars side by side. Each bar equates to a number, and together they represent a code consisting of twelve numbers that can be read by a barcode reader. The code on Adam was: 701342159863.’

  ‘Could you scan that barcode at the supermarket?’ Richards asked.

  ‘You could, but it wouldn’t be recognised. You’ll see why in a minute. The data read by the reader is passed onto a computer, which matches the code with previously stored information such as the name of the item, the price, size and so on. The code doesn’t mean much on its own – it has to be matched to the stored information held on the computer, which we don’t possess for the code tattooed on Adam.’

  She turned the report over and wrote the number down on the blank page, but separated by spaces. ‘What we can tell from this code number is this: The first number “7” is a standard UPC system checker number; the next five numbers “00332” are the manufacturers code, and each manufacturer’s code is maintained by the Uniform Code Council or UCC – I checked the manufacturer’s number with them and it was assigned to Alfalfa’s Supermarket in 1975, but they went bankrupt in 1982 and the UCC hadn’t reassigned the number; the next five numbers “15981” are the product code, which is assigned to each product by the manufacturer, which we checked online at upcdatabase.org, but the code couldn’t be found; and the last number “3” is a check digit that validates the other digits in the code were read correctly by the computer software. Also, there are three guard bars, which separate the number groups – one on the left between the “7” and “0”, one in the middle that separates the manufacturer’s code from the product code, and one on the right between the “1” and the “3”. This particular barcode is one dimensional and linear, but there are a number of other types such as the two-dimensional QR Code . . .’

  ‘Aren’t those the little square ones?’ Richards said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Parish screwed up his face. ‘So, we’re none the wiser really?’

  Doc Riley shook her head. ‘That’s not strictly true. The tattoo was put on Adam Weeks shortly after his birth on January 29, 2006, which suggests that it was done at the hospital where he was born . . .’

  ‘One minute, Doc,’ Parish said, his loaded fork hovering around his mouth. ‘How can you be so certain about when the tattoo was put on the boy?’

  ‘It’s in the report, but in a word – ink. We can compare the ink to a known library of standards. Chemical date tags are inserted into the ink purposefully by the manufacturer. The ink used on Adam Weeks was manufactured in January of 2006 by Silverline Inks who are based in Lincolnshire.’

  ‘Okay, but that ink could have been used at any point in time after that date.’

  ‘That’s true, but as I’ve said on a number of occasions – tattoos are wounds. And like other types of wound they possess certain characteristics and properties, which allow them to be dated through microscopy and staining. As yet, this forensic process is only accepted as circumstantial evidence in a court of law, but when we add it to the chemical ink tag, then it becomes an objective irrefutable fact.’

  ‘Good work, Doc.’

  ‘. . . And
he was born at Yewlands Community Hospital in Broxbourne.’

  ‘Someone at the hospital tattooed a barcode on the inside of a tiny baby’s lip,’ Richards said. ‘How is that even possible?’

  ‘I’m guessing, but it would have taken some time.’

  ‘Some time!’ Parish said. ‘How long is that in real money?’

  Doc Riley shrugged. ‘No idea, but a baby wouldn’t lie still while they were being tattooed, so they’d have to be anaesthetised. I’m struggling to imagine how it could have happened. Where were the doctors and nurses? Go up to the baby unit on the second floor here and try and take a baby away – see what happens.’

  Parish’s lip curled up. ‘I think I have a good idea what would happen, Doc. You go, Richards.’

  ‘Not likely.’

  ‘Your mother and I will come and visit you in Holloway.’

  ‘Very kind, I’m sure,’ Richards said, giving him a smile that could melt steel. ‘And we can’t ask Adam’s mother what happened now either.’

  ‘No, but we can go round to Yewlands Community Hospital and demand some answers.’

  ‘There’s one other thing about barcodes that you should be aware of,’ Doc Riley said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Remember the “Guard Bars” between the different numbers?’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘It’s been suggested that each guard bar represents “6” thus: the number of the beast – 666 – from Revelations 13: 16-18 is hidden in every barcode . . .’

  ‘We’re getting into the realms of fantasy now, Doc,’ Parish said.

  ‘And a functioning barcode tattooed under the lip of a newborn baby in a National Health Service Hospital without the permission or knowledge of the mother isn’t fantasy?’

  ‘She has a point, Sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Richards.’

  ‘Many believe that sooner, rather than later, we will all have the Mark of the Beast in a cashless society,’ Doc Riley said, and began quoting the relevant passage from the Book of Revelations:

  ‘It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.