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

  Elizabeth Kelly made a phone call. ‘The coffee and the information are on their way.’

  ‘I much prefer co-operation than confrontation.’

  Stick glanced at her.

  ‘So, what’s all this about?’

  ‘Don’t you watch the news?’

  ‘Of course. In today’s unsettled times, security is an issue all over the world. The Head of Swann International is currently in Algeria. Last week he was in Syria, and next week he’ll be in Lebanon. We’re an international company with operatives and contracts all over the world.’

  ‘I’m very pleased for you, but I was thinking of events closer to home. A woman was murdered at 167 Hamlet Hill in Royden Hamlet. Professor and Mrs Tyndall are both away and the house is empty. The murderer had a key to the front door, circumvented the security system and removed the DVD from the computer, which in effect made the CCTV system redundant.’

  ‘And you think the murderer is one of our installation engineers?’

  ‘We have open minds, don’t we, Stick?’

  ‘I certainly do.’

  ‘This is Detective Sergeant Gilbert, by the way – my temporary partner.’

  Stick leaned across the desk and shook Elizabeth Kelly’s hand. ‘I’m not really temporary.’

  ‘And becoming more temporary by the second,’ Xena said.

  An eager-faced teenager came in with a tray, which included two coffees and a plate of custard creams.

  ‘Thank you, Paul.’

  He smiled and left.

  ‘What we’d like is the opportunity to eliminate your people from our enquiries,’ Xena said, as she helped herself to a custard cream and dunked it in her coffee.

  A good-looking young man in a dark suit with cropped hair and a goatee beard appeared with a thick folder. ‘The information you requested, Mrs Kelly.’

  ‘Thank you, Maurice.’

  He left and closed the door.

  Xena’s eyes followed him out.

  ‘You could have one of those, if you came to work for us,’ Elizabeth Kelly said.

  ‘Only one?’

  The woman opened the folder. ‘Okay, let’s see who we have here.’ She began reading. ‘Mmmm! We subcontracted the job out.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘We didn’t install the security system ourselves. Oh, we’re responsible for the contract all right, but we had a vetted local company install it for us – more cost-efficient.’

  ‘And they were?’

  ‘Gauntlet Fire and Security. They have offices in Roydon. The address is in the file. The two people who installed the system were Leon Rutter and Clinton Milburn. Our Head of Contracts at the time – Scott Ladbrook – signed off on it.’

  ‘At the time?’

  ‘He’s no longer with us. He decided to take a position in Gibraltar and is now semi-retired.’ Mrs Kelly slid the file across the desk towards Xena.

  Xena re-directed it towards Stick.

  ‘So, that’s all your questions answered. Is there anything else I can do for you, DI Blake?’

  Xena stood up. ‘No, I don’t think so. Thanks for the coffee, custard creams, information and belated co-operation.’

  ‘Swann Security International are always pleased to co-operate with local law enforcement agencies. I just hope that co-operating with you today hasn’t cost us a very lucrative contract providing security for the rapidly increasing number of mosques in the UK.’ Elizabeth Kelly passed Xena one of her business cards. ‘Call me when you’re ready to jump ship.’

  They shook hands and made their way out.

  ‘You’re not really thinking about taking a job here, are you?’ Stick said as they walked down the stairs.

  ‘At three times my current salary. I’d be a fool not to, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ***

  They’d just pulled into the car park at Hoddesdon Police Station when Richards’ phone was activated by an unknown number.

  She put it on loudspeaker. ‘Hello, DC Mary Richards?’

  ‘Hello, Mary. It’s Abel.’

  ‘Hi, Abel. You’re on loudspeaker.’

  ‘Okay. I called to give you an update on those crime statistics you wanted me to look at.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m quite sure you’re familiar with the rules regarding reported crime – The public report a crime, and the police record the crime, or not, based on Home Office Counting Rules for Recording Crime and an auditable incident report is generated?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And that crimes are recorded on the basis of one crime per victim?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I’ve checked the figures and you’re right – there are some discrepancies. Somebody seems to have made a mistake . . .’

  ‘A mistake!’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it wasn’t done on purpose. That would be . . . well, I don’t know what it would be . . . fraud maybe. I mean, the figures are compiled at station level, sent to Force HQ in Chelmsford where they consolidate the figures by area and then they send them to the Office for National Statistics, which is part of the Home Office in London. Once they’ve checked and analysed the figures they’re made public.’

  ‘So, is that it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you going to just leave it like that?’

  ‘Well, it’s not my place . . .’

  ‘You work with the fraud squad . . .’

  ‘Yes – sometimes, but . . .’

  ‘Couldn’t you speak to someone?’

  ‘I suppose . . .’

  ‘It would be better coming from you, because you know about statistics and things. They wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say.’

  ‘All right. I know someone at the ONS. I’ll see if they can shed some light on the discrepancies.’

  ‘I’d be very grateful, Abel.’

  ‘I can’t wait. When can I see you again?’

  ‘Maybe at the end of the week. I’m heavily involved with a murder case at the moment.’

  ‘I’ll wait for your call, Mary.’

  ‘But you’ll ring me if you find out anything about . . . ?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thanks, Abel.’ She ended the call.

  Parish’s eyes narrowed. ‘How grateful is “very grateful”?’

  ‘Don’t be disgusting,’ she said, climbing out of the car.

  ‘Don’t think I’m going to let you . . .’

  ‘Let me what?’

  ‘Never you mind.’

  ‘If I thought . . .’

  ‘Right, I’m going to spend a penny. I want you to go and see the Duty Sergeant, find out if they’ve finished interviewing the registered child sex offenders yet and what the end result was.’

  ‘You already know what the end result was. If they’d found anything out of the ordinary they would have phoned us.’

  ‘Maybe they couldn’t get through on the sex hotline.’

  Richards laughed. ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘After you’ve done that, meet me in the squad room and we’ll go and brief the Chief.’

  ‘Who isn’t Chief Kowalski. I don’t like him.’

  ‘Don’t start that again. If you recall, you were the same after Chief Day passed away, but now you hardly think of Walter.’

  ‘I do. I think about him all the time. And anyway, between Walter and Chief Kowalski we had a lot of people who weren’t very good, or didn’t last long for whatever reason.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope Chief Nibley is the real deal.’

  ‘He’s ugly.’

  ‘Not everyone can be as beautiful as you, Richards. So, your whole case for not liking the new Chief is built on the shaky foundations of his Dickensian looks?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘This is another case of you picking and choosing which parts of government-enacted legislation to follow . . .’

  ‘There’s no legislation for ugly people.’

  ‘Equal Opportu
nities.’

  ‘That’s for gender, sexual preference, disability, ethnicity and . . .’

  ‘. . . Ugliness.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve heard about the halo effect?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a cognitive bias. Because beautiful people are beautiful other people think that they’re more likely to succeed, and less likely to fail or commit crime, deserve leniency and so on. How do you think ugly people get a job?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Employers are not permitted to discriminate against applicants based on how they look.’

  ‘If Chief Kowalski was here I’d go and ask him if you were telling the truth.’

  ‘And he’d agree with me.’

  They separated at the bottom of the stairs.

  He slid into the toilet. Richards was right – DCI Nigel Nibley was ugly. But it wasn’t ugliness on the outside that bothered him – it was ugliness on the inside. People whose minds were twisted every which way had the power to make everybody’s life a misery.

  He washed his hands, splashed water over his face and ran fingers through hair that needed some serious repair work doing on it. He’d have to go to the hairdressers and get it cut. He wandered back to the squad room, sat at his desk and stared at the stack of files, the post-it notes, bits of paper, internal memos and envelopes. What was the point of having an internal mail system if people tried to circumvent it by using the recipient’s desk as a landfill site?

  And what was going on with the case? He was struggling to wrap his head around a newborn baby being tattooed with a functioning barcode like a supermarket product. Who would do such a thing? And how had they got away with it for so long? Was it just one warped individual? Or was there something a lot more sinister going on here? Surely it wasn’t a coincidence that both Adam Weeks and Billy Hunter were born at Yewlands Community Hospital. Also, if the abduction, sexual abuse and murder of Adam Weeks wasn’t connected to the barcode tattooed under his top lip, why had Billy Hunter gone missing within days of Adam Weeks? Coincidences didn’t happen in police work.

  Richards appeared. ‘They’ve finished interviewing all the paedophiles – nothing.’

  He stood up. ‘Let’s go and brief the Chief then.’

  ‘Did you go to the toilet?’

  ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘Because you said that’s where you were going.’

  ‘Yes, I went to the toilet. Do you want to know the intimate details of my toileting experience.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘And don’t stare at the Chief.’

  ‘I’ll try not to, but have you seen how red his ears are?’

  ‘That might be because he’d just come in from the cold.’

  ‘Someone with ears that red should wear ear muffs. And where’s his neck? It’s as if the doctors removed his neck and sewed his head straight onto his body.’

  ‘There are lots of people who barely have a neck.’

  ‘The strange case of the missing neck wouldn’t be so bad if his shoulders were normal, but they’re not. What happened to his shoulders? He must need to have his clothes specially made.’

  ‘Sloping shoulders are also very common.’

  ‘But what about the gap between his nose and top lip?’

  ‘I’ll admit, if it was my gap I’d grow a moustache to break up the landscape.’

  ‘If it was your gap we wouldn’t be working together. I couldn’t work for someone who had a gap that big.’

  ‘The Chief’s a lucky man.’

  ‘Huh! There are people out there who would jump at the chance of having me as their partner.’

  ‘Give me a list of names. I’d like to write to them and offer my condolences.’

  ‘You wouldn’t let me go.’

  ‘Shush.’ The Chief’s secretary – Lydia O’Brien – was expecting them. ‘Hi, Lydia.’

  ‘Hello, DI Parish. Go right in, he’s expecting you.’

  ‘Thanks, Lydia.’ He tapped once on the door and opened it.

  ‘Ah, the dynamic duo. Come in. Excuse the mess, the naked walls, the lack of coffee brewing in the pot, etcetera. Still getting my bearings. Take a load off. So, the child murder . . . tell me everything you know.’ He picked up a notebook from a disorganised desk and sat down with them in the easy chairs round the coffee table that was bereft of coffee.

  Seeing as it was their first briefing with Chief Nibley, he decided to brief the Chief himself rather than let Richards use him for target practice. He began by telling him about what the pathologist had found – the three-link tattoo incorporating the barcode; the restraint marks on the boy’s neck, wrists and ankles and the sexual assault . . .

  The Chief scribbled in his notebook as Parish navigated a route through the investigation to date. ‘A proper barcode . . . like the ones you get on items in the supermarket?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘I’ve heard of some strange things in my time . . . In fact, I’ve investigated some of them myself, but that’s got to be the weirdest one I ever heard of.’

  He told him about how they’d hauled in all the registered child sex offenders, but drawn a blank; about Adam Weeks’ mother – her gang-rape ten years’ previously and subsequent suicide; the damage to his car . . .

  ‘Your car?’

  ‘A new second-hand Mazda 3. I’d only had it a couple of days.’

  ‘Not a pool car?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’ll learn you, Parish. My advice – get yourself a pool car in future. I frown on people using their own cars.’

  Parish’s lip creased up at the corner. ‘I’m always grateful for helpful advice passed down after the event from the people above me.’

  ‘And so you should be.’

  He told him about the rare button belonging to someone from the secret Order of Chaeronea found by Toadstone’s people at the crime scene . . .’

  ‘And they have a Grand Lodge in Ware, you say?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll be paying them a visit as soon as we find the time.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be . . .’

  He told the Chief about Yewlands Community Hospital; how Billy Hunter had gone missing; the Muma Padurii Travelling Carnival; the DNA match and the sealed records . . .

  ‘Do you want me to call the Chief Constable?’

  ‘Thanks, but let me talk with Chief Inspector Frayne face-to-face first. If she refuses to co-operate . . . maybe then.’

  ‘A good strategy. And this Billy Hunter was also born at Yewlands?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not likely to be a coincidence, is it?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘What about the carnival?’

  ‘I want to carry out another search, but without any prior warning this time.’

  ‘Agreed. They won’t like it, but we’re not here to win any popularity contests, are we?’

  ‘DC Richards is going to investigate whether there’s a trail of missing children in the wake of the carnival while I’m briefing the press.’

  Nibley pursed his lips and nodded his head. ‘Good idea, but if Yewlands Community Hospital is the connection, as appears to be the case, the killer is unlikely to be a member of the carnival.’

  Parish told him about Adam Weeks’ body and the post-mortem records being stolen from the mortuary . . .

  ‘And the pathologist kept a copy of her report?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She should be commended.’ He made a note in his notebook and underlined it twice with pencil. ‘I’ll write a letter to the CEO of the hospital. We should sing the praises of unsung heroes whenever we come across them. So, you’re thinking that the people who sexually assaulted and murdered Adam Weeks are different to those who tattooed the barcode under his lip?’

  ‘That’s definitely a lead we’re pursuing, Sir.’

  ‘What do you think, DC Richards?’

  ‘About what, Chief?’

  ‘How the case is going?’
>
  ‘I think it’s going very well, Sir.’

  ‘So do I. Okay, good work you two.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll see you both tomorrow.’

  They shuffled out.

  ‘Well?’ Parish said as they ambled along the corridor.

  ‘Even though you covered all the relevant points, I thought your briefing was a bit boring. If I were you I’d try to inject some excitement into the one you give to the press.’

  ‘I was asking what you thought about the new Chief.’

  ‘Oh! I liked him.’

  ‘He wasn’t too ugly?’

  ‘At first, but I got used to his ugliness until I hardly noticed it.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so. I didn’t see a wedding ring on his ring finger. Do you think he’s married?’

  ‘What day would the Chief be?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  When he checked his phone he noticed that Jerry had left him a dozen messages, so he wandered out onto the landing and phoned her.

  ‘Where are you? I’ve been really worried.’

  ‘Yeah – sorry! Things went a bit pear-shaped, but Bronwyn and I are both fine. We’re at her squat deciding what to do next.’ He told her about the secret door through the Coke machine that led from AutoMove into an underground complex; about being gassed, locked up and Bronwyn being taken . . . ‘Although I hate to admit it, it was a good job you sent those two clowns as back-up. They arrived just in time to prevent a disaster.’ He told her how Shakin’ and Joe had disconnected the power to the complex; about Bronwyn being drugged; about their escape and about finding a microchip in Bronwyn’s neck.’

  ‘If I didn’t know it was you who was telling me all this I’d think you were a crazy person peddling conspiracy theories.’

  ‘I know. It does sound a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Have you sent my two boys back yet?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘I am asking.’

  ‘They’re still here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It involves an attractive young woman who likes to make out all the time.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘I’m not in there directing the movie, you know. All I do know is that the two of them are in the girl’s room. Now, whether she’s wedged between two bookends, bobbing for apples or constructing a daisy chain . . .’