The Greatest Lie Ever Told – chapter 3

The Greatest Lie Ever Told

by Morton Cubberd

Chapter 3

By midday it was already pitch black night on the outskirts of Reykjavik at the Skurglast Zoological Gardens, where Dr.Heijning Mork Karlsson was stirring a large bucket filled with mashed pilchards, lambs’ livers and boiled oats. For extra nutrition he added a dozen chopped apples and two jugs of freshly squeezed orange juice. Only the very finest diet was suitable for his premium products. The door opened and in walked his friend Olaf Brynjolfsonsonsonson.

“Heijning Mork Karlsson! I trust you had a very good Christmas?” The men lowered their trousers and slapped each other in the testicles, as is the traditional Icelandic manner in which people greet each other.

“Very peaceful and very pleasant, my good friend Olaf Brynjolfsonsonsonson. We had our traditional Icelandic Christmas meal of shark gills buried in soil for six months then pickled in vinegar then buried in sand for another six months then re-pickled and served with pickled root vegetables and a selection of pickles. Then after the whole family went out in boats and harpooned a load of Pilot Whales.”

“Ah, wonderful! Nothing quite like a traditional Icelandic Christmas. And how is the shipment coming along? Did your Russian contact arrive?”

“Of course, Olaf, he never lets me down. Would you like to see them? It’s feeding time.”

The two men picked up the heavy bucket together and carried it through to the temperature regulated, ice cold, brightly lit rooms in the rear of Dr.Heijning Mork Karlsson’s private offices.

“So what do we have here?” Olaf asked as he looked through the glass screens at the shallow pools.

“Just as you asked me, four Brunnich’s Guillemots, three Ivory Gulls, two Ross’s Gulls and seven King Eiders. And there you can see the two pure white Gyrfalcons, stupendous creatures. But over here we have the really special ones from the Russian, a drake Pacific Eider, a female Stejneger’s Scoter and an adult Black-tailed Gull.”

“Wonderful, Heijning, truly wonderful! But are these really Brunnich’s Guillemots? They just look like ordinary Common Guillemots to me. Where is the white on the bill?”

“Brunnich’s are almost impossible to keep alive in captivity. But Olaf, my good friend, you said these birds are bound for Britain? You know how useless British birders are. Just paint a little bit of white at the base of their bills and the hopeless fucking Brits will be none the wiser!”

The two men began to laugh heartily, then they lowered their trousers and waddled three steps backwards, as is the traditional Icelandic way of responding to a humorous comment.

 

***

 

Tommy Colon, the Detective Chief Inspector of Asstermowth CID, read through the preliminary homicide report handed to him by his profoundly gifted protege D.I. Liz McAubrey. My God she’s good, just so goddam profoundly gifted. Liz had already deduced that the thirty-two year old market trader Jock MacDogkennel had not died from accidental drowning but had been viciously murdered with a massive kitchen knife, and he seemed to have been involved in some dark secretive birding sect. But it was the birding aspect to this case which worried D.C.I. Colon so much.

Colon opened up Liz’s file and read through her family history. Can’t let a cop as profoundly gifted and extraordinarily talented as Liz McAubrey get chewed up and spat out by a case like this. Colon picked up the phone and asked Liz to come and see him immediately.

“You’re off the case, McAubrey,” Colon said when Liz arrived.

“What? But why, guv?” Liz asked in shock.

“You know why, Liz. This is all just too goddam close to you. You’re too involved.”

“You mean my father? He means nothing to me. I haven’t seen him for nearly ten years. You can’t take me off the case, guv, you just can’t.”

“Dammit, Liz, I’m not losing another profoundly gifted detective because they get too goddam involved with a case. You’ve heard about Paddy Rogue? He was just like you and all profoundly gifted and stuff, but he always got too goddam involved. It ruined him. And now he’s probably investigating missing cats for Cotswoldshire CID. Is that how you want to end up, McAubrey?”

“Dammit, guv! You can’t take me off the case. Just because my selfish absent father was a manic obsessive twitcher and you think that that might jeopardise my ability to do the job objectively. It’s just not fair, guv!”

“Dammit! I said you’re off the case, McAubrey, and that’s my final word. D.I. Masthead is on the case now.”

“Dammit! Robbie Masthead? Are you serious, guv? He’s a third-rate detective and you know it.”

“Don’t argue with me, McAubrey, goddamit! You seem to have forgotten who’s in charge up here in Asstermowth. Now get home and have an early night. You’ll be assigned a new case in the morning.”

Liz forced herself not to cry. She refused to show weakness. In a profoundly calm manner she stared at D.C.I. Tommy Colon then profoundly got to her feet and left the office.

“It’s for the best, McAubrey,” Colon said in a fatherly tone.

“Best for who, guv?” Liz closed the door as her eyes began to well.

 

***

 

“Jonathan Plinth?” D.I. Paddy Rogue asked the man who answered the door. Rogue was accompanied by his assistant D.I. Timmy Keen.

“That’s me. How can I help you?” Plinth responded.

Rogue flashed his badge. “We’ve come to ask you a few questions about the death of Professor Maurice Wagon. We understand that he was a pretty serious birdspotter and due to give a talk to your lame-ass weirdo Ornithological Society the night he was murdered.”

“I’m ever so sorry, officer, but I’ve never heard of a Maurice Wagon. You must have the wrong person.”

Rogue, smoking a crooked roll-up cigarette, stared hard at Jonathan Plinth. “You are the secretary of Cotswoldshire Ornithological Society?”

“I am indeed. But I’ve never heard of anyone called Maurice Wagon. And it’s hardly the kind of name you would forget.”

“Plinth, come closer,” Rogue said in a hushed voice. Jonathan Plinth leaned forward into Rogue’s face, when suddenly Rogue pushed his lit cigarette into Plinth’s left eye.

“Aaarrgghh! My eye!” Plinth screamed, as Paddy Rogue punched him in his other eye and hurled him through the doorway and onto the floor.

“Keen,” Rogue said to his assistant, “go to my Ford Capri and get the rope and my bag of tools. I think Mr Plinth requires some gentle interrogation.”

D.I. Paddy Rogue calmly walked into Jonathan Plinth’s house and then dragged the wailing secretary of Cotswoldshire Ornithological Society along the hallway by his hair.

 

***

 

Liz McAubrey was determined not to allow being taken off the Jock MacDogkennel case to set her career back. Although they never saw eye-to-eye, she trusted her boss Tommy Colon and believed that he was acting in her best interests. Colon had always treated her with respect, never belittled or patronised her for being a woman in the mainly boys’ club of Asstermowth CID. Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps the MacDogkennel case would rake up too many bad memories about her troubled relationship with her birder father. For a second she wondered where her father was, the last she heard he had gone off on a tick-and-run trip to Bolivia. No, I refuse to think about him. But the MacDogkennel case was so fascinating. Just so many things that didn’t make sense. For example, who owned the phone behind the mysterious voicemail that sounded just like Rigsby in Rising Damp? The number was pay-as-you-go and not registered to anyone. It was one of the many mysteries that intrigued her.

But now she was off the case, and it wasn’t worth wasting time thinking about it. Anyway, New Year’s Eve was fast approaching and Liz decided that in 2012 she would try and have more fun. She was heading to Asstermowth Mortuary to see the two wacky loony medical students Jimmy and Kenny, and to see if they fancied taking her out for a good time, to show her how to let her hair down and have a bit of wacky loony fun. Who knows, what with them all being so young and carefree and without attachments or commitments, maybe they’d all end up taking ketamine and defecating on each other.

 

***

 

“I’ve got to admit it, Rogue, you certainly get results,” Keen said as they left Jonathan Plinth’s house, “I don’t agree with how you go about it, but you’re one hell of a detective.”

Rogue wiped the drying blood from his hands onto his filthy stained jacket. “Cut someone’s fingers off and they might squeal a bit. But take a Black+Decker nail gun to their bollocks and they’ll tell you where Shergar’s hidden.”

In two hours of sadistic, gut-churning violence, Rogue had forced Jonathan Plinth to admit that he did indeed know Maurice Wagon, and the two detectives had now discovered that Maurice Wagon had been due to give a talk to Cotswoldshire Ornithological Society entitled ‘The History of Ornithological Fraud’. Before he passed out from pain and massive blood loss, Plinth told them that if they wanted to know anything else they needed to speak to the world’s leading expert in the history of ornithological fraudsters, the eccentric billionaire aristocrat Sir Wilkins Bramblebay.

Rogue started up his Ford Capri, and the two detectives drove towards Bramblebay Castle.

 

***

 

Just as Liz reached room 6b in Asstermowth Mortuary, she heard the double doors at the end of the corridor slam shut and then turned to see the shadow of someone descending the fire escape stairs. I wonder if that was Jimmy or Kenny? Liz knocked on the door of room 6b, and after a short wait without an answer she walked into the room.

“Holy Jesus Christ, father of Leonard Cohen, son of Jesse Jackson,” she yelped, then right-angled at the waist and began to vomit on the floor.

The white tiled walls were painted with blood, brains and other bits of fleshy stuff. Jimmy and Kenny had both been decapitated, their skulls cracked open and their brains leaking all over the white tiled floor. Jimmy’s unicycle was lying on the floor, the wheel slowly spinning. Liz right-angled again and puked on top of a pile of what appeared to be one of the murdered boy’s intestines.

Jock MacDogkennel’s corpse lay on the side, but Liz instantly noticed, in that profoundly gifted way of hers, that the kitchen knife and been pulled out of his chest. She started to search frantically, slipping in the blood and excrement of her two dead friends, but she soon discovered that Jock MacDogkennel’s rucksack containing his birding belongings had also been taken.

The double doors. The figure going down the fire escape stairs.

Liz ran out of room 6b and down the corridor towards the fire escape. Her hand instinctively went to her hip and withdrew her service revolver, something which came as a great surprise to her as British detectives don’t carry guns. Anyway, let’s not allow a bit of inaccuracy to fuck up the flow of the story.

Liz looked down the fire escape stairs and saw the shadow of someone almost on the bottom floor. She began to profoundly leap down the stairs in an extraordinarily talented manner, almost clearing a whole flight in one jump.

“Police! Don’t move!” Liz screamed when she caught up with the killer. “Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head.”

The killer dropped Jock MacDogkennel’s rucksack and slowly turned around to look at Liz pointing the revolver.

“Oh my God, you’re a woman!” Liz said, panting hard, terrified at the sight of the seven foot tall woman dressed in a black Gestapo trench coat. “Get down on your knees now!”

The killer, soaked in the blood of Jimmy and Kenny, dropped to her knees. The killer looked at Liz and calmly began to speak. “Put down your gun and walk away. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“One move and I’ll shoot. Put your fucking hands behind your head!” Liz screamed.

Liz fumbled in her pocket with her free hand and took out a pair of handcuffs. For just a split second she took her eye off the killer to try and open up the handcuffs, but that was enough time for the killer to lunge forward and take Liz down hard onto the concrete floor. Liz was winded and dropped her gun. The killer picked Liz up by her throat and flung her like a rag doll, her skull smashing into the wall, her instantly unconscious body falling to the floor in a limp crumpled heap.

The killer cursed herself. She never wanted to hurt innocent people, and certainly not another woman. But this was her job. This is what the old man at Cley paid her to do. The killer opened up her Gestapo trench coat and reluctantly withdrew her cricket bat.

***

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