Night had fallen by the time Strike decided it was safe for him to re-enter the small town that had seemed so quaintly beautiful by daylight.
And there was the picture of the pretty woman wearing a red beaded necklace, arms around the young Chloe. Strike wondered whether she was still alive. For Griffiths, that ruby necklace seemed to be the equivalent of Daesh’s orange execution jumpsuits.
It is interesting that there is an ambiguous "she" in the description; it could be either Chloe or the woman who is dead. It does make you wonder who the woman in the photo was, beyond one of Griffiths' presumed trafficking victims; did she know she was posing as a kidnapped girl's mother, or did she think she was just dating a nice single dad and might soon be a stepmother?
Strike then finds that the house isn't deserted after all. A phone call arouses "Jonesy" upstairs, who comes down, promising to "get 'er ready." All the clues that were dropped in the original Griffiths interview start being uncovered.
Strike heard footsteps, a faint rustle, followed by a thump. It sounded a lot like the noise Griffiths had claimed had been made by Dilys when she’d left the room, banging into a hall table.
Wynn Jones either heard or sensed Strike. He turned his head, but too late: the fisherman’s priest had already begun its descent.
And bang-bang goes Chekhov's gun. Onto Chapter 122.
The blow fell upon Jones’ skull with a loud crack and he fell forwards, smacking his forehead on the opposite edge of the rectangular hole in the floor and falling clumsily through it, hitting first a short ladder then, with a resounding thud, the basement floor.
It's quickly obvious that is going to be the darkest and most gruesome confrontation in the series to date. Strike has beaten suspects before (Bristow, Laing) but always in self-defense. This is also the nastiest crime scene we've been since Donald Laing's lair, bearing a strong resemblance to Dennis Creed's basement torture chamber.
Well aware there was a strong possibility he’d just killed a man, he stepped onto the ladder and, hampered by the heaviness of his overcoat, climbed with some difficulty down into an underground space that smelled much more strongly of the musky smell he’d already detected, now with faecal and urinous overtones.
Strike finds Sapphire Neagle in the basement, but before he can say more than a few words to her, Ian Griffths returns with a number of cronies. Wardle and Barclay have been unable to warn Strike of their approach. Fortunately, they like their music loud. Incidentally, the song they are playing is "Kid Charlemange" a Steely Dan tribute to LSD king Augustus Owsley, a fitting choice for the serial killer with the "hippie" persona. There's even a line when the druggie king is asked "Did you feel like Jesus?"-- a fitting connection to the framed poster that closes the chapter.
The music is apparently playing loudly enough that, when Griffths spies the open trapdoor and starts downstairs to check on "Jonesy", Strike is able to yank him down by his tiny, trainer-shod food without the other rapists hearing. This could very well be the same foot that left the incriminating bloody footprint under Wright's body in the vault.
Strike barrelled into Griffiths before the latter could stand, slamming him down onto the concrete floor, large right hand over Griffiths’ mouth, the other groping for Griffiths’ wrist, but too late—
Strike felt a burning pain as a blade slashed the side of his head; he was lucky his face hadn’t been ripped, but his ear had been sliced—
Blood now gushing from his head wound, Strike succeeded in grabbing the wrist of Griffiths’ knife-holding hand, then slammed it down on the rough concrete floor, too, until he heard the blade fall out of Griffiths’ grasp, while Griffiths tried to shout out as loud as he could with Strike’s other hand clamped over his mouth.
This blood will gush for the rest of this chapter and the next. While this is absolutely an echo the CoE confrontation with Donald Laing, complete with ear slicing, the injury is far more serious, nearly in George Weasley territory. It's also Strike and two friends against four criminals (could have been seven if three weren't cowards who fled), instead of Strike and Shanker versus Laing. Finally, there is a live female victim to protect, instead of dead girls in a freezer.
Wardle and Barclay arrive to assist. One real strength of the Strike books is the great descriptions of the locations where the villains are confronted; I could very easily picture Laing's seedy flat and Raff's boat. I'm still having a bit of difficulty picturing this basement, which, on the one hand appears to be hand-dug with a poorly poured concrete floor; Does that mean dirt walls and ceiling? But a toilet is installed? It's said to be relatively short, with Strike and Jones in danger of banging their heads on the ceiling, but with enough floor space that four men and one girl can be down there fighting, with enough room to swing a ladder without taking out several unintended victims. With first three men grappling in the pitch black dark, then five men fighting in the cramped space, it's hard to see how Sapphire wasn't knocked around. It's also hard for me to picture them heaving the handcuffed men up the ladder, if they aren't cooperative, particularly the huge Jones. Strike isn't great lifting heavy stuff with his prosthesis in normal circumstances; this time he's gushing blood with his ear hanging off. But that's apparently what they do.
Added hat-tip from reader Cheryl Davis on Substack: The name of the Steely Dan band originated from the name of a strap-on dildo in William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch, a book published in 1959. That gives new meaning to the contents of the wicker table that was knocked over during the melee.
"Help me get these cunts upstairs," Strike panted to Wardle, as Griffiths continued to struggle.
Chapter 123 is very long compared to its neighbors and included the full confrontation of Ian Griffiths and his cronies Wynn Jones, Darren Pratt, and Mickey Edwards. Unfortunately, it is also where the scene comes close to tipping into self-parody. Between the horribly convoluted nature of the crime itself, interrogating four suspects at once, and Strike woozy first from blood loss then from the straight whiskey he somehow thought it was a good idea to drink*, it all seemed a bit over the top. Unlike most of the book, I didn't enjoy this scene more on the re-read. It just seemed even more unbelievable.
Griffiths stopped resisting once Wardle had got the handcuffs on him.
Pratt and Edwards are also handcuffed upstairs. Strike insists Jones be brought up, too, ignoring Wardle's urging to call the police and an ambulance.
Griffiths was sitting silently on the sofa, his nose still swelling and breathing through his mouth. Strike didn’t doubt the man had come to believe himself untouchable, which was why he’d permitted himself so many risks, to gamble for such high stakes, to play with naked flames.
Pretty ironic, given that Strike is taking so many risks himself right now, both with his own health and with the case. Griffiths continues to insist that his daughter Chloe is interrailing with her boyfriend, but Strike reveals that he knows the Instagram account is fake. Mickey Edwards is not only the person who "wanted a go" at Sapphire, he also apparently graduated from the Morris-Littlejohn School of Contrition.
“If you’re Mickey, you were definitely about to do something, you cunt," said Strike, "and I’d bet both my bollocks you’ve done it before."
"Please… please… I’m married, I’ve got kids…"
"Then they’d probably do best to move well away from Ironbridge and change their surnames," said Strike. "They’re not going to have a lot of fun in the playground once I’m done with you."
After listening to some lame efforts by the men to insist that Sapphire consented to be tied up in the cellar and repeatedly raped, Strike sends Wardle across the street to check Tyler's parents' house for Chloe before turning his own attention back to the Three Stooges.
He didn’t believe they knew everything; on the contrary, he suspected Griffiths had told them as little as he could get away with. The one who’d known most about Griffiths had undoubtedly been Todd, which was why Todd had had to die.
This is a direct echo of what was said about Margot Bamborough in Troubled Blood:
Margot was a clever woman, and that was why she'd had to die.
Hoping one of the Stooges will turn on Griffiths to save his own skin, Strike continues with the facts as he now knows them.
- Tyler Powell did not sabotage anyone's car.
- Griffiths actually started the rumors that Powell tampered with the brakes.
- Tyler posted about his girlfriend's father spreading rumors on Abused and Accused (as we remember, this was as AustinH).
- Griffiths killed Tyler, after luring him to the Silver Vault--- and into life as William Wright, through Abused and Accused. Pratt, at Griffith's request, had urged Tyler to post there.
There's an odd little interlude from Barclay when he comes up from the cellar in search of pliers to use to free Sapphire and sees that Mickey has wet his pants.
“Only ever seen one other gadgie piss himself," said Barclay, surveying the men on the rug with an air of academic interest.
I don't recall that he has seen that on any of the cases he has worked on at the agency, unless it was one of the Franks in TRG. Could he be talking about something he saw in the Army, maybe even from one of the corrupt officers who were stealing building supplies?
In any case, Strike takes this opportunity to ask Barclay to find him some whiskey while he looks for pliers, before returning to his monologue.
"I think one of you two recommended that site to him, because he sure as fuck wouldn’t have taken advice from this cunt," he said, indicating Griffiths. "So, which way round did it go? Did one of you mention Abused and Accused to Tyler, and then tell Griffiths he was posting there? Or did Griffiths recommend it to you, as a place Tyler could go for adv—"
"Yea—" began Pratt, but Griffiths suddenly shouted,
‘Shut it!’
"You was helping him," said Pratt, evidently in the belief he was assisting Griffiths, and Strike would have grinned but for the fact that grinning would require muscles connected to his bleeding ear.
Strike then makes known his hypothesis that Griffiths himself was the one who sabotaged the car, hoping to kill Tyler, who was supposed to be the one driving it to the concert. The young woman that Whitehead thought was caught on camera lurking around the car was not Chloe, but the very short Griffiths. His accomplice Todd used the poker-derived username Kojak to befriend Tyler on the site, and help him assume the persona of William Wright.
Strike has barely gotten the chance to point out that the "blood sample" tube Wright was seen dropping was the epi-pen for his peanut allergy when there is the sound of a distant siren. Wardle insists he didn't call the police and goes to investigate. Strike continues:
“You didn’t stand a chance in hell of taking on Powell face to face, so you and Todd cooked up a weaselly little plan, didn’t you? You and him did good business back in the nineties, right? Moving girls between brothels and private houses? Gettin’ to rape and abuse with impunity whenever you fancied it? But you managed to slither off before the ring got busted in Belgium, didn’t you?"
When Griffiths denies he's ever been to Belgium, Strike uses Wynn Jones' phone to pull up the picture Robin found on the Reata Lindvall site and reveals details the readers were not told before. The picture of Reata dancing to the live band shows Griffiths on lead guitar and Wade King on bass. Strike gives full credit to Robin, saying that King “has been trying to scare off the right person all along. Robin’s the one who really broke this case.” I still find it a little annoying that we don't know exactly when Robin recognized Griffiths and King in the picture on the Reata Lindvall site, nor were readers given any clue that would have allowed them to make the connection. Thus, like in TRG, our heroes were actually wrong about who their stalkers were for much of the case. The gorilla campaign was from Griffiths, not Branfoot. Branfoot did not start tailing Robin until Navabi sent the Button Mushroom Nose man after her.
Wardle returns to say that the police and ambulance are down by Ironbridge's iron bridge, and leaves again. Barclay comes back, having freed Sapphire and gotten her to the kitchen for food. He is angry enough at what has been done to her to feel like roughing the captives up. Strike continues:
"Todd advises Tyler to pick a new name and disguise himself, even pretend to be left-handed, to hide from his girlfriend’s dangerous, murdering father, and to get a job nobody would expect him to do, so he can earn enough to keep him and his girlfriend when she runs away, too – but in reality to make it as hard as possible for him to be identified after his death.”
One has to wonder if Todd somehow talked Tyler into leaving Chloe behind while he did this, given how stupid a move that was. Edwards again whimpers about his innocence, prompting Barclay to kick him in the head. Apparently Mickey was one of Sapphire's main tormenters.
Strike reasons that Petts Wood must be where all identifying evidence on Tyler Powell has gone, from his Wolves weights to his body parts. And, he's starting to slur, which he attributes to blood loss rather than to booze. Strike explains the plot to kill Tyler: smuggle the petite Griffiths into the cellar in the crate, where he'd get out and hide until Pamela had discovered the mistaken delivery and sent Powell to correct it. Once the centerpiece is returned and Pamela lured out of the shop with the fake text from her husband's affair partner, Griffiths emerges, smashes Tyler's head from behind as he is putting away the silver in the vault, then changes into a suit,** fake beard and Tyler's much larger shoes. It is at this point he makes the small footprint in his own trainers that has time to dry before he returns to mutilate the body at night. It is Griffiths, not Tyler, who is caught on camera leaving the shop in the evening and catching the tube, after tripping in the overlarge shoes. His own bloody trainers are carried out in a bag. He'd return, by night, to mutilate the body and hide all the silver***, staging the crime to look like Wright attempted an insider's heist and was murdered and mutilated by a mad Freemason in the process.
When you think about it, it was a pretty big risk. As eager as Ramsay was to see his newly purchased treasure trove, how did they know he wouldn't come back to the shop himself that evening to admire it? Yes, he has an invalid wife at home, but all indicators are that the silver is far more important to him than she is.
Wardle returns with the news that one of the rapists who escaped had committed suicide by throwing himself off the iron bridge, and that he had informed the police of their findings. They rush to get the illegal handcuffs off their captives. Strike, completely sloshed by now, reveals the last element of Griffths' crimes.
“That picture… your f’kin gig… see th’blonde in the picture? Thass Reata Lindvall, who died two months later… her daughter dis’ppeared… useful prop, little girl… f’r a man who wants to ’tract young women… an’ she grew up an’ she was useful, too, wasn’ she? In d’ffrent way… “Jolanda” means “violet” or “purple”… Chloe told ’im her real name… when they take ’part your computer… find a Google search on name Jolanda…”
Sapphire then enters, "ghost-white" and tells them that Chloe/Jolanda's body was, like Margot's, entombed in concrete, in her case, in the floor of the basement prison. Griffiths makes a run for it, and Barclay has the pleasure of punching him. Too bad he didn't borrow the fishing priest. Thus, again, we have connections to both the resolutions of CoE and TB.
Strike's final act is to call "Lug's" new number on Jones' phone; it rings in the house, proving it was in Griffiths' possession all along. We get another Steely Dan song in the ringtone: "Do It Again." This is an interesting choice to close the chapter, as the lyrics use the metaphor of a wheel to describe a man with a particular greed for both money and women, making the same, self-destructive mistakes over and over again.
Strike foolishly assumed standing up might make him feel better. The last thing he saw before his eyes rolled backward in his head and he passed out, was Jesus, smoking a joint.
And, if that confrontation seemed overlong to you, think about how much blood Strike must have lost through the severed ear while he was explaining all of this.
*Surely a trained SIB officer knows enough basic first aid to know what a bad idea it is.
** The suit must have been in the crate with him and hidden away; if he was wearing it when he killed Tyler, it'd have been splattered with blood. I guess we are to assume Griffiths' killing clothes were wadded up in the dead space with the silver, like Wright's.
*** Makes you wonder how he moved the huge centerpiece single-handedly.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated.