The Electrician's Code Read online

“What? That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “My thoughts exactly. I requested an autopsy and when it’s completed, I’ll send you the report. I worry she was murdered as well.”

  “Was she stabbed?”

  “No. Apparently she died of a heart attack.”

  “But you suspect something sinister like poison?”

  “I would like to rule it out.”

  “I will have a look.”

  “Thank you.”

  Theo returned to the incident room an hour later. Dorland wasn’t around.

  “Has anyone seen Dorland?” Theo called out. Everyone shook their heads. When he dialed Dorland’s number, a mobile went off behind him. He turned to see Dorland take his mobile out of his pocket and fling his jacket over the back of his chair.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I had to take my sister to the doctor. Didn’t you receive my voicemail?”

  Theo looked at his screen. There were no messages.

  “Is your sister sick?”

  “No.”

  Theo wanted to probe further but by the time he had listened to all three messages Dorland had begun going through footage of CCTV.

  “How much more do you have to go through?”

  “I’ve finished going through all of it. Unfortunately, I haven’t found anyone suspicious. There were so many people coming and going from the building that day it could be anyone. It must have been the biggest birthday party on the planet with all the children and parents. In fact, around the time of the murder the doors into the building were propped open so that each parent didn’t have to buzz up to the flat. The killer would have used that opportunity to enter without having to alert anyone of their arrival. Also, the party did outdoor and indoor activities so people were constantly going in and out.”

  “Yes, but we know around what time Sharon was murdered and we know the killer wasn’t going to hang round waiting for people to notice so that should narrow it down somewhat. Listen, just find the footage from the building, make me a copy, and put it on my desk. I’ll have a look over it. You’re probably looking for a woman.”

  Dorland took a deep breath and blew out. Theo could see the relief on his face.

  “Listen,” Theo said, “you did good.”

  “Thank you, sir. What would you like me to do?”

  “This will sound terrible, but capture as many frames or faces as you can and ask the host of the party to identify those who attended and those that didn’t. We can narrow it down that way. Also, arrange for an autopsy on Mrs. Peter’s body. I want to rule out poison.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  That afternoon, Sophia skipped out of work early because she was expecting the artwork to arrive at her flat around three. When it did arrive, she buzzed the men into the lobby entrance and watched them cart boxes of artwork from their lorry into the service lift—five boxes worth. She laughed.

  When the men disembarked, she led them down the hall and opened her father’s flat. She made a quick inspection to be sure none of her work had been left out from previous projects. None had.

  She would need a hammer to enter the wooden crates and she checked under the kitchen sink. Her father loved to leave his tools under the sink to rust and, as expected, he had left her one. After some loud moaning from the nails, she managed to lift the lid off one crate. She lifted one of the heavy pieces out. How did Tipring manage to hang so many on his wall? He would have had to re-enforce the walls. She sat down on the sofa and ran her hands over the smooth tiles.

  Although the tiles did not look artistic, she liked them. Each one sat in alignment, full of bright colors—purple, gray, yellow, and white. What was wrong with tiles as art? She had once gone to an art display worth thousands where the artist only used nails. Besides, they would really brighten up the walls of her father’s flat.

  She remembered how Theo laughed when she had won the lot. Most of the attendees thought she was mad. And perhaps she was, but she enjoyed spending the money. She had enjoyed the company of Theo again. Hopefully he didn’t think she had attended just to see him.

  Besides, he had come to her only a few weeks back with the note. A note he must have known led nowhere. He couldn’t have come to her without checking an Internet search for the meaning behind it. He knew it was a code.

  Now she held the finished artwork of the bored electrician. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to design art that looked this way and stare at it for hours on end. What must he have been thinking as he lay each piece down in the mortar?

  Sophia pushed the art away and stood up.

  When Sophia entered her flat, she found Liam on her sofa, watching a movie. A case of beer sat on her table. He looked like hell with stubble all over his face, and he smelled of alcohol.

  “I would ask you how you got in but I’m sure you can break into any flat you like. Oh, Liam, you stink and look like hell. When was the last time you showered?” she asked him.

  “Why does that matter?”

  She wanted to say it was because he was sitting on her sofa, but she didn’t have the heart. Instead, she went to make herself a cup of coffee.

  “Where were you?” he asked.

  “Redecorating my other flat. You should come see the artwork I purchased for a song.”

  “Oh?” He raised an eyebrow and followed her back down the hall, carrying a beer.

  Suddenly Sophia stopped and turned around. “Wait, before I let you in. You’ve not come to inform me of some new assignment or case.”

  “I have not.”

  “And nothing relating to Stewart.”

  “No.” He placed one hand on her shoulder. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not think about him right now. Just for an hour or two. Show me your art.”

  Inside, one piece of artwork lay across the top of one of the cartons. Liam went over and lifted it.

  “It’s . . . interesting,” he finally said. At least he was brutally honest. “Is this design based on a specific code you’ve been studying?” He laid the art down with a clunk. Sophia moved her hands over the edges and surface making sure he didn’t crack it.

  “I know. It reminded me of a type of code but it’s actually not code; it’s art,” she said. “Be careful with it. It’s not like the two or three pound beers you choose to decorate your flat with.”

  He ignored her. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, that’s not art, that’s bathroom material.”

  “I’ll have you know a one-legged man created these.”

  “That’s explains why he couldn’t finish his home-improvement project.”

  She slapped his arm. “I happen to find them fascinating.”

  “I’m sure you would in your mad mind.” He laughed and walked into her father’s old bedroom and turned on the light.

  She followed him.

  “It’s a lot like the layout of your other flat,” he remarked.

  “Have you never been here?”

  “Maybe. I can’t remember.”

  Sophia placed her hands on her hips. Liam wasn’t himself and it worried her. Normally he was focused or angry. She had never seen him quiet.

  “You need to go home and relax. You’ve seen a lot today and you’re not thinking properly.”

  He sat down on the bed. “Did you hear that Marvin is quitting?”

  She didn’t even know who Marvin was. “Oh, why?”

  “Apparently the government doesn’t pay as much as the private sector.”

  She laughed, but Liam didn’t.

  “We don’t work for the government because of the money,” he continued. “But it sure as hell helps. Do you know how many people I’ve killed for the government? It does not pay enough—not for all I’ve been through. I used to count, you know, to say a prayer for each one but . . . I wish I could say I see the faces of all the lives I’ve taken, but I can’t. It makes life meaningless. If I stop caring, how can I expect the men who kill others to care?”

  “We will catch him, Liam. W
e’ll catch Stewart. He won’t get away with it.”

  “You get rid of one piece of shite and another pops up in his place. It’s never going to bloody end. And really, we—the government—allow it. The criminals get good solicitors and for all the months of hard work on our part, they get a slap on the wrist. They’re not afraid of us. They just laugh at us. I’m so tired of it all.”

  “You’ve brought many to justice,” she said.

  “Yes, and have seen many get away.” He patted her shoulder. “I’m just tired of it, that’s all. Especially when I could do something about it.”

  “Then do something about it.”

  He smiled, kissed her on the forehead, and made his way to the door. “I don’t think you know what you’re saying.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe that’s for the best.”

  He patted his right jacket pocket. “Oh, before I leave, I meant to give this to you. I even had your name engraved.” From his pocket he pulled out a long rectangular box.

  Inside the box was a silver pen.

  “What is it for?” she asked, but she knew what it was for.

  “A thank you for all your hard work,” he replied and left.

  She grinned. It was a tracking device and before he could activate it, it was going back into his possession. Cheeky bastard.

  Chapter Fifty

  No one was impressed with the artwork Sophia had purchased. She would have brought some pieces to work if she didn’t think the others would take them to use under their desks for their wet Wellies. Crystal just laughed when she showed her the photos.

  Sophia brought one of the pieces over to her flat and placed it beside a print she got at auction for four times the price. It looked ridiculous beside the classics she had up. Tipring’s art reminded her of a grade school assignment where she had to place pasta on a cardboard. Maybe everyone was right, and no one created art like this. There had to be a purpose. If she had to stare at the art for the rest of her life, she wanted to know what was going through the artist’s mind.

  She fetched her laptop and typed in the name of the artist, Maddock Tipring. Nothing came up. So she tried Doc Tipring, and more about the artist came up—three articles in total. The first showed a picture of Doc at a city hall in Mandy Ford. He sat in a wheelchair before one of his art pieces, at least ten times the size of the ones she owned. She read the article, hoping to discover more, but the only thing he said was that the town had meaning for him and that he used to come there many times as a boy to hunt. And as far as she was concerned, the art had nothing to do with hunting.

  The next was a short interview, also from a Mandy Ford newspaper. Sophia scanned the page until she came across the question: Why do you create art with tile? What does it symbolize?

  On occasion I had used tile when working as an electrician and when I had to stop, boxes of leftover tiles sat about my upstairs flat. No one I knew wanted them so I began to use them for an idea I had.

  So it doesn’t symbolize anything?

  The tiles, no. However, the art, though it looks like nothing, has a great deal of meaning. Reminds me of the days before I lost my leg. There’s a story behind every single one.

  A story behind each one? She couldn’t see any story. The folder containing information on each piece of art held no clues either—he had only numbered them. What possible meaning could they have held?

  What was she doing? She was running in circles. Why run in circles, she said to herself, you’ll vomit. Onto the bed beside her, she threw the art reference folder and stretched her legs. Why couldn’t she just enjoy art like everyone else? Even in school, she over-analyzed art until the point her teacher told her she had taken all meaning out of it. She couldn’t help it. Every day she worked with numbers and codes. Her job entailed finding meaning in what others wouldn’t. Maybe Liam was right. Perhaps she liked them because they would resemble code she would have created herself.

  Of course she would. In fact, the phrase Why Run Backwards You’ll Vomit was a code phrase. She paused. It was a code phrase. Could it be? His uncle worked in intelligence and Doc sent one to his uncle. Perhaps they were a message. A message only Doc and his uncle could understand. She had to understand too.

  On the Internet, she looked up the phrase again. The first group of colors in the telecommunications wiring code was white, red, black, yellow, violet. Her eyes examined the tiles. Yes, there was a white tile, a red one, and also black, yellow, and one that could be violet. It couldn’t be. She looked at the next set of colors in the code: blue, orange, green, brown, gray. Her heart skipped a beat.

  If she matched a color from the first set to each color in the second set she had a twenty-five pair code. With twenty-six letters in the alphabet, it wouldn’t be too difficult to make the letter Z a double white tile.

  Her hands went to her mouth. She wasn’t just trying to find a code. There was a code staring at her. There was a reason she was drawn to the art! She wasn’t mad. The desire to immediately decrypt the code struck her but she held back. How was this different from reading Doc’s diary? He had never sold the pieces, but had kept every one. That must mean the messages were personal. She shook her head. If he meant them to be private, he wouldn’t have sold them. Perhaps he meant for someone to eventually figure it out. Maybe he meant for his uncle to decrypt them. He was the only person who would.

  She started seeing if she could find a message in the tiles. The first two tiles were black and gray. Based on the code, that gave her the letter O. The next two tiles were white and gray which gave her an E. White and brown which gave her a D. A red and a brown gave her an I. And back again with the white and gray for an E. She looked at what she had so far O-E-D-I-E. What did that mean. OED? IE? Those were the endings to words and mostly vowels. She could pick out the word DIE but what is the OE before it?

  The only thing she could do is continue on. After a few more letters she had: OEDIESOFULLOFGRACE. O Edie, so full of grace. That made much more sense. Who was Edie? She went over to her computer and did a search through the stolen Doc Tipring file. There was no mention of any Edie. Perhaps it was someone Doc used to love. So, she finished the code.

  O Edie, so full of grace

  I had nothing left

  So it was only right

  That you did burn that night.

  What kind of poetry was that? Was Edie someone he had loved and lost? She went through all the files she had on Doc Tipring but found nothing. She decoded all the other pieces of art. What she read disturbed her even more. This was something she needed to talk to Theo about. She needed to examine Earnest Tipring’s notes further.

  Her hands shook as she pushed the send button on her mobile. All she asked was whether she could discuss the art with him. She didn’t like to find any excuse to see him but Theo intrigued her. Almost as much as Doc did.

  Within a minute, she received a reply: I’m in the office, can you meet me here?

  She replied in the affirmative, printed out the code reference, and took pictures of each painting. At least Theo could see what she was on about. Not that he wouldn’t think she was crazy.

  1

  A half hour later, she entered the incident room. It was almost dark, only a small office in the back of the room had light.

  “Theo?” she yelled.

  She heard a squeak of a chair and saw a shadow cross the office behind closed blinds. The door opened, and a scruffy Theo stood before her.

  “Were you working late?” she asked. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work, especially to bring up an old case.”

  “No,” he replied, “no bother.” His hair parted in a large round circle on the right side of his head. Clearly he had been sleeping for a while. “I’m just going to make myself a cup of coffee. Would you like some?”

  She nodded.

  “What old case did you want to discuss?”

  “The Tipring murder. I know you think it’s because I bought his art that I’m concerned, but I’ve come across some
really interesting . . . codes. Ones that I think will give us insights into the case. I decrypted all the art.”

  “What? Are you telling me those tile things were actually code?”

  “Not only were they code, they were incredibly disturbing as well. Read these.” She handed him the poems and he sat down to read them.

  “He seems to be talking about women. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, but each of the poems is pretty morbid, some implying the woman dies. Don’t you find that odd?”

  “They could be just women in his mind or symbolic of something else.”

  “Maybe, but don’t you find it odd that his uncle kept a file on him?”

  “Not after reading these.” He held up the sheets of paper. “Perhaps it was just a game they played. His sister did say they got on. From the time he was a boy Tipring and his uncle exchanged codes.”

  “Oh.” She sat down. “I feel so stupid. I can’t actually believe I thought there was something to this. I’ve been off my game lately.”

  “I understand the feeling.”

  “Here, you take these notes and add them to his file. You never know when they’ll come in handy. I best be off, it’s getting late.”

  He took the papers and laid them on his desk. “You don’t have to leave you know.”

  She paused for a moment before replying, “See you around, detective.”

  She left the building and got in her car when her mobile rang. It was Theo. She hesitated to answer.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “Where are you?” Theo asked.

  “In my car. Why?”

  “Come back up. You’re going to want to see this.”

  When she re-entered his office he motioned her to the other side of his desk.

  “I started flipping through the sheets and saw these numbers. Do you know what they are?”

  “The ones I decoded from Earnest’s notes?”

  “Yes. They’re case file numbers, police case files. We don’t use this filing system anymore but I still recognize them. I pulled up one of them.”

  “Edith Grace Maven? I don’t understand.”