Killing the Shadows

THIRTY-NINE

For once, Kit was awake first. He shifted across the bed and wrapped his arms round Fiona, kissing the back of her neck. “Unnh,” she groaned.

“I’m getting up now,” he said. “I’m going to make kedgeree for breakfast.”

“Oh God,” Fiona sighed. “Must you? Couldn’t we just lie here and luxuriate in the afterglow for a while?”

Kit chuckled. “The afterglow was then. This is now. I can’t think why, but I’ve woken up with an appetite. Get yourself out of bed, Dr. Cameron. Breakfast in…oh, make it forty minutes.” He peeled himself away from her with another kiss and jumped out of bed, pumped with energy. When it came to displacement activity, like most writers, Kit had turned it into a fine art.

Fiona listened to his receding footsteps, then dragged herself into a sitting position. She yawned, stretched her spine and got out of bed, flexing shoulders that had stiffened in the night. Too much tension, she told herself. Far too much tension. Not knowing what was happening in Sarah Duvall’s investigation was a kind of torture. And given how she’d left things with Steve, she couldn’t even use him as a way in.

If Georgia was dead, she needed to know. Her fear for Kit vibrated through her constantly now, and she couldn’t be with him twenty-four hours a day. At least if they found Georgia’s remains in the market, they could take steps to make him safer than he was now. And if she was wrong…For once in her life, Fiona longed to be hopelessly, embarrassingly wrong. She wanted nothing more than to see Georgia’s face smiling out of the morning papers, restored to Anthony’s arms in one piece. She’d even forgive her for the anxiety she’d caused, if only it meant she could feel Kit was safe again. She didn’t know how she was going to get through a normal day at work when her mind was so heavily occupied elsewhere.

Twenty minutes later she was showered, dressed and decently made up. More than that, she was awake. Over breakfast, they said little, allowing the radio to fill the silence. There were too many thoughts and fears rumbling in the background of their minds for idle chatter to be possible. Fiona finally pushed her plate away after two helpings. “That was wonderful,” she said. “Not only a night to remember, but a morning as well.” She stood up and reached for her briefcase.

“You’re lucky to have me,” he said, grinning wolfishly, then spoiling it with a wink.

“I know. And I plan to keep it that way. You will look after yourself today, won’t you?” Fiona gave a nervous smile and stepped into his arms for a hug. “Take care,” she said softly.

“Of course I’ll take care. I’ve got a book to finish, love. I’ll talk to you later.” It was a promise he fully intended to keep.

Like a child on Christmas Eve, Steve had scarcely been able to sleep. What had happened between him and Terry thus far had left him feeling breathless and exhilarated. But the promise of what could follow had robbed him of all but the sketchiest of sleep. And yet he wasn’t tired.

He leaned back on the pillows, stretching his arms over his head and arching his spine. Relaxing again, he rolled on his side to watch her. She was a sprawler, legs and arms extended like a giant starfish. Terry lay on her stomach, face turned towards him. Even with smudged make — up and sleep-distorted hair, he thought she was gorgeous. He felt dazzled and dazed in equal measure. His own body felt strange and new. He’d made more technically perfect love with a woman before, but last night technique had seemed irrelevant. He’d occupied his body entirely, not a scrap of himself available for scrutiny of what he was doing. There had been none of that sense of performing for someone else’s benefit, or his own. Whatever had happened between him and Terry, it had consumed him as never before.

And it had been fun. They hadn’t just burned up in the heat of passion, they’d found laughter as well. Steve had woken in the same familiar space, but he was looking at the morning with the eyes of an explorer. It was unnerving, almost frightening to find himself so thoroughly gripped by attraction. All his adult sophistication, all his professional shrewdness had left him unprepared and vulnerable, and he didn’t know how to handle it.

Terry stirred, making a small indeterminate noise in the back of her throat. Her face twitched, eyebrows rising. Then she opened her eyes.

A moment’s disorientation, then her mouth spread in a self-satisfied grin. “Thank fuck it wasn’t a dream,” she said, gathering her limbs together and snuggling against him.

He rubbed his chin, bristled with overnight stubble, across the snarl of her hair, slipping his arms around her. “You academics have a real way with words.”

“Ah, but actions speak louder than words, and I am definitely a woman of action,” Terry countered, running her fingers down the defined muscles of his chest and across his ribs. She could feel him hard against her, and hooked one leg over his, languorously moving her hips towards him.

Steve groaned softly. “You’re a morning person, then,” he said, his voice roughening with arousal.

She pulled her head back and pouted. “You have a problem with that?” Her voice was as much of a tease as what her body was doing to his.

He drew her into his arms, her breasts warm against his chest. “Not unless you have to be somewhere in the next hour.”

Sarah Duvall felt sick. She knew it had more to do with having had no sleep and too much coffee than with what she’d seen at Smithfield Market, but understanding didn’t make her faint underlying nausea go away. Explaining to Anthony Fitzgerald exactly what he was going to have to identify at the morgue hadn’t helped either. She almost wished that the killer had stuck more closely to the text. Then there would have been one less horror for them to face.

She sat grim-faced in the back of the car. But the immobility of her features disguised a mind that was racing. This case was messy in more ways than the obvious. It was going to produce potentially devastating media interest, which meant every move she and her team made would be under scrutiny not only from an army of hacks but also from a nervous hierarchy worried lest she should do or say the wrong thing.

And then there was Fiona Cameron. With this latest development, Fiona would no longer be the only person putting two and two together and coming up with a serial killer. It wasn’t something Duvall wanted to acknowledge publicly, but she had no conviction that they could continue to maintain there was no connection between the deaths of Drew Shand, Jane Elias and Georgia Lester. Either way, it wouldn’t be long before some bright and ambitious journalist remembered that Fiona lived with a crime writer. They’d be beating a path to her office, and while she believed Fiona was unlikely to go to the press off her own bat, Duvall had no idea how she would respond to a direct question from a journalist. And once the kite was in the air, there would be a stream of panicking thriller writers demanding police protection. It was a minefield. Especially if the media also found out that someone had been sending out death threats to crime writers.

And then there was the investigation itself. This morning had been a nightmare, but that was only the beginning. After the gruesome discovery just after midnight, she had tried to prevent the market from opening for trading less than four hours later. But Barren Green had argued vigorously that she was out of order. By no stretch of the imagination could she claim the whole market was a crime scene. It was obvious, he pointed out, displaying an intelligence and a steely determination she wouldn’t have suspected him capable of, that whatever had been done had been done some time previously. Hundreds of people had been in and out of the market since then, and there was no chance of the police finding any traces of their quarry anywhere other than the immediate vicinity of the freezer in question.

His trump card had been to point out that the best way to make sure the police questioned every potential witness was to allow the market to function as normal. They could take names and addresses of everybody who turned up and maybe even begin their interviews.

It had been a smart suggestion, not least because it allowed Duvall to save face. So they’d sealed off the storage area and drafted in a small army of officers to make sure nobody entered Smithfield without providing contact details. Meanwhile, the SOCOs had begun the painstaking task of examining every inch of the equipment store where the grisly discovery had been made.

So far, so bad. What made it even worse was that she was going to have to continue her liaison with the local police in Dorset. Whatever had happened to Georgia Lester might have ended up on her ground, but it had started on their patch. If there were going to be eyewitnesses, the chances were far higher that they’d turn them up down there. Much more likely that someone noticed something out of the ordinary in a remote country area than that one person with a load of meat would attract attention in Smithfield Market. Always provided the officers down there knew what the hell they were doing, she added automatically. Duvall had never been good at delegating authority even to her own team, but having to rely on another force for the core of an investigation was her idea of hell on a stick. Thus far, she’d not found anything specific to complain about in the work of her Dorset colleagues, but nevertheless she felt a general unease that they weren’t moving sharply enough on the case. She’d have to set up a meeting, preferably down there so she could get a feel for where the initial abduction had taken place.

But that would have to wait. First, she owed Steve Preston the courtesy of filling him in on what his steer had led to, so she’d asked her driver to detour to New Scotland Yard before returning to her offices in Wood Street. She took the lift to his floor and stalked down the corridor, earning a few apprehensive looks from those she passed. A quick tap on the door, and straight in. Her first impression was that Steve had somehow squeezed a week’s holiday into the last twenty-four hours. The lines of strain round his eyes had relaxed. Instead of the pallor of the senior officer overworking on an obsession, his skin had a healthy tone. His eyes were bright and the grin he greeted her with was light years away from the careworn smile of the previous day.

“You look as if your caseload is going better than mine,” Duvall said, easing herself into the seat opposite him, aware that her suit was crumpled and she probably smelled stale as a pub ashtray.

Steve arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Must be an optical illusion. I hear you had a long night.”

Duvall nodded, pushing her glasses up her nose. “And it’s going to be a long day. I thought you’d like to know how it worked out.”

“Appreciate it,” Steve said, dipping his head in acknowledgement.

“We went in around ten and started turning the place upside down. Butchers and bobbies searching freezers and cold cabinets for dodgy-looking meat, traders screaming about their stock being interfered with, pathologists poking around anything that looked remotely abnormal. Which there wasn’t much of, I have to say. The deal was, if we found anything seriously suspicious, the pathologists would take it back to the lab and test to see if it was human or not. I’d had the whole team briefed about what they should be looking for. But when it came to it, it was all academic.”

“How do you mean?”

“Around midnight, the lads found a freezer at the back of a storage area. It was padlocked shut, and nobody would admit to having keys for it. According to the market supervisor’s office, it had been put there a month ago by one of the traders who was supposed to arrange for it to be taken away. But he was adamant that it hadn’t been locked, and two of his staff backed him up on that. So we took the bolt cutters to it. When they opened the door, it was full of packaged meat. Except for one shelf. All that contained was a parcel wrapped in black plastic bin liners.” Duvall paused for effect, her expression a question.

Steve closed his eyes momentarily, his angular face pained. “The head?”

“The head. The butcher who was helping them dropped to the floor like a stunned ox. They had to take him to hospital to have the cut on his head stitched. He hit the corner of a work top on the way down.”

“He’ll be drinking off that for the rest of his life,” said Steve. “I presume it was Georgia Lester’s head?”

“No question. The husband’s got to ID it later today, but there’s no doubt about it.”

“When are you making the announcement?”

Duvall sighed. “My boss wants to hold a press conference this afternoon. We’re waiting for Dorset to confirm they can have someone here for it.”

“Would you have any problem with me breaking the news to Kit Martin ahead of the press conference? He and Georgia were close, and he’ll know that Fiona talked to us. It seems the least I can do.”

Duvall frowned. “I’d rather we kept it in the family for as long as possible. I know he’s your friend, but we can’t afford a perception that one writer is getting preferential treatment from the police.”

Steve shrugged. “It’s your case, Sarah. To be honest, I was thinking about the long-term interests of the Yard as much as being considerate to Kit. Fiona Cameron is a good operator, and we’ve been denied her services for a while now because of our own bloody-minded stupidity. In spite of that, she came to us with her suspicions. I’d have liked the chance to do a bit of bridge-building here, maybe mended the breach. I’m sure it could have benefits for the City force too.”

Duvall’s wry smile concealed the burn of genuine annoyance. First Darren Green and now Steve Preston had out manoeuvred her in a matter of hours. It wasn’t good for the spirit, especially a spirit as normally self-confident as Duvall’s. “That’s a good point, sir.”

Steve recognized the use of his title as the signal to back down. “It’s your decision, Sarah.”

“I suppose it can’t do any harm. Provided you make it clear to him that he mustn’t talk to the media before we do.” A last attempt to appear in control.

“I don’t think it would even occur to him.” Steve stood up and reached for his jacket. “She was his friend, Sarah. He’s not that desperate for personal publicity.”

She accepted the implied rebuke in silence and got to her feet. “I’ll keep you posted,” she said. “How’s the Blanchard case going?”

Steve shrugged into his jacket and spread his hands wide. “Chasing what might be a lead. But it’s an uphill struggle. I haven’t got the resources to run a proper operation.”

Duvall’s smile was tight. “Keep it deniable, huh?” “Something like that. At least until we’ve got a cast-iron case.” Duvall winced. “And I thought I was having a bad day.” Steve opened the door and stood back to let her precede him. “Don’t let it get you down. There’s more to life than the job.”

He walked down the corridor with the loose-limbed stride of a man out for a walk in the park. Duvall stared after him, the usual impassivity of her face defeated by her astonishment. Steve Preston, claiming there was more to life than the job? It was about as likely as Bart Simpson joining the diplomatic service.

Feeling somewhat shaken, Duvall headed for her car to return to her own office in Wood Street. It was clearly a day for surprises. Maybe Dorset would turn out to be the home of a new breed of super cops And maybe, just maybe, between them they would find Georgia Lester’s killer before the media ate them alive. Stranger things could clearly happen.