The Girl in the Ice

61

The next morning, Chief Superintendent Marsh lay with Marcie in a beautiful hotel room – the name of the hotel escaped him, but he knew it was far from London with a sweeping view of Dartmoor. Her head lay on his bare chest, and he had that warm post-coital rush. The feel and smell of his wife’s skin was intoxicating. It was now light, and they’d woken from a night of repeated lovemaking, something unheard of since the twins had come along.

The phone beside the bed screamed out, breaking the silence. Marsh rolled over and saw it was nine-thirty in the morning. He reached over, lifted the receiver, and dropped it down into the cradle again.

‘Did you order a wake-up call?’ murmured Marcie.

‘Course not,’ he said.

‘Ooh. That turns me on the most, you not answering the phone,’ purred Marcie. She kissed him, sliding her hand down over his stomach . . .

The phone rang again. Marsh cursed, rolled over and yanked the cord from its plug on the wall. He rolled back to her and grinned. ‘I believe you were about here,’ he said, placing her hand on his growing erection.

‘Again? Chief Superintendent.’ She grinned.

Suddenly, there was a hammering on their door. ‘Sorry, hello . . . it’s the front desk,’ came a voice.

‘What the hell!’ exclaimed Marsh, as Marcie was poised to unroll a condom over the head of his stiff cock.

‘Tell him to piss off; this is the last one in the pack,’ said Marcie.

The hammering came again. ‘Sir, sir?’ quavered the voice of the young boy from the front desk. ‘I know you said not to bother you under any circumstances, but there’s an Assistant Commissioner Oakley waiting on the line. On your phone . . . Sir? He says if you don’t pick up there will be consequences . . . That’s me quoting him . . . that’s what he said.’

Marsh leapt up out of bed and scrabbled to reconnect the phone into the wall socket.

‘Where the hell have you been, Marsh? We have a situation!’ snapped Oakley when Marsh picked up the phone.

‘I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know it was you . . .’

‘One of your officers, that bloody Foster woman, showed up on Sir Simon Douglas-Brown’s doorstep at five this morning with an armed response unit. She’s taken him and his daughter Linda into custody. She’s taken Giles Osborne into custody too.’

‘What the hell?’

‘Now I’m up in Scotland, Marsh, on a much needed bloody holiday and I do not want to have to return to London. I trust you will rectify this.’

‘I will, sir.’

‘You’d better. I don’t often get woken up before nine by someone from the bloody cabinet office. Heads will roll on this one if we’re not careful, Marsh.’

The call was abruptly disconnected. Marsh stood there, naked, his penis now shrivelled to nothing. He picked up the phone again and dialled, shouting that he wanted to speak to DCI Foster. Immediately. Marcie pulled the bedclothes up around her, and bit back her tears. This would be yet another holiday ruined by her husband’s work.