She was very silent as they left the building and drove away. Riley was silent as well, but not because he had no more questions. He had plenty of those. She thought she might be pregnant. Of course if she was only forty-two she could be pregnant, but it was unbelievable that it could have happened after just one time. It was more likely that it had not happened, but that she was merely afraid because it might affect her chances at promotion. He would wait and see.
He did not know what he would think if she was really pregnant. There was no use in thinking anything now, he said to himself, although he would be a little more happy with it than she would and abortion would not be his preferred course of action. But it was not his body, of course, and not his career. He could not imagine her willingly taking so much time off. It might matter.
She was only forty-two. This was really good. He could not help but look at her often and wonder why he had ever believed she was fifty-two. Now that he knew, it was plain to see she was not that old. He was relieved as well as embarrassed.
Clarke, for her part, wanted to cry, but she managed not to do so until they got home.
"I'll cook," said Riley, even if he really did not know how. He did not know how to comfort a crying woman either, especially one who never cried. There were tears, but the rest of it was still bubbling beneath the surface. It might be nasty when it all came out. He was not sure he wanted to be there. "Why don't you take a bath?"
"I don't want to take a bath. You'd burn down the kitchen and I'd have to run onto the street naked."
He revised his opinion. It was going to be amusing rather than nasty. She would remain tolerably calm but not very logical. He could not see her, even if the kitchen did threaten to burn down, run onto the street naked. She would extinguish the fire or at the very least dress. "That won't happen. Calm down. Nothing is wrong."
"Nothing is wrong?" she cried. "My career will be ruined. And yours too."
"Mine?" He was surprised. "Why?"
Clarke pointed her finger at him. "It's typical for men. First they don't use condoms and then they go on happily with their lives, making everything my problem."
"Why don't you first wait and see if you're really pregnant or not?' he suggested calmly. She could have supplied contraceptives as well and she had not, but it was typical for women not to acknowledge that, he could say. He did not. It would be a really tiresome and pointless discussion if they started that.
"I must be. It was my fertile period. I don't know why else I did that, unless it was a biological necessity."
"In which case it wouldn't make sense at all to get an abortion. You don't go through the awful motions only to get an abortion. Talk about backhanded compliments!" He did not understand why someone would have continued with something she was not liking, but hopefully she was in denial. He still thought it had been wonderful, which had in part been because they had worked together so wonderfully without words. Together. She seemed to have forgotten that. He smiled wistfully.
"Don't be so calm," she said in spite of sounding rather calm herself. "You think this is not your problem, but it is. You don't think I'm going to sit at home to look after your baby while you work, do you?"
Riley looked around for something to stuff into her mouth. A tea towel would do, but that was rather crude. He settled for some little cakes he had bought. He unwrapped one and pushed it into her mouth. That would take care of her hunger and her nonsense. "Eat and shut up."
He felt a little uncertain as he cooked, because she was there and looking on, but she was too busy being miserable to comment on what he was doing. Either that or he was not doing anything wrong, which might be the case because he was making the same as he had made on Saturday and Sunday. This was not the right time for experiments.
When dinner was ready he sat her down at the table. She had recovered a little, because she no longer glared and she had not said anything. "I see your problem," he said. "You haven't decided anything yet, have you? Because if you'd been absolutely set on an abortion there wouldn't be any problem at all. You'd simply make an appointment and get it over with. You wouldn't even have told me."
She did not meet his eyes. "This would be my last chance. I don't want to regret in a few years and be too old, but I don't think I should have a child now because I may want one in a few years. This is too unexpected and I haven't been able to prepare myself. Why don't you have any sort of reaction to it?"
He looked a little helpless and did not think he was truly indifferent. "Because you don't even know if it's true. Even if it is, I don't think it would be much of a problem. You'd be away for a while, yes, but then you'd be back."
"And the child would be where?"
"With someone who looks after it." He did not think it could be that difficult. She would not be the first person with a child on the force. Most people seemed to manage it very well. He could not imagine her not managing it well.
"Are you prepared to give up your job for it?"
"Me?"
"Well, it's not fair, is it? While I'm away you'd be Acting Detective Superintendent, so you'd actually be rewarded for it, while I'm being punished. It's not fair. And if I announce I'm going to be away, I won't be promoted. Politics."
"I thought it'd be politics not to announce that until you've been promoted." And he had no idea if he would be replacing her. That was not up to him.
"I'm not like that. Besides, if it takes months to arrange everything, you'd be able to see that I'm pregnant, wouldn't you? Besides, I have to fill in a form."
Riley was glad she was at least eating. "Why don't you buy a test?" That was the only logical thing to do. He did not really understand all this fussing over nothing. There was no definite promotion, there was no definite pregnancy -- he saw no sense in worrying about the effect of one on the other before anything was concrete.
"It's too early."
"Then it's too early to fuss. Let's concentrate on my case."
Clarke looked dissatisfied. "I just can't ignore that I'm under threat from the inside as well as the outside."
He could not help laughing at how she phrased it and he saw she would not mind, because she almost laughed herself. "Let's just wait until that test, all right? You won't be able to get any further without it."
"But it's so horrible. I refuse to queue with the irresponsible women at a clinic, so it will grow and grow and come out."
He was still laughing, even though it was not amusing that she was too proud to do anything it all. She was probably too proud to buy a test as well. Someone might see her: Detective Superintendent Clarke buying a pregnancy test. She would think everyone cared. He might have to buy it for her. "It sounds as if the only option is to pretend it was planned. I'm not that bad, am I?"
"How could I pretend it was planned when I clearly have no idea what to do with it? In a conscious and desperate attempt I seduced the best looking officer in my department --"
He grinned.
"-- in order to have a child? Seriously?" she exclaimed, missing his grin.
"That's exactly what your body did, or so you said. Don't worry. My mother would love to babysit."
Clarke did not really want to know there were easy solutions. She merely glared.
After dinner she had sufficiently recovered to be brisk. "Now we're even because I told you what's bothering me. Let's discuss the case. He may have used his mother's car?"
He was glad for her change of heart. "Maybe he handles her stuff like you handle your mother's stuff and he has access to her car. Or she was shopping in Pell. Plenty of women her age there, I saw." The quaint little shops attracted many older women on weekdays.
"Someone will need to ask her."
"Yes. I'll send someone to talk to her tomorrow." He wondered who would be best, but it would be a straightforward chat. Had she been to Pell? If yes, why? If no, did anybody have access to her car? Or would they have to worry about her telling Kerry?
"And to look into her freezer."
"Unless she's disabled and she can't look into her freezer herself, I doubt there'd be a body in there. She can't be the killer. She wouldn't be strong enough at her age."
"You shouldn't underestimate older women."
"Obviously!" he chuckled. They could even get pregnant the natural way. Unfortunately he had been told that the murderer would have to be rather strong to have wielded the knife as he had. A woman would apparently not have managed to dismember a corpse so neatly. This ruled out elderly women for certain.
"Maybe she's taking out Kerry's dates," Clarke supplied lethargically.
"You have a very odd idea about mothers -- and that while you have such a nice one," he remarked. He wondered if she did not want to be a mother because of her odd ideas.
"I wasn't serious. Have you looked into Kerry's past yet to see who the victim might be?"
"No." There had been no reason to do that so far. Kerry had only become a suspect on Thursday and that had not been based on anything concrete. Today was only Monday, he wanted to say defensively, but she would know that. "A girlfriend would be missed."
"A foreign one?"
"We're keeping an eye on people missing abroad, but so far no luck. I'll have someone ask around tomorrow. Do we want him to find out we've asked around, though? I wouldn't normally be concerned, but he has this thing for you." He looked a little worried. It could be that Kerry, if he was really crazy, took it out on Clarke. There was no predicting what a crazy man might do.
She looked unwilling to consider that and changed the subject. "Tomorrow is the tenth day."
"Yes. I'll have some men in Pell."
"Some men? Where will you be?"
"Here. Until you go to work. I can't be in several places at once."
"Aren't you afraid that they'll miss the moment because they're looking the other way? Isn't this something you'd like to do yourself?" She always wanted to do things herself. It was better now than a few years ago, but she had really had to learn to leave some things to others.
Of course it was something he wanted to do himself, but he could not. "Choices. I mean, priorities. What if we all go to Pell and he comes here instead?"
"And your priority is with me?" She was a little affected by that. How could she not be? His priority was with her and it would have been the same even if she had not told him anything at all. It was quite nice.
"You are still whole. The victim is not."
"I'm going to clean my kitchen to keep my mind off things," she decided. It was all too unsettling, whether it was disturbing, frightening or comforting. She would not know on which emotion to concentrate.
Because cleaning was not one of his hobbies, Riley checked out her fitness equipment in the meantime and afterwards he took a bath in his swimwear, which he had brought especially for that occasion. Clarke would want him to wear it.
It turned out she did not, because she came into the bathroom and laughed at it.
He was a little afraid of that laugh. "Let me guess. This is not the pink bikini equivalent of male swimwear."
She eyed him seriously. Assuming he meant that her pink bikinis were nice and flattering, it was. Of course her bikinis were most flattering in a drawer, but she was tolerant enough to allow for differing opinions. "Actually it is, but I meant that you didn't have to do that for me."
"I didn't know that. I hoped you'd come in with hot cocoa, so I dressed cautiously in case you'd drop it."
"Later, on the couch," she said, eyeing the stool he had sat on the other night. It was not comfortable. "By the time the cocoa is ready you will be too."
He was fine with that. They could chat on the couch as well and her willingness to do it there was positive. It would not be good for either of them if she refused to be in his company.
Clarke changed into her pyjamas and made some hot chocolate. She had to laugh at Riley taking a bath in his swimming trunks because he genuinely thought she would want that. She had seen worse things than naked men in the course of her career, however, and it would not have fazed her. Perhaps he did not quite understand that seeing was not the same as being seen. She was not always comfortable with the latter, but she could have known he would be a comfortable sight.
So far Riley had not panicked at her news. Of course that could be because he did not want to believe it yet, but it had really struck her as if he was not going to consider it a great problem if it turned out to be true. She was not ready to have her troubles dismissed so easily. They were serious.
At least his reaction to her age had been good, if she disregarded the fact that he had first thought she was fifty-two. She was still not really reconciled to that part of the story, but now that the confusion about her age had been settled there would be no more problem in the future. Of course that was only good if they had a future in the first place.
Until now it had been surprisingly agreeable to have him in her flat, but the circumstances of the case might play a role in that. It remained to be seen if he was going to be nice if did not feel he had to protect her. He felt a sense of duty now, but that might soon wear off. She certainly did not think he would continue to cook. He was only doing that to get her to accept his presence.
But there was something surprisingly nice about not being alone. This weekend she had not been alone either, but this was different. She looked forward to being with an equal.
After watching a funny series on television for half an hour with a mug of hot cocoa they went to bed. Riley said good night to her and Clarke said good night back, but she came into his room with an alarm clock a minute later and pressed the buttons on it.
"I have an alarm on my phone," he said. "Besides, you can come to wake me, as you have been doing."
"I'm going to sleep here."
"So I can have the big bed?" That he would be allowed to stay was not the first option that crossed his mind. He probably had to relocate for some obscure reason or another.
"No."
"We're not having an affair," he remarked as a way to check their current situation. They had been comfortable on the couch, but not close. He would tentatively say they had progressed to being friends.
"Affairs are sordid," Clarke agreed. "But with everything that's going on I think I might worry about everything too much if I slept alone. If I slept here I should at least not worry about burglars, which I might in my own bed, because you have been working very hard to make me nervous."
There was some logic in that, although he would personally have suggested they sleep in the big bed. They had more room there, but maybe keeping away from him did not matter much today. "And the fertile period having passed, you don't have to worry about that either."
"Exactly. I'm glad you have a brain."
She slid into the bed beside him and he tried to give her as much space as he could. "And you still don't want Mini Clarke." It was quite sad that Mini Clarke was not allowed into the world, despite such excellent genes -- a father and mother who both looked good in swimwear and who had brains. And they were both very nice, too. One only had to ask Clarke's mother.
"Aww!" she wailed. "That's the other thing I didn't want to worry about. You are not to mention it -- or name it!"
It made no sense to get into bed with the culprit in a near imitation of the incident if she did not want to think about it, but perhaps that was too logical of him. Someone had to be logical, though. "If nobody ever mentions the positive aspects to you..."
She rolled onto her side. "Good night."
The alarm went off at six. The first thing Riley thought was that O'Neill had not phoned him yet, even though he and three others had been in Pell since five o'clock that morning. He wondered what they had been doing. Had they just sat in cars or had they walked around a little too? If they had not walked around they could only know nothing had happened between five and six, but if something had been left before five they would not know about it. He felt guilty. Maybe he should have sent them there even earlier.
His second thought concerned Clarke. She seemed to have slept as well as he had, because he had not felt her move away. When exactly did something become an affair? He wondered what the non-sordid equivalent of an affair was. There was a significant difference in how he felt today compared to that other time, when nothing had happened this time. Today he felt he was quite fond of her.
"If you get up I can call O'Neill to ask why he hasn't called," he nudged. One, he could not reach his phone. Two, he did not want Clarke to make accidental noises right beside him at six in the morning if he was on the phone.
"Your first thought is of O'Neill?" She moved her hand and tried to ascertain whether they were both still wearing their pyjamas. They were.
"But I didn't think of him quite as warmly as of you." He nudged her again.
Instead of moving out of the bed, she moved deeper into it. "Why do you think warmly of me?"
"Because you are literally warm, for one. Possibly also because I'd rather be in bed with you than O'Neill." It was very comfortable in bed and he reconsidered getting up. She did not seem to be in much of a hurry to start exercising either, but since this was Clarke, she could not be in a hurry to do anything else either. "If he hasn't called yet, nothing has happened. Let's for a moment assume that it's really Kerry, because we have no other suspects."
"Your mother."
"I'm on the verge of having a brilliant thought," he chided. "If it's really Kerry, he knows we know that today is the day, because even if we didn't know before he told us, he made sure we know now. What would he expect us to do?"
"Would he think his nudge inspired us to take a closer look at when and where the body parts have been found?" she wondered. They had already known, but she believed she had not let him know that.
"Well...he's not striving for unpredictability. Kerry -- or someone else -- has tried to make it predictable, so he must think that it's very easy for us to predict. Our possibly not getting it must have confused him. Here I'm back to thinking it was very likely that it was indeed Kerry, because of his reaction."
"He wants it to be predictable and still impossible for us."
"Exactly. Since he conceived of the plan and he wanted us to figure it out, he will be expecting us to have figured out the locations too. However, will our refusal to 'cooperate' lead him to abandon his plan or not? So far we appear to have been treating the discoveries as random and not as the result of a brilliant plan."
"Which may sting, not being recognised as brilliant," she mused. "Even you had problems with it a minute ago."
Riley laughed. "Yes, so what will he do? Will he continue as planned? Was he in one of the blue cars in Pell? Or are we not sufficiently at a loss and in awe and will he try to confuse us now by not leaving it in Pell? I want a bed in my office."
"Why?"
"Because thinking is so comfortable in it."
"Where are your men in Pell?"
"The shopping street. It seemed our best bet, but now I doubt something will happen there. He may change his plan to keep us on our toes, but that means we can't predict anything anymore."
"And we can't catch him."
"I doubt it. O'Neill could have called me already. It's after six." He supposed they had to get up and start the day's routine. "How about your exercising?"
"Yes," she sighed and pushed away the covers. "Call him."
He called O'Neill. "Is anything happening?"
"No. I've been walking my dog for an hour now."
"Your dog?"
"My dog wouldn't miss a dead body."
Riley had been surprised by the mention of a dog, but of course there were advantages to having a dog other than that it allowed one to walk around without raising any suspicions. "Right. Well, ring me if there's anything. You don't have to stay until ten. You can go if there are too many people about."
Riley took his shower and thought about it again. If there was nothing by seven o'clock, he did not think there would be anything at all. The remaining body parts would turn up somewhere, though. Nobody would keep them in his freezer forever.
Then he thought about Clarke. If she chose to sleep in his bed they would have to reconsider their status. Personally he had nothing to lose. It was different for her, certainly if she turned out to be pregnant by a younger subordinate and saw her chances at promotion ruined because of it. But try as he might, he could not see that as something that would inevitably happen. There might be people who completely understood and supported her.
He wondered why she, although due to her profession she had to be aware that there were pills to prevent undesired pregnancies, had not taken any action instantly. He was almost certain that she had known about the risk when she woke up, even if she might have thought nothing at the moment suprême. Had she been too proud to tell a doctor she had been irresponsible -- he could imagine that -- or had she perhaps not wanted to disturb a process once she realised it might have been set in motion? He could imagine that too.
If he had any say in the matter, which he did not know, he would think it worth a try to see if they could live together and raise that child. Living with Clarke was not bad, but he might have to call her Sophia. He was already living with her a little, although she would deny it, and there would simply be an addition.
Of course it was probably not that simple. He would not give up his job to take care of a baby -- he would not know how to do that anyway, considering how Clarke and his mother did not even think he could take care of himself -- so someone else must. If he must be honest he could not really imagine Clarke with a baby, not completely, but it was becoming more plausible every day. He had at first not been able to imagine her with a man either, but that seemed to be working out fine too.
When he came out of the shower he did not find Clarke exercising. This departure from her normal routine worried him, especially when he could not find her in the kitchen, the living room or her bedroom either. "Where are you?" he called.
"Here," it sounded rather softly from the guest room.
"What are you doing?" he asked. She was in bed, looking unwilling to go anywhere.
"I don't want to go to work."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. I've never not wanted to go to work. I'm not ill. I'm not tired. I'm simply not motivated." She sounded puzzled by herself.
"You can't stay here on your own," he said, thinking quickly. "But if you want to stay home you can stay in my flat."
"There's a chain on my door," she protested.
He had finally got Clarke to dress herself and pack some things to keep her busy during the day, or for as long as she wanted to stay home. He did not know if she was going to manage all day. A few hours would probably see her motivation return. "I'm not a cheap cleaning lady," she had said, but he had only laughed at that. He had not asked her to clean and any thoughts of cleaning were solely her own.
She had not laughed at his making her leave through the side door of the building, which led them past the smelly waste container. That was wholly unnecessary, according to her, but she had nevertheless complied. He drove her to his flat and thought nobody had followed him. Nobody would know she was at his flat.
"You're still paranoid," said Clarke.
"You're not? Are you under attack from the inside or not?" he retorted. They encountered his neighbour, even if it was only a little after seven o'clock. Usually he was showering at this hour and he never saw her leave. "Morning."
"Morning," she said and she studied Clarke as closely as one could while passing each other on the stairs.
After Riley had said goodbye to her, with some admonitions as to what she should not do, as if he was her boss, Clarke tried to get some more sleep. She was past caring about Riley's bed. It would be hypocritical of her if she still did.
Riley went to work as usual, but before he was there O'Neill rang him. Riley could hear the excitement in his voice. "Sir, we've got a leg. Just around the corner."
"A leg?"
"Yes, another dog found it. A local dog." O'Neill sounded a little disappointed that it had not been his own. "We heard barking, so we went to have a look and there it was. In a bin bag."
"A bin bag. That's nice." It was much better than the anonymous retail bags the other body parts had been found in. This weekend he had had ample experience with bin bags, binning all his rubbish. "Because people have a whole roll of them, don't they? Does it look new? I mean, not used before?"
"Oh. Let me have a look. Is it a new bin bag?" he asked someone who was apparently standing by. They discussed this for a bit and then he spoke again. "It looks new."
"So it was around the corner and you have no idea when it was put there?"
"We were on either end of the High Street and this was in a side street in the middle."
"Right." Riley remembered a narrow street in the middle, apparently not leading anywhere. You would have to be familiar with the town to know how to get there without using the High Street, however.
"I'd been passing it with the dog several times, but we hadn't gone into it. It didn't look as if anything could be happening there," O'Neill said defensively. "It's not exactly a dead end street, but dying comes close."
Riley snorted. "Yes, I know. You wouldn't expect traffic to come from there."
"And it didn't. Someone must have come in from the other end and gone that way too. Some part of it on foot, I think. We'll do some door-to-door inquiries. Someone may have heard or seen something, because someone carrying a leg in a bin bag would look odd."
Riley looked at his watch. A quarter past seven. Whoever it had been -- he was still tempted to refer to that person as Jonathan Kerry -- would long be on his way home. It was good that Clarke was not at her flat. One never knew.
"The man who found it says he heard a car door at half past six, but he didn't pay attention to it because many of his neighbours leave early. Now that he thinks of it, though, he didn't see the headlights on his bedroom ceiling, as he usually does."
"Now that he thinks of it."
"Yeah."
Half past six. That put Kerry only just back in town. "All right. Keep me informed."
So they had found the wrong limb in the right place at the right time. They could have found the right limb in the wrong place at the wrong time and been absolutely clueless. This was a rather provocative departure from the predictable plan. Think you had me? No, you did not!
However, Riley failed to see how substituting a different body part for the hand threw them too far off. If anything, he felt rather smug for having had men in the right place at the right time, even if they had not been in the perfect spot. They had come a little closer, though.
He drove on to work and wondered whether he should ring Clarke. She might be asleep already. Still, it was up to her to decide whether they were going public with this discovery or not. It appeared that their tactic had worked. It might work another time. If he rang her directly she would not yet be asleep, but if he rang her she would also not sleep at all anymore and she needed her rest. He took the decision himself. They would again keep quiet.
There were four men in Pell. That was enough. He would see who were available to be sent to Madeline Kerry.
He bumped into one or two people because he was lost in thought, but he came upstairs unscathed. There, he made a list of things to do. Someone needed to talk to Madeline Kerry. Someone needed to find out about Jonathan Kerry's personal life. Four men were in Pell. Two were working on another inquiry. That left him rather short on staff and he was not surprised to find no useful people at work at all. When he counted he could only come up with Bradley and Lewis who would come in today, if they did not have the day off.
He went to DI Quinn's room. "You haven't got any stray women I could borrow, have you?" Perhaps it was better to send two women to an old lady like Madeline Kerry, so he could stay here to coordinate things, but since Quinn's team was not in yet either, he had no idea which women might be available. There were not that many. It was still early, so he should not be so impatient.
"What would you want to borrow them for, sir?"
"Not telling," he joked, but in reality he felt very little like joking.
"Shopping?"
"Not today."
"I heard you picked someone up in a pub."
"Oh, that one. No, actually that was the superintendent undercover. Have you got any women?"
Quinn raised his eyebrows at the mention of the superintendent. Perhaps he had received a description of the lady in question. "I think I could spare one."
"Good. Send her to my office before nine." He returned to his office and waited for Bradley and Lewis to come to work. Or for someone else to call him.
Clarke woke at ten. She felt a little guilty for having slept so long, but feeling so rested more than made up for it. For two hours she alternately worked on a report and on cleaning the kitchen, both of which progressed remarkably quickly when there were no interruptions.
She realised she would need some food. There was very little, even though Riley had spent the entire weekend here. It could not do any harm to walk out and she went to a small shopping centre nearby. If she got enough they could stay at Riley's flat that evening, a concession he would like. He could not have enjoyed her continuous refusals to go to his place. There was nothing wrong with his flat itself. The matter had not been as simple as that.
This was the first time ever that she was playing truant and she unexpectedly enjoyed it. There was something attractive about not being in any hurry and yet doing absolutely useful things. She did not feel guilty at all, because she had a meeting at four and she planned to go to it. Before then, however, she would enjoy the day.
Just when she was contemplating whether to buy a pregnancy test, she remembered that today another body part could be found. Nobody had called her on her mobile about it. These thoughts sufficiently distracted her from her embarrassment and when she came out of the chemist's she realised she had just bought a test. She stuffed it away in her bag.
Why had she not been called? Because there was nothing or because she was taking half a day off? Riley knew she was not ill, yet he had not called. She took out her phone, but then she realised that if they had been managing without her all morning they would continue to manage without her. It was Riley's job to do these things without her and he was capable.
She went up to the flat at the same time as Riley's neighbour who had stared at her that morning, but the woman still only stared. It was good to know that apparently women going to his flat were an absolute oddity. That was what she could think now; two weeks ago she would have thought it was her age.
She looked at the pregnancy test when she unpacked her shopping. She hoped it would come out negative in a few days. Of course it would be good to know her body functioned, but she still did not know what to do with a child and Riley clearly did not know it either. He was still such a child himself. The only solution he had was his mother. That was telling. He would father a child and let his mother look after it. Life was as easy as that. Mummy would buy his clothes and sheets, and pick up the pieces. There was no need to grow up if Mummy kept doing that.
Riley set up a betting pool with himself about the time Clarke would call him that she wanted to come to work. He was certain that she could not stay away all day and he grinned when she came in at two, not in the least because she was still wearing the pair of trousers she had pulled on that morning. They were very neat black trousers, but it was nonetheless a novelty at work.
"What happened?" she asked a little breathlessly.
"We have a leg. How did you get here?" Belatedly he remembered she had been stuck at his flat without transportation, yet here she was. He frowned.
"On foot. A leg? Where?"
"Where we thought the hand would be. Almost. In a street off Pell High Street."
"Why didn't you ring me?" she exclaimed.
"Because you were ill."
"I'm not ill. I have a meeting at four. Tell me all about the leg." She pulled a chair up to his desk.
Riley noticed that almost everyone was staring and considering that everyone had returned from their tasks out of doors, their number was complete. They might have caught on to her trousers or maybe only to her manner. At any rate there was something different about her. He was already acquainted with it, so he concentrated on informing her.
"A man walking his dog found the leg just minutes after I left...er...home. Between seven and a quarter past. An inquiry yielded that no one saw the car that dropped it off. It was in a side street off the main shopping street, which is why our men didn't see anything. It turned out that nobody else was out and about at that hour. There should have been a neighbour going to work at half past six, but he had the day off. The man with the dog heard a car around that hour, though, but he wasn't able to identify it from sound alone. He thinks its lights were off."
"Why a leg?" asked Clarke. "Why not the hand? I'd expect a leg at a place like the bus shelter on a Saturday morning, not a village street on a Tuesday morning. A leg is big. You can't just carry it around." She gave her own legs a glance. Not everyone might be as tall as she was, but it would be a large object in any case.
It made no sense to her. She thought the killer would look for a place that was suitable for a specific body part, within the large region that they had marked on the map. He did not have to use the shopping street, but they -- like he had -- had thought it the best place for a small body part to be discovered. Obviously a larger thing like a leg stood a greater chance of being seen simply lying by the roadside. It did not have to be left anywhere very public.
Riley shrugged. "I thought it was intended to throw us off balance, but I don't really see how, considering that we were in the right place at the right time." That it was a leg instead of a hand did not matter much.
"Yet he wasn't caught," she pointed out the most important thing. "Does he know we were there?"
"It would make sense if he did. You know, he's leaving a large thing like a leg under our noses without us noticing, but he gets away with it because he's so much cleverer than we are. I think he counted on us to have caught on to the predictable aspects of the drop-offs. Especially after he spoke to you. So, yes, I think he expected us to be there somewhere, but to avoid being caught he chose a place where he did not think we'd be."
"What?" O'Neill exclaimed. "Do we know who it is?" The others looked baffled as well.
"I think I know," said Riley with a look at Clarke. They had reached a certain point. "I'm going to have to tell them everything."
She sighed and looked away. He had better not tell them everything.
He sat up straighter. "Last week the superintendent was phoned by Jonathan Kerry, a journalist covering this case. He asked her if we had found anything yet, because we should have. All body parts were found ten days apart, he said. She didn't tell him anything, but then he asked her out to dinner. Didn't he? Or did you?"
"He did," she said with a glare. Everybody was looking too interested.
"Then she received a threat at home. 'You're next', it said. She thought it didn't mean anything, but I did. I also thought Jonathan Kerry was suspicious for having promised her not to write anything until he had spoken to her. If he had figured out the ten-day intervals, why not write about it? Wouldn't it be a nice headline?"
"You're next? Just like that?" asked someone. "At home? I shouldn't be too happy getting that in the mail."
Clarke said nothing. They all looked rather concerned. Naked but not dead, she remembered. Riley would think it a compliment. Perhaps she ought to take it as such.
"Especially with a case like this one," Riley nodded. "It might not have meant anything, but I put her under surveillance."
"Which means he went on my dinner engagement with me, concealed by a menu," Clarke said sarcastically. She felt she had best tell her own story in case he felt like expanding on the finer details of the surveillance. There were things they did not have to know.
He looked at her in admiration. She could be funny in times of stress. The others laughed, of course. The image of him hiding behind a menu was amusing. It might be almost as amusing as the idea of Clarke on a date.
"S-S-Seriously, sir?" Mann hiccuped.
"To prevent the superintendent from being dragged off to the kitchens and chopped into pieces there," Riley said solemnly.
"To cut a long story short, I thought Mr Kerry very suspicious," said Clarke. "He kept flattering me in search of information. He wanted to know why we had kept silent if we had found something, which he thought we should have. I wonder if he'll call again. What did you do about the leg?" she asked Riley.
"We've kept quiet. He may call again and ask you for another date. I'm sure he thinks you're an ongoing project. After all, he still thinks you're a virgin," he reasoned before his better judgement could catch up.
Clarke turned a pretty colour and her eyes were flashing. "Detective Chief Inspector!"
"She's not?" Mann asked a little too loudly.
"She's not, but I am," Riley saved the situation unperturbedly. "So you are not to make disparaging remarks about the less fortunate, Sergeant. Knowing his assumptions will allow us to predict what he will do. However, I have no idea how such men think they should approach such a project. Perhaps Mann, who seems to have opinions on virgins, would like to make some suggestions as to what we might expect from Mr Kerry."
"First off, there's nothing wrong with them," Mann hastened to say. "I just think there are some things they don't have."
"Like sex," said Riley and he grinned.
"I'm sure they can be really nice people," Mann said diplomatically. He gave his chief inspector a doubtful look, given what he had said about himself.
"This is pointless," Clarke cut in. Her colour had still not faded.
"But if he asks you to come to his house it's wise to know what you might expect," said Riley.
"I have a brain. Besides, there's no way I should agree to a dinner appointment -- let's not call this a date -- at his house."
"They have no menus there," O'Neill remarked with an innocent expression.
"Tell me about the leg," Clarke ordered. She was sure the absence of menus would not prevent Riley from hiding himself behind something else, but that would be impossible in someone's house. She was aware of that. She had a brain.
"I've told you all about it," Riley replied. "But I've not yet told you that Lewis and Wellman went to talk to Madeline Kerry this morning. She doesn't drive out of town, she says, and no one has her car keys. But she usually doesn't get up until eight, which is after Kerry would have been back and after her car was seen in Pell."
"Does he have the key to her house?"
"He does. And Lewis says she's a bit deaf." He gave Lewis an inquisitive glance and she nodded back. "So who knows what she might miss if she's asleep."
"Would there be any traces in her car?"
"Well, if he left it lying openly on a seat, but I doubt he did that. They also asked Madeline Kerry's neighbours if they ever saw the son's car there in the morning, but they did not. It's, however, not too far for him to have come on foot or by bike. Meanwhile," he said, raising his voice a little. "We'll continue with what we were doing before the superintendent came in."
"Can we go home?" O'Neill yawned. He had been up since four.
"Only the four of you."
Clarke went to her office to prepare for her meeting. It was tempting to stay and speculate, but Riley had an obsession with Kerry's designs on her -- or anyone's designs on her. He had a phenomenal one-track mind, which was obscured by the intelligent way he managed to weave his obsession into the case and to make it sound crucial.
He was intelligent, of course, and attractive, but also immature, paranoid and jealous. Jealous. Se had not thought of him as jealous before, but it might be very applicable to his behaviour. Why, though? Did he want her for himself?
It was flattering to be wanted by a younger man, but she told herself to be professional. He should be too. He should not let it influence his investigation. She still had to talk to him about that and she walked back to the incident room to beckon him.
"Disciplinary action?" he inquired when he had come over.
"Yes, your one-track mind is going to interfere with your case. Stop thinking of strategies for seducing virgins. They have nothing to do with anything." She coloured a little again. Just when she was thinking the men respected her at least a little he had to go an undo it with one thoughtless remark.
"But it's the one thing we can influence." He looked stubborn. "I know I'm right."
He could be as convinced of that as she could. Clarke glared at him because his self-assurance inspired the wrong kind of feelings in her. "I'm not your pawn. I'm not going to aid this strategy one bit."
"I wish you wouldn't play any role at all. I'm certainly not asking you to employ your body for the sake of the case. I'd dissuade you."
"I'm so glad," she said sarcastically.
"It's what Kerry will do, though, employ his body, and we need to outwit him on that point."
She took a deep breath. He was making it sound so plausible, but it was not. "You have an obsession with people sleeping with me."
Surprisingly he did not look the least bit offended, but he laughed. "I'm certainly fascinated, but I doubt that I'm obsessed."
"Why are you fascinated?" She should not be asking him that, but she just had. She ought to be professional.
"Because it was marvellous," he said sincerely. He even looked sincere.
Her breath caught in her throat. This too inspired the wrong kind of feelings in her. "Weren't you so desperate that it would have been marvellous with anyone?" she asked in an attempt to get rid of those feelings.
"I thought that at first, but no."
"Thank you for being selective," was all she could say. He seriously believed it had been marvellous -- and it mattered that she had been there. She should change the subject before she was pulled into anything. She should not forget that while he looked sincere, he never made any overtures.
He was not ready yet, however. "The difference between us is that you've been judging it from a technical point of view, whereas I've been judging it from an emotional point of view. No wonder you don't understand what I'm talking about."
She did indeed not understand him. Emotional point of view? She understood the technical point of view. He was right about that. But he was not emotional -- far from it, in fact. She should not be thinking about his at all. "What will you do about the case?"
"I'll await his actions. He'll call you."
"Do not focus on that," she snapped. "The case. The clues."
"You mean his car, traces, witnesses?"
"Yes. Because you cannot seriously think that anyone would be able to say in court that you were on my roof and that you heard him say -- no, no! That is a part that should stay out. They would say that you were trying to frame him because you were jealous. I am going to stay out of this case as a person. Get him on real evidence."
"His curiosity, but not his flirting. No more dinners for you then. Personally I am glad, but professionally it's a pity."
Personally he might be glad, but she had no idea what it meant if he said it so calmly. It was making her rather edgy and this was not the right place. They were at work. "Separate the two."
"You too." Suddenly there was some uncertainty in his gaze.
"Jimmy, I don't even like him," she said in a softer voice than she had intended. "You don't have to be afraid I'd let him kiss me."
"Ha," he said smugly.
"Ha?" She was confused. Had she seen some uncertainty or not?
"If you have to like someone to let him kiss you, you also have to like someone to let him sleep with you. Meet me in the girls' loo in a minute."
Clarke stared after him in absolute bewilderment. In the girls' loo? Did he think they were school kids?
Riley was leaning against the washbasin and looked thrilled when she came in. "You came."
"I came to tell you that you shouldn't be saying such things. We're no longer in school." And she had come to see what he wanted, of course. There was that very annoying sparkle of curiosity that she should have ignored.
"Did you do this at school? I didn't," he said interestedly.
"So you have something to catch up? I don't. I skipped this phase altogether. What do you want?" Although he made no move to go anywhere or to do anything to her, she was a little wary all the same. She could not read him at all.
"Did you know we had no girls in CID until you came along?" Riley asked. "This was known as the gays' loo then, not that we had those either. There are five girls on this floor now. Three are out and two know, one being you."
Clarke gave him her iciest stare. Some people needed to be sent to a course again. And lots more women needed to be hired.
He fidgeted, but his eyes looked straight at hers. "You didn't like my telling them what Kerry thinks about you. I realised a second too late that I shouldn't have said it."
She took a deep breath, but said nothing.
"I'm sorry," he said and looked very penitent. "As for our being in here, you could always say you asked me to throw a spider out of the window, even though I think you'd be a woman who could throw her own spiders out of the window."
She thought she might be able to do that, up to a certain size of course. "And what would you think of such a woman?"
"What do you think? I like women who can take care of themselves, as long as they leave a little for me to do as well. An invitation to a course on sexism will be on my desk on Monday, won't it?" he asked morosely.
"I won't deny that I was just thinking of sending some people to a course," said Clarke, suppressing a smile. "There is a diversity awareness training for the management coming up."
"You're evil. Can I go with someone else who thinks that utter nonsense, so we can at least have some fun?"
"You'd be going with me and the Chief Constable." Her smile could not be suppressed anymore. "There's a nifty schedule for it and I haven't pointed out this particular flaw."
"Why is it a flaw? Other than that I'm being sent in the first place."
"Because it's overnight and out of town, and it would leave the top of our department a little understaffed if we were both away. The one who drew it up forgot that we don't have a chief superintendent and only one chief inspector." She wondered what this revealed about herself. She had not had active thoughts about Riley, but perhaps some passive ones? The schedule had been known to her for two weeks at least, well before anything had happened, and yet she had kept quiet about it.
Riley considered that. "Is that good or bad? Under the Chief Constable's nose and all..."
"It would force you to pay attention to the training." And to biting back accidental comments about the gays' loo, amusing as they might be to some.
"And of course my going into the women's lavatories would be a little strange under his nose."
"We'll see about that," she said mysteriously. "Now, I have to prepare for my meeting."
"Check if I can leave unseen," he whispered.
"Really! I think you should have thought of that before you went in." She had a look before she stepped out nevertheless, but she was rather distracted by Riley's breathing in her neck and his hand on her hip. He was enjoying this and surprisingly, so was she. It was almost as exciting as snooping after work, but she did not have much time for it. "I'll talk to you in your office before I leave, all right?"
Clarke had a meeting at four and she expected it would last until six at least. Riley decided to pick up some things at her house in the meantime -- materially he was not equipped for living in two houses at once. When her meeting was over he could pick her up and they could have dinner.
When he got to her flat, he found a thin plastic bag just outside her door. There was a square cardboard box in it, with a clearly legible printed label on top. It was again addressed to Detective Superintendent Sophia Clarke and he had seen that same kind of label before. He pulled out his phone and called the forensic department. This, if he was not mistaken, was another message from their murderer and that it was contained in a box did not bode well.
He was not going to touch the box, but he bent over and smelled. It seemed to have been sprinkled lavishly with perfume, which disguised any other smell there might be. Somehow he did not think the box contained a lover's gift.
How had the box ended up inside? That was a crucial question. He straightened his back and pensively regarded the stairs. From what he had seen in the limited time that he had stayed here, there was not a lot of traffic going in and out of this building. There were only six flats. One would have to be very lucky to find someone just going in or out who could hold the door open. The door closed properly; he had checked that every time. The other option was a key, but that was unlikely.
At any rate he was extremely glad he had removed Clarke from the premises. A package had been left, but there was no telling if the man had first tried if she was home. He did not want to think of what might have happened.
He tried the other five flats. Someone was home in the third one, an elderly lady. He showed her his warrant card and asked if she had seen anybody deposit the bag outside Clarke's door.
"Oh yes," she replied brightly. "I did that. I found it outside the front door and I thought it might get stolen if I didn't take it in."
"Outside?" Riley sighed. None of the residents would have seen anything in that case, unless they were just leaving at that particular moment. Leaning out of the window was the only other way they could have seen something, but why would they?
"I assumed it was a lazy delivery man who didn't want to come back at another time. But I also assumed," she said, eyeing him shrewdly, "that you had sent her chocolates or something of that nature, but you wouldn't be asking me questions in that case."
"Why me?" He wondered how observant she was.
"Aren't you Miss Clarke's new young man? I know you have been staying the night, even though she's not that sort." Her mouth was set in feigned disapproval. Clearly it was too exciting for her to disapprove of anything.
"You are right; she is not that sort. I'm Miss Clarke's colleague and I've been keeping an eye on her." And clearly this old lady had been keeping an eye on them, but he was not going to make her any wiser than she was. "Why do you say new young man?"
"Because you haven't been here for very long."
"How much of the bag did you touch?" He wondered if she had taken out the box to look at. She was undeniably curious and had probably taken a good look. Miss Clarke was probably also not the sort to receive perfumed packages.
"I merely picked it up."
He smiled. Of course. She had looked into the bag and touched the box. "What time did you find it?"
"Oh...I think that was around eight o'clock, when I was going out."
Around seven o'clock, when he and Clarke had left the building, there had been nothing. Had he looked well enough? He had looked closely for cars and people loitering, but he would have seen this bag. "Was it right outside the door?"
"Yes, just beside the door, impossible not to see."
He would not have missed it if it had been there then. It must have been left there some time between seven and eight. If Kerry had been in Pell at 6:30, he could have been back in town shortly after seven and he could have gone straight on to Clarke's building. Riley assumed he would not have used his own car for it.
There was little more he could ask this woman. "Okay. I'll be sending an officer around later to take your fingerprints to see if there were any others besides yours left on the bag or the box."
He tried the two remaining flats after hers, but no one was home. When he reached the front door downstairs the reinforcements had arrived. He sent them upstairs and glanced out on the street. It had been easy for him to climb onto the roof of the hall unseen and it would have been just as easy for someone to leave a bag here unseen.
Before eight o'clock the offices across the street might not have been populated yet. The daycare centre might have been open, but he could not imagine anyone there would have been at leisure to look out of the window. They were furthermore separated from the pavement by a car park.
He would nevertheless have to check, as well as to check the other flats later, and he first ran upstairs to see how they were faring there.
Clarke's meeting was over at ten to six. She waited outside in case Riley was early, but there she found herself approached by none other than Jonathan Kerry. She rather resented the intrusion of her private thoughts, as the meeting had left her with much to think about. That he was their main suspect did not help very much either. She tried not to look at him too warily.
"Sophia, how are you?" he asked jovially. "I called you this morning, but you weren't at work."
"No, I wasn't."
"Busy as always. It's the tenth day again," he said with a meaningful look. "Still not telling me anything?"
He had that right, she thought, but she gave him a polite smile. "I only came in for a meeting. I have no idea what happened. Should anything have happened?"
"Oh, don't play the fool. It doesn't suit an intelligent woman," he smiled, but he could not be liking her answer very much. "Didn't they phone you?"
"No," she answered truthfully. She could say she was not too involved with the operational side of things, but she had no idea how that was going to affect the case. Would he be annoyed? Would he target Riley?
"You seem to be waiting. Could I give you a ride?"
"I'm sorry. I'm waiting for someone."
"Ma'am?" said another voice beside her at exactly the right time. It was Judy Lewis. "I wonder if I could talk to you for a minute about something very important. It's personal. About my boyfriend and me?" she said meaningfully, as if Clarke ought to be aware of ongoing problems between them.
"Of course." She excused herself to Kerry, trying not too sound too relieved.
"The DCI's orders, ma'am," said Lewis as soon as they were out of earshot. "He phoned me and asked me to pick you up. He will be home as soon as he can. I see I was just in time."
"What?" Clarke was taken aback by the girl speaking to her in a voice of calm authority -- speaking to her boss in such a voice, when moments before she had sounded exactly like a troubled girl hesitant to ask her for a few minutes of her time. "Just in time?"
"Wasn't that Jonathan Kerry? I recognise him from the photos on his website. He might have abducted you, ma'am."
"Abducted me," she spluttered. "I don't let myself be abducted so easily." But he had asked to give her a ride home and there was a small chance that he might have had something devious in mind. A paranoid mind like Riley's would think so. They were in front of the police station, however, and everybody knew her.
"Maybe not," Lewis conceded. "But he should be avoided in any case."
"Says the DCI, no doubt." He had also said Kerry would call her and he had been right about that. The man had even come in person when he had not been able to get hold of her over the phone. would he have waited here for very long? He had not seen her arrive on foot, or he would have talked to her then. "Was he afraid I was going to be abducted after my meeting?"
"I'm not sure, but he's delayed."
"By?"
"The hand, ma'am."
Clarke's eyes widened and she stopped walking. "The hand? I thought it was a leg."
"Would you please get into my car first?" Lewis asked. "You are looking too surprised. I'm not sure I could be telling you anything personal that could surprise you so."
"Have you been taking lessons in paranoia from Riley?"
"No, ma'am. This is my car. Let's get in. Well," Lewis said cheerfully when she had driven off. "I hope he won't be so daft as to follow us. I passed my driving course with top marks. Well, if he tries we'll shake him off."
Clarke had also passed a similar driving course, but that was so long ago that she thought she would not be able to shake anyone off -- not that this had ever been part of the course as she remembered it. The prospect of defying traffic rules therefore filled her with a little anxiety. "Where are we going?"
"To the DCI's house."
"Do you know where the DCI lives?" Clarke wondered when they were driving in the wrong direction.
"Yes, but we're taking a little detour."
Clarke did not like Lewis' maniacal smile and she braced herself when they shot onto the motorway after ignoring a red light. "He will kill you if something happens to me." She did not know that for certain, but it might slow Lewis down. If it did not, she might have to mention her possible pregnancy. Such stress and agitation could not be good for it.
"It won't, but we were being followed. We're losing him now."
This was bad for her heart. Clarke closed her eyes. After a few seconds, during which they must have covered several miles, she felt they were slowing down and she opened an eye. They were leaving the motorway again. That was a relief.
"We've lost him," Lewis noted smugly when she was the only one taking the exit.
Riley was sitting outside Clarke's building to read through his notes while he waited for more residents to come home. His new acquaintance, Clarke's elderly neighbour, had told him over a cup of tea who else lived in this building and at what time they they were likely to come and go. There were two couples who were likely to leave before eight and to come home around six. So far he had caught one of those four people and she had told him that she and her husband had left through the side door because they had had some rubbish to dispose of. They had not seen anything.
He could have stayed with his new acquaintance as he waited for the last couple -- though he gave himself a deadline of 18:50 -- but he had preferred to sit on the pavement. From there he had a good view of the street and perhaps some things that had escaped him before would occur to him now.
Traffic was relatively heavy at the end of the working day. The offices and the daycare centre across the street emptied, and the Chinese restaurant got some customers. The buildings on his side of the street were all residential and his courage sank when he realised someone living in another building might well have walked past that morning and seen something. He was becoming a little too car-oriented these days, but of course there were still people who walked. Tomorrow morning between seven and eight he might have to sit here again and ask people.
When he looked up from noting that down, there was suddenly a woman in her late fifties standing by the doorbells and nameplates. She made no move to open the door with a key, so she was a visitor. He was surprised, because she wore a police uniform, not that of a mere PC, and she was pressing Clarke's bell.
He got to his feet, keeping notebook and pen in one hand while he fumbled for his warrant card with the other. "May I help you?"
"Is there any reason why you were sitting there?" she inquired.
"Yes, but -- I noticed which bell you pressed. She's not in." He wondered why Clarke was receiving visits from high-ranking officers of other forces. There was a pang of fear as he realised it might have something to do with a vacant chief superintendent position elsewhere. He did not want her to go, but this woman would clearly like to have a clone -- she could be an older version of Clarke. The hair and the tone were quite similar, as well as something about her icy blue eyes.
"Were you sitting there to tell everybody she's not in?"
"Are you going to offer her a job?" he asked a little suspiciously.
"A job?" the woman frowned.
"May I ask why you want to visit her? We found something horrible here earlier today. I cannot let just anyone go up." He said that with a polite smile, yet one that was adamant, he hoped.
"Listen, I'm Deputy Chief Constable Davenport and --"
"His rank is Chief Constable Davenport," he said, although her uniform was that of a deputy chief constable and that part of her story matched at least. But the head of his force was Chief Constable John Davenport, a man.
"That's my husband," she said patiently.
Riley frowned. "But he can't have --"
Her reaction was quick. "Oh, he can."
For the time being he ignored the fact that she was apparently the high boss' wife. That did not give her any authority over him here. He concentrated on her having rung Clarke's bell. "And why do you want to see Detective Superintendent Clarke?"
"Because she's my sister. What was that about something horrible?"
"Your sister?" He stared. No wonder there had been a certain resemblance to Clarke. But if Mrs Davenport was Clarke's sister, then their big boss was her brother-in-law. It was rather astonishing. He had never known and he was not sure anyone else knew.
"Yes, my little sister."
He would guess Clarke was almost a head taller than this woman, for all their resemblances. To hear her being spoken about as a little sister was very strange.
"What about this horrible thing?" she inquired. "Whatever it was, was found here? At my sister's house?"
"Yes, so you will understand why I'm a little wary of people visiting her right now." He supposed he could trust her, but she would have to understand he could not have known she was Clarke's sister and a real policewoman to boot. This might sound like a lame excuse to her, because he would never have suspected her of being Jonathan Kerry in disguise and so he hoped she would not ask.
"Where is she?"
"At a meeting, but I've asked someone to pick her up and take her to my flat."
Mrs Davenport looked him up and down. "Your flat? And you propose to keep her there until..."
"Tomorrow at least." Perhaps longer, if she agreed, but then they might come back here. He did not think there could be any harm in that if he was with her. They were up against one man, not several.
"I cannot imagine she'd agree."
He hesitated, because there was a chance that Clarke wanted to see for herself where the plastic bag had been left, in spite of the fact that she would not be able to see anything anymore.
Mrs Davenport narrowed her eyes. "I insist that you take me to her immediately."
Lewis checked the house number and paused by the front door of the building. "It must be here. You have the keys, he said."
Clarke was still a little shaken from their mad drive and she had simply followed docilely when Lewis had parked the car. She took out Riley's keys and let them in. "I completely forgot to ask you about the hand."
"The hand. Yes. It was delivered to your house. The DCI found it himself. He couldn't pick you up because he was still making inquiries. He was doing that himself," she said in some admiration.
"To my house," Clarke repeated. Then he had been right in forcing her to stay at his house instead of hers. She imagined opening a package and finding a hand. It made her sick. It was even worse when she thought that instead of leaving a package, the murderer could have come to do more.
Lewis was staring at her anxiously, thinking perhaps that she was going to be sick, but a moment later Clarke pulled herself together. "Why was the hand delivered to my house?" They climbed the stairs and she let Lewis into Riley's flat. "Why?"
"I don't know," said the girl. "Could it have something to do with the fact that Jonathan Kerry wanted to have dinner with you?"
"A severed hand really warms a woman's heart."
"But does he really want you?"
"No. I doubt it." Clarke walked towards the kitchen. She was hungry and she was unable to think well unless she had at least the prospect of eating soon. She saw Lewis was staring at the pregnancy test she had left on the table. She had done that so Riley would see it without needing to be told, but of course anyone who came in would now not have to be told anymore. Could things get any worse? But surprisingly she found she did not care as much as she ought. The severed hand had unsettled her.
Did Kerry really want her? She doubted it. He wanted to make use of her, but she did not think he was in love with her or anything like it. "I think he wanted information and he thought he could charm me into revealing some."
"Yeah," said Lewis as if it was very logical to be susceptible. "But he doesn't know you've had more attention from men than he assumes."
"At least you phrase that a lot more sensitively than Riley," Clarke commented. "Although he apologised. But yes, that was more or less his point. I don't know why Kerry thinks I may now tell him all because I received a nasty package."
"Maybe he'd offer to protect you."
"I suppose he wouldn't know I'm already being protected. We won't be able to test this, though. We'll have to catch him another way. I'd better start cooking. I'm hungry. What time do you think he'll be here? I suppose he ordered you to stay here until he does, as if I'm somehow unable to take care of myself."
"Yes. He promised to be done by seven."
"At least that's not too long a wait. Dinner will be ready when he gets here." Clarke got some food out of the fridge. "And what are you thinking?"
"Nothing," Lewis said evasively.
"Come on, you must have some thoughts on my being here."
"It's none of my business."
"He practically moved in against my will to protect me." Having the key to his flat and even feeling so at home as to cook there, she realised she looked very little like a helpless victim of Riley's protectiveness and she could in all honesty no longer pretend to be one. "But company is not that bad, I found. It's not a relationship, though."
"Who is your lover then?" Lewis asked after a few moments.
Clarke had forgotten about him. "I invented him. As for that test on the table, you don't need a relationship for that, do you?"
"I suppose not. But ma'am, he really likes you."
"Who?"
"The DCI. I'd feel so sorry for him. For his sake I hope you're not pregnant by another man."
"I hope I'm not pregnant at all," Clarke said a little more decidedly than she felt. "Why would you feel sorry for him?"
"Because he really likes you."
She had no idea if that was only Lewis' youthful wishful thinking or the truth. It might be twenty years since her last girl-to-girl chat and temptation was strong. "You know, he only has that theory about Kerry because he himself likes the first woman who slept with him in ages or even at all. He is susceptible."
"I'd make use of it."
"Do you mean there won't ever be a younger and more handsome man who wants to take me on?" Clarke wondered after a moment. Make use of it! How? "What if he uses me as a stepping stone to younger women?"
"After you have a child? He won't."
"But I don't want a child." She could not imagine him staying with her, after she had made use of his susceptibility, if they did not have a child. Why would he? Did she even want it? "And he is very immature."
Riley arrived close to seven o'clock. He looked tired, but of course he had been working for twelve hours straight and not all of this leisurely at a desk doing paperwork. He had furthermore had a glimpses of a cut-off body part. "I assumed it was all right when you didn't ring me," he said to Lewis.
"Oops."
"She was too busy driving like a madwoman," Clarke said a little sarcastically. She was glad to see him and he looked tired, but she could of course not do anything. She was surprised by his sudden entrance, but she pretended to be indifferent about it. Lewis and she had been discussing him without reaching any definite conclusions, but it had been agreeable.
The girl's perspective on him was completely different, of course. Riley was all that was good in a boss, but too old to be in love with. Too old! Clarke had guffawed at the idea that he might be too old for someone.
Lewis laughed. "Well, sir, I found that man talking to her, so I took her away and it looked as if he was following us for a short while, but I managed to shake him off."
He looked worried. "Are you sure? Are you sure he has no idea where you went?"
"He didn't follow us." Lewis gave Clarke a smug look, either for having shaken Kerry off, or for having been right that Riley really liked her.
He turned towards Clarke. "What did he want from you?"
"What you said he'd want," she answered. "Had we found anything? Look, I'm still not sure I'm in any danger." She was equally unsure of not being in any danger, however, but she could not give in so easily.
"You received a lovely package in the mail," he said meaningfully. "From the same person who wrote to you last week that you were next. Don't be so stubborn."
"I'll be off then," Lewis said hastily. "Unless you need me still, sir?"
"No, you can go. Thanks." He let her out and returned to the kitchen. "I hope you don't mind my asking Judy to pick you up."
Clarke was sitting at the table rubbing her eyes. "I'm supposed to be your boss, her boss, everybody's boss, but everybody's a lot more in charge of the situation than I am. I don't want to be passed on from one protector to the next. I was perfectly capable of telling that man that no, I didn't need a ride home. You cannot seriously be thinking he would have dragged me into a car against my will in front of the police station?"
"No," he said slowly. "And I don't underestimate you at all. Don't be stubborn and try to prove yourself. You don't have to. I do think you'd know best, which makes this all very difficult, but I do wish you'd give leaving things to me a try now and then."
She raised her face at his surprising words. "You think I know best?"
"You're at least my equal, but maybe better."
"Maybe?"
"Maybe." He eyed the stove longingly. "I'm hungry. It's so very nice to come home and find someone has cooked dinner for me."
"Don't get used to it, although today I feel a sort of pleasure in feeding you." It was strange and she was not sure it was lasting. It might be one of those things that only felt good once or twice.
"Are those your maternal instincts kicking in?"
"No, you look hungry and tired. There's nothing maternal about seeing that. It's called observant and maybe kind." She wondered why he picked up the pregnancy test and dropped it in a drawer. Did he not want her to take it? But he had said he would not think anything until she had tested.
"Kind is good."
Someone pushed the kitchen door open further and Clarke jumped up. "Susannah! How -- how did you get in?" She blushed in embarrassment at having been caught with a man, cooking him dinner in his flat no less. She had never cooked another man dinner before and she did not know what sort of conclusions her sister would draw.
The new arrival took in the situation. "He let me in. What are you doing here, Sophia? You seem to be here against your will."
"No, not really," Clarke said unhappily.
"Not really?" Mrs Davenport's eyes flashed and she turned to Riley. "He wanted me to hide in a bedroom. What did he want with you? Who is this man?"
"Detective Chief Inspector Riley, at your service," he bowed. He had merely suggested that she stay in another room because she did not want to come in right away and the bedroom was still the nearest and largest room available. Evidently he had misunderstood her. She had wanted to eavesdrop to see how her sister reacted to him. The reaction had been fine. Clarke had not attacked him or begged to be released.
"I'm dead," Clarke moaned.
"Show me that card of yours again," Mrs Davenport demanded. "You may be with the police, but a DCI? I think not. They are generally older and you have not struck me as an exceptionally brilliant prodigy."
"I'm even more dead," Clarke moaned. "I'm so hungry. I'm going to eat."
"Am I to understand you cooked?" her sister inquired as she looked from the stove to the table. "For him?" She took Riley's warrant card without looking at him and studied it.
"For us."
"Why?" She handed back the card without commenting on it. "What was this horrible thing that was found at your flat? Was there even anything at all? Or was it some excuse to get you here?"
"It was a hand," said Riley, who had never considered himself an exceptionally brilliant prodigy, but still a few cuts above the mental deficiency she seemed to ascribe to him. "A human hand, sawn off. I don't know if you've been following the news, but we've been dealing with body parts here that have been turning up in different locations."
Apparently she had followed the news, because she did not look surprised. "Why would one be at Sophia's flat?"
"Outside," he corrected. "And as to why, my assumption is that it's supposed to scare her. Or confuse us." He glanced at Clarke, who had done as she had said and who was eating. He would like to eat himself. "He does have a thing for her, after all."
"Who?"
"The killer."
"Why?"
"Either it's genuine or it's part of his game." He shrugged. "The man who I think is the killer, that is, but why should there suddenly be a killer and a journalist having a thing for her?" It was too much at once.
"And a policeman," Mrs Davenport suggested
"And a policeman," he agreed. "But I did not get the impression that she had such a number of admirers before, or one would have stuck, so I think I'm in fact the only genuine one. The others, who in my opinion are one and the same, have a hidden agenda."
Clarke gave him a look he could not interpret.
"And why do you have a thing for my sister if you think it so strange for anybody to have a thing for her?" Mrs Davenport asked. Evidently the fact that they might have identified the killer was less important to her than someone possibly harassing her little sister.
"It's not strange if you spend time with her, but nobody does that unless she needs them or she needs protection." Clarke was not a person with many friends, he thought. Not many people would know her well and consequently not many men would like her. He had only seen a little more of her in the last two weeks, in spite of having worked with her for a few years. "And I don't think she's here against her will. Are you?"
"Susannah," she said. "He hasn't been proven wrong so far."
"There is only one bed, I noticed. Of course she's here against her will."
"I'm not going to say another word on the matter," Riley decided. He would leave it up to Clarke to say she was not here against her will and that the bed was not going to pose a problem. He would not be believed anyway.
The state of his kitchen surprised him. Apparently she had not spent the entire morning in bed. Everything was clean and neat. "I'm going to eat. Would you like something as well, ma'am?" She would not be able to say anything about his manners and, thankfully, she could no longer say anything about the state his flat was in either. Considering she was related to Clarke, she would have.
Mrs Davenport pulled her uniform straight. "No, thank you. If Sophia can assure me she is not here against her will, I'll leave."
"I'm not here against my will."
"But are you going to sleep here? Where?"
Clarke got up and whispered something in her sister's ear. From the looks Riley received he deduced it was something about him. He hoped it was something positive, but whatever it was, it led to a lengthy conversation, all in whispers.
"What did you tell your sister?" Riley asked when Clarke had let her sister out. He had been curious, but he had not been able to catch a word. They had continued to whisper even after they had moved into the hall. He had forced himself to remain at the kitchen table.
She sat down again to resume eating. "Something to reassure her. I couldn't stand two people worrying about me and she is worrying about small problems. You at least are worrying about something serious."
"Oh, you believe me now?"
She smiled at his reaction, not at the situation. If hands were delivered to her house she could no longer ignore it. "Yes, I believe you. Susannah was worried about your bed. I told her we had already dealt with that."
He was curious. "Not how?"
"No. I don't know if she guessed. She is always a little worried about me because of what happened in the past."
Riley gave her a sharp look. "You said that was nothing and that you could deal with it."
"As if sisters and mothers ever believe that." Her sister was in some ways another mother -- certainly a different sort of mother from her real one. But she did not want to talk about the past. "Tell me about the hand. Did anyone see anything?"
He looked a little reluctant to abandon the subject of her sister, but he did so anyway. "You don't live in a good place for that. If you're early enough, no one across the street will see you. I asked the neighbours, I asked the people in those offices, but no one recalled seeing a man outside your building. I don't know if this means that he looked normal and that he was on foot, but it probably did, because he was there between seven and eight. So he drove to Pell and back, parked somewhere near you, then walked by your building. He may not have stopped for more than a second. That depends on whether anyone else was walking there."
"How does he manage to be everywhere without being noticed?" she sighed.
"He was outside your flat at least once. I'm sure of that. He's seen how quiet the street can be outside working hours. This wasn't his original plan. He simply took advantage of what he saw. And I don't think he wasn't noticed, but that he didn't stand out. If we made a public appeal we'd get some response, but that's what we cannot do. Or rather, we don't want to do that."
"He'll be wondering why. Would he be suspecting that we're suspecting him? He seemed to expect that I didn't want to tell him anything and he did drive behind us for part of the way." It could have been a coincidence, but she was not sure it would have made sense to him that Judy had asked to speak to her for a moment and then driven off with her. Unless he thought she had been waiting for Judy.
"But you lost him."
"Judy. She drives like a madwoman. I almost considered telling her I might be pregnant and that her driving wasn't good for me." She asked herself if this meant she wanted her pregnancy to go well, but she could not come up with a clear answer.
"She saw the test. She must have, because it was in plain view. What did she say?"
Clarke thought about it for a second. "She hoped you were the father."
"Why?"
"Because she'd feel sorry for you if it was someone else." She studied him for signs. Would he really regret that or be jealous? That might be a stupid question if he had not even liked her going out to dinner with someone else. Of course he would be jealous.
He snorted. "I take it she doesn't know you don't want to keep it."
"Oh, she does. We've talked about it."
That clearly surprised him. "Did she change your mind?"
"How could it influence me that Judy thinks babies are adorable? She's not the one who has to take care of one, nor the one who will suffer the consequences career-wise. Though it became clear to me that we'll lose Judy if she ever gets pregnant, if she isn't already." Judy had gushed too much.
Clarke recalled something else and rolled her eyes. "And she's young enough to think it adorable for female bosses to get it on with male bosses."
"Adorable?" He snorted again. "So you told her she mustn't get pregnant. Or she must, because then you can babysit for her."
Clarke narrowed her eyes at his cheerful expression and tone. He seemed determined to be optimistic about everything -- to counter all her questions and doubts with something positive. Was that to make her think or did he really want to keep a child? "Do you think they're adorable too? And that they require no work and sacrifices? Besides, I may not be pregnant."
"We can always try again next month," Riley said even more cheerfully.
"Oh! Oh no." She was decided, but then she wavered. There might be a chance of that if this situation continued. "Would that happen?"
The stupidest thing one could do was to ask if it was going to happen again, Clarke reflected in the morning, because then it inevitably would. Although Riley had only given her a vague and shy sort of answer in response to her question, and he had again not made any overtures, she had realised he might not be the one taking the first step. It was very tempting not to get out of bed when they woke, but to stay in and do something.
"Hmm," he said. "I set the alarm at six, but of course you can't exercise here. What could we do instead?"
She said nothing and tried to banish certain ideas from her mind.
"We could have a long bath," he suggested.
"We?" she asked, in spite of never having heard of baths at six in the morning. That did not mean they could not have a bath now, however. But together?
"I have a large bath."
"Yes, why do you?" she asked to postpone an answer.
"Because it was already there when I bought it and because I'm tall, so it suited me. With or without bathing suits?"
"Oh, James." She had been embarrassed about having brought hers, but perhaps that was not necessary. "Would you indulge me?"
"Would that be by wearing it or not? Call it stupid, but I'm not really sure. Wait. I'm definitely stupid. It would take really long to fill, wouldn't it? Maybe we'd best have a shower."
The shower had been long, pleasant and worth repeating. "Judy would be shocked. Susannah would be shocked," Clarke mused when she did her hair. It was wet now -- at home she did not get it wet in the morning -- and she had to do something different to it. Her usual bun would not work and after some fruitless attempts she simply left it loose. "But for different reasons."
"Why?"
"Judy would be appalled about the swimwear. Susannah would be appalled that I took a shower with you in the first place." She really should not have kissed him before she had settled the matter of his maturity and suitability for herself, but she had felt it might be nice to do it regardless and her intuition had not been wrong at all. He had not pushed her away. On the contrary.
"Do you care?"
"I don't know. I shouldn't." She walked to the kitchen.
"I'm also worried what my parents might think," he revealed as he followed her. "Not about the shower, because that's none of their business, but about things in general."
This might be a good time to ask. "So, how are things in general?" she asked with studied indifference. It mattered a lot more than she let on.
"Can't we just see where it goes?" He looked a little helpless. "Because it already seems to have gone somewhere, whether you give it a name or not."
"I can imagine you going elsewhere once you've brushed up on your skills a bit." She wished she would not sound so bitter, afraid and pathetic. He had not really done anything to make her think that, but she could not help fearing it all the same. "Especially if I don't have the child."
"It will be all right." He looked more helpless now, as if everything was too much for him to deal with at once. "Don't look too far ahead."
"But it may be inside me already and I'd certainly refuse to have it if I could already be sure of your leaving me for some long-legged blonde."
"But I'd already have a long-legged darkish blonde." He was surprised she did not know.
"I should have said a long-legged blonde of twenty." It could not be long before she turned grey anyway.
"I have two of those."
Her eyes bulged.
"One of forty," he grinned. "That's worth two of twenty. We should have breakfast or we'll be late."
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