Riley had Clarke drop him off at her flat to see if he could find anyone who had noticed anything the day before. It did not even occur to him to send somebody else until he wished he had, half an hour later. So far he had only come across one man who thought he might have seen someone here the morning before around half past seven, but this man had not wanted to give his details. He could never be asked later on to see a photo of Jonathan Kerry.
Just when he wanted to give up, his luck turned. Two girls said they had seen a middle-aged man with a plastic bag standing here. They had not looked back to see what he had done with it; when they had passed he was still pressing the doorbell or waiting for someone to answer. Riley made good use of their willingness to help a handsome policeman. Although they giggled a lot, they were actually more useful than anyone had been before. Their description of the man was vague, but they said they would recognise him again and that they were simply not good at describing him.
"And middle-aged, what do you mean by that?" he asked. They were in their late teens or early twenties. Middle-age might be anything between twenty-five and forty.
"Well, old, but not too old, if you know what I mean."
He did not. "Am I middle-aged?"
"No," they giggled. "We mean thirty-five and over."
"But I am over thirty-five." A few days only, but currently those days mattered as much as those few months separating Clarke from her forty-third birthday. It was all relative.
"No!" they cried in disbelief. "Seriously? You don't look it."
When he had cheerfully walked back to the police station, he found that the report on the leg had been delivered. It had indeed been part of their body. That was good to know. He did not doubt the hand belonged to it too.
He did not know if it was because Clarke had kissed him that things were suddenly going his way a little, but he was more optimistic about the case than he had been before. Of course simply getting the girls to identify Jonathan Kerry on a photo would not be enough, but it would be a good start. Once they had an opening there would be others.
They had Madeline Kerry, of course, whose car had been to Pell without her. The person most likely to have taken her car was her son. Lewis and Wellman had reported that she was a widow with only one child. He should go and ask Kerry if he had taken that car. That could not be put off today. He would do it himself, because this was important. Nevertheless, he did not expect a confession. There would be lies, but if the man had not been expecting him, those might be bad lies.
He would go and talk to Kerry, but he also sent a few people to make inquiries in Kerry's neighbourhood.
Riley took O'Neill to talk to Kerry -- and O'Neill's car, naturally, since Clarke had taken his.
"What for?" O'Neill asked.
"She had a meeting out of town."
"Yes, but...where's her own car? Or do you mean to say her car is at her house and she didn't stay there because of the hand you found? What were you doing there anyway?"
Riley had ample time to consider an answer, since he did not have to pay attention to the road. He had indeed chosen not to say what he had been doing at Clarke's house when he found the hand and nobody had asked. They had been too interested in the hand. "I needed to pick something up."
"You have stuff at her house?" O'Neill wondered innocently.
Riley sighed. "It was part of the surveillance. I was right that she needed it, though, wasn't I?"
"I'd been wondering who was carrying out the surveillance."
He supposed he would not have to spell out that he had done that. "I was right, though."
"For how long have you been...er...keeping an eye on her?" There was a smirk on O'Neill's face.
"Last Wednesday, after she received the note."
"Then you'd know if the Ice Cube has a boyfriend. Does she? She looks a lot more...loved these days. She even laughed at an improper joke this morning."
"Unbelievable," said Riley in a dry tone, although he felt jealous about not having been there. He had been trying to find witnesses while she had had some fun at work. "But what does that have to do with her looking loved?"
"She seems to have a slightly better grasp of men."
"When was that?" He was still jealous.
"In the coffee corner. I had to look twice, you know, because she suddenly looks as if she could boast of having a hot young lover, but the comment that came after the laugh was clearly the Ice Cube. Only it didn't have its usual impact, because she had just laughed."
"You must be exaggerating," Riley decided, although he felt his colour rising a little. O'Neill probably knew a lot more than he pretended to know about that hot young lover. Why did he call the lover young unless he knew the lover really was? "I don't think there's any difference in her apart from the clothes."
"Well, I think he should just go on loving her. I like bosses who laugh at my jokes."
He was glad for that, but he did not want to be drawn into too long a discussion about Clarke. "We should talk about Kerry. What are we going to say to him? His mother's car was seen in Pell days before the leg was found, but his mother wasn't driving it?"
Clarke had come in to work with long damp hair, which had made a few heads turn. She thought there were even more heads turning than the day before when she had come in wearing trousers. Perhaps today's combination of trousers and long hair was especially strange.
Riley was on his guard, she would say. He refused to walk beside her, but such an avoidance tactic was equally suspicious. She told him to behave, but that might be a confusing order if he thought he was behaving. He needed to stick to something between avoiding her and inviting her into the women's lavatories, however.
She thought about her sister as she drove to her meeting. It was in another town and she would have enough time to think. Of course Susannah had been surprised and worried -- worried about the hand and the possible threat to her, and surprised to find she had allowed a man into her life. Susannah had asked her if she knew what she was doing -- and this was even without knowing she might be pregnant -- because a younger man, one she worked with, could only lead to problems.
Clarke understood her concerns. They had plagued her as well. She would no longer be able to judge Riley's work objectively. That was one of the things people would say. Their domestic troubles would spill over into work and she did not yet have enough experience with him to know if they were going to have domestic troubles or not.
She could imagine what Susannah would say if she turned out to be pregnant. Susannah and John had no children. Their careers had never been affected, but her sister had only seen other people be affected, women especially. She had often talked about that and complained how unfair it was.
But she would have to do as James said and not think too far ahead. She should not be thinking about that test before she was able to get a trustworthy result, except that she would have to stay off wine and other bad things in the meantime. She did not know why she was so conscientious about that; rationally she still had no use for a child.
But rationally she had also not had any use for a man and yet one had appeared and she had embraced him literally. On the other hand that was not as difficult to understand as that, because he had many attractive qualities. Actually he was rather good, she mused. He had been able to kiss her in the shower without even attempting to remove her bathing suit. Her previous experiences with men, voluntary or not, had usually resulted in them becoming rather more ardent and insistent than she had enjoyed. All James did was make her feel safe and comfortable. He had looked happy simply to kiss her, not using it as a step towards something more.
She wondered if he was still going to call her ma'am or superintendent. He had called the child Mini Clarke, not Mini James or Mini Sophia. He had never even called her Sophia yet. That might be her own fault: she was never Sophia at work. She only knew they were aware of her first name because they had mocked her as The Never Sexier Sophia.
She had not yet seriously thought of the child, but she would certainly not think of it as Mini Clarke. Could there be anything positive about it? She had never seriously thought about children because she had no partner and having one should come first. When she had thought of a partner, however, she had never imagined it would be so uncertain. Either one had one or one did not, at least if one was a sensible person. And she had always thought of herself as sensible.
So did she have one or did she not? James thought she did. He had pulled her close in the car that morning as she dropped him off, though not close enough to kiss her, and he had asked her to drive safely. And she should not forget that she had actually spoken about him leaving her, as if they were together.
"Your mother's car was seen in Pell on two occasions, but she claims she hasn't been there at all. Since you are her closest relative, would you know of anybody who has access to her car keys?" Riley asked Jonathan Kerry when they had located him in his newspaper's offices. They had been taken to a small room where they could speak in private. Kerry showed no signs of recognising him, which was good.
"I do, obviously, because I have the keys to her house and I know where she keeps her car keys. When is my mother supposed to have gone to Pell?"
"A week ago. Wednesday and Thursday." Today was Wednesday again. It was not too long ago for anybody to have forgotten where they were exactly a week ago. If they were up to no good especially.
"And she didn't?"
"She says not, but her car was there. Could it have been you?"
"It could," Jonathan Kerry admitted with a slow smile. "I went to Pell a few times last week. In my mother's car."
Riley was surprised at the quick admission, but he did not betray it. "What did you do there? And at what time?"
"I know why you're asking. I'm doing some investigating of my own, you see. Did you do yours? Then you know what time I was there."
Riley raised his eyebrows. So that was the shape the lie was taking. "Investigating. I see. What were you investigating?" Of course in a sense the man had been investigating: he had been looking for a good spot to leave the leg.
"Well, if you won't tell me anything then I won't tell you anything either," Kerry said with a shrewd laugh.
He was there to question the man. Perhaps that message had not come across completely. "Why were you in Pell precisely?"
"Why were you?"
So he was determined to be annoying and Riley was determined not to bite. "Why did you use your mother's car?"
"I have a rather noticeable car. People would notice if I drove in circles." He smiled a rather superior smile. "How do you know I was in Pell?"
"We notice even unnoticeable cars."
"Did my passing some information on to the superintendent have anything to do with it?"
Riley wondered why she was mentioned. He also wondered how Clarke had managed to sit through an entire meal with this man, but she had and she had even allowed him to seize her hands. Undoubtedly the man could be charming in other circumstances. "What did you pass on to her?"
Kerry leant back and folded his hands. He remained condescendingly friendly. "Why don't you ask her? I shouldn't have to do your job for you all the time. I know I've been at this for longer than you have. Forgive me for my cynicism."
"Forgive me for being a young high potential and so forth," Riley said charmingly. "All brains and no experience doesn't solve a case, I know. But all the time? Are you saying you've done our job before? You've been writing about cases, but doing our job? How do you view that?" It might tie in with the impression Lewis had got from Kerry's writing, but unfortunately she had not got much further due to other things coming up. She had certainly not got far enough for them to know beyond a doubt that Kerry believed he could do a better job than the police.
"Well, in case the good superintendent didn't tell you anything, I alerted her to the fact that those body parts were all found ten days apart. This may not be the case you are working on, I now realise, but it was the case I was working on in Pell."
"As it happens, that is my case. So, you alerted the superintendent. In what other way did you do my job?" Riley inquired. The only one who had outdone him so far was the superintendent herself. He wondered why Kerry had mentioned her. Was he waiting for the revelation that the good superintendent had received a horrific package?
"I wonder if you had noticed the geographical distribution of the body parts. I suppose you must have, if you were in Pell?" Kerry managed to sound a trifle incredulous, as if he did not think they were clever enough for that.
"That's possible. Why did that bring you to Pell last week?" He was not giving up on that question. Eventually he would receive an answer if Kerry did not want to appear too suspicious. It was possible that the man was still thinking.
"I was sure the next part would turn up there. Did it? Day ten has again passed. Yesterday."
"Day ten did," Riley agreed. "But that was yesterday. Why were you in Pell last week? Were you hoping there would be a deviation from the routine you had deduced? And that it would suddenly be on day five?"
"That was an option."
"But didn't that deviation happen eleven days ago already?" They had not made the last three discoveries public. As far as everyone knew, there had been nothing for about twenty days. Something should have happened eleven days ago.
"What do you mean?" Kerry looked a little less certain.
"There were nine days between the torso and the foot, then another nine days between the foot and the hand, then nothing." He tore a sheet off his notebook and drew a torso, a foot and a hand. "Why were you in Pell? Why not...here?" He drew a little circle where Halburton was supposed to be and felt he might be on to something. Maybe he was a brilliant prodigy after all.
They had found the second foot in Halburton, something only the police and the murderer could know, if they did not count the person who had found it. Everyone else, including Jonathan Kerry if he was innocent, would be betting on two likely places for the next body part, not one: Pell and something in the vicinity of Halburton. And that was all assuming the next part would be a hand or a foot and not an arm or a leg.
"Well, it could have been there as well," Kerry admitted with a frown.
"Indeed. But you didn't go there, did you?"
"I had to make a choice. It sounds as if my lucky guess was right."
Riley was not going to tell him if they had found anything or not. "I wonder if it was really lucky."
"What are you insinuating?" Jonathan Kerry demanded.
Riley felt there was a crack. He had to widen it now, but he was not in a hurry. "You were investigating, you say, but why did you make that particular choice? Why Pell?"
"I cannot be in several places at once."
"That's true," Riley conceded. "But we can and that's how we know you were not. Why Pell? Did something happen there? Will something happen there?"
"Are the police questioning everyone who might have been in either of those two places in the last twenty days?" Kerry raised his eyebrows. "What a waste of money."
Perhaps the man was now going to write about their wasting money and not getting any further. That was all fine; they would have the last laugh when they locked him up. "Please answer my question, Mr Kerry. You say you were investigating. Which information led you to go to Pell and why?"
"It was a lucky guess. I looked at the map."
That was no lie. He had done so indeed, but for other purposes. Riley nodded. "So you decided to go there and drive around, because..."
"Because I was curious. I thought it would be spectacular to catch him in the act, you know?"
There was a problem with that. Such an explanation only worked up to a certain point. "But you weren't there on the right day -- the right day according to the routine you discovered -- but before it."
"Well," Kerry said, condescending again. "Obviously I needed some time to familiarise myself with the town. If I hadn't gone there until the right day I wouldn't have known where to look."
The question could not go unasked. "Did you go on the right day?"
"No, I did not."
"Why not?"
"I went there on -- which days did you say again? -- and couldn't make up my mind as to where I should look. I thought I'd put it off and simply ring the superintendent to ask and then to try next time. In the other place, as you pointed out. That would be a sure bet then. As fun as investigating might be, I do have a job and other things that need to get done."
Riley disliked understanding exactly what he meant. The job and other things had also interfered with Clarke's hobby investigation at the Treminster Club. But he did not like seeing eye to eye with this man at all. "So you abandoned your investigation?"
"My livelihood doesn't depend on whether I find killers. I just have to write about you doing so. Or not doing so," Kerry said with a half sneer.
"How fortunate. And did you ring the superintendent? What did that yield?" he asked as if he did not know.
"My conversations with the superintendent are private, unfortunately," Kerry smiled.
Riley could not help himself. "Not much, probably, because I haven't read anything about this case in days." He looked at O'Neill, who had been making notes. "Are we done? Did you have any more questions?" They were not in a hurry. The corpse was already dead anyway. They should not play their cards too soon as long as they had no evidence. More might be won by making the man nervous so he would make mistakes.
O'Neill scratched his head with his pen. "Well, we've cleared up the matter of the car...although why did you never tell your mother about it?"
"Mothers ask too many questions."
Clarke stopped at Roseview Residence to have lunch with her mother, as she often did when she had to be in this area. She picked up her mother and drove to a nice restaurant. Her mother always said it was fine to have lunch at Roseview, but Clarke preferred other surroundings. If she was only here for lunch, she liked her mother to have her to herself.
"How are you feeling? How is that nice young man?" her mother asked.
"He's working." She did not know how he was, but she presumed he was fine. He had been kissed that morning; he had to be fine.
"Have those five days passed?"
"No." Only three had passed. She did not strike them off on her calendar, but she did count them. Two more. She did not want to waste a test -- the box contained two -- by taking it too early. That was not to say she had not been tempted.
"Are you any happier about it yet?"
Clarke studied the menu, as if she ever ordered anything different. "No."
"I'm sorry to hear it. Did you tell him?"
"Do you think he had anything to do with it?" She had not told her mother that, but who else could it have been? Boyfriends were not part of her reputation, certainly not several at once.
"Sweetie, don't be silly."
"All right, he did. I told him on Monday. He thought I shouldn't worry until I knew for certain. At first I thought he didn't care, but now I think he might. But I think he thinks I should take care of it while he works." She was never going to agree to such an unequal arrangement. He should take his share of the responsibility.
"You think he thinks -- so you did not speak about it?"
"A little. He doesn't perceive any problems. Thinks he can father children and then let his mother look after them." She did not know what to do with such a man and she hoped he was not like that, despite what he said that could be interpreted in that vein.
Her mother studied her thoughtfully. "But since you didn't jump at the idea, I gather you'd like to do that yourself?"
"No!" Clarke had never been more misunderstood. She did not mean she wanted to do it herself. There was another option, namely not having a child at all. If one could not or would not take full responsibility, one should not.
"Not you, not his mother. Or are you afraid of what Susannah might say?"
"Why do you mention Susannah?" It was too much of a coincidence, the day after she had visited. This meant that Susannah had been phoning.
"I know how much you look up to her."
"Did she ring you? I'm not going to tell Susannah about this. She already knows something about James and that's enough." She could imagine what her sister would say about children. There was no need to try it.
"What did she say about him?"
"That he was younger and that I worked with him and that he was keeping me at his flat against my will and..." She sighed. She had no idea why her sister had initially got an impression that was so much the opposite of what she had expected. He had appeared so much more like a lover than a captor.
"Maybe Susannah needs to retire," Mrs Clarke said in concern. "She sounds a little overworked. I hope you are not taking her too seriously, Sophia? She's treating you like a child. I suppose that comes of not having any of her own. Although that was not by choice."
Clarke pondered if Susannah could be seen as her mother and her real mother more like a grandmother. In that case James and she both had grandmothers who were eighty-six. But she should not try to adapt reality to make it fit her wishes. She should accept it. Seeing Susannah as her mother did not make her James' age. She was being stupid.
"She may not like the choice you make," her mother warned. "Not that you should care for other people's opinions, but I know you value hers."
Of course she did. It was her elder sister and the one who was in the same line of work. "She would not like me to ruin my career."
"She may not approve of a decision to terminate a pregnancy."
Clarke rolled her eyes, but she had secretly become very confused. "There is some hypocrisy in that, given what she has always told me about my career."
"Susannah phoned me last night," he mother revealed. "To ask me if I had any knowledge of the situation. She mentioned a Detective Chief Inspector something or other, but I told her I only know a Jimmy. I said he had dropped you off and picked you up last weekend and that he was such a nice young man."
"What did she say?" It was always good that Susannah had been told he was a nice young man.
"She asked me to describe him, whereupon she concluded he must be the one she saw. She hadn't remembered his name, although she had looked at his card, she said. What does his father do, she asked, because she may know him."
"I haven't got the foggiest idea. I only know what his mother does and that is treat him like a child." Poor Clarke did not know what to think about Susannah knowing James' father. Generational relationships were horribly messed up in their case. It felt so wrong to have her sister know his father, presumably on a level of equality, and to have her mother be his grandmother's age.
She wanted to ask how she could possibly put a child of her own through the same, but then she realised she would not. Her child would have neither considerably older nor considerably younger half-sisters and if the child married someone his or her own age, there would not be too great a disparity between their parents' ages.
But why was she already thinking of its future when she had not even decided if it was allowed to have one? This was very disconcerting.
"I wonder what he'd do if he found out that his conversations with the superintendent are not as private as he thinks," said O'Neill when they were driving back. "He means to ring her again, too."
"He was waiting for her outside the station yesterday, actually," Riley replied. "She was waiting for me, but I'd sent Lewis to pick her up. He may even have followed them for a while as they drove away, but at least he didn't hear anything from her. That means he still doesn't know why we've kept silent. Although you don't have to be very clever to guess why."
"Wouldn't he know that is because we've found something?"
"I don't doubt he knows we found all three body parts," he agreed. Kerry would know that, since he had planted them. It might not be such a stretch for him to conclude they were keeping silent to see what would happen. "It was interesting how he did not at all try to bring the conversation to the hand he left outside Clarke's building. Of course we had no reason to mention her first and we also didn't ask him to elaborate on his conversations with her, as if we didn't care."
"Maybe he thinks she hasn't been home yet."
"We'll have to wait and see what he does now that we've questioned him." Riley let out a deep sigh when he looked at O'Neill. He had told Clarke that one time that he would rather be in bed with her than O'Neill and they had thought so well in bed. He longed for her now.
"What's the matter?" O'Neill wondered.
"I do my best thinking in bed." He wondered if Clarke was back yet and if they could lie on the couch in her office. It was a poor substitute for a comfortable bed, but better than a chair. But he could not share these thoughts with O'Neill, who would think he was mad.
Riley returned to the case. "Will he be in a hurry to get rid of the remaining parts? Or does he still think he's too clever to be caught?" Had they gone out of the front door while Kerry carried out the frozen body parts out of the back, so to speak? He had not been home, so he could not have done it instantly, but he might do it after work.
O'Neill's mind was on something completely different. "Speaking of beds, will the superintendent stay with you again tonight?"
"Yes." He did not think it was safe for her to be home alone, apart from which he rather liked their being together for some reason. He had yet to be annoyed by something she did and she had not seemed to be annoyed by finding the toilet seat up or the bathroom towels unfolded or something like that. So far they had been living very well together.
"What's it like to live with our boss?"
"My conversations with the superintendent are private," Riley grinned.
"Funny, funny. Should I address the invitations to my wedding to Mr and Mrs Riley?"
He raised his eyebrows. "Do you want to invite my parents?"
O'Neill remained unperturbed. "I was going to invite you and the super separately, but then you won't be seated together. I'm not joking. We're going to send the invitations out this week. Maybe you'd like to be seated together."
He could not say, although he was certain there was not going to be a Mrs Riley soon. "When is the event going to be?"
"November."
Riley guffawed. "Do you have to send them out so far in advance? You can't make the seating arrangements until you know who are coming anyway. Don't seat me with anyone until then. I'll try to come, but my dates tend to get interrupted, you know."
When Riley returned he had O'Neill type up their notes while he went to his office. Not long after arriving there he had a surprising visitor. It was the chief constable. This made a little more sense now that he knew it was Clarke's brother-in-law, certainly after having spoken to Mrs Davenport the day before. He could otherwise not imagine why he should be getting a visit.
"Sir," he said, getting up. He did not want to betray that this was a very inconvenient moment. There were things he needed to think about, but the big boss always took precedence.
"Stay seated," the chief constable gestured. He sat down himself. "My wife told me some things yesterday."
Riley had not doubted that she would tell her husband something or other.
"It appears that Detective Superintendent Clarke was personally threatened. Why was I not notified?"
He had something to say in his defence. "You must know her. She might have personally threatened me if I had done so, because she was not convinced there was anything wrong. Until the hand was delivered to her house she thought I was exaggerating."
"Until the hand was delivered," the chief constable repeated, holding up his hand as if to mark some important point. "I was under the impression that it was all there was, yet you were exaggerating before then?"
"There was a note exactly a week ago. It said: you're next. I took that seriously, in light of my case, and she did not."
"Interesting. That is why some aspects of the story didn't quite make sense to us. How did you handle it?"
Riley wondered if his wife and he had had a long discussion about it. They had certainly done some thinking if they concluded the story did not make complete sense. "I told her she was coming home with me, because the note was delivered to her home address and whoever had sent it, might come in person. She refused. I had no option but to invite myself to her house and stay the night." He gave the chief constable a challenging look.
"Firstly, why did you think a note to Miss Clarke would be connected to your case?"
"I'd rather not take the risk. I was right."
"So you stayed with her. Knowing Miss Clarke," said the chief constable and he cleared his throat. "I cannot imagine that."
"Well..." Riley shrugged. "She pretended that she did not want me there at first, but..."
The chief constable leant forwards. His demeanour was not friendly. "That is exactly what other men have said before you. She pretended she did not want this or that, but she really did. When women say no, they really mean yes. And so forth."
He sat up straight. "What? No! She told me men had fondled her in lifts or something, but you cannot be thinking I -- no."
"Men had fondled her in lifts?"
"I don't know. She didn't want to talk about it." He remembered the chief constable had been in the lift with them when Clarke had looked anxious. "That meeting last week when we were waiting for the lift and you and a few other men joined us, she was anxious and I dropped my papers to ask her why and she told me a little then -- very little. Men in lifts, actually. That was all. I added the fondling because she said it hadn't been that bad."
"You don't think fondling is bad?"
"You seem determined to misunderstand me," Riley said in frustration. "No. She said it was nothing, but I thought it was, so I assumed it was something like fondling."
"I see."
"Was it worse?" He was concerned. Poor Clarke.
"I'm not here to discuss that. I'm here to discuss your behaviour towards Miss Clarke."
"I insisted on staying with her. That is all. She opened the door, said she really didn't want it and let me in." He had grown more frustrated and had no opportunity to vent. This was their big boss. He had to mind his words. "She could have sent me away."
"And that was Wednesday a week ago? She's usually pretty quick to report inappropriate behaviour. Maybe this means she didn't think it very inappropriate then, because I heard nothing," the chief constable mused. "I'm not surprised."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I always thought the two of you worked rather well together. The only department without discord."
"But why --" Riley could not express his confusion at having been treated almost like a criminal when the man had apparently never believed it. If there had been a purpose behind it, it eluded him. Besides, he had not even known he was known to the chief constable.
"Never mind. I heard the killer has a thing for Miss Clarke. Why?"
He had thought about this numerous times and he could explain it well. "He might have known her a little and pegged her as an old spinster -- I don't know how he came to think that, but I suppose he's seen her before since she handles the media -- and thought that by giving her a little attention she would tell him all. He asked her out to dinner and flattered her senseless. He's a journalist, by the way, but I thought he must be the killer because he asked her out."
"Because that makes sense," the chief constable said a little sarcastically.
Riley gave him a brief explanation of why he had thought Kerry was suspicious. "And after he'd been out to dinner with her, even she thought he was suspicious. He really went for the old spinster angle. His assumption was that she was a little desperate and that therefore male attention could make her loose-lipped."
The chief constable looked bemused. "I've never seen anyone less desperate. And how do you know what his assumption was?"
"I overheard some of the things he said. He speculated on whether she had saved herself for a special man."
"Good grief. What is this all about? And in your presence?"
"I was eavesdropping," Riley said unashamedly. "But I thought it a clear indication of how he viewed her and how he meant to make use of it. She didn't even answer him and he still continued to speculate out loud."
"How does this tie in with everything?"
"He's playing a game with us. Dropping body parts here and there. I'm sure he'd think it equally enjoyable to play a game with the superintendent. Through her he could find out how much we knew, because we haven't told the media anything for the last twenty days. He wouldn't get very far wooing me, now would he?"
"I see. But I don't see Miss Clarke agreeing to play such a game."
"Well, I forbade her to go on more dates, not that she wanted to. I just couldn't bear to see that man getting his filthy paws on her." He shuddered. "He was already touching her hands."
"Her hands!" The chief constable was astonished. "She's a big girl and she can probably handle someone touching her hands. I wouldn't interfere in situations outside the workplace, but those inside can get quite nasty."
"Meaning you'd let anyone get their filthy paws on her except me?" Riley asked a little bitterly. There really would not be any nasty situations if he touched her.
"Meaning there's no diplomacy and tact required outside the workplace. A knee in the groin will do."
Riley was the one to be astonished now. He wondered if that was meant seriously. He had not spoken to the chief constable often enough to know anything about the man's sense of humour. Usually he had seen him at meetings, where he had always been very serious.
The chief constable continued. "Kneeing your superiors in the groin is not the way to go, unfortunately, but neither is kneeing your subordinates. Departments must be run without discord."
"I don't know if I ought to be glad to hear that."
"Are you in any danger of being kneed, would you think?"
"No." But he was curious now. "Whom did she knee?" He could imagine Clarke giving someone a knee and he could also imagine the trouble this would have caused if it had been a superior. It would have been her word against his and which superior would admit he had been in the wrong? It might have been difficult to get someone to believe her and to support her.
Clarke came back to find the chief constable talking to Riley. The door was closed, so she could not simply walk in. She did not know what to disturb them with and inconveniently Patterson cornered her as soon as he saw her. By the time she was done with him, the chief constable would be gone and Riley would refuse to tell her what that had been about.
It was a bad consequence of their semi-relationship that she was more interested in personal matters than in Patterson's cases, but she forced herself to listen. After a while it got better and she could be her professional self.
Fortunately Patterson did not stay long. As soon as she could without feeling or looking desperate, she picked up some papers she needed to share with Riley and knocked on his door.
"I have some papers you must look at," she said to Riley, only nodding at her brother-in-law. She stood beside him and dropped them on his desk.
The chief constable observed it all. "It's Miss Clarke who will get a knee in the groin if she gets any closer."
Clarke did not understand the joke, but Riley began to laugh. "I'd never do that," he said.
She supposed she had been too close and she coloured. She had not intended to be demonstrative at all, but it must simply have happened. "Well, I could have folded them into paper planes and thrown them from the doorway, but..."
"Now that you're here, why didn't you believe the threat against you?" the chief constable inquired.
"I don't want to see threats everywhere," she said a little haughtily. "The link at that point was very tenuous."
Riley understood her a little better now. If he had not misunderstood, she had made more than one complaint in the past. Although those had been of a different nature, she would not want to be so paranoid as to complain about something all the time and either she might see herself as such or she feared that others would. "Besides, you didn't know if I wanted anything from you."
She said nothing.
"But you did," said the chief constable to Riley.
"It was divine intervention. All my dates in the last fifteen years got interrupted. I now know why: they were not the superintendent. It's telling that the job interrupted us only once -- while eating, nothing scandalous -- and that we could go to it together." It was amazing how nothing else had interfered. Or had it and had it simply gone unnoticed because he would see her later anyway?
"I hope you don't really believe there's such a thing as divine intervention," Clarke said with a look of disapproval.
"Isn't better than blaming it on my social skills and lack of tact?" She had commented on those herself. He did not mind, because he supposed there was a grain of truth in it, but blaming it on something completely different was nicer.
"May I interrupt?" the chief constable said, getting to his feet. "I'm no longer worried about this situation. At least, not for the time being. The threat, though, still worries me, but if the DCI can promise me he will keep a good eye on you, I'll leave it for the time being as well. One last thing, are you close to solving this case?"
"We know who it is. Now we need to find the rest of the body in his freezer," Riley said cheerfully. "It's a pity I don't think he's keeping it in his own freezer. We may have to place him under surveillance to see if he's got access to other freezers or if he is going to remove it from his own now that we've questioned him."
"I am glad you won't ask me to snoop around in his house," said Clarke.
"You'd only be tempted to tidy up."
Mann and Baker were still busy wrapping up Monday's murder, but Harding, Bradley and Lewis had been making inquiries in Jonathan Kerry's neighbourhood. They brought back an interesting tidbit of information.
There had been a girl who had cleaned a few houses in the neighbourhood. She had been recommended by word of mouth, or by herself, and nobody knew very much about her, except that she was foreign and that she had come over for a few months to earn some money. They only knew she was from Eastern Europe, but not from which country. They called her Kate, but her real name was much longer.
"However," said Harding, "this Kate said goodbye to them on her last day. This was in July. She did not disappear, but she stopped working on the day she said she would. Some even gave her presents."
"So...?" Riley asked. It would have sounded better had she disappeared.
"It's the only woman who was regularly in his house and who is now gone. A foreign girl, who would not be missed here. We assumed she visited Kerry last and then he made her disappear."
"Where was Kate going? Home?"
"One said home, one said a job in another country, but they forgot which."
If she had not been planning to go home, it was no wonder that she had not been reported missing yet. "Where did she live?"
"They don't know. She just went door to door one day to ask if anybody needed a cleaning lady for three months. As one of them said, it was only three months, so they said yes."
"That sounds like the perfect victim to use for such a game," Riley remarked. He could not imagine there would be another. "She could be kept in a freezer without being immediately missed. Who are these people who hired her?"
"Two elderly couples, a middle-aged couple, a single middle-aged woman and Jonathan Kerry -- not all of these were home, by the way. We haven't asked the other people in this street about her. We didn't get the whole picture until we came together again. The only people who mentioned her were the ones she cleaned for. The others may have forgotten about her."
"All right. Go back and find out more about this girl. Did she do one house a day? How much time did she take? Could she have had other houses she worked at? How did she arrive? Bus? On foot? Car? Does anyone remember more about her? Take the photo of the body."
"Sir!" Bradley protested. "We're talking old women here."
"Well, the old men may have noticed whether she was flat-chested or not." He glanced at the photo on the board. Their victim was most definitely not flat-chested. There was little else that was remarkable about the torso.
"One of the old ladies said she came once a week and then cleaned the entire house. She -- the old lady -- was especially glad for her windows being done," Lewis offered. "I didn't write that down, but I remember it now."
"Go back and write all of that down. If she spent the entire week in that street, it's not likely that she also worked elsewhere, although if she came here to make money you never know."
"Do we visit Kerry?" Harding wondered.
Riley thought about that. "Yes. There's no reason to exclude him. He may wonder how we arrived at asking about this Kate -- he will ask you -- but there are numerous ways and they are none of his business at all. I'm interested in his answers."
"All right."
"Go tonight and see if you can catch any of the people who weren't home today. You can do the ones who are home during the day tomorrow, unless you have time and you feel like working late. One of you will do that. The other two will keep an eye on Kerry until he goes to bed. I doubt he'd go anywhere in the middle of the night. Tomorrow morning you'll have a look at six to see if he's up yet. Draw straws."
"At six?" Lewis groaned.
"Five next time, if he turns out to be awake at six."
"Why us?"
"We'll all get our turn, I'm sure. I'm on duty all through the night myself, didn't you know?" he said with a smile. His duty was much more pleasant. "Oh, by the way. Lewis cannot see Kerry on her own. I won't have it."
That there might be a danger had not yet occurred to her, but she now looked relieved. "Thanks."
Riley wondered what he had wanted to do before this new information had come up. Oh yes. He had wanted to think about his conversation with Kerry and about the chief constable's visit. He rubbed his temples as he tried which of the two he could recall first.
Just when he had his mind back to how they had first seen Kerry, Clarke entered. "Oh dear, you look overworked," she said concern.
"I think best lying down, I've realised. May I use your couch?" He wanted to close his eyes and remember if Kerry had looked guilty or surprised.
She looked a little uncertain. "Well, why not, I suppose."
He followed her to her office and lay down. It surprised him that she sat on the edge, which was rather daring at work even if the couch could not be seen from the corridor. She had something to read, but she could easily do that while he was still not speaking.
He could not say for certain which reaction Kerry had displayed when they had asked to talk to him. Surprise, naturally, but he was probably too sure of himself to display any guilt. "Do you know what stance Kerry took?" he asked.
Clarke lowered her papers. Her hand rested nearly on his hair. "No. I forgot you'd gone there. I was thinking of my brother-in-law's comments."
He would have to talk about those later. This came first. "Kerry claims he was investigating in Pell, because he'd looked at the map and thought something might turn up there next on the tenth day."
"Hmm."
"He forgot to take into account that he shouldn't have known there was something in Halburton ten days ago. He should still be thinking there might been something, but we never confirmed it -- and yet he was absolutely certain that this time it would be Pell. He ignored that he should have considered ten days ago a deviation from the routine and that there was no reason to assume the routine was going to be picked up again yesterday."
She moved her hand through his hair.
"I pointed out to him that there would have been two likely candidates on the map, considering the three locations we already had, but that he only went to one. He doesn't know we weren't in Halburton last week anyway, so I could claim we didn't see him. He said he didn't have time to go everywhere and that it was a lucky guess."
"Hmm."
"It's not really anything we didn't already know, is it? But he's starting to make mistakes. I'm wondering how far we should go in provoking him. The last thing I want is for him to bury the remaining parts in the woods. He'd be too clever to have had everything at home and it's not as if he's had to clean up traces of blood. And if it is that Kate, it would only be logical for there to be traces of her in his house, so even that wouldn't be conclusive."
"Which Kate?" Clarke had not been there when they others had reported their findings.
"A foreign girl who cleaned houses in that street. A girl who wouldn't be missed. I've sent them back to ask more about her, because it sounds like the perfect victim. She supposedly went back home to Eastern Europe, or possibly to another country, in July. She said goodbye to her employers, but he could have made her disappear right after that. It would have been perfect. If she was really going to work in another country on her way home, the home front would not have missed her yet. And nobody seems to know her last name or where she stayed while she was here. An untraceable girl who wouldn't be missed."
"Hmm."
"I think a lot better if you respond intelligently."
There was a knock on the door. She shot up and looked a little anxious about being found with a man lying on her couch. "Come in."
It was O'Neill, but he did not look surprised in the least. "I thought you might be here, sir. I typed out my notes and the others'."
Riley had not got up. "Thanks. Give them to the super."
He handed them to her. "Could we send Harding to a writing course? It was very difficult to read."
"You and Harding have to go to a course on sexism first," Clarke snapped. "I was told what you said about me."
"It wasn't half as bad as what he said," O'Neill protested, pointing at Riley. "Yet you love him for it and you hate us."
"Polygamy is forbidden. Dismissed."
"I love you for that," Riley said admiringly when O'Neill had retreated with a flabbergasted look. "And he said you love me."
She was cautious. "I don't think he meant it quite like that."
"I think he does. We can sit together his wedding if we accept the invitation as a couple, he said. He didn't put it like that, but he wondered if he should invite us separately or together."
She wondered if that was a question, but she did not know the answer yet. "I didn't even know he was getting married. You went out with him today. What did he say?"
"That you laughed at a crude joke, but -- come and sit with me." He sat up and patted the couch beside him. They had too much to talk about and too little time to do it.
She obeyed. "I did not laugh at a crude joke. I'd never. I laughed at a slightly inappropriate joke. What did he say about us?" She was a little nervous about that.
"Oh, he tried to get some confirmation from me, but I couldn't give that. I don't know what you think about it."
"Do you know what you think? I thought you just wanted to see where it was going?"
"That may be self-preservation. If people start thinking of us as a couple, maybe they are right." He glanced at O'Neill's notes in her hand. All this seriousness was making him a little nervous. "Maybe you should read those."
After reading Clarke agreed that the mysterious Kate might be their victim, but she did not yet understand why there had to be victim at all. "It doesn't sound as if he had been planning this for months, though. He couldn't have known there would be a perfect girl coming along. I think he must have realised she was perfect and then thought of a plan. But why?"
"Because he's insane? She was there for three months. If she told him straight away that there was no one looking out for her or even that no one knew where she was, he had three months to conceive of a plan. That should have been long enough. Or do you suppose he killed her by accident and then realised it would be easy to keep her in the freezer until he knew what to do with her?"
"I'd prefer the latter, but my preferences rarely make a difference. When in July did she supposedly leave? The torso turned up on the sixth of August. That gave him anything from a month to a few days."
"I hope they will come back with more information tomorrow."
He wondered where the girl had lived and what had happened to her belongings. They could not have vanished into thin air. Undoubtedly she had travelled light, but she must have needed a change of clothes. There would have been a suitcase or similar, already packed or not.
He doubted she had dragged it along when she had said goodbye to everyone. It must have been waiting somewhere. In the room she had been renting -- if she had rented a room -- or in a locker at the station? Or had she brought it to Kerry's house because he had promised to drive her to the train?
But if it was in her room there would have been a problem returning the key. The landlord would have taken action if she had never returned the key. In July there had not been any reports of girls disappearing with keys. They had checked everything that could be remotely related to their case.
Therefore she must already have left her room, house or hotel.
"You know, I had another thing at the Treminster Club this evening, but I don't think I'll go," said Clarke. She had thought about it, but perhaps she preferred a quiet night at home what with all that was happening.
"Again?"
"It's every other Wednesday."
"Why so often?"
"It's a social club most of all."
"Oh. But you're not exceptionally social and you can't be going for the wine. You'd never drink and drive."
Why was she not exceptionally social? Because she worked too much? But she had a very social job. He was right that she would not drive after having drunk, though. "I have a bike."
"A bike!" He had thought she was not going to surprise him so much anymore, but he had been wrong. He could not see her biking to social events in frumpy outfits. "Speaking of tonight, by the way, where in town do they have lockers besides the station?"
"I can't think of anywhere else."
"I'll have a quick look there right now. Are you coming or...?"
"I'll go and see if there's any news on the labels, the bags, that sort of thing. Someone must look at the real evidence."
"They're not that quick," Riley defended himself. "And I hadn't forgotten that. By the way, is that in response to my asking for some real evidence with regard to the Treminster Club?"
She laughed. "I hadn't realised our situations have become reversed."
Before going to the Treminster Club, thereby possibly ensuring they could not go there at all, Riley went to the railway station. After some searching he found a man who was able to open the lockers.
He was only interested in the ones that had been in use since July. Because it was a computer system he expected it was possible to find out if there were any. He had not heard from Bradley or Harding precisely when in July, but there could not be many people having had their luggage in here for that long. It was either one locker or none.
There was one. He felt a thrill. It contained a suitcase and at first glance it held a woman's clothes. He was not going to search through them here and he took it back to the police station. Examining it could wait, although he asked two bored uniformed constables on night shift to look through it for some proof of identity.
Then he went to find Clarke.
She rolled her eyes. "They're so busy! Aren't they always? But at least they made this a priority because I was involved. Threat and hand came from the same sender. The plastic bag contained my neighbour's prints and so did the box. Isn't that unbelievably nosy? The handles of the bag contained smudged prints, but my doorbell contained a good one."
"Brilliant." It made sense: the two girls had been coming nearer and Kerry could not have worn gloves, not in this weather. Riley supposed that the man would have some excuse for having rung Clarke's bell, however. He would mention their personal relationship, no doubt. It made Riley wonder about something. "I hope that's not mine from two weeks ago."
"What would the senior investigator think indeed? Luckily you know him."
He looked a little sheepish. At least she was not mocking him.
"Did you find a suitcase?" she asked.
"I did. I left it downstairs and asked them to see if they could find any clues."
"Wouldn't you have preferred to do that yourself?" She would have.
"There's nothing I could do with a name now anyway," he shrugged. "It would save us time if we came to work tomorrow and we already had a name to work with. Whatever she wore isn't important. Let's be social now. We spend too much time here as it is." He had considered not going because of his parents, but he would not keep Clarke away from her acquaintances, which he supposed she must have there or she would never go.
"I'm not drinking wine."
"That's fine."
"And we know what happened the last time you had wine."
"Yes, it was marvellous." He took care to smile, although he wondered if given her history she had had more problems with it than she let on. "But it was not the wine."
She blushed and pushed him out of her office.
Because the weather was good they decided to walk to the Treminster Club after dinner, but Clarke hesitated by the kitchen drawer before they went. "I wonder if I could do that test now."
"Now?" Riley was astonished. "I thought it was too early."
"Two days, but I'd like to know if I really can't drink, not that I really want to drink, but...you know how it is."
He did not, but he thought it must be a female thing. If she did not really want to drink, why was she wondering if she could? Taking the test too early would not help. He guessed she did not care about drinking at all, but only about knowing if she was pregnant. "If you don't get a result because it's too early, you still won't know."
"I'm not a robot. I'm not perfectly regular and predictable."
"Sometimes you're not predictable at all," he agreed and began to wash the dishes. He had no idea how long testing would take or even what it involved. It was a little strange to be finding himself washing dishes before that was necessary and he wondered if that was all her fault.
Clarke disappeared with a cup. A minute later she returned. "Could you do it?"
He could think of nicer things than messing with a cup of urine, but he read the instructions and followed them. They were to wait three minutes now, so he placed the test where he could see it and continued washing the dishes. Clarke was nearly hiding under the table. He wondered what sort of outcome she would like. When he cast a glance at the test stick something was visible on it already.
He could not take his eyes off it as he tried to predict her reaction. It was unlikely that that second blue line was going to fade away in the next two minutes, since it had not been there in the beginning. It was fainter than the other line, but it was unmistakeably there.
He wondered how he felt about it himself, but for some reason he felt like grinning. That would be very awkward if she was going to cry, so he reined himself in until she had given an indication of her feelings. "Sophia..." The name was still strange, but in this case he felt it should be used.
She did not comment on the use of her name, but she looked up at him with anxious eyes. "Is it done?"
"I think so."
"What does it say?"
He decided not to make her wait. "You're pregnant."
She rested her face on her arms and was silent. He did not think she was crying, because she was silent and motionless, but he had no idea what she was doing instead. Maybe he should do something, but he did not know what.
"Let's walk," she then said and got up. She gave the test a brief look. "We'll talk about it then."
Riley was surprised she took his arm when they came outside. Perhaps incorrectly he interpreted it as a good sign. She had a firm grasp on him, not a desperate one. "I think I like it."
"But it's so --"
"I wonder what a Mini Clarke looks like," he said enthusiastically to see if enthusiasm had any effect on her.
"How can I have a child with you if you think of me as Clarke?" she protested. It was strange, although it was nobody's business what they called each other -- if they were in a relationship, which she supposed they might be. They had kissed that morning and although she did not think he equalled that in itself to a relationship, in combination with the rest of the situation he probably did.
"Now don't draw all kinds of silly things into it. I'm still getting used to thinking of you as Sophia. I can't stay behind if others think of you as the delicious Sophia." It was particularly irksome that creeps like Kerry had no qualms about addressing her in so familiar a manner, but that he still had some problems with it.
"Urgh."
"Would it be more palatable if I called you the deliciously intelligent Sophia when I'm speaking of you professionally and not privately?" He thought she should be at least a little bit flattered by a compliment.
"I'll think about it."
"But maybe I should change my name to James if I'm going to be a father. It sounds more grown up." It would not make a difference to her; she already called him James more often than she called him Jimmy. To him, however, it might make a difference. He did not think of himself as anything, but he generally introduced himself as Jimmy because everyone else used it.
"Remember that I have not yet decided anything." She wanted to keep her options open and, even more important, make her own decisions.
"Oh, you have. You need somebody to love. Two is even better. You won't be able to get rid of it, just as you weren't able to get rid of me when I decided to stay with you." He did not know for certain, but he thought he might be right. She was weaker than she let on.
"Don't be so patronising." She tried to sound sharp, but it would not work. He might be right.
"What are we going to do about the housing situation?"
"Which housing situation?"
"Would the child live with you or would you want me to be involved as well?"
She was a little overwhelmed by the question, but she would never admit to being overwhelmed. "I thought you didn't want to think too far ahead."
"There's no hurry in a relationship, but the child is going to arrive after a certain period of time. We cannot put off thinking about where it's going to live and with whom until it's there."
"That is true." She gave him a sideways glance. He was being very responsible, thinking ahead and making plans, when she had been telling herself he would not. It was a very reassuring thing. "I'll think about it."
At the Treminster Club Riley ran into his father when Clarke was getting them drinks. She had insisted on doing so, because she did not like waiting stupidly, as she put it. When his father joined him he wondered if she had known this was about to happen. But she did not know his father, he thought.
This was not as bad as running into his mother, although she would be nearby. His father was sent over to ask if they were undercover or free to sit at his parents' table. Although Riley contemplated saying he could be free and unwilling, he feared that Clarke might think it impolite to refuse the request. He would certainly not dare to refuse a similar request from her mother or sister.
He waited until she had returned and then put the question to her, but she did not seem to mind. "It was inevitable, I suppose," she said. "We knew they could be here."
"I hope my mother is as nice to you as yours is to me."
"Darling, you have no idea how vexing it can be to have an unconditionally and uncritically nice mother. When I told her I might be pregnant, she said 'that's nice, dear'. I wanted to be interrogated."
She had said darling, even if it had been sarcastically, so he smiled. "My mother can take care of that for you, no doubt. I'll leave it to you to answer any questions that deal with that topic." He had no idea why she had wanted to be interrogated. Perhaps she had wanted to hear she had done right.
"Thank you. I'll nudge you otherwise."
"James, Superintendent," said Mrs Riley when they joined her.
"Sophia," Clarke corrected politely. They sat down and she took care to sit next to Riley. She should start thinking of him as James more often, especially when she was talking to a Riley, a Mrs Riley and a Mr Riley. And they should start thinking of her as Sophia and not as Clarke or Superintendent. At least James had not said ma'am anymore.
"Are you undercover again?"
"No," Clarke replied. "We're here because we have nothing better to do."
"Did your undercover action have any results?"
Clarke gave James a quick glance. It had, but not the type of results to which Mrs Riley was presumably referring, although it was a result Mrs Riley would be a lot more interested in. She did not want to mention it, though.
She settled for giving a simple answer. "Another case interfered, but we may pursue this one in the future." To this James gave an unwilling snort that made her laugh. He might be unwilling, but he was not going to be uncooperative. He would have to come along, whether he liked it or not. She had put off looking for suspicious things tonight, but she had not completely forgotten about it.
"So there's no one chopping up bodies in the kitchen here?" Mr Riley inquired. "What a relief."
She was surprised they knew what James was working on, since her mother never did. Of course her mother lived further away, but she never even asked -- in case she heard something about the realities of life. "I cannot rule that out officially, since we don't know where our body was chopped up, but I think it's highly unlikely."
James' phone began to vibrate and he excused himself. His mother seized the opportunity to broach more personal topics. "I hope you don't mind this impertinent question, but are you close friends with James? James has always hidden his female friends before."
"Because he never had any," Clarke guessed. She was surprised to see his father snorted.
His mother was surprised as well, but at something else. "But he's such a handsome and nice boy."
"That is true and no doubt that is exactly why he hasn't got any problems getting women to go on a first date with him," Clarke speculated out loud. She did not really know how many dates he had had, but more than she had been on in any case. "But he's too tactless to make it to a second date. If he'd tell you he's certainly not going to ring you because his job is more important than you are, would you ring him instead?"
Mrs Riley looked perplexed.
Mr Riley was amused. "But you...?"
"I am his job." She was his job and this seemed a big advantage. Time would tell, of course, but so far it worked. There was so much that did not have to be said -- time that could be employed talking about what they had in common. So far she would call it efficient, although they might end up taking too much work home.
James had always worked a lot. It might be because he always would, because they were understaffed or because he had no private life. She did not know how it was for her, although she imagined she might stop feeling guilty when she went home at the end of the day. The lack of guilt was already creeping in and rationally she knew it was not a bad development.
He tended to stay late at work as well and not because he came in late. That was how she had noticed him. She had not done that with a view to a relationship, although now she wondered what she had been looking for. It could not only have been his dedication to his job that had appealed to her, although it was an excellent cover for good looks, intelligence and a sense of humour. Maybe it had not been her body guiding her at all and maybe she had been half in love with him already.
"But that isn't normal either, is it?" Mrs Riley asked.
"I can handle his occasionally tactless approach. I'm his boss." He knew when to hug her and be kind. She should thank him again for that. Precisely what his mother would think normal was not clear -- something between having many girlfriends and having none at all. She pitied James a little because his mother worried that he was not normal.
Mr Riley joined in again. "They don't all take their colleagues to social events, do they?"
It was nice of James that he was letting her answer questions so he would not say too much, but she was not going to tell his parents about the precise situation. His mother's fears were rather simple, but if his father was going to start interrogating her as well she would refrain from revealing anything altogether. "I have no idea."
She was glad when he returned and she could tell the phone call had been about work, but it was not something as exciting as a full confession. It was something in the moderate range.
James slid into the seat beside her and whispered in her ear. "Kerry offered Harding a glimpse into his freezer."
Clarke raised her eyebrows. That was strange. Why? "Did Harding mention a freezer to him?"
"No. Kerry was simply being annoying. Were we looking for Kate? And we already had an anonymous body? They must be one and the same. Harding said the man made a great show of being excited by the possible connection."
"He took the credit for pointing it out to us, no doubt."
"Could be." Whether Kerry really thought they were incapable or not, he would get some satisfaction from implying they were not. "He then assumed that Harding wanted to look into everyone's freezers, or maybe he just wanted to be annoying. Harding didn't say no to the offer. I'm glad I forbade Lewis to go."
"And now he's off our list because his freezer is clean," Clarke nodded. She approved of his having thought of Lewis. There were people who would not have done the same. "Because we're too stupid to think he might have a freezer elsewhere."
"Cheers," James replied and took a sip of his wine.
She wondered what the wine would do to him today. He had said it was not the wine, but that implied it had been the company instead and the company was still the same. It had made her blush, but she was also relieved that he had a better grip on himself than that. She was not opposed to a repetition, especially now that she was pregnant and nothing had to be avoided anymore, but she would rather not be loved under the influence of wine alone.
"What?" he said to his mother, who was staring. "That was work."
"Do you have to leave now?" Mrs Riley wondered. This had happened before, of course, especially when he had just started out.
"No. I have people doing the work for me now," James replied. "We won't have to leave until Sophia gets tired." He was proud of himself for actually saying Sophia, although it did still sound a little strange. She gave him a frown and he wondered why. She was always the first one to tire, he thought, and he was not saying why. That was good of him.
"It's another day of work tomorrow," said Mr Riley. "We're not staying too late either."
"Oh, you're still working?" Sophia asked a little flatly, but then she looked a little flustered. "Of course you would be. I keep forgetting that my parents were rather old when they had me and that not all parents are my mother's age. I don't mean to imply you look old."
James thought she looked rather interesting when flustered. She did not like thinking she was old, he supposed. If he was not mistaken her mother had been the same age as she was now and he recalled her having spoken of a younger sister as well. Apparently forty-three was not as old as that. It would be pushing his luck pointing that out, because she would suspect him of having plans. He would simply have to keep it in mind for the time being.
She recovered herself. "My eldest sister is much older than I am, for instance. She said she might know you. Susannah Davenport?"
"Yes, I know her. I had no idea that was your sister," Mr Riley said in surprise. "I think I may have told her my son was with the police, but she never said she had a sister in the same force. What a coincidence."
"In the same department, even, although I don't know if you mentioned his. We're not in the habit of speaking of it much. She used to be one of my superiors."
James wondered if it was worse to be the sister or the partner of a boss. "If she hid that relationship, what did she do about her husband? They even have the same last name, something she and you do not." Especially if this had been before Miss Clarke had adopted Mrs Davenport's clothing style their precise relationship might have gone unnoticed. Any contact would be ascribed to their both being female. He would think that perfectly understandable himself.
"They chose to work in different places at some point, but the more family members there are who are with the police, the more difficult it is to avoid them." She smiled.
His eyes widened at the implication. "How many are there?"
"I don't know about my brother-in-law's family, but I think there might be one or two there. In my immediate family there used to be four."
"Your father," he guessed.
She nodded. "It suited me more than becoming a nun, obviously, although I could have chosen something entirely different."
For a while they talked about such choices and then it was suddenly nine o'clock. Although Sophia was not yet yawning, he did not think she should stay up for too long and they still had some distance to walk. "Shall we go?" he suggested, feeling quite responsible and protective.
"All right." She was glad he did not say anything about her condition. He would think it made her more tired or more in need of protection and it probably did. In half an hour she might be longing for her bed and for a comfortable embrace -- or both.
When they came to the door, however, the rain was pouring down. They could either wait or ring for a taxi. Just when James was speculating on how long the shower might last because he did not want to spend any money, his parents came out. Sophia, who did not mind spending money on getting home comfortably and in time, knew how it would go. She ceased her protests.
"Is your car parked at the other end?" asked his mother.
He had no idea what end, but that did not matter. His car was not parked here at all. "At home, actually. We're on foot."
"Oh dear. We'll drop you off. Where to?"
"Er, home. Why?"
"You weren't home every night last week."
He groaned. "That was work. I'd be very grateful if you could drop me off at home right now. Us. I don't think Sophia should get wet."
"And I was planning to go swimming tomorrow morning," Sophia remarked. "What are you going to say to that?"
He was not going to say anything to it at that moment, although he had some nice ideas about her pink bikinis -- which she had probably not brought to his house.
James was glad when his father did not wait until they were inside the building, but drove off regardless of what his mother might be saying to him. Consequently they did not see where Sophia went, although she had not behaved as if she was going anywhere other than upstairs. She waited beside him as he opened the door. "About the swimming -- were you serious?"
She stepped inside and shook the raindrops out of her hair. "I was."
"Oh. As exercise you mean?"
"Yes." She had no access to her fitness machine at his flat and she did not want to forego exercising altogether. If she could be sure of returning to her own flat tomorrow that would not be a problem, but she was not sure when James would think it possible.
"I don't suppose you'd wear the pink thing."
She laughed. "Exercise. We're talking serious exercise here, not parading prettily. Besides, I'm sure you'd be disappointed if you saw me in the pink thing. I look nowhere near as good as you seem to think in it."
James dealt with his slight disappointment as they ascended the stairs. "You'd look marvellous."
She laughed again. "You think everything is marvellous. No wonder you got along with my mother, who thinks everything is nice. I have to tell you, though, that I don't look like a fifteen-year-old living on lettuce, but you probably felt that when you lifted me."
"You felt --"
"-- marvellous?"
"If you insist." He would agree that she neither felt nor looked like a fifteen-year-old living on lettuce, but that did not mean natural and real was not attractive. "But we'd better not take a shower if you want to go swimming. We'd get our swimwear wet."
There had not been any time to discuss anything the night before, because that time had been taken up by other matters, but when James drove her to the pool she realised they still had much to discuss. "Last night I thought it was efficient that you were my job, but now I'm not sure it really is," she mused. "We might not have time for personal matters."
"Just how much time do you really want me to spend on it?" He hoped he was not sounding too frustrated, but he believed they had spent a considerable time on personal matters before going to sleep.
"Oh, that? That was absolutely fine -- unless you're regretting that it never led to anything specific? I was much too tired," she said a little guiltily. "I was talking about talking. I was also too tired for that."
"Absolutely fine?"
"I mean marvellous, of course."
"That's better," he said, but he was not was confident as he sounded. "Seriously? I can't forget what you said before."
Sophia looked out of the window. She was embarrassed now. "Oh, those fifteen seconds. I was really only afraid you were very selfish. I was afraid I'd fallen prey to someone who would then simply move on to the next."
"The next stage? I did."
"The next woman. How could I know?"
"But now you know that I won't, it was not as bad as that?"
"I thought I had already told you it wasn't."
"I like hearing it, because I still haven't had the chance to redeem myself. Not, not, not that I'm waiting for that," he hurried to say. "Or that I could. It's just to explain my feelings on the matter. Maybe I'm afraid I can't."
She chuckled. "I can't either and I'm very sure of that. Don't worry. As for another chance, yesterday I felt I might not be at all opposed to one, but that was before I got so very tired."
James smiled at hearing she was not opposed. "Maybe you shouldn't get up so early, but we'll see how this works out."
After swimming they went directly to work. This was the second time Sophia was coming in with damp hair and people looked less surprised by it already. She had tried the hair dryer, but it only threatened to make her hair unmanageable. Several people were at work already, because they were of course late -- the pool did not open until seven.
"I thought you were always early, sir," said Bradley, who had come in straight from having kept an eye on Kerry's house with Lewis that morning, but contrary to what they had been expecting, DCI Riley had not been at work yet when they got there.
"I had things to do this morning. What did you find?" With one eye he saw Kate's probable suitcase waiting for him, but that could wait a minute.
"He gets up early and then he goes running. We couldn't follow him, but we decided to wait and he came back after about forty-five minutes."
"So you don't know where he went." He was glad that Sophia had wanted to go swimming and not running, and that he had not let her go alone.
"No, but he didn't have anything with him."
"He could have run to his mother's house, taken her car and gone somewhere," James pointed out. "Say it takes ten minutes to run there. That's twenty. Leaves him twenty-five to drive somewhere and back."
Bradley and Lewis said nothing.
"Did he look as if he runs often? In that case the neighbours might not think it unusual for him to be up and about early." It would have been easy for Kerry to run to his mother's house. If he did not always get up at the same time, he could even have got up a little earlier when he needed to drive further. It was very convenient that he had such a habit.
He continued. "Who is to say he didn't run to his mother's house, take her car and possibly a head out of her freezer, drive to the woods and bury it?"
"But we couldn't have driven after him," Bradley protested.
"No, you probably couldn't. Maybe someone could run after him next time?"
"Wouldn't it be easier to keep an eye on his mother's car? I don't assume he'd run around with body parts."
"Check the fastest route between his house and his mother's, both by car and on foot. That'll tell us if we need another team. And now..." He turned towards the suitcase. "I found this suitcase in a locker at the station last night. It was left there in July."
"There is a note on it that says: no clues," Burton supplied most helpfully.
"Oh, isn't that nice. I don't believe it. Even if the clothes don't have labels with her full name and address on them, there should be some clue as to where she is from. I doubt she bought all her toiletries here."
He opened the suitcase and took out the clothes. They were thrown in rather haphazardly, not at all like last night. The two constables would have checked the pockets like he had told them. "I've had them checked, but check all pockets again, Burton."
He picked up a toilet bag himself. "I wonder if they looked in here."
"Oh, are you looking into the suitcase?" asked Sophia, who had just come into the room. "Wait."
James waited until she returned, although he wondered why, but she returned with a pair of gloves. "Why?"
"You need to know this was her stuff, don't you? So far you only think you do."
"Bah," he answered, but he pulled on the gloves anyway. He took out a tube of toothpaste. "Doesn't look foreign."
"Three months. I'm not sure a tube would last that long. She probably bought a new one here."
The next items were a toothbrush and a hairbrush. Then a strip of pills. "Medication?"
"Don't know," said Sophia. "We could send it to the lab."
"It's the pill," said O'Neill. "Isn't it, Lewis?"
James did wisely not react and he did not look at Sophia either. He was inclined to believe them. "And these are --"
"-- wipes for one's glasses, sir," O'Neill said with an audible smirk.
When James shot him a look he was all innocence, however. "Is that why you have to get married, O'Neill?" He pulled out a small bottle of cream of some sort. He could not tell what was written on it. "Which language is this?"
"Polish," said Sophia. "Find some Poles who were here in July."
When James had sent three men out to look for Poles in the hopes that they knew anything about a Kate, Harding was typing out notes and Burton was cataloguing the contents of the suitcase, O'Neill made a comment. "You know, you were right."
"About?"
"About my having to get married."
James frowned. "Er...oh? Your girlfriend is pregnant?"
"Yes. She'll be six months along when we tie the knot." O'Neill looked rather smug for having accomplished that.
James offered his congratulations. He was tempted to say something about himself, but he did not. It occurred to him now that he had a right to feel equally smug. He had accomplished it in one go. In a minute, no less, according to Sophia. Apparently she had timed it; he had not.
"Congratulations. Are you going to stop working?" Lewis demanded in a voice that she could not quite keep congratulatory.
O'Neill frowned. "No, why?"
"You'll probably be promoted to inspector regardless of having a child. Sir." She was nearly in tears, either from sadness or anger.
Both men stared at her. "You know," James said slowly. He had heard similar sentiments before, fairly recently. That was too much of a coincidence. "It's not always good to talk too much to the superintendent."
"I can think for myself and I happen to agree with her," Lewis said with a heightened colour. "And he knew! Or he wouldn't have said it's the pill, isn't it, Lewis? He knew."
"Sorry, what did I know?" O'Neill looked puzzled. He had only said that because he knew she had a boyfriend, so she must be on the pill.
"That I forgot it once!"
"How could I know that!" he cried.
"What happens when you forget it once?" James inquired. It appeared to have terrible consequences, if Lewis was to be believed. "What's the problem here?"
"I forgot it once," Lewis sniffled.
"So you're pregnant as well?" O'Neill wondered.
She said nothing, but collapsed on her desk.
Their conversation had drawn Harding's and Burton's attention and they had approached to offer their congratulations, but this confused them. "What's going on?"
"O'Neill and Lewis are pregnant," James explained. "Separately. But Lewis thinks she will be a DC forever because of it, whereas O'Neill will be promoted to DI instantly. Or something. Judy, you should really talk to the superintendent."
Personally he was glad O'Neill would remain at work. If Sophia and Judy were both going to be out for a long period, he would have trouble enough. He could not replace both. And unfortunately for the ladies' paranoid suspicions, O'Neill was very likely to be promoted soon, because he had passed his inspector's exams, whereas Lewis had not even started studying yet for her sergeant's exams. It had nothing to do with his impending fatherhood, but women were capable of making that the real reason, of course.
"With all due respect, sir," said O'Neill. "The superintendent is hardly going to understand how Lewis could forget the pill or what it means, if she hasn't even got a clue what the pill is for."
"I'm not sending Lewis there to discuss the pill, but to discuss her career and babysitting options," James said patiently. He did not doubt that Sophia knew what the pill was for. She merely did not know what it looked like. "Don't take her approach. Tell her you really want to stay. If you do."
"Ma'am? The DCI sent me to talk to you."
Sophia looked up from her work. Lewis was nearly crying. "Can't he handle it?" But that simple question really set Lewis off, so she relented. Apparently he could not, but she made a note to tell him he ought to be able to do it himself. "All right, come in. What's wrong?"
"I'm pregnant."
She was not surprised. "I thought you might be."
Lewis was confused. She must have been wondering if she was pregnant somehow and the superintendent was obviously very brilliant. "But I don't like it as much as I thought I should now that it's real. And O'Neill, his girlfriend is pregnant and he'll just keep working."
"Is it contagious?"
"That men will keep working?"
Sophia heaved a deep sigh. "No, that everyone is pregnant all of a sudden."
Lewis had no idea, nor did she care. "But what do I do? My boyfriend would be thrilled."
"Boyfriends," Sophia sighed. It was so easy for the boyfriends, although it was nice that they were seemingly all thrilled. Marvellous.
"I am to tell you, sir, that the superintendent has gone to a meeting on youth crime, but it's in this building," Lewis came to tell James. Her eyes were dry, but still red. "And she talked incoherently about children growing up in single-parent families, which should be avoided."
"With the superintendent's genes I'd think it impossible for a child of hers to get involved in youth crime, ever." Although he wondered if that was really true. She had wanted to break into the Treminster Club. There must be some naughtiness in her. But he smiled. If she had said a single-parent family should be avoided, she must be considering a two-parent family. That would coincide exactly with his own ideas.
"Are you better now?" he asked. "We have a case to solve."
"Yes, sir. What would you want me to do? Go on with Kerry's articles?"
"I think that if you're pregnant you shouldn't be given too much hard work, but I don't know when things begin to be hard. I think for the time being it means you won't be the one running after Kerry when he goes running in the morning." He scribbled a note to himself. He would have to look up the precise regulations. He had never worked with pregnant women before.
"I hate running, but I don't feel anything yet."
"You're not tired? The superintendent is." He had no idea if and when they got tired, and if it was the same for everybody.
"I'm younger."
"True." He looked doubtful. Sophia was fitter than Lewis. "I'll have to look it up, but in the meantime I hope you won't take advantage of it. That is, if it is possible for you to do something, do it, whether you like it or not."
"Yes, sir."
"Well..." he said to himself. "I've got Bradley, Ayles and Baker looking for Poles, Harding typing a report, Burton looking through the suitcase. That leaves you, O'Neill and Mann. Why don't you write down Kerry's morning routine for me and then get his bank statements?"
"Yes, sir."
When she was gone he gave a brief thought to Sophia preferring her child to grow up with a father for rational reasons. She was always looking for rational excuses, wasn't she? But he could not think of it for too long. He picked up the phone and inquired if there was any news on the hand. It would not be a priority for them, he suspected. They would think the rest of the body was in no hurry to appear anyway.
At least the effect of phoning was that they promised him the result would come by the end of the afternoon. He did not wonder what sort of result that would be, but in the interest of progressing with his paperwork it was always nice to have that confirmed.
He wondered if it was worth their while to call in the psycho babe now that they had a good suspicion of who the murderer was. Letting her speculate on what Kerry might have done or thought in various stages might lead them to more evidence.
Sophia might even agree with him now. She had disapproved of the psycho babe before she had slept with him. By now she might no longer be worried, although he was rather pleased that she had been worried then. She had asked him on a sort of date and she had been worried about other women. That meant that what had happened had not happened out of the blue.
Besides, it was his case, he thought defiantly. If he thought it might help, he should do it.
James' signature was required and he gave it. It was almost time for lunch after that, but first a woman from HR came by to discuss dates for interviews. HR always pushed for guarantees, but all he could promise was that he would not be on holiday. He did not want them to postpone any interviews, however, because they were understaffed as it was. People from HR could always walk through the building and chat here and there instead of using email, but people here were working hard.
He was still mulling over that when he walked to Sophia's office to pick her up for lunch. So much for his idea that people were working hard. She was on her couch, seemingly asleep.
She opened her eyes when she heard him, though, and she looked guilty. "I was tired."
"I wanted to ask you if you wanted to have lunch."
"I'm more hungry than tired," she decided, sitting up. "Did anything happen while I was away?"
"Not as far as I know." He watched as she tied her hair back. It did not look quite as severe as it usually did, but she had no mirror here. It only made her look tired and he removed the clip. "If you're this tired a few days after conception, how will it be a few months from now?"
"James!" she complained. She took the hair clip from him and wondered what to do with it. He would not have removed it for no reason, so maybe she should not put it back. "It's Thursday. That makes it almost two weeks ago."
"The point still stands that this is a lot closer to conception than to the birth. I don't think it would be applicable in your case to be provided with alternative work, because you're already behind a desk. And you have a couch. What excellent foresight. By the way, I printed out forms for you and Lewis."
She knew what sort of form he was talking about. "I'm not looking forward to filling that in."
"Why? It doesn't even require you to say who the father is. Just your name and when you plan to deliver."
"James. It's not something you can plan. It might be in May or June. Or something." She had to look up how to calculate it. "If I choose to have it -- if I'm not too old to survive it."
He rolled his eyes at this new argument. "Of course you're not too old, but you must take enough rest."
"What would everyone say? I'm sure they thought I was safe. Safe to be promoted and be an example of diversity."
"Well..." James viewed this a lot more brightly. "They could never make me a chief superintendent before you."
"Of course they could. They'd just appoint you elsewhere and leave me here. Would you be so loyal as to decline and say you'd prefer to keep working under your...your...whatever?"
He was not going to react to something that would not happen. "I hope you were not as pessimistic as this to Lewis."
"Of course I was. It's realistic."
"At some point such pessimism becomes unrealistic, I suppose, so is that why she stopped crying? I think you two secretly made an appointment to go shopping for baby clothes." If they had not done that already, he would force them to do so. It would be a very nice therapeutic activity -- for women only, of course. If she wanted to buy toys, he would come along. Not for clothes -- although he still had to take her shopping for clothes for herself.
"Pff."
"I did something you may not like. I called for a forensic psychologist." He had been wondering when to tell her, but he would not be able to be cheerful throughout lunch knowing he had done something she would not like. And she would take him to task for not having informed her right away.
"Your psycho babe?" she asked suspiciously. "I thought you never kept women's phone numbers."
"It's a national police service, darling." He was amazed at how easily that slipped out and at such a good moment too, but he should mind his words in company. "Their number is in the directory. I hope you won't mind if they do send me Dr Tanya Hale."
She did not like women with fancy names like Tanya, especially if they had once been described as babes. "Of course I'd mind. I cannot imagine she'd be of any use."
"The forensic psychologist may be able to draw up a profile and tell us more about how and when he might have come to his deed and what he may have done. It may give us some more ideas on what to look for. I can sift through his bank statements, but..."
"We don't need a psychologist for that."
James was sure she could give him some ideas as well, but she had her job and now she had her fatigue. "I cannot employ you full-time."
"You don't want a psychologist taking all the credit for solving your case," she hissed.
"Not even if he was male?" He was not sure what the problem was precisely.
"No."
"I solve my own cases." A psychologist would be used and then sent away again. He was not worried at all.
"Maybe he'll approach her if we advertise her presence," Sophia mused. "He's bound to have some thoughts about our needing to call in outside help."
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