James sat on a table to think. If he went to talk to Kerry, it was wise to imagine beforehand which approach would lead to which sort of reaction. So far the man had been annoying and smug. He would continue to be annoying and smug if he continued to think he was too clever for them.
However, Kerry might now be wondering how two policemen had come to be outside his mother's house. What sort of conclusion would he draw from that? Kerry had told them himself that he had used his mother's car to investigate, so in that respect he had no need to think them very clever at all. They had simply followed his hints.
But what would he do if he felt they were closing in on him? Send the rest of the body parts to Sophia's house again? It would be easier if Sophia was not involved. He did not want to endanger her. If he kept a close eye on her she would not come to any physical harm, but he did not think she should be sent any more body parts. There was such a thing as mental harm as well and he agreed with the chief constable that Sophia was more prone to suffering from the latter than from the former.
They had too little to get Kerry yet. His mother's car had been seen and he admitted to having been in Pell days before the leg was found, and he had employed the probable victim, even if some other people had too, and that was as close as they got. They had nothing to link him directly to her disappearance or death yet.
But Kerry could not be that clever and infallible. They would get him on something. They were closing in already. Some good guesses and decisions had been made today.
Three uniformed officers appeared by the door. Two of them were very young and the older one nodded at him and he beckoned for them to come in.
"I'm showing two new probbies around, sir," said the older man.
James noted that the probationers were much impressed with his rank and his sitting on a table without seemingly doing any work. He wondered if in a few weeks they would ask for attachment to this department.
Sophia had disappeared earlier, but she came back to summon Mann for something or other without giving the uniformed visitors a second glance. Then she left again.
"What did I do now?" Mann complained to the rest of the team. "I kept my mouth shut. I never said anything uncomplimentary today."
James beckoned him. "Don't be an idiot. If comments on her appearance are all you're capable of you might be better off in another job."
Mann glared as much as he dared.
James turned to the others. "Someone show our visitors around. I'm going to see if the psychologist has come up with anything yet."
"But sir!" Lewis protested. "I found --"
"I think I know what you found," he smiled. "Why don't you take someone to the shop in question?"
James went to the office they used for outside experts where he had left Dr Hale. She was still reading and occasionally writing something down. "How are you getting on?" he asked.
"It's okay, considering that someone is offering me tea or coffee every five minutes." There were two cups on her desk.
"Some of the other teams," he guessed. He had of course not informed them about her visit and they were probably extremely curious. "That's very welcoming of them."
"You don't have many women here, do you?"
"Four or five, including the office manager."
"That might explain it." She picked up the map he had drawn. "This was the most interesting information, I thought. It summarises the case very nicely. A very well-organised crime. He's in control. This is not the work of someone who killed by accident and who is desperate to get rid of the body. This power game most likely gives him a thrill."
He nodded "He thinks we're incompetent. He is trying to prove something -- that he is more intelligent, maybe. He can follow a predictable pattern and we still can't catch him."
"Yes, I wonder...has he in any way tried to interact? They often do."
"If you've looked at the dates, you will have noticed a gap between the last one and now. What did you think?"
"It's unusual, unless he fell ill or something. But since you said you hadn't given me everything..."
"We've been playing back, because we're not as stupid as he thinks. There was something on day thirty and on day forty, but we've kept silent about it to draw him out."
Dr Hale's eyes widened. "Interesting. What happened?"
"The second foot turned up in Halburton," James pointed at the map. "According to plan -- time, place, and so forth -- but that was before he saw his plans thwarted. Interestingly enough a few days later my boss received a threat in the mail."
"Your boss?" She gestured at the door. "That one?"
James nodded and sat down. "The superintendent. That wasn't all. What precisely can you say about his character and life?" Before he revealed anything about a journalist, she would have to tell him that such a person could be one.
"Narcissistic, I'd say. Thinks he's wonderful."
"And his family life?"
"Very likely single. Problematic relationships now and then maybe."
"Could he be holding a normal job?"
"There are degrees of screwed-upness. Yes, he could even have a normal job and function well in it. Maybe he's even been getting some kicks out of his job until now. Power, fame, a need for admiration -- I doubt he's a street cleaner."
"Journalist?"
"Could be." She looked at him inquiringly. "Any reason you're asking?"
"A day after the foot at Halburton was found, the superintendent was phoned by a journalist who told her that there should have been something the day before, because we probably didn't know about the ten-day intervals yet. He wanted to know what we knew, but she didn't want to tell him anything. I thought it extremely suspicious that he promised not to write anything, but that he asked her out to dinner."
"For a journalist, certainly. Did she go?"
"She did. He was definitely suspicious. He kept flattering her, told her she was beautiful and all that, all in search of information about how much we knew." It was difficult to relate that objectively, considering how jealous he had felt. He kept it short on purpose. "He doesn't seem to think too highly of us and he was either feeling superior by giving us advice or taunting us."
"And he didn't go to dinner because he was simply in love with her?"
"He's in love with himself."
She laughed. "True. But -- I'll take your word for it."
"But I was thinking, if he's out for acclaim, silence would confuse him, wouldn't it? Hence the threat. And ten days later, instead of leaving a hand in Pell --" He pointed at the map. "-- he left a leg there and he left the hand at the superintendent's house. So what do we have here? A double grudge? One against the police who are not playing his game and another against the superintendent who failed to fall for him?"
"I can't add much to that. I don't think you need me here," Dr Hale said humorously.
"That's what the superintendent said too. But what would he do if he's feeling increasingly thwarted? How far would he go if he's already killed once?"
"Since he'll essentially have a fragile self-esteem, he'll have trouble handling things that don't go his way. I can't say how much trouble, but you're right -- he's already killed once."
"Maybe O'Neill should take you instead of me, so you can see him for yourself. It would be a bit much to go there with three people," James mused. And he might not be objective himself, given the threat against Sophia that he perceived.
He called O'Neill to the room and then filled Dr Hale in on everything with regard to Kerry that had happened after Halburton -- Kerry's 'investigations', his having made use of the probable victim as a cleaner, his attitude during interviews. "Are you up to it?"
"Sure," she smiled.
"He's not going to confess. He's going to enjoy it very much if you asked him what he went to investigate, I'm sure," said James. "In which case it couldn't hurt at all to tell him, if he asks, that you're a psychologist we've had to call in because we're not getting any further."
"Why can't we just squeeze him?" O'Neill asked.
"I don't see what good it would do. Uncertainty is confusing. If he knew something for certain, such as that we suspect him, he would adapt his strategy in order to outwit us. If he doesn't know what we know, it's much harder for him to react."
Sophia had seen O'Neill leave with Ms Hale. She was suspicious enough to interrogate James about it, although she was glad James had not gone with her himself. "What are they going to do?"
"They are going to ask Kerry for advice on what to do next," he smiled.
"Is she useful?"
"I don't know yet. She gave me a book and some of these characteristics here suit Kerry, but I doubt she could predict his moves any more than I could, which is really what I needed. Although they have traits in common, none of these people are exactly the same."
"I could have told you that," said Sophia. "In spite of my poor people skills."
"Poor people skills? What's that? Did you have your performance review?" he asked curiously.
"It was my dear brother-in-law's opinion," she said in a scathing tone. Nobody had ever told her this before, although she feared he was right to some extent. "Do I score low on people skills?"
"You may score low on having time for people skills, which I think is something very different. Just think about your octogenarian friends. But your brother-in-law may score low on them himself, considering how needlessly he interrogated us."
"True." John should have known there was no problem at all. She was reassured by James' answer. He was very sweet. "Any other news?"
"I don't know. I just spent some time discussing Kerry and narcissists. People should have gone out to talk to a landlord and a jeweller by now. Maybe I should go out as well, because reading profiles of people with disorders is making me feel edgy."
She took a quick decision. It was good that their visitor was out. She could now do as she liked without worrying what anyone thought of it. "Don't go out. Just close the book. I'm going to lie down. I'm going to transfer my calls to you."
"That's so nice of you. What if they're personal?"
"They won't be. I'll hang a note on my door, telling everyone to see you instead."
The first of Sophia's calls were indeed not personal, but in addition to the transferred calls from her office phone he had been given her mobile to answer. Then Sophia's mother phoned. She was surprised to get him, but she instantly knew who he was. "She's...not available," he said in response to her query.
"Usually she switches her phone off."
"But she has a secretary now."
"I wanted to ask her something, but you may know. Actually it's good that I'm speaking to you and not to her, because she would think I had the day marked on my calendar. Is she pregnant? Oh, don't tell her I asked. She would interpret as pressure to give up her job and become a housewife. I was simply curious. Wait!" she cried. "Don't tell me about Sophia. Tell me about your girlfriend. Is your girlfriend pregnant?"
James laughed. He could not remember if he had been confirmed Sophia's boyfriend. "Yes, my girlfriend is pregnant." He supposed it could do no harm to tell her. She would hear it if he lied anyway. Maybe she knew that Sophia would not have said anything if she had not been almost certain.
"Oh, that is nice. Congratulations," she said warmly. "I hope she's as proud of it as you are."
"Well..." He cleared his throat, feeling a little embarrassed that he had apparently sounded proud. "We still have some work to do there. By the way, would it be all right if I brought her over tomorrow again? It's Friday. I haven't asked her yet, but she will have to comply."
He thought he might like the weekend to himself to do the things he could not do while she was there or while he was staying at her flat. The arrangement had worked well the week before, he believed. Even if she might not want to go an entire weekend now, if she only went on the Saturday that gave him some space to go to the gym.
"And I'm still not to worry or ask?" Sophia's mother asked.
He had forgotten that she had no idea about their case. "If you don't mind. I could tell you, but you may not want to know."
"I don't mind her coming over, but I wish the reason for it were less of a necessity."
James had not chatted too much to Sophia's mother, because Quinn had come over in search of Sophia, who temporarily carried the responsibility for operations. James usually did, but he was busy now with his own case. Thankfully Quinn's cases had been going on for a lot longer than his, so he remembered them well. It did not take long to be filled in on the small things that had happened in the meantime; the large things always made their way to everybody automatically.
"I have to say I was worried at first when she took over from you," said Quinn. "But she knew the ins and outs of my cases in a day."
"I'm glad you didn't suffer from the arrangement," James said dryly. He wondered if Sophia had known the ins and outs before taking over already. She always made sure she was informed.
"Did you? You were sort of back to being one of us."
"Oh, do people think that, because I've temporarily taken on a case of my own?" He was surprised. It had never occurred to him that they might think so. That he would have too much work to do, yes, but nothing about the nature of the work or anything about ceding some responsibilities to his superintendent.
"Some did."
"It's mostly more work, not less, since I've still got most of the paperwork and the meetings. Just not your pressing questions. I'm glad you don't mind asking them of someone else."
"Well, she's not that bad one on one, but I assume you knew that." Quinn gave him a sly look. "And what's with the different clothes?"
"I told her the other stuff was awful."
"Not awful, but this is better. I heard you were out running with her this morning."
He winked. "Yes. She knows the ins and outs of my case too." He did not mind that they gossiped; he might have done it himself as well had he been in their position and it could not be prevented either.
James dealt with Quinn's questions, then with yet another person from HR who came to inform him of the definite interview dates. "You could have emailed," he told her.
"But I love coming to see you, Detective Chief Inspector," she teased.
He rolled his eyes, but he left it at that. A few weeks ago he would have reacted a little more flirtatiously, but it was not only Sophia's fault that he now did not.
Sophia came to see him a short while later. "I thought of something."
"I thought you were resting." He tried not to sound too protective or patronising, but she could not have rested for very long. She looked far too alert. Next time he should perhaps send her home with someone.
"I can't shut off my brain. I thought of something. Lewis mentioned something about a rape case and Kerry writing about it. Does it fit the profile?"
"For him to do that, you mean?" He pondered the notion. He had no idea what Kerry had written about it, but if Lewis had mentioned it to Sophia and Sophia remembered it, there might be something there. It had caught their attention for a reason.
"Shouldn't there be a progression? Who in his right mind would wake up one day and decide to give the police an unsolvable murder case?"
"We're not dealing with someone in his right mind," James pointed out. "But you think he started out small and derived some confidence from that?"
"That would make more sense to me than a murder out of the blue. I'm not going to suspect him of all unsolved crimes in our area, but another look at what he's written about and how wouldn't hurt. Lewis didn't like his tone about that case."
James had not considered reading the articles a priority and he had paid little attention. "Bradley may still be on that, unless he accompanied Lewis to the jeweller's shop."
"I'll talk to him. And to Patterson, who must know who was working on this case. I wish we'd found anything in our case, so we could compare it."
"A fingerprint on your doorbell," James remembered as he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. "I'll have to ask if they compared that to the partial print on the stamp. They probably won't have results on the hairbrush until next week. I used yours this morning," he said meaningfully.
"Oh, brilliant!" Sophia nearly squealed. "If he did the same..."
Of all the people who were out, Lewis returned first. "He bought something at the jeweller's in May," she reported to James. "A silver chain, like this one in their catalogue. Harding went to all the pawn shops to see if it's been offered there."
"Excellent."
"He phoned the others to meet and give them the catalogue, so they could show it to the Poles to see if it was the one they mentioned. I would have phoned it in and gone with him, but your line was always engaged, sir."
"Yes, I had a double dose of phone calls. Good that you're here. You can help Bradley read Kerry's articles again."
"Are we back to that?" She was surprised, thinking that other things had become more important.
"Yes, Superintendent's hunch. But this means the landlord people are not coming back yet," he thought out loud. He wondered if he could safely go to lunch soon or if he was going to miss something important by doing so. He had skipped lunch before, but that was always when he had had something to eat around ten.
He glanced at Lewis, who had done some good work. She must no longer be feeling depressed about being pregnant. "Do you feel better today, Judy?"
"Yes, sir."
"Have you started studying for your sergeant's exams yet?"
She hesitated. "I don't know which sort of answer would look good."
He had no idea what she meant. "Try me."
"I've got the books, but I thought it might be overachieving to really start studying already. Then again, it might be seen as good to be so keen and I figured the knowledge wouldn't hurt me now either."
James laughed at her dilemma. He might have had the same once upon a time. "You'll have plenty of time when you go on leave. You won't be able to get everything done well before then anyway and the passing rate is --"
"-- low, I know." She sighed. "But I don't know if there's any point in studying hard right now if I'm not going to be promoted because I have a baby and they expect I might have some more children in the coming years."
"That's up to you. I think people don't get promoted because their minds are not on the job, not because they happen to have babies." He did think it was more difficult for a woman to keep her mind on the job after she had a baby, but it would not be wise to say so to pregnant women. He would not be surprised if he was right, however. "Go and help Bradley."
When she was gone he wondered about the shift in Sophia's thinking that was already taking place. She consented to taking naps at work, which might be less an attitude shift and more the result of serious fatigue, but it was nevertheless amazing. The next step was really sleeping and not secretly thinking.
It was nearing lunch time and he was hungry. Thankfully Sophia had the same idea and she took him to the canteen. Since she insisted on getting his lunch today, which amused him, he chose a table. She insisted on being equal and fair, but he supposed it really was silly to think she could no longer get her own lunch shortly after conception.
"Your mother phoned," he told her when she joined him.
"Yes, I saw that on the list you made."
He had indeed made a neat list of names and phone numbers, and he had wondered if he should include her mother, but he had done so anyway. He could not avoid the topic. "I told her you were coming over again this weekend."
She pulled a face. "Were you going to ask me?"
"I was going to persuade you to go. Maybe I still need to." She was going to listen to reason eventually, but it might take time.
"Are you coming along?"
"Just to drop you off."
"You need me out of the way," she stated. "What are you going to do?"
"Do my laundry and go to the gym. Really exciting. All this living in two flats means some work is not getting done."
"I know. And at night?"
"You don't have to go two nights. I really only need you out of the way on Saturday," he smiled. "Because I don't think you'd like to wait for me while I'm at the gym. You'd be better off visiting your mother. And because you don't want to go to church with your mother on Sunday morning, I could pick you up again on Saturday night."
"Hmm." Sophia considered it. "I'll go along with that. Did you tell my mother anything about...?"
He did not need her to elaborate. "She asked me if my girlfriend was pregnant."
She was shocked and looked around furtively. "Not so loud! The entire canteen could hear that! But what did you say? And why did she ask?"
"She wanted to ask you, but then she thought you might think it a veiled urge to become a housewife, which you might resent, so she asked me this instead." He grinned at her and then looked more serious. "You know, for a former nun she seems to have remarkably few problems with your getting pregnant by your boyfriend."
"Well, hello! I'm forty-two," Sophia said indignantly. "And keep your voice down! And she is a former nun. I never said she was still religious."
"But she goes to church."
"Well, yes. Because that's a nice outing with coffee. Only it doesn't work that way for me."
He laughed. "Nice. Of course. She said this was nice too. She hoped you were proud of it."
"That was sarcasm, surely?" Sophia looked doubtful. She did not really see how she should be proud of irresponsible behaviour.
"Does your mother do sarcasm?"
"Well, she should. I sometimes suspect or hope she does, because the niceness isn't always logical. But proud of it?" She still looked doubtful.
"You wasted no time when the opportunity was there. You could be proud of your proactive attitude."
She choked on her lunch.
"Think of it. You could have slept on my couch or rung a taxi. Do you wish you had?"
Sophia gave him a long look, which she belatedly realised she should probably not give in a full canteen. "No, I never wish I had."
Baker and Ayles came into the canteen when James and Sophia were on their way out. Curious, they went back with them to hear what they had found. The landlord had rented a room to a girl named Kate for three months. She had given back the key in return for the deposit and then as far as he knew she had then left the country. He did not know anything about her private life.
They had met Harding and then gone back to the Polish painters to show them the necklace in the catalogue. The Poles thought it was the same as Kate had had. That meant Kerry had bought it for her and that he had not told them about this closer connection with his cleaning lady. Why should he have kept silent about that?
And what had happened to O'Neill and Tanya Hale? They were taking very long.
O'Neill and Dr Hale turned out to be back when James returned to the incident room. They had bought a sandwich somewhere and were eating it there, which explained their absence to some extent. "I was wondering what was taking you so long," he greeted them. "Did he have much to say?"
"We've been back for more than half an hour, but there was nobody here," O'Neill answered.
"Well, it's lunchtime. You could have come to find us." Everyone else had, so there might not have been time to talk to them until now anyway, but he did not say so.
O'Neill gave him a shrug. "At least we have a table here. I think we took almost an hour to listen to him," he said, looking at Dr Hale for confirmation. "He was quite chatty and kept evading our questions by asking others back. It's pretty difficult to talk to him."
"But he was charming," James guessed. The temptation of flirting with a female must have been difficult to withstand.
"Yes, quite charming," Dr Hale agreed. "Did his very best to impress me and asked me lots of questions about my job when he found out I wasn't a constable. He was very interested in the fact that you'd called in a forensic psychologist."
"It was the second time that we took him by surprise today," said O'Neill. "He thought he'd dealt with us this morning and he didn't really have a good story ready. Well, he thought he did, but I didn't."
"What did he say? He was investigating in Halburton because last time he went to Pell?" James asked.
"Yup."
"But as far as the public knows, there still hasn't been anything in Pell." Just as with Kerry's previous 'investigations', there should have been two locations to choose from.
O'Neill nodded. "Yes, he caught on to that halfway and then he said that the superintendent had made confidential disclosures about Pell to him."
Sophia made an indignant sound. "I do not make confidential disclosures to a member of the public, least of all to someone I haven't even spoken to." She hoped nobody would think that of her, but fortunately they did not seem to be in any doubt.
"But this is good," James said slowly. "It's practically a confession. Was he thinking you wouldn't check with the superintendent herself?"
"He may have realised later that we could," said Dr Hale. "But I received the impression that he felt cornered and that he was saying something he hadn't thought through properly. He could still say he was bluffing or guessing to gauge our reaction. I wouldn't put it past him, considering the other things he said. There's still room for it too, in his opinion."
"Most of what he says is something we haven't thought of, in his opinion," O'Neill added. "The man has a seriously distorted opinion of us."
That was no news. "Did he mention our victim?"
"Yes, he wondered if we knew if the cleaning lady was the victim yet."
"The cleaning lady?" James said reflectively. "Interesting, because we've just found out he bought her a silver necklace. You'd expect another sort of description of her, unless he paid her for her services in silver."
"He probably thinks we don't know about the necklace," said Sophia. Talking to him was not getting them much further. "What he literally said isn't important. It's how he said it. Tone, expressions, if he bluffed or lied. His literal words are simply going to be evasions. I don't think he's going to slip up with truths."
"I think you're right," said Dr Hale. "I tried to observe him, but he tried to focus on me. He's clever enough not to give us any true facts. He's going to be caught in his own web of lies, though."
"It's a pity we need facts and not lies," Sophia said, getting up impatiently. "It's all very well to know he lied about going to Halburton and to know why he lied, but we need to find the rest of that body and find a link to him. That she was his cleaner and that he gave her a necklace simply isn't enough. What is he going to do next and how could we be there?"
Nobody answered.
"But that's why we have you!" she told Dr Hale. "What's the point --"
"Superintendent," James interrupted her. He thought he might have overstepped the mark with his tone when she glared.
"It disturbs me."
"I apologise, Superintendent."
"Not you!" she exclaimed. "It's Kerry with his insinuations that he's my confidant. What am I to say to him? I'm fairly sure he phoned me today under another name."
"Ruben Cross?" James wondered. "That one sounded fishy. Was quite rude to me as well when I refused to get you on the line." He had made a little note to that effect, but apparently she had thought the non-committal little note equally fishy.
"Yes, though I didn't check. But what do I say to him if he manages to get through? Stop saying you've talked to me? I wonder who else he's said that to. And what else he could say if this case went on for long enough!" She would be visibly pregnant, which she did not yet want to reveal to everybody, but Kerry might use the fact.
"Let's think about what we're going to do next," said James, who thought her little outburst was best addressed in private. "It's Friday afternoon. The only person we really need to talk to still is Kerry, but there's no use in bugging him continuously. What else were we working on? Bradley and Lewis were reading articles. Did you speak to the person who handled the rape case?"
"No, he's not in today. He's on weekend shift this week. But we have the file."
Sophia turned to Tanya Hale. "Could he have started out with a rape or even other offences?"
She looked cautious. "It's possible. Frankly he's a little too old to have started only now. In his forties, I'd say? Usually they're a few years younger when they're triggered."
"Thought so," Sophia said in satisfaction. Perhaps she should settle for having Dr Hale confirm her suspicions rather than having her make predictions. They were all only human, after all.
"We haven't got the manpower to keep an eye on him all weekend," James said regretfully, although he expected he was the only one feeling regretful about that.
"Such overtime is too expensive if it's not absolutely justified," Sophia responded automatically. "It would be 120 hours of overtime pay."
He did not argue with her because he was already thinking of something else. "There's not much more we can do about the victim, except contact Poland."
"I'll do that," Mann offered.
James looked a little surprised, but then he remembered that Sophia had had a word with him.
He hoped that after the weekend he would get some forensic results back. He had said they were a priority because the case was ongoing, but he did not know if that had made any impression or what other cases they were working on. He set his team to work on outstanding tasks and then wanted to do the same, but Tanya Hale came to see him.
"It's Friday," she said. "I'll get a hotel and read those articles this weekend."
"Won't the weekend shift love that," James muttered, but he rather liked the idea. She might be better than Lewis and Bradley when it came to analysing the writer behind the words and during the weekend she would not be disturbed.
"I don't care," she smiled. "I think I should. I'll have plenty of time. Could you get me a visitor pass?"
"Of course." He got up and accompanied her downstairs. "Maybe you should talk to the superintendent," he said when they were on their way back. "About what she should say if he manages to talk to her. I have no idea, but it seems to worry her."
"I thought so too. I'll talk to her, but...she still seems a little sceptic."
"I'm sure you have plenty of experience dealing with sceptics," he smiled.
Sophia was surprised when Tanya Hale knocked on her door. "Yes?"
"You're wondering what to say to Kerry, you said."
"I'm sure I could come up with something," Sophia said when she did not want it to appear as if there was something she could not do. But she could be passive, expectant and evasive, and perhaps not confrontational without ruining it all.
"You don't need a psychologist."
"Certainly not."
"I'm not worried," Dr Hale said with a slight smile. "But the DCI is."
Sophia said nothing. So James had sent the woman here. She did not know whether to feel touched, annoyed or relieved. At any rate, she was going to betray nothing.
"Just how well do you know the man?"
"Which man?" Sophia asked cautiously. She did not want to say too much about James.
"Kerry. Why is he claiming to be your special friend? It's a little peculiar."
"I knew him by sight only. I went to dinner with him to assess how much he knew and how willing he really was not to write anything, because we had just decided not to inform the media of our latest find. I saw it as a working dinner. However, by the time I actually went, the DCI had been trying to persuade me that the man was highly suspicious, so that I was fairly guarded."
"So you don't really know him?"
Sophia shook her head. "That didn't stop him from making many assumptions about me, though." She was not prepared to tell Dr Hale what those assumptions had been exactly. It was none of the girl's business that she had been treated like an old spinster, although it would probably not even surprise Dr Hale.
"It's just -- I don't have good experiences with men whose assumptions I try to correct." Sophia was glad to have pinpointed the cause of her misgivings. "If I spoke up, I'd get the head. I've already got a hand without doing anything." She wished that did not sound so nervous, but it was probably very close to what would really happen. Tanya Hale, as a psychologist or even as another good-looking woman, might know.
Dr Hale took it seriously, at any rate. "Can you avoid him?"
"If I don't answer the phone when he calls and if I don't do media contacts -- which we haven't done for weeks anyway." She would have to look around herself when she left the building as well, but James never let her go alone these days.
James drove Sophia to Roseview Residence after she had packed a bag. He was a little surprised at how resigned she had been to going. She had not said a word in protest. Her mother must be happy to see her so often, he thought. When he had that thought he wondered if he should see his own more often as well, but she still had his father and Sophia's mother did not.
They would have to tell his parents as soon as there was more certainty about the baby. People did not seem to tell others straight away, but he did not know why or when they did. He had no idea when Sophia would need to see a doctor either. Maybe he could look that up if she did not know. But he knew one thing. "I'll come with you when you have to go to the doctor's."
"Thank you. Although I don't feel as stupid and irresponsible anymore." She would at first not have dared to see any doctor, with or without someone to accompany her.
"Thank you."
She turned to study him. "Did you ever?"
"Men don't like to admit those things. Besides, they can't get pregnant -- and it's not my fault that people would call you irresponsible, whereas they'd tell me well done, but whether I think it fair or not, it did play a role in for how long I felt irresponsible."
"And it was marvellous, of course," Sophia said with a long, resigned sigh. James with his unreserved praise was as amusing as it was flattering. She might start to believe it one of these days.
"But if you must know, I am aware of the price you are paying for my...er...pleasure. Whenever I think I should have discussed the options with you beforehand, I can't help but think..." James thought about it. "Well, if I'd lifted you a few more times something would have happened, but I still don't think that would have been a cool discussion about consequences."
"What, you wouldn't have set me on my feet and told me you'd rather do something else elsewhere, but only if we took the proper precautions?"
"You are my boss. No matter how desirable one's boss may be, one does not proposition her in that manner before one is certain of her cooperation. Besides, these things were not on my mind yet at that point. You were still melting."
She believed him. Although he flattered her, it was not to disguise his own faults. It was frighteningly exciting. "I'll make an appointment next week."
"Not on Tuesday. We're interviewing three applicants that afternoon. That is, one of us or both, as work permits. Do your other sisters have children?"
"The other two both do. I have four nephews and nieces from their late teens to their early twenties." She frowned when she found she could not remember instantly how old they were precisely. She hoped her eldest niece was considerably younger than James.
"From their late teens to their early twenties!" James cried. "But one sister is younger than you."
"I'm old," Sophia said dryly. "When I started out my career she started having babies."
James had dropped Sophia off. He had not gone inside with her because he wanted to be home to have dinner at a reasonable time and he told her he would come in to talk to her mother the next day. Besides, he should give them some time to talk about all the developments in Sophia's life together. It was better to see her mother when all that was behind them.
He got something quick to eat, feeling a little guilty about that, and entered his building a little after seven o'clock.
Jonathan Kerry sat on the stairs. He removed a gun from his pocket and waved it around casually. "Hello there, Detective Chief High Potential. You shouldn't have shagged the superintendent."
"Hello dear," her mother greeted Sophia. She was in the garden, of course, although Sophia had looked in her apartment first. "Where's your young man?"
"He went home to eat. I think he might have been dying for some unhealthy food," Sophia answered, although she did not know if that was really true. He had made an effort to cook last week too. "He will come in and talk to you tomorrow."
"Oh, that's nice," her mother said in satisfaction. "He's such a nice young man."
"You think they're all nice."
"No, I don't. This one is, though. He sent you here again. Do you have a tough case?"
Sophia seated herself on the grass by the flowerbed where her mother was working. "He does. Sort of."
"On top of everything."
She knew what that meant. "Right. He told you."
"No, no. You told me first, remember? I merely checked. You would never have told me anything if you hadn't been certain. Or almost certain. You wouldn't have wanted to make me unhappy by denying it the next day. How do you feel about it?"
"Conflicted." That summed it up best. Clearly her mother was not conflicted about it in the least. She pondered the fact that it would make her mother unhappy if she turned out not to be pregnant. That was something she certainly understood, given how she had tentatively felt she might be unhappy herself if it turned out to be a false alarm. Come to think of it, there had not been any alarm at all. To prove her wrong, a bell sounded.
Her mother laid down her gardening tools. "Dinner, I believe. I heard the bell. Come. Why are you conflicted?"
Sophia groaned at having to get up. She had just sat down. "Isn't that obvious?"
She followed her mother from the garden to the lavatories and finally to the restaurant. There were only two people in line in front of them, so it did not take long. She did not have much time to come up with an explanation as to why she felt conflicted.
"You're keeping it, I suppose," said her mother when they had sat down. "Even though you're conflicted. It's exotic food day, I see. Some people will protest. I rather like the variety myself."
Exotic food? Sophia examined the pasta on her plate and wondered if it was the sauce that was exotic. "They should have exotic food days more often."
"There'd be protests. We're old."
"So am I. I really don't know if I should still have a baby." By the time the baby was her age, she would be in such a home living with people who complained about exotic food like macaroni.
"Last chance," her mother said harshly. "But you knew that. I had one when I was your age. She didn't have any defects."
Sophia sighed. "Yes, I know it's my last chance. Our boss doesn't seem to think work will be a problem. John, you know?" It had all sounded very reassuring, but she did not yet know if she could trust in it.
"Susannah doesn't know yet?"
"No." She hoped John had not let anything slip.
"She was here earlier this week," said her mother. "I tried to gauge her thoughts, since she does know about Jimmy. I casually dropped the idea that you might marry Jimmy and have a child."
"Oh, casually." Sophia could not imagine anyone dropping that idea casually. It was pretty ridiculous. "Why should you mention it if it wasn't already happening? It's the absolutely last thing someone my age would do."
"Oh, absolutely. That's why I had to mention it, you see. She wouldn't think of it on her own. Susannah thought I was mad, but I had to say it was Sophia we were talking about."
Sophia felt uncomfortable with that emphasis. "What about me? I'm not particularly prone to marrying and having babies, am I?"
"No, exactly."
"Mum, be clear. Please."
"Oh, Susannah thought you weren't interested in either thing. She thought I was being senile," Mrs Clarke snickered. "Not that I'd know if I was going senile, but I think I'm not."
"Did she say that?" Sophia was appalled. Of course her mother was not Susannah's mother, but she expected a little respect for a stepmother as well.
"No, of course not. I had to point out to her that I couldn't quite see you taking on Jimmy as a casual lover, because that's not what you'd do. You'd want to be involved with him outside the bed as well."
"G-G-G --" Sophia choked with a blush. It was astonishing to hear her mother casually use the words casual lover. Old ladies ought to be shocked and her mother especially.
"Am I wrong?"
"You're eighty-six. You shouldn't be talking about these things." It was fine for other people -- she would not be shocked if she heard them -- but not her mother.
"Well, that's nice. One daughter thinks I'm senile for blabbering about husbands and babies, and the other thinks I'm senile for talking about the opposite." Mrs Clarke raised her eyebrows. "But you're more likely to be too involved than not to be involved at all. That's what I mean."
"Are you calling me a control freak as well?" She supposed she did like to be involved. "But what did Susannah say?"
"She agreed that it would be really nice if you settled for something conventional. She was thinking about your job most of all, of course, but I pointed out that if you worked for your own satisfaction and you got something new to satisfy you, there was no harm done at all."
"It's not as simple as that."
"It's not? Do you think you'd be happier if you retired as chief constable, my dear?"
Sophia gave her an incredulous grimace. "Do you think I'd even be given the chance to become chief constable with a baby?"
"Don't be silly."
"If they had the choice between a man and a woman with a small child, who do you think they'd consider more committed?" She might even have made that choice herself, although she could not say that for certain. Susannah had done her best to influence her.
"My dear, you're long past the worst when it comes to your job. Don't think I know nothing about it. Do you think your father would have married a nun so quickly if he hadn't needed a babysitter?"
Sophia gasped in shock. "But --"
Mrs Clarke looked serene and innocent. "They were thirteen and ten when we met. They needed someone to look after them."
"But he married to have a babysitter?" She was appalled, because her father ought to have married for more admirable reasons and she had never thought he had not. "He married the first single woman he came across?"
"Sweetheart, that's not what I said. Do you think he fell madly in love with the first penguin he saw at the convent and begged her to give up her life to marry him, which she of course did right away because being a wife is a woman's highest calling? The wife of a man who called us penguins?"
"Penguins?" Her mother would probably not like it that she thought that amusing. She could imagine her father saying it too. But then she frowned. Her mother had sounded almost sarcastic and that could not be.
"He did," Mrs Clarke said gravely. "Seriously, my dear, can you see me taking off my habit instantly because of such a comment?"
"I would."
The next morning Sophia and her mother had breakfast at the restaurant, after which they walked into town. Her mother wanted to buy her something, something related to babies she very likely did not yet want to have, but she went along to humour her mother.
"By the way, James wants to be called James now," she said at some point. "Because he is becoming a father, I suppose."
Her mother let out an appreciative sound. "What a sweet boy."
"He's thirty-five, not three."
"He clearly takes you very seriously. Now take his baby seriously and buy something for it."
"What if it goes wrong?" she asked reluctantly.
"It won't go wrong because you bought something."
That was true and she ended up buying more than she would have thought possible. It was good that they took an hour's break to have lunch, or else she would have returned with more than five items. It was a lot and secretly she hoped she would be able to use them. Now that she had given in and made it tangible through her purchases, she would be deeply hurt if it went wrong.
It was almost three o'clock when she phoned James to see if he was ready to come over yet. He did not answer either of his phones and she assumed he was still at the gym.
At half past three she tried again, but there was still no answer. This was a little worrisome, because he had promised to have dinner here. She would have liked him to be about an hour early, but if he was still unavailable and still needed to shower, he might not be able to drive here within the next hour.
Sophia told herself she was silly for about five minutes, because an hour was more than enough to shower and drive off, and then she rang O'Neill to ask him which gym James attended. It was a gamble, but maybe the men discussed these things among themselves. She took care to call him DCI Riley.
"Why?" asked O'Neill when she made him look up the phone number.
"Because he's not answering his phone and I need to know what time he's arriving here, because -- because." There was absolutely no reason to know, she realised, but she needed to know it all the same. "I can't stand not knowing where he is."
O'Neill gave her the number and she called the gym to ask if he was still there. Seemingly they knew him, because they did not even have to look it up. She was told he had not been there all day. They even checked in the computer when she did not believe them. He had not been there today.
"Not?" She was taken aback and she did not know what to think. There was a sudden tightening in her chest and she ignored her mother's questioning looks.
She phoned Lewis because she really could not phone O'Neill again and she had to phone someone. "What could he be doing if he never went to the gym at all? It was the only thing he had planned for the day!"
"I have no idea, ma'am." Lewis did not yet sound convinced that something was amiss, but she was calm and willing to hear her out.
"He wanted to go to the gym today, so he sent me to visit my mother and now I find he didn't go to the gym at all! What happened?" She thought of Tanya Hale, although she did not truly think something had happened in that quarter. "Did he go to work? Did you go there today?"
"I didn't see him there."
"Could you go to his flat for me to see if his car is there? What if he had an accident?" She wondered why she had not thought of that first. No, first she had to worry he might be doing things he did not want to tell her about. She was awful.
"All right, ma'am."
Sophia hung up and bit her lip. After a few moments she became aware of her mother studying her. "He never went to the gym and it's too late to go there still. But if he had an accident, wouldn't they have found his warrant card and informed the station, who would have informed me? I've never not been able to reach him."
"You'll see, he'll be on his way here," her mother said reassuringly.
"But that doesn't explain why he didn't go to the gym!"
"Maybe he didn't feel like it? That he didn't go there doesn't mean he's out with other women."
"I don't think he's out with other women!" she exclaimed, but there was a nagging doubt nevertheless. "I just want to know where he is and that he's all right."
Lewis phoned her back ten minutes later. "His car is here. He doesn't seem to be in, though. He's not answering the doorbell. Hang on."
Sophia heard Lewis speak to someone in the background. The word police was mentioned, but she could not make out the rest. So his car was there, but he was not. That ruled out that he had had an accident on the way.
"Ma'am?" Lewis sounded excited. "The neighbour says a man was waiting for him. She let him in so he could wait in the hall."
"What sort of man? Why didn't you ask?" There had not been enough time to ask for a detailed description or even for more details. What sort of man?
"She has a small child with her. I'm following her upstairs now. I'll ask her more questions in a minute."
Lewis sounded as if she knew what she was doing, but Sophia was too impatient. She could only just stop herself from making unreasonable demands.
"Where are you, ma'am?" Lewis asked.
"In Halburton. I have no car!" she suddenly remembered. She could not even come over if something had happened.
"I need to hang up now, ma'am. I'll phone you again as soon as I know some more."
When Lewis had been silent for five minutes, Sophia could not stand it anymore and she phoned Halburton's police station. She asked for CID and found that a familiar name was in. It was not one of the familiar names she would have liked, however.
"Really," DI Jones answered. "We tend not to respond to such orders from members of the public."
"Would you like me to come over?" Sophia bellowed down the line. "You're still as lazy as when we dealt with that foot."
"Anyone could pass themselves off as you," Jones said slightly apologetically.
"I haven't got the time to discuss that." Sophia glanced at the clock. Lewis should call her back any second and she could not waste time persuading lazy Jones to drive her home. "I need to be picked up as soon as possible. It would only take you an hour."
Lewis called two minutes after she had hung up. "Ma'am, you really need to come home. I think it might have been Kerry and it was last night."
It might have been Kerry and it was last night. These words hit Sophia like a blow. Last night. He had been missing since last night. Was he all right? What had Kerry done to him? These questions raced through her mind while Lewis talked on. She had no idea what Lewis said.
"Look in his flat, Judy," she said, but she did not really want to know what might be found there. Still, it was something that needed to be done and she should be glad she was not the one who had to do it.
"Working on that. I'll call you back as soon as I can." Lewis hung up.
"What happened?" asked Mrs Clarke.
Sophia could not answer when she imagined that the next body parts to be sent to her might belong to James. She could not even cry. There was simply an acute clarity in her mind. Only a tightness in her chest reminded her of the potential tragedy.
She packed her bag and her mother's, ignoring her mother's question. It was simply too much to explain. If she forgot to pack anything Susannah was simply going to have to drive back. "We're going."
Her mother was meek. "If you say so. Where are we going?"
By the time she reached the stairs Sophia was on the phone again, this time to her sister. "Our suspect did something to James. Are you home? I'm going to drop Mum off at your house." She did not wait for objections and ascertained only that her sister was home.
DI Jones drove up after a minute. She did not look pleased, although there was some curiosity in her manner nevertheless. There was even more curiosity when a woman came out of the house Sophia had her drive to. The woman, who looked familiar, escorted Mrs Clarke inside. "That was DCC Davenport," Jones remarked.
"Yes," Sophia said tersely as she got back in the car. She had not wanted to waste too much time talking to her sister and she had only said she was going to sort it out -- which she was. "My sister. Now on to Newbury."
"Your sister?"
"Half sister. In addition to sleeping my way up, I was also helped up by my sister," Sophia said sarcastically. "I'd better say it before you do. By the way, I almost got raped by my direct superior and so I didn't voluntarily sleep my way up. I know you like gossiping, but you've really got your facts wrong." She had not liked that and now that she had the opportunity, she used it.
"Oh." Jones said nothing for a while. "Who?"
"Luke Sandwell."
Jones seemed to gasp for breath.
"What? You can't have a seizure until you've dropped me off," Sophia informed her. Jones would know the man. She was probably shocked that he could have done something so terrible. Alas. Charm often hid a lot.
"He's a piece of scum. He probably didn't tell you he was already involved with one or more other women when he took up with you, did he?" Jones sounded bitter.
"No."
"Well, I experienced nearly the same when I wanted to ditch him because he was cheating on me -- with you."
"Oh." Sophia pondered that. Perhaps that was the explanation for Jones' hostile attitude. The woman thought she had stolen her lover. She had not even known for certain that there was another woman at the same time, only that there was one before, but she was not surprised now that she heard about it. By now it did not matter much anymore, though.
"Did you try to ditch him too?"
"He couldn't get me into bed fast enough, so he thought he'd lend a hand."
"Scumbag," said Jones.
"But speaking of men who can't take no for an answer, our suspect in the body part case has DCI Riley -- since last night. I think it's in part connected to my not falling for him." She shuddered when she thought of what might have happened if she had.
"For the suspect or for Riley?"
"Suspect. Riley is my..." Sophia wondered what she should call him. "I fell for him. I fear the suspect might cut him into pieces and then send me one if we don't stop him. He already sent me the body's hand."
"Eew. The hand? That belonged to the foot down here?"
"Yes." Sophia summarised the case as well as she could. By the time she was done they were on the outskirts of Newbury. It had become a little more than a summary, because it kept her mind off wondering what might be in James' flat.
"Let's cut off some balls," Jones said viciously. "Do you know where to go?"
Sophia reflected that there was nothing more unifying than having a common enemy.
Lewis called her back when they drove into Newbury. "We've searched the DCI's flat, ma'am, and found nothing."
Sophia breathed a relieved sigh. She had been afraid, although it would not have made any sense for Kerry to murder James and leave him in his flat, especially not because a neighbour had let him into the building. It would have been akin to turning himself in at the station.
"We had to wait for some men to open the door. Sorry about that. I can't see if he was in at all, no dishes or anything, but if Kerry was waiting for him downstairs in the hall they may have gone out without ever going up."
"How would he have managed?" Sophia wondered. "I can't see James go with him. Why would he do that?"
"Force? There wasn't anything broken in the hall, but there wasn't much that could be broken in a fight. I'm just on my way to have a look there again."
"Who are those men with you?" she asked when she heard male voices in the background.
"O'Neill and Mann, ma'am. I know they can pick locks, so I called them."
That was good for a start. She wanted many more people to be called, though, and she hoped they were available. "Let them have a look and ask around in the street. You'll go to the station. Where is that psychologist woman?"
"At the station, I think."
"We'll be right there too." She directed Jones to the police station and expected Jones to drive away as soon as she had got out. In fact, she turned to say thanks only to see that Jones was getting out as well. "I thought you were at work. Don't you have to go back?"
"No, I was only there to bother my new flame. He's on a weekend shift."
"Your new flame. You have far too many new flames."
"Never simultaneously," Jones replied with a grin. "But if you don't mind I'm coming along. I'm sort of involved. We found the foot, remember? Besides, some of your people might have lives during the weekend."
Sophia did not know what to say. She took Jones upstairs and found Dr Hale diligently reading digital newspapers. There was a notepad beside her that looked full. "He's got DCI Riley," she said without further ado. "He somehow seems to have abducted him from the hall of his flat."
Dr Hale looked shocked. "When?"
"Last night. We're going to find out where he was taken and then we're going to get him from there," Sophia said bravely. "There are some things we need to do. Check his house. I doubt he'd keep James there, but you never know. If he's not home, check his neighbours, his newspaper. Then we need to find out -- from his mother, maybe -- if he has another place. I want to do this first before we speculate on the why. And it looks as if I'm going to have to start myself."
She was already in the corridor and Hale and Jones had to jog after her. "Give me both your phone numbers. Go to Kerry's house. I'm going to look up his mother's address." She would ask Lewis to drive her there. She had been near it when James and she had been running, but she had forgotten which number it was.
By the time she had found it and she had also copied the phone numbers of the men on James' team on the same piece of paper, Lewis appeared, slightly out of breath. There was no more time to be wasted. "Come, Judy. Drive me to Madeline Kerry's house."
"All right, ma'am." Lewis was glad to be of help, although she had no idea what they were going to do there yet.
While Lewis drove, Sophia started calling the male members of the team. Bradley was out of town, although he offered to come back as soon as he could. Ayles and Burton were sent to provide some assistance to O'Neill and Mann. Baker and Harding were sent to the incident room, something that disappointed them at first. They would rather be part of the action, but Sophia promised them that if they had checked the computer for any incidents or irregularities, they could help out O'Neill and Mann if that was still necessary.
"Do you think his mother knows anything?" Lewis inquired when there was a break.
"She may not know she knows anything. It's her son. I don't expect her to turn him in, but she may be able to help us out."
Lewis parked and they walked to Mrs Kerry's small house. The blue car was there. Hopefully O'Neill and Mann had discovered if Kerry had gone to James' house in his own car or in his mother's car. Someone had to have seen a man force an unwilling person into a car. She could not imagine that this had gone unnoticed.
An elderly woman opened the door. She recognised Lewis, who had been sent to talk to her before, but she looked confused. Sophia showed her warrant card. "May we come in to have a word, Mrs Kerry?"
"Er...do come in. Why would you like a word?"
"We should like to ask you a few questions about your son." She told herself not to be impatient. It might be better to invest some valuable time here and to come out with useful information, than to scare the woman off by striving for efficiency. Innocent chitchat had never been her strong point, however, and she wondered if her brother-in-law had been referring to that.
She wondered if they should have taken the impatient approach in the case in general. It might have prevented James' disappearance. But she told herself this was not a thought she should pursue. They had acted to the best of their abilities and they could not have foreseen he would go for James. With another approach Kerry might have done something else, since they had too little to keep him in custody.
"What did he do?" Madeline Kerry looked worried. "Did he drive too fast?"
"We'd like to know if he has another house or another sort of place where he might stay or store items."
"Like a garage?"
"Yes."
"He sold that a few years ago."
Sophia felt some disappointment. "But nothing else?"
"I think he bought a sort of cabin. A holiday home. He's fixing that up to rent out."
That was better. She could hardly conceal her excitement. "Would you know where that is?"
"Somewhere near Halburton. Exit five and then to the right and then the first lane to the left. There is a sign pointing to stables, but that is further down the lane. His house is the first one you see. Why?"
Sophia was glad Lewis had noted it all down. Mrs Kerry might not want to repeat those directions if she was told why. "And where is your son today?"
"I have no idea."
Outside, Sophia rang Jones even before she got in the car. "How lucky that we have you. We need to head back in the direction of Halburton. Have you found out anything?"
"He's not home. According to his neighbour he left at seven to report on a conference."
"Conferences don't start that early."
"No, they don't. We went to his newspaper's offices and asked what sort of conference that might be, but while it is all day and he is indeed reporting on it, it didn't start until ten. He wouldn't have needed three hours to get there."
"And last night?" She winced when Lewis rounded a corner at full speed.
"The neighbour didn't know. We only asked one, because we thought it might be more important to know where he was right now than to find out the precise hour that he came home last night."
Sophia had to admit that Jones was right. "What time would the conference end?"
"At four. Another reason not to ask every neighbour."
"Where are you?"
"On a square in the centre of town. We don't know what it's called."
"Stay there. We'll pick you up. We'll have to cross town anyway." She put her phone away. Any more calls and she would get a sore arm. "Stop at the market square. There's only one square, isn't there?"
Lewis sped to the market square and stopped just long enough in front of the newspaper's offices to let the other two women into the car.
"Would Halburton police be faster in getting to exit five than Judy?" Sophia wondered out loud. In that case she should maybe send them there already. Would a few minutes matter?
"Exit five is nowhere near Halburton," said Jones. "From our point of view, anyway. We're exit seven. You're exit four."
"I'll just forget that we're pregnant, Judy." Sophia closed her eyes so she would not have to see how wildly they drove.
"I'm pregnant too," Tanya Hale announced from the back seat.
Sophia half turned her head. "Jones? Don't say it." There could not possibly be four pregnant women in the car. Three was already statistically impossible.
"What?" Jones cried. "No way! I've only just got my new flame."
As if that mattered, Sophia thought. She had only had hers for two weeks and she would like to keep him a little longer. A lot longer, if she had any say in things.
"But you're all pregnant?" Jones wondered. "Oh god, the hormones. I'm glad I'm here to keep a cool head."
"I hope you're keeping a cool head, Judy," Sophia said as she braced herself. She thought her head was cool enough. There were sections one could close off in emergencies. Unfortunately that did not apply to the ones that reacted to Lewis' driving. "And steady hands."
"No problem," Lewis grinned. She seemed to be enjoying herself, as much as that was possible under the anxious circumstances.
When they neared the fifth exit, Sophia began to feel more nervous. She did not know what would be in that house, although Kerry himself could not be there yet if he had stayed until the end of the conference. She did not see why he would not. He could not be in a hurry on a Saturday.
Thinking logically, there had not been any time to do anything to James last night. Kerry certainly could not have killed him and cut him up. She assumed this took some time, including the cleaning up. Leaving a dead body to be cut up the next day might make the task harder, as did leaving all the blood overnight. Kerry would be experienced.
She almost trusted they would find James alive, if he was there at all. But it might not be long until Kerry appeared. It was a quarter to five. There were a few useful hours still left in the day and they would have to keep an eye out.
She turned in her seat again and looked at Tanya Hale. It was good that the woman was pregnant by someone else. It made her a lot more likeable. "Why James?"
"He's leading the investigation? And he inspired something in Kerry, although I can't quite pinpoint if it was more than mere dislike. It didn't really strike me as worrisome when we spoke to him." There was a hint of guilt in her voice.
Sophia hesitated. "I'd suggest jealousy, but I don't think Kerry knows about James and me. I have been staying with James and he has been staying with me, but unless Kerry was hiding somewhere when we entered or left the building, I don't see how he could know. He doesn't know what we did inside."
"I think your entering and leaving at the same time would be enough for him to fill in the rest," said Tanya Hale. She did not ask the question, but she looked curious nevertheless.
"James thinks he saw him outside my flat one morning. That was probably not the only time and given that he turned out to know where James lived, he might have been there as well," Sophia speculated. They should have paid more attention, she thought at first, but then she realised they would never have been able to predict this.
Lewis took the exit off the motorway. "To the right," she said, but she had already taken that turn before she finished speaking. "And then the first lane to the left. Maybe I should slow down a little so I don't miss it."
"Good plan. Could anyone look for the name of this road? We might have to send for --" Sophia hoped she would not have to send for very much.
"There's something," Jones pointed. "Between the meadow and the woodland. There's some wooden sign."
Lewis slowed down. "This must be it." She turned onto the unpaved track with enough speed to give all the occupants of the car a thorough shake.
There were two horses some distance ahead. Before they reached them, however, a small house could be seen to the right. It was not too far from the lane to be hidden by the trees, but far enough to enjoy some privacy. The property was surrounded by a low wooden fence that was rotting in places. The gate was closed, so Lewis turned and parked. "They taught us at the course always to park intelligently for s speedy departure," she declared.
Sophia had never taken that course, as far as she could remember, but she was glad someone had. She was too preoccupied with going into that house to consider that they might need to drive off quickly at some point.
She got out of the car and looked at the house. There was no car in sight, but there were tyre marks outside the gate. Someone else had turned here recently. She was no expert in these matters, but there was a difference between Lewis' tracks and the other ones. It could have been Kerry. She opened the gate.
The others followed. "There's no place to hide a car here and it's too far to have come by other means," said Jones. "Your suspect is not going to be here."
"He could be here within the next half hour," Sophia warned. "Someone should keep an eye on the road."
Lewis, who was still bouncing, was too impatient to stand by while Sophia tried the door and she was too respectful to try it for herself. "Shall I walk around the house?"
"Well, the door is locked," Sophia remarked. She had not expected otherwise. "We'll all have to walk around the house to find a way in."
She went left. There was a kitchen window. She peered in and saw nothing. It was too high up to climb through, so she went on. There was someone beside her, but she did not bother to look who it was. When she was peeking in a larger window, there was a cry from the other side of the house. She ran back to the front of the house and then around the other corner.
Lewis pointed to an open window. "She climbed inside," she said excitedly. "He's in here."
Sophia approached carefully. By no means did she want to stumble over her own feet. She was worried, but there was someone inside to have a first look. By the time she reached Lewis she would be told if he was dead or alive and if she could breathe.
Jones said something to Lewis that Lewis had to repeat for the benefit of those outside. "He is unconscious and handcuffed to a bed."
"Unconscious? From what?" Sophia demanded, although she realised they might not be able to give any answer to that. "Help me inside."
As Lewis helped her to climb in, she could see James on the bed. He was undressed and was only wearing his underwear. "Why are his clothes off?" she asked Jones, who was examining the handcuffs. She was glad he had his underwear on, what with all the women climbing in.
"The window was open and he feels cold. It looks as if Kerry wanted him to feel cold," Jones replied.
Sophia got inside and approached the bed. It was a relief that he was alive, but she could not be completely reassured. He was unconscious and she did not yet know why. After a first glance she saw no wounds. When she checked his pulse to be sure, she examined the rest of his body for injuries. There were only bruises. "Could he have passed out from the cold?" she asked uncertainly.
"It's not very cold outside, even at night. He'll only have been chilled. He's not blue."
Sophia did not like the indifferent way Jones dismissed James' coldness, but she supposed only she would really care. He might not be blue, but he was still cold to her touch. She tried to turn him over to look at his back, but that looked normal and so did his head. "Sedated? But how do you get an unconscious man into your car?"
Lewis had lifted Hale in and the latter had gone to the front door to open it. Some conversation in another part of the house could be heard. Jones had left James to Sophia, but there was nothing she could do while he was still attached to the bed, except hold his hand and touch his cheek. She wondered why he was handcuffed. Presumably it was because he was going to wake at some point. Kerry must have given him something that morning.
Just when she was wondering when the effect of that would wear off, he stirred. He even opened his eyes, but they were not very clear. "What happened?" Sophia asked anxiously, but he could not answer her yet. She would hug him, but one of the others might come in. "Jones?" she called.
"Hang on," Jones called back. "I was looking for the key, but -- hang on."
Sophia looked around for his clothes. By the time she had ascertained they were not in the room, Jones returned with a pile of clothes and a triumphant look.
"I have the key. He put everything in the kitchen." She unlocked the handcuffs. "Hey, he's awake."
"He's not reacting to me yet, though." Sophia started to get him into his trousers. It might make him a little warmer. "I hope babies are easier to dress. What are the others doing?"
"They phoned for assistance and they're now searching the house."
"James, help me just a little," Sophia whined, but although his eyes were now open, he was still uncooperative and unresponsive.
Hale appeared in the doorway. Her face had a strange colour. "There's a body in the freezer."
Because Lewis had rung for an ambulance first, it was the first to arrive. Sophia had managed to dress James. She did not think he would like being taken away in his underwear. Even if he might not care, she would. She did not follow him to the hospital. With only one car it was impossible to take the other three women when there was still so much to do here, so she let him go alone. He was in good hands and she would see him later when he was hopefully back to normal. There was nothing she could do until then anyway, but because she felt sorry for him if he was completely alone, she phoned the station and asked them to notify his mother.
Not only did she want to stay involved herself, but Lewis had almost begged her not to leave the case to O'Neill and Mann, since they would not allow her to do anything. Lewis wanted to be a part of everything, except the part that included looking into the freezer. For all her excitement about driving like a madwoman and breaking into houses, she was not yet very fond of dead bodies. The idea alone made her feel sick.
Sophia had not looked into the freezer either -- she had only examined the outside of it -- but she had believed Hale and Jones instantly. Sophia would feel as sick as Lewis, she thought, if she saw the head and imagined it to be that of James. Funnily enough it had only been some minutes after finding him alive that she had begun to feel extremely glad.
Shortly after the ambulance, O'Neill and Mann and the first police car arrived. Sophia was relieved, because she had half expected Kerry to come driving down the lane. She had no idea what he could do to four women, but he would certainly not be able to do anything to five women and three men.
It was possible that Kerry would see the police car from afar and she ordered O'Neill to keep an eye on the beginning of the lane. Should anyone drive in and come out, or at the last moment decide not to drive in, O'Neill could follow that car.
There was no sign of blood anywhere, so the small house probably had to be turned upside down to determine whether anyone had been cut up here. She discussed it with the senior SOCO, but he wanted everything that was not directly related to doing an inventory or to removing and examining the body parts in the freezer to be done the next day. She sighed when she realised he had a point. Traces of blood would not disappear overnight and it might be nearly seven o'clock when the freezer was empty; that was far too late still to start a large job.
Evidently Jonathan Kerry did not think so, because Mann rang her at six to say a red sports car had slowed down as if to turn into the lane, but upon seeing the marked cars and vans, it had sped up and driven on. O'Neill had gone after it in pursuit.
That, at least, was a good thing. Sophia was excited by the fact that the case was nearly at an end. Other cars would help with the chase and Kerry would be forced to stop, whereupon he would be arrested. She expected that it would not take long and then he would be available for questioning.
"Let's go back to the station," she suggested. "We should have something to eat before he's brought in. Jones may want to go home. Although..." Jones had not been half as lazy as the time when the foot was found and they did need both more women and more higher-ranked officers soon. Sophia gave her a calculating look. "You could come along to impress me favourably, given that we have some vacancies coming up."
"I saw a severed head," Hale moaned. "I should like to get myself examined. My blood pressure and my baby's heartbeat. Could we stop at the hospital first?"
"Do I need to do that too?" Lewis asked nervously. "I didn't see the head, but I did feel quite excited all the while."
"I really don't think you could have an emergency examination because you've been excited," Sophia said sarcastically, but by now she was good-humoured enough to indulge many silly requests. Secretly she wondered if Hale had a point.
"Haha, that would be something!" Jones agreed. "Everyone who was excited out of her mind by her new flame in the station canteen could be wasting valuable medical time."
"Oh, don't tell me!" Sophia cried. Perhaps she should not consider Jones for one of her new teams after all.
"No. Sadly. He didn't want to. When do you think your suspect will be brought in?"
Sophia glanced at the car's clock. "There should be time for a quick visit to the hospital. I expect they'll send us away again immediately anyway."
"Would you have time to check me too?" Sophia heard herself ask. They had some time to waste, she told herself, because Mann had not phoned her yet and James had not answered his phone before they had gone in. She might as well see if she was in good health.
"And me?" Lewis piped up.
By the time all the pregnant ladies had been examined -- something that DI Jones had observed with interest and no envy whatsoever -- it was almost half past seven and Sophia found that Mann had phoned her in the meantime.
"Ah, there you are. Were you with the DCI?" Mann inquired when she phoned back.
"Er, no. What happened?" she asked anxiously. She should not have been so selfish, but she should have been with James or waiting for phone calls, but it had not taken that long, had it? Apparently it had taken longer than she had thought. "Did you get him?"
"He took care of himself. Kerry did."
"What do you mean?"
"He had an accident. He's dead."
"You cannot be serious!" Sophia cried. That was not a possibility she had counted on at all. She had thought there were only two options: they would lose him or they would catch him. Nothing else. This was awful. He was dead. "But the case!" The case was dead now too.
"It closes the case, doesn't it?"
"But -- no! I have questions!" she shouted down the line. Why had he done it? How had he done it? There were questions that would never be answered. "One of us should have killed him. That would have made us feel much better."
The others agreed when she told them and there was disbelief in their faces at first.
Sophia even vented some of her frustration by phoning her brother-in-law to inform him of this unhappy ending. He would have to be told sooner or later, even if her mother had not been there.
She inhaled deeply as Lewis dropped everyone off at the police station. They were not going to be questioning Kerry and they could all go home. It was not Kerry's death she cared about, but the way he had prevented them from getting their hands on him, however unintentionally. It was such an anti-climax that she did not really know what to feel. There was relief, but there was no satisfaction. She could go home safely, but she would be feeling empty and dissatisfied. After a moment she wondered why. They had found out it was Kerry and they had found James. Even if they were never to find out about his motives, they had that at least.
James had been saved. She was happy about that, was she not?
Jones and Hale drove off in their own cars while she tried to get hold of James. She was unable to speak when she heard his voice. Of course she had rung him to be able to speak to him, but hearing he had recovered well enough to speak was surprisingly good.
"Sophia?" he asked in concern.
"Yes," she croaked. She should have gone to see him. She should not have spent any time on the blasted case, because that piece of scum Kerry had managed to make all her efforts useless by driving into a tree or whatever he had driven into. It was not fair.
"Are you all right?"
It was ironic that he should be the one to ask her that, given what had happened. He sounded concerned, but not as if he was completely recovered. "Are you?" she asked.
"Are you?"
"Only physically. Where are you?"
"My mother is taking me home. We're in the car." He gave her the address, but he did not say much else. Either he was still a little unwell, or his mother was listening.
She had Lewis drop her off there, without stopping at her flat to pick anything up.
James' mother answered the door. "Hello. Come in, Superintendent."
"Sophia. I'm sorry I couldn't personally go with him, but the case..." She handed her coat to James' mother. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have cared about the case. It certainly didn't care about me. How is he? Is he all right?" She supposed he was, if he was sent home, although he had not been well enough to go home alone.
"He wasn't feeling well enough to go home. He was very glad you called back, because he was worried when he couldn't reach you."
"We were at the hospital." She had had a fleeting thought about trying to find James, but the place was huge. "And when I came out I had to phone some people first."
"Were you hurt?"
"No, we were all fine." She was not ready tell James' mother what they had been doing there.
She was shown into the living room. James and his father were there, but the latter got up. He greeted her and then left the room. She was happy for the privacy, because it meant she could embrace James the way she liked -- thoroughly, silently and with a few tears. He had almost been killed. She was happy to see him, but she was not as happy with some of the news she had to tell him.
"What were you doing?" he asked. "You didn't come with me." It had registered somehow, although not much else had.
"No, I -- would you have wanted me to? I'm sorry. We had all four come in one car and I'm not good at playing wife with everyone looking on. Besides, the only other officer was Lewis. I couldn't have left her there to deal with it on her own. There were body parts in the freezer that needed to be taken out and I really didn't know if backup was going to be there before Kerry was. Because he did come." She paused to breathe. Explaining it had not dispelled her guilt. "Besides, you weren't capable of telling me anything yet anyway, so I thought I'd handle my business while you were still recovering."
"Efficient as ever," James said with a faint smile.
"But I had them notify your mother so you wouldn't be alone."
"I wondered who'd done that. Do you think you would have needed to play wife?" He rather liked the idea of Sophia playing wife. It was not too late. He was not yet fully recovered and she could still be nice to him. As much as he would have liked her to be by his bedside, he knew full well she had had a job to do. She would not be Sophia if she abandoned it to sit by his bed.
"They would have expected me to, but I'm really not very good at it. I feel rather useless holding the hand of an unconscious man." Perhaps it was something she would still learn. Perhaps she would never learn. At any rate, it had little to do with how she felt.
He laughed briefly, but then he turned serious. "But you say Kerry came."
"Yes, he approached, but when he saw all the cars parked in the lane he drove away. I had O'Neill chase him and -- I still don't understand this -- apparently he was killed in an accident. How could he do that to us? Now we'll never know the answers to some questions." Her indignation and frustration returned again in full force. She had been ready to kill the man for killing himself, accident or not, and Jones had still wanted to cut off his balls, dead or not.
"Good riddance, I say, but yes, I know what you mean. How do you think I feel, being unable to close my case because I was tied up?"
"How on earth did you end up handcuffed to a bed?" Sophia asked almost angrily.
"I'm not Superman," James said regretfully. "I'm sorry. He told me I shouldn't have shagged the superintendent, so I told him I hadn't, but that I'd had marvellous --"
Sophia placed a hand over his mouth. "You would have got yourself killed, but you would have had the last word. Men! Say no more. It would only aggravate me."
"Yes, Superwoman," James said meekly. "But I'm ever so glad you came to my rescue. How did you know where I was?"
She explained it to him and he realised one important thing when her explanation drew to a close. "Mum!" he called.
His mother appeared.
"Sophia hasn't had dinner yet."
"But --" said Sophia, who had disentangled herself when he started calling for his mother. "There's no need --"
"You must eat," James told her. "Will you make us something, Mum?" He had not been hungry before, but he would like something now.
"Of course. I'll heat up some leftovers."
"You have to eat," he said to Sophia when his mother had gone into the kitchen. His father returned to the room immediately, assuming that they had had enough privacy.
"I hadn't yet told you that I had myself examined as well," Sophia said in a low voice when his father resumed his seat. She had only mentioned Tanya. "My blood pressure and all that were fine, in spite of all the stress."
"But...?"
"It's horrible. There were two." She had been absolutely shocked and she had fainted. Of course she had been hungry and that might explain it to some extent, but she had been so shocked. It had been even worse than waking up beside James and realising what had happened a few hours before. Just as then, she had been conflicted by liking certain aspects of the situation as well, which only made it worse.
James stared and began to grin. "Two?"
"What am I going to do with two? I'd imagined smuggling one into my office unnoticed, but two?"
The expression of distress on her face was absolutely priceless. James also loved her intention to bring her baby secretly to work. He wondered if it was feasible. "I don't think even one could go unnoticed."
"But I can't even carry two."
"Two what?" James' father said curiously from behind his book.
"Two --" Sophia searched for words. How did one break the news without feeling too self-conscious? "Mini Rileys."
"What's a Mini Riley?"
She slumped back against the couch in dismay when he did not understand her. "I hope they're not boys. Men!"
Mr Riley raised a questioning eyebrow at his son, who was still beaming.
Sophia got up and let James explain it. She joined Mrs Riley in the kitchen. "Could I help you with anything?"
"You could tell me what you'd like to eat." She took a few containers out of the freezer and showed them.
It had surprised Mrs Riley that James had said Sophia was staying too, but she had not objected to it. She had shown them to a room with a bed with huge pillows and a pile of towels, pyjamas, bathrobes and other things they might need. James and she even had their own bathroom. Sophia was impressed by it all.
"But if she was surprised I am staying, doesn't she know?" she wondered.
James did not know what she was supposed to know. It had not crossed his mind to give that any thought. "I didn't tell her anything."
"But you told your father."
"Not really. I don't know if he understood."
Men were unbelievable. What else could Mini Rileys be? She swung her legs out of the bed and grabbed one of the bathrobes. "I'll tell them. I'll be right back."
"Don't you want to wait a few weeks?"
"I need to know if she'll babysit." It would relieve some of her worries if she knew. If she had thought one baby a problem before, two posed an absolutely insurmountable one.
James shook his head and resisted the urge to get out of bed to eavesdrop. He was curious, particularly when she returned after a mere five minutes. That could not have been long enough to talk it over. "What did they say?"
"They nearly keeled over in shock." She got back into bed and moved close. "Oh dear! James! Getting your boss pregnant! Getting anybody pregnant at all! And not being in a relationship!"
James snorted. "But I am!"
"Be fair, you told them very recently that you weren't. Of course she's worried. She probably thought I'd take off with my children when I got tired of my toyboy, but I assured her I wouldn't. I'm not very good at the rest, though, so I asked her if she would consider babysitting once in a while, should everything go well. She'd consider it."
Mrs Riley had been cautious and polite, but Sophia did not doubt that she would like it. There was a certain way her eyes had lit up when the news had sunk in. This was a relief. The coming months would be easier knowing they were not on their own.
But she had got the critical attitude that she had been wishing from her mother, although it had been polite and she feared that Mrs Riley was a little afraid of her. Perhaps she liked an uncritical attitude better, because there was no need to defend herself there. She was a fool who did not know what she wanted. Other people's opinions did not even matter -- only that of James and he had grinned.
"What's the rest you're not good at?" He got some idea from her grimace. That was something about him.
"Assuring them that I love you. I'm not even good at assuring you, because I did hold your hand very lovingly and all you remember is that I didn't stay with you." She looked sad. "Next time I'll stay with you. The job doesn't pay back, does it?"
"I hope," James said carefully, "that you're not thinking I'll get myself into such scrapes a lot."
"I can't give up work in case you do, but next time -- oh, we'd be married by then, so what should I care about people's opinions? I'm sure it will be easier. I'll stay with you."
"Married?" James chuckled. "I hope you don't think my parents would insist."
"I insist."
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