by J. D. Weston
He had worked with Julios since he was a boy. Julios had mentored him and nurtured his mind into a permanent state of awareness and caution. He trusted nobody but Julios and John, and he trusted the former far more than the latter.
As a young boy, Harvey had taken to Julios’ training well and he had progressed fast. For a teenager, Harvey’s fitness levels had grown so quickly that his body had changed in a matter of months and hadn’t altered much when he hit his twenties, save for the usual signs of maturity.
“So lean and hard,” she said, as her fingers traced his spine, pushing any thoughts of Julios from Harvey’s mind.
Her perfume was sweet yet subtle. He could feel the warmth of her face beside his own and she tugged at his tie, loosening it with one hand, and with what seemed like a practised movement, she slid it from his collar to begin working on his shirt buttons.
“I should…” Harvey began, and made to stand. But her grip was strong, and she pulled him back down.
“Shh. You should do nothing but let me take care of you,” she whispered into his ear.
Her hands grazed the skin on his chest and traced the outline of the tight rows of muscles at his core. Her lips found his neck and she seemed to inhale his smell as she kissed her way along his shoulder.
“Lie down,” she said, her voice soft but commanding, and she applied a little pressure to coerce him forward. He lay on the grass with the sun high in the sky behind the girl so that she was faceless in the silhouette and a halo of light framed her as she straddled him. She opened his shirt further and pulled it apart, seeming to revel in what she saw, and she explored him with inquisitive fingers, then lowered herself down onto him.
The girl knew what she was doing. She clamped her thighs around his to hold him there and to pull him closer, and with every touch of her tongue on Harvey’s chest and neck, she ground herself into him.
Harvey’s hands ran along her bare thighs, feeling the smooth skin and taut muscles. His fingers worked the hem of her dress up to reveal the flesh below. The further he explored, the more frantic her grinding became. She pulled away the straps of her dress and the material fell to her waist. Then she pulled Harvey’s head up to bury his face in her chest.
She began working Harvey’s buckle with her delicate touch, stopping only to squeeze at him through his trousers with feverish fingers, then returning to his belt with little care for delicacy.
The lace thong she wore was thin and tore with a signal tug from Harvey, a move that seemed to excite her even further as she worked him free and lowered herself onto him once more.
It was at that moment, at that point of no return, that their eyes met. She smiled while Harvey bucked and pulled her closer.
It was then that thoughts of anything but the electricity between them fell away and only her perfect body, energy, and lust filled Harvey’s mind.
And it was at that moment of connection, when the two lovers’ bodies met with the summer sun high above and the long grass rolling with the breeze, that in the distance, in some far-off time and world, a single gunshot rang out and echoed through John Cartwright’s estate.
Chapter Fifteen
Beyond a mass of tangled weeds and perennial shrubs, a small patch of lawn grew wild and unkempt. The garden was a stain on the street. A thorn between roses.
The dead-end street was lower class but respectful. Myers was familiar with the types of people who would call it home. The neighbourhood wasn’t full of sponging low-lives; he could see that by the cars and the tended gardens. The saloon cars and hatchbacks were mostly clean and there was an order, as if residents kept up with the Joneses and those that failed to maintain the look and feel of the street were the topic of bitter, over-the-fence discussions.
“I get the feeling the neighbours won’t miss him,” said Myers. He shook his head as a curtain twitched in a house across the street and he released his seat belt.
Fox was ready to go in. They had everything they needed: the warrant from Allenby and Hussein’s keys from the evidence room. But before they went inside, Myers wanted to make sure Fox had recovered from her interview with Jennifer Standing.
In Myers’ opinion, Fox was strong. She would go far. In a few short years, she had made detective sergeant, but for her to progress further, there were a number of firsts she would need to experience. It was those firsts that made or broke careers and her first interview with a victim of a sex attack had revealed far more of her capabilities than he had seen to date.
It was fortunate for all that Jennifer Standing was not interfered with, although she would carry the trauma for the rest of her life. The Jennifer Standing her parents had known and loved was gone. A new Jennifer Standing existed. It was fortunate that Standing hadn’t been killed and that her abductor had. By Fox’s account, she had been close to death. If things had taken a different turn, they might have been searching the woods for her body instead of sitting outside Hussein’s house.
It was a blessing for Fox that she had been exposed to a survivor of such an attack. It was an experience that happened so rarely. What she did with that experience was down to her. Myers imagined that when she got home that evening, she might have a little cry. That would be okay. He’d cried a hundred times as the events of the day accumulated, and the walls of his home had removed the barriers for his emotions.
But there was anger in Fox that Myers was cautious of. Nobody enjoyed cases like the Standing case. Nobody enjoyed having to hear about the ordeal the victims went through. And nobody enjoyed trying to put themselves into the minds of the abductors or rapists.
But that was where Myers differed. That was where he shone. He was able to be that person, think like them, understand their behaviour, and find that motive.
And the motive unlocked doors to success.
Motives told Myers a hundred different things. Guilt alone does not solve a case. You have to see beyond the guilt.
“Shall we?” said Fox, her cool demeanour seeming to rise to the occasion.
Myers studied her for a second, then opened his door.
They entered through the front door with little fuss and stopped inside the hallway. Memories of Myers’ childhood came flooding back to him, spurred by the flock wallpaper and patterned artex ceilings that had browned with time and nicotine. There were a few pairs of shoes with jackets hanging above them and a telephone table with a pile of unopened post upon it. Myers pulled on a pair of latex gloves and flicked through the envelopes, but there was nothing that his own hallway table didn’t have. Gas bills, electricity bills, and a few other franked envelopes.
Beyond the hallway was a galley kitchen. Orange tiles ran across the walls. A free-standing oven was at one end and a small fridge-freezer at the other. It wasn’t an immaculate kitchen, but it certainly wasn’t a hovel. Hussein had taken care of himself more than many bachelors did. There were no crumbs or food on the sideboard and the sink was free of the countless days-old washing up that he’d seen so often in the abodes of social outcasts.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” said Fox, as Myers peered into the fridge. “We know he was guilty, and we have his body.”
“Something,” said Myers. He turned to her and closed the fridge. “Something else. It’ll be here somewhere. Why don’t you take the lounge and I’ll look upstairs?”
Fox sucked in a deep breath and nodded, clearly unsure of what he was looking for. But the truth was that Myers didn’t know himself if he would find anything, or what he might find.
He ventured up the stairs, being careful not to touch the handrail. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom. The clean but tired appearance was continued in the bathroom, featuring an off-green suite. The toilet had a wooden seat and the bath had a makeshift shower curtain that had probably needed replacing five years ago.
There were the usual bathroom accessories: a shaver, a facecloth, and a bar of soap. Nothing fancy. Nothing to say that the guy took care of himself well but enough to say that Husse
in did in fact keep himself clean.
The bath had a line of grime around the edge, but other than that, there was nothing blocking the plug. Myers moved to the master bedroom. The curtains were closed and there was a smell of dirty linen that reminded Myers of the first few months when he and Alison had split, when he had to do his own cleaning. That was before he’d found a routine and before he’d become self-sufficient.
There were dirty clothes on the floor and Myers picked through them to find they were all male clothing. They were the baggy, cotton pyjamas that Pakistani men wore. He’d heard them being called kurtas before. But there was nothing out of the ordinary. He pulled open the wardrobe and found a few items hanging, but not many. A chest of drawers was where Hussein had stored most of his clothes. Creased t-shirts and jeans and old socks and underwear. Myers sifted through them. Despite the cliché that detectives found clues in sock and underwear drawers, people still hid things there. It was something Myers had never understood, as if the suspect thought that nobody would be rude enough to search there. Myers always searched them and had struck gold enough times to carry on searching there.
He moved to the bedside table but disturbed the curtain as he passed. The narrow sliver of light that shone through lit a cloud of dust that seemed to hang in the air.
There were a few crude magazines in the bottom drawer. Nothing sinister or out of the ordinary. Myers had seen worse. He tossed them onto the bed and pulled the drawer out to search the spot that often contained the most gold. The space below the drawers.
But there was nothing save for a few coins of small denomination and a few old tissues that, even with gloves on, Myers didn’t want to touch. He fanned the pages of the dirty magazines and dropped them back in the drawer, then kicked it closed and pulled open the top drawer. He found nothing of any significance. A few coins, an old, cheap watch, pens, and some loose batteries.
He shut the drawer just as Fox called from downstairs.
“Sir, how are you getting on?”
“Nothing earth shattering. How about you?”
Myers glanced under the bed, then stepped out onto the landing and looked down at her.
“Nothing any other young man wouldn’t have in a rented house, sir.”
“Okay, do me a favour and pick up that phone. Tell me if it’s connected.”
She did as he instructed. “It’s working, sir.”
“Good. Call Allenby. Tell her we’re on our way to Hussein’s parents’ house to break the news. There’s nothing here that says Hussein was anything other than a sex-starved loner. I’ll check the spare room and be down in a second.”
He opened the door to the spare room. It was smaller than the master with enough space for a single bed and a small wardrobe. But there was no bed. In its place was a desk with a comfy chair and a computer.
Myers stepped inside. There was something different about the room. The walls had the same yellowed and aged appearance. The ceiling was rippled with artex circles and the pattern of the carpet had faded long ago. The curtains were blackout curtains, thick and dark, and there was a mirror on the wall beside the light switch.
Myers flicked the light on.
It was the tidiest room in the house. There were none of the little keepsakes that people keep on their desks, or even a little monkey pen pot. There was no notepad, no books. Just a chair, a wardrobe, and a computer. He moved the mouse a little, then tapped a few keys on the keyboard, but nothing happened. He dropped to a crouch to see below the desk and found the computer’s power button. The computer jumped into life with a noisy fan. Flashing lights on the rear illuminated the space below the desk enough to see that it was immaculate.
But his thoughts were interrupted by Fox calling up the stairs.
“Sir?”
Fox’s voice was distant but still an interruption to Myers’ thoughts. The scene began to fade away, his imagination letting the trails of possibilities go as if they slipped through his fingers.
The door opened behind him.
“Sir?”
“What?” he snapped, and he turned to see Fox wide-eyed and staring at the room. “Fox? What is so urgent that you keep interrupting me?”
She looked at him, trying to read if he was genuinely angry or if it was a slight falter in his usually calm temperament.
“It’s Allenby, sir. She wants to talk to you.”
He sighed. He hated the interruptions. It took at least five to ten minutes for Myers to get into somebody’s mind. Five to ten minutes of uninterrupted silence and mental freedom. What did the person do when they entered the house? Did they hang their keys up on a hook, or drop them in a pot? Or maybe they threw them on the kitchen work surface? Or simply put them back in their pocket? What was their routine? In fact, did they actually have a routine? Did they drop their clothes on the floor or fold them neatly and put them away? All of these things gave Myers an insight into their minds.
And the interruptions destroyed his empathy. Even more so when it was Allenby who was responsible for the interruptions.
“Ma’am?” he said, when he reached the phone.
“Detective Inspector Myers, Fox tells me you’re in Hussein’s house.”
“That’s right, ma’am.”
“What are you looking for? I didn’t ask you to go there. Did you listen to anything I said this morning?”
Three questions. None of which required an answer. Myers said nothing.
“You’re still trying to find the link to Rashid Al Sheik, aren’t you?”
“I’m just trying to find the killer, ma’am.”
There was a pause and Myers pictured her sitting at her desk, toying with his career with a sickening delight.
“You’re off the case.”
“What?”
“I’m putting you on another case. I’ll find another DI to take over. You can debrief them later.”
“What are you afraid of, ma’am?”
“I’ll remind you who you are speaking to, Detective Inspector Myers.”
“We can’t not investigate just in case Rashid Al Sheik makes a complaint.”
“I cannot have this department tainted with allegations of racism and harassment, Myers. Not while I sit here.”
“Ma’am-”
“Do you have your notebook?”
He sighed and fished his pad from his pocket and clicked open his pen.
“There’s been a shooting. I want you and Fox to attend. Maybe a fresh case will give you some perspective, Detective Inspector Myers.”
Chapter Sixteen
There was screaming. There was chaos. And there was the familiar tone of John’s baritone voice at the centre of it all. Harvey broke free of the orchard and stood looking down at the party from the elevated viewpoint.
The band had stopped and were packing their kit away as fast as they could. The caterers had fled and were huddled behind one of their vans while the wedding organiser tried to calm them down. And cars were being started by husbands who called through open doors to their wives who were running across the lawn with their heels in their hands.
But there were two groups of people who were not running away.
The first were three of John’s men. One had a man pinned to the ground. His knee was pressed into the back of the man’s neck and he had twisted the man’s arms up behind his back. The other two stood close by in case the man on the ground escaped.
The second group of people included Donny, who was being restrained by John while Sergio was on his knees beside a mass of white, blood-stained dress.
Julia.
He searched for Julios and found him standing at the gate checking the passengers in the cars in rapid departure. He waved them through one by one.
The gunman wasn’t alone.
Harvey, with his bird’s-eye view, watched one car join the queue to leave. It was a long, sleek, black Jaguar with dark windows that had been parked at the far end of the row of cars. Even during the chaos, Harvey had not seen anyone
run to it.
The gunman’s driver was waiting in the car.
There were more than twenty cars lined up on the driveway and the Jaguar was somewhere in the middle.
Harvey ran. He called out to Julios but was too far away for him to hear Harvey over the crunch of tyres on the gravel and the rumble of engines.
He tore across the grass and reached the gravel, but there were people everywhere, too lost in their own fears and panic to get out of his way.
A man opened a car door for his wife and was ushering her inside when Harvey collided with him. He stumbled, but regained balance, scanning the cars for the shape of the black Jaguar.
He saw it. It was ten cars back from the gate. He signalled to Julios, but Julios was busy searching the cars.
Without a weapon, Harvey would have to rely on surprise and violence in the hope that Julios would see him. If there was more than one man and they were armed, Harvey would need to act fast. A plan formed in his head as he ran. He ducked behind another queueing car two cars from the Jaguar and slowed. He didn’t want the driver to see him in his mirror. He moved to the next car, annoyed at himself once again for agreeing to wear the suit and not being armed.
A couple hurried past him. The woman was hysterical. She was being comforted by her husband as they moved, and Harvey saw the spatter of blood across her dress, her chest, and her face. The man’s hands were also covered in blood, but the pair appeared to be unhurt.
Harvey glanced over to the small gathering that was huddled around Julia. John was shouting orders at his men who were crowded around the man on the ground, each of them venting their anger at him. Sergio was arguing with the wedding planner, coaxing him away from Julia’s body. And between them, Donny was on his knees, cradling the head of his new wife on his lap.
The beautiful, white dress she had been wearing was soaked in dark, fresh blood and her skin had lost the colour of life.
Harvey steeled himself. He was crouched and holding onto the car beside him, trying to see how many passengers were in the Jaguar through the tinted rear window. But he saw nothing. Along the line of cars, Julios had seen him. He was more than one hundred meters away, but the big man recognised Harvey’s expression and nodded.