Grind Their Bones

by Cross, Drew

  His voice had risen dramatically in volume and he was now visibly in a rage. I stood up to leave, aware that my welcome had been well and truly outstayed and trying unsuccessfully to keep my own quick temper under wraps.

  'Your wife assured me that you'd have no problem in assisting a police officer who was following up on their hunch, Doctor Hardwick, and it was not my intention to insult or demean. But I have to say that your behaviour gives me pause for thought. Just why exactly are you selling your house?'

  I opened the door and stood my ground, fixing him with a level stare.

  'Show yourself out before you cross another line with me, woman. I'll be speaking to Fred Russell before you're off the driveway and you’ll be directing traffic by morning.'

  Chapter 15

  'I don't know what it is yet, but there's something wrong with Hardwick, and I'm going to find out exactly what that is.'

  I stuffed home-made basil and sundried tomato pesto mixed with cubes of tangy feta into the cavity of a plump chicken breast with more force than was strictly necessary, while Lee took care of the salad.

  'Hey there Blondie, don't take it out on dinner or we'll prove Hallie right about your lack of cooking prowess.'

  He rinsed his hands under the tap and dried them on a tea towel before wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his head over my shoulder to watch me work. He'd saved the day by remembering the dinner party that I was supposed to be throwing for my best friend and her husband tonight, and had turned up with bags of food and alcohol and a set of favourite recipes for us to construct together. If I hadn't been so pissed at the dressing down that had greeted me when I'd arrived back at headquarters following my meeting with the Doctor, then I'd have been overwhelmed with gratitude.

  'Russell didn't even have the good grace to do it privately, so now everybody knows that I screwed up.'

  I pulled an exaggeratedly unhappy face and he kissed me on the cheek, smoothing back stray tendrils of my hair.

  'Here, let me take over with this and you can have a glass of wine while you watch.'

  He let go of me and retrieved a bottle of Argentinian Malbec from one of the bags, pouring me a half glass and then rolling up his sleeves to deal with the rest of dinner.

  'You should have taken me with you today, you know?'

  He slit an incision in a fresh piece of chicken and widened it out with his finger, expertly forming a pocket for more of the fragrant filling. His voice was soft and impassive, but he has a habit of pointedly not looking at you while he talks when he's emotional about something, and he was using the task to hide that fact. I'd been so consumed by my dissatisfaction that I'd gone to run my errand without even thinking about asking him to back me up; now he was hurt.

  'I'm sorry. I guess I didn't want to drag you into something that was just based on a niggling doubt. I didn't think for a minute that it was going to go anywhere and I was right.'

  I took a mouthful of the wine and let it wash around my mouth before I swallowed it, watching his lack of reaction and trying hard to read his mind.

  'You've been around me long enough to know that I don't make any unnecessary demands of you, Zara. Even though I sometimes might want to.'

  He looked up and smiled at me with a hint of sadness in his baby blue eyes.

  'But I'm going to make a demand of you right now. I need you to promise me that you'll include me at all levels of this investigation. That means mundane door to door crap, crazy hunches and wild goose chases too. We might not yet know much about this one, but from what we do know, he feels enough of an affinity for you to take the time to find out your name and write to you. That gives me a very bad feeling about the whole thing.'

  He finished up the last of the preparation and placed the chicken onto a foil lined baking tray sliding it into the hot oven. I opened my mouth to continue the conversation but the doorbell disturbed us. Mike and Hallie had arrived, I could see her dark hair through the opaque glass.

  'I promise.'

  I said and went to let them in.

  Chapter 16

  The evening was proving to be the perfect antidote to my day. Mike and Lee had hit it off right away and were already loudly conspiring about golf weekends and football matches while gesticulating with their bottles of Budweiser, and me and Hallie were already well into our second bottle of red wine and giggling like school girls over everything and nothing.

  'So I'm taking it that this delicious dinner wasn't entirely your doing, Webby?'

  Hallie was grinning and looking decidedly inebriated. She'd been dieting hard for the past three months and looked great tonight in a fitted red dress with matching, chunky, costume jewellery bangles. Earlier in the evening she'd surprised me by asking if she could join me on my evening run a couple of nights a week, making me promise to take it easy on her to begin with, and I'd enthusiastically agreed to the idea.

  'The recipes were all Lee's doing, but I did stuff the chicken breasts.'

  Lee stopped talking and raised an eyebrow at us across the table.

  'Okay, okay! I stuffed one and a half of the chicken breasts before he took them off me for being ham-fisted! I did turn the oven on unaided though!'

  We all laughed and Mike raised his glass.

  'I propose a toast to agreeing to do this more often.'

  We brought bottles and glasses together with a clink and drank our approval to the suggestion.

  'So, are you going to make an honest woman of her any time soon, Lee?'

  Hallie was trying to look innocent, but mischief sparkled in her dark brown eyes as she dodged away from the good-natured slap that I aimed at her bare arm.

  'Hals! Leave the poor guy alone, we've only just taken this first step towards going public and you're already booking the reception!'

  I felt Lee's eyes resting on me and I beamed at him to let him know that I wasn't appalled by the idea, feeling heat rising in my cheeks.

  'I think Zara's easily the most wonderful woman that I've ever met. I can't imagine wanting to have anybody else in my life. Once we've ironed out her reckless streak of course!'

  They all laughed together and I made a show of giving them a mock scowl before relenting and joining in.

  'I'll take that answer for now,' Hallie replied and shared a knowing look with her husband.

  'Moving swiftly on. Who'd like dessert?'

  I stood up and started to collect in the empty plates, with Lee following suit.

  'It's okay, I'll get these. You can stay and entertain for a minute while I plate up,' he said, reaching out to take them from me.

  'Definitely a keeper.'

  Chimed in Hallie, loudly enough for him to hear as he headed for the kitchen, starting to giggle and taking another sip of wine to hide her amusement. Mike put his arm around her shoulders and leaned in to kiss her gently on the neck.

  I'd watched him playing with their twin boys for hours on end in the back garden at summer barbeques, and admired how natural he was around children. I liked children a lot, but had somehow never seemed to manage to make time in my life for anything besides the job until Lee came along. Now I knew that the clock was well and truly ticking for me if I ever wanted to be able to chase children of my own around without the use of a frame.

  Lee appeared to applause from our guests, carrying plated up individual chocolate mousses topped with cape gooseberries.

  'They look wonderful, I can see I'm going to have to up my game for the return match at our place.'

  I knew that was high praise indeed coming from Hallie. Any doubt that had ever existed about whether she would approve of my choice of partner was now well and truly gone.

  A persistent knocking at the front door disturbed me before I could try a spoonful, and I waved Lee back down into his seat and went to answer it, glancing up at the clock to see that it was after eleven at night. Who the hell turns up for an unannounced visit at this time of the day?

  I opened the door to see my sister Emily leaning heavily agai
nst the porch wall; she was clutching a half empty bottle of vodka in her hand and black tears streaked down her cheeks where her eyeliner had run.

  'You're not supposed to arrive until tomorrow.'

  Was the best I could manage, stepping aside to let her in.

  'I thought I'd surprise you…surprise!'

  She slurred, and then started to cry.

  Chapter 17

  'She's the human equivalent of a black hole. Everything that's around her gets sucked into her problems time and time again.'

  I lay on Lee's chest in bed, with Emily passed out and snoring fit to raise the dead in my guest bedroom at the opposite side of the landing. I was absolutely furious with her for disrupting our perfect evening, but at least Mike and Hallie had been incredibly gracious about the intrusion. They’d stayed for long enough to finish desserts and a digestif before deciding to walk back to their own home half a mile or so away, and left us to the unenviable task of sorting out my staggeringly drunk baby sister.

  'I don't know that much about the history between you, other than the little that you've told me tonight, but she's obviously going through a rough time at the moment. Don't you think you might be being a bit hard on her?'

  He ran his fingers through my unruly curls, straightening them out and letting them spring back again.

  'Believe me when I say that I've gone above and beyond the call of duty in letting her stay at all. We all warned her about David when he first arrived on the scene. He's all charm and smarm on the surface, but look beyond that and there's pure selfish egotism running right the way through to the other side.'

  I kept my voice down, even though there was next to no chance of us waking up sleeping beauty.

  'It's not a crime to be selfish and arrogant. There are plenty of people who would level the same accusations at me if they were asked.'

  I hesitated before I replied, questioning the wisdom of sharing the next part for a split second before I spoke.

  'There's more. But you'll have to promise to keep it to yourself after I tell you.'

  I manoeuvred myself around so my chin was resting on the pillow beside him and I was looking into his eyes, which appeared to be as dark as my own in the absence of light.

  'You have my word.'

  I couldn't read his expression, but he sounded interested.

  'Last time they fell out, Emily turned up at my parents with bruises on the tops of her arms, which she said were just from being clumsy, and they rang me immediately. I decided to confront him first instead of talking to her about it and tracked him down to his parents place.'

  I paused to collect my thoughts, feeling the tension creeping into Lee's arm as he caressed my side.

  'Anyway, I read him the riot act on domestic violence, told him that I'd kick his arse from there to the cells if I was ever even given cause to suspect that it had happened again, and that I'd be telling my sister to bin him along with the rest of the trash.'

  I stopped again, thinking about the weird expression that had crossed his face.

  'Did he try to deny it?'

  Lee asked, looking wide awake now and moving into a sitting position.

  'He didn't say anything at all. Just stood there with such a spaced out look in his eyes that I wondered whether he was on drugs, and then his father came over and spoke on his behalf instead.'

  I yawned, feeling my anger beginning to dissipate and the fog of sleep beginning to descend on me.

  'What did he say?'

  Lee was impatient for me to finish.

  'He just said, that would be a mistake Zara, in his most business like voice and ushered me right back out of the door like I was the hired help. My talk seemed to do the trick though, none of us have seen a scratch on her since, and until now they've seemed as good as they've ever been together. I presume he told her about my visit though, because she's not had anything to do with me since. Now lie right back down here Mister, I was comfortable where I was before.'

  He did as he was told and slid back in beside me, mulling over what I'd just said.

  'Yet you're still the first person she's reached out to this time, and that should tell you something.'

  I reached around and started to stroke his inner thigh in response, slowly working my way upwards.

  'So should this.'

  I whispered, moving my hand inside the waistband of his boxer shorts.

  Chapter 18

  Under the cover of darkness the Grey Man slipped over the top of the modest garden wall and dropped quietly to the ground. For all of the show of security features at the front of the property, with gated electronic access and closed circuit television cameras, the security round the back was shockingly poor; a pleasant ten minute walk across open fields from a quiet country lane and he was standing within view of the property. Evidently the Doctor had no real fear of meeting those who might wish him harm here at his country retreat, although to be fair to him, obtaining the address hadn't been as straight forward as anticipated.

  The ground was hard underfoot, courtesy of the glorious summer that they were having, and an evening that had been entirely free from moisture of any discernable kind; so it appeared that the precautions he'd taken with footwear would prove to be unnecessary. He didn't trouble himself to stay down low or move at speed across the open spaces, since he'd already taken the trouble to disable the motion sensor on a floodlight that kept watch over the neatly striped lawn on a previous recent visit. Besides that, the Doctor was a man of almost neurotic routine and habit, retiring to his bed full of expensive brandy at ten every night almost without fail. He'd be asleep and snoring next to his lunatic wife by now.

  The Grey Man was a man of considerable means. He continued to hold a position as a Director on the board of a successful company that he had founded some years ago, simply in order to provide cover for his comings and goings, rather than out of strict monetary necessity. With that money and power he'd been able to discreetly find out a considerable amount about Doctor Alan Hardwick. Certainly a lot more than the good Doctor would know about him, even if his suspicions on that score were proven correct tonight. One of the surprises had been the wife, Anne. It had transpired that she was a former patient of his, who had been exonerated from culpability in the death of her abusive ex-husband on the grounds of diminished responsibility. That fact appeared to have escaped the notice of almost everybody, but then again, she had changed her name by deed poll after her eventual recovery and release from a secure unit. The psychiatric evaluation prior to release had been done by Hardwick himself.

  Upon reaching the back of the house, he was greeted by the sight of several open windows, an additional benefit of the muggy summer nights that made pastimes such as house-breaking that much easier. He quickly slipped inside, removing the bag from his back to ease his passage through the opening, and headed for the spectacularly beamed master bedroom.

  It seemed curiously lighter inside than out, courtesy of all that glass combined with the light and airy décor, which made navigating the unfamiliar territory more straightforward. Knowing the floor plans of a property was not quite the same as physically being in it, but the layout was a testament to beautifully designed natural and logical flow. In any other circumstances that might well be a good thing for Doctor and Mrs Hardwick. He pushed open the door to the master suite and stepped inside switching on the light. Nobody was there. How was this possible?

  ‘I knew you’d come after the floodlight was tampered with the other night, so I’ve taken to sending Anne away as a precaution in the evenings.’

  Doctor Hardwick’s voice came from the darkened study behind him, and the doctor himself switched on the desk lamp as he spoke and came into view.

  ‘I must say that I’m so very pleased to finally make the acquaintance of the feared Grey Man. Perhaps even more so because I was right about your identity.’

  Alan Hardwick’s face was alight with excitement. He looked like a child standing in front of the world’s largest pil
e of presents on Christmas morning.

  ‘Now don’t go getting any ideas about killing me too. I’ve got your real psychological profile on my computer, together with your real identity and the chain of logic that allowed me to work out who you were. There’s a hardcopy lodged with my solicitor to be opened immediately in the event of my death, since I was almost certain that your reaction to the insultingly bad press release would be to track me down. It’s been a nervy couple of days of waiting, since you disabled the light outside, let me assure you! Of course, I had to make sure I was awake to tell you these things, otherwise…well, I hardly need to tell you about that now, do I?’

  Chapter 19

  The Grey Man moved into the study space without outward signs of surprise or concern; taking the time to examine the framed certificates covering one wall.

  ‘Very impressive, Doctor.’

  He said without feeling, placing his bag down on the desk top and slowly clapping his hands together in an approximation of applause, watching the smaller man fighting the urge to flinch back into his chair.

  ‘And what, may I ask, was the clincher for you?’

  He maintained eye contact for longer than necessary, enjoying Hardwick’s growing discomfort and watching beads of sweat breaking out on his bulbous shiny head.

  ‘I’d already been working on the theory that you felt you had a connection with the lead Detective, you’d alluded to it obliquely in some of your previous correspondence. A shame that the investigators assumed that it was only a connection that you felt you shared, and not one that existed for real. I, on the other hand, had a strong feeling that it went some way beyond that. I followed my nose and the circumstantial evidence until you came onto my radar, and then my suspicion was confirmed. It’s quite astonishing when you think about it. Not to mention on many levels somewhat pleasing, and all the more incredible when you consider that you are there in the police records for all to see, questioned but never charged in relation to a seemingly unrelated but nevertheless very important incident all that time ago. The most recent letter that you left was what confirmed it once and for all for me.’