by Rebecca King
“He could come back,” she whispered. “Again. He will ask questions – again.”
Given how he had studied her bag, she wondered if he would insist on taking it off her so he could have a look inside. If anyone was arrogant enough to, it was the man who had chased after a shadow without a qualm.
“What to do, what to do,” she whispered. She didn’t want to, but she knew that there really was only one option available to her. With one last furtive glance around to make sure that nobody was watching, she turned around and retraced her steps toward the main gates. She didn’t know what she would say if she happened to cross paths with Mr Brindley again but didn’t want to even think about that right now. She felt guilty for having to abandon the body, especially when Luke had told her to stay with it, but she just couldn’t risk being accused of killing someone.
“Whoever Mr Brindley is, he can deal with the body himself if he ever returns,” she muttered. “Besides, you don’t want to wait around just in case the killer does turn up.” That thought made her feel a little queasy and was enough to force her to redouble her efforts to get out of the park before Luke reappeared and stopped her.
As she merged into the passing pedestrians on the busy main road, her thoughts remained locked on the enigma that was Luke Brindley. She hated to think that someone like him could be a cold-blooded murderer, he was just too handsome. Besides, there was something about his calm, unflappable manner that was distinctly reassuring. He had been annoyed at her questions, but then she hadn’t really done herself any favours by sounding fraught and irrational. He hadn’t been aggressive, just impatient and a little patronising. Just the thought of some of the questions she had asked him made her wince. It was her own fault if she had irritated him. Now that she came to think her questions over, she had been a little foolish.
“He must think you are a right nincompoop,” she muttered, then clamped her mouth closed when a passing gentleman looked at her warily.
If she wasn’t so attracted to Mr Brindley – Luke - she could begin to put the entire debacle behind her and focus on what to do about the contents of the bag she still carried. It wasn’t lost to her that she still had the wretched thing, but couldn’t quite make her mind up whether that was a good thing or not. She had a strange feeling that it wouldn’t just be the face of the corpse that would haunt her dreams from now on. The image of a rather dapper, and incredibly mysterious man called Luke, would stay with her for a very long time as well. Still, there was no reason why her rather unexpected attraction to him should mean that she should allow herself to be suspected of a crime she hadn’t committed, especially when the mysterious Luke Brindley appeared guiltier than she did.
Confident that she was doing the right thing, Poppy ducked her head, sent a silent prayer of apology to the mysterious Mr Brindley and the corpse, clutched her bag tighter, and made her way back to the hovel.
“Sodding hell,” Luke snarled as he side-stepped a barrow man and had to take his eyes off the stranger only a few feet ahead of him. Although he did so for only a few seconds, it was more than enough time for his quarry to vanish. Luke lengthened his stride and scoured each nook and cranny as he walked to the end of the street and out onto the main road, but he didn’t see the stranger again.
Had that been the killer? Or was that who Poppy had been in the park to meet?
Although Luke hadn’t had the opportunity to see much in the way of distinguishing features, he had noted that the man had cropped jet black hair and was so slim he looked almost gaunt. To cap it all, his clothing was unremarkable; the kind of clothing a lot of people in London wore, and that gave him the ability to blend in with the many pedestrians out on the pavements this morning. And vanish he had. Completely. Totally. Disappeared off the face of the earth in a heartbeat.
“Where in the heck have you gone?” he groused with a frown as he scoured the people hurrying in all directions.
At the end of the road he turned around and studied the busy thoroughfare closely. Traders were setting up stalls to one side of the busy high street. Barrow men were pushing their carts loaded with wares while women carried baskets of goods and foods. Children scurried this way and that as they too headed off to work. At first glance it was just an ordinary street in London full of working-class people. However, Luke knew that somewhere in the midst of the chaos was a possible killer; the murderer of the man in the park. He also suspected that he had gotten that close, but luck had worked against him for a third or fourth time that morning.
The first had been with Miss Cleghorne and her questionable bag, the second came in the guise of the pick-pockets, the third bundle of mystery was the corpse, and the fourth the mysterious stranger in the woods.
Disgusted at his amateurish mistake, Luke swore, and was about to retrace his steps back to the park when someone appeared at his elbow. He glared at the man who drew too close for comfort but then cursed aloud when he immediately recognised the tall gentleman who was his best friend.
“Good morning,” Barnaby growled before Luke could speak.
“Is it?” Luke demanded dourly. He threw his friend and colleague a warning look and nodded in the direction of the park. “Come with me.”
“Been an eventful morning, has it?” Barnaby drawled with his brows lifted as he fell into step beside him.
Luke shook his head in disgust. “You have no idea just how badly my morning has gone.”
Careful to keep his voice low for fear of being overhead, he brought Barnaby up to date on the morning’s events while they made their way back to the park.
“So you have no idea who he is?” Barnaby asked curiously.
“Which one? The hider or the corpse?”
“Both. Either.”
“No.”
As they walked, Luke found himself habitually scanning the area for any sign of loiterers, pick-pockets, or people acting strangely, or the man in black. Unfortunately, on this particular morning the only people who appeared to be involved in anything untoward were himself, and the delightful Miss Cleghorne.
“What the hell?” Luke growled as he stared at the spot where he had left Poppy. “Damn it all.”
Barnaby looked at him before he studied the area. “What is it?” He couldn’t see anything amiss.
“They have gone,” Luke murmured in stunned disbelief. He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. When his brain did begin to function properly his fierce temper grew - to mammoth proportions. He stared at the spot where he had left the body but, apart from a slight wet patch on the path, there was nothing to indicate that either the body, or Poppy, had been there at all.
“The body? The woman? Where are they?” Barnaby glanced around the empty park with a frown but nothing stirred. Not even the birds tweeted in the trees. There wasn’t even the occasional rustle of twigs and leaves from the woodland creatures.
“Gone,” Luke growled, perplexed. He scanned the trees but couldn’t see either of them. “How in the world did she move him?”
“She has scarpered,” Barnaby said, and didn’t need Luke to nod to confirm it.
“She must have had help,” he groused. Had the man he had just chased left an accomplice behind to help Poppy with the body. “God, I think I have just been taken for an utter fool.”
Barnaby clapped him on the shoulder. “What I want to know is why she has taken the body with her? She must be a really strong woman.”
“She wasn’t. She was no bigger than a sprat; all slender curves and femininity.” Luke scowled at Barnaby when he lifted his brows and smirked. “How in the hell could she drag a dead man around the park?” Luke snapped. “She was struggling to carry that damned carpet bag of hers. She couldn’t hold that and drag a man the size of me, unconscious, wet, and a dead weight around a park without being seen. She just wouldn’t have the strength.”
“She had help.” It wasn’t a question. “How big was she?”
Luke turned to look at his colleague, stunned by the latest turn of ev
ents. “She was just average. Beautiful, but certainly not inclined to drag a body anywhere, even if she was strong enough to do so. I couldn’t even get her to help me search it. She was squeamish – or appeared to be anyway.”
“She didn’t want to be left alone with the corpse. Maybe she didn’t want to be seen handling someone she had killed?” Barnaby shook his head and wondered what the hell Luke had gotten himself in to. “I thought you were after pick-pockets this morning?”
“I was - am,” Luke snapped. “Right now, they are the least of my concerns. They aren’t responsible for the dead body. That body was aristocracy; and bigger than the pick-pocket gang put together.”
“Did you get a good look at the face?”
“Whose? Hers or the body’s?” Luke asked without thinking. He mentally winced when Barnaby’s smile widened.
“Both. Either, but preferably the dead man’s. Just so we can match it up to any reports of missing persons. It would help.”
Luke nodded. “I can draw them,” he said, and rubbed a weary hand down his face. He studied the path beneath their feet. Even the coins and bits he had dragged out of the dead man’s pockets had vanished. Everything had simply disappeared without a trace – as though they had never been there in the first place.
Barnaby’s brows shot upright. “We need to focus on the pick-pockets, Luke. Terrence Sayers is a deep concern of everyone, you know that,” he warned his colleague quietly.
“I know,” Luke replied crisply. “But right now we have a missing corpse. The body of a man who had been murdered this morning because he was still warm when I dragged him out of that river. Not only that but we also have a missing woman too. The pick-pockets were here. They were pestering the woman when I found them. I chased them across the park when the woman screamed.”
“As far as I know they don’t kill. They just pick-pocket,” Barnaby warned. “Although they are violent, as far as we are aware they haven’t been known to kill.”
“The pick-pockets I saw wouldn’t be able to do such a thing. They were barely old enough to reach my chest. They wouldn’t have the power, or the motive.” Luke described the youngest pick-pocket he had chased, and very nearly captured.
“Yet they outran you,” Barnaby coughed around a smile.
“That damned woman screamed,” Luke protested. He knew his friend was baiting him but was too busy battling his temper to pay much attention.
“Were the pick-pockets a diversion to allow the killer to get away? Was the woman working with them do you think?” Luke’s eyes met Barnaby’s. “Until we can unravel this then we have to assume that all the incidents are linked. The woman has to be connected to the body in some way, and one or either of them has to be linked to the pick-pockets. We can’t just ignore the possibility. We were the only ones in the park this morning, aside from the person in the woods who I chased out onto the high street.”
“And lost,” Barnaby added.
“Look, I got snarled up by a barrow man,” Luke protested.
“I am just jesting,” Barnaby soothed. Secretly he wondered what else had happened to get Luke so riled but knew that now was not the time to ask. Luke was usually one of the calmest members of the Star Elite. To see him so rattled was a testament to just how difficult his morning had been, and just how much it annoyed him to lose not one but three people.
“Given that the pick-pockets, Poppy, and the dead man, were the only people here this morning, we have to assume they are all connected. It is deuced odd for all of you to be out and about so early in the morning. You know you were here for a good reason. They can’t have been. For a body to turn up in a park that was unreasonably busy – well – we cannot dismiss a connection just because we can’t make sense of it yet. They were in the area at the time that a body turns up. That in its own right is suspicious enough, especially with all the assaults around here that have been reported of late. If they are innocents in all of this why were they stalking around the park so early in the morning? It isn’t the time that pick-pockets usually wander the parks. Not when most people are still abed in any case. Nor is it usually the time when single ladies take a walk unchaperoned. No, they were all here for a reason. We just don’t know whether that reason is either the dead body, or the woman, or even the man in the trees.”
His concerned gaze met Luke’s. They both appeared to be thinking the same thing because they both turned to study their surroundings a little more closely.
“I chased someone out of the park,” Luke sighed. “Was he a diversion for the real killer who was still hiding in the woods? If everyone else is innocent, could we overlook the one person who might be guilty? After all, everyone else was out in the open. Visible. The hider was standing in shadows clearly with a need to hide. Was he waiting until the woman left the area to move the body out of sight?” He frowned at the spot on the path where he had last seen the corpse. “The corpse didn’t get up and walk himself home. Someone moved him, but it couldn’t be the woman because she wasn’t big enough or strong enough. I doubt it was the pick-pockets either. They were long gone.”
“For strangulation of this kind, on someone as big as you or I, it is safe to assume the killer is a man. It is highly unlikely a woman would have the strength. If she was involved she didn’t actually kill the man herself. Whether she was covering for the real killer is yet to be known. That said, we cannot lose sight of the possibility that they both may have been taken by the killer. After all, we all know just how vulnerable a woman can be out all alone.”
Luke felt an unfamiliar pang of unease shimmer through him. He had never felt panic like this before. Worry, yes; panic, most definitely not. It wasn’t in his nature to fret about anything, yet the thought of that stunning young woman ending up the same way as the corpse he had fished out of the river left him feeling strangely unsteady on his feet.
“Come on,” Barnaby sighed when Luke didn’t answer.
“Where are we going?” he asked. After one last look at the damp patch beneath his feet, Luke quickly followed his colleague.
“We are going to find that dead body.” Barnaby threw Luke a warning look. “Hopefully we won’t find that woman dead too.”
Luke fervently agreed and began to search the woods. They didn’t need to discuss it to know that it was the most likely place they would find the body. However, the more Luke searched, the more the cold hard knot of fear began to form deep in the pit of his stomach. It was sufficiently strong enough to leave him wondering how someone he had met only briefly; who had appeared in his life and brought with her more questions than answers; could have such a profound effect upon him.
“Here,” Barnaby called quietly about a half hour later. He kept his voice low in deference to a nanny walking her young charges along one of the paths just a few feet away and waited for Luke to join him. “Are you all right?” Barnaby asked when Luke appeared. His concern grew as he witnessed the paleness of his friend’s cheeks and the visible tremor in his hands. It was most unlike Luke to be shaken by anything; much less the sight of a corpse, many of which Barnaby knew Luke had handled in the past.
Luke nodded. He was relieved to note that the body Barnaby had just found was the man he had fished out of the river, and not Poppy. Determined to keep his mind on the task at hand, and off the disturbing emotions that were starting to unfurl deep within, Luke threw Barnaby a dour look.
“Do you recognise him?”
Barnaby studied the dead man’s face for a moment then shook his head. “He isn’t someone I have ever come across but, from the look of his clothing, I cannot see him taking a pint down at the Dog and Ferret, can you?”
Luke snorted and pushed to his feet. “He is one of the ton.”
“We need to get Sir Hugo to take a look. If anyone is likely to recognise him, he will.”
“Sir Hugo is at home in Cornwall isn’t he? I thought I heard Marcus mention that one of the children had recently caught chicken pox which had spread throughout the entire family
– including their father.”
Barnaby grinned at the mental image of his boss being covered from head to foot in small, red, and very itchy spots. “I am not sure. If he is still out of action then we will have to speak to Simon Ambrose. Now he is here because I spoke to him last week. His was grousing about the children wrecking the house.”
“He shouldn’t have so many of them,” Luke replied with a grin.
“Six at the last count,” Barnaby smirked.
Wild horses would never get him to acknowledge it publically but Luke rather envied Simon his lifestyle. Although his boss always moaned about the chaos his ever growing brood brought to his life, there was always an unholy light of mischief in his eyes that assured everyone that he didn’t care one bit what carnage was caused. They were his children, and he was proud of them. To Luke, children were always something that belonged to someone else. In his youth he had never once stopped to consider having a family of his own. However, now that he was getting on a bit, and the world was starting to feel a little jaded, he began to wonder if it was time to settle down.
Poppy’s face immediately sprang to mind, but he quickly blanked it out. It took far more effort than he wanted to acknowledge to force his attention back to the pick-pockets and the dead man, but he set the strength of his reaction to her being the mother of his children to one side to consider later. All right so she was beautiful but there were plenty of stunning women in the world. What was it about Poppy that brought about such keen interest? He couldn’t consider her anything more than a suspect in a murder right now. It was foolish to see her in any other light other than someone who had plenty to hide. Why then did he want to help her? Why then was he almost desperate to find her again just so he can reassure himself that she really was alright?
“Do you think the older gang of pick-pockets did it?” Barnaby asked, studying the bruising around the man’s neck. “This is done by an adult, or an older youth.”