Then she saw that, after all, her opportunity to make her long-withheld confession had come.
‘Yes,’ she said, rather rapidly. ‘Yes, I know all about your theory. You’ve repeated it to me often enough. But now, curiously, I don’t at all feel like calling it a theory.’
‘No? What do you call it then? A nonsense?’
‘No. A fact.’
‘A fact?’
He sounded genuinely surprised.
‘Yes, a fact. The existence of all-powerful Eros, looking down at us wretched human beings from within his thunderous cloud. I believe in him now all right, and in your foam-born Aphrodite. You see, I’m one of their victims.’
John sat up in his chair.
‘I’ve been going to tell you for quite a long time. But then somehow for a little I thought there might be no need. And now I know that there’s every need. John, dear, I’m in love. Head over heels, to use the beastly cliché, in love.’
For a moment John sat there, silent.
‘So who is it?’ he asked at last.
She took a gulp of breath.
‘A man called Anselm Brent. I may have mentioned him to you casually, I forget. He’s a DI in the Leven Vale force, one of the officers on my team. And I don’t still quite know how it came about — well, yes, I do. It began when I saw his right hand, the palm of it. It was clustered with calluses. He was showing it to me because, as we were both looking at Bubbles Xingara’s body on the morning she was murdered, I had exclaimed about her hand. It was calloused, too. I had no idea what that might mean. And DI — And Anselm told me it was the result of hours of tennis practice and play. He’s a keen player himself. So then he showed me his own palm, and — and that was it. I was lost.’
‘Yes, I see. I see how it could happen. Our old friend Eros loves to try that sort of trick, make some tiny circumstance set off an explosion of sexuality. I’m sorry he chose to try it with you, though. And even more sorry if, as you seem to have been saying, it’s more than a sudden dart of lust, even of dart after dart. If it’s Aphrodite at work, I’m very sorry. But what’s happened has happened, I realize that.’
‘Oh, yes. It is worse than Eros. It is Aphrodite as well. I’ve tried to throw those tresses of hers off, if that’s possible. I tried. There were times when I thought I’d never need to tell you. More than once I thought I’d cast it all out of my system. When I was in America I thought being in a different world, if only for a short time, had done it. But then, the moment I stepped back into the Incident Room at Levenham and — and Anselm was standing there it was all back again in an instant. I — I’m obsessed with him. Obsessed.’
*
They had said no more that evening. In the same way that Harriet had contrived, even when her feelings for Anselm were at their most intense, to live an ordinary life with John, they both felt now that, once the admission had been made, no more need be said, nothing need be altered, until the moment came when a decision on their future had to be made.
So, in the short time before John had to leave for India, it was the simple routine of ordinary life. It was breakfast in the morning, cereal on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, grapefruit on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The necessity over of being in Levenham by eight every day, it was croissants in bed with the papers on each Sunday, and, yes, after a while sex, and it was as delighting as ever. There were, too, pleasant evenings sitting out in the garden while the light and the good weather still just lasted and reading or idly chatting. It was every now and again the telly.
But they both knew that she was no longer truly John’s, that her whole loyalty was Anselm’s. So she had had no hesitation, on the morning after her avowal, as soon as she got to Levenham in summoning Anselm.
He stepped into the office, looking suspicious and rebellious.
‘It’s all right, you fool,’ she said.
‘All right? But —’
‘I’ve told my husband about you. About us.’
He stood there, silent. She thought she could see beneath the ruddiness of his cheeks a pallor setting in.
‘But what’s he said?’ he choked out at last. ‘Did he — he didn’t hit you or anything?’
She laughed.
‘No, John’s not the hitting type. Or at least not with his fists, though he can use words to some purpose when he wants. And I suppose if he’d wanted to last night, he’d have made me feel a total louse. Squashed me. But, no, he understands what can happen to someone when, as he likes to put it, old Eros strikes and Aphrodite, goddess of love, follows in his wake. When, as he quoted to me from some book once, the fucking leads to kissing. He knows it’s inescapable then.’
‘Don’t think I understand.’
‘No need to. The key’s in the door, lock it and come here.’
Then Eros finally and ferociously had his way. And if anyone tapped at the door and waited for her answer she didn’t hear them.
*
The weeks went by. John had left for Delhi a fortnight after he had told her about the job, with no decision taken about what was going to happen. Harriet mastered the elements of the Forward Planning brief allocated to her at Greater Birchester Police headquarters, and, as she had forecast, found frequent opportunities at weekends and sometimes in mid-week to snatch Anselm from his home and even from the Incident Room at Levenham police station. They existed in a daze of sexual fulfilment, making love sometimes out in the open while the weather still held, and in the chill of late autumn in her own home, regardless of the risk of noticing neighbours.
Not that, Harriet felt, she would have anything to worry about if some busybody in their street did write to John in Delhi. Their arrangement stood, thanks to John’s seemingly infinite tolerance. He had said before leaving that until she wanted to make some definite move he was happy to let things stand.
‘And Mrs Kamala Singh?’ she had dared to say, if with a hint of a smile.
‘We’ll see. We’ll see.’
And so it had been left. Every two or three days a fax from Delhi chattered on to her machine at home. A chattering of inoffensive chat. And she replied in the same vein, news of the twins at university, mild complaints about the dullness of her present work, an occasional mention of the Bubbles Xingara investigation, though there was little about it to be said.
When I do have a major decision about us to tell him, she said to herself once, it’ll have to be a letter, a Dear John indeed. Unless he’s back home before that point arrives ... Or unless I get a Dear Harriet from him.
At headquarters at her borrowed desk most of the time she simply sat dreaming, dreaming about when she could see Anselm next. Occasionally she forced herself to pay attention to the papers in front of her — damn it, I’m being paid to do this: must do it right — but always, at the back of her mind, was the thought that this time-out from reality was bound to be brief. The headline Hard Detective in Country Love Nest would appear sooner or later. So she did not hesitate to take every risk there was, dragging Anselm uneasily in her wake.
Her phone seldom rang with official calls from Levenham. DI Anderson was too proud in his new responsibility to do more than give token compliance to his instructions to keep her fully informed. Once he did ring to say there had been a development. Yet it was no more than that Pablo Xingara had at last been traced. To Mexico. Where he had died from cirrhosis of the liver. One week before his daughter had been killed.
Then just after the New Year she got another call.
She had gone tramping into headquarters on the Tuesday after the second Bank Holiday of the extended period of revelry. She had been still fuzzy with the Christmas and post-Christmas cheer which her sons, swift consumers of whatever alcohol was on offer, had insisted on, and which had done little to lift the depression she had experienced on account of a self-imposed vow that she and Anselm were not to meet over the holiday. She had, in fact, attempted to avoid all forced jollity by offering to do any duties that would free another senior officer. But the Assist
ant Chief had firmly told her that after her long stint over in Levenham she deserved the break. So she had given up the attempt, and had done her best to entertain her sons without telling them, as she and John had agreed, what sooner or later was going to happen.
As soon as she had got in her phone rang, Anderson’s voice came, overloud, into her ear.
‘Harriet.’
The sod, was her immediate reaction. Now she had been pushed aside in his favour, any attempt at the respectful ma’am had been dropped. She felt like giving him a trouncing he wouldn’t soon forget.
But that Harriet had been loud with excitement. Something new, and important?
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘We think we’ve found him. This time we’ve got him.’
Chapter Nineteen
The man they had homed in on, DI Anderson excitedly told Harriet, was ‘a big computer nerd. Don’t know his name yet. Our licensed police hacker, old Sgt Downey, hasn’t traced him right down so far. But he has broken into the fellow’s files, and guess what he’s found there.’
‘Tell me.’
‘One hundred and sixty-seven pictures of Bubbles Xingara. And, listen to this, her address at Adam and Eve House, got from some Internet file almost as soon as she had bought the place.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, this does sound likely, very likely.’
Then, for the first time for weeks, she felt her old instincts begin to revive.
John had once teasingly quoted — reading from an old luggage-label he’d used — a Dickens dictum as applying to her, There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast. It had remained in her mind, partly because of how aptly it referred to herself, the hunter, and more because of that luggage-label. Now, again, she acknowledged its relevance.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘More than likely. Much more. So why haven’t we got a name?’
‘Easily enough explained. Apparently the computer our target uses isn’t his own. It’s one of dozens, maybe hundreds, at what used to be Birchester Technical College, some sort of university now. Cheeky sod, all right, making use of one there. But I suppose he doesn’t want his old mother at home booting up and finding pix he’s doctored to show Bubbles in intimate contact with some unknown male’s private parts.’
‘He’s got that sort of stuff?’
‘Well, no. Not actually, as far as Sgt Downey’s told me. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Downey hadn’t filed away something of the sort for his personal collection.’
Downey, she thought. No, I don’t think so, not from what I know of him. But, then, why not? Eros could have descended on computer-fixated Sgt Downey as well as into anyone else.
‘We’ll give Downey,’ she said sharply, ‘the benefit of the doubt. But why hasn’t he found just which computer at that place belongs to this man?’
‘Well, there’s been the long holidays, you know.’
‘Yes, I do know. And I know, too, that Bubbles Xingara’s murderer ought to be caught. Right, I’m going over there now. Let’s try what a little straight investigation can do. Enough poncing about with bloody electronics.’
‘But — But, ma’am, isn’t that — Well, isn’t it taking a risk? This chap, whoever he is, might get wind of something. And then ... Well, we could lose him.’
‘I wasn’t born yesterday, DI. Meet me.’
*
She did not wait for Anderson at South Birchester University, out beyond Boreham. If what he had told her was right, then the man who had downloaded 167 pictures of Bubbles Xingara as well as getting hold of her address well before it became public knowledge, could well be the one who, on June the twentieth, had stealthily approached Adam and Eve House in the stillness of early dawn and had then used, in all probability, a javelin to kill her.
The University was a big place, bigger than she had imagined, a massive new building, already after the holiday break busy with students going here and there, the hum of heavy machinery rising up from its deep basement.
She approached a sharp-faced, bespectacled woman radiating a repressive look behind the reception desk.
‘Detective Superintendent Martens, Greater Birchester Police. I’m looking for the IT Department, if that’s what it’s called.’
‘We have at least three departments that come under Information Technology. What exactly do you want?’
Don’t come the scientific queen with me, madam.
‘If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you, would I? Haven’t you got anyone who would be able to tell me about all three?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose we have,’ came the subdued reply. ‘If you take a lift to floor four, you’ll find someone there who may be able to help you.’
May be able? Better be.
The lift that let her out at the fourth floor led directly to an office area. She approached a bright-looking young black woman at the nearest desk, tapping away at her keyboard.
‘I want to talk to your cleverest computer expert.’
The young woman at the keyboard gave her a grin.
‘Then that’ll be Dr Mortimer. You can’t get much cleverer than him, so they tell me. I’ll buzz his secretary for you. Who shall I say it is?’
Harriet did not hesitate.
‘Dr Mortimer won’t know me,’ she said. ‘I’m just here to make some inquiries. You can say the Evening Star.’
‘Right-oh.’
Little Miss Bright Eyes looked gratifyingly impressed to be assisting someone from Birchester’s biggest-selling paper. And, Harriet thought, it shouldn’t be difficult to put the blame on her for a misunderstanding when it became necessary to show Dr Mortimer her warrant card. If a bit unfair.
She began to regret her ruse a little when her innocent victim phoned through with a distinct touch of urgency. The press not to be kept waiting. And DI Anderson had still not arrived.
Ah, well.
Dr Mortimer, she thought as she waited, whom you cannot get much cleverer than. Begins to look like a very good bet indeed. A computer scientist too clever for his own good, choosing to keep his secret file of Bubbles pictures right under the noses of his almost as clever colleagues. Anyone, too, would need to be more than ordinarily clever to defeat Sgt Downey. Reputation for being able to worm his way into any set of computer files outside government security.
But the clever man’s secretary seemed to be taking her time.
When eventually she did appear she came as a bit of a surprise. Somehow Harriet had been expecting either another bright and pretty young woman like the one she had just been talking to or a would-be dragon like the receptionist in the entrance hall. Dr Mortimer’s secretary fitted neither of these pictures. She was a glamour puss. The old-fashioned expression came popping up in Harriet’s mind the moment she saw her. A mass of blonde hair down past her shoulders, full-lipped mouth generously red-painted, and pouting too, wide blue eyes behind thickly blacked eyelashes, big breasts pointing outwards, it seemed, to each corner of the universe, and long, long legs encased in gleaming tights, or even stockings.
Not at all what you would expect in a technology establishment.
Then, before the creature had had time to say, Dr Mortimer will see you now, the doors of one of the lifts opened and a ruffled-looking DI Anderson burst out of them.
‘Ah, there you are, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Glad I found you.’
Harriet sighed quietly.
Dr Mortimer’s glamour-puss secretary might not be surprised by a reporter from the Evening Star being addressed by a colleague as ma’am. But the young woman at the nearest desk certainly looked sharp enough to have cottoned on to the presence of the police. Would she, once the glamour puss had led the two of them away, phone quickly through to Dr Mortimer and warn him?
She might, bright as she was. Or she might not.
Then an idea came to her.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘now that you’re here, Mr Anderson, I think I’ll leave. No need for two of us to worry Dr Mortimer with what’s
after all only a routine inquiry.’
She trusted Handy Andy, at whom she directed as meaning a look as she could without betraying the farce, would realize what his mistake had been and act accordingly, and that Miss Bright Eyes would get the message. Some query about a road accident, whatever ...
In case Anderson failed to pick up the hint, she marched over to the lifts, pressed the Down button, was rewarded by having one set of doors open at once, stepped in past them and in a moment was swished away out of sight.
*
Down in the entrance hall she sat on one of two rather the worse for wear black leather-look sofas and waited to see what Handy Andy would find out.
Her wait seemed to be lasting longer than she had expected. She had been keeping an eye on the signs above the lifts, but a good many minutes had passed before at last she saw the number 4 light up. She watched it eagerly. But the light remained where it was.
Was Anderson taking special care ushering into the lift a man already under arrest? Or, perhaps more likely, had he left Dr Mortimer and was standing with the lift doors propped open making a date with the glamour-puss secretary?
But at last the 4 changed to a 3, then to 2, to 1 and finally to G.
Handy Andy stepped out of the lift’s opening doors, alone.
She rose to her feet and started out towards him. Only to see him check abruptly at her appearance. Plainly, he had not expected, cocky bugger that he was, to find he was not totally trusted.
‘Well, DI?’
‘No go.’
‘What d’you mean no go?’
‘What I say. I got it out of him in two minutes that he’s got all those pix of Bubbles. Always a good sign when they start to sweat. Thought I was home and dry. But, no, the little bunched-up fifty-year-old sod’s got a gold-plated alibi for June the twentieth.’
‘You’re sure? Despite all those pictures, that address?’
‘Yes, ma’am, I am sure. The bugger was away at a conference. In France. At Aix-les-Bains. He left on June the nineteenth and didn’t come back till the twenty-first.’
‘He couldn’t have flown back that evening, June the nineteenth? Or ... Or perhaps he never even went?’
A Detective in Love Page 19