Enigma

  Chapter Twelve

  Day Four

  Thursday, 1 November 2012

  Love sat down on his sofa.

  Julie, who was sitting next to him, laid her head on his knee with a big sigh. He looked down, smiled, and with his large hand stroked her tenderly and lovingly.

  Julie wagged her stumpy tail in return.

  Julie was the only female in Love’s life and that suited him just fine. She was loyal, loving and great company. Under normal circumstances she would accompany Love to work, ride about in his car, sit under his desk or curl up under one of the windows in his office.

  These past few weeks, Love had chosen to leave her at home. He thought it best at least until after the puppies were born. He made sure he dropped in at his flat at least twice a day to see to her needs and if he couldn’t make it he had an arrangement with Mrs Burton who lived in the flat above him. A teacher, retired, dog lover, reliable and trustworthy, and she had a spare key to Love’s flat.

  Normally, Julie never mixed with other dogs and having her spayed was something Love had meant to get done and now it all seemed immaterial. Talk about shutting the door after the horse had bolted or whatever that saying was, he mused. And how it happened still remained a mystery to Love.

  Before work he’d take her out for her walk first thing in the morning in nearby Rochester Terrace Gardens. They’d join other dog owners on the way. Some carrying plastic bags holding poop scoops, kitchen roll and plastic gloves, and some without. The latter unconcerned about helping to defecate an area of green set aside in the built-up areas of London.

  Love usually met up with a widow and her Rottweiler puppy called Jake. He didn’t know her name but knew she worked in a bank, was in her fifties, tall and attractive and carried the telltale carrier bag. Jake was black and tan and extremely friendly. A little too friendly, Love figured, and suspected when the puppies were born they’d show more than a passing resemblance to the young Rottweiler.

  Julie came into his life one year ago. Love had responded to a call to inspect a gunfire heard by a passer-by in a suspected drug dealing area of town. An undercover operation headed by Love and Stuart’s unit had been staking the place out for weeks. When the call came through about the gunfire from the near-hysterical person who’d reported it the undercover team was getting ready to make a move and the “witness” could have blown the whole thing open.

  Stuart and Love smashed their way in to the warehouse to find the dealer and his client arguing over some merchandise. Despite the odds the bust went smoothly, they got their men, they got their drugs, found them in full possession and no one was harmed.

  The gunfire had turned out to be a car backfiring.

  There were no casualties, except for a tiny bundle of foul-smelling fur whimpering in a dark corner of their filthy headquarters.

  Animal abuse to be added to their list of offences, Love had growled to Stuart, and with one quick movement ripped off the chain that held her captive and scooped her up in his arms. He wrapped the emaciated creature in a blanket from the boot of his car and took her home where she’s been ever since.

  Now here he was, a year later, sitting with a pregnant boxer and slowly going insane because some perpetrator was still at large. Kidnapping, torturing, killing.

  And Love wasn’t coming up with any answers.

  His eyes flickered to the clock on the mantelpiece. It was five o’clock in the morning and Love hadn’t slept properly for over twenty-four hours. He wasn’t sure if he could think anymore. Going over and over until his eyes stung and his head throbbed like someone was inside it beating on a drum. He ran his free hand over his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose to try and ease the pain.

  What the hell was going on? How did they let this happen?

  He had to get back to Doctor Cooper. He had to get a psychological profile on this piece of scum that was responsible. He leant forward to use his mobile on the table in front and then pulled back.

  At 05:30 hours in the morning? Hell, he thought, why not.

  ‘I appreciate your coming here, Doctor Cooper,’ Love said one hour later as he opened the door to allow her inside.

  ‘Don’t think anything of it,’ she replied. At 06:30 hours in the morning she was tired but in control. Early morning starts or late nights were all in a day’s work for Doctor S.J. Cooper.

  She walked over to the couch and set her briefcase down on the coffee table that sat in between the couch and the fireplace.

  ‘Lovely dog,’ she said, nodding to Julie who had lumbered out of her basket and pink and purple princess dog bed featuring images of Cinderella, Belle and Sleeping Beauty to say hello to the visitor. She sniffed Doctor Cooper’s hand before waddling back to her spot in the corner by the French window. ‘Is she pregnant or is it just a weight problem?’

  ‘Pregnant. She has about a week to go.’

  ‘Are you prepared for it, Dick?’

  It’s the first time she’d called him by his name. She shrugged off her midnight blue velvet coat. A lovely, simple and elegant piece of designer wear from Pearce Fionda she’d picked up from Debenhams in Reading, Berkshire fourteen years earlier.

  ‘I didn’t see it coming,’ he replied. The rattle of cups and a fridge being opened and shut filtered through into the lounge from the open-plan kitchen which was compact, attractive and had a large French window overlooking the front. ‘And it’s Love, just Love.’

  ‘Okay, Love, how could you miss that? Two dogs copulating in broad daylight in public must be extremely difficult to miss.’

  Love said nothing but smiled.

  ‘Especially for a detective,’ she added as she pulled out a file from her case, sat down on the couch and removed a silver pen from inside her blue velvet shoulder bag.

  The one bedroom flat situated on Gaisford Street in Kentish Town was of Victorian era in what was now a reasonably fashionable part of north London. In the 1870s Kentish Town had become a poor area and was greatly involved in mission work. Then it became simply unfashionable which suited Love just fine but in more recent years she was aspiring back up the ladder of respectability and local property prices were leaping on to that bandwagon.

  The furnishings in the flat were old but comfortable along with a couple of nicer pieces and the whole place had a feeling of a socialite who’d fallen on hard times. The property and most of the furniture belonged to the Branch. It was part of the package that came with the job. It was only supposed to be temporary but Love moved in here five years ago and had never left.

  ‘All right, Doctor Cooper, point to you.’

  She looked up. Love was standing by the side of the table holding a tray of tea and biscuits and those cakes the British were so crazy about. Cherry Bakewell Tarts.

  ‘Delicious!’ She smiled. ‘And it’s Julie.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Call me Julie. We’re going to be working close together on this, so please, call me Julie.’

  ‘It says S.J. Cooper on your business card.’

  ‘I know, Julie to my friends.’

  ‘Julie it is.’ Love nodded, looked over at his dog, and grinned.

  ‘I hope they’re Tesco’s Free From,’ she said helping herself to one of the little iced tarts. ‘They’re the best, you know.’

  ‘I agree. I don’t go for so-called popular brand names they’re usually less than average and have the ethics of a parasite.’

  ‘You don’t look the sort.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well, you don’t come across as all green and caring.’

  ‘I’m not particularly I simply don’t help exploit companies who have only their own interests at heart and usually at the expense of others.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Eat your cake Doctor Cooper and stop analysing me.’

  ‘With pleasure.’ She spread a paper serviette over her long-length Esprit burnt orange linen skirt. It was getting a bit cold to wear what w
ith winter round the corner but it was lined, it looked good, and it was comfortable.

  ‘Why Julie?’ said Dr Cooper after a couple of minutes had passed.

  ‘Why Julie what?’

  ‘Why did you call your dog Julie?’

  ‘I named her after the actress.’

  ‘Roberts? No, that’s Julia. Which one?’

  ‘Julie Christie.’

  ‘Julie Christie? How do you know about her?’

  ‘I’m not a complete philistine, Doctor Cooper, I have seen the original Doctor Zhivago.’

  ‘So have I. Unfortunately,’ she said, and raised her eyes upward. ‘But in my defence I was very young at the time.’

  Love grinned.

  ‘To my shame I’m not entirely into the great Russian novelists,’ she paused, ‘but at least it’s one step up from Tyson or Bruno,’ she added.

  ‘You mean because she’s a boxer.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Thanks! I think.’

  ‘It’s as original as calling my cat Fluffy or Ginger,’ she said.

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘And do you know why?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t have a cat.’

  Love smiled. He was glad to hear it.

  ‘So what are we left with?’ Love stretched his long legs in front of him and they disappeared underneath the table and out the other end.

  ‘I can’t put it together, Detective. We’re left with a heap of contradictions.’

  ‘Doctor Cooper, Julie, come on! You have to do better than that, for God’s sake,’ he cried, and jumped to his feet. The tone of his voice made Julie, the canine one, look up from her basket. ‘For God’s sake,’ he said again in a more controlled voice. ‘We have this sick monster out there praying on these women and who know who he intends his latest conquest to be.’

  ‘Now wait a minute, Detective Love...’

  ‘Love. My name is Love.’

  ‘Love... I...’

  ‘All right, let me tell you.’ Love spoke quietly. ‘We’re looking for a smooth character and an egotistical type. Fairly normal on the outside but in reality, a regular Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Love pulled a photograph from a folder sitting on the table in front. ‘Can I show you these?’ He handed Julie a post-mortem photograph of both Monica and Carol.

  Julie took them studied them, and said, ‘It’s personal. He’s methodical. Making his mark sending a message. We’re talking about a classic paranoid schizophrenia.’

  ‘Know anyone like that, Doc?’

  ‘Only sixty per cent of the world’s population.’

  ‘A Jekyll and Hyde,’ Love repeated to himself.

  ‘Full of contradictions.’ She looked up. ‘Someone like you.’

  ‘Do stop analysing me, Doctor, and keep to the matter in hand,’ he said, and lit a cigarette. He looked at her through the smoke.

  She laid her pen down, and spoke quietly. ‘I am.’

  ‘Look, lady, Julie, I didn’t mean to bite your head off.’

  Julie sat forward and hugged her knees. ‘Do you want to get some fresh air?’

  ‘No, I’d sooner stay here because of one very pregnant individual,’ he said pointing to the boxer who was now resting her head on one paw while watching her surroundings with one eye. Love jumped up and paced back and forth in front of the fireplace when suddenly he stopped.

  ‘Look, let’s go through it again. Maybe we missed something.’

  ‘All right, but sit down you’re wearing out the carpet,’ she said, gesturing to the empty seat next to her. ‘Do you want some more tea?’

  ‘I should be asking you that, but no, thanks.’ He ambled over to the chair next to the couch and sat down.

  Julie Cooper took another look at the photographs. ‘It’s possible this is a case of projected emotions.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  She ran her fingers through a couple of soft curls in an attempt to brush them away from her face. It didn’t work. A moment later, they bounced right back.

  ‘It could be that the assailant has some deep hatred projected not towards the victims but towards someone else entirely.’

  ‘You mean, Carol and Monica reminded him of someone.’

  ‘Precisely,’ she said. ‘Or else something they did triggered it off.’

  Love took a long drag. He flicked the redundant ash into the ashtray. He studied the glowing red tip of his cigarette. ‘Is it possible that he can’t punish the person responsible so he punishes the next best thing?’

  ‘Highly possible.’

  ‘Now that is interesting.’

  She gazed at Love before speaking. ‘You know, something’s just occurred to me.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I couldn’t put my finger on it until now.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘You have more than a passing resemblance to Robert Redford.’ She smiled. ‘I mean, Redford from the late seventies early eighties. The same dirty blond layered hairstyle with the thick, side parted fringe over the forehead and his deep-set blue eyes.’ She cocked her head on one side and her gaze flickered down. ‘The same square jaw.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Excuse you! What do you say “excuse me” for? You don’t want to get past me. You didn’t burp or worse. Say “pardon” or “what did you say” or “sorry” or another word that projects your exact meaning like everyone else for goodness sake! You’ve lived here long enough.’

  ‘Wow! Where did that come from?’

  She held his gaze for a moment, and said, ‘I’m not sure and I’m even more unsure that I want to know.’

  ‘Too telling, Doc, too exposed for your liking?’

  ‘Let’s put it down to an early morning start.’

  ‘Cop out, Doc.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s lack of interest. Have you thought of that?’

  Love raised an eyebrow. ‘So that’s a good thing?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Robert Redford.’

  Julie averted her gaze and looked down at her list of scribbled notes. ‘So, what have we got? One of the abducted mother’s children has been admitted to St Katherine’s within the last two and a half months.’

  Love smiled before replying, ‘Yes, Doc, we’ll play it your way.’

  ‘The mothers didn’t know each other and neither did they mix in the same circles and the same goes for their husbands or at least husband,’ Julie paused and tapped her file with a chewed pen she’d picked up from the floor. ‘That leaves the rest of the family. What about siblings, aunts, uncles?’

  ‘Let’s keep to the immediate facts, Julie, let’s keep to what we know. Which leaves the doctors and the surgeons involved.’

  ‘Yes, and as far as I can make out going by hospital records that gives us a total of seven doctors and surgeons.’

  ‘We’ve dismissed four due to them having staunch alibis at the time which leaves us with three possibilities. Julie?’

  ‘Sorry, it’s just that... it’s just that I find it so hard to believe a doctor is responsible.’

  ‘We haven’t determined that yet.’

  ‘I’m not being obtuse, of course doctors, surgeons, whatever - can be criminals the same as anyone else, it’s just that I know the staff at St Katherine’s and if any one of them is responsible for these crimes, well, they had me fooled good and proper and I’ll quit and grow vines in France.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope it’s not a doctor then.’

  ‘Actually, we have four possibilities.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘I haven’t included myself.’

  ‘There’s just one thing wrong with that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You are most certainly not a man.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d noticed.’

  ‘What sort of lousy detective do you think I am, lady?’

  Julie smiled and almost blushed. She looked d
own and said nothing before glancing at her watch. ‘Look, it’s nearly eight o’clock. I have to make a phone call. Will you excuse me for a moment?’ Julie smiled as she picked up her mobile and stepped outside on to the tiny balcony to the front of the property.

  She closed the French door firmly behind her.

  Five miles from the Houses of Parliament a mobile phone began to vibrate.

  It sounded like a cow in labour.

  A man picked it up and listened.

  ‘Yes, Doctor Cooper, I’ll see you at the usual place. You can rely on me.’ He spoke quietly finished the call and closed his mobile. He looked up and smiled.

  Not long now, he told himself, not long now.

  ‘Have to go,’ Julie said as she bent down to retrieve her briefcase.

  She snapped it open and placed the file inside and snapped it shut again, grabbed her coat from the back of the couch. She glanced over her shoulder as Love helped her on with it, and spoke gently.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll see you later at the hospital?’

  ‘Can’t say, but hey! Listen, thanks so much for all your help.’

  She walked through the archway into the hallway, stopped, and turned round to face Love. ‘That’s quite all right,’ she said. ‘By the way I’ve been meaning to ask.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What does DCA stand for?’

  ‘Detective Class A.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘Is that good?’

  ‘It’s good.’ Love held her gaze and smiled.

  Her eyes flickered and she glanced away. ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘And it’s not a problem checking the security tapes?’ he said referring to their conversation of the day before.

  ‘A problem?’ she repeated. She pushed a curl back from her face as she pondered the question. ‘I don’t see why not but I rather think if it were you would easily get round it.’ She grinned. ‘Give me a ring later.’

  ‘Before lunch?’

  ‘Before lunch.’

  ‘I appreciate it, I really do.’

  Love crossed the room until he was standing in front of her. His eyes glanced down at the front of her white cotton shirt. One of the top buttons had come undone exposing a gentle mound encased in a lacy cream bra. He coughed and looked away. A faint stirring passed through his entire body ending in his crotch. ‘Christ,’ he muttered.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Julie looked at Love.

  She was only inches away from him. She licked her lips with the tip of her tongue. Her mouth remained slightly open, moist and inviting.

  Love took a step closer, their eyes met.

  She waited.

  He reached slowly towards her, her face, her soft curls, continued on by and pulled open the front door. ‘Nothing at all,’ Love murmured. ‘Just a little cramp I get from time to time. A slight stiffness I’m sure will go away in a minute.’

  ‘Oh? Well, must go,’ she said, and smiled. She went to say something else but changed her mind. And with one last look at Love, who was looking steadily back at her, she turned round and left.

  The door closed behind her with a final click.

  Julie didn’t leave straight away but instead leant her body against the door. Christ! What on earth had just happened? She was convinced she’d felt a connection, a moment between them. She was sure he was going to kiss her. She wanted him to. She wanted to feel his mouth upon hers.

  What was she saying!

  ‘Get hold of yourself, woman, you’re forty years old not an adolescent coping with her first love,’ she muttered, and shook her head. She pulled herself away from the door, down the elegantly scruffy staircase and out into the hustle and bustle of London where all thoughts of Love and kissing left her mind as once again the cool professional took over.

  She strode along to the corner of the road to where she’d parked her car. She jumped in and pulled away almost immediately. She couldn’t be late for her meeting.

  She couldn’t keep him waiting.

  Love stared at the door and then turned to retrieve his cigarettes from the mantelpiece above the wrought iron faux fireplace. He pulled one out, flicked his lighter and lit it. Damn! He needed a strong cup of coffee and a shower and a change of clothes and he had a very pregnant dog to feed and take out for her walk.

  ‘Come on, Julie, meat for you, coffee for me. In that order.’

  Julie raised her head and looked adoringly at Love. She eased herself up out of her basket and waddled into the tiny kitchen. Love spooned some food into her bowl and placed it on her mat. He re-boiled the water in the kettle and stubbed out his cigarette made himself a cup of coffee lit another cigarette and then promptly stood it upright on the counter. He walked into the lounge sipping his coffee and turned on his television. Then remembered and turned it right off again.

  Another note he had to make was to get someone in to fix the television. Or would he have to take it in to be repaired or worse. Would they tell him it was too old, these particular digital parts no longer available, don’t repair TVs these days, just throw it away and replace it with a plastic, cheap piece of crap that will probably last a year by which time you go through the whole process again.

  Love placed his mug down on the table and called through to Julie. She’d finished her breakfast and was ready to go outside. Fifteen minutes later, Love walked through to the bathroom. Ten minutes after that he was in his bedroom standing in front of his chest of drawers pulling out a pair of black Doreanse boxer briefs, a pair of black cotton socks, grabbed a clean but slightly creased white cotton shirt and a fresh pair of Burberry skinny fit black chinos from the wardrobe next to it, slipped on his black leather Anatomic & Co chukkas or ankle boots as they are also known by, made a quick telephone call, said goodbye to Julie, and left.

  He walked down the road to where he’d parked his car the night before, beeped, got in and drove straight to work.