Enigma

  * * *

  Love flashed his identification to Geoff who was on duty. ‘Hi, Geoff, how are you?’

  ‘Not so bad, Love, and yourself?’

  ‘Yeah, you know how it is,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Did going to the gym help you sleep any better?’

  ‘No, it bloody didn’t!’ Geoff said, pointing to his leg. ‘Pulled a muscle in my right calf and the pain’s been keeping me awake ever since.’

  ‘Try something less stressful like reading a book.’

  ‘When I can’t sleep I always read a book or a magazine,’ Stuart said. ‘It always helps me to get off.’

  ‘Magazines help me to get off,’ Love said, and grinned. If Stuart but only knew how ironic he was being right now, Love thought. Or was it a double entendre? Hell! Was it just plain crude?

  ‘Does that work for you then?’

  Love thought of his Frederick Forsyth and John le Carré sitting on his bedside table and more pertinently his copy of Playboy hanging about in the drawer. ‘Yes, it can help.’

  Stuart smiled and flashed his ID. ‘Or how about trying some melatonin?’

  ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘Natural sleep medication works in rhythm with your body,’ Stuart said. ‘You can get it online.’

  ‘Melo what?’ Geoff said, picking up a pen and reaching across the long reception desk for a notepad.

  ‘Melatonin.’

  ‘Thanks, Stuart, I’ll give it a shot,’ Geoff said. He waved to them as they strolled over the marble floor to await the lift.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think we were consciously misled,’ Stuart said. ‘Not too sure about the husband.’

  ‘But the son’s a different matter,’ Love said.

  ‘Interesting. To paint a picture of your wife, or mother, and she happens to be the antithesis of that very picture.’

  ‘I like Jill Pfeiffer,’ Stuart said. ‘A lot.’

  ‘I feel the same,’ Love said. ‘I just hope she won’t need to call us.’

  The lift arrived. It pinged gently, the doors opened and Love didn’t move. ‘I’m going to check on my car whilst I’m here,’ he said. ‘You go on up.’

  ‘All right, partner.’

  ‘See you in a minute.’

  Still holding his paper bag full of food, Love turned round and headed for a door at the end of reception next to the entrance for the underground car park. On the door was a sign saying “Motorpool”.

  Love swiped his ID and glanced up at the security camera above. Seconds later, the door opened. Love stepped inside and looked round.

  The area was large and warm. The heating had kicked in and was working like a dream.

  About half a dozen cars were being worked on. A few of them elevated having radar controls attached. The place smelt of coffee, oil, plastic and expensive gadgets. It looked like an upmarket garage.

  Love wandered over to a corner of the space behind which was a large and comfortable glass partitioned office. He knocked briefly and went inside. Two wooden desks one on each side of the room sat facing inwards. In the space between were two sofas, a couple of coffee tables, a hot and cold drinks machine, magazines and a selection of newspapers scattered on the two tables placed in the middle.

  It was like being at the dentist.

  Leafy green plants were dotted about the place. A radio was playing quietly in the background. Soothing music. Big bands and easy listening. The sort of music Love preferred to listen to if and when he ever found the time.

  He smiled at the young woman sitting behind one of the desks. She’d looked up questioningly as Love entered the office. He nodded in the direction of the other desk to where a man was sitting rifling through some logbooks.

  She smiled and nodded in return and went back to her computer.

  ‘Hi, Jim,’ Love said.

  ‘I know it’s in this lot somewhere.’ The man looked up. ‘Love! How are you, you old Yank!’

  Love smiled. He never tired of hearing that although Jim was the only one who said it and he could live with that. It was their thing just a bit of harmless fun. And the PC brigade who thought otherwise, mused Love, could do the other.

  ‘Yeah, I’m doing all right. And you?’

  ‘I’ve got four cars coming in this afternoon cos they need…’ he paused as he looked first left then right, ‘to get “fixed up” and I know you know what I mean.’

  ‘I do know what you mean,’ Love said, and grinned.

  ‘So if you’d left it any later I wouldn’t have been able to accommodate you.’

  ‘Working good now though, is it?’

  ‘All shipshape and Bristol fashion, mate, works like a dream.’

  ‘Thanks, Jim, I owe you one.’

  ‘Just chalk it up with the others.’ Jim chuckled, and went back to his logbooks.

  Love turned to leave. ‘I’ll do that,’ he said, and walked back over to the door. He reckoned he’d be back nearer Christmas with a bottle of the finest scotch money could buy tucked safely under his arm.

  ‘Good news, mate!’

  Love strode into the office. On his way back he’d checked on the heater and having got a blast of warm air full in his face determined Stuart would be the one who’d be most pleased. ‘No more rides in the cold.’

  Stuart looked up from the file he was reading. ‘Glad to hear it!’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’ Love gratefully spied the hot mug of tea sitting by his computer. His nerves wouldn’t take any more coffee. He dumped the paper carrier bag on the top of his desk, shrugged off his Donegal placed it on the back of his chair and ran his hands through his blond thatch. The thick layered fringe settled back down over his forehead almost immediately. ‘What we got?’

  ‘Chris dropped by,’ Stuart said. ‘No luck with those additional shoes on the security tape.’

  ‘Really?’ Love stood still with both hands placed on his hips. ‘So she can’t determine if the shoes belong to Timmy or not meaning we’re not one hundred per cent certain the other shoes belong to Monica.’

  ‘No, all we have is theory and your gut and no definitive proof of anything.’

  ‘Except Monica did have those receipts in her possession and Sheila Marcus says Monica did visit the shop.’

  ‘It’s still circumstantial evidence.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, plus Fleurs in Brent Cross checked out,’ Love said.

  ‘Were you expecting it not to?’

  ‘I guess, yeah, sort of but we discovered for ourselves Heinrich left Fleurs a few minutes after the eight o’clock news. They reckoned it was… four past eight?’

  ‘Which cuts it all extremely fine, doesn’t it.’

  ‘From Fleurs to the hospital it would take anywhere between thirty-three and thirty-seven minutes.’

  ‘And that’s not counting the time it took to detour to Primrose Hill and abduct and kill Monica which in total would take… what? About an hour?’ Stuart said. ‘Yet his father said he was in the shop between quarter and ten to nine.’

  ‘What did he do? Teleport himself like something out of Star Trek?’ Love raised his hand and wiped it back and forth on his chin. The fine layer of bristle made a faint rasping noise.

  And that was another thing. He’d forgotten to buy a new pack of disposable razors. He may as well have shaved with a blunt pair of scissors when he got up this morning. And he was concerned about Julie. She was lumbering about like she had the world on her shoulders. She was due to drop her litter any day now and Love was beginning to act like the expectant father. No one back in New York would believe it.

  ‘I’m still going with it.’

  ‘I agree,’ Stuart said. ‘Your intuition has never let us down yet.’

  ‘It’s not just that, mate,’ Love said as he picked up his mug. ‘We’ve got nothing else.’ Love took a mouthful of hot liquid and set his mug back down on the desk. At least he’d slept well the night before. That made a change. And no dreams of
a certain attractive lady doctor either although he wasn’t sure if he was glad about that or not.

  And that bothered him.

  Stuart glanced at the file in front of him. ‘Heard anything on Carol’s fellow students at the college in Golders Green?’

  Love shook his head. ‘They’re still checking on that,’ he said. He threw back his mug and drained it.

  ‘Crikey, Love, what do you have an asbestos mouth?’

  Love grinned. ‘You know me, mate, all or nothing.’ He bit his bottom lip. ‘The students are coming up clean and anyway…’

  ‘Anyway?’

  ‘I don’t think we’re going to find a connection there.’ He picked up the bag strolled over to the fridge and deposited it inside.

  ‘So,’ Stuart said, looking at the black dial of his Bell & Ross. Beautiful piece of craftsmanship costing around £3,700.00. And worth every penny. ‘What now?’

  Stuart had been awake since five o’clock that morning.

  He’d lain in his bedroom of his two bedroom town house in W8. A pretty black and white cottage he and Emma had purchased when they got married. They bought a property with an extra bedroom ‘just in case’ and ‘just in case’ happened along two years later in the shape of Shannon.

  Not exactly planned but welcomed nonetheless. An intelligent child, quiet, a little shy, who had both her mother and father’s looks.

  Stuart lay listening to the distant sounds of a fox. A vixen. It has a most distinctive cry. No surprise there. Foxes in London were a common sight unlike in the country where due to a perverse twist of nature they were less prevalent, at least to public eyes.

  He folded one bare arm under his head and stared at nothing. Looking but not seeing. Thinking. The bedroom was decorated in soothing colours, yellow and white, bamboo and rattan with a touch of deep mahogany. The thick carpet was pure wool and the colour of milky coffee.

  The property featured a pretty wooden terrace to the back of the house coming off the kitchen/reception room, a balcony to the front, and an integral garage where Emma kept her other baby, a 1992 British racing green Mini Cooper with a white roof and thick white stripes running down the bonnet and thinner ones along the side.

  Next to the main bedroom was the bathroom and opposite that was Shannon’s room. Directly underneath was an open-plan medium-sized kitchen, long and narrow in shape, decorated in white offset with glossy red and Bristol blue tiles and utensils sitting alongside a bright yellow fridge.

  Leading directly off the kitchen area was a large reception room decorated in cream and browns, antiques that had been passed down from Stuart’s family, the odd piece from Cargo such as a yellow throw on the back of the subtly patterned cream and brown linen couch along with a variety of cushions in all sizes and fabrics including smaller items Stuart and Emma had bought together over the years.

  Huge earthenware pots and vases were scattered about the wooden floor inside of which sat large bright yellow sunflowers standing proud and defiant. Made from silk, never to die.

  On the matt white and alternative sand-coloured walls was a selection of mirrors bought from the shop on the corner. Alongside hung an array of large abstract prints. Some of the works were by well-known artists, others were copies. Bought simply because they were liked and they looked good.

  On the floor below in the small hallway next to the staircase was a cloakroom and shower and on the other side, a large living area. Its decorative fireplace was its main feature along with a charming and pretty enclosed patio area. The room was more formal than the one upstairs and was decorated with the couple’s more priceless antiques and rugs along with the odd piece of Worcester and Derby ware.

  The house was a comfortable and pretty home in an affluent part of Kensington.

  But right now, all Stuart could think about was his wife. Shannon, he knew, would be fine with her grandmother. It meant her possibly missing school but as she was only six years old he could live with that. Besides, her grandmother was a retired teacher and she’d see that Shannon wouldn’t be missing out on any learning whilst she was away. Much to Shannon’s delight as already she was showing signs of being a studious little girl.

  ‘Now?’ Love said. ‘Now I think it’s time we went back to St Katherine’s and had a word with our esteemed surgeon.’

  ‘Looking for Carol’s connection and her lover?’ Stuart said. ‘That’s supposing she had one.’

  ‘That, I am.’ Love grinned and grabbed his jacket. Stuart smiled, pushed back his chair, threw on his coat.

  Four minutes later, they were coasting down Albert Embankment discussing the merits of a car with a working heater.