Enigma

  Chapter Four

  ‘Hello, Timmy.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘All right, thank you.’

  ‘That’s good, son. I understand you wanted to talk to me.’

  ‘I thought of something,’ he said, then hesitated. ‘I didn’t know whether I should tell you but then I remembered you said anything at all, right?’

  ‘That’s right, Timmy. Anything at all.’

  ‘It’s something I heard, those words, he... that man said.’ He swallowed hard before continuing. ‘It’s... it’s something to do with cameras.’

  ‘Cameras?’ Love repeated and flipped open his notepad.

  ‘I think so, when I try to remember, all I can think of is cameras.’

  ‘That’s great, Timmy! Well done, son.’

  ‘Does... does it help?’

  ‘It sure does,’ he said as he reached over to ruffle Timmy’s head. ‘Why, you’ll be my special partner before you know it.’

  ‘Really?’ Timmy’s face lit up for a moment.

  It wasn’t much but it was a start. It was the beginning of the road to recovery. Love knew that one all too well.

  ‘Can you think of anything else, Timmy?’

  Timmy thought for a moment before speaking quietly to Love. ‘That’s all I can think of,’ said Timmy.

  ‘Okay,’ Love said, and scribbled something down in his notepad. ‘Thank you, son. You’re doing a swell job.’

  ‘I think Timmy’s talked quite enough for today, Detective.’

  ‘Doctor Cooper,’ Love said without turning round. Did this woman have a bad sense of timing, or what?

  ‘We were just finishing up, Doc, when...’

  ‘When I barged in?’ she finished. She was standing directly in front of Love and next to Timmy.

  ‘The choice of words are yours, Doctor Cooper,’ Love replied as he heaved his frame from the end of the bed. He stood looking down at her. At six foot one he pretty much looked down at most women but she was taller than most. She also had pretty hazel eyes. He hadn’t noticed that before.

  ‘Too much excitement for Timmy isn’t good for him,’ she said quietly. She tucked Timmy in murmuring promises of a hot drink the moment he woke from his nap. ‘He’s not to get excited, I won’t have it, Detective.’

  Love followed her into the corridor outside Timmy’s room. He ran his hand through his thick hair and shook his head. ‘Of course he shouldn’t get upset,’ he said. ‘But excitement in the right way I think is just what he needs.’

  ‘I disagree and I am his physician and his psychotherapist, not you.’

  ‘A small dose of fun won’t kill the kid, Doctor, and it wouldn’t do you any harm either,’ he said. ‘You Brits are all the same, so stuck-up, always having to be seen to do the proper thing.’

  ‘You don’t have to be so insulting.’

  ‘Believe me, lady, I could have been a lot more.’

  ‘Why do Americans have to be so direct and brash?’

  ‘I guess it comes naturally.’

  ‘It certainly does to you.’

  ‘Is there any point to this conversation, Doctor Cooper?’

  ‘I think where you’re concerned, Detective Love, you missed the point a long time ago,’ she replied, turned and walked away.

  He watched her go. He listened to the sound her heels made on that ridiculously shiny floor hospitals insisted on installing. He was surprised they didn’t have more accidents from slipping on that damn floor. To hell with it! He went to go after her and then changed his mind. Let it go, he told himself. That’s not what you’re here for, besides, dames! They’re all the same.

  He turned on his heel and stormed off down the corridor. He didn’t slow down until he reached the car park. That woman could drive him to distraction! One step forward, two steps back with her.

  The fresh autumn air hit his face like a dose of cold water. What on earth had made him talk to her like that? He was supposed to be a cool professional, wasn’t he? Always calm under fire whether that came from the barrel of a .38 or the mouth of some cute, curly-haired doctor with pretty eyes who was irritating him beyond reason because she kept dropping in on his thoughts. Uninvited. Now he’d have to apologise and there would be awkwardness and to hell with it. Dames! He stopped by his ’98 Volvo pressed his key the car bleeped then clicked, he opened the door and slammed it shut again. This was no good. He’d have to go back and apologise. Dames!

  Damn them all.

  Thirteen miles away a man was putting the final touches to his plan. This one would work like a dream. No one would see this one coming. He smiled fondly as he remembered the way that last mother had cried and whimpered. She should have shown more mercy to her child. It was her fault. It was always the mother’s fault when they let their children down. He made sure the mothers felt the pain and felt the agonies suffered by children when their mothers didn’t care enough, all that pain, his pain, the hurt... all that hurt...

  He was barely in through the main doors when Love was pounced upon. ‘I have to talk to you,’ she said as she fell into step with his large strides.

  ‘Hey, listen.’ He stopped in his tracks. ‘I’d like to apologise for just now, Doctor Cooper...’

  ‘Never mind, that,’ she said, waving her hand in front of her face like she was trying to shoo away an irritating wasp. ‘Something’s come to light.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Not here,’ she said, and pulled him into a tiny office. It smelt of dust and old files.

  ‘Really, Doctor Cooper, if you wanted to get me alone in a stinky room all you had to do was ask.’

  She ignored him and ran her hand through her light brown curls. ‘Blood tests have been run and rerun,’ she said, handing him a sheet of paper. ‘They’re not related.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Monica Dixon is not Timmy’s mother.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘They’re related, that much is certain, but she’s not his mother.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Julie Cooper pointed to the paper Love held in his hand. ‘This just came through from your Mr Fitch.’

  ‘John?’ Love said as he glanced down at the facts and data in front of him until he came to a scribbled signature at the bottom of the page.

  ‘That’s right. He knew I was Timmy’s doctor and psychotherapist and thought I should know.’

  ‘Probably got that from Stuart,’ Love murmured. He looked up. ‘Is this the result from the blood on Timmy’s sweater?’

  ‘Apparently so.’

  Love felt in his pocket for his mobile then remembered he’d left it in the car. As a matter of convenience. Hospitals were like aeroplanes in that respect. Mobiles were either not permitted or had restrictions imposed or else they had to be turned off.

  From the moment he’d crawled out of bed earlier that morning he knew the day was going to throw a curve ball, although, he hadn’t reckoned on this. He sure hadn’t seen this one coming.