Ice Blue (2 page)

DS Wakefield, perhaps not truly beautiful in
the full uncompromising light of day, was still radiantly pretty,
especially when amused. “Oh, maybe I’m the plonker,” she sighed.
Her eyes were long-lashed and perfectly balanced; her nose and
mouth were a tad asymmetrical, but in such a way that made her an
individual, instead of another nameless lipstick-ad model.
“Screaming at my superior isn’t the way to get heard. Not
here.”

“You mentioned something that sounded like…”
Hetheridge’s vocabulary momentarily failed him. “An accusation of
sexual impropriety. Or, er, harassment?” What am I doing, the
reliable segment of his brain demanded. Deliberately summoning the
harpy?

DS Wakefield shrugged. “Forget it.”

“I see. So you admit that the serious
allegation you made against Superintendent Jackson, in front of me
and numerous others, was a lie?”

She straightened in her seat, surprised.
“About him asking me to blow him? No sir, he did. But we were off
duty, down at the pub. He was drunk. I didn’t count it against him,
not until he started calling me names this morning.”

Hetheridge couldn’t locate the words to
respond. She’s pretending to be one of the lads now, he thought –
making no fuss and reserving the right to seduce Jackson later, if
it can send her up the ladder. In fact, she may very well have
serviced him in a dark corner of some boozy hole. Quite possibly,
that’s why she believed she could get away with insubordination and
insults this morning. But even as he told himself this, another
part of Hetheridge was struggling to imagine what it was like to be
DS Wakefield – young, attractive, intelligent – and to find herself
facing a drunken superior with a midlife libido and an unzipped
fly.

“I’m sorry,” DS Wakefield cut across his
thoughts. She did not look or sound the least bit sorry. “Did I
shock you, my Lord?”

“CS Hetheridge, here,” he replied coldly. He
loathed the use of his title in the Yard, where it was never
invoked, except as a special form of reverse snobbery.

She smiled, her eyes sliding away.

Something in that slight smile pricked
Hetheridge in a way he could not bear. “Yes?”

DS Wakefield remained silent.

“You have something to say. Go on.”

“It’s just that everyone calls you ‘my Lord,’
sir. I only said it from force of habit, sir. Sorry, sir.”

He stared at DS Wakefield for a long moment.
Everything about her mask-like blandness and gleaming eyes told him
it was the truth. In the arena where he prided himself on
contending as a self-made man among other self-made men – in the
place where brains, drive, and courage mattered more than one’s
forbearers or one’s ancestral home – he was mocked as “my Lord” by
all. Including this ravishing little bitch, who had clawed her way
up from an East End childhood, and whose career now teetered on the
point of a blade.

“Out of my sight,” Hetheridge waved her away,
unconsciously echoing Superintendent Jackson. “Write your
explanation and have it on my desk by the end of the day. Think
carefully about whether you deserve to remain at Scotland Yard,
Sergeant.”

She was up in one quick movement – like a
child might burst out of a seat, eager to escape the headmaster’s
office. Then DS Wakefield paused, her mouth twisting, indecision
plain on her face. She crossed halfway to the office door, then
turned back, pushing her shoulder-length blonde hair behind her
ears and squaring her shoulders in an attitude of decision.

“What?” Hetheridge snapped.

“We didn’t row over him pulling out his dick
in a pub. God knows I’m used to that. We were fighting over the
case,” DS Wakefield said. “He told me to focus on the dead girl’s
best client, and wanted me to ignore all the evidence against her
boss – motive, opportunity, even a few juicy circumstantial bits.
The Super made up his mind early on, y’see, and wouldn’t hear
anything that didn’t fit his original scenario. That’s why he said
I was insubordinate – because I kept up the investigation on my own
time. And that’s why I said he was a plonker – because he doesn’t
care what really happened to the dead girl, as long as he stitches
up his chosen punter. Superintendent Jackson won’t see the truth
when it does a strip tease in front of him – that’s his problem. I
don’t suffer fools gladly. That’s mine.”

Hetheridge digested this information slowly.
Then he asked, “What made you finally tell me?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I had the
weirdest feeling you might listen. I know the top men always prop
each other up, especially against women. The lads will boil your
balls if you don’t stand with them. And I know I rub everyone wrong
– everyone in authority, at least. Even the women, when I actually
encounter one, treat me like a cockroach. But you – there was
something in the way you said oi!” DS Wakefield grinned at
Hetheridge – a cheeky grin, fearless, bright as the sunlight that
had dazzled him when he emerged from the Bentley. “Something like a
kindred spirit. So there it is.” She grinned again. Then she was
gone. His office door swung gently in her wake, not quite open and
not fully closed, as Anthony Hetheridge closed his eyes – reminding
himself of his proximity to age sixty, and wondering what,
precisely, had just happened to him.

Kate grasped her mobile phone on the first
ring, hand snaking up from the covers and fingers closing
unerringly around it, flipping it open to silence the noise. Her
first thought was absurd: it’s Mum, calling for Ritchie. Her next
thought was just as foolish: it’s Dylan, calling to say he’s sorry.
If either of these preposterous notions had dared to surface under
normal waking conditions, Kate would have stuck her head in a
bucket of cold water, or got herself checked for mad cow disease.
Strange enough that such fancies occurred to her in the haze
between sleep and waking, when her shoulders loosened, her body
curled like a child’s, and the internal list of promises unmet, and
aspirations gone stale, flitted away. Maybe, during those few
glorious hours, her I.Q. dropped a hundred points.

“Wakefield,” she said thickly, technically
awake. It had to be the Met.

“DS Wakefield, sorry to wake you,” the female
voice said in a perfunctory tone. “There’s been a homicide in
Belgravia. The Yard has been asked to investigate, and your guvnor
wants you on the scene as soon as possible.”

“Fine,” Kate said, more awake now, energized
by a jolt of surprised pleasure. Superintendent Jackson usually
went over the scene himself when it was fresh – the better to form
his own unshakable conclusions, without the interruption of another
detective’s views. Jackson’s standard operating procedure had been
to call her in the next day, after she had already heard most of
the details in the press, and assign her some boring bit of
research, like pouring over phone records or fact-checking
biographies of minor witnesses. Now she was on the case from the
first.

“I only need a half-hour,” Kate lied to the
dispatcher, suspecting it might take a full hour to get to
Belgravia. “Tell him I’m on my way.”

“He’s actually on his way to you,” the
dispatcher replied before Kate could flip the phone closed. “He
said he was in the area, and asked for your address. Said he could
reach you within a quarter-hour, and the two of you could ride
together.”

Oh, God, Kate thought, horrified at the idea
of Jackson feasting his eyes on her flat. Food-encrusted dishes
were stacked in the sink; hampers overflowed with dirty socks and
knickers. Not to mention the still-unsolved odor emanating from the
bathroom pipes…

“Great. Very thoughtful. Thanks,” Kate
muttered. She closed the phone, praying the single ring and
low-voiced conversation hadn’t wakened Ritchie.

So Superintendent Jackson had learned her
address, and was coming to escort her to the crime scene in his own
vehicle. Was it possible, she wondered, sitting up and yawning
mightily, that their public row and subsequent interviews with
Commander Deaver had actually effected a positive change in the
fat-headed old plonker? Or could CS Hetheridge have worked some
lordly magic on her behalf?

No, Kate decided, swinging her legs over the
side of the bed. Something small and sharp dug into her sole.
Suspecting a Lego, Kate kicked it aside, then blinked several
times, inspecting the rest of the chilly oak-boarded floor for
hazards before hurrying to the toilet.

No, she thought again, if Jackson has changed
his approach, it’s only temporary, and only until he can find a new
way to put me in my place. Is that why he decided to come here
tonight? He heard something?

Kate, fiercely private, had long been
terrified her personal life might become fodder for the Yard’s
gossip. Bad enough that so much of her life – her childhood in and
out of care, her schooling, her unlikely rise within the Met – was
a matter of public record. Superintendent Jackson had not yet
forgiven her for that public reference to his “poor little thing.”
What revenge might he seek, armed with a few of her secrets?

Determined to be ready the moment the super
arrived, Kate barreled into the bathroom, wincing as the
fluorescent light above the mirror flickered back into blue-white
life. A quick inventory of the bathroom was as dire as she’d feared
– hair and soap scum lurked in the shower, and the toilet was in
need of a good scrub. Well, if Jackson wanted a piss, he’d just
have to squeeze his knees together. No force on earth would impel
Kate to invite him up to the flat.

Her hair was squashed on one side, and sticky
with old hairspray. The other side looked almost normal. Sighing,
Kate jerked a metal-bristled brush through the sticky side,
determined to separate the gluey bits. Then the whole mess would be
bundled into the tightest bun bobby pins and more hairspray could
manage…

“I heard the phone ring,” Ritchie murmured,
appearing in the doorway. At nearly six-one, he loomed over her.
Fresh spots had erupted on his left cheek, and his curly brown hair
stood out at odd angles. “Heard you talking, too. Going to
work?”

“Work,” Kate agreed firmly. Rising on her
tiptoes, she gripped Ritchie’s shoulders and gave him a quick peck,
sisterly on the lips. “But Cassie’s here. She’ll watch over you
until I get back.”

“Cassie’s asleep,” Ritchie said doubtfully.
He had never approved of the tendency of others to sleep while he
was awake. Cassie, hired as a live-in carer only two months ago,
slept far too much in Ritchie’s estimation, and had not yet accrued
much leniency with him.

“Yes, and leave her sleeping,” Kate said,
turning back to the mirror, “unless you really need her. Unless
you’re absolutely sure you need her. Don’t wake her up just to say
hello.”

“Henry’s asleep, too,” Ritchie continued,
plan transparent on his face.

“Henry especially needs his sleep,” Kate
emphasized, beginning to twist her hair into a bun. “He has school
in the morning. You don’t want him to fail his geography test, do
you?”

Ritchie shrugged. “I’m bored.” He shuffled
his feet and glanced behind him, as if someone interesting might
have appeared in the parlor. “I miss Dylan.”

“So do I,” Kate said lightly, rummaging in
the medicine cabinet for lipstick and mascara. “Watch some telly,
Ritchie. Everyone will be awake before you know it.” Closing the
bathroom door on him, since Ritchie existed without personal
boundaries, and would attempt to carry on a conversation no matter
what she was doing, Kate plopped onto the toilet and peeked at the
cotton crotch of her thong knickers.

Nothing. Clean and spotless.

She glanced at the calendar pinned over the
bog roll. Six days late – well, technically seven, since it was now
a few minutes past midnight.

I’ve been late before, Kate told herself,
more from bravado than fact. No need to panic. No need to run to
the chemist’s for a test.

“Dylan,” she exhaled – but softly, very
softly, lest she disturb Ritchie again, who might even now have
fallen back under the spell of his old friend, the telly. “Dylan,
you bastard, where the fuck are you?”

* * *

Kate was pacing outside her building, trench
coat belted against the cold night air, when the silver Lexus
appeared, rolling to a slow stop in front of her. The windows were
tinted and car’s curving lines and flawless finish gleamed under
the sodium lights. Kate, who did not recognize the model, a SC 430,
and knew the coupe as a Lexus only because of the stylized L in the
grille, was impressed nevertheless, and found herself laughing. Who
would have thought Superintendent Jackson, plonker extraordinaire,
would turn up in such a ride? First an invitation to a still-warm
crime scene, and now this? The passenger door swung open, and Kate
climbed in, prepared to see Vic Jackson in an entirely new
light.

Hetheridge sat behind the wheel in a tuxedo,
his black tie unknotted and hanging loose against his crisp white
shirt. “Good evening.”

“G-good evening. Sir,” Kate added hastily,
closing the door and fumbling for her seatbelt. “I didn’t know you
drove.”

“From time to time,” Hetheridge said mildly,
guiding the Lexus out of Kate’s neighborhood and merging back into
the light South London traffic. “We should be over the river and
into Belgravia in ten minutes or less.”

“If I’d realized crime scenes in the West End
are black tie, I’d have worn a gown and heels.”

Hetheridge chuckled. “I was attending a
charity ball when the call came in. One of those occasions,” he
shot a sidelong glance at her, “when homicide is welcome news
indeed.”

“A charity ball? The charity doesn’t happen
to operate out of my neighborhood, does it?”

“In the general vicinity. British Youth is
planning a new recreational center where a condemned building
stands, not far from your home. Good luck that before I left the
ball, I checked with the Met dispatcher and discovered you lived
just a few streets away. I always do better on the scene with at
least one other detective to help catalog the details.”