by Adam Carter
And then there was what Lin had always termed the immoral. The people who for reasons all of their own did what they did. Some were too lazy to get a proper job, some were thrill-seekers, many of those being of the upper classes. Lin had read a thesis once on how socialite daughters of successful businessmen would hire themselves out for kicks. Many of the immoral also ventured into films, and there was a growing trend for these lurid pictures. She was willing to accept, even though she had to stretch her imagination to do so, that some women even enjoyed that lifestyle. Such women likely made up less than one per cent of the whole, although from the number of lonely housewife adverts Lin had seen during her investigations she was not so sure any more.
Sex was a big business, and pimps had cottoned onto that a long time ago. Lin was starting to believe more and more independent women were realising this as well.
Into which category Rachael fell, Lin did not like to say. She did not know Rachael’s background, although she knew how anti-drugs Baronaire was so could not believe she was hooked on anything; besides, it was one of Sanders’s rules that none of the hookers in his protected area ever take any illegal drugs. Lin had to believe that Rachael was a desperate, that she wanted to leave that life behind, but simply did not yet have the money.
It was what Lin had to believe, since she would not countenance the alternative.
“I got her a bear last week,” Baronaire said out of the blue.
“That was sweet.”
“Couldn’t really think of anything else to get her. I don’t have a lot of experience with this type of thing.”
“Well, that’s what you have me for. Look, there’s nothing going on down here, what say we head back to base and get back to our real work? And when our shifts end I can take you window shopping.”
“You know, I always like it when I’m partnered with you, Lin. I think ...”
He stopped suddenly, both moving and talking, and Lin knew this time it was indeed because of something that had happened. She knew better than to say anything however and just waited for him to talk. She knew full well Baronaire had strangely heightened senses, that he could hear and see and even smell things no one else could detect. At first people seemed to think it was a joke, but when he produced results they were always astonished and quickly accepted that he was genuine.
“Here,” Baronaire said, crouching low to examine something at the side of the planking. Lin could see nothing save the water which had splashed onto the boards. She had expected that he had had found a syringe or something, but she couldn’t see anything. Then she realised he was pulling at something and saw a rusted metal circular grate which likely fed sewage into the river. With one final tug Baronaire had the grate off and set it to one side. He peered in, although with her ordinary vision Lin could see very little of anything, so she withdrew a torch and fumbled with the ‘on’ switch.
She gasped at what she could see in the sewage tunnel, and with the sight there suddenly came a change of wind direction and the stench reached her also.
Crammed within the opening to the tunnel was a body wearing an expensive suit, a look of fright frozen on his cold, dead eyes.
“I think you found your clue,” Lin told him, fighting the urge to vomit.
“Aye. Sorry, but our Christmas shopping will have to wait.”
CHAPTER THREE
The match wouldn’t light.
The clothes were washed and ironed, the carpet was vacuumed, the dishes were left to drain and the oven was off. The food was on the plates and the candles were in just the right position to create ambient light.
But the match wouldn’t light.
Rachael had heard a car pull up outside and had made sure dinner was on the table. She had timed this to perfection and knew she could have everything ready for when Baronaire opened the front door, but she had not counted on the match refusing to obey her simple command. Light, she willed the damn thing. Light!
She was still struggling with the stupid piece of wood when the door opened. Baronaire stood framed in the doorway, a puzzled look upon his face. He made his way slowly into the room, his shifty eyes taking in his unfamiliar surroundings as though he expected to find a sniper having taken position behind the settee or to find an explosive device attached to the underside of the television. He had locked the door and was halfway to the table when Rachael straightened and smiled sheepishly.
“Surprise?”
Baronaire blinked, glared once more at the table, and said, “What’s this?”
“Dinner. The candle’s working with me but the matches are on strike.”
“Or not striking,” Baronaire said with a smile as he took the book and struck a match first time, setting the tiny flame to the candle. He removed his trench coat as Rachael changed the position of the candle slightly and she could see he was still a little confused.
“Good day?” she asked.
“Same old.”
“That bad? Come on, Charles, take a seat.”
He did so, and was carefully looking over the food she had prepared. Rachael would have loved to have been able to afford a proper roast dinner with all the trimmings, but they were saving everything they could and she was stuck with a lasagne she had reheated in the oven. Still, she had gone to a lot of effort to lay the table nice, with a cloth and their best cutlery, and he could at least say something.
“I didn’t think I’d ever come home,” he said honestly, “to find someone had cooked dinner.”
Baronaire did not eat, hence the reason she had set the table for one. He was not an ordinary human being, and Rachael had come to accept that very quickly. In her line of work she got to see a lot of different people, a lot of different ways people could be complete jerks. Baronaire was a nice guy, and if either of them had found it strange how quickly Rachael had simply accepted everything he had told her about him, they did not show it. If not for Baronaire’s strangely heightened senses and increased strength Rachael would have died a couple of months back. What Baronaire was exactly he could not say, and she believed him. She had her own theories of course, and she had shared them with him openly. He had said they were nothing he had not himself considered on many occasions, and they had both decided the truth was something he would perhaps prefer not to know.
He did not eat, but he liked to watch her eating. There wasn’t anything creepy in that; it was just that while Baronaire knew he was not the same as everyone else, he did not like to be constantly reminded of it. He lived with a woman who loved him and he did everything within his power to make their relationship a normal, healthy one. If that meant sitting with her while she ate, she didn’t mind. And it always gave them the opportunity to chat, which was nice.
“You’ve cleaned,” he noted without looking around. His super senses had likely picked up on everything she had done. She knew he did not like cosmetics and other strong smells, so even the cleaning agents they used had to be of low odour.
“I didn’t have a particularly busy day,” she said, “and I figured it’d save you the trouble when you got home.” Baronaire may have been old-fashioned and thought he lived in the nineteen-forties, but he was a modern man when it came to household duties. He did not believe in many of the old customs, having lived alone as long as he had. “Besides,” she said, “I figured it would free up some time for us later.” She smiled across to him, and he chuckled.
“Candle’s nice,” he said.
Weird statement, but she would run with it. “I know how you like things old-school, and what’s more old-school than a candle-lit dinner, right?”
A certain sadness crept into Baronaire’s eyes then. That happened sometimes, with various things she would say; whenever she reminded him he was not quite the same as everybody else. It did not matter to her at all; after all the foul men she had had to deal with in her life it was a refreshing change to have someone want to actually care for her, no matter if there was something a little strange about him. And what was a relationship with
out quirks?
“What’d you get up to today then?” she asked. “You partnered with Lin, like you wanted?”
“Yeah, and I feel a little guilty tricking her into it like that. But she’s the best WetFish has, and I needed her on this one.”
Unlike most of the other halves of the officers of WetFish, Rachael knew everything. Or as much as Baronaire knew anyway. She had no reason to know, but Baronaire kept no secrets about himself, so he said he’d be damned if he was going to keep secrets about his job. Rachael had known some of it, for when she had first met Baronaire it was as part of a protection programme. Someone was trying to kill her and Baronaire had been assigned to make sure that didn’t happen. She had guessed some things, but Baronaire had filled her in on the rest. WetFish was a strange and unsettling department of the police, but Rachael fully understood it was a necessary one. She had told not a soul even a word of what she knew, and Baronaire did not have to elicit a promise from her lips to know she never would.
But Rachael had not met Detective Sue Lin, or at least not properly. They had briefly seen one another during the time she was being protected, but they had not really spoken. Rachael knew how deeply Baronaire respected Lin, and Rachael would have been lying were she to say she did not feel a certain amount of jealousy when he spoke of her. But their relationship was one of professional respect, and Rachael took every opportunity to show Baronaire how to forget about Detective Lin entirely.
“We made some progress,” Baronaire continued, his elbows upon the table, his chin resting upon his clenched fists. “We found a body down at the docks.”
“Another homeless guy?”
“No, surprisingly. Seems whoever we’re after, they’re getting rid of anyone who happens to see what they’re doing. We’re getting the new victim ID’d, but he’s probably just an ordinary guy who works around that area. Wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That’s too bad. But it happens.”
“Hmm.”
Baronaire had been in the police for over ten years now, in a division which dealt with violent crimes on a daily basis. Rachael could imagine how it would have hardened most officers by now, but there was still something sweet and innocent about Baronaire. It had taken a lot for her to get it out of him, but it was there if she looked deep enough.
It was something she was certain even Baronaire had thought no longer existed.
“Anything I can help with?” she asked as she ate. “I could ask around town, get my girls to keep their ears open for anything?”
“No,” Baronaire said a little too vehemently. Rachael’s fork paused halfway to her mouth and Baronaire seemed to settle as she stared at him. There was much more to Baronaire than people suspected, and if anyone knew what he was really like it would frighten them. He did not frighten Rachael, though, and she knew all there was to know about him. Only when he had averted his eyes, his shoulders sagged, did her fork resume its journey.
He did not want her in harm’s way, and that was sweet, but she was a big girl and she was living in a harsh world. If she could help, she wanted to. Still, Baronaire knew he could always ask so she left it at that. “I bought a lottery ticket,” she said, changing the subject.
Baronaire pulled a face. “Well there’s a waste of a pound.”
“Oh shush.” Last week a National Lottery had started, drawn every Saturday on the TV. Rachael had not bought a ticket last week, but she had felt lucky this time around and fancied her chances. She knew Baronaire’s attitude to gambling, however, but she was her own woman with her own money, and she could do whatever she liked. “If we won big,” she said, “it would solve all our problems. I could quit the streets and you could retire.”
“I like my job.”
“And when Sanders doesn’t need you any more?” It was a discussion they had had a lot over the past couple of weeks. DCI Sanders was attempting to cleanse the country of crime and general riffraff, even though they all knew it was a pointless exercise. Still, it was good there were men like that in the country and Rachael for one was doubly glad of him, since he protected the streets upon which she worked. She wasn’t supposed to know that of course, but Baronaire did not keep secrets from her. So long as she never told Sanders what she knew she figured she would be all right.
But Baronaire was special. His abilities set him apart from everyone else and Sanders was wary of him. Sanders tolerated Baronaire because he was his best officer, but Rachael could plainly see just as soon as Sanders tired of Baronaire he would be rid of him. The scariest part of it all was that when she had brought this up with Baronaire she could see in his eyes he already knew. Baronaire was a man obsessed. He shared Sanders’s vision to such an extent that he was blinded by what would eventually happen.
It would not happen today, and that was all Baronaire seemed to be interested in. But tomorrow would come, Rachael had told him, and she was afraid.
Even if they had the money, she knew she would not be able to tear Baronaire away from his work. London was his world and he would not be forced out of it by anyone.
“I don’t even know what would happen if you were to win,” Baronaire said. “We’re not allowed to play the lottery. WetFish has to be so low-profile that if we won the jackpot it’d be publicised, and the media are Sanders’s arch enemies.”
“I don’t work for WetFish,” she reminded him.
“Don’t think that much matters to Sanders.”
Rachael’s opinion of Sanders was clouded by the fact he protected the girls. She felt safe at work, which was a luxury in her job. She had only met him twice – once when he had placed her into Baronaire’s protection, and secondly after that affair was over – and he had struck her as a clever, serious man. Tammy trusted him though, and Tammy looked after all her girls, so Rachael wasn’t in any position to complain.
“What do you want to do for Christmas?” Baronaire asked out of the blue.
Rachael blinked. “Didn’t take you for a Christmas man, Charles.”
“Never have been one. I remember Christmas when I was a kid. My Dad bought me an Action Man for my fifth birthday. They’d only just come out, he must have been literally one of the first people to get his hands on one. I never really quite knew what to do with it, but I used to crawl him across the carpet, stalking these little brass animals we used to have.”
It was rare that Baronaire spoke about his childhood, and gazing across the table at him Rachael felt her heart melt. It was odd, because whenever he went back to those times a strange light came to his eyes, a flicker of something he used to be. She knew his father had died when Baronaire was young, about five years old she believed he had said. That Action Man was likely the last thing his father had ever given him.
“What happened to it?” she asked.
Baronaire’s face became adult once more as his mind returned to the life he now led. It was a tragedy, what had happened to Baronaire’s father, and she could not help but feel he had become a changed man that night. “Gone,” Baronaire replied. “I left it in the house, along with everything else.”
That was another strange thing about his childhood. Rachael knew Baronaire’s father had been murdered and that Baronaire had been taken in and raised by a man named Jeremiah. The two of them had abandoned everything about Baronaire’s former life, fled the house and left everything behind. Rachael could not understand what would prompt Jeremiah to have done that; at the very least the house must have been worth something. What had happened to the property and its contents Rachael could not say, although the only explanation she could think of for Jeremiah’s actions was that he had been running. Running to start a new life, or hide from an old one?
She had yet to meet Jeremiah and sensed Baronaire was taking great pains to make sure the two of them never met.
“Well you have a new life now,” she told him, reaching across the table to take his hand. It was cold, but Baronaire’s hands were always cold. “You don’t have to remember the past if it hurts.”
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A shrill sound cut through the room then and Rachael pulled her hands away, momentarily confused. Baronaire seemed annoyed at something and reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. “Yeah, Lin?” he said down the line. “What? Why?” He paused. “But what’s ...? Never mind, I’m on my way.”
He angrily dropped the phone back into his pocket and Rachael could see their quiet night in evaporating. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“Trouble at the office.”
“But it’s your night off.”
“Yeah, I know. Rach, I’d love to be here, with you. You know that. But Sanders is going off his nut apparently, and I can’t give him any reason to think I’m not still his top officer.”
The unspoken threat hung in the air. They both knew what would happen the moment Sanders decided Baronaire was more a liability than an asset, so Rachael just nodded. “Sure, Charles. You should go.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can, I promise.”
“Right. Guess I’ll find something to do around here.” She was tempted to tell him she was going back to work for the night; God knew they needed the extra money. But she didn’t like to give him something else to worry about, and he seemed concerned enough as it was about the phone call. Rachael did not like the way Lin could call Baronaire and have him run to her, but she was not jealous, not really. If anyone had Baronaire on a short leash it was DCI Sanders.
