After nearly a minute, Luke had made no further movement, save for the steady rise and fall of his broad shoulders. Rupert exhaled quietly. He stepped back from the open doorway and retreated to the bedroom behind him. Tonight it was best he let sleeping Americans lie.
Chapter 8
RUPERT LEANED over the edge of the bed, picked up his mobile phone from the floor, and peered at the time. It was nearly nine o’clock. He cursed, dropped the phone on the floor, and lay back on the pillow. With all the distractions of last night, he had forgotten to set the alarm. At least the meeting with Jerry was not until eleven. Jerry was his analyst friend at the National Crime Agency. He had called Rupert at the start of the week, suggesting they meet for something to eat. That usually meant a tip-off.
Before then, Rupert had to make a start on the mess in his apartment. He also had to book builders for the repairs and call the insurance company. He groaned. There were three groups of people he loathed in life: accountants, property agents, and insurance salesmen. As far as he was concerned, none of them added value or beauty to the world.
Plus, if his alarm had gone off, he could have spent some time with Luke.
From the end of the corridor, he heard a quiet click as the front door closed.
“Luke?”
Rupert sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and stood up. Naked, he walked across to the window and opened the heavy velvet curtains. Sunshine flooded into the room. Rupert squinted his eyelids shut. He reopened them slowly to accustom himself to the brightness of the morning. The view from the window came into focus, and he saw he was not alone. About fifty feet away was a modern, low-rise apartment block. A young man wearing sweatpants and a towel around his neck stood on a balcony of the building almost directly opposite. He raised a glass of orange juice in salute.
“Hey, Rupert,” he called. “I thought your place was on the ground floor?”
It was Rupert’s gym buddy, James.
“Going up in the world, are you?” continued James. “I can see something definitely is.”
Rupert glanced down at the subject of James’s last comment. His penis was partially erect. Rupert clumsily tried to arrange his hands in front of him to protect his modesty before he raised them in the air with a shrug of defeat.
“Morning, James,” he called back. “I’m sure you’ve seen it all before.”
James laughed.
“What are you doing there?” he asked. “Moved in with the sexy new man upstairs? That didn’t take you long.”
“Kind of,” replied Rupert. “His bath overflowed and flooded my apartment. So he’s let me move up here temporarily until my place is fixed.”
“Temporarily?” repeated James, and took another drink from his glass. “That’s something I do believe when it’s Rupert Pendley-Evans saying those words. A man never known for his long-term relationships.”
James glanced down to the small paved area below them.
“But I’d suggest you cover up before the paparazzi get wise to you standing naked at the window of your ‘temporary’ new home. You don’t want to be front-page fodder. Again.”
Rupert laughed. He made an elaborate, courtly bow to his gym buddy, moved back from the window, and crossed the bedroom floor to his open suitcase. He rummaged around for a pair of shorts, pulled them on, and stood.
“Luke?”
He walked over to the bedroom door and stepped into the corridor.
There was no reply. He called again and headed for the kitchen. On the worktop by the stove, there was a yellow sticky bearing a scrawled note.
Help yourself to breakfast. I’m not back until about four today. I’ll cook supper for 7:30. Hope you can make it. Luke XOXO
Damn, thought Rupert. He would have to wait until the evening to question Luke about his actions of the night before.
AFTER A long hot shower, Rupert wrapped a towel around his waist and padded to the kitchen to fix coffee. By the side of a very sophisticated espresso maker, Rupert found another yellow sticky addressed to him, with concise instructions on how to use the machine.
Switch on. Wait two minutes. Put the cup under. Press start. TOUCH NOTHING ELSE. XOXO
At least Luke had said it with kisses and hugs.
The coffee was good. Rupert carried his cup to the sitting room and stood at the window overlooking the tree-lined residential street. The rich taste of the coffee was in sharp contrast to the scalding muddy liquid he had discarded in the newsroom last night.
There was little activity in the street that morning. The office workers had already long gone to their cramped cubicles in the City. There was no sign of the residents left behind on that sunny day. The driver of a delivery truck impatiently negotiated the parked cars that narrowed the street, seeking to shave two minutes off his journey through London’s traffic jams. A squirrel caught Rupert’s attention. He watched, fascinated, as it climbed a mature oak tree directly in front of the window. The squirrel stopped and eyed Rupert with wary disdain for several minutes before it scampered to a higher branch and disappeared from view.
Rupert craned his head forward and peered up into the tree, seeking a better view of the animal’s activity. But the large, rich green leaves of the oak tree offered the squirrel perfect cover from its observer. Disappointed, Rupert looked down into the street again.
Which was when he saw the man.
He was probably in his late thirties, dressed in a dark suit and black brogues. He stood at the entrance gate to number 54 Paton Road. As Rupert watched, the man glanced around him, lifted the latch of the gate, and pushed it open. He paused and looked up directly at the window where Rupert stood.
They held each other’s gaze for several seconds before the man pulled the gate shut, dropped the latch, and walked away briskly down the street.
Rupert wished he had brought his phone into the living room to take a photo of this potential intruder. There were no CCTV cameras outside the building to record the event. Rupert set his coffee cup on a nearby bookcase and walked to the bedroom. He picked up his phone from the floor and rapidly made a note of all the details about the man’s appearance he could remember.
He was black, of slim build, probably about six feet tall, although that was difficult to judge from Rupert’s high vantage point. His short, curly hair was well-groomed, and he was clean-shaven. The man was good-looking and had a square-set jaw and high cheekbones. Beneath the dark jacket, Rupert had seen a white shirt with a crimson red tie.
Rupert finished his notes and read them back. They probably described any number of men he could see on the streets of London most days of the week. If one of the apartments was burgled in the next week or so, there was nothing particularly distinctive he could pass on to the police about this potential suspect.
He sighed and flicked through the list of contacts on his phone. It was time to steel himself for the call to the insurance company.
THE OFFICE building for the National Crime Agency where Jerry worked was a ten-minute walk from Paton Road. In recent years, the Vauxhall area of London had become a hub for government crime agencies. Down the road from the NCA were the headquarters of the UK’s secret intelligent service, MI6. Half a mile across the River Thames was the headquarters for domestic intelligence, MI5. And now the Americans had relocated their embassy building from Grosvenor Square in the heart of the West End, to Nine Elms, half a mile from Rupert’s home. Rupert sometimes wondered if there were more spies per square yard around his home than in a dozen James Bond films.
The Black Dog pub on Vauxhall Walk was already busy when Rupert walked through its doors that morning. Like so many pubs around London, the Black Dog had been gentrified to survive the fall in traditional pub trade, especially when the ban on smoking was introduced. It no longer served warm beer and preservative-packed meat pies. There was now an excellent wine list and a first-class kitchen. Rupert looked forward to an early brunch with Jerry and to find out what juicy tip-off he had for him.
“Rupert,” called a voice. “Over here.”
A nervous-looking man, who appeared to be much older than Rupert, half stood and gave a tentative wave in Rupert’s direction. He sat at a small table tucked in the back corner of the pub, with a pint of beer, already partly drunk, in his hand.
Rupert squeezed past the tables crammed into the narrow space and walked toward Jerry.
“Hey,” he said, eyeing the pint in the man’s hand. “Bit early for drinking, isn’t it?”
Jerry put the beer back on the table and gave an embarrassed laugh.
“Oh, you know me, Rupert,” said Jerry. “Always ready for a pint. Anyway, I’m not working today.”
He stretched out his arms awkwardly, and the two men embraced. Rupert felt Jerry give him a small, affectionate kiss on his neck.
“Did you come all the way from Windsor just for a chat?” asked Rupert. He pulled out a chair and sat opposite Jerry. “I would have made it another day if I’d known. I suggested we meet here because I thought you’d be at your offices down the street.”
“Don’t worry,” replied Jerry. “Patrick and I are doing some early Christmas shopping. Then tonight we’re going to see a new play at the National. What are you drinking?”
“Early Christmas shopping!” Rupert laughed. “It’s July, Jerry. After all these years, you never fail to amaze me with your forward planning. How is Patrick anyway?”
Jerry took a drink from his glass and set it down in front of him.
“Not so good,” he replied, after a long pause. “He’s not able to use his legs well. It’s a new development.”
Rupert reached out a hand and rested it on Jerry’s arm. “Shit, I’m so sorry Jerry. I thought they said he’d plateaued?”
Jerry avoided Rupert’s concerned look and stared down at the table. “Yes, well, you know. Multiple sclerosis is a shitty thing. It makes you believe it’s done its worst, then it fucks you up a bit more.” He looked up at Rupert. “That’s why we’re Christmas shopping. At least Patrick can still walk at the moment. He might not be able to in six months’ time.”
Rupert rubbed Jerry’s arm gently, and the two men fell silent for a moment.
“I remember how he was when you first met him,” said Rupert.
“You mean the day after the college porter found me and you in your bed together?” said Jerry, with a grin.
“The abomination of Keble College, Oxford,” said Rupert with a laugh. “That’s how the Master described me when he summoned me to his study. I don’t understand how you got off so lightly. I nearly got sent down.”
“It was because it was your bed,” replied Jerry. “You were clearly the seducer. I was an innocent young man of nineteen, distracted from my studies of abstract algebra and special relativity by an older and more experienced sinful student.”
“Older by two months,” said Rupert in mock protest. “My God. That was thirteen years ago. Where does the time go?” He pointed to Jerry’s drink.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll buy you this one. What will it be?”
Jerry shook his head. “One pint’s enough for me this morning. I can’t be drunk when I see Patrick later. Why don’t we have something to eat like we planned? I’ll have a coffee with it.”
Rupert reached inside his jacket for his wallet. “Fine. But I’m paying. I presume you wanted to see me to give me a tip-off? That’s the only reason you call me these days.”
Jerry raised a hand in protest. “Hey, that’s not fair. You know how it is with Patrick. He doesn’t like me being away from him for more than a few hours. He’s never dealt with this bloody disease very well. These days, if anything, he’s getting needier than ever.”
Rupert stood and laid a hand on Jerry’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so clumsy. And I’m really grateful for your tip-offs. Look. I’ll go and order the food, and then we can chat.”
Rupert went to the bar and ordered two full English breakfasts and a pot of coffee. When he got back to the table, Jerry was reading a copy of the Metro. He folded back the pages of an article and showed it to Rupert.
“Did you see this?”
Rupert took the newspaper and glanced at the story. He had read it online earlier that morning.
“The student who hanged himself in the boathouse up the river at Chiswick?” He handed the paper back to Jerry. “I was going to look into it today. They’ve asked me to investigate the Manwatch report on the increase in suicides among young men.”
“Good,” replied Jerry. “You should. There’ve been three similar deaths to that one in the last few months around the UK. One in a small town in Scotland, one down in the South West, and one in Northern Ireland. Each time, a man under thirty years old is found hanged. Apparent suicide.”
“Apparent? Are you saying they weren’t?”
Jerry leaned in toward Rupert and rested his elbows on the table. “There were a number of similarities in each case. There’s enough of a pattern for me to believe there’s a link between them all. You know I spend my days looking for patterns? Coordinating the reports from our ridiculously fragmented regional police forces.”
“You’re the UK’s FBI,” said Rupert, nodding.
“I do hate the media using that phrase when they describe us.” Jerry sounded irritated. “We have to be very careful not to tread on the delicate toes of our regional crime-fighting colleagues. When you label us in that way, you only make them more wary.”
“I stand corrected,” said Rupert with contrition. Jerry was much more on edge than when they last met. Perhaps it was the worry about his husband’s declining health. Rupert considered how he could give Jerry some support, but he knew it would only cause more problems. Patrick had always been fiercely jealous of Jerry’s friendship with Rupert. It was more than friendship. It was the remnant of an infatuation left over from student days.
“So what’s the link?” asked Rupert. “A serial killer?”
“Maybe,” replied Jerry. “But if it is, he or she likes traveling. The victims are a long way from each other. The other possibility is a crime ring of some kind.”
“Is there a motive?”
Jerry leaned in to Rupert. “Possibly a hate crime. All the men were probably gay.”
“Are there any other similarities in the cases?”
Jerry took a small memory stick from his pocket and slid it across the table to Rupert. “Several. It’s all on here.” He looked up at Rupert. “Same rules as ever. Don’t duplicate anything. Don’t give it to anyone else. No attribution.”
Rupert took the sliver of black plastic and shoved it in his pocket.
“Why this one, Jerry?” he asked. “You’re sticking your neck out a hell of a long way. You usually only do that for something meaty, like a major fraud or pedophile ring.”
“Why do you think?” asked Jerry. “Three gay men, possibly four now, are found dead in the space of a few months. Each killed the same way. Each with strange religious icons on them—”
Rupert looked up. Jerry had caught his attention.
“It’s all on the memory stick,” Jerry continued. “And our chums in the regional forces aren’t interested.” He reached forward and gripped Rupert’s arm. “However equal the law now makes us, the reality is, outside the metropolitan areas, they still don’t give a damn.”
Chapter 9
THE VICTORIA Line train rattled noisily through the Tube tunnel deep under Green Park and on to Oxford Circus. The carriage was packed with summer tourists. Rupert and Jerry clung to the grab bar above their heads. They were squeezed between a group of Italian students from a language school and four businessmen shouting an earnest conversation about profit margins to each other. Rupert had planned to pick up a rental bike after he and Jerry had finished brunch. He hated the confines of the Tube. But when he learned Jerry was going to Oxford Street for early Christmas shopping with his husband, he offered to join him on the journey. As they crammed into the train at Vauxhall station, he instantly re
gretted the decision. The Victoria Line was notorious for being one of the most overheated lines in summer.
The train screeched to a halt at Oxford Circus, and the doors clattered open. Passengers surged onto the platform, and Rupert and Jerry were carried along by a wave of sweaty humanity. Up the stairs and onto the escalator.
Rupert pulled out his phone. He stared at the screen and waited for the internet connection to kick in.
“Every time,” said Rupert. “I swear I’m not going to do that again. Every time, I forget how packed the Tube is these days.”
“Why do you think we live in Windsor?” Jerry stood behind him on the crowded escalator. “I have a comfortable journey on the overground train. Straight into Vauxhall in the morning, with no overheated Tube travel.”
“But Windsor’s so boring,” said Rupert. His phone regained its internet connection and chirruped several times. A message from Grindr flashed on the screen. “I really don’t know why you and Patrick moved out of London.”
“Because we don’t need ‘the scene’ like you do,” replied Jerry. “When are you going to stop clubbing every night? And sitting on Grindr every waking hour? Aren’t you getting a little old for that?”
Rupert turned on the escalator step to glare at Jerry.
“Me, old?” he said. “Isn’t it you getting old? Living in leafy Windsor with your husband, your two Yorkshire terriers, and your rose garden? Don’t marry me off just yet. There’s life in this old dog yet.”
They reached the top of the escalator. Rupert, still facing backward, stumbled off. Jerry reached forward and grabbed him. They stood to one side and let the sea of people push past to the ticket gates. Jerry kept his hold on Rupert.
For the Love of Luke Page 6
