There is no Fear in Love: (Parish & Richards #20)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘I know you’re testing me – I want to run back.’

  ‘You’re just saying that. If there was a horse and cart waiting for you up ahead with an on-board masseur, a waiter who’d get you any drink or delicacy you wanted, a Jacuzzi filled with goat’s milk and the dew from a thousand mountain flowers, and . . .’

  She laughed. ‘I’d still want to run back.’

  ‘And you call me crazy! I’d wave at you drinking my Bahamas Mama as we clip-clopped by.’

  His phone vibrated.

  He stopped. ‘Parish?’

  ‘It’s Constable Angela Nicholas from Central Dispatch, Sir.’

  ‘Do you know what time it is, Constable Nicholas?’

  ‘I don’t normally give out the time, because I don’t want people thinking I’m the speaking clock, but for you I’ll make an exception, Sir. At the third stroke, the time will be: five forty-five and thirty seconds precisely.’

  ‘Very impressive, Constable, but it was a rhetorical question.’

  ‘Is that any different from a normal question?’

  ‘What did you call me for?’

  ‘Oh yes! Another woman has gone missing.’

  ‘I’m Murder, not Missing Persons. When did she go missing?’

  ‘Well, I suppose it must have been last night, but her father reported her missing fifteen minutes ago.’

  ‘It’s a bit early to call me, isn’t it?’

  ‘Did I say there was a note, Sir?’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Yes, there was a note. It had been posted through the parents’ letterbox, which is where the woman lives.’

  ‘I still don’t see . . .’

  ‘The note was addressed to you, Sir.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘I have the beautiful Summer Trent, DI Parish. She’ll keep me warm during the cold nights. Are you any better than the other useless detectives? Come and catch me, if you can. You have a week before she dies like all the others. That’s the end of the message, Sir. Except, it’s been signed with a heart using what looks like human blood.’

  He had no doubt that the human blood belonged to Summer Trent. It was The Lovers’ way of providing proof that he had her. He wondered if a note to the lead detective was part of the killer’s modus operandi, or whether he’d been singled out personally for special treatment. Well, he had a week to save Summer Trent and catch the madman.

  ‘I’m out running at the moment and I don’t have anything to write with. Can you ring me back, and when I ask you to leave a message, tell me the details? I’ll pick it up when I get home.’

  ‘I can do that, Sir.’

  ‘Thanks, Constable. I’m turning round now. Give Mr and Mrs Trent a call and tell them we’re on our way.’

  ‘Okay, Sir.’

  The call ended.

  Richards pulled a face. ‘Another body?’

  ‘Not yet, Richards.’ He started running again. ‘The Lover is writing us notes now instead of leaving us dead bodies. We have a week to catch him and save the woman he’s abducted. Are you ready to run like the wind?’

  ‘What happened to the horse and cart with the Jacuzzi, on-board masseur and waiter who’d get me anything I wanted?’

  ‘Ah! Management have apologised profusely. Apparently, talks have broken down. The horses have downed harnesses and gone on strike. They want more hay, reasonable working hours, less whip and there’s a long list of other unreasonable demands that nobody in their right minds would agree to.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘Well, you know what they say: Spare the whip, spoil the horse.’

  ‘I thought that saying was about children?’

  ‘It applies to horses just as well.’

  ‘I never knew that.’

  ‘There’s lots of things you don’t know, Richards.’

  ‘I suppose there is.’

  ‘We’ll be running a full marathon by the end of the week. You do know that though, don’t you?’

  ‘Twenty-six miles!’

  ‘You’ll be following in the footsteps of Pheidippides, the Greek messenger who was sent from the Battle of Marathon to inform the assembly at Athens that they’d beaten the Persians. Unfortunately, he collapsed and died after passing on the message.’

  ‘Twenty-six miles! I never would have believed it.’

  ‘It just goes to prove that anyone can do anything if they set their mind to it.’

  ‘You’re right. What are we going to do next? I was thinking of climbing Everest; maybe trekking to the North Pole; or I was reading about the Iditarod, which is a 1,160 mile 16-dog sled race across Alaska; and then there’s the . . .’

  ‘Our next impossible task is to catch a killer of young women, Richards.’

  ‘We can do it if we set our minds to it though, can’t we?’

  ‘It’ll be our hardest challenge yet. Are you up for it?’

  ‘I’m up for it.’

  He pointed at her mouth.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You have a glistening globule of something green and slobbery in the corner of your mouth.’

  ‘Thanks for pointing that out. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  ‘Nor me, Richards. Nor me.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Why are your eyes all puffy?’ Stick said as she climbed into the car.

  ‘It’s my new pumice stone facial scrub. I must have rubbed too hard, or maybe I’m having an allergic reaction to those little lava holes.’

  ‘You’ve been crying, haven’t you?’

  ‘Crying! What have I got to cry about? My life is just a bowl of cherries, a bed of roses, a walk in the park, a . . .’

  ‘You know you can tell me, don’t you?’

  ‘Are you a counsellor now? Drive, and keep your snout out of my truffles.’

  Yes, she’d been crying. She’d caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror and had seen a not particularly attractive middle-aged woman hurtling towards old age. Sometimes, she scrubbed-up reasonably well, but mostly she didn’t. What was she doing? What had she done with her life? Where had the years gone? What was it all for? What had she achieved? Her life was empty. Apart from Stick, she had no one. And God only knew why he’d stuck with her, because she treated him abominably. Her relationships had been reduced to one-night stands – nothing lasting, nothing with any meaning, nothing that proved she was loved – she wasn’t. Nobody loved her. Nobody gave two flying fucks from one day to the next about her. Nobody cared whether she lived or died. Oh, Stick would probably come to her funeral, and there’d be a few other people who would attend out of a sense of duty, but that would be it. They’d say “Good riddance”, and nobody would mourn her passing.

  The one thing she could cling to in the wasteland of her life was her work. If she didn’t have that, then she really would have nothing. Oh, she could change her job, change her life, become a better – much nicer – person, but as far as she was concerned she was who she was. If people didn’t like her the way she was – they could swivel. Only Stick could see beneath the brittle exterior to the real Xena Blake underneath, and maybe Parish. She’d seen the sadness in his eyes when he looked at her sometimes. But everyone else took her at face value, which was just the way she liked it. To survive the horrors that she had to deal with on a daily basis she’d become the person she now was. No, it wasn’t pretty, but it meant she could navigate through each day reasonably intact, and that’s all that really mattered.

  ‘You’ll find someone.’

  ‘The only “someone” I want to find is Martin Boyd, Stickleback.’

  ‘You can’t fool me.’

  She grunted. ‘I fool you all the time.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘All the time, Stickamundo. You’re so gullible. I could write a long never-ending list of all the times I’ve fooled you, but I’ve got better things to do with my time. So, enough about my life of joy and laughter, and let’s talk about your sex life.’


  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Is Jenifer pregnant yet?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘So, let me get this right – you have sex, she pees on a pregnancy test stick and keeps the results to herself?’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll tell me when it’s good news.’

  ‘Good news! You make it sound like the apocalypse. Is now the right time? Are the portents promising? Have the planets aligned yet? Is the stork circling?’

  ‘I’m not allowed to ask.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Jen thinks that if I’m aware of the time being the right time, it’ll affect my performance. She doesn’t want to put me under any pressure.’

  ‘Performance! Do your sexploits amount to a performance? Are you like an annoying clown at the circus now? Or a magician who’s only booked for children’s parties?’

  ‘She says that I should just give it my all every time.’

  ‘Have you not been doing that?’

  ‘Sometimes – you know – you’re not really in the mood, are you?’

  ‘You tell me, Stickynuts. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but men and women are different. I think we can relate sex to American football. Men are the ball throwers, and women are the catchers. The problem, of course, is that it’s such an odd-shaped ball that catching it, especially for women who aren’t used to catching odd-shaped balls when there’s a pack of muscle-bound freaks bearing down on them, is particularly difficult.’

  ‘Anyway, I have no idea if Jen is pregnant or not. We’ll just have to wait and see.’

  ‘If she was, the baby would be born in November – is that not a good month?’

  ‘A bricklayer or a hairdresser.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound encouraging.’

  ‘A December or January birth would be good – a dentist or a doctor, so I think I can take things easy until next month.’

  ‘I see. You’ve already worked out when you don’t have to give it your all?’

  ‘Yes. February is an artist. I don’t think Jen wants one of those in the family, because they can have tortured souls. March is an airline pilot – that would be good. I think my chances of getting any sex between October and December are pretty slim though, because June to August babies are generally medium- to low-skilled workers. I’m looking forward to next January though, because September babies are physicists. I think Jen would like one of those.’

  ‘She’s as crazy as a bag of frogs, and you’re even crazier for going along with it. In what month were you born?’

  ‘You don’t remember my birthday?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘September.’

  ‘So, based on Jenifer’s carefully worked-out plan, you should have been a medium- to low-skilled worker?’

  ‘I suppose I am, aren’t I?’

  ‘A load of claptrap. Is the plan based on the start of a person’s career, or the end? I mean, you could end up as the Police Commissioner – Sir Rowley Gilbert . . . It’s highly unlikely, I’ll grant you. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, you reached your career ceiling when you were a beat copper, but stranger things are happening every day they tell me.’

  ‘Very kind.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. So, as I see it, Jenifer’s plan is full of dinosaur-sized sinkholes.’

  ‘Life’s a lot simpler if I play along.’

  Stick parked the car, and after entering the station they began climbing the stairs to the squad room.

  She sighed. ‘Yeah, that’s what couples do, isn’t it – they play along to get along. It’s a form of lying . . .’

  ‘A little white lie.’

  ‘We’re not talking about one lie though, are we? We’re talking about a juggernaut full of little white lies. I suppose one lie on its own would be harmless, but taken together they’re a whole different ball game. What it means is that you end up living in a fantasy world, where nothing is real, it’s all been created by little white lies.’

  Stick shrugged. ‘Without the little white lies we’d all be alone, I suppose.’

  ‘Like me, you mean?’

  ‘I didn’t mean . . .’

  ‘Being alone suits me just fine. I don’t want to be in a relationship, which is built on lies – white, black or purple.’

  ‘People make their own choices.’

  ‘Well, I choose to live my life on my terms, no one else’s.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Right, you go into the incident room and bring the board up-to-date, fill in the timelines for Martin and Melissa Boyd, and I’ll go up to Forensics and find out if Pecker has done what I asked him to do.’

  ‘You asked him?’

  ‘In so many words. Why are you still here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’ll also expect a coffee when I get back.’

  ‘That goes without saying.’

  ‘I said it anyway.’

  ‘What about some breakfast pastries?’

  ‘You think you’re being a smartarse, don’t you? Well, now that you’ve asked – I will. I’ll have two pastries.’

  ‘I’m sure I can organise a trip to the cake shop, which doesn’t open until nine o’clock, at the same time as I’m making coffee and putting what we know on the incident board.’

  ‘Good. I’ll be about fifteen minutes.’

  She carried on walking up the stairs, while Stick went through the swing doors on the second floor.

  It was just half-past seven

  Pecker looked bleary-eyed.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘Martin Boyd was having an affair with Alicia Collins.’ He handed her a piece of paper. ‘Her address is on there. Also, Melissa employed Travis Farrow from S&P Investigations in Broxbourne. Their address is also on the sheet of paper.’

  ‘Good work, Pecker.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector.’

  ‘See what can be achieved when you put your back into it. And we’re still on for four o’clock this afternoon?’

  ‘Here to serve.’

  ‘Excellent! I’ll let everyone know that they don’t have to wait around for a week or more for you to pull your finger out. With the right encouragement, you offer an overnight service.’ She turned on her heel and headed for the door.

  On her way to the incident room she stopped off at her desk in the squad room to pick up the contact list that the clerical assistant had verified, but she wished she hadn’t.

  ‘Inspector Blake!’ the Chief said. ‘You’re like a Will-o’-the-wisp – here one minute, gone the next. I might have to consider a nail gun to pin you down. Don’t you owe me a briefing?’

  ‘A nail gun! Now you’re talking my language, Chief. Where do you want me?’

  ‘There’s something strange about you, Blake. My office now.’

  ‘I have . . .’

  ‘You have a statutory duty to brief the Chief, so that he’s not walking around in the dark during the day like a man with a bag over his head. Any other comments you’d like to make, Blake?’

  ‘Lead on, Sir.’ What choice did she have? None came to mind that didn’t involve disciplinary proceedings. Stick would just have to hold the fort by himself. Her coffee would be cold, but she’d be able to take the pastries with her and eat them on the way to the post-mortems at King George Hospital.

  There were strange-looking people whispering to each other and wandering about in the corridor like wraiths at a pagan sacrifice.

  ‘Who are all these people, Chief?’

  ‘Don’t ask, Blake.’

  ‘I just did.’

  ***

  Digby was moping.

  Parish had explained to the dog – in great detail – with hand-signals, sound effects and treats that there wasn’t a chance in hell of him being taken for his early-morning walk.

  ‘It’s just the way it is, Digby. You know I’m a murder detective, and that sometimes I have to detect some murders. Well, one of those times is this morning.’ Although, that w
asn’t strictly true, but trying to get Digby to understand the difference between a murder and a missing person would have taken more time than if he’d simply walked the dog.

  Normally, after the marathon training with Richards, he’d feed Digby and then take him for his morning constitutional, and he didn’t like it when that constitutional was confined to the back garden.

  ‘Later! When I get home, you can run to your heart’s content in the park.’ The park was usually a treat for the weekends, but on special occasions it was a reward for being the best dog a man could ever wish for. ‘You can worry the ducks, chase the children and bark at the other dogs – how’s that?’ He offered his hand.

  Digby barked and put his paw in Parish’s hand to seal the deal.

  ‘Are we ready?’ Richards said, as she came into the kitchen.

  ‘We? Ready? I’ve been ready for an hour. You, on the other hand, have been faffing about like a squirrel counting its nuts.’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘It’s a well known fact that women take much longer than men to get ready. A survey of a thousand women found that they spent 136 days of their lives waxing, exfoliating, moisturising, straightening, polishing and plucking, which apparently is enough time for an astronaut to fly to the moon and back twenty-two times.’

  Richards laughed. ‘I could be an astronaut.’

  He started singing as they made their way to the front door, ‘Fly me to the moon . . .’

  Digby began howling.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done.’

  As they were driving to see Mr and Mrs Trent in Broxbourne Richards said, ‘How long does it take for a man to get ready then?’

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Whether a man is a modern man or not. Apparently, modern men take ninety-eight minutes to get ready, women take eighty-four minutes.’

  ‘There you are then.’

  ‘It beggars belief, Richards. I mean, what does a man do that would take him an hour and thirty-eight minutes?’

  ‘They do what women do.’

  ‘I fear for the future of mankind – I really do. Thank goodness I’m not a modern man.’

  ‘No, you’re an old crusty.’