Bye Bye Baby

by McIntosh, Fiona

  ‘Sir,’ Jack said, through gritted teeth, ‘if we followed that theory I’d have to keep women out of this operation altogether, and then we’d be up for a different sort of inquiry! And just for the record, sir, DI Carter is engaged to be married.’ He held his temper as the old man chuckled, his mirth suggesting he didn’t believe that fact would stop a romance occurring.

  ‘It got ugly last time, Jack, and apart from the death of Paul Conway, the Met lost a very good DS in Liz Drummond. I was able to protect you then, but your profile is too high now. You have jealous colleagues and the desire to constantly cut someone successful down to size is alive and well at the Yard.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘Look in the mirror tonight, Jack. Get some sense of the fact that your good looks are what nearly undid you . . . and could again. Use them to charm the Met’s hierarchy, but save any amorous pursuits for women outside of the Force. Sleep with a schoolteacher, for pity’s sake.’

  ‘I hear you,’ Jack said, working hard not to show his exasperation. He stood, moved to the door. ‘I’ll get on, sir.’

  ‘One more thing, Jack.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Try very hard to follow the rules on this one, eh?’

  ‘I was right on Operation Destiny.’

  ‘Yes, you were, but you took one too many chances. At the risk of being tedious, Jack, I’ll remind you again that a lot is at stake. This is your return to the big time — you have been given what is arguably the most high-profile criminal case the Yard has had to deal with in a long time. The media will go into a feeding frenzy once they get the first sniff of a possible serial killer. I want you to be hailed as a hero when you get this bastard, and I don’t want any dirty linen being aired in the Yard over your handling of it.’ His Superintendent gave a final warning. ‘And I don’t want a third lipless, dickless corpse on our hands, Jack. Move fast because the media will be onto this in moments.’

  Jack didn’t need to be reminded. He could already see the first shrieking headline in his mind: KILLER GIVES KISS OF DEATH. He grimaced. ‘Well, let’s keep the details from them as long as we can.’

  ‘Happy birthday, Jack,’ Sharpe added, more gently. ‘Find this bastard for me.’

  * * *

  What a day! But he’d finally secured the operations rooms, set up the request for phone numbers, spoken to IT regarding all the equipment required — computer terminals with full CAD, NC and MSS capabilities, as well as additional PCs for HOLMES, the database. He had contacted the relevant webmaster to ensure the Danube home address with contact details was already in the public domain and ready to take daily updates. Most importantly, he’d ensured Joan Field was a cert as the operation’s receptionist and all-round mother figure. Joan was the best — kind, firm, generous, tough. All qualities that would anchor a team coming under intense pressure and would keep the baying dogs of the media, the public and their own hierarchy at arm’s length.

  He had also set up a temporary office at Wellington House, where the new team would gather the following afternoon for their first briefing. Finally, he had called around the country and pulled in the team itself. Everyone had leapt at the chance to work on the high-profile case and he was delighted that each of the senior members — the DIs who would drive the investigation — were now attached to Operation Danube. SCD Reserve had been alerted. It was likely that he’d need to pull in officers and-or clerical staff from the 24-hour available roster at short notice. His mind was whirring with all the details as he finally set off from the Yard that evening.

  Jack preferred not to take his roadster to work but he’d have given anything to have it to get him home quickly. By the time he’d battled the Victoria Line’s late-night shopping crowd and changed at Euston for the four stops northbound to Archway, he was feeling the weight of fatigue of this busy day. Not only had it included setting up one of the Yard’s most important investigations, but there’d also been the key press conference.

  Jack had rung the Super before he left the Yard that evening with a promise that in another seventy-two hours they would have broken new ground on the two cases and would have something to tell the media at Monday morning’s follow-up press conference. It had sounded hollow even to his ears, but Jack knew he had to remain positive. Sharpe had understood, of course. He had been there enough times himself.

  But Jack had also grasped that there was pressure from above and the need for the police to be seen to be making headway on this high-profile case. Journos had picked up the trail since this evening’s gathering of the media, and Hawksworth had already been forced to put a constable with a friendly but firm approach onto the phones full-time to deflect the media interest.

  Normally Jack relished the long walk up the hill past Whittington Hospital to Waterlow Park near where he lived. But by the time he reached Highgate Village this evening he was desperate for a shower, a glass of wine and a couple of hours of moronic TV — anything to take his mind off mutilated bodies and the lack of leads he would be presenting to his new team. Nevertheless, he turned at the top of the hill, as he always did, and admired the view across London. Highgate was a prized address and once again Jack counted his blessings. There were no positives to losing parents so young in such horrific instances. The motorway crash had given him his inheritance early and he had been determined not to squander it on anything but the bricks and mortar his father would have approved.

  The parklands that surrounded the suburb, courtesy of the Bishop of London’s hunting grounds during the Middle Ages, lent it a genuine countryside air. This sense of the rural was further reinforced by the presence of Highgate Wood and sprawling Hampstead Heath. Residents of Highgate could take picnics in their own suburb, walk their dogs for miles through woodland, and generally enjoy the impression that a great city, and all of its trappings, was not throbbing just minutes away. Jack had lived here for four years and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

  He thought about dropping into The Flask for a pint of Speckled Hen, but the low mood he had held off all day caught up with him and he ignored the pull of the eighteenth-century taproom and moved instead in the direction of Coleridge House, a grand old Georgian pile tastefully divided into four mansion apartments overlooking the park. He checked his postbox and withdrew a motley assortment of bills, junk mail and a late birthday card from an ageing aunt. He glanced at the name of the owner who had acquired apartment four a few months ago — he had meant to offer a welcome and still had the Harrods Christmas pudding in his apartment. He felt a fresh stab of guilt. He’d better change it to a bottle of bubbly now, and if he didn’t hurry up it would have to be an Easter egg.

  As the lift doors closed he dug into his pocket for his door keys, still thinking about the meeting with his boss. Martin Sharpe had obviously argued long and hard to win Jack the operation. He was determined not to let his Super and long-time supporter down. The truth was, Sharpe was more than that. Sharpe and his wife, Cathie, had tried their damndest to plug the gap that the death of his parents had left. Sharpe and Jack’s father had been close friends since their early days working in the Diplomatic Protection Group at Westminster, continuing together to Downing Street. After DPG, it was clear Martin was a career officer, destined for Superintendent, probably higher.

  When Mary and Ken Hawksworth had died in the 1985 M6 pile-up, it was Martin Sharpe who had helped to gather up the bits of twenty-two-year-old Jack Hawksworth and reassemble him.

  Amy, three years older than Jack, had been working in Bahrain when the accident happened, and although she was permitted compassionate leave, it wasn’t long enough for the Hawksworth siblings to find comfort. Amy was hugging her brother a teary farewell almost as soon as she’d arrived and so it was Martin and Cathie who had quietly taken him into their lives and, with the gentlest of touches, brought him back from a dark year during which Martin had feared Jack might give up the Force completely.

  Jack entered his apartment, headed straight to his bedroom
and changed from his itchy birthday shirt to comfy jeans and sweatshirt before flopping into the leather sofa opposite a TV that he didn’t have the desire to turn on. He needed to eat, he needed to sleep, but for now he couldn’t move. He spent several minutes staring across Waterlow Park and its manicured flowerbeds through the living room’s tall windows. The Flask tempted him again — he could relax over some tapas, perhaps a glass of wine. The watering hole that had once been a hiding place for highwayman Dick Turpin was probably just what he needed to lift his spirits and placate his grinding belly. But at this late hour it would be buzzing with arty types and he wasn’t up to the noise and activity. Instead, he opted to try and clear his mind of mutilated corpses with a splendidly crisp riesling from his fridge. He was too tired to think of food but knew he had to eat properly or he’d end up with a paunch like Swamp’s or a complexion like Brodie’s: both the result of long hours, late nights, beer and fast food. He couldn’t blame them, but Jack spent too many precious hours in the Yard’s gym in an effort to keep some semblance of fitness to waste it on a lazy attitude to what passed down his gullet. Health and fitness were important to him, and what he saved on not having to pay for a private gym he invested in decent wine.

  He looked again at the shopping bag containing streaky bacon, tomato, onion and free-range eggs he’d grabbed at Highgate Village and urged himself to get up and make an omelette.

  Before he could move, the landline began jangling next to him. Wearily he reached for it. This had to be personal — no one from work rang him on his home number. ‘Hello?’

  A voice began singing loudly into his ear. ‘Happy birthday, dear Henry, happy birthday to you!’ it hollered, dragging out the final word.

  Only his sister ever called him by his middle name. ‘Thank you, Amy.’

  ‘You’re most welcome. How rude of you not to return my call.’

  ‘I know, I know. I’m sorry. If only you knew . . .’

  ‘I do,’ she said, her sunny voice making him feel warm inside. ‘Tell me it arrived in time. Did you wear it?’

  ‘It did. I did. Another thank you.’

  ‘Do you love it?’

  ‘Reminded me of ice-cream.’

  ‘I can hear that you hated it.’

  ‘That’s not true. I just need to gear up to wearing mint and pink stripes.’

  ‘Well, someone has to try and break you free of schoolboy blue. I bet you’re wearing that now.’

  ‘I’m naked actually. You interrupted something.’ She squealed — as he’d hoped she might — and he laughed with delight that he could still do that to her. ‘I’m not, I promise. I can’t help that I favour old-fashioned colours.’

  ‘Just like Dad. Are you still listening to Roy Orbison?’

  ‘Now and then.’

  ‘Break free, little brother. Come on, come over here for a few weeks. I’m all alone so I can give you one hundred per cent, undivided attention. There’s so much we can do. Shopping for shirts, for instance.’

  ‘Soon, I promise.’

  ‘Now!’ she urged.

  ‘I can’t. We’re in the middle of something here.’

  ‘Nasty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ooh, what, really gruesome, you mean?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, just like the stuff you love to read but with none of those smart-talking, whip-cracking, brilliant know-all women solving the murder.’

  She sighed. ‘I miss you.’

  ‘I wish you were closer, too. Why couldn’t you have married a Spaniard, or we’d have even coped if he was French.’

  ‘You know me, never do things by halves. Listen, I have something to tell you.’ She sounded suddenly serious.

  ‘What’s cooking?’

  ‘I am. And I’ve got a fat little bun in the oven.’

  It was his turn for a pause as this sank in. ‘A baby?’ he asked, incredulous.

  ‘Yes!’ she screamed across the thousands of miles that separated them. ‘But not just one bun.’

  ‘You’re having twins?’

  He heard her begin to weep. ‘Two beautiful babies, Henry. Can you imagine? I just wish Mum and Dad were around to share this with me . . . and you’re so far away, damn it!’ It broke his heart that he couldn’t hug her. ‘Come home, Amy.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, sniffing. ‘Rob needs me here too, and he’s so excited I can’t shut him up.’

  ‘When am I going to have nieces and nephews?’

  ‘By June, we think.’

  ‘Well.’ He blew out his cheeks, overwhelmed by this happy family news. ‘My congratulations, old girl. And to Rob. That’s it, I was trying to summon the energy to cook but now I’m definitely going to get drunk instead.’

  ‘Well, someone has to! Robert must be the only Australian bloke who doesn’t drink.’

  ‘To Pinky and Perky then.’

  She laughed and he was glad to hear it. ‘And if they don’t resemble sweet, chubby pink piglets, to Bleep and Booster,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll have to insist upon those names as godfather.’

  ‘Godfathers have to be present at the christening, Henry.’

  ‘That’s a promise.’ He counted off the months in his head until the babies would be six months. ‘I’ve got roughly a year, right?’

  ‘Don’t you want to see me enormous?’

  ‘I want to see you with Pinky and Perky in your arms.’

  ‘That’s a date. Next April let’s say you’re coming to Sydney. I’ll take you to a game and you can see football played by real men who run straight into each other — none of this rolling around on the pitch in agony because their toe’s been trodden on or they’ve chipped a fingernail.’

  It was a familiar dig but he didn’t rise to her bait this time.

  Instead he laughed, blew her a kiss. ‘Love to you both. Now leave me, woman, I have a bottle or two of riesling to consume.’

  She kissed him back. ‘I’ll ring again soon because I know you won’t ring me.’

  No sooner had they hung up than the phone rang again. Jack assumed it was his sister again. She often did this — thought of something almost immediately after saying goodbye and rang directly back.

  ‘What about Jack and Jill,’ he said, ‘if it’s one of each?’

  ‘Sorry?’ It wasn’t Amy. ‘Is that Mr Hawksworth?’

  ‘Yes, it is. I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.’

  ‘This is Traute Becker. I’m on the floor below you — apartment two?’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course.’ Jack heard the German accent that no amount of living in Britain could eradicate. ‘Is everything alright?’

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr Hawksworth, but I need some help. My husband is away and it seems there’s been some sort of power failure. I’ve rung the power company and it’s not the grid, you see. It’s something local they’re saying.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Jack might bake but he was no handyman. None of his lights were on to check, he only now realised, but the fridge was humming quietly and the phone worked.

  ‘Something in the basement, I presume. A switch we throw back on.’

  He liked the singsong nature of her voice and the way ‘something’ came out as ‘somesing’ and ‘throw’ sounded more like ‘srow’.

  ‘Oh, like a trip switch?’

  ‘Ja, ja, that’s the word he used.’

  ‘Would you like me to take a look?’ Sounded like the right thing to say even though it would be the blind leading the blind.

  ‘Ja, I would. I don’t want to go down there alone, if you please.’

  ‘No problem. But I don’t think it’s the basement, Mrs Becker, more likely your own circuit box, because I can hear my fridge so I’ve got power. Give me a few moments and I’ll be down.’

  Jack met Mrs Becker outside her door and she let him into her apartment, using a torch to light their way. She made polite apologies, which he tried to wave away. He wondered if the other apartments were still powered. He knew old Mr C
laren was staying in Scotland for a few weeks with his daughter because Jack had agreed to clear his postbox. Damn, he thought, I must do that.

  Mrs Becker seemed to read his mind. ‘Mr Claren’s post needs clearing. He’s not back until the end of this week. Here we go, is this what you mean?’ She pointed to a box on the wall.

  ‘That’s it,’ Jack said, hoping that his basic knowledge would bring light back to Mrs Becker’s place. ‘I think we flick this switch.’ He did so and her apartment flickered instantly back to life.

  ‘Ah,’ they said together and congratulated one another.

  ‘Oh, thank you, Mr Hawksworth. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ he said, feeling quite the hero. ‘Any time.’

  ‘Can I offer you something?’

  He tried not to smile at that word again. ‘No, really, Mrs Becker, I’ve just returned from work and I’m ready to call it a day, if you don’t mind. I was just heading into the shower when you rang,’ he fibbed, eager to be on his way upstairs.

  ‘Okay, come visit sometime when Mr Becker is back.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ Jack walked to the door.

  She bustled behind him. ‘By the way, have you welcomed our new neighbour yet?’

  Jack felt instantly ashamed again. ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Ja, you should. Nice lady, shame about the chair.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  She shrugged in that European way. ‘She has the chair, you know, with the wheels.’

  ‘Oh.’ He understood.

  ‘Ja. Should we go and check, do you think?’ Mrs Becker wondered aloud. ‘Perhaps her lights have gone too. A good chance for you to say your hello’s before a welcome feels awkward, no?’