The Blood Whisperer

by Zoe Sharp

  Kelly gave a snort of self-derision. “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”

  She veered away from the water’s edge, trudging through the softer sand and bypassing the serried rows of empty sun loungers with their folded parasols. She headed towards the pretty little promenade with its cafés and bars. Some were already preparing to open for breakfast and the smell of cooking drifted evocatively on the morning air.

  She climbed the half-dozen concrete steps and padded still barefoot towards the table of the nearest, where a man sat reading an English newspaper. He was wearing sunglasses and a pale shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal a pink explosion of freckles.

  “I hope you’ve put sunblock on today,” Kelly observed as she took the seat opposite. “Otherwise they’ll be able to fry eggs on you.”

  Detective Constable Ian Dempsey lowered the paper and inspected his scorched arms with a slightly sheepish expression.

  “Factor fifty.” He lifted the sunglasses, wincing as the true extent of his sunburn became apparent to him.

  Kelly glanced at the headline on the newspaper he’d put aside. Finally, some other disaster had relegated her to the inside pages.

  “Maybe the furore has actually begun to die down,” she said without much conviction.

  “At least until you get home,” Dempsey reminded her with a cheerful lack of tact. He reached for his cellphone, which lay face up on the table and waggled it at her. “Just had the call, by the way. You ready?”

  She slid her feet into her sandals and rose. “I’ve been ready for six years.”

  He flushed a little at that. “Um, look Kelly, you are going to let the locals handle things, aren’t you?” he said. He fumbled through the unfamiliar coinage to pay for his coffee, not quite meeting her eye. “I mean, if I’m here as a courtesy then you’re here ’cos somebody much higher up the food chain than me did some serious arm twisting. I don’t want to have to explain, through an interpreter, how justified you were in kicking this bloke’s bollocks into his throat.”

  “I’ll be good,” she promised meekly.

  He shot her a quick look as if suspecting derision. Then he shook his head and smiled.

  “To be quite honest, I wouldn’t blame you if you did let him have it,” he admitted. “But I didn’t say that, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Together they strolled along the street, stopping occasionally to read the menu boards. Kelly tried to behave casually, as if their eventual choice was entirely random. The rapid thunder of her heart made it hard to swallow.

  They loitered a moment longer, then Dempsey murmured, “Shall we?” and they walked into the dim interior.

  Inside, the bar was a mix of old English polished wood and splashes of local decoration, terracotta and brass. A surprisingly successful blend of two cultures that really should not have worked but somehow blended smoothly. Ceiling fans turned lazily to keep the temperature cool and pleasant as a temptation to wander in out of the pre-noon heat and stay late into the evening.

  This early, though, the place was empty except for three men sitting at a table in the back. As soon as he saw them enter, one of the men got to his feet and came forward to greet them.

  “We’re not quite ready to serve breakfast yet, folks,” the man said, “but can I get you coffees or a . . .” As soon as he got his first good look at the pair of them his voice shrivelled into silence.

  “Hello Mr Allardice,” Kelly said in a deadly soft tone. “Remember me?”

  Former Detective Chief Inspector Frank Allardice was not a stupid man. He had recognised her instantly and, having done so, it only took another moment for him to size up Ian Dempsey and make him for a copper, even burnt Brit red and in his civvies.

  He had too much bottle to actually run, but Allardice shoved past the pair of them and made for the street at a brisk walk. The snarl on his face as he went dared them not to get in his way. Dempsey stepped aside and let him go.

  The two men at the back of the bar were on their feet by then. The first watched Allardice make his exit and then he did run, tearing out through the rear kitchen in a flash. The last man hesitated only for a second. His eyes made fleeting contact with Kelly’s before he was sprinting too.

  And if the first man was only vaguely familiar she would have known the other anywhere.

  Detective Inspector Vincent O’Neill.

  “Fleeing at the first sign of customers, eh?” Dempsey shook his head in mock dismay. “Now that’s no way to run a business.”

  Outside there was a burst of noise—harsh shouts in Spanish and swearing in English, followed by scuffling feet and the solid thuds of subduing blows. Kelly listened, hoping for more, but it seemed the fugitives submitted with disappointing speed.

  Members of the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía poured in through both front and rear entrances, hustling their three handcuffed prisoners before them like they were running bulls.

  The tall slim officer who seemed to be in charge shook hands with Dempsey and the two began a brief conversation that was largely conducted in gestures and pidgin.

  Kelly edged quietly around the group of cops until she was only a metre or two away from the prisoners. Allardice glared at her with all the arrogance she remembered so well from interrogation. But she saw the sweat on his forehead begin to dribble at his temples, and knew he was seriously afraid. It was only the presence of his fellow detainees that gave him any remaining spine. Like he could take it, just so long as he wasn’t taking it alone.

  Her eyes passed to Vince O’Neill. He returned the stare impassively for a moment before offering a wry smile.

  “Nice to see you off remand, Kelly,” he said. “Although if you hadn’t been so stubborn Matthew Lytton would have stood bail for you weeks ago.”

  Kelly shrugged to hide her pleasure and surprise. “It gave me time to think,” she said, “about the massive civil action I’m going to bring for wrongful arrest, conviction, and imprisonment.”

  At that the third man’s head snapped up. His gaze swivelled between Allardice and O’Neill as if trying to work out which of them had sold him out fastest.

  “Look,” he began, trying in vain to catch the eye of any Spanish officer who might possess half a dozen words of English. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’ve just retired from a very high-ranking job with the British police, and I’m merely visiting two old friends . . .”

  But then the lead Spanish officer finally understood what Dempsey had been trying explain, mostly via the medium of mime.

  “Ah, si!” the man cried, a huge grin appearing from beneath his generous moustache. He pointed at Vince O’Neill and said, “Clandestino, eh?” and then rattled off orders to his men.

  They broke into wide answering smiles. The one standing nearest to O’Neill quickly undid the cuffs, offered him an apologetic shrug.

  Kelly watched the realisation grow in the third man’s eyes, that this was no random event but more of a carefully orchestrated operation. That his reputation, his pension and his marriage were about to go to hell and all his dirty little secrets were going to be spread across the tabloids like intestines across a butcher’s slab.

  After a few moments she turned away without speaking. There was nothing she wished to say to the man who had engineered her ruin and now would be the instrument of her redemption.

  O’Neill nodded his thanks to the Spanish cop, then jerked his head to Dempsey. “Nice work, Ian,” he said. “Your collar, I think.”

  Kelly thought Dempsey flushed with pride, but it could have been the sunburn. He stepped forward.

  “Ex-Chief Superintendent John Quinlan,” he said in a calm and steady voice. “I am arresting you for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice . . .”

  161

  Thank God it’s nearly over.

  Sitting in the front pew of the ancient church, the words ran through Matthew Lytton’s head.

  The vicar was into his Benediction. Vee had been an occasiona
l churchgoer—more for its social implications than out of any true belief—so at least the man was able to speak from slight personal acquaintance.

  Then there was only one more hymn to go before Lytton could get out of this suffocating place and this suffocating suit. And, above all, away from these utterly suffocating people.

  The vicar was meandering his way towards a solemn close. Lytton shifted on the old wooden pew and was suddenly aware of the feeling he was being watched.

  As casually as he could he glanced back over his shoulder—straight into the eyes of Kelly Jacks.

  He felt the jolt of her unexpected presence like a physical blow to his gut. He tensed in visceral response and forced himself not to turn and stare.

  Even so, there was no mistake.

  In that brief glimpse he registered her bare head among the sober hats, her shoulders draped with an overlarge black topcoat that drowned her small frame.

  His mind began to race. What the hell was she doing here? There had been no official announcements and he’d been following the whole travesty with a close eye. Christ . . . had she escaped?

  He realised the vicar had stopped speaking, the organist was flexing his fingers and the rest of the congregation was rising around him with a chorus of coughs and shuffles. His mother-in-law glared at him from across the aisle, as if not being first up was a sign of disrespect.

  He had put his foot down about the final piece of music. Vee had always loved the intricacies of Bach, and in particular the chorale movement Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring.

  His mother-in-law had been vaguely horrified at the suggestion. “But, it’s so . . . unsuitable, Matthew. You had that played at your wedding.”

  “All the more reason to play it again at her memorial service then, don’t you think?”

  In the end the woman had given in with some attempt at grace, although he noted from the Order of Service that she had disguised his choice by using its lesser-known German title—Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis 147.

  He stood silent while the vastness of the Bach cantata washed over him, but felt only impatience for it all to be over.

  Kelly . . . here . . .

  Even then he couldn’t make an immediate escape. He was expected to stand in a receiving line with Vee’s parents, accepting clammy handshakes and the awkwardly mumbled conventional expressions of regret.

  And all the time he was searching for another sign of Kelly. But she didn’t present herself to him or his in-laws and when the church had emptied out he could not see her hiding in the shadows.

  He thanked the vicar and handed over the promised donation cheque for a job well done. Outside on the bowed stone steps he shook his father-in-law’s reluctantly offered hand and air-kissed his mother-in-law’s powdered cheek. He was amazed the caked layer of makeup hadn’t cracked from the sheer effort of holding her disdain in check.

  “You’ll ride with us back to the house?” his father-in-law suggested stiffly when they reached the lane where people were climbing into their cars. Lytton had approved the hire of the Bentley they’d wanted, even though the distance from house to church barely allowed it to warm up.

  “I have my car here,” Lytton said, gesturing to the Aston Martin.

  They sniffed at that, said they’d see him at the catered lunch in half an hour, and left.

  Lytton headed off into the surrounding graveyard, pulling his wool overcoat a little tighter around him to ward off the sharp and sneaky wind. He found her by the wall right in the far corner, still with the ridiculous topcoat wrapped around her and a small rucksack tucked at her feet.

  “Kelly!” He hurried the last few strides finding he was suddenly breathless. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you,” she said. “I asked at the house and the caterers assumed I was a late guest of some sort. They gave me directions.” She fingered the lapel of the coat. Beneath it he could see a bright shirt and khaki cargo pants. “I didn’t know, until I got here . . . I borrowed this from one of the chauffeurs so I wouldn’t look so obviously out of place inside. I didn’t realise . . . I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not—sorry you’re here, that is,” he said, feeling a genuine smile start to form. “But what I actually meant was . . . The last I heard you were in Holloway. How did you . . .?” He groaned. “Oh please, tell me you didn’t scale the bloody walls?”

  She laughed and he realised he’d never heard her laugh and he liked the sound of it, husky with just an edge of badness to it.

  “What, you think at this very moment some deputy US Marshal is organising a hard-target search of every henhouse, outhouse and doghouse between here and Islington?”

  He knew she was trying to make light of it by paraphrasing The Fugitive but somehow that only made the situation seem more desperate.

  Heedless of what happened the last time he grabbed her, Lytton closed in and gripped her upper arms, forced her to focus on his face.

  “Kelly, please, this is serious. If you’re on the run I can help. I know a guy with a fast cruiser moored at Lymington. We can have you out of the country by tonight.”

  She went very still. “You’d do that?” she said. “For me?”

  “I won’t see you go back to prison for something you didn’t damn well do.”

  She stepped in, looked up into his eyes. “They didn’t let me go, Matthew,” she said with gentle deliberation, “because they didn’t need to. I was never really on remand. Not this time.”

  He tried for incisive. Instead all he managed was a stuttered, “W–what?”

  “O’Neill asked for my help to catch the guys who set me up—just sit tight in solitary for a few weeks and let him get on with it,” she said. “Allardice did the dirty work, but it was Chief Superintendent Quinlan who Callum Perry was trying to blackmail. He was the one who decided to get rid of Perry and use me to take the blame.”

  “And O’Neill can prove all this?” Lytton demanded.

  “That’s what he’s been doing,” she said. “They’ve had forensic accountants tracing the money, including the funds Allardice transferred out to Spain to start his bar. O’Neill had to play along and wait until Quinlan took his retirement package and went out with a new payoff before he could arrange to have the pair of them grabbed.”

  “Which he’s now done,” Lytton guessed, and heard the utter relief in his own voice.

  “Which he’s now done,” Kelly echoed, satisfaction in hers. “I’ve been in Spain seeing this thing through. Got back this morning and came straight up here.” She nodded to the rucksack at her feet.

  “Well I’m glad you did,” he said. “Am I supposed to ask why?”

  She gave him a smile that was almost shy. “O’Neill told me you offered to post my bail. I wanted to . . . thank you. In person.”

  He realised he was still grasping her upper arms and he loosened his grip, slipping his hands round onto her back and tracing the outline of her shoulder blades, the indentations of her spine, with his fingertips. He watched her face all the while, saw what he hoped to see and began to draw her closer.

  At the last moment Kelly brought her hands up and wedged them against his chest.

  “No,” she said, but when he would have released her with a muttered apology she added, “not here, that’s all. I mean, I want to, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t sure if you did, but . . . I meant not right outside the church where you’ve just held your wife’s memorial service.”

  “Where, then?” The question came out more starkly than he intended.

  Another gust of wind whipped between the gravestones and she shivered. “Anywhere that isn’t so damned cold would be a good start.”

  Matthew Lytton smiled.

  “I hear the Bahamas is very nice this time of year . . .”

  —END—

  From the Author’s notebook

  The whole idea behind THE BLOOD WHISPERER came about because I was playing around with the theme of trust. As a London crime-scene s
pecialist Kelly Jacks trusted what the evidence she collected was telling her and she enjoyed the particular trust of her colleagues who nicknamed her The Blood Whisperer because of her affinity with the work she carried out.

  Then that trust is betrayed. Everyone she’s ever known lets her down and turns away from her. And when she’s tried and convicted of a violent crime she even loses trust in herself over her own innocence or guilt.

  So the story is also about the rebuilding of Kelly’s ability to trust—in the evidence, in herself, and both in the people she’s known for years and those she’s only just met. I was originally going to call the book THE CARRION CREW, a play on the name of Kelly’s mentor and boss of the crime-scene cleaning firm, Ray McCarron, but was worried it had too many horror overtones for a crime novel. Then my husband suggested THE BLOOD WHISPERER and that fitted just right.