Ice Blue (7 page)

“My Lord wasn’t nearly so fussy about his
Lexus,” Kate said, inhaling the new car scent with pleasure.

“My Lord has enough money to buy himself a
new toy whenever he wants. This,” Bhar said proudly, buckling
himself in and starting the engine, “represents a large chunk of my
compensation package. It also represents my desirability to
London’s dateable population. It must remain perfect.”

“How long since you’ve had a date?” Kate
asked.

“Two months,” Bhar sighed. “Might as well be
taking the bus.” Putting the car in reverse, he asked, “See much of
Superintendent Jackson since the big blow-up?”

“Heard about that, did you?”

Bhar laughed. “I have the inside line on it.
My source, who is absolutely unimpeachable, actually overheard the
confrontation between Jackson and Hetheridge. Most of it came right
through the office door. Hetheridge can really roar when someone
tries to shout over him.”

Kate, who had no friends at the Yard, and no
sources of any kind, squirmed. She had assumed Hetheridge simply
read Jackson’s report (and her ridiculous one-word reply, which she
still regretted) and then recommended she be transferred. She’d
never imagined any conflict between the two men, and had seen no
sign of it, unless Jackson’s reference to Hetheridge “going soft”
was an indicator. But the men of the Yard spent so much time
questioning one another’s potency, Kate had not found the insult
unusual.

“What did your source overhear?”

Bhar, who had traveled only a few meters,
pulled into another spot and parked again, engine still running.
This story was apparently too juicy to relate without gesturing
with both hands.

“Well, you can imagine Jackson’s side. He
took you to a pub to make you feel like one of the boys. You came
onto him, he’s only human, but the moment he showed interest, you
screamed sexual harassment. The old man said you didn’t scream
harassment, you screamed ‘plonker.’ Jackson shouted that just
proved his point – what happens off-duty has nothing to do with
what happens on the job. Then Hetheridge started booming like
Zeus.” Bhar grinned at Kate. “He said lascivious public behavior is
bad form for a family man. He said seducing a subordinate is bad
business for a Superintendent. And then,” Bhar finished
triumphantly, “he said it was no way to treat a lady.”

Kate goggled at him.

“Yes! That’s how I looked! My face, exactly
like yours! Sure, whipping out old one-eye is no way to treat a
lady – but what does that have to do with a brass-knuckled bitch
like Kate Wakefield?” Bhar cackled. “Anyway, Jackson went crying to
Commander Deaver, the Commander called Hetheridge behind closed
doors, and voila! Here you are. The old man went against the
brotherhood for you.”

“Oh,” Kate breathed, feeling unworthy of the
sacrifice. “I told him they’d boil his balls.”

“I said something similar,” Bhar agreed, his
tone slightly more serious. “Mentioned a hazard to his balls, at
the very least.”

“What did he say?”

“He said his balls are steel, and let them do
their worst. I’ll admit, I’m impressed. He really does have a soft
spot for you. Pretty soon, you’ll be as enamored of him as batty
old Mrs. Snell. She thinks he’s a sexy beast.” Bhar was still
smiling, but there was something appraising in his dark eyes. “Who
knows, maybe you do, too.”

Kate didn’t know how to answer. “You’re
pretty good at questioning,” she said at last. “Want to take
Charlie Fringate, once I’m finished with Jules Comfrey?”

“Love to,” Bhar said, backing out of the
space and steering them toward the long line of morning traffic.
“And don’t worry. You’re not the first wide-eyed DS to fall under
his Lordship’s spell. He covered for me once, when I made a bloody
stupid mistake and almost torpedoed a major case. I was so
grateful, I wanted to have his baby for at least a week.”

“What stopped you?” Kate giggled.

“Turns out I’m straight. Also, male. But it
was a dreamy romance while it lasted. By the way,” Bhar shot her a
quick glance, “no offense about the brass-knuckled bitch remark. I
meant it as a compliment.”

“I took it as one.”

“I live in hope that one day,” Bhar
continued, “people will speak of me and say, that Paul, he’s one
ruthless, ass-kicking son of a bitch. Instead of, that Paul, he’s
such a nice young man, I can’t imagine why he chose such a violent
profession.”

The trip to Madge and Jules Comfrey’s hotel,
a glass-and-steel tower overlooking Green Park, was nearly an
hour’s crawl between traffic lights. Once in the lobby, they showed
their warrant cards to a manager, who phoned up Jules’s suite. He
stared at Kate and Bhar as he waited for Jules to answer, a
skeptical, not-with-my-guest-you-don’t expression on his face.

“I’ll be back,” Kate told Bhar, and went off
in search of the ladies’.

Inside the stall, Kate couldn’t resist
scrutinizing her thong’s cotton crotch, still hoping for a sign
that her period had straggled in to save the day. Nothing.

Sighing, she did her business and then
continued to straddle the toilet, counting backward to the last
time she and Dylan had sex. It had been their only unprotected
coupling in two years – make-up sex, hot at first, but then cooler,
and finally embarrassingly out of sync. After what seemed like an
interminable effort, Dylan managed to complete the act, triumphing
over what Kate’s plainspoken grandmother called distiller’s droop.
Kate had been relieved to roll over and feign sleep. Hard to
believe their once intensely physical, almost entirely sexual
connection had vanished not with a bang, but a whimper.

Harder to believe, Kate thought with a stab
of real fear, that such a lousy final attempt at intimacy might
have left her pregnant.

Kate made her way to the row of porcelain
sinks, studying herself in the gilt-framed mirror. There was no
need to allow this silence to stretch out between the two of them.
She could call Dylan. She could call him right now, and just touch
base.

Kate didn’t go for the phone tucked in her
handbag. Instead, she washed her hands slowly, wondering why she’d
kept Dylan Corrigan in her life for two years. Maybe because he was
everything she liked: dark hair, blue eyes, sarcastic wit, and a
broody set to his mouth and eyes. He always looked as if he were
pondering the ways the world had failed him, and formulating
terrible cutting remarks to make himself feel better. Dylan’s body
was nothing special, skinny and pale, but she’d adored the smell of
him, the feel of him, the way they entwined together. That was what
kept her from chucking him out long ago – their wordless
skin-to-skin connection, superior to any interaction that required
conversation, teamwork, or even minor sacrifice.

Dylan, a sometime-clerk in a New Age store,
was also a musician – a guitarist between bands, when Kate met him.
He read highbrow up-to-the-minute literature Kate found difficult
to understand, and impossible to enjoy. He listened to experimental
music exclusively from up-and-comers who never lived up to his
predictions of success. An insomniac night owl, Dylan got on well
with both Ritchie and Henry, content to keep the boys company
whenever Kate was working a case. But he had little respect for
Kate’s career at Scotland Yard. To his mind, she was only a cog in
the government machine, agent of a socially corrupt system. Dylan
was an anarchist at heart, or so he said, but not enough of an
anarchist to refuse his dole money. Most of his criticism of the
“establishment,” she’d finally realized, came down to criticisms
about her, and how she chose to live.

If he’d only been willing to try and
contribute, Kate thought. It never mattered to her that he didn’t
earn much, either as a store clerk or a musician. The amount he
brought in wasn’t the point. She only wanted him to acknowledge
what it cost to run a household – what he spent on Guinness and pub
chow and trade paperback novels – and give something back, as well
as take. Dylan had accused her of trying to bully him into the
middle class respectability that someone like her, climbing out of
an impoverished childhood, craved. When they fought, he insisted
she wanted him to become a drone bee, just like her, so she
wouldn’t regret her own conventional path. As their fights
worsened, he’d spent more time out of her company, drinking
heavily, hooking up with single friends, and – she suspected –
auditioning new and less demanding females.

The shit I took off him, just to come home to
a man in my bed, Kate thought. And not much of a man, at the
end.

She pressed her fists against closed eyes,
refusing to cry, to accept the heat of a single tear. Dylan
Corrigan was far from the first male to fit her own inexplicable
preference. Every boyfriend before him was a variation on the same
genotype. Smart, lazy, full of clever excuses, with a weakness for
the drink and for spending other people’s money. The attraction
always started with sexual electricity, evolving into a
twice-a-day, can’t-get-enough-of-him affair that gave Kate the
verve to take on whatever the world tossed at her. But when the
ardor faded – when the conversations became strained, when she
realized she didn’t respect him, and he didn’t even like her – Kate
always found herself looking for a new variance on the same lover.
Perhaps she lacked the ability to sustain a true relationship with
another human being. At least she could sustain passion, and she’d
learned to get by on passion alone.

What if she was knocked up? What if she’d
done what she’d sworn never to do, when her sister announced she
was pregnant with Henry? And with a man Kate was finished with, who
no longer stirred the slightest tenderness in her, who would never
be out of her life if she gave birth to his child?

Of course, giving birth wasn’t the only
option. But Kate’s own history of failed relationships made her
wonder if this might be her only chance to have a child. What if
her career took off? What if the next ten years passed even faster
than the last ten, and she found herself wondering why she hadn’t
considered single motherhood while she could?

Taking a deep breath, Kate straightened her
shoulders, smiled at herself in the mirror, and pushed the whole
mess out of her mind. Time to work. Time to interview Jules
Comfrey. And maybe, Kate caught herself thinking with a twinge of
guilt, her man problems are even worse than mine.

A uniformed porter escorted Kate and Bhar up
to Jules’s suite. The door was opened by Madge Comfrey.

“Jules is still getting dressed. Come in,”
Madge said in a dull, rigidly controlled voice. She ushered them
into the floral-wallpapered sitting room, where a loveseat, two
striped armchairs, and a small coffee table awaited them.

Madge Comfrey looked ten years older then she
had the night before – only twelve hours ago, Kate realized. 
She had changed into simpler attire – a gray turtleneck, black
slacks, and no jewelry, except for her wedding band.  That
stiff halo of wavy brown hair had deflated, and her make-up was dry
and flaky.  Her fuchsia lips stood out against her white
face.

“I’m surprised you haven’t come to question
me again,” Madge said.  “I expected it to be me, not
Jules.”

“We’re obligated to be very thorough, Mrs.
Comfrey. Not only to apprehend your husband’s killer, but to make
sure the charges stick,” Kate said.  “Many interviews will
only be a formality. We’ll be speaking to each person who saw Mr.
Comfrey in his final hours, just to make sure no piece of evidence
is overlooked.”

“But surely you aren’t just wasting time
chatting with us?” Madge demanded, apparently incensed by the
standard reassuring script Kate had quoted from Scotland Yard’s
playbook.  “Surely there must be a scientific effort going on
to identify the person who invaded our home?  Fingerprints,
DNA, security cameras – I’m sure half our neighbors have them – all
those avenues are still being explored, aren’t they?”

“Of course.” Bhar flashed Madge his boyish
smile.  “Every case gets solved by Forensic Services, just
like on the telly.  But detectives still have to conduct
interviews and take statements.  It’s standard operating
procedure, nothing to worry about.”

Madge looked unconvinced.  “Are you sure
you wouldn’t rather talk to me?” she asked, casting a quick glance
over her shoulder and lowering her voice. “Jules is very naïve.
She’s just lost her father.  I don’t want her to feel
browbeaten and attacked by the police, too.”

“We’ll treat her with every courtesy. CS
Hetheridge was very clear on that point,” Kate said, wondering what
effect Hetheridge’s name would have on Madge.

No flicker of response passed over Madge’s
pale, over-painted face. “Very well, then. I have a great many
calls to make, and arrangements to oversee. I’ll be in the bedroom
if Jules needs me,” she murmured, and retreated deeper into the
suite.

Jules entered the sitting room
less than a minute later
, dressed in another pair of
calculatedly ripped jeans and a black t-shirt emblazoned with the
words KEVIN’S TOY. Kate had seen such personalized tops, sold in
the back of celebrity magazines, but she’d never before come face
to face with a grown woman willing to wear one.

“Sorry I kept you waiting,” Jules yawned,
covering her mouth and waving for Kate and Bhar to be seated. 
“I can’t seem to pull myself together. This feels like a
dream.” 

Jules shook Bhar’s offered hand as he
introduced himself, then belatedly recognized Kate.  “Oh, it’s
you.  Guess you haven’t slept, either.  Did you find
Kevin?” she asked, apparently believing detectives from Scotland
Yard had spent the night beating down doors and vaulting from
rooftop to rooftop in search of her man.

“The police are still looking,” Kate
said.  “I take it he hasn’t tried to get in touch with
you?”