A change of focus (serial)

[1] telephone, company, sucks
The scarlet handset appeared to have spewed a map of South Africa, matching stain spreading and disappearing beneath the sprawled body of the dark-haired woman.
‘What’s that godawful noise?’ 
DS John Pettinger, concentrating on fixing first impressions in his mind, didn’t hesitate.   ‘Bad Company.’
‘Well obviously that’s  what she’s been keeping... oh, you mean the music.   Looks like some film I saw once, where the telephone  sucks the blood from its victims ...’
‘I doubt that’s happened here.’
Pettinger’s exasperation at the DC was muted as he failed to ignore the sick feeling permeating his gut.  
‘I know this woman.’

[2] farm, tumour, lucid
Suspicion, and a single question, swelled like a tumour:   why? 
Why her?
Why now?
She’d been due to return tomorrow, to the farm she’d vividly described, red earth, big skies and far distant horizons.
But someone had prevented that;  at least, not permitted her to return alive.
He’d understood she knew nobody here.
And only mentioned one man there:  Jake.
Who, she’d said, in the lucid moments between waking, guilt-entwined in the furrow-sheeted dawn and her engulfing him again, would never forgive what she had done.
‘Need he know?’ he’d asked, matching rhythm.
‘He always knows,’ she’d told him, distant-eyed.

[3] myopic, divert, chamber
Allowing her to seduce him had been unprofessional. 
Allowing her to do so in the police-station car-park foolhardy in the extreme.
Wincing at both his myopic inability for coherent thought (presumably some sort of sexual hangover) and his DC’s insensitive ‘Know her, boss?  Brilliant!   Easy ID then’, John Pettinger attempted to divert his mind to such questions as why was Sally-Ann Hopgood not where he had left her? 
Who had stabbed her?
Was it connected to her parents’ murder?
And could he hope that the chambermaid who’d balefully eyed his departure – after two days’ occupancy – had failed to recognise him?

[4] interfere, shade, pitch
Hands in pockets, so as not to interfere with evidence, was second nature;  balled into knuckle-dustered fists rare but Pettinger had just learned, from a manageress barely able to believe it herself, that the pitch-dark hotel room he’d left seven hours earlier had been ‘mega-steam-cleaned’.
Good insofar as his two-day occupation with her might evade detection, but less so if she’d been forcibly brought to this shaded room before being killed.
Not to deny her, but were his involvement known he’d be taken off the case:  it was essential he handle this one himself, especially now the chambermaid was implicated

[5] gall, invisible, touch
The SOCOs. Professional, efficient, dealing with death every day. Not everyday death.
Seeking invisible traces, places he touched without knowing, tale of the carnage he wrought.
Here little to go on, stabbed with a knife yet unfound, so fast that she could not retaliate, no scrapings or rakings of skin beneath nails.   Only pattern of splatter to tell how she spun how she fell how she bled.
Now the swabs...
Oh god the swabs will show semen and as far as he knows he’s the last to have been there:  gall rises as swift as memory says he did then.

[6] madam, chirp, jab
‘Madam?’  (She merited ‘Ma’am’; this displeased in a way she could not object to.)
‘Hopgood was suspected of her parent’s murder?’
‘No.   She was in Australia.’
‘Proxy?’
‘Sounds far-fetched.’
‘But Cherriman had no alibi, his whereabouts were then unknown.’
Who the fuck? ‘Ma’am?’
‘Jake Cherriman. Her husband.’
Double fuck.   She never said. Except ‘Jake always knows everything.’
Phone chirped. 
Listening, she biro-jabbed until it shattered, teeth-gritted an acknowledgement.
Glared up at him, ‘The lab has matched the DNA.’
‘Cherriman’s?’
‘No John, yours.’Payback smile, ‘Cherriman is now downstairs. He came in of his own accord.  And asked specifically for you.’

[7] madam, chirp, jab
Firstly, Jake Cherriman, just flown in from halfway round the world was a man bereaved. Likely only knew his name from his now-murdered wife. Couldn’t possibly know, prior to her death, she’d persuaded Pettinger into her hotel bed wherein she’d demonstrated skills such as any madam would be glad to teach.  (Think gift-horse, mouth.)
Now, adjudging his office over-warm, Pettinger pointed Cherriman to a chair before turning to raise the sash, startling a blackbird into chirped alarm. Turned back to find stubbled face inches from his, red-circled eyes alarming, gun jabbed against his ribs.  Hoarsly, ‘You’re dead, you fuckin’ bastard.’

 [8] seam, etiquette, weary
The conflicting etiquettes required to deal with death or those deceived, the bereaved and those cuckolded, not to mention those who are about to shoot one, caused Pettinger to feel exceeding weary, plus the barrel of the gun had trapped the button on the label sewn into the side seam of his shirt against his ribs, causing him to wonder whether a button could stop a bullet at point blank?
Concentrate!
‘Er... Mr Cherriman, I’d advise you not to shoot me here, the blokes downstairs’ll have you inside two minutes.’
Laughter.
Laughter?
‘I’m not stupid. And my name isn’t Cherriman.’

[9] seam, etiquette, weary
Not Cherriman?
No need, therefore, for kid-glove etiquette.
Raising falsely-panicked eyes to the lens above the door Pettinger felt a reciprocal shift in concentration,  allowing him to grasp the hand which  held the gun, apply pressure to strained tendon-seams and hence loosen fingers.   Forearm fending, left hand u-bending windpipe, he kicked the now-floored gun away.
‘Then who?’
Gurgled non-verbal.
Pettinger transferred his grip. 
Hoarse, ‘I am Gunita’s brother.’
‘Gunita?’
Weary scorn, ‘She works in the hotel.’ 
The bloody chambermaid.
‘You did not even ask her name?’
‘Never needed to.’   Not quite true.
‘No need to name the girl you rape?’

[10] crown, orphan, sterile
So, Orphan Annie – now aka Gunita – adds accusation of rape to that of murder? 
Gun sterile-wrapped for evidence, Goren’s mobile confiscated, Pettinger and her not-yet-apprehended brother arrived at the chambermaid’s too-upmarket house.
Went silently upstairs to the bedroom, where her brother shouted foreign-worded warning, unaware that Pettinger understood, just as well as Goren comprehended English.
Too late for her to climb off the man she straddled.
Too late for him to hide his face.
Too late for her to cover the tiny tattooed crown on her left buttock.
None there aware  Pettinger knew of its significance:  he had one too.

[11] incite, thread, septic
Pettinger translated Gunita’s python-hissed invective directed at her brother, storming loose-wrapped in a fine-quilted emerald silk coverlet, only losing her thread at the attempted escape of the hastily-covered member of Her Majesty’s Judiciary to demand – in English – a sum of money sufficient to incite a riot amongst the thirty-quid-a-fuck dockside elite were they to hear of it.   Blenching, he paid and left.
To Goren, indicating Pettinger:  ‘Hopgood failed, Cherriman’s disappeared, now it falls to me to  break him.’
Goren snort-laughed, ‘In the same manner?   Can I watch?’
Pondering on degrees of consanguinity, Pettinger, blank-faced, vowed to avoid that septic fate

[12] incite, thread, septic
Twin faces turned, depicting twinned intent: Goren’s vicarious, Gunita purring spurious seduction, quilt playing hide and seek with spunk-sheened breasts and belly.
‘You’re accusing  me of rape?’
Pettinger’s repugnance at their septic, incest-threaded confluence, their casual admission of Sally-Ann’s murder, incited near betrayal of his thus far unadmitted ancestry.
‘A mistake, for which I’ll make amend.’ Her lips teased his, fingers fluttered: ear, throat, wrist; hand butterflied across his groin.
Pettinger returned impassive, nostril-flared distaste. Maintaining eye-contact, Gunita clicked her fingers. ‘Goren, perchance your soft-shelled policeman will respond more rapidly when he reviews our film of his activities with Hopgood.’

[13] vine, oddity, hoard
 Black bile burst at the pit of his stomach, spread like a pantomime vine to throat, seared along limbs, to extremities.   He had, even as he acquiesced, seen the oddity of a man like him, not known for inciting instant lust, being accosted by a woman like her, but caution had been need-diluted and she skilful –warm – enough to release deep-hoarded desire. 
That it might have been bogus, witnessed, traitorous, sickened him, while strengthening his resolve to seek the truth behind her murder. 
Just in case it had not been her, but them.
Now to school his face to inscrutable.

[14] vent, clock, save
Save for the ticking of the clock the room was silent.
Pettinger, stony features ramparting repugnance which rang discordant bells behind his eyes: ‘The mistake is yours, to think I would believe you.’ 
Venting spleen, Gunita deadly-drilled a dozen words at Goren which, sans obscenities, translated as ‘I told you it would fail,’  but Goren’s tolerance of his sister’s histrionics had expired; casual, open-handedly he felled and then stepped over her.
To Pettinger: ‘You go now.’
Implacable: ‘The tapes.’
‘Pfft, camera broken, all blank.’
‘I have your gun, fingerprints CCTV...’
‘Eye for an eye, eh?’
‘Aye, and I’ll be back.’

[15] history oak eccentric
The hand that clutched the biro was white-knuckled, scoring repeated circles, eccentric and deep-driven, on the sheet of A4 paper, damaging the oak beneath.
‘Pettinger, your recent history is one of utter fuck-up.   Hopgood’s death, and her parents’, are still unsolved, Jake Cherriman has disappeared again, and now you say you’ve let go a man who would’ve shot you!’
‘Also, ma’am, I’ve been accused of rape, and,’ nodding towards the now-ringing phone, ‘that’ll likely be another, of harassment.’ 
He’d not mention the tapes Goren had believed were blank, even though they didn’t show what he had feared they might.

[15] history oak eccentric
Pettinger’s boss,  today’s eccentricity a thigh-length skirt patterned with oak and ash leaves:  auditioning for Maid Marian instead of sheriff;  he Little John, uncertain deputy, from the expression in her eyes as she put down the phone.
‘Harassment, yes, high-level  – how come you’ve sparked a diplomatic incident?   Become embroiled in the politics of some country no-one’s ever heard of?  Insulted members of it’s – allegedly – ‘royal’ family, thereby allowing them to insist on your immediate arrest?’
Shit – they’d realised he had Goren’s tapes and thereby history  and explanation for what had happened . 
Pettinger veiled his eyes.  ‘Ma’am, I can explain.’

[16] jigsaw, capture, pimento
Pimento-flush of temper paled, anticipating Pettinger’s explanation.
‘Ma’am, there’s some as-yet-undiscovered link between Hopgood’s parent’s murder and Khakbethia...’
‘I didn’t name the country, so how...?’
‘The gunman’s from there, his sister mentioned Cherriman, whereupon two separate puzzles became double-sided jigsaw.’
‘Sister?’
‘The alleged princess.  Also operates as high-class whore.’
‘Then bring her in!’
‘She’s better use as bait, one of her clients the un-esteemed Judge Jenkinson.’
Mutual acknowledgement of a long-desired piranha.
‘You’d better go and pacify the ambassador.’
But ideas of appeasement appeared over-optimistic when His Excellency greeted Pettinger as ‘Yanno’ and Pettinger recognised his traitorous, black-hearted eldest brother.

[16] jigsaw, capture, pimento
Red green yellow patterned carpet, reminiscent of the triple-packaged peppers piled high on a market stall, behind which leering eyes had sought to capture the interest of the prettiest women.   Same eyes as now smiled lies, hiding behind jigsawed pomp and circumstance.
 Pettinger, his authority less cardboard cut-out than his brother’s, said ‘You try harassment with me, brother, and I’ll have your balls!’
‘Gunita says you turned her down ...’
 ‘I like not goods well-used by scum.’
 ‘Hopgood not in that category?’
Diplomacy discarded, Pettinger leapt upon his brother and kicked him hard, until His Excellency’s balls resembled squashed pimentos.

[19 ] disgrace, lance, trouble
A boil of pustulent hatred, seventeen years in the festering, was lanced by Pettinger’s attack.
Without an ounce of sympathy as, bent double, his brother rolled to grab a chair and trundled it, still on his knees, towards a velvet-covered couch, there to lie groaning, he snarled, ‘You and your self-aggrandising plotting!   Your ridiculous attempts to infiltrate this country when you’re nothing but a  market-trader, partnered with a petty thief and a well-worn whore...’
‘We have the judge, and ‘tis ill-luck Goren didn’t know you were my brother...’
‘Stupidity!’
‘...but we’ve evidence of your disgrace, and intend to use it.’

[20] cantankerous, oratory, wobbly/wobble
Features screwed under recurring flares of orchid-pain, Pettinger’s brother struggled upright, wobbled once before demonstrating inheritance of backbone as well as temperament from a cruelly-cantankerous father, a single howl of anguish echoing to the rafters of the once-upon-a-time oratory, now den of dubious diplomacy: ‘Hopgood’s parents spied for Dubnovaski...’
‘I thought the Dubnovaskis were all dead.’
‘So did I ‘til others started dying; it wasn’t us who killed them.’
‘Then who?’
‘We hoped Hopgood would tell us... when she targeted you it caused some... internal difficulties, since our rivalry is known.’
‘Targeted?’
‘Don’t be stupid, Yanno, it certainly wasn’t love!’

 [21] cantankerous, oratory, wobbly/wobble
Stung, at imputation of ignorance, to cantankerousness of his own Pettinger threw a punch at his brother’s head.
He ducked; caterpillar smile of triumph wobbled on then throttled fast away as his neck was grasped and squeezed almost to final gasp.
‘Forget the fancy oratory – why did Sally-Ann have to die?’
‘It was meant to be you.’
‘And you couldn’t tell us apart?’
‘No – she was supposed to murder you.  Cherriman knew she’d fail...’
‘So it was love?’  Pettinger’s face refuted gullibility.
‘Stupidity, since it ended in her death...’
Locked-eye stare was interrupted by the crashing open of the door.

 [22] articulate, whorl, pelt  - Prediction Challenge winner
‘Excellency!’
Strangled articulation announced the entry of  the pensioner hired to disguise the whorls of dirty espionage which hung about the Khakbethian embassy.
Skull-knuckled hands clutching the double doors, he hung for a moment then slowly sagged until his badger-pelted head lay on the carpet, arms perforce rotated back- and upwards,  nine inches of knife-handle protruding from his spine.
The ambassador  and his officially-unacknowledged brother turned as one to watch him, their  mutual observation interrupted by the appearance of the man presumed responsible, the sight of whom brought relief to one brother, terror to the other, in roughly equal quantities.

[23]carrion, sleeve, reticent
Raptor. Hooded black and yellow predatorial eyes; time-streaked, shaggy feather-fingered mane reaching beyond shoulders.
Appearance neither nephew had inherited.
Pettinger began a courteous welcome in the language of his birth, was rudely interrupted by his brother spit-growling ‘Carrion’.
Doubly startled he watched his uncle kneel to retrieve his knife, wiping the blade on the cleaner of the body’s sleeves.
‘Why kill him? He wasn’t important. Did no harm.’
Reticent. ‘Then it does not matter that he’s dead.’
‘You cannot behave like that, not here!’
‘You proposing to stop me, little Yanno?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then you’ll have to become unimportant too.’

 [24]
A good detective learns the art of reticence, of turning the other cheek, of lying to deceive the carrion he daily deals with. Keeps secrets up his sleeve as well as tricks.
Thus Pettinger deflected questions from his superior.
‘You pacified the ambassador?’
Near-throttled, he could not complain. ‘Ma’am.’
‘The staff there are peaceable?’
Dead men say nothing. ‘Ma’am.’
‘Their people competent?’
Market-trader, petty thief and whore... ‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘Civilised?’
‘Ma’am.’
Superiors have bigger sleeves. Quieter voices. Fiercer eyes.
'Then perhaps you can explain why a senior diplomat of theirs has shot five people within the past forty-five minutes?’
Raptor.

[25] altruist wary herbs
Smear of menthol modern-day equivalent of herbal nosegay, Pettinger questioned his uncle in the most malodorous interview room he could find.
 ‘Rights of entry are granted for reasons of diplomacy; not altruism.  Yours has been revoked.’
’I killed no-one.’
‘Why Gunita?’
‘She’s a Dubnovaski.’
‘But... her tattoo?’
‘Fake.  I fucked her to find out.’
Small smile.  ‘How much did she charge?’
Reciprocated.  ‘That’s when I produced the gun. She became wary, fled before I could kill her.’
‘Was it you killed Sally-Ann?’
‘She had no tattoo.’ 
Raptor smile, ‘and no, Yanno, I sent her to you. Now let me go.’

[26] decant, notch, straddle
Decanting truth from a flagon – a vat – of  lies, lies long-distilled from fear-straddled infancy, had become second nature for John Pettinger. 
Childhood fear had been triple-dealt.  Siblings, father, his mother’s brother Raptor:  least physical but most frightening, because of tearing  notches in his mind.
Was that why today’s interrogation had brought recognition? Understanding?  Sense of like-mindedness?
Why he’d let him go, arresting his brother in Raptor’s place, to placate his boss and provide a perpetrator for the crimes committed by his uncle?
Did that stem from his oh-so-superior understanding of the truth?
Or had Raptor cynically brainwashed him once again?

[27] decant, notch, straddle
‘I could lose my job for this...’ Pettinger, behind the wheel.
‘Could come and work for me.  Could do so anyway, straddle both worlds...’
‘Good and evil?’
‘Here, and there.’
‘Tell me about Sally-Ann.’
‘She’s the first I decanted your way...’
‘Why?’
‘Why first?  Your brothers had become ungrateful...’
‘You regularly supply them?’
‘Having tried and tested, yes.  Hopgood had brains, though...’
‘They don’t?’
Grunted affirmation. ‘Had ambition too...’
‘So it wasn’t you who killed her?’
‘I don’t kill women...’
Raised eyebrow ‘There’s notches enough say you lie.’
‘Not since...’
‘Not since my mother?’
‘Yanno, it had to be done.’

[28] demonry, catalogue, abyss
Captive, Raptor might catalogue his crimes, were the journey long enough, but Pettinger knew the time had come to investigate the abyss that was his childhood.
‘Tell me.’
‘You don’t remember?’
‘I was five.’
‘You do remember.  By then she was... beyond mere demonry.’
‘She’d tried to drown me.’
‘Succeeded with your sisters.’
‘Sisters?’
‘Three.  None survived infancy.’
Brakes screamed, Raptor steered to safety.
‘Tell me.’
Raptor told.
One hour later, two missed ferries, twenty-three missed calls.
‘So having killed your sister you then took me to live with you... but did not take my brothers?’
‘I hadn’t fathered them.’

[29]
Lurching ungainly from the car Yanno narrowly missed death by juggernaut, blasted air-horn fanfare to his vile black-bile eruption into an abyss of abhorrence.
Raptor watched him, eyes stone-hooded, cheekbones savage-stark, lips a double negative, demonry as absent as regret. 
No visible intent to offer... offer what?
Waiting, perhaps, for Pettinger to select the most apt from a catalogue of phrases to be offered upon hearing one is the misbegotten child of incest, born of mother fucked by brother, then sent mad and subsequently murdered.
Unable to judge, to quantify, to what extent past guidance  – love – could overcome today’s revelation.  What reasons would be understood, believed, forgiven. 

[30] eldritch, manse, aristocracy + syzgy (optional) 
Raptor to Yanno Petzincek, in the shadowed garden of a once open-to-the-needy manse, now hotel, entry for which required the syzgy of aristocracy and money:
 ‘I was my father’s only son.  First-born.  Identical.  No doubt. Thereafter wives, mistresses, bore only daughters to him, any sons were fathered from elsewhere.  As other daughters, of which  your mother was an eldritch one.’
‘Not his?’  Determined not to grasp at straws.
‘Cannot prove it, but I think not.  Likely she inherited instability, a double dose.  Doomed from the start.’
‘Then why take her?’
Raptor sighed, remembering.
‘When sane she was enchanting, irresistible.  Circe.’



 [31] eldritch, manse, aristocracy + syzgy (optional) 
Yellow-lit rectangles from the Old Manse windows fell short of where Pettinger sat, becoming accustomed to freedom from fearing he’d inherited the lava-tempered madness of the man he’d known as father, along with his mother’s eldritch immorality.
From the darkness Raptor spoke.
‘Yanno, as my son you are sole heir to the Petzincek aristocracy.   Others know it, hence the so far clumsy attempts to return you, in disgrace,  to Khakbethia.’ 
‘Others?’
‘Your half-brothers.  They instigated the Hopgood murders, Gunita’s claim of rape, blackmail, and the murder of a diplomat...’
‘Murder?’
‘His Excellency was killed yesterday.’
‘My... half-brother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your doing?’


[32] turbulent, grunt, handbook
‘Yanno, no,’ Raptor’s expression pained, ‘how could I have killed him?  I was with you, he in custody...’
Pettinger grunted. ‘No... released on diplomatic bail... as per the fucking handbook.’   Then, doggedly reverting, ignoring the turbulence of messages from his superior, questioning his absence,  ‘How come my brothers knew, when I did not?’
‘Guessed.  I sent you here, paid for your education.’
‘Manufactured reasons for me not to return?'
Sharp gleam of surprise, not sufficiently fast-hid, ‘Kept you safe...’
‘Why not protect me there?  Since you need me to eventually return.  And why, for fuck’s sake, why the tinpot embassy?’


 [33] turbulent, grunt, handbook
 Raptor’s smile a recrudescent memory.  ‘Part of their grand scheme to wrest power; naïve belief that allying themselves with Britain in these turbulent times...’
‘Christ, don’t tell me they’re stupid enough to trust the EU handbook?’
‘They wanted a hand-out to support their fight against the Dubnovaskis.   I merely encouraged.’
‘Is Khakbethia really that poverty-stricken?’
‘It’s known hunger... as I know hunger now.’  Standing, ‘Time to eat, Yanno.’
‘You still have to tell me about Sally-Ann.  You knew her, had her, passed her on to me...’
Quietly, ‘Did not kill her.’
‘But caused her to be killed?’
Raptor strode ahead.

[34] piston, charity, trample
‘Piston rings?’ 
Startled awake, he’d incautiously thumbed ‘Connect’, not expecting his boss to be phoning at half midnight. 
‘Piece de resistance, John!  She was the honeypot. Cherriman says she...’
‘Charity case?  Ma’am, you’re breaking up.’
‘I’d break your bloody neck if you were here!  Two unsolved murders, an eviscerated ambassador and a  disappeared DI – the  press is trampling all over us!’
‘Trampoline?’
Pettinger disconnected.   ‘Eviscerated’ had all the hallmarks of Raptor’s henchmen;  his alibi was secure but truth for him was well-oiled, Sally-Ann the con-rod – ‘con’ the operative word – and the barrel full of anything but laughs.


 [35] piston, charity, trample
Heart pounded like the piston he’d invoked to avoid his superior’s ire, less than was due:  she still had some charitable impulses towards him, but if she had an inkling  of his current involvement she’d see him swing;  likely trampled underfoot in the rush to release the rope.

Raptor (would he be one of them?) entered via the connecting door. ‘Who were you talking to?’
‘What do you know of Cherriman?’
‘My deputy.’
Surprise, surprise:  ‘He’s been arrested.’
‘Then you must release him.’
‘Raptor, it doesn’t happen like that here.’
‘You’re scared?’
‘I’m law-abiding’
‘And my son?’
‘You tell me’

‘Yanno, a Khakbethian knows it is taboo to disrespect his father...’‘Until two days ago the man I knew as father left me an endowment of violent hatred, deceit and treachery.  Of madness.  That he was your father passes such to you.’

[36]

Focus, a focus, a locus of power, a challenge.  The stage of adolescent versus perceived past-it parent having been omitted this was the first time each faced the other as sentient, empowered adults.

Raptor, used to deference, to dealing with defiance in wholly autocratic manner was, secretly, impressed that this on the surface barely-adequate man, lacking features or physique of his father, sans a string of status-proving murders to his name, had the temerity to deny, to accuse of lying.  To put paper rules and regulations above the wishes, the demands - and the best interests of - his father.

 [37]

Caustic, Yanno Petzincek addressed his father.  ‘You didn’t ask why Cherriman’s arrested...’

‘Avenging Hopgood’s death?’

Unexpected, memory returned him to that sex-sheet-tangled hotel bed, before he’d come to know their intimacy counterfeit.  ‘If he was her husband...’

 ‘...he assuredly had the right.’

‘You’re claiming Cherriman gutted my brother for her murder?   Not admitting it was on your behalf,  for family revenge?’ 

Hooded eyes blinked.  ‘Yanno, it pains me when you distrust me.’

‘On the contrary – I trust that you’ll behave exactly as you please.’

‘You think I’m wrong?’

Steady-eyed, steadfast self-belief. ‘Yes, when arrogance leads you to ignore the rules.’

 [38] 

‘Do you see madness in me?’

Thirty seconds mutual stare. ‘I see the potential...’

Slow-blinked eyelids covered momentary pain.  Opened to reveal a hitherto almost-unknown honesty.  ‘I seek to eradicate it, but...’

‘But you fear it.  Yes.’

‘Has your English upbringing enabled you to overcome it?’

‘It has given me rules to live by.  Armed me against it.’

 [39]  heaven, asinine, pungent

‘Heaven’s above, John, you questioned Hopgood,  your DNA was found on her body, you got yourself involved with some country no-one’s ever heard of, then you disappear with one of their high-ups!  It’s no laughing matter:  we thought you’d been kidnapped!’

His asinine grin had been involuntary: he’d allowed himself to wonder whether the pungency of his boss’s invective would be diluted if she’d known she was addressing the heir to a third of Khakbethia. ‘Cherriman?’ 

‘Cherriman claims he mistook the ambassador for you;  claims revenge and diplofuckingmatic immunity.  He’s waiting downstairs to interview you.’

‘You released him?’

‘No choice.’

 [40] salvo, modesty, function

Dark-eyed, supercilious, dog-fox face, Cherriman,  addressing the man who’d cuckolded him, held no truck with modesty. 

‘The dysfunctional detective, at last...’

‘I am sorry for the death of your wife...’

‘Not sufficiently to avenge her.’

‘I’ve yet to prove responsibility.’

A salvo of Khakbethian curses reminded Pettinger of his brothers, the eldest of whom this man had disembowelled, presumably on Raptor’s orders.

Patiently, ‘Here we prove guilt prior to punishing.’

‘And free murderers from foreign countries.’

‘For which you should be grateful.’

‘I view it as weakness.’

‘Not civilisation?’

‘It’s not civilised to let scum survive!’

‘You prefer to emulate?’

 [41]  disarm, jockey, spurt

Spurt of anger propelled Jake Cherriman to his feet.  Words weren’t his first choice of weapon but today’s would disarm the man before him with impunity. 

Pettinger, intent on elucidation:  ‘You sent Sally-Ann to murder me, knowing she’d fail? ’

‘She never could resist a law-man...’

‘Was it you killed her?’

‘No.’

‘My brother?’

‘Half-brother – I believe so.’

‘On whose orders?’

‘...possibly Raptor.’

‘Raptor?  He’s denied it.’  Lies and allegations jockeyed for verification.

‘He wants your approval.’

‘But... you’re his deputy?’

‘Scheraskade deputy to a Petzincek?  I think not.’

‘Then ... who killed Gunita, Goren?’

‘Who says they’re dead?‘

‘Raptor.’

[42]

Pettinger had hoped to avoid this but his boss had lain in ambush. ‘John, I’m aware you view the obeying of rules as maybe antiquated...’

‘Ma’am?’

‘...but  in these days of accountability  you can’t ignore them.   What did you get from Cherriman?’

‘Nothing, ma’am.’

Exasperation.  ‘John, the glass  might be one-way...’

Oh shit, she’d watched the interview.

‘...but doesn’t render things so dim-sighted I failed to see you fighting.  No doubt you’ll try to tell me what I saw was cuddle rather than huddle, but I’d like your explanation as to why you both emerged bleeding.  Whose was the knife?’

 [43]

Khakbethian combat had its own peculiarities, strict rules of utility intended to prevent the useless waste of life of the country’s younger men.

Pettinger’s cuckoldry against Cherriman required  avenging.

Equally, despite the double escorts of duplicity and well-deservedness, for Pettinger not to exact retribution for his half-brother’s death, would be heretical.

Each produced his birth-knife.

Each slashed once, a double diagonal.

Parried, closed and sliced again, not deep but sufficient to score the other’s skin;  blood-writ calligraphy.

Each stepped back, observing ever-blurring runes.

Mutual acknowledgement that formalities were satisfied broken by the tone of Pettinger’s phone.

Raptor, autocratic:   ‘Yanno.  Come.’

[44]

Eager as Pettinger  was to reach Raptor in advance of Cherriman he had first to placate his crafty boss whose second sight enabled her to spot the least of his misdemeanours.

‘No knife,  Ma’am, merely a ... ‘

‘Knife, John.  I’m not blind.  Admittedly of a type I’ve not seen before, but it had a handle and a blade and was most certainly a weapon.   You’ve booked it in?’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘Then I suggest you abandon all these dodgy diplomats and get back to dealing with the usual malefactors.  Now.’

Accepting defeat, he turned away. 

Failed to see her smile.

 [45]
While such occasions hadn’t exactly been numerous – fewer than a dozen – undoubtedly this promised – threatened? – to be one of the more challenging. 
Trick was, not to let it show, not until she knew where it was going, but that oh-so-familiar swelling of anticipation showed in her eyes to those who watched for it.
She needed to concentrate.
‘Interview room two, Ma’am ... do you want a witness?’
Christ – not to this!
 ‘No.’
She opened the door, stepped in.  Thought she’d have to invent a reason, an accusation, but no. 
He, smiling, understood all too well.
She’d miscalculated, yet again.
‘Raptor.’

 [46] distortion trammel, distortion
Untrammelled by conscience or morals, the habitual cruelty of his hooded eyes flecked with amusement, he glanced upwards. 
‘Are we on camera?’
Watching his lips, thinking how implausible that they’d been where they’d been last night, she shook her head, trying to dispel the distortion such memories  created of her role.
‘You shouldn’t have come ...’
‘Ah... but I did...’
And how!  And how many times...
‘...and did Yanno successfully outwit Cherriman?’
‘John’s honour was satisfied.  And, as you asked, I’ve taken him off the case.  Both are now searching for you.’
‘Not knowing I was here all the time.’

 
 [47] bristling ejective crossroad
Ejective consonants betraying English was a second language, Raptor’s eyes glowed harsh citrine. 
‘I dislike that you give orders to my son...’
Skin tightening, hair bristling alarm.  Dear God, what had she done?
‘John is... your son?’
‘He did not tell you?’ 
Raptor knew this woman’s professional harshness hid her love for  Yanno.  Now she’d fucked his father her feeble English sensitivity would put him further out of bounds: she’d want him gone.  The  crossroad of ‘where next?’ would return Yanno willingly to Khakbethia, to challenge Cherriman’s ever-increasing threat.
Smugly contemplating, Raptor failed to see her press the panic button.

 [48] conscript, payload, creep
‘Deal with the usual malefactors’ she’d said.
Murderers most of them, conscripts to Death’s Army of the Premature.  Only the payload changed.  Used to be money but now it’s power, which equals influence, sex and money. 
And whether you kill to gain it, or kill because someone else had it over you, the result was the same. 
His job was to catch the killer. 
Bring him to justice.
His job wasn’t to judge.
Which was hard when the finger of suspicion was creeping unerringly towards a man who wielded power. 
A man he couldn’t help but judge.
A murderer. 
Raptor.

[49] amber travesty undone
His concern a travesty of compassion, amber eyes an ever-ready signal of impending mayhem which could only add to that which had gone before, Raptor, recognising a moment too late that help had been summoned, seized the DCI, pulling her to stand between himself and the two men who flung open the door.
Unsure whether it was her dignity or her life she should be more concerned about, and feeling like a woe-is-me about-to-be-undone bodice-ripper heroine, she stiletto-stamped smartly upon Raptor’s foot, smiled sweetly, ‘Sorry, didn’t meant to press the button, false alarm,’ and dismissed her would-be rescuers.
Raptor smiled.

[50] vibrato, bury, sacred
Sex discriminated against her.
 Insistent, body fought mind, thrumming vibrato to his lips upon her neck, fingertips across her belly. 
Intent on burying memories of tumbled bedding she recalled her Attestation, semi-sacred vows of fairness, integrity, diligence.
Mind strengthened; body twisted, faced, asserted.
Vulture eyes assessed;  decided ‘enemy’, turned it to ‘worm’.
Worm turned. 
Arrogant incredulity accurately translated.  Became contempt: turned worms deserved disposal.
She disagreed.  Diligence was due to self; ‘fairness’ didn’t mean self-sacrifice.
The knife that was to have slid between her ribs she seized and, with integrity, turned.
Slid between his.
Eyes became eggs, disbelieving.
Raptor died.

[51]  threshold, grate, invert [winner]
Back to the door, supporting Raptor’s lolling weight, scared near to death herself as she witnessed a dark soul leave his body and fly to the window to pause on the threshold, brandishing a long-clawed black fist, threatening to enter her mind, invert her beliefs, control her future behaviour.
Common-sense prevailed at the the entry of the man she least wished to see. 
Despite a voice harsh as grated skull-bones, his words offered hope: ‘What has he done to you?’
Wet-eyed, she looked over her shoulder.
‘Told me he fathered John Pettinger.’
‘Aye.  He near convinced me of that, too.’

[52] whelp, impotent, blatant
‘According to Jake Cherriman, I’m the misbegotten whelp of an under-age Khakbethian whore.  He claims less dirty DNA for himself.   Assures me Raptor was impotent:  his claims even of seduction a blatant lie.’
She blushed, ‘Another reason to mistrust Cherriman.’
Pettinger’s eyebrows questioned, ‘Ma’am?’
‘Shut it, John, and tell me how we’ll dispose of his body;  remove all evidence that he was ever here.’
‘You don’t know how to do that?’
‘Of course.  How well have you learned the lessons that I’ve taught you?’
Unlocking the door, John Pettinger grinned.  ‘Well enough.  Give me five minutes.’
It took him four.

[53] muckrake, gloss, trappings

 ‘Shit!  Just our luck to’ve got caught at the last minute by that muckraking bastard Phillips...’

‘He saw nothing.’  She refilled Pettinger’s wineglass.

‘DCI and DI, skulking beside an open grave?’

‘He’d not have noticed that once I grabbed you...’

‘That’s what I meant!  It now has all the trappings of an affair – no way can you gloss over what you were doing with your hands...’

‘You’re worried about your reputation?’

‘About yours!’

‘Well, John, you could make an honest woman of me...’

‘You’re giving me a choice?’

‘Murderer or married man – which is it to be?’

‘You killed him.’

A change of focus [54]

Honesty being a virtue long-abandoned, she allowed her smile to tell John Pettinger she’d offered marriage as a joke, asking instead,   ‘Are the implications of his death that hateful?’

‘Apart from inevitable fighting for the throne of Khakbethia...’

‘Throne?  I didn’t know Raptor represented royalty...’

‘One of three contenders.  As his purported successor I was next in line...’

‘But you’re not...?’

‘Same branch of family.  Did you fancy being princess?  You’d only need to kill a couple more.’

‘Is that a proposal?’  Nervous fingers on the wineglass stem gave her away.

Near-convincing innocence, ‘Ma’am?’ 

‘Fucks’ sake John, my name’s Vanessa!’ 

[55] interbreed, calibre, unclean
Side by untouching side, in silent contemplation of the hotel bedroom’s ceiling.
At a crucial point she’d remembered Raptor’s claim to be his father.  Although subsequently said to be untrue, the spectre of interbreeding had risen, unclean and shrieking, causing recoil and destroying the moment.
John Pettinger was of a calibre to not take personal offence, yet understandably he was confused since thus far she’d done all the running.  Low-voiced, ‘You’d best explain...’
After she had done so, he gentled her to concentrated acquiescence before exorcising memories of the man who’d been before him.
While wondering where truth really lay.

[56]

 It’d be a fallacy to think a Friday fuck’d change things.  Doesn’t work like that...

John Pettinger’s striplight-shadowed visage frowned, apologetic, at his similarly rueful reflection as he anointed his face with after-shave.

Guilt arose, on several counts.  ‘Fuck’ too crude a word for what had been between them.  And what would he change?  As bosses went she – Vanessa (a reciprocal smile) – was fine.

The entry-phone buzzed.

‘Yanno.  You enjoyed last night’s woman, hmm?’

‘What the...’

‘Fucking with the cow who killed your father?’

Cherriman.

’Let me in, I’ve photographs.  Of her.  Of you.  Of Raptor.  And of  his grave.’

[57] alabaster, pore, waxwork

 Pettinger pored over the images Cherriman had smugly produced.  Spread across the faux-alabaster kitchen worktop their several lurid messages were shocking.

Not so much for what they depicted but that Cherriman knew such things had taken place

‘They’re fakes.’

‘You have to prove that.  In a court of law if necessary...’

‘I’ll risk that.’

Pettinger remembered a waxwork-buttocked judge, last seen handing wads of cash to greedy, now-dead, Gunita. 

He sighed.

‘Cherriman, now Raptor’s gone, surely we can re-negotiate?  I’ve no interest in Khakbethia...’

‘Me neither. I need a tame policeman here.’

‘It won’t be me.’

‘I think it will.

[58] curio, inherit, temerity

An hour short of midday, the bottle of Dawson’s Old Curio whisky, opened that morning, was seven-eighths drunk. 

As was Cherriman, to insensibility;  John Pettinger had substituted ginger ale.

‘Ma’am?’  Succinctly, he explained Cherriman’s would-be temerity; described the photographs.  ‘Your choice, Ma’am.  I’ve his keys; you’ll not need a search warrant; just sufficient evidence to deport.  Inheriting the so-called kingdom of Khakbethia will be sufficient punishment...’

‘Human rights?’

‘Will hate it... all the more reason for keeping it low key.’

‘And you don’t want it?’

‘Why do you think I left?’

‘Why did you leave?’

‘Sanity.’

‘And this is it?’’

 [59] framework, snake, astride

For a brief moment, the sight of his boss astride him, her tongue having flickered, snake-like but sans venom, upwards from his groin, caused a dislocation in reality, a hiatus in the hierarchy of his professional world.

But, since what they were doing was highly unprofessional, he allowed the thought to hiccup out of sight.  And did his duty.

Just in time:  a muffled thumping from behind his head destroyed the ambience.

‘Are you sure the framework will hold?’ Vanessa eyed the hasty-erected panel between the cockpit and the rear of the van where Jake Cherriman lay, hog-tied.

‘Not entirely.’

[60]

Brief in gestation, potentially sound in execution, the plan utilised Pettinger’s contacts with Khakbethian cargo captains along with his boss’s ability to terrorise Customs into accepting bogus documentation and do Girl Guide knots, with sufficient mercy to minimise Cherriman’s hogtied discomfort. The flimsy partition had survived the five-hundred mile journey, the end of which was signalled by drab brick-built, warehouses, and cobble-surfaced docks.

Pettinger, embarrassed, anticipated Cherriman’s sardonic expression, he having necessarily overheard their conjoined exhortations, but was unprepared, when opening the rear door, to be confronted by a knife.

‘Both search and knotting insufficient, Yanno, and conduct unbecoming.’

[61]

Cherriman crouched, knife in hand, awaiting Pettinger’s response.

Which was, exasperated, ‘Bloody stupid woman!  I told her handcuffs better than rope ...’

A screech of protest broke the tableau.  

‘Ungrateful bastard, Pettinger, I credited you with more loyalty than that!’

Triumphant, Cherriman glanced sideways, grinning at her foxglove-freckled fury.  In that split second Pettinger lunged forward, wrested the knife from Cherriman, toppling him onto the road. Vanessa sprang to immobilise him, knee in his back, cuffs at the ready.

‘Next time I’ll be adding garnish to your balls!’

But it was far from clear which man she was addressing.

[62]

Returning south, having securely stowed Jake Cherriman, Vanessa sought to clarify the provenance of the murders.

’Hopgood’s parents first, then Sally-Ann...’

‘Gunita and Goren..’

‘All victims of Raptor, even though he denied it?’

‘As was my brother’s steward – I witnessed that – and probably my brother.  Not to mention my mother...’

‘Oh, John, no!’

‘She was insane...’

‘That’s no excuse for murder!’

‘So what was your excuse for murdering him?’

‘He deserved it...’

‘Not good in bed?’

‘You’re better.’  A brief, remembering smile.  Not reciprocated.   ‘He’d’ve killed me first.’

‘You’re trusting my silence?’

‘...Shouldn’t I?’

‘Vanessa, I’m not what you need.’

Contrarily, that she made no grandiose attempt to persuade him otherwise, made her more appealing.   No sooner had ’I’m not what you need’ been said than he regretted it.  Which wasn’t to say he was interested.  Professionally he’d be perceived as having a beacon above his head, flashing to all and sundry that he was the boss’s current fancy.  Most of her fancies lasted six months and then disappeared.

All of them were given nicknames: all chocolate bars.  The best – Star Bar, Galaxy – had been used.  The last one  had been Wisp.  He’d be a toss-up between Penguin or Snickers.

 [63]

Crosswinds turning motorways to ten-pin bowling alleys; every diversion a dead end, an overnight stay became essential.

‘Budget dictates one room only,’ Vanessa, briskly (cajoling apparently anathema)

‘Does it run to dinner?’

‘Oh yes.  And wine.’ 

Pettinger began to relax, only to be alerted by Vanessa’s hand upon his thigh, her lips whispering in his ear.

‘Don’t look now but the bloke at the next table is Vic Allington.  Woman with him is Jack Divine’s wife.  Jack’s just come through the door...’

‘In that case,’ laughed Pettinger, ‘it’ll be Divine Intervention’

But Divine produced a gun. 

And used it.

[64]

It was hard to believe it wasn’t a film they were watching;  the apparently choreographed scattering of geranium-petals across the damask tablecloth, even before the shot finished reverberating.  A small hole appeared in Vic Allington’s throat; in less dramatic a contrast, blood cascaded down his bottle-green shirt.

The woman stood.  Her husband’s aim adjusted accordingly.

Histrionic screams sliced across  the smooth sophistication of a background alto-sax then, ‘Police!  Jack, please don’t be an even bigger fool!’

Jack Divine, improbably, smiled, ‘Vanessa!  You shot me once before, and missed...’

‘I won’t this time.’

‘No?  I doubt you’ll live to know it...’

A change of focus [65]

From behind her, Pettinger murmured, ‘I’ve got him covered...’

‘Yes, but... too late.’

Divine had seized his faithless wife; spun her round to form a shield and proceeded to back out.

‘Phone for back-up?’

A derisive snort, ‘We’re in the sticks, they’re probably still use pigeon post...’

‘And will arrive on donkeys... Okay, what do you suggest?’

‘Let him go.’

‘Just like that?  When he’ll shoot his wife soon as he’s out of sight.  And has already killed?’

‘Um... provocation?’

‘Won’t get him off.  Vanessa, this is starting to stink...’

‘Just a minor setback...’

‘Ma’am?’

‘In Jack Divine’s illustrious career.’

 [66]

Vanessa driving this time, through landscape black and flat enough for Mississippi cotton but which let them follow the shifting red-eyed gleam of Jack’s escape.

‘You’re not even trying to catch him.’

‘Not yet.  John, not everyone’s career’s as... uncompromised as yours.’

‘You flatter me. I’m not so driven snow...’

‘And you’ve let murderers go...’

‘And also slept with them, as I assume’s the case with Divine?’

‘Who?’

‘Sally-Ann.  But at least she wasn’t shackled to me at the time, as I hear he was?’

‘It made things... difficult.’

‘And then you found he had the key, and freed himself!’

A change of focus [67]

Far off, a cavalcade of  flashing blue. 

Vanessa, slipping inside, screeched as a black shape erupted, slithering around her ankles before disappearing.

Jack Divine appeared, silhouetted against  an inner door.  ‘Never had you as a back entrance sort of girl... lost the key again?’

‘Where’s Dolly?’

Involuntarily, John sniggered.

Cold eyes appraised.  ‘Policeman, there’s a body in the hall...’

‘Jack, you fool, you didn’t need to...’

‘She made me a laughing-stock.’

‘You made her unhappy.’

Pettinger, quietly, ‘Vanessa, you’d better come.’

Naked but for her nail varnish which, purple, matched her tongue, Dolly Divine gently swung from a first-floor chandelier.

 [68]

‘Why naked?’

Divine shrugged. ‘Tried to seduce me to forgiveness...’

‘She failed?’

‘Think I’d want her after Allington’d pronged her?’

‘So you strung her up?’

‘I’d come downstairs.  She called. Waited for me, then stepped off the bannister.  Instant.  She ever was an obstinate cow but better than I knew at knots.’

Sirens were heard, distention and recession on the breeze.

‘Jack, we need to cut her down...’

‘We can hardly say we didn’t know the police were on their way!’

DCI ignored DI. ‘Do it.  You can surely play the grieving spouse...’

Half-grinned compliance, ‘While attempting resuscitation?’

‘Of course.’

[69]

Vanessa’s blending of dominatrix with devilish determination convinced the local Plods Divine’s wife’s death was due to circumstances which had been exceptional

John Pettinger stayed dumb, his face a Symphony Fantastique of disbelief, anticipating either Witches Sabbath or a March to the Scaffold, but for whom was not apparent.

Divine tended more to comedy.  A hysterical mirth threatened to burst until, desperate to escape from the mortification visited upon him by Vanessa, the local DS insisted, ‘Okay, we’ll accept his wife topped herself, but we’ve a dozen witnesses saw him shoot Vic Allington.  You’ll not wiggle him out of that!’

[70]

Behind the wheel, muscles in his jaw bunched with anger, Pettinger ditched diplomacy.

‘Vanessa, what the fuck are you playing at?  What’s with you and Divine, apart from the fact that you’ve obviously slept with him?’

‘Obviously?  On what grounds do you assume that?’

‘The way he treated you... Your sloppy policing...’

‘And what the hell do you mean by that?’

‘His wife... Dolly...   No way was that suicide...’

‘Of course it was... Believe it or not, he loved the stupid cow...’

‘I don’t.  And if you’re wanting me to fabricate some get-out clause...’

‘You’ll do it.  Make no mistake.’

[71]

Pettinger veered into the lay-by, brought the car to a halt, removed and pocketed the keys.

Cooling metal ticked.

Blackness enclosed them.

Wind brought riot to tall poplar trees.

So quietly, that menace was made the more enormous, Pettinger spoke.

‘Vanessa.  You won’t force me to lie. You know my genetic heritage.  Raptor may not have been my father but we share bloodlines.  No Petzincek can be coerced against his wish.

An unzipping. A scrabbling.  A rasping.

Miniature Olympic torch illuminated features of desperation.

‘John.  You’re not the only one with dodgy genes – Jack Divine’s the father of my son.’

 

[72]

That their cumbersome arrangements to extradite Cherriman had been successful mitigated, to some extent, Vanessa’s self-inflicted blindness at witnessing Jack Divine’s shooting of Vic Allington.

Their return journey had been discordant, especially when Pettinger learnt Vanessa’s son had been conceived at a time when Divine was supposedly inhabiting one of Her Majesty Government’s places of detention.

‘Holy fuck, Vanessa – you certainly believe in living dangerously – presumably it was after that he slipped his restraints and made his great escape?’

She’d laughed, ruefully. ‘Yes, I had a month’s compassionate leave... In Sardinia.’

‘With him?’

‘Yes.  Then he escaped again.  To Dolly.’

 [73]

A month of tranquility. 

DCI Vanessa Quintain, confident she’d kept the extent of her capricious behaviour from her superiors, extended similar trust to her long-suffering DI. 

Neither were aware, when she arrived, that DS Mildred Jones’ willingness to work undercover had been instrumental in her appointment, nor that her first task was to elicit sufficient  information whereby Vanessa could be ignominiously sacked and Pettinger relocated, preferably to the other end of the country.

Vanessa got wind first.

‘A snake in the grass, John.’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Mamba, more like!’

‘You, Ma’am?’ 

‘Mawworm Mildred!’

‘Ah...’

‘She’s getting over-close... Suggestions?’

‘Behave yourself from now?’

 [74]

DS Mildred Jones arrived early  Left late.  Inveigled herself, a bead-eyed blackbird, scavenging for sins of commission, alongside every conversation.  Perched, parasite, atop the nearest desk for every briefing. Dogged heels and wheels each time they ventured from the station in pursuit of useful villains they intended to interrogate.

Drove them mad.

DCI and DI met incognito at a pub, whose gallery of ne’er-do-wells camouflaged their muttered tête-à-tête.

‘John, that dodgy couple... Gunita... Goren...’

His eyes lit up.  ‘They’d tie her in knots... you have them?’

‘Know where they are.’

‘They’re misbehaving?’

‘I’ll ask her to find out.  Saturday night.’

 [75]

Gunita Dubnovaski: sometime undercover chambermaid, more lucratively high class whore.

Goren: twin brother.  Sometime lover, sometime pimp, more regularly chastiser.

Neither as dead as had once been rumoured.

Whatever form of misbehaviour DS Mildred Jones thought she sought, she’d definitely discover something.

Though how she’d justify arresting an erect and bollock-naked judge, any one of half a dozen upright members of Her Majesty’s High Crown Court, found handing over two thousand quid in well-used twenties for services ranging from a vulgar missionary position (bible provided) to a brass-studded leather-belted spanking, goodness only knows. 

‘Character-building,’ grinned Vanessa, wickedly.  ‘An initiative test.’

 [76]

Mildred Jones’ gibbering panic would be music to Vanessa’s ears.  Pity it was him she’d phoned, screaming for assistance.  At 3 a.m.

‘Call the station.’

‘It has to be you.’ Voice then choked off.

‘Mildred?’

Another voice:  ‘Better come, Petzincek.  Or I send a souvenir...’

Bloody Goren!  John sighed, ‘I don’t need –’

‘Maybe not, but woman wants to keep her fingers...’

Face to antagonistic face, grammar courtly, vocabulary guttersnipe, John outlined, in fluent Khakbethian, damning information received from Raptor.  Mentioned names.  ‘I decide your boundaries – you remain within them.’

Stone-faced, Goren backed down.

Mildred elevated John to hero.

Job done.

[77]

Vanessa laughed.  ‘Can’t blame me if she now thinks you’re God’s gift.  But, while you’d be better off with me, we should think about you getting closer...’

Sourly, ‘Don’t push it.  For one, she’d have all the more reason to take revenge on you. For another – remember I could give chapter and verse on too many of your... misdemeanours.’

‘So how far is Little Miss Butter-wouldn’t-melt pushing it?’

‘Too bloody far... I can’t be doing with that sweet-as-candy type –’

‘Prefer something more earthy –‘

‘Nor you –‘

‘So we still need to sort her –‘

‘You do – I’m done.’

[78]

Since all subtle intimations of disinterest sunk like honey into toast, DI John Pettinger sought stronger deterrents for Mildred Jones, preferably without incurring wrath.  Bonus points if it also absolved Vanessa.

‘Mildred, you heard how fluently I spoke Khakbethian? May have heard the rumours?’ 

‘No?’

He glanced round, faux-fearful of eavesdroppers.  ‘Truth is, I’m third in line there... and DCI Quintain –’

Mildred’s expression turned disdainful, ‘Is corrupt.’

‘No!  She might sometimes appear... compromised, because she has a dual role, as my...  undercover bodyguard –’

‘Purely professional?’

‘Of course!  But highly secret.’

‘In that case... I could be your princess!’

[79]

Shaking his head, trying to calculate the optimum quantity of regret, John Pettinger murmured ‘I’m already betrothed, for reasons of territory; succession –‘

‘Make me your mistress?’ 

Bugger: too much.  Eyes widened, appalled: ‘Impossible!’

‘She would not allow it?’

Piously ‘I’d not allow myself.’

‘You love her?’

‘I –‘

‘Can’t this... this troth be broken?’

‘Only upon death –‘

‘Hers?  A concerted effort could arrange it –‘

Sharp-eyed: ‘Yours and mine?’

‘I was thinking of Quintain – after all, you’ve both done it before –‘

‘You’re fantasising –‘

‘Only as much as you are, about your inheritance.’

Pettinger cursed.   In Khakbethian.

[80]
Wire untwisted, bottle eased from cork, drift of smoke surprisingly unsulphured, liquid gold poured steadily: a froth of bubbles.
John Pettinger, mildly suspicious, ‘What are we celebrating?’
Wicked grin, ‘As we speak, Mildred Jones is being held hostage –‘
‘What?  Shouldn’t we –?‘
‘I arranged it.’ Vanessa checked her watch. ‘In a couple of hours I’ll rescue her, at great personal risk –‘
‘Whereupon her gratitude will make you safe.‘
Vanessa’s phone, ‘Bit early, but... ‘ Face fell. ‘Oh shit.  The hostage-taker’s wife’s returned.  Caught them in flagrante.  She has a gun.’
‘Time for you to take that personal risk.’

[81] scandal, iron, sanguine
‘Who’s holding Mildred?’
‘You don’t want to know –‘
John’s hand iron-gripped her wrist. ‘Vanessa.  What have you –‘
‘Look, that bitch was ready to manufacture whatever scandal she could to get me suspended, as you well know!’
‘So?’
‘So I asked Danny to help –‘
‘Danny?’
She had the grace to blush, even as she blustered, ‘Danny Divine... Jack’s brother.  I was sanguine of his co-operation –‘
‘Sanguine?  The only sanguine he knows is what fills his –‘
‘Evidently!  Undiscerning enough to get it up for –’
‘So will his wife shoot to kill?’
Vanessa shrugged, ‘Probably.  Or maim.’

[82] scandal, iron, sanguine
As John stared, scandalised, at his boss, her phone rang, a phrase from some Iron Maiden song.
She connected, listened, smiled and disconnected.   Replenished both glasses.  ‘Guess what we forgot?’
Raised eyebrows.
‘Danny Divine does porn.  Forgot to switch the multi-angle  cameras off.  Mrs D made them repeat it.  Several times.  At gunpoint.  Said if he misbehaves again, she’ll distribute under their Impure Blue label.  If they don’t like it –’
‘She has a gun.  And they’re rumoured to also supply the snuff market...’
‘Sanguine Stunts.’
‘Urban myth of course...’
‘Of course.  And Mildred?’
’Won’t try to outwit us again!’

[83] cliff, ladder, grease

‘So, Mildred Jones is back to Merthyr having missed her chance to climb the promotion ladder via telling tales on us –‘

DI John Pettinger, sour disapproval, ‘Unearthing the truth isn’t telling tales – we’d’ve been out here like greased lightning had she delved much deeper –‘

‘Don’t tell me you’re feeling guilty!’

‘Well, it couldn’t’ve been much fun performing while Mrs Divine looked on with gun.’

‘She seemed to be enjoying –‘  Vanessa stuttered to a stop.

John stared.  ‘You’ve got a copy of the tape!’

Part-penitent, ‘Insurance.  It wasn’t that much of a cliff-hanger – nor a happy ending.’

[84] bible, tissue, riot

Tissue-thin pages whispered in the breeze from the open doorway as the  remains of Edward John Cherrystone were stretchered into the vehicle which would take him to the mortuary.

‘Seventeen, sir.’

‘Seventeen?’ DI Pettinger turned.  In the riot of memories, which had tumbled, unwanted, through his mind the minute he entered this room, he’d forgotten his original question.

‘Bibles, sir.  Seventeen.  They used the biggest one to kill him.’

‘But he wasn’t a clergyman.’  Not a question.

‘Sir?’

 ‘I knew his daughter.’

‘Sir?’

‘Christalbollockingmighty, how many times do I have to tell you! It’s John!  Yes.  I knew his daughter.’ 

[85] silk, ruthless, convey

‘You knew his daughter?  Biblically?’

Pettinger’s spike-sharp glance effectively conveyed to his new DC that relinquishing the formality of ‘Sir’ didn’t  grant permission for over-familiarity.  ‘Cherrystone’s daughter lived by the bible, but I guarantee no-one has ever know her so.’

Uncertainly flowed like watered silk across the young man’s face:  ‘She’s a... nun?’

Pettinger snorted.  ‘More High Priestess, by her reckoning.’

‘The seventeen bibles...  was she responsible for her father’s death?’

‘She’d not’ve needed to bash him over the head – a single lash of her tongue’d be ruthless enough to’ve flayed the poor bugger... Question is, where is she now?’

[86] chisel, punishment, tap

John Pettinger would’ve been as young as DC Brickwood, features similarly unchiselled, when last in this room invited by the bible-toting daughter of the now-dead Edward Cherrystone.

Not invited so much as dared.  Punishment, thin-disguised as charity, to absolve him of unwitting ignorance which had led to her arrest.

A dour crowd  around a table, barely lit by candles the colour of an unearthed skull.  Food equally as cold and colourless.  No wine.  Preceded, interceded and succeeded by long prayers and readings.

He was on the point of leaving when she put her her hand upon his thigh.

Another misunderstanding.

[87] dove, card, mould

DC Brickwood sorted the bibles by size.  ‘Most of them, the pages’ve gone mouldy –’

‘Foxed; that’s what the brown spots are.  As I am as to why –’

‘Why she’s done it?’

‘Don’t even know it was her.’

‘Bible’s the means.  Opportunity –‘

‘Anyone, the door wasn’t locked –‘

‘And no-one left a calling card, unless there’s fingerprints.  So we’re down to motive –’

Pettinger grinned.  ‘She’d’ve had motives galore.  Not that any of them justified murdering the poor sod –’

‘Fuck!’

‘What now?’

‘This one’s been hollowed out - there’s half a bloody pigeon inside!’

‘Pettinger checked:  ‘Dove.’

[88] canvas, clarify, optimal

Two more bibles held hidden objects.  The smaller  a clutch of speckled eggs, nested in shredded wood-shavings.  The larger optimal size and sturdiness for a Smith & Wesson 642, wrapped in oil-impregnated canvas.

‘Hers?’

Pettinger shrugged, uncertain.  ‘Forensics will clarify its provenance; whether recently used –’

‘But not on Edward Cherrystone –‘

Snorted laughter: ‘He’d’ve preferred that to being biblically battered!  I’m only surprised he didn’t murder Charity first!’

‘Charity?’

’Youngest daughter, ‘Chastity’ would’ve better suited. Other two, predictably, Faith and Hope, named by his long-divorced wife.  Faith’s madam of a London brothel, and Hope – Oh Christ! – I’ve just remembered –’

A change of focus [90]

At the morning briefing, DI Pettinger approved searches for the absent Hope and absconded Charity, before speaking to a less-than-grief-struck Faith.  (‘Bugger didn’t deserve his end to be merciful but even I’ll admit the bible-bashing undeserved.  I’ll come up on the evening flight.’)

Edward Cherrystone’s post-mortem, bright lights and shiny stainless steel, reduced him to something less than human but revealed an intricacy of indigo-inked tattooed scripts across his back. 

Pettinger deputised Ben Brickwood to copy and decipher them before driving to the airport to meet Faith, who, later in his bed, more than adequately restored his in human nature.

A change of focus [91]

Faith Cherrystone had achieved her eminence as a London madam through hard work and experience; working her way up from the bottom.  As she did for Pettinger, next morning.

Afterwards, ‘How come you’re so different from your sisters?’

‘Such a mismatch?  I take after Pa.  But Charity and me inherited mother’s dauntless determination to succeed; sometimes a plus but one for which too bloody often we paid the penalty.’

‘Albeit in different directions.’

She snorted. ‘Don’t let that noli me tangere exterior fool you.  Charity just dresses it up as some spiritual experience, those who fall for it know better.’

A change of focus [92]

‘Question is, would it take a believer or a heretic to use a bible to murder someone?  A bible of a size to need two hands to heft it; its brass-protected corner sharp enough to shatter an age-brittle skull.  Your father seated, unaware of aught but daughter standing near.’

‘Question is, which daughter?’  Across the breakfast table, Faith, fingered a scar high on her cheekbone, ‘Both my sisters are violent plaster saints.  Hope’s cod-psychology blamed Pa for her upbringing, or he might’ve challenged Charity once too often.’

Pettinger smiled, ‘Your verdict?’

‘Whose fingerprints on the bible?’

‘Hope’s’

‘Then she’s guilty.’

[93]

John Pettinger smiled at his breakfast companion, as far removed from the stereotypical decayed blowsiness of a Madam as a Calla lily from a floribunda rose.

Faith Cherrystone, as skilled an observer of mankind as he, albeit from a different point of view, saw he was misleading her.  Raising an eyebrow as elegant as the black silk shirt she wore, barely buttoned, ‘It wasn’t Hope who murdered my father?  I can’t believe she’d put her hands on a bible for anything else.  She needed no god but herself.  So it must’ve been the sainted Charity.’

Silently, Pettinger denied that too.

[94]

‘You’re saying neither sister murdered Pa?’ Faith demanded as Pettinger abandoned the breakfast table, taking cups and dishes to the sink.

‘Possibly,’ frown indicating he harboured doubts.  ‘Which of them eviscerated bibles and then inserted birds?’

‘Oh - we all did that!  Not bibles and not always birds.  We used the Encyclopaedia Britannica, trying  to match animal to letter.  Charity must’ve upheld the tradition.’  She stood, ‘I must go.’

‘Just tell me, who got to do the zebra?’

Laughing, she went upstairs, leaving Pettinger pondering on the possibility of a three-way split of guilt.

[95]

Edward Cherrystone’s wife would’ve fossilized his cock had she been able; a desire echoed by his youngest daughters. Only first-born Faith lived life hot-blooded, Cherrystone ever-ruing his inability to muzzle his wife and prevent the eviscerating voicing of her opinions.

John Pettinger, unwillingly observing the pitilessly illuminated cadaver at his post-mortem, was struck anew at the cruelty of a death likely dealt by one of these two daughters.   

Had Charity struck the fatal blow? Or Hope?

Vibrating notification of a text from DC Brickwood:  CHARITY WITH MOTHER which made no sense at all -– the bitch’d died ten years ago.

[96]

Charity Cherrystone visiting her decade-dead mother was unlikely to be daughterly still-mourning.

DC Brickwood, from where he was concealed, ‘She did have flowers. I assumed there was some substance –‘

‘Flowers concealing what?  She’ll have something planned.  My bet it’s to do with her father’s imminent interment.’

‘You think she’s burying something?’

‘Or digging up –‘

 ‘Surely not her mother!’

‘Have to ask why – but whatever, you need to arrest her.’ 

‘On what grounds?’

Pettinger’s eyes – an attractive unusually pale, opaque grey-green – lit up. ‘I’ll think of something.’

‘Better be quick, boss – she’s –‘

Then Ben Brickwood’s phone went dead.

[97]

Mortuary to cemetery was normal, for the dead. 

Pettinger, spine icy, struggled to convince himself DS Brickwood’s curtailed phone-call was due to discharged batteries.

Reaching the crematorium, he recognised Charity’s long stride, heading beyond the onion-domed replacement for the much-loved municipal baths. She ought to be his quarry but he couldn’t  just abandon Ben.

Overtaking, stopping, getting out, confronting her, ‘What have you done with him?’

Smirking, ‘Your baby detective?  I just taught him a lesson –‘

‘In what?’

Airy dismissive wave of hand,.

He growled a warning ‘Charity...’

‘Digging.’

‘What?’

‘Himself out of a hole.  One-handedly.  Without a spade.’

98]

Having requested help from a pair of snogging teenagers – now re-connected at both hip and mouth – DC Brickwood was out of the new-dug hole and left-handedly searching among the messy strew of flowers Charity had left on her mother’s grave. 

His right hand was wrapped in a blood-stained handkerchief.

Pettinger, concerned, ‘Jabs up to date?’

‘Of course.’

‘What did the damage?’

Ben nodded to where he’d placed an evidence bag on top of a nearby sarcophagus.

Pettinger went to look.

But was diverted by the words carved on the stone beneath the slightly blood-stained bag.

Because it was his name.

[99]

‘Pettinger’ he knew was Anglo Saxon, from ‘potager’ meaning seller of soup.   His mother had researched it.  Got excited by a marriage in the Fleet prison, but he’d been bored to tears. 

‘They’re all dead!’ 

As, presumably, was the one beneath this stone.  She’d missed a trick there.

‘What d’you think, boss?’

Oh – the evidence bag.  A lower mandible, several teeth, all filed to pointed.

‘That’s what...?’

‘What bit me, yeah.’

‘And now you’re looking for?’

‘The lump of flesh that was impaled on the teeth before she dropped it in.

‘Ah, that explains the blood.’

‘Some of it’s mine!’

A change of focus [100]

DI Pettinger, who had a tendency to over-analyse and deny the simplistic explanation, ascribed his sleepless night to the coincidence of a tombstone bearing his name beside that of the Cherrystone family.

After Forensics phoned to say the jawbone was a plastic stage-prop, the flesh pork tenderloin, he converted annoyance to activity, demanding, ‘Did you decipher the  tattooed script on Edward Cherrystone’s back?’

DC Brickwood, reluctant, ‘It’s a family tree of sorts, done biblically –  plenty of ‘begats’ – but also a Pettinger.  Could you be related?’ 

Pettinger, thinking of recent relations with Faith grimaced.  ‘Perhaps it’s time I phoned my mother.’

A change of focus [101]

 But in the daily slog through evidence, sanity prevailed. 

Pettinger’s mother, given a transcription of the tattooed family tree, declared it valueless, suggesting that the tattooist  himself had been a con-man.

Charity was questioned yet again.  Refused to give any sort of alibi.  Admitting nothing, with a secretive smile, her reluctance to even speak of Hope amounting to paranoia.

‘Have you seen her since the Social Services sacked her?’

‘Only in passing ...’

‘Passing?’

‘As in passing away ...’

‘You mean ... dead?  Hope’s dead? You know this?’

‘I only know,’ another smile, ‘Abandon Hope all ye who enter here.’

A change of focus [102]

‘You’ve let her go?’  Astonishment juggled with ill-concealed anger, bunching Brickwood’s chunky features.

‘On condition she doesn’t leave town – ‘ 

Condemnation escalated, ‘She’ll not comply –‘

Pettinger’s experience had taught him to value passion above near-insubordination. ‘As soon Charity moves we arrest her.  As it is we’ve insufficient evidence, until –‘

‘Until her sister’s body turns up –‘

‘Whereupon, fingers crossed, the post-mortem will tell us whether she was murdered –‘

‘How d’you know the sister you’re shagging won’t be next?’

Patience thinning.  ‘Faith?  She’s very different.  It’s unlikely –’  John paused, checking his phone – ‘But, shit, not that unlikely!’  

A change of focus [103]

Despite his cordless phone, Pettinger was rooted to the spot as they told him; detached police reaction impossible when the crime was personal.  More personal than he’d imagined it could be.  Sick fear lodged, pebble-like, in the hollow of his throat, as he tried to make sense of what was being said – stuff about a shredded bible and a wingless bird.

‘Laid at her head.  There were other objects – bones and ribbons, baby shoes.  We got your name from what was written on her back –‘

‘Written –?’

‘With a scalpel –‘

Brickwood’s being right was bittersweet.

Charity’s revenge long-held.

A change of focus [104]

‘When’s the pm?’

‘Post-mortem? Oh, sorry, she’s not actually dead.  Yet.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Intensive care.‘

Pettinger made bargains with a god he didn’t believe in all the way down the motorway, near frothing at the mouth in frustration at the dozy wankers on the way.

Faith lay unmoving on her stomach, tubes strung from her to machines which beeped green zig-zags.

His crude-cut name in now-brown letters, some but shallow scratches, some deep and wide enough to warrant flaps of flesh be  stapled back in place.

‘Not illiterate,’ the surgeon said. ‘Scalpel jarring against bones prevents a smoothly-cursive script.’

A change of focus [105]

Given Faith’s profession, sympathy was polarised. 

London policemen promised revenge on what they supposed was some rogue punter – pointing out that all her records had been deleted. 

Women, locked in atavistic jealousy, asked, ‘What’d she expect?’

Pettinger’s light-hearted promise:  ‘Coddled eggs and raspberry jelly for a while yet...’ hid his fear that her attacker was much closer; motives much more convoluted. 

And the police too blinkered.

‘What about the bones and ribbons, baby shoes?’

‘Fetish.’

‘The bible and the bird?’

‘Religious nut.’ 

‘The name?’

‘Perhaps you’d be the one to explain that?  A Northerner, thick  enough to sign your work?’

 [106]

The bones and bird beside Faith’s damaged body had been packed in moss which matched that on the tower of the Cherrystone home, wholly implicating Charity and maybe Hope (assuming her alive and unreformed).

Both were known to view Faith’s prostitution as a sin akin to selling off her soul, neither admitting that the aridness of celibacy chafed harder than the hairiest of shirts.

Both appeared to hate John Pettinger enough to try to implicate him in their sister’s murder: 

Pettinger wondered whether he was being blamed for the sins of his father.

But what, exactly, had his father done?

A change of focus [107]

‘Connections between Pettingers and Cherrystones?  A great-aunt – your Dad’s grandmother’s sister – married into the Cherrystone family.’ 

‘And Dad?’

‘No sins at all.  Sin all theirs.’ 

‘The Cherrystones?’

‘Yes.  Skipped a generation – Edward was a lawless renegade but never evil.  His father, Satan personified.  Edward thought by having daughters he’d be safe: obviously not.’

‘But why tattoo Pettinger on Edward’s back, and scalpel it on Faith’s?’

His mother frowned. ‘I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but...’

‘But?’

‘But there’s another branch... low-key low-life.  The absolute pits – and I don’t mean those that house orchestras!’

‘And their name?’

‘Quintain.’

Vanessa’s name!

A change of focus [108]

Monday morning, the post’s arrival on John Pettinger’s desk coincided with Ben Brickwood.  One item was a thrice-used Jiffy bag, on the back of which, in fat black letters, written with a leaky-inked felt tip pen was spelled ‘PRIVATE & PERSONAL’.

Bizarrely, the flap itself was stuck down with old-fashioned sealing wax, a dozen bloody blobs along the join.

Brickwood laughed, ‘Looks like a bomb, made in someone’s shed.’

‘That was always urban myth.’

Picking it up, turning it over, Pettinger saw his name.

Self-same script as had been tattooed on Edward Cherrystone’s back.

Same as Vanessa Quintain’s handwriting.

A change of focus [109]

‘What’s this?’  Vanessa was clearly hung over.

‘You tell me!’

‘I’m not not capable of coherent thought in the here and now, never mind the future.’

‘Looks like you’ve sent me a bomb!’

‘Use your bloody loaf, John!  Why would I be posting you a letter bomb when its cheaper to simply stick it under your seat?’

‘Touch of self-applied brass monkeys today, is it?’

‘What?  I’m deaf, dumb and blind?  Or you think I’ve got balls?’

‘Oh Vanessa, you certainly have balls!  Question is, what poor sod did you cheat into handing his over?’

‘None of your bloody business!’

A change of focus [110]

Three strong black coffees, one Danish pastry and a Belgian bun helped to recolonize Vanessa’s alcohol be-fugged brain with cells capable of rational thought. To her DI,  ‘Explain.’

‘My name, in your handwriting, tattooed on Edward Cherrystone’s back, scalpelled on Faith’s  and written on this packet –‘

‘Other evidence?’

‘Bibles, dead birds, baby shoes. Hope and  Charity –‘

Vanessa’s eyebrows rose in millimetre increments.

‘Daughters.’ Pettinger clarified, ‘Plus a family tree connecting Pettinger, Cherrystone and Quintain.’

 ‘Quintain?’

‘My mother’s word was ‘scum’ –’

‘She’s never met me –‘

‘But knew  your family –‘

‘Ah.  None of us were exactly angels.’

A change of focus [111]

Suddenly impatient Pettinger seized the potential letter bomb, and stood, saying to his boss, ‘We’ve let ourselves be diverted by a mound of misdirection; let it cloud our judgement to the murkiness of  farmhouse cider.  We need to seize Charity and Hope and accuse them of their father’s murder, their sister’s injuries –‘

Tongue in cheek, DCI Quintain reminded him, ‘There’s such a thing as evidence, John –.’

Growled interruption, ‘Leave it to me to fill the gaps –‘

‘And,’ Vanessa gestured with a just-struck match, cigarette in mouth, ‘there’s what looks like gunpowder trickling from that envelope you’re holding.’

A change of focus [112]

A man holding a rumoured letter bomb trickling potential gunpowder is liable to become alarmed at the slightest spark. 

Even though Vanessa ranked above him DI John Pettinger, already frustrated at his inability to pin the death of Edward Cherrystone on his youngest daughter Charity, did not hesitate, ‘Put that match out, you stupid moron!’

Defiantly – overly-reliant on her legendary Teflon reputation – DCI Quintain instead flicked it towards him.

In truth she’d assumed the flame would go out.  Had not thought there’d also be a sprinkling across her desk.

The speed at which she was  proved wrong was truly illuminating.

A change of focus [113]

Flame fizzed inexorably along a fine grey trail of what resembled ashes but both knew was gunpowder. 

A trail ending with a letter-bomb.

‘Drop it!’

‘There’s a gap’

The flame will leap it.  DROP IT!’

‘Get behind the filing cabinet!  I’ll dowse it –’

‘DROP it, John!  That’s an order!’’

Unwillingly, Pettinger did as Vanessa said, seizing from her desk a bottle labelled Harrogate Spring Water.  But tipping out the less-than-torrent increased the size of  flame, set off the bells and whistles of their antiquated fire alarm and brought forth an agonised cry from Vanessa:  ‘No-o-o! That’s my Grey Goose!’

A change of focus [114]

It wasn’t a bomb.

Its contents declared who’d sent it as clearly as if she – or her sister – had writ their address.

For a terrifying twenty seconds following its detonation it seemed Vanessa’s precious vodka had miraculously transubstantiated into goose; the result of her office being filled with flurries of feathers in a multiplicity of shades of grey ranging from ivory to blue.

Then the whispering silence was rent with Vanessa’s screeching. ‘Blood! It’s raining bloody blood!’

Wearily, looking at her scarlet-speckled face, Pettinger explained, ‘It’s no more than you’d expect from sisters who’ve practiced ornithological evisceration since their birth.

A change of focus [115]

Vanessa’s fingers on the blister-pack of Paracetamol still shook – loss of dignity as much as pain; Pettinger had never before seen her so scared.

Setting down a sixth and seventh gold-harped glass of Guinness – he’d begun with Glenmorangie – continuing the conversation, ‘In this case you have to blame the parents.  Edward Cherrystone’s eccentricity might not’ve been exactly deadly, but their mother modelled herself on Medusa; how he managed to get three daughters on her I’ll never know!’

‘Remind me, Faith was the first-born?  You know her?  She’s the good one?’

Failing to conceal a blush, remembering, Pettinger murmured, ‘Very good.’

A change of focus [116]

John Pettinger, sat on the edge of the bed, thrust fingers through his hair and groaned. 

How the hell had it come to this? 

Through the open door, he could see Vanessa, with toothbrush as baton, conducting herself in an impassioned  and off-key version of “Cry me a river”.

These days he avoided coming home with her but after too many cocktails in frost-rimed glasses, and her dropping like a sack of spuds once the fresh air hit her, he’d had no choice.

Any minute now she’d switch to ‘Do you wanna fuck me?’

And he’d be out the door.

A change of focus [117]

DCI Quintain’s face bore comparison to the breakfast she’d refused – semi-circle of black pudding beneath each poached egg eye, streaked bacon and a tumble of chopped mushroom curls.

She’d summoned DI Pettinger into her office.

Looking her over, ‘Hope you weren’t so irresponsible as to drive yourself –‘

‘Dedication, John –‘

‘Be one in the paper  – “To the memory of” if you’re not careful –’

‘And you’ll be directing traffic –‘

‘It’s Edward Cherrystone’s funeral this afternoon.’

‘You going?’

‘Chance to nick the daughters.’

Eyebrows expressed doubt, ‘You think they’ll be there?’

‘They’re arrogant enough.’

‘Don’t come back without them.’

A change of focus [118]

Pettinger posted sentries at every exit before following Edward Cherrystone’s coffin into the crematorium seeking, amongst the myriad heavily-veiled mistresses, Hope and Charity.

Faith being doubly absent – daughter still too ill and afterlife a measure of man’s need to self-deceive – it was a humanist occasion.

As the curtains opened a flock of doves, released from near the front sent all eyes but Pettinger’s following their flight.  In the shadowed edges two women tiptoed silently away.

Outside a constable gingerly fingered a scratch on his cheek but  DCs Brickwood and Eldred held them secure.

One was Charity; the other wasn’t Hope.  

A change of focus [119]

Initially Pettinger thought the woman matching Charity in fur-clad elegance wasn’t Hope.  Last he’d seen of her was dumpy, frumpy self-righteous suet-ball of sulking justification, ill-wishing hell and damnation on the Social Services for sacking her for practices bordering on brainwashing.  Face bare of make-up, low-thatched fringe and heavy glasses.

Behind those glasses, pale pale eyes: key to Hope’s reputation for heartlessness and, today, certain identification.

‘Both of them. To the station.  Separate cells.  No bail.’

Emerging mourners, seeing them held, expressed disbelief; briefly attempted remonstration.  But Pettinger was determined not to fail; slamming the car door he commanded, ‘Drive!’

A change of focus [120]

In the months before her sisters came to trial, Faith, face down on her hospital bed, slowly healed.

As defence and prosecution, rating comradeship above probity, diced and sliced evidence between them, like garçons de cuisine, she underwent skin-grafts.  Re-creation of perfection unlikely but erasure of the lunatic scalpel-scrawl of Pettinger’s name anticipated.

‘Pity you weren’t named Pi,’ she’d said.

‘They’d’ve cut much deeper, sliced you in three.  Writing smaller – sideways – kept it shallow.   You’ve still no idea who did it?’

‘New client.  Face masked.  False name.  Moved soon as I opened the door.  Calloused fingers.  Breath like just-peeled oranges.’

A change of focus [121]

Pettinger questioned Faith, ‘Just-peeled oranges?  From drink?’

‘Don’t know.  You said this might be separate from my sisters’ crimes?  More to do with you?’

‘Insofar as my name was tattooed on your father’s back, cut into yours, aye.  I don’t believe in coincidence.  I take no pride in that:  we need to extend the limit our search –‘

‘Begin with lunatic asylums –’

‘For other Pettingers?’

‘It’s not a common name.’

‘Presumably your...  colleagues know nothing of him?’

’You think it’s tarts he’s targeting?’

‘More likely Cherrystones: my mother claimed a family link.’

Sly smile.  ‘Ah, yes, your naughty mother.’

A change of focus [122]

Family trees being as organic in their making as an oak,  it could hardly be held against his mother that depiction of the iridescent pattern of her DNA would necessitate a palette of more than black and white.

Her own past was as riddled with scandal as could be found skeletons in a city graveyard and the only reason Faith’s teasing did not antagonise was because her own held something similar. 

In comparison, John Pettinger often felt himself drab and over-serious, law enforcer rather than lawbreaker.

Faith laughed:  ‘Wait until I’m well; we could see what we might breed together!’

pale, loom, dish

A change of focus [123]

A measure, maybe, of his inherent staidness, that breeding with a woman such as Faith he found abhorrent, yet as her release from hospital loomed ever-closer and she unlikely, given the tale of pale and livid tissue across her back, to resume her previous occupation, John Pettinger found himself tentatively proposing a mutual future.

‘Detective weds Defective?  Sweet of you, but it’d never work.  My clients –‘

‘Former clients, surely?’

‘Oh, there’s enough enjoy fucking damage goods to make it pay! Enough of them police, believing revenge a dish served better hot with newly-sharpened carving knife, and silence for dessert.’

drug, figure, beast

A change of focus [124] 

‘You’re saying police attacked you?’  Despite his years of experiencing man’s beastliness to man – and woman – Pettinger was loth to believe.

‘They’re no more saints than any other man, given reason,’  Faith smiled at his misplaced loyalty, ‘But no.  I meant they – a goodly number – intend to provide protection. Seek revenge.’

‘So you’ll return to sex and drugs and –‘

‘Not rock and roll!  Not for a while –‘

‘But I’m no longer needed?’  Despite attempted jocularity – and the unadmitted relief of her refusal – he made a forlorn figure.

‘Not for protection, John, no.  You might as well go home.’

A change of focus [125]  belief, stripe, monitor

DCI Vanessa Quintain. Well-known for lack of morals, ditto sartorial skills; today’s migraine-inducing mismatch of stripes and some bastard Scottish tartan causing John Pettinger to wince on her arrival at the morning briefing.

Following the usual roll call of situations to be monitored she called him into her office.  ‘John, it’s my belief nothing cures heartbreak quicker than a gruesome murder.’

Relieved she not come up with her usual cure – the sexual equivalent of hair of the dog – ‘Is that what you’re giving me?’

‘No, unfortunately.  Might turn into that – would simplify – but at the moment it’s a hostage situation.’

A change of focus [126] cousin, rebel, spike

‘Who’s holding who?  Why?  Where?  And why us?  Hostages are usually handled by trained negotiators –‘

‘It’s a question of interpretation. In order to negotiate. At the Embassy –‘ 

Suspicion horribly dawned.  Pettinger groaned, ‘Christ, don’t tell me we’re back to Khakbethia!’

‘And you to Yanno Petzincek.  Well, you do speak the lingo –‘

‘Yes, but –‘

‘And she claims to be a cousin –‘

‘She?  I don’t have cousins!’

Vanessa brandished a photograph, ‘Same rebellious snot-green eyes as yours.  Same porcupine-spiked hair.’

‘Her name?’

‘Vladlina.  Petzincek.’

Head in hands.  ‘Not cousin.  She’ll be another of Raptor’s by-blows.  My half-bloody-sister!’

A change of focus [127] aroma, ice, ragged

Vladlina Petzincek.

Pettinger studied her photograph.

Twenty-six years since her generous mouth had laughed up at him; told him who her father was.  He hadn’t known.  Raptor ever-prolific in the scattering of his seed.

If she remembered – and he feared she would – she’d know how best to damage him.

Breath ragged, ‘So – Vladlina.  Hostage, or hostage taker?’

In reply Vanessa set two tumblers on her desk.   Uncorked and waved a heavy, oval-profiled bottle invitation at him.  Smoky gold aroma wafted across the room, ‘Ice?’

 ‘In single malt?  You some sort of heathen?’

‘No more than your half-sister seems to be.’

A change of focus [128] bait, disturb, joint

Less than two years ago, Vanessa slid a knife between Raptor’s ribs.  Pettinger dug his grave. Jointly they’d buried him, crossing fingers against resurrection of the black, clench-fisted soul seen departing, threatening future retribution. 

They finished the bottle.

Scotch rather than Dutch courage, ‘Is Vladlina a likely recipient?’

Pettinger had already considered. ‘Undoubtedly.’

‘She’s holding someone –‘

‘For ransom?’

‘Apparently an intruder she disturbed.  When she found out who she decided to make use of him.’

‘Who?  How?’

‘Bait –‘  Vanessa’s explanation interrupted by the phone.  Eyes on Pettinger, ‘He’s here.’

She handed it over.

‘It’s you she wants.‘

A change of focus [129] chime, jug, poison

Khakbethian is a language which sounds, to the uninitiated, like the pouring of sun-warmed caramel from a broad-spouted jug.  It being John Pettinger’s first language, albeit one little-used in these past thirty years, he also heard the poison-laced words of double meaning, themselves coated with chocolate, so that their chime against the rim, although discernible, was difficult to decipher.

As was she.

‘Yanno!  Virichamocho!  It’s been too long!’

‘It has.  Why are you here?’

‘So unfriendly!  I need to see you. Or maybe someone dies.’

‘I’ll come.’

The phone had been on speaker. 

Vanessa, ‘Virichamocho?’

Pettinger, face reddening, ‘Donkey-hung.’

A change of focus [130] army, break, blue

An army of blue-helmeted, gun-toting Playmobil© police surrounded the entrance to the Khakbethian embassy.

DI John Pettinger – aka Yanno Petzincek – there by something stronger than invitation, found himself arguing to be allowed to break through the cordon. 

Teeth-gritted to the man in charge, ‘Do we know who she’s holding?’

Surreptitious glance behind, step closer, embarrassed whisper.

Well-known name.

‘How?  I mean, what’s he there for?’

In hindsight, having long known Vladlina – in both senses despite her being his half-sister – it was a question he needn’t have asked.

Why else would she want a Royal prince if not for breeding?

A change of focus [131] cost, exquisite, slow

The immediately-recognisable, more usually camo-clad Royal sprawled damp, naked and apparently willingly, in Vladlina’s bed, eschewing modesty.

Pettinger assumed Vladlina, one eye on her captive’s slowly-recovering, blue-blood member, would keep negotiations as short as the exquisite silken-fringed shawl she’d wrapped herself in.

More stirred than shaken, by sin-guilty memories, ‘You suggested someone was about to die.’

‘Just teasing, Yanno, I knew you’d not resist.’

Irritated, gesturing to the window, ‘You any idea how much  it costs to mount such an operation?  Why me?’’

She pouted, ‘Oh my Virichamocho, don’t be such a spoilsport.   To compare and contrast, of course.’

middle, turmeric, wail

A change of focus [132]

John Pettinger lost his chance of feted hero when the photo of himself and priapic, bandaged Prince, on the steps of the Khakbethian embassy, was censored.

Vladlina phoned out for a curry but her Middle-something-Khstan accent mangled the word and it was heard as negotiator-code for ‘Caution – hostage under threat’. 

Gunmen burst in, to a background noise of wailing sirens.  Took time to register the threesome peaceably tearing and sharing chapattis with turmeric-stained fingers.  One trigger-happy trooper’s thankfully too-high bullet grazed the royal shoulder, the Prince only persuaded to absolve him of treason. on promise of another, lower-key visit,

arch, piano, vegetate

A change of focus [133]

To  an ever-repeating CD of discordant piano Vladlina emptied the last of the Khakbethian vodka into John Pettinger’s glass.  He, heavy-eyed and remembering the sandpaper scourge of her heels either side of the arch of his spine, shook his head.  ‘No more...’

Gloating, she smiled.  ‘You said that before.  Said that a sin such as we had committed would see us punished.  Cast into hell to vegetate there ever more.  Didn’t happen then and certainly won’t do so now.  Incest is –‘

‘Ah but it wasn’t.  Isn’t.  Raptor was never my father.’

‘Who told you that?

‘Raptor.’

‘He lied.’

hawk, tape, legacy

A change of focus [134]

Pettinger’s father’s identity seemed doomed to permanent uncertainty.  Unlike that of his mother.  Her failure to drown him he recalled as he learned – from the hawk-nosed, hood-eyed Raptor – she’d subsequently succeeded with three would-be sisters.

On that occasion – a layby beside a fast road to the docks – Raptor, with the plausibility of a brain-invading tapeworm, had then claimed to be his father.  Claimed his killing Pettinger’s mother merciful.  Lied in denying he’d done the same for Pettinger’s eldest brother.

Details of Raptor’s death – at the surprising hands of Vanessa – and secret burial unlikely to be known by Vladlina.

Weren’t they?

A change of focus [135]

‘When did you last see Raptor?’

Were this a film, a spine-tingling rustle of porcupine quills would’ve accompanied Pettinger’s question.

Vladlina, downing her seventh vodka,  ‘Not seen but spoken to.  Emails. He enjoyed hearing about HRH’s antics.’

‘Yesterday? You heard from Raptor yesterday?’

Seven months ago he and Vanessa jammed Raptor’s body into a just-dug grave, at dead of night. Only one man knew of that; had the photos to prove it. Trading silences they’d ensured he left the country.

Vladlina’s innocent-sounding comment told Pettinger where he’d ended up. ‘Jake Cherriman arranged this trip for me.’

[136]

Behind the scarlet panic-button klaxon of alarm Pettinger heard the tolling of a funeral bell.  The deal with Jake Cherriman -- widower of a woman Pettinger slept with before failing to apprehend  her murderer -- doomed from the start.

Trading smuggled exit for negatives they’d failed to realise Cherriman’s involvement in the collection of Raptor’s dues equipped him to infiltrate Khakbethian politics.  ‘Cherriman? What’s he up to?’

‘Go-between for Raptor and your remaining, currently reigning, brother.’

‘Teodor? But he’s only --’

‘Twenty-five.  Old enough to wed --’

‘Wed? Who?’

Vladlina smiled a forty-seven-year-old smile. ‘Me.’

[137] lamp pair thumb

Pettinger, near disbelieving, ‘A thoroughly mis-matched pair!’

‘But powerful. No-one has yet dared thumb their nose at us.’

‘Yet? When, exactly, did you marry?’

‘A month ago.’

‘So, the honeymoon barely over, and you’ve already left him?’

‘Teodor needs an heir.’

‘And needs to impregnate someone younger? Fertility unimpaired.’ Even in the dimness of the lamplight he saw the cruelty of that strike home.

Bitterly vindictive, ‘No. I’m hoping you’ve got me with child.’

Utterly appalled, ‘Oh no, Vladlina. An incestuous fuck is one thing; breeding from it something else again!’

ordinary crepuscular violin

[138]

‘Teodor’s impotent?’

‘Gay, but, Jake thought, persuadable for the sake of an heir –‘

‘And no blood relation, so –’

‘So by ordinary convention safe to breed but –‘ Vladlina broke off, allowing a violin in the street below to express her hurt.

Dusk too advanced, the crepuscular glow too faint to illuminate her features, but Pettinger was tugged to pity.  ‘Had you been teenage skinny he’d’ve coped but –‘

‘But breasts and, and –‘

‘Curves, such as you so abundantly possess –‘

‘He found off-putting.’ To say nothing of slack skin.

His sigh guilt-ridden, ‘Just as well I don’t.’

best, distance, pearl

[139]

Conscience best ignored, Pettinger arose again from his possibly half-sister Vladlina’s bed; having restored her amour propre. Ruefully regarding the single pearl of sperm atop his cock  he reassured himself the youth and energy of that of the recently-bedded Royal would likely be more potent, resulting in a child of better lineage than his Petzincek ancestry.

But he still needed to discover – despite difficulties of long-distance detection – why Vladlina believed Raptor still alive; how Cherriman – descendant of the Scheraskade family, long-term rivals to his own – had gained control of Teodor and, in so doing, likely begun to rule Khakbethia. 

[140]

Drying himself in Vladlina’s perfumed bathroom, Pettinger heard the ringtone which denoted a call from his boss. Shocked to realise he’d left his mobile beside the bed he strode across the room, in time to see it, and Vladlina’s hand disappear beneath the heavily-embroidered quilt.

She protested, grumbling, when he tugged it off her, ‘Darling Yanno, it’s only another of your sluts –‘

Vanessa, unamused, ‘Fucking hostages NOT standard procedure, John!’

‘No ma’am.’

‘Even less one’s sister –‘

His hand over Vladlina’s mouth, ‘She’s not!’

Suspicion reluctantly dismissed, ‘You’re needed back here. Immediately.’

‘Why?’

‘You’ve been summoned to the Palace.’

interest estranged toast

[141]

Shown into the presence of the now fully-clad prince, DI John Pettinger permitted himself a smirk.

It didn’t go unnoticed. Handing him a singe malt which spoke of toasted oats and well-smoked peat, Prince said, ‘I’ve kept my part of the bargain. Time now to keep yours. Vladlina.’

‘Vladlina is not, er, a suitable –‘

Amused, ‘I’m interested in bedding, not wedding her! Tell me about her family.’

Ditching diplomacy, ‘Thoroughly depraved. Estranged for the most part. And madness rife. You do realise she intended you to impregnate her?’

Colour fast drained from Prince’s face. Downing his whisky, ‘Not another!’

board, elevate, piquant

[142]

Although a queue of women seeking sex might once have been a teenage dream, their desperation for impregnation had to  remove the piquancy of a simple, sun-ripe shag. Pettinger didn’t envy Prince, elevated by birth to blue-blood stud.

Reassuring, ‘I doubt Vladlina will name or blame a brat on you. For above-board inheritance it need be fathered by Teodor –‘

‘Teodor Petzincek?’ Prince further paled, ‘You know him?’

Tact jousted with a need for privacy. ‘Slightly,’ which was not far from the truth.

‘By the Bloody Tower, he had me two weeks ago!’

Sympathy evaporated. ‘He’s unlikely to’ve impregnated you.’

evergreen, redundant, tilt

Change of focus [143]

Autumn equinox, when the tilt of the earth caused days to shorten, nights become longer, allowing more time for crime, DI John Pettinger, making his way through a gaggle of new recruits –  eyes shiny, optimism evergreen – felt every one of his forty-two years.

Vanessa, addressing them – they’d soon become accustomed to the bizarreness of her dress! – and indicating him, ‘Never underestimate experience. You might think he’s due redundancy, but he – ‘

‘GET DOWN!’

And, Pettinger being the first, Vanessa the second to do so, casualties from the hail of splintered glass, sharpened nails and gravel were limited to the young.

hirsute, punch wheel

144]

Lurching upright, punch-drunk, deafened, noise emerging through candy-floss; part-blinded by still-falling debris, Pettinger saw the bodies – eight and hopefully all living – so covered by dirt and dust and splinters they had the appearance of hirsute. Impression dispelled when they attempted movement.

Not all did. At second glance, sparkle of glass, rimed with scarlet, covered flesh and not the cloth of seconds ago.

Shouts, squealing wheels from street, pounding feet from corridor. Confusing attribution: ‘bomb!’, ‘gas!’, ‘fucking ISIS!’ but what was needed now was first aid.

But how extensive had it been? How many hurt?

How long to wait for help?

[145] accent, elect, moribund

Vanessa – part-sheltered by the desk and consequently least damaged – registered Pettinger’s injuries as non-life-threatening; the differently-accented sirens of police, ambulance and fire-engine as still distant. Self-elected she rose to take charge.

Three of the eight recruits had risen cautiously to their knees; one demanding , angrily, ‘This part of the training?’ before realising, from the blood-running gash of her throat and the fluttering of her eyelids, the girl on top of him was moribund, Ashamed, (needlessly, shock takes folk all ways) he reached for her hand in time to register the cessation of her pulse.

Unwittingly, she’d saved his life.

barrel, scant, plural

[146]

Bodies, deaths – unfortunately plural.

Ø  The throat-sliced girl.

Ø  An apparently-undamaged lad whose rugby-barrelled chest contained a heart vulnerable to shock-waved blasts such as resulted from what increasingly seemed to be a bomb.

Ø  One unidentifiable other.

Paying scant heed to her own safety, Vanessa crunched to the window. Announced, ‘We – this building – was the target –‘

‘Why?’ Pettinger, green eyes like gooseberries on a floured board, hands bloodstained, looked up from where he tried to apply a tourniquet. Two of the five survivors were likewise attempting first aid.

Vanessa’s glance was one of warning. ’Because of who we’re holding in the cells.’

febrile, medium, poetry

147]

Pettinger, on his knees, coughed plaster dust before addressing Vanessa’s back. ‘Who are we holding in the cells?’

Her eyes focused through the glass-less window to the slender bridge across the river below. The steel-lettered line of poetry, inscribed across its span,  flashed reflected blue, aggravating the  febrile dizziness which appeared to be the only damage she’d sustained. Although non-stop sirens and a cacophony of ringtones didn’t help her headache.

Deliberately evasive. ‘A high-risk prisoner, en route to Durham. Transport broke down –‘

‘Back up vehicle?’

‘Also buggered –‘

Eyebrows astonished. ‘And no-one thought it suspicious?’

Shrug. ‘No-one claimed to.’

detonate verdict wraith

[148]

Medics arrived. The injured took priority over allocating responsibility for the detonation. Soberly, Pettinger named the dead, aided the damaged; the last to leave a blanket-shrouded, blonde-turned-to-grey wraith.

‘Total bodies?’

‘Six, with these. More likely.’

‘Piss poor verdict on our so-called security. Presumably their target got away?’

Eyebrows raised at his naïvety, they left.

Alone, Pettinger went to stand beside Vanessa. ‘You gave permission, didn’t you? So who the hell was it?’

Muffled, admitting guilt. ‘Dave Divine.’

‘Jack’s brother?’

‘Said if I didn’t, Zak’d die.’

Zak the son Vanessa had with Jack.

So, six died to save your bastard four-year-old?’

[149] alphabet, dairy, vigil

Emerging, hours later, into the half-light of a new dawn, Pettinger had anticipated the line of dusty, slumped bouquets; not the numbers stood in silent, monochrome vigil. A woman stepped out, approached him, coat swinging open to reveal an alphabet-decorated T-shirt whose primary colours contrasted with the sombreness of her expression.

The whine of Elton Dairy’s milk-float drowned her first words – he had to ask her to repeat her question – before realising his deafness was a residue of the blast.

‘Stephanie. Is she dead?’

‘Stephanie?’ There’d been no-one of that name. ‘Sorry –‘

‘He said she had to be there.’

Change of focus [150] filigree, ominous, plug

‘He said? Which he? Who said she had to be there?’

Stephanie’s mother (presumably) produced an incongruously grubby, filigree-edged handkerchief. Blew her nose, further muffling her reply, ‘Thought it was a vicar. Or something. She said Divine.’

The word rumbled, ominous. The woman’s apparent age produced a second fear. Having spent the night plugging bleeding wounds; leaks of blame and rumour, John Pettinger was drained of tact. Abruptly, ‘How old?’

‘S-seventeen. Old enough –‘

‘To –?‘

She read his suspicion. ‘To drive. That’s what she said she’d be doing –‘

‘Where?’

‘I don’t – is she dead?’

Grim-faced, ‘I doubt it.

[151] knuckle, reverberate, sense

Lacking sleep, noise of sirens, alarms and ring-tones still reverberating in his head, Pettinger’s sense of compassion had temporarily fled. He weighed again the cost of maternal instinct; the life of one misbegotten six-year-old against not only lives lost – the total now risen to eight – but those irrevocably damaged.

Harshly, despite the woman’s fingers knuckle-white around her handkerchief, ‘Stephanie will be doing more than drive for Dave Divine. Now he’s been sprung, he’ll get away, but will be needing a few home comforts.’

‘Well, he’ll not get them from her – she’s gay!’

Unreasonably exasperated, ‘Then she’ll soon enough be dead.’

[152] fudge clue inert

The perennial problem. How much to fudge his report so as to allow Vanessa to get away with murder. (Literally, and not for the first time!) Times like this, DI John Pettinger was gripped with an inertia of sufficient magnitude to threaten sanity.

As so often happened, post-event, he was haunted by a handful of images which stood for the whole. The living recruit beneath a dying girl, Stephanie’s mother’s face, as she realised her daughter’s likely fate. And, still working, the dust-encrusted SOCOs still seeking clues twelve hours after the detonation.

Vanessa, weeping in his arms, sober and self-condemning. 

elastic, puppet, question

 [153]

John Pettinger kept her sober. Never left her in the daytime. Nor allowed her home at night.

Wasn’t sure who suffered most.

Knew only that Vanessa’s ever-elastic morals need become finite; more finely-defined than hitherto.

Knew her tenure as puppet, dirty dancing for Jack Divine, need be terminated; Dave Divine arrested.

Knew Zak’s potential to be used as pawn need be  nullified.

The question was how?

Remove Zak?

‘He’s innocent!’

Remove Jack? 

Groan of denial – unaccountably, she loved the bastard.

Bring Dave Divine to trial?

‘It’ll happen all over again!’

‘In which case, Vanessa, you’ve no choice but to resign.’

 bandage, olive, frustrate

[154]

DI John Pettinger’s ‘Fuck!’ an expression of frustration; barely two seconds since he’d put his desk phone down!

Front desk ‘A Mrs Olive Tree to see you sir.’

‘I don’t know an Olive Tree.’ An involuntary snigger, ‘She got an appointment?’

‘Says she’s Stephanie’s mother –‘

‘Inspector Pettinger. I’ve been sent a message’ She held up what he supposed was a bandaged cocktail sausage.  ‘Stephanie’s not dead. Dave Divine says he’ll let her go if you send Vanessa Quintain in her place. But you’ve got to do it quick, because another finger will be sent for every day you delay!’

forensic, imagine, seed

[155]

Quickly returned to the interview room, DI John Pettinger smiled, delivering what he assumed was good news. ‘It isn’t Stephanie’s finger –‘

Incensed, Olive Tree leapt to her feet. Seeds of suspicion, watered with TV-taught ‘facts’, now blossomed: ‘How do you know? You can’t ‘ve done that forensics thing, the DNA, not so quick, because.‘ triumphant, ‘You have to get a swab from Stephanie!‘

Pettinger, striving for patience, 'I realise that. But I don’t like wasting public money. And though I’ve never met Stephanie, and despite the fact you say she’s gay, I don’t imagine she has fingers this hairy!’

[156] obliterate, peg, virgin

But whose the finger?

Pettinger didn’t need Olive Tree’s reminder that her virgin daughter was still in danger. Ignored her pressing to deliver Vanessa, despite believing Dave Divine had pegged his strategy on swapping her.

His belief in human goodness long obliterated, Pettinger considered this might be a hoax. Told Olive Tree to go away. Ordered Forensics to fingerprint, Criminal Records to check.

Updated himself on the progress of bomb-blast casualties.

Thought long and hard about the damage his long-term boss had long-term done.

Phoned Jack Divine. Issued not-to-be-questioned instructions and dire warnings.

Phoned Vanessa. Invited her out to lunch.

[157] pitch, reason, smudge

Vanessa’s sense of the sartorial was such that Pettinger avoided posh. Even Wigan Warriors would baulk at pitching up in today’s wide-striped rugby top, and though he looked for remorse he wasn’t confident smudged mascara indicated tears.

Maddening, not exactly bad, demanding (often him, in her bed) he couldn’t say he’d ever loved her, but had no real reason to dislike or condemn. Until now.

‘Eight dead, two minus limbs, five scarred beyond beauty – and all for Zak, product of a cop-out crook and a crooked cop. Jack’s taking him back to Australia. I suggest you go too.’

’”Suggest”?’

‘Insist.’

[158] vindicate, paint, crow

There were, of course, farewell parties. Attempts to paint regret over glee at perceived promotion opportunities. Those who failed to crow at what might be termed Vanessa Quintain’s comeuppance, Pettinger dubbed dishonest; those who wept, he labelled fools.

His own expectation of succeeding his oft-misleading mentor was miniscule. Just as well.

New Year’s Eve, Pettinger, in reluctant attendance at the Chief Super’s party, seeking a loo, for peace as much as a piss, found him in  flagrante with DI Becky Upminster. Her subsequent appointment vindicated Pettinger’s trust in the corruption of the system.

Even more so when she suspended him.

asp personality theft

[159]

Vanessa received the news of Pettinger’s suspension with indignation. ‘Becky Upminster! A viper I once held to my bosom!

Amused, ‘As you, more literally I hope, once held me –‘

‘And could accuse you of the same –‘

‘You deserved it.’

‘Did you no good if she stole promotion from you!’

‘Wasn’t so much theft as –‘

‘Arse-licking, though I’d’ve thought an asp more appropriate than a tongue for the Chief Super’s –‘

‘You’d know that too. Apparently, Becky Upminster “has the personality to motivate the team to stand behind her and  act as one.”’

Vanessa sniggered. ‘He’s thinking gang-bang?’

bark, chess, dry

[160]

 Pettinger’s suspension was short-lived.

The Chief Super, realising he’d appointed a woman whose bite appeared to be much worse than her bark, applied what he claimed was a legal reverse promotion, quoting a precedent as obscure as some ancient chess rule which, in effect, demoted her.

Becky Upminster complained to no effect.

Pettinger genuinely sympathised: it was a shitty trick.

Becky proffered London Dry Gin.

Pettinger declined. ‘Prefer Grey Goose, thanks, and,’ remembering Vanessa, ‘ that stuff is mother’s ruin –‘

Becky, bitter, ‘This particular mother’s already ruined – the only bastard now is it’s father!’

‘Who was?’

‘Who d’you think?’

buckle. deficit, purple

[161]

The oldest-known whore on his patch, florid and be-whiskered as willow-herb, wrapped against winter in purple fur, but all too evidently knickerless, had been dead long enough for some rat to make up the protein deficit it its diet.

Constable Henry Moth, called by the pub landlord who’d found her when he checked the back yard prior to locking up, phoned it in, summoning SOCOs and CID

 DI John Pettinger, by dint of being nearby, arrived first, ‘Someone given her a belting?’ he asked, testing the constable’s observational skills.

Henry’s torch illuminated the buckle. ‘Yes sir, tightly, round her neck.’

[162]   jacket neutral sand

Ligature marks around her neck, eyes a demonstration of petechial haemorrhaging and, beneath the matted fake fur of her purple jacket, a bumper crop of blighted damson bruising.

Near impossible, despite her profession, to retain a mindset of neutrality when questioning known punters; though regularity implied more warmth than a one-off.

Directed by the landlord, Pettinger approached Abel Ackroyd, hunched against the wind, hands in pockets, gazing across the damp sand to the horizon. Possibly the wind caused the watering of his eyes but Pettinger thought not.

‘Couple of questions –’

‘Aye. Only six of us left; what’ll we do now?’

[163] dulcet, bluff, patina

Dolly’s bedroom. Cleaner than anticipated; redolent of soap and thin rubber.  Pettinger tried and failed to detect any sort of patina left by what must’ve been several thousand men through there; no echo of their orgasmic groans, nor of Dolly’s less-than dulcet encouragement.

As, through tears, her daughter, who’d followed in Dolly’s footsteps, confirmed. ‘God knows, some of them try and bluff it, others needed a cattle-prod, but she always got them there in the end!’

‘You’ve no idea who –?’

‘Doubt it was a punter.’

‘No point in checking condoms for DNA, then?’

‘Last week’s bagful’s not gone yet.’

[164] 

The contrast between the bluff, be-whiskered and weather-beaten face of  the pathologist and the sterile whiteness of his surroundings never failed to cause Pettinger a twitch of amusement. Dolly’s evisceration expunged it, as effectively as the screech of bone-saw did the dulcet Mozart twiddles he usually had playing.

‘Strangulation cause of death, but she’d tried to fight him off –‘

‘Definitely “him”?’

‘The belt.’

Once toffee-coloured leather, now bent and blackened with a patina of sweat, body-grease and blood.

‘No woman would wear that. He never intended to leave it: the blood’s not Dolly’s and there’s DNA of other victims.’

cloud, quiver, remain

[165] 

As ever, what little public sympathy was voiced about the death of a well-worn working girl was transparent as a cloud of midges, and, from women, just as biting.

Such was the quivering indignation issuing from the snap-dragon mouth of one wife – ‘That Dolly Drop-drawers, no better than she should be!’ – that Pettinger involuntarily wondered whether another of her orifices was as vitriolic; in which case no blame if her husband sought comfort elsewhere.

DC Henry Moth reported. ‘Couple of house-to-house visits remaining, but landlord gave us a nod there’s a bloke in the pub wearing a brand new belt.

contour prevaricate recipe

[166] 

Chardonnay.  Youngest daughter of a family which personified  inbred. Evidence, had Pettinger needed it, that whatever the ingredients – and, physically, hers were top-quality – unless the recipe included a modicum of variety the result frequently deficient.

Not that anyone, however genetically challenged, deserved to end like this. Spotlights revealed a dun-coloured huddle;  body-shape discernible only from the contour lines left by successive lines of black weed.

The SOCO manager, the antithesis of prevarication, reported ‘Raped, strangled, thrown from the pier, got jammed beneath.  Villain too thick to realise tide was on the ebb.’

 Pettinger, ‘A second one.’

Shake of head. ‘Third.’

[167] hare, justify, slurry

‘Third?’ Pettinger felt the thin slurry of bile hit the back of his throat as, grim-faced, DC Henry Moth confirmed, ‘Two streets up from the Hare & Hounds. –‘

‘Where Dolly was found.’

‘Aye. Same MO –‘

‘Chardonnay too?’

‘Don’t know. She’s still to come up from the beach–‘

‘So, what’s the connection?’

‘Apart from them being working girls? Maybe a stretch to justify as theory, but the latest’s Annie Warner. I’m wondering where B is –‘

‘”B”?’ Pettinger frowned. Then the penny dropped. ‘Are there twenty-six prozzies in Seaton?’

‘And the rest! All the way to Zeezee  Sprout.’

[168] stick, opportunity, credulous

Escalated to triple murder and likely more to come, John Pettinger, given opportunity to brief his superior, posited Moth’s theory of an alphabetical cull.

It received short shrift. ‘Not usually that credulous, John! Best stick to facts, eh?’

Truculent. ‘Still worth passing the word to working girls with names beginning with B, sir. And probably E and F. Provide protection.’

Possibly as punishment for his persistence, ‘You lead the team investigating Dolly’s murder. Get spunk samples from the five punters Abel Ackroyd mentioned.’

Interrupted by a knock at the door.

‘Sir. Another one.’

‘Name?’

Beverly Evans.’

Pettinger unable to gloat.

[169]  judder, popinjay, pure

‘All prostitutes are popinjays!’ DI John Pettinger, driving to the Hare and Hounds,

DC Moth: ‘RSPB’d take a dim view of that –‘

‘As they would of ill-treated parrots these days –‘

‘Ill-treated?’

‘Tournaments. Used to tie them to a pole. Fire arrows at them –‘

‘No more than Dolly, and others of that ilk, set themselves up for –‘

‘Not the same –‘

‘Less pure for sure. Dolly a bedraggled bird –‘

‘There’s our man!’ Pettinger braked hard enough for the radio to near-judder from its fixing.

Moth grinned wickedly. ‘Is this where you ask him to “come quietly”?’

[170] calligraphy, suck, uncle

DC Henry Moth was still red-faced; the more so because of the three female detectives in the room, all ears, and laughing, he suspected, at his all-too-evident embarrassment.

‘I explained, told him what we needed, was about to point to the bog, give him a wank mag and a plastic cup, when he whips it out, all primed for action, and tattooed calligraphy along the length of it!’

Sniggers, questions of likely phraseology: ‘This way up?’, ‘Suck here?’

‘Didn’t try and read it! He just said “Give us a mo, couple of pulls and Bob’s your uncle!” And it was.’

[171] barge, forecast project

 DC Henry Moth’s forecast of an alphabet-driven agenda of murder being disproved – Melanie the fifth – and John Pettinger suffering the indignity of his boss barging into a briefing to crow about it, the investigation stuttered.

DNA from condoms too corrupt; Abel Ackroyd and mates (tattooed or otherwise) confirmed innocent, likewise new-belt, lost braces, bloke.

But both Beverley and Melanie were known to have been cited as harlots by a local bearer of a social conscience, who, to loud fanfare, had launched ‘Project Jezebel’ in a bid to wipe out sex crime.

Some muttered she’d also like to wipe out sex.

[172] crossword crude itinerary

Pettinger’s pale, gooseberry-green eyes raked the room. A dozen end-of-day-dispirited detectives. He indicated the red-inked map, ‘Door-to-door itinerary completed?’

‘Aye, boss. Like three monkeys –‘

‘DC Moth? Forensics? Melanie Bridges same MO as the others?’

‘More likely a crude copy using info from the newspaper reports –‘

‘Evidence?’

‘We kept back the fact that the first four victims had a page from a crossword puzzle book stuffed in their pocket. One clue completed. So far we’ve had ‘adulteress’, ‘bawd’, ‘concubine’ and ‘doxy’–‘

‘No ‘e’?’

‘Can you think of a suitable word beginning with ‘e’?’

‘Point is, Melanie had nothing.’

  

[173]  absent exact butter

Shoulders displacing a cloud of yellow butterflies from an overhanging buddleia, DI Pettinger and DC Moth strode up a path narrow as the mind of the person they’d come to see.

But the smiling face of the soft-voice woman answering their knock was unexpected. Malice apparently absent.

Yet she, as the self-elected instigator of Project Jezebel had denounced Beverley and Melanie by name, as harlots who’d ‘deserved exactly what  they got’ as though violent rape, strangulation and the dumping of their bodies in some insalubrious corner was their own fault.

‘They encourage men to give in to their base desires.’

[174] Shakespeare, six, pattern

On the doorstep, DC Henry Moth adopted a pose, one arm outstretched, the other to his forehead, and declaimed (no other word for it!) ‘”Is there no baseness we would hide? No inner vileness –?”’

DI Pettinger, not to be out-ranked in erudition, ‘Shakespeare?’

‘Tennyson.’ In duplicate.

Project Jezebel’s instigator impressed enough to invite them in. Over cups of tea – Willow-pattern cups and saucers, six custard creams presented on a plate – she spouted a stream of sugar-coated self-justification which, when stripped of bible-backed exhortation, was no more than a vitriolic detestation of doing what came naturally. Paid for or not.

[175] benevolent, bruise, margin

John Pettinger disliking tea, he’d merely pretended to sip; no more than nibbled at the margins of a custard cream.

Moth, a growing lad, despite doubts about their hostess’s benevolence, had been less constrained. Just as Pettinger took out his notebook, preparatory to interrogation he toppled forwards, forehead striking sharp corner of the coffee table.

‘Arnica’ she stated, rising, ‘To prevent bruising.’

That too close to “arsenic” for Pettinger’s comfort, he bade her sit. Swiftly bagging biscuits and cup, against a background of Henry’s apologetic groans, he cuffed and cautioned her.

Haughtily incredulous, ‘On what evidence?’

Pettinger refused to say.

Change of focus [176] dock register settlement

An interesting division in the public gallery, between be-hatted scowling women, righteous in their indignation that sex be for other than procreation, and men united in support of paid-for availability.

Edith Edgewater’s arrival in the dock incited near as much riot as the crime she was charged with. Pettinger’s evidence  insufficient, as he knew; he resigned to the court’s settlement of a warning.

Of greater value had been the opportunity to register her supporters, and thence deduce possible perpetrators of the sex-worker murders. He did not doubt that what she’d read as victory would launch another bloody round of death.

Change of focus [177]bracket, diagnose, ludic 

Lack of comment in the national newspapers was more than made up for by the front page of the local. For once Pettinger fully appreciated the ludic humour of its editor, evident in his bracketing of the photograph of handbag-brandishing women above a headline screaming “JEZEBEL VICTORIOUS” beneath which he’d placed individual, happy photos of the five dead women.

On arrival at the station, DC Moth diagnosed his mirth, and promptly punctured it.

‘Two more –‘

‘Two? With or without –‘

‘Crosswords, aye. Same MO –’

‘The clues?’

‘”Floozy” and “Geisha”’

‘Geisha’s not a prozzy –‘

‘Murderer doesn’t know that.’

Change of focus [178] fleapit, sable, rapid

DI Pettinger, dispirited, ‘Location?’

‘Floozy –‘

‘Give them the dignity of their rightful names!’

‘Sorry, sir. Fanny Atkins in what used to be local fleapit, now Bingo hall; Gina –‘

‘Christ, not Gina Jacobson?‘

‘’Fraid so sir. Bit more upmarket than what we’ve had so far. Though still fur coat, no knickers –’

‘Sable. She was proud of that, claimed it proved her Russian ancestry –‘

Moth watched his superior’s pale green eyes unfocus in reminiscence. ‘Did it?’

‘No, though she –‘ He was interrupted by the urgent chatter of his radio. Listened, rapidly replied, ‘I’m on my way –‘

Change of focus [179]

Pettinger directed a swift grin of grim relief to his DC. ‘Suspect. Hiding in the old projector room –‘

‘What evidence?’

‘Crossword book. Bad news is ‘knave’ the first filled-in clue –‘

Moth was quick, ‘So we’ve H and I to come?’

‘Looks horribly like it –‘

Boots adhering to the tacky carpet; once crimson but now long-past-its-best Rioja, they made their way upstairs towards burbling radios, camera flash and white-coated SOCOs .

‘We might be in luck, sir.’

‘How?’

‘There’s harlot, hooker or ho for ‘H’, but I can’t think of an ‘I’.’

‘Unless he doubled up. Or trebled.’

Change of focus [180] awry, freelance, fulsome

Something was awry.

The under-fed, allegedly freelance photographer hadn’t deviated one iota from his several alibis despite intense and hostile (which, with fulsome sincerity, they’d deny) interrogation. Nor explained the torn-out crossword puzzles. 

Flat, laptop, dark-room all microscopically searched. Sperm and skin samples sent for DNA and identity parade a farce, thanks to his anonymous appearance.

Pettinger, head in hands, despaired.

DC Henry Moth suggested, ‘Press release? With photo?’ 

‘His face under headlines shouting KILLER? Even if he’s subsequently found innocent there’ll be those who’ll crucify him –‘

DS Brickwood entered. Interrupted: ‘Sir, three guesses for whose step-nephew he is!’

Change of focus [181] match, donate, nefarious

Once they’d applied their minds it didn’t take three guesses; the photographer’s appearance as lacking in nefarious intent as the dulcet tones of Edith Edgewater mis-matched the vitriol of Project Jezebel.

DI Pettinger queried, ‘Step-nephew?’

DS Brickwood, ‘Edgewater’s step-sister’s bastard son. Sperm donated by the devil according to –‘

‘Bollocks, he looks –‘

‘Looks wholly deceptive. There’s history there, murky as a unicorn’s arse.’

‘He’s a record?’

Optimistic, ‘Bound to have –‘

‘Still need evidence –‘

DC Moth, persistent, ‘Like I said, sir, press release –‘

Brickwood in support, ‘Witnesses. Someone might’ve seen him –‘

Pettinger, marginally reluctant, ‘Okay then.’

Change of focus [182] canvas feint mate

Four days before a firm lead.

‘Don’t like to dob up a mate –‘

Ben Brickwood: ‘He’s a friend?’

‘Nah, not exactly –‘

‘I’ll pop along for a chat. Where’s best?’

‘Gym. Above the Drum and Monkey.’

Not shiny lined machines, but spit and sawdust. Ropes and blood-stained canvas. Grunts and sniffs; fists pounding rather than the music.

Brickwood, instantly-known Law, inhaled deeply.  A slender, well-muscled black youth tapped gloves to his sparring partner, feinted an uppercut then made his way over, grabbing a towel.

‘He’s a dark-room above my flat. Sleeps there some nights. Always takes a long shower.’

Change of focus [183] bun, imperfect, lemon

DS Ben Brickwood, following Leon’s landlady up three flights of lemon-painted stairs, had time to wonder how far down her spine the brown hair escaping from her bun would reach. 

‘You’ve a warrant?’ she’d asked, on being told he needed access to the attic, and had been reassured by his, ‘On the way,’ even though it was a lie. The imperfections of the twenty-four hour custody restriction required creativity in evidence acquisition.

But this – from the bloody reek of bin-sacks, leaking dark-stained clothes; the photographs, still pegged above a sink, was as good as ever it got.

Phoning Pettinger, ‘Got him.’

Change of focus [184] owl, omissiom rose

It wasn’t straightforward.

Alan Horton adamant he’d merely catalogued, unwillingly, the deaths of six sex-workers.

‘If not you, then who?’ Pettinger’s stare baleful as a green-eyed owl.

‘D-don’t know –‘

Eyebrows rose in disbelief. ‘You didn’t recognise him?’

‘Wore a mask –‘

‘Age? Build? Accent? He force you to photograph? While he raped, maimed and throttled Annie and Beverley? Chardonnay? Dolly, Fanny and Gina?’

Pettinger dealt a gruesome photo for each.

Alan’s eyes gleamed: pride in their quality; relief, in thinking the omission of a seventh name indicated undiscovered.

Premature.

‘We found these too –‘

Melanie. All his own work.

Change of focus [185] bliss south Tudor

Whether or not she’d known of her step-nephew’s desire to emulate the man for whom he’d acted as recorder, Edith Edgewater’s citing Melanie Bridges, erstwhile receptionist at the BodyBliss spa (a facility offered by the pseudo-Tudor Hotel Elizabeth), a sex-worker undoubtedly caused her death. She was arrested on a charge of Hate Crime.

Ben Brickwood re-visited the black southpaw boxer.

 ‘Horton have visitors?’

‘Some.’

‘Names?’

‘Nah.’ The man continued feinting and ducking, ‘But I seen who they were –‘

‘Who?’

‘Coupla wankers from the Co-op –‘

‘Aye?’

‘And a bloke from the fish factory. Big. Big belly. Snake tattoos.’

Change of focus [186] grant volume stodge

DS Ben Brickwood knew there were formulae for estimating volumes of various solids, but maths had never been his strong point. Implying knowledge he didn’t possess, he nodded towards the man they’d come to question. ‘What d’you reckon to the  stodge capacity of Mister Snake-charmer then?’

DC Henry Moth frowned. ‘About 300?’

‘300? 300 what?’

‘Cubic centimetres. Granted, I had to guesstimate his waist measurement –‘

‘How d’you work that out?’

‘Four thirds of the radius cubed times pi–‘

A blink, then, ‘Yeah. Well done lad. Next question, are you going to question him or will I?’

‘You are.’

Change of focus [187] grant volume stodge

Given the volume of evidence generated by half a dozen murders – witness statements, door-to-door, forensics, post-mortem findings and CCTV responses to press coverage – plus the alibis of six times six potential murders to be verified, it was hardly surprising DI Pettinger, Acting SIO, failed to express gratitude on discovering half the ‘extras’ he’d been allocated were still wet behind the ears, and another quarter stodge-brained past-its.

Ben Brickwood commiserated. ‘Put one of each in with Mister Snake-charmer, Keep changing them about and get him properly bamboozled.’

‘That’ll work?’

‘No, but he’ll confess to anything just to get out of here.’

Change of focus [188] arid raise, prophet

‘D’you want the good news or the bad, boss?’

DI Pettinger, whose long working hours stood testament to the aridity of his personal life, rasped a hand across overnight stubble. ‘Both.’

‘Snake-charmless confessed –‘

Silently raised eyebrows; Pettinger knew that wasn’t all.

‘– Didn’t do it, but knows who did. Bloke named Zephaniah –’

‘One of the minor prophets –‘

‘No kidding? Thought he was that dreadlocked poet. Anyway, this Zephaniah Jones, he used to be a sailor. Got a dose of clap somewhere in the Tropics –‘

‘Not the usual place.’

‘Ha bloody ha. Vowed revenge against all prozzies.’

Change of focus [189] carrier, minute, temporary

Grubby vest top revealed sweat-glistening shoulders worthy of a hod-carrier at the gates of Hades. Tongues of tattooed snakes appeared to minutely flicker but that caused by the fluctuations of light emanating from the single fluorescent tube.,

Zephaniah Jones’ confession signed, DI Pettinger, curious about what impelled him, took advantage of a temporary delay in transportation.

‘Was it just local women you killed? Or have there been others, elsewhere?’

‘Only this place. No shit on my doorstep.’

‘You don’t have to use them.’

‘They need teaching to keep themselves clean.’

‘Why alphabetical? Why choose them, specifically?’

‘Jezebel says their names.’

Change of focus [190] archer, lid whinny
Another toothcomb search of Edith Edgewater’s home, fruitless as the first. She had to be the connection; what was needed was indisputable proof.

Watching, from the half-landing, the SOCOs dispiritedly descend the stairs DC Moth’s attention was caught by the whinny of a pale grey horse grazing in the field beyond Edith’s back garden. Its stable formed part of the back fence.

Edith’s claim the coffin-shaped wooden box found within held only long-unused archery equipment quickly proved a lie. The lid dust-free and, on raising, revealed sufficient evidence of stalking with malicious intent to convince the most cynical of juries.

Change of focus [191] wake envelop hem

Three hours in and Declan O’Donovan’s wake had become a whiskey-fumed riot. of fiddles, pipes and reels. Collisions and spilled drinks taken in good part until Liam Malahide stepped on the hem of Bridget Clonty’s dress, causing stitches to give way, skirt to tumble and her left standing; scarlet thong, black tattooed crab and purple fist-size bruises all revealed.

Her husband enveloped her in a Guinness-stained tablecloth, but not before Bridget’s brother put two and two together and made four.

John Pettinger, and other colleagues of the late-lamented Declan, did their drunken best but eventually had to call for reinforcements.

Change of focus [192] packet, shore, zodiac

Next morning, DC Henry Moth, too young to have known O’Donovan, entered the blind-dark Incident Room. To the collective groan, ‘Why’re all the lights off?’

Reek of last night’s drink and, when he peered more closely, evidence of hungover embattlement. ‘You look like an episode of Z Cars, all black and white –‘

Growled, ‘You’re too young to’ve remembered that –‘

‘My Dad had a Zodiac –‘

‘Well-off was he? They cost a packet –‘

Henry grinned, began cheerfully whistling.

Instant chorus of ‘Shut up!’ Pettinger admonished, ‘That’s not the proper theme tune!’

‘Just testing; it’s ‘Stranger on the Shore”’

Change of focus [193] bramble, drift, sally

Called to the front desk, Pettinger’s first impression was that DC Sally Vicksen held a grubby, bramble-wrapped hobbit, who’d been dragged in backwards through a hedge.

Before she could so much as explain, the child twisted violently, escaping her grasp then ran towards Pettinger spilling guttural black-berried words in a language she did not understand.

Startled, she watched Pettinger steady the child, gather the drift of its incomprehensible tirade, and similarly answer.

‘Sir?’

’He says he’s a stowaway. Illegal entry–‘

‘Then why come here? You know him?’

‘Not as well as he claims I do. Says he’s my son.‘

Change of focus [194] bramble, drift, sally

Swearing Sally Vicksen to secrecy Pettinger declared he’d take the hobbit-child home.

‘Keep me posted about findings at Edgewater’s house –‘

Yesterday, realising inner dimensions fell far short of outer, a SOCO team had begun a re-investigation. Pettinger had been there when, after removal of shelf-loads of gingham-frilled jars of home-made chutneys, jams and bramble jelly, a burly man had inserted the edge of a blue-painted drift into the slight declivity that indicated where two breeze-blocks met. A single hammer-blow had been sufficient to dislodge them, revealing further shelves of neat-labelled jars whose contents, while home-grown, were somewhat less salubrious.

Change of focus [195] amanuensis bow rattle 

‘I’ll hold.’

John Pettinger – once Yanno Petzincek – hadn’t used his birth language for several years. Scratchy phone-line rendered rattled consonants even harder to understand. He’d given the name of the man he wanted to speak with but was being fobbed off by someone who claimed to be his amanuensis, which – a sign that he was translating rather than had seamlessly switched – he’d misinterpreted as paramour.

The child – Aleks, he’d mimed pulling a bow to demonstrate ‘warrior’ – had been washed and fed. He claimed his age as nine and his mother’s name Valdeta.

Pettinger, wincing, inwardly admitted it was not impossible.

Change of focus [196] alpha, convulse, refulgent

Waiting until the dust had properly settled, and wearing gloves and a mask, DS Ben Brickwood lifted down the first of Edith Edgewater’s secret jars and held it up to the light.

Impressed, DC Henry Moth exclaimed, ‘Blimey, that golden colour – proper refulgent! D’you suppose, that fishy symbol means it’s bottled Christianity?’

Ben (who’d learnt to have the OED on speed-dial) convulsed with laughter. ‘No, you gullible ignoramus! It’s an alpha. Greek letter ‘A’. Means the jars are in alphabetical order. I wouldn’t recommend you eat it, anyway –‘

‘Not ‘A’ for aphrodisiac, then?’

‘More likely the opposite, knowing her!’

Change of focus [197] channel hike petrichor

Khakbethia. Pettinger, then thirty-four, hadn’t intended visiting but three weeks enforced convalescence, £250 compensation and a serendipitous string of connections: cross-channel ferry to train to hitch-hiked long-distance lorry had delivered him there.

Valdeta. No surname. As she said, she’d been about to change it.

But only admitted that after.

He thought he’d forgotten what she looked like, but not only did Aleks resemble her, his skin smelled as hers had, (she’d not thought petrichor a compliment!) Eyes, however, the same milk-pale jade as Pettinger’s.

‘Gently, ‘Why did you leave?’

‘Jake Cherriman said he’d kill her if you did not come.’

Change of focus [198] fob indigo prevent

To ensure proper storage and prevent contamination DS Ben Brickwood tasked a specialist branch of  SOCO with clearing jars from Edith Edgewater’s pantry. 

They knew what they were doing: one leaking indigo, and reeking like the sewer from a witches coven, was wrapped and double-wrapped before transportation. The room itself they secured with chain and padlock, sealed it with a serial-numbered fob.

Satisfied, Ben said, ‘Not only can we get her on stalking, but on poisoning too –‘

‘Aye, and talking of poisoning , you seen your boss lately?’

‘On leave. At least, that’s what he said –‘

‘Worth checking.’

Change of focus [199] fob indigo prevent

So bloody and turbulent the history between him and Jake Cherriman that John Pettinger was forced to prevent anger swamping his ability to concentrate on more immediate practicalities.

If Aleks  – almost certainly his son, except it was possible one of his green-eyed cousins was trying to fob him off – had been sent as hostage (and judging by the pale indigo bruising on his torso, there’d been an element of force) more than food, clothes and a bed would be necessary. (His cottage equipped only for the occasional woman) But how to protect a nine-year-old child?

Except by returning to Khakbethia.

Change of focus [200] chafe French voyage

But, Valdeta.

Despite all attempts to prevent her lingering, in heart, in head, in loins – such as bedding a dozen French students during the Mediterranean voyage home (a last-minute decision, thanks to the offer of a temporary job) – she had chafed a groove around his heart.  He could not begin to imagine how she came to be in Cherriman’s grasp.

Nor knew where to begin in asking Aleks, who took the decision out of his hands.

‘She said I was not to tell you. Said he did not mean it. Said she didn’t want to see you. But she lied.’

  

Change of focus [201] fancy taunt visit

John Pettinger’s experience of nine-year-olds having been confined to arresting foul-mouthed taunting delinquents, he fancied he saw in Aleks’ eyes, in his sturdy acceptance of what must have been a much-disrupted life, a basic morality akin to his own, only to remember Valdeta’s courage, facing a forced marriage: nurture undoubtedly played its part.

To Aleks, ‘I’ll go, but need to find somewhere for you –‘

‘I go too.’

‘Have you a passport?’

‘Cherriman gave me one –‘

‘Likely illegal –‘

‘Got me in –’

‘Might need to smuggle you out.’ A small risk compared to potential annihilation from visiting Cherriman.

Change of focus [202] articulate bud incident

John Pettinger’s sole reliable Khakbethian contact – as discreet as he was articulate – eventually returned his call: ‘Valdeta disappeared six months ago –‘

‘Rumour has it, Cherriman –‘

‘Yes. Cherriman tried to claim a budding romance, but when wooing failed, in a far too public incident; his humiliation witnessed – he dropped the gently, gently approach, took her by force and seized her son –‘

‘Our son. Cherriman sent him here, threatening she’ll die if I don’t return –‘

‘It’s a trick, Yanno!’

‘I know, but why?’

‘He’ll kill you both. She’s due to give birth to his son any day now.’

Change of focus [203] conjure shadow shy

Too easy to conjure  up an image of Valdeta’s rape; God knows she’d been shy with him. To start. The thought he’d been responsible for this ultimate horror cast an even bigger shadow than the knowledge he’d have to break his promise and leave Aleks behind.

Sally Vicksen. She’d kept quiet so far. He’d ask her to mind Aleks for the two/three days he envisaged being away. Invent some off-site task to maintain her cover.

He was at the boarding gate when she phoned. ‘Sir, I’m sorry but –‘

Just as Aleks’ voice rang out behind him: ‘That’s my dad!’

  

Change of focus [204] orphan pen traipse

John Pettinger’s second thought was that if this child ended up an orphan, as seemed the all-too-likely outcome of the next few days, he’d survive. His first had been a mental screech, such as was usually indicated by asterisks and exclamations.

Somehow Aleks had obtained legal passage on this flight; a swipe of a pen reallocated seats so they sat together. Fearing admonishment would destroy the still-flimsy rapport they’d so far constructed, Pettinger confined himself – albeit reluctantly – to interrogating Aleks about Valdeta’s situation.

Thus his heart was all the heavier, skin prickling, as they traipsed towards Khakbethia’s tiny airport terminal.

Change of focus [205] corrugate, seventeen, butcher

Passports passed, facial features and corrugations of fingerprints recorded; within the space of seventeen minutes they were free to go. John Pettinger rested his hand on Aleks’ shoulder, smiled down to reassure and saw Aleks’ eyes widen.

Looking up he understood why.

Size bulked by protective gear, face all horizontal lines, he gestured with the cradled Kalashnikov to a newly-opened door.

Pettinger, understanding ‘fight or flight’ differently-weighted with a child in tow, obeyed.

Then a shove, a wrenching of the child, a grunted word of allocation  – Khakbethian slang for ‘butcher’ – a slammed door.

Pettinger, alone in a windowless room, roared.

Change of focus [206] elaborate mend zebra 

Pettinger, forcing himself to calmness, reasoned that Aleks’ skill in baiting the elaborate trap they’d set for him reduced the chance he’d come to harm.

He recalled Ben Brickwood’s oft-repeated ‘If it looks like a zebra, shits like a zebra, chances still are it’s a horse!’

From the start, had it not been for Aleks’ milk-green eyes, he’d have been prepared to learn he wasn’t his son. Aleks could’ve lied about his age; just to comply with Valdeta’s dates.

Could’ve been wearing coloured contact lenses.

But if that were true, how long would it take for Pettinger’s heart to mend?

Change of focus [207] elaborate mend zebra 

 Zebras? Coloured contact lenses? Aleks not his son? Pettinger, briefly appalled, recognised such thoughts as not so much  elaborate comfort-blanket as a police-trained stage in dealing with the problem. Similarly the idea Aleks would come to no harm, a panacea, attempt to mend what he’d not survive the breaking of.  With Jake Cherriman, not known for his love of children, nothing could be guaranteed.

The roar of a departing jet reminded Pettinger he was in a public place; escape lay in attracting public attention. What better way to do so than via the camera so avidly paying attention to him?

Change of focus [208] cicatrice drive unquiet

It took three minutes to be noticed, every second of which caused anxiety to crawl, imitation cicatrice, across his skin.

Beyond the shifty-eyed official who released him Pettinger saw Aleks standing alone, eyes unquiet, silently pleading that Pettinger make no further fuss. Relief slamming his heart, Pettinger understood how the instinct to protect could drive a man to murder.

In English, to maintain his Britishness (not that anyone was likely to be fooled) he asked, ‘You alright?’

‘Only small butchery.’ Aleks slipped his hand into Pettinger’s, briefly pressing wrist to wrist, for him to feel blood-stickiness from the just-implanted bug.

Change of focus [209] bake feather tough

Two years ago, having been seduced by his then-wife (subsequently murdered) Pettinger stowed the fox-faced Cherriman onto a Khakbethian-bound boat.

He now sought revenge.

Filip collected them from the airport. Reassured, ‘Bug is tracking, not microphone. I’ll bake it in a cake, feed it to my donkeys.’

Which make Aleks laugh until Pettinger asked, ‘The baby?’ meaning Cherriman’s son, forced upon Aleks‘ mother.

‘Three days overdue.’

Valdeta was – had learned to be – tough, and although Cherriman had the means to keep her in feather-bedded luxury Pettinger feared for her safety.

Filip’s wife met them at the door. ‘It’s a girl.’

Change of focus [210]  chapter fair jockey

Several responses to the news of a daughter’s substitution for a  son jockeyed for position in Pettinger’s mind, not least that Aleks wouldn’t be usurped. Though more than a fair chance Valdeta’s safety in jeopardy.

This latest chapter in Jake Cherriman’s life – Australian-born, descendant of Khakbethia’s Scheraskade family, now ruling in all but name, thanks to the weakness of Pettinger’s youngest brother Teodor – was the result of his enforced deportation from Britain. The seizure of Valdeta his (surely disproportionate?) revenge.

Her rescue being the only option, Pettinger exacted Aleks’ promise to stay behind.

‘Only if you swear to marry her.’

Change of focus [211] lame mouth upper

 The Petzincek family arrived at the upper echelons of Khakbethian aristocracy by way of backstabbing bloodshed; stains subsequently covered – since  not obliterated – beneath trappings of cultural splendour.

Unawed, backed by a Filip-supplied entourage of four, John Pettinger had anticipated Teodor puppet-mouthing Cherriman’s words, unwilling to welcome his eldest brother, but his hug felt genuine and there’d seemed more than lame lip-service in his greeting.

Made optimistic, Pettinger asked, ‘Valdeta?’

‘Valdeta is –‘ Teodor glanced around as if hoping to locate her. Pointed to the corner, to what Pettinger had supposed to be a forgotten pile of discarded clothes, ‘Is there.’

Change of focus [212] live inappropriate target 

Filip’s friends had been chosen for brains as well as brawn. Two made for the doors and one seized Teodor. The fourth awaited Yanno Petzincek’s instructions. 

Pettinger crouched. Tears, apology, declarations of love all inappropriate; he didn’t see how anyone so flat and crumpled could live. Tenderly he pulled her shawl aside, revealing purple-swollen damage. Pulse, yes, but faint as mist on skin.

Without turning, quietly urgent, scrabbling for the correct Khakbethian words, ‘Doctor. Hospital –‘

‘Is done – five minutes –‘

Her lips parted. Painfully, ‘My daughter. Jake took –‘

Aghast, ‘Cherriman has her?’

Valdeta flinched. ‘He said... target practice.’

Change of focus [213] paper queue yawn

No question of forming an orderly queue: Pettinger, in simultaneous haste, collided with the largest of Filip’s friends, following Teodor’s under-duress directions as to Jake Cherriman’s whereabouts.

A siren’s wail signalled help at hand for Valdeta.

A second, higher-pitched, from behind one of many closed doors in a silk-papered corridor, splintered Pettinger’s blood to ice. Bursting in, they found Cherriman astride one concubine; two more yawned, discarded.

Cherriman smiled triumphant over his shoulder. ‘Yanno, take this one when I’m done. Your friends the other two.’

A knife-prick to his balls disabused him of shared interest. ‘Where’s Valdeta’s daughter?’

‘Mine too.’

Change of focus [214] miracle spoon still

By dint of long dealing with aggression, of exerting self-control beyond the scope of normal man, John Pettinger stilled the knife-blade well-short of castration; resultant blood flow barely sufficient to fill a salt spoon, despite the nervous shifting of the concubine beneath Cherriman, carefully motionless.

‘The baby?‘ Pettinger repeated.

Tremulous, one of the already-used concubines, too soft-hearted for her own good, ‘Nursery, she’s –‘

Cherriman’s vicious glance silenced her.

From behind Pettinger, a muttered, ‘A miracle if she survives such treachery –‘

‘Take her with you. Fetch Valdeta’s daughter. Take them both to safety.’

Unthinkingly, Pettinger gestured.

Cherriman screamed, tightly.

Change of focus [215] beast exacerbate form

Cherriman in a cell to which he had the key. Aleks (deemed unlikely to exacerbate her condition) reunited with Valdeta  and daughter, Yanno Petzincek, on his way to Teodor, was intercepted by a woman.

‘Teodor Petzincek has no right to rule! Khakbethia is desperate for stability, my sons’ inheritance better equips them to form a government –’

Bemused, struggling with the passionate speed of her delivery, ‘You are?’

‘Daughter of Pietro Scheraskade. Widow of your eldest brother. Raptor made him a beast, but his sons are good and united in caring for their country. You must persuade Teodor to abdicate.’

Change of focus [216] lode obliterate pass

At different points in history, different qualities are counted virtues.  The willingness to kill, to torture or by other means obliterate one’s enemies – a lode deemed valuable as gold – was one the Scheraskade and the Petzincek families possessed in spades.

With the passing of half-centuries – and of laws – such attitudes became reasons to condemn, but memories older than John Pettinger’s were slow to change. Aware of this, and that Elinka’s sons were the product of a union between two once-warring families, Pettinger could not deny them better suited to rule than Teodor.

And did not want the job for Aleks.

Change of focus [217] chary, float, torch

As anticipated, Teodor was initially chary when Pettinger, echoing, more diplomatically Elinka’s scornful impatient sons (‘Teodor holds a torch for other men, he’ll never produce an heir!’) floated the suggestion he exchange the role of ruler for ambassador. Eventual acceptance was grudging.

More pressing was the need to secure Valdeta’s immediate future. Elinka herself suggested a solution: ‘Take one of my grandsons when you return.’

‘As hostage? You think that necessary?’

‘While they learn to curb their instincts –’

‘And Aleks?’

‘Leave him here. Support, company for his mother.’

‘They’ll eventually be allowed to leave?’

‘If that’s what she wants.’

Change of focus [218] devastate essence joint

Valdeta’s essence – post-partum blood and breast-milk –swamped Pettinger’s senses. ‘In another week, will you be fit to travel?’

‘To where?’

‘Me. My home –‘

‘But, why?’

‘So we can be together. A family –‘

‘No –‘

‘No?’ His gaze swung to his son. The devastation in his eyes should have warned him.

‘Yanno, it has already been decided. Jointly.  Aleks stays with me –‘

‘But –‘ So much he needed to say. ‘You will allow him to visit?’

‘You can visit us.’

‘But who –? Where, how, will you live? Who will protect you?’

‘What right have you to ask?’

Change of focus [219] adamant marinade tiger

It was in the sense of a mother’s fierce defence of her children that Pettinger described Valdeta as a tiger, even as, illogically adamant, skin still bearing evidence of damage, as if marinaded in a brew of turmeric and damson, she insisted their safety resided only in Khakbethia.

‘You’re frightened of the unknown –‘

‘With good reason –‘

‘Even though the known has not been good to you –‘

‘Good enough –‘

‘Yet you had no qualms about sending Aleks into the unknown! Hasn’t he told you how much better life is there?‘

‘He tells me of woman called Sally.’

Change of focus [220] appease crochet lodge

Sally Vicksen. Hardly surprising Aleks talked of her; his lodging with her, albeit briefly, must’ve been an interesting experience. Pettinger had still to appease her for his son’s escaping.

‘She’s a colleague. No threat. Valdeta, I beg you to reconsider. Life in England would be so much better, I promise.’

‘How do I know you are not making a crochet of lies?’

‘You’re the one who lied! What happened to the man you were forced to marry?’

‘He died –‘

‘He ever guess Aleks wasn’t –’ Her eyes confessed. ‘– He did. And you killed him.’

‘When Aleks was six.’

Change of focus [221] lone sanguine splay

While capable of remaining sanguine about Valdeta’s admitting murder, Pettinger was far less so about her doing so in front of Aleks. Feared she may have done the deed before him too. That happy interlude with her was beginning to look like a lone and loving beacon amidst a tumult of violence.

He made a final effort. Listed all the positives he could think of to persuade her to accompany him. Splayed them, a choice of aces; she only had to choose.

But in truth he was beginning to wonder how to leave her behind. Take just Aleks with him.

Change of focus [222] flux jute spoil

Another sleepless night beneath a duvet of thorn-impregnated jute atop a flintstone mattress. For a man who’d knowingly been a father for only weeks John Pettinger’s missing of Aleks could be deemed disproportionate, exacerbated as it was by attempts at justification for his abandonment fluxing between confidence in Valdeta’s mothering abilities (new-born child, hostile environment, husband-killer) and awareness of the complications a nine-year-old would add to his own life.

It wasn’t that he feared Aleks would spoil his bachelor existence so much as the complexity of child-care and the demands of his job: ‘A nasty murder, John. Nastier than usual.’

Change of focus [223] rampart sewer unreason

“Nasty murder” was no exaggeration: the body had been found in a sewer. Recently-enough killed to be noxious; the odour of human excrement insufficient to overpower. Industrial quantities of Vick required.

At the end of the day, in the temporarily-silent incident room Pettinger found himself wishing for some Vick equivalent to block the memory of Aleks’ frustration at what he saw as the unreason of Pettinger’s claim that leaving a nine-year-old to fend for himself was illegal. Something stronger still – something distilled – would be required to fortify the ramparts he’d tried to build around his heart to prevent its breaking.

Change of focus [224] dwarf eve ostentatious

Pettinger’s personal grief was dwarfed by that displayed by the woman across the trolley from him, which bore the now ostentatiously-odourless body of the man she, given carefully-unwrapped sight of his face, needed to identify as her husband.

Earlier, to the usual accompaniment of Mozart, Pettinger had watched with horrid fascination as the be-whiskered pathologist examined  stomach contents. Not the usual part-digested pizza, yellow-flecked with sweetcorn but plastic packets of pearls and other precious stones. Rings, including one inscribed ‘All love Eve’.

Gently, attempting to dam the flood of tears, ‘Mrs Bailiwick, Eve –‘

Her head snapped up, ‘It’s Barbara!’

Change of focus [225] fine jargon pecuniary

Adjudging it unnecessary to immediately acquaint the now-hiccupping Barbara Bailiwick with the peculiar (not to say pecuniary) contents of her husband’s stomach, and having ensconced her in what was euphemistically called the Comfort Suite – an interview room made less daunting by the addition of settee and flowers and windows from which trees were visible, the jargon of whose sparrow population added further normality – Pettinger estimated, from the finely-drawn lines from nose to mouth, around her eyes, she was in her early fifties.

‘Your husband, what did he do for a living?’

A startled glare. ‘You’ve not heard of Roger Bailiwick?’

Change of focus [226] emulate spaghetti weak

John Pettinger, emulating a weak-chinned psychologist he’d once been forced to visit, exuded pseudo-sympathetic encouragement. Setting finger-tip to finger-tip, allowing his gooseberry-green eyes to gaze into her damp blue, he enquired, unctuous as olive-oiled spaghetti, ‘Mrs Bailiwick, I’d prefer to hear about your husband in your own words.’

‘He, he was an honest, upright citizen, who deeply cared for this town –‘

‘That sounds like a manifesto –‘

‘It was!’ Barbara Bailiwick dabbed lace handkerchief to eyes. ‘He was the Independent candidate for mayor!’

Ah. That explained a lot.

Which was why Pettinger omitted to ask ‘Had he any enemies?’

Change of focus [227] belly kudos vacant 

The post of mayor had remained  vacant for the first twelvemonth of its creation. It brought no power, little in the way of kudos, and much potential grief, in the form of intimidation from several directions. ‘Independent’ as misleading as those adverts that promise overnight reduction of belly fat (although it had to be said, in Roger Bailiwick’s case, the post mortem had dealt with that effectively).

Pettinger’s next question was ‘Who?’

Who had nobbled him, stuffed him, betrayed him and then killed him? And for every question asked he could think of three or four potential answers.  None good.

Change of focus [228]  brink freckle stalk

Interviews revealed Roger Bailiwick to have been a man well-versed in brinkmanship. ‘All talk no balls’, according to associates. His devoted PA, tear-stained freckles matched by liver-spotted hands, praised him as a shrewd negotiator.

‘Aye, one who never got caught,’ grumbled a colleague, ‘Got others to do his dirty work’.

Scandal, as DS  Brickwood despondently reported, had not so much stalked as skittered in his wake. ‘Only to evaporate. Sorry Boss.’

‘Cherchez la femme then, Ben,‘ suggested Pettinger. ‘It has to be women or money.’

But it was DC Henry Moth who gleefully uncovered it. ‘Not either/or Boss, but both.’

Change of focus [229] border reckless sherbet

The breaking of a promise, made in good faith, melted like sherbet on the tongue, but without accompanying sweetness. John Pettinger welcomed Skype as a way to keep in touch but his new-found son’s brave  attempt to deny the tears which bordered on the edge of spilling, near broke his heart. And it would be cruel and reckless to pretend it would soon be easier.

‘I’ve a bad man to catch –‘

‘A murderer?’

‘Yes –‘ Aleks hadn’t exactly led a sheltered life.

‘You can catch lots of them here –‘

Sharply, ‘Not near you?’

‘He just keeps saying “Tomorrow”’

Change of focus [230] falcon, fremescent lurch

In answer to ‘Where’s your mother?’ Aleks seized the laptop then subjected John Pettinger to a lurching Skype-enabled journey along dim corridors hung with paintings of silver bowls containing crabs and lemons; of falcons ripping flesh from bloody carcases and family portraits becoming, in a dizzy swirl, wooden panels as he backed into a part-open door.

Valdeta, seated, head turned away. Apparently deaf to the fremescence of infant distress issuing from her month-old daughter, blind-mouthedly seeking a nipple peremptorily withdrawn. 

Aleks shouted, incoherent. Swung the screen so its camera faced the window. In front of which stood a silhouetted man.

Change of focus [231 ]rubric sparse spendthrift

 A sensation of having been too spendthrift with his breath clamped John Pettinger’s throat; hands gripped laptop with throttling impotency.  The on-screen image spun across a painted ceiling, whose rubric of ancient saints he remembered from his childhood, then downwards, past the back of Valdeta’s head before returning to a view of Aleks’ chest and –

And nothing.

Blackness total. Visual information sparse as for a blind man in a coalmine.

Silence lasted long enough for Pettinger to believe himself equally struck with deafness, then a triplet of sound: male rumble, Valdeta incoherent and baby screaming.

Aleks’ anticipated indignation entirely absent.

necessary pucker willow

Change of focus [232]

The banging he could hear was the front door; not Aleks trying to release himself from within his laptop. Unplugging it, deeming it necessary, however ludicrous, to keep in touch, Pettinger lurched downstairs.

DC Moth.

Immediately, ‘Boss, I –‘ Then Henry read the immensity of emotion in his boss’s willow-green eyes. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Aleks. Aleks is –‘

Henry’s forehead puckered, intermingling doubt and sympathy.  ‘Not ‘Dynasty’, Boss, but almost. The bitch behind Roger Bailiwick is none other than –‘

Pettinger’s anguished groan silenced him. ‘I don’t give a bollocking shit about Bailiwick! Not when my son’s life is in danger!’

Change of focus [233] bruise inquisition souvenir

DC Henry Moth backed off, hands upraised. He’d deal with Bailiwick. In the event of an inquisition, should he fuck up, he’d blame Pettinger. Success, of course, all down to him.

A scramble of noise from his laptop. Pettinger lifted the lid.  Aleks’ face.  Emotion caused temporary near-blindness – an all-too-well-remembered post-concussion souvenir. Was that smile or grimace? Shadows or fresh bruising? It took longer than it ought to translate his son’s emotion-garbled native tongue; he claimed it no intruder but a trusted friend.

‘Let me speak to Valdeta.’

The baby still cried.

And a man’s voice said, very clearly, ‘No’.

Change of focus [234] bundle truth vindaloo

Before Job-learnt self-control snapped in, John Pettinger’s sight flooded with a red mist of virulence sufficient to substitute for vindaloo.

 From his laptop a quartet of voices bundled, momentarily Gregorian, then divided again, enabling him to hear Valdeta’s soothing tones, although whether directed to the now-hiccupping babe, to  Aleks – unlikely, at nine years old to appreciate all nuances of the situation – or this unknown antagonist he could not tell.

The image swooped again and swung, too fast. People too silhouetted, facial expressions too blurred to judge what level the danger, to enable him to grasp the truth of the situation.

aphrodisiac chew gauze

Change of focus [235]

It was Aleks’ laptop that was seized. Turned and tilted so far as to show eyebrows meeting like caterpillars afflicted by an aphrodisiac of overwhelming proportion below a buckled cliff surmounted by thick vegetation.

A voice matured by daily chewing masonry nails addressed Pettinger by his childhood name: ‘Yanno? You don’t know me?’

Through the grubby gauze of memory came an inkling of recollection. Gruff, from tentative relief, ‘Not from grey hair and wrinkles. Tip the screen so I can see your face.’

Aleks’ voice gave further instruction.

And a long-obliterated memory of painful proportion came rushing to the fore.

Change of focus [236] flaccid lullaby sack

‘Bekim?’

He another once-fellow schoolmate who’d preferred low profile, emulating flaccid-brained loon convincingly enough to create uncertainty about his true character. Pettinger still didn’t know.

To a cry of token protest from Aleks, Bekim seized the laptop. Took it across the corridor into another room.

‘Bekim, what’s going on? Why are you here?‘

‘To make sure she doesn’t sing. And I ain’t talking lullabies –‘

‘Valdeta? Who’s she going to – ? What does she –?’ Pettinger gave up, asked the more important question. ‘Aleks? Is he safe?’

Smile indecipherable, ‘He’s yours? Heard you’d had her in the sack – Yeah, probably.‘

contempt shoelace trivial

Change of focus [237]

‘Aleks’ safety only probable? I need more than–‘

‘Shoulda thought of that before leaving him behind–‘ Bekim’s contempt palpable.

‘Bollocking hell – I didn’t leave for some trivial reason–‘

‘You hot-shit polis solving murder, right?’

‘Right–‘

‘You promised Elinka your support–’

Elinka. Widow of his eldest brother. Wed when too young to even manage her own shoelaces. Her son now occupying the Khakbethian throne.

‘Come fetch Aleks. Take Elinka’s daughter for Aleks’ care. Take two sons to learn policing–’

‘Not possible–‘ But Pettinger knew it had to be. ‘Valdeta?’

‘I take care of her.’

 Change of focus [238] huff pulp midnight

Bekim mistook Pettinger’s expression of concentrated calculation. Thought to ease it by addressing him in English.  ‘Don’t be having a huff like schoolboy, Yanno. Pulp of the matter is to keep Aleks safe, da?’

‘Heart,’ growled Pettinger, unable not to correct.

‘Heart is what I give to Valdeta. She to me –‘

Which pushed Aleks further into the cold. Pettinger, overcoming the temptation to slam the laptop shut and make it all go away, recalculated. ‘There’s a flight lands just before midnight –‘

‘I meet it,’ then, implacable, ‘How many tickets to return?’

‘I’ll tell you that when I arrive.’

Change of focus [239] elevate forensic stir

The plane was delayed. The Customs officer’s eyes travelled between face and passport photo with a forensic intensity that suggested he was auditioning for the part.

Bekim in the flesh more intimidating than Pettinger had anticipated. Judging by the elevation of Bekim’s eyebrows Pettinger himself much less so.

In the car he failed to recognise the road he’d taken not that long ago. Fighting sleep, he stirred, ‘Where –?’ he began.

Bekim took his hand from the steering wheel. Reached down into the central pocket. A single-stripe flash as streetlights reflected on steel. A sharp pain to Pettinger’s thigh.

Oblivion.

Change of focus [240] recumbent thumb whelp

Valdeta regarded Yanno Petzincek’s recumbent body. She’d argued the removal of his clothes as effective as shackles but  failed to consider the effect of his nakedness in her bed. ‘You sure you didn’t overdo it?’

Bekim, watching more closely than she knew, noted the resurgence of long-absent desire. ‘Rule of thumb. Four times what I give bitches  before transporting for whelping –‘

‘And they survive?’

‘They give birth to three or four with less fuss than you made for this one.’

Tiredly, twitching the baby away from Bekim’s calloused finger, ‘They’re likely better cared for –‘

‘More valuable, for sure.’

Change of focus [241] bat purge velvet

Aleks, considered to be a noisy, unmissable child, had long ago learnt the value of concealment. Of walking velvet silent and, if caught, of lying without batting an eyelid.

Heavy eyes might give him away: Bekim’s late-night murmurings with men unseen; misheard words – purge or perjury, kill or skill? – taxed sleep, but it was inexperience which slowed his recognition of an extra light in Valdeta’s eyes; two days before he heard his father’s voice in grown-up conversation behind her bedroom door.

Not fully comprehending context, his heart leapt. He paused to add two and two – and failed to answer four.

Change of focus [242] divorce mongrel Victoria

Having never met his biological father until he was nine, Aleks assumed himself to be mongrel. Discovering John Pettinger had been born Yanno Petzincek had been a moment of joy, instantly divorcing him from the terrors of his arrival in England – confusing Victoria coach station with  Underground line; concern that King’s Cross was but a joke.

That Yanno loved him in return he did not doubt. He understood Yanno was a busy man. Just wished he would see Aleks could look after himself; needed nothing more than a home.

But that was before he saw Yanno beneath his mother.

Crying,

Change of focus [243] hare premonition whist

Tear-stained himself, from shock, Aleks accused, ‘Crying’s for babies –‘

Yanno hugged him. ‘Whist, lad! Grown-ups cry. From relief. And gratitude –‘

‘What were you grateful for?’

‘Being alive.  But for your mother’s premonition I’d’ve been –

 ‘No, Yanno –‘ Valdeta’s harebell eyes gave warning.

Mildly, over Aleks’ head, ‘No? If he wasn’t too young to  discover Bekim’s perfidy, he’s old enough to know how close to death we came.’

‘So he’ll be all the more eager to leave –‘

‘As you should be! Why won’t you?’

‘Because you‘ve not said you want me for your wife!’

Ah.

No. He hadn’t.

Change of focus [244] cover olive pugnacious

It could be said John Pettinger’s features tended to pugnacious. True, the olive green of his eyes suggested battledress but at heart he was a good man, his outer shell necessarily honed by his profession.

He’d met Valdeta at a time of convalescence; celebrating the return of a once-doubtful future.  Hearing of her forthcoming, to-be forced marriage he’d mis-read stoic acceptance as brave cover-up, offered sympathy and ultimately taken – and given – more than he intended. Not unhappily.

Separation hot-housed memories; they’d bloomed more vivid, honey-sweet. This decade older, well-used woman (self-admitted murderess!) was far from his idea of ideal wife

Change of focus [245] acute drench hymn

Until Aleks arrived in his life ­– a green- eyed, grubby, brave hobgoblin – John Pettinger had never known the acute agony and all-encompassing ecstasy of fatherhood. Having experienced he could not subsequently relinquish. Could it be that, never having sung a hymn to marriage,  wedding Valdeta might be similarly fulfilling?

The agony now was Aleks’ eye-screwed, optimism, as he  attempted to decipher his future from the hesitant semi-sentences, the double-edged lies and sliding-eye avoidances taking place above his head. A single word, a sincere “Yes” would drench his face with delight but Pettinger, gut instinct shrieking, could deliver only dismay. 

Change of focus [246] favour, Monday, sceptic

The tightening of her lips, the single nod of resignation was no more than he deserved. Valdeta’s scepticism was that of most Khakbethian females.  Pettinger looked in vain for a hint of relief. It took Aleks a moment longer to understand the answer was not in his favour; forewarned by the tone of their discussion he displayed a silent resignation beyond his years.

‘Marriage, no. Not immediately, but a home, shelter, for you, your daughter and Aleks most willingly –‘ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s Friday. I’ve to be back by Monday. Can you be ready to fly tomorrow?’

‘No.’

Change of focus [247] earring, park, spearmint

Valdeta’s answer was ‘No’.

Pettinger, spending Saturday with Aleks, refrained from making promises he could not keep. Landed in Geordie sunshine on Sunday, Ben Brickwood wafting a spearmint welcome as he led the way to the illegally-parked pool car.

‘What’s the panic?’

‘Drugs. New challenger.’

‘Who?’

‘New lad, barely started shaving to look at him. Pretty boy, long hair and an earring –‘

‘Name?’

‘Calls himself Morgan –‘

‘Captain or le Fay?’

‘Neither. Some sort of ... Frankenstein, robot sort of thing. Character from a film according to Moth –‘

‘So?’

‘Word is, they’ve ganged up to get him .’

Change of focus [248] cower feature maggot

Pettinger’s face expressed exhausted incomprehension. ‘So, this dealer – a robot you say?’

Brickwood brought up the details on his phone. ‘Not the dealer Morgan; the film called Morgan. Bioengineered prodigy.’

Pettinger peered, ‘Seen her, freezing on a North Sea ferry!‘

‘She features quite a bit –‘

‘But this Morgan’s threatened by?’

‘Jason Agnew’s lot and the Mayhews –‘

‘Bollocking hell, don’t tell me Maggoty Mayhew’s still alive?’

‘Aye, and her boys still cower at a glance from her, for all they’re twice her size.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘He’s taken over the school run. Selling to the yummy mummies.’

Change of focus [249]

Pettinger grimaced at the travesty of hardship as perceived by Yummy Mummies, comparing it to Valdeta’s life. Their plundering of bottomless purses so as to ensure lasting longer than some trendy theatre production. Goals of tiny waists (as opposed to survival!); days of gym and bitching, impossible without chemical help.

DS Brickwood continued. ‘This Morgan’s ex-Public school. Posh accent, smarmy charm.’

Pettinger’s many years’ experience knew how it would progress. ‘Sex and blackmail. Porn and kiddies pimped.’

‘Worse still, he’s giving Jason and Ma Mayhew’s lot some new ideas -’

‘No good news?’

Unreadable glance. ‘His father’s something in the Government.’

Change of focus [250] barge, elegant wing

DI Pettinger groaned. ‘Bleeding heart Leftie I suppose –’

‘Popular enough to create a stink , but –‘

‘Stink or not, Morgan needs to be stopped. Else it’ll end in a bloodbath. Question is, do we deal with it or leave it to Jason and the Mayhews?’

DS Brickwood grinned. ‘Collaboration ending in fairy-tale truce? It’s an elegant solution, Boss, but unlikely as pigs sprouting wings. Another possibility is co-opting Morgan senior’s help.’ Ignoring Pettinger‘s snorted disbelief, he continued. ‘He’s from a family of bargees, used to rubbing up against the realities of Life. And is waiting to be interviewed.

Change of focus [251] entrails kiss perfect

Bargee to MP was quite a leap. But accounted for Morgan senior’s physique: short-legged, barrel-chested and biceps about to burst his jacket.

Glumly apologetic, ‘I blame his mother. Always said her mother must’ve done like Macwhatsit’s  witches and hatched her in a pot –‘

‘Macbeth’

‘That’s the one. Double-bubbled entrails and one-eyed bats. ‘Course, she right put a spell on me. Behaved like a perfect lady ‘til she got a ring on her finger. Getting pregnant was the kiss of death for us.’

Pettinger stirred, ‘And Morgan?’

‘Spoiled rotten. Why not leave him to the mercy of the local gangs?’

Change of focus [252] 
Long-inured to the bland, media-brushed projection of governmental politicians and their perpetual Julian optimism DI John Pettinger equally knew that had Morgan Senior’s lack of education been anything other than pretence the Honourable Lois wouldn’t for one moment have been tempted to marry him. Had to assume her desire for a genuine bit of rough chimed with his for – for what? Money? Prestige? Whichever, she – too old for a Yummy Mummy – was unlikely to permit her only son being thrown to the likes of Agnew and the Mayhews.
‘No can do, Sir. He’ll come before the magistrates in the morning.’

Change of focus [253]

'They’ll allow him bail –‘ The unambiguous certainty of a politician.
Pettinger hesitated. ‘Depends on the magistrate –‘
Morgan groaned. ‘Of course. If it’s ex-headmaster Mitchell he’ll want to make a like father, like son point. Christ knows, he caned me often enough –‘
‘And the honourable Miss Blackwood-Tompkinson will resent your wife’s wealth –‘
‘So we’re fucked, either way?’
‘Depends which of you appears in support. Send your wife in if it’s Mitchell –‘
‘And my job, if it’s Barbara, is to suggest advantages will accrue if she grants it!’
‘You know her?’
‘One solitary, but memorable occasion, aye.’

Change of focus [254]

DI John Pettinger’s several occasions with Barbara Blackwood-Tompkinson were such he preferred to keep them secret; boasting or abnegation of the winter months they’d spent cuddling under blankets, Bruichladdich and Bunnahabhain in stalls either side (all that stable’s horses named for Islay whiskies) would be a gross betrayal.

Burying the memories, ‘Bollocking Christ, man, it’s your son’s behaviour that’s the problem, not who’s likeliest to let him go!’
Something hot and violent – lava from the core of Cotopaxi – flashed so fast through Morgan’s eyes that Pettinger thought he’d dreamt it. Until, ‘Of course, but I prefer to administer justice myself,’

Change of focus [255]

Gavin Morgan MP not a Guardian reader then (unless his implication of violent retribution was a bluff). Pettinger doubted it: unlike most politicians his tolerances (and lack of) were well-documented; he not one to straddle too many hand-wringing Leftie beliefs.
So how to account for his son’s drug-dealing?
Delicately, the DI enquired, ‘Mrs Morgan? Olivia? –‘
‘Olive. Black-hearted as, and morals as slippery as –‘ He caught Pettinger’s eye. ‘Yeah.’
‘Yes?’
A sigh. ‘Yes, she’ll have been turning a blind eye. And I should’ve been around more –’
Impatiently. ‘Familiar story. Which would only be made worse by allowing bail.’

Change of focus [256]

Bail was allowed.
Thanks to Olive Morgan’s cleavage, permitting hope to spring in ex-headmaster Mitchell’s eternally pigeoned-chest, the boy-band-faced Morgan was released into the fractious bosom of his family.
His father lashed him verbally, clenched fists preventing him delivering the more effective punishment.
His mother raised (again) his allowance, so he wouldn’t need to deal, not understanding it propelled by defiance of his father.
One of Jason Agnew’s minions stopped him on his way from school. Too inexperienced to know enough was enough the damage inflicted was petechiae-mapped.
Concealed from his mother beneath a tactful sheet and eyelids closed forever 

Change of focus [257]

Two days after his son’s funeral Tolly Morgan called on DI Pettinger. John studied him: a man who’d revelled in control suddenly become vulnerable. Physically unchanged but internally shrunk.
‘I’ve a proposition to put to you.’
‘Let’s go somewhere less official.’
Pints of Adnam’s finest before them, Morgan said, ‘Society is rotten, wicked to the core. Something must be done.’
Pettinger inwardly sighed. ‘We’re doing –‘
An impatient gesture. ‘I’ve received scores of emails on the theme of “hanging’s too good”. What I want is to find a way to stop it happening before it starts.’
Glumly, ‘You’re talking castration?’

Change of focus [258]

‘I’m talking education!’ Tolly Morgan was fierce.
Accepting he’d been inappropriately flippant Pettinger apologised with an upwards gesture of his pint. ‘Explain.’ Added, in acknowledgement of the man’s still red-eyed grief (and his guilty conscience) ‘Please.’
Tolly Morgan explained.
John Pettinger thought it ... ambitious. Wanted to say something about sow’s ears and silk purses. Remembered Valdeta’s delight at the pashmina he’d bought her – ‘Cashmere’s made from baby goat hair!’ – and the speed with which she jettisoned an acrylic scarf.
Remembered Aleks.
Tentative, ‘Educate Jason Agnew?’
‘Those in his orbit. His recruits. Would-be acolytes.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Change of focus [259]

While John Pettinger no longer considered the practice of partial strangulation, followed by evisceration, to be an appropriate form of punishment (although no doubt a vivid deterrent) he was even more ambivalent about ‘education’. At least of the timid, softly-softly approach of would-be do-gooders whose devotion to promoting the after-life fell short when it came to queue-jumping , however forcefully applied.
Yet the middle ground –
Inwardly, he groaned, imagining the necessary vastness of a spreadsheet which tabulated grades of wickedness of crimes.
Across the table Tolly Morgan read his face as clearly as if he had spoken. ‘Not like that.’

Change of focus [260] 

Recognising that his flicker of cynical disbelief concerning the re-education of those genetically disposed to crime had been noted by Tolly Morgan, and anyway having more than enough in the way  of other crimes to investigate, John Pettinger handed the man and his well-meaning scheme to DC Henry Moth. Two years in the job had not yet ironed out dimples worthy of  a cherub’s bum in Moth’s smile, and he would at least listen carefully and be more than tactful in pointing out potential shortcomings.

Moth was already buzzing with ides: ‘Morgan’s ex-bargee, yeah? Plenty of education on the canals!’

Change of focus [261] conform, lichen, stamp

In his early twenties John Pettinger had so well conformed to the Force’s idea of the perfect policeman that his image was used on a commemorative stamp which, much enlarged, doubled as recruitment poster. He was paired with a new female recruit so young he swore he could still see the sucking blister on her upper lip.

What was apparent on the poster was their physical similarity. Most notably their lichen-green eyes, but shape of nose and a hard-to-quantify expression of determination strongly suggested blood relationship.

Each refused to delve deeper.

Ever since Pettinger wondered if she knew the truth

Change of focus [262] pride quirk wedge

‘Not optional, John, an order.’

Bollocking shit.  Another PR event, statistics hung like bunting (and as tatty round the edges as the pride he was supposed to be spouting about in some after-dinner speech.)  Waste of a weekend.

But not.

She was there.

The girl – woman now – from all those years ago. That poster. She recognised him as quickly as he did her. And, Christ, hadn’t she grown up! And shed her disinclination to get to know him better. First time, courtesy of a wedged-shut cloakroom door. Second because thanks to a quirk of allocation, in the room adjoining his.

Change of focus [263] gutter rime, thrift

Like didn’t always attract. He’d just as often bedded women whose temperament was widely at odds with his, whose differences rendered him spendthrift with self-preservation. There’d been those he’d willingly allowed to drag him to gutters of depravity; others whose clean sweet innocence he’d treated as challenge and, without losing humanity had helped them muddy theirs, not necessarily earning their gratitude.

But he’d never – he was certain – delivered anything close to that rime of freeze-spiked terror which he felt enclose his brain and his balls when, on waking beside her this morning, she smiled and whispered, ‘Good morning, brother John.’

Change of focus [264] clot feather third

Despite that first reaction – shock and unnecessary at that, since her green eyes were so familiar – this third instance of incest didn’t faze John as much as it would most. At this precise moment he was more pained by the sharp spine protruding from his pillow.

Ignoring her stare – avidity clotted like double cream – he wriggled, extricated the offending feather then said ‘When, and where, were you born?’

‘Italy. I’m thirty-one.’

‘Your father?’

‘Petzincek.’

Same as his birthname. Dismissive, ‘There were several brothers, cousins. My father was dead by 1980 –’

She sat up on one elbow. ‘And his father?’

Change of focus [265] hiatus scrub twin

‘My father’s father?’ Disbelief and a dawning fear she might not be joking, John Pettinger found himself possessed of a rare aversion to hearing truths whose contents could never thereafter be scrubbed from his mind.

He’d never known his father’s father. A not-uncommon hiatus in Petzincek family relations created an estrangement which began before he was born; a situation similarly twinned (albeit for fewer years) to his own relationship with Aleks, a son unmet until he was eight years old.

But if true, this green-eyed woman was his aunt. Was that better or worse than Gunita, his bedded-since–teens step-sister?

Change of focus [266] collapse sauce tumbrel

With a peal of laughter cruel as a sauce concocted from the sap of bitter aloes she collapsed back onto the pillows. ‘Oh John, if you could see your face! Is incest, in your world, so frowned upon you fear being carted naked to your death?’

Recognising a shallowness of character not apparent in the dark, John Pettinger’s smile combined pity with a sour amusement.

‘You see me being tipped from a tumbrel? Is that it? Rest assured I’ve sinned enough in that direction not to fear.

‘But have your sins been filmed before? Streamed live to your superiors?’

‘...Possibly.’

Change of focus [267] ladder ripe venture

DI John Pettinger projected nonchalance while regretting – for her sake as well as his – DCI Vanessa Quintain’s absence (a one-rung ladder to retirement). Rather than condemnation, her ripe appreciation would’ve seen him promoted in exchange for a film of his sexual sins, should such exist.

Addressing the green-eyed traitor in whose bed he lay, ‘You’re claiming my father’s father fathered you?’

‘According to my birth certificate –‘

‘I’d venture to suggest that information is erroneous. What’ was his name?’

‘Teodor’

A bark of bitter laughter. ‘That a name of my youngest brother; used for convenience. Well known to be impotent.’

Change of focus [268] bedlam proxy taunt

Returned to his room, her self-protecting taunts fast-fading John Pettinger showered, dressed, breakfasted before returning to the conference hall to endure a morning’s presentations. Thereafter he escaped, without enduring sight nor sound of her.

Three hours peaceful drive, mobile off, ears refreshed and better satisfied by Vivaldi, he returned to the station whereupon he was manhandled into an interview room. Objecting brought further bodies. Bedlam ensued. A cell. Before they shut the door, Ben Brickwood explained. ‘Found dead in her bed. You known to’ve been there, she known to merit –’

Pettinger grunted. ‘If it’s murder it was by proxy.’

Change of focus [269] caustic erase scroll

Adding water to caustic soda produces heat.

No water in this dingy, breeze-block room beyond that in glasses set on a table surface-scarred by a decade or more of scratches and graffiti, only partly erased by the application of industrial-quality paint.

And Pettinger’s boss’s caustic scouring of Pettinger’s moral probity caused heat enough. Just as well it was sex he’d heard about, not incest.

Nevertheless, John Pettinger could not help but mourn, mind scrolling back to that first coming together; her green eyes matching his in ecstasy, despite cistern constriction and urine-streaked floor.

And also she’d been family: his aunt.

Change of focus [270] brazen relish tithe

Eyes attempting to deny hypocrisy – time was, DI John Pettinger well knew, before he rose a couple of ranks, his boss and he had relished more than one night of drunken debauchery –  ‘You’ve decided to brazen it out? No defence?’

‘No defence needed. When I left her she was alive. And bitching.’

‘So you found a way to stop her?’

‘I left.’

‘Have to hope evidence proves you right. Your relationship with SOCO good? Paid your dues?’

‘Dues?’

‘To remove anything incriminating.’

‘Unnecessary. I pay no  tithes to anyone –‘

‘Then we have to hope those that do are behindhand.’

Change of focus [271]  fuse migrate song

Third interview of the day. Following four hours heading south to Hertfordshire where the murder had taken place.

They had put him in their crappiest cell, where the badly-fused fluorescent light constantly flickered in synch with the sort of song you’d expect a chain-saw gang to sing while bringing down trees. Where larger-than-usual ants mass migrated across the floor, negotiating around insufficiently-scrubbed stains of pale yellow vomit and the piss leaking from the base of the steel toilet (one that gave the lie to ‘stainless) and headed, as he could not, under the door.

Flap lifted. ‘On your feet, Pettinger.’

Change of focus [272] affair orifice pedestal

‘One night of sex hardly constitutes an affair –‘

‘Nevertheless, highly unprofessional of you, DI Pettinger, at a conference of this calibre. No doubt forensics will confirm –‘

‘Of course it will! DNA, fingerprints, in several orifices. Hers on mine. I’ve admitted that. And no evidence of coercion –‘

‘Bruising –‘

‘Aye, and I’ve scratches down my back! Since when was sex a crime? What’s more urgent is you find her killer instead of wallowing in bollocking hypocrisy. How did she die? When, precisely?’

‘– Between nine and midday –‘

‘I was stood behind a pedestal by then. On CCTV.’

Change of focus [273] obdurate pound waffle

In the face of both Pettinger’s obduracy in reiterating his alibi and the absence of evidence he was released and driven north. Briefly visiting his office to apprise his team, DS Ben Brickwood, eyeing unshaven face and waffle-textured clothes, sniffed ostentatiously, ‘Christ, you stink!’

Pettinger grunted. ‘Memo to self, next dinner suit I buy will be from Poundland. Especially if I’m heading for a police do –‘

‘If you’re going to bin that, don’t bother going home: news of a body in a slurry pit’s just coming in.’

‘Slurry pit? Where?’

Unavoidable grin: ‘Just down the road from your house.’

Change of focus [274] commission  pelvis  yesterday

It was his local Indian but they’d commissioned a makeover because the the rich chilli-red of the wall had become a muddy yellowy-green, only a shade or two lighter than the contents of bowl now before him. Dubiously – it didn’t look that appetising – John Pettinger dipped in his spoon. What he’d taken for rice better resembled miniature finger bones. He tipped it back, stirred and brought up another. Finger bones  had become skulls – and that was – bollocking Nora! – was a pale, tiny pelvis.

Then he woke. It had been a dream. A nightmare emanating from the skeleton body in yesterday’s slurry.

Change of focus [275] fledgling prick transfer

Showering, breakfasting on toast and grapefruit, John Pettinger felt clean enough for his Sunday Skype with Aleks.

As ever, in the background, Valdeta’s baby, fledgling-mouthing at her mother’s breast. (Valdeta deliberately distracting, transferring her from left to right, allowing a teasing  glimpse.)

As ever, Aleks reiterating his plea that he be allowed to come to England; a pricking of his conscience Pettinger bore resignedly, despite the pain.

He’d not known of Aleks’ existence for the first nine years of his son’s life; promises to make up it had been fractured time and again.

‘Sorry Aleks –‘

A sigh. ‘Another murder?’

Change of focus [276] grunt jettison Saturn

The contented, milk-sated grunts of Valdeta’s daughter contrasted with her mother’s  accusation-flared stare. Aleks’ expression was one of stoic acceptance. 

Of the two, Pettinger, head encircled with more rings of guilt than Saturn, found the latter hardest to bear; Aleks’ expectation that nothing in his life would ever come good near broke his heart.

He’d spent hours trying to find a way to bring stability to his son’s life, but was certain asking him to leave his mother – however chancy her life – was a poorer option than him jettisoning his current job or, God forbid, finding some sort of wife.

Change of focus [277] destination plug surreptitious

On arrival at his destination – Easingwold farm – DI John Pettinger found the CSM smoking and frustrated. ‘Slurry tank not pit.’ A final drag on his cigarette, surreptitious glance before he dropped the butt, squashed it into the mud with a rubber-booted toe.

‘So?’

‘Should’ve made things easier. Drain the tank, examine and determine cause of death. Hoped you’d ID –‘

‘Why me?’

‘Near-neighbour, yeah? Then  we could hose down prior to extraction. But –’

‘But?’

‘But the flow ceased after ten minutes –‘

‘Because?’

Because drain plug was blocked. By the head of whichever poor sod is stuck in there.’

dog opportunity ridicule

Change of focus [278]

Dog-tired; the  residue of one night’s sex, the next spent in a cell, charged with murder, the hiatus in processing the crime scene gave DI Pettinger opportunity to nip home for a kip.

Sleep took its time: the morning’s Skype-enabled battering of heart and conscience; a new fear that Valdeta’s ridicule – ‘Your English devotion to duty’ – would undermine him in Aleks’ nine-year-old eyes...

Phone-woken: ‘Boss, they’ve got the body out. We’re thinking illegal immigrant –‘

‘On my way.’

He didn’t know her but, hosed down and naked, the tiny tattooed crown on her left buttock told him she was family.

armadillo cheer theft

Change of focus [279]

The nose in the centre of the pathologist’s bluff, be-whiskered and weather-beaten face approached closely to the still faintly slurry-stained buttock of the dead girl. Fingers that performed a theft of dignity of every body which lay before him probed and stretched the skin. Eyes squinted at the blue and fuzzy-edged tattoo.

‘Crown you reckon, John? Ask me, I’d say armadillo –‘

‘Take my word, Simeon, it’s a crown. I’ve a far better quality one in the exact same place –‘

Upward glance. ‘You gonna tell me?’

‘Buy me a pint?’

Ten minutes to the nearest pub, then, anticipatory, ‘Cheers.’

celery, local syringe

Change of focus [280]

John Pettinger’s local (only visited when off duty) was quiet apart from thirsty allotment-holders attempting to convince lycra-clad cyclists of the aphrodisiac effect of celery: ‘Counters the effects of pressure on your testicles.’

John had barely begun explaining his Petzincek ancestry to the pathologist –‘From Khakbethia – you’ll not have heard of it –tattoos a family tradition –‘ when one mud-fingered man came over and muttered, ‘Heard you’d a body up at Easingwold Farm, John –‘

‘Heard wrong –‘

‘Not?’

‘Not. Drugs squad. Nowt but a load of syringes –‘

To Simeon, when the man was out of earshot, ‘Bloody journalist.’

orphan record tongue

Change of focus [281]

‘So, John, this young lady – age around thirty,  under-nourished and five months pregnant – isn’t known to you?’

Regarding the crudely re-stitched body on the slab, uncomfortable at making the acquaintance of a hitherto unknown relative from inside out – Pettinger passed his tongue around his lips. ‘I’ll ask someone there to check the records –‘

Simeon had been fascinated  by the brutally-orphaned, once-was Yanno Petzincek’s family history. ‘She will have been born there? The tattoo genuine?’ 

A sigh. John knew what the pathologist was angling for. ‘Compare it.’

Then he unbuckled, unzipped and dropped his trousers, growling, ‘Look but don’t touch.’

agony furnish thesaurus

Change of focus [282]

The brief baring of his buttocks gave Pettinger a moment of superiority rarely experienced in the starkly-furnished kingdom of a pathologist who delighted in bamboozling him with words from some medical thesaurus.

Returning to the reason for his being there, he asked Simeon, ‘Did she drown, or –?’

‘Strangled. No slurry in her lungs –‘

Which felt a mercy; the thought of tasting, consciously swallowing, an agony beyond comprehension.

‘Nothing from fingerprints?’

‘Not on record.’

‘DNA?’

‘Next week.’ A quirked eyebrow. ‘Two samples. From her, and from the foetus –‘

‘Which might indicate its father –‘

‘And possibly her killer.’

Change of focus [283] divide model speak

The following week Pettinger divided his attention between gathering evidence about the slurry pit body and preparing his defence against a charge of murder.

Tattoos identified both dead women as being Petzinceks; a family whose inbreeding coefficient of  ~32% implied a modelling on Greek mythology. Pettinger had been unfazed to discover he’d bedded an alleged aunt but suspected the prosecution would speaking  of it with jury-influencing muted horror, which would rebound all the harder on himself. 

None of which aided identification of the unknown pregnant lass. Next step was to publish a photograph in the hope that someone recognised her.

Change of focus [284] egregious saliva tail

‘A public appeal needs careful wording –‘ DI John Pettinger, pinning up post-mortem photographs, found it impossible not to lecture his baby-faced junior officer despite knowing DC Henry Moth would be way ahead.

‘Aye, select the egregious details ­–’

 ‘But not so carefully no-one phones –‘

‘’Naked’, ‘tattooed’ and ‘pregnant’ ought to do it. Bring the perverts salivating –‘

‘No use if they didn’t do it, lad.’

‘Nor if they can’t read ...’ Moth’s voice tailed off, then, with ill-concealed glee, ‘Is that a tattoo? Of ... what is it, a ship?’

Informing Pettinger the pathologist couldn’t keep a secret.

Change of focus [284] excise, tumultuous verify

Three emotive words: naked, tattooed, pregnant brought phone-calls by the hundreds, from cranks and Christians claiming to be keepers of the moral compass.

Inevitably, a press conference.

DI John Pettinger hated them.

Not because of reading the prepared statement. Nor facing the invariably tumultuous baying of assembled newspapermen seeking facts to further verify whichever lurid approach they had decided upon.

None of these.

His dislike was because he could never excise the memory of his first one, during which a woman unknown to him stood up and claimed he was the father of her green-eyed child.

Nor could the press.

Change of focus [285] apparatus deduct jazz

Success from the media appeal.

The photograph occasioned the inevitable ’scrubbed up well’ despite it being impossible for anyone who knew her not to deduce she wasn’t sleeping.

They had a name: Tamara Pretty, both apt and close enough to Petzincek to convince. An address. Several  suggestions of connection with a jazz club known as ‘The Painted Lily’, though whether customer or staff it was not clear.

Her apartment smarter than anticipated, wherein was found apparatus of a sort to suggest Olympic athlete rather than pole dancer.

Behind Pettinger DC Henry Moth, thinking wasted opportunity,  failed to suppress a sigh.

floss history sketch

Change of focus [286]

Tamara Pretty’s knicker drawers evidenced a dual life-style: one the multi-coloured floss of Agent Provocateur, as befit her night-time occupation, the other everyday white cotton M&S. Beneath those, a plastic bag from Khakbethia’s equivalent of Lidl, giving the Yanno Pettinger had once been a twinge of nostalgia.

Short-lived, because within it –

Moth watched him turn the pages. ‘Sketch book?’

‘More than. A visual history. An identity parade of every man who had her. Dating back –‘ Pettinger flipped to the first page, ‘Five years. Five’.

Moth too had done the calculation. ‘She was just fourteen. Her drawing’s improved since then.’

Change of focus [287] augur/auger intrinsic pellet

‘She put names or dates to those sketches, Boss? Could help ID the bastard who killed her –‘

‘No, Henry, but guilt could be assumed inherent in all of them. Enough to being them in Any hint we’ve visual evidence they’d know wouldn’t augur well –‘

‘Auger? I know what I’d do with them bastards in a cell and an auger in my hand! Drill though it and nail it to the wall, After inserting some of them fiery slug pellets –‘

‘If I thought you’d get away with it, I’d help –‘

‘Nah, boss, they’d only be given counselling.’

Change of focus [288] barbaric nuisance smut

‘It’ll  be  a nuisance, but I think a visit to Khakbethia is called for. To identify her.‘

DC Henry Moth’s glance at Pettinger sharper than he’d hoped. ‘What sort of place, Khakbethia?’

‘Country beautiful, people barbaric. Still living in the Dark Ages –‘

Hesitant, ‘And you’ve a son there –‘

‘Aleks. Yes. But, more importantly I know her family –‘

‘Pretty?’

‘Petzincek.’

‘Yours too I heard –‘

Exasperated, ‘If you lot spent less time digging for smutty secrets –‘

‘It’s our job, boss. Is it true you killed your father?’

‘No.’ Pettinger had never been sure Raptor was his father.

execute feckless Venice

Change of focus [289]

Khakbethia via Schipol via Venice, with a transfer time too short to so much as catch the water taxi there and back and view Piazza San Marco might have left Pettinger seething were it not for the anticipation of seeing Aleks’ face that evening.

He’d not needed to exert much effort to convince his DCI that the proper execution of  his ‘no stone unturned’ policy necessitated visiting  Tamara Pretty’s birthplace.

Only on arrival, forcing his way through the usual mass of feckless beggars; failing to immediately note the gripping of his elbow, did he realise how tired he was. 

Change of focus [290] grease tautology yawn

Intending to cover an incipient yawn, Pettinger went to raise his hand. Felt resistance at his elbow. Assumed it accidental and tugged. A voice in his ear persuaded him otherwise. ‘Yanno. This way.’

Filip. His one reliable Khakbethian contact, who’d helped him extricate Aleks – newly-planted with a tracking bug – last time he arrived at this godforsaken airport.

‘Why?’

‘You want to grease the palms of corrupt Khakbethian cab-owners –‘

Pettinger laughed at the tautology. Asked about Filip’s family. Looked out the window.

 ‘Where are you taking me? This not the way to Valdeta’s –‘

‘She’s moved –‘

‘And Aleks?’

‘Also.’

Change of focus [291] cremate monkey suede

Unsure whether caused by suspicion or the cheap suede upholstery of Filip’s car Pettinger felt his skin contract in what he’d long ago learnt heralded danger. But from Filip, who he’d known from first school? The two of them, and Dalmat, three monkeys, though in the end the word used had been shejtan hadn’t it? After Dalmat set light to the teacher’s dog in what he claimed was a ritual cremation.

‘I didn’t know Valdeta had moved –‘

‘Two days ago. Not voluntarily.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Someone burned them out their house.’

‘Bollocking Christ, what the hell for? Who?‘

‘Only one fatality.’

Change of focus [292] exception half  liberate

Pettinger’s half-drawn breath failed to stem panic. He repeated Filip’s ‘One fatality?’ as a Filip’s face liberated him from agony. ‘Who?’

‘More ‘what’ – your son’s dog alerted them to the fire. Whoever set it didn’t appreciate the early warning. Shot it.’

He hadn’t known Aleks had a dog.  ‘Aleks alright?’

‘Brave lad woke Valdeta. Got her and the baby out without harm.’

Valdeta. A holiday liaison, days before she wed another man. Exceptional insofar as she stayed in his mind years longer than most. In her determination to safeguard the Khakbethian inheritance of her children despite near-constant threat of political uprisings.

Change of focus [293] cactus gin percolate

Nothing Khakbethian about Valdeta’s new abode.

Pettinger, surprised, ‘Didn’t know cacti could survive this far north,’ but when the building came into sight, beyond gates and a meandering drive, its gin-palace exterior identified its owner as clear as a neon sign.

Batiste Balincheck. A man whose reputation was pure as driven on the outside but from which, Pettinger suspected, all evidence of inner traits, percolating to visibility, had to be daily scrubbed.

What he did not know with any certainty, was the nature of those hidden aspects. What afforded him sufficient to maintain a desert at such a chilly altitude.

Change of focus [294] fork quagmire unborn

A triple fork in the driveway to Batiste Balincek’s abode.

Laconically, Filip commented, ‘Left goes round the back – stables, etcetera. To the right, what was quagmire is now ornamental lake. Mud dug out and dried provided soil enough to create a desert –‘

‘And he needs a desert?’

‘Filming. Westerns –‘

Pettinger’s laugh, as a ten-year-old memory, hitherto unborn, emerged, was sour. ‘Valdeta always yearned to be a film star. Not that she could ride –‘

‘– And horror movies. She’s effective as undead –’

Pettinger glanced. Filip’s expression far too avid for a friend. ‘And?’

‘A stunning porn star.’

Change of focus [295] allegory trust vulgar

Porn star? The mother of his son?

John Pettinger hardly dare ask. What was to have been a surprise visit to her, to Aleks, had fast become a far nastier one for him!

’What, what sort of porn?’ He trusted Filip would’ve seen it.

‘Oh, nothing  too vulgar – the usual heavy-handed Khakbethian allegorical. Good triumphing over evil. Eventually. Otherwise Batiste wouldn’t be allowed a licence.’

‘And is she ... living  here? With him?’

‘Very likely. Last I heard he was planning some sort of variation of 101 Dalmatians –‘

‘Dalmatians ?‘

‘But using Khakbethian virgins instead’.

‘Valdeta’s far from virgin!’

Change of focus [296] cast racecourse wraith

The central driveway to the house was edged with low white railings, reminiscent of a racecourse. With an immediacy that suggested it was them that triggered it, the smooth green of the adjoining lawns sprouted water.

‘Underground sprinklers,’ then Filip’s pedantic explanation negated when sunlight turned the spiralling water into a cast of rainbow-decorated wraith-like dervishes.

Pettinger’s admiration was short-lived, his impatience to find his son; assure himself all was well, overwhelming appreciation of merely decorative.

Double doors swung open revealing a purple-cloaked emulation of Henry VIII. 

Batiste Balincek.

And, wriggling through the gap twixt legs and door jamb, Aleks.

buckle diagnose parish

Change of focus [297]

Car not yet stationary, Pettinger unclipped the seatbelt buckle, simultaneously depressed the handle of the passenger door –

A multi-click of central locking.

Filip, urgent, ‘Wait! Yanno, are you absolutely sure that’s Aleks?’

A double check, ‘Who else would it be?’

‘Bait.’

‘What the bollocking chuff for?’

Pettinger reach for the release.

Filip’s fingers likewise for his biceps, gripping hard. ‘Yanno, wait! There’s likely danger –’

Yanno tugged. ‘I’m not some feeble parish failure, let me go!’

‘Even the feeble-minded would diagnose  Batiste Balincek as a rampant megalomaniac. It’s power play. And that isn’t Aleks, I promise you!’

‘Let me go!’

deliver guardian knob

Change of focus [298]

Yanno Petzincek, desperate to reach his son, to reassure himself all was well, failed to appreciate Filip’s guardian instincts and tugged at the release-knob so as to effect escape. Stumbling in his haste, he failed also to note the boy beside the royally-attired Batiste Balincek had come forward.

Had straightened up. Was at least six inches taller than Aleks (despite the possibility he had grown), was darker-haired and had eyes not the gooseberry-green of Yanno’s but brown.

Had an expression not of delighted welcome but one which confirmed what he intended to deliver from the gun held in his hand.

brim cloister valid

Change of focus [299]

‘He’s just a kid!’

‘Yanno. He’s got a gun.’

‘Yeah, but –‘

‘He’s got a gun.  It might just fire flowers; he might be innocent as a monk, but if Aleks is somewhere beyond that door you’d be no use to him dead –‘

‘Valid point. You say stables round the back?’

‘And a sort of cloistered area. Fountain – one film Balincek  filled it brimful with blood, naked girl emerges dripping. With a goat –‘

‘But presumably an entrance?’

‘Yeah –‘

‘Then put your bollocking foot down, Filip and drive!’

‘Not yet. Look up, Yanno. Aleks is on the roof.’

Change of focus [300] deadlock intercept maiden

Once again, Filip deadlocked the car doors, intercepting Yanno’s determination to unite himself with Aleks, regardless of the consequences.

Disgusted as a maiden regarding her first prick, ‘Christ Yanno, you used to have some common sense, what the hell happened?’

‘I used not to have a son–‘

‘So giving him a grandstand view of your death will teach him a lesson in mortality, eh? If he had the wit to get up there, he’s not lacking sense. Unless he jumps –‘

Yanno twitched, impotently, reached again for the door-handle.

‘– Joking, man. Don’t keep looking – he’s got a plan.’

l

Change of focus [301] border malevolent zea

Did a profession sworn to zealously deal with miscreants out-weigh Aleks’ nine years lived on the borders of lawlessness and treachery? Would inside information better ensure the success of his escape from the malevolence of Balincek? Had Aleks – plainly the son of his father! – also taken into account the need to release Valdeta? Valdeta’s baby?

On balance John Pettinger decided, uncomfortable though it was, he’d best wait. Best watch the purple-girthed Balincek and the boy with the gun without inciting their immediate wrath.

Without drawing attention to the boy on the roof.

Until, beside him Filip breathed, ‘Here they come.’

Change of focus [302] cauterise miracle Tosca

Batiste Balincek’s approach was stately, eyes cold enough to cauterise all thought of appeasement. Putting Pettinger in mind of a tyrannical, lust-driven Scarpia; the thought of Valdeta as his Tosca unbearable. Behind him, the unwisely-empowered boy impersonating Aleks – the word ‘catamite’ came  unexpectedly to Pettinger’s mind – waved the gun around in a manner suggesting only a miracle would prevent him killing.

Even so, Pettinger opened the car door. This time Filip did not halt him. He got out. Straightened up. Said, in the language of his birth, ‘I am Yanno Petzincek.’

Batiste Balincek looked him up and down. ‘You are?’

Change of focus [303] queer north rowan

Despite Balincek’s haughty attempt to intimidate, Yanno discerned uncertainty beneath their north-cold greyness. But, from the way his eyes flicked east and west, not entirely from himself.

He risked a lie. ‘You have my wife –‘

‘Queer she never said so –‘

‘Mother of my son.’

Balincek seemed as fearful as he about the gun-toting youth, shoulders twitching as if from a plague of ants. Nervousness explained when he snapped, ‘Rowena, remember that gun’s loaded! To Yanno, pride curiously marbled with apology, ‘My daughter –‘

The gun swung round, was pointed at the father. ‘It’s Rowan!’ snapped the androgynous teen,

Change of focus [304] bristle eligible seethe

Pettinger took the opportunity to observe the dynamics between Balincek and his hormone-seething son. The smattering of soft bristles on the youth’s top lip, long enough to suggest careful nurturing, but not yet eligible for shaving, put him no more than five years older than Aleks.

Aleks, currently somewhere on the roof with God only knew what sort of plan in mind. He’d acted fast. Had no way of knowing his father was on the way. Could it be Valdeta was already under threat; Rowan and his father merely seeking to delay?

No, Pettinger was sure Aleks’ instincts were sound.

  

Change of focus [305] extraneous indelible wean

Filip sidled up beside Pettinger . Murmured, amused, ‘Don’t be deceived by the whiskers, they’re implanted. Will soon become extraneous, because, while rumour has it Rowena had balls before she was weaned, current hormonal fluctuations are due to having met a young Lothario intent on making an indelible mark upon her heart.’

‘Doesn’t mean she’ll control herself with that gun –‘

‘Exactly. Balincek fears what she might do more than he does you. Flatter her, he’ll let you have your way.’

‘Release Aleks?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Valdeta?’

‘If she wants to be released. Not impossible she’d prefer to stay with him.’

‘Bollocks.’

Change of focus [306] contagion graft mercy

Thereafter things happened fast.

Rowena assumed  ‘Bollocks’ referred to her. She swung the gun around; simultaneously pressed the trigger.

By a mercy, for which he felt he’d be offering daily prayers for decades, the bullet missed Pettinger and buried itself in a cactus, showering unwisely-grafted flowers.

Filip disarmed Rowena. Thrust her towards her father who reared back like she was plague-contagious. 

She made to run. Pettinger, eschewing Filip’s ‘flatter her’ advice, grabbed her.

From the house door, a pale-faced boy erupted, shouting, fast as a second bullet. Having only heard the shot, he’d yet to learn his father had survived.

Change of focus [307] pile, solstice, vicarious

Whatever Rowena Balincek wanted to believe, she was no boy.  Pettinger, grabbing and enfolding her, was taken unawares by an entirely unanticipated reaction. He was still deconstructing this when another body – smaller, bonier and, for an instant, shockingly unwelcome, piled into them, grasping each of them with equal affection.

‘Papa! I thought you were shot! Did you see me on the roof?’

Unable to move, ‘I did! What were you –?’

‘Hiding! From Rowena! We’re same birthdays; she’s my solstice sister –‘

Pettinger relinquished the girl. Turned and hugged Aleks, trusting his son wouldn’t perceive his fervour as somewhat vicarious.

Change of focus [308]  hedonist saturate wishbone

And how now to view a girl who’d aimed to kill him? Whose son claimed her as sister  and whose body had set his blood in a direction more potentially hedonistic than were it saturating his shirt.

Filip, who’d missed nothing, who had claimed Balincek would look kindly on the man who taught his daughter to accept her femininity, now sniggered.

‘Bit tricky, isn’t it? Having to choose between the well-worn charms of Valdeta  and those yet-to-be-discovered of Rowena.  Would a wishbone help you choose?’

‘Why? D’you want one of them yourself?’

‘I’m married, Yanno. Happily. The choice is yours!’

Change of focus [309] appendix barrage cure

Filip suggested he had a choice.

Really?

Valdeta, mother of his son, who was in the habit of treating him as something of an appendix to her life; one who occasionally arrived, inflamed with desire at least as much for his son as for her, given who she’d been with in the intervening years. His absence a variable, untrustworthy cure since the solution – to have Aleks permanently in his life – an impossibility; the demands of his job an insurmountable barrage.

And how – even should he seriously wish it – could he think of bedding the girl Aleks considered his sister?

Seriously?

Change of focus [310] mariner poem rut

Filip, glance at Yanno askance as a mariner seeking the where of a wind, gripped Aleks’ shoulders, teasing. ‘Rowena’s solstice sister? I bet she’s looking for a bigger mister –‘

‘That’s a poem, uncle Filip!’

Aleks the only one charmed.

Batiste Balincek’s expression was akin to that of  Othello; not quite asking who’d been rutting his Desdemona, but looking as if he’d thought it. Not that John Pettinger had got that far ... not in his head ...

Rowena, allegedly with thoughts of some younger swain in her head, looked merely bemused. Not even bothering to consider Pettinger a threat.

Change of focus [311] ankle fuliginous worry

Batiste Balincek, the differently-nuanced roles he was required to play – father to the adolescent Rowena, friend to Alex, acquaintance of the influential Filip and possibly genial host (or maybe evictor of) this Yanno Petzincek – snapping at his ankles like a sharp-toothed greyhound, indicated they take the path to the rear. They passed a rain-soaked barbeque, its tray a black fuliginous sea islanded with fat-circles; an un-emptied bin oozing meat-shrived bones.

Pettinger, senses worrying as ever, was aware of being watched. Not just the eyes of carrion crows but less malevolently. Or – identifying – maybe more: Valdeta, gowned in marching purple. Angry.

Change of focus [312] brittle orphan sculpture

‘Mama!’

Aleks – at nine already a diplomat – ran to hug his mother, instantly melting her brittleness, Over his head she regarded Batiste Balincek and Pettinger with equal disdain – a classicist come face to face with an Anthony Caro sculpture.

‘Yanno?’

‘I’m in Khakbethia to investigate a murder.‘

‘Who?’

‘A Tamara Petzincek, Called herself Pretty in the UK.’

‘Another migrant? War orphan?’

‘Victim, certainly. Prostituted from the age of fourteen.’

Pettinger fell silent. He’d copies of the sketches the girl had done, identifying her assailants, in his bag. Had diverted here on hearing of Valdeta’s being burnt out of her home.

Change of focus [313] flex peter ravage

The glare of the setting sun revealed the ravages that time and the ever-flexing tightrope of living as she did brought to Valdeta’s face. Pettinger, attempting a reassuring smile, realised he’d never seen  her out of doors, since their summer loving. Realised also that Filip escaped the ire addressed to himself and Balincek, as had Aleks and Rowena, now chasing each other  across the lawn.

But Balincek – the expansiveness of his mine-host beam now narrowed to laser,  features twitching like a peterman listening for door-release – had phone to ear, muttering a warning.

Once again Pettinger felt the whiff of danger.

  

[Change of focus 314] caramel Degas seize

Stepping close to Valdeta, Pettinger, urgently, in Khakbethian, ‘Tell me, is this where you want to be?’
Loudly, and in English, ‘Bathroom Yanno? I’ll show you.’

The room a sickly confection of caramel and chocolate, wallpapered with a should-be-banned cultural appropriation of ever-repeating squatting Degas women.
There she seized a cotton towel, began concertina-folding it between nervous fingers. Taking the opportunity to pee, Pettinger asked her, ‘D’you believe you’re in danger, Valdeta?’
‘Not while I’m so good to him in bed.’
He shook himself, zipped, flushed. ‘And you speaking English?’
‘Aleks is having lessons. For when he comes to you.’

  

[Change of focus 315] facsimile knit roll

Pettinger, unable to present even the facsimile of pleasurable anticipation, ‘Impossible for Aleks to live with me while still a child –‘

She rolled her eyes, scorn infected with guilty sadness. ‘D’you imagine living here is any healthier? Haven’t you a mother who makes jam, will knit him jumpers and see he goes to Sunday School?’

So far from reality, Pettinger’s fury escalated, matching gas-flared celebrations at the start of a rugby match. ‘My mother? Allegedly an eldritch daughter, murdered by the brother who fathered me? She went mad and died. Sounds like you’ve been learning English from Enid Blyton.’

[Change of focus 316] gig plough wit

Pettinger, claustrophobic in the shiny-tiled, toffee-coloured bathroom, and increasingly exasperated – Valdeta tricksy as ever he’d known – persisted.  ‘Are you, all three of you, safe with this gig?  Film opportunity, or whatever you’re here for? I know you’re used to living on your wits, and they’re not likely to fade. Not as your –‘ Belatedly,  he swerved to tactful, uncertain whether she’d worry more about losing her looks or her sex appeal. Ploughed on, ‘Because if not, I’m sure Filip –‘

Swiftly triumphant, ‘Yes, Yanno. Filip. He doesn’t think I’ve lost either.’

Which was an utter load of bollocks.

Wasn’t it?

[Change of focus 317] felt map tenuous

Pettinger’s hold on his patience felt tenuous as his ability to be cool-headed where Aleks was concerned. As he’d told her, Valdeta was used to living on her wits; lessons from which had undoubtedly been passed on and at ten years old, using only the ‘How to be’ maps he’d been provided with, Aleks combined childish mischief with adult perceptions of man’s duplicitous ability to  manipulate and harm. In truth had had a healthier upbringing than his own.

As for Filip and Valdeta. Unlikely, given what he’d witnessed of Filip’s marriage. Nowt to do with him and time he went.

[Change of focus 318] crate nerve simultaneous

Pettinger found Aleks teetering along the branch of a tree. He’d accepted a dare from Rowena who sat on the grass below, a crate of already-picked apples beside her, she urging him to reach for bigger, shinier ones at the end.

Reading Pettinger’s disapproval she justified, ‘He needs to test his nerve.’

Her too-knowing eyes simultaneously challenged the degree to which Pettinger might allow parental desire to protect to be subsumed by sexual desire.

Pettinger turned his back. To Aleks, ‘I have to go. I hope to visit again before I return to England.’

Whispered from behind, ‘So do I.’

  

[Change of focus 319] crate nerve simultaneous

It was hard enough to hold his nerve and keep walking towards the waiting Filip. Arms folded, leaning against his car, his grin simultaneously knowing and forewarning.

Over-defensive. ‘What?’

‘You jammy sod.’ Smile faded. ‘But she’ll have to wait – Your dead body, Yanno. The pretty one –‘

‘Tamara Petzincek?’

‘Yeah. Seeing your arrival, some bright spark put two and two together. Came up with an entire crate of corruption. Went and told his boss. Who ordered me to convey you thither.’

‘With what in mind? To help or be accused?’

‘I’ve been issued with a warrant. For your immediate arrest.’

[Change of focus 320] digit furtive Lolita

‘Arrest? Bollocking fu–!’ Pettinger examined the face he’d known since childhood. Nothing furtive in Filip’s eyes; no guilt, so how to interpret his incomprehensible statement?’

Filip put finger to lips, turned his head, used that same digit to indicate the wire concealed beneath his collar. With near-convincing distaste, which failed to hide underlying sarcasm, he said, ‘Evidence suggests you imported Tamara Petzincek for your own pleasure. Eventually tired of her and dumped her in the slurry. They’ve witnesses suggesting you intend Rowena Balincek to become Lolita II –'

‘Witnesses being Baptiste?’

‘No. Rowena’s mother.’

‘Who is?’

‘Valdeta’s elder sister.’

[Change of focus 321] bruise poster revolution

In the car, Filip removed cellophane from a cigarette packet and crumpled it beneath his chin while gargling a disjointed claim of malfunction. Removed the wire from the mike.

Grinning at his ‘captive’, ‘Viva la Revolution, nothing like it for teaching tricks. I’ll paint a few false bruises before delivering you, so they don’t need to do them for real.’ 

‘But you have to deliver me?’

‘Or lose my job.’

‘So what the bollocking fuck is going on? Didn’t even know Valdeta had a sister.’

‘Poster girl for the Witch of Endor. Batiste must’ve had her blindfold.’

‘And why me?’

[Change of focus 322] syrup scrap wrench

Clang of metal door on breeze-block, the syrup-insincerity of the Vice DI’s ‘Good afternoon’ wrenched Pettinger’s thoughts from rural slurry tank to Khakbethian interview room. From scrubbed-up scrap of a girl whose tattoo proclaimed her family and whose sketchbook was a damning album; undeniable evidence of abuse. From Simeon the pathologist’s fascinated gaze at the identical tattoo on Pettinger’s buttocks to the scornful sneer of a desert-warfare tank of a woman who, Pettinger guessed would choose to walk thirty miles across burning sand to avoid view of such.

Whose aim today, rather than investigate Tabitha’s murder, was to deep-fry him.

 [Change of focus 323] caution pouch sweat

The Vice DI’s rattling off the standard caution in rural-accented Khakbethian gave Pettinger pause. Would she be less hostile interrogating a fellow-countryman? Or would a claim of insufficient understanding, and a translator whose honesty could be policed, be to his advantage?

Replacing the cell key in the once-pale leather pouch at her waist, now stained with more than sweat-released finger-grease and blood,  she prodded him in a place to the left of his spine he’d not previously realised was vulnerable, with a force that convinced him an appeal for female solidarity would be a waste of breath.

Tādā veidā, stulba’

[Change of focus 324] burnish log worsen

The interview room no less savoury than those he regularly worked in, Pettinger sat where indicated. They’d logged him in three hours ago; did the mandatory twenty-four before charge or release apply here?

The Vice DI and deputy entered. Seated themselves opposite. Where she was blunt-ended tank he had the slender menace of a rapier burnished to deliver silver-plated questions demanding answers of precision. A talent Pettinger could not help but admire: the truth could hardly worsen the situation.

Enter the translator. She the girl who, decades ago, had christened him virichamocho.

He hoped she remembered the occasion with kindness.

callipygian vacillate yesterday

[Change of focus 325]

As his translator settled herself beside him, in a flounce of turquoise skirt, Pettinger caught her scent: a flowery smokiness he’d once followed down every bump and hollow of her spine to the cleft between her – he’d nor known the word then but it was perfect – callipygian (and equally perfect) – bum, remembered  like it’d been yesterday.

Today, caution required. Already vacillating between conviction his interrogators understood English as well as he Khakbethian, or were entirely ignorant, he hauled his mind back to defence.

Face serious, pen in hand, interrogator’s opening question answered that. ‘Your donkey need somewhere to stay tonight?’

[Change of focus 326] blithe notch rainbow

Pettinger struggled to keep his face straight as he sat through one of the most entertaining interrogations of his life.

For every question the police put to him, Vladina, knowing he well understood, mistranslated; thus their, ‘Describe the circumstances of finding Tamara Pretty’s body’ became ‘Do you remember how many notches I cut into the tree we shagged beneath? The rainbows in the waterfall?’ and his, ‘Christ yes, me bollock-naked when your twin brother came along,’ became a blithe and sober-faced description of a maimed and stinking body.

They took his copious tears as sadness. And eventually let him go. 

 [Change of focus 327] eradicate innocent tow

Beyond the police station, in a gathering dusk of smoke and lilac, the ghost of Tamara Pretty drifted into consciousness again. Spiked conscience. Amusement became gross and the eradication of mirth guiltily essential.

Similarly sobered, Vladina asked, ‘What now?’

Pettinger sighed. ‘I need to talk to her family. Show them her sketches. Get them to identify the Khakbethian men who assaulted her.’

Vladina’s snort that of a drayhorse, one at the tired end of a day of towing ploughs through thick black mud. ‘Jesus, Yanno, you some innocent?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘That sketchbook is as good as a family album.’

 [Change of focus 328] episode peg vixen

Pettinger’s shoulders slumped. He should’ve remembered that 60% of Petzincek men, between the ages of fifteen and ninety-five (a thought which gave a tiny twitch of pleasure) were congenitally incapable of pegging a rampant lechery directed towards whatever female came within their orbit.

With similar regularity – think daily episodic soaps – an even higher percent found themselves quick-wed to an accommodating angel whose speedy metamorphosis to cross-legged vixen left them rubbing more than their eyes.

Beside him, Vladina took his hand.

Her relinquishment of drayhorse, for familiar, willing woman he took as promise of a more satisfying sort of ploughing.

Perhaps.

Change of focus [329 ]disappoint grasshopper strap

And yes.

Vladlina – another of Raptor’s by-blows, her claim of semi-sibling supported by matching grasshopper-green eyes,  wife (still?) to Teodor, a spunk-strapped would-be dynastic head whose hope she’d breed by other means led to her being lifted from the bed of an English prince – did not, in thirty-six hours, disappoint. 

Not as Pettinger’s incommunicado absence did his boss.

Orders to return post-haste ignored long enough to bid farewell to Aleks, to recognise relief in Rowena’s eyes, and beg a lift from Filip.

‘Case unsolved? Police think you’re stupid –‘

Pettinger closed sleep-deprived eyes. ‘Times I’d agree with them. Not today.’

Change of focus [330] deck inchoate serrate

The nerve-serrating clatter and the ever-evolving geography of Schiphol’s tulip-titivated terminal did nothing to ease Pettinger’s sense of inchoate doom. Attempting to kill rather than cure, he seated himself in one of several giant-size Delftware teacups, afloat on a wood-decked sea, to consume a jam scone and a pot of tea.

Wiping crumbs from his mouth, waiting for the tea to cool, he let his head fall back. Closed eyes.  Let mind drift back.

It probably had been stupid to succumb to Vladlina’s especial brand of expertise, but –

His name!

Interspersing flight announcements, his name!

Had they read his mind?

Change of focus [331] confidential midnight troll

Bollocking Christ! His brain become a self-deluding mush; mis-hearing flight destination announcements as a pseudo-confidential summoning. Tiredness; due to the post-midnight sex spectacular with Vladlina. 

Unless his tricky half-sister had filled his head with trolls, as she once did his bed with baby porcupines!

A half grin at the memory, then John Pettinger swallowed his now lukewarm tea and made his way downstairs to the lounge that served Britain’s half-dozen airports, hoping, as he always did, not to be sat beside someone he knew.

He was in luck.

This was someone he wanted to know.

Not that they knew it.

Change of focus [332] ashes navigate snare

Paying unnatural attention to the airline’s catalogue of duty-free bargains John Pettinger navigated his labyrinthine memory to locate the precise circumstances pertaining to the crime perpetuated by the bloke sat beside him.

Eventually recollected a crematorium. A screw-top urn of ashes. Supposedly the holder’s dear-departed mother.

In actuality, not.

They’d successfully confiscated the urn, proved its contents less that 100% human (in fact, 70% heroin) but had become badly tangled in the zig-zag snare of trips and middle-men and failed to satisfactorily prove its provenance.

Today, black tie and lugubrious expression, implied another sad loss. Pettinger opted to play pallbearer.

Change of focus [333] ballot distant smith

Following him through Customs, craning at his passport, Pettinger established – surprise, surprise – the man’s name was Smith. As Smith headed for a taxi Pettinger sprinted to the waiting unmarked car, female Drug Squad DC at the wheel impersonating waiting wife.

Pettinger tried to gauge her age. ‘You remember the case?’

A glance. ‘Distantly.’

‘Sorry to drag you out tonight.’

‘No worries. Final ballot for some crap cook-show.’

‘Once we’ve checked where he’s aimed at, d’you fancy a drink?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘If I did I’ve forgotten.’

‘Bloody Scarborough. We’ll need more than a drink!’

Pettinger’s smile anticipatory. ‘Fine by me.’

familiar necessary thumb

Change of focus [334]

Smith’s destination wasn’t Scarborough. A twenty minute taxi ride took him not to the station but, via an all-too-familiar route, to the crematorium.

Pettinger, wondering aloud, ‘Gathering a few more ashes?’

Drug Squad DC more sceptical. ‘Maybe. Thanks to a friendly crem. attendant raking out the ashes. More likely, all those double-handed Sorry for your loss handshakes, perfect for passing tiny packets.’

Thumbing crumbs of a pasty from the corner of his mouth, ‘So, no matter who, the funeral’s just a cover?’

‘Only necessity being it’s big enough to attract a crowd, so the real bereaved don’t spot they’re strangers.’

Change of focus [335] crave plaster upwind

It was a big funeral.

For a man who, in the latter decades of his life had craved privacy, having spent his twenties and thirties in a golden glow of near-sainthood. Pettinger remembered the scandal breaking. A scorned wife sold salacious tales of sex with sixteen year-olds, several offspring and a set of twins, all sufficient to recast Mark Creighton as tarnished plaster saint.

No telling who from his past acquaintances would come to mourn him; only certainly was the knowledge that each would ostentatiously attempt to stand upwind of the other.

Question was, with whom would Smith align himself?

Change of focus [336] abstract insult tongue

The church organ twiddled abstract fragments; near drifting into wedding mode a couple of times which, anticipating a rousing “Here comes the corpse”, caused Pettinger to grin. Hastily, fearful of causing insult, he concentrated instead on the tip of the Drug Squad DC’s tongue which repeatedly emerged from between an attractive pair of lips.

Another unsuitable expression. Not wiped by her murmured, ‘About that drink...?’

Then Smith began to make a move.

‘Hang on. I don’t know one from t’other – is he heading for Saints or Sinners?’

DC glanced.

‘Can’t tell. They’ve done a merger. That drink?’

‘Yeah. Okay.’’

Change of focus [337] cricket file spindle

Thanks to its proximity to the crematorium ‘The Cricketers’ the favoured post-funeral destination.

Pettinger and the Drug Squad DC – Iris – already seated and perfectly positioned to watch Mark Creighton’s mourners file in. Once inside, they split, much as a spindle divides warp from weft, half coming into the public bar, the rest heading for a private function room.

Smith’s arrival confirmed Iris’s murmured, ‘Stroke of luck, we’re with the Sinners,’ but Pettinger, stubbled and heavy-eyed from Vladlina’s sexual marathon plus a five-hour flight, found it hard to stay awake. Came to when Iris, leaping upright, warned, ‘Smith’s on the move

Change of focus [338] Moses twelve import

Restored by a twelve-minute cat-nap, Pettinger followed Iris outside. ‘You caught Smith dealing? Swapping wraps for cash?’

‘Better than that. He’s gone from death to birth. Demand to supply. Export to import.’ Iris nodded to where Smith, looking every inch the devoted father, strolled with a woman. Slung between them a Moses basket, bawling babe within.

‘Bet you any money you like, either under the mattress, or in the  

baby’s nappy, he’s stashed his latest shipment and is now off to mix it with the remains of the lately dear-departed.’

Pettinger exerted authority. ‘I order you to check the nappy.’

Change of focus [339]  alphabet hopeless ribbon

Marching off, Iris schooled her face to obedient, inwardly recalibrating the plans she had for John Pettinger.

Not inwardly enough. Watching the bounce of scarlet ribbon which tied back hair of a blondeness John found himself wondering about its match elsewhere before deciding, if he wanted it, his case was not yet hopeless; he’d recovered from worse set-backs than this. 

The baby – still full-clothed – lay on a mattress covered in an alphabet-print cloth. As the four adults gazed down, its face contorted. Turned scarlet with an effort which, even if one had never seen a baby shit, was inescapably familiar.

Change of focus [340]. bench counter obfuscate

Pettinger experienced a wry sort of pleasure examining faces concentrating on the defaecating babe.  Its mother (if indeed she really was) appeared resigned (or anxious) to counter any implication she was incapable . Blonde Iris was on the point of pulling crime-scene gloves from her pocket. Smith – ah, Smith was pale.

Babe extracted from the Moses basket, mother laid it on a bench conveniently placed for mourners to mop tears and admire the floral tributes.

First unwrapping, stink perfumed the open air. Smith went sweaty-white, wondering whether plastic-coated nappy would obfuscate the plastic-coated wraps? Or – even worse –shit permanently permeate.

Change of focus [341] chair industrial string

Without doubt the mother was stringing out the nappy-changing process. From a plastic-lined bag she deployed an industrial quantity of wipes and ointments with the sleight-of-hand ability of a street corner ‘find the lady’ trickster.

Iris, somewhat optimistically, Pettinger thought, undid three buttons on her shirt and sashayed up to Smith. In vain – his eyes remained glued to the suspect nappy. As did Pettinger’s.

Pettinger also had the sense to keep watching when Iris tripped over an abandoned pushchair, fell forward and momentarily interspersed herself twixt Smith and suspected drugs.

Pettinger, extra-large evidence bag to hand, pounced, grabbed and sealed.

  

Change of focus [342] coincidence leather sage

Iris, the Drug Squad DC, demonstrated agility and quick thinking. She righted herself, reached for Smith and, as if it was little more than coincidence, lifted her arm and his to  demonstrate, to Pettinger’s sage-eyed admiration, she’d handcuffed him. (Same sage eyes inwardly transported such athleticism to bed and bondage: Iris in a scarlet thong)

Meanwhile, mother replaced baby in basket and made for the cemetery gates. Pettinger, suspecting more mattress-concealed drugs, set off after her. Made good progress until a man stepped from behind the brick pillar, grabbed his upper arm and reached a leather-gloved hand into Pettinger’s pocket.

Change of focus [343] liberty satchel scrub

The evidence bag! If whoever halted him and now deployed  his left hand to scrabble for it in Pettinger’s coat pocket, they’d be disappointed. Pettinger had long ago got fed up with the frequency with which such bags, over-hastily sealed, leaked, requiring frequent scrubbings of pocket linings and had got into the habit of wearing a discreet leather bag – an upmarket satchel, marketed as ‘man bag’ – beneath his overcoat. Although the man was welcome to liberate  a shitty nappy, this one, if that was all they had, was too important to lose.

Pettinger turned. Accurately kneed him in the balls.

Change of focus [344] coward jeer wake

Would-be pickpocket crouched and clutching crotch, Pettinger – empathy preventing his jeering – turned his attention to the mother fast-disappearing in the direction of the High Street. Iris, awake to the risk of Smith towing her should he choose to run, had cuffed him to a fence and was phoning for back-up.

Pettinger gave chase, slaloming along a High Street thronged with shoppers, home-bound schoolkids and a coach party visiting the Castle, and would’ve caught her had one old lady –  ‘You cowardly bully! – not misunderstood the situation and used her umbrella to hook him round the ankle and bring him crashing down.

Change of focus [345] peacock recede vex

Pettinger, head ringing as he crash-landed against  a lamp-post, tried to make sense of what appeared to be fingers emerging from the head of an irate woman. As vision sharped he recognised a spray of feathers – peacock or rooster – attached to the sort of black felt hat his grandmother used to wear. ‘Vexed’ a word she often used about his behaviour. Similarly, this woman’s virulent accusations advanced and receded in volume from a cerise-framed mouth.

He was more than bollocking vexed!

Squinting and still supine he extracted and waved up at her his warrant. ‘Madam, I’m arresting you for assault.’

Change of focus [346] eighteen procrastinate sweetheart

Pettinger’s strangulated cautioning of his umbrella-wielding assailant was lost beneath the rumble of an eighteen-stone stallholder.

‘Sweetheart, this man bovvering you?’

With difficulty, using the lamppost for support, Pettinger hauled himself upright. ‘You’ve got it arse over bollocking foot –‘

‘Oi! Less of the bloody language mate! There’s ladies present –‘

Resisting the obvious, ‘This lady prevented an arrest –‘

‘Of a mother and baby –‘

‘– baby lying on a mattress stuffed with heroin. She likely heading for the nearest school to sell it –‘

Stallholder took off at speed of light, roaring. ‘Not to my kids, she ain’t!’

Change of focus [347] collar pot pourri lint

Having started, the would-be saviour stall-holder now out of sight, Pettinger attempted to finish his arrest. Trusting handcuffs unnecessary he reached for his notebook.

‘Your name, madam?’

Looking down to scavenge in her capacious handbag, she ignored him. Pulled out a dainty handkerchief, its lace trimming lint-clogged and grey which, accompanied by a whiff of aged pot pourri, she reached up to dab his cheekbone, ‘It’s not bleeding a lot, but we don’t want it to run down your collar do we?’

  From behind, DC Henry Moth concurred. ‘No, pet, but you shouldn’t’ve hit him in the first place.’

Change of focus [348] beads stare voice

Pettinger turned and stared at the junior officer who, oblivious of Pettinger’s preference for ignoring his blood-beaded cheekbone graze, tutted in sympathy.

‘Looks a nasty one, boss. You’ll need to get it properly disinfected. Tetanus and such –’

‘Has Iris – the Drug Squad DC – checked in?’

‘Aye, sir, successfully arrested.’ Then, in recollection, Moth’s expression changed. Voice lowered, and less buoyant, ‘You’d best get back to the station. The Boss wants a word, toot sweet.’ 

Trusting Moth’s operational discretion, he began to note his assailant’s details. ‘About?’

‘A young lad at the station. Asking for you.’

‘Name?’

‘Aleks.’

‘Shit!’

Change of focus [348] cardboard confluence drama

Last time, seeing only hobbit-child, ignorant of its identity and thanks to DC Sally Vicksen, Pettinger avoided drama by smuggling Aleks home, where green eyes, fluent Khakbethian and mother’s name rendered doubts of paternity flimsy as wet cardboard.

Two years on, the surely-never-child had confidence as well as English;  love, relief and recognition of undeniable resemblance demolished Pettinger’s would-be secrecy in a confluence of laughing congratulation from the unusually crowded canteen they’d taken him to.

But on seeing him, Aleks’ composure shattered. An anguished outpouring, tears unstoppable, brought the room to silence, even though only Pettinger understood the dreadful news.

Change of focus [349] innocent lodge uncover

Tears lodging in his own throat, John Pettinger held his son tight, painfully aware that even the moment of his conception lacked innocence; his mother successful in her intent to cuckold the man she was about to marry. He’d never lived other than in danger; Valdeta flitting from bed to bed, evading (as each was uncovered) the punishment she undoubtedly deserved.

Until now.

Aleks did not know the perpetrator: ‘It could be one of many.’ Adult knowledge not fitting for the head of an eleven-year-old.

No more than his uncovering her slashed and bloody body.

And that of her daughter.

Change of focus [350] bullock odour tangent

Aleks re-examined his father’s face. ‘You’re bleeding too –‘

‘It’s nothing –‘

His nose wrinkled. ‘And you smell. Like you’ve herded bullocks.’

‘Better bullocks than the odour of pot pourri.’

Aleks’ struggled with the tangent. ‘”Popery”?’

‘Not Catholics. It’s dried –‘

Aleks’ shriek halted him. ‘Sally’s come!’

Pettinger wasn’t the only one to look round. All eyes snapped to Sally Vicksen – now DS – in time to catch her blushing. Speculation flared. Back to Pettinger. But if she could release his son from the nightmares of the recent past, he’d cope with any amount of prurient speculation.

Hopefully, so would she.

Change of focus [351] census extrovert bonfire

Sally Vicksen acted way beyond the call of duty first time Aleks appeared: bramble-wrapped hobbit, dragged backwards through a hedge. Clothes fit only for the bonfire. Staying, of necessity in Pettinger’s house she became adept at balancing sensitive-but-extrovert care and companionship for Aleks with awareness of his father’s need for post-work solitude.

At the time, he’d congratulated himself on his ability to conceal a veritable bonfire of inappropriate lust. He ought to be able to repeat it.

Would’ve done had Sally not made a late-night confession about a census form: ‘Enumerator just assumed. Put us down as Mr and missus!’

Change of focus [352]  augment Eve surgeon

Gratitude had John Pettinger reach for the bottle of The Surgeons Ball whisky left from New Year’s Eve; pour himself and Sally two fingers, then augment that with a third before it occurred to him there was a potentially tricky conversation to be had.

‘Mr and Missus? It’d take more than a false declaration on a census form to make it true! We could put it down to –‘ He halted as a belated need for tact impinged.

Sweetly, eyes gleaming with something unreadable, ‘My ignorance?’

‘Or a jumping of the gun –‘

Bollocking Christ! What had he just said?

Change of focus [353]   bookmark interior supine

John Pettinger hid panic behind a too-small whisky tumbler, conscious of Sally Vicksen replacing bookmark and closing book; presumably preparing to ... what? Take him up on what she’d heard as proposal? But when he had ceased examining the interior of his eyelids and plucked up courage to face her –compromised by Aleks’ needs he’d best act uncharacteristically supine  – he saw laughter in her tawny eyes.

‘Sorry, John. I’ve despatched Mr Fox as far as I am able, but truth is I’m still his wife; “Vicksen” my attempt to create further separation. Ask me again when the divorce comes through.’

Change of focus [353] accent interfere stark
At “divorce” a too-hasty swallowing of the iodine-accented spirit swamped Pettinger’s vocal cords, momentarily interfering with what he’d not yet decided was relief or commiseration. For himself or her. Had to be admitted the thought of her long-limbed body sharing the usually stark solitude of his bed appealed, but she a full-time detective, and Aleks, even at eleven, needed better than the work-free hours they could squeeze out between them for child-care.

He expressed this to Sally, fully acknowledging her especial rapport with his son.
She smiled. ‘I know. And I’ve a solution –‘
‘You have?’
‘I have a sister.’

Change of focus [354] bright enunciation scald

At ‘sister’ Pettinger’s face brightened. Then some dramatically-enunciated line from some play – likely Shakespeare – impinged: a sister described as “grave-wizened and a scald of a trollop”, reminding him he’d sisters of similar ilk. Very likely he was being highly over-optimistic.

‘Would she be … willing? It’d be quite time-consuming. And not too far –’

‘She’s local. Has boys of her own, and a daughter. It should be no problem –‘

‘I’d need to meet her. And Aleks. You he took to immediately, so if she’s like you –‘

‘She isn’t.’ A smile. ‘She’s a brilliant mother. Much better-behaved than me.’

Change of focus [355] intercourse postcard tobacco

“Much better-behaved than me.” Sally recommending her sister as suitable part-time carer for Aleks. Whose existence was due to the bad behaviour of his mother, instigating intercourse merely hours before wedding another.  A sudden memory: Valdeta, fingers post-sex clumsy, trying and failing to roll a cigarette, tobacco flying in the summer breeze. Later, much later, a smuggled postcard; his son’s name and date of birth. Then nothing more for years. 

And now dead. Pettinger heard her voice again; her inflection of  ‘Yanno’ unlike any other’s. He’d come to despise the laxness of her morals … but in some circumstances …

Change of focus [356] revenge thrill yoke

It’d been a long day. Used to the yoke of professional responsibility Pettinger stood. ‘You don’t live far away, do you? I’ll drive you home. Aleks should be sound asleep now, that meal you cooked –‘
Sally smiled. ‘”Complete replete” he said. Don’t know where he gets his English from; it’s a right mixture.’
‘He reads a lot. Si-fi, Thrillers. And anything in between –‘
‘Yeah. Including Fifty Shades of Grey.’
‘Bollocking Christ! Who gave that?’
‘He found it boring. Said Jake did it better.’ Sally’s eyebrows rose, ‘Jake?’
‘Father of Aleks’ half-sister. She’s dead.’
‘Is Jake?’
‘I don’t know.’

Change of focus [357] Northern Irish tide coach feint opt

Jake Cherriman, an Aussie with the charm of a Northern  Irish tinker met only after Pettinger had bedded his woman. The tide of guilt all the greater for his currently being involved in investigating her parents’ murder. And then she – Sally-Ann Hopgood – had been found dead.

Worse was to come.

Jake, it appeared, had opted into some scam run by Pettinger’s Khakbethian kin. Incestuous twins Goren and Gunita had coached him in their wicked ways, the two of them evading capture as skilfully as a master swordsman feints and parries. He’d buried Jake once. Only to see him come alive.

Change of focus [358] discipline, grit vow

But that – Jake Cherriman – was in the past. Pettinger had to grit his teeth, accept how badly he’d then behaved and remember, now he had a son, a certain amount of self-discipline wouldn’t come amiss. A vow of good intent worth keeping. But that didn’t extend to the occasional sexual adventure, did it?

He’d suggested driving Sally Vicksen home. Perhaps with too much haste? Especially as she’d admitted to being less than well-behaved. Less than her sister, at any rate.

Sally now also stood.

‘You could drive me home. But maybe it’d be better if I stay?

cradle poetry rupture

Change of focus [359] cradle poetry rupture

Sex, John Pettinger knew, wasn’t always poetry. Doggerel at times (he suppressed an ill-timed snigger); mechanical and awkward as a mistakenly begun-upon limerick, collapsing into the awkwardness of too few syllables. Plus, having, doing it just a wall away from his son more than a little inhibiting. Disastrous sex – rupture rather than rapture – had, in the past been prompted by far less than that. But Sally Vicksen knew what she was about. Tongue already discovered that turn-on point an inch below his left ear, fingers cradling his balls … oh yes.

So… would she be a stayer or a leaver?

Change of focus [360] eighth filth shadow

Not having counted, but aware Aleks usually appeared at his bedroom door after the eighth ring, Pettinger seized and silenced the strident ringtone, the huskiness of his ‘Pettinger’ announcing, to his guilty ears, he’d spent the night indulging in filthy sex. The involuntary movement of Sally’s hand; her duvet-shadowed face still dormant, threatened to distract, until his sergeant’s words impacted.

‘Bollocking Christ, Ben! Say again –‘

Ben Brickwood duly did.

Whereupon training kicked in. Up, pee, shower, dress. Mind processing information, decisions to be made.

Then, aware of Aleks, silently taking it all in, ‘Hello son.’

‘Another murder?’

‘’Fraid so.’

Change of focus [361] decipher hare water

Interspersed with noisily-swallowed mouthfuls of water, Pettinger brought a speedily dressed-for-work Sally up to date. ‘Some prat re-enacting bollocking Burke and Hare ­–‘

Both turned at Aleks’ gasp, hearing avidity rather than horror in his, ‘That’s killing people to cut them up!’

‘Suffocating them, aye. When did you learn Scottish history?’

Aleks deciphered his father’s attempted diversion, his, ‘Can I come?’ both scornful and expectant.

Then common sense kicked in. He realised he’d become a problem to be solved. A spare, unplaceable part. With too-well practised nonchalance, he said, ‘Give us a tenner and the door keys, I’ll be fine.’

Change of focus [362] custom heal pound

Aleks’ swift demand for ten pounds had echoes of the begging Pettinger realised he must, on occasion, have practised; customary in a city when one’s family failed, for whatever reason, to provide.

Then, familiarity with that city as much as having grounds for suspicion, Pettinger recalled rent boys as fast to ask; eyes as bold as Aleks’, hand extended as insistently. He froze, staring. But surely, surely if that had been the case there’d be damage, loss of innocence, healing needing done?

Sally, at the door, ‘John. We really need to go –‘

Pettinger sighed. Handed money over. ‘Be good.’

Change of focus [363] daisy opportunity stripe

The body, lying between brick wall and industrial dustbin, was so brightly lit by SOCO spotlights that blood-spill draining into metal gully resembled stripes of strawberry sauce.

At Pettinger’s arrival the CSI took the opportunity to straighten up, lift the blue and white-striped crime scene tapes and bring him up to date. ‘Teenager. Chased and beaten. Ran in here to hide. Bled out.’

‘Witnesses?’

‘Round here, guv? In yer dreams!’

‘Ditto ID I suppose?’

‘You suppose right. No phone, nor no wallet.’

‘Male or female?’

‘At first, daisies painted on the Docs; I assumed female. Then bum-fluff stubble suggested not.’

 Change of focus [364] broke elaborate key

Pettinger and the CSI stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the elaborate and, to the uninitiated, incomprehensible ballet of the white-clad SOCOs, the occasional murmur of ‘Photograph this’ as they catalogued and tried to make sense of the scene. One bent and gently pulled aside his clothes, seeking the sources of the bleeding. Looked across, ‘A key. On a chain.’ Shone torch so they could see.

‘Bollocking Christ, he’s so young –‘

‘Aye, Gov. Doubt his voice has even broke ­–‘

Which put him, near as dammit, Aleks’ age.

Aleks, similarly out on the streets, cash and keys in his pocket.

Change of focus [365] mill derelict inefficient

Pettinger instructed the milling SOCOs – their white-suited movements far from as inefficiently choreographed as appeared – ‘When you’re done here, safeguard the site, come back in the morning.’ He asked DC Henry Moth to drive while he checked up on Aleks. ‘No reply.’

Moth, whose once cherubic face, thanks to a year of daily witnessing of man’s depravity to man, had become that of unshriven derelict, attempted to inject optimism into Pettinger’s gloom. ‘He’ll be fine, boss. Doing his homework – ­‘

‘Aye. I’ll try again later. More important to get this dead lad’s killers identified.’

But later was five hours away.

Change of focus [366] sandwich turbulent violet

First hours of a murder investigation are full-on turbulent activity as the crime site (including body) is scoured for evidence. Much had been done in darkness but now awaited daylight. The near-bloodless teenage body had reached the bright-lit mortuary, merciless white above him, ultra-violet in the shadows. Had been examined, undressed, clothes (including daisy-painted Docs) bagged and tagged, and hairless and nameless youth heart-breakingly revealed, perfect but for a scarlet hole in his neck.

Pettinger directed: ‘Key from his neck is key’ before returning home to find Aleks fast asleep headphones still in place and half-eaten sandwich on the floor.

Change of focus [367] onus plumage vouch

Relief played peek-a-boo with guilt and tiredness, like an over-used stripper’s ostrich plumage attempting to vouch for her desirability. As successfully and, at times, as tawdry as his taking on the onus of fatherhood.

He needed a long-term solution. Thirteen too dangerous an age to inculcate self-responsibility. Trustworthiness. Aleks’ street-cred too different a brand; he’d seen men kill. Seen lawlessness, lies and lasciviousness to a greater extent than he’d experience here.

A boarding school?

Might crush him, and he’d no desire to lose that spark.s

A wife? For himself?

Pettinger sighed. 

That could all too easily crush his own spark.

Change of focus [368] carillon  mail  petulant

Crime scene. Last night’s eerie silence become daylight cacophony: hacks’ calling questions and constant click of cameras; empty alcopop cans wind-spinning an inapt carillon and aluminium barrels clattering at the pub across the road.

Pettinger ignored it, concentrating on the CSI’s report: ‘We’re searching bins and drains for discarded murder weapon. Possibly a stiletto?‘

‘Or a sharpened screwdriver –‘

DC Henry Moth at his shoulder. ‘Guv, this woman –‘

Pettinger turned. Glanced. Young, blonde and petulant. Dismissed. ‘She’s from the Mail –‘

‘Aye, Boss, but she says she knows him –‘

‘Take her down the station. Keep your mouth shut.’

Change of focus [369] affect dregs journey

Long experience had brought Pettinger to view journalists as only one up from the dregs of society, such as those who murdered the unnamed lad in the mortuary. That she was female and attractive affected him not a jot.

Henry Moth, more susceptible, reported.

‘She’s Philly Stepcart, Boss –‘

‘”Filly”? Mother hoped for a horse?’

‘From Philadelphia –‘

‘American?‘

‘British. Conceived in Alaşehir, once-Greek now-Turkish city.’

‘And she knew the victim?’

‘Named. She’s investigating how kids who’ve made a cultural journey, a transition, cope – like your Aleks. He’s on her to-be-interviewed list.’

‘Over my dead body!’

A remark instantly regretted.

Change of focus [370] share  shelf  turpid

John Pettinger did not share Moth’s appreciation for Philly Stepcart, journalist. He viewed her desire to investigate bollocking “cultural journeys” as little more than romanticising more often turpid myths, such as those of rat kings; and did not hide his cynical expectation she would lie.

‘I’m told you know the lad now lying in our mortuary?’

‘You’ve been told wrong Inspector. I know only his name.’

‘Which is?’

Her gaze world weary, ‘How will knowing his name identify those who killed him?’

‘”Those”?’

 ‘Any two – or more – of your off-the-shelf new-seeded thugs. This town is rife with them!’

‘His name?’

Change of focus [371] biscuit quill suffice

Twenty years in the force equipped any copper worth his salt with an instinct for evil. A glance into a villain’s eyes sufficed:  coldness, absence of humanity, and  DI Pettinger’s quills began to rattle.

Philly Stepcart’s eyes showed anger and concern. Pettinger repeated his question. ‘ID him and we can inform his family. His friends might lead us to his enemies.’

‘Inspector, he had no friends. No family. Only name I have for him is Dodger. Not from Dickens but the biscuit. Jammy Dodger. Except his luck ran out and it wasn’t raspberry jam which leaked from him, was it?’

Change of focus [372 ] fret sea-glass tear

Philly Stepcart’s stare was forensic. Aggressive. Her opinion of the police matched Pettinger’s of the press. Yet, like him, when faced with a single member of that profession, she took individual merit into account.

‘Inspector’ You have eyes the colour of sea-glass. But, I suspect, not so hard. Did you shed tears for Dodger when you saw the mess they’d made of him?’

‘No. Emotion blinds. We need to see, to think, without obstruction. Feeling clutters thought. Seeking justice, for whoever, demands our full attention.’

Her face still disbelieved. Softly, ‘Fret not, Inspector. I’ll make sure Dodger gets that.’

Change of focus [373] extract goldfinch tallow

Swept with sudden urgency, Pettinger realised he’d wasted time. Took anger with himself out on her.

‘Real justice or the tabloid variety, from which truth and inconvenient facts have been extracted so the story can run and run, like tallow from the  candles around a murderer’s bier, kinked by the foetid breath of his thwarted creditors?’

Philly Stepcart had commented on his eyes. Hers, he now noticed, as well as holding a wry sort of amusement, were not just brown, but held tiny variegations of colour, somewhat akin to a goldfinch.

Amusement also in her voice. ‘Quite the poet, Inspector.’ 

Change of focus [374] palm vista weld

Her cool amusement returned Pettinger to the present. Slapping both palms on the table before him, he stood. ‘No time for words. What else do you know about this, this Dodger? Where’s he from? You say he’s no family, how d’you know that?’

Philly Stepcart took but a moment. ‘There’s a woman at the Bella Vista café. Italian. She feeds –‘

‘Giulietta. I know her. Heart softer than the heat-welded lasagne she serves, for sure. You’d not know it to look at her, but she’s saved many a lad from starving.’

Softly, ‘Aye.  And many a lass from the street.’

Change of focus [375] perch witness membrane

Pettinger’s glance was fast and sharp enough to witness the re-assumption of a self-protective membrane behind which Philly Stepcart sought to conceal her history; a revelation which, apparently, surprised her far more than it had him.

Given the variety of less-than-savoury branches his ancestors had perched upon – murder, matricide, incest and insanity – as well as his own ‘sin’ (if you like) of foisting a bastard on the murdering hoor Valdeta turned out to be, he’d not judge.

To give her time to further recover, he said, ‘One question: why did Dodger have daisies painted on his Docs?’

‘They weren’t his?’

Change of focus [376] angle parody square

Daisy-painted Docs. A minor detail, but re-angling investigation to incorporate inconsistencies often led to insight. Pettinger’s question had been rhetorical; Philly Stepcart’s suggestion the Doc’s not Dodger’s further indication her parody of sulky teen hid a street-smart brain incisive as his own; jolting his into recollecting she a journalist. With another question.

‘Can’t you match – dunno, toe-prints, wear’n’tear – of boots to feet? Some sort of database of footprints? Chances are they weren’t always his. You any other clues?’

’A key –‘ Bollocks, he’d not meant to say –

‘What sort?’

‘Square-ended. An omega logo –‘

‘Omega?’ Not-quite-pretty face paled. ‘Christ!, Pettinger!’

Change of focus [377] harvest panache sorry

While Philly Stepcart’s looks far outshone Millet’s Gleaners, she was likely no less efficient at harvesting information. At grinding and baking the ears therefrom; serving plaited loaves with all the panache of a master baker.

She’d doubtless revel in Pettinger’s ignorance.

‘Explain “Omega”. In connection with this key.’

The goldfinch glitter of her eyes fluttered sideways. Was she preparing to lie?

With reluctance, ‘It’s potential evidence for how Dodger came to die. He was escaping –‘

’Escaping? From what?’ Petting read hesitation, ‘Bollocking Christ, Stepcart, I’m not some fragile maiden aunt!’

–‘Sorry, I thought you’d know–‘

’Know what?’

‘­Snuff.’

Change of focus [378] jaw ostracise Pavlov

‘Snuff’. The word alone produced a Pavlovian reaction, but bile rather than saliva. Pettinger swallowed. To Philly Stepcart, ‘I didn’t know. Explain. Please.’

Which she did, at length and in head-throbbing, jaw-numbing – like being many times punched – detail.

‘How … how do you know all this?’

Grimly. ‘Infiltration. Omega is clever. Spots the ostracised; the solitaries. I played the part well enough to convince –‘

‘Omega?’ It’s just one man?’

Stepcart reined in her scorn; Pettinger was at least taking her seriously. If nothing else Dodger’s death will have prompted investigation.

‘No Inspector. Dodger was a boy. Omega’s a woman.’

Change of focus [379] compulsory extravagant tone

Pettinger’s sigh an extravagance of anger and frustration, slashed with a sharp ache of pity for the young woman sat before him, even though the tone in which she’d told the tale invited neither. ‘So. Dodger was escaping. Who would have chased? Omega?’

‘Not exactly. Dodger’s “escape” more likely compulsory. Similarly those who chased. Film-makers stationed along the designated route, and at the killing place.’

‘Already chosen?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the film –‘ He broke off, unwilling to contemplate

Philly Stepcart checked her watch. ‘Will have been edited, a trailer made, price set and been on sale for maybe eighteen hours.’

Change of focus [380] blanket lacerate Victorian

No detective, with Pettinger’s years of service would’ve avoided seeing the sort of film he had just sat through. From what he knew of Philly Stepcart’s history, she’d already lived the greater part. From the opening scene – Dodger’s pitiful attempts to hide beneath a blood-stained blanket – through the multi-perpetrator abuse (no attempt to muffle grunts of satiation) to the cruelty of the false-hope open door, the necessity of concentration was unavoidable.

Dodger’s tentative escape; the jolted understanding of its trickery, the chase, the rain, the black/white lacerations, the bleeding out, reminiscent of Victorian Jack the Ripper crimes.

Re-winding, reluctant, ‘Again.’

Change of focus [381] distinguish pursue sodden

‘There!’ DI Pettinger paused the film. Thrust a finger at the screen. Enlarged the image so the sodden heap that was Dodger disappeared, to home in on a face that had, at the last minute turned for another triumphant glance, seconds before the camera-man swung round for a final shot

‘Bollocking Christ! He’s just a lad –‘

Philly Stepcart’s voice shamed and shattered,‘ And already distinguished himself for his enthusiasm for a particular type of cruelty.’

Pettinger stared. ‘You know him?’

Eyes shuttered. Shuddering. ‘Ways you don’t want to know.’

Grimly, meaning it, ‘I know I’ll pursue him unto death.’

Change of focus [382] interfere kitten profile

From nowhere, and for no good reason, an image of a snow-white kitten ­– curious, enquiring – reaching to dab a tentative paw into a scarlet puddle, flooded into Pettinger’s horrified mind. Fastidious, it flicked away droplets adhering to claws, before licking itself to cleanliness.

Bizarrely, kitten then morphed to a childhood Stepcart; an innocent Philly, before man’s gross wickedness interfered.

Outwardly, she’d survived. Just as convincing in appearance as those who had not. (An oft-repeated warning not all newly-qualified civilian profilers heeded.)

No more than she’d heeded his vow of retribution.

Chin tilted. ‘No need, policeman. I can look after myself.‘

Change of focus [383] clatter fingernail pure

 ‘Time for some fresh air.’ Pettinger rose, raised the blind, slats clattering, and checked his phone, allowing Philly Stepcart to recover. Aleks’ text: ‘Sally’s sister ACE’ brought a stab of pure relief, just as a four-note fingernail tap against the door heralded Sally’s entrance.  

His smile of gratitude, infiltrated with remembrance of the night, was misinterpreted. Sally’s eyes, correctly reading lust, fell on the still-wet, goldfinch-pretty ones of blonde-haired Philly Stepcart. To Pettinger’s position by the blind, evidence of recent proximity, the slow-to-fade stuffiness of close co-operation.

Ignorant of the help Stepcart had given, Sally came to a less-than-happy conclusion.

Change of focus [384] amuse decrepit platform
Amused at Sally’s misinterpretation of what had gone on between himself and Philly Stepcart – possessive already, after only one night! – yet needing, for professional purposes, to keep both women sweet, Pettinger made sure his greeting platformed gratitude – ‘Sally! Aleks has just messaged me in praise of your sister!’

He was rewarded with a smile from Sally and a sudden shaft of interest from Stepcart.

No reason not for personal either – he not yet so decrepit he couldn’t satisfy two women (though he preferred them one at a time.)

But Stepcart’s mind was elsewhere. ‘I want to ask you about Aleks.’ 

Change of focus [385] blaspheme fizz ugly

In the intensity of investigating Dodger’s demise, Pettinger had forgotten Philly Stepcart’s interest in “cultural journeys”. He swallowed his habitual blasphemous reference to the testicles of the Almighty, but in no way muted his growled, ‘Aleks is out of bounds’.

‘But –‘

‘But nothing, Stepcart!’ Sally’s interjection both ugly and unnecessary.

And ineffective.

With a swiftness Pettinger could only admire, Stepcart rose from her chair, shed her just-demonstrated invincibility, smiled, leant forward and kissed him full on the lips,  murmuring, ‘Thank you, John. See you later.’

In the silence of her departure, Pettinger heard the fizzing of a cartoon fuse.

Change of focus [386] deviate emery stunt

The minor deviations in angle John Pettinger made to mouth and eyebrows changed involuntary amusement to tolerant dismissal. Addressing Sally Vicksen – who’d last night more than adequately scratched an itch that had, through a dearth of sustained attention, gone from requiring fine-grade emery to something verging on industrial – ‘It doesn’t pay to upset the press –‘

To little avail.

‘Press or not, stunts like that are highly unprofessional!’

‘She’s young, Sally, (which wasn’t received as intended). ‘Shallow.’ (Better.) ‘Lacks the appeal of experience.’ (Now quit while you’re ahead!)

‘So, what were you –?’

She near as dammit named Dodger’s murderer!’

Change of focus [387] greed state usurp

Sally’s assumption Stepcart was in danger of usurping her was premature Her too-obvious assumption of proprietorial did her no favours, not least because, by underlining Stepcart’s youth-entitled greed, it aged her in comparison. Plus that proprietorial – not the first time seen – a concern. (The phrase ‘Nanny state’ came to mind, not something Stepcart would recognise!)

But.

But he had to recognise he was not getting any younger. And since he really wasn’t ready yet to settle down, wouldn’t he be best advised to aim for youth despite – because of – all its short-term opportunities?

Even though Stepcart hadn’t offered any yet.

Change of focus [388] coin peacock twitch

Pettinger’s expression twitched from wry amusement to  shame-faced acknowledgement of the shallowness of his desire. Better, to coin a colourful, if badly alliterated phrase) the done deed of a dunnock than the peacock promise of a bird just flown. And he’d plenty time to thwart Sally Vicksen’s matrimonial aspirations (if that’s what they were).

Meanwhile, he’d a murder to solve. Stepcart’s ID of a potential killer more useful (at the moment) than her mischief).

And he’d a son to take better responsibility for (even though by the sound of it Sally had already got one foot through the doorway there.)   

 

Change of focus [389] abstain nothing shroud

Pettinger assembled his team for a briefing.

‘Dodger was one of many children stolen from the streets and forced to participate in porn movies by a woman known as Omega. The whole operation so well-shrouded I knew nothing about it.­‘

‘Stepcart discovered it?’

‘Aye.’ He’d abstain from giving details. ‘When novelty wears off, they’re ‘allowed’ to escape. Not knowing they’ll be filmed doing so, and end up starring in their own snuff movies.’

He put up the appalling selection of stills. Pointed to the last. ‘We’ve identified one of the cameraman.’

‘Another victim?’

‘No. But he’s about to become ours.’

 

metronome poke spine

Change of focus [390]

A face and a name which, despite Philly Stepcart saying was likely to be false, felt like the first two steps on a path as yet unmapped; stepping stones on a trail which would take them through a forest of misleading clues, from which they would have to seek, to snatch snippets of evidence poking sly and half-seen from twisted branches;  snagging feet as they almost stumbled past. Ever-present in John Pettinger’s head, as if it were a spine-chilling film, a murder mystery, a black-note soundtrack, dictated by a metronome programmed to gradually go ever faster, racking tension ever tighter.

 

Change of focus [391] origin pawn vacant
Six days in, Pettinger’s investigation into the death of the mis-named Jammy Dodger (although the original sighting of his pulped and bloodied body rendered it regrettably apt), was picking up pace, thanks to Philly Stepcart’s revelations of a dirty game in which innocent white pawns far exceeded the regulation number, and queen was black as black, her conscience as vacant of pity as were her several minions,.

They’d a location: a once-warehouse, fronting an apparently dis-owned site on the north bank of the Tees, had identified and followed camera-toting bishop. Were all in place to make arrests when …  ‘Bollocks!’

 

Change of focus [392] echo grind Merlot

It took Pettinger a moment to spot, within the dim interior,  the source of the tank-like grinding rumble. Took longer still, noise echoing, distorted around the empty warehouse, to understand it came from a phalanx of wooden barrels, trundling with increasing speed, in their direction.

Beside him, DC Henry Moth sniffed loudly. ‘Wine.’ Added, with satisfaction and a nod towards the word painted on the wall, ‘Merlot.’

Then a dozen spotlights blinded them. Silhouetted men directed cameras toward them. Instructions megaphone-boomed, and with horror Pettinger and his team understood they were to be the subjects of an epic, widescreen snuff. 

 

Change of focus [393] bubble demolish siesta

In a café named ‘Siesta’, where momentarily closed eyes risked being mugged, Philly Stepcart overheard the planning of Pettinger’s team’s demolishment. Took but moments for habitual bubble of jaded disbelief to pop, this lot being prone to take the hero’s part in every tale they told, but there was a note of authenticity...

…and from outside, shouting and the rumble; inappropriate bright light leaking from boarded upper windows, told her it was true. She’d arrived too late.

Then the warehouse door she stood before shuddered. A barrel burst through its rain-rotted bottom. A second, third, then Pettinger, Moth, wielding staves.

 

Change of focus [394] foster manuscript stigma

For Philly Stepcart, the shred of hope she’d fostered, that the stigma of her less-than-salubrious past mattered little to a detective whose history – she’d heard the rumours – was far from pristine, was rewarded. The pleasure in Pettinger’s gooseberry green eyes, on seeing her, unmistakeable.

Brandishing one of the wooden timbers, he demonstrated how he and Moth braked then re-directed barrels so as to cause a pile-up sufficient to topple backwards onto the would-be snuff-makers.

Later, well wined and dined, and preferring honesty, she confessed. ‘I’ve read Raptor’s manuscript confession –‘ And watched Pettinger’s face bleach white to match the candles.

 

Change of focus [395] Atlantic stupefy texture

On hearing a name he'd striven to wipe from his mind, a name associated with the most depraved chapters of his family history, John Pettinger near choked.

Stupefaction evident, disbelief wide as the Atlantic, 'R-Raptor's confession? I don't… how, how… I didn't even know there was such a document.'

'You're calling me a liar?'

Philly Stepcart's question fit a well-worn groove. Training kicked in. He watched for tell-tale tics. Listened to the texture of her breathing, the timbre of her voice. The red/yellow flicker of eyes that had already mesmerised.

Recalled she was a journalist.

'Yes. Until you prove otherwise.'

 

Change of focus [396] Santana strain third

Pettinger back-tracked. Straining truth for lies not in his self-interest, 'Not liar, not exactly –' A twisted grin paid tribute to the background music; the bistro's ­owner evidently a Santana fan. 'Perhaps, "Black Magic woman"?'

'A theory you'd like to test?'

A third attempt to quell desire strained more than professional propriety. Should he, could he trust Philly Stepcart would do likewise? Or would he be reading about himself in Saturday's colour supplement?

Surely she was similarly constrained, hoping he'd say more of Raptor? (A momentarily detumescent thought.)

But no.

Philly smiled. 'I'd like to meet your son. Also like.'

 

Change of focus [397] former lake plaster

Aleks! Bollocking Christ, he was unfit to be a father!

Not only had Philly Stepcart's words reminded Pettinger he had a son, but also of his former antipathy to journalists, now drowned in a lake of lust.

So – what time? Half ten. Past bedtime? He'd better phone –

'Papa! Hi! Sally's sister says you probably too plastered to come home –­'

'Not true –'

'So I am at her house.'

'Tell her… tell her I'm sober but need my sleep. I'll collect you in the morning.'

Philly's expression, as he disconnected, one of questioning  amusement. 'How d'you know he's not lying?'

 

Change of focus [398] proof tendon yawn

Proof, at least: Aleks' absence evident in the yawning emptiness of his bed, duvet heaped upon the floor.

Aware of Philly, eyes avidly absorbing his books and pictures – pitifully few, which in themselves told a tale – Pettinger ushered her out, making incoherent and insincere suggestions of coffee, suddenly aware of the … impropriety (or obscenity, in some eyes) of making a move on a lass young enough to be his daughter.

But, old beyond her years (and that no reassurance!) she shook her head. Rested, for a moment, two fingers on the tendons of his throat.  'We'll just sleep.'

 

Change of focus [399] beard public rune

In Pettinger's experience, the majority of sex workers, having sold their bodies for public consumption, come to count the currency worthless. 'Twas ever thus: didn't blond-bearded Vikings scrawl runes at Maeshowe, commenting on the charms of a wanton Isabella? 

He wasn't such a prick-led savage. And with Philly's history… He gestured to Aleks' empty bed. 'Take that if you prefer, the sheets've only been on a couple of days.'

But Philly smiled. 'You don't trust yourself?'

He stared. 'And how am I supposed to answer that? Damned for rape if I don't, and you'll sulk if I say you're resistible!'

 

Change of focus [397] casual inherit salubrious

Sliding, solitary and naked between his far less salubrious sheets, conscious of Philly Stepcart just a wall away, John Pettinger forced himself to consider parental responsibility. While he could not be blamed for the circumstances of Aleks' early upbringing, now really was the time to start thinking about how Aleks might perceive his occasional forays into casual sex.

Nowhere near as bad as Aleks' mother, of course! Neither quantity nor quality.

Then he recalled an earlier conversation, about one of the perpetrators of his own much earlier and far murkier moral inheritance.

He'd talk to Philly about Raptor over breakfast.

 

Change of focus [398] scalp tine vague

'Raptor? He was your mother’s brother?''

Philly Stepcart's post-breakfast conversation-opener sent the tines of Pettinger's fork skidding through his egg-yolk. Attempting vague disinterest, 'You claimed to have a confession?'

'Yes.'

'It'll be false.'

'A forgery?'

Involuntarily, Pettinger pictured him, yellow eyes, cheekbones savage-stark. Least physical of the family but most frightening, for his ability to slice through one's scalp and tear notches in one's mind. 'He'd've confessed to nothing.'

'Precisely.'

'Precisely bollocking what?'

'Paid a fortune for this document. It was blank.' Her smile not as sorry as it should've been. 'Worth it for the access to Aleks' diary though.'

 

Change of focus [399] drift camel sanguine

'Aleks' diary? You've been reading Aleks' diary?' Pettinger's temper, having been lulled to sanguinity, erupted with alarming intensity. He stood. Loomed across the breakfast table, shouting in her face. 'Christ, Philly. Never mind that bollocks about camels and needles' eyes, that's a gross abuse of hospitality!'

Coolly amused, 'Camels? What've they got to do –?'

'Whatbollockingever! You know what I mean! I trusted you!'

Something close to remorse drifted across her  goldfinch eyes.  'You don't need to worry. He's only got good things to say about you.' 

But he'd beaten her to her bag. Was first to seize her notebook.

 

Change of focus [400] custard emboss language

A bog-standard, custard-yellow reporter's notebook. Nothing fancy; not embossed with peacock quills or made from panda-chewed bamboo. Just as well because, trying to open it with one hand while holding Philly back, her language less than lady-like, was proving difficult; the effort required to stop himself slapping her distracted, resulting in it slipping to the floor. She lurched forward, planted her left foot on it, but Pettinger's right, already in motion, landed immediately after, with some force, and since she'd not yet put her boots on, and he had, her screech of pain was such he let her go.

'Bastard!'

 

Change of focus [401] alarm contradict hump

John Pettinger's alarm at the speed with which the studded pattern of his boot replicated itself on Philly's foot, multiple humps of magenta and purple, oozing beads of scarlet which sped to form rivulets, coursing along the parallel valleys between bones and toes was intense.

Seeing her sway, he reached again for her and, in total contradiction of his previous intent, found himself supporting her sagged weight, she having passed out with the agony of it. He lifted, carried her. Bending to lay her on his bed he heard Aleks come in, laughing, 'You've made the beast with two backs!'

 

 

Change of focus [402] allocate butler cushion

Aleks' innocent allocation of sexual intent to his father lowering Philly Stepcart to his bed; to Philly's clinging tightly to him, doubtless fearing his next trick would be to drop her, set Pettinger's  cheeks to red, but had the merit of temporarily diverting Philly.

Pettinger ordered, 'Get some tea-towels, to stem the blood. And a cushion to raise Philly's foot; slow the flow.'

 Aleks returned, a tray balanced on splayed fingers, cloth draped over his arm, smudge of black across his top lip. 'Papa! Who am I?'

Impatient. Then relenting, 'Don't know. A butler?'

Philly laughed. 'Manuel from Fawlty Towers!'

 

Change of focus [403] eradicate tinsel urge

Yet another reminder of the breadth of his ignorance regarding Aleks' childhood. Nine years  before he knew of his existence. No tinsel-pricking tingle of even so much as the possibility; no urge to verify Valdeta still alive, never mind he'd impregnated her.

Now he had the chance to be a full-time father, he was making a piss-poor job of it. And since it was impossible to eradicate what had thus far shaped his son, his best chance now was to bury it in better memories. Caught lowering a tearful, bruised and bloody Philly Stepcart onto his bed would hardly qualify.

 

Change of focus [404] Guinness merge slur

Whilst Aleks was amusing Philly Stepcart, John Pettinger guessed she viewed his kneeling at her feet, his cautious attempts to stem the merging trickles of blood as no more value-adding than the tourist-aimed shamrock drawn in the foam atop a slow-poured pint of Guinness.

Opening his mouth to make another sincere-but-superfluous apology, he was forestalled by Aleks, who'd spotted his 'Top Secret Diary' splayed open beneath the coffee-table.

With all the ferociousness of the Big Bad Wolf (but wrong story) disbelief slurring his words, he demanded 'Who's been reading my secret diary?' then  correctly read his father's glance at Philly.

 

Change of focus [405] aloof  ermine  rigging

John Pettinger's first impulse, having earlier explained to Aleks why it had been deemed desirable for Philly Stepcart to sleep in his bed, was to hold himself aloof from Aleks' accusation concerning her different rigging of the notions of trust and personal privacy. Then he wondered whether he ought instead to be teaching compassion, empathy and some of those other ermine-bedecked notions of civility the British were so fond of. At least, in comparison with Khakbethian brutality.

Which set circling the ever-present worry of how long would he have Aleks for?

Which depended on what child-care arrangements he could make.

 

Change of focus [406] abdicate love pith

The mobility of Philly Stepcart's face enabled John Pettinger to track changes in her temper, from pain to amusement at Aleks' joke, through pith-tinged guilt at having read his diary before arriving at empathetic understanding, having read Pettinger's mental somersaults as he rued his unintentional abdication of parental responsibility. He wondered how it looked when she made love.

Aleks, looking from one to the other, his ability to read adult emotions exceeding most boys his age, allowed accusation to fade.

For a moment they were held in a bubble of mutual understanding, then Sally Vicksen's voice was heard, calling 'John?'    

 

Change of focus [407] embarrass reed miracle

By the smallest of miracles Aleks, nearest the sitting-room door, was first to rise and go into the kitchen, thus preventing Sally Vicksen's further uninvited incursion and saving Pettinger's further embarrassment. Not that Aleks was impelled so much by intention to conceal as his desire to share with her his recent discovery of Lou Reed's 'Sally Can't Dance'.

By the time Pettinger emerged, smiling and non-disheveled, closing the kitchen door behind him, YouTube was playing loud enough to mask the sound of Philly Stepcart's availing herself of a soothing bath.

Pity was, Aleks hadn't thought to hide the bloody tea-towels.

 

Change of focus [408] counter heal Paris

At first glance the discarded tea-towels heaped upon the kitchen counter could be taken as  a mountain range, modelled in plaster of Paris for a Lego snow-scene, the scarlet streaks suggestive, perhaps, of some post-disaster action. 

Taken in conjunction with Aleks' singing and Pettinger's near-smothered guilt, it was not surprising Sally Vicksen's insensitivity encouraged her to proffer sugared smiles and fresh-baked cakes.

Only when Philly Stepcart opened the door, damp-blushed and revealing all a tiny hand-towel failed to cover was it obvious that a level of damage unlikely to heal had been done to Sally's hopes of becoming Pettinger's wife.

 

Change of focus [409] early mate squalid

 Pettinger could see all too well how Sally Vicksen would interpret Philly Stepcart's near-nakedness as squalid. Would cite damage to Aleks's tender sensibilities, not knowing (not her fault) he'd witnessed corruption from the cradle. (From conception if you believed in the possibility of such early sentience, though the knowledge that he somehow – internally?– experienced the mating of himself and Alek's mother was … disconcerting.)

But the lad at least had the wit to seize the plateful of cakes from her unprepared hands, before they became ammunition, and the charm to take a bite and thank her, as she backed away. 

 

Change of focus [410] allocate poach  trajectory

Sally Vicksen backed as far as the worktop. Seized one from a dish of eggs Pettinger didn't know he possessed, raised her hand and threw it, its trajectory giving nothing away as to which of himself or, Philly being behind him, she aimed at.

As she reached for a second (this allocating her fury more evenly) Aleks cried, 'No Sally! They're mine! I poached them for papa's breakfast.'

'Poached?' Sally was confused, 'but they're still raw –'

Aleks frowned. 'Isn't that the word? I know apples are scrumped and –'

Pettinger, pretending disapproval, 'You, son of a cop, nicked them?'

 

Change of focus [411] pilgrim plait roadblock

Faced with triple-faced misunderstanding – the punk-haired journalist pretending pious as a pilgrim, Aleks' forehead plaited with uncertainty; surprised at her apparent thievery, and John's conflicted, conscience-led disapproval masking pleasure in his son's mangling of language, (and, no doubt, remembered pleasure from having Stepfuckingcart share his bed) the hopes Sally Vicksen had carefully harboured – that he'd come to view her as partner for life – hit the roadblock of reality.

 

With dignity, she gently set the second egg back in the dish. 'I hope you'll find someone better equipped than her to teach your son right from wrong, because he deserves it.'

 

Change of focus [412] album shingle undiscovered

A shiver quivered upward along Pettinger's spine, like that felt at the first touch of clippers, shingling winter-grown hair, in preparation for a summer that might not come. More likely his conscience barbed-wire twitching in response to Sally's all-too-evident aspirations, but, like music, you couldn't make yourself appreciate  what didn't appeal. He found himself picturing album covers – his parents' wholesome Doris Day versus his then lust for Courtney Love; opera and its attendant rich delights undiscovered for far too long.

Whereas Philly … much to yet discover, but he still very far from sure he ought to even try.

 

Change of focus [413] mongrel Egypt pardon

Pardon was owed on both sides, though Pettinger's crime by far the lesser, since his stamping on Philly's foot had been an accident, whereas her reading Aleks' diary, her desire to delve into his mongrel-bred family history deliberate. Beyond that … blame could be laid on either side, murky as an Egyptian doss-house; convoluted as the asp which bit Cleopatra.

At Sally's exit, Philly had retreated upstairs and now re-entered the kitchen fully-dressed, goldfinch eyes a-flutter with mischief.

'Eggs for breakfast? Or should we throw more at the walls, like tempera?'

With careless cruelty Aleks laughed. 'Sally lost her temper.'

 

Change of focus [414] husk initial issue

Pettinger had been repelled by their careless cruelty towards Sally Vicksen, even as he knew neither Philly Stepcart nor Aleks could be blamed, since her ever-kind intentions had always been on his behalf. She the one who'd fielded Aleks initial appearance at the station's front desk – a grubby hobbit from whose mouth issued an incomprehensible tirade of husk-rattled words she could not begin to understand. On hearing the child was his son, she'd kept his secret, and could not be blamed for Aleks escape from her so as to accompany him on his mission to ascertain whether Valdeta still lived.

 

Change of focus [415] barrel provoke Scot

Pettinger, provocation scratching at his temper as had, he unwillingly recalled, thistles worked their way into a sleeping bag when on a camping trip with some lass he'd fancied enough to take up her suggestion they pursue some Speyside Scottish single malt whisky trail.

 

The malt odour, the copper stills, the rows and rows of sherry barrels had impressed near as much as the end-of-tour warming drams of Glenlivet, Glenfarclas and Tamdhu, and she'd been keen enough until, venturing unwillingly out into the black black night for a pee, he'd stepped into a still-liquid cowpat and trekked it back inside.

 

Change of focus [416]

hotel limit quarter

Distance intervening of nigh on a quarter century; hindsight adding a roseate glow, Pettinger now recalled memory of that camping trip a little more fondly. Funds had been so limited a hotel was completely out of the question (except he'd fantasised about a last night, sex-filled fling, preceded by a long hot shower (and there'd been times he'd thought if a only one of those were permissible, he'd forego the sex.)

In the end, he'd been even gladder she'd a father, willing to not only drive 200 miles to fetch them, but treat them to a meal as well.

 

Change of focus [417] curate pretend trilogy

Pettinger dragged his mind back to the present. To his kitchen, the three of them staring at the yolk-bespattered wall, just as good an example of modern art as he'd seen in an exhibition curated by a colleague's graduating daughter, alongside a trilogy – or triptych maybe the more authentic word – of spatters which could've been blood or tomato ketchup.  He'd been unable to even pretend he liked it.

He clapped his hands to gain attention. 'Enough. Aleks, you can start by washing that wall, And Philly, before you leave, I need a statement –'

Smirking, 'Of intent? Yours or mine?'

 

Change of focus [418] key lubricate unwanted

Avoiding Philly's too-knowing eyes, Pettinger addressed his son's back. 'That elbow could do with a little lubrication!' Aleks, water dripping to the floor, paused in his desultory dabbing at the egg-yolk on the wall, the stiffening of his shoulders expressing reluctance to admit ignorance as to whether the remark was joke or unwanted exhortation to work harder.

'Elbow grease, lad! Less water, more effort. Find something more abrasive –'

Behind him, Philly sniggered, 'You'll need to demonstrate, John, I'm off to work.' To Aleks, 'I expect it to be sparkling when I return.' Whereupon she waved a key and went.

 

Change of focus [419] cheap powder testosterone

Pettinger, unsure whether it was anger he was feeling, at her appropriation of a key, or anticipation of her later return – and knowing neither would benefit unless Philly was willing – refocused on his son who, at her exhortation – incipient testosterone? – had begun to scrub.

Without effect.

'What're you using, lad?'

'Aleks pointed to a cardboard cylinder, the holes of which bore traces of white powder. A frantic scouring of his memory then Pettinger recalled it was some cheap substitute for Vim.

Least, he hoped so. Bit embarrassing if the guy who'd sold it to him was disposing of his stash. 

 

Change of focus [420] float Michelangelo wild

Within the month, the problem of Aleks' out-of-school care was solved: a portrait-painter neighbour willingly providing snacks and supervision in exchange for twice-daily walking of his dogs.
Aleks was ecstatic: 'They're big and black and one's called Raphael and the other's Michelangelo!', adding, with an air of educating Pettinger, 'They're Renaissance painters.'

What might once have been considered a problem – Philly Stepcart having his spare key – became a different sort of tease. He got used to returning to a kitchen afloat with the aroma of garlic. Less so her driving him wild, wanting, never able to believe, she would stay.

 

 

Change of focus [421] erudite holly meander

DI John Pettinger looked down from the cliff to the tight-packed roofs of the once Roman port, Iarum, tight-held in the U-bend of the meandering Tees. Beside him, DC Henry Moth, un-showered and faintly female-perfumed.

Unlike himself. His phone's vibrations woke him at 5am. Philly, other side of the wall, stayed asleep. 

Eventually, SIO Edwin Rudd, whose experience further  justified his nickname of Erudite, summoned them. As white-suited SOCOs continued with their business he gestured, smiling.

'We're lucky! A holly hedge is excellent for holding evidence!'

Pettinger grimaced, 'Less so for the poor sod stuffed head-first into it. Stark naked.'

 

Change of focus [422 ] hammer hide liar

While Henry Moth proved himself possessed of all the requisite skills of a diplomat (i.e. a liar who smiled while charming his victim owner into believing his badly-mauled holly hedge would swiftly recover from assault by machete and hammer) – the extracted body – a woman – was laid on a sheet of white plastic. A blizzard of holly scratches suggested raspberry-striped ice-cream (male observers keeping quiet on the subject of jam sponge puddings) and it was not until she was turned, on Edwin Rudd's orders, that the bloody scalpel-scratched message could be read in its entirety: 'YOUR A BITCH WHO CANT HIDE'

 

Change of focus [423]  bolt feather mandible

The sudden wince and tight-clenched stiffening of several mandibles, caught unprepared as Edwin Rudd performed, without warning, the necessary swabbing of the victim's genital orifices was, Pettinger thought, payback for earlier disrespect. And, from the sudden closing of a gate further along the lane, the screeching of an ill-greased bolt, similarly upset the nosy bastards drinkers at the Feathers Inn.

Preliminary photographs had been taken, both of body and its bloody message, and surrounding location.

As she was zipped into a body bag, and carried to the waiting van, the SOCOs moved in and began their meticulous search for evidence.

 

Change of focus [424] clear drake significant

While SOCOs searched the locus for evidence of how and  when, DI Pettinger sought witnesses, and since a significant number of the Feathers Inn regulars had been gawping over the gate, a visit to the pub clearly the next step.

Most such-named pubs refer to the heraldic 'Ich Dien'. Not this one. This landlord had a passion for Mallards.  Every wall of every room in the pub was decorated with ducks and drakes – wallpaper, paintings, prints and photos. Only the hanging signboard outside lacked the bird and bore instead a circle of scattered feathers.

The landlord explained:  'Post duck rape.'

 

Change of focus [425] audience crab waste

Crab sandwiches and a pint each of Theakstons – neither a crumb nor  a drop wasted – and DI Pettinger and DC Moth were ready to resume their investigation into the murder of the illiterately-inscribed lass. Body removed and SOCO finishing up, the audience had disappeared, but Pettinger's first task was to check that the identities of all had been noted, with particular attention paid to strangers: not unknown for the murderer to get a second thrill from watching the resultant gathering of evidence.

He didn't know whether to be pleased or irritated at Philly's murmured, 'Derek Nickle's who you want'.

 

Change of focus [426] cutting hawk tea

By tea-time they were in the mortuary, the pathologist’s aristocratic nose mere inches from the calligraphic cuttings on the body's back. Wielding magnifying glass – a barely-necessary supplement to the hawk-eyed experience of his years – and speaking for the benefit of the microphone suspended above his head, Edwin Rudd expressed his opinion of the standard of English teaching at the local comprehensive.

Irritated, Henry Moth (who'd left there with several A-levels) pointed out, 'Derek Nickle never went there –'

Sharply, Pettinger, 'You know him?'

'Aye. Was head boy at the grammar –'

'So why the hell did Philly point the finger?'

 

Change of focus [427] cocktail fast tarnish

DC Henry Moth explained Philly Stepcart's claiming Derek Nickle implicated in the murder of Toni Forsyth, the holly-bush lass.

'Nickle senior. Tried curing his mid-life-crisis with the usual cocktail of sex'n'drugs with schoolgirls. Over-heavy reliance on the protection of privilege. Inevitable blackmail fast-drained family coffers. Topped himself when it became headline news, thanks to Stepcart's investigation. When Derek realised how badly tarnished his silver-spoon inheritance, it was the papers rather than Pater he blamed. Either he mistook Forsyth for Philly, or was targeting all blonde female reporters.'

'We need to warn Philly –'

Henry smiled. 'D'you think she doesn't know?'

 

Change of focus [428] bloat  pocket  wonder

Despite – or perhaps because of – being born into Khakbethian royalty, and having witnessed brutality and immorality at first hand, from each and every of his closest kin, John Pettinger was scornful of Derek Nickle's bloated belief blind-eyed leniency was his birthright. Charged with the murder of Toni Forsyth he denied he was guilty but his pockets,  emptied at the custody desk, contained both the  knife used to carve his misspelt message and a list of local journalists. In addition, hands and arms were blood-blistered and bloated. Thanks to the wonders  of forensic science, an ilex-allergy was proved; his conviction assured.

 

Change of focus [429] black-eyed, pristine underwater

Except, except … Derek Nickle had a sister, Black-eyed, nubile and bullied from birth. She swore blind, knife and 'school project' list were hers;  Derek's allergy not ilex but jellyfish 'from his passion for deep-diving.'

Scoffing, Pettinger suggested taking him to the river: 'Throw him in, see how long he stays underwater!'

Henry Moth protested. Vehemently.

Completely out of character.

Raised Pettinger's suspicions, and received the bollocking of his life,  soon as Pettinger established the reason: Derek's sister had been 'persuaded' to sacrifice her pristine reputation (thus providing necessary evidence) and instructed to cry 'Rape' soon as the deed was done.

 

Change of focus [430] consolation  plain  traveller

Henry Moth's abject apology was too little, too late; his red-faced explanation he didn't, not quite, go all the way with Nickle's sister, only small consolation to Pettinger who understood it had been squeamishness – 'Plain to see she was covered in the same sort of rash as her brother; not one I fancied catching' – rather than moral scruples.

'Hope you can prove it lad. Rumour has it the Nickles are Romany. Traveller blood in the family. Understandably, they won't stand for slights to their women's honour –'

'But I didn't, I swear!'

More pertinent is what she says about it.'

 

Change of focus [431] appliqué march remorse

John Pettinger felt no remorse for his embroidering of the truth; his appliqué of a scary fairytale to his chastisement of Henry Moth. Marching to stand in front of the whiteboard which dominated one wall of the incident room he addressed his assembled team, pointing, one by one to the photos pinned thereon.

'Derek Nickle. Malodourous scrote , now facing further charges of attempting to thwart the course of justice. Sister Delilah, similarly toxic. Similarly charged. And Toni Nichol. Who bore superficial resemblance to Philly Stepcart. And paid the price –'

An unseen voice. 'And was similarly superficial in bed.'

 

Change of focus [432]  calculate muscle still

Quick as a flash, muscle spasming fingers to fist, John Pettinger attempted to calculate, from the direction the voice had come from, who it was claiming to've slept with Philly. And had found her … not unimpressive, at the very least. Failing, he continued with his briefing. 'We have How, and Who, and sufficient forensic evidence, but I'd be happier still if we knew Why. What prompted the message scrawled on Toni Forsyth's back? Was Nickels acting from his own sense of grievance, or on someone else's behalf?

'And if so, who? We need to ask.'

He'd insist on Philly.

 

Change of focus [433] anemone gentle pit

 

If  Philly Stepcart had been as keen  to appear by his side in bed as she was when, in the early hours, she heard the gentle alert of his work phone, John Pettinger would be a happy man.  With a brazenness he'd've better enjoyed, pit of belly conscience-free, had she demonstrated it in horizontal mode between the sheets she stood close enough to hear the details clear as he.

To flatly echo, 'Annie Moan?'

Pettinger nodded, picturing the aged whore. Violet eyes, lashes mascara-laden stamens, complementing the flower she'd been named for. 'Anemone, aye. Fullerton's garage pit, down Wharf Street.'

 

Change of focus [434] cherry magnet worse

Aeons of  black engine grease glistened in what half-light penetrated a shed built to accommodate a half-dozen double-decker buses. Took a torch to show what looked like dark-ripe cherries on the surface were gouts of blow-thrown blood. Or worse, because whatever had been within Annie Moan's skull had been expelled.

Appalled, Pettinger looked into the pit, 'Unspeakable.'

Beside him, Henry Moth tilted his head backwards, indicating the jovial murmur of camera-ready journalists. Bitterly, 'But they'll speak of it, won't they? Know headlines of a death of such as Annie act as magnet for the moralisers. Sell a sight more papers.'

 

Change of focus [435] effluent pearl support

CSI Kate Rivers arrived with half a dozen SOCOS. Banning DI Pettinger and Henry Moth to beyond the taped periphery, they made initial deductions about what had befallen Annie Moan as they circled, filmed and photographed the gore-greased scene; examining and sifting the thick and glistening  effluent for pearls of forensically incriminating evidence.

Pettinger, aware the familiar and occasionally beautiful ballet of their white-clad circling, to the accompaniment of murmurs and photographic flashes, masked the gruesomeness of their task, and remembered to be similarly appreciative of the numerous agencies – digital and DNA – which further supported and enhance their initial findings.

 

Change of focus [436] grease question wrinkle

 

DI Pettinger addressed his waiting team. 'Usual questions: Who?, Where? What? When? Why? And How?

'We do know Who, and because of her profession, can suggest one theory as to Why – too many upholders of society condemn such as she.  It does look like the killing happened here and SOCO give TOD as no more than eight hours ago. As to How, what weapon or weapons were used, by whom, it's impossible to say until we've got her into the mortuary and cleaned her up. It will be a slow job, extracting grease then prints and DNA from every wrinkle.'

 

Change of focus [437] craft gig impregnable

Philly Stepcart rematerialized as Pettinger left Fullerton's garage, matched him step for step as he crossed Wharf Street and  stood beside him, looking down to where a team from the university were setting a half dozen narrow craft into the water.

'Not canoes –'

'Gigs by design, which, strictly speaking, belong to ships –'

Pettinger remembered words were her business As was the extraction of information. Well, two could play at that. He turned to her, 'What do you know about Anemone? Her clients? Enemies?'

Eyes impregnable. 'For an exclusive?' and Pettinger glumly wondered whether she'd played him all along.

 

Change of focus [438] cuddle theatre Waterloo

 

Philly Stepcart, recognising how much the responsibility for solving yet another senseless murder weighed on Pettinger,  put her arms round him. 'I'm teasing, John. I'm not the sort of hack who trades sex for headlines. Sorry. Give us a cuddle –'

A mixture of frustration –  professional as well as emotional – and a from-nowhere sense of mortality, emboldened him. With give-away bitterness, 'I need more than that.'

Then he wished the bitterness, if not the words, unsaid. Attempted rueful apology, 'I'm sorry. A Waterloo Sunset moment. 'I'm being theatrical.'

'You are.' Tip-toed, she reached and lightly kissed him. 'Wait until tonight.'

 

Change of focus [439] dream odour virtue

 

For the rest of the day, to his inner disgust  – he was bollocking decades from a love-sick teenager desperate to renounce virtue and virginity – John Pettinger found his head playing host to frequent and unwelcome bursts of Roy Orbison's herniated enunciation of 'In dreams'.

Even the pungent cocktail of odours emanating from the inspection pit of Fullerton's garage, as exhausted and black-smeared SOCOs bailed it out in the vain hope of evidence, failed to silence them.

Then, just as he'd decided tonight was near enough arrived and he could go home to the waiting Philly, a shout –

'Another body, Guv!'

 

Change of focus [440] drum sorrow stone

'Another body, Guv!'

Hope, optimism, and nicely-warming lust coagulated. Dropped like a stone from groin to ground.

Roy Orbison ceased to dream. Instead, the dead march drumbeat that preceded Paul Simon's listing fifty ways to leave a lover – even before she'd become one. Sorrow didn't come anyway near. In fact John Pettinger came as near to chucking this bollocking job as ever he had. Even the desire to properly parent Aleks hadn't made him want to quit. He loved his job.

But even though she understood the demand of deadlines, Philly Stepcart might not appreciate he had no choice.

 

Change of focus [441] lotion trite understand

Duty kicked in, trudging its trite and heavy-footed path. Fingers mentally crossed for Philly's understanding, Pettinger applied another dab of peppermint lotion to his nose and squatted to see what the CSI was pointing at.

'Bones –'

'Skeletonised. So older than Anemone.'

'Decades, at least. I doubt centuries. They'd not need inspection pits for horses – How long's this garage been here?'

Pettinger searched his memory. 'This building, fifty years, or so. But the site – wharf, boatshed, or whatever – since the thirteen hundreds.' His phone rang. Text from Philly: 'Warming your bed.'

'Got to go. Your reports first thing tomorrow.'

 

Change of focus [442] allege rash seven

Alarm woke him. Automatically, despite believing it unnecessary, John Pettinger checked.

Seven-thirty.

Seven?

Should be six.

That not the only thing not normal. His rolling caused the mattress to dip. The … heat, the source of it, behind him, to tip towards him.

Fearing to move forward, lest he fall out of bed. Backward lest he … squash …squash what was most certainly a body, behind him. A live body …

A hand alighted on his ribs.

He shuffled round. Aching but thankfully aware Philly's alleged promise for last night not misplaced nor rash. As evidenced by her cat-cream smile.

 

Change of focus [443] exquisite glove snap

'Philly, I … dear god … you …'

As he'd turned her hand remained stationary. Now better-placed,  her fingers … descended … sending exquisite messages to those part which best appreciated … decoded … them.

John Pettinger forgot he'd woken late. Didn't wonder why no beeping, no buzz nor ringing from his phone.

John Pettinger succumbed.

 

Fifteen minutes later, a siren. Blue light reflecting on the ceiling. Pounding at his front door.

Shouting of his name.

 

His mind snapped to attention with the alacrity of a vinyl  evidence glove. Near drowning Philly's whispered, 'I turned your phone off. Sorry.'

 

 

 

Change of focus [444 ]needle prescribe thermometer

 

Unlike Hollywood , John Pettinger's deep-grooved sense of duty sent him downstairs to open his front door without considering Hollywood's prescribed dress code for DI's disturbed in flagrante with a local reporter. Nor did he need a thermometer to gauge  the heat of condemnation  rising in the eyes of his superior. Nor fail to note doubt as the effect of the morning chill on his lack of Y-fronts diluted green-needled envy  as Philly Stepcart made her duvet-wrapped appearance beside him.

'You didn't answer your phone!'

'I was …   busy.'

 'And inconsiderate.' But not so much he was offered indefinite leave. 

 

Change of focus [445] bark native appropriate

Pettinger took the DCI's barked 'Go put on something more appropriate!' as embarrassment until, turning, he saw its crimsoned echo  flush Philly's face. They obviously knew each other, but as fellow professionals – native local reporter cooperating with local police – or something closer? Struggling to picture them together,. Pettinger asked, 'Appropriate for what? Scrabbling among old bones in a fifty-year-old inspection pit  or attendance at Court?'

Desk. The CSI awaits your promised report –'

'Has the forensic  archaeologist confirmed their age?'

'Sixty years. I'll set you to going through the records –'

Philly spoke up: 'Mispers. I 'll check newspaper files.'

 

Change of focus [446] gangster gull pier

Philly lifted a fleece from the coathook beside the door. Passed it to a grateful Pettinger who, genitals concealed, stated 'Sixty years ago most MisPers were drug-related. Police records will tell us which gangsters favoured concrete burials, as opposed to chained-to piers to drown. Both applicable to river deliveries –'

'– and gulls enough to mask screams.' which  the DCI took as Philly's declaration of allegiance. Addressing Pettinger, 'That'll keep you busy for a week. DC Moth can take over Anemone's murder investigation. Miss Stepcart, I'd like you to come back to the station with me.' 

 

 

Change of focus [447] contract, support, surrogate

Such was the crackle of hostility emanating from Philly Stepcart at being so peremptorily ordered that Pettinger winced on the DCI's behalf; her glare like to carbonise; cause the man to vanish in a puff of smoke. Not that Philly's pointing Pettinger out as the man she'd spent the night with – he become traitor in the DCI's eyes – would do his prospects any good. But betrayal, albeit unintentional, had been good enough to hope for a repeat).
A moment of stillness when the balance of dignity hung in the balance, then, from behind, Aleks' voice: 'Dad, your bum is showing!'

 

Change of focus [448] contract support surrogate

Philly's laughter, at Aleks' comment on Pettinger's déshabillé suggested she a less-than-suitable surrogate mother. That is, if he hoped for a stiffly well-mannered son, but despite lawless family support and unconventional life-style, lacking any sort of stability, Aleks had turned out bright and intelligent – suggesting nature was sufficient to overcome it. And in truth, he couldn't imagine Philly accepting any sort of contract that included the role of step-mother, despite her claimed interest in investigating his "cultural journey".

Then the DCI waded in. "That boy should be in school!"

Philly smiled. 'I'm  about to take him. See you later, John.'

 

Change of focus [449] orifice plug stretch

Returning home after a long stretch comprising SIO and forensic reports, jealousy-led jibing from the DCI and  a desiccated post-mortem (plus pretending to ignore the traitorous  door-step photos being circulated, to much mirth, Pettinger found Philly lecturing  a sulky Aleks. 'In Rome, there's an  orifice known as  Bocca della Verità, Put your hand into its mouth and if you've lied it bites your finger off. Shall I take you there now and see if it takes yours?'

'No! I'm sorry, I did use your lap-top. Meant to unplug it after.'

'And did you learn anything new?'

His face contorted. 'Yes.'

 

Change of focus [450] bubble contort wedding

Merciless, Philly intended teaching Aleks a lesson. His confidence in Philly's indulgence fragile as a soap bubble as he stuttered, 'You had a wedding. So you shouldn't be going to bed with my Dad!

'Did your Mum have a wedding with your Dad?' That part-guesswork, part research.

No, because she'd already had a husband. But she didn't like him so he got dead.'

Philly's question deceptively innocent. 'Does your Dad know that?'

Well-honed instinct challenged Aleks' certainty truth the preferable option. 'Yes, and he punished her. Brought me here. To find another mother.'

'D'you think he intends to ask me?'

 

Change of focus [451] current espalier regret

Philly Stepcart regretted questioning the likelihood of her becoming the current Mrs Pettinger, not least for Aleks' taking it seriously. Frown-lines espaliered across his forehead as he struggled to balance need for  tact with honesty. 

Eventually, with tolerant regret, 'I think he keeps forgetting the mother bit –'

Genuinely curious, 'What do you want from a mother. Aleks?'

Fiercely – this mattered to him – 'A family. A brother and a sister, to start!'

'Does your Dad want that?'

'Well, he keeps doing the bed bit, doesn't he?  And none of the women say no – you didn't! –  I'm old enough to know bed makes babies.'

 

Change of focus [452] applaud court flood

Philly Stepcart couldn't help but applaud Aleks' logic,  bleak and simplistic though it was. She wondered whether to humanise it; bring in notions of love but introducing the rituals of courtship felt too fairytale (especially as she suspected Aleks' had been brought up on a diet of gruesome Khakbethian legends; where wooing was of the werewolf variety.) Similarly, was it her place (not yet having attained the status of wife, never mind "responsible mother" ) to flood his innocence with details of condoms; contraception? Especially suspecting it was the lack of that led to his existence.) Which reminded her …   

 

Change of focus [453] gentle goose weave  

A prickling  of goose bumps accompanied Philly's recollection of their gently woven, but rudely interrupted just-woken, sex. So sweet, she was unable to recall whether or not a condom had been used. Aleks' innocent "bed makes babies" no misconception. Certainly Pettinger, thanks to his near-naked door-step arrival, had greater reason to fear immediate consequences – and the switched-off phone entirely down to her – but a nine-month wait for what some  termed a 'bundle of joy' never part of her Life Plan.)

Nor had it included attaining the status of "an honest woman".  Not even with John Pettinger.

 

Change of focus [454] chime linen plough

All day the fear she might be pregnant ploughed parallel V-cut lines through Philly Stepcart's brain. By the time the clock chimed six  she was pacing the length of Pettinger's hall, nurturing an ever-growing  hatred for its linenfold panelling, which she labelled  "pretentious", simultaneously applying the epithet to the man.

On his coming through the door, she thrust her face into his, the harshness of her, 'This morning? Did you use a condom?' an unwelcome shock.

Too slowly, 'A condom? Yes, I think … probably. I usually do. Unless …' A grin of recollection,  'You were rather importunate, so maybe –'

 

Change of focus [455] newspaper salt substitute

A necessary skill for both police and newspaper journalists is the interpretation of the language of faces, of bodies. Spotting those 'tells' when lies are being substituted for truth or, more optimistically, aiming to conceal.

Philly Stepcart's anxiety too long-simmered to be diverted by amusement, but the aggressive nearness of her face enabled Pettinger to read salt-tracks of tears she was unaware of crying and know the time to joke was past. He pulled her head against  his shoulder, 'Of course. It's not a mistake I'll make a second time,' confident she could not read his shifty-eyed intent to lie.

 

Change of focus [456 ]kite shade unwrap

Philly tilted her head and stared into the extraordinary shade of milky emerald of Pettinger's eyes. 'I remember you unwrapping the first. Noticing the logo. Wondering what sort of reassurance a flimsy paper kite was meant to deliver. To me, it suggested fly-away, unreliable ­–'

'But decked with paper bows and coloured ribbons, aye, implying the freedom to have fun –'

'Or the false promise that using one absolves all men of responsibility!'

Pettinger noted the bitterness of Philly's complaint.

'Not so. Using one is taking responsibility. Making sure –'

'D'you absolutely know that Kite condoms are 100% reliable?

 

Change of focus [457 ]appoint kangaroo urgent

Shockingly slow, Pettinger read Philly's fear of pregnancy.  Gently, he took her face between his hands and kissed her . 'No condom, no contraceptive is guaranteed 100% effective. Even when they're thick as kangaroo hide there's room for handling errors. Only sure way to stay childless is to refrain from sex altogether, and I doubt you're someone who'd take kindly to that. Best I can suggest is you make an urgent doctor's appointment, ask for the morning-after pill –'

Voice clotted with unwanted tears, 'That the best you can do? Time was, there'd at least be a proposal of marriage!'

 

Change of focus [458 ]common cynic magpie

'Marriage! You want a proposal of marriage?'

Such was John Pettinger's breathlessness, it was impossible to judge whether it was couched in terms of shock, surprise, delight or cynicism. (In truth, Pettinger himself, if asked at that precise moment, would've  been hard-pushed to define it. He was well aware that the common view, in such situations, was for the putative father to take to his heels and disappear, pleased at having magpie-seized his chance and hoping not to have to pay for it. But … Philly … as wife? It was very tempting.

But impossible to judge her true willingness.

 

bookmark limp wreak Change of focus [459]

Philly Stepcart, judging Pettinger's question so limp as to be meaningless, had no idea why she'd mentioned marriage; her Life Plan having never been bookmarked with such conventions as  'Husband' or 'Children'. His eyes, however, shone with hope. If she was pregnant (time would tell) having him on her side would be no bad thing. She doubted he'd be one to rein her in, and Aleks an interesting project.

Just one thing: Holding his gaze, 'You know marrying me might wreak havoc with your career.'

A smile, 'Bollocks to that. Are you saying 'Yes'?'

'I am.'

 

Change of focus [460] cable lime protect

Only one way to celebrate that: bed again. Tight clutch of her legs around him, head thrown back in ecstasy, sinews of her throat like cables – and no protection.

Both open-eyed, each observing the other. Philly smiled: 'Did you know your eyes lose their milkiness in orgasm?'

'No –'

'Take on the sharpness of a lime.'

'Aleks would tell you limes are good for scurvy. Come to which –' a glance at the bedside clock 'Where is Aleks?'

'He said some after school club – '

Pettinger scrambled off the bed, ''Til ten past seven?'

'A friend's house?'

'What friend?'

 

Change of focus [461] eclipse throat vary

Guilt – he unfit to be a father! Worry – where the hell had Aleks got to, when he was invariably home by six (and hadn't left a message to say otherwise – and sheer bollock-shrinking fright combined to totally eclipse his joy at Philly's agreeing to become his wife. Dryness of his throat hampering his ability to speak, he grabbed her arm, 'Did he say anything to you about his plans? When did you see him last? '

'This morning. He was saying he wanted a mother. Brothers; sisters – I don't know that I fitted the bill.'

'I thought he liked you.'

 

Change of focus [462] elbow flash sock

Recognising parental panic in the flash of John Pettinger's green eyes; the sudden absence of experienced police authority, Philly removed her elbow from his grasp and reached into his pocket for his mobile. Scrolled through Contacts for Aleks' number. Input it into her own phone and listened to the dial tone. Red disc went to green. 

Aleks' 'Philly' was relieved: he did like, did trust her. Eschewing accusation, 'I thought you'd be hungry by now –'

His guttural, Khakbethian reply unintelligible. Hearing incomprehension, he translated:  'Enough to eat my socks!'

'Tell me where to pick you up.'

'The police station.'

 

 

Since this looks like becoming another serial, spawned by Prediction prompts, here is the initial story, written for House of Writers 2012, a Kansas gathering of mostly 6S and T10 writers, and its follow-up which appeared on MuDspots #48:

Action and reaction [Intruder]
I suppose what I brought was ignorance.  

Not innocence for sure, it had been a long, long time since I could be accused of that.   And, in truth, a long time since anyone had accused me, to my face at least, of ignorance.

Arrogance?   Yeah, sure.   Probably the third thing anyone might say about me (though what the first two might be I could not reliably say).

Obviously (Obviously?   Just how obvious?   The next-door neighbour didn’t seem to think it, but then she was of the Daily Mirror school of thought:  unless knot-haired, red-eyed, wailing evidence of grief was present, you clearly could not claim, properly, to ‘care’.   And I all too clearly had failed to bring so much as a scallop-edged, lace-printed cellophaned bunch of garage-purchased daffodils to lay down at the gatepost … As if that would make a blind bit of difference to anybody.)

But I did feel a lumpen sadness.   Grief.   Just not thesaurus words such as distraught, nor wretchedness nor woe.  
Oh woe.

Regret?   I suppose.  
Regret that things had not been otherwise, but that applied to so much throughout my life it would be meaningless to apply any version of it here.  

And so they were both gone.   Gone together which, too glibly, I had at first thought would be a solace for each of them.   Not that their final moments would have been anything other than filled with horror.   That I did regret.   Felt sharp and deep-speared pain about, and anger.   Though, guiltily, I recognised that my anger was, in part at least, at the dislocation to my life.

And it would have been the anger that was in my face when the door was opened for me by the constable who’d watched my approach, himself impassive (yet there was sufficient evidence of intelligent analysis in his face – or attempt at analysis – to suggest that he was not destined for the traffic division.)
Anger was quickly displaced.   Was rapidly replaced by nausea.

I had, without giving it too much thought, assumed that the room would have been cleaned, the scene of the crime dismantled in the manner of a no-longer-required film set, but as soon as the door opened the odour disabused me of that.  

The smell of old blood, copious quantities of dried old blood, is unmistakable, a mediaeval shambles memory, accompanied by muffled, scuffled stave-weight blows and grunts of cudgelled pain.

More than grunts had been heard here.
But doubtless muffled by the weakness of the lungs and limbs.   Initially by disbelief that such a thing was happening here and now.   Their house.   Their living room.   Their time of life …

He met me in the hallway.   ‘Sally Hopgood?   I’m Detective Sergeant John Pettinger.   We spoke on the phone …’

He looked as dour as he had sounded, but younger, close-cropped dark hair on a head sufficiently well-shaped for it to be flattering, though I’d need a 360˚ view before giving it full marks;  most men had a scar or two to spoil the tidy symmetry, and being a policeman he might have more than most …
God!   Now was not the time to be considering his looks!  

But I could not help but note his eyes – an unusually pale, opaque grey-green –  because they were making no attempt to hide the fact that he was examining me minutely.  
For guilt?  
To measure grief?  
For evidence of something that would tell him I was returning to the scene of the crime – my crime – rather than not having stepped through this doorway for nigh on eleven years?
‘Sally-Ann Hopgood …’   It was an ever-required, and therefore automatic correction;   I knew that I’d already given him my full name on the phone.


Presumably to establish some cursory degree of empathy, he said  ‘I hope your journey was without problem.’
‘No.   No problem.’  
He really did not want to hear about how little I’d slept, about the Jamaican woman next to me who had been nervous but excited about seeing her daughter and that I had had to listen to her circulatory wonderings and worryings for five of the eight hours of the second flight, nor about the ridiculous delay in getting through Customs … 

‘Is this …?’ 
I indicated the doorway behind him, well aware that the front room was where it had taken place.  
He was not so much shielding me from the sight as attempting to stage-manage my progress.   Nothing personal I did not think, just that he had from birth been accustomed to believe that men order, women obey.  
And it wasn’t even, at that level, objectionable.   Just … well, perhaps I was overreacting.
‘Yes, the SOCOs – scene-of-crime officers  – have been, of course.   It was a mess before but they rarely help matters, I’m afraid …’

And I’m afraid I took one look at the blood-drenched carpet before, hand to my mouth, I turned and headed out again.    It would not have been so bad had it been the lurid floral affair they used to have but reasonably recently they must have changed it – not before time! – for a plain beige.   They would have been upset about the waste of money …

Acting as some sort of mobile traffic bollard, DS Pettinger had moved and now stood between me and the front door through which I’d entered so I was necessarily diverted to the back of the house.  
A previously-unseen policeman, anticipating my need for a fast exit, unlocked and opened the door into the back garden and I stepped out, remembering the single concrete doorstep well enough not to stumble, and headed four paces down the path before turning and vomiting copiously into the narrow border, filled with still-thriving French marigolds, between the concrete path and the over-grown, daisy-filled lawn.   In my current state of visual association their petals too appeared edged with blood.

As soon as it was clear that I had finished, the constable came forward with a handful of kitchen roll and a small smile of sympathy.
‘I’ll bring a glass of water …’ he said, but his superior spoke from within the kitchen.
‘Miss Hopgood can drink it in here …’

He then proceeded to ask me all over again the questions I had already answered, haltingly, my voice as fragile as my knees, when he had first phoned, from halfway across the world, at some ungodly hour of the night, to tell me.
 
No I had not been home since I left, eleven years ago.  
No single reason,  just a … difference of opinion, of philosophy, of what we thought life was about, was for.  
More than generational difference;  also for their attempts to control, my refusal to be so.  
Yes we had spoken in the interim, occasionally.   The last time had been … probably Christmas. 
 No, there were no other children, no relatives, brothers, sisters or even cousins … and no I could not think of a single reason why anyone should have brought them to this end.   They had been content in their lives … certainly would never say that they were missing me.
 
Not as much as I knew I would, from now, miss them.


Interrogation [watch my lips]


After he had asked again all he’d asked me in his first phone call, this time in the far less bloodied kitchen while I uselessly sipped water to negate the taste of vomit, he asked me to go with him to the police station. I refused, indicating my desire to change my sick- and travel-stained clothes whereupon, still dour and seeming disapproving, he said ‘Within the hour, then, if you would be so good.’

This time a jaded grey-green room, windows too high to admit other than the darkening sky, his questions more circulatory. Several I asked him to repeat, unsure of … not what he wanted, but wondering if there was a direction he was looking to take in his investigation of my parents’ murder.  

In a pause my stomach rumbled. He looked up, startled then embarrassed. ‘I should have asked when you last ate.' I shook my head, it did not matter. I wasn’t sure that I was hungry. He checked his watch. ‘Another half an hour should see us out.’

Twenty minutes, then: ‘DS Pettinger concluding the interview with Sally-Ann Hopgood at eight thirteen’ and turned off the tape recorder.  

‘We’ll go and find somewhere to eat.’   As I said, a man who believes that women were designed to do as they were told.   I would have refused, but I’d been watching his mouth for the past hour and was wondering how soon I could get him to put his lips against my skin.