02 Blue Murder (31 page)

“
Leave the blade in place,
Jeremy,” Hetheridge said.

“
Please?” The young man
grinned.

“
Please.”

“
Get up, mate,” Jeremy told
Bhar. “I know your arms and legs work. Give me trouble and I’ll
stick you again.”

Laboriously they rose as one, Jeremy panting
and red-faced, Bhar determinedly blank. His lips were pressed
together, but his eyes were wide and terrified. Hetheridge, who had
twice faced a loaded gun, understood that terror as well as
anyone.

“
Now. Chief superintendent,”
Jeremy’s tone was still fundamentally calm, “you think you’re so
clever, don’t you? Yes, Clive tried to blackmail me. Yes, I bought
the axes in drag. Doesn’t make me queer. Just careful. Clever. Like
Sir Duncan. Emmeline wanted to have her Halloween party at a cinema
but I convinced her to do it at the townhouse. Because I wanted to
be sure Sir Duncan had a front-row seat. To see who I am. What I
can do. And he did,” Jeremy grinned. “The whole world did. So. Know
what you’re going to do, chief? You’re going to let me walk out of
here. Or I’ll open this wog’s throat from ear to ear, I
promise.”

“
You’re going to walk
backwards? With DS Bhar between you and me?”

“
Why not?” To prove his
capability, Jeremy swung Bhar around so the detective sergeant
faced Hetheridge and Jeremy’s back was aligned with the open door.
“It’s just a short distance for me. But a big one for you. I can
kill him before you can blink.”

“
Jeremy.” Hetheridge put all
his persuasive power into his voice. “It will be difficult for the
Crown to prove you killed Trevor Parsons and Clive French. But if
you kill DS Bhar now, before the eyes of a top-ranking detective,
you’ll go to prison for life. And don’t fantasize that you can
simply run away if you manage to kill me as well as my sergeant. It
simply isn’t in the cards.”

Jeremy’s upper lip curled. “You’re old. This
one’s hurt. Bet me.” As he withdrew the knife blade, sending
another spurt of Bhar’s blood across the room, the cricket bat
struck Jeremy Bentham’s skull with an audible crack. Eyes wide and
mouth open, he released Bhar, falling to his knees. When Jeremy
waved the knife weakly, mouth moving like he might issue another
threat, Kate hit him again even harder.

“
Bet
you?
Bet me.
” Kate
glared down at Jeremy’s inert form, McGraw’s cricket bat gripped in
both hands. “Twitch and I’ll hit you again, you piss-headed
wanker.”

“
Thought ‘plonker’ was your
appellation of choice.” Hetheridge fought mightily not to sound out
of breath, much less frightened. He’d glimpsed Kate in the doorway,
cricket bat in hand, just as Jeremy threatened to open Bhar’s
throat from ear to ear.

“
I like to change it up,”
Kate said, dropping down beside Bhar. His hand was already clamped
over his neck wound; she put her hand on top of his, doubling the
pressure. “Backup is on the way, so stay with me, Paul. Don’t faint
or do anything the lads will tease you for later.”

“
Thought the wormy little
bastard was going to kill me,” Bhar said. Despite the pressure he
and Kate kept on the wound, he was still bleeding significantly.
Bleeding, and beginning to tremble all over with the early signs of
shock.

“
Detective. I need you to
stay awake. Alert,” Hetheridge snapped, determined not to let the
younger slip into unconsciousness. “I believe you may receive a
commendation for this. How does that strike you?”

“
There’s only one thing I
want.” Bhar’s voice shook.

Hetheridge met Kate’s eyes, but only for a
moment. “And what’s that?”

“
Is there some way we could
keep this from … well … my mum?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

T
he
second meeting with Henry’s school counselor went off about as well
as Kate expected. Though she disagreed with virtually everything
the woman said, Kate followed Hetheridge’s advice and nodded and
refused to be baiting, only promising that Henry would do better.
It gave her a grim bit of satisfaction to know that of the boys
collared for fighting, Henry was the least injured. Hetheridge’s
fencing lessons had given the boy a bit of confidence. Standing up
to his worst tormentors had given him even more. Perhaps the rest
of the school year would go a bit easier for him. If so, some
discipline and a few teacher-guardian meetings was a small price to
pay.

After dropping Henry off at their flat, she
decided to stop by the Bhar home and see how her colleague fared.
The blade had dug deeply in Bhar’s left trapezius muscle and nicked
the carotid, requiring surgery. Now he was looking at a two months
of physical therapy for the neck and shoulder to regain his full
range of motion.

“
Come in, come in, I am so
glad to meet you at last,” Sharada Bhar cried, opening the door and
throwing her arms around Kate. “Deepal told me everything! You
saved him! You saved my precious baby boy!”

“
Mrs. Bhar.” Kate couldn’t
stop herself from hugging the little woman back with the same
fierce gusto, thrilled to see so much of Bhar in his mum’s beaming
face. Ordinarily Kate kept her emotions at bay as much as possible.
After her brush with death during the Malcolm Comfrey case, she’d
coped by resolutely refusing to feel anything, one way or another.
But something about DS Bhar’s resemblance to Sharada broke through
that barrier, making Kate desperately happy she’d turned up at
Molly French’s in time to wield that bat. “I’ll always pull Paul’s
fat out of the fire if I can.”

“
Fat out of the fire,”
Sharada repeated. “That is a good English phrase. When I was a
little girl, we said something similar. We said—never mind. I am a
novelist who writes in English,” Sharada said firmly, as if someone
had recently maligned that ability. “Wait and see. In one of my
books, I will have some lady pull some handsome man’s fat right out
of the fire.”

“
Brilliant. So—can I see
him?” Kate asked, resisting the temptation to tell Sharada she
enjoyed her books. Getting into that sort of discussion with an
author would likely spiral into a never-ending vortex.

“
Of course. Deepal!” Sharada
bellowed up the staircase. “Your police lady friend is coming up!
Make sure you are wearing your trousers!”

***

“
D
oes it hurt?” Kate asked, once she
was alone with Bhar in his bedroom. Dressing gown belted over his
pajamas, Bhar was seated at the computer, aimlessly scrolling
through posts on a social networking site.

“
Not as long as I take a
pain pill every four hours. Otherwise, it burns,” Bhar admitted.
“Throbs, too, where the knife point hit my collarbone. Amazing how
those American detectives on TV get shot in the shoulder every
other week and never miss a day’s work.”

“
We should put in a transfer
request. From Scotland Yard to Hollywood.”

“
Or at least Bollywood.
Where we could wear pretty costumes and dance from time to time, if
nothing else,” Bhar said. “One of my mates just called. Said Jeremy
Bentham used his one phone call on Sir Duncan. The call must not
have gone how he planned, because a few hours later, he killed
himself in custody. Beat his head against the wall until he
collapsed and died.”

“
I heard.”

Bhar’s gaze shifted back to the computer
monitor, shifting from posts to chat, where he had an ongoing
conversation with Model_Citizen_21. “Am I a bad person for being
glad he’s dead?”

“
Not really. Just
human.”

“
But is human anything to be
proud of?”

Kate shrugged. “It’s all we’ve got.
Besides—you helped save Molly French’s life. Defended the guv. Kept
Kyla Sloane from an unjust trial and maybe even an unjust
conviction. When it comes to your actions, I don’t see what you
have to complain about.”

Bhar rolled his eyes. “It all comes back to
the same thing. I let Tessa Chilcott draw me in. I said too much.
And Sir Duncan Godington went free.”

“
Paul. I read up on the
case. Sir Duncan would have gone free no matter what. The Crown
didn’t have enough direct evidence. The jury was completely in love
with him. An acquittal was inevitable.”

“
Doesn’t change the main
point,” Bhar said, grimacing as he tried to flex his left arm. “I
have poor judgment. I’m not like the guv. Not like you. Whatever I
think, whatever I feel—it’s sure to be wrong.”

Kate took a deep breath. Growing up with
almost no female friends, she was terrible at playing the sneaky,
subtle, emotional cheerleader. Whether she gave advice or just an
opinion, she knew no way but to speak the truth as she saw it.

“
Kyla Sloane isn’t a bad
person. Maybe she showed poor judgment, letting Sir Duncan befriend
her. But the man is magnetic. You can’t dismiss her out of hand for
being taken in by him. Especially if he was on his best behavior.”
Kate paused, then tapped the computer monitor. “Is that who you’re
chatting with? Model_Citizen_21?”

Bhar glanced at his closed bedroom door.
Then he leaned closer to Kate. “Yes. Once I’m healed, I thought I
might ask her out for coffee. Just—just to test the waters. But if
my mum finds out, she’ll kill me.”

Kate bit back a laugh. “That’s between you
and Mrs. Bhar. But I’ll never tell.”

***

W
hen Kate went back downstairs, she found Sharada studying what
looked like a manuscript on her computer monitor. As she read it,
Sharada used the mouse to scroll down, lips moving
soundlessly.

“
Almost done?” Kate
asked.

Sharada made a startled
noise. “Kate!” she cried, pressing a hand to her chest. “Oh! You
startled me! I was just checking over my latest. I call it,
By His Hand Uplifted
. The
story of a commoner girl who catches the eye of a duke. They fall
deeply in love. She believes he seeks her out only for her physical
charms.” Sharada’s eyes sparkled. “And so the first time he
proposes marriage, she says no. Out of fear for what marriage to a
commoner will do to his reputation.”

“
Oh. Really. Isn’t that …
remarkable,” Kate managed, squashing the temptation to sprint back
upstairs and throttle Bhar. Surely that would be unsporting, given
his neck injury. She’d have to settle the score at some future
date.

“
Never fear. They marry in
the end. The physical connection is too strong to overcome,”
Sharada continued with a rather earthy chuckle.

“
But what about hard, cold
reality after the wedding?” Kate demanded. If she couldn’t rain on
her injured colleague’s parade, she might as well rain on
Sharada’s. “How does a girl from nowhere—from nothing—learn to be a
member of the aristocracy?”

Sharada smiled that impish smile. “Why, the
same way I learned English. Practice.”

***

“
T
his is nice,” Kate murmured. It was
the fifth evening in a row she’d spent at Wellegrave House. Four
times she’d let poor Harvey drive her home in the wee hours.
Tonight, a carer for Ritchie was engaged, while Henry was sleeping
over at a mate’s. Kate and Hetheridge had the entire night to
themselves.

“
Shall I turn on the
telly?”

“
Didn’t know you had one in
here,” Kate said, lifting her cheek off his chest.
“Where?”

“
Watch and learn.” Taking a
remote from the bedside table, Hetheridge pointed it at the wall.
The rather nondescript piece of framed art—a pastoral oil—slid out
of sight, revealing the flat screen TV behind it. Another click of
the button and they were watching BBC World News. Snuggled back in
Hetheridge’s arms, Kate was half-asleep when the words “Foxhounds
Fanciers” roused her.

“
Oi! Is that your git of an
heir?”

“
It is indeed. Randy Roddy,”
Hetheridge said, turning up the volume.

“
It’s just that foxes are
vermin. Pests,” Roderick Hetheridge earnestly told a reporter. “And
even if they weren’t, that’s not really the point, is it? We’re
humans. We have a culture to uphold. When I think about a world
where young British men don’t learn good sportsmanship by riding to
hounds, it makes me want to weep.”

“
Makes me want to puke,”
Kate said. “Lord. Does he have to be your heir? Can’t you pick
someone else?”

“
That’s not how the
aristocracy works, as you very well know.” Hetheridge sounded
amused. “Sometimes when I see Roddy on the telly, I feel a bit
sorry for myself. Bad as he is, at least he has a wife. He managed
to trick some poor, thick girl into marrying him …”

“
Tony,” Kate groaned. “Do I
really have to start again from the top?”

“
Not at
all. But assure me of one small detail. You
won’t marry me because you don’t wish to become Baroness
Hetheridge. Is that correct?”

“
Correct,” Kate said,
pressing her face against the warm of Hetheridge’s chest. She loved
the sound of his voice, even when she didn’t particularly care for
what he was saying.

“
And that’s the only
reason?”

“
Tony.” Kate lifted her
face, staring into his. “You know it is.”

“
Excellent. I have a
solution,” Hetheridge said. “I’ll give up my title in favor of
Roderick. As you’ve seen, Roddy’s a bit of a pill—loves the foxhunt
and is always threatening to shoot the anti-blood-sport activists.
He expects to receive my title as soon as I die, and has never
forgiven me for living this long. Yes, Roddy, his wife and his
three strapping boys would be overjoyed at the honor. And if you’ll
marry me … well, it goes without saying, I’ll be the happiest man
alive. Letting go of my title will mean nothing by comparison. What
do you say?”