Tim Stevens - Jokerman

Emma didn’t know what hurt more: the disappointment in Brian’s voice, or the cheerful understanding with which he greeted her message. Yes, of course he’d sort the kids out and get them to their slumber party. No, it didn’t matter about supper; they could always go out for a curry another night. He’d make something for her and keep it in the oven.

She closed her eyes now, picturing him, unable to help herself. Dear, dependable Brian, with his pleasant if not quite handsome face, that neat brown moustache of his which she’d never said a bad word about but which she secretly disliked (after all, how many straight men even had moustaches without beards these days?), his gentle hands. He got angry, sometimes, but even that was a mild, inoffensive sort of anger, not the kind of uncontrollable rage that might spiral out of control.

Dear, dull Brian.

Beside her, James propped himself up on one elbow and gazed down at her. Beneath the line of his black, regulation-short hair, sweat faintly sheened his forehead. He wasn’t conventionally handsome either, but there was an animal appeal to his features which had drawn Emma the first time she’d seen him outside Sir Guy’s office. His was an educated yet tough face, that of a warrior-poet.

God, listen to her. And she didn’t even read romance novels.

In one sense, Emma hadn’t lied to Brian. She had indeed been called that afternoon and asked to attend urgently. But it was James who’d rung. James, whom she’d arranged to meet in a few days’ time, had unexpectedly found some free time later that evening. Could they meet up at say eleven pm?

She could have gone home then, and faked a call from the office later in the afternoon or early evening. But she was too excited to be able to face the banality (yes, she forced herself to allow that word into her thoughts) of her life at home. Brian and the children would wonder what was up, why she seemed to be walking on air. So she called Brian, made her excuses, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening pampering herself. She bought a new summer dress, perfume, makeup which was slightly more expensive than she was used to paying. And she’d bought discreetly sexy underwear, which was now strewn across the floor of the hotel.

James had chosen a comfortable but far from glitzy four-star chain hotel in Chiswick for their liaison. She’d got there a little early and had a drink at the bar, aware of the glances she was getting from the businessmen scattered around singly or in groups. The setting was perfect: not sleazy, but carrying a thrill of illicitness.

A little after eleven, the barman handed her a phone handset and said there was a call for her.

It was James. ‘Room three-oh-six,’ he said, and hung up. Emma smiled at the faux-mysteriousness of it all. She took her time finishing her drink, feeling the heat of anticipation swelling within her, and headed for the lifts.

In the room, there were no flowers, no champagne on ice, no trappings of romance. There was just James, already naked, and although he smiled, it wasn’t the amused grin they sometimes slipped one another when in company, but rather a dirty, predatory smirk which she found instantly arousing.

They coupled hard and roughly, James pinning her to the bed and keeping her under his weight even after the first time, as if he wasn’t finished with her and didn’t want her to escape. Almost before she was ready they were at it again, and Emma responded in kind, using her nails, her teeth in a way that seemed to urge him on.

She looked up at him now, content to study his face. The ferocity she’d sensed in him had abated, but there was still a lack of ease in his eyes, the impression that he wasn’t yet ready to give himself over to rest.

‘Stressful day?’ she murmured, trying not to make it sound like a rebuke.

He put his hand to her face, traced a fingertip lightly down the curves of her forehead, her nose, her lips.

‘A frustrating day, in some ways.’

‘But you can’t talk about it.’

He raised his eyebrows a little. ‘Afraid not.’

The movement of his hand had caused the cover to slip down and she studied his torso. A taut, hard chest, the belly ridged below it and bisected with a white laparotomy scar. He’d served in Iraq, and sustained blunt trauma to his abdomen during a rocket attack. Messy job , she’d commented when she’d first run her fingers down the scar, appraising it with her doctor’s eye. He’d replied that battlefield surgical facilities weren’t exactly of Harley Street standard.

In turn, James lifted the cover off Emma. She felt a tingle of awkwardness as he exposed her body fully, ran his gaze down it. He was the only man other than Brian to have seen her naked since before she was married; and he looked at her in a different way from Brian, around whom she felt comfortable but not desirable.

James laid the palm of his hand on her belly. Her skin fluttered beneath his touch, the thrill spreading downwards.

Emma said playfully: ‘I suppose you can’t talk about your work any more than I can tell you about the state of your boss’s health.’

‘I know the old goat’s in good health. It doesn’t take a doctor to see that. You just have to look at him.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ she said, catching her breath as his hand moved lower. ‘There can be dreadful things going on under the surface that you don’t find out about until it’s too late.’

‘Sounds ominous,’ he murmured, rolling so that he was above her, propped up on his sinewy arms. ‘But some things it’s better never to know about.’

‘Point taken,’ she moaned, and then giggled at the double meaning of what she’d said. ‘I won’t ask you any more. Because then you’d have to kill me.’

He stopped in mid-stroke, his face tight.

‘James,’ Emma said. ‘What — ?’

‘I don’t like that expression,’ he muttered. ‘Please don’t use it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

The moment slipped away, melted by the heat and growing need of their bodies. But the image of James’s face lingered in her mind. The darkness there, as if she’d touched his soul.

Purkiss and Vale had set up a temporary, makeshift base in the Covent Garden flat where they’d questioned Kasabian. (‘It’s as good a place as any,’ she said drily.)

After Vale had put away the polygraph equipment, they discussed strategy.

Kasabian would be their sole and personal point of contact during the investigation. No intermediaries, however seemingly trustworthy, would be involved.

‘You need to find your leak,’ said Purkiss.

‘What?’

‘If you didn’t order the gunman to attack me, then someone else knows I’ve been approached to conduct this investigation,’ Purkiss said. ‘Quentin and I haven’t told anyone. So the leak must have come from your end.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Kasabian flatly. ‘Not possible.’

‘It’s the only explanation.’

She fell silent. Purkiss knew he’d infuriated her with his insistence on the polygraph test, and by pointing out deficiencies in her security measures he was just rubbing salt into her wounds. He didn’t care.

‘I’ll need access to Morrow’s data,’ Purkiss said. ‘Cases he was working, now and previously. Personnel files on him.’

‘Of course,’ said Kasabian. ‘But it’ll have to be paper. All of it. There can be no electronic trail whatsoever.’

‘Agreed.’

Kasabian said she would deliver the files in the morning. Purkiss looked at his watch.

‘No. Tonight,’ he said.

She raised her eyebrows.

He said, ‘I’ll stay here tonight. There’s no point going home. My house is a crime scene, and in any case the rifleman might come back to finish off the job. Before I get some sleep, though, I’d like to skim Morrow’s files. Absorb what’s there and sleep on it.’