Shadows and Sins (The Falconer Files Book 13) Read online

  That sorted, she poured him a beer and led him to the sofa. ‘You just sit down and catch your breath. I’m sure you’ve had a busy day.’

  ‘Found a cache of evidence today, although I can’t tell you about it.’

  Imogen smiled. She was the soul of discretion, and she knew he would, when he was sufficiently relaxed, so she just got on with her icing and waited. ‘What sort of a day have you had?’ he asked.

  ‘A bakey sort of one; which is just as well, as I enjoy baking so much. Oh, by the way, I thought I’d do a steak and kidney stew overnight and do us a pie or a pudding tomorrow. Which would you prefer?’

  ‘Pudding,’ he replied with food lust in his voice. ‘What shift are you on tomorrow?’ he asked, savouring his drink.

  ‘One that most people would consider normal.’

  ‘That being?’

  ‘Eight till four,’ she supplied, somewhat slurred as she was licking her fingers at the time. Baking she loved; messy was her method.

  ‘Well, at least you’ve had a better day than Davey Carmichael’s wife. She’s gone into labour with twins, and is in the hospital in absolute agony. Davey’s gone to be with her.’

  ‘How’s he going to eat tonight if he’s on duty holding her hand and mopping her brow?’

  ‘Hadn’t thought about it. Why?’

  ‘Just give me half an hour,’ she replied, rinsing out her large mixing bowl.

  Falconer dribbled out of the office a bit later than his constable, and made his way home moodily, preparing himself mentally for watching Chivers lording it all over ordinary policemen on television. He’d have to tune in, but he’d hate every moment of it. Sometimes he thought the superintendent left a trail of slime behind him when he was dealing with the media.

  On his way he had picked up a Vietnamese take-away to try to cheer himself up, and he even set the food in china serving dishes so that it looked like he had made it himself. Using a large serving spoon, he filled a plate and sat down to begin eating. As he did so, he got up and switched on the television so that he could watch the news on the local programme and was just shoving a chopstick full of noodles into his mouth when Chivers’ smug face appeared.

  It was actually on the national news, and he nearly choked on his food at the shock of this. That meant that now they would be hounded by the media. Great! As the familiar voice droned on, the face trying to look sincere and concerned, the inspector heard the cat flap clock a few times, but did not count how many cats had come in. That was an easy one, as they would all assemble round his chair begging for scraps; they weren’t fussy and were quite international in their tastes. Yes, there were the four regular suspects.

  Above their begging meows, however, he heard a faint chirrup and looked behind him to see a very bedraggled Monkey sitting just inside the kitchen door. She was dirty and thin but the sight of her lifted his spirits so much that he leapt from his chair and rushed over to pick her up and embrace her, covering her begrimed face with kisses of joy.

  He had no idea where she’d been, but she definitely smelled of mice and, boy, was she filthy. He hugged her to his face, repeating her name and dancing round the room with her in his delight, and the only solution that he could reach was that she had been locked in somewhere while someone was away for a few days; maybe a garage or something. He didn’t care. She was back, and that’s all that mattered.

  Putting her down carefully on the work surface, he got some food out of the fridge for her, then set it down and put her beside it and the water bowl. Poor, starved little creature. She, eager to relate her misadventure, ‘talked’ all the time she was chewing and swallowing, and she definitely sounded cross with herself that she had not been home for so long.

  ‘Oh frabjous day, calloo, callay,’ sang her owner, and continued to sing the rest of the poem to a tune he had never heard before, while he watched her scoffing and moaning. The other cats hadn’t gathered round her, however, and he went back to the table to find them on top of it, consuming his meal with guilty enthusiasm, not only from his plate, but from the serving dishes as well. And he didn’t care, so happy was he. He’d get some toast if he was hungry.

  Amidst all this outpouring of joy, the doorbell rang, and he went quizzically to answer this surprise summons, for he was expecting no visitors.

  Tomlinson arrived at the hospital, entering the maternity ward with a feeling of gross embarrassment. He had not expected to find himself in a place like this for some time to come. Moans, groans, and actual screams occasionally issued from doors when nurses opened them to get in and out. In his hand he had a carrier bag with enough food in it to feed an army, a contribution to the sergeant’s welfare that Imi had thought worth making.

  A very officious nurse – or midwife, for he didn’t know the difference – bustled up to him and bristled as she asked him what he was doing there, for she hadn’t recognised him as one of her ‘fathers’.

  ‘I’ve just brought some food for Davey Carmichael,’ he said, hoping that he wasn’t about to get a detention. ‘I believe that his wife is in here in labour.’

  ‘I’ll fetch Father for you. I don’t believe that Mother’s at a crucial stage at the moment; but for a minute only. His wife needs him,’ she snapped back at him with a flash of her gimlet eyes, making him feel very like a naughty schoolboy caught, infected, by the nit-nurse.

  Carmichael was ushered out of a door through which very profane language was issuing, and the sergeant blushed at the sound. ‘She’s in transition,’ he explained, ‘and apparently that can let out some very ripe words.’ His face was as red as a tomato as even worse language followed it. ‘It’s normal … or so I’m told.’

  ‘Has your wife ever been in the navy?’ the DC quipped, only deepening his colleague’s embarrassment.

  ‘You just wait until it’s your turn,’ retorted Carmichael, although he had missed the birth of his daughter Harriet, as she had been delivered by Harry Falconer, in circumstances on which we shall not dwell.

  ‘Daaaveyyy!’ Kerry roared out from the labour room. Carmichael grabbed the carrier bag gratefully, and was already nosing inside at its contents before he got back inside the room. By God, he was starving.

  ‘Thank you for your time,’ whispered Tomlinson to the nurse who had fetched the sergeant.

  ‘Thank you for your consideration and thought,’ she replied, and unexpectedly smiled at him, proving that she was human, and not one of the devil’s minions.

  When Falconer opened the door with the widest grin he could manage without inflicting actual damage to his facial muscles, he found Honey on the doorstep looking up at him nervously.

  She had considered this visit long and hard. She had been unfaithful to him when she was in the Caribbean and had subsequently undergone an abortion – something that Falconer, with his formal and old-fashioned outlook on life, had found very hard to deal with – but she bitterly regretted her foolish actions of the past, and had really missed him when he had called her for all the harlots under the sun and dumped her.

  Eventually, she had begun to think that she really had not valued him for what he was: a good-looking, upright, very moral and admirable man who did an extremely difficult job very well. He was definitely husband material, especially when compared to her cheap fling on the island, and she had been an utter and complete fool to play around with his feelings the way she had.

  She had been very grateful when she had bumped into him on a case last year, and he had tentatively asked her out again. She had felt that things were going quite well, although they did not see each other as often as she’d liked, and then to be dumped like that, as if she were just a distraction to his job, was unbelievable. Honey Dubois was only just getting to the point where she realised just how much the relationship meant to her, and she was going to get it back on track whatever that took.

  At least he seemed to be in a good mood, she thought, as he flung wide the door and greeted her, his face grinning as widely as that of the Cheshire Ca
t.

  ‘My Monkey’s come back!’ he announced, making it sound as though it were a totally understandable statement.

  ‘What?’ She didn’t even know he had a monkey.

  ‘My little Abyssinian cat,’ he explained, picking up same and waltzing around with her, with a paw in one hand. ‘This is Monkey, and she’s been missing for days. This calls for Champagne! Will you join me?’ he asked with a chortle of glee.

  ‘I’ve never been known to refuse Champagne,’ Honey replied, thinking that it was as if he’d never given her her marching orders.

  He put down the little cat and disappeared into the kitchen. She heard the fridge door, then the hiss as the cork surrendered, and he walked back in with a bottle and two flutes. ‘Be my guest, and the toast will be “To my little Monkey”.’

  Honey perched on the edge of the sofa and took a glass, now overflowing with bubbles. ‘To your little monkey,’ she said, forgetting to give the name a capital letter in her haste. Falconer perched beside her, his glass raised, took a sip, and then looked deep into her eyes. Not a thought of Serena marred his thoughts.

  ‘Harry,’ she said.

  ‘Shhh. Don’t say a word. Let’s just drink to a very happy occasion,’ he replied, and drained his glass. She did the same, and he refilled them. ‘Down the hatch! There’s more where this bottle came from.’

  Honey didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and did as she was told, the way a proper lady should. She was truly a reformed woman – and one on a mission, now.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the local maternity ward, Kerry Carmichael was grasping her husband’s hand so hard that he was panting along with her. Apart from a spasm of pain, his main facial expression was one of determination. Their daughter Harriet had been born at home, but although the sergeant had physically been in attendance, he was, unfortunately, unconscious, having passed out with the shock of what he was witnessing.

  Thank God DI Falconer had been there to come to her assistance, although the senior detective and Kerry had been a bit embarrassed round each other for the next few meetings, after he had experienced such an intimate view of her anatomy. This time her husband just had to be there for her. He had to be!

  ‘You’re doing very well, Mrs Carmichael,’ pronounced the doctor, who had insisted on being present as it was a double birth.

  ‘Carry on the way you’re going, Mum, and it’ll all soon be over,’ the midwife encouraged her.

  ‘More pain relief. I can’t stand it anymore,’ groaned Kerry.

  ‘Just give a really big push. The first head is crowning,’ said the midwife in attendance. ‘That’s it, and one more should see it out.’

  ‘Aaaaargh!’ screamed Kerry.

  ‘Ooof!’ moaned Carmichael, his eyes as big as saucers as he lost consciousness, his head coming into sharp contact with the metal frame of the delivery bed, the rest of his body folding up like a concertina.

  ‘Come along there, Mr Carmichael. Come on round, that’s the way to do it.’

  Carmichael opened his eyes to discover that he was lying flat on a casualty bed in A&E and that there was a dressing on his forehead.

  ‘I’m afraid you had a little mishap, sir,’ explained one of the nurses gently.

  ‘Where’s my wife? What did she have? What’s going on?’ Carmichael felt completely disorientated, as his hand floated up to his forehead and felt a dressing there.

  ‘You had a little knock to the head, but you’ll be fine after a bit of a lie down. We don’t think there will be any concussion. Just a few stitches, that’s all.’

  ‘But I was in a delivery suite on maternity,’ he babbled, sitting up.

  ‘That is correct, sir. Now, if you’ll just lie still …’

  ‘Where’s my wife. What am I the father of?’

  ‘A baby, I expect.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. She was having twins, and early twins at that. There should be two babies.’

  ‘Have we been wetting baby’s head a little early, perhaps?’

  ‘Let me up off here. I want to see my wife and my babies. Oh, please God that they’re all right.’

  ‘I really think you should calm yourself,’ said the nurse, putting her hand flat against his chest, when the midwife from the delivery suite came along the line and stopped by his trolley.

  ‘Ah, Mr Carmichael, I’ve been looking for you. Your wife would like to see you now.’

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  ‘You’ve been on that trolley slumbering like a baby for about two hours,’ replied the nurse.

  ‘Oh, my God. My babies! How are they? What are they?’

  ‘Plural?’ asked the nurse, in puzzlement.

  ‘Mr Carmichael here has just become the father of beautiful twins.’ The midwife looked smug.

  ‘But what sex are they?’ Carmichael shouted in frustration.

  ‘Why, you have one of each, sir: a beautiful girl and a bouncing boy – both lustily healthy, although a bit small.’

  Carmichael fainted again and rolled off the trolley.

  Harry Falconer floated gently up from sleep without the usual clangour of his clock to wake him, and couldn’t understand why he was feeling so happy. Hang on a minute. He wasn’t in this bed on his own … there was someone with him. Why would there be someone else in his bed? Who would have the audacity to break in and get into bed beside him? Surely, he must be dreaming.

  And then he remembered and, almost simultaneously, Honey’s naked body snuggled up beside him.

  How could he? They weren’t married. They’d broken up. How could he behave in such an ungentlemanly manner?

  A light butterfly of a kiss landed on his exposed shoulder, and he turned his head. Honey looked like a cat that had got the cream; a woman who had achieved her mission. And then he saw the time. Christ Almighty! It was nine o’clock, and he was still in bed. Usually he had been in the office for over an hour by now.

  ‘Harry?’ a seductive voice enquired from the next pillow, and then something happened for which he had been totally unprepared, as a dainty little hand sneaked towards him under the covers.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Good morning, just, sir,’ Tomlinson greeted him. ‘This isn’t like you at all, nearly eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I mention that I had a dental check-up this morning?’ lied the inspector, hiding his blush by turning towards his desk.

  ‘I must’ve missed that, sir. By the way, I took a bag of food into the sergeant yesterday evening. Just to keep him going. It was Imi’s idea.’

  God! Carmichael! He hadn’t spared him a thought since the evening before. ‘And how was he?’

  ‘Having to put up with his wife swearing like an old-time sailor.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Kerry.’

  ‘Apparently it’s something to do with the labour process. I didn’t ask. There are only so many things in this world that a man wants to know about.’

  ‘Quite right, Constable.’ Falconer didn’t want to go there either. He’d made one trip before, and didn’t like it, when he’d delivered Harriet. Disconnecting from the conversation, he sat at his desk, his mind awhirl. One evening, and his life had changed so much, and he was only just getting back the memories, which had been formed, encased in champagne bubbles. How had that happened? And he was changed forever! This may not have been a big deal for any other man, but for Falconer, it was a truly life-changing situation.

  Silence reigned in the office as both men applied themselves to their paperwork, but the inspector was finding it hard to concentrate, with the visions that kept arriving, unbidden, in his mind.

  Finally, Tomlinson spoke again. ‘Did you see the TV appeal last night?’

  ‘Er, yes, I did catch it. Maybe it’ll stir people’s memories,’ Falconer replied, still with his head down to hide his confusion.

  As if this were a prophecy, Tomlinson took two telephone calls in quick succession. With a gleam in his eye, he turned to the i
nspector and said, ‘Well, that appeal worked a treat. It’s got all the old gossips out.’

  ‘Have you been playing Grass Thy Neighbour with the lace curtain brigade?’

  ‘What? Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, I suppose I have. That was an old biddy from Castle Farthing who says that your landlord of the property in Drovers Lane, Mr Bridger, was seen regularly in the village visiting Annie Symons. Another informed me that the chap who supposedly lived in France who owns the property in Stoney Cross was only there for a year, and has been back for some time.’

  ‘But he had a French mobile number,’ countered Falconer.

  ‘Apparently he finds it rather useful to retain that French phone for anonymity purposes, as I suggested yesterday, when we went out to speak to that metal detectorist. Those two facts will certainly give us something to chew on.’

  ‘Let’s get to it, Constable. Have we got a note of the addresses?’

  ‘Oh yes indeed we have, sir. Got ’em right here.’

  ‘Who were the phone calls from?’

  ‘The first one was an acquaintance of Bridger’s wife from WI, so she knew him by sight and knew he owned the cottage, and the second was from the next-door neighbour of our supposed Francophile.’

  Colin Bridger was a different animal on home territory. When faced with the fact that there had been a statement to the effect that he used to visit Annie Symons, he became blustering and confrontational, but this was probably because his wife was at home and present at the interview.

  Eventually, Falconer said that they would be better continuing the conversation down at the station, and they led him away, much to Bridger’s unexpressed relief.

  In an interview room, he came clean, but said he couldn’t have admitted this silly dalliance in front of his wife, and that it wasn’t sexual, but that he and Annie Symons had been writing a children’s book together, something he had always wanted to do. He might have held his hands up at home if it had been an affair, but writing a story about pixies and elves was too silly for words, and he couldn’t have admitted this to his wife – she would have laughed at him.