'Leona? Was that necessarily premeditated? Couldn't that have been sexual in origin, with him catching her naked?'
Bob had given her a long cool look, shaking his head. 'Not the way I read it. He didn't have to go upstairs. He could have taken the boy and gone. But he chose to go upstairs to find the mother, to rape and kil her. There was a message there too, I think.'
She had stared at him then, astonished. 'A message? For whom?'
But he had shaken his head and fal en silent once more.
Now, with the soft sunlight of early morning making patterns of the windowframes on the bedroom curtains, she rose and, putting on her robe as she went, made her way through the living room to the kitchen. There she found him, sitting at the table, in running shorts and teeshirt, sweating heavily, his shoulders hunched, his head down, caught off guard in an attitude which touched her heart.
She moved silently behind him and ran her fingers through his matted hair. 'Come on, Big Boy,' she whispered, soothingly. 'It's supposed to be darkest just before the dawn, not after it.'
He looked up at her, over his shoulder. 'I'm still waiting for dawn,' he muttered. 'I feel like I'm at war on two fronts. Can you imagine how it feels, to know that my name will be all over this morning's press? I've been a police officer for almost a quarter of a century, more than half my life. In that time, I like to think that I've never done a dishonourable thing.
'Yet here I am, accused of abusing my position through my relationship with you, sacked by Anderson as unsuitable for my security post, under investigation for corruption, stigmatised, suspended, and effectively banned from acting personal y in my defence.
'At the same time there's a madman at large with a kidnapped child, with whom I have a strong personal link, and for whom, somehow, I feel a responsibility. Not just that, he's targeting me in some way I don't yet understand. I want to be out there chasing the guy, I ought to be; yet I can't, by order ofDr Bruce Anderson. I tell you girl, there are a few ghosts in my life, and it's as if they're all coming back to haunt me, al of them at once.'
He took the hand which she laid upon his shoulder, and pressed it gently.
'Can't I help, love?' she asked. 'Can I help ease the pain?'
He stood up from the table and turned, looking down at her. 'No, honey. No you can't. I suppose you're a third front, another area of conflict in my life.'
'Is that how you see me?' she asked, quietly.
He shrugged his wide shoulders. 'Oh God, I don't know. Maybe I should have chosen my words more carefully. But our future is something else to be resolved, and right now, I just can't handle any of it.'
He cried out in sudden exasperation. 'When I was out there just now, running along the top of the beach, I remember thinking to myself, "Why stop? Why turn back?" There's part of me that wants to chuck it all in, and I've never felt like that before. It's scary, Pam.
It's as if since the stabbing, since my split with Sarah, since my discoveries about Myra, and now with all of this, that I'm just not me any more. There's a bloke inside me, but he's a stranger. Know what else I'm finding out? I don't even like him.'
She pul ed him to her, and hugged him, pressing her face against his chest, running her fingers through his hair. But he stood, stil and upright in her arms, until final y his right hand came up, and he stroked her cheek with his fingers.
'I'm a real mess, am I not?' he whispered, as she looked up and saw his sad smile. 'Who'd want a future with a crock like me?'
As he spoke, as he asked his despondent question, a face came into his mind's eye, quite unexpectedly: Sarah, looking at him and frowning, with a mixture of surprise and disappointment. He tried to wil her away, but her mental image remained. And he knew. At that moment, he knew.
A thump from the hal broke the moment. 'Post lady,' he said, matter-of-fact once more. 'She's always early on a Saturday.' He released himself from her hug, and walked through to the hal way.
There were three items of mail lying on the doormat, between the glass and outer doors. Picking them up, he glanced at each in turn as he stepped back into the living room.
He recognised the handwriting on the first, and tore it open as fast as he could. It was a 'cheer up' card from Alex, with a note inside which read, 'Don't worry, Pops, I'l keep an eye on that awful man Cheshire. Anyway, with me on your side, how can you lose?'
He smiled, and positioned the cheery Beryl Cook card, with its voluminous, yet voluptuous ladies, on the shelf above the gas fire, then laid the second envelope, a bill from Scottish Power, unopened beside it.
As soon as he looked at the third item, he felt an old familiar tremor in the pit of his stomach. Policemen, more than any others, have an instinct for danger which is triggered even in the most normal of surroundings.
'Deputy Chief Constable Robert Skinner.' He read his name aloud as he stared at the padded A5 Jiffy bag, the container of choice for many a small letter bomb. He never received official mail at home, but always in the office, where it was X-rayed as a matter of routine.
At that moment, Pam appeared in the doorway. He beckoned her into the room. 'Wait here,' he ordered. 'I need to check this out.'
He stepped past her, back into the kitchen, reaching for the cutlery drawer, from which he took a short, but razor sharp, fruit knife. He sat down once more at the table and felt the package with both hands from al angles, pressing gently, and very carefully, lest he should activate a trigger mechanism inside. The only object which he could sense within the bag seemed to be solid and rectangular, a small, firm box.
Relaxing only slightly, Skinner picked up the fruit knife.
Slowly, centimetre by centimetre, he began to cut his way into the bag, not along the top, or along the bottom, since letter bombs 165
Were often wired at both ends, but along the side, through the outer skin, and into the fibre padding which he pul ed out to expose the inner layer. When it was laid bare from end to end of the bag, he carried the parcel over to the sink, which he filled with water, so that he could drop it should it be, after all, an incendiary device.
Final y, when he was completely prepared, with the bag laid on the work surface, he crouched beside it at eye level, and began to make the final incision with the sharp little knife. He worked slowly, ready to stop should he meet any resistance, easing the blade through the paper, until the bag was open.
Leaving it where it was, he reached into the cupboard under the sink, and found a smal torch. He rumbled at first with the unreasonably small button, wondering if the batteries were flat until at last its bulb lit up. Pressing the ends of the bag very gently with his broad left hand to widen the opening which he had cut, he shone the beam, undetectable in the daylight, into the gap.
He was looking for wires, but he saw none: only a black cassette box.
He released his breath, which he had been holding, in a loud gasp, and picked up the bag, al owing its contents to drop on to the work-surface. Only then did he look closely again at the Jiffy. It was stamped, with what he took to be the regulation amount, but the postmark was smudged and faint. He shone the torch beam directly on to it from close range, but both the time and postal district were indecipherable.
He swore gently, and tossed the container on to the table, picking up the cassette box as he did so. The lid was clear and showed a shiny new tape inside.
Only then did he look up, to see Pam standing in the doorway, looking anxious. He glowered at her. 'I thought I told you to stay next door!'
'I couldn't. I was worried for you. It's okay?'
He nodded, waving the box as he shooed her back into the living room. 'If this is some direct marketing gimmick, I wil personally eat the sender's liver. But somehow, I doubt it.'