Chapter Thirty-Six
11:57 hours
Love looked at his partner standing in the doorway. He was grinning and looking a lot better than when Love had seen him the day before.
Love picked up his paper serviette, wiped his mouth, pushed his chair back, stood up, and said, ‘Kettle’s just boiled, mate, can I make you a cup of tea?’
‘Yes, thanks, that would hit the spot, Love, it’s freezing out there.’
Stuart walked over to the large radiator sitting underneath one of the windows and leant up against it. A moment later, he peeled off his black leather gloves reached up with his left arm and proceeded to unwind a long, red and grey hand knitted scarf from about his neck. ‘It’s starting to snow although it’s more like sleet.’
‘I know.’ Love glanced over from where he was pouring water into a mug. ‘How’s the arm?’
Stuart winced as he got the last of the scarf off. He held it loosely in his hand and the scarf dangled all the way down to the ground. ‘Much better, bit sore,’ he said. ‘Had a good night though, I slept forever.’ He smiled. ‘And it was good to be with Emma.’
‘Did a PC pick you up?’
‘Yeah, picked us both up from the hotel,’ he said. ‘Then we went on to collect Shannon who was sorry to leave as she and her grandmother had made plans to go on a nature hunt.’ He flicked the hair out of his eye and grinned. ‘We told her she could do it next time she visits, nature wasn’t going anywhere,’ he paused, ‘at least not in the next two weeks. Then we had brunch together at home and here I am.’
‘Ready and raring to go,’ Love said. He walked over and balanced Stuart’s tea on top of the radiator.
‘Cheers, partner,’ Stuart said. ‘Yeah, something like that.’
‘Well, let’s have our drink and then I reckon we can make tracks.’
Stuart carefully picked up the mug with his good arm, took a sip. ‘Absolutely, priorities.’
Love smiled. ‘I was told I couldn’t talk to Heinrich until the afternoon.’
‘Who’s his attending physician?’
Love walked over to his desk and picked up his mug. He ran off the name of the doctor who’d operated on him.
‘And who’s in charge of his mental assessment?’
Love took a sip, looked at Stuart and raised his eyebrow. ‘I’ll give you one good guess.’
Stuart looked back at Love. He said nothing but inside he was grinning.
Forty-five minutes later, the two detectives were turning into the car park of St Katherine’s.
Love reckoned he’d seen enough of this place to last him a lifetime but in his line of work that wasn’t about to happen.
He parked the car, climbed out, opened the back door, pulled out the two boxes of surveillance tapes, glanced over at Stuart.
He was wearing his scarf, his lambswool zipped cardigan from La Redoute, and underneath a navy NZA brushed cotton tartan shirt he picked up from House of Fraser for £30.00, two and a half times less its original price. It was large, loose, comfortable, and a personal favourite. On his legs he wore a different pair of slim jeans although these too looked like old favourites faded almost to the point of being bleached. The outfit was topped off with the cowboy boots he’d worn the day before. He looked like a model lumberjack.
Love too had decided at the last minute to dress down. He wore a pair of skinny fit jeans, dark grey, about five years old, his usual white sartorial pure cotton plain shirt, no tie, the Donegal jacket and a pair of black cowboy boots. To the observer he looked casual yet stylish and sexy.
‘Any thoughts as to which one you’ll keep?’
On the short drive over, Love had brought Stuart up to date with the previous day’s events. Julie and her puppies.
‘Not yet, mate,’ he said. ‘I’m waiting to see which direction it will take me.’
‘We’ll have to come round and see them.’
‘Anytime, mate.’
‘What about names?’ Stuart said.
They were approaching the glass sliding doors to the main entrance. As the doors opened they stepped inside. The two men automatically glanced over to their left. Mr Pfeiffer was going about his business as usual. He made eye contact before looking away in a hurry.
‘It confirms what his wife said,’ remarked Love.
‘How is she?’
‘About what you’d expect.’
They strolled along the corridor, took a right, walked along until they came to a door marked “Security”.
Stuart knocked once, the door opened.
‘DCA Love and DCA Le Fanu,’ Love said. He handed the boxes over to the uniformed guard standing in the entrance. ‘We’re returning your security tapes.’
‘Oh, yeah, right, mate!’ he said. He turned round, placed the boxes on a desk, rummaged through. ‘Be with you in a sec.’ He moved his mouse, clicked on a file, opened it, skimmed through its contents, turned back, and said, ‘Right, that all looks in order.’
‘Thanks,’ Love said. He remained where he was standing looking at the guard. ‘Shouldn’t I be getting a receipt or something?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ the guard said. He turned back to his PC, pressed the print button and a moment later two sheets shot out of the printer which along with a pen, he passed to Love.
‘Just put your moniker there on the dotted line on both pages and we’re all square.’
Love hesitated. ‘Excuse me?’
‘He means sign for it,’ Stuart said, and smiled.
‘Really?’ Love stepped forward, leant over the desk, scribbled his signature and took his copy. He stood up, folding the A4 sheet in half, and placed it inside his pocket.
‘Thank you, gentlemen.’
‘Thanks,’ Love said. And they left.
The two men strolled along the corridor passing the wounded, the bereaved, the bleeding and the joyful until they came to the lift. Love stepped forward and pressed the button for the top floor.
‘What were you saying about names?’
Stuart was looking down as slowly he peeled off his gloves. ‘Thought of any names yet?’
‘I’d like to have the name start with the letter “J”,’ Love said.
Stuart smiled. ‘Keeping it in the family like Julie and Jake.’
‘Exactly! So far, if I keep a girl, I’m thinking of Jessica Julie or Jasmine Julie, JJ for short, but the boy is more difficult.’
The lift arrived, the two men stood to one side as two women and three men got on, Love and Stuart followed, Love pressed the button, stepped back against the side of the lift and waited. He looked over at Stuart.
‘I can imagine,’ Stuart said. He folded his gloves pushing one each into the front pockets of his jeans. ‘I mean, you couldn’t call your dog John. “Hey, John!” It just doesn’t fit right, too human. Or Jerry. “Jerr-rryyy...” you’d end up sounding like Margo Leadbetter from The Good Life.’
One of the women laughed out loud, a couple of the men chuckled, the others smiled broadly and Stuart grinned.
‘I’m not wrong, am I?’ he said.
Love grinned in return. ‘Mate, you are so not wrong,’ he said. ‘I can well do without that as much as I enjoy the series.’
Love was familiar with the seventies sitcom. Stuart had introduced him to the finer points of British humour along with Dad’s Army soon after they had become friends and partners four and a half years earlier.
The lift stopped, it pinged politely, the doors opened, two men and a woman stepped out. The doors closed and the lift continued on its way. ‘And like you said, John is somehow too human.’
The remaining man spoke up from the front. ‘You go around calling out “Hey, John!” makes you think of Del Boy!’
The group erupted in fits of laughter as the lift arrived at their floor, the doors opened, they stepped out.
Suddenly, Love felt compelled to look over to his side. Still smiling broadly he turned his head. She was wearing a dusty pink Tweed sk
irt, a tight-fitting lilac angora jumper, high-heeled shiny grey leather boots, her doctor’s white coat casually placed over one arm, and one very angry expression on her face.