Hello again, and thanks for the nice reviews! This is the second chapter. Now I can see the first one was much too long and I should have split it in two. Next chapters will be shorter but I will do my best to publish them every other Friday. Hope you like this one.
Chapter Two
Gordon Spikings was a man devoted to his job, his office and his people. He spent much time at work, sometimes too much, as his wife said. This was the common knowledge but not many people knew he was also a family man, when, of course, he had time for it. He liked spending time with his daughter and son - when, of course, they had time for it. And he really liked spending time with his wife. When, of course, she… etc. But anyway, after nearly thirty years of their marriage, and despite stormy moments, frequent rows and word fighting, they enjoyed each other's company and had a kind of fun together. Spikings would never say that but he just could be himself when he was at home and that was worth everything. He liked his wife's strong personality, her stubbornness, her good heart covered by the cold head, her devotion to her work and a very good taste - she was always good looking, cared for her body (as a fifty-three she looked pretty well!), really loved fashion and thank God she had her own incomes, because as a policeman's wife she couldn't afford all these funny clothes - the simpler, the more expensive ones. And one day Spikings realized that perhaps it was one of the reasons he cared for Harriet Makepeace in a special way. She just reminded him of the younger (and nicer, and prettier…) version of his wife.
Of course there wasn't any kind of a romantic involvement in the way he cared for Makepeace; he liked to think about himself as her mentor and protector… besides, he had promised her father to protect her as far as she'd allow him to. Then he always felt a bit guilty when he told her to do dangerous and embarrassing things; and when Dempsey joined them and - in a way - took responsibility for taking care of her it was a relief on the one hand, but real fear on the other… knowing what Dempsey was able to do. Of course Spikings knew very well somewhere deep inside that Dempsey would never put her life in too much risk… if she allowed him to decide about it. And here we go again, walking in circles.
When Spikings arrived at the SI-10 quarters in the morning, the office was nearly empty but Dempsey and Makepeace were already there, standing together at the coffee machine, waiting for fresh coffee, talking lazily and looking rather not very enthusiastic to start a brand new day. Passing them, he beckoned them to follow, so they did, exchanging curious glances.
Dempsey leaned against the wall, as usual, having the whole inner office in sight this way. Harry stood at the middle, as usual, looking at the boss expectantly. Spikings studied her face very carefully for a moment, trying to convince himself the idea he had come up with yesterday was as good as it seemed to be at the beginning.
"Sir Percy Rathbone" Spikings began slowly. "Do you know him, Sergeant?"
"Personally not, no, Sir" she shook her head. "We haven't been introduced."
"So he doesn't know who you are."
"Correct, Chi… I mean, yes Sir."
Dempsey grinned. It always amused him when Makepeace picked up his American words and phrases he used or his way of addressing Spikings, sometimes even without noticing it. Spikings noticed it every time, though.
"All right" Spikings rubbed his head. "Tonight we are, the three of us, going to a very formal party in Dullwich Village. Harry, you must look like ten million dollars. I will pick you up from home at eight thirty. No, Dempsey, this time I'll do that. You will meet us at the party but you won't join us. You are going to observe. Everything. You don't know us and we don't know you."
Dempsey didn't look contented. If Harry was demanded to look like ten million dollars - as if she didn't! - he wanted to be the one to escort her. He loved it and he loved this kind of pride and feather preening he felt when he assisted the only woman making all heads turn when walking in the room.
"Sir Percy" Spikings continued "might - might!" he emphasized his words "have connections with the new drug dealers that have appeared in London lately. In fact, we don't know anything, there had been some suspicions… and some assumptions have been made, but nothing really certain. We need to get close to Sir Percy - as close as possible. And…"
"And that's why my task is to look like ten million dollars" Harry finished the sentence.
"Well, as a matter of fact, yes. Use all your charm, Harry. Try to look impressed by his personality. It won't be easy, I am afraid."
"Boss, are you tellin' us you're givin' Harry on a plate…" Dempsey paused "to this guy? I don't like the idea."
Spikings looked at him sharply.
"Only Father Christmas cares what you like, son, you know that?"
"Yeah, but he won't be here for next couple o'months or somethin', so I don't care. Seriously Chief, is that all you've got? How'bout something more creative than pushin' the chick into a… posh geezer's filthy hands?"
Spiking slowly turned red.
"Shut up, Dempsey" Harry murmured with the corner of her mouth.
"Hey, are you serious? Ya like being a cannon fodder like that?"
"I said shut up!" Harry noticed Spikings was getting already violet-purple and she was afraid his blood pressure was hitting the ceiling already. "In other words, Lieutenant, would you be so kind and let the boss continue, and, oh, would you also consider not giving me a lecture, at least now? You've always objected dangerous jobs for me, but that's not the case, so would you please stop acting ridiculously?"
Dempsey shrugged and first he said nothing, making instead his typical gesture with his hand, as always when he was out of the words. But after a second he opened his mouth with a familiar twinkle in his eye. He really had something to say and Harry was sure she wouldn't like it...
Spikings took a deep breath and rubbed his face. He looked really furious and Harry sighed, preparing herself for a great thunderstorm or even a sword whizz between these two, but suddenly something changed. Spikings suddenly, slowly smiled broadly under his moustache.
"Yes, Dempsey, Harry is to get close to the guy" his voice just dripped with milk and honey when he looked with a vicious smile at Dempsey. "And today it's just the beginning. Would be good, Sergeant, if you... made him... to propose you a dinner... or a date…"
"No problem, Sir, I think" Harry smiled a bit, only a bit, sending a challenging look to her partner.
Dempsey looked even less delighted, if it was possible. Spikings noticed the signs of the quickly incoming explosion.
"Chief, I think I should go with Harry" Dempsey said with his doggedness. "I wanna be in the middle, not just observing the fancy-schmancy somethin', don't even know what."
Spiking decided it was time to stop teasing the bloody Yank.
"Dempsey, do you know why it's me who will assist Harry tonight, not you?" Spikings sighed and looked at him seriously. "Sir Percy is a womanizer and can do much to get a woman he fancies, but if she" he pointed with his eyes at Harry "appears with a forty-something-year-old, good-looking guy - OK, you're not the Mister of the Universe, but you do manage to look good sometimes, especially…" especially when you both are appearing together and you both are radiating this damned something like two bloody nuclear bombs, he wanted to say, but he bit his tongue "...when you are wearing a DJ", he finished instead. "Your presence at Harry's side might dissuade Sir Percy from, um, hitting on her. While when she is accompanied by" he coughed "a fifty-five, silver-haired, dignified gentleman…"
"This may encourage him" Harry nodded.
"Exactly. After the party we will meet in a quiet place and discuss the evening."
"May I suggest my place then, Sir? As it's not very far from Dullwich Village, it will take a while to get there." Spikings nodded in approval and Harry continued: "By the way this all means that I am leaving the office at two today"
"Are you?" Spikings raised his eyebrows. "And why is that?"
"Sir" Harry tried not to smile widely "making myself looking like ten million dollars it's not a piece of cake, it requires time and peace of mind. I need to arrange some things, like meeting my hairdresser, provided she has time, and other things, but I won't bore you with the details. So…"
"All right" Spikings sighed "two pm, then. Now you can go, both of you."
"Can I also leave at two, Boss?" Dempsey asked. "I could be Harry's driver in the afternoon while she's turning herself into a better version of Kim Basinger".
"Well thanks a lot, Dempsey, I am not going to look like this pathetic cow, I'm far better than her" Harry growled. "And I don't need the driver, especially the one who has a Mount Everest of untouched files on his desk, just for the afternoon!"
"Thanks, babe, I owe you one."
"OUT!" Spikings yelled so furiously that people in the outer office got silent immediately. Harry and Dempsey decided to leave in hurry.
"Why you girls dislike Kim Basinger so much?" Dempsey poured fresh coffee to their mugs and gave one to Makepeace.
Their eyes met.
"The correct question is, why you guys are so crazy about her?" she lifted her chin defiantly.
"Awww Harry, do I really need to tell you? We guys just like girls who are intelligent…" with his words, his hands made a round gesture at the level of his chest "and well-read…." same gesture at the level of his hips.
"Then I should take your idea of turning myself into her very offensive, Dempsey".
"Better version of her, Makepeace. Better version. Don't forget that."
The house in Dullwich stood in fact half a mile away from the village, hidden discreetly at the edge of the forest. It was very spacious and exclaiming with every brick of itself: "I am posh and I am money", like many of the houses in London were.
Inside, there was a crowd of blue-blooded snobs very busy on talking of nothing - at least it was the impression Dempsey has been getting hold since the very first time he attended this kind of party in England. Since that day he got used to that but he always thought it was a bit weird. American small talks were nicer. OK... so were the private parties in England he attended several times, with Harry and her friends he had met last year on several occasions; the guys turned out to be OK, he had a laugh wih them and although at the beginning he had a feeling of being seen like a kind of a rare animal at the ZOO, finally they got to know him and liked him, and he felt freewheelingly with them. He remembered their names and they called him Jim. All but Harry of course. He vaguely remembered the occasions she called him just "James" - four, five times during all three years? - and his imagination was not running that wild to picture her naming him "Jim". Even when his imagination was running wild, very wild, it was always "James", to be honest. And under the imagined circumstances, "James" was satysfying enough.
He took a piece of a canape offered to him by a nice long-haired girl standing in the middle of the hall, and a glass of champagne from a tray held by a tall pale faced waiter looking like Dracula suddenly awaken in the daylight, and started wandering lazily between people, trying to overhear bits of their conversations, and scanning the rooms in search of Harry and Spikings. He was also quite curious of the Sir Percy and tried to guess which of the guests can be him - this handsome and slim aristocrat with silver hair, or rather the one small and face-gleaming, drying his bald spot with a sheet-large handkerchief? Or perhaps… oh no, not that looking like ninety years old thin, pursily giggling guy with the Einstein-like hair, huge ears with strands of hair growing out of them, and other hair visible in his big nose? "Idiot" Dempsey thought about himself "the only drug the guy may be dealing with, is the sedatives prepared for his nearest future." Besides, the guessing was ridiculous anyway, there were more than one hundred and fifty people here, at least, more than half of them were men, and more than half of this half were men over fifty.
Looking at the walls full of horrible old pictures - why did the hell old English ancestors look like that and how they then had a slightest possibility to breed and maintain the English species?! - he went towards the big door of a kind of a huge ballroom full of big green plants where the piano was being played, and there they were, Spikings in a dazzling suit, with a mild, nice and false smile under his moustache, and there was Harry beside him, holding his arm.
Dempsey halted abruptly at the door, feeling sudden heat flowing over his entire body which simultaneously and absurdly turned to stone at the same moment. He literally couldn't move, he just could stay there staring at her and couldn't keep his eyes off her.
Harry didn't look like ten million dollars, as Spikings had demanded.
In fact she looked like a bloody billion in gold. She looked like the entire gold of the Fort Knox.
Moreover - she looked better than she did that evening at the bistro of Morocco Jack, which would have seemed impossible to him only five minutes earlier before he saw her.
Oh.
Sweet.
Jesus.
She wore a simple posh dress that was in colour of blue (yes, women may be more familiar with all these stupid names like turquoise, sea, azure, plum… and this kind of crap), and accentuated her perfect body curves; she had the hair up high - was it really done by her hairdresser, it looked so simple! - a very small diamond hairpin and the long diamond earrings. And that was all, no other jewellery. She looked absolutely gorgeous. The picture of her was just impossible. Her eyes were sparkling like blue stars - or it was just him who thought they were? - she was smiling like a goddess, the way that would make the Olymp shake. And, judging from other men's looks, Dempsey was not the only one who thought the same. But at least the other men were able to look everywhere, not only at her, unlike him, his eyes on stalks. Her dress, her hair, her smile, her eyes, her face.
"The face which launched a thousand ships" - Dempsey couldn't recall where he remembered these words from but that was what he thought in the first place.
Finally he moved, thinking that standing there and staring at her breathlessly might draw other people's attention, which was a rather unwanted thing at the moment. Simultaneously, both Spikings and Makepeace noticed him and while the boss kept the deadpan face Harry must have noticed something, perhaps she caught the glimpse of his bewildered look, because something strange flashed in her eyes, a hot spark, and she averted her look quickly.
A waiter came towards her and Spikings, offering them champagne. A man with a big belly approached Dempsey asking him for a lighter, they both lit themselves cigars and this gave him a second to compose himself. He swore in his mind. Damn it, damn it, damn it, he didn't need more trouble in his life!
Somehow he knew, though, it's been far too late.
"There's our bird" Spikings mumbled. "Standing at the big philodendron in the corner of the room, talking to the guy with the yellow tie. Yellow tie, for goodness sake."
Harry smiled lightly. She looked at her victim. Sir Percy Rathbone didn't look very interesting:a stout man with grey hair, rather calm and slow. What she noticed he had a quite pleasant smile. He was talking to the Yellow Tie, gesturing lightly with his left hand, keeping a champagne flute in his right one. He had a face of an old good neighbour you can go fishing every Saturday with. The Yellow Tie was much more interesting, despite the yellow tie of course: tall, slim, black-haired, tanned. But it was Sir Percy who was the target this evening.
"Let's try to meet him" Spikings said. "Where's our big white brother from the far foreign land?"
"Walking here and there and lending his ears, Sir" Harry informed him. She didn't see Dempsey at the moment, but she didn't have to; she had him permanently on her radar and she just knew in which place of a room he was. "Somewhere at the terrace door."
Sir Percy and The Yellow Tie have joined the group of four people looking at the huge wall picture of galloping horses, and discussing something with vivacity.
"OK, let's go then, now it's the time" Harry said quietly. "Come with me, Sir, and then leave us after few minutes. Leave the rest to me." Her nostrils twitched a little as if she smelled the quarry.
Spikings smiled very, very contently. Yes, this girl was the pearl in the crown of his wonder team.
"Hunting started, Sergeant?"
Makepeace smiled triumphantly.