CHAPTER 4

SI 10 Headquarters, Saturday, 10:34am

Spikings pressed his palms flat on his desk and stood up. Scowling, he leaned forward to gape at two of his best detectives in that intimidating manner he'd mastered so well.

"Is that all you have to go on?" he yelled. "A preliminary forensics report and the wretched testimony of a meth addict?" The Governor walked around the huge mahogany desk and started pacing around the office like a caged lion, the wheels inside his head clearly churning. "What about the family? You must've talked to them by now."

Makepeace shifted uncomfortably on the chair and turned to Dempsey, who had been unusually quiet all morning. He was sprawled unceremoniously on the chair closest to the door, playing with a rubber band that he kept tensing and relaxing between his thumb and middle finger. He looked either extremely tired or extremely bored, as he didn't even bother to acknowledge the question.

"They weren't overly forthcoming, sir," Harry said to fill the lingering silence. "We figured we'd give them some time to process—"

"TIME is PRECISELY what we DON'T have, Sergeant!" shouted Spikings. His contorted face was already turning a deep shade of red. Not a good sign.

"Why?"

It was the first word to come out of Dempsey's mouth since they had entered the building. He had spoken in such a calm, matter-of-fact manner he may as well have been talking about the weather. Both Makepeace and Spikings looked at him, trying to process the enigmatic question during a very pregnant pause.

Patience, however, was not one of the Chief Superintendent's virtues.

"I beg your pardon?!"

Spikings' face was now almost purple. Harry cringed. She could sense the impending clash between her stern boss and her irreverent partner, had been expecting it even. She just wished she'd had a third cup of tea that morning. Dempsey stopped fiddling with the rubber band and glanced up with an openly defiant stare.

"I asked why is time such a big deal."

Something inside Spikings' jaw flinched and, for a moment, it looked like he was going to hurl himself at Dempsey and strangle him. The unruly American was obviously detrimental to his blood pressure.

"Have you finally lost your mind, son?" the Governor barked. "We have a serial killer on the loose, in case you haven't heard, and so far you haven't managed to get a single solid lead that might help us find him!"

"One," Dempsey began, infused with a serenity that was highly uncharacteristic, "this might appear to be the handy work of a serial killer. The bastard's sick enough, I'll give ya that. But as we've already discussed, a single murder ain't enough to consider the perpetrator a serial killer." He leaned forward on the chair, his eyes narrow. "And two, SI10 doesn't get involved in murder investigations unless there's somethin' bigger goin' on behind the scenes. It's all about the 'best way of allocating resources and not wasting our tax payers' money'," Dempsey finished in a fairly accurate British accent. He was now sporting a half smile that spoke volumes, and looking at Spikings in that bold way that never failed to get under the older man's skin. "I believe those was your exact words durin' last week's meetin', right?" His insolence turned to facetiousness. "Weeeeeell, this bein' a random murder, strikes me as somethin' the boys down at Violent Crimes can handle. So, boss, tell me… What gives?"

Spikings stood in the middle of the cramped office and regarded Dempsey with hesitation. After a few moments of unsettling silence, he let out a heavy sigh and began to rub the white stubble on his balding head, a clear sign that he was about to divulge something unwillingly. Giving up all pretences, he quietly walked over to the rain streaked window and stared at the street below, where an interesting parade of moving umbrellas of various colours and sizes appeared to dance at the beat of the raindrops.

"Mrs. Angela Midgley is a widow," Spikings voice was now hushed, and they almost had to make an effort to hear the words over the heavy rain pounding the glass. "Her late husband, one Quentin Midgley, died in a work related accident fifteen years ago while operating a freight train. As you have probably guessed by now, the deceased boy was born out of wedlock."

"So, who's the father?" asked Makepeace cautiously. It had been the obvious question to ask, although the way Spikings was beating around the bush, she almost expected him to be the father.

The Governor turned around to face them with a grave expression on his face. "That, I cannot tell you," he replied. His eyes focused on Harry and then travelled to Dempsey, hardening along the way. "What I can tell you is that he's a prominent member of the British aristocracy. The Commissioner himself has been pushing for us to get involved ever since the child went missing. Now that the case has turned into a murder investigation the pressure to find the culprit is tenfold. Heads are going to roll on this one, if not the killer's then it will be ours. And nobody, I repeat, nobody must know who's pulling the strings here, you hear me? If this were to leak out, SI10 would become a sad footnote in the history of this country."

Dempsey let out a short laugh and looked at his boss with open incredulity.

"Are you kiddin' me?" he snickered as he stood up. "I don't care how big a fish this royal turkey might be. He's just become a prime suspect!"

"Think about it, Lieutenant! If that were the case, would he have requested SI10 to get involved in the first place?" Spikings huffed, emphasizing his point with a wave of his hand.

"Or he could be usin' his influence to throw us off his trail," Dempsey reasoned. "Have you even considered that? Matter of fact, as of right now he's the only suspect I can think of with a clear motive!"

"You can't be serious!" Makepeace chimed in. "C'mon, Dempsey! Why would a privileged member of the British upper crust throw his entire life away to get rid of his own son in such a… brutal manner, and then get an elite division of the police force to find the murderer? It's preposterous!"

"I ain't sayin' he did do it, but not considerin' him a suspect's just crazy and you know it!" Dempsey started pacing the office in the same manner his boss had been doing just minutes before, the wheels inside his head churning exactly the same way. Makepeace found the mirroring behaviour quite ironic. "This whole relationship with a blue collar worker's widow reeks of extortion to me," he continued lost in thought. "A posh aristocrat meets this woman from the wrong side of the tracks, most likely while she's workin' in a place of questionable reputation. They get involved, have an on-goin' affair, or even a one-night stand, he gets'er pregnant, she has his kid, then threatens to expose thei—"

"Dempsey, I'm warning you!" Spikings cut in pointing an authoritative finger at him. "Tread carefully on this one, and keep your big mouth shut! You do as I say or your arse will be on the next plane back to New York faster than you can say hotdog, do you hear me?!"

Makepeace knew trying to keep Dempsey on a leash was like attempting to stop a fifty ton bulldozer with a plastic traffic cone. He would agree to play by the rules and then go off and do his own thing regardless of their boss' constant threats and tantrums. It was the way it worked with them, and it had been an effective, albeit reckless technique up to that point. But this level of secrecy was unprecedented, even for Spikings, which led Harry to believe they were dealing with an entirely different beast altogether.

The two men had been staring at each other in a long, silent stand-off. It was Dempsey who finally budged, nodding his head almost imperceptibly.

"You're the boss," he answered quietly, but his eyes remained belligerent.

Once in the common office space, they assigned the tedious task of looking up every address of every person associated with the school to Chas, who promptly recruited young Bill Fry to go over the computer database on a job that would likely take the rest of the morning. Dempsey and Makepeace's job wasn't any less dreary. They began going over at least a dozen arrest reports of people recently snatched on sex offence charges, regardless of whether there had been a conviction.

"Do you need the names and addresses of the delivery personnel, too?" Fry asked.

"Everyone who has any connection to that school whatsoever," Dempsey answered.

"That might take a while."

"Just do it," Chas ordered quietly.

He gave Fry a warning look, one that clearly stated not to mess with the Lieutenant. Apparently Dempsey's sour mood had made the rounds already. Most of the team had left the office shortly after reporting to work that morning. They were either on surveillance duty or down in Records. Fry, however, happened to walk into the office just in time for Chas to volunteer him into doing all the heavy paper pushing on the case. Still considered a rookie cop despite having been with the department for over a year, he was always stuck with the odd jobs none of the more veteran team members wanted to do.

With an encouraging smile, Makepeace gave him all the information they had so far on the school, which wasn't much. All they knew thus far was that it was in South Kensington and incredibly exclusive: two pieces of the puzzle that didn't quite fit. Angela Midgley couldn't possibly afford a place like that on a petty train operator's pension. Was that the red herring that had alerted Dempsey there might be something more to this case that met the eye?

"How did you know?" Harry asked, making sure the other two men were out of earshot. She began scrolling down a series of names on the computer screen.

"Hmmm?"

Dempsey was standing next to her, rummaging through a bunch of folders inside the top drawer of a filing cabinet.

"How did you know…" she briefly glanced up from the screen, saw both Chas and Fry minding their own business. "How did you know Spikings was holding something back?"

"Ain't he always?"

Harry tapped the down arrow key several times and then typed a command into the computer. "I guess your nose never lets you down, does it?"

"Your instincts're just as sharp as mine, princess," he was sporting a sideway grin. "You just've to learn to trust them."

"Oh, is that so?"

She ignored the computer for a second and swivelled her chair to face him.

"Yep!" His smile widened. "Ya see, your problem's that you're a good little officer, Sergeant. Always doin' what you're told."

"Oh, and I suppose, in your book, that's a bad thing?"

Dempsey shrugged, half sitting on top of several reports right next to her keyboard. "You gotta learn to question everythin' around ya, even authority," he said. "And that's somethin' you never, ever do."

"You don't just question authority, Dempsey," she scoffed. "You defy it. And, contrary to what you might think, I don't just blindly do whatever I'm told."

"You don't?"

His cynical tone earned him a long, condescending leer. "I fought tooth and nail against being paired up with you, didn't I?"

"Didn't fight hard 'nough. Look where it got ya, partner," he said triumphantly.

"Right, like you were any more thrilled yourself," she sneered as she yanked a stack of papers from under his buttocks. "You got stuck with me, just the same."

"I got stuck on you, more like it," he winked.

She smirked at him and turned back to the computer screen. It was a huge relief to see him acting like himself again. His eyes had even regained some of that spark that always managed to magically motivate her. Oddly enough, she had even found his flirtatious comment welcome. In the end, it was that back and forth banter that made their partnership function—an inexplicable symbiotic relationship that someone had yet to figure out.

"Anything?" she asked, stretching her back to release the tension that was beginning to build in her shoulders.

"All sex offender arrests in the past fifteen months've ended up in convictions," he answered. "Three of those bastards'll be locked up for at least a coupl'a more years. One never made it to trial. He hung himself in the holdin' cell the night 'fore he was due in court. But until the boys come back from Records, we won't know 'bout cases prior to 1986. What dija find?"

"No arrests have been made in the past sixty days for either kidnapping or sexual offence. I'm going to check under child abuse, and see what comes up."

From the back of the room, Fry exclaimed: "Good Lord! This school has more staff than children!"

"It's quite posh," Chas agreed, arms crossed, as he patiently waited for the dot-matrix to spit out a page.

"If they keep murdering and dismembering their kids, they'll have no students left," Fry joked.

Makepeace actually felt Dempsey tensing up. She watched him get up slowly and begin to walk over to where the younger man was sitting at the computer on the opposite side of the room. She pressed her lips into a thin line, feeling her stomach tighten.

"You think that's funny?" Dempsey glowered. His voice was too low, too dark.

"C'mon, Dempsey," Chas said warily. "He didn't mean anything by it. It was just a bad joke."

Fry watched petrified as Dempsey approached him slowly, like a predator stalking his prey. Makepeace, sensing her partner's wrath and unsettled by the unpredictability of his recent behaviour, stood up, alarm bells ringing loudly inside her brain. She was about to say something, but Dempsey beat her to it.

"You wanna hear a bad joke?"

Grabbing Fry suddenly by the collar of his shirt, he harshly pulled him up making the squeaky chair scurry noisily to one side, and viciously threw the young detective against the wall.

"Let me tell ya a bad joke!" Dempsey growled between clenched teeth. "A mother havin' to identify her only child by what's left'o him down at the morgue!" He grabbed Fry by the shoulders and shoved him again even harder. "YOU LAUGHIN' YET?!"

"Lieutenant, please!"

"Dempsey, stop it!"

Both Chas and Harry spoke at the same time, their apprehension written all over their faces. They rushed, horrified, to where the altercation was taking place, but not before Spikings had stormed out of his office looking like a grizzly bear dragged out of hibernation.

"What the hell's going on out here?!" he thundered.

Fry's eyes were bulging out in fear. Chas was frozen, too shocked to offer any sort of explanation. Dempsey turned, glaring at Spikings as if he wanted to kill him for raining all over his parade. And it was finally Makepeace who, with as much composure as she could muster, took her partner by the elbow and pulled him towards the door.

"Dempsey just needs a bit of a break, sir," she said apologetically. "It's been a rough night. We just need five minutes."

Spikings regarded his staff with a mixture of tolerance and disgust. He gave them a curt nod and added: "I want to see you both back here hard at work within five minutes, or I'll drag you by the ears myself! Got it?!"

Harry offered their boss a courteous nod and led a seemingly submissive Dempsey down the corridor and into the locker room. He walked all the way to the back without facing her, appeared to move in slow motion as he placed both hands on one of the taller cubbies, arms stretched out in front of him to support his weight as he leaned against it.

"What on earth's going on with you?" Harry demanded angrily.

But he didn't answer, didn't even move a muscle. She walked over to the lockers to stand by his side in hopes she might get a reaction out of him, but she soon realized the conversation might have been more gratifying had she been actually talking to the wall.

"You've been acting really strangely since last night."

Still, no response was forthcoming. His silence was making Harry more anxious by the second.

"You barely touched your breakfast earlier, looks like you're about to collapse at any moment. I'm not even going to go into the lacklustre questioning of the boy's family this morning and now… now you lash out at Fry for making a simple comment! Yes, granted, it wasn't the most tactful thing to say, but… Seriously, what has got into you?!"

He was dead set on ignoring her, and the last vestiges of Harry's patience were beginning to waver.

"There's something you're not telling me, Dempsey. I'm your partner, for God's sake! Whatever it is that's bothering you, I deserve to know!"

There was a slight shift in Dempsey's body, an almost imperceptible squaring of the shoulders, but he stood his silent ground.

Her rage went in crescendo, reached a peak at which point she was no longer able to keep the irritation out of her voice. "This is a horrific case. I get that. But I have news for you, Lieutenant: It's unpleasant for everyone involved, not just you!"

"BACK OFF!"

She flinched and took a step back, startled. He'd turned around in a flash and was now towering over her. His eyes had become much darker than usual as they pinned her down with a stare that could've melted steel. Harry suddenly felt small and vulnerable, fully aware of the size difference between them. A cold shiver rolled slowly up her spine, like an icy spur.

For the first time ever, Harry was afraid of him.

The feeling lasted merely a second or two, for his expression softened the moment he saw the fear in her eyes. He took a step back, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. A shaky breath escaped his lips: a desperate attempt to regain control. Still, he didn't speak, just dropped his hands to let them rest on his hips and let out a dry, humourless chuckle.

Too stunned to utter a word, Harry simply stood there, looking at him as if he were a stranger. Dempsey clenched his jaw refusing to make eye contact.

"Dammit, Makepeace!" he finally muttered brushing past her.

He pushed the door open with excessive force and disappeared into the corridor. A fleeting emotion had flashed across his face right before he left. Had it been contrition? Shame? Harry wasn't sure. Suddenly, there was an odd, painful void inside her chest.

All she knew as she stood alone and shaking in the middle of the empty locker room was that she wanted her partner back.

[To Be Continued…]