AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

Previously On My Little Eye: Lewis and Hobson's pleasant evening together is shattered when Lewis gets a call to the murder scene. The gang discover Cook has done a disappearing act after Hathaway called in the police. The victim is identified as the chief editor of the Oxford Herald who was at the party earlier on. The body has been mutilated in the very manner Hathaway deduced from the riddle sent to the police by the killer. Emily sees an opportunity to make a name for herself by getting the paper to agree that she should write the story of the murder of its own chief editor. She persuades Naomi to help her in her secret mission and cover for her absence.

CHAPTER TEN:

PART 1

'We've got a problem, Sir,' said Hathaway to Lewis after briefly speaking with one of the police constables who had approached him after they had concluded their latest interview.

'What problem?' asked Lewis, failing to stifle a yawn as he politely turned his head to one side and put his hand to his mouth.

'One of the party guests appears to have done a runner, Sir.' Hathaway knew the inspector would not be impressed with the news that they had somehow managed to allow a suspect to slip through their fingers so easily and so he waited nervously for the volcano to erupt. Fortunately for him DI Lewis was too worn out to put up much of a show of temper and frustration despite understandably not being best pleased with the information given to him. The inspector contented himself with a weary sigh followed by an abrupt 'Who?' and directed a hard stare at Hathaway.

'It's a friend of Miss Campbell and Miss Fitch, Sir. Name of James Cook. He arrived late on, well after the party had started.'

'How do we know he hadn't already left long before we all got here?'

Hathaway shook his head. 'He was still here when I called the police, Sir. I remember seeing him then. We had spoken briefly during the evening. He was a….very close friend of Miss Effy Stonem, it would seem.'

'That's the girl who invited you to the party, isn't it?' asked Lewis who had been filled in on his sergeant's recent acquaintance with the captivating Miss Stonem. The inspector still felt a touch awkward and uncertain about how to deal with Hathaway's involvement, however new and apparently superficial, with one of the murder suspects. Should he take him off the case because of a potential conflict of interest due to his 'friendship' with a suspect or did his presence throughout the evening's events make his participation in the enquiry absolutely essential as a first rate, Johnny-on-the-spot witness? He decided he would sleep on the dilemma which, given the way he was beginning to yawn his head off, was in danger of descending upon him at any minute.

'Do we know any reason why he might have taken an instant dislike to us?'

'No, Sir,' replied Hathaway as his mind was cast back to the conversation he witnessed that evening between Cook and Effy which he had thought was full of hidden meanings and unspoken sub-text.

'Well, you know the drill. Get uniform to search the house from top to bottom and get a team on to combing the whole of the immediate neighbourhood. Get a description of him and circulate it. If he hasn't turned up by the morning we'll have to question all his friends again.'

Hathaway nodded and left to carry out his master's bidding, leaving DI Lewis to contemplate his next move which if he had had his way would have been straight to bed but sadly there were a couple of things still left to do before he could call it a day.

The inspector returned to the living room where everyone who hadn't yet been interviewed and allowed to go home or who had been seen but were planning on staying on for the night were patiently waiting.

'Miss Effy Stonem?' said Lewis, looking over at the tall, slim brunette who was sitting chatting with Naomi in hushed tones. Effy rose to her feet and followed the inspector out of the room, after giving Naomi a quick glance and an almost imperceptible nod. She took a seat in the kitchen at Lewis' request and waited calmly and silently for the grilling to begin.

'It would seem one of the guests here tonight, a friend of yours, a Mr James Cook, has vanished. Without our permission, I should add. Have you any idea where he might be?'

Effy looked at a solemn and serious looking DI Lewis and shook her head apologetically. 'I'm sorry, I've no idea where he's got to, Inspector' she answered truthfully.

'Does he usually do a disappearing act whenever the police are called in? Has he been in any trouble with the police before?' Effy's heart rate was racing and she felt her mouth turn dry as she considered how to reply to the inspector's carefully worded and loaded questions. She suspected that DI Lewis had a very good line in lulling people into a false sense of security with his easy-going, polite, almost casual manner but which concealed a very instinctive understanding of human nature and a surprising ruthlessness in pouncing on any sign of weakness or uncertainty from his interviewees. He was not to be underestimated or taken lightly, she thought. That would be very foolish indeed.

'Not that I'm aware of, Inspector,' she replied disarmingly. 'None of us have ever had much experience of the police, you know. But I'm not exactly surprised Cook has disappeared. I can't believe for a moment it's got anything to do with what happened here tonight He's always been like that '

'Like what?'

'Well, he's always been the kind of guy who would turn up out of the blue without a word of warning and then disappear again just as quickly as he arrived. He never stays around anywhere for very long, he's always on the move. You never know when he might pop up next.'

'Is that what happened tonight, then?'

Effy nodded her head and gave a wry smile which Lewis thought contained just a hint of resignation and sadness about it before she continued. 'That's right. It was typical Cook. Turned up on the doorstep totally unexpectedly, hung around for a while, gave a few vague, unhelpful answers when we asked him what he'd been doing since we last saw him and then buggered off without saying goodbye to anyone. That's Cook all over, I'm afraid, Inspector. He's probably miles away by now and we won't see him again for another year or so.'

'Well, we want to speak to him about tonight, Miss Stonem and I'm certainly not prepared to wait for him to decide to turn up again whenever it suits him. This is a murder enquiry and I don't like any of my witnesses – or suspects - doing a runner behind my back. It makes me very uneasy and suspicious of them. So if you hear from Mr Cook or see him again I'll be obliged if you let me or my sergeant know straight away Understood?'

'Perfectly, Inspector. But I'm positive Cook's vanishing act has got nothing to do with your murder. He didn't know the guy who was killed or even speak to him, I think.'

'Well, I won't know that until I get to speak to him, will I?'

Effy nodded and looked down at the floor, silently praying that DI Lewis would change the subject which to her huge relief he did.

'Did you see anything tonight that might help us with our enquiry, Miss Stonem?'

'Such as what, Inspector?'

'I don't know, anything. Do you remember anyone leaving the house around the time Mr Wells left the party? Did anyone have an argument with Mr Wells while he was at the party? Can you tell us anything that might help us in our investigation?'

Effy did him the courtesy of considering the matter for a few moments before shaking her head. 'I'm sorry but I don't remember anything that might be of use to you. I spent most of the evening just drinking and dancing and having fun with my friends.'

'And with Detective Sgt Hathaway, I understand?'

'Well…. I don't recall doing much dancing with Sgt Hathaway, now you come to mention it. I don't think your sergeant is exactly the dancing type, Inspector.' Effy kept an admirably straight face as she looked across at DI Lewis but he could see a mischievous twinkle in her eyes which instantly brought a broad smile to Lewis' face, despite the gravity of the situation.

'No, I don't imagine he is, Miss Stonem – at least not the type of dancing you bright young things are into anyway.'

'Inspector, are you going to tell me that I can't speak to James or see him again while I'm in Oxford – because of this case, I mean?'

Lewis wasn't expecting to be asked such a direct question and Effy's boldness momentarily caught him off guard. He hesitated fractionally before giving the young woman an honest answer. 'No, not at this stage. But you will appreciate Sgt Hathaway can't talk about the case with you, not in any shape or form. Otherwise I would either have to take him off the case or forbid him to see you in anything other than a purely professional capacity.'

'I understand, Inspector,' said Effy quietly, skilfully concealing her relief.

'But ultimately it's up to my boss, the Chief Superintendent, to decide if your….friendship with Sgt Hathaway might get in the way of our investigation. It'll be out of my hands.'

Having given Effy the green light to continue to explore her acquaintance with James only to cast a pale shadow over it with his parting reference to the vagaries of his own superior, DI Lewis got up, thanked Effy for her time and showed her out of the kitchen and almost immediately into the welcoming arms of Sgt Hathaway who had reappeared in the hallway.

'Ah, there you are, Sergeant,' said Lewis who couldn't help noticing the nervous exchange of glances between the two as Effy passed by Hathaway on route to the living room. He saw Effy give a slight smile at his sergeant who obviously felt restricted by his boss's close proximity and contented himself with a polite but nonetheless friendly nod of the head at the brunette. His eyes though spoke of a gentle warmth which could not be completely covered up by the apparent stiffness of his acknowledgement. 'I think we'd better have a quick word with Dr Hobson before we wrap up here,'

'Yes, Sir,' replied Hathaway and he followed his boss out through the front door and into the cold night air, leaving Effy to bring the gang up to speed with the police's enquiries into Cook's disappearance

PART 2

'So, where do you think Cook is now?' an anxious JJ asked Effy who had collapsed on the sofa next to Naomi.

'Fuck knows,' replied Effy with a dismissive shrug of her shoulders. 'I just hope the police don't find him. I'm worried they've got it into their heads his vanishing act might have something to do with what happened tonight.'

'Oh, come on, Ef! Surely Cook didn't do in the newspaper guy?' cried Katie who had sobered up considerably in the last hour, fortified by the countless cups of strong black coffee that the others had almost forced down her throat. 'Why would he? He didn't even know him, for Christ's sake.'

'Cook may be a brainless head case at the best of times but even he wouldn't kill someone he didn't even know,' added Lara who had seen enough of JJ'S best mate over the last few years to offer an objective opinion on the missing delinquent.

'He's still on the run after all, Ef,' Naomi pointed out to reassure Effy whom she could see was worried about Cook, despite her vain attempts to affect an apparent indifference. 'He was bound to do a runner once he'd heard the cops were on their way over.'

'If he'd hung around to be questioned the police would have checked up on him and found out in no time he's a wanted criminal. He'd have been banged straight away. He had to scarper, didn't he?' Silence descended on the group as everyone struggled to find an answer to Katie's surprisingly rational logic.

'He's bound to have legged it as far away from here as possible. We probably won't see or hear from him again for another five years,' said Naomi with a derisive snort.

JJ and Lara looked at each other in silence for a while until JJ seemed on the point of saying something only to change his mind at the last second on seeing Lara stare at him with flashing eyes and give the tiniest shake of her head.

'Where's Emily?' enquired the young lad, sensing that a change of subject might lighten the mood which seemed to have become strangely tense and heavy with the mention of Cook's name.

'She's upstairs having a nap,' said Naomi hurriedly. 'I think the whole day has finally caught up with her and done her in. She'll feel much better later on for having had some sleep now.'

'I'll take a glass of water up for her, shall I?' Katie stood up with an effort and made a movement towards the living room door. 'If she wakes up feeling thirsty then at least there'll be a drink by the bed waiting for her.'

'No! Just leave her, Katie. I don't want her to be disturbed; she's well out of it.'

'Okay, okay! Keep your fucking bleached hair on, Naomi!' Katie took predictable offence at Naomi's sharp reaction and felt the hairs standing up on the back of her neck and anger begin to rise from the pit of her still slightly dodgy stomach as the often prickly nature of their relationship raised its ugly head again.

'Oh, come on, you two! Don't start an argument, please!' JJ hated it when the two girls threatened to be at each other's throats like in the early days when they first all met. He always sought to diffuse any potential confrontation before it could develop into a full blown slanging match or catfight. Lara by contrast was all for just sitting back and enjoying the spectacle as a neutral but JJ couldn't stand to watch a fight or a blazing row at close quarters – it made him feel nervous and queasy and often brought on one of his freaked out attacks, although to be fair they were a rare occurrence nowadays. The arrival of Lara into his life had bizarrely seemed to coincide with their almost complete disappearance.

'I'm not arguing with her, JJ,' said Naomi firmly, her mouth set hard on her face as she stared Katie down. 'I'm just asking her nicely…..'

'Nicely?' Katie spat out the word with real venom and overbalanced in the process, falling back onto the sofa, prompting a few knowing looks between all the others. 'Jesus! If that's your version of nice I'd hate to see how you do nasty. She is my sister, after all. I know she's your girlfriend but blood is thicker than…whatever.' Katie tailed off disappointingly, unsure how the proverb finished, her head starting to spin again from having made such an animated movement which had been unwise in her still fragile and shaky physical condition.

'Water,' Lara suggested, trying to help but serving only to provoke a round of giggles as fatigue spread throughout the ranks and spilled out onto the battlefield.

'In what way do you see me as water, Katie?' asked Naomi forcing a smile despite her frustration with having to put up with another one of Katie's tedious attempts to pull rank with her by playing the sister card.

'I was just trying to look out for poor Ems, that's all. I wasn't trying to take your place or steal your thunder. You shouldn't be so paranoid about allowing other people to get near her, you know. Why do you always want to wrap her up in cotton wool and keep everyone else away from her? You don't own Emily, however much you might want to.'

Naomi's smile vanished in an instant as she stood up, her face contorted in a seething rage that promised to explode into a full scale verbal assault on Katie who in her eyes had now gone too far, had way overstepped the boundaries of acceptable comment and had touched a raw nerve that constantly nagged and itched away at the blonde.

'You fucking cow, Katie! You're the one who can't stand the fact that she loves someone else other than you. You've never been able to deal with that, have you? You've always been insanely jealous of what we have together and you've never given up hope of coming in between us and splitting us up!'

Katie let out a terrifying scream of anger, hauled herself off the sofa with a superhuman effort and lurched unsteadily over towards a furious Naomi, seemingly hell bent on knocking seven shades of shit out of the blonde who was showing no intention of flinching or retreating from her position but was instead fearlessly standing her ground and preparing to get her retaliation in first. Doubtless fists and fur would have been flying had Effy and JJ not been so quick to react and jump in the middle to separate the two Amazon warriors.

'Enough, the pair of you!' said JJ who, despite having turned pale with anxiety had grabbed hold of Naomi while Effy equally promptly leapt up to restrain Katie. Both girls struggled initially to wriggle free from their captors whilst trading further insults and abuse at each other, eyes blazing and lips curled back menacingly in genuine snarls of contempt and mutual loathing.

Shut up, the pair of you,' pleaded Effy, wishing she could knock their two heads together and put an end to the commotion that way but deciding instead to appeal to the remnants of their common sense and basic decency. 'You'll wake Emily up if you carry on shouting and screaming at each other like that. Is that what you want after the day she's had? Now pack it in, will you?' The piece had to be said of course but she caught herself wishing she hadn't sounded quite so much like her own mother telling off her and Tony for squabbling when they were kids.

Naomi and Katie still glared at each other from a safe distance but Effy's wise words must have registered with them for both girls sat down and kept silent as everyone else heaved a collective sigh of relief that a full scale skirmish had been nipped in the bud.

'There's one thing I still don't understand,' said Effy, eventually breaking the uneasy silence that had descended upon the room as wounds were licked and frayed tempers given time to cool down. 'How did Cook know where to find us? How did he find out about the party?'

Four pairs of eyes swung round to stare at Effy as the implication of Effy's question slowly sunk in to their tired, inebriated, frazzled minds.

'I mean, someone must have told him. It wasn't exactly announced in the society pages of The Times, was it?'

She seemed to have a point and encouraged by the wall of silence that met her theory the brunette went on to elaborate, narrowing the net of possibility further still. 'In fact, he must have found out from one of us. Who else here could have told him? Nobody else here tonight knew him.'

'He can't have,' said Naomi. 'None of us have even heard from him, let alone seen him since the day of the party in Freddie's shed. Have we?' she asked looking around at the faces of the whole gang, searching for confirmation that she was right. Murmurs and whispers of approval greeted her question and heads were nodded frantically to indicate that they agreed wholeheartedly with her presumption of innocence on their behalf.

'Maybe….well, maybe he found out from someone else who knew about the party,' suggested Lara.

'Like who?' Effy eyed Lara up intently but could see no evidence of duplicity or deliberate distraction in her expression. She seemed to be speaking honestly enough.

'Well, my parents knew we were coming here for the weekend,' said JJ. 'Isn't it possible that Cook turned up in Bristol to see us and Mum told him where we'd gone for the weekend – and why?'

'I guess so,' said Naomi slowly, sounding far from convinced with this suggestion and an uncomfortable silence fell upon the gang once again as minds gave in to tiredness, heads lolled back against cushions and eyes were closed to allow much needed sleep to penetrate their aching bodies. But for one person in the room sleep did not come that quickly. The eyes might have been shut but the brain was still working feverishly, the heart was beating faster than normal and deep anxiety was beginning to set in and make this person feel extremely uncomfortable and nervous.

PART 3

'What have you got for us, Doc?' Lewis asked Dr Hobson when he and Hathaway arrived back at the crime scene to find Laura still hard at work with her forensic team.

'Please tell me you've got some good news for me to go to sleep on, will you? I need cheering up.'

If Laura Hobson felt a little hurt and put out that DI Lewis seemed to have all but forgotten the wonderful evening they had spent together only a couple of hours previously then she did a good job of hiding it. 'No DNA on the body or immediately next to it BUT…..' she stopped, seeing Lewis's face fall on hearing her initial far from encouraging words and mischievously, even a touch sadistically wanting to prolong the wait for some good news a fraction longer.

'But what?' he asked, praying she really had found something they could get their teeth into.

'Well, my wild, carefree, irresponsible student days are a long way behind me now but I would hazard a guess that what we've found just a few yards away from the body,' she said, holding up triumphantly a plastic forensics bag, the contents of which were clearly visible to Lewis and Hathaway, 'is what we commonly referred to as a joint.'

'Aha!' said Lewis, sounding interested and encouraged for possibly the first time since he had been so rudely dragged away from his warm comfortable house and his warm, comfortable house guest. 'I take it you're hopeful of getting some DNA from that.'

'We should do,' confirmed Hobson, smiling at the inspector whose tired, dull eyes had noticeably brightened at the prospect of a first genuine clue as to the killer's identity.

'So you reckon our murderer waited here for a few minutes after killing our victim, smoked a joint before chucking it away and then getting on with the business of cutting out his heart? Seems a tad unlikely though, don't you think?'

'That's not for me to say, Inspector. My job is to examine the body and look for any potential physical evidence belonging to the killer. Your job is to interpret my findings. At least that's how I assume you want us to play it tonight? Or do you fancy a bit of role reversal for a change?'

The playful glint in her eyes was recognisable to Hathaway even in the bright artificial, forensic-friendly light that the three of them were standing in and provoked a slight titter on his part which instantly vanished when Lewis turned round to stare at him.

'Uh, no thanks, doctor. I'll stick to what I'm best at, I think. Couldn't this joint have been thrown away a day or two ago? It might have nothing to do with the murder.'

Hobson shook her head with positive conviction. 'I don't think so, Inspector. It's definitely fresh. It was thrown away tonight for sure, almost certainly within the last few hours, I would say.'

'Okay. We'll get DNA samples from everyone who was at the party tonight and see if we turn up a match.'

'Including Sgt Hathaway, Inspector?' said Doctor Hobson, valiantly suppressing a giggle.

'Oh, especially Sgt Hathaway, Doctor,' said Lewis with a heavy sarcasm in his voice as he grinned at his straight-faced sergeant. 'I want a quick result on this case. He's going to be the first one I'll be testing, I can promise you that. If we get a match then maybe I can make an arrest and be in bed before the hour is up.'

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