When Hugh knocked on the office door, the two inhabitants were fully dressed and sitting on opposite sides of the desk in a tableau of respectability. Only the way they occasionally looked at each other with barely hidden desire would have given them away as they passed files back and forth and pondered crime motives and methods.
"Come in."
Hugh entered brandishing a manila folder of papers.
"The post-mortem, Sir. And the body has been left out in the mortuary for the next hour in case you want to check anything yourself."
"Very good, Collins. Shall we, Miss Fisher?"
Jack opened the door for Phryne, holding back a smile as she intentionally brushed against him as she exited the room. They headed for the hospital mortuary, leaving behind a Constable struggling with the burgeoning idea that something not entirely professional might be going on between the two most terrifying role models in his life.
…
The mortuary smell of cold limestone and ammonia greeted Jack and Phryne as they pulled the sheet back from the body of the second victim. The only visible wound was again a round bruise on the neck. Like the first victim, this girl had been subjected to violent sex or rape shortly prior to her death – a fact that caused Phryne's face to harden like stone.
But her pain eased when Jack gets nearer the end of the report.
"Apparently our killer was not so careful this time. There's grease and flour in the hair behind her right ear."
"Left there at the same time the bruise was inflicted?" Phryne wondered out loud. She leant over the body and located the area, pressing her ungloved fingers to the hair. "Flour and grease. Pastry?"
Frowning, Jack grasped Phryne's wrist and sniffed. "Lanolin. That's wool grease, not cooking lard."
"Well done, Jack!"
He shrugged. "As a single man, I find myself waterproofing my own shoes and raincoat. Besides, I had an uncle on a farm when I was a boy. The smell stays with you."
Phryne snatched the file from Jack's hand and flipped through the pages. "So we have a killer who likes to rape women, kill them with a single blow to the neck and who comes in contact with cooking flour and lanolin." She handed the file back and frowned. "That's still not terribly helpful."
"But it's a start. Let me make a few telephone calls. Perhaps you could make some enquiries of you own and we could meet tonight?" Despite the intimacies they'd shared over the last two days, Jack still sounded hesitant about suggesting a late-night "meeting" – as if he expected to be turned down with a kind but definite "the sex was fun, but…".
Phryne did her best to squash his self-doubts. "Dinner at eight o'clock, followed by plenty of very good whiskey while we solve this case and relax a little?"
Jack broke into a smile of relief. "I'll see you then."
…
Dinner eaten, whiskey enjoyed, and the case's dead-ends discussed, Jack had Phryne pinned gently to the chaise lounge, his mouth exploring the soft skin above her neckline, when the sound of voices and heavy boots disturbed their peace. When Cec and Bert stomped into the parlour with Dot trailing helplessly behind them, Jack had managed to sit up – but the guilty look on his face, combined with the way Phryne still lay breathlessly on the lounge beside him – made it clear that something had been interrupted.
Cec turned his eyes downwards and scratched at his neck, while Bert favoured Phryne with an inscrutable look. If Jack had to put a name to the look that Bert then turned on him, he would call it protective.
From behind the cabbies, Dot apologised. "Sorry, Miss, they said they've got important information and they didn't have the good manners to wait in the kitchen."
"Well, you asked us to look into your theory and we've got the goods, so we thought you'd wanna know as soon as possible," Bert protested stubbornly.
Phryne sighed and sat up. "Quite right. Well?"
Cec stepped forward. "We checked about the trains, Miss, but there ain't been no wool arriving in the last week. So we had a chat with a Comrade what works with the harbour master…"
"…and he reckons there's three ships in port that're loading up with fleeces. One of 'em only arrived today, but the other two've been moored since the day before yesterday. One's a private ship doing trade with China and the other one's a Merchant Navy ship from Britain," Bert finished.
"I telephoned the Port earlier today but was told that there were no ships with a cargo of both wool and flour, so I dismissed the possibility of it being a lead," Jack pointed out.
Cec shook his head. "That's right, but what they wouldn't've told a policeman is that the Merchant Navy ship always has at least two English cooks on board. The smaller ships get by on stale bread bought in Port but the Navy ship's cooks bake their own."
"So they'd have a stock of flour on ship. The cooks would have access to the flour and very well might have contact with the fleeces somehow."
"That's what we figure, Miss," Cec nodded.
"When is this ship due to sail?" Jack asked.
"Tomorrow night." Bert replied. "She's called the King's Arms."
"Thank you, boys." Phryne said, rising from the chaise to guide them from the parlour. "I'm sure Dot can find you something to eat before you leave. I owe you a favour in the future."
Bert and Cec left with one last glare in Jack's direction.
Alone with Phryne again in the seductively lit parlour, Jack cleared his throat awkwardly.
"I better head to the Station. I'll need to contact the harbour master for the King's Arms crew list so I can put names to our new suspects."
Phryne nodded, but sat down close beside him and leaned in for a final kiss. "I could come with you?"
"That might not be a good idea. I'm likely to be on the telephone half the night and you'd be bored to death."
"Will you come by when you finish? There's a bed here for you, if you wish. I've a spare key for the kitchen door for you."
Jack let his hand slip to the back of her neck so he could draw her closer, overwhelmed by Phryne's thoughtfulness in inviting him into her household. "Would I be sharing the bed with anyone?" he asked against her lips.
"Only if you want to," was the reply. A soft, searching kiss kept them occupied for a few moments, then Jack reluctantly broke away and stood up, palming the offered door key.
"You have no idea how much I want, Miss Fisher." And with that promise, he left for the Station.
…
It took several hours to get the names of the cooks aboard the Royal Arms and to find the names of the ports that the ship had previously sailed to. With a list of locations to go on, Jack spent much of the night telephoning sleepy policeman along the eastern coast in search of any similar unsolved crimes. By the time he'd organised telegrams to be sent to the overseas ports on his list as soon as the telegraph office opened, it was past one in the morning.
Despite his tiredness, the thought of returning to Phryne's embrace instead of his own vacant house buoyed him up on the way out of the Station. Jack began to realise how much he missed this – having someone to come home to: someone who loved you. Even better when it was someone who understood who he was and what the job required of and meant to him.
.
The kitchen door yielded to Jack's newly acquired key. As quietly as he could, he locked the door behind him and made his way through the silently sleeping house and to the door of Phryne's bedroom. Slipping inside, he saw that Phryne had left a bedside lamp on for him. The woman herself was lying beneath the bedcovers, dressed in her favourite silk robe, as if she had decided to stay up and wait for him but had been overcome by sleep.
Near the window there was a washstand laid out for him with an enamel basin full of clean, soapy water, a small towel, and a toothbrush and toothpowder. No doubt Phryne had given instructions to Mr Butler or Dot to make the preparations. Jack couldn't remember the last time somebody went to such trouble for him.
A few minutes later, he had cleaned the day's dust and sweat from his skin and was ready for bed. Leaving his clothes folded on the washstand rail, Jack made his way to the bed and slipped beneath the sheets. The movement caused Phryne to open her eyes and blink against the light of the bedside lamp.
"Hello," Jack smiled, greedily taking in every detail of the way Phryne looked, lying in bed beside him. When she smiled sleepily back, he pressed a quick kiss to her mouth.
"What time is it?" she yawned, propping herself up on an elbow to face him.
"About half one in the morning." Jack mirrored her position, watching her fingers run down his naked chest and lower to gently caress his cock. It was intimacy without immediate intention: the actions of long-term lovers, not short-term playmates. He returned the favour by helping her shuck off her robe and was hit by a wave of desire when he saw she was naked underneath.
Phryne's half-open eyes never left his face as Jack ran one hand slowly down her body and between her legs. The wetness there made him realise that when she said she had been waiting for him, she hadn't spoken in jest. The thought made him begin to harden despite the exhaustion pressing down on his body.
"We don't have to," Phryne said softly, appearing to read his thoughts. "I love you Jack: regardless of what we do or don't do in bed."
"You are…far too good to me." Jack whispered, trying to keep his emotions in check. But a kiss to his throat was too much and he moaned in blessed defeat as he pulled Phryne's left leg over his hip and let himself sink into her body.
Their motions were slow and sleepy, but none the less sweet for that. When Jack bent his head to bite at Phryne's nipples, his unshaved face rough against her skin, she trembled in his arms and cried out. The sensation of her body tightening around him, combined with the knowledge that it was his actions that brought her such pleasure, meant that it didn't take long for Jack to follow her into release.
Sleep took them.
)()(
Note: Anyone reading A Working Man's Paradise will know why Bert and Cec react the way they do.
Lanolin for the uninitiated:
Lanolin is the natural oils produced by a sheep's skin to condition its wool. It makes natural wool (pre-processing) quite greasy and it has a very particular smell. Lanolin has long been used in Australia for treating damaged and cracking skin due to its moisturising properties and can be found as a product of its own (Lanolin hand cream, etc) or as an ingredient in some Australian-made cosmetics brands. Lanolin is also available in a tin as a leather conditioner and waterproofing agent. It is buffed into the leather using a soft cloth. Like 'Kiwi' brand shoe polish, tins of lanolin leather treatment have been used almost unchanged (in formulation or packaging) by Aussies and New Zealanders for a good one hundred years and are considered a bit of an icon.
The 'raincoat' Jack refers to would be a leather Driza-Bone ('dry as a bone" – get it?) coat worn by stockmen, bushies, and the occasional city gentleman or lady since 1898. Another old Aussie brand still going strong, Driza-Bones matched with Akubras (THE brand of Australian broad-brimmed felt hat) are pretty much the stereotypical image of an Aussie from the country, for the excellent reason that it really is what is worn.