Chapter 16 Shadows and Revelations
Thank you all very much for your comments and reviews. I do look forward to hearing from you! To those I can't reply to who take time to review – thank you!
Phryne Fisher Robinson wakes to the pounding of rain against the window pane and the flash of lightning, the pillow beside her empty. Groaning softly her already depressed spirit sinks lower. Her eyes bear the dark circles of a restless night. She feels uncomfortably heavy, back aching and she is agitated. Another tear leaks out of her swollen eyes and trails into her hair. She remembers snapping at Jack the evening before because while Dr. Wilson had cleared them to resume their physical relationship within additional prescribed boundaries, she didn't feel up to the touching of her body or invasion of her personal space. The hurt that slashed through Jack's icy blue eyes eats at her now. Sighing heavily and biting her lip she glances at the clock – 4:30 a.m. Jack will wake soon and check on her (no need to worry that he will abandon her because he is angry – men of honor just don't do those kinds of things) so she snaps on the light, pulls her journal from the drawer and opens to a fresh page preparing to fill it with her thoughts, absently playing with her wedding ring which now resides on a thin gold chain around her neck.
Letting her troubled mind drift she thinks about Murdoch Foyle and the first time she ever saw him.
"Janey and I had a large stomping ground we roamed far and wide. Sometimes we roamed with Guy and Arthur a bit farther than most (read Aunt Prudence here) parents would allow – had they known. Once we wandered away from Aunt P's back garden and passing through the woods we sighted a traveling carnival. We liked seeing the sites and watching people play games. While I was watching the jugglers practice, Janey and Arthur said they were walking over to see the horses. I nodded indicating I heard and would catch up. When I got within sight of the horse line, Janey and Arthur were being handed toffee apples. I shouted, but the man disappeared among the horses and nearby tents. I only got a glimpse, but his eyes were haunting.
Janey and Arthur were already several bites into the apples when I got close to them – I had to move more slowly than I wanted as not to spook the horses. When I asked them who the man was, they shrugged and continued to munch contentedly on the apples. I looked all over for the man, but didn't see him again that day. We crept back to Aunt P's through the woods oblivious to anything except the chatter among us with Guy and me trying to get Janey and Arthur to share bites of their apples. I asked again about the man and…"
Hearing a slight movement outside the door Phryne looks up as the bedroom door opens almost silently and Jack stands there, bare chested his scars glinting palely in the soft light, hair tousled and looking like he didn't sleep either, but looking delicious all the same. Phryne's insides tighten and warmth floods through her as she looks at him, and she casts aside the journal holding her hand out, "I'm sorry Inspector. I behaved badly."
"I thought you would be sleeping," the rumbling response reaches her as he moves to her side and slides into the bed, careful not to touch her. "I'm sorry as well Phryne. I've grown accustomed to your more openly passionate nature and assumed rather than asking. I don't know much about pregnant women, but I do know I love you and if you don't want me to touch you for whatever reason – I will respect that."
"My heart always wants you to hold me and more Jack, but some days now certain body parts are so sensitive to touch that what I want and what I can handle are two vastly different things. I don't like my body much right now," she says with a sniff her voice quavering just a bit. Turning somewhat awkwardly to face him her stomach pushes into him. "You see, I can't even get close to you."
Carefully Jack's fingers begin making gentle rhythmic circles on her tummy, "Miss Fisher, if you could see what I see…"
"I'm the size of a wha…"
"You're beautiful to me," Jack interrupts softly.
Phryne shrugs her fingers seeking out his forearm and stroking his hard muscles; enjoying the feel of his hair against the pads of her fingertips.
They lay there for a bit not talking, continuing to caress each other, their blue eyes gazing sleepily at the other.
"Jack, I need the loo," she says regretfully as her shadowed eyes look into his. He nods and levers himself off the bed and turning holds his arms out to her, again taking in her bedraggled haunted appearance as she scoots toward him. He winces inwardly, the guilt that he is responsible trying to worm into his mind.
He helps her up and into her chair and as he pushes her to the loo, he shakes his head against the dark thoughts clawing at him. Once they finish ablutions he returns Phryne to bed and goes for tea and a snack. He comes back upstairs with Darjeeling tea and Vegemite toast to find Phryne hugging his pillow fast asleep. Jack smiles softly suddenly quite sleepy also. Placing their snack on the table he climbs silently into the softness of the bed tucking around her and nestling gently against her back, smiling in relief as she sighs and snuggles against him. He too falls asleep almost immediately his arm snaking across her to lie softly on the pillow Phryne is hugging.
This is how Dot finds them an hour or so later, a picture of contentment with little evidence of the stress of the night before. She shakes Jack gently and he wakes, blinking slowly and raising a finger to his lips to shush Dot who nods in understanding and leaves them as silently as she appeared.
Jack gets up slowly, kissing Phryne lightly on the temple hoping she can sleep on. He tiptoes out to dress in his room. He leaves for work, tired but no longer feeling like a lascivious heel, though he is grateful for his gray overcoat as the humming of his body in the early morning air makes him aware of just how much he desires her.
Jack arrives at City South just in time to take the report of a missing girl. She is six years old with black hair and blue eyes and her name is Selena. As Jack listens to the distraught mother his heart sinks, almost certain of what the outcome will be. His tiredness slams into him again as the frustration of little progress with the School Girl Killer case and helplessness that he will likely disappoint this mother settles heavily on him. Pinching the bridge of his nose he starts to form the plan of attack in his mind.
After a few moments thinking, Jack assembles a team. He and his men fan out to search the types of places they found the girls' bodies previously.
It takes hours, but they find Selena just as they had the others - abandoned like so much garbage in a vacant cottage on Petticoat Lane. This time through his anger Jack notices a faint shoe imprint and has it drawn by one of the constables.
"Sir, over here," Collins calls urgently.
"Yes, Collins, what is it?" he asks heavily.
"Look at this Inspector. Does it look like a bicycle track to you?"
Jack bends down to examine the mark that his senior constable is pointing out to him. Looking at the track he sees that it trails away from the cottage. It reminds him a good deal of the tire marks his push bike makes when he rides over the hard ground.
"Good work Collins. Take a man and follow this track as far as you can. I'll be at the morgue."
"Yes, sir."
Jack leaves the scene to go to the morgue, mulling over what he is going to tell the young mother who beseeched him to find her little girl. He sighs, hands clenching into fists at his sides as there isn't anything he can say except that he will do his best to find the monster that did this to her little girl.
Doctor Johnson confirms what he knew at the scene and Jack makes his way to Selena's home to ask her parents to come with him to the morgue. The mother sobs all the way there and then faints dead away when Dr. Johnson pulls the sheet back to reveal the still rounded baby face; careful to conceal the worst of the injuries.
As they bring the mother to consciousness with some smelling salts, Jack and her husband help her into a chair. Her husband hovers protectively over her as Jack attempts to glean more information from them, but nothing new comes to light as the mother merely repeats, "I should never have let her out of the house," over and over again through continually falling tears.
When he finally gets home that evening, his exhaustion is overwhelming. A phone call from Hugh lets him know they lost the tire track in the park. Sighing heavily, he turns from the phone to make his way upstairs. Jack wants to keep the details from Phryne, but he desperately wants to discuss it with her as well, and so it doesn't take much effort on her part to wheedle the basic facts out of him over a late dinner.
When they finish dinner Phryne asks, "Inspector will you bring the map of Melbourne over here?"
Jack obliges, noting that she has marked the body dump locations as well as where each child lived on the map. She carefully adds the new data to the map and they look at the information together trying to discern if there is a message in the marks on the map.
"Jack, look at this," she says pointing to how each of the bodies has been discovered within a two miles or so of one of the city's parks as well as the fact that the girls lived within easy walking distance of the parks. Phryne also points out the obvious tram line routes that link all of the bodies. "I think he is definitely taking these girls from the parks. He must be able to move them away quickly. How is he doing that I wonder? Is he drugging them and carrying a sleeping girl on the tram?" She ponders this for a few moments. "It doesn't seem likely; too risky as someone might remember seeing them. No, it is more likely that he is luring them away of their own accord initially."
"I think you may be on to something, Miss Fisher," Jack's tired, but now more excited voice chimes in. "Dr. Johnson said the first victims had ice cream in their stomach contents. We don't know about Selena yet, but I would almost be willing to bet she too will have eaten ice cream shortly before the rape and murder."
"Jack, that's it! He is luring them with ice cream, and didn't you say there was a push bike tire mark at today's crime scene?"
"Indeed I did," he replies his mind whirling with possibilities.
"I bet the bike has a basket and he is offering them ice cream and a ride in the basket," she says excitement ringing in her voice.
The puzzle pieces fall into place for Jack as she speaks; he knows this is exactly how the slimy piece of filth is getting to the girls. Now, how do we stop him, he muses silently, before answering her enthusiastically, "Mrs. Robinson, you are a genius!"
"I'm surprised you are just now figuring that out Inspector," she teases happily noting that their investigative interlude results have erased some of the weariness from Jack's features, as he jots down notes and thoughts from their discussion in his police record book.
And when Mr. Butler brings pie made with the first of the season peaches and covered in fresh cream a few minutes later, they both eat with relish.
On another happy note, Dr. Wilson in his evening visit cleared Phryne for showering twice a week, so Jack and Phryne retire to the shower after dessert where the warm water washes away the shadows of the day and bears witness to the whispered sounds of love and passion that fill the air.