Happy Easter, all!

Another boring chapter without #them in it but just got to move the plot along. I know you'd much rather be reading about D&M getting up to all sorts of sexy, chocolatey Demparry antics with the Rampant Easter Bunny but sorry, it ain't happening ;-)

You'll just have to use your fertile imaginations for that one. Chapter 30, however, might be another story...

Chapter 29

It was a nice neighbourhood, Dempsey surmised.

There were differences between the British housing social structure and the American way of living he'd realised. It was harder to categorise over here because there were so many more layers of society living in such a wide variety of buildings spanning many eras and in some areas, many centuries. They just weren't so cut and dried over here; nothing was obvious to the State-side eye.

So he was learning, little by little but just like The States, whatever the place, it never failed to surprise him what went on behind those closed doors sometimes.

He'd expected Mike Campbell would be at home and he was right. A guy who'd spent most of his morning being interviewed by police didn't much feel like heading off to his place of work afterwards in his experience.

Campbell rubbed tiredly at his eyes as he was shown Dempsey's warrant card.

"I've already spent four hours at the police station today giving a statement and I did say I'd be in touch if I remembered anything I thought might be important."

"I appreciate that, Sir but I'm with a different department an' hopefully I got a different set of questions."

"Okay, you'd better come in," he said resignedly.

Dempsey followed the barefoot Campbell into the warm, carpeted hall and took a sharp right into the front room.

"Take a seat…sorry, 'Lieutenant' was it? I thought they only had those in the army. Shows what I know."

Dempsey sat by the window, glancing out to take in the view of the street. "If we had their numbers we'd be laughin', I tell ya."

If Campbell had been at the window when the hit and run happened he'd have seen the whole thing but he was guessing that wouldn't be the case given that it had been at 6:45am.

"So Mister Makepeace has been staying here the last couple of days," Dempsey began, conversationally.

"Yes, it was just until he'd got himself sorted out with a job and somewhere more permanent to live."

"And that's what he was doin' this morning, he was goin' on a job interview. Where was that at, you remember?"

"Roseby and Fontaine," said Campbell, moving a newspaper out of his way before he sat down on the sofa. "I told the police this morning, I thought it might've been Cochrane but I've remembered now, it was definitely Fontaine."

Dempsey had his notebook out and scribbled the reply down. "And what was the job? Mr Makepeace was in advertising, is that right?"

"He had his own marketing agency up until six months ago – I daresay you're aware of that. But he was quite happy to start again. The position was for a copywriter… well, that's what he thought it was, it was all a bit vague apparently."

"How so? Where'd he find out about it?" asked Dempsey.

"He got a 'phone call yesterday, late afternoon. An agency who'd put his name forward, saying they'd like to set up an interview with this Roseby and Fontaine."

"The name of the agency?"

Campbell shook his head. "Honestly no idea but I do remember Jonathan saying he didn't recall signing up with them. He said he got the impression there was something underhand going on somewhere along the line; like they were poaching business or something. Anyway, the chap got him on an interview so he didn't care. Seven forty-five somewhere on the Southbank.

Dempsey jotted that down too. "It was a guy who called? He said it was a guy?"

Campbell pondered that for a moment. Yes, yes he did."

So there were at least two people involved; a man and a woman.

"A quarter to eight sounds kind of early," he commented.

"Not really. Lots of employers like to interview before the start of the working day; doesn't interfere with real work that way."

"Okay, so we got Roseby and definitely 'Fontaine' in the city. Did Mr Makepeace write the address down someplace?"

"Of course."

"He write it down in a notebook maybe?"

"Yes but…"

"He tore the sheet out and took it with," Dempsey finished for him. "May I see the notebook?"

After a brief pause, Campbell chuckled. "You know, that's probably the first thing you've asked that the others didn't but it's so obvious!"

Dempsey turned over a page and shook his head, a small smile covering his mild annoyance. "Detective school one-oh-one," he agreed. It hadn't occurred to those shit-for-brains bozos at the mighty Scotland Yard that they could get Jonathan's destination this morning from the impression the pen had made on the pad of paper? Jesus, it was stupid omissions like that that could land Harry in the big house.

Campbell fetched the notepad in question from a bookshelf on the back wall.

"He's been writing stuff in this… handy for the 'phone." He indicated a telephone on a small console table at the side of the shelving. "It'll be the last thing he wrote," he added.

The double meaning struck a bum note with Dempsey.

"Have you heard from the hospital since this morning? You know how he's doin'?"

"I called an hour or so ago. No change. I've been given permission to visit later though."

"Well I hope he shows some improvement."

"Me too. I don't suppose you can tell me if you've arrested the sister-in-law yet? Not at liberty to say and all that."

"An arrest has been made," Dempsey replied tightly, "though it won't stick."

Campbell's lip curled. "You mean she's going to get away with it?"

"I mean she didn't do it." Dempsey was feeling uncomfortable. "Where'd you get that information, Mr Campbell?"

"I was told this morning when I was giving my statement… I don't get you," Campbell said, puzzled. "I was told you've got the number plate… there were witnesses who saw her and everything."

"Look, Harry Makepeace is the owner of the vehicle but she wasn't the woman drivin' it this morning."

"Oh, so the car was stolen?"

"Yep."

Campbell appeared to consider that. "Stolen by a woman who was driving around in it at that time of the morning?"

"Uh-huh."

"But why has the sister-in-law been arrested if you know she didn't do it?"

"I know she didn't do it and I gotta prove it. And for the record, she's the ex-sister-in-law."

Campbell couldn't quite fathom out what was going on but could see that Dempsey was bent on fighting Harriet Makepeace's corner.

"Okay if I keep this?" asked Dempsey, holding aloft the pad Jonathan had written in.

"Whatever you want if it'll help.

"Thanks." He dropped it on his lap, finding his gaze drawn to the street again.

A nice neighbourhood. This would be a big deal for the kind of people who lived on this street. They had safe lives. They had two point four kids, a dog and a lawn out back. They had what Dempsey was finding himself thinking about a lot more these days.

"Okay. Round two. How d'you know Jonnie?"

He explained how they'd met at Oyster Marketing and become good friends but drifted after Jonnie had decided to go it alone.

Dempsey asked if he knew any family members, guiding him into his knowledge of Harry.

"I did meet his ex-sister-in-law once if that's what you're asking. Only briefly, at a wedding reception I believe it was. Nice girl from what I remember. I can't imagine why she'd want to do him any harm, particularly after she'd put him up overnight. And he'd honestly got nothing but good to say about her."

"Does he have a soft spot for her you think?" Dempsey queried mildly.

"A soft spot?"

"Yeah, you know, is he sweet on her?"

Campbell's countenance darkened. "I know what you're getting at; did he try it on, did he go too far? Well the answer is no. You couldn't wish to meet a nicer guy. He's a gentleman… exactly that – a gentle man. And besides, her boyfriend was staying at her place that night so that scenario's dead in the water I'm afraid. It's all in my statement. Don't you lot ever get your heads together?"

"I'm aware of what happened Saturday night," said Dempsey, tersely, "an' like I said, she wasn't behind the wheel."

It had been wrong of Dempsey to ask; he should just have accepted what Harry had told him but he couldn't miss the opportunity to find out if Jonathan really had harboured anything more than brotherly love for her.

"I'm just castin' a net, seein' what I can drag out of these murky waters." He fixed on Campbell long enough to confirm that he was in charge here. "So is there anyone you can think of with a grudge against Jonnie? Anybody he might've tangled with in the past? Any ongoing feud?"

"No!" Campbell was emphatic. "Honestly, he's one of the good guys. Maybe it's Harry's side of things you should be looking at. He told me she's in the police force now. Pretty easy to make enemies I'd have thought."

"That angle is being looked into but I'm concentrating on Jonnie's side of it right now."

"Wait a minute…" Campbell slowly raised a finger as light dawned. "You're the American who was there on Saturday night aren't you? You're the boyfriend he told me about." He nodded to himself. "Of course you are," he answered his own question. "Bit slow on the uptake but I got there in the end. And a police detective wouldn't refer to him as Jonnie unless he actually knew him would he?"

Dempsey smiled slowly.

The boyfriend. That sounded weird. It echoed around in his head, the word bisecting and reforming a few times, ambiguous, indefinite, warming, just plain silly when associated with Harry. They were more than just 'friends' now and Dempsey hadn't been a 'boy' in a long time.

"He tell you why his company folded?"

Campbell was thrown off balance by the way Dempsey had blanked his deductions.

"Erm… a bad investment. Some financial scheme that turned sour. A con job by all accounts. I didn't push for details because he was obviously embarrassed. Who wants to admit they've been had? But he did say he'd had very good reason to believe it was Kosher; a totally trustworthy recommendation apparently."

"He get the cops involved? Fraud squad?"

Dempsey now regretted not asking Jonathan these questions himself when he'd had the opportunity but there had definitely been a reluctance to discuss it and it hadn't been his place to interrogate Harry's friend.

"So he said but I think the investigation fizzled. I don't really know. As I said, he didn't really want to talk about it."

"Hullaballoo Marketing, right?" asked Dempsey, recalling the name coming up on Saturday night.

It was a lead worth following up; wherever there was money there was the potential for ill-will, sure as night follows day.

Campbell nodded.

"You obviously know his wife."

"Selena? Yes, of course."

"And how did that marriage go?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, in your opinion, had it been on the rocks a while before they split or was it a good marriage up until that point?"

"Before Jonnie's brother stuck his oar in, so to speak?" Campbell offered a sardonic smile. "It'd been fine. I know it takes two to tango and all that but I can't help thinking it was all some sort of sick game to Robert. Have you met him?"

Dempsey felt himself tense. "I haven't had that pleasure."

"Fabulous guy – on the surface but stuff going on underneath. Never liked him I'm afraid; always struck me as being quite manipulative – hidden agenda. You're with his ex-wife so she must've told you what he's like."

"I'm building a picture," Dempsey told him, trying to keep the sarcasm to a level.

"Anyway, I can't see Selina having anything to do with it. She wouldn't have had a clue where Jonnie was and I can't see much of a connection with Harry when, to my knowledge, she never met her more than a couple of times."

Dempsey spent another quarter of an hour or so at the Wimbledon address, gleaning what extra information he could; visitors to the house, telephone conversations Campbell had been privy to and trying to ascertain what contact Jonnie had made with potential employers, old work associates and friends and relatives whilst he had been staying with Mike Campbell.

Unfortunately, it seemed Scotland Yard had already got their hands on all significant correspondence which Jonnie kept in an A4 plastic ring binder.

And had Dempsey known that 'Roseby and Fontaine' was simply a private joke of Ray Rhodes' making, lifting the name from the rose bushes and the Huntress Fountain of his meeting with Robert Makepeace in Hyde Park, the air of that nice neighbourhood would have turned blue.

-"What gives?" he asked Chas via the R.T. once he got back to the car.

"Nothing yet. The guv'nor rang in an hour ago to get me to cancel a meeting he's got this afternoon. He said Harry's been interviewed with her solicitor but they want her back in again later."

"What the hell for?" Dempsey exploded. "Jesus, does nobody at that cop shop museum recognise a set-up when they see one?"

"Where are you, Dempsey?" Chas asked, pretty certain he was somewhere he shouldn't be.

"Need some info, Chas." He leaned across to the glove box and fished about for a pack of gum. "You gonna help me out here?"

"Dempsey…" Chas said in warning fashion. "You know I can't do that."

"Can't or won't? Come on Chas, we're a team, right? Makepeace needs us."

"Look… Jim… Spikings is pulling you. He told me to bring you in next time you made contact."

"Hullaballoo Marketing. Now defunct. I need the names and addresses of former employees."

"He said you're on unofficial leave until further notice," Chas continued.

"Also, whatever you can find on why the company went into liquidation, who the creditors were, that kinda thing. Recent history; the last twelve months so it'll be a piece o' cake."

"He wants your badge and he told me to tell you that the pop-gun will be going back in the toy box for the foreseeable."

Jarvis found his head was hurting from hitting it against the brick wall that was Dempsey.

"Oh and see if you can find a company registered some place with the name Roseby and Fontaine, would ya?"

It was hard to say no to Dempsey. He was an expert railroader; part of what made him so good at his job but when this technique was applied to colleagues, it could be annoyingly tiresome. Makepeace didn't stand for it, giving him short shrift whilst young Fry was a complete pushover and just did as he was told. The others, well, they generally complied with his requests although not without complaint and as it wasn't a regular thing they could live with the occasional above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty demand.

"We've had specific instructions to stay out of it, Dempsey."

Dempsey didn't want to hear it, mostly because Chas was right but what if something got missed? What if more than indented handwriting got overlooked? Dempsey didn't find it easy to hand work over. Delegating was fine when you stayed involved and had control of a situation but the idea of entrusting an unknown quantity with Harry's predicament just didn't sit well.

"Chas, I'm askin' ya nice, pal. Please do this. I'm scared this situation might escalate if we don't keep on top of it, ya know?"

That made Chas sit up and take notice. The words 'I'm scared', in any sort of context just didn't belong in the vocabulary of this tough New Yorker. He'd assumed that The Yard would've put the case to bed by now; discovered their error and got a stranglehold on the real perpetrator but worryingly, that hadn't happened. Maybe Harry really did need a bit of extra help.

"It's tricky, Dempsey. Every keystroke on every search performed is stored and saved on the back-up disks. It'll all be there under my log-in."

Dempsey immediately reeled off his sign-in and password details. "It'll all be on me, Chas. You won't be implicated."

Chas sighed. "I'm not bothered about that. I just don't want it to impact on Harry."

"Jesus, Chas! Come on! They're gettin' their wild imaginations all fired up over Harry's take while some maniac broad is still runnin' around with an axe to grind. Until we got a motive for that attempted murder, we gotta assume that Jonathan Makepeace is still at risk and probably Harry too."

Chas was on the verge of pointing out that Harry was in the safest place she could be at the moment but thought better of it.

"Okay. I'll do it but for God's sake, show willing and bring your bloody gun in. okay?"

Dempsey beamed. "It's definitely on my 'to do' list."

Did you manage to read to the end or have you skipped to this bit? Wouldn't blame you if you have *yawn*.

But I promise the next chapter will be far more interesting.