Jack couldn't look at the photographs any longer. They made him ill, just as ill as seeing the crime scene in person. He hadn't eaten in almost two days for what it had done to his stomach and mind.
He looked up to Hugh's tap on the door frame. "Sir, I'm going home if it's all right with you. I don't think I can be here another moment."
"I told you to go home hours ago, Constable. Go get some rest. I'll finish up here."
Hugh gave him a small, sympathetic smile. "Sir, you should be home too. It's been more than 24 hours."
"The first 24 of many, Collins. Miss Fisher said she'd come round with drinks. I'm sure she'll insist on my departure afterwards. Off you go, I'll see you in the morning."
"Good night, sir."
"Mmm," was all Jack could manage in reply. His mind was whirling with weeping parents and faceless suspects and carnage. So much carnage. And his work had only begun.
A selfish part of him wished he could have Phryne by his side on this miserable case. It would be a comfort to have her to bounce ideas off of, to talk late into the night with, discussing theories and whatever else crossed their minds.
He slid out a photograph that he kept beneath the telephone on his desk, his favorite photograph from the series of "mugshots" Hugh had snapped following her first breaking and entering offence. This one depicted her making finger spectacles around her eyes with the silliest look on her face. It made him grin every time he saw it, and it didn't fail to do so even now. He had once felt downright licentious about secreting it away for his own personal use, but nowadays he was closer to having it framed and displaying it proudly. It seemed ages ago that the photograph was taken.
She was a beam of light in his world, which was momentously dark right now. He needed her near him. But no matter how much he needed her, nothing could convince him to give her the gruesome details of this case. It would bring up painful memories of her own sister, for one thing. For another, it was something no person should have to see. Not even the butchery he had witnessed in the war had prepared him for what this poor innocent had gone through.
So bleak were his thoughts that when Phryne Fisher waltzed into his office only moments later she seemed to be born to him upon a heavenly cloud, casting a soothing spell over the entire room. She was a vision in pink, all soft curves and impish blue eyes. A wicked rascal and darling angel all wrapped in one glorious package. That she carried with her a rather large bottle of Oban Single Malt elevated her practically to sainthood in his eyes.
"Miss Fisher. Hello again."
"Jack. Has your day been just awful?" She plunked the bottle of Scotch in front of him with a mischievous grin. "I completely forgot to bring glasses. Will it offend you to drink straight from the bottle?"
To prove how little it would offend him, he opened the bottle and took a generous swig. "Not in the slightest, Miss Fisher."
"Come now, Jack. It's just you and I here. Surely you can manage 'Phryne,' just this once?"
To say her name out loud unnerved him. It felt intimate, as if he was caressing her with his voice in some very personal way, just by saying her name. With some effort, he murmured, "Phryne, then."
Something darkened in her eyes and she crossed the room to him, lifting herself onto his desk so that she sat opposite him, allowing her calf to innocently brush his thigh. But there was nothing innocent about his reaction to that mild yet shamefully rousing contact.
"Miss Fi—Phryne—"
"Have you really been working all day, Jack?" she asked him, lifting the bottle to her own lips and taking a dainty sip. "And stuck at the station, no less?"
His mouth flattened into a grim line. "We did most of the interviews yesterday after the body was discovered. Now we're trying to get everything in order before the press gets wind. It's bad, Phryne. They won't get all the details, but it's going to frighten people regardless when they hear. Nothing scares people more than the idea of someone preying on children. By the time word spreads amongst the public, we must be able to convince them we have things well in hand. Besides, we can't do much more fieldwork until the autopsy is completed."
"Jack, if I'm going to read about it in the paper anyway, the least you could do is give me the basic details."
He held her gaze for several long moments before taking another deep swallow of whiskey. He waited for the alcohol to burn down his throat and kindle that familiar low fire in his belly before responding. "A child was abducted and murdered, as I'm sure you guessed already. A four-year-old girl. The daughter of some well-to-do people who I will not name, so do not ask. It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen, Phryne, and I've seen a lot of ugly things. I have to find out who did it and stop him. I cannot have a monster such as that wandering the streets. I cannot rest until he swings."
He held back a shudder at the warmth of her hand through her glove as she stroked his cheek. He reached up to grasp it in his own, holding her still but not removing her hand from his face.
"I am weakened tonight, Miss Fisher," he said, using her surname again to supply some much needed distance between them. "You would be wise not to touch me so familiarly."
"And what would be so wise about that, my darling Jack?" she returned, her voice barely above a whisper. She slid her hand out of his grasp and around the back of his neck, threading her fingers through the short strands of hair there. She leaned ever closer, and with her other hand brought the bottle of whiskey to his parted lips.
Obediently, he sipped, caught in her spell, unsure if he would be able to fend her off if she decided at long last to move in for the kill. His want for her seized through him like a violent undertow, pulling him down, down, until he couldn't remember what he was resisting in the first place.
"I've never seen you so troubled," she murmured to him, her fingers still caressing the hair at the nape of his neck. He wished she would remove those blasted gloves so he could feel the heat of her bare skin. "What I'm imagining is probably far worse than what actually happened. Come now, just tell me."
"No, Phryne," he sighed, giving her a serious look, "Whatever you're imagining, the reality is ten times worse. Just leave it. Let's talk about something else."
"All right. What shall we talk about?"
Boldly, he let his hand travel down the length of her bare left arm, which still held the bottle. Once his fingers had reached her wrist, he seized her hand and brought it and the bottle together back to his lips, taking another long drag of the fiery liquid, knowing he should not drink it all so quickly. But it made him forget. And she was so, so beautiful.