Chapter 4 – High Jinx
In his late thirties, Martin Henderson was tall and thin almost to the point of emaciation with his suit jacket hanging from his shoulders as though still on a wire coat hanger. His heavy, dark, blunt cut fringe and oversized plastic framed glasses gave him a bizarrely insectoid-like appearance made all the more peculiar by his exsanguinous pallor.
In sharp contrast, the people in his employ seemed to flit about outside in the general office like happily engaged butterflies, all young, healthy and vibrant.
"Brussels last month," he told the two detectives, "on the twelfth from Gatwick and on the sixteenth of February, he flew to Rotterdam from Heathrow."
"How far ahead were these flights booked?" Dempsey wanted to know.
The travel agent tapped at his computer. "A couple of weeks or so each time."
"And has anything been booked for this month?" asked Harry.
"There's a flight to Brussels again on the fifteenth – Friday, from Gatwick."
Stretching out in the visitors chair in front of Henderson's desk, Dempsey processed the information they'd been given. "I'm guessing there ain't no flights to Gatwick from Rotterdam."
"Correct," Henderson confirmed.
Makepeace, who had been studying the British Airways calendar on the wall behind their interviewee remarked, "It's every third Friday of the month. Our Mr Skelton is nothing if not predictable. Thank you very much Mr Henderson, you've been very helpful."
She stood and the two men followed suit.
"I'm only as good as this contraption here I'm afraid," he said, patting the cream housing of his computer terminal before taking the hand Makepeace offered and shaking it with an obsequious manner. "Please, let me know if there is anything else I can do for you, won't you." He turned to Dempsey and shook his hand with equal deference.
"Sure thing." Dempsey was finding it hard to stop himself from laughing as uncharitable thoughts of the bug-eyed monster 'B' movies from his youth sprang to mind.
They left the agency, taking the steep and twisting steps down to the shopping arcade below where narrow shop fronts displayed their wares in the dark and historical stone-built chambers.
"Would you trust that guy to send you on vacation?" Dempsey asked incredulously. "He looked like he's lived most of his life under a rock!"
"Not the ideal advertisement, was he."
The shops were shutting up for the day, fancy wrought iron shutters being drawn down and lights extinguished. It was six o'clock and although it would be a good couple of hours yet before the sun went down and daylight disappeared, the warm sunshine spilling in from either end of the small arcade only exaggerated the gloom within.
"D'you wanna call it a day?" asked Dempsey, running his hand through his hair.
"Well I don't know about you, but I've had enough. This weather's lovely but not when you're running around the city in it - sweating seems so unprofessional," she joked as she pulled the front of her blouse away from her damp breast in a token attempt at drawing some cooler air to her skin.
Dempsey popped his sunglasses on in preparation to leave, combining the action with a slight lean forward to take an audacious look down her cleavage.
"Make the most of it, Princess, this is England, it could snow tonight."
"Quite possible," she sighed, ignoring his bold stare, "it's bizarrely warm today, who knows what might happen tomorrow."
They sauntered to the arched brickwork entrance just as the sun disappeared behind a mass of grey cloud which had scudded in from nowhere.
"Jeez, it's gonna rain," said Dempsey, rolling his eyes.
"That's down to you, Dempsey, you've gone and bloody jinxed it!"
They'd barely walked a hundred yards before the heavens opened and torrential rain deluged the grey, dusty streets around them, bouncing off the pavements in a hyetal frenzy.
Instinctively, Dempsey threw an arm around her shoulders and turned them around to run back inside the Shilling Row Arcade, both laughing at the suddenness and absurdity of their predicament.
Although subjected to but a minute or two of this rain, it was heavy enough to have darkened their clothing and dampened their hair.
"Sorry 'bout that, babe," grinned Dempsey.
They had run into the shelter of a service entrance doorway, dark and cool and secluded, shutting them off from the outside world in distance and strangely, time, as though the chamber were an ancient tomb from an indeterminate era.
They were huddled close, Makepeace standing within the circle of his arms which had fallen naturally about her. She shivered.
"The temperature's dropped," Makepeace spoke quietly, the laughter of a few minutes ago reduced to a strangely enigmatic smile. "It's gone chilly."
"Really? I hadn't noticed."
Her skin radiated heat, his fingertips sensitive to the warmth beneath the silky material of her blouse. She gave another involuntary shiver and his arms moved tighter around her body.
Overhead, a crack of thunder blasted the skies. It reverberated about the tall building, echoing deep within the stone walls and as though it had galvanised her, Harry thrust her arms up and around his neck, lacing her fingers to pull his mouth down to hers.
It was so unexpected that he almost stopped her – almost.
He wanted to ask her where this was coming from but he really didn't care, he was just happy for it to continue. He could feel her nails digging into his skin and the urgency resonating throughout her body shot sparks of desire needling into his flesh.
She pushed herself up against him, too insistent for him to resist. Her mouth was hard against his mouth and when her tongue snaked against his own, Dempsey wasn't entirely sure how to react. This was a situation he had only ever fantasized about but this wasn't simply his imagination, this was real. Her dominance was surprising and it lead his mind to stray into other, more dangerous realms. Her hands had at some point managed to wrench his shirt free of his jeans and were now exploring beneath. He realised that he was mirroring her actions as his left hand ran around her back and his right forged a trail up over her abdomen to roughly cup her breast.
They were going too far. What the hell was happening here? Dempsey dragged his head up and was met with the ravenous eyes of his partner. Her face was flushed and her lips appeared swollen as she stared back at him wildly.
Streaks of lightning lit up the chamber from the entrance and the sound of the lashing rain mingled with the thunder sent adrenaline charging through Dempsey's veins, like he was in the middle of a gun heist.
It felt surreal, like he was getting high off of what was going on.
"We gotta slow this down," he breathed hard as her lips seared his neck.
"Why?"
"'cause this feels like it's gonna lead to an act of public indecency an' I'm ninety-nine percent certain that carries the death penalty in this country."
"You think I'm such a prude, don't you?" Her voice was low and mischievous.
"I'm more than happy for you to prove me wrong on this occasion only anyplace where there's potential for an audience to gather makes me nervous." He clasped the hands which had recommenced their roaming. "I get stage fight."
"We'll go somewhere more private then."
Her face bore a serious, determined sort of look now, the kind of expression that he was more used to associating with work-related scenarios.
"Hey, I'm a big believer in spontaneous gestures but this is definitely heat-of-the-moment stuff, Harry."
"Come on," she said tartly, taking him by the arm and pulling him towards the archway on the opposite side of the chamber. "It's time you put your money where those amorous aspirations of yours are, Lieutenant."