Jessica and Copperwaite drifted toward the water, as if drawn by the enormous Serpentine, or merely as subconscious steps to move away from the death at their feet. Copperwaite's reference to Richard as “Colonel” Sharpe surprised her a bit. Something odd in Copperwaite's voice, or perhaps in how Jessica interpreted the tone. Was it a sneer? Something about the sound of it made her recall Dr. Luc Sante's theory, found peppered throughout his book, might well be true: The least suspicious among us, often turn out to be the most evil among us. The thought made her flash on the bizarre possibility that Stuart Copperwaite had somehow arranged to hurt his partner, Sharpe, in this fashion. That the maniac hiding deep within Copperwaite had killed three others in this horrendous manner, just to bring home this fourth to his partner's doorstep, all done out of some twisted desire to see Richard Sharpe quake.
Jessica just as quickly dismissed her mad notion, and returned to the body, knowing her job was to concentrate on the evidence and not speculation. She returned to taking samples, expecting Schuller to arrive, and in his typically bombastic manner, take over the evidence gathering at any moment, but so far, she was the sum total of the evidence gathering team. She wondered at this, curious for a moment, but then her eyes shifted to where Sharpe stood at the water's edge with the two men who had dragged the body from the water, one a civilian, the other a police officer in uniform.
Jessica examined the victim's nails and found them perfectly clean. If she had put up a fight, the water left no trace of flesh or blood beneath her nails. This had been the same with the other victims. She imagined the same drug-Brevital-would be found in the victim's bloodstream, making resistance unlikely.
She glanced time to time from her work to where Richard remained at water's edge, joined once by Copperwaite, but now alone again. His eyes scanned Lake Serpentine in what appeared deep concentration.
“If you can suspect Copperwaite of so foul a crime, to unnerve Sharpe,” she told herself in careful whisper, “then why not suspect Sharpe himself? Sharpe was behind getting you here, Jessica. Maybe, behind that veneer of respectability, he's just another madman anxious to test your mettle against his.”
She instantly cursed herself. Had she become so jaded, she wondered, as to trust no one on the planet ever again? Evil had a way of overcoming the evil-fighter, and was she not being evil in her very thoughts now, first toward Copperwaite and now toward Sharpe?
She gasped when she realized Sharpe now stood over her and the body. He was speaking to her, saying, “I spent a number of years in the British forces, saw a lot of the world and evil at every turn, Jessica, but in all that I never once felt fear as I do tonight. Can you imagine that? I stand here so near my children, and I feel fear as I have never experienced it in my adult life ever. I'm reduced to a child by this madman.”
“It's understandable, and quite frankly, I just finished up trying to imagine it. This maniac has hit quite close to home. Anyone would feel the same, Richard.”
“I'm going to go see them.”
“Now?” asked Copperwaite, exasperated with Richard. “Don't be a fool, Richard. That's all old Boulte will need to hear. He'll have your job f'sure.”
“My children, Stuart. This is about my children. You're the primary investigator on this one, Stuart. You've earned it. Tell him that, should he bother to show up.” With that he stepped away from the crime scene, resigned to whatever fate lie ahead.
Jessica watched him disappear into the gloom and fog that had-like a secret everyone but Jessica shared-come in over the area.
She cursed. “I need more light. I can't do any more out here without field lights, Stuart.”
“What more has to be done?”
“I guess you're right. I suppose we should get the body to the crime lab.”
“I'll call for the ambulance. They've learned to come only when they're called. Maybe, if we act fast enough, no one will have to know about Richard's having left the scene. It could go bad for him.”
“No one will hear it from me,” she promised.
“Nor I, if I can at all help it.”
Copperwaite took himself aside and made a call on his cellular phone for the police ambulance. He called back to her after several minutes to say, “Seems Schuller's wife fell ill and Boulte's been at some gala event for the city, some charity affair or other. They've neither one any knowledge of victim number four, our Miss Another. Perhaps Richard's got away with it after all.”
“Are you talking to Schuller's assistant, Dr. Raehael, or someone else on call?”
“It's the Egyptian's day off, I'm afraid. They're overtaxed tonight, and say since you're on hand to leave it at that.”
“We are fortunate, then, aren't we?”
“That we are.”
Jessica looked in the direction Sharpe had taken. Upward in the distance, she could still make out the blinking lights of several tall buildings along Hyde Park Gardens and Baywater Road. They were a far cry from the discovery sites in the three other murders, all of which had been along the Thames, one within striking distance of Lombard Street-the City, as it was called-the principal street for banking and international finance. “The Big Four,” Sharpe had told Jessica, “the major banks, National Westminster, Barclays, Lloyds, and Midland.”
“Giants,” he'd called them. Jessica imagined them now, all the icons of London, among them Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and Big Ben, now with murder lurking in the shadows cast by each.
Why?” she wondered aloud.
“Why what?” asked Copperwaite.
“Why bring the body so much further away this time?”
“From the Thames and Victoria Gardens Embankment, you mean?”
“From the more central locations the first three were found at, yes.”
Copperwaite considered this. It had been the reason Sharpe had believed it possible the fourth victim could be a copycat. It didn't fit the geography of the other crimes. “He knows we're watching the bridges about the Thames,” suggested Copperwaite. “He's no fool this one. Rather clever, actually, if you think about his movements. The way he's kept us all guessing and on our toes, wouldn't you say? Smart bugger, he is, this one…”
“Yes, he knows we're onto his MO, at least how he disposes of the bodies.”
“So he motors here with the body in his boot.”
Jessica said, “Yes again.”
“So our killer is quite capable of moving about the city, quite mobile.”
“It appears so.”
Copperwaite snatched out a breath mint and laid it neatly on the end of his tongue. “The bridgeman said he saw a car parked nearby but had thought nothing of it.”
“Exactly how long has he been divorced?” she asked.
Copperwaite, befuddled by the sudden shift in her questioning, at first replied, “The bridgeman?” But he immediately regrouped and said, “Richard? Oh, yes. Three, three and a half years now, I believe.”
“And has he someone he's seeing now? Has he moved on?”
“Dunno. He never speaks of anyone, no, but for a time he was seeing someone. Quite hush-hush, he is. I never knew her name. Puts his effort into his police work mostly. That and his children. Sees them fairly regularly. Gets on fairly well with the ex as well. She simply couldn't handle being a policeman's wife. Old story, really.”
“Very,” she agreed.
“He cut quite a dashing figure in his uniform. I've seen photos. Looks like your GI Joe, really. Made rank of colonel, you know, in the military, I mean.”
“Is that so?”
“Aye, it is.”
“He seems a remarkable man.”
“Remarkable, yes. James Bond we call him at the Yard.”
“When you're not calling him 'Sharpie,' you mean?”