Jennifer bit back a smile. The seat shoved forward was payback for making her listen to the eighties channel. ‘Elves? I think you’ll find it was you.’ She turned the ignition. ‘I’m gonna trade it in soon, I’m thinking of getting myself a nice Audi A4 or something like that.’
‘Well, all right for some,’ Will said, pushing his hand against the glove box to shut it. A glimpse of white caught his eye and he dropped the door, allowing it to gape open.
‘You didn’t tell me you got another letter,’ he said, pulling out the white bonded envelope.
‘I haven’t …’ Jennifer’s words were cut short as she stared at the envelope. ‘Where did that come from?’
Will frowned. ‘Here, in your glove box. Do you want me to open it?’ he said, fishing in his jacket pocket for some PVC gloves. He shook the envelope. It was weighted at the bottom.
Jennifer turned off the car engine. She wasn’t going anywhere until she figured out what to do. ‘We should give it straight to forensics,’ she said, biting the corner of her lip. She knew the suspense would eat away at her, and she wasn’t in a hurry to hand the information over to DC Hardwick, given he’d been so flippant with her findings to date. ‘Oh go on then, open it,’ she heard herself say.
Will carefully opened the end, and watched as a round gold keyring fell into his lap. He reached for a pen from the glove box and poked it through the metal loop.
‘Why would anyone send you a designer keyring?’
The letters D and G were intertwined in gold, with tiny studded diamonds twinkling under the interior car light. Will drew his attention to the envelope and gently teased it open. Just like the last one, it contained a small black feather.
‘What the hell? How did that get into my car?’ Jennifer said, her hands itching with the need to be scrubbed clean.
Will’s brow furrowed. ‘Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to send you this.’
‘I can see that,’ she said, annoyed by the idea of someone being in her car.
Will popped the keyring back inside the envelope and carefully folded it over. ‘Are you sure this is the first you’ve seen of this?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Jennifer said, drumming her fingers against the steering wheel. She welcomed the clues, but the invasion into her personal space had tapped into her compulsion to clean. The feeling of contamination grew, bringing with it a swell of apprehension, and it buzzed like a swarm of angry wasps in her chest.
Will sidestepped her question. ‘Have you left your car unlocked? Lost any spare keys?’
‘No … but I might have forgotten to lock it. I’ve been so busy lately …’ Her voice trailed away.
Will gnawed his lip, staring into the distance.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said, touching his arm to stir him from his thoughts.
Will took a deep breath but avoided her gaze. ‘Nothing. I just don’t like the thought of anyone being in your car.’ His eyes flickered to hers then quickly back onto the streets. ‘I can come over after work if you like, check your house out.’
Jennifer frowned. ‘My house? Do you think that’s necessary?’
The concern etched on Will’s face conveyed he did. ‘Best not to take any chances. I know you want to go this alone, but this is getting personal. You’re better off handing everything over to DC Hardwick and assisting him with the enquiries.’
Jennifer’s eyes crept to the ravens perched on the guttering of the buildings outside. Their heads bowed under the glow of the streetlamps as they bunched together conspiratorially, their beady eyes focused on her movements below.
‘Will,’ she said, her words delivered in a spoken sigh. ‘This got personal a long time ago.’
‘Oh.’ Will went quiet. ‘What makes you say that?’
She pointed up through the windscreen of her car. ‘See those ravens up there? They’re everywhere I go. I found one dead on my doorstep the other night. Ravens are said to carry powers of divination, and some believe they are omens of death.’
‘Do you think they’re connected to your suspect? It’s a tenuous link,’ Will said, gently reeling her back into the real world. He was met with silence, broken by his growling stomach.
‘It’s early days and I might have it all wrong. But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’ Jennifer said, forcing him to look at her.
Will dropped his eyes again. He never was any good at lying. ‘I was going to tell you … but I was going to speak to Claire first, see if she could put some safety measures in place.’
‘I knew you were holding out. What were you going to tell me?’ she said, starting the ignition and pulling away from the kerb. The smell of chow mein and curry wafting from the back seat reminded Jennifer they should be getting back. She was keen to leave the ravens behind, but Will’s behaviour was niggling her.
‘I know who delivered the first letter. It was Charlie Sutton,’ Will said, clicking his seatbelt into place.
She glanced at her partner in disbelief. ‘Sutton? Why would the little scroat do that?’
‘He said an old fella paid him to drop it in. He was driving a van. I was going to tell you, I’ve only just found out myself.’
Jennifer lowered the car window, which had fogged in a fine mist of condensation.
‘You should have told me the second you found out. We’re meant to be a team.’
‘We are a team. I literally just found out today. Can we have this argument after we’ve eaten? I’m bloody starving.’
Jennifer broke into an involuntary smile. Nothing could come between Will and his food, and she used the rest of the journey to iron out the case so far. They had come to the conclusion that the Raven, or Bert Bishop as she now presumed, was connected to The Reborners cult. He seemed no stranger to mystical practices, given his use of the tarot cards, and what better stomping ground than a mysterious cult, offering the promise of rebirth to tortured souls? But Bert was a stranger to Alan when they met in the pub, and she was yet to work out a motivation to kill car crash victim Felicity Bowes. Her efforts to warn Emily had drawn a blank, and she had fulfilled her promise of refusing to answer the door. All she could do was to flag Emily’s address as a concern, and submit further intelligence. DC Hardwick was blinkered in his investigation. Although MIT were now actively seeking out Bert Bishop, she could tell he still held the belief that Bert was a mentally disturbed individual, responsible for nothing more than giving tarot card readings for money.
She promised to go inside as soon as she made a quick call. But she didn’t have any phone call to make. As soon as Will had left, she took the letter from the glove box and held it up under her nose. She sniffed, as if smelling a milk bottle to see if the contents had soured. Jennifer wrinkled her nose. It was the same musty smell as before. Closing her eyes, she breathed in its essence before laying it back on her lap. Like the sun clearing through the clouds, her thought buds extended beyond herself, into another plane. Her breathing deepened as mental images were formed and the blurry image of a metal bed came into view. She touched her face, seeing what he saw, from the inside. Instead of her own smooth skin she felt a man’s stubble, and winced as her fingers pressed on the soft pad of a swollen cheekbone. Tentatively, fingers reached to the back of his head and examined the dry blood matting through his hair. Everything hurt, throbbed, pinched and stung. In the distance a beep of a machine, soft shoes padding by. A hand curled around a thin blue curtain. Jennifer drew a sharp breath as probing eyes turned back on her. The black beady eyes of the raven stared back, taunting her. Jennifer gave a sharp gasp as a loud knock on her car window brought her abruptly back to reality.
‘Oh!’ Jennifer jumped out of her seat.
‘The food’s all laid out, are you coming in or what?’ Will stood with his head cocked to one side, wearing his usual grin.