of the day in the snow.
Henry Christie’s two daughters — Jenny, fifteen and Leanne, nine — were both at an age when privacy meant a great deal to them. They had a room each and were very protective of their environments. They hated adults in their rooms, full stop.
Both were also acutely aware of their developing bodies, Jenny more so than Leanne, obviously. Should their dad, by accident, see anything more than he should, or even see their underwear in the washing basket, there would be screams of embarrassment. Usually from him.
His privacy and body, however, were fair game for them.
And at the same time as John Rider stepped out of the van that morning,
Henry was thinking how unjust the world was when he couldn’t even have a crap in peace.
He had settled himself, quite naked, on the toilet in the en-suite adjoining his and Kate’s bedroom. He straightened out that morning’s Daily Mail and looked forwards to ten minutes of bliss. He hadn’t even had the time to digest the sports headlines when Leanne burst in without knocking, tearing into the littlest room like a chattering whirlwind in jimjams, frightening the shit out of her father. He quickly covered his private parts with the newspaper. Leanne, seemingly oblivious to his predicament, commenced to show him some drawings she’d done at school the day before.
‘ Mmm, yeah, lovely. Nice — that’s a good one,’ Henry said, trying to appear enthusiastic. A trapped critic. At that point he was having a few problems holding back his natural bodily functions.
Then his eldest daughter, Jenny, appeared. ‘Hi, Dad,’ she said brightly. She came in and helped herself to a towel and a bottle of shampoo. On her way out she looked at him critically. He squirmed and coloured up. ‘You’ve put some weight on,’ she said and legged it with a giggle.
Leanne revealed another drawing which resembled… nothing. She explained it was someone riding the ‘Big One’. With that Henry could appreciate where she was coming from.
‘ Ahh, yeah, great… Look, honey,’ he said tenderly, ‘your Daddy needs to have the loo to himself for a moment or two, so go and get ready for brekkie, will you?’
She sighed heavily and collected her masterpieces which she’d scattered all over the floor. She left, closing the door behind her.
‘ Mercy,’ Henry said. He lifted the newspaper and Kate came in with one of her ‘faces’.
Henry closed his eyes momentarily.
‘ Don’t look at me like that,’ she warned him. ‘Are you seriously going to try and get on this squad?’ It was the continuation of a discussion-cum-argument they’d begun when Henry came in from work the night before. Kate was obviously going to pursue this to the bitter end. ‘Seems a bloody dangerous job to me. Everyone who has anything to do with it ends up dead.’
‘ Coincidence. No connection — and an exaggeration.’
‘ But why d’you want to go on it?’ She crossed to the shower and turned it on. ‘I thought you wanted to be a DI? Surely it’ll put your promotion chances on the back burner?’
‘ Probably. But it’s such a good opportunity, Kate. It’s got a cracking reputation, the work’s real interesting and very focused… and there’s nothing set in stone that I’ll get on anyway. They’ll have to advertise the vacancy, so other people will be able to apply and everyone’ll go through the rigmarole of interviews. You know I’m crap at being interviewed. My bottle goes.’
Kate unfastened her dressing gown and shrugged it off. Henry could not keep his eyes off her as she tested the shower temperature and adjusted the control minutely. Even after all these years and two children, he loved the sight of her body minus clothing. Recently she’d been on a pretty ruthless exercise and diet regimen which had shed pounds and toned her muscles up just enough to — well, just enough. He glanced down at his own tummy and breathed in, slightly ashamed of himself. He was in good health, but didn’t have the strength of character to stop eating things which were bad for him, and go to a gym. The result was showing around his midriff. Jenny had been right in her cheeky observation.
Kate stood and faced him with a sad look in her eyes. She was completely unaware of her nakedness and his position on the loo.
‘ I don’t want you to go back on a specialised squad.’
‘ There’s no guarantee I’ll get promoted to Inspector. I think I should go for it. They approached me.’
‘ It’s not the Inspector thing. It’s the hours, days, weeks. You know what it was like when you were on Regional Crime Squad. I never knew when you were coming home next. I didn’t like it and neither did the girls.’
‘ I work long hours now,’ he protested.
‘ Yes, but at least you come home every day and you only work ten minutes away. It’s different. You’re not chasing all over the country, or Europe. It feels good having you close by, even if you work until midnight. And you virtually run that office, don’t you?’ she said, changing tack slightly. ‘Surely that’ll count towards promotion?’
‘ Don’t bank on it. Once you get into that interview room, everyone’s on a level playing-field.’ He paused and gave her a pleading look. Big eyes. Fluttering lids. ‘Look, I really fancy this job, Kate. It’s the chance of a lifetime. It’s like dead men’s Doc Martens.’
‘ Literally,’ she commented gloomily.
‘ And as I said, I’m not guaranteed it.’
‘ Well, you know how I feel about it. We’ve only just got everything back to normal around here and now you want to rock the boat…’ She shrugged. Her small breasts quivered with the gesture. She turned her back on him, stepped into the shower and slid back the curtain.
So that was really her hidden agenda. It wasn’t so much the long hours away from home, it was the temptation that went with them.
She had a point, of course. Life at home had been incredibly good recently, following the ‘blip’ caused by Henry’s stupidity and rampant sexual urges almost two years ago. Kate had truly forgiven him and for that he was extremely grateful to her. He loved Kate like mad and didn’t want to lose her. But the guilt he carried about betraying her was always just under the surface and now, sitting on the bog, he realised for the first time that she too always had something at the back of her mind.
Something called mistrust.
She was obviously worried, but did not want to spell it out. Henry sensed that she equated specialist squad with adultery. All those hours and weeks she’d talked about meant temptation. Away from home. Strange places. Even stranger women, particularly the detectives.
He understood Kate’s concerns, but was sure it would never happen again. His libido was in check.
And he seriously wanted to get on the Organised Crime Squad. It was right up his alley, the type of work he excelled in. Chasing and convicting good-class criminals.
Feeling unable now to concentrate either on the Mail or his bodily functions, he got off the loo and went into the bedroom to get dressed.
Rider edged around the perimeter of the garden, aware that his flimsy shoes were no barrier against the wet. He stayed far enough away from the house so as not to activate the security lighting which was fitted all the way around. He was trying to establish which of the bedrooms they were going into before he moved in and tried to gain entry.
The lights in a ground-floor room at the rear of the house came on. Rider assumed it was the kitchen, but the blinds were drawn. He could see the shadow of some movement but not enough to tell him anything. Then the lights came on in another room and through the patio doors Rider could clearly see into a lounge.
A man and a woman came into view.
The man was Munrow.
Rider did not know the woman, but from the brief conversation he had initiated with Toni Thomas, he had learned that she was a volunteer prison visitor and her husband was working in Saudi. Apparently she and Munrow had struck up a relationship in prison and it had spilled into the outside world.
She obviously liked a bit of rough.
Rider settled onto his haunches in the shadow of the back fence. Munrow and the woman — Rider could see she was good-looking — stood side by side at the patio door and looked across the garden in his direction, or so it
