When Jessica voiced her feelings, Richard laughed and said, “Are you interested in visiting Soho Cemetery? Quite a few famous chaps buried there.”
Their drinks had arrived, and seeing no ice in either of them, Jessica recalled the custom. Liquor in London was taken at room temperature. She stirred her drink with a swizzle stick, staring into the brown liquid. 'Truth be known, I do enjoy a good cemetery search,” she confided, “but-”
“Cemeteries abound in London, some with quite impressive permanent Londoners as we call them.”
“Which do you suggest as the best, if I've only time for one?” she asked.
“That's difficult to say. St. Marylebone, perhaps. Westminster and the Tower of London have, of course, the most to see, but they've become such traps for the tourists. Although there are magnificent carved stones and statues to see. But for the real enthusiasts, they should see Bunhill Fields.”
“Bunhill Fields?”
“Probably a bastardization of bone field.” He laughed lightly and sipped at his drink.
“No doubt,” she agreed with his assessment.
“John Wesley's buried there. An enormous likeness of him as you enter the gates. John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, William Blake-”
“A regular writers' colony!”
“John Milton is entered at nearby St. Giles Cripplegate.”
“Charming name, Cripple-gate?”
He raised his shoulders. “Not sure how a gate can be crippled, you mean? Likely as not a busted affair.”
The terms busted affair and Cripplegate made Jessica again think of James Parry and her crippled relationship with him. Their busted affair.
“Is there anything wrong?” he asked.
She realized he'd read the dark shadow that'd eclipsed her features as she'd given thought to James and their beleaguered love, a love beset and plagued by problems of distance and practicalities, a love tormented and besieged by loneliness. When last she'd spoken to Jim Parry, he wanted her to mull over the idea that they begin to see other people. He had needs that she could not fulfill from half a globe away, he'd complained. To Richard now, she simply said, “Nothing, really. Just… a memory.”
“I see. Yes, I have a few bad memories of my own.” She forced a smile, realizing that he must be well- attuned to people to be the inspector that he was.
“I'm not one to pry, but should you wish to talk about it, about anything at all, you'll find me a good listener.”
She smiled in return. “Thank you, Richard. I may take you up on that someday.”
They parted at Jessica's door with an exchange of handshakes, eye contact, and smiles, Richard ever the gentleman. Jessica spent the rest of the evening alone with her longing to telephone James Parry. Her emotions ran the gamut from wanting to rub Parry's face in the fact that she had just spent the day with a wonderful British gentleman to whom she felt attracted, to hoping against hope that James had had a change of heart, that he would reconsider their relationship and the decision to end it. Richard Sharpe had awakened feelings in her she had suppressed for too long now. She needed James's reassurance that all between them would and could be worked out. But her analytical side, her unemotional scientific side knew that any reconciliation with James Parry was unlikely at this point.
Sometime later-in a nightgown that James had purchased for her in an exotic little shop their last time on Maui-Jessica lay on her back, unable to sleep, thinking intently about the last time she had heard James's voice. She wondered if it would prove to be the very last time she would ever hear his voice. That telephone call had been a connection made between Quantico, Virginia, and Honolulu, Hawaii, during a rushed moment before the trip to London-typical of her lifestyle. Even in the midst of trying to hold on to James, she was packing and racing away.
She thought now of Hawaii, where they had first met in 1994, six years ago, and where they had continued a longdistance love affair since. It had been a good run, she now told herself, knowing that the intensity and passion of their feelings had waned to the point of estrangement, the kind of deeply sad estrangement only former lovers who still felt warmth for one another could know. Through no fault of Jim's or her own, things had gone the way of so many relationships. Given the distance between them, given their egos, given their high-powered careers-he a field chief special agent with the Bureau, she a much-in-demand medical examiner-the oddsmakers in the FBI family had them down for a year, two at best. But such people didn't know James Parry, nor did they know Jessica Coran, not really.
Even so… Even accepting the fact that their love had cooled, creating an emotional chasm between them larger than the miles separating them, Jessica found herself in a quandary. She didn't know whether to cherish or to fend off all the myriad and power-filled memories of this love, the memories of this man, memories of them together. She still battled with the feeling of abandonment and emptiness, so bitter and gut-wrenching; still fought the needs, the tugging pull like an invisible cord in her abdomen somehow still connected between them.
'Talk about physical pain,” she told herself and the empty room. She still felt-if she allowed herself to feel-his breath in hers whenever they had made passionate love. She still closed her eyes and saw the patterned beauty of his salt-and-pepper hair up close, while her chin lay against his forehead. She still felt the soft warmth of his gentle touch against her skin, the sweet smell of him lingering in her mind along with the way his laughter filled her with a giddiness she'd not known since childhood, and the thousand other small memories that went into building the whole memory of him that she so cherished. Let it go? Give it over to the grave? Bury it? Put it by with mourning? The sad irony in such intense passion remained at once to hold firm to that rarity, and at the same time control it. “So it does not destroy you,” she pleaded with herself again. Control it, control it, control it. An internal memo she had to resend to her heart, back to her brain, then relay again to her soul, with the intent of gaining acceptance and balance in the trio of spirit.
Try as she might, it all came crashing back. She recalled that last, unfulfilling conversation…
Jim came on, asking, “Jessica? Is that you? How are you? Where are you calling from?” He sounded groggy as if climbing from sleep. She realized too late the time difference between them. I'm home, but I'm off to London. I was hoping that perhaps you could join me there for a few days?”
“I'm actually in the midst of one hell of a political shake-up in the islands at the moment, and to add to my troubles, we've got a serial killer stalking striptease dancers over here.”
“I see.”
“He's already killed four without any sign of giving himself away. Uses a garrote to practically cut their heads off. Full of rage, this one.”
“A garrote? Rather a specialized weapon. Have you considered the possibility it's a woman doing the killing?”
“Why do you say so?”
“Garroting is a backdoor approach, and one has to gain the near total acceptance of the victim, make her feel there's nothing whatever to fear. Of course, a Ted Bundy could talk a victim into completely relaxing around him, but the Bundy type is rare. Most women do not feel threatened by other women.”
“Well, there's no sexual contact, no lust-murder elements, merely a clean, thin, cut line around the entire throat.”
“It's entirely possible the murder weapon could appear as a harmless necklace. Garrotes are as thin as wire.”
“Amazing,” he muttered. “Some of us here have given thought to the possibility it's a woman doing the killing.”
“No signs of struggle? Nothing under the victim's nails? No way to get at the killer if he or she approached from behind,” she said.
“That's exactly what we've got. The killer leaves a scented handkerchief at every scene, a feminine touch.”
The conversation shifted to their relationship and to precisely what they both knew they must talk about.
“All right, James. Time for the truth. Truth is we aren't talking about what's really on our minds anymore. Not like we used to talk …”
He had agreed, saying, 'Truth is, we're… we've drifted apart, Jess, and I… I've become involved.”
