“God, you're a wonderful man,” she told him.
“That's the nicest thing a woman, any woman, has said to me in a long time.”
She bit on her lower lip, pouting. “So, you've found me out, and quickly. I found you irresistible from the start, from the moment I first saw you in my office.”
“I had no idea.”
“Nonsense, Inspector. You're both too observant and too fast for that, Sharpe.”
He countered, saying, “I find you keenly quick-intelligent, capable-and as to your obsessions, well, I rather fancy them admirable obsessions. Far more so than those of women obsessed with hair, lipstick, and ornamentation.”
She smiled at this. “Will you find it so admirable once I've returned to the States?”
“We're both adults, Jessica. We've both been in prior relationships, both good and bad. I have no wish to put any yokes on you. Besides, it's a great deal closer to London from Washington than it is to Hawaii.”
She looked peculiarly at him. She hadn't explained to him anything about James Parry or ever mentioned Hawaii to him, not that she could recall. “Then you did read Jim's letter. How else could you know it was Hawaii?” she asked, point-blank. “You said so, in your sleep.”
“I did?”
“You repeatedly said the words 'paradise' and 'Hawaii' amidst a gibberish about spawning whales. I could not follow. I tried waking you before you toppled the phone, but-”
'Toppled the phone?”
He pointed to the floor beside the bed. She realized now that the buzzing in her ears was the phone off its cradle where it lay on the floor beside the bed.
“Perhaps you're not quite over this fellow in Hawaii, in which case, I feel that perhaps I ought not to have stayed.”
“No, no, Richard. I'm glad you and I, that we… that we have had this moment. It's been…” She wanted to say therapeutic, but she feared he'd take that description badly. He reached her mouth with his and covered her halting words, taking her breath away, feeding on it. She responded with quick energy, returning his probing kiss, feeling the heat and passion rising in Richard Sharpe again, feeling her own passions well up and boil over.
“It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a woman, and never one so beautiful as you,” he continued the none-too-subtle flattery, and she loved it.
“It's been a long time since a man has lied so well to me,” she countered.
“Lie!” He laughed and repeated it. “Lie? Me? Inspector Richard Sharpe of Scotland Yard? Lie to a lady? Never about such matters of importance.”
“Shut up. Kiss me.” She kissed him, James's letter falling in a crumple on the floor beside the bed with the phone still off the hook.
They made love for the second time, and the second proved better than the first time. Jessica's thoughts and memories of James Parry dissipated and faded as Richard's touch opened her mind to new possibilities. She particularly enjoyed hearing Sharpe laugh in complete and total abandon when he came in her.
They enjoyed a shower together and a large breakfast via room service the next morning, and Richard, having no change of clothes, left ahead of Jessica to swing by his flat to find what he needed. They both felt a euphoria about the step they had taken in forging a personal bond. Neither felt obligated to the other, and yet both wished to get to know the other at a still deeper level. They had parted with this feeling strong between them. Jessica had stopped just short of telling Richard how awful she felt at ever having, even for a moment, suspected him in setting up the Crucifixion murders to further his career. The nasty, vulture-atop-a-tree suspicious mind she had cultivated over the years, so rich in its cynicism, so capable in its bullshit detection, had simply kicked in prematurely there in Hyde Park when Richard had stepped off the crime scene so abruptly, leaving her alone with Copperwaite. Now she rather admired his having simply dropped everything-all of his duties and responsibilities-to seek out his girls in an effort to reassure himself of their safety.
Still, she thought better of telling him of her foolish suspicions during that fleeting moment in Hyde Park. The suspicion had come and gone like a bird flying in through an open window and out another. No big deal. Funny, really. Perhaps, one day, she might tell him, so that he might see clearly and exactly the bad sort he'd become involved with. But not now, not here. She feared spoiling what they had only just found.
The phone rang, and Jessica found Chief Inspector Boulte on the other end. “I've gathered together every available detective, policeman, and investigator in and out of Scotland Yard who has devoted any time at all to the case, and it has amounted to some one hundred and fifty chaps and ladies, all of whom I wish for you to speak to this morning.”
“Speak to… today?”
“As soon as you can get here, yes.”
“About what we've uncovered thus far about the Crucifier? “Exactly.”
“You know how very little that is, Chief Inspector.”
He cleared his throat before replying, “I do, but our chaps need some guidance, and that is what you are here for, correct? Haven't you developed a complete picture-profile-of the killer as yet?”
“I have some preliminary notes, but-”
“Good show, then read from your notes. See you in half an hour, then?”
He hung up before she could protest with another word.
Jessica quickly dressed now in a lime green two-piece suit with a forest-green blouse. The colors accentuated her auburn hair and set off her smooth, tanned skin and hazel eyes. She located her black valise and keys and set off for the stroll from the York to the Yard.
The morning air felt crisp, clean, and brand-new, and the sun felt like the life-giving source that it was. All around her, life appeared bright, teemed full with promise, and Jessica realized that her dream of telephoning Parry had been a compensatory dream. Compensating for her true feelings of relief that it was finally and cleanly over with James. While she cherished their most intimate and fun-filled moments together, she, too, had felt the weight of their relationship like heavy chains of late. Her entire body now felt airy. Still a lump of remorse stuck in her craw, a set of smoky, mirrored images of James and her together in past moments, embracing; images of them in an imagined future. This sad and wasted hope conspired with her unease at presenting what little evidence they had against the Crucifier at an open meeting at Scotland Yard. It proved enough to make her feel nauseous. Her stomach felt as if someone had left a hot poker inside her.
She tried to concentrate on her surroundings, ban the ill thoughts, doubts, and fears. This area of London displayed wealth and pomp on every comer, at every hotel door and lobby, even down to what the doormen wore. Public pounds kept this area of the City clean day and night. The vagrants were kept out, leaving tourists with the impression that Britain suffered no homeless problem, no poverty, prostitution, or drugs. All social ills locked away or kept at bay, just beyond the tourist-dollar districts.
Jessica watched London cabs and buses and people bustle about the streets. Each had a purpose, a sure destination; while she, like a rank tourist, stared at all the wonders of the City. Suddenly a strange, odd, eerie twinge of fear struck like small lightning down her spine, as if the Crucifier were close by, damned near within touch, simply observing her out of morbid curiosity, having learned of her presence on the case. Yet when she stopped to look in every direction, staring down one cabdriver, she found no one stalking her, no cameras pointed.
She dismissed the notion and continued on to Scotland Yard, finally coming within sight of the revolving cube-shaped sign. At the entry, she flashed both her FBI badge and her temporary Scotland Yard ID and was allowed to pass by the armed security guards.
She didn't relish the idea of speaking before the huge crowd Boulte had assembled, and she wondered where in the building such a crowd might be stored. She stepped back to the guards, asking advice. One of the pair, in his late twenties to early thirties, said she must take the elevator for the top floor. “Entire top floor is a theater with a stage,” he told her.
When the elevator opened on the top floor of the building, she found people in suits milling so thick that she had to fight her way off the elevator before the doors closed on her. She'd found the meeting room, a large lecture hall with a microphone and chairs set up before a table at the front.
Richard Sharpe, Stuart Copperwaite, Father Luc Sante, and Paul Boulte sat at the panel table, all of them looking sharply up at her as she entered. There was an expectant look on Boulte's face, like a pit bull before
