Loved by Mr. Night

Chapter 1

Aria switched on her mobile at the screech of the aircraft’s wheels on the tarmac and immediately it plinked with a message alert. It was Marrissa, the Chief editor’s secretary. It read,” Call Rob as soon as you land.”

Christ!! Thought Aria. So much for easing yourself back into work. If Rob wanted to talk to her immediately then there must be something big on the go but her work was still not over. In fact it was far from done. So Aria knew that she could not come in touch with her editor unless she was completely free from her burden. Her stomach did a slow roll of nervousness, somewhere between dread and excitement.

Heathrow airport was mobbed as usual, Aria managed to ease her way through the throng at the luggage carousel to get her only case. Her handbag was with her only. It was last season Prada and cream coloured leather and Aria loved it. It was spacious and had a lot of pockets which was perfect for her.

After she had finished everything and hailed a cab, only then did she ring the editor on his private line.

“So the wanderer finally returns..Welcome home Carrey!” said the man from the other side of the line.

“I am not even home yet, Rob. You have this way of making sure that my easing into work is not eased up at all. I am still in cab,” said Aria, deadpan.

“Well fattened up calves will be butchered in preparation for your returns,” joked her editor and then said,” How were your travels? And tell me how is your hand?”

“Brilliant…well I know you are worried if you are thinking that I might not be able to write but that is not happening. I grew a moustache and everything just like a proper nomad. Just couldn’t do the beard, for obvious reasons,” joked back Aria but then she said,” I know you have not been missing me so much that you could not even wait till I reached home before we speak. So cut the shite and tell me what happened.”

“Murders. Three murders. Silk street was the last one last night. And two before that…I mean they are grotesque and disgusting and we are hearing that this one is targeting only prostitutes,” said Rob in a grave tone.

“Jack the Ripper or what?” asked Aria as she listened to him and he gave a dry laugh.

“That is exactly what this one is. This one is off the kilter and is imitating Jack the Ripper in his kills and Aria, each one is worse than the last one,” said Rob as Aria sucked in a short breath.

Why did things had to happen now only? She had yet to finish her job, why did this had to happen…she knew that she needed to go after this case because as the investigative journalist of The Post she was the one who had to take lead on this one. But she had to take some time.

“Rob, you know I am still on leave. Don’t you think that Danny or Ruby can take the lead for the piece on this one and I can check out the final piece? I mean, I still have some work that I need to get on with and it will take some more time that I thought,” said Aria and she could hear a sigh from the other end.

“You know that this is not something like what I can give away to any of the juniors. Look it is not like that they would not do a good job…but I know that you have your own score at the Scotland Yard and you can do it the best. The papers are all over it. Moreover the police did not even connect it to be the work of a nutter until someone pointed out that this one was imitating Jack the Ripper. Can you imagine something like that being missed?” asked Robert Matthews and his voice was high in pitch. That meant that he was excited.

“Fascinating,” Aria said in a dry voice.

“Aye, that is what the Chief of Scotland Yard said when they told him about Jack the Ripper 2.0,” Rob gave a little chortle.” Glad that you are still the hard bitten hack and not the nomad with a moustache.”

Aria felt a tiny twinge of shame that she had said out fascinating aloud without even considering the horror of the families of those poor women and what they have been going through. She had gone from nomad to journalist in one nanosecond. She could not help who she was originally.

Even after she could remember the pleasure that she felt as she had watched the sucker burn to ashes as she had smiled. Her reverie was broken by her editor’s voice.

“I am sorry but you know me, Rob. I can’t help it. But you know what I mean, I am intrigued. I really am and we have not been getting something as spicy as this since quite some time and I am really keen. But you know that I need to tidy things up before I am back in this,” said Aria.

“Great. Me too, Carrey. So take that intrigue of yours to the cop shop and try and find what you can from your contacts there. I am not saying that you have directly dive in back just now. Just get in the game and use your interest and start filing up things and then we shall check what we have got. Marrissa will get you in a hotel and you can work from there before you are going wherever you are going,” said Rob and Aria sighed.

“Fine. You tell Marrissa to text me the address and I shall reach there,” said Aria as she was going to hang up but stopped.

“Oh and Aria!” said Rob, almost like an afterthought,” Did you have a good rest? You know, with everything ongoing?”

“Yeah,” Aria was not sure on how she was going to answer that one. Rob was one her greatest friends and most trusted aides and even then she had built an entire life about whom none of them knew about.” I am great. I had rest and I am going to be good to go in some time. Don’t you worry for a moment.”

Rob chuckled,” Good to have you back, Aria.” And then he hung up.

In the hotel room Aria sat down on the edge of the bed and hauled off her suede calf-length boots, tossing them in the corner. Then she unzipped her jeans and eased them down her hips kicking them off her ankles, pulled off her t-shirt and bra. The King’s Cross Road traffic droned on below but it was far too away to disturb her as she lay back on the bed, relishing the tranquility for a few moments before she had to head back into real life.

She closed her eyes. The coldness of murder, because that was how the cops were going to view it—that was not what had made her nervous. f**k that!

She was not going to begin all that muesli-eating-analysis s**t. She had never done that in her entire life because the truth was she had waited almost her entire life to kill that bastard. Killing the bastard was good karma. The bad karma was that they were looking for her and she could not disappear from the face of earth because she had a face which was known to a lot of people by her original identity.

She drove for eight hours from Costa del Sol, stopping only for loo and petrol, till she reached the French border, where she holed up in a dreary motel for the night and then she had gone to Sarajevo where she had spent the past few weeks. She was either holding court or she was listening intently in smoky cafés and bars late at night with noisy good humoured Bosnians who had taken her into their hearts. And it did not deter the fact that she was a looker.

And then there was Adriel.

She knew that she was playing with fire when she had called him last month after they had returned from Spain following the cocaine smuggling expose that had almost got both of them killed. She knew that in her heart, she should have gone straight to the arms of the man that she loved and to New York to be with Luke. She should have headed straight to him in order to work for the relationship which was teetering on its edge. But it was Adriel that she had called. In her head she had convinced herself that she wanted to run from both the ends and that she could run safely to Adriel.

He would protect her, as he had done so many times that he had done in the past few years without any conditions, or had it been more than that?

Her mind drifted to the thoughts of her sister. She would first go to the care home and tell Aubrey. She smiled in her sleep and smiled at the thought of seeing her sister and at the same time dreading hearing this that there had been little progress since her last visit.

“I have done it,” Aria would whisper in her ear.” He is dead, Aubrey.”

She knew that her sister would just sit there, her pale blue eyes dead, the way that they had been for the past twenty years, her now frail frame motionless, her skin grey and shadowy like a neglected statue. Catatonic, the specialists had said. Not brain dead in any medical sense--- just in another world and the chances are that she would never come out of it. She was just thirty-one. Only Aria knew their secret. Just the smallest blink of an eye had been the response from Aubrey and she knew that her sister was there and she was listening. It was a few months ago when Aria had murmured to her that the time had come. Still trapped in the childhood trauma that had made her retreat to the silent world, her sister had not spoken or moved her head, but she had squeezed her hand.

The memory brought tears to Aria’s eyes and she quickly brushed them away. She sniffled at the thought that what would Aubrey do this time when she would go and tell that she had done it. Finally they were free.

Her hands drifted towards her stomach and she felt the softness of her skin as she drifted towards slumber of semi-consciousness.

Her laptop bleeped with an email. She sat up and rubbed her face vigorously and opened up her computer. What happened in Bosnia should stay in Bosnia, she told herself. She had work to do.