Killing The Taxman

Chapter 7-2

She pulled up the pending case files on her computer, assigning the cases of lesser importance to other detectives, effectively clearing her desk to concentrate on the most important ones. She retained the case of the r**e of housewife Emily Creighton, attacked in her home by what she claimed had been a teenage boy, who had knocked on her door and then threatened her with a knife, forcing his way in, and then r****g her at knife point. Her husband David had not believed her and, taking their two children, had left her. Grace could not assign that case to anyone else; she felt a connection to the distraught woman but made a note to involve DC Jessica Babalola more closely in that investigation, even though Jessica would be a key member of her team investigating the Hanging Man murder.

She was so absorbed in her work that she did not hear Landymore wish her ‘goodnight’ and was surprised when she looked around to find she was totally on her own. Time to head off as well she decided, shutting down her laptop. She made her way downstairs, waved goodbye to the duty officer, and walked across the car park to her red, beloved Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.

When Grace arrived home, she clicked the garage door remote and drove into the garage on the ground floor of her three-storey townhouse on Cotton Mill Street on Redemption Island, where she lived with Terry Horton. As she got out of the car, she felt a shiver down her back, the same premonition she had sensed during the Mannikin Killer investigation.

She was being watched, she was certain of it and quickly clicked the remote to close the garage door. She did not move util she was certain that it had fully closed and then ran upstairs to the roof terrace and studied the street scene outside the house, but she could see nothing untoward.

Somebody just walked over my grave, she told herself, but she knew it was more than that. DCI Grace Swan was not paranoid, did not spook easily, but she felt distinctly spooked that night.

She vowed not to tell Terry about the experience; he would only fret and worry, call for extra security, have patrol cars drive by every hour, and smother her with concern. But she could ensure that, whenever possible, she did not drive home late at night on her own. She looked in on Terry. He was fast asleep in their bed and she made sure she did not to disturb him as she quickly undressed and headed for the shower.

They had been in a relationship for several months now, initially pretending that they were just good friends but fooling nobody, and at the height of the Mannikin Killing investigation, when she had been under direct threat from the killer, Terry had finally moved in with her, even though he retained his own flat nearby.

The hours spent in Shallito Woods and the sensation she had felt in the garage had chilled her to the bone and she stayed under the steaming hot water as long as she could, letting it gently ease the tension from her neck and back. She had not eaten all day but did not feel hungry; her mind was still awhirl with the details of the hanging-man investigation.

If truth be known, she had not yet fully recovered her appetite following an operation to remove a large benign brain tumour. She had suffered fierce headaches for weeks, eventually collapsing in her office, and had still not fully recovered her strength. She tired easily and the strains of the day had left her exhausted and with a low-grade headache. Before she put on her pyjamas, Grace studied herself in the full-length mirror fastened to the back of the bathroom door.

Despite a far distant African heritage, two hundred years or more ago, when a white Kenyan hunter had married a Maasai girl, she was still deathly pale. She had lost weight—weight loss that accentuated her high cheekbones and gave her a gaunt, almost skeletal appearance.

My t**s have shrunk, she told herself. and they were never that big to start with. And my hip bones stick right out. God, I look like something out of Belsen. At least my legs are still long; my calves and thighs are still shapely. She’d always considered her legs to be her best features and, without a hint of vanity, believed she had the legs of catwalk model. ‘At least my belly’s a bit flatter,’ she said to herself, patting it gently. ‘Which is something, I suppose. And my eyes are still blue.’ Grace did have startlingly blue eyes, but they were sore and irritated after her long day and she had no eye drops left, had been meaning to buy some for days but never got round to it.

And my hip bones stick right out. God, I look like something out of Belsen. At least my legs are still long; my calves and thighs are still shapely.‘You feel like s**t and you look like s**t, don’t you? And you shouldn’t really have gone back to work as soon as you did, but you just couldn’t keep away, could you, girl?’ she chided herself softly.

She had resumed shortened hours just over a week ago but those days of shortened hours were now a thing of the past she thought as she slipped into her pyjamas and slid into bed beside Terry. She snuggled close to him as he snored gently, his back to her, and she wished that he would turn around, just to give her a good night kiss, nothing else. Well, maybe something else.

She reflected that Terry had not made love to her for some time. The last time must have been sometime during the Mannikin Killer investigation, when he had first moved in with her. But since then, he had been wounded, stabbed in the stomach by the killer, Graham Reason, and had suffered life-threatening internal bleeding, and she had undergone brain tumour surgery, so they had simply got out of the habit of making love. ‘Have to do something about that,’ Grace thought, but then wondered why he would want to make love to a bag of scrawny bones as she slipped a hand into her pyjama bottoms and between those shapely thighs.

When Terry had been stabbed, Grace had held him, trying to staunch the flood of blood from his wound, unmindful of her own wound, a deep s***h to her upper arm, her blood trickling through a rough bandage to mingle with Terry’s.

He’d opened his eyes, his face pallid, the colour of old dough. ‘Love you, Grace Swan,’ he had muttered. ‘Marry me, Grace Swan, please marry me.’

‘Yes, Terry, my darling love, yes,’ she had answered.

Since then, however, nothing had been done. She had then undergone the brain surgery and only just returned to work, so no date had been set, no preparations made, no announcements to friends and colleagues, but they both knew it would happen sooner or later; for now, they were content, solid in their relationship.

When she awoke, Terry had already left. He would be setting up the MIR for the morning briefing. It was something that he took very seriously, determined that when Grace entered the room, everything she needed would be in place.

She showered and dressed in one of her favourite outfits, one she always wore on the first day of an investigation: a dark grey Hobbs trouser suit, white blouse buttoned to the throat, and black patent shoes with a kitten heel. Makeup, a dab of lip gloss and a touch of eye shadow, and a squirt of Jo Malone perfume completed the ensemble. She liked it; it wasn’t power-dressing but gave her a sense of authority. She picked up her black Furla handbag, and made her way down to the garage, got into the Alfa, and drove to the West Garside CID HQ in Concordia Court.