RTF Ebooks: Free ebook sample of "Feng Shui Assassin" by Adrian Hall

Chapter one

Harvey Barker thumbed the yin-yang pendant around his neck and stared out across the silhouette of the Docklands in the low winter sun.

He stood in the office of Donald Grace, Stockbroker, situated on the fifteenth floor of Capricorn House. The whole of one wall was a solid glass window with sliding partitions. Standing at the window allowed for a daunting view of the trendy docklands business area and the river Thames. Towering, blue frame office blocks with dark glass windows stood like a mountain range across the cityscape, seagulls wheeling the uppermost peaks.

Far below, wide pedestrian paths led from Canary Wharf, the grandfather of the surrounding concrete spires, to the artificial harbour and the rows of riverside apartments. Colourful awnings indicated popular eateries amongst stylish hairdressers and must-have gadget shops.

Tiny dots of people speckled the pavement like ink, spraying out of the tube station and gathering at white striped crossings, eager to throw themselves between the gaps of slow moving cars. Among them was the soon-to-be-dead Donald Grace.

Harvey turned back to the room. Grace’s office was luxurious and spacious. Antique walnut and stained teak furniture gave the impression of a galleon captain’s quarters rather than a stockbroker’s office. Gilt-framed oils hung on dark wood walls, a marble statuette and brass figurines placed on slender tables around the room. A large mahogany desk faced the door, dominating the office and the attention of anyone entering. A suitable wheel behind which a captain of industry would helm his business.

Harvey also watched the steady flow of chi move through the office.

The current was strong. Pouring in through the doorway and expanding out into the room, it navigated the central desk like an obstinate boulder in the path of a river, splitting around the obstacle to continue its cycle. Harvey marvelled at the cascade of moving energy and he waded to the middle of the flow. He spread his hands out wide so that the currents of chi eddied in small swirling patterns around his fingers.

Harvey walked along the river of chi, carefully looking at areas where the flow faltered. He paused near the desk and waved a hand back and forth. In the corner of the room, pinned between a table and the window, a small tributary split from the main flow and curled about itself, stagnating in a small, static pool. A large oil painting hung above the inert chi.

This was potential weakness he could exploit.

Reaching up, Harvey twisted the painting so it hung at a crooked angle on the wall.

The painting, a leafy vision of two golfers on the thirteenth hole, darkened in slowly spreading damp patches of negative chi. It gathered around the edges of the frame, dark and oily, and seeped into the canvas. The picture misted over as the slick chi expanded, translucent grey circles meeting and merging with each other, draining colour and light and warmth from the painting. Filming over with negative energy.

Harvey paced along the window and placed a blue wire litter bin at an angle to the painting. A weak thread of chi stretched out from the painting to the bin, establishing an anchor hold.

At the front of the desk, Harvey trailed a finger along the dust free surface, flicking the pens into disarray in the pen tidy, tipping a stapler onto its side, turning the calculator face down, shifting the desk diary slightly off centre. Negative karma grew from the irregular angles, darkening the desk surface with patches of polluted chi.

The painting was now completely filmed over with black chi. Small lumps appeared on the canvas, something moving beneath the surface like larvae in a dead bird. One or two bulges at first, then multiplying in a frenzy, growing and expanding and threatening to bubble over the frame.

Raised voices sounded from the reception area outside the office and ripples disrupted the easy flow of chi from the doorway. A woman's voice explained of a pest controller in the office. A male voice barked gruffly, cutting off the woman. Harvey walked away from the desk and stood casually next to the bookcase.

The door opened and Donald Grace entered his office.

Harvey’s gaze bore into the man, scorching his image onto his retinas. His features, his attire, his every nuance and posture and shift in movement. He wanted to remember everything, drink in every aspect of the man before him.

Grace blustered past Harvey with barely a glance. He threw a market report onto his desk, seated himself down and started up his computer. If he had taken the time to register Harvey, he may have wondered why a pest control worker wasn't in overalls, but instead wore casual attire more appropriate to a boardroom. If he had been more observant, he may have been aware of the way Harvey stared at him. The cold eyes that followed him to the desk, watching him with an intense malice, as a cat would watch a sparrow as it hopped from one branch to another.

As Grace hunched over his computer, clicking the mouse impatiently, Harvey relaxed, breaking eye contact, and like a movie jump-cut, suddenly smiled pleasantly.

'Won't be long, sir,' Harvey said.

‘Yes, yes - I heard about the infestation. Cockroaches indeed. Heard little else from the babble in the office. You have a timescale? I need you out of the office as soon as possible.’ Donald snapped, clipping the end of his words.

‘You do have a pest control problem.' Harvey said, making a show of checking behind a leather-bound book. 'An infestation of cockroaches in the building. The last thing you need is a rush job. Eggs from the European cockroach can lay dormant for months before hatching, incredibly difficult to neutralise once they have taken hold.’

‘Just get on with it. I have a number of important calls to be made and need you out of my office.’

The area around Grace’s desk was now clouded with inauspicious karma. Vines of chi spread to the desk from the painting and wrapped around the legs and the chair. The air buzzed with mites of depression and the floor degraded into a swampmire of chi. Patches of malignant energy encompassed the trader.

‘Everything should be over soon,’ Harvey said. ‘Real soon.’

‘Be sure it is,’ Grace grunted, determined to have the last word.

Harvey walked around the edge of the room, the pretence of pest control forgotten as the target’s attention was now distracted with a thousand minor irritations. Results from the subtle influence of negative karma.

‘Cockroaches are cunning, devious insects. Eat anything, even their own,’ Harvey said. ‘The heavy rainfall over the past few days has driven roaches up and into the offices here on the fifteenth floor. Have to catch them early before they get out of hand.’

‘What is wrong with this computer? Does nothing work in this goddamn office?’

It was starting. The effects of negative karma were taking effect. Already a creeping black cloud fogged around the stockbroker’s head and shoulders.

‘Tricky vermin, the cockroach. They scuttle higher and higher to get out of harm’s way. Feed off anything, and very difficult to exterminate once they’ve taken hold.’

The negative karma was growing in strength. Anyone within the area would slowly succumb to the depressive atmosphere. At first they would become irritable, snappy and defensive, until slowly but surely the crushing weight of inauspicious energy would take its toll.

Grace sighed heavily and reshuffled the papers on his desk. He couldn't concentrate, he couldn’t focus. Instead, he spread paper around the desktop, flicked back to the computer screen and clicked on email receipts. He groaned as every new email seemed full of accusation and urgency. He pulled away and sifted through his in-tray, scattering his pen tidy in the process. Scanning one report after another, he felt the heavy knots of stress with every successive file. Is this what he worked for? Was there no escape from all the paperwork? The mountain of problems seemed insurmountable and it was all he could do to keep himself from pounding the desk in frustration.

Grace loosened his tie in an effort to cool down. Damp sweat patches spread on his crisp white shirt, veins throbbing down the length of his neck. Impotent tension built up as despair took hold and slowly squeezed.

The oil painting bulged with a black misshapen abscess of evil chi. Shapes moved on the other side of the canvas, pushing against the membrane, stretching it thin in places, probing, attempting to break through. The outline of a blunt claw scraped down the distended painting, then another. And another. Malignant spirits seeking a way into the world.

Harvey sat in an uncomfortable ornate chair between a potted plant and a three foot statue of the Duke of Wellington on horseback. He stretched out and took a newspaper from his pocket, thumbing through the pages until he opened them at the horoscope section.

‘Do you read the stars?’ Harvey asked. From the corner of his eye he saw slurry geysers of karma pop within the fetid swamp. They were small, but Harvey knew that they would grow. He flicked his eyes towards the suffering Grace and allowed himself a smile.

‘What?’ Snapped the broker, his fingers clicking uselessly at mouse and keyboard.

‘Your horoscope. Do. You. Follow your horoscope?’ Harvey said.

‘I – I read the . . .’ Grace’s voice trailed away.

‘I’m guessing the Financial papers. No horoscopes in the F.T. huh. Any sudoku? Nevermind.’ Harvey watched the man cower behind his desk, succumbing to the karma. ‘You’re a Capricorn, right?’

An audible pop caught Harvey’s attention. The abscess on the oil painting had burst, an infected wound into the world, and dozens of imp-like spirits from some other place tumbled from the picture, falling to the floor. One of the spirits, quicker or smarter than its brethren, bounced on the heads of the entangled pile and bounded onto Grace’s desk. It stood on its hind legs like a demonic meerkat. Grey, with white shards of bone protruding from its joints, it shook globs of karma from its body and sniffed the air delicately. More spirits fell from the picture and recovered on the floor, scrabbling over each other to climb the desk and follow the scent of depression.

Grace held his head in his hands, shoulders slumped. He was drenched in a rancid karma that dripped from him like sweat. Karma that crushed his will, destroyed his self-respect and created turmoil amongst the emotions.

The phone rang but wasn’t answered.

‘What is happening with this computer?’ Grace screamed, smashing the mouse in frustration.

The first spirit sprang onto Grace’s shoulder and bit into the side of his head. He groaned from the invisible wound, scratching at the place where the teeth sank into his skull. Other spirits clambered across the desk and leapt at him, biting and clawing and raking his flesh.

‘It’s a hobby of mine,’ Harvey continued. ‘I can tell a star sign within minutes of meeting a person. You, for example, you are determined, focused. A businessman. You like certainties in life. Practical and concrete. Capricorn, through and through. You wouldn't waste time with a new age idea, or abstract fuzzy thinking. You would have to touch it to understand it. Am I right?'

Donald Grace groaned, trying to focus on Harvey through bleary, raw eyes. Depression has a subjective nature, people responding to pressures of life in various ways. Grace was sickened from the emails that he’d read and the stack of uncommented reports awaiting action. Work had suddenly become too much and he couldn’t see any escape. He slumped under the crushing, all-consuming hopelessness.

‘I have the paper right here,’ said Harvey. ‘Local paper, but still has a few cartoons and the star strip. See, your stars for today aren't good. “How strong is your connection to your inner truth? It's time to ask yourself what really matters in your life, and push everything else to the side. Don't let the small things in your life build up and overpower you. Don't succumb to that feeling of helplessness. A change in direction may be the breath of fresh air you need.”’

Grace wasn’t listening - his world had collapsed and all he could hear was a loud rushing in his ears and the pounding of his own heart. Like a rapid-fire death knell. ‘Please go away,’ he said to no one in particular, ‘and who keeps ringing? Can’t they tell I’m busy? If I haven’t answered by the fifth ring, then I’m too bloody busy to talk to anyone.’

‘I hear you,’ Harvey smiled.

From the turgid swamp of karma movement distorted the carpet. A lump of grey flesh punched up into the room and uncurled into a large clawed hand. The hand braced itself against the desk and levered the rest of its grotesque body up into the office. A hippo-sized abomination dragged itself from the surface of the floor, huffing and puffing with the effort of pulling itself free from the swamp. The abomination rose slowly into the office, its huge head swinging from side to side. Giant and huge bellied, grey and black and green, it squatted on thick, stubby legs next to the desk, its head almost scraping the ceiling. Pinprick silver eyes regarded Grace with a hunger unknown on this earth and it moved sluggishly toward him.

Harvey stood up, neatly folded the paper and headed for the door. He didn’t need to see the result of his work.

A scraping noise distracted him and he turned to watch the mayhem behind him. The behemoth slapped at Donald, knocking him toward the window. Imp spirits clung to the staggering man as he rose from his chair and sought escape. Grace leant his forehead against the glass, momentarily feeling relief against the hot, biting inflammation in his head. Imps scampered around, sliding the window open and playfully leading him to the cool fresh air.

Harvey walked from the office and closed the door firmly behind him.

‘Did you find any more cockroaches in Mr Grace's office?’ the personal assistant asked, flicking from a solitaire game on her screen to an accounts spreadsheet.

‘Just one. A big critter and he put up quite a fight.’ Harvey smiled brightly. 'But I think that is the last of them.'

He fished the admittance tag from his pocket and dropped it into the glass bowl on her desk. 'I'll, er, escort you out, if you like?' The assistant half rose from her chair when the buzzer intercom from Grace’s office sounded. She tutted to herself and grabbed a pad of paper and pen.

‘No problem. I’ll just ride the elevator to the lobby. I think I can find my way.’ Harvey said, the charm in his smile never faltering.

The assistant watched Harvey disappear into the lift, sighed, then entered Grace's office.

Harvey exited the lift at the lobby area and checked his watch. A soft breeze brought the smell of the nearby waterways as he stepped from the office block. The sound of gulls was drowned out by the metallic screech of an approaching tube train running on tracks close-by.

After a few steps he heard screams, far off, whipped away by the wind. Moments later he felt a wet thud reverberate through the pavement under his feet as the body of Donald Grace impacted on the ground behind him.

Chapter two

Christmas. It was in the air. The feeling of anticipation and excitement that gripped people those few weeks before Christmas Day. Smiles that crept onto faces as stranger nodded amiably to stranger. People became overly polite to others who carried bags obviously crammed with gifts. A sheepish grin would be the unsaid thank you in return for opening a door or vacating a seat. The mood of people reflected the mood of the season.

Amanda Morgan despised it. She snarled as a passer-by winked at her, his arms full of shopping bags, a rouge of either cold or alcohol colouring his cheeks. The contrived jolliness of the season only served to make her surly, ensuring that she didn't return any faux smiles and certainly did not return any cries of Happy Christmas.

One person that was not going to see Christmas was the high-rise office jumper she had been called in to report. That morning a stockbroker had decided to make her day by ending his. Perhaps it was the thought of another rerun of Christmas specials on TV, Amanda mused as she crossed the road to Capricorn House.

She stepped gingerly around the white canvas tent that surrounded the remains of the late Donald Grace, nodded to one of the scene of crime officers who was zipping up the tent flap, walked through the black marble lobby and took the lift to the 15th floor. A musical reindeer greeted her with a tinny Christmas tune.

'Oh great,' Amanda muttered.

She took a deep breath and remembered that, despite this being her fifth sudden death report this month, it was always traumatic for those affected. She centred herself and walked through to the reception area of Donald Grace Stockbrokers.

She was met by a tearful receptionist, the faint watermark of mascara on her cheeks where she had washed her face, but not well enough.

‘Good morning. My name is DC Morgan.’ Amanda held up her warrant card. It seemed that popular TV shows demanded it. ‘I’m here to see Rachel Ware.’

‘That’s me. Thank you for coming.' Rachel sniffed into a handkerchief, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘I'll show you where his office is.’

'Just point me in the right direction, I need to take a look at the office and it won't take long. But first, I would like to ask you a few questions. And please, call me Amanda.'

Rachel shook her head wistfully, padding her eyes and balling up the tissue. 'This is just so incredible, you know? You wake up in the morning, and it's just another dreary day. The ride to work, staring out of the tube train window. I must have taken that journey a thousand times, but I can't remember any of it from the minute I close my front door to the moment I have that first cup of coffee in my hands. But now? You can bet I'll remember every face on my way home.'

'Shock affects us in many ways,’ Amanda said. ‘Probably best if you left early today, get yourself home and drink plenty of sweet tea.'

‘Yes,’ Rachel said. 'We are closing the office early. Out of respect.'

'That's good.'

Amanda glanced around the reception. Fine art and sleek furniture projected the image of a successful firm. City broker suicides were usually financially motivated, and Amanda wanted to assess Donald Grace's state of mind. What would make a successful stockbroker kill himself?

She moved to the front of the reception desk, placing a notepad down and leaning casually forward.

'Now, if I could just ask you a few delicate questions about Mr Grace. Did he seem agitated to you in any way? Did he talk to you about anything that was upsetting him?'

'He didn't seem depressed, if that's what you mean,’ Rachel said. ‘He was angry about the disruption - he needed to make some very important phone calls and was annoyed at the interruption. But he always seemed to be annoyed about one thing or another. He was that kind of person, really.'

'So he didn't mention anything out of the ordinary?’ Amanda asked. ‘Not just today, but perhaps over the past few weeks?'

'No, he was quite a bullish character, nothing seemed to get him down. Certainly nothing he ever talked to me about.'

'And what about the interruption?'

'Mr Grace was irritated that the pest exterminator was in his office. He had those calls to make and he doesn't like any fuss going on in the background whilst he's on the phone. On top of that the end of year accounts are almost due.’

'Were there any other meetings due for today? Anyone Mr Grace was expecting to see?'

'No. We have a clear diary on the run up to Christmas. Mr Grace had plans for the Christmas holidays and he didn’t like any interruptions to his schedule.’

Amanda noted these facts onto her notepad, 'Perhaps you could tell me what happened?'

'Well, like I say, Donald buzzed the intercom and I grabbed my bits and pieces and went in. He was stood at the window, and I didn't realise it at first but I suppose he must have been crying. His shoulders heaved and he was making this funny sound. I asked him if everything was OK, and he said he wanted some water.'

'When I returned with a glass, he’d opened the window and was standing on the ledge outside, holding onto the frame and looking at me. I was so scared for him then, I could hardly speak. I rushed over, but he let go of the window and fell backwards.' Rachel reached for another box of tissues and wiped delicately under each eye.

'Thank you,' Amanda said. 'You've been very brave. I know how hard it must be, but I’ve a few more questions.’ A nod permitted her to continue. ‘Can you tell me about this pest controller?'

'I called him first thing this morning. His business card was pinned up on the notice board, which was handy. It was so disgusting, seeing those things crawling around in the kitchen. I was making my usual kick-start coffee and found a cockroach burrowing in the sugar bowl. My screams brought the rest of the office running and we called a local exterminator.’

‘Cockroaches?’ Amanda imagined the scuttling needle legs and looked about herself. ‘You have a cockroach problem? This looks like a well-kept office, how did you get to have cockroaches on the 15^th floor?’

‘Something about heavy rainfall last night drove the things up from the basement. He did the job though, because we had them running all around the kitchen this morning, and we’ve not seen a single one since . . . since . . .’ Rachel lapsed into silence.

‘And the pest exterminator met Mr Grace?’ Amanda enquired.

‘Briefly. He was working in his office for half an hour. I did tell him he should be out before Donald started work. And he was, I think. Or at least they overlapped by only a few minutes.’

Amanda circled a name in her pad. Who knew what chemicals they used for pest control nowadays? Some of the detergents under her sink at home were pretty powerful, so perhaps an industrial strength insecticide could have side effects.

‘I need the number for this pest exterminator. He may have been using sprays or other substances to deal with the problem. It may have influenced Mr Graces' state of mind.'

‘Curious thing, he didn’t fumigate the office, like I thought they do. Just browsed around the kitchen and spent some time in Donald’s office.' Rachel fished into her side draw, fanning papers and sweets to one side. 'I do have his card somewhere, I'm sure I do.'

'That's good. If you could find it for me while I take a look at Mr Grace's office, it would be much appreciated.'

'Fine. Just head through those doors,' Rachael pointed with a sodden tissue between two fingers. 'Would you like me to come with you?'

'No need. I'll be a few minutes and then you can be on your way home.'

Amanda entered the office and closed the doors behind her.

The large office was brightly lit with a combination of fluorescent and natural light. Papers were strewn over the office floor in front of the desk, blown by the wind from the open window, Amanda assumed. The window was closed now, but nothing else had been disturbed. No crime. No scene. No need for a scene of crime investigation. Amanda was here to assess if there had been any external influences on Donald Grace's decision to take flight from his office window. If there was evidence of blackmail or another source of crime, then she would call it in. And hopefully get to see more action than the past few months follow-up duty had allowed.

Unseen by Amanda, a remnant mist of negative karma still hung around the office, clinging to the desk and painting. Wisps of dark chi desperately wound itself around legs of the chair, seeking purchase though fading slowly away.

Amanda paced around the office, moving through the last wafts of negative karma, and stood at the window. The view was spectacular. Far off patches of green merged with browns and greys of housing estates. An impressionist’s vision of modern living that somehow, from this vantage point, lost the grim and despair and was elevated to a thing of beauty and hope.

Glancing down to the street below, she saw the tent that covered the body, a long black van pulled up beside it to remove the remains. Everything looked so toy-like from this distance, as if looking down on a child’s play mat. Just reach down and push the passing cars around, screech through traffic lights and swerve past pedestrians.

She felt herself drawn to the plummeting drop, a small voice inside urging her to step out. To spread her arms wide and lean forward. To see what it would feel like, those few moments in the air between life and death. Her hand involuntarily touched the window handle as, unseen, two spirits tugged weakly at her sleeve. The influence of karma was fading, and one of the spirits lost its grip and fell to the floor, disappearing in a splash of smoke.

'Get a grip, girl,' Amanda said to herself, half laughing at the ridiculous notion of jumping.

She turned to face the office, studying the layout. Very much a masculine setup, bronze statues of old generals, paintings of war and sport on the walls. She sat at the desk and fired up the PC.

The quagmire beneath the desk still bubbled, but the activity was subsiding. Dark drifts still appeared infrequently, thin wafts that curled towards Amanda.

Oblivious to any danger, Amanda turned her attention to the computer. She clicked through various folders on the desktop, opening the email and browsing through the sent items. Amanda was looking for any evidence that the death might be more than just a city worker suicide.

There was no last plea or suicide note, which in itself was unusual. Her basic training of sudden death profiling stated that a suicidal person often left notes or messages of explanation to loved ones. Trying, in one last gesture, to relieve the guilt of those they would leave behind. Grace had no family members to bid farewell too, though he could have had friends or lovers that meant something to him.

There was no sign of any threatening email or security protected folder in which sensitive blackmail material could be kept. Amanda sighed. Her one encouraging hope when called to these mop-up operations on suicides was that she may find evidence of foul play and be on the task force of a criminal investigation. Anything that may lead to something other than the endless report writing of dead end tasks, she thought. Pun intended.

Her thoughts drifted to the situation she currently found herself. Not for the first time that day she cursed her poor taste in men. Sleeping with a work colleague was never recommended whatever job you were in. But as a Detective Constable in the Metropolitan Police the very nature of the working environment meant there were no secrets. Policemen and women were the worst of gossips, and nothing could stay a secret for long. Drunken fumbling on a night out had led to the illicit dating of a married man. Even now Amanda fumed at the memory. It had taken just four weeks to realise what an asshole he was - and to think she was risking a career for him.

After a month she wanted out with the minimum of fuss and had asked him round to her apartment for a meal and an explanation. He, of course, had anticipated the end of the relationship by some weird man-radar for such things, and had planned a cruel and vicious joke at her expense, letting the whole station know that it was him that had finished with her.

Even now, four months after the event, some joker kept pinning up a photocopy of the 'lonely hearts - wanted ad' on the notice board. At first she tore them down whenever she saw them. Then she moved on to doodling sarcastic replies of her own on the adverts. Now she just ignored them.

And so it was that she was assigned low end work and bottom of the barrel jobs. Burglary follow-ups, shoplifting statistics, suicides. Her requests for transfer to another station were taking their own sweet time, but there was no running from a bad reputation in the job. A bad name had a way of following you wherever you ended up. All this because she slept with a work colleague. And to make matters worse she had slept with her boss, Detective Inspector Phillips.

With a shudder and a shake of her head, Amanda returned to the job in hand. She pulled open cabinet drawers on the right of the desk. Each contained client portfolios in alphabetic order. Quickly scanning each for a loose leaf letter or anything that may have slipped into the files by accident, she noticed that the yearly reports ended in a lot of red. It seemed that most clients were losing money, but none that seemed to be for huge amounts. Each annual breakdown was followed by a lengthy letter from Grace explaining the position and requesting the client stay with the firm.

That may have been a reason for Grace’s suicidal state, but somehow Amanda doubted it. The sketchy impression she had put together of Donald Grace was of a thick skinned businessman. Brusque, bull headed and self confident. There had been worst financial years yet Grace survived them all.

Amanda leaned back into the leather chair, stretching the kinks out of her bones. Grace seemed like the kind of man she would despise. A bully, who delighted in belittling employees and screaming down the phone at junior staff. Probably a bully his whole life.

Amanda caught her reflection in the pale blue background of the computer screen and wistfully tucked a curl of blonde hair behind her ear. A childhood habit. As she thought of her youth an unbidden memory sprang uppermost in her thoughts, the last influences of fading chi.

She was nine years old, standing in the cold playground surrounded by a ring of older girls. They were singing a made up rhyme, with nasty words replacing the repetitive chorus. She knew they were nasty words because her father used the same words when he was drunk. But it wasn't Amanda who they taunted with the casual callousness of schoolchildren. Her best friend, Danielle, stood next to her, and it was her that they mocked.

Amanda tried to grab her friend’s hand and push through the circle of grey uniforms, but her friend pulled away and fell to the ground. The other girls closed around Danielle, singing and poking fingers into her shoulders and back. Amanda was calling out to her, trying to reach out to her, but she couldn't break through the closed circle.

A knock at the door pulled Amanda from her melancholy memories. She was surprised to find her cheeks wet with tears and pulled her sleeve up to wipe her face.

'Hello?' Amanda called out.

The door opened a sliver and Rachel peered through. 'Would you like a cup of tea?'

'That would be lovely. I'll be through in a moment.'

'Ok,' Rachel replied. 'The kitchen is just down the hall on the left.' Amanda heard the door close quietly.

Taking deep breaths, Amanda shook off the wisps of depression that seemed to have come from nowhere, switched Grace’s machine off and placed the chair flush with the desk. The office now seemed grey and lifeless, despite the cloudless day reflecting through the windows.

Rachel stood in the kitchen, drumming her fingers on the laminate side as she stared at the kettle, waiting for it to boil.

'A watched pot,' Amanda said as she entered the kitchen.

'Sorry?' Rachael was startled from her thoughts.

'Never boils. You're watching that pot so intently; it'll never deliver the goods.'

'Just like my boyfriend.' Rachel shrugged. 'Sugar? milk?'

'Milk please.' Amanda leant against the wall, looking around the kitchen. She eyed the sugarbowl suspiciously. 'But no sugar. So you have man problems?'

'Yeah. Same old story. Can't commit, won't commit.'

'Cockroaches, ain't they all!' Amanda said. Rachel half gasped, then chuckled.

'The pest controller was a bit of all right.’ Rachel admitted, pouring milk into the cups. ‘Dreamy. Dark eyes, dark suit, bit of an American accent. Just my type. Quite a stylish dresser for someone who exterminates bugs.'

Taking her coffee, Amanda listened to the receptionist’s fantasies of finding a man who was in one a respectable man she could take home to her mother but who would also fire the jealousies of her friends. The monologue was drifting into Brad Pitt territories when movement caught Amanda's attention. From between the gap of the swing lid of the chrome bin in the corner of the kitchen a thin black antennae swayed.

Controlling her revulsion, she approached the bin and dipped the swing lid open. A cockroach navigated the lip of the bin and fell to the floor. Amanda stepped on the skittering insect before it could fully recover, crunching it beneath the thick soles of her size five's.

'Trust a man to do half a job.' The receptionist said having moved to the doorway, ready to make her escape.

Amanda carefully removed the lid of the silver bin and placed it on the floor. The inside was empty but for three cockroaches, antennae waving aimlessly, and a plastic bag from a Chinese Restaurant. Unclipping her baton, Amanda flicked her wrist and the dull metal truncheon extended three foot, extending quickly in sections and locking in place.

She slowly poked the plastic bag, found a handle and hooked it over the end of the baton. She lifted it out of the bin, shaking it once to let an obstinate roach drop from the underside of the bag back into the bin. Smaller roaches crawled within the thin white plastic, and Amanda recognised the name of the take away restaurant, written in red stylised Cantonese English. The Imperial Dragon.

'I'm going to need the number of that pest exterminator,’ she said. ‘And a full description.'

Chapter three

Steam rose from the latte in Harvey's hands, causing the window to steam and obscure his view of the front of Capricorn House. The coffee shop overlooked the tent covering the remains of Donald Grace, an ideal location to watch the police activity in front of the office block. A few non-uniforms had entered. A few had left.

He stirred his coffee slowly, watching as the body bag was discreetly removed from the tent and placed into an unmarked van. The bag held some semblance of human form, but inside the body would be packed and bent together to fit it into the rigid bag. Impact remains from such a height never kept their shape, more resembling a pat of butter hammered by a fist than a human being with skeleton intact.

The coffee was doing nothing for his nerves, and for the third time in as many minutes he reached for the cigarette packet and withdrew one. This time he lit the cigarette and tentatively inhaled. The initial lungful made him nauseous, but he persevered and swam along with the numbing elation.

‘Excuse me,’ a nearby customer smiled at the cigarette in Harvey’s hand. ‘But you aren’t allowed to smoke here. You have to go outside.’ Harvey nodded and stood to leave. He grabbed his coffee and angled a spoon on the table. Small daggers of chi aimed themselves at the helpful customer. He would have one hell of a headache for the rest of day.

Harvey huddled in the doorway outside, sipping the coffee as he let the cigarette burn into a slim grey stack of ash. His path was set now. His future determined as surely as if it was written. The first was dead. The others would follow.

Officers in overalls packed the tent away, bundled into the grey van and drove off. The only evidence of Donald Grace's final landing place was the acid-cleaned markings on the pavement.

The final plain clothed detective exited the building and made her way across the street. She carried a heavy box in her arms, which she placed into the passenger side of a car before slipping into the driver side.

Harvey's throat seized up and he bit into the styrofoam cup. Why would she remove anything from the office? Could she suspect that the suicide wasn't a natural phenomenon?

He noted her scowl as she swerved to miss a man overladen with gifts directly in front of the cafe. She was attractive, in an ice-queen pouty sort-of-way. She glanced towards the cafe and they locked eyes. For a moment she reached out and stole his breath away with her frost blue eyes. Then she was gone, speeding away in her car and lost in the flow of traffic.

Harvey took a moment, then pulled out the paper and flicked to the horoscopes. She was an Aries, that much was clear. He read her star sign for the day and relaxed. She wasn't having a good day. And from the monthly forecast, it looked like she wasn't about to have any good fortune for the foreseeable future.

*

Amanda dumped the cardboard box onto her desk and slid all other paperwork into a hastily opened drawer, which she closed with a snap. She unpacked the files from Donald Grace’s office and stacked them on either side of her desk. With a fresh pad in front of her, she wrote the heading 'suicide or murder?' and underlined it twice.

Tapping the pen to her lips, she leant back in her chair and allowed her attention to drift outside. From the window next to her desk she had a clear view of the courtyard and busy main road beyond. The courtyard was a grey concrete square with red brick flower beds that had once contained flowers but was now hard packed dirt with cigarette packs and beer cans for decoration. In the centre stood a large oak tree that, despite the lack of care, flourished. It was obstinate and unmovable.

Amanda often stared out at the tree as she ran through her paperwork, prepared statements for court or circled jobs in the local papers. Jobs she would never apply for, of course, but it kept her sane. She watched the tree flow through the seasons. Bursting into fresh, eager buds, mellowing into a darker, relaxed green, settling into the yellow and brown before shedding all leaves in late autumn to recuperate in winter before it started all over again. At the moment it was grey and leafless and restful.

Looking out at the tree often gave her inspiration. Or maybe it was a welcome distraction.

Pulling the first file from the stack, she laid it open and prepared to make notes on anything that may raise suspicion. She poured over file after file hoping that something would leap out at her, but it soon became obvious that she didn’t know what she was looking for, if indeed evidence existed in the financial reports of the dozens of stock holdings.

Each report listed reams of numbers beside innocuous titles. Most of the figures ended in brackets. Negative amounts, she discovered. The portfolios were losing money, but not a huge amount, and compared to the size of the investments, hardly a worry. The summary at the beginning of each report, signed by Grace, explained short term difficulties and the strength of the Asian Tiger and Russian Bear. Soft-soaping blurb to make the portfolio owners relax about the state of their financial affairs.

Reaching for the box, she examined the rest of the items claimed from Grace's drawer. Used post-it notes with names and numbers and a scrapbook. The receptionist had been helpful with the removal of property, looking over Amanda as she went through Grace’s effects, signing her name as witness to the box-full of papers. A thorough investigation may unearth reasons for murder. A warrant for the search of his home, or seizure of the computers so that they could be ripped apart by the tech department. But Amanda would need to prove that there was reason for the man-hours and resources to be committed. If she could not convince her immediate superior, Detective Sergeant Kirkwood, that Grace had been murdered, then she had no chance of requisitioning tech to further her hazy theory.

Unfortunately, nothing seemed to make sense. There were no connections to be made. Not even wild leaps of intuition that could be supported. It seemed Grace was a business orientated man, as his desk drawer held little personal effects. He was not married, no dependants, no social life to speak of, and his out of office hours seemed to involve dining with clients or time spent alone at home.

A notebook at the back of the drawer, beneath sachets of sugar and parking tickets, had the name ‘Valentine Trust’ scored deeply in the pages, as if Grace was frustrated or angry, and gripped the pen hard whilst he wrote the name. Amanda noted the name and circled it with an arrow towards the label ‘Financial Crimes Unit’.

The only unusual item Amanda found odd was a flyer for a Conservative MP by-election from 2002. A council member called Peter Masters was running for a Cambridgeshire borough with a manifesto that pitched him as a male equivalent of Margaret Thatcher. That the flyer would be kept all these years was a wonder. The manifesto photograph had been disfigured with devil horns and a trident beard doodled onto his face, with scars and an arrow through his head drawn in with different coloured pens. Perhaps he had known Peter Masters. School friend?

Taking a fresh approach, Amanda scribbled ideas and thoughts in a free form pattern on a new piece of paper. Drawing bubbles around major ideas, lines with stylised arrows looping around the page, linking idea to idea. She had the vague notion of something, an inkling that tugged away at her thoughts, but she needed to make sense of it before she pitched the concept to Kirkwood.

The vague jigsaw of events seemed unrelated, but she suspected there was more to the suicide than Monday morning blues. There was something that kept niggling at her. She looked out at the tree and let her mind walk through imaginary scenarios. She lay the reports to one side, ripped out the sheet of ideas and placed it on top of the pile. Then she turned on the computer and began to write up her report.

Detectives drifted in and out of the open plan offices as shifts changed. The noise levels dipped and peaked, but Amanda tuned out any distractions. At one point the serial killer task force rushed from the offices, grabbing coats as they bundled through the door. Amanda glanced up, watching the men and women rush from the office, and then returned to her work.

Officers passed by her desk, someone even shouted out her name, but she was concentrating so hard that the world did not exist beyond the sixteen inch pale screen before her.

She stretched out after what seemed like hours at the keyboard and reached for her coffee. The last mouthfuls were cold and sweet, but she gulped them down anyway. An idea was taking shape. If only she could grasp that elusive thread that seemed to weave itself through the events. If only - -

A podgy hand slammed down hard on the desk, pinning a familiar leaflet beneath sausage fingers. DC Moore beamed down at her, his hand placed on a photocopy of the infamous lonely hearts advert.

'Are you trawling for more dates amongst that lot?' Moore laughed, peering round the disinterested office for appreciation to his finely honed wit.

'Very good, Mo-mo. The donuts are over there. Now if you don't mind, I'm a little busy.'

'Busy. Yeah, so I heard. On the trail of the teenage shoplifter? What next - the mystery of the lollipop sign thief?'

Amanda, more annoyed at the break in her concentration than any attempt to humiliate her, turned to Moore.

'The “Hot Date wanted” adverts were a real scream about, oh, four months ago. If you're so keen on disturbing a woman go and jack off on some webcam. Just leave me in peace.'

'You got a smart mouth,' Moore snarled, mouthing the word 'bitch'.

‘Look, we can do this one of two ways. You can stand there and look dumb, or you can go and play catch-up with the Yardie troubles. Just leave me be, huh.’

Moore rose up slowly, scratched at his belly and opened his mouth as if to speak. Instead, he yawned loudly, turned and left. Amanda scowled, returning to her report when another shadow passed by her desk.

‘Oh for crying out loud,’ she muttered. But instead of Moore, DS Kirkwood crabbed along the aisle and sat at the desk opposite.

‘Someone giving you hassle?’ he asked, flicking open a newspaper and settling into the chair.

‘No.’

'You have anything for me there?' Kirkwood asked, nodding towards the box of files.

'Scotch mist, perhaps,’ Amanda said. ‘But there may be something here I'll want to run past you.’

'Fine, come to me when you’re ready.' Kirkwood shrugged and turned back to his paper.

Amanda continued her research into the death of Donald Grace, dissecting his life from the scant documents in the cardboard box. She made three separate mind maps to bring her theories together, and before she knew it the offices were deserted and it was dark outside, the gnarled branches of the oak tree barely visible in the courtyard.

*

'Are you out of your mind?' DS Kirkwood yelled at Amanda in the privacy of his office.

The two of them were alone in the department and were sat in a small glass-fronted office in the corner of the open plan room. He threw the ten page report onto the desk with a force that caused the venetian blinds to rattle.

Amanda braced herself for the defence of her theory. She had slept on the random facts floating through her mind until they began to make a warped kind of logic. She had awoke early and leapt out of bed, ready to propose that she initiate a murder investigation into the death of Donald Grace.

'Let me explain,’ she said. ‘Someone was in his office just minutes before he was killed. The pest controller.'

Kirkwood glanced at the ceiling, breathing in long and deep before letting the tremors in his chest subside.

'He committed suicide. Middle-aged stockbroker takes a tumble in light of poor investments. You have it right there in your box.’ Kirkwood nodded at the brown cardboard container on the floor. ‘The same box, I hope, that you will be taking back to the stockbroker's offices this morning with a heartfelt apology for your enthusiasm.'

'The pest controller has yet to be found, let alone interviewed,’ said Amanda. ‘Those offices weren't infected by cockroaches, they were brought in on purpose. I found cockroaches in the kitchen and when I checked out the restaurant, it had been closed down for hygiene. I think the cockroaches were planted in the offices and the pest controller used chemicals to make Grace delirious, perhaps suicidal.'

'Or,' Kirkwood's voice pitched low. 'One of the cleaners had a Chinese and threw the rubbish in the kitchen, cockroaches were attracted to the smell. And the bug guy did a lousy job.'

'His card is missing. I think he stole it back when he left the offices.'

'Stole it back? It was his card.' Kirkwood rocked back in his chair and shook his head incredulously. 'And no one else has been throwing themselves from his office window due to gas poisoning. Lemmings anonymous have not been queuing up to make their final leap, despite numerous people walking through the offices. You included, I might add.'

'There are questions unanswered. I still believe his death wasn't natural.'

'No, it wasn't natural. It was suicide. Pavement pizza. And I am not going to approve further resources on your wild stabs at criminal intentions. No matter how nicely you've done those flowchart timelines. It just ain't happening.'

'There is more to this than meets the eye. There are witnesses unaccounted for. That makes it a suspicious death. Jigsaw pieces of this particular puzzle that just don't fit.'

Kirkwood relaxed into his chair and glanced about the office through the blinds. 'Do you want to talk to me about the real reason for all this?' His tone softened, as much as a forty-pack-a-day voice could.

'The reason?'

'I know you've been handed these crappy jobs. I’m trying to get you assigned something with more bite. There's a “with menaces” case in the pipeline. Perhaps even room on the DIY serial killer task force.

‘You're not happy here, but it will pass. They can be a bunch of assholes, but coppers have a short attention span and it'll be someone else's turn soon enough. Pack mentality. They’ll turn on an easier target soon enough. But you can't create a case if it's not there. Especially something as flimsy as this murder-not-suicide fantasy.'

Amanda withdrew. Her theory, under scrutiny from a detached third party, could not hold up. And though she felt there was more to Grace's death than suicide, she could not gather enough evidence to even begin an investigation. What was worse, Kirkwood thought this grasp at a murder enquiry was a flight of fancy brought on by her desire to transfer to another station. She studied his wide, blunt face. He was earnest in his appeal.

'I know I have something here, Sarge. And I appreciate you listening it over. I'll get the belongings back and thanks for looking out for me. Maybe I am getting stir crazy – and any chance of attachment to the DIY killer case would be good. Even a “with menaces” case would help break the monotony. Anything more interesting than interviewing another tic-tac popping methadone abuser would be a relief.'

Kirkwood studied Amanda. He knew she was playing him, but he didn't care. 'Get some breakfast. The cafeteria opens in five minutes. It's another glorious day on the job.'

'Will do,' Amanda sighed. She took hold of her report and left the office. Making her way to the top floor cafeteria, she waited whilst the cook and serving staff completed their pre-opening ritual, banging cutlery and clanging dishes until the shutters were pulled open.

Amanda ordered a light breakfast, sat at a window and stared out onto the early morning traffic. What had possessed her? A ridiculous situation where she had let her imagination get the better of her, letting fly with a fanciful murder investigation worthy of a Miss Marple novel. Kirkwood was mostly right. She did want out. She wanted to escape, and perhaps that was why she let her imagination run. Created a theory and tried to force them into a shape of murderous intent.

Amanda finished her breakfast and returned to her desk. The office was filling up with detectives and she settled into her chair, switching on the computer and grabbing the first internal envelope on top of the tray.

The envelope, from the administration department, contained the results of an email yesterday, requesting a breakdown of the numerous parking fines that were listed under Donald Grace. Each fine had the initials ‘VT’ circled on the corner and were incurred every three months in or around Threadneedle Street, the heart of the finance sector within the City of London.

They were all paid for by a ‘Duvalier & Rose’, a law firm within the city’s financial district.

Chapter four

The windowless room was decorated in mute autumnal colours of gentle brown and yellow pastel. Ceiling lights and tall, skinny palms alternated around the edge of the room. A fireplace on one long wall had a display of roses as centre-piece, each bloom tight and pert, bought fresh that morning. Bookcases, one either end of the room, were filled with leather-bound books buffed to a shine.

A large table dominated the room, covered in a red velvet tablecloth that draped to the floor at either end. Seven high backed chairs surrounded the table, six place settings with an ornately folded napkin and an empty glass before each one, a decanter of water within easy reach. The place setting before the seventh chair was empty, the chair itself tilted against the table.

The door opened and a heavy-set man entered the room. Bishop Reginald White. He wore a scarlet red shirt beneath a black jacket, a red dog collar with white flash at the throat, status of his office as Bishop. A jewelled gold cross swung around his midrift from a long gold chain slung around his neck. He hesitated at the empty place setting, a fleeting look of puzzlement, then continued round the table, sitting heavily into a chair accustomed to his weight, and lay his hands on his generous stomach, rubbing the gold cross with his thumbs.

A second man entered the room. David Masters. Tall and imposing, he strode into the room as if walking to a platform before an audience. He stopped at an empty place setting, brushed an imaginary crumb from the ornate napkin, and pulled the chair noisily from the table. The two regarded each other silently.

Continue reading this ebook at Smashwords.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-38 show above.)