Murder Club - Mark Pearson [9]
A bottle of vodka was on the table, together with two shot glasses and a bottle of Jennifer Carling’s newly prescribed sleeping pills. She had been diagnosed with clinical depression, and the pills were supposed to be a short-term measure to help her sleep while more thorough therapy was put in place for her. It was a short-term solution that provided a long-time answer.
They looked at the person who was standing in the doorway to the kitchen and, if they were hoping for sympathy in the eyes that gazed upon them, they were sorely disappointed.
‘You can do it this way, or I can make it painful for you.’
‘But why are you doing this? We don’t know you. We’ve never met you. We never hurt you.’
The elderly woman’s voice cracked as she burst into tears. Her husband patted her hand. Then he poured vodka into the shot glass and poured some pills into his wife’s open palm. He looked up at the woman, angry now as he tilted the bottle into his mouth, then swallowed the pills with the vodka. His wife swallowed hers a few at a time, her throat constricting painfully as the harsh spirit burned her throat. The man took another shot of vodka and downed it in one, then glared at the figure in the doorway.
‘Fuck you!’ he said.
‘No,’ came the reply. ‘Not me.’
Half an hour later and the couple were dead. Heads slumped motionless on the table. A card between them, face-up.
A tarot card. Major Arcana. The Lovers.
Part One
6.
The present. Friday, 19 December
NIGHT-TIME IN THE city.
Seven-thirty. Friday evening. Inner London. The western edges. North of the river. The air had crystals dancing in it. The pavements sparkled with them, as if a dusting of magic had been sprinkled over them. The night sky had clouds half-covering the low moon. A moon that broke free, now and again, from the long, floating fingers of dark cloud that tried to snaggle it in their grasp, reel it back to them. But the moon shrugged them off, sailed free like a galleon under full sail. Further east, however, even darker clouds were massing and banking together, rolling ever westwards towards London, like a slow tidal wave.
On the streets of Oxford Street and Regent Street, of Piccadilly and Haymarket, the crowds still thronged. Couples and singles laden down with packages, gift-wrapped from Fortnum & Mason, from Selfridges and Hamleys. The golden light spilling from the ornate window displays in the shop fronts onto the faces of the happy shoppers. Office workers en masse, arms linked and singing. The air rich with a heady melange of sound, traffic, laughter, taxis hooting, the swirl and cacophonous dance of carol music competing with one another as doors were opened and closed.
Christmas.
A time for sharing and love. For wassailing and mistletoe, for mulled wine and mince pies. A time for peace and goodwill to all men – whatever their religion.
At least that was the theory. Some people, however, hadn’t got the memo. Some people had other agendas – and goodwill to their fellow man was nowhere on their list. For in the hearts of some, even at Christmas (especially sometimes at Christmas), there is a black wickedness that defines humanity every bit as accurately as the charity in the hearts of good men and women.
Light and dark. Yin and yang.
Life and death.
Holland Park. Eight o’clock Friday evening
Jack Delaney sat on the edge of his daughter Siobhan’s bed.
Her head was propped back on the pillow and her eyes were tired, threatening to close at any minute, but she blinked them determinedly, keeping herself awake.
Jack grinned at her. ‘Why don’t you just shut your eyes, my darling, and go to sleep. It’s late.’
‘Because you promised me a story. And I read in the papers that Detective Inspector Jack Delaney of London England’s finest Metropolitan Police force always keeps his word!’ Siobhan said, gushing the words out with a defiant pout