Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

position. But the killing is also connected to the original murders somehow. I figure our original, genuine, serial killer is either dead or in prison somewhere. I am pretty sure of that. But there is a missing link that somehow connects him to Katie Ellison. That link, between the original killer and Katie, will show us who her real killer is, and why he chose to emulate the Butcher.”

“What kind of link?”

I shook my head. “That is where I keep drawing a blank. It’s something obvious, simple…”

“Hidden in plain sight.”

“Hidden in plain sight. Exactly.”

She sipped her martini, then smacked her lips. “Sadiq had plenty of motive. All that hatred and vitriol. It wouldn’t be hard to whip him up into a homicidal rage.”

I held the thought in my mind for a moment. “His motive was there, but he wasn’t. Given time, he might have done it, but he didn’t.”

“I bet he can’t spell whiskey.”

I smiled. My phone rang. I winked at Dehan and she rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, Stone.”

“Stone, it’s Lord Chiddester here. Look, sorry I wasn’t more forthcoming this morning. That man Green is a hopeless incompetent. No spine, no guts and no balls…”

“That’s a lot of anatomy he’s missing, Lord Chiddester.” I smiled at Dehan.

“Quite so. Now, I’d like to talk to you and your partner, Dehan, privately. I am fully prepared to remunerate you adequately. I am sending a car for you at the Ritz. I thought we could have drinks and a chat, with my wife, and then you could dine here with us and I’ll have my driver take you back to London in the morning. Would that be acceptable?”

I raised an eyebrow and held Dehan’s eye. “That would be fine. What time will your driver be here, sir?”

“Well, I thought after luncheon, in about an hour and a half?”

“After lunch would be perfect. I look forward to it, sir.”

“Splendid, I’ll see you later then.”

“Yup. See you later.”

I hung up. “Do I look smug?”

She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“That’s because I feel smug.” I turned to the barman and made the victory sign at him. “Let’s have another before lunch.”

NINE

We were picked up after lunch by a chauffeur in a uniform, driving a classic, dark blue Bentley S3, from 1965, when Bentleys and Rolls Royces really looked like Bentleys and Rolls Royces. We didn’t so much climb in the back as walk in and take our seats in a small drawing room. As we cruised over the river, Dehan looked around at the walnut panels and the leather upholstery and asked, “Is this what life is going to be like with you, Stone?”

There was a hint of irony in her smile. I didn’t answer, vaguely aware that it was mainly because of her that we were in that car, going where we were going.

The drive took about an hour and a half, through green fields, woodlands and hedgerows that would have been nauseating on a chocolate box, but in the real world elevated prettiness to something beyond words. We drove past Arundel Castle, silhouetted against the afternoon sky on the South Downs, skirted by the River Aun and flanked by dense woodlands.

Finally, as we began to glimpse the misty haze of the English Channel in the south, we turned in through a set of large, crested iron gates and wound through lush parkland down a gravel drive that seemed to be in no particular hurry to reach the magnificent Tudor manor house at the end. It was large, half timbered in parts and red brick in others, with tall chimneypots and cantilevered windows with small, diamond-shaped leaded panes. It was the kind of place, I told myself, I’d go to after I died, if I had been very, very good. I glanced at Dehan.

She had her narrow eyes on. “I thought this was just in the movies,” she said. “I didn’t think anybody lived like this anymore.”

The great beast eased to a stop outside a door that was older than my country, and a butler of about the same age stepped out to receive us. He gave a small bow and said, “My Lord Chiddester is in his study, if you would care to follow me...”

He led us across heavy oak floors through an oak paneled drawing room with a fireplace as big as my house, and tapped on another ancient oak door. A muted voice called, “Come!” and he stepped in.

“Detectives Stone and Dehan, M’Lord.”

Chiddester’s disembodied voice said, “Good. Show them in, Trout!”

Trout stepped aside and held the door for us. I followed Dehan in. The study wasn’t huge. It was no more than twenty feet square, with a leaded window at either end and a large fireplace in the middle, to the right of his desk. The window frames were heavy, solid beams of wood. The floors were bare boards, darkened and smoothed by the passage of centuries, and the ceiling was supported by massive wooden rafters. A low dresser held the obligatory decanters, and two bookcases held the necessary books. The room smelled of pipe tobacco and the chairs he indicated as we came in were ancient, cracked, extremely comfortable chesterfields. His face was drawn and colorless, but he attempted to smile.

“Dehan, Stone, please come in and sit. Can I offer you a drink? Perhaps a whiskey…?”

We told him that would do fine. He splashed a couple of inches into a couple of cut crystal tumblers that weighed about half a pound each and returned to his chair, behind the desk.

I began to speak, “Lord Chiddester…”

“Just Chiddester, please, I think we can dispense with the formalities.”

I nodded and smiled, and tried to get my mouth around it like it was a name. “Chiddester, I think we are going to be given our marching orders by DI Green before