Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 01 - Cocoa and Chanel (13 page)

We had no luck finding Lizette on the main streets of the Cross. Eventually we ran into Bianca who gave us directions to the apartment Lizette had shared with Rosie. It was in the seedier part of town, where the street lights were spaced far apart and the shadows were long and scary. Her apartment backed onto a lane, and after a few minutes of knocking on her door and calling her name we went around the back to see if there was any movement through the windows.

The lane was dark and scary, as most lanes in King’s Cross tended to be. The place was the perfect setting for a horror movie.

‘She just
had
to live in the last building, didn’t she,’ I muttered to Mum and Martine.

I was glad they were with me; there was no way I would have had the courage to come down here by myself. As it was I was at the pee-my-pants end of terror.

Finally we made it to her building and I stared up at it while I tried to work out which apartment was hers. ‘It’s this one,’ I said, moving to stand under a darkened window.

I wasn’t looking where I was going, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when my foot caught in a pile of rubbish. My momentum carried me forwards and without the use of my left foot I stumbled and fell, crashing through the nest of newspaper and onto something soft. My first thought, as I floundered around trying to get my feet back underneath me, was that I had landed on a homeless person.

I could feel hands, Martine’s by the size, helping me up. Once I was standing I looked down into the mess.

Blood rushed to my head, my vision tunnelled, and for a minute everything became very strange. Reality turned into snapshots of time, each one holding my attention perfectly until the next one intruded.

Lizette, curled into a foetal position.

Round, red welts cover her arms.

An open pink bag, its contents spewed onto the ground.

A ragged gash in her neck.

Someone is screaming.

Martine bent at the waist, liquid splattering the pavement.

Something red smeared on my shirt.

Mum’s mouth moving in slow motion.

My hands, coated with a wet red liquid.

Mum, shaking my shoulders.

Oh my God, it’s blood. It’s her blood.

She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead.

The sting of a hand contacted with my cheek. My head snapped to the side and the screaming stopped as I drew in a sharp breath. And then my vision spiralled outwards and normality returned.

Mum stood in front of me, her hand raised to strike again.

‘I’m okay,’ I said, panting. Tears streamed down my face. I hadn’t realised I was crying. But then I hadn’t realised I’d been screaming either.

Poor Lizette: so young and vulnerable, so very, very dead.

I resisted the urge to start wailing again and instead dug around inside my bag, emerging with a small rectangle of cardboard. I punched the numbers on the card into my phone. It rang three times before it was answered.

‘Yes?’ Roger said. I could hear water in the background? Was he showering? Was he at this very moment naked? The thought would have distracted me if the nature of my call had not been so serious.

‘Lizette is dead.’ I sniffled and wiped my nose on my shirt.

‘Chanel?’

‘The one and only.’

‘Where are you?’

I gave him the address, hoping he would be there fast. I waited for him on the corner of the lane trying not to think about three things.

She was still warm. She hadn’t been dead very long. The killer was near.

Roger turned up as quickly as I had hoped, another car with a forensic team not that far behind.

‘Did you touch the crime scene?’ he said.

‘I fell on her.’ I shuddered at the memory. ‘She was hidden under garbage.’

‘What were you doing here?’ His voice was exasperated.

‘I wanted to talk to her.’ A tear trailed down my cheek. I had failed badly.

He reached out and brushed it away and then pulled me into an embrace. When he let me go – far too quickly I might add – he shook his head. ‘You’re like some sort of danger magnet,’ he said. ‘I think I should keep you closer.’ And then he walked off to examine the body.

Martine and Mum were huddled by the corner. Martine’s make-up was a mess. Mascara trailed down her face, lipstick smudged her cheeks and hands. Mum on the other hand seemed quite composed. I guess it helped that she hadn’t known Lizette, but even then, I had vomited at my first body.

We were all interviewed before we were allowed to go, so it was near midnight before we were safely home. ‘You all right,’ I asked Mum. I was worried she might be in shock.

‘You see a lot of dead bodies when you live in Las Vegas,’ she said, shrugging a shoulder. ‘I know it was a long time ago, but that sort of thing, well… it stains your soul.’

I knew what she meant. My horror tonight hadn’t just been about a corpse. This had been personal. Lizette had made her own choices, but I had let her down.

Killer one, Chanel none. It was time to try and even the score.

I wasn’t surprised when Roger came in late the next day. They must have been there till the wee hours of the morning. I
was
surprised when Ramy called me into his office and took me off desk duty.

Roger was waiting for me when I re-emerged, dizzy with the relief of not having been given my last formal warning. ‘Howdy partner,’ he said.

‘You look like shit,’ I told him. It wasn’t true at all. He may have looked tired and unshaven but he still looked sexy as hell. I peered closer, admiring the view. ‘Is that a black eye?’

‘You should see the other guy.’ He smiled and winked. ‘Come on Bun, let’s get out of here.’

‘Me with you?’

‘I told you last night, I’m going to keep you closer.’

Dear God.
I had trouble framing a coherent sentence when he was close enough to smell his aftershave. I didn’t know how I was going to go if I was permanently on the beat with him.

‘Did you speak to Ramy?’ I had assumed the cessation of my desk duty punishment was to allow some other sucker the position.

‘That. And Bob’s being punished for his slovenly appearance.’

‘He does get a lot of tomato sauce on his shirt.’

‘Yesterday a pensioner with a dicky heart thought it was blood and they had to call an ambulance.’

I was almost sure he was joking, but in this game the weirdest things happened.

As Roger and I were heading towards the front door we saw Daniel running down the stairs. ‘Fire!’ he yelled as he opened the door.

‘Where?’ Roger asked.

‘Up the road at the shops. I think it’s the tobacconist.’

Roger turned to look at me. I was pretty sure the horror on his face mirrored my own.

I could smell the smoke as soon as we left the building, taste the sootiness in the air. Roger was much faster than I was and he left me far behind as we raced towards the shop.

Pillars of flame were already licking up the second storey of the building; the tobacconist was a ball of fire. Bystanders were gathered on the other side of the road watching the disaster unfold.

‘Did anybody come out?’ Roger yelled at them.

‘They didn’t have time,’ a man with a Zimmer frame said. ‘There was an explosion about five minutes ago.’

Roger raced to the side lane, where a small door exited the shop. I watched him touch the back of his hand to the handle and then he grasped it and pulled. I’m still not sure if there was a second detonation, or if the influx of oxygen to the previously sealed site fed the flames to a ferocious new intensity, but as Roger opened the door a wall of flames shot out through the opening. They coalesced on him, lovingly licking his body.

‘No,’ I screamed as I ran towards him.

He dropped to the ground and rolled, trying to extinguish the fire which burned on the front of his uniform. I leapt on top of him, smothering them with my body, but the damage was already done.

‘Ah shit,’ he said as he looked down. The fire had burnt through his shirt in multiple places, and the red raw flesh of his stomach was visible.
He sniffed at it. ‘Smells like chicken.’

‘That’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard,’ I said, climbing carefully off him.

I looked down at his gut. Most of it was blistered but in some areas the blisters had been torn by his attempts to stop the flames. All in all it didn’t look too bad. But that’s the thing about burns – they look their best when they’re fresh.

‘That’s got to hurt,’ I said. ‘I mean I’m hurting just looking at it.’

‘Actually,’ he said, pushing my arm back, ‘you’re burnt too.’

I looked down at my arm
.
There was a burn the size of a small egg on the front of my forearm. It was nothing compared to Roger’s though, so I bit my tongue and tried to ignore the pain.

His face convulsed and he lay back on the pavement breathing rapidly. I could hear the fire brigade’s approach and I was praying there was an ambulance with it. I wanted to stay with him, but I knew he would be better served by my action than my company. I staggered up off the ground and down to the street. The ambulance was visible behind the fire truck so I waved them down and brought them up to Roger. Crouching down beside him I took his hand in mine.

‘That looks pretty nasty mate,’ Steve, the ambulance officer said. He handed Roger a green plastic pipe. Roger put one end in his mouth and puffed on it and then lay back with a grin on his face.

‘What is that?’ I said to Steve.

‘The green whistle.’

I stared at him blankly.

‘Methoxyflurane. Penthrox.’

I still had no idea what he was talking about, but by the look on Roger’s face I was guessing it was some good shit.

‘Bun,’ Roger said, staring up at me. He took another puff of the green whistle and giggled. ‘Cute bunny bun.’

I didn’t know what it was but I had to get me some of it.

‘Bunny bun, will you go out with me?’

‘Will he remember this tomorrow?’ I asked Steve.

‘Probably not.’

‘Bunny got burnt too,’ Roger said. He reached up and undid the top button on my work blouse and pulled it open. Damn the burns and the audience, I was wishing we were alone and all our skin was intact.

‘Actually it’s on my arm,’ I said, holding it up for Steve to see, ‘and it’s nothing.’

I was desperately hoping he’d hand me one of those green thingies as well, but he looked at it and said, ‘It’s going to hurt, (like I didn’t know that) we’ll take you to the hospital and get it looked at.’

Given the options of going back to work and possibly being put back on the front counter versus a free ride in an ambulance, I was going to take the ambulance ride every time. I let them bundle me into the back with Roger who clutched me with one hand and the green train with the other.

‘Here,’ Roger said, handing me the whistle.

I thought about refusing it. But hey, my arm was really stinging. ‘Thanks,’ I said, taking a puff.

Man that stuff was awesome. I handed it to Roger and sank back against the other stretcher.

‘I meant what I said Bun.’ Roger seemed to be having a lucid moment but I was in lala land. ‘Chanel.’ He shook my hand.

‘Yeah.’ I could still feel the pain in my arm but it was faint and distant, as if it belonged to a Chanel in a different time space continuum.

‘I meant it when I asked you out.’

‘Roger,’ I said, ‘you shouldn’t be thinking about things like that. You need to concentrate on getting better.’

‘Promise me you’ll go out with me and that will help me focus on getting better.’

He looked so handsome, so vulnerable, lying on that stretcher. A pale sheen of sweat covered his face. His blue eyes were still bright but as I watched they creased with the effort of controlling the pain.

‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll go out on a date with you. Now suck that damned whistle.’

‘You’re even cuter when you’re worried,’ he said, smiling. He lay his head back down and lifted the green whistle to his lips.

It didn’t take long to get to the hospital. They wheeled us into the emergency ward and the doctors took Roger straight through into the treatment area. I was handed over to a nurse who gave me some painkillers and then dressed my burn.

‘Can you tell me how Detective Richardson is?’ I asked her when she had finished.

‘Was that the officer you came in with?’

I nodded my head while I examined my bandage.

‘Wait here,’ she told me, ‘I’ll go see.’

The look on her face was grave when she came back. ‘He’s got third degree burns and is going to need skin grafts.’

Skin grafts? That didn’t sound like fun.

I couldn’t think of a reason to hang around any longer, except maybe to check out the doctors – and that didn’t seem right given the situation Roger was in – so I managed to get Steve to give me a lift back to the station.

Ramy sent me home for the day on sick leave but before I left I found out from Bob that a body had been retrieved from the fire. It was so badly burnt they would need forensics to identify it but my money was on it being the shop owner.

A paid day off is on my list of top ten favourite things. Unfortunately the pain from my burn made it impossible to do anything enjoyable. I took some more painkillers and lay on my bed with Cocoa while Mum fussed around me. She headed off to Dazzle in the early afternoon to start rehearsals for the competition which left me with far too much thinking time. My thoughts went round and round.

The old man had said there was an explosion. Had it been an accident? Was it possible the fire had been coincidental and nothing to do with our investigation?

And then I remembered something. Last night there had been one main difference at the crime scene. Lizette’s arms had been covered with burns from something the size of a cigarette. Or a Hula Girl Cigar. Why would the killer have done that this time?

And then the next morning the very shop that sold those cigars was burnt to the ground, possibly with the person who had the information we needed in it.

Was it possible the tobacconist had questioned the killer? Had the killer become suspicious? Had he gone back to the other sites and realised that the butts he left were gone?

A cold sweat broke out on my body and suddenly I knew for sure. He had known when he’d killed Lizette we were on to him. He had eliminated the last witness and then gone after our informant. He was clever and deadly and he had to be stopped. I just hoped we had the information we needed to do it, and I wouldn’t know that till I could talk to Roger.

***

Talking to Roger was harder than it sounded. I mean it’s impossible to have a two way conversation with someone who is in a coma. I had freaked out when the nurse had told me, until she had explained it was a medically induced coma.

‘The pain would be too much for him to bear, deary. It’s the kindest way for him to heal.’

I mean I really wanted Roger to heal, the faster the better – it was dead boring at work without him, but I also wanted to know if the poor tobacconist (may he rest in peace) had given him any names. I was guessing the DNA results would be back by now and it was possible we were holding all the cards where the killer was involved.

He was in a coma for a week, and then the next couple of times I visited he was asleep. I was so tempted to wake him, but even asleep his face held the shadow of pain, and I didn’t want to wake him to that.

It was almost two weeks after the accident that I finally got to talk to Roger. He was sitting up in bed, reading the newspaper when I arrived one afternoon after work.

‘Bun.’ He sounded delighted to see me. I wondered if he remembered asking me out on a date.

‘I would have brought flowers but I’m only a Probationary Constable so I can’t afford any,’ I said.

He smiled and patted the side of the bed. If the expression on his face was anything to go by, even that small movement had been painful.

I perched there precariously, trying to get comfortable without jostling him. ‘How’s it going?’ I said, nodding my head towards his stomach.

‘I was lucky, it was only medium rare.’ He moved a leg and winced. ‘Skin graft,’ he said, pointing at it.

‘They took it from there?’

He nodded his head, watching my face with a smile. ‘Go on.’

‘What?’ I said.

‘You know you want to ask.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said.

‘You want to know what colour the hair on my legs is.’

I could feel myself blushing profusely. ‘I do not. But since you obviously want to talk about it will it be a different colour?’

He laughed. ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’

Christ.
If my face got any brighter you’d be able to put me on a Christmas tree. I was having trouble breathing being that close to him. He wasn’t wearing any aftershave but he still smelt earthy and salty and…manly. Did he taste salty? I had a sudden urge to lick his neck.

‘Did the results come back?’ I said.

‘Yes and I’m pregnant.’

‘Be serious,’ I said.

‘I am serious and don’t call me Shirley.’

I looked at the intravenous tube coming out of his arm. ‘What are they giving you?’

‘Pethadeine.’

‘I’m not going to get a sensible sentence out of you am I?’

‘Probably not.’

I sighed. ‘Shall I come back tomorrow?’

‘Yes and don’t spare the horses.’

***

Mum was packing her bags when I got home. She looked up when I came through the door. ‘I’m moving out.’

‘Is it me?’ I probably hadn’t been the best flatmate over the last couple of weeks.

‘No silly. Another apartment came up in the building. We’re going to be neighbours.’

‘Mum, how are you going to afford the rent?’

‘Well with the rent I’m getting for the house in Hickery and with what Bruce is paying me…’

‘Whoa, back up. Bruce is paying you?’