Needing (14 page)

Langham’s mouth left his, and he peppered kisses across Oliver’s cheek to his earlobe. He sucked the plump softness inside, swirling his tongue, sending Oliver to a place he’d previously only visited in his daydreams, his dreams at night. A hoarse groan escaped Oliver, one he hadn’t expected to erupt, and it startled his eyes open. Langham appraised him as he kissed and sucked, and the knowledge of that turned Oliver on to such a degree that pre-cum oozed from his dick.

“Jesus, Langham,” he breathed, chest as tight as his balls. “We can’t… D’you
like
picking places where we can’t go on? Where we might get caught?”

He released Oliver’s earlobe. “No, it just happens that way. I wish we were at your place, my place, anywhere but here.”

“Me too, but we have to go. Too much to get done.” He panted as Langham moved his hand up Oliver’s thigh to cover his bulging erection. The touch almost sent Oliver over the edge. “And it isn’t…like I don’t want us to do this. Me…saying we ought to get going. But we…do.”

Langham kneaded, tongue flashing across Oliver’s lower lip.

“Fuck, Langham, will you
stop
that? We’ll get caught!”

Langham pulled away, leaving a void in his wake. Oliver wanted that hand back on his cock, that tongue back in his mouth.

“So,” Langham said, all business again. “After we run the plate at the station and find out who owns Privo, we go to the morgue.”

Oliver woke right up out of his sexual stupor over that. He sat upright, mouth agape for a few seconds. Then, “What?”

“You heard me. The morgue. You need to get your feet wet there sometime. Besides, we’ve still got our booties on. May as well put them to good use.”

Oliver stared down at his feet. “They’re dirty. We’ll need clean ones.”

“Whatever. Excuses won’t work. We need to see Louise. And you wanted it this way, remember? Wanted in on everything this time.”

Oliver had—did—but the thought of seeing Louise in such a sterile place, tools poking into places they had no right to be, made his guts roll over. “Right. Yeah.”

He remained silent as Langham drove them back to the station, his mind not on Louise and what lay ahead, but on what had just happened. They’d kissed. They’d fucking kissed! Jesus Christ, he wanted to smile so hard that his cheeks hurt. Wanted to punch the air and let out a childish whoop. But he didn’t. Instead, he kept quiet, reliving the feel of his man’s tongue on his, the way it had probed, investigating the contours of his mouth for the first time, Oliver reciprocating. It had felt good, all kinds of right, and he couldn’t wait for the next phase.

But he’d have to. The station appeared out of nowhere as Oliver came out of his daydream, the car parked, engine shut off. They exited, strode inside the station as though what had occurred between them hadn’t, and went into Langham’s office. The detective sat at his desk, tapping the keys and moving the mouse. He threw himself back into his chair with a sigh, the chair scooting backwards a bit, banging into a metal filing cabinet behind.

“It isn’t him,” he said. “Yet I could have sworn it was.”

Was it weird for Oliver to feel relief? “Who is it, then?”

“A woman. Cordelia Shields. Fifty-four. Lives in that big house up by the river. You know the one?”

Yeah, Oliver knew it. Reminded him of a damn mansion every time he saw it, with those white walls and fake Greek columns holding up a veranda that skirted halfway up the property and all around. He’d often wondered who lived there, and now he knew, although the name didn’t ring any bells.

“So now we need to know why a man was driving her car, why he visited Glenn and why the fuck he took her away.”

Oliver nodded. The day was pushing into evening, which meant time was pressing if they wanted to visit Louise then Cordelia Shields. And if they wanted to quit work, have their date, and get some damn sleep.

“Morgue first?” Oliver asked.

“Yeah, morgue first. I’m beginning to think this fucking day will never end.”

“Me too.”

Chapter Twelve

The overhead morgue lights gleamed onto the metal table holding Louise’s remains, the glare bright enough to hurt Oliver’s eyes. To actually be here, with different scents combating for dominance—the tart stench of disinfectant, the whiff of dead bodies, his fresh sweat—gave him a sense of disembodiment. Like he viewed it on a screen, wasn’t
really
here with a room along the corridor holding drawer upon drawer of corpses. Who the fuck would
choose
this as a profession? Who would want those smells inside their noses even after they went home? Those smells seeping deep into their skin so they were never free of them despite bathing? He felt dirty, wanted a shower so badly, so God knew what the mortician felt like. Maybe he was used to it. Maybe even
liked
it.

Oliver wanted to throw up at the thought.

But that mortician, a kind-eyed, black-haired, rotund man of about forty, tended to Louise with such care and respect that Oliver changed his mind about him and his job. Someone had to do it.

Langham introduced the man to Oliver as Hank, and Oliver would have shaken his hand in any other circumstance, but the bloodied latex gloves ensured he kept his arms by his sides.

“I’ve sent the sugar strands and some hairs—fortunately for us some have the root still attached—to forensics. Other hairs, well, they’re not real. I’d say they were synthetic,” Hank said.

Langham nodded, stepped closer to the table. “Yes, the guy wore a wig. We know who he is anyway, but the confirmation would only strengthen our case.”

“Ah, always the last to know these things, me.” Hank smiled and continued his perusal of Louise’s insides. “Nasty business, this. And there’s more of them there, waiting in their silent way for me to find out what they have to say despite being dead.” He nodded over at three more tables, bodies covered with white sheets.

Oliver wondered why they weren’t refrigerated while Hank worked on Louise, but he dreaded the answer he’d receive. There might not be enough room in the fridges… Best to mind his own business.

“All related murders, I’m told,” Hank went on. He walked to a shiny whiteboard on the wall beside the door. “A Mark Reynolds, Geraldine Reynolds and Ronan Dougherty here as well as Louise. I really ought to get them in the fridge, but I’m short-handed today.” He eyed them with hope. “No? Don’t fancy helping me cart them down the way? Didn’t think you would. So, this is a serial, yes?” He moved back over to Louise, peeling back what was left of the skin on her face.

Oliver felt like fainting.

“Serial, yes,” Langham said. “You’ll have more bodies in shortly. Male and female. Although they’re related in the case to these poor bastards, they weren’t killed by the same person. If you’ll believe it, a young girl killed them.”

Hank shot his head up, stared at Langham with his mouth wide open. “What, a young girl killed these people here?”

“No, a man killed these four, but the girl killed the two you’ve got coming in. When you see the female victim, you’ll wonder how a four-foot kid had the strength to do what she did, but she had the help of drugs.”

“Oh my. Well…” Hank picked up an electric blade. “That sounds most disturbing. Youth of today, eh? Any road, is there anything I can help you with, because I need to…you know. Off with her head!” He slashed at the air with his blade, his red cheeks shining with sweat.

Oliver’s knees buckled, and he grabbed the table behind him, shrieking at having touched a sheet-covered foot.

Hank laughed. “Not literally, dear boy. Just cutting the top off. Need to have a wee look at her brain.”

Bile surged up Oliver’s throat and settled on the back of his tongue. Good job he hadn’t eaten lately, otherwise what he’d consumed would have splattered all over the floor. He had to get the hell out of here.

“We just needed to take a look inside Louise here, unless you can tell us what we need to know. Not that we even know what we’re looking for,” Langham said. “Inside her torso. Did you find anything there other than the strands and the hairs?”

“A bit of fibre, nothing to tell the neighbours about,” Hank said. “Apart from the fact she was hacked more after death than when she was alive, and she received an almighty whack to the back of the head with a rounded object—think metal piping, something like that—there’s nothing to report here. The others?” He shrugged. “Won’t know until I open them up, and that’s just a saying. They’re pretty much opened up already, except for the old lady. Kind killer, thinking of me like that, saving me a job.” He smiled, laughed again then gave his blade a burst of electricity. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

“If you find anything—”

“I’ll let you know. Chop-chop!” He brought the blade humming to life again and pulled a transparent visor off a table towards him. He held it up. “Wouldn’t mind putting that on for me, would you? My hands are a bit messy.”

As Langham stepped around the table to give his services, Oliver bolted from the room. How could Hank be so
jolly?
If Oliver had that job, he’d be as morose as hell. He leaned against the wall in the corridor, the sinister sound of the blade rasping on his nerves, and closed his eyes. He wanted to be sick, to run and to sleep all at the same time. Do anything to make this shit go away. Now he realised why he should have just left it at Louise’s murder site, gone home after giving a statement and forgot the whole thing. Let Langham do his job alone. And how did
he
manage to keep it all together with a job like that? His admiration for the detective grew.

Langham came out of the room, leaned one hand against the wall over Oliver’s head and looked at him with concern. “You okay?”

“I will be when we get out of here.” Oliver breathed in deeply, tasting death.

“Yep, we’re going right now. I don’t know what’s up with me today, but I forgot to run a check on who owns Privo. I’ll call it in to Shields, let him deal with it. I want to visit Cordelia Shields before it gets too late. Then we’re calling it a day. Everything will still be here tomorrow when we wake up, still one massive fucking mess.”

It was with huge relief that Oliver stepped outside into the fresh air, although faint traces of odours still lived inside his nose. He briefly wondered how long it would take for them to go away, then dismissed the thought when his stomach rumbled. How could he eat after being in there? All right, he’d seen Louise’s body in that field, but it had been different somehow. That sterile room had brought it home, really brought it home, that she was dead. What had he thought before, then? That she was a parody of a dead body lying in the grass? He didn’t know—his thoughts a jumble, coming at him from all directions until his head spun. He lurched forward, hands out to brace his fall, but Langham caught hold of his arm.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah. No. I need food. Sleep.”

“You and me both. Oh, and welcome to my world.”

“You can keep it.” Oliver walked towards Langham’s car, the detective still gripping his arm. “I don’t know how you do this day in, day out.”

At the car, Langham saw Oliver seated inside before he answered. He leaned into the open doorway, one hand on top of the car, the other dangling beside him. “It isn’t like this all the time, you know. This shit is a one-off.”

“Yeah, well. Rather you than me on a full-time basis.”

“Listen.” He brought his hand up to stroke Oliver’s face. “We’ll visit this Shields woman, and then I swear to you we’re going to your place, my place, or some fucking place, all right?”

Oliver nodded. “All right.”

* * * *

Seeing the house by the river from this distance wasn’t something Oliver had thought he’d ever do. Looking at it from afar and wondering who lived inside was as close as he’d thought he would ever get. Now, standing on the semicircular, red-brick front step beneath the veranda, his stomach rumbling and churning, he imagined what Cordelia Shields would look like.

The door swung open before the reverberating sound of the bell had died.

Cordelia Shields’ face was that of someone so much younger than fifty-four. Surgery had been kind to her, smoothing out the wrinkles she would undoubtedly have had, had she not gone under the knife. Blonde hair, salon perfect, graced her head in copious waves, some coiling on her shoulders only to continue their tumble down her chest. The ends reached below her breasts—large, augmented breasts. She sported the body of a twenty-something, well-toned and lithe. Her jogging bottoms clung to slim legs, to hips Oliver might have admired if he were that way inclined.

He glanced at Langham quickly, but if the detective were aware he didn’t show it. He kept his gaze on Mrs Shields.

“Sorry to trouble you, madam.” Langham drew out his badge. “Detective Langham. Would you mind talking to us about your car?”

“My car?” She frowned and brought one hand up to rest on her throat, the hand the only part of her that gave away her age. It was craggy with wrinkles. “Which
one,
darling?”

Her laugh got on Oliver’s nerves.

“Your black Mercedes with the licence plate 5-H-1-3-L-D-5.”

“What about it?” She smirked and arched one eyebrow, cocked her hip, leaned it against the door jamb.

Langham cleared his throat. “Who else drives it but you?”