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jacket back on. The feather didn’t move. Curious , she thought, supposing it must be an aerodynamic thing. Stowing it in an inside pocket, she donned her helmet and stirred the bike into gear. Things were getting weird. It was definitely time to get home.

 
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
    DCS Ellen Carr stood at the window of her airy city apartment, wine in hand, looking out to the west. The full-length windows spanning the width of her apartment, affording her an unsurpassed view of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, which dominated the London skyline even at night. She changed her focus as she caught her own reflection in the tinted glass. She self-consciously smoothed her skirt, noticing again the unwanted bulges at the hips. Recently she’d resorted to telling herself that being well above average height, she could carry a little extra weight better than most. But the reflection did not lie. At fifty, she was exercising too little, drinking too much, and relying on her blaze of strawberry-blond hair to carry the day. It wasn’t working. She sighed and hoped her partner, Janice Finlay, a barrister with high-rolling London law firm, Cranston Lock, who now sat cross-legged on the low couch behind her, hadn’t noticed. She wrestled her thoughts back to her job—and in particular, Billy McBride about whose sudden death she had been advised just minutes earlier.
    “Billy was an irascible old sod, you know,” Ellen said. “He had a thirst like an Iraqi bricklayer as well. Lord he could chuck it down.”
    Finlay laughed despite the somber mood since the news of his demise.
    “Where do you get these sayings?”
    Carr let the remark pass. She knew exactly where she got them—mainly from the working class, underpaid stooges that worked for her. A good bunch, she thought, but not a lot of talent. Too many of them were like Billy McBride–just wanting to get paid and go home half-liquored so they could face their dumpy wives and feign interest in the kids. But Billy had been alright once. She was old enough to remember when he had cut a reasonable figure in uniform. It was his promotion to CID that had done him in. She remembered too that the Hungerford massacre back in 1987 had worried him deeply. There had been too many bodies, too much emotion. There was only so much you could take in this job—everybody knew there was a use-by date—the trick was knowing when to look at your label. She turned back towards her partner who was pouring another Sauvignon Blanc for herself.
    “Maybe it’s time I gave this game away, Janice.”
    “You’re not planning on dying on me too now, are you?”
    Carr smiled despite her melancholia. “No, but the future belongs to the kids. Smart kids like St. Clair.” Despite her concerns about her weight and Janice’s forty-something, stick-thin, corporate look proclaiming an admirable dietary discipline, her willpower failed her again. She held her glass out for a refill. “You know St. Clair read at Trinity College?”
    Janice was impressed. “Well, well, my Alma Mater. She’s no slouch then.”
    This was said as a matter of fact. Cambridge grads were not destined to become waitresses or coppers pounding the beat.
    “Why is she slogging it out through the ranks of the CID then?”
    “Because she believes in it—how rare is that ?” Ellen waved her hand holding the wine, spilling some on the tile floor. “She told me that at her job interview, and you know what? She convinced me absolutely. I believed her then, and I still do.”
    A light bulb went off for Janice.
    “She’s nothing to do with Professor David St. Clair by any chance?”
    Ellen nodded and smiled. “Well done. Yes, he’s her father.”
    “Aha,” Janice chuckled. “No wonder she’s bright then, Ellen. Hang on to her. David is a bit of a wiz really. Very impressive.”
    Ellen nodded. “He is. Here’s another snippet for you. Her Mother is Suzie Whiteman.”
    “Whiteman… not the children’s