The Alembic Valise Read Online Free PDF Page B

Chirico,” she had said later when they were in Jim’s car.
    “Yeah art is his passion and he can afford to indulge it. Not to put too finer point on it he made a mint from his dodgy connections in The Islands and Miami.”
    “Please don’t tell me this.”
    “Of course he is totally legitimate now.”
    And what about you in all this? Was about to be her next question but suddenly they were back at the Gate so it would have to wait.
    She had however discovered that Jim was a twin; there was a photograph that Cuthbert had pointed out to her on the wall behind his desk; two skinny boys in swimming trunks laughing, standing on the deck of a boat. They looked identical.
    “They were best of friends back then.” Cuthbert had said.
    “And now?” she had asked. But he had only shaken his head regretfully and led her back to the living room.

Chapter 8
    Joel was buzzed; he had spent the weekend in Paris with Mai who had a brief hiatus in her tour schedule. They had taken the Euro star on Friday morning; spent a blissful two days together and now they had returned and were crossing London: Joel to get back to some serious writing and Mai to prepare for her final series of concerts. After dropping Mai at her hotel he had settled back in the cab and tried to ease himself mentally into the space he needed to be in when he had to write to a deadline. He asked the driver to drop him outside the tube station as he was only carrying an overnight bag and wanted to grab a coffee and buy some groceries before heading for home.
    In the Mall was Tesco Express where he stocked up on essentials but as he headed to the checkout something caught his eye. It was the headline of the local newspaper: Police Puzzled by Bridge Death. Making an effort to stay calm Joel put the paper in his basket face down. It was only when he was sat at his favourite table by the big window at Starbucks with an Americano in front of him that he took out the paper and read the story. The headline was trailed across the top of the front page but the article itself was on page four. It said that an early morning jogger had spotted the body on the previous Monday morning. The dead man was identified as Darren Shah, a twenty-year-old student and that the cause of death was being investigated by the police.
    Joel had deliberately left his phone switched off for the past three days. He had not wanted anything intrude on his time with Mai and it had worked because he was returning to his routine feeling good in many ways. However he now knew that when he switched the damn thing on there would inevitably be an unwelcome intrusion of reality. He was right: three “call me” messages from Severin, one “hi” message from Dave Trulock and lastly one from DC Sharma at Shepherds Bush police station saying that it was important for him to contact her ASAP. He was about to dial the police station when he noticed a text alert from Dave. It was marked urgent and said to talk to him before anyone else. The word ‘anyone’ was in capitals. It only took him fifteen minutes to walk home. He rang on the landline; Dave picked up on the second ring.
    “Stay on the boat; put the coffee pot on, I’ll be over in ten.” He then hung up before Joel could say anything into his phone.

Chapter 9
    Detective Z stood alone on the touchline watching his daughter play lacrosse. It had been a scorching match but his mind kept returning to the report. Shah’s injuries were consistent with a fall of thirty-five feet onto shingle and rocks, a few feet either way and mud would have lessened his impact. The head trauma was bad enough to be near fatal and the sub-zero temperature would have finished him off. There was of course always the possibility that he could have been pushed or thrown from the bridge, but there was no evidence to support this theory. After the match he put a consoling arm around Lorna’s shoulder as the teams trooped off the pitch.
    “You outplayed them for at least sixty