Read Online 02 Blue Murder by Emma Jameson - Free Book Online Page A

emphasize the
seriousness of her request, Sharada took his hand, her liquid black
eyes going still wider.
    Bhar, who thought of himself as tough,
street-smart and emotionally armored, forgot his irritation. When
his mum was worried, his knee-jerk response was to try and make
things right.
    “ I don’t think recuse is the
word you mean. Maybe resign?”
    “ Recuse, resign, retreat,”
Sharada barked, her mask of serenity evaporating. “That man is
dangerous. Tell Lord Hetheridge you’d rather work on a different
case. He’ll understand. I know he will.”
    Sharada, who’d met
Hetheridge exactly twice, considered herself an authority on his
character and behavior. Although on both occasions she’d spent
fewer than five minutes with the man, she now seemed to confuse him
with her own fictional creation — Lord Kensingbard, hero of a
romance novel called The Lordly
Detective .
    As a little boy, Bhar had been thrilled and
entertained by his mother’s flamboyant imagination. Only when he
learned to read did he realize some of his favorite fairy tales
existed not in his storybooks, but only in Sharada’s head. Although
English was her second language, Sharada had never shied away from
tasks her husband despised — reading contracts, interpreting
financial statements and writing business letters. The year Bhar
joined the Met, Sharada decided to finally try her hand at fiction.
She enrolled in a creative writing course at Open University, but
gave up after one class.
    “ Those people. They have
spoken English all their lives,” she’d told Bhar. “They write
prettier sentences than me. But they have no idea how to tell a
story.”
    Despite Sharada’s initial
disapproval of Bhar’s chosen career — in her home village,
policemen were just a higher class of criminal — her imagination
had been piqued by her son’s close association with a baron. Thus
Sharada’s first novel had featured a fictionalized version of
Hetheridge: somewhat younger, considerably taller and in Bhar’s
opinion, disturbingly randy. He’d read the manuscript in an agony
of embarrassment — until then he’d never realized what such books
contained, much less that his mum was capable of writing it. In the end, Bhar had
forced himself to lie, telling Sharada it was brilliant. And so his
mother, thrilled, had embarked on the aspiring novelist’s
time-honored path, querying agents and racking up nothing but
denials. Hiding his relief as best he could, Bhar carried home
pints of cookie dough ice cream and suggested different hobbies,
like needlepoint or knitting. Then Sharada discovered e-books and
self-publishing.
    Her first book, The Lordly Detective ,
sold a surprising number of copies in six months. Emboldened,
Sharada wrote another romance. That time around, she sprang for a
professional editor and cover artist, reasoning that with better
presentation, she might double her sales. They had quadrupled. And
to Bhar’s private dismay, a career based on smoldering looks,
heaving bosoms and bare male chests was born.
    Thus far Sharada had
written twelve romance novels, all under her Anglicized nom de plume , Sharon
Lacey. Her income from the novels had saved the house, back when
Bhar was a newly made detective constable and his father had
withdrawn all financial support. Bhar knew the creative outlet had
helped Sharada weather her husband’s defection to a much younger
mistress. But the fact that she frequently mentioned Hetheridge,
and kept a framed cover of The Lordly
Detective in her bedroom, was a clue to his
mother’s inner workings that Bhar preferred not to
examine.
    “ This case could be
important to my career,” he said patiently, hoping to make her
understand. “I can’t run away from it, especially just because Sir
Duncan lives near the murder scene. It might just be a coincidence.
In fact, it might be something the killer knew before he or she
decided to act. Perhaps they counted on his proximity to confuse
the thrust of the