Read Online This Honourable House by Edwina Currie - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Edwina Currie
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stickers, her own name and address handwritten in crude capitals. The postcode had been added in pencil at the sorting office. There was no sender’s name or identification mark. It puzzled her. She let it sit on the kitchen table for a few minutes as she fetched cereal and milk from the fridge. After a few spoonfuls she felt slightly better. She found a pair of scissors, cut across the end of the package and tipped it up.
What fell out made her recoil in horror.
Two blue razor blades, the old-fashioned kind with both naked edges sharp and glittering, narrowly missed her thumb. She yelped and put her fingers into her mouth as if to protect them, like an infant. Two sheets of paper followed. A crude sketch of a woman’s face, the hair her own colour and style, primitively drawn, the mouth exaggeratedly lipsticked and the eyes mere slits. Both cheeks were slashed crosswise in red ink. And there was a note, created from bits of newspaper crudely stuck on – one of the letters fluttered to the floor:
BITCH! KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT ABOUT OUR FRANK. OR IT’LL BE THE WORSE FOR YOU. NEXT TIME THE SLASHES WILL BE FOR REAL.
Chapter Five
Inspector Stevens had had a bad day, although it was only ten o’clock in the morning. His fountain pen had leaked in his breast pocket and stained his shirt. The cleaners had knocked the model Porsche 911 off his desk and broken its spoiler. Two of his team had phoned in sick, which left him badly undermanned. He suspected their illnesses had much to do with the international boxing televised in the early hours: both men were keen fans and had probably spent the dawn hours watching together. Chapman was most likely still on Jones’s sofa, empty six-packs at his side. It would serve them right if he assigned the pair of them to permanent nights.
Michael Stevens had been a police officer for twenty-six years. On days like this he wondered why he had stayed, then reminded himself that in four years’ time he could retire on full pension, on his fifty-fifth birthday. He would be young enough still to enjoy it, unlike men in other professions who had to stick it out another decade, and old enough to be satisfied with a working life spent in uniform in the service of others. Old enough, in fact, to be close to heartily sick of it. With police morale in such a poor state and the Met, in particular, frantic to fill vacancies – it was virtually a force in terminal decline – nobody would blame him for going at the earliest opportunity. Nor could he condemn, in all honesty, those of his officers who preferred a morning lie-in.
Stevens was a tall, rangy man with the thick moustache that had been the hallmark, in his day, of the Metropolitan Police officer. The sideboards were greying at the edges, the jowls sometimes sagged after a late call, but he would be fit and capable for some years yet. The deep-set eyes shadowed by shaggy brows imposed a headmasterly air, belied by a mild manner and a passion for fast cars that he could not afford. Cars! Speed! That was why he had been tempted to join the police in the first place, and why he cultivated the friendships of car dealers, ignoring their sometimes shady operations in the faint hope that some day they might put a cheap second-hand roadster in his path. It hadn’t happened yet and probably never would. But a man could dream.
Outside his window came a commotion. Somebody was shouting. ‘Sarge! Sarge!’
Stevens hauled up the window and stuck out his head. Around him and in the opposite building other faces appeared. ‘What’s up?’ he called down.
‘Bloody thieves!’ came back a yell from a young PC below. ‘Look!’
Stevens craned to see. Cars and vans were parked neatly in rows, ready to be booked out on duty. The lack of staff meant more were there than usual. For a moment he could see nothing amiss.
The constable, dancing with rage, pointed under one of the fast response vehicles, a nearly new black Subaru Impreza Turbo WRX, a
What fell out made her recoil in horror.
Two blue razor blades, the old-fashioned kind with both naked edges sharp and glittering, narrowly missed her thumb. She yelped and put her fingers into her mouth as if to protect them, like an infant. Two sheets of paper followed. A crude sketch of a woman’s face, the hair her own colour and style, primitively drawn, the mouth exaggeratedly lipsticked and the eyes mere slits. Both cheeks were slashed crosswise in red ink. And there was a note, created from bits of newspaper crudely stuck on – one of the letters fluttered to the floor:
BITCH! KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT ABOUT OUR FRANK. OR IT’LL BE THE WORSE FOR YOU. NEXT TIME THE SLASHES WILL BE FOR REAL.
Chapter Five
Inspector Stevens had had a bad day, although it was only ten o’clock in the morning. His fountain pen had leaked in his breast pocket and stained his shirt. The cleaners had knocked the model Porsche 911 off his desk and broken its spoiler. Two of his team had phoned in sick, which left him badly undermanned. He suspected their illnesses had much to do with the international boxing televised in the early hours: both men were keen fans and had probably spent the dawn hours watching together. Chapman was most likely still on Jones’s sofa, empty six-packs at his side. It would serve them right if he assigned the pair of them to permanent nights.
Michael Stevens had been a police officer for twenty-six years. On days like this he wondered why he had stayed, then reminded himself that in four years’ time he could retire on full pension, on his fifty-fifth birthday. He would be young enough still to enjoy it, unlike men in other professions who had to stick it out another decade, and old enough to be satisfied with a working life spent in uniform in the service of others. Old enough, in fact, to be close to heartily sick of it. With police morale in such a poor state and the Met, in particular, frantic to fill vacancies – it was virtually a force in terminal decline – nobody would blame him for going at the earliest opportunity. Nor could he condemn, in all honesty, those of his officers who preferred a morning lie-in.
Stevens was a tall, rangy man with the thick moustache that had been the hallmark, in his day, of the Metropolitan Police officer. The sideboards were greying at the edges, the jowls sometimes sagged after a late call, but he would be fit and capable for some years yet. The deep-set eyes shadowed by shaggy brows imposed a headmasterly air, belied by a mild manner and a passion for fast cars that he could not afford. Cars! Speed! That was why he had been tempted to join the police in the first place, and why he cultivated the friendships of car dealers, ignoring their sometimes shady operations in the faint hope that some day they might put a cheap second-hand roadster in his path. It hadn’t happened yet and probably never would. But a man could dream.
Outside his window came a commotion. Somebody was shouting. ‘Sarge! Sarge!’
Stevens hauled up the window and stuck out his head. Around him and in the opposite building other faces appeared. ‘What’s up?’ he called down.
‘Bloody thieves!’ came back a yell from a young PC below. ‘Look!’
Stevens craned to see. Cars and vans were parked neatly in rows, ready to be booked out on duty. The lack of staff meant more were there than usual. For a moment he could see nothing amiss.
The constable, dancing with rage, pointed under one of the fast response vehicles, a nearly new black Subaru Impreza Turbo WRX, a
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