It was not difficult to slide into the unlocked back garden through the frail wooden gate. Geoffrey would be too busy waiting for Mandy to come home to notice Bert’s intrusion. Bert positioned himself behind the mossy garden shed, smiling to himself as he cast his eyes over the ladder reaching up to the tree. The wooden steps were as rotten as he had envisaged, and would not hold Geoffrey’s considerable bulk when he waddled down tonight. All he had to do was watch, if only to know his forthcoming reward was secure. Bert froze as he heard a rattling sound from the side of the house. The metallic rattling sound got closer and was followed by Geoffrey’s whistle as he walked towards the tree house carrying a stepladder over his shoulder. Bert dug his nails into the palms of his hands. Damn him! He must have taken in some of the reading after all.

The steps creaked as Geoffrey climbed, muttering to himself as the binoculars swung from around his neck. ‘C’mon girlie, let’s see what you’re wearing tonight … or rather not wearing,’ he giggled.

As time went on, Bert edged closer to the tree house, his mind in turmoil. With a short push of the stepladder Geoffrey would end up dead. Bert’s eyes followed the trajectory. It would come to rest on the glass house, which would make a hell of a crash as Geoffrey’s body made impact. Bert dug his long nails into the back of his neck as he scratched the growing itch. The rampant next-door neighbours were sure to be alerted by the noise. Would he get away on time? He mulled it over. He could force Geoffrey into climbing down the wooden steps by taking away the metal stepladder, but that would put him on his guard, and he was a big man. Bert thought of Geoffrey’s wide knuckles being slammed into his face, his gorilla hands wrapping around his neck, choking the life out of him.

‘Fuck! What’ll I do? What’ll I do?’ he rasped into the cool evening air, searching the skies for his beloved ravens. But the question was taken away as heavy footsteps creaked on the ladder above him.

‘Who’s there?’ Geoffrey asked, his feet clanking against the metal steps as he made his descent.

‘Shit shit shit!’ Bert tore into the back of his neck, violently scratching in fear and frustration. He would not get away on time now. Another couple of steps and Geoffrey would be upon him. There was only one thing to do.

If Bert had been able to think clearly he would have seen the comical expression on Geoffrey’s face as their eyes met. That in turn would have presented him with another option; one that suggested Bert himself had come for a viewing. Geoffrey’s back gate held no lock and as he had already given him an invite, he may have laughed and waved him up. But he never got the chance, as Bert rushed forward and pushed the stepladder back with all his might. As he turned to run, a mighty yell and a crash splintered the air, and Bert craned his neck to see Geoffrey feverishly gripping the ladder as he crashed on his greenhouse below. The glass, now dripping with blood, served as an efficient executioner. As Bert ran to the safety of his van, his thoughts were not for the man bleeding his last among the splintered glass, but the benefits he would receive from fulfilling another prophecy.

Chapter Forty-Five

As Jennifer hung her coat in the CID office her main priorities were firstly not to think about her father, and secondly to progress her case. Another body was going to turn up and it was going to be soon. She had felt it from the moment she woke up. The feeling of dread encompassed her, and though Will asked what was wrong, she found it impossible to put into words. Like a thick blanket of fog, it hung in the fibres of her clothes, in each strand of her hair. She scratched the nape of her neck with her pen as she read through her case file. It was hard to concentrate with the Raven in the back of her mind. Her case load was growing, but she had little time to dedicate to it. She was about to be dragged away from her paperwork yet again as Will grabbed the car keys from a hook on the wall and quickly scribbled his name on the log book to sign it out.

‘Ethan’s asked us to attend a sudden death,’ Will said. ‘MIT are already on scene.’

Jennifer raised one eyebrow. ‘Lexton MIT? Why the sudden change of heart?’

‘I think they’re trying to build bridges. We may as well go over there and check it out. There’s mention of a tarot card reader.’

Jennifer didn’t need asking twice.

[#]

DC Hardwick took a bite from his Mars Bar and ambled over to Jennifer, giving Will a courteous nod. ‘We meet again. Sounds like your spooky fortune teller is getting around, doesn’t it?’

They were standing in the back garden of someone called Geoffrey Pike, and Jennifer was in no mood for jokes. ‘Can you tell me what’s going on?’

DC Hardwick scrunched up his wrapper and threw it on the ground. ‘Seems pretty straightforward to me. Middle-aged man, lives on his own. He’s got police history a mile long for sexual offences, flashing, and a regular peeping Tom. He seems to have been up in his tree house peeping on the new next-door neighbour.’ DC Hardwick looked at Will. ‘Oh man, if you’d seen her, you’d understand why. She is hot!’ he said, squeezing a pair of imaginary breasts in front of him.

Jennifer folded her arms. ‘How do you know he was spying on her?’

‘It doesn’t take a genius to work that out. Firstly he has a set of binoculars around his neck, secondly his trousers weren’t done up all the way, and thirdly he has a stash of porn and tissues up there. I reckon he was coming down the ladder, his trousers came loose, he lost his grip and it tipped all the way from there,’ he said, gesturing from the tree house to the greenhouse, ‘over to there. Shard of glass in his windpipe, goodnight Vienna.’

Jennifer wanted to quip that his detective training did not go to waste given he was able to count to three, but she was at the scene of a possible murder, and that was no laughing matter.

‘No signs of anyone else present, any foul play?’ she said, pushing her hands into her jacket pockets.

‘Nope. The back door of the house was unlocked, and there’s cash, a laptop and other things lying around. The crime scene investigators are doing their bit but as far as I’m concerned it’s non-suspicious.’

‘I thought you said there was a fortune teller involved,’ Will said.

DC Hardwick raised his eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you read the incident?’

‘No, we came straight over.’

‘His sister found the body. She told the call taker that Geoffrey had come off his bike last week, and some bloke in a van gave him a lift home. But before he did, he read his fortune, said he was going to break his neck or something.’

Jennifer interjected. ‘Did his sister know what he was up to?’

‘If she did she never let on.’

‘What about the husband of this woman next door? Does he have an alibi?’

‘Yeah, he was shagging his missus,’ DC Hardwick broke into laughter.

Will joined in the laughter and Jennifer silenced him with a glare. This was the work of the Raven as far as Jennifer was concerned, but she had to explore all avenues. ‘This husband, he could have seen what Geoffrey was up to and knocked him off the ladder.’

DC Hardwick shook his head. ‘It’s unlikely. His father’s a super in the Met. They said they were in bed together when they heard a smash, but were so involved in what they were doing they didn’t bother to check. They didn’t seem to know they had a peeping Tom and we didn’t enlighten them.’

‘All the same …’

Hardwick sighed, giving her a withered look. ‘Look, the only reason I’m here and not at a proper job is because you’ve kicked up such a fuss with this Op Moonlight that I’ve got to attend all reports mentioning a tarot card reader. I’ve been here an hour now, and it’s fifty-five minutes more than I need to be.’