him inside her. But he slid quickly out from beneath her.
"But, Muni, don't you - "
^
His hand shot to her mouth and silenced her, fingers digging into her cheeks with such strength that she felt his nails like hot coals against her flesh. He moved behind her and pressed up against her, drawing her head back. His other hand felt for her breast, and between his thumb and his index finger, he pinched her nipple till she writhed. She felt his teeth on her neck and his hand, releasing her breast, travelled over her belly until it found her mound of hair. He grabbed this roughly. Then just as roughly he shoved her downward so that she was on her hands and knees. Still with his hand at her mouth, he found the spot he wanted and he began to thrust. He took his pleasure in less than twenty seconds.
He released her and she fell onto her side. He knelt above her for a moment, eyes closed, head raised to the ceiling, chest rising and falling rapidly.
He shook back his hair and combed his fingers through it. Sweat gleamed on him.
He moved off the bed and reached for the T-shirt he'd discarded on the previous night.
It lay on the floor among his other clothes, and he wiped himself with it before he threw it back where he'd found it. He picked up his jeans and stepped into them, drawing them up over his naked buttocks. He zipped them and, bare chested and bare footed, he left the room.
Yumn watched his back, watched the door close. She felt the slick deposit from his body oozing out of hers. Hastily, she reached for a tissue and raised her hips to work a pillow beneath them. She began to relax as she pictured the /1 frantic flight of his sperm, seeking the solitary egg that lay waiting. It would happen this very morning, she thought.
Such a man her Muni was.
Chapter 7
Emily Barlow was plugging the flex of an oscillating fan into a socket in her office when Barbara arrived. The DCI was on her hands and knees beneath a table on which a computer terminal sat. The monitor of this terminal was glowing with a format that Barbara recognised even from the doorway: It was HOLMES, the program that systematised criminal investigations throughout the country.
The office was already like a steam bath, despite the fact that its single window had been opened to its widest capacity. And three empty Evian bottles told the tale of what Emily had been doing so far to beat the heat.
"The damn building didn't even so much as cool off during the night," Emily told Barbara as she crawled out from the beneath the table and punched the button on the fan's highest setting.
Nothing happened. "What the . . . Jesus!" Emily went to the door and shouted. "Billy, I thought you said this goddamn thing worked!"
A man's disembodied voice called back. "I said, 'Give it a try,' guv. I didn't make any promises."
"Brilliant." Emily stalked back to the machine.
She punched the off button, then each of the settings in succession. She drove her fist onto the plastic housing of the motor. Finally, the fan blades began a listless rotation.
They didn't so much create a breeze as they lethargically massaged what rank air was in the room.
Emily shook her head in disgust, slapped the dust from the knees of her grey cotton trousers, and said, "What've we got?" with a nod towards Barbara's hand.
"Telephone messages received by Querashi over the last six weeks. I had them off Basil Treves this morning."
"Anything we can use?"
"There's quite a stack. I've only gone through the first third."
"Christ. We could've got to them two days ago if Ferguson had been remotely cooperative and marginally less interested in sacking me. Give them here, then." Emily took the collection of messages from her and shouted, "Belinda Warner!" in the direction of the corridor. The WPC came running. Her uniform blouse was already damp from the heat, and her hair hung limply across her forehead. Emily introduced her briskly. She told her to see to the messages - "Organise, collate, log, and report back," - and then turned back to Barbara. She gave her fellow officer a closer scrutiny and said, "Good God.
Disaster. Come with me."
She barrelled down the narrow stairway, pausing on the landing to shove a window open more fully. Barbara followed her. In the back of the rambling Victorian building, what