The Case Of The Stained Glass Widow

a DCI Jericho story

by

Douglas Lindsay

Published by Blasted Heath, 2012

copyright © 2012 Douglas Lindsay

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.

Douglas Lindsay has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover design by Blasted Heath

Visit Douglas Lindsay at:

www.blastedheath.com

Version 3-2-4

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

The Case of the Stained Glass Widow

Also by Douglas Lindsay

About Blasted Heath

The Case of the Stained Glass Widow

i

DCI Robert Jericho walked slowly up the short length of Wells High Street. A damp Wednesday morning in February. It had been a long, bleak and mild winter. Dull days, with not a hint of snow and only the most infrequent frost. Up ahead the midweek market was being set up in the city square, and the air was filled with the ringing of the Mattin bells from the Cathedral.

Jericho was walking with even more of a stoop than usual, having woken with a cricked neck. Before emerging like a hunchback out into the grey of morning, he had swallowed four pain killers and had rummaged through the cabinet in the bathroom – the contents of which had been moved wholesale from his house in London some years earlier, remaining untouched ever since – managing to dig up a Deep Heat aerosol which had gone out of date in 1995. He had sprayed it on his neck and back the best he could, which had given him the benefit of the medicinal stench without helping his neck in any way.

He attracted a couple of glances from the market stalls, but Jericho generally wasn't the kind of man that people looked at in the street. He slipped by, invisible to most, blending in with whatever setting he happened to be walking slowly through at the time.

Which was odd for a man who remained the most famous detective in the country.

He walked through the arch at Penniless Porch, immediately seeing the object of his mission before him. As the bells rang out across the Cathedral Green, a lone man stood before the great 13th century building. A placard in one hand, his other arm raised in anger, shaking his fist at Wells Cathedral as if the old structure was itself communicating.

'Bloody bells!' shouted the old man, his fist shaking. 'Shut the fuck up!'

Jericho hesitated while he took in the scene, and then moved forward at the same strolling pace at which he'd walked up the High Street. As he came alongside the old man, who was clean shaven, wearing a slightly bizarre long mauve raincoat and an old pair of black Wellingtons, the bells suddenly stopped, and this man, who'd been so forcefully haranguing the entire Church of England, stopped mid-rant and snorted.

''Bout bloody time, innit?' he muttered.

He turned as Jericho stopped beside him. 'Bloody bells,' he said, when he saw that Jericho was about to engage him. 'What do you want?' he added sourly.

Jericho flashed his badge at the old man, who was already well aware of Jericho's identity.

'Professor Wittering,' said Jericho, his voice weary, 'you've been warned. This is the last time. Really. If you're back here tomorrow, we're bringing you in.'

'Bloody bells,' said Reginald Wittering. 'Anyway, what are they doing sending a Chief Inspector? And a detective at that. This your punishment for smelling like a jockstrap?'

A couple of guys had called in sick. They'd been thin on the ground. Jericho had fancied the walk and said he'd take it. No other reason.

'How long have you lived in Wells?' said Jericho, ignoring the question.

Wittering knew where this line of questioning was leading.

'Three years,' he muttered in reply, giving Jericho a look of loathing.

Jericho nodded. He turned and indicated the Cathedral, then looked back at Wittering, wincing slightly at the movement.

'Slept funny?' asked Wittering, taking some pleasure in the question.

'Three years...,' said Jericho dryly. 'This lot, the church, they got here a long time ago. They got here first. These bells have been ringing out over here for centuries. If you don't like the sound of bells, go and live... God, I don't know, Istanbul... Tehran.... wherever...'

Wittering raised an eyebrow, then looked back at the Cathedral. Which was when it started; what was to become known as the Case of the Stained Glass Widow.

As the two men looked at the Cathedral – as if expecting something to happen – something did. The small door at the front was flung open, and out ran a man in the long white tunic of a church deacon. He stopped on the grass outside the Cathedral and looked around at no one in particular; as it was, the only two people present on the green were Jericho and Wittering.

'There's been a murder!' cried the deacon loudly, his voice tinged with desperation. The words echoed out into the silence of 7:27 on a weekday morning.

Jericho groaned.

'Hah!' barked Wittering, smiling broadly. 'That'll be why they sent a fucking detective.' Then, holding tightly onto his banner, he turned and started walking away from the Cathedral.

'For fuck's sake,' muttered Jericho darkly, and then, with another wince at his sore neck, he walked towards the Cathedral.

Fucking murder, he thought.

ii

Mattins had been cancelled, the crowd of seventeen filing slowly out into the grey morning, as dawn appeared mournfully over the city. Jericho had stood over the body in the Cathedral, ascertaining that murder had indeed been committed – the knife buried in the neck seemed confirmation in itself – and had put the call through to the station to raise the alarm. All hands required; it was time for the two constables who had called in sick to down the paracetamol and crawl into the office.

The body had been discovered in the Chapter House, a large, round room to the side of the Cathedral, up a wide flight of worn and ancient stairs. The pool of blood had spread wide, seeping into the stone floor. The stain would never quite be removed.

It was a little after nine. The Cathedral had been closed off, all other morning activities postponed. Jericho was standing outside the Cathedral keeping an eye on the small crowd that had gathered at the exciting news. He could hear the sound of the Cathedral School swing band coming from the old music department building adjacent to the Cathedral; he wasn't sure, but they seemed to be playing We All Stand Together from Rupert & The Frog Song, lending a slightly bizarre air to the murderous morning. A large majority of the gathered crowd – standing as if they might expect to see at the very least an action replay of the first murder or, if things really picked up, a second killing – seemed to be made up of school children who had elected to be late for their first lesson of the day.

Jericho's latest Detective Sergeant came and stood beside him, joining his boss in surveying the scene. Sipping a cup of coffee. DS Haynes.

'We've had the i.d. confirmed, Sir, they're just bagging up the stiff now. Jeffery Parks, 57, owned the old bookshop out on the Bath road. I thought I'd get out there now.'

'Where did you get that?' asked Jericho.

Haynes followed his eyes to the cup of coffee.

'Constable Walker got it for me. Did you want one?'

Jericho grumpily eyed Haynes from a distance of two feet. Haynes found himself involuntarily stepping back an inch or two.

'Is there a wife?' asked Jericho. 'Well... widow.'

Haynes indicated the Cathedral.

'Seems to be. The guy we talked to, you know, he's just some guy who works in there. Knew Parks a bit. Says he was married, but didn't know much about them.'

'We'll go to his house first,' said Jericho. 'Then the shop.'

He started to walk off in the direction of the market square and then stopped, Haynes on his heels.

'Where are we going?' asked Jericho. 'I presume you've got an address.'

'This is right,' said Haynes glibly. 'I'll get you a coffee on the way...'

***

There was nobody home. There aren't many places in Wells that are more than a fifteen minute walk from the Cathedral, although it turned out that Parks' house was right at the far end of the town, and in the opposite direction from the book shop where he'd worked.

'Will I get a car to come and pick us up?' asked Haynes, as they turned away from the house and started walking back towards the centre of town.

'We'll walk,' said Jericho. 'It's good for you.'

They walked on in silence. Jericho finished his coffee and tossed the cup into a bin, wiped his lips with the sleeve of his coat. He was aware that Haynes was casting glances at him, waiting for him to do something. Something to dramatically take the lead in the investigation.

Jericho had come to Wells to disappear, to lose his reputation in a quiet backwater where nothing much ever happened. There were worse reputations to have than the one with which he'd been landed, but it still annoyed him. He didn't want anyone having expectations of him.

'What?' said Jericho eventually.

'Just, you know....' began Haynes uncertainly. 'What do you think? Of the murder?'

'What makes you think I think anything?'

'You're like this thing,' said Haynes. 'Never failed to solve a crime. The papers say you've always got the killer pegged in the first five minutes of the investigation.'

'The papers are full of crap, Sergeant,' said Jericho. 'Make any sort of decision in the first five minutes and you're going to prejudice the process of the entire investigation. Contrary to what the papers say, you should keep your mind open right up until the point you have concrete proof.'

Haynes nodded, a look on his face like he was mentally writing it down so that he could put it on Twitter the first chance he got.

'Even then,' said Jericho, 'remember that if it gets hot enough, concrete melts.'

'You think?' said Haynes. 'Doesn't it break into its constituent parts and go on fire and evaporate, or carbonise, something like that?'

'Yeah, whatever,' said Jericho with a dismissive hand. 'Look, the papers say whatever helps sell, whatever sounds like a good story. Everyone knows that, everyone knows they just make shit up and bend facts to fit the story they want to print, and yet people still believe the crap they read. Isn't it weird?'

Haynes glanced at him, wondering if he was supposed to answer.

'Middle-aged detective continues to get lucky...,' said Jericho. 'That's not a story. No one gives a shit. However, modern day Sherlock Holmes nails another bastard with stroke of sleuthing genius. That's a story. Who cares whether or not it's true?'

Haynes nodded.

'So, you don't already know who did this?' he asked anyway.

'Have I just been talking?' said Jericho. 'Of course I don't know. So far, who have we got? The guy who found the body? The widow who we haven't met? His work colleague, assuming there is one?'

'Well?' said Haynes. 'Which one do you think?'

Jericho gave him the resigned look of a tortured parent.

'The widow,' he said, eventually. 'It's the widow.'

Haynes smiled. 'I'll hold you to it,' he said.

'Fuck off.'

iii

The shop was small and pleasantly old-fashioned. An independent bookshop, where books cost what they were supposed to cost and hadn't been reduced to £1.99; where the recommendations had been read by the staff and recommended because they were good, and not because the publisher had forked out £25,000 for the privilege; where novels mixed with travelogues and biographies of war-time pilots, and there wasn't a hint of a book ghost-written on behalf of someone called Wayne or Katie or Cheryl. The whole place was so alien to what has become the norm, that it was like walking into Narnia.

The small bell tinkled on the door as they entered. There were no customers; a small attractive woman looked over the counter from behind heavy black-rimmed glasses. Her eyes were red, and Jericho wondered if she already knew.

They closed the door and paused for a moment to take in the surroundings.

'Are you Caroline?' asked Jericho.

She shook her head.

'Caroline comes in at the weekend,' she said, her voice sounding stronger than she looked. 'Are you looking for her?'

'No,' said Jericho, 'just saw her name on the staff recommendation in the window. You must be Ilsa?'

Haynes smiled and shook his head, as if in awe of Jericho's observational genius.

Ilsa Ravenwood looked slightly confused, so Jericho walked forward and held out his badge. Immediately her hand went to her mouth and she seemed to shrink an inch or two in height.

'Has something happened to him?' she asked, her voice having instantly weakened.

'You're missing Mr. Parks?' said Jericho.

'I was supposed to see him last night,' she said, immediately biting her lip.

'He's dead,' said Jericho bluntly. 'Someone stabbed him in the neck.'

She gasped, took a step backwards. Haynes, who had taken the course, moved forwards around the counter and took her arm. He glanced at Jericho, taken aback by his lack of compassion.

'Maybe you should sit down,' he said, and eased her back towards a small chair beside a desk.

Ilsa Ravenwood slumped down into the seat, her face crumpled in shock.

'Ilsa,' said Jericho. 'Like in Casablanca.'

***

It took twenty-five minutes before she was able to talk any further. After placing the Closed sign on the door, Haynes made her a coffee and sat beside her saying what he presumed to be the right things, while Jericho perused the books. He liked the look of The Closing of the Western Mind by Charles Freeman, but thought it might be insensitive to offer to buy it.

Eventually, at a nod from Haynes, Jericho came over and stood at the counter.

'Can I ask you a few questions, Mrs. Ravenwood?'

She nodded, Haynes looked at Jericho and wondered how he knew she was married.

'Can you tell us where we might find Mrs. Parks?'

'Australia,' she said. 'She left last week to spend some time with her sister in Sydney.'

'How long was...?'

'About a month.'

Haynes glanced at Jericho, a wry smile.

'And you and Mr. Parks were using the opportunity of his wife's absence to further your affair?'

Ilsa Ravenwood stared at Jericho, and then finally crumpled forward, her head in her hands, sobbing bitterly.

***

They walked away from the shop half an hour later, leaving the bereft Mrs. Ravenwood in the hands of a young female police officer, trained in the modern arts of compassion.

'See,' said Haynes, as they headed back in the direction of the Cathedral. 'That was brilliant.'

Jericho gave him a sideways glance.

'Why?' he asked.

'You just, like, spot stuff. I mean, how do you do all that? She's married, she's having an affair... like, it's brilliant.'

'Are you serious?' asked Jericho, as they passed the lower end of Vicar's Close, and could hear the random runs of a student practicing scales on a piccolo.

'Like, d'uh...,' said Haynes. 'It's awesome, that thing you do. That's why the papers are always on about how brilliant you are.'

'The woman was wearing a wedding ring, for crying out loud,' said Jericho irritably.

'Oh, like, you mean the gold thing on her finger? That's so last century, I always forget about it. All credit to you for noticing.'

Jericho slung him another glance.

'What about the affair?' continued Haynes, undaunted. 'I mean, that was instinctive genius, surely. That's the kind of thing they talk about in the Sun.'

Jericho gave Haynes the look that he was disposed to give younger officers several times a day. The urge to shut down, to go and sit in a corner and drink coffee and not talk to anyone, swept over him.

'She'd been crying,' he muttered. 'She was obviously upset at him not being somewhere he should have been, and it wasn't because he was late getting to work. We'll find that he's been dead since some time yesterday evening.'

Haynes was shaking his head.

'That's just complete genius.'

'No, it's not,' barked Jericho. 'If you're an idiot, I don't have to be a genius to be smarter than you.'

'That's just so cool,' said Haynes, as if Jericho hadn't spoken. 'That whole thing. I love it. Of course, you were wrong about the widow.'

'For a kick-off,' barked Jericho, 'I never said I thought it was the widow.'

'Sure you did.'

'I was being facetious. I had, and still have, no idea who did it. And secondly, let's just establish that the widow is definitely in Australia before we go taking her off the slate, eh? And let's not rule out the possibility of her having an accomplice.'

Haynes nodded and started looking at his phone.

'See what you're doing there,' he said. 'Covering the angles. Very nice.'

'Sure,' said Jericho sarcastically, 'sometimes I amaze even myself. I'm going back to the Cathedral. You get down to the station and start making enquiries after the wife. If you get a number for her, wait until I get back and I'll give her a call.'

'Yes, Sir,' said Haynes, and he saluted and walked quickly away, past the dwindling crowd of curiosity.

iv

Three hours later. Jericho was back at the station, sitting in his office, looking out over the fields which stretch towards Glastonbury. Usually he could see the Tor; it didn't even have to be a good day. Today, however, the weather was so grim, so coldly claustrophobic, that the hill was lost in the murk. It was lunchtime, he was hungry, his stomach was making strange noises, the painkillers were wearing off and his neck was beginning to hurt again. He was drinking his fifth coffee of the day.

The door opened; Haynes appeared. Jericho didn't turn, just kept on staring across the fields. Haynes came and stood beside him, looking at the view.

'I hate days like this,' said Haynes.

Jericho didn't respond. Would never get into that kind of flippant discussion with one of his sergeants. Or anyone else. If he got started on things that he hated, things that annoyed him, would he ever stop? Things about living in Britain, things about being a police officer, and just things about what happened to you from the moment you got out of bed.

He didn't want to be that person, but it had always been a part of him; since Amanda had gone it had become unavoidably all of him.

He turned, straightened – winced at the pain in his neck as he did so – and looked up at Haynes.

'Tell me everything,' he said.

'Right,' said Haynes, and he looked at his notebook. 'We've established that the wife is definitely in Australia. She was logged out by immigration, she was on the plane, there's a record of her arriving in Sydney, the whole nine yards. The police have been around there to tell her the news and made a positive identi—'

'What?' barked Jericho, and his face contorted again at the sudden movement in his neck. 'Which part of let me tell her the news escaped you?'

'The boss...,' said Haynes by way of explanation.

'What boss?'

'The boss,' he said again. 'Dylan. She said not to let you tell her. Said you're not great with breaking bad news. Not great with the families.'

'Did she?'

'Yes. And you know, having seen you with Mrs. Ravenwood...'

'Well... Any news on what her reaction was?'

'She cried a lot.'

'No fucking shit...'

'She's arriving back at Heathrow at 10:25 tomorrow evening from Sydney.'

Jericho nodded, started running his hands together. Felt cold. Needed to go for lunch.

'You think she had an accomplice?' asked Haynes.

'Don't know,' said Jericho. 'Let's meet her off the plane and start finding out, eh?'

He stood up slowly, trying to straighten his neck, embracing the hurt.

'You got anything?' asked Haynes.

'Yes,' said Jericho. 'I've got a sore neck. I've also established that the book shop was a money pit but that it didn't matter as the deceased had made millions in the city, and had retired out here to be a gentleman bookshop owner in the country.'

'So the widow stands to benefit?' said Haynes, nodding sagely.

'Let's see,' said Jericho. 'Maybe Mrs. Ravenwood stands to benefit. You can get in touch with the lawyers after lunch.'

'Nice,' said Haynes, clicking his fingers at him. 'Lawyers... They said you were good.'

Jericho stopped for a second, gave Haynes another look from the grave, and then turned and started walking slowly, as if begrudging every step, towards the canteen.

'You kind of stink,' said Haynes to his back. 'You know, of Ralgex, or some shit like that. Have you been at the gym?'

Jericho hesitated, took a deep breath, and then walked on.

v

Heathrow, Terminal 3, Passport Control. Jericho and Haynes were waiting for the passengers from flight EK008 from Dubai. They had ascertained that Rosalind Parks had boarded the flight in Sydney, and had been on board after the stop-off in Dubai. Somehow, and for no reason that Jericho could fathom, he still didn't believe it.

They were standing to the side, looking as obvious as two men in suits invariably look in this situation. They had studied the photos until they had Rosalind Parks' face emblazoned on their eyeballs; meanwhile each of the Border Control officials on duty had had her name and face highlighted.

As it was, Jericho saw her coming the instant she had turned the corner away to his left, still seventy yards from the gate. Languid steps, as if she was walking in slow motion. She wasn't beautiful, she wasn't tall; her clothes were not particularly striking, her hair did not lend itself to extended inspection. Yet somehow she stood out from the crowd.

Jericho just saw her from seventy yards and felt the instant pull of attraction. He lowered his head for a second and sighed heavily. It never went well when he wanted to have sex with the suspects/witnesses/family members.

'You all right?' asked Haynes, glancing at him through a McDonald's chicken burger with extra lettuce. He'd asked for the extra lettuce so that he felt a bit better about the fact that he was eating plastic.

Jericho lifted his head and nodded in the direction of the widow Parks.

'That's her,' he said.

Haynes glanced towards the crowd. Parks had joined the back of a queue, and for Haynes at least, she did not stand out from the crowd.

'Don't see her,' he said. 'Is she in black?'

'She's wearing a lilac pashmina, at the back of the third queue from the left.'

'What's a pashmina?'

Jericho gave him another look.

'Can you at least work out third queue from the left? Or are you having trouble with left?'

'Ours or hers?... No, got her.... Purple shawl?'

'That's the one.'

'Doesn't look too upset,' said Haynes. 'For someone who's just lost her husband to a brutal murder.'

***

Jericho did not want to treat the woman who had been in Australia at the time of the crime as a suspect, so they were having coffee at Costa on the ground floor of Terminal 3, just outside arrivals. Two normal people having coffee after a long flight, before hitting the M4. Jericho had dispatched Haynes to wait in the car, and was already wondering why it was that he'd brought him along in the first place.

They sipped coffee in brief silence. Jericho could smell her, a delicate oriental scent. He was glad he'd showered, glad he hadn't felt the need to wear any Deep Heat that day.

'When was the last time you saw him?' he asked eventually. Had to stop himself staring at her lips, the pink mark they left on her coffee cup.

'Ten days ago,' she said. 'I spent a couple of days in London with my sister before I went to Oz.'

'I thought your sister lived in Sydney?' he said, and was immediately grateful that Haynes hadn't been there to hear the stupidity of the question.

'I have more than one sister,' she said coolly.

'Of course,' muttered Jericho.

She smiled, something wicked about the movement of her lips. He shook himself mentally, tried to detach, tried to get back to treating her like he treated all interviewees.

'You don't seem particularly bothered that he's dead,' he said bluntly.

She laughed gently, a genuine smile stayed on her lips. He couldn't tell if she was toying with him, or whether this disarming and beautiful act was as real as the smile.

'He was awful,' she said, 'why would I care? He was a rude, abusive, miserable, miserable man. God knows how he managed to find three mistresses.'

'We got the report that you cried a lot when you heard the news.'

He caught the flash of uncertainty on her face, the hint of discomfort, which was then effortlessly shrugged away.

'It's what they expected. I wasn't going to get into discussions about my husband's failings with the local police out there, was I?'

He nodded, looked disinterested.

'Three mistresses?' he said. 'Tell me about them. Must have been because he was rich,' he added.

'Well, yes, that would account for two of them. Mrs. Ravenwood, on the other hand,' she said, saying the name with a tone which suggested envy, 'seemed to love him for who he was. If you can believe that.'

'Do you have the names of the other two?'

'Of course. Wells is a very small place. Even if we do have the most famous detective on the planet,' she added, her lips curling into the wicked smile again.

'Surprised you came back,' said Jericho glibly. 'Just making sure he's dead?'

She smiled again, ran a hand through her hair.

'The good wife,' she said. 'Just playing the good wife. It's what's expected of me. I probably ought to go to the funeral.'

vi

Jericho stood looking out of the window of the small terraced house. All he could see was the other side of the street. Haynes was looking at that morning's Daily Star. The object of their visit, Margaret Belham, the next in line of Parks' mistresses, had insisted on making a cup of tea.

'Apparently Jordon's getting her breasts deflated,' said Haynes, turning the page.

Jericho stared absent-mindedly out the window. He was thinking about the murder of Jeffrey Parks, 57, and the likelihood of it being related to the fact that he had four women in his life. Anyone who was sleeping with four women at the same time, thought Jericho, probably deserved to get murdered. He turned eventually, long after Haynes had moved on to the next story.

'Who's she?' he asked.

'Who?' said Haynes, looking up.

'Jordan? Am I supposed to know who that is?'

'Jordan. You know Jordan. She's em... you know, she does stuff.'

Jericho gave him one of his best you-just-crawled-out-from-under-a-log looks.

'What the fuck are you talking about? The country of Jordan? The river?'

'The model with the big tits...' said Haynes. 'At least, the tits that used to be big but now might be a bit smaller. Jordan of Katie and Pete.'

'Jesus, now you're talking about Katie and Pete. Who the fuck are they?'

'Katie's name for when she gets her tits out is Jordan. She uses Katie when she writes books and shit. Although, she doesn't actually write the books, just has her name put on them.'

Jericho rubbed his forehead, looking pained. 'Promise me,' he said, 'that from now on you'll only read grown-up papers.'

Haynes smiled. 'If you can find one in the UK, I'll give it a shot.'

Margaret Belham walked into the room, without the expected tea tray in her hands, and sat down on the sofa opposite Haynes. She sighed heavily and leaned forward, elbows on her knees.

'Tea's off,' she said, looking at Jericho.

There was a pause. Jericho shrugged.

'I didn't kill him,' she said abruptly. 'But I know who might have.'

Haynes laid the paper down and sat forward.

'Oh, for crying out loud,' said Jericho.

'What?' she asked.

Jericho took a small notebook from his pocket, scribbled something on a piece of paper, tore the paper out, folded it and handed it to Haynes.

'Go on, Mrs. Belham,' said Jericho. 'Who do you think?'

She looked slightly concerned at Jericho's peculiar behaviour, glanced at Haynes, and then said, 'Ilsa Ravenwood. That little witch who worked with Jeffrey at the bookshop.'

She stopped talking as Jericho nodded to Haynes, and Haynes unfolded the piece of paper. The handwriting was hurried and dreadful, yet Haynes could still make out the name of Ilsa Ravenwood. He folded the paper back into his pocket, smiling ruefully to himself.

'What?' asked Margaret Belham.

***

'How d'you do that stuff?' asked Haynes as they walked up past Tesco, on their way to the small house near St. Cuthbert's, where they would find the fourth woman in Jeffrey Parks' abruptly terminated life.

'Are you learning?' asked Jericho.

'I ain't learning shit,' said Haynes. 'But I'm impressed. What's the secret?'

'The secret, Sergeant, is paying attention.'

He walked on; Haynes followed, unsurprised at his taciturnity.

'Should I pay attention to this next one?' he asked.

'If you like,' said Jericho. 'Although you'll find that she also believes Mrs. Ravenwood guilty of the murder.'

Haynes shook his head but managed to stop himself asking how he knew. Maybe, he thought, it would be best if he just paid attention.

***

5.30 in the evening of a gloomy Friday. The supermarkets aside, the shops were closing for the night; darkness had already fallen. There were still people abroad on Wells High Street, a majority of them in the uniforms of the Cathedral School or the Blue School, teenagers who didn't care about the cold rain, who still walked happily in the cold and bleak murk of early evening.

As Jericho and Haynes walked back down through the town to the station, bent into the wind and the rain, at the other end of town the blinds had been drawn on the book shop out on the old Bath Road. Ilsa Ravenwood had, sure enough, been pegged as the murderer by the third of Jeffrey Parks' girlfriends, Catherine Pitt. It seemed that each one of Parks' women had known about the others; and at least one of them had not been happy about it.

However, as night fell on the city, and the doors were closed and the metal blinds pulled on the city's shoplife, one thing was certain. The murderous one of the quartet was not Ilsa Ravenwood.

She sat in the same chair behind the counter into which Haynes had eased her two days previously. After two days, distraught at the death of her lover, her tears had stopped; to be replaced by the slow drip of blood, from the knife which had been thrust into her neck from behind, ending her life in a sudden and unexpected moment of searing pain.

The same angle of attack as that which had killed Parks, the same method, the same brand of knife left buried to the hilt in the flesh.

***

Jericho and Haynes were sitting in his office looking at the board on the wall. There was a photograph of Parks' dead body in the middle, pictures of his four women surrounding it, various arrows drawn between them.

'It doesn't have to be one of the women,' said Haynes, after a period of silence. 'The guy was an asshole. There could be a queue of people with a grudge.'

'Let's not ignore what's in front of our faces. The guy was a horrible piece of crap, horrible enough to have quite happily let all his lovers know that they were one of a crowd. He made his money legitimately, he sold up his business in a straightforward manner. There are going to be people he pissed off, certainly, but murder, that's just....... Let's concentrate on what we know, what we've got a feeling for.'

He pointed at the board, his hand moving around the pictures of the four women.

'One of these women,' he said. 'It's about the women.'

'What if there's a fifth woman?' said Haynes. 'One that the others didn't know about.'

'Good thought,' said Jericho. 'However, Patterson's been all over his computer and his phone. Parks e-mailed a lot, well, to three of them, not his wife. It's plausible that he didn't tell them about a fifth woman, but seems implausible that he never contacted her. Let's stick to these four women for now. Only if we exhaust the obvious, do we progress to the dubious.'

Haynes laughed.

'See,' he said. 'That's the kind of shit Sherlock Holmes used to come out with.'

'I'll make sure not to say it again,' muttered Jericho.

There was a brusque knock at the door, which Jericho immediately recognised as that of DC Patterson, who then entered and looked with a raised eyebrow at the graphics on the board.

'You've lost one of your suspects,' he said abruptly.

'Hah!' said Jericho, straightening up. 'Has to be Mrs. Ravenwood.'

Patterson nodded, with a glance at Haynes. Jericho immediately eased himself out of his seat.

'Let's get over there. Knife in the neck?'

'Knife in the neck,' repeated Patterson.

And off they went, a killer to chase down.

viii

The man from the Wells Journal was nosing around outside the shop. A few other gloaters were at the police barriers, hoping for a view of the kill. There were nine police officers at the scene, plus four SOCOs who'd come up from Taunton.

As was usual in these circumstances, Jericho was leaving all the work to those better qualified, and was standing to the side watching the post-murder investigation unfold. The body had been discovered by Mr. Ravenwood, who had come looking for his wife, late home from work. He was currently sitting in a back room, holding an un-drunk cup of tea, staring at the floor, being attended to by a constable who had previously excelled on the Immediate Trauma Counselling & Victim Support course.

Jericho looked sullen, perhaps even bored; however, beneath the surly and aloof exterior, his mind was flying over all the possibilities. The man Ravenwood, while not appearing to be aware that his wife had been romantically involved with Parks, could have taken out his wife and her lover. Perhaps someone had a grudge against the shop in particular, and would now be going after Caroline, the Saturday girl.

Haynes appeared from the back room and approached Jericho, hands in pockets. The body was just about to be bagged and removed.

'How's your theory standing up, Sir?' asked Haynes. 'Do we include the husband in the list of obvious suspects, or do we reduce it to two?'

Jericho ignored the tone, and raised his eyebrow at the latter observation.

'Two?' he said.

'Two girlfriends left. Margaret Belham and Catherine Pitt.'

'You're ruling the wife out?' said Jericho.

'She was in Australia,' said Haynes.

Jericho stared sceptically at the corpse of Ilsa Ravenwood, as it was manhandled into a large, black plastic executive bin liner.

'I'd like you to get hold of her mobile phone records for the last ten days. No... call it the last month. Let's see if her phone actually went to Australia.'

'You're thinking that if it didn't, she didn't?'

Jericho turned and gave him a smile of confirmation.

'What about Mr. Ravenwood?'

Jericho turned distractedly back to the corpse, now enveloped in black.

'I'll get Patterson or Collins to look into it. You get on with.... you know, the phone records. And these sisters of hers, do some digging on them 'n' all.'

ix

He knocked on the door at a little after 8:15pm; Rosalind Parks answered in her pyjamas. She smiled; he looked over her shoulder, expecting to see some other man there for the evening.

'Already in bed?' he asked.

'Curled up on the sofa, eating ice cream, watching a movie,' she said. 'Come in.'

She stood back to let him in, he could smell her as he walked past. She closed the door and led him into the front room. There was a large television in the corner, a film paused mid-frame. On the table were three tubs of ice cream. Triple Chocolate; Strawberry; and Raspberry & Vanilla. She lifted the chocolate tub, and settled back onto the sofa, flicking the movie back on as she went.

'Have a seat. Help yourself to ice cream. I've used those spoons, but I don't have any germs. At least, nothing you probably haven't already got.'

He watched the television for a few seconds, then looked at her. There was nowhere else to sit, except beside her on the sofa. The buttons in her pyjamas had parted, and from where he stood he could see the curve of her left breast, the edge of her nipple.

He quickly looked back at the television.

'What are you watching?' he asked.

'It's Iranian. Frontier Blues. It's set on the border with Turkmenistan. Did you know Iran has a border with Turkmenistan? It's rather beautiful but not a lot happens. I suppose not a lot happens in real life either. You should sit down.'

'Ilsa Ravenwood is dead,' said Jericho, with his trademark terseness.

Rosalind Parks did not even look at him. He watched the flick of her tongue as she licked ice cream from the spoon.

'How tragic,' she said eventually, then she turned and looked blankly at Jericho. 'On the plus side, that's one less awkward potential meeting at Jeffrey's funeral. You will come?'

She licked a piece of chocolate from the corner of her lips. Suddenly, for a moment, he stopped finding it alluring and became annoyed.

'Where were you three hours ago?'

She studied him while taking another spoonful of ice cream.

'I was here,' she said. 'Alone. Eating ice cream. There are empty pots in the garage if you want to check.'

'There's no one to verify your movements?' asked Jericho.

She shook her head. Continued to eat ice cream in an erotic manner, not noticing that she had lost her audience.

'I'm afraid not. You'll just have to trust me. Why don't you sit down and give me an alibi for the evening in case someone else gets murdered.'

Jericho stared at the empty space on the sofa and had one of those moments of self-loathing.

x

The morning was bright. A good day for a murder, if there was to be another one. The previous evening, Jericho had finally left the widow Parks in order to inform the other grief-stricken girlfriends of the latest death. Neither of them had been especially bothered by the demise of Ilsa Ravenwood; just as neither of them had had an alibi.

Jericho was sitting at a table in the canteen, scratching his four day old stubble, slowly drinking his third coffee of the day. He looked up as Haynes came and sat down beside him, armed with a full breakfast and three slices of toast.

'All right?' said Haynes, settling down, spearing a sausage before his backside had made contact with the seat.

'Yes,' said Jericho. 'Tell me about the widow's phone.'

'Straight down to business, eh?' said Haynes.

Jericho didn't reply. He glanced at Haynes' breakfast, but he was neither tempted nor hungry.

'It checked out,' said Haynes through a mouthful of breakfast. 'It had been used in Australia, local calls. The phone was in Australia, no question. The sisters check out, too. One of them was in Sydney with Parks, the other lives in Lee, south of London.'

'Has she got an alibi for the night of Parks' murder?'

'Haven't checked that yet, Sir. Are we extending the net that wide?'

'The net's not just wide, Sergeant... the net extends to cover absolutely everyone in the country. At some point we'll narrow it down.'

'You want me to find out what she was doing?'

Jericho thought about it for a moment then shook his head.

'I'm going up to London, speak to the sister. You can come if you like.'

Haynes continued to shovel food. Finally he swallowed much too big a mouthful without chewing it properly and waved his fork in Jericho's direction.

'You're kind of obsessing about this woman, Sir. She was in Australia. We know she was in Australia. There are about fifty other potential killers out there, and you're spending all your time on this one. What gives?'

Jericho drained his coffee and got to his feet. Haynes's eating habits offended him, and he didn't want to have to watch it any more.

'Right at the start, when you wanted me to say who I thought did it, I was being flippant when I said it was the widow. But you know what? I was right. So, come on, you've got ten minutes to eat that lot then we'll need to go. We should be back around seven, then you can come with me and we'll go round and arrest her.'

'Shouldn't we arrest her now, if you so sure?'

'Don't have enough yet. But we will. Just have to hope that she doesn't murder anyone else in the meantime.'

'Ten minutes,' he added, when Haynes didn't say anything, and then he turned and walked slowly from the canteen, his shoulders slightly hunched. Haynes wondered if he still had a sore neck, or whether he always walked like that anyway, and if the weight of being the country's most successful detective dragged his shoulders down.

xi

They sat on the train up to Paddington. A little over three hours travelling time in all before they arrived at the house of Rosalind Parks' sister. Haynes had tried talking, but almost as soon as the trip began, Jericho had felt the encroachment of depression; his replies had become shorter and shorter. Going back to London.

He didn't want to go back to London. There was too much there. And Paddington in particular. Where the ghosts were. Where he had last seen Amanda.

He didn't know where she was now. If by some impossible chance she was still alive, she wouldn't be at Paddington Station; yet part of him was still stuck there, still trapped looking over his shoulder, the last time he saw her. A quick smile, a last glance.

It wasn't supposed to be the last glance. He hadn't known it at the time. Hadn't even had a strange feeling, an inkling, a premonition. Where had his famous police instinct been that morning?

Sitting uncomfortably on the train, he realised he ought to have sent Haynes on his own, but he'd wanted to meet the sister, to confirm his theory. For all his outward confidence, for all that he projected the image of being in control and knowing everything that was going on, this was just a hunch. He needed to confirm the hunch himself, not rely on Haynes.

Eventually he had stopped talking altogether, and Haynes had given up any attempt at communication and had started playing Bookworm on his iPhone.

***

The Tube was packed, every carriage seeming like a rush hour commuter train. They stood in amongst tourists. Haynes enjoyed it. The crush of people, the noise, the vibrancy, the adverts on the walls, the great rush of life. Compared to this, Wells was a one house village in the middle of the Highlands. He would have said so to Jericho, but Jericho had shut down. His eyes were open, but his stare was empty. Haynes had heard he had days like this, but he'd never seen it before. He wondered if he'd have to take over when they got to the house of the widow's sister.

The train out to Lee wasn't so busy, and by the time they walked out of the station and along the back roads to the semi-detached Edwardian home, the crush of central London was well behind them, a pale winter sun was shining and Jericho was able to emerge slightly from the shell he had constructed around himself.

Nevertheless, when they stood at the door and rang the bell, Jericho had not uttered a word since just after they'd left Pewsey station, over two hours previously.

Janine Miller opened the door and smiled at them both. Black hair was drawn back tightly from her face, just long enough to be tied at the back. She wore thick-rimmed glasses that Jericho thought might be a few years too young for her, and which Haynes thought were at least twenty years too young for her.

'Come in,' she said, not bothering to ask for identification. They had arranged their visit.

There was coffee already made, waiting on the table. Hot milk. Three cups. Brown sugar in a small, elegant bowl. No biscuits or cake. She already knew how Jericho took his coffee. They were all settled in seats, not another word had been spoken, when she said, 'Milk? Sugar?'

'Yes, two sugars please,' said Haynes, and he glanced at Jericho. No reply, then the two coffees were handed over and he wondered how Janine Miller had instinctively known what Jericho would want.

They each took a sip of coffee and then, like a trio of well-rehearsed synchronized swimmers, laid their cups back on the low table that separated them.

Miller looked expectantly at them, her eyes moving between the two. Haynes wondered if he was going to have to say something, and wasn't sure of the line that Jericho had intended taking.

A noise escaped his lips as he started to formulate his first question, but he was immediately cut off by Jericho.

'Did you kill your brother-in-law?'

The voice was flat, matter-of-fact. Haynes stared at the carpet, even though he knew he should have been looking at Miller to see her reaction. As it was, there was nothing to see.

'Why would I do that?' she asked.

Her voice was completely neutral, and yet totally different from thirty seconds earlier. Haynes looked up.

'He was a monstrous asshole, and your sister asked you to.'

Miller laughed. She looked curiously at Jericho, wondering if he was being serious, and then a genuine smile started to spread across her face.

'She said you were a piece of work.'

'Did you kill him?'

'No.'

'Your sister came to stay with you before she went to Australia?'

'Yes,' said Miller. 'Just for a couple of nights. We went to see Warhorse. I know, but everyone's been talking about it...'

'And you've been here since then?'

'Went to Edinburgh.'

Jericho had been expecting her not to have been there the whole time. He would ask her for proof of her visit to Edinburgh and she would have it, neatly tucked away, train tickets and hotel receipts.

'You can prove that?' he asked.

'Oh...' she said, and she looked over her shoulder, furrowed her brow. 'Yes, I might be able to. You see, I never throw away receipts and what-not until I get the card bill in. I like to cross check.' She smiled, looked embarrassed. 'My sisters tell me I'm on the spectrum. You know, Asperger's. I alphabetize absolutely everything and I can multiply three hundred and twenty-six by nine thousand, three hundred and forty-one in under a second.'

'What is it?' said Haynes.

'Oh... seven hundred and ninety-five thousand, two hundred and fifty-six.'

She smiled awkwardly, as if she'd just let them in behind the mask. Jericho took another long drink of coffee, laid the cup back down on the table, stood up and said, 'Thank you very much.'

'Oh,' she said again. 'You don't want to see the receipts?'

'No,' said Jericho.

He looked down at her for a moment, wondering whether it was worthwhile saying anything else, decided that he didn't feel like talking and turned and walked to the door. Haynes glugged the rest of his coffee, put the cup back down, rose at the same time as Miller and smiled. Decided that he better not say anything, as his previous three words were quite possibly three words more than Jericho had wanted him to say.

Jericho did not turn. He was not in the mood to be lied to. He opened the door and walked out into the fresh air, the day beginning to cool to a crisp, winter's afternoon. He hadn't noticed it before, even though they'd been in Miller's house less than five minutes.

Haynes nodded at Miller and caught up with Jericho as he got to the end of the garden path and turned onto the pavement. She watched them go from the door, not entirely sure what had just happened, waited until they were out of sight and then returned inside to call her sister.

'It's three million, forty-five thousand, one hundred and sixty-six,' said Jericho.

Haynes looked at him for a second, then realised what he meant.

'So she just made up an answer?'

'Yes.'

'She was justifying keeping receipts by trying to establish a condition that she doesn't have.'

'Yes.'

'So she never went to Edinburgh?'

'Oh, she never went to Edinburgh.'

'So, she murdered Parks? Why are we leaving?'

'She didn't murder Parks,' said Jericho.

Haynes nodded. He thought he'd been doing all right.

'I'm getting a disconnect,' said Haynes.

'You ever see Duck Soup?' said Jericho, although he didn't feel like talking.

'Never heard of it. What is it?'

'Marx Brothers,' said Jericho.

Haynes shook his head.

'I didn't mean you to leave,' said Jericho.

'What?'

'You go back, talk to her. Find out what you can. I've got to go somewhere. Meet you back at Paddington in two and a half hours. Don't be late.'

Haynes stopped walking. Jericho walked on without looking at him; Haynes watched him go.

***

They met again at Paddington, ten minutes late. They sat and drank another two cups of coffee. Jericho didn't eat anything, Haynes had two sandwiches, talking all the while about Janine Miller and what he thought might be relevant. Jericho listened and did not speak. They got on the afternoon train back to the south-west and arrived at Castle Cary at 6.45.

xii

This time she wasn't wearing pyjamas, but her look was still dressed down and alluring. She welcomed them in, giving Haynes an appreciative glance as they passed her in the hall.

'Tea?' she said, having shown them into the front room. An empty tub of ice cream, spoon propped on the edge, sat on the table. The TV was off, a couple of magazines lay on the floor.

'Sure,' said Haynes.

'Yep,' said Jericho. 'And cake, if you've got any left. I'm starving.'

She smiled and left them to it for a minute. Haynes looked curiously at Jericho, having picked up on the vibe.

'If you've got any left? How long did you stay last night?'

Jericho finally felt the relief of being away from London. Like the pressure had lifted. London compressed him, squeezed him into a black ball. Getting out, sitting on the train heading in the other direction, released him from the oppression. At least for a short time.

'A while,' said Jericho, though not in the least defensively. 'We watched an Iranian movie. Nothing happened in the movie. She offered me ice cream. I don't like ice cream. So she offered me cake. I ate cake. I left. I just asked her if she had any more cake. Are you apprised of the facts, or would you like to know anything further?'

Haynes settled into the sofa and lifted a copy of Town & Country.

'I'm curious as to whether we're really about to arrest her. Apart from that, I'm pretty cool.'

Jericho grunted, then stood in the middle of the room with his arms folded, staring at the walls.

'Seems a bit off to let her go and make tea, when she's about to be nicked. I don't think they tell you about that in training college.'

Haynes looked up at Jericho, who shrugged.

'I'm hungry,' he said.

Haynes read an article about foxes. Jericho looked at the walls. Eventually Rosalind Parks returned with the tray. She laid it on a small table, handed the two men a piece of cake each.

'It's yesterday's, but sometimes cake tastes better the next day, doesn't it?'

'We're here to arrest you for the murder of your husband, Mrs. Parks,' said Jericho. 'And for the murder of Ilsa Ravenwood yesterday evening. I must warn you that anything you say will be taken down, and may be used against you in a court of law. Thanks for the cake, by the way. You're right,' he added with a full mouth, 'it is a bit tastier, even if it has lost a certain amount of moisture.'

She looked at Haynes, her eyebrow twitching slightly, then back to Jericho.

'You must think I have very long arms, Chief Inspector,' she said, 'to reach all the way from Australia.'

Jericho nodded, his mouth full of cake.

'If you'd gone to Australia, yes. But since you never got any further than Paris, we can afford to leave the length of your arms out of it.'

Haynes was looking at Parks as Jericho spoke, and saw the movement in her face for that brief second. Just an instant, but it was all there. The guilt, the fear, the loathing. Then she flicked the switch and her face returned to showing neutral interest, as if Jericho had just told her she had a problem with her gearbox and her car would need to go into the garage for a couple of days.

'I went to Terminal 3, checked out the CCTV. Your sister went to Australia on your passport. You look similar enough, the photo is old enough that she could get away with it, she got her hair done the way you had it nine years ago. You went to Paris on a false passport, just so that you could return at the same time. You met in the toilets, swapped passports, you emerged to be met at Border Control with your own passport, for all the world as if you'd just been to Sydney. All three sisters in on the lie.'

She breathed heavily, controlling the emotion. Haynes was aware that he was sitting there, a bit of a village idiot, no real idea what was going on, looking at the two protagonists in turn with monstrous fascination.

'She doesn't look anything like her sister,' he found himself saying.

Jericho didn't look at him. He was staring at Parks. She smiled sweetly at Haynes.

'Thank you,' she said. 'At least one of you is talking sense.'

'In the meantime,' said Jericho, 'you travelled about a bit, laid the alibis for your sister – which were never going to be watertight, but you just had to hope were enough – and, of course, killed your husband. Having attempted to lay the proof of your innocence for that murder, you then killed Ilsa Ravenwood in exactly the same manner, hoping that it would show you also to be innocent of her murder. Sadly it didn't. You're nicked.'

Rosalind Parks bent down and lifted a cup of tea. She blew seductively across the top, sucking the men in with her slow movements, giving herself time to think. What they knew and what they didn't.

'But I didn't kill Jeffrey. Why would I do that when there were so many other people queuing up to do it?'

'No there weren't,' said Jericho, his words barely understandable, as he'd just taken a mouthful of cake. 'The others all came in knowing he was married, knowing there was a harem. Only you'd become involved with him expecting monogamy. Only you were actually annoyed about it, while the others just took what they could get.'

'Maybe,' she said quickly, 'but that doesn't prove anything.'

'I know.'

There was a pause. She could have laughed, and might have had she been someone else, but she was too cool.

'So, what evidence do you have for your preposterous allegation?'

Jericho popped a last piece of cake into his mouth and licked his fingers. Then, keeping his audience waiting, he lifted his cup of tea, cleared his mouth and straightened up. Insomuch as he ever straightened.

'To be honest,' he said, 'that thing I said when I came in, about you being under arrest for the murder blah blah... I just made that up. Wanting to see your reaction.'

Haynes glanced at him, even more curious. The Cathedral widow smiled.

'I'm sorry to leave you so devastatingly empty-handed.'

'On the contrary,' said Jericho. 'Come on, you're nicked.'

She looked confused, then said, 'For this absurd passport thing?'

She tried to laugh.

'Sure. Then there's the fact that you gave your passport to your sister to travel, then swapped passports. It'll add up. In these days when the border control people are peeing their pants about terrorism, we can get you down for a decent sentence. Then we'll go over every single inch of your house and your effects, and at some point we'll nail you. And in the meantime, you won't be able to kill either of these other deluded women.'

He looked down at Haynes, who was sitting with his mouth slightly open.

'Finish your cake,' said Jericho. 'We're leaving. Mrs. Parks, you're coming into custody. You might want to put a bra on.'

She sneered. 'I'm phoning a lawyer first.'

'Of course you are. Get him to meet you at the station.'

xiii

Later that evening Jericho was sitting in his office, a solitary sidelight on his desk, looking out on the few lights of the country, stretching out towards the south east. Tenth cup of coffee of the day, which was a lot, even for him. He was aware of Haynes walking into the room behind him, and then his sergeant came and stood beside him, looking out of the window.

'She really doesn't look anything like her sister,' said Haynes after a few moments.

'There's always a similarity with siblings,' said Jericho. 'Much easier for them to affect the disguise. Watch the mirror scene from Duck Soup. Those guys didn't look anything like each other. But watch that scene...'

Duck Soup. Haynes had forgotten about that. He could YouTube it when he got back to his office.

'So, is that it?' asked Haynes.

Jericho turned and looked at him.

'Pretty much,' he said. 'We'll get her with something. Might take a day or a week or a few months, but we'll get her.'

'What if it wasn't her?'

'And she just pretended to go to Australia, because that's what people do...?'

'I suppose.' He paused, thought of something else. 'What about that thing you said a couple of days ago? Never make your mind up until you've got concrete proof?'

Jericho shrugged.

'Did I say that?'

'Yeah. I wrote it down.'

'It goes hand in hand with always follow your gut instinct. It's juxtaposition. You'll figure it out in the end.'

A silence settled over them, though it was not destined to last for long.

'I just thought...' said Haynes, then his voice drifted off.

'There'd be more car chases and explosions and shit?' suggested Jericho.

'Closure,' said Haynes instead.

'Ah,' said Jericho, nodding. 'I'm afraid this is the real world, son. None of your two hour detective shows on ITV where everything's neatly wrapped up, it turns out the retired sergeant-major did it and he's led away to a life of imprisonment. There's no black, no white. Just great swathes of grey. And too many lawyers.'

Haynes sighed heavily, shook his head and looked at his watch.

'I need to get going, if that's OK? We can take it up again tomorrow?'

'Sure,' said Jericho. 'What've you got on?'

'Going into Bristol with some mates to get pished.'

Jericho waved a dismissive hand; Haynes turned and walked slowly from his office.

Jericho continued to stare out over the dark of night for another few minutes, then eventually he turned and once more opened the file on Mrs. Rosalind Parks. The file was slim, but over the next few weeks he knew it would get much thicker, and there was a fair chance he'd be spending a lot more time with her, playing dangerous games in small rooms.

***

Also by Douglas Lindsay

We Are The Hanged Man

(the first DCI Jericho novel)

When the latest hit reality TV show, Britain's Got Justice, needs an expert police panellist, DCI Robert Jericho's boss thrusts him into the media spotlight, knowing full well that Jericho's been desperate to avoid the limelight after his wife's unexplained disappearance ten years ago.

With the press now hounding his every move, there's nowhere to hide.

Meanwhile, sinister tarot cards are turning up on Jericho's desk, each one more bone-chilling and grotesque than its predecessor. As he investigates a series of seemingly unrelated deaths, he becomes aware that a noose is gradually tightening around his throat.

Someone is setting him up for a neck-breaking fall.

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