Summer of Love

The Summer sun beat down relentlessly upon the car roof, cooking it. Jenner shook his head at the shimmering air, not looking forward to climbing into an intensity of heat that his motor’s blowers had no chance of banishing. Huffing his annoyance at the sun and it’s tardy seasonal appearance, he started the engine and lowered the front windows. Still the radiating heat threatened to singe his eyebrows. It was barely ten a.m.

“What’s the world coming to, eh?” he asked the car, patting its dash. His Audi was nigh on a museum piece. He didn’t exactly love it, the same as he couldn’t say he loved his left leg. It was a part of him. It suited him fine. That it still had that distinctive Audi smell was a secret delight for him. New Audis just didn’t smell the same. Neither did the world as far as Jenner was concerned. The world he’d grown up in had had a fresher aroma. Now there was a stink about the place that soured everything that passed Jenner’s lips. Including his words.

The holiday park was Jenner’s idea of hell. A blot on the coastal landscape, as though a callous teenager had kicked an overfilled bin bag in its guts, the contents vomited out over the hillside. They called them static caravans. Tin cans rattling loudly with humanity. Despite his dislike of the things, Jenner’s natural curiosity had gotten the better of him and he’d looked up how much they cost. His eyes watering at the apparent criminality of the commercial arrangement the holiday parks induced punters into. Jenner would stick with his staycations. Holidays in strange beds and feeling like an unwelcome fish out of water weren’t for him. He’d tried it, but didn’t like it. Always glad to get home, but never able to bring himself to admit he’d missed the place, or that he might have the makings of a problem in his unwillingness to leave his nest.

Parking the Audi in a visitor’s bay near the entrance to the park, he opted to walk the rest of the way, despite the stifling heat. He could’ve driven all the way to the crime scene, but that didn’t work for him. The walk was a transition from the illusory normalcy of life to a place of death. Ever watchful, Jenner was placing the scene in the context of its surroundings. Beginning to make sense of it before he was thrust into its midst. 

The soporific sameness of row after row of uniform contrivance appalled Jenner and dissuaded him of any doubts he’d had of his prejudice of these places. He absolved himself of his inverse snobbery. Walking through the makeshift housing estate, he began to worry that he may not find the crime scene after all. The size of the sprawling park was deceptive. But he wasn’t going to make the call and ask for directions. He trusted his nose and he didn’t want to lose it together with the rest of his face.

He needn’t have worried. He was drawn to an energy and as he rounded the next corner he saw where the energy was emanating from. There were several police vehicles and a dark unmarked vehicle that would remove the body once the preliminaries were done. Surrounding the professionals as they went about their work, was a small crowd of sightseers. Families gathered together to record the excitement of a death so they could go home and share the highlight of their holiday with all and sundry. Several wags would no doubt joke about a holiday caravan going cheap. Just needs a new mattress and a good airing. All of these jokers would believe they were original. The only ones to have come up with this witty quip. Legends in their own tea-time.

Jenner nodded at the PC at the cordon as she lifted it for him, returning the nod.

“Think you’ll find you should acknowledge a senior officer,” Jenner’s admonishment was delivered light heartedly, but the PC blushed all the same. 

“Sir,” she nodded a second time, averting her eyes and missing the olive branch of his smile. 

He inwardly shrugged and not for the first time wondered what had happened to his bedside manner, “strangled at birth,” he muttered to himself.

Outside the entrance to the caravan, Jenner was presented with the frenetic activity of a crime scene. He could see the SOCOs inside, going over everything with a fine tooth comb. A constant flow of people going in and out. The choreography of this dance never ceased to fascinate Jenner. He’d gotten into the habit of coming up with a different tune that he then played quietly in the back of his head as everyone went about their business. By rights, the music should have been a waltz, but Jenner always opted for something more contemporary. Today, he inexplicably chose something older. A tune from Glenn Miller. He was mildly confused by this until he fully attended to the woman sitting on the picnic bench outside the caravan.

The woman was an island. Could have been invisible in that moment, but Jenner saw her well. It was what Jenner did. To see. To pay attention to the things that others often overlooked. But there was more to this than his practiced gaze. She was overdressed for a Friday morning in a caravan park. And as he took in her outfit, he understood where the music had come from. She may not have styled herself on the fashions prevailing in Miller’s time, but it was close enough. Vintage. There were better descriptions. In the pursuit of research he would look those descriptors up. For now, he quietly opted for femme fatale. An unfortunate option, but then she was sitting demurely in the middle of a murder scene. Jenner tried not to smile at what this made him. A hard-bitten private eye with an obsessive consumption of cheap bourbon and far too expensive women.

As this image tickled him, she looked up and her eyes found his. Striking eyes. Large and green. Forged with an intensity that hit him with a surprise force. The shock of it was that she’d managed to take Jenner’s breath away. That had never happened to him before. A first that he’d given up hope of ever occurring. Now, as he considered her outfit, it took on a whole new meaning. 

Was he blushing? Had karma spun around that quickly? He maintained eye contact. He wasn’t one for averting his eyes. Besides, something was going on here. He was attempting to read her. Read the situation. But all he was getting was that he was attracted to her. The low cut blouse wasn’t helping. The way she was dressed spoke to him of a hot date with the promise of the dial on the heat turning up over the course of the night. Maybe she wasn’t dressed for sex, but that was what was on Jenner’s mind right now. 

“Jenner.” 

The sound of his name broke the spell. Suddenly he felt tired. The approaching heat of the noonday sun was already oppressive. British Summers were a mixed bag, but when it got hot there was often a pressure that built and built until Jenner felt he was going mad. There was a strange threat of an implosion. He was never able to get more than a few hours sleep each night.

He turned to the source of the word, “Tanner.”

Tanner was his D.S., a very capable police officer, which was just as well as she was a graduate with the potential to be fast tracked up the ranks. Jenner had a sneaking suspicion that her time with him had cooled her heels. She enjoyed life at the coal face a little too much to leave it for the politics and glad-handing of the higher ranks. He was glad. She was very much needed here, and it didn’t escape him that any replacement would struggle not only to live up to her capabilities, but to live with him. Not that he’d ever earned the cantankerous reputation that proceeded him.

Tanner filled him in on what they currently knew, which boiled down to a man who had been unalived in suspicious circumstances, and one further occupant of the holiday abode who was currently sitting on the picnic bench behind him.

“Not the holiday break either of them were planning,” Jenner observed once they were inside and making their way to the larger of the two bedrooms. Caravan interiors were always a surprise and disappoint to Jenner. They managed to be fairly well appointed, but in a style that spoke of another time, but that time had never existed and it was quite frankly crap. Far too heavy on the beige.

“Or maybe it was…” Tanner countered.

Jenner raised an eyebrow at his colleague, “sex game gone wrong?”

Her face crumpled with a combination of reactions, “you’ve seen that she’s dressed to the nines?”

Jenner nodded.

Tanner said nothing, looking askance.

Jenner didn’t take another look at the pale body laying spreadeagled on the bed. He didn’t have to, “he’s naked.”

Tanner nodded.

Jenner returned the nod, but wasn’t about to hear Tanner’s take. Not yet. She knew this was the way he worked. Keeping everything open. Observing. Not forcing the connections.

“Cause of death?” he asked.

“Exsanguination,” she replied.

Now Jenner looked at the body again, “he was moved here after death?”

But Tanner was shaking her head.

“Oh great!” bawled Jenner, “why me! Why is it always me!?”

“Because of your excellent track record with the cases no one else wants?” ventured Tanner.

“Don’t,” Jenner warned, raising his finger as he left the caravan, “just don’t.”

Outside, Jenner was disappointed to discover the prime suspect in this unusual case had been taken to the station. She intrigued him. More so now he had a corpse drained of blood, but not a spot of blood to be seen in the room where his death occurred.

The rest of the day was a non-event. No progress was made, even as the suspect, Seline, told her story of what had occurred. The story didn’t stack up, but then none of it did. There would be more tests and painstaking work to corroborate the initial findings, but Jenner had nothing other than what Seline had told them.

The deceased wasn’t her husband. She was recently separated and the only time she seemed at all rattled during questioning was when Jenner had referred to her relationship with the deceased as an affair. She was adamant that it wasn’t. Jenner begged to differ and they had exchanged another look that lasted longer than it should have. There was something about Seline that Jenner didn’t trust. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the basis of his attraction towards her. She was a question that he needed to answer.

They moved on to the husband. He had motive. Infidelity. Seline had no reason to think he would do such a thing. 

Time and again, there was intrigue. But Seline wouldn’t be drawn further on any score. This was the nature of the questioning that day. Her nature. The getaway was for sex. Seline was very clear on this. Why was she dressed and he was naked? That was their thing. 

Jenner couldn’t help imagine his being naked in her presence. There was something intoxicating about her, and every now and then she would look into his eyes and he felt a thrill that knocked him sideways.

“And this morning?” Jenner had asked.

“I woke up and he was dead,” Seline stated simply.

“And you say there was no one else in the caravan with you at any time last night?” Jenner asked again.

“No,” Seline confirmed.

There was no basis to charge her with anything, and so Jenner saw Seline out. She smiled at him as he opened the door for her, “you thought about what it would be like, didn’t you?” she again looked deeply into his eyes.

He didn’t want to get drawn into this. Couldn’t. This wasn’t flirting, it was far more than that, “I have to,” he told her, “it’s my job.”

“And I see that you enjoy your job,” she smiled again, “see you around,” then she was walking away. He watched her. Watched her in a way that he knew he shouldn’t, but he did so all the same. The heels she wore made her long legs all the more shapely. Her skirt hugged her curves. Everything hugged her curves. And she moved like a cat. There was something dangerous about her, and for the first time in his life Jenner was willing to put himself in that kind of danger.

“Well that was weird.”

Jenner nodded absently at Tanner’s words, “up there with the more unusual cases, yes.”

“No, you!” Tanner protested.

This broke him from his reverie, “you what?”

“What was going on between the two of you?” she hissed.

“What are you saying?” both of their voices were raised now.

“You were acting like a smitten schoolboy in there! Did you not get it? Her lawyer and I felt like bloody gooseberries. I nearly told the two of you to get a room!”

Jenner’s blood was up now, “are you accusing me of being unprofessional?”

Tanner demurred, “no. It wasn’t quite that bad.”

Jenner shook his head in mock disbelief, he was bang to rights, but he couldn’t admit it. He’d never admit it, “did I miss any pertinent line of enquiry, lead the witness, or drop the ball in any way?”

“No…” Tanner was quiet now, “it was just…”

“Just what?” he asked.

“I’ve never seen you like that.” She grinned, “didn’t know you had it in you.”

For the second time that day, Jenner raised his finger, “don’t! Just don’t!”

The day limped on through the muggy heat. The offices weren’t airconditioned. There were machines that had been sold in that capacity, but they suffered from emphysema and had been past it from the start of their tenure. The choice was the con trick of air-con, or the peace and quiet to hear yourself think.

Somehow it was even hotter when Jenner left work. Trickles of beaded sweat traced unpleasant patterns down his back and his lungs protested at the sticky warm air he pushed past their threshold. 

He swung into a late night shop on his way home. Basic provisions that included a bottle of whisky. He lied, telling himself that it helped him think. The truth was that it helped drown out all the extraneous thoughts, for a while at least.

Climbing out of his Audi with his shopping, he saw her. For a maddening moment, he thought he was daydreaming. A lust-filled fantasy to provide some escapism from the dull night that lay ahead, but as she unfurled from the darkness she’d been waiting in, he saw that she was real enough and his heart was in his mouth. This was wrong. It was all wrong. But he wanted it with a fervour he didn’t know he was capable of. He wanted her. Had wanted her from the moment he’d seen her. More so when she’d looked up at him for the very first time and something passed between them. Something that had led to this and was going to lead to far more.

She sauntered towards him, meeting him at the door. He watched her all the way. Remembering what she’d said about the night before. The way she had played it. He could see how that would work. Resisting the urge to tear at her clothing and unwrap her to discover all of her secrets. Being made to wait.

“Can we talk?” she asked.

He mimicked the act of making the decision when it was already made. She bit her bottom lip and his breath caught in his throat. Her bright red lipstick enhanced the shape of those lips, and the way she bit down did something to him that he could barely control.

“Sure,” he managed.

He ushered her in, watching her walk in front of him. Her movements hypnotic.

In the living room, she opted to sit next to him on the sofa, crossing her shapely legs and leaning towards him as he poured them both whisky. He sipped his as she began to talk. She took it from him, took a drink, leaving lipstick on the rim. Placed it on the table.

“I’ve not been entirely honest with you,” she purred.

“No one ever is.”

“Poor lamb,” she whispered, leaning closer, stroking his thigh, staring deeply into his eyes, “there was someone else, but she wasn’t in the caravan.”

“Someone else?”

Her hand caressed him as she spoke. Drawing him closer. His shirt. Gone. His clothes melting in the Summer heat. 

“That’s better, too hot in those clothes,” she was kissing his chest now. Mouth lingering on his nipple. Stroking him just the way he imagined she would. She felt as good as she looked. Better. He wanted this so much. Wanted her completely. He barely registered how cool she was. Even in the heat of the Summer night.

“I’ve been seeing her for a while,” her lips brushing his ear, hand stroking his neck. Nails drawn along his skin as she pulled him even closer, “she started things off last night. But I finished them. He was my first. The pleasure was exquisite. For us both.”

Jenner’s eyes shot wide open with understanding. Realisation flooding his mind as his blood flooded Seline’s mouth and she began to feed upon him. His back arched and he struggled momentarily. But she was everything he thought she would be and more. She stroked him as he pulsed into her mouth, and he eagerly returned her caresses, urging her on as she explored his body and found new ways to pleasure him as her hungry mouth found him again and again.