It’s Valentine’s Day, you know, Brenna.”

“I don’t need reminding, thanks.”

“This call-out put the brakes on a hot date?”

“Keep your mind on the job, Mark. You’ll be a happier lad in the long run.”

“I can tear out a heart from one of my notebook pages and hold it over your head, Bren. Just a quick kiss?”

“You’re confusing paper hearts with mistletoe,” I said, annoyance creeping into my voice. I mentally counted to ten before continuing, not wanting Mark to see he was affecting me. “Anyway, you know the rules about torn-out or missing notebook pages. If you ever need to produce your notes, and a page is missing--”

“Just a figure of speech, Bren. I’d never do it. God, you’re getting grumpy.”

“Grumpy!” I exploded, then, noticing some of the lads looking my way, said more softly, “Why do you say that?”

Mark pointed to my gauze-wrapped right hand and wrist. “Must hurt.”

“Not particularly,” I lied.

“Frankly, Brenna, I thought you’d be on the disabled list. With a burn like that--”

“It’s nothing I can’t work through. I feel fine. Anyway, we need to move. They’re about to measure the rope.”

“Ta. I’m all for progress.”

We moved to the corner and watched as two Scientific Officers set up a ladder to measure the length of the bell rope. Mark said it looked to be the usual type of rope used in change ringing--a cream-colored flax. The sally--a fluff of maroon and white worsted wool woven into a striped spiral near the rope’s end--looked more like a giant drop of blood than the convenient hand grip for the bell ringers. The rope undulated slightly as an officer on the top rung of the ladder lay the tip of his tape measure at the small ceiling hole. He pulled out the end of the tape, keeping it taut. The SO on the floor, holding the other end of the tape at the end of the rope, called out “Seven feet.” When he’d reeled in the measure, he noted the length of the sally. Three feet. The two SOs then ascended the vertical ladder on the tower wall and they disappeared into the room overhead, probably to measure that area and get dimensions of the bells.

I had yet to see this, just taking Constable Byrd’s word for it right now. The Scientific Officers did not need another person tramping through the crime scene and muddying the waters. Lord knows I could get into enough trouble on duty without trying. And I had no intension of having Graham come down on me for that.

Graham, properly known as Detective-Chief Inspector Geoffrey Graham, is part of our police team from Buxton investigating this suspicious death--and my superior officer. And I was waiting for him to arrive and take charge. When I had rung him up to inform him of this death, he had been at home, fixing his tea. I had hesitated momentarily before I gave him the news, for I could hear some bit of music playing in the background. No doubt Handel or Bach or one of those early composers, complementing his dinner, mood and fireside read.

I had heard the resignation in his voice when I finally told him, the loud clatter as though he dropped a spoon onto the work top. I could imagine the clenched jaw, the closed eyes as he silently cursed the situation. I could nearly smell the baked salmon, which was of course conjecture on my part, but Graham wouldn’t be eating baked beans on toast. He liked to cook. Too bad this had to ruin his evening.

It was only marginally better when he appeared. If not smiling, at least he wasn’t cursing.

“So,” Graham said, walking over to me. Mark had chosen Discretion over Ardor and gone to look at the blood splattering at the base of the wall ladder. “You have a name for me?” He was wearing the white paper suit we dress in when we enter a crime scene. It preserved the evidence--if there was any--and controlled cross-contamination from any bits we might inadvertently bring in with us. He stood beside me, overwhelming me with his intelligence and masculinity, watching as the chamber exploded with light from the photographer’s lamps, towering above me, making me feel small and insignificant, and strangely protected. Both his presence and voice seemed to fill the small space.

“Mind the bits of glass, sir,” I said, pointing to a patch of brown glass fragments near the body and around the base of the ladder.

“Right.” Graham carefully stepped around them as a SO snapped a photo. “So, who is our deceased?”

“Roger, Lord Swinbrook. Succeeded to the peerage on the death of his father ten years ago. Age 46. Married but no children. Owner of Swinton Hall. Just home from an evening’s Valentine celebration with his wife.” I glanced at Graham and saw that he was gazing at the body. A fragment of Valentine verse, long slumbering in the depths of my mind, dislodged itself and mentally echoed again from my childhood. The poem had been printed on red paper, the lettering crude and black, looking like they had been formed from dried streaks of blood. Now, twenty years later, the scene before me forced the embarrassment of my teen years into my consciousness.

     Roses are red,

     Violets are blue,

     I’d kill myself

     If I looked like you.

The rhyme had been illustrated with a cartoon of a fat girl lying on her back, a knife sticking out of her chest. The poem was signed with a smear of dried snot.

I recall standing at the letterbox, the valentine in my hand, tears streaming down my cheeks, and my brother asking me if I was all right. I had jammed the filth into my jeans pocket, wiped my eyes and forced myself to smile. Of course I lied, telling him it was a funny valentine and I had laughed so hard I was crying. Either believing me or not really caring, Samuel had said something about girls being too weird to understand, took a bite of his apple, and returned to banging out a Mozart rondo on the piano.

Now, in the stark surroundings of the bell tower, I must have looked odd, or said something without realizing it. Graham tilted his head, his eyebrow raised, as he always did when intensely interested in something. He said rather softly, “Brenna? You all right? You’ve gone sort of all greenish. You need to step outside? I know we’ve a bit of blood strewn about here, but--”

“No, sir,” I replied quickly, feeling my face flush. I shook off the childhood mockery as the police photographer stepped around the inert body on the floor. “And yes, sir,” I said, anticipating his question. “That’s the way DC Byrd found him. With the spilled beer all over him and the floor, and the pearl necklace on his chest.”