Free Bye Bye Baby by Fiona McIntosh

taken the same care in choosing that paint, especially if it is meant to be meaningful to the victims.’
    ‘So the colour, that brighter blue, is deliberately chosen too,’ she finished.
    He nodded. ‘Yes. I think we should consider painting or tattooing the body as an ancient warrior practice — in fact, it’d be worth putting Sarah on to that — but even so it doesn’t fully gel in my mind.’
    ‘Blue means depressed,’ Kate said, warming to the task.
    ‘Injury,’ he countered, ‘as in black and blue.’
    ‘Or sexually explicit.’ Kate sat up at this. ‘Actually, that’s quite intriguing, isn’t it? Depressed, sexual, injury — they all relate to our crime scene.’
    He nodded, concentrating on the road ahead as he considered this.

    ‘Blue law relates to morality,’ he finally said.
    Kate ran her hand through her hair, messing up the careful style she’d taken so long to blow dry in order that the highlights she’d paid a fortune for appeared precisely where they were meant to. They were onto something she was sure. ‘What else is blue?’
    ‘Sky, sea, swimming pools.’
    ‘Nothing helpful there. Blue, blue, blue . . . credit card.’
    ‘An expensive one, gets you into a lot of trouble.’
    She smiled but was thinking hard. ‘Blue blood?’
    ‘Royalty? I don’t think so. But the blue and blood link might mean something. The blue flag in motor racing forces the car in front to give way to faster cars coming up.’
    ‘I’m sure that’s relevant,’ she said, her tone laced with sarcasm. They passed a snooker hall. ‘Is there a blue ball in snooker?’ she asked absently.
    ‘Yes, worth five points.’
    ‘Perhaps there’ll be five murders then,’ she said as a throwaway line.
    ‘I hope not. Blue chip? Blue ribbon, Blue Pages, blue moon, Big Blue?’
    She tried not to laugh as she shook her head. ‘No, it has to be more visceral than those.’
    ‘Veins. They carry blood. And they’re blue. Is that visceral enough?’
    ‘That’s not what I meant.’
    ‘Okay then, what about the university blues?’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘You know, the sporting colours of Oxford and Cambridge. Perhaps our killer and victims were all scholars.’

    She groaned. ‘I doubt it, but please don’t tell me you went to either of those?’
    ‘No, Warwick.’
    ‘Good. Anything else?’
    ‘Chelsea.’
    ‘Right, thank you. Leave it with me, Jack. I do love a puzzle but you’re hindering rather than helping now.’
    She was already wondering if Jack was right that this paint might be the message. The ‘boys in blue’ referred to the police after all, and then there were blue collar workers, which might refer to the killer, although that felt entirely wrong.
    ‘What did Farrow and Sheriff do for a crust?’ she asked.
    ‘Farrow was a contract glazier who turned permanent casual courier when he arrived in London. And Sheriff was a teacher. Why?’
    ‘Random thoughts. Blue is a political colour, of course.’
    ‘It’s also a musical genre.’ He pulled a face in apology. ‘Information overload, I think.’
    She nodded and looked at his watch to work out the time. She liked the shape of his fingers, and the way his thumb crooked and didn’t quite grip the steering wheel.
    ‘I’m hungry,’ she said. It was the first thing that came into her mind to distract her from his hands.
    ‘We’ll get you something. I know a couple of good spots in the old quarter. You can take your pick from the Wig and Mitre pub or the rather famous Brown’s Pie Shop. But I warn you — there’s an almighty cobbled hill to climb first. Ah, I’ve just thought ofsomething else. Blue-tongued lizards. They live in Australia, with my sister.’
    ‘What, all of them?’
    He grinned at her quip as he overtook a car, narrowly missing it and making her hold her breath.
    ‘And Cashel Blue is delicious,’ he added. ‘It’s the most famous cheese in Ireland, I’m told.’
    ‘Shut up, please, and drive.’
    Kate wished he