Hunter and Morgan: Gatecrasher

by H. K. Nightingale

  "Okay," said Hunter. "Then we can get started."

  That sounded like music to Morgan's ears.

  As he waited for the kettle to boil, he watched Hunter out of the corner of his eye. He was tapping at his phone. The papers on the desk had the West Yorkshire police crest on them. He wondered what they were.

  He made coffee for Hunter. There was a selection of herbal teas on the tray as well. He picked out a vanilla green tea. It smelled delicious as he poured the hot water over it.

  "Pull up a chair," said Hunter, as Morgan gave him his coffee.

  There was only one other chair in the room apart from the battered leather one Hunter was sitting in, and that was the weird, wooden chair on wheels that Morgan had used to move boxes of files around on last time he was here, and which now sat behind his desk. He pulled it across the office, wondering whether Poundland would have any more of those comfy red cushions Caleb had got for his room.

  Hunter rolled his shoulder. The one that had been in a sling.

  "What happened?" Morgan asked. "You never said. The day you were in hospital. If it's not too personal."

  There was something odd about the phrase 'too personal' when applied to someone whose cock had been in his mouth, but hospital visits could be sensitive things. Hunter might have some horrible degenerative condition, or-

  "A man came to see me about a dog," he said.

  "Sorry?"

  "The furry gentleman my client wants to divorce, who I visited in prison? His friend, a certain thug by the name of Paul Bates, he who took the video, had a sudden attack of guilt. He decided to pay me a visit and tell me, in no uncertain terms, that I should lay off. Bad timing for him, because it was all done and dusted by the time he found me." He must have noticed disapproval in Morgan's eyes, because quickly he added, "Not that it would have made any difference."

  "But he hurt you anyway?"

  "He took me off guard. Grabbed my arm and shoved me against the wall. Dislocated my shoulder. It happens, sometimes, if it gets pulled a certain way. Injury I picked up on the force. Worst part is it hurts like fuck and for some reason makes me pass out when it happens. He panicked and ran away. Someone walked past and saw me. Called an ambulance. I woke up in A&E feeling really stupid. Then Peter gave me a hard time for not changing the emergency contact on my phone. It wasn't the best day, I'll be honest."

  "But it's okay now?"

  "Just a bit stiff."

  The word 'stiff' went straight to Morgan's groin, where his cock mistook it for an instruction. "That's why you've got the camera for the entryway now," he said, shifting in his chair and hoping Hunter wouldn't notice.

  "Well, you know. Better safe than sorry." Hunter's eyes were on his again, sparkling. Teasing.

  "Great," said Morgan. "So, what's the project?"

  "Ah." Hunter took a slurp of his coffee. "Two projects, to be exact. One you already know about."

  "Ozzie White?"

  "The very same. I checked out the school, and we're probably onto a winner there. Her old school were told she'd moved out of the local authority area, but no new school has asked for her records yet."

  "Yay?" said Morgan.

  "Hmm. So the next job is to talk to her mother, see if we can find out anything from her. The mother still lives in Hebden Bridge, the address Ozzie gave us. No job as far as I can tell, but she volunteers at an art gallery once a week, helping out with craft sessions for school kids. I want to go there this afternoon and see if she's there. My contact says she's usually there on Tuesdays."

  "You have a contact at an art gallery in Hebden Bridge?"

  "I have contacts everywhere, Morgan. It goes with the territory."

  Morgan tried to pretend he wasn't impressed.

  "That's where you come in," Hunter said. "I don't want to make myself conspicuous just yet. But you can go along, turn on the charm, see what you can find out. Meanwhile I'll take a poke about the town. It's an interesting sort of place, have you ever been?"

  Morgan shook his head.

  "It's hippie central. Everyone knows everyone. All ex teachers and ex social workers. If Poppy's been moping about like a teenage disaster waiting to happen, someone will have spotted her with professional concern."

  "What should I ask Mrs White?" asked Morgan.

  "Nothing too obvious. Follow your instincts. And I wouldn't call her Mrs White, if I were you - remember she was the one to walk out of the marriage. Her first name's Alice. My guess is she's ditched her married name by now."

  "What if I don't have instincts?" The project was getting a bit panic-worthy. It felt important and the last thing Morgan wanted to do was mess up.

  "Trust me, Morgan." Hunter grinned at him, a warm, sexy grin. Which was unnecessary, frankly. "Your instincts are excellent."

  Morgan was consumed by the need to impress and the fear that he wouldn't, so they were on the train to Hebden Bridge before he realised Hunter hadn't told him about the other project. The police one, presumably. The train was busy and they were sitting at a table directly opposite a young mum and her kids. It didn't seem right to ask about it in public, so Morgan kept his mouth shut and looked out of the window while Hunter tapped away at his phone. The younger child opposite, no more than a toddler, was asleep on his mum's lap. The older one watched Peppa Pig on an iPad. Thankfully, he was wearing headphones.

  Hebden Bridge was everything Hunter had promised. One of many old mill towns along the rivers and canals of West Yorkshire, it nestled cosily into the green-backed Pennines. Industry had long since fled, replaced by tourism and what the town's website called 'a haven for creativity'. The shops sold pots, books, art, tourist trinkets and a lot of things made out of felt.

  The gallery where Alice volunteered was one of a dozen units on the ground floor of an old mill. Apart from the vastness of the industrial architecture and old brick walls it had little of its heritage on show. The floors were solid wood, and the various shops and exhibition spaces sparkled: clean, well-lit units behind plate glass doors. Hunter went to the cafe space upstairs, leaving Morgan to find Alice.

  The gallery was called The Bell Jar, presumably in tribute to Sylvia Plath. It wasn't the earnest, poetical space he'd expected. It was full of pottery and glass, ceramics and textiles including (inevitably) felt. The walls were white with a frieze of the words 'I am, I am, I am' in gold italics all the way around.

  There was a sleek white counter just inside the door with a cash register on it along with baskets of badges and polished glass chips with feminist symbols on them. A woman sat behind the counter, knitting a huge spidery shawl in metallic rainbow colours. She was at the late end of middle-aged, greyish-blonde hair with lilac highlights coaxed into a relaxed bun at the back of her head. She wore a peasant top in which her breasts bounced happily, unrestrained by any hint of restrictive underwear, as she clicked her needles together. She looked up, met Morgan's gaze and said a warm, "Hello."

  "Hi." Morgan smiled at her. "Is it okay if I take a look around?"

  "Of course. Would you like a leaflet? There's a workshop on in the art room, but it's children on Tuesdays."

  He took the home-printed sheet of paper she offered him. Underneath 'The Bell Jar' logo it explained that the gallery was a place of self-discovery for women. A feminist haven of creativity.

  Well, she hadn't thrown him out or looked at him funny, so presumably he was welcome to look around.

  He fumbled a pound coin out of the change in his trouser pocket and dropped it in the Women's Aid charity box. She smiled at him again, then returned to her knitting.

  Morgan moved slowly through the various exhibits. There were a few women wandering around, but they took no notice of him - or each other, come to that - all absorbed in an appreciation of the art on show.

  Movement at the end of the gallery drew his eye. There was another glass door there, with the words 'Art Room' etched on it. He sidled up to a collage of a suffragette march in felt and patchwork nearby and glanced through the door. T
hree young children sat around one of the half a dozen tables in the room. They were cutting up old rags under the supervision of a willowy woman with long, red hair contained in a plait that ran right down her back. She had to be Alice: the likeness to Poppy was unmistakable, right down to the long dancer's legs and slender body. She squatted down at the table to help a little boy who was having trouble making headway with his round-ended safety scissors. She showed him how to tear the fabric instead, and her eyes lit up when he squealed in delight.

  There was no way he could talk to her in there, and it would look suspicious if he hung around the gallery until closing. Then he saw a list of workshops on the wall next to the room. This one ended in ten minutes, then there was a break of fifteen before the next one started. He wondered if Hunter had known that and steered him here at exactly the right time.

  Probably not. But Morgan wouldn't have been surprised if he had.

  There was a selection of books for sale in an alcove near the art room, so Morgan stationed himself there. It was easy to burn ten minutes dipping in and out of angry feminist poetry by angry local poets.

  The door to the art room opened a few minutes after the stated time, releasing the sound of yoga-style relaxation music. A couple of the other patrons went to claim their children as they spilled out; by the time they'd all gone, the gallery was empty apart from Morgan, the knitting-woman and Alice. Alice was relieving cramped back muscles with a long, sinuous stretch. It must be wearing for someone so tall to be curling herself up to be on a level with small people.

  Morgan caught her eye and smiled. She did this thing that most people did when they met Morgan for the first time: she flickered a perfectly normal stranger-greeting half-smile at him, looked away, and then she did a micro double-take, as if registering something amazing she'd just seen. She looked back and this time her smile was full-on, and she was taking a half-step towards him.

  "Hello," Morgan said.

  "Hi." She glanced around the gallery. "Are you a parent, or…?"

  "Just came to take a look around. A friend recommended the place."

  "It's fabulous, isn't it? So much talent. Did you see the Holdsworth vulvas?"

  Morgan swallowed, hard. "Um…"

  "Here. Let me show you."

  She led him down a short corridor he hadn't noticed at the back of the gallery, past a set of stairs with a 'staff only' barrier across them and into a small, square, white room. A hand-written information plate on the wall just inside the door said, 'Vulvas in Mixed Media: a show of shared femininity by Julia Holdsworth'. There was a biography of Julia Holdsworth underneath, but Alice filled him in on the details as they approached the first piece.

  "Julia wanted to show the variety of womanhood throughout the world."

  To say Morgan felt out of his depth was an understatement. But he needed to create a rapport with Alice, and if she was passionate about this, well, he'd just have to do his best. He stood in front of the first exhibit and tried to look intelligent.

  He'd never seen a photograph of a woman's private parts quite so close up. Maybe the odd glance when he was surfing porn. She'd done something with the colours and the texture. It looked like an undersea creature, all pink and furry. Not unattractive, just weird. He wasn't sure what the point was. He'd never done much art at school.

  He decided not to share any of this with Alice. Instead he made a 'hmm', noise and tilted his head a little in what he hoped looked like a gesture of artistic contemplation.

  "This one's my favourite."

  Alice's favourite was made with fragments of highly glazed ceramic in shades of blue and purple. It looked like an exotic flower unfurling. Morgan glanced at Alice; she gazed at the piece in adoration, her eyes shining in the gallery-muted light. And, okay, he saw her point.

  "It's beautiful," he said, and he wasn't lying. He could see why she liked it.

  She led him around the rest of the pieces, pointing out details here and there while Morgan thought more about female genitalia than he had in his entire life up to that point. The art showed vulvas that were bald, furry, abstract, so realistic it felt inappropriate to look at them, natural, mutilated; and then one that had been created by surgery, a miracle for a person born with the wrong body. He lingered there for a while. He'd often wondered about trans post op bodies, but it felt disrespectful to go Googling for them. The vulva in front of him was a furled mystery, no more or less than any of the others in the exhibition. Unique, feminine, perfectly different.

  "I'm guessing you're not straight," said Alice. She was smirking at him. He wondered if it had been some kind of test of loyalty to the feminist cause, bringing him in here.

  "No," said Morgan. "Why?"

  "You seem very relaxed and politely interested. Most straight men find the exhibition challenging. They're either fighting an erection all the way round or they're thinking of their mothers and sisters. Even the ones who can cope with all that don't get it. Maybe intellectually, but they don't feel it. You do, don't you?"

  Morgan glanced back at the human-created, post-op vulva, with its plump, wrinkle-hooded clit and lips like rose petals. He remembered a friend from college who's been trans and found it so impossible she tried to take her own life. "Yes," he said.

  "Well done," said Alice. Her eyes were shining. She looked proud. But not of Morgan, whom, after all, she'd only just met.

  "Are you the artist?" he asked.

  Alice laughed. "No. She's my girlfriend."

  Ah. Well, that explained a few things.

  "Do you have time for a cup of tea?" he asked. "I'd love to know more about her."

  "Well, it so happens I do," said Alice, beaming at him.

  Chapter Ten

  When Alice returned to the Bell Jar for her next workshop, Morgan made his way to the other end of the huge cafe, where Hunter sat with his laptop. Morgan took the seat opposite him and waited, trying not to grin his head off.

  Hunter raised an eyebrow at him over the top of his laptop screen.

  Morgan's grin burst free. "You'll never guess."

  Hunter closed his laptop and leaned forwards. "Tell me."

  "Well, put it this way. Ozzie isn't going to get his wife back." He paused for effect. He was enjoying this far too much. "She's a lesbian."

  Hunter leaned back, eyes wide. Surprised. Genuinely surprised. Morgan had finally managed to tell him something he didn't know.

  "She's in a committed relationship with an artist," Morgan said. "She came from a religious family. Grew up thinking her sexuality was evil, blah blah blah. Married Ozzie, a nice boy from her church, to prove to her parents she could overcome it all and be a normal housewife. She realised it wasn't going to work almost straight away, but she fell pregnant on honeymoon. So she stayed married to Ozzie because she didn't want Poppy to grow up in a broken home, and Oz realised that, exploited it. Bullied her a bit, I think. And then she met Julia at a quilting class. They've been together for five years. Oz can't accept it. He thinks one day the devil will leave her and she'll come back to him."

  "Shit," said Hunter.

  "I know, right? But there you go. That's what happened." It was all Morgan could do to keep from bouncing in his seat with the excitement of it.

  "And Poppy?"

  "Alice wanted her to make up her own mind, and Poppy was angry with her at first so she chose to stay. But Ozzie was really strict and Poppy hated it. Eventually it got too much, so Poppy got herself thrown out of the house so she could come and join her mother."

  "And is she in school?"

  "No. Not yet. Alice wants to give her space. She's looking into home-schooling."

  "Free to come and go as she pleases?"

  "Well, yes." Morgan's excitement deflated a bit. Hunter had a hawk-like look about him.

  "Dance class?"

  Morgan's heart sank. This wasn't going at all as he'd imagined. "She said Poppy's taking a break from dancing to work out if it's really what she wants. But that's a good thing, isn't it? She's b
een through so much, growing up with all that restriction, her mother not able to be who she really was–"

  "Morgan, stop."

  Morgan closed his mouth, snapping his teeth together.

  "We were hired to show that Alice is an unfit mother. We're looking for evidence that Poppy isn't being properly supervised, so that Ozzie can get her back." Hunter's voice dropped a bit, edged with sympathy. "It's not up to us to decide whether it's okay or not."

  Morgan slumped back in his chair, all the joy seeping out of him. "No. You can't."

  "I'm sorry." It sounded as if he might be. But not enough, clearly. "It's a job, Morgan. I'm a detective, not a family therapist."

  "You would send Poppy back there? To be told that her mother's going to hell for being gay, that she has to dance whether she wants to or not because to do otherwise would be to betray her God-given talent, and that she can only marry someone else inside their stupid, bigoted religion, which means she'll marry someone just like her fucking father. Just to repeat the whole cycle all over again? Are you serious? "

  "Morgan. Keep your voice down."

  "No!" Morgan got to his feet. "Not about this. Never about this. If this is what you do for a living, do it by yourself. I quit."

  Magic flared up Morgan's spine like fire. It made it easy to storm out. He ran down the stairs, out of the mill and down to the canal, breathing hard, using all the control he could summon to keep his power from erupting. There was a bench there, but he couldn't sit. He stood and stared at the water, imagined diving into it and letting it soothe the fire away. He imagined his magic soft and gentle, tiny, foam-filled waves.

  He let out a breath he hadn't even realised he was holding, and sank down on the bench.

  Well. That was that, then.

  He wanted to cry. He'd never quit an assignment in all the time he'd worked for Pearl, and here he was quitting two in as many days. But worse than that, how could he have been so wrong? He'd thought Hunter was a good person. But maybe he'd just wanted him to be, because he was so fucking attractive. Shit.

  "Morgan." Morgan glanced over his shoulder to see Hunter standing behind him, his messenger bag over one shoulder, Morgan's rucksack over the other. "You left your bag behind."