by Giles Ekins
‘And now, anybody in your life?’ Grace asked, adding the milk to her coffee and giving it a stir.
‘No, nobody.’
‘Nobody? I find that hard to believe, judging the way Charlotte there had eyes for you.’ Grace said, rather more tartly than she had intended.
‘Oh, there’s been the odd liaisons, you might say, but nothing serious. The trouble with this job is you never get to meet people in real life, which is why, I suppose, most cops seem to marry other cops. Else barmaids. So, Grace, now it’s my turn with the thumbscrews. What about you? Marriage kids?’
‘No. And no.’
‘You mean, no not married or no never married and no kids. Jesus we’re getting personal, must be the sea air.’
‘No, never married, but I am in way, widowed’
‘Oh, no, I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘It’s not something I generally talk about, but yes, Gary and I were together for what, nine years. He was in the job, uniformed inspector. Really fit, he played rugby and hockey, squash sometimes. And three years ago, he was training for the Sheffield half marathon, out running, when he had a massive heart attack and was dead before he hit the pavement’
‘Oh Jesus! No!’
‘I don’t have the words to describe how that feels, how it felt, it was like having my heart ripped out by the roots.’
‘Oh Grace, I’m sorry, so, so, sorry.’ And Terry reached out and took Grace’s left hand in both of his own, but Grace appeared not to notice, she was staring out through the window at the rain-washed street and wiped away a small tear.
‘You know, they say time is a healer, but it isn’t. You never completely heal. Time will take the raw edges away, Time will soften the blows when you come into the house and you remember he isn’t there. Time will allow you to smell his after-shave without collapsing in a sobbing heap, but no, time does not heal. At least not for me. Not yet and I think it is time we headed back to Garside. I’m going to the ladies to fix my face. Will you get the bill, I’ll settle with you after and put it through my expenses?
At that, Grace got to her feet, picked up her handbag and headed briskly towards the toilets.
Terry finished his coffee and signalled Charlotte for the bill. When it came, he was pleasantly surprised, only £11.00 each for the excellent fish and chips. £2.00 for the coffee, the beer was £4.50 a pint and the wine £6.00 for a large glass. Very reasonable for a silver service restaurant. He gave Charlotte his credit card, punched his pin code into the hand held and pocketed the receipt. ‘Fantastic food,’ he told Charlotte and left her a £5.00 tip.
‘Will we be seeing you again, sir? she asked.
No sorry, love, we’re from out of town.’
‘So’s everybody else, even if they’re from here.’ she answered wistfully.
‘What is wrong with the young men of this town, if a pretty young girl like Charlotte is so desperate, she has to be looking to old buggers like me?’ Terry asked himself as he made his way to the toilets. And then he realised, ‘Of course, she wants out of the town and who could blame her?’
Grace came out from the Ladies, her face fixed. Terry nodded and gave a thumbs-up to the chef who nodded back, gave a little wave to Charlotte and they headed out into the night., wafted away with the strains of ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ by Journey. ‘The man knows his classic rock’, Terry thought.
Thankfully, the rain had stopped.
Forty-Nine
Grace and Terry were not the only ones eating fish and chips that night, albeit in considerably less salubrious surroundings. Fred Burbage rented a small one-bedroom apartment in one of the old converted warehouses.
It was accessed by a central staircase, there was a bedroom and bathroom on one floor whilst an internal staircase led to a small kitchen, dining and living space. He unwrapped his fish and chips, salted and then liberally doused them in vinegar from a plastic bottle and without removing them from the wrapping, put them on a plate and ate them with his fingers whilst watching the news.
Donald Trump was making an arse of himself over something or other, there had been military coup in an African country he had never heard of, a train derailment in Mumbai had killed more than a hundred passengers and the pound fell against the dollar again.
He finished his meal, washed the plate and put it away, tossed the wrapping paper into the bin. He then poured a liberal scotch into a plastic glass with flamingo pattern and sat back to watch a game show on a channel that only showed repeats. After ten minutes he fell asleep in his chair. He woke two hours later, stiff and with a crick in his neck, he swore and took himself off to bed.
Fifty
After her workout in the gym, Jessica caught the bus home. She still lived with her parents and her mother always saved her some dinner unless she phoned to say she could not make it.
After a plate of warmed up chicken and leak pie, boiled potatoes and peas, Jessica picked up her wool and needles and begin to knit furiously, her needles click-clacking rapidly as she half-watched an improbable American police drama with her mother and father and younger brother Jethro, a name he hated.
Soon she was nodding off from tiredness, bade everyone goodnight and made her way upstairs, She washed her hands and face, cleaned her teeth, put on her nightie and knelt by the side of her bed, as she had ever since she was a child. She said her prayers, adding a special prayer for the soul of Janet Jarrett, brutally strangled by someone unknown and asked God for help to catch the killer, who would of course be known to Him.
Fifty-One
Grace was subdued as they drove away from Whitburn. She was angry, angry with Terry, angry with herself. She never spoke of her loss. Never! Her grief was a private pool from which all outsiders were excluded. Even colleagues in Sheffield CID, whom she had known for years, had not penetrated the barriers she so carefully erected around herself.
If they thought her stand-offish and ungrateful for their sympathy, there was nothing she could do about that. She had to deal with Gary’s death in the only way she could, by squeezing all that grief and hurt into a carapace of focus on her job. The job became her life and she could not allow anybody to breach that shell, a shell which until now had been impenetrable.
And now this man, this Terry Horton, a man she barely knew, had met less than a week ago had crashed through her carefully erected screen over a plate of fish and chips and a single glass of Chardonnay. ‘How pathetic can you be, eh, Graceful Swan?’
She drove with concentrated fury, her eyes fixed firmly on the road as the headlights of the Alfa speared into the darkness of the road across the moors to Malton. They had hardly spoken a word.
She stole a quick glance at Terry. He sat with his hands clasped across his stomach, eyes closed, breathing heavily through his nose, unable to comprehend what had gone so drastically wrong. He had not said or done anything out of place, OK he had taken her hand in his but that was hardly a capital sin, it simply had been a gesture of compassion and sympathy.
At last he could stand the awkward silences no longer, if she doesn’t want to talk, fine, and reached to turn on the audio system. A CD softly played but despite the low volume, Terry immediately recognised the artist as Peter Gabriel, and knew the song. ‘Digging Up the Dirt,’ ‘an appropriate song for a couple of detectives, he thought.
‘Peter Gabriel, you mind if I turn it up?’
.’No, no, go ahead,’ Grace answered, not taking her eyes off the road. ‘You like Peter Gabriel, then?’ she continued.
‘Yes, always have, even going back to the early Genesis days.’
‘You’re not old enough, surely, to remember back then.’
‘It was my mother, she loved all those classic bands. The Stones, the Beatles not so much, but Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, Dylan , Genesis and Peter Gabriel. And the ‘Blue Oyster Cult’ of course, mustn’t forget them. She had all the records, the good vinyl stuff, still has in fact. Then she bought the cassettes and now she’s bought all stuff she liked o
n CD. She played those records all the time when I was a kid, and I’ve loved them all ever since, great, great, great classic rock. You?’
‘Not especially,’ Grace answered, pleased that they were talking again. ‘My taste runs more to classical. And musicals.’
‘But you’ve got Peter Gabriel playing?’ Suddenly it hit home to him. ‘Shit, it’s not yours, is it? Christ, I’m sorry, I’ll turn it off,’
‘No, leave it but you’re right, yes, it was Gary’s and I sometimes do play his music. It helps, I can imagine him sitting there next to me, remembering good times together. But I’m not about to dissolve into a sobbing wreck, so let it play.’
‘Shit, I’m sorry, I’m being an ass, insensitive.’
The A64 was clear ahead as Grace put her foot down and the Alfa shot forward, a thoroughbred, free of restraint, revelling in the element of sheer speed,
‘No, it’s fine, as it happens, I do like some of Gabriel’s songs.’ Grace said, just as Secret World’ began to play
‘You know,’ Terry said, ‘I once sang on a Peter Gabriel CD.’
‘You’re kidding me? Are you telling me that you actually sang on a Peter Gabriel CD?’
‘Yup’
‘How? Where? how does a DS from the back of nowhere get to sing on a Peter Gabriel record. Come on?’
They were by now driving southwards on the York by-pass and traffic had built up again. The Gabriel CD was finished and the 10th Anniversary ‘Les Misérables’ concert was now playing, not something that Terry recognised.
‘Well. A couple of years or so ago, I went with…,’ he hesitated, suddenly not wanting Grace to know he gone with Alison Bennie, his girlfriend at the time. Irrational, he knew, but there it was.
‘…a friend to see his concert at the Sheffield Motorpoint Arena, fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. The best gig I’ve ever been to.’
‘And he asked you up to sing a duet with him, is that it? she asked playfully, the tension between them slowly subsiding.
‘Hardly,’ Terry laughed, ‘I’ve got a singing voice that’s flatter than Holland. No, it was the birthday of the keyboard player, David Sanctious, so we all sang ‘Happy Birthday. You can quite clearly hear me’ he added.
‘And that’s your claim to fame. You sang ‘Happy Birthday’ as part of a crowd to
Peter Gabriel’s keyboard player?’
‘And of course, the chorus on ‘Biko’, you must know that, surely? No?’
Terry then sings the chorus, not quite in tune.
‘No, sorry, I don’t know it, but you’re right, your voice is flatter than Holland.’
‘There’s a CD of the concert, ‘Back to Front at the Motorpoint Arena’. You can’t buy it in the shops, you have to order it from his website, I’ll get you a copy if you like.’
‘Yes. I’d like that, if only to hear more of your singing, see if it’s as bad all the way through.’
‘Yeah, yeah, but, so you see I can say with all modesty, I did once sing on a Peter Gabriel CD.’
‘You and five thousand others.’
‘Spoilsport’
They sped on towards the A1(M), passing the brewery town of Tadcaster to the right, A companionable silence now enveloped them, neither feeling the need to make small talk. Terry watched her as she drove, finding himself increasingly attracted to her.
She was very attractive, highly intelligent, dedicated to her job, easy to talk to and had a spiky sense of humour. ‘What was there not to like?’ He wanted to know her better, not just in professional terms but as a woman. As a friend, not a sexual conquest. He knew he attracted female attention, but he was almost embarrassed by it, having no interest in one-night stands.
But he was attracted to DCI Grace Swan, wanted to meet her again outside of the ‘job.’ However, she was still hurting from the death of her partner and Terry could not tell how she might take an advance, however innocent. Tricky, tricky, tricky.
They turned onto the M1 and Grace sped through the night again, lorries flashing by on the left, pulling out into the fast lane to overtake a Mercedes dawdling along at 80mph.
‘Grace, I’ve been thinking. When things aren’t so hectic, once the case is done, do you fancy coming out for a drink? I know we had one this evening but that was work related. What do you think?’ he asked nervously, after all, she was his boss.
She said nothing for a few moments before replying in a quiet voice. ‘Like a date, you mean?’
‘Well I wasn’t thinking in quite those formal terms. More like a drink between friends, but yeah if you like.’
She thought about it for another long minute and Terry could feel the easy relationship they’d built up oozing away with every second.
‘I think I shall have to say no,’ Grace answered slowly.
‘Oh?’ was all Terry could say.
‘Don’t take it personally, Terry, but I’ve got my reputation to think of.’
‘It’s only a drink.’
‘And one drink leads to another. And another and possibly on to something else. Which although that might be greatly enjoyable, the whole town would know before we’ve turned the light out.’
‘I say, it’s only a drink,’ Terry said, somewhat sullenly
‘Terry, West Garside is a small town and Garside nick even smaller. The jungle drums would be beating before we’d got halfway down the first drink and you can imagine what Fred Burbage and his ilk would think, you can just hear him. ‘you know what these darkies are like, can’t keep their knickers on for five minutes’.
So, I’m sorry, it was sweet of you to ask, but I have to say no. But it was sweet,’ and she reached over and gently patted his hand as it lay on his knee,’ But please, don’t take it personally, DS Horton, I do like you, but…’
‘Yeah, yeah, your reputation. It’s OK. Message received loud and clear.’
‘Don’t be like that.’ but Terry had turned away and was staring out of the window at the passing road.
What in God’s name did you expect?’ he chided himself, annoyed at his own stupidity. ‘For fucks sake, she’s a DCI with her sights firmly fixed onwards and upwards. Why on earth would she be remotely interested in a humble DS from a shithole like West Garside?
It’s obvious she considers her posting there only as temporary stop on the way up, anxious to wrap the case up and move on. And worst of all, she’s still grieving for her dead partner, how crassly insensitive can you be?
You stupid, stupid fucking idiot, what on earth were you thinking ?’
They did not speak another word except to say ‘goodnight’ when Grace dropped Terry off at his apartment on Redemption Island. He watched her rear lights until she turned the corner and was out of sight.
Fifty-Two
It took Grace more than half an hour to reach her house, as always cloaked in darkness, although the intruder light over the garage door burst into blinding light, as she approached her front door.
She was angry, not at Terry, he had been perfectly respectful and what was wrong with being asked out for a drink. She was single. He was single. So what was the problem? She knew she had overreacted and did not know how to remedy the situation without making a fool of herself or hurting Terry’s feeling even more.
He was a nice man. Perhaps that was the problem?
She let herself into the house, switched on the lamp on the console, put down her keys and picked up Gary’s photo.
‘You idiot, Graceful Swan,’ he scolded her.
‘I know. I know. He’s a nice guy, a really nice guy and I’ve hurt his feelings. Badly.’ she answered, staring into Gary’s grey eyes, eyes that she had wanted to spend the rest of her life looking into.
‘For God’s sake, Grace, he only asked you out for a drink. As work colleagues and as friends.’
‘I know.’
All the rest was in your mind. And your fevered and fervid imagination. Nothing he said or did gave you any grounds for the ridiculous things you said. It’s typical of you, Grace, you can
always find the cloud in a silver lining. Seems to me, you’ve got some bridges to build, girl, Big time.’
‘It’s all too soon, he caught me on the hop.’
‘It’s been three years now. Time to get back into the real world.
‘Dating? It seems unfaithful to your memory.’
‘It’s only a drink, for God’s sake, it’s time to move on.’
‘Right! Only a drink. A drink. Nothing else.’
‘Yes, a drink. And who the hell cares what Fred Burbage thinks anyway? And stop talking to yourself.’
‘I’ll speak to Terry tomorrow, see what happens.’
‘Go for it, girl.’
‘Mind you, he’ll probably tell me to piss off.’
‘Only yourself to blame. And stop talking to yourself!’
Grace kissed the photograph and replaced on the table. ‘Oh, Gary, Gary, Gary, what the hell do I do?’
She really needed to check her notes, update the Policy File and plan her strategy for tomorrow, but she was too wound up with her emotions. She did like Terry Horton. She had enjoyed their evening together in Whitburn on Sea and their talks in the car.
Before!
Before he asked her, perfectly respectfully, if she would like to go for a drink. And she had screwed it up. Big time.
Unable to concentrate on her work, she took herself off to bed.
But she slept only fitfully waking up at six, bleary eyed from lack of sleep. She showered, dressed in a grey trouser suit, pale cream angora roll neck sweater and soft black leather calf length flat-soled boots, and drove back to West Garside.