He packed his things away into his briefcase, checked again to make sure that the monitor was turned off properly, and then turned to Kate.
“I think we should go back and see her again. Both of us. We’ll tell her that Philip’s name has cropped up in another investigation and turn the heat up on her a bit. What do you think?”
Kate looked back at him with surprise as if she wasn’t used to having one of her superiors ask her opinion. Malcolm was old school in that respect, and prided himself on it. He wasn’t like one of the direct entrants who were increasingly popular in the police these days, and was genuinely interested in what she had to say.
“See if anything pops up? Yeah, I like it.” She tapped her notebook on her knee. “But she’ll probably want someone there with her next time.”
“I might speak to Gareth Dawson,” Malcolm said. “Not much love lost between him and Philip, which might be useful.” He walked toward the door, glancing at the clock on the wall. There was more than enough time to stop at Tesco’s to get something for the microwave and a quick pint at his local before Match of the Day came on the telly. Then he could see just how good the new lad from Brighton really was.
38
Gareth stared at Dave, unable to believe what he had just heard.
“What did you just say?” he asked him, hoping that he’d misheard.
“It was the copper, Kate, boss,” Dave replied, “with Laura.”
“Are you sure? I mean, you were in a club so presumably it was dark, right?”
“One hundred per-cent.” Dave wriggled again on his chair before glancing at the door, and it was obvious to Gareth how uncomfortable the young man was. “Charlotte saw them as well. Sorry to be the one to let you know.”
Gareth frowned, trying to take in the news. That was not what he had been expecting Dave to say at all. That would explain why she hadn’t answered his text messages.
“Flat battery, my arse,” he muttered under his breath as he took a hefty pull on his pint, almost emptying the glass. He put the glass down on the table so hard that Big Joe and several of the customers turned their heads to look at them. Gareth fixed one or two of them with a stare until they got the message and turned away to mind their own business. Only Big Joe continued to look at him, and Gareth wasn’t about to try to do the same thing with him.
“Gareth, do you mind if I head away?” Dave asked, looking at him with a pained expression. “Only Charlotte’s waiting for me.”
“Go on,” Gareth said, “off you fuck. And Dave?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for letting me know. It can’t have been easy, but I appreciate it.”
Dave didn’t hide the look of relief on his face as he got to his feet before ambling toward the door. Gareth watched him go, relieved to be on his own for a few seconds to process what he’d just heard. Or try to process, at least. A moment later, he drained his glass and returned to the bar.
“Same again, fella?” Big Joe said as he approached. He already had a fresh glass in his hand and was holding it under the pump.
“Please,” Gareth replied with a nod.
“Everything okay?” Big Joe asked, pouring his pint.
“Yup. Just peachy.”
“You do know all breakages must be paid for, right?” Big Joe was smiling as he said this, but Gareth knew it was a warning to behave himself.
“Sorry, Joe,” Gareth replied. “Just had some unexpected news, that was all.”
“I thought you were going to twat him for a moment there.”
“Who? Dave? No, he was just the messenger. Besides, when have I ever started a fight inside your gaff?”
“Fair point.” Joe laughed as he put Gareth’s pint down on the bar. “But you’ve finished a fair few outside it.”
“Not for a long time, Joe,” Gareth said, forcing a wry grin onto his face and offering Joe a ten pound note.
“This one’s on me, mate,” Joe replied. “Just don’t smash the glass.”
Gareth returned to his table and sat down heavily. One thing he knew was that there was no way he was going round to Laura’s place for dinner now. He reached into his pocket for his phone and tapped out a text message.
Sorry, can’t make dinner. Change of plan.
His thumb hovered over the screen for a few seconds before he pressed send with a sigh. Then he held the power button down to turn the phone off and sat back in the chair before deciding to go outside for a smoke.
Gareth stood in the beer garden, puffing on his cigarette and trying to ignore the lump in his throat. He looked around, remembering what the beer garden used to look like before Big Joe had done it up. It was a lot nicer now, but didn’t have the same character that it used to have. Gareth remembered sitting in the old beer garden talking to Jennifer on the phone before they got together properly. He sat down at the same bench he’d sat on when he’d had that conversation and flicked the ash from his cigarette into the flowerpot that passed as an ashtray. The combination of the memory of talking to Jennifer and what Dave had just told him forced the lump in his throat higher, and he could feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Irritated, he wiped them away with the back of his hand.
A few moments later, he felt a hand on his shoulder and the bench creaked as someone sat down opposite. It was Tommy. He said nothing, but just looked at Gareth.
“Dave told you?” Gareth said a few seconds later. Tommy just nodded his head in reply. “For fuck’s sake, I didn’t see that one coming.”
“No, I wouldn’t imagine you did,” Tommy replied. “So, nothing happened after dinner last night between you and Laura then, obviously?” Gareth frowned at him, wanting to bite back with a barbed comment.
“I bottled it, mate,” Gareth said. “We were sitting in the taxi, right next to each other. I thought she wanted to kiss me, and I nearly did, but I bottled it. I just got out of the cab and said goodnight.”
“Probably just as well given what Dave and Charlotte saw. You might have got a slap round the chops.”
“No, I don’t think I would have done. I texted her later after I’d had a bit of Dutch courage, but she never replied. Guess she was busy doing something else. Or someone else.”
“She likes you, Gareth,” Tommy said, his face impassive in the orange light from a streetlamp. “It’s as plain as the nose on your ugly face.”
“She’s got a bloody strange way of showing it,” Gareth replied, flicking his cigarette over the fence in the beer garden. “I’m supposed to be round there now having dinner. I thought that tonight was going to be, well, you know?”
“But you’re not seeing each other, are you?”
“No.”
“So what’s the problem? It was only a kiss. Do you remember Ruth Fawcett?”
Despite himself, Gareth smiled. That was a name he’d not heard in years.
“God, she was a right munter, wasn’t she?”
“Didn’t stop you sticking your tongue down her throat though, did it?”
“Tommy,” Gareth said, getting to his feet. “For one thing, that was about ten years ago. For another thing, I was drunk.”
“But my point is that it didn’t mean anything. It was only a kiss.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t rescue me that night.”
“You looked like you were enjoying yourself. Ruth Fawcett certainly was.” Tommy stood and clapped Gareth on the shoulder again. “I don’t know about you, my friend, but I need a beer. I’ve lined up a couple of chasers for us both as well.”
39
Laura sang to herself as she showered. She had turned the water up to as hot as she could stand it, and by the time she was finished, her skin was tingling. She opened the bathroom window as wide as it would go to clear the steam from the room and wrapped a towel around herself before walking into the bedroom to get dressed. She wasn’t sure what to wear or, more specifically, she wasn’t sure what to wear over her purchases from Jarrolds.
As she sat in front of
the mirror with her makeup arranged in front of her, she looked at her reflection. Apart from a few crow’s feet by her eyes—laughter lines, as her mother would have called them—she thought she was in reasonably good shape. Regular running kept her weight in check, although a few more pounds on her slim hips wouldn’t hurt. The problem with that was that they wouldn’t just go on her hips.
Laura was, however, nervous. It had been a long time since she’d shared a bed with anyone. She felt like she had done all those years ago, going out with Sam for the evening knowing full well that at the end of the night, they would be in bed with each other.
Gareth wasn’t to know, but when Laura met him for the first time when he was still in prison, she had wanted to be with him from that moment. At the time, she had just come out of a relationship with a man who had turned out—like so many did—to be an absolute idiot. There was a lot of water under the bridge since then, but there hadn’t been any other partners. Laura had waited, and waited, until finally the dance had begun a few weeks ago.
Laura took her time applying her makeup. She didn’t want to put too much on and end up looking slutty or desperate, but going bare-faced wasn’t an option.
“You are slutty and desperate, though,” she muttered to herself as she pursed her lips to put on some lipstick. Then she started giggling as she got dressed, opting for a simple summer dress that—she hoped—was just the right balance between modest and enticing.
When Laura walked back into the kitchen, the smell of the pork belly cooking in the oven made her mouth water. Next to the oven were all the ingredients for the pepper sauce, which she was leaving until the last minute and would be the only thing she actually had to cook when he arrived. She fussed over the table which was laid out with cutlery, wine glasses, and a small posy of fresh flowers that she had picked up in the supermarket earlier. Hopefully, Gareth would turn up with a larger bunch.
Glancing at the clock on the cooker, Laura realised that he was going to be arriving in less than thirty minutes. Her heart fluttered for a couple of beats, and she pressed her hand to her chest, laughing. This was ridiculous, she told herself. It wasn’t as if this was the first time, although, in a sense it was. She crossed to the fridge, telling herself that a cheeky glass of wine before he arrived would help to settle her nerves. As she did so, she looked at her phone which was charging up on one of the kitchen worktops.
She picked it up, smiling when she saw that she had a text from Gareth. Laura tapped the screen to open the text message.
Sorry, can’t make dinner. Change of plan.
Her heart sank in her chest.
“No, no, no,” she said, re-reading the message to be sure it said what she thought it did. “Please, no.”
What had happened? She scrolled through the earlier messages from him. There was nothing in them to suggest that he was about to change his plans. Laura thought about texting him back but decided to call instead.
This is Gareth. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.
Laura swore, fighting back tears as her call went straight to his answerphone. She placed the phone gently down on the counter to avoid the temptation to throw it across the room. Then she picked it back up again and tapped out a text message to Gareth. Maybe he was just somewhere with no signal, and would pick it up when he was back in range. Laura tried several versions of the message, before deleting the characters and settling with three question marks instead.
She opened the fridge and grabbed the wine, tempted for a moment to just drink it straight from the bottle. Instead, she poured herself a generous glass and walked into the lounge, picking up her phone as she did so.
It took Laura less than an hour to finish the wine and, by the time the bottle was empty, she was buzzing from so much alcohol on an empty stomach. She could have eaten the pork belly instead of scraping it into the bin, but when she got it out of the oven, her appetite disappeared in an instant. Resolving not to drink any more, she put the empty bottle in the recycling bin, checked her phone for what must have been the hundredth time, and lay down on the sofa.
She woke up a couple of hours later with a start, and the beginnings of a headache. Laura went to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror as she washed her hands.
“This is pathetic,” she told herself. “No, he’s pathetic.” Her resolve hardening, she returned to the lounge. It was almost eleven o’clock. She picked up her phone—still nothing. Laura didn’t know where Gareth was. For all she knew, he was in the city with his friends from the football. But she did know where he might be. Laura looked up the phone number on the internet and raised the phone to her ear.
“Heartsease Pub?” a male voice said a few seconds later.
“Hello, um, Joe. My name’s Laura Flynn. I don’t know if you remember me?”
“Of course I do,” the voice replied. “What can I do for you?”
“Is Gareth there? Gareth Dawson?”
“Hang on a second, let me go somewhere quieter.” She could hear the man on the other end of the line moving. “I’m guessing you’re the reason why he’s trying to drink me dry?”
“He is there, then?”
“Yep. Sitting in the corner with a right face on.”
“Okay, I’m coming down. I need to talk to him. Can you do me a favour and not tell him I’m coming.”
“No problem,” Joe replied. “Mum’s the word.”
40
“Last one for you, Gareth,” Big Joe said as he put the pint on the bar. “Get that down you and I’ll call you a cab.”
Gareth looked at Joe, knowing that there was no arguing with the man. When he said you’d had enough, you’d had enough. Tommy had stayed for a couple of pints before disappearing once he was sure, in his words, that Gareth wasn’t about to jump in the river without any arm bands on.
“Cheers, mate. Just going for a pee.”
“Yeah, thanks for sharing.”
Gareth made his way into the toilets, swaying slightly. He wasn’t as drunk as he would have liked to have been, but he did have some more booze back at his flat so he could finish the job when he got home. As he attended to his business, he read the poster on the wall above the urinal with the remaining football fixtures listed on it. There weren’t many left, and next year Norwich City wouldn’t be on the telly as much, but that was life.
After he had washed his hands, Gareth returned to the bar to get his drink. To his surprise, there was another glass next to his.
“What’s that?” he asked Joe who was wiping down the bar and getting ready to close up for the night.
“White wine spritzer,” Joe replied, not even looking at him.
“I don’t drink that,” Gareth said, confused. He looked again at Joe before following his eyes to the corner of the pub. At the table where he’d been sitting all evening was Laura. “Oh,” Gareth mumbled as he picked up both glasses and made his way toward her.
“This one’s yours,” he said, placing the wineglass in front of her. Gareth heard her whisper ‘thank you’, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. They sat in silence for a moment, the only sound in the pub was Joe collecting glasses. All the other customers had long gone.
Gareth saw Laura reach forward and pick up her glass, and his eyes flicked up to her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and he realised that she had been crying. He swallowed, determined to keep his resolve.
“So, this is your change of plan, is it?” she asked, the bitterness obvious in her voice. “Getting pissed on your own?”
“When were you going to tell me, Laura?”
“Tell you what?”
“That you’re gay.” Her arm stopped in its tracks, the glass halfway toward her mouth. She stared back at him, open-mouthed.
“Who told you I’m gay?” she asked a few seconds later.
“You were seen, Laura,” he replied. “In a club last night, tucked up in a corner with that copper. Kate.” She took a tiny sip of her drink and placed it back on the table.
/>
“I was seen? By one of your informants?”
“Dave saw you there. You’re not denying it, then?”
“No, I’m not. But it was only a kiss.”
“That’s what Tommy said.” Gareth watched as a flash of anger crossed her face.
“That’s what Tommy said?” she repeated, her voice hardening. “What? You, Dave, and Tommy have been having a right old gossip about me getting it on with a woman?”
“No, Laura,” Gareth replied. “Tommy’s my best mate. Dave told him because I was upset, so he came here to make sure I was okay.” He took a sip of his pint, suddenly feeling a lot more sober than he had done a few moments before. “Was all that stuff about that bloke rubbish then? What was his name again? Sam?”
“No, it wasn’t rubbish,” Laura said, her lips pressed tightly together. “But her name was Samantha.”
“You told me she was a bloke!”
“I didn’t tell you that. You assumed it.”
“So you are gay, then?” Gareth asked. Laura looked at him, down at her glass, and then back at him.
“No, I wouldn’t say I’m gay.”
“But Kate? Samantha?”
“It’s more about who I’m with than what gender they are that matters.” Laura’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper, and Gareth had to struggle to hear her.
“So you’re bisexual?”
“If you have to put me into a nice neat little box, that would probably be the best one to put me in.” Laura leaned down and picked up her handbag from underneath her chair. “This was a mistake.” She started to stand, and Gareth put a hand on her arm to stop her.
“Laura, wait,” he said. “Please?” She sat back down, looking at him and biting her lip so hard it turned the skin white. “Listen, I don’t care who you sleep with.”
“For fuck’s sake, Gareth,” Laura barked at him. “I told you, I didn’t sleep with Kate. It was only a kiss. Nothing more.”
Gareth Dawson Series Box Set Page 77