by JL Merrow
“What, healthy? Getting cynical in your old age, aren’t you?”
“Old age? Hey, I’m the one who’s still in his twenties, here.” Just. “You’re the one who’s halfway to the carpet slippers and the pension book, not me.” Phil had turned thirty just before we’d met—again—last year.
Course, I already had the walking stick—had done since I was seventeen—but it wasn’t like I ever used it. My hip hardly even ached, in the summer.
Much.
“Yeah, well. Come next month, we’ll see who’s making the age jokes.” Phil folded his arms, which is something he doesn’t do often enough. It made the muscles in his arms stand out very nicely indeed. “I’m still waiting for you to tell me what you want to do for your birthday.”
I glared at him, not too happy to be jolted out of my warm, fuzzy feelings. Specially as they’d been turning a bit hotter and a lot less fuzzy. “That’s not how I remember it. What I remember is me saying I didn’t want to make a fuss about it. It’s just another birthday. I’ll go to work, get home, have a takeaway and a beer in front of the telly. That’ll do me fine.”
“Bloody hell, anyone’d think you were turning fifty, not thirty. Live a little.”
“I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal about it. It’s not like it’s any kind of landmark or anything. What can you do at thirty that you can’t do at twenty-one? Eighteen, even, now they’ve dropped the truck-driving age limit?”
He just sat there, looking at me, his arms still folded, the big, musclebound git.
“What?” I snapped.
Phil sent me a mocking look. “Just think you’re a bit young for a midlife crisis, that’s all.”
“Oi! I am not having a bloody midlife crisis.” I wasn’t, all right? Thirty wasn’t old or anything.
He laughed, the bastard. “Better be careful how much you protest there, princess.”
I glared at him. “Less of the princess, all right? Or you’ll be getting a tiara shoved where the sun doesn’t shine. And anyway, I thought we were talking about Carey? You got some dirt on the bloke?”
Phil nodded, serious now. “I put out some feelers. He’s been clever, has Carey—the Met’s had their eye on him a couple of times, but there’s never been enough evidence to prosecute.”
“Bit like Mrs. C, then. Oi, don’t suppose the C stands for—”
“Nope. It doesn’t. And what Carey’s been up to—allegedly—is a bit more serious than stepping out on the other half. Put it this way—if he did frame this Mortimer bloke for the drugs offence, he didn’t exactly have to go out of his way to find the merchandise. Allegedly.”
“Not just the knockoff iPads he’s importing, then?”
“Apparently not. My mate Steve at the Met reckoned if I manage to find any dirt that’ll stick, him and his whole department will be queuing up to buy me a drink.”
That didn’t exactly sound encouraging—after all, if the Metropolitan Police with all their resources couldn’t pin anything on the bloke, what chance did Phil have? “Great. Hope Harry isn’t holding her breath.”
Phil shrugged. “The Mortimer angle might be a good one to follow. Steve reckoned he’s as dodgy as Carey, so no one took him seriously when he cried foul.”
“Huh. So to put Carey in jail, we’ve got to spring this bloke who probably deserves to stay in there with him.”
“If that’s what it takes, yeah. It’s swings and roundabouts. At least Marianne and Harry’ll be safe from Mortimer.”
“S’pose.” It still didn’t seem right, us working to get a criminal out of jail. Still, if he hadn’t actually done the crime he was in for, that was, as Phil would say, a bona fidey miscarriage of justice, wasn’t it?
God, this was doing my head in.
What with Phil being out all day Friday, and me having a bath Saturday morning that seriously overran—that’s installing it, not wallowing in it—it was Saturday night before I saw Phil again. Course, we’d texted in the meantime.
Well, all right, we’d sexted. So by the time I rolled up at Phil’s on my way back from grabbing a burger for my tea, I was fairly gagging for a case update. Amongst other things.
When I let myself in, though, he had another man in there with him.
Chapter Five
Well, I say he had another man with him, but in fact Phil himself was nowhere in sight. If it hadn’t been for the skylights, which would have been a neat trick anywhere but the attic, I’d have thought I’d got the wrong floor and walked into some other bloke’s flat.
Said bloke was short, dark and dressed in an expensive-looking suit, with an open-collared shirt and no tie. He was relaxing on the sofa with his arms flung over the back and one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, looking more at home in Phil’s place than I’d ever felt around there, the bastard. Which was a good trick, seeing as it was Grant Carey, who, to the best of my knowledge, had never been round here before. And what the bloody hell was he doing here now? Had Phil got bored of trying to dig up the dirt on the bloke, and decided to just invite him round and ask?
Carey was better-looking in the flesh than in his photos, and the hair didn’t seem to be receding as much as I’d thought. He flashed me a cheery smile and a wave. “Hello, hello. Do come in. The more the merrier, I always say. Grant Carey—and you are…?”
“Tom Paretski.” I didn’t offer him a handshake. Or a business card.
He kept on smiling anyway. “Are you professionally involved with Philip, here?”
Was this bloke real? Also, what the bloody hell was he doing here? Which, yeah, I know I said before, but seriously, what the fuck?
“No,” I said shortly, just as Phil grunted out his own negative, having stomped in from the kitchen while I was busy staring at Carey. Phil looked well ticked off, which I chose to interpret as being down to his other presumably uninvited guest, not me.
Carey’s eyes went comically wide. “Oh. Oh. Do forgive me. The last thing I’d want to do is step on any toes, here. Philip and I were just having a friendly chat, weren’t we? I was admiring this cosy little flat. Very compact. Of course, all this wood is something of a fire risk,” he added, waving at the fixtures and fittings in a way that made my skin crawl. “But I’m sure you wouldn’t take any unnecessary chances, would you, Philip?” He pursed his lips and sucked in a breath. “I imagine it would be rather unpleasant being here while everything went up in smoke. Poof!” Carey honest-to-God giggled at the end, like his idea of a fun Saturday night would be watching the building go up in flames with my Phil inside it. And while that little poof at the end might have been just a bit of extra enthusiasm, my money was on it being a not-so-subtle dig at mine and Phil’s sexuality.
Which was ironic, really, seeing as this bloke was camper than a Glastonbury field at festival time. He had one of those accents which was hard to place, like maybe he’d put it together from odds and ends he’d found lying around somewhere. Sort of posh, but with a hint that it wasn’t quite how he’d grown up talking.
Course, Phil was all for social mobility. Which was neither here nor there, obviously. Speaking of which, Phil had just buggered off back into the kitchen again.
“Just popped round to sell Phil some fire extinguishers, did you?” I asked, sitting down opposite Carey and putting my feet up on the coffee table. Two could play at this comfier-than-thou bollocks.
“Oh no, you misunderstand me. No ulterior motives whatsoever.” God, he was the picture of innocence, the git, with his wide brown eyes. “I just heard Philip here was interested in me, so I thought I’d save him a bit of trouble. Let him get it straight from the horse’s mouth. So to speak.”
“Your tea,” Phil interrupted, thrusting a mug at him, stony-faced.
“So kind.” Carey took the mug and put it down on the table so close to my ankle I had to shift an inch or get scalded. Apparently Carey took his tea blac
k, like his shrivelled little heart. Phil had even left the bag in, so obviously he’d decided that while you might catch more flies with honey, drowning them in vinegar was way more satisfying.
“Very public spirited of you.” I laid on the sarcasm thick enough to lag a pipe.
“Oh, absolutely. I do hate to see people I’ve grown attached to take unnecessary risks. Philip and I have taken quite a shine to each other, haven’t we?” Carey smiled.
Phil grunted something unintelligible.
“But tell me about you, Tom.” Those big brown eyes gazed at me like I was the most fascinating thing they’d ever seen, and he was just itching for a microscope and a scalpel. “What is it you do for a living, if you’re not in the detective trade?”
I opened my mouth to give him a one-word answer, but Phil beat me to it. “Nothing you need to know about.”
Carey shrugged. “Oh, well. Perhaps I’ll just have a look on the Internet when I get home. Amazing, the things you can find out about people these days, all with the click of a mouse. Paretski… No, there can’t be too many of those around here, can there?”
Shit. My blood ran cold as I realized Cherry’s name would come up in any Internet search. And Richard, and Mum and Dad… But he wouldn’t really do anything to them, would he…?
His smile was getting more sharklike the longer I looked at it. Christ, I was beginning to see just why Harry had such a low opinion of this bastard. And why she’d needed some help dealing with the little toad.
“Planning on staying much longer?” Phil asked so abruptly I jumped.
Carey didn’t even blink, just uncrossed his legs and got up from the sofa with a sort of slinky, slimy grace, like a sharp-suited tapeworm. Not liking him looking down on me, I got up too.
Hah. I had at least an inch on him. Lucky I was still in my thick-soled work boots. Course, the steel toe caps might come in handy too. If, say, I wanted to give something a good kicking.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose on you any longer,” Carey was saying. “I’m sure you and Tom have lots to talk about. I’ll see myself out, don’t worry.”
Phil followed him to the door anyway. I didn’t blame him—I was half tempted to trail along too, just to make sure the git had really gone. Instead, I walked over to the window and stared out until I could see him on the pavement below.
Carey turned, looked up and waved at me, the bastard.
“Jesus, talk about your fucking awful timing,” Phil muttered in my ear. When I turned, he was scrubbing his face with both hands. “Wish I’d never given you that bloody key.”
“’Scuse me for existing,” I snapped back, narked. “What, ruin your cosy little chat, did I?”
“Sod the bloody chat. You really think it’s a good idea him knowing about us? And did you have to give him your full name just because he asked?”
“Well, someone had to make conversation, didn’t they? You weren’t exactly Mr. Effing Chatty, were you?”
“That’s because you don’t say anything more than you have to around a bloke like that. Ever heard the phrase anything you say can and will be used against you? I’ve met blokes like him before—they’re like bloody squirrels, ferreting away anything that gives ’em an edge.”
I had to smile. “Make your mind up—is he a squirrel or a ferret?”
“Neither. He’s a cockroach. And that’s defamation of cockroaches.”
I hesitated. “You don’t think he’d actually, you know, do anything, do you?”
“Dunno. Why don’t you ask Alan Mortimer? You know, the one he sent on holiday at Her Majesty’s expense?”
Bloody hell, this was all getting a bit serious. “Oi, you don’t reckon he’s planted anything on you, do you?” I blurted out as the thought punched me in the gut. “Shit, why’d you leave him alone in here, anyway? You didn’t have to offer him a cuppa.” I glanced at Carey’s untouched mug of tea, which was turning brackish. “It’s not like he even drank any.”
“He asked for it.”
“That bastard was asking for a lot of things,” I muttered. “And oi—what was that you just said about not giving him stuff just because he asked?”
Phil huffed. “Bloke like that asks for a piece of rope, you give it to him and hope he hangs himself. Don’t reckon he had time to plant anything, though—not with you turning up like that. Still, wouldn’t hurt for you to do your party piece and confirm it for us, would it, now?”
“Right.” I stepped away from him a bit, not that I actually needed to, wiped my palms on my jeans and listened.
Show me a house that hasn’t got any hidden stuff, and I’ll show you someone who’s just a bit more cautious than the average homeowner and is keeping all their dirty little secrets well away from their own backyard. Phil’s flat was no exception—there was the usual low-grade niggly stuff, the equivalent of sweeping the dirt under the carpet. Nothing big, at least not in this room. I frowned. “Did he stay in the living room all the time he was here?”
Phil thought about it. “Probably. Almost certainly.”
“But he could have nipped into the bedroom, say, after you went to put the kettle on and before I turned up?” I folded my arms. “Now who wasn’t being careful?”
“It was a calculated risk,” Phil said steadily. Then the stone façade crumbled into a rueful smile. “All right, so he had me rattled, turning up like that. Needed a moment to get my brain in gear, didn’t I?”
“Watch it,” I said with a grin. “I might start thinking you’re human. Right, so a full sweep’s needed.”
“You been watching spy films again? Go on then, do your stuff.”
I checked out the bedroom—nothing in there I wasn’t already aware of, thanks—the bathroom (ditto) and then, for completeness, the kitchen.
Phil frowned at me. “He definitely didn’t come in here.”
“Yeah, so, I’m being thorough, all right? Maybe he snuck in without you noticing, with his evil cockroach powers.” I was frowning too. There was something in here, all right. It was brighter than I’d have expected, though, for something Carey might have stashed. If I’d planted something incriminating on someone, I’d expect it to have a guilty, greasy feel to it. Although…a bloke like Carey—he might just have thought it was a bit of fun, mightn’t he? I mean, looking at all the evidence with an impartial eye, he was a bit of a nutjob. “Top of that cupboard. There’s something in there. Oi, you been taking lessons from my Auntie Lol, hiding stuff in the kitchen?”
Phil startled. “What? No,” he said quickly. “That’s not… I know what that is.”
I blinked. “You sure?” It was, well, a bit too loud for anything I’d expect Phil to have hidden. “Better check, hadn’t you? I mean, better safe than sorry.”
“It’s not… Fine,” he huffed, and opened up the cupboard about six inches, stuck his head in, then closed it again. “Told you. Nothing there that shouldn’t be.”
I folded my arms again and fixed him with a look.
“What?” he said.
“All I’m saying is, that had better be my birthday present you’ve got stashed in there.”
He laughed. “Worried it’s some bloke?”
“What, in your kitchen cupboard? Only if you’re cheating on me with a midget.”
“Could be one of Darren’s mates.” Phil smirked. “From what he tells me, the dwarf porn star community is very tight-knit.”
“You know, I’m not sure I approve of you hanging around with him. He’s a bad influence.” I grinned and grabbed him around the waist. “I’m the only one who’s allowed to be a bad influence on you.”
“Is that so?” Phil melted into my touch. “Maybe it’s time you got on with that, then.”
It was a fair bit later by the time I remembered what I’d actually come round here for. Not that I was complaining about the way we’d spent our time, mind.
>
I heaved my head off the pillow before I went to sleep, and propped it up on my hand, leaning on an elbow. “Oi, are you ever going to tell me what you found out yesterday?”
Phil sighed and stretched. Jesus, he had big arms. Not that I was complaining about that either. “Bugger all about your dad. The only long-term resident I managed to talk to in your old street was eighty-four and senile. I spent most of my time trying to convince her I hadn’t come to take her away to a home. When I finally got her onto the subject of your family, it got even worse.”
“Yeah? Her and mum have a row over parking spaces or where she left her bins or something?”
“No. But apparently those Paretskis were a bad lot. She reckoned it came of being Polish.” Phil laughed at my expression. “Youngest son was the worst. Murdered a little girl in the local park when he was only a lad.”
“Bloody hell! I hope you put her straight.” God knows, this so-called gift of mine’s brought me a fair bit of grief over the years, but I wasn’t too chuffed at Mrs. Senile telling all and sundry I’d been a seven-year-old psycho.
“Did my best. Trouble was, then she gets it into her head I’m just part of the Polish mafia, scouting out the territory ready to murder her in her bed.” He was laughing now, the sod.
“Argh!” I flopped back on the pillow and scrubbed both hands over my face. “If I ever meet my great-grandad in the afterlife, we’re going to have serious words over this Polish bollocks.” Great-grandad—or step-great-grandad, as I supposed I should probably call him these days—had toddled over from Germany to Britain sometime before 1914 and decided he liked it. When World War One broke out and being called Thomas Patschke started to seem like a bit of a bad idea, and not just because nobody could spell it, either, old great-gramps decided, like a whole load of other immigrants over the ages, to change his name.
Unlike everybody else in the history of immigration, though, he didn’t go for something British. Say, I don’t know, Patterson or something. Maybe he still had a strong foreign accent and didn’t reckon he could carry it off, who knows? And, let’s face it, your average Brit in the early twentieth-century street was decades away from being able to tell one brand of “foreign” from another. But anyway, Thomas Patschke disappeared from public record, and up popped one Thomas Paretski. Just to be on the safe side, when his first son was born in 1917 six months after old Tom got married to a Derbyshire lass called Ethel, they named the lad George, after the one currently warming the throne.