Love...Maybe

by Gill Paul

‘Claire!’ Dave sprang from the toilet. Clawed at the hem of her dress, trying to pull her to him. ‘I love you!’

  She closed the door slowly, leaving him alone. Naked and vulnerable. ‘I know.’

  *

  As the months passed and winter gave way to spring, gave way to summer, Stephen Warton came regularly to the pharmacy, bringing with him prescriptions and requests for various afflictions, but principally to visit Claire.

  The sun had come out and shone brightly on the small, grey town. It had healed the teacher’s psoriasis and driven him at least to cut his hair, ditch the anorak and – at her suggestion – don footwear arrangements that weren’t quite as conducive to fungal growth.

  The sun had come out and shone brightly on the small, grey town. It had healed the teacher’s psoriasis and driven him at least to cut his hair, ditch the anorak and – at her suggestion – don footwear arrangements that weren’t quite as conducive to fungal growth.

  ‘You’ve been so supportive of Dillon,’ she said, affixing the label onto his antacids. ‘He loves your classes.’

  Stephen smiled shyly. ‘He’s a good boy. Very resilient too, considering …’

  Claire pursed her lips. ‘He still sees Dave weekends. Happy Mum. Happy child. It’s no loss, really.’

  Stephen reached out to Claire, almost touching the sleeve of her thin cardigan. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you all these months but …’ He looked furtively around the shop floor, clearly assessing who might be within earshot. Waited for Belinda to serve a woman with antihistamines. ‘Please make me a love potion.’ He clasped his hands together, as if in supplication. ‘There’s this woman. She’d never look twice—’

  Claire shook her head, perplexed by the request. ‘No, Stephen. You could get into so much trouble. You could kill someone, and it’s not right. It would be no different from dropping Rohypnol into this woman’s drink. I’m not proud of what I did to my ex. I realise now, I should have just slapped that big, arrogant twit and thrown him out on his ear. But I didn’t have the courage, then, so I let the potion speak for me. But it was still wrong.’

  The teacher’s eyes swam with disappointment. ‘Who’d look twice at me without a bit of help? This woman’s not in my league. She’s …’ He searched for the words among the cough sweets on the display. ‘She’s gorgeous and clever and funny. Honestly, I don’t stand a chance unless—’

  ‘Absolutely not. Okay? And you don’t need it. Seriously.’

  *

  The following week, Stephen reappeared at the pharmacy counter just as Belinda departed for her lunch break. Claire sighed, smiled brightly at him and shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean, no?’

  ‘No potion.’ She handed him the paper bag containing his antibiotics and rang the price of the prescription up on the till.

  ‘Think of me as your guinea pig,’ he said, inserting his card into the machine.

  She realised that she liked the swirls of dark hair on his slender arms. She hadn’t noticed those arms in the winter, when he was all wrapped up in that ghastly anorak. She had thought he would be afflicted everywhere by angry, dry skin complaints. Well, if he had been then, he certainly no longer was now.

  ‘You could patent it,’ he continued. ‘You’d make a fortune. Just think!’ He described a sign in mid-air with the long, shapely fingers of a maths teacher. ‘Sykes’ Love Potion Number 9, available in all good pharmacies.’

  Claire laughed. ‘See you soon, Stephen. Remember to take those with food.’

  Although she enjoyed their regular conversations and his attentions a great deal, after repeated requests over a period of months, where summer turned to autumn, turned to winter once again, his persistence began to gnaw away at her, like an irritating rash. Who was this woman that he was so smitten with? What charms did she possess that a man was willing to risk arrest and a criminal record for? She had to put a stop to his nagging without insulting someone who had become a real friend. Finally, a solution occurred to her.

  It was the morning of Valentine’s Day. All Claire had to look forward to was her stint helping with the school’s Valentine’s fundraising book fair. When Stephen appeared in the pharmacy, she handed him a small brown bottle. It contained a tiny amount of powder.

  ‘Is this what I think it is?’ he asked, beaming. ‘After all this time?’

  She nodded. ‘If I give you this, I don’t want you to bring the subject up ever again. And you’re not to tell anybody that I gave it to you. If you do, I’ll deny it.’

  Stephen Warton clutched the bottle to his heart, wide-eyed and grinning. ‘You don’t know how much this means to me, Claire.’

  ‘She must be some special lady.’

  ‘Oh, she is.’

  ‘Just don’t get arrested. Anyway, I’ll see you later at the fair.’

  At 3pm, she greeted her late-shift replacement, slipped on her coat and stepped into a gentle mizzle of icy rain. With the brave wintry sunshine behind her and stern grey clouds gathered in the distance, a double rainbow described an arc of intense, hopeful colour above the drab town. She puzzled again over the mystery woman that Stephen Warton planned to woo by means of a love potion. Cast her mind back to this day twelve months earlier, when she had unwrapped Dave’s Tinder-surprise like a poisonous, too-sickly gift of cheap Valentine’s chocolate. What was this mercurial thing called love that served as the shifting foundations for happiness and despair both?

  Barely registering the clink of coins, rustles of notes, the exchanged smiles and semi-engaged chit-chat, Claire dwelled privately on the matter of love, while she sold colourful picture books and easy-readers to the other parents at the school book fair. By her side, with almost unbridled enthusiasm, Stephen Warton explained to the potential customers what the books were about. Perhaps he was excited by the prospect of trying out his love potion on the object of his affections. In any case, his effervescence only served to remind Claire that there were no would-be lovers, plotting and planning how they might win her affections with a soupcon of citalopram, a sliver of sildenafil and the testosterone thrill of Tefina. Stephen thought she had handed him the keys to the kingdom of heaven. He was high on hope. She was tired and alone, one year on.

  By 5pm, when everyone had left the fair and only an exhausted Dillon sprawled among the beanbags of the library’s soft play area, she locked the cash tin and rose from her wooden child’s chair.

  ‘You’re leaving already?’ Stephen asked, carrying two mugs from the staff room. ‘I’ve brought you a drink.’

  Claire shrugged. ‘It’s late. I’ve got to get home and give Dillon his tea.’

  ‘Oh. I slipped him a bag of ready salted crisps and an apple half an hour ago,’ he said. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’

  She sighed. Resigned. ‘There’s nothing left to do.’

  The teacher thrust a steaming mug into her hand. ‘At least stay and have a celebratory coffee with me. Just a quick one. We did amazingly well.’ He sat back in his too low seat. For the first time that day, she noticed that he was wearing stylish jeans and a fashionably cut jacket. He looked some years younger than he had. Perhaps they were even the same age. Claire felt certain he was going on his fateful date that evening.

  They clinked mugs. He was studying her face intently. She stole glances at his. Liked the way his emerging five o’clock shadow accentuated his cheekbones and the sharp line of his jaw. His clear skin bore no trace of the red raw psoriasis which had blighted his face so badly that she had long failed to recognise him as handsome. But he was. Really handsome. And his eyes were green.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ she said, taking a sip. Hoping he couldn’t see that she was beginning to blush. The coffee was overly sweet. She grimaced but said nothing.

  Stephen Warton, supply teacher of maths to small children and erstwhile sufferer of a variety of flaky conditions and persistent infections, took the mug from her hand, set it down on the table and leaned in for a kiss. It was
a gentle kiss on the lips, but Claire Sykes might well have been shot by a Taser for the jolt that it gave her. Despite her initial appraisal that he was just a kind man with failing health, who must have been dismally lonely to turn up so frequently for a chat with the local pharmacist, bearing gifts and offering support, Claire found herself kissing him back with something bordering on unfettered desire. It was only Dillon laughing out loud at the two of them that forced her to back away momentarily.

  Stephen looked at her with a bewildered half-smile. ‘It worked!’ he said.

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  She looked down at her mug. Then she realised. Mirth grabbed hold of her and shook her almost violently.

  ‘I’m the woman? Why?’

  He took her hand gently into his and stroked it. Brought it to his chest and laid her palm over his heart. ‘You healed me. There’s not a single ailment I came to you with over the last two years that you didn’t cure.’

  ‘But, I’m just a pharmacist.’

  ‘Claire, you made me whole again. You’re amazing, magical. And that’s why I knew I’d need the potion. Because I’m not.’

  Baffled by what he was saying; aware of the warm timbre of his voice and the pleasant way that he smelled of fresh lemons, she reached out and stroked his cheek. ‘Stephen, there was no love potion in that bottle. It was a placebo! A teaspoon of caster sugar. I told you, it would have been unethical.’

  The smile slid from his face. ‘So, why did you kiss me?’

  Claire looked down at her fingernails. Pursed her lips. She looked back up at her son’s teacher and frowned quizzically. ‘You helped me to remember who I was at a point when I’d forgotten.’ She swallowed a sob that strained to be free. ‘You never needed that love potion. Not a man like you. You’re easy to fall in love with.’

  And so it was that Stephen Warton and Claire Sykes, who had both entered Dillon’s school as strangers, walked out together that evening as fledgling lovers. With Dillon skipping between them, the three constituted the foundation stones of something new; something that could last. The empty brown bottle that had contained sweet placebo promise in those fine grains of sugar had been discarded in the day’s refuse; all thoughts of love potions and love poisons consigned to the past. But as they drove towards her house in Stephen’s old vintage Saab, following the rainbow’s arc that still hung in the sky, Claire fingered the small vial of Viagra in her handbag and allowed herself a broad, mischievous grin. It was going to be a very good Valentine’s Day after all.

  About the Author

  Marnie Riches grew up on a rough estate in Manchester, aptly within sight of the dreaming spires of Strangeways prison. Able to speak five different languages, she gained a Masters degree in Modern & Medieval Dutch and German from Cambridge University. She has been a punk, a trainee rock star, a pretend artist, a property developer and professional fundraiser. In her spare time, she likes to run, mainly to offset the wine and fine food she consumes with great enthusiasm. Having authored the first six books of HarperCollins Children’s Time-Hunters series, she now writes crime thrillers for adults and contemporary women’s fiction.

  The first book in her gripping George McKenzie Series, will launch April 2015.

  DEBBIE JOHNSON

  The Mysterious Case of Cupid and the Drag Queen

  The Suspicious One

  Copyright

  Avon

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2015

  Copyright © Debbie Johnson 2015

  Debbie Johnson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © February 2015 ISBN: 9780008135058

  Version: 2015–01–23

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Keep Reading

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Now

  My name’s Jayne McCartney. No relation, despite the accent. In case you were wondering. Which you might not have been, but most people do.

  I’m a private investigator, and I work from an office on the fifth floor of a once-grand building on a once-grand-and-getting-there-again city’s waterfront. The windows are crusted with dust and grime from the small continents of traffic that flow past every day, and I can tell the time by the chimes of the Liver Building clock.

  Right now, for example, I know it’s after 10 p.m. The big bass drum sound of the hour turning woke me up. Not that being unconscious qualifies as being asleep, I suppose. It might have looked the same, except on this occasion it came with a whacking great lump on the back of my head and a matting of blood in my hair. A good look for a chick in her thirties. I might go clubbing.

  First, though, I have to master standing up. And finding my phone. And dialling the number of DCI Ken McGowan at Ball Street CID. Despite having a concussion and approximately seventeen fingers on one hand, I manage. Voicemail. Of course. It is after 10 p.m., after all. He’s probably out clubbing.

  ‘Call me,’ I say. ‘I know where the Chihuahua is.’

  Chapter Two

  One day earlier

  ‘His name’s Cupid,’ said Harley Golightly, as he handed me what I could only describe as a soft porn photo of a very small, very ugly dog. The lighting was soft focus; the background a bed of black satin, and the pooch was wearing a tiara and a diamond encrusted collar. Apart from that it was naked, the slut. Which was better than a pearl necklace, I suppose.

  Harley Golightly was sitting with his partner, Dorothy Glamore. I don’t know why, but I had a sneaking suspicion that they may not have been using their real names. And they definitely weren’t using their real hair colours. They were both men, and both wearing uncomfortably tight leather trousers. At least they were uncomfortable for me – their boy bits were so obvious I didn’t know quite where to put my eyes.

  ‘He’s … lovely,’ I said, imagining for the tenth time that day that I’d won the Lottery and was on a Caribbean cruise with a flotilla of Calvin Klein underwear models.

  Instead, I was in the admittedly fragrant back room of a bar in Liverpool’s pink district. Investigating the case of a missing Chihuahua. Such is life. I used to be a detective sergeant, a babe in blue, and I never got sent to check out Chihuahuas then.

  I suspected the law had more important things on its collective mind these days. A copy of the Gazette lay open on the smoky glass-topped coffee table between us. The front page was a report on the abduction of Coco Doyle, the seven-year-old daughter of a local businessman. In this case, the business was drugs – but let’s face it, that wasn’t Coco’s fault. Neither was her name.

  ‘So, when was
the last time you saw Cupid?’ I asked, dragging myself back into the here and now. No matter how surreal it was.

  Harley tugged a pink tissue from a zebra print box by his side, and dabbed delicately at eyes that already bore the residue of soggy mascara. Dorothy tenderly tapped his hand, trying to reassure him.

  ‘One of the staff took him out for a run, down at the waterfront, yesterday. We were out looking for new chocolate fountains all day. If I’d know then that I wouldn’t see him again, well, I’d, I’d …’

  The tears started to flow in earnest, and I tried to find the right face for the occasion. It wasn’t easy, so I ended up looking a bit constipated.

  Dorothy pulled himself together and sat up straight.

  ‘Billy,’ he said. ‘He’s our cellar man, as well as one of our performers. He says he brought Cupid back here, and locked up behind him. We saw Cupid when we got back, and he was in here with customers later – they all love him! We’re not even quite sure when he went missing … We feel so guilty now, for not paying more attention. We let him down!’

  He gulped in some air, fluttered his fingers in front of his face, and continued: ‘We stayed here, in the flat we keep upstairs on the fourth floor, and it was only this morning we really started to worry. We were exhausted – dead to the world all night, assuming he was safe in his little bed! But then he didn’t come and wake us up to take him outside for a tinkle! And now we can’t find him, anywhere. The tracker says he’s here, but he’s not – we’ve searched everywhere! That’s when we called you – one of our friends, Mystic Melissa, said you might be able to help.’

  ‘The tracker?’ I asked, even more confused. And trying not to dwell too much on the fact that I now owed Mystic Melissa – aka Clive, a stallholder who worked with my mum down at the market – a pint.

  ‘Yes. There’s a GPS chip in his collar. You have to understand that Cupid’s our baby. And you’d get your baby tracked, wouldn’t you?’