by J. L. Merrow
“At three in the afternoon? Still, I suppose it must be exhausting, carrying around that amount of muscle between the ears.” Gary tittered.
“Oi, that’s my inammo-whatsit you’re talking about,” I said, but I had a smile on my face. Then a thought struck. “Listen, before I forget, would you mind popping round to mine and feeding the cats? I can’t keep asking Sharon to do it. Should’ve asked Phil to last night, but I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. I mean, he might have done it anyway,” I added loyally. “But I’d rather be sure.”
“Mm. I’ve always suspected Arthur’s only one meal away from turning man-eater. Will do, darling. I shall take Julian along to protect me from any attempts by the Beast of Fleetville to bite the hand that feeds.”
“Cheers, Gary. You’re a mate.” I felt a rush of fondness for the big cuddly bastard.
“Anytime, darling.” Gary patted my hand, and oh God, my eyes were welling up. If something didn’t happen to distract me soon, this was about to get seriously embarrassing.
Thank God, there was a cough from the doorway. “Not interrupting anything, am I?”
I blinked a few times till my vision cleared, and pasted on a smile. “God, no. Dave, good to see you.”
Dave stomped in. He’d put on weight now he was no longer on the healthy-sperm diet. If the beer gut got any bigger, you’d be hard pushed to tell if it was him or his missus who was expecting. “Right, then, Paretski. Who’ve you pissed off now?”
“You, by the looks of it.”
“I’ll say,” Gary put in. “He didn’t even bring flowers.” Gary had turned up with flowers, a card, and a teddy bear dressed in dubious taste.
Dave grunted. “Christ, I could murder a cup of tea. S’pose it’s all vending machine crap around here. God knows how they expect anyone to get well on that shite.”
“There’s a café down the hall,” Gary told him with a helpful smile. “Serving teas, coffees, and hot and cold snacks.” He sounded like one of those announcers you get on the trains when the buffet car’s just opened.
I was suddenly gagging for a cuppa. “Gary, be a mate and scare us up a couple of teas, would you? Milk, no sugar for me.”
Dave nodded. “Same for me, ta.”
Gary rolled his eyes. “No need to ask what your last slave died of,” he said, but headed off while Dave dropped his bulk into a chair, adjusted his crotch, and got out a notebook.
“I’m guessing this isn’t a purely social call, then,” I said.
Dave scowled. “Someone’s got to get your statement about last night, haven’t they?”
“You’re taking witness statements now? Been demoted, have you?” Dave was a detective inspector, which I’d thought meant delegating all the grunt work.
“Witless statements, more bloody like. And no. Morrison filled me in, so I pulled up the file. Wasn’t going to leave you to the tender mercies of some pimple-faced prat straight out of training, was I?”
“Phil called you?” I stared at him.
“Just said he did, didn’t I?”
“When was that?”
“First thing this morning. So come on, what happened?” Dave prompted.
I frowned. “I was hoping someone was going to tell me.”
Dave heaved a sigh. “Bloody marvellous. Right. You were at the Dyke, you went outside—did you see anyone? Anything?”
“Windows,” I said. “I was looking at the windows. Marianne’s window.”
“Right, because what that kid really needs is another bloody stalker.”
“I was . . .” Fuck, what had I been doing? “There was a reason. ’M sure there was.”
“And then?”
“And then what?”
It was more a growl than a sigh this time. “That’s the million-sodding-dollar question, innit? What happened?”
I was starting to get a bit narked. Here I was, still feeling like crap, getting the third bloody degree from my so-called mate, and he was the one getting pissed off. “Well, it’s a bit of a stab in the dark, but I reckon I might have got a head injury somehow. What do you think?”
“Jesus, what does it take? Don’t answer that. All right. Here’s what we know: some nutter decided your head looked like a wicket and chucked a cricket ball at it. Who’ve you been pissing off in the village eleven?”
“I couldn’t even pick the village eleven out of a police lineup.” Well, maybe if they were wearing their whites. I paused. “Now you mention it, I did see a cricket ball lying around before I went in the pub. Shit. Are you sure it hit me? I didn’t just manage a pratfall on the bloody thing and bash my head on the way down?”
“Positive. Unless you reckon it’s someone else’s blood and hair on the ball. Which might be what the lab’ll tell us, if they ever get their bloody fingers out of their arses and run the tests, but I know what my money’s on.” He folded his arms. “You do realize people have died from that sort of thing?”
“What, you serious?” I reached for my glass of water, feeling a bit queasy. It was a toss-up as to whether it was down to the concussion or Dave’s little revelation.
Dave nodded. “Yep.”
“Shit. Don’t tell Phil, will you?”
Dave looked around the room theatrically. “Not much danger of it right now, is there? So where is he, then? You two had a lovers’ tiff? Find out he’s been doing the nasty with your best mate?”
“Well, technically speaking, that’s either Gary or you. Now I’m pretty sure Gary’s devoted to his fiancé, so you tell me.”
Dave shuddered. It made his gut wobble like a bouncy castle under a toddler onslaught. “Christ, give me nightmares, why don’t you?”
“Oi, don’t you come over all homophobic on me.”
“I’m not homophobic, all right? We have sensitivity workshops and all that bollocks these days. Just saying, if, God forbid, I ever jumped into bed with a bloke, it wouldn’t be with six feet of hulking great gamekeeper turned poacher.”
I grinned. “You telling me you don’t like ’em tall, well-built, and blond? No accounting for tastes. All right, then, seeing as we’re talking hypotheticals, what would be your type?”
“Female.”
“No, go on. If you had to shag a bloke—say all the women got killed in the zombie apocalypse or something—what’d he be like?”
“I dunno, do I?” He sighed. “Fine, then. Dark haired, I guess. I’ve always been into brunettes. Blonds might have more fun, but the blokes with ’em bloody well don’t. Not built like a bloody brick shit-house. And he’d have to be shorter than me . . .”
Our gazes crossed, and like it was telepathy or something, we both realised at the exact same time just who around here was spot on with all Dave’s requirements. At least, I did, and judging by the look of horror on Dave’s face, which pretty much matched the way I felt, he’d got there too.
We each looked away in a hurry. Dave coughed.
“Right,” I said, a bit too loud. “Bloody stupid idea, anyway. Seeing as you’d never . . . How’s Jen today?”
“Good. Fine. Beautiful. Very . . .” Dave made vague but easily identifiable hand gestures in the region of his chest. “Blooming.”
“How delightful.” Gary was back with a couple of paper cups, each with a tea bag tag hanging over the side. “Your refreshments, gentlemen.”
Dave took his drink and breathed in deeply, looking a lot happier. “Cheers. What do I owe you?”
Gary waved it away. “No, no, all part of the service. I’m honoured to support our heroic upholders of the law.”
Ten to one Dave gave him a deeply suspicious look at that, but if he did, I missed it. I was too busy staring in dismay at the contents of my own cup. “What the bloody hell’s this? It looks like dishwater. Christ, it smells like it and all.”
“Camomile tea,” Gary said primly. “I hardly think PG Tips would be a good idea on a dicky tummy.”
“It’s going to be a bloody sight more dicky if I drink this stuff. Where’d you even fi
nd it? The drains?”
“Most cafés have herbal teas these days.” Gary sniffed. “I’ll be getting along now, but don’t hesitate to call should you need me for any further thankless menial drudgery.” He flounced out.
I exchanged oops looks with Dave. We both grinned. Then he shocked the life out of me by passing me his tea. “Come on, hand over the herbal muck. I won’t tell if you don’t.”
My eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling. “You’re actually going to drink that?”
“Yeah, well. Jen’s got in a cupboard full of the stuff—caffeine’s bad for the baby and all that, and she reckons it’s not fair if I drink stuff she can’t in front of her. It’s not so bad when you get used to it.” He took a sip of the dishwater and didn’t gag or anything.
“You’re a braver man than I am.” I took a sip of the actual, proper tea, and sighed. “Bloody hell, that hits the spot. What were we talking about again?”
“Your bloke.” Dave frowned. “There’d better not be any suggestion he’s the one who chucked that ball, or that lad’s not going to know what’s hit him.”
“There isn’t,” I said firmly. Gary’s suggestions didn’t count. Seeing as they were bloody daft suggestions.
“Right. So we’re looking at an opportunistic crime. Someone sees the ball lying around, and they see you, and they decide to put two and two together. So who’d want to knock some sense into your thick skull?”
“Buggered if I know.” Christ. It was sinking in that someone had done this deliberately—had set out to hurt me. Maybe even to kill me.
I put my tea down on the bedside table, feeling sick. Maybe I should have stuck to the dishwater after all.
“Chatted up anyone who wasn’t in the mood, lately?”
“Nope. I’ve got a bloke, remember?”
“Course you have.” Dave scratched his armpit. “Thought your lot were a bit more free and easy about that sort of thing, though.”
“Fuck off. You know I’ve never been into all that open-relationship stuff.”
“Your Phil know that too, does he?”
“Yes, he sodding well does, all right?” Shit. “I think it might have been Grant Carey.”
“What’s he got against you? In fact, how come he even knows you exist?” Dave frowned. “You think he thought you were muscling in on his ex? Saw you peeping in her windows and jumped to conclusions?”
“Oi, there was no peeping. And no, not that. Not exactly.”
“What, then? It’s not like you know the bloke, is it?”
“Well . . . we’ve met.”
“Bleedin’ marvellous. What, up at the Dyke? Warn him off, did you?”
“Not as such.” I took a sip of my cooling tea. It didn’t do a lot to settle my stomach. “He was there that night. Well, earlier. He left a while before I did, I remember that. Didn’t really notice the time. But that wasn’t the first time we’d met. He pitched up at Phil’s.”
“Old drinking buddies, are they?”
“Yeah, right. No. He found out somehow that Phil was on his case.” Shit. From the look on Dave’s face, this was the first he’d heard about there even being a case.
Dave heaved a massive sigh. “Course your Phil’s on his case. Course he is. Because otherwise, life just wouldn’t have piled enough shit on my shoulders, now would it? Come on, then. Who hired him? Marianne Drinkwater, I presume?”
“Nah. Harry,” I admitted with a twinge of guilt. “But it’s pretty much the same thing, really, innit?”
“Christ. What a pretty little thing like that kid sees in Harry Shire, I’ll never know. Carey, now, you can understand her getting sucked in by that slimy bastard. But Harry?” He shook his head. Dave Southgate: eternally baffled by the mysterious ways of the nonheterosexual. “I don’t want to know what she hired him to do, do I?”
“Probably not. Um.”
“What?”
I thought about not telling him, but I couldn’t see how it could do any harm. Might even do some good—maybe get official wheels turning, that sort of thing. “Well, there was this thing about him framing a bloke. Least, that’s what Marianne reckoned. Alan Mortimer, his name was. Is, even. Got done for possession of cocaine, but Marianne reckoned Carey planted the stuff. He’s in Nether Mallet. Well, he was, until they let him out on appeal.”
“And?”
“And, well, Phil thought it’d be a good line of enquiry. See if he could dig up any evidence to prove Carey framed this Mortimer bloke. You know, get him put away instead. Then he’d be off Marianne’s back and out of Harry’s hair.” And well away from anyone else’s body parts, at least around here.
Dave grunted. “Right. Because, of course, the local force who investigated at the time couldn’t find their arses with both hands, not without Phil ‘God’s gift’ Morrison helping them out.”
“Come off it. Everyone makes mistakes. And maybe they didn’t want to clear Mortimer, ever thought of that? Marianne seemed to think he was as dodgy as Carey.”
“What, so you reckon the local bobbies thought if they couldn’t get him for something he’d done, they’d have him for something he hadn’t? I’m touched by the faith you’ve got in the integrity of me and my colleagues.”
“Oi, I’m not saying they framed him. Just, it wouldn’t be in their interests to waste their time trying to get the bloke off, that’s all. Them being all short-staffed and overworked, as you keep telling me.”
“Too bloody right.” Dave heaved a sigh. “Right. So you reckon Carey got the wind up him about your bloke digging over the dirt. So how come it’s you and not Morrison lying there with a bump on the head?”
“Well . . . Carey knows we’re together.”
“Christ, Tom, did you give him a copy of your CV and the key to your front door as well?”
I might have squirmed a bit. Not very comfortable, your average hospital bed. “He’s good at worming stuff out of you. Making you say stuff without thinking about it first. Don’t you bloody well get on at me about it.”
Dave laughed. “Morrison have a few choice words to say to you, did he?”
“Might have,” I muttered.
“Not a total waste of space, then. Right.” He heroically downed the last of the camomile and heaved himself to his feet. “Some of us have jobs to do, you know. Can’t waste all day lying about. When are they letting you out of here?”
“Tomorrow, I hope.”
Dave nodded. “Make sure that bloke of yours takes care of you. I’ve had a concussion. It’s a total bugger.”
“Yeah? Get knocked on the head in the line of duty?”
“Manner of speaking.” Dave’s normally pretty ruddy face went a shade or two darker, but he was smiling, like it was a fond memory for some reason. “Me and Jen had this weekend away, didn’t we? Second honeymoon, and all that bollocks. She insisted on a luxury hotel, four-poster bed, the works.”
“And?”
“Well, that was the thing, wasn’t it? We had a posh dinner, bottle of champagne, cocktails for pud. Enough to make anyone frisky, innit? Then we jump into bed together and there’s these bloody posts where I’m not expecting ’em. Sodding hard and all.”
I stared at him. “Seriously? You knocked yourself out shagging?”
“Well, technically we never actually got to the shagging bit. And I was only out for a couple of minutes. By which time, though, Jen’s called an ambulance, and I wake up stark bollock naked to find the hotel manager—who, by the way, was camper than a bloody Butlin’s with your mate Gary as chief redcoat—bending over me stroking my neck.”
“Yeah, I think you probably hallucinated that bit.” Dave’s a good mate, but God’s gift to queer men, he is not.
“Well, he claimed he was taking my pulse.” Dave gave me a look. “I know what he was really after, though. Any excuse.”
I laughed. “You wish. Must have been a bit of a downer, though—concussion on your second honeymoon.”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you? My Jen’s got a great bed
side manner, though. And the manager insisted on giving us another weekend break free of charge. Seems something Jen said made him think we were going to sue.”
“Let me guess, she also let slip you were chummy with the legal profession?”
“Might’ve done. Might’ve done. You finished with that? I’ll chuck it on the way out.”
I nodded. “Cheers. You take care, all right?”
“Ever thought of taking your own advice? No, didn’t think so.” Dave plodded off, paper cups in hand, to go do whatever detective inspectors did when they weren’t skiving off work to visit mates in hospital.
Funny how empty the room felt without him or Gary in it. I picked up the card Gary had left, and reread the dirty limerick he—or maybe Darren, now I came to think about it—had penned inside:
There was a young man from Nantucket
Who got hit on the head with a bucket
It started to throb
So he got out his knob
And got all the nurses to suck it.
I chuckled, then the hairs on the back of my neck started to prickle. I looked up to see Nurse Sarah (late twenties or early thirties, chirpy, on the cuddly side—she could have been Gary’s twin sister) reading over my shoulder. “Sorry, love,” she said. “This is the NHS. You’ll have to go private if you want that kind of service.”
“Nothing wrong with the service here,” I said with a wink. “The food, now, that could definitely do with a bit of improvement.”
“Ah, but if the food was good, people’d never want to leave. Got to free up these beds somehow, haven’t we?” She gave me a roguish smile. “Though I doubt it’d be a problem with you. Bet you can’t wait to get back home with your boyfriend. He’s a love.”
I blinked, and not just because she apparently thought Phil Morrison, my mean and moody significant other, was a love. “You met Phil? How long a shift do they have you working here?”
Nurse Sarah frowned. “I’ve been on since eight this morning—I’ll be going home in an hour or so. But I thought his name was Gary?”
“Nah, he’s just a mate. Phil’s my bloke. He was here last night when they brought me in,” I added quickly in case she was wondering where he was.