by JL Merrow
“Or unless it was the fake one that’d gone missing. Worst-case scenario, she’d just have to ask her brother to do her another one.”
“Yeah, but would he?” I frowned. “D’you think it cost much, making that fake? I mean, for the stones and all?”
Phil shook his head. “Cubic zirconia’s cheap as chips. I looked it up online. There’d be the gold—or gold plate—but it’d still be peanuts compared to the real thing.”
“Speaking of which—where the bloody hell is it? S’pose you’ve checked the local cash-for-gold place?”
“Among others. No, if she sold it, the big question is, what’s happened to the money?”
“Been hacking her bank account?”
Phil smirked. “I’ve got my contacts.”
We’d reached my house. “Coming in?” I asked as Phil pulled on the handbrake.
He nodded.
And before you ask, no, we didn’t spend the evening going over the case. We spent it on the sofa with a takeaway and the telly.
What?
Everyone’s entitled to a bit of slobbing around on a Friday night.
Saturday, I had a couple of quick jobs to do—one of which, in the event, turned out to be a lot less quick than I’d been expecting—so me and Phil went our separate ways after breakfast and I didn’t see him again until dinnertime. After which, I had to love him and leave him, although sadly without the love him bit, as I’d arranged to meet up with Dave for a few pints. His idea—I’d have thought the missus would have him on a short leash this close to her due date.
He barked out a laugh when I told him that, as we propped up the bar at the White Hart. “Short leash? I should be so bloody lucky. She wants it long enough to strangle me with.”
I winced. “Cheers, mate. Really wanted to be reminded of that sort of thing.”
“What? Oh, yeah, that.”
“Yeah, that. Heard any more about the case?”
“Not a lot, no. Forensics have come up a blank—or, to be more bleedin’ accurate, they found DNA from half of St. Leonards in that bloody tent. Lovely bit of blood under the fingernails—turned out to be all hers. Scratched her throat up, trying to get loose. That’s the trouble with strangling. See, the instinct is to go for the thing round your neck, not the bastard what put it there.” He took a deep swallow of beer. “Ah. Christ, that hits the spot. And the victim had shaken hands with just about everyone on that bloody field that day.”
“She never shook my hand.”
He grinned. “Maybe she was worried you hadn’t washed it after the last bog you fixed.”
“Oi, no dissing my personal hygiene. Nah, already had me right where she wanted me, didn’t she? No need to waste manners on me.”
Dave nodded slowly. “Makes you wonder, though. Who else did she have right where she wanted them—and how desperate were they to get out from under her thumb? Even in this day and age, there’s a fair few men who don’t take kindly to a woman having ’em by the balls.”
I grinned. “Well, you’ve got me there. My balls are strictly off-limits to women. Although fair enough, there’s only one man allowed to get his hands on ’em these days and all.”
“Bloody hell, Paretski, you had to go there, didn’t you?” Dave took a massive gulp of his pint. “Christ. Not enough beer in the world.” He went to put his glass down, obviously thought better of it, and took another gulp.
“How’s Jen doing?” I asked, taking pity on him.
“Pissed off. Past her due date. She’s got another week and then they’ll induce, and Christ, it can’t come soon enough for either of us. She gave me my marching orders tonight—said if I ask her one more time if she can feel anything happening, she’ll connect my dick up to the bloody TENS machine and turn it on full whack.”
I grimaced. Electrodes and delicate areas: definitely not relevant to my interests. And one of my customers told me once about having a faulty TENS machine for her second kid’s birth—Mrs. P. had switched the thing on and then turned round and accused Mr. P. of walloping her on the back. “Kick like a mule, it was,” she’d said. “But they gave me a full refund and a £25 voucher when I took it back to the shop and complained.”
She’d smiled, like she’d found it a fair exchange.
Dave belched. “Your family all right?” he asked.
“Yeah, they’re good. We’re seeing Greg and Cherry for lunch tomorrow, over in St. Leonards.”
“S’pose she’ll be moving there after the wedding.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Dunno what she’s doing with her house.”
Dave scratched his armpit thoughtfully. “Maybe she’ll keep it. Don’t they get kicked out of the tied accommodation when they retire?”
I frowned. “Never really thought about it, but yeah, I s’pose they’d have to be. Make room for the new bloke. Or lady, obviously. Huh. Maybe they have retirement homes for old priests?”
“Christ, they must be a laugh a bloody minute. Put me somewhere like that, I’d be queuing up for the one-way trip to Switzerland.”
“I dunno.” Despite never having been much of a God-botherer myself, I felt weirdly unable to leave the clergy undefended. “Greg’s all right. And that new vicar in Brock’s Hollow, you know, the one who’s going out with Harry from the Dyke.”
“And what the bleedin’ hell’s that all about? All the pretty girls that woman’s had working for her over the years, and she ends up with a—” I never got to hear the rest of that sentence, as Dave’s mobile rang, and he frowned. “Shit. That’s the wife.” He answered it and went pale. “You’ve gotta get me home. She’s in labour.”
Uh-oh. “Didn’t you drive?”
“Yeah, but I can’t now, can I? I’ve had four pints.” That meant he’d had two before I got here. Unless he wasn’t counting the round we’d just started, in which case he’d had three. “Be bloody marvellous, that, wouldn’t it, if I get had up for drunk driving and lose my job the night my kid’s born.”
I looked regretfully at my almost full glass. “Come on, then. I’ve got the Fiesta out the back.”
Dave wasn’t happy about squeezing his bulk into my passenger seat. “Jesus, when are you gonna get a proper car?”
“Oi, it’ll get you there.” I pulled out of the pub car park through the narrow archway, taking it easy because it’s blind both sides onto the main road. They’d built this place as a coaching inn, and I s’pose there wasn’t as much traffic about those days. Also, it probably moved a lot slower.
“Yeah, but how soon? They come quicker the more you’ve had, and it’s her third. Come on, get a shift on.”
I turned right and headed up the hill. “There’s a speed limit in this road, all right? You want me to drive faster, you lend me one of those flashing lights.”
All the way there, I was thinking, Christ, what do you do if someone has a baby? There was something about newspaper, right? You were supposed to wrap ’em in it like an order of cod and chips. Only probably without the salt and vinegar. And towels, or was that just if you didn’t have any newspaper? Or was it the other way around? And boil up loads of hot water. That was what always happened in old films, anyhow. Dunno what they used it for. Maybe having a baby was thirsty work, and the new mum was always desperate for a cup of tea?
“You realise if I end up delivering this sprog, you’re gonna have to name it after me,” I joked weakly to Dave.
“If you end up delivering it, we’ll have more to worry about than what we’re gonna call it. Do you even know which end of a woman is which?”
“Oi, I’m not stupid. The baby comes out the end that hasn’t got makeup on, right?”
“These days? You’d be surprised,” Dave muttered.
“I even had a girlfriend once,” I added without really thinking it through.
“I know. You told me. You were both six, and you only liked her ’cos she let you wear her Barbie slippers.”
I’d told Dave that? Christ, I must have been drinking heavily that night. “I ho
pe you’ve been treating that information as confidential.”
“Worried someone might think you’re gay? Anyway, far as I’m concerned, that does not qualify you to deliver a baby, all right? So get a bloody shift on.”
I let the dodgy logic and the doubt in my abilities slide. He had stuff on his mind.
After all that, when we finally pulled up in front of Dave’s well-kept semi in a much nicer street than mine, scrambled out of the car, and legged it to the front door, it was a bit of an anticlimax. We were met by Mrs. Next-door with her arms folded and bloodstains on her yoga pants, and told it was all over bar the shouting. “They’re upstairs. Jen’s fine and so’s the kid.”
“Blimey, that was quick,” I said, as Dave took off upstairs faster than I’d ever seen him move, in a sort of loping waddle.
Mrs. Next-door shrugged. “Third baby.” Then she grinned. “Don’t think Jen was in a hurry to call Dave, either. He’s been fussing round her like an old woman. Driving her mad, it was. Right. I’m off to get changed.”
I half thought about sneaking off and leaving them all to it—this was a family time, and I wasn’t family—but before I could make up my mind to get going, Dave appeared at the top of the stairs, holding a bundle of stained towels in a way that strongly suggested he wasn’t just taking them to the laundry basket.
He came down the stairs a lot slower than he’d gone up.
“It’s a boy.” Dave’s eyes were shining. “Look at ’im. You ever seen a kid so bleedin’ perfect?”
He held out the wrinkled, still-bloodstained bundle for my admiration. Southgate junior took one look at my ugly mug and started to howl the place down.
“Great pair of lungs on him,” I said, ’cos you have to in situations like this.
Dave cuddled him close, looking like the Michelin man holding a doll. “He’s a fucking champ, this kid. Come on, let’s get you back to your lovely mum. Cheers, Tom. I’ll catch you in a day or two.” The baby stopped crying, either recognising his dad already or knocked out by Dave’s beery breath.
“I’ll give you a call before we come round, yeah?” I called softly after him, feeling a bit shiny-eyed myself.
Just as I left, the midwife turned up. “You’re too late, love,” I told her.
“Everyone all right?” she asked briskly.
“Yeah, seems so. Little boy. Looks just like his dad.” By which I meant, not a lot of hair, red in the face, and slightly worse for wear right now but basically okay.
“Did she deliver the placenta all right?”
“Uh . . . Really not my area. They’re upstairs, yeah?”
I legged it.
Phil was still up—there was a light on in his top-floor flat. I parked on the street nearby and took the stairs two at a time once he’d buzzed me up.
“What happened to drinks with Dave?” he asked with definite air of expectation.
I grinned. “Just what you’re thinking happened. It’s a boy. Got a wail like a bloody banshee.”
“Mother and baby doing well?”
“Far as I could tell. I mean, Dave brought the nipper downstairs to show me, so I’m guessing there weren’t any medical emergencies going on.”
Phil gave me a smile of the sort he never lets out in public. “Good to hear it. Fancy a drink to celebrate?”
“Uh . . . better not. I’m driving, and I already had a couple at the White Hart with Dave.”
He shrugged. “So stay the night. The cats’ll cope.”
He had a point. “All right, then. What are we drinking? I was on beer at the pub.”
“Beer it is, then.” He grabbed a couple of bottles from the fridge, opened them, and passed one to me. We sat down on the sofa and put our feet up on the table.
I’d taken my boots off already. I’m not that much of a slob.
“Here’s to Dave and his family, and especially the newest member,” Phil said a bit on the formal side, raising his bottle.
“To the sprog,” I agreed, and we both drank.
After all the excitement of the evening, I was yawning before I’d even finished my first bottle. Phil told me I might as well go to bed, which was fair enough, but then he followed me and proceeded to wake me up pretty thoroughly.
Not that I was complaining, mind, but I thought the logic was a bit lacking.
We lay there afterwards, catching our breath, and it struck me we’d never talked about it. I mean, I thought I knew what he’d say. He’d never brought up the subject, but there’d been hints, definitely. But I’d never asked him.
It felt like the right time, now. I rolled over a bit so I could look at him. “Do you think we’ll ever . . . I mean, one day, do you think you’d wanna have kids?”
Phil stroked my hair and didn’t speak for a moment.
I didn’t hold my breath. Honest.
My chest still felt a lot easier somehow when he finally spoke. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like to have kids. Not right now, but . . . Yeah.”
“Good,” I said, surprising myself by how much I meant it, and snuggled up closer. “And the moving-in thing, you want to do that, right? Move into mine?”
“Course I bloody do.” He dropped a kiss to the top of my head. “You just tell me when you’re ready, and I’ll start packing. Tomorrow, if you like.”
I knew he didn’t mean literally tomorrow. He’d have to give notice to his landlord and stuff. And more to the point, I’d have to clear out the wardrobe so his posh suits and cashmere sweaters wouldn’t get crumpled. But it was a nice thought. “Tell you what, we’ll say Christmas by the latest, yeah?”
“By Christmas,” Phil murmured into my hair, a smile in his voice, and Christ, it felt good to finally have it sorted.
I don’t even remember when he turned off the light.
We’d been invited over to Greg’s for Sunday lunch, so after a nice long lie-in that got a bit energetic, we showered and then dashed to mine to feed two very irate cats. I thought Merlin would have my leg off before I’d managed to open the tin of cat food. Then I changed my clothes, and we headed off out to St. Leonards.
Cherry got a worryingly moist look in her eye when I told her about Dave’s happy news. I wasn’t sure if Greg noticed or not, and I wondered if I should warn him.
Nah, he’d find out soon enough if she was getting broody. Although whether it’d come to anything or not was a bit up in the air, at her age. Still, Dave and his missus had managed it, and they had to be older than my sis. And come to think of it, our own mum had been well past early forties when I’d made my debut appearance. So maybe Sis had genetics on her side, at that.
It was a weird thought. Me being an uncle, I mean. Actually, scratch that, it was way weirder thinking of Cherry being a mum. I wondered what Mum would think. She wasn’t the sort who kept dropping hints about grandkids and knitting bootees on the off-chance, but I guessed she’d be pleased.
Still, carts before horses and all that. I bit my tongue to stop myself asking Cherry about it all while I helped her with the veg—Greg had a tendency just to roast everything if you left him to it, so Cherry had enlisted my help to try to keep the cholesterol count manageable. Well, that’s how she put it. I had a suspicion she was more worried about not fitting into her wedding dress come February.
“I never asked you—how did it go with Phil’s family?” Cherry asked, shifting cans and bottles around noisily in one of the cupboards. “Bother. I was sure we had another jar of horseradish. It must be back at my house.”
“Uh, yeah, I was meaning to ask you about that,” I said, leaping on the opportunity to not answer her question. “Your house—what are you going to do with that after you and Greg get hitched? I mean, you’re moving in here, right?”
“Oh yes. Well, actually, that was something I wanted to talk to you and Phil about. I don’t want to sell, so the other option is to rent it out. But Gregory had quite a good idea—he thought perhaps you and Phil might like to live there. I mean,” she added, turning pink. “Obviously we wouldn’
t expect you to wait until you’re married before moving in. And of course we’d let you have it at a reduced rent. I haven’t got a large mortgage, and as long as you cover that, it’s fine.”
Huh. That hadn’t even occurred to me. Me and Phil live in Pluck’s End? No question, Cherry’s house was way nicer than we’d be able to afford any other way. Like Leanne said, it was dead posh round there. What would the neighbours think?
Heh. That was a selling point in itself. But it wasn’t like I didn’t have a perfectly good house of my own already. Okay, yeah, it was just a two-bed semi in Fleetville. But it was mine.
Course, it wasn’t a big house. If me and Phil ever had those kids we’d talked about, it might start seeming a bit cramped. And Pluck’s End was a nicer area for kids to grow up in, no question.
But all that was probably years down the line.
“Wouldn’t you rather rent it out to someone who’ll pay the going rate?” I hedged.
“Oh, the money doesn’t matter,” Sis said offhandedly.
Nice for some.
“It’d be worth it to know I had people in there I could trust not to wreck the place,” she carried on.
Phil would probably jump at the chance to move somewhere a bit more upmarket than Fleetville. I wasn’t sure why that thought gave me such a tight feeling in my chest.
Except . . . we’d just settled he was going to move into my house, and now it was all going to be up in the air again.
“Anyway, have a think about it, and let me know.” Cherry frowned at a jar of English mustard. “This is nearly a year out of date. Do you think it matters?”
I unscrewed the lid and took a butcher’s. Then I gave it a sniff. “Nah, I’m pretty sure it won’t kill us. I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Phil and Greg had disappeared by the time I made it out of the kitchen. Typical. I tracked ’em down in Greg’s study, where he was showing Phil his latest taxidermy project. It was only a less-than-half-done wire frame at the mo, but it looked suspiciously birdlike.