by JL Merrow
Phil spoke up once we’d got on the way.
“When I was a new PC, one of the sergeants told me about a domestic abuse case he’d been on years back—bloke tried to strangle his wife. Course, this was before the crackdown, all the emphasis on taking positive action. It was all ‘Sure you want to press charges, love?’ in those days. She didn’t. She didn’t want to see a doctor either. No one insisted.” He huffed unhappily. “He went round to check on her the next day. She was dead. Internal injuries.”
Christ.
“You don’t mess about with strangling injuries. You could have a fractured hyoid bone,” he went on. “Or larynx. Or internal swelling, or fluid in your lungs—”
I made a—hah—strangled noise and held up a hand. I got the picture, okay?
Then I closed my eyes and just tried to rest.
Turned out I didn’t have a fractured anything, or even water on the larynx, but the doctors insisted I stay in overnight anyway. After Phil’s grim tales of domestic abuse, I wasn’t gonna argue. To be honest, by then I just wanted to find the nearest bed, crawl into it, and sleep for a week.
Course, before I could get my head down, there was the plod to deal with.
I’d have preferred a visit from Dave Southgate, but he was still on paternity leave, so they sent a PC in a headscarf down from the local cop shop to take a statement. That was a laugh in itself. Not only did I have bugger all to tell ’em—yes, it was dark, no, I didn’t see a face—I didn’t have a voice to tell ’em it with, either. Lots of scribbled notes and failed attempts at sign language, while Phil glowered at the poor woman from the corner of the room. Of course, there was the obligatory question as to whether I had any idea who might want to shuffle me off this mortal coil sooner rather than later.
I glanced at Phil. He nodded, and filled PC Iqbal in about dear old Amelia and my part in her downfall. Her eyes got wider and wider—I was guessing murder was well above her pay grade. Phil suggested she liaise with the St. Leonards force. She sent him a look that strongly implied she was holding herself back from suggesting he go and teach her grandma to suck eggs.
Then she packed up her notebook and went off to liaise, and Phil kissed me on the cheek and left for what remained of the night.
Waking up in hospital is never a lot of fun. Then again, looking on the bright side, at least this time I’d been conscious when I came in and I didn’t have a concussion. Still a bit of a downer, though, opening your eyes to bright lights, institutional green walls, and, lest we forget, a fair amount of actual pain. Especially when your subconscious has been doing its best to kid you all you have to do is roll over and get an armful of hot, muscular man.
On the plus side, said hot, muscular man was sitting in the visitor’s chair by the side of the bed, which improved the looks of the place no end.
“Morning,” I said. Well, if by said you mean croaked like a bullfrog who’d just been gargling with rusty nails half dissolved in battery acid, which was pretty much what I felt like too. I tried not to look too horrified at the sound. Phil was doing plenty of that for me already.
“Water?” he suggested.
I nodded, and he helped me sit up and take a drink.
And all right, yeah, I could’ve managed by myself, no problem. But sometimes you just wanna go with the TLC. ’Specially given how much it hurt just to swallow water.
“How do I look?” I rasped. That bloody hurt and all. I decided I was going to stick to whispers from here on out.
“Worse than last night,” Phil told me, which wasn’t encouraging. His expression wasn’t either.
“Great,” I whispered, and swung my legs out of bed.
“Are you supposed to be getting up?”
“Need to pee.” There was no way I was arsing around with bedpans in front of my beloved. You’ve got to keep at least some of the mystery alive.
There was a bathroom just across the hall. Phil looked like he was having a hard time restraining himself from following me in, and I didn’t reckon it was ’cos he wanted to get frisky or anything.
I did the necessary, washed my hands—carefully, as the right one had a vivid purple line of bruising across the back of it, which was extremely tender to the touch—and decided I might as well see how bad the rest of it was.
Christ. It was worse than I’d thought. I mean, I’d expected the livid bruising on my neck, and I wasn’t disappointed, but that wasn’t what stood out when I looked in the mirror. My eyes had bright red blotches staining the whites. One of them had almost no white at all. I looked like I’d got into the Halloween spirit a few weeks too soon.
“Jesus,” I croaked out loud without thinking, and regretted it.
I hoped He wouldn’t take it as a summons. He’d probably take one look and decide I needed exorcising. No wonder Phil hadn’t looked happy.
As if on cue, there was a loud knocking on the bathroom door. “You all right in there?” Phil called.
Did he seriously expect me to shout back? I made him wait a mo until I could get to the door. Then I gave him a thumbs-up.
After that it was time for more poking and prodding, but they eventually let me go home. I was pretty happy about it until I remembered I’d had three jobs booked for today, so I’d be going home to a whole load of irate messages from customers I’d stood up. And it wasn’t like I could call ’em and apologise.
Then again . . . After driving me back to mine, Phil was still doing limpet impersonations and looking like he wasn’t planning to stop anytime soon, so I reckoned I might as well make use of him. I wandered into the kitchen to get the notepad I used for telephone messages and shopping lists.
Phil, who was putting the kettle on to boil, frowned. “Thought I told you to go and lie down.”
I held up a hand, then scribbled down a quick note and held it up.
He squinted. “‘Need to . . . call’? Can’t read that last word.”
I rolled my eyes. Come on, my writing wasn’t that bad. I couldn’t think of a way to mime customers, so I wrote it again in block letters.
“Oh. Right. Yeah. I can do that.” He heaved a deep breath and held on to the kitchen counter with both hands. The kettle boiled and switched itself off with a click, and he flinched.
Christ. He really wasn’t okay, I realised with a thud. He’d been all practical, at the hospital and on the way home—all focussed on me and what I needed. Now we were back, though . . . There were dark circles under his eyes, and he hadn’t shaved.
I ripped off the top sheet of paper. Want to talk? I wrote. Then I put my arms around his neck and pressed us together.
I hadn’t realised how much I’d needed the contact—but however much I needed it, Phil must’ve needed it more, judging from the way he grabbed me tight and held me even closer, a faint but noticeable tremor running through his whole body and into mine.
“I could’ve lost you,” he growled. “If you hadn’t got a hand under the cord—” He broke off, breathing hard. “You know how long it takes to lose consciousness when someone puts pressure on your carotid artery? Ten fucking seconds. All they’d have had to do then was wait. Another fifty seconds, they reckon, and there’s almost no chance you’d make it.”
Christ. I’d already come to the conclusion that this all pointed to a serious design flaw in the human race. It hadn’t quite clicked just how close I’d come to being able to take my complaint straight to the man at the top.
Phil was still squeezing me tight, but I managed to push back far enough to look him in the eye. “I’m okay,” I whispered. “Still here.” God knows how reassuring it was, given the state of me, but he let out an incoherent sound and kissed me.
I must have made a sound myself at that—my jaw muscles being attached somewhere around the neck . . . Well, you get the picture. Phil pulled back and gave my face a tender stroke.
Then the overgrown macho bastard picked me up bridal-style and carried me up the stairs. I whacked him on the shoulder in protest.
But,
you know. Not too hard. I didn’t actually want him to stop.
He laid me on the bed so gently I could’ve been Dave’s newborn kiddie. “Okay?” he asked, sounding almost as hoarse as me.
“Okay,” I whispered, ’cos it’s not that easy to nod when you’re lying down.
Then he started to undress me.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so fucking cherished in my life. Every inch of me was stroked and kissed, like it was nothing short of miraculous. Maybe to Phil it was, right then. Despite the soreness from my injuries, I was still hard as iron by the time he made it down to my cock. I mean, Christ, I don’t think anything short of decapitation could’ve stopped me getting hard at that point.
Then he put his mouth on my cock. I panted, although even that hurt, because it was so fucking good. His hand was on my balls, just where I like it, his other hand holding my hip. Not holding me down. Just . . . holding me. Everything faded but heat and pressure where I needed it most.
I came so hard I saw stars, ecstasy shooting out of me and into Phil’s willing mouth. He swallowed every drop and carried on sucking until I pushed him off my oversensitised prick. I was pretty sure I had a Cheshire cat grin on my face.
It probably looked well creepy with the red eyes and the bruises, mind.
I gestured to Phil’s cock, which was hard and dripping clear moisture.
He shook his head, the big daft git. “I’m okay.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “C’mere,” I whispered, and pulled him up to kiss me, ignoring the discomfort. I wrapped my hand around his hard prick and stroked it the way I knew he liked it, a little bit rough. Phil’s mouth tasted of come, and I could tell he was holding back, trying not to hurt me. “C’mon,” I breathed, stroking faster.
Phil groaned and came, hot spunk shooting over my stomach and chest. Then we cuddled up under the duvet and dozed for a couple of hours.
Course, it was a bugger getting the dried come off by the time we woke up.
I’d been expecting the police to either turn up at some time, or call me in to make another (written) statement. I was surprised when it was Dave who turned up—fortunately after me and Phil had made ourselves presentable.
“Christ, you look like shite,” was his encouraging greeting, despite the shower I’d taken.
I frowned at him, raising an eyebrow as well in a bit of an awkward facial manoeuvre that was supposed to somehow convey Shouldn’t you be at home, knee-deep in nappies?
Apparently Dave was a master of interpreting expressions. Who knew? “Jen’s got her sister over, so I’m surplus to requirements anyhow. Thought I might as well come over and see what you’ve done to yourself this time.”
I glanced at Phil. He shrugged. “I didn’t tell him. Tea?”
That was to Dave, who said, “Cheers, mate,” huffed, and eased his bulk onto my sofa. “After all the shit you’ve been mixed up in? Anything comes in with your name on it, they send it straight over to me. They know I like a good laugh down at the station. Anyhow, you remembered anything you didn’t already tell ’em? Course you bloody haven’t. Right. So they’ve been down to the scene, and this is what we can tell you.”
Phil perched his arse on the arm of a chair. Looked like Dave was going to have to wait for his cup of tea.
“Whoever it was got you with a length of clothesline. Abandoned at the scene. Brand-new—probably fresh out of the wrapper just before they used it—and no fingerprints. Some DNA, but given the nature of it, we’re working on the assumption it’ll all turn out to be yours.”
“So they went prepared,” Phil growled. “Any indications it was the same assailant as Mrs. Fenchurch-Majors’s killer?”
“What, apart from the bleedin’ obvious?” Dave asked, echoing my thoughts exactly. He shook his head. “For the love of God, do not suggest we have two crazed stranglers wandering around the county.”
Phil shrugged.
Dave turned to me. “How are you doing, anyhow?”
I shrugged. There was a right old shoulder workout session going on around here.
“Right. Any more thoughts on the person who attacked you? Was it a bloke?”
I nodded—then wondered what grounds I actually had for thinking that. I grabbed my notepad and wrote, Think so but not sure. Taller than me, I think. Or same height.
“You didn’t notice the hands?”
I gestured to my throat, because honestly? I’d had a bit more on my mind at the time than whether my attacker had cleaned under their nails recently. Although . . .
Gloves, I wrote. Thick ones. I think, I added, as to be honest it was just a vague impression.
“Makes sense. Remember anything else about the gloves? Colour? Men’s or women’s?”
I shook my head. I mean, maybe if the hands themselves had been around my neck, I’d have had a better idea.
Course, in that case, having a hand raised when they’d attacked would’ve done me bugger all good and I’d like as not be dead right now. I swallowed. It hurt.
“Stronger than you, you reckon?”
Again, when I thought about it, I wasn’t sure. They’d had me at something of a disadvantage, what with the whole strangulation bit and my right hand not being free. I did a wavy hand gesture.
“Notice anything like perfume? Aftershave? Smell of their breath from the curry they had for their tea?”
I shook my head.
Dave gave a heavy sigh. “So who’ve you been pissing off lately, anyhow? More than usual, obviously.”
Phil cleared his throat. “We’ve been looking into the Fenchurch-Majors case.”
“Course you bleedin’ ’ave. Who’s hired you?”
“The stepdaughter. Although she just wants her necklace back.”
“Hers?”
“Miss Majors reckons it’s hers, as it belonged to her real mother.” Phil gave Dave a sharp look. “Technically, if Amelia Fenchurch-Majors still owned it at the time of her death, it should go to the person who benefits under her will. Although the family might be able to mount a legal challenge to that.”
I scribbled down Who benefits? and was about to nudge Phil and wave it in his face, but Dave beat me to it.
“Come on, then, Morrison, you’re obviously gagging to tell us who she left it all to. Whatever all is.”
Phil dragged it out for another few tantalising seconds, the git.
Then he smirked and told us. “Lance Frith. And before you ask, no, that’s not some old will from before she remarried, which wouldn’t have still been valid anyhow. She made a new will after the wedding.”
Dave scratched his crotch thoughtfully. “Wonder how many people knew about that? And whether it includes the grieving widower. Managed to dig out how much she had to leave?”
Phil nodded. “Not a lot, as it happens. Unless we count that necklace. There’s the events business, but Frith would always have been the only person in a position to benefit from that. Not like they had a right lot in the way of assets. In fact, with her gone, it’s questionable how much of a business is left anyhow. Frith’s been putting up a good front, but while he’s the one who did all the work, she was the one with all the contacts. Trouble was, it seems she had a nasty habit of making promises he wasn’t able to keep. Asking around, I got the impression there’s more than a few people who weren’t all that satisfied with the services of Fenchurch & Frith.”
“Yeah? Can’t have been easy to work with. Although killing her might have been a bit extreme. Thing is, though, who’d want to off Tom? Why? Apart from the bleedin’ obvious.” Dave smirked, the git. Then he must have caught Phil’s expression, and the smile dropped off his face so fast I swear I heard it crash on the floor. “Joking. Any chance of that cuppa?”
Phil was still giving Dave a dirty look, but he did get up and finally make the tea. I had a cup too, which seemed to go down slightly easier than the cup I’d had first thing, although I still wasn’t looking forward to my next attempt at actual food. They’d given me thin porridge in hospi
tal, which I’d only eaten half of as it really wasn’t worth the pain to swallow it. While we drank our tea (and the other two had choccy biccies, the selfish gits), Dave regaled us with tales of the amazing antics of his son and heir, which mostly consisted of puking and pooping, although the peeing-during-nappy-change one was good for a laugh too.
“St. Leonards mob treating you all right, are they?” Dave asked, finally getting back to work.
I shrugged.
Dave made a dismissive huffing sort of sound. “Must be clutching at straws by now, poor sods. Two weeks after the fact and still no arrests? Not looking good.”
Phil stood up abruptly and went to look out of the window.
I stared at him. Dave sighed. “Come on, Morrison, out with it. What’s got your Calvin Kleins in a kerfuffle?”
Phil spun round, his face dark. “They’re using him, aren’t they? Tom. All that business at the funeral, making it so bloody obvious they reckon he’s key to the case.”
“What’s this?” Dave was frowning too now.
“Sharp. Collared Tom in front of everyone and asked him to come for another interview. Which, by the way, turns out to be bollocks, seeing as all they do is show him a bloody rubber duck. Then, what happens? Vi Majors gets a conveniently timed leak and—” Phil broke off and gestured angrily in my direction. “They’re using him as a bloody pit canary.”
“Oi,” I croaked. “Vi didn’t do it. Me,” I added, which, yeah, could have been open to different interpretations, but I was betting they got my drift.
She couldn’t have attacked me, right? She’d been so concerned about me afterwards. I’d stake my life—hah—that was genuine.
Then again, an evil little voice whispered, If you’d just tried and failed to kill someone, you’d be pretty worried about it and all.
But . . . not to be sexist, but she was a girl. Maybe I’m not the biggest bloke around, but she could never have had a hope of overpowering me, could she?
I remembered the broken-off tap head and shuddered.